Current Events > Final Fantasy full(ish) series playthrough topic *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Went back to Paloom to hire a boat to Deist, and right at the town entrance was somebody willing to do just that. Hired her boat, got jumped by her chubby pirates, kicked their chubby asses, and then the captain introduces herself as Leila and joins the party.

Sailing south, I don't arrive at Deist just yet, but instead a Tropical Island cave. I feel out the first few encounters, realize that I can absolutely handle what's inside, figure "fuck it" and dive in to see what I can get. Along the way I find a room filled with a bunch of Not Shy Guys, buy some new armor, and then keep going all the way to the bottom floor where I fight four VERY beefed up Big Horn enemies to get a Black Mask for some reason.

I have no idea what this is, I think I just spent an hour and a half sequence breaking, but oh well it was good training that got Leila on par with the three main characters and filled my pockets with gold. Plus, I probably don't have to come back here later when I do need the mask.

Play time is at eight hours, thirty minutes exactly.

Good luck with FF 2. That game sucks ass.

tripleh213 posted...

Good luck with FF 2. That game sucks ass.

I disagree, I'm having a great time with it. In fact depending on how the story continues to play out, it may end up as a favorite by the end.

TMOG posted...

I disagree, I'm having a great time with it.

I'm glad someone likes it I guess

This is a cool thread, I'll be following it.

I have my original copies of 1/4/6 for NES and SNES and beat them back in the day. I decided to get the Final Fantasy IV pixel remaster this past weekend because it was finally available on Switch.

Anyway, I'm still near the beginning of FFIV and I feel like its maybe 2 steps forward and 1 back. I like the new translation, and they even kept the "Spoony Bard" line. Thankfully they let you change the font to "classic". No extra content and they maybe simplified some things that no one ever complained about. Arrows are unlimited now, which makes wands/staffs useless if your character has the option of bows. You don't drop gold/Gil anymore when you run. The graphics are nice, there are slight enhancements everywhere but they defintely kept the spirit of the original. The boat ride from Fabul to Baron near the beginning looked awesome. The orchestral remixes are OK, I can see why people switch it to the SNES original but I'm fine with something different.

The challenge is still there though if you crank up the battle speed and make it "active", especially if you don't grind or lower the experience to 1/2 in the options menu. With Active the enemies can attack you while you are in the magic/item menus, which can be stressful if a lot of things are happening at once.

I also noticed the performance to be kind of lacking on Switch. The framerate seems fine but when the screen is scrolling around in towns or on the overworld there is a slightly noticable "jerkiness" of some sort.

kelemvor posted...

Arrows are unlimited now

Holy shit I forgot that the original FF4 had an ammo system

TMOG posted...

Holy shit I forgot that the original FF4 had an ammo system

I think 3 did too, which I've played up to the final dungeon but never beat.

I am at the Dreadnought. The chocobo ride was fun

I started FF2. By which I mean I got wiped out initially and told that I cant join the rebel army. Im very early into it.

Ive beaten FF2 twice before, so I know the flow of the game, but I dont have the game memorized like I do with FF1, FF4 & FF7. So Im not gonna fly through this one - especially since Im playing other games at the same time (just beat Paper Mario: Origami King, just started Zelda: Skyward Sword).

tripleh213 posted...

Good luck with FF 2. That game sucks ass.

It did suck ass. The updates to the game over the years have made it vastly better. It isnt some must play game by any means, but it no longer sucks.

The_Popo, what system are you playing Final Fantasy 2 on? Are you going to pursue a trophy or achievement?

Playtime for FF2 is at 10 hours, so it's time to report in.

I arrive at Deist and find out that it's a run-down castle, inhabited only by a small child, his mom, and a dying wyvern. The Empire poisoned the wyverns' water supply and wiped out the dragoons (except for one, Ricard, who set out to find the Ultima tome). I can't speak to the wyvern because I don't have a Pendant, but a quick dip inside the cave to the north and I find one right away on a dead dragoon.

The wyvern reiterates what the mother told me, and also tasks me with placing the last wyvern egg in a magic clean spring at the bottom of that cave so it can hatch and the species can survive, so back in I go. One Chimera x 4 boss fight later and the egg is submerged, and back I go onto Leila's ship to go report back to Gordon.

