Update: Download links to the latest version:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/rkzj7uypr ... Planet.rarhttps://mega.nz/#!Q0ATGKKI!R_39CUsStXld ... 375Hv-gxIoI first played Fallen Planet awhile ago and loved it, but had a few things about it that bothered me like the encounter rate and some of the MIDI choices. Rather than just complain about it I decided to use the RPGM2K editor to fix it to my liking. Knowing nothing about the program when I started using it, and still only knowing what I've figured out playing with the GUI, I would need some help to finish what I'm looking to do, and will release it publicly unless James has a problem with it once it's done. Should anyone want to play it as is, I can upload that too. I sent him an email and a PM on this board about it and didn't hear anything back, which I am taking as abandonment of any potential future development on the game. Either that or he got his Force Staff stuck in Talis' monomate. One of the two.
First, what I have already done.
-The random encounter rate has been cut to 1/3. Enemies give triple experience and meseta to compensate for the game's pacing. The random encounter enemies that did not give any experience or meseta now give EXP and MST equivalent to enemies encountered in the area. This is a massive improvement to the game's pacing and I no longer find myself screaming obscenities every 5 seconds. When not cheating you don't have tons of money left over to get the expensive items available toward the end of the game, so you still have grind to get them, honoring the pace of the original.
-The MIDI soundtrack has been completely scrapped, and replaced with WAVs. All of the music from Phantasy Star I and II now uses the improved versions found on the Phantasy Star Collection CDs. Words do not describe how glorious it is to hear these in a Phantasy Star game. If I could hack it into my Genesis carts, I would. The music from Phantasy Star IV used in Fallen Planet was not on the Phantasy Star Collection II CD, but I did have it as an MP3 perfectly ripped from the Genesis version, and used that. Music I recognized from mainstream bands has also been replaced with WAVs of the originals. So far this makes the game ~530MB bigger. The game crashed constantly when trying to use the MP3s with hacked version of RPGM2K so I will not be exploring that further. The WAVs sound better anyway, and anyone with a semi-modern PC should be able to free up 600 megs of hard drive or thumb drive space.
Other things I want to do for this release, but don't know to do in RPGM2K:
-Eliminate that awful horrible static noise the game makes once you get later into it. I assumed it was a bug with one of the MIDIs, but after replacing them with my WAVs it's still there. Fixing this is my highest priority.
-Eliminate random battles when in the Landrover. James mentioned that he should have done this in his Evil Path Let's Play too.
-There are 5 MIDIs used the game I didn't immediately recognize. If anyone know the original source for Animal, Boss4, Casino, Pirate3 and Treasure I'll incorporate the improved versions into my hack (or whatever else you want to call it).
-Make the spaceship fly over ALL mountains, not just the mountains with the larger tiles. That things makes the Dezoris run in 20 seconds for fucks sake. You won't convince me that it can't fly over a little mountain. This might be a limitation of the engine though.
-Fix typos in the game script if anyone knows where to find it.
Smaller things I could also use help with:
-Take out all snow/rain/shaking effects for a more stable game. The first time I played it got to the point where it was always raining, snowing and shaking. I couldn't take it and had to completely start over. With my knowledge of the editor I can't even find where these things are coded.
-Compile guides with useful information, like the locations of all laconia items, mirror shield, how to get the neutral path, interactions between characters and subquests that are started by bringing people A and B to Gothic, etc.
Another goofy things I considered was replacing the music in Gothic with Spray's "I Am Gothic" as heard in Dance Dance Revolution. Surprisingly it actually works.
Anyone with feedback/suggestions/offers for help please post here and feel free to PM me.