More Final Fantasy

[T-hawk]

Thanks for writing, that was a fun read.

I'm not aware of anything special about the hit rate of the Silver Hammer or anything else. It's just low to start with and in the hands of a character who doesn't get many hits either. You notice a "missing" hit out of a possible 3 much more easily than one out of 6.

[System Error]

I was still in the mood for FF1 after that last challenge, but the game is more or less varianted out. I can't think of any challenge that isn't named Solo Thief or Solo White Mage. However, that's only as far as the original NES version is concerned. The game has received a number of rereleases over the years. It's not Ys 1 tier, but there's a fair number of them, starting with the only slightly graphically enhanced MSX release, and I believe most recently at the time of writing, a 3DS rerelease. It's as far as I know, identical to the PSP rerelease, which in itself is an enhancement of the GBA rerelease.

There's also the WSC rerelease, which is graphically enhanced and the first to introduce new music and I believe stronger fiends. It was later used as the basis for the Final Fantasy Origins PSX rerelease. These two are notable for their fixing certain bugs, while optionally allowing you to retain several aspects of the NES version, such as no auto-retargetting. They're the most faithful ports. The latter at least also includes an easy mode, making the level cap 99 and making you level faster. If you thought Black Belts were nasty at high levels before, just think of how bad they are with 198 attack.


I figured I'll take a few variants through the newer versions of the game, in order to see how differently they play out in this new, changed environment. Which I actually already have: I did a solo Fighter/Warrior run several years ago, as discussed a page back, though I didn't document it. So now, let's see how Solo Black Belt, or Monk does in comparison to how it did on the NES. Similar to the 1990 venture with Sullla, this 2007 adventure will never equip any weapons or armor. Well, hopefully. The good news about the latter was, the Monk starts with 5 defense and more attack in this version of the game. There was no need to equip the Leather/Wooden Armor as an exception.

To be specific, the Monk mechanics were changed up quite drastically. Their Stamina is now much more important, as it helps determine their attack and defense values, instead of their level doing so. As it pertains to attack, they get a bonus equal to half their Strength stat like any other class, but they also get an unarmed bonus equal to 75% of their Stamina.

One of the neater things about the latter is that while they still get natural defense, each slot of head, body, and arms has its own defense value. The gloves and helmet slots both get 1 point of defense for every 8 Stamina, and their body 1.5 per 4 Stamina. What this also means is, for example, you can equip a Ribbon without sacrificing all of your natural defense.


For this reason, the first little bit wasn't too bad. Punch stuff to death and occasionally heal, that's the way it goes. Garland is more bulky than he used to be, but a few levels solved any issue. 4-hits were enough to bring down the swordsman. His blows did around 20 damage on average, though they could critically hit. But they did not, and Solo had Potions, so he won out.

It's worth noting that the leveling mechanics are different in this version of the game. First off, you level faster due to changed experience requirements. Second, the cap is 99. Third, while the system of fixed stat gains at certain levels still in-place, you only have a 1/8 chance of seeing an unmarked stat go up, instead of 1/4. Fourth, said fixed stat gains are different. And fifth, HP is factored in as a possibility, so it's possible to gain strong HP ups at any level, not just the fixed locations.


The trip to Provoka wasn't bad at all. Everything died in one hit, except sometimes Ogres. Then I hit the Pirates. Yeah. Solo was at level 9 here. He had a mere 6 defense, which is more than the Black of old had, but still wasn't going to save him from the inevitable.

Sheesh. If this were the Solo of 1990, he would have more than enough natural defense to tank these goons. Or, he'd have enough natural HP to simply outlast the onslaught due to fixed strong HP ups - he'd have nearly double at this point in the original! Midas, my solo Fighter/Warrior from back in the day, simply tossed on the Iron Armor and laughed as the attacks bounced off. Steve, my solo White Mage who I never took beyond beating Lich, had Ruse to abuse. Solo just has his fists and Potions, which are better in how they heal a fixed 50HP in this version. This meant it was time to level up.


