More Final Fantasy

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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.

I saw your name being thrown around in some of the reports. Wasn't aware that you did so few until I actually found where you put your reports (the link T-Hawk had was broken), but hey. Still part of the big 3 to me, dammit.

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

Ah. Was wondering about that. Hope you get better soon.

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With the Airship comes access to the northern continents, and Level 7 and 8 spells. I only pick up CUR4 and HEL3 for the time being. Due to the shops being scattered about, no pictures of them now


Into the Volcano...this Rain Staff casts FOG2 when used in battle. Very, very useful for many parties.


Red Ds guard some of the nicer treasures as in vanilla, though other things are around. They die extremely quickly to BLZD. The good news about this trek is that I survive up till the boss. The bad news is, I run short on potions, so I have to head directly to KARY and plan a second trip.


KARY retains her vulnerability to status-elemental attacks in this hack, though she's simply vulnerable instead of weak to it. I forgo clever plans of this nature and simply defeat her with steroid-enhanced violence

The CROWN is the primary reward for this, but there's also a Zeus Gauntlet in the four chests behind her.


On the way to Ordeals...wipe!! These are M.SLIMES, which take a cue from Dragon Quest. Unlike Dragon Quest though, these things prefer to sit around, pump themselves up, and kill you. They would run in-theory though, and pay out 10000XP apiece


Ordeals itself is much, much more nasty than vanilla. Most of the threats in the latter are instant kills. Most of the threats in this hack are unrunnable and dangerous encounters. Instead of the Zombie Dragons, you have to go through four fights at the end. The first of these isn't worth talking about. The second is the EvilEYE and its GHOSTs again. This is followed by a Red D and Ice D


And finally, what are now called the Death Ds. A pair of FIR3s and a HLY2 put this one to rest.


We're all grown up, now. The most notable thing about our class change is that Sofis can now equip a SIlver Axe we had in our inventory, which has a sick 30 Attack. Axes in this hack generally have high power and crit rates, but low accuracy. Sofis has naturally high accuacy though, so this is simply the best weapon for him for the time being.


Back into the three midgame dungeons to clean them out. There's not much in the Ice Cave to note, except an exploit I only now noticed - that is apparently known and intentional. You can fall in the upper right hole, WARP out to stand back on it, and walk directly to the FLOATER. You can do this in vanilla too, but it's irrelevant due to WARP only being accessible after class change.


The Coward Staff casts RUN! when used as an item. Why this is not stated in the readme, when the name makes it obvious, I have no clue.


Two of the better finds in the Volcano include two ProRings, and the Red Sword. The former are still the excellent death-stopping equipment we all know and love, though now have some competition with some of the other accessories. The Red Sword is 25-strength, +25-acc, 25%-crit rate blade exclusive to the Red Mage and Wizard. It casts SLOW when used as an item.


The treasures in Ordeals are guarded by some nasty-ass spikes, but they're worth it. The Black Shield is exclusive to the Ninja and Black Wizard, and protects against status, poison, earth, fire, and death. The Light Axe is a disgustingly good weapon for this stage of the game. The third-strongest in terms of raw power, yielding only to the XCalber and Masmune. With a 40% crit rate and casting HRM2 when used as an item, its only weakness is +18 accuracy. Pretty irrelevant for Sofis


Carnage.


The caravan is now hidden in the desert, and can't be landed on to boot. On the way back, STUN proves its worth. These guys are dicks. You can't run from this encounter, but Plus C was able to weaken them, lock them down with STUN, and clean up all by himself.


I go to the Waterfall before hitting up the sea shrine, but the going isn't easy. These guys in particular, the NITEMAREs use VOID to make your resistances worthless, and the MAGEs use WARP to kill you.


This spike guards the treasure room. That's the good news, it's easy to take down. The bad news is, a spike is in front of every other chest. I only manage to get this and the chest to the left, containing a Wizard Staff (CONF), before I have to bail. Kinda forgot to talk to the robot too. Oh well, return trip.


I dive into the Sea Shrine for a bit, but decide to head to Leifen to pick up Level 8 magic. LIF2 and FADE are here on the White Magic end. Sullla gets only the latter for now. As for Black Magic, NUKE is as you'd expect, only way nicer due to intelligence being fixed. MEGA is twice as strong as NUKE, but single-target.


