Final Fantasy 6: Return to Darkness

Making a new thread because... well, a lot's been done since then. This hack now has a somewhat different storyline than the original game. Essentially, Magic never fully ceased to be, but it is still quite rare to see. The Empire is after a legendary, evil power rumored to be even stronger than that of the Espers and Magic, sending the planet of Gaia into a frightening, familiar spiral...

Characters:
Terra: A girl born with the rare gift of magic. Terra has the natural ability to control Black Magic to her will. Terra naturally learns ONLY black magics during the course of the game, save for three spells which require special swords for her to learn. Terra's physical stats are slightly less than average, while her magic stats take priority. Her defense suffers do to the fact that she cannot wear heavy armor or helmets.
Commands: Attack, Trance, Magic, Items

Rita: A researcher of monsters. The girl specializes in gathering information and being all around sneaky at doing it. She can come of a bit impatient and cuts to the truth when needed, but she's not aiming to hurt feelings or anything like that. Rita's stats make her a pure magic user through and through. She should usually stay in the backrow whenever possible, as it doesn't take long for damage to wear down her HP. This keeps her safe due to her inabillity to wear any form of heavy armor and use shields.
Commands: Attack, Steal, Blue(Lore), Items

Edgar: The young, flirtatious king of Figaro. He isn't afraid to hit on a girl, even in the most inappropriate times. Still, he means well and does come through when needed. Edgar is one of the more physical-based characters of the hack, having a wide range of dealing damage through his skills and battle abilities. His Tools are now more expensive to buy, and several have now been relocated to balance him out more through the game.
Commands: Attack, Jump, Tools, Items

Lenne: Edgar's twin sister, and the younger of the two. While Edgar is calm, cool, collected, and proper, Lenne is... not. She's got more than enough energy to spare, and her quick, sporadic actions and thoughts can lead the group into bad situations more than once. She can be annoying at times, but she means well. Lenne is one of the most powerful physical-tanks of the game. She's got high HP and attack power. Her claws do not add to her basic attack power. Rather, they give her attack an elemental property, allowing one to be more strategic at times during battle. Her one draw back is that she suffers from one of the smallest armor selections in the game.
Commands: Attack, Blitz, Throw, Items

Shadow: The mysterious ninja we all know and love. Shadow is one of the most versatile characters in the game. His stats all fall in the middle of the spectrum, neither really excelling at magical or physical attacks. Instead, his main selling point is his amazing speed stat and having several way of doing damage. Shadow can either dual wield his ninja knives and attack up close, or stay in the back and equip his shuriken. This allows one to select just how they want to use the ninja as a fighter.
Commands: Attack, Throw, Plunder(Mug), Items

Judith: A dark knight of Doma. Judith is calm, cool, collected, and rather quiet. She's not one to take a whole bunch of nonsense, and seems to have a rather short fuse at times. Still, she is a dependable ally through and through. Judith has a strong sense of justice for her kingdom and love for her mother and brother. Judith is blessed with the ability to cast "Dark" magics such as Poison, Drain, and Demi. Despite being able to cast magic, Judith makes a bigger dent through her physical attacks and sword skills known as Heretic.
Commands: Attack, Heretic, Magic, Items

Gau: Everyone's favorite wild-child. Gau has probably some of the most well-rounded stats in the game. Like always, his main source of fighting is through his Rages. He can also help out with looting. Gau doesn't have many choices in armor, but he can equip one or two of the ranged-weapons to make up for this. Judith seems to be rather taken with the boy, constantly referring to him as "little one", while he easily gets on Lenne's nerves.
Commands: Rage, Leap, Steal, Items

Celes: A battle-hardened paladin and general of the Empire. Celes was born with the gift of being able to cast healing and support magic. One could say that she's an opposite to Terra, being able to equip heavy armor and heal when needed. She is one of the ONLY characters capable of healing without items, making her a worthwile ally in most situations.
Commands: Attack, Runic, Magic, Items

Kupo: A moogle with the unique ability to control and order monsters, animals and other creatures around. His physical skills are rather lacking, and his magic skills are only average at best. However, he has one of the larger selections of armor and is one of the few characters that can help out with healing. Kupo is essential for helping Rita learn several of her Blue skills.
Commands: Attack, Control, Health, Items

