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chuckroThese are the raw notes I wrote as I was going through the game, detailing noteworthy differences and hidden things that I found. It is far from complete.
The early battles include a bit more variety in the magitek options, and the enemies have more elemental weaknesses/immunities to compensate. The Fireweaver (redone Whelk) killed me the first time around. It's immediately followed by a boss battle against Tritoch, who you need to poison twice and let wear down (...his mountain of HP), because most elemental attacks are ineffective against him, but a third poison attack causes him to counterattack.
Terra has been replaced by the purple-haired Aurora, who starts with all three basic elemental spells and Cure. (The spells have all been redrawn and renamed, incidentally. And all of the healing items were replaced with foods, and Tabs that increase stats were added.) Locke's role is filled by Cloud (yes, FF7 Cloud), who has Cyan's moveset. The Moogles have a variety of extra powers, including Miracle (Banon's Health), Inverse (seems to be Sketch--enemy attacks itself), Steal and Mimic. The fact that every team has a healer makes this fight easier than usual, actually. The house at the entrance to Narshe has become a Developer's Room, which apparently includes bonuses if you find a Time Egg or Dream Stone.
Cloud and Aurora then head south to Castle Daventry (Figaro). The world map has been redrawn. Edgar's role is filled by a space-time mage named Serin. There are new treasure chests in Daventry, including the first two Tools. The Returners are now the Crimson Blades, but events aren't really changed otherwise. (Though the in-battle MAGIC conversation doesn't happen.) The Figaro Cave includes a bunch of enemies transplanted from Secret of Mana, and adds a Zombie boss that seems to exist just to be annoying (and make you waste Karma Jolt items). Seaside Town (South Figaro) is your first real chance to shop, and it offers magic-teaching equipment upgrades for Aurora.
Around South Figaro, you can fight Goombas. I did some grinding here to buy everything and get everyone up to level 12. Spiral Mountain (Mt. Kolts) is mostly unchanged, though the Poison Nova tool can be found there, along with more Secret of Mana references and Neko appearing as an extra store. At the end, Raditz summons some nasties to fight you for him, and it turned out my grinding was insufficient. At which point I decided my time was too valuable to spend (possibly pointlessly) grinding a fanhack, so I put in a cheat code to boost everyone's levels to 99. Turns out that Aurora learns a lot of really badass spells naturally. Raditz is a Dragonball pastiche, who beams out when defeated. Ronan (Sabin) has a redone set of blitz inputs and techniques, and what appears to be auto-dual wield.
At the Crimson Blades hideout, Sir Astral (Banon) does his usual thing. The Corporation attacks, everyone leaves by raft. Astral has both Miracle and Inverse, which we previously saw on moogles. Ultros is red and has some different dialogue, but the split goes as before. The walk back to Narshe is oddly long, though. Gilgamesh jumps in for a random boss battle in the mines. Down in the moogle home, a pig will sell you a Golden Apple.
Ronan finds an orphanage run by Teresa, who tells the tale of young Arc, who trained himself as an Onion Knight after his mother was killed by a blue-haired thief. Next stop is the Imperial Base as they begin to storm Mist Castle, last holdout in Dragonia. Sir Avalon (Cyan) steps forward to defend the place. He has some magic and the Havok Sword new skill, and duel weilds. Back at the base, Ronan gets help from the lurking Oboro (Shadow) in the tougher-than-usual fight against Kefka. (Oboro has Throw and Steal.) The escape goes as normal and they head for the Watcher's Woods.
The events in the Phantom Woods are changed significantly. They spot Arc, and a Soultaker called Reaper offers to let them follow at the cost of their souls. He also reveals Avalon is part human, part esper and part dragon. Reaper comes with Force (that damages undead) and Spirit (which seems to be a big collection of Rages). The ghosts on the Phantom Train are led by Mr. Grimm, a rival of Reaper's. They catch up with Arc, who is a nasty boss battle, as he believes Oboro killed his mother. The Siegfried encounter is replaced with Olbohn, keeper of the Underworld and one of the Seven Wisdoms. After the second Arc fight, Oboro admits the truth, but regrets it. In the third encounter, Oboro tries to goad Arc into killing him, but Charolette's spirit appears and intervenes, telling her son not to seek revenge. She then gives her soul to Reaper to ensure Arc's safety, and he leaves because Arc's relic can protect the party from there on. (Arc has Celes's Runic ability and wears heavy armor.) You have to fight the train without Arc, though, and he's got a soultaker assistant who revives him during the boss battle. Avalon sees his family off as normal.
