FF1 Spellslingers Part I

So here's another FF1 variant, this time with the vanilla game. T-Hawk's Brawlers got me thinking. Could the same be done with magic? That is to say, can a party go through the game using only MAGIC and RUN? Since no one else is doing anything, guess that means it's on me. I'm about to see for myself and die horribly in the process!!

Party composition!! All the physical classes are right out. Black Mage is obviously the focal point of this challenge, but we'll probably want a White Mage for healing. And FADE is only a shade behind NUKE. The question is, do we want a Red Mage to take hits? It would really be a liability in the endgame, when everything of note resists elemental damage. We could probably sleek by without one, whereas the limiting factor of not having an extra NUKE/FADE user could prove costly in the end.

Our options thusly are Red, White, and two Blacks, or some mix of the monochrome. Redundancy on the LIFE spells would be nice. Or maybe we can just hope to get lucky and go with the maximum magical-based offense without being too silly, while giving White as much defense as possible.


And I think for that reason, for wanting a game as guaranteed to be as completable as possible, that I should skip the Red. Chaos is just too unlikely with one, since he doesn't have anything non-elemental. The one White Mage is a bit of a calculated risk I took, since the final gauntlet might prove too taxing without one extra caster. But it'll make getting to said gauntlet a whole lot easier. So let's go, Spellslingers!!

The starting gold was simple. 3 FIRE spells and 4 Cloths. Naturally, the early part of the game was the trickiest. By which I mean I had to fight groups of 5 IMPs, or else I would start bleeding away money due to this group needing to return to the inn after every encounter. The race was on to see if I'd kill Garland without a death first, or reach Level 2 first. The latter ended up happening, and I proceeded to beat him without taking a single point of damage on the first round due to high-rolled FIREs.


Next was to reach Provoka. This wasn't too hard, and I tried to get some OGREs along the way, which I did. SLEP put in a bit of work here, stunning one while we went to work on the other.


Hey, if those knucklehead Brawlers can do it, then certainly my Level 3 Spellslingers can pull this off even with level 1 spells, right?

Well, numerous times, I encountered 2 ZomBULLs. Numerous times, it came down to Heal with just one ZomBULL at critical HP, out of spell charges and unable to do anything else per the variant rule.


But then I encountered one of them, and was able to knock it down without too much difficulty.


That got the Spellslingers to Level 4, which got them enough for 4 charges of Level 1 spells. Precisely what I was looking for. With this, I could use SLEP against the PIRATEs. Granted, the Spellslingers had enough bodies on-hand so that this was strictly unnecessary, but still. Also do note that due to a bug, enemies always wake up from sleep status on their next turn.


Also with the extra charges, I couldn't help but try the 2 ZomBULL battle again. It proved to be enough, and look at those HP totals, too!! Can we up the ante to 3, maybe take on some more monster groups with nothing more than level 1 spell charges? My next 2 ZomBULL conquering didn't go nearly as well: only Zap and Heal made it. I next die to 2 ZomBULLs, then run out of juice against 2 GIANTs with only one left. Next is another 2 ZomBULL kill, this time with Chil and Heal up.

Unlike the Brawlers, this abuse did have a lot more merit to it besides for our amusement. Magic is expensive, and this would pay the bills for us a lot sooner than going after normal enemies would.

I get off to a good start against 3 GIANTs, landing SLOW on 2 and SLEP on all 3, but the third round slaughters me. 1 ZomBULL bites it next.


This one was really silly. Five FrWOLFs. I roll really bad on the FIREs and can't kill them before I'm out of juice. After this, and with level 2 spells mixed in, I beat 2 GIANTs with all four left standing. I got fortunate on their attack rolls, their attacks either missing or not being enough and two CUREs from Heal were enough to let Chil survive a second roll.

At this point, I had more than enough money to get what I was looking for. So I got it: FIR2 for all the Black Mages!! Now, if one BM is often enough to abuse the penninsula, then surely three and a White one can totally wipe the floor with it, right?


Well, TYROs test my resolve...even with all the power, they can easily flatline me. Which one did. Then on a fight between 2 ZomBULLs and 2 TROLLs, only Burn survives the assault. Reminds me of the Berserkers variant of T-Hawk's. We can destroy them, but they can just as easily destroy us if given the opportunity. The only tricky one was the TYROs. These needed a bit of RUSE before I could do well on them.

I didn't try the rare WYVERN fight before I decided enough was enough. I buy what's left and head out.


Needless to say, cleaning out the Marsh Cave was not a problem. Even not running from any battle, I still made sure to save up the charges for the WIZARDs. They came in a pack of two and accomplished nothing significant before being electrocuted. I could've won with even less than this, really, but I had to do that cash grinding sometime, and it made the most sense to do it as soon as possible.


ASTOS was similarly easy. Enough to warrant resetting until RUB missed, as technically unnecessary as it was. When I got it, he actually didn't use RUB, just attacking for 50 damage instead. Three ICE2s took him down.


By the time all the looting with the Mystic Key was done, I had more than enough money to fund my next spell purchases. FIR3 to all the Black Mages, and...Heal was trickier. Every one of the spells at level 5 has merit. Ultimately, HRM3 has the least viable use - CUR3 I want for healing, HEL2 I want for mass healing and especially since it's as potent as HEL3 in-battle, and LIFE I want for revival, - so I skipped it. That was just the planning, though. The rest of the money really went to buying Silver Bracelets for the three who did not have them.


EARTHs resist Ice and Lit, so I had to use Fire spells on them. The first of many situations where I'd really have to pay attention to resistances. There are generally three kinds of fights in this run.
1) Fights that are not worth it and I want to run from
2) Juicy fights that I can win easily and pay out a lot that are worth fighting
3) Fights I can't run from

I'm obviously hoping for a lot of 1s, with some 2s and 3s on the side. The first trip in only served up one of 3, but was very stingy on the 2s.


One-shot the VAMPIRE with FIR3, out, tunnel, ROD, and back in. Yadda yadda yada.

I forgot to buy SOFTs, and the one I had gotten was thakfully enough. The WIZARDs were relentless on floor four, draining my stocks of level 3 magic almost completely between their showing up often and refusing to go down. One group of three in particular took all three mages' LIT2s to down! Sheesh. This was a recurring trend through the entire variant: one lucky enemy surviving the initial two bursts, so all three end up using their spell charge.

Between this and a lot of fights worth fighting, my stocks were almost shattered. But if going through FFZZ taught me anything though, it's that as long as you save your important levels of magic for the boss fight, you should be generally okay.


Because of that, yeah, what did you think was going to happen here? Lich was destroyed with three casters of FIR3, and a HRM2 to go along with it.

__________

No sense in dragging my feet. Into the Volcano. I want more power before heading into the Ice Cave (LIT3), so we'll do this first, followed by Ordeals, and then Ice Cave.


Well, cleaning up the second floor was a bit tricky. I used enough spell charges that to grab one of the Silver Helmets, I had to fight FIRE with Fire. They're only open to Ice as an element, and I'd used all those charges by then. R.GOYLEs were also annoying and made me retreat once.


The dungeon itself was standard fare. Run over lava, use potions, blow up whatever's in the way. I decided to grab the Flame Armor for selling purposes. This was a mistake, as Burn was killed by the dragon, forcing me to retreat. But it just meant I was at full capacity for KARY.

Now, she's the first real problem of this challenge. She resists all elemental damage...but that's not to say she has no weaknesses. See, she's vulnerable to the Status element. This includes things like SLEP, CONF, SLOW (oddly enough), HOLD, and even..


FEAR. This was something I was doing mostly to pass the turns, since her attack multiplier had been reduced to a single measly hit by SLOW, and with the party well-protected against FIR2 by AFIR, I watched as one, two, three, then all four of Heal's FEARs landed, and KARY ran from the fight shortly thereafter!! The consequence of this is getting only one point of experience and no gold reward. In a word, boo.

Realistically speaking, the best way to go about this fight with this variant would be via HOLD. Enemies only have a 9.8% of recovering from paralysis each turn.

