Touhoumon: Another World Remix

machomuu · Jul 21, 2015

Touhoumon: Another World Remix
A Hack of Pokemon Fire Red

What is Touhoumon?

For those of you that don't know, Touhou Puppet Play (also popularly known as Touhoumon) is originally a hack of Pokemon Fire Red. The hack replaces Pokemon with Touhou characters, in a similar fashion to how Moemon replaces Pokemon with Moemon. However, it does have its differences, specifically, moves, types, capturing apparatus, and various other features help to make the game differ from Fire Red. Originally it was simply the same adventure with Touhoumon characters, but then people started to take interest. Eventually, Touhoumon became a template for other Touhoumon hacks featuring various other changes, these changes ranged from entirely new regions and stories to smaller additions and patches such as new main characters and music. Touhoumon: Another World is one such variation of Touhoumon created by Aichiya Sanae. Another World is actually a remake and a translation of another hack that was halted, it went by the name of Touhoumon Ningyougeki: Gensokyo Scenario. Another World is a finished hack and modification of Touhou Puppet Play, which is, in turn, a hack of Pokemon Fire Red.

What is Another World Remix?

Another World Remix is a hack of a hack. This hack aims to cure some of the hiccups that came with Another World, most of which were not creative choices, such as spelling errors and the like. This hack also strives to make the game more balanced without disrupting the states of the Touhoumon (or Boneka, as they are called) themselves. It will no doubt be easier than Another World is, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is going to be easy. This hack is meant to make the frustration from a loss one of understanding rather than something that is completely out of the player's hands, but it will still, in many cases, try be unforgiving.

At its base, Another World Remix hopes to be a collection of fixes and changes that will make playing Another World a smoother and more enjoyable experience. What these changes include are fixed typos, justifiable text changes, trainer loadout and level changes, wild Boneka dispersion, and the like. At its base, its target is to reduce grinding (which is largely a problem in the early game) and make the game fairer and more intuitive.

Features
I considered not adding a features section but this does help to keep me in line and keep track of where I am and what I want to do, so here's just that. Note that this doesn't include things such as rebalancing, dialog fixes, and stuff like that since that's explained above and in the Changelog (which is currently being updated as I make progress), but instead refers to other changes the hack intends to make.

New Features and Changes

Cut does not need to be taught to a Boneka to be used. As long as you have the HM, you can use it to cut down trees.
Physical/Special Move Split
Typos zapped and broken dialog rewritten (In-Progress)
The opening cutscene is now skippable
XY-Styled Capture Experience

Intended Features and Changes

Smooth out the transition between Gensokyo and Kanto
Translate all of the Japanese
Rewrite/Proof Dex Entries
Insert updated 1.8 trainer sprites
Remove Zero Forms

Bugs

Spoiler:

Screenshots

Spoiler:

Downloads

Spoiler:

Changelog

Spoiler:

esperance · Jul 21, 2015

Yes! I love Touhoumon hacks. It seems like you've thought it out well and you've highlighted all the problems that you're trying to fix.

If you need some help, I would love to provide it!

machomuu · Jul 21, 2015

Lost Heart said:
Yes! I love Touhoumon hacks. It seems like you've thought it out well and you've highlighted all the problems that you're trying to fix.

If you need some help, I would love to provide it!

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind! Especially because, despite how simple this hack seems to be, the creator of Another World make a really technically impressive hack with a lot of under-the-hood changes that I'm not that well-versed in, so if something can go wrong, it probably will.

But other than that I'm just glad to see someone else who's a fan of Touhoumon hacks on the forum. I don't really expect this to gain much attention, but if at least a few people find it enjoyable than that's good enough for me.

Murkrow · Jul 27, 2015

Pretty sure theres a lot of things that need to be fixed/changed in another world

touhoumon purple was released a while back and i consider that a pretty nice balanced gameplay experience (plus being based off the vanilla adventure it has contests!), much better than the massive grinding and monster BST/OHKO puppets in AW. i hope you can follow the system used there for this remix of yours.

machomuu · Jul 27, 2015

manutdrule said:
Pretty sure theres a lot of things that need to be fixed/changed in another world

touhoumon purple was released a while back and i consider that a pretty nice balanced gameplay experience (plus being based off the vanilla adventure it has contests!), much better than the massive grinding and monster BST/OHKO puppets in AW. i hope you can follow the system used there for this remix of yours.

