Finished yesterday 2.0 Type B Hard. And here are my thought about the content and balance. In short well done, but why so many content is removed from 1.5 (without replacing it) and Hard Mode Late Game Content is to easy.
Spoilers, dont read further, when you are not done with all content.
The more important ones are bold.
Content
- The alternative story in Midgar was awesome, post Midgar sadly only minor story changes, but i understand its hard to change things (technicaly and time spending), because the plate didnt felt down, i hoped there would be a way to visit Sector 7 again with maybe a sidequest or something. e.g. Getting Barrets Lvl4 Limit there instead of kalm.
- Liked the Idea of Aeris Body in Jenova Battle
- The changed Cloud/Aerith Sidequest with Zack was a great idea. I wish there would any benefit if you win the battle. Like Zack lives and you can get him in a other sidequests which only triggers when you win the battle.
- The Cid Sidequest in 1.5 was my favorited character sidequest, so i am a bit sad about the remove.
- The Tifa Sidequest was not my favorited, but every remove of content hurts^^
- The transport of the Silver Chocobo from the Kalm to Glacier was a good idea and the feeding stuff, too. But the high defense mechanic when not eating is gone. It was a funny idea in 1.5. Since there are so many ignores defense attack in 2.0 maybe every attack should to 0 dmg when he's not eating.
- The missing Junon League was a big lose
- The missing Extra Battles in Battle Square was a lose, too but it was not so important as Junon League.
- I liked the idea in the Creater in 1.5 after each Segment there is a boss. In 2.0 its removed.
- The new 12x 1/35 soldier sidequest and the gift are awesome, well done.
- The weapon smith should can craft missable items like Ziedrich or some Mistile copies, etc. in addition to the Masamune (which is in my opionion by far the best weapon)
- Dark Cave was a fantastic idea in 1.5. i am sad, that its removed, but i understand that many content of Dark Cave is now in Type B.
Balance
- The changes to Barrier 50%->33%, Sad 30%->5% and back row 50%->10%was good, Barrier, Sad and Back Row was to strong.
- The remove of the Soft Level Caps was good
- The remove of SP and change to after certain event was good.
- In 1.5 your defence was doubled in calculation. In terms of Balance the change to vanilla was good but in term of funny builds it was bad. hard to say which it better
- Osmose is useless maybe its later better, but later you dont need it anymore.
- The fact that you can Morph items which you normaly get far later, is cool. Maybe it was in 1.5 i dont know
- Every character should have a weapon which ignores morph penalty. It should be aviable early so you can make use of it.
- Hard Mode: The fact, that you have to grind (steal/morph) for gil makes you automaticlly do more battles and this negate the 1/2 exp malus and in addition gives you many AP, so you will unluck spells and abilities faster. And makes the game easier.
- After a certain point the game become very easy, i think it was when you got the lvl3 limit or the Magic Spells lvl 2 and lvl3. Most bosses were death with 2 Limit or 3 spells or so.
- The W-Item duplication bug removed the sense of healing spells. From the moment you get it, you can spam mega exlixiers and dont need any Healing Spells. I know you can play without it, but when its in the game why dont use it^^
- The damage of the high end elemental spells like tornado and break etc. are to low compared to ultima. The high end Spells have Base damage 70-80 if i remmebr right. Even when you use them on a weakness they have 105-120 base commpared to ultima which you can alwasy use with 100. and ultima hits aoe and the high end elemental spells do only single target. When you increase the damage of them, they would become more useful. In late game the only spell you need is ultima. The status effects on the elemental spells are not enough to pick them over ultima. especially when you want to build a good materia combo and you need many slots. With ultima you have in worst case slighty lower damage but can use it vs all kind of enemies.
- The fight for the wutai secret cave vs the zack soldier was to easy it was a joke compared to the other secret cave fights.
- The fight vs guard of Knight of Rounds was epic. This is like a fight should be. Zombie breath from the dragon and the one hit ko's from the robot are a deadly combo, liked it very much.
- Although the fight was really hard, the gift (Knights of Rounds) is completly overpowered. Here some dmg examples. character level 66 with 255 attack and 255 magic all damage numbers come from Iron Giant in Crater (No Adrenaline). dmg: 2x summon knight of round 96k (single) and 63k (aoe) 2x magic mp turbo quadra ultima 25k without quadra 16,6k. 2x summon bahamut Zero mp turbo quadra 20,4k without quadra 13,6k. 4x cut with masamune 25k. so you see the most good stuff is about 20-25k. And Knight of Round is 4x higher dmg. It mostly one shots every boss in the game in Hard Mode.
- Altough i like the idea to go with the life down till you can sense them, the fights are to quick to end. Almost everything is death with 2x summon materia knight of round. And if not, Mime and done. even if Knight of Round is nerfed. And you only use Ultima or 4x Cut with 25k dmg. After 3-4 Attacks the fight is over. Its to quick. I think the boses should at least life after 10 strong attacks. So they need at least 250k life
- The life of regular enemies is good.
- The damage dealt by the enemies (regular/bosses) is good too.
- I like the fact that you can increase/controll stats (str/mag/dex) with your materia you wear
There are many other small things which are now better than in 1.5 but to write them all down would cost to many time and i would probably forget many of them. So i just focused mostly on the "negatives" and the suggestions i have.
Thank you for the mod. Ingame Timer was 90+ hours. Was a great experience, well done.
Edit: - I like that some limits are now magic basic
- The enemy away materia is probably the best quality of life feature, the save point toogle was good, too, but the materia is even better.
