PS2 rom hacking.

[Nate556]

Hello everyone.
I just started playing PS2 with the Evil Overlord patch. It sounded interesting some of the changes made to it.
First thing i noticed aside from different text was that you can get all the characters right off the bat when you go into your house.
Is it supposed to be like that ? I personally don't like it.
I do like some of these other changes to it though. I like the different price of weapons and their names. I like Nei using Claws instead of Bars.
I was thinking, How do you go about editing roms ? I personally would like to edit the game just a little bit. Honestly, the only thing I would change was the name of Nei's weapons, and the stats on the LAconian Dagger, but if it's hard, I'd just simply like to change the name of Nei's weapons.
Anyways, I am going to go back to playing this patched version and see what else I can discover on it. As always, any and all thoughts or opinions are welcome.
Nathan.

[Danny]

I was thinking, How do you go about editing roms?

If you want to learn how to hack and edit roms. I recommend you go here for help: http://www.romhacking.net/start/
This is the best site I found on the web about rom hacking. It has helped me a lot when I first started to rom hack. Although, I can only do script editing as of yet. I'm still not very good when it comes to graphics and music hacking. If you're really interested in hacking/editing PSII, you should definitely look into this site. There's lots of useful documents and programs to help you. You can also ask for help at the forums if you need too.

[Abominae]

I'll have to keep that site listed somewhere...

[Nate556]

Okay, thanks a lot for the info. I really appreciate your help.

[Paul Jensen]

I stumbled across the items and magic data for PS2 while working on a script dump a few years back. Here are the notes from my analysis of how items, spells, and a few other things are stored by the game:

Code: Select all

Phantasy Star II (J): Notes
---------------------------

Characters:

(Starting equipment)
00: head
01: right hand
02: left hand
03: body
04: feet
05: attack???
06:
07:
08:
09:
10:
11:
12:
13:
14:
15:

Items:

00: name
01: name
02: name
03: name
04: name
05: name
06: name
07: name
08: name
09: name
0A: cost (MSB)
0B: cost (LSB)
0C: type?
0D: who can equip (0:Main, 1:Nei, 2:Rudger; 3:Amia, 4:Huey, 5:Ann, 6:Kinds, 7:Silka)
0E: AP bonus
0F: DP bonus

   item type codes (bits?)
   type   7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
   ----    ---------------
   4   0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0  (prisoner clothes)
   8   0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0  (letter, recorder, plasma ring, aeroprism, teim)
   33   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1  (nei headwear)
   34   0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0  (nei one-hand item)
   35   0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1  (nei shot)
   36   0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0  (nei armor)
   40   0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0  (key/keycard)
   43   0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1  (nei two-hand item [sword])
   72   0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0  (dynamite)
   161   1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1  (headwear)
   162   1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0  (one-hand item)
   163   1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1  (two-hand item)
   164   1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0  (armor)
   165   1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1  (footwear)
   168   1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0  (visiphone)
   177   1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1  (magical headwear)
   178   1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0  (magical one-hand item)
   179   1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1  (Hapsby)
   180   1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0  (magical armor)
   232   1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0  (transport item)
   242   1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0  ("Tairon no sekizou" = 'Tylon stone statue')
   248   1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0  (healing item)

   bits 0-2: item type (0:item, 1:head, 2:one-hand, 3:two-hand, 4:armor, 5:foot)
   bit 3: USEable outside of battle
   bit 4: USEable in battle
   bit 5: brings up a dialogue when selected?
   bit 6: disappears after use
   bit 7: SELL-able/DROP-able


Techniques:

00: name
01: name
02: name
03: name
04: name
05: MP used
06: type
07: power (attack or restore)

   technique type codes (bits?)
   type   7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
   ----    ---------------
   4   0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0  (musika)
   9   0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1  (antyi, riba-sa-, ryu-fe)
   12   0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0  (ryu-ka-, hi-nasu)
   17   0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1  (syu-tu, syunera)
   20   0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0  (sasyu-tu, debando, sasyunera)
   25   0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1  (resuta, giresuta, naresuta, sa-kura)
   28   0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0  (saresuta, gisaresuta, nasaresuta, nasa-kura)
   48   0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0  (dasihuta)
   177   1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1  (dazyenera, boruto, doranku, rimita)
   178   1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0  (saboruto, si-zasu)
   180   1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0  (sazyenara, sinparo)
   209   1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1  (purosedan, konteru, ga-zi, giga-zi, naga-zi, rimite)
   210   1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0  (eizia, forusa)
   212   1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0  (saga-zi, gisaga-zi, nasaga-zi)
   241   1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1  (foie, gifoie, nafoie, gurantu, gigurantu, nagurantu, fuanbia)
   242   1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0  (zan, gizan, nazan)
   244   1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0  (gurabuto, gigurabuto, nagurabuto, megido)
   
   bit 0: affects one target (friend or foe)
   bit 1: affects multiple enemies
   bit 2: affects entire party
   bit 3: USEable outside of battle
   bit 4: USEable in battle
   bit 5: strong against organic targets
   bit 6: strong against mechanical targets
   bit 7: affects whom (0:party; 1:enemy)


I forgot to record the location of the data in my notes, so I'd have to do some more poking around to find them again. I even found the list of store inventorie, but didn't record that location either. But anyway, with these notes, you could pretty much edit anything in the game.

（Sorry about the screwed-up formatting)

[Nate556]

Wow. I was doing the reading on the links provided... And wow... I say wow! That's an incredible ammount of work just to do something minor. My hats really go off to the guys who translate and make their own versions of these games. I'm thinking it might just be better for me to pretend it says "claw" instead of "bar", LOL.
It's going to take me a while to figure all this out.