I just started New threat and I was confused on the hard mode toggle. is it the little window at the end that shows the current difficulty setting?
When starting a new game it asks what Game Type, then it asks whether to turn Hard Mode on or not. You can toggle hard mode on/off after that at a save point.
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That's disappointing to hear about the lifestream reveal music; I suspect what might have happened is that the adjusted music track supplied in the IRO hasn't been loaded which can happen sometimes if there's another mod overriding it or maybe just because of other reasons (if the installer, then might be that the target folder for the music file has a different name or something). I made some tweaks to the field script to go with that track which has extra looping in it to make it 'fit' the length so if that track wasn't used then whatever was used instead would probably not make it to the end. Or there might be some other factor affecting things there.
The toggle flags are a bit busted at the moment; the music flag was using the wrong one for instance. I've got this sorted out in my 2.1 files but the patch isn't quite ready to go up yet.
Mindblow: I just checked and it has the MP Damage flag still ticked, where it should instead just be dealing magic damage to HP. I'll sort this out for the patch.
Jenova LIFE: I thought it was a good fit for the boss' theme, and it helps me integrate that decision into the gameplay a lot better than the old way which was a not-so-clear dialogue choice. Granted it's not 100% clear still but it is a lot more interesting. My first and foremost priority is the battle mechanics so that tends to take precedence.
From what I remember of the final Disc 1 scene, the location used in both cases was the Inn rather than the structure that vanilla uses. For some reason I decided to use the vanilla location if Aeris bit the dust, and to use the 1.5 version in the Inn if she didn't. I can't really remember why, but it is what it is.
And I don't want to lock this off to Type B; while it does make sense, it would just result in people getting to that point in Type A and then finding out that they can't do it which is one of the features billed by the mod so it'll be staying in both types.
Flashback: If you already know, then it's a giveaway (though it can't really be giveaway if you know about it). But if you don't know, then it's one of those things where it would only click if you were playing through the game a second time. I walked back some of the alterations to the flashback but I left that one in.
Fort Condor: You don't need to do any of the battles to get the Phoenix Materia, only the last battle which is mandated by the story (and you can clear this battle by fighting from the shed too); this is the same as vanilla. In 1.5, clearing all the Fort Condor battles yourself or through funding would nab the player a Masamune (this is no longer the case in 2.0, the drop was changed to a Ziedrich).
I had a look at the script a few times with a view to reducing the number of engagements as there's duplicate ones that give duplicate prizes, but it's a spaghetti junction and I ended up just leaving it to focus on other things. Maybe in the future.
The characters you mention are on Type B, but only appear once in front of the Shinra Mansion; their appearance later in the Whirlwind Maze and on the Highwind was axed.