More Final Fantasy

[T-hawk]

And it's about time I got in on this game.

http://www.dos486.com/ff5/

[Sullla]

Yes, yes I'd say it was time indeed. Great stuff, and I'll give you some more full commentary later. Believe me, I know the feeling of starting out with a new game again after knowing the previous one (FF1) inside and out. It's definitely frustrating until you get your "sea legs" back under you.

[Zed-F]

Done a solo nudist yet?

[BCAgamer]

Great report! I'm playing my first FF5 game myself, so I've been using your site as a reference point.

[Sullla]

Alright, now for a full response, which T-Hawk's report deserves. I actually thought about doing a no-equipment game myself at some point, which you covered extremely well in this report.

First, why do I prefer the SNES version to the GBA one? (I have both emulated, and own the GBA cartridge like T-Hawk.) A couple of reasons:

- Force of habit, naturally.

- The auto-organize function for items works slightly differently between the two versions. I don't want to go into too much detail on what's a very trivial issue, but the GBA version puts the items into a set order that's different from what I'm used to. Minor irritant.

- The screen is actually shrunken in smaller on the GBA version. This is particularly noticeable when flying the airship - you literally can't see as much. I also dislike the smaller text and fonts, which I find more difficult to read.

- The changing of names in the GBA translation doesn't bother me. Some of the translation is better, some of it is a little worse, in my opinion. (The fans who did the SNES translation were very literal, while the professional GBA version is much more flowery and descriptive. For example, compare "Love Song" to "Romeo's Ballad." One is functional, the other is creative.)

But what I can't stand is the pseudo-Japanese that Square throws into their recent games. Why are there spells called "Firaga" and "Blizzara" and such? These words don't mean anything in English! It's not just a cosmetic thing either; I have accidentally gotten "Fira" and "Firaga" confused at least a half-dozen times and cast the wrong spell. What makes this especially silly is that the original words are in katakana: フィレ (fire),　フィラ (fira), and　フィラガ　(firaga). Katakana is used in Japanese for rendering words from foreign languages - nearly always English - into Japanese. So in the GBA version, you have an literal English rendering of a Japanese translation of an English word. Pretty silly! I vastly prefer the old Fire/2/3 system, which is simple and to the point.

Seriously, don't tell me you don't find "Aero" "Aera" and "Aeroga" confusing.

OK, on to real stuff from the game:

* Monks were absolutely the right choice for your group. If you're not using weapons, train up some Monks and get everyone the Brawl command for use with other jobs. The other side benefits from mastering the job (high Strength, Vitality, Counter-attacking) are also great.

* Yes, Flash is great (against Shiva). Do use that Blue magic!

* I was reading and thinking, "why is T-Hawk casting Fire against Byblos?" (I could recognize the spell animations from your pictures) before you explained about missing Fire 2. Yes, a bit silly - but you still got it done, haha.

* I think you were incorrect that Monks would do the most damage against Sol Cannon. Even without a Thunder Rod to boost damage, Bolt 2 or Ramuh should do ~1000 damage against the boss, with his lightning weakness. Not that it mattered though.

* Now you see why I often skip through the Lonka Ruins. Tough enemies, poor rewards for winning. Get out of there!

* White Wind can be picked up in Exdeath's Castle in world 2; you don't have to wait for sunken Worus tower. On the other hand, you made much more extensive use of Blowfish than I have ever done, which was very creative.

* Great battle against the Shield Dragon in Kuzar! Did you know that a Beastmaster can Control the dragon and have it kill itself with Flame? I generally avoid this because it is so cheesy, but you can grind experience incredibly easily this way.

* The emulator "Rewind" feature is indeed super-powerful. Almost too much so, because I'm afraid I'll abuse it if I start using it. I have seen people online cheat their way through the whole game via abuse of Rewind...

* Yes, I did know about the Reset spell, and I used it a lot with my solo Time Mage. I was consciously refraining from using it with my Ironcore group, because I was recording those videos. They were already pretty long as it was.

* You had a good plan for the four Crystals... but even better would be casting Quarter, which cuts off 7/8 of their life and does 6804 damage. Of course, I also missed this one too with my group. Side note: after the Forest burns down, you can exit out of it to the south and save your game there. Then you can walk right back in and fight the Crystals. No need to use Rewind there.

