FFVI: Divergent Paths

Status Update:

I have made some revisions on the final battle cutscene, to allow Terra to be perma-morphed for the battle. In addition, though nobody will ever see this, if you have NOT recruited Terra by the time you make it to the battle, she will swoop in BEFORE the battle, instead of after it. The game will level-average her and optimize her equipment with the best stuff you have remaining in your inventory. With her being morphed, even WoB magic will do some fairly decent damage.

Now onto the ending cutscene. After spending about an hour reading the excellent "Ending Names Mapping" document from this site's documents section, and testing out a few things, I've realized that I cannot have an Umaro/Kappa ending. The names that fade in and out are not tied to exact pointers, but to an index, and that index only goes up to 14 characters. I don't know how to expand it to 16 characters, and honestly, it would be a bit of a relief to NOT have to do it. So, here's what I'm planning:
1. I've always hated Mog's ending ("Not the hair!"), so I am going to add an alternate ending for him if you have recruited BOTH Kappa and Umaro. This ending will be a slightly expanded version of Umaro's original ending, featuring all 3 characters. This fits pretty well, since you must have Mog in your party in order to recruit both of those characters. This will mean that Umaro's and Kappa's names won't be featured, unless I repurpose the "and you" section to display their names.
2. Leo's ending will be in Umaro's slot. I'll probably take out the skull and crossbones and re-use Strago's book with flipping pages. If anyone wants to take a stab at editing the compressed graphics to something else, let me know. I'm thinking a letter and a quill would work nicely.

One final thing is that I was able to split "Relm Arrowny" into 2 strings (it was originally 1), and re-use the 2nd one to display Shadow's name as "Clyde Arrowny".

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.

ChiyuCC, yes, you definitely "understand" this hack. I'm trying to make it feel like Square could have done it back in the day. I have only ADDED 4 new scenes at this point:
1. Leo confronting the wounded soldier in Mobliz
2. Leo's flashback in the Ancient Castle
3. Kappa's recruitment
4. Leo's ending

That was a stylistic choice. I wanted to repurpose as much existing content as possible. The "letter writing" always struck me as an odd choice for Cyan; it didn't seem to fit his story or his character. On the other hand, I wanted Leo's story to be one of overcoming regret. This hack is not about GENERAL Leo. GENERAL Leo still dies in Thamasa. This is about Leo, the man, surviving and having to confront his legacy in a broken world. When I connected the dots between Leo's conversation with the soldier from Maranda (from the Doma Imperial Camp), the wounded soldier in Mobliz, and the letter writer of Zozo, I realized there was enough existing content to tell the story I wanted to tell with very few additions.

I agonized over whether or not to add the "Razing of Vector" sequence, because I felt that it didn't fit the hack stylistically to add an entirely new gameplay sequence like that. When I realized that it allowed me to go deeper into not just Leo's character, but also Celes's, I decided to add it to the hack's scope. I can't wait to start programming it.

Fun fact, my original idea for this hack, 15-20 years ago, was to have Leo still die, and have your team go bargain with the Phantom Train to let him come back. I think what I've landed on is so much better.

EDIT: Also, I don't feel like Cyan gets shafted. Having him be the one who kicks off the story sequence with Gau's Father works really well for bringing closure to his story arc. If anything, Sabin gets shafted. His scenario was cut in half, and he has to share what's left with his brother Edgar. Then I wrote him out of Gau's Father sequence. I DID make his Figaro flashback in the WoB a required scene, but that's a small consolation. Hopefully people won't mind too much.

I hit a major milestone today. All of the endings have been completed, meaning you can play Divergent Paths from start to finish. The added content includes:
1. A scene for Leo
2. A new map and portrait for if you didn't recruit Leo (it shows Vector)
3. If you recruited Leo, he is also added to Terra's cutscene, and has an extra line (does not mess with the established timing)
4. If you recruited both Kappa and Umaro, Mog will have an alternate ending scene with all 3 of them. Note that Kappa and Umaro's names do not show in the credits.
5. In the post-credits scene, Leo appears on the Falcon instead of Mog. Gogo also appears. he actually appeared in vanilla, but the camera never panned far enough right to show him.
6. A small thing, but every line spoken in the ending is attributed to a speaker. There were about 10 lines that didn't have this before.

