Final Fantasy III: Antinomia: Final Fantasy VI

Antinomia (n.) - Two principles equally valid but diametrically opposed.

The intent of this hack is to elevate General Leo to a deuteragonist role and periodically shift the narrative focus from the main party to him, in order to explore the events on the Imperial side in parallel with the main casts' actions (kind of like what FF8 did with Laguna). The narrative split continues until Leo and the Returners' stories intersect, at which point more substantial changes occur, such as Leo surviving and eventually being able to join the party as a permanent member, and the World of Ruin's story progression being retooled. The overall story and mechanics remain mostly the same, but utilize an expanded ROM and dialogue bank for dozens of new cutscenes and events to expand upon what's already there, for all characters, not just Leo. Terra's struggles are also more significantly explored.

This is first and foremost a story hack rather than a gameplay hack. Not to "change" the story, so much as tell it from a different set of eyes, and to give Leo a chance to participate in that story more than he did originally. There are a few new boss fights and some minor adjustments to battle mechanics, as well as a few events that utilize mechanics not present in the original game. But expanding on the original world, characters, and themes while still remaining loyal to them was the goal going into this rather than changing the manner in which the game is played. As such, no characters have been added, replaced, removed, or significantly altered, with the exception of Siegfried, since he served no purpose in the original game and his sprite memory was re-utilized, so he no longer exists. So if you're a die-hard Siegfried fan, this hack is not for you.

New Features:

* Leo's sprite recolored to more closely match his menu portrait
* Leo can now become a permanent party member... OR NOT, depending on player choices.
* Mog is now a temporarily-recruitable guest character to open a permanent slot in the roster for Leo.
* Two new events added to the World of Balance featuring Leo as a playable guest character, along with adding him to a third where he wasn't originally present.
* World of Ruin opens from a different character's perspective
* Brand new re-recruitment event for Leo in World of Ruin to obtain him as a permanent party member
* Shadow becomes permanently recruitable in the World of Balance
* Over an hour's worth of new or expanded cutscenes, with over 800 new lines of dialogue
* New retranslation of much of the original script. Woolsey was used as a base and his translation was kept for lines that were "close enough" or whose localization didn't detract from the original intent. The remainder of the script has been relocalized and refreshed. This is an original retranslation, not one from previous mods.
* Spell, item, monster, and ability names updated to be consistent with modern naming schemes in the series, provided there were enough characters to fit the name (e.g., even though "Firaga" will fit in 6 letters, "Blizzaga" and "Thundaga" will not, so for consistency's sake, they have all remained "Fire 3", "Ice 3", and "Bolt 3").
* New algorithm for HP/MP gain at level up that takes characters' individual base stats into account for greater character differentiation based on role.
* Evasion glitch patched. The Goggles no longer do nothing.
* Dance never fails
* Desperation attacks much easier to trigger
* Bushido gauge speed increased
* Sprint by default except for events and maps that forbid it. Sprint Shoes no longer exist.
* Colosseum now controllable
* Several new pieces of music
* New sidequest for additional stat gains
* New ultimate weapon sidequests

https://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/thread-4047.html

Antinomia: Final Fantasy VI - v2.0 - Fast Moon

======================
BACKGROUND
======================

Antinomia (n.) - Two principles equally valid but diametrically opposed.

The intent of this hack is to elevate General Leo to a deuteragonist role and periodically shift the narrative focus from the main party to him, in order to explore the events on the Imperial side in parallel with the main casts' actions (kind of like what FF8 did with Laguna). The narrative split continues until Leo and the Returners' stories intersect, at which point more substantial changes occur, such as Leo surviving and eventually being able to join the party as a permanent member, and the World of Ruin's story progression being retooled. The overall story and mechanics remain mostly the same, but utilize an expanded ROM and dialogue bank for dozens of new cutscenes and events to expand upon what's already there, for all characters, not just Leo.

This is first and foremost a story hack rather than a gameplay hack. Not to "change" the story, so much as tell it from a different set of eyes, and to give my favorite character a chance to participate in that story more than he did originally. There are a few new boss fights and some minor adjustments to battle mechanics, as well as a few events that utilize mechanics not present in the original game. But expanding on the original world, characters, and themes while still remaining loyal to them was my goal going into this rather than changing the manner in which the game is played. As such, no characters have been added, replaced, removed, or significantly altered, with the exception of Siegfried, since he served no purpose in the original game and I wanted to utilize his sprite memory for something else, so he no longer exists. So if you're a die-hard Siegfried fan, this hack is not for you.

