FE7 & FE8 Prototype Offsets & Findings

[Sme]

Documentation for the locations of various things in the FE8 prototype rom, as well as a way to read them using FEBuilderGBA:

unit_pointer	0x11A68
class_pointer	0x19098	
map_setting_pointer	0x487FC
map_config_pointer	0x01C620
map_obj_pointer	0x01C620
map_pal_pointer	0x01C620
map_tileanime1_pointer	0x01C620
map_tileanime2_pointer	0x01C620
map_map_pointer_pointer	0x01C620
map_mapchange_pointer	0x01C620
map_event_pointer	0x01C620
text_pointer	0xBF58
text_data_start_address	0x6E0
unit_wait_icon_pointer	0x31254
unit_icon_palette_address	0xF266C
item_pointer	0x176EC
icon_pointer	0x5268
icon_orignal_address	0xEA3E0
icon_palette_pointer	0x5170
portrait_pointer	0x7060
image_battle_animelist_pointer	0x70188

workmemory_player_units_address	0x0202BD40	
workmemory_control_unit_address	0x03004950	

If you put this information in a file called <romname>.custom_pointer.txt in the same folder as the rom, opening it with FEBuilder will allow you to view the data whose location is defined here. This is more or less the bare minimum amount of information to have things working well enough to be reasonably functional, but there are over 300 values that can be present in the file as defined here so if anyone in future does further research on locations of data or anything else in the fe8 prototype feel free to add it here.

[Sme]

Here’s the same set of offsets for the 0206 FE7 prototype:

unit_pointer	0x99678
class_pointer	0x175A4
item_pointer	0x15C98
text_pointer	0x12740
mask_point_base_pointer	0x6DC
icon_pointer	0x4B84
unit_wait_icon_pointer	0x25A80
icon_palette_pointer	0x4A90
unit_icon_palette_address	0x187774
map_setting_pointer	0x320EC
map_setting_datasize	100
map_config_pointer	0x18FD0
map_obj_pointer	0x18FD0
map_pal_pointer	0x18FD0
map_tileanime1_pointer	0x18FD0
map_tileanime2_pointer	0x18FD0
map_map_pointer_pointer	0x18FD0
map_mapchange_pointer	0x18FD0
map_event_pointer	0x18FD0
portrait_pointer	0x69B4
image_battle_animelist_pointer	0x564E4

workmemory_player_units_address	0x202BD08
workmemory_control_unit_address	0x3004E30

There’s more interesting in the data structures at these offsets than the FE8 prototype. FE8 even in the final release builds uses most data structures verbatim from their sizes & layouts in FE7, but FE7’s data structures are broadly larger and laid out differently in comparison to FE6’s. Here, the chapter data table has entries 100 bytes long, which is significant, as the final versions of FE7 have the table be 148 bytes long and FE6 has it 68 bytes long, meaning 48 bytes worth of data was added to each entry of this table between Feb 6th 2003 when this build was made and the final build on March 29th 2003 a month and a half later.
Additionally, looking through the chapters when properly adjusted for size of chapter data entries reveals this map that’s not in the final game and I don’t see on TCRF:

In the debug menu, there’s a chapter option named SAKABA that when selected attempts to send you to chapter 0x3C, and this map just so happens to be… chapter 0x3C! Actually selecting it seems to send you to Lyn mode ch9 though, so you can’t actually reach this map in game.

EDIT: It turns out, this map is still in the final game, but the tileset is missing there. Taking map 0x43 from FE7J, which is normally fully green void using the dragon gate’s tileset, and assigning the tileset used by this beta map reveals that it is the same map!

[7743]

add fe8 prototype

bg_pointer	0x10690
bigcg_pointer	0xCB5E0
font_item_address	0x929374
font_serif_address	0x943568
sound_table_pointer	0xE2B34
sound_room_pointer	0xC3458
unit_move_icon_pointer	0x88890
battle_bg_pointer	0x86BE4
battle_terrain_pointer	0x68388
image_chapter_title_pointer	0x96A98
image_chapter_title_palette	0x3A087C
generic_enemy_portrait_pointer	0x7A68

[7743]

for FE7

bg_pointer	0x10984
bigcg_pointer	0xB64AC
font_item_address	0xAF5EF4
font_serif_address	0xB0E120
sound_table_pointer	0xBA7E8
sound_room_pointer	0x1C2A0
unit_move_icon_pointer	0x6FDE0
battle_bg_pointer	0x6C8A4
battle_terrain_pointer	0x4F54C
image_unit_palette_pointer	0x564E8 

FE7 is more difficult than FE8.
The reason is that there is a mix of 6 and 7 in the data structure.
You have to update the FEBuilderGBA to show the CG.
Personally, I prefer this color scheme picture.

