Shining Force II: Guy Jepson's Challenge Mode

-----GUY JEPSON'S HIGHLIGHTS

*Enemy AI reworked and enhanced.

*The spells SLOW, SLEEP, DISPEL, MUDDLE, and DESOUL are the best spells in the game.

*The Black Ring casts an Aura2 type spell that cures MP instead of HP.

*Kiwi has improved defense, magic resistance, and learns his breath-weapon levels much more quickly.

*The ailments STUN and POISON are so powerful you will need to utilize *Antidotes, Fairy Powders, and the DETOX spell.

*The battle items, Shining Ball, Blizzard, and Holy Thunder have range, area-of-effect, increased damage, and animations.

*Choosing different difficulties changes the monsters' attack strength: Normal 0% | Hard 10% | Super 15% | OUCH! 20%

*Cursed items no longer stun you and waste your turn.

*The Dwarven Blacksmith has a shop instead of giving you random weapons, and...

SO MUCH MORE!
Find out all the details here: https://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=45754

I dedicate this hack to my brother Alex and my friend Jimmy.
This is it! The culmination of a year's work. It's now time to share this with the world. Are you excited?! Calm down.
This hack isn't actually all that radical in the changes made, as was intentional.
Mission Statement: Create a hack that keeps as true to the original as possible while conforming to the following criteria-
1. Make the game more challenging.
2. Prevent the player from abusing or being victim to RNG.
3. Improve useless, unused, or under powered elements of the game to give the player incentive the use them.
4. Increase general aesthetics.
5. Improve the flow of game play by re-balancing experience yields to mitigate grinding.
I love Shining Force II and even since I heard about Obob's Challenge Mode Hack, I don't think I've played it any other way. After many years of thinking about what I would do to if I were to change SF2 I decided to do it. My main gripes with the game is that it is a bit easy, I found myself saving right before I would use a magic item or a status spell, there were many spells, items, characters, that I would never use, everything was in all caps, and I would annoyingly delay beating the battle just to milk every last bit of experience, or knock an enemy down to 1 hit point and save the kill for some low level force member.
The quick list of changes:
Logical difficulty settings enabled.
Names not all caps.
Search-in-battle enabled.
Monsters buffed.
More monsters per battle.
Monsters start 2 levels higher.
Poison and Stun buffed.
Some force members buffed.
Items buffed.
Items crack after one use.
Extra items placed.
Battle items have larger range and animations.
Cursed items won't stun but curse damage is doubled.
Ailment spells hit 100% of the time.
Some ailment spells have larger range/area of effect.
Minor bug fixes.
The Nitty Gritty:
Spells-
All status ailment spells will hit 100% of the time. Let me repeat that; Desoul hits 100% of the time! This was the original inspiration to make a change for myself. I loved Siel's idea of making detox less useless. I wanted to rework Slow initially. In RPGs, I like debuffs more than buffs. My reasoning being that if you debuff an enemy then every member of your party gets to enjoy the advantage. For buffs, you would have to make sure you're entire party is buffed, to enjoy the same advantage. But why should Boost "hit" 100% of the time, and Slow not? Siel made a very convenient patch that adjusts the hit success rate. The default was 100% ( I think) and after testing it, I found it immensely satisfying, and I couldn't go back. Also, this prevents the player from abusing the RNG. Now, this makes the previously unused status spells the best in the game, arguably. Deciding whether to promote to a Sorcerer just became more difficult.
Attack- The minimum range now reduced to 0. This is so whomever has the Power Ring equipped can cast Attack on him/herself just like in Shining Force I. This always bothered me and was one of the first changes I made.