The only notable thing about this was running into an Ogre Chief/GrOGRE, a 1/64 encounter. At level 13, Solo had suddenly jumped up to 10 defense. He also had gotten two strong HP ups over the past two levels, for a total of 166HP. With this, I decided to have him take on the Pirates again. His added HP allowed him to take out the first row of them, before chugging Potions to heal. After this, he then was able to take down the rest.


Over to Elfland, also known as Elfheim in this version. The Marsh Cave is the same as always. One of the annoying things about the solo challenge are the paralyzing enemies, which stunlock you and murder you from there. I had the fortune of getting a Hi-Potion drop from an enemy here. I came close to beating three Piscodemons (WIZARDs), but Solo only did 76 damage against the last one, and it retaliated with a 62 damage attack that was more than his remaining 60. I kept trying from there, but kept failing. Eventually, I had Solo gain some levels to reach 6-hits, where he had a decent shot of killing them in one hit. With this, he was able to win without too much difficulty.


He had to gain the levels anyway. Astos is a bit more lenient in the respect that he has much less defense (18 to be exact), but he has 420 HP to make up for it.

This aside, he's still the same old Astos. He uses Death (RUB) followed by Slowra (SLO2), both of which were particularly devastating. The latter was even nastier than it would be on the NES, as Solo's damage potential dropped to around 20 damage, compared to over 100. He delayed using it on my winning attempt, and it did actually hit. But by then, the damage was done - three powerful physical attacks that brought him to the critical range. Solo popped the Hi-Potion that had dropped to survive the Fira (FIR2) that was inbound, and finished what he started with a few more blows.

Opening the sea also opened Crescent Lake, which allowed Solo to buy more Hi-Potions. These things heal 150HP. Pretty useful. He stocked up on 99 of each type to prepared for the Earth Cave.


But alas, the Earth Cave was basically same shit, different dungeon. I only got a taste of it in Marsh Cave, but here it was in full force. Those potions were nice, but they didn't stop the status effects that pained me so. There were still plenty of paralyzing undead to go around, joined by their new friends and the nemesis of the penny-pinching capitalists: the Cockatrices. At least Solo could save anytime, any place, anywhere, but that still didn't stop them from being a huge pain. And as for the Vampire at the end, he was actually rougher than I thought he'd be. He too, could inflict paralysis, and the battle had a tendency to go sideways. So once again, it was time to gain some levels. He's also gotten a buff in this version, though not as much as Astos has.

I settled on the old standby, the Hall of Giants. Solo could take down each Hill Gigas in two attacks, occasionally one if he got lucky. The bad news was, that 10 defense was starting to catch up to him. They could kill him if things went awry. When hit hit level 26, he got his eighth hit thanks to an agility point giving an extra point, but he went up to level 27. This extra level and extra point of Stamina gave him 15 in defense. His attack was 28.

The extra levels turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. A pair of 170+ damage 8-hit criticals put the Vampire in the ground.


Next boss...well. Are you really surprised that leveling up was needed? Last page, he was talked about a bit. Lich has 1200HP in this version of the game. He has all his old tricks and old spells, including paralyzing you with his physicals sometimes, and inflicting it with the Hold (HOLD) spell. Look at this damage output. No way Solo was going to be able to outlast all the BS this guy can muster.


The Hall wasn't too practical anymore, so Solo made his way over to the Peninsula of Power. He had no troubles fighting on it. His attack could one-shot anything but the Allosaurus (TYRO), and the only thing that had a decent shot of killing him before he could kill them were large Winter Wolf (FrWOLF) groups. Even though the bosses have been inflated, most of the regular enemies have not been.

He did hit level 35 eventually. Meanwhile, Steve the White Mage was laughing, having completed this dungeon at level 23. Actually, is it really that much grinding compared to the NES version? To reach this level there, you need in the realm of a half million experience. You only need just under 140k here.

So 10 hits...really didn't make all that big of a difference. Solo was just doing around 100 damage on bad hits instead of 70ish But more attacks means more chances for critical hits. After a while of smashing my head against the wall and trying to heal with Hi-Potions...I decided I may as well keep doing that because grinding more would be silly.


