- FF5Spoof v1.10 -Help support the - By: Tzepish anti-ASCII art tzepish at gmail dot com movement! ******************************************************************************* A.) Basic Info * ff5spoofv1.10.zip should contain the following: - ff5spoofv1.10.txt: The file you are reading right now, this very second. If this file is missing from the archive, well... - ff5spoofv1.10_header.ips: - ff5spoofv1.10_no_header.ips: The actual patch files. Use a tool like Lunar IPS to apply it to a JAPANESE FF5 ROM that has *NOT BEEN PATCHED* with anything else. Not RPGe's translation, not J121's GBA script port, not anything! If you apply this patch to a translated ROM, or a modified ROM, or an entirely different ROM, or an entirely different file, I have no idea what will happen, so just don't do it. Also, make sure to use the _header patch if your FF5 ROM has a 512 byte header, otherwise use the _no_header patch. If you aren't sure which patch to use, check the file size of your ROM by right-clicking on it and selecting Properties. If your ROM is... * 2,097,664 bytes -> use ff5spoofv1.10_header.ips * 2,097,152 bytes -> use ff5spoofv1.10_no_header.ips ******************************************************************************* B.) Readme Contents A.) Basic Info B.) Readme Contents C.) FF5Spoof Backstory D.) FF5Spoof's First Full Release E.) What's new in v1.10? F.) What else is changed? G.) Additional Credits and Thanks H.) How legal is this? I.) The Disclaimer! J.) The End... or The Beginning? ******************************************************************************* C.) FF5Spoof Backstory Welcome to the world of FF5Spoof! Yes, this is a comedy hack of Final Fantasy 5, and no, it isn't lame (I hope). This hack's biggest feature is that (unlike many other "spoofs") it isn't filled with juvenile humor! What follows is a history of this project, but in effect, it is a history of all RPG spoof hacks in general. If you aren't interested in all this, feel free to skip to the next section, which contains more information on the spoof itself, rather than its history. Our tale begins in the dark ages of SNES ROM hacking. The Playstation just came out. The internet was just coming out of its early adoption phase. I was 15. Back then, we didn't have fancy "table files" and the inner workings of SNES pointer tables were still mostly a mystery. I would spend hours tweaking and fixing various SNES games with a hex editor - pages and pages of hand-written hex notes littered my work space. Then, I would simply delete my work. "That was fun!" I'd think to myself as I moved on to the next experiment. I didn't have a concept of "projects" or patch files, and I had never intended to do anything long term. That is, until I found zophar.net and learned what a "ROM Hack" was. Shortly thereafter I found a website called "Bad SNES Spoofs", which specialized in SNES Spoofs of dubious quality... or so they'd have you believe. In truth, these spoofs really were the first and greatest of a long line of RPG spoofs that, as many of you are aware, would end in ruin. Before "Spoofs" had become synonymous with the dregs of ROM hacking, the ROM hackers of Bad SNES Spoofs toiled away at writing actual comedy. It was not long before I decided I wanted to join the team, and so I emailed them asking for membership. Long story short, I was told to pick a SNES RPG and get to spoofing. I chose Final Fantasy 5 because it always annoyed me, and I had no nostalgia for it whatsoever. Spending hundreds of hours in its guts, however, gave me a new appreciation for it. Writing the first few scenes was an exercise in painful euphoria. Though I loved what I was doing, the methodology was meticulous and headache- inducing. Without pointer tables I was extremely limited: each scene took about five hours of writing/brainstorming. I believe it may have been for this reason that I ended up taking the easy way out. With my creativity held tightly in check, I ended up filling the dialogue windows with crude humor. At the time it was still funny, because the novelty of seeing swear words and such in an SNES game hadn't gotten old yet. But if I could have seen into the future, I would have made a different choice. In time, hex editors that utilized table files became widely available, and then, premade table files themselves. Not long after that, dialogue editors and entire game editors had become available. Suddenly, it no longer required any effort or knowledge to become a ROM hacker. Dozens of teenagers discovered the joy of making SNES characters swear, each less clever than the last. A flood of crappy "spoofs" started appearing, and Bad SNES Spoofs was starting to suffocate. Their first hack was called "FF6Spoof" - because that's all they had to call it. Little did they know that they'd be competing with a landslide of Final Fantasy 6 "spoofs". I think we had all become pretty discouraged. Bad SNES Spoofs was eventually no more. I quit FF5Spoof and began working on other small projects for a while. I watched the crappy spoof hacks roll in, none more than 30% complete, none more than 30% funny. The community reaction to the word "spoof" became almost universally negative, even to those who had never attempted playing one. It was quite sad, in truth, because the idea of a videogame parody is a viable one, but it seemed as though a good, well-written spoof was doomed to never happen. At some point, after running all these thoughts