I started a run of the classic game of Shining Force II playing it like it was a Fire Emblem game. The idea is that every time a player dies he stays dead the entire game and you cannot revive them like you normally can in a regular Shining Force II game. So I am going to do this run through and keep track of it here on this topic if anyone would like to listen.
And if you wanna make it competitive I suppose we could make up a scoring system. That’s just an idea though.
I currently finished the first chapter and that's first 4 battles but I will post that info in a little bit.
<p>From: Princess Anri | #003 eaedwards6400 posted... I currently finished the first chapter and that's first 4 battles but I will post that info in a little bit. SFII doesn't even have chapters!
Good luck though. This game is a bit tougher than the first.
Which difficulty?</p> lol. I just copied my opening from SFI's FE Run.
Me and Ark talked and we thought Hard would make it hard enough without making it unplayable.
<p>From: masterplum | #004 Which shining force was the game gear one?</p> The game gear one is Shining Force Gaiden 2. Which is one half of Shining Force CD. One of my favorites.
Bowie deaths count as a game over. Reset from your last save point. Egresses are allowed but anyone who dies is dead. And that is the same rules with all characters and we decided on Hard so that it will be tough be not unplayable.
From: SythaWarrior | #011 Predicting that Kiwi, Kazin and Slade are early deaths.
On battle #11, and my Kiwi/Kazin/Slade is doing just fine!
Same can't be said for May, who died quickly after joining in battle #10 (aka: The power ring stage, or that second filler stage). I was playing too aggressively, trying to kill things before AI Peter had a chance to. I ended up getting careless, and getting blindsided by two bats flying in from opposite sides of the map. The first one hit a Blaze 2 on May and Slade. I was able to get Slade an herb in time, but the next move was a bat flying in to finish May off.
Dead List: May. Not AI Peter, despite deciding that AI Peter deaths wouldn't count. Please die next time.
Oh, and I'm playing with no Egresses outside of random encounters.
Kraken Battle will be when you find out if you can really finish this run or not. Even with my experience with the game I still struggle to get through that one without a few deaths.
I've never really had trouble with the Kraken before. Good chance I take a death or two, but I don't think it will be a game ender (I hope I didn't just jinx myself!).
I've never really had trouble with the Kraken before. Good chance I take a death or two, but I don't think it will be a game ender (I hope I didn't just jinx myself!).
The Chess battle, on the other hand...
Oh, thats the absolute worst battle... I think the best I've ever done is have like 4 characters die. Sometimes I only have a few left. Kraken is just a warm up for that one.
Yeah. I've found out recently that if you just wait at the bottom of the screen, the enemy soldiers will come to you (very slowly) in groups of 3 or so. Going to try that for the first time this run. Hope it works.
Anyway, beat battle 11/12, no additional deaths. Finally free of the scourge that is AI Peter. Final stats: Level 15 (my other characters are between level 12 and 13), 11 Kills, Two 1 EXP kills, no deaths. Now time for him to be an MVP rather than an active hindrance!
I said doing Kraken as battle 15 would be silly, but the more I think about it, the more I want to do it. Doing the battle without Peter and Luke would be a huge problem, I simply don't have a strategy for that situation. It isn't likely that I'd lose both of them if I waited until the last minute, but the Arrow Launchers in the wooden panel battle hit them really hard, and the Gargoyles can be a threat. Having upgraded weapons for that fight would be nice, too.
So, the Kraken. Huge threat, deadly boss... Easiest fight in the game? Used the power ring on Peter, had him fly out, and do 19 damage (he had 35 HP) in a single attack. I positioned Bowie so that the Kraken would charge in with his bubble attack, he took the bait, and I swarmed on him with the rest of my characters. Seafood soup. I guess I should have killed more than one tentacle, but I didn't want to take the risk of any of them landing a lucky crit/double attack, especially after what happened in battle 13 (the Bedoe battle). RIP Kazin, dead to a Master Monk critical hit which did 22 HP damage. Kazin had 22 out of 23 HP at the time. Yeah, that hurt. He'll be replaced by Tyrin (Karna's the better tactical choice, but she's boring and overpowered, and this is a challenge playthrough =).