Finally, I just decided to go big. Attack, attack, attack! One attack did 256 in particular. It certainly helped that Lich did physical attacks himself, and avoided paralysis. That, as well as his sleep and paralysis spells, are huge threats to the Solo Monk. But with the luck that he never used them, and after enough of these, Lich fell. YOLO strats for the win!


Solo picked up an X-Potion as the spoils from a random battle on the way to his next destination: the Ice Cave What's there to say? It's the freaking Ice Cave, that much hasn't changed. Not only are the usual murder suspects of Mindflayers and Dark Wizards around, but the undead remain huge threats for their ability to paralyze Solo. Ugh. He ran like the wind to get through the cave. What wasn't a threat, however, was the Eye. A single hit blackened it. Unlike the other bosses, it hasn't been given any buffs. Also, I probably should've healed so Kill (XXXX) didn't own Solo.


Ordeals was next, and it went uneventfully. I ran into Rakshasas (MANCATs) along the way, who have been nerfed in how they only cast Fire instead of Fira. One difference between then and now that I'm 100% on: class change is a go.

Unlike the NES version, in which a Black Belt class changing is actually destructive due to the Master gaining less Magic Defense per level (4 vs. 1, no doubt a bug of some kind), the GBA/PSP remakes change the situation drastically. Remember how I was talking about how the stat gain system was switched up slightly? Well, you see, it's not just because of the higher level cap: every class but the Red Mage/Red Wizard get improved Accuracy and Magic Defense gains after class change! Master in particular gets double the Magic Defense growth, which remains the lowest of the other classes and is important for a solo character. This is what led to the infamous Level 11 Class Change Challenge, which can actually be done at Level 10 on PSP. Of course in a casual setting, a Solo Red Mage up to Class Change is a good way to sidestep the issue. Though that said, you don't need to do either of those to max out those stats...except for a Monk/Master's Magic Defense.


Furthermore, and more importantly, Master itself gets roughly a 25% damage boost (in effect, their attack is now half Strength plus Stamina), and they get more natural defense as well (1 Defense per 2 Stamina in the body slot). The Magic Defense is the reason why our party of corpses included another Monk. That's right, Solo's time in the limelight is over. His identical twin sister, Sofia, will now be taking the reigns. Copyright infringement is dead! Is this some sort of violation of the spirit of a solo challenge? Probably yes. But we're still only using a solo character of one class, so technically no. Besides, I went through with it anyway, under a misconception that it improved stat gains as well, though they turned out better. So we'll roll with it.


Unlike the original Sullla challenge, I also decided to unrestrict any uses of casting items. It just didn't make sense to watch a bunch of animations against a large group of enemies. However, the good old (Zeus) Gauntlets are now not nearly as useful. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing different to tell about them. They're still a piece of equipment that you find in Ordeals that cast the second-tier lightning spell when used as an item. The difference is in magic itself. If you've read my Spellslingers report, you remember how I was talking about what people have speculated how Intelligence was supposed to be used in Final Fantasy 1? I do mean that, by the way. It's speculation. The stat is just as broken on Origins and Wonderswan, so there's no way to tell how it would've worked on the original system. Well, on GBA and PSP, the stat and magic in general are more akin to how they are used in traditional Final Fantasy. Ergo, the spell only did around 40 damage when Sofia used it! The flip side of this is, magic can be more effective than it was when cast at the hands of a mage.

Anyway, for the leveling, I took Sofia to 4-hits, then leveled her up around Elfland up until she hit 6-hits at Level 16. From there, she went to the Hall of Giants. I actually did do a bit of stat manipulation/resetting here, though I did do a few CWCheated tests without any at all. The results there were...well. I'll get to those in a moment. So I took to watching my stat gains as I went along, and resetting if I didn't like what I got. Since you can save anywhere, you can reset just before a level-up and possibly get different additional results. It was a bit of a pain, so I had to settle sometimes - generally if Sofia got a Strength, Agility, or especially Stamina increase that wasn't fixed, I accepted it. Once she hit 8-hits, she went to the Peninsula of Power. This was just as easy as with Solo. She also ran into 1/64 Wyverns here, who didn't last very long.