* Reseting the Exdeath battle until the correct character was hit with Condemn was indeed pretty clever. Very nice!

* Because Monk damage is based on level, they are extremely vulnerable to Sonic Wave/Dischord. That's about the only reason why the Antlion would be tough. Too bad you didn't have Black magic for that battle, which flattens the boss immediately.

* Indeed, the correct way to beat Odin is to have one or more Ninjas Throw weapons at him. I realized this only after I played out my own venture. Bartz could have thrown two Pinwheels/Fuma Shurikens for 5000 damage each, with no need to waste a turn casting Magic Sword.

* Leviathan's use of Tidal Wave is mostly tied to a counter-attack, so yes, slowing down and spacing out your attacks was the way to go.

* The Bard song Requiem's damage is based entirely on Magic Power, and doesn't require harps. As you figured out later.

* I actually did not know that the Land Crushers are vulnerable to Level 4 Quarter. Useful stuff.

Sullla, this is what the Job System is supposed to do and what all your solos are missing out on. Even the Ironcores never got to play with their combined powers until the very last boss battle.

* Indeed, I know. But the game is just so easy with all the classes available... There's a reason why I didn't swap back to the Bare job until the last battle (where my characters were barely even scratched).

* You do know that Omega's Surge Beam/Wave Cannon is identical to Sol Cannon, right? Always 50% of max HP and a leak status.

* Circle/Encircle is one of the worst spells in the game, since you can't revive the one sent off. I listed it as "instant death spell" with Newton because that's what it meant for a solo character.

* The Mimic command is... very abusable. To say the least. I have seen videos of some unbelivable chained commands using mutiple Mimics. Honestly though, it's not even something you need aside from Omega/Shinryuu and I guess that bonus dungeon in the GBA version. Using Mimic to toss a bunch of shurikens that you didn't have in inventory is definitely a gray area of game balance, if also being fiendishly clever.

* I still have no idea why the Magic Lamp's Odin alone will kill the one Neo Exdeath part.

* Yes, the proven way to beat Omega (aside from X-Fight plus Bolt 3 Sword) is through the use of the Bard's song to freeze him with Stop. That was the correct approach to take, your own end-of-battle hijinks notwithstanding.

* I don't like Shinryuu because the correct approach is to grind up to Level 50 or so, while masting a bunch of jobs, and only then do you have a chance to win. I'm impressed that your group could fight him to a standstill; my experience was profoundly different with a single character, and a Chemist alone at that. In both cases though, the right answer was increasing the character levels to overcome the disadvantage of facing the boss. I believe that the Bard song can only raise your level to 99, while the Chemist can go to 255. Not entirely sure of that though.

* Also, your battle against Omega was short because you could Stop him and had access to lightning magic. Without it, think how long that battle would have lasted...

So once again, well done and well written. I hope it was as much fun as it sounded.

[T-hawk]

- The screen is actually shrunken in smaller on the GBA version. This is particularly noticeable when flying the airship - you literally can't see as much. I also dislike the smaller text and fonts, which I find more difficult to read.

The text isn't an issue while playing in full screen on a PC monitor, and c'mon, you know by now where to go with the airship. But yes I noticed it when laying out the snapshots for the report. It definitely takes some mental effort to peer at some of those shots to see what's going on and the damage numbers. I may try some stylesheet trickery to enlarge them a bit.

Why are there spells called "Firaga" and "Blizzara" and such? ... Seriously, don't tell me you don't find "Aero" "Aera" and "Aeroga" confusing.

Honestly, no and never have. The rule is that the normal word is always the first level of a spell, "-ra" is always the second level, and "-ga" is the third and final level. If only two levels of a spell exist, go straight to "-ga" like Hastega. That naming scheme has been standard ever since FF8 so this is just bringing FF5 in line. I haven't even played any of those games but somehow it feels natural to me anyway. Maybe not knowing kana actually helps there.

I think the confusion comes from the fact that most of the base words already have an "r" in them which gets melded into the "-ra", so you get Fira and Aera and Blizzara instead of more awkward constructions like Firera and Aerora and Blizzardra. But even besides the naming, just go by position in the menus. Aero-Aera-Aeroga are right in that order in the blue magic menu, and the black spells are separated by lines so just scroll down far enough and you get the right one.

