FreshFeeling's
Phantasy Star IV Dump

Basic overview:
  Phantasy Star IV is a really excellent game. It's of the same era as Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger, and despite a relative simplicity it stands up quite well beside them. Phantasy Star IV had a couple of disadvantages in the market though; its release was on the underdog console, and by a company that didn't hold Squaresoft's reputation with RPGs. Many Final Fantasy games have well-known algorithms and a strong hacking community, which I decided Phantasy Star IV deserved as well.

  I'm a very big fan of the original Final Fantasy and have a lot of admiration for the pioneers who learned so much about that game's workings, including Disch who made the excellent Final Fantasy Hackster. I'm intending to do the same. So far this search has been fruitful, but is certainly a work in progress.


Data dumps:
  These are being made available in .txt format with the original hex intact and some explanation beforehand. The .txt files are intended for people with an interest in how the game stores this data, and also contains offsets and irrelevant bytes.
  Also available are .htm pages that contain no explanation but are prettier and generally have less clutter. The .htm versions are available with most values translated into decimal or english, and those are recommended for pure gamers. I'd still recommend a peek at the .txt to see my comments.
  Any value that's listed in these files can be edited.

  • Initial Character Stats: hex .txt, hex .htm, easy-to-read .htm
  • Level-by-level Character Stats: hex .txt, hex .htm, easy-to-read .htm
  • Player Techs and Skills: hex .txt, hex .htm, easy-to-read .htm
  • Combo Setup Bytes: hex .txt only
  • Combo Bytes: hex .txt, hex .htm, easy-to-read .htm
  • Vehicle Statistics: hex .txt, hex .htm, easy-to-read .htm
  • Vehicle Attacks: hex .txt, hex .htm, easy-to-read .htm
  • Enemy Statistics: hex .txt, hex .htm, easy-to-read .htm
  • Enemy Abilities: hex .txt, hex .htm, easy-to-read .htm
  • Equipment and Items: hex .txt, hex .htm, easy-to-read .htm
  • Shop Inventories: hex .txt only


Other downloads:

  • Table files:
    • Phantasy Star III Table: .tbl - for some reason the header has some legible text using this
    • Phantasy Star IV Table 1: .tbl - useful for non-dialogue
    • Phantasy Star IV Table 2: .tbl - useful for dialogue, not complete
  • Other text:
    • Phantasy Star IV Offset List: .txt - this is very, very informal
    • Phantasy Star IV Hacking Tests: .txt - a list of my own personal hacking curiosities and how I got the results I did (none of which are produceable on an unhacked game)


Thanks:
  Thanks to the Phantasy Star IV board at GameFAQs. In particular, SatoruMasamune, tribal_haze, tarenwanderer, LitaT3hThunder, DarkAluca, Ghsdkgb, Crystalgate, HayateMurasame, Sir Pobalot and trenzer1 for letting me experiment on them in the character battles.
  Thanks to Goldenguy and Sir Pobalot for the excellent guides, as well as ceuthonymus and Thundergod for their work with algorithms and savestates.
  Thanks to Monkeyflinger and Snow Wanderer (also from RPGDL) for some keen observations and encouragement, and jasonmcconnell86 and aitamen for additional curiosity.

  From the RPG Dueling League (and their thread about Phantasy Star IV), I'd like to thank Dark Holy Elf, SageAcrin, and Crystalgate (yes, again) for their experimentation with and compilation of known aspects of this game's engine.

  Although it may seem silly, thanks to many members of the Final Fantasy Board at GameFAQs for teaching me what I know about rom hacking and hex editing in general. The specific individuals that come to mind are sqpat17, silktail, Paulygon, Disch, and Alex Jackson. Also thanks to Y Dienyddiwr Da for his similar work on Final Fantasy. Other FF1 people are really cool, but there are too many to name.


Etc.:
  If anyone is interested, I'm happily accepting any efforts to collaborate. It's really silly when you learn something totally cool about a game you love, and then don't have anyone to tell about it.

  If you find anything here interesting or helpful and you'd like to thank me, please jump in a public fountain.
  If you'd like to contact me, try dasparil@hotmail.com.