Onto Ordeals! I reset the first trip in when Zap got killed by MudGOLs guarding the chest of money disguised as a Zeus Gauntlet. The second trip went better, until one step before the steps to the highest floor, MANCATs wrecked half my party. Only way to go is forward...


I ran from some NITEMAREs and some MUMMIES, and that took me to the ZombieDs. FIR3, HRM2, FIR2, and that settled things. The trip back in was very uneventful. I ran from some FIR2-tossing monsters several times, and had to use a SOFT when a group of 3 MEDUSAs got Zap, but that's it.


So uneventful, that only Zap had a level 6 spell charge. So I went ahead and harassed the enemies on the Penninsula of Power until everyone hit level 17, giving them all two level-6 shots.

Attempt #1 saw Zap die to IMAGEs, so I reset since I wasn't that far in. On Attempt #2, I realized I didn't have LIT3. Didn't save after getting them, and reset when running the river there. Paddle back, get LIT3, save this time, paddle back, and try again!!


The third attempt was trolled by SORCERERs. Attempt #4 was going well, until the Frost D one-shot a Black Mage. Another was taken down shortly thereafter. With only Burn and Heal up, I cleaned out the rest of the chests, running from a SORCERER pack and a MAGE pack in the process, and took my leave of the cave.

Attempt #5 was very quiet. The EYE died with a pair of LIT3s, and the only encounters of note were two GrPEDEs. They took a while to wear down, but we were never in any danger.


That's it for the midgame, but now, the variant really begins. Like the Brawlers, the Spellslingers have no access to items. No Zeus Gauntlet for unlimited LIT2, no Heal Staff to recover endlessly, no White Shirt to stall with INV2, and so on. In every fight, we must either strike down our opponents with precious spell charges, or decide discretion is the better part of valor and run away.

Next | Index

FF1 Spellslingers Part II

In the Waterfall, there were more MudGOLs, monsters that resist a ton of elements. Earth is not one of them, so the otherwise very silly QAKE spell came out. It's a bit pointless to get this, but there's really little other use for our level-6 spell charges. There's not a lot we can snipe with RUB that doesn't have a better way to go about it (maybe KARY2), and though STUN is nice (auto-succeeding if the enemy does not resist Status if they are under 300HP), we're really better off getting up a defensive line.


The going to the CUBE and first Ribbon was smooth. The Waterfall is short enough so that I could use my spell charges with relative impunity, though I avoided single MudGOL battles due to their being ineffecient. At the end, I fought the MUMMY group as much as I could before EXITing out. Burn kept snuffing it in these fights, irritably.


Everyone hit Level 20 from this venture. I naturally bought ICE3 for the Black Mages. I also got CUR4 and HRM4 for Heal, the latter of which will play an important role later! Thankfully, I don't need to waste money on Gold Bracelets, as between the White Shirt, Black Shirt, and Opal Bracelet, I'll have all the armor I could ask for. Also, check out some of those sell prices.


I went for Sea Shrine Bottom first, for no other reason than to prove I could do so. I had an unfortunate wipe when LOBSTERs went crazy on me. Chil survived, but then got destroyed by GHOSTs. I pondered picking up WARP, but decided it wasn't important enough to warrant with EXIT around. But on the other hand...

It's a tough call, really. WARP is nice, but I decided against getting it. These kinds of situations are pretty much the only times I'd really want one, and I'd thusly want it on all three to account for all possibilities. But I'd be using FIR3 charges throughout most dungeons except for this one, really, so I wouldn't get too many uses out of it. I'd either be deep enough in so that I wouldn't have enough to get out, or would have enough power to manually retreat. It does have a niche use of grabbing a treasure and falling back, but none are really relevant aside from the ProRing/ProCape in the ToFR. Still, I get it for Chil, just in case.


I went ahead anyway into the lower levels, and successfully cleaned out the treasures of the lower floor, but had to EXIT out. Used too many spell charges, and had nothing left for Kraken. And speaking of ProRings, after that, I got Burn one, bringing him to a fair 33 Absorb.


I went into Mirage Tower after this...and even the Sky Castle. I mean, why not? I picked up the third Ribbon, a ProRing, and the White and Black Shirts. I would've gone further if I had enough potions, but I'd forgotten to make a shopping trip. Of what I had to fight, the Blue D fight could've gone better. It's weak to Fire, but I kept getting awful rolls on the damage, so it was slow. I also saw an EYE, that GLANCED Zap, but was LIT3ed to death shortly thereafter.

All this was also as a form of leveling up. I will need to do some hardcore grinding - there's just no way around it for the ToFR - and don't even have my first shot of level 8 spells yet. I don't know how much I'll need to do, but clawing out as much as I could beforehand would help.

The next two fiends weren't going to be a problem, so it was really just a matter of preference which to take on first. I decided on TIAMAT for variety's sake.


While deciding and picking up NUKE for later, one of the games 1/64 encounters accousted me. T REX isn't as terrifying as WarMECH (who actually isn't 1/64 in the NES version), but it's probably scarier than IronGOL. The dinosaur smacked Heal down to 1HP, but I froze it to death shortly after.


Another trip in got me the rest of the treasure, including the ProCape which took Burn to a respectable 51 Absorb. I EXITed out after that and made my way back in. But then


I couldn't help but try to fight it. Even if I was probably going to die And indeed, it wiped out most of my chances right away, by killing Heal. Zap was left with 1HP after a NUCLEAR, and the other two dropped to its big physials.

Well, I have one chance. Every status spell in the game has a 3/256 of success, even against enemies that resist it. WarMECH may resist the Poison/Stone element, but-you know what? Let's skip the formalities and get to my point.


I hate this game. I'm sorry I even tried this, because now what kind of a spot am I in? I either have to get Zap through TIAMAT, or through a plethora of random encounters on the way out. Well, at least it makes for exciting reading.

All the nasty physical attackers plus the possibility of SORCERERs made me press onward. The situation as it stands: we need to BANE TIAMAT. We're out of BRAK, and have only two spell charges. Let's rumble, one-on-one!


Round one saw TIAMAT do a physical. I'd loaded up Zap with all the equipment so this only did 68 damage. Zap's BANE missed.

TIAMAT resists all conventional elements, as well as the Earth from QAKE. There's no resistance to Status, but I wouldn't be able to take out the big dragon with just that, though. It was sink or swim with the next cast.


And Zap swam.

This tomfoolery put him way ahead of everyone else in experience. I'll be coming back later to scrap that robot proper, but seriously - what the hell, game?


The going to KRAKEN was easy, and he even easier. A successful SLO2 crippled his attack multiplier - it's worth noting that said spell is non-elemental, unlike SLOW which is status-elemental. It wouldn't have mattered for this fight anyway, as KRAKEN doesn't resist status. What matters is he couldn't do what he did to Heal anymore, and we were set to LIT3 him down. I gave NUKE a spin for fun because Zap had a charge for it, and he actually delivered the kill with that low roll.

Beyond this lies a bunch of grinding, scrapping a robot formally, and hoping that all these spell charges can last throughout the final dungeon. And if not, well. We did it once before, we can probably do that again.

Next | Index

FF1 Spellslingers Part III

So before jumping in, there's something special about STOP and ZAP! worth mentioning. They're of the Time element. Nothing besides CHAOS himself actually resists it. You can use these spells to fish for paralysis or instant death against anything but the man himself, although magic defense is still a thing...


Anyway, that little demonstration taught me what I knew. Unless I play super conservatively in the final dungeon, I'm not going to make it through to the end. I need to RUN whenever I can. So we need to analyze our options, the bosses vulnerabilities, and so on. Since we will need our NUKEs and FADEs for CHAOS.

For LICH, my best bet is to sling FIR3 or LIT3, with HRM4 on the backup. ICE3 would work best for Kraken I don't have much choice on KARY and TIAMAT but to use the level 8 spells. I can gamble with non-poisonous instant death on the former if I really need to (QAKE having the highest accuracy), and non-quake instant death on the latter (BRAK having the highest accuracy), though the odds are slim.


I first started raising levels at the MUMMY spot in the Waterfall. This seemed to be a good spot, but after that, I decided it was time to hunt the big bad robot.

