Download Final Fantasy VI - SG-III ROM Hack

Final Fantasy 6: Project SG-III by Spooniest
____________________________________________
(Accidentally) Based on Project III by vivify93.

Table of Contents
[FFSG301] Introduction
[FFSG302] Installation
[FFSG303] Changelog
[FFSG304] Acknowledgements
[FFSG305] Legal Baloney

[FFSG301]
INTRODUCTION

Ok, so uh... fun story time? :| Aheh...

On September 5th, 2020, a user at a certain discord named Razzorin happened to mention to the author the idea of trying to patch his Stand Guard patch over Brave New World, because they had heard a lot about it and thought he might like it. So, in trying to do that (it turned out to be impossible because BNW edits events in such a way that working in FF3usME introduces catastrophic game crashes), the author (that's me) decided, "Why not do another pass at Stand Guard?"

Why not, indeed. See, it had been a while since the author had worked with any of these tools or done any game modding work by themselves at all, much less trying to wrestle the rabid lion that is FF6 to the ground, and apparently they'd forgotten what a massive undertaking it is. From about 9pm on the 5th until 6pm on the 6th (with about 4 hours sleep in the middle somewhere), the author began trying out different new things with Stand Guard... and somehow managed to not realize that the PSX Font Variant patch from the author's colleague (vivify93) *was also the entire patch for his unreleased hack, Project III, as well.*

So, Project III was merged with Stand Guard by the misadventure of the author not knowing what he was doing. However, upon realizing the mistake, vivify93 gave his blessing to continue to work on it, and after some screwups, remembering how to relative search in Translhextion/Windhex, and generally just imbibing lots of coffee and eating peanut-butter-and-ritz-crackers for hours upon hours, on Sunday, September 6th, version 1.0 of Project SG-III was born.

...And then that build was unusable. :D I messed around hex-editing the word GP into Gill and edited some wrong values, causing all battle Attack Names to be garbled. Whoopsie doopsie.

So vivify93 edited Gp into Gil in a build of Project-III for me and I started over, beginning on September 8th and finishing version 1.0 at 3:19pm on September 14th, 2020, after much more thorough playtesting.

Sometimes the best stories are about how you royally screwed up.

[FFSG302]
INSTALLATION

Tools Recommended:
- LunarIPS
- T.U.S.H. (The Utility for SNES Headers)

Step 1: Obtaining FF3 in computer file form.

You will need a copy of version 1.0 of Final Fantasy III (USA). If Relm can do the Sketch Bug on your cartridge, jam that baby into your cartridge copier and dump that ROM (look it up). If not, it's the wrong version.

Step 2: Header? I hardly know her! ...(sorry)

Once you've got your .smc or .sfc (I recommend renaming the extension to .smc at any rate, since FF3USME will only recognize that format) file on your comp, open up TUSH, and open the ROM file.

It should tell you whether it is "Headered" or "Unheadered." You want it to be AN UN-HEADERED ROM. If it has a header, remove it. If it doesn't have a header, you're golden, and you  may proceed to Step 3.

Side note: A headered ROM will read a file size of 3073kb. Unheadered will be 3072kb.

Step 3: Cloning

At this point, and *please pay careful attention*, make a [[[backup copy]]] of your ROM file. Right-click, copy, paste next to it, and rename it something eye-catching, like "FF3 Vanilla DON'TTOUCH.smc". If something goes wrong, you will have this backup copy of the vanilla ROM to start over with. Ok?

Copy that file, and paste. Rename the original file "FF6SG3" or whatever you want, really. This will be the .smc file we will patch with. You should now have 2 files:

- VanillaDon'tTouch.smc
- FF6SG3.smc

And that brings us to Step 4...

Step 4: PATCHING

Open LunarIPS, and select "Apply IPS Patch."
It will ask you to select the patch file (contained in this download). Next, it will ask you to select the file you wish to patch to. Select the "FF6SG3" (or whatever you named it) file that you made in Step 3.

Step 5: Enjoy!

