OT6 v0.3 — The Opening Act

OT6 v0.3

OT6 is a ROM hack of Final Fantasy VI (released in North America as
Final Fantasy III). It is distributed as a BPS patch, a file that
records the differences between the original ROM and the modified ROM.

How to play

Apply ot6-v0.3.bps to a Final Fantasy III (USA) 1.0 ROM (sha1
4f37e4274ac3b2ea1bedb08aa149d8fc5bb676e7) using any BPS patcher (Flips,
beat). The patcher will reject any other ROM.

Play from a new game through the Battle for Narshe — beat Kefka on the
cliffs, then stop. That is the full opening act: the mines, Figaro,
Mt. Kolts, the Returners, the Lete River, all three scenarios of the
split, the reunion, and the battle.

Past that stop point the new systems run but are not balanced yet.

What's changed since v0.2

• The playable stretch triples. v0.2 ended at Vargas; v0.3 plays
  the Returner hideout, the Lete River, Locke's South Figaro, Sabin's
  long road (the Imperial Camp, Doma, the Phantom Train, Baren Falls,
  the Serpent Trench), the Terra/Banon rapids, and the Battle for
  Narshe against Kefka himself.
• Breaks land now. On Mt. Kolts and beyond, enemy shields empty a
  round before the kill, so the Broken window — lose their turns, take
  double damage — is a real part of ordinary fights instead of a
  technicality on the killing blow. Boss fights are built around it:
  break Vargas at the right moment and finish him properly.
• Cyan joins with Bushido rebuilt on Boost Points. No charge gauge:
  your banked BP picks the technique. The bar in his menu is a
  selector now, not a timer.
• Celes joins with Runic that pays. Absorbing a spell banks a
  Boost Point on top of the MP — and the Narshe school's advisor
  finally says so.
• The Empire's armor fears one right tool. The school's hint pays
  off: Magitek and heavy armor, and Doma's soldiers, all answer to
  Edgar's Bio Blaster — most visibly in the Battle for Narshe. (Kefka
  has his own weaknesses. Probe him.)
• Fixed: Boost pips no longer render as stray numbers (they were
  being overwritten by damage-numeral graphics); boosting after an
  action is confirmed no longer silently wastes points; counterattacks
  no longer deliver boosted damage for free; Cyan's techniques can no
  longer be charged the wrong price by late input.

Known issues

• In battles with many enemies on screen, stray white text characters
  can be overdrawn on the battlefield. Cosmetic; under investigation.
• The moment a weakness is revealed can read slightly early against
  the damage numbers. Measured as honest, but tell us if it bothers
  you.

What we'd like to know

• Does the difficulty curve land? Early fights are meant to be a
  gentle on-ramp; by Mt. Kolts you should need to Boost to survive,
  and it should feel great when you do. If you hit a wall and had to
  stop and grind, tell us where.
• Do Breaks feel like the payoff of a plan, or an accident?
• Which of the three scenarios played best, and did anything in
  Sabin's long road drag?

OT6 v0.2.1 — HUD fixes

OT6 v0.2.1

A bug-fix patch over v0.2.
Same content — Figaro through Vargas — with two battle-HUD bugs fixed.
No balance or progression changes; a v0.2 save works unchanged.

How to play

Apply ot6-v0.2.1.bps to a Final Fantasy III (USA) 1.0 ROM (sha1
4f37e4274ac3b2ea1bedb08aa149d8fc5bb676e7) using any BPS patcher (Flips,
beat). The patcher will reject any other ROM.

Play through Vargas at the top of Mt. Kolts, then stop.

Fixed

• The Boost pips no longer turn into stray numbers. OT6's boost
  marks had been placed in video memory that the game also uses to draw
  damage numerals, so every hit painted over them. Moved out of the way.
• Boosting after you confirm an action no longer wastes the points.
  Spending Boost Points during target selection was always fully
  effective (the spell still folds to its higher tier); it only looked
  cosmetic because the pips were the ones being overwritten above. But a
  spend after the action was locked in charged you and did nothing.
  That window is closed — points are spent only where they still matter.

Under the hood

• A distributable can no longer be built from an untested ROM: the test
  gate stamps the exact ROM it passed on, and the patch step refuses
  anything else.
• The battle-menu regression test was watching stale addresses and could
  pass without exercising what it checks; it now keys on the real data,
  and the fixture it depends on verifies itself before it's used.