This resource helped a bit. The encounter order is fixed in FF1, so you can always predict what's coming up next. WarMECH is encounter 7. I happened to arrive on one of the "dry spells", so had to wait a while for encounter number 120 to get one.

It also makes for a good test subject. The robot has 200 Magic Defense, the same as CHAOS. By fighting it, we can get a good estimation of how much we need to beat the final boss.


Heal up, and begin! The robot gets a pre-emptive, smacking Burn for 202 damage. Zap NUKEs for 382, Chil NUKEs for 314, Heal FADEs for only 98. WarMECH goes next and hits Zap for 187


One more NUKE for 284, and that's that. Destroyed in one round. Umm...wow. My Black Wizards would not calm down. Pretty unrealistic to expect that much every time, though.

After another Waterfall grinding session, I made my first real attempt at the Temple at Level 28 (29 for Zap), with 3 spell charges at level 8. I ran from everything I could up to LICH, fighting the PHANTOM (FIR2 until dead), four Zombie Ds (FIR2/HRM2), and a WORM (LIT3 until dead)


LICH got off a NUKE that one-shot Zap. I was able to formulate a strategy for KARY: AFIR, SLOW/SLO2, and plink her down with ICE2 (a level of spell I probably won't be using much of).


And...KRAKEN. The bad news is, he could devastate me if he landed a physical. SLOW/SLO2 seems too unlikely to depend on. The good news is, if I get up a FOG2 wall, I'm fairly well-protected, and should be able to make it through if at least one BW and Heal survives. Even in this fight, two of them went down at the start, but the last one up was able to wear him down with ICE3, LIT3, ICE2, and finishing with this NUKE.


The best way to go about TIAMAT seemed to be one round of NUKE/FADE, followed by cleaning up with whatever spells I had left. And yes, HP counting is useful; lets you do things like this. Unfortunately for me, hope of trying to beat it right here right now were dashed when the BANE landed on the unprotected Chil. I was out of LIFE.

Okay, that was more of a test run than anything else. Still, that taught me two things. First, wow that run was lucky on the unrunnable luck. Besides the two already mentioned, I believe only a group of FIREs forced me to fight. Second, I felt that with just a little more juice, I might be able to take down CHAOS. Indeed, there may not be any need for the max of 9 charges, thankfully. With this, I EXITed out.


Level 30 is when I hit 4 NUKE/FADE charges, and Level 33 is when I hit 5. I _should_ be able to make do with 4, though if I fail enough times, I'll go up to 5. I leveled up by running the ToFR as wastefully as possible repeatedly, not using any potions at all during them and leaving when I was out of resources. I reached Level 30 on everyone before too long. I got as far as KARY on one trip, who I had to NUKE down when she killed two BWs. Another notable incident was a BADMAN who survived two NUKEs.


Then we were ready, after many false starts. LICH's NUKE was extremely cruel, taking down half the team, but we were able to rebuild. I got the SLO2 on KARY, which was good. I pulled out XXXX to deal the finishing blow to her. How that spell works is that it inflicts guaranteed instant death if the target does not resist the death element and is under 300HP. The fiends are protected from instant death in a way via their high magic defense, but only LICH has an actual death-element resist. And KRAKEN played nice, only killing one person.


...unfortunately, the game paid me back for that 3/256 earlier on WarMECH, with TIAMAT landing a BANE on the Ribboned Heal (as well as Chil). Burn and Zap were able to take the Dragon easily from there with NUKEs, several ICE3s and LIT3s, finishing it with an XXXX, but this was just gg. The only thing left to do was go down fighting, which they did by taking out half of CHAOS' health. I tried to rerepay the game with QAKE and BANE after the CUR4, but no such luck this time.


Also, it was just when looking at that this I realized Chil did not have the Black Shirt. I swear he did. Must've given it to him and forgotten to save. Oh well, he does now on future runs! It'll make running from Frost Ds easier, and make the PHANTOM a total nonthreat now.


Next run, I accidentally went EXIT instead of LIFE after LICH. Oh well, I only gained there. Save, restock, and another attempt. LICH died on round 1, SLO2 on KARY, perfect KRAKEN aside from a finishing ICE3 doing not enough damage to kill him wasting another spell charge...and the NUKEs and FADE rolled low on TIAMAT. Two BWs went down. I was out of potions, due to too many multi-hit moves on the first floors and an incident where WATERs killed two BWs. Couldn't think of a better way to put that fight in an image than a useless successful MUTE - because that exemplifies this fight: stupid.

I healed and pushed through anyway, belatedly realizing LIF2 was an option. Though it didn't matter, because CHAOS killed the unprotected Chil. Not enough charges to get through his 2000HP.


Next attempt saw Heal die to KARY. In response, I XXXX'd her and rampaged back through the temple, since I did buy WARP earlier for Chil. Hey, guess it had a use after all. And yeah, see how you like it. Jerk. At this rate, I might get Zap his fifth level-8 spell charge before finishing.

But yeah. XXXX is fun to use, but I probably won't be employing it unless I do get those fifth spell-charges.

__________


Next time, I ran into Frost D and BADMEN before the PHANTOM. The former got off one BLIZZARD and the latter a few physicals, no problem. The eye monster itself survived the FIR3s I threw at it, so I used some FIR2s next to seal the deal. 89 potions left after this, so far so good.


Two of a three-pack ZombieD group after this survived HRM2/FIR2x3. I finished them off, then had to burn down a FrGiant/FrWOLF group. Before heading to the earth floor, I saw two more Frost D groups, which I ran from before they could do anything.


The only notable thing that happened before LICH was a MudGOL swinging at me. He NUKEd me again, and got this very VERY rude max-damage hit on Chil. He thankfully went with STOP on round 2, preventing further casualties. 49 potions left after that affair.


KARY got off FIR3 before Heal could get off AFIR, so Chil got burned. I landed the SLOW on the first round though, so no complaining. As was the plan, I plinked her down with lower level magic as Heal ran minor healing duty with spells. 38 potions left after this fight.


A WATER group I ran into played nice, only inflicting 6 potions worth of damage. I went down to 25 to make sure I was full for KRAKEN. He smacked down Chil with this critical on the first round, and tried to do the same to Burn a few rounds later, but between his higher Absorb and the FOG2s, he survived. I called a LIT3 or INK, using CUR2, but he finished the job next turn. Zap finished KRAKEN, and two LIFE spells and 21 potions got me back in the game.


I got chance to strike first vs. a WzVAMP and VAMPIREs before TIAMAT. This time, I got good results, knocking off 977 of the dragon's 1100 HP with the initial barrage. He replied by smacking down Zap, and damaging Heal heavily on the next turn, before dying. The last four potions went to Chil, Heal used a CUR4 on Zap, and two CUR2s and a CUR3 for self-healing. One guaranteed run from AIRs later, it was time.


Final battle time again. After deliberation, I decided to play it safe and throw up the WALL on Chil. I didn't regret it. The first three NUKEs took Chaos to 1512 HP. This could be bad...


Next barrage didn't go much better. Chil NUKEd for 290, but the others did pitiful damage. 840 left to clear, but he at least hadn't started his spell progression. Next turn changed that with an ICE3.

Here came my spells. Burn for 258. Good! Zap for 242. Gooood!! Heal for 85. Bad!! Chil for 197! Acceptable! Out of the nonelemental magic, but he has only 58 HP left!


This final pair of ICE3s did him in, granting the Spellslingers victory.

So yes, it looks like it's possible to beat FF1 without any item use or physical attack, relying only on magic for damage. I was worried I'd need to resort to leveling to insane heights for enough spell charges, but a bit of creative defense against KARY made that not an issue. The early going was a bit tricky, and I did need to play at least somewhat conservatively as so not to run out of ammo. But all in all, this variant was on the easy side.

The physical classes may be strong as the Brawlers demonstrated, but the magical classes are more than capable of holding their own. It's a bit of a shame that Intelligence is bugged in the NES version of game and does not work. Had it worked...well. Going over it better later than never, spells work with the following formula.

