Final Fantasy IX: Alternate Fantasy

[Tirlititi]

Hi there!

Final Fantasy IX: Alternate Fantasy is a mod aiming to increase the difficulty and, above all, to give a new fresh experience of FF9 for those who already know the game well.
In the new version you can also recruit Beatrix in the party.

Download/Install:

Since v6.0, Alternate Fantasy must be installed using Memoria's Mod Manager.

Install or update Memoria by downloading and running Memoria.Patcher.exe from its Github:
┌─────────────────────┐
§ Memoria Engine mod[github.com] §
└─────────────────────┘

Note that, for now, Alternate Fantasy must have 'priority' over the Moguri mod if you use both of them.

Below are a couple of screenshots detailing the installation process step by step.

https://i.imgur.com/HgqDJ0W.png
Download and run Memoria.Patcher.exe

https://i.imgur.com/ABxhce9.png
Hopefully the patching process goes fine
If your game is not installed in the standard Steam directory, or in a external hard drive, try moving the patcher to your game directory before running it

https://i.imgur.com/X2Qsqfk.png
When launching the game, the "Install Mods" button opens Memoria's Mod Manager

https://i.imgur.com/tRuVxJ1.png
Download "Alternate Fantasy" from the catalog

https://i.imgur.com/OrYHYTK.png
Don't forget to activate it after installation
In most situations, the Moguri Mod should be moved to the bottom of the list (this is because Moguri Mod 8.3.0.0 packs a couple of assets that are duplicates of the game's default assets; placing it at the bottom has no impact or very small impacts on Moguri's features)

The mod fully works in any of the official languages of the game: English, Japanese (thanks to Moldsax), German (thanks to DSpecht), French, Spanish (thanks to link2015z) and Italian (thanks to TheFF8fan and Argon).

Also, if you use Hades Workshop, the HWS source file can be downloaded from my dropbox folder[www.dropbox.com] (it's in the archive "AF and PCP source files.zip").

What are the modifications?

A lot of them. Most are gameplay related but a few of them are also about the screenplay. There are two kinds of scenario-related changes:
1) A few dialogs that were suppressed during the game's development are put back in this mod. It includes the dialogs from the "Hidden Dialogs" patch plus a few others for which only the texts were kept.
2) As Beatrix can be permanently recruited after getting the airship (optional), cutscenes are changed from this point onward to include Beatrix in them.

Here is a list of the dialogs suppressed by the developpers and put back:
• An extra dialog between Puck and Vivi over Alexandria's roofs, unmissable
• A small line in the ATE "Time To Escape", missable
• A few Steiner lines to ask for Magic Sword, unmissable
• An extra line about Vivi's grandpa in front of Ice Cavern, unmissable
• An extended dialog between Steiner and Morrid, unmissable
• An extra ATE in Cleyra's cathedral, missable
• A few lines in Pinnacle Rocks, after the first meeting with Ramuh, unmissable
• An extra minigame in the occupied Linblum Castle, unmissable
• A couple of lines in the base level of the occupied Linblum Castle, unmissable
• A couple of lines at the Dragon's gate right after, missable
• A couple of lines to setup a rescue plan with Mog, unmissable
• An extra minigame when controlling Vivi in Alexandria for the 2nd time, missable

Also, there are 4 new bosses that can be fought at the end of the game.
For that, speak to Hades after defeating Lich and obtaining a Pumice: he will challenge you with new fights.
• The 3 Black Waltzes fighting together
• The 2nd opus of Tantarian, available only if you defeated it in Alexandria's Castle
• Meltigemini, with pieces of real twins inside
• The 4 Guardians fighting together

And Excalibur II can now be acquired by two different methods:
1) Reach and beat Hades in less than 14 hours,
2) Get all the collectable treasures of the game (there are 4 little mistakes allowed) to obtain the highest treasure rank.
Including a few Mimics, that makes 404 unique treasures to find.
The list is the same as in vanilla (for the locations at least) and can be found in this topic[gamefaqs.gamespot.com].


Gameplay-wise, there are a lot of changes. The battle system has been reworked, always with the aim of having more balanced mechanics and open to diverse strategies.

Here is a list of these changes: it is more or less written in decreasing order of importance, which allows you to stop reading whenever you don't want to know any more.


Changes in the abilities

An extended description of each ability can be found in this spreadsheet[docs.google.com].

