Topic: FF II: A Threat from Within - Expanded ROM = New Features!

[chillyfeez]

Well, last time I tried this (about a week ago or so) I only got to Agart before wiping and realizing I forgot to save so I got discouraged. I'll be more careful this time and actually pick up mercenaries.

I like the addition of Ninja "scrolls" in the Item Shop, allows the player some early elemental magic at a cost.

At some point, I'll set down and put in an actual scroll icon. I won't be using tails at all, so that was an easy placeholder.

Oh I see, Imp Hit does actually work properly. Is it based on Level like FFV? Or is it just a low% chance of working?

It's based on the difference between caster's level and target level, meaning it will consistently do medium fdamage when used on the player. When Kella gets to acquire it later on, it will pretty much only be useful on bosses, because they don't level down.

Geez, I can't believe it took me this long to realize that the four minions of Ifrit are the optional summons of FFIV! It makes the Roc's name as "Dummy" make Perfect sense.

Um, wow... Welcome to the party ;)

I like the idea of the Ninja Limit Break, but I feel it needs some graphical indication of some kind. Otherwise it does just seem like a normal attack despite it hasting everyone and slowing the foe.

Good point. Suggestions about what to do with it?

Whoa, stole a couple of Bomb-Arms from the Water Bugs! While not very useful against Ifrit they would definitely be useful against Shiva.

I actually finally just changed the encounters in Agart. Those water bugs won't be there anymore. They were never intended to be permanent. You'll only get to fight the low-level grasslands Overworld monsters in Agart.

This does remind me, I really wish we could find a way to make the colors from events stay after the menu is accessed but as the screen seems to be redrawn that may be a bit much to ask for.

Agree, but I can't wrap my head around the logistics of how we could make that work. NIR do I really understand what makes the screen red to begin with.

Ice Kunai seemed more effective than Ifrit than they had in previous versions. All in all it felt like the battle was more fast paced. The inability to get infinite Ice Kunai from the Summons makes him a trickier foe to deal with, a very well planned first boss.

Yeah, I upped the power of the kunai a bit. The strength didn't really carry over well once you start fighting tougher baddies.

I noticed that Corio's telescope is still standing. I assume that will not be in the final version and those tiles will be put to something else that isn't a one screen telescope?

You know, I'm sure that was my original intention, hence the line, "the telescope's been dismantled," but so far I haven't needed those tiles for anything. A bridge to cross when I come to it, I guess...

Um... when you talk to the Innkeeper in Agart he asks "Do you have permission?" Yes/No get the same result of "He drinks me under the table, but he's a good guy." which is speech from another NPC in the Inn. I am not sure if this is new or has been here since the start.

This run I think I will go 2x Ninja all the way through obeying orders as they come up.

I just noticed that this kid in Agart talks about joining REMA. The only muscle of it we see in the game is Furio. Do we ever meet any of the other leaders or soldiers of REMA?

In the Eblan training room, but that's about it. By the time you're done in Mysidia, I think Edge has determined that the state of affairs is too serious to send regular-old mercenaries out, but it's not really addressed formally.

Oh man, I have to say playing through this again makes me fall in love with your style of writing every single time. Also, not sure if I said this a long time ago but I just realized that Palom's change of appearance even from FF4:TAY is a reference to FFI's Black Wizard class. Neat!

The Elemental Rings are still around, hmm? I thought they were going to be moved? Then again I may be thinking of something else all together.

You and I talked about it, and the decision was that as long as elemental monsters still had a chance to kill the player, then their presence was passable... The situation will be under ongoing review, though...

Seems as if the Witch was updated. With an automatic back-attack she deals around 3400 damage with Ice-2 and uses some nasty statuses. It would appear as if the Frozen Ring is a nigh necessity to beat her now.

Well, I sold the RubyRing, a Tent, a Dagger, and two Bomb-Arms to buy the Frozen Ring and indeed it worked great against her. Here's a fun little "pro-strategy", if you go in with the Mute status from the Mute Gal you can't be hit with Bind.

Onto Mt. Ordeals! Two Ninjas should be an interesting trek. No Claws to help along the way this time though.

Well! Looks as if the Weak to Air - Float status is working properly!

It seems like the Raven's Quake spell isn't 100% Accurate, thank goodness!

The Raven is definitely much tougher, at Level 16 for Blank and 13 for Furio I ended up losing. Another case of Mute preventing a Status, thus it became tougher to keep the person on the ground alive. Ultimately it's better to take the heavier Wind damage instead of risking the insta-kill Quake.

All of the above should be addressed with the mute-immunity problem...

Getting up to the Summit if you actually fight battles feels like a proper journey, using a good amount of supplies along the way.

Was the Cure Rod always this expensive? Maybe it has an upgraded effect if it costs this much.

Wow, the Cure Rod is indeed, good. 400+ HP Heal!

There's a free one on the Highwind Pass that will be nearly essential to survival

I also picked up a Coral Ring with the last bit of my money.

On the way back to Mt. Ordeals I ran into two FloatEyes that were dealing upwards of 160-200 damage, they gave me 20 GP and 70 Exp. Balancing these things in a dynamic level up system must be a nightmare I imagine.

