BTB

Brave New World 2.0 Is Now Available!

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I just finished my first playthrough of v2.0 (second playthru of BNW - I played 1.9 previously) and thought I'd write up some impressions.

First off, great job on the game balance!  I made a special effort this time to main characters I didn't focus on last time - Gau, Strago, Setzer, Mog - and found them all to have surprising flexibility and craftibility. The few times I found myself seriously stuck, I was able to think my way out of the problem by changing strategy (most notably, Gau Locke and Sabin in the minecart ride - thanks to the forum for suggesting Rain Man!)  The challenge was on point: while I didn't feel like I game over'd too often, I would still start pumping my fist in the air and cheering when the death animation hit for almost every boss, it was that satisfying.  Excellent work on the character scenes, too.  I'm not a huge fan of the referencey humor, but that was toned down here, and I AM a huge fan of the awesome characterizations in this release - everyone seems more of themselves, Celes and Setzer really shine, even Gogo picks up a good line or two!  

I wrapped up the game with my crew at level 30--32, Esper level mostly 22-23.  Kaiser was great - I love the extra strategic layer for that fight, and it was extremely satisfying (although I'm still not sure whether I figured out what I was supposed to do or just got lucky).  I was pleasantly surprised to run into some real difficulty with Kefka and had to retry the last fight a few times.  Eventually, I used Runic with Celes to absorb the Meteor counters, kept up non-magical healing with Setzer and Sabin, and dealt damage mostly with Terra's Ragnarok procs, with the occasional double Fixed Dice and claw attacks thrown in for extra.

There were a few things that struck me as off.  First, Edgar's Mana Battery seems underpowered: I gave him 15 Siren levels, but at the end he was still only hitting for +45 MP, so why wouldn't you just throw a tincture?  (Especially since I was rolling in money well before the end game.)  In comparison, his bro (13 Stray) Sabin's Chakra gives >50 MP to all three of the other party members - to match that performance, I would expect the Mana Battery to do more like +100 or +150 MP on one target.  Second, I don't really understand the choice to remove the elemental beams from the Magitek Armor: it made the beginning feel less like "awesome introduction to the game world" and more like "boring filler to get through ASAP".  (That was accentuated by Whelk being further nerfed, it felt like that battle was over in 3 hits.)  It also removed some enjoyable storytelling from Cyan's dream.  If it's a matter of the beams having identical effects, they could be used to provide an intro to the elemental system - for example, make the mammoths immune to ice, make wolves weak to bolt; maybe make Whelk adapt to absorb the last beam type that hit it, so the player has to keep rotating.  Then the beams have a purpose in addition to looking cool, and the player has something to do besides mash A.  Third, I really enjoyed the storytelling in the escape from the floating continent, but the forced use of one particular action in the battles felt like it went against the ethos of 'play how you like' that the rest of the game does so well.  It's awesome, people will use it without being required to.  And honestly, that's about it.  Everything else is refreshing and awesome.  

All in all, this has been the most fun I've had with this game since probably before 2000.  Thank you so much to the devs who have put so much effort into bringing the strategy and gameplay of this classic up to par with everything else we love about it!  

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RE: The Mana Battery, it benefits from +25% magic relics, i.e. the Nirvana Band. I'm guessing you weren't using it on Edgar with those numbers.

RE: The elemental beams, they took up valuable real estate in the spell index and added nothing appreciable to the game, so they got cut.

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Just completed BNW 2.0, and absolutely enjoyed every moment. The mod really pulls out the potential of what FFVI could have been. Really enjoyed the character build crafting & boss fights. These aspects are just missing in the recent FFs, like FFXV which i completed before playing BNW.

One minor annoyance is that i had to backtrack to re-organize the party a few times. Once was at Kefka tower. I fought to the top with Cyan's tempest (still hits?) & Shadow's Kazekiri/Kagenui procs. Then faced a wall with MagiMaster because my team had no magic spells. Another was with Kaiser. The first time i went through, the team (with Umaro...) facing Kaiser had no magic to deal with his mechanic. I had to warp out, rejig the team and fight through the dungeon again which breaks the flow.

Nonetheless, the mod is a masterpiece. JRPG boss fights have not been this intense in a long time. Thanks a lot for this mod!

Quote

WrexSoul.png

 

Edited by vin

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On 4/24/2020 at 5:08 AM, vin said:

The first time i went through, the team (with Umaro...) facing Kaiser had no magic to deal with his mechanic. I had to warp out, rejig the team and fight through the dungeon again which breaks the flow.

Thinking you have to backtrack is perfectly understandable, Magimaster and Kaizer's gimmicks can be handled by any party comp (assuming one has all their abilities unlocked).

