Abobo

I applaud the hackers that created this. While I enjoyed about 90% of the hack I must say the creators deserve a 100% commendation. First things first(for the purposes of the review I will make clear that I used the first and second page of the printme..primarily for Gau rages and Strago lores...I emphasise i did not use the monster/item data during my playthrough) . The modification that allows "dungeon" music to be played during random encounters was my favorite change. The original battle music grinded my nerves....this change allowed me to enjoy the random encounters....including the time they became too easy(painful?). I found the world of balance extremely...err..uhm...balanced. I encountered a number of random fight wipes, primarily due to negligence or all in strategies. The bosses were not overly challenging in the hardtype sense...I had few defeats but i found the mechanics fun. The world of ruin, initially, i found difficult(Primarily solo Celes & Celes/Sabin...number of wipes). As my party progressed to a full four and levels progressed beyond 25 things became exponentially easier. The WOR overworld and the majority of "dungeons"(with the exception of ancient castle) felt balanced for a level ~25 party. I used 8 out of the 14 with 2 permenantly earning a seat on the airship. Don't misunderstand me...I enjoyed the WoR sequence very much....I felt it could have been balanced more toward a level ~30 number. I dislike, very much, the ability to turn off Exp gains. This seems like an intentional handicap to keep the hack balanced in regards to average level. Hypocritically, I did use the function once on the Vector continent to negate xp and gain money for armor upgrades. I am biased, yet I feel the entire purpose of RPGs of this type is to gain an exp reward at the conclusion of battle(the new system not withstanding) which steadily increases the strength of the party. Most of my 12 usable characters were between levels 25-30 when I ventured to Ebots Rock(the 3rd to last "dungeon" i vistited, before Fanatic's Tower and Kefka's Tower). I gainied an average of 3 levels per character in Ebot's Rock at which point I continually used the warp spell or warp whistles to avoid exp gain(which I did during most of the WOR). In short....I did not find esper exp and money gain worth the sacrifice of gaining true levels(which grant a number of improvements per character). If i was going to be forced to fight battles with no gain I might as well warp out and avoid the tedium. Kefka's Tower was a huge improvement in exp/esper exp and challenge yet i found myselfing warping from the majority of encounters to avoid exp gain(excluding my 1st of the 3 parties, discussed later). With that being said...the changes to the spell point system and esper levels in general is exceptional. In the original game most of the times I played the grinding came in the form of farming for spell points(hours). That is negated in this hack in an exceptional manner. The other factor of grinding is eliminated with the esper levels, which I fully endorse. I haven't played FF6 much in the last ~15 years yet when I did I invariably found myself beating the world of balance at the lowest tolerable level to maximize esper stat gains in the world of ruin. Both systems as implemented make me wonder how the original game designers overlooked this feature. Compunding my few complaints about this hack, as described above, was how items were systematically moved/changed. I understand why this was done yet on the other hand I never acquired the Mug relic, Umaros throw relic, Umaros ice relic, a megalixer, or the Hero Shield(yes, this was the only item I looked up for stats in the printme...finding it underwhelming I bet it for a Genji(?) shield). Part of this complaint touches on the example of area balance. I did not want to gain XP in zozo to the point of being overleveled yet I also did not have the desire to discover the new time. Regarding the Hero shield. I don't know if I had to fight 255 battles or 5 battles to improve it. Either way the collesium bet was better. With my general review finished I'll move onto the characters/bosses. Cyan: I loved the changes. In the original I always used his swdtech to good use even with the god awful timer. With that weakness removed Cyan became my most versatile member. He did consistent damage with swdtech(which I always used before...never teaching him spells other than healing). His healing and life ability made him an emergency resource which I always treated him anyway. The swdtech speedup change did nothing but made him exponentially more useful. Mog: I did not recruit him in the WOB. I used him for two sequences...Narshe and Kefka Tower. During the Narshe sequence I found him underwhelming(due in part to 0 esper levels). However, in Kefka's Tower, he was, by far, the most effective tank by a very wide margin. His ability to achieve ~201 defense with a partisan/genji shield/genji helm/snow muffler/safety gauntlet combined with the moogle charm for dance(read: harvester) made him the most versatile tank. Things which one shot most party members Mog brushed off. Tyrfling(?) 