LandonRay's Xenogears HardType

Did anyone here play it?

For those who don't know, this is the 20th anniversary of Xenogears, a game that is near and dear to me. As such, I figured a replay was in order and I'd also try out another hack/mod from a guy I've quite enjoyed. (FFVIII Requiem and FFIX Unleashed were the first time I had replayed either game in years)

However, I'm at Calamity and it's not very...challenging or fun because there's no real skill involved. Between this and the Worm fight, it's all luck and tedium. I would think things get more interesting once I can finally start buying more items and running about grinding but for that to happen, I'd have to pray Calamity lets me win. Or I could maybe just find some cheat code that lets me oneshot Calamity and then turn it off after the boss fight... But I dunno.

That's why I was asking if anyone here has played it?

I played it and ended up stopping right at Calamity due to the same issues you are facing.  It really didn't feel so much as a "let's bump the difficulty up" type of mod and more like a "let's torture you with ridiculously OP shit, even trash mobs" type of mod.

It's a pity, because Xenogears is great but the vanilla game is just too easy.  If this mod was toned down just a little bit it would be glorious.

Well I beat it thanks to the power of Save States. That's probably cheating but I don't really feel guilty. I tested Calamity out with a real cheat, finding out it has about 5000 HP or so, which would be twice its original HP so that seems likely. If he had just nerfed Calamity's HP like some people requested in the ID forum, made it more like 3500-4000, that would be a lot more forgivable. As it is, I barely beat it with just Fei alive and totally out of fuel.

In a fight with real choice, strategy and, ya know, fun, I have no intention of save stating my way to victory. But this boss had none of those so I'm gonna go on without looking back. I'm determined to beat this game because, as noted, vanilla Xenogears is just too easy so I want to revisit my old love and have it actually be interesting to play.

Well now I'm completely stuck on the fight with Elly and her gang. There's literally no way to win. According to an old post by LR, you're supposed to be "given" a Frame HP30%. i wasn't given shit. I can only assume he meant you had to find it somewhere. Where, I have no idea. I looked around the mountain place and didn't find anything.

So...either I hack in a FH30 or I stop here. I wish I could just ask him or somebody else who beat this where I'm supposed to get it.

Well, after being rather happy with the modifications to Rico (making him the powerhouse he should have been) I'm completely fucked by the final round with the Gebler squad. They each do 400 damage at minimum and often combo up to 1000+. It's just Weltall against at least the first three of them and also after the Rankar fight potentially took off at least 400 health.  You have to pray Weltall dodges and he often doesn't.

I have absolutely no clue how you're supposed to survive this gauntlet This really is possibly the worst hard mod I've ever seen and that makes me very sad..