Hit Rate = 148 + Accuracy - Magic Defense

It then uses a lookup table, with values from 0-200. If it's 0, it registers a hit no matter what (which is how those 3/256 status spells landed), and if it's 200, it registers a miss no matter what. If the spell is a resisted element, it registers a miss unless 00 is rolled. If the spell is a weak element, add +40. If the number generated is less than or equal to the chance to hit, the spell succeeds or does double damage.

INT varies based on version, but what most patches do for the NES version is add it to the hit rate, increasing the odds of double damage/status spell success. Other versions add to the damage that spells do. If that was meant to happen, then they'd be more than capable of keeping up with the physical classes, and the Red Wizard (sporting less INT) would be noticeably weaker than the monochrome mages late-game.


So yeah, that's it. Thanks for reading.

Index

FF4 Solo Edge Part I

(art by koushi rokushiro)

The hotheaded prince of Eblan, Edward "Edge" Geraldine, is a combination of the series' thief and ninja classes. The Throw command makes its formal debut with him, after Shruikens were present as consumable weapons in FF3. It has the notable trait of ignoring all manner of defenses the enemy has. Its damage formula is simply Level * WP + Random (0-98).

Steal is a weird one. The chance to steal is 1/20 if the target's level is over Edge's. If not, the formula is 4*(Edge's Level - Enemy's Level)/100. And yes, that does mean the odds are actually less if Edge is less than or equal to the enemy's level. There's a chance to take damage if the steal fails. The item stolen is always the first item on the drop list of the enemy. He can steal repeatedly from the same enemy. There's an interesting bug in the SNES version where, if the item you steal is a weapon or shield and is the first of its kind in your inventory, you may equip the next character to take a turn with the item. This doesn't work on GBA, nor do I believe it works with Edge alone.

Finally, there's Ninjutsu. Edge has a magic command all to himself, with six spells in this version. He begins with Flame, a fire-elemental attack with 80 power. He gains Flood and Blitz through the story, 120 and 160 power respectively and of the ice and lightning elements. Through leveling, he can gain Smoke (escapes from battle), Pin (Paralysis), and Image (a self-cast Blink).


Edge begins at what for most parties is the pathetic level of 25. For us, it's the absurd level. This is probably why he levels up faster than any other character in the game...not that it's good design to begin with, anyway. His Agility may not impress that much when you just look at it, but it's the highest of all the characters. Strength and Stamina, likewise, aren't as good as they look on-paper. The magic stats are lowish, which IS a factor, as Intellect is used with Ninjutsu.


With this in mind, all of the early game was pathetic. I'll spare you the details. Mist Dragon was dead in one hit, the guards in one Flame, Octomammoth survived for a while and only lost three tentacles before dying accomplishing nothing significant, Antlion died in two attacks. He couldn't kill Mombomb before it blew up, but he could take out all the little bombs in a single Flame. The Fabul battles were similarly not worth talking about.


The first battle that was even remotely scary was Scarmiglione. His drones died in a single Flame, but his Thunder barrage did manage to threaten Edge. Not enough to actually kill him, but it was something. Meanwhile, his undead form just died under a flurry of attacks, only getting in a single attack that whiffed against Edge's evasion.

Liliths on the mountain were the first interesting opponent in regards to Steal. They give up Kiss of Liliths, which act like Osmose, only twice as potent. Not a bad pickup. Enemies do have MP in this game, but they rarely ever run out of it.


I didn't do this as Palom, but did do so as Edge. The Dark Knight only has around 4400HP, so this is quite doable normally. It was even easier for Edge, who either dodged the Dark Wave or found out it was single target, and killed Cecil's dark side.


After arriving in Baron and making a solo exception to defeat Yang, Edge made a trip to Mist to pick up Dancing Daggers. These babies are...actually, better than what he has equipped? Wasn't expecting that. Edge liked them so much he bought seven.


Baigan wasn't anything special. After the body was down, Edge was able to kill the Right Arm before it selfdestructed. As for Cagnazzo...I'd planned to throw those Dancing Daggers at the shell form. It turned out to be unnecessary, because Edge was able to break through its evasion with his regular attacks and do enough damage for the kill.


The Magnetic Cave was up next, and Edge's katanas, while received long past the point of relevancy, are considered magnetic. While Claws are typically associated with Yang, Edge can use them as well. The Fairy Claw in the cave itself was of particular interest. Some weapons do extra damage - four times, in fact - against monsters of a certain species. The Fairy Claw really lays the smackdown against giants.

Edge also suffered his first wipe in this cave, to a Cait Sith casting Blaster on him. Bleh. He was at least able to get a measure of revenge on the reset, confusing one with the Fairy Claw and having it cast Blaster on itself.


The Dark Elf...Edge intentionally got himself pigged here. Nothing special against him; Edge could just overpower his weak physical defenses. The Dark Dragon had an Hourglass thrown at it to render it helpless, then beaten to death.

Before heading to Zot, Edge bought some more knives, and also made a trip to his castle. He was able to destroy the Mad Ogres with the Fairy Claw, and took out the Couerls and Lamia without incident. He had to pass on the Skuldiers and Steel Golem, though. Oh sure, he COULD do it with Fairy Claw for the latter and Flame for the former, but that would mean removing Piggy.


Claws, while providing no bonuses to raw attack, are really nice on Edge to expose elemental and racial weaknesses. This Fiery Hound? Dancing Dagger + Ice Claw put it to sleep. Zot was the first place where the leveling curve caught up to Edge, but it just meant a few Hi-Potions every three battles or so.

The Magus Sisters' Delta Attack gave Edge a measure of protection in the latter half of the fight once Cindy was taken care of - Edge had a wall to protect against Sandy's status moves. Which actually wouldn't have worked anyway due to Pig and status priorities.


And Barbariccia, Edge completely took a dump on. I actually miscalculated something - apparently, gradual petrify ignores status priorities in this version. Edge couldn't equip the Gaia Gear...but then something funny happened. Barbie hit Edge with all these Rays, and yet he was no closer to being petrified than he was. As it turns out, gradual petrify is also different in this version in how it takes much more time/gradual petrify attacks to advance to the next stage. It's kind of hard to tell in this version, since it's just a paralysis-like effect graphically instead of showing the victim partially petrified.

I was sure about was my offensive strategy all along, though. Throw ignores her evasion, so Edge tossed out a bunch of knives and obliterated her. A Hi-Potion after every Tornado...I tried to steal Decoys, but the puppets (Level 22) kept detecting Edge. Bleh. Ninjutsu was out because Piggy - which may or may not have been pointless - prevented him from using Blink. Which he hadn't even learned yet, because he was only Level 37.

Ironic - the soloist who started at a higher level than any of the rest is now lower leveled than the rest so far. Not for running away either, nor for experience curve - as mentioned, Edge levels faster than anyone else. Also, I summed it up with just a dozen images - because he's just that good. Will Edge's dominance continue? Turn the page to find out!

Next | Index

FF4 Solo Edge Part II

Edge made a side-diversion to the Old Waterway before heading to the Underworld. He threw some Spider's Silk at Baron Guards, prompting them to respond with Pig. I apparently was wrong in Palom's report - another boss that does not have the boss bit are these Calco dolls - but not the Brina dolls. An Hourglass locked them down.

In an embarassing moment though, I'd forgotten to reequip Edge's armor, having removed it to allow Pig to be inflicted more easily due to less magic defense. Made the fight harder than it should've been. In a change from the SNES version, Golbez actually seems invincible before Mist Dragon appears? I don't know what was up here, since I swear Palom was able to attack him physically before. Not even Throw could hit Golbez. So no Rydialess this time. The fight was easy enough at least; Edge just had to guzzle a few Hi-Potions to make it through.


The Tower of Babel provided a source of Sirens. I'm probably not going to use them, since getting the Adamant Armor once was painful enough. But hey, doesn't hurt to have them around, in case I change my mind. All 40 of the ones I obtained.

