More Final Fantasy

[T-hawk]

What got stuck with Wooden Armor.

What makes this sentence hard to read.

Entertaining writing, I'm reading along. At the start it wasn't clear that no-potions meant none of any consumable items, so that's probably a decent way to make the outdoor areas interesting as well. Still not sold on the Thief idea, but we'll see what he manages to do after class change. (I'd hardly think that the magic-defense problem is a reason not to take a Black Belt, that shouldn't be much of a problem with two casters of Life and Cur4.)

[Dark Savant]

What got stuck with Wooden Armor.

What makes this sentence hard to read.  

Entertaining writing, I'm reading along.  At the start it wasn't clear that no-potions meant none of any consumable items, so that's probably a decent way to make the outdoor areas interesting as well.  Still not sold on the Thief idea, but we'll see what he manages to do after class change.  (I'd hardly think that the magic-defense problem is a reason not to take a Black Belt, that shouldn't be much of a problem with two casters of Life and Cur4.)

Final Fantasy I stripped away most of the reasons to have a thief, even ignoring game balance.

No special skills for climbing and sneaking and backstabbing as in AD&D, no chests exploding in your face left and right as in Wizardry or Might and Magic or Ultima, and the ability to steal items that later Final Fantasy has doesn't yet exist.

I had a thief in my original FF1 party, just because so many other games at the time punished you for not having one.  Though FF1 is closest in gameplay to Ultima III, and a thief is possibly even more useless there, even though the exploding treasure chests are especially painful.

[System Error]

What makes this sentence hard to read.  

Entertaining writing, I'm reading along.  At the start it wasn't clear that no-potions meant none of any consumable items, so that's probably a decent way to make the outdoor areas interesting as well.  Still not sold on the Thief idea, but we'll see what he manages to do after class change.  (I'd hardly think that the magic-defense problem is a reason not to take a Black Belt, that shouldn't be much of a problem with two casters of Life and Cur4.)

I thought it an appropriate/silly name.

Thief is going to take until bosses in the mid/late game to really pay off as intended - the running was just a small thing, though that said its LUCK will be so high that even with major statuses on allies it will still have a solid to guaranteed shot of escape. Until then, it's just going to be a gimped Fighter. Even so, to say it ahead of time from some of the conclusions I've been reaching - it's just a option for this challenge, insofar that it's not definitively inferior to any other choice, on paper at least. And it only took the most freakish of circumstances! As I freely admitted, I only really took it here for that reason and the sheer thrill of it. Shame that yeah, bugs crippled what legitimate usefulness it would've had. 

As for Black Belt...thinking of it further, it probably wouldn't turn out that bad. That said there's a chance that I may hit absurd levels here, and I wanted to see how I'd do without one. Or maybe it's exactly what's needed, who knows?

---

So the three midgame dungeons stood before me. So which to go to? It was fairly obvious after some thinking about it: Ice Cave first. Another rarity. Gurgu Volcano is out, I actually probably want to handle that as late as possible due to all the lava. And the main draw of Ordeals is all the spellcasting items you can get along the way. This party's restrictions bar that as well.

I mean going by the initial proposition I guess I could allow the offensive spellcasting items. We'll see if I need them, but I'm going to try to make this a full on no DRINK/ITEMS challenge. If I can make it this far, anyway.


First things first of course, pick up the CANOE. Showing off a bit more of the Thief sprite, too.


My first trip to the Ice Cave saw about this much damage on everyone before getting there. Spent all of Buff's CURE spells to heal up before heading inside.


Oh goddamn it.

As usual I will want to RUN from as much as possble. I can gain levels when I need to on the overworld. Fighting in dungeons is not ideal unless I hit something I can't run into, and this was about one of the worst things possible.

My next run in also immediately met WIZARDs, though only three. They went down easily enough. It was very smooth sailing for a while, even though Buff ended up getting knocked down to 3HP at one point. Used up a lot of spells, so whether or not I could complete it was in doubt.


And then it didn't matter I got ambushed and Buff instantly died. Surprisingly though, this was the only encounter with them I ever had during runs of this place. Not complaining about that aspect.


I did try to keep going, but ended up running into this unrunnable group. These three didn't have the power to take it out, so that was a reset. That's one downside of the Thief for now: another RM or a Fighter would've been able to handle it. The next run in met up with Frost Ds, and of course have to consider those FrWOLFs can also sling ice as well.


Well I have an easy solution to that. Both WMs picked up AICE for use. They've plenty of spells charges and there's nothing that can poison in the Ice Cave, so I was free to use it whenever they showed up. I also got to level 14, as that'd give an addition level 1 charge to everyone.


I also made another pickup here, though it was of minimal help. Not like level 2 is seriously cramped for White Magic anyway, at least.


Of course I got the classic when I first got to employ AICE: getting ruined by turn order anyway. Then I was utterly ruined by that happening again and What dying.


