This was one of my first RPG experiences back in the day.  If you've looked at my Game Genie codes for this game, it's pretty evident that I like it quite a bit.  :-)  Since then, I've contributed my findings on the game to the Final Fantasy Hackster project.. a program for Windows that lets you edit many aspects of the game.  Since the release of the official version and the source, though, no more features are being added by the author.  So, I decided to create a companion program to edit some of the extra things I've found.

A similar program is also available to adjust parameters of anomiex's new INT / magic-fix patch for this game.

See below for additional documents related to this game.
 
 

FF Hackster Companion

The major part is the Sprite dialogue editor, where you can assign text strings to specific sprites and even change the conditions for what they say, along with a few other goodies.  The program also lets you tweak data for the hidden "ship game", as well as the number hits in battle and the properties of some types of magic spells.  One of the magic tweaks is a fix for the broken LOCK spell.  Additionally, there are fixes for the weapon data that allow a weapon's species and elements to now work properly, along with the critical hit %.

The program is a work-in-progress, meaning there could be bugs, so back up your hack before making any changes with the program.  If you find any bugs, please let me know so I can fix them.

This program was designed to be a companion program to the official Final Fantasy Hackster.  Just unzip it to your Hackster directory.  You can still use the program even if you don't use Hackster.  You won't be able to use the sprite dialog editor, however, unless you copy a valid FFHackster.dat file into the same directory as this program.

How to use it:

Just open an FF1 NES ROM image and edit whatever you want.  A couple of important notes, though:

• Don't use Hackster and this program on the same ROM file at the same time.  If you do, saving from one program will overwrite the saved changes from the other!
• BACKUP YOUR WORK BEFORE USING THE PROGRAM!  It's always a good practice anyway, but the sprite dialog editor has only been tested for basic functionality and there could be bugs in it.
• Sprite Dialog Editor:  I recommend against changing the dialog handler for any sprites to use the game's plot dialog handlers.  If you do, that would allow alternate ways to complete parts of the plot.  This aspect has not been tested and so it's effect on the game is currently unknown.

Version History:

0.51 - 11/25/2001:

• Made FF1 ROM checking less strict, so should work with files larger than 262,160 bytes.
• Implemented FF Hackster's anti-cheating measure.  Used by the creators of hacks so that people can't use Hackster (and now this program) to change their hack.

0.5 - 11/17/2001:  First version.

Acknowledgments:

Thanks go out to Disch, the author of Final Fantasy Hackster, for making his program, giving me feedback on mine, and for info. on the sprite dialog data tables.  To visit his site, check out the links page.

• Table of percentage chance for monsters running at each lead-character level. (pdf)