They then get to Meteor Falls, and Oboro attempts to leave, but is convinced not to. The waterfall battles are against Starmie. Oboro disappears at the bottom of the falls, instead. In the town of Willowby on the Beast Plains, they hear about a diving helmet in Star Mountain that will allow them to follow the Zolom Trench. That, and the ferry back to Fraust go pretty much as usual.
In Seaside Town, Cloud knocks people's clothes off, rather than stealing them. He then rescues Tifa, the former Shadow Knight that Kefka captured in the intro. Turns out she and Cloud have a history together. Tifa is a brawler, she duel-wields claws but also has some natural magic and Setzer's Slots redone as her limit breaks. They escape, and she agrees to help the Crimson Blades in exchange for Cloud protecting her.
The battle of Narshe allowed you to hire in Oboro as an extra character, and includes a Neko-salesman hanging off to the side. And some enemies are changed, and Kefka is redrawn. Aurora's alt-form seems to be a moogle-girl.
The side-story in Figaro is basically unchanged. Cloud's lost love in Kohlingen is (shock) Aerith--and that entire flashback scene is redone to show her fighting Kefka, and reveals her to be a hybrid like Aurora.
The Colusseum exists in the World of Balance, on the far east edge of the map. Gilgamesh and the Adventure Time cameos are hanging out there. Twlight Vista (Jidoor) adds a beach, for reasons that aren't clear. Psycho City (Zozo) is full of undead NPCs, and Umaro is repurposed as the boss. Some espers are changes, but Ramuh is pretty much the same. Zozo hosts the bonus battles against Master Tonberry (who drops a Demon Killer sword) and insanely-nasty Big Daddy which claims to drop Incinerate (it's a rare item) and frees a girl who gives you a renamed Safety Bit. And a cursed clock in the "weapon shop" inflicts your entire party with poison, blind and zombie. I have no idea what time to set the Chainsaw clock to.
Setzer's role is filled by Otis, the sky pirate and last of the wyvern-riding Dragoons.`The opera is generally unchanged. The towns of the empire have new names and some new NPC dialogue, though there's no real benefit to hiking to Tzen or Miranda. Glow City's tiny house is a party-change option, instead of a free heal. The Magitek Facility is basically unchanged besides the bosses being swapped out. The flashback to the esper world is also the same except for some names and color palettes.
Otis has Jump and Cannon (a basic special attack) as his abilities, comes equipped with a Genji Glove, and can't learn magic. In exploring the world map, it appears that Triangle Island is there, but nothing special is on it.
Apparently you can get a "Void Stone" by not saving Mog from Lone Wolf. It's a renamed Gold Hairpin, but you can find one in the Hellfire Cave right after that. The Psionic Wave (Debilitator) Tool is also hidden there, though I didn't see an Atma Weapon equivalent. A proper battle with Kefka is added before the gate opens, but the events are the same. The events in Glow City are also pretty close, with a few jokes and some reptites added. (Doing well at it unlocks the usual areas and nets you a Golden Apple.)
New scenes were added to the boat ride, including the beginnings of Aurora/Leo romance, a boss fight against Leviathan, a conversation between Leviathan and Aurora that gets you his magicite, and a scene with Ghestal freeing Kefka from prison. You also get extended use of Leo, who has the Magitek power set and also a Blaster ability.
The role of Strago is played by FuSoYa, and Relm is replaced with Eiko. A new scene is added before the house fire with more Aurora/Leo romance. The house fire is the same until the end, where there's a new boss that you need to fight twice, the second time with Oboro, Leo and a moogle named Krosis. You then fight a series of random battles with that party until you can warp out. FuSoYa then tells the story: They are the last of a destroyed race from the moon who have been through the events of FF4 and then came here in time for the Magi Wars. Zuriel, the Lord of Darkness, possessed a human body and became the Dark Sorcerer; and they were barely able to defeat him. It then flashes back to Odin's last stand at King Alistair's castle, where Kefka/the Sorcerer defeated Odin, but FuSoYa and Golbez rescued his son, Krosis. Then FuSoYa confronts Oboro, revealing that he knows he's Akira, Eiko's father.
FuSoYa, it should be noted, has a massive collection of natural spells and several more of his Lores than usual. Eiko gets Summon as a special, and also gets a bunch of powerful natural magic. (The first part of the mountain events with Ultros are unchanged.) The espers recognize FuSoYa as Lunarian and mention fighting alongside KluYa (which, if this is a sequel to FF4, makes no sense), then the peace treaty and Kefka's intervention go as normal. After Leo's funeral, FuSoYa reveals what everyone figured out long ago: That Kefka is Zuriel, the Dark Sorcerer returned.
