Okay, so here’s the deal. I love FF5… very, VERY much. I like it so much, I want to make a translation patch for it that’s a little more “Dalton Of Zeal” like, to give the game a little extra personality (and maybe some other time, change a few little things around.)
Here’s a rundown of what I want to do:
Rewrite the text, and probably add more as a result (I assume you need an expander or something for this?)
Change the text design to one that’s a little nicer (such as the FF6 or FF4 text.)
So I’m just curious; what will I need to do this? Assuming I will probably add MORE text to the game than what’s there, and I’ll be hacking the already-translated English version of FF5, will I need any really complicated stuff? I currently have and know how to use Thingy and HexEdit. Anything more?
When you say, change the text design, do you mean alter the game’s font? Then you’ll need a tile editor. I recommend Tile Layer Pro or Tile Molester.
You’ll also need a script extractor/inserter and stuff. And a lot of patience. I don’t know much about hacking FF5, but if it’s like most SNES games, it probably has a bunch of compression and whatnot. Probably not a good project for a first timer.
Too bad you didn’t want to do FF6 instead of FF5. There’s a wonderful program called FF3 Editor that lets you edit just about anything you could possibly want (world map, enemy statistics, dialogue, item properties, character statistics…it’s really well done (just be sure to get Eizneckam’s version). And you can also get a program that lets you edit all of FF6’s sprites too. Making a comprehensive hack has never been easier.
I actually managed to find a text editor for FF5, but this FF6 thing sounds like a great idea. I’ve been planning to do a complete re-work of FF6 for a small community that I know, changing the game to follow the plotline of a little-known webcomic that I fancy. Thanks, Hiryuu!
Oh yeah, I just tried out the Savestate Hacking for LNB, and it works very well. Excellent tutorial there! 8)