My next run in got yet another Frost D group, but this time, I was able to get off AICE before they attacked...then got out of there before they attacked anyway. Still, I was in very good shape before reaching the pit.


Escaped from the spike without incident. More Frost D madness happened after that, ouch!


But I made it through to the EYE with this much in stock.


The first two turns went well, insofar that it decided to only do a GLANCE that did nothing and a weak physical. What's attacks, however, didn't end up doing as much as I would've liked.


Bad news, he got SQUINTed on the next turn. Good news, Buff sealed the deal.


Okay. Now to get out of here. I got two quick encounters after the spike, which crippled my magic stocks further. I was completely out of CUREs, had only two charges of level 5, and only Buff had level 3 charges. I knew I had to save them though, in case of an emergency...


Like this!!!!! The FrWOLF was able to get off its blast before I got up AICE, but HEL2 mostly countered it out. FIR2 did a nice chunk of damage to the FrGIANT as well as killing the wolf, and I was able to physical it down from there without too much incident, Mend of all people proving she's no slouch either and getting the kill. 162/201/208 left after that.

Most dangerous encounter after that was a set of FrWOLFs!!! But, I retreated right away. I ran from a pack of undead, and...


Got out!


I just needed to get back from there. I had Buff use his last CUR2 charge on himself, and fought some of the weak enemies on land outside to cast HEL2.


It came close, but I made it to the boat safely! The danger was mostly over from there, and indeed, I had no problems getting to Melmond to heal up.


I picked up the Airship and went to Ordeals with it. Probably would've been a bit better to sail there, but eh. Made it,


Ordeals itself went...shockingly smoothly?! My first encounter was against MEDUSAs who I got away from without incident.


Next up was a ZomBULL who the WMs were having nothing of. Both got high rolled HRM2s to get rid of it in one round


R.GOYLES showed up a couple times. Each time I got up AFIR before they could move, though each time they also didn't use FIR2 either. I ran from the NITEMAREs on the first round, too.


I picked this up since it was only a few steps out of my way and would save me a bit of backtracking later. Forgot the Ice Sword was right there, which would've saved me some more.


And as for the Zombie D, Gard did 128, Mend dealt 69, Buff did a pitiful 48 with FIR2, and What's 49 finished it in one round. Nothing accousted me on the few steps remaining, so that was that!


As usual in this run I have to make it back, and...I ran into complications. Definitely regretting not using the ship now! To restate, just like with Poison, I have no way to heal Stone aside from the SOFT spell. Still given how well that went, I pressed on anyway. I just had to.


Buff went down along the way too - just took tons of damage even with full health in one fight, nothing I could do. Leaving only the WMs. But they were able to keep it together, getting me back to the airship.


I healed at Coneria and changed class. Because I made it at level 14 too, What could start gaining spell charges right away! Or he would, if he wasn't petrified. Knights and Ninjas start gaining charges at level 15, gaining 1 each every odd level from there with a cap of 4. But in order for him to become active again, I need to get a WMs to at least level 16 so they can use SOFT.


Before this, I decided to run the Waterfall. This would get me my first Ribbon. Actually getting there was the hardest part! The fights in the river hit insanely hard. You might not notice it in normal play because you can just items and heal, easy-peasy. But here with limited healing, it was. Those encounters were going to be an issue on the way out too. Once I got inside, it was relatively safe. In terms of direct damage faced, anyway - had to escape from PERILISKs. Also I ended up knocking down the response rate, been slipping on capturing it.


There we go, but perhaps more than that though was the Defense sword. This is arguably the best weapon for RW: 30/35 offenses. Catclaw might crit more and have the same Hit%, but it's also 8 points of attack weaker and much more expensive. Not worth it. Naturally I can't use this for its RUSE cast.


The walk out thankfully posed no issues, and neither did the river run: NAOCHO is one of the tamest things you can face there.


How to gain levels now? I settled outside of Gaia. There's no real huge obnoxious group encounteres there like there are outside Crescent Lake. There's very little status to worry about there too: just poison from WYVERNs. Still right next to a town. And the fights pay out well in general.

The Defense made a world of difference here. Buff was finally doing respectable damage! The whole processes didn't take nearly as long as I thought it might.


And there! Another purchase you rarely see.


Next was to get enough solo levels on What to catch him up. A bit of firewalking got rid of the others.

The same location worked well - and it helps that Ninja can equip the Defense too. It's not his best weapon, and RW is going to prefer having it instead, but for this grinding it's the best choice. It went smoothly, and I actually got him further ahead of the pack just to separate his and Buff's levels further.


I got him FAST as I intended - the huge big point of taking him. Now that he was up and class changed, it was time to give him everything I could with all the gear he could now equip.

First up was buying him a ProRing, for an extra 7 absorb. The others could wait on that, since there's plenty of freebies. After that was a dip back into the Ice Cave to grab the Ice Armor and Ice Shield. Ninjas can't equip the Dragon/Aegis or Opal equipment, so these (and Flame) are the best it gets - still the second best of any class. I ideally would've gotten the shield the first trip in, but I just wanted to get out of there ASAP and not take the extra two steps. I got Exit to facilitate this and make these trips a bit easier.