[FFSG303]
CHANGELOG

EDITOR'S NOTE

Due to the unpredictable nature of what happened, all of the patches in Stand Guard and all of the patches used in Project III were merged into one file. I am not entirely sure what 201+ patches will do to a game like FF6, but I did do a general playtest (or 10) before releasing it, and it seems to be working so far. Please DM me here on RHDN if you find any bugs, and I'll see about fixing them.

Stand Guard version 6.3.2 contained:

- A rewritten script/battle captions, renamed monsters, renamed Special Attacks, renamed NPCs (in some cases), and a few general quality of life improvement patches. It was nothing super heavy. Please see the credits section on its RHDN entry, for a full breakdown.

Project III version 1.00 contained (big, deep breath):
======================================================

- Applied Blitz Screen (Leet Sketcher). Blitz names display above their button combos in teal on the Blitz Menu.

- Applied Gerad and Sabin (Leet Sketcher). Sabin now reacts to Gerad's final line as Celes pursues him in Nikeah.

- Applied Rewards Display (HatZen08). The reward for a wager at the Dragon's Neck Colosseum will now display before betting.

- Applied RMOVE to REMOVE (Gi Nattak) [with additional fixing by vivify93]. This changes the Equip Menu option "RMOVE" to "REMOVE", and "EMPTY" to "NONE".

- Descriptions of every skill viewable from the Main Menu have been cleaned up and clarified.

Gameplay:
- Modified five Esper rewards.

Ramuh teaches Boltra x5 and Poison x2, as opposed to the inverse of the original.
Ifrit teaches Drain x2.
Shiva no longer teaches Cure.
Raiden teaches Meteor x2 (in addition to Quick x1) and gives Speed +2 at level up.
Alexandr gives Vigor +2 at level up.

- Removed elemental bias from Fire, Fira, Firaga vs. Ice, Icera, Icega vs. Bolt, Boltra, Boltga.

  For example, Fire had a base power of 21 and an MP cost of 4, whereas Bolt had a base power of 20 but an MP cost of 6, and Ice had a base power of 22 but an MP cost of 5. Now each spell has the Fire line's MP cost and the middle ground base power.

- Rather than Safety Bit, the sword Ragnarok can now be rarely stolen from Doom.

- Applied C. V. Reynolds' Bug-fix Compilation. 7 of the 188 patches in the Compilation have been removed for compatibility purposes.

