ronlyn

I like Ms.Elliot and her kit but there are some glaring problems with her in this mod: - Her healing is not what it used to be in Europe and can be easily replaced with thera roots - Like Zhuzhen, her agility really lags behing (at lvl 60 she has 74 and the old man 71) and like the start of the game, if all enemies decided to rush them after the other two party members do their stuff they will die without a jiff - Visit the graveyard every four - five fights since getting malice in the red slot is quite fast with the new grinding around gets annoying and I rather avoid that kind of deal when I can (AKA toss her ass into the bench) - Gospel is only a great deal against bosses but in normal combat she's just garbage in general (even Zhuzhen can contribute a little since he can AoE with his spells) and you deal with more random encounters here than vanilla. And now, back to the normal schedule: - Raussan: Went ahead and try out a magical approach by going Dragner using ice breath while Halley do his best with Aqua Blade. Zhuzhen was actually quite amazing here not because of his magic but because he can tank two Blaze without any healing in-between using berserker earrings for more HP. Raussan has a rather simple AI that spam Silence against a poor sap (Halley in this case) and Blaze next turn so getting heal was really easy to manage. - Olga Round 3: Ahhh this hellhole of a fight. Had to repeat Raussan whole fight since Halley leaves the team after that and I need him to wear a Flash Badge along the others to ensure Olga doesnt get a lot of turns (without flash badges the turns would go: Olga > Yuri > Halley > Olga > Zhuzhen > Yuri > Olga > Halley > Olga > Zhuzhen, repeat this from 1st Yuri and this is with the whole team at lvl 60). I also took the red herring and exchange Yuri's crucifix with Halley's Warlock earrings to ensure he could top everyone's hp with Grace (Poison was actually a blessing in disguise since losing 25 hp per turn wont kill anyone with 800 hp). Offensive wise, Halley had to pull Air shot and Yuri could squeeze a Nova every once in a while. Zhuzhen went support and keep up everyone's hp. Another reason why this is better than him going aggresive: Olga's Mind Assault with her new stats can absorb ALL MP from anyone and her priority is the character with the highest MP (Which means the order was Zhuzhen > Halley > Yuri) so avoiding that was an extra weight to this trainwreck of a battle (The second Mind Assault turn wasnt planned: I was 100% bonned if she went ahead and toss a spell at me). Rest in piss horrible thing, I hope your death was a painful one

Short update in terms of gameplay if only because there's a big rant incoming: - Orphanage: Halley joins the gang and we visit this place, only to find two enemies to grind here and as always, things are kind of boring since Yuri's Flare and Margo's Grenade wipes the floor with everything in sight with the proper equipment. Only Earth soul left to max out. - Jack: Is quite suprising to find out a dude with a knife and a oedipux complex can murder you faster than a arcane witch but here we are. Yuri goes Ifrit to punch the lights out of him, Halley heals when needed and Margarete is our secondary attacker/healer. He goes down after a few minutes. - Mammon: Ahhhh the big old bug is back to torment our souls. Yuri switch to Baldo for healing, Halley use air edge on Malkovich and then spam Strong Earth/Healing when needed. Finally, Ms. Zelle goes full barrage on this abomination. Was kind of aggravated by that healing at the end but thankfully it was death a minute later (BTW, for those twelve or so dudes who played Koudelka, here's a nice callback to that game). - Calios Mental Hospital: Zhuzhen replaces Margo here (I must admit, later on after the whole breakdown I feel both could have switch places and things would have been partially better but not by a lot). Enemies here will destroy you if not careful (Dogs with hands as mouths and ladies with brains in a stick? Those are just for show, the giants bugs are the real deal -_-lll ). First problem here with the grinding: Those Monks Earrings just give a 20% boost in exp which is not a lot and people like Zhuzhen or Keith needs the levels more than anyone to stay relevant. Can you change it so those things give double exp or at least 50%? This would be the time where I would post about the next two bosses but I must stop there because there's a lot of BS in here: Raussan can be beaten with a lvl 60 team outside of the suggested party, but the last round agains Olga is straight up BS all the way until I left for my sanity: I went with the suggested level and it's pretty clear you didn't test this outside of going in with Yuri/Halley/Alice (or maybe you went in with a different level) because Zhuzhen lags behind too much and the boss gets a turn every two of mine, which wouldn't been so bad if this one wasnt a boss that has only a 25% chance of going against one person while the other 75% of the time will AoE everyone to death since Yuri cannot keep up with Grace, Halley is the only one that can do some damage in a reasonable timeframe (Corpse Arms does 250 - 270 per cast......to a boss which has at minimum more than 10000 hp) and Zhuzhen can help so much before getting nuked along the rest of the party. And no: If the answer for this is "Bring Alice or die" it's just plain and simple bad choice of your end since I wanna use every party member and the mod should not punish me because of it.

