Spriting

[ZeaLitY]

Perhaps there is a way around this. Does Magus use a special set of sprites in battle, or can we force this through sprite assembly? What I'm suggesting is that walking and running and perhaps a couple of other animations can have the Prophet's cloak, while battle (with its own set) can be left clean.

Is this feasible?

[Vehek]

His battle sprites are part of his normal sprites. But how the game loads the sprites in battle is a mystery. Change the sprite data of a PC, and when you enter a battle, their sprite data (except for the palette) returns to normal settings.

Leaving the battle sprites the same would mean that he removes his hood every time he enters battle, right?

[ZeaLitY]

Yes. That would drastically cut the number of frames.

[Chrono'99]

Magus runs in battle too, so I don't know if it would work.

Another solution would be to hack the sprite assembly of another, unused PC, like Lucca. This still requires graphic hacking and probably sprite assembly though. In the menu, "she" can have the same portrait as Magus and her Techs can be renamed to Magus' Techs to camouflage the difference (since Lucca and Magus don't have curative Techs, no one will notice).

Each time a battle begins, a small event has to be coded to switch the Prophet with Magus, and vice versa at the end of the battle. The Prophet will gain only 75% of the EXP that Magus will gain, and won't learn Techs or TP, but this may be resolved by copy/pasting one's stats to the other's with Mems after each battles.


Edit: I know > I don't know.

[Vehek]

Lucca's on the adventure with Crono, and we get to see cutscenes of Crono, Marle, and Lucca.

[Chrono'99]

Not a problem, she can be an NPC sprite.

I've just realized the Prophet's equipments must be copy-pasted to Magus' before each battle too. It sounds a bit bothersome but if done successfully the player will never notice all those commands and operations running in the background.

[Vehek]

Is it worth changing Dalton so that he has two eyes (since the plot summary mentions Magus wounding Dalton's eye near the end of the story)?