There's plenty of nice loot to be had here. Note that the shrine is now more straightforward in its design, so I just keep on pressing on after reaching the upper wing. Circlet is a mage-exclusive piece of headwear. Fun fact: it used to be Red Mage exclusive, and provided the second-highest defense boost out there. There's the Opal equipment, the gaunlet which Sofis gets. The Hyper Knife is most notable for its absurd crit rate, and goes to Plus C.

I do have to make a second trip in after beating it; the only thing of note I find is the Opal Helmet. The best defensive helmet in the game, even sporting some resistances, Sofis can equip it. The Thief/Ninja really is damn good in this hack. It can equip almost everything that the Knight can post class-change, though lacks the tanky HP. It doesn't get the Excalibur, but has the Light Axe to abuse. It can't equip the Opal Armor or Dragon Armor, but gets something almost as remarkable in the ToFR.


Kraken. I buff hard and unload on the octopus. He's far more competent than in vanilla, but he still dies really easy. After taking him out, I take out the EvilEYE again in front of a spiked chest for a CUR2-casting Cure Staff, leave, and make the aforementioned revisit


On the way to pick up the CUBE, I run into these things. T Rex is one of the rarer encounters in vanilla. They're a bit more common here, have boatloads of HP, and hit like trucks. But with enough buffing, T-Hawk becomes a destroyer of worlds. None of those hits were crits, by the way. This is what TMPR/SABR would've been able to do if they worked.


So here's our stats, since it's been a while. Pretty self-explanatory. Again, note that the Ninja gets a lot of nice equipment options. Plus C has overtaken Sullla in physical fighting, though the Thor/War Hammer will be coming up soon. You can't see it in these shots, but you actually get more than 9 spell charges a level eventually. Not too helpful, but it's there.

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The way to the tower and sky castle is a lot longer, now. Not to mention having some obnoxious enemy groups along the way.


Heal Helmet is nice. I give this to T-Hawk, and give Sullla his old Circlet, turfing the Zeus Gauntlet in the process.


Not too long after that, I get a weapon upgrade for Sullla in the War Hammer. So he can still toss of LIT2s on demand, Also among the items in the tower are Aegis Shield and Dragon Armor - we can't use either.


In the Sky Castle itself, we get this beauty. In vanilla, it's most notable for letting anyone one-shot Tiamat if they want. In this hack, it's most notable for it's 80% crit rate. This goes to T-Hawk, but he keeps his Defense around for healing purposes. (speaking of, I get another in here for Sullla)

I somehow forgot to take any pictures of them, but the LAMIA/AIR groups make a fine time to use items to heal up with items - just kill the former and all but one of the latter, Rain Staff/FOG up, and have everyone use their Defense/Cure Staff


More decisions to make and equipment shuffling to do. I turf T-Hawk's Axis Armor (34/16 + Fire/Ice) and give him Sullla's Opal Gauntlet (37/1 + Fire), since his Axis Shield protects against Fire/Ice anyway. The Black Shirt is BW only. It protects against Ice and Time - the only piece of equipment in the hack besides the Ribbon that protects against the latter. I can then swap Sulla's Circlet with Plus C's RIbbon to give both the full monty of status protection.


Still a nice item. No special properties, but it goes to Sullla due to the Magic Shield being effectively redundaunt. I have to make a trip out after this. And on the way back in...


Yep.


Luckily, I kick his face in. NUKE and FADE the NITEMAREs, pump it up, and blast him into oblivion.


Katana is still the Ninja's ultimate weapon. Compared to the Light Axe, it has 3 less power, but makes up with it with twice as much accuracy and 18 more crit rate. It casts HOLD instead of HRM2, mostly irrelevant at this point

Meanwhile, ADAMANT is still of some use to us, in a way. Excalibur casts HRM3 when used as an item.


Sage Staff is effectively the White Mage's ultimate weapon, despite the fact that all Wizards can use it. With 20/20/20 stats, this beats out War Hammer's 18/15/8 as a monster basher.


Last fiend hype!!


I go with the usual buff and destroy strategy. Plus C also joins in the festivities, using SABR. Tiamat gets off a CUR4, but with three powerful physical attackers assaulting the big dragon, it soon falls under the onslaught

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The TOFR has some nasty encounters. DARKMAREs, also known as UNICORNs, are one of the nastier random encounters out there.


