Since Mato is a professional translator we decided to translate it live on Twitch as a Poemato CX game! It was an amazing experience, and if you enjoy Final Fantasy VI in any way, you should check this out sometime!
Our playthrough of Final Fantasy VI-T Edition features:
You might recognize Mato/Tomato as the guy behind all sorts of EarthBound sites and projects, including Starmen.Net, EarthBound Central, and the MOTHER 3 fan translation. He's also a professional translator and programs all sorts of stuff on the side.
You might recognize Poe from Fangamer videos and projects - she's always talking with cool people in the industry and coming up with ideas for new gaming merchandise.
For more info about Poemato CX as a whole, see here!
If you'd like to experience FF6 T-Edition for yourself or if you'd like to play along with our playthrough, you can download the latest patch here!
Note that the IPS file needs to be patched to a headerless Japanese Super Famicom Final Fantasy VI ROM. Naturally, because it's a Japanese hack, the game's text will be in Japanese.
As a whole, FF6 T-Edition feels like a thoughtful celebration of Square Enix's legacy, wrapped up in one of the best ROM hacks ever created. There's actually so much new and updated content that it would take forever to list it all. It's also being updated on an almost daily basis, so here's a list of just some of the bigger things:
The main, original game is mostly untouched - most of the new content is placed "around" it. There are still some neat, new surprises in the main story, however!
FF6 T-Edition is filled with neat connections to other Square-Enix and Final Fantasy games, but ALWAYS in clever, thoughtful ways. Whether it's a new enemy, a new song, or a new event, you can tell restraint and polish was used in great amount. The hack always feels like Final Fantasy VI and never anything else.
Most of the bugs and exploits in the original gave have been fixed. Your old tricks won't always work now!
Existing enemies and bosses have been upgraded. A lot of thought has been put into making them difficult in creative, new ways. Bosses are genuinely challenging, but never cheap or frustrating.
Hundreds of NEW enemies and bosses have been added! Great care was put into every single one.
Nearly 200 new songs have been added to the game! With a few exceptions (due to technical issues being ironed out) they all sound great and are all used in clever places that are perfect for the situation.
You can now listen to any song in the game at any time! Just go to the "Sound" option in the Config menu and press the A Button to access the Music Player menu.
Characters can unlock alternate costumes and change outfits in the game's Dressing Room. Different outfits will give characters different stats... and of course they'll look different when walking around and in battle. Outfits even change the background music in some places!
Most characters have MULTIPLE alternate outfits, usually themed around other Final Fantasy characters. Here are some examples:
Hundreds of new items and pieces of equipment have been added, all thoughtfully designed and carefully balanced. Useless items and overpowered items have been removed or replaced. The changes never feel overwhelming, though.
Useless spells have been removed, new ones have been added, and everything has been balanced out to avoid spells that are blatantly overpowered.
New Espers have been added, and less useful ones have been removed. Keeping in line with other Final Fantasy games, you now have to prove your worthiness to Espers in battle before you can obtain their Magicite. Prepare for some fun boss fights! To put more balance in the game, Espers only give HP stat boosts at level-up now.
Many characters' special skills have been slightly changed and balanced. New skills and techniques have also been added.
Over 50 new events and side quests have been added to the game! Some are simple, like clearing out a cave of monsters, while others will cover large parts of the game. Many of the quests connect with the game's world in such interesting, thoughtful ways that they almost feel official!
Some areas from the GBA version of the game have been added back into this hack, with new twists of their own. Other entirely-original dungeons and such have also been added!
A neat little collection room has been added to the Falcon - find rare, special items throughout the game and fill it up!
You can unlock many different achievements while playing the game, and they'll show up in a special Achievement Room that you can visit!
Once you've completed some difficult tasks in the game, you can access a new Developer's Room! Inside you'll find some familiar characters and some entertaining new things!
After you've gone far enough in the game, you can start over using your current stats and such! You can use this to conquer some of the more difficult challenges in the game!
Once you've reached the Developer's Room, you can "save swap" to a ROM with the EX patch to fight even more super-bosses that had to be left out of the main T-Edition patch. The challenges never end!
Lots of other little changes have been made, such as:
This only scratches the surface of what's new in this ROM hack - for full details be sure to check the HTML files that come bundled with the patch. You might need to run the text through an auto-translator, though. An out-of-date, partial translation of what's new can be found here, though!
While playing through the hack, I live-translated all of the new text and archived the videos for reference. In all, our playthrough lasted 130 to 150 hours! We also discussed many different topics that might interest fellow Final Fantasy and retro gaming fans.
As we played through the game, I slowly developed a number of tools and tricks for our stream that improved the viewing experience. I created an on-stream auto-translator for a lot of battle text. I set up a system that showed enemy stats and info, for viewer reference and so the viewers could help come up with strategies. Lots of cool things like this happened during our playthrough!
In all, it was a very laid-back and entertaining run, so give it a watch sometime, whether it's for background noise or for reference while you play through the hack yourself!
Since we finished our playthrough, the hack has been updated countless times with new fixes and content additions. So we might start all over again sometime and check out the new stuff!
A highlight of Poemato CX streams is when chatters send in art of stuff that's happened in the game or something that's happened during a stream. We share fan art on the stream and put it all into the in-stream Hall of Fame. Here are some samples!
We also had things like Skype Day - a day where we Skyped with different viewers in the chat for 10 hours or so while we uncursed the cursed shield and did some general grinding. It was a lot of fun!
Here's what fans have said about Poemato CX and our Final Fantasy VI streams:
We're silly people playing silly games, so we're always saying goofy stuff on accident, to the point that it's become a highlight of our streams! All the best quotes get immortalized on the stream, including funny quotes from the chat, too. Here are a few samples of accidental quotes:
There's even a Twitter account that repeats some of our Poemato CX quotes!
Before we start a stream, we run a short pre-show to make sure everything is set up properly and to give everyone time to arrive.
Our pre-show usually consists of goofy videos we've made, some of which we don't share on YouTube for a while - so if you want to see all the fun, extra stuff, come to our little pre-shows!
Sometimes we give out "Tomato Points" during streams - they're mostly just meaningless fun. We give them out when someone says something funny or helpful, when someone sends in fan art, when someone completes certain challenges, stuff like that. It's up to you to keep track of your points.
Tomato Points are pointless, but if you REALLY want you can exchange 50 for one Kool-Aid packet, or 500 for a drawing done by Mato. Or you can hold on to them and be a hoarder!
It's always cool to see how fans tune in and from where! Sometimes they'll tune in from airplanes, their backyard, their work... We even have many viewers from all over the world who don't understand English but enjoy our streams anyway! Here are some pics of fans' viewing set-ups!
Follow us on all the things to keep up with all of our streams and projects!
A lot of the regulars in the Poemato CX chat have streams of their own - check them out sometime and consider following them, too!
We've finished streaming FF6 T-Edition, but we do stream other games a few times per week. Come by and visit sometime!
Follow us on Twitch or Twitter to be notified when we stream!
Here are some short videos of our Final Fantasy VI T-Edition playthrough:
Here are some pics from just a few of our streams!