Now, items are identified upon reaching towns and other non-dungeon areas. This makes things a bit easier in the main game (that is to say, Table Mountain), although it's offset by increased rarity of Identify Scrolls and other game changes. Further, a few common items become permanently identified in Table Mountain: it seems I no longer have to experiment to discover Holding Jars and Chiropractic Jars.
There is now a Time Attack mode that appears when Table Mountain is finished for the first time. While the object is to finish it quickly, there are other things about it that make it interesting. No NPCs (including allies) appear in the dungeon, town levels and their ID effects are completely skipped, the permanent ID effect that influences some items in the normal Table Mountain game doesn't happen, and most importantly, the boss on level 30 is alive and well, and may always appear on level 30.
Riceball Monsters (previously known as Nigiri Monsters) turn items into Big Riceballs instead of normal ones, which makes things easier.
Item generation may be a little easier. It is difficult to say for sure in a game like this, but it feels like Holding and Chriopractic pots are more common. A lesser variety of items seems to appear in the Table Mountain game, with an emphasis on common, but useful, items.
Some monsters are weaker. I've yet to see a Bowboy (Bowya) do more than one point of damage. Inferno (Flame Priest) does lots less damage than before, and Master Hen (Master Chicken) is also considerably weaker, and its Hen (Chicken) demotion is only worth 1 xp, instead of 200.
Some tough monsters appear later than before. Minotaurs, in particular, used to start appearing right from the first level of Table Mountain, F17. Now they don't appear for several levels more. Minotaurs are very tough monsters that sometimes get a critical hit as well for double damage, now they're much less of a threat.
Some monsters now don't seem to appear at all in the main game. In particular, poison radish monsters, who used to be a major obstacle with their herb throwing ability, now don't appear until the bonus dungeons.
All types of Radish monsters, additionally, can lob their herbs directly at the player now, instead of only along straight lines, tossing them over other monsters. This means they can't be manipulated into slowing other monsters, making them easy prey for the player.
Helpers seem to appear more often. After unlocking all three helpers, one, maybe two, would typically appear on a trip through Table Mountain. Now it's quite common to see all three, and the new ability to move back and forth between early levels allows the player to increase their appearance chance even more.
Blessing Scrolls now usually remove curses from only one item, although they may randomly work on all carried, not-contained items. Before, they typically worked on equipment.
New monsters:
* Spike Bombs (take damage, then freeze and explode if they take more)
* Firepuff (baby dragons, can use melee flame attack that ignores armor and can attack through wall corners)
* Chintala family (unremarkable monster that appears early on)
* Dark Eye family (very strong but with few hit points, they're smart enough to avoid letting the player get in the first hit if they can see him)
* Tiger Uho family (trows his opponents at other monsters)
* Mistonos family (not strong attackers but have high HP, and if adjacent to the player prevent him from moving away until killed)
* Hover Fowl family (turns items into Electrified Items)
Most monster families now have an additional promotion rank, besides.
Curse Girl (aka Norojo) can now curse any of the player's items, not just equipment. This makes them a bit more dangerous, since cursed non-equipment items cannot be used normally (though they can still be thrown). This becomes a good reason to avoid keeping all your riceballs in one pot....
Dead Soldiers (Ghost Musha) now have advancement levels, and can even promote other Dead Soldiers. Promoted Evil Solders (Kimen Musha/Hanna Musha/Shogun) now generate the higher-level Dead Soldiers. Dead Soldiers will not appear if something (including the player) is standing on the space the soldier was killed. They will wait until the creature moves to make their appearance, sometimes giving the player a bit more leeway in what monster gets promoted. Dead Soldiers also take one less hit to kill.
Cudgels, despite being non-metal, rust in rust traps. Wood shields also rust.
Life Herbs increase maximum HP by 3, instead of 5.
Cursed equipment loses its special abilities. This is often very bad, since player special defenses can be nullified by one unlucky trap or Curse Girl encounter, but has a hidden positive side: the player doesn't suffer from bad-effect armbands if it's cursed. (This does kind of spoil the reason those items are in the game, but oh well.)
