Base: Final Fantasy VI · SNES · 2013 · Rebalance / Script Overhaul
Creator: BTB and Synchysi
Not a difficulty hack — a rebalance. It fixes Final Fantasy VI's central design problem, which is that its character customisation system lets every character become the same character.
Final Fantasy VI is widely regarded as one of the finest RPGs ever made, and it has a well-known structural flaw: the Esper system, which lets any character learn any magic, eventually collapses the entire cast into interchangeable mages with identical spell lists. The customisation that makes the game feel open also dissolves the thing that made its characters distinct. Brave New World, by BTB and Synchysi, is a comprehensive overhaul aimed squarely at that problem. It introduces character-based Esper restrictions and new stat growth, so that development is directed rather than universal. It disassociates Esper bonuses from ordinary levels through a separate Esper levelling system. It rewrites the game's damage and stat formulas to rescue every attribute that was previously a dump stat, and rebalances equipment, items, spells and skills to remove dead weight and force real choices. Enemies are overhauled from their statistics up to their behaviour. The script is enhanced, and a long list of bugs and irritations — the notorious eternity of Rage hunting among them — are fixed. Its creators are explicit that Brave New World is not a difficulty mod. It is an argument about what Final Fantasy VI should have been, executed with enough rigour that a substantial constituency now regards it as the definitive way to play the game.