Ys IV Mask of the Sun

@edale Hey, I know you asked if you wanted to help with the PCMs if this came up. Well, I finished the biggest portion of the patch. Can you do the PCMs ahead of time and post them for me to download for testing. I have not yet assigned track values to my code.

No problem, give me a day or two to get a PCM set ready for you.

Want a Memories of Celceta (PC/PS4/Vita) pack, a Dawn of Ys (TGCD) pack, or a Mask of the Sun - A New Theory (PS2) pack?

All the soundtracks are incredible too. Do what you feel is best. This is your rodeo.

I think I'll start with the TGCD one. Something tells me it'll be a bit harder to match up the songs from the Memories of Celceta one, so I'll save it until I have a basic patch to work with and can test stuff in-game.

Music is one thing Ys definitely never falls short on. It's almost worth it to buy the games just to listen to the music, lol.

Believe me when I say that anything I working on for the Ys series is a labor of love, and I want it to come out as perfect as possible. It's too bad Ys book I & II never got released on SNES (well, there had to be at least 1 system it didn't get ported to, lol), because an MSU mod for that would be AMAZING.

Just wonder, in contrast to YS III, YS IV is no platform but a real RPG, right?
Maybe it is better to move both in the RPG section once YS IV is completed?

I know that genre categorization is difficult and YS III has elements of a Jump 'n Run (Slay) but also RPG, like Star Wars has also Racing elements and Actricer Strategy.

I'll leave that for you and edale to decide.

I said before, the Ys series, as a whole, can be considered Action RPG.

Also, I really underestimated the differences in music caused by the differences in story. I'm getting most of the TGCD songs matched up to their SNES counterparts, but some just don't want to match up...

I swear, all the early Ys games got ported multiple times, but Ys IV is the only one who's story changes so drastically with each new incarnation.

Yup, Celceta pretty much made this version non-canon. As this version made the TG-CD Ys4 non-canon. I still enjoy them all.

Weren’t both ports made around the same time? For TG-CD and SNES?

pepillopev wrote:I'll leave that for you and edale to decide.

edale wrote:I said before, the Ys series, as a whole, can be considered Action RPG.

Alright. With all the discussion about JRPG (which I accidently thought to mean jump 'n run instead japanese), I moved YS III now to RPG

https://www.zeldix.net/t1670-ys-iii

Please also post YS IV there (that is at least a "real" RPG ^^)

Rather than making Ys IV themselves, Falcom gave a basic story outline and some music samples to two different companies. One made Mask of the Sun, the other made Dawn of Ys.

Mask of the Sun followed the story outline very strictly, and didn't take any liberties.
Whereas Dawn of Ys treated the outline as the rough draft it was, and developed things further.

Because the SNES version was closer to the original outline, Falcom declared it the canon one, despite the fact that even they said the TGCD one was superior.

Fast forward 20ish years, and Falcome finally does a version of Ys IV themselves... And we get a lost memory story (Ugh!   ). Seriously, I still consider the TGCD version the best release.

...You know, it's telling that I don't really follow game development at all, but I can rattle off all these facts about the Ys series from memory at the drop of a hat (any hat).

Ys IV does have a unique battle system (to my knowledge, only used in Ys 1, 2, and 4), where combat is collision based. You don't swing a sword, combat is completely based on ramming into enemies (though you can cast magic to attack from a distance in 2 and 4). Running into an enemy head-on will cause you to take damage, while hitting it off-center will only deal damage to the monster (assuming equal levels between you and the monster, a high-level monster will kill a low-level Adol no matter how you hit them, and a high-level Adol can steamroll weak monsters).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoYU3bg8yhU

But the simplistic battle system that makes going through dungeons and grinding relatively quick and painless, while never seeming tedious or boring... Isn't the real draw of the series, for that you need to look to... The boss battles!
Ranging from relatively easy early on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y74YGj6LHWY&list=PLFC2110A217474450
To downright insane by the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlHmhSC0PC0&list=PLFC2110A217474450&index=10

Requiring you to memories their attack patterns and find their weaknesses (because attack them at the wrong time, or in the wrong place is a Bad Idea), and pushing that simplistic battle system to heights you'd never believe possible. And if no matter what you just can't damage the boss, just grind one or two levels and you'll have no problems hurting them.

