An alternate timeline to Shining Force
Moderator: Shining Moderators
1. Download Lunar IPSUriel wrote:I cannot figure out ips files for the life of me and the tutorials aren't helping. :/
I'm glad you enjoyed what you got to enjoy before that little mishaprobertleo wrote:Wow! This is an amazing hack, you've seriously altered several key aspects of the game, it truly feels like a fresh experience. I was loving it, unfortunately I accidently quick saved during the intro (!!!), thus erasing several hours of progress so it'll probably be a while before I feel up to getting back to the laser eye battle where I was at. Anyway, fantastic job, I'm super impressed with this hack.
Oppolo wrote:I had a great time playing this mod, thank you for all the work you put into it.
I've written up a bunch of stray thoughts (spoilers for the whole game, so don't read) - just for those who have an interest!
Spoiler
Stray Thoughts
The new maps and missions were fantastic, I particularly liked the maps full of enemies that gave 1exp to encourage you to move quickly and follow the actual "just get to the end" objective! I tried on battle 3 to just fight the bats and was a bit surprised when I actually got overwhelmed!! Loaded a savestate and did it properly the second time without problems.
For changed maps, the highlight was the Kane battle.
I really liked what you did with the Rudo area storywise. I liked the changes to the story in general, very simple and not too out-there crazy. Of course the changes with the playable characters (e.g. Mae, Lyle and even like Torasu's places in the story) were very good and fleshed it out.
I feel like some characters (Lobo and Amon in particular) could have done with a bit more dialogue and maybe a personality quirk or two. They could have had some of Boken's spotlight moments, he started to feel like the main character mid-way through the game.
Mad disrespect to Alef making her a starting character, and then giving bolt to the other mage! Still, she felt generally more useful to me throughout the game than Astral did.
Gotta say, it was a bit awkward reading the implied intimacy on the night of the party - between the author insert and the mermaid. Definitely the most "yeah, it's a mod" part of the whole thing.
Hanzou's sister said "Oh, Hanzou didn't make it?" before you go out to the tower (after you talk to the Shogun but before you leave). Kinda gave the story away a bit, psychic little sister!
The MP-recovering staff (from Domingo's gem) at the end of the game was good but kinda put Astral on the bench for me. He basically became the MP-recoverer for the rest of the game. This also meant that Lowe was casting Aura4 literally every single turn since the MP had become infinite. Took away a lot of the challenge of the final maps!
Final stray thought; thanks for the random enemies who did give EXP on the Oddeye battle. I entered that battle at around level 12, and grinded my characters up to Level 15 on those.
My report on the characters!
End-of-game, characters ranked by ATK;
Elliot<Boken<Xeno<Diane<Varios<Abel<Amon<Lobo<Maxine
End-of-game, characters ranked by survive-ability (DEF with halved HP added to take HP into account)
Boken<Lobo<Diane<Lowe<Amon<Varios<Maxine<Elliot<Abel<Xeno
Alef/Astral aren't included as they're at the bottom of both lists, but I'd say both felt very strong with their magics. Astral was, by design I assume, an extreme glass-cannon who never learnt how to take a hit.
Individual character thoughts:
Maxine - Felt consistently strong throughout. Basically became a magic caster when we got the Sword of Light (then Chaos Breaker). It was a tease that she kept gaining MP but never learnt any spells!
Alef - Great team member, could often take a single hit from non-boss enemies which is normally all you need. Lots of MP kept the Blaze/Freeze coming. She was normally leading my force in levels.
Diane - Fair team member, though she lagged a lot and refused to get ATK levelups in the early-mid game. She picked back up again towards the end.
Lowe - MVP. He basically spent every turn healing, but then his equipped staff gave him an infinite-use attack spell (basically making him better than Boken with Blast). After he got Aura, his levels exploded. 4MP for a cast is very cheap considering Lowe's huge MP pool. After he got Aura3 the game got extremely easy because I could full-heal my whole party every turn (with somebody else feeding Lowe's MP if needed). With Aura4, I didn't even need to worry about positioning anymore.
Varios - Okay, so in Chapter 1 Addington dropped the heat axe. Is this... supposed to happen!? Varios was a complete powerhouse throughout the early game and didn't change weapons until chapter 8! His DEF early-game was consistently amongst the highest too. He felt very much like a Fire Emblem Jeigan, with having to hold him back to stop him just dominating the maps alone.
Towards the end of the game, he stayed good - with pretty good survive-ability so he could take a front-row place and manoeuvre quickly to fill any gaps in the defensive line.
Boken - The weakest link. Early game he was a fine secondary healer. After Lowe got Aura, I barely needed his healing. He wasn't very defensive and didn't have very good offence either. His primary job was casting Slow and Quick, but he didn't have a huge MP bar so I had to limit when he did join in.
I found myself having to keep hurt enemies around to feed EXP to Boken, which wasn't worth it as he never had good levelups.
Astral - I was expecting Anri so got a surprise with Astral! At first he felt weak, low MP so he normally missed a turn of battle using items when things were getting hot. His range wasn't great, and he'd die in a single hit so positioning him safely was sometimes impossible (meaning he'd have to hang back for a bit). He started to pick up usefulness in the mid-game. In the late-game, I received the MP-recovery staff in chapter 7 and that was Astral's fate sealed. He just became the MP-recoverer (something he could do from 3-spaces behind his allies, securing his place hiding at the back of the team!)
