The Rabbit Hole

Final Fantasy II - Job System (SNES, Played on R36S) – A hack of the original SNES version of FF4 that adds a job system and keeps the party consistent without changing the plot at all. Honestly, it feels more like a tech demo than a full hack, because the battle system and the plot no longer match up (Kain constantly leaves your party but stays in the battle lineup, for instance; and they handle automatic plot battles by just making your whole party fight them, whether or not that makes any sense). They accomplished the job system via equippable items, so you can't have more than one character of any class, which means you're really just choosing who's in your party. But since characters’ stats are adjusted as they gain levels in a class, you can’t freely swap around like in FF3; if you spend 50 levels as a Monk you’ll be a really lousy White Wizard. They added some extra weapons at various points and rearranged some chests/renamed some items, but it felt like there was less really usable equipment overall. I think I also might have missed something, because the writeup mentions 14 classes and I only count 13 (and there’s no Cid class). The wizard classes power up at plot points to get more spells, which is a decent way to handle those. You’re stuck with a 4-person party for more than half the game, because Edge joins at his normal point and at level 1. (And he’s the only character who can really make use of Ninja or full use of Monk, because he’s the only two-handed attacker.) They did a few minor changes to dialogue and minor changes to layouts of dungeons; such as no invisible bridge in the Lunar Subterranean, for instance. I found (and lost) a bonus encounter in the Sealed Cave that smashed me but didn't give a game over (and had dialogue that might have been from a different battle). And then the extremely long, very varied new Zeromus fight trounced me despite having level 80+ characters with the best equipment. Needless to say, difficulty is wonky. Overall it’s a cool idea, but it’s not fully baked—I think some adjustments to the plot (Kain never leaves, Yang joins and stays as the 5th member, tweaks around guest characters) would go a long way.

Gargoyle’s Quest - Remastered (GB, Played on R36S) - A hack built on the retranslation patch for the Japanese version of the game, this adjusts some of the graphics to remove borders and import graphics from the second game. While I’m not sure how well it would work on an original Game Boy screen, the graphical upgrades looked decent and I suspect they work better than the originals for various colorizations. The retranslation fixes some errors in the original (a couple of places that didn’t make sense), but makes most of the names less evocative (“Dark Power” isn’t as cool as “Talisman of the Cyclone”) and adds an incorrect clue for the correct serpent path at the last town. I appreciate the effort that went into this and it comes out collectively very polished, but I don’t think it’s actually better than the original at the end of the day.

Secret of Mana Plus (v2.4) (SNES, Played on R36S) - An “expansion” hack that adds to the game but changes very little. The opening act of the game is basically unchanged except you can carry 7 of each item and the cpu characters can wander further off screen. There is a new cutscene with a historian when you leave the ruins in Pandora; and you can rescue a dwarf from the goblin camp (that you can re-enter) for a small reward. The translation is unchanged--this is very much about the "additions" rather than improvements to existing. The Wind Palace is built out into a full dungeon with a gimmick where you need to find captured moogles. The Empire is greatly expanded, with an overworld area before you reach Southtown, then another overworld area combined with caves and a new boss before reaching the sewers. The Gold Isle adds an outdoor area before you go retrieve the palace key, and expands the palace with new floors and enemies. That leads to a new scene with the Scorpion Army at the top, who crash their airship next to the Moon Palace, which is much longer and full of crystal orbs you need to activate to dispel illusions. Does this do what they intended, which was to improve the pacing of the mid-game? Absolutely. That said, especially the overland sequences are very repetitive and all the monsters are palette-swaps, and if this were a commercial production you’d need new art assets and a few new monster designs to keep those parts exciting. They added a bunch of small sidequests in the endgame where you can get a 9th weapon orb for each weapon. (Or some, at least--I found the Northtown Cannon will send you to a bonus area in the Lofty Mountains, there's a woman who you have to meet in several towns, there's a hidden treasure in the desert near the starry sea, and you can get one by letting Luka out of the Water Palace basement.) Also, Buffy and the Lime Slime drop orbs rather than random drops from enemies--but either overall random drops were turned way up or I got really lucky, because I picked up a lot of extra accessories in the Fortress. Overall, while it's clearly not a professional effort, I think this hack did a very nice job on its stated aims. I'd love to see it combined with the Retranslation hack I played a few years ago.

Soul Blazer: Dark Genesis (Standalone Fan Game) - Available on Itch.io, this is a standalone game (not a romhack) that uses graphics and music from Soul Blazer but recreates the mechanics. (And almost perfectly, at that.) It’s only a couple of hours long with only one town area, a handful of upgrades, and only one spell (the Phoenix; you never get a Soul of Magician). There are four hidden emblems to find to get the best sword; and I actually played most of the game with the starting sword because I missed the second one until I was searching for the last emblem. There’s a very clever innovation where some monster lairs are sealed by puzzles (step on all the squares, Simon-style memory game) instead of monsters. The one issue I found was I missed one lair and went back for it after beating the final boss, and the ending glitched out a bit, probably because of that. Overall loved it, though.

Breath of Fire Definitive (SNES, Played on R36S) – A massive overhaul hack that uses the War of the Goddess retranslation (which I believe I reviewed elsewhere) and assorted other changes. The start of game is really hard; you can't survive more than one battle with Ryu at Level 1 and so the grind to a better weapon is very slow. Once you can afford the better sword and you’ve gained a couple of levels, then you can kill enemies in one hit and go clear out the castle…for a full new set of better equipment. In cute Easter eggs, the third soldier (who ferries Ryu and joins your party for a couple of random battles) is very high level and if you have something to swap it with, you can steal his high level equipment. Which is very helpful in making Ryu and Nina durable enough to handle the next area without excessive grinding. I got through retrieving the King Key honestly, and then plugged in some cheat codes because the XP curve seemed wonky and the difficulty is definitely increased from vanilla. Some of the changes really make sense, like swapping Debo and Shin (which means you can use Debo in the underwater volcano). Others, like making dragon transformations cost ongoing MP make endgame bosses into a horrible slog. Frankly, a “definitive” version of this game needs reduced grinding to go with the retranslation, fuller story, and quality of life additions. I had my complaints about Breath of Fire Improved (GBA), but I think it ended up more playable than this. And if you want to experience the War of the Goddess retranslation, play that straight.