The PHANTOM is accompanied by three EvilEYEs, and AURA is part of its script. I blow away the underlings with FADE/NUKE before unloading on the PHANTOM. A lot tougher than before.


There's tons of good treasure in this place. This second Opal Bracelet goes to T-Hawk for now.


The fiends have new names for their second appearances. DEATH's script is probably just a tad kinder than the original, checking in with FADE instead of NUKE. What he does have is a deathstrike, so I INVS up as part of the buffing proceedures.


Yikes. First encounter on the Fire floor did this. Had to WARP out at this point.


The second Ribbon is on the Fire floor. There's a third lying around, but I never run into it. It goes to T-Hawk.


There's actually item shops and Clinics along the temple to refill, and to actually make it possible for certain parties to get through. Another sign of a well-made hack.


Ninja Armor is absolutely fantastic. Exclusive to the class of the same name, it's a lightweight 42-defense armor that protects against every element but Time. Needless to say, this is awesome and well worth getting.


Plus C joins in the fiend beatdowns with SABR. LILITH's main hook is her physical, but she occasionally throws out a STUN or MEGANUKE.


This is a well-guarded staff, protected by several spikes, including a WzSAHAG/KYZOKU group, and a PHANTOM. It's worth it, though. Chaos Staff is not only a decent weapon due to its absurd critical hit rate, but it casts STUN when used as an item. Long story short, you can stunlock and enemy with this and heal forever.


The main hook, again, is a high-powered physical that my party is able to neuter. CETUS, once known as SEAHAG, can occasionally use VORTEX - a damage-all ability, but doesn't pull it out too often.


The Masmune, in comparison with the Chaos Staff, has only one real guard, but it's a doozy. I deal with it much as I did before - FADE/NUKE the horses, buff up, and smash it. Sofis snuffs it in this encounter, but I come out on top.


SHINRYU has a nasty spell set: NUKE -> STUN -> CUR4 -> BOOM -> HLY2 -> STUN -> MEGA -> BOOM -> repeat. Still, against plan buff to the moon and break him in two, he's inferior.


This useful pickup lets us shortcut directly to Chaos' floor, after a boss rush. Which is good, because we're probably going to need it. With this retrieved, it seems as good a time as ever to retreat. Since we're on empty now.


Stats at level 50. T-Hawk gets the Masamune. I might consider giving it to Plus C, but it's probably better off this way. Note Sofis' absurd absorb, too. Ninja really does get great defensive gear, though doesn't have the HP of the Knight. T-Hawk actually has the most HP of our group.

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So before we fight Chaos, there's an island of interest in the middle of nowhere...you can fight some nasty enemy groups here. Really really nasty. And a few weird ones, like GARLAND again. But mostly nasty ones.


Like this.


Or this!! NeoMECH is the new superboss of this hack. It has 8000 HP, 125 strength, 3 hits, and a 20% crit rate. It sports 100 defense and 200 magic defense. Its abilities, used at 64%, are NUCLEAR, NUCLEAR, MEGANUKE, MEGANUKE. It's a regenerative enemy in this hack, too.


We win out. The mages FADE/NUKE the DarkELFs to death, before unleashing the usual buffing fury on the big bad mech

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The shortcut to CHAOS makes you go through all the bosses in order. T-Hawk doesn't get to let loose against SHINRYU, unfortunately, but we manage to take him down anyway.


So one twisty path later, it's time for CHAOS. We just-


GODDAMMIT. *sigh* So we scrap the robot as before when we fought for the Masmune.


I'd like to say I did something clever for CHAOS. But no, it was the same as most fights have been going - just power up and break his face open. CHAOS actually has a pretty interesting spell list. He opens his spells with FOG3 to boost his 100 Defense by +20. He then uses a variety of offensive spells - most of them powerful, but a STUN and HLY2 are also thrown in there. He last uses CUR4, to restore all 11000 of his HP


The final blow from T-Hawk brings an underwhelming end to this hack. You guys are too good.





So good, in fact, that why should we stop there? I saw this group, but never fought it. Let's go do that.


This was surprisingly not that bad. The buffs went up as before, but Sullla spent a lot of time healing..


Sofis didn't make it, but steroided T-Hawk cleaned house.


Let's go further. The group with 2 NeoMECHs and 6 DarkELFs has only been conquered by one other group in the history of this hack. Time to be the second.

