hard mode seems...bad

[Luna]

how is one expected to block 20+ damage every single turn of every single fight and not die?
yea thats it this time its not a complicated problem for once. just more damage then i have hp every single turn of every normal fight

[lvl 10 mage]

Basically, Hard Mode expects you to superblock, freeze stuff, and kill stuff. Super blocks reduce damage by 2+ per attack, things cant attack if they're frozen, and they can't attack if they're dead. Use Medals to boost your damage output to kill things faster and to boost your defense so you survive longer.

The solution is really just to not take damage, and the challenge is figuring out how to do that.

[Luna]

ah yes i will do 40+ damage in one turn or use random chances and pray it works out
great way to make a game harder

[Songbird]

You play strategically. The game doesn't really expect superblocks, but it does expect killing enemies extremely quickly, making every action efficient, using status effects, and using items. Medals are extremely important as well.

I played the whole game with both Hard Mode and Hard Hits equipped, which increases the damage you take by much more than Hard Mode alone, and it felt about balanced.

[Nibbie]

I have only played the game on hard and rarely had trouble. Based on your achievements, you appear to already be in the post-game, which is obviously meant to be the hardest content in the game. Still, you have dozens of tools to make yourself extremely strong to counteract the challenge. You say "ah yes i will do 40+ damage in one turn" as if it is unreasonable, but at that point in the game you easily have the ability to do so; you can get that in a single skill, let alone a full turn. Boost your character's attack with badges and items, and use powerful skills to end fights quickly. Using freeze and other status effects to prevent enemy turns where possible should have been an essential strategy throughout the game, no different at this point.

[Luna]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

I have only played the game on hard and rarely had trouble. Based on your achievements, you appear to already be in the post-game, which is obviously meant to be the hardest content in the game. Still, you have dozens of tools to make yourself extremely strong to counteract the challenge. You say "ah yes i will do 40+ damage in one turn" as if it is unreasonable, but at that point in the game you easily have the ability to do so; you can get that in a single skill, let alone a full turn. Boost your character's attack with badges and items, and use powerful skills to end fights quickly. Using freeze and other status effects to prevent enemy turns where possible should have been an essential strategy throughout the game, no different at this point.

im not in the post game. i reset to play the whole game on hard so i felt more like i actually earned the 100%.
i regret everything

[Songbird]

Early game is largely about resource management. You need to be conscientious about how many fights you can afford to take, based on how much damage you expect to take each fight, when your level-up refills will occur, how many items you have, and where the heal points are. You may need to avoid some fights--IMO chapter 2 is where this comes up the most, with the path to the golden settlement easily overwhelming you with incoming damage and absolutely demanding TP to freeze enemies or finish them off in one turn.

It is also extremely important that you allocate damage efficiently and are mindful of when you will actually get benefit from spending your resources. Kabbu pierces one defense and lowers certain enemies' defense by 1 by flipping them, Leif gets +1 damage against certain enemy types, and your character in front gets +1 attack. If you save an action by allocating damage more efficiently or spending TP to get that +2 damage that you need to kill an enemy in fewer turns, it's a huge deal. I have seen many people play this game just spending TP at random on extra damage that does not change how much damage they take in a fight, though; maybe they kill one enemy one action earlier, but all enemies die in the same number of turns, for example.

Once you have access to actual attack increases and more reliable status effects from the secret medal shop, a lot more options open up. Strong Start is also gamechanging and should be used for pretty much the entire game once you can acquire it. Making efficient foods and using tricks like Sleep Resistance + Drowsy Cake can be important for early game as well.

Snakemouth should be absolutely trivial other than the spider boss, which will require you to juggle damage between your characters to the maximum extent possible; there is some randomness here, though, since you can only increase the chance a character is targeted by putting them in front, but not guarantee it.

[AHloemeOpJ]

Hard mode is, in fact, hard. The best way to combat it is, in fact, strategy. Hard mode isn't bad, it's more balanced around the stronger methods of getting through a battle. It makes changes that expect you to play smarter. You can't go into absolutely everything with the same strategy and expect to always win, and you can't use your experience without hard mode to be perfect with it. I played through with hard mode for my second playthrough, once I understood the systems better, because I was afraid of how hard it'd be. Playing back through didn't make much a difference once I understood how things worked. It just gets you playing a bit smarter.

