Scoring the game

[ZeaLitY]

I imagine we'll have a huge thread like this for CE when the time comes. I'm going to break down the game scene-by-scene and we can choose how to score it in discussion.

JCE3000GT is more than willing to insert music from RD / FF6 and remix tunes. It's fantastic that with SPC hacking advancing, we'll be able to easily showcase a little progress with a finished fan project.

• Title screen - ZEAL PALACE

Segment One

• Magus summons Lavos - SILENCE, then LAVOS'S THEME
• World of ice - STRONG WIND
• Terra Cave - SILENT LIGHT REMIX
• Magus reaches Zeal - CORRIDORS OF TIME
• Enhasa - CORRIDORS OF TIME ENHASA VERSION
• Janus and Gaspar - BRINK OF TIME
• Kajar - CORRIDORS OF TIME KAJAR VERSION
• Zeal Palace - ZEAL PALACE
• Magus speaks with Zeal - CONFUSING MELODY
• Zeal discovers the rooms - SILENT LIGHT REMIX

Segment Two

• Beast's nest - SILENT LIGHT REMIX
• Beast boss - BOSS BATTLE 1
• Magus presents the hide - ZEAL PALACE REMIX
• Guest room - ZEAL PALACE
• Magus consults with the Knights - TRUCE CANYON
• Janus talks with Schala - BLACKBIRD, GRIEVE
• Melchior argues with Queen Zeal - ZEAL PALACE REMIX
• Mt. Woe - LEONID'S CASTLE
• Magus battles Melchior - SILENCE
• Magus talks to Schala - FAR PROMISE ~ DREAM SHORE

Segment Three

• Cerulean Lake - EPITAPH
• Nu Battle - BATTLE 1
• Magus speaks with Nu - EPITAPH
• Dalton, Zeal, Magus - ZEAL PALACE REMIX
• Ocean Palace - UNDERSEA PALACE REMIX
• Dalton confronts Magus - MAGUS CASTLE
• Magus battles Golem - FINAL CONFRONTATION
• Magus confronts Dalton - UNDERSEA PALACE REMIX
• Enhasa - CONFUSING MELODY
• Enhasa - BATTLE WITH MAGUS

Bonus

• Programmer's Room - KIDS RUN THROUGH THE CITY
• Zeal Note - OPENING Pt. 3

Thoughts

• I suggest something different for Terra Cave, or a remix of Silent Light.
• Perhaps we can use a muted remix of Corridors of Time for Enhasa.
• Brink of Time (or remix of) for the Janus and Gaspar scene?
• Corridors of Time remix for Kajar?
• Confusing Melody for Magus speaks with Zeal?
• Something ominous would be better for Zeal's discovery of the rooms...Silent Night remix, Zeal Palace remix?
• Silent Night remix for Beast's Nest. I couldn't find any other good dungeon music in FF6 or RD for it.
• Good Night seems to be a little happy given the nature of Magus's dreams and the fact that he's in Zeal Palace. I'll ask JCE if he knows how to tweak it or can find something in a minor key.
• Zeal Palace remix for Melchior's argument?
• What should we use for Mt. Woe? The original is strong wind, but if we want to use something, there's Leonid's Castle from RS3.
• I guess Silence might be best for the Melchior / Magus battle. I think that's why I want some kind of music for Mt. Woe; silence on top of wind is pretty bleak.
• Magus talks to Schala - I had the idea of using Far Promise ~ Dream Shore with a guitar here.
• Cerulean lake - Epitaph (FF6), Underwater Palace (RS3), or just Truce Canyon. What do you think? This might be the only place we can have an FF6 song, and Epitaph is relaxing enough.
• Nu Battle - I have no idea. Suggestions?
• Remix for the Ocean Palace? Since it's not finished yet, maybe the remix could make it slightly less dramatic.
• For Dalton's confrontation, maybe "Facing" from Radical Dreamers will work, with "Final Confrontation" afterwards? But once the battle's done, I think reverting to Ocean Palace sounds great.

[ZeaLitY]

That wraps up my notes. I'll tell JCE about my ideas. Suggestions?

[FaustWolf]

Oh, man, this is so going to rock! "Facing" and "Final Confrontation" for Magus v. Dalton? Priceless. Excellent work on this, guys!

As far as such imports go from other SNES games, you're only considering Square games, right? I imagine implementing music from, say, ActRaiser II or the Brandish series would be murder considering the instrumentation would have to be imported as well as sequencing data. I imagine music from other Square games is much more compatible with the way Chrono Trigger does things.

Ooh, man, I just remembered "Northern Hemispheres" from Donkey Kong Country. T'would be interesting for Mt. Woe. Another snowy theme applicable to Mt. Woe would be Tactics Ogre's "Ice Battle Theme." And, ah! "Sonia's Fortress" from Equinox. But once again, technical aspects make such things a pipe dream no doubt.

Bahamut Lagoon had some interesting music, and it was a Square game. One piece even sounds as if it could pass for a variation on Schala's theme.

