An NES Final Fantasy 1 pony hack WIP I started to work on... but I had to cancel it. (NEW THREAD STARTED!)

[Toastypk 923]

There's a text file I've had on my computer that I was going to post one day when I  was ready to really start this project of mine, but I had to cancel it.

What is it? I had an idea to make a pony rom hack of Final Fantasy 1. It was too perfect. Six classes. Six ponies! Adapt the ponies like in Pony Fantasy 6!
I was going to ask for help and get ideas and such.
But I had to stop because of a big technical hurdle. I'll tell you what in a sec.
Regardless, I thought I would discuss the ideas I had with you anyway.

The plot of FF1, for anyone who doesn't know, is:

The four orbs/crystals of Earth, Water, Fire, Air, have lost their light, and the four light warriors have come to fix that. They discover that the four fiends have taken control of the elements. Their first mission is to rescue the princess from Garland, a knight who went bad. Once they get the orbs back,They head back to the temple where they found Garland, use the orbs to travel to 2000 years back, where they find that Garland is the one who set the fiends, the fiends send him back, creating a loop. Garland uses the four powers to become Chaos, the final boss, who gets defeated.

The idea of Sunset Shimmer pre-reformed being the bad guy because she was a former student who went bad and wanting to conquer the world started this idea, so she would fit for Garland.

Here's what I wanted for the pony version:

Five of the Elements of Harmony, as well as Princess Cadance, have been stolen. Four of the ponies (that the player picks) find that it's Shunset Shimmer who stole them. They rescue Cadance, but the Elements aren't there. They have to find them.

They find that theyve been given to Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis, Discord, and Sombra. Once they get them back, they head to the Castle of the Two Sisters and head deep in it (instead of 2000 years) to find Shimmer, who has the Element of Magic, and becomes her demonic form from Equestria Girls. (only a pony version). They defeat her.

I experimented with some screens and text editing.

See, two thrones instead of one!

The slash marks in the text, I was going to try to get those ironed out on another board. They had a patch that let you put more text and things into the game. And sometimes it wouldn't like when you edited map data with the patch like the other screen, and it messed with other graphics.

I had some good ideas and I really wanted to try to make this. I found a cool FF1 NES editing program. I could make my own spells, tweak some things, boost everyone's stats to be closer to the fighter to make it easier, but have the bosses be tougher too.

But I had to stop before I started to really get into it.
Why, you may ask?
This.

Freaking PALETTES.
There are four palettes are the only ones that characters can pick from.
These two are used for characters.
A third one changes depending on what attack is being used.
A fourth is for the cursor and when a character is petrified.

This only leaves two choices of three colors. The black is transparency.
And you know the ponies are quite the colorful cast.
I tried to see if I could fit everyone in this small space.

Palette 1 could be Orange, Pink, and Yellow. Try to fit Fluttershy, AJ, and Pinkie. But pinkie would be one shade of pink only.

Palette 2 could be white, purple, and blue., try to fit RD, Twi, and Rarity.
The pinkie being one color thing is the thing that made me decide to drop the project, there wasn't a way to get around that.

Simulation.

So that's it, I was going to ask for sprite help and input, but this stopped me. regardless, I wanted to share this anyway. I thought, maybe I could jump to the GBA version of the game? But there really aren't any programs that can edit that.

HOWEVER, if anyone really wants to see this and has a good idea for a workaround, do tell me!
...I couldn't do it.

Edited April 8, 2018 by Toastypk

[Jeric 46,852]

What program are you using to edit? I thought the total pallet limitations of the hardware was 13 colors on screen from 4 pallets? 

 

[Toastypk 923]

11 hours ago, Jeric said:

What program are you using to edit? I thought the total pallet limitations of the hardware was 13 colors on screen from 4 pallets? 

 

I think it's eight palettes of four colors, with transparency being one of the colors.

Two are used for player sprites, one is used for spell and attack color and keeps changing, and a fourth is used for the cursor and stone. (so gray.)

The program I'm using lets you pick from those four, but I believe other palettes get used. Enemy colors, the background... I don't know if I can dedicate one palette to Pinkie all the time, or how.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Toastypk