FuSoYa is now required for the Floating Continent. Instead of Chupon, Buu and Olbohn accompany Ultros. On the way down to the floating continent, the battle is against what appears to be a Mega Man boss. Ultima is restrited into later versions of Ultima, and leaves behind a save point. The confrontation at the Statues focuses on FuSoYa, and rather than Kefka killed Ghestal, Golbez swoops in at the last moment to cut them both down. The two of them fight Kefka, but then he summons Zemus back from the dead. Then Oboro comes back, and joins FuSoYa and GolbeZ in a disgustingly-hard fight against Zemus and Kefka (that requires casting Meteor to break Zemus' invincibility). Then Oboro remains behind to stop Kefka while the party escapes. The escape sequence gives you 18 minutes, Raditz inexplicably returns as the boss, and then Golbez automatically leaves and Oboro returns when you reach the end (regardless of time remaining).
We then get a cutscene of Kefka/Zuriel fighting Exdeath, Dark Cloud, and Zeromus as he drains the energy of the statues. Then we need to feed Dr. Oak as Tifa.
At which point I died as Tifa, and since I hadn't saved since just after fighting Ultima, had to do all of that again. Fuck. I zoomed through that segment again and didn't try to save Oak the second time, I just let him die. Cliff-jumping was pretty standard. In Rampart, a man at the bar will give you a Mermaid Tear if you tell him drinking won't solve anything. The overworld enemies are insanely powerful, and can almost OHKO a level 99 Tifa with their magic.
The enemies in the collapsing house in Thistle are much more level-appropriate, so long as you have anti-petrify gear. Events are unchanged and Ronan rejoins. In Township, "Snakes" is leading the Radical Dreamers to break into Castle Daventry. Oddly, the boat drops you off on a dock in the wilderness, not South Figaro. You need to circle the island to reach the town, then further to the cave. In the cave, Olbohn replaces Siegfried, and leaves a nasty bonus boss in his wake when he flees the last treasure chest. The boss of the castle basement is replaced with a piecemeal zombie which actually isn't terribly difficult (especially when compared against some of the random encounters).
Evonne's Tomb is largely unchanged, though the whelk-recolor-in-a-box was moved to a different treasure chest.
Black Mountain (Mt. Zozo) has a new and really unpleasant exterior color palette. The Wind Dragon, renamed Nightmare, is a monster worthy of the GBA bonus dungeon, immune to most attacks and with a mountain of HP.
Getting Arc back is just a matter of finding the orphanage; he rejoins automatically.
The Dangerous Hideout (Veldt Cave) has the usual Cerebus (Shadow) events. You know you're playing a fanhack when a random chest monster has 40,000 HP. You can pick up the Shinobi (Striker) from the usual chest and rescue Oboro from new boss Arch Azul. (Who is, as is the pattern, easier than the optional bosses.) Oboro can then be retrieved from the Colusseum as normal.
Events with Aurora in Willowby are basically unchanged, with Proto-Babil standing in for Phunbaba.
Doom Gaze is replaced with Garuda, who has the same gimmick and drops a Time Egg when beaten.
Owzer's Mansion: Dullahan in one of the paintings as a mid-boss, then Wario and Evil Mario are the bosses as Eiko tries to exorcise the painting. Emperor's Letter: Queen stands and takes 6 steps forward, 6 steps left, then 3 steps down and presses A.
There's nothing at Solitary Island if you return. (Though this might be different if you save Dr. Oak.)
There's a mysterious house in the forest in the center of South Figaro island, but it repels you if you try to enter. Once you have the Lump of Metal from Cyan's Dream, you can enter and see the Tau (Duncan) scene with Ronan. It teaches the best blitz.
Tyrano Tower (Fanatic's Tower) is now near Narshe. The man at the entrance will sell you the Bahamut magicite for 100,000 Gil. The battles allow you to use magic, but are inescapable and hard. You can fight a pseudo-boss Omni Gear as a random encounter in the hidden room. The second floor has Titan as a monster-in-a-box, and boy is he nasty. (In retrospect, all of his attacks are physical, so Vanish might do the trick.) He drops the Godhand. Albion, the holy dragon on the third floor, spams Heartless Angel and holy-elemental attacks. He drops the Holy Lance. At the top of the tower is the Zohar Shard (Gem Box). Taking it incurs the wrath of Azala and Asmodeus. They're extremely powerful and I have no useful strategy for them; but the drop the Divine Gift (Offering) and Magus Rod.
