More Final Fantasy

[Sofis]

Omniscient will be beaten by the chaperone character going it alone wearing a Wall Ring.

I meant that considering all berserkers out of the fight to be a game over would make that impossible, as an additional reason to agree with your change of that rule.

4. The fourth character may not use the Monk job. He or she may use any other jobs at any time after they are unlocked normally, and all abilities and items other than as listed in rule 2.

If we want to get nitpicky, we should probably ban Berserker too, not that we'd want to use it. However, what do we do about the berserk status effect? Deliberately inflicting it on oneself should be banned, presumably, but an enemy inflicting it should be okay.

[T-hawk]

Unlike Sullla, I post here when I've got more content to read. Complete with some javascript trickery to get around the problem of small screenshots.

http://www.dos486.com/ff/nanny/

[Sofis]

Well done. No comments, since I will not read it until I'm done myself.

[timmy827]

Thanks T-hawk for another interesting report.

The "main gauche" (Guardian) grabbed my attention, and about 1/2 hour after reading it the place where I had seen that popped into my head:
Left Hand

[Kylearan]

Hey Sulla and T-hawk, I'd like to use the opportunity to thank you for introducing me to FF! I've never owned a CONSOLE and instead grew up with The Bard's Tale as the hallmark CRPG of the 80's. After reading most of your REPORTS (and not understanding a thing...), I decided to try out the FF series myself. As a computer and game history freak, I just had to...

So now I'm playing the original NES version of FF1 on an EMULATOR (gfceu), only mildly spoiling myself by looking up where on the MAP this or that place had been... I've only just arrived at the Earth Cave, but I'm already immensely enjoying the oldschool feel of the GAME.

[T-hawk]

Great, Kylearan! Final Fantasy 1 pretty much defined the console RPG. Its reputation is well-earned. Referring to a MAP is not at all out of line; the original game MANUAL included a map with lots of detail and walkthrough instructions for about half the game. It's also got plenty of mileage for variant replayability. I can certainly tell you're getting into its STYLE.

Anyway, I did indeed make and post my promised FF5 video, for the three Berserkers defeating Shinryuu. (Yeah I know this is the worst possible day to get any attention for a non-Civilization game. ) It's now on the bottom of my page here, or at this direct Youtube link.

http://www.dos486.com/ff/nanny/page5.shtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95a2oTknReA

[Selrahc]

So are berserkers basically just trash? No redeeming features at all?

[T-hawk]

The redeeming feature is the +50% attack bonus (3/2). Early on, that's the biggest available modifier to attack. Its competitor is Double Grip which also comes early on. They are of comparable power levels: Double Grip is a bigger modifier, but Berserk works before enemy defense is subtracted, works with more weapons (Chicken Knife), and allows a shield. But the downfall is the surprisingly bad selection of weapons for berserkers; axes and hammers lag behind swords at just about every stage of the game. I found them using knives almost all the time (better of course in the GBA version with the knife damage bug fixed), but you may as well be a Ninja or even Dancer if you're going to wield knives.

End-game, X-Fight and/or Spellblade completely blow away Berserk, especially combined.

Another small redeeming feature in that berserkers can't be confused. That came in handy against Omega and a few other times. Also, berserkers have the ability to "jump the queue" of turn order, and act while another character is waiting for a command. I made use of that capability a few times, having Faris wait until after a nasty boss attack to repair the damage, without blocking the berserkers in the meantime. But both effects are more lemonade-from-lemons than any actual reason to use the class.

Anyway, I have another FF5 variant in mind, inspired by a particular post in this thread. Haven't started yet but will sometime soon.

[Sofis]

If you're playing the SNES version, there's also a bug that can be exploited only using Berserkers. It's fixed in the GBA version (at least the European release), so I had to go to an old SNES savegame to try it out.

That's a level 20 Berserker in the image below. Can you figure out how I did that?

[Sofis]

Time's up! The answer can be found in my report (which could probably use some more work on its formatting, but it is bedtime for me).