I started a run of the classic game of Shining Force 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 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. Thats 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.
Max deaths result in a Game Over esc. situation, restart the game from last save. As for Egresses I thought they should be okay but dead players stayed dead. (if that is what you meant by no restarts)
Battle 1: The Force: Max Tao Lowe Luke Ken Hans Gong (used the game glitch to leave town without going straight to the battle)
Enemies: 5x Goblins 2x Dwarf Rune Knight
Notes: This battle went on without a hitch for me. Not we routed them pretty easily. No retreats or anything.
Battle 2: The Force: Max Tao Lowe Luke Ken Hans Gong
The Enemies: 6x Goblins 3x Dwarves 2x Rune Knights
Notes : This battle flew by as well! BUT I did have my first death!! I got to the end I thought it was gonna be another quick battle without a hitch but I put Luke in to kill the Dwarf but he quickly evaded and turned everything to hell because he was then attacked by both Rune Knights and that was all she wrote on his life!
So at the end of Battle 2 the team results are: Dead: Luke level 4 not promoted
I suggest you use Jogurt in every fight you can, and try to keep him alive!
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
Battle 3: Well in between battles we are fortunate enough to gain two new party members. Mae, the daughter of you master Various, and Gort, the longtime veteran. Fortunately for me Gort is the same class as Luke. Unfortunately for the whole situation these are the only two characters of this class in the entire game.
The Force: Max Tao Lowe Ken Hans Gong Gort Mae
The Dead: Luke
The Enemies: 5x Dwarves 5x Knights 5x Bats
Notes: Now I have played this game before and in my mind this is the hardest battle in the chapter. However, this run through proved me wrong I think. The way I played it this time around is that I kept the entire group together and went down to the bats then took everything else in strides. Fortunately, I bought some items and used Gong and Lowe to their full potential and we survived the fight!
Battle 4: Between battles the part gained the character Khris. She is an additional healer which allows Gong to become even more versatile of a character. The Force: Max Tao Lowe Ken Hans Gong Gort Mae Khris
Notes: For this battle I decided to go with the questionable decision of splitting up my part because the map really has two different paths. To kinda show what I did Ill post the map!
Map:
For the north part of the map I sent Max, Tao, Mae, Khris, and Gong for the bottom half I sent Hans, Ken, Gort, and Lowe. Now this worked until the group to the north got slightly outnumbered and the Rune Knights killed Tao I wasnt out to a great start having lost 2 of my first 10 characters. Luckily, the bottom group killed pretty their entire side quickly, including the mages and snipers!
Battle 5: Welp. Chpater 2 has begun! I have done the things necessary to get Guntz in a later chapter. As long as getting the Speed Ring. I gave it to Gort so I can use his power more often. At the current time I have a couple over leveled fighters in Ken, Mae, Max, and Gort. My healers are on lower levels that I would like but thats only because I do not want to lose them! Gong Ive been playing kinda healer one battle and fighter the next. But anyways, I look around get access to leave town.
The Force: Max Lowe Ken Hans Gong Gort Mae
The Dead: Luke Tao The Enemies: 3x Dwarves 4x Bats 2x Snipers 3x Mages 4x Zombies
Notes: This battle took a really long time for some reason. At the bridge I put Gong, Gort, and Ken around it hoping they would come across the bridge. Kinda like an ambush however they wouldnt go for it so I had to go with the charge. I put Mae upfront because at this point in time she is only taking 1 damage at a time, especially with no magic users around. I continue up the battle and dont really have a struggle until I hit the zombies. They were tough at first but once I killed the Mages the battle was just time consuming.
Well I get here. I give Anri the devastating news of her Fathers death and then I get her to join the force! On a separate note I also picked up the domingo egg so if I do screw it up with Anri. I will have another chance with the spell casters.
Notes: Honestly I do not have much to say about this fight. I never found this battle to be difficult. And man it was great to have a spell caster back in the party. I made that Skeleton go down easy between Anri, Hans, and Ken all from distance.
On another note I did pick up Arthur after the battle and gave him the Power Ring just so he can keep up with Ken and Mae. I also prepared for in my opinion one of the toughest battle in the game.
Battle 7: The Circus Tent! Well folks its here The ever feared circus tent battle. To prepare for this battle I went and got everyone a medicinal herb and a healing seed to hopefully keep everyone alive. It is most definitely a long shot but here we go.
The Force: Max Lowe Ken Hans Gong Gort Mae Anri Arthur
The Dead: Luke Tao
The Enemies: X3 Bats X3 Mannequin X3 Evil Puppets X2 Dire Clowns Marionette
Notes: Man! Is this battle tough or what? I started this battle by taking out them mannequins and evil puppets with ease while splitting up the party to go get the evil bats as well. I sent only Max, Lowe, and Arthur to get the bats because at this point they really arent tough anymore. The rest of the party advanced forward to take out the Clowns and the ever scary Marionette. The way it is setup Marionette does not move and, at least this time, neither do the Clowns. So I split up the part to take care of these suckers. I have Gort, Mae, and Hans on one side and Ken, Gong, and Anri on the other with Khris going between the two and Lowe and Max were on their way as I sent Arthur to go get treasure. And this is where the battle went down the hill I kill the clowns with ease but before I am able to regroup to go after Marionette the worst happens FREEZE 3 targeted on Ken and Anri. Ken comes out alive but Freeze 3 does more damage than Anri has total HP I lost Anri guys This sucks!!! :( At that point I was too mad to use strategy so I used brute force with Ken, Max, and Gort and just routed Marionette at that point along with a little assistance from Hans. And I just healed often enough with heal 2 that no one went down. Luckily I didnt use Mae because her HP numbers were low like Anris.
