For the PC version.
Hey, what's up. I'm new to this whole modding/hacking thing, so I am pretty uninformed in some areas lol. If I say something that doesn't make sense, just let that be known. I've been thinking about making a party consisting of bosses but I'm not really sure how to approach this. Would it be easier to rewrite the script and force the game to load the bosses's models and animations in place of an existing character? Or, should I just replace a character's textures, skeleton, etc. with the bosses's? What are my limitations? It seems like either method has its problems.
I consider hex editing to be quite difficult, so it would be nice to minimize that to just changing certain values (like for importing new skins) and not having to rewrite how the game behaves just to accommodate a boss. Figuring out the way the game is scripted based on hex values alone just seems unapproachable to me. On the other hand, replacing every part of an existing character looks to be a lot more tedious because then I have to consider things like re-skinning meshes, changing hitboxes, editing character data like Str and Def, and possibly having to redesign how certain attacks work (whatever that involves).
Things I know I need to consider, at least for the latter method:
Replacing Mesh/Textures/Skeleton
Getting rid of the weapons
Replacing Hitboxes
Replacing Animations (like what happens if an attack consists of multiple animations? It's something I didn't even think about before reading through this forum.)
Mapping the attacks (what if a boss has a multipart attack that a player character can't match? What if it involves a more scripted element like summoning an enemy? Take Hojo for example. )
As far as stats go, is it possible or not grant a player character a million HP?
Moving the player spots further apart to accommodate for larger characters/re positioning the camera to fix the view
If it's any help to know, I am considering adding Emerald Weapon, Safer Sephiroth, and maybe one of the other Weapons.
One other thing. Assuming I wanted to do something like this for other rpgs that don't have a PC version to play with, how possible is it to import data into a PSX game? Is a script for importing data anything like one for exporting it?
If my point isn't clear after all the elaboration that I did; the question is, simply, how do I make a boss playable, what do I have to consider, and what is the easiest method?
So yeah lol. That's a lot of different questions thrown into one post and I don't expect any one person to have an answer for everything. Any little bit of info is helpful. Everyone here seems to be talented and knowledgeable, and after looking through the posts I've seen stuff that I didn't even think was possible, so who knows.