Slow- The range is increased by 1 for Slow 1 and 2
Dispel- The range and area of effect is now increased by 1
Muddle- The MP cost for Muddle2 has increased by 1
Desoul- The range has decreased by 1 for Desoul 1 and the area of effect is decreased by 1 for Desoul 2.
Desoul 1 now costs 14 MP and Desoul 2 now costs 23 MP. I had to nerf this a bit.
Sleep- Now costs 6 MP and the range has increased by 1
Magic Drain- The range has increased by 1 and the area of effect increased by 2. A patch applied drains a flat 20 MP from enemies. It now enjoys and unused spell animation; red mist.
Shining Ball- Now does 30 damage. Has the range and area of effect of Blaze3.
Blizzard- Now does 40 damage. Has the range and area of effect of Freeze3.
Holy Thunder - Has the range and area of effect of Bolt3.
A bit about my thoughts regarding status spells. Desoul is great for winning battles but not that great for gaining experience. Slow is probably the best. Slow decreasing agility will effectively cause and enemy to 'lose a turn' like other status spells may do. The decrease in defense will allow even low attack member to deal more damage, thus gaining more net experience. Muddle is better than Desoul because not only does it remove any afflicted enemies from battle, but will pit them against each other. Turning an enemy into an ally and buying you time to dispatch any real threats. Sleep is better than Desoul from a gaining experience standpoint because you have to wack the enemy to death allowing several member to get experience instead of just one. Dispel is great, in this hack at least, because it never misses, and has the range and area of effect of Bolt2. It will waste the enemies turns because they are stupid and will try to use magic anyway. My personal tier ranking is: Slow, Sleep, Muddle, Dispel, Desoul, with Slow being the best. They're all good though. Too good, you say?? Remember, the enemies enjoy all the improvements too. Desoul will hit you 100% of the time. Muddle2 will hit you 100% of the time. I made sure to give enemy monsters lots of spells, especially later on!
Items-
It broke my heart to do this but Items will now crack after one use. This will definitively prevent the player from abusing save states or interrupts to get essentially unlimited free spells. Ideally, magic items would crack after two or maybe three uses. I mentioned this to Siel and he said he had the same idea but told me that it would take writing a lot of original code. I've added an extra set of stat-boosting items throughout the game (except Running Pimento because too OP and Power Water because you already get 3), so keep your eyes peeled. One extra Mithril too. With all the rare item drops and Mithrils combined, you could collect one of every Mithril weapon. The battle items now are a one-off magic spell complete with animations. I added an extra Holy Thunder somewhere too, so now there are two battle items apiece. Cursed items no longer stun you and waste your turn, but random curse damage is doubled.
Quick Ring- Now casts Egress in battle, just like in Shining Force I. It wont work in the over-world, however, but you can still cast it using Bowie's magic. I'll try to resolve this in a future version even if it is a very small detail. Quick Ring now adds 1 to your double attack rate! I figure that if the ring makes you quick then you would be able to attack more quickly too. This turns the Quick Ring from a very forgettable item to one of the best accessories.
Black Ring- This got a lot of reform, being a pretty hated useless item. It now casts Aura2 but restores MP instead of HP!
Evil Ring- now casts Bolt3 like in Shining Force 1. Bolt2 is nice but it's not all that great for how late in the game you get it.
Battle Axe- Now equippable by unpromoted classes.
Heat Axe- Now casts Blaze3.