Yeah. I'm not 100% happy with the exp distribution of leveled-up "weak" monsters, but by the time you gain a few levels, you are also fighting more monsters with better rewards, so they're really only there for the challenge.

Yikes! Did I make a mess of that battle. I attacked Ramuh consistently as he powered up Shiva and he even got through a Cure-Z once. Second time around I took him out and was left with a vastly powerful Shiva. Northern Cross killed everyone but the Frozen Ring wearer Blank, down to 2 Life Potions I used one on Palom and Porom. Palom dealt a bit more damage with Fire-2 while Porom healed him once, using the Ether 1's as it happened. Blank was dealing 1 damage to Shiva at this point, then I remembered I had a Bomb-Arm that I hadn't sold and exactly 4 Fire Kunai. The Frozen Ring does make you nigh invulnerable for that section of the fight, but at 1 damage it seemed like it was going to be a while before it would be over. But with the last throw of a Fire Kunai, it was lights out for Shiva!

It's meant to nudge you in the direction of taking out Shiva first, but I'm glad it's still possible the other way around

4000 Gil... may as well pick up the Burning Ring for good measure.

Um... when the Sailor heals the party, he brought back Furio with 0 HP. Talking to him again brought his HP to full. May that deal something with the order of commands are in the event? I imagine it's probably "Heal HP" than "Remove Status" instead of vice versa.

Hmm, what do Goggles do anyhow? I'm sure I asked this before... likely prevent Blind, but that doesn't seem worth the trade off of Wisdom/Will for the Gaea Hat or the Strength loss on the Headband.

Well, unless I've erred, you only have one headband. And this is a status-heavy battle...

I should've bought more Heals, I forgot how Status heavy this fight becomes.

Is it realistically possible to defeat the Tentacles without Palom and Porom? I recall you mentioning that you get a rather nice reward if you do beat the Tentacles rather than having them retreat.

Yes. As a matter of fact, P/P provide very little benefit beyond healing. The tentacles use an invisible full-cure ehren hit by Palom's magic. The real key is a strong non-Palom lightning assault.

A slight oversight perhaps, you still have the GP Bag after delivering it to Edge once you get back from Mysidia.

I never did get into that cave in Baron, I should see if I can't catch a Chocobo, though it's getting rather late tonight so I'll get Ceodore and resume tomorrow.

Hands-down the best prize you can find in the game up to that point.

I love the Dragoon Hall, I know I said it last time, but it bears repeating. It feels like a legitimate piece of FFIV lore.

Ahem...! Uh, you might want to take a look at this...

EDIT: Is running into Imps supposed to happen in the Town of Baron? Every step on the grass is a battle with 3 Imps.

Last time I played I must not have gone into Cid's old place. I rather like this characterization for Mid and judging by his wife's speech it seems he may be important later on.

Unless I endure 60+ Battles on the way there I can't really get the treasure behind Baron, ah well. It's not a big loss.


Heh, that Dragoon saying "want to play cards?" reminded me of Triple Triad, I can imagine how difficult that would be to program into FFIV, hehe.

It's my dream to eventually put in a card game, but the full version 1 has to be completed first. The ROM will almost definitely need to be expanded, which would break FF4kster compatibility.
Even still, I have no plans or ideas how I would make it work...

I forgot how brutal Ceodore was by throwing your partner down the stairs!

He does show shades of a tender side up on the Highwind Pass, but mostly he's meant to be kind of an asshole. Sort of I'm!portant to the story, as I think you know.

[Grimoire LD]

Good point. Suggestions about what to do with it?

Hmm, maybe a graphics call of Haste on the party and Slow on the enemy? Or perhaps a Lit-1 graphic hitting the party to show higher speed? It's a difficult thing to show since it's a dual effect in a system that doesn't naturally use such things.

You and I talked about it, and the decision was that as long as elemental monsters still had a chance to kill the player, then their presence was passable... The situation will be under ongoing review, though...

That's true and as the game has gone on I've seen where these rings seem all but essential to access some side content or to defeat bosses that you aren't meant to defeat in such manners. It's fair for now then.

Well, unless I've erred, you only have one headband. And this is a status-heavy battle...

Not if you have Blank, that gives you two Headbands, heh. Blind isn't really the problem in that fight I feel. Curse is the issue at hand. Blind is moderately irritating but Curse is a "Heal Now or Die!" sort of status. It also doesn't provide much defense in any measure. Against the Gaea Hat and the Headband it seems difficult to justify its purchase.

Yes. As a matter of fact, P/P provide very little benefit beyond healing. The tentacles use an invisible full-cure ehren hit by Palom's magic. The real key is a strong non-Palom lightning assault.

With Thunder Kunai only and Lit Arrows, I assume? I'm not sure I agree with an invisible full-heal in this case, especially since there's no indication that Black Magic isn't doing anything. Wouldn't it have been more reasonable to just give them high magic defense that Palom couldn't break through indicating to the player that this plan of action can't work?

