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ReCast FF3: War of the Magitek

#11
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I've finished all my event hex work and I'm finally ready to test! Yay!

If I can get through the game without it crashing, version 2_76 will become 3_0 and its release will mark the completion of the hack.
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  • JWhiteLXXXIX (01-04-2020), madsiur (01-04-2020)

#12
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Version 2_134 (Release Candidate 3) is now available for public testing (You can find it at the top of the first post in this thread)! Give it a try, let me know what you think and if you encounter any bugs. And have fun!

EDIT: There was an oversight in the Corpus fight that is not game-breaking but will make it much more difficult. This boss is not meant to be immune to poison damage. When someone gets to this fight, or someone encounters a soft-lock, or if we get to summer (whatever comes first), I will release an updated version to fix this.
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  • Robo Jesus (01-27-2020)

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@C-Dude
What were your main motivations for this hack?

What are the main goals of this hack?
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#14
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(05-05-2020, 11:19 PM)Endarire Wrote: @C-Dude
What were your main motivations for this hack?

What are the main goals of this hack?

Well, it started with a frustration that the early Final Fantasy games (the 2D entries) suffered from abhorrent art clash.  Earlier games had it worst, with Shrug field sprites, Victory player battle sprites, and then romance-era style paintings for the enemies.  There was an indescribable dissonance of scale in battle, having our heroes stab at the ankles of their enemies who towered over them.

I was originally motivated to hack by PowerPanda's "3 Scenarios" patch.  I wanted to play through it, but without the aforementioned art clash.  I was also interested in turning the Imp status into Pig, mostly as a pet-peeve because the two are basically identical ailments (which later turned into Addle, granted, but that's another matter entirely).  But "Pig" ended up clashing with the setting, so I made it "Moogle" instead.

As I started trying to inject graphics into the game, I took an interest in story pathing to change the pace of the game.  After all, that's what "3 Scenarios" was shooting for in the first place, why not build on that.  I was subjected to a 'shattering glass' realization when I read that the World of Ruin is woefully short compared to the first half of the game.  I had never realized how limited that segment of the game was and I wanted to expand on that.  Fans of FF6 focus on Leo, so I wanted to take a different approach and explore Banon further as a character.  In the original, he kinda runs rampant over Edgar in the beginning and then gets completely forgotten.

Another matter I wanted to address was the game's gender ratio.  It bothered me that there were only three female player characters in the game, one of them being a child and another being a mannequin to pitch woo at ( Smile  "I'm a general, not some opera floozy!" Objection! Laugh )
Since I was hacking the game anyway, I took the opportunity to explore some what-if scenarios about the cast, placing Setzer into the ancillary role Darryl originally held and changing Cyan to create distance from the slain family at Doma, whom I felt were improperly grieved.

I suppose my goal was what any hacker really shoots for... to see what I could do with the engine and to see if I could put a novel spin on a classic story.
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#15
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So I was running a play-test in anticipation of releasing the finalized version of this hack, and I've run into the following issues.  They will be (mostly) corrected with the next release and I expect that save files will be compatible (even save-states, unless already in a soft-lock).  Still, if you're playing through, watch out for the following:

(1) Do not stay at the inn in Kohlingen.
I moved an NPC for a scene in the World of Ruin, but he's standing in the way when you try to check in.  If you do, you'll softlock because your character will not walk around him.  In the next patch, he will be shifted down to be out of the way.

(2) If you haven't recruited Mog before Zozo, everybody who isn't in your party won't walk off properly.
I incorrectly set the caseword for the "if you need to change party members, go to Narshe" event, making it dependent entirely on whether Mog has been recruited or not.  I've removed that check (or rather made it redundant to avoid having to repoint the rest of the events in that block) in the next patch, so the characters will behave as intended.
Note that in the current version if you have Mog recruited the cast will behave as normal.
It won't softlock you, but it looks weird.  They all disappear after the reload.

(3) If you didn't take Mog to the opera, only talk to Celes from the right.
Again, there was a recruitment check that was placed in the wrong position, preventing the "move Locke to Celes's right side" code from executing.  I shifted the subroutine up to fix this in the next patch, but for now if you talk to her in the wrong position the game will soft-lock (because Locke won't be able to complete his walkaway animation).

(4) If you fail the opera with Mog in your party, he'll spawn at entrances and block doorways until you start the opera again.
I forgot to "Hide Actor $0A" in the opera cleanup subroutine.  This has been corrected in the next patch.
Mog may even trap you this way, but if you move away from the door and open a menu, he'll refresh to your new position and you can get around him.  Alternatively, setting Mog as your leader will prevent him from prop-appearing while he's the character on screen.

(5) Ultros eats Fenix Downs
If you try to use a fenix down across the stage during the Ultros fight, it will do nothing.
I... don't know why this is.  It's not a side attack bug because they work across the battlefield in other fights.  This bug occurred for me when Mog was the fighter on the left; I don't recall encountering it with other groups but the fight didn't last nearly as long in those instances.