800 damage. Knockout 400 damage. Dragon Claws/Atma2 full power 350 damage. His exceptional ability to take damage combined with harvester or a lucky racoon earns him the spot of best tank in game. Setzer: Exceptional at all he can do. The maneater/avenger/demonsbane allow him to strike racial weakness far more reliably than elemental weakness. He has amazing healing and his slots make do in the WOB. Potentialy amazing healing ability/damage potential/tanking with fixed dice/shield. I did not bet soul for gp toss. 2x fixed dice was amazing in KT. 8900X2! Once...... Terra: Found general use in sealed gate cave/thamasa/floating continent. In the WOR she is underwhelming until Life2/Tritoch. Then she becomes a powerhouse healer/potential damage dealer, all the moreso due to morph. I didn't use her much in WOR but in KT she was top tier. Celes: She was average in all areas. Partly due to me deciding to ignore the esper level reset bonus partly due to her varied EL. Even so she was a great secondary healer with rerise and the ability to attack/cast for damage(no reason to make apocalyspe for terra when all she did was cast...even moreso when she got the half mp relic). All around decent jack of all. Edgar: Poor Edgar. Half the time I used the jump attack for 0 damage/or i healed the enemy. This was resolved with the partisan, which i used until I found longinus. His tools were his saving grace. Early game I never used the crossbow. Noise/Bio all the way. Never bought/found defibrillator. Phoenix downs/life served me well until I forgot to restock before KT and ran out of PD before the statues. Mana battery was a boon In KT. I ran out of tinctures/ethers before the statues and used my last Xether during statue 1. Sabin: Poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor Sabin. Not the games fault but mine. My funky Ps3 controllers does not accept up/down commands well. This, combined with poor attempts to strike elemental weakness with failure earned him my first permanent seat on the WoR airship. Shadow: Absolutely average in the WoR. He came into his own with the Kagenui/speed EL. He surpassed Cyan as my most consistent damage dealer with the orochi/kagenui combo. Haste spells, situational dispel and potion/Xpotion usage earned him a top spot on my teams. Umaro: My goodness. This guy is buffed beyond expectation. I never found his two unique relics and even so his damage is ridiculous. Hyper Wrist and a power glove/muscle belt insured he did 4k with his club or 8k with his body slam. I'd love to equip him with muscle belt/party toss relic, buff him with berserk/haste and see his damage. The fact he is "controlled" works to his advantage and he has always been one of my best damage dealers in this game, original or otherwise. Relm: She has good non-elemental damage but the most use i found for her was healer with her brushes/party heals along with sketch. Brushes are a good change yet her non elemental damage, while useful, is not nearly as good as her as a healer with Cyan/Shadow/Umaro. Does what she does well. Strago: He excels at nothing yet I found him to be the most generally useful party member to use while finding the rest. He can do pretty much everything between heal, status weakness, or damage, even with a rod of all things. His usefulness tapered off in KT but shield/dual shell was always useful, along with a properly timed holy wind. Locke: Did his cave 4th last. Had little reason to use him outside KT. There, he shined. Life2 is helpful but a berserk valiance locke is a thing to be feared. He destroyed guardian and, to a much slower extant, kasier and isis. Gau: He had his uses but i used few rages. In the WOB wild rat was his go to rage until Tentacle. In the WOR harvester, mantodea and dragon found use. In KT i used him to heal with regen often after i had revived him. Gogo: Never used him. I considered it. Then I saw he had 650 hp at level 25. This earned him my second permenant spot on the airship. BOSSES Dadulamu: Wiped me twice. I belatedly realized to defend jump. The battle was mine. Ultros/Typhon: Died twice. Equiping a safety gauntlet on Cyan and Gau, letting them die for the safe proc brought the win. Atma: I killed him 1st try but it took 4 Xpotions and 1 Xether along with common items to do it. I forgot to buy ninja throwables in Jidoor before I went. This probably saved me as Shadow had nothing to do but use items or haste/float/dispel during the battle. I dont know if dispel helped but it seemed to. I found the memento ring but I did not find out it taught rerise until Relm learned it in WOR. Daryl tomb boss: Died once. I thought overcast and rerise wokred together to provide the zombies. 2nd time i didnt use rerise and he dies easily. Zozo dragon: Went here immediately after airship since Cyan kicks so much ass. He opened with aero and wiped whole party. Decided to come back later. Doomgaze: Ran into him flying around. Same as above. 