This guide might be old news to many of you, but I hope some new players will find use out of it:
About a year ago I posted my experiences with a "hard" difficulty setting for Chrono Cross. I used increased enemy ATT/M.ATT, decreased enemy HP on trash mobs, and boosted enemy boss stats. I found that all of these changes helped make for a more thrilling and less tedious playthrough. A few people have asked for instructions on how to patch CC so that they can experiment with editing enemy stats/element/drops. In response to that, I've written this guide.
Files you will need:
Chrono Cross - duh. This FAQ was made assuming you have bin/cue files. If you have some other format, you'll need to get that converted to bin/cue.
PSX emulator:
https://www.emuparadise.me/Sony_Playstation_Emulators/Windows/2I am using the windows version of PSX, NOT ePSXe, or any other emulator. Others might work, but I'll use PSX since that's what I know. Here's the link:
https://www.emuparadise.me/emulators/files/user/pSX_1_13-1220.rar Playstaion BIOS file:
https://the-eye.eu/public/rom/Bios/psx/Select the 5th link:
https://the-eye.eu/public/rom/Bios/psx/scph1001.zipYou need that BIOS file. I dunno why. It's got something to do with computers. You can find more info here if you're interested:
https://github.com/piorrro33/psxjin/wiki/PlayStation-1-BIOS-Guide PPF-o-matic - This is our patching program. We'll make small changes to the game (enemy stats), and then use PPF-o-matic to apply it to the .bin/cue files.
CCenemyedit:
https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=10069.0Here's where the magic happens. With this amazing program, you can turn your 2nd, 3rd, whateverth playthrough of CC into something more interesting. I'm writing this guide because like many of you, I love CC. Sure, it's not perfect, but between the story, the art, the music, the gameplay--I can't help but replay it every few years. But one major complaint I have, like many of you, is that I feel the game is too easy. This program will change that.
file link:
http://cc.ffsky.cn/files/ccenemyedit.zip Massive credit to user Magil at romhacking.net for making this.
Installation Steps:
Create a copy of all CC and CCenemyedit files for safe keeping. 1.DL and install PSX 1a. Configure your PS/Xbox controller if you would like.
DL and copy the BIOS file into the bios folder that is within the PSX directory. 2a. If this is all new to you so far, you should probably load PSX and CC and make sure everything is working so far.
So far so good? Nice. Because shit gets weird at this point. 3. When I wrote this FAQ, I tested the enemy stat changes once Serge wakes up in Arni Village, about 5 minutes into the game. I've done this because CCenemyedit more or less has all the enemies you will encounter laid out chrono(haha)logically starting from this point. Therefore, I'll be testing this FAQ by fighting Beach Bums. They are one of the first enemies you fight, so you'll know soon enough if the mod worked. Also, they're hippies and I hate them.
Now comes the magic: open ccenemyedit. FYI You might see a window about .NET files... if that's the case, just hit accept to whatever Windows is asking. It's definitely 100% not a virus i slipped into the ccenemyedit zip file. Once you've restarted, you're ready. (and welcome to the botnet)
Feel free to make whatever changes you want to for each enemy. I recommend something like:
+35% ATT, +35% MAG. (All enemies) +25% HP (Bosses) I left DEF and M.DEF, alone because I didn't want drawn out fights against trash mobs. This set up work really well. A couple of bosses will definitely wreck your shit, so good luck.
NOW, THESE NEXT STEPS ARE CRITICAL. FYI: THERE MUST BE NO SPACES IN YOUR DIRECTORY PATHS!
Go into your ccenemyedit directory and open list1.txt and list2.txt. Change line 2 to match the exact file location of whatever .bin file you are using. Here's an example of mine:
list1.txt:
5
D:\CC4\CCmod\CC1.bin
D:\CC4\CCmod\SLUS_010.41
data\enemydata.bin=0x13b8ed28
data\enemydata.lzs=0x13b61434
data\treasure.lzs=0x16a91c
data\DarioTexture.tim.bin=0x153FCA38
data\DarioBattleModel.bin=0x1540F968
list2.txt:
5
D:\CC4\CCmod\CC2.bin
D:\CC4\CCmod\SLUS_010.80
data\enemydata.bin=0x139AEC68
data\enemydata.lzs=0x13981374
data\treasure.lzs=0x16A91c
data\DarioTexture.tim.bin=0x153CEB38
data\DarioBattleModel.bin=0x153E1A68
The line that ends with ".bin" needs to be corrected to match the location and name of the .bin file you plan to modify. there must be no spaces in the file address. I REPEAT. DO NOT USE FOLDER OR FILES NAMES THAT HAVE SPACES. THIS FUCKS EVERYTHING
Note the differences in line 3 between both examples. Don't change that.
Now go ahead and execute "ppf", which is in the same directory as ccenemyedit. That's "ppf", not "ppfmaker". You'll have to hit a key a couple of times to complete the execution.
Now lets fix our files. Go into the directory where you have your .bin/cue's. There may be some .bak files. go ahead and delete those. What you need are the files that don't seem to have a file extension. There should be two. I believe they are labeled "SLUS_010.41" and "SLUS_010.80". Give both of those files a .ppf extension.
Now that we have a ppf file (or two), we can use PPF-o-matic. Open that program, and for the "ISO" field, select the disc 1 bin/cue file. For "patch", select SLUS_010.41.ppf. Now do the same with disc2 and slus_010.80.ppf.
FINALLY!
You're ready to play the game. If things are too easy/difficult, just repeat steps 4-9. So far I have not had any issues with changing enemy stats and patching over an already patched bin file, even the saves seem to carry over just fine.
Good luck!