Amon - Felt consistently average, 'Charge' was a very good move which definitely increased her usefulness. Looking at the end-of-game rankings, I'm surprised she came so high in the ATK since she never felt that strong in the mid-game. She must've got some good levelups (or her final weapon is high-powered).
Lobo - Another 'average' character! The lack of ranged options meant he just moved along with the flow. Move him behind Xeno/Varios, then he joins them in attacking. I was surprised to see him as my highest ATK character (after Maxine and her OP-weapon).
His ability to attack on a diagonal with his spell gave him a nice niche.
Xeno - A good character with a clear use. High DEF, and a ranged laser for when we needed a bit of extra chip-damage. He felt consistently useful and never overpowered.
Elliot - Mid-game he felt very good and useful, but I felt his usefulness go down after promotion. I found that, despite his huge HP, his low DEF meant he was still taking a lot of hurt on the front lines. And his lower ATK suggested he was meant to be tanky. I generally considered him as a slightly-worse Amon in the late game.
I don't know if I missed his final sword, but he was extremely weak at the endgame (Even weaker than Alef - only beating Astral!)**
Abel - He joined late-game and was a solid addition, felt good like pre-promotion Elliot was. He joined after Lowe learnt Aura which made the front lines a very safe place to be, so was consistently useful up here.
Aaand that's the end of my thoughts! Really, the game was fab, thank you so much for spending time making it!
**Edit: Re-reading the first post, yeah I missed Elliot's final weapon. I did read about keeping the Piece Maker before I started, but completely forgot by the time Elliot joined and sold it! What can I say, I was tight on inventory space (I liked to make sure everybody was holding only 3 items, in case we got another surprise drop like the Heat Axe).
But still, with his good manoeuvrability and high HP he still put in work during the final chapter despite being the weakest. Still had more to do than Boken!
Hi, thanks for your feedbackigable wrote:Oppolo wrote:I had a great time playing this mod, thank you for all the work you put into it.
I've written up a bunch of stray thoughts (spoilers for the whole game, so don't read) - just for those who have an interest!
Spoiler
Stray Thoughts
The new maps and missions were fantastic, I particularly liked the maps full of enemies that gave 1exp to encourage you to move quickly and follow the actual "just get to the end" objective! I tried on battle 3 to just fight the bats and was a bit surprised when I actually got overwhelmed!! Loaded a savestate and did it properly the second time without problems.
For changed maps, the highlight was the Kane battle.
I really liked what you did with the Rudo area storywise. I liked the changes to the story in general, very simple and not too out-there crazy. Of course the changes with the playable characters (e.g. Mae, Lyle and even like Torasu's places in the story) were very good and fleshed it out.
I feel like some characters (Lobo and Amon in particular) could have done with a bit more dialogue and maybe a personality quirk or two. They could have had some of Boken's spotlight moments, he started to feel like the main character mid-way through the game.
Mad disrespect to Alef making her a starting character, and then giving bolt to the other mage! Still, she felt generally more useful to me throughout the game than Astral did.
Gotta say, it was a bit awkward reading the implied intimacy on the night of the party - between the author insert and the mermaid. Definitely the most "yeah, it's a mod" part of the whole thing.
Hanzou's sister said "Oh, Hanzou didn't make it?" before you go out to the tower (after you talk to the Shogun but before you leave). Kinda gave the story away a bit, psychic little sister!
The MP-recovering staff (from Domingo's gem) at the end of the game was good but kinda put Astral on the bench for me. He basically became the MP-recoverer for the rest of the game. This also meant that Lowe was casting Aura4 literally every single turn since the MP had become infinite. Took away a lot of the challenge of the final maps!
Final stray thought; thanks for the random enemies who did give EXP on the Oddeye battle. I entered that battle at around level 12, and grinded my characters up to Level 15 on those.
My report on the characters!
End-of-game, characters ranked by ATK;
Elliot<Boken<Xeno<Diane<Varios<Abel<Amon<Lobo<Maxine
End-of-game, characters ranked by survive-ability (DEF with halved HP added to take HP into account)
Boken<Lobo<Diane<Lowe<Amon<Varios<Maxine<Elliot<Abel<Xeno
Alef/Astral aren't included as they're at the bottom of both lists, but I'd say both felt very strong with their magics. Astral was, by design I assume, an extreme glass-cannon who never learnt how to take a hit.
Individual character thoughts:
Maxine - Felt consistently strong throughout. Basically became a magic caster when we got the Sword of Light (then Chaos Breaker). It was a tease that she kept gaining MP but never learnt any spells!
Alef - Great team member, could often take a single hit from non-boss enemies which is normally all you need. Lots of MP kept the Blaze/Freeze coming. She was normally leading my force in levels.
Diane - Fair team member, though she lagged a lot and refused to get ATK levelups in the early-mid game. She picked back up again towards the end.
