More Final Fantasy

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

 

 
Setzer rejoined at Kohlingen at a higher level than I last saw him.  That makes me curious about how experience points are distributed.  

I don't remember exactly how it works off the top of my head but there is a definite trick to how EXP/levels are distributed amongst the characters throughout the game..anyone playing a low level game has to know the logic inside and out (stuff like leaping Gau off on the Veldt at various points so that his level doesn't get involved in the calculations, etc.)   In this case, it's likely that Setzer's level went up as Edgar's relatively high level for that point in the game increased the overall average..or something like that.  

This is great material for the no-magic run I'm planning, which is likely going to involve a lot of Super Figaro Bros. though if solo Edgar can do it, a full party shouldn't have too much trouble so I'd probably have to ban any grinding to keep it challenging.  Atma Weapon won't be nearly as bad as there would be more characters to soak Flare Star, Celes can runic away a good portion of his spells, Mog can dance, Shadow can throw, etc..and yes, there are different phases for this boss depending on how much HP he has left.  Hmm, full party healing...hope Mog rolls a lot of Sun Baths.

Good luck with the rest of the run!

Thanks! 

Remember that Bio Blaster and Flash deal magical damage, in case you run into an enemy with Vanish.  I tested them on an Intangir once, though I had to run away because its Meteo dealt too much damage to solo Edgar.  Will the Enhancer buff make them stronger than Auto Crossbow?  I'll have to test that out.

Apparently you can't buy X Potions and Elixirs.  The only enemies that drop X Potions are in the World of Balance (e.g. Behemoth).  Elixirs are found by checking clocks in towns, and can be stolen from enemies on the Solitary Island.  Edgar can't equip the Thief Knife, and I don't want to have to use the Merit Award if possible.  I'll have to play much more conservatively with items from now on.  Kefka requires healing because he always starts the fight with Fallen One to reduce your HP to 1.

Chances are I won't use the Moogle Charm much because Edgar might need the extra levels to survive without healing.  This is the first time I've played FF6 in years, so it isn't an efficient playthrough.

I forgot to mention I bought the Debilitator, a Tool that gives enemies random elemental weaknesses.  It'll only be good for completion's sake.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Final Fantasy 6 Solo Edgar:  Pointless Deaths


A carrier pigeon had been sending a woman in Maranda letters from someone who had distinctive handwriting.  The letters were supposedly from her boyfriend in Mobliz, but Kefka had killed most of Mobliz’s population.  The woman told Edgar to send a response by pigeon, and the bird flew off towards Zozo.  Zozo was exactly the same as before, down to the random encounters.  Perhaps Kefka thought the town was bad enough as it was.  There was one difference.  Edgar could now climb the nearby mountain after he removed the rust from a door.
 

Mt. Zozo’s monsters could be easily taken out with Drill or Auto Crossbow for the most part.  It was funny whenever Ursus the bear appeared and tried to steal Edgar's money by jumping on him.  The Luridans were more vulnerable to Flash than Auto Crossbow due to their lower Mag. Def.  Some of Edgar’s Tools may be situational, but don’t ignore them entirely.  Borras’s Uppercuts made Edgar chug Potions after encounters with them.  One optional boss appeared when Edgar stepped on the switch near the save point, and of course I had to fight it.  Several treasures made it worth climbing Mt. Zozo, such as the Ice Shield, Thunder Shield, and Aegis Shield.  Aegis Shield was generally the best option because it had the highest MBlock stat, but the other shields could be useful against elemental dragons.


 
The Storm Dragon used wind attacks instead of lightning like you’d expect.   That meant the Thunder Shield was worthless.  Its high HP prevented Edgar from Drilling it to death, and its Wind Slash couldn’t be blocked.  Edgar died twice before giving up temporarily.
 

Death Count:  21
 
At the end of the cave, Edgar found out Cyan was sending those love letters.  Cyan regretted his actions because he thought he was giving her false hope, and rejoined the party.  He was also reading books about mechanics.  Maybe Edgar could teach him about that!  After leaving the cave, I bought as much MBlock equipment as I could find.  The Bard’s Hat boosted it by 10%, and the Enhancer by 20%.  MBlock has a maximum value of 128% rather than 100%, so evasion percentages are lower than the value might indicate.  With all that plus the White Cape, I fought the Storm Dragon again with 81% MBlock.  Edgar dodged his regular attacks, but still fell victim to Wind Slash and the much stronger Aero spell. 
 
Death Count:  22
 
Clearly I had no business fighting the Storm Dragon until I had a better plan.  Before that rematch, I flew to the Fanatics’ Tower and tried to grab some treasure.  That was a failure!  I thought I could waltz in with a Wall Ring and loot the area, but Edgar couldn’t run away from the monsters, and they never cast spells that could make him win the battle either.  I reset to avoid wasting time, but add that to the Death Count anyway.  Edgar could only get the Force Armor if he used a Moogle Charm exploit.
 
