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Author Topic: FFVI Advance Font enhancement  (Read 1 times)
SC
Guest
« on: August 28, 2009, 12:39:35 pm »

Sephiroth Crescent (SC) presents: FFVI Advance Font enhancement.

Inspired by Dragonsbrethren's work for FFIV ADVANCE, this patch "improves" the fonts of this
  fantastic game. It has been made not only to look good in English, but with the other four
  languages (German, French, Italian, and Spanish) in mind. That is why I made it for the European
  version of the ROM.

 Current features in this patch:

  ·Enhanced dialog font for all European languages
  ·A hand for dialog choices

 Planned features:

  ·Enhanced menu font for all European languages
  ·Enhanced text-containing tiles
  ·Anything related you could request (if I have the time)

Current version (0.4) preview image:

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9341/previewuqo.png

Other planned patches for FFVI Advance:
  ·7 letter names (Stragus, Matthew...)
  ·Palette restoration
  ·Sound restoration/enhancement
  ·Bugfixing
  ·Spanish text fixing/re-translation

And the link for the patch:

http://www.filefront.com/14416461/ff6a_font_eur.zip

PS: Could someone submit it to RH?
I could not find the proper file hosting site... ¬¬U
GenoBlast
Guest
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2009, 08:16:01 pm »
Looks nice!

Edit: Submitted. Smiley
« Last Edit: August 28, 2009, 08:43:55 pm by Killa B »
Gideon Zhi
Guest
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2009, 10:23:36 pm »
Honestly looks kind of hard to read. Maybe it'd be better on an actual-size screen, I dunno...
Dragonsbrethren
Guest
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2009, 02:08:32 pm »
It looks fine to me, it's pretty much the same as every other VWF out there in terms of width. The Advance games used an extra space between most letters so the shadowing didn't merge together, which the new font doesn't do. If you're talking about the first shot, yeah, that text is just hard to read no matter what (unless you use a bold font, like FF3us did). I like the way it looks, overall, but personally, I was a fan of the original dialogue font. This one just seems like your average font with no style of its own.

I'm curious to see what you do with the menu font; ideally you'll implement a second set of characters with a smaller width table and utilize those for longer strings in the non-English languages. I don't particularly like the ultra-slim fonts used in the European versions (and FF4 Advance), but they are a necessity if you don't want to break the other languages or have more than one set of characters.
Bregalad
Guest
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2009, 09:57:11 am »
Nice hack, if you plan to do sound restoration/enhancement feel free to contact me as I've done it for FF5 advance, it was quite a long work so I don't feel like doing it on FF6 right now.
SC
Guest
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2009, 11:26:17 am »
Quote from: Dragonsbrethren on August 29, 2009, 02:08:32 pm
It looks fine to me, it's pretty much the same as every other VWF out there in terms of width. The Advance games used an extra space between most letters so the shadowing didn't merge together, which the new font doesn't do. If you're talking about the first shot, yeah, that text is just hard to read no matter what (unless you use a bold font, like FF3us did).
Hey, maybe I do a patch with the SFC font... didn't thought of it!
I will try out how it looks on this version.
Has anyone the original SFC font ripped here?


Quote from: Dragonsbrethren on August 29, 2009, 02:08:32 pm
I'm curious to see what you do with the menu font; ideally you'll implement a second set of characters with a smaller width table and utilize those for longer strings in the non-English languages. I don't particularly like the ultra-slim fonts used in the European versions (and FF4 Advance), but they are a necessity if you don't want to break the other languages or have more than one set of characters.
I think the only broken language would be Spanish...
Wouldn't it be easier and shorter to use another character set for English?
I am still not sure about how to fix the small font, because I'd like to make
it wider for every language, but whitout breaking any of them.

Well, aside of that, right now I am working on the palette restoration patch.
The first part of it (maps, which I'm giving priority first) should be finished
in a few weeks. It's being a boring repetitive task, but this game needs it.
Map palettes restored: 16/60 (in a week).
Sprites and Battle backgrounds will be the second part.

