More Final Fantasy

[Plus C]

With my new levels and lofty high 77 HP, I wonder if I can get past Shiva? The plan was thus-

Step 1) Cast Sleep on everyone, and have it only hit 2 Commanders.

   

Good.

Step 2) Let the Commander hit me, having already prepared my health so that this will activate Magic Barrier.

   

Good.

Step 3) Get mercilessly ravaged by Blizzara.

   

Goo- wait, no. Even with Shell, Blizzara is a one shot kill. HP + 30% would up me to 101 HP, still JUST too low. I could throw in HP + 20% for 121, and survive the Blizzara, but I'd have no way of surviving a full round of Commander attacks; sadly being nude in FF5 does NOT grant you evasion. The only evasion I'll ever have is Shirahidori from the Samurai, in fact. Shiva can be Poisoned, but I can't survive casting it so what's the point?

You live for now, Shiva.

Whilst we're fighting Espers...

Ifrit. Yes, Ifrit. I have a delicate plan here that may or may not actually work. Let's find out!

The goal is to keep him confused long enough to stall out his MP, then hit him with Blizzards (They work out better than Blizzara's, because I don't have to stop as often for Ethers) until he dies.

Wait a second... Is Ifrit vulnerable to Poison too?

   

Yep. After this I alternated between Silencing him, drinking Ethers and keeping him Confused. Eventually he kicked himself in the face and died. I laughed too hard to grab a screen shot. Nice work Ifrit!

Byblos is gonna be an interesting boss, he can be Poisoned as well, but I don't know if I can survive long enough for the kill. Let's see...

[T-hawk]

For Shiva, come back once you've got a Flame Ring.

For Byblos, breaking Flame Rods seems to be the obvious and only solution. That will kill in four rounds or so, short enough that you can retry until he uses all harmless attacks like Sonic Wave.

[Plus C]

For Shiva, come back once you've got a Flame Ring.

For Byblos, breaking Flame Rods seems to be the obvious and only solution. That will kill in four rounds or so, short enough that you can retry until he uses all harmless attacks like Sonic Wave.

Both of those involve equipping things, so aren't options. I got Byblos pretty quickly actually; Poison and Gravity wrecked him. I actually Confusionally Hasted him on my successful run, which sped it up a bit for me. Make sense, he poison damage faster and anything he does would one shot me anyway.

There's a more detailed post below, but Sandworm is the real menace here.

___________________________

Byblos was startlingly easy. It took a few goes, put Poison and Demi made easy work of it, and I managed to learn Magic Hammer as well. Awesome!

With the ship comes 2 new jobs; let's have a look at them.

Ranger

Meh. Rapid Fire and Aim are useless, Animals might have something but I doubt it. Pass. Great sprite though (Lenna has the best sprites in the game IMO).

Bard

Well this is more like it. The Hero Song is off limits; this is a LOW level run, boosting my level isn't fair! But the rest of the songs seem useful, and Hide has obvious abuses (which I'll be avoiding! No MP stalling for this run).

Not bad. Also, remember those Espers I've been fighting? Well here's Ramuh. Once again he can be Death cheesed with the Beastmaster, but I'm not going to use that. He lacks the heavy flag; excellent.

The key to this battle turned out to be the newly acquired Sing command; Romeo's Ballad can inflict Stop, and then I spammed Gravity until he was one (critical) punch from death. I couldn't actually survive anything from his first line of commands without defences, so this was the easiest way. Sure I could've used my first round to set up protect, then let his Physical attack activate my Shell, but where's the fun in that?

   

A quick check of Shiva says... She can't be stopped. WHY CAN'T I BEAT SHIVA!?

Or can I?

   

Strategy and guile have failed me. Let the era of brute force commence!

   

But that wasn't enough. She immediately responded by Blizzara-ing me to death. I could Hide stall her MP away, but I want a fair fight at this point. I'll my next... Only magic multiplier at level 6; which I think won't happen until world 2... I'll think of something.

