Breath of Fire 2 SPC hacking

Then it's a good thing I can speak Japanese (I'm not 100% fluent, but I did live there/studied for five or so years).

Djinn is busy...

Randomizer, you might try asking him directly then for a tutorial or to explain in further detail...Maybe he knows more about the ROM and you could translate for us? :p

Djinn is busy...

Randomizer, you might try asking him directly then for a tutorial or to explain in further detail...Maybe he knows more about the ROM and you could translate for us? :p

I'll give it a shot; hopefully he can clarify how he does that thing.

EDIT 1:08 PM - Well, I sent him a PM in Japanese asking why we want to know and if he would be so kind to share that information; hopefully I'll get a response from him soon.

I asked if he had skype, he says he replies only to emails

Well, he got back to me, but seemed confused that I asked in Japanese, so he replied in English (reduce to a spoiler, too long to post)

Spoiler (Click to View)

"Re:SPC700をハック仕方を知りたいけれど....
Hello.
Why Japanese? ok.

ROM of the songs and the instruments

songs
Tabel 00CEC38
Header 01119BC
instruments 00BD75C

If it is GBA, easiness is examined with software named sappy.
It doesn't know whether GBA and SFC are the same.

I have two questions.
Battle1-music1
Battle2-music2
Battle3-music3
Battle4-music4
Battle5-music5
Battle6-music6
Battle7-music7
I want to change monotonous music. I want to throw a lot of music while combatting.
It is an image.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grkktTz38...ideo_title

Ryu status
katt status
nina status
I want to change the growth when raising the level. For instance, I want to rise it in HP300 by two levels."

If I understand him correctly, Sappy can be used to locate both GBA and SPC sound file data? I'm not sure if that helps me finding where the battle theme songs are located.

songs
Tabel 00CEC38
Header 01119BC
instruments 00BD75C
If it is GBA, easiness is examined with software named sappy.

The information about the songs is being given. It's time to open the hex editor and spend high quality time getting confused reading letters and numbers.

Use a hex editor and open a GBA ROM and a SNES rom side by side. Look for the offsets given by the guy in the GBA rom, take a couple of bytes, and compare to the code in the same offset in SNES ROM. If they're the same, then you found the songs in the SNES rom. If not, keep trying.

I've never used sappy, try downloading it and play with it. There's a tutorial on FF6 music hacking posted by Gi Nattak somewhere in this site, look for it as it might help.

Spoiler (Click to View)

The information about the songs is being given. It's time to open the hex editor and spend high quality time getting confused reading letters and numbers.

Use a hex editor and open a GBA ROM and a SNES rom side by side. Look for the offsets given by the guy in the GBA rom, take a couple of bytes, and compare to the code in the same offset in SNES ROM. If they're the same, then you found the songs in the SNES rom. If not, keep trying.

I've never used sappy, try downloading it and play with it. There's a tutorial on FF6 music hacking posted by Gi Nattak somewhere in this site, look for it as it might help.

The problem with sappy is that it only supports certain GBA ROMs, and Breath of Fire 2 isn't one of them, maybe it's because I have a super old version of it (version 1.6, from 2003 apparently). I really don't know if there's a more up to date version, but I assume there is if this dude hacked BOF2 for the GBA. I'm probably more likely to find the tables and offsets with a hex editor instead. Speaking of which, it's also probably better in the long run, and would be an excellent way for me to learn, if I just use a hex editor and experiment through trial and error. It would be like me learning another foreign language.


Edit 9:22 AM - Well, the address check out, as all three seem to lead to the right locations. The problem is finding out what instruments are assigned to which songs. That's what I thought I asked the guy, but I guess I wasn't specific enough. I'll try asking him what each of the songs start with (not where the sequence start, but what instruments are assigned). See that way, I'd be able to locate both battle themes, and change the second one to use the same instruments as the first one. I would image that would work, but I could be wrong.

The problem is finding out what instruments are assigned to which songs. That's what I thought I asked the guy, but I guess I wasn't specific enough. I'll try asking him what each of the songs start with (not where the sequence start, but what instruments are assigned). See that way, I'd be able to locate both battle themes, and change the second one to use the same instruments as the first one. I would image that would work, but I could be wrong.

The guy has already given the information, and I've highlighted it twice now.

No offense, and don't take it the wrong way, but the problem is that you're not understanding what is being given to you. You're trying to find someone -or something- that will give you a simple answer, and the truth is, you won't find anyone that will do so. There is no shortcut to doing this, you need to learn how to hex edit and maybe how to read assembly. Period. I have mentioned before, that learning to edit hex/assembly takes countless hours of meddling and reading confusing data. Unless you're willing to mess with the ROM yourself, you'll never understand...

The "table" he is talking about should be a "pointer table"...that should mean that the "table" holds the location of all songs. It's up to you to find which song is which one, though. Though a game has a variety of instruments, each song has a specific arrangement of those. And no, changing a song's instruments will not make it sound like another song.

Don't worry, I'm not offended (and I have no reason to) and you're absolutely right. I had the wrong expectations and made the wrong/asinine assumption that things worked a certain way. I'm not insulted or upset, so, please don't worry about that. I have to experiment and learn from my mistakes if I'm to learn anything about ROM hacking. I was never my intend to tick you guys off or make anyone upset. I need to apologize for my asininity. But again, you're right, I'm not fully understanding what he said to me, and that is something I need to be better at.

Okay, massive bump (sorry). I guess what I was asking was, during the halfway point in the game, an NPC or plotscript seems to trigger the alternate battle theme. It's right after the NPC mentions getting magic flute to communicate with the town's music residents. Now, after doing some thinking and research on the whole aspect of hacking, I don't want to change the sequences and/or order of the songs per se.

What I am looking for is the actual switch (plotscript that the NPC activates) in the ROM itself, it might be somewhere from 00BD75C and on, I don't know. Although somewhat unrelated, the program RPG Maker VX has a script command that, upon speaking to an assigned NPC, you can tell the game to "Load BGM: battle.mp3/midi" and the effect takes place immediately. Surely, a similar action occurs after speaking to this NPC in Tuneland.

I'm not trying to sound unreasonable, but I'm 100% convinced that there is a connection between this NPC's activated plotscript and the moment the battle theme changes. Perhaps I can start a new game, get to where the NPC is located and see exactly when the change occurs. If I'm wrong, so be it. I just thought I'd throw that out there.