In Altair, everybody tells me that Princess Hilda is acting weird and just eats rats and laughs to herself all the time, which I already caught on to goddamn you NPCs are slow on the uptake. I go to have a chat with her and she tries to fuck Firion before revealing herself as a Lamia Queen in disguise, which turns out to be an incredibly frustrating fight because she keeps casting charm on my party, and I either can't cure it at all or my Basuna/Esuna levels are too low -- I should probably dedicate some time to grinding those up before progressing any further.

After the fight, Gordon and a soldier run in to tell me that they received word that the real Hilda is being given away as a prize at the Palamecia Coliseum, so I have my next destination. He wants to be part of the rescue mission, so Gordon rejoins the party and Leila stays behind for her pirate crew to lead the army in his absence.

This feels like it might be the last we see of Gordon pretty soon.

Anyway, that's where I saved and stopped for a break, but I do want to call out that Guy has easily become the MVP of my party. In addition to having an absurd Strength and HP stat, his Agility has also somehow managed to reach 66, which allows him to always act fast in combat -- very convenient, since it lets me start every boss fight (or difficult fight in general) with a Protect, Shell, Blink, or Berserk buff. In addition, being my support mage has also raised his Magic stat to the point where he can put out magic DPS nearly on par with Maria, who I've been raising as my dedicated mage since the beginning of the game.

Tank, physical DPS, magic DPS, and overall support. Guy's a quadruple threat and I love him.

The_Popo posted...

It isnt some must play game by any means

I'd actually say it is for any fan of the series who wants to see the origins of many series mainstays, such as chocobos, Cid*, and dragoons, not to mention various enemy types that would go on to become staples of the Final Fantasy bestiary rather than generic enemies pulled from the D&D Monster Manual.

*yes, I do know he was name-dropped in 1, but this is his first appearance as an actual character.

TMOG posted...

Hopefully at some point Tactics gets released on something I can play it on

Mobile version of tactics is actually the best version. It has all the PSP content and then makes the formerly multiplayer exclusive stuff obtainable single player.

i actually really like ff2. i don't care for the gameplay mechanics but it introduced so many series staples and has a pretty unique feel to it. i certainly like it more than 3.

TMOG posted...

yes, I do know he was name-dropped in 1, but this is his first appearance as an actual character.

This is also post hoc. The only recurring names in original FF1 besides some monsters/bosses are Garland, Sarah, Bikke, Lukahn, Matoya, Astos, Bahamut, and Chaos.

After you get the Levistone in Final Fantasy 1, the townspeople in Gaia tell you that the airship was named by somebody named Cid. However, Cid never appears in the game personally

Leila joined my party. I am going to hunt a few Ocean monsters before I sail to Deist

hexa posted...

After you get the Levistone in Final Fantasy 1, the townspeople in Gaia tell you that the airship was named by somebody named Cid. However, Cid never appears in the game personally

That was retconned in in later versions, I believe. Theres no mention of Cid in the original NES game.

hexa posted...

The_Popo, what system are you playing Final Fantasy 2 on? Are you going to pursue a trophy or achievement?

@hexa

PS5. I got all 6 games on it. I already platinumed FF1. Id like to platinum each game, but my concern is missing a single missable enemy on the bestiary, so we will see. Im going to take FF2 & FF3 much slower than I took FF1, so who knows the pace that Ill be playing it.

Also, for what it is worth, I previously platinumed FF7 & FF10 as well. Doing it with FF10 was such a grind-fest, maxing out the sphere grid to bear perfection

TMOG posted...

I'd actually say it is for any fan of the series who wants to see the origins of many series mainstays, such as chocobos, Cid*, and dragoons, not to mention various enemy types that would go on to become staples of the Final Fantasy bestiary rather than generic enemies pulled from the D&D Monster Manual.

Well, its a must-play for anyone who is that committed to the series, absolutely. But if someone were to ask me about which games in the series were a must-play, FF2 wouldnt get any mention.

I completed an island named Deist. I have returned to Altair, to face the crazy Hilda

TMOG posted...

After the fight, Gordon and a soldier run in to tell me that they received word that the real Hilda is being given away as a prize at the Palamecia Coliseum, so I have my next destination. He wants to be part of the rescue mission, so Gordon rejoins the party and Leila stays behind for her pirate crew to lead the army in his absence.