I picked up the Flame Sword along the way. It was just going to be for a short while, but it was technically better than the Great Axe he was using. It was right there too and I was past the point where I was worried, so I got it!


I had a run-in with MAGEs along the way. The WWs have LIFE, but you can still see the big problem instant death presents. It dumps me all the way in the hole on healing a character.


Besides these, I took the chance to clean out more of the chests besides the ones in question, at least those that didn't have consumables inside. Aside from that incident, none of the encounters posed a threat, getting out of them before any serious danger if any.


The next thing to do was get the Ice Sword from Ordeals - it's better than the Flame Sword with 29/25 offense compared to its 26/20. This would be What's weapon for a bit. The MEDUSAs did show up and do their thing, but they hit the WW without SOFT, so that was only mildly inconvenient. MANCATs also showed up, but Gard went first and stopped them with AFIR.


Excellent. I got the Zeus Gauntlet too, still sitting on the choice whether to allow non-healing ITEMS. I passed it to What since he can equip it, giving Buff the ProRing I had purchased instead.

From here on out is when Ninja finally starts to become more useful. Still offensively weaker than the other two physical classes, but finally coming into its own - as niche as that is. We'll see if my insane theory to employ one pays off moving forward.

[T-hawk]

Re death to Ice Cave Sorcerors - White Mages can learn LIFE even before class change. (It's the Red mage that can't. For Whites, it's EXIT that's the key spell that requires class change.)

But sounds like it was more of a thrill without that, to barely squeak your way out. Just like back in the old days on the real cartridge when we didn't know all these stats existed, let alone had them memorized.

Ha, didn't realize Stone would mean permanently locking that character until you could get the Soft spell.

I'm not sure either which way to go on the offensive items. On one hand, it'll turn the variant into the same thing every run always does, obsoleting the classes' offense as you just spam those every round. OTOH, that may still be more interesting than just running from everything.

[System Error]

Re death to Ice Cave Sorcerors - White Mages can learn LIFE even before class change.  (It's the Red mage that can't.  For Whites, it's EXIT that's the key spell that requires class change.)

True. As I mentioned when raiding it again however: it takes a lot of spells to get a dead character fully back up and running, at least before LIF2. The WMs had only one L5 spell charge at that point, and even if I had LIFE available, I likely wouldn't have had enough to get them much over 1HP. In the EYE's/What's case on the winning run, I'd still have preferred to keep those charges on CUR3/HEL2 to keep the characters who were up fully up.

I'm not sure either which way to go on the offensive items.  On one hand, it'll turn the variant into the same thing every run always does, obsoleting the classes' offense as you just spam those every round.  OTOH, that may still be more interesting than just running from everything.

Oh, running from almost everything here isn't due to a lack of offense. It's done because every fight I do take means more damage taken. For a variant that has no access to huge stacks of or unlimited (slow) healing, you want to take as little damage as possible. Fighting as little as possible on the way to bosses is therefore ideal - and killing fast when needed. Been through it before with my Spellslingers, since every fight I did face there meant using spell charges. This run is less restrictive in that regard, particularly as I got further in.

That said as it was initially proposed, I suppose there's nothing wrong with the offensive items per the basic concept of the challenge. But I could go that extra mile anyway and make it full no items period, be it potions or spellcasting. My mentality for them is, I'll use them if I need to use them.

---

I decided to take an unorthodox approach to the lategame: I wanted to prepare as much as possible before taking on each fiend. Either way, this meant buying that expensive BOTTLE and heading into the Sea Shrine next.


The new equipment was paying off. What was now an excellent pointman, surpassing Buff. And now both he and Buff could do respectable damage. The going was really smooth. Whenever WzSAHAG/R.SAHAG groups showed up, I could unload with LIT2. Just the one from Buff was enough, them doing little enough to not need Zeus' contribution. My party was now strong enough with enough charges that I could actually take some runnable encounters without draining my healing supply if I wanted to.

I picked up the Opal Bracelet and SLAB from the bottom level and EXITed out. This would primarily be Buff's: he needs it more than the WWs do, and with the eventual ProCape it puts him almost on par with the Ninja. His options don't open up nearly as much upon class change, unfortunately.


I got the CHIME, and made this pickup, the latest weapon upgrade for What. It sports 32/30 offenses. It's something that Red Mages can equip as well, and in fact is probably their best weapon since they don't get Defense. With class change however, they can - Defense's similar statistics and higher critical rate put it just ahead.


So what next? Sky Castle, I guess! This would lead to What's final weapon upgrade excepting maybe giving him the Masmune, and much much more. The Blue D was never a threat any of the times I encountered it. ALIT neutered it for the most part, and even when it got it off beforehand, I had enough spell charges that it wasn't too terrible to recover from.


