Hack Name:  Final Fantasy 9 — Comprehensive ATB Enhancement
Hack of: 
Platform: 
Genre: 
Released by: 
Language: 
Status:  Complete
Patch Version:  1.00
Last updated:  January 22, 2025
Type of Hack:  Gameplay
Downloads:  118

Final Fantasy 9 — Comprehensive ATB Enhancement v1.00
by RoSoDude https://rosodudemods.wordpress.com/

Final Fantasy 9’s ATB system has some notable flaws compared to other entries in the series. ATB is always running in the background regardless of battle animations, so commands can quickly pile up on the queue. This functionally caps the effectiveness of the Agility stat, lets buffs wear off too quickly, and makes auto-regen overpowered. Furthermore, it enables “Wait tricking” abuse with the Wait mode config setting, where the player enters a command submenu to pause ATB during player animations, but lets ATB resume during enemy animations to gain a turn order advantage. Finally, there is general agreement that the battle animations in FF9 are too slow, leading to very sluggish battles compared to prior entries.

Whereas a previous hack sought to speed up battles by increasing the speed of ATB alone, this only exacerbated the problem with slow animations and the command queue, and furthermore led to status effects ticking much too quickly in the background. This hack makes ATB gauges and other battle timers pause during battle animations, identical to my Comprehensive ATB Enhancement hack for FF6. ATB speed and rates for all status effect timers are more than doubled to offset the added downtime. The 3D scene framerate in battles is also increased by 33%, resulting in faster battle animations and a shorter camera swirl at the start of fights. Monster ATB has a small delay to account for higher Speed stats and instant command queueing. Instant fill ATB gimmicks are removed from several enemies (Ozma, Hades, Kraken, Tonberries) to make these fights possible in the new ATB system. The end result should be a more tactical and robust ATB system which can be tweaked to the user’s preference using the in-game config settings.

Included alongside the main hack is an alternate “CTB Wait Addon” patch which removes all active time elements from battle when “Wait” mode is selected, similar to FF10’s CTB battle system (or the PC Memoria Engine’s turn-based mode). See the separate readme for details.

The included patches are compatible with 1.0 and 1.1 (Rev 1) US ROMs. The hack should be compatible with pretty much every other hack for FF9, except for “Final Fantasy IX ATB Gauge SpeedUp” which is redundant. A special compatibility patch is required for use with Alternate Fantasy v3.2; see the separate readme for details.
NOTE: If the game gets stuck on a black screen while loading (title screen or battles) when used alongside another hack, you need to use error_recalc or EDCRE to fix the EDC/ECC data on your ROM.

Source files for assembly and hex codes are included as a reference for other modders.

Hashes: 
Filename: Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 1).bin
CRC-32: 49521342
SHA-1: 4bbd0132b25ee1cc436b45f2a665a21db0d6e9b4

Filename: Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 2).bin
CRC-32: dfef08c8
SHA-1: afdfe5f846909d7dfbee03cd09175ba76d31b070

Filename: Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 3).bin
CRC-32: cdc64cac
SHA-1: eb85348d88fce2c76bf6f3b616f54242878f5a46

Filename: Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 4).bin
CRC-32: 15a5e12b
SHA-1: 3392de8f304bc05ed7c845c1eb6d91b4021ecd2b

Filename: Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 1) (Rev 1).bin
CRC-32: 7a46108f
SHA-1: 8b8feaf91f63ae615d763803b094833dc20ca63c

Filename: Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 2) (Rev 1).bin
CRC-32: 575e60d5
SHA-1: 232c9b94f232006798f466c126a121d256e4122b

Filename: Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 3) (Rev 1).bin
CRC-32: a1d53b67
SHA-1: f7177bd1194ff1a642494cf867819d2d3b897c99

Filename: Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 4) (Rev 1).bin
CRC-32: a4c892a4
SHA-1: ce78c21e3793e04e594429133b05ddf24ed3fc6b
Staff/Credits: 
Acknowledgements to FFHacktics community members Tallcall, Sardek, Xifanie, and RetroTypes for essential tips on MIPS assembly/PSX debugging
Acknowledgements to Tirlititi for Hades Workshop editor and technical information
File download: 
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Andrewskey
Member
24 days ago

Really cool to see another hack like this come into fruition after how good the last one for Final Fantasy 6 was. Hope this gets a lot of people who were driven off by the battle pacing for this game to try it out now! Gotta get through a few more RPGs first, but I can’t wait to make my first FF9 experience with this later in the year.

Cloudstrife7894
Member
Cloudstrife7894
24 days ago

This looks like a nice hack, be handy for a replay.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1984/
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7332/

Does it work with these two mods?

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