FFVI: Divergent Paths

Progress update. I have finished all event hacking through the World of Balance, and have tested it successfully. In the Floating Continent, there is a scene where Celes confronts Kekfa. I have given that scene to Leo, since Celes gets so much screen time in the World of Ruin.

Today, I sat down and mapped out the code for Cyan's dream sequence, which is going to be his new recruitment scenario. My goal has been to add in a 4th party member, allowing the player to challenge this scenario earlier in the game. Anyway, the event where the dream stooges abduct and split your party is, to date, the most convoluted event I have seen in this game. I had assumed that this code possibly moved your party members to a backup party 2, then added them back in 1 by 1. No, instead, it loops through your entire party to set exactly 2 of 26 event bits that activate and show 2 of 26 NPCs on map $13D. Each of these NPCs has a separate copy of the 49-byte event where the stooge disappears. That creates 3 distinct problems:
1. The guest characters Umaro ($0E) and Kappa ($0F) are not evaluated by this code, and have neither event bits nor NPCs.
2. I am short by 19 event bits in the block that is evaluated for displaying NPCs.
3. Even if I had the event bits, map $13D cannot accept more NPCs.
I mapped out a logical path that would allow me to drop to 15 total event bits and 15 NPCs, but it is extremely long, and I'm pretty sure the logic would break once you started adding players back into your party.

So, after thinking about it all day, I think I am going to re-write that entire sequence so that your party is not split up to begin with. Instead, your party will encounter aspects of Cyan's soul that are being held captive by the stooges. This frees up space in the rom for 23 more NPCs, gives me 23 event bits that I can use to manipulate NPC behavior in other areas of the game, and frees up 1500 bytes of event code, which is a LOT of real estate to work with. I already have a 400-byte routine programmed that will allow you to optimize equipment from the airship, and the extra kilobyte of space will be enough for me to potentially add in a nice flashback sequence for Leo that plays in the Ancient Castle.