It is going to be difficult to see the SoundRoom and Class structures correctly because of the different data formats.

[Sme]

In line with song table & sound room stuff, went looking at the differences in music between the prototypes and the final game; FE8 is largely uninteresting since it’s just FE7’s soundtrack still from what I saw, but FE7 has a large number of both slight and major differences from the final including at least 1 song not in the final game at all. Here is an archive that contains all of the music in the 0206 prototype in .wav format, dumped with VGMusicStudio, as well as a text file that contains the differences I noted between these versions and the final ones.

Most of the songs seem identical to the final versions, and most most of the songs that don’t seem identical have incredibly minor changes, like so with A Hint of Things to Come:

Final
Prototype

Then there’s some that are significantly-altered versions of existing songs, like Arena Tactics:

Final
Prototype

Finally, there are the real interesting ones: entirely different songs! First is the song in place of Binding Ties:

Then, there are 3 instances of song indexes that are empty in the final game that contain songs in the prototype. One of them is just The Inn without background sfx baked in, but the other two are quite interesting:

You may recognize this song. That’s because it would later be used as Prologue from FE8. The other one doesn’t seem to have ever seen the light of day though:

I couldn’t place this one outside of it containing general leitmotifs present in FE7’s soundtrack, and I’m inclined to believe it’s an entirely lost song. There’s plenty of other interesting things, like Recollection of a Petal having an intro section that got cut or one of the renditions of the Fire Emblem theme having a part right at the end cut, but listing them all would take a very long time and I’ve just spent about 5 hours listening to similar songs and writing down the differences so I’m not up to that right now it’s all in the archive if you’re curious.

[Kemui52]

@Sme

Finally, there are the real interesting ones: entirely different songs! First is the song in place of Binding Ties:

Well, hey, that’s FE6’s version of Binding Ties! I love when long-known prototypes are finally opened up in an editor and are revealed to have more turbo-interesting goodies.

[Sme]

Did the 0219 FE7 prototype too

unit_pointer	0x17954
class_pointer	0x179B4
item_pointer	0x160A8
text_pointer	0x12AD4
mask_point_base_pointer	0x06DC
icon_pointer	0x4C24
unit_wait_icon_pointer	0x260F8
icon_palette_pointer	0x4B30
unit_icon_palette_address	0x18C6A4
map_setting_pointer	0x32C3C
map_setting_datasize	104
map_config_pointer	0x194B8
map_obj_pointer	0x194B8
map_pal_pointer	0x194B8
map_tileanime1_pointer	0x194B8
map_tileanime2_pointer	0x194B8
map_map_pointer_pointer	0x194B8
map_mapchange_pointer	0x194B8
map_event_pointer	0x194B8
portrait_pointer	0x6A54
image_battle_animelist_pointer	0x57310

workmemory_player_units_address	0x202BD08
workmemory_control_unit_address	0x3004E30

Best I can tell there’s not a whole lot different, going through the music again there are 2 changes to the songs from the 0206 prototype:

1. Recollection of a Flower has lost its intro section and is now identical to the final version
2. The copy of Safeguard overtop Distant Utopia is gone, the track is now empty

For posterity, here’s the 3 versions of Recollection of a Flower:

0206 Prototype
0219 Prototype
Final

Additionally, no songs after track 95 are in the 0206 prototype, but some of them now exist beyond that point in 0219:

• In a shocking inversion, Shattered Life is missing the intro section present in the final, but otherwise the same
• The final version of The Inn is in track 107, but the earlier version of it has yet to be removed from track 89
• Blessing of the 8 Generals II is just a copy of Blessing of the 8 Generals I
• The cutoff is now at track 111, leaving 7 songs absent entirely from 0219

