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There's a lot of complaint about the lack of AAA turn-based JRPGs. After all, when Final Fantasy becomes an action game, where else can you turn?
While classic JRPGs are frequently remastered by their publishers, the gameplay tends not to inspire much beyond nostalgia.
Well, it turns out the best versions of these games are being made by fans, for free, built on the assets and binaries of the originals.
For ages, fan-based hacks tended to make extreme changes, favouring flash over taste or balance. However, in recent years, we've seen some truly excellent "definitive edition" hacks, that refine their source material while still remaining true to it. The best of these tend to be much more thoughtfully done than the hasty official remasters.
Here are a few of my favourites. I'll stick to Final Fantasy for now, since it tends to be the most popular.
Primitive by today's standards, the original Final Fantasy hasn't had much luck in the remake department. I don't think any of the countless new versions have done much to inspire.
That all changed with this one little romhack I found published in the FF1 NES gamefaqs forum (of all places.)
The Restored and Rebalanced hack isn't just one of my favourite romhacks; it's one of my favourite games, period.
My favourite changes:
I can't express enough how much of a triumph this hack is. Upon finishing my first playthrough, I immediately started a new party and played all the way through again.
Despite its ancient technical foundation, this romhack feels better balanced, more fun, and more exciting than most JRPGs I've played since the original Final Fantasy was published on the NES.
Rebalanced and Restored doesn't have an "official" homepage; it lives in a GameFAQs thread. v1.71 is the most recent release, and is described in post #436 in the official thread linked below.
Final Fantasy: Restored and Rebalanced GameFAQs thread
Final Fantasy VI is an oft-remastered classic. The gameplay, though, is pretty darn boring by modern standards. It's way too easy, and all of the characters feel samey due to all sharing the same spell list.
FFVI: Brave New World is a quite popular romhack that completely redoes the mechanics of the game, while keeping the plot untouched. The changed mechanics do an awful lot to make each character feel unique.
For me, the best part of this specialization is that it helps each character's role in the story feel more special as a result.
My favourite changes:
FFVI: Brave New World romhacking.net page
I was fairly old by the time Final Fantasy VII was released. I couldn't afford the hardware to play it until much later. I love the game a lot, but I don't have quite the same connection to it as some. I must say, though, that for a long time the initial 6-10 hour Midgar sequence that serves as the game's first chapter was my favourite videogame experience.
I also love the Final Fantasy 7 Remake. It was the FFVII slice-of-life anime that I never knew I wanted, and I was so happy to see a more detailed view of Midgar. However, there are many people that really wanted a turn-based remake of FFVII, and they were upset that they didn't get it.
I hope those folks try the New Threat mod. This isn't a romhack; it is an excellent fanmade patch that you can apply to the PC version of Final Fantasy VII. (It works great on Steam Deck, as well.)
New Threat is similar to Brave New World in that it focuses on making each character unique. However, it does this by making much less sweeping changes to the engine and the mechanics. In many cases, it takes mechanics that were opaque in the original (e.g. the huge number of elemental flags) and simply explains them better and makes them more available.
There are two "modes" in New Threat: Mode "A" which sticks to the original storyline, and Mode "B" which makes some modifications, but keeps the overall plot intact. I've played through both, and the changes in Mode B were much less drastic than I expected. They are mostly concentrated at the beginning, and I thought they aided with clarity.
My favourite changes:
New Threat Mod qhimm forum thread
Final Fantasy IV was the first game I truly loved. My neighbour owned it long before I could afford a SNES, and I'd spend hours at his house watching him play it.
FFIV has sort of faded into the background over the years. There have been so many terrific Final Fantasy games since then, and JRPGs were not yet popular in North America when it was released here. It did have one great official love letter in FFIV DS, which I enjoyed a lot; but since then, FFVI, FFVII, and FFXIV have stolen the show.
Still, FFIV will always be my favourite Final Fantasy game. For the era, the plot and the characters were terrific. The story is serious, but not too serious. The music, setting, and plot combine to create a sense of wonder that is remarkable for a 1991 game.
However, FFIV is so focused on the plot points that there isn't much in the way of exploration.
FFIV: Ultima adds a huge amount of new stuff, in a much more loving manner than the official FF4: The After Years series. At every stage in the game, you are highly rewarded for exploring off the beaten path, and poking at all the shiny wonderful locations (and bosses!) that are available to you.
Unlike the other romhacks on this list, the core gameplay in FFIV: Ultima isn't changed very much. Characters do get some new tricks, but they're not much different than what was done in the official remakes and remasters.
However, all the new dungeons, bosses, and equipment add a ton of fun to the game. And they all feel like they fit right into the body of the original game that I played and loved for the first time over thirty years ago.
My favourite changes:
FFIV: Ultima romhacking.net page
If you're not into Final Fantasy, there are many other old JRPGs that have received "definitive edition"-type hacks. Some of my favorites:
I hope I've encouraged you to go check some of these out. If not, maybe you'll find something in a later post in which I praise the terrific indie JRPGs out there.