Final Fantasy Hacktics

I like the game quite a bit, but it left me with a bit of a bad aftertaste.
Seems like a what if type of deal in the end. Honestly, they could have entirely dropped the Silent Hill angle, changed the names and it would have stood strong on its own. In fact I think it was even detrimental to have the Silent Hill name attached to it because of the expectations in game play it forced on me.

All in all it was a good psychological game, but not so good a Silent Hill or even a good Survival-Horror game. Hell, given the fact that you can't die I can't call it a Survival-Horror game. I mean, yeah you have no way to defend yourself, but not dying kind of makes that irrelevant. Largely making the chase sequences dull and repetitive except for a bit of gimmick here and there in the later chapters.

Then there's the length of the game. It's not even as long as Silent Hill on PS1. Way too short. If they had done more of a MGS type of sneaking around thing with the possibility of starting a chase sequence that would have been more fun and entertaining.

Incidentally, what I haven't heard mentioned yet is that a consequence of there being no combat, there is also no inventory at all. You can collect mementos along the way, but these thing are almost completely irrelevant to the story. The only other things you collect are keys and Harry silently deposits these in his pocket after using them never to be seen again.

The story on the other hand is a mental ass-rape by the end of the game with an immense amount of innuendo about jealousy and repressed sexual urges tending towards incest. They did do a great job of making the player just feel "wrong" by the ending credits. BTW the psyche profile it displays for the player during the credits is disturbingly accurate.

So my final verdict is that it's one of those cool games like Shadow of Memories you're not likely to forget. However, as a Silent Hill game it falls short and cannot be connected with the rest of the series in a meaningful way. Silent Hill fans beware! Those interested in psychological horror should jump right in and not worry about the Silent Hill part.

One last comment, though. In the end the game feels kinda like the Silent Hill Movie. You can definitely see that it's a work based on the Silent Hill mythos, rather than a true remake, revision or adaptation.

Thoughts?

Get your digipens out! It's time for another round of custom sprites on the rocks!!!

All who want to participate need only post their *Winter* themed sprites here!! =)

*Winter* = Anything associated with the winter season or holidays that take place during. Any holiday is welcome; Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Chrismakkahwanzaaca, whatever! It doesn't even have to be associated with a living culture!

Criteria:
Best Over-all
Most Fitting to Theme
Most Creative
Chilliest/Funniest

Rules:
1 ) Most importantly you must have fun.
2 ) Obviously the entries have to have fit the theme.
3 ) Entries should be in PNG format.
4 ) Entry must be submitted in 1x & 2x size in one file for clear visibility.
5 ) The base sprite must be an official Square FFT/WotL sprite, or a custom sprite from scratch in FFT style.
6 ) Entry must have at least forward-angled frame and one other, with additional frames optional.
7 ) No resubmitting of old sprites.
8 ) Judges can't participate, duh.
9 ) There is no limit to the number of entries that can be submitted.
A ) No vulgarity.
B ) Sprites must not exceed 16 colors, but do not have any restrictions as to what colors are used.

Deadline:
December 31, 2009
12 midnight GMT

Submission Format:

Sprite Title
Name of Base Sprite(s)
<Embedded Image of entry>
Download of entry (*optional*)

Here is an example entry:


   
Artist: woodenbandman
Santa's Elf
Goblin body + green squire head and colors + some of the red squire colors (for the hat and socks).