Death Count:  23
 
Recruiting Sabin in Tzen was a more successful quest.  Sabin was holding up a house by himself, and could only keep it up for a few minutes.  It was a bit like the Karnak Castle escape in FF5, with monster-infested treasure chests and inexplicable random encounters.  Edgar could kill a group of Scorpions with a single Auto Crossbow, along with most of the other enemies too.  The real threats were Hermit Crabs.  Once they hit Edgar with Rock, petrifying him and causing a Game Over.
 
Death Count:  24
 

Upon equipping the Jewel Ring, the dungeon became trivial.  Edgar found several useless treasures such as a Magicite shard, a Holy Rod, and a Hyper Wrist he already had.  Edgar saved the kid and dragged him out of the house.  Sabin’s dialogue didn’t change even when his brother was the town hero.  Chances are the developers ran out of time when writing World of Ruin dialogue.
 

Edgar then flew to the Veldt and recruited Gau by leaving an empty spot in the party for him.  Edgar of course killed him off with sword slashes just like he did to Celes and Setzer.  He met Interceptor at the cave, suggesting that Shadow was alive.  I should have equipped the Wall Ring for the next boss, but forgot to.  It turns out I didn’t need to properly equip my relics.  Sr. Behemoth cast a few spells such as Pearl that dealt significant damage.  Then Edgar blocked Meteo with the Aegis Shield!  A few rounds of Drilling later, Sr. Behemoth decided to attack from behind and entered his undead phase.  It was as susceptible to Fenix Down as the Phantom Train, and died immediately.


 
If you let Shadow die on the Floating Continent, Relm appears in the cave instead of Shadow.  That could explain why Edgar felt he had to take “her” back to Thamasa.  You can tell the World of Ruin was made very late in the development, if they failed to account for the character’s gender in the dialogue!  (Or hometown.  Edgar didn’t know Shadow had any attachment to Thamasa in particular.)  It was a good time for a break after clearing that sidequest. 
 


Stats and Equipment

Level 50


HP:  2450
Vigor:  39
Speed:  30
Stamina:  34
Mag. Pwr:  36
Bat. Pwr:  155
Defense:  187
Mag. Def:  144
MBlock%:  71
 
Weapon:  Enhancer
Shield:  Aegis Shield
Head:  Bard’s Hat
Body:  Crystal Mail
Relic1:  Running Shoes
Relic2:  Jewel Ring

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Final Fantasy 6 Solo Edgar:  Bravely Default Encounter Rates


Going to Narshe was the most logical step.  It had one of the most useful items in the game, along with several bosses Edgar could beat.  The random battles were trivial with Drill, Flash, and Auto Crossbow, but the encounter rate was annoying.  There was a solution available in the southern caves.  I never recruited Mog in the World of Balance, but he was still available here.  The wall behind him had the Moogle Charm, an accessory that eliminated random encounters as long as dead Mog wore it. 

 
An Ice Dragon was flying around the area where Edgar first battled Kefka.  The stupid lizard kept healing Edgar with Absolute 0 if it was lucky enough to get in a few hits with its melee attack.  Tritoch the Esper wasn’t any better, in spite of its cutscene powers.  The Wall Ring kept reflecting its Ice 3s and Rasps, and the frozen bird didn’t seem to do anything else other than temporarily Stop Edgar with one of its other moves. 

 
Edgar could jump off the cliff after defeating Tritoch, and I needed to bring Mog along to complete the area.  Good thing I had the Moogle Charm, because this was one of the most annoying dungeons.  Pits were everywhere!  Edgar kept falling down until he found the treasure by trial and error.  One of the chests had 3 “Pugs” (i.e. Tonberries).  I thought Edgar was done for when multiple rounds of Chainsaws and Drills couldn’t kill them, but he managed to block Knife with his MBlock skills.  Hooray for easily exploited glitches!


A yeti guarded some Magicite and attacked Edgar when he tried to grab it.  He looked like a strong physical attacker, but didn’t deal much damage to Edgar at all even after he used a Green Cherry to buff his stats.  A few rounds of Drilling later, Mog told the yeti that he was going with my party.  This was Umaro, the least popular FF6 character.  Oh well.  I was just doing it for the sake of finishing another sidequest!


 
Phoenix Cave required two parties to explore, so naturally I sent in Mog with the Moogle Charm to help flip the switches.  The experience yield from the random encounters was weirdly high, and Edgar rose to level 55 over the course of the dungeon.  The Sea Flowers in one of the magma rooms were particularly weak, and all they could do was poison Edgar if they could get through his MBlock. 


The Phases and Necromancers were much worse.  The Phases were palette swaps of the Brainpans from the Floating Continent, and could Smirk to Stop Edgar too.  Necromancers cast Demi and Quarter, sometimes as a counterattack upon death.  In one bad fight, a Phase Smirked and then a Necromancer zombified Edgar.  It was time to break out the Amulet again!  When an NPC said more monsters had zombie and petrify attacks now, he wasn’t kidding.

