Hi! I've been lurking the forum for awhile now and I figured it was about time for me to post something.
Inspired by Shademp's unused text series, I've been working on a mod for the PC version of FF7 that reincorporates many of the game's lost texts and scenes. It's still a WIP, and looks pretty patchy in places due to my n00b status as a FF7 modder, but I'll get there. Here's a playlist of some of my finer accomplishments:
Well done. Nice to see your progress in video form. Keep up the good work. I hope you someday get the tools and or help to fully restore the original Honey Bee Inn for the PC version. =)
Thanks! I tried asking about it over on Qhimm but I never got a responce. Once the honey bee inn is done along with one other small thing, I can release this mod.
I love the idea of this. The unused scene with Barret outside of Gongaga was particularly well-done. I wish that had made it into the final build, just one small interaction like that really helps the player build a deeper connection to Barret and Avalanche's cause. Plus, it's a really cool bro moment.
Yo, it's been four years huh? I did keep working on this mod for a long time after this post, but it never lived up to my hopes for it so I ended up never releasing it. A friend of mine wanted to play FF7 with me before the remake comes out, which reminded me that this mod existed. I figure it's finally time I let this thing loose, so for those interested, here it is!
The mod, which I have tentatively decided to call "Final Fantasy VII: Final Mix," adds in unused content across the whole game. This includes a mountain of unused text, along with some entirely new scenes (or as new as an unused scene can be...) I'll go ahead and showcase some of what's in this thing (mostly from beginning of game, and some other scenes I have quick access too
(Don't mid the stupid names, some of these images are from the play through I'm doing with my friend)
Really unnecessary extra dialogue! (there's a lot of this)
A truely, TRUELY obscure line of dialogue from Reno (jumping ahead I know)
Don't have immediate access to screenshots for this, but another big notable thing I put back was the "Traveling Salesman" character, along with the unique key-items he gives you. He can be found in the rocket town inn on disk one, and in gongaga in disk 2&3. He want's you to deliver letters to his wife and daughter in Kalm, and there just so happens to be a house in Kalm with a mother and daughter. I created some new (ACTUALLY NEW not unused) scenes for if you talk to them while holding the letters, and had them give you some items as a reward. I created a new scene with the Traveling salesman for if you deliver both letters, but I'll talk about that later.
and I think you get the idea. While the beginning of the game has probably the most highly condensed amount of new scenes, they are sprinkled all over the game. See the playlist in my original post for more.
The other big feature of the mod is that I ended up re translating pretty much everything up until Wall market. well I didn't do it myself, I sourced the text from Pixel's old video series where he did that for most of the early game. I also used re translated bits from from the "remembrance of FF7" feature on the advent children dvd, I lifted the text from the OTWTAS turks story that explains how Tseng survived, since the scene with him in the temple is repeated pretty much verbatim, and I also used some of the stuff from that Kotaku "Let's Mosey" series. It's far from a complete retranslation, but it definitley improved the readability of some scenes.
The last feature of the mod is some entirely new (not previously unused) content. I didn't add much "new" new content, just a few things beacause I was bored and wanted to mess around, and one really big new side quest.
Fully functional juke-boxes in 7th heaven, Junon, and costa del sol
Cloud plays Zelda I guess (most new content is incidental bullshit like this)
You can open this chest in the Icicle Inn weapon shop.
The BIG SIDEQUEST I added actually lets you access the debug room through normal play. I won't post screen Shots because I put a lot of work into it, so I want what happens to be a surprise, but I'll list the instruction on how to do it since I puposefully made it obtuse, unclear, and easy to miss entirely.
1. Go to Kalm, go to the building with the tower, check the bookshelf (The chest that used to be in front of the book case was moved downstairs)
2. When you're at corel prison, find the hole with an open chest in it. Check the chest, then wait there for a while (5000 frames specifically) a scene will happen. once the scene is over check the chest again, it has something in it now.
3. Find the traveling salesman (mentioned above in post 2) and deliver his letters. Once you deliver both, go to the platform above the corel reactor. The man is waiting there for you, talk to him and you will receive a special item.
4. After you have defeated all the weapons, go to the path that leads to the city of the ancients. You will see a vine leading up to a cliff with a small cave on it. Enter the cave, watch the scene, receive the third item.
5. Go back to the bookshelf in Kalm, inspect it again. You will now receive a key.
6. Go to one of the Shell houses in the city of the Ancients, find the locked door, use the key.
and for our final segment:
FAILURES OF THE MOD
there were some things with this mod that I really wanted to do that I just couldn't accomplish. I wanted a new secret boss fight as the climax of the debug room quest, but I lack the technical know-how to implement one. The mod probably still has some glitches (If you encounter any, please tell me when and where so I can fix it!) and the biggest failure was that I couldn't completely restore the Honey-Bee Inn. That was like the biggest thing I wanted to do, because it was three brand new maps. I got all the 3d walk-meshes in the game, I recreated the NPC characters, I have the dialogue in english thanks to Shademp, but I couldn't import the map's back grounds. So while the maps are in the game and they work, they don't have the correct background images:
Should look like this
The fact I could never fix this is why I never released this mod until now, but at this point I've pretty much given up on the prospect. I just don't have the technical know-how
Well, that's everything I guess, sorry for rambling so much. If you decide to try out my mod, I hope you enjoy it!
Here's a new thing I added while working on the google doc. I restored the extended version of the scene in the truck with cloud and Sephiroth:
I'll let you decide if it ruins the flow of the scene or not, but I like how "It sure is raining hard" become an awkward non-sequitur to change the subject.