Artist: Cold52
Behemoth as Rudolph and other reindeer (plus santa's sleigh)
Behemoth+Custom


   
Artist: jimmyjw88
Snowman
Female Chemist+Custom


Artist: jimmyjw88
The Nutcracker
Beowulf+Female Geomancer+60 year old man+Malak+Custom


Artist: dwib
Holiday Penguin
Uribo + Cockatrice + Time Mage + Custom


Artist: dwib
Christmas Behemoth??
Behemoth + Custom


Artist: Zodiac
White Saber-tooth
Coeurl


Artist: Jon
Gingerbread Man Normal and Half Eaten (I know, kinda cheap...)
Uribo + Imagination


Artist: Jon
Cola Bear
Uribo + size correction and frame addition


Artist: jimmyjw88
Icy Demon (End of the World)
Demon with Recoloured


Artist: Kagebunji
Queklain Santa
Queklain+custom


Judges:
1: SilvasRuin
2: mav
3: PX_Timefordeath

Judge Magister:
Xeno3

Finished Submissions:

This thread is similar in concept to the Patch Proposals/Idea Thread; the reduction of new posts about job concepts and execution. However, it will also have some secondary purposes. This thread will also help to reduce "How do I make X job" questions in the Help forum.

Sweet! I`m posting from my Wii!

I'm requesting a sticky for this thread.
It will contain info on known bugs in FFT and any solutions that might exist for them. This will cut down on new threads about bugs we already know about.

Known Bug List
-----------------

1) Swapping Skillsets Bug

Description - If a generic unit is given a skillset other than the one originally set by square the learned skills in battle will be wrong.

Notes - Special Units don't seem to be affected by this bug.

Solution - None. No real one anyway. Either don't swap skillsets for jobs Generic Units can access, or don't use Generic Units.

2) Changing Skills in Certain Skillset Bug

Description - Item, Jump, & Throw have glitched skills & learned skills when switched to normal type menus.

Notes - Special Units don't seem to be affected by this bug. Generic unit's seem to take their learned skill data from their base job instead of the job that uses the modified skillset.

Solution - None. No real one anyway. Either don't edit skillsets for jobs Generic Units can access, or don't use Generic Units.



Please report any additional bugs or details about existing bugs here.
Do read the current bug descriptions before posting!

Am I correct in my understanding that the "free space" used for ASM hacks is within the copy of font.bin that occurs in the Battle.bin file?
Also, am I correct that what is being set aside is everything passed the English part of the font?

NO SHIT!
Yeah, the greedy fucks say that costs for the privately insured will go up by thousands of dollars a year per household under the Bacchus bill.

So the fucking assholes who are primarily responsible for price hikes and dropping coverage are basically threatening to raise rates. If this isn't an argument for a public option to help control these greedy fucks I don't know what is. You see it seems  the Bacchus bill basically dropped all the parts that would force people to buy private insurance. So since they aren't going to be getting guaranteed profit they got pissed.

These are the same fucks that in Iowa or Ohio or something actually refused to insure a baby because the kid weighed too much. This is the kind of bullshit these greedy fucking shitheads pull when they have weak regulations and basically no competition. I mean what the fuck? How the fuck is a baby un-insurable?

Obama said in his speech to congress that insurance executive are not bad people. I beg to differ. They are scum of the earth. These fuckers profit off the sickness and death of people. Tens of thousands die because insurance companies cut or drop their coverage every year. What the fuck is it going to take to make people say "no, enough is enough"?

Don't people realize that Medicare is crap partially because of the billions of dollars that insurance companies suck out of the system? Yes people, your insurance costs so much so that some fucking asshole executive can have a million dollar home and a second yacht. People are dropped from their insurance so these fuckers can live well beyond their basic needs. Your family dies so some fucking dick that does nothing more than sit behind a desk and bark orders can earn 1000 times more than his employees. Where the hell is the justice? These fuck need to be thrown in prison or worse. And it's not just the executives; the employees are to blame as well. These people should the courage and dignity to do something other than work for people that are for all intents and purposes evil. Stock holders should be ashamed as well.

http://www.ffhacktics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=87314#87314

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/angry-video-screwattack/57393

Holy shit, this was fuckin' funny.
Especially, since I just went back and beat this fucker on Friday.

I was meditating about the problem with Congress being so slow and divisive. And it came tome that (from the Legend of Zelda of all places) thet the key to having a stable and productive congress is to have a strong Independent part to balance it out.