Lowe - MVP. He basically spent every turn healing, but then his equipped staff gave him an infinite-use attack spell (basically making him better than Boken with Blast). After he got Aura, his levels exploded. 4MP for a cast is very cheap considering Lowe's huge MP pool. After he got Aura3 the game got extremely easy because I could full-heal my whole party every turn (with somebody else feeding Lowe's MP if needed). With Aura4, I didn't even need to worry about positioning anymore.
Varios - Okay, so in Chapter 1 Addington dropped the heat axe. Is this... supposed to happen!? Varios was a complete powerhouse throughout the early game and didn't change weapons until chapter 8! His DEF early-game was consistently amongst the highest too. He felt very much like a Fire Emblem Jeigan, with having to hold him back to stop him just dominating the maps alone.
Towards the end of the game, he stayed good - with pretty good survive-ability so he could take a front-row place and manoeuvre quickly to fill any gaps in the defensive line.
Boken - The weakest link. Early game he was a fine secondary healer. After Lowe got Aura, I barely needed his healing. He wasn't very defensive and didn't have very good offence either. His primary job was casting Slow and Quick, but he didn't have a huge MP bar so I had to limit when he did join in.
I found myself having to keep hurt enemies around to feed EXP to Boken, which wasn't worth it as he never had good levelups.
Astral - I was expecting Anri so got a surprise with Astral! At first he felt weak, low MP so he normally missed a turn of battle using items when things were getting hot. His range wasn't great, and he'd die in a single hit so positioning him safely was sometimes impossible (meaning he'd have to hang back for a bit). He started to pick up usefulness in the mid-game. In the late-game, I received the MP-recovery staff in chapter 7 and that was Astral's fate sealed. He just became the MP-recoverer (something he could do from 3-spaces behind his allies, securing his place hiding at the back of the team!)
Amon - Felt consistently average, 'Charge' was a very good move which definitely increased her usefulness. Looking at the end-of-game rankings, I'm surprised she came so high in the ATK since she never felt that strong in the mid-game. She must've got some good levelups (or her final weapon is high-powered).
Lobo - Another 'average' character! The lack of ranged options meant he just moved along with the flow. Move him behind Xeno/Varios, then he joins them in attacking. I was surprised to see him as my highest ATK character (after Maxine and her OP-weapon).
His ability to attack on a diagonal with his spell gave him a nice niche.
Xeno - A good character with a clear use. High DEF, and a ranged laser for when we needed a bit of extra chip-damage. He felt consistently useful and never overpowered.
Elliot - Mid-game he felt very good and useful, but I felt his usefulness go down after promotion. I found that, despite his huge HP, his low DEF meant he was still taking a lot of hurt on the front lines. And his lower ATK suggested he was meant to be tanky. I generally considered him as a slightly-worse Amon in the late game.
I don't know if I missed his final sword, but he was extremely weak at the endgame (Even weaker than Alef - only beating Astral!)**
Abel - He joined late-game and was a solid addition, felt good like pre-promotion Elliot was. He joined after Lowe learnt Aura which made the front lines a very safe place to be, so was consistently useful up here.
Aaand that's the end of my thoughts! Really, the game was fab, thank you so much for spending time making it!
**Edit: Re-reading the first post, yeah I missed Elliot's final weapon. I did read about keeping the Piece Maker before I started, but completely forgot by the time Elliot joined and sold it! What can I say, I was tight on inventory space (I liked to make sure everybody was holding only 3 items, in case we got another surprise drop like the Heat Axe).
But still, with his good manoeuvrability and high HP he still put in work during the final chapter despite being the weakest. Still had more to do than Boken!
Thanks for this. Was wondering about trying it so this helped lean me to try this mod.
Me and Xeno have been working hard at a big update to this mod and one of the things that we were heavily focused on was balance. I'm about to release the update now. So check it out, and it's not just about balance, some story elements and some very cool features have been implemented(you wouldn't even have to get farther than chapter 1 to see some of them, but it's spectacular in its execution ) I won't spoil it, but you gotta see it for yourself! Great - I've made a start playing version 2!Erikin84 wrote:Hi, thanks for your feedbackigable wrote:Oppolo wrote:I had a great time playing this mod, thank you for all the work you put into it.
I've written up a bunch of stray thoughts (spoilers for the whole game, so don't read) - just for those who have an interest!
Spoiler
Stray Thoughts
The new maps and missions were fantastic, I particularly liked the maps full of enemies that gave 1exp to encourage you to move quickly and follow the actual "just get to the end" objective! I tried on battle 3 to just fight the bats and was a bit surprised when I actually got overwhelmed!! Loaded a savestate and did it properly the second time without problems.
For changed maps, the highlight was the Kane battle.
I really liked what you did with the Rudo area storywise. I liked the changes to the story in general, very simple and not too out-there crazy. Of course the changes with the playable characters (e.g. Mae, Lyle and even like Torasu's places in the story) were very good and fleshed it out.
I feel like some characters (Lobo and Amon in particular) could have done with a bit more dialogue and maybe a personality quirk or two. They could have had some of Boken's spotlight moments, he started to feel like the main character mid-way through the game.
Mad disrespect to Alef making her a starting character, and then giving bolt to the other mage! Still, she felt generally more useful to me throughout the game than Astral did.
