{( FF2 Legacy of Ensydollis how to guide )]

Characters:

Their names in this order when naming them (choose your own if you feel obviously.):

Lauren, Xavier, Victor, Odin

Intro: This is a personal hack of ff2 that is meant to be further challenging than the original, as well as changing the story a fair bit within what i can edit.
  -Unfortunately, due to the difficulty of putting this together in the first place, a vanilla roster version cannot be made at this time for sake of my sanity.
  -Also Unfortunately, this hack will break if any other patch such as ff2restored is applied. Apply other patches at your own risk.

Notable changes featured:

-graphics of pcs, npcs, enemies, weapons, some spells changed.

-overall difficulty of enemy encounters is much greater than original, especially late game.
  -additionally, rank of enemies are higher than original, no longer is the highest rank 7, so you'll be gaining lvl ups more frequently and constantly, endgame enemies don't have ranks below 16, so there will be growth.

-changes to initial character statistics.
  -not so impactful at game start, but temporary pcs become that much more valuable.

-weapon and armor statistic adjustments, reduced int/spr penalties with some exceptions. The blood sword is no more here I am afraid.
  -instead, you get the healing blade, life energy in blade form, either attack for healing or cast free cure 16s on self. 

-spell potency adjustments and some spells outright changed entirely, whether it be due to duplicate effect, impractical use, etc





How does one survive in this imbalance galore wasteland that is ff2 world but hacked?

Simply. It will take a lot more effort to actually survive via growth of skills. Enemies are not like they used to be. 
  -Their magic potency often tends to be far greater than former. Expect the hundreds or in some cases, thousands of damage to be subject upon you if luck does not have favor over your plight. 
  -They also have the ability to exploit evasion levels unlike previously, so if your weapon lvls are insufficient, expect to miss a lot or do lackluster or no damage.

...Anyway. Here are some essential spells you may need to acquire if you wish for a journey with less difficulty at the end.

Cure. An absolute must, how else will you heal from those dreaded attacks?

Fire, Ice, Bolt, Bio. Enemies may be stronger, but they have weaknesses more often, exploit weaknesses as much as you can.

Heal. Perma debuffs come in more frequent occurences. and if a character is afflicted with a debuff that persists after battle, they cannot gain growth in any skill or spell. Level to 6 or higher

Peep. Temporary debuffs are also a nasty case, but not much so vs perma. its more optional than necessary, but still handy to have.

Life. Expect to get KO'd a lot. I can't raise the base accuracy without making the spell completely broken vs undead targets, sorry. so you may need to level and raise spirit stat some.

Shel. Shell increases one's magic defense. Which means magic damaging spells that do not pierce will be halved at most, while debuffs, physical or magical, may wind up being ineffective entirely.

Blnk. Increase success rate of dodging attacks and action rate in battle. Optional as you will get good evasion lvl growth anyway. but one could easily level it and make even the highest of hit counts miss entirely, or forget it and add some challenge.

Flare, Holy, Ultima. The almighty non elemental spells. Flare and holy hit three times as hard as fire, ice, bolt, etc, if they are not hitting elemental weakness. While Ultima hits even harder than flare or holy and ignores target m def. Sometimes elemental weakness just can't cut it

Aspil. enemy mp draining is more potent. if low on mp but can cast this. it would help a lot.

Berserk and haste. Need those otherwise physical damage endgame will prove inferior to magical damage.





How does one get started with growth on hp/mp and skills effectively?

Fourth slot party members are much better in terms of overall power than originally. 
Your first guest has all the basic spells to enable self inflicted hp/mp growth, as well as weakness exploitation of all four damaging elements




Where can I find the best means to grind wpn lvls/spell lvls?

Here are some locations where good growth rates can be met.

Pre Ultima-

Fynn: Captains have rank of 12

Mysidia area: Enemies have rank similar to captain

above Fynn region: Mages to do AoE spells for some hp growth, and drop tomes to sell for gil, and rarely Magic rods which possess tremendous power..

Coliseum: Wizards, deadly as they may be, carry powerful tomes, including the desirable aspil tome. Suckers are also a means for mp growth if your evade stat is low.

Fynn basement: Green souls show up rarely, but they have high ranks, two battles of using same skill should lvl it up.

Post Ultima-

Fynn region: Captains, Seargents, Sorcerors, great gil and skill gain

Mysidia area: highest ranks in overworld. MantKing drops the strongest dagger available

Ensydollisian desert: Images of the Emperor randomly appear in the area and have ranks similar to green souls but can also drop some useful equipment

CosmicD room: better known as Masamune room, enemies here have huge ranks. Images can spawn here. Dragons of all four colors also appear, drop powerful gear, and can level a skill in under a few battles if used once each battle




Is there any notable equipment or functions to improve survival?

There has been many changes to equipment, below are some notable instances.

-There exists a item called Elixir well (ElixWell), which casts elixir 1 on the party when used in battle. 20 uses at max. Convenient for binds where your party mp is insufficient for other recovery means. 

-Final tier weapons all have useful spells attached to them, further upping their value

-Genji gear of vanilla ff2, despite boasting the finest defense, had the worst stat penalties of all. The new Final armor set lacks penalties, boosts some stats, and boasts even finer defense than genji.

-consumable item magic has improved hugely. (side effect of enemy magic being buffed tremendously, which is totally okay.)
 FireFang: AoE enemy fire 16, powerful fire damage, 1 use
 IceFang: AoE enemy ice 16, powerful ice damage, 1 use
 PoisFang: AoE enemy Cloud 16, powerful poison damage, 1 use
 GaiaDrum: AoE Quake 10, piercing non element damage, 5 uses
 SkyFlute: AoE Cyclone 13, piercing non element damage, 5 uses
 Wyvern: AoE Fire 10, high fire damage, supposedly unlimited use (due to vanilla bug, 0 consumption is instead 255 uses, so this and other items with seemingly endless use will expire eventually, take caution...)

You can also shatter or use some elemental weapons or shields for a powerful attack.


Well. That is all I can say without spoiling too much of what's to come. Hope you can enjoy the hack.







