[RELEASE] Golden Sun: The Balance Age

[Chronotakular]

There's not much I can say about the first 2. The first only needs to be tested (but i need to find the save file for it), about the second... I really have no idea. It could be even like that from the original game... either way, I'm clueless.

More or less what I figured, just thought they were worth reporting.

About the third: you guessed right, I had to manually change Cloud Brand to Murakumo. Also, fixing those typos is a total joke since the text editor has a search function. I'm fixing it as I write this post.

Well that's good to know. Haha.

BTW, please keep reporting any dialogue-related mistakes... not just typos... even a sentence that just doesn't make sense to you for whatever reason is worth reporting (I remember the dialogue between Garet and his little brother - when the party returns back to Vale to find Dora's sick in GS1 - made no sense whatsoever in the Italian ROM).
I won't fix those by myself cause i'll never play the english ROM, but if you spot something and tell me, i will ;)

To be honest, I haven't been paying attention to the dialogue too much, but I will for sure do this from now on. My last play through, which was somewhat recently, seemed okay. Though I didn't notice the typo so who knows. But I'll closely pay attention to the dialogue from now on.

This glitch existed in the original game, I believe. It's most noticeable in Gaia Rock.

Ah, strange. I never came across this in the original game, even after all those years of playing it. I noticed once or twice recently in Ankhol Ruins though. Good to know.

[Rolina]

Oh, I know they're the same - the Murakumo became the Kusanagi, thus my idea that it could have a quest that gives it a power up and name change.  Still, nice to see that it was actually the Murakumo in the JP game - kind of an interesting insight, considering before I had thought it was called Kusanagi in japan based on what the wiki says.

[Caledor]

To be honest, I haven't been paying attention to the dialogue too much, but I will for sure do this from now on. My last play through, which was somewhat recently, seemed okay. Though I didn't notice the typo so who knows. But I'll closely pay attention to the dialogue from now on.

Thanks ;)

Oh, I know they're the same - the Murakumo became the Kusanagi, thus my idea that it could have a quest that gives it a power up and name change.  Still, nice to see that it was actually the Murakumo in the JP game - kind of an interesting insight, considering before I had thought it was called Kusanagi in japan based on what the wiki says.

Hmm... it's not like it became... it just changed name due to a later legend. Still... the power up is an option, especially if Himi's brother joins the fray.

BTW the wiki is fixed now :P

v1.31 for both games is UP!

[Salanewt]

Not sure if you want a fix right this instant since I'm working on changing Dreamtide and Watery Grave into a whole line, but...

0816B4E6 - You can remove Dreamtide's swirly graphic if you change this branch (hex to xD140). Still single target because I haven't completely resolved the multi-target thing, but at least what I have now is a step up from what it is now. I'm about to look for the instruction(s) that set(s) the water's height next, so I can let you know what I find shortly enough if you want.

[Caledor]

Thanks, I'll certainly check it.
Also, no need to hurry at all, but let me know when you resolve the multi target thing, that one's the most important ;)

[Salanewt]

Okay. So, about that...

I studied it and compared the visual effect to Watery Grave+, and it looks like the palette swap issue isn't much of an error so much as it is a timing thing. Basically, an enemy will remain white until the game registers that they have taken damage. In which case they turn back to normal. The reason why I thought it was an error before was because it happens so fast and the Watery Grave+ animation partially obscures the targets, making it a little harder to notice at a glance.

Need to double check the code later, but this basically means that the issue has been solved. Now all I want to do for the actual tier patch is to play around with the code so Dreamtide and the old Watery Grave are smaller while keeping the new Watery Grave about the same as it is now (I say "old and new" because I effectively switched Watery Grave with the unused/melded third variant).

Edit: Sort of. Hard to explain, but I forgot that the other targets will switch back before their damage is calculated. So, um... Low priority fix, but otherwise the plan is to work on getting a second tier (Wave is first, Watery Grave is third). Need to toy around with the code some more, but so far I like where things are going.

[Caledor]

Wait a min i think i didn't get what you want to do with the 3 waves. are you trying to create a "perfect" set of spells from what we already have? Perfect as in looks and everything?

[Salanewt]

More or less, yeah. Well, 90-95% at least. Progress is going great so far too; tiers 1 and 3 are mostly done, but I also want to tweak the code a bit more for the second tier and maybe do the targeting & sound effect section from scratch so each tier has its own code. That may even fix the palette swap thing, assuming a fix is needed. I even removed Dreamtide's spiral effect code, which should give me the room to do this within the wave function.

Not sure if you have seen it, but this is what I had for tier 1 (previously Dreamtide) before I lowered the water level a bit (audio issues are from the video itself, not the ROM):

But first, schoolwork; need to take a bunch of notes down so I can start working on a smaller paper.

[Caledor]

This is soo great... I think I'll make a release for this thing alone when it's done.

[Salanewt]

Oh wow, that'll be pretty neat! In all honesty, there's always a small part of me that is uncertain about some of the decisions I make when it comes to these kinds of patches. It's a bit of a confidence booster to read something like your post, lol. :D

Still doing school stuff, but I technically get a week without any lectures or seminars now; gives me a little more free time over the weekend.

