I've setup a new repo on Github for NES Demos that I sometimes write just for fun. Usually these stem from reverse engineering tidbits from existing ROMs, and adapting and improving upon what I learn from that process.

The first demo I've put in this new repo is a demo of how the effect on intro screen in Final Fantasy III is done. The demo code illustrates a few things:

• NES initialization
• Interacting with the PPU
• Using a self-modifying interupt handler
• The effect itself / using the attribute table
• A suitable text layout routine

Here's a brief description of the technique used for the effect:

• The first thing to keep in mind, is that FF3 writes each page to the nametable before the effect begins. You only see a blue screen as it's using the first palette (#0) at this stage.
• When the effect begins, each line of text is assigned palette #2. It then begins rotating color #3 (the primary color for the text.)
• When the palette effect is finished, the line is assigned palette #3. This results in the grey-ish color you see after the effect has finished.
• The palette changes are made by updating the attribute table per line as required.

The color rotation subroutine is the lynchpin for the entire effect. It uses a simple frame counter to count NMIs, making the text one shade lighter every 16 frames, or 3 times per second. For each odd-numbered frame in between (3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15), the text is made one shade darker, wrapping around at color #1 (dark-grey). Once the wrap-around occurs, the color will remain dark-grey until the 16th frame.

As always, see the code for a more in-depth explanation. I ain't had a chance to test this on my NES yet, but I can imagine it should work just fine.