Yes, they do exist but I guess it must be the same case as with the advance version of FFVI: Not much changes but somehow the games is more broken

Let's see...I havent touch BOF2 in a while but I'm always up to a new mod. It reminds me of cosmic star heroine approach with items in battle. I like it since you have to actually use everything in your pockets to seal the deal Must ask: Can you recover LP? Even if the answer is no, I like the idea to actually know what guts do and plan ahead More details please? I know the original condition stat was there to fill space and maybe affects the ending? (don't really remember) Love the idea. The shaman system is one that I would like to play the most with since from BOF3 onwards the masters system was installed (and abused to no end) Sounds kind of complicated. What if everyone has access to 2-3 weapon types so everyone can excel at something while having secondary builds to fill holes in the active party These were needed regardless of all the above changes This is for the GBA version or the original SNES version?

Yuri is the Jack of all trades character here and I can accept him being good in a lot of things but the problem is that he's perfect: Even if Alice gets Arc later on I'm gonna make a wild guess and say Yuri will still trump her in the healing department (the daugther of a bishop who spend years in training got hee job robbed by her lover winging it). Margo is not in the same train since she got a suprisingly reliable instant kill and Keith has a hp absorb skill which thankfully Yuri doesnt hey access somehow. Can you change spells? There are single Target versions of the tier 2 spells Yuri use and would be nice to have a protagonist who doesnt invalidate all his companions

Sorry for the LONG wait, took a break since grinding takes a tool on your mind after a while. - Prague's Bathroom: Olga got her ass whopped really easy and the only notable thing about it is that even with a light weakness Alice manages to deal less damage than Yuri using his punches which is kinda sad since you can throw punches forever. - 2nd Tier fusion monsters: Went ahead and used every opposite level 1 fusion since this is the last time I'm using them. The AI is really dumb in these fight so unless you managed to change that this is just a formality (Charon boosted his special attack and decided to attack me physically next turn and died without tossing a spell) - Rouen: Decided to roll with Yuri/Zhuzhen/Keith since this game shoves Alice everywhere and it's nice to not just do that for once. Grinding is easy enough but there's a problem in terms of balance: Yuri and his lvl 2 fusions outright removes any reason to have Zhuzhen in the party at all (High damage, AoE spells, 36 mp per cast vs 55 with Zhuzhen best spell and worse of all, Yuri has access to all the elements which means he can snipe weaknesses). I always say this but let me say it again for enphasis: Shadow Hearts sucks at balancing things and the problem with this mod is that those problems become more pronounced earlier which is sad. - Olga Round 2: Decided to record this one because who knows if this is Zhuzhen's last time in the spotlight. Old Flash badges are here to save me some grinding time, Keith goes on the offensive dealing between 320 and 370 damage per turn (if I don't fail the ring), Yuri goes Baldo for healing and 350 - 400 hp damage with nova when he has the chance. Zhuzhen goes support since Corpse Arms does 260 damage with a perfect ring and I need to keep that gold hourglass mojo going. Gonna take a wild guess and say that the orphanage will crash me into another wall until some grinding is done.

