[M.H.Regulus]

Testing, one two three. Okay, I've got a clear file on Fallen Stars with an inventory full of crap, and now I'm ready to start Risen Stars. But first I have to copy down this 5-page long password, with that troll sixth page.

I've got the password, and I've put it in Risen Stars. Okay, it works. Good. Now, onward, for the praises of my slaughter will be sung for generations!

Every so often, I'll come back and detail my adventures in Risen Stars. Right now, i have nothing, so check back soon!

[Vanish Mantle]

Looking forward to the reads!

[Ehow22]

I used VBA LINK to just "link" the files because I hate the password system

[Advent]

Ehow22, on 14 August 2012 - 03:11 PM, said:

I used VBA LINK to just "link" the files because I hate the password system

Oh, I bet he'll be happy to hear that.

He was bitching up a storm in ID Chat because he hated putting in the password.

On another note, glad to see this. I didn't know you could do that with VBA and since I'm going to be taking down Deadbeard and the rest of Fallen Star today it saves me a lot of trouble.

I'll be making my own thread about my adventures in Risen Star. Look forward to it! I may even see if I can get to recording.

[M.H.Regulus]

Well, it seems I may just be starting my run in Hard Mode. The Hard Mode of an already hard mod. We're all gonna fuggen die.

If I ever post video proof of me beating Poseidon under these conditions, somebody give me a fuggen medal so I feel the effort was somewhat worth it.

Anyways, all I've done was beat the first Brute. This guy is terrible. Two turns, and he can inflict a maximum of about 120 damage with his worst attack, Poison Cloud, and a minimum of about 55 with his regular attack. You are boned if Poison Cloud or Barrage proc, and you'd have a better time stuffing a cactus up your bum if he procs both on Jenna. You need to pray for two things: Fume landing its stun proc, and stun not wearing off of the Brute at the end of the round. You only have about 400 HP, and he can chop more than a quarter off at anytime with impunity.

[Vanish Mantle]

M.H.Regulus, on 16 August 2012 - 01:18 AM, said:

Well, it seems I may just be starting my run in Hard Mode. The Hard Mode of an already hard mod. We're all gonna fuggen die.

If I ever post video proof of me beating Poseidon under these conditions, somebody give me a fuggen medal so I feel the effort was somewhat worth it.

Anyways, all I've done was beat the first Brute. This guy is terrible. Two turns, and he can inflict a maximum of about 120 damage with his worst attack, Poison Cloud, and a minimum of about 55 with his regular attack. You are boned if Poison Cloud or Barrage proc, and you'd have a better time stuffing a cactus up your bum if he procs both on Jenna. You need to pray for two things: Fume landing its stun proc, and stun not wearing off of the Brute at the end of the round. You only have about 400 HP, and he can chop more than a quarter off at anytime with impunity.

I will personally make the medals for each boss you beat on hard mode.

[M.H.Regulus]

Here, have a video of the very first fight of the Risen Stars Beta Hard Mode Challenge. Unfortunately, the sound desyncs. Oh well, the saying goes "Seeing is believing", so who cares about the sound?

[Advent]

That's some retarded luck with the RNG on that last attempt. XD

[M.H.Regulus]

I'm now standing at the gates of Kandorean Temple at the time of this posting. Here's what happened:

Second Brute: Annoying dipshit. But my winning fight against him was even more absurd than the first. Here's how it went: Fume stun proc, Fume stun proc, Heat Blast(or whatever it's called) proc, Fume missed proc, Brute recovers from stun, Fume missed proc, Brute uses regular attack and Poison Cloud missed proc, Fume stun proc ad absurdum until victory.

The Ruffians were easy sauce. No comments about them. The Flash Ant would've killed Jenna if Fume didn't stun proc the poor bug.

Once I reached Daila, I sold my Psynergy Crystal, bought some new equipment, and got the All Stone and White Stone. The Universalist primarily uses Added Damage Psynergy, so it's best to give the All Stone to Felix. The White Stone I put on Sheba, because Echo is on Jenna. Sheba has some ridiculous Agility and Psynergy. She can sling spells haphazardly for quite a while with her 40 PP Regen.

If I ever get my second Brute fight video uploaded, I'll post it here eventually.

Hard Mode isn't too bad right now. However, that will likely change once I meet the Mercury Djinn and the Chestbeaters.

[Vanish Mantle]

Man grats on beating the intro. I know it was hard to beat but grats to you. i'll make a medal for you clearing the intro on hard mode.

