To retain my faith in humanity, I'm going to assume you're just joking, or something. If Square wanted to simply rehash a nearly 20-year old Famicom game that can be found on eBay for <$20 or emulated for even less, I'd imagine they'd just put it on the GBA. I also imagine that not many people would buy it. The DS has the technology to do Crystal Chronicles-esque visuals, so why not make it a complete overhaul?
I dunno if I believe this. I can't imagine the level of redundancy of the backups that a game company uses for its software. Especially an A+++ level company like Square, they've got to have fifty copies of that source code, their data IS their company. How much information could they get from a pulled cartridge or ROM?
I am not saying that Square-Enix does or does not have the original source code for the game in question, but just as a point of order, you would be shocked to learn how much original source code has been lost/destroyed across the gaming industry as a whole over the years. It is never safe to assume that the original source code exists. That said, companies are getting better about keeping stuff archived these days. -hl718
I could understand that, seeing how 20 years ago nobody would have thought we'd still be playing the same games. I'm all for a "retro" version, maybe hidden as an unlockable. But it would be disapointing to get only the famicom version on the DS.
We already know that there is a overhauled version, though. *Crosses fingers for unlockable Famicom version* ;-)
FFIII was getting the FF1-2, FFIV and SaGa treatment on the WonderSwan, but got canned, there are a couple of pictures of it around. I seem to recall the wonderswan version getting scrapped 'cause of technical limitations (Space for all the graphics maybe?). And that also recently, some place also not too long ago (related to the DS remake, but I can't remember where I read it) said that FFIII hadn't been ported earlier 'cause of lots of technical issues related to how the game is made and that it just wasn't 'friendly' to porting (whatever that means) Anyway, I'm all tuned for FF3 DS and hoping for some sort of bonuses of sorts by plugging in FF1-2, FFIV + the upcomming FFV and FFVI in the GBA slot. (new special jobs/costumes or something would be a nice little treat)
I have always heard the "not friendly to porting" line, but usually in conjunction with the "people in the US won't want it" BS. With all the changes and "improvements" they are making to the game, they might as well make it a different game. Hell, I would love to see a Final Fantasy Legend 4 finally come out.
Wouldn't FFL4 in one kind of way be like SaGa Frontier on the PSX? (or if we really wanna have fun, Saga Frontier is FFL7 or something)
I have heard several people compare the FFL series to Saga Frontier, but I have never seen any similarities other than basic RPG similarities.
hahah, companies lose the source code. Sega haven't got any of the original code to Sonic 1 and 2, they have even admitted it.
I'm not sure how much the 6502 CPU assembler source code would help in developing a game probably written in C/C++ for a ARM7/9 CPU.
Exactly what I was going to write. The answer is probably none, not even for a reference. Also have you guys never heard of a disassembler? A full time senior programmer could probably comment an entire 8-bit game in a few weeks.
Hmmm if the source is in the ASM language, they could always disaasemble a rom, and then get the source code out of the rom. Just like people did with the Super Mario Brothers 1 source code from the rom, some months ago. And if they had coded it in the C family of languages, they could always Reverse engineer the shit around. Even though I am not a programmer yet. I always have good ideas, to figure out some ways to get either the source, or something else.
Without a doubt the game is written in assembly but had it been written in C, you'd still have to disassemble it.
I love how Sega did that with Feel The Magic and their various GBA games. A bonus for the existing FF games on the GBA, the upcoming ones, or even FF Tactics Advance would be a lot of fun. I'm a sucker for these kinds of unlockables, anyways. And veering rather offtopic, does anyone else think a FF Tactics installment with touchscreen support would be the bees' knees?
im not shocked if the source was ever lost, i mean some games actually didnt get remakes or ports(i think one was one of the ys games) simply because they lost the source code. I was shocked to know that of all games, virtua fighter 2 source code is actually LOST!!!!!!!!!!! Which i why they emulated it, im guessing that if they did have source code it would have been ported alot better, as was teh case with fighting vipers which was pretty much arcade exact on ps2. Hell i was reading on when they were trying to do the sega classic collection for dc that when they tried to find the source code for ecco the dolphin, they found it was actually in some middle eatern country. Its just like movies really, when they cut footage out of a film back then, they didnt expect a format like dvd to come out and felt no one would care to see cut stuff so half the time theyd just throw away the cut film without thinking twice about it. Point is that games were done in a very simliar way film was, in that stuff they didnt need for a level or stuff that wasnt going to be used at all, would be thrown out since they didnt need it and figured it was useless by then. I think nintendo is one of the very few companies that alwasy kept it source code, as is evident with the mother 1+2 release containing changes made to the unreleased american mother 1 as well as majors mask containing remains of zelda oot beta. Now that companies have figured out that they can cash on emulation, they just use that now since its easier and alot faster just to get something that runs roms on that perticular format that game was on then reverse enginering the game itself to port it to another system. Too bad though, sonic jam was a great example of what you could do when actually porting games to a system by adding stuff to improve the old game, or as they wanted to do with hidden palace but the source code is now all lost, restore an unfinished level.
Something like Virtua Fighter 2, yeah, you'd be in a pretty bad spot if the source was lost. But this is a Famicom game we're talking about here, back when assembly language was king of the roost. As someone else mentioned, it shouldn't be too hard to disassemble the game. As it was written in assembly, the output from a disassembler would be about as legible/useful to a normal human being as the original source too, I'd wager!
