The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
I think you may be right, Force. I see what you're talking about.
FFVII Research & Resources Thread
- Thread starter Shademp
- Start date
Shademp
420
At least the upper part of the door is indeed a window but does that make the mirrored symbol into something which is *not* an error? I'm not sure. (Not familiar with the word "decal" or even its Swedish counterpart)
I can't spot any errors with the Shinra logo on the helicopter at the beginning of the movie. Keep in mind I only have ACC downloaded and not AC.
Btw, I'm spotting a lot of "MIDGULL WEEK" articles pasted on the walls in 7th Heaven but no "EDGE WEEKLY". Either Cloud & Tifa have simply saved articles from before Meteorfall or the "Midgar Weekly" paper didn't change its name when the news company moved to Edge. =/
@Yop
Thanks for giving us that association?
I can't spot any errors with the Shinra logo on the helicopter at the beginning of the movie. Keep in mind I only have ACC downloaded and not AC.
Btw, I'm spotting a lot of "MIDGULL WEEK" articles pasted on the walls in 7th Heaven but no "EDGE WEEKLY". Either Cloud & Tifa have simply saved articles from before Meteorfall or the "Midgar Weekly" paper didn't change its name when the news company moved to Edge. =/
@Yop
Thanks for giving us that association?
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
A decal is basically a sticker, like what people put on their cars.
So, if that's a window, that's not an error. We're just looking at the "back" of the decal; what you would see when looking at the logo from "behind" it while inside the bar.
I may be wrong about the Shin-Ra logo. I just remember something from the beginning of the original cut of AC that was backwards and later corrected. Might have been Yazoo and Loz's positions on either side of Kadaj when they first attack Cloud?
So, if that's a window, that's not an error. We're just looking at the "back" of the decal; what you would see when looking at the logo from "behind" it while inside the bar.
I may be wrong about the Shin-Ra logo. I just remember something from the beginning of the original cut of AC that was backwards and later corrected. Might have been Yazoo and Loz's positions on either side of Kadaj when they first attack Cloud?
Shademp
420
I am SHOCKED. Who in their right mind would put a decal on one side of a window without placing an identical one on the other side so to prevent people from being forced to see a mirrored symbol?
That's it. FFVII and me are DONE on a professional level!
Shademp
420
In the Bonus Disc that came with FFVII International you can view old, unused concept art for the game. Go to MAKING -> MAKING FILE and after seven clicks you'll find what appears to be an early concept for what became the Ghost Hotel in Gold Saucer:
But as a matter of fact this concept art can be spotted inside the final game! If you stand long enough in the Wonder Square the flashy television monitor will display it.
It's impossible to make out the text on it with absolute certainty though.
I spot "NET of NINT" (Nintendo?) and "Staring Melody" (among other interpretations).
As an extra observation, the monitor can also generate an image which I speculate to be showing a silhouette of the Ghost Hotel in the background.
"MIDNIGHT EXPRES", yes they are lacking an S there, is on its way to the Ghost Hotel! How creepy.
But as a matter of fact this concept art can be spotted inside the final game! If you stand long enough in the Wonder Square the flashy television monitor will display it.
It's impossible to make out the text on it with absolute certainty though.
I spot "NET of NINT" (Nintendo?) and "Staring Melody" (among other interpretations).
As an extra observation, the monitor can also generate an image which I speculate to be showing a silhouette of the Ghost Hotel in the background.
"MIDNIGHT EXPRES", yes they are lacking an S there, is on its way to the Ghost Hotel! How creepy.
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ForceStealer
Double Growth
Hm...I'm not remembering anything in particular, and I think Yazoo and Loz criss-cross when they're driving down that cliff. But I dunno. The biggie of that sort that I remember was cloud pulling the wrong sword out of Fenrir in the Forgotten City which they fixed in ACC.
Shademp
420
In the hopefully not-too-distant future I'll include this observation in one (probably even two) articles, but I want to share this one instantly.
You know that staff roll intro in the PSX editions of FFVII?
Yeah, that one. I noticed two differences between JORG and all the post-JORG releases.
Here are two of the final staff listings in JORG...
...then compare it with post-JORG (FFVII International, American & European releases).