[M.H.Regulus]

Oh boy oh boy oh boy, have I got an update for you all. I've progressed from pre-Kandorean Temple all the way through the Dekhan Plateau, to Madra, went all the way to Mikasalla, whilst completely ignoring the Yampi Desert for now, up past Garoh and now I'm inside Air Rock. And I literally mean inside Air's Rock. Here are the things of note that happened.

The trial of Kandorean Temple was a rather simple one, as I progressed through without too much difficulty, picking up the utterly useless Mysterious Card(because SOMEBODY made it equippable by NO ONE because he needs more testing) and beating up the Chestbeaters. Felix was the Universalist, Sheba was the priest, and Jenna was a Brute wielding the Shaman's Rod. There's a Mimic near the entrance to the trial cavern; it was defeated rather soundly, although I ended up using much of Jenna's PP, as she had a Short Sword equipped at that time. I later switched her to the Shaman's Rod because I wasn't really using her Psynergy anyway. You'll quicky discover the Universalist and Priest are quite powerful at this point in the game. Sheba was getting two turns in a row before any other character and enemy, and the Priest's healing is rather respectable. Just as in Fallen Star, I found myself hating bats and their Whirlwind-series spells here as well. Once I reached the three Chestbeaters, I used Felix's Ember Strike, Jenna's two attacks with the Shaman Rod, and Sheba's Holy/Defend(when no one really needed healing) and Cura/Defend(greatly healing everyone and reducing damage to Sheba) as my basic strategy. I won against the Chestbeaters quite handily, incurring no fallen party members at all in the fight. I acquired the Lash Pebble, gave it to Sheba, and immediately set out to fight the Mercury Djinni. This guy was fairly challenging, as it used Froth Sphere at two points in the fight; both times sealing Felix and Jenna but not Sheba, meaning I could unseal the two with Sheba's Esuna. At one point, the Mercury Djinni's Tundra proc'd sleep on both Jenna and Sheba, which seemed pretty bad, but Felix felled our washed-up foe immediately after. With that, I set out to the Shrine of the Sea God to help that one ragamuffin.

After casting the rope to the opposite cliff, I proceeded to hunt down the Jupiter Djinni. This fellow is a rather simple chase, and the fight was rather mundane, until a casting of Storm Ray nearly knocked Jenna and Sheba out. That could have been disastrous. With my new servant er, friend, I set out to the Dekhan Plateau. Little of note occurred there, sans my finding the Themis Axe, which is really good at the time you find it, and acquiring the Mars Djinni you end up chasing through the area. The Mars Djinni was probably the most mundane of the Djinn fights so far, as little interesting happened in the fight. Once past the Dekhan Plateau, I headed to Madra.

Along the way to Madra you'd likely find a cave, there in which is a summon tablet, granting you the aid of Zagan. I don't use this summon much, but I often don't use the lower summons with 1 or 2 Djinn at all as it so stands. Still, nice treasure to have. Of note on the way to Madra is the forest practically hugging the west side of Madra. In this forest you can quickly encounter the Venus Djinni Iron in battle. I skipped this to supply my crew with new armaments in Madra, and switched Jenna from the Shaman's Rod to the Magic Rod and made her a Page instead of a Brute. Then I sought out Iron.

Holy. Shit. On Normal Mode, this guy has 1100 HP and lots of Defense(around 400 or something like that). He'll literally stonewall your offensive, with the fastest way to beat him(and take this with a grain of salt; I don't really have a point of reference for this fight on Normal) being four castings of Holy, assuming Holy does the same 350-average damage on Normal mode like it does on Hard mode. On Hard Mode, however, Iron has around 1650 HP and even more Defense, outright ironwalling your attacks. Felix couldn't even break 35 damage. Even his elemental Flow series, which are supposed to ignore Defense, only did around 1 to 3 damage. That was particularly freaky. I can only guess that Iron's Luck was stopping the "Ignore Defense" proc. That is a scary thought. Jenna's best method of attack was Volcano, dealing around 80 damage per cast. My best bet in this fight was literally spamming Holy and praying Sheba didn't get curbstomped. Between Iron's 75 HP Regen and one casting of Cure Well on himself, I used six castings of Holy before beating him. Between my damage comparisons between some of the stronger enemies like Iron and the Brutes and such, I hypothesize that enemies have 50% additional HP on Hard Mode, and while their other stats are definitely higher, I can't make an actual estimate.

