New PSIV romhack: Arranged Version

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New PSIV romhack: Arranged Version

Postby Sixfortyfive » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:17 am

I decided to try my hand at making a PSIV romhack that increases the difficulty of the game without making too many drastic changes. I tried the Purgatory Mod a while back and though it had some neat ideas, I'm of the opinion that random encounters should be wars of attrition (not do-or-die on every turn) and am not fond of having to rely on savestates from start to finish.

So anyway, the patch and a readme can be grabbed here if you'd like to give it a whirl:

http://www.sixfortyfive.com/ps4arrange/

PSIV Arranged Version is a slightly more difficult version of PSIV. The main differences include a significantly slower EXP/MST gain in addition to new item and weapon uses. The goal of this romhack is not to force the player to grind for more levels and cash, but simply to force him or her to examine dozens of options that the game makes available to the player that may have otherwised been overlooked in a normal playthrough.

I've played through the finished romhack myself to make sure that the difficulty is reasonable. I had to grind for a few levels in exactly two instances: before the Zio fight, and before the final boss. While much of the game is difficult when you aren't slowing down to grind, you'll rarely need more than proper equipment and tactics to pull yourself through. I used savestates throughout the game for convenience, but never in the middle of a battle. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to play through the entire game without them at all.


The readme discusses most of the changes in greater detail. I feel like there's other things that I should be mentioning but can't think of right now. At any rate, if you're interested, I'd appreciate any comments and feedback.
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Postby Zucca » Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:47 am

Nice. I'll try this after well slept night. :)
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Postby Missagh » Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:27 am

Sweet! I have not tried it yet but looks very good. Do you mind if its added to the PS Cave archives?
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Postby Chris8282 » Fri Dec 19, 2008 6:07 pm

Thank God for this! If this makes the Zio fight harder and more interesting then it's pure win to me. I love Zio to death but his fight is just way too easy for the amount of awesome and detail put into his character.

I tried the other difficulty hacks but, as you said, it's pretty much either you do okay or you die in a few turns. I don't like abusing savestates so that wasn't very fun for me. I also doubt it's possible at the later levels. That seems to be the opinion of the people at Fringes of Algo.
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Postby Sixfortyfive » Sat Dec 20, 2008 3:42 am

Zio himself isn't any different. You'll probably just have to grind a bit more due to the reduced EXP in order to be able to stand up to him. (He was one of only two bosses that I really had to grind for.)

I tried changing around and adding some attacks to various bosses, but this didn't always work. I also tried adjusting Zio's stats so that it would be possible (but very difficult) to take him out without the Psycho Wand, but this wasn't in the cards either. That fight has too many unique hard-coded instructions to be able to easily change like that.
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Postby Chris8282 » Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:00 am

Well, for me, what made Zio easy was how easy it was to get levels in his castle. So, this should help quite a bit on that.
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Postby Sixfortyfive » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:04 pm

Anyone ever play this the whole way through? I was wondering if anybody found any bugs or had issues with the game balance.
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Postby Semix » Wed Feb 25, 2009 5:39 pm

Cool but it wasn't THAT easy at some points.

Also sixfortyfive...I saw you on youtube! Added and subbed but u stopped PSIV vids and never accepted so i canceld invite about a month later.

Anyway how do you actually edit games??
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