This is a purely visual fix. It does not change the game mechanics in any way, shape, or form, remotely, or otherwise.
Purpose:
The purpose of this patch is to fix some inconsistencies with equipment having incorrect bits set of what they are actually able to dodge, block, or parry.
Or, in some cases, lack of those bits thereof.
This allows for a varied combination of block animations your characters can display even during post-game content (notably, Relm with a Cat-Ear hood comes to mind), as well as reducing the occasional uneventful 'Miss' where your characters stand around doing nothing after dodging an attack, with no animation, even when they have gear equipped that actually contributed to the enemy missing the character during the early to mid game.
Read the readme for the changes.
Final Fantasy VI Advance Dodge/Parry/Block Types Fix
This is a purely visual fix. It does not change the game mechanics in any way, shape, or form, remotely, or otherwise.
Tested with FF6 E Advance, FF6 U Advance. Both of these had the same addresses and values in their gear stats, so it might even work on the J version. I have no idea, sorry. I also do not have any idea if the J version has any items that may also have wrong block bits set, in addition to the ones this patch fixes. Sorry.
Purpose:
The purpose of this patch is to fix some inconsistencies with equipment having incorrect bits set of what they are actually able to dodge, block, or parry.
Or, in some cases, lack of those bits thereof.
This allows for a varied combination of block animations your characters can display even during post-game content (notably, Relm with a Cat-Ear hood comes to mind), as well as reducing the occasional uneventful 'Miss'
where your characters stand around doing nothing after dodging an attack, with no animation, even when they have gear equipped that actually contributed to the enemy missing the character during the early to mid game.
Mechanics of Dodge/Parry/Block Animations:
I've stumbled upon someone asking how does the game actually determine if and what 'Miss' animation should play when an enemy misses its attack.
Well, here is the general rundown: It has actually nothing to do with item's actual stats or its evade/mblock values. (Gasp!)
Each piece of equipment has separate bits that tell the game what block animation that gear provides:
1: What kind of block animation this gear provides (again, nothing to do with the item's actual type): Dagger Parry, Sword Parry, Shield Block, or Cape Dodge.
2: What type of attacks the gear blocks: Physical/Magical/Both.
How does this work together? Well, when an enemy misses its attack, your character is searched for gear that contributed to the attack missing (no, not what the gear actually provides to the character ^^):
Physical attacks look for gear that have the Physical Block bit set, and Magical look for the Magical Block bit.
When it finds one, it adds its animation type to a list (is it a Dagger Parry, Sword Parry, Shield Block, or a Cape Dodge). ...Wait, but that's not a sword that's a dagger! Ag.. Okay, okay, you get it.
And when it's finally time to display the block animation, the game chooses randomly from the animation types it has collected from your gear.
As in, if an enemy misses its physical attack and you have the Zephyr Cloak, Aegis Shield, and a Main Gauche, it could play either the Cape Dodge, Shield Block, or Dagger Parry animations (there could be some weight system, but I doubt it).
This is great and varied for blocking physical attacks, HOWEVER, it's a bit less so with blocking magical attacks.
Magical Block animations can ONLY be played by gear having both 'Shield Block' type, and the 'Magical Block' types set. This is probably due to the fact that there is no "Generic" Magic Block animation, it always uses a magical colored shield corresponding to the attacking magic's element.
This means that gear with block animations of swords and/or daggers or anything other than shield blocks that state they can block magical attacks do nothing in terms of block animations.
If you block an enemy's Magical attack and have MBlock up the wazoo and not a single piece of equipment stating that it is a Shield Block that can block Magic, the result will be an uneventful 'Miss'!
And respectfully, if you block a physical attack but no gear you have actually states that it can block Physical attacks - uneventful 'Miss' galore!
How This Patch Was Made:
The programmer's slogan is, "Why spend 6 minutes of your life doing something manually when you can waste 6 hours automating it". Yep, I wrote a script. For something that could have been done in 6 minutes. Yep. I just wanted to be sure I didn't miss anything. Yep.
So it's 100% accurate with nothing missed. Honest. Here is what it did:
It parsed through all of the equipment and looked for the Evade/MBlock entries. Then it set or unset the appropriate Block Types to every piece of gear, depending on what the gear actually provides in terms of stats.
Gear that is not a Shield Block type did not have its Magical Block bit set when it provides MBlock. As explained in the above paragraph -- this is unhelpful.
It also correctly set some of the pieces of equipment to provide a fitting block animation type for them.
Okay, Okay, This Is All Fine And Dandy, But What Does It ACTUALLY Change In Terms of What My Game Will Be Like After This Patch:
As any decently self-almost-respecting programmer, I also made a diff of what the script actually did! Can you imagine that??? So here are ALL the changes the script decided to do ALL ON ITS OWN!!!
-- Man-Eater and Enhancer:
These do not give characters Evade, so removed these weapons' ability to provide Dagger Parry and Sword Parry animation outcomes.
-- Flame Shield, Ice Shield, Thunder Shield, and Tortoise Shield:
Enabled these shields to provide the Magical Shield Block animations when blocking Magic, as they all provide MBlock. And all of them happen to be shields. <-- This is the big one right here. It was all worth it. I am happy.
-- Green Beret, Cat-Ear Hood, Snow Scarf, Dueling Mask, and ... (Prayer Beads <---- YES!!! FINALLY!!)
All of these provide Evade, so enabled the Cape Dodge animation for them for Physical attacks.
But before you scream at the above -- Hang on. Listen. Just a sec. Now one piece of equipment is left that the script (with MAYBE a little bit of convincing from me) decided to ignore.
You can't think of one? Well, neither did I until I actually ran the script. Welp. Guess what it is.
Just guess. Okay, well, it's Umaro's Bone Wrist.
Who?
Anyway. While you may be asking yourself why does a Green Beret provide a Cape Dodge animation, the answer is rather simple: In the early game having one or two or four (who hurt you) of them equipped will result in more than a healthy amount of uneventful 'Miss'es, and a Cape Dodge actually kind of makes sense given that the character is still using their gear to dodge the phyiscal blow. This actually MAKES SENSE and it PROVIDES VARIETY.
Umaro's Bone Wrist however is.. well.. while providing Evade, it's nowhere near a dagger to qualify for a Dagger Parry, nor is it a cape by ANY stretch of the imagination. He can't even WEAR capes. Umaros don't wear capes nor have any gear that even resemble what might be mistakenly identified as a cape. And don't even get me started on the Magical Shield Block for its MBlock. No. There is nothing for Umaro.
No, if you use Umaro outside of that one tower -- which I am willing to forgive you for -- outside of that one use, you are condemned to witnessing his uneventful 'Miss' animations for all eternity, as deserved.
No flashy capes for you.
AAAAAAaaaanyway.
- MANY MANY MANY THANKS and BOWS to the folks at https://everything8215.github.io/ff6tools/ff6tools.html for the FF6 Tools. Without this tool NONE of this would be possible. The SCRIPT would not be possible!
That tool is the best thing ever made for FF6A. Thank you!
Database match: Final Fantasy VI Advance (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It)
Database: No-Intro: Game Boy Advance (v. 20210227-023848)
File/ROM SHA-1: C5B27ED0870EA64E6A001C5BC367F76571ACE973
File/ROM CRC32: D15DEBA5
Database match: Final Fantasy VI Advance (USA)
Database: No-Intro: Game Boy Advance (v. 20210227-023848)
File/ROM SHA-1: E9A2A58BC56ACE26CB56D0CF5CDAD1A10AA5DEDF
File/ROM CRC32: D708F5AB
