Has the idea occured to anyone else (particularily programmers) of a Free Software RPG engine that can parse decompiled FF4 script files and execute them like a playable game? Seeing as FF4 is extremely disected I thought this wouldn't be near impossible to do.
Basically it'd would have been like how ScummVM deals with Maniac Mansion's NES version, requiring the original ROM file and using a tool specialized at decompiling it into readable ascii files with human-readable syntaxes and variables, which would then be executed by the engine. It would also be all nicely sorted and modular too, for mods, new games (that do not use FF4 data) and such.
It could have extra features like hi-res tile/sprite/sound replacements, or maybe even a 3d opengl renderer for battle scenes, with md3 model support in addition.
Not saying that I want someone here to do this but has anyone else ever thought of the same idea?
It would certainly be better than any RPG2000/2003/XP games and make it easier than hacking ROMS for producing new 'unofficial fan adventures', oh and portability too don't forget that :P (though data would be restricted, and distribution of the data prohibited as it would be deriving from copyrighted material. The source code of the engine would be under the GPL v2 though)
It's because I thought it would rule to run FF4 under a non-SNES/PSX system, natively, no emulation, with Woolsleyisms and networked multiplayer.
I can imagine the hard bits would be the sound effects (the ripping of them and dumping them to WAV file by decompiler) and stats calculation.