Yeah, Another World has a lot of problems especially since it relies more on fake difficulty than actual challenge, and that's kind of what I'm trying to remedy. Void save states and void obsessive grinding. I don't like 'em, and it completely denies any emphasis on skill and legitimate strategy.

Agastya, the creator of Touhoumon Purple, has actually been a large influence on me. He did a playthrough of Another World and World Link and addressed a lot of the problems it had, even offering suggestions on what should be changed, and that's a lot of what I'll be considering here.

machomuu · Sep 19, 2015

OOOH GOOOO-

I mean...*ahem*...UPDATE TIME!

The Physical/Special split's been implemented, and boy has the experience been...educational. I learned a lot about hacking, more about myself, and feel like I've walked 10,000 miles. To put it in perspective, the number of moves in Fire Red PALES in comparison to Another World, and apart from having to manually go through and set every one, I had to manually insert the icons since Steak's patch doesn't work with existing hacks. It's been a long night, I've barely slept.

In other news, I've updated the changelog. Destroy's been severely nerfed and IIRC I changed some other stuff - the changes are in the OP. I'll probably get more pics and the patches up today or tomorrow, try to get this moved to Slideshow Showcase (since that's where it belongs?).

machomuu · Sep 22, 2015

Time for an update and a call to arms!

Since my last update I've changed a number of things, only to realize that this hack needs more help thank I originally gave it credit for. No problem, of course, but I'm gonna need some help. There are some issues in this hack that even the Another World creator couldn't fix (or didn't know about). But I don't need physical help- I'm not trying to build a team or anything. What I need are your words.

The Alpha is up and ready for download in the OP._{There are also some pics up in the screenshots.}

I want you guys to play, analyze, maybe cry- but what I'm hoping to get out of this is...well, three things:

Feedback - Since I want to know what you guys want. Generally hacks are made for the self and that's half true here. This hack exists so that Another World can be made both more fun and more bearable. My idea of fun is limited, though, so suggestions and inquiries help me to open my lenses.
Critique - There's so much balancing that needs to be done and design choices that need modifying. Critique me and the hack so that I can fine tune those choices and that design so that game can be made...better, simply put. Tell me all the problems you have with the hack; they can only help.
Bug Zapping - Another World is buggy. Another World Remix is buggy. This game is absolutely gigantic and Aiichiya just ripped Fire Red apart. It's really impressive the amount of work he went through to make this hack, but with such work inevitably comes bugs. So report, report, report!

So I need any cooperation I can get, and I really appreciate anything that you guys can contribute. But...in short, this is really just a machomuu way of asking for critique and feedback. And now I've taken your time with what could have been accomplished in a couple words.

esperance · Sep 22, 2015

So I figured I'd fire it up and get a few minutes of play in this evening. Some major bugs/issues I noticed immediately. You can see some screenshots of it below:
View attachment 76658 View attachment 76659 View attachment 76660 View attachment 76661

However, the biggest bug that I noticed was that whenever I bumped into something, instead of a the "bump" sound playing, all sounds cut out instead. Including background music. Fortunately starting a battle restored the music, and I suspect changing maps would too. And... it seems that they've now started miraculously working again. If it helps the issue first started near the hot springs on Youkai Path.

And please. Please. Change the dreadful palettes.

machomuu · Sep 22, 2015

Hopeless Masquerade said:
-snip-

The Cirno and Mystia bit is simple to fix, so that I'll get to, and the overlapping text is no problem, that was just my fault and I just fixed it over here.

As for the Reimu bit, that's a different story. I actually tried it myself only to find that I made a major mistake with her script. After she tells you to go get some air, she's supposed to stop you if you try to leave through the gate and...that doesn't happen. This is bad because you don't get to pick your Boneka and some flags possibly aren't set. I might need to rollback a version and redo some things.

