I've been playing through the Purgatory hack
(the double EXP version) for the past few days. I expected a greater challenge than the original PSIV, but man, did I underestimate how hard it would actually be! Like Thoul already said, it requires quite a bit of leveling,
but luckily having double EXP eases the pain a little. It starts out extremely difficult (with the Tonoe warehouse being the most traumatizing dungeon in the hack, considering how early in the story you need to go there), but as you get stronger and get better equipment, it becomes slightly easier. Right now, I have barely managed to beat
Lassic, and I'm going to do a Guild mission or two before I move on. But with that said, this hack is absolutely great. Sure you'll get killed often, but with persistence, it's not impossible. Still, it makes PSII feel like a stroll in the park with a Chikorita.
A few words to the wise:1: Use the Double EXP version if you are having trouble staying alive, or if you're just impatient like I am ^.^
2: As you learn new techniques and skills, create some macros in order to guarantee combination attacks roughly 98% of the time. Combination attacks
will make survival easier and the process of killing enemies becomes more of a breeze than before. I recommend Blizzard (Zan/Hewn + Wat), Fire Storm (Zan/Hewn + Foi/Flaeli), and Grand Cross (Efess + Crosscut, in that order).
3: If you have gotten far enough into the game, I've found that some of the best places to level up are near Termi/Monsen (areas with the infamous Sandworms) and Air Castle. Termi and Monsen both have blue Caterpillars that give a surprisingly large amount of EXP at this point in the game; killing a group of 4 nets you about 3000 EXP.
I guess you could kill Sandworms, for 8000 EXP instead, but trust me, this time around, they are far more trouble than they're worth. They are probably the hardest enemies I've faced so far. I recommend Air Castle because you can pretty much dish out everything you've got against large groups of enemies and immediately recover in the yellow (or red?) healing thingamajig, or whatever it's called; just so you don't have to waste time leaving the dungeon
only to heal. I brought Chaz and co. up about 7 levels using this method. Keep in mind these were tested with a party of 5 members, so you'll get even more if you have fewer members.
4: You're most likely using an emulator to play this, so this is a crucial thing to say:
Savestates and the Fast Foward setting are your best friends. I don't think I need to explain savestates, but having a fast foward setting is yet another way to make leveling up less tedious. I know it's on Kega Fusion and the PSP version of PicoDrive (what I'm playing this on), but I'm pretty sure it's on most other emulators, too.
Well, that's about all I have to say until I complete the entire game. I know this post has been pretty long, so I have no problems if anyone wants me to separate a few parts of it for simplicity's sake; I just didn't want to post twice in a small amount of time

. Anyway,I want to thank
The $ Avenger for doing an awesome job, and I wish everyone who wants to try this hack the best of luck, you'll need it... Also, I noticed the
Blood Axe and the Algo Map were on sale in the Shortcake shop. Expensive, but still pretty nice touches