I also filled out the tcrf.net page for the 0206 prototype with all of the music differences, if you want more than what’s in this thread

It has been documented before at least in part, but the last 6 animations have been added since 0206: 3 for generic berserker, Kishuna, and early Merlinus tent & wagon. Berserkers are identical, but the rest have interesting quirks. Kishuna’s anim is functionally identical to the final version, but is using more than 16 colors by mistake somewhere and the transparent color in the palette is different. Both Merlinus anims are a single frame in all modes:

For items, the Conqueror’s Proof has been added, which based on slot compared to the final game is later to become the Ocean Seal. At this point, it’s using the Hero Crest icon rather than a unique one.

Lots of items are using icons from generic weapons & items rather than the unique ones they have in the final game, this goes for all legendary weapons, the Emblem weapons & Emblem Seal, Fell Contract, Heaven Seal, & Flametongue.

In both prototypes, dancer rings are instead dancer scarves; they follow the same color palettes as the final rings:

Additionally, there’s 2 more items that follow in the trend of the dancer scarves that are entirely absent from the final game. Note that as far as I can tell, none of the dancer items have a use effect yet, and are all tagged as items instead of dancer rings. The first item is named 攻撃の衣 (roughly “robe of attack”), has no description written for it, and uses the same icon as Filla’s Might. The other one is named 攻撃の笛 (roughly “whistle of attack”), also has no description, but this time has a unique icon not in the final game:

These items would be replaced by the uber spear and 5-use chest key respectively.

The only other item thing I noticed is that Tina’s Staff from FE6 is still in the game (the other manga weapons aren’t), use effect and all. In the final game, this is replaced with the Dragon Axe.

All of these other than the Conqueror’s Proof are in both prototypes.

The size of chapter data table entries has increased by 4 bytes since 0206, though I’m uncertain what specifically was added.

To classes, there have been 2 noticeable changes since 0206. The second Transporter class has been added, at this point using the tent map sprite instead of the carriage one, and the Peer has had its map sprite changed to what it remains as in the final game. In the 0206 prototype, it’s using this:

Which would end up being used in FE8 for the Pontifex.

At this point, the Thief and Assassin classes are different than the final. In the final game, they go Thief → Leila Thief → Assassin → Leila Civilian, but in both prototypes it goes Thief → Cath Thief → Assassin → Leila Assassin. Leila Thief and Leila Assassin use the same map sprites, the name is just different.

The duplicate F!Sage class used by (at least) Sonia in the final game is not yet present in either prototype.

Between prototypes, there’s very little that changes character-wise. Character 0x56 goes from a generic Black Fang slot to morph Jerme, and remains as such in the final game. However, there’s a number of substantial changes in comparison to the final game, mostly in the playables section.

Starting off, it turns out that IS was the original unoriginal GBAFE OC portrait maker, as Raven is a recolor:

Heath, too, is someone’s OC:

In the final game, character 0x29 is a copy of Nils, but in the prototypes it’s instead Eleanora. Her stats are identical to the Eleanora in slot 0x35 in the final game (that slot is empty in the prototypes), but here she’s adjacent to all playable characters. Considering she’s a cutscene-only unit that has growths, potentially playable at one point?

Character 0x2B is a copy of Vaida in the final game, but in both prototypes it’s instead イグレーヌ (Igrene). Clearly unfinished, she has no portrait at all, all of her base stat modifiers are 4, and her weapon ranks are A Swords, S Lances, and C Axes, though her class is set to F!Archer. Her affinity is also Anima instead of Ice as it was in FE6. Given the timeline of events in Elibe, if she was to appear at all it would likely only have been in a cutscene.

At this point in development, Kishuna does not have a portrait and is using one recycled from Ein in FE6:

The Fire Dragon final boss is also using Ein’s mug.

Puzon’s mug is instead Glass, while Glass’s mug is..also the same

Crazy-eye Nergal does exist in the game, but boss Nergal instead uses a mug with the turban still on.

