Tales of Phantasia (SNES)

[Barack Obama]

https://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/talephantasia/
Used version is the English 1.2 DeJap translation (UpperCase).

No Random Battles by MasterGohan, CaitSith2
7E143C:0B

Walk through Walls by Ugetab
6D69-8DF8
6D6A-8F4B
406A-8F1B

Enemies perish after one Hit by Ugetab
CED6-774F
23D6-773F

Code Source
https://gamehacking.org/game/45076
Has also codes for adding tech and magic to a character's repertoire.

Emulator & Ripping Tool: bsnes-rawpalettes
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-43257.html

Emulator Quicksaves (BST): 15 folders with 150 Quicksaves until starting Graham's treasure hunt (final dungeon also accessible):
https://mega.nz/file/tIxhUQab#mEyCeAJxs3...xtsnghMjM0

Various
Protagonists (Overworld)
NPCs
Animals
Enemies & Bosses
Sprite Objects & Animations 1
Tileset Animations 1
Portraits
Vehicles
Summons (Overworld)
Doors

Exterior Maps
Midgard North
Midgard South
Olive Village
Totus Village
Totus Village (Burning)
Totus Village (Ruined)
Elven Village
Harmel
Harmel (Ruined)
Alvanista (Future)
Euclid (Present)
Euclid (Past)
Venezzia
Ary
Freezekill
Euclid Castle
Bart's House
Morrison's House
Morrison's other House
Miguel
Ninja Village
Abyss of Thor (Risen)
Fenrir Church

Interior Maps
Olive Village
Totus Village
Totus Village (Ruined)
Elven Village
Harmel
Ary
Freezekill
Euclid (Past)
Bart's House
Ship
Morrison's House
Morrison's other House
Miguel
Ninja Village
Abyss of Thor
Fenrir Church

Misc. Maps
Oases
Campsites (probably shared with Valhalla Plains)
Aselia (Present World Map)
Venezzia Harbor
White Forest
Valhalla Plains
Euclid Coliseum
Treasure Forest

Dungeons
Spirit Forest (Present)
Spirit Forest (Flashback)
Spirit Forest (Past)
Spirit Forest (Past, Future)
Ymir Forest 1
Ymir Forest 2
Ymir Forest 3
Ymir Forest 4
Malice's Castle (Exterior)
Malice's Castle (Interior)
Malice's Castle (Dungeon)
Malice's Castle (Sewers 1)
Malice's Castle (Sewers 2)
Malice's Castle (Sewers 3)
Malice's Castle (Sewers Exit)

Oases

Haven't played through the game yet, I'm still a the beginning running around the world map trying to find some locations I want to do.
Most of the places are inaccessible anyway, which means they have no teleport spot bringing me to the town / dungeon.

[Barack Obama]

Yggdrasil Forest (Present)

Misses the shadow layer. Btw no comparison to Breath of Fire 1 or 2, the maps in Tales of Phantasia have a limited size and are so much easier to rip.

Also tried other versions like the German translation from ds4, which has mp3-like music quality in its intro.
While codes like walk through walls and no random battle work fine, the saves are not compatible between translations.
At first you can walk around just fine, but as soon as you try to teleport or talk to someone, the game glitches out and crashes.

Might be the case for French and other translations too, but I haven't tried it.

[Barack Obama]

Malice's Castle (Sewers 3)

Currently in front of a mountain area, right behind Bart's house. Didn't really catch that I had to get rope AND pickaxe from Harmel and therefore wondering how to pass these rock obstacles.

And of course I also bought equipment in Harmel instead of checking out the shops in Venezzia, which have way better armor and weapons.
Luckily, the balance in this game gives you a lot of money and level-ups very early in the game, so progressing through it feels very satisfying.
Also one of the games with a moderate random encounter rate where you can actually move quite a lot before a new fight starts.

Definitely leagues above Breath of Fire, Tengai Makyou Zero or Dual Orb 2.

[Barack Obama]

Totus Village (Burning Exterior)

Ripping through the game before progressing.

[Barack Obama]

Added quicksaves to the main post, I'm currently getting the summon Luna and will play a bit further before ripping new maps.

I've also set my eye on sprite objects & animations as well as tileset animations. You can also expect the usual protagonist, npc, animal & enemies / bosses sheet.

Animals

Enemies & Bosses

Both ripped by Maneko ages ago, but incomplete, random animation orders, no palettes and generally thrown together from a tile dump without sorting through. Obviously, I will improve on that.
But just like for Deathbringer's BoF sheets, they have true colours and don't need a rerip, because my own rips would look just like this. The shadow is missing, but I will add that one too.

[Barack Obama]

Currently finishing the past with a lot of missable stuff:

Racing the kid in Alvanista (Past)
Easy on PSX, nearly impossible on SNES. Blocking doesn't help since you don't know his path.
I just beat him with the walk thru walls code, since you will be able to pass through the walls at the start every time and get extra time. Just make sure to stay behind the trees and to not pass through the walls when circling around at the west end. If you hear a sound effect, the lap is void and you can just restart.
Although it's hardly worth the effort, as 3 of the 4 prizes are worthless (Longsword, Ice Scimitar, Beef). You can sell the fourth prize (Cat's Eyes) for 300k in Ninja Village (future), but in the end, it's just money. The max. amount of wins is 3, after that the kid won't race you anymore.

