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- Shining Force 2, Challenge Mode Hack
- Version 1.01
- By Obob
- obob912 at gmail dot com
- VERSION HISTORY:
- Version 1.01 (6/30/2008): Enhanced the difficulty of the Zeon battle. Made Zeon's AI
- less exploitable.
- Version 1.0 (5/27/2008): Initial release.
- INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:
- Apply the IPS patch to a .BIN version of the Shining Force 2 ROM. A common name for
- this ROM, and one that definitely works, is Shining Force 2 (U) [!].BIN. You can
- apply the IPS patch using a program such as IPSWin or Lunar IPS patcher. Then play
- the ROM on an emulator. I used Gens in all my playtesting.
- ABOUT THE HACK:
- This hack makes the game substantially harder than the regular game. However, it does
- serve as more of a middle ground between Super difficulty of the regular game and
- BigNailCow's Hardtype Hack. Towards the end of the game, the regular monsters in this
- hack are generally much easier than those in the Hardtype Hack. Boss monsters,
- however, are generally much more difficult, although sometimes their defense scores
- are substantially lower. There is also no level building at any point: Bowie does
- not know egress, and angel wings are not buyable.
- I have strived for balance in this hack, to make it so that your entire party remains
- useful throughout the entire game. Peter was the only character that was nerfed, and
- only slightly at that (aside from nerfs that came from nerfing certain spells). The
- vast majority of the weaker characters have been improved. Chances are that only a
- few of the characters that you normally use were improved. I tried to improve all
- characters to the point that nobody is dead weight. Randolf and Eric are sufficiently
- improved that they are very good choices from Creed's. This should encourage much
- more diverse parties.
- It was also important to me to make it so that instant death abilities, while still
- good, are not the primary means of completing battles. This is accomplished by
- increasing regular monster HP only by a factor of two, so that for Kazin damaging
- spells are usually more MP-effective than desoul. Whereas in the Hardtype hack Kazin
- was undeniably better as a Wizard than as a Soreceror, in this hack the choice is much
- less clear.
- For the sake of balance, it is strongly intended that you PLAY THIS HACK ON OUCH, and
- PROMOTE ALL YOUR CHARACTERS AT 20, OR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. You can buy all promotion
- items from the item store in Hassan, should you need them before you would get to them
- normally. The battles leading up to Creed's mansion, while doable, are difficult and
- tedious without promotion weapons. The later battles in the game are slightly
- trivialized by late promotion, and late promotion makes all the prepromoted characters
- relatively less useful. Also don't do silly things like abuse the Fairy Village
- special stage, etc.
- I have no reason to believe that the hack would be impossible on Super, especially if
- you do not promote at 20. But the hack was really not created with Super in mind,
- and you won't have very much fun playing it on super. Some of the later bosses are
- already as strong or stronger than their super equivalents in the original game, and
- adding another 25% to their attack would make things crazy. Boost is also less
- powerful now, which makes it even harder to cope with the huge attack values of Super.
- At any rate, here is the list of changes in this hack:
- MONSTERS:
- Most monsters have double HP.
- Monsters that don't use weapons have had their attack increased about 10%.
- Monsters that use weapons have had their base attack increased by 15-20%. This
- generally yields a total attack increase of about 10%.
- Most monsters have had their defense increased by 10%. Some have slightly higher
- defense increases, but then lower HP. In the last few battles (Geshp and onwards),
- defense is typically increased by 20% to better compensate for mithril weapons and the
- stagnant defense values in the original game.
- Dedicated casters typically have double MP. Melee monsters that incidentally have
- some spells have the same amount of MP.
- Many healers have better heal spells, especially healers that used low level aura
- spells towards the end of the game.
- Bosses are now MUCH more difficult. Most have roughly triple HP, greatly increased
- attack, increased defense, increased MP when applicable, and some gain new spells or
- have their old spells improved. The all boss battle at the end will be VERY hard.
- Let me know if you beat it.
- CHARACTERS:
- Bowie does not know Egress.
- Chester now gets 5 extra defense as a pegasus knight instead of losing 5 defense.
- This is to make up for the land effect penalty. He should now be a decent candidate
- for a pegasus wing.
- All centaurs get attack increases after promotion. Their attack is now 6 points
- higher than it was by the end of the game. This makes Eric a good choice at Creed's,
- and makes the others do damage closer to that of a gladiator than an archer.
- Kazin learns Freeze instead of Muddle. He does so slowly though. Freeze 1 helps to
- cope with increased monster HP in the first third or so of the game. Freeze 3, which
- he gets at level 18 promoted, gives him a range 3 attack as a Wizard. He won't easily
- learn Freeze 4; he learns it at 32 promoted.