[Songbird]

I ended up starting a HARDEST + Hard Hits + FRAMEONE playthrough to get back into this game after a few years. Turns out that strategy is just even more important now. Could have beaten Scarlet probably about 4-5 levels lower than I actually did with this strat, as I didn't even use a bunch of my medals or my full TP pool. (He does 8x2 damage while healing himself with his umbrella throw btw.)

Anyway, the point of this is to show that strategy changes everything. Attack stacking and status effects are busted in this game. If you were playing normal hard mode, you would absolutely not need the superguards. Heck, I open the fight with a misplay that costs 1 damage and there's still enough wiggle room to win handily (Kabbu should have attacked from the front before moving to the back, since you can still change the party formation while every character has at least one action remaining.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4AJaO0n89w

Wish me luck with B-33 btw, seems absolutely terrifying. I am currently questioning if going into the power plant without either Poison Attacker and some attack+ items or a bunch of Tangy Carpaccios/Queen's Dinners would actually softlock me, given that B-33 is immune to sleep and resists the other two disables pretty strongly. I know about the Break + Hurricane Toss exploit at least (where you can reduce a 1 defense enemy to 0 defense with Break/Burly Bomb, but still pierce 1 defense with Hurricane Toss to get an extra +1 damage.)

[AHloemeOpJ]

Good luck! I know that with B-33, it also lowers its own defense, so lowering it is only needed for the first half of the fight. The hurricane toss exploit still does an extra +1 because it tries to pierce a defense that doesn't exist anymore. That's how I usually finish the fight quickly. Break/burly + hurricane toss for first phase, then a spicy berry + hurricane toss for second phase.

[Songbird]

Originally posted by AHloemeOpJ:

Good luck! I know that with B-33, it also lowers its own defense, so lowering it is only needed for the first half of the fight. The hurricane toss exploit still does an extra +1 because it tries to pierce a defense that doesn't exist anymore. That's how I usually finish the fight quickly. Break/burly + hurricane toss for first phase, then a spicy berry + hurricane toss for second phase.

I'm going to be honest, I literally forgot Bubble Shield is a move in the game and B-33 always telegraphs his curbstomp charging attack. I did not use Bubble Shield once in my first playthrough. I'm not too scared about the fight given that as an option.

[AHloemeOpJ]

Originally posted by Songbird:

Originally posted by AHloemeOpJ:

Good luck! I know that with B-33, it also lowers its own defense, so lowering it is only needed for the first half of the fight. The hurricane toss exploit still does an extra +1 because it tries to pierce a defense that doesn't exist anymore. That's how I usually finish the fight quickly. Break/burly + hurricane toss for first phase, then a spicy berry + hurricane toss for second phase.

I'm going to be honest, I literally forgot Bubble Shield is a move in the game and B-33 always telegraphs his curbstomp charging attack. I did not use Bubble Shield once in my first playthrough. I'm not too scared about the fight given that as an option.

Bubble shield is a godsend, I used it a couple of times fighting some super-bosses because I was severely under-prepared for them.

[Songbird]

Just made it. I almost threw the fight by attempting a 10 damage Hurricane Toss against an 11 HP B-33 while leaving myself defenseless, but realized I forgot to subtract fatigue from Vi's current attack at the last second. Actually ended up not even taking the possibility of a freeze chance, which would have trivialized the fight (about 11 extra damage from just the attack + unfreeze damage, plus five entire actions of free healing and setup time). I even avoided using any Tangy Berry items... but I would not have wanted to do this fight without the two Spicy Candies, that's for sure.

https://youtu.be/4b6hDnvuAU8

Did have one attempt die to sudden AoE lasers because I am bad at superblocking it, which is required for Vi and Leif to survive it. (Vi also dies regardless because of chip poison damage, now that I think about it, but that's possibly recoverable.) Also have no idea how I would deal with a turn 1 or 2 summon.

[Paws]

what kind of bug fables you playing bro

[KusoLP]

hard mode is just not worth it, neither more fun nor better loot

[Luna]

Originally posted by KusoLP:

hard mode is just not worth it, neither more fun nor better loot

achievements tho