| Author: | Chad (guest: search) |
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| Date: | Fri, Jan 16th, 2015 @ 12:18 ( . ) |
I am not sure if this is the right place to create a post for sharing some thoughts. If not just let me know so I can post it to the proper location. I was just going through the Phantasie games from SSI and noticed some things that flagged me to believe these copies aren't from original "virgin" disks. Unfortunately the save games are saved to the original disks which I am sure makes it difficult to obtain unaltered copies. In Phantasie I there's a pre-made party that's not in the starting town on all versions. They have level ranges from 1 to 14 (very high level for this game--I've played through them 3 or 4 times each). They also have odd names like Keybo, Nono, Haha, Mo, etc. Finally some are dead (not the way to start a new game--give you dead characters that is ;) This is across all 3 versions. (1.0, 1.1, and 1.4) I believe 1.2 is missing disk 2 which is known. On Phantasie II there's a pre-made party that's not in the starting town. All the characters have over 500,000 xp points. They also have 22 for ALL stats (str, int, dex, con, char, and luck--you can't even roll a 22 on the "primary" class stat so these characters have definitely been hacked). Finally they have a score of 30 which the Mystic in game gives you to measure your progress through the game. I saw there is a Phantasie II v1.2 verified copy but I couldn't find it anywhere to test it out. Now Phantasie III I do know DOES have a pre-made party (6 characters as per the manual). They are in the correct starting town with 0 xp (which is good). The only small thing I noticed was one character had 0 gold and one had 512. Usually the new characters have 256 gold each which the other 4 did. Also the names are strange but this could very well be the creators with a sense of humor. (Chumley-Fighter, Trackers-Ranger, Fingers-Thief, Grasshopper-Monk, Bones-Priest, and Saurian-Wizard). Yeah those are the names of the pre-made party including the plural versions like 'Trackers' and 'Fingers' just seem odd for names. Fingers less so than Trackers. Anyway this one is tough and some red flags went up but also it could be the original disks with some small mistakes and funny naming conventions from the creators. I just don't know and and wanted to throw it out there. The one thing with "Phantasie III (v1_0) (Side 1).g64" is it wouldn't load in either CCS64 or WinVice so I ran the .nib file through your nibconv tool and it does work now. I don't know maybe it's a newer version of the tool where the older original .g64 was done with a earlier version? Anyway all 3 games of all versions load perfectly and look good but I just wanted to share what I had noticed if it's helpful at all if you come across other versions to verify against. I do believe for sure Phantasie I and II have been altered but not completely sure on III but would suspect that one also. I hope you have a great weekend too and thank you for making such a wonderful tool that allows us to keep the memories alive! ;) |
 | Author: | Pete Rittwage (registered user: 558 posts ) |
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| Date: | Mon, Jan 19th, 2015 @ 21:34 ( . ) |
Hi Chad, Of course they aren't from virgin disks in most cases. We occasionally get lucky and someone never played the game, but in cases like this where the originals are modified during play, they are always "used". |
| Author: | Pete Rittwage (registered user: 558 posts ) |
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| Date: | Mon, Jan 19th, 2015 @ 21:36 ( . ) |
It is appreciated when someone takes the time to go through them and report it like you have, though. Thanks very much for that! |
| Author: | Chad (guest: search) |
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| Date: | Wed, Jan 21st, 2015 @ 12:37 ( . ) |
Thanks Pete, yeah it was just to let you know. I do actually play through them from beginning to end and really enjoy it. Just the fact that they are able to run in their original form without crack scene/nag screens is huge! I am sure trying to rescue and preserve some of the culture and history of the C64 is really challenging. Coming across gems in their original unaltered state has to be pretty exciting. Hopefully future generations will find and take some interest in this wonderful platform too! :) |