Yoshinori Kitase's name is partially cut-off at the top in the later releases. EDIT: The name was moved three pixels upwards in post-JORG, and two pixels of top portion of the name was removed. They could have moved it upwards one pixel in height without anything being cut.
The original release said "Exective Producer" then when they corrected the first word for the later release, the final "r" letter got cut out instead.
The amount of useless things to discover never runs out.
You know that staff roll intro in the PSX editions of FFVII?
Yeah, that one. I noticed two differences between JORG and all the post-JORG releases.
Here are two of the final staff listings in JORG...
...then compare it with post-JORG (FFVII International, American & European releases).
Yoshinori Kitase's name is partially cut-off at the top in the later releases. EDIT: The name was moved three pixels upwards in post-JORG, and two pixels of top portion of the name was removed. They could have moved it upwards one pixel in height without anything being cut.
The original release said "Exective Producer" then when they corrected the first word for the later release, the final "r" letter got cut out instead.
The amount of useless things to discover never runs out.
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Shademp
420
It is not unusual to find promotional material for FFVII which includes older versions of battles, fields, etc. Especially if you look at Japanese sources from the early days. Even the Japanese FFVII manual has some pre-release concepts for fields, such as the entrance to Mako Reactor #1 or the beta version of Cosmo Canyon.
Seeing any pre-rendered background in its pre-release glory is great. If nothing else there's always a difference in colour tone to be spotted. Many will recognize this from GlitterBerri's old feature FFVII Pre-release shots, of which I wrote 99% of the commentary 2 1/2 years ago.
Over a year ago, I bought an FFVII guide published by V-Jump in 1997. An incomplete guide that only covered the game just to the beginning of disc 2. There I noticed that one field was unusually different from its final game counterpart. Now that I finally have an extra copy, I could rip out the page (from the copy that was in bad condition already) and make a clear scan...
The context of the guide makes it absolutely clear that these areas are one and the same, but with the image from the V-Jump guide clearly being an early background painting.
The ship's main deck doesn't show quite such dramatic differences, but we can still observe some neat things...
Pieces of the field have been cut off, stairs at the top right are non-existant in the final game and the sea is painted differently. All those black spaces, and the green bit, is not some glitch: That is how the field *actually* looks like in-game, except that the game camera doesn't allow you to see it.
We see another example of this with the field MDS5_3...
...that in a pre-release shot, which GlitterBerri has posted on her website, shows a complete version of the background.
Why did they butcher the maps? I have no idea.
Seeing any pre-rendered background in its pre-release glory is great. If nothing else there's always a difference in colour tone to be spotted. Many will recognize this from GlitterBerri's old feature FFVII Pre-release shots, of which I wrote 99% of the commentary 2 1/2 years ago.
Over a year ago, I bought an FFVII guide published by V-Jump in 1997. An incomplete guide that only covered the game just to the beginning of disc 2. There I noticed that one field was unusually different from its final game counterpart. Now that I finally have an extra copy, I could rip out the page (from the copy that was in bad condition already) and make a clear scan...
The context of the guide makes it absolutely clear that these areas are one and the same, but with the image from the V-Jump guide clearly being an early background painting.
The ship's main deck doesn't show quite such dramatic differences, but we can still observe some neat things...
Pieces of the field have been cut off, stairs at the top right are non-existant in the final game and the sea is painted differently. All those black spaces, and the green bit, is not some glitch: That is how the field *actually* looks like in-game, except that the game camera doesn't allow you to see it.
We see another example of this with the field MDS5_3...
...that in a pre-release shot, which GlitterBerri has posted on her website, shows a complete version of the background.
Why did they butcher the maps? I have no idea.
Shademp
420
While researching for the Versions Guide, I just discovered that in FFVII International alone, the Choco/Mog summon attack 'Deathblow!!' has the Wind element assigned to it. In all other versions, this attack remains Non-Elemental, even though the summon materia itself has the Wind element in all post-JORG releases.
The 'Fat-Chocobo' attack is Non-Elemental even in FFVII International however.
When comparing the description for Choco/Mog in JORG and JINT, I saw that one symbol has been replaced with the symbol for Wind.
JORG:
JINT:
In the English game, the description is simply
Could someone check what the removed symbol in JORG means? I'm pretty sure it means Non-Elemental, but I'm not 100% certain.
