Swaps Hori and Musashi for aesthetic reasons Restores certain portraits and sprites from a previous version of the mod for aesthetic reasons Swaps Waltz and Dawn's classes around (since their classes had been switched from their respective home games - Dawn is now a Paladin once more, and Waltz returns to being a Ranger) Gives Geppel and Hindel the ability to use both swords and axes from the start, and gives them an extra move so they are more like SF2 barons rather than gimped gladiators. Fixes a turn order bug in the final battle that could cause the game to simply lock up due to NPC units being present out of bounds and being confused for a party member.
I started a new thread for this because eventually this one will actually contain the mod. I figured that you guys have probably played all the ones around here into the ground and might be looking for something else to hold you over until the next new thing comes along. I said earlier that I wasn't going to release one but I decided before I get to burnt out that about 2 years of putting things in this game would be an incredible waste of effort on my part to just let it go the way side.
And just so you know I am using the 12 man marathon as a base, with the almighty Stordarth's permission of course, so those of you familiar with that will know what to expect here. And on that note I would also like to say that this hack and my previous ones would 'not' have happened without spacekings editor and BNC's caravan and also tips and help from Stordarth so thanks go to them for giving me a very enjoyable pastime/hobby. And also thanks to Nineko and wiz for their contributions to hacking SF2 as well as the other modders, and not just one all of them, here at SF central who's mods I played an beat, well most of them 'shakes fist at Obobs challenge hack', that helped me to decide how to make one. Thanks also goes to those who created some of the neat patches that are used in this such as the 3 digits fix, percent poison damage, exp from healing for all etc. So thanks to Obob and BNC again. If I missed anyone just say so and you will surely be added to the list below.
Thanks In no particular order BNC Spaceking Stordarth Earl Nineko Wiz Greyskies , graphical contributions, battle sprites. Obob , challenge/statistical ideas Darkclaw , graphic/concept ideas SirHedge , structural/statistical ideas Corsair , graphic inspiration Alones , graphic inspiration Ronnen Omega Entity, graphic commentary Evil Spilit, tester Spidey, tester roxy, tester Ace, tester And all the rest of the community,
Anyways this pretty much takes all of my previous hacks and combines the best parts of them into 1. I've been making these for a while and from start to finish it's fully playable with no glitches, aside from the originals already present in vanilla, and I have put a lot of time and effort into it and that should be apparent from the start. In brief all characters, items, enemies, battles, spells and numerous other things have been changed not to mention lot's of new graphics, sound effects, and music. More details below and I'll add more as I wrap this up.
Applying the Patch and how to play
WARNING: SPOILER!
Contents by Stordarth
You need to apply the ips patch in this zip to the rom entitled Shining Force II (U)!.bin, and this needs to be an unchanged rom (not caravan-expanded for example). To do this, google a program called IPSWin. It can quickly apply IPS patches for you.
Once you've applied the patch place it wherever you keep your roms.
Once your files are in place, load the rom into your emulator, and go through the startup screens as normal. Once the witch waves you off, instead of Bowie in his room, you are instead greeted to a series of Menus. Prior to every battle, you will be given the chance to do all of the things you would in a town, one after the other, as the menus are called automatically. Below is the menu call order:
Church Caravan Weapon Shop (If one would be available at the time) Item Shop (If one would be available at the time) Standard Menu (You know, the one you press C to bring up)
Quitting one menu will call the next in the sequence. Once you quit the last menu, you will recieve a message asking "Are you Ready?". Choosing YES will start the battle. Choosing NO will start the menu sequence from the beginning: useful if you accidentally frameskipped past one of the menus you wanted.
When you start, make ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that you use the caravan to JOIN a member. If you don't your default empty party will crash the game.
Once you choose yes, you should be back in familiar territory as the battle starts. If you die, or egress, or use an angel wing, you will recall the menus prior to the current battle, and the battle will repeat (Unless you do so on battle 4; this battle is set to automatically move on even in the original if you die. Probably due to the lack of priest in Hawel's house to raise fallen allies.) Victory obviously calls the menus to prepare for the next battle, and so on and so forth until you complete the game.
Remember this mod is played using save states, no saving via SRM can be done! So don't save at the priest either or problems will occur.
Review, courtesy of Evil Spilit
WARNING: SPOILER!
I've had this for just over a month now as a beta tester. If you're just getting this now, you're REALLY in for a treat. I have still not finished the game, although I am about 3/4 of the way through with all of my characters at level 15 promoted. I will update this review when I reach the end.
Nightshade's patch is a complete rework of all the battles in SF2. As others in the thread have already stated, it's the closest thing to a new game we've been able to make off the SF2 engine thus far. All battles have been changed and have new enemies, and many take place on maps used to walk around in vanilla, such as towns. Enemies and allies alike have received a nearly complete makeover, including names, battle and portrait sprites, stat balance, and spell allotment. Battle backgrounds have been redrawn as well.
Visuals There is a wide variety of visual changes, from the nostalgic to the just plain awesome, from minor tweaks to complete redesigns. You'll see classic SF1 versions of many SF2 enemies, as well as shiny, glowing redesigns that will make you go "wow" (especially amongst casters, both friend and enemy). The battle backgrounds are extremely well done and, as far as I can tell, original. The visuals only get better as the game goes on, with many surprises waiting after promotion and in later enemies. Honestly, there's very little to complain about in the updated graphics - nearly every battle will give you something special to appreciate. In short, your entire journey will feel more epic with this patch.