The fact that the JDK band (that did pretty much all of the earlier, and most of the modern Ys music) is so amazingly good that they still to this day do live concerts of their Ys music to fully packed concert halls, resulting in all of the Ys games having some of the best soundtracks around.

*edit, I really went off on a tangent there, lol. I was starting to say that despite the battle system in no way matching what is commonly considered a "RPG battle system", all of the other elements of RPGs are fully present. leveling, equipment, grinding, shops, items, storyline, quests, ect.

OK, here's a partial set of the TGCD YS IV songs, only 15 of them atm: https://mega.nz/#!fEJFjRaR!INkHby_V7LC006nDpHqAOoA240_DdJQzSfSDJOKXFyI

File names match up to this song list: https://www.zophar.net/music/nintendo-snes-spc/ys-iv-mask-of-the-sun

I think I may switch over to doing the PS2 audio for the initial PCM pack, given it's a direct remake of the SNES Mask of the Sun, there's a much better chance of most of the songs matching up. Worst comes to worst, I may have to mix and match songs from the different releases to make a full PCM set.

Sounds good, edale. My progress is slow here in mapping the tracks on my end too. This game has a bunch of shared tracks that require coding trickery to separate, lol. I’ll get to the finish line, eventually.

I’ll use the tracks you provided. Thanks.

Once this game is done. We can go for Ys V. Might as well finish the whole set. Only reason I’m doing them is because I enjoy Ys just as much too.

Just keep in mind Ys V SNES only has an English translation for the regular version, not the expert version.

I also understand a large amount of recoding (15 years worth! God I waited forever to play that game...literally checked the translator's page daily for 5+ years before giving it up as dead, then was shocked when the patch was actually released 8-9 years later, lol) was necessary to get english characters to display properly, so it would likely be best to work from an English patched ROM, rather than the stock Japanese ROM, to ensure compatibility.

Oh, I just discovered a fun fact about Ys IV. Listen to the first 10-11 seconds of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ0U9C6lxas

Now listen to the first 10-11 seconds of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAsHFSrh0i8

Yea, Falcom got sued for copyright infringement. Good luck finding ANY info about the lawsuit online though.

@edale Wow, that is a very close comparison. Nice fun fact, my friend. Indeed, Bravo!

I sent you a private PM regarding Ys IV and its progress. I will update you via this method as the game track mapping moves along.

I also noticed that some Ys IV cheats break the game's graphics (annoying but playable). At first, I thought it was my MSU patch that caused this but had the same issue with clean ROM. I had the same problem with Battletoads and Double Dragon. Keep this in mind.

Another thing I noticed with this game. I have to backtrack because some track values change. Say, you leave Wind Village, it plays the outside theme track fine. You come back into Wind Village, the track is different.

Update: I found a better way to reference the tracks. This alternate way, so far, no shared or changing track issues. Now, I can resume mapping and testing the game on the fly.

The thing about cheats back then is that there were several versions of the Game Genie/gameshark, and each needed different codes for the same effects (this is why for 1 game you sometimes see 3-4 different codes for the same effect on different cheat sites). I tend to have better luck using Pro Action Replay codes when it comes to codes working as intended.

Well... I just found something interesting:

Falcom also made a decision, about a decade ago, regarding their music: that it could be used, and remade, with attribution for any non-profit-generating project. So, if you wanted to make a YouTube video of your marimba-only cover of "The Boy's Got Wings" from Ys III, Falcom has no problem with that, especially if you're not trying to earn revenue from advertisements. Similarly, if you made a short film, or documentary, for non-profiteering purposes (such as a school project, or advocacy-based educational work), you could use any Falcom music in that project, legally. Heck, you could even make a documentary video about the history of Ys and use Ys music extensively throughout it, and you'd run into no legal problems. You could also use it at live events, such as your own wedding! Very few game companies have moved their body of work from "all rights reserved" to "attribution" status. It's something to keep in mind.