This feels like it might be the last we see of Gordon pretty soon.

Anyway, that's where I saved and stopped for a break

I have completed the Bestiary in the Palamecia Desert, and reached the Palamecia Coliseum. I have passed TMOG temporarily, but I am sure that he will overtake me again tomorrow

I'm waiting for a FF9 remaster

After a short boat ride and trek across the desert, I arrive at the Coliseum, where it's an obvious trap. The Emperor finally makes an appearance to release the Rancor -- er, Behemoth, declaring that the winner gets Hilda. After I easily defeat it (thankfully it doesn't seem like Meteors are a part of its DNA just yet), he goes back on his word and has me thrown in a prison cell instead, because of course he does.

The party is only in the cell for a grand total of about three seconds before Great Thief Paul shows up to bust them out, and then Princess Hilda (possibly even the real one) is found nearby. Gordon leaves the party and leads her out, with Firion suggesting that the other three will cause a distraction so they can escape, that distraction apparently being "we'll walk out right behind you"? Or maybe I missed doing something. I don't know. The Coliseum is a very small place compared to every other dungeon in the game, so I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Back at Altair, a rebel soldier tells me that Hilda and Gordon have already set up camp to retake Castle Fynn, and when I get there they've already broken the gates and are ready for me to charge in and kill the castellian. Leila rejoins my party as soon as I'm inside, which is great, because she's easily the best fourth I've had in the entire game so far.

While I'm in the castle, I take the opportunity to try and grind up some spells that have been sitting at level 1 or 2 for far too long. While everybody's doing pretty good at their chosen roles (except Guy, who's doing good at all roles), I've been relying on spamming Attack for too long to get me through random encounters -- Maria, my chosen dedicated mage character, is becoming a bit too deadly as an archer because her Strength is getting pretty high, especially now that I've given her a Flame Bow. Not that that's necessarily a BAD thing, but I do want her to be a mage, so I need to start re-focusing her on that now that I have plenty of disposable income to spend on Ethers.

Holy shit does Gottos hurt to fight, even through Guy's casting of Protect 5 and Blink 4 he's still able to do 500-600 damage per hit thanks to his own buffs. But I manage to beat him no problem, and everybody gets a nice health buff after the fight thanks to the savage beating they took.

Castle Fynn is once again free, and now I have my next task: Minwu is missing in Mysidia, the city of mages. I'm also told that he's looking for the Ultima Tome in Mysidia Tower, which requires two masks to enter: one of them is somewhere in the castle, and the other one is conveniently already in my inventory. Neither Hilda nor Gordon know how to get beneath the castle to claim the White Mask, but Gordon suggests that Great Thief Paul might, since he's a Great Thief.

Sure enough, Paul knows where the secret entrance is, and I retrieve the White Mask. I also hang out in the basement for a little while to grind a few spells up since it's a good place to do it and conveniently located near an inn.

After all that, it's time for a lunch break. Play time is 12 hours.

I am in Castle Fynn, looking for the White Mask

I have the White Mask. I traveled to Mysidia. I am completing the Bestiary in Mysidia by hunting monsters

I completed the Mysidia Tower, which means that there are only 4 dungeons left in the game for me

Probably not playing any today. Work went on a bit too long and I don't have the energy left to do anything more mentally demanding than eating a pizza and watching Futurama.

I arrive at Mysidia and buy a few new spells (Holy for Firion since he's kind of become my permanent White Mage, and Wall/Barrier for Guy since he's still my party buffer), place the White Mask on the statue, and head east to the Cave of Mysidia. Inside I find a doppelganger of Firion, place the Black Mask on it (for some reason), and it vanishes.

(Should also note that I got very sidetracked by letting autobattle grind some magic up in this cave. It's another fantastic grinding spot and this game makes me VERY greedy for spell levels lol)

There are a few chests in the Cave that I couldn't figure out how to get to, so I'll come back for those later when I want to grind more. For now, I got Osmose for Maria and the Crystal Rod, which I'm willing to call "good enough" because I want to progress the goddamn story.

Before I actually enter the tower, however, that grinding I did took up a bit more time than I had hoped, and now I need food. So I'm gonna go get food, and afterward just no-life the shit out of the rest of this game.

