ReCast FF3: War of the Magitek

Almost to the end of my 2nd (w/Espers) playthrough... finding that the extra magic doesn't make the game as easy as I thought. The bug fixes really ramp up the difficulty.

Fixed a few fringe typos. Trying to make the animations a little more interesting too, and I want to revise some spells and some monster scripts (a few monsters are wildly unfair, particularly on the World of Ruin map). Also debating changing up more of the monster graphics (such as turning Enuo into a dark sorcerer... so THAT's where he ended up when the void swallowed him!).


My big snag, though, is figuring out how to approach displaying enemy statuses. I'm graphically depicting them with dummy spells that are conditionally cast.

(1) I can display them two at a time in a cycle using a monster script, but this will eat up a space in every formation to make room for the invisible "Status Monitor" monster. I've got a proof-of-concept script for this, though which monster displays a status each turn is selected at random.

(2) I can HYPOTHETICALLY repurpose the Condemned counter, set it to a non-level based limit (10-30 seconds), and have it cast a spell on expiration based on the monster's current status. This doesn't eat up a monster slot but measures have to be taken to ensure every monster has condemned status and players never get it (that is, unless they're being subjected to Overcast). This system will also only allow me to display one status at a time, either locked into priority like vanilla player statuses or selected randomly (resulting in a lot of empty Condemned clears).


Believe it or not, (1) would be easier to implement (it's just a lot of busy work). I think (2) is a better approach, but it's going to eat up basically all of the leftover freespace in C2 (so nobody else would really be able to use it) and the randomness involved will be frustrating. I'm still putting together some Hex for (2); haven't tested anything yet. If anybody wants a closer look, I can share the monster script for (1) and the notes I've got for (2) in a follow-up post.

What are your thoughts?