As for the music, that may have been because of Aiichiya's fix for a different issue that arose with battle music going off under certain conditions. I'll look into it.

And as for the palette's, do you have any particular suggestions?

esperance · Sep 23, 2015

machomuu said:
As for the music, that may have been because of Aiichiya's fix for a different issue that arose with battle music going off under certain conditions. I'll look into it.

I've actually noticed the music dying during random battles too now. :c

machomuu said:
And as for the palette's, do you have any particular suggestions?

Well I think the first step would be returning the trees and grass to the default FireRed colors and building from there. As they are now they just look ugly.

machomuu · Sep 23, 2015

Hopeless Masquerade said:
Well I think the first step would be returning the trees and grass to the default FireRed colors and building from there. As they are now they just look ugly.

Huh, if I'm gonna be honest, I didn't even notice the difference. I didn't even really notice until I loaded up Fire Red and looked.

I don't particularly have a problem with the palette as it is, but I'll give it a look later. Another script's giving me a run for my money right now. I mentioned how, when you try to leave, Reimu's supposed to stop you at the stairs in a similar way to Oak in Vanilla. Well it's not running, which wouldn't be so bad except this script is...well, I don't really know where it is. It's not a map script and there's no script tile with it, and I can't edit it or even try to remedy it because I don't know the offset. I'd save it for later if it wasn't a relatively important script that kicks off the game's plot.Ah, well I found the problem...

...Whelp, this is a bit...unfortunate, but presumptuous me being presumptuous, doomed myself from the very start. And Aichiya tried to stop me. I screwed myself over from the moment I opened up A-Map. *Sigh*

Basically what this means is that the hack'll be going on hiatus because, well, I have to start over. How long will it be on hiatus? Well I've been working on the hack for a couple months but I only really put my nose to the grindstone these past few days, with a few sleepless nights mixed in. That said, I prepared for this. All of the scripts I wrote and rewrote are saved as .rbc files and the more important battles that I changed are saved. I'll have to tweak the PSS ASM with new values but ultimately that's just a few seconds. So yeah, the hiatus should really only be a couple of days, if that. The patch's still relevant, though, so I'll keep it up.

And while I'm at it, I have a very amateurish question that I should have asked years ago: since this hack is a hack of a hack( of a hack of a hack of a hack, it's a mouthful, I know) I have to go in and decompile scripts pretty often (generally to rewrite dialog or zap typos). It's a necessity to save on space. My question is, if what I enter in a string is shorter or equal to the text of the original string, can I just recompile or do I need to repoint? And if I repoint, do I have to repoint the whole thing (assuming I'm looking at a larger script when I do this) or just the string in question?

When I was rewriting and zapping, generally I would try to go under the original word count (or just repoint, but I tried to do so sparingly) and I worry I may have been doing more harm than good.

Spherical Ice · Sep 23, 2015

machomuu said:
My question is, if what I enter in a string is shorter or equal to the text of the original string, can I just recompile or do I need to repoint? And if I repoint, do I have to repoint the whole thing (assuming I'm looking at a larger script when I do this) or just the string in question?

If the string is shorter or equal then yes you can recompile and it shouldn't overwrite anything. Be careful to remember that things like [player] count as two bytes, and to remember to count \n, etc. If you're just redoing a string, then you can load the script without refactoring, and then simply replace the pointers to the string in the script to a dynamic pointer and repoint it, yes.

machomuu · Sep 23, 2015

Spherical Ice said:
If the string is shorter or equal then yes you can recompile and it shouldn't overwrite anything. Be careful to remember that things like [player] count as two bytes, and to remember to count \n, etc. If you're just redoing a string, then you can load the script without refactoring, and then simply replace the pointers to the string in the script to a dynamic pointer and repoint it, yes.

Awesome, thanks Sphice. Seems I can be pretty economic about this and edit with...less trepidation.

machomuu · Sep 23, 2015

Uh, so remember that bit about how I said it would take me a couple days to recoup?

