Finished TSE 4 times

[Boksha-tse]

A few years back I stumbled upon TSE, played until I got to the Mango Republic and quit because I got slaughtered on the beach. (how I managed to get past the government building alive I honestly can't remember)
A week or so back I decided to give the game another chance and I'm really glad I did. I finished the game first in about 4 days with a party of Peter, Zepher and Eisfford, concentrating on Sharpshoot, Party Bless and Kinetic Smash, dying 4 times on the road. Not yet satisfied, I decided to try and finish the game with parties of a single class without overleveling (finishing the game on level 47, is that the lowest possible?), trying 3 priests first (Clemetas on Silver Bullet, Zepher on blessing again and Matthieu on HotG) which turned out to be very easy. Next up I tried the game with 3 mages, putting Clara's skill points on Kinetic Shield, Pippa's on Rainbow and Eisfford's on Kinetic Smash again. The final battle was frustratingly hard mostly because Rainbow is completely useless there and tends to only hit the invincible front of the boss even in the second phase (where it's supposed to be gone, or was it aiming for those missiles? It didn't seem to hurt those at any rate) leaving Kinetic Smash the only attack that can even damage the thing in the second phase, so I needed Tza Tze's help to beat it the first time. In the fight with the Grandfather all of my characters ended with less than 5 health left!
Finally I tried it with 3 riflemen (Sharpshoot on Peter, Dynamite on Edward and Recover on Samuel), which got difficult in the weirdest places, in particular I died once fighting Gigliana because it kept bypassing meatshield Samuel. I was surprised how little trouble the Shifting Sands gave me because I didn't have any skill points on Magic Bullet, but Samuel recovered faster than the enemies could damage him, making for really long but easy fights. The final fight was definitely the easiest with 3 riflemen, with none of my characters ever dropping below 150 health and having a reserve of around 3 or 4 mana pretty much all the time.
All in all I had a lot of fun playing the game and figuring out the best tactics for each situation, so I'd like to thank Mark Pay for the hard work making it!

[Mark Pay]

Thanks Boksha It's always very heart-warming to hear people enjoying the game so much that they take the time to make a post like this. Especially now that it's been so many years since I released it that it comes as a nice surprise to hear that people are still playing!

It's good to hear your anecdotes too. 47 does sound like the level you ought to finish at if you don't stop to level up.
Other people have reported that 3 priests is quite easy and 3 mages is harder. I haven't heard much about 3 riflemen though. It's amusing to hear that you can actually Recover faster than the enemies can damage you at some points.

Thanks again. ^_^

[cruz-tse]

[devastator-tse]

3 Priest: Easy
3 Rifleman: Moderate
3 Mage: ????