So I was trying to do this before using the same strategy as I used when conquering one NeoMECH. However, I figured out that this was the wrong strategy to employ. The DarkELFs take a while to do any significant in their attack scripts. Thusly, the first turn went to INVS buffing, which Sullla kept up for a few more after that - popping some heals as needed.


That left Plus C to NUKE the DarkELFs himself, but he died on this round due to turn order, leading Sullla to clean up with a FADE. Prior to that, he and Sofis were buffing T-Hawk harder than ever before.


The result? Their nasty physicals simply could not hit. Their MEGANUKE special hurt a lot, but it was nothing HEL4 couldn't handle.


Congratulations guys!!

This hack is definitely worth a play, and don't be deceived by the easy time I had - it is legit in difficulty in some spots, depending on your group. I just so happened to make the right decisions, I suppose, including the team choice. Red Wizard became an absolute monster at the end of the hack. Offensive buffing being open in this hack really shows how the ridiculous potential that could've been in the original if the spells worked. And that's against things with high HP, mind you. If TMPR/SABR worked, anyone could do the things Solo did by himself.

So what next for me? Dunno yet, we'll see.

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Time for more copyright infringement, I suppose. All right Solo, I've guided you to victory once before. You've conquered the force of chaos and not one but two creatures of the void. It's time for you to conquer an empire in the game of FF2.


Playing through this game with physical attacks as opposed to magic makes for a far different experience, and runs into its own set of issues. The early goings of this quest aren't much to talk about. I take Solo up to around these stats before I set off to Phin.


Solo makes 4 hits on the way to Semitt Falls. The strength of unarmed attacks in FF2 is 8*(Fist Level-1)+(Power/2). I went with this character mainly due to his essentially looking like the Black Belt class from FF2 - though it's worth noting Guy has the highest starting strength of the three. A good case could be made for Maria though, due to her 15 Agility. Guy by comparison has only 5 Agility to start.

I went through the entrity of the spellcasters' game relying on evasion. However, at least for the early game, defense is perfectly acceptable. Which is the path Solo takes. Long-term though, enemies will be able to break defenses easier and easier, and worse yet - it doesn't stop effects when attacked unless no damage is taken at all, except in one case.


The advantage to Guy? Well, remember. The first boss of the game is the Sargeant. Without enough power to punch through his defense, we're not getting anywhere. With Solo's current strength, he makes short work of the soldier.


On the way out of the falls though...roadblock!! The slime enemies have an absurd 210 defense score. Solo can't get through that...yet. Worse yet, this is an unrunnable encounter. What can we do here?


Well, critical hits break through defense. But there seems to be a sort of bug in the game...eventually, no more crits came. This was a reset.


Because of Solo's low agility, I sneak/save him over to Mysidia to pick up a Thief Gauntlet. We need to start building Agility eventually, and with it feeding off itself, the sooner, the better. We can't equip a shield for this challenge - unarmed attacks don't work with shields. This is the problem with going unarmed.


On the second attempt, Solo gets a spellcasting item from a drop. A 5% drop from Soldiers. Garlic inflicts damage to all undead enemies on the field with 30 Power (working out to 30-60 damage) - essentially a HARM spell. Granted, this run is soonthereafter ended by another run-in with slimes, but still.

The notable thing about spellcasting items in FF2 is that they are reusable. Or to be more specific, they won't always disappear when used. In Garlic's case, there's a 50/50 shot of you being able to use it again.

I was debilitating whether or not to allow spellbook use (mainly Cure) or spellcasting items, including spellbooks as items. In the end, I decided the latter would be okay. With that said, it takes several tries before I get a run that makes it through successfully. I actually do run into a group of slimes when I do make it, but critical hits manage to take them out, and Solo successfully makes it in and out.


Oh dear god what? Well, to explain this, something was up with the guy in Bofsk. That or I completely forgot you need to use [Warship] to get by him, instead of [Wild Rose]. Or it magically changed. Whatever the case, I ended up exploring my options. This was the results of one such experiment, in attempt to get by the guy without moving him out of the way.


I eventually succeeded in this, but the Dark Knight wasn't there! The Warship never took off. I eventually used memory editing so I wouldn't have to build Solo back up all over again, but ran into the same problem again and again.


Eventually, finally, and a lot of fooling around later, I figure out the problem and load everything back to normal. I don't pick up the Pass at the end of the Sewers again...thinking that Solo will end up strong enough to take on the Captains to fight his way on-board.


