FFVII - 2D Remake

Well, it seems I am no longer in rom-hacking territory. Was googling around for spritesheets to use, wondering about how to implement Red XIII in an attractive manner, came across the FFVI SDK for RPG maker and... that just about did the idea of doing it as a rom-hack in.

So googling yet again (maybe I should stop doing that ) for tile-sets to use and came across this glorious beast. I was perfectly willing to bow out in light of a superior skill and find a new project, but it turns out the project may be cancelled and the source released and I just could not stand seeing the project abandoned. Atm I am uncertain due to the conflicting natures of the two posts content and timestamps, but have emailed the author concerning this.

Assuming he really quit this project I am picking up where he left off (and what a legacy he leaves! Its a picture perfect engine). I am currently adding newer sprites for the main characters (the size limit seems to be 24x32px per frame, allowing for more detailed sprites than VI could allow, and an actually good looking Red VIII. Larger may be possible, but this size does me just fine ) and battle effect animations.

So as this is no longer a rom-hacking project (sorry guys ) I wonder:
1. Would you still like to see updates and info on it
2. Can I still pull on your collective expertise in spriting/animation and
3. Would anyone like to play-test this as it progresses?

Act of treachery (Click to View)

Just started on my first FFVI rom-hack, attempting to back-port VII to Snes (original, I know).
So far so good, getting pretty decent at it, I think.

I am starting with a FFVI 1.1 rom with the following patches applied:

Yazoo's Title Screen Mod
ManuLöwe's Bugfix Patch
Master ZED's Dash patch

Intending to use some spritesheets from this site, Cloud so far.

Eventually I would enjoy making a FF multi-rom a-la Super Mario All Stars.

Neat idea but this will take years and might very probably not even be possible due to numerous limitations in most fields of hacking. Youd be probably better of coding it from scratch or do it in rpgmaker.

Good luck though, and no dont add characters, would not fit imo.

True, I do not expect to be able to do a full port, some features will be more or less impossible to do without extreme recoding of the game, such as materia slots and whatnot.

I am actually considering instead of learning from espers, learn from "materia" relics, would this be a possibilty, do you think? Also only allowing a character's "limit" ability to be used when they have the near fatal status would be interesting.

This has been done alrdy (relic materia system) In a complete and released hack. Ill find the name since i forgot (FF6 hard type?) and edit the post.

And not to discourage you but not only some features, but mainly the maps will be your limiting factor. You have very limited tilesets and space (on the rom), meaning to make sense as a port you would have to edit most of them (edit the tilesets which is heavily time consuming and annoying) which will mean you will have to do every single map from scratch (takes a year with the current editor available), and dont get me started on the tons of events you have to create (again you will soon encounter limited space to create new ones, forcing you to use all the alrdy available events and edit them (as usual limited space wont help) which takes long time, lots of knowledge and patience), and... well i wont go on because there are so many things, but If you plan on doing this by editing the ff6 rom you wont be able to pull it off Im afraid (well at least not something that can be called FFVII snes edition, best you can do is change pc`s, some npcs, enemies and some dialogue (and doing only that in a serious way will net you many months of work)).

Youre definitely better off doing it in RPG maker

Yeah, I have considered a lot of those things. I am kinda considering this as "something to tinker with for the fun of it," Its more of a time-kill than anything else, plus get me into assembly coding (I realize asm for SNES is not the same as asm for modern processors). As far as doing it in rpg-maker, I am running Ubuntu Linux, and not certain if it works well/at all on it. I can use all the ff3 tools via wine, so that is not an issue.

Thank you in advance for the relics-as-materia hack. Can't you expand the rom, though? There was an option for that on one of the ff3 tools, just appended alot of ff bytes to the end.

I was talking about expanded rom

But I feel a bit bad to talk so realisticly, just felt like its better to give an early heads up about eventual difficulties, Any Project is welcome though and better than none. Ill be glad to see the first screens and so on. For now good luck.
Cheers.

Its cool, lol. Constructive criticism is always needed. It seems I am fortunate that many sprite sheets for FFVII characters have already been prepaired. Also this rom is so well documented already, so its not like I am walking in the darkness on this, lol.

I don't suppose you would know the offsets of the title screen sprites?

Neat idea but this will take years and might very probably not even be possible due to numerous limitations in most fields of hacking. Youd be probably better of coding it from scratch or do it in rpgmaker.

Good luck though, and no dont add characters, would not fit imo.

Nice way to introduce a newcomer to the hacking world, Terramano. *Sarcasm*

The problem with hacks is that if you are not fully committed to it, at one point or another you might just drop the project. Sometimes, life becomes more important and needs more of your time. Sometimes, work demands a lot. I could go on giving 1,000 reasons why a project just drops dead. But you get my point.

I suggest you tackle a small project or hack to begin with. Something that you can handle. And then you can keep on adding to it. Sort of like the guys from Kajar Laboratories for CT. They first created the Colosseum, and then built on it.

Haha, its ok Angelo. Btw, I am thinking of incorporating your extended names patch into the finished product.

A small hack, yes. I am actually treating it just as that, one small edit at a time. First I created Cloud (or at least the starting framework for him :p) and will add one character at a time untill the roster is full. From there I will mod their special attacks as needed

I would appreciate whatever advice you could provide on this matter, always have an open ear.

Nice way to introduce a newcomer to the hacking world, Terramano. *Sarcasm*

Well he's right in a way. Back porting FFVII in the FFVI engine is a task a man alone can hardly accomplish himself. Instead of recoding hundreds of routines and thousands of ASM instruction, why not writing the game from scratch in a friendlier language, one that will not be harder to learn than assembly and will let you do more things in the end in a simpler way? At some point you need to be realist on the possibilities of ROM hacking for someone that doesn't know ASM.

I suggest you tackle a small project or hack to begin with. Something that you can handle. And then you can keep on adding to it. Sort of like the guys from Kajar Laboratories for CT. They first created the Colosseum, and then built on it.

That is a nice approach and probably the best way to get something done instead of tackling a project that is too big for the moment.