From here, the only thing left before v0.9 is making the Falcon NPCs (minus Duncan) recruitable. I also want to tweak a few older scenes now that I know I'll have event space available. For example, I want to change the scene where Leo meets the wounded soldier to have the rest of the party fan out.

Awesome. Really looking forward to it.

How am I supposed to patch the ROM?

How am I supposed to patch the ROM?

Use an IPS patcher such as LIPS: https://fusoya.eludevisibility.org/lips/

Make sure your ROM has a header and is version 1.0 (headered ROM are 3073kb while headerless ones are 3072kb).

You can add/remove a header with Tush: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/608/

 BETA VERSION V0.9 IS RELEASED! CHECK THE MAIN POST FOR A DOWNLOAD LINK. 

This is a major update that gets the hack to a nearly-completed state. With this patch, you will be able to obtain everything in the game. The only things missing are some system-level changes, Duncan's training cottage, and a brand new sequence I plan to add to the World of Balance.

In order to update your save file from v0.8x, step on the frontmost tile on the Falcon's deck. You'll get a message that your file was updated. A screenshot is included in the zip file. IMPORTANT NOTE: Because this save file update includes a fix for Mog's spritesheet, Mog should not be your lead character. If he is, then he'll simply disappear, and reappear after you open up your menu. Also, because v0.9 includes new window graphics borrowed from Chrono Trigger (Thanks, Madsiur!), you'll likely need to go reset your palettes in the main menu. The trick for this is to go to config, scroll down to the color section, move the cursor right to get to Window, and press "A". You'll need to do this for around half of the windows. Lastly, if you haven't yet reached the World of Ruin, you do not need to update your save file.

Now, let's get to the fun stuff that has been added since v0.83:
World of Balance
1. Using leftover event space, animations have been expanded in several scenes. These do not change the story, but they help the events flow a little smoother. For example, when Celes asks Leo to join, he will pause and nod before accepting.
2. Dialog that I have added with this hack has been tweaked. This includes the the Wounded Soldier being renamed from Dak to Piette, thanks to Fast Moon pointing out that Piette was a soldier in Chrono Trigger.
3. Terra's equipment is optimized before the waterfall battle in her scenario, since you have no opportunity to open the menu first.
4. When Banon gets his moment to shine, rather than having Gogo style magic, he gets a single spell: Ultima.

World of Ruin
1. The 16th character is recruitable in the Opera House, and is fully playable.
2. The Falcon's NPCs are now recruitable. They include: Cid (if he lived), Arvis, Molulu, Ziegfried, and Lone Wolf. For the most part, these characters are exactly where you would expect them to be. Lone Wolf might be a bit tricky for you though. Note that I'm assuming you already have Shadow on your save file. If you don't, then recruiting him will simply reset Ziegfried's recruitment event, and you'll get to watch it again.
3. If you got/get the Illumina, the sword will disappear from the grave.
4. When confronting Kefka at the end of the game, all characters will appear, regardless of who you took through the tower. If you did not recruit Terra, she will show up prior to the final battle, get level averaged, and have her equipment optimized with whatever is left in your inventory. Either way, Terra will be perma-morphed for the final battle.
5. The 2 new characters have ending cutscenes. If you recruited both Umaro and the 16th character, Mog will have an alternate ending scene. Leo will have an ending scene, and will also show up in Terra's.
* Note: Points 4 and 5 are easy to write here, but they were more work than re-writing the Thamasa events.

Post any bugs you find here.

As a reminder, here are promised features that have not been added as of yet:
1. Changes to the weapon system. The main feature here is that brushes are required for Sketch, and certain weapons, like Katanas and Spears, cannot be used with the Bracers (aka Genji Gloves).
2. Duncan's cottage will be a training grounds for your team. Duncan will let you swap out commands if you have the right relic (ie - Mug stays even after unequipping the Thief's Glove), and Vargas will let you fast-level characters who are behind... for a fee of course.
3. When the Espers attack Vector, there will be a new sequence starring Celes and Leo where the town must be defended.

Congratz on the new release : )

How do I play this on a Chromebook I don't know how