Hey guys, the big "Version 2" update for Epic Battle Fantasy 5 is about 50% done!
That sounds like it's taking a long time, but I've not been working on it full-time until recently, so it should progress quite quickly from now on. Here's a progress report of what's already confirmed for the update...
• 52 "new" foes, with 24 of them being bosses or mini-bosses. I say "new" because about half of them are returning from previous EBF games. All of them will be catch-able.
• 31 new achievements. They're of similar difficulty to what's already in the game - nothing crazy is being added, and you won't have to start from the beginning if you don't want to.
• 16 new Flair equips, many of which have completely new types of effects. There's also a lot of references to popular browser games in there.
• 14 new skills, including 2 limit breaks. Like other skills, these will be learned from NPCs and can be used by different players.
• 50 monster cards to collect. These are a new type of one-of-a-kind item that give you small perks, and are found in hard-to-reach treasure chests.
• A new biome, 3 new dungeons, and a bunch of secret areas. These areas are quite small, but they've got some unique battle gimmicks. For example, in the Battle Arena, you can only use one player in battle. Most of the new battles will be unique and challenging, with very few of them being "filler" battles.
• A "Cheats and Challenges" menu, which adds 30 options for customizing the game difficulty. You can mess around with overpowered players, make the foes unbeatable, or come up with some mix of the two. These can be changed at any time.
• A "Custom Quest" menu, which will allow you to start a new game with some major changes. Some options include: Randomized equipment locations, alternative weather, and alternative foes in filler battles.
Of course I'll also be making some balancing and quality-of-life changes. But I haven't started on those yet, and I'm not making any promises about the details.
Old saved games will be completely compatible with the updated version, but I recommend playing from the beginning for the best experience. A lot of the new stuff will be hidden earlier on in the game, and the Cheats, Challenges and Custom Quest settings will make a second playthrough much more interesting.
Steam users who own EBF5 will be able to opt-in to the Version 2 beta when it is around 90% complete, and my Patreon supporters will have access to it a bit earlier. If you want more information and previews, you can browse the posts on my website, but they contain a lot of spoilers!
If you've enjoyed EBF5 so far, please leave a Steam review - and if you didn't, please let me know, so that maybe I can fix it in the update.
And finally, I'll be raising the price of the game to $20 once the update is released.
That is all.