Chrono Compendium
Kajar Laboratories - Fan Works and Submissions => Chrono Trigger Modification => Topic started by: PowerPanda on June 02, 2022, 01:00:18 am
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Chrono Trigger's soundtrack is widely acclaimed as one of the best of all time. However, the songs you hear in the game are not the complete soundtrack. There are actually 12 more songs that are part of Chrono Trigger's larger identity.
Songs from the OST
* Frog's Theme (With Intro)
* Singing Mountain
* Battle 2
Songs from the PSX and DS re-releases
* A Meeting with Destiny
* One Sunny Day When We Met
* Scattering Blossoms
* A Time to Rest -After the Battle-
Songs from the Pre-Release cartridge
* Keeper's Dome
* Ascend to the Light
* Boss Battle 3
* Battle 1 Rough
And finally, songs that exist only as data chunks in the rom
* Alarming Crisis
* Rat-A-Tat-Tat It's... Mitsuda
This patch expands the soundtrack of the SNES game to include all 12 songs. For the 5 songs that were never on a Super Nintendo cartridge, small re-arrangements have been made to recreate the music on the SNES sound chip. There are no tricks going on here; all music that you hear is actually playing through the SNES sound engine, with no MSU-1 audio required.
While all emulators should be able to play this hack, it should be noted that not all flashcarts will be able to support it. Inclusion of so much new music required expanding the rom to the SNES's largest available cartridge size, 48 Mbits. This cartridge size was only ever used by 2 Tri-Ace games--Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia--so some flashcarts, in order to save money, do not support it. That being said, if you have a flashcart that supports it, you will be able to play this on original hardware.
6 Versions of this patch are included. The main patch, a patch that only adds the new song data to an already-expanded rom, and 4 addendum patches that add CTSE to famous romhacks, including the Bugfix and Uncensoring Patch, Enhansa Edition, Schala Edition, and Chrono Trigger+. 2 optional patches are included as well.
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That's not my version of Frog's Theme, which is fine if you decided not to use mine for whatever reason. I just figured I should mention it since you talked about using mine in CT+ and crediting me. I wouldn't want to accidentally take credit for something I didn't do.
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That's not my version of Frog's Theme, which is fine if you decided not to use mine for whatever reason. I just figured I should mention it since you talked about using mine in CT+ and crediting me. I wouldn't want to accidentally take credit for something I didn't do.
It is an edit of your version. We took the intro that you had written, but moved the loop point to a few measures later. Ben wanted the intro to only play once. So yes, you should definitely be credited on that one!
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F****** cool.
I'm going to utilize this in my mod "Chrono trigger+ Eternal End" (I had to add a prefix title because there's a lot of CT plus mods out there... And as a programmer I do recognize all of them as absolutely badass.)
I will reference this in the CT temporal flux tutorial videos that are going to be released soon!! (If that is okay...)
I have video one out on Vimeo so take a look for that:
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/686164261
(YouTube hates me so I don't know why I can't upload those to them) some days I hate mainstream internet...(Google search is not what it used to be) lol
Nonetheless, this is freaking awesome!
By the way there is one more soundtrack called Rat-tat-tata...(or something like that)...would this be possible to have that as well? I hate rats on all levels (other than Master Splinter from Ninja turtles)...but I see the necessity for it LOL
Anyway cool work PowerPanda!
I'm glad to see the modding community is flourishing after the lift of the Cease and desist orders that most mod makers got from Squeenix(square enix)... However, for some weird reason I don't understand they never targeted my project. 🤨
~Z
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That song's already in the game. It's track 4F, labeled in Temporal Flux as "Fanfare 4".
Do you know who made Temporal Flux? With the music expansion, the one thing that seems tough is that TF doesn't allow you to enter a value above $52. If you enter one by hand, Temporal Flux converts it to a number it recognizes. Would be great if that limitation were removed, and Temporal Flux let you just go up to FE if you wanted to.
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That song's already in the game. It's track 4F, labeled in Temporal Flux as "Fanfare 4".
Do you know who made Temporal Flux? With the music expansion, the one thing that seems tough is that TF doesn't allow you to enter a value above $52. If you enter one by hand, Temporal Flux converts it to a number it recognizes. Would be great if that limitation were removed, and Temporal Flux let you just go up to FE if you wanted to.