Next up Sandworm; the hardest boss in the game. No, seriously. Firstly, I don't have enough MP to cast Aqua Rake, so that's out. Here's a little chart of damage-

Code:

Attack                    Damage dealt   Multi-target?     Number of rounds   Percentage chance of working
Scrolls                           ~450             Yes                    7                     0.13717421  
Gaia (Max)                        ~150             Yes                   20                     0.00000000
Shuriken                          ~350              No                 9-10                     4.11522633
Physical Attacks                    10              No                  150                     0.00000000
Ramuh                             ~175             Yes                   40                     0.00000000
Release (Dhorme Chimera)          2500             Yes                    2                     0.33333333    (But of course I'm not using Catch!)

The percentages come from 3^-(n-1), where n is the number of rounds. He has a 1/3 chance of using a Physical attack, and I can survive 1 such attack. If he uses Quicksand I die instantly. I may have to resort to catch here.

Actually... These numbers are wrong. I need to alternate Image and attack every round. So these result all need to be considerably lower (I need to survive twice as long as stated).

Also, multi-target attacks bring Demi counters; so I can't survive an attack afterwards.

Screw this; It's Dhorme Chimera time. 2 scrolls and a Dhorme Chimera should do the trick... But using Release and Throw means I can't use Image, so I need to be able to finish him in one more shot afterwards...

Leave this one with me.

[Plus C]

Wierd facts-

Quicksand is Earth elemental, but bypasses Float.
Sandworm IS weak to water, despite it being missing from the Algorithms guide.

Water Scrolls dealt over 1000 damage on a high roll, so it didn't take long to land 3 (I didn't bother with Image, I just spammed until it worked) so the run can now resume.

[Plus C]

Crayclaw, Soul Cannon and the Launchers go down to a combination of Lightning Scrolls, Time magic and Romeo's Ballad. Adamantimi dies to Image and Poison. Archaeoaevis dies in the classic way of Gaia-Gaia- Counter.

I needed a critical hit on the counter attack to hurt him, so it ate up all of my Potions and a few dozen HiPotions too, but I got it, and with it a Goliath Tonic. I'll be needing that soon.

The Soul Cannon also has a random 40 EXP attached to it, so I level up to level 4 here. Woo.

New jobs need new summaries. What have we got here?

Dragoon

Lancer is undoubtably brilliant, one of my favourite attacks in the game, infact. Jump has its niche uses too, but without its trademark Spears and Heavy Armour, the Dragoon loses ALOT.

Samurai

Ah, Samurai. Samurai, Samurai, Samurai. Gil Toss may lose a lot of its oomph, being heavily level based damage, but it's Shirahidori we really want. It's literally the ONLY defencive ability in the game I have access too, so I'll be mastering the Samurai asap.

Dancer

Completely redundant without its amazing equipment, so I'll have no use for it.

Chemist

Mix is obviously a ridiculous ability; I'll be keeping its usage to a minimum. Drink is, however, a really nice ability which I'll be using a lot. Pharmacology is nice too, as with it Potions are almost full heals for me!

Before I carry on with the Meteor Trio, there's something special I need to do. At the start of the Big Bridge is a battle with 3 Little Chariots. These are inescapable and give EXP, so we need to minimize that. The traditional way is to hit each of them with a Condemn from a released Garkimasra; Condemned enemies don't give EXP. Having only one character, I can obviously only do this to one of them.

But first I have to catch the bloody thing! The big problem is that it counters ANY damage with Moon Flute, Berserking me and preventing me from using Catch. There are few ways around this.

Here are the usual tricks for doing so-

1) Have someone Control it, whilst the rest of the party use ???? to whittle it down. Then Catch.

2) Equip the Ribbon from Karnak escape sequence, to block Berserk.

3) Have someone Hide around the Moon Flute, whilst someone else releases a Page 256, to cast Comet. This CAN do exactly enough damage to Catch in one hit.

1 and 3 are out, because this is a solo. 2 is out as well; I couldn't fight the enemies without gaining EXP to get the ribbon, let alone equip it! So this is uncharted territory. Fortunately, I've come prepared.

