Shining Force mods?

[Coriolanus]

Anyone tried Brothers? The "Challenge" mod? Any others?

I'm a few missions into the game - enjoying it. However reading reviews, forum posts and such most people
complain it becomes way too easy later on. How do mods rectify that? Worth installing or buggy/lame?

I'm hesitant to try the GBA version as apparently it adds way too much imbalanced stuff.

 

[Stabwound]

Shining Force is, by design, an easy game. There isn't much strategy to it, and you can grind as much as you want. Still, fun games, though. I'm guessing any of the mods just add hp bloat or stunt the characters so that you just have to grind more.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I dunno, you could make a pretty decent mod just by changing the enemy spawns. Enemy spellcasters/archers can fuck you up real quick, they just almost never show up in the base game, or are in positions that make them useless.

It'd still be fairly easy (especially if you abuse the promotion system like most people insist on doing) but it'd be a lot more difficult and interesting than the usual steamroller play.

It'd also help if they gimped a few key broken ass heroes.

 

[Coriolanus]

Shining Force is, by design, an easy game. There isn't much strategy to it, and you can grind as much as you want. Still, fun games, though. I'm guessing any of the mods just add hp bloat or stunt the characters so that you just have to grind more.

There's a mod to SF2 that *apparently* eliminates grinding, though (no random encounters, no going back to play the same stage again), while also raising difficulty. I haven't played it myself to judge - http://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?t=10978&start=0

I'm pleasantly surprised this game has so many mods, many of them advertised as "challenge mode". Again, that's why I come to the KKKodex experts, to show me the true incline ones - if there are any.

 

[TigerKnee]

I didn't even realize there were Shining Force mods. Many FE ones but SF slips my mind... I would actually like some information on whether any SF mods are worth playing.

 

[eric__s]

I don't know the name of it, but I played some mod a long time ago that gave everyone in the game spells and rebalanced enemies and it sucked really hard. I don't remember much about it but almost everyone had spells, like Gyan had boost and Chester had blaze. It was really stupid. That seems to be the general theme of the Shining Force mods I've seen so far, although there was one that gives you every single character at the beginning of the game for solo runs, which might be your thing.

Man, shiningforcecentral was the first website I ever joined. I was like 11 or 12 and it was take your kids to work day. I don't even think we had the internet at home yet. I remember a couple years ago they got this big petition together, Save Shining Force or something, and they created this huge gift pack full of Shining Force artwork and videos and music they made. They sent it to the lead developer of Shining Force hoping it would show how much people love the old games, but he got it on April Fool's Day and thought it was a joke, so he vowed never to make an old-style Shining Force game again. It's sad, I guess, but it's also the funniest thing ever.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I just found out about Shining Force series mods.

Probably going to try a SF2 mod which seems to change about everything : Battle Royale for SF2

https://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20170

There's also a New character + visual improvements for SF1 (two mods merged) :

http://sfmods.com/resources/shining-force-graphic-upgrade-brothers-mod-merged-patch.17/

And an AI improvement + hard mode for SF1

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShiningForce/comments/4io2hu/shining_force_1_all_chars_hard_mode_ai/

Not sure the later is needed though, just don't grind levels and it's hard enough or send small squads to deal with strong enemy's packs, there's a lot of ways to make the game harder with little imagination.
I remember, years and years ago, seems like a century already, i played a map with just Domingo, as he's overpowered but he had no support so he had to use his limited items to heal and this flying mage egg powerhouse made it, well, i had to be careful and plan every move.
Other times, in city battles in SF2, i sent small squads to flank enemies in narrow streets but it's no strategy game, it's a tactical RPG so it failed and i had to fight for my life.

 

[aweigh]

Shining Force 3 got translated into english, btw, so when you're done with SF1 and SF2 be sure to check out SF3 which is divided into 3 discs, each one is a full campaign but each disc tells the story from a different perspective/protagonist.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I don't know the name of it, but I played some mod a long time ago that gave everyone in the game spells and rebalanced enemies and it sucked really hard. I don't remember much about it but almost everyone had spells, like Gyan had boost and Chester had blaze. It was really stupid. That seems to be the general theme of the Shining Force mods I've seen so far, although there was one that gives you every single character at the beginning of the game for solo runs, which might be your thing.