through my head, I decided that FF5Spoof was worth completing after all - I'd just have to start over. And I'd have to set goals for myself to ensure that I did not fall into the same traps as I had before; the same traps that nearly all RPG spoofs have fallen into since. ******************************************************************************* D.) FF5Spoof's First Full Release When I started over, I set the following goals for the project: 1.) No crude humor. The biggest problem with most every "spoof" hack out there is the ridiculous amount of juvenile humor. As I elaborated on above (in the backstory section), this is a result of ROM hacking becoming easier and more accessable to everyone, including teenagers who think sex jokes are hilarious. Now, sex jokes can be hilarious, but so can jokes of any other stripe. Thus, I set to write the funniest script I could, and to keep the crude humor to a very low level. 2.) The plot must be good in its own right. It's easy enough to make the characters say whatever happens to be funny at the moment, but the experience is far more enjoyable if the story makes sense. FF5 also had huge amounts of free space within the ROM - I wanted to put it to use. Thus, FF5Spoof's script is longer than FF5's, and I believe the plot is better as well (but I'm biased, seeing as I wrote the thing). FF5's story was pretty bland - I never cared about anything other than getting kickass abilities. This time around, hopefully you'll find the plot a little more interesting. 3.) The characters must be believable. Before I began my rewrite, I knew I had to give each character strong, definitive personality traits. The second goal was to write the dialogue as if it was spoken by actual people, not just information boxes with a character's name pasted in front. I played a lot of RPGs and simply observed the dialogue, and noticed many patterns, strengths, and weaknesses of particular writing styles. I couldn't imagine actual people talking the way characters do in Ted Woolsey's stuff, but the characters in Lufia 2 sound surprisingly human. The dialogue in Earthbound nails that awkward imperfection that most people actually speak with. 4.) It must be funny. This is obvious, but given the RPG "spoof"'s sordid history, it is worth mentioning. This project is a comedy; I had to keep this in mind while I was writing my new plot. And I had to forget all other "spoofs" that came before this one. Finally, I wanted to write not just a comedy, but a *good* comedy; this entailed several hundreds of hours of revision and polish. As best I could, I made sure every scene was either funny or important to the plot. The last thing I want is for the player to ever feel like they are wasting their time; this is crucial to the spoof being an enjoyable experience. If all went according to plan, FF5Spoof turned out to be a humorous, consistent story that is on par with FF5. Did I succeed? Well, I believe that I did, but I suppose that will be up to you to decide. ******************************************************************************* E.) What's new in v1.10? Version 1.10 improves upon the previous release in several ways: 1.) Cool it with the offensive humor and "punching down". If v1.00 was about applying the wisdom I had gained from age 15 to 25 to reduce the crude humor in the spoof, v1.10 is about applying the wisdom gained from age 25 to 35 in reducing *actual societal harm* caused by the spoof. This entailed rewriting: * Offensive stereotypes (both intentional and unintentional ones), re: racism, sexism, homophobia. * Flippant treatment of serious and harmful topics, such as suicide and domestic abuse. * Places where toxic assumptions had seeped into my writing, without my even noticing. For example, blaming the poor for being poor, or letting politicians off the hook by treating them as if they were stupid rather than malicious. These cases were replaced either by "punching up" jokes (ie: making fun of homophobes instead of making fun of gay people), by correcting the toxic assumptions (ie: replacing a joke about taxes being too high with a joke about a politician's golf trips), or simply with new writing. In every case the quality of the spoof increased. This process really opened my eyes to how easy it is to actually avoid this kind of "humor". There are a million ways to be funny without harming people in real life. Those who write this kind of humor (and those who fight to preserve it by crying "censorship" at attempts to change it) are not defending "free speech" or "artistic expression" - they are attempting to prop themselves up by putting others down. The world is already a terrible place. The least we can do as writers is not make it worse. 2.) More consistent characterization. There were several places in the spoof where the core four would break character in order to advance the plot the way I wanted or to make a joke I wanted to make. At the time I guess I decided that the trade-off was worth it. This time around, I knew I could do better. For example, early in the game Bartz (the spoof's straight man) broke character to excitedly drink from a fetid pond, because I wanted to make a joke about recovery springs being disgusting swamps. This time, however, Bartz incorrectly identifies it as a normal recovery spring, then Galuf observes that it's actually a disgusting swamp, but hopefully it will still heal the team. In some cases I simply switched characters but otherwise kept the dialogue the same. For example, later in the game Lenna breaks character by threatening a moogle (no spoilers here beyond that). This time it's Faris that makes the threats, which is more consistent with both Lenna's and Faris's characterizations. 