Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

Sorry for the slight offtopic, but I'd like to stress there's also a Famicom game made by the same team that shares practically the same mechanics as the SSMS series (it also uses helpers, and the battle system and story is quite similar). It's called Jubei Quest, and to me it's one of the best Famicon games out there, specially for the year it was released. Of course, the graphics and music are noticieably worse than SSMS-I and II, but if you overlook this it feels like playing an early prototype of what later became the SSMS series.

The same team also made "Dream Master" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSfNbRnTGes for the nes, which is technically better but I didn't like it as much as Jubei Quest. If you check its intro you can see the antagonist looks a lot like the SSMS-II villain, Dark (perhaps they wanted to give a nod in SSMS-II to this earlier game of theirs?).

This misunderstanding is actually my mistake. When Wildbill said that he sent the file my way, I thought he meant this game, but it was actually another. I won't say which one as I don't want to spoil it if Wildbill was hoping to keep its release as a surprise. And if you're reading this Wildbill, I've actually finished with my beta test and have sent you my final report. Hopefully, any final fixes will go smoothly before its release. Cheers!

Heh, are you telling me my little tiny clue was the key that unlocked the endgame!? Think about it... If a guy suddenly disappeared before your very eyes, where’s the first place you would look? well, I missed it, too, until I translated a paragraph from a Japanese website. Maybe even the slightest clue would be too much penetration into the solution, rather like calling some gal “a little bit pregnant”. I’m thinking about how I might probe the issue without going all the way, but Bongo’ used to get really ticked if I suggested inserting clues. He always said, “If it’s supposed to be hard, don’t turn “Mystic Ark” into “Mystic Quest”! So anyway, I might ask for one more set of eyes, but if you bless this particular work and I don’t get those additional eyes, out it will go. And yes, I may or may not provide an “added-in” clue!

Well, the funny thing about that whole thing is that I actually checked the wall above his throne, but found nothing. It seems that you had to check the space right in between the throne and wall to find the hidden entrance. This game really had me scratching my head as to where to go to next up until the very end. I actually completed a whole bunch of quests which I wasn't even supposed to yet just trying to figure out where I had to proceed next. The mercenaries were a nice touch, just not when the game forced you to get rid of some, which was quite often! And the high encounter rate was just down right criminal without using the stealth ability and/or save states. The game doesn't even let you save until you reach the first town! Luckily, you got some experience even if you ran away from battles.

Money was hard to come by though, seeing as how the only way to make some is by selling your various items and equipment. What else can I say about it? It was both enjoyable and agonizing all at the same time. So you all have that to look forward to! And yes, I think it's just about ready for release after those few errors that I pointed out in my report are corrected. And please try to include a walkthrough or at least a hint guide. Otherwise, many players might just break their screens in frustration...!

And getting slightly off topic, or rather back on topic... Yes, the first Monster Story game for the NES was indeed the first game in the trilogy, followed by the two SNES ones that were translated by the famed, legendary and often spoken of, Dynamic-Designs. Did I over hype us just a little?
And those other gameboy ones were just some kind of spin-off games that aren't part of the main series.

Yeah, I'd agree with Recca, instead of including hints in the game, make a hint guide and put it in the forum and sticky it where people can view it if they want or avoid it if they don't want to use it. I'm 100% with bongo`. We should never include hints the Japanese don't have. Makes some western players offended because they feel you're essentially saying they're dumb and they can't do what a Japanese person can do. We got enough of that back in the day with most RPG localizers in this era (except Working Designs which went the exact opposite direction.) For anyone that doesn't know, Working Designs rebalanced games to make them harder to beat.

Finally found some free time to continue the game, so I managed to crank out another two reports. So as to have them all in one post, I'll just post all the links here, that way they're not all scattered on different pages.