After playing some more, I can say with confidence that early europe is not that bad....if you enjoy mindless grinding. - Prague & Bistritz first visit: The forced battle against two birdman is fine and once I got access to the next tier of healing items, spamming magic can be done with more freedom. Still your best bet is to GTFO of all random encounter until the next party member joins since this duo has 70/30 chance of getting killed by random dogs with human hands in their mouths and birds that thanks for reading their bestiary entry won't leave my nightmares (Shadow Hearts knows how to get you scared for sure). - Blue Castle: Same deal as before until Keith joins the party. He's a welcome addition because I feel more comfortable with his judgement ring, his spells are quite useful and since MP is not a problem with all the money you get tossed in your lap all the time I will drop Hecatoncheire like crazy. - Tindalos: Poor Kevin doesn't know how fusion works since being a putrid dog wouldn't be my first pick. Since he doesn't go for status effects, I was free to use coral/jade lariats which is nice because this one only think of doing a BBQ with your team and maybe use deathblow to take 75% of your health. Blood Sucker is amazing to avoid losing a turn while healing. - Blue Castle's eternal stairs: I just did some cardio here using the pedometer while climbing. Enemies were meh and I'm grateful for that. Farmed until lvl 40 but the boss at the end destroyed my team for a unknown reason (*cough*ZHUZHEN*cough*) so I went back and farmed until lvl 42. - Rude Hero: Went into the fight expecting high damage and he didn't disappoint: 450 - 500 to Keith and 360 - 400 to both Alice and Zhuzhen in the back row. Alice big flaw finally starts to appear: Outside of using Gospel and Holy edge, she's just a nuisance and with the new thera roots 300/360 hp healing you for a good chunk of your HP, she's just there filling space and I don't seeing her getting any better until lvl 70 (I would gladly gave up her resurrection spell for a more potent healing spell to keep up with the new damage flying around or maybe let her regain Advent earlier so she can at least do some damage). -Fox Face: It's more of a interactive story scene than a proper battle. Just make sure to keep your hp above 300 and you're golden They would add something to the gameplay if some of them weren't just outright useless since the risk/reward ratio is not worth it (Monkey Paw is rather crummy for what it offers with things like the mind's eye existing , Dice of Caesar has the chance of give a boost to the healer/support and not the your DPS machine and the bronze Arrow/Dagger are superfluous when their party wide equivalent are available rather soon and you won't need them before that). I would fill chests with those items with seals since after lvl 80 and forward everyone's growths slows down and you will start using those items to bring everyone up to date (Zhuzhen is the only reason I grind all the time: his agility sucks balls and him getting left in the dust is quite aggravating). This is the understatement of the century: FFX has his moments but this one has been one hell of a ride all the way until now and the gameplay is the only drawback and not by much really

