Don’t think this is gonna be a 100% Gold Remake, it’ll have its differences. Extra battles (some’ll be optionals, tough but rewarding), Hoenn Pokemon (in every area, and hard to find) New areas, Remapped some dungeons (so your old guides wont work) , Extra recurring characters (some’ll hate you, some’ll help you)
Note that the hack is incomplete but feel free to enjoy the hack as-is.
Hues of Mana by Red Soul Readme 22/05/2020 [1.0] What is this? This is a palette patch for Seiken Densetsu 3 (now known as Trials of Mana), one of the best RPGs on the SNES, no doubt, but it is not without its problems; several of those have been addressed by the remake, true, but I do not believe the original is simply superseded because the remake now exists; to me, the SNES game remains important, well made, and very much playable. [2.0] Why? I made this patch to address a minor peeve that always bothered me: the character classes' palettes. You have crazy hair colors everywhere and a lot of color repetition in class branches; with a palette as large as the SNES can muster, you'd think they'd have been a bit more creative. Initiallly, this patch was meant to fix only Kevin. The game has one of his classes flipped around, Death Hand/Fatal Fist and Dervish/Enlightened specifically. The internal palette indicates that Fatal Fist is the Dark-Dark branch for Kevin, something I always suspected (and the remake would later prove). However, after fixing the colors, I realized I didn't like many of the color choices for other characters, as well, almost like for some classes the developers just played color lottery blind and went with just whatever color luck chose for them. From that point on, I decided to change that, and how was pretty clear to me, since Kevin's clothing for his last classes are all references to the four holy beasts (Seiryu, the Azure Dragon, Genbu, the Black Turtle, Suzaku, the Vermillion Bird, and Byakko, the White Tiger. Given that, I went chiefly for those colors for each class. For the other classes, I used my own discretion to avoid color repetitions on different branches for the same characters, keeping the vanilla colors I felt were good, while making color choices that made sense from my point of view. Also, in some cases I referenced the colors from the original game's official art. The first time around, I made the rookie mistake of editing the same ROM I used for playing, and since it contained patches by other people, including the translation, I couldn't release it as it was, but felt too burned out to start over at the time. 1 year later... here we are. I hope you enjoy! [3.0] Archive contents The archive actually contains three patches for the the player to choose from, depending on preference. [3.1] Hues of Mana - Corrected Colors.ips This patch is the closest to vanilla flavor. It merely corrects Kevin's incorrectly assigned palettes between Kevin's two last dark classes, but keeps everything else intact. [3.2] Hues of Mana - No Crazy Hair.ips This patch makes it so the hair colors of every character are consistent with the base class for each, leaving other parts of the palette alone. Note that in Kevin's case, because the hair and pants share palettes, some of his classes ended up with very similar outfit hues. If I get enough requests, I can revise this specific patch. [3.3] Hues of Mana - Complete.ips This is the heart of the project. It includes aspects from the separate patch I created above, however it goes beyond by correcting palette saturations and changing several palettes the lessen color repetition and, to an extent, to suit thematic appropriateness (in Kevin's case) or better match artwork. It may not be to everyone's taste, but I hope some will like it. [4.0] Do I have the right ROM? The data for the unpatched ROM required is below: File SHA1 209C55FD2A8D7963905E3048B7D40094D6BEA965 ROM SHA1 209C55FD2A8D7963905E3048B7D40094D6BEA965 File MD5 58EBD7CBF28CEADC03AEC4F448956A0B ROM MD5 58EBD7CBF28CEADC03AEC4F448956A0B File CRC32 863ED0B8 ROM CRC32 863ED0B8 Note: The ROM should be UNHEADERED With the right ROM in hand, apply the patch using the IPS patcher of your choice. I recommend Floating IPS: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1040/ More details regarding utilities and other caveats follow below. [5.0] How? This patch will work with both the Japanese ROM as well as one patched with the English translation patch found here http://www.romhacking.net/translations/440/ and even the official translation, but whatever the case, Hues of Mana should be applied to an unheadered ROM and the fan translation patch requires a headered ROM. Detailed instructions follow. [6.0] ROMs, headers and other details. Cartridge copiers add bits of extraneous data called headers, but for the purposes of emulation they can be problematic. Most patches nowadays utilize ROMs without headers and trying to apply a patch created from a ROM without a header to a ROM with one will result in in unplayable game. The English patch for Seiken Densetsu 3 was released circa 2000, and it actually was created from a ROM with a header, which creates a problem with regards to compatibility with other patches for the game as there cannot be a header mismatch. Thankfully, are ways to get around this confusion, and I'll present two solutions so that you can choose your preferred one. Note: For better results, apply Hues of Mana LAST when using several patches in conjunction. [6.1] Method 1 The first solution is using RHDN's Online Patcher: https://www.romhacking.net/patch/ Take note of whether the patch requires a header (Hues of Mana doesn't, but the translation patch does, for example), and if it does, make sure to click the "add temporary header" checkmark, then patch your ROM. The resulting file should still remain compatible with other patches that do not require headers to function. [6.2] Method 2 Use the following utility the remove the patch's header: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1455/ Despite it being a DOS based utility, it works very well. To use it, open the command prompt and then follow the on screen synthax to create a patch without a header. Example synthax: IPS_Header_Changer.exe -m 1 headeredpatch.ips unheaderedpatch.ips take note of the underscores and spaces, substituting the filenames as appropriate, and don't forget the extensions. [7.0] Hues of Mana caveats: There are things that I wish I could fix, but are beyond the scope of my ability: - Though Kevin's palettes are now correct, his class branching for the Dark route remains wrong, on the Status Screen. Fatal Fist/Death Hand remains his Dark-Dark though even if the game indicates otherwise. [8.0] Anything else? Yes. Seiken Densetsu 3 has many patches made by dedicated individuals that love the game, and the list below has the ones I recommend. [8.1.1] Sin of Mana by Pretarius5018 http://ngplus.net/index.php?/files/file/28-seiken-densetsu-3-sin-of-mana/ An extensive overhaul of the game's balance, including difficulty patches can be appended to customize how challenging it is, ranging from near vanilla difficulty to hard type. [9.0] Special Thanks - Iavasechui from the Gamefaqs boards Thanks for motivating me through the project. Your idea to normalize hair colors of the characters was what motivated me to try and give the palettes my own spin. - Rootrick from RHDN Their help was invaluable in helping me find palette offsets I was missing so that colors could also be changed on the Status Screens to match the on field sprites. Thanks! - The kind people at the FF5 Discord Thanks for all the help and patience, and sorry for constantly bugging everyone about a game that wasn't even the focus of the channel! - Azure Sky Provided invaluable palette critique throughout the project. I'm sure it wouldn't have turned as well as it did without their input.
