[retrogamer]

http://www.jeffludwig.com/bof2/

The discussion here hasn't been quite for awhile, I figured I'd post something to inspire some BOF discussion, and maybe some new ideas for BOF 3.


This page links to a BOF 2 hack i played not too long ago called Breath of Fresh Fire, it was quite an epic overhaul. The biggest thing was changing Ryu's dragon spells into lower damage summon type attacks, but don't require ALL of Ryu's MP, I believe it was 7 mp for the weakest ones (puppies) 15 for the second ones and 30 for the most powerful one, so he can now use them in random encounters and still have MP for a boss fight, and cast them multiple times. This was a tremendous improvement.


All characters have been changed and rebalanced, some of these include:

Bow is largely the same, the main healer of the group, but he is given a couple of weak attack spells as well to make him a little more versatile

Kat now having an MP boost, not a gigantic one but enough that she may actually cast a spell or 2 without a Shaman. She is also given access to some lower MP spells. Her HP is boosted considerably to make up for for her low defense and to make her ability "Dare" provoking an attack on her so she counters something that is feasible now.


Rand now can learn Missle ( renamed to Sirocco, most the spells were renamed to what they are known as in Bof3 and 4) albeit at Level 42 and rightfully learns Boombada ( called Earthchant here), which is a relief as unlocking that spell is an utter pain in the pass the normal way, while keeping for the most part is usual spell list.

Nina besides Ryu probably got one of the most dramatic changes in the game, since she can learn Cure and Cure 3 now naturally ( called Heal and Healwind now), as well as attack up (Might) distinquishing her more from Bleu.


Sten and Jean now learn Chop Chop naturally, and being as they were sort of the lesser used characters, makes them a lot more usable now and makes giving Nina or Sparr the attack from the Cats Restaurant more feasible as you are no longer so dependent on needing Chop Chop for the Giant Monster Island ( which you may use Ryu's dragon spells anyway to hit that certain enemy, since it is no longer a 1 shot deal).


Spar while in the original had a largely useless spell roster, is given some useful offensive spells this time, it can learn Boombada now along with Rand, but is more useful on Spar because of the speed issue, as well as some healing and buff spells, Spar is a much more useful character than before.


Bleu is basically exactly the same, and with the characters improvements she does not feel so overpowered as she did once before.


Shaman combinations have been changed DRASTICALLY, new combinations are available now, the Stat boosts are even better, and actually make Ryu and Bleu jealous. You can now have combinations of Shamanized characters that were impossible before thanks to the more lenient combination list, allowing you to have more diverse options for an end game team.



The enemies have also been given a difficulty boost, but not so much to force you to grind for levels to win.

Overall this was a rather excellent hack for Breath of Fire 2, I loved the heck out of it

[Advent]

Interesting. I'll take a look at it.

I have a lot of ideas; the project isn't dead, but I've got some stuff on my plate at the moment, including but not limited to being a full-time College student.

[DrROBschiz]

I love this hack!

I played it awhile back but was a bit bummed that there wasn't a translation patch added to this. Or maybe it was?

I played it back when it was still the vanilla text with the other improvements. Maybe he responded to my feedback?

[retrogamer]

Maybe, its about 2 years old, december 29th 2011. It gave me a reason to check out BoF2 again at least. He also has made a FF5 hack that allow you to choose 3/4 actions for your characters, sort of like a Mime, but every job class has it, giving you more flexibility and access to the jobs much earlier than usual, but thats a whole nother discussion all together.


The translation definitely isnt there haha, the dialogue and text is still laughable in places, not a big deal for me though.

[LongSword25]

retrogamer, on 07 January 2014 - 05:39 AM, said:

Maybe, its about 2 years old, december 29th 2011. It gave me a reason to check out BoF2 again at least. He also has made a FF5 hack that allow you to choose 3/4 actions for your characters, sort of like a Mime, but every job class has it, giving you more flexibility and access to the jobs much earlier than usual, but thats a whole nother discussion all together.


The translation definitely isnt there haha, the dialogue and text is still laughable in places, not a big deal for me though.

Did you check out his FF DoS hack?

You basically have the tier 2 jobs at your disposal from the start; the only thing is that since the game normally wouldn't allow it, you have to scroll down at the last normal slot for the selection to show up. And man, the effort he put into it is phenomenal without a shadow of a doubt, because he even made it so that there are spellcasters that can use heavy armor, monks who can use magic (mostly white, but still).