Too bad Square didn't do Tales of Phantasia. Oh, hoh hoh, that beautiful music!

[ZeaLitY]

Oh, that reminded me. Are we going to have a programmer's room?

Wait, this is a game about Magus and we haven't used Battle with Magus. Maybe we can throw it in as an easter egg somewhere?

[Chrono'99]

Oh, that reminded me. Are we going to have a programmer's room?

Wait, this is a game about Magus and we haven't used Battle with Magus. Maybe we can throw it in as an easter egg somewhere?

LOL. This just gave me an idea. What if we make the programmer's room empty? Please note that I'm not being ungrateful or anything; I just think it would be funny to have the room totally bleak as a sort of inside joke (the development of the game was frozen for half a year after all). We could leave a note in the room saying we left to work on a project involving the "other" Zealian warlock...

As for Battle With Magus, that could perhaps be played during the ending sequence.

[ZeaLitY]

Hah, that works well. We can put Kids Running Through the City Corner in a programmer's room.

So I guess I'll just deliver the alpha to him once we're wrapped up with instructions? He's ready at any time to buckle down and put stuff in. Here's what I left him:

Remixes

• Silent Light (1; unless you make two really awesome ones or something)
• Corridors of Time (2; the first you made can be Enhasa, so we just need a Kajar version)
• Brink of Time (we can use the original, but I've never heard a remix so it might be great)
• Zeal Palace (2; but it might be hard since the beginning was made for those strings)
• Ocean Palace (1; the Ocean Palace isn't finished here so I guess it can just be a less dramatic version)
  

And here's what we plan to import:

• Leonid's Castle from RS3 (if it works)
• Far Promise ~ Dream Shore from Radical Dreamers with guitar instead of music box
• Facing from Radical Dreamers
• Final Confrontation from Radical Dreamers
• Epitaph from FF6

Do you have an idea of what we could use for "sleep" music (like Good Night) except, melancholy or negative? Making Good Night play in a minor key would be a quick fix, but I'm not sure that's even easily possible.

I know it'd be easier to just put him on the forum, but I don't want to blow the fun of the game. Anyhow, for the remixes, we'll just readd copies of the source SPCs to blank space just as we're adding the imported songs from other games, and just change the pointers.

[FaustWolf]

Haha, my day to spam this forum. But it's only evidence of how excited I am to be a prospective consumer of this fan-product.

Zeality, are you taking suggestions on the sleep jingle? "Good Night" from Final Fantasy V is snappy, but not upbeat. If Magus sleeps better to a Gothic organ jingle, there's also "Game Over" from Castlevania: Dracula X.

[Vehek]

Those games aren't compatible with CT's SPC core. He would have to compose them manually to put them in CT.

[FaustWolf]

Not even Final Fantasy V, eh? I've much to learn on the subject of SPCs. Can't wait till this is released, though. You guys are doing outstanding work from everything I've seen!

[ZeaLitY]

Yeah, it's a shame it's taken this long. I started out with huge ferocity in January, but even on my first ROM in which I mapped the title screen area and then worked on Mt. Woe, I went back and noticed the title screen had been completely blanked and corrupted. That's happened every time I've ROM hacked in some form or another and it just kills my enthusiasm dead. Plus I took a job in late January to finance my search, and was just depressed the entire summer afterwards, even though I left in April...

I gave JCE a list of songs whose pointers can be changed, and he's going to put in the copies / new data starting at x500000.

[ZeaLitY]

Progress report.

Don't leak please!



http://www.blitzkrieginnovations.net/hiddenpanda/Secret%20XMAS%20CT%20Hack.zip

WHOOO! He's adding the music at x500000 so we can just patch it in to our own empty space. Should the programmer's room just automatically load after the credits?

[Chrono'99]

Maybe we can hide a bunch of secret treasure chests throughout the game for the programmer's room. Not much, maybe 3 or 4 of them, with some kinds of collectible items. If all the items are found at the end of the game, the programmer's room would be shown.

[justin3009]

Wouldn't it be odd to find items for Programmers room, then when people enter it.  Woah and behold!  It's...empty?

Edit: Hahaha.  Love the Zealian remixes ^^
Edit 2: Secret of the Forest sounds beautiful .__.

[FaustWolf]

By the Entity, this stuff is beautiful. JCE is truly the music master! Is the "Gato" remix based on the sequencing of another song, or did he totally compose something from scratch? It's freaking awesome, and I can't wait to see where it gets used in Prophet's Guile.

This is so freaking inspiring! Does this project mark the largest-scale CT hack ever? History is being made!

[Chrono'99]

This is so freaking inspiring! Does this project mark the largest-scale CT hack ever? History is being made!

It's shorter than the second Crimson Echoes demo, but it might be slightly more refined (considering it's more focused).


EDIT: The Nu battle must be won in less than 3 turns if you don't heal (considering the attack patterns of the Nus), so we'd probably better use the normal battle theme for this battle.