Quick MMSF3 save post

I'm really enjoying my Megaman Star Force 3 playthrough. I'm glad my first Noise was Cygnus because a complete lack of formed brotherbands puts me in a position I would rather not take.

Anyways, here is my save up to this point. It's after the first WAZA minigame but before the second. Maybe some neat hacks can come from that. When the game was released, I actually hoped the game had some debug options leftover which would activate this minigame at your own will. Unfortunately there is nothing left, but at least this save exists now!

Hey, download it now!
http://www.mediafire.com/?bvtywxr8i9dexuy

Finally Replaying MMSF3

After months of little interest in starting the second file in my Megaman Star Force game, I finally found my DS and set everything up. Prof. 9 made a hard mode cheat months ago and insisted I try it out. So I finally got around to doing that and now I can play the game on a much harder difficulty. It's refreshing since I haven't played in months and it's just at the right difficulty for me.

This gives me ideas for my MMBN6 hard mode patch, which I will work on mostly during my break. Basically, the hard mode cheat speeds up all the enemies and gives them more HP. Very early in the game, it doesn't make that much of a difference except that you can't one-shot all the enemies anymore. I was unfortunate enough to encounter Taurus Fire Omega early in the game only shortly after the first chapter when I had about 200HP. Died in one hit because the attacks are just crazy fast. Speaking of fast, when I encountered the Wibbledee viruses (the Wide Wave attack) in the second area, I was quickly annoyed. The hard mode cheat speeds everything up in a way that breaks the Wibbledee virus. Its invincibility time becomes almost infinite and therefore becomes quite an annoyance to deal with. After the third 5-minute battle I decided to make a cheat that kills only the Wibbledee virus in battle.

94000130 FFFB0000
921C82A2 00000008
121C836C 00000000
D2000000 00000000

94000130 FFFB0000
921C80FA 00000008
121C81C4 00000000
D2000000 00000000

94000130 FFFB0000
921C7F52 00000008
121C801C 00000000
D2000000 00000000

Not to seem like a cheater, but it was getting really annoying and relied only on luck. Basically my code checks if Select and Down are pushed and if the virus is the Wibbledee class. If the conditions are true, its HP becomes 0. It's been a lifesaver since I've been using it.

Speaking of cheats, the cheats file Prof. 9 sent me also had a code that turns off edge-marking and enables anti-aliasing. The game looks great this way. If you see in the screenshot below, this is how the game normally looks like.

I think the outlines are distracting since they're a dark gray and appear very sharp and blocky against the background. The outlines also stop at the screens border which is unusual. With the cheat on, the outlines are removed and the shapes blend with the background. The graphics look much better this way. Too bad the emulators won't render the effect properly. The main thing I'm getting out of this playthrough so far is how big a difference a speed and HP increase makes. I can't wait to play MMBN6 on a harder difficulty after all these years.

Hard Mode Patch discussion topic

I have not yet given up on my Hard Mode patch. In fact, I'm planning on how I will finish it this summer. My summer break begins mid-June and I'm excited to work on this project again.
I've made a topic at TREZ so people can discuss what I should change about my Hard Mode patch. I will also play Prof. 9's Megaman Star Force 3 hard mode hack using a cheat he made. That way I can get a feel for the increased difficulty, especially after a long break from gaming in general.

Incomplete sprite in that new Ace Attorney game

So GM wanted to rip sprites from Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. It was a tricky process with almost no documentation to help. He made a tool that ripped the backgrounds and character sprites. But I noticed something on Edgeworth's sprite.

It's the last frame in one of his walking frames. It seems they left in a previous version of the completed sprite in their. If you zoom in, you can see how they went from an outline with basic coloring, to the finished product. The head is already detailed since they just paste it on and work on the rest of the body. Shapes like the fluff in his shirt are crudely blocked in as a solid shape, then carefully shaded. Hands get shaded in. His left arm gets noticeable and proper anti-aliasing. It's an interesting find since I've been looking at spriting tutorial websites to help spriters on TREZ. I was correct for the most part, but this incomplete sprite sort of confirms what they were saying. Just outline the parts that need to change first. Then fill in the colors, and shade consistently. Seems like a lot of work, especially considering his sheet is about 6000px long and each line of animation is 88 pixels long and 256 pixels wide.

The sprite rip topic is at The Spriters Resource.
http://www.spriters-resource.com/community/showthread.php?tid=17344&pid=374907#pid374907