The primary 2 spellcasters from vanilla (white/black mage/wizard got an insane overhaul, as the former black mage is now split into a archmage and a battlemage (godlike mage-tank), and white mage got split into priest and enchanter (the latter is the supporter half of what used to be white mage)) and they weren't the only classes to get split obviously; pretty much all the classes got split/mega revamped as you would see either via the info on the page for it, or even via personal experience.

Be warned that since there are extra classes implemented, if you select one to use, the sprite will be bugged until you enter the game and start playing, afterwards it will show normally (it just shows up that way in the creation menu).

If you don't believe me on that, here is some proof on the epicness of his FF DoS hack:



Take note of the class, as well as its evasion stat, and then you will understand.

This post has been edited by Advent: 07 January 2014 - 05:49 PM
Reason for edit: Readable now.

[Abaddon]

LongSword25, on 07 January 2014 - 05:37 PM, said:

Did you check out his FF DoS hack?

You basically have the tier 2 jobs at your disposal from the start; the only thing is that since the game normally wouldn't allow it, you have to scroll down at the last normal slot for the selection to show up. And man, the effort he put into it is phenomenal without a shadow of a doubt, because he even made it so that there are spellcasters that can use heavy armor, monks who can use magic (mostly white, but still).

The primary 2 spellcasters from vanilla (white/black mage/wizard got an insane overhaul, as the former black mage is now split into a archmage and a battlemage (godlike mage-tank), and white mage got split into priest and enchanter (the latter is the supporter half of what used to be white mage)) and they weren't the only classes to get split obviously; pretty much all the classes got split/mega revamped as you would see either via the info on the page for it, or even via personal experience.

Be warned that since there are extra classes implemented, if you select one to use, the sprite will be bugged until you enter the game and start playing, afterwards it will show normally (it just shows up that way in the creation menu).

If you don't believe me on that, here is some proof on the epicness of his FF DoS hack:

Take note of the class, as well as its evasion stat, and then you will understand.

[LongSword25]

Abaddon, on 07 January 2014 - 05:48 PM, said:

I might do a playthru of it sometime and post some vids of it over on the general discussion page so you guys know the true power of this hack

[retrogamer]

I was never a huge FF1 fanatic cause I found it a big boring, but this kind of sounds fascinating

[LongSword25]

that pic was just ninja, just wait and see all the others you will be in shock as to how it was possible, as I don't even know

you think the ninja was badass? take a look at this guy:

take note of his weapon and his chest piece and here is the team I might use for a runthru of this hack, pending some future ponderings: any of them look oddly familiar to you? you should definitely give this hack a go, its awesome, and just like in vanilla, the custom classes have their own personal ultimate equips, one notably for the paladin is his shield, which also existed in other games that didn't have anything much, if anything at all to do with the FF series *cough* *hero's shield* *cough*

[LongSword25]

you do know that they added bonus dungeons in the gba version of FF1? they only exist in the GBA version, and the anniversary edition of FF1 and they hold enemies/bosses from 4 other FF games: FF3(original famicom version(fantranslation for emulators works too)/ds remake, not the English version of ff6 for snes), FF4, FF5 & FF6

[retrogamer]

Longsword you convinced me, I downloaded it. I am using a Rogue, Paladin Battlemage and Sage as my Team, just started. I never played FF1 so this should be really cool

[retrogamer]

I started a new game changing my rogue for an enchanter, ive decided i am not a huge fan of characters who can't use ANY magic

[Advent]

Yo guys, just a friendly FYI: this thread is in the Dragon Trial forums. If you're gonna continue a discussion about what you've found in that guy's hack (that doesn't relate to Dragon Trial), make a thread in a different forum (General or something else) for it.

[DrROBschiz]

Why you gotta rain on the parade bro

You should be sifting for inspiration!!

[Advent]

DrROBschiz, on 09 January 2014 - 06:13 AM, said:

Why you gotta rain on the parade bro

You don't see me talking about Final Fantasy VII in the 1.3 forums, do you? >_>

DrROBschiz, on 09 January 2014 - 06:13 AM, said:

You should be sifting for inspiration!!

Due respect, my inspiration doesn't come from that hack because honestly it doesn't resonate with me. My lack of inspiration doesn't have to do with the game, it has to do with the tedium of opening up the hex editor and changing every single byte by hand.

Inspiration that I'm slowly regaining by teaching myself Javascript this semester in my free time.

[DrROBschiz]

And we love you for it

Wish there was a larger scene of people updating old rpg classics