Man, shiningforcecentral was the first website I ever joined. I was like 11 or 12 and it was take your kids to work day. I don't even think we had the internet at home yet. I remember a couple years ago they got this big petition together, Save Shining Force or something, and they created this huge gift pack full of Shining Force artwork and videos and music they made. They sent it to the lead developer of Shining Force hoping it would show how much people love the old games, but he got it on April Fool's Day and thought it was a joke, so he vowed never to make an old-style Shining Force game again. It's sad, I guess, but it's also the funniest thing ever.

You have to be shitting me...maybe someone should let him know. Haha.

 

[aweigh]

that sounds fake, and also Japan celebrates april fools on a different day.

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE

 

[Darth Canoli]

I think the story about sending a fan made pack is true, there's something about it in shining force central but the devs just moved on and don't care, besides, they probably don't own the franchise.

By the way, there's a fan made Shining Force T-RPG in development (10 years already and it's alive), a second demo was released earlier this year, i think, it's free.

Legacies of Leridocia, didn't try it yet, just downloaded it yesterday.

About the Shining Force mods.

Tried Battle Royal for 5 minutes and realized not only you start with every single character but there is no exploration, that's a bummer for me, i really enjoyed hunting for promotion items and hidden characters, will try the rest, i'm thinking about starting with a light mod and mod it for my taste, if it's not too demanding, maybe even distribute it if the original author agrees.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I can confirm the story of the fan pack (the campaign was called Shining Force SOS) as true but I am not sure about the April Fools thing. I think there was more going on in the background, such as Japanese devs of the new crappy Shining games feeling insulted by outpour of criticism (and love declarations for the old style games). I think Moogie (the admin of the Shining Force Central) also got in a twitter clash with one of the newer devs? And there was also something about an earthquake. It was pretty disappointing seeing all that love and effort going into that pack to basically no reaction. Its all too long ago to really remember now and I don't really care anymore. Old Shining is dead. Wake me up if Camelot ever plans to make a new one.

On the question of the OP, I've been watching a dude play a SF2 mod called Shining Tactics on twitch lately and the mod completely changes weapons, character classes, spells, even sprites. It also makes the game way harder and has the streamer play really carefully. Gold is sparse, so you don't want your guys to die. Maybe you wanna check that one out.

 

[Darth Canoli]

https://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=26705

Return to Grans Mod (link above )

Spoiler

IN A NUTSHELL

Return to Grans is a more challenging version of the original game, which also features a better narrative as well as improved visuals.

- Dialogues in the game have been vastly reworked - about 40% of all text passages have been altered, replacing the oftentimes bland writing of the original.
- Many of the less appealing graphics in vanilla SF2 have been improved/replaced, such as the battle sprites of the Vicars or the Archers.
- Difficulty and balance have been reworked by tweaking enemies' stats, skills and numbers on the battlefield. Battles will usually appear familiar due to mostly the same enemies and setups, but will often play out quite differently thanks to new abilities, magic spells and some surprises.

Gameplay-wise, the hack will require you to play more tactical; careful positioning and a well-thought-out composition of your party are far more important than in the original game.


This hack comes in two flavors:

SF2 - Return to Grans is the complete version, as described above.

SF2 - Retold features only the improved dialogues and visuals, while the gameplay remains untouched, i.e. you will be playing original Shining Force 2 with all its flaws, but it will look prettier.

That's the one i found to be more to my liking and tried, didn't go through the game, tough, just tried it for a bit, for now (until the Kraken )
Well, it balanced a bit some weak characters and some more modifications were added recently so if you want to replay SF2 while not changing everything, it's probably the way to go, i always try to add the "turtle" to my party and this mod makes it easier to use pre-promotion (afterward, in the vanilla game, it's a real beast for a while )
Looks like slade is weaker (less defense), though, that's annoying because it's also one of my favorites.

There is a list of mods here (Not up to date as Return to Grans isn't there ) : https://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13147