Moving on at long last and like 3-4 runs off the early game, even with a roided out character. The Snow Cave wasn't much to talk about. Here, Solo demonstrates his ability to talk to animals


Here, Solo beats up the bosses, and even gets an evasion. He currently sits at level 8 evade, which sounds awesome, is way higher than anything Alice had, and comes about as a result of being targetted all at once by a lot of enemies. But the kicker is, it's 8 chances to evade, at Agility + (Weapon Level*Weapon Bonus) - Equipment Weight. Which in this case, is 7%.


This becomes a factor against these fellows in Kashuon Castle. Their attacks have the HP Drain effect. This deals 1/16 HP damage for each successful hit. In layman's terms, they can Blood Sword Solo to death.

Meanwhile, the Stunner rats are left unable to break through Solo's defensive armor, dealing 0 damage and never inflicting their trademark status.


At least the boss is much simpler for Solo than it was for the Magicians. Two punches puts it down for the count.


So far, so good. I've played through further, but I'll post it in segments for hypes' and manageability's sake. Note Solo's evasion stats. For comparison, Alice hit 10 evasions by the end of the game, and Solo is not far removed from that. His Magic Defense is 6, which is as much as Patchy had in Pandemonium. Being the only target in-battle really makes these stats - along with HP - inflate. Unfortunately, the going gets harder from here on out...

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We open the festivities in update #2 of Solo's quest through FF2 with a successful Captain kill. Still, it takes a lot of luck to pull this off - namely, his using Bow instead of attacking, or if the latter, a lot of the evades triggering. Not quite satisified, I decide to get a little more daring at this point...


I manage, through a combination of saving and occasionally engaging Mines/Bombs (who Solo is more than capable of beating!) to make my way over to Mysidia Cave. If you recall, there's a very nice piece of equipment on the first floor...


To review, the Black Robe gives +40 defense, has 0 weight, and gives a +10 bonus to Agility. This unfortunately does not stack with other agility bonuses. It's a pretty daring move to go and get this so early in the game.


Getting to the cave itself was easy. Getting in and out without being killed, though, is not exactly easy. Especially when I decide to push things further and go for the Gold Hairpin as well. Still, after several resets, I get a few lucky encounters, and manage to get it done.


I decide to send Solo into the Black Mask Cave first. You can purchase EarthDrms there, which cast Quake 10 when used as an item. Even better, they're reusable, much like Garlic - except they only have a 5% chance of breaking. In short, with a few of these, Solo has a lot less to fear from Slimes moving forward. He can just beat his drum and take them out if they're stubborn.


It takes four hits to down the BigHorn, a battle that sees heavy blows being thrown from each side. A bit of a scary fight, to be honest. A bad roll could've been a game over.


This took Solo to Dist Cave. I post this not just to show his stats at the time, but also to draw attention to his evasion. 11 chances to evade, at 19% odds - him finally having started to gain some Agility. That's not as good as it seems.


The going was absolutely brutal. These Revenants have the HP drain effect, Blood Swording Solo to death. The Gigas hit hard, and can take a few hits themselves. Both were formidable foes. Once Solo's stock of XPotions ran out, he was forced to just cross his fingers and hope he survived.


On the winning run, Solo got through with a mere 7 HP. Those EarthDrms really came in handy to wipe out the large undead groups at once.


Lamia Queen time, An amusing glitch was exposed here, in how Solo's sprite was being used on the field, instead of Soul's.


That was funny. What isn't funny is how brutal this fight turned out to be, especially with my going for a Ribbon again. She has all sorts of things to make Solo's life miserable. Wink 9 confused him - whatever attack he had queued still went through, but after that, he proceeded to kill himself with his physicals. Her own physicals inflicted Sleep status when they hit. Finally, she tops it off with Blink 16. The Lamia Queen actually has a very high evade rate at 70%. A single casting of this was essentially battle over.


After that...more glitches!! Gordon was dead when he left the party, yet returns alive. With the same amount of HP that he had. So we basically have a zombie here. One that died as soon as he was pegged with a hit-all spell though, so no big deal.

I encounted a Behemoth on the way to Mysidia Cave earlier (a rare encounter), and was mauled by it. Against this boss one, Solo just beat it in a few punches.