Atlas Axe- Now casts... Atlas! obviously. The Minotaurs experience a hilarious glitch when trying to use summon spells so I gave them Ground Axes instead. Watch out.
Rune Axe- Now increases critical attack rate by 2. Now casts Detox4.
Robin Arrow- Now increases critical attack rate by 2. Now equippable by unpromoted classes. Cannot be equipped by BRGN.
Nazca Cannon- Now increases critical attack rate by 2.
Buster Shot- Now increases double attack rate by 1.
Hyper Canon- Now increases counter attack rate by 1.
Achillies Sword- Now gives DEF +5.
Broad Sword- Now equippable by unpromoted classes.
Critical Sword- Now increases critical hit rate by 2! Isn't it great?
Battle Sword- Now increases double attack rate by 1.
Counter Sword- Now increases counter attack rate by 1.
Levanter- Now casts Blaze4. Can only be equipped by BDBT.
Dark Sword- Now casts Desoul2, but Desoul2 is changed to have the same area of effect as vanilla Desoul1 so... no change, really! ;p
Valkyrie- Now increases critical hit rate by 2.
Holy Lance- Now casts Heal4!
Halberd- Now increases double attack rate by 2.
Flail- Now equippable by unpromoted classes. Critical hit rate increased by 1. I've never used this thing so I hope people will now.
Mage Staff- Now casts Freeze3.
Great Rod- Now gives an attack bonus of 41! And increases double attack rate by 2!
Holy Staff- Now auto-restores 20HP per turn.
Goddess Staff: Now casts Aura3.
Freeze Staff- Now casts Freeze4.
Iron Ball- Now casts Shining Ball and is equippable by SROC and WIZ classes. Now has a crit rate of 4.
Katana- Now gives an attack bonus of 39. Double attack rate increased by 1,
Ninja Katana- Now has the item icon of the Gisarme. Gives attack bonus of 42. Now casts Sleep.
Gisarme- Renamed to Doom Blade and has the Ninja Katana icon. Gives attack bonus of 35. Still insta-kills.
Taros Sword- Now equippable by HERO, BDBT, BRN, and RBRN classes. ATT bonus has been reduced to +25 so it's better than the broad sword but worse than the Buster Sword by 1. Having it remain at +32 would just be too strong for the time you get it. You will have to buy it for 10,000 Gold, however. Siel's Green Broadsword patch has been applied so you get a cool battle sprite to look at.
Right of Hope- Renamed to Light of Hope.
Power Water- Renamed to Power Wine. :drunk:
Life Ring- Now auto-recovers 20HP per turn.
Fairy Powder- Now cures Poison, Stun, and Curse in battle. Now has the Detox battle animation.
Chirrup Sandals- Does nothing new! :p
The Shining Force-
No one got nerfed, a few characters got improved in small ways. I wanted to avoid this but I boosted the stats of the North Parmecian characters a little. I want the player to have more incentive to use them. Now they are a bit better than their senior counterparts unless they were power-leveled. The Creed's Mansion characters are still probably the best overall, but most players only ever use one, and don't power-level them. If you're like me and go back to get them and train them up, then you will be rewarded. Secret characters like Screech, Claude, and Sheela got a bigger boost than others because, well, they are secret characters. Zynk and Taya fall into this category too but they're pretty hard to miss.
Some characters have element resistance based on their enemy counterparts. So mechanical Brass Gunners and Zynk now have a weakness to Bolt but a 50% resistance to Blast. So I guess some did get nerfed in a way, I lied. Zynk also has 50% resistance to status spells and a 25% resistance to Blaze and Freeze. Kiwi now has a 50% resistance to Blast, Blaze, Freeze, and Bolt, but no longer has any resistance to status spells. Claude has a 25% resistance to Blast, Blaze, Freeze, and Bolt, and 50% resistance to status spells.
Creed's Mansion characters and Janet now start at level 26 so you don't have to grind them unpromoted as much if you don't want to.