Thoughts?

Post your battle cry!!

Mine is going to...


"+1 PC, bitches!!!"

If I wanted to make a special unit get a new sprite set could I do it strictly with ENTD editing or would it require an event edit?

Does anybody have the RAM address for the current unit's sex?

This sort of info should be added to the wiki as much as possible to encourage ASM hacking a bit more.

I was over at the wiki reading the ASM hacking section and it seems there is a major problem to being able to turn Mime into a normal job.

It seems that the game doesn't keep track of a unit's learned A/R/S/M abilities for the mime job. This explains why if you give a Mime abilities in the patcher and make them learn them in game they disappear immediately as soon as you enter a battle. (Actually I think they disappear as soon as you exit the menu.)

There may be a solution to this, though because of something I noticed with the A/R/S/M ability data that IS held in RAM. The game keeps track of both Bard and Dancer abilities for every unit. This explains why if you remove bard and dancer's requirements they both become default jobs for males and females.

My first idea is to make the game load learned A/R/S/M data for both Bard and Dancer from the one set of RAM addresses. This would leave the other set of RAM addresses available for the Mime to use for it's learned A/R/S/M data.

This is how the RAM addresses are currently used:

Quote*0x00CC Bard Action Abilities 1-8
*0x00CD Bard Action Abilities 7-16
*0x00CE Bard R/S/M 1-6
*0x00CF Dancer Action Abilities 1-8
*0x00D0 Dancer Action Abilities 7-16
*0x00D1 Dancer R/S/M 1-6

They would instead work like this since normally only males have Bard and only females get dancer:

Quote*0x00CC Bard/Dancer Action Abilities 1-8
*0x00CD Bard/Dancer Action Abilities 7-16
*0x00CE Bard/Dancer R/S/M 1-6
*0x00CF Mime Action Abilities 1-8
*0x00D0 Mime Action Abilities 7-16
*0x00D1 Mime R/S/M 1-6

This would require some ASM hacking to modify the code that loads these values. But it would definitely allow the Mime to learn and keep it's A/R/S/M abilities. This wouldn't solve the equipment problem that Mimes have, but it would be a good start.

There is a second alternative that warrants consideration. Supposing that one wanted to keep the Mime as is, one could take advantage of the fact that every character already has separate data for Bard and Dancer and simply remove the sex requirements from them. The complication with this idea is that one would also have to figure out a way to assign male dancers and female bards a sprite to each of them. This would reduce the max number of special units in UNIT.BIN by 2 but would effectively allow for one additional job on the job wheel.

It seems that the way the game works is that it blocks access to Bard or Dancer by checking if either the Male or Female booleans are on.
Evidence of this is that if a character has neither male nor female checked in the ENTD they have access to both jobs, but if they are both male and female they get neither job. So the solution is simply to isolate the code that checks these two booleans and NOP the hell out of it.

This opens up the possibility of replacing Bard & Dancer with new jobs or merging them and adding a single new job.

Comments?


Edit: I also noticed that if a unit is both male and female they use male sprites, but if they're neither they use female sprites. This is regardless of the selected sprite set which seems to still control the portrait regardless of the sex booleans chosen.

Let me know if you're interested!

Positions needed to be filled:
Judge 1 -> Darthpaul
Judge 2 -> Boomkick
Judge 3 -> SilvasRuin
Judge 4 -> Eternal248
Judge 5 -> MiKeMiTchi
Judge Magister (Tie Breaker) -> SamuraiBlackBelt

{Disclaimer: Replying to this topic does not in any way constitute admittance that you are a bitch or someone else's there of. Also, this disclaimer does not in any way constitute waiver of being a bitch or someone else's there of.}

Let me know if you're interested!

