2020, 03-11 EDIT:

I was thinking about writing to the author personally to thank them, but I think it would make more sense to simply update my review and publicly state my surprise and admiration for where this hack has headed.

In my previous review, I stated that it’d be nice if there were a guide; on Discord I asked for a wiki. Lo and behold, now there is. I said it would be nice if it were possible to not lose access to certain monsters for farming purposes and, guess what? There is now such an area to accommodate that. I said that having descriptions for more items would be very useful (rather than having to guess at what they do) and subsequently, descriptions were added.

None of this is to imply that my suggestions were necessary or that the author should do whatever others say (in fact, all of my suggestions may have been coincidentally considered already); rather, I’m noting that this author clearly considers and weighs input from their fans. And all of my interactions to date have been nothing but positive (even when I’ve asked stupid questions on Discord).

When you play this hack, don’t be afraid to speak your mind about it. This author will listen to your questions, concerns and comments. I’ve become fairly enthused now whenever I notice an update to this hack, partly because it means it’s still an ongoing project, but also because it seems to be evolving in a very exciting direction.

I have already played through this hack twice now and that is not something I expected. I anticipate that as much as I may believe I have moved onto other things, some future update will entice me enough to play it all over again.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

This is an excellent hack and it’s very easy to tell that a lot of effort went into it. In fact, I can personally attest to this effort because the author is incredibly accessible and always willing to listen to others’ input. It’s very refreshing to see someone who’s not only dedicated but patient (head to the discord channel and see for yourself).

The new status screens are awesome. Once you get a hang of it, you get a very clear picture of exactly what your characters’ attacks and defenses are.

The script is a hell of a lot better than the original (I’m assuming this hack makes use of one or more of the various re-translations).

The extras towards the end are tons of fun and provide for many more hours of enjoyment.

Overall, I definitely recommend this hack. I only have five (minor) issues:

1) Once monsters are gone due to leaving certain areas, they’re gone. For a game that emphasizes drop rates, that’s a problem that especially hurts during the endgame when you’re trying to collect as much as you can for your characters. I’m crossing my fingers that this is something that the author of this hack is considering augmenting in a future release. My suggestion would be to take the monsters that are no longer encountered and put them on the moon. This is for several reasons…

…..a) The moon is near the end of the game so it wouldn’t cause balance issues; and

…..b) The moon has incredibly annoying and useless low xp/money enemies that are just in the way. Recycling old monsters would encourage players to enjoy their experience on the moon more; and

…..c) The moon has pretty much no enemies anyway (inside or outside the caves) and the enemies that are there are mind-numbing. Having played through FFIV multiple times and under various hacks, I am well acquainted with the misery of walking around on the moon.

2) The game is fairly smooth sailing until the moon when it feels like hitting a brick wall. The difficulty ramps up hard. I wish the transition had been smoother. I would probably suggest increasing the difficulty gradually up to the moon and adding in more awesome gear along the way so the transition doesn’t feel so sudden.

3) It desperately needs a guide of some kind. Without knowing what will drop from who it’s impossible to know when you should or shouldn’t farm (especially since there are monsters that can’t be encountered later). Or being completely stumped on how to beat a boss. Or what certain items even do (there are a LOT of new items). A simple readme included in the download would be very helpful.

4) Much of the new items lack descriptions meaning they just have to be tried out. There’s also no way to compare what’s being bought without actually buying it first and trying it on. Both of those problems are nitpicky since they likely require some pretty substantial hacking. But if the author could ever pull it off, it would be nice to have more descriptions nonetheless.

5) More variation in the weapons and armor. I like being forced to choose between awesome item A and awesome item B. I want tough choices. This hack would be out of this world if the bosses could be beaten multiple ways through ingenious use of different sets of equipment. Linear play via powerful dropped/found gear is great but being torn between two or more (one not being definitively better than another) would be super awesome.

All of the above problems are merely gripes - they do not take away from the overall delight I had in playing through this hack.

On a sidenote, I have a memory of the author suggesting in one of the earlier versions of this hack that they thought it was their final iteration. And then boom, more updated versions started coming out. It is my hope that the author doesn’t give up on this hack. Whatever they are doing is working wonderfully and I very much look forward to whatever they come up with in the future.