With Iron on my team, I began my trek towards Yampi Desert. Picking up the Pirate's Sword along the way, i gave it to Jenna and made her a Ruffian now that I had two Venus Djinn. Planet Diver is a really useful ability in Fallen Star and Risen Star. It paralyzes a foe for one action with a very high rate of success. Along the way I randomly decided, "Screw King Scorpion, I know what kind of bullshit he'll pull already." And so I went to Mikasalla. I suppose this is a moment of sequence breaking. I do this all the time. The heading to Air's Rock before Yampi Desert. I upgraded my equipment at Mikasalla, visited Garoh, and began my climb up Air's Rock. I picked up the Fujin Shield, but decided it wasn't worth equipping on anyone, since everyone had Armlets. I'm now inside Air's Rock at the time of this posting, and I may just hang my invisible hat for the time being and resume my adventure in Air's Rock at a later, unforeseen date.

P.S.:It's a little annoying, having to unequip the White Stone just so Sheba can cast Gale, and then re-equipping the White Stone, only to have to repeat the whole process several times.

[Vanish Mantle]

I actually just made Jenna my WM for this part of the game because it seemed much easier than doing the unequip re-equip.. Expect more WTF from those Djinni

[M.H.Regulus]

Ugh. I don't wanna do this. I've progressed so far, meaning this update is gonna be LOOOOOOOONG.

*sigh* But here we go.

I've progressed from inside Air's Rock all the way to Aqua Rock. That's a lot to do.

So, in Air's Rock, we found the Reveal tablet and the Flora summon. Not much to say, other than an enemy formation consisting of Emu, Ghoul, and Harpy is seriously bad. Mostly the Harpy and the Ghoul, though. Seriously, fuck Harpies. It gets worse later, though.

So we head back to Garoh, and surprise Maha with our elite Psynergy skills. We end up getting a Jupiter Djinni from him. Maha's a cool guy. Since we have nothing else we can do in southern Osenia, it's time to challenge Yampi Desert. Another Djinni found, and we challenge King Scorpion. Fuck this guy. He killed me easily for the first 20-or-so attempts. Faced with bitter defeat, i decied to pull back and acquire some different equipment to boost our team's Agility to compete with him.

A couple equipment changes and some Mints for Jenna later, I returned to Yampi Desert and roceeded with the now-decidedly-broken strategy of holding a boss down with Planet Diver's Immobilize proc. Seriously, this stuff is broken, as I stopped two of King Scorpion's three turns every round. With his offense effectively crippled to one-third, victory was far easier. Fortunately, he never stunned Jenna nor Sheba with neither Paralytail nor Sand Breath.

With our trophies, the Scoop Gem and Burst Ring, we proceeded on to Alhafra, and captured Briggs, after we thoroughly broke his boss fight with more Planet Diver shenanigans. I hear Planet Diver is going to be nerfed to inflicting Stun in a later update. I've been calling for this nerf, actually, for quite some time. Until then, I'm making Jenna a Defender. Afterwards, we decided to muck around with fixing the boat, but we'll need Burst to break a giant boulder pinning the mast down. We begin the return trip to Madra, and pick up a Mars Djinn in Mikasalla we missed the first time because we didn't have Scoop.

Upon our return to Madra, we find that Piers has already been released, and he has pursued the Kibombo for stealing his Black Orb. Obviously, we have to go help him. Nothing of note occurs as we cross the Gondowan Cliffs, and we make a stop in Naribwe. After resting in the village, we set out to search for a Mercury Djinn southwest of Naribwe.

This guy's fairly strong, with destructive Mercury Psynergy, especially the Psynergy-sealing Froth Sphere and the Sleep-inducing Tundra. You may want to wait until you have Piers in your party before fighting this Djinni, but that isn't necessary. Upon our retrieval, we proceed to the village of Kibombo itself. There, Piers joins our party, and we undergo a slight class overhaul, with Felix becoming an Illusionist and Piers taking the All Stone. Jenna gets a Class Up into a Cavalier, and Ivan 2.0 remains a Priest.

Inside the Great Gabomba statue, there is a Venus Djinni that will fight you. By this point, I should have learned that Venus Djinni are nigh-impervious to physical attacks(GG Universalist). I hope you have some powerful Psynergy. Also of worth in here is the Bone Armlet, which teaches the Thorny Grave spell to whomever equips it. I put it on Priest Sheba so she would have a multitarget attack. Beware of Doomsayers and Red Demons. Doomsayers rarely summon Charon, but Red Demons are quite powerful and get two turns per round. A single Stun Jip from a Red Demon could deal over 500 damage in Hard Mode, which would OHKO Sheba(and actually has, thank you very much). Despite some near-party-wipe experiences, we manage to recover the Black Orb and set out towards Piers' ship. Along the way, we grab a Healing Fungus, needed for acquiring a Mars Djinn.