 
Death Count:  25 (Officially higher than my entire Earthbound solo Ness run)
 

A Red Dragon was flying around a treasure chest, so I swapped to the White Cape to prepare.  It was predictable and used Fire 2, Fire 3, and Fireball.  Edgar’s overleveling combined with the Running Shoes meant he could Drill it to death without having to heal, and MBlocking a few of the stronger spells was nice too.  The treasure chest contained a Dragon Horn, but it was useless to me because I wasn’t bothering with Jump after the Atma Weapon fiasco.


 
Locke was at the end of the dungeon looking for the Phoenix Magicite.  He agreed to go with Edgar only as far as Kohlingen, where he could resurrect his dead girlfriend Rachel.  She could only speak a few lines, and told Locke to move on with his life.  He then gave Edgar the treasures he found in the cave, most importantly an X Potion and an Elixir.  I could picture Edgar holding the healing items with a wide-eyed Gollum expression just then.  If you aren’t playing a variant with Cure magic or Steal, healing items are precious indeed.


 
I had some unfinished errands to run in Narshe, so I went back with Locke in the party.  When I first entered Narshe while looking for Mog, Lone Wolf hinted that he was necessary to pick the locks in the mostly-deserted town.  (Yes, that’s a reference to the FF5 werewolf thief.  There’s another character in this game who’s an FF5 reference that you’ll see later. . .)  Breaking into the weapon shop led me to a man who offered me a choice.  Either I could take the Ragnarok Esper, or he could melt it down into a sword. 


In a normal playthrough, I’d recommend the Esper because it can teach the Ultima spell.  In this variant, the sword was a no-brainer.  (Yes, the Paladin Shield also teaches Ultima, but you have to fight many battles to remove its curse.)  It offered more MBlock than the Enhancer and boosted several other stats such as Vigor which were uncommon on other weapons.
 

Stats and Equipment
 

Level 55

HP:  4392
Vigor:  46
Speed:  33
Stamina:  41
Mag. Pwr:  36
Bat. Pwr:  255 (For real!)
Defense:  187
Mag. Def:  144
MBlock%:  81
 
 
Weapon:  Ragnarok
Shield:  Aegis Shield
Head:  Bard’s Hat
Body:  Crystal Mail
Relic1:  Running Shoes
Relic2:  Amulet

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Final Fantasy 6 Solo Edgar:  Inevitable Pokemon References


The Fanatics’ Tower had some equipment relevant to Edgar, but he couldn’t do it without the Moogle Charm exploit.  His regular attack and Tools were forbidden there, so any battle would be a guaranteed loss unless the enemies committed suicide by Wall Ring.  Edgar’s final Tool, the Air Anchor, was in a hidden treasure room.  Testing it out on random enemies elsewhere revealed that it did around 2000 damage to single targets and instantly killed them when they tried to attack.  It wasn’t any better than the Drill or Chainsaw functionally.  What Edgar really needed was the Force Armor to get elemental resistances and 30 MBlock.

 
Yes, I tried fighting the Pearl Dragon, thinking it was exempt from the Fanatics’ Tower rules or something like that.  What happened instead was something similar to the dreaded Wobbuffet vs. Wobbuffet scenario from Pokemon.  In the GBA generation of Pokemon games, it was possible for two Wobbuffets to trap themselves in an endless battle with their Shadow Tag passive ability.  What happened here was that the Pearl Dragon used nothing but Pearl and Dispel, but neither worked because of the Wall Ring.  So the dragon couldn’t harm Edgar, but Edgar couldn’t harm the dragon either.  I reset to save time, but that was a death.  (From old age.)
 
Death Count:  26
 
The Magi Master at the top was seemingly easy.  All he did was cast powerful spells that the Wall Ring could reflect.  Then it cast Ultima upon dying and handed Edgar’s head to him in one hit.  MBlock is useful, but it doesn’t work on everything.
 
Death Count:  27
 
I then flew back to Zozo and took revenge on the Storm Dragon with my new wind-resistant armor.  Edgar MBlocked almost all of its attacks except for Wind Slash, and that did less than 300 damage to him now.  It feels good to avenge the Death Count!
 
There were rumors about weird paintings in Owzer’s collection in Jidoor, which meant Relm was likely involved.  Many of the random encounters were palette swaps of Slam Dancers and Stray Cats which could be taken out with Auto Crossbow.  Paintings such as the Still Life came to life and attacked Edgar, but nothing could vandalize art like a Drill. 


The last painting was possessed by the demon Chardarnook and attacked Edgar before he could have a conversation with Relm.  Chardarnook was another ATB gimmick boss.  Edgar was only supposed to attack the demon form, and stay still when the goddess appeared.  Chadarnook did little except casting Bolt 2 and Bolt 3, most of which were blocked.  The goddess attempted to use status ailments which were also blocked.  You can probably see why evasion was reworked for the remake versions!  Drilling killed Chadarnook like so many other bosses.
 