(6) Celes will back up for Locke to jump aboard before Mog climbs onto the Blackjack
This isn't a bug, it's just a fluke regarding the way I inserted Mog into this scene.  To make it easier I added his check last and fixed him to the right position (rather than being on the right unless it was Mog and Gau).  As a result, he always climbs in after Celes backs away.

That's it for bugs in 2_134 so far; I'll let you know if I encounter more.  The next phase of testing involves playing twice from Narshe, once with Biggs recruited and once without.

EDIT:
(7) You can skip chasing down the dream stooges
But... even after they're destroyed they'll still say "Back off!" if you approach where they were.  The skip hasn't been removed, but their lingering echoes have been.  This has the potential to make Crazy Stairs go very quickly if you're speeding through, but you may want to explore the area anyway, you'll miss some good stuff if you don't.

(8) [BIG!] If you did not recruit Biggs in the World of Balance, you MUST make sure Mog is in slot 1 of the party when you talk to him.
I didn't set up this event properly.  If Mog is not party member 1, your entire party will disappear during the cutscene, and opening the menu will place you on an incorrect version of the previous room, where you will be soft-locked (you might be able to warp out, but I wouldn't trust there isn't something else going bad in this scenario).  This bug slipped my gaze because I always put Mog in the lead when he's in my party.  It was actually a fluke that I found it.  I've fixed it for the next patch, but I need to make sure the patch didn't mess with the alternative (Biggs recruited in the World of Balance).  Which... means playing through half the game again, whee!

(9) Something weird will happen if you take Relm and Strago to rescue Banon
If both Relm and Strago are in your party, they will trigger the 'Welcome Home Thamasa' event during one of Banon's events.  While this will not softlock your game, it looks really silly.  I've fixed this in the next patch by removing all party members except Locke from the active party when Banon is rescued.

(10) Banon stands in weird places around the world after the Floating Continent rises
This is because putting Party 5 on Mog's Explanation doesn't actually hide them like I thought it did!  If you change your party, Banon will be hidden correctly and will stop standing in weird places around the world.
A similar glitch likely exists for Mog post-Magitek Factory.  I applied a comparable fix and I'm just going to assume it fixed the problem.
And that's it for my playthrough; going to release the finalized version of the patch sometime soon.
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#16
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I've released the final version of this hack. All aforementioned bug-fixes have been applied. The release version is compatible with any saves from build 2_134, as well as any non-battle, non-menu save states from that build.
Barring the discovery of a catastrophic bug or oversight, there will be no future updates to this project.
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  • madsiur (05-17-2020), SSJ Rick (05-19-2020)

#17
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nice work

this project looks pretty interesting


"Sometimes ninjas do wrong to each other, and in dat way the force of tha earf' comes around da moon - and at that presence, da dirt, it overshadows the grass, so you're like, I can't cut dis grass, there's no sun comin' through. So in order to enable each other the two fruits have to look each other in da eye and understand we can only be right, as da ripe is wrong, you know what I mean?"

-HNIC
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#18
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It's always nice to see a full game get completed. That said, right now I'm in the cave of South Figaro, and when I defeat the monsters in a battle, it isn't ending. I'm assuming that there's an invisible status monster that isn't disappearing somehow. The formation is Stinker + Hornets + 2x Bleary. I had the same issue in the Magitek Armour fight, and I had to run away to complete it.


Confused Moogles FTW
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  • C-Dude (05-23-2020)

#19
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The invisible status monster has a script that tells it to self-terminate once it detects no other enemies on the field. It has the fastest speed possible, but it still has to wait for its turn in the que. Try waiting just a little longer, you can even use the extra time to sneak in a healing spell before battle ends if you're swift.

If that doesn't work, could you tell me which emulator you're using? I tested the hack in SNES9X, maybe there's an emulator-specific bug.

EDIT: Oh wait, I had to add something that would stop the status monster from casting spells before "MMMMMMMMAGIC?!" plays out, because it was triggering the cutscene. I'll look at the script, maybe that's the problem.

EDIT post V1.01: Yep, that was the problem. The monster was stopping itself before it could destroy itself. Dang, I played through the opening like thirty times, how did I miss that? You can cast a spell during battle to fix this in the current version (even if all the enemies are gone), and the bug is fixed in V1.01 provided you don't load a battle savestate (since the script in progress was changed and would probably crash the game).
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#20
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I've not actually played the mod, but I suspect if someone's tarried long enough such that they determine running is their only option, then the battle should have ended far before then. Did you set the "fastest speed possible" as an enemy with 255 Speed? That would likely cause an overflow and perhaps explain the issue at hand.

Always assuming I'm not grossly overreaching here.


The only thing harder than finding a needle in a haystack is finding a haystack in a needle. Laugh
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