Characters As Nightshade said, nearly all characters have been changed. All of the characters of the same class start out very similar but gradually start to diverge, both on stats and spell selection. Without any info on the divergence ahead of time, I picked my team based on the look of the map sprite and portrait, and attempting to use one of each class. It was tough, but I managed to pick one of each class except Warrior and used a team of 14. While the choice of character doesn't matter too much, whoever you pick I would highly recommend a few reserves so you can tailor your choices to each map.
This remake takes some liberties with stats that are not used as often in the original. Differences in attack and defense between tank and damage classes are more pronounced, and low HP tanks are very well defined. You will get a large selection of stat boosting items to use as you like, though, so it is possible to beef up your Ninja's defense and Kiwi's HP. However, the most difficult change to deal with is the increased use of 4 MOV. If you've played the milestone edition with Zynk or Claude you're used to this, but if not it may be difficult to keep certain characters up with the team at the beginning. Trust me, though - help comes a lot earlier in this mod than you're used to, so stick with it!
Ronins and Magic Creatures start with 4 MOV and, despite the float movement of the MGCR, it still hurts a bit. You'll be looking for Elvan Boots in the item shop to add 1 MOV as an accessory, and they're available early. After promo, Brass Gunners have 4 MOV but they are quite good otherwise and get defense as high as a melee attacker.
Gameplay About 70% of the maps you fight on are non-battle maps in the original. This alone would keep the action fresh and provides for a new gameplay experience; however, the new enemies and their alignment push it over the top. On nearly all maps, the enemies are in larger groups than before; they are very hard to separate and generally rush your team at once; they attack you near chokepoints or other interesting obstacles; and pulling two groups at once typically means you'll lose a few guys. In the first 10 levels or so, even your tank characters will be quite weak and might only take two hits, while other characters may get oneshot. There is a way through, but it will require thought and strategy. It will also require you to use most of your initial allotment of Heal Berries (i.e. those on characters you don't use) and sell weapons of characters you don't use as well to buy better gear for those you do use.
The enemies are generally more aggressive than before as well, and cast status spells on your team more often. However, this is not perfect and is a limitation of the native AI choices. There are points in the game where it is possible to exploit the AI to your advantage, and you definitely should do so. More on AI in the spoiler tags below. NOTE that I included the spoiler below for reference only, as most things related to AI haven't been figured out by the community yet (i.e. this is just the way it is for now).
95% of enemies are set to the "aggressive" AI profile, meaning they will rush the first character who gets in range. It is sometimes possible to break up groups by placing a character in range of only one of the mobs in the group, in order to get that mob to rush. This tactic is what lets you get by without losing your team (or using tons of healing items), especially in the earlygame, so it is highly recommended. Note that I did just hit a battle in the lategame where I attempted to use this tactic and had the enemy retreat instead, so it doesn't apply to every single enemy.
On spells, the status inflictors are on the same AI as attack spells, so they will be used more often. This works quite well for Sleep, Muddle and Desoul (!), and not well at all for Dispel. Mobs with Dispel can be exploited a bit, and healers with status spells can be induced to rush. Status improvement spells won't be used at all, as there is no AI in the game that tells the mobs how to use it - so consider them placeholders for a later release.
Damaging spells are often not used, even when they could do more damage than a regular attack. You'll be able to exploit some casters by putting a tank within their melee range. However, don't put the tank outside their melee range or they will cast the spell. There may be a random roll in here that weights remaining MP or something similar.
Miscellany All of the background music has been changed, and most of it is quite good and catchy. The highlights in my opinion are the "between battle" music and the "greater devil" fight music (see the battle 7 video). As with the original, there are a few parts of the game where the same BGM is used for several battles in a row and it can get a little old, but the music itself is very well done.
The progression of experience has been changed to make it easier for low level characters to catch up. The new maximum per mob is 40, but the minimum can be as high as 10-15 (even for a 1 dmg hit) depending how far behind the character is. This allows you to focus on winning the battle rather than "saving" mobs for weak characters to kill, resulting in a major change in feel from all other SF games and mods. Characters can still fall behind with neglect, but they won't fall behind dramatically as they have before. This change is, in my opinion, perfectly balanced.
There are a lot of new items that allow for a very high level of customization. Enemies will drop several one-of items, while others are available from the shop. Weapon upgrades typically add 2-3 points of attack and are often not the best use of your limited funds, at least not right away. Basic accessories turn your tank into a TANK or your dps into a KILLING MACHINE, while the unique battle rewards offer several interesting effects. You will obtain several cursed items during the course of the game which are a little better than items available at the time - while I chose not to use them, their stats make them a potentially compelling choice.
Overall This is the most original mod for any SF game I've found thus far, and it's extremely well done. Nightshade has improved all aspects of the game we know how to modify, from the artwork to the gameplay, and has dramatically retuned the overall level of strategy required despite not having access to AI modification. Each battle requires you to be in formation, fighting new balanced enemies with new balanced characters, using terrain and statuses to your advantage like never before, and trying desperately to pull one mob out of a group of four before the whole group decides to rip your birdman to bits. This mod has my highest recommendation.