A lot of the enemies in here were interesting fights. Chimera/White Mousse groups could be dealt with by stabbing the Chimera and Flaming the Mousse - the other order didn't work due to Chimeras absorbing Fire and using a strong Flame when alone. There were also a lot of enemies vulnerable to either an elemental or racial attack.

bb
Edge had two ways of dealing with Barnabas and Lugae. He ended up doing both after dying to Lugaeborg, but I'll get to him in a moment. The first was to go to the back row to reduce damage, throw knives at the robot until it was at low HP, then knife Lugae to death. The subsequent explosion would then be fairly harmless. The second, and easier, was to cast Flame until they died together.

I slipped up against Lugaeborg - he is, in fact, Lugaeborg. He's a mech, meaning Edge would've been able to equip the Thunder Claw to do heavy damage against him. The first time, Edge was flatlined by a 1300 damage Laser. The second go at him, Edge was able to do enough damage in enough time to render the attack (which is based off his current HP) harmless. With Prisoner's Wear to protect against sleep, the ninja won out.


The Eblan Cave provided Edge with a new weapon. I could've gotten it earlier from Agart, but forgot they sell those because who ever shops there? The Boomerang is of the Wind/Throw element, and can be used from the back row. Again, there's a bug in the game where technically anything but bows can be used from the back row (and in the original release of GBA, nothing could be used from the back row), but I'm not abusing it. Nevertheless, Edge made the switch anyway. They weren't that much weaker than his Dancing Daggers, and it made him take MUCH less damage. It was also effective on floating enemies, such as these bats.


I figured Edge might be able to survive Rubicante's attack. Just watch this video to see what happens, because a lot of weird stuff happens. Idly, in the SNES version, the battle's script apparently loops instead of doing what it does here.


Paralysis, ugh. After this encounter, Edge started pulling out Pin against counterattacking enemies. Granted, with extra attack from not having the Boomerangs, he actually was able to one-shot the offenders. The Boomerangs and back row made for a good defensive combination, though.


Rubicante was a really fun fight. Before this battle, Edge learns Flood and Blitz. The former turned out to be more damaging than an Ahura + Ice Claw combo, so to the back row it was. Rubicante counters physical attacks with Fira. Edge's strategy was to attack with Flood when his cloak was open, and heal when it was not.

I used a few Elixirs here, which were probably ill-spent. I also experimented around with Image, since Rubicante attacks with physicals when the robe is closed. It just wasn't worth it. He counters with Fira when physically attacked, so attacking during that downtime wasn't worth it, either. Edge died once here, to a Scorch that did close to his max HP in damage. He got him the second formal try at the battle, though!!


With the Trap Doors lying ahead, Edge had to figure out how he was going to approach them. After some tests, I found my simple answer - just throw stuff at the problem. I did have to set the battle speed to 6, just so I could sift through the menus fast enough to get off the needed attacks before they used Ninth Dimension.

Edge threw out two Shruiken and attacked the first, threw a Sleep Blade and attacked once to finish the second, and used the Blood Sword plus two regular attacks to take out the third that blocked him. As for the Demon Wall, some Spider's Silk, a pair of Hermes Sandles, and repeatedly attacking put it to rest.


The enemies in the Sylvan Cave generally weren't worth fighting. Edge could defeat a Bog Witch by Flooding out the frogs and attacking. Most other enemies called for falling back, What it did have for Edge was some nice pickups. The Full Moon is a much stronger Boomerang, the Avenger is a strong weapon to throw, and the Mage Masher is a mild upgrade that does huge damage on Mages.


Asura is classified as a Mage. Once I wised up and actually healed in the battle, the fight was a breeze. Who needs Reflect? Mage Masher is very viable even when at lower levels.

The path to her was pretty nasty. Edge had to equip a Diamond Armlet to avoid being two-shot by Thunder Dragons, whose Blitz does half the victim's max HP unless they resist lightning, in which case it does 1/10th. Bloody Eyes could stunlock Edge, though the Prisoner's Wear prevented this from working. Both were at least easy prey for the Full Moon. Edge also picked up a weapon upgrade in the Kikuchimonji along the way.


Kikuchimonji + Thunder Claw did more damage to Leviathan than Blitz, so Edge went in physically on the sea serpent. It took two Elixirs to get the job done, all two that Edge had on him. They were barely enough to get Edge through the battle. That combination also beat Odin.


Before moving on, Edge ran a few errands. These are some of the hardest-to-find enemies in the game; for some reason, they are only found on a three-step penninsula at the west side of the Underground, or the very southernmost part of the Sylvan Cave continent. Speculate about that as you will. Whatever the case, they made a great source of Spider's Silks to steal. Edge also completed the quest for the Knife; a single-shot 255 attack power throwing weapon.

The Behemoths in Bahamut's Cave are purely physical beasts aside from their Maelstrom counters in response to Holy damage. For Palom they were a problem, but with Edge, I could simply cast Image and laugh off the attacks. Edge also found a set of Genji equipment in this cave. Only the helmet was of particular use to him. Didn't want to kill his evasion or anything.


Conveniently, a Lunar Curtain dropped from a Lunar Virus right before I entered the cave. After trying to get away with not using it, Edge threw it up to render Bahamut's Mega Flare moot.


Every enemy in the Giant of Babel is classified as a mech, including the Last Arm. Edge took it out before any stunlocking nonsense could happen, claiming an Elixir - which would happen to be the only one he would have on him for the four fiends, because I am stupid and forgot to buy more.


All told, this was a very interesting fight. Edge could hit the elemental weaknesses of Scarmigilione, Rubicante, and Cagnazzo using the Fire, Ice, and Thunder Claws respectively. The fire lord was the trickiest this time around: he killed Edge twice using Scorch. I had to throw out some Spider's Silk, use that one Elixir, and pray a bit, but eventually was able to move on.

Barbarricia called for more eloquence in execution, due to not being able to exploit her Holy weakness. Edge was able to use Image to protect against the physicals, completely ignoring the fact that he was at critical HP from Maelstrom. With a Gold Needle to counter the odd Ray, he was able to put this one to rest.

Finally, the CPU. I forgot to get off a Spider's Silk before Reflect, but since Hi-Potions could outrace Piercing Laser's 1/10th HP damage for eternity, Edge was in no danger at all during the fight. He completed this leg of the game at Level 62.

Next | Index

FF4 Solo Edge Part III

Into the Lunar Subterrane it is. Edge has more to gain from doing it before the Cave of Trials. The first opponent to knock off, once I was done dying to monsters in boxes I really shouldn't have opened, was the White Dragon. It guards Edge's Murasame. It notably casts Protect when used as an item, and gives +5 to Strength, Stamina, and Intelligence, though penalizes the other two stats by 5.

This was basically Barbarricia all over again. Image up, and it could never hit me regardless of how often it tried Maelstrom. It countered physicals with Slow, so in its favor, it at least remained on neutral ground in that regard after Spider's Silk...


To obtain the Masamune - which, like in FF2, casts Haste when used as an item - Ogopogo is the opponent. Beating him was just a matter of healing with Elixirs as necessary, while keeping up Image. It gives a +3 to Agility, which doesn't quite offset Murasame's penalty, but is nice anyway.


At this point, and after some more testing, I decided to leave. But not before making one last trip to get something I missed near the start. These Giant Warriors got wrecked by the Fairy Claw, and Edge claimed his ultimate armor.


Completing the Excalibur side-quest actually has a purpose for Edge. It gives him a supply of Shruiken to buy. Most of which he would not be buying at the moment, because they are insanely expensive. He actually had quite a few problems with money...I never noticed it until this playthrough, but the difficulty really spikes when you get to the Moon. Edge was having trouble with the randoms. Which meant no money.


As I told a friend of mine in midst of playing, Edge then proceeded to defang an unborn baby dragon so that he would later be able to kill a pair of long-dead skeletal dragons. But before that, it was time for the Cave of Trials.


Gigas Worm was pathetically easy. Image locked it down so that only its weak Vampire was of any significance. T-Rex was similary neutered. Master Flan continued to be an obnoxious problem.

Just know this: it took an hour of attempts to get by him. I had to go and fight an additional battle against a Golden Toad to mess with the RNG, then enter the fight. If I didn't, Edge would always die to the first Flare. With it, he would always survive the first Flare. Really messed up. The Mage Masher at least allowed him to completely tear through the master.