Fraust is full of zombies, and the blue dragon has become Coldfang (who I managed to beat with a combination of dumb luck and the Blue Essence shield). Tritoch is stronger than usual and loves sleep, confusion and freezing. In the caves below, there are more pitfalls than usual and you can only see a small circle around you. There's a treasure chest full of Tonberries with insanely-high evade. You can fight The Heartless in Umaro's stead; presumably you need to bring a specific character there to recruit him. If you go up to get Mog first, you can use the Incinerate! on a snowman to free an Imperial Soldier, who'll give you the Arkenstone that lights up dark places. (But Mog isn't there!) Later, you can return with Mog to recruit Shadow the Heartless, who then allows you to open the doors and get the Zodiac Sword from a townsperson.
The Phoenix Cave have a new map location. The chests contain treasures (and a chest blocked by spikes has a monster-in-a-box two-part battle). Darkblaze, the new Red Dragon, and he's actually invincible--you need to survive his insane assault long enough for him to spontaneously die. The two special relics for Heartless are here, too. The scenes with Cloud and Aerith are basically the same as the original.
In Cyan's Dream, the Axem Rangers replace the Dream Stooges. Reaper appears and joins your party. They're shockingly weak for bosses in this hack. Soul Eater isn't much worse, though you need Slow to break his invulerability at one point. At the end, Havoc gets upgraded, you get a new sword, and you get the Reaper Doll that summons Reaper to join your party.
The Underground Castle has a M. Tonyberry in a box, which is relatively benign. The water dragon immediately after that, however, is as strong as the rest. It drops an Aeon Crystal (Ribbon). The Odin magicite is just sitting out in the open. Finding the new switch reveals the queen turned to stone, but nothing happens when you examine her.
Triangle Island still requires getting eaten. The slamming ceiling area, apparently not difficult enough before, is now done in the dark. Mog is who you find at the end. You can also bring Otis and retrieve his parrot Pepe from the basement, though I'm not clear what that gets you.
With the Time Egg from Garuda, you can enter the room in the developer's house in Fraust. There, you can fight Omega Mk. 4. He is invulnerable, regenerates and has non-stop massive attacking abilities. I couldn't figure out how to damage him.
In Jericho, there's a nigh-impossible bonus boss hanging out in the town, claiming to guard the Trans-Dimensional Gateway. (He heals insanely fast, including responding to attacks with Drain and Osmose, plus has very high evasion. I managed to take him out with a few Omnislash V5s before he could really get going.) Passing him leads to a new Esper World. One of the denizens will send to to a New Game Plus if you have the Time Egg. Another hands over the Ragnarock magicite, and then Golbez will join your party at the castle entrance.
The Spellbound Castle is brand-new, pieced together from other maps. The first boss is Golgotha, which drops the Undead Crown and blocks the way to the Gamma Sword, both clearly for Golbez. Then you need to fight Shenron, the vaunted most powerful dragon. He barrier changes through a bunch of elemental formations and throws out top-tier spells, though he may be (at least briefly) vulnerable to Stop. He drops an Aeon Crystal (Ribbon)...and that's all.
Still to-do: Ebot's Rock. Find FuSoYa. Bonus boss in Narshe.
Kefka's Tower:
One of the Dragons is Jormugand, who spams Flood and Toxic Bomb and occasionally destroys characters with Melt, then becomes enraged and gets twice as strong. He drops a useless-if-you-can-get-in Dragon Soul.
AlphaOmega will just wreck your shit with periodic megablasts, including pretty much every overpowered ability in the game. If you can survive, he drops the Omega Shield and fully heals the party.
Dark Heart is the other dragon; he apparently absorbs magic but can be smashed to death with physicals. He doesn't seem to drop anything.
Metal Gear is the non-optional impossible boss. He spams attacks that are pretty much sure to kill the character they hit, has something like 150,000 HP, and periodically heals itself. It drops a Golden Apple.
As we saw in a cutscene, the statues are now bosses from previous FFs.
Exdeath will just drown you in assorted damage, and is a wall of HP. He drops the Zanmato. The Cloud of Darkness spams elemental magic damage and is weak to physical attacks (I found her almost deal-able) and drops a Goddess Ring.
Zeromus can use Sleep, Stop, Slowga and Freeze, and wipe out the entire party at once with Meteo and Big Bang. He also loves to spam Drain and Osmose. He drops a ZeromusShard (Crystal Orb).
The final confrontation with Kefka continues the trend of making him even crazier. Dark Gaia is the first stage. Who can inflict zombie.
...you know what? That's enough. I don't need to waste an hour of my life trying to eke my way to victory against a deliberately-impossible final boss. I've seen the game, I've played all the pieces. I'm done here.