This also worked with Layla a short while later. Gotus, I reset against several times to pick up this. Bacchus' Wine is a consumable item that increases Attack power by 40 when used. Very useful against those high-defense foes, of which the final Emperor is one.


Solo's stats around this point. Due to a strange bug in the skill system, possibly some kind of underflow, his Evasion growth skyrocketed shortly after Dist, taking him from 12->16 in a few fights. This is actually pretty interesting as far as evading is concerned. He has all these evasions, yet a fairly low chance of them triggering. He actually gained a bit of MP, due to MP-draining enemies knocking him around a bit.

His other stats are continuing to climb gradually. I was just surprised he hadn't maxed his Power yet. He only was wearing the Ribbon and the Black Robe - two pieces of weightless armor - allowing for maximum evasion. Fists don't give any bonus, so it's simply his Agility minus equipment weight.


There's nothing really to say about Phin's Basement or Mysidia Cave when I'm actually supposed to be doing Mysidia Cave. Solo had more than enough power and resources to make it through the latter dungeon, and the former is never difficult.

This enemy group is at least somewhat interesting. The EarthDrm's Quake 10 attack is considered Matter-elemental. It has the unique property of ignoring resistance to the Matter element. However, absorption is not ignored, and thus the attack healed the Soul enemies. If Solo wanted to beat a drum to beat the Slimes, removing the Souls first was important.


Solo picked this up in Leviathan. He didn't equip it though. The Power Armlet gives a +10 to Strength, and has a weight of 3. I want Solo to gain as much Agility as possible though, meaning he had to forgo this.

He actually died once on the boss due to my being stingy with healing beforehand. I kept to my guns the second time, and ended up taking less damage when walking through the creature's body.


Solo was getting strong. He could now actually damage the Puddings without a critical hit! Granted, it was for like 2 damage, but still.


Solo...actually lost to the Ice Gigas? What?! Well, it seemed as though XPotions simply weren't enough. The enemies in the tower were simply too damaging.for a full stock of them. Long story short, Solo had to use an Elixir for the first time here.

The Tower was at least host to something very interesting for Solo...no, not the Black Robe. I didn't want to chance fighting that Dragon.


The Shoes are another reusable battle item, it casting Haste 8 on the user. They can break at 10% odds, but they're still very nice to have around. Solo gave them a try on the Thunder Gigas for kicks, landing 13 hits on the overgrown magician.


YESSSS!!! Agility bonus goes to Solo! He didn't get the Power bonus, sadly. After this dungeon, Solo got the Hir-DRAGON. This provides an unlimited use of Fire 7 in battle. Basically, Solo doesn't have to worry about running out of Earth Drums anymore, or he would if more Slimes were in his future.

What is in his future is the Emperor, his castle, Jade, Pandemonium, and the Emperor again. Next time, we'll finish this off.

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Some sick drops in the Whirlwind...Solo doesn't really go looking for treasure due to his not needing it, but accepts whatever his enemies happen to cought up.


Because of the wine, I decided to test one out on the Emperor. Solo could only do about 500 damage on average to those Golems. Very, very messy results, in other words.


Oh god damn it. There's that low evade at work again.

Enemies' physical attacks work by deaing 1-2 times their attack value, subtracting out defense from each hit. Solo's equipment gives him 50 defense, vs their attack of 120. So every hit does between 70-190 damage, and there's up to 10 of them. The very worst case would be 1900 damage. Even with added defense from the Power Armlet, this would still be incredibly painful.

As an aside, the Genji set of equipment gives 150 defense. So you're still not guaranteed to be bulletproof with it, whereas with evasion, you can just laugh by it - and way earlier than you can access the Genji gear.

But we have a problem here. That problem is, any appearance of these guys is dead. How can we solve it?


Well, two ways. The first is to start packing Elixirs instead. The Sorcerers on the overworld are a nice source of money with their spellbook drops, but can we do better?


I settle in the desert just outside the castle itself. SandWorms get 7x85% hits, Blades get 6x80 hits, and the rare Malboros and Shades get 7x80% and 8x100% respectively, The Blades and Malboros are also assured to physically attack. This helps to build Agility, and is also a nice way to earn money.

Despite the fact that Shade is a 1/64 encounter, I run into three of them on my grinding adventure. None of them pose any threat, but to their credit, they can at least take a few hits.


Elixirs were really all there was to the strategy. If we can't consistently evade them, just heal off the damage they cause. Only other thing of note is that I ended up with four Sun Swords between the drops and the fixed one.