Evil Spilit
Item Details
WARNING: SPOILER!
All shops are reorganized to better reflect my changes in the game. Many new non-weapon items are available at shops that are tier organized to upgrade your characters with various boost to stats. Better ones become available the further you get as well as having options available for all classes, unlike vanilla where a new weapon popped up for one or two classes and left the others in the dust, a whole new array will be given at each new shop opportunity.
There are many new magic and cursed weapons as well. These items will be found more abundantly than in vanilla and at more appropriate times to provide better alternatives for characters and to bring these items to use sooner.
I also fixed stats that were incorrectly given to characters that resulted in less performance, ie. critical weapons that lowered damage for example.
In addition to new shop merchandise a whole new set of items has been set up on enemies to drop after their defeat as well as changing the rewards that you receive after battle that the milestone introduced. There are many more stat boosters, roughly double compared to vanilla, so you can better customize your characters to your taste and to better help you deal with short comings on some characters if you desire. Most of these are obtained after battle via auto drops and will be more concentrated in the earlier-mid parts of the game so these boost will have better and longer benefits. Don't worry you can dump them all on one character and that one character will still need his/her force to advance, probably not the best idea really but rather spread them out.
Money/Gold has been hugely overhauled to make spending involve a little bit more thought as you go through battles. Distribution of gold has been carefully monitored throughout the game to give a more even flow so as not to make you bill gates after a few battles. You will notice you will NOT be able to buy every weapon and new item available as soon as they are present, nor will you have to rely on the necessity of buying all new weapons before proceeding. Though there will come a time when upgrades will have to happen as the growths of characters and enemies increasing will reveal a lack of power very easily in those who have received no love so to speak.
Graphic Details
WARNING: SPOILER!
There are all new weapon and item icons, except for a few at the beginning for nostalgia sake, as well as several new spell icons along with recolored classics. Icons have been made for some spells that previously didn't have any in the caravan and showed as blanks in the character screen, now they have an icon.
Almost every single battle sprite has been recolored or sometimes enhanced, such as new animations or all new ones , with a few things here and there as well as having all their weapons and new positions/animations corrected. This also applies to every enemy as well. Some of the sprites have had additional details added to them. I haven't replaced every single character battle sprite but a lot of them have received make overs so to speak, heck the make overs took long enough so I hope people will enjoy the ones that are brand new that much more. Any contributions/improvements to battle sprites after this is released would be most welcome.
Hundreds of recolored map sprites and dozens of all new ones made by me.
There are also enemies from several different Shining Force Games present here as well as enemies not present in any shining force game to my knowledge. So prepare to see some new enemies in lot's of new places.
Many of the boss portraits/battle sprites/map sprites have been changed up too, some have received new weapons, new attacks, or have otherwise been changed from what people are used to seeing. Should provide some surprises when first encountered.
Many, many new portraits as well as make overs on some of the originals.
Character Details
WARNING: SPOILER!
I've included this spot to list all the characters currently in the game. So without further ado.
Ahfen Swordman Kiwi Tortise Akana Knight Evil Waltz Knight Cybel Wing Knight Honesty Wing Knight Janet Archer Nmek Archer Evil Dawn Ranger May Ranger Anri Mage Vulede Mage Evil Wendy Mage Amigo Young Creature Domingo Young Creature Cray Monk Dolan Monk Nadale Priest Evil Mitula Priest Sheela Priest Gates Warrior Ruhada Warrior Evil Amy Birdman Skreech Birdman Kamiku Shinobi Evil Hanzou Shinobi Hori Ronin Evil Musashi Ronin Geppel Dark Knight Evil Hindel Dark Knight
As you can see most of the original characters are gone, only few are left. I've also tried to put in a few evil type guys as well just for flavor, they pretty much function the same though. I've also tried to include more females as I always felt there weren't enough on the force, not an easy thing to do to fill out all the jobs, I only added about 5 more than normally for a total of 11 rather than around 5 or 6, I count amigo as girl I mean it's pink come on.
I also left the birdmen alone as I didn't like some of the others from previous games, mainly just their portraits and such, the only one I would consider is amon for the sake of having a female bird type.
Most of these changes are just for the sake of something different as most will function close to their former roles, some not so close. I might replace a few more later but who knows.
Battle Details
WARNING: SPOILER!
Every battle has been restructured and changed. Maps will for the most part look like this. Your cannon fodder will be at the fore front, although with divided strengths and weaknesses for your characters to take on, followed by a sort of 'mini-boss' at the end. The mini boss will always be a new enemey or enemies, and typically with a small array of underlings, and usually carries an item that drops. Most of these items are one of a kind and cannot be purchased, these items will appear more frequenly later in the game. One of the funnest parts of shining force was getting that new weapon/item that allowed you to perform a little better than before and it was even better when it was unique. I have tried to greatly increase the rewards, without damaging balance, and it works well the way it is as well as providing a nice bonus at the end of most maps.
Also monster diversity has been increased. By this I mean there should be many more types of monsters per map than in vanilla, although sometimes about even. This was done to provide more than just a linear increase in monster strengths but rather I could divide up their strengths and weaknesses a little bit more and give the enemy more things to use against the force.
That was just a very, very small overview but things are notably different than vanilla. Also every boss has received some sort of overhaul to ensure a different challenge, could be improved stats, powerful minions, unique equipment and other things.
