Journey of the Five - Chapter 1 DOWNLOAD HERE! (Current Version v1.97e)

[Xifanie]

When is Chapter 2 coming out!!!!!!???? I cant wait Chapter 1 was so great. Good work to all who were working on it.

Hold your horses, we can't just put on a release date like that. Chapter 2 was outlined and we barely started actual work on it. All we can guarantee is that it will take less time than Chapter 1 (which took about 2 years but that includes a lot of breaks and the formation of the development team), especially considering a lot of the balancing/debugging of gameplay stuff already happened thanks to people playing and reporting (and also Raven fixing them, Thanks Raven!).

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Uploaded a 1.95TEMP to fix the crashing error. Something with the fixes regarding Bow Display and Bow Knockback is causing it and somehow wasn't showing up when Choto tested the fix on his ISO.  So all the bow display fixes are temporarily removed until we resolve this issue.

Thank you.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Download updated to v1.951.  The following is fixed:

-%Hit skills now correctly work on units with more than 255 HP.
-Bow display fix updated for more comprehensive fixing and less crashing the game horribly.

In addition, the following is edited:

-Link's Job is now 'Hero of Time' since that is his given-title by the Sages.  We probably should have gone with this originally but we went with Hylian Warrior and no one mentioned otherwise for some reason. However, I've heard enough comments asking why this isn't his Job title that I can't give a satisfactory answer to, so it's now so.  His Job and Skillset descriptions are all updated slightly to reflect this change.

-Comet now costs 16 MP to make it slightly less abusable at low levels.

Enjoy.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Released a 1.952, this should hopefully fix some of the really strange bugs that occurred from 1.951 such as Snake's name being 0000whatever at the start of the game.  The cause seemed to be a badly applied FFTText file, but I rebuilt the ISO and can no longer produce the error so it should hopefully be fixed.  (Note if you are continuing an existing Save File from 1.951, the only way to fix characters with corrupted names is to open your file in FFTastic and edit their name or apply the ASM that allows you to rename all units to your ISO and use that to edit their name back to normal.  There's nothing I can do about that.)

This also includes some very small changes:

-Leather Hat and Leather Clothes can be bought from Lionel Castle.

-Leather Hat, Leather Clothes, Leather Helmet, and Leather Armor are now only 50 gil each.  Broad Sword is now 100 gil each.  Escutcheon is now 200 gil each.  This should make arming your Five before Bariaus Hill easier if you're changing to Jobs your starting gear doesn't cover.

-Soldier Recruits (both genders) are now only 200 Gil each to buy.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Small update to 1.952b because the previous 1.952 didn't actually fix the problem, I just wasn't making it happen correctly.

The actual culprit was, get this... Chotokukyan's attempts to make the Bow Display and Knockback work correctly.  (Again.)  I don't even know how it causes that kind of a fucking problem.  So 1.952b has that ASM removed until it's fixed.  (Again.)

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Version is updated to v1.96 because I'm being a total jew about the version numbers and want to reserve v2.0 for our console compatible release.  Don't be fooled though, this is a pretty sizable update in at least one respect.  Also, even if they're not mentioned here by name, most to all of the reported v1.952b bugs should be fixed.

[Changelog v1.96]

BATTLES:

-The JP pool of enemies in the second and third battles at Lionel Castle was reduced slightly to make these fights more forgiving.

CLASSES/SKILLS:

-Agrias PAM boosted slightly.
-Squire "Charge" Skillset JP costs reduced.
-Oracle Reaction Ability "MP Restore" moved to Ranger, cost down to 100 JP.*
-Oracle gains Reaction Ability "MP Switch" at 100 JP cost.  Damage will 'overflow' into the user's HP.*
-Animist Support Ability "Beastmaster" replaced by "Monster's Kin", allowing you to learn Blue Magic regardless of Job when equipped.**
-Due to the above, Monsters no longer have "Hidden Abilities" that open via a Support Ability such as "Beastmaster."  Considering how strong Monsters in Journey of the Five already are though, I'm sure this really isn't a big deal to anyone.
-Redguard's "Bane" should function properly.
-Bladebiter's "Munch" should function properly, maybe?
-Werewolf's "Howl" replaced with "Roar", an adapted version of its lost Beastmaster Ability.

GAMEPLAY:

-Gil Costs Rebalanced.  Most items are slightly more affordable, and prices overall follow a more sensible curve.***
-Guest Units may now be brought into Random Battles and Story Battles they are not automatically forced into.  They will operate under AI control as normal.
-Members of the Five are now Mandatory deployment when fighting their "Rival" villains.  They will not appear on your Pre-Battle Screen when deploying units.