Once it was dead, Edge truimphantly left, came back with Yang and Cid in tow, and massacred the other two. Death Mech is a mech, so Thunder Claw allowed Edge to do over 8000 damage with every attack. Storm Dragon called for some heavy offense at the start to weaken its non-critical Tornadoes (which are based off its HP), and some healing to help with the critical Tornadoes and Maelstroms.


Before heading back to the Moon, Edge robbed one of these things of its many hammers to sell for some cash. Plague was just a matter of equipping the Full Moon (to go after its weakness to Wind) and Masamune and attacking. And also making sure I actually had strength-boosting equipment on for the attack multiplier.


And now the reason why I got all those Blue Fangs. The Lunarsaurs counter physicals by changing their AI scripts to one consisting of casting Reflect on themselves and using Bio repeatedly. This does not trigger with magic or items, so Edge was free to cover them in silk, Haste up with the Masamune, and throw out his fangs. A Red Fang I picked up from the Flan Princess room in particular did 4000+ damage to each one. The Blue Fangs did about half as much, assuming Edge was at max HP.

That just left Dark Bahamut. While it was possible to beat him, it would've meant farming Elixirs. So Edge didn't do it just yet.


And speaking of which, the five Elixirs (technically four plus a may-as-well-be-one Megalixir) Edge had on him were not enough to beat Zeromus. I even had him try throwing out Excalibur and the Holy Lance; they were not enough to push Edge through. So that meant backtracking. He entertained himself by fighting some Flan Princesses. They took ages to beat, but Edge could get the job done eventually. It ultimately made me skip searching for the Pink Tail, however.


With four more in his stocks, Edge was able to make it through. He threw four Fuma Shruikens towards the end of the battle, in attempt to push Zeromus through from his throwing out Flare to his desperation Meteors. It worked. None of the weak Meteors landed.

Incidentally, due to my streaming this runthrough (now mostly lost to the depths of time in twitch) and not wanting to mess around with the randolevels, Edge retained his position of lowest level solo to make it this far, sitting on 70. The main game is done, but the postgame is still there. How will Edge fare, I wonder...? Only one way to find out.

Next | Index

FF4 Solo Edge Part IV

I made a solo exception to kill Zeromus a second time, opening access to the rest of the trials without having to go through the hassle of beating him three more times. Since Edge will be going over Level 70 in this final leg of the game, it seems appropriate to open with his post-70 stat growths.


~ -1 Str, -1 Agi, ±0 Sta, -1 Int, ±0 Spi
~ +1 Str, ±0 Agi, +1 Sta, ±0 Int, ±0 Spi
~ +1 Str, ±0 Agi, ±0 Sta, ±0 Int, ±0 Spi
~ ±0 Str, +1 Agi, ±0 Sta, ±0 Int, ±0 Spi
~ +1 Str, +1 Agi, ±0 Sta, +1 Int, ±0 Spi
~ +1 Str, +1 Agi, ±0 Sta, +1 Int, ±0 Spi
~ +2 Str, ±0 Agi, +2 Sta, ±0 Int, ±0 Spi
~ ±0 Str, +3 Agi, ±0 Sta, +3 Int, ±0 Spi


The last two are definitively the best. The first and the two identical ones are acceptable, though. Edge's base stats are kind of lacking, though. For the maximum strength alongside his upcoming equipment, we need at least 25 Strength. On the other hand, our offense against ZEG will (probably) consist of thrown items, and if we go with that, we can use a Hero's Shield for leniancy.


This time, I decided to get all the leveling and collecting out of the way before jumping into the bosses. Two new legendary katanas can be found in the ruins. The former gives +10 to Agility and Stamina, and the latter gives +10 to Strength and Spirit, and also casts Blink when used as an item.


In the second town in the ruins, these are accessible as well. Assassin Vest is very nice. It not only bestowes 90 Evasion, but has decent pure defenses as well. Protecting against Paralysis is very nice, as the Ribbon does not do so for some reason. The Rising Sun is the next level up from the Full Moon, and gives +10 to Agility, because why not?

Note the Assassin Dagger. This is not something Edge can equip, strangely enough - despite the fact that he can use its unused variant. It's about what you'd expect, but it can be used as a ridiculously overpriced thrown item.

It's worth noting that attack caps at 255. This could be reached even with the Rising Sun and one of the new katanas.


Here's Edge's raw stats once I hit level 99. His stats at level 70 are 59/54/47/34/25. He thusly gained 26 Strength, 32 Agility, 14 Stamina, and 31 Intellect. It's nice that he hit 64 on that last one, as it gives another offensive multiplier. Shame about the Stamina, though. With equipment, the first three stats would be 99/99/88 respectively, and Spirit is upped by 10


The Monk Brigade meant pulling out the Blue Fangs again. Their high magic defense rules out Ninjutsu as an option, but these ignore magic defense and do just fine. Edge had 99% evasion, and much like Alice in the Magicians Playthrough in FF2, absolutely nothing could touch him physically.


Nothing special about Lunar Titan. Lunar Shiva got taken out with the Fire Claw. Note that just about every boss saw a combination of Masamune and Spider's Silk get used. This includes Lunar Dragon, who casts Slow on you. Before that, Ifrit and Shiva got elemental claws. The other two have no special tricks or elemental weaknesses, so they just got beaten up.


After Edge got taken out by a Holy from Lunar Odin, I decided to take the easy way out for the sheer thrill of it. This is what it looks like, since I didn't show it last time. Note that Lunar Asura, unlike her counterpart, is not a Mage. She also has different counterattacks when it comes to physical blows, that I forgot to write down. As long as Edge stayed away from the Blizzaga counters, he had no problem.


Just like Lunar Shiva, Edge's own boss, Lunar Ifrit, was able to be victimized by a claw.

The reward for defeating him is the Hanzo Gloves. Many of the Lunar Ruins items upgrade certain characters' commands, and for Edge, this changes Steal into Plunder. If a Steal is successful, Edge will execute an Attack command after. This isn't very helpful, in some cases even counterproductive. You sometimes will want to avoid damaging an enemy as so to repeatedly steal items from it. And unlike later games' Mug command, the attack only occurs if the steal is successful rather than the two being independent, so it's not a command you can substitute for your regular attack. And what's worse are its stats.

- Protect Ring's stats: 10 Def/15 Eva/12 MDf/10 MEv, +10 Sta, Resist Fire/Ice/Lightning
- Hanzo Gloves' stats: 15 Def/0 Eva/8 MDf/6 MEv

5 extra defense is not worth all that. Especially considering he won't ever be getting hit by most physicals anyway!


Edge simply had enough HP and defense to tank anything Lunar Bahamut tried to do to him. Mega Flares only did this much, and physicals around 100. Total walkover. What was not a walkover was Lunar Ramuh, who would counter with Thundaga for 1000 every time Edge attacked. He had to dip into the Elixir stash every now and then on both fights, but moreso the latter one.


Lunar Leviathan was another victim of the claw.


I didn't run into Brach when heading to ZEG, and didn't feel like going for him this time. Edge was finally able to make use of the items he'd been saving up to throw against ZEG, including two Assassin Daggers. The Grimoires locked him down and made sure he couldn't do anything, ever. Check out the video, which apparently made my computer throw a hissy fit with the audio. They really are brokenly powerful, though given the alternative is the HP Leak + Critical combo, it's kind of a wash.

__________

[04:51:23] {darknil} honestly soloing that game with anything that isn't Tellah or maybe Edge is going to steamroll it.

Well, I guess I disproved the latter notion, eh? Edge genuinely surprised me with his versatility. He can do a bit of magic, stealing lets him easily do things no one else can without tedious amounts of grinding, he can stall out physical attackers with Image, he has high speed and the ability to give himself Haste and the enemies Slow at will...and when all else fails, just start throwing things.

I knew full well going into Edge that he was anything but a suicidal choice. Up next is a character who may or may not be suicidal. There's also a reason to do it on PSP that I've brought up vaguely before...if I'm not lazy, that is.