1) Final Fantasy 1 pixel remaster, platinum trophy
2) Final Fantasy 2 pixel remaster, platinum trophy

next up is Final Fantasy 3, but I'm going to work on my science fiction book first

Now you got me thinking which FFs I havent beaten yet.

1 and 2: GBA versions, 2 has a good story, leveling sucks if you dont understand it well. Both finished

3: have a DS copy, need to sit down and play it one day

4: SNES as 2 finished and loved

5: have anthology on PS, got to end of 2nd world never finished

6: first FF on SNES, personal favorite. Finished

7 PS copy, never understood the hype, but finished.

8: PS copy, beat it, not as terrible as most make it to be. Good in its own way, but flawed (the 2 of the modern age?)

9: got it, need to play it, keep trying to go into it, but keep failing to get going. Leaving the first major town is as far as I got. One day

10: beat on PS2

X-2: have it, never beat it

skip 11

12: kinda hate this one, dont like the game playing for me with gambits, but did finish it

13 trio: all beaten, love the stories mostly, lightning returns is the best of them

14: have played, but not seriously

15: I never got invested in this one, I beat it out of stubbornness sadly. It never felt like a FF to me.

I set sail for the Tower of Mysidia, but just before I arrive, a whirlpool grabs my pirate ship and I wake up inside a giant sea beast named Leviathan, sans Leila. The goddamn unavoidable lava floors from Mt. Gulg are back, though :(

Surprisingly, I find a thriving community of people inside the stomach, with their own furniture and bedrooms and everything. If not for the imminent threat of digestion, it would be kind of cute. One of those community members I meet is Ricard, who was mentioned a while back as being the last of the Deist dragoons. He joins the party so we can find a boat to get out (I don't think I want to know through which end), and aside from a high Strength and a good score with spears, he... doesn't really seem like he offers too much. I miss Leila already.

After teaching him an assortment of spells from the extra tomes in my inventory and gearing him up a little better, we're off. Talking with the NPCs before I go informs me that Leviathan attacked/ate because we have a Crystal Rod, so you know, nice trap. On literally the very next screen, which appears to be Leviathan's mouth, I see the boat with a big monster in front of it. Somehow I expected this dungeon to be a lot longer.

We get on the boat and escape, leaving everybody else inside Leviathan to die a slow and horrible death, just like heroes do. For some reason it doesn't attack again even though I still have the Crystal Rod in my inventory, but I can enter the Tower now.

I'm actually really upset that it seems like literally the only reason Leviathan exists is so I would lose Leila, who's awesome and kicks ass, and have to instead use Ricard, who's a pretty clear nerf to my team by comparison. He can't even Jump. :(

After a long-as-fuck climb up the Tower, during which I find Flare for Maria and fight several elemental Gigas, I find Minwu at the top, who somehow managed to get past all the Gigas fights by himself. He fires a Kamehameha at the final door to open the seal, but the effort kills him. That's two badass team members down in a single sitting.

Inside the door are five orbs. Four of them give my entire party a boost to several stats, and the final one gives me the Ultima Tome, the spell that's been hyped up for literally the entire game. I teach it to Maria, step outside the room to give it a test cast, and... okay, yeah, this son of a bitch is pretty potent. At level one, it does over 300 damage to a single target.

Satisfied customer, right here.

Play time is at 15:40.

in the Playstation Portable version of the game, all of the characters that leave you eventually return after you defeat the final boss of the game. The PSP version has post-game content, named Souls of Rebirth. Minwu returns to your party, as they all do

This pixel remaster does not have the PSP post-game content, but it might ease your grief for Minwu to know that in some versions of the game (and possibly future versions), he comes back to you

With Ultima in hand, Minwu dead, Leila either dead or now living in Leviathan's stomach, and Ricard still in the party for some reason, I head back to Castle Fynn to see what I'm doing next. I immediately notice that all the low-level enemies that had previously populated the world map are now replaced by much stronger stuff, so if the past two hours of gameplay weren't a sign that I'm in the endgame now, that is.

Also, as I walk past that small town outside of Fynn, I notice that it's been destroyed and I can't even enter it anymore. A few other towns also seem to have vanished as points on my minimap, such as Altair, which I wander down to find has also become a crumbling ruin.

Huh. Wonder when that happened.