On an island in the northeastern sea was a strange random encounter called the Zone Eater.  When I allowed it to Engulf Edgar, he was taken to a special dungeon inside its body.  I probably shouldn’t have bothered.  The treasures were irrelevant to him, and he died 3 times to a crushing ceiling puzzle.  (It’s hard to judge where the safe spots are without any shadows to help!)
 
Death Count:  30

EDIT:  I forgot to mention this in the original post, but you recruit Gogo from FF5 inside the Zone Eater.


 
Now that Edgar was above level 55, it was safe to take on Doom Gaze.  Doom Gaze was unusual because it was a random encounter in the sky.  I had to fly around for a while before finding it, and it ran away like a spoony bard after a few rounds of combat.  Was Doom Gaze the inspiration for the roaming legendaries in the Pokemon series?   Doom Gaze always opened the fight with Level 5 Death, and I doubted it could be MBlocked.  It usually attacked with elemental spells, melee, and Doom, and Edgar dodged them all.  Doom Gaze was supposed to be feared by everyone in the World of Ruin, but Edgar’s Drill terrified it.
 
Kefka had mostly destroyed Mobliz, leaving only children alive.  There was also a teen pregnancy plot involving Duane and Katarin, and I’m surprised it got past Nintendo’s censorship at the time.  Terra became a pacifist after spending time with the orphans, but that was no longer viable once Phunbaba attacked.  The first two rounds with Phunbaba were more like cutscenes than real fights.  Then Terra showed up permanently in Morph mode for Round 3.  Killing her off took a while, and Phunbaba must have been confused at Edgar’s behavior.  Drilling and MBlocking made Phunbaba another anticlimactic boss battle.  Terra then rejoined the party.
 
Relm snapped Strago out of his stupor at the Fanatics’ Tower.  I did that more for completion’s sake than anything else.  I also opened Hidon’s cave via a conversation in Thamasa, but that dungeon was too annoying to be worth completing because of the treasure chests that demanded items.
 
There wasn’t much left for Edgar to do except for Cyan’s dream in Doma Castle, but X Zone would be required for Wrexsoul, and I didn’t want him to use magic if possible.  It was time to head to Kefka’s Tower and finish the game.  The final dungeon required me to split the party into 3 groups, and I decided to handle it by making Edgar go through each part himself in multiple trips.  If you’re playing as Setzer, be sure to visit Kefka’s Tower early to get the Fixed Dice weapon.
 
Atma Weapon was back near some ruined Vector buildings, and was just as bad as before.  Sure, its level 3 elemental spells could be reflected, but not Flare Star, Quake, or Meteor.  Either I had awful luck, or those attacks couldn’t be MBlocked at all.  Edgar was not going to waste healing items on an optional boss!  Nor was he going to grind much more, since that would make the rest of the game even easier.  After that defeat, it was a good time to take a break and write this report.
 
Death Count:  31
       
 
Stats and Equipment


Level 58

HP:  4810
Vigor:  46
Speed:  33
Stamina:  41
Mag. Pwr:  36
Bat. Pwr:  255
Defense:  184
Mag. Def:  163
MBlock%:  111
 
 
Weapon:  Ragnarok
Shield:  Aegis Shield
Head:  Bard’s Hat
Body:  Force Armor
Relic1:  Running Shoes
Relic2:  Wall Ring

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Final Fantasy 6 Solo Edgar:  RNG Hell


Kefka’s Tower was more annoying than all the other dungeons combined.  I had to split the party into 3 groups, and have them each open doors and passages for each other.  Combine that with a few inescapable encounters such as Land Worms and Gt Behemoths, and it quickly took all the fun out of the game.  The Gold Dragon was just a recolored dinosaur that went down to Drilling.  The Doom Dragon could use Condemn, and Edgar won the fight just before dying from it.  Inferno surprised Edgar and petrified him once, though it was otherwise a palette swap of the mine cart boss once he equipped the Ribbon for Round 2.
 
Death Count:  32
 
The programmers hated the number 5, and thus many enemies in Kefka’s Tower had Level 5 Death.  Edgar happened to be level 60 in one unlucky encounter with them.
 
Death Count:  33
 
Edgar leveled up to 61 to avoid math-based spells in the future.  Guardian and Poltergeist weren’t memorable fights.  Doom, on the other hand, killed Edgar twice.  That Demon Rage could hit for most of his health, and it was an unblockable attack.  On Round 3, Doom refused to use it for some reason and allowed Edgar to Drill it to death.  Goddess mostly used various spells which were easily blocked, but the flashy Quasar could deal damage to Edgar.  It was yet another case of “Drill to win”.

Death Count:  35

 

Kefka gave his speech about self-help booklets, and the final battle began.  The demon at the bottom could be MBlocked, rendering it harmless.  The Espers in the middle phase could use Flare Star, and all that magic defeated Edgar once before I knew how to prepare.