In particular:
• Some abilities are short-ranged, meaning that they are influenced by the character's row [in vanilla, only the attack command is] and back attacks. They also can't be used against out-of-range enemies.
• Some abilities can deal critical strikes [in vanilla, only the attack command can], which doubles their damage.
• Some abilities use the properties of the character's weapon, which includes its element (if the ability has an element, both are taken into account) [in vanilla, only No Mercy, Stock Break and Shock does that], the bonus given by killer abilities and the weapon's status if the supporting ability Add Status is enabled [in vanilla, only the attack command does that].

• With Bandit enabled, stealing all the 4 items of an enemy cannot take more than 10 attempts:
The super-common item is stolen at the 1st attempt,
The common item is stolen for sure after 1 unsuccessful steal,
The rare item is stolen for sure after 2 other unsuccessful steals,
The super-rare item is stolen for sure after 3 other unsuccessful steals.
When Master Thief is also enabled, only 1 unsuccessful steal can be done between each successful steals (so all the items are stolen after 7 attempts maximum), and the most rare items have the priority.
When Bandit is not enabled and the first steal's random check fails, the counter of unsuccessful steals is not increased [as in vanilla, the first random check is "Random(0, Caster's level + spirit - 1) ≥ Random(0, Target's level - 1)" ; this check is bypassed by Bandit].
Zidane can still steal items with luck, in which case the counter of unsuccessful steals neither increase or reset.

• The trance of any ally can be manually triggered using Zidane's Transcend skill provided that the gauge is already at 50% at least.
• Beatrix has a double-cast Seiken + White Magic trance.
• Quina's trance has changed to Double Blue.
• Scan cannot miss anymore [in vanilla, it misses against most bosses and several special enemies],
• Summons are special for 3 reasons:
1) As in Vanilla, their power increases with the number of jewels that you own (except for Odin for which it is a penalty), up to a +49 bonus [+99 in vanilla],
2) Their power increases each time you cast them, up to 50 times for a bonus of +50,
3) The first time you cast a summon in a battle, it gets priority over the other commands: it is summoned before the other commands in queue, even if the ATB gauge was filled after. When Dagger and Eiko are both in the battle, summons get priority once for both of them.
• Stellar Circle 5 and Meo Twister increase the critical rate on the enemies, adding a 33% chance to the default critical chance (non cumulative).
• Gravity damage are now effective against all the enemies, including bosses. Their power is divided by 4 against bosses [in vanilla, Gravity spells always miss on most bosses].
• Using a Soft on a stone-type enemy cuts its current HP in half. It deals 1/8 of a boss's current HP against a boss instead [in vanilla, using a Soft on a stone-type enemy immediatly kills it].

Note that some weapons get a special power bonus with the Attack command (thief swords and knight swords are empowered by spirit, rackets are empowered by speed and Save The Queen is empowered by level). As in vanilla, this bonus only applies when using the Attack command.

Supporting Abilities

Auto-Shell, Auto-Protect, Cheat Fate (immunes against Doom) and Fidget are added to several characters.
When Fidget is activated, the character changes row everytime s/he attacks.
Bright Eyes, Restore HP, Reflectx2 and Gamble Defence are removed.
Accuracy+ now immunes against Blind [in vanilla, physical attacks cannot miss with Accuracy+ even under Blind, the only effect of which is then to remove the character's evasion against enemy attacks].
Protect Girls triggers anytime [in vanilla, it triggers only under 50% of Max HP].
Cover triggers under 50% of Max HP [in vanilla, it triggers only under 17% of Max HP (yellow HP)].

The way that most damage modifiers work has changed:
• When accumulated, the damage bonuses give +50%, +100%, +125%, +150%, +162%, +175%, etc... (the theoretical limit is a bonus of +200%, which is 3 times the base power),
• For Steiner's trance, these bonuses are doubled to +100%, +200%, +250%, +300%, +325%, +350%, etc... [in vanilla, Steiner's attack command gets a +200% bonus instead of the usual +50% given by Trance; it is not the case anymore],
• The damage penalties cancel damage bonuses,
• If there are more damage penalties than bonuses, the damage are halved that many times.
Damage bonuses include Killer abilities, elemental equipment boosts, target's elemental weaknesses, Berserk or Trance, target's Sleep, target's Mini, back attack, special supporting abilities (High Jump, Concentrate, Power Throw) and MP Attack (Attack command only).
Damage penalties include Mini (for most of magic attacks), short-ranged attacks from back row, multi-targeting a spell that can be single-target, target's elemental resistances, target's defend, target's shell or protect.
Critical strikes (damage x2), summon short forms (damage x0.67) and physical attacks under Mini (damage drastically lowered) are not concerned by the above.
[In vanilla, the damage are multiplied by 1.5 for each bonus instead, except that killer abilities, elemental boosts, weaknesses and resistances are applied no more than once each.]
Damage bonuses are marked visually with a small blow effect for each bonus at impact.