I actually support you in this decision if only because agility is one if not the most important stat in this game: Being able to reduce grinding time is quite amazing since most people don't have time or patience to grind like crazy to the level marks you gave there (I still have shivers remembering the time lost in the sewers). @zedorfed66 you REALLY need to pull out a changelog about this stuff since it´s kind of important. And in the topic of spells I can already tell this is going to bite some characters in their ass in the midgame: Alice is fine since now Gospel is arguably the best buff in the game prior to the final fusion and Margo can actually put to use Snipe against mobs since their stats can justify killing them fast before being horribly killed by them. Zhuzhen however will arguably sucks even more here than vanilla because his spells are more focused on crowd control and his other half of spells are locked until the endgame (Fury serpent at lvl 62.....after the mental hospital. To make it worse he's locked with some of the worst spells since they don't scale in damage while Halley has access to all his stuff as soon as he joins and only needs to unlock his top nuke spells at endgame which is more appropriated), Nourishing Potion won't be replacing any healer soon with that MP cost and Scirocco Blast is nice but not enough to save him from the bench. I suggest to reschedule his spells to get them early since NOBODY will use him at the final boss (or bonus dungeons) so might as well make him useful before that. I know your sentiment but the original is not exactly the best in a lot of things (Like the 324 items to affect the judgement ring with the same use between them. The second game remove those for a reason) and enhancing that experience could potentially bring back this game to the highlights (I'm really amazed this game bombed like it did: FFX was great but this one is on par with it and I LOVE FFX). Hell, if you need help I would like to help you with this. Leaving this aside, back to the gameplay I finally finish the Asia Section of the game - Kuihai Tower: Get ready to spend a LONG time here since getting to lvl 38 (I didn't) is quite a slog since the enemies are a threat but you can just buy 99 Thera/Mana seeds and 99 tents since you will have money to throw everywhere at this point. Excellent place to use the pedometer and unlock even the 5000 steps price - Dehuai: This fight was a warm up for what it comes: Flash badges ensure the little sage cannot outpace me but still I need to be on the ball since two AoE spells will kill the team. Offensive wise just use Inferno with aqua edge since Margo's damage is lacking and you won't get Bazooka until later - Yamahara Calamity: NOW this is a quite enjoyable challenge worth of an end boss: This pal over here is sporting around 7000 hp which means you will be stuck with him for a LOOOOONG time (32 minutes in my case) full of nerve-wrecking decisions. Here's how it went down: - Everyone's in the back row since going Leroy Jenkins will get you killed fast. - Yuri with Heaven's Fiend is a must, no questions asked. - Between Margo and Alice just pick the latter since even if Margo make things go faster, you need to survive multiple AoE attacks and Gospel can help you mitigate a good chunk of damage and even let you go full offensive in a turn. - Protect against Silence and Petrification ASAP. After all that, the game strategy was as follow: The first half of the battle I used a hourglass with Yuri and after that Zhuzhen was designated as the time master lobbing those without fail since missing a sacred remedy can cost you the whole thing, Alice went ahead and used Gospel on Zhuzhen and herself in that order to make sure both are always under it's effects (-30% physical and magic damage is quite amazing and the judgement ring for it is one of the most easy in the game). After all that, it's up to Yamaraha to decide how I will proceed: If he uses Crimson Flame or Shockwave Yuri will pop a sacred remedy and Zhuzhen will toss a life sucker and if he blow someone with a physical combo or petrification Yuri will go with Exorcist arrow followed by Zhuzhen. Alice in the meantime before Gospel runs out will toss seeds like candy since you wanna avoid getting low on SP later in the fight since once he's down to 50% hp he will spam AoE like crazy and you won't be able to hold the fortress so better be prepared beforehand and heal MP/SP when it hits the half mark. And with this, we're in Europe baby. More later

Flash Badge + Iron Clogs: +5-7 levels worth of agility to that character (+10 -12 without Iron Clogs and Golden hourglasses) and Zhuzhen can spam Corpse Arms and proc paralysis on critical rings (can be done with a coral larial) and those inmune to that can be done with relative ease using Life sucker. Margarete went full 360 no scoope with the above combo and that's all. Other notes: - Zhuzhen didnt learn Fire serpent at lvl 32 and Margo didnt grab On Switch at lvl 28. I guess You must reach europe to have those. - Poor tornado doesnt have any reason to be used at all: Most earth enemies can be killed fast or Margarete can snipe them to death - I like how acupuncture is pretty much needed to keep up with the damage race...which is why I hate how generic most ítems are (the last interesting weapon was margo's type 94 with the confuse proc). All of these brings the next question: Can you edit things outside of enemy stats?

Here with some more input (and a nice treat): - Shanghai's pit fights - I feel these were left untouched since I didn't need to redo anything at all which is kind of underwhelming but the other option is to fight against turbo jacket enemies and with this setup the other two party members have an actual chance of beating the whole thing - Kowloon's - My god this place was quite the spooky thing with the setting looking like an old horror movie and enemies that will whoop the crap out of you if not at full hp. Margo learns Snipe on the way up to the boss and that skill straight up makes her a keeper for the rest of the game since being able to delete someone without suffering a lot (most single enemies here had around 1000 hp which takes 4-5 turns to deplete taking healing into account) is golden and the new economy means she will spam that rifle until I get something better. - Wugui - The fight was intense and I finally put my brain to work and setup fraps so here you have it: Since this knucklefuck can absorb even Snipe (IDK why since that move is non elemental and you know, a bullet to the face) Margo went full DPS on the stretchy Man while Yuri fused into Heaven's Fiend to support the team (with wall of resistance pto ensure he survives two nightmares at 300 hp minimum). Zhuzhen went ahead and played support here since he's kind of useless without offensive magic. The frames dropped at a point and I missed two input which was almost lethal but I took the win there.