So as long as we say "music originally composed by Falcom" in the release post, there's zero legal issues with posting the PCMs.

Nintendo could take a lesson from Falcom here .

Ok, here what I got from the PS2 soundtrack:
https://mega.nz/#!2IZgVB4L!IFl8ULVvSYYqJfl2u5Dzce6w7Bgo_Z2tZP-CCFGx-44

PS2 tracks not used (from: https://www.zophar.net/music/playstation2-psf2/ys-iv-mask-of-the-sun-a-new-theory):
1. Feena
3. Romun Empire
7. Anxiety
19. The Ancient City Surfaces
20. The Clan of Darkness
21. Eldeel
23. Walking the Path of Legend
27. A New Beginning
28. Verse of the Blue Moon

SNES tracks not covered (from: https://www.zophar.net/music/nintendo-snes-spc/ys-iv-mask-of-the-sun):
2. Mask of the Sun
3. Minea Port
5. The Syobainin
6. Kasnan Fortress
9. Broken Hourglass
13. Sadness
18. Ancient Legend
21. House
22. Too Full with Love
26. Lefance
28. Theme of Adol 1993
30. Escape With Lilia
31. Tower
33. Ritual Grounds
35. Fantasy Horizon
37. Lucky Treasure Chest

@edale Since this game does not have a hardcore mute, I implemented your desired spc fallback on a missing pcm track checking into the version 1.1 patch. Basically, for any pcm track that is missing, the game will default to its spc700 audio equivalent. I hope this makes it easier for you to finish your PCM set.

pepillopev wrote:@edale Since this game does not have a hardcore mute, I implemented your desired spc fallback on a missing pcm track checking into the version 1.1 patch. Basically, for any pcm track that is missing, the game will default to its spc700 audio equivalent. I hope this makes it easier for you to finish your PCM set.

Makes things easier on me, makes SFX-related glitches (and missing SFX) less likely, and opens the possibility for a "complete" PCM set that's still missing a track or two. Also gives anyone using the patch MUCH better customization options (for example, with the FFVI MSU mod we had one guy who only wanted the mod for 1 track, and wanted everything else to be SPC).

I'll test things out over the next day or two and see how things stand, I'm gonna need to see how/where the songs play out in-game to figure out what I'm doing for the missing tracks, and if I can use any of the unused tracks to fill in the holes; so this was very well timed.

In Snes9x, a watch on $7E0101 in the cheat finding engine will display the currently playing track ID (decimal, not hex).

(More for my records, so I don't have to track that down again)

Yeah, I coded it that myself for debugging MSU track playing. Sorry, I forgot to mention that. I coded it like this:

$7E0100 Shows original SPC700 track assignment (helps identifying track table value)
$7E0101 Shows reassigned SPC700 track placed on track table (reflects PCM number)
$7E0111 Shows if the currently playing track is NoLoop[01] or Looping[03]

Keep in mind, these addresses are not applicable to the clean ROM (not part of the original code).

pepillopev wrote:I also noticed that some Ys IV cheats break the game's graphics (annoying but playable). At first, I thought it was my MSU patch that caused this but had the same issue with clean ROM. I had the same problem with Battletoads and Double Dragon. Keep this in mind.

Which version of Aeon Genesis's patch do you have?

https://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=ys4

The 2.10 patch's readme (page lists 2.0 as newest, but download has 2.10):

--Fixed a few instance of too-long strings corrupting the game background

I started looking into it because I'm getting some corrupted backgrounds as well, and I'm not using cheats. (save, restart game, load save = gets rid of glitching)

Not sure, I’ll have to see what version of the game I’m using for the foundation of the patch. Not near a computer now to check.