Apparently, Piers' ship has been infested with giant jellyfish. The Aqua Jellies are fought one-by-one, and they're fairly strong. Of note is their Breeze Bite, which really hurts. About a dozen melted jellyfish later, we face the Aqua Hydra in mortal combat. One short-but-epic struggle later, the Aqua Hydra is now an Aqua Puddle. With command of the Lemurian Ship, we can now roam the Eastern Sea like our own little playground. Too bad there just aren't any Giant Sea Monster battles.

Many new items to equip become available now. Of note are Platinum Circlets, Silver Armlets, and Armored Shells. With my entire party decked out in these(sans Sheba equipped with a Bone Armlet), we're probably as prepared as possible for future battles. My first task will be to conquer Aqua Rock.

[M.H.Regulus]

Well, here we are for the last time. Golden Sun: Risen Star Hard Mode. I've proceeded all the way from the peak of Aqua Rock to beating Poseidon.

So, let's start with Aqua Rock. Aqua Rock has several puzzles based around Mercury Psynergy. There is almost nothing of interest here except for the Parch Psynergy and a Mercury Djinni. Enemies of particular interest here are Faeries, with their annoying status proc spells, Virago, with its powerful Sonic Slash, and Man-o-war, a creature about as strong as an Aqua Jelly, but with the ability to call additional allies into battle. There's also the Sea Dragon, a fairly resilient foe, and quite strong, too. For some odd reason, I always dread coming to Aqua Rock. I think I'm still suffering from that PTSD incurred by OoT's Water Temple. Seriously, fuck that place. Even though I know the route through the Water Temple, I still dread it. Anyway, once I procured the power of Parch, one of the most pointless Psynergy around(hey, I can evaporate water! wait, why couldn't i do that with fire psynergy?), I challenged the Mercury Djinni. This guy was fairly annoying, like all Mercury Djinn. With near-immunity to negative status and several spells with nasty procs like seal and sleep, Mercury Djinn should be exterminated with extreme prejudice. I believe I had 18 Djinn at this point. Now, where did I go after this? Tundaria Tower? Eh, probably.

West of Tundaria Tower is a Jupiter Djinni. Jupiter Djinni are very fast, but otherwise not very impressive. Buff your party's Attack, try to debuff Jupiter Djinni's Agility, then go nuts with "Added Damage" type Psynergy, preferably Venus elemental, like Universalist's Stone Strike. As for Tundaria Tower itself, you need Parch to proceed past the first room. Things of note in Tundaria Tower are a trident prong and a Mars Djinni. The Dinox enemy here is remarkably dangerous, as it has two actions per turn and lots of attack power. I didn't really get a chance to see what the other enemies could really do before they died agonizing deaths of agony. I claim the Burst Pynergy, the first trident piece, and the Mars Djinni.

My next destination was Gaia Rock. Inside it, you learn Sand, but first, you must fight the Serpent in its cavern lair. However, before fighting the Serpent, you should probably shine four lights on it. Before you can shine any lights on the Serpent, you should probably climb the face of Gaia Rock to retrieve the Dancing Idol. Probably. I suggest having someone know the Gale Psynergy when scaling the outside of Gaia Rock, and then have someone with Growth when inside Gaia Rock. If you're scrub-tier and kept Felix and Sheba in their base-element classes, you have the convenience of both. I still had Illusionist Felix, Cavalier Jenna, Priest Sheba, and Universalist Piers.

If you don't shine any lights on Serpent, it has 2500 HP Regen per turn. If you shine three lights on Serpent, it has 1500 HP Regen per turn. If you shine all four lights on Serpent, it only has 100 HP Regen per turn, and is actually quite weak despite having four turns. Serpent's most dangerous attacks are Dragon Driver for Summon-type damage, Sand Breath of AoE Stun proc shenanigans, and Mighty Press for instant death bullshit. Despite a few stuns, several death procs, and a mess of reviving everyone except Felix at least once, I still managed to beat Serpent on my first real attempt. I acquire Sand, and a Cloud Brand, and head down to Izumo. There, I trade the dancing Doll for a Mars Djinni, and FINALLY I can use a tri-elemental class. Felix upgrades to a Ninja, gaining powerful Psynergy in Death Plunge, Shuriken, and Annihilation. Death Plunge has a high base power for an "Added Damage" Psynergy, Shuriken targets three enemies and deals damage to them equal to about 80% of what a normal attack would deal to one enemy(and has a chance to reduce a foe's HP to 1), and Annihilation deals heavy damage with a chance of instant death. I also gain Gale, meaning no more putting up with getting Sheba to use Gale.

