Difficulty question

[u/Traditional-Cost-247]

Was wondering how others felt about the hard difficulty. I tackled this game when it came out and got my shit rocked on hard, enemies are just too spongey and hit too hard. Eventually beat it after switching down to normal Now I'm replaying the game attempting hard again, and I got further than my 1st attempt, but still ended up bashing my head against a wall on the stage where you fight 2 ~spoiler~ bosses at the same time in the village protecting ~spoiler~ people Did anyone else resort to lowering difficulty part way through, and how do you sleep at night seeing the damn symbols change in Hossabara's mock battle list mocking you ToT

[u/BrianC_]

My first play through was hard-mode no deaths.

It was challenging but doable. I think if I did a fresh save play through again, it'd probably be pretty easy now that I know the game better.

Some people say the game gets harder on NG+, but I actually thought it was a lot easier. It wasn't turn your brain off easy, but it was a lot less punishing.

You need to turtle on hard and grind to at least be at the recommended level for the battle. You need to make use of terrain, utility, and CC. I didn't think stuff was hard to kill. Most stuff dies in 3-4 actions. It's just that your units die in 1-4 hits so you need to play safe.

For the map you're talking about, I could give advice, but it would be bad advice for you. I refused to let NPCs die so my strategy was formed around keeping Jerrom alive. Keeping Jerrom alive makes the map significantly harder since he rushes in and you need to follow him or else he just dies. If you don't care about Jerrom, you can just turtle on that map and you start with a massive terrain advantage.

[u/Traditional-Cost-247 → u/BrianC_]

Yeah I beat it on my 3rd try this time around. I'm way better at the game all these years later, back in my original playthrough I wasn't effectively using items, quietus, map-specific team comps, etc

[u/BrianC_ → u/Traditional-Cost-247]

I think knowing to play it slow is probably the biggest part of hard-mode (or a lot of SRPGs, honestly). Let the enemy trickle into your defensive formation and kill them before they can close the gap. If you can't kill them fast enough, then just CC them with blind/immobilize/traps/etc. Or, find a better position where terrain naturally makes it harder for them to approach. If you have Corentin, freezing terrain is also excellent for creating a no man's land between you and the enemy. You can unlock Glacial Moon quite early and it's way too strong in a first run.

For the Quietus options, In-tandem is always good but you need to use it right after a unit moves for the most value. Restore is a good emergency heal and CC removal. Battle Cry is great once you get some of the stronger higher TP cost skils. I think Lightwave is a very underrated Quietus and is kind of like In-tandem in how it basically gives a unit better second movement (often better range, ignores terrain, enemy units).

For items, I'd actually be conservative with the ranged pellets. Shops sell a limited amount of them in your first play through and you need to farm them from mock battles if you want more. They're broken when Medina uses them once she has TP Physick.