Topic: Final Fantasy IV -Postlude- [BETA v0.1.0]

[Spindaboy]

Final Fantasy IV -Postlude-

Introduction

This project is a continuation of The After Years, the sequel to the original Final Fantasy IV. It is a mostly story driven hack that explores the lives of the characters as depicted during the ending of TAY. The game play is very lax as more focus has been directed towards further developing the characters. It is designed to be accessible to all players and thus the difficulty is not exaggerated.

Story

The hack begins immediately where the end credits of The After Years left off. Ceodore, Kain, Cid, and Luca are bound for Damcyan to begin restoring the world following the near apocalypse. The hack follows Ceodore as the main protagonist, however many other characters play their own part in the story such as Ursula becoming more independent in her training and Leonora finally following her dream of becoming a Sage. Emphasis is especially placed upon characters introduced in TAY who have yet to receive the personal development they deserve.

Features

• 13 playable characters from both Final Fantasy IV and The After Years
• Updated battle, overworld, and menu character sprites
• Newly added Weapons, Armor, and Magic introduced in The After Years
• An enhanced translation that more closely resembles modern day terms
• Areas restored to reflect their appearance as seen in The After Years
• A post-game Challenge Dungeon designed for veteran players

Screenshots

Download

-Available Now!-
Download version 0.1.0 by clicking here!
Note: This will be updated periodically as more progress is made so check back frequently for updates. 

Credits

Original Hacking - Spindaboy
Character Portraits - Takfloyd

[Spindaboy]

[Update #1] - 8/20/2017
I haven't been online as much the last few days as I'm finishing moving into college, however I've still found time to work on the hack! The story is now playable for up to about 1 1/2 hours (depending on if you decide to pay a visit to the now optional  Underground Waterway). Progress is coming along at a steady pace, but I'm reluctant to release the first version publicly until I (1) Create the menu portraits (really struggling with that) and (2) Perfect the way the battle sprites are assembled.

Until then please let me know what you think of it so far! Hopefully next update will bring about the initial release.

[Spindaboy]

[Update #2] - 8/24/2017
The first release is out! About 1/3 of the hack is complete as of now. Please please please leave feedback. I won't know what anyone thinks of it if no one speaks up!

Download ----> Here.

[Grimoire LD]

Always glad to see FFIV getting some attention now and again, this looks promising. Unfortunately Slickproductions traffic may be... less than optima (I'm admittedly part of the problem on that) l to get feedback. I would suggest also posting on romhacking.net, I'll try this out when I get home from class though. I feel I'm one of the few who appreciated FFIV:TAY.

[Squall]

Its good to see you back, Grimoire LD ^_^

BTW you have a post in RHDN about having so much knowledge/notes on 3 games (FF4 in particular) but you don't have a knowledge to code ... so I wonder do you have a specific project in mind or ...?

[Grimoire LD]

Thanks Squall! Yes, my most intimate knowledge of hacking is on Zelda 64, FFIV, and the original dot hack series. I've even made significant amount of tools for the dot hack games with the versatile Nitemare Engine. Though since I know how to make things with the Nitemare Engine I can probably make supplementary tools for a bunch of things now, within limits, of course.

I'm currently finishing up my Bachlor's Degree (last semester!) but what divided my interest so much during the tail-end of summer, FFXII: The Zodiac Age came out and I spent much of July and August playing through that (and loving it!) Since things have settled down I've taken a look at some of my old notes and I do have so many incomplete projects, it is a shame.

I have a Job System that works fully, but since I was basing it on 21 new spell routines I never got around to making... yeah.


There's also Combat Boost, which is my most complete-ish hack, but I got sort of stuck with what I wanted to do with that in the Underworld (also FF4kster continued to break it because of the changes I made to Sing that whenever I saved it would write some default values into it and I could never fix that in the program so I eventually got tired of switching it back manually.)

I also have a random spell selection for the AI to use which works wonderfully akin to FF1-FFIII but again, that's using a bunch of skills that don't yet exist...

Oh! I do have a rom with just that change made, using vanilla version skills neat. I guess I could release that if I wanted to.

  Alright, let's check this out then...

Starting with the same opening, not bad. You show great respect for character immediately in having Kain as Ceodore's advisor like figure journeying with Cid and Luca. I especially like that you caught that Harley and Edward are sort of supposed to be a couple. It's not outright stated in TAY but it's a harmless assumption to make.

Wow! That was a fast opening, being dropped right next to Damcyan, let's take a look...

Whoa! Apparently levels didn't even pretend to carry over from TAY, he with Ceodore being Level 1. Though that may be a consequence of dealing with the innate level-up system. I would suggest getting in touch with the maker of FFIV shuffle if you want to change that, since he has a Level Up charact from Level 1 to max for everyone somehow.

Ah. you included the Active/Wait choice in the Options Menu, nice!

Well since you give me free reign I can in theory also check out the Waterway...

