ROM Hack Final Fantasy IV ds... A humble request for help.

[xkappax]

Hi.
I'm new to this board and relatively new to romhacking. I was wondering if anyone could help me out a bit with something.

This is going to sound very strange, so let me explain first. I grew up in an era where you could name your characters in nearly every RPG you played. Final Fantasy IV is my favorite game of all time. I have grown accustomed to the names that I've given the characters, and I really want to play the remake for the DS, except you cannot change the names due to the voice acting.

That being said:
I am hacking into the game and changing the names to what I want them to be, but I have run into a problem that I need some help with. I have changed the names in all of the menu screens and in the battle screens, but I cannot for the life of me find where the script is hidden.

If someone could possibly point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated. I already talked to one kind individual on these forums who has helped me get this far, but I could just use a little bit more help to find the particular files that i need.

Any help that anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

 

[Edgedancer]

Sorry I cannot help but I can tell you why you aren't able to change names. It is because there is extensive voice acting so they had to keep the names the same.

 

[zidane_genome]

Not really a spoiler, but very early in the game you can at least change Cecil's name through Namingway...

Not sure if that's what you want, since i didn't do it, I don't know how that works.

 

[DarthNemesis]

Not really a spoiler, but very early in the game you can at least change Cecil's name through Namingway...

Not sure if that's what you want, since i didn't do it, I don't know how that works.

No you can't. No matter what you enter, Namingway says that he's unable to change it.

 

[xkappax]

I was able to change the text in all the battle messages and in a few places in the script, but not all. Any ideas? I'm really at the end of my rope at this point. I don't know what I'm doing enough I don't think.

once again, any sort of help would be appreciated.

 

[Schlupi]

Lol, this reminds me of in Tactics War of the Lions, my character is named Blake, but in the cutscenes, it still calls him by his original name

 

[Hooya]

You're looking at a pretty extensive script hack. It's not like there's a single variable to change, you'll have to seek out and destroy every instance of the names of each character, probably in hex, and change them.

Really, is it worth that much effort?

 

[Cablephish]

Sorry dude, but that eras over. Try some other rpgs, like Earthbound. You can even name your favourite food!!

 

[xkappax]

yeah, I understand that it would be extremely extensive. It's totally worth it for me, and I actually really want to do it. I changed all the things that were variable, and now I'm totally up for the challenge. Like I said though, I just need to know what to look for as far as the script goes. I realize that this is not an overnight thing or something that can be done in an hour.

I take naming stuff very seriously.

This is what I've got done so far:
Changed the names in the little thought bubbles that come up over the characters heads.
Changed the name on the battle screen.
Changed the names on the menu screens.
Changed the names that appear in the text above the characters in the battles scenes, like when Edward gets called a "spoony bard" by tellah.

My biggest problem lies in the fact that I cannot find the rest of the script. I found some of it using a unicode hex editor. I don't even really know exactly what I'm looking for. I read tutorials, I went on romhacking.net and read some stuff there, and I just CANNOT find this stuff. I also can't find any of the town dialogue.

that being said, if anyone can possibly help me find this it would be greatly appreciated. I don't want someone to do it for me or anything, I will be more than willing to do it myself. I just... really need help.

 

[jocelyn77]

just wondering, but do you really think its worth all this hassle to change the names? and in the cutscenes, im pretty sure theres no way to change what the voice actors say.

 

[xkappax]

I think it's worth the hassle. If there is a way to do it, I'd like to. The way I dealt with the voice acting was that I put the japanese voices in. You can also turn off the voice acting though.

I come from an era when you could name your guys in almost every RPG. it was weird when you couldn't. I got used to it, and this is my favorite game of all time, and I'm used to and really love the names that i had for those characters.

in other words, i'm old.

 

[DeMoN]

It's been mentioned before but the reason why you can't change the names is because the Voice Acting is fixed. If you really want to have 2 names, then I guess a ROM hack would be great.

 

[xkappax]

yeah, but you can turn voice acting off.

In star ocean for the playstation 2, if you turned voice acting off you could name your characters.