Gotta say, it was a bit awkward reading the implied intimacy on the night of the party - between the author insert and the mermaid. Definitely the most "yeah, it's a mod" part of the whole thing.
Hanzou's sister said "Oh, Hanzou didn't make it?" before you go out to the tower (after you talk to the Shogun but before you leave). Kinda gave the story away a bit, psychic little sister!
The MP-recovering staff (from Domingo's gem) at the end of the game was good but kinda put Astral on the bench for me. He basically became the MP-recoverer for the rest of the game. This also meant that Lowe was casting Aura4 literally every single turn since the MP had become infinite. Took away a lot of the challenge of the final maps!
Final stray thought; thanks for the random enemies who did give EXP on the Oddeye battle. I entered that battle at around level 12, and grinded my characters up to Level 15 on those.
My report on the characters!
End-of-game, characters ranked by ATK;
Elliot<Boken<Xeno<Diane<Varios<Abel<Amon<Lobo<Maxine
End-of-game, characters ranked by survive-ability (DEF with halved HP added to take HP into account)
Boken<Lobo<Diane<Lowe<Amon<Varios<Maxine<Elliot<Abel<Xeno
Alef/Astral aren't included as they're at the bottom of both lists, but I'd say both felt very strong with their magics. Astral was, by design I assume, an extreme glass-cannon who never learnt how to take a hit.
Individual character thoughts:
Maxine - Felt consistently strong throughout. Basically became a magic caster when we got the Sword of Light (then Chaos Breaker). It was a tease that she kept gaining MP but never learnt any spells!
Alef - Great team member, could often take a single hit from non-boss enemies which is normally all you need. Lots of MP kept the Blaze/Freeze coming. She was normally leading my force in levels.
Diane - Fair team member, though she lagged a lot and refused to get ATK levelups in the early-mid game. She picked back up again towards the end.
Lowe - MVP. He basically spent every turn healing, but then his equipped staff gave him an infinite-use attack spell (basically making him better than Boken with Blast). After he got Aura, his levels exploded. 4MP for a cast is very cheap considering Lowe's huge MP pool. After he got Aura3 the game got extremely easy because I could full-heal my whole party every turn (with somebody else feeding Lowe's MP if needed). With Aura4, I didn't even need to worry about positioning anymore.
Varios - Okay, so in Chapter 1 Addington dropped the heat axe. Is this... supposed to happen!? Varios was a complete powerhouse throughout the early game and didn't change weapons until chapter 8! His DEF early-game was consistently amongst the highest too. He felt very much like a Fire Emblem Jeigan, with having to hold him back to stop him just dominating the maps alone.
Towards the end of the game, he stayed good - with pretty good survive-ability so he could take a front-row place and manoeuvre quickly to fill any gaps in the defensive line.
Boken - The weakest link. Early game he was a fine secondary healer. After Lowe got Aura, I barely needed his healing. He wasn't very defensive and didn't have very good offence either. His primary job was casting Slow and Quick, but he didn't have a huge MP bar so I had to limit when he did join in.
I found myself having to keep hurt enemies around to feed EXP to Boken, which wasn't worth it as he never had good levelups.
Astral - I was expecting Anri so got a surprise with Astral! At first he felt weak, low MP so he normally missed a turn of battle using items when things were getting hot. His range wasn't great, and he'd die in a single hit so positioning him safely was sometimes impossible (meaning he'd have to hang back for a bit). He started to pick up usefulness in the mid-game. In the late-game, I received the MP-recovery staff in chapter 7 and that was Astral's fate sealed. He just became the MP-recoverer (something he could do from 3-spaces behind his allies, securing his place hiding at the back of the team!)
Amon - Felt consistently average, 'Charge' was a very good move which definitely increased her usefulness. Looking at the end-of-game rankings, I'm surprised she came so high in the ATK since she never felt that strong in the mid-game. She must've got some good levelups (or her final weapon is high-powered).
Lobo - Another 'average' character! The lack of ranged options meant he just moved along with the flow. Move him behind Xeno/Varios, then he joins them in attacking. I was surprised to see him as my highest ATK character (after Maxine and her OP-weapon).
His ability to attack on a diagonal with his spell gave him a nice niche.
Xeno - A good character with a clear use. High DEF, and a ranged laser for when we needed a bit of extra chip-damage. He felt consistently useful and never overpowered.
Elliot - Mid-game he felt very good and useful, but I felt his usefulness go down after promotion. I found that, despite his huge HP, his low DEF meant he was still taking a lot of hurt on the front lines. And his lower ATK suggested he was meant to be tanky. I generally considered him as a slightly-worse Amon in the late game.
I don't know if I missed his final sword, but he was extremely weak at the endgame (Even weaker than Alef - only beating Astral!)**
Abel - He joined late-game and was a solid addition, felt good like pre-promotion Elliot was. He joined after Lowe learnt Aura which made the front lines a very safe place to be, so was consistently useful up here.
Aaand that's the end of my thoughts! Really, the game was fab, thank you so much for spending time making it!
**Edit: Re-reading the first post, yeah I missed Elliot's final weapon. I did read about keeping the Piece Maker before I started, but completely forgot by the time Elliot joined and sold it! What can I say, I was tight on inventory space (I liked to make sure everybody was holding only 3 items, in case we got another surprise drop like the Heat Axe).