FF6Hacking.com thread: https://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/thread-4047.html

======================
INSTALLATION
======================

- Base ROM: Final Fantasy III (U) (V1.0). You are responsible for finding this yourself. Compatible with the 1.0 base ROM only. Will softlock during battle dialogue if you use the 1.1 ROM. When you open the base game in an emulator, it should give a CRC32 of A27F1C7A.
- Use a tool such as Lunar IPS or SNEStuff to apply the IPS patch to the original ROM.
- Alternatively, place the original base ROM and the IPS file in the same folder and name them both the same thing: i.e, "Antinomia_Final_Fantasy_VI.ips" and "Antinomia_Final_Fantasy_VI.smc". Many emulators such as SNES9x will automatically combine the files when the base ROM is loaded.
- If you don't know whether your base ROM is headered or unheadered, the file size of an unheadered ROM is 3072KB, while a headered is 3073KB. Alternatively, if you open the ROM in a hex editor, if it's headered you'll see a bunch of 00's for the first 0x200 addresses.
- You'll probably get a "bad checksum" error when loading the patched ROM, which is typical with patches, but take note of the 8-digit CRC32 the emulator provides after patching and compare it to the one provided for this version in the change log below to ensure that everything merged as expected.
- If you accidentally patched the v1.1 base ROM instead of the v1.0 base ROM, you will know in the first fight with the Whelk as the battle text will be garbled.
- Definitely not compatible with any patches that alter game dialogue due to this hack using custom dialogue addressing.
- Your mileage may vary on patches that alter game mechanics, depending on what memory was altered.

=====================
NEW FEATURES
=====================

- Leo's sprite recolored to more closely match his menu portrait
- Leo can now become a permanent party member... OR NOT, depending on player choices.
- Mog is now a temporarily-recruitable guest character to open a permanent slot in the roster for Leo.
- Two new events added to the World of Balance featuring Leo as a playable guest character, along with adding him to a third where he wasn't originally present.
- Brand new intro event to the World of Ruin
- Brand new re-recruitment event for Leo in World of Ruin to obtain him as a permanent party member
- Shadow becomes permanently recruitable in the World of Balance
- Over an hour's worth of new or expanded cutscenes, with over 800 new lines of dialogue
- New retranslation of much of the original script. Woolsey was used as a base and his translation was kept for lines that were "close enough" or whose localization didn't detract from the original intent. The remainder of the script has been relocalized and refreshed. This is an original retranslation, not one from previous mods.
- Spell, item, monster, and ability names updated to be consistent with modern naming schemes in the series, provided there were enough characters to fit the name (e.g., even though "Firaga" will fit in 6 letters, "Blizzaga" and "Thundaga" will not, so for consistency's sake, they have all remained "Fire 3", "Ice 3", and "Bolt 3").
- New algorithm for HP/MP gain at level up that takes characters' individual base stats into account for greater character differentiation based on role.
- Evasion glitch patched. The Goggles no longer do nothing.
- Dance never fails
- Desperation attacks much easier to trigger
- Bushido gauge speed increased
- Sprint by default except for events and maps that forbid it. Sprint Shoes no longer exist.
- Colosseum now controllable
- Several new pieces of music
- New sidequest for additional stat gains
- New ultimate weapon sidequests

====================
CHANGE LOG
====================

----
v2.0 [CRC32: E9574286] released: 7/22/2023
----
Bugfixes
- Leo's desperation attack changed so that he returns to line when he finishes
- Airship was still appearing on the map at the beginning of the World of Ruin and was still accessible immediately if its last known coordinates were along the route to Mobliz.

Feature changes
- HP/MP gain at level up retooled. Originally every character just read from the same static table to determine how much HP/MP they gain at each level up, and the only thing that differentiated them was their starting values. Now each character's individual base stats are also factored in, meaning those with a higher Vigor stat gain more HP while those with a higher Magic stat gain more MP. Stamina is also factored into both, when originally this stat was mostly meaningless. Permanent stat increases to Vigor/Magic/Stamina from Espers or record players will also affect character growth.
- Sprinting is now the default walk speed outside of events and maps that forbid it. The opening march on Narshe is one such event, so this change won't be immediately apparent on a new game. Sprint Shoes have been removed from all shops.
- With an unused Relic item data now available with the removal of Sprint Shoes, added a Magic Egg relic which doubles spell learn rates. One can be received via an event and additional ones via the Collosseum.
- No longer lose Odin when upgrading to Raiden
- Collosseum is no longer RNG - you can control your character

----
v1.4 [CRC32: 457457C1] released: 6/3/2023
----
Bugfixes
- Minor text fixes.
- Going to Kefka's tower without recruiting Leo was causing a softlock due to an animation involving Leo's sprite attempting to play on the airship without him being present. Set up a conditional to prevent this.
- Character walk speed upon party expansion normalized.