CLEANUP:

-Various small text errors fixed as usual.

*Your known R/S/M on Ranger may change due to this. If your Oracle knew "MP Restore", it will now know "MP Switch" instead.
**Animist was originally meant to get another Support Ability as well in this update but it's been delayed, expect to see it appear in the near future.
***This does not mean you will not need to watch your Gil, as that aspect of Journey of the Five was intentional, just that the pricing was made more sensible.

[brittmarv]

Awesome! This game just keeps getting better

[kyozo22]

Ok cool, really liking these changes.

Just out curiosity/ nosiness, how is the console compatible version coming along? Thanks.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

The console compatible version is going far slower than we'd like but it's not something particularly easy to make and test, either.  It's not forgotten about but it still has no reliable ETA beyond "Hopefully before we finish Chapter 2.", which itself I can confirm has entered the early development stages, though I won't go any further beyond that.

[kyozo22]

Thats great, shame its going slower than anticipated but yeah, I can imagine that its quite a bitch to iron out!

Thanks for answering. Got another couple of Q's but they can go in that thread rather than me hijacking this one!

[RavenOfRazgriz]

v1.96b released to fix the strange bugs reported by Ulric and Finale.  A stray, broken version of the Bow Display Fix got onto the ISO and everyone knows the fun, magical 'features' that result from those being included.

You should most definitely take this update to avoid derp.

[Ulric]

Woo! I feel helpful. Glad you were able to quickly find the problem! 

[shoruke]

So, I've played up to the part where you meet Olivar- Oliv-
Goddammit I was looking at this guy three minutes ago what is his name... *checks the brave story*
*ahem*
So, I've played up to the part where you meet Olivander and Leesha at Barius Valley, and holy gods, this game is everything a fan hack should be. I just can't describe a game with Snake, Link, and Dante all in the same place without grinning like an idiot. It's well-balanced, it's fanboygasm-tastic, it's written in decent English holy crap that never happens with fan works, there's a whole bunch of new content that makes the game so ridiculously different 

With that said, I have a couple nitpicks.
-Link's skillset seems like it's lacking something; notably, his ridiculously large inventory full of bombs and a boomerang and various magical staves/medallions and jars full of magical grape juice or whatever. I thought for sure he would at least be able to stun people with the boomerang. Also, isn't Link supposed to be a badass swordsman? Where are the sword-beams?
-If Snake doesn't have any guns, why does he have tear gas? And why doesn't he have any "obtain loot" (possibly from the dead) skills? Solving problems with what he finds on-site is supposed to be FOX unit's specialty... Also, he could do with a CQC disarm move (possibly one that requires him to be unarmed or using a knife, would work maybe a bit too well with innate Equip Change...)
-One of the scenes (I think it was the opening of the Barius Valley fight) had a br instead of a space. Typo...
-Shouldn't Dante's unique job class be Demon Slayer, or something to that effect? I mean, yes, he is the Son of Sparda, but that's like making Cloud's class "Clone of Sephiroth" or Snake's class into "Successor to Big Boss".
-Why don't they sell knives in Dorter? If they don't sell swords there, why do they sell shields? They cater to... wizards who've spent Job Points on Equip Shield? 
-I know Tesnya was supposed to be unfairly strong because he's a boss character, but... having a fight where you have three guest characters start right next to an overpowered boss, while the characters you actually control are waaaay on the other side of a river... that was just annoying in a "nothing you can do about it" kind of way. "Oh, you wanted to see what the guest characters can do? Well, NO FUCK YOU 1SHOTLOL." Even Snake's Move ability would only be able to save one of the two, if that, and then of course Agrias goes charging in like a lemming... Still, I muddled through it on my first attempt at the battle, much to my own surprise. Encouragement ftw.
-I really wish Dante had Equip Change, or at least the potential to learn it, but that might just be me getting my DMC4 all up in your DMC3.
-I probably just haven't gotten through enough of the game yet, but the plot confounds me. I can deal with the main characters being transported into Ivalice for no reason at all, but only because that's the premise of the game: other video game protagonists get transported into FFT. Sounds fun. But... I thought Delita got stabbed and one of the last lines of FFT was his dying breath? If Cloud shows up again and you don't know why, shouldn't you go to Goug and talk to Besrodio first?

I'll reiterate, these are nitpicks. This patch is an absurdly good one.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Fuck insomnia.