 
Death Count:  36   


Edgar was grateful for Flare Star’s healing when he was frozen for a while.  Auto Crossbow seemed more efficient than Drill, so I went with that until only one Esper remained.  The third phase may have been the worst.  It had one part that could heal both of them, and another that could Condemn Edgar.  As far as I can tell, there’s no way for Edgar to deal with this ailment.  All I can do is keep replaying the fight until Phase 3 refuses to use it.  For now, I need to take a break!
 
Death Count:  37

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Final Fantasy 6 Solo Edgar:  Third Time's the Charm

Edgar attempted to fight the final boss gauntlet again, because I wanted to finish this game today and move on to other things.  I used the usual tactic of holding the Force Shield in the first round, combined with the White Cape and Ribbon accessories to avoid more attacks and ailments.  The demon at the bottom of the tower could do nothing, as all of his attacks were MBlocked.  Killing off Umaro took a while.  (One of my parties for Kefka's Tower included Umaro, Setzer, Terra, and Sabin, so the game automatically brought the others into the fight.)


I switched to the Flame Shield for Round 2.  It was always nice getting free healing from Fire 3, Atomic Ray, and Flare Star!  Auto Crossbow eliminated most of the Espers, while Drill finished off the last one.  Surprisingly, the Pieta ripoff in Round 3 didn't try Condemned at all.  It instead wasted its turns healing me and hurting itself with Merton spells after Edgar Drilled the healing part to death.  I thought it would be easy once I finally reached Kefka, and Edgar kept the Flame Shield on for "good luck".  I waited until he used Fallen One so I could heal immediately with an item once Edgar fell to 1 HP.  Too bad I didn't play more conservatively for the rest of that attempt, or I would have saved a lot of trouble!  Fallen One activated between Edgar's turns, and Kefka had just enough time to finish him off with a regular attack.


Death Count:  38


Another attempt got as far as the Pieta parts, but Edgar was Condemned once again.


Final Death Count:  39


On Take 3 of this playing session, the Pieta form didn't use Condemn.  Edgar ascended to Kefka once again, and I took no chances this time.  My solo character put on the Force Shield again, and it turned out few of Kefka's attacks could touch him with max MBlock.  Melee did nothing, Fire 3 fizzled, Chaos Wing was parried, and Train was all flash and no substance.  I still waited for Kefka to act so I could use an Elixir or X Potion immediately after a Fallen One.  If he used one of his attacks, I would Drill. 

The only move Kefka had that could pass through MBlock was Goner, which was easily spotted.  It only did around 1100-1200 damage, so I didn't need to heal for a few of them.  Edgar finished Kefka off when he was charging up Goner.  The fading animation was satisfying after such a struggle.          



It was a fun solo playthrough, if frustrating toward the end of both "worlds".  You have to play a lot differently if you can't rely on the overpowered magic system and have non-renewable healing items. 

Super Nintendo FF6 is more glitchy than FF5 for sure.  People make fun of Pokemon Red and Blue for their questionable programming, but you at least had to go out of your way to find stuff like Missingno.  FF6 has issues like Evade and Blind being completely useless, and MBlock allowing you to dodge most attacks if maxed with easily obtainable equipment.  The equipment is also less interesting than FF5.  Nothing like the Magic Lamp here.

Mechanically, FF6 feels like FF7 in some ways.  The Espers seem to be an early version of the Materia system, and equipment is more "homogenized", perhaps?  Sabin can equip shields, for example, but you'd never imagine an earlier FF martial artist wearing one.  Some Relics do things like allow the user to Jump, which would have been more restricted in earlier games.  Limit Breaks also debuted in FF6 as "desperation attacks", but they're very hard to activate.  I've never seen one in my solo playthrough.


 
I like the FF6 story and character development more than any other game in the series.  In terms of gameplay, FF5 is better.  Then again, most of FF5's possibilities have been covered in Sullla and T-Hawk's reports, and I haven't seen as much about this game here.
 
Final Level:  61

Final Equipment

Weapon:  Ragnarok
Shield:  Force Shield/Flame Shield
Head:  Bard's Hat
Armor:  Force Armor
Relic1:  White Cape
Relic2:  Ribbon

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

One last mini-post on the FF6 Edgar solo.

I never tried out the Colosseum during the playthrough, so I had to make Edgar try it for a cheap laugh.  All fights in the Colosseum are solo, and you have to wager an item.  If you win, you get a "better" item, and some good equipment such as the Snow Muffler (Gau/Mog/Umaro armor) can only be acquired this way.  The AI controls your character in the arena, making it a bit luck-based for everyone but Umaro the berserker yeti.

The first few rounds were easy.  Edgar spent most of his time swinging Ragnarok, and rarely used his Tools.  He finished off a Madam with Chainsaw.  A Cactrot (Cactuar) was too much for him.  None of his sword swings could connect, and I think Flash dealt only 1 damage.  Edgar couldn't MBlock Blow Fish (1000 Needles), so he slowly became a pincushion as he whiffed his slashes.  Towards the end of the fight, Edgar broke out the Debilitator, which I had never used.  At least it bothered to tell me Cactrot got an Earth weakness!  Maybe Debilitator could have been useful if I relied on rod breaking.

