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Final Fantasy 6 hacks reviews (possible spoilers)

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This semi-quick review will look at different FF6 hacks and will be ranked on some criteria based on my own personal experiences with each. In by no means does this review suggest a hack is "better" than another overall, but will break down some gameplay elements. All are hacks using the Final Fantasy III rom for SNES, but for clarity I will just say 6 for all of them.

Criteria:
First Impressions - How the game feels for the first 5 minutes or so
Changes - how different it is from vanilla (original version)
Gameplay - how the game feels going through it with the changes
Difficulty - Is the hack too hard and shouldn't be? Made too easy?
Cuteness - because FF needs to be cute?
Like a new game? - Can use so many changes but does it feel like a totally new game using FF6's engine?

Hack 1: Final Fantasy 6: The Eternal Crystals
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/431/

First Impressions:
Title screen is different, that's neat. The story is changed to be about crystals instead of Espers, somehow. Terra's hair is changed, but that's all the aesthetics done to her. No "hold B to run" function, will use fast forward just to walk and use Sprint Shoes later to waste a relic slot, how droll.
Score - 7/10

Changes:
Holy crap, Edgar is a Dragoon that looks like Kain. Only 5(?) characters can equip espers and gain magic/levels off espers. This means all other characters have their own stat increases on level up. Not much to do with customization. There are, however, TONS of added material. Cyan goes from being a Dark Knight to a Paladin after his Doma event in the WoR. I don't know how they did this, but it's really cool. Cyan basically gains Leo's shock and ability to use espers and magic, but loses his Sword Arts/Dark Sword Skill(?). There's also extra end-game bosses and a Kaiser dragon which is the hardest in the game, which counts towards the 8 dragons.
Score - 9/10

Gameplay:
The fact they took espers away from most your party hurts a lot of strategy it can have. You can just level up 3 non-esper wearers with 1 user for healing and do fine. There are bosses that very much need a good strategy though. One boss de-levels your party to 1 so you have to determine the best way to go about it. That boss battle was one of the most memorable FF fights I can remember, but mostly because I was way underleveled and had to make do.
Score - 5/10

Difficulty: (This doesn't rate how hard it is, but rather how the game feels in this field)
This was the very first FF6 hack I played. I knew everything about vanilla and wanted a better challenge. This did a fairly good job. While most the time it was more of an annoyance than difficulty for some bosses, it did make me rethink my "vanilla" strategies.
Score - 6/10

Cuteness:
Score - 1/10

Overall Score - 29


Hack 2: Final Fantasy 6: A Complete Hack
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/650/

First Impressions:
"Complete" is a strong word. Right off, it has the same intro so "complete" left my mind early. The characters are the "complete" part though. Everyone isn't the same at all....well aesthetically anyway. The author makes you name all the characters otherwise they're kind of generic (Red Mage is Red, White mage is White, etc.). I won't lie, I was very intrigued with the hack at first and wanted to see what all of the characters would be. No "hold B to run" function though.
Score - 9/10

Changes:
Everyone can use espers, but espers don't give magic or stats on level up (BORING!). Instead, you gain spells from equipment a la FF9/FFTA. The thought is interesting, the execution could use some work. Each character learns different spells than others, much like BNW, but through equipment. Oh god, look at this...still need Sprint Shoes..."complete" my ass!...anyway! With espers near useless, the best way to use them is their affects (Bahamut for damage, Golem for shields, etc.) Oh yeah, and all the esper names are changed for some reason so that makes things confusing at first. Bosses and WoR is all the same as vanilla, maybe little changes here and there. Gogo and Umaro are basically the same, just look different. What will add to the score is the Monk character. It's Sabin with blitzes but each blitz has elemental properties, even the "bum rush" move. It actually had me memorize which ones did what, instead of "this one does lots of damage on 1 target, this one hits all." The story got changed up a lot, but had that "13 year old" kind of humor to it.
Score - 6/10

Gameplay:
Aside from aesthetics, the game feels much like vanilla. The exception is that Setzer can't use magic, but he's a huge physical attacker. He starts with Capture instead of Fight (Yeah they couldn't change that to "Mug?"), Slots, and Tools. I used him for his versatility which helped throughout the game. Using the Monk's different blitzes were fun. The Cyan character would have been more useful but was stuck with extra slow charges, so I never used him. Having the "classes" mixed up felt weird going through the game (Relm and Strago are basically Celes and Shadow). The white mage was pretty much useless unless you wanted to heal. Casting espers was better than any buffs she could do. Some characters were way more useful than others, which was a downslide.
Score - 4/10

Difficulty:
It's a little harder than vanilla, but only because most of the time you're scampering to remember who does what anymore. I never finished it, which is rare. I just got bored of it in the end game.
Score - 5/10

Cuteness:
Score 1/10

Overall Score - 25

Hack 3: Final Fantasy 6: Brave New World
http://www.insanedif...rave-new-world/

First Impressions:
First off, this is the first hack I went through more than once from the list. Most everything is the same as vanilla...except I did notice the minute changes to fix a lot of the original script: Spell/Esper names, dialogue, skill names, item names, etc. This was very much appreciated, it made me smile while going through. Oh and what's this? I CAN HOLD B DOWN TO RUN! This makes a huge difference when you first start it up. Going through, everything seems to be changed in a balanced sort of way. Ok then.
Score - 8/10

