Insane Difficulty: Final Fantasy IX : Alternate Fantasy - Insane Difficulty

Hi there,

I'm back on the forum to filthily advertise for my mod. Even worse, it's about a game that already has a fine mod (Unleashed) and didn't need another one ! Well, I guess it didn't stop Final Fantasy Tactics to have multiple mods so... why not doing the same for Final Fantasy IX (which is, everyone will agree with that, a way better game than FFT to begin with ).

So, here are the download links :
╔═════════╗
║ PSX Version   ║
╚═════════╝

╔═══════╗
║PC Version║
╚═══════╝
Like Unleashed, it changes the abilities of the party and the strength of enemies, but :
1) Its main purpose is not the difficulty (d'oh wrong website?!) but the overall renewing of the game experience.
2) The extend to what has been modified is quiet larger that for Unleashed (AI has been modified, some enemies use new abilities, some "mini-game" parts have been modified, etc...).

One of the point of the mod is to enhance the statuses. Some basic spells deal statuses additionnally to their damage.

Here is a list of the principal changes in the player's abilities :

Zidane
Trance skills deal much less damage
What's that?! inflicts Blind to everyone now
Annoy has been replaced by Free Energy : a regular attack with 100% accuracy and no backrow reduce
Sacrifice has been replaced by Regenerate : use an ether on the team
Lucky Seven has been replaced by Warm Up : increase Zidane's strength by 25%
Thievery has been replaced by Transcend : bring Zidane to Trance

Vivi
Fire spells have a chance to inflict Heat (base : 5%, 10% and then 20%)
Ice spells have a chance to inflict Freeze (base : 5%, 10% and then 20%)
Thunder spells have a chance to inflict Slow (base : 10%, 20% and then 40%)
Slow has been replaced by Annoy (80% of inflicting trouble)
Demi has been balanced from 30% of max HP with 40% accuracy to 25% of max HP for 80% accuracy
Death has been replaced by Gradual Petrify (75% accuracy)
Break is now an Earth elemental attack in addition to inflicting Petrify (30% accuracy)
Water sometimes inflict Shell to its targets
Meteor has been replaced by Waterga : Water damage plus Silence (50% accuracy)

White Magic
Panacea only cures Poison but is multi-targeting
Stona only cures Gradual Petrify but is multi-targeting
Confuse and Berserk are now magical attacks in addition to inflicting statuses
Most of status-inflicting spells have their accuracy upscaled
Holy sometimes inflict Regen to its target

Dagger
The full powered Ark now deal damage twice, allowing to deal more than 9999

Eiko
Fenril is a wind eidolon by default

Quina
LV5 Death has been replaced by LV5 Flare : inflict non-elemental damage to enemies with lvl multiple of 5
LV4 Holy has been replaced by LV4 Def-less : randomly decrease defence of enemies with lvl multiple of 4
LV3 Def-less has been replaced by LV3 Aerial Slash : inflict Wind damage to enemies with lvl multiple of 3
Doom has been replaced by Lightning : Thunder damage plus Silence to one target (50% accuracy)
Roulette has been replaced by Self-Destruct : convert Quina's current HP into damage on all the enemies
Aqua Breath has 75% accuracy instead of 50%
Matra Magic has been replaced by Zombie Breath : non-elemental damage plus Zombie on one target (20% accuracy)
Limit Glove has been replaced by HP Switching : switch Quina's current HP with an ally's ones
Twister has 50% to inflict Float in addition to its Wind damage
Earth Shake has 100% to inflict Slow in addition to its Earth damage
Frog Drop has been replaced by Devil's Snack : use a Dead Pepper on all enemies
Freeze has been replaced by Cocytos : Ice damage and inflict Slow on one target (100%)
Mustard Bomb has been replaced by Phlegethon : Fire damage and inflict Haste on one target (100%)

Freya
Lancer's damage are increased, as well as its MP cost
Dragon Breath has been replaced by Dragon Life : apply Auto-Life on Freya
Six Dragons has became single-targeting for 15 MP
Cherry Blossom is more powerful
Dragon's Crest has been replaced by Ikari : deal physical damage and Trouble to all the enemies (50%)

Amarant
Aura has been replaced by Starburst : deal 60 times an enemy's level as damage
Demi Shock's accuracy has been upscaled from 50% to 80%
Countdown has been replaced by Concentrate : increase an ally's Magic by 33% for 28 MP

Steiner
Iai Strike has been replaced by Quadraslash : a physical attack using the elemental power of Fire, Ice, Thunder and Water
The accuracy of the 4 break abilities have been upscaled
Thunder Slash now inflict 21% of target's max HP as thunder damage
Climhazzard has been replaced by a weaker Shock : deal 2 times the physical damage on one target
Shock has been replaced by Sword Dance : deal 2 times the physical damage on all enemies ; it's a magical attack

Marcus
Added 2 abilities for the time he is with you on the disc 2 : Strong Hit (more damage but harm Marcus) and Contaminate (100% to inflict Poison)

Also,
Ragtime Mouses Quizz has been refreshed
The most frustrating bug of the game has been corrected : the last Tetra Master rank displays properly
Few weapons can be used by several characters (for instance, Dagger can use the... dagger)
The ultimate weapons give a big boost to main characteristics (Strength, Magic, Speed and Spirit)
Enemies' spells have been modified using similar principles as the player's spells
Phoenix Pinions now cure Doom ; they also cost and sell cheaper
A mini-game has been re-added at the beginning of disc 3. It was half present in the game's code and had the following comment in the japanese version :