- Kiwi has been greatly improved. He will gain on average 6 more attack before
- promotion compared to before. He will gain on average 14 more defense after promotion
- compared to before, giving him the best defense in the game by 2 points. He starts
- the game knowing Dispel, and having enough MP to cast it a couple of times. After
- promo, he learns 4 levels of his Breath spell. First level is exactly the same as his
- critical hit, and costs 8 MP. Incidentally, if he attacks and crits, using his
- breath, it will cost him 8 MP. If he has less than 8 MP when this happens, his MP
- becomes 0 but the attack still works. Breath 2 deals the same damage as Breath 1/his
- critical to 5 enemies at a range of 1 (really 4 enemies since he's always in the area
- of effect), for 12 MP; he learns it at level 10 promoted. Breath 3 deals slightly
- more damage to 5 enemies at a range of 1 for 16 MP; he learns it at level 16. Breath
- 4 deals Freeze 4-caliber damage to one enemy at a range of 2 for 16 MP; he'll learn it
- at level 22. His HP is still terrible, as before. Note that the icon for Breath is
- garbled and the spell will not show up on his character screen, only on the magic
- screen.
- Peter's stats have been nerfed a little bit. He is still the strongest attacker in
- the game, and is a little more fragile. He is still debatably the best character on
- the force. If you can cast the Attack spell, this is less debatable.
- Luke and Skreech have both had slight boosts to their stats, and now learn 4 levels of
- Blast after promotion. They still aren't great, but might make a good 10th-12th party
- member or so. Luke gets a little more MP than Skreech; Skreech gets a little more
- attack than Luke.
- All four archers have had slight boosts to their attack power to cope with improved
- monster defense. Elric and Janet have had larger boosts to their attack power,
- keeping them more competitive with May and Rhode. May still has the strongest attack
- power, but is no longer clearly the best archer. Provided you promote everyone
- immediately as intended, Janet's 4 extra prepromo levels may make her the best archer
- of them all.
- Randolf's stats have been boosted, so that he is actually slightly better than Jaha
- instead of strictly worse. He learns the Attack spell immediately after promotion
- (keep in mind Attack cannot be cast on the caster). He is now a very viable pick from
- Creed's.
- All Barons gain some defense; the defense penalty of 10 for promoting to Baron vs
- Gladiator was too harsh. The penalty is now closer to 5.
- Taya's spell progression has been radically altered, to her benefit. She gains Atlas
- earlier than anybody else. She will gain Atlas 1 (which is improved to have range 3)
- at 14, and Atlas 2 at 26. She is the only character who can easily gain Atlas 2.
- She gets Neptune far too late to be of any real use, to compensate. Her defense,
- while still the worst in the game, is a little better than it was.
- Gyan learns Boost 1 and 2, and gains a very small amount of MP to cast them with.
- With the nerf to Boost (see below), this should give him some extra tactical
- usefulness without being too terribly abusable for experience. His stats are also
- boosted very slightly.
- Sheela's defense has been boosted slightly. Her spell progression is also slightly
- improved.
- Zynk has a laser attack as a spell. It does about 28 damage to 5 enemies at a range
- of 3, and costs 12 MP. He will start with enough MP to cast it once, eventually gain
- enough to cast it twice, and may get enough to cast it three times if you get his
- level around 30 or give him a Bright Honey. Unlike Kiwi's breath critical, Zynk's
- laser critical does not cost MP: in fact it is not even a spell at all, and just does
- extra physical damage. Note that the icon for Laser is garbled and the spell will not
- show up on his character screen, only on the magic screen.
- Claude now joins the party at level 16 instead of 14.
- Chaz learns Freeze 4 earlier, at 23. This makes him better in a no-egress game, which
- this essentially is.
- Lemon's stats are boosted slightly.
- Resistance changes: Mages, Wizards and Sorcerers are now weakly resistant to
- Lightning, Ice, and Fire. Birdmen and promoted Peter are now weak to Wind. Brass
- Gunners and Zynk are now weak to Lightning. Claude is now weak to fire (instead of
- heavily resistant!), heavily resistant to ice, and weakly resistant to Bolt. Kiwi,
- once promoted, is weakly resistant to fire and weak to ice. All of these changes are
- motivated by enemy resistances: mages are usually resistant to the element they cast,
- all feather winged fliers other than pegasi are weak to wind, mechanical archers are
- weak to bolt, and golems are all weak to fire, heavily resistant to ice, and weakly
- resistant to bolt. Fire breathing enemies are always strong vs fire and weak vs ice.
- SPELLS:
- First of all keep in mind that adjustments to spells affect both you and the enemies.
- So if a spell is now better than it used to be and you don't take advantage of that
- fact, it is only helping the enemies.