=====PATCHES RETAINED:=============
1-Way Status Immunity (Assassin)
Agoraphobic Leader (Novalia Spirit)
Allergic Dog (Novalia Spirit)
Amnesic Cursor (Novalia Spirit)
Anchors Aweigh! (Imzogelmo, Lenophis)
Anonymous Attack (Leet Sketcher)
Auction Chocobo Fix (Madsiur)
Auto Swordless Runic  (Assassin)
Auto-expiring statuses don't reset their timers with manual removal (Assassin)
Backstabu (Leet Sketcher)
Backwards Jump (Leet Sketcher)
Bad Decoration (Lenophis)
Banon Riding (Leet Sketcher)
Banquet Guards Go Back to Their Places (mblock129)
Bird Bars (Leet Sketcher)
Bland Entrance (Leet Sketcher)
Blitz Tutorial Fix (C. V. Reynolds)
Blush Disease (Novalia Spirit)
Border Crossing (Imzogelmo, Lenophis, Novalia Spirit)
Bottomless HP and MP Well (Assassin)
Bridge Correction (Gi Nattak)
Broken Gate (Novalia Spirit)
Bye Bye Breath (Leet Sketcher) [modified for FF3usME compatibility, and maybe compatibility with
 Blitz Tutorial]
Can't lose for winning (Lenophis)
Caravaggio (Leet Sketcher)
Carve Stone [Leet Sketcher ver.] (Imzogelmo)
Castle Party (Leet Sketcher)
Cave to the Sealed Gate Basement 3 Event Megafix (Assassin)
Celes' Rushing (Djibriel)
Chain of Command (Leet Sketcher)
Chance Offering (Leet Sketcher)
Coin Flip Fix (Gi Nattak)
Control Attacks Ignore MP Cost (Assassin)
Control Menu Responds Poorly to MP Change (Assassin)
The Cowardly Dog (Novalia Spirit)
Dead Hare (Leet Sketcher)
Dead in the Air (Leet Sketcher)
Deceptive Tapir (Assassin)
Disrespectful Zombie (Assassin)
Doom Darts and Trump name fix (Assassin)
Double Block (Leet Sketcher)
Duplicate Enemy Names (Assassin)
Dusk Requium (SP) (C. V. Reynolds)
The Echoing Waters (Novalia Spirit)
Equip Anything fix (Kejardon, Lenophis, Imzogelmo)
Equip wrong item to slot via event (Assassin)
Esper Battle Menu (Lenophis)
Evade (Terii Senshi)
False Knight (Leet Sketcher)
FC 05 enemy command (Master ZED)
Flaky True Knight protection (Assassin)
Flight of Storm Drgn (Novalia Spirit)
For What Ails Ya (Lenophis, Imzogelmo, Kejardon)
Frozen Mosaic (Novalia Spirit)
Frozen Terra Fix (Madsiur)
Game Over (Leet Sketcher)
Genji Glove damage reduction (Assassin)
Gogo and the Cursed Shield (Imzogelmo) [with additional fixing by Leet Sketcher]
Gold Wrexsoul (mblock129)
Grand Stairway (Imzogelmo)
Half Knife (Leet Sketcher)
Hasty T-Rex (Leet Sketcher)
Homesick Gau (Djibriel)
I condemn thee to hell! (Lenophis)
Ignore Kamog (Drakkhen)
Imp Skimp (Leet Sketcher)
Imp's Call (Leet Sketcher)
Imp's Rage (Leet Sketcher)
Imp's Retort (Leet Sketcher)
Imp's Retort Compatibility (Leet Sketcher)
Incoherent Gungho dialogue (Assassin)
Instant Airship (Novalia Spirit)
Invert Damage if Undead [Leet Sketcher ver.] (Master ZED)
Ironic Metamorph Pack (Assassin)
Item Magic Counter (Leet Sketcher)
Jewel Ring Description (Assassin)
Jump Megafix [Version A] (Assassin)
Jump-Launcher and Jump-Super Ball (Assassin)
Killer Life 3 (Leet Sketcher)
Lore Scroll Bar (GrayShadows)
Lens Cap (Leet Sketcher)
Loud Music (Leet Sketcher)
M-Tek Vehicle in Cyan's Soul event (Imzogelmo)
The Magic Bridge (Novalia Spirit)
Magic Sorting (Novalia Spirit)
Magicite - Strength to Vigor (C. V. Reynolds)
