Insane Difficulty: Xenogears - HardType v4.1 - Insane Difficulty

Xenogears - HardType v4.1
http://www.mediafire...a4r/XGHTv4.1.7z

This patch is a difficulty modification for the PSX NTSC-U version of Xenogears.

Enemy HP, Attack, and Ether have been increased. Some enemies have higher Agility and Ether Defense. Character starting level and stats have been altered. Heimdal's starting accessories have been altered.

Character Starting Stats

Fei (at level 1)
HP - 50
EP - 5
Attack - 15
Defense - 10
Agility - 11
Ether - 7
Ether Defense - 8
Hit - 10
Evade - 12

Elly (at level 5)
HP - 52
EP - 14
Attack - 12
Defense - 10
Agility - 9
Ether - 18
Ether Defense - 12
Hit - 16
Evade - 14

Citan (at level 8)
HP - 145
EP - 14
Attack - 11
Defense - 11
Agility - 11
Ether - 20
Ether Defense - 16
Hit - 12
Evade - 17

Bart (at level 10)
HP - 100
EP - 10
Attack - 22
Defense - 15
Agility - 10
Ether - 10
Ether Defense - 12
Hit - 12
Evade - 17

Billy (at level 40)
HP - 245
EP - 42
Attack - 24
Defense - 24
Agility - 8
Ether - 18
Ether Defense - 36
Hit - 14
Evade - 16

Rico (at level 30)
HP - 440
EP - 28
Attack - 56
Defense - 46
Agility - 9
Ether - 14
Ether Defense - 20
Hit - 15
Evade - 13

Emeralda (at level 70)
HP - 402
EP - 80
Attack - 67
Defense - 45
Agility - 10
Ether - 54
Ether Defense - 36
Hit - 27
Evade - 24

Chu-Chu (at level 65)
HP - 322
EP - 43
Attack - 51
Defense - 42
Agility - 9
Ether - 42
Ether Defense - 34
Hit - 13
Evade - 21

Maria (at level 60)
HP - 250
EP - 20
Attack - 12
Defense - 16
Agility - 7
Ether - 16
Ether Defense - 20
Hit - 7
Evade - 12

v4.1 Changes
tweaked the final boss

v4.0 Changes
buffed mid to late game bosses
cleaned up some end game bosses
tweaked character starting stats and level

v3.0 Changes
adjusted character stats around new levels
tweaked some enemies
set chu-chu's gear form agility to 9

v2.0 Changes
finalized character stats
finalized enemy alterations

v1.6 Changes
tweaked some enemies
minor alteration to heimdal's starting accessories
altered character stats

v1.1 Changes
weakened wandknight, swordknight, clawknight, aegisknight, and vierge

v1.0 Changes
altered all enemies

v0.5 Changes
fix the hp of aegisknight r

v0.4 Changes
altered enemies up to haishao

v0.3 Changes
altered enemies up to hecht

v0.2 Changes
altered enemies up to ramsus

v0.1 Changes
altered enemies up to calamity

If you can somehow get japanese dialogue and subtitles over the cutscenes that have voice acting in them I will buy you a ton of oreo cookies.

Xenogears 2.0 has Japanese dialogue with English subtitles.

I love you

I've been waiting for this type of thing forever.

Will donate souls to the cause.

I've started up Xenogears a couple of times, but I never continued for reasons unknown even to me, always wanted to pick it up again. My question here is if you will make the difficulty curve so a newcomer to the series like me will be able to follow, or if it will be accessible mostly to people that have already played the game before? Basically so I don't get chewed up before I even understand which buttons to press.

You can probably make it through on your first playthrough, but expect a lot of game overs.

Will you be able to work the gameshark code to speed up the text into this mod?

No.

Shame, Xenogear's text moves at a crawl. Hopefully your mod works with that extra code then.

It should.

Patch added.

Patch updated.

Much respect, this patch is difficult. I feel like I'm playing Diablo 2 with a Hardcore character all over again. Scrounging up everything I can simply to survive.

Glad you're enjoying it. I'll have the next update ready in about two days.

Keep the souls coming.

Sounds good so far. May start playing once the next version drops.

Probably some silly questions, but..

A. Any plans to rebalance characters (starting stats, skills), assuming you can do that? Lord knows Rico could use some buffs for on foot battles, heh. I guess Maria too for on foot battles, but it's kinda understandable why she's meh in character combat.

B. Probably a yes here, but are you going to remove/change any of the broken equipment choices? I'm looking at the EtherDoubler (Power Magics + this = Aerods ownage time) and maybe the Holy Pendant. Not sure what else is considered broken.

I'm not planning on re-balancing characters at this point, although I may need to.

Anything that I determine to be not simply a bit overpowered but game-breaking will be altered or removed. However, no re-balances will be made until after v1.0, which will consist purely of enemy alterations.

The reason for not applying re-balances before enemy modifications are complete is that once the enemies are altered it is far easier to see what re-balances need to be made. One thing I've learned modifying video games is not to make alterations solely because I can, and instead only alter what needs to be altered in order to reach the desired result. This is part of the reason a text speed up patch will likely not be included in the mod (although I may make one and include it as a second patch in the download).

Xenosaga III HardType is a great example of this. It has the least alterations of any of my mods, and yet it is the best of them.

I should correct myself. I'm not currently planning on altering character stats. Although, I may need to.

This is a SquareSoft game and as such some equipment and/or abilities will almost certainly need to be altered or removed.

Fair enough. Thanks for the answers!

Updated.