Class Details
WARNING: SPOILER!
The characters in the game are structured like this. Every single character falls within a class obviously. These classes determine their overall capability such as strength and weaknesses. The reason I made this more class based rather than individual based is this. For example in vanilla you could essentially have several knights. These knights could have vastly different stats that would bewilder anybody on their first play through as you would not be able to tell what direction their stats where going to go. And on top of that some of their stats would be borderline on par with say a warrior and sometimes and archer. In vanilla one would be slow while one would be fast or have higher Def just for no reason seemingly. Not the case here.
There are 2 characters per class, with the exception of mage, priest, and 2 uniques. I'll explain this more below. I've done this in an effort to make each play through more unique hopefully than vanilla as you will be deciding which "Classes" to take and not just characters and since there are more classes now from the get go more variety ensues. Ontop of this their stats are far more catagorized and tied to their class and not to just the character. And believe me you will want a well balanced group as you can 'not' solo this mod, you can't even get through with part of a force in some cases. Although the difficulty is not insane you will need to play more as a "FORCE" rather than 1 or 2 characters who are uber gods that walk head on into every enemy. On that note healers, stats, and LVL caps have been made in a way that makes sure the healers can never become gods in the game. Although they can still rise quickly the ceiling has been lowered and other measures have been taken and once other characters catch up they will be able to exceed the healers in their classes strengths that they should be able to beat them at.
Alright getting back to classes. The reason for having 3 of a mage/priest class is this. For mages their spell books could only be implemented with at least 3 characters in the mage class and the way I wanted spells done this was the only way to do it, this also applied to priest. And as of right now the only unique characters left are Ahfen and Kiwi. I figured I would keep the 2 mascots so to speak, 1 hero and of course the tortise.
As you can see the only classes left that have a special promotion is the archer class, and the tortise.
I was going to implement a heavy archer class so archers could promote to sniper and heavy archers could promote to gunners/loaders. The reason I did not do this was sort of complicated, such as hardcodes on archer units and other things I didn't feel like looking for and also there was not enough characters, but maybe I'll do it in the future who knows. And I already had their stats progression planned out too!
In mine all classes have defining attributes that are easily recognized from the start and they will stay that way for the game. Although after promotion characters begin to differ fairly rapidly. Earlier in the making of all these I was listing all the classes with their strengths vs weaknesses and a brief description but decided it was best for people to judge on their own so I removed them.
Also for special promotions only an angel wing is needed.
Difficulty/Game Changes/Hints
WARNING: SPOILER!
Difficulty wise this mod is harder than vanilla but not crazy hard to where you will want to abuse save states or feel like you have to reload often. For anyone who has played Obob's hack this is not near as tuff as his so don't come thinking this is the next challenge hack as it's not, although it is difficult in other ways due to efforts on my part. I rebalanced absolutely everything down to the last point on the most useless of enemies/items/spells everything. Most initial healing spells/items replenish the same but later on significant changes take place in lot's of things.
Also take note that now it doesn't matter what difficulty you choose in the beginning as the damage increase is the same across the board, no more super difficulty with unarmed enemies with higher attacks than armed enemies.
You should also play it on normal your first time since that's the middle ground in terms of difficulty with wussy being easy followed by hard and WTF being the hardest. Keep in mind the difficulties are mainly just boost to RNG manipulation in favor of the enemy. This will boost their chances of critical, double, and counter attacks, especially if it can kill a member, as well as manipulating their RNG for dodges as well. It also manipulates their turn order so they can get to your weaker characters before you can in order to kill them. Increased difficulty also favors targeting your weaker characters more frequently and are more prone to taking out your near death characters a lot more often as opposed to easier difficulties where they will often choose another stronger target.
Playing sloppy won't get you far as since money is strictly controlled, especially earlier in the game, getting your companions killed left and right is not good. The cost of reviving them will no doubt cut into your spending, meaning less upgrades and items, and tougher battles in the future. So think ahead and try to always leave a little bit of cash in your pocket so to speak in case of emergency.
Take note that the pacing has changed compared to vanilla. You'll most certainly have to stay grouped and have a good formation most of the time. I've done numerous playthrus with just about every class combination I can think of and you 'can' beat it with any group, although a balanced team is most certainly the easiest. By balanced I suggest a very diverse team, trying not to take 2 of the same class repeatedly, by balanced I mean mages, priests, archers, and a lineup of tank type characters ie warriors, samurais, knights etc. Something like 2 warriors, 2 samurais, 2 knights, 2 monks, 2 ninjas, the hero and kiwi would be pretty damn tough in some spots, no ranged or mages or a powerful healer would screw you over in more ways than one. The same holds true for something like all 3 mages, all 3 priests, 2 magic creatures , 2 birdmen, and 2 archers would be an equally troublesome playthrough. No solid defense and constant reliance on continual spell casting as opposed to having both tanks and spells would probably make you want to tear your hair out in certain areas, bosses especially picking off that weak lineup 1 by 1.
Also you will probably not be able to buy every member of your team a healing item, especially early on, so try to have a balanced team on your first run so you get used to the spending and item distribution. The more variety on your team the better as you will no doubt come across item drops that only certain classes can use, meaning free upgrades opposed to spending hard earned money, and better being able to deal with the enemies strengths and weakness in more ways.