Here's the stats on Garkimasra.

Code:

NAME: Garkimasra
LEVEL: 20                              EXP: 0
HP: 666                                GIL: 1
MP: 5000                               SPEED: 35
ATTACK: 50                             MAGIC POWER: 50
ATT. MULT: 10                          MAGIC MULT: 7
EVADE%: 50                             MAGIC EVADE%: 50
DEFENSE: 50                            MAGIC DEFENSE: 50
STATUS IMMUNITY: Dead, Stone, Toad, Mini, Float, Poison, Zombie, Darkness,
Aging, Sleep, Paralyze, Charm, Berserk, Mute, Image(2), Image(1), Stop
ELEMENTAL ABSORB: Water, Air, Earth, Holy, Poison, Lightning, Ice, Fire
ELEMENTAL WEAKNESS: Water, Air, Earth, Holy, Poison, Lightning, Ice, Fire
CREATURE TYPE: Heavy
CONTROL: Fight, Circle
CATCH: Condemn
AI SCRIPT:
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
React:HP Damage{
     MoonFlut
     }

I took out a few lines to save space; first thing to note is those defences; it's VERY difficult to damage a Garkimasra. The usual ways are Shuriken, Axes and the fixed damage attacks; plus the aforementioned Page 256.

The second thing is that attack stat; 50 attack is alot in this game! Especially with 0 defence... However that multiplier is very abusable. I have Vigilance from mastering the Thief, so there'll be no back attacks for me; In the back row his multiplier is only 5. Throw in protect and we have a mere 2, for 100 damage. I can JUST (thanks to hitting level 4!) survive this.

But there's a problem. Say I set up protect on the first turn. Then I keep drinking Hi Potions (stolen from Ronka Knights before I left the ruin) until I die. Maybe I can eventually double move him? A quick test says this won't happen, sadly. And as a result of our speeds being so close, setting up Haste isn't fast enough give me another turn. With Shirahidori blocking one attack, I can make this work. But hang on; his attacks can go Critical, and there's that pesky little +1/8 variance in the attack formula. I'll need some more health... Like from a Goliath Tonic.

So am I going to have to drink my Tonic now? Nope; there's a mix for that. But why resort to mix so easily? Well I need to drain his MP before I can even try and catch him and I have 4 ways of doing MP damage; Magic Hammer, Dance, Lancer and Mix. Magic Hammer will only hit about 1/10 times, Dance and Lancer will do HP damage aswell, triggering the very response I'm trying to avoid. So why not just gamble with Magic Hammer? Catch is already taking up one command slot; the other has to include a way of using Haste, Protect, a Goliath Tonic AND MP damage. That means Mix.

Onto this Goliath Tonic Mix; that's an Elixir and a Dragon Fang. I still have a spare Elixir from just never really using them. As for a Dragon Fang... There's one as a Common Steal from the otherwise trivial Manticore! I can also get them as a Rare Steal from Mini Dragons, but this is much easier.

There's also an oft over looked Mix called "Dark Ether", which is basically 2 Magic Hammers in one; quartering the enemies HP. Because Blue Magic couldn't even have THAT. It requires a Dark Matter and an Ether, and thanks to the Soul cannon, I have just the thing.

Now we need to do 1250 more MP damage. Lilith's Kiss penetrate magic defence, so that'll work for... 135 damage at a time. Compare that to Newton, who regularly did 1,000s! I need 9 Turtle Shells in that case. I have 1 from the Adamantoise, and I can steal 8 more from Grass Turtles. Good stuff.

That's his MP sorted, but what about his HP? The only damaging Mixes I have either kill him outright, or kill me instead! So is this impossible? Nope, I can use good old Page 256 to do the damage for me, with a little luck, anyway. I guess a few critical punches can add to it if I need to.

And then, I catch. Wish me luck, I'll need it!

[System Error]

All right, so this took longer than I wanted it to for it to be released, but here it is. A difficulty hack of Final Fantasy 1 called FFZZ, and one that is actually well-balanced at that and not at all grossly unfair. It's been in the works for 7 years with various betas, etc., and this is the final release. Maybe. Check it out and whatnot.