But still, with his good manoeuvrability and high HP he still put in work during the final chapter despite being the weakest. Still had more to do than Boken!
Thanks for this. Was wondering about trying it so this helped lean me to try this mod.
Hi, thanks for your review.Oppolo wrote:It was nice to play through the mod again with slight changes, thank you for spending time making this for the community.
End-playthrough report below, behind spoilers for those who don't want to be spoiled!
Spoiler
For my incessant need to categorise, here's how the characters balanced out at the end of this playthrough
ATK
Lobo > Maxine > Abel > Amon > Boken > Elliott > Diane > Xeno > Varios > Lowe (> Anri > Astral)
Survive (DEF + Half of HP, to take HP into consideration for survivability)
Abel > Elliott > Maxine > Lobo > Xeno > Lowe > Boken > Varios > Amon > Anri > Diane > Astral
Everybody ended up level 15 in the end, apart from Lowe whose Aura EXP-gaining powers smashed him over level 20.
Maxine is very definitely over-represented here as she consumed every single stat-up item in the game (apart from a couple of quick chickens).
All the characters felt good and useful;
Abel
Useful character, very strong and also had great healing. He had something to do every turn (heal, attack, or use Mae's pendant) so felt very active.
For some reason, the enemies loved aiming at Abel. Even Darksol at the end just aimed all of his attacks at Abel (and whoever was around him). Which was fine, because Abel also had both the highest HP on the team and also the highest DEF on the team.
Amon
Came out very powerful. Was low down on the DEF rankings, but she could always survive a hit and that's all that's normally needed.
Anri + Astral
Grouped together for similar thoughts, they were both useful and good. Was nice to see the queen of Guardiana getting stuck in! Anri was generally more useful early game, and Astral was generally more useful late game. Anri's spells were weaker than Astral's by the end, and also her 'other spells' (desoul, poison, dispell) would generally just not work so felt a bit useless. I did poison a boss early on which gave good damage, but couldn't get it to work later.
Alef
Hurray, Alef learned Bolt! About two turns before the end of her final battle
Boken
Was much stronger for me this time through. Without Aura4's infinite range, he also made use of Heal3/Heal4 all the way to the end too. Blast4 was also good at the end of the game.
Diane
I glued the power ring on her finger from the start, so I'm not sure I have a fair opinion of her - but she was a great sniper. Picked out enemies that needed taking out. She lagged a bit again in mid-late game (I think her lack of Agility meant she was normally last to arrive to a fight - meaning it was normally over) but she picked back up when 4-Range Aim became available.
Elliott
I didn't bypass his final weapon this time! Good character, nice and mobile. Breath didn't find much use, but was good if you just couldn't reach the enemy.
Lobo
High power, good mobility, great range once or twice per battle with Spirit2. All around a good guy.
Lowe
Heal heal heal - aura aura aura. Finished by casting Aura3 every other round (Aura4 didn't offer much more healing for the higher MP cost). Led the force in levels consistently. Around the end of chapter 7, he was so over-levelled that he actually became one of my best tanks and started doing his Auras from the front lines.
Maxine
She had all the stat-ups in the game, so that might have been part of why she was always so powerful. She was consistently strong, fair DEF, and some extra range with Flame (later using the Sword of Darkness) when needed.
She ended up with similar agility to Boken, making a Flame4-Blast4 combo devastating to a couple of big groups of enemies. It was great when that lined up!
Varios
Good start of the game and mid-game made him a valuable ally. He could adapt between close range and 2-range, and could position in easily with Charge too.
Towards the final 2 chapters, he just refused to get good levelups for some reason - so he ended up at the bottom of the barrel on ATK (and barely above bottom on DEF/HP). Not a great finish for him - but he was still powerful enough to contribute (just about 5-10 ATK below the other characters).
Note: I removed all rings before doing the final comparison, so yeah his ATK was genuinely lower than Diane's even after she took off the power ring.
Xeno
Like before, a good character with a clear use. Put him in front, use his laser when you want extra chip damage. His ATK also ended up quite low but his laser meant he could still do good damage in the endgame to bosses. His lower ranking in survive-ability reflects a low HP. He had the highest DEF of everybody except Abel, but not by much (only 1 point more than Maxine and Elliott), while they had significantly more HP to absorb the little extra damage.
But, he still got frontline use throughout the whole game.
Finally - a couple of little bugs you might not have noticed;
1. Did you know that in Metapha you can just walk through the wall to get to the Chaos Breaker room, without engaging in the robot battle with Chaos (or R2D4?? I forget what he was called). There is a closed door there but no collision so you can just walk through it. You get the chaos breaker and the game continues as normal without missing a beat.
2. Quick Chicken increases movement instead of agility when you use it in-battle. Out of battle it works properly, but in-battle it increases movement like a Speed Pepper. I may have misused a couple of Quick Chickens on Xeno. This may have helped colour my positive opinion of him!
Damn I've been here a long f*cking time...Salibu: 20/08/10 wrote:You have all been Swalched.