Characters that learn spells do so much earlier. This was in an effort to be able to use and enjoy your spells for at least a couple battles without having to grind to get them. In vanilla, many spell casters learn their L4 spell variants at level 40 promoted. In order to do that you would have to grind Zeon Guards on the final battle over and over again, or something like that. You would have to play the final battle so many times just so you could see your spell in action, then beat the final battle again in earnest. That is NOT fun.
Bowie- Bolt: 1 lvl20, 2 lvl30, 3 lvl40, 4 lvl50
Kazin- Dao: 1 lvl21, 2 lvl28 Apollo: 1 lvl23, 2 lvl32 Neptune: 1 lvl25, 2 lvl39 Atlas: 1 lvl35, 2 lvl45
Slade- Katon: 1 lvl24, 2 lvl28, 3 lvl40 Raijin: 1 lvl32, 2 lvl36, 3 lvl44
Kiwi- This character got the most amount of reform. He was my favorite as a kid. He was a secret character, the only other character you could name, I like turtles, he was unique, and he turned into a weird kaiju monster if you promoted him. The problem is, as my brother would so often point out, he is crappy. I've seen other mods that address his crappiness by increasing his HP and/or ATT, or giving him a variety of spells and flame breath variants. This is fine, but removing his inherent weakness take away from his uniqueness. If you improve all the things he's lacking, he comes out not very different than any other character. At his core, Kiwi is a tank who's role is to launch himself first into battle to draw out and absorb enemy attacks while avoiding magic users at all costs. He's not meant to be much of an attacker although you may get lucky with with his flame breath, which is fun. His improved floaty 7 movement is fantastic, but secondary. When improving a character in any RPG there are really two ways you can do it; compensate for their weaknesses, or play their strengths. I chose the latter. Kiwi's level 30 projected defense is now 120, the same as Peter's projected attack. On my first play-through I had it set to 135! This was a bit much. He would gain 4 defense every level up and all enemies did 1 damage to him. His breath levels are learned much more rapidly. I honestly didn't even realize Kiwi's breath attack could improve: 2 - lvl8, 3 - 16, 4 - lvl24. Also, Kiwi is now no longer has resistance to status spells but has 50% resistance to Blast, Blaze, Freeze, and Bolt! These three changes alone makes Kiwi just as good as any of the other 'beast' classes.
Gerhalt- WBRN now has 1/8 chance for 150% critical, 1/8 chance for double attack, and 1/8 chance for counter attack making Gerhalt a more viscous attacker than Slade or Lemon.
Luke- Now joins with a Long Sword equipped.
Rick- Now joins with a Power Spear equipped.
Elric- Now joins with a Robin Arrow equipped.
Eric- Now joins with a Power Spear equipped.
Karna- Now joins with a Flail equipped. Boost: 2 lvl29 Aura: 1 lvl31, 2 lvl38, 3 lvl45, 4 lvl 50 Blast: 4 lvl 35
Randolf- Now joins with a Battle Axe equipped.
Tyrin- Now joins with a Flail equipped. Sleep: 1 lvl25 Bolt: 1 lvl27, 2 lvl32, 3 lvl40, 4 lvl48 Freeze: 3 lvl29, 4 lvl34 Blaze: 3 lvl38, 4 lvl44 Dao: 2 lvl28 Apollo: 1 lvl23, 2 lvl31 Neptune: 1 lvl25, 2 lvl38 Atlas: 1 lvl34, 2 lvl42
Janet- Now joins with a Robin Arrow equipped.
Higins- Higins mentions he can't die and thinks he may be a vampire. Well now he is! Higins will now auto-revive.
Taya- Now joins with a Guardian Staff. Dao: 2 lvl40 Apollo: 1 lvl32, 2 lvl42 Neptune: 1 lvl34, 2 lvl44 Atlas: 1 lvl38, 2 lvl46
Skreech- Now joins with the Taro's Sword equipped! The Taro's Sword can only be equipped by BDBT.
Frayja- Heal: 3 lvl52, 4 lvl55 Detox: 3 lvl36, 4 lvl41 Aura: 1 lvl34, 2 lvl38, 3 lvl43, 4 lvl48 Attack: 1 lvl 45
Jaro- Now joins with a Valkyrie equipped.
Sheela- Now joins with Iron Knuckles equipped. Muddle: 2 lvl36 Blast: 3 lvl 37, 4 lvl 45 Heal: 3 lvl39, 4 lvl48, Boost: 2 lvl, 42