----
v1.3 [CRC32: 05C5962D] released: 5/27/2023
----
Bugfixes
- Minor text overflow fixes in battle dialogue leading to white bars next to the textbox.
- Shadow no longer gets un-equipped after the scene at the summit of the Floating Continent

Feature changes
- Shadow now has Interceptor if you take him to the Floating Continent. In the base game, Interceptor was left behind in Thamasa during the Floating Continent and therefore all of Shadow's Interceptor-based effects were disabled, but that doesn't need to be the case here anymore.
- Mog will now join the party immediately during his event with Lone Wolf if you have an open party slot instead of needing to follow him back to the caves.
- Bushido gauge speed increased.
- Song played by the Albrook Pub record player changed and a new event associated with it added. Only available once the Record Player sidequest has been initiated.

----
v1.2 [CRC32: CAA1CE07] released: 5/13/2023
----
Bugfixes
- Minor text fixes
- Having Terra as the party lead going into the final phase of the Leo recruitment event was causing Leo's sprite to spawn on top of the party when entering town maps. Fixed Leo's sprite to be correctly hidden

Feature changes
- Gau now knows the Stray Cat Rage by default when recruiting him to remove the need to grind for it at the beginning
- Updated the descriptive text on the rats to make it more apparent which ones are good and which are bad
- Rat event RNG updated to ensure that at least one rat will always spawn

----
v1.1 [CRC32: CB830965] released: 5/8/2023
----
Bugfixes
- Taking Shadow to the Floating Continent was locking up the game due to not removing all the conditionals that originally removed him from the party. Conditional that deleted guest character from the party after defeating Ultima removed, as well as deleting conditional that caused the Floating Continent guest character to no longer respawn after defeating Ultima.

----
v1.0 [CRC32: D4CB44B0] released: 5/6/2023
----
Bugfixes
- Opening dialogue with Biggs and Wedge was not auto-advancing
- Event in Leo's South Figaro scenario was warping focus back to the Returner's Hideout
- Shadow permanent recruitment event was triggering prematurely
- Fixed Interceptor's walk speed during Shadow recruitment event
- Some children's dialogue branches had been erased during Terra's WoR event
- Fixed Leo's NPC sprite appearing when it wasn't supposed to
- Fixed Celes facing the wrong direction during Nikeah event
- Fixed character walk speed during Celes Solitary Island event
- Text formatting on multiple-choice dialogue boxes fixed
- Text formatting on centered text dialogue boxes fixed
- "SwdTech" changed to "Bushido" in the menus to match the battle command

Known Bugs
- The Sketch Bug from the vanilla 1.0 release is still present in all its glory, so use Sketch at your own peril.
- Due to being moved to the Guest slot, Mog no longer has a riding sprite, so making him the party lead and putting him on a chocobo or Magitek armor (Cyan's dream) will cause him to turn into a pink Banon when faced sideways. I don't have a way to fix this as the Guest slot has no sprite entry for riding (this issue already existed in vanilla).
- Mog cannot be used in the Collosseum as its code cannot handle the guest slot. If you take him, he will be invisible and lose immediately with the message "Banon fell...".
- The pointer in the Collosseum disappears when you select "Fight"

====================
CREDITS
====================
Writing and Coding:
Fast Moon
Translation and Localization:
Ted Woolsey
Fast Moon
Additional Music:
- "Moogle Music Box", "Terra's Theme (Piano)" Arrangement:
Fast Moon
- "Leo's Flashback - The Monster in the Lab" Composition and Arrangement:
Fast Moon
- "Dancing Calcobrena", "Battle on the Big Bridge", "Home, Sweet Home", "Hurry! Hurry!", "Library of Ancients", "Spreading Grand Wings"
emberling
- "Into the Darkness"
MetroidQuest
- "Melody of Lute", "Troian Beauty", "Red Wings", "I'm a Dancer!"
Gi Nattak
Additional Code Patches:
- SwdTech Ready Stance 1.1B
HatZen08
Hacking Tools/Utilities:
- FF3usME (sprite editing, item editing, monster editing)
Lord J
- FF6LE CE (map editing, NPC editing, event trigger editing)
Lord J
madsiur
- FF3DE (dialogue editing)
Fast Moon
- Tinymm (convert MIDI to MML for music editing)
- RS3ExTools2 (convert MML to FF6 music data)
- HxD (hex editing of events and game code)
- Lunar IPS (IPS patch file generation)

Database match: Final Fantasy III (USA)
Database: No-Intro: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20210222-050638)
File/ROM SHA-1: 4F37E4274AC3B2EA1BEDB08AA149D8FC5BB676E7
File/ROM CRC32: A27F1C7A