Foes are much more likely to attack allies, and may target them purposefully instead of just to get to you.
Higher level Tank shells can now destroy walls.
If a Dadster Tank (Stubborn Tank?) dies on its first hit of a round (due to Pain Sharing Staff), he still gets his second attack.
Oryu (the blinding lady) can blind foes from a distance.
Equipment items now usually has an upgrade limit less than +99. An item's limit is revealed on its info screen. Most items with special abilities will have low upgrade limits, typically 8, making Melding Jars (Synthesis Pots) even more useful.
The in-town scoreboard is gone, and the shell scoreboard only tracks the best three games in each dungeon. This is offset a bit by the new region-wide internet(!) scoreboards. Sadly, the detail view of a game in the shell scoreboard no longer shows the victorious monster doing a victory dance.
Kid Tengu, formerly a weak monster from the first levels, no longer appears in the main game, but a promoted form, Young Tengu, appear as disguised monsters on the Table Mountain levels.
When Field Bandits (Field Raiders) turn items into weeds, a message is printed. The message appears even if the item isn't in sight.
Players can now travel backwards along the path, returning to previous levels. However, the levels will be regenerated, and won't have new items on them other than those in shops or dropped by monsters. If the player falls down a trap door in Table Mountain to a previous level, it will have items on it.
There are four new dungeons, and also there's a simple tutorial dungeon at the very start of the game (it cannot be replayed and isn't tracked on any scoreboard). One of the new dungeons, Tainted Path, opens up after the Tainted Insect is killed, and is basically an extension of Table Mountain.
The new dungeons, when entered, let the player keep the level and equipment he's earned to that point. Since the new dungeons are challenging this is generally a good thing. You can even take your allies into them! On the other hand the old bonus dungeons, Food God and Scroll Cave, also let the player take in his prior experience level (not items), and since they weren't designed around this idea it lessen their strategy. At least the super dungeon, Fay's Final Puzzle, still fully resets the player before entering.
There are now "rescue" missions, which are hard to explain. If a player dies in a dungeon, instead of starting over he can choose to issue a request for a rescue. These can be done either by local wireless or using passwords (as in Pokemon Rescue Team) or using Nintendo's Wi-Fi service. A rescued player can offer a reward item to the rescuer, and rescuing players can give the rescued player an item of their own. A successful rescue counts as a completed adventure, so the rescuing player can keep the stuff he had, potentially a great resource for improving items. On the other hand, players in need of rescues tend to be surrounded by monsters or in monster houses.
There are a number of new items, although they don't show up for a while. Some only show up in the bonus dungeons, and it seems some only appear as rewards for advanced rescue missions. I won't go into details, but some are rather interesting.
The Trap dungeon (Scroll Cave) has been reworked to include a combo mechanism. Now, defeated monsters typically give the player one xp. But when a monster steps on a trap, it gets a multiplier attached to it. Every consecutive trap a monster steps on raises the multiplier, but every non-trap space it moves into lowers its multiplier by one level. When the monster is killed by whatever means, the player gets its experience value times the multiplier, which is potentially worth a lot of points if it's a promoted monster that's stepped on a lot of traps. A new item, the Scroll of Chains, covers the floor with special tiles that don't lower the multiplier if stepped on. Also, traps the player placed himself cannot be moved, and eventually wear out and vanish. Finally, floating monsters cannot be affected by traps unless the player has read a Super Trap Scroll, another new item.
Stat limits have been increased. Players can now get up to 999 maximum HP (previous was 250) and level 99 (previous was 70).
At least one item, it seems, has been removed. The Duplication Pot, which appeared in Fay's Final Puzzle and was responsible for an exploit that make winning that dungeon, while not easy, a lot simpler, may have been removed from the game. This difference, coupled with the new monsters and additional bad items, restore the challenge to Fay's Final Problem.