Index

FF4 Solo Rosa Part I

(art by kara)

Rosa Farrell is one of Final Fantasy IV's two White Mages. A damsel-in-distress for two portions of the game and Cecil's lover, she is nonetheless quite an interesting character. She also has traits of the series' archer classes, due to her talents with the bow.

White Magic is much like you would expect - a variety of support and healing spells, along with the Holy spell learned very late. Next up is Pray. It has a 50% chance of casting a Cure spell on the party, and a 50% chance of doing nothing at all. This is...not a good command, generally speaking. Later on in the Lunar Ruins, this becomes more useful when it gets upgraded to Miracle via the White Ring. It gets a 50% chance of casting a Cura spell, and a 50% chance of casting Curaga and Esuna in one package. This is a decent command!!

Finally, there's her signature ability - Aim. This command executes a physical attack, but sets the target's evasion to 0, and Rosa's hit rate to 255. This is very important for Rosa in this version of the game, due to the bug with the back row I was talking about. Bows, despite being a back row weapon, will suffer the back row penalty anyway - whether you're on 1.0 or 1.1. 127% against 0 evasion is still essentially a perfect hit rate, fortunately. Really, the only bad thing is that I have to scroll to it each time.


Just showing this picture to show off how the first few scenes aren't programmed to handle having characters besides Cecil showing. It's even more broken if I try to take Rosa into the bedroom scene, and actually softlocks the game!!


Rosa's stats...her Strength isn't half-bad. She's certainly capable of using it. But her limited amount of ammo for this stage of the game and no way to get more arrows until reaching Kaipo, meant she had to run away from more than a few battles.


And indeed. The simple Mist Dragon fight, featured plinking it for 20-25 damage at a time each time. She actually ran out in the middle of this fight, and had to finish them off with her bare hands. Luckily, Hold made this trivial.


Rosa's iffy attack continued into the Kaipo waterway. It took 3-4 arrows to kill even the most basic of enemies for this stage of the game. Not worth fighting. What she had no problem with, however, are these Zombies. Simple healing spells spelled the end of them.

Also, I lied earlier. Pray came in handy when traveling to conserve MP. Even if it was MP Rosa wasn't really using anyway.


Interestingly, the Octomammoth's losing its tentacles is based on the number of hits it takes, rather than the damage it has taken. This meant Rosa would have to deal with a slow (especially after-slow), hard-hitting beast.

This is a good time to talk about the Protect spell. It's pretty simple: each cast increases the user's Defense by 5, up to a maximum of 255. It took several casts of the spell, but eventually, Octomammoth was more or less simply tickling her when it tried to attack.


Rosa picked up upgrades for her weapons in Damcyan, although preferred to save the Arrows until a later period of time when she would be able to make better use out of the presented limited 20-of-them.

Antlion was not one of those times. In order to get the Sand Ruby to cure her own desert fever, Rosa had to deal with this thing's counterattacks. On the SNES version, her Aim would not provoke its counters due to a bug. That's fixed on this version, so she had to plow through its...16 or so damage Counter Horns. No deal at all.


This time, I had a character who didn't have it in them to win before the bombs could start exploding. Rosa cast Hold on one of the Gray Bombs after weakening another, and with that, was able to outlast them.

Rosa busted out the Holy Arrows for the Fabul battle sequence. They were highly effective on the Leshies in particular, due to their getting extra racial damage against Spirits. For some reason, the marines (but not the generals) resist the Holy element, so Rosa switched over to Iron Arrows agianst them.


If you were expecting anything less than complete domination from a white mage heading up the undead heavy Mt. Ordeals, you don't know anything. Rosa's preferred method of attack, however, was her arrows. They gained a racial bonus against the undead/spirits AND an elemental bonus for hitting their holy weakness. Cure spells weren't preferred, due to the Spirits actually being healed by them.

Liliths were the only thing that did not get two-shot by Rosa. They also had a problematic counter in their paralyzing Slaps. Rosa could deal with them by casting Berserk. Although classified as a buff spell as far as targetting is concerned, it's perfectly usable on the enemies.


Scarmiglione part 1, Rosa double cast Slow for maximum effectiveness, then took out three of the Skulnauts before setting on him. In Part 2, he's weak to both Holy and Wind. So Rosa's arrows hurt like hell.

The Baron Guards before Yang threw an unexpected wrench into the plans. Rosa had to go in with status magic to prevent them from countering her attacks with Mini. The Old Waterway beyond was interesting for the Electrofish, who are inexplicably weak to Wind. Rosa's arrows were highly damaging to them.

Nothing fancy about Baigan. Slow before he can get his Reflect up, take out the Left Arm to prevent Entangle, plink away at him until he falls, then survive the Right Arm's explosion.


And back the truck up, it's Cagnazzo. If you've read Sullla's solo Cecil and/or Sofis' solo Kain games, you know full well what he's capable of. Survival wasn't the problem for Rosa. A Cura easily washed away the damage from Tsunami, The problem was outdamaging him when he reached just over 600HP, where he would retract into his shell and began restoring HP, 531 at a time. Her average damage was 130. At least Aim mitigates his increased evasion.

Using Slow/Spider's Silk and a Hermes Sandles didn't help. Rosa was still left unable to do enough damage in enough time to get by. What's a girl to do?


Well, how about this? These Hydras in the Waterway drop Poison Arrows, both as their semi-rare and rare drop. If we get our miracle worker hands on some, we should be able to do more damage and take him out before he can heal! The increased power Poison Arrows bring to the table help; throw in the attack multipliers we'll be getting from the extra levels, and it should be enough.

Fighting the Hydras was somewhat tricky, due to their using Entangle. They could endlessly lock Rosa in a cycle of paralysis. She countered this by using Confuse, which would make them attack themselves. Both resetting their AI pattern and letting her kill them with an arrow from there.


A few levels later, Rosa had an attack multiplier of 6 if she equipped a Twist Headband and Kenpo Gi. The Poison Arrows eventually did drop; they nearly doubled her attack.


And that's all there was to it. After triggering the shell switchover the first time, Rosa threw a couple Spider's Silk at Cagnazzo. She then continued to shoot until Tsunami was doing just over 30 damage - representing his HP. She then switched to the Poison Arrows and let loose.

With the airship come new places and things to see. A new bow - the Great Bow - and three new flavors of arrows - Fire, Ice, and Lightning - were available in Troia. Coming off Edge's game, you should know what the last three are capable of doing for us.


There were two ways to proceed through the Magnetic Cave. The easy way, which consisted of shooting Holy Arrows at most of the opposition (something I actually didn't catch on to until the walk out). And the ~_♥-FUN WAY-♥_~ where she would, for example, throw out Confuse on the likes of those Cait Sith to get them to Blaster their team, and Mini on the Ogres to cripple them


Holy Arrows made a fatal mockery of the Dark Elf and Dark Dragon.

On the way out, Rosa got a Power Armlet drop from an Ogre. This gives +10 to Strength, but sadly, she cannot use it.


These enemies of were particular interest on the way up. Their semi-rare drop is the Rune Staff, which is actually the strongest staff in the game. Good for other white mages. Notsomuch Rosa, who prefered to use her bow.


Rosa had made a trip to Eblan Castle in order to pick up a set of 10 Mute Arrows. She broke them out against the Magus Sisters, taking Cindy out in three and the others out in two.

Barbariccia was rendered completely impotent by protecting against Ray with equipment, protecting against her physicals with Blink, and completely ignoring her high evasion with Aim.


Rosa got off to a slow start with her lowish attack, though has since caught up to some degree. So far, she's proven to be an interesting character, as a friend of mine suggested she would be. I was genuinely surprised that Pray had an actual use, although it did indeed quickly outlive any usefulness. Rosa is permanently in the party from here on out, so this actually features the most "normalcy" outside of Solo Cecil.

Next | Index

FF4 Solo Rosa Part II

Hourglasses were employed against the dolls. I temporarily gave Rosa a Ribbon to protect against the Black Fang attack of the Shadow Dragon, mostly out of laziness - it seemed the best way to go about getting immunity. Golbez was a slow and easy fight with Holy Arrows, anyway. The Dwarves' Shop carried a weapon upgrade for her in the Darkness Arrows. I removed and got rid of the Ribbon after this fight.