So here Sofia is at the same level as Solo. She ended up with somewhat better stats than him! Guess looking after them works. But, he got some insane luck on a few level-ups (including about 3-4 five stat increases), so it's not as big a difference as it could possibly been. Still, she has the aforementioned Magic Defense boost, which will make the no armor part of the challenge a lot more plausible.


At the Caravan...hello, new items! Giant's Tonic and Faerie's Tonic are mostly useless by the end of the game, and even questionable before then. They boost your maximum HP and maximum MP. The thing is, neither can exceed 999 even with these. Protect Drink and Strength Tonic do as you'd expect: boosting your defense and attack respectively. They're literally Fog and Temper in a can!

Speed Drinks are a bit misleading, but for the better. What they actually do is give you an extra hit per use, up to 8. Ordinarily, the hit limit is 8/16, which you hit at 255. But with Agility potions, you can go up to 16/32. And that's before doubling from any spell effects. These things are nice and all...but not really necessary for the main game and under most circumstances. You'll probably see them in the future, though!


Sofia was 1/64ed by a Green Dragon (Gas D) on the way out of the Waterfall Cave. Twice. Yep, we are totally seeing Warmech later. Neither put up much of a fight thankfully, what with being one-shotted and all. Also, an interesting thing about this version, while on the subject: the translation is mostly based on the GBA version, but a few things have been changed. In particular, Garland says his infamous "knock you all down line", and relevant to the robot who hates me so much, he goes by a translation of his Japanese name on GBA, Death Machine.


Sofia reached 12 hits in Gurgu Volcano, mostly due to taking the long road to gather treasure. On name changes, it's called Gulg Volcano in this version, which I don't like at all. Also, while I generally do like/don't mind the new music, the remix for this one is stupid. Xylphones + bounciness + completely changing the mood of the song is stupid. Even stupider, it's the version in Theatrhythm. Like, compare it to FF9's remix.

Also, it only hit me here after changing the window color to a more fancy color that I spelled it Slajn. Good typo.


Marilith...no leveling up needed for her! Sofia did over 600 damage on good attacks, which was enough for a three hit kill. She didn't manage much of anything before dying miserably. Things are looking up from here to be sure!

So summary so far? This isn't nearly as big a cakewalk as it used to be. Monk got rebalanced, and it probably deserved the nerfs. Still, once it gains levels, it's still really freaking strong at taking out individual targets, and still gets plenty of hits. It has a much smoother start, but isn't as brokenly dominating at high levels. The class is still a very heavy hitter though, no mistaking it.

How will our new solo character fare in the rest of the game? Find out whenever I get around to it!

[ChaosEnigma]

Signed up for FFV Four Job Fiesta. I now have to wait through most of June, though I really should play up to Wind Crystal on 2 files(one where I run from everything and one where I fight everything) before it fully starts.


I went with RegChaos because a lot of people think it's the highly requested true random where you can get any crystal's jobs at any other crystal. No idea about Duplicates, though the Berserker Risk description saying it's the only way to get duplicates in the fiesta(outside classic obviously) but with the ? icon from Chaos's ruleset may mean that even Chaos might be able to get them, though nothing is actually confirmed about RegChaos yet.


Also threw in Berserker Risk because while I may not be able to donate myself, people will donate to make those of us suckers that choose it suffer , though I handled my 2 Berserkers last year pretty fine since I had 2 Handed from Knight as well as Dual Wield from Ninja as options. I will never do Natural on a Berserker Risk run because I at least want something that might synergize well with the berserker, though no guarantee there with Gilgabot.


Also scrapped that Blue Mage run. Realized that some of the stuff I was planning actually doesn't work and it requires way more grinding than I wanted to do. I may try a low item run sometime else, but No Items was a terrible idea, at least for a single class solo since it probably would work pretty well with an all classes unlocked solo.

[System Error]

So, FF7 remake confirmed.

