Chrono Cross: Chrono Cross: Magus Unmasked

The “Magus Unmasked” patch modifies Guile's model, weaponry, tech descriptions, and portraits so that he more closely resembles Magus from Chrono Trigger.

As for dialogue and storyline changes, we defer to Masato Kato's judgment that it is “…impossible to portray the relationship between Magus and Schala adequately in this game [given] …such a huge number of playable characters.” This by no means suggests that a complete Guile - Magus storyline conversion will never come to fruition; it merely means that a hacking project of far greater scope than this patch will be required to do justice to a Chrono Cross involving Magus.

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VERVE FANWORKS
Chrono Cross: Magus Unmasked
February 19, 2010
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CONTENTS
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I. Release History and Foreword
II. Installation
III. Legal
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I. Release History and Foreword
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2008-06-12 V 1.00
-First release.

2010-02-19 V 1.10
-Updated to alter Magus' attack animations and equip him with a Dark Scythe.

The "Magus Unmasked" patch modifies Guile's model, weaponry, tech descriptions,
and portraits so that he more closely resembles Magus from Chrono Trigger.

As for dialogue and storyline changes, we defer to Masato Kato's judgment that
it is "...impossible to portray the relationship between Magus and Schala
adequately in this game [given] ...such a huge number of playable characters."
This by no means suggests that a complete Guile -> Magus storyline conversion
will never come to fruition; it merely means that a modding project of far
greater scope than this patch will be required to do justice to a Chrono Cross
involving Magus.

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II. Installation
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==WHAT YOU WILL NEED==
1. Your Chrono Cross CDs.
Chrono Cross is still available at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Chrono-Cross-Playstation/dp/B00004TC6E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1266708755&sr=8-1

2. A CD drive.

3. About 1.5 GB of free space on your hard drive.

3. IsoBuster: http://www.isobuster.com/

4. pSX Playstation Emulator. It's also known as psxfin, and it can be found here: http://psxemulator.gazaxian.com/

5. PPF O-Matic: http://www.romhacking.net/utils/354/

6. Optional: A utility for converting DexDrive game saves (.GME extension) to
Bleem! game saves (.mde), which is the format used by the pSX emulator. Game
saves for Chrono Cross can be found in .GME format at GameFAQs, and the best
converter I've found is here: http://www.aldostools.com/memcards.html

7. Optional: A gameshark device for emulators. I recommend a very nice little
utility called CEP. A version modified to work for pSX can be found in the
first post here: http://psxemulator.proboards54.com/index.cgi?board=support&action=display&thread=1155537965

==NOW WHAT?==
Here's a step-by-step rundown of everything you'll need to do.

First: You need to transfer the data in your Chrono Cross game CDs to your hard drive. This is where IsoBuster comes in; it specializes in creating digital backups of CD data. Once you've got IsoBuster installed, open this wonderful little utility and go to File -> (your CD Drive). Some options should pop up in a new dropdown menu to the side of the file menu. You want "Extract CD " -> "RAW (bin, iso)". Now let IsoBuster do its thing; it will take several minutes, but check in every once and a while to name the resulting files and give your blessing when needed.

Second: Check to make sure everything works. A digital copy of the first Chrono Cross CD should be either 736,649,216 bytes in size or 736,651,104 bytes in size. A digital copy of the second Chrono Cross CD should be 741,797,888 bytes in size or 741,797,280 bytes. If you're running a Windows PC, you should be able to check file size at the byte level by right-clicking on the file and viewing its Properties. If the file sizes you end up with don't match exactly with these, there's no guarantee that the patch WON'T work, but nor is there any guarantee that it will.

Third: Try your CD backups in a PlayStation emulator. pSX and ePSXe are most recommended. Add the file extension .BIN to your game CD backups if the pSX emulator doesn't detect them.

Fourth: Now that you've hopefully familiarized yourself with your emulator, it's time to patch your files. Just unzip PPF O-Matic, find your game CD, find your patch (be careful to apply "Magus Unmasked CD1" to the first CD game image, and likewise for "Magus Unmasked CD2"), and the rest takes care of itself. The patches are presented in a raw file format, so you'll need to set PPF O-Matic to search for "all files."

Fifth: Now you're ready to load the patched CDs. Be sure to start a new game or continue a saved game; don't use a savestate right off the bat because tech names and various other things will be stored in a savestate just as they were in the game image from which the savestate originated. Also, for the Magus name change to take effect, you'll need to have applied this patch before recruiting him in Termina. Once you've started a new game or continued on your patched game image, you may use savestates.

Sixth: Okay, so why did I tell you to have gameshark-compatible software handy? Enter this code for a special surprise: 8006EDD4 01E2. When Magil hits level 37, check his level 8 element grid slot :) Or if you're above level 37, be sure to unequip Magil's level 8 elements before using this code.

==WHERE DO I GO IF I NEED HELP?==
If you have any questions or just can't get something to work, try asking for help at Romhacking.net's "Newbie Board." Someone may be able to assist.

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III. Legal
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Verve Fanworks is sensitive to the needs of Chrono Cross' copyright holder, Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. End users of the "Magus Unmasked" patch are required to own a copy of Chrono Cross and create a backup of their game discs per very specific instructions listed above.

Since end users of the patch are required to own Chrono Cross, we believe this modification falls within the scope of the legal precedent established in Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. (1992). The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held therein that: "Having paid Nintendo a fair return, the consumer may experiment with the product and create new variations of play, for personal enjoyment, without creating a derivative work."
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SLUS-01041