The town of Fynn is now empty except for a small child, a soldier, and Great Thief Paul, all of whom tell me that everybody's dead because a "cyclone with a will of its own" blew through the area. And when I exit and return to the minimap, I see a giant tornado swirling just behind the castle.

OH.

I head into the audience chamber to speak with Hilda and Gordon, and Leila's standing right next to them -- fuck yeah, you go pirate girl! Sadly, she doesn't rejoin the party. :( The two royal leaders drop some big hints that I need to ride a wyvern to enter the cyclone, using the pendant in my inventory and the mirror a few rooms over. The wyvern egg I dropped in the water days ago hatches, and the newborn dragon flies over to partner up with Ricard. It then flies us inside the cyclone as it grows absolutely fucking enormous, and apparently there's a castle or something in here too, because now I'm in a stone hallway.

At the top of the cyclone, the Emperor is waiting, and this time we fight... his royal guards. And then the Emperor himself gets invoolved, albeit still hiding behind some guards and golems. I almost feel bad about shutting him down so easily by stealing his MP with Osmose, but eh, he's been a dick the entire game.

With the emperor dead, the party leaves the cyclone and reports back to Princess Hilda, because that was obviously way too easy to be the final boss. There's a pretty bitchin' dance party (that Guy and Ricard obviously chose to skip out on), but a dying soldier interrupts to announce that the Dark Knight, Leon, has declared himself to be the new Emperor!

Yeah, Leon's the Dark Knight, which I kind of caught on to when Maria recognized his voice and also already knew about thanks to stuff like Theatrhythm.

Leila gives me a tip that I should ask Great Thief Paul about how to get into Palamecia, so I head for his house in town... after a short break, because god damn do I need to stand up and move around a bit.

Play time is at 16:39.

I'm glad to see that things are going smoothly for you

At Paul's house, Cid "loans" me his airship and then dies, because FF2 is not fucking around with the body count. Picking it up from the ruins of Paloom, I fly over to Palamecia with the goal of kicking some sense into Emperor Leon's ass.

After airdropping into the top floor, I trap-door-drop down to the ground floor and have to work my way back up. Thankfully, the Palamecia castle is incredibly linear compared to other dungeons in this game, so it's not a very long trek. It is, however, at this point that I realize I forgot to put my Switch to sleep when I went to go make lunch, so my total play time is now going to be off by at least an hour or so. >.>

In the throne room, the party is about to throw down with Leon -- who's actually mad about all the lives the "weak" rebels threw away resisting the Empire -- when the Emperor returns from Hell in a giant, shiny new body. Ricard sacrifices himself to stall the Emperor while Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon all escape on the Wyvern, and a new palace rises up to replace the Palamecian palace.

Princess Hilda allows Leon to join the rebellion, and by extension my party. This son of a bitch is dual wielding swords and axes, nice. Like everybody else who's joined my party, he has no spells and his HP/MP are very low by comparison, so I'm gonna go ahead and throw a few of my extra tomes on him -- it doesn't feel like he'll be leaving, and even if he does, oh well. I've got a VERY huge stockpile now.

Hilda, Gordon, and Leila all tell me to find the Jade Passage near Mysidia, so off I go in my flying mach -- wait, how did the airship get back here? Oh well, I'm not gonna argue with convenience. Off I go in my flying machine towards the Jade Passage.

Play time is at (give or take) 18 hours, 27 minutes.

Leon stays with you until the end. He doesn't begin with good magic or statistics, but if you invest in him, he can become just as good as Firion

hexa posted...

the Thief in Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster works very well, much better than the Nintendo Entertainment System's Thief. Some people believe that the new Thief is more effective than the Warrior. The new Thief delivers hits more hits per round than the Warrior, has higher accuracy and evade, and can flee battle very well

Thief/Ninja has been fixed since the GBA version. I believe they were buffed by gaining +5 to base accuracy. I played the GBA version a few months ago and the thief/ninja out damaged the fighter/warrior up until the last couple dungeons. By then they both were doing 8 hits, but the warrior had stronger weapons that the ninja couldn't equip. The ninjas damage wasn't to much lower and being able to cast Haste and Temper is far more useful then the warrior being able to use up to level 3 white magic.

hexa posted...