Aion’s using Kenneth’s mug:

Kenneth’s using Teodor’s mug:

And Teodor is a Denning recolor:

Jerme is sans headband, both normally and as a morph:

(Note that Morph Jerme is only in the 0219 prototype)

In addition to missing a minimug, baby Zephiel has bigger eyes:

Natalie has slightly different hair:

As a result of using Teodor’s mug, morph Kenneth’s mug is now morph Teodor:

Murdock’s hair is a bit neater (and/or the mug is less finished):

Slightly different emotion mugs:

This Hector emotion mug isn’t in the final game; Hector with this face is, but only wearing a cloak or fancy clothes, never in armor:

And finally, soldiers, villagers, and Anna are all still FE6 bois but with bootleg eye frames:

Briefly on chapter stuff, in 0206 the final chapters use the same map palette as 32x, but are their final green in 0219, chapter 13 uses a nighttime palette in 0206 but the final daytime palette in 0219, and Ch20 takes place during the day in both prototypes.

I think that’s all the stuff I can find right now, this was significantly more than I intended to write with this lmao

[shadowofchaos]

Gotta thank someone in my Youtube comments

I dug into it and…

Looks like the Eliwood 219 Beta animation “looks” like final… but the crit is still the 206 beta motion.
For comparison this is vanilla:

[Flame]

@L95

Huh, I wonder if this is related to the FE7 prototype taking you to the FE6 transfer menu when pressing select+R on the link arena screen

I checked in FE7 0219, and the same trial map transfer mode is still accessible there (and seems to work), but uses a shorter input of just Left Left Right Right, so I think they aren’t related in the sense that one is based on the other (opening the FE6 transfer menu just needs one R press), but I could see IS’s logic being to continue having all the link-related sections hidden in the Link Arena menu initially.

The link arena team input is also shortened to Left Left Right Right but fades to black like final, while the Battle History menu just needs one Select press to show the password with some debug numbers showing what looks like the corresponding rank info.

Sidenote: recently I was looking around the pegasusknight BBS/forum (which literally shut down today) and I found a thread about FE7’s prerelease website going up from March 18, 2003. There was a comment about how Rebecca seemed to have a lower Res stat cap.

The current screenshot on Rebecca’s page reflects the final game, but both prototypes do show that the F!Archer class specifically had a 15 Res cap for some reason. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like the prerelease version of the screenshot was ever archived before they updated it.

other differences I noticed on the current site’s screenshots:
Jaffar is shown as a red unit. This may have been to not spoil that he becomes an ally, since his combat stats are identical to Battle before Dawn, but it also shows an additional steel sword in his inventory.

This matches Jaffar’s inventory in both 0206 and 0219.

Hector is shown attacking with a Wolf Beil that has a generic Iron Axe icon that matches the prototypes.

The system page shows a prototype CG and a Light Rune used on Chapter 13, which is not available in vanilla. Just from playing through the first chapters in each proto I don’t think there is a Light Rune naturally available at this point either, so this may be just from debug or a time not reflected in either prototype.

[LPFan]

I may make a full list of findings at some point, but I want to note a moment of data structure mixing as an example. To view supports in the FE7 206 Prototype, these pointers need to be specified for FEBuilder(not fully tested, but I am fairly sure they are correct):

• support_unit_pointer = 0xB782A8;
• support_talk_pointer = 0x07B0E8;

The Support unit list(Who supports who) uses the FE7 format, while the Support talk list(support conversations) uses the FE6 format. Nothing changed between the FE6 and FE7 formats for the Support talk list, they just added some additional 0-padding bytes for unknown reasons, meaning the prototype is ironically just plain more space-efficient than final here.

[LPFan]

Research is still ongoing and I don’t feel too comfortable dumping stuff until it is at least a tiny bit more complete(Minus that there really isn’t much spectacular besides me finding some FE6 data in the FE7 prototypes that was scrubbed out of the retail FE6 build for some reason), but I don’t want to sit on this specific thing too long, so here it is:

I combed through the 206 FE7 prototype for half a day and mapped out in a textfile what the 100 Bytes in the chapter data(As opposed to it being 148 bytes in the final game) seem to be, based on how it resembles the final game. I only tested a few of the values(A bunch of them are hard/time intensive or even currently impossible to test anyways), but it seems to line up really well.