Part because I feel like it and part to show things off, we're going TH/RM/WM/BM. Hey, no one uses Thieves in vanilla, and this hack actually makes them good. Meanwhile, the changes to the other two fighting classes is mostly balanace and equipment, whereas the mages have a lot to talk about in how they were switched up.

Naming scheme? Before coming to this forum formal, I heard of three people who were primary contributors to this. We need a fourth though, so I suppose crazy Plus C is going to be our fourth man.


Weapons and armor aren't much to speak about at this point. But now let's look at our magic options. They've been switched considerably in this hack, and RM in particular has a lot less options - especially as a RM. The White stuff is mostly self-explanatory. I'd say LOCK (which is now white) actually works, but there's presently a bug that makes it do damage instead of its intended effect. So I guess you can say it really, really works.

Black Magic...FIRE and LIT are now multi-target. RUN! does what it says on the tin. DART is an interesting one - it does single-target damage of the Time element, and is 2.5 times as powerful as FIRE or LIT.

Right now with limited funds, the only spell I get is FIRE for Plus C. Some monster-slaughter later (made easy by the fact that said spell destroys most encounters at this point), he'd add LIT and DART to his arsenal. Sullla would get CURE, HARM, and LOCK. (T)-Hawk is, I would say trickier, but isn't really. Right now, his options are CURE, FOG, FIRE, and LIT. After class change, he can access LOCK, DART, and RUN! as well. While getting the one spell Sulla doesn't bring is tempting, FOG simply increases Absorb by 10 on a single target.


In gathering the funds for this all, everyone hits...almost level 4, and I decide to push them the rest of the way before heading out. Only thing worth talking about: Gr.IMPs now inflict Dark on their attacks. Also note that you can now buy in bulk at shops.


Garland now has AI. The most notable of which is MUTE, which forces us to press on with physical attacks. Still, with DART having done its job of doing high damage on single targets, this is no big deal.


Hmmm...there's something different about this, but I can't put my finger on it...


Off to Pravoka, and I don't bother stopping by Matoya's Cave along the way. For now, Sulla gets HEAL and SLEP, and Plus gets ICE. I pick up that middle spell for a very specific reason...


Even in vanilla, these guys are vulnerable. Black could've laughed his way through this fight just by sleeping them all, but this hack also has said spell (which is now White magic) inflict darkness. They hit Plus pretty hard and put him to sleep, and due to their high magic defense, the black magic casters were simply chipping away, but we won out in the end.

What about our equipment and the rest of the magic? TMPR actually works in this hack, but it's RW only in its regard. HEAL is now usable by RW, and though irrelevant for us, KN. MOVE cures Stun and Sleep, MUTE, CONF, and SLOW act much as you'd expect.


The seas...are highly dangeous now. PIRATES are still pretty buffed. You can see here how weak LIT is.


And THIS...this is just dead. This is a 1/64 encounter, and this is also known as GAZER from the Sea Shrine.

This would've been a reset. But I tried using the LOCK problem to see if I stood a chance...and I did. The deal with it is - the creator was experimenting with making it a damaging spell, but decided against it. He changed the potency back, but not the effect, so now LOCK is a 125 base damage spell instead of reducing evasion by 125. Whatever, we'll run with it - since it's only partially greasing the wheels of time. I don't intend to abuse this on a regular basis. So I guess Plus C is level 8 now?


So yeah, I just hurry onto Elfland, and even with that ridiculous chunk of EXP we got, we can barely afford the stuff. For White level 3...CUR2 is obvious, but the rest are all genuinely in-contention for the other slots. HRM2 is base 40, FOG2 increases party absorb by 10, XBAR combines ALIT, AICE, and AFIR into one spell.

Black level 3, QUIK is like a single-targetted FAST, notable because RM cannot get FAST before class change anymore. HOLD inflicts STUN on all enemies. Easy call for BM, tough call for WM, tougher still for RM.

