Final Fantasy VI PR. Finished this.
World of Ruin questing is still fun. I think the only point that's a bother that most people are liable to do is hunting down Deathgaze. 1 in 4096 squares is kinda BS, and of course he can run (he has a 2/3 chance of fleeing on his third turn).
I cheated and gave myself Odin after changing the original to Raiden because Odin's the only magicite with a good +speed level up bonus, and even a modest number of boosts is very noticeable when put side-to-side with Gogo. Picked the Ragnarok magicite over the sword for the 'chievo and because I didn't want to wait to uncurse the Cursed Shield (which I also did) for Ultima - Ended up morphing a few Safety Bits and other uniques/rares along the way.
In keeping with the spirit of this run, the bulk of my WoR playtime was spent on the Veldt (15 hours, I think). I wanted to hunt down all the Rages. I made a spreadsheet and went ham while maxing out my characters' spell lists (while avoiding level them thanks to the Veldt not granting any EXP). After a while, I set my cutoff point at 'when every character's learned every spell'. This was the final result:
Cruller and Tumbleweed I don't remember ever fighting but I'd apparently killed 1 and 8 of them respectively (and the latter appears in only one formation) so my odds were never that great. Dragon appears in only one formation too but I at least remember fighting a few of them on the Floating Continent (I got the rare Genji Gloves steal!). Ninja I might have screwed myself out of as I only fought the trap version in Sealed Cave and not the standard version on Floating Continent. Whole thing was kinda poisoned from the start since I edited my file to give myself Chaser after I noticed several hours later I'd missed getting his encounter in the 1 minute you're fleeing Vector from Magitek after getting out of the train cart (that's
such a narrow window). Anyway, I was getting closer to finishing, usually encountering missing enemies in sets one-after-the-other so maybe I'd have finished if I stuck it out but I'd had enough.
WoR Rages are kinda underwhelming for the most part. WoR
Gau is underhwelming (Square removed his ability to equip the Merit Award - wtf?). There was one Rage that kinda made it all worth it. Rafflesia's skill is Entice, a charm that's not blocked by typical enemy immunities and can't afaik be removed by anything other than death. Not quite as busted as FF5's mix berserk potions that bypass enemy berserk immunity (since Gau can still not use Entice or could miss), but seeing Kefka turn around and smack himself repeatedly with Havoc Wing was pretty goofy (damn, I should have taken a screenshot).
Overall, fun time. I like that Square actually spent the money to remake battle animations for this game instead of recycling the same effects from FF1-5 PR, although some of the cut corners are a little awkward (like changing the Lore and Rage cast effect to the white magic cast effect while Bushido and Blitz still get the preemo treatment... Trance and Runic too I think, and who uses Runic? outside of like two fights).
Remastered OST I feel mixed on, skewing negative. Uematsu's score is pretty iconic and makes effective use of the SNES soundchip, moreso than his previous scores imo. That combined with the hard push towards orchestral gives the game's sound richer but narrower channels to work through (as is often the case with 'orchestrized' remastered scores - they did use a guitar in a few places though!). Beyond that, a few of the arrangements are misfires. Terra's Theme takes the heavy, funky percussion of the original and shoves it quietly in the background, and it kills the track's punch. Cyan's Theme embellishes too much, particularly with its woodwinds and misses the point of the original (the sharp woodwinds at the start that break into fanciful strings tell the story of Cyan - a tough, traditional man who is, without a doubt, just under the surface, also a true romantic). The best winner of the OST is Searching for Friends - It's a fantastic rendition that builds on and shuffles the instrumentation as it progresses to a glorious climax and adds a quiet bridge near the end to cleanly loop the song again.