It's my dream to eventually put in a card game, but the full version 1 has to be completed first. The ROM will almost definitely need to be expanded, which would break FF4kster compatibility.
Even still, I have no plans or ideas how I would make it work...

I do wish that we could somehow change FF4kster to look at offsets rather than see what the whole rom is doing at a given time. It may be something to ask PinkPuff about down the line. I am all for mini-games in FFIV. Even with some creative thinking you could make some mini-games out of the battle system.

He does show shades of a tender side up on the Highwind Pass, but mostly he's meant to be kind of an asshole. Sort of I'm!portant to the story, as I think you know.

It's sort of refreshing to have a hero character who second-guesses the party's every move instead of blindly following along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Wow, you're able to steal Cure3's from Armadillo's in Mist Cave? Not sure if that's an oversight or reward for exploration.

It may be a glitch ZSNES, but the Mist Cave's Mist is over top the cave's graphics so it's literally a wall of mist, granted that can be easily dealt with through getting rid of that background layer.

I forgot to mention that I really like the Dark Wave animation you used for Ceodore, looks great!

This is my first time reaching Rydia with Ceodore, I rather like his addition in the dialogue and the clear idea that he prefers being called "Ceo" over "Ceodore". Nice touch!

After Ceodore says "But-!" Rydia says "Don't worry aout me."

Well, I barely survived the fight with the Mist Dragon. Am I wrong, or can you not hit it physically At All anymore? I noticed you can hit it physically while it's Mist but that has a really nasty counter attack and rather low damage for the effort. I did manage to steal the Dragon Claws though, so that will be nice. Only Rydia and Furio were left alive at the end there.

So Highwind Pass is now completable? Perfect! I'll give my full review of that in short order. First I better pick up some items though. I ran out of Life Potions in the battle with the Mist Dragon.

It seems like enemies have been much better balanced despite Rydia heavily increasing the party's level average the enemies are still reasonable to fight.

After about 15 minutes of fast-forwarding I finally caught a Chocobo! So I'll be able to see what this cave is. I'm still not sure on the wisdom of having the Chocobo be so rare, but maybe I just got really unlucky. That would have easily been 45 minutes to an hour in real time though.

...And that would be why Chocobo are so rare in these parts. 15 Speed from the Feather Ring, goodness gracious!

Hah, Chocobos can travel over the Shallows, that's likely going to be important later.

Jump Points in Highwind Pass, hmm? Neat idea.

This is an impressive map you put together here, it really shows the detail of the underwater basin map tiles!

Hmm, I assume there is no way to reach that outcropping just to the North of the cave entrance is there?

Oh hey, new music and new tileset to make the mountain Icy, nice touch!

That battle background looks great! I especially love the pink sunset.

Wow, Ice Claws from Leopards! Nice Steal indeed.

Wait a second here... how did you break one of the overriding commandments of FFIV? Thou Shalt Have the Main Character in the middle of the screen at all times? NPC versions of Furio for each screen? That's going pretty far for a cinematic effect!

And that's the game... killed by the Grenade.

I wasn't sure about this music before, but now that I see how it's being used it fits very well!

New plan give the Feather Ring to Rydia so she can hit the Grenade before it explodes.

Hmm, a FireBomb, a nice enough prize for the effort it takes with a little planning.

Another Grenade another party wipe...

So the Ghost Knight used "Absorb" which started to petrify one of my Party Members.

Well, Level 20 so Furio now has Pin, that will be useful. Did you plan on doing anything with Smoke? I'm sure you're aware it's entirely useless.

Ah great! Another Cure Staff. I did forget to take mine off of Porom when she left anyhow.

Finally, a Save Point!

You even added an icy background for in caves, it looks wonderful!

That Snow Dragon does not fool around, but he does have Ether2's to Steal. Let's get the Frozen Ring back on Rydia then.

A new sword for Ceodore, neat. But... the name "Broadsword" is a bit misleading. Broadswords in FF are normally the first weapon one gets. Since this raises Vitality and Will by 5 it should probably have something more fitting like "Knight" or "Blessed" or something of that ken.

Well! Running into Kain out of nowhere was unexpected! Considering he's dead and all.

Hmm, Kain's attacking animation looks strange, not so much Kain himself, but the Deathbringer is a fair distance away from him when he swings it... the wrong way. Also the delay between Kain landing and attacking afterwards seems a bit extreme.

Oh I see, that delay automatically is killing every living party member that's not Ceodore.

Alright, so it's not a Cecil-to-Paladin sort of deal you are expected to win...

Seems as if I'll need to put the Feather Ring on Ceodore to even keep up with Kain. This actually is a rather powerful combo with the Darkness Armor since it gives him some much needed Attack Multipliers without losing one.

We'll see if Vitality is worth the drop though.

Ah, you can inflict Blind on Kain! Nice usage of Status!

While the fight is a great idea I wonder if Kain has a little too much HP, once you inflict Blind the fight is all but a foregone conclusion and that delay in some of Kain's actions really hurts the flow of it all. Granted my Ceodore was only Level 17, maybe it's different at higher levels.

