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What's the Point of Modding FF6 on Different Platforms?

#1
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There's the gameboy version and the Android version---what's the point of modding these?  The advance version just has a few extra things and then entirely different names, and I thought the newest PC version just looks terrible but has some better portrait capabilities.  Is there some reason these versions would actually be better to hack?
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#2
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Each version has its specifications and things to improve. I think the version that has the most potential modding-wise is the PC and GBA version. There's a lot to improve on the PC port but once everything is fixed and tools developed and code documented, it could lead to the most complete or definitive version of FF6 with 2D sprites. It's too soon to tell if how the game is structured will allow more modding than the SNES version though. For now, minimal documentation prevent to do so and it's the same for the GBA version to some extent.

There's the whole aspect of learning stuff too that you seems to not take into account (I state this by the pejorative way you're askiing the question insinuating that the SNES version is the best in all aspects). Developing tools or creating patches for the executable of the PC version is a new challenge the game being coded in another language (C++ -> x86 ASM). It's also just fun to trying to understand how a new FF6 works and code new tools.

Same with the GBA version. You'd have to learn ARM7TDMI assembly which is another game in itself. I think the GBA version is more complete than the SNES one if you have things like sound and color restoration patches. I couldn't explain stuff like longer names patch or people trying to cramp up GBA content in the SNES version if it was not an improvement.

I'm pretty sure if the GBA version had more tools and documentation you would ask the same question about the SNES version. Because in my opinion, people don't mod more the SNES version because it's the definitive one but because it's the easiest one to mod.
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#3
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Many potential reasons, absolutely. Alot of things are limited by the SNES hardware (yep, even on an emulator). GBA has a few less hardcoded restrictions, little more room to add. Android version? No, just NO.

The PC version potentially (actually I'd risk saying absolute) doesn't have those restrictions.

What sort of stuff? Well easier to have more than 255 items, showing more than 19 sprites on the screen at once, music, umm... anything to do with VRAM, number of palettes for characters, hell maybe even PC sprite resolution.

So yeah plenty of reasons if you really want to go all out. At the same time, SNES still has the challenge factor, just how far can it go? As for basic stuff however, nah stick with the original.


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Thanks. Yes I definitely do not see how the other versions are better as a game and can really appreciate the endless possibilities of the PC version, but I think there's a much better chance of just making the best SNES version, while some genius might someday come along for the PC version and make all the graphics look un-terrible (or, my taste is all jaded).
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#5
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Actually, that's one of the first mods being made for the PC version. Sprite fixing.

I did say "one of the first", not including the general cracking open work, or the referanced "first" mod that turns off the oversmoothing of the game. Least I think that's what it said. But come on, fixing those sprites was the obvious first choice for a hack. Just not the fastest.

Was all in that PC Gamer article Madsiur posted earlier.


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#6
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But doesn't it seem silly to you to do all this work to change all the sprites to a version that is 20 years old and looks bad to 95% of gamers, just so it's not the even worse version that it is now? That is some serious long-term dedication to unlocking the modding potential of a retro-RPG

Edit: What I mean is, for the game to be really playable by more than 5% of gamers, I think this game would have to have modern looking sprites that actually look great--so reverting the sprites backwards is just extra work to go back to the foundation of a 20 year old game that is already more easily mod-able.
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#7
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What you're overlooking is that once folks understand how to change to the 20-year old sprites, that's a step towards understanding how to insert custom sprites. Even if folks don't know how to directly hack the iOS sprites to something different (yet), they can hack the iOS sprites to use the SNES sprites, and from there can hack the SNES sprites.
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#8
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(01-30-2016, 05:48 PM)ReturnerScum Wrote: But doesn't it seem silly to you to do all this work to change all the sprites to a version that is 20 years old and looks bad to 95% of gamers, just so it's not the even worse version that it is now?  That is some serious long-term dedication to unlocking the modding potential of a retro-RPG

Dedication yes, but a lot faster process than starting from scratch since the embed ROM is use for most of the data and the exe can be disassembled in one click (literally).

(01-30-2016, 05:48 PM)ReturnerScum Wrote: What I mean is, for the game to be really playable by more than 5% of gamers, I think this game would have to have modern looking sprites that actually look great--so reverting the sprites backwards is just extra work to go back to the foundation of a 20 year old game that is already more easily mod-able.

I think aside of character sprites the rest look gorgeous. Tilesets are great, animation too, monsters as well. Downgrading the sprite was faster than spriting new ones from scratch, in any way the second avenue is already started by some spriters and both avenues look better than the default PC character sprites. I don't understand why you see the PC version as being such ugly.
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#9
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The monsters are higher definition, which means for half of them that appear silly we get a better view of crazy-looking cartoonish monsters staring at us. I would imagine bigger hero sprites might be necessary for any amount of detail that might attract non-ff6 fans, but I wonder if that's absolutely necessary. The tilesets look better but I thought they were fine before with graphics filters on. Basically the original looked like a game that was stuck with SNES graphics, that tried hard to be beautiful and mature...but the new version is a higher definition re-creation of those graphics, with all their flaws, so it strikes me as a new effort in presenting something that looks immature and unserious. If the new developers tried hard to make it mature, we wouldn't have chibi heroes and cartoonish monsters. If we get some awesome sprites I would be super psyched and that could be the best thing for the game. (Thanks for the other points you mentioned also)
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