FFVI: Divergent Paths

This is really interesting.

A long time ago, when I was 9 or so a friend first told me about this SNES game "Final Fantasy 6" which I had not heard of before. I'm European, so we didn't even have a legitimate release of FF6/3 before the PlayStation 1 version. When I asked him who the strongest playable character in that game was he told me "General Leo". I've been hyped about the character ever since. Only to discover that he was only playable for like five minutes once I finally got the game myself...

I know there's a way to take Leo outside of Thamasa by executing the airship glitch, but obviously that wouldn't make him join you "officially". I also know of the "General Leo Edition" rom hack that you referenced yourself, but... losing Shadow (who is my favourite character in the game) is simply unacceptable for me. In fact, I wouldn't want to sacrifice any character. As much as I love Leo, my dislike of losing content is stronger than my like of new content (if that makes any sense?).

Therefore, I'm really impressed that you (together with others of this forum) managed to find a way to get the 15th and 16th character slots to work properly. I theorized that it should be possible to utilize those slots, but I never thought that people would actually figure out how to do it in practice. Obviously Leo is the ideal choice for a 15th character. Although I would have personally preferred Banon as the 16th character, I can appreciate your approach with him. After all, someone important still needs to die in Thamasa for that scene to have any impact whatsoever. Kappa sounds like a fun addition too. I vaguely recall reading rumours about him/her being a secret unlockable character in the early days of the internet. So I guess it fits.

But most of all, I really respect your eye for detail and restraint. Even though you are adding/changing existing content, from what I can tell you're conserving the source material as best as reasonably possible. I get it, some changes had to be made in order to make Leo feel like he's really an integral part of the game. Leo needed a recruitment sidequest in the WoR, so you passed Cyan's to him. Fair is fair, Cyan already has his dream sequence which is one of the more elaborate sidequests of the WoR so it's not like you shafted Cyan by doing so. You gave Celes' ability Runic to Leo so he would start with a thematically fitting, less overpowered ability than Shock. And that understandably required giving Celes a new class (based on already existing dragoon mechanics). These and other decisions come across as very careful and well-thought-out, rather than the product of a romhacker who has gone overboard with his imagination and is making changes "just because he can".

Any version of FF6 still has to feel like FF6 to me in order to be enjoyable. I'm not really a fan of rom hacks that deviate too much from the main game. Like for instance hacks that attempt to rewrite the game's script, change/add scenes that clearly don't match with Square's material, or remove existing content like half of Gau's rages. I am basically just looking for an "ultimate" version of the classic Final Fantasy VI that I know and love, with some additional, high quality features that feel like they could have been planned by Squaresoft themselves back in the day. This rom hack could become just what I need!


Long story short, what I really want to say is that I think you're doing a great job. I'll definitely be watching this thread from now on.