All in all, an interesting concept. I am curious if we will find out more of who would be raising the ghosts of the dead to fight on their behalf.

Ah, FFII SNES with your amazingly obvious secret passages. Probably the reason there's nothing too ground breaking in that cache.

So, that's the end of the demo. A fantastic new addition! I really liked the dungeon, but a few oddities here...

The pictures above showed another battle with Shiva along with Rydia mentioning something about her magic. Were these beta plans and had to be changed as the story demanded, or are they just not fully implemented yet?

I enjoyed all of the new content and found it to be moderately challenging all throughout!

I will be addressing your new post in an edit, but I'll post this for now.

EDIT: Post addressed!

[Bahamut ZERO]

At some point, I'll set down and put in an actual scroll icon. I won't be using tails at all, so that was an easy placeholder.

I just happened to read this while tweaking my font up a bit, so if you want I could take a crack at making one for you.

I also found a workaround for the flickering pixels  when a textbox is drawn at the bottom of the screen! Basically it's from there being pixels on the top horizontal row of a letter.

Since FF4's font letters/numbers always leave the bottom row of a letter's tile filled with the transparent color, just drag them all down one row and pow; no more flickering when looking at a bottom positioned textbox in SNESx9!

  screenshot added to show the absence of flickering. :)

[chillyfeez]

Good point. Suggestions about what to do with it?

Hmm, maybe a graphics call of Haste on the party and Slow on the enemy? Or perhaps a Lit-1 graphic hitting the party to show higher speed? It's a difficult thing to show since it's a dual effect in a system that doesn't naturally use such things.

Yeah, I'll have to look back through your notes about magic-imbued weapons to refresh my memory on how to make spell and attack animation effects together, then give some thought to a proper spell animation.

You and I talked about it, and the decision was that as long as elemental monsters still had a chance to kill the player, then their presence was passable... The situation will be under ongoing review, though...

That's true and as the game has gone on I've seen where these rings seem all but essential to access some side content or to defeat bosses that you aren't meant to defeat in such manners. It's fair for now then.

Well, unless I've erred, you only have one headband. And this is a status-heavy battle...

Not if you have Blank, that gives you two Headbands, heh. Blind isn't really the problem in that fight I feel. Curse is the issue at hand. Blind is moderately irritating but Curse is a "Heal Now or Die!" sort of status. It also doesn't provide much defense in any measure. Against the Gaea Hat and the Headband it seems difficult to justify its purchase.

Yeah... Furio is supposed to only have access to a leather cap unless you hire Blank, thus only one headband. If you started with or in some other way acquired a second one, that's a mistake. Regarding Curse against the tentacles, it doesn't happen if you refrain from using Fight on the second form (you can still dart, etc).

Yes. As a matter of fact, P/P provide very little benefit beyond healing. The tentacles use an invisible full-cure ehren hit by Palom's magic. The real key is a strong non-Palom lightning assault.

With Thunder Kunai only and Lit Arrows, I assume? I'm not sure I agree with an invisible full-heal in this case, especially since there's no indication that Black Magic isn't doing anything. Wouldn't it have been more reasonable to just give them high magic defense that Palom couldn't break through indicating to the player that this plan of action can't work?

It's kind of a "guide dang it," I admit, but given the once-only really cool prize, and the fact that all you need to do is outlast the tentacles to survive, I'm happy with it.
I find Cinna to be the best hired companion against the tentacles, as his lit spells still work.
That's also why it can't have high magic defense, I want Palom and Porom to be of little help, but not your hired sidekick. Never tried the battle with Ruby, but I can vouch for the possibility of beating the boss with a Furio/Blank party and a Furio/Cinna party.

It's my dream to eventually put in a card game, but the full version 1 has to be completed first. The ROM will almost definitely need to be expanded, which would break FF4kster compatibility.
Even still, I have no plans or ideas how I would make it work...

I do wish that we could somehow change FF4kster to look at offsets rather than see what the whole rom is doing at a given time. It may be something to ask PinkPuff about down the line. I am all for mini-games in FFIV. Even with some creative thinking you could make some mini-games out of the battle system.

He does show shades of a tender side up on the Highwind Pass, but mostly he's meant to be kind of an asshole. Sort of I'm!portant to the story, as I think you know.

It's sort of refreshing to have a hero character who second-guesses the party's every move instead of blindly following along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Wow, you're able to steal Cure3's from Armadillo's in Mist Cave? Not sure if that's an oversight or reward for exploration.

I... Can't remember. But Armadillos are the rare encounter, so I think we'll keep it.

It may be a glitch ZSNES, but the Mist Cave's Mist is over top the cave's graphics so it's literally a wall of mist, granted that can be easily dealt with through getting rid of that background layer.

I think it's an emulator thing. I had the same issue using SNES9X, then I pressed some button, which didn't make the mist go away, but did indeed make it transparent.

I forgot to mention that I really like the Dark Wave animation you used for Ceodore, looks great!

This is my first time reaching Rydia with Ceodore, I rather like his addition in the dialogue and the clear idea that he prefers being called "Ceo" over "Ceodore". Nice touch!