The early battles include a bit more variety in the magitek options, and the enemies have more elemental weaknesses/immunities to compensate. The Fireweaver (redone Whelk) killed me the first time around. It's immediately followed by a boss battle against Tritoch, who you need to poison twice and let wear down (...his mountain of HP), because most elemental attacks are ineffective against him, but a third poison attack causes him to counterattack.
Terra has been replaced by the purple-haired Aurora, who starts with all three basic elemental spells and Cure. (The spells have all been redrawn and renamed, incidentally. And all of the healing items were replaced with foods, and Tabs that increase stats were added.) Locke's role is filled by Cloud (yes, FF7 Cloud), who has Cyan's moveset. The Moogles have a variety of extra powers, including Miracle (Banon's Health), Inverse (seems to be Sketch--enemy attacks itself), Steal and Mimic. The fact that every team has a healer makes this fight easier than usual, actually. The house at the entrance to Narshe has become a Developer's Room, which apparently includes bonuses if you find a Time Egg or Dream Stone.
Cloud and Aurora then head south to Castle Daventry (Figaro). The world map has been redrawn. Edgar's role is filled by a space-time mage named Serin. There are new treasure chests in Daventry, including the first two Tools. The Returners are now the Crimson Blades, but events aren't really changed otherwise. (Though the in-battle MAGIC conversation doesn't happen.) The Figaro Cave includes a bunch of enemies transplanted from Secret of Mana, and adds a Zombie boss that seems to exist just to be annoying (and make you waste Karma Jolt items). Seaside Town (South Figaro) is your first real chance to shop, and it offers magic-teaching equipment upgrades for Aurora.
Around South Figaro, you can fight Goombas. I did some grinding here to buy everything and get everyone up to level 12. Spiral Mountain (Mt. Kolts) is mostly unchanged, though the Poison Nova tool can be found there, along with more Secret of Mana references and Neko appearing as an extra store. At the end, Raditz summons some nasties to fight you for him, and it turned out my grinding was insufficient. At which point I decided my time was too valuable to spend (possibly pointlessly) grinding a fanhack, so I put in a cheat code to boost everyone's levels to 99. Turns out that Aurora learns a lot of really badass spells naturally. Raditz is a Dragonball pastiche, who beams out when defeated. Ronan (Sabin) has a redone set of blitz inputs and techniques, and what appears to be auto-dual wield.
At the Crimson Blades hideout, Sir Astral (Banon) does his usual thing. The Corporation attacks, everyone leaves by raft. Astral has both Miracle and Inverse, which we previously saw on moogles. Ultros is red and has some different dialogue, but the split goes as before. The walk back to Narshe is oddly long, though. Gilgamesh jumps in for a random boss battle in the mines. Down in the moogle home, a pig will sell you a Golden Apple.
Ronan finds an orphanage run by Teresa, who tells the tale of young Arc, who trained himself as an Onion Knight after his mother was killed by a blue-haired thief. Next stop is the Imperial Base as they begin to storm Mist Castle, last holdout in Dragonia. Sir Avalon (Cyan) steps forward to defend the place. He has some magic and the Havok Sword new skill, and duel weilds. Back at the base, Ronan gets help from the lurking Oboro (Shadow) in the tougher-than-usual fight against Kefka. (Oboro has Throw and Steal.) The escape goes as normal and they head for the Watcher's Woods.
The events in the Phantom Woods are changed significantly. They spot Arc, and a Soultaker called Reaper offers to let them follow at the cost of their souls. He also reveals Avalon is part human, part esper and part dragon. Reaper comes with Force (that damages undead) and Spirit (which seems to be a big collection of Rages). The ghosts on the Phantom Train are led by Mr. Grimm, a rival of Reaper's. They catch up with Arc, who is a nasty boss battle, as he believes Oboro killed his mother. The Siegfried encounter is replaced with Olbohn, keeper of the Underworld and one of the Seven Wisdoms. After the second Arc fight, Oboro admits the truth, but regrets it. In the third encounter, Oboro tries to goad Arc into killing him, but Charolette's spirit appears and intervenes, telling her son not to seek revenge. She then gives her soul to Reaper to ensure Arc's safety, and he leaves because Arc's relic can protect the party from there on. (Arc has Celes's Runic ability and wears heavy armor.) You have to fight the train without Arc, though, and he's got a soultaker assistant who revives him during the boss battle. Avalon sees his family off as normal.