Why? I mean I don't even know who are you and you joined in april

I can accept this on enemies since it means you have to be on your toes all the time or you will get wipe out. However when bosses get two turns...Let me first post the whole ordeal until finish off Wugui in the Ancient Temple and you will understand: - Shanghai 1st visit & Zhuzhen Solo adventure: I had to redo the whole Dalian act since I needed some levels on Yuri of all people (lvl 14 Zhuzhen can survive two water blasts from the kappas if he manages to reach 50 S.Def with accessories and equipment). Lvl 18 for Yuri/Margarete and 17 for Zhuzhen and Alice after redo the whole fiasco with the squid lady. The kappas could potentially two turn Zhuzhen but I can accept this since only attacking when he's on full hp it's the way to go. Wugui pulled off a trap card and send the old man to the shadow realm. -Wugui 1 vs 1: Unlike his father, Yuri had to grab a Flash Badge from the Silent Peddler back in Dalian since Wugui would otherwise double turn his ass every now and then and two 3-hit comboes from the stretchy man means death so playing defensively while Inferno punch him into a paste was the call here. - Temple Ruins - First Trial: Went ahead and fully upgrade Yuri & Margarete's weapons since I know the straight up bullshit this dungeon brings. Yuri & Zhuzhen's adventures were quite fun if only because Man dragon straight up wash the floor with the pythons here. However Zhuzhen almost catch up with Yuri in terms of levels because it seems the enemy AI has a weird predilection for the first slot (Yuri) and he was death before Zhuzhen could cast the last spell to end the battle. - Temple Ruins - Second Trial: Margo carried the "team" so hard it hurts. I hope the ones responsible for this dungeon die in a fire while their ability to open doors are disable inside a building. Temple Ruins - Last Trial: Just fight off two random battles since I was really tired of this horrible dungeon and the bosses were honestly the easy part (EXCEPT FOR ONE DETAIL). - Xieshi, Baigu & Qinngu: These three are fairly challenging (lvl 20 before doing every single one of these) and I actually would have enjoyed the deal...If they didn't get two consecutive turns every three turns and decided that it was fair to spam their AoE spell to murder the party for shit and giggles. The only who didn't pull that off was Quinngu and only because I decided to screw the system and equip Flash Badges on Yuri & Zhuzhen. - Yamaraha War: This guy was acceptable since once again Flash Badges save the day. Zhuzhen was up to use gold hourglasses and support, Margarete and Yuri went full physical on the dude while occasionally healing anyone below 120 hp. EDIT: Since I'm reaching out the climax of the first half I must ask: At which level do you suggest tackling the pit fights?

@zedorfed66 quick question: Can you use this mod with a undub version of the game?

Thanks, I will keep this in mind when I get to farm for levels and such. There are two problems I've found so far in all locations: The agility stat: Enemies are dangerous enough with their new damage output and endurance, let alone the fact that now I can't even get a full round of turns with my team because some enemies gets turns in between my actions which irks me to no end (Zhuzhen for example, has really low agility and thus gets his turn way too late most of the time). I think you can dial down the agility and up the enemy's hp in order to ensure that the player can properly fight against the monsters and further remove the player's ability to erase the enemies in one round. EXP vs effort ratio: The three Kappa Gods in Dalian give 300 exp per fight and you will suffer a lot more with them than the three blue frogs which gives 270 exp per fight. In the end I just save stated and only engaged those frogs since they are easier to deal with and the kappas are jerks in general. Bump their exp from 100 to 160 per kill to ensure the player get an proper reward for dealing with them while farming. Back to the game: - Smuggler's Boat: I didn't remove Zhuzhen's accessories so I went ahead and just used two rosewood bracelets against Li Li. The fire wisps or whatever the hell they're called were quite the pain in the ass for the first reason explain above: If a party member dies in the middle of the fight you cannot get back up because you will get torched to death before everyone's get on top form. You could argue that I'm just behind in levels but the thing is... I won't spend around half an hour fighting the same two enemies formations to met the required level since it just the agility that causing problems not their damage or their hp. - Li Li's back-to-back: First form has 900 hp (+400 compare to vanilla). I took my time farming to lvl 16 (Yuri/Margarete) and lvl 15 for Alice to these fights while also getting enough fire souls to unlock Inferno. Everyone on the back row, Yuri went Heaven's fiend and spammed Exorcist Arrow and occasionally Sacred Remedy when Li Li got two turns. Alice was my secondary damage dealer and backup healer and Margarete just did her best to top everyone's HP/MP to ensure I ended the fight in good shape. Second form has 1100 hp (+400 to vanilla). Same tactics except I needed two turns to heal everyone's HP/MP and SP when half way though the deal. She got a turn every two of mine which means being alive was my priority and damage was secondary until sanity was dropping low. I enyoyed this for all that is worth.

