WHEELMANZERO'S PROFILE

What you're asking for is commonly referred to as "God Mode". One thing I wanted to avoid with the sequel was having to play through the same maps over again, just with a different party. After the acolytes conquest, several locations undergo some pretty drastic changes, and adding a postgame would spoil those changes by showing them too soon. I want to player to see the real aftermath of the acolytes conquest only after they come up against them as enemies.

Having the acolytes be playable in the sequel wouldn't really work either, considering they aren't that active in terms of running around blowing things up. They take more of an administrative role giving out orders and overseeing the progress of their plans. Not a particularly fun thing to do for the player.

Random Encounters and You
Rpg maker handles random encounters in a really weird way. When you set the encounter rate, it doesn't count that many steps before triggering another encounter like you think it would. Fortunately, I found a script that makes it do exactly that. Thanks to that script, it's impossible to get into a battle, take 2 steps, and be forced into another.

There's no penalty for running away. Zero, nadda, nothing. One thing I'm not all too fond of when it comes to battles in rpg's is failing to flee. You try to run away, fall on your butt, then have your face beat in by giant bats or sentient piles of blue sludge. It's kind of annoying. So, I managed to find a script that allows you to tweak the success rate of fleeing. I used this to make almost every encounter in the game have a 100% escape rate, except for those in Timbershade Woods and the final dungeon. The only real penalty for fleeing is being underleveled.

As for visible encounters, there are a boatload of enemy types in the game, so finding a sprite for each one would be difficult to say the least. I mean sure, I could use a single sprite to represent all the enemies, but that would damage the atmosphere in places like Palnea Woods. Placing enemies everywhere tends to clutter up a map in my opinion, and I'm not fond of playing tag with enemies. It makes things slightly more stressful and draws my focus away from the environment. I find it much simpler to just be forced into a battle and hit the escape button.

(Insert Zelda Treasure Jingle Here)
Ah yes, the items. The importance of items in this game was definitely toned down to emphasize the feeling of being a villain. Have you ever seen Sephiroth use a potion? An ether? A Phoenix Down? Oh sweet mercy, Sephiroth armed with Phoenix Downs, there's a terrifying thought. Sorry, getting off topic. Though items are useless for the most part excluding a few exceptions, I too enjoy the magical feeling of opening a treasure chest and hearing that rewarding little chime. There are chests in just about every dungeon except the final one and the dark castle, though perhaps not as many as in other rpg's. I can think of one dungeon in particular that could use some more bling though, so I think I'll revisit that one.

At the End of an Evil Conquest
Ah, postgame stuff. Yeah, you aren't the only one I've heard this from. Sadly once you beat the game there isn't much to do except command your minions to conquer stuff. The acolytes all separate at that point to do their own thing, so there wouldn't be much potential for additional gameplay there. At least nothing I can think of, suggestions are welcome. Uh...spoiler tagged suggestions of course.