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05-03-22 10:18:26 PM
Jul - The Cutting Room Floor - Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken Sound Room (Prototype 205) New poll - New thread - New reply
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VideoGameVirtuoso
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Posted on 03-12-16 02:52:43 AM (last edited by VideoGameVirtuoso at 03-15-16 08:29:33 PM) Link | Quote
Hello everyone,

A while back on Serenesforest.net, two prototypes were obtained for Rekka no Ken, one called 205, and the other called 219. The community documented several changes between the prototypes and the final version of the game, but they missed out a ton of content in the Sound Room (and probably more not mentioned here). This post will be focusing on prototype 205, since the Sound Room is not accessible in prototype 219 (as far as I know). The link regarding the prototypes are here (note that it says 206 instead of 205 by mistake): http://serenesforest.net/blazing-sword/general/prototype-information/

Normally, while playing the 205 prototype and accessing the Sound Room, only 44 tracks could be played, 2 which do not output sound at all (34 and 35), and 1 is a duplicate (32 refers to 33). The tracks are ordered 0 to 43. When attempting to go past track 44, or wrapping around track 0, the game freezes and the track name becomes blank, possibly due to the game accessing non-existent data. Therefore, it seemed safe to assume that only 44 tracks were in the game.

However, when using GBAMusRiper to extract the tracks, it becomes apparent that there were many more that were not accessible through the game normally. Not counting sound effects, the total number of tracks goes up to 90, over double the previous count. There are also other tracks that were probably used for debugging purposes (which are excluded from the count), but the biggest find is one unused track that was removed from the final game. For the moment, this will be called "song047". You can have a listen to this elusive track here, looped and applied with fade out: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BytMakAc82s6Y2lNNnRlYU9HQnc

Also not documented are the differences between most of the other 89 tracks and their final version. There are numerous details, from different soundbanks, omitted instruments, missing introductions, or completely rewritten compositions. All of these details can be found using GBAMusRiper. The list of actual track names after using GBAMusRiper can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qPt86i2-HStpLgUCc9RL0GhgS5MhTdwfwAJITDbj6c4

If you want to save yourself a few more headaches, use "gba_mus_riper -sb *.gba", where * refers to the file name (and directory) of the GBA ROM. This will separate each song along with its own separate soundbank for use in DAWs or sequencing software. Normally GBAMusRiper exports soundbanks in SF2, so to use them in FL Studio (which I do), use an audio converter such as Awave Studio and export them into DLS.

As mentioned earlier, "song047" has no track name, since it cannot normally be accessed by the Sound Room, however I suspect that text for all the song tracks can be obtained somehow. Unfortunately I do not know how to obtain those from the GBA ROM, but I am sure TCRF has more expertise on that subject. If it could be named, the song's intended purpose would be more clear, and perhaps it would reveal other useful information about prototype 205. Also, since prototype 205 has an unused track, perhaps prototype 219 has others too, but that could be saved for another thread.

EDIT: I recently found out that this track is used in the Sacred Stones, named "Prologue", which "plays over the prologue cutscene when starting a new save file". Presumably, the final version of Rekka no Ken was intended to use it in a similar manner, but was removed due to unknown reasons... My guess was lack of space, since they did include over 100 songs.
Aeonic Butterfly
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Posted on 03-23-16 08:59:15 PM (last edited by Aeonic Butterfly at 03-23-16 09:01:08 PM) Link | Quote
Might I suggest Foobar 2000? The recent MIDI Plugin added support for SF2s discovered in the same folder, added especially for GBAMusRiper rips. Not to mention, you get to listen to all tracks at the same time, not load one MIDI over and over again.
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Jul - The Cutting Room Floor - Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken Sound Room (Prototype 205) New poll - New thread - New reply


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