I left the ability to egress out of battle alone, there are even a few more classes that have it from the start other than the swordsman.
With that said the grind of this compared to vanilla could be considered less in some areas and greater in others, although it's not sky high or nothing. It's not overwhelming at all just more noticeable than vanilla, as money will now be a highly sought after commodity rather than just chump change, and add to that more variety in shops and you will see why it was implemented as such. Remember too many deaths eat up your money.
The experience gain has changed also. A percentage based boost has been added to the lowest tiers of levels. What this means is the further behind characters are the more exp they recieve, mainly for the classes that rely on damage to gain levels, but the closer they come to the cap it evens back out. I did this for several reasons one of which is since there is no exploration there is no way to go back and level if someone is behind. Another reason is I wanted the composition of your team to matter more than just having high levels. It should be much easier to keep members, and not just the ones that hit hard, at an adequate level at all times since those who are already ahead will start gaining normal amounts of exp and those that are behind will be boosted. It shouldn't be a chore to keep members where they should be at in terms of power, but should come naturally IMO. That being said the levels are more even throughout the game and less up and down.
Along with the numerous other changes already mentioned I designed the battle maps to be beaten on your first attempt, and without using any of the stat boosters found through out the game. I didn't see a point in dragging out the game with forced grinding, but rather focused on the importance of keeping everyone properly leveled and your team composition and spending. You can beat it with any group from the very beginning on your first try, although the newness of maps/enemies combined with new layouts and stats might make this not so important on the first run through. Also depending on who you take this might be easier with some groups than others, balanced/diverse groups will always be easier.
That being said the difficulty is much higher when doing every map on your first try because if you have alot of casualties or you use to many healing items this can lead to minor setbacks at first, but if continued for a period of battles it can become very difficult and you might have to stop and earn money,lvls, or whatever else you've been slacking on. Plus depending on who you take makes a big difference as well. Early on though it's pretty mild but builds up in difficulty with each new map. Some maps have been made easier than others, to allow you to reap some easier rewards, others have much nastier enemy formations.
But all in all it's how you choose to play. Anybody can beat it and don't have to adhere to what I balanced it at, if you wanted to become super rich and powerful by grinding go ahead although it might take a little more effort in some parts than before. Either way the difficulty has been left to the discretion of the user. For your first time through make a save state before every battle so you can redoe any bad mistakes you may have made.
Sounds and Music Details
WARNING: SPOILER!
Every battle you will enter now has a new BGM that will play. These only replace the old ones and will switch when ever you get to a new battle. A lot of these soundtracks where crazy difficult to get in the game as all new tracks added needed old instruments replaced with new ones in order to sound correct, otherwise garbage sound effects ensued. That sounds easy enough right? Unfortunately no, I soon found out that those old instruments are what also were used in sound effects and other BGMS through out the game............not good.
The different sound channels, of which they are divided into higher pitch bank and lower pitch if memory serves correctly, were combined in ways, in another area of the rom aside from the previously mentioned, and then pointed to actions/musics/spells etc., I couldn't possibly understand but managed to fix all the glitched sounds any how. Also some new sound effects have been made, luckily, such as new healing sounds and bolt magics and some others that have been toned done so to speak.
Screen Shots/Videos, currently a few small videos.
Never Unequip anything because of the higgins glitch. This will give a character the higgins glitch spell, not entirely sure why it happens but it does, use the give command if you want to unequip/remove something for whatever reason. Also it will sometimes raise a spell to level 4 with the glitch so just remember to not unequip anything and your good, it doesn't happen on non-spell having characters just so you know and can be fixed via save state hacking/editing if you do forget. This was present in the vanilla version as well, it's just more common now with new characters having spells they didn't have before. In the original only Bowie and Slade suffered this problem, someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that, but like I said I have made numerous changes to all characters so others suffer it as well now. Just remember use give and not unequip.
A small glitch happens when one of your characters is muddled and they go to attack another character if that other character dodges, if they have a weapon, their weapon will be moved to the right/left of the battle sprite somtimes. You won't see it often but it does happen and other than that it's no big deal, cosmetic only. As far as I can tell this is also present in vanilla. Seems to be a mirroring problem when the screen renders the characters on the opposite side of where they are normally.
Another glitch is when one of your weapons/items cracks through using it multiple times, such as casting spells, instead of a crack going through it you will see a dragons head, unfortunately I couldn't locate the data that tells the game to use what icon for when items crack and got tired of looking for it and said heck with it, so anyhow don't freak out if you see it as it's just a spell icon and it means your weapon will break on the next turn if used again.
Caravan bug is still present unfortunately so abusing it's bugged free repair will significantly ease the amount of money needed to repair mainly wizard staves/rods. I balanced the wands and casting items repair prices to not be too difficult to keep up on but if you must use the caravan for it's free bugged repair then have at it, but you really shouldn't need it.
All battles have been set to end when the lead enemy is killed, except the very end special battle with all the bosses and 1 more which I won't say for now as it will spoil the battle. But for groups that use the hero, if he dies in battle you will then have to kill ALL enemies to proceed. As this is part of the Milestones code that let's people continue to play when Bowie dies.
