Brave New World 1.9.0 is now available!

[BTB 236]

Download Brave New World Here

(New to Brave New World? Want to know what it's all about? Check out the Readme here or our list of Frequently Asked Questions.)

It's that time again, my friends! After a beta cycle that went on much longer than we were expecting, Brave New World 1.9.0 is officially released today. The major features of this update include tying the game's cover and counter-attack mehcanics to stamina (the 'ol tank & spank) courtesy of Seibaby and one of the holy grails of FF6 modding in the form of GrayShadow's in-battle spell patch. There's also a lot more goodies in the Unlockme, including boxart courtesy of Shane at RetroGameCases and a little something special to snap into from our good friend Bauglir.

As always, many of the changes in this update are largely inspired by the feedback I get from players who stream on Twitch or post videos on Youtube. I take something away from every playthrough I watch, and more and more with each passing update, Brave New World truly is the work of the amazing community that surrounds it. I can honestly say that the humble project Synchysi and I began work on over six years ago would never be what it is today without all of you, and for that and much else I am eternally grateful. I don't know what the future holds for this mod, but I am certain that you all will be a huge part of it.

What's new in 1.9.0:

Spoiler

 • Added new hacks which allow stamina to influence counter-attacks and the possibility of "true knight"
   characters taking hits for healthy allies (critically-wounded characters are still always protected)

 • Fixed a bug where stamina would not protect against status ailments set by enemy "special" attacks

 • Added a hack to condense the in-battle spell menu (removes all empty spaces)

 • Fucked around with the spells that each character learns again (highlights: Relm gets Life and Stop,
   Mog picks up Haste, Celes learns Demi much earlier now, and Warp is again pushed back to the WoR)

 • The Life spell now revives to 250~500 HP instead of 1/4 maxHP; Phoenix Downs now revive to 1 HP

 • Raised Cyan's base stamina; lowered the power of the Dragon and Eclipse bushidos to compensate

 • Raised the chances for the Dragon bushido to set Stone from 50% to 66%

 • Raised the power of the Aurabolt blitz and swapped the levels at which it and Mantra are learned

 • Edited the GP Toss formula to do 50% more damage (note: edited Katanasoul's stats to compensate)

 • Lowered the power of the Blackjack and Solitaire slot spins

 • Lowered the cost of several spells, including Demi, Rasp, Dispel, and SleepX

 • Lowered the hitrate of several magical attacks to help make magic evasion more useful

 • Reworked & rebalanced swords to offer more (and better) choices for vigor-built characters

 • Swords that consume MP for critical hits now respect the "1/2 MP costs" effect of the Gem/Soul Box

 • Spears now inherently possess the "may guard allies" property instead of random counter-attacks

 • Adjusted the properties of the Wind Slash and Aero procs from the Kazekiri and Mutsunokami

 • Removed the Kagenui's speed boost and slightly adjusted the boosts on Shadow's other weapons

 • Changed Setzer's dice to boost stamina instead of magic and vise-versa for his other weapons

 • The Morning Star and Kusarigama now ignore defense instead of being anti-undead

 • The Demonsbane is now anti-undead in addition to holy-elemental

 • Raised the proc rate of anti-undead weapons from 25% to 50%

 • Fixed a bug where using items on undead characters would randomly kill them

 • Renamed the Diva Brush to Dali Brush and the Magic Brush to Monet Brush

 • Changed the animation of several weapons; also swapped the animations of the two "Blizzard" attacks

 • Corrected the Stormfang menu description

 • The BatPwr of the Soul Sabre and Omega Weapon now display correctly in the item menu

 • The Soul Sabre/Blood Sword are no longer ignored by the "Optimize" routine; the Omega Weapon now is

 • Switched the Colosseum opponents/prizes for the Masamune and Kagenui (and a few others)