Onto battle 16, where I'll get the Achilles Sword, and a power potion. Not sure who I'll use that on, maybe Elric when he shows up. Other stat up potions have been used on Bowie (the first power potion), and Sarah (all the other ones. I kinda want to keep her alive.)
<p>From: TheArkOfTurus | #021 Kazin had 22 out of 23 HP at the time. Yeah, that hurt. He'll be replaced by Tyrin (Karna's the better tactical choice, but she's boring and overpowered, and this is a challenge playthrough =).</p>
Wow, that's a tragic way for Kazin to go.
And I fully agree with taking Tyrin, especially with Kazin gone. Tyrin is a much better Wizard anyway. And since I prefer Wizards to Sorcerers (and promoting Kazin to Wizard or Tyrin to Sorcerer is silly), Tyrin's the man!
Chaz and Taya suck. Pre-promoted characters in SFII are just so lame.
And you're right. Karna is so overpowered that it would take away a lot of the challenge.
-- Congratulations to Rafael Nadal on a Career Golden Slam. - The Mana Sword
I think I'm going to go Sorcerer with Tyrin, actually. I mean, once Wizard Tyrin gets Bolt 2 and Freeze 4 he's better than Sorcerer Tyrin, but he just takes too long to get going. Sorcerer Tyrin will have great damage as soon as I get him, and steadily improve. Obviously if you're using both Kazin and Tyrin you have Kazin be the sorcerer, but I don't have that luxury any more =(.
And yeah, ShF2 prepromos are pretty lame. I like Jaro, Lemon, and Zynk, Frayja is extremely good (if still lame), and Sheela can be useful if you don't have Karna (Boost 2 is overpowered), but the rest just seem pointless, even as someone who always promotes at 20.
The prepromotes can be pretty good if you're playing the hacked version that lets you get all the members from the beginning of the game... IIRC Jaro actually turns out to be the best knight that way.
<p>From: TheArkOfTurus | #018 Yeah. I've found out recently that if you just wait at the bottom of the screen, the enemy soldiers will come to you (very slowly) in groups of 3 or so. Going to try that for the first time this run. Hope it works.</p> It does. The challenge is when the rooks come to not get too far out front to hit them. The cutoff is the middle of the board. Once you cross that all bets are off. If you stay behind that you can pretty much take on 2-3 at a time.
Doesn't make it easy, but definitely easier than going after the king straight up while they have 12 characters swarmed around him.
-- Through concentration, I can raise and lower my cholesterol at will. - Dwight K. Schrute
Okay time for me to weigh in on how my run is going.
I just beat battle 11, the Hobgoblins den.
I have been dominant until this point but the darkness got the best of me and I couldn't see the Hobgoblin made it all the way to May without me being able to tell and unfortunately AI Peter hasn't died!
So after that fight. The Force: Bowie Lvl: 11 Sarah Lvl: 11 Chester Lvl: 12 Jaha Lvl: 12 Kazin Lvl: 11 Slade Lvl: 12 Kiwi Lvl: 13 Petert Lvl: 10 The Dead: May Lvl: 11
I beat battles 12 and 13 without issue. Had a couple scary moments where I left Kiwi too close to a mage and got hit by a blaze 2 and had 1 UP left.
Up next was the battle against the Kracken. Now normally with my experience this is one of the toughest battles. What I did this time was sent the entire.crew up close to the Kracken. Idk what it was but that dude wanted Slade dead. I had Kiwi, Sarah, and Kazin all in the area but he only charged slade. Well that was his demise. Because I gave Luke the Long Sword and Power Ring so him Chester and peter went to town and to add insult to injury I let Sarah finish him with Blast!