Well, I want both XBAR and FOG2. The WM gets the latter, because the RW can later get FOG3. RM surely wants FIR2. The question then becomes - CUR2 or QUIK? I decide on the latter.


Possibly just as dangerous as those troll WATCHERs are the R.SAHAGs. They used to be worse - spamming TMP2 (which is now defunct) and overwhelming you in groups of 6. As-are, they're still really really bad. They use SABR and FAST on themselves, and proceed to kill you unless you kill them first.


Oh well, let's go fight some tough enemies on the Penninsula of Power. May as well. The first one the game serves up are these guys. Two doses of FIR2 and a HRM2 ends them.


I can also fight these with good success. For the former, XBAR to stop the icy assault of the Ice D, and throw out FIR2 and HRM2. The latter, kill the wolves with FIR2 and throw statuses out at the FrGIANTs to cripple them. Other encounters...are not as winnable.


This venture gives me a ton of money. And levels too, I guess, so now we can look at the level 4 spells.


ESNA is a useful party-wide healing spell, curing them of basically all negative status that can be cured in battle. INVS is also party-wide, boosting evade by 40. HOLY is new - it's basically a HARM spell that hits anything. Missing from this shop is HEL2.

ICE2 and FAST are what you'd expect, and remember - RM can't learn the latter. Only RW. MEND is like a CUR3 spell on the caster. Not in this shop is BOMB, which is a non-elemental base 70 damage attack.

Sullla gets ESNA and HOLY, Plus gets ICE2 and FAST. As for T-Hawk...I actually decide to skip giving him FAST, since we'll have two uses of it after Sofis becomes a Ninja. Thus, I fill his level 4 spells with ICE2, MEND, and INVS. Other parties with more attackers could well consider holding out for FAST.


Now we're more than ready for Marsh Cave.


On the north route, guarding a Silver Dagger is this spiked encounter. T-Hawk puts XBAR to use to stop the spells, and we wear them down with some of our own. It goes to Sofis, for now. I retreat after this, just because, and come back in refreshed and ready for more.


The cave isn't much to talk about. I get a weapon upgrade for Sulla in this hammer, the Falchon sword (which goes to Sofis, with Plus C taking up the dagger). Before long, it's time for the WIZARDs.


Or WIZARD. And um, a SORCERER

This turns out to be more bark than bite. Sulla has to use ESNA at one point when TRANCE paralyzes everyone but him, but the WIZARD dies quickly. T-Hawk sets up to kill the SORCERER, but Sofis' attacks and Plus C's magic kills him before he can unload,


Yes, this is definitely quite different.


WHAT THE F-no!! Too different! TOO DIFFERENT!!!

That's ASTOS there, who is now capable of being a random encounter (hence the more generic name), and effectively making an early appearance. He shows up a lot more later on, but here, he has a 1/64 chance of showing up. Mercifully, you can run from him here.


Retreat back to town, healing up, and ready for him proper.


RUB got assimilated into WARP which now functions as both, but he opens with it all the same. It misses, unlike that ambush last time where it killed Sofis before we could do anything. I toss out some buffs, including a FAST on Sofis. I want to do the same with T-Hawk, but he gets killed by BOMB which does over 250 damage


But steroided Sofis is a beast, and proceeds to manhandle the DarkELF.


Stats. You can see the new Thief really shines when it comes to Hit%. Hell, Sofis has higher Strength than the T-Hawk at this point, but that can be attributed partially to luck with level-ups. He now actually can run well for us, because that bug got fixed. Speaking of fixed bugs, Intelligence now works, so Red Mage isn't nearly as good at spellcasting as the monochrome mages. What he does bring to our party is heavy armor - but not the heaviest.

And in this version, Red Mage/Wizard has been given some new perks that stop him from being worthless at the end of the game. This is a sign of a well-made hack - actually knowing when something needs to be buffed or rebalanced, rather than just going nerf-happy on everything. I'll continue this journey of one man's seven-years worth of work later.