Leon stays with you until the end. He doesn't begin with good magic or statistics, but if you invest in him, he can become just as good as Firion

Appreciated but please don't spoil plot stuff like if a character sticks around to the end or if they come back to life, even if it's in a different version to the one I'm playing, lol

Many of the games on this list are first-time playthroughs for me or games that I only made it halfway through, so I'm enjoying going into them blind to plot and mechanics

The_Popo posted...

@hexa

PS5. I got all 6 games on it. I already platinumed FF1. Id like to platinum each game, but my concern is missing a single missable enemy on the bestiary, so we will see. Im going to take FF2 & FF3 much slower than I took FF1, so who knows the pace that Ill be playing it.

Also, for what it is worth, I previously platinumed FF7 & FF10 as well. Doing it with FF10 was such a grind-fest, maxing out the sphere grid to bear perfection

Well, its a must-play for anyone who is that committed to the series, absolutely. But if someone were to ask me about which games in the series were a must-play, FF2 wouldnt get any mention.

4-6 are the ones you really need to watch out for. Those ones have places you can never return to.

First off, I absolutely love how they used the tile sets to create a 3D effect for the Jade Passage's entrance.

And holy shit, have I mentioned how long the dungeons are in this game yet? Because some of them are obnoxiously long treks, made worse by doors that tempt you to open them and take a peek inside only to find that it's a completely empty room that just wasted your time, often by making you take a detour off the main path for literally no reward. That's just bad level design imo

At the end of the path, I find a teleporter directly into the next dungeon, Pandaemonium, with no save point in between. I can only hope that the next boss I fight doesn't wipe my party out, otherwise there's a very long walk back in store for me. That's the kind of thing that would have just made me give up on an RPG as a kid, and I'm not eager to see if I'm still that pissy about lost time as an adult.

I also really wish there was a save point so I could use Cottages, because things here drop Ribbons and I would love to grind four of them out. But hey, supplies are limited and whatnot, so I can't spare the Ethers -- I've already used up 1/3 of my stack refilling Firion and Guy after the first dungeon (thankfully, Maria can take care of herself with Osmose).

There are a few fun miniboss fights in the chests here, including Zombie Borghen and Tiamat, but they're all pretty easily dealt with -- especially after Maria shuts them down with Osmose on the first turn (well, except the zombie). By the time I reach the end, I have three of the four Ribbons I wanted, which isn't bad.

So, now it's time to fight the Emperor again. Final boss of the game, let's go in fully loaded. Maria's Ultima is at level 9, Firion has Cure 11, all of Guy's buffs are at 6. I decided not to bother having Leon improve his magic at all and just be a physical threat, and it's paying off, because he's doing 2k damage per round between both his weapons before the Berserk/Haste buffs kick in.

But before I can talk to the Emperor and start the battle -- and I have no idea if this is scripted or coincidence -- a King Behemoth blocks my path one tile away. Oh well, kill it like the rest, my party's leveled to the point where it's not even close to a threat anymore. Three rounds of combat and it's dead.

As for the Emperor fight itself, it's definitely a drawn-out battle, but overall easier than I anticipated. It feels like it was a huge oversight to allow Osmose to drain his MP, because just like all the miniboss fights leading up to him, Maria shut him down in one turn and all he could do was physically attack; and the regen he got from that was countered by the poison put in place by either Guy or Leon, which did a solid 1000 damage per tick. Other than that, business as usual. Firion keeps everybody on their feet, Maria blasts the piss out of him with Ultima, Guy sets up all his buffs and then switches to swinging his axe, and Leon is also there.

The Emperor is dead, so it's back to Fynn so all the surviving NPCs and former party members can give me their congratulations. Hilda and Gordon are going to marry and unite their kingdoms, Great Thief Paul is going to steal from me, Leila wants to fuck Firion and make him a pirate, even Josef's daughter Nelly is there -- and a few ghosts, too. Leon leaves, declaring that there "can be no going back" for him, and Firion announces that "this is just the beginning", teasing a direct sequel that will never happen.

My final thoughts on the game, and final playtime, coming in my next post while I watch the credits.

For being a game with such a bad reputation, often called the worst in the series, I really liked this one. I can definitely see how the stat growth system would feel clumsy and offputting to people, but the Pixel Remaster version really fixed that up and made it a lot easier to deal with.