Here's the links:

Report 01: http://www.mediafire.com/file/p39zwl8bc ... Report+01+[F8C3045E].zip/file
Report 02: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ymzgvb9ii ... Report+02+[F8C3045E].zip/file
Report 03: http://www.mediafire.com/file/xu5m39idn ... Report+03+[F8C3045E].zip/file
Report 04: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ik5tusu6h ... Report+04+[F8C3045E].zip/file

Surprisingly, there's very little in need of attention, so kudos to the beta testers! Great job! Anyway, I might have a few days off coming up, so I'll use that time to finish the game (I'm about halfway through).

Thank you!

I'm always glad to help, Wildbill. I'm sorry it's taking so long, as I usually devote 1-2 weeks to a game. Real life always has a habit of sneaking up on us when we least expect it, but I am making progress (just a little slower than I'd like). I know there's no real hurry, but I've always felt that the longer you take to do something, the greater the likelihood of not wanting to finish it (case in point: Octopath Traveler...I decided I wanted to grind all characters to level 99, which is painfully slow and tedious, but I did it. It...took me over a year to do this [400 game hours], playing one hour each session, but it's done (granted, once I beat the true boss I'm never touching the game again, but that's to be expected)).

Sorry, I digress...Super Shell Monsters Story II is most interesting, as it has really long cut-scenes and spots where you switch parties. Switching parties mid-game is a nice touch that I wasn't expecting. I'm definitely looking forward to completing the game!

No rush... glad you are enjoying the game!

Actually, I'm trying to crunch a beta report into a different game while simultaneously writing the story to another for the first draft (just reached 25%). I'm enjoying the heck out of doing game work again.

Well, I finally beat the game a couple of days ago. It's a very good game, but some of the design choices are questionable (like that encounter rate...I mean, I can deal with lots of encounters, back to back, but toward the end of the game the encounters were such that it felt like the designers intentionally made the enemies stronger to whittle down your party, bit by bit, and this despite the fact that everyone in my party was at max level). Yeah, I've read about the "no encounter" cheat code, but sometimes cheat codes can adversely affect the game, so I avoid all cheats while testing games. There's still a few questions left unanswered (for me), so I'll probably plug in that code later

The dual-party system was interesting and very well done. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that the designers actually HID necessary switches/doors BEHIND graphics. I was stuck the first time, wondering why the door wouldn't open when I was standing on both switches, then I realized almost an hour later that the corresponding switch was behind some graphics...grr. Aside from that, it's a refreshing change, as it's different from most rpg's of that time.

There's also a lot to do in the game (like the town you can customize), and there's quite a few hidden surprises in the game as well (like that barrel in Port Marinela...must check it later), and the Time Ruins. While on the subject of the Time Ruins, it wasn't until I made it to the middle of the game that I figured out HOW to actually enter the Ruins: you have to press 'A'. My mistake was that I was simply following the directions, as stated, but that's not enough (you HAVE to press 'A' or nothing happens). The Time Ruins were a nice side-quest, and, thankfully, they didn't overdo it. I was hoping it didn't turn into another 'Animal Crossing'. Don't get me wrong...I love 'Animal Crossing'. What I don't like is the fact that too many things in 'Animal Crossing' take place at very specific times, and only for a limited time, so if you don't play the game at the right time, you end up missing out. In the end, I ended up doing what's known as "time travelling" in AC (Animal Crossing), but that's mainly because SO MANY things require that you play at specific times, including the holidays. I mean, can you picture that? My family and friends are gathered for X-mas, and I say, "Excuse me for a bit, I have to play AC to unlock the Santa outfit." I...don't think so. Anyway, here there were only a handful of time-specific side-quests, so it was perfect (except for that last one, you'll have to read my to-be-uploaded-soon final report for that one).

Overall, it was fun playing this game, so thanks, Dynamic Designs! Even though it may not be a perfect release, it's very much playable without any major problems. While on that subject, I did find a few minor issues, which I'll be uploading a little later (life's been really hectic lately, what with work and the pandemic). There's probably, oh, two or three additional reports, and I should be able to get those done in the next few days. Well, off to work...just wanted to post an update.