FF6 - Brave New World

So far I'm just to Thamasa in the World of Balance, but I'm enjoying myself so far. This mod's done something really interesting for me and I both love and dislike almost everything. The dislike is honestly probably just because of how much flexibility I'm used to having and how now there's much, much less, but I'll get in to that a bit (edit: a LOT) more later. Also, I'm not even in the World of Ruin, so I don't have the full picture yet. Also also, sorry this ended up being waaaaaaaay longer than I expected when I started; tl;dr's at the bottom.

The new esper/character archetyping system is the main thing I love and hate. I really, really like the idea of each character having a small set of roles they can fill based on which espers they primarily level up with. I also like how character spell lists are restricted so that they don't all end up basically the same. The problem with this, though, is that some characters (mostly the physical-focus ones) only get 2 or 3 espers and a correspondingly small spell list and number of roles. Cyan's got a neat paladin thing going with his 3-esper spell list, but I feel like it's not worth casting spells with him because his magic power's going to be crap and he's not going to have the MP to use any of the big ones twice, plus he's so slow that by the time the heal goes off the target's going to be dead. Sabin and Shadow are similar stories, although they get some versatility from Blitz and Throw as well as weapon effects I guess. I guess you don't need everyone to fulfill multiple roles, but it still feels... off.

Gau is another weird mixed bag for me. He only has one esper before the World of Ruin and since I've been using Gau pretty much since I got him his stamina is through the roof. The Defender Rage's Harvester is a ridiculous overheal that also cures most statuses (looks like this was toned down a bit in the most recent update) and Gau almost never gets hit by status effects or Demi/Quartr. Also, pumping his evade up to 80+ means he's pretty usable without having to be in the back row. I like the variety (I'm sure my like-bordering-on-fetish for variety has made itself known by now) and usefulness of his Rages, but he's pretty useless other than them, which is a little sad. Getting Fenrir for Regen and HasteX will be nice I'm sure.

Locke is my favorite so far. Great speed, evasion, and damage, plus healing, but steal is... kind of sad. At least the Thief Glove gives some nice stat boosts so I can Mug and not waste turns with stealing. It's nice to use it as a source of consumables and there are probably a few enemies worth stealing from (the 9+ Butterfly knives I got financed some nice upgrades), but it's always a little sad going through a whole dungeon and not even having enemies I can steal from. That last part is my main issue with it, since it pretty much removes 1/3 of Locke's use for large portions of the game.

Along the same lines (and these are both mentioned in the ReadMe, I just didn't quite realize the scope of the changes), it's almost not worth it to go after treasure chests if they're out of the way, because a lot of the neat or potentially powerful items have been removed from chests. I still go for them in the vague hope I'll get something other than another X-potion or Tincture, but mostly I'm disappointed.

I love how armor/weapons stay useful longer, but it means there are fewer upgrades, to the point where the Tiger Mask I have on Gau might be what he's wearing at the end of the game. Actually, looking at the equipment list again, about 1/3 of the equipment I have now is probably what I'll be using at the end of the game, assuming I don't go for things that are mostly side-grades. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, especially considering it's almost all store-bought from before the World of Ruin. I would say "looks like I'll have lots of money to use with GP Rain!" except I don't typically use Setzer much. (Hmm... another side note, Setzer with some speed boosting items would actually be a really nice healer once I get the World of Ruin espers. Looks like I actually will be using him more this playthrough!)

tl;dr: Reading back through this, it sounds like I'm bashing the mod a lot, but I really do like most of the changes. It puts a lot of restrictions on a normally very free-form game, which makes me squirm a little (ok, a lot) and makes me use characters I wouldn't normally use (I often forgo Celes and Terra completely and rarely use Strago or Relm, but that's a bit too much magic to miss out on with this mod). I'll probably give another update once I get most of the way through the World of Ruin.

The one typo I noticed was in the Beginner's School in Narshe (I think someone in the far right world, the word "character" is misspelled).

Also, two quick questions as I'm leaving:
1) Do some of Edgar's tools use Magic to calculate their damage? Otherwise Magic in general is pretty useless for him (except Cure 2; useful, but still only one use), which seems weird considering he has an esper that boosts it.

2) Can I use my existing save with a new version of the hack? I feel like it should work as long as I keep the filenames the same, but I wanted to check.