The intent of this hack is to elevate General Leo to a deuteragonist role and periodically shift the narrative focus from the main party to him, in order to explore the events on the Imperial side in parallel with the main casts’ actions (kind of like what FF8 did with Laguna). The narrative split continues until Leo and the Returners’ stories intersect, at which point more substantial changes occur, such as Leo surviving and eventually being able to join the party as a permanent member, and the World of Ruin’s story progression being retooled. The overall story and mechanics remain mostly the same, but utilize an expanded ROM and dialogue bank for dozens of new cutscenes and events to expand upon what’s already there, for all characters, not just Leo. Terra’s struggles are also more significantly explored.
This is first and foremost a story hack rather than a gameplay hack. Not to “change” the story, so much as tell it from a different set of eyes, and to give Leo a chance to participate in that story more than he did originally. There are a few new boss fights and some minor adjustments to battle mechanics, as well as a few events that utilize mechanics not present in the original game. But expanding on the original world, characters, and themes while still remaining loyal to them was the goal going into this rather than changing the manner in which the game is played. As such, no characters have been added, replaced, removed, or significantly altered, with the exception of Siegfried, since he served no purpose in the original game and his sprite memory was re-utilized, so he no longer exists. So if you’re a die-hard Siegfried fan, this hack is not for you.
New Features:
-Leo’s sprite recolored to more closely match his menu portrait
-Leo can now become a permanent party member… OR NOT, depending on player choices.
-Mog is now a temporarily-recruitable guest character to open a permanent slot in the roster for Leo.
-Two new events added to the World of Balance featuring Leo as a playable guest character, along with adding him to a third where he wasn’t originally present.
-World of Ruin opens from a different character’s perspective
-Brand new re-recruitment event for Leo in World of Ruin to obtain him as a permanent party member
-Shadow becomes permanently recruitable in the World of Balance
-Over an hour’s worth of new or expanded cutscenes, with over 800 new lines of dialogue
-New retranslation of much of the original script. Woolsey was used as a base and his translation was kept for lines that were “close enough” or whose localization didn’t detract from the original intent. The remainder of the script has been relocalized and refreshed. This is an original retranslation, not one from previous mods.
-Spell, item, monster, and ability names updated to be consistent with modern naming schemes in the series, provided there were enough characters to fit the name (e.g., even though “Firaga” will fit in 6 letters, “Blizzaga” and “Thundaga” will not, so for consistency’s sake, they have all remained “Fire 3″, “Ice 3″, and “Bolt 3″).
-New algorithm for HP/MP gain at level up that takes characters’ individual base stats into account for greater character differentiation based on role.
-Evasion glitch patched. The Goggles no longer do nothing.
-Dance never fails
-Desperation attacks much easier to trigger
-Bushido gauge speed increased
-Sprint by default except for events and maps that forbid it. Sprint Shoes no longer exist.
-Colosseum now controllable
-Several new pieces of music
-New sidequest for additional stat gains
-New ultimate weapon sidequests