Quote

Which means in short that it was too much buggy and boring to be in the final game. While the bugs have been corrected, it will likely not keep you on tenterhooks for hours ^^"
Excalibur II can now be acquired by two different methods :
1) Reach and beat Hades in less than 14 hours,
2) Get all the treasures of the game (there are 3 little mistakes allowed) to obtain the higher treasure rank. Some particular cases don't count (Stilzkin's sells and Ragtime Mouses's/Ozma/Hades rewards mainly). Kupo Nuts don't count by theirself but all the one-time rewards count (roughly 1 per disc from disc 2). Similarly, Chocographs don't count when you unearth them but the treasure themselves count. Also, Mimics count. In the end, that makes 404 unique treasures to find.

There are more, but I'll let you find it by yourself. Have fun !

Whoa. This sounds pretty good.

Where does the difficulty end up, exactly? And at what level is the end game balanced around?

Well, that's hard to say because you can force luck/brute force important battles (and then you need higher levels) or you can use more tricks and planning and succeed with a much lower level. I would say the equipment and skill availability is way more important than the levels (it's already a bit the case in the vanilla game).

There's no absolute need to grind at any point to beat the game (unless maybe against the final boss and the superboss Ozma) if that was the question.

The legend himself. I'll keep my eye on this one.

I'm really interested in this, but I have a concrete question. From all of the points you decribed, there's one that you mentioned that is in my (and I'm sure many of the people here) eyes the most important change - AI scripts. How deep did you go on that?

I *will* be playing this because I'm a FFIX sucker, but I want to know how blind I should approach the battles, both for random encounters and boss fights.

Thx.

IA changes are variable from an enemy to another. It ranges to no modification at all (only stats and the effect/power of the spells has been modified) to a complete rework of an enemy's behavior. I won't give spoilers, but a lot of battles have been reworked to change their gameplay.

There is one battle I allowed myself to spoil, though, so I can give it as an example : one enemy has a Mega Death spell, but he won't cast it before some other spell that turns your character into Zombies.
I don't know if you can go blind on battles, that depends on how well you can adapt to non-expected situations. It's always a good thing to save, though (even some random encounters can wipe you easily if you don't pay attention to their patterns).

Tirlititi, on 28 August 2015 - 02:40 AM, said:

I was asking if it was expected to get to very high level to get through memoria. If this isn't the case, then I will give this a shot at some point.

I just want to say thank you for making a mod for the best Final Fantasy !

I've got the week off so I'm gonna play through this!

I hope I get time between everything, I may try to do a blind stream of this, maybe a little down the road once the AI Tourney is over

im actually trying this hack out now beacuse i have not really had anything better to do and so far im enjoying it quite a bit. There are a few things id like to point out though, ill mark it under spoilers



Other then that its been a great new change. ill be continuing through more soon

Windviper245, on 30 August 2015 - 08:13 PM, said:

If you DON'T stock up on extra potions in a mod from this site, you fucking deserve a game over.

Kjata, on 30 August 2015 - 09:39 PM, said:

If you never played this game before, in this early point of the game your not able to buy anything yet(unless you were able to while your controlling vivi which i dont remember). which means in order to get potions you need to steal and kill enemies, which means needless grinding, which should not be in any game whatsoever. furthermore, he said it himself that this game wasnt meant for an insane difficulty, which means im rating it as it should be rated at its base

You can buy potions as Vivi. Also, I remember Cinna selling shit. Maybe that only happens after saving vivi, i honestly can't remember.

The Prison Cage fights are meant to remind you of not being stingy about the items. The 1st one is calculated to be beatable even if you try one steal under the Trance (which is pointless anyway as it has nothing to steal) and with the initial stock of potions if you didn't use them all before. That's also one of the few fights where the command Defend can be used consistently by Zidane to save up a good amount of potions.

The 2nd Prison Cage is easy given that you use that remedy (or an echo screen if you bought one).

The Steiner fights is also meant to hint you to keep Cinna on his guard to heal (he deals about 0 damage anyway) but I'm indeed not really satisfied by the mean I used. Giving Steiner a death strike is a cheap way to go but that does its purpose, so I dunno...

The heat/freeze statuses are disabled for the Black Waltz 1 fight, as you figured ^^

Thanks for your feedback, Windviper

Windviper245, on 30 August 2015 - 10:02 PM, said:

If you've never played this game before, you should be playing it like any other RPG: talking to people and shit. This isn't obscure, it's just the player not looking for it. I know my first time playing I found Cinna's shop. You know why? Because I was talking to everyone.

FFIX is not an obscure game, really. There are some really obscure secrets in many FFs, FFIX isn't one. I remember I discovered (discovered, not completed) most, if not all of the sidequests as a kid with no guide (All that would give you an actual item, save for the Excalibur II ofc. Fuck cards, treasure hunting and all of that jazz) including all of the chocobo sidequest.

Hart-Hunt, on 31 August 2015 - 04:30 PM, said:

This is the epitome of obscure.

What in the hell. And it gives you a Protect Ring? O.o

Welp, that's a good point against my cause.

It would be, if it wasn't Kjata.

Edit: And besides, pretty much the entire point of an easter egg is to be obscure.

This post has been edited by Advent: 31 August 2015 - 07:36 PM

Advent, on 31 August 2015 - 07:35 PM, said:

What does that mean?