More feedback: - Sewers: Once again I rush the whole place to avoid getting rekt before Margarete. Tested the boss and I found lvl 13 for everyone to be the rule. Shot out for the 3 bats and 2 spiders enemy formation which can AND will destroy everyone not named Yuri if three or four enemies focus their efforts on someone (which is actually prone to happen since the AI seems competent enough to target someone's near death) and you cannot get rid of the real threats (bats) in one turn which means you will eat SIX fireballs before killing one until Blessed Light is a thing (Alice lvl 11 BTW). Margarete's Grenade can 2HKO them along the spiders but one must pray for them to ignored her weakness against said fireballs. The blue and green frogs are hard but since they come three at max even if they kill someone you can recover from that. Farmed frogs for Man eater's fusion in hopes that it means something against the next boss (spoilers: It wasn't worth the effort). Red and Blue kappas: This trio was actually quite funny since the lackeys were quite resilient with their healing spell and if you're feeling feisty, you can use death emperor and drain their mp to avoid said tactics. I like this one if only because there are options - Beast Dog: lvl 13 in tow, I went offensive with Man eater casting his water spell while the girls support the fish man and got myself killed since the water fusions kind of sucks in general in the entire trilogy. Next try I went ranging tiger with aqua edge and everything went smooth since the mutt didn't two turn to spam his fire breath with the new levels I got. - Dalian: The blue frogs are back in packs of three and with their light affinity it means it's time to farm for heaven's fiend which is really easy with both Margarete and Zhuzhen using their AoE spells to clean house. The Yellow kappas were completely avoided since even at lvl 14 the assholes would normally stomp even Yuri and you need to endure six of their attacks before you can take them out. However I do admit I didn't try using heaven's fiend since I went directly to fight the boss after getting it (not much to say about fusion fights) so I'm gonna test them later. Yamaraha-Earth at lvl 14: Surprisingly enough, the problem wasn't survive the strange thing even with it getting two turns since everyone could survive a double shockwave or one shockwave and one cast of flying stones. but physicals are quite dangerous if only because they are RNG dependent in terms of how much hits you will get. The real issue is that the goddamn asshole avoided SIXTEEN spells (4 from Margarete and 12 from Zhuzhen) it doesn't help that the darn thing refuses to die (I counted the damage I deal and it went well over 1000 hp). Really, it would be nice to know at the very least which are the levels you expect someone to reach these bosses since me testing out per level is dragging me down EDIT: 2nd attempt was a success and the only real change was that he decided to avoid two grenades and three ogre flamedances instead of half of them. Went ahead and use my calculator and the final result was 1432 which means that thing has 1400 hp (+600 compared to his vanilla self). I can foreseen in the future that heaven's fiend will be my go to fusion until basically endgame because AoE healing is a must most of the time. This also make Alice irrelevant in most bosses since single target healing is not very appealing with a lot of money to toss in thera/mana leafs and her sanity is basically the worst (which is a problem with longer bosses).

Don't worry about me getting loud with your mod: It means you're doing something amazing but that needs tweaks here and there since otherwise I would just ignore the whole deal altogether Now with my replies: - Train: I was speaking of their wind move that they spammed the very first time I played the mod until I was right back ay the start screen. It was kind of unfortunate - Plains: Went back and you're right on that front. That place is still awful since Alice needs to get lucky to not get targeted by two foes and the enemies comes in packs of 2-3 - Zhaoyang: I'm okay with all that is there. If is not too much to ask: You don't have anything like a readme or at least a short list with suggestions about which level You should reach a boss/dungeon?