[Sofis]

Looks interesting. I don't quite get the difference between QUIK and FAST, though. First it sounded like QUIK was single target and FAST multitarget, but then it sounded like FAST was still single target.

Also, you have a few duplicate images: one on buying the first level spells, and one fighting the WATCHER.

[System Error]

Looks interesting. I don't quite get the difference between QUIK and FAST, though. First it sounded like QUIK was single target and FAST multitarget, but then it sounded like FAST was still single target.

Also, you have a few duplicate images: one on buying the first level spells, and one fighting the WATCHER.

Ah. Well both are single-target spells. However, QUIK can only target the caster, whereas FAST can target any party member. There WAS a FST2 spell, as a side-note. It was removed though - briefly making a return in testing, only to be replaced with a new level 8 Black spell. I did go through with it once with a party specifically made to abuse it (BB/BB/BB/BM). It's not as awesome as it sounds unless it's used there.

And whoops. Also deleted the images due to having too many of them in the folder. So I guess the report will just have to go without them. >_<

-----------



With the mystic KEY comes looting, but there's really only three finds worth talking about for this party. The Mage Gauntlet is exclusive to mage classes, and has a defense rating of 4. The Bandit Helmet is exclusive to Thief and Ninja, is lightweight, and has a defense of 6. The Dream Staff is the first of many spellcasting items this hack. As a monster basher, it's terribad. It casts SLEP when used in battle, though.

A little later on into the Earth Cave, three more were around. The Sun Staff casting HARM, the Free Staff casting MOVE, and the White Staff casting CURE. Note the latter can only be targetted on yourself, so it's nowhere near as good as the Heal Staff of vanilla.


Competition for spell space in Level 5 is pretty fierce in both ends. CUR3 and HRM3 continue to be as they usually are. LIFE, in addition to its previous effects, can now be cast on undead in battle for a BP of 100! And XDTH is like XBAR, only it protects against Status, Poison, Earth, and Death. Cast both in one battle, and you're protected against everything but Time!

The good news is, one of the only two Time spells is DART. The bad news is, the other is VOID. Which now works and removes your resistances. So there's a small hole.

FIR3 is the same as usual. WARP, as mentioned before, is now itself and RUB in one neat package. BM can use it before class change. BLZD is a new one. This is a single-target ice-elemental spell with a BP of 90. QAKE does Earth damage on all enemies with a BP of 70.

T-Hawk can only get CUR3 and FIR3 out of these. The rest, save for HRM3, he can only get after class change.


The Hall of Giants is still around, and with petrifying SAURIAs accompanying them, it's not too wise to go in there haphazardly. What is there, however, is a treasure chest!


A well guarded one at that, to speak nothing of the stuff in front. Everyone else had died, leaving Plus to stand alone against this threat - or die trying. Thankfully, two bursts of FIR3 took everything out. He claimed this goodie - though unequippable by anyone in our party until class change - casts TMPR when used in-battle. He WARPed out with his last spellcharge, then made his way back using TENTs.


I didn't show it, but in Melmond, vampires were mentioned. Instead of just a lone VAMPIRE, you fight a WzVAMP, backed up by two VAMPIREs, three GARGOYLEs, and a HELLBAT. Quite a significant upgrade.

That said, this battle is over in a single round. Sofis victimizes the HELLBAT, Sullla slings a LIFE at the head honcho, and the mages burn everything else to the ground. We have our RUBY.


So. Titan's Tunnel is no longer just a gateway, so to speak. It's now a long, winding path that you have to traverse. That right there is a "shortcut", which is actually probably more of a detour since it's lined with spiked tiles.


Heading back in, and taking a nice, lightly-guarded shortcut through on floor 3...I almost run into disaster on floor 4, but crisis averted.


Now here's a great find. Shadow Armor is a fantastic piece of equipment for Thieves and Black Belts, 25 defense and 5 weight. Together with the Bandit Helmet, it puts Sofis just two points of defense below T-Hawk. With his higher evasion, I decide to have him take point.


