Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

From email responses, this seems to be the less popular of my two hacks for PSIV, since it has fewer changes, but this means it's more consistent to the original. What do you all think of it? The bosses are both a nightmare and tons of fun if you like the level of challenge I do.

Old topic is old, but anyways...

I've looked at some of the boss fights on Youtube (by Minori) and wow...

Chaos Sorcerer's physical attack did 383 damage to Rika. A Chaos Sorcerer's physical attack. Out of all the things. Sure enough buffs weren't up, but that much? I don't even want to think about how much damage a Sandworm could do (anyone who's played hell mode here, do you know? and what level would you need to be at to face a sandworm?).

All other boss battles just seem harder than the original, execpt for Profound Darkness, which looks about 3x more difficult. Rune's Legeon only does about 200 damage to it. Rune's Tandle only does about 110 damage. Wren's Burstrocket only does about 105 damage to it. Wren's Flare only does about 90 damage.
PD2 and PD3's physical attacks are very powerful. Each can do around 350-420. Megid surprisngly doesn't do a lot more damage, but still.

I haven't played hell mode mod, as I don't have anything to download it on (I'm using an iPad and they're in no way able to download something like this). I'd really like to try it out, but I feel like it has some flaws, mainly because Recover is a little overused... anyways, still seems like a good hack.

I tried it for fun years back. I remember not getting all that far. Was extremely difficult, and not in a way that was fun or appealing to me. It really seemed to lack the capability of altering your approach much, with each battle seeming to be having to put up a bunch of buffs to balance the damage output disparity and then running headlong into a brick wall until breaks - sure, the wall might eventually break, but by the time that happens you'll have seriously damaged yourself. To me, it seemed built around reducing your damage output and increasing your enemies', with some minor changes to who has what techniques/skills. Not a fun challenge to me, just tedious, as the central focus is just changed damage output balance. Hard for the sake of hard, and for me, not much else. Now, if you're into that, it's brilliant, and it is well made and if you want to up the challenge in PSIV, it's a good way to go. Just not personally appealing to me.

The only super-hard mode I've tried in any game in recent memory that I enjoyed is Grounded mode in The Last of Us, which I haven't gotten too far in but have been enjoying. Personally, I think it better allows you change your approach with each try, learn from failure and get a little further, and includes more difficult resource management and the lack of some skills (and your HUD) that makes you take a more careful approach, along with changing the damage output balance. Still hard for the sake of hard, but with enough fun (for me) that I will run into that brick wall until my face breaks and then some.

This mode is a real hell on earth ! Too hard for me but a great challenge for the people who like that !

I’ll try this hack after I finish purgatory mode (which I’m almost finished on, just need to level up the four main characters and then go for a long battle with the Profound Darkness.

I think hell mode is actually easier, but eitherway, I’m guessing most of the extra abilities in hell mode aren’t for boss battles, as a fair share of them are status decreasements.

Just started this hack. I like it a lot. There aren’t as much changes than the original, but it’s still a fun hack. I’m at level 11, and I just got Gryz. I’ll get another level up for Chaz, then it’s off to the basement.

Scootaloo wrote:Just started this hack. I like it a lot. There aren’t as much changes than the original, but it’s still a fun hack. I’m at level 11, and I just got Gryz. I’ll get another level up for Chaz, then it’s off to the basement.

You like a lot very hard games as I can see ! And it's the same for all those hard modes !
Good luck to you then !