FFVI: Divergent Paths

Just finished the original Divergent Paths (the three scenarios), and wrote up some feedback that maybe can be incorporated into a future revision or into this hack. As far as I'm concerned, this is the new canon. My fiance has never played FF6 before, but once she does I'm going to have her play this version without comment and see what happens. 


Terra/Banon/Gau

Would have been nice if you could have found a way to start this scenario with Terra and Banon standing in a cave waiting to get back onto the raft, so that the user can mess with their equipment before the waterfall battle.

Being knocked off course and forced down a waterfall makes so much more sense than two crazy dudes _deciding_ to jump down a waterfall.

Terra says "And you are?" to Gau upon first seeing him, which was the original line, but it seems uncharacteristically cold for her. I recommend giving this line to Banon, or changing the line to something warmer (after this line Gau freaks out and runs away, but I think that'd make sense even if Terra says something friendlier).

Gau giving the tutorial on Rage/Leap is a wonderful improvement, it makes Gau more lovable, and I care more about learning his abilities now.

Overall this is so much better. It's a slight bummer losing the Sabin/Cyan/Gau bro buddy comedy, but what we gain between Terra and Gau (each foreshadowing their further character developments) is so much more meaningful. It made me long for more scenes between these two.


Edgar/Sabin/Cyan

I appreciated the efforts to make Edgar and Sabin's dialogue contributions roughly 50/50, but I actually expected it to be more like 75/25 in favor of Edgar. For example, when introducing themselves to Cyan, Sabin goes first and then is like "...and this is my brother Edgar!". But it'd make sense for the King of Figaro to take the diplomatic initiative most of the time, and to introduce himself as such.

I expected the "So that's General Leo. He could be my friend, if he weren't my enemy" line to come from Edgar this time, because he's more likely to have heard of General Leo than Sabin is. Edgar's added line about watching the empire to determine whether it was going to tilt toward Kefka or Leo was, IMO, narratively unnecessary and I'm not sure it actually works. Edgar is _already_ on the side of the returners, but the empire hasn't tipped toward Kefka yet - Leo's still in charge. In fact, Kefka isn't even super high ranking yet - Celes outranked him. I recommend dropping the new line and instead assigning the original line to Edgar.

Having Edgar in the team made the gameplay of this scenario far less annoying, both in the imperial camp and in the phantom train, because of easier access to AoE attacks. A huge improvement.

I loved the lines Edgar had about the Phantom Train being a machine, and that all machines can be stopped. At the end of the train there's a missed opportunity to lean into this more. The team finds a note that says exactly how to stop the train - wouldn't it have been cool if, instead, it were a technical schematic and upon reading it, Edgar was like "so if I'm reading this schematic right, pulling the first and third pressure valves should put the train in an unstable state, allowing us to shut it down from the outside!" - in other words, make it so it's _Edgar's expertise_ that helped the team shut the train down, rather than a conveniently placed note.

There were still several lines that were not assigned to any particular speaker that could have easily had Edgar, Sabin, or Cyan's name slapped in front of them. It makes sense why the game does this in the WoR, but earlier in the game when it knows who your party members are it may as well assign speakers just for polish.

Edgar falling dead after being rejected from the lady in the bar was perfect.


Locke/Celes/Shadow

Not much to say about this scenario except having Shadow here makes way more sense and helps with gameplay a ton, and having to sneak into Narshe with Celes also makes a heck of a lot more sense. Way to go!


Reunion

The intro text said "The three made it to Narshe" but there were only two of us - Locke and Celes (because I played that scenario last). I recommend rewording this to say either "three groups", or more vaguely state that everyone has converged on Narshe.

Sabin says "Locke... you aren't still thinking of THAT?", which seemed weird to me because I didn't get the impression that Locke and Sabin were close enough to know this kind of stuff about each other. I recommend giving that line to Edgar or Arvis.

Loved having Gau hide behind Sabin. Even though they haven't met in this version, Gau knows a friendly bear when he sees one.