I totally forgot that that was actually in the game. Thanks.
Here is the link for the temporal flux perpetual bug list is at the top of the Chrono trigger editing page (this forum/board):
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=3837.0
You want to get a hold of t.Geiger he is very hard to get a hold of...
If we can I would hope that he would release the SDK for temporal flux so that we can actually make our own editors not just plugins!
Yeah I have a couple ideas about that one I was hoping that my friend Mauron, would make me a simple text hex editor where I could just simply edit an address and then commit changes and actually have a list of just 10 addresses with the change and make that exportable this would save me so much " by hand" work.
Fortunately I'm getting back into programming so at some point I will try to write this stuff myself if it doesn't exist what we really need is what I just mentioned and a tile set graphical editor with exports instead of having to use YY-CHR(that best)
It would also be great for temporal flux to have the limitation for the total amount of shops removed...
Another note is someday I would like to make a synthshop(combining two or more items and a gil/G cost with the output of an item it would be great to have these as a shop window interface)...
And even more importantly have window size for text go up to eight lines decisions already accept a higher number for some reason but we can only do four lines text boxes it would be great to be able to do one line to four location names also...
~Z
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It is an edit of your version. We took the intro that you had written, but moved the loop point to a few measures later. Ben wanted the intro to only play once. So yes, you should definitely be credited on that one!
It's not. Mine already only played the intro once, so you wouldn't have needed to make that modification. The note durations and stuff like that are a little different too. There was another guy who did it after me on RHDN, so you may have snagged that one instead.
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If I remember correctly each of the SPC is for Chrono trigger has a unique index for note arrays hence OneNote could be slightly different than another version...
The floating continent seem in final fantasy 6/3us... Which is shared with the same theme at the opening of the game but with different instruments is an example of this...
It's not just different instruments it's different note data too if that helps.
~Z
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A major update has been added, and v.2.0 is now available.
Version 2.0 changes this from a "hacker's hack" to one that can be used by anyone. In addition to having the data added to your rom, the patch now adds musical cues in the game so that the songs will play. A version compatible with Enhansa Edition is also included.
Version 2.0 also includes a new song. Several years ago, Zeality discovered Unknown Fanfare (https://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Unknown_Fanfare.html) as leftover junk data in the Japanese rom, and arranged it with instruments. Gi Nattak and I have added a basic loop point to this song, and inserted it as the 91st music track. I have named it "Alarming Crisis".
Finally, the arrangements for "A Meeting With Destiny" and "Scattering Blossoms" exceeded the available RAM of the SNES. In ZSNES, this was no problem, but in BSNES or SNES9X, or on original hardware, the RAM overflow would cause popping and glitching in these 2 songs. Gi Nattak and I have done a slight re-arrangement of the songs so that they require 1 less instrument each, and fit in the SNES's available RAM.
The patch is available for download in the original post. Here is a list of where you will be able to hear the new music.
===Song 80: Rat-A-Tat-Tat It's... Mitsuda!
Truce Inn 1000 AD - Piano Player (1 of 5 songs)
===Song 81: Battle 2
This becomes the main battle theme after Crono confronts Lavos for the first time in the Ocean Palace, and replaces all instances of Battle 1 from there on out.
===Song 82: Singing Mountain
Death Peak - field music
===Song 83: A Meeting With Destiny
End of Time - Add Marle to your party
Note: Crono and Marle share a theme song, but it does not play when Crono is selected. It seemed like Marle could use a more upbeat song in the End of Time to match all of the other characters. Their song, Far Off Promise, plays in its usual event locations, and has also been added to the Truce Inn Piano Player as 1 of her 5 songs.