-Link's skillset seems like it's lacking something; notably, his ridiculously large inventory full of bombs and a boomerang and various magical staves/medallions and jars full of magical grape juice or whatever. I thought for sure he would at least be able to stun people with the boomerang. Also, isn't Link supposed to be a badass swordsman? Where are the sword-beams?

Sword beams are a property of the Master Sword while he has full health.  Does Link have the Master Sword?

As for the rest, Link's specialty is finding the random assorted junk on his quest and making it work, if you go through all his games from a wholistic perspective.  He can (as you may have realized by the time you read this reply) equip nearly any item in the game, and when in his base class shift his equipment at will via Equip Change to create tons of combinations no other character can pull off, even with the help of "Equip" supports.  He works like he does in any Zelda title - he becomes stronger and his specialty comes more into fruition with the more sweet loot you collect.

-If Snake doesn't have any guns, why does he have tear gas? And why doesn't he have any "obtain loot" (possibly from the dead) skills? Solving problems with what he finds on-site is supposed to be FOX unit's specialty... Also, he could do with a CQC disarm move (possibly one that requires him to be unarmed or using a knife, would work maybe a bit too well with innate Equip Change...)

You can't "steal" from dead units mechanically.  It would overlap with the Thief anyway, and there's no other means of doing what you describe.  Snake's specialty as a special operative is embodied by being able to survey the area around him and use his findings to support his allies or disrupt his enemies, which isn't too dissimilar from knocking a guy out from behind and shoving him into a locker if you translate how Snake would pull that off into FFT's terminology.  (Inflict Sleep, finish off opponent before they wake up in some meaningful way.)  Snake doesn't have a huge repertoire of CQC moves because offensive ones overlap with the Monk and a "disarm" move is basically the same thing as his Sleeper Hold skill he currently has.  (You know, to knock people out in preparation for shoving them into lockers.)

As for why he has tear gas... interdimensional travel is weird.  Probably has to do with the fact tear gas is neither sharp nor pointy.

-Shouldn't Dante's unique job class be Demon Slayer, or something to that effect? I mean, yes, he is the Son of Sparda, but that's like making Cloud's class "Clone of Sephiroth" or Snake's class into "Successor to Big Boss".

Unlike the other names you mentioned, "Son of Sparda" is actually a title used to refer to Dante in his games, with more frequency than you'd think.  He is never referred to by his enemies as "Demon Slayer" or anything resembling such, because they don't care about his shitty little demon hunting shop that only has a cursory relevance to most games.  We went with a name Dante's enemies use to refer to him, since he has no actual "class" in his games, and nothing he can do in terms of his abilities has anything to do with his occupation.  Plus, it sounds fairly cool.

-Why don't they sell knives in Dorter? If they don't sell swords there, why do they sell shields? They cater to... wizards who've spent Job Points on Equip Shield? 

Please direct your question to Vanilla Final Fantasy Tactics.  With minor exception (selling starter items in Lionel Castle and a few other very minor things), all shops in Journey of the Five sell the same types of items they do in Vanilla.  Flavorwise, it's because Dorter is a Trade City, so they only sell items useful to the lowest common denominator along with exotic items such as Katana or Ninjato.

-I know Tesnya was supposed to be unfairly strong because he's a boss character, but... having a fight where you have three guest characters start right next to an overpowered boss, while the characters you actually control are waaaay on the other side of a river... that was just annoying in a "nothing you can do about it" kind of way. "Oh, you wanted to see what the guest characters can do? Well, NO FUCK YOU 1SHOTLOL." Even Snake's Move ability would only be able to save one of the two, if that, and then of course Agrias goes charging in like a lemming... Still, I muddled through it on my first attempt at the battle, much to my own surprise. Encouragement ftw.

That's more or less what's supposed to happen.  You're put into an "OH FUCK" situation with a river based chokepoint at your disposal, but only 2 characters to use to manipulate it.  It's a different kind of battle than you'd expect from Vanilla because it's based on controlling the terrain and supporting allies WITHOUT getting a Game Over the second they croak.  (If Leesha and Olivander stay alive or are revived they gravitate towards "your" side of the river via a bit of AI manipulation to make this a bit easier on you.)

-I really wish Dante had Equip Change, or at least the potential to learn it, but that might just be me getting my DMC4 all up in your DMC3.

Yes, yes it is.  This Dante is clearly not the DMC4 Dante, so he can't do DMC4 Dante things.

