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I picked up War of the Gods in particular as something to play because of two reasons. First, it wasn't a straight difficulty hack. I love strategy games, especially turn-based strategy, but I've never had a whole lot of interest in playing Shining Force at the hardest difficulty and turning damage up to 11 across the board. Second, the prospect of a full or partial story rewrite was kind of nice, because vanilla SF2's story isn't anything particularly notable, and if I was going to spend some time with the game, getting to follow a new story seemed like a bonus. I think War of the Gods succeeded for me on one of these fronts, a lot more than the other.

War of the Gods succeeded in feeling like there were more tactical decisions to be made, rather than just an increase in difficulty, and there were a lot of reasons for that. I think early on, a lot of this came from the understanding of having to sacrifice units in the course of handling spellcasters made for a lot of tactical decision making. Even once spells weren't a one-shot anymore, they were still significant enough to require a lot of consideration, probably up until we started heading to North Parmecia. Handling enemy resistances also provided opportunities for other tactical decisions, and if that system were made deeper, there could be additional depth in that regard. In the back half of the game, tactical decisions were a bit more varied in some of the unusual battle formations or enemy tactics.

There were several battles that got undermined by wonky AI. For example, Prism Flowers or Zeon Guards refusing to act were one of the more egregious examples of this, but throughout the game (especially in rewatching my streams to write this LP), there were instances where enemies just made very poor decisions or simply declined to act entirely. When you're relying on each enemy being stronger later in the game, the impact of this seems to grow. Overall though, the battles were fun and I generally enjoyed them. Willard was the only one that I truly disliked, where I feel like Cameela struck a much better balance with the same mechanic.

Aside from that, my only complaint about the battles is the levelling curve betraying me in North Parmecia going into Zalbard, where I hadn't done any level grinding but dangerous enemies were giving me no/negligible XP. A better XP curve would've eliminated the need to grind levels there, as the balance had felt really good up until that point (and afterwards, as well). A similar jump existed in the Tower Basement, but at least that fight is optional, which gives it a built-in excuse. The only thing that's unfortunate about that battle is that taking that fight requires level 35-40, which makes the final pair of story battles a little too easy. Those concerns are mitigated by the availability of the TRAIN option in shops, which was tremendously useful and has convinced me that this should be an available option in any game with a large cast of characters like this, especially where level grinding is somewhat cumbersome or time-consuming. Aside from those two jumps over the XP curve, the overall enemy balance felt pretty good, or maybe even a little too easy in the mid-to-late game (between Zalbard and Geshp).

While War of the Gods was very successful in terms of its gameplay changes, its story changes were not good at all. The game script feels like too many "cool" ideas were thrown at the wall without any editing, so every "oh, what if..." and "oooooh, and..." was thrown in. This was very much done without regard to the implications of those ideas, or how those ideas conflicted with each other or other story elements, or even the readme. Many of these story elements were never followed up on or even muddled the story further, so there was definitely a need for some editing here. I know that I was really harsh on the story, and I'm sure that stems from doing a long-form Let's Play, requiring me to deal with the story in a way that a casual player wouldn't. If I didn't do the LP, I could've much more easily ignored all the times we got exposition that made our actions in game make less sense, or ignored the "Chosen Undead" thing, or the 3 hours of the game where Zeon was King of the Demons instead of King of the Devils, or the paradox of the Chosen One vs the failed Chosen Ones, etc.

The art of War of the Gods was pretty good. I really enjoyed the new enemy sprites, especially the Phantasy Star 4 ones, and I wish more sprites had been used/inspired from that game, as well as other Shining series games. I'm still sad we didn't get Shining in the Darkness Dark Sol! Some of the new character art was really good too – it's a shame that my mic was muted when I promoted Kiwi, because I totally lost flipped out. The really cool art actually made some other things stand out as looking unfinished or just not very good, which is a shame. For example, the Barbarian promotion using a generic NPC soldier sprite on the overworld and a generic and uninspired battle sprite is a real bummer when you compare it to Kazin's MGUS promotion or Kiwi's promotion.

Character balance within the Force was also disappointing. The out of date and inaccurate readme was annoying, but what really disappointed me in this regard was how few characters had reasonable arguments for inclusion in my battle party. I ended up using 11 of the first 12 characters that I received for the entire game, only replacing Jaha with Skreech. That wasn't really a deliberate choice, so much as a reaction to the paucity of viable options. A lot of characters were obviously extremely worthless, to such a degree that the only reason to consider them was if you wanted a handicap. I will highlight poor character movement as an especially egregious character handicap in War of the Gods. Poor movement is already annoying in vanilla, but its especially problematic in War of the Gods because you need to have the initiative to get off an attack (or get into position for an attack) to kill an enemy before it kills you. Honestly, MOV is so important in War of the Gods that I'm not sure its possible to reasonably balance a character around having an outright *bad* movement (which is a consideration both of their MOV attribute and their movement type).