That all said, I do agree that the simple 1-2-3 nomenclature is simpler. But you manage to get even that wrong between Haste and Haste 2 so I don't know what to tell you there.

* I actually did not know that the Land Crushers are vulnerable to Level 4 Quarter. Useful stuff.

Although you need two castings for full effect, since it starts with 20000 HP and the spell does 9999 max. A few times I cast it once, then started thinking "ok it must have only 1250 HP remaining... wait why won't it die?!"

* Indeed, I know. But the game is just so easy with all the classes available...

What happened to "FF5 is, indeed, a rather difficult game" ?

* You do know that Omega's Surge Beam/Wave Cannon is identical to Sol Cannon, right? Always 50% of max HP and a leak status.

I did not, thanks for the tip. I also still hadn't figured out all the translation equivalencies for Omega's moves. All the translation guides list spell names and enemy names but not enemy abilities.

* The Mimic command is... very abusable. To say the least. I have seen videos of some unbelivable chained commands using mutiple Mimics. Honestly though, it's not even something you need aside from Omega/Shinryuu and I guess that bonus dungeon in the GBA version.

Yeah, especially if you throw in Dualcast, since the Mimic command recasts both spells. I think I used a lot of that to trash the GBA bonus dungeon the one time I played it.

* I don't like Shinryuu because the correct approach is to grind up to Level 50 or so ... In both cases though, the right answer was increasing the character levels to overcome the disadvantage of facing the boss.

I'm pretty sure Shinryuu can be done without extra leveling, and definitely with a nonvariant party. I only grinded to 49 in order to survive the Tidal Wave without Coral Rings. It could have been done at a lower level with two instances of HP +30% on one character, then have him resurrect the party (reset and try again if he gets killed too soon.) The rest of the battle didn't really dip into critical HP range. Hero Song's primary purpose was to try to make Dark Shock hit; the battle was winnable without the level-boosted additional damage. Simply adding Dualcast would deliver the same damage per turn as my boosted single Bahamut summons.

Great, now I have to try this. I did keep a save from before adding the levels.

I do want to do another FF5 variant or two, but don't have any immediate compelling ideas. I'm not too interested in solos, or anything that degenerates to strictly easier than one of your completed solos (like say four Bares when you've done it with one.) I was trying to think of how to adapt my Brawlers variant to FF5: the only allowable commands are Fight and Run. That obviously wouldn't work as written, but the general idea is "no buffs, no spells, just attack for damage." Other ideas would be adaptations of your Live Off The Land or Iron Fists, though the latter would get really tedious. Low-level challenge has been done plenty of times by others. Maybe four white mages, as a warmup for your eventual solo WM run.

[T-hawk]

I'm pretty sure Shinryuu can be done without extra leveling, and definitely with a nonvariant party. ... Great, now I have to try this.

Well, I did, then remembered why I didn't. The minimum level for the Nudists is 43. Level 41 with two instances of HP +30% comes to about 3950 HP, not quite enough to survive Tidal Wave (with Mighty Guard applied) dealing 4000-4400. Level 42 gets squished by the L2/L3 spells. So you are right, Shinryuu requires adding levels for this variant. A party doesn't reach 43 by the end of the game without grinding, unless maybe you went really slowly and fought absolutely everything, which itself is kind of grinding anyway. A nonvariant party can do Shinryuu at normal levels of course, just using Coral Rings to survive Tidal Wave.

Anyway, I think I'd like to do your Living off the Land variant in FF5. It might seem odd to do two item-limited games in a row, but the problem is Batman. Any variant that permits unrestricted item access and the Bare job can win by doing whatever Batman did. Can I take it or do you have plans for it yourself?

[Sullla]

No, go ahead and do whatever your fancy strikes you. I'm taking a break from Final Fantasy 5 at the moment anyway - a little too much stress from the previous variant.

[Selrahc]

How about a new variant on the berserkers? Given that there's an actual class called berserker.. and I get the impression that it's pretty hard to use.

[Cull]

In my opinion, the pure randomness of the berseker is hard, but at the same time, I doubt there would be much enjoyment invovled.