Some questions

Ok, I'm going to quote your comments from the youtube page as well so I can put this all in perspective.

You can simply "delete" the call for the battle song when you enter a battle.

So this is what the "C2/BD98:    80" that m06 posted does.

Setting a condition for boss battles would be harder, since there is nothing really that differenciate a normal formation from a boss formation.

I see, so the formation itself is useless to differentiate random battles from boss fights. I'm left wondering how the game knows when to play the boss music. Maybe something like a case by case approach with contextual flags?

You could put FF at C2/BF3B and you would have current song playing during the fight.

k, that would be uh, 02/C13B for headered...

Yep, It works great, actually to better illustrate, it gives me this


RANDOM BATTLES
Random battle music: no
Fanfare: yes
Victory pose: yes

BOSS FIGHTS
Boss battle music: yes
Fanfare: yes
Victory pose: yes


So basically I wanted to disable the music for random battles, that was the main thing. Your code above gets that covered without affecting the boss battle music, so that's ideal for me. Many thanks kind sir

As for the fanfare and victory dance... I'm sort of undecided atm. The idea was to tone down all that celebrating after random battles. To provide a little context as to why I'd want that:

- IMO regular, non-boss battles aren't such a big deal that the characters would boast triumph over like that, all cheery and in unison. It's a little too much for beating a rabbit or sand scorpion. Makes more sense for boss battles.

- some situations, especially the beggining sequence with Terra, Vicks and Wedge. Why is she going hurray with these two imperial soldiers, for murdering poor Narshe city folk? Sure it could be the Slave Crown on her head, but it's still weird IMO.

So *IF* I'm going to make changes regarding fanfare and victory dance, it would be like this

RANDOM BATTLES
Random battle music: no
Fanfare: no
Victory pose: no

... while keeping boss battles exactly as they are: music, fanfare, victory pose, all service included.

Yesterday I tested what m06 suggested and played the Narshe sequence; no battle music, no fanfare and no victory pose. I think it makes for a much more somber trek into the city, very appropriate IMO. I also played some overworld segments, it seemed a nice change for those as well. Only problem ofc is, those changes were also applied to boss battles. It was my bad, though: I forgot to mention in the OP that I wanted to keep them intact.

If you want to have a victory dance but no fanfare I suggest you apply this patch where for the battle theme song is saved but no played and the last song played is used to identify whether we play the fanfare or not.

I haven't tried this yet, but just to confirm: with this you get no fanfare music, only the victory dance; and this will effect both random and boss battles, is that right?

Also, I'm curious about this bit:

[...] the last song played is used to identify whether we play the fanfare or not.

Could that same 'check for the last music' principle be used in this way: if the boss was just played, then I do get the fanfare and victory pose; if it wasn't, then no fanfare, no victory pose either. What do you think?

Could that same 'check for the last music' principle be used in this way: if the boss was just played, then I do get the fanfare and victory pose; if it wasn't, then no fanfare, no victory pose either. What do you think?

The following is doing this, skipping fanfare for every battle except the ones using the boss song (default one). Let's just hope $1301 retain the previous song value.

Code:

hirom
;header

org $C1011D
LDA $1301
CMP #$14
BNE exit
JSR sbrA

org $C1016A
exit:

org $C1FFE5
sbrA:
JSR $0105  
JSR $C10197    
LDA $2F49  
RTS

I made an .asm file with that code and patched it with Snestuff. It gave an error

error: patch.asm: line8: label [sbrA] not found [JSR sbrA]

I also made an .asm with the other code you provided (where the battle theme is saved but not played - thus no fanfare). It patched succesfully, but the battle screen won't load. I get no image, only sound.

In any case, the hex edit you provided - namely the "FF at C2/BF3B" - is already a boon and solves most of my problems.

error: patch.asm: line8: label [sbrA] not found [JSR sbrA]

I added the correct label. Sorry for not testing anything.

Edit: I tested my last code. It work as intended during regular fights. No victory fanfare, song keeps playing. There's only a boss fight to test.

Yep it works nicely. Thing is, I'm having a problem combining the two changes -- the FF at C2/BF3B in addition to the no fanfare code. Both work fine by themselves, but if I apply the two of them, this happens: after the first battle, all music is gone, and there is just silence. I still have sound effects, just no music. Pretty weird.

I'm having a hard time figuring out the problem. Maybe the culprit is code at C0/034E. This seems to load a song for the map (presumably after battle). Maybe C0/0358 condition expect a 00 in $053C as silence then with FF condition fails (like if it was a regular song) so it stores FF a song to play instead of skipping the code like 00 would do.

I'd have to do debugging to have a better idea. Maybe try 00 at C2/BF3B instead? Maybe this won't change anything either but it worth a try.