A passionate Japanese Final Fantasy VI fan has been working on "Final Fantasy VI T-Edition", a ROM hack that retains the existing game and adds a ton of new, creative content all around it. FF6T is very popular in Japan but not very well-known elsewhere, due to the language barrier.

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:

  • LIVE TRANSLATION AND EXPLANATION of new text and events
  • ON-SCREEN AUTO-TRANSLATION of some text, so viewers can follow along
  • ON-SCREEN STATS for enemy and item info!
  • TIPS & TRICKS from the T-Edition creator himself!
  • FAN ART submitted by viewers
  • Discussion about making a translation patch someday
  • Lots of silly commentary and funny moments
  • And much more!

Watch Us Live!

Who We Are

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!

Download the Patch

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.

What's New in T-Edition

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:

Same Game

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!

References

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.

Bug Fixes

Most of the bugs and exploits in the original gave have been fixed. Your old tricks won't always work now!

Enhanced Challenge

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.

New Enemies & Bosses

Hundreds of NEW enemies and bosses have been added! Great care was put into every single one.

New Music

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.

Music Player

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.

Dressing Room

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:

New Items & Equipment

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.

New Magic

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

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.

New Skills

Many characters' special skills have been slightly changed and balanced. New skills and techniques have also been added.

New Events & Side Quests

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!

New Areas

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!

Collection Room

A neat little collection room has been added to the Falcon - find rare, special items throughout the game and fill it up!

Achievement Room

You can unlock many different achievements while playing the game, and they'll show up in a special Achievement Room that you can visit!

Developer's Room

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!

New Game+

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!

Final Fantasy VI T-Edition EX

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!

Other Gameplay Tweaks

Lots of other little changes have been made, such as:

  • You can now run around by holding a button, rather than using Sprint Shoes
  • The ATB bar pauses during effects
  • Menus layouts have been slightly altered to be more user-friendly and informative
  • The coliseum has been thorougly revised with all the new enemies and items - you can also control your character in battle!
  • Descriptions of items, spells, and such have been lengthened and revised
  • The total play time indicator has had an extra digit added - it can now show up to 255 hours and 59 minutes
  • New window types have been added
  • Damage equations and the like have been carefully fine-tuned
  • Critical hits and desperation attacks now trigger much more often
  • New desperation attacks have been made for some characters
  • Status effects have been fixed and given lots of attention in order to iron out balancing issues
  • Espers can be summoned more than once per battle
  • MP damage is now displayed in its own unique way
  • It's now possible to inflict more than 9999 damage in an attack
  • The Veldt encounter system has been expanded and improved - it's also easy to tell what each Rage attack will do thanks to added descriptions for each one
  • New animations have been added, and others have been slightly updated
  • Character stats and equipment have been updated and fine-tuned

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!

Live Translation and Discussion

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!

Fan Participation

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!

Poemato CX Fans

Here's what fans have said about Poemato CX and our Final Fantasy VI streams:

  • "I never thought people overseas would play this! Please enjoy!" - Tsushiy, creator of the FF6 T-Edition patch
  • "I'm cleaning my bathroom & watching this" - Annk_
  • "Lurking while I do dishes" - Bluemage86
  • "This is really cool... I had to clean my bathroom so I just turned your twitch on while cleaning" - panzeroceanix
  • "Is it illegal to be watching this right now, are we all in a lot of trouble?" - Masterbashms
  • "I can't wait to play this game and do it right." - Alxprit
  • "This is legit the most cool/chill channel I have ever seen" - Unqualifiedgamers101
  • "Congratulations - you're the first stream I've played while going through a taco place drive-through" - Benjaminpv
  • "That was a fun stream. That credits thing was a nice touch." - localnowhere
  • "You guys are like the fluffy cushions of joy of Twitch" - Lersch1
  • "yesssss I just went out to get snacks for this" - Dan Bruno before a Poemato CX stream starts
  • "I can die happy knowing I'm watching Poemato CX" - SpecialAgentApe
  • "YOU GUYS HELP ME IN DARK PLACES" - TheFinalDeluxe
  • "I would watch you guys playing for 24 hours lmao" - himeroswings

Silly Quotes & Situations

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:

  • "I got the crack, but we died. ...Does that count?"
  • "Dying is a problem."
  • "I wish all opera involved dinosaurs."
  • "I just need to kill everybody, that's all that matters."
  • "You know that feeling when you're about to barf in a minute? I'm feeling that, but with games."
  • "I've been alive for about 73 years and I still don't understand wax teeth."
  • "She likes the panties, I like to not die."
  • "Some people would pay good money to be felt up by robots."
  • "Spaghetti has no place in a volcano."
  • "I used to think I was a crazy person, but that's true, I'm still a crazy person."
  • "I wish MY name was Air Force."

There's even a Twitter account that repeats some of our Poemato CX quotes!

Pre-Show Fun

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!

Tomato Points

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!

Watch Us!

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!

Follow us on all the things to keep up with all of our streams and projects!

Follow Our Friends!

A lot of the regulars in the Poemato CX chat have streams of their own - check them out sometime and consider following them, too!

Schedule

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!


Highlights

Here are some short videos of our Final Fantasy VI T-Edition playthrough:


Screenshots

Here are some pics from just a few of our streams!