Fixed Return Magic non working on Necron or behaving differently than in the PSX version of the game (multi-target spells are now multi-target returned).

Statuses

The duration and speed of statuses has been reworked.
They are now independant of the fighter's spirit, except for Doom and Gradual Petrify (the more spirit you have, the longer it takes).
Haste and Slow respectively decreases and increases the status duration and respectively speed up and slow down the ticks of Poison, Venom and Regen.
[In vanilla, the more spirit you have, the longer statuses last, except for Doom and Gradual Petrify that are running faster with higher spirit. The ticks of Regen are also faster while the ticks of Poison and Venom are slower.]

Blind makes the target selection unreliable, for both the enemies and the player characters:
https://i.imgur.com/k6HEQDa.png
In this situation, Garnet is blinded:
- single-targeting Vivi or Zidane will be unreliable (either one can be aimed at in the end) because they are both on Garnet's right side,
- single-targeting oneself is reliable,
- single-targeting Quina is reliable because s/he is the only one on Garnet's left side,
- single-targeting any enemy is unreliable (any enemy can be aimed at in the end),
- multi-targeting is reliable.

Float gives a +30% evasion bonus against physical attacks if the attacker doesn't float.
Remedies cure Poison, Venom, Silence, Blind, Stop, Mini, Gradual Petrify, Confuse, Heat and Freeze [in vanilla, it doesn't cure Confuse, Heat and Freeze].
Phoenix Pinions cure Doom (they also cost and sell cheaper).
Vanish is efficient against more attacks (all the short-ranged physical attacks).
Defending protects against many negative statuses: Silence, Blind, Confuse, Berserk, Sleep, Heat, Freeze and Gradual Petrify.
Confuse triggers a back attack bonus half of the time [in vanilla, only back attacks at the start of battles and running away can trigger a back attack bonus].
Silence drastically lowers trance increase.

Poison and Doom can now be inflicted to several bosses.
For Poison, the damage per tick on bosses is 1/64 of Max HP instead of 1/16.
For Doom, a boss doesn't die at the end of the countdown but looses 1/5 of its Max HP instead.

Heat and Freeze last only a short time. Freeze lasts 1.5 times longer than Heat.
Vanish and Sleep last longer.
The ticks of venom are 1.5 times slower than the ticks of Regen or Poison [in vanilla, they are 2 times slower].

Steiner's Break abilities can be used against bosses but are less effective [in vanilla, they are just as effective as usual]:
• Power/Magic Break: bring to 80% of the boss's normal stat, instead of 67%.
• Armor/Mental Break: bring to 67% of the boss's normal stat, instead of 50%.
These can be used again if the enemy somehow changes its stat through a special ability.

Enemies

Reasonably increased the stats of enemies and made them harder through their AI.
The Max MP of the enemies have been drastically lowered in order to get emptied in a decent amount of time through MP damage.

Changes to the party's abilities reflect on the enemies' abilities.
More statuses are inflicted by enemy attacks and spells.
More abilities can be critical strikes, especially the physical attacks [in vanilla, a non-missable physical attack, like Ark's Boomerang, doesn't have critical] or the breaths.

The class of several enemies has been changed. Enemies are not automatically "birds" as soon as they are floating or flying, and there are more "humanoids".
Classification is less restricted by gameplay constraints [in vanilla, a few bosses are not "stone" or "zombie" despite the evidence because it would mean a free win; it is no longer the case].

Ragtime Mouse's questions are modified.
Quina may eat humanoids [in vanilla, they are non edible, like most bosses].

Miscellaneous

A few chests have a changed content. In particular:
• The Dragon's Hair and the Kain Lance are switched, making Dragon's Hair only available in late game,
• The Tiger Racket is only available after the return of the mist and seeing a cutscene with Quan (this specific optional cutscene is thus delayed),
• Several Hammers can be obtained; Hammers can be used by Vivi, Eiko and Dagger to improve their strength,
• Several acclaimed prices in Treno's Auction House have a delayed availability (Dark Matter in particular).

