Final Fantasy Hasted

Hack description

This hack is intended to make Final Fantasy 1 for the NES a brisker, less-tedious experience. Many other hacks add a run button, and the Battle Speed option always increased battle turn speed somewhat, but other aspects of the game were still slow in many hacks. This hack is compatible with many other FF hacks (consult the readme for details) as well as the stock game, but combination with Final Fantasy Restored is highly recommended and enables all of the features of Final Fantasy Hasted. Note the ROM must be headered.

Changes (in the fully-featured version):

When in equipment shops, character posture now indicates whether or not they can equip a selected item. For equippable weapons, they further indicate if its attack power is greater, equal, or lesser than that of their currently-equipped weapon. To support this feature, dead characters now appear as ghosts in buildings and menus.

Attacks and spells targeting defeated enemies will automatically move to the next living enemy in the formation instead of being Ineffective. Does the same for allies targeting a defeated ally. (You can use an optional patch to remove this functionality.)

When targeting enemies in battle, you can now press Left or Right to change columns, with limited ability to navigate gaps.

At the main battle menu, hold Start + Select in order to set all able party members to Run. (aka Autorun)

In battle, characters walk forward and back, attack, and celebrate at double speed. Spellcasting is a bit faster than normal. The flashing associated with spellcasting being made faster caused it to be more irritating, and thus the flashing was removed (an optional patch restores this.)

The map screen rendering time was cut by a third. Its mountains are now light gray instead of light green. The reticle is now smaller and obscures the area less. Waterways are more accurately represented, and canals are now blue.

Transitions into and out of battle, for the rearrange and character menus, and for entering/leaving an area map, are now double speed.

Swapping characters in the rearrange menu now happens at double speed.

The combat fleeing animation is a bit faster.

When in the Status or Magic screens, you can press Select to switch between characters.

Character direction is now preserved between transitions. You will face downward when leaving a shop, however.

Character HP is displayed under their name on the rearrange screen.

The broom sprite no longer has a stray pixel in one of its frames.

Fixes a couple additional text strings in the script of Final Fantasy Restored.

As an extra bonus, a completely-optional antigrind patch is also included:
Monsters now give 3x money and XP in the southern continents (for the most part), and 2x in the northern continents. Spell costs were reduced so that White/Black Mages now cost roughly as much to outfit as Fighters, earlier on.

Contributor	Type of contribution	Description
Mentil	Hacking	ASM & String Hacking
Anomie	Original Hacking	PRNG improvement hack

Reviews

A Refreshing Playthrough	St8ofMind69	2023-02-11	Version 1.0
So my brother played this hack (hasted + restored). He doesn't have an account here so I figured I'd paste his review to help others. He has a ton of experience with FFI, growing up he beat it about 20 times with various combinations of parties - including the dreaded 4 white mages on the original NES cartridge - and he continues to play it about annually into his mid-30s - so he's got a lot of experience with the game. Here's his review. "This version of FF1 was a very refreshing play-through. Without the anti-grind patch, I thoroughly appreciated getting to play the game with its original pacing, difficulty, and gold gains. What the hack did for the battle sequences was time saving and clean. The character indication in shops was a nice little upgrade. I also appreciated being able to buy items 10 at a time vs. the original. While other (retail) versions of FF1 have addressed several of these upgrades, they also lost a lot of the original spirit of the game by making it easier overall, adding items like Ethers and Phoenix Downs, and therefore changing the whole pacing of the game. The experience playing this hack felt pure. I beat the game quickly in about 8-9 hours. The only thing I could even think to see added to this version is to make the boss fights a bit more challenging. The skill level it takes to get through some of these dungeons often ends up being anti-climatic when your party absolutely obliterates the area boss in only a couple of turns. Overall - this was an excellent experience and a great hack. Many thanks!!!"

Single-handedly takes care of nearly all of my FF1 hack wishlist	kurobake	2023-02-02	Version 1.0
Absolutely amazing, with such elegantly-integrated improvements. I can't imagine ever recommending the original when this exists. My only wish is that the author would have provided a patch option that includes all the elements of the "full" patch without the titular adjusted-speed elements. The increased speed is fun and very cool to see in-action, but it does change the feel of the game. I'm sure many people will love the increased speed, but a normal-speed version that retains all the other essential improvements would be without question the definitive way to play this game for anyone from now on. Amazing work. Thank you so much.

A great way to return to a timeless classic!	jabedoben	2023-01-27	Version 1.0
This hack essentially removes everything tedious about the original FF. Battles are faster. Leveling is faster. No more INEFFECTIVE nonsense when a target dies before an attack. Highly recommended for old school fans who want to reexperience the game without hassle. Kudos!

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