If you die in the Colosseum with a solo character, you won't get a Game Over until you leave the building and find a random encounter.  That sounds almost like a glitch from an early Pokemon game.    

The FF5 class that Edgar most resembles is the Gladiator from the GBA version, if it didn't have Finisher.  He's a physical fighter that can attack from the back row without penalty.  (i.e. Long Reach.)  Blade Blitz resembles the Auto Crossbow.

EDIT:  I forgot to mention this earlier, but Cid died in this playthrough.  The RNG was so bad that sometimes fish didn't appear on the island at all.

[antisocialmunky]

Someone here might enjoy this tool assisted speed run of FF1:

[System Error]

Long time no see, treasure hunters! Busyness, other games, etc. But inspiration has struck! And one facet of it made me want to go through with it - even if the challenge itself is probably a horrible idea.

---

Randomly while watching someone do a no FIGHT challenge - similar to my own Spellslingers just able to use items as well - the subject of a run that didn't use potions came up in chat. This of course isn't that bad, as the Heal staff and Sullla's own Living off the Land challenge proves. I got to thinking though, what if you ditch those too? Many playthroughs of FF1, particularly challenge runs, rely upon gallons of potions and/or stalling in battles with healing items to restore health. But what if you throw those out, leaving only magic for healing, what happens then? It sounded fun, so I got to thinking about it.

Party composition on this. Obviously, there are two things to consider here: killing enemies quickly, and a lot of healing. The last of those certainly meant not one, but two White Mages. As part of killing enemies quickly, this also means having FAST. So a Red Mage is the next choice, who also gives even more white charges.


And for slot four...What? You are seeing that correctly, and thinking about the party composition is what inspired me to actually go through with this. For possibly the first time in the history of FF1 NES*, there is a valid reason to consider the Thief. Let's look at all of them first. Another White Mage is out, that would be far too little offense. A Black Mage would be far too squishy to consider - part of this is avoiding damage in the first place. Black Belt is out because you want to class change, and that tanks its MDef growth. Of course it could make the endgame laughable, but still.

So Fighter, the tried and true and obvious, right? It's a strong choice here to be sure, but you'll only have the one FAST user, who is also a secondary attacker. How about another Red? An option, but one that isn't as bulky long-term. The Thief, or more specifically the Ninja, gets both of these. It can wear most of the heavy armor, its offense is very similar to RM if not better, and gets enough charges to be meaningful. The catch with it of course is suffering through the early game, and stat resetting - which you'd have to do with Red too mind you.

Fighter is probably the smart pick, but come on. When else are you going to have a solid case to use a Thief in FF1 NES?! I just have to.

---

So far I've beaten ASTOS. It's definitely been different, and using Thief is only one of the craziest things so far. This insane choice of character is a long-term investment, so mostly it's been an anchor comparatively for now. But his time will come.

*Living Off the Land can make a case for Thief too, you'll need to reset for Str but Katana can be potential justification for it

[System Error]

The starting gold was easy to figure out. Weapons and armor for everyone, and CURE spells for the White Mages, and eventually Buff as well. Even early on, the lack of meaty Fighter attacks was noticeable. This will be mitigated to some extent as the game goes on, but it's a sacrifice I chose to make here. It's going to take a while for the Thief to pay off.

For now, Buff is taking point. His defense is superior until class change, thanks to being able to equip Chain. What got stuck with Wooden Armor.


I went up to level 3 before fighting Garland. As usual, he was of no threat. A flurry of attacks brought him down, him not doing enough damage to necessitate using a CURE.


Now, something important. Strength resetting. I did this with Mint before back in my Capitalists challenge, but that was mostly to meme. It is in fact a staple of low offense characters. Fighters have the advantage of getting Str every level, guaranteed. Others have fixed growths at certain levels, but otherwise only a 25% chance of it increasing.


This is something I would do for the Red Mage anyway even if taking a Fighter, but for this sake, I made the decision to desync What's EXP from the rest of the group in order to better manipulate this. That said, I don't actually have to worry about it for him until level 10. Starting from 11 nonfixed Str gains are every third level from there until 41 (which I hope I don't have to reach), after which it's every other.

Red meanwhile has to contend with nonfixed growths starting from 5. At levels 7, 10, 13, 16, etc are fixed growths. Much more annoying, needless to say.


Avoiding damage is a big part of this challenge. It's a strategy to attack the more dangerous enemies first, but here more than ever is it something to pay attention to. Of course, RUNning away also works for this.


Even in this setting with half the party being limp-wristed White Mages, the PIRATEs were no threat.


This is also probably one of the only times I've ever considered Gloves. I might ordinarily skip them, because 1 absorb is like nothing. Here though, where my healing is limited, every point of reduction counts.


