GSHC Download Link (v1.2.1): http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=49Mediafire Link (v1.0): http://www.mediafire.com/?nll2m8i330891vz.xlr stat sheet for all enemies (v1.0): http://www.mediafire.com/?n4nn0h214e8brmePassword-enhanced starting save state (v1.0, outdated for modern VBA): http://www.mediafire.com/?9zagz9kg7tyypugSome aspects of the information within the following post are outdated for the v1.2.1 version of the patch.Hi again! I'm once again here to post a ROM hack made with this site's ROM editor. Last October, I released my Golden Sun Rebalance 2012 remix patch for Golden Sun 1 (
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2082.0), and as you'd expect I saw fit to follow that up by posting a TLA patch that follows the previous patch's rebalancing style. Now, I had already posted a very hard TLA patch several years ago (
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=587.0), but I wanted one that felt like it was actually completing a tonally-consistent ROM patch series started with Rebalance 2012, so I started on this several months later. My posting this on the site coincidentally ends up being three days late for the game's 10-year anniversary in North America, but whatever, I guess...
This is my Golden Sun: The Lost Age Rebalance 2013 ROM patch, which carries on my tradition of being a serious approach to enemy rebalance with minimal changes to any of the game's other aspects. My goal is to make this feel as though it is an "official, public" version of the game that fell through a warp from a different dimension where Camelot is a more hardcore company with its games. Even though this was technically made by modifying my years-old TLA patch, it was not a quick or easy process at all - I needed to make two further separate playthroughs to construct this patch, the first to lay out the newly ordered ability lists for all the monsters while toning down some of the degenerately-high stats and rewards I originally gave them, and the second to finalize their values using my linked stat spread sheet as a guide. I did not want this to be any sort of "ultimate hard-mode" - it was supposed to be still doable without any class changes or grinding, and could probably be beaten without getting all the Djinn. The battle difficulty and damage thrown around is certainly enormously increased from Camelot's TLA, but the idea is that this is supposed to feel like a more properly balanced game that the company itself released - maybe it's an alternative Hard Mode, you decide - rather than just some fan piling on stats on the enemies. So, like with Rebalance 2012, a few other things were modified in this patch too.
Rebalanced, tougher gameplay with consistent enemy move orders:My approach to increasing enemy power and threat level throughout each zone in this series of ROM patches in a consistent-feeling matter is giving almost every enemy in the game two actions per turn, and making most of the enemies in the game cycle through their move lists in sequential order rather than randomly choosing them based on the Random Number Generator (remember, this is achieved by selecting the fifth option in the Attack Pattern dropdown box in the editor, the second "Unknown pattern"). This goes some way toward giving each given type of enemy that appears in battle its own "feel" and brand of threat in relation to the other enemy types in battle, at least compared to the base TLA game, and there is an emphasis on more powerful enemy abilities being cast fewer times and in patterns you can learn and predict. And of course, the enemy abilities themselves are modified and replaced whenever necessary.
Now, last time there were some questions on whether it felt "right" for a hack like mine to have every enemy move multiple times per turn even though none of your party members can move twice in a row. As you'd probably expect, I don't feel this is unjustified, especially considering that these games have a very limited internal structure that do not give much room for a ROM patcher to maneuver around in without glitches. There really isn't any other way to express, for example, that what a certain enemy amounts to during their turn is to deal an area attack and give a Resistance boost to their side. You can only really do that by giving them two actions per turn so that they can use the area attack and a Ward spell in a row. Though I will say that while I was doing my repeated playtesting, I was finding various cases where it did help balance and gameplay-feel to keep some enemies' turns-per-turn at 1, so there ends up being more enemies that deliver one powerful attack per turn than the GS1 patch. (You might also remember that multiple actions per turn ends up making each of these enemies die to Curse and Gasp twice as fast - think of that as a tip ^^;)
Compared to my TLA patch from years ago, enemies have been toned down, especially in the earlier stages, because it was very easy to have a party member faint in the middle of a dungeon when you had no real form of revival beyond going all the way out of the dungeon and into a sanctum. But it'll still become harder than the GS1 patch later on. Also carried over from my old TLA patch are how some of the random enemies like Wild Gorilla and Sea Dragon are more like "random mini-bosses" that act 3 or 4 times per turn and deliver at least as much threat and reward as a normal monster group.
For boss battles, I more-or-less put in whatever gimmicks and different battle approaches I could for whichever bosses don't have multiple command lists and allow the linear-ordered command structure. Each of the roles of Star Magician's colored balls are more strictly defined, Valukar now has 18 PP you may very well want to use Fugue against, and Sentinel encourages Luff/Rime management and rotation, for example. But as for Dullahan, other than higher ATK and a stiffer Agility requirement, I basically had to nerf him by taking away Djinn Storm and Break.
Increased leveling:Enemy EXP is more consistent and thorough, but is a little less huge than my old TLA patch from years ago. But expect to be at least level 35 by the reunion, and that's if you run away from a third of your battles.