After Ceodore says "But-!" Rydia says "Don't worry aout me."

Oops. Putting that on the list

Well, I barely survived the fight with the Mist Dragon. Am I wrong, or can you not hit it physically At All anymore? I noticed you can hit it physically while it's Mist but that has a really nasty counter attack and rather low damage for the effort. I did manage to steal the Dragon Claws though, so that will be nice. Only Rydia and Furio were left alive at the end there.

Physical attacks should work fine against dragon form. She should also be impervious to magic once she first takes dragon form. If that's not what happens, then something is wrong.

So Highwind Pass is now completable? Perfect! I'll give my full review of that in short order. First I better pick up some items though. I ran out of Life Potions in the battle with the Mist Dragon.

It seems like enemies have been much better balanced despite Rydia heavily increasing the party's level average the enemies are still reasonable to fight.

After about 15 minutes of fast-forwarding I finally caught a Chocobo! So I'll be able to see what this cave is. I'm still not sure on the wisdom of having the Chocobo be so rare, but maybe I just got really unlucky. That would have easily been 45 minutes to an hour in real time though.

Did you know they're more plentiful in forests? About a 20% encounter rate. Fat Chocobo does say that. The easiest catch, though, is in the desert, where you face a chocobo and a single basilisk, who won't use petrify because of the chocobo.

...And that would be why Chocobo are so rare in these parts. 15 Speed from the Feather Ring, goodness gracious!

Hah, Chocobos can travel over the Shallows, that's likely going to be important later.

Jump Points in Highwind Pass, hmm? Neat idea.

This is an impressive map you put together here, it really shows the detail of the underwater basin map tiles!

Hmm, I assume there is no way to reach that outcropping just to the North of the cave entrance is there?

Well... Did you go back and talk to the Fat Chocobo after you caught a chocobo?

Oh hey, new music and new tileset to make the mountain Icy, nice touch!

That battle background looks great! I especially love the pink sunset.

Wow, Ice Claws from Leopards! Nice Steal indeed.

No more ice-weak bosses for a good long while, so at this point I figured it was OK

Wait a second here... how did you break one of the overriding commandments of FFIV? Thou Shalt Have the Main Character in the middle of the screen at all times? NPC versions of Furio for each screen? That's going pretty far for a cinematic effect!

Not just a Furio NPC on each screen, but custom ASM that forces him to your position every time you get to a jump point. To quote John Hammond in Jurassic Park, "we've spared no expense."

And that's the game... killed by the Grenade.

I wasn't sure about this music before, but now that I see how it's being used it fits very well!

New plan give the Feather Ring to Rydia so she can hit the Grenade before it explodes.

Hmm, a FireBomb, a nice enough prize for the effort it takes with a little planning.

Another Grenade another party wipe...

I might have forgotten to adjust the grenades to make them tough-but-reasonable. If you blitz them with attacks you should be able to survive the basically-inevitable (at your current level) explosion. Clearly that's not the case. Sorry...

So the Ghost Knight used "Absorb" which started to petrify one of my Party Members.

Mistake. I don't think they're supposed to do anything but fight and be undead, but I also don't remember ever writing their AI.
Whoops...

Well, Level 20 so Furio now has Pin, that will be useful. Did you plan on doing anything with Smoke? I'm sure you're aware it's entirely useless.

Um, well, I plan to take it out, but I still don't know what to put in there. Maybe I'll just nix it altogether...

Ah great! Another Cure Staff. I did forget to take mine off of Porom when she left anyhow.

Finally, a Save Point!

You even added an icy background for in caves, it looks wonderful!

That Snow Dragon does not fool around, but he does have Ether2's to Steal. Let's get the Frozen Ring back on Rydia then.

A new sword for Ceodore, neat. But... the name "Broadsword" is a bit misleading. Broadswords in FF are normally the first weapon one gets. Since this raises Vitality and Will by 5 it should probably have something more fitting like "Knight" or "Blessed" or something of that ken.

Maybe "knight," but definitely not "blessed." It's mostly just supposed to be a sword that is stronger than "steel," but not dark like "darkness."

Well! Running into Kain out of nowhere was unexpected! Considering he's dead and all.

Hmm, Kain's attacking animation looks strange, not so much Kain himself, but the Deathbringer is a fair distance away from him when he swings it... the wrong way.

Yeah, I have to research character battles a bit when I get the time. Eventually I want to make him swing a spear (and with his hand, not with the air five feet in front of him)

Also the delay between Kain landing and attacking afterwards seems a bit extreme.

Oh I see, that delay automatically is killing every living party member that's not Ceodore.

Alright, so it's not a Cecil-to-Paladin sort of deal you are expected to win...

Seems as if I'll need to put the Feather Ring on Ceodore to even keep up with Kain. This actually is a rather powerful combo with the Darkness Armor since it gives him some much needed Attack Multipliers without losing one.

We'll see if Vitality is worth the drop though.

Ah, you can inflict Blind on Kain! Nice usage of Status!