3.) More variety in insults, exclamations, and sentence structure. I'm simply a better writer than I was 12 years ago when I released v1.0. I found several places in the script where I missed an opportunity for humor, foreshadowing, a callback, or clarity. I also improved several sentences in subtle ways for increased impact. For example, "I think Galuf's is a terrible idea, but it's the best you have" is serviceable, but "I think Galuf's is the best idea you have, and it's horrible" does a better job of upending expectations. Another example: "holy crap" was a too-common exclamation, and "idiot" a too-common insult. In the new version, the characters have more colorful things to say, and certain insults now "belong" to certain characters (another example of improved characterization). 4.) Fewer name changes without good reason. The previous version was filled with cameos that were funny to me and my friends, but not necessarily to the wider audience. The biggest example of this was the 12 sealed weapons, but there were also monster, item, and character names that were changed for no good (or for not good enough) reasons. If a name change didn't enhance the final product for *everyone*, then it was reverted. 5.) Additional bug fixes and usability enhancements have been added. See the next section for details. ******************************************************************************* F.) What else is changed? Aside from all the in-game text, the following bug fixes, enhancements, and misc changes have been made to the game: 1.) The spoof was reimplemented into a new ROM, based on J121's GBA Script Port (http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3687) instead of RPGe's translation. Thus, it uses J121's font, and it includes all the fixes that are included in that project (they are still listed below - see numbers 9 and down). 2.) New snazzy window borders for dialogue windows. Actually, this took me about two seconds in Tile Layer Pro, but it succeeds in giving the spoof a different look. 3.) Additional text and window enhancements that are non-Spoof related that would have made the original better as well. For example, when learning a new blue magic spell, it'll say "Learned blue magic 'Aero'!" instead of "Learned Aero!". 4.) My Automatic Sprint and Learning mod is included in this patch (http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3746), so that these abilities are always considered active - you can always hold B to sprint and you will always learn any witnessed blue magic. If you prefer the "Always Sprint" version instead of the "Hold B to Sprint" version, you can apply that patch over the Spoof without issue. (Thanks Praetarius5018 and JLukas!) 5.) The map is no longer missable. You now always have the ability to use the Y button to view the map. (Thanks STARWIN!) 6.) Better item descriptions. Additional item descriptions were added, and misleading or incorrect descriptions have been fixed. However, since the game can only handle 64 total descriptions, I had to decide which were important enough to show and which were not. * Items whose names made their function obvious didn't get a description. For example, it's obvious that the Ice Shield absorbs ice, so it didn't make the cut, but it's NOT obvious that the Diamond Shield reduces thunder damage, so I added that one. * In some cases I renamed the item rather than using a precious item description slot on it. For example, the Coral Sword was renamed to the Thunder Blade. * I removed the descriptions that said a weapon could be Enchanted or used with Two-Handed Grip. Instead, the descriptions for the Enchant and 2xGrip abilities specify the weapon types they can be used on. This freed up several more description slots. * Finally, some weapons and armors had their names and icons changed for consistency. For example, Diamond Plate was a light armor with a heavy armor icon (and heavy-sounding name), so I renamed it to Diamond Vest and gave it a light armor icon. 7.) Most missable items and spells are no longer missable! These missables can now be purchased at the secret village at the end of the game: * Shiva Summon * Ramuh Summon * Shoat Summon * Carbuncle Summon * Thief's Glove These missables are now guaranteed drops from bosses: * Blitz Whip from Minotaur * Power Staff from Omniscient * Tinkerbell from Twintania * Titan's Glove from Azulmagia The rest of the missables: * The three missable Bard songs can be purchased in later magic shops. * Some of the secret village's original missable spells had to be moved to the Moore magic shop to make room for the summons. * The three missable minor equipment items (Kenpo Gi, Iron Shield, and Spear) can be purchased at Crescent. * The Genji equipment is still missable! Make sure to steal from Gilgamesh! 8.) Galuf's Ghost in the Sealed Castle Fix: Just trust me, this bug is fixed. 9.) Galuf's ginger hair: Galuf's hair is no longer a different color in battle than out of it. (Thanks J121!) 10.) Captured Monster Name Fix: Monsters caught with Catch will now be shown in the Status menu. (Thanks noisecross!) 