Overall, War of the Gods is a fun little romp for a strategy game, and its gameplay and art changes are a fun coat of paint on a classic. If you want to replay Shining Force 2, or just want an easy turn-based strategy fix, it's a fun option. Do yourself a favor and smash through all the dialogue without trying to make sense of any of it, and you'll have a fine time.

If you want to find all the secrets, my Let's Play (available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10oMAINnMzf8B7sjjw3-SOg9L4UahFVARpjoLcE7bCDc/ ) should be able to help you out, as I believe I only missed three items across the game: an early on-use ring (I think in the Chirrup Sandals spot), the Water Orb (to summon NEPTUN), and a Dark Matter (could be anywhere).

I just finished off Zeon and wanted to give my impressions of the mod. Firstly, I loved the magic system that was implemented with this mod. Magic damage is actually relevant in the end game now, the elemental weaknesses were implemented very nicely and added a fun layer of strategy and complexity to magic usage. I do have one  criticism however, which is the EARLY game. I've played this mod once years ago and ended up quitting early because of how broken magic is at the start of the game. The "Lets Play" by Woodhouse204 encouraged to try again, with hopes the game would improve later, which it surely did!. Level 1 spells annihilate EVERYTHING in one hit, on top of hitting multiple targets. It often makes the first 10-15 battles of the game a mad dash to frantically kill any of the opposing magic users since they can literally murder half your team or Bowie in an instant. Magic becomes a lot more balanced by the end-game, but the early game the damage is so astronomical that it trivializes battles (Kazin and Rick destroying everything) or, makes a battle extremely difficult. My suggestion to make the magic progression a little bit smoother and improve the balance of the early game is to maybe make Level 1 of Blaze,Blast,Freeze and Bolt be a very cheap, but low damage version of the spell (kind of like Vanilla, but a little stronger) so it doesn't 1HKO everythign and anything. Have Level 2,3 and 4 maintain the same damage, but prevent enemies in the early battles (I'd say roughly up until Gerhault becomes available) from having access to it, as well as the player. I LOVE the changes to characters in this game, rather than go through each character individually, I'll talk about classes since comparing stats of characters in the same class, the differences aren't super significant. Higgins doesn't suck anymore! Cleric: The decision to give them Aura was very smart, and helps to set them apart from the Mystic as a support/healing unit. Sarah was my Cleric on this playthrough and she did very well, staying with me the entire game. They are also surprisingly tanky in this version. One cleric is almost necessary in this mod to be part of the force. On a side note, Terra arrives a bit late to the party and by the time she did, Sarah was 10 levels ahead of her so I never used her. Mystic: An excellent, slightly rebalanced version of Master Monk. Sacrifices the use of Aura and MP for the ability to hit enemies with a great deal of damage. Karna was my Mystic all game and she was able to hit enemies with the similar damage to Peter/Slade. Side note, the Desoul rework is awesome and makes the special so much more useful rather than simply a lottery. Barbarian: I can't comment on them because I didn't end up use one in my playthrough. I made Jaha a Paladin and also used Lemon. Paladin: I love the addition of basic healing spells on this iteration. They are very good frontline tanks that can support and heal in a pinch. I do feel they lag behind a bit with only 5 movement in this version, and benefit greatly movement plus equipment, although at the expense of boosted atk and defense. Gerhault/Slade/Kiwi/Peter can run circles around them. By the end game I didn't end up using one, but Jaha was staple part of my team for a long while. I'd suggest maybe restoring their 6 movement and giving them slightly more MP, particularly on promotion. Sorceror (Rick): Honestly my favorite character in this mod! His spell list is brilliant, bridging the gap between healing, support, debuff and damage. He was useful on every map and all throughout the game, and the idea of Centaur Mage is brilliant! One criticism though is, he is holding a staff on his battle animation and his battle sprite, it always kind of seemed odd I couldn't equip him with one. This hurts him a lot end-game, where my other Clerics/Wizards had access to excellent staves and secondary effects. Also, it would be REALLY cool if he could use the Pegasus wing to become some type of flying centaur mage....one can only dream. Pegasus Knight: Still as awesome as he ever was, very high chances of double attacks and crits. Basically become archers by end-game with the final weapon. Celeste's artwork looks fantastic btw Red Knight: My personal favorite class out of the entire mod. Decent spell variety, good well balanced stats, and access to spears as weapons for good attack damage. Great base movement too. It's hard to go wrong with these guys. Brass Gunner (Rohde): He has 8 movement in this mod! The combo of high defense and high movement made it so he could fearlessly engage enemies and almost always could get into an attack range. Giving him a Glove to maximize his attack damage rather than damage is a great option too since his base survivability is pretty good. Only problem is his speed, he sure does love to be a beneficiary of the boost spell. Snipers: Largely feels like they're vanilla counterparts but more useful this time around. Honestly people trash Elric and Janet but their range is really underrated, I ended up using both of them in certain key fights where enemies are difficult to reach. Wizard: With magic as powerful as it is in this version, this class was awesome. AoE damage is extremely potent this time around as well. Magus: My least favorite class if I'm being honest. A sort of Mystic/Mastermonk but with Raze (single target, one range attack damage) and 1 summon spell. They have more tankiness and surprisingly good attack damage, so they are a hybrid mage warrior. I made Kazin one, and ended up dumping him for Tyrin and Taya as wizards. I guess they just don't fit my playstyle. Bird Knight (Luke) Luke is AMAZING this mod, my second favorite behind Rick. His mobility is excellent, has access to the Attack Spell which remains useful all game, his attack damage leaves a lot to be desired but Raze magic combined with his great mobility is a recipe for success. Blast polishes off his spell list for elemental coverage and AoE damage. I didn't use Skreech as I found him(her?) boring with no spells and with Peter and Luke a bit redundant. Werewolf (Gerhault) Incredible mobility and strength, absolute murder machine this mod. Especially when under the "Attack" spell. The amount of times he could kill things from their max HP was astonishing. AN absolute monster! Phoenix (Peter) Not the murder machine he was in the OG but still excellent, flying unit with Blaze spell set. Ninja (Slade) Somewhat squishy but great attack power, mobility and speed. No longer has attack magic, but is the only character with poison/sleep/muddle spells. As a side note here, these spells while occassionally useful are still underwhelming due to their low chance of affecting the enemy. A slight boost in the chance of them working would be good (maybe 10-15% extra chance) since a lot of times using these feels like a completely wasted turn. Robot (Zynk) Didn't end up using him, I imagine he is kind of similar to Barbarian but has better movement. I like characters with more utility and spells. It would be cool if he had some robotic ability, or able to use his laser as a "spell"