Whenever you equip a cursed weapon it will put a small amount of graphics at the bottom corner of the menu screen, "ONLY" when you go to the member options to look at their stats. It's completely harmless as it's below the actual menu and in the bottome left corner and doesn't block the view of anything. This is actually present in vanilla as well, I tested a few other un-hacked and un-expanded roms and they all did the same thing so blame the programmers. But in vanilla you can save and exit and it goes away, if you cured it, although in milestone no saving via SRM can be done so it's there for good. But like I said it's so small, and "ONLY" appears if you select a member to view their stats, so you probably won't notice it at all.
Something else I've noticed with cursed weapons is if you go to the priest to cure your curse and have it lifted but then immediately start a battle afterward, without equiping another weapon, and then try to equip yourself with a non-cursed weapon in battle it will still say your cursed. But if you go back to the menu/caravan screen outside of a battle and equip the weapon there it behaves normally, I've only done this 1 time so I don't know if it's every time or not. I haven't tested to see if this is the case in vanilla but it very well could be as cursed weapons aren't really available until very late in the game making the chances of seeing this rather slim, maybe I'll try to verify sometime just not right now as it's not a big deal.
When some enemies are effected by status effects the graphic icon displayed for the status effect on some of them might be a little off and not where it should be like above their head. This is because, and mainly on the new enemies, graphics have been inserted over alot of the old enemies and hex edits have been used to move and fit them into new areas and attack animations. It's cosmetic only and is still displayed, on one enemy it displays the status effect icon around their foot area, or in another unusual spot. This isn't a problem on the vast majority of enemies though and the icon is still visible.
Due to how I restructured weapons some weapon sprites, during attack animations, will not be what your used to. I planned on altering these but burnt myself out with the amount of other changes. You will only notice it on a few of the later weapons, namely late game swords and axes if your paying attention. These weapons have been moved to other weapon spots so now they use a different weapon sprite other than what your used to. I switched the force sword to a special unique sword that odd eye wields, you can acquire it later, and I planned on making it glow red instead of green but never got around to it. Swords are still swords and axes are still axes and so forth it's just for example something like the heat axe which is on another axe sprite now, so instead of it being red it just looks like metal, no big deal really.
Whenever somebody dies and you check their stats in battle after they are dead it will revert the character that's closest to the top of the list to bowies map sprite, that is unless bowie is in your party. This is also part of the milestones code and only happens when you check a dead characters stats during battle. Performing any action fixes it or egressing back to the shops. Not even a problem really just thought I would put it here so no one freaks out.
ALWAYS remember to have Geppel alive when you go to finish battle 5. Just remember Geppel in my mod took slades spot. If he dies egress and start over otherwise on the finishing blow the game will lock up because slade is needed by the code to move the game forward. Also the graphics afterwards are a bit weird for the small story part, there's not supposed to be any story but it's there anyways, after it plays it goes back to normal. Stordarth may have a fix for this in the future, as it relates to his hack as well.
Remember when using Gens or Gens plus with the sound in options disabled some sounds actually have to play to allow certain events to proceed so keep this in mind if your playing mute.
Deals section glitch, in battle 24 when performing an attack that kills an enemy there is a chance that an item will be put into the deals section upon the defeat of an enemy, it seems to be based off of chance. Also it doesn't seem to matter what enemy it happens too but rather it seems to be a chance that pertains to the battle itself. I haven't found a way to fix it but it puts an item in the deals section that is unique. As such for the time being I have made the item a sort of special item that you 'might' get during the battle and no where else, except for sale endgame. Looking for the info in the rom that controls this but that could take a while...............
Due to many new musics and instruments being changed in the game the very beggining, only the title part where the witch is sitting down talking to you, has an odd sounding instrument. It's one of the only ones I couldn't find, kinda just said heck with it since you only here it for about 10 seconds then never again. And also the stop beeping sound, for lack of a better word, the sound you hear when you try to place your character over a tile during battle that's occupied by an enemy or ally is gone, no sound is played what so ever. These are pretty much the only ones left, out of many that I fixed, that are messed up that I don't feel like fixing. Just thought I would mention this so others know that I already know about them.
This isn't really a glitch but I feel it's neccesary to point it out anyways, as this is also in vanilla but probably not seen to often. But if you are using cursed items, be it weapon or ring, and the cursed item has a spell effect you can use in battle and it gets a crack and you have to repair it. The repair man will only repair the item if it's NOT equiped to the character otherwise if it's equiped the character will have to get uncursed first then repair it, pretty stupid if you ask me why they left this in as that cost much more money to uncurse it then repair it. So if you use cursed items and you only want the spell effect probably best to not equip it as it will cost about 5 times the normal amount due to having to uncurse it first. Or if you have a cleric/priest that has detox at a high enough level you could use that instead, although the spell only uncurses in battle.
Well that's pretty much it and you shouldn't have to stop your game because of any of these as most are just small cosmetic glitches that only happen under very specific circumstances, and typically disappear on their own.
I put these here so people would know what I am already aware of, hopefully there are no more. I have combed over this hack numerous times hunting down the bad ones, that caused game freezes and bad glitches, so none of those should be present.
Somebody brought to my attention that hindel has problems when promoting and equipping a weapon, I have not noticed this on my playthroughs, but since he replaces lemon I suspect it is the lemon equip bug. The reason I probably didn't notice is because this bug is emulator specific, I use kega fusion, so if your using gens or another one be prepared to face this bug.
