FF5 Character Names

[Binarynova]

In every version of the game only Bartz's name can be changed. But out of curiosity, how possible is it to hack the English SNES trans of FF5 so that all the characters' names are changable when you meet them?

Is it just a matter of calling the 'change name' function and pointing it to a different memory location? Or are the names hard-coded beyond belief?

[Lockirby2]

It's definitely possible, as the FFV Ancient Cave hack does just that.

Beyond that, I don't know anything about hacking FFV, and from what I gather it's not very well documented.

[Catone]

Don't recall seeing much documentation, but I know there are some cool editing programs for FF V.

With that in mind, someone out there in the world had to know something about it. No clue where to look though.

[Binarynova]

It's definitely possible, as the FFV Ancient Cave hack does just that.

So I looked up that hack. Apparently it added (among many other things) a barrel you can talk to to change the lead character's name. That's awesome! That means you could theoretically have a "Namingway" style NPC in every town.

I'll keep digging and see what I can learn.

Thanks everyone!

[LightPhoenix]

Character names are held in RAM starting at 7E/0990, and are present for all five characters. The name select menu may have the functionality to work on all characters; I'm not sure since I haven't worked with it. It should be a simple matter of watching the address, finding the event/menu code, and seeing if it does any checks for what character called it (I think it's likely).

[Squall_FF8]

Yeah the names are hardcoded into ROM. In the vanilla you can't change them. But you always may edit the ROM
Other then that needs to be changed by mod.

[MFS]

The thing is I try to change the character names using FF5e text Editor 1.6 & Everything's FF6Tools, but no effect in the actual game. All the other things can be changed by these programs, such as Job names or monster names, but the character names in the menu stay the same for some strange reason, even after changing them by the editor. I'd like to change Cara to Krile in the menu, does anyone know how to do it?

[Everything]

You might need to start a new game for the changes to take effect. If you want to change character names in a saved game you will need to edit your sram file. How to do that depends on which emulator you're using. If you know how to open your sram file with a hex editor, you should find the character names at the following addresses:

Code:

0x0490-0x0495 butz name
0x0496-0x049B lenna name
0x049C-0x04A1 galuf name
0x04A2-0x04A7 faris name
0x04A8-0x04AD krile name

This is for save slot 1. For slot 2 they start at 0x0B90. For slot 3 they start at 0x1290. For slot 4 they start at 0x1990. The text encoding can be found here (scroll to the bottom for the RPGe translation): https://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/...tasy_V:TBL

Make sure to save a backup before editing.

[MFS]

Looks like I found the addresses of the names used in the menu, had to do a little research first. In RPGe (v. 1.1) translation on FFV the names are at 0xBEC9 (starting with Lenna) divided by three "FF" bytes. The address of default Bartz/Butz name is at 0x203143.

There's also a place in ROM at 0x115500 where all 5 names are (probably used for the save screen), but when I change them nothing changes in the actual game, so whatever)