And in Babel, Rosa would find a new Bow. This thing has an increased critical hit rate, or so it says. What's the formula on crits? I dunno, algorithms guide doesn't say.


Lugaeborg and Barnabas are Mechs, meaning they take insane damage from Thunder Arrows. Lining up the first fight was a little annoying, as was finding the right attack pattern so Laser didn't instagib Rosa in the second fight.


There's not much to say about the leadup to Rubicante, other than getting Poison Arrows proper, and that I didn't fight most of the fights in the cave as usual due to them containing obnoxious bats with attacks that take ages to animate. Status was the order of the day in Babel part 2.

Against Rubicante himself, Rosa Shelled up to protect against Scorch. She could funnily enough use Reflect to bounce back the Firas. Rubicante doesn't absorb fire...and actually responds to nonreflected castings with Life on your party.


More upgrades. The Mute Arrows are highly effective against Mage enemies. The Rune Staff is one of the more common drop-only items. It has that property as well. Mostly pointless for Rosa with her arrows being superior more often than not, but it has its uses. And in the Land of Summoned Monsters is yet another arrow upgrade: Angel Arrows destroy Giants.


So Asura. Easy fight, right, just use the Reflect strat and body her with Mute Arrows? Not exactly...Asura casts Life on herself as part of her routine. In other words, she messes with the solo challenge!


The rather unorthodox solution was to go out and get the others petrified by the Black Lizards. They have a drop for us in the Medusa Arrows - otherwise weak weapons which can occasionally do the same. But unfortunately, it never triggers against party members.

Reflect was also the best way to deal with Leviathan. Reflect on Rosa to protect against Blizzara, and Reflect on it so she can heal herself. Thunder Arrows for offense.


The only real thing of note in the Sylvan Cave is the Elven Bow. This lets you attack any Mage for high damage, regardless of the Arrow you use.


Sealed Cave? Ha! Reflect for the doors. ALL THE DOORS. Despite this, it still wasn't enough for Rosa to get her last spell, which she needed to beat the Demon Wall. A bit of grinding later, and it was done.


The Behemoth brigade before Bahamut provide an interesting challenge. They spit Maelstrom out in response to Holy-elemental spells. Rosa instead Protected up, Berserked herself, and beat them to death with the Rune Staff. Bahamut itself was dealt with by Reflect, no big deal.

Everything in the Babel Giant is a Mech, so Rosa had a field day with Thunder Arrows. She was actually able to gain a couple levels!!


What a stupid fight. Everything but Barbariccia absorbs Holy. She's weak to it. Rosa could mess with Scarmigilione with Curaja, but had to beat down the other two with Arrows. Protect and Shell stacking helped to mitigate their attacks.


The CPU is also a stupid fight. I decided to just down it with reflected Holys in a risky strat, just like with Palom. And just like with Palom, the game agreed to this on the first try. Oh well, no complaints!

Next | Index

FF4 Solo Rosa Part III

Let's open the second-to-last (?) update with a look at Rosa's post-70 gains.


~ -1 Str, ±0 Agi, -1 Sta, ±0 Int, ±0 Spi
~ ±0 Str, ±0 Agi, -1 Sta, -1 Int, ±0 Spi
~ +1 Str, ±0 Agi, +1 Sta, ±0 Int, +1 Spi
~ +1 Str, +1 Agi, +1 Sta, ±0 Int, +1 Spi
~ ±0 Str, +1 Agi, +1 Sta, +1 Int, +1 Spi
~ ±0 Str, +1 Agi, +1 Sta, +1 Int, +1 Spi
~ +1 Str, +1 Agi, +1 Sta, +1 Int, +1 Spi
~ +2 Str, ±0 Agi, ±0 Sta, ±0 Int, +2 Spi


Umm...yeah. These are not good. For the hell of it, to demonstrate the difference between well-looked-after stats and stats that just go with whatever, Rosa having bad stat gains anyway, and because of seeking a particular item drop, I won't manipulate anything this time around.


My target are the purple soldieresses. Confusion takes care of them and their sorceress allies. They have a few interesting drops. The first and most common of these are Artemis Arrows, the best arrows in the game. They're MUCH more powerful than the Yoichi Arrows, but they're only dropped or stolen. No Edge, so we have to go with beating on them. Or rather, having them hug themselves into stone statues.


Also important is their semi-rare. The Minerva's Plate is a weird item. It can only be equipped by women. It gives +15 to Strength, Agility, and Vitality...except it only gives +10 in Advance. It also gives -15 to Spirit and Intelligence. You know, the stats they use for their magic. Paralysis immunity and nice physical defense, though.

The fun doesn't stop there for Rosa, though. These chicks also can drop Artemis' Bow, which gives the same stats +10/-10. EasyType exclusively gives you a bonus against dragons with this equipped. This is basically a giant scam to try and get. It only offers 10 more attack over the Yoichi's Bow which I completely forgot existed, which gives the same +10 Strength with no penalties. So not worth seeking out.


...


Okay. Since the game is being a butt. Let's demonstrate how much of a difference it makes. This sucker absorbs Holy, so we'll be murdering him with some arrowy violence. Let's try 8 shots with all the different bows we have.

Artemis' Bow: 9504, 9999, 8805, 9999, 9450, 9645, 8805, 8025
Yoichi's Bow: 8151, 7770, 9898, 9842, 8106, 8988, 9674, 9226
Elven Bow: 5940, 8411, 7683, 8963, 8411, 9035, 7215, 8148
Killer Bow: 8151, 8050, 6650, 6594, 7210, 7995, 7826, 9058

Okay, so it means more than I thought, and I guess the increased crit rate on the Killer Bow doesn't outweigh pure power. Maybe Artemis' Bow has that too. Whatever. It gets him in four.


A little later in, Rosa finds the White Robe. It's her ultimate armor in vanilla, despite any other user of White Mage being able to equip it. Not too hot, +15 to Spirit (that's probably maxed anyway) aside.

Rosa dealt with Dark Bahamut by Reflecting Holy off herself onto him, and Curaga off him onto her.


Poor Plague was completely locked down with Reflect. This WOULD kill him, except he keeps casting it and resetting his counter. Still, no threat is no threat. The Lunarsaurs were a simple fight as well. Rosa just used arrows to take care of business, since they don't appreciate Holy being used on them.


Back to Earth. Finally, a fight against this guy where it's not just luckshit. Even if it is because of leveling. The call between Elven Bow or Mute Arrows was a tough one, but I went with Elven Bow + Yoichi Arrows, as they seemed to do more without crippling Rosa's ability to heal. The bow also cast Shell when used as an item, useful for mitigating Thundaga's damage to avoid being one-twoed.

The next two Cave of Trials battles really demonstrated Rosa's flexibility. Storm Dragon was slaughtered by Artemis Arrow physical offense, whereas T-Rex was wrecked by Holy magical offense. Same goes for the two after that on a return trip: Holy took out Gigas Worm, whereas Deathmask, being a Mech, got wrecked by Thunder Arrows.


Yes, Teleport is nice. Ogopogo was wasted with Holy, with Rosa healing as needed.


Finally, Big Z himself. There's a problem, though. If Rosa uses Holy, he counters with Whirl. Recall that Big Bang inflicts HP Leak, and this reduces HP to single digits. Yeah. So, Rosa had to fight him with archery. This is the other reason for going for the Minerva Plate - it stocked me up for this fight.


With that in front of her...this was a surprisingly easy fight. The levels could be thanked for it, but whatever the case, the strategy was simple: pelt Zeromus with Arrows a lot and heal when HP was low enough for the next attack to be threatening. Rosa's Damage varied; I saw as low as 1900 and as high as 3400. It took her 48 arrows to get the job done.

I'll run through the postgame when I feel like running through the postgame. Which I might not actually do, since it does have a tendancy to drag and the final boss is a bit anticlimactic considering strategies one uses on it. We'll see, though.

Next | Index