Positions needed to be filled:
Judge 1 -> Darthpaul
Judge 2 -> Boomkick
Judge 3 -> SilvasRuin
Judge 4 -> Eternal248
Judge 5 -> MiKeMiTchi
Judge Magister (Tie Breaker) -> SamuraiBlackBelt

Wow! Has it been a year already? Well, guys and gals, welcome to the second annual Halloween sprite contest!! I can't wait to see what our spriters can come up with this year! So get to it!! ^_^

*Some of you may notice that the contest is starting and ending a bit early this year. The reasons behind this are 1)This is when it popped into my head. 2)There are a lot of projects going on and most sprites are already involved in them the various degrees. 3)October 31st it my wedding day and I'll be indisposed on Halloween and the following week I'll be at Epcot Center for my honeymoon at the Food and Wine Festival.*

All who want to participate need only post their Halloween themed sprites here!! =)

Criteria:
Best Over-all
Most Fitting to Theme
Most Creative
Scariest/Funniest

Rules:
1 ) Most importantly you must have fun.
2 ) Obviously the entries have to have fit the theme.
3 ) Entries should be in PNG format.
4 ) Entry must be submitted in 1x & 2x size in one file for clear visibility.
5 ) The base sprite must be an official Square FFT/WotL sprite, or a custom sprite from scratch in FFT style.
6 ) Entry must have at least forward-angled frame and one other, with additional frames optional.
7 ) No resubmitting of old sprites.
8 ) Judges can't participate, duh.
9 ) There is no limit to the number of entries that can be submitted.
A ) No vulgarity.
B ) Sprites must not exceed 16 colors, but do not have any restrictions as to what colors are used.

Deadline:
October 25, 2009
12 midnight GMT

Submission Format:

Name Sprite
Name Base Sprite

<Embedded Image of entry>

Download of entry (*optional*)

Judges:
1: Darthpaul
2: Boomkick
3: SilvasRuin
4: Kagebunji
5: MiKeMiTchi

Judge Magister:
(In case of a tie)
Samuraiblackbelt

Finished Submissions:

Artist: Jumza
Calculator as Skelelator
Calculator M + Skeleton



Artist: Jumza
Black Mage as Devil's Servant
Black Mage M + Skeleton



Artist: Cold 52
Meliadoul as Headless Horseman
Meliadoul + Balmafra + Generic Knight + Custom



Artist: Jumza
White Mage as Black Cat Witch
White Mage F + Custom



Artist: Zalge
Bomb as Pumpkin
Bomb



Artist: Seushiro
Monk as Ifrit
Monk M + Belias + Custom



Artist: Sen
Black Mage as Scarecrow
Black Mage M



Artist: jimmyjw88
White Mage as Vampire
White Mage M + Orlandeau + Beowulf + Calculator F + Mediator M + Oracle M



Artist: Bastard Poetry
Bloody Cúchulainn
Cúchulainn



Artist: Seushiro
Islude as Raziel
Islude + Demon



Artist: jimmyjw88
Purple Mystery as Death
Purple Mystery



RolyTunedIn
Generic Dragon as The Jersey Devil
Generic Dragoon, Various



Artist: Dwib
Cuchulainn as Oogie Boogie
Queklain, Elidibs (human form)



Artist: Aquablack
Funeral Butler Dude as Business Casual Cthulhu
Squidraken, Funeral Butler Dude, Demon (human form)



Artist: Dwib
Teioh as a Ghostbuster
Teioh (Hatless Thief) & Mustadio



Artist: PX_Timefordeath & Saigas
Ultima as Morrigan Aensland
Ultima (First Form)

I just came home from a party where I chipped my front teeth. I just filed down the jagged edges with my diamond tip dremel. Hooray for home dentistry! ^_^

I'd like some real feedback from you guys since we all the game hacking/game creation thing in common.

So is it still a piece of crap or has it got some REAL improvements over Vista?

And, yes I'm aware that if I put a rock in my PC in place of my Vista installation it would be a REAL improvement.

Who saw it what'd u think?