===Song 84: One Sunny Day When We Met
Millenial Fair: Dancing Exhibit - field music
===Song 85: Scattering Blossoms
Truce Inn 1000 AD - Piano Player (1 of 5 songs)
Mt. Woe - field music
===Song 86: A Time To Rest -After the Battle-
Death Peak - Cutscene where you use the Chrono Trigger
===Song 87: Frog's Theme (With Intro)
Magic Cave - Cutscene where Frog gains the Masamune
Northern Ruins - Cutscene where the Masamune is powered up
End of Time - Add Frog to your party
===Song 88: Keeper's Dome
Keeper's Dome - field music
===Song 89: Ascend to the Light
Sun Keep, all time periods - field music
Sun Palace - field music
===Song 90: Boss Battle 3
Denadoro Mountains - Masamume 2nd Form*
Death Peak - Lavos Spawn battles
Black Omen - Elder Lavos Spawn battle
*Note: Boss Battle 2, which previously played during Masamune's 2nd Form, now additionally plays during the Giga Gaia and Mother Brain battles
===Song 91: Alarming Crisis
Abandoned Factory - Cutscene where the power is turned on
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Cool stuff! Thanks for doing the work to make it play nice with Enhansa Edition, too.
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Cool stuff! Thanks for doing the work to make it play nice with Enhansa Edition, too.
Of course. I feel like the 2 projects have a lot of synergy for people who want to go back and do a replay. You have an unread message on RHDN where I asked permission. :D
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Finally, the arrangements for "A Meeting With Destiny" and "Scattering Blossoms" exceeded the available RAM of the SNES. In ZSNES, this was no problem, but in BSNES or SNES9X, or on original hardware, the RAM overflow would cause popping and glitching in these 2 songs. Gi Nattak and I have done a slight re-arrangement of the songs so that they require 1 less instrument each, and fit in the SNES's available RAM.
If the problem with those two tracks is what I think it is, it can be fixed without dropping instruments. The tail end of the sample data is probably overflowing into the echo buffer and being constantly overwritten. You have to move the start of the echo buffer, which can be accomplished by changing the first byte in the list of two-byte entries at 07241D/C7241D in the original ROM (haven't checked where you moved it to in this hack). The second byte appears to be a master volume for each song, but I haven't really investigated it much. Could be useful if some of the new songs seem too quiet compared to others.
For the first byte, these are the valid values, and where they put the start of the echo buffer in ARAM:
$00 = $f100
$01 = $e900
$02 = $e100
$03 = $d900
$04 = $d100
$05 = $c900
$06 = $c100
$07 = $b900
$08 = $b100
$09 = $a900
$0a = $a100
$0b = $9900
$0c = $9100
$0d = $8900
$0e = $8100
$0f = $7900
So basically you have to add up the total size of the instrument samples used, add $4700 (which is the starting address for the samples in ARAM), and then round up to the closest value in the above list so that the echo buffer will be sure to start after the end of the samples. I just discovered all of this fairly recently when somebody asked me to fix some things in Prophet's Guile and Flames of Eternity for them so they could play on a flash cart (off topic, but maybe I should post patches for those in another thread?) For Prophet's Guile and Flames of Eternity I slapped together a quick and dirty command line tool to calculate it automatically. I can probably modify it to work for this hack. Should just be a matter of changing the start addresses for the pointer tables and the number of songs. I'll give it a look later if you want.
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That's really useful information. I was wondering what all of the pairs of "05 FF" were about. I think I can use that to smooth out "Ascend to the Light" a little bit. In this instance though, that wasn't the case. The tracks "Scattering Blossoms" and "A Meeting With Destiny" were written with the Chrono Trigger soundfont, but they were not written to be playable on SNES. (Example: there is one point in the original "A Meeting With Destiny" where there are 12 individual notes playing at the same time, far exceeding the SNES's maximum of 8.)
The actual problem was that CT uses remarkably high-quality BRR instrument samples for its time, and they were surpassing the SNES's maximum RAM. Both Gi and I still use ZSNES as our main emulator, and that does not cap the RAM, so we didn't notice until I started recording videos on SNES9X.
We don't know why we didn't catch this during the arrangement phase, but if I had to venture an educated guess, it's that Gi probably arranged these using the lower-quality FF6 instrument BRRs, since he is more familiar with them, and then once he had everything right, found the equivalent instruments in Chrono Trigger.
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That's really useful information. I was wondering what all of the pairs of "05 FF" were about. I think I can use that to smooth out "Ascend to the Light" a little bit. In this instance though, that wasn't the case. The tracks "Scattering Blossoms" and "A Meeting With Destiny" were written with the Chrono Trigger soundfont, but they were not written to be playable on SNES. (Example: there is one point in the original "A Meeting With Destiny" where there are 12 individual notes playing at the same time, far exceeding the SNES's maximum of 8.)