While the fight is a great idea I wonder if Kain has a little too much HP, once you inflict Blind the fight is all but a foregone conclusion and that delay in some of Kain's actions really hurts the flow of it all. Granted my Ceodore was only Level 17, maybe it's different at higher levels.

Did you know Ceo can use the cure staff? That's one important piece here. Kain has to have high HP because it is possible for Rydia to get off two elemental 3 spells before she dies. If he had less than 8000 HP or so, she would have the potential to sabotage the whole thing. Super powerful Rydia has been a huge challenge in creating this hack. I'll be really relieved once she leaves, which unfortunately doesn't happen for a good while still.

All in all, an interesting concept. I am curious if we will find out more of who would be raising the ghosts of the dead to fight on their behalf.

Oh, it's really Kain. His spirit inhabits the Pass that bears his name. It's his legacy. And he really is warning Ceo that some bad things will happen if they continue on. Of course, Kain is also a flawed character and doesn't always see the best way to achieve the greater good. None of this is explained, by the way, it's just how I conceptualize it. In the end, it's just an interesting boss fight and a nice scene. Works well to keep you scratching your head about what kind of guy Ceo really is, too.

Ah, FFII SNES with your amazingly obvious secret passages. Probably the reason there's nothing too ground breaking in that cache.

So, that's the end of the demo. A fantastic new addition! I really liked the dungeon, but a few oddities here...

The pictures above showed another battle with Shiva along with Rydia mentioning something about her magic. Were these beta plans and had to be changed as the story demanded, or are they just not fully implemented yet?

OK, something went seriously wrong here. Clearly you were able to use magic throughout the Highwind Pass, hence your reliance on Rydia despite not having won the Scourge whip from the tentacles.
When you get to the first snowy screen in the dungeon, there should be a conversation where all the characters notice that their magic is being blocked. That same event turns on the flag that blocks magic use, both in and out of battle. I will have to look into why that event never took place.
Regarding the Shiva battle, it's still there, but only if you make the choice on Mt Ordeals that does not result in fighting her there. If you defeat Shiva on the Highwind Pass, it breaks the magic seal, but, then you'll never be able to acquire the Shiva summon later on if/when Furio becomes the Mystic. It's one epic choice early on that functions as a linchpin for a lot of things.

[chillyfeez]

At some point, I'll set down and put in an actual scroll icon. I won't be using tails at all, so that was an easy placeholder.

I just happened to read this while tweaking my font up a bit, so if you want I could take a crack at making one for you.

I also found a workaround for the flickering pixels  when a textbox is drawn at the bottom of the screen! Basically it's from there being pixels on the top horizontal row of a letter.

Since FF4's font letters/numbers always leave the bottom row of a letter's tile filled with the transparent color, just drag them all down one row and pow; no more flickering when looking at a bottom positioned textbox in SNESx9!

  screenshot added to show the absence of flickering. :)

BZ, that's a fantastic find - nice work!

And yeah, if you want to cook up a scroll icon, I'll definitely use it.

[Grimoire LD]

Yeah... Furio is supposed to only have access to a leather cap unless you hire Blank, thus only one headband. If you started with or in some other way acquired a second one, that's a mistake. Regarding Curse against the tentacles, it doesn't happen if you refrain from using Fight on the second form (you can still dart, etc).

That's important to keep in mind. But as for Furio he started with a Headband for me. If he hadn't than the Goggles would have been a better option all around.

It's kind of a "guide dang it," I admit, but given the once-only really cool prize, and the fact that all you need to do is outlast the tentacles to survive, I'm happy with it.
I find Cinna to be the best hired companion against the tentacles, as his lit spells still work.
That's also why it can't have high magic defense, I want Palom and Porom to be of little help, but not your hired sidekick. Never tried the battle with Ruby, but I can vouch for the possibility of beating the boss with a Furio/Blank party and a Furio/Cinna party.

That is admittedly difficult to conceptualize why one Mage's magic would work and the other's would heal the being. Unless maybe the monster was expecting to run into the Twins hence why they are mostly useless against it.

Physical attacks should work fine against dragon form. She should also be impervious to magic once she first takes dragon form. If that's not what happens, then something is wrong.

She seemed to be impervious to both Physical and Magical when she was in her Dragon form. She could be hit by Physical Attacks in her Mist form which brought a counter attack.

Did you know they're more plentiful in forests? About a 20% encounter rate. Fat Chocobo does say that. The easiest catch, though, is in the desert, where you face a chocobo and a single basilisk, who won't use petrify because of the chocobo.

I expected that there were more in the forest, but I couldn't beat the two Old Trees before the Chocobo got a turn and ran away.

Well... Did you go back and talk to the Fat Chocobo after you caught a chocobo?

That completely skipped my mind! Thankfully I had a save right outside the Highwind Pass.

Not just a Furio NPC on each screen, but custom ASM that forces him to your position every time you get to a jump point. To quote John Hammond in Jurassic Park, "we've spared no expense."

That's a really impressive piece of work then!