(v1.1's EXP rates for TLA are somewhat lower, so level 34 is more likely at this point.)New items:Mountain Water: The consumable item I introduced in the GS1 patch is the Khiren Water from Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (which I couldn't name Khiren Water back then due to string compression issues disallowing certain letter-and-case combinations), restoring 20 PP off each use. It can only be dropped off enemies - including each of the battled Djinn - and a fraction of the enemies in the game have chances to drop this instead of what they originally could drop otherwise. This is intended to counteract how in the early stages you can find yourself low on PP deep in a dungeon without any Psynergy Stone anywhere near the area, and using a Psy Crystal is either overkill or just plain unavailable. I tested and verified that if you use a Gold Password from my GS1 patch with Mountain Waters in the party, a Mountain Water will transfer over without any bugs (though strangely it will only carry over one Mountain Water instead of the full stack); therefore, don't worry about password issues anymore. (This password is available as a save-state, BTW)
Mind Ribbon: An all-new Utility Psynergy item that bestows Mind Read to its holder, and is a bonus drop off Dullahan. Why on earth would I put in something like that? It's so that Isaac and Felix can see all the hidden Mind Read text in Prox after the final boss, of course! You can think of this as a particularly special bonus reward for gathering all the Djinn and defeating Dullahan. (Though you wouldn't be able to use it on any other NPC from earlier in the game that may have had mind readable thoughts but could not be read at the time due to Sheba not being in your party. Which might be a shame...)
Additionally, the nine unused items that were apparently planned to be new Lucky Wheels prizes are available as drops from enemies. In particular, Rainbow Ring, Aroma Ring, Casual Shirt, Silver Greave, Herbed Shirt, and Ninja Sandals are what the Mimics and Mad Plants that didn't drop particularly unique items beforehand now drop, while Knight's Greave drops from Puppet Warrior, Soul Ring drops from Raptor, and Divine Camisole drops from Devil Frog. In addition, Tear Stone drops from Merman, Star Dust drops from Sea Dragon, Sylph Feather drops from Harridan, and Dragon Scale drops from Pteranodon.
Shop changes:I felt that the risk of a party member being downed in an early dungeon without a real reviving effect to fall back on led to really degenerate gameplay when combined with really hard early enemies, so the enemies in the earlier stages of the game are less damaging in comparison to my years-old TLA patch. But I also gave more opportunities to alleviate the issue by making every item shop add a Water of Life to the Artifact menu.
(I mostly reverted this in v1.1, however.)PP-cost changes:A few specific Psynergies have increased PP costs to better represent their obvious usefulness:
*Wish increased from 9 to 15
*Wish Well increased from 13 to 28
*Pure Wish increased from 20 to 50
*Pure Ply increased from 12 to 16
*Aura increased from 7 to 9
*Healing Aura increased from 11 to 18
*Cool Aura increased from 16 to 33
*Elder Wood and Estre Wood increased from 14 to 30
*Revive increased from 15 to 30
(40 in v1.1)*Lich and Phoenix increased from 10 to 20
(30 and 25, respectively, in v1.1)*Quick Strike increased from 12 to 24
*Dragon Fume decreased from 35 to 28 like in Dark Dawn. ^_^
Additionally, for all classes with the Wish and Aura series, the first stages of both these series are now available one class stage earlier. Also, the first stage of Growth is available to the Squire class series, to somewhat mirror Growth being always available to your Venus Adept in Dark Dawn. And admittedly this was more of an arbitrary move, but I preserved the modified weaker values for the earlier-level Psynergy from the GS1 patch.
(This last bit has been superseded by v1.1 changes.)Text changes:*The descriptions of a lot of the gameplay elements have been clarified, like the Djinn battle effects, which pieces of gear are "common", the exact spells that Usable pieces of gear emulate, and the elements of the unleashes rather than the names. (BTW, if you noticed it from the GS1 patch - I describe any Djinn effect that adds damage as an Attack and any Djinn effect with a damage multiplier as a Strike.)
*Contains the functionality of Atrius' Blacksmith patch - you will now be told the price of the item Sunshine has forged for you instead of being told that all the Sunshine household takes is "cash".
*Ability and item renamings: Blast (Nova) is renamed to Starburst, Swordsman (Venus) is renamed to Crusader, Dark Mage from the Medium Class series is renamed to Dark Shaman, Liquifier is renamed to Liquefier, Fire Puppet is renamed to Fear Puppet, and Black Crystal is renamed to Black Orb.
Finally, besides a few fixed typos, an additional "that" in Agatio's "remarkable foresight" line in Champa, and modified save-your-Clear-Data messages, the following changes have been made to the lore text:
Provided Password save-state for old VBA:As a quality-of-life gesture, I even posted a VBA save-state of the Gold Password-input process for everyone not willing to spend the time and tedium putting in their own gold password; just load the save-state with the ROM and you'll just have to enter the last "!" at the end of the Gold Password screen to get data that has been pre-prepared in Golden Sun Rebalance 2012. Like you'd expect of a password, this password features all you'd need for necessary completion's sake, like all Djinn collected, all events and bosses completed, most of the best equipment and items of interest, and all levels between 30-31. This also contains all 25 permanent stat-boosting items findable in GS1 stacked-up and not used yet, 9 lucky medals, and a Mountain Water to verify that the transfer of this item between Rebalance 2012 and Rebalance 2013 mostly works.
NOTICE: There were at least two times during my playtesting when there were starting to be minor glitches in certain spots after long stretches of playing, like certain musical tracks having noise in them and enemies jittering a bit as the battle camera rotates. I don't know if it's because of a combination of my code changes and my turbo-speeding through everything, but if it happens to you, all you need to do is save the game file, reset the ROM, and reload the file to clear anything odd away.