The entirety of the textfile copied over:

Trying to figure out what the 100 chapter bytes in the 206 prototype are. Quoted names are what the respective setting is called in FEBuilder.
“Shared between games” means that both FE6 and FE7 contain the setting, not that it is in the same relative or the same absolute place in the structure(Only the first few bytes are).
Note: Rankings data does not seem to exist for Hector maps and Lyn maps seem to only have tactics rankings data.

Bytes 1-4: Pointer to internal chapter name. //Shared between games
Byte 5-6: “Object type (Plist)” //Shared between games
Byte 7: “Palette (Plist)” //Shared between games
Byte 8: “Tile Config (Plist)” //Shared between games
Byte 9: “Map Pointer (Plist)” //Shared between games
Byte 10: “Tile Animation 1” //Shared between games
Byte 11: “Tile Animation 2” //Shared between games
Byte 12: “Tile Changed (Plist)” //Shared between games
Byte 13: “Fog Level” //Shared between games
Byte 14: “Battle Prep Y/N?” //Shared between games. Unused value that does not do anything?(Why are there no Battle Prep screens in this? Are they just not in the game or are they disabled somewhere in the code?)
Byte 15: “Chapter Title” //Shared between games
Byte 16: “Chapter Title 2” //Like in retail FE7. For some reason, the Chapter title image list in the prototype is gigantic because the devs insisted on this value always giving Hector seperate image slots even when the image would be the same as Eliwood and/or the chapter has no actual destinction because it is a Lyn mode chapter…
Byte 17: “Initial coord” X position? //Shared between games?
Byte 18: “Initial coord” Y position? //Shared between games?
Byte 19: “Weather” //Shared between games
Byte 20: “Battle Backgrounds” //Shared between games
Bytes 21-22: “Difficulty”/“Hard-Mode Bonuses” //Shared between games.
Bytes 23-24: “Player Phase BGM”/“Player Phase BGM (Eliwood)” //Shared between games
Bytes 25-26: “Enemy Phase BGM”/“Enemy Phase BGM (Eliwood)” //Shared between games
Bytes 27-28: “NPC Phase BGM”/“NPC BGM (Eliwood)” //Shared between games
Bytes 29-30: “Player Phase BGM (Hector)” //Like in retail FE7
Bytes 31-32: “Enemy Phase BGM (Hector)” //Like in retail FE7
Bytes 33-34: “NPC BGM (Hector)” //Like in retail FE7
Bytes 35-36: “Player Phase BGM Flag 4” //Like in retail FE7
Bytes 37-39: “Enemy Phase BGM Flag 4” //Like in retail FE7
Bytes 39-40: “Chapter Opening BGM”/“Chapter Prologue BGM (common)” //Shared between games
Bytes 41-42: “Chapter Opening BGM (Eliwood)” //Also controls the BGM for Hector mode?
Byte 43: “Destructible Wall HP” //Shared between games
Byte 44: "Unknown Byte, probably unused. //Like in Retail FE6
Byte 45: “Tactics Rank A” //Like in Retail FE6
Byte 46: “Tactics Rank B” //Like in Retail FE6
Byte 47: “Tactics Rank C” //Like in Retail FE6
Byte 48: “Tactics Rank D” //Like in Retail FE6
Bytes 49-50: “EXP Rank A” //Like in Retail FE6
Bytes 51-52: “EXP Rank B” //Like in Retail FE6
Bytes 53-54: “EXP Rank C” //Like in Retail FE6
Bytes 55-56: “EXP Rank D” //Like in Retail FE6
Bytes 57-64: Unclear padding? //Unless I missed something, these seem to never be used?
Bytes 65-67: Asset Rankings value? // No idea what this is supposed to be exactly, considering it has no similarity to either of the other asset rankings formats. Maybe this is just a universal threshold for the S rank and the prototype did not feel the need to define any other rankings? Maybe it is a placeholder? Or maybe it is not even an asset rankings value afterall, idk.
Bytes 68-69: Seperator padding between settings?
Byte 70 “Event ID (Plist)”? //Like in Retail FE7?
Byte 71: “World Map Event”? //Like in Retail FE7?
Byte 72: Seperator between settings?
Bytes 73-74: “Fortune (Prologue)”? //Like in Retail FE7? Hard to check because no Prep Screens.
Bytes 75-76: “Fortune (Eliwood)”? //Also controls the Hector mode Fortune text? Hard to check because no Prep Screens.
Bytes 77-78: “Fortune (End Confirmation)”? //Like in Retail FE7? Hard to check because no Prep Screens.
Byte 79: “Fortune-Teller’s Face”? //Like in Retail FE7? Hard to check because no Prep screens.
Byte 80: “Fortune”? (As in, the setting for the Price) //Like in Retail FE7? Hard to check because no Prep Screens.
Byte 81: Preparation Screen Chapter Number? //Like in retail FE7? Unlike the finished game, it seems to count the Lyn Mode Prologue as Chapter 1 rather than Chapter 0 and also reset the chapter number in the transition to Eliwood/Hector.
Bytes 82-85: Unclear padding? //Unless I missed something, these seem to never be used?
Byte 86: Convoy Position X coordinate? //Like in retail FE7? May control the convoy in both modes? If there was a convoy, that is.
Byte 87: Convoy Position Y coordinate? //Like in retail FE7? May control the convoy in both modes? If there was a convoy, that is.
Byte 88: “Victory BGM(#Foes Left)” //Shared between games. The prologue sets this to 1 instead of 0 like in the final game.
Byte 89: “Dark before Initial Event”? //Like in retail FE7
Byte 90: Seperator between settings?
Bytes 91-92: “Clear Condition”. // Shared between games
Bytes 93-94: “Detailed Clear condition”. // Like in retail FE7
Byte 95: “Mini-Objective Display” //Like in retail FE7
Byte 96: “Turns to Defend” //Like in retail FE7
Byte 97: Withdrawal Point X coordinate? // Like retail FE7?
Byte 98: Withdrawal Point Y coordinate // Like retail FE7
Byte 99: Unknown Byte, probably unused. //Like retail FE7
Byte 100: Seperator to next Chapter entry? //Like in retail FE7