So through the Kracken battle: The Force: Bowie Lvl: 12 Sarah Lvl: 13 Chester Lvl: 14 Jaha Lvl: 13 Kazin Lvl: 14 Slade Lvl: 15 Kiwi Lvl: 16 Petert Lvl: 13 Luke Lvl: 14
Made it past the desktop kingdom. The chess battle started out pretty well. Hanging in the back was working perfectly until a pawn and two bishops came charging in. They all got turns in a row, and attacked the same character, one using blast, the other two physically attacking. That character?
Peter =(. Almost enough to make me want to change my stance on Peter/Lemon mortality, but I'm going to stick with what I planned at the start. I guess I'll say that he hurt his wing really badly this time. Kiwi was also killed. I was to preoccupied with attacking the King/healing to notice that he was in position to get a blaze 2 off on him. It did 10 damage, Kiwi had 10/13 HP. Probably should have topped him off! Don't think he would have survived through all the fire gargoyles anyway, not exactly a big loss. At least I only lost two characters to the chess battle. Could have been much worse.
The Willard came close to killing Gerhalt (would have been a gigantic loss, since he's the only great power ring boost target I have left, and I won't be getting another one until Zynk.) Gerhalt took one hit from him, and looked to be able to survive another without a problem. I was in ultra-cautious mode after the last battle, so I used a healing drop on him anyway. The Willard's next attack was a double hit. Bullet dodged.
Heading to North Parmecia now. If I can make it through the next battle without losing another character, I'll have a full team for the first time! Just a shame it'll be a team without Peter.
Yeah. Doubt I'll be using him much, unless disaster strikes. I'll be using Jaro (who's potential AI death I'm not going to count, either. Might as well be considered unrecruitable if I did.), but Screech joins at around the same time as a bunch of other, better characters, and tends to be OHKO bait anyway. Two battles maximum before I drop him for Jaro and/or Frayja, unless I have a string of battles go badly.
Beat battles 24, 25, and 26 with no problem, to have a force of 13 living members. Janet's the first character to hit the bench, she was level 7, and got about 2 attack gains. Was a bit concerned about the next stretch of battles. I remembered the worm bridge and Zalbard being pretty tough. Naturally, it was the battle between the two that caused my next death. It was going just fine until the end, when the boss knight decided to attack. His target? Slade. No big deal, Slade wasn't that weak, was at full health, and had the protect ring equipped. The knight did 21 damage, Slade had 43 HP, no big deal. Oh, he double attacked. Oh, his second attack did 22 damage this time. Oh. Oh. RIP Slade. An underleveled, low strength Janet goes back into the party for Zalbard.
Luckily, I managed to get past my first Greater Devil without much hassle. Zalbard was my toughest fight in Obob's challenge hack, but he wasn't that bad here. Power ring boosted Gerhalt did a ton of damage, and I was able to box him in to prevent him from getting to any of my weaker members. He went down pretty quickly, and I got two new members (too bad the two of them together aren't as valuable as one Slade.) Taya goes in for Janet, Skreech stays on the bench. On to battle #31, the one in Palacon.
The Force
Bowie: 20/11 Chester: 20/10 (To be benched for Jaro, hopefully) Sarah: 20/13 Jaha: 20/11 Gerhalt: 21/11 Luke: 20/11 Rhode: ?/11 Rick: 20/11 Elric: 22/11 Tyrin: 24/12 Higins: ?/11 (To be benched for Frayja, hopefully) Taya: ?/11 (Will probably be OHKOed at some point)
So I did all the way to the desktop kingdom. During my last battle my party got a little beat up and I got double attacked by a Skeleton and killed Gerhault.
I lost Luke in the Taros battle using him to distract Taros from Bowie... Apparently Birds don't like lightning.
Oh and I went ahead and promoted Sarah to a Master Monk and Jaha turned into a Baron and Kazin turned into a Sorcerer.