I used the good old KYZOKU trick to farm up money. In fact, battles 1 and 3 after a reset are them, so it's a bit more efficient to get both of them. I found the best strategy was just dogpiling them one at a time despite potential ineffective hits, because this meant they were more likely to die.


When using a Thief, you end up using things that you wouldn't ordinarily with Fighters or Red Mages. Here at this point in the game, the Sabre is their best offensive option: 13/5 offensive stats. Beaten out by later weapons like the Scimtar (10/10), but for now the best it has.


It's also worth noting that any instance of poison is an instant reset, for now. Because of no PURE potions and the inn not healing it, I have no way to get rid of the status. Except...the spell. Yes, that's right, actual use for the horrifically misplaced and overpriced PURE spell! Only in variants can you see insanity like this.

My goal in the early game was to get Buff, Mend, and Gard their level 3 spells. A bit of KYZOKU grinding did the trick, and after getting FIR2 and HRM2 I could play on the Penninsula of Power. Fighting there wasn't so bad, but I did need to make proper use of CURE spells. My other goal was to get Buff to a high enough level so that he could get 2-hits with a Silver Sword.


There. What was going to have to wait a while to get 2-hits himself: he doesn't get 15 hit% weapons until after the Mystic KEY. With this I felt I had enough to head into the Marsh Cave.


Ugh.

Dungeon romping in this variant boils down to using RUN whenever possible. There is no point in fighting if you don't have to: do your grinding on your own time. This is actually where Thief is indeed a good choice for this variant as well: he will always be able to run under ordinary circumstances straight from the get-go. Sure, this advantage will vanish at higher levels - short of status being in play - but his LUCK guarantees it in the early stages of the game. Of course, turn action order is still a thing to consider...


Well, it just took resets to get by the poison. I made it to the WIZARDs before too long.


What the hell?? Okay then, that's the end of that.


My next attempt through saw Buff end up poisoned. It was late in so I went on anyway. This unintentionally gave me the idea that I should switch him to the back before the fight. It worked well: the White Mages were able to keep What healthy while Buff went to work zapping them down.


What himself ended up poisoned, however. Only thing to do was keep pressing forward.


...

Okay. I am about to say something no one has ever said when playing FF1 before - that does it, I'm getting the PURE spell.



A fight on the PoP got me the funds I needed. The very next fight saw my party getting poisoned, so I'd get to employ it as soon as I bought it!


The good thing about this purchase is that it's really not a wasted spell slot. AICE is the top spell of the level, and it's situational. FEAR is a joke, and AMUT is almost as much of one - only four enemies ever use MUTE: EYE (so far down the list you'll never see it), PHANTOM (same), WzVAMP, and GrNAGA - and you should have Ribbons by the time they pop up anyway.

Anyway, with that bought, I also wanted to get my characters to level 9, as that would give the WMs two shots of the spell. This meant it was back to the penninsula for more grinding!


Ooo, the 1/64 showed up! Appropriately enough to my recent struggles, WYVERNs can poison. That aside, they're actually one of the least dangerous things you can run into here. They have only one hit and 30 Atk. The downside is they give out like no gold. It still got me the last bit of experience needed to get to level 9. So it was time to tackle the Marsh Cave again.


The way there was smooth, I actually didn't get poisoned at all on the straight shot to these things. Getting very good luck with their numbers, too!


Oh, well that's a shame. But LIT2 carried me through like it did before. Somehow I forgot to take a picture of winning. I'm slipping, clearly, been a bit since I've done one of these.


What was able to get me out of the cave without further incident, though. I actually had no poison problems at all, the last screenshot being from the last battle. Toughed it out for the few remaining steps in the cave, encountering nothing else along the way, and healed it on the outside.

One thing to reiterate about this challenge: no items means no TENTs and such. So you need to walk over to wherever you're going from town every time. This of course is annoying when it comes to potentially reset heavy areas. Like say, ASTOS. The reverse holds true too: you can't just save on getting out, you have to get back to town as well. This variant is definitely a very different affair from how you normally play.


Thankfully, ASTOS was a straightforward affair. Buff's spells took out most of his HP. The dark elf's RUB hit What, which was ideal for further pushing apart the experience. From there the battle was a bit annoying - he has decent evasion, and very high Def for this stage of the game. Probably should've gotten some level 1 spells. Not much of value offensively was lost in What - in fact this fight is notoriously hard for solo Thieves, who can't break his defense.


A bunch of misses later, Buff did him in.

One of the most important pickups when initially doing looting with the mystic KEY was, of all things, the Silver Knife. Yes, of all things! This thing has 10/15 offense, enough Hit% to get What to two hits!


And just like that, with only the GARGOYLEs in front of it fought, it's obsolete.

The Rune Sword is the Thief's ultimate weapon if you're not changing class. It has 18/15 offense, and having item ID 27, the most critical chance he can get as well. Coral Sword is one point stronger, but has less crit chance due to having ID 25. These swords and their cousins are supposed to be effective against certain enemy types, but that aspect was broken, leaving them as weaker than the Silver Sword. Only Thief can get mileage out of them, since they can't use Silver Swords.