The two most hidden techs for Cless
Valhalla Snowfield (sold for 50k) / Beladum Weapon Store (secret passage).
As far as I can see, the latter one can also be obtained from a drawer in Miguel. The guy from the snowfield might also be around in the future, but I'm not 100% sure.

Nancy & Elwyn
At one point you have to tell Doug (Elwyn's father) about their whereabouts, then go to the top right house in Alvanista and help them.
Don't worry about the answer "No", you can just try again as much as you like if you misclick.
It doesn't go further than them being both in Venezzia and talking about their marriage. In the remakes (GBA, PSX), you can see them actually getting married.
You can also fail this sidequest by not talking to Nancy in Harmel or not advancing the quest far enough to a certain point, since Demitel will destroy the village later in the game.

Once I'm done with this era, I will continue with my ripping.

[Barack Obama]

Arrived in the future and things become more clear:
+ The past world map has no Abyss of Thor, instead when you go out after sending it up you already see the future worldmap. This is why the palette is different.
+ Future Venezzia and all harbors have a brighter palette.
+ I think even Alvanista is a bit brighter, but I could be mistaken.
+ The present flashback in Spirit Forest might be a simple tile & palette change (since there is no teleport transition), but I'm not 100% sure since I can't move during the cutscene.
+ Present Spirit Forest has different cliffs on the bottom left in comparison to its other versions from the past or future.

White Forest

Protagonists (Overworld)

Protagonists are by Maneko, palettes by me. Just have to check if sprites can be separated, also have to sort and label the animations.
White Forest might need a few checks here and there, good thing Smithy already ripped a reference. This way I can check out if a unique map is missing.
For the rest of the maps I use other sources so I don't miss anything (goes especially for town interiors and dungeons):
https://vgmaps.de/maps/snes/tales-of-phantasia.php

Edit: Updated quicksaves in the main post.

[Barack Obama]

^

Sprite Objects & Animations, thought I just start with whatever I can find.
The statue palette seems to work for every npc.

I also put a lot of maps together, but they need some polish before I can submit them.

[Barack Obama]

Abyss of Thor (Interior)

Aselia (World Map) Tilesets

Abyss of Thor (Interior) uses a sprite layer for plants and seats, since it can only use 3 layers at one time:
- bottom layer: panorama
- lower layer: ceiling, walls, ground
- upper layer: transparent windows

[Barack Obama]

Tileset Animations 1

Started on these as well.

[Barack Obama]

Sprite Objects & Animations 1

Tileset Animations 1

Animals

Decided to get the animals with tile grid. Also prepared some maps for assembling by slapping the layers on the sheets.

And now for something really chaotic:

Midgard Fortress (Exterior)

While in this case the bottom of the map has just a line of boxes with garbage or nothing, the top, left and right show repeated tiles as part of the map wrapping.
This is all within the tile map viewer of bsnes-rawpalettes and completely normal.
Depending on where you enter the map, the overall display in tilemap viewer changes a bit and shows more or less wrapping. For example: If you enter a map on the top left, you won't have screen wrapping at the top and the left.
And if the map has the perfect size, then you also won't have it at the right and the bottom.

But usually, that's not the case. With my experience so far, I decided to not cut useless things out from the screenshot, but rather assemble the raw map with all the map-wrapped duplicate junk.
The big advantage is to avoid confusion with other layers, since I rip them all the same and only once everything is assembled, I start cutting the garbage parts off. It just makes processing the entire ordeal faster and more reliable.

After that, I organize the sheet and assemble the full map with the other layers:

bottom: shadow/water layer, no transparency or whatsoever
lower layer: tiles below the player
upper layer: tiles that overlap the player
top: shadow/water layer, this time with blend mode: normal & opacity: 50%

Sometimes sprites are used to complete the tileset, but this is very rare (Abyss of Thor, Interior).

As far as I can see, there are very few to no mixed priorities in terms of who is on top of who, tile-wise.
The only exception I've seen so far is Venezzia (Past, Future) and it only concerns the chimneys.
Mixed Priorities means upper layer tiles are in the lower layer and vice-versa.
Upper and lower layer are internally actually split up in two sections, BUT

1) in most cases it doesn't matter and is useless
2) even if it does matter, it bloats up the sheet
3) you can't select that in tilemap viewer anyway, only in effect toggle which is very inconvenient to use

General layer system is the same as in Star Ocean (SNES) and I really struggled with the first town until I realized in ToP that you're supposed to use one of the layers twice.

[Barack Obama]

Protagonists (Overworld)

Erased two duplicates and found out that Arche's broom is cut off. The rest of the Airbird sprites are also missing, but they shouldn't be too hard to rip.

Also there is no dedicated blush palette, the sprites are unique and not recoloured like the ones for being poisoned or petrified.