EDIT: Another small discovery. The "500 Years Later" screen had the end of some letters being partially cut in JORG. This was, for the most part, fixed for FFVII International.
JORG versus JINT
The fix is there in English PSX too, though naturally without the Japanese subtitle.
EDIT#2: Boy, the PC2012 version of the "500 Years Later" text sure looks different. I wonder if it looks like this in PC98.
The 'Fat-Chocobo' attack is Non-Elemental even in FFVII International however.
When comparing the description for Choco/Mog in JORG and JINT, I saw that one symbol has been replaced with the symbol for Wind.
JORG:
JINT:
In the English game, the description is simply
Could someone check what the removed symbol in JORG means? I'm pretty sure it means Non-Elemental, but I'm not 100% certain.
EDIT: Another small discovery. The "500 Years Later" screen had the end of some letters being partially cut in JORG. This was, for the most part, fixed for FFVII International.
JORG versus JINT
The fix is there in English PSX too, though naturally without the Japanese subtitle.
EDIT#2: Boy, the PC2012 version of the "500 Years Later" text sure looks different. I wonder if it looks like this in PC98.
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The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
The original kanji in JORG was for "non-elemental damage," yeah.
Shademp
420
The PC2012 screen looks like it's something fan-made that Square then borrowed, but I could be wrong.Nope, PC'98 looks like the PSOne original
EDOT: By "original", do you mean that the 500 Years Later text looks like that from JORG, with letters being partially cut?
I'm still too scared to install PC98 again. Every time I've installed it, even with help, it's been a bloody nightmare. I fear also that something will go awry when I try to have multiple PC versions installed, instead leading to one overwriting the other. This stuff really stresses me out with the Versions research. Until wiser times I'm going to be lazy and request others to check the PC98 version for me.
Shademp
420
I'm facepalming myself, because of having just noticed this. I really am analyzing FFVII on pixel level now.
In North Corel, there is a red dot which does not belong.
On the edge of one of the boxes.
In JORG, the red dot is not present. There is instead a yellow dot.
The dots I reckon are a remnant from when the background layers were tampered with.
WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!
In North Corel, there is a red dot which does not belong.
On the edge of one of the boxes.
In JORG, the red dot is not present. There is instead a yellow dot.
The dots I reckon are a remnant from when the background layers were tampered with.
WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!
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Shademp
420
DOUBLE POST BECAUSE BIG DEAL
I finally understood what the point is behind the piano keys that don't work in the Shinra Mansion. The keys that don't work are Ti (R1/L1+Triangle) and Re (Square). The second dial number is behind the piano. The hint for the second dial is this:
"Behind the Ivory's short of tea and ray."
Ti = tea
Re = ray
Goddamn it I feel like a retard for not having seen this before. This also makes sense of why different keys are not functioning in the Japanese version: They have to match up with the proper Japanese symbols.
I finally understood what the point is behind the piano keys that don't work in the Shinra Mansion. The keys that don't work are Ti (R1/L1+Triangle) and Re (Square). The second dial number is behind the piano. The hint for the second dial is this:
"Behind the Ivory's short of tea and ray."
Ti = tea
Re = ray
Goddamn it I feel like a retard for not having seen this before. This also makes sense of why different keys are not functioning in the Japanese version: They have to match up with the proper Japanese symbols.
ForceStealer
Double Growth
Its funny when you, who have more intimate knowledge of the game's inner workings then anyone here, misses something like that 
Shademp
420
I just now had great fun reading the French, Spanish and German PC2012 versions via Makou Reactor. In these, none of the piano keys are broken. The hint for the second dial is also different.
*google translate*
French:
Ivoire et Ebène = Ivory and Ebony
German:
Hinter Schwarz und Weiß ohne Himmel = Background black and white without the sky
(Not sure if Himmel is a reference to the pianist Friedrich Heinrich Himmel)
Spanish:
Detrás del piano = Behind the piano
Spanish version...I love you.
I think the French and German hints reflect closer what the Japanese version says, but I could be wrong.
French:
Ivoire et Ebène = Ivory and Ebony
German:
Hinter Schwarz und Weiß ohne Himmel = Background black and white without the sky
(Not sure if Himmel is a reference to the pianist Friedrich Heinrich Himmel)
Spanish:
Detrás del piano = Behind the piano
Spanish version...I love you.
