Final Fantasy VI Randomizer

Thanks, Dessyreqt. I agree that the lack of healing items added some helpful challenge, although hiking across the continent twice in search of healing items while fighting all the battles got me a little over-leveled. For the record, I also agree with Tenkarider to an extent that the Gigantos ambush wasn't the worst thing in the world. I thought it was pretty funny personally, and it has made me just a little nervous every time I open a chest (or other treasure). But I think it would be fine if you smoothed that out a bit, too. I also think some randomization of monster formations would be really cool, but that seems like a much more ambitious project so it's up to you if you want to try and find a way to make it work. Lastly, on the esper bonuses, I wouldn't mind having them removed entirely. I think probably if someone's in to FF6 enough to find this program, they can handle the game without inflating their mag pwr using espers. As it is, I'm not bothering with trying to optimize my stat gains from them.

So, back to the mini-LP.

The Opera House was anti-climactic. Ultros 2 lacks immunity to Stop, which I already had easy access to via Stray. Setzer has Mog's palette, so he looks bizarre. On the southern continent, there was finally a shop that sells Potions in Tzen. I could also buy RunningShoes there, but could only afford one pair. Maranda has Hawk Eyes for sale. Nothing else of interest in the shops. The magitek research facility was a breeze; almost nothing in there could survive a single Flash. The bosses went down in a couple rounds each as well, and I never even saw Shiva. Kinda sad, as I'm used to playing mods with increased difficulty. Maybe I need to run from battles for a while to let the game catch up with my levels a bit. Finally Setzer joins the party. He has sketch, which makes me wonder if this version has the sketch bug fixed. Also, what about other bugs? The new Espers help fill out some of the spells I was missing, but the only really notable addition is Cure 2.

I spent some time getting Terra rages on the Veldt. She now has a fairly ordinary complement of WoB rages, minus Marshal, who steadfastly refused to make an appearance. I also got the Gigantos rage early, which is pretty solid with Magnitude8 and inherent Safe status. Mog joins the party as well. He comes with Runic and some natural magic, although nothing I can't already learn. He also comes at a high level, as usual. Actually I don't think the level factors are randomized. Also added Sraphim, Golem, and Zoneseek to the pile. That gives me access to Reflect, but no other new magic. New shops in Narshe have nothing of interest.

On to the Cave to the Sealed Gate. Not difficult. Ings' Lifeshaver can be threatening since I lack steal (and thus access to Gaia Gear), but all of my characters except Terra can reliably one-shot them. Terra did manage to land a 6000 damage hit with a !CatScratch that triggered the "randomly thrown" property of the Hawk Eye, kind of a variant on Wind God Gau, I guess. For all the treasure in here, I didn't get anything good. Boo. But, hey, at least I have 5 Coin Tosses now. Back to Vector for the chat with Gestahl. Not much different here, save for chests, which weren't notable. The treasures in the imperial base also proved disappointing. I think this might be a function of the item tiering: I definitely got a lot of good items earlier than usual, but for now it seems like I am not seeing any items the next tier up. Off to Thamasa. First order of business: get Shadow a usable Lore. Chimera +2 Cephaler formation doesn't want to show up, but finally does, and I learn Aqua Rake, which might (hopefully?) come in handy on the Floating Continent later. For now, I unequip Shadow since the game unkindly declines to do so for you.

Overall the game has been fun and totally playable so far, albeit a little too easy ever since I got magic and healing ceased to be such a problem (but that's more of a problem with the original game than anything to do with the randomization)... Hopefully the difficulty increase at the floating continent will bring things back into balance a bit.