Breath of Fire II Maeson

Hack of Breath of Fire II

This is a Hack for Breath of Fire II, an RPG on the Super Nintendo. It is now updated to version 1.06!
Unlike other hacks of this author, the idea here is to fine-tune certain aspects of the game to make a smoother experience, instead of making big changes to the gameplay in general (even if there are some).
Some of the changes done are:

• Increase the overall usefulness and balance of the cast of characters, improving the least useful ones and trying to put them all on a similar level.
• Changes to Magic, with changes to the AP costs, and in case of offensive spells, damage too. Characters learn different spells, and overall they can be used a bit more freely.
• Changes in equipment that go along with the changes to the characters. For example, whips are much better weapons than before, and a few pieces of armor are usable by more characters.
• Changes in the Experience and Zenny the monsters give upon defeat; the experience tables for characters to reduce grinding, and prices for equipment and items also was adjusted depending on their usefulness.
• Because of all the changes pointed above, monsters had their stats also adjusted for how the characters are now. Difficulty shouldn't change too much compared to the original game.
• Changes on the Shaman system, for example Seny/Saynie actually does something now, and Transformations are not simple stat upgrades anymore, instead they reduce and increase stats, trying to change a character's role or become a stronger version of himself/herself, but with higher weaknesses too.

There are a few other things, and as always is the case with this author, there's a "way too long readme" with a lot of information.
This hack is actually compatible with D4S and Ryusui's Retranslation. In fact, there's a version of the readme exclusively made with Retranslation names.
Version 1.01 changes: Some of the enemies on the very early parts of the game were slightly toned down in attack power.
Version 1.02 changes: some slight Character adjustments made for better balance, Shaman Transformations made less extreme (both in strengths and weaknesses), and fixed a small oversight in the B patch on 1.01.
Version 1.02a changes: Just a few typos related to when certain characters learn certain spells. Very minor stuff.
Version 1.03 and 1.05 changes: After several years, the hack got some updates.

• A version with lowered encounter rates has been added, after Ok Impala! found how to change it. This new version tweaks the Experience and Zenny rewards to make up for the lower encounter rate, and the chances for obtaining certain Item drops were increased too. Credits and thanks to Ok Impala! for finding out!
• The original game uses the music track "There's Something Here", a very short and repetitive loop, in many, many areas of the game, something a lot of people found annoying, and the author does too. This new version of the hack swaps out this track in most places that it played before and substitutes it with a variety of other themes, not only making the game feel fresher when you're not hearing the same music track constantly, but also to let other, better themes that are used far less shine a bit more.
• The Menu Background for the Retranslation version of the patch has been simplified to make reading far less of a hassle. It was optional in the prior version, but in this new version is part of the main patch.

Version 1.06 changes:

• On the Lower Encounter Rates versions of the previous release, I raised the Experience received to cover the slightly lower number of battles. Based on feedback, this seemed to be unnecessary, so the the previous amounts of Experience gained was restored.
• A few enemy drop rates were tweaked.
• The in-game menu background was made darker. The older, lighter colors can still be accessed through an optional patch.
• Made a small correction to one of Rand's transformations, that had the incorrect bonuses and penalties.
• Removed unnecessary code from the Restore Normal Encounter rate optional patch.
• Thanks to Praetarius5018, the Retranslation Checksum can now be entirely bypassed. Because of this, all the patches were redone to make the process of patching significantly easier and less cumbersome, as now you don't need to keep applying Checksum fixing patches depending on which patches, from Maeson or others you wanted to use. This Checksum bypass can be used with any of the three variations of the Retranslation (that affect the game's titlescreen).

Credits and heartfelt thanks to Preatarius5018 for this finding!

• Fixed a mistake made on the Experience Tables for two characters, and minor tweaks to the spell progression of a couple characters, plus the starting Level of one member too.
• The Shaman system has been expanded, and several Transformations had their stat alterations tweaked. Characters that had few compatible combinations now have more, such as Lin/Kat now having normal fusions. Characters with only one Transformation combination now have two, with different bonuses and penalties.

• Breath of Fire II (USA).sfc
• CRC-32: 67CDACC5
• MD-5 : E1FF1ED4AD5DBDBE86774920DFB5E9D4
• SHA-1 : 1F7707E606B7E9FA8FB3908BBDDFCB5DEA93D776