ProRing number one! There's two to get here.


And naturally two battles later I see an EYE who hits the one person it could've with XXXX. Instant death really takes a lot to recover from with just spells: a LIF2 charge, or LIFE (spending a CUR3/HEL2) and several others to heal up. I got another EYE after that, but it played nicer. Once I got the second Ribbon in here, it went directly to Gard.


White Shirt is preliminarily just an armor upgrade for a WM - while it's no better than a Gold Bracelet in terms of defense (in fact, siightly worse due to being 2 weight instead of 1), the resistances to Fire and Death make up for it slightly. But more importantly, the Katana!

This weapon is exclusive to Ninjas. Its offenses are 33/35, which are the third-best in the game behind XCalber and Masmune. It's also third to last on the item ID list, so it has a high critical rate. The downside is the critical hit bug: this weapon would have had a 30 if not for it - by far the best with only the the Vorpal tying. While the bug actually gives it more at 38, it gives a lot of other weapons a ton as well. One of the many reasons Thief/Ninja lost its niche in this game.


And here's ProCape. I gave it to Buff for now. The smart thing to do later might be to give this and the other one to the WWs - he's still stuck with a Buckler unfortunately. For the time being however, I felt it better to have it on him. I EXITed out after collecting this to keep the items saved, before making my final run of the tower.


Mirage Tower and Sky Castle are relatively straightforward if you just head directly to the goal. It wasn't very long until I reached the last floor and--







...no WarMECH? What is this nonsense? Well, not that it would've mattered, I would've run away from it instead of throwing myself into suicide. I definitely need more power before I can take it on, or more specifically, more HEL2 and HEL3.


Anyway, I topped off almost fully before heading into the fight. This would be the first time I would get to use FAST with What and Buff on the same turn. Looked forward to seeing what they could do!


Uh, well. At least this isn't necessarily a problem with Ninja itself: TIAMAT sports 80 defense. Breaking through it, especially at lower levels, is a matter of critical hits. The other offensive classes of course get more hits to try this with.


Things started going wrong about here. Mend wasn't one of the Ribbon holders, so that was the end of her.


Compounding this was getting very bad luck. Where are all the criticals here?!


I was slowly plinking the big dragon down. I hadn't been able to get up AFIR however: Gard was spending too many turns making up the deficit from losing Mend, so the followup THUNDER on the next turn did in Buff.


Gard kept What healthy, but BLAZE exactly killed him.


And then TIAMAT started with the criticals. Welp, see ya.

Well, only thing to do was try again. Buff and What's next hit was a way's off - I'll have to hit level 29 for both of them to get it, so all grinding would do would be giving more health and spells. I didn't do anything wrong in that fight, I just got supremely unlucky. Clearly, wasted it all not seeing WarMECH.


Here's a fun bit of strategy I employed, something that I did several times moving forward in fact: I got into a fight that wasn't very threatening and cast HEL2. This is 48 power in-combat compared to CUR3's 66, but spread across the whole party. More than worth it!


THERE WE GO. That's more like it! Also hey, no WarMECH again! I would've been able to recover from an appearance anyway, but I guess the meme is dead for now.


This went as smoothly as it could've gone. Instead of getting bad luck in the worst places, I got good luck where I needed to. Plenty of strong hits, and I got everything up..


In no time at all, I'd reduced the dragon's HP to nothing.


Well, Gurgu Volcano next, I guess. I took a lot of damage from the lava, but by now had enough HEL2 charges to recover. BULLs were decent opponents to heal against, having little in the way of attack.


As usual with my fights against KARY who are able to, the fatal combination of SLOW and AFIR made sure she couldn't do anything to me.


This one was over in a matter of turns. I had nothing to get in here...except for Flame Shield or Armor - statistically the same as Ice, but able to cover multiple elemental resistances. So a differing pair of them would be best. Something for a return trip, I guess.


Finally, the Sea Shrine. Here you can see LIT2 in action against this group as I mentioned. I had What physically attack the WzSAHAG while having Buff use LIT2, and cleaned up from there. This is an unrunnable encounter, so it's a good thing I can fight it effectively.


This unrunnable encounter...is far more dangerous. It was worth throwing out HRM2 against them even though it meant a CUR2 charge, as them being dead sooner meant potentially using less healing charges. Of course when they kill you with their massive attack, there's not much you can do.


I had enough spell chargess to recover from that...then I got GHOSTs who did it again! The run in was wrecked at this point: I had no healing left. I mean I was going to EXIT out and head back to heal anyway, then go through it again my usual way for this variant. But that just incentivized it more than before. So I got what there was left to collect and left.


Since I was close to leveling too, I obtained level 19 on the outside. Aside, this small strip of unforested land here? It's an anti Penninsula of Power: you'll only run into IMPs here. Amusing, but unhelpful. That aside, I got What his level 3 spells to potentially help out in wiping out those GHOSTs moving forward.