I'm not worried: Even if this takes until December next year it will be worth the wait. @BTB and @Synchysi are doing god's deed along several people and good content takes time

It has been almost two months since I dared to play this (and get frustrated at the balance) so this time, I will play the entire deal if only because I really want a mod that offers a fair challenge without devolving into mindless grinding or cheap bosses: Train: The Wind shears can actually live up to their names and tear you apart if you're so unlucky to get four of those in the face, besides that everything's ok until Bacon blows the duo to... The Plains: And this is where everything goes down the drain. Alice will get her ass KO by virtually any enemy that decides to do multiple hits almost all the time until she hits lvl 3. Yuri can ORKO bats and spiders while the wolfs are 2RKO all the time you spend here grinding but since you're grinding mostly because of Alice so better pray she gets lucky on these fights. I suggest reduce the local fauna's attack since the only concern is that the RNG decides to be a dick and send two enemies against Ms.Elliot. Once both reach lvl 5, Yuri gets bodied by Fox Face and fight Ranging Tiger in the graveyard which was actually fun. Zhaoyang Village: after the scenes, we get to experience a problem with the enemies: These formations expect you to have Zhuzhen in the team, so better get cracking and get him since otherwise Alice with eat dirt and Yuri will follow suit since he gets locked in a healing cycle. Once the old man is with you the next section is rather tame since ogre flame-dance will trounce everything and with the new economy you can actually spam that like it's nothing. Poison and Confuse are status effects you will see here and I feel poison could be boost to actually matter since 1-3 hp per turn is kind of hilarious. The status protection gear in the shop could also have their price lowered since wasting almost 3000 per item is kind of impossible to think off when you have to worry about your supplies. Hell Cats: I think you forgot to buff them since they only took two casts of Flying Stones to end the battle. Felinus: OMG this thing needs more testing and not because her damage input but because of her dumb agility: Is quite possible to have the darn cat two turn you and toss two wind slash to kill both Alice and Zhuzhen and probably leave Yuri on death's door. Tornado was quite amazing since it means Yuri could tank three turns before healing was in dire need. I went lvl 8 here. Yamaraha Earth: After the cat everyone reach lvl 9 and Zhuzhen learned Fire Edge which was used against this boss. This one actually feels more fair since he does give you breath room to get yourself up and do some damage unlike that demon cat and while he can two turn you every now and then, since the second one is a physical attack it will only down one party member. More of this later but right now things are looking grim for my sanity

Will be finished someday?

I saw the whole thing and I don't think the problem is the barrier. Your team was constantly getting wipe out because several status effect keep landing on them, maybe you should use some protection against Sleep/Old/Paralysis? Or just change the difficulty to 2 since there's nothing wrong with that? I mean, the main reason why I would choose 1 is for bosses but for random encounters? Nah

Came back after playing a bit. @zedorfed66 you should really nerf/balance the enemy output: - In the prologue Yuri got straight out nuke by two imps using wind shear. Had to reset and try again and luckily one decided to attack - There's no reason to use regular Yuri since Death Emperor grants stats upon activation and sometimes you need them WAY TOO MUCH to 2 turns KO enemies rather than 3 turns them (something important since once Alice becomes part of the team, her ass will get whopped by virtually anything) - Since agility is also up the charts, sometimes I found everyone and my grandma killing Alice before even getting Yuri to act. That's outright BS - The fight against Rage Tiger last long enough to lose control of Yuri if you dare to use Death Emperor to reduce/inflict more damage, meaning you can lose against what I see as a tutorial battle For real, unless you expect me to grind to like lvl 5/6 in the plains the game feels really unfair EDIT: Items can get you so far since I check and yeah, they can be bought in the next location but at the same time, I expend way more that I win per battle, so I'm not sure this will pan out very well

Well then, I'm gonna treat myself with this on the weekend (I got excited from this whole series after reading The Dark Id's kouldelka LP, which I appreciated since I'm not touching that game any day soon...)

Hello once again @zedorfed66 , I just wanted to ask: Would be any issues if I played your mod as first playthrough? I just download the game and I have never touched any game of the Shadow Hearts trilogy (just heard/saw gameplay and after touching Kouldelka's....interesting mechanics I just gave up on the series).

Koudelka is a hot mess of a game in terms of....everything If you manage to make it work (especially if you remove the idiotic RNG) I will make you an altar

use the psx version: it's the most complete one and it would be easier to fix.