Current Events > What is the story of the three-step-strip in the underworld (FFIV)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Basically its a small strip of land way west in the underworld with powerful monsters; was that a programming a mistake or did the devs. intentionally have that there if players were to find it?

---

If I were to guess, it's like the peninsula of power in FF1 in that random encounters are zoned on the map as big squares with little consideration of actual geography, so outliers can exist.

I have played though this game probably 100 times on multiple platforms and this is the first time I am hearing about this. Where at and what kind of monsters are there?

ocelot51 posted...

If I were to guess, it's like the peninsula of power in FF1 in that random encounters are zoned on the map as big squares with little consideration of actual geography, so outliers can exist.

It'd have to be in reference to this, although the original was an accident.

---

ocelot51 posted...

If I were to guess, it's like the peninsula of power in FF1 in that random encounters are zoned on the map as big squares with little consideration of actual geography, so outliers can exist.

It may be that they intentionally put those there, as a shout out to what happened in FF1.
---

gp1829 posted...

I have played though this game probably 100 times on multiple platforms and this is the first time I am hearing about this. Where at and what kind of monsters are there?

Enemies | #075 [_] Blood Flower (370 HP) (Weakness: Fire) |
| | #084 [_] Gloomwing (1580 HP) (Weakness: Throw) |
| ~ = Spawned | #085 [_] Gorgon (2550 HP) |
| from | #086 [_] Mystery Egg |
| the | #091 [_] Medusa (490 HP) |
| Mystery | #093 [_] Coeurl (593 HP) |
| Egg | #096 ~[_] Black Lizard (792 HP) (Weakness: Ice) |
| | #101 ~[_] Lamia (1200 HP) |
| | #106 ~[_] Green Dragon (2200 HP) |
| | #107 [_] Stone Golem (2560 HP) (Weakness: Ice) |
| | #125 ~[_] Nagaraja (1480 HP) |
| | #127 ~[_] Yellow Dragon (3100 HP) |
| | #132 [_] Hornworm (1855 HP) |
| | #137 [_] Alraune


---

FF1 also has the Hall of Giants in the Cavern of Earth where every goddamn square is a battle with giants.

OmegaShinkai posted...

FF1 also has the Hall of Giants in the Cavern of Earth where every goddamn square is a battle with giants.

Is there a story function to that or is it just a fun random side challenge thing?

---

FF8 has an island like that, but it was obviously on purpose.

---

KiwiTerraRizing posted...

FF8 has an island like that, but it was obviously on purpose.

Island closest to heaven and island closest to hell. I used those to stock up on Aura and limit break the fuck out of the side bosses. My friends were getting their asses handed to them by Omega weapon and here I did it one go. Of course I also got the Lionheart before leaving first disc so there's that...

---

Hexenherz posted...

Is there a story function to that or is it just a fun random side challenge thing?

Random side thing afaik. It's a looping passageway (no treasure, can be bypassed/ignored completely) and I don't recall any of the townfolk being like "oh no, stay away from the far west corridor! There's a horde of pissed off giants"

Great for gold farming, because this is when the 45000g steel armor becomes available.

It's more like one of the programmers had a soft spot for some random fantasy-esque sidequest but gave it no exposition.
---

Encounter zones are just big squares, and bits of the map occasionally 'leak' into a different zone.

philsov posted...

Random side thing afaik. It's a looping passageway (no treasure, can be bypassed/ignored completely) and I don't recall any of the townfolk being like "oh no, stay away from the far west corridor! There's a horde of pissed off giants"

Great for gold farming, because this is when the 45000g steel armor becomes available.

It's more like one of the programmers had a soft spot for some random fantasy-esque sidequest but gave it no exposition.

My head canon believes that Giants once ruled the Caverns before Lich took over.

---

I think FF9 has a cave with a ladder going up. You exit on a plateau where dragons appear. I think you can later access it with your flying vehicle, and the monsters are normal for that stage of the game, but not for when you can only access it from the cave.
---

Laserion posted...

I think FF9 has a cave with a ladder going up. You exit on a plateau where dragons appear. I think you can later access it with your flying vehicle, and the monsters are normal for that stage of the game, but not for when you can only access it from the cave.

I know what you speak of, I remember when I was a kid at the time that surprised the hell out of me on what awaited on that plateau.

---

Kaliesto posted...

Basically its a small strip of land way west in the underworld with powerful monsters; was that a programming a mistake or did the devs. intentionally have that there if players were to find it?

Were I to venture a guess, its likely vestiges of an enemy zone from an alpha version dungeon they scrapped. Judging by overworld enemy toughness, it was likely intended to be accessed post-Sealed Cave, or at least when the underground opens up for travel. Rather than have a bunch of pointless traversable land, they turned most of it into a lava lake.

Ff4 really had a lot of amazing, inscrutable mechanics and secrets: finding the single room with Pinkpuffs on the moon (in a single nondescript room with a Cabin iirc) with a 1 in 64 encounter rate and getting them to drop a 1 in 64 pink tail. Summons being droppable (imp, cockatrice, bomb, etc.). Random super-rare equips you may not see in multiple runs like the Medusa Sword or Lilith Rod, or the Artemis Bow. They went full-on mmo in their drop rates on this game.

Artemis86 posted...

Were I to venture a guess, its likely vestiges of an enemy zone from an alpha version dungeon they scrapped. Judging by overworld enemy toughness, it was likely intended to be accessed post-Sealed Cave, or at least when the underground opens up for travel. Rather than have a bunch of pointless traversable land, they turned most of it into a lava lake.

Ff4 really had a lot of amazing, inscrutable mechanics and secrets: finding the single room with Pinkpuffs on the moon (in a single nondescript room with a Cabin iirc) with a 1 in 64 encounter rate and getting them to drop a 1 in 64 pink tail. Summons being droppable (imp, cockatrice, bomb, etc.). Random super-rare equips you may not see in multiple runs like the Medusa Sword or Lilith Rod, or the Artemis Bow. They went full-on mmo in their drop rates on this game.

I still remember trying to get a perfect file in that game. (all adamant armor party) ... I failed.
---

There's also that part of Mysidia where you can get access to enemies from the adamant grotto area.

---