Great, and please let me know what you think and provide feedback. This mod can always evolve and growSwalchy wrote:This looks like a very interesting MOD.
After just completing my own slightly edited version of Vanilla SF1 (I gave Max the Bolt spell and some more MP - about as far as my editing went), I was thinking what to play next.
This is what I shall be playing next
) Nova would *never* have allowed this HQ ambush to happen; you just know he was a badass dragonute fighter who intimidated the piss out of the legions of Runefaust. They didn't *dare* try to trifle w/the Force's HQ w/him around.) Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. And I got to say, you're review has got to be the best I've ever seen. I NEED Morgan Freeman or Jeremy Irons narrate that text or my life won't be complete! In regards to your 4th wall, that is a great idea, wish I thought of that! I do plan to make a SFA2 at some point with SF2's gameworld/story in a similar manner as this. And having her name be "fixed" into a particular name would make things simple, but I'm sure it can be hexed in where the player would need to input what they named her during their playthrough of "this" mod.acsound wrote:I completed SHINING FORCE ALTERNATE yesterday. My impressions (tongue-in-cheek commentary) are in *spoilers*.
It was a solid mod; I liked it overall.Spoiler
Chapter 1 Highlights:
Why is Ernie (Earnest) of all people working for TEAM DARKSOL? -sigh- Hopefully this is the last we see of him...
Dead soldier corpses per Shining Force 2. I expect SF2 will be a theme here...
Endlessly-respawning DAMNED BAT gauntlet for TEAM MAXINE on the way to Alterone.
Playable Boken--and he came early--to Maxine's rescue; w/Khris as Alterone's priest. Cool. He's needed for his home region: RINDO HELL.
Death Adder: what did Darksol have over him that he made him use "Addington" as an alias? Because the name DEATH ADDER would've been less-conspicuous. Frankly, I'm surprised Gilius didn't show up as an AI-controlled chara to attack Addie, or get KO'd in a cutscene.
My guess is that Darksol couldn't stand the fact that "Addington" had a more-intimidating villain name.
Chapter 2 Highlights:
TL;DR: "I hereby make a promotion. Now, RINDO HELL shall be known as RINDO TARTARUS!"
Seriously, f4rk Rindo. The acting was slightly better in the theater portions, though.
That feint was unholy. That, or Varios is kind of rusty on the situational awareness front--suggesting that TEAM MAXINE go left: where elf mercs were prepared to ambush us w/golems. TEAM MAXINE ended up going right after an Egress.
TEAM MAXINE enters the CAVERN OF WONDER to face the SF1 variant of a TENTACLE-WAVING Pr0N DEMON--aptly named the Ravager. And true to SF1 tradition, he holds on to that last 1 HP to murder Alef: TEAM MAXINE's only functional mage w/access to all three elements. Who am I left with? ASTRAL, apparently before SF2 and only knows Bolt. He'd better be good...
Anri (whose portrait is lovely), realizing that she should've joined us in the CAVERN OF WONDER per vanilla SF1 (so that Alef could live--and not suffer LATE JOINER SYNDROME by joining the newly-dubbed SHINING FORCE too late to be of use w/o industrial-grade EGRESS LEVEL GRINDING), opts to join our party after all. Problem here is that she's a strict Freeze specialist. Good thing Maxine knows Blaze (Flames...?).
The banter over the dying, overly-talky Marionette was nice. Just incinerate that dumb Mishaela doll so TEAM MAXINE can escape RINDO TARTARUS.
Oh, wait. The Force must face the CHAPEL OF DELIGHT, where Darksol replaced skeletons with some lantern-carrying Heartless he'd swiped from Xehanort.
Amon joins TEAM MAXINE, and we're off to Bustoke--free of RINDO TARTARUS.
Chapter 3 Highlights:
Hans is a wuss, per vanilla SF1. He's just trying to take care of his family: right...?
The SFC Forum's Lobo is cosplaying as a brown Zylo--and was brainwashed into joining TEAM DARKSOL...by Hans!?
Damn it! First Ernie, and now Hans! We're lucky that Pelle opted to be a silly singing mountain climber, and that Tao's still training in Manarina--or we'd be in real trouble. Ernie was hardly a threat *to* Runefaust in vanilla SF1, and vanilla Hans was the load once Diane showed up--having Diane at the start here in ALTERNATE... Hans is probably doing *this* SHINING FORCE a favor by siding with TEAM DARKSOL: and Lobo!Zylo can't wait to kill him.
Thankfully, no RESPAWN AMBUSHES in the forest: Lobo!Zylo's advice worked, and TEAM MAXINE had a leisurely hike through the forest to reach Pao Bridge.
It appears that the silver knight in charge did opt to have a few troops guard the Laser Eye properly...but still had other troops on the bridge to DIE STUPIDLY. -sigh- Baby steps...
Chapter 4 Highlights:
Pao Battle was Pao Battle, complete w/the dark priests being *useless* to TEAM DARKSOL. Thankfully, Elliott didn't die, and thinks that he can reason w/Balbazak.
As for Uranbatol Fortress, looks like there was only one way in. Good to have playable Elliott on TEAM MAXINE.
