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| Description |
This is a Hack for Shining Force II, an Strategy RPG for the Sega Mega Drive, also known as Sega Genesis. Similar to other Hacks made by this author, Shining Force II Maeson is a modification aimed to give a new spin to a game he has played too many times to keep it engaging.
After many years, it has been updated to Version 1.30! Well, more than updated, this is a recreation made from complete scratch, using more modern tools such as the Shining force Disassembly, combined with Hex Editing and such.
The older version had a number of glitches, and because it expanded the ROM to 4mb, it also broke a few things related to Secret Codes that you could input.
This new version manages to do all the modifications while still using the original game's 2mb size. By doing this, all the problems caused by the expansion are gone and the issues caused by the Hack itself are also gone.
But beyond that, 1.30 is also a tremendous facelift to every aspect of this Hack.
Some of the features of this Hack include:
* Rebalancing of the Characters and Classes. Stat growths were reworked, less useful Characters were made to be on par with others. Special traits for Classes were tweaked, and almost every Class now can use Magic, making each one more versatile and useful. Characters that join late are on par with characters you trained since the beginning.
* Equipment changes. Weapons tend to provide something more than just Attack. Arrows had their range extended to be more versatile. Accessories were not only tweaked, but also expanded, with several new ones you can find exploring, or as a reward by defeating specific enemies, and they are quite useful throughout the journey.
* The Magic System has been mostly redone. Offensive Spells have been made much more powerful and important, Status Effects are much more accurate and useful, Support Spells have been made overall more versatile and there's even a couple of new Spells. Range has been also extended, which changes the feeling of the game significantly. Enemy abilities were also tweaked.
* Enemies were of course, also modified. Besides their Stats and special traits, their AI have been tweaked. Now they can use Items to attack or heal, they use Spells much more often, including Status Effect Spells too, which bring a new threat as in the original game they didn't really used them. There were also changes in enemy formations for most battles, either swapping certain units for others, or changing their positions, sometimes for added challenge, others to shorten the lengths the player would need to travel to reach them, and their individual behavior also has changed for most of them.
* Extensive graphical tweaks for character Sprites. Besides fixing many sprite errors from the original game, many other changes were made to both Playable Characters and NPCs looking for more cohesiveness. For example, Barons overworld sprites now show their faces and wear a coif, like their Battle Sprites do. Wizards and Vicars have their headgear and their palettes match. For NPCs, a good chunk of them were redrawn to share similar proportions to other NPCs and the Playable Characters, as they were drawn wider than them.
* A hole bunch of other things, such as simplifying the Mithril forging process, taking away the RNG aspect of turn orders so Agility is the only factor, altering how Difficulty Modes work so each one offers a different level of challenge, taking away damage randomization, and more.
* Several optional patches were addded that make the Fairy Village Bonus Battle much harder, change the battle theme music, or edit the font to a non italic one for those people that find the text hard to read.
There is more than this in the typical "longer-than-life readme" that the author likes to attach to his Hacks.
The author would also like to thank all the people from Shining Force Central for the vast amount of information and research they have done throughout the years, and they still do. Without them this Hack would not exist. |
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