I'd do a variant of it in honor of this, but that game has already been varianted to death, and I'm not sure which one to try. But seriously, there really are some crazy things people have come up with. You know that No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination joke? Some of those variants are like that with how long their acronyms are!

[greenline]

So, FF7 remake confirmed.

I'd do a variant of it in honor of this, but that game has already been varianted to death, and I'm not sure which one to try. But seriously, there really are some crazy things people have come up with. You know that No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination joke? Some of those variants are like that with how long their acronyms are!

There was a popular variant for FF6 where the amount of steps taken in the game world was kept to a minimum. I wonder if something similar would be possible for FF7.

Also, I'd hate if the remake took out the Wall Market crossdressing quest, but that sounds just like something Square Enix would do nowadays.

[English Language]

So, FF7 remake confirmed.

I'd do a variant of it in honor of this, but that game has already been varianted to death, and I'm not sure which one to try. But seriously, there really are some crazy things people have come up with. You know that No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination joke? Some of those variants are like that with how long their acronyms are!

My personal most notable was was the LLNIIENACMO challenge. That was a doozy.

LL=Lowest Level
NI=No Items
IE=Initial Equipment
NA=No Accessories
CMO=Command(Yellow) Materia Only

It's about exactly as difficult and frustrating as it sounds, and a challenge I never have any desire to do again. Enemy Skill materia is a godsend. Four biggest hell points...

Rapps: Optional boss, but mandatory in this challenge, otherwise you have to fight the Turks in the return to Midgar who will completely demolish you. No materia means Aeris' (level 3) limit break is literally your only form of healing, and Aeris must be the only person to survive the fight. When your only form of healing fully revives and heals your whole party, that can take a while. Also, poison will destroy Aeris, and takes you out of Defend which is a HUGE deal.

Carry Armor: Carry Armor is Carry Armor. Not really a hell point itself, but the fight can be difficult, you have limited MP, and you have do deal with a couple forced fights afterwards with a single character, one of which is a pincer attack.

Proud Clod: Not a difficult fight. It's actually pretty easy. The problem is it's LOOOONG. He has so much hit points that using MP for attacking with Enemy Skills is a waste. The only damage source here is Yuffie using Double Cut, and the occasional limit breaks from Cloud and Cait Sith. Also, even if you could use Enemy Skills here, the best ones are all-target and hit Jammar Armor too, who cannot be killed(it gives more experience than Proud Clod itself and would cause your party to fail the Lowest Level requirement).

Hojo: Multi-form fight with numerous status effects. MP is also a huge deal since the last form has basically none(and you have to get rid of it ASAP, or he'll cast Slow on the party which is basically a death sentence), and your only form of MP Restoration is Cait Sith's Slots.

Everything after that is pretty easy though, since you'll get Angel Whisper which FINALLY lets you revive allies outside of using an Inn, which is impossible once you lose Aeris.

[English Language]

You know what, f*** it. Something should be done for the FF7 remake. And it might as well be me doing it because.....because.

Might as well revisit a challenge I did ages ago, similar to a FFV challenge I did earlier.

FFVII BLUE MAGE(kinda) SOLO

No class system, so I'll simply improvise. Cloud will get the Enemy Skill materia and equip it at the earliest possible convenience.

Here be the ground rules.

A. Cloud will be the only person participating in fights. If Cloud is unavailable, the current party leader will replace him. The only exception I'm making is the Hundred Gunner/Heli-Gunner fight in Midgar, since you're stuck with three characters I'll have basically no chance to level enough for a solo fight. Only plot-mandated party changes however, so no going out of my way to do Yuffie's solo sidequest.
B. Through Midgar, I'll simply be doing a No Materia challenge. Once out, I will get Matra Magic ASAP, and then never do any form of non-Enemy Skill attack again. This includes Limit Breaks.
--B1. Any form of item healing is acceptable. I will do everything I can to stick to White Wind for my healing needs, but healing with items aren't disallowed.
C. The only two non-support materia I'm allowed are Enemy Skill and Manipulate. Stat boosters and support materia are fine, though I believe most don't work with Enemy Skill so it's moot anyways.
D. Manipulate may ONLY be used to obtain new Enemy Skills. It's completely off-limit ottherwise.
E. No restriction on equipment.
F. I will do my best to avoid power-levelling to bypass a problem, though I won't rule it out if it seems necessary. At the same time though, I won't specifically go out of my way to avoid combat.
G. I'll be playing the Steam version, which apparently has a character booster to artificially level my character's stats, health, magic, AP, and exp. Obviously, this is off-limits.