The actual problem was that CT uses remarkably high-quality BRR instrument samples for its time, and they were surpassing the SNES's maximum RAM. Both Gi and I still use ZSNES as our main emulator, and that does not cap the RAM, so we didn't notice until I started recording videos on SNES9X.
We don't know why we didn't catch this during the arrangement phase, but if I had to venture an educated guess, it's that Gi probably arranged these using the lower-quality FF6 instrument BRRs, since he is more familiar with them, and then once he had everything right, found the equivalent instruments in Chrono Trigger.
I'm sorry if this comes across as rude, but this doesn't appear to be accurate. I had downloaded the old version a while ago and just done nothing with it. I just patched a ROM and investigated Scattering Blossoms. The total size of the instruments is $8bd1 bytes, which would put the start of the echo buffer at $d900 (so a value of $03 in that table instead of $05). I tried that and the glitchy sounds went away. For that song at least it doesn't exceed the total size of ARAM. It just overflows into the echo buffer like I suspected. I'm gonna check A Meeting With Destiny now, but I'd bet it's the same deal.
EDIT: Yeah, same deal. Instruments cross into the echo buffer, but don't exceed the available space in ARAM. For A Meeting With Destiny the echo buffer needs to start at $e100, so a value of $02 instead of $05.
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I'm sorry if this comes across as rude, but this doesn't appear to be accurate. I had downloaded the old version a while ago and just done nothing with it.
Not rude at all. Thank you for your help with this. Looks like I'll be releasing a 2.1 version after all!
Speaking of, there was a problem with the 2.0 version. The "CTSE Standard" IPS file was built off of an already-expanded 6MB rom, instead of the original 4MB rom. I've corrected it, and reuploaded.
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Amazing. I had considered it a far-off, distant goal for those PSX tracks to ever be reverse-engineered back into Chrono Trigger (ditto for Frog's theme).
We're at liberty to leverage this work in future hacks, I hope...
Thanks again.
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Amazing. I had considered it a far-off, distant goal for those PSX tracks to ever be reverse-engineered back into Chrono Trigger (ditto for Frog's theme).
We're at liberty to leverage this work in future hacks, I hope...
Thanks again.
Yes, of course! This is a community hack, and anyone can use it with or without my permission. You yourself are credited in the readme for extracting and arranging "Unknown Fanfare", which I have assigned the index number $5B, and taken the liberty of titling "Alarming Crisis".
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I'm sorry if this comes across as rude, but this doesn't appear to be accurate. I had downloaded the old version a while ago and just done nothing with it. I just patched a ROM and investigated Scattering Blossoms. The total size of the instruments is $8bd1 bytes, which would put the start of the echo buffer at $d900 (so a value of $03 in that table instead of $05). I tried that and the glitchy sounds went away. For that song at least it doesn't exceed the total size of ARAM. It just overflows into the echo buffer like I suspected. I'm gonna check A Meeting With Destiny now, but I'd bet it's the same deal.
Gi Nattak and I were able to cut an unused instrument from A Meeting With Destiny, and get it down to the $04 value. Scattering Blossoms also works at $04, unless I'm missing something.
The pointer on the global song volume was also very helpful in making Ascend to the Light less obnoxious. :)
I'm going to wait on releasing version 2.1 for a little while. I'm in the middle of a playthrough, to see if there are any other places where some new music would be welcome. I'm also coordinating with Ben on a Chrono Trigger+ release, where he is going to put out a version with the new music implemented, and I'll release an addendum patch that adds additional music cues.
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Scattering Blossoms also works at $04, unless I'm missing something.
Are you using the newer version where you dropped an instrument? With the older version a value of $04 messes up the tambourine sample causing it to randomly glitch out and loop. I did my calculations earlier with the older version because I was assuming you'd prefer not to cut out an instrument.
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:picardno
And you're right again. Lesson learned: always listen to Reld.
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Lesson learned: always listen to Reld.
Nah, I'm wrong about stuff way too often for that to be sound advice :lol:
I did my own arrangement of A Meeting With Destiny. I wanted to see how much of the song I could cram in there, and also tweak a few things. There are tradeoffs no matter what you do due to the polyphony issues you mentioned before, so it's not necessarily "better". The attached zip file has the binary data for the song in case you want to use it, but if not that's cool too.
