Iris Havengard Current Progress

1. It's my understanding that adding 2 new characters into the game will require (for ease of programming's sake) making Gogo and Umaro into "Guest-Type" characters (Leo, Ghost, Banon, etc): unable to reequip. For this reason, you now have two relic slots open for Umaro: The Blizzard Orb makes him use a weak Ice Attack that sucks. The Rage Ring makes him throw himself and other party members at the enemies, and is awesome. Replace the Blizzard Orb into Iris' Ability-Improving Item.

2. It's my opinion that you are going too big on the number of different spells/attacks/etc. which Iris will have access to. You are basically creating another Gau, also. And by the way, has anyone asked, what happens if Iris is not equipped with an Esper? You can't just stuff one on her when she joins. If she doesn't have one, perhaps giving her "Fight Magic Item" as a generic command window (without even having to do text for the Fuse Ability in battle) would be cool. She becomes just another generic magic user, the way Gau is if he's not currently under Rage.

3. To limit down the number of things which Iris will do, and avoid the mental fog that traps a person who decides what Rage to do based on what they want to try out (1994 was so long ago, gosh memories), I would say select Magic Attacks which are already associated with Dance/Rage/Sketch, and not Spells which have a "White Dot/Black Dot/Grey Dot" on them. Use enemy magic attacks like Wind Slash, Flare Star, hey, maybe give her some Lore Spells which Strago can learn. Not all of them, of course. Step Mine maybe. But be more intuitive about what you're giving her the ability to do. Some things, you want the player to be like "Wow this would work here, and that would work there." Perhaps equipping her with Seraphim would give her Sun Beam/Tapir/A Holy Elemental Attack. Gau can switch weapons he's holding during a Rage; this would be identical code, but what I'm wondering is, can you give her 3 separate actions which she can take based on an Esper? And then limit it to 3 possibilities per Esper? Giving each 5 spells sounds like it'll be a pain in the butt to work out. I'd say give each Esper 2 spells, and a physical attack. None of these should be what you can cast with the Esper normally, to differentiate Iris' connection with the Espers from Terra or Celes or anyone else. Example:

Ramuh: Tek Laser/Giga Volt/ThunderBlade
Kirin: Haste 2/Sun Beam/Normal Unarmed Hit
Siren: Evil Toot/Lullaby/Tempest
Stray: Lv 3 Muddle/Megazerk/Mythril Claw

And so on and so on. Make some more useful than others. Don't just focus on damage calculation. Some actions in battle should not affect the HP/MP levels of anyone. And this business of having her attacks fail, I think, is too annoying to the player; give her substandard attacks before you punish the player for using Iris. No one will put her in a team if she's that dangerous, but attacking when you could have cured we put up with from Gau already.

As to what the Relic you end up using/whatever mongery you choose to improve her ability in the endgame, Perhaps grant her access to inputting the commands herself, similar to Relm's Control Menus?