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I've read that for some reason that escapes me, back in the SNES days there was a maximum of hit points a boss could have, and a maximum number of monsters to fight. This true?

If so, what would the max be for, say, the GBA? Or the modern consoles?

Thanks in advance.

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SuperHeroChat

I believe it's 65,535 (the maximum in hexidecimal?).

Since the GBA is a 32-bit system, I'm pretty sure it could go into the millions if possible. I remember somebody saying what the maximum was, and it was some really high number.

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

FFIV got around this maximum by having the final boss's HP refill in mid-battle with no indicator for it.

There are a maximum number of monster types to fight (probably the same number that Zeromus just gave, though I'm sure no game ever went that high) but not a maximum number of actual monsters.

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Natively, the SNES can work with 8 or 16 bits. This means that it's programmed to function using numbers from 0-255 and 0-65535. These are the biggest numbers 8 and 16 bits can represent respectively.

It is possible to write your own number-management routine, however, thanks to the carry flag. The carry flag is a value that gets set when you exceed the max or minimal value the processor can support. If the carry flag is set, you can have another series of values to manipulate, extending the max number you can handle by quite a bit. Think of it like that little 1 you put above numbers when you do additions or subtractions by hand. The downside is that this isn't natively supported and any manipulation would have to go through your own addition/subtraction/whatever routine. Very costly.

The GBA, being 32 bit, can support up to 4,294,967,296 values.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

o.0 decimally even! Lance just abouts sums it up for us here, folks. I wanted to add that I have not heard of a maximum BATTLES cap, just a maximum amount of enemy parties. Same deal with items, spells, anything that uses a number basically (which is basically everything, I mean all most games are is a series of numbers, numbers set to flags, variables, code (which ironically is generally numbers)...)

01110100101010010100101000111010101001001

And yeah, just my little addition to the thread.

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This is a webcomic and gaming blog where I rant about nonsense. Enjoy.

I was a soldier, now I just play one in video games.

If the game doesn't keep track of it, there's no reason why there'd be a max. The amount of fights you get into generally isn't kept track of, so how could there be a max? FFVII keeps track (for Aeris' limit break) but probably rolls back to 0 when it hits the max. Or maintains its own longint counter.

The reason for a max amount of enemy parties is twofold. First, it has to keep track of the ID of the group to know which enemies to load. Second, well hey, cartridge / CD / DVD space is not infinit.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."