PS: Thank you Bregalad, I'll make sure to contact you when I work on it!
SBK
Guest
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2009, 01:57:50 am »
Very nicely done! I personally think it's an upgrade from the original font. Keep up the good work Smiley
Granville
Guest
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2009, 08:01:48 pm »
After this is finished, it'll be the definitive Final Fantasy GBA version IMO. I wish you all the luck and thanks for the work so far!

I still can't believe Square Enix purposefully downgraded the music quality when they could have made it sound virtually identical to the SNES game... It just eludes me as to why they'd consciously make it sound worse with all the many instruments they had in the GBA version as opposed to SNES.

Palette restoration, sound restoration, and font improvement have become my favorite GBA hacks. Job well done. :beer:
GenoBlast
Guest
« Reply #8 on: September 10, 2009, 12:12:26 am »
Quote from: Granville on September 09, 2009, 08:01:48 pm
I still can't believe Square Enix purposefully downgraded the music quality when they could have made it sound virtually identical to the SNES game... It just eludes me as to why they'd consciously make it sound worse with all the many instruments they had in the GBA version as opposed to SNES.
Well TOSE did the port. I think they're required by contract to majorly fuck up at least one part of every project they do.
Dragonsbrethren
Guest
« Reply #9 on: September 10, 2009, 11:39:10 am »
I don't think they did a bad job with the music at all; several tracks actually came out sounding better than the SNES originals. It's not awful just because it's different.
Bregalad
Guest
« Reply #10 on: September 13, 2009, 12:01:11 pm »
Part of the reason they messed up with the sound like that is that you can't hear basses proprely on the GBA without using external headphones, so they make sure to use aggresive instruments so that they can be heard with the GBA's crappy speaker. Altough some other GBA games (Golden Sun) and the vast majority of DS games require you to use headphones if you want to hear the music proprely.

In order to the most messed up to the least messed up in my opinion : FF5 -> FF6 -> FF4 -> FF1&2

And they didn't mess up only the music, FF5 advance slows down terribly at some points of the game which is inexcusable since the GBA is like 5 times more powerfull than the SNES and that RPGs are typically very CPU-unintensive.
Granville
Guest
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2009, 01:18:04 am »
The only time FF5 ever slowed down for me was in the final battle with the trippy background. It's FF4 that had such horrendous slowdown. And I guess also FF6 in some of the more stressful scenes.

Thankfully, with this hack in progress, the slowdown will be the only thing that will make it inferior to the original.
I.S.T.
Guest
« Reply #12 on: September 14, 2009, 10:01:38 am »
Quote from: Killa B on September 10, 2009, 12:12:26 am
Quote from: Granville on September 09, 2009, 08:01:48 pm
I still can't believe Square Enix purposefully downgraded the music quality when they could have made it sound virtually identical to the SNES game... It just eludes me as to why they'd consciously make it sound worse with all the many instruments they had in the GBA version as opposed to SNES.
Well TOSE did the port. I think they're required by contract to majorly fuck up at least one part of every project they do.

I have my doubts, given TOSE does more work than any dev. Google them and you'll find a very illuminating gamasutra article on them...

Though, really, it seems their recent Square work is subpar.
Gemini
Guest
« Reply #13 on: September 14, 2009, 12:09:45 pm »
I've played most of the TOSE portings (I think I've missed only a few, like Front Mission DS) and I can say that they did good pixel-perfect portings only with two titles: Final Fantasy V (GBA) and Chrono Trigger (DS). For the rest they did for Square, Killa is completely right. They can't port something without fucking at least one part of the engine almost completely.
Bregalad
Guest
« Reply #14 on: September 14, 2009, 01:23:25 pm »
What would make CTDS and FF5a better than FF1&2A, FF4a and FF6a ?
FF1&2, 4, 5 & 6 are just lazy 1:1 ports Sqaure asked TOSE to do to make easy money without working too hard.
CTDS is slightly more than that as it actually added movies, bonuses and stuff worth talking about, and this time the music was ported correctly.
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