It ended up not mattering: none of them showed up, and only very small groups of WATERs were of note. I had plenty of healing left by the time I made it to KRAKEN. Last fiend to fight, here we go.


Fantastic start.


Okay, good. Aside from instantly killing Gard, that was actually good. I'll take an instant successful SLOW and one death. Good thing, he attacked Mend next turn, for like no damage.


From here and with ALIT up, there was no threat to be had from the octopus anymore.


That's it, all four ORBs lit! Of course, I have some major leveling to do from here. Not even having CUR4 isn't going to cut it for the marathon that is Temple of Fiends past. That's going to be the real test of the challenge. Not sure how much I'm going to need. Can I make it through LICH's NUKE and all the Gas Ds and friends with no healing except for spells? That remains to be seen.

As for Thief so far...it's been doing all right. Defiitely a longer term investment, however. I'll have much more to say about it at the end, but I don't regret taking it or feel it's been a completely incorrect choice. We'll see how well it does in the endgame, next time!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

It's nice to see another System Error Final Fantasy variant after such a long absence!  Reading about FF1 is more fun for me than playing it.  Mostly because I despise the random turn order.  Even semi-random turn order systems like Bravely Default frustrate me at times.  The closest I ever came to an FF1 variant was trying a solo Red Mage in Origins's Normal difficulty (the one closest to the NES in that version) and being paralyzed over and over until I quit.


If you're going to play FF4 again, be sure to do solo Edward.  Who doesn't want to see the spoony bard in action?

[System Error]

The closest I ever came to an FF1 variant was trying a solo Red Mage in Origins's Normal difficulty (the one closest to the NES in that version) and being paralyzed over and over until I quit.

Yeah, the early solo grind is pretty hell. Least there's running on NES, and quicksaves on most versions on.

If you're going to play FF4 again, be sure to do solo Edward.  Who doesn't want to see the spoony bard in action?

Actually, that was going to be my next one. Made progress but didn't get very far in. We'll see if I continue if still in a variant mood.

---

All right, grinding. First things first, buying CUR4 and LIF2. Couldn't cast them yet, but may as well get them out of the way now because I can.

I eventually settled in the first floor of ToFR. My goal is level 29. This would be where What gets 4-hits with the Katana; Buff would get 4 with Defense a level before that. Also at that level, the WWs would have 9/8/7/7/6/5/5/3 spell charges. That should be enough! If not and hopefully worst case, level 37, where What would get 5 hits with the Masmune, and their spell charges would be 9/8/8/8/7/7/6/6.

The primary opposition seemed to be Frost Ds. WORMs were the most welcome: easy targets and paid out a handsome sum each time. The dragons were more annoying: I generally dealt with them via FIR3/FIR2 then cleaning up from there, casting EXIT when Buff was out of charges.


So much was it that I actually went and picked this up. This way, everyone could resist ice and fire (CREMATE), and the WWs wouldn't have to cast AICE every battle


So they could join in too. Their damage may have usually been chip, but it was often enough to push survivors over the edge.

So grinding away. It's about the fastest place you can go. But, it gets repetitive. Boredom set in at level 26. I decided I'd make a run at the temple, to see how it would go. As well as to collect the goodies lying within. I didn't run into much of note on the way towards PHANTOM. Encounter luck that I probably would've liked on a real run: no Gas Ds at all, and I got away from Frost Ds quick and easily when they showed up.


PHANTOM itself didn't pose a threat.


And here again, you can see no items in my inventory as I use the LUTE.


It was smooth running until the Earth floor, where EARTHs showed up! Thankfully at this point, they're relatively easy pickings. That brought me to LICH with this much in stock. Its NUKE had been on my mind for a while.


LICH started off with a physical. What did a healthy amount of damage on turn 2...


And then he died horribly.

But it went well! Double HEL2 got me back in the game for the most part, and Buff got pissed and killed the hell out of him with a 417. And as for What...well. I had LIF2 charges now! There's nothing else at that spell level worth a cast besides WALL and maybe FADE if nothing else. So it's effectively a free full heal that doesn't interfere with your CURE spells, as long as the target is dead


Here's the ProCape on the Fire floor. I gave it to Gard. Stocks were still looking good before KARY.


This was the most dangerous thing she did.


As is the nature of physicals and criticals, the damage I saw varied wildly. Still, she wasn't hitting very hard herself, so this wasn't a fight where I was in very much danger, either.


JESUS CHRIST GARD, the disrespect! I approve!


I did run into a set of WATERs, which was my cue to pop LIT3 on Buff and clean up from there. Actually, they're weak to ice, not lit. Well, still did the job anyway, and he only had the one level 7 charge at this level.


Oh, son of a--! That's not good. I was worried about this one.


I couldn't let that happen to my other damage dealer, so I started buffing him with INVS. Thankfully I got some time to do so. No INV2 available for now.


He crushed Gard next turn. I actually had Mend cast a few on herself, just to give a bit of buffer. If she went down, that would be it. This run of the temple would be over.