As the first "proper-feeling" story for a Final Fantasy game, it wasn't too bad. There are a few plot holes (why was Hilda on the airship to be captured?) and a few things happened off screen that really shouldn't have, but eh, it was the late 80s. They were still figuring themselves out.

Overall, I'd rank it a bit above the first game. Having a more involved storyline really helped, and a few of the party members that joined you were a lot of fun. Speaking of the party...

Firion, Maria, and Guy I'm going to review as one unit, because they stick around for the whole game. In my playthrough, Firion wound up as a Fighter/White Mage hybrid; Maria was my dedicated mage; and Guy carried all my party buffs. It worked pretty well, and all three became pretty overpowered by the end compared to everybody else that joined. Sadly, as actual characters, they were all pretty flat. Firion didn't really do anything to justify being the main character, Guy speak beaver once and then didn't really speak at all, but Maria did have some direct and continued plot relevance due to being Leon (the Dark Knight)'s sister. I guess she's my favorite of the trio.

Minwu was a great choice for the "first fourth" of the party members. A powerful White Mage was exactly what was needed to help the player train the trio at the beginning of the game, since he could easily keep them alive while never being in any threat of death himself. He was also a pretty cool guy, and managed to keep doing stuff right up until his death.

I wish I had more time with Josef in the party. He had a bit of potential as a strong monk-type character, but he was only with the trio for about an hour at most before he died. If there was more time to get to know him, it would have hit the player a little harder. He does, however, get the distinction of being the first Final Fantasy party member to actually die during the course of his game's story, so take that as you will.

Gordon had a nice arc. I'm a pretty big fan of the coward-to-hero trope, and he pulled it off well. His stats weren't even that bad upon joining the party (except his HP), so he never felt like a detriment to have around. And I liked how after rescuing the real Hilda, he became a very competent general to lead the army. Nice job, Gordon.

But Leila definitely gets the top marks for being a party member. There was nothing about her I disliked -- she had nice stats, a very fun personality, did her best to stay involved with the story, and stuck around long enough that I was able to train her stats and magic up to be on par with the trio. I actually cared when I thought she died after Leviathan's attack; she's easily my favorite playable character in this game.

Ricard, however, might have been my least favorite. I didn't like the circumstances he was introduced under, and it felt like his swap with Leila was the direct result of the developers knowing that she was going to be too strong moving forward. He also had a pretty weak personal storyline, only really existing so the party could ride a Wyvern to get into the tornado and out of Palamecia, both things that could have easily been done just by saying that Firion became a Dragoon. He just felt like an overall nerf compared to Leila. :(

Finally, Leon joined the party too late in the game to really develop past a physical brute. His stats were too low (or maybe the trio's were too high), he had no magic or MP, literally all he could do was swing his weapons around. I feel like if I tried to do anything else with him, he wouldn't have been able to reach his full late-game potential.

And of course, The Emperor himself. I'd already grown to like this character due to games like Dissidia and Theatrhythm, both of which he's one of my favorites to play as or include in my team, and this game really didn't disappoint as a proper introduction. Due to the Empire's actions, I hated this guy before I even saw him, but it was definitely a "love to hate" situation. I just wish his final battle wasn't so easily broken with Osmose.

So, next up is Final Fantasy 3, which I know even less about than I did about 2 going in. This playthrough is going to be even blinder. Before I start (probably tomorrow), I need to decide which name set to go with: the names from the DS version (Luneth, Arc, Refia, Ingus) or the names from the NES manual. (Muuchi, Doug, J. Bowie, Melfi)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/3/4/AABrRdAAEbh2.jpg

I have a repro NES cart of FF3 and it's pretty fun, although I think the jobs are even more unbalanced than FF1. I played it blind, too.

Also, the original version doesn't give you any bonus whatsoever for mastering a class, which I had no idea until I wasted time grinding out some job levels.

you mentioned that there is no save point in between Jade Passage and Pandaemonium. In the main menu, above the option Save, there is another option named Quick Save. The ordinary Save option doesn't work in dungeons or cities, but the Quick Save option works everywhere! You can Quick Save anywhere in Jade Passage or Pandaemonium. And you can load a Quick Save just like any other save, by pressing up from your File 1 save. Quick Save is your friend!