The elemental weakness given by pieces of equipment are now given in their description [in vanilla, they are hidden].
The Cotton Robe money trick was removed (they sell a bit less).
A couple of weapons can be used by several characters (for instance, Dagger can use the... dagger).
The ultimate weapons give a big boost to main characteristics (Strength, Magic, Speed and Spirit).
A few minigames have been tweaked.


Note about the version "Beatrix-only"

That version is meant to provide additional content without changing the difficulty or the gameplay of the vanilla (non-modded) game. It includes:
- Recruitable Beatrix (with cutscenes, abilities, trance etc.),
- Hidden scenes cut by the devs,
- The optional stuff that Hades offers (4 extra bosses and their rewards; the extra bosses are slightly easier since they inflict less statuses, but their damage and HP are the same as in the main version of the mod),
- Thunder Slash fix (that's the only non-optional gameplay aspect I kept in that version).


Enjoy !

[Tirlititi]

DemonFunarel původně napsal:

@Tirlititi

I still have a problem

What problem?
If it's your message on page 186, I don't know since you don't say what happens.
Have you tried re-installing the game and/or the mods?

[DemonFunarel]

Tirlititi původně napsal:

DemonFunarel původně napsal:

@Tirlititi

I still have a problem

What problem?
If it's your message on page 186, I don't know since you don't say what happens.
Have you tried re-installing the game and/or the mods?

@Tirlitit I've tried everything but the game won't open at all!

[Tirlititi]

Does the launcher open?
Does the game open if you uninstall Memoria?
Does the game open if you have Memoria installed but Alternate Fantasy is turned off, so you can say that it's a problem with the Alternate Fantasy mod itself?

[DemonFunarel]

Tirlititi původně napsal:

Does the launcher open?
Does the game open if you uninstall Memoria?
Does the game open if you have Memoria installed but Alternate Fantasy is turned off, so you can say that it's a problem with the Alternate Fantasy mod itself?

launcher that doesn't want to open at all

[Tirlititi]

Maybe you uninstalled the game while having the "Fix Steam Overlay" option activated?
But then it should tell you an error message that would have been useful to be shared...

If that's the problem, try to duplicate the file "FF9_Launcher.exe" in your game's folder and rename the copy to "FF9_Launcher.fix".

[DemonFunarel]

I've already tried and it didn't work

Tirlititi původně napsal:

Maybe you uninstalled the game while having the "Fix Steam Overlay" option activated?
But then it should tell you an error message that would have been useful to be shared...

If that's the problem, try to duplicate the file "FF9_Launcher.exe" in your game's folder and rename the copy to "FF9_Launcher.fix".

[Argon]

Some Freya theory crafting. Feel free to skip over this.

AF's Freya is already more useful than base game's but I feel like she still needs a couple of new tricks. Luna's effect is still meh. Maybe it could raise a specific stat for the entire party or give the same health buff Eiko's Regen provides instead of inflicting Berserk to everyone. Maybe Six Dragons could have the same special effect Amaranth's Revive has, as a way of "gaming the system" out of the random effect. What I mean is: just as Revive fully heals someone if they have yellow health, maybe Six Dragons could have a guaranteed beneficial effect if the target has yellow health or yellow MP.

Since Frog Drop's damage mechanic was reworked into the Glutton's Robe special ability, I was wondering if Freya's Dragon Armor should have something similar with number of dragons killed instead of frogs caught since Dragon Crest is not a thing (though not necessarily increasing health and MP like with Quina). I really like how the Glutton's Robe works. It's a neat mechanic!

I've been replaying this mod now that FF9 is a lot easier to mod thanks to the Memoria Launcher. I really like the new changes.

(Also is it just me or is Thunder Slash bugged again? I can't land it for ♥♥♥♥ with Beatrix)

[Tirlititi]

Six Dragon's effect in the mod is not random anymore (and is extremely useful IMO).
Nice idea for the Dragon Armor. I'll see if I can think of something, thanks.
Thunder Slash shouldn't be bugged anymore, but it can miss from time to time, especially against enemies that have more levels than the caster (Beatrix or Steiner).

[Argon]

Tirlititi původně napsal:

Six Dragon's effect in the mod is not random anymore (and is extremely useful IMO).

I had the AF document open while typing that and somehow still missed it I'm a dumb ♥♥♥♥♥.
I should play around with it more. It does look very useful.

Thunder Slash shouldn't be bugged anymore, but it can miss from time to time, especially against enemies that have more levels than the caster (Beatrix or Steiner).

Ah, that explains it. My Beatrix is slightly underleveled.

