Curiosity check: Cosmic Fantasy 2 hack?

[Keranu]

Was just wondering the other day how feasible and difficult it would be to hack Cosmic Fantasy 2 to have updated graphics and more balanced encounter rates, magic and hit damage, etc..? I would think the stat stuff would be simple enough to tweak, but how bout the graphic stuff? I was thinking since CF2's tileset variety is so limited, you could probably rip CF4's graphics and find place for them easily in CF2. Could CF2 even be upgraded to Super System Card format for additional RAM and faster load times?

[Bernie]

That would be neat if its possible. 

[fragmare]

Generally speaking, the only thing I find wrong with this game is the fact that the enemies never use any kind of poison, magic or alternative attacks.  It makes monster encounters dull and makes grinding all the more boring.  The sad part is, you can tell the development staff intended to implement this, but for whatever reason (I'm guessing time) didn't.

[Arkhan]

Aside from Nullity's most recent suggestion, I don't think it's worth the time.   There are better hacks that could be done.

Like English version of CF1, with some minor gameplay tweaks.

[GohanX]

I like the idea of the hack, but would prefer the energy be spent on translating the other games.

[Bonknuts]

If you guys want to upgrade it to SCD format, I can do that. I can even have it load your custom code at the initial load of the opening game (I did this for CF1); point to a certain LBA/sector. But you're on your own from there  

 You could do ACD as well. I don't think SCD will be enough to eliminate load times. ACD would be though.

 I'd like to see this as well (you wouldn't believe the amount of 'improvement' hacks I've seen for FF2/3/4/5 etc on RHDN. Some *one* has to like CF2 enough to do the same). But I have no desire to work on this project.

 While you're at it, change the over world music. It sounds like Sesame Street >_>

 On a side note, why did PCE games restart CD tracks after battles?!?! How hard is it to save the current H:M:S:X of the current track, and then start at that part afterwards?

[Arkhan]

On a side note, why did PCE games restart CD tracks after battles?!?! How hard is it to save the current H:M:S:X of the current track, and then start at that part afterwards?

Lots of games do this, both cartridge and CD.  My guess is, it's more effort than it's worth since hearing a song start in the middle is just as abrupt and odd as having it restart, so why bother.

[Bonknuts]

For short battles, it sucks for have track start over again. Well, depends on the track. If it's more ambient, then I guess it doesn't bother me (CF2 dungeon areas).

[Arkhan]

It's pretty abrupt either way to keep switching music.  Auditory whiplash! YEAH!

I'd be curious to see how it'd turn out if a game used one track for the entire game that just cleverly changed patterns/sequences based off what you're doing currently. 

[megatron-uk]

It's pretty abrupt either way to keep switching music.  Auditory whiplash! YEAH!

I'd be curious to see how it'd turn out if a game used one track for the entire game that just cleverly changed patterns/sequences based off what you're doing currently.

Lucas Arts made great use of such a technology for a great many of their games allowing for seamless flow of one style/track to another:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMUSE

One of the best examples I can think of is in X-Wing... you could be playing a mission, happily blasting enemy cargo freighters or transport shuttles, with a nice background star-wars- type feel to it. All of a sudden an Imperial Star Destroyer would arrive from hyperspace and start deploying fighters, the music would become more sinister and morph into the infamous Imperial March theme.

It was a very clever system and the sound blended together seamlessly so that it never felt as though one track was stopped and another was playing.

Of course this was computer generated (MIDI and FM synths) rather than redbook audio (in fact when the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games moved to CD one of the biggest complaints was the loss of this interactive music and replacement by static, unchanging cd audio).

[nodtveidt]

On a side note, why did PCE games restart CD tracks after battles?!?! How hard is it to save the current H:M:S:X of the current track, and then start at that part afterwards?

Two problems with this.

First, playing it in the middle of the track is going to produce a very harsh start. This doesn't sound very nice. As you know, the hardware does not allow direct control over CD audio volume (we just get the fade-out functions), and the only way to make this sound decent is to fade it in... unless you have a setup like Ys, where PSG is faded away and the CD track is cut back in. That sounds alright because one track is fading out so the transition isn't so rough... it's still a bit rough, but not as bad as cutting into a track from dead silence.

Second, this becomes an issue for looped tracks. You could do an A-B type play, but then you'd have to constantly monitor for the end-of-track and restart the track from the beginning. It's more hassle than it's worth.

We had discussed this while developing MSR and decided that it wasn't worth the effort, for the above reasons.

[Bonknuts]

play main CD tune, encounter battle -> fade out, save position, play new track.
End of battle, fade track -> play small ADPCM or psg jingle
while jingle is playing, ~don't~ cancel CDDA fade (should be mute), load main CD tune with normal parameters and play CD track (still in mute status), call CD_SEARCH to offset to the previous track, cancel fade out, fade out jingle.

 As long as the 'jingle' tune is long enough, the CD_search function should do it's job. No need to monitor and re-call CD_play function.



 That does suck about there being no fade in. One could do it manually, though it's tougher in HuC. You can read the linear PCM audio data from the unit as the CD is playing (there's a special port read for this) - even on mute IIRC. You could manually setup a 16khz playback routine via the VDC and convert the 16bit stereo data into 10bit stereo and fade up, cancel fade on the CD side once full volume and disable VDC special routine. That's hardcore though

[nodtveidt]

That sounds pretty complicated for something so simple. Might work though.

My other thought was to create a few different tracks, each one set for a different entry point, faded in... the program could just choose one of them and play it. Of course, the looping thing is still an issue and you'd still have to monitor for end-of-track, but then you could just seek to the normal track at that point in time. Only problem with this method is that it would eat up dozens of MB pretty quick on the CD.

[BigusSchmuck]

That would be a awesome hack. I'm surprised that no one has done it yet. Why oh why do we have a bijillion hacks for the Nes when the turbo/pce has a similar architecture?

[Arkhan]

That would be a awesome hack. I'm surprised that no one has done it yet. Why oh why do we have a bijillion hacks for the Nes when the turbo/pce has a similar architecture?

Because we spend our time making new games instead of f*cking around with games that are already a thing, lol.

and it's more the fact that hacking up a CD game is more involved than a cartridge.

anyway, it's all time consuming, and I'd still rather see new things or translations than something like this.