Version 1.6 released 2022-05-28
Final Fantasy III introduced new advancements to visual effects in battle: improved attack animations, the bouncing damage numbers, and monsters that blink as they attack. These features, which would become standards in succeeding titles, made much of the game's battle commentary obsolete. A few examples:
- When a character is cured, his HP increase is shown as a bouncing green number; it is unnecessary to print the message "HP Up!".
- With the addition of blinking monsters, one can almost always discern the actor and the target of each turn from the animation alone.
- When a monster is defeated, its sprite gets wiped away; it is unnecessary to print a "Defeated" message.
- When a physical attack misses, the word "miss" bounces on the target; it is unnecessary to print the "Miss!" message.
However, in FF3 all battle messages are retained in spite of the new visual effects. They slow down the action, draw the eyes away from the animations, and often just provide redundant information; simply put, they're artifacts. Final Fantasy IV's battle interface, while making only modest adjustments from FF3's, finally got rid of the constant messages - and it feels like a breath of fresh air.
This hack revamps the battle interface of FF3j to provide an experience that is much more like that of FF4. It removes unnecessary commentary, uses cleaner FF4-style windows, and also removes a few minor design quirks that failed to become series standards.
The patch applies to FF3j English translation by A.W.Jackson/Neill Corlett/SoM2Freak v1.1.