Nice project ! I wish you well on your endeavour
As for me, there are still many things I forgot to say about this mod / demo.
The flevel changes :For now, I'm only working on game-breaking things, in the Field files. So, I still didn't edit the item names. You'll thus sometimes read things like :"obtained Elemental materia x1", when you actually obtained something else (you'll quickly notice what it is, in the materia menu). In fact, as of right now, there are only three changes I made :
- after the bombing mission, Barret only gives 15 gils to Cloud. 1500 was way too much.
- in Wall Market, the weapon shop owner would normally sell batteries that you wouldn't be able to afford, 300 gils being a lot in this mod. I changed their prices (in field) to 1 gil each, but it looks like the game still checks for the # of gil you have, before accepting the trade. For this reason, even if you have the 3 gils, the guy won't sell them to you. I got around this by just adding the 3 batteries to your inventory, anyway, after you said yes. So, if you don't have at least 300 gils available, you'll still get the batteries (and for free - you'll see the message "obtained batteries" but won't hear the item sound), but the game won't realize it. If you talk to the shop owner again, he'll still ask you to buy them. Just ignore this.
There is only one drawback to my fix : strangely enough, the third battery won't work. When you'll get to the third box while climbing towards Shinra's HQ (the one holding the Ether), the game will display the message "not enough batteries...", even though you still got one in your inventory.
- I made it so, that the boss battle that occurs in the elevator, in the Shinra Tower, calls a different enemy formation. If you recall, I created a topic for this problem, and it had to deal with an enemy being invisible. My third modification to the field files fixed it.
The Scene changes :The biggest changes next to the Kernel's. And there are some things you should know.
- First, you can safely ignore the row function now. All enemies' attacks make your characters change rows, even though it's not visible on screen. So, if you have Cloud in the back row, the first hit he'll take will deal half damage, while the second will hit at full damage. The third hit will then be half damage, the fourth one full damage, etc. A design choice of mine, so that, for example, triggering a back or a pincer attack won't lead to an instant game-over if the enemies are too powerful. The row system is a broken system, and this is the best method I found to "remove" it. Plus, I like the "random" damage effect (and if an attack killed a character because it dealt 100 damage, fear not, because after reviving him, the same attack would only deal 50).
- Most enemies have an item to steal, and can be morphed. Heck, even bosses can be morphed. And I tried to make the effort worth the trouble. I tried morphing the first boss once, but didn't succeed
Can you do it ?
- All random enemies have three item drops. Two of them are different sources (so you can't farm them as easily). The last drop - the rarest one - is what I call a battle item. Like a Potion, a Phoenix Down, a Blind Stone, a Fire Stone, etc. You can also instantly get this battle item by stealing the enemy. This way, you can choose what you'll get at the end of a battle. Will you kill the enemy without stealing them for a high chance of a Source drop, or will you steal from it to stock on helpful items ?
- enemies don't use the same spells. Some enemies that used Enemy Skills might now just use a magic spell, while some enemies that didn't use Enemy Skills might now use them. For a little help, here are their locations :
-> Find an enemy skill in the first reactor.
-> Find an enemy skill in the second reactor.
-> Find an enemy skill in the Sector 8 (near the church / Aeris' house).
-> Find an enemy skill in the sewers
-> Find an enemy skill in the Train Graveyard 1st part (same as the one in the 1st reactor).
-> Find an enemy skill in the Train Graveyard 2nd part.
-> Find an enemy skill near the shop in Shinra's HQ.
That makes 6 different enemy skills, but you might end with 7 when you reach the world map.
That's all I can think of, for now. Don't worry, you don't need to try and manipulate every enemy to get the E. Skills.