That's about all I can think of that's relevant at the moment.

I'll be kinda skimming over Midgar, if only because it's kinda boring, and really easy with just No Materia. Mostly, I'll just be covering the bosses and anything I think is important.

+++++GUARD SCORPION+++++

I'm not gonna pretend most of you don't know who this guy is. And if you don't, all you need to know is he's your typical first boss. His attack pattern is simple.
-------------
Search Scope
Attack Search Scope Target
Search Scope
Attack Search Scope Target
Raises Tail
Lowers Tail
---------------
And repeat. Killing Barret off is also easy. Move Cloud back, Barret up, then keep provoking it's tail laser counterattack until Barret bites it. Even with only physical attacks and the occasional Braver, this boss is dead-easy for Cloud alone.

Reactor escape is braindead easy, even with one character.

Leave on next job, not selling the Assault Gun yet(it might come in handy for the Gunners)

+++++AIR BUSTER+++++


Also a joke, though slightly more difficult than Guard Scorpion. His main gimmick is the fact this is a pincer fight, and that he takes 5x damage from being hit on his weak side insbtead of 2x....however, his weak side is not always his back. His weak side is the opposite side of wherever he attacked last. So if he uses Rear Gunner to attack someone behind him, his new weak side is the front. I used this to deal tons of damage whenever he attacked Barret or Tifa. Once he dealt the killing blow to them, I had Cloud Braver him for 600+ damage(Air Buster has 1200 HP).

Have Aeris run from the first soldier, drop the topmost barrel on the second one, then run from the third. This gets her away without a fight.

Taking a break for a bit. Hopefully the rest of Midgar next update.

Also, let me know if the pictures are too big and I can shrink them down if needed.

[English Language]

More challenge, this time with smaller screenshots.

Got all 4 items in Sector 6 to get picked by Don Corneo, avoiding the fight with his goons. Also grabbed a few Tranquilizers to inflict Sadness on Cloud. Only 5, but should be plenty for now. Sadness reduces my limit break gain, but also reduces how much damage I take. The opposite, Fury, increases limit break gain while making your attacks(physical and magical) miss occasionally. Obviously, I'll be spending as much of the challenge as possible in Sadness. Both statuses are also mutually exclusive. Being inflicted by one while under the other cancels both out.

+++++APS+++++


Aps isn't a very difficult boss, even solo. He has an attack that inflicts Sadness, and an all-target attack called Sewer Tsunami that usually deals more damage to himself than the party. Below a certain health percentage, he'll skip his turn, do Sewer Tsunami, skip again, then use Sewer Tsunami again(from the opposite direction though, the only time it'll hurt your party more than Aps himself), but the long delay makes it not very threatening, especially under Sadness. To demonstrate, Sewer Tsunami generally does ~45 damage to the whole party. Under Sadness, Cloud only took ~30. Aps took 180. I also had Cross-Slash for this battle, which paralyzes it's target briefly(something Aps doesn't resist). The only real difficult that came from this fight was that I didn't bring anywhere near enough Potions. Other than that, cake.

Sadness plus staying in the back row made getting through the train graveyard easy. Bought 8 Grenades when I got back to Sector 7(Grenades do more damage than my physical attacks, so will be the mainstay of my boss strategies for the rest of Midgar). Leveled to 10 vs the Aero Combatants and to get money for more potions.