A lesser seen aspect of CUR4 actually popped up in this fight: it fully heals status in addition to HP. Kraken landed an INK because What didn't have a Ribbon, but CUR4 rendered it irrelevant.


The INVS casts were the right move, he barely survived that one.


Still, I need to actually crit the guy for it to matter! Come on, man. Mend actually contributed a bit too!


Okay, whew. I guess picking up INV2 would be in order for this fight proper. I can afford it: petrification shouldn't pop up too much, and as long as I keep one for emergency EXITs if needed, I should be fine. And again, as long as one WW survives and I win, anyone who does die can have LIF2 cast on them for a free full heal.


Any thoughts of trying to end it here and now were definitely out, though. Nothing left on Mend aside from a single CUR3/HEL2. Gard had more, but I'd be hard-pressed to win against TIAMAT and CHAOS with just that.


There was nothing of note in the air floor: no IronGOLs to troll me into fighting them, and no 3/64 SORCERERs. I was able to lay claim to the Masmune! That was going to make fights go by quicker, thereby letting me take less damage as well. Buff is the better wielder of the mighty sword. He has more STR than What does, and Defense has a lower item ID than Katana. There are a few moments when I'm going to pass it to him though.

Also, with that run done, I've settled that I'll be going all the way on not using spellcasting items at all, which meant getting a ProRing for What over the Zeus Gauntlet. I didn't really end up needing them: I had enough charges to throw around for big unrunnable groups. The only thing I might want is the White Shirt's INV2, but spoilers! I'm going to have three casters of it, and like I said, not using that spell level much otherwise anyway.


Anyway, completed the rest of the grind. I didn't notice Gard wasn't level 29 for some reason, but the important thing was to get What there anyway. He hit it along the way, for what that was worth. It ultimately meant only one less level 7 charge.


So here's the stats, all of them in that big stitched image. Nothing really to note here, besides the fruits of my Str grinding. I had What in the back rather than Buff as I decided he wouldn't have a Ribbon. The WWs needed it for being my healers, and Buff was my best damage dealer. So giving him a bit of safety from the status attacks was ideal. Forgot about the Black Shirt there though. Still didn't use it.



The going through at first was simple. I first encounted some WORMs which I beat up. The next floor had a FIGHTER/MAGE mix and WzVAMP/Zombie D mix that I just ran from on the way to PHANTOM.


PHANTOM hit What hard, but went down easily on the first round of combat - What having did 101 himself.


The next fight I hit this pack. It was an invitation to use HEL2 as I cast FIR3/FIR2. Topped everyone off for the most part between that and a few spells after battle. The rest of the walk up to LICH had nothing of note besides two more WORM encounters that I cut to pieces with Katana and Masmune - I hit one for over 700 damage! Got a bit ahead of myself with dogpiling against one of them: not needed anymore since Buff can often OHKO, heh.

Earth floor had GrMEDUSAs which I got a preemptive run against, and MudGOLs who I instantly ran from. I came to LICH...


...who used one of the worst NUKEs I've ever seen: 364/252/368/330! It was a good thing I had the sense to heal almost to full before this! At least no one died, I left them below 400. I had the WWs attack, Gard actually hit for 53 damage.


And Buff one-shots the guy. What did 215 right before that. Excellent. Except for coming before the HEL2s.


And here is where I decided to use a big brain strategy; intentionally getting Buff and What killed off so I could use LIF2 to fully heal them instead of using CURE spells. I did have the WWs heal themselves back up to full. I ran from Grey Ws because that'd be too dangerous. Made my first actual attempt to get them killed a R.GIANT/AGAMA, but they killed it beforehand.

I checked the encounter table at this point, and it said that AGAMA would be coming up next, so that made things really safe. I stripped them off...


Sure enough, the lizards brought the pair down - even ambushing me to make it faster - and Mend got the team out. They only took a few minor scrapes in the process


Now that's a play I never thought I'd ever be making in this game.


There were no further encounters before KARY. She cast FIR3 on the first turn, going off after my HEL2 annoyingly. DId get one off at the start of the next round, only for her to hit Gard extremely hard. Not even a critical there.


That was all she got a chance to do, as the attackers killed her just like that. I healed up Mend and did a few more patchups before moving onto the Water floor.


It just flew by. This encounter was obnoxious and dealt a bit, but WATERs accompanied by NAGAs can be run from. The other two encounters here I escaped from without incident. That meant it was time for Kraken. I switched the Masmune onto What before the fight. Buff, Mend, and Gard all have INV2. I wanted to stack it up as fast as possible to assure his physicals were kept in check.


He certainly tried. But he didn't get it done.


I actually spent the next turn getting up more INV2 stacks instead of healing Mend. I could just LIF2 her if LIT3 got her, after all. Instead Kraken used INK, which again hit What. It ended up not mattering, and he finished off Kraken on turn 3. Changed the equipment back after.

I had a few more WORMs to deal with before TIAMAT, no big deal.