They then get to Meteor Falls, and Oboro attempts to leave, but is convinced not to. The waterfall battles are against Starmie. Oboro disappears at the bottom of the falls, instead. In the town of Willowby on the Beast Plains, they hear about a diving helmet in Star Mountain that will allow them to follow the Zolom Trench. That, and the ferry back to Fraust go pretty much as usual.
In Seaside Town, Cloud knocks people's clothes off, rather than stealing them. He then rescues Tifa, the former Shadow Knight that Kefka captured in the intro. Turns out she and Cloud have a history together. Tifa is a brawler, she duel-wields claws but also has some natural magic and Setzer's Slots redone as her limit breaks. They escape, and she agrees to help the Crimson Blades in exchange for Cloud protecting her.
The battle of Narshe allowed you to hire in Oboro as an extra character, and includes a Neko-salesman hanging off to the side. And some enemies are changed, and Kefka is redrawn. Aurora's alt-form seems to be a moogle-girl.
The side-story in Figaro is basically unchanged. Cloud's lost love in Kohlingen is (shock) Aerith--and that entire flashback scene is redone to show her fighting Kefka, and reveals her to be a hybrid like Aurora.
The Colusseum exists in the World of Balance, on the far east edge of the map. Gilgamesh and the Adventure Time cameos are hanging out there. Twlight Vista (Jidoor) adds a beach, for reasons that aren't clear. Psycho City (Zozo) is full of undead NPCs, and Umaro is repurposed as the boss. Some espers are changes, but Ramuh is pretty much the same. Zozo hosts the bonus battles against Master Tonberry (who drops a Demon Killer sword) and insanely-nasty Big Daddy which claims to drop Incinerate (it's a rare item) and frees a girl who gives you a renamed Safety Bit. And a cursed clock in the "weapon shop" inflicts your entire party with poison, blind and zombie. I have no idea what time to set the Chainsaw clock to.
Setzer's role is filled by Otis, the sky pirate and last of the wyvern-riding Dragoons.`The opera is generally unchanged. The towns of the empire have new names and some new NPC dialogue, though there's no real benefit to hiking to Tzen or Miranda. Glow City's tiny house is a party-change option, instead of a free heal. The Magitek Facility is basically unchanged besides the bosses being swapped out. The flashback to the esper world is also the same except for some names and color palettes.
Otis has Jump and Cannon (a basic special attack) as his abilities, comes equipped with a Genji Glove, and can't learn magic. In exploring the world map, it appears that Triangle Island is there, but nothing special is on it.
Apparently you can get a "Void Stone" by not saving Mog from Lone Wolf. It's a renamed Gold Hairpin, but you can find one in the Hellfire Cave right after that. The Psionic Wave (Debilitator) Tool is also hidden there, though I didn't see an Atma Weapon equivalent. A proper battle with Kefka is added before the gate opens, but the events are the same. The events in Glow City are also pretty close, with a few jokes and some reptites added. (Doing well at it unlocks the usual areas and nets you a Golden Apple.)
New scenes were added to the boat ride, including the beginnings of Aurora/Leo romance, a boss fight against Leviathan, a conversation between Leviathan and Aurora that gets you his magicite, and a scene with Ghestal freeing Kefka from prison. You also get extended use of Leo, who has the Magitek power set and also a Blaster ability.
The role of Strago is played by FuSoYa, and Relm is replaced with Eiko. A new scene is added before the house fire with more Aurora/Leo romance. The house fire is the same until the end, where there's a new boss that you need to fight twice, the second time with Oboro, Leo and a moogle named Krosis. You then fight a series of random battles with that party until you can warp out. FuSoYa then tells the story: They are the last of a destroyed race from the moon who have been through the events of FF4 and then came here in time for the Magi Wars. Zuriel, the Lord of Darkness, possessed a human body and became the Dark Sorcerer; and they were barely able to defeat him. It then flashes back to Odin's last stand at King Alistair's castle, where Kefka/the Sorcerer defeated Odin, but FuSoYa and Golbez rescued his son, Krosis. Then FuSoYa confronts Oboro, revealing that he knows he's Akira, Eiko's father.
FuSoYa, it should be noted, has a massive collection of natural spells and several more of his Lores than usual. Eiko gets Summon as a special, and also gets a bunch of powerful natural magic. (The first part of the mountain events with Ultros are unchanged.) The espers recognize FuSoYa as Lunarian and mention fighting alongside KluYa (which, if this is a sequel to FF4, makes no sense), then the peace treaty and Kefka's intervention go as normal. After Leo's funeral, FuSoYa reveals what everyone figured out long ago: That Kefka is Zuriel, the Dark Sorcerer returned.
