Breath of Fire IV: Breath of Fire IV: Working Identify Ability

Identify is an ability in Breath of Fire IV which gives the player more information about an enemy during combat.


In both NA and EU releases of Breath of Fire IV, the Identify ability was cut out due to issues when translating the elemental resistances in English.


This hack gives the ability back to Scias. The hack uses icons of the elements instead of English text to indicate the element resistances, hence avoiding the issue of needing to translate the elements' names.

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Breath of Fire IV: Working Identify Ability Hack
By navarchos/rh
2022-01-17 (v1.1)
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Table of Contents

0. Compatibility
1. Patching
[1A] Patching for use in new games
[1B] Patching for use in pre-existing save files
[1C] Patching for use in both new games and pre-existing save files
2. Use
3. Changes
4. Known Issues
5. Changelog
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0. Compatibility
The patches are intended for use with the NA release of the game
(SLUS-01324). In the future, I plan to make patches for the EU release.


1. Patching
The patch files come as .PPF files, use PPF-O-Matic
(https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/356/) to patch your .BIN file.
The archive file contains multiple patch files.
Each file's is named as "identify_n.ppf", where n is a number indicating at
which level Scias receives the Identify ability. Each patch includes the
undo data, which means you can also use it to get back the unpatched .BIN
file.

[1A] New game:
If you would like to start a new game with Scias being able to use
Identify from the moment he joins your party, use the "identify_3.ppf"
patch.

[1B] Pre-existing save:
If you would like to use the ability in a pre-existing save file,
choose a patch file with the next closest level to Scias's current level
in your save file. For example, if Scias is currently at level 23, and you
would like to be able to use Identify, patch your .BIN file with the
"identify_26.ppf" patch, and level Scias up to level 26 to obtain
Identify.

[1C] Both:
If you would like to use Identify in a pre-existing save file and in a new
game, then you should first patch for the pre-existing save file, level up
until Scias gets Identify, then undo that patch in PPF-O-Matic, and finally,
patch using the "identify_3.ppf" patch. After acquiring Identify, using any
of the patches should still work.

I realize that the patching process is very complicated for pre-existing
save files. An easier method would be to edit the save file and add
Identify to Scias' array of Magic spells. However, editing the save file
would require changing the checksum, and I'm still not sure what kind of
checksum algorithm Breath of Fire IV uses. Therefore, any attempts at
changing the save file will most likely result in a corrupted file error
when trying to load the file.


2. Use
Identify is given to Scias as one of his starting abilities if you are
using the "identify_3.ppf" patch with a new save file, or as an unlockable
ability by levelling up, if you use any other patch.
Identify costs 0 AP to use. When using the ability, you'll be presented
with detailed information about the enemy.

On the right side of the screen you will notice two panels appear. The top
one shows the elemental weakness of an enemy, the enemy's current HP,
max HP and EXP drop. Each element is indicated by an icon, and the color
of each icon represents the enemy's resistance level against that element.
From left to right, top to bottom, the elements are:

Fire Wind Water Earth Holy Mind Status Death
Melee Ranged Magic Breath

There are three possible resistances indicated by the color of the icons:
- Red: The enemy is weak against this element. If an enemy is weak against
an element, they take more than 100% of the normal damage done by that
element. For most elements this mean a resistance value of 0-1, but in the
special case of Holy, this means a resistance value of 0-4.

- Black: The enemy has normal resistance against this element. Enemies with
normal resistance against an element take 100% of the normal damage done
by that element. For most elements this means a resistance value of 2, but
in the special case of Holy, this means a resistance value of 5.

- Blue: The enemy is strong against this element. If an enemy is strong
against an element, they take less than 100% of the normal damage done by
that element. Resistance level 7 means the enemy absorbs the damage done
by the element as HP. For most elements this means a resistance value of
3-7, but in the special case of Holy, this means a resistance value of 6-7.

The bottom panel shows the amount of zennies drop by the enemy, and the
enemy's item drops. The first item in the list can be stolen, while the
second item can only obtained from drops. If an item's name is "////////",
it means that you have not obtained that item before. This is a known issue,
see section 4.

The text box at the bottom of the screen shows some more information about
the enemy, such as hints and tips provided by the game itself.

Everything else about this ability, such as the graphs and the "POSITION"
indicators appear to be merely gimmicks.


3. Changes
Before describing the changes made, it's worth explaining why Identify was
removed from the English language versions of Breath of Fire IV.
In the Japanese release, the elements are indicated using a single Kanji/
Chinese character. It looked something like this:

火風水土聖精狀死
斬射魔竜

If that looks garbled, knwo that it's partially my fault for not taking
encoding into account while writing this readme. Sorry about that.
A screenshot link has been provided below.

Each element's name fits in exactly one character. However, as we know,
these names are significantly much longer in English, thus the result was
an overlap between each element's name in English, which looked something
like this:

Fire
Wind
Water
Earth
Holy
Mind
Status
Death

Where all of the words above are printed on the same line. If that wasn't
clear at all, then these two screenshots should clear things up:

Japanese: https://tcrf.net/File:BOF4-Identify3.png
NA/EU: https://tcrf.net/File:BOF4-Identify2.png

What a mess.

The translation team didn't come up with any other idea to solve this, and
instead chose to remove Identify from the game.

A workaround I found was replacing each element's name with the element's
icon. As an icon takes up the same space as a single character, it would
fit and there would be no overlap among the element's names.

The trouble was getting the icons to look right. Wind, Stat-Down (which I
used for the Mind element) and Holy didn't look good when they were
colored using the single-color palettes, so I had to make a copy of those
icons with the appropriate colors so they'd look slightly better.

Originally the color grey was used to indicate normal resistance. However,
I found that grey didn't stand out enough when used with the element icons,
so I switched to using black instead.

And finally, I had to add the skill back to Scias' level up table. This is
pretty easy, each entry in the table is 8 bytes wide, and the 6th byte is
the byte used to indicate the skill acquired at that level.


4. Known Issues
There are currently no known issues. If you do find any, don't hesitate to
send me a private message via romhacking.net


5. Changelog
(2022/01/16) v1.1 Question marks for unknown items no longer share the same
pointer as the slash which separates current HP and max HP. In addition,
adjusted the spacing so that each question mark doesn't take up as much
space as it used to.



SLUS-01324