I hope the desktop kingdom isn't that bad. Also if anyone wants give input I need help deciding on who to take after all the desktop stuff. I always lean Karna just because she learns Aura but I'm willing to take suggestions.
Ouch =(. Did you give him the running pimento? Karna's the obvious choice for every situation (the boost spell is especially helpful in a run like this), and should be your pick if you want the easiest run, but taking Randolf wouldn't be a terrible idea, especially if you still have the pimento lying around. Would serve as a tank to replace Gerhalt, at least.
Oh, I forgot to list how I promoted. Sarah's a Monk, Jaha's a Baron, Tyrin's a Sorcerer, and Elric and Janet are both snipers. Hate giving up that point of movement.
From: TheArkOfTurus | #042 Elric and Janet are both snipers. Hate giving up that point of movement. I always leave them snipers cause I like the sprite more >.>
-- Blessed is the mind too small for doubt. last.fm/user/BlackHydras
From: Black_Hydras | #043 I always leave them snipers cause I like the sprite more >.>
Also a good reason!
Made it back to Grans, though I took a few losses in the process. First was AI Jaro. He decided charging into a Necromancer by himself was a good idea, then decided his ~20 HP was sufficient to ignore the Necromancer and charge the boss. This is pretty much the reason I decided not to count AI deaths <_<. Non-AI Jaro joins the force (replacing Chester) as the only character with a defeat recorded, and Higins hits the bench in anticipation of Frayja.
Unfortunately, I end up playing the Moun battle poorly. First, I leave an open pathway for an archer to attack Taya. She's made of paper mache, and is overkilled by a single attack. I did the same for Tyrin, but luckily he can take a damn hit. Rick could also take a damn hit... But not two. I overestimated his durability, the Golems had no problems showing me the error of my ways. The chess battle I could accept losing two characters to, but this one? Blarg. Gyan replaced Rick, Higins went back in for Taya. The Cameela battle battle goes much more smoothly, without anyone coming close to death. Cameela herself went down without doing a single physical attack, just some non-threatening blaze 3s. My next death is the Nazca ship. Prism flowers took it out, it must not have had much HP. RIP Nazca ship, thanks for the cannon.
I find Sheela, and replace Higins with her. Gonna want to avoid having my #12 character take up much EXP (they're going to be replaced by one of the whopping five characters I get after the next battle. Probably not underleveled Randolf or Eric, though.), so I figure I can at least use Sheela to heal/boost, and get a couple levels in case I need a back-up later. I might actually use Karna in the Prism flower battle, to get her a bunch of easy kills and use her MP on boosting as well. Might even replace Frayja with her, if she levels enough to get aura or boost 2. Of course, I shouldn't be looking past the next battle. Battle #35 always been one of the toughest battles for me, and it was the one that started the inevitable end of my Super playthrough in this style. I'm going to take the same approach I did in the chess battle, play lame and let them come to me. Going to give the running ring to Tyrin once I get to the desert area, and try to assassinate the Bow Rider before the golems can be a problem.
The Force (as of Battle #34) Bowie: 16 Sarah: 16 Jaha: 15 Gerhalt: 15 Luke: 15 Rhode: 17 Elric: 15 Tyrin: 16 Frayja: 16 Jaro: 15 Gyan: 15 Sheela: 15
Bench Chester: 11 Janet: 7 Higins: 15 Skreech: 11
Dead Book May: 11 Kazin: 14 Peter: 20/3 Kiwi: 20/3 Slade: 20/10 Taya: ?/13 Rick: 20/14
Yea he is super squishy before promotion in every SF2 playthru I've played. He's had to be revived quite a bit early. Post promotion he's kinda a beast tho.
Okay. I just made it past the desktop kingdom. I did the whole wait and see approach to the chess match. However, Chester got charged by the King and Queen and that's how I lost him. However, we charged back and got that darn king! Then I went through the rates with my fortress strategy. Met Creed and then I picked Tyrin to use him as a Mage. Now I know I don't normally do so well but I need the extra gaurenteed damage. Plus I have Frayja and Higins coming up as well as Jaro and Skreech. Plus Karna is good enough that when I come back later she is going to be able to jump in the force easy. And I got Janet and Astral and Rhode. I wish he was a mage lol.