Zynk- Now has his critical hit rate increased by 2, giving him a 1/4 chance of getting a critical hit at 150% damage. I want him to stand out more since you get him so late. Giving him lots of crits means you get to see his cool laser animation more often. Zynk now has 50% resistance to status spells, 50% resistance to Blast, 50% weakness to Bolt, and 25% resistance to Blaze and Freeze.
Chaz- Joins with and Iron Ball in his inventory but not equipped. Dispel: 1 lvl40 Bolt: 2 lvl44, 3 lvl46, 4 lvl48 Freeze: 4 lvl42 Blaze: 3 lvl49, 4 lvl50
Claude- Now has his counter attack rate increased by 2. He now has a counter attack chance of 1/4. I wanted him to stand out more for how late in the game you get him. I like how he has the best counter attack rate. It's good synergy for a defensive tank that takes hits to dish out a bunch of counterattacks. Claude now has 50% resistance to status spells, and 25% resistance to Blast, Blaze, Freeze, and Bolt.
Monsters and Battles-
I'm getting really sick of typing so let's just say all the monsters' stats are half of Obob's adjustments, rounded up, with the exception of bosses which are the same. Bosses have been adjusted to be a bit stronger than Obob's in subtle ways.
More monsters now have Stun and Poison attacks. Poison does 40% of your max total HP per turn and Stun has a 1/32 chance of relief instead of 1/2. This makes Detox a very important spell along with Antidote and Fairy Powder now being worthwhile items.
Monsters are 1 to 2 levels higher. This is to help mitigate grinding, as you will now get stronger EXP yields. You can still grind, of course, if you want, but it will be easier.
Magic users have more powerful spells. Some monsters that cast spells like, BOOST or ATTACK, cannot in vanilla, so they have been changed to either SLOW or MUDDLE.
Most battles have extra monsters with the cap limit being reached about halfway through the game (I think). This results in greater net Gold and EXP per battle. I'd like to re-work some of the battles in a future version because I didn't fully grasp the capability of the Caravan's features until recently.
Flower Laser and Burst Rock does a lot more damage.
Zeon Gaurd Laser is seprate from Flower Lazer and does more damage.
Have fun with that Zeon battle. :biggrin:
Also, the Secret Battle is just... silly. It's fun but, I may change it in a future version to something more serious. Though, if you guys like it I'll keep it.
Aesthetics-
[spoiler]Names and spells have been changed from all caps to just the first letter capitalized. This is in line with the GBA version of SF1. I like the name change but I will kind of miss the battle narration with the spells. It always seemed like he was shouting, "KAZIN summoned DAO!!"
HP bars in excess of 500 HP now appear black, instead of the glitched-out green colors.
Zeon's image wouldn't appear in the Evil Spirit cut-scene in a modded game due to a bug. The image of Zeon now appears.
That one dwarf no longer has a fairy voice momentarily. I'm a bit sad to see this hilarious bug go.
The Buster Sword and the Great Sword now have switched item icons because the Great Sword icon looks wide but in battle the sprite would be skinny, vice-versa with the Buster Sword.
Patches Applied-
AI Rewrite
Enemies use Attack Items
Poison Percent - adjusted to 40% of max total HP
Battle Item Animations
Search in Battle
Status Accuracy Up All V2
Healing Experience Regardless of Class
MP Drain Drains 20 MP
Egress Quick Ring Battle V2
Mining Dwarf Voice
4mb Evil Spirit Fix
Auto Revive Higgins
Stat Up Items Always 4
No Curse Check
Difficulty 0% 10% 15% 20%
Xenometals's Dwarven Blacksmith Shop
Siel's Taros Sword looks like a green Broad Sword
Sir Hedge's HP bars over 500 are flat black
I'd like to thank many people who helped me through this:
Siel
Obob
Wiz
SirHedge
CirrusAF
MXC
Big Nail Cow
Space King
Lyanel
Selgar
Xenometal
The entire Shining Force Central community for being kind and wonderful and providing me a platform.

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