CROMAR'S PROFILE

"- So you or no one else has to go back incase they missed the harp, you now get a choice when you reenter the tower to go to the top floor or start from the bottom :-)"

This I appreciate, even if I am the only one who screwed it up.

"You would be surprised how easy it makes the game. Oh well... apparently that's what people want."

I think that if the tower monsters were harder (without relying on mass sleep) it wouldn't matter as much.

"- They're stronger. What kind of party do you have?"

Barbarian, Thief, Grey. It's a powerful team for sure, but I say that the enemies are weaker relative to the team from the goblin cave. In the cave, you have 2 guys for most of it, no spells (I chose poison and cure, didn't have a use for either), and no gear. With the full team and all the armor, they barely get touched and my first three party members deal over 100 damage each (the grey is weaker, but heal is invaluable).

"- Making Heal 1/3rd as strong would mess everything up, so instead I have reduced the MP of the Guardian Angel and dropped their spirit by 1. However, in my game enemies have levels..."

I think it's less the heal itself than the sleep combo that makes it so aggravating.

"- Brilliant. I actually love this idea. Done. Unless its a boss enemy. "

Thanks :) Credit to Lufia II though for doing it first.

I really enjoyed the beginning of the game. The goblin cave was quite difficult and I had to think to manage my MP and use strategy and debuffs to handle some of the tougher enemies. I also enjoyed building a party. I liked the large amount of equipment, and really the whole equipment system.

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm fell off a cliff at the tower dungeon. What a mess. The battles are incredibly boring and the encounters far too dense. There is no challenge from these enemies, just boredom. There are not one, but two enemy types that put your entire party to sleep, and not one, but two enemy types that heal each other. Several times, I fought guardian angels who would sleep my entire party and heal to full. Though the enemy did poor damage and could never kill me, it just caused me to wait round after round (Oh! One character can attack this round! Oh, no, she got slept before her turn came up...) It was bizarre how different this experience was from the goblin cave, which was challenging.

I love that you have the encounters visible on the map (ala Lufia II, or Brickroad's game) but the single-file nature of your dungeon mapping makes it pointless. Sometimes, I can sit and wait and maybe skip an encounter, but for the most part the mobs just wander back and forth through a choke point. Sometimes, after fleeing a battle (like 2 Wind Spirits, yawn) the game instantly puts you back into a battle, even if you are holding the button to run the opposite direction.

I made it all the way up the tower, put out the fires, and there was nothing else to do up there. The angel said "thank you!" and there was nothing to loot on any of the three platforms or anywhere else on the top floor. I climbed back down the tower and went back to the mayor for my reward (even though there was no harp to loot) and he said "go up the tower and get the harp". I am NOT going back up that tower, so I guess I'm done with the game.

Some suggestions:

1.) Make enemy encounters much more sparse, but more rewarding.
2.) Take away mass disables altogether. They aren't fun or challenging. Also take away healing from Guardian Angels, or make it 1/3 as strong. If you are concerned it is too easy, make the enemies do more damage. The Tower enemies are very weak compared to the goblin cave enemies.
3.) After fleeing or winning a battle, let the party phase through enemies on the map for 1 second (other than stationary ones of course)
4.) Open up the map design. Look at Lufia II for a great example of a game that uses your battle system and places the enemies perfectly (Lufia II, btw, is simple one of the best SNES era rpgs, so you should play it regardless). Give the player room to run around if they don't want to fight.
5.) This is extra work, but I would strongly suggest a new battle system altogether - the default one is very boring. Anything with moving graphics (or even better, ATB).

(double post)

OK, I did make a backup savefile after I noticed the music cutting out, but when I loaded my old savefile, the music problem is still there. Let me be more specific. When running around the overworld, there is no music. That's anywhere on the overworld, not just the valley. When I hit x to go to the menu, the music starts up. Battle music works, airship music works. However, once I go into the valley of shadows, all music stops, including the menu (and the new game/load game menu as well!). In addition to all of this, my character move speed has been reduced dramatically on the overworld, but nowhere else (and I have tried pressing the hotkeys to fix it).

Haven't experienced a crash yet, and I have backup saves in case it corrupts one of them, but I guess I'll just put on an mp3 and try to finish the game?

I want to add, since I didn't mention it before, that my musings on class balance aren't totally relevant in the grand scheme of things. You can succeed with virtually any class makeup, it's just harder or easier depending on how you do it. The only time you can get stuck if is you don't bring any anti undead, but your hero can always just blaze the ghosts to death, so you are never completely screwed.

Master classes and promotion strategy:

Daredevils are the best class in the game. They have great damage, all sorts of tools and abilities, and heroism. That said, I think you should take away the ranger spells and alchemy in order to make their parent classes more useful. The Harlequin doesn't need that courtesy, because he's got tarot cards still. Also, that move would eliminate the clutter on the daredevil's magic menu. You should make 2 of these guys. Turn your Bandit and Engineer into daredevils. If you have an under peforming mage, you can consider them as well.

Templar are also fantastic. They are more powerful than Daredevils thanks to pummel and gear selection, but lack heroism. Make a templar in your Harlequin group.

Channeler: Though this class is clearly the weakest master class, it's still quite useful and powerful. Why is it that Blessaga misses so much, anyway? Bring a Channeler along for Heroism, Curaga, and not much else.

For the absolute best group composition, your class selection should look something like this:

Chapter 1-3: DK/Shapeshifter/Ronin, Bandit/Engineer, Druid
Chapter 4: Paladin, Harlequin, Wizard

For Chapter 5, upgrade your bandits and engineers to daredevils and channelers. Upgrade your wizard to Templar. All of your warriors should become Champions, and your druids and harlequin should remain unchanged. With this comp, you will have the best melee, heroism for all groups, and great healing and spellcasting. My first playthrough was not quite this perfect (my group 1 lacks heroism, for example) but if I replay the game I know how I'm going to do it.

Also, if you wind up around level 40 and you have a rogue that you feel is weighing you down, you can turn him into a level 20 Joker and then a level 1 daredevil instantly and for free. It's a great way to help your team if you made mistakes in the planning stages. Getting him this late, though, means you've got some serious grinding to do if you want heroic ballad before the end of the game.

Thoughts for the game's creator: I strongly suggest making Jokers a special secret class and giving Rogues a better elite class to aspire to. My suggestion: The Swashbuckler, a stabby fellow that does great damage and can proc strike (like the daredevil). Uses his own special set of rapier-type weapons and light shields. Also give him bows, bandit abilities, and the mug command (so he's basically Robin Hood). The end result is like a seriously nerfed Daredevil (no dual wield, tools, bard spells, or insane stats).

Since Magicombo is so buggy, I would suggest taking that away from Sages and giving them AOE buffs, maybe even Heroism, and some really good late game Sage-exclusives. As it stands, druids are simply better than Sages.

Buff Channelers. Their offense is lacking, especially for a master class. Currently, they are basically a properly made Mesmer. Still, I liked my Channeler quite a bit.

Thanks again for making this great game. If it wasn't so good, i wouldn't spend so much time writing about it on the internet.