By the way, what did you do with the percussion tables? They aren't listed in the spreadsheet with all the moved stuff (unless you've added it to the new version. I've still been messing with the old one). I didn't use it for this arrangement so it didn't really matter, but I assume you must've moved them or else a bunch of the songs would be broken.
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That sounds good. I'll have to listen closer tomorrow to figure out what you removed during the 12-part polyphony.
I have purposely built my expansion so that people can easily drop in their own song. I left room for 9 more songs.
Regarding the drum table, I just.... didn't do anything. 8) It seemed to be all direct-address loading, rather than loading based on the index number of the song, so I didn't touch it.
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That sounds good. I'll have to listen closer tomorrow to figure out what you removed during the 12-part polyphony.
I did a bunch of channel juggling and relied a bit on the idea that our brains kind of fill in the gaps when one sound is interrupted by another louder sound. For example, most of the time the kick and snare are on one channel together, but sometimes the snare switches over to the hi-hat channel and the kick moves to the beepy synth channel. You can hear it if you're specifically listening for it, but it's not really noticeable if you're just giving it a casual listen (or at least that's the idea). I also dropped the closed hi-hat sample and just used the open hi-hat with different release values to change the length, and I replaced the superfluous xylophone sample that was in the instrument table with the "french horns" or whatever they are.
Regarding the drum table, I just.... didn't do anything. 8) It seemed to be all direct-address loading, rather than loading based on the index number of the song, so I didn't touch it.
Oh wow. This is kind of a problem actually. Just like the instrument table, the drum table has one entry for each song that's accessed by the song number. They're 36 bytes each, starting at $071871 in the ROM. I just tried the latest version of the patch and went to the dance exhibit where One Sunny Day When We Met plays. It tries to load the percussion table from $072441, which is past the end of the percussion table data and into the old echo buffer/volume table. This should have broken the song, but it looks like somebody (Gi Nattak?) went through the song data, removed the "Drum Mode On/Off" commands, and added in a bunch of manual instrument changes. I'm guessing they must've done this for some of the other songs too. It works, but it's kind of a bandaid solution, and it's a problem if you want people to be able to use this as a starting point for adding their own songs.
EDIT: I explained the percussion table a bit in this thread (https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=2165.msg232966#msg232966).
EDIT 2: I think this is the code that needs modifying (probably just the three lines that set the base address)
lda $05 ;C7059C Load song number
and #$00ff ;C7059E
sta $82 ;C705A1 Multiply by 36...
asl a ;C705A3 Multiply by 36...
clc ;C705A4 Multiply by 36...
adc $82 ;C705A5 Multiply by 36...
asl a ;C705A7 Multiply by 36...
asl a ;C705A8 Multiply by 36...
sta $82 ;C705A9 Multiply by 36...
asl a ;C705AB Multiply by 36...
clc ;C705AC Multiply by 36...
adc $82 ;C705AD Multiply by 36...
tay ;C705AF Transfer to Y
sep #$20 ;C705B0
lda #$71 ;C705B2 Setting the base address for the Percussion Table (C71871) at $1e12
sta $12 ;C705B4
lda #$18 ;C705B6 Setting the base address for the Percussion Table (C71871) at $1e12
sta $13 ;C705B8
lda #$c7 ;C705BA Setting the base address for the Percussion Table (C71871) at $1e12
sta $14 ;C705BC
lda #$f1 ;C705BE
sta $2143 ;C705C0
lda #$20 ;C705C3
sta $2142 ;C705C5
lda #$03 ;C705C8
sta $2141 ;C705CA
lda $84 ;C705CD
jsr $09da ;C705CF
sta $84 ;C705D2
lda #$03 ;C705D4
cmp $2141 ;C705D6
beq $05e0 ;C705D9
ldx #$000c ;C705E0 Number of 3-byte entries
lda [$12],y ;C705E3 Loading percussion table data and sending to SPC
sta $2141 ;C705E5
iny ;C705E8
lda [$12],y ;C705E9 Loading percussion table data and sending to SPC
sta $2142 ;C705EB
iny ;C705EE
lda [$12],y ;C705EF Loading percussion table data and sending to SPC
sta $2143 ;C705F1
iny ;C705F4
lda $84 ;C705F5
jsr $09da ;C705F7
sta $84 ;C705FA
dex ;C705FC decrement entry number
bne $05e3 ;C705FD if there are entries left, loop back to C705E3
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The only data I had was from Vehek, here (https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=13746.0). Here is the code he gave me for the drum table:
C7/05B2: A971 LDA #$71
C7/05B4: 8512 STA $12
C7/05B6: A918 LDA #$18
C7/05B8: 8513 STA $13
C7/05BA: A9C7 LDA #$C7
C7/05BC: 8514 STA $14
From that, I thought that the drum table was a static table at $C7/1871, and that I could just leave it in place. Your explanation makes a lot more sense. Let's add it to the (somehow growing) list of things for Version 2.1, which I'm thinking might need to be renamed to 3.0.