+++++RENO: ROUND 1+++++


Reno's fight is a slight problem. Reno himself is quite easy, and sitting in the back row lobbing Grenades makes him go down fast. The problem is his Pyramid move, which essentially makes it's target considered dead, though can be broken with a physical attack. If I remember right, Reno CAN use this on a solo target. Since killing him legitimately means grinding like crazy or way too much luck, I opt to just make an exception and let Barret stay alive to shoot Pyramids. After grenade 7, I beat up Barret, then wait for Reno to kill him before throwing the last grenade(so I don't kill Barret, then give Reno a chance to sneak a Pyramid to insta-game over me).

Play up till the Shinra Building, picking up a bunch of Grenades on the way(selling a few Ethers) and one Hyper, the Fury causing item, which is going to be handy during the Hundred Gunner/Heli-Gunner fight. Grabbing all three items on Floor 63 and equipped the Star Pendant right away, then stuck around and fought Sword Dances on floor 65 to get a weapon drop for Cloud, which I eventually gave up on after no success. I choose to leave Barret out of the next fight to hope he gains a level for the Gunners.

+++++SAMPLE HO512+++++

I choose to ignore the little guys. They aren't all that dangerous. The main boss itself can inflict Poison, but the STar Pendant means only Red is bothered by it, and he's supposed to die here anyways. Like Reno, 8 grenades will kill the boss, so I throw 7, kill Red, then throw the last one.


The most important part, however, is that the boss drops the first Enemy Skill Materia. Nothing in Midgar has an Enemy Skill, so I'll still be going No Materia until I reach the World Map.

Got through some cutscenes, used another Tranq on Cloud for the Rufus fight, then used my Hyper on Aeris before getting in the elevator.

+++++HUNDRED GUNNER AND HELI-GUNNER+++++


So the exception fight. Fury is put on Aeris to make sure her limit break, Healing Wind, is up as often as possible so I have enough Potions for Motor Ball. Unlike the last few bosses, I'm not going to be picky about who survives this fight. Main strategy is going to be the same for both Gunners: Aeris and Red throw Grenades while Barret shoots them, all three using their limit breaks when they come up. Hundred Gunner isn't too bad. He'll shoot one person a turn, then below 2/3rd health will use a party-wide attack to shoot everyone, then below 1/3rd use Wave Cannon to also shoot everyone, but spends a few turns charging it first. After his starts using his party attacks, I stop using grenades and stick to Barret's attacks and limit breaks, since Aeris is able to keep the party up indefinetly with Healing Wind.
Heli-Gunner is a tad more difficult. He can inflict Poison to a target with C cannon, Sleep to a target with AB Cannon, or both to the whole party with Firing Line. I should have taken the Star Pendant and given it to Aeris, but this is still fine, I bought a couple Antidotes a while back just for this fight. Heli-Gunner is also a bit dodgy, so some of Barret's attacks miss which sucks. Overall not much tougher than Hundred Gunner, just a bit more tedious.

+++++RUFUS AND DARK NATION+++++


Another fight that isn't incredibly difficult. Taking out Dark Nation stops his spells, somethiung a Grenade a few physical attacks handles nicely. After that it's just a slugfest with Rufus, made easier when Barrier finally wears off.

After the truck mini-game, I finally come to.....

+++++MOTOR BALL+++++


Finally, just one boss between me and beginning this challenge properly. Motor Ball can be quite difficult. Cloud is safe in the back and is going to spend every moment of this fight throwing Grenades and using limit breaks, when he doesn't need healing of course. Aeris and Barret are mostly here to serve as meat shields to keep Motor Ball off Cloud. I also didn't manage to get the Elemental Materia from the mayor, so Cloud is also taking full damage from his Rollign Fire attack. I ran out of Grenades mid-fight and ended up having to fall back on physical attacks. I had no problem moving up since Twin Burner and Rolling Fire, his most dangerous attacks, were magic and therefore dealt the same damage either way.

And at last....



The world map.

Before I end the update however, one last thing to take care of. In the area I'm standing in, there's a very special enemy called the Custom Sweeper.

(pictured: 2 Custom Sweepers)

As you might have guessed, the fact I'm specifically calling them out must mean they have an Enemy Skill.