So After this battle I lost both of my spell casters for a long time
The Dead: Luke Tao Anri
Well No spell casters and another tough battle ahead this should make this run even more fun!
Yeah, that battle with the Marionette boss is hard.
Imagine trying to do your challenge with Shining Force III, ouch. Especially for the late game portions of all three Scenarios, and the premium disc too.
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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.
From: Dark Silvergun | #034 Yeah, that battle with the Marionette boss is hard.
Imagine trying to do your challenge with Shining Force III, ouch. Especially for the late game portions of all three Scenarios, and the premium disc too.
I haven't played III yet. I am working my way up to get my tactics down packed and so I can just route that game!
Battle 8: On battles 5,6, and 7 I still had Khris. She didnt die I forgot about her!
Well Lots of tough loses including my boat!! Oh well better finish this chapter off. Went to Shade Abbey and met Darksol for the first time and now a tough battle.
The Force: Max Lowe Ken Hans Gong Gort Mae Arthur Khris The Dead: Luke Tao Anri
The Enemies: X6 Zombies X3 Skeletons Ghoul
Notes: This battle had always been tough in my mind but I found a great way to do this. Despite Max starting where he does in this battle I have managed to make a wall. Kinda like this: ..|.. .|.|. |...| I put Mae at the tip of the triangle because at this point she is still only taking one piece of damage at a time! Then I put Gort and Ken at the two sides and Gong and Max at bottom sides. I still had Arthur with a spear and Hans to do additional damage without being in risk and Lowe and Khris got a lot of good healing exp. It was very time consuming but I was glad that I was able to make it away without losing another party member and gaining two in Amon and Balbaroy. I am back to 11 party memebers!! WOOHOO!
Battle 9: Well before the next battle I got Diane and got my troops up to 12. The Force: Max Lowe Ken Hans Gong Gort Mae Arthur Khris Amon Balbaroy Diane The Dead: Luke Tao Anri The Enemies: X6 Skeleton X2 Mages X2 Sniper X4 Clerics Lizardman Master Mage
Notes: Not much to say about this one. I find it easy. IN FACT, I used this to battle to get Amon, Balbaroy, and Arthur. Lots of setups by Ken and Mae. I was using Gort but he started killing people by accident. However, Hans took some damage early on that I didnt think would be a big deal Well the Master Mage told me differently and killed him with some fire. As unfortunate as this was it did do one thing Gave me a spot for Zylo!
Battle 10: Welp before this battle I recruited Zylo. And I did the requirements to get Kokichi next chapter too! Also, additional healing items may not be a bad idea. The Force: Max Lowe Ken Gong Gort Mae Arthur Khris Amon Balbaroy Diane Zylo
Notes: Nothing too much to note here except for the fact that Zylo is just a beast. But most of you prolly knew that already. I am also beginning to consider promotion here soon. Any ideas?
I usually promote at whatever the level my highest guy is at during the Balbazak battle (13 or 14), because I like my level symmetry, and that's a really easy grinding spot.
General advice, I'd say promote whenever there's a weapon you can't use unpromoted. Promoting immediately will gimp you in the short term with no real long term benefit, and grinding up to 20 kinda kills the point of a challenge run.
Promoting when you want shouldn't be an issue in SFI.
It's not even that big of a deal in the SFIII, you can jump to promotion class at level 10, and go to innovator class at level 20, or go all out for the better 17 then 30 in that game. This is because leveling in SFIII is horrible for the remainder of the levels, 18 through 20 for the base class, and 31 through 99 for both of the promotion and innovator classes, as getting actual stat increases for these levels requires in most cases constant resetting.
There is one character in SFIII however, that has all of his leveling completely backwards, where reaching level 30 before innovator class should be done, if the player plans to use him.
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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.
Decided to start my own run (because any mention of the Shining Force series compels me to replay at least one of the games), made it past the Clown battle. Casualties so far are Hans (desert map, ate a double sniper attack that took him from almost full hp to death. Sucks losing that steel arrow for the abbey fight, but he didn't exactly factor into my long term plans. If someone had to die to bad luck, I'm glad it was him), and Arthur (sacrificed to a freeze 3 to make sure none of my important characters died. Not sure this was necessary, but I didn't see myself ever trying to develop Arthur anyway).
Going to try beating this without using Egress, or storebought angel wings (I might use wings I find outside of shops, though. Stealing this idea from Obob's awesome ShF2 hack. I forget how many you find naturally, though. If it's less than three, I might buy one or two.)
I've gotten all the way to chapter 5 to the end of chapter 5 and just have to do the write ups. And I've decided that I was going to do this for the entire series except for Final Conflict. So that's CD II and all three III Scenarios.
How much do you know about the Shining Force 3s? My deleted post was explaining why doing this type of challenge for ShF3 would be a nightmare, but I wasn't sure if you'd mind minor gameplay (not story) details spoiled for you or not. In any case, I'd advise you to play scenarios normally first.