Expanded Item Names

And now the Coliseum and "Use Item/Spell" menus have been redrawn! There was no way to make the box for the names of items longer in the use menu without clipping portraits badly, so I redrew those menus without portraits. The Coliseum had to be condensed and omit the character names from the bottom window, but the name is still in the battle window. And just for the record, that clipping of the enemy into the top box is vanilla, too, so ya.

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EDIT

The project is on the cusp of being completed! There's thorough bugtesting to do, but seemingly all work needed to be done is done. A visual recap of all the work this project does:

Very cool @DrakeyC. I was especially curious about how you would deal with the shop menu and the coliseum menu.

A few suggestions...

Have you considered something like this for the coliseum?

...If you were to do it like that, you could keep the bottom portion as-vanilla.
Otherwise, you may want to consider pulling from this patch to shorten the top window:
https://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/thread-4196.html

Use-Item screen --

• Any chance of moving the character name / cursor / status icons one tile to the right?
  
• Instead of losing the portraits, consider implementing an abbreviation? (print the first few characters, then add an ellipsis if the name is too long)
  
• A few months ago I was playing around with moving the character selection window the left and the item name to the right, but then the status icons would get hidden. Don't think there's any good way around that
  
• Edit: Crazy Idea: display character sprites in lieu of the portraits
  

Equip screen -- Perhaps nix the character name?

Shop -- Since "Own: " & "Use: " are in turquoise, it may look fine to use "Owned" and "Used " (no colon), even if it puts "Owned" directly adjacent to a numeral.

I actually had that idea for the Coliseum after I had finished the current version. I don't feel strongly either way, may ask others what they think and go from there.

That patch definitely intrigues me, because I had to make the box two tall to cover up the gradient. I'll look into it for sure, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Re: item use menu, I may, I had that thought too, but I need to do testing with the status icons and make sure there's room for them to all display properly. As is now, if they don't, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. As for abbreviating the item name, nah. That'd be more complicated than I know how to do, and I personally prefer it this way. I'm not sure what would go into showing the character sprites in the menu, but I don't care for that idea, just feels wrong somehow.

Equip screen, yeah I may, the portrait is there anyway, and the Relic screen doesn't have it for some weird reason.

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EDIT - I remember why I didn't put both Wager and Prize at the top now

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EDIT x2 - The names in the use menu can indeed be moved over another spot to be lined up with the rest of the text. I did the same in the main menu, too.

In the course of checking the status icons, I learned it's not possible for a character to be affected with more than five statuses that show up in the field menu. Petrified party members can't be Poisoned or Vanished, and among the remaining six statuses - Float, Imp, Vanish, Poison, Blind, and Zombie - Zombies can't be Poisoned. Ergo, the icons max out at five. I did a little tweak to the main menu to put Steps in the same box as Time, and voila - nice and neat vertical organization.  

EDIT - I remember why I didn't put both Wager and Prize at the top now

The second row of text would be where the text was in vanilla, layered on top of the enemy graphic.
Did having text there really bother anyone before?
Anyway, up to you!

Good point.

EDIT - So, anyone know how to move the positions of the sprites in the match-up window down? Like, gimme a hex address and bytes to fiddle with? I have no idea how to make heads or tails of that part of the code that draws them.

And the new coliseum screen is done! Many thanks to madsiur for his help

New coliseum looks great, good idea to move the sprites down.

Have you done the equipment details ("can be used by") screen?

I have, just had to shorten the text string. I didn't redesign it, there's already a mod for that.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/256/

And here it is, a limited release! I say limited because:

* It's just the patch, no disassembly file, I still have to work on that.
* It's only 100% guaranteed to be compatible with a vanilla rom. MAYBE with Restored Ability Names, but with this version I make no promises. Compatibility with RAN and the mass bugfix patch will come in the future when I call this fully complete and upload it to RHDN

For now though, if anyone wants to download it and try it out, find any bugs I overlooked or offer suggestions, here ya go. Enjoy.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/vsmgt9t9o...0.ips/file

COMPLETE! OP updated with download link!