(picturted: An Enemy Skill)

Matra Magic is pretty great early game. Costs 8 MP, very cheap, and deals about as much damage as Cloud's limit break to all enemies. This will fall off later on in the game, but for the first section it's pretty amazing.

And with that, the Pseudo-Blue Mage solo can officially begin next update.

[English Language]

So we're back. With Arkham Knight's pc port being bugged up, I have more free time for this.


I didn't bother getting the Chocobo Lure materia to ride one past, most of my recent challenges has it as a banned matertia for one reason or another. Midgar Zolom is easy to bypass without one. Simply run across the swamp and hit the menu button the second you see the snake on screen. If your quick, you won't get a fight until after you close the menu. Now save and reset. When you load Midgar Zolom will be moved somewhere else, letting you easily continue to the other side. Midgar Zolom has a VERY nice Enemy Skill called Beta, but getting it now would be nearly impossible, so I'll save it for later.


Inside the next dungeon, after taking the path to the right, contaisn these enemies. Most importantly the Ark Dragon in the back, who carries the Flamethrower Enemy Skill. Flamethrower is....ok. It costs 2 more MP than Matra Magic and deals slightly higher damage. The downside is it being single-target and and fire element. Flamethrower is handy for solo boss fights, though I prefer to use Matra Magic on most random encounters.

I move on to Fort Condor and agree to fight so I can use their beds and restock on potions. I move on quickly, because a few enemies around here and Junon can be fairly dangerous.


Found around Junon are these birds called Zemzelettes. They have the very handy Enemy Skill(less so for a solo game sadly) White Wind. Unfortunately, I need Manipulate first, so I roasted the bird and move on to....

+++++BOTTOMSWELL+++++


First boss of the challenge proper. Bottomswell has an interesting gimmick where he traps allies in bubbles not unlike Reno's pyramids. Unlike the pyramids, they have to be broken with magic and slowly kill their target. Killing these bubbles is a priority even ignoring that since Bottomswell is considered in the back row when a bubble is up, with the defense bonuses that entails. Matra Magic is pretty amazing here since it'll hit both Bottomswell AND any bubbles he has out. This gimmick will never come up here, as he'll never bubble the last character up and unbubbled. People wishing to avoid this can also poison the boss and then never attack him again. Like FFX and the Seymour fights, poison damage will not trigger pattern changes. This is also handy for another boss I'll mention later. Bottomswell isn't very difficult withbout the bubbles. The only real trick I have to worry about is that he'll use Big Wave as a dying attack, though it's ~60 damage isn't particularly frightening.

After that, we have to take the dolphin up to the top of the tower. Blowing the whistle twice without moving does the trick. Once in Upper Junon, after the parade you can look around and find the second Enemy Skill materia. After that we get on the boat. After some boat stuff....

+++++JENOVA-BIRTH+++++


Jenova can be pretty annoying, though mostly because she can cast Stop a few times(before her MP runs out). She can also put out some pretty impressive damage(almost 200 on Aeris. You'll notice that's about 2/3rds of her health). Combine that with being able to attack 2-3 times a turn and this becomes a fairly dangerous boss fight, in addition to the longest(with more health than any boss so far). Luckily, 2 of the 3 Stops missed, though the one that landed cost me a Hi-Potion from the damage she dealt during it. Jenova also seems slower than other bosses, with Cloud frequently getting 2 turns between hers(even 3 a few times), which helped massively.

Entering Costa del Sol, I immediately grab the Fire Ring out of the Villa. This is what's going to make getting Beta much easier, since it'll deal zero damage with this baby on.

In Mt Corel, I ended up running from most fights. The Cockatolis can most likely petrify me and the turtle/dragon thing takes 3 Matra Magics to kill(it's immune to Flamethrower) and just not worth fighting. After that, I arrive the Gold Saucer, then wind up in prison, where I shall break for the time being.

[El Grillo]

Good stuff, I have fond memories of this game, but the only variant I've played was a hardcore mod that eventually devolved into requiring perfect setups before boss fights to have even the slightest chance of surviving. Those graphics also look better than I was expecting, does the Steam version come with updates?