I might have forgotten to adjust the grenades to make them tough-but-reasonable. If you blitz them with attacks you should be able to survive the basically-inevitable (at your current level) explosion. Clearly that's not the case. Sorry...[/quote]

My Levels were around 18-20. Furio and Blank could hardly get in an attack each before it Self-Destructed dealing 1600 to all of my party members. Heaven knows how I would have survived it if the Magic seal you mention later had been put up.

Um, well, I plan to take it out, but I still don't know what to put in there. Maybe I'll just nix it altogether...

Maybe have it Poison all foes or something? It could give it some utility and Poison is an underused status all together in FFIV.

Yeah, I have to research character battles a bit when I get the time. Eventually I want to make him swing a spear (and with his hand, not with the air five feet in front of him)

Don't forget I put together a lot of that information, I believe in my thread. I'll check for it...
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1883.msg22449#msg22449

Did you know Ceo can use the cure staff? That's one important piece here. Kain has to have high HP because it is possible for Rydia to get off two elemental 3 spells before she dies. If he had less than 8000 HP or so, she would have the potential to sabotage the whole thing. Super powerful Rydia has been a huge challenge in creating this hack. I'll be really relieved once she leaves, which unfortunately doesn't happen for a good while still.

Hmm, why not have Kain be Invincible until the rest of the party is dead? That way you wouldn't have to worry about that and the fight wouldn't go on forever. Instead of that "kill everyone" effect taking up a fair amount of time, you could put in some custom ASM to assure that if anyone dies in that battle they become Zombified, thereby preventing revival.

Oh, it's really Kain. His spirit inhabits the Pass that bears his name. It's his legacy. And he really is warning Ceo that some bad things will happen if they continue on. Of course, Kain is also a flawed character and doesn't always see the best way to achieve the greater good. None of this is explained, by the way, it's just how I conceptualize it. In the end, it's just an interesting boss fight and a nice scene. Works well to keep you scratching your head about what kind of guy Ceo really is, too.

Maybe I'm not recalling right but doesn't Kain say something like "Ceo, stop the..." and then trails off? A more concrete warning to two of his former allies may be called for.

OK, something went seriously wrong here. Clearly you were able to use magic throughout the Highwind Pass, hence your reliance on Rydia despite not having won the Scourge whip from the tentacles.
When you get to the first snowy screen in the dungeon, there should be a conversation where all the characters notice that their magic is being blocked. That same event turns on the flag that blocks magic use, both in and out of battle. I will have to look into why that event never took place.
Regarding the Shiva battle, it's still there, but only if you make the choice on Mt Ordeals that does not result in fighting her there. If you defeat Shiva on the Highwind Pass, it breaks the magic seal, but, then you'll never be able to acquire the Shiva summon later on if/when Furio becomes the Mystic. It's one epic choice early on that functions as a linchpin for a lot of things.

Yikes! Did look like something broke down there. Interesting use of the Epic Choice system! I'll need to keep an eye out for that when I tackle it with another mercenary. Though is the seal not activating because the Shiva battle has already happened on Mt. Ordeals?

Alright! So interesting way of showing the way to the Chocobo Haven! A nice bit of lore and items strewn about. I'll try out the time trials for myself and see how they go.

600 GP, a fair price considering the prizes.

So if I understand this right your Chocobo count is dependent on Region and the more Chocobos you have saved, the more rewards open up at the Time Trials?

Well I lost the first time, but there's some neat things in play here already! The hidden Speed Power-up is a great idea! I'm wondering if there's anything more that can be down with that concept for this?

Some shortcuts I found the second time around, awesome. Managed to win and got 2nd Place prize (Cure3) with 7 seconds left. Wondering how much time left on the clock is needed to get 1st?

Whew! 26 Seconds left on the clock! That was an amazing run! I got an Ether 2 for that! That's not even on the prize list!

This is such a great idea and I cannot wait to see more things like this implemented!

[chillyfeez]

Palom's magic works against the tentacles, it's just impossible to kill them if you use it. The full cure is completely invisible to the player. It's the one that Zeromus uses. So there's no need to explain why Palom's magic doesn't work.

I clearly did not do enough play testing before I put this patch up. Sorry that this run made more of a guinea pig of you than a tester. I promise to always play through the full thing once before I release any more updates.

As for the chocobo trials... Essentially, the more chocobos you catch, the better the prizes are, with four tiers altogether - the highest being for 100+ chocobos caught. As it stands now, it's the same course, just better prizes, but theatre's no reason I can't make things slightly harder for the higher tiers. I just haven't done it yet. There will be one entirely separate course that will only be available if you catch 100 chocobos and get the black chocobo. But that's way down the road.
So tell me... How in the world did you finish with 27 seconds left?! The best I've ever done is 8 seconds left. I'm pretty sure the assembly doesn't even figure 27 is possible, hence you obtaining an "impossible" reward. There's always a bit of chance involved, but you can get the top prize as long as you finish with at least six seconds left. Clearly I also need to work in a fix that prevents overflow if people are way too good at the game!