Hell, Umaro was used in the fastest and smoothest Kaiser kill I've seen.

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I've been quietly gathering bug reports since the release of 2.0 for a minor bugfix update at some unspecified in the future. Sat down over the last few days to work up this tentative changelog:

 • Wagers are no longer lost at the Colosseum if you lose the battle (Bropedio)

 • Defending now doubles a character's chances to cover healthy allies (Seibaby)

 • Celes now remains in her "Defend" stance as long as Runic is active (Bropedio)

 • The "Blind" status now affects your chance to successfully steal (Bropedio)

 • Increased the damage reduction for "friendly fire" from 50% to 75% (Bropedio)

 • Golem no longer blocks non-damaging attacks or inherits bonuses from its protectee (Bropedio)

 • Elemental attacks which are nulled or absorbed no longer attempt to set statuses (Bropedio)

 • Abilities which cure HP and remove statuses now work properly on petrified characters (Bropedio)

 • Fixed the exploit where status-prevention relics would cure negative statuses (Seibaby)

 • The Scan spell now displays HP and MP values for non-boss enemies (Bropedio)

 • Cyan's starting vigor is now correctly set to 42 (instead of 43)

 • Swapped the immunity to Blind on Siren with the immunity to Bserk on Stray

 • The "Stop" effect on Suplex and the "Muddle" effect on Flurry now check enemy stamina for evasion

 • Bad Breath no longer incorrectly sets Sap

 • Plasma is now just water damage (was water/bolt)

 • Toxic Frog is now water/dark elemental (was just dark)

 • Raised the power of the Rune Blade to 150 (from 140)

 • The Kunai and Ninjato now correctly possess the "strong against flying foes" property

 • The Punisher now correctly grants the critical damage bonus to the Dark spell

 • The Cursed Shield now correctly sets Sap instead of Condemned

 • The White Cape now blocks Stop instead of Bserk (and in addition to Imp/Mute)

 • Renamed the Storm Belt (now Psycho Belt) to something more indicative of its true function

 • Rewrote the "ATB tutorial" gimmick back into Whelk's script

 • Undead enemies are no longer inherently immune to Stop

 • Crawlers no longer use Magntidue on low-level parties

 • The South Figaro basement is no longer accessible prior to Locke's scenario

 • Adjusted the timer in Phantom's script (should prevent "cheap" RNG deaths)

 • Fixed a error in Dadaluma's script when attempting to target invisible characters

 • Significantly rewrote 024's script to further reinforce the battle's intended mechanic

 • Changed the behavior of the Cyborg/Robot/Android enemy group when hit with bolt damage

 • The "Tek Armor" enemy group should no longer be able to set barrier on other enemies

 • Lowered the magic defense of the Wight/Wraith/Revenant enemy group

 • Kudzu and Locusts can now be encountered in the WoR so that their rages are no longer missable

 • The "Ninja" enemy group can no longer re-vanish as a counter to having the status cleared

 • Behemoths are now correctly immune to Sleep

 • Slightly adjusted Atma's script to further reinforce the battle's intended mechanic

 • Fixed a bug in the Tentacle battle where characters seized at full ATB would freeze when discarded (Bropedio)

 • Tentacles C and D now have the correct defense and magic defense, respectively

 • The Hoodwink and Windrunner enemies no longer always open with Blight

 • Curly now heals Larry and Moe more frequently

 • The merchant in Cyan's Nightmare now has better merchandise

 • Wrexsoul now correctly drops Force Armor instead of Genji Armor

 • Removed the new Ebot's Rock save point as it could potentially softlock your save file

 • The Hidonites are now properly flagged as undead

 • Fixed a targeting error in Hidon's script and made it less likely to miss learning Shield

 • Changed the Sketch results for Hidon and Guardian to something more (potentially) useful

 • Changed the overworld sprites of the elemental dragons to more correctly match their color

 • The White and Green Dragons now lose the sap status when healing themselves instead of gaining regen

 • A certain boss is no longer mandatory once triggered and now better telegraphs its attacks

 • Fixed an oversight in Asura's script which allowed her to potentially use N.Cross twice in a row

 • Reduced the overall damage output of the "Face" component in the first phase of the final battle

 • Fixed an error in Kefka's script that was causing Meteor to be cast more frequently than intended