For Lich, I start by having T-Hawk throw up XBAR and Sullla put up XDTH. Plus hastes Sofis, who goes to work as best he can. Magic stocks were drained, so no TMPR, but I made sure to save up the important levels, and unloaded it at him.


This is why these levels (low 20s) aren't actually so absurd for this point of the game in this hack. XXXX is much different from how it is in vanilla. It's Death-elemental, and instantly kills anything under 300HP that doesn't resist the element. Don't have XDTH? Well, then you better hope you have the HP to survive it.


Plus eventually gets the kill. Beyond Lich are two treasures chests; one has some money in it, the other has this, which casts ICE.


Onto Crescent. You can't actually come here until after you give the RUBY to the Titan, otherwise one will inexplicably be blocking here too. HEL3 is what it is. Same for EXIT, only you can also cast it in battle to escape. HLY2 is a BP 40 attack, VOID actually works now and will nullify the resistances of anything not resistant to Time. For now, we can only get the H-ones. Of course, EXIT is in our future.

LIT3 and BANE are same-y to their original incarnation. FLAR is a BP 100 fire attack. Literally thanks to me (used it on Lich in an earlier beta to great abuse), it's BW only. Same for STUN, which is non-elemental and inflicts a nasty array of statuses on anything under 300HP. It's non-elemental, so if you're below 300HP, you're getting hit.

This is also where Red's options start to become more limited. He can't get anything now; after class change, he can choose between HLY2, EXIT, FLAR, and LIT3. But while we're talking about that...Ordeals is not an option. See, you actually need the CROWN to go there. It's how it's coded in the game. Under ordinary circumstances, this never pops up, since the CROWN is a mandatory item. But the LUTE was the treasure of the Marsh Cave, remember? We get the CROWN after beating KARY. So, yeah.


The going to the Volcano itself is rough. The enemies have a nasty habit of getting a surprise round, leading to several precarious spots.


As for the Volcano itself...yeah. Less lava.


And plenty of annoying, unrunnable encounters, such as this one right here - making a return from the Earth Cave because why not? If Sullla goes down, I have to make the trip across the river from hell twice again to get him back up. Ugh. Isn't there a better way?


Well, yes. Ice Cave first is more than possible, but highly not-recommended. But big deal, I say. Comparatively, you can get to the Ice Cave easily just by docking your ship at this port in the inner sea.


Only in ROMhacks can SORCERERs be a sight for sore eyes. They just die to attacks and LIT2, usually wasting turns on TRANCE instead of insta-killing you. Meanwhile, the bastards in the back are...well, bastards. Resistant to all elements but Time, they buff up with FAST and throw some annoying attacks your way, including the petrifying GLANCE. They were among the enemies polluting the river too. They can't surprise you, but you can't run from them.


The second room in the Ice Cave has been changed to a maze. My first attempt met an end when I tried to take a shortcut through the winding third room, meeting the (Evil)EYE on the way who proceeded to tear me a new one.


Though I just plow through for now and ignore the side-diversions, I do take the time to pick up the goodies that are along the way. The Magic Shield is a shield for the Mage classes, and the Axis Shield, while we'll only be able to use it after class change, is quite good. Both resist Fire and Ice.

Against the EYE proper, I throw down XDTH and proceed to blast him with everything I have. T-Hawk snuffs it, but the others manage to take it down.


There's no need to loop back though - WARP takes us right out of the pit. A second casting to dodge a spike with 2 SAURIAs and 6 FrWOLFs, then it's just a merry trek to the exit stairs. Second try, not so bad.

[Plus C]

It's strangely entertaining reading about myself burning hordes of monsters to the ground, and a great honour to be named along side the big 3 there, nice work

Just so people know, I am still working on my FF5 run, but have come down with a severe case of "Real Life" at the moment, and the illness is hampering my progress somewhat. It will be completed eventually, though

[Sofis]

Me, I find it interesting that I'm included in a "big 3", considering I've posted all of two reports to this thread. I suppose putting them on a web page instead of posting directly to the thread gives them a certain level of class.