[GUIDE] Setting up the Nova Chrysalia Mod manager - LR-Research-Team/Datalog GitHub Wiki

This guide will help in setting up the Nova mod manager for the PC version of the XIII trilogy.

Each game in the trilogy is sometimes referred to shortly by the modding community as follows:

  • FINAL FANTASY XIII is known as XIII-1
  • FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 is known as XIII-2 and
  • LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII is known as XIII-LR or just LR

Game files verification

Before proceeding any further, you need to make sure that your PC version games files are clean and unmodified. You need to do this separately for each game that you own.

  • Open your Steam application and in your Library section, right click on either XIII-1, or XIII-2, or LR. (just the one you have installed or the one you wish to do the setup for now).
  • In the small menu that appears, click on Properties.
  • Then in the new small window that opens, go to the LOCAL FILES section and there click on the verify integrity of game files... option. This should do the verification on the game files and if there is any file that was modified before, then it will be re downloaded by Steam. Once the verification and the re downloading is complete, please move to the next section.

Setting up Nova

  1. From your steam library, launch the game and close it as soon as you reach the game's title screen. this step is important as the game would need to create some default configuration settings which will only happen after it has launched once. remember that the game you launch has to be the same one for which you are setting it up with Nova. if you are setting up Nova for all the three games, then launch each game from your steam library separately and close it at the title screen. make sure not to launch all of them at the same time.

  2. Download the Nova Chrysalia.zip file from the #announcements channel in the Discord server.

  3. Extract the zip file that you downloaded with WinRAR or 7Zip software and open the NovaChrysalia.exe file. This should open the Mod manager.

  4. In the Game Launcher tab in Nova, set the Install directory for the games that you own by clicking on the Browse button and navigate to the respective game's directory or the root folder. For XIII-1 it will be the FINAL FANTASY XIII folder, for XIII-2 it will be the FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 folder and for LR it will be the LIGHTNING RETURNS FINAL FANTASY XIII folder.

  5. Once you have located the folder in the small navigation window, click on it and then click the Select folder option in the navigation window.

  6. In the Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2 settings row, customize the graphic settings for your game as well as the Voice over settings too.

  7. We shall now proceed to the Unpacking process.

The game files are stored in large BIN files and have a separate set for English and Japanese audio. We will need to unpack these files to make it more modding friendly and this unpacking will require some free space in the drive where you have the game installed.

You will need 110gb of free space for XIII, 60gb for XIII-2 and 50gb for XIII-LR. These are the approximate sizes if you want to unpack the files for the two language options. If you are going to unpack for a single language option, then the size is going to be reduced.

In the first row and right above the Launch game option, you have to set the dot to the game that you want to launch or do the Unpacking. so set the dot to the one you want to Unpack for now and in the last row, set the Filesystem to Unpacked Mode

  1. In that same row where the Filesystem option was present, click on either the Unpack Game Data (EN Audio) or the Unpack Game data (JP audio) options. You can only unpack one of them at a time, so click on the one you want to unpack first.

Click on the Yes option in the prompt that appears and the Unpacking process will start. This process will take some time to complete and once it's done you'll be notified by a prompt. Click on the Ok button to close it.

If the unpacking process completes too quickly then you probably have the ASIA/JP region version of the game that only ships with Japanese audio files. If this is the case, then click on the Unpack Game data (JP audio) option and wait for the Unpacking process to be done.

  1. We shall now do a test run. In the first row, set the dot to the one you have the game files unpacked or the one you want to launch now for a test run. After setting the dot to your respective game, click on the Launch Game option below and see if the game opens properly.

  2. If the game opens properly, then you have been successful with setting up this mod manager. yay! good job.