Better than part 1, but not quite 'there' yet.

Yup, I'm working on an action/puzzle game that I plan to sell for some extra cash and for the benefit of my portfolio.

There isn't much to it as I just started programming the thing. I'll release details about it as I progress. It'll be part of a loosely connected series of Gothic Fantasy games co-exist in the same game world. Anyway...

Here's the current title screen:
(Keep in mind that this isn't even in the alpha stage yet.)

My wedding is coming up in October.
I'm a bit nervous and a little stressed.
Gotta get the invitations out soon. =P
At least I got my honey moon paid for already. ^_^

Anyone else care to share?

(Spammers can GTFO!)

His new job class is Defender.
I'm thinking of giving him a helmet, too.

http://www.lordsofshadows.com

I don't know what to think yet.
It looks way to 'God of War' right now.
There are very few 'castlevania' elements thus far.
The programmers haven't done anything spectacular before.
The only things of note is that Kojima is producing it, Koji Igarashia & co. are nowhere to be found, and it started out as a new title not related to CV at all.
It's being made by a European company.
That scares me because the last 2 Konami games made by Europeans were the 2 ghastly Contras for PSX.

Thoughts?

Help us make our community better!! ^_^

As many of us know there are a number of options in melonhead's patcher that are marked unknown or are blank. We need some thorough testing to decipher what these things do if anything at all. Anyone who would like to contribute to the community or just has some extra time on there hands is encouraged to participate in the testing of these values.

As we make discoveries they can be added to the wiki for convenience.

I'll begin by listing the relevant options from the patcher and my own notes.

I figured I should make a topic for my sprite projects so here.
I'll be adding images for critique here and completed projects as attachments. They will also be submitted to Zodiac as usual.

I'll begin with a project I've been working on this week.

000: Classic Hydras (v1.0)
*Status: 100%
*New Palettes
*New Palette Format
*Minor Edits

1)Hydra - Colors based on FF1anni version.
2)Fire Hydra - Colors based on FF1anni version.
3)Hydragon - Colors are a blend of the new Hydra's colors and those of the Dragon. This is a Hydra/Dragon hybrid.
4)Orochi - Colors based on FF1anni version. This is a rare monster in my "seekret" monster expansion patch. Can't be tamed.
5)Tiamat - Colors based on FF1anni version. This is a special boss monster for a new event battle in the patch.[/u]



001: Ramza Ch2&3 Defender (v1.1)
*Status: 100%
*New Palette
*New Palette Format
*Moderate Edits



002: Ramza Ch2&3 Defender (v1.2)
*Status: 100%
*New Palette
*New Palette Format
*Moderate Edits
*New arms for a non spiky look.

From what I can tell it determines the unit.bin image used by characters using the sprite set '82 Monster'.

I had 3 units set to M. Portrait 91 (Minitaurus) & M. Palette 1, but with M. Graphic 11, 13, & 14. (The one set to 12 didn't join for some reason.) Anyway, the one with 11 looked like a byblos/apanda and the other two looked like demons. All with the Minitaurus palette & portrait.


Has anyone experimented with this value to see what happens with higher values?

It seems to have a unique menu type.
Do we know anything about it?
Is it attached to any code?
Can it be used as a functional skill set?

...and what do you guys think would be a better job for him?

My initial idea:

Wayfarer
-A dimensional traveler that has learned to bend the laws of reality through magick.

Skillset: Technicks
-A collection of useful skills picked up during the wayfarer's travels.

I'm thinking it would be cool to give him skills from various A2 Hume jobs that don't exist in FFT. Also, one or two of Illua's skills would be icing for him.

Sample Skills:
Fighter - Backdraft
Hunter - Sidewinder
Illusionist - Stardust
Parivir - Unburden Soul
Seer - Recharge
Sky Pirate - Shadow Stalk
Nightshade - Abyssal Slash
Nightshade - Dimensional Rift

Ideas? Comments?