There was a solid pickup in the Dwarves' place: the Silver Armor is an upgrade for Buff. It's something only Red Mages really use. Thieves don't get to, irritably.


I went straight to Crescent Lake after a quick stop at Melmond to save. Here's some more strangeness for this run: Bucklers, a contender for most pointless piece of equipment. They have the same stats as the Wooden Shield: no weight and 2 absorb. The only difference is the price, and how Thieves and Red Mages can equip the Buckler. Usually a waste, since it's just 2 points and how often are RMs going to need it anyway? But here where every point counts, they're golden. They're also in fact the best Red Mages get besides the ProCape.

Of course, I also needed to do some cash grinding for Silver Bracelets. What in particular needs one, but I want them on the WMs as well.


Fighting there wasn't too bad, given proper gear. Buff's spells could damage big groups. He and What could deal respectable damage physically as well. The fights always gave enough gold to save and heal at the inn after every fight.


I went into the Earth Cave when my party was at level 12, where my WMs got their first level 5 charges - they had bought CUR3 to actually use these. I also got FAST for Buff. Appropriately, Mend got HEAL and Gard got AFIR. They also had three level 4 charges, so poison wasn't going to be much of an issue anymore either. The going was relatively smooth for the first two floors.


Of course, then there's these things. They were hell for my Capitalists due to not wanting to waste money on SOFTs. Petrification is even worse here since I can't get them at all. Worse, unlike the PURE spell, level 6 is indeed crowded for WMs. Fortunately, What got me out of these before any nonsense all three times I ran into them.


I put FAST to work at the VAMPIRE and...well, that was disappointing.


Good man, Gard. The entirity of the fight lasted only one round. The VAMPIRE himself just attacked and missed Buff. Can't ask for things to go more smoothly than that.


Besides the third of the COCTRICE groups I mentioned, I also ran into two WIZARD groups along the way. The nature of this variant means guaranteeing being able to save all the important levels of offensive magic, however. LIT2 ended them. The danger was mostly over when I hit B2, and it provided no further challenges.


So I got the ROD, getting to level 13 in the process to give the WMs two level 5 charges, getting Mend HEL2 along the way. Showing this shot because indeed, I have no potions at all in my inventory. The only healing I have to go on are my spell charges.


The chip damage can really add up along the way. But the good news was, I encountered no COCTRICES and only one set of WIZARDs along the way. Used a bit more level 3 charges than I would've liked, but I was in very good shape right before LICH. Also yes I totally forgot I could top off fully with Buff's charges. Derp.


Gard and Mend went in with HRM2 on the first turn, knocking out a good chunk of his health. The bad news was, Buff got paralyzed. And before he could cast FAST on What, too.

The variant restrictions were already in play here. Had I had potions, I could have just used those and fired off all my HRM2s at Lich, which would've been enough even with Buff being stuck not contributing. They share their slot with CUR2 however, so every use of one means one less use of the other as well. As it stood I was only able to get one more off from Mend, which ended up doing pitiful damage.


The HEL2 bug was nice to have existing here - the three of relevance got up to 200/202/198 after it fully resolved. I didn't have or bother to cast the Anti spells, I felt it better to keep the healing in the case of AFIR.


LICH has 40 def total. It was sometimes possible for What to break it naturally, but this was otherwise up to critical hits. Even the White Mages got in on this occasionally. This is why the Rune Sword is so good for solo Thief, because it needs it for like most of the fights.


All the while, Buff remained paralyzed. What got hit a couple times too, but recovered quickly. To add insult to injury, once Buff finally did recover? LICH immediately paralyzed him again! He didn't get a chance to do anything at all in this fight except take hits! This fight would've been so much easier with him able to help!


This wasn't good to see! Worse yet, though I didn't capture the text box, he was paralyzed from the strike. Gard had one last CUR3 charge, which he was able to use on What to keep him up. But that was it, that was my last healing charge. I wasn't HP counting, so I had to hope I could kill him quickly or else.


His next spell reduced my physical characters to critical HP! But on the next turn, What came through with a critical hit, putting an end to this! That had to be one of the most intense LICH fights I've ever had, sheesh.


Well, not quite. Remember, I had to actually survive the walk back. An OGRE ambush almost made sure that didn't happen, but that was the only encounter of note or consequence.

This one has been a wild ride so far. I didn't actually consider Thief would be this key early on. Without one, I would have had to reset for LUCK growths and even then running would only be guaranteed from level 11 onward. Thief could do it right away, sparing me from the grind. It in fact is not a terrible choice for this challenge. Who would've ever thought it had a legitimate use in this game? Of course the circumstances are absurd, that's what it takes for it to be useful.

No complaints about the party so far, except for Buff's total incompetence during the LICH fight. The real litmus of course, is whether or not it will hold together in the midgame. Only way to find that out is to keep playing!