Well...I've mostly recouped. Thanks to me more strictly reading and following the documentation provided by Aichiya, I was able to unlock a lot more and more efficiently use and recycle data. There are some things that I've yet to add in (either because I feel I can do them better than I did originally or I just haven't gotten to them), and it's mostly at the same place that the last patch is at, understandably, but with some pretty small-but-notable changes right off the bat.

The down/updated changelog's in the OP as is the new- well, better working and more efficient patch.

Oh, and LH, regarding Cirno and Mystia running around and not being locked when you talk to them, I considered changing this but in practice I get what Aichiya (and possibly the original creator of Gensokyo Scenario) was going for. Since you're not actually talking to them, it'd be kinda strange if they stopped running so that you could hear them having fun, so it was more than likely intentional.

machomuu · Sep 25, 2015

It's that time yet again.

UPDATE TIME!

New version's out and it's up in the first post, as are the changes (the bigger ones among them being a new starter, running is allowed anywhere, and capture experience). I've also rewritten quite a bit of story dialog. Not enough, though, since my focus on what to do when is divided.

And now you get to experience one of the most glaring bugs in the hack that Aichiya didn't know how to fix, so he didn't. Understandable, but when I say it's glaring...that's an understatement. The first instance of it happening is once you go to get your starter and...well, I'm stumped as to how to fix it or what the problem even is.

As of now, this is priority, as I want make V2, from a stability standpoint, playable without any major hiccups. From here, I'm focusing on the bugs, and so far this is the biggest of them. The sound bug will hopefully be dealt with, too, though in my recent versions I haven't been able to reproduce it since whether it occurs at all is apparently based on player action (and may possibly have been zapped).

machomuu · Sep 26, 2015

Just a small update (though nothing to download since, as of yet, no major bug fixes), pictures:

Spoiler:

Lately I've been working on replacing as many 1.5 Boneka Sprites with their 1.8 counterparts. I'm done, and I've done as many as I could (a good number, hard to miss when you play but easy to notice when you go back to the original). This is what's shown in the first three pictures. Admittedly, there are still 1.5 sprites in the game since not every Boneka returns in 1.8 and some Boneka (namely the PC-98 characters) have fewer forms in 1.8 than they do in 1.5/Another World. Some sprites have also been rearranged to show a greater sense of progression through evolution.

The Dex pictures show off the new, less typo filled, less memetic entries. This is going to take a good deal longer than the sprites did, but I have rewritten around 30ish+ entries so far. Apart from being stable, I really want the next release to show a fair amount of polish.

Zeta Sukuna · Sep 30, 2015

It's nice to see someone that isn't myself working with Another World in an attempt to actually make it more accessible, and in a more competent way than I could ever do. As much fun as I had with the game, it is legitimately badly balanced, and it is fairly buggy as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing this completed, and I guess if you don't mind, I wouldn't mind helping out with some ideas on things to help out with smoothing out the Kanto to Gensokyo experience, or overall level balancing, having been in that position before. But either way, I can't wait to see how this goes.

pokemon1412 · Oct 23, 2015

Hello, Aichiya here...

First, thank you for make the game more viable and interesting,
Second, may I put Another World Remix into my blog?

And then...
About the song which randomly stop, maybe it was because of the ASM code which I used.
The tutorial itself come from Mastermind_X http://sfc.pokefans.net/lesson.php?id=13&lang=en
The ASM code is far older, and different from the one Jambo made (trainer battle music based on trainer-class)

In the original FireRed v1.0, address 0x1DD0F0, would be like this:

00 47 00 00 00 B5 00 04 07 4A 08 49 40 0B 40 18
83 88 59 00 C9 18 89 00 89 18 0A 68 01 68 10 1C
00 F0 A2 FB 01 BC 00 47 9C 32 4A 08 CC 32 4A 08
00 B5 00 04 09 4A 0A 49 40 0B 40 18 83 88 59 00