[Barack Obama]

Reached the last dungeon and therefore updated the quicksaves in the first post.
Also here are some of my impressions on how to approach certain things, since they can be troublesome:

Optional Summons (Future)
Go to the future version of the dungeons where you found Gnome, Undine & Sylph. They will now have extra rings for optional summons.
Sylph's dungeon: One of the basement caves.
Undine's dungeon: One of the flooded basement caves.
Gnome's dungeon: Just look around.
The extra summons are in the lower levels of the Moria Gallery and therefore not available until you reach the final dungeon,
but the other two can be found in Thor (talk to Central Computer) and the Cave of Darkness. These two just require the rings and the airbirds to reach them.

Lower Levels of Future Moria Gallery (Floor 11-20)
NPCs talking about it as if this bonus dungeons is accessible from the start, but that's not true.
You need to wait until you're able to reach Dhaos' castle at least once. Otherwise nothing will be there.
The lower levels can be found on floor 9. Just take shortcut and on floor 9, go right and then up.
There will be a tent with adventurers and some stairs at the south, which will lead to the hardest dungeon in the game.

Winning the Tournament at Euclid Coliseum / Arena
Round 1 is a pushover.
If Cinder Bird or any other distance fire attack is available, make sure to use it from round 2 to round 6.
Round 3 has an enemy who paralyzes, either use a Body Amulet or attack from afar.
Round 7: High level is not enough, you need an axe like the Hard Cleaver from the Venezzia weapon shop to beat the FE Golem, otherwise you won't do any damage (even with Murasame).
Also don't use any skills that have fire or thunder in it, as these will be absorbed. Yellow Cake item doesn't do anything.
Round 8 is only managable with an accessoire against petrification (Gorgon Amulet). You can buy it in Alvanista, have it drop from Mandrake in Ymir Forest or find it in Treant's Forest.
If you took the sidequest from Ninja Village, you will face the Ninjas in round 9 who will hit you really hard. Winning or losing doesn't matter, result will be the same and you'll get a skill for Cless.
Only difference is that you can get a prize for winning the tournament, but losing means that Suzu will kill the ninjas and you'll be disqualified. I would recommend at least Level 55, a neutral axe and the best available armor (Aegi's Shop south of Olive Village / Treasure Hunt chests).

Racing the Kid in Future Alvanista
Same as Alvanista (Past), you have to use walk through walls and cheat the hell out of this race, otherwise it's not feasible to participate.
Win 3 times and always choose the Silver Mattock, since the other 3 prizes are duds (S-Flag, 2 unidentified bows).
You can sell the S-Flag for money, but it's not worth it and the Elven Bow for Chester is the best in the game anyway.

Treasure Hunt
Same as for the lower levels for Moria Gallery, you need to teleport to the final dungeon at least once.
Talk to Graham in Freezekill, only with his hints you can find treasure chests on the small maps around the coastline.
You can access these spaces before that, but there won't be anything to loot.

Fire Damage in Odin's Tower
Fight some enemies in the safe areas of the tower, wait for a Salamander Ring to drop and then use a rune bottle on it.
It will turn into a Nymph Ring and protect against the heat, apparently it also nullifies the Explosion spell.

Extra Forest around Ninja Village
You might think that the forest around Ninja Village is just Treant's Forest, but it's actually a completely separated portion of it.
It's accessible from the west, east and north of Ninja Village and a lot smaller than the regular Treant's Forest.
What adds to the confusion is that it has no dedicated name, but it has two really good treasure chests (spell for Arche, staff for Mint).
Chest locations: Leave the village to the west and then go south / leave the village to the east and then go east again.

Before I do more progress, I'll churn out some rips. Treasure Hunt, Bonus Moria & Dhaos' castle are all what's left for me in terms of gameplay.

[Barack Obama]

More examples for map wrapping, especially for me if I ever forget how to rip from these games.

Ninja Village (Exterior)

Wrapping on the left and the right.

Ninja Village (Interior)

2nd largest map here has wrapping on the top, the bottom and the right. The others have wrapping on only one side of the their map (the column of trash tiles at the bottom doesn't count).

Treant's Forest

Often enough maps are smaller than just one screen, which results in trash tiles on various sides, usually the right and the bottom.

At this point it's just experience on how to handle these kind of issues. In contrast to earlier struggles, Tales of Phantasia is pretty easy to rip since it doesn't glitch out at the edges like other RPGs.
When I walk around the map to make it appear in tilemap viewer, I do it from the left to the right. I also make sure to capture all layers of a map part in order (upper layer, lower layer, shadow / water layer), go to the next part of the map and do the same again.

Putting / Assembling maps on a sheet: Activate grid function in your graphics program (16x16 pixels) and only open the lower layer screencaps of your wanted map. Arrange them from the left to the right, next row and so on.
After you've finished, do the same with the upper layer and then the shadow / water layer (if it exists). Don't confuse yourself, only do one sort of layer at a time.

If you arrange the layers right next to each other or directly under each other, you can cut off the unneccessary wrapping parts in one shot. Especially with upper layer and shadow / water layer it can become difficult to spot where the wrapping begins and where it ends. Same goes for the trash tile columns.