Topic: (GBA) Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls

[Troy Lundin]

Progress: 600 of 600 (100.0%)
     FF1: 212 of 212 (100.0%)
     FF2: 388 of 388 (100.0%)

All FF2 scenes are captured. I just need to add final touches to them. Currently working on FF1. Should be done within a day or two.

Update (22 FEB): Finished capturing the scenes. Going to start polishing them tomorrow. Should take no longer than two days barring any unforeseen complications.

Update (02 MAY): Here are the scenes, complete with sprites. If someone is willing to compile them into coherent maps, let me know.
                 [Scenes] Final Fantasy - Dawn of Souls

[JonLeung]

Hey, good stuff!  Lately it seems like we've been getting more RPGs tackled, and you know I love those!

It always annoyed me that here on VGMaps, we've only had maps of FF II for Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn Of Souls on the GBA, but only the Overworld and Hellfire Chasm for the first FF.  (Similarly, Dragon Warrior I & II on the GBC only has the first game mapped.)  Feels like it's only half-done.

On a side note, if it were up to me, I think Square-Enix should have included FF III on there.  Get the whole Famicom (NES) trilogy on one cart.  Things are better in threes.  Heck, put FF I-III on a single cartridge on the GBA (the NES trilogy), FF IV-VI on the DS (the Super NES trilogy), and FF VII-IX on the Wii (the PSX trilogy).  In each case, the number of face buttons is the same (plus, the GBA gains shoulder buttons over the NES, the DS gains a touch/second screen over the Super NES) though such a Wii compilation would require the Classic Controller, but no big deal.

Then if you were using a DS or DS Lite which still have the GBA slot, and you had the NES trilogy in the GBA slot, the Super NES trilogy in the DS slot, and wirelessly connected to the Wii with the PSX trilogy in it, and you had all nine games completed, you could unlock something...yeah, wouldn't that be something?  I could actually see FF fans going nuts for something like that, and some would actually play through all of those games, even if the reward for playing all nine was minor, though for 9 x dozens of hours each, you'd hope it wasn't something small.  Technically, such a setup would probably have to have the DS read off the GBA cart first before connecting to the Wii, but it's certainly more technically possible than any other combination of three different machines by the same company.  And when all three were still viable platforms, there was a rare window of opportunity there, because how often are there three at once?

But even without the connection I still think that would have been a better idea to package their trilogies this way than the strange re-release "pattern" that Square-Enix has going on...

Anyway, wow, I digress.  Talk about a tangent. 

When you do complete these FF I & II maps, I'll be excited, as I always am with fully-mapped big-name RPGs.

[Trop]

Aww damn it!  I knew I was taking too long.  Other then the index this is the most viewed page on my site:
http://www.vgmapper.com/SysGBA/F/FinalFantasy1and2DawnofSouls.html
Since people seemed to like it so much I'd been working on a project to fully map both games.  But I got distracted with so many other projects.  Oh well.  My big thing here was making my custom sprite and background maps and at least I've never seen anybody else try anything like that.

[Troy Lundin]

Don't worry, I am only capturing scenes. You can still compile and mark them if you want.

Also, I noticed that the World Map on the site you linked (along with the one on this site) is incorrect. The actual one is 4096x4096 pixels and the positioning is different. I guess you could only know this if you were using the in-game co-ordinates. Here is a pixel-perfect version of the World Map.

[Troy Lundin]

Up to 116 scenes captured. Slow day and the game isn't making it easy for me.

[Troy Lundin]

Found a nice, easy way to capture the (not so) random scenes in the Soul of Chaos.

There is a spot in memory that hold all the information for the Soul of Chaos when you enter one of the areas. It holds all the areas you will visit as well as the treasure in those areas. The process was simple. I saved a state right next to a set of stairs in the Soul of Chaos. This allows me to quickly reset my position. I then change the ID of the next area that I would visit. Now, when I enter the stairs, the game loads the area of the ID I input. Some of the areas aren't working this way.

In most games I can simply freeze the area ID then enter a door and the game will load the area I chose. This game does that but it also freezes the screen so I can't capture the new area. The above method is the only shortcut I have found.

Up to 136 scenes captured.

[Troy Lundin]

Finished capturing all the scenes in FF1. Now, I just need to polish them and they will be finished.

I would like to give some insight into the Soul of Chaos.

Let's say you enter Earthgift Shrine, the smallest of the four dungeons. The game will pick four of the possible Earthgift Shrine areas and give them to you in a random order. The fifth floor is always the boss. Now, this sort of randomness could drive any sane cartographer insane in a short amount of time. But, that's not all.

Each area you enter can have up to ten chests. Not all areas are capable of yielding ten chests. Now comes the fun part. The game will randomly choose which chests show up. So, not only do you have to deal with a randomly picked area but you also have to cope with randomly chosen chests. This is downright rude.

But, there is a way to make this super easy. Use your everyday memory manipulation skills to force the game to give you the area you want as well as any chests you choose! As I explained in my previous post, there is a byte in memory that holds the ID of the next area you will get. There are two bytes that hold which chests will be shown. Set that to 0xFFFF and your set. Every chest that can possibly show will now be shown. Without this method I don't see how you could possibly capture these areas in any reasonable amount of time.

Edit: Update to show that chest maximum was ten instead of eight. I had to go back over all the Soul of Chaos maps to capture any treasures that may have been missed.

[Troy Lundin]

New discoveries have me going back over all the FF2 scenes to add sprites. Shouldn't take more than a day or two.

[Troy Lundin]

Finished all the scenes. Link in the original post.

Would be great if someone could compile them into coherent maps.

[Trop]

Hmmm.  I suppose if I was full on cheating, LV99, no random battles, it wouldn't take too long.  What the hell I'll look into it.

[Troy Lundin]

Thanks, Trop. I included a list of names for each set of scenes. I just used the names on the status screen. Any names in parentheses are my own. Some may be from other places, I can't be sure.

Also, the memory location for the map IDs is 020029C4. It's 16-bits.

[Trop]

OK I just now starter on this.  What took me so long?  Grandia!  After ages I finally got everything I need to rip the soundtrack to Grandia.  It's going well and I'm getting about 10 songs a day, along with voice rips, but since it will be my top priority for a while progress on this project will be slow.

I had intended to do this somewhat like Mystic Ark but I thought I'd ask what you prefer.  I could link all doors/passages with letters or I could just place rooms near each other if they are connected.  Treasure boxes will be marked with original game text.  As for the world map all I'm planning now is to label towns and dungeons.  So now's a good time for requests and such.

[Troy Lundin]

Using letters would be fine. It doesn't matter much to me. All I wanted to do was rip the scenes, which I did. I just need someone to compile them into a format compatible with this website. I have tried to compile scenes into a proper map, but my OCD does not allow me to be happy with the result. So, I ask to wonderfully talented community to do it for me.

So, in a roundabout way, I am saying just use your best judgement. Compile it as you would if you had ripped the scenes. Enjoy.

[Trop]

This is how they'll look then.  What do you think?

[Troy Lundin]

This is how they'll look then.  What do you think?
http://www.vgmapper.com/Tank/semitt%20falls.bmp

Holy bitmap load time!

Looks fine to me. It was fun capturing all the monster trap rooms.