Final Fantasy III NES - Job System Improvement

[Binarynova]

Final Fantasy III - Job System Improvement

Final version (v2.1) is finished! Download from my site here or at ROMHacking.net here.

The original Final Fantasy 3, for the Famicom, is a great game stuck with some of the worst one-off mechanics from a bygone era. While all of the other 2D era Final Fantasy games got re-released for the Game Boy Advance with all sorts of updates, Final Fantasy 3 saw no such treatment until the DS. But it's less of a re-release and more of an entirely new game, wrought with its own problems.

This hack aims to update a very important mechanic: the Job System.

What exactly does this hack do? There are three separate files.

1) Removes the CP cost of changing jobs.

• Menus no longer show you your CP total.
  
• Changing jobs costs 0 CP.
  
• The end of combat messages no longer show you how many CP you've gained.
  
  

2) Shows every job's current Job Level in place of the CP cost.

• Instead of showing the "CP Cost" next to each job, the menu now shows the characters' Job Skill Levels.
  
• This is an improvement that is basically exclusive to the AWJ translation. The original Japanese version and some other translations already show both "CP Cost" and Skill Level. You can skip this one if playing something other than the AWJ translation, but you'll still see the CP Cost even though it won't do anything.
  
  

3) Automatically un-equip a character if you're trying to change their job.

• No more "Removed" prompt when you remove equipment.
  
• No more "Yes/No" confirmation when changing jobs.
  
• When switching jobs, instead of getting an error if the character has equipment, that character's equipment is automatically un-equipped.
  
• If the equipment can't be removed because of a full inventory, you'll get the, "You must remove equipment..." error message.
  

[madsiur]

$26 is DP (Direct Page) which are RAM offsets $000000-$0000FF. You should see it in the RAM viewer. You can set a "write" breakpoint on this address and you could see when that RAM adrdress is written to. "read" breakpoint work in a similar manner except they break when you read the address. If you NOP the STA (85) don't forget to NOP the 26 too.

[Binarynova]

Thanks for the reply Madsiur!

After more testing it seems I couldn't get this part to work as I wanted. I found a better way to handle it I think. Instead of NOP'ing those instructions I looked backwards a few opcodes and found a conditional branch and changed it to Branch on Overflow Clear (a 6502 site with information on branch opcodes suggested it as a potential "Always branch" option). So now I'm completely skipping the section of code that reduces the party's defense.

All that remains now for this particular change is to figure out how to keep the "Defenseless" message from popping up in battle.

I mean. Ever better would be to find what value is changed by choosing to 'Run' and just keeping that value unchanged. But as I mentioned in the first post that seems pretty hard to do because I'm not sure when it's set. Could be when you hit Run. Could be when all commands are entered. Could be at the moment the player is hit. Or anywhere inbetween.

[dn]

knowing how earlier games were coded, i'm wagering the 'defenseless' text popup is explicitly part of the run command

[Binarynova]

Another one bites the dust! Preliminary testing is promising, so it looks like I successfully replaced the "CP Cost" with the "Job's Level" in the Job Menu!

All that remains for a first release is that pesky, "Defenseless" message box. Stay tuned!

[ScarabEnigma]

One thing that might sorta need pointing out. Only physical attacks redirected if target is KO'd beforehand. If someone aims a single target spell at a enemy that was KO'd before they act, spell is rendered ineffective, rather than redirected like magic. Although spells aren't used that much in battles outside huge rat and Hein, and in dungeons where mini status is forced.

[Binarynova]

Ahh! That's right! I forgot that. I'll pencil that in as something to look into. In the same vein, healing spells can miss. It'd be great to take care of that too.

Thank you!