Ecclesiastes

BNW 202020 I never imagined things would come this far. It's strange, since I first played 1.4 and thought that was outstanding. I then played 1.6.4 and thought it was even better. 1.9, another benchmark in success. Then came the 2.0 beta in May 2019, which I played because it was "basically final", and even that is substantially outdated. Never before have I shilled a romhack to people IRL, but this is that big a deal. I can't wait to get into this new release. Hopefully I don't unearth some ancient ritual deep in the code. When I first heard about this pdf manual, I said I'd have been ecstatic just to have a word document with some random screenshots. What you and your wife created goes beyond the standard of what you're paying homage to. It's a real work of art.

Well, this playthrough I'm wrapping up was a good time to lean hard on non-Stamina builds in order to really enjoy the C&C/Regen hilarity in the next update. I can't wait for Strago.

Just when I thought Strago was going to be out of my main rotation for once, they pull him back in.

I'm stalled somewhere late into the game's optional content(such is my wont with JRPGs), but I hope to finish it before 1.10 is available for download so I can jump right in. I don't have the firmest grasp of the details that have changed since I last played, but it plays better than ever, and certain rough patches I had in the past didn't catch my notice, so I will assume they were smoothed out(I'm certainly no smarter). I've noticed that there are a good handful of people who contribute to this project these days besides BTB and Synchysi, and I would like to thank them for their work on this very enjoyable mod. Also, I don't think I ever mentioned it, and I know there's been at least some snark about it on the internet, but I love the Iron Maiden references. I'm more of a Priest guy myself, but I'm not seeing any losing picks here.

Yeah, I'd thought as much. I swear, this game only functions because it's haunted.

So I'm using Doomstick in the Phoenix Cave, and it's a really great opener to a fight, but it's got some odd behavior in that X-Zone revives the undead. Not merely resetting the HP of existing targets, but bringing back targets that were already killed. FF6 vanilla being the extravagant mess it is, one where X-Zone is relegated to Wrexsoul cheese for me, I do not know what class of instant kill X-Zone actually is, so this may be original/intended behavior. Just after that, I had Setzer roll a Phoenix, a summon I'm sure this mod "loves". Everyone was alive, so nothing happens. Nothing except for Setzer sliding into the middle of a pincer attack during the summoning while Gau makes *two* blocking animations while the bird is onscreen. Characters getting all up in the enemy's business is a known thing, but a first for me, so I was entertained. I do not know the implications of Gau's blocks, however. His Rage was either Dragon or nothing, if that adds context.

Last I played Edgar, it was with a fairly standard 10 Golem 10 Palidor, and it put in the work. This time I'm at 10 Siren > 5 Unicorn > 5 Siren, and what this guy can do with elemental swords (Jump all day erry day) and Tools is truly remarkable. It's going to be hard to go back to Spears for the Cover build next game.

I have seen that once or twice in vanilla, in unicorn scenarios where I was in the list while MP was lost. Maybe some function interrupts the menu updating? I do unironically enjoy how BNW feels like an elaborate code audit of vanilla at times. About as fun as actually playing the game.

This is something I experienced when I left him on the Floating Continent to restock on some items and make a team that wasn't trash. Dirty thief was holding on to an Amulet I was losing my mind trying to reconcile memories of owning until I noticed I was also missing Healing Shivs. Not a big deal on the whole, unless one is planning on a prolonged WoB excursion and he's loaded with swag.

I had some horrific RNG on Number 024, with one Storm Blade's procs being the bulk of my offense(yay for Dragoon Seal's proc bonus). Hopefully Magimaster proves less stubborn without being too easy. Speaking of Storm Blade, I'm gonna miss that goofy sword when it's phased out. So much has changed since 1.7.4 that I never did look up a full changelog, but I'm enjoying the game even more than last time, if that metric has any value.

Another year, another playthrough of BNW! I last played on 1.6.4 or something, so I'm looking forward to checking out the changes made since. I'll be playing on my recently modded SNES Classic, so I may actually need to print that printme, which will be a new experience. Making that my desktop wallpaper with a fairly tiny emulator window has been my FF6 environment since 2013. Glad to see you still get some mileage out of pimping that blog post(I'm so happy that's still your website).