ReCast FF3: War of the Magitek

That's good to know.  I didn't pick up on that at all.  That said, other than the fact that it can be turned into a disk-one nuke if you run in circles for a few hours, the attack still isn't as interesting as what most of the other characters have at their disposal.

I doubled the damage of it in my latest build and it hits about as hard as a single Edgar jump (my test save's outside Setzer's tomb).  I think it needs to scale a little faster than that, but that means it'll be stronger than the actual Step Mine spell.  As I think of it, though, that's not such a bad thing because Strago has versatility that Clyde doesn't.

I also thought hard about TetraSlice and replaced it with a new move OniBlade that has an awesome animation but questionable effect.  I was torn between having it work like Debilitator or Rasp.  Since it hits the entire enemy party, I settled on Rasp, as there aren't a lot of "attack MP" options as compared to the original and draining MP can really de-fang bosses if a player is struggling.  It's not a hard-hitting move like (7)QuadraSlice was in Vanilla, but if you're looking for that effect against bosses you can front-row Cyan and give her an Armlet or Hero Ring to use with (4)QuadraSlam.

I actually tried a LOT of things with TetraSlice today... I tried making it hit all enemies but the animation was too slow, I tried making it do 8 attacks with the launcher effect but that made it do nothing, and I even considered making it do fixed damage like 4 Blowfish casts, but I couldn't combine the two effects.  The only thing I didn't try was making it a huge single hit like Bum Rush, because the input for that Blitz is too intense to allow a similar action just by waiting for a meter to fill.

It was less the fact that Gau could write at all and more about the details:

-Unlike Cyan, Gau doesn't really have a strong personal reason to go as far as impersonating Lola's boyfriend to console her.  He maybe kinda knows the boyfriend and is generally a well-meaning person, but that rationale isn't nearly as strong.
-It doesn't feel like Gau should be as embarrassed when violating social norms by making flowers or writing poorly thought out letters
-I can buy that Gau has learned to write, but it feels implausible that he is proficient enough to impersonate Lola's boyfriend when he still speaks and writes in sentence fragments
-Sudden flawless poetry in iambic pentameter: "The world before the fall, Lovely is the light of dawn, Noble is the heart of man..."; this doesn't seem like the kind of thing somebody can write in what may as well be a second language.

I hadn't thought about the poem.  I should change it to something else, possibly a Shakespeare quote.  "Taming of the Figaro Lizard" was intended as a pun, but I could grab a quote from its source material.
One is a good fit for this situation:
"Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger."
Or more to his misinterpretation: "Fly from my side, for the world slips_ it shall never be younger"
thereby inverting the meaning to 'get on with it, pigeon' instead of 'stop and smell the silk flowers'.

I needed Zozo for the pace of the Relm scenario, but I needed Doma for the pace of the Terra scenario.  It didn't make sense for Cyan to be in both, so I was left with a recruitment slot for Gau, Strago, or Banon.  Since Gau got so little characterization in the original World of Ruin, I thought it would be a good opportunity to show just how much someone can change in a year.  I did try to make his WoR statements more grammatically correct, while still remaining laconic.  Perhaps I needed to press that point a little harder.  I'll start with the quote, at least; it certainly works better than him composing poetry.


EDIT: You don't have to give input on any of my ramblings; I'm just thinking out loud (or rather, in long boring paragraphs). I'm thrilled that you played and reviewed my hack and I'm grateful for all the input you've given me over the past few days; it would be greedy to want for more.