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With this, the only thing left to do was to get Solo's fist level up to the maximum. This wasn't so bad, especially with uselessly attacking teammates and because he achieved the final two levels instantly due to the same glitch that maxed his evade.


Now Solo could pump out serious damage on 210 defense enemies. So much for the attacking items. The Emperor also happens to have 210 defense, so these slime enemies make a good benchmark of whether or not you have enough physical power.


So into Jade it was. Solo particularly got two Genji Gauntlet drops from Dragons along the way. His magic defense seemed to be preventing the status ailments of the Malboros from taking effect. Or something like that. What I'm saying is, they were a non-issue. Solo punched his way through all the opposition, used Elixirs when his HP got low, and moved on. He fought the chest guardians as well, and had no trouble.

Funny thing - Elixirs can be used in battle, but they're actually a spell in that instance. Solo had so much HP, they didn't restore him to maximum HP if he was at really low health. Elixirs only restore around 4500-5000


Speaking of magic defense though, it rendered those Krulls that hassled the magicians completely inept. Their Blast 10 could not stand up to Solo's absurd magic defense. What was a problem were the DthRiders, who could Blood Sword Solo to death. Incredibly painful enemies, but ones that thankfully didn't show up too often on the ending run.


The Masmune, I'd technically consider usable by Solo. He could've used it in FF1, after all. It'd actually be the better weapon for the Emperor if we took the time to build sword to 16, but who has time for that? It still has a use for us though, as it casts a handy Haste 11 spell when used in battle. It'd considered spread unlike the Shoes, meaning we're less likely to be able to use it successfully with Solo's abyssmal intelligence, but it never breaks.


I had the fortune of running into not one, but TWO Giants along the way. These actually apparently play the boss music when you encounter them in the NES version, pretty crazy. They're most notable for the loot they can give you - both of them coughed up Xcalibrs.


None of the Genji Guardians were really a threat. Astaroth could've been a jerk with his HP Draining physical, but he chose to throw out useless status spells rather than attempt to murder Solo with those.


Only the Emperor remained, and here were Solo's stats before he engaged him.


He too, has an HP-draining special. And this time, all his magic was in-play, including the advent of Meteo® in the series, also known as Starfall in some translations. This does heavy non-elemental damage to all targets, but for Solo and his inflated magic defense, this only did 200-300 on average.

Solo guzzled one of the Bacchus' Wines he had been saving up, used the Masmune to power up, and let the Emperor have it. A few rounds later, the Emperor's 11000HP was depleted, and the battle was won.


Another game conquered by the fists of fury. So my thoughts on this? Some people have apparently said that playing through the game with a solo character is arguably easier than playing through with a full party. The Magicians proved this isn't necessarily the case - though the biggest advantage a solo character can have is having all the magic defense growth.

This is one of the things the remake fixes, since spread magic attacks are bugged in the NES version and raise Firion's Spirit instead of anyone's magic defense. Speaking of Firion, his advantage as a solo character is that it is his agility/evasion that determines whether you get ambushed, have a preemptive, or neither. This was mostly an annoyance for Solo, though it was quite amusing to see bosses (even the Emperor himself) get the first attack.

Solo's fist ruled out the evasion abuses. As you saw, this was really debilitating in a few places. All the defense in the world means nothing against those HP drainers, and you still need to worry about the ones with high attack too. Again, evasion really is the most important stat in FF2.

Next FF variant project will be a bigger undertaking, so look forward to it.

[Plus C]

I've lost track of which posts I have and haven't commented on since I last posted, so I'll just presume I already posted incredibly insightful, intelligent and life-enhancing replies to everything.

I will say though that I really liked both of the last 2 reports posted; I've never actually played the originals of 1/2/3, so it's interesting to hear about them (and see them so thoroughly shattered!).

I managed to find some time carry on my LLNES earlier this week, and now have some time to post about it, so hear goes!

   
Operation "Snag a Garkimasra" went flawlessly; I caught a Page 256 by releasing a Corbett (Tail Screw) before it could Moon Flute, then used its damage to put Garkimasra into catch range; after stalling it out of MP first to block the Moon Flute counter! It took about 20 goes for everything to go right (Between Comet just killing Garky, Dark Ether and Lilith's low accuracy, not to mention good old dying before I could even set up, it was a random fight).