- Heal and Aura spells have been rebalanced as follows:
- Spell Effect Range Radius MP
- Heal 1 15 1 1 3
- Heal 2 25 2 1 5
- Heal 3 35 3 1 7
- Heal 4 255 3 1 15
- Aura 1 15 3 2 7
- Aura 2 25 3 3 11
- Aura 3 35 3 3 15
- Aura 4 255 0 All 31
- In particular, Heal 2, 3, and 4 have all been improved. This helps to deal with the
- longer battles in this hack, and makes healers who don't have aura substantially
- better than healing items. Heal 4 is now range 3, instead of a pathetic 1 compared
- to Aura 4's infinite range. The Aura spells all cost 2x+1 MP, where x is the cost of
- the corresponding Heal spell, and heal the same amount as the corresponding heal
- spell. Aura 4 is now much more of a panic button than an extremely efficient healing
- spell. All healing amounts increase by 25% after promotion, as always.
- All the Detox spells have had their MP costs drastically lowered. It may now be more
- efficient to cure poison in long battles.
- Most of the status effect spells have been improved. Dispel has range 3 and radius 3.
- Muddle 1 has range 2, and Muddle 2 has range 3. Sleep has range 3 and radius 2.
- Slow 1 has range 2; Slow 2 has range 3.
- All summon spells have had their MP costs slightly reduced (by 2 or 3 points for all
- spells), to compensate for longer battles.
- Atlas 1 is now range 3, which gives Sorcerers a range 3 attack at an attainable level.
- Boost 1 now has range 2 and affects 1 ally, Boost 2 has Range 3 and affects 5 allies.
- The damage of Katon 1 has been lowered slightly, to make Katon 2 more useful.
- The casting cost of Desoul 2 has been increased to 15 MP.
- Certain enemy-only attack spells have been improved.
- ITEMS:
- Angel wings are no longer buyable. There are thus 4 angel wings in the game (in
- Granseal castle, New Grans during the Peter sequence, the passage to Creed's, and
- Moun). You can use them as you see fit, if you need any extra levels along the way.
- Of course, if Bowie dies, you can gain more experience by exiting from the battle
- that way. Provided you promote everyone at 20, gaining extra experience from Bowie
- deaths should not seriously imbalance the game. The game should be beatable though
- without any Bowie deaths and using only 1 angel wing in the Zeon battle to resurrect
- after the Galam battle. Although technically, that shouldn't even be necessary. For
- the All Boss battle, it might be necessary to use any excess angel wings to level
- build first.
- Chaz now starts with a Light of Hope (restores full MP to all characters). If you
- plan on tackling the All Boss battle, it would be wise to save both the Light of Hope
- and any Healing Rains. It will not be an easy fight.
- Promotion items are now available for sale from the item shop in Hassan. This should
- allow you to promote everyone as soon as they reach level 20, unless perhaps if you
- power leveled Sarah to extreme levels. It's up to you to decide if you want to use
- multiple copies of each promotion item. Doing so won't unbalance the game much, as
- the special promotions aren't that much better than the regular ones.
- The Quick Ring and Chirrup Sandals both give +1 MOV, in addition to their other
- "abilities."
- Cameela's Iron Ball no longer casts Blaze 3. Have fun finding out what it does cast!
- Mystery Staves cannot be equipped by Vicars anymore. This was extremely abusable on
- Frayja and/or Karna, and made the obscene casting cost of Aura 4 less of an issue.
- I'm not sure if it is possible to create a Mystery Staff by creating a mithril weapon
- for a Vicar, so be aware that you might get a weapon a Vicar can't equip if you make
- a mithril weapon for them. Wizards and Sorcerers can still use Mystery staves, since
- the ability is substantially less abusable on them.
- All sword users can now equip the Levanter, giving birdmen a better final equip and
- barons another option.
- MISC:
- A modified version of BNC's 3 numbers hack has been included in this hack, to avoid
- seeing ??'s everywhere in the second half of the game. That hack appeared to
- introduce a bug with the caravan, in its attempt to fix the Caravan repair bug. I
- removed the introduced bug, but the Caravan repair bug still exists in this version.
- Incidentally, as you will find out, the hack still displays three question marks when
- monsters get into quadruple digit stats...
- POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS:
- Here is a short list of things I would like to add to the hack, but don't have the
- knowledge to implement:
- Enforce promotion at level 20. Make experience growth stop after level 20, as it
- does when an unpromoted character reaches level 40.
- Fix the icons for Kiwi's breath spells and Zynk's Laser spell. Also make these
- spells show up in the character description pages for Kiwi and Zynk. It is possible
- that a future version of the Caravan editor by BNC will allow this.
- CREDITS:
- Essentially 90+% of the credit for this hack should actually go to Bryan Murphree,
- for his amazing SF2 Editor program. Credit also goes out to BNC for the 3 numbers
- hack, and for inspiring me to make my own hack. Also props to my friend Dogbert for
- helping to playtest the hack and make balance changes.
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