The one thing I have not done is alter maps and I'll tell you why. I spent a considerable amount of time putting them together, I had roughly 30+ maps fully drawn and tiled and completed with correct terrain values and everything, but to my detriment I soon found out how these thing's corrupted your game. Not only could I not open them any more to edit them but other bizzare behaviour started to happen. So in the end I trashed them all unfortunately so no new maps, and I wasn't about to try and fix many, many corruptions with a hex editor, I would have been doing that for the next several years. Although on the plus side I tried to reorganize battle maps to be much different than the original to keep you on your toes. On that note hopefully Earl unravels more of the puzzle concerning maps and their behaviour so these things can finally be done. I'll be watching and waiting to see if he can do this in his own mod, and if it can be reasonably done, I might be willing to go back and do these.
I put a few hex edits in here and there for additional things, actually quite a bit, some are only for cosmetic reasons and others are data changes and some are very subtle and some are more noticeable. I'm not going to list them all as it would take way too long, plus I'm out of steam so to speak, and my notes are pretty messy.
Anyways I kept the entirety of this as simple as I could with out overwhelmingly odd or unusual changes to classes,spells,progression and pretty much the things people would expect from a shining game. I did this in an effort to keep the game as natural as possible, and also previous attempts at hacking/modding this game made me realize my follies when it came to making one...........hopefully.
I'll post more details a little later but that's all I got time for now. And just so you know this is pretty much done, I just have to insert a few more things, and some hexing to fix some things up and it will be done. As for a specific time I can't give one yet but it will be soon.
Much play testing has already been done but that doesn't mean a fresh set of eyes won't turn up something I missed, although it shouldn't be much if anything at all as this has been gone over many times. And I will also post other info as necessary. Keep in mind the balance changes I have made are according to what I was aiming for and will no doubt not be to everybodies taste, as balance is really only relevant to the one playing and everyones taste are going to be vastly different. As such there is good news about this if anyone so desires. There just so happens to be SF2 edit and some other tools that let you change such things so if you don't like a particular progression or stat assignment or whatever feel free to mod it as I have left the game open to change. Keep in mind I have done TONS of comparisons over many playthroughs that have tuned all the numbers, ie. spells,stats,weapons,enemies,lvls,etc, in accordance with one another so a +10 or -5 here or there will no doubt make changes elsewhere that probably would be questionable. But anyways I'll post more later on. See ya.
Last edited by nightshade00123 on Wed Oct 10 2012 7:12pm, edited 91 times in total.
First off, lots of interesting stuff there. It really sounds like the closest anyone has come thus far to a new game built on the SF2 engine.
Second, you'd probably be well served to clean up your first post. I realize you're not interested in putting more time into it, but it's a bit of a chore to get through. Even topic headings like "Items", "Battles", and "Classes" would be helpful. And screen shots are always appreciated in absence of a download.
Third, how did you alter the enemy drops? Hex? Because I can't find that capacity in any currently available tool or even in your lengthy "Nightshade's Hex Finds" topic.
Finally, as someone who has himself struggled quite a lot with getting through the design work for a game the size of SF2 I understand how you could be burnt out. So I wish you the best of luck with finishing this. I've always found cleanup to be the most enjoyable part so hopefully you will too.
I was going to ask how to go about making a more readable post and those are good ideas and I will most certainly do it when I get back, any other suggestions would be helpful as I'm sure I will probably be adding quite a bit more to it and am not familiar with making enormous post like this.
As for enemy drops I was working on a text document I was going to put into my Hex thread but got sidetracked/burned out and never finished it. There where some other things I was going to post that I had already found as well but my desire to keep fishing in the rom has dwindled significantly. Who knows maybe after a while I'll get around to finishing said documents as I imagine it would probably help a great many people.
But yeah basically I wanted to get the thread started before I lost all my steam, at least this way I will feel like I have something to get done and not put it off till I forget about it and it disappears.
You could use colour coding, headers etc to make the post more readable.
Also, A compilation of all of your hex finds in a word or text document would be most awesome too, so others could use your notes (Since I would wager there is stuff that you have that isn't yet in your hex thread)
Burnout: Dunno about you, but it's helped me to switch back and forth between several things. Fixing all of the weapon alignments would start to wear on me, so I'd work on a redoing a map for a while, then throw some time at staring at mapsetups in a hex editor. So I've got a bunch of partially finished stuff, but haven't crippled my enthusiasm*. A little Gears of War between sessions doesn't hurt either. Switching gears (har) every so often can keep the machine in good working order.
*Hell, all of the hex research I've done has made me more enthusiastic. The more we know, the more possibilities we have for changing the game. Doesn't matter if I'm not going to get that much use out of it myself... it's just the idea of what could be done that makes me excited for the future.
Thanks for the support guys. And yeah I definitely play other games for variety sake, god I can't wait for Diablo 3 to come out so tired of being teased.
But any how I have a question. I planned on making a few videos of select battles so people could take a look at things and see if this would be something they wanted to try, so as not to waste their time downloading and patching blah blah blah only to find out they don't like it because kiwi is red now and jumps up and down or luke gained to many points in attack or the grass is to green oh noooooo Jk ............you get the idea.
