Timbo

Secret of Mana: Equipment Overhaul

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Now for my other Secret of Mana hack. This one is more of an offshoot project. The goal here was to make all of the game's equipment useful when i becomes available. The original game introduces a lot of gear that is already redundant the moment it's introduced. This hack seeks to correct that in a number of ways. 

  1. I fixed the Wisdom Boost Bug. So, now gear that was supposed to add a Wisdom bonus, does.
  2. I modified some of the game's equipment to bring it up to par with superior equipment sold in the same shop.
  3. I rearranged some of the game's vendor lists and added some items that were previously only dropped by monsters dummied out of the game entirely.
  4. I changed who can wear what pieces of equipment. This was done in only a couple of places with vendor gear in order to prevent redundancy. However, exclusively enemy dropped gear is another story. Each character has 3 pieces of end game gear that are unique to them. It is all at the same power level as the existing end of game items and only slightly more powerful than what Neko sells at the Grand Palace.
  5. I modified what enemies drop. This version of the hack eliminates rare drops entirely. Everything that can drop has a 1 in 16 chance of dropping. That said, a lot of the game's overpowered items were removed from enemy drop lists entirely. This change was made to prevent hours of experience loaded item farming that hurts the game's difficulty. Secret of Mana is a multiplayer game deep grinding shouldn't be a part of that.
  6. Enemy relocation. Some enemies that dropped unique or missable items were relocated to the Mana Fortress in small numbers. 
  7. Weapon Orbs drop from different monsters. Turns out the game checks to make sure you're in the Mana Fortress before handing out a weapon orb from an enemy treasure box. This allows you me to have both the orbs and the end of game gear as commonly dropped gear.

Download the hack here. Apply it to an Unheadered Rom (Please note that my other hack uses a headered rom).

Future versions of this hack will probably see statistical revisions as I shift into balancing difficulty. One change I'm heavily considering is actually making all consumable drops rare and charging more for them at shops. Access to nearly limitless free hp, mp, status, and death healing items pretty much sucks all of the difficulty out of this game. Just off the top of my head I'm considering increasing Chocolate to 250 GP, Angel's Grails to 300 GP, and Royal Jam and Faerie Walnuts to a few thousand. Though, this will require more thought and feedback.

Credits:

Spoiler

Kethinov - For showing me where all of the item and shop data is and figuring out that weapon orbs from enemy chests only drop in the Mana Fortress.
Mziab - For helping me understand the difference between hi and lo rom.
Mop - For helping me find the Mana Fortress enemy spawn data.
Regrs - For explaining how to fix the Wisdom Bonus Bug

 

Edited by Timbo

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