I edited it for Touhoumon Another World based on the mentioned tutorial, it would be like this:

00 47 00 00 00 B5 01 49 08 47 00 00 F1 FE CF 08
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 F0 A2 FB 01 BC 00 47 9C 32 4A 08 00 E0 FE 08
00 B5 00 04 09 4A 0A 49 40 0B 40 18 83 88 59 00

The blue and red text indicate the values which I changed for battle music mechanics
The green one is the custom music table address, it has nothing to do with battle music mechanics

Returning the blue and red text into original values will fix the music problem (random stop).... but you won't be able to control trainer battle music anymore.
Alternatively, you can use Jambo's music hack after returning the blue and red text into original values.

About the red text, it's the address of ASM branching +1 reversed...
Thus, the location is 0xCFFEF0

FE B4 05 1C 1B 48 20 49 00 F0 33 F8 00 22 90 42
0B D0 03 88 1B 49 8B 42 07 D0 AB 42 05 D1 17 48
19 49 00 F0 26 F8 05 88 12 E0 13 48 16 49 00 F0
20 F8 00 22 90 42 0B D0 03 88 12 49 8B 42 07 D0
AB 42 05 D1 0E 48 10 49 00 F0 13 F8 05 88 FF E7
28 04 FE BC 0D 4A 04 B4 0D 4A 0E 49 40 0B 40 18
83 88 59 00 C9 18 89 00 89 18 0A 68 01 68 10 1C
00 BD 08 47 90 40 00 00 91 40 00 00 92 40 00 00
93 40 00 00 FF FF 00 00 55 E4 06 08 0F D1 1D 08
9C 32 4A 08 00 E0 FE 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

The purple text determines which variables control the song, pair 0x4090 0x4092 and pair 0x4091 0x4093
The orange text is address of custom music table 0xFEE000

About the OW sprite glitches... I have no idea... maybe something's wrong when I expanded the OW sprite table...

machomuu · Oct 23, 2015

pokemon1412 said:
Hello, Aichiya here...

First, thank you for make the game more viable and interesting,
Second, may I put Another World Remix into my blog?

Woah, Aichiya? Well, this is a big surprise.

Of course you can put it on your blog! I may be doing some modifications, but at the end of the day it's still your hack. I'd like nothing more, really.

And I suppose I'll give Jambo's hack a try. Music's a big part of this hack and I don't want to limit it in any way, so I'll see if I can insert that and get this all fixed up. And as far as the OWs are concerned, what I plan to do is reinsert the sprites to see if I can catch exactly where the problem is. I spent a good while looking at where the sprites were located in Tile Molester and it didn't really tell me anything (since they were inserted correctly), so it might have to do with how the game sees the sprites...maybe? I'll have to play around with it, since it seems I can't really find anyone else who knows what's wrong, either.

pokemon1412 · Oct 23, 2015

machomuu said:
Woah, Aichiya? Well, this is a big surprise.

Of course you can put it on your blog! I may be doing some modifications, but at the end of the day it's still your hack. I'd like nothing more, really.

And I suppose I'll give Jambo's hack a try. Music's a big part of this hack and I don't want to limit it in any way, so I'll see if I can insert that and get this all fixed up. And as far as the OWs are concerned, what I plan to do is reinsert the sprites to see if I can catch exactly where the problem is. I spent a good while looking at where the sprites were located in Tile Molester and it didn't really tell me anything (since they were inserted correctly), so it might have to do with how the game sees the sprites...maybe? I'll have to play around with it, since it seems I can't really find anyone else who knows what's wrong, either.

If I remember correctly... I inserted the expanded OW using Overworld Editor (by Xeon), both old version and rebirth edition...
By using rebirth edition, you can see a bunch of pointer addresses by Expert Mode from drop down menu...
and make sure you edit the Sprites.ini a bit... make SpriteCount equal or more than 179 under [BPRE]...

Expanded OW sprites start from #154

as you can see... there are eight unknowns...
maybe, one or two of them related to OW sprite behavior or so...
I presumed that the glitches were caused by improper setting of them...

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