 • Celes now starts with an Iron Cutlass instead of a Mythril Bolo

 • Gogo can now use Throw even if Shadow is dead

 • Interceptor now sets Sap

 • Lowered Golem's defense from 192 to 128

 • Made several changes to the Battle of Narshe

 • Made an important update to Atma Weapon's script

 • Fixed a bug in the Soul Fire script (Wrexsoul fight)

 • Enabled/disabled random encounters on a few maps for better consistency

 • Aquilas no longer have any MP as they do not use any attacks that use it

 • Phunbaba and Doom Gaze now give 10 spell points when defeated as other bosses do

 • Fixed a bug where it was not possible to run from all of the enemies in the New Mines

 • Rewrote Gau's tutorial to match how Leap now functions; also added a new line of dialogue for Gau

 • Added more screenshots, boxart with cart label, and enemy graphics to the unlockme image gallery

Brave New World is now available as a reproduction cartridge courtesy of our good friends at Retro Circuits. And if liking things on Facebook is your bag, baby, then by all means go nuts.

Edited February 22 by BTB

[Synchysi 50]

1 hour ago, BTB said:

After a beta cycle that went on much longer than we were expecting

This could be part of a new tagline for the mod at this point.

Edited January 7 by Synchysi

[BTB 236]

It's already taken

Edited January 7 by BTB

[Cainen 1]

Doomgaze is giving out 10 SP every time he flees.

[BTB 236]

If I can free up two bytes somewhere to slip a FB 02 into his script, that'll fix it.

[BoneDude 1]

Quote

Added new hacks which allow stamina to influence counter-attacks and the possibility of "true knight"
   characters taking hits for healthy allies (critically-wounded characters are still always protected)

Wow, I remember you saying this wasn't a possibility just a few versions ago.
Thanks for all your hard work!

[Synchysi 50]

It was up until much better hackers than myself began offering their services.

[thzfunnymzn 83]

There's an Alternate Sprites folder in the Unlockme now. Have ya'll considered putting Think's "Behold, Pants!" sprites in that folder? Armor Celes is awesome.

[BTB 236]

When 1.9.1 comes around, I'll probably add to it. I just haven't really fucked around much with alternate sprites since I was never really interested in the ones that put more clothes on Celes >.>

[MagiteKira 5]

Yay!

[BTB 236]

Quick list of things for an eventual 1.9.1 release:

• Soldier rage to Cure 2 / Special ; Rhinotaur to Remedy / Special

• Stop hitting yourself, Powerslave

• Musn't

• Cafe to Pub (maybe)

• Random encounter patch (maybe)

• Atma Weapon to respect Jump (if anyone decides to try to code it)

• Considering upping the random kill rate on the Nodachi/Doom Darts to 33% or 50%

[thzfunnymzn 83]

If it means anything, I'll personally chime in that I think "randomly kill" is pretty irrelevant on a lategame weapon like Doom Darts. Sure, Doom Darts x2 has a 75% kill rate. Except Setzer can just cast Doom, or better yet, summon Shoat; it ain't like the darts themselves are hitting terribly hard anyways. Not to mention X-Zone, Cleave, Mog's own Shoat & Doom, vig Mog's Doomstick (which does hit hard & will likely hit first in any given random), Gogo's X-Zone & Cleave, amidst various other powerful AoE, status control, and single target attacks by your other party members relative to the WoR enemies. Kefka's has stronger foes, but IIRC, many of them resist Doom; that, and Setzer gets Fixed Dice anyways.

Nodachi I guess could use more love though? * shrug * I mostly just use it for the increase in damage to Bushido.

[Zanbaka 0]

Hey guys I have a question about this mod. If you play the game on a patched FF3 US version, are the graphics then censored or uncensored?

 

Spoiler

Tbh I don't want to find out after a few hours playing that they for example removed the Celes torture scene, since it would detract a lot from the experience.

In case the graphics are censored, is it possible to patch the mod onto a FF6 Jap version? Please lmk before I continue playing again

[BTB 236]

Everything is uncensored, except apparently the pubs are still called cafe's.