Chapter 5 Highlights:
Seabats, cartoony water demons that M. Pegasus banished from TOON WORLD (as apparently the Egyptian POWERS THAT BE thought that the lands of Rune were the SHADOW REALM), and the ugly-ass green monsters. All of whom love to proc poison status on TEAM MAXINE: Varios was such a poison target throughout the journey that I think he'll develop an immunity.
Oddeye, surely you could just forgo the pointless boss battle and join TEAM MAXINE instead. They don't really trust you, but they don't want to *fight you*, either...
oddeye: I was *testing* them--to see if they had what it took to face Darksol.
me/the PLAYER: Dude, that's just stupid. They've got a friggin' DRAGONUTE on their team!
oddeye: Nothing will compare w/the stupidity to come--and block the FORCE's way to Metapha. -EGRESS out-
Ernie!? You did *not* FAKE THE DEAD! You had the DEATH EXPLOSION!
darksol: I revived him and filled him w/the power of DARKNESS! -evil laugh-
me/PLAYER: I hate you...
Anyway: Why!? Just why, Ernie? Your vanilla SF1 backstory should make you *HATE* Runefaust and want to burn it to the ground. The game's story wasn't ALTERed *that much*.
-sigh- Somehow, Ernie has magic powers, and he blocked the way to Metapha.
oddeye: told you so...
Finally, another boat ride hijacked by sea monsters, frost harpies, and a Carcharocles megalodon upset that his genus name was misspelled.
Chapter 6 Highlights:
Lyle's protecting the kids--who didn't drive out their parents this time: no. Mishaela just flat-out kidnapped them... This isn't going to end well, is it...?
Karin and Krin look adorable--complete w/portraits.
The march to Dragonia went painfully, but TEAM MAXINE pulled through...only to enter Dragonia and be unable to leave b/c of the town's Bedoe-like geography. I do question the presence of birds from Bedoe; maybe Volcanon sent them after Balbaroy reported the events in Shade Abbey...?
Bleu doesn't join us--understandably to protect the Rudo kids. Such a good baby Sacred Dragon; I hope he makes it out okay...
Kane, you ASSHOLE... But I don't blame you; I blame our so-called ADVS Erikin (the chara, not the mod designer!
(My head-canon for vanilla SF1 is that Pelle did suggest attacking the Force while at HQ (during his time as a hired merc), and to test the idea's viability, a few MASTER MAGES sent some skeletons to HQ at Rindo--but the skeletons never made it past the steps: b/c Nova incinerated them all w/his fire breath.)
But Erikin? The only noteworthy thing he might've done was boink a mermaid back in Waral. :rolleyes: -SMH-
In fairness, this iteration of Kane is actually Ramladu's son: Abel--who didn't inherit his dad's lack of situational awareness, but was tricked into wearing Darksol's mind-control Darth Vader helmet. Varios didn't believe him at first, but Abel's lack of shame in wearing his secret girlfriend's jewelry proved to save Abel from a heat axe to the face.
And in Demon Castle: Mishaela must be DESTROYED. The baywatch turned the adults of Rudo into CLONES of noteworthy previous bosses, Doppel Kane, and a clone of the MAIN CHARA: MAXINE THE MANDATORY b/c she lost one of her dumb dolls back at Rindo.
max: you'd think she'd have just taken a page from FINAL CONFLICT and brainwashed *me* to fight my RULE 63 ALTERNATE.
mishaela: SF mod rules are that any battles have to be winnable by the player. and you know that you were holding back the whole time I had you brainwashed!
max: I didn't want to kill my *nephew* or Elliott's son (who likely wanted me dead ever since he was a kid--so the brainwashed bit was a perfect excuse for him to do me in). as to "holding back": I was actually bound not by "mod rules", but by SF enemy AI forcing me to make stupid tactical decisions I'd never make as MAX THE MANDATORY.
mishaela: damn you...
me: you can kiss my ass, too, baywatch.
-sigh- Mishaela--opting to milk that last 1 HP for all its worth--tries to kill Maxine...but Bleu took the hit! Not my little boy dragon Bleu...!
Anyhoo... off to Wutai!Prompt.
Chapter 7 Highlights:
Here, King Kusuko was murdered by Musashi, who sits on the throne; he renamed the town of Prompt Sasebo. (j/k)
All silliness aside, the CLONE bit got some mileage for TEAM DARKSOL, as Maxine's imprisonment now has a CLEAR MY NAME trope vibe. Thus, Musashi's suspicions of Maxine being a spy make sense.
Another RESPAWN GAUNTLET on TEAM MAXINE's trek to the Tower. The Force's first attempt didn't go too well, but the second attempt went beautifully when Diane and Boken opted to support Elliott and Amon--while the rest of TEAM MAXINE dealt with various fallen samurai and demon spellcasters (master, sorcerer, and warlock).
Then CHAOS BATTLE (after Abel joins TEAM MAXINE), where the robots were all on the left...and TEAM MAXINE went to the right to gank Chaos. It wasn't an easy battle, but TEAM MAXINE did it and forged the CHAOS BREAKER...while learning that it could be a curse... (That'd better refer to SF1's ending--not making it a mandatory CURSED WEAPON...!)