Shademp
420
- Submarine Item Receipt Mechanics DISCOVERY
It has been quite a long time since I posted my own discoveries on GameFAQs. Unexpectedly I noticed that you can only receive item rewards from the Submarine minigame in a preset order and that you can replay the same level but still receive a new item each time you win. The matter is still being researched, but it is already 100% clear that the minigame section of Absolute Steve's FFVII guide will have to be updated. =)
It has been quite a long time since I posted my own discoveries on GameFAQs. Unexpectedly I noticed that you can only receive item rewards from the Submarine minigame in a preset order and that you can replay the same level but still receive a new item each time you win. The matter is still being researched, but it is already 100% clear that the minigame section of Absolute Steve's FFVII guide will have to be updated. =)
Shademp
420
QUESTION
Has anyone here ever encountered the following glitch:
When Cait Sith opens the entrance to the Sector 8 underground and jumps down, does he not fall through "all the way", staying visible and being possible to talk to?
I just randomly triggered this glitch in the Japanese original.
When speaking to him again, he naturally repeated his old action and opened the door "again", before jumping down again and disappearing for real. I have been unable to trigger this glitch in FFVII International. Will research more tomorrow.
Has anyone here ever encountered the following glitch:
When Cait Sith opens the entrance to the Sector 8 underground and jumps down, does he not fall through "all the way", staying visible and being possible to talk to?
I just randomly triggered this glitch in the Japanese original.
When speaking to him again, he naturally repeated his old action and opened the door "again", before jumping down again and disappearing for real. I have been unable to trigger this glitch in FFVII International. Will research more tomorrow.
Shademp
420
So I figured out what the problem is...sort of. Cait Sith is just full of glitches.
Notice the red box at the lower section. I made that box to emphasize a part of Cait Sith's script which is NOT present in the Japanese Original.
What happens with the "Label 2 - > Go to Label 2" bit is that a loop is created. This makes it so that Cait Sith's action to disappear remains constant.
The loop does not exist in JORG. In fact there is nothing there, not even a "Return" command. I do not understand in-detail what is wrong, but I know that when this S1-Talk ends, the game returns to check S0-Main. Somehow, a loop in here is what causes the glitch where Cait Sith does not disappear.
The game is also not designed to handle that a character script ends without a Return or a loop, which must be why sometimes the glitch does not happen; the game randomly decides not to return to S0-Main.
What is interesting is that the glitch never happens twice. When you speak to Cait Sith a second time, he always disappears on that round. Why this is, I do not know.
I have confirmed that JORG is the only version where the loop is not present.
Notice the red box at the lower section. I made that box to emphasize a part of Cait Sith's script which is NOT present in the Japanese Original.
What happens with the "Label 2 - > Go to Label 2" bit is that a loop is created. This makes it so that Cait Sith's action to disappear remains constant.
The loop does not exist in JORG. In fact there is nothing there, not even a "Return" command. I do not understand in-detail what is wrong, but I know that when this S1-Talk ends, the game returns to check S0-Main. Somehow, a loop in here is what causes the glitch where Cait Sith does not disappear.
The game is also not designed to handle that a character script ends without a Return or a loop, which must be why sometimes the glitch does not happen; the game randomly decides not to return to S0-Main.
What is interesting is that the glitch never happens twice. When you speak to Cait Sith a second time, he always disappears on that round. Why this is, I do not know.
I have confirmed that JORG is the only version where the loop is not present.
koolaidman
Lv. 25 Adventurer
Hey there, long time no see.
I was digging around what I had recently and discovered this. As I said before, BLACKGB7 contains some unused text that refers to a music select. At the time I said that it was unlikely we could figure out what each listing in the music select was referring to because of the way the PSX version of FF7 stores music/sound data for fields.
However, what I discovered while running the old PC version of the game in a disassembler was that there was list of offsets that pointed to locations of strings for file names of every song used by the game. This is because unlike the PSX version, the PC version stores all it's music data in one file (midi.lgp). The list of offsets appear in a nonsensical order that is neither alphabetical or by their appearance in game.
But surprisingly, the order seems to correlate with BLACKBG7's unused text perfectly! So now we have a good clue what Yoshioka meant for each entry. Take a look below.