So going into North Parmecia like this:
The Force: Bowie Lvl: 21/ 5 Sarah Lvl: 20/3 Jaha Lvl: 20/3 Kazin Lvl: 21/5 Slade Lvl: 20/5 Kiwi Lvl: 20/1 Peter Lvl: 20/4 Rick Lvl: 21/3 Elric Lvl: 21/4 Tyrin Lvl: 24/1 Janet Lvl: 24/1 Rohde Lvl: 4
The Dead: May Luke Lvl: 18 Gerhault Lvl: 20/2 Chester Lvl: 20
Yeah, Karna levels well. She went up 15 levels after two battles for me. Keep in mind you can back track after getting the sky orb and have the Creed characters for battle #35 if you're willing to take a long walk before the Nazca Ship.
Speaking of battle #35, I made it through without problems. I left some EXP on the table, but OHKOing the Bow Knight with Tyrin's Apollo 2 was pretty damn satisfying. Glad I made him a Sorcerer, that damage is too good to pass up. Sadly, the Bow Knights would have their revenge, scoring kills on valuable force members in the next two battles.
In #36, it was Jaha. A Bow Knight ran across the battlefield, and hit him from beyond some water. He had already taken some damage from a Prism flower, so this put him close to death. I had the opportunity to use a heal drop with Gerhalt, but passed it up to attack the Bow Knight, figuring I could let someone who couldn't reach the knight do the healing. Sadly, his second turn seemed to come way faster than his first, and Jaha went down before anyone else could do anything. On the bright side, Karna killing all the Prism Flowers (aside from the one at the end of the stage), and using all of her MP on boosting had her in fighting shape for the next battle. I put Rhode back in the force (he was higher leveled, and less valuable than everyone else, so I was going to keep him on the bench for one battle, then replace Frayja. Instead, he took Jaha's place) for the upcoming battle, which I considered to be the hardest official battle remaining in the game.
In battle #37, the casualty was even worse. I always have trouble dealing with the opening section of the map. Low movement speed, three Bow Knights, and two heavy hitters who can move through forests well tends to mean disaster. Gerhalt went ahead a bit too far to attack a Bow Knight, ended the turn losing his boost, then ate a Cerberus breath attack, an executioner attack, and finally a Bow Knight attack to finish him off. He was my best weapon against bosses, and now he's gone. What a shame. I managed to get out of the situation, and make my way slowly to Red Baron without any further casualties. The fight with the boss, in all honesty, should have been a massacre. I let Red Baron get four turns. First turn, desoul on Rhode, miss. Second turn, desoul on Luke, miss. Third turn, desoul on Tyrin, miss. Fourth turn, desoul on Bowie (!), miss. He didn't get a fifth turn. All of his targets had full, or near full HP, but I'm shocked he didn't hit a single one, or end up just killing someone with his sword (He could have killed Karna for sure, and probably Luke if he wanted to.) I've had some bad luck moments in this run, but I think that makes up for them =). Higins rejoins the force for yet another battle, and will be replaced yet again when Lemon joins. Next, mithril weapons! This was a no reset run, so I figured it would be against the spirit of it to reset to get better weapons. What I got, and who got it.
3 Critical Swords (Merchant) Battle Sword (Bowie) Misty Knuckles (Sarah) 2 Buster Shots (Rhode/Elric) Mystery Staff! (Karna) Three Valkyries (Jaro/Higins/Merchant) Halberd (Higins) Mist Javelin! (Jaro) Rune Axe! (Gyan. Lemon will get it when he joins) Ground Axe! (Gyan)
Four excellent weapons, I certainly can't complain. Next up is battle #38 against Geshp.