I decided I would cast WALL here - I had the level 8 charges to spare, and this would stop POISON from hitting What hard. The dragon spent her first turn attacking Gard physically.


Next turn was a BANE. No problem. That said this fight went on a bit longer than the others - took a few turns for Buff to wake up, TIAMAT got to ICE2, but...


...died before anything like POISON. A few steps immediately after, there were more WORMs waiting for me. Easily cut to pieces.


Well, no WarMECH, but I saw a 3/64 anyway. Aside, how is it that this is so scary to some people, and the threat of WarMECH isn't? They're the same odds, yet Sullla and T-Hawk both voiced concern about the possibility of them in numerous of their variants on the Air floor. Maybe rightfully, as they showed up in many of their challenges.

Anyway, here they are showing up in one of mine too. And I say bring it on! I'm not scared of you! It's free full healing! Just don't kill both WWs.


Or I could get out without incident, that too. Two of them hit for single digit damage and no deaths. That was the last encounter.


And here is where it stands. I have plenty of CUR4, HEL2, and HEL3 casts. It was at this point I felt this was a lock, short of a 3/256 CRACK. I just needed to make it across the finish line.

Though I'm cutting here because of the image limit - too much to prune otherwise. Expect the finale here shortly.

[System Error]

Now for the CHAOS fight.


Round 1 went FAST...oh crap, I used too many of What's, I was intending to not use one on LICH and used it anyway. Um, FAST - which I should've used on What instead of Buff self-buffing, FIGHT, WALL What, INV2. CHAOS simply physically attacked Buff.

Next round I went FAST on What, FIGHT, CUR3 on What, and HEL2. CHAOS used his ICE3, after the HEL2 naturally. What landed a 219 damage attack though. Coupled with the...very little damage from before, an okay start I guess. 1777 left.


Round 3, Buff did 157, CHAOS...what the hell!? Physical and paralyzed Gard?! I forgot he can actually do that, it comes up so infrequently. Anyway, What hit for 58 and Mend used INV2.


No choice and no hesitation here: I had to heal that right now. Can't have another Buff-sitting-out-of LICH situation. CHAOS used LIT3, Mend CUR4'd Gard, Buff struck for 466 damage, and What hit for 206. Excellent! He had 890 remaining at this point.


Round 5 saw What deal 187, an INV2, a HEL2, and...freaking amazing. SLO2 on Buff. Back down to a normal multiplier, Buff hit for 176. 527 left on CHAOS.


He had one FAST charge left. I decided I'd use it. I had Mend FIGHT: I actually forgot I'd bought FADE even though it was right there in the menu, heh. Gard was out of charges though, that said. She did only 1 damage. Gard threw up another INV2, and CHAOS missed Buff with a physical. What ended up only doing 5 damage, not what I needed with that CUR4 around the corner.


What did no better on round 7: 6 damage. Buff also came in with no criticals, doing only 153. Gard did 1 damage, Mend did 39. Seriously, the White Wizard outdamaged What? CHAOS' CRACK fell ineffective. At the start of the next round, freaking Gard did 98. That had to be both attacks going critical. This is a joke, easily one of the off-the-wall fights against him I've had. 


CHAOS wasn't laughing as he finally used that CUR4 with 224 health remaining. If only that SLO2 hadn't hit or What and Buff decided they didn't feel like getting any criticals... Well, on what was left of the round, Mend hit him for 1, Buff hit him for 281, and What hit for 7.


Had Gard stack another INV2 as Mend hit for 1 again. Buff did a solid 261, as CHAOS whiffed on him physically. And What did 7 again! What is wrong with him all of a sudden?! 1442 remaining on CHAOS from here.


I wasn't worried at all about that CUR4 having happened, there was still tons of my own healing in the tank. I hadn't even had to use it that much All I needed to do was make sure I was ready for NUKE if it got to that point. Tenth round of combat saw a CHAOS FIR3, Mend missing, Buff dealing 305, another INV2, and What finally waking up and dealing 187.


Eleventh started with Buff doing 339, Mend doing 1, What doing 158, a CHAOS INFERNO, and 2 from Gard. Everyone was around or below 300 from this, so I decided next turn would be good time to sling a pair of HEL2s to get back up above 400 for everyone so not even the worst case NUKE could kill anything.

What went right back to no criticals with 7Hits/7DMG. CHAOS used his ICE2, and the HEL2s resolved, getting everyone back up into a comfortable threshold.


But Buff banged out this massive hit to finish it off right then and there!

So this challenge was different! It definitely forced me to make some interesting decisions. I had more than enough healing to get me through the Temple and wherever else it was needed - no HEAL potions or staffs or helmets required! I might've actually been able to get away with not hitting 29 and just relying on Buff's 4-hits through there. Certainly gave me more wiggle room having it, of course.