Regarding Kain... Those are good ideas. Does the zombie bit prevent revival in ffiv? I know revival kills a "living" zombie if it's not immune to KO, but I didn't know it would prevent the revival of a "dead" zombie. And it shouldn't be too hard to make him start off invincible... I think I will try that out. The long pause bugged me, too, but I was resigned to it.
I didn't know you had done a lot of research on character battles. I will have to read over your notes.

He should say:
Ceo...
... Listen to me.
You must not let them go on.
The results may be...
...catastrophic...

And he is right. There will be some bad stuff that wouldn't have happened if they turned back, but mostly it's just one of those events that takes place in a video game that doesn't fully make sense, but you (hopefully) accept it because deep down, you knew there had to be a boss there.

[Grimoire LD]

I got a really lucky race, every Chocobo moved out of my way at the exact right time after I picked up the Speed Up, and I obviously used the shortcut to shave off a couple of seconds.

Zombie bit does indeed prevent Revive. Remember Dark Omen in Combat Boost? That turns Cecil into a Zombie and makes him unrevivable because the game looks to Kill the Unit rather than Revive, even if they're already dead.

As for Kain's lines I misread what "let them go on" meant. I thought it was referring to letting the Eidolons go on with their plans (hence my skewed memory on what he had said). I didn't think for a second it was referring to the party. I do like the foreboding sense of that much more now, I had believed it was the generic "Stop bad guys, or bad things will happen..." but now knowing that it's "You must all turn back to prevent catastrophe" is much more powerful.

[chillyfeez]

Ah, so maybe I'll change it to "you must turn back... Or the results may be... Catastrophic."
That will hopefully avoid confusion there.

[Grimoire LD]

I like that, while it loses the otherness which Ceodore represents, (hence the original reference to "them" I imagine) it's difficult to phrase otherwise without sounding ambiguous. Though if you can think of a way to include this sense that Kain has more faith in Ceodore than in Rydia and Furio (which again, I assume from the original "cannot let them go on") that could be worth a look.

[chillyfeez]

Mmmm... Also a good point. Well, I'll think on it a bit. Obviously I have more pressing matters to attend to first, anyway.
Thanks for the insights.

[chillyfeez]

So, I don't get encounters in Baron or pots where there should be water...
Is it possible you patched an already-edited ROM?

Also,
Darkness Armor
Def: 11
EV/M.Def/M.EV: 0
Str: +5
Agi/Vit/Wis/Will: -5
Resistant to Dark element

Iron Armor
Def: 8
M.Def: 2
Ev/M.Ev: 0
Str/Agi/Vit/Wis/Will: 0

You understand the benefits/drawbacks of stat bonuses/penalties better than I do. Does that not make Darkness armor worth having?

 
Eh, I just compared... At level 18, Ceo gets one attack point, attack multiplier remains the same, loses a defense multiplier, loses a magic defense multiplier, loses two magic defense points, loses two magic defense percentage points, and obviously would be slower with the Darkness armor equipped vs. the Iron armor.
So, yeah, maybe what I'll do is go +3 str, 0 everything else.

Jeez, I had Grenade's speed set to 28-31. That is way higher than intended.

[Grimoire LD]

So, I don't get encounters in Baron or pots where there should be water...
Is it possible you patched an already-edited ROM?

That is a very real possibility. I had recalled that pot glitch a long time ago in one of my test roms, but I had thought I used a clean rom? I guess not. Thankfully that (and maybe the Highwind events not activating right) seemed to be the only issue.

Also,
Darkness Armor
Def: 11
EV/M.Def/M.EV: 0
Str: +5
Agi/Vit/Wis/Will: -5
Resistant to Dark element

Iron Armor
Def: 8
M.Def: 2
Ev/M.Ev: 0
Str/Agi/Vit/Wis/Will: 0

You understand the benefits/drawbacks of stat bonuses/penalties better than I do. Does that not make Darkness armor worth having?

 
Eh, I just compared... At level 18, Ceo gets one attack point, attack multiplier remains the same, loses a defense multiplier, loses a magic defense multiplier, loses two magic defense points, loses two magic defense percentage points, and obviously would be slower with the Darkness armor equipped vs. the Iron armor.
So, yeah, maybe what I'll do is go +3 str, 0 everything else.

Jeez, I had Grenade's speed set to 28-31. That is way higher than intended.

I do wish we could find a way to make FFIV less stringent with its Bonus Stat system. That you Have to have it be +3/0, +5/0 +5/-5, +5/-10, +10/0, +10/-10, +15/0, +15/-15 seems far too constricting. I know Kea did something like this for FFIV Advance, but that has a lot more free space than FFIV does. Granted I have marked several enormous open spaces in the ROM that might accommodate a more open bonus system.

Also yes, seems like Grenade's initial speed wasn't altered, hehe.

[chillyfeez]

I figured out the Highwind events thing. The event only runs if "magic-proof Highwind pass" and "defeated Shiva" flags are both clear, but if you defeat Shiva on Ordeals, then "defeated Shiva" gets set. There needs to be separate flags for "defeated Shiva on mt. Ordeals" and "defeated Shiva on Highwind pass."

[cardunmax]

Does something happen if you do not fight Shiva at all?   Or does something block you until you actually face her?