Together Retro: Shining Force

[noiseredux]

my two battles with the Marionette have gone as such:

1. kill all the other enemies
2. heal everyone
3. attack Marionette
4. he kills 2 of my guys at a time
5. battle is over quick

it's tough because the only party members who seem to have range are Ken, Tao, the other lady who casts fire/ice spells, and my archer. Everyone else needs to attack close, and they only do like 3 or 4 pts damage max. And yet he's gaingin +7 HP every round. And one attack of his will kill any one of my party members with one blow. So yeah...

[noiseredux]

After reading all of the trouble you guys are having with that one battle, I am glad that I grind/egress at least once on almost every battle early in the game.
I'm not quite sure your levels but my main core of characters was at level 15 at the end of chapter 4. So anyone else who is having trouble grinding helps and is fun.
By grinding I learned more about enemies, patterns, and most importantly leveled up my healers (they get 10xp for every time they heal at least one hp - so heal people often to raise their levels)
So if you like the gameplay and are not just playing the game to beat it, try grinding plus it makes for great short bursts of playtime between life's normal chores.

uh stupid question -- what does Egress do?

[Ivo]

Egress teleports your whole party out of the battle, saving all your gains in that battle so far. So if you want to grind you can kill many dudes and egress out of there, and restart the mission but keeping the experience you got in the previous go at it.
You can also grind if you invest in Healing Herbs and take several on each unit - whenever that unit is not doing anything else, use it on itself. I haven't been doing either (I did egress out of the first 2 battles of chapter 1, and out of the final battle in chapter 3).



I think they toned down the difficulty in the remake...
The marionette was taking no damage at all from spells but physical attacks did deal chunks of damage. If you are dealing piddly damage with everyone then I think you are screwed - you are not realistically running it out of MP...


Here is in detail the "final assault" strategy which only exposes the units that can take it to one Marionette assault...
One of the most important aspects is to check the order of the units and know when Marionette takes its move during the turn.

Any units that can take a hit from Marionette are very valuable as they get at least one swing, and if their turn order is before Marionette, they get an extra swing. If you have anyone able to cast Heal 2 then you could even have an initial assault before the last 2 turns, using only your tougher units that can survive. There is enough range on Heal 2 that you wouldn't expose the healers to Marionette's strikes.

The units that can not take a hit from Marionette in theory can only get a swing or none during the final assault... But assuming you only let Marionette have one turn they would always have a swing or its killed already - the ones that are before Marionette but can't survive a hit must hit it on the last turn, and the ones that are after Marionette must attack on the turn before, right after it attacks its single time... And then you need to finish it off with everyone that takes the turn before Marionette on the next turn.

Equip both your knights with spears and take the archer, and position everyone well before exposing your units. That means you can attack Marionette with 7 units total when you start the final assault over 2 turns (the mages were not doing any damage for me).

Ivo.

[Jmustang1968]

I don't think the game is necessarily easier as a whole in the remake, just balances out some of the difficulty spikes and valleys. I really prefer the gba version now. The item bank is awesome. No more annoying issues with not picking up items because the hero's inventory is full.

I fired mine up last night on the gc gba player. Its been a few years since I have done a SF run, so figured this was a good time to do it.

[TEKTORO]

Theres a help command if your not sure what spells do during battle (GBA version),and ive been promoting characters at level 11 with no draw backs so far.Obtained all but 2 clear stage bonuses with maybe 1 or 2 of the earlier battles being lost and currently mid chapter 4.

[Jmustang1968]

Theres a help command if your not sure what spells do during battle (GBA version),and ive been promoting characters at level 11 with no draw backs so far.Obtained all but 2 clear stage bonuses with maybe 1 or 2 of the earlier battles being lost and currently mid chapter 4.

I would hold off on promoting until level 15 atleast and level 20 for spellcasters. Spellcasters learn spells based on total level. So if a spellcaster learns a spell at level 35 and you promote at 11, they need to be level 24 promoted instead of 15 to learn it. This will really affect you down the line in that regard. You basically won't get your top level spells if you promote too soon.

[TEKTORO]

2nd try beat balbazar and blue dragon about to start Chapter 5.
I may have this done before Skyrim.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Finished Chapter 2 and will be starting 3 in the morning.

[kingbuzzo]

2nd time playing the GBA version. Great game really. Prefer the darker graphics of the MD version, but the translation of the GBA version is much nicer imo.

[TEKTORO]

Just started chapter 6,chapter 5 was short but tough.Died once and got all clear stage bonuses.