Final Fantasy Hacktics

An Ordallian spy deep inside enemy territory.  All of the hirelings are Ivalician, however, so he's acting incognito.  When he happens upon Gafgarion in Fovoham and beholds his anarchic brutality on the front-lines, it isn't just to weaken the Ivalice campaign, it is to stop a fiend from destroying both kingdoms to win the war.  The same could be said of fighting against Gustav, who was a routine offender during the war.  Before he or she can be congratulated, the spy returns to Ordalia before suspicions arise and they reinstate the cutthroat on a technicality.

A soldier from either administration dredged into a peasant revolt.  While his team attempts to put down the revolt, both sides resort to vile associations with monsters and use unthinkable tactics.  Petitions to the Queen and the regional governors are fruitless.  However, the officer receives help from an unlikely source: the Death Corps (Knights of Death/Dead Men/Corpse Brigade), with the reigning aide-de-camp Milleuda providing both a tender ear and a trusty sword-arm when things start to fall apart.

Investigate the disappearance of Elidibus, the wizard who retook Riovanes Castle and vanished into thin air.  This can take the protagonist all over the world.  The objective is to eventually happen upon the Deep Dungeon, advance to the lowest point and engage Elidibus himself.  However, it doesn't end there.  If you choose to fight him, he will kick your butt or merely retreat.  If you pause to consider his position, you will become his little accomplice, setting out to claim Zodiac Brave Stones.  The Libra Stone is in Orlandeau's hands, while Taurus is found inside Goug's mines.  However, your character gets second thoughts each time and comes up with nothing to show.  Elidibus ends up slaying you, and the legend of the Deep Dungeon is born from your corpse: a legendary mercenary that was done in there.

I want a character who finds ironic defeat shrouded in victory, to lose everything to festering cynicism verging on nihilism.  I want people to experience the same thing from finishing the Vanilla game: the notion that everything fought for was in vain or otherwise futile.  The Film-Noir of period pieces, in other words.  There is a small victory of some kind, which somehow trickles down to influencing Ramza's quest in some way.  Even so, the soldier realizes just how useless and horrible the war and its resultant, so-called bilateral armistice really are.

The soldier runs into younger incarnations of Balbanes, Orlandeau, Simon, and Gafgarion (especially Gafgarion; write it so that his unit gets wasted by the East Sky and he is on the run from him in particular).  Other characters are also possible, but those guys are guaranteed encounters.  Elidibs is also a strong candidate.

The idea is that a reluctant soldier is drawn into a campaign of terror and abuse alongside an unruly number of associates, like the Aquilor's one and only Gustave Margriff, the one who went around robbing and raping throughout Ordallia in untold war crimes.

Or, the menacing truth behind the borderline-heretical Baron Grimms, leader of the Blackguards called Blackram.  They claim to have been extinguished in the present game--this is why they would be hunted so menacingly.

The main character must fight against the desire to give in to that line between survivor and brute, lest the squadron fall with him (her?).  The objective, or MacGuffin, is a brilliant score of war spoils that could spell the difference between retirement from the field and utter oblivion, a risk that the main character will embrace at any cost.  Yet, that treasure turns out to be an ironic gesture, one that the character may seriously consider dismissing or watching burn.

The Knights don't have helmets.  Why?  The new ones I have seen with helms and circlets are actually pretty cool-looking.  I recommend them.

Geomancers don't make any sense stylistically.  Geomancy refers to divination via dust-throwing, like drawing lots but more painful if you're downwind.  Yet, the chest outfits the guys got make them look metrosexual and the girls look like they're wearing a wool-woven poncho.  I must be way off in terms of the style, but they resemble far west American Indians to me.  There is some sort of cultural thing going down with these outfits, but since they lack discernible Celtic underpinnings I associate with oneness-with-nature, I know nothing that comes close to explaining the designers' original scheme.  In any case, the guys have got to go.  If there is one thing I should warn about with Geomancers is that they must not, under any condition, resemble the Geomancers from FFV.  That's a given.

The Bard doesn't look like a tale-spinner or jack-of-all-trades.  He looks like a wuss in a clasped cloak and does not represent the classic handsome, long-haired troubadour whom gets to screw your girlfriend because she insists, even if she comes back to you afterward.  Why did I level-up Samurai and Mediator to look at this prick?