OT6 v0.2 — Figaro to Vargas

OT6 v0.2

OT6 is a ROM hack of Final Fantasy VI (released in North America as
Final Fantasy III). It is distributed as a BPS patch, a file that
records the differences between the original ROM and the modified ROM.

How to play

Apply ot6-v0.2.bps to a Final Fantasy III (USA) 1.0 ROM (sha1
4f37e4274ac3b2ea1bedb08aa149d8fc5bb676e7) using any BPS patcher (Flips,
beat). The patcher will reject any other ROM.

Play through Vargas at the top of Mt. Kolts, then stop. That is roughly
an hour and fifteen minutes.

Past the stop point the new systems run but are not balanced yet.

What's changed

• The playable stretch now runs to Vargas. v0.1 stopped at the
  Moogle defense in the Narshe mines; the escape, the world map, Figaro
  Castle, South Figaro and Mt. Kolts are now tuned territory.
• The Narshe school teaches OT6. Eight advisors in the Beginner's
  House cover shields and Breaking, Boost Points and why greed loses,
  spell folding, and the icons on the battle HUD. The monster in the
  chest is a practice fight now.
• Vargas fights under the new rules. Five shields, weak to
  bludgeoning, and — through Sabin's AuraBolt — holy. His bear escorts
  gate the fight: Edgar's Bio Blaster cannot reach him until they fall.
  He still dies to the scripted Pummel, as he should; Breaking him buys
  you the calm to land it.
• Edgar's Tools are worth buying. The Figaro shop sells the Bio
  Blaster, and poison is a real key for the first time.
• Fixed: opening the Tools window in battle could hard-lock the
  game on any tool without a weapon class — including the Bio Blaster
  itself.
• Fixed: a scratch buffer sat inside live vanilla RAM and corrupted
  the battle HUD whenever a command list was drawn.
• Cyan's Bushido is rebuilt on Boost Points — the charge gauge is gone,
  and BP picks the tech. He is not recruitable this early, so you will
  not see it yet; it ships for the next stretch.

What we'd like to know

• Do Breaks ever matter to you? We think enemies still die at almost
  exactly the moment their shields empty, so the Broken window — the
  payoff the whole system is built around — may never actually happen
  in an ordinary fight.
• Does the difficulty curve land? Early encounters can be mashed
  through; Mt. Kolts is meant to require Boosting and weaknesses. If
  you had to stop and grind, we want to hear where.
• Anything cosmetic that looks wrong. Known already: the Boost pips
  sometimes render as numbers, and a weakness icon reveals as the
  action starts rather than when the damage lands.

OT6 v0.1 — Moogle Defense

OT6 v0.1 — Moogle Defense

OT6 is a ROM hack of Final Fantasy VI (released in North America as
Final Fantasy III). It adds the shield-break and boost systems from
Octopath Traveler. It is distributed as a BPS patch, a file that
records the differences between the original ROM and the modified ROM.

How to play

Apply ot6-v0.1.bps to a Final Fantasy III (USA) 1.0 ROM (sha1
4f37e4274ac3b2ea1bedb08aa149d8fc5bb676e7) using any BPS patcher (Flips,
beat). The patcher will reject any other ROM.

Play through the Moogle defense in the Narshe mines, then stop. That
is about 30 minutes.

Past the stop point the new systems run but are not balanced yet.

What's changed

• Enemies have shields, shown under each enemy. Hitting a weakness
  removes one shield and reveals that weakness. At zero shields the
  enemy is broken: it misses its turns for a while and takes double
  damage. Revealed weaknesses stay revealed for the rest of the game.
• Weaknesses cover eight elements and four weapon classes: slashing,
  piercing, bludgeoning, and special.
• Each character gains one boost point per turn, shown as pips next to
  their name. Press R before choosing an action to spend up to three
  points on a stronger version of it: extra hits on Attack, higher
  spell tiers on magic (Fire becomes Fire 2, then Fire 3). Press L to
  take it back.
• Weapon icons in the menus show each weapon's class.
• Random encounters are about half as frequent. Each fight is longer,
  and pays double experience and gil, so leveling and money stay close
  to the original game.
• The Whelk fight uses all of these systems.

Known issues

• When the Whelk's head hides or reappears, its wipe effect draws with
  wrong tiles.
• Weapon-class weaknesses appear in battle messages, but not yet as
  icons under enemies or next to abilities. Elemental weaknesses show
  both ways.

What we'd like to know

• Does the Whelk fight teach the shield system without explanation?
• Do the mine fights feel worth playing?
• Does the pacing still feel like Final Fantasy VI?