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I'll hold off on posting it in a site update until the next patch revision (if you feel satisfied at that point). Hm, I need to get these notes into the encyclopedia, though...
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I'll hold off on posting it in a site update until the next patch revision (if you feel satisfied at that point). Hm, I need to get these notes into the encyclopedia, though...
Yes, please hold off. There's big stuff incoming. Reld is going to town right now, and may have even made a branch of Temporal Flux that allows the placement of the new music.
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This is potentially better in a new thread, but I didn't realize you were the FF6 hacker. Do you feel like the full spectrum of FF6 hacking has been explored, at this point? (And I swear I remember that back in the day, Temporal Flux was only made by Geiger for CT because he deemed FF6 much harder to make an editor for!)
Only asking because that's still nagging at me—this feeling that the full potential of Chrono Trigger has not yet been explored. I know there's a lot of fanfare about the MSU-1 stuff to draw upon external data, but to me, it's like an artform to maximize what a single ROM can do, which for Trigger, means things like:
- Custom Mode 7
- Injecting custom music
- 8th character patch
- More overworld events
- Near-full utilization of the ROM (so packing in as many locations, tilesets, monsters, items, etc. as the offsets will allow
- Other tricks the CT team didn't really achieve, such as temporarily-controllable NPCs
- Another mini-game or two, like Agent 12's colosseum
I haven't checked in on FF6, so just curious if the limits have been pushed like that. If there's any need for a new comprehensive CT hack, I feel like it's begging to be done if only to showcase the full might of what we can now do with the ROM.
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This is potentially better in a new thread, but I didn't realize you were the FF6 hacker. Do you feel like the full spectrum of FF6 hacking has been explored, at this point? (And I swear I remember that back in the day, Temporal Flux was only made by Geiger for CT because he deemed FF6 much harder to make an editor for!)
Only asking because that's still nagging at me—this feeling that the full potential of Chrono Trigger has not yet been explored.
It's an interesting question. I've pondered why FF6 seems to get so many more hacks than CT, and I think that what it comes down to is that Chrono Trigger is really good at being Chrono Trigger, whereas FF6 can be a pretty blank canvas.
FF6 hacking took off mainly because the original battle system is held together with duct tape and prayers. When Assassin wrote his disassembly, he found over 180 bugs. That gave people a clear goal and motivation: fix all the bugs. Once they learned how to do that, they knew the game backwards and forwards, and started tinkering around. These days, there are very few things left to be done, aside from cleanup and ease-of-use stuff. When CDude and I finished off the full 16-character roster patch, to me it felt like we had reached the edge of the map. We've still found stuff since then, like unused attack animations and how to create your own Esper, but it's at the point where an FF6 hack is limited mainly by imagination and skill.
When I jumped over to Chrono Compendium, I was really surprised at how far... if I can say it... BEHIND Chrono Trigger was. I think a big part of that actually is Temporal Flux. It was so good so early that it made it 80% of the way there and then stopped. But I think another part is just the game itself. Chrono Trigger didn't desperately need fixing like FF6 did. It's so good at being itself that it's hard to morph it into something else.
I see this Soundtrack Expansion hack as a way to re-open that conversation. What would happen if we stopped making tools for Chrono Trigger, and started making tools for Chrono Trigger Hacks? Would people want to play around in the game, or do we all just want to keep Chrono Trigger as it is?
