Hello, I am back with a deceptively large update. I want to highlight some of the changes coming in this update.

-New Stage Title Cards

There are some cool new graphics whenever you start a stage. This is for Stages 1-10 and a couple of areas in the post-game.

-Mini-Vendors

New vendors have popped up in almost every town. They sell unique consumable items. The vending machine in Zeta has been changed to a Mini-Vendor to reflect this. Some of them sell powerful items at a limited stock.

-Stop Gap has been reworked into Avalanche

The Defence skill, Stop Gap was not very powerful, often relying on the opponent to be hyped to do decent damage. Avalanche is mostly the same with a few exceptions. It hits 1-4 times and only hits all enemies at full Hype instead of any amount of hype. Also Evoke has been removed from it, but in its place, upgrading Defence will reduce the mana cost up to -3. This is to be consistent with the other skills having three parameters being changed upon upgrade. Overall the skill is much stronger and if you're lucky can even clear mobs as fast or faster than Wave Slash.

-Level Up Skill bug fixed + Reworks + Ploys

The Level Up skill system had a bug since launch that wouldn't allow more than a line of text when viewing skills. This made some skills laughably esoteric (Looking at you Double Trouble.) The bug has been fixed, and the descriptions are much more... descriptive. In addition, many level-up skills have been given a second look and some have been flat-out replaced. New skills such as Fire Pledge, Attack Hex, and Frost Ploy can now be learned. This segways into a change I made regarding Hexes and Ploys. They now affect all enemies (that aren't immune to those statuses. Sorry no Auto-Freezing bosses). The trade-off is that Poison Ploy only lasts 2 turns (A normal poison lasts 4) and Frost Ploy lasts only 1 turn (a normal freeze lasts 2.) There are a couple of surprises here so I recommend checking them out!

-Cutscene Clean Up

A few cutscenes have new sprites and animations that weren't there before. Upon rewatching some of them I felt that they were unclear or awkward, and for others, I wanted to land an emotional moment. Lunez now has an animation upon recruiting him (To mirror Edgar and Chase) but that's the only one I'll mention directly.  

-Sho Studios and Vo(u)lward

The Sho Studios map has been updated to look a bit neater. You can also now go to the bottom floor, which was always intended but it was something I never got around to. Oops. Also to get to the bottom floor you need a card key... whatever that means.

Volward had some visual updates to its map. Volward looks pretty similar between the 3-4 screens it occupies. It caused some people to get lost pretty easily. It was never for long but it was enough for me to make an effort to update its visuals.  

-Madness Mode (Partially implemented)

A difficulty higher than Hard has appeared (or has it?) It remains locked behind normal gameplay but with the help of a certain computer in the post-game [spoiler]or defeating Aquarius[/spoiler], you can unlock Madness as a choice for difficulty. Currently, it only goes up to Chapter 1. Are you up for the challenge?

-Back to four Party members. You'll need them.

-Allies do not have body armor. Enemies always have body armor.

-If an enemy is Hyped, they will have two actions. (This only works on enemies with 1 action.)

-+100 to Attack, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck

-New Boss moves for the Four bosses that appear in the Prologue and Chapter 1.

When I first made Dyztopia, it didn't have a difficulty selection but I always suggested NOT taking Body Armor (which was optional at the time) as the unofficial Hard Mode. That was a very long time ago and the game was balanced with the players having Body Armor at all times, so taking that away really mixes things up. . There might be plans to revisit Madness to make it a proper difficulty, but that would require a lot of testing and that would take time away from the sequel.

Changelog

-Gave Lunez additional dialogue in Volward. He now changes what he says depending on your progress (This is to match the rest of the crew).

-Power Charge and Mind Charge have been given new animations. As well as a new idle animation to show a unit is charged.

-A new Hard Mode exclusive skill for [spoiler]Final Zazz[/spoiler] called Master Plan. Gives both Power and Mind Charge.

-Arch-Demon Aries no longer has the Heat Wave passive on Hard Mode. (Heat Wave usually seen in Weapon Mods, deals an extra instance of damage on all attacks.) and has also gained a Poison Weakness. [spoiler]Arch-Demon Aries keeps Heat Wave in Madness[/spoiler]

-TWT: Changed a lot of Akira's dialogue. Mostly other characters speak for Akira or Akira doesn't have an answer.

-[spoiler]TWT: Artica no longer survives. The whole healing sequence is skipped and she's absent from the bar and the train station. Somehow this route claimed another victim. [/spoiler]

-TWT: Sagitarrius now starts the battle with ATTACK UP, DEFENCE UP, DEXTERITY UP, and POWER CHARGE. This is the benefit of absorbing an extra soul. To reiterate this is only in TWT.

-Sweet Saturn has been reenabled in Stage 8 with a new sprite. In addition, a new enemy has been added: Coral Moosh.

-The Bonelord has a new sprite.

-Jasper has new face sprites.

-All Ailments no longer heal the afflicted. For example, if a unit had Absorb Fire and Burning, the damage over time from the burn would heal.

-In the second Twelve fight, her second form has been given a new theme and has been buffed.

-Arch-Demon Sagitarrius is now weak to water.

-Arch-Demon Scorpio has increased HP.

-New accessories for Akira, [spoiler]Virgo[/spoiler], and [spoiler]Kael[/spoiler]. Scarves that give bonus stats are only equippable to Smogs, Arcdras, and Vulcoros respectively.

-New accessories for Genesis and Fred are only found in Sho Studios provided you have a key card.

-In the Arch-Demon Taurus fight, if you don't kill Jasper you get a reward. If you don't even touch Jasper, you get a technically better reward.

-Hammer Quake now hits 1-4 times. Ouch.

-[spoiler]Rogue gets another sync upon recruiting. Making them very easy to max out.[/spoiler]

Bug Fixes

-Fixed the sand clock acting weird if you leave 5-1 while it's still going

-10-2 there was an impassible tile that shouldn't have been

-9-1 could soft-lock you if you killed an enemy and left the room too early.

-Window Skins are now properly loaded when you load a save file. There was a bug that would incorrectly load the system colors causing health bars and text to be unreadable in Hard and Easy mode.

-Sand Tomb now properly loops in Hard Mode. This is *technically* a buff to Scorpio.

-Holding down the push button no longer registers the button press after the animation. This would lead to players (and me) selecting the attack command immediately after using a push skill.

Closing Statement

I hope people enjoy this update. I've been watching playthroughs of Dyztopia on YouTube and Twitch and when I watch it there's always a voice in the back of my mind that's like "I can make this part better/look nicer." That mentality does take away dev time from Dyztopia 2, but I am trying to work on both simultaneously. Speaking of, unless there's a good amount of feedback, I think Madness will stay unfinished. As I mentioned before it's more of a challenge mode than a full difficulty, and I don't have time to test it fully. I just think it's a neat challenge.  

Until next time! Take care!