FuSoYa is now required for the Floating Continent. Instead of Chupon, Buu and Olbohn accompany Ultros. On the way down to the floating continent, the battle is against what appears to be a Mega Man boss. Ultima is restrited into later versions of Ultima, and leaves behind a save point. The confrontation at the Statues focuses on FuSoYa, and rather than Kefka killed Ghestal, Golbez swoops in at the last moment to cut them both down. The two of them fight Kefka, but then he summons Zemus back from the dead. Then Oboro comes back, and joins FuSoYa and GolbeZ in a disgustingly-hard fight against Zemus and Kefka (that requires casting Meteor to break Zemus' invincibility). Then Oboro remains behind to stop Kefka while the party escapes. The escape sequence gives you 18 minutes, Raditz inexplicably returns as the boss, and then Golbez automatically leaves and Oboro returns when you reach the end (regardless of time remaining).
We then get a cutscene of Kefka/Zuriel fighting Exdeath, Dark Cloud, and Zeromus as he drains the energy of the statues. Then we need to feed Dr. Oak as Tifa.
At which point I died as Tifa, and since I hadn't saved since just after fighting Ultima, had to do all of that again. Fuck. I zoomed through that segment again and didn't try to save Oak the second time, I just let him die. Cliff-jumping was pretty standard. In Rampart, a man at the bar will give you a Mermaid Tear if you tell him drinking won't solve anything. The overworld enemies are insanely powerful, and can almost OHKO a level 99 Tifa with their magic.
The enemies in the collapsing house in Thistle are much more level-appropriate, so long as you have anti-petrify gear. Events are unchanged and Ronan rejoins. In Township, "Snakes" is leading the Radical Dreamers to break into Castle Daventry. Oddly, the boat drops you off on a dock in the wilderness, not South Figaro. You need to circle the island to reach the town, then further to the cave. In the cave, Olbohn replaces Siegfried, and leaves a nasty bonus boss in his wake when he flees the last treasure chest. The boss of the castle basement is replaced with a piecemeal zombie which actually isn't terribly difficult (especially when compared against some of the random encounters).
Evonne's Tomb is largely unchanged, though the whelk-recolor-in-a-box was moved to a different treasure chest.
Black Mountain (Mt. Zozo) has a new and really unpleasant exterior color palette. The Wind Dragon, renamed Nightmare, is a monster worthy of the GBA bonus dungeon, immune to most attacks and with a mountain of HP.
Getting Arc back is just a matter of finding the orphanage; he rejoins automatically.
The Dangerous Hideout (Veldt Cave) has the usual Cerebus (Shadow) events. You know you're playing a fanhack when a random chest monster has 40,000 HP. You can pick up the Shinobi (Striker) from the usual chest and rescue Oboro from new boss Arch Azul. (Who is, as is the pattern, easier than the optional bosses.) Oboro can then be retrieved from the Colusseum as normal.
Events with Aurora in Willowby are basically unchanged, with Proto-Babil standing in for Phunbaba.
Doom Gaze is replaced with Garuda, who has the same gimmick and drops a Time Egg when beaten.
Owzer's Mansion: Dullahan in one of the paintings as a mid-boss, then Wario and Evil Mario are the bosses as Eiko tries to exorcise the painting. Emperor's Letter: Queen stands and takes 6 steps forward, 6 steps left, then 3 steps down and presses A.
There's nothing at Solitary Island if you return. (Though this might be different if you save Dr. Oak.)
There's a mysterious house in the forest in the center of South Figaro island, but it repels you if you try to enter. Once you have the Lump of Metal from Cyan's Dream, you can enter and see the Tau (Duncan) scene with Ronan. It teaches the best blitz.
Tyrano Tower (Fanatic's Tower) is now near Narshe. The man at the entrance will sell you the Bahamut magicite for 100,000 Gil. The battles allow you to use magic, but are inescapable and hard. You can fight a pseudo-boss Omni Gear as a random encounter in the hidden room. The second floor has Titan as a monster-in-a-box, and boy is he nasty. (In retrospect, all of his attacks are physical, so Vanish might do the trick.) He drops the Godhand. Albion, the holy dragon on the third floor, spams Heartless Angel and holy-elemental attacks. He drops the Holy Lance. At the top of the tower is the Zohar Shard (Gem Box). Taking it incurs the wrath of Azala and Asmodeus. They're extremely powerful and I have no useful strategy for them; but the drop the Divine Gift (Offering) and Magus Rod.
