hello everyone,
This is my first time posting, and frankly will likely be my last as well (well thread wise at least)
basicly PhantasyStarII (a megadrive/genesis game) has this weird quality control type glitch in it (well i would call it a glitch, though it was never removed until maybe the saturn port) ...where all two handed weapons have an effective attack power that is actually half the rated attack power of the weapon...
the ramifications of this appear to be intentional, but at the same time numbers wise the game seems to be balanced as if that is not the case (and halving the attack power makes no rational sense) ...it looks like half the dev team hypotheticly at least thought this was a good idea, and the other half didn't or something, and the two halves weren't communicating. in the end the gameplay is totally broken. which is a real shame cause i really adore the PSII universe, but it just sucks to play.
the best weapons, and the weapons of the hero character are all two handed weapons. but because of the "glitch" two handed weapons are pretty much useless having only half of the hit power of dual wielding single handed weapons while not allowing the use of shields.
i have no idea how the ClassicPS community missed this, but i've been trying to make it known... for example i was responsible for the disclaimer at the bottom of the table on this page:
http://www.phantasy-star.net/psii/psiiweapons.htmli have setup patches for PSX games before, by disassembling the executible and substituting instruction opcodes as desired. but just googling around, i couldn't really find any insight into how to best go about it for a megadrive rom. i'm assuming there must be a logic switch in the game, and all that would be necessary would be to find all the divide by two instructions and change the immediate submask of the opcode to one rather than two (there can't be that many of them)
i could manage myself i imagine with a nudge in the right direction, but it seems simple enough that maybe it would be easier for someone with ample experience to just cook up the little patch and take the credit themselves. either way is fine by me. i guess it might be a little trouble to download the roms (japanese/english -- i play the japanese rom myself)
PSII is a classic game that deserves better. i'm positive the game would only be vastly improved by the modification. it wouldn't make the game any easier, it would just balance out all of the best weapons to be as good as the worst??? (weird huh)
in any case, any support would be appreciated.
sincerely,
michael
EDIT: on second thought more likely, the power of the two handed weapons might be doubled in the stat screen (or something else) ...might have to find where the attack power of the weapons are loaded from the memory and change all of those. then try to find all the places like in the stat screen where the numbers need to be fudged to line up (again just divide by one instead)
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