Okay, took me a few days, but at long last here is the google doc!
That aught to be a nearly comprehensive list of all the edits I made to the game up to this point. I'm not gonna say its 100% perfect because I've been tinkering with this think for years now, so I'm bound to have forgotten something or other. The last ~eight pages are dedicated purely to the all new side quest I added rather than any restored unused content, to give an idea of how involved that ordeal is.
As you should! This whole mod was your fault in the first place lol. Really though, I was actually using your unused content articles to remind myself of what unused stuff I did and didn't restore, never could have done this without you
I know this is an incredibly random time to bring this up, but the remake reminded me. One of the couple remaining things I wanted to add to this mod was a tonberry fight. There's an unused battle with them that would have gone in the North Crater (first visit.) In the final game you can only see normal tonberrys at the battle square. I don't know how to add new enemies to the random encounter pool though. The only new encounter I added was a one time fight with ho-chu in the ancient forest (similarly could only be fought in battle square) but that fight was triggered by a line, it wasn't random.
You wouldn't know if this is compatible with New Threat, would you? I was thinking of trying out both mods for a "maximum" experience of added content.
You wouldn't know if this is compatible with New Threat, would you? I was thinking of trying out both mods for a "maximum" experience of added content.
Both this and new threat heavily edit the field files, and as far as I know you can't mix and match when it comes to those. I don't believe they're compatible, sorry.
Both this and new threat heavily edit the field files, and as far as I know you can't mix and match when it comes to those. I don't believe they're compatible, sorry.
A man can dream. I would like to try this out (maybe a second playthrough down the line). It's a very compelling mod - cut content restoration mods are some of my all-time favourites, especially when there's so much of it!
A man can dream. I would like to try this out (maybe a second playthrough down the line). It's a very compelling mod - cut content restoration mods are some of my all-time favourites, especially when there's so much of it!
Thanks for the interest! I kinda view this mod as the other end of the spectrum from New Threat, so from that perspective it might actually be pretty interesting to do one then the other. New Threat adds all this cool amazing new stuff they built from the ground up, basically making FFVII into an all new game, where my mod picks up the pieces left by the devs and patches them up, not shaking things up too much but adding enough to be interesting.
I made a little video to show off the debug room I made for myself in the mod. Some of it was actually useful for test (of course Jessie ended up being the most useful NPC because she's the one that warps you to various maps) but a lot of it was just stuff I did for fun, especially the whimsical potion shop. I put waaaaay too much time into that.
BLACKBGA as "the forgotten place" is a wonderful, subtle reference to its history as a forgotten/discarded debug room.
Clown Hojo's mistake was selling stuff for 420 gil instead of 69 gil. He'd sell so much more. *HONK*
Nice touch at the end there with the hub having physical doors. Definitely more intuitive than either the complete emptiness or the encircled kanji depending on which version you're playing.
BLACKBGA as "the forgotten place" is a wonderful, subtle reference to its history as a forgotten/discarded debug room.
Clown Hojo's mistake was selling stuff for 420 gil instead of 69 gil. He'd sell so much more. *HONK*
Nice touch at the end there with the hub having physical doors. Definitely more intuitive than either the complete emptiness or the encircled kanji depending on which version you're playing.
My only regret is that my version of BLACKBGA can't be quite as weird as the real thing. No corrupted Aerith theme, no invisible NPCs (I made them black to try to replicate the feeling) and no weird looking models.
Oh and if it wasn't obvious, Cloud's mom changes who you have the most points with. The love potion in the CLOWN shop changes who Cloud wants to use it on depending on that value, so I gave her that function to test it. I think I used to have a warp to the date scene too, but it got lost at some point.
Hey guy, do you will continue this mod? Making some unnecessary bullshit? Hahah is much funny somethings and maybe you can continue doing this.
About the unused things: You have more add to put in a new version?
Hey guy, do you will continue this mod? Making some unnecessary bullshit? Hahah is much funny somethings and maybe you can continue doing this.
About the unused things: You have more add to put in a new version?
Unless some advancements are made with ff7 modding tools, I've done everything I can. I wanted to add a way to get Yuffie early, before going through the mythril cave so her dialogue upon seeing the body of the snake would become used, but I can't do it unless I get the ability to add new maps with custom backgrounds to the game. The most I would do at this point is add more stupid little Easter eggs like I already did.
Yeah, that things does the game looks more...Different? The game begins boring after some time and when you play a mod which has a paper in a town saying Reward of the head of a ninja? Haha Makes the game more cool and it's not breaking the history like the false chest in lcicle hahaha. Hey it's not stupid you things. Look the references you did from other games like RAMZA when cloud is mumbling in the chair?
Sorry for my HAHAs, i'm trying to talk with you using english but i'm brazilian
In the documents which has all modifications of your mod has somethings which has not added in the latest version. You will add them if you make a new version?
Sorry for double-post, i don't know how to edit my comment above
In the documents which has all modifications of your mod has somethings which has not added in the latest version. You will add them if you make a new version?
Sorry for double-post, i don't know how to edit my comment above
Don't worry I can mostly understand what you're saying.
The way getting Yuffie early would work is, if you check that wanted poster for her in Kalm after you see Cloud's past and then try to leave town, instead of going to the world map you would go to a map where she would either ambush you, or you would catch her by surprise depending on the action you take on the map. If you surprise her, you can recruit her then. Otherwise you just get your money stolen. It would be a one-try thing, checking the poster again wouldn't do anything. Unfortunately I can't create such a map, so the idea is just in my head.