[BTB 236]

Note to self: a split shuriken should probably be sufficient to wipe out a party of Rabites in the early parts of Sabin's scenario. Should lower their HP in the next update.

[GLH 18]

On 2/25/2018 at 6:55 AM, SpoonyBard said:

Suggestion: Make Primordite (south figaro cave, locke's scenario) weak to ice or lower their HP to roughly 100

Reasons: Counters physicals with nasty megavolt, formation with 2x Primordite is very common, and all you can do is use up 2 turns with Celes because MT ice doesn't oneshot them.

Not only it drags the fight unnecessarily, but more importantly 12 MP in a fight at that point will make you run out very quickly, so you risk being forced to use physicals against them which means nasty counters.

I think it's a much more tedious fight than it's intended IMO.

Currently they got 200 HP and are weak to fire/bolt like their cousins, weaknesses you cannot exploit at that point.

I'm quoting this post over in this thread as I have to second the request by Spoony here. Primordites are absolute unneeded pains to deal with so early in the game.

[BTB 236]

I just realized that Stray has the wrong spell list - it teaches Mute instead of Sleep. Will fix that in the next version.

[F-Bomb 14]

On 2/26/2018 at 1:55 AM, SpoonyBard said:

Suggestion: Make Primordite (south figaro cave, locke's scenario) weak to ice or lower their HP to roughly 100

Reasons: Counters physicals with nasty megavolt, formation with 2x Primordite is very common, and all you can do is use up 2 turns with Celes because MT ice doesn't oneshot them.

Not only it drags the fight unnecessarily, but more importantly 12 MP in a fight at that point will make you run out very quickly, so you risk being forced to use physicals against them which means nasty counters.

I think it's a much more tedious fight than it's intended IMO.

Currently they got 200 HP and are weak to fire/bolt like their cousins, weaknesses you cannot exploit at that point.

 

On 3/1/2018 at 0:34 PM, GLH said:

I'm quoting this post over in this thread as I have to second the request by Spoony here. Primordites are absolute unneeded pains to deal with so early in the game.

Sorry to be a thorn in the side. But I disagree. Having played through this last night with Locke having 

Spoiler

Power glove (it's so bad!) And the Black belt from the South Figaro underground.

I was easily one shoting the Primordites . Leaving Celes to ST ice for instant kills.

Spoiler

Also there is a recovery spring right before the boss so MP management shouldn't be an issue. 

Just my 2 cents.

[willior 1]

Hi,

I first played BNW last year and was flabbergasted at how good it was. I could write paragraphs praising the creators' attention towards engaging gameplay.

It's hard to go back to vanilla now. It's unfortunate because I want to play through FFVI again with a friend who is a beginner, but I think this mod might be a bit too difficult in terms of some of the battles. I remember some really clutch decisions having to be made in order to just barely survive, and I'm an FFVI vet.

I wish there was a version or patch that targeted FFVI virgins. Everything about the mod is superb, but it seems designed solely for those familiar with the original.

What with how tightly every encounter is designed in BNW, I doubt something like this is in the works. But I just wish there was patch to even slightly alter damage values/health pools, if only to curb the number of game overs we'd likely run into (playing with a complete newb). I just wish there was an option to play with BNW's mechanics with an overall difficulty more closely resembling the original game.

For the record, as a vet, I thought the difficulty was pretty spot-on when I played. Just not for a new player.

Thanks for all your hard work.

[SpoonyBard 20]

11 hours ago, F-Bomb said:

 

Sorry to be a thorn in the side. But I disagree. Having played through this last night with Locke having 

  Hide contents

Power glove (it's so bad!) And the Black belt from the South Figaro underground.

I was easily one shoting the Primordites . Leaving Celes to ST ice for instant kills.

  Reveal hidden contents

Also there is a recovery spring right before the boss so MP management shouldn't be an issue. 

Just my 2 cents.

At the level I was at, with powerglove and all I'd be doing around 90-120 damage and eat a megavolt to the face.