1 aero killed whole party. Killed him slightly later with a party of high maxhp people. Yeti: 1 death. His low hp script took me by surprise. Won through it 2nd time. Master pug: Easily wiped me. Came back later with lessons from pug in Umaro cave. Fell easily. Magi Master: I tried using non elemental attacks the 1st time. Not only did he not like it he used an elixer too! 2nd time I scan and blasted weakness. Dead. Isis: Died once. Did not use the right tactic with Gau(read: did not use harvester). Second time with tumbler healing almost every round the fight was mine. Notable Bosses Myria: Almost got wiped here. Setzer did most of the damage with fixed dice while Strago dual ice 2/terra heal/mog heal. Got tired of Strago being turned into zombie so setzer did the rest with fixed dice. Very close call. Stezer dead, mog zombie, strago zombie, ribbon terra alive. Myria was zombifying people before i could res/life(or in Strago case 1 hitting him). Decided to have Terra go all in with an Ice 3(i forgot to train ultima). It wasnt neccesary. Zombie Strago gets the kill with an ~800 damage attack. Closest fight by far. Mog with forest dance = invaluable to cure mind blast status. Guardian: Was tough during ultros rotuine with lvl 27 locke/edgar/29 gau/30 celes. When I got to phantom train gaurdian sealed his doom with evil toot, berserking valiance lokce. Kaiser Dragon: My god. The second most annyoing fight. It was the party above. Only had Celes/locke to hit weakness. I would have burned through mp long before he died. Instead I had gau use dragon, edgar beserk cyan, edgar mana battery celes, celes keep reise on gau/locke to eat the dozens upon dozens of bone breakers(?). This fight took well over an hour with this strat. To give an idea of how long it took the sap from edgar's drill did over 20000 damage at 246 a pop. I'm glad he didnt use an elixir when I went off script. Kefka: The first phase was the hardest. Had cyan/terra/shadow/relm. Shadow/relm both got 1 shot by meteor. Almost wiped on phase one but i slogged through with rerise/half mp life2. Shadow dies to exploder phase 2. No problem other than that. I left relm dead during phase 3 because she continually got 1 shot. All for the best as that brought in #6 spot and super tank/healer mog. Kefka killed with Cyan/terra/setzer/mog. Cyan did the majority of the damage, at minimum 10 #7 at 8k a pop. Terra summoned ragnarok and cast 3-4 ultimas, healed the rest. Setzer had 1 good round with fixed dice at about ~13k. The rest of the time he healed or did ~3k with dice(1 time he did 596 damage, TOTAL, with 2 attacks). Mog danced forest suite.. that was all. 1 close call when Kefka used fallen angel immediaetly after cyan/setzer/terra attacked. Mog was sitting around with full ATB hoping to pull a harvester out his ass. Instead I get a racoon! That was so hilarious even Kefka laughed. WREXSOUL! Holy mother of god! This was the only fight in the hack I felt forced to tailor a party not only for weakness but for effcient ability of killing party members. I had to go through this dungeon 3 times! Yes, that means I had to fight the god awful stooges 3 times. First two times I beat them without incident yet slowly. 3rd time, with shadow/terra/relm, I get Larry alone. He muddles relm, she kills the other 2 with punisher rod darks, than Larry makes relm eat a doom I believed the memento ring would block. .................... 4th time I killed them no problem. But WREXSOUL. He easily killed me ~9 times. Finally I HAD TO create a party of shadow/terra/relm. Shadow is the only member capable of one shotting party members(throwing shurikens or ninjatos at them). Other people "could" do it but they would be forced to sacrifice a weapon slot, a relic slot, or both to do so. Terra and relm i brought for fire 3/2 support. Even so, Shadow did the most damage in 1 round with dual maneater crits(4k/4k). This battle was by far the toughest in the game but strategy modification nullified it. All of my previous deaths were caused by me. I wrongly tried to ressurect the member WREXSOUL possesed. This gave him enough time to happily go into another member. When I left the possesed character dead and fought WREXSOUL with 2 live members to take all his and his friends hits, reviving after WREXSOUL hid again, he went down first try. I don't know why his minions have lifeshaver...I never damaged them in my numerous fights....but i thanked the stars whenever they used it. Well thats it. I was irked by a couple of decisions with the way the hack went. Overall, it is very well done. I don't know what "original" FF6 means any longer. I would counsel the world of ruin random battles to be balanced more toward the upper of level 30 and KT more toward level 35(.I fought 2 warmechs with terra and mog the only survivors both times. Mog went from lvl 27 Esper level 10 to level 30 Esper level 20...doesnt have much to do with randoms balance...but 10 esper levels in 2 fights?). That's about it. OH....COULD SOMEONE GIVE ME A HINT TO THE LOCATION OF UMAROS RELICS? *applause*