Finally, a maze RESPAWN GAUNTLET to Runefaust, where the soldiers have enough situational awareness to fortify the walls so that even the FLYING CHARAS can't breach the walls, take out the artillery units blocking the door, and make Maxine's path to the door a little easier. No; *all* must suffer throught the gauntlet...
elliott: I probably designed it myself to defend then-Protectora from any would-be bandits who'll probably end up joining the ranks of the BALFORMIAN EMPIRE.
me/PLAYER: Not time for that spoiler yet.
elliott: But I think I started getting bart balthukes' lightning breath near this point...
me/PLAYER: Shut it! Besides, you just got Bleu's lightning breath.
Chapter 8 Highlights:
Narsha, instead of joining TEAM MAXINE to replace Boken, opts to be mission control. (Which is cool, b/c Boken is DYNAMITE!)
Then the Force enters Runefaust Castle, where pegasus knights, armored soldiers do battle w/TEAM MAXINE--including those damned MARK TROOPERS! Seriously? Darksol travelled to the world of FEDA (or time travelled) to summon the QUADRA SLICE guys!?
Oh, and Ernie again. Abel unceremoniously beheads him w/o pity just as he was about to go into a proper MOTIVE RANT. So we get no reason for his joining TEAM DARKSOL outside of wanting to be king of Runefaust: no resolution of this plot thread...?
TEAM MAXINE's fight against Ramladu was nice, where Ramladu called the Force "interlopers" instead of "weaklings". TEAM MAXINE still had to MEET HIS DAMNED ROBOTS: cheap knockoffs of Chaos along w/upgraded steel claws, jets, and torch eyes. After an Egress, the second run had no deaths, and TEAM MAXINE defeated Ramladu.
Then Darksol cribs from SF2, forcing Ramladu to be King Galam.
(astral: Except that I'm a MASTER WIZARD--and exorcist, baby!)
(darksol: Bitch, I *let* you win--because Ramladu was dying anyway!)
(me/PLAYER: Oh, so that's why you let Ernie taunt the Force at the entrance to Runefaust Castle...)
(darksol: No, fool: Kane was effectively *playable*, so there couldn't be a cutscene where I alluded to Maxine's nonexistent dead brother.)
(earnest: I was a damned placeholder... I hated this mod, and my sorry role in it; I wanted to be king of this iteration of Runefaust so that I could burn it to the ground--preferably with Narsha tied to a stake.)
(hans: How do you think I feel about my chara derailment?)
(diane: What chara derailment?)
-SIGH-
After this, Elliott gets his signature sword upgraded to a beautiful, shiny gold.
Then TEAM MAXINE faces Colossus: Krang's inbred cyborg cousin. The idiot forgot its initial programming directives and got hacked by Darksol, and when Xeno tried to interface with it, Colossus tried to take over Xeno's body--only to be self-destructed for its trouble.
Next, after the Force finally let Lowe hold the last Healing Rain (the rare and only means for *true* Aura 4) because he'd used most of the Healing Rains on COLOSSUS BATTLE, is DARKSOL BATTLE. A straight shot up the middle where TEAM MAXINE faces off against random Darksol acolytes.
me/PLAYER: How did DARKSOL get to start a religious cult..!?
-SMH-
TEAM MAXINE defeats Darksol, only for Darksol--clinging to his last sliver of HP--to awaken DARK DRAGON.
(anri: No way in f4rk are we EGRESSING out--we don't care that Amon's dead...again.)
(me/PLAYER: Yeah; the poor bird kept getting killed at endgame; it affected her levels.)
PLAYER note: Since this battle featured RESPAWNING in vanilla SF1, I knew that I needed to have someone on those respawn pads until TEAM MAXINE took out the two other DRAGON HEADS.
A succubus appeared and poisoned Varios, but Boken stayed nearby as Varios stood on the succubus respawn pad--in advance of Anri desouling the baywatch.
(anri: Most of my level-ups came from me desouling fools left and right...but I can't desoul robots.)
(me/PLAYER: Robots don't have souls, silly. And you can't poison them either--but at least it works both ways, so Xeno was safe.)
Another succubus later tried to whip Abel (focused on taking out Dark Dragon's main head), but it only took off *1 points of damage*...and Anri desouled that succubus.
Astral was MVP b/c he had the bright idea to simply put the chimaeras and minotaurs to sleep whenever they'd spawn--thus turning the RESPAWN HELL into something the team could manage...
...at least until Dark Dragon opted to kill Astral and Boken (along w/Xeno, I think).
In any event, TEAM MAXINE vanquishes Dark Dragon; Maxine gets stuck w/the CURSE of the CHAOS BREAKER (SF1's ending), but Egresses everyone else to safety (Amon, Astral, (possibly Xeno) and Boken were revived off-screen).
After the credits (including shout-outs from the mod creator), we see the new ending: where fifty years have passed, and all Maxine can remember is her name.
(max/MAXINE: No renaming *me* this time, PLAYER.)
PLAYER note: In vanilla SF1, Max's silent head-turn to us PLAYERS was a cute FOURTH-WALL break that we had given him a name. My guess here is that had I opted to rename our ALTERNATE heroine, that this would've been a cheeky retort where she finally gets to use her *real* name.