With Sand, I also do the trading sequence sidequest that gets you into the Islet Cave. In there is Atalanta's Leaf, which grants Haste Psynergy, and a Venus Djinni you have to fight. Obviously, I beat it, and then I upgraded Jenna into a Dragoon. With Cutting Edge to reduce an enemy's Defense, Briar to lower foes' Agility, Pure Ply and Pure Wish to heal more effectively than the Priest, Dragoon is amazing. I also head down to Apojii to claim the Jupiter Djinni there. I believe this one is Haze, the most broken little fucker around. Total immunity to EVERYTHING from enemy sources for your whole party for one round? HAX. With my party fully assembled, I proceed to the Shrine of the Sea God to claim the second trident piece, then head towards Champa and climb Ankohl Tower for the final trident piece.

Now it's time to call upon Obaba to forge the legendary trident. Except she won't see anyone while Briggs is away. Well, aren't we forgetting something? We still have a boat to fix in Alhafra. After using Burst to blow apart a giant rock pinning the mast down, the boat is quickly fixed. Unfortunately, Briggs breaks out of prison in that same moment and steals the ship while no one's looking. He then taunts Felix's party while he sails away to Champa, blissfully unaware that Felix has a boat of his own, a better boat, and so we chase after Briggs to scare him shitless. Not only do we scare Briggs shitless when he realizes we've pursued him just to mess with him, we also end up making all his pirate cronies void their bowels. After having our amusement, we decide to try speaking to Obaba about forging the trident, but Briggs is raising a ruckus like a spoiled kid, leaving Obaba little choice but to sic her pet salamander on Briggs to shut him up. Avimander has other plans in mind, and proceeds to attack us.

Avimander isn't particularly strong, but most of its skills are Base Damage Psynergy, which don't rely on attack power for damage. It also has Summon type Psynergy in Noburu Taika, which eliminates stat buffs, and Star Mine, which is pretty much guaranteed to end the whole turn if you don't have Haze up beforehand. Between Felix's double Annihilation, Jenna's Briar, Pure Wish, and Haste, Sheba's Shade and Haze, and Piers' awesome Attack and Aqua Void, we wreak havoc upon the Avimander as it wreaks havoc upon us every other turn or so. Near the end of the fight, we experience some brief shenanigans as Aqua Void repeatedly keeps the Avimander in sleep.

At this point, I just want to say, the Priest and Universalist should be rebalanced to function like the other quad-element classes, because as they are now, you don't have to worry about their Djinn distribution, and you can more-or-less use their Djinn freely, without penalty.

Upon beating the Avimander, Obaba is stunned and Briggs probably just shat out a lung. After a moment of explaining that we're not actually here for Briggs, and upon revealing to Obaba that Briggs is a pirate, leading to her scolding Briggs and probably about ready to kill him, we defuse the situation and get our trident forged. With the Trident, we proceed to the Sea of Time to challenge Poseidon.

I pretty much fought Poseidon the same way as Avimander, but replace "periodic Star Mine trollings" with "frequent Ocean Fist trollings". I pretty much had to revive everyone at least twice in that fight thanks to Ocean Fist. Kindle is awesome, and Megaera is awesome. Attack buffs in general are pretty good in Golden Sun. Poseidon has 17250 HP in Hard Mode, compared to the 11500 in Normal, and over 900 Attack in Hard Mode. Considering the best I could get in Defense was about 500 before buffs, Poseidon can do a lot of damage, even with Shade active. Good thing I had Pure Wish. Despite a long and annoying battle, I managed to defeat Poseidon on my first attempt.

And with that, I claim victory over the Golden Sun: Risen Star Beta Hard Mode Challenge. Now where's my medal?

[M.H.Regulus]

http://www.mediafire...mk28ut3ld5h8ut5

This is my save right before fighting Poseidon. Wanna challenge him for yourself? Go ahead.

[Vanish Mantle]

M.H.Regulus, on 15 September 2012 - 07:31 AM, said:

And with that, I claim victory over the Golden Sun: Risen Star Beta Hard Mode Challenge. Now where's my medal?

I'll start working on it. Good stuff man.