Titan died to Image + Float + Gaia, Purobolos died to Scroll spam. But they weren't the real last boss of World 1... It's time to take down Shiva.

I messed around using Mix; Resist Ice neutralizes Shiva... temporarily. With no way of knowing it's expired, it's pretty hard to depend on, and I tend to get shredded by the Soldiers anyway before I can take a second turn. I can't deplete her MP, and I can't one shot her either... Dragon Defence could work; if I hadn't already used my only Dragon Fang on Garkimasra. To get another I'll have to steal from Mini Dragons, it's a rare steal and they just annihilate me far too quickly.

Surely Shiva isn't undefeatable?

   

Nope; you were a worthy adversary Shiva, but even you have been defeated.

I went and stole some Silver Bows from Crescents, sold them for a fortune, and then headed to world 2. I managed to die in the basement, when I realised that all of my 0 HP code shenanigans didn't reverse themselves when I disabled the code; Galuf's HP was still 0! Oops. I quickly cheated it back to normal levels and carried on.

I fought the lil' chariots on the Big Bridge with Sing; Romeo's Ballad stopped them all and whilst that did stop the Condemn timer it did let me kill the other 2 with my fists, and let me use Mighty March as a free full heal whenever I took damage. As long as Mustard Bomb wasn't used, I'd win.

   
The Goliath Tonic may have been overkill as it happens versus Gilgamesh; I'd forgotten about Magic Shell in my notes, which would have been sufficient to survive his spells. But this was niftier. I took him down with Counter attacks, to avoid his second AI routine.

Tyranosaur eats a Phoenix Down, Abductor dies to Break, Dragon Flower takes Scrolls to the face.

I actually took down 3 Gil Turtles too! Had to Shirahidori past his first attack, then used Image until Shirahidori blocked an attack (so I'd have both Images). Since he's Undead a Pharmacology boosted HiPotion does 1000 damage; just enough for 99 such HiPotions to bring down all 3 turtles. I had Drink in my second slot for Speed Shakes; if I was really daring with Time and managed to Haste and Slow up, I could probably have done this faster, but didn't want to.

   
Ship Gilgamesh was just a buff and Slog fest; Comet is fantastic in this run; level is nowhere in the damage formula! With Protect, Shell, Blink, Regen, Haste and Slow, poor Gilgy just didn't stand a chance (Enkidu died to Gravity and 2 comets).

Atomos has a nap, then gets blown away by Gaia. The Crystals posed an interesting challenge; I needed plenty of Shirahidori-ry to get to my first action, then I summonned Golem to protect me from the onslaught; I could take 1 front row Crystal attack or both back rows, but no more. Also, sometimes Golem would get knocked out half way through the attack routine, and I'd be killed hopelessly. But with a little luck that didn't happen. But what about offensively?

   

The much over-looked Ianiuki was the key; with it's whopping 85 base accuracy I actually have... 12% chance of hitting each time I use it. Not bad for my level. A few attempts in and I managed to take out 3 in one go. It took me 20 minutes to kill the last one

Next I'll fight some espers, then the big one; Exdeath. Thanks for reading! I'll try and post again towards the end of the month, but I'm honestly not sure when.

[T-hawk]

So what level are you now after the two Lil Chariot kills? I might have used the other characters to catch three Garkys for that to really stay on the low level track.

I had to look up Iainuki (that's the spelling). Nice call there. I suppose it works on the Dragon Flower too, what did you do for that?

[Plus C]

So what level are you now after the two Lil Chariot kills? I might have used the other characters to catch three Garkys for that to really stay on the low level track.

I had to look up Iainuki (that's the spelling). Nice call there. I suppose it works on the Dragon Flower too, what did you do for that?

   

There's a snap shot of my stats right now, as they'll stay throughout the game here on out.

It was tempting to stay a lower level, but it had been hard enough work catching 1, and this feels more pure. Lenna is truly solo-ing everything, except parts where she's in Exdeath's Dungeon...

Or sucked into another dimension and possessed by a naked demon from the void.


The Dragon Flower could've been Iiiiiaiiiniiiiuiiiki'd yeah, I just spammed Scrolls, it was a non-fight really.

I just know the consonants of most japanese-y words, then fill in with a rough guess of the vowels, it was close enough, I think!

[English Language]

Whats the least amount of fights you can get on the Big Bridge section?