Whoever was in chat that day thought that this challenge might be worse than solo Thief. Well, I beat it, and using a Thief to boot! It ultimately wasn't that bad after I got out of the rough early game. Even the endgame wasn't as terrible as I thought it'd be, though not seeing Gas Ds at all helped too.


Let's talk about Thief/Ninja, though. Its reputation is certainly justified on NES: bugs to critical hits and running hamper it greatly, so it can't do the two things it was meant to do. It doesn't get the Hit% that the Fighter does, and it doesn't get the double hits on unarmed that the Black Belt gets. So its offense is the worst of the three physical classes - it's actually just a bit worse than Red Wizard with perfect gains, too! The Black spells it gets as a Ninja are probably better than Knight's White spells, but two are found in spellcasting items, leaving only FAST as a draw. It's not left with much to consider.

But it just so happens that this specific challenge is one of those only times where what it DOES having going for it just so happens to be useful: you want to RUN as much as possible, and you want to take as little damage as possible. Bugged or not, its high LUCK stat lets it escape early easily before other classes can, and even allows it to better escape when those below it have status on them in the late game.

Taking little damage also means ending fights quickly. You'll want to power up with FAST as soon as possible. Having two casters of it DID help immensely, and though Knight or especially Master could do well with a buff on their own, the RW was able to hold his own and make a difference. Doubling up and going full throttle from turn 2 was useful. So how about two RWs? That runs into the issue that the second is hard to gear: there's only one Opal Bracelet in the game, and you might want ProCapes on a WW or two. But Ninja can get that high absorb without clashing with RW's equipment options, bring enough FAST to count, and even a few FIR2/LIT2s to clear out a tiny bit of trash. If going full on no spellcasting items too, the other jobs can't bring that, either.

Thief/Ninja may not be the best option for the fourth slot for this challenge, but it's a viable option that can be justified in some ways over your other choices. And being viable under crazy circumstances as these is probably the best it'll ever get in the original version of FF1.


So that's it. Thanks for--wait, no, that's not it. I forgot something.


Hold up, what? You want in too? Impressively, it survived this and hit back for fairly respectable damage.


But it died in one round. Not going looking for IronGOL though.


Anyways, EAT DICK YOU DAMN METAL MACHINE. Very boring encounter with it, it never NUCLEARed and didn't even ambush, so a bunch of INV2 stacks rendered it relatively harmless. Didn't get any mega huge hits on it though.

Okay, now that's it.

[T-hawk]

Nice reading, thanks for the writeup.

I had no idea that Sorcerors and Warmech are both 3/64 encounters? I totally would have sworn that Warmech is 1/64 and the Sorcerors are much more than that (and also show up on the previous floor too.) Anyway, the difference is that if you lose to Warmech, it feels like you're kinda supposed to, no shame in losing to a silly overpowered optional superboss in one big nuke spell... but the Sorcerors are a normal monster group that you feel like you're supposed to be able to beat, and when you don't it's an agonizing grind of paralysis where you can't do anything but wait to lose.

Re late game powerleveling - my favorite spot is the fixed encounter just inside the item room in the Waterfall. It's close to the entrance (only one floor), it's mummies and stuff that doesn't hit hard, easy to wipe in one round with spells or items, and easy to Warp/Exit out to reload magic with a House, or not far from town to reload that way in this variant. It's not the most experience per fight you can get, but it's convenient and quite nicely fast in real time to knock off repeatedly.

[System Error]

I had no idea that Sorcerors and Warmech are both 3/64 encounters?  I totally would have sworn that Warmech is 1/64 and the Sorcerors are much more than that (and also show up on the previous floor too.)  Anyway, the difference is that if you lose to Warmech, it feels like you're kinda supposed to, no shame in losing to a silly overpowered optional superboss in one big nuke spell... but the Sorcerors are a normal monster group that you feel like you're supposed to be able to beat, and when you don't it's an agonizing grind of paralysis where you can't do anything but wait to lose.

Well, only as far as the Air floor of ToFR is concerned - but they are indeed as common there as a run-in with Warmech on NES. Of course Sorcerors are much more common in other parts of the game, and in later versions Warmech is a 1/64. Fair enough way of looking at them, though.

Re late game powerleveling - my favorite spot is the fixed encounter just inside the item room in the Waterfall.  It's close to the entrance (only one floor), it's mummies and stuff that doesn't hit hard, easy to wipe in one round with spells or items, and easy to Warp/Exit out to reload magic with a House, or not far from town to reload that way in this variant.  It's not the most experience per fight you can get, but it's convenient and quite nicely fast in real time to knock off repeatedly.

Yeah, used that one sometimes. There were two problems with using it here, though. The first problem was that the enemies paddling back are annoying to deal with. More importantly, I was Strength grinding. It does take a while to reach the spike, so having to walk in there every reset cycle would've been obstructive.

Have a new FF5 variant in mind, as well as an interesting concept for a FF1 one - just need to figure out the angle on it. Not sure how the former is going to turn out long-term, only up to the Fire Ship on it so far. So possibly expect more here from me soon™.