I am interested in messing around with the graphics in FFV Advance. I am having trouble even getting to a point where I can clearly see the graphics from the ROM. I wanted to begin with the character portraits that show when dialogue comes up. I have experimented with several different GBA graphic tools. Unlz.gba, NLZ-gba advance, and GBA Graphics Editor. Other games like Pokeman and Fire Emblem, I have no trouble locating the graphics and seeing them displayed as they should be in the editor. However, with FFVA, I do have trouble.

Using NLZ or GBA Graphics Editor, the portraits can be seen by performing a "deep scan" and then going to offset 3223C8 (this is where the portraits begin). They are still not showing properly though. There seems to be chunks of pixels out of place no matter the settings I use, and the two aforementioned programs show 3 different, separate images at different, nearly consecutive offsets that appear to be fragments of the image i want to edit. That is to say it seems as though they should all be together as one image. For instance, one seems to be an outline of sorts.

As for Unlz, it seems relatively simple for Pokeman, but when I try it with FFVA, all i see is garbage really, no true images.

I'm not sure if I'm having these issues because there may be a different compression method in FFV than in Fire Emblem, Pokeman, etc. or not. Maybe it's because FFVA is a port of a SNES game? I really don't know, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Thanks for the reply!

Does this ROM use a different compression method that is similar to but not the same as LZ77? That might explain why the sprites look off after being decompressed with GBAmdc or a similar program in any image editor. It may also explain why I cannot successfully reinsert the an unedited image extracted straight from the ROM.

This is how the sprites look when I see them after decompressed with NintendoLord's GBA Graphics Editor (using LZ77) for instance:



This is an example of the best looking image after being decompressed though, some are harder to make out really. I noticed that FFIVA has the same issue, whereas FFTacticsA does not. I assume its like this in maybe all of the square-enix remakes.

Thanks for any help.