The Dancer?  If we change her, wouldn't that change Celia and Lede as well?  It probably will.  The only thing I can think of is to give the Dancer the appearance of a dervish.  Well, they look it already--just emphasize it more.  Just keep that and add to the waist so there's no mistaking the idea (they're thin just to keep their appeal to an Asian audience unfamiliar with dervishes and belly dancers).

Mimes are odd-looking.  The guys are meant to evoke parrots.  That's the literal, tragic reason behind the stupid-looking get-up.  Ladies dress as the Kitsune of yore, the multi-tailed, shape-changing fox spirits.  I can understand the women, but the men need to look more like Gogo or they'll be the buttmonkey of character class completionists forever.

Note the emphasis on male sprites.  Female Monks do not look enough like true monks of the series because their padded arm-guards  are out of place.  They need to look like one of the monk outfits from FFV.  The guys actually look close enough that they are passable and hence optional to switch out.

Male White Mages should wear their hood.  Just keep their hair short.  Actually, they can wear burlap brown robes since they are on foot and not in a temple.  Females are okay with their outfit--it's the classic model--although if you really wanted to have some fun, they could shorten their hair and dye it red.  That would help to make both sexes distinct from one another, wouldn't it?

The Black Mages should not have circular eyes like that.  Reduce their size and give them a star-shaped luminescence, suggesting that they give off their own light beneath their shadowy attire.  One should wear the pants, but the other should be in the flowing robe.

The new Time Mage, I'm afraid to say, doesn't make a great deal of sense.  Being that Summoners are the next down that path of offense mages, do they get the same treatment?  One thing is for certain: they can get changed around a bit.  Nix the horns at any rate.  Unless we discover the significance of them--there is no unicorn summon--we just nix both of them and fish for a Summoner outfit inspired by another game in the series (Yuna's original) or something different.

The Oracle (Onmyoshi) looks as close to the original eastern Onmyoshi as you're going to get.  If you decide to try making one into the Oracle of Delphi, it'd be the female one.  The guys are fine as is, but give females the Ancient Greece treatment.  Hey, they called them Oracles in the States, right?  Under no condition do we call them Mystics.  That ain't flyin' with anybody.

If the outfits look okay but you want something better, may I suggest palette swapping.  The Male Ninja, for instance, should wear black if he's in Ramza's unit, and that should be fairly consistent throughout all the different palette swaps.  That should be simple to implement.

Female Thieves do look sickly.  They shouldn't look like their male counterparts.  They could wear their bandanas over their head and lengthen their hair a little.  Gearing them towards swashbuckler gear would make sense, considering the empowered offensive ability of Thieves in the current version.  Perhaps they could look like a female version of Zorro!  That would be sick in a whole different way!

The Onion Knights should be called Freelancers like in FFV and look close to decent.  That means giving them a facelift.  I hated the inclusion of Onion Knights in FFTWotL because they were just horrible to look at.  The concept was covered in FFV and also improved upon there.  If Alicia and Lavian are Freelancers, that would be the clincher that would make me say, "let's design an original game together sometime."

Consider ditching the Bunny fights.  I still think those are just asinine.

Type                      Primary                         Secondary

Antidotes                Poison                          Don't Move, Don't Act

Eye Drops               Blind                             Oil (some manner of solvent)

Echo Greens            Silence                         Confusion, Berserk, Sleep

Maidens' Kiss           Turned to Toad              Cursed

Golden Chisel          Petrify                           ??????

Holy Water             Undead                          Vampire, Doom, Curse

Remedy                  Poison, Dark, Silence        Berserk, Slow, Stop, (Squire's Heal but with added effects, expensive, and mobile)

Pheonix Down          Death                           15% Health (double with Medicine Support ability, should that hack exist)

Note: Stop should be difficult to cure.  Literally.  There should only be a few cures that exist, and only a few ways in which it could happen.  It's like temporary petrify except damage is possible.  A few spells and situations should allow it to happen.

Also, there are mere suggestions; I don't know what to put with Petrify and Gold Needle (maybe Stop?) but the Remedy, if still available, should do what the Squire can do, just from a distance.