 • Fixed several other minor bugs

    --> Subsequent EL resets are now properly denied if the player lacks sufficient funds
    --> The Lich and Kudzu rages are now listed in correct (alphabetical) order
    --> The Mute status no longer prevents Gau/Gogo from using Aqualung with the Chimera rage
    --> The 5x Chickenlip and 5x Anemone formations are now leapable and will appear on the Veldt
    --> Fixed minor visual glitches with two enemy formations (Tyrano/Troll and L1/L2 Mage)
    --> Set the correct battle entrance animation for Zone Eater and Land Worms
    --> Spellcasting animations should no longer persist through death
    --> Corrected the menu description for Raze to include the wind element
    --> Corrected the description for a certain key item to include its second effect
    --> Corrected the value of a certain hidden rare item (0 -> 2)
    --> Corrected the description of Lifeshaver in the (Unlockme) Printme

 • Clarified several pieces of advice and some weapon descriptions

 • Improved several minor bits of dialogue (special thanks to Field)

 • Renamed a certain minor character (special thanks to Bauglir)

 • Fixed some minor errors in the BNWCP

 • Added a deleted scene to the Unlockme.txt file

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10 hours ago, BTB said:

A certain hidden boss is no longer mandatory once triggered and now better telegraphs its attacks

I am uncertain what boss this is referring to. Is this some hush-hush Mystery Egg kind of stuff, or something a fairly thorough player has probably encountered as a matter of course?

Love the new Defend/Cover interaction, btw.

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On 2020-06-07 at 6:56 PM, SirNewtonFig said:

I am uncertain what boss this is referring to. Is this some hush-hush Mystery Egg kind of stuff, or something a fairly thorough player has probably encountered as a matter of course?

Love the new Defend/Cover interaction, btw.

It's kinda hushy, but if you're doing everything in the game you will come across it.

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6 hours ago, Yuyu said:

It's kinda hushy, but if you're doing everything in the game you will come across it.

Just when I thought I *was* doing everything in the game! Is this missable, or could I fire up my last save and still find this if I scour the world long enough?

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On 6/7/2020 at 11:48 AM, BTB said:

• Wagers are no longer lost at the Colosseum if you lose the battle (Bropedio)

This, coupled with a hack to let you control your character, seems like a great way to add some very fun challenging/rewarding fights to the Colosseum in addition to the current item trading. But I get that this is just a bugfix patch.

Just when I thought the game was finished though, you continue to polish things. Awesome!   

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Given that the colosseum is uncontrollable, I've deliberately scaled back on the difficulty there since it's mostly fake difficulty.

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Well that's why I said "coupled with a hack to let you control your character."

I totally agree with you about the fake difficulty otherwise. But if you don't lose your wagered item when you lose AND you can control your character... that could make for some interesting possibilities.

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How soon do you think the bug fix will be available, BTB? I'm really enjoying 2.0 so far after beating 1.9 some time ago, but I fear going too far without being able to use my current save with an updated version of the game.

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13 hours ago, beechteeth said:

How soon do you think the bug fix will be available, BTB? I'm really enjoying 2.0 so far after beating 1.9 some time ago, but I fear going too far without being able to use my current save with an updated version of the game.

No ETA, it's just a "Done when it's done" one. As far as save compatibility goes, this isn't going to be a major patch and your old saves will remain usable unless you consider "Cyan has 1 more vigor than he should" to be gamebreaking.

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16 hours ago, CourtlyHades296 said:

The site for buying a repro is down.

Yeah, I've tried to get in touch with Katy but she hasn't been responding.

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If anyone feels like helping test the bugfix patch (see changelog above), it's pinned in our Discord server.

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About the patch the bugfix and play it on a SNES emulator for my PSP. Does this require a special rom? Could you post the SHA256 hash for the headered and unheadered roms? I can provide detailed instructions for doing this on Windows 10 or Linux if you like.

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The version doesn't matter - BNW will force-convert any version of FF6US into the correct one.

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14 hours ago, BTB said:

The version doesn't matter - BNW will force-convert any version of FF6US into the correct one.

I feel like I should make a reply which references the BNW IPS patch as a bossy Japanese anime girl trope here, but I don't watch anime.

edit

The rom with the SHA256 hash below freezes just after the soldier mentions the slave crown in the intro. Sound still present.

Final Fantasy III (USA) (Rev 1).sfc

10ECCC5D2FAB81346DD759F6BE478DCB682EEF981E8D3D662DA176E1F9A996BC

Edited by MysticLord

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Just wanted to mention, because I dont see it in the patch notes, that Raze does fire/wind damage but the description only says fire (no mention of wind).

I'm not sure if the description is wrong or if the spell is working wrong, but they dont agree.

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2 hours ago, Dyne said:

Just wanted to mention, because I dont see it in the patch notes, that Raze does fire/wind damage but the description only says fire (no mention of wind).

I'm not sure if the description is wrong or if the spell is working wrong, but they dont agree.

The description was wrong. Good catch, thank you!

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