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Got it. That's pretty exciting, and yeah, I agree; FF6 seems like a wonderful canvas for any setting in general. Chrono Trigger is very much locked into Toriyama's style, and the specific eras make them very distinctive and unmistakable. It did make Trigger stuff deceptively easy, of course (that was the logic behind Crimson Echoes—we could very easily just make a Chrono Trigger 2 scenario without needing to change a ton of location art or doing other graphics hacking). It was a pure bonus that Chrono'99 figured out how to make a faux-elements boss battle, and Agent 12 also devised so many ways to arrange the events.
I want to believe that given those limitations of CT's style, there's still one more good story to be told—but finding that story has totally escaped me the last few years. Crimson Echoes suffered from various issues of its own, but a big part was definitely trying to sandwich it between Chrono Cross and also make it completely mired in the Compendium's temporal theory (which is an achievement, but still amounts to a bandaid on a few plot holes the developers of both games overlooked). If I could make something in the future, it'd be much more of a straightforward Chrono Trigger 2. But alas, it'd have to have a perfect story in order to feel like CT all over again, and really have that sense of 16-bit adventure.
Welp, that concludes the big divergence off topic from my end, haha.
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I agree.
Back on topic, I have coded some ASM that allows you to set the random battle theme BY MAP. So each map can now set a field theme AND a Battle Theme. I have also extracted the alternate instrumentations for Battle 1 out of the Pre-release Rom, giving me 3 distinct versions of Battle 1. This means that unless there are dungeon maps shared between time periods (still need to investigate), I can assign a different battle theme to each time period.
Heck, with the SPC data from Radical Dreamers, I could even piss everyone off and throw in Gale. :twisted:
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The work on CTSE 3.0 is done, and it has been ported to Enhansa Edition, the Bugfix and Uncensoring Patch, and Chrono Trigger+. The default rom for CT+ is going to include this music only in the new areas of the game. However, CTSE will come with an optional addendum that adds the music to the base game in CT+ as well.
In addition, Reld has updated Temporal Flux to not only allow the placement of the new music, but to incorporate the ASM that allows you to set random battle music per map. These are now done from the Location Properties screen, rather than a separate music sub-window. The music sub-window has been moved to a main window, and still allows you to change instruments for the songs. As an added bonus, Reld has also allowed users to set enemy IDs beyond the base game range.
The last step in all of this is coordinating releases. We're hoping to drop the updates for CT+, CTSE, and Temporal Flux on the same day, giving you a Chrono Trifecta.
ZeaLitY, you had mentioned writing a news story about this. Any ideas on how you want to approach it?
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Oh man, incredible. Yeah, I will totally blast it on the front page. If you grab a couple screenshots of the plugin interface, that would be great. Just make a fresh topic somewhere and once I move it to the Site Updates forum, it will automatically appear.
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CTSE version 3.0 is released, alongside Reld's fork of Temporal Flux that will allow the soundtrack to be easily inserted into new roms. ThegreatBen will also be submitting a new version of Chrono Trigger+ that incorporates the new music by default. This adds the new music to the new locations in the game. CTSE comes with an addendum patch that will optionally add them sprinkled throughout the game too. Last and certainly least, Gi Nattak is updating his infamous Unsightly Pixel patch to its 2.0 version, fixing 20+ more stray pixels on the 12,000 BC map. It's a Chrono Trigger extravaganza!
Here are the release notes from Version 3.0, which has been uploaded to the first post on this thread.
==3.0==
Added "Battle 1 Rough"
Drum tables added for the new music
Echo buffer and volume controls added for the new music, allowing additional instruments to be used
"A Meeting With Destiny" & "A Time to Rest ~After the Battle~" re-arranged to make use of more instruments
"One Sunny Day When We Met" & "Scattering Blossoms" edited to use drum tables
Added ASM that allows the random battle music to be set per map
Added optional patches for battle ASM and party change menu music
Added more musical cues, notably to the Millenial Fair, Mt. Woe, Last Village, and the Blackbird
Compatibility patch added for the Bugfix and Uncensoring romhack and the Chrono Trigger+ romhack
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Version 3.1 has been added to the first post of this page. It fixes a small but severe but with Enhansa Edition that causes the Keeper's Dome to not load.
It also, more excitingly, adds in support for Schala Edition, being the last of the main Chrono Trigger romhacks I hadn't tackled yet.