Summoner (Grim) Like the OG "sorceror". Has all the summon spells and thus, all elements, so he can always hit a weakness and do a TON of a damage to a single target. Unable to equip staves or rings, which like Rick, I think is very odd. He seems like he should be able to equip rings to me. I also ended up dumping him by the final battles

Mythril, Gold Dust and Dark Matter.

Excellent addition to the game. All the new mithril weapons are varied and cool, the super accessories give nice customizable options which I'm a fan of. Dark matter equipment is strictly very OP but hard to come by. Only found 2 of them on my journey. A shop near the end-game has purchasable mithril and gold dust which I'm eternally grateful for.

The Train feature and new recruits often coming with Brave Apples is an absolute godsend when it comes to catching your new units to the rest of the force so you can use them adequately in battle without having to enter battle and egress to earn EXP.

The Willard and and Camilla battles were more an exercise in tedium than feeling like a true test of strategy. I do understand that you don't want every battle to be the same and adding some gimmicks is good for variety sake, but I am certainly not looking forward to do those battles again on a replay!

Overall though, fantastic job this was the most fun I had playing shining force 2 in awhile!

Beginning TL:DR - It changes a lot of the game, I'd recommend ONLY for experienced players and/or people who don't mind taking notes. MAGIC IS KING. Characters who can't cast spells are honestly slightly subpar.

I'm probably a little over half way through.

The story changes are ... nifty?

A lot of dialogue changes happen, but there's too much in relation to what's originally said, so the text kind of scrolls EXTREMELY FAST ... which helps with the typos that are present.

Battles that split up the party are also nifty, but not being able to place characters personally makes the mechanic suck.

The Color swaps are ... neutral. A lot of , if not all, people have had their character colors changed. Sometimes this is cool, other times you get black face Higins.

Definitely needs to be refined more in some areas. And the fact that it is explicitly said "There are only 5 Dark Matters, they make the best weapons" and no guide anywhere on where to find them? Holy hell not everyone has unlimited time to search every mountain.

Early game challenges are fun. Post-Creed? Game seems to get a lot easier.

If Vanilla is a 5/10 - neutral. Then this is probably a ... 6.5/10? decent changes and improvements. But mostly for experienced players.

I've played through a lot of mods, and this one felt like a fresh playthrough. A lot of battles require unique strategies due to new enemy types and placements, as well as the emphasis on multi target magic damage. Lots of new enemies, new characters, and equipment options that make your team feel more customizable as needed. I really enjoyed the overworld map changes (not many, but a cool idea nonetheless) and differences in battle order. I will say that there were a lot of sprite errors, which doesn't matter but leaves it feeling a bit unpolished during the cutscences. Overall, really fun and would recommend if you are looking for something new.