Fraust is full of zombies, and the blue dragon has become Coldfang (who I managed to beat with a combination of dumb luck and the Blue Essence shield). Tritoch is stronger than usual and loves sleep, confusion and freezing. In the caves below, there are more pitfalls than usual and you can only see a small circle around you. There's a treasure chest full of Tonberries with insanely-high evade. You can fight The Heartless in Umaro's stead; presumably you need to bring a specific character there to recruit him. If you go up to get Mog first, you can use the Incinerate! on a snowman to free an Imperial Soldier, who'll give you the Arkenstone that lights up dark places. (But Mog isn't there!) Later, you can return with Mog to recruit Shadow the Heartless, who then allows you to open the doors and get the Zodiac Sword from a townsperson.
The Phoenix Cave have a new map location. The chests contain treasures (and a chest blocked by spikes has a monster-in-a-box two-part battle). Darkblaze, the new Red Dragon, and he's actually invincible--you need to survive his insane assault long enough for him to spontaneously die. The two special relics for Heartless are here, too. The scenes with Cloud and Aerith are basically the same as the original.
In Cyan's Dream, the Axem Rangers replace the Dream Stooges. Reaper appears and joins your party. They're shockingly weak for bosses in this hack. Soul Eater isn't much worse, though you need Slow to break his invulerability at one point. At the end, Havoc gets upgraded, you get a new sword, and you get the Reaper Doll that summons Reaper to join your party.
The Underground Castle has a M. Tonyberry in a box, which is relatively benign. The water dragon immediately after that, however, is as strong as the rest. It drops an Aeon Crystal (Ribbon). The Odin magicite is just sitting out in the open. Finding the new switch reveals the queen turned to stone, but nothing happens when you examine her.
Triangle Island still requires getting eaten. The slamming ceiling area, apparently not difficult enough before, is now done in the dark. Mog is who you find at the end. You can also bring Otis and retrieve his parrot Pepe from the basement, though I'm not clear what that gets you.
With the Time Egg from Garuda, you can enter the room in the developer's house in Fraust. There, you can fight Omega Mk. 4. He is invulnerable, regenerates and has non-stop massive attacking abilities. I couldn't figure out how to damage him.
In Jericho, there's a nigh-impossible bonus boss hanging out in the town, claiming to guard the Trans-Dimensional Gateway. (He heals insanely fast, including responding to attacks with Drain and Osmose, plus has very high evasion. I managed to take him out with a few Omnislash V5s before he could really get going.) Passing him leads to a new Esper World. One of the denizens will send to to a New Game Plus if you have the Time Egg. Another hands over the Ragnarock magicite, and then Golbez will join your party at the castle entrance.
The Spellbound Castle is brand-new, pieced together from other maps. The first boss is Golgotha, which drops the Undead Crown and blocks the way to the Gamma Sword, both clearly for Golbez. Then you need to fight Shenron, the vaunted most powerful dragon. He barrier changes through a bunch of elemental formations and throws out top-tier spells, though he may be (at least briefly) vulnerable to Stop. He drops an Aeon Crystal (Ribbon)...and that's all.
Still to-do: Ebot's Rock. Find FuSoYa. Bonus boss in Narshe.
Kefka's Tower:
One of the Dragons is Jormugand, who spams Flood and Toxic Bomb and occasionally destroys characters with Melt, then becomes enraged and gets twice as strong. He drops a useless-if-you-can-get-in Dragon Soul.
AlphaOmega will just wreck your shit with periodic megablasts, including pretty much every overpowered ability in the game. If you can survive, he drops the Omega Shield and fully heals the party.
Dark Heart is the other dragon; he apparently absorbs magic but can be smashed to death with physicals. He doesn't seem to drop anything.
Metal Gear is the non-optional impossible boss. He spams attacks that are pretty much sure to kill the character they hit, has something like 150,000 HP, and periodically heals itself. It drops a Golden Apple.
As we saw in a cutscene, the statues are now bosses from previous FFs.
Exdeath will just drown you in assorted damage, and is a wall of HP. He drops the Zanmato. The Cloud of Darkness spams elemental magic damage and is weak to physical attacks (I found her almost deal-able) and drops a Goddess Ring.
Zeromus can use Sleep, Stop, Slowga and Freeze, and wipe out the entire party at once with Meteo and Big Bang. He also loves to spam Drain and Osmose. He drops a ZeromusShard (Crystal Orb).
The final confrontation with Kefka continues the trend of making him even crazier. Dark Gaia is the first stage. Who can inflict zombie.
...you know what? That's enough. I don't need to waste an hour of my life trying to eke my way to victory against a deliberately-impossible final boss. I've seen the game, I've played all the pieces. I'm done here.
