This is the first of the three planned extra content drops to flesh out the game a bit more. It's a bit larger than I had intended as it includes a lot of background updates, like all the menu and system updates.

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The Endless Burden

The far away island of Hin Su is a mystery to many. Centuries of conflict with those living on the mainland has left the people of Hin Su isolated by choice and wary of accepting help, preferring to deal with any issues themselves as the “mainlanders” have used outsiders pretending to offer help in older conflicts. When a message arrives for Helscen, asking him for not only his help but that of Feron and his other companions, it raises many questions. Return to Helscen's homeland and help him unravel this mystery.

This includes a one act main quest that unfolds across the island, companion quest for Tishna, multiple small side areas, and a side dungeon that ties in to an encounter you may have had in Verdenheim in Act 1 with a powerful weapon reward for completing it. Unlocking this content requires completion of Helscen's recruitment quest. It can then be accessed by speaking to the NPC that appears in your base and then using the new node that appears in the teleport room. Level 40+ is recommended.

New Storyline companion, Tishna the Auramancer. Obtained almost immediately after starting the new content, Tishna is a flexible support character that can fill various roles by making good use of her Aura skills. Completion of her companion quest will award a set of gear tailored towards healing, but due to her balanced stats and ability to use almost any type of weapon, she can fill other support roles if you prefer one of the other healing characters.

New mercenary companion, Jin the Daredevil. An evasion tank with a martial artist flair that comes with her own unique type of weapon. Other Fist type weapons with other effects can be crafted in your base or bought from the weapon shop in Hin Su's main city.

New skill type, Aura. Tishna's signature abilities. Only one Aura may be active at any time but it will remain active either until replaced by activating a different Aura or the battle ends. (Outside of one exception explained in game if you acquire the means to use it)

New item type, Cursed items. These are rare items that have higher than average base stats for their item type, a unique and powerful bonus effect or stat, but two negatives. All Cursed items lock themselves to the character that equipped them, preventing equipping of other items of that type, along with another negative effect such as per turn health drain. Removal of these items can only be done by an Enchanter or Enchantress. (Luckily you have one after completing Act 1 of the game)

The Tomb of the Eternal Kings

The Endless Sands hold many secrets, most having been buried for many lifetimes. One of those has made itself known and wishes to convey it's help to the soon to be ruler of those Sands and any that travel with her.

This content is unlocked after completing Mira's companion quest and provides access to rare crafting materials. Speak with the NPC that appears in your base then head to the sandstorm shrouded pyramid on the eastern side of the Endless Sands.

The Lucky 39

The empress of the Endless Sands, in her bountiful wisdom, has seen fit to grant the humble Mr. Palace permission to re-open his casino. While the casino is not yet fully operational, due to being closed for so long, Mr Palace is certain that you'll find the game and prizes on offer to your liking.

This side area, located in Goddess' Mercy, is unlocked when you complete Act 1 and provides access to common crafting materials. Anyone that has played the Pokemon games and interacted with the game corner knows the “correct” way to obtain these items, however the dice game on offer is fully playable and can be used to earn chips instead if you choose.

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Other Updates

Updated all icons in the game. Skills, status effects, items, etc. all have icons more fitting for the style of game being replicated here.

Updated the item menu. Now instead of all categories of armor being under one option, making it difficult to find a specific item, they're separated out by type. The command order is now “Items”, “Key Items”, “Weapon”, “Off Hand”, “Head”, “Body”, and “Accessory”.

Updated the Status menu. You can now see many “hidden” stats, such as HP Regen %, that are on a lot of items, including all of the companion quest reward items, that didn't have a place to show them before. This lets you better compare items rather than just guessing based on “this was rewarded from doing their companion quest so it must be good?”

(This does not provide a way to see if a weapon has a special attack which can proc on basic attack or guard, or if an item provides the chance to apply a status effect on basic attack. Due to how weapon specials are handled that is not possible to show in this way and due to the number of status effects that can be applied it would be an issue properly showing that part off in a manageable way)

Removed the “Optimize” command from the equip menu.

Updated the home base maps. There is now a third hallway for new story companion rooms and a common room where your various mercenary companions will appear once you recruit them.

Added new craftable weapons and a new crafting material. As usual you can find one of the new material somewhere in the world and with the new content you can get more if you want to craft more of them. 

Added a character art popup to the start of all mercenary companion recruitment dialog. This now matches how story companions have large artwork shown when you begin the recruitment dialog for them.

Added coding to the exit of the base teleport rooms to clear cutscene remnants if cleanup scripts don't run properly. If you still have the issue of cutscene elements appearing in various locations you can use Vena's recall ability and walk out of the teleport room, or walk inside from your base and then walk back out, and that should clear any lingering sprites off the various maps. I added more instances of the cleanup script around the game in various points to try and make sure this isn't needed, but this is a singular point that you can use if for some reason they still don't trigger properly or you've just updated to the new version and want to clear any that are left over from a bugged older version.

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Fixes Since Last Update

Fixed being able to move while Vena's explanation plays once you've cleared all cultists from major cities during Act 3. This prevents certain situations where you could interact with certain things during said explanation and cause a lockup or game crash.

Fixed several weapon unleash attacks taking too much enemy defense into account, lowering the intended amount of damage.