11.) Chicken Berserk Fix: Fixes the bug that causes the Chicken Knife to randomly freeze the game if you have a team of Berserkers. (Thanks noisecross!) 12.) Walk Through Walls Fixes: Fixes for various places where the player can walk through walls where not intended. (Thanks noisecross!) 13.) Blessed Kiss Fix: Blessed Kiss will no longer ignore a monster target's Berserk immunity. (Thanks instructrtrepe!) 14.) Exile Dud Fix: When releasing the Moss Fungus or the Gel Fish monsters, the Exile spell now has a greater than 0% chance of working. (Thanks instructrtrepe!) 15.) Fractional M Parameter Fix: Knives and other Agility weapons will now properly use both Strength AND Agility for determining damage. (Thanks instructrtrepe!) 16.) Observe Fix: The "Observe" command will now show monster weaknesses in addition to HP, as it was intended. (Thanks instructrtrepe!) 17.) Power Drink Fix: Power Drinks actually work now! (Thanks instructrtrepe!) 18.) Galuf Gaffe Fix: Fixes a case where you can end up seeing two Galufs if Galuf is your party leader when he "steps out" of your sprite for an event. (Thanks Leet Sketcher!) 19.) Quick Death: Speeds up the monster dissolve animation that plays when a normal monster dies (Thanks Leet Sketcher!) 20.) Bartz Blue Mage Sprite Fix: Bartz's blue mage left hand attack animations now look normal instead of super buggy. (Thanks Grond!) 21.) Landing Fix: Prevents you from permanently losing chocobos or vehicles by landing them in the wrong places. (Thanks Xardas!) ******************************************************************************* H.) Additional Credits and Thanks Though most of FF5Spoof is my own work (minus, of course, FF5 itself, which it was built upon), there were several contributions made by these fine folk: - RPGe: Their fan translation (v1.10) is what the original version of FF5Spoof was based on. If it weren't for them, well, who knows? - J121: Made the GBA Script Port mod, finally bringing FF5 "officially" to the SNES. This mod is what the new version of FF5Spoof is based on. - noisecross: Already thanked above for various bug fixes, but noisecross also made the FF5e Text Editor, which was the primary tool used for the new version of FF5Spoof. - Bongo`: The writer of Windhex, my favorite ROM hacking hex editor. Windhex was used for the rest of the text hacking - whatever FF5e Text Editor couldn't do. - ZackMan: The writer of Thingy32. This was my previous favorite hex editor. It was used during the development of the original version of FF5Spoof. - Necrosaro: The writer of Thingy. Thingy was what I used before Thingy32! The majority of the text hacking in the original version of FF5Spoof was done in Thingy. - Statto: The writer of FF5se, a save state editor. Boy did this tool make my life easier. - OhNoMelon: Compiled a huge bank of FF5 save files that helped me a ton! - SnowBro: The writer of Tile Layer Pro. Tile Layer Pro was used for all the graphics hacking, of which there wasn't much! But thank you still! - Killa B: The writer of TUSH - a super useful SNES header tool that everyone should download. - RinkWorks: Their "Dialectizer" tool helped with the dialogue for various characters. http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/ - Zero GreenSabre: My most thorough tester. Was always there for me when I needed something quick, difficult, or random tested. Provided lots of useful feedback. - Citizen Bleys: Writer of Frig7, and fan of Bad SNES Spoofs since day1. He provided a ton of useful feedback that inspired me to put out the new version! - satsu & Refried: These guys started Bad SNES Spoofs! Living legends as far as I'm concerned. In addition, the following wonderful people contributed jokes, ideas, or simply helped me make this thing in some way: - Tonedore - Dross - Scho-Ju Wajasaki - Lord Bildo - Trailmixx - Schemp - Jerek - RandMOne ******************************************************************************* G.) How legal is this? That depends on who you talk to! It's probably more legal than the translation patches it was based on. Just think of this as a sort of interactive fanfic. And regardless of the legality of the FF5 ROM, the patch itself is perfectly legal. As is this readme file. Hopefully. You need to own a hard copy of Final Fantasy 5 to download the FF5 ROM legally, but I've taken care of that for you. When you begin the game, go to your key item menu. Bingo. It seems Bartz has been playing some FF5. ******************************************************************************* I.) The Disclaimer! -- (C) 1999 - 2020 Tzepish (Blaine Higdon) -- ff5spoofv1.10.zip is not to be distributed with any other files (especially ROMs). It is not to contain any files other than those listed above in Section A. -- Tzepish is not responsible for any damages done to your computer, whether you use his patches or not. -- Tzepish is in no way affiliated with any group/company mentioned within this readme or within the spoof itself. -- Tzepish is in no way connected or affiliated with any company in any way. In fact, I hate companies. Companies and all products partaining to that company are trademarks of that company (makes sense). Please contact that company for trademark and copyright information, that is, if you want it. I don't have it. ******************************************************************************* J.) The End... or The Beginning? Thanks for reading this entire thing. Though this is the end of the readme file, it is the beginning of the spoof. Go play it!