Changes:
As mentioned, lots of dialogue and text changes do help things. Each person can use magic, but only certain espers. This means each character has different stat growths and magics they can learn. Lots of strategy involved, es bueno. The spell "Quick" is taken out, as well as relics such as Offering, Gem Box and Economizer. Good, I can give my party other things to make them stronger. This hack does a good job of having character only relics which make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. There's also character only weapons which means no hogging illumina or Excalibur. Everything looks the same aesthetically, but then you start fighting some of the harder bosses... You will notice right away that you are playing a different game. Many skills are different such as Sabin's blitzes, Cyan's Sword Tech's and Strago's Lore. Let's try using one of Cyan's Sword Techs...HOLY SHIT! That bar moves fast. No more will I have to star at this little bar move towards the number I want while my party gets pelted. Good show.
Score - 9/10

Gameplay:
Strategic esper leveling, updated equipment, love for each character. No one feels "useless." You can go through the game with different people doing different things every playthrough. The level cap is 50 in this one. The game can be completed with an average level of 35, so that's still a good amount of overleveling for the last boss. The game is more about strategy in your adventure rather than "Level 50x with vigor+2."
Score - 8/10

Difficulty:
No boss feels way harder than it should be. Some may feel a bit easy, but that just means you can pat yourself on the back for being awesome.
Score 10/10

Cuteness:
Score 1/10

Overall Score - 36

Hack 4: Pony Fantasy 6
http://pony-fantasy-6.com/

First Impressions:
Ok right off, I am NOT a MLP fan. I've seen a few episodes to barely know some of the names (because I have Brony friends). Also I didn't get too far in it (Not even to WoR). So with that out of the way... This hack sure is cutesy. Luckily they did change a lot more than changing everything to Ponyland or whatever they live in. Kefka is changed to the villain in MLP, though I forgot his name. All characters and NPCs are ponies off of the show. But...I'm a Pony in a mech suit shooting fire beams still, ok. No B to run either, looks like these ponies aren't going to gallop.
Score - 3/10

Changes:
Aesthetically, a LOT! But it doesn't feel enough. You fight ponies for some enemies, but others are still guards or scorpions which make the pony enemies look extremely out of place. I don't remember how, but when I go the Edgar pony (Celestia) I also got the Unicorn esper. It didn't give any stat bonuses but it could make certain ponies learn cure and antdot and such. Pretty good for early on. There was a lot of different relics where I had no idea what they were before if anything. I think I came across 3 different relics that did the sprint shoes effect but with added stats as well. Sabin pony's blitzes names have changed but did the same thing and were executed the same way. Some ponies had skills that were pretty neat, 1 did a random summon (but I only had Unicorn so it always did that). What seemed "lazy" was the fact that 2 ponies had Sword Tech, and one of them wasn't Gogo pony. This didn't sit well with me since the bar moves sooooo sloowwww
Score - 5/10

Gameplay:
It was...interesting trying to learn MLP terms through a video game I guess? All the magics look the same and do the same things so I was use to that. Some skills were fun to use, except sword tech. Gau Pony, Pinkie Pie, had a good thing attached to it. She could use a rage, but not lose herself in the rage. Meaning, Gau Pony uses a rage for 1 turn then can use a different one the next. I imagine the stat bonuses while in a rage were given up to utilize this, but is still fun and much faster to experiment with rages to see which ones do what.
Score - 4/10

Difficulty:
It's FF6...with MLP stuff. I'm sure a lot of people into MLP who haven't played FF6 at all flock right to this. With that in mind, the difficulty is pretty damn easy compared to vanilla. It's meant to be fun and to go through looking at Pony things.
Score - 3/10

Cuteness:
I had to have a fifth section and a section where this hack won, so yeah.
Score - 10/10

Overall Score - 24

Again this is all from my personal experience and shouldn't show which hack is "better." If one likes one better than the rest then that's all that matters. Also I plan to add in a review to RotDS when I FINISH IT.

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#2
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That "Cuteness" parameter makes unreasonably crumble final votes... Finger


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DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO SLAY A GOD?
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I realized so far I'm giving RotDS a 5/10 for cuteness Laugh
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Weird parameter... Kungfu!


THE GREATEST CHALLENGE OF ALL TIMES AWAITS:
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DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO SLAY A GOD?
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Tenkarider's project #2 is started: FF6 Curse of the Madsiur Joke (CotMJ)
http://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/showthr...p?tid=2755
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Like it says, it mainly exists to give Pony Fantasy a niche to compete with at all. I will still never go back to it though.
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Lol Laugh


THE GREATEST CHALLENGE OF ALL TIMES AWAITS:
http://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/showthr...p?tid=2593
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO SLAY A GOD?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tenkarider's project #2 is started: FF6 Curse of the Madsiur Joke (CotMJ)
http://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/showthr...p?tid=2755
What happens when Madsiur tweaks your account? This full game hack will show that!
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"But...I'm a Pony in a mech suit shooting fire beams still, ok. No B to run either, looks like these ponies aren't going to gallop."

The hilarious mental imagery following the reading of those two sentences = 10/10



lmao nice reviews man, very fun read. I might even give Eternal Crystals a 2nd shot after reading about your experince with it. My first impression was kind of mixed: sure it had pretty good ff4 music in the battles, then... WOAH KAINS IN IT... then it got to Cecil and he's talking in Cyan's 14th century manner which was the straw on the camel's back for me. But it's been updated quite a bit since way back when I tried it.
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I think for Eternal Crystals, they stayed at the version I linked up which I think is X(?) Also after I get RotDS done I will go back and give a "pros and cons" list for each to kinda summarize some bits. I haven't done a new version of BNW since I think 1.3. They're up to 1.5.2 as of this post. Most up there should still hold a very long time though.
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