To do over 200 on a high defense enemy, you were probably not level 9-11 which is the intended level for that area.

 

It's not about how hard they are (they are not), it's more about the fact that literally every formation even lategame has (multiple) ways of being handled flawlessly, and this one doesn't. And since your options are limited to physicals with locke+celes and magic with celes at that point in the game, an enemy that isn't weak to either while countering the more spammable of the two options, automatically becomes stronger than it should be.

And it's not any more special than all the other formations before and after this area, so why should it be? Even if you level high enough to the point locke can 1shot, you're still eating a megavolt. I would't call that optimal.

Solution I didn't think of, replace megavolt counter with bolt, so celes can Runic and be useful. (Although admittedly, runic doesn't get shoved down your throat until the boss of that area so new players might not be aware of it, but then again who would play this without having beaten vanilla first is beyond me)

Edited March 8 by SpoonyBard

[BTB 236]

Note to self: can probably re-check the "hide opponent" flag for the version of the Kagenui that you have to bet to get Shadow.

Also should consider adding a ghost merchant to Cyan's Nightmare.

Edited March 9 by BTB

[d'Aubigne 4]

Unsure whether or not this was an intentional joke but most of the WoR stuff that are "Locked!" become "*Name*d!" where *Name* is whatever you renamed Locke to. 

Easily testable: WoR Narshe doors and Cyan's treasure chest. 

 

Enjoying the mod very much so far. About to tackle Doma Castle.

[BTB 236]

It's a space-saving technique I used in the dialogue bank, as well as in intentional Easter Egg.

[Nesouk 23]

On 08/03/2018 at 9:03 PM, SpoonyBard said:

At the level I was at, with powerglove and all I'd be doing around 90-120 damage and eat a megavolt to the face.

To do over 200 on a high defense enemy, you were probably not level 9-11 which is the intended level for that area.

 

It's not about how hard they are (they are not), it's more about the fact that literally every formation even lategame has (multiple) ways of being handled flawlessly, and this one doesn't. And since your options are limited to physicals with locke+celes and magic with celes at that point in the game, an enemy that isn't weak to either while countering the more spammable of the two options, automatically becomes stronger than it should be.

And it's not any more special than all the other formations before and after this area, so why should it be? Even if you level high enough to the point locke can 1shot, you're still eating a megavolt. I would't call that optimal.

Solution I didn't think of, replace megavolt counter with bolt, so celes can Runic and be useful. (Although admittedly, runic doesn't get shoved down your throat until the boss of that area so new players might not be aware of it, but then again who would play this without having beaten vanilla first is beyond me)

So basically because you can't beat a random encounter without taking damage, it's a problem ? I honnestly don't get the problem here, Random Encounter should give some threat if you know they are going to counter then just prepare Celes to heal, I pass this area and didn't have any problem with them, and besides this is an area that you will go through in what ? 5 minutes at worst.

Also at LV9-10 Locke can indeed one-shot them if you get the strongest throw with the Boomerang (doing around 120 damage each strong throw)

Edited March 11 by Nesouk

[ZeroEdgeir 1]

As a first-time player of this mod (and having read the comment about this before I got to said cave), I had no issues with the Primordites. Did what I could to gear Celes for Magic, and while she had to ST the spell, Ice did kill them in one hit, was hitting around 190-210 damage no problem. Now, it's not like it was a "hard" magic gearing, that early in the game, just whatever Terra had been wearing, armor-wise, along with the Magic Box relic (the +50% MP one) and whatever other relic could boost her Magic higher.

Beyond that, I am thoroughly enjoying this revamp to the game's mechanics, as I am about to be tackling the Floating Continent. The fact I've had bosses (and even some random encounters) put me down, is actually refreshing, forcing me to learn how to handle what is going on in the fight. Only "abused" save states right before bosses, simply to save time trekking back to them from the last save point in case of a failure.

Also, through pure accident, I think I overleveled a bit... Is 20 what you should be hitting the FC at?