[Caledor]

Heh... I would've been perfectly fine with a fix of the targeting issue. You're doing that PLUS improving the whole thing... i'll gladly be waiting for it ;)
Keep up the good work!

[Rolina]

Man... I'd love to see the things you could do with other animations to make them workable for spells.  Lord knows we need more wind-based animations...  Would you be able to make a geyser spell line by any chance?

[Salanewt]

A super easy geyser spell would be to palette swap the Volcano line, but eh. There may be other alternatives that don't come to mind at the moment. I also can't really think of many other animations (in general) that would look good as spell lines after this and the Wisp line are uploaded.

Wind-based: Which sort of reminds me, I still need to double check that particle/RAM issue for the Wisp line I made a while back. That was the last thing I needed to do before considering the animation perfect.

Wave: Coming along now. I want to figure out what makes Dreamtide's water recede while not affecting the other tiers, and then I want to rework the targeting/sound effect stuff so each tier is a bit more unique. Not sure if there are any other changes I want to make at the moment.

Edit: I think I may have partially figured out the "water receding" thing. More research required though.

[Chronotakular]

Back sooner than I thought!

Tinder is reviving for full health, I'm assuming this isn't intentional.

[Aile~♥]

Wind-based: Which sort of reminds me, I still need to double check that particle/RAM issue for the Wisp line I made a while back. That was the last thing I needed to do before considering the animation perfect.

"Wisp" line? Haven't seen it. Got a video?

[Salanewt]

Oh, um, this thing? I only consider it about 95% complete because the last few blasts lack the sparks that the other ones have. Not a really major thing, but as far as having a perfect animation goes... yeah.

Edit: Which reminds me, Fox/Tea helped quite a bit with this one. Which was awesome.


Wave: Okay, so I found the part of the code that decides how many waves Dreamtide and Watery Grave each get (or rather, the height of the primary and secondary waves for both animations). I think I still need to find and edit some sort of angling variable before I'm comfortable with how everything above tier 1 looks. After that will be toying around with sound effects and targeting, and then finished.

[Caledor]

Back sooner than I thought!

Tinder is reviving for full health, I'm assuming this isn't intentional.

Intentional. Tinder always revived to full health, so i just leaved it like that. The reason I halved the hp restored by the most common reviving effect is to make djinn better at it. In the vanilla game you had revive, which revived to 100% hp and never failed, and quartz, which revived to 50% hp, failed 2 times out of 5 AND put you in a worse class. Guess who was almost useless? ;)

Thanks for reporting though, never know what I might have forgot :P

Wave: Okay, so I found the part of the code that decides how many waves Dreamtide and Watery Grave each get (or rather, the height of the primary and secondary waves for both animations). I think I still need to find and edit some sort of angling variable before I'm comfortable with how everything above tier 1 looks. After that will be toying around with sound effects and targeting, and then finished.

Great!

[Rolina]

A super easy geyser spell would be to palette swap the Volcano line, but eh. There may be other alternatives that don't come to mind at the moment. I also can't really think of many other animations (in general) that would look good as spell lines after this and the Wisp line are uploaded.

Wind-based: Which sort of reminds me, I still need to double check that particle/RAM issue for the Wisp line I made a while back. That was the last thing I needed to do before considering the animation perfect.

While easy, I can't imagine it looking good.  However, if we look at abilities like Aqua Sock, Plume Edge, and Nereid, as well as any similar things out there, I'm sure we could derive something.

@Wind:  There's a a few animations in the djinn I think might be worth looking at to see if they scale, such as Gale.  I'd also like to look into the Jupiter summon (like, the one djinn summon Jupiter).  It'd be kinda cool if we could derive more wind based spells from stuff like that - certainly beats using stuff like wing beat.

[Salanewt]

The issue with Aqua Sock is that it is one of the 101 unleashes (animations 100-200 that have an argument of 4) and has more in common with Flint, so it can't really tier unless an entirely new animation is made for it. Nereid may be similar given its summon status (normally defined by a different animation range). Plume Edge could be something, as could Gale, but both honestly seem pretty difficult to make into good looking tiering animations...

But anyway, this is probably not the topic for such discussion. :P

Wave: Still at it, but also still at schoolwork. It's going to be a pretty busy week for me as far as that goes because I have a... 16-20 page draft to write, an 8 page paper due in March, and another 20-ish page paper that I have to get started on that is due near the end of April. And I get a week of no lectures or seminars to do this with. I figure I can mostly focus on the wave line and Leaf's secret request when I have free time this week, and if all goes well with work then I may have a day or two off next weekend.

[Chronotakular]

Intentional. Tinder always revived to full health, so i just leaved it like that. The reason I halved the hp restored by the most common reviving effect is to make djinn better at it. In the vanilla game you had revive, which revived to 100% hp and never failed, and quartz, which revived to 50% hp, failed 2 times out of 5 AND put you in a worse class. Guess who was almost useless? ;)

Thanks for reporting though, never know what I might have forgot :P

I honestly thought this might have been the case for the same reasoning, but I figured since all other revives didn't, that this one shouldn't. Good to know though. It will continue to be my go to revive usage.