I have little experience with video recording specifically of emulation, only kega fusions AVI log output, and wanted to know what would be best/easiest to use. From reading about the Kega AVI's it would seem there not compatible with all media players, only those that have Kega Codecs installed which come in Kega Fusion's video codecs folder. If using Kega's AVI files is okay I could upload a few of those for those interested, and even include the kega codecs if others wanted to install those so they could be viewed on their media player. So any suggestions or advice?
Also I plan to keep updating the above content till it's complete, such as break downs of classes and other things, it's just going to take me a while............
Hopefully I can get the item drop text done sometime but there are other things I have to do first, it will get done sooner or later though! I want to get this hack out though before my motivation/desire and other games distract me to the point of rendering me immobile.
I would second Noma's suggestion of using Camstudio. I've found it's "lossless" compression to show quite nicely on YouTube.
However, if you feel like it you can also try out Gens_Movie, which will record the video directly from Gens itself. I haven't used the current build but I found prior builds to be clumsier than normal video recording software, but if you want to try it out, here's the link: http://code.google.com/p/gens-rerecording/downloads/detail?name=Gens11b.zip
GRASS is GREEN? LAME. This is one of the clearest examples I've ever seen of a game mod lacking in originality and creativity. I understand that the sky might also be blue. So derivative. If I wanted a blue sky, I'd just play the vanilla game LOLZ.
But seriously... My connection is slow enough that I'd be able to download a patch and play a few battles in the time it'd take for a video to load. Of course, I was sold on this thing from the word go so I'm not exactly the video watching demographic from either angle.
LOL. Well you never know considering how vastly different peoples are.
And yeah, I don't think anyone is going to be seeing a video as I just found out Camstudio, and probably other screen recorders, does not like my laptop soundcard refusing to even acknowledge it's existence.............booooooooooooo. So maybe some screen shots, or the kega AVI outputs which are done very quickly I might say even though the quality is meh, so maybe some of those at least.
I'm off now to try to find at least 1 screen recorder that might do the job, if not heck with it.
Oh and before I forget, how long can my initial post be? It's probably going to be quite huge after I'm all done with it and would be kicking myself if I hit a wall somewhere along the way.
Nightshade, if you feel really burnt out on any aspect of this, let me know and maybe I can be of some help. I'm taking a break from my own mod because Im frustrated with it at the moment, so having something else to work on for a while will likely rekindle my interest in working on my own.
I can be helpful with anything, excepting maybe doing much hex work. I still haven't gotten that part totally worked out yet.
EDIT: Grass should also be purple, for the sake of originality. Or possibly orange.
This sounds like it might be the ultimate Shining Force II remix ever.
Along with gratitude when you reach the finish line is one small request. Please include a 1k notepad file just detailing broadly what the patch or game is, how difficult it is, and what is required by the user to make it usable, assuming only basic prior user knowledge. I know that will incur eye-rolls from the cogniscenti, but not all of us are experts, and sometimes its just helpful having a short note with a patch to keep things straight in your emulator folders.
Well done on getting this far and changing so many aspects, and getting them to work together, commiserations about the maps too.
Noma wrote:Nightshade, if you feel really burnt out on any aspect of this, let me know and maybe I can be of some help. I'm taking a break from my own mod because Im frustrated with it at the moment, so having something else to work on for a while will likely rekindle my interest in working on my own.
I can be helpful with anything, excepting maybe doing much hex work. I still haven't gotten that part totally worked out yet.
Well I'm not sure what I would need, as right now I'm just fixing some odds and ends, although the offer is most appreciated. If I run into something in the future that I feel I could use some help on you will be the first one I ask.
xan1242 wrote:I wish I could help a little with music.
Well unfortunately I don't thinking adding any more music is an option at this point as the ones I already have in game have significantly altered the instruments as is. If I add anymore I'm not so sure that fixing the instruments would be possible with so many already changed thus making all the classics sound effects/musics distorted. I was fortunate enough to find a balance in the ones present with the new ones and that took long enough. If I plan on adding more in the future I will certainly ask.
Shining Hopeful wrote:This sounds like it might be the ultimate Shining Force II remix ever.
Along with gratitude when you reach the finish line is one small request. Please include a 1k notepad file just detailing broadly what the patch or game is, how difficult it is, and what is required by the user to make it usable, assuming only basic prior user knowledge. I know that will incur eye-rolls from the cogniscenti, but not all of us are experts, and sometimes its just helpful having a short note with a patch to keep things straight in your emulator folders.
Well done on getting this far and changing so many aspects, and getting them to work together, commiserations about the maps too.
Thank you for all your hard work.
Of course I will include a text of how to install and other details. It won't be as comprehensive as I'm trying to make my initial post here but it will be just a general overview of things and of course how to install, heck it's the same method as the milestone so I'll probably just quote Stordarths word for word if that's alright with him.
MXC wrote:Hypercam
I'll check it out as I tried a couple of others and it was the same deal..............grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr stupid laptop.
But progress through out the week will always be slow, stupid work and responsibilities of course, but weekends I can get more done. Sorry for the wait but that's how it goes with these things.
Isn't that usually how it goes with releases anyways? First the announcement then some chatter and then months of waiting and then the release right LOL. Well hopefully it won't take that long. Later.
Jk ............you get the idea.
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