Magitek Madness (Leet Sketcher)
Menu Malarky (Leet Sketcher)
Mine Cart (Imzogelmo)
Miscolored command names [grayed ver.] (Assassin)
Misplaced Cursor (Novalia Spirit)
Missing Dialogue (Novalia Spirit)
Missing Light (Novalia Spirit)
Morph Mayhem (Leet Sketcher)
Muddle-Mantra (Assassin)
Muddle-Palidor (Assassin)
Multi-Steal (Imzogelmo) [with additional fixing by Leet Sketcher]
Multiple Events Fix (Leet Sketcher)
Mute Steals Rage Statuses (Assassin)
Naming Shadow (Novalia Spirit)
Narshe's Door (Leet Sketcher)
Narshe's Secret Entrance Tile (Novalia Spirit)
Off Death Row (Leet Sketcher)
Off the Hook (Leet Sketcher)
Opened Eyes Terra Alt (Madsiur)
Overhead (Leet Sketcher)
The Peninsula of Death (Novalia Spirit)
Persistent Whistle (Novalia Spirit)
Petrified Rebel (Novalia Spirit)
The Phantom Diary (Novalia Spirit)
Phantom Train Chests (darkmage) [modified by Leet Sketcher]
Phoenix Chest (Leet Sketcher)
Pincer + Row (Assassin)
Pink Gogo (Imzogelmo)
Premature Continuation (Assassin)
Psycho Cyan (Terii Senshi)
Rage (Terii Senshi)
Rage addendum (C. V. Reynolds)
Randomosity monster encounter (Assassin)
Recapture the Glory (Assassin)
Reflect barrier shown on bodyguards (Assassin)
Reflectable Magitek Beams (Assassin)
Reflections (Leet Sketcher)
Regulation Dice (mblock129)
Returner's Day Off (Leet Sketcher)
Rock Bottom (Leet Sketcher)
Save Point Switch (Leet Sketcher)
The Sealed Door (Novalia Spirit)
Self Sneeze (Leet Sketcher)
Setzer Bandana (C. V. Reynolds)
Shadow Chupon (Novalia Spirit)
Shadow Copy (Leet Sketcher)
Shadow Gone (Leet Sketcher)
Shadow's Shadow (Madsiur)
Shadow's Status (Leet Sketcher)
Shop Menu (Novalia Spirit)
Shorter Skill Name Fix (Madsiur)
Sketch Bug (Assassin)
The Sleazy Lender (Novalia Spirit)
Slightly lagged battle event timer display (Assassin)
Smoke and Mirrors (Leet Sketcher)
Solar Wind (Leet Sketcher)
Some MP changes don't update menus (Assassin)
Soul Saved B (Leet Sketcher)
SrBehemoth (Dragonsbrethren)
Stackable Immunities and Permanent Statuses (Assassin)
Status Unknown (Leet Sketcher)
Step Mine MP cost (Assassin)
Step Mine's Missing Digit (Assassin)
Stepping Out (Leet Sketcher)
Stone Cold (Leet Sketcher)
Stone Faced (Leet Sketcher)
Stuck in a Pose (SilentEnigma)
Suplex wrongfully splits damage (Assassin)
That Damn Yellow Streak (Assassin)
There can be only one! Single-target (Lenophis, Imzogelmo)
Throw down (part of) the Gauntlet (Assassin)
Throwback (Leet Sketcher)
Transportation Device (Novalia Spirit)
Trigger Happy (Leet Sketcher)
Tritoch Animation Fix (bydoless)
Turn Around (Leet Sketcher)
Ultimate Damage (Leet Sketcher)
Unaffected Rows (Assassin)
Unequipium (Leet Sketcher)
The Unilateral Blockade (Assassin)
Upside Down (Leet Sketcher)
Vanish Runic (Leet Sketcher)
Vanishing Magicite (Novalia Spirit)
Various Texts' (Imzogelmo)
Vector's Cure-Castin' Kid no longer heals the dead (Imzogelmo)
Verdant Respite (Novalia Spirit)
Walk This Way (Leet Sketcher)
The Wild Cat (Djibriel, Lord J)
Wrong Way, Idiot! (Gi Nattak)
Zombie Rippler A (Leet Sketcher)
Zombie Tapir A (Leet Sketcher)
Zoneseek No Thanks (mblock129)
Zozo Sign Petty Fix (Madsiur)