Beautiful work on these portraits and sprites! May I say! You really have a knack for this!

Nice excuse for not being able to go further in the Waterway Cavern.

One thing that is a little saddening is that neither Cid or Luca have their TAY skills. Study is... useless. Unless you did something special to it.

Nice waving of Cid's white beard when he raises his hand, great attention to detail.

These battle sprites are unreal as if they were ripped right out of TAY.

Damcyan still sounds so sad... granted this was an issue with TAY as well. Damcyan's music really should have changed to Edward's Theme, I feel.

Leather Helm for Ceodore from the treasury, always nice.

The overworld sprites also have an extra glean of polish, terrific work.

Hmm the scene with the party and Edward talking seems to have the text box completely blocking Harley and Edward... I think Chillyfeez has a patch so the modder can decide where the text box appears. I can't specifically recall though.

I think there was an extra L when Edward says that the engineers of Damcyan aren't as skilled as Cid.

I was wondering what that switch on the wall was for... I just realized it's probably the pathway leading to the Fire Crystal.

I can't see much need for a bow at the moment, but may as well pick up some armor for Luca and Ceodore.

Off to the Waterway proper then.

Alright, so Awake is Recall, hmm... would you like the MP cost removed from that?

Yikes, might want to be careful with the Waterfall room, you can see the black end of the map if you keep walking right...

That's all for now, but I'll get back to it later tonight.

[Squall]

Good luck with finishing up the study. Education is very very important, in-spite of how many people seems to neglect it! I just hope you study what you like, what you are talented in.

Yeah FF12 for PC came out this summer. I'm glad you like it, because for me after FF10 ... all is hack & slash, even the upcoming FF7 remake. There is nothing wrong with hack & slash games ... just its not what FF stands for. Somehow exceptions are different :)

Woah so many projects for so many different games ... I wish FF5 was there too :D

[Grimoire LD]

Thank you Squall, well FFXII isn't a hack-and-slash not a bit, it's a faithful translation of the ATB into a 3D Space, I'd say.

Well all of the projects are currently on hiatus, which does make me a bit regretful but it's no matter.

But Spindaboy...

Are you aware of some glitch which is making All Damage/Healing max out at 49? It's one of the strangest bugs I've seen in a hack, I doubt it was intentional, unless it was something to do with the Rom I used? Dealing only 49 damage to everything can quickly become unbearably annoying.

[Spindaboy]

Whoa! Apparently levels didn't even pretend to carry over from TAY, he with Ceodore being Level 1. Though that may be a consequence of dealing with the innate level-up system. I would suggest getting in touch with the maker of FFIV shuffle if you want to change that, since he has a Level Up charact from Level 1 to max for everyone somehow.

Yeah, I didn't really know how to explain this in the story, but it wouldn't be good gameplay wise if all the characters were between Lv. 60-70 from the very start! I'm not familiar with FFIV shuffle, but I'll look into it.

Beautiful work on these portraits and sprites! May I say! You really have a knack for this!

Thank you so much for this! The sprites are honestly the most tedious and tiring part of this hack as strange as it may sound. The Overworld sprites were made by myself (made especially difficult by the fact that several characters share a single palette), all the battle sprites were meticulously redrawn exactly as they appear in TAY complete with identical palettes, and as for the portraits I actually hired an artist familiar with TAY for those. I had to teach him how to use YY-CHR and shell out a bit of cash, but it was totally worth it in my opinion!

Nice excuse for not being able to go further in the Waterway Cavern.

Yup. I didn't want to force the player to backtrack through the Underground Waterway again after doing it so many times before, so you only have to visit the first room :) However, the player can opt to visit Kaipo and for doing so they have better equipment available to them.

One thing that is a little saddening is that neither Cid or Luca have their TAY skills. Study is... useless. Unless you did something special to it.

Unfortunately replicating TAY abilities has proven to be quite difficult thus far. Expect a lot of that to change in future updates though.

Damcyan still sounds so sad... granted this was an issue with TAY as well. Damcyan's music really should have changed to Edward's Theme, I feel.

Personally I completely agree with you. I decided to keep the theme the same only to be consistent with TAY.

Are you aware of some glitch which is making All Damage/Healing max out at 49? It's one of the strangest bugs I've seen in a hack, I doubt it was intentional, unless it was something to do with the Rom I used? Dealing only 49 damage to everything can quickly become unbearably annoying.

I can't say I've seen this issue with my ROM. I even just went back and opened it again just to check, but everything seems to be working fine for me. Did you ever figure out what the issue was?

[Grimoire LD]

I unfortunately have not. Would you be able to send me the version of the rom you're using so I can patch it correctly? The may be some sort of minor version or SRM difference which is causing issues. Honestly? From what I know of the code that "49" thing should be impossible. The game makes a specific check across many routines, unique to each routine, where damage is dealt. If the damage is above 9999 then it is set to 9999. I do not know how something like this managed to creep in.