I wanna go back and take notes on how the heck I figured out how to edit someone else’s patch, even without careful directions in a readme file. In looking back on this, I’m surprised AF that I figured this out, tbh. So these notes are for my own reference, not just yours.
So here’s what the patch creates, before it’s adjusted; it’s from what I can gather without breaking it down completely, several arrays of icons and logic to build them into the game’s menu system.
I’m (as usual) mainly interested in changing the icons so in this research example I’m hunting down where they occur in these code changes. They are individual hexbytes (two characters) and correspond to the table data seen here— this is how FF4 Ultima organizes its font and icons. You can check out this file for yourself in any text editor, open it as a csv file or a text file:
The program IPSPeek showing all the code changes from the Crow! Equip Menu patch (ips file):
I’m fairly certain that I need to look in these last 2 chunks of code (I’m writing these notes weeks after accomplishing this change and working backwards) so that’s where I’m focusing.
When I edited the rom to change the Up Arrow to the Waning Moon, I looked and found the hexbyte for “black orb” (3F) and replaced it with Up Arrow’s byte (A8). It was changed to no longer be an Up Arrow but a Waning Moon in a graphics editor. So I’m looking for places in the patch where the value 0x3F shows up.
The binoculars are the Find option in IPSPeek— don’t scrutinize the wall of bytes using your eyes and brain, you’ll go crazy.
So, looking at the large one that spans 878 bytes, the 3rd from the bottom…