=====PATCHES REMOVED:==========
Duncan Stays Put (mblock129)
  [While applied, causes hanging bug after editing game in FF3usME.]
Map Mishap (Leet Sketcher)
  [Creates new bug of hidden door being prematurely revealed.]
Miraculous, Death-Defying Always-Left-Facing Jumps in Zozo (mblock129)
  [Nonessential. While applied, causes hanging bug after editing game in FF3usME.]
Precious Jewels (Leet Sketcher)
  [While applied, causes hanging bug after editing game in FF3usME.]
Shadow is Not a Girl (mblock129)
  [Nonessential. While applied, causes hanging bug after editing game in FF3usME. Similar effect of
   patch present in Project III.]
To Joker Doom or Not to Joker Doom
  [I disagreed with changing the concept of the skill.]
Various Texts' (Imzogelmo)
  [Interferes with description pointers in FF3usME; effect has been replicated in Project III.]
=====---------_----------======

- Applied Alphabetical Rage (Assassin). Enemy names in the Rage Menu will now helpfully be displayed A-Z.

- Applied Aquatic Caves (PowerPanda). This allows Mog to learn Water Rondo in Ebot's Rock and the Ancient Castle Tunnels.

- Applied B Button Dash [Dash B ver.] (Master ZED) [with additional fixing by SilentEnigma]. Hold down the B Button to sprint. Stacks with Sprint Shoes.

- Applied Button Settings Menu Restoration (Novalia Spirit). This restores the Config Menu option to reassign button bindings. No matter what the B Button is assigned to, you will always sprint by holding it.

- Applied More Frequent Desperation Attacks (DrakeyC) [with additional tweaking by vivify93]. This increases the occurrance chance of a Desperation Attack to 1/8, allows them to be used during the first 25 seconds of a battle, and allows them to be used more than once per battle.

- Applied The Sketching Mime (vivify93) [with additional tweaking by vivify93], which allows Gogo to equip all Brushes, the Beret, and the Coronet.

- Applied Summon This! (Lenophis, Terii Senshi) to fix the dummied Summon command.

- Applied SwdTech Ready Stance [Version B] (HatZen08), which changes SwdTech to behave more like it does in the Smart Device and PC version. Now the player chooses a SwdTech for Cyan, then can command other teammates as the skill charges.

- Applied True Duel (HatZen08), permitting all characters other than Umaro to be controlled in the Colosseum as if it were a normal fight.

- Applied Y Equip Relics (Leet Sketcher) [with additional fixing by Subtraction], which lets players switch between the Equip and Relic Menus with the Y Button. Unlike B Button Dash, this will respect button rebinding.

Graphics:
- Slightly cleaned up 12x12 (dialogue) font. Majorly cleaned up 8x8 (menu) font; now both fonts' shadows match! [Editor's Note: The menu font is a variant of the PSX FF6 font (just about the only nice thing about that version, IMHO - Spooniest)]

- Swapped tilde ~ and forward slash / in 12x12 and 8x8 fonts. Done to fix issue where a tilde was shown between HP numbers when ATB gauge is set to "Off" in Config Menu.

- Applied Color Wheel (Leet Sketcher). This allows the barrier outlines for buffs/debuffs to cycle rather than one taking precedence.

- Applied King's Robes (Leet Sketcher). This fixes a narrative inconsistency where Edgar would shed his disguise and then put it back between scenes.

- Applied Total Graphics Uncensorship (vivify93), which reverts every last graphics change made to FFIII US.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

...So, this game mod may behave in unexpected ways. I have no way of being sure, but I will be continuing to playtest it myself in the coming weeks, as well.

[FFSG304]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Razzorin, who inspired me to pick this project back up: Thank you for your kind words and polite demeanor towards me, though we've only known each other for a short time. Here's a patch, if you wanna try to beat Kefka again.

To my brother, Ultemus, who originally inspired me to begin work on Stand Guard all the way back in 2010; thank you for being a totally awesome kid brother. We'll beat Double Dragon 2 without losing any lives yet, I tells ya!

To RHDN: It has been one heck of a trip getting here, from 2010. This decade has definitely not been my favorite of my life. Hopefully the next one will be better. Thank you for letting me hang around, despite my somewhat lacking ability at this. I love this community. I've learned all kinds of neat stuff!

To the creators of Final Fantasy 6: Thank you in advance for not suing me into the ground. I made absolutely no profit off of this, except for getting to play it myself, really. FF6 is the best one. Sometimes, the true art gets looked over in favor of the fireworks. It doesn't make it any less the true art.

To vivify93, who has been my brother-from-another-mother since 2011: Thank you for having my back, broski! Why do we climb the mountain? Because it's there, I guess?

And finally, to my dear departed mother: Look ma, I'm computering! :D

I hope you enjoy SG-III. Thank you for downloading.

[FFSG305]
LEGAL BALONEY

|By downloading this patch, you agree
|to release me from any and all damages that may
|occur to you, your property, or your immediate
|or extended family as a result of anything you
|do with the files contained therein. I will
|by no means be held accountable for anything
|that happens to you as a result of using these
|files. By downloading them, you agree that you
|will pursue no legal action against me for
|any reason pertaining to use of the content
|herein.