-I probably just haven't gotten through enough of the game yet, but the plot confounds me. I can deal with the main characters being translated into Ivalice for no reason at all, but only because that's the premise of the game: other video game protagonists get transported into FFT. Sounds fun. But... I thought Delita got stabbed and one of the last lines of FFT was his dying breath? If Cloud shows up again and you don't know why, shouldn't you go to Goug and talk to Besrodio first?

In-canon, Delita lives through his stab wound and begins an age of prosperity in Ivalice.  You can look this up for yourself if you're curious.  When you leave Lionel Castle, it's said quite a few times that you're more concerned with making sure the person Link is obsessing over (Princess Zelda) is safe, either back in her own world (ie, you don't find her) or in Ivalice (ie, you do find her and hope she isn't secretly named after a fruit).  Beyond that, getting further in the Chapter would help a bit more probably, but remember you're still at the beginning so even completing Chapter 1 will far from answer everything.

[skiploom188]

Played through the whole chapter...

AWESOME!!! It feels as if I'm playing a sequel to FFT. Because of how the story picks up where Tactics left off. This patch made me feel that excitement again very much close to that time I first played FFT.

I DID NOT regret downloading this patch.

[3lric]

shoruke and skiploom, thank you both (I think Raven answered all the questions)

People sometimes do not understand (until they are on the developer side of modding) how important these praises and LP's are
to the motivation of a project. It is absolutely outstanding to see others appreciate our work so much, and we cannot thank you
all enough for taking the time to play it. After all if no one played it, all our hard work would be for little to nothing, which makes
the fans everything.

[Vulmen]

Ugh. Okay; I don't get it. I download your patch. I rip a copy of my FFT disc. (in mdf, iso, etc formats) I run the ppf-o-matic3.exe patcher and select both files. It runs, it says success. But then the .iso file is corrupt- I can no longer open it with WinRAR/etc so quite naturally nothing else works either. Bah.

Edit: Huh. I had to download another web sites copy of FFT in ".cue/.bin" format. It didn't like all the various formats I tried with my in-hand PSX disc...ok well, solved. I can't wait to try it out.

[Stann]

Ugh. Okay; I don't get it. I download your patch. I rip a copy of my FFT disc. (in mdf, iso, etc formats) I run the ppf-o-matic3.exe patcher and select both files. It runs, it says success. But then the .iso file is corrupt- I can no longer open it with WinRAR/etc so quite naturally nothing else works either. Bah.

Edit: Huh. I had to download another web sites copy of FFT in ".cue/.bin" format. It didn't like all the various formats I tried with my in-hand PSX disc...ok well, solved. I can't wait to try it out.

You should always download a fresh ISO whenever patching, if you try to rip your own ISO chances are you aren't going to get a perfect copy.

[Vulmen]

So I discovered, and that's most unfortunate. I'd like to be able to play off the disc I actually purchased, instead of downloading someone else' copy...oh well.

Good gracious you guys have really worked at this. The new Alma ... very nice touch! And bearded Ramza, all grown. Everyone is clearly aged up, and they look good and believable.

So much humor, so much character! Already I like your insert of Cloud over the FFT "mentally inept" insert of Cloud (he was nothing but absent-minded in FFT...). And Dante; good lord is he ever comic relief. (Non-spoiler) His interaction with Alma, and then his fated discovery of what that cruel world lacked. LOL

The storytelling in this mod is beautiful and complex/deep. I love how you took time to craft everything together- even so far as the journal and actually making a "scene" in the Brave Story pages.

Agrias: "Though, I find that regal tone kind of fitting." -- Agrias...are you hitting on Ramza? xD .......Dante (Dance Macabre): "Whip it out! Thrust it in! Penetrate every angle!" -- oh god...you guys :p Lol.

I noticed that you coded the "Guest" characters to be actual playable characters, FFT was horrible that you couldn't use the "Guest" characters outside of the mission combat. Very clever approach, this whole mod really takes vast improvements over Final Fantasy Tactics...I'm going to farm this mod for all it's worth lol. Good luck making Chapter 2, I definitely want to see its success!

[Arumahn]

Just wanted to pop in and give my support. Finished up with Chapter 1, and was utterly amazed at the project as a whole.
To the entire team: You guys are incredible.
If I knew how to do ANYTHING but play, I'd more than willing help out...(Aside from playtesting.. I can do the F outta that =P) But do you take Paypal donations maybe? =P Cause you totally should.

Hats off, applause all around. Keep up the amazing work!