Shining Force 2. Love the game. Any hack is welcome to me. Here we have War of the Gods. Let me summarize : it is horrifically unbalanced.

You start off kinda strong and a few levels higher. Not a rough start, but unless you save or save state like me (big whoop wanna fight about it?) you will discover that magic is punishing. I got hit hard on battle 2. This goes for both sides. The plus is that this mod is making magic more essential as fire magic is no longer the red headed stepchild or shining force as all magics have a class of its own instead of fire being the loser magic, freeze being intermediate and bolt being godly, there are strengths and weaknesses. However, enemy stats are painfully weak as you will grow faster than they and unless the enemy is a mage, they are laughably weak as they might as well kneel before you. I understand the leveling system being level cap for unpromoted is 20 - 40 for promoted, but the enemy needs a little push to give some challenge. Kudos to magic though.

New enemy drawings are awesome and re-coloring is a delight and there are some dialog changes but some of the original dialog remains which is annoying as much as I like Shining Force 2, I mostly hated the old dialog. A good re-write is needed.

This mod has plenty of promise, but is too unbalanced to recommend. With proper fine tuning, this could be excellent.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can recommend this in it's current form. While it certainly offers a different experience from the original, and I also don't not recommend it as I can appreciate the work put into it thus far, this hack has a lot of problems that leave it feeling highly unpolished.

The very first thing you might notice is that the game has many new lines of changed or added dialog. However, nearly every new line contains either spelling errors, punctuation errors or grammar errors, which can ruin the experience of playing something new and greatly adds on to the "unpolished" feeling the hack gives off. It also adds completely pointless references or tie-ins to older games of the series that just leave you scratching your head as to why they would add such things.

From the very first battle, you'll notice that the difficulty has been increased significantly. While higher difficulty isn't necessarily a bad thing, the way this was implemented makes it feel completely unbalanced. Enemy's stats are much higher than normal, and their AI is more aggressive. At the start of the game, this makes progressing very difficult. You gain exp much faster than normal, however, and as you level up, your own characters will start to greatly outstrip the enemies, and then it goes from being too difficult, to being too easy a lot of the time. Many enemies also have new spells, whether the enemy would normally have spells or not.

The spells themselves are ridiculous. Blaze 1, for example, now hits multiple characters, and does nearly 25 damage to each character it hits. In the beginning of the game, that will outright kill any playable character. While you have characters with spells as well, most enemies have far more HP than you do and can survive a spell or two when a single shot will kill you.

All enemies now have resistances and weaknesses to a certain spell, and if you do use a spell the enemy is weak to, it will do significantly more damage. That, however, is situational at best and doesn't excuse the unbalanced difficulty as a whole. In fact, it adds to it, as once you learn the weaknesses of enemies, you'll learn that magic is king and can destroy most anything in one or two shots.

Bosses offer much more of a challenge, as they're given bloated stats and an AI that capitalizes on any poor character positioning you might have. Because of their high stats and the potency of spells, the difficulty and balance is literally all over the place. Main enemies that were once killing you in one or two hits now die in one or two hits, while a boss wipes out half your party in a single turn. It's a little jarring.

Some of the new added features, such as the "training" option in shops were a good addition. The training option essentially grants the character of your choice 100 exp, for an increasingly escalating fee, leveling them up instantly. This is very useful for characters that are lagging behind the others on your team.

They've also added sub-equipment such as gauntlets that raise your attack power and shields that increase your defense. However, since each character can only hold four items at a time, this bogs up each character's inventory. You'll be picking up a lot of special items along your adventure, as well as the typical healing items and the like. This makes organizing your items in the beginning, before you have access to storage, difficult as you often have to choose between bringing along healing items, or using your precious inventory space to hold on to special items such as mithril or promotion items.

While the game is an interesting romp through a beloved classic, the unbalanced difficulty and the unpolished added dialog keep me from fully well enjoying this ROM hack to it's fullest. If you truly love Shining Force, go ahead and give this hack a try and form your own opinion. But as it stands right now, I'm having a hard time recommending this until a little more work is put into it.

Some good work here. Everything explained in the description is accurate. Some sprite work, and enhanced diction(etc)most definitely make the game more enjoyable. The little nods to other games is a cool addition. Republicans, and Disney not withstanding. You should indeed talk to everyone, unless you want a much harder time. Many items can be used in combat to great results. Which is really needed because many enemies can dodge at a high rate. It's fun to mess around with. Things like "train" help you bring along some characters that are dragging behind. Instead of grinding, or using characters you do not like. I'm having a ton of fun with the new additions. I've made it to the Taros fight and I cant wait to see what more the game has to offer.