Osmose isn't the only move that is overpowered on the Emperor. There is a sword named the Blood Sword. The Blood Sword isn't that good of a sword, but if you equip it on a character, and attack the Emperor with it, it does 1,300 damage to 2,100 damage on him

hexa posted...

you mentioned that there is no save point in between Jade Passage and Pandaemonium. In the main menu, above the option Save, there is another option named Quick Save. The ordinary Save option doesn't work in dungeons or cities, but the Quick Save option works everywhere! You can Quick Save anywhere in Jade Passage or Pandaemonium. And you can load a Quick Save just like any other save, by pressing up from your File 1 save. Quick Save is your friend!

Yeah, but I was hoping there would be someplace that I can use Cottages so I didn't completely deplete my stock of Ethers and Hi-Potions on the way

hexa posted...

Osmose isn't the only move that is overpowered on the Emperor. There is a sword named the Blood Sword. The Blood Sword isn't that good of a sword, but if you equip it on a character, and attack the Emperor with it, it does 1,300 damage to 2,100 damage on him

I knew about the Blood Sword but didn't find it :(
I know where it is now because somebody in my LUE topic told me, so when I play FF2 again at some point I can get it

Time to start Final Fantasy 3. I decided not to go with the DS version names, just in case I get ahold of a copy of that remake and decide to play it as part of this marathon -- not likely, but hey, you never know. So that means the Onion Knights are named Muuchi, Doug, J. Bowie, and Melfi.

Going into this one, I know far less than I did for 2, which did have a few things spoiled for me in advance (the party, Josef's death, Leon's role, the Emperor dying and coming back from Hell) but for this game I know nothing except that it's the first iteration of the job system and the final boss, thanks to stuff like Dissidia and Theatrhythm. So if I was blind in 2, I'm blinder for 3.

The story begins with four orphans dropping into a hole and getting ambushed by goblins, and right away the battle music for this game slaps. It does kind of bother me that even though the Onion Knights themselves are color coded and speak to each other, their dialogue is not color coded to match them or even give any indication which is talking. Kind of gives the weird impression that rather than four distinct characters having a conversation, it's more of a Smeagol/Gollum situation.

A few rooms in, after drinking some suspicious water, they're attacked by a Land Turtle in a crystal chamber. The Wind Crystal then gives them their "save the world" destiny and their first five jobs, which are all the jobs from FF1 except Thief. I decide the best setup for now is Warrior, Monk, Black Mage (which the game decides needs to dual wield Knives), and White Mage. I might swap one of the latter two to Red Mage, however, depending on how things play out.

Back at the town of Ur, I'm told that the village elders have some words of wisdom for me, which are literally just "get out there and kick some ass". And so, after supplying up, out there to kick some ass I get. I arrive at Kazus and immediately spook the shit out of some guy at a campfire, who tells me this town is accursed and he thought the party were ghosts, which the inn is full of. Turns out that a Djinn turned everybody in town into a 2D chalk outline so they couldn't forge a mythril ring to defeat him. One of the chalk outlines, Cid, tells me that if we promise to use it to save the town, he'll let us use his airship holy shit we're getting that early, aren't we?

There's nothing left to do is Kazus right now except get my ass kicked by skeletons in the mine, so let's not do that. Instead, let's get our airship within the first 30 minutes of gameplay, and fly over to Castle Sasune. This castle is full of zombies, and a griffon jumps out of a chest and wipes my entire party, so I guess I need to reload my save file and grind up more. This game really throws you into the shit right away.

I'm also realizing that it doesn't look like I'm getting any actual offensive black magic spells just yet (the only one I have is Sleep, and the only magic shop I can access doesn't sell any), so until I find some I'm switching my Black Mage to a Red Mage. At least then he can use slightly better equipment.

Based on how effortlessly the griffon kicked my ass, I probably need to get my characters up to level 6 or 7 before trying again, so cue the montage music and I'll be back after my training session and some lunch.

Most of the Final Fantasy games up to this point have a Land Turtle. The monster is named LandTurtle. However, the proper English word for LandTurtle is Tortoise. A turtle on land is named a tortoise. The Japanese language-to-English translators didn't do a good job with this monster

My work schedule is pretty full this week so I don't know how much I'll actually be able to play until Sunday. :(

Final Fantasy 3 is my least-favorite of 1 through 6. I do not like Final Fantasy 3. You are not missing much