Setzer: That cool, professional gambler and master of the skies. Setzer is slightly weaker in both stat-wise aspects, making the backrow the safest place for him. However, he is more reliable than he sounds. His slots skills have been fixed to require a keen eye and proper timing, and he only uses the Gamble weapons now.
Commands: Attack, Slots, GP Rain, Items

Tamber: The older sister and caretaker of Relm. While the younger of the girls is an artist, Tamber makes her artistic mark on the world through dancing. She is quite knowledgable on several subjects, taking over and studying various things after the girls' grandfather passed away. Tamber has an innocent soul and cares deeply for her younger sister. She is able to learn status-related magic, such as Silence, Imp, and Sleep. Tamber's stats are more magic-based, with her physical power being rather weak.
Commands: Attack, Dance, Magic, Items

Relm: Tamber's younger sister and everyone's favorite young artist. Like her sister, Relm is more magic-based. Unlike her sister, Relm is a bit more of a troublemaker, and has quite a lip on her. Relm is responsible for learning the various Time-based magics of the game, such as Haste, Slow, and Float.
Commands: Attack, Sketch, Magic, Items

Gogo: A bit of tweaking done here. Gogo can only naturally equip a few daggers and rods as weapons. He requires a special accessory to wear other characters' weapons. This means that it takes a bit to get him up to par with his former, original self. He can no longer equip Magic as a command either, making all the magic-users more unique. However, he can still mimic the spells cast.
(Starting)Commands: Attack, Mimic, Items

Umaro: Still the most complex character in the series.

Screens:





This hack contains several things, including new monsters, new spells and skills, new characters, new dialogue, new items and equipment... Well, you get the idea. The overall difficulty of the game has also been increased along with the new additions. Being unprepared for boss fights or dungeons can now make you pay... horribly. Don't go in thinking you can just hold down the "confirm" button and win everything. Because you won't. Below I have posted some screenshots as well as a demo for anyone willing to try it out and let me know what they think.

http://www.mediafire.com/?fiqtzbh3x841wsm

The zip folder contains the patch for the demo, and a readme letting you get more information about the changes to the hack, patches applied to it, as well other bits of information. The demo's playtime stretches from the beginning of the game up to the battle at Narshe to save the Esper from Kefka, so you get a fair amount of game time in it. At least, I think so. If anyone finds any errors in the game, be it spelling, battle, ect., PLEASE send me a PM or email and let me know.

I have to say that the new character write-ups are a nice improvement. Again, the skillset distribution is really balanced and sounds fun. I tend to like RPGs where PCs have more individual-style skillsets/equipment builds.

Little things like giving the player much earlier access to the Lore command with Rita makes gathering the Blue Magic skills a lot more fun. Or the new equipment options for front row/back row Shadow. Just very cool ideas.

Setzer sounds a little lacking, though. You might want to tweak the power or effects of some of his Slots skills to make him more useful besides just being an ITD weapon-user. And hopefully you changed Judith's final Heretic skill to something more impressive than -Cleave-...

Also, did you fix Tamber's sprite yet?

Yes, Tamber now has a new sprite. I've been playing with her sprite's coloring though which is one reason why I didn't show a full display for the party. And very interesting suggestions for Setzer. I'll take note of that, for sure.

Who is the Final boss in your hack??

That's a spoiler. Besides, I haven't gone that far into modding the enemies yet.

That's a spoiler. Besides, I haven't gone that far into modding the enemies yet.

So there's still a final boss for the demo right?

Also... will there be more "extra" stuff added into the mod? Like a new dungeon, a casino or something?

EDIT: Wow it seems that my hack is very bugged, it messes up after the first fight since my UI is really broken and once the fight's done then the screen stays black... Been trying with two different roms and I'm using ips XP 1.11

Orlandu, if u want I can send u the actual rom of the demo, just pm me your email address ok

Also... will there be more "extra" stuff added into the mod? Like a new dungeon, a casino or something?

There's somewhat of a final boss in the demo version, though it's still just the story boss of the area the demo ends at. Still, with the higher stats and HP values, he does take a bit longer to finish off.

As for extras, there are new items, and there will be a few extra bosses to fight. A new dungeon is also in thoughts, but I haven't gone that far into the plannings yet.8]

An update to keep people interested in this. A video showing off Judith's Heretic skillset.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i27F9-JPz1Y

Cool!