[Kakahan4040]

I got up to the end of disc one. Beatrix is only kinda hard in vanilla, but for this mod they went WAY overboard. She can kill you in one attack, inflict Doom, and make it so your Phoenix Downs almost always miss. When I tried to stall for time, but she never used Stock Break. After failing three or four times, I said, "screw it", and used the max damage booster to beat her. If there's a strategy to beating her, I have no idea what it could be.

I'm enjoying the mod in general, but I felt the need to get that off my chest.

[Gian90]

Hi @Tirlititi , i have a few questions about the "Beatrix Only" mod, i hope you can answer me:

1. Do i need to use the mod with a fresh new save? Or can i install it in the middle of my playtrough? I'm at Burmecia, disc 1, and i'd rather not start from scratch.
2. If i understood correctly, there are no modifications to the base game with Beatrix Only mod, apart from Thunder Slash fix, the 4 new bosses and a few hidden lines? Enemy behaviour, hp, mp, skills etc are vanilla?
3. Does Beatrix learn her skills with equip/weapons like other characters? Or she has a different learning method?
4. Are there some sections where having her on the party can cause bugs or crashes?

I hope you'll answer me, thank you!

[Tirlititi]

@Kakahan4040: She is indeed a hard boss, to close the disc 1, especially if you think the goal is to survive 10 turns like in vanilla, instead of dealing enough damage to her (which was already a way to end the fight in vanilla but not a very interesting one). She cannot "make it so your phoenix downs almost always miss" though; I guess that's because it can be disturbing to adapt to the way Blind works in the mod (but all things considered, the turns she uses with Blind and Reflect can be life-saving for you as these are not attacks).
From the feedbacks I've got, she's indeed a boss that can take 2 or 3 attempts and be ended on the razor's edge. People usually struggle less with the next ones, if that's reassuring.
Good luck.

@Gian90: Hello.
1. No, you can install it in the middle of the playthrough. It might be that Beatrix has access to fewer abilities by default if you install the mod after the early disc 3, but in any case you should be able to catch up the missing abilities by learning them normally.
2. Exactly. No enemy behaviour change, no stat changes, etc...
3. The same as the other characters, although as said she should start with a couple of abilities already learnt at the moment she joins you.
4. It shouldn't be the case, no. That's also what the mod is about: to make sure that her being in the party isn't breaking anything, unlike what sometimes happens when brute force hacking her in the party (although we did some work in Memoria to make this kind of thing more rare and not game-breaking, even for other playable characters like the Tantalus members or Kuja / Lani / Fratley).

[Gian90]

Tirlititi původně napsal:

@Gian90: Hello.
1. No, you can install it in the middle of the playthrough. It might be that Beatrix has access to fewer abilities by default if you install the mod after the early disc 3, but in any case you should be able to catch up the missing abilities by learning them normally.
2. Exactly. No enemy behaviour change, no stat changes, etc...
3. The same as the other characters, although as said she should start with a couple of abilities already learnt at the moment she joins you.
4. It shouldn't be the case, no. That's also what the mod is about: to make sure that her being in the party isn't breaking anything, unlike what sometimes happens when brute force hacking her in the party (although we did some work in Memoria to make this kind of thing more rare and not game-breaking, even for other playable characters like the Tantalus members or Kuja / Lani / Fratley).

Thanks for the reply, you're always so precise, i'll install it asap then!

[Gian90]

Hi @Tirlititi , i have again another question, or rather an issue.
I don't know if it's your mod or the vanilla game, basically in Ipsen Caste i met the Tomberries, and with Turn Based Combat turned on, my characters just stood helplessly waiting for the Tomberry to come close to them and OHKO them with Knife.
My ATB never filled.
The only method i found is to press L1+R1 to try to escape, filling the ATB bars of everyone, and then using the Flee ability of Zidane.
It seems more an issue related to the Turn Based Comabt, but since in the github there's no one talking about it, i thought to ask you before.
What do you think?

[Tirlititi]

Hello Gian90. I did change the Tonberry fights quite a bit, but I think their incredible speed is the same as in vanilla. I'm afraid they just are not meant to be fought with Turn-Based mode and would require specific adjustments for that. It's very possible that nobody reported the problem before because Tonberries are easy to miss (especially in vanilla) and I've seen people discovering them in FF9 on their 3rd / 4th playthrough or so...

I may try to see what's happening (and confirm if it's only an Alternate Fantasy issue or not). That won't be my priority, but thank you for reporting it.