A couple of takeaways from this:
1.) There are still references to unused music in the PC version. COMICAL was the only one that made it through, but there used to be others like "WIND" and "SENSUI".
2.) Note, the unused text remnant for the room is from early on in development as there is a good chunk of music missing from Yoshioka's list and a lot of the later entries on the list are marked as "Pending", meaning they hadn't been implemented/made yet or were rough versions.
3.) "Comical" had other uses besides the Honey Bee Inn. At one point, it was for a room in Lower Junon. The translation Glitterberri provided didn't make too much sense, so I looked at it some more and figured that it might be for "Room E", whatever that means.
4.) "SIDO" might have been Cid's original theme. Notice the file name refers specifically to Cid and matches the entry, and that the file name of the theme we know is "sid2", meaning that there was another earlier version at one point.
5.) No idea what "WIND" could be. Sound effect maybe? It couldn't be that funky Prelude Remix that was included in the Tobal demo, that was "LOOPTEST" I think.
6.) Many of the file names have "2" in them, which would probably mean that many of them used to have different versions.
7.) The order of the songs appear to be when they were implemented in the game. The songs that were present the earliest are listed in the beginning while songs that were going to be added later appear last in the list.
8.) Yoshioka's comments seem to hint that the event planners might not have had music composed for specific purposes but rather had variants made where they could then decide the best place to use them. "Wouldn’t this be good in the Shinra building or something?", "Can’t we use this somewhere?", etc.
9.) The main theme for Final Fantasy VII was broken up into two parts for the PC version (TA/TB). TA actually has both parts, while TB is just a latter part of the song. The PSX version just uses TA I think? So that's why the entries for 14 were removed in his list.
There might be more things to note from this, but I can't remember some of them at the moment. I'll update the post when I can think of some.
I was digging around what I had recently and discovered this. As I said before, BLACKGB7 contains some unused text that refers to a music select. At the time I said that it was unlikely we could figure out what each listing in the music select was referring to because of the way the PSX version of FF7 stores music/sound data for fields.
However, what I discovered while running the old PC version of the game in a disassembler was that there was list of offsets that pointed to locations of strings for file names of every song used by the game. This is because unlike the PSX version, the PC version stores all it's music data in one file (midi.lgp). The list of offsets appear in a nonsensical order that is neither alphabetical or by their appearance in game.
But surprisingly, the order seems to correlate with BLACKBG7's unused text perfectly! So now we have a good clue what Yoshioka meant for each entry. Take a look below.
A couple of takeaways from this:
1.) There are still references to unused music in the PC version. COMICAL was the only one that made it through, but there used to be others like "WIND" and "SENSUI".
2.) Note, the unused text remnant for the room is from early on in development as there is a good chunk of music missing from Yoshioka's list and a lot of the later entries on the list are marked as "Pending", meaning they hadn't been implemented/made yet or were rough versions.
3.) "Comical" had other uses besides the Honey Bee Inn. At one point, it was for a room in Lower Junon. The translation Glitterberri provided didn't make too much sense, so I looked at it some more and figured that it might be for "Room E", whatever that means.
4.) "SIDO" might have been Cid's original theme. Notice the file name refers specifically to Cid and matches the entry, and that the file name of the theme we know is "sid2", meaning that there was another earlier version at one point.
5.) No idea what "WIND" could be. Sound effect maybe? It couldn't be that funky Prelude Remix that was included in the Tobal demo, that was "LOOPTEST" I think.
6.) Many of the file names have "2" in them, which would probably mean that many of them used to have different versions.
7.) The order of the songs appear to be when they were implemented in the game. The songs that were present the earliest are listed in the beginning while songs that were going to be added later appear last in the list.
8.) Yoshioka's comments seem to hint that the event planners might not have had music composed for specific purposes but rather had variants made where they could then decide the best place to use them. "Wouldn’t this be good in the Shinra building or something?", "Can’t we use this somewhere?", etc.
9.) The main theme for Final Fantasy VII was broken up into two parts for the PC version (TA/TB). TA actually has both parts, while TB is just a latter part of the song. The PSX version just uses TA I think? So that's why the entries for 14 were removed in his list.
There might be more things to note from this, but I can't remember some of them at the moment. I'll update the post when I can think of some.