Still no idea what the extra 4 bytes in the 219 Prototype are because I didn’t look at it yet, but it surely can’t be anything too important considering the 206 Proto may as well have just been “Finished format: Mini Edition”. I kinda wish I had the technical competence to make new editors for FEBuilder because it would be rad to browse the data in the UI rather than in the hex editor.

[topazlight]

I’d be curious to hear what all you found in terms of unused FE6 content. I know Arcardo has an unused personal battle palette in the FE7 prototype that’s either absent or unindexed in FE6 proper, but that’s all I’ve found along those lines, myself.

[LPFan]

Yep, that’s the one. I genuinely thought I was the only one who noticed the palette and could cope it into a major reveal because I have not heared a single person mention it online. (Yeah, that is the only interessting bit in these I could see thus far, lol. Kinda scuffed that fate didn’t afford us one of those cool looking FE6 prototypes instead)

[Vesly]

@LPFan

I kinda wish I had the technical competence to make new editors for FEBuilder because it would be rad to browse the data in the UI rather than in the hex editor.

Rather than using the hex editor, I recommend you use nightmare to csv (n2c.exe).

You need to manually make a .nmm file (you can export one from febuilder for the vanilla table and edit it accordingly) and you need to provide it the address of said table. Then you drag the rom onto n2c.exe and it spits out a .csv file. This should be easier to work with than the hex editor.

NMM2CSV - Edit tables with Excel instead of Nightmare [UPDATED TO V1.0]

#Don’t you hate having to manually change bytes one at a time in Nightmare? You’ve got that fancy schmancy spreadsheet with everyone’s stats and growths. painstakingly tweaked for that perfect balance (or not, I don’t judge), but you’re just clicking dropdowns and typing values like some kind of caveman. ##Never again, I say to you! #Get NMM2CSV (.exe) #Get NMM2CSV (Python 3.6) ##Get preripped CSVs (FE8) Just put all the NMMs you want to rip in the same directory as the rom you want to rip…

Pictures are broken, but it’s pretty easy to do. Making the .nmm file is the only lengthy part. You need to tell it whether to read each offset as a byte, short, or word, whether to spit out decimal or hex, and whether to have it signed or unsigned. If you set them all as unsigned hex bytes, the data should look the same as the hex editor except you can work in a csv file with headers and not accidentally look at the wrong offset for an entry.