FF4 Solo Yang Part II

After going out and getting Pigged at Mysidia, I chose to fight the combined Calcobrina this time for a change of pace. Being a Pig means being unable to use Kick, but it did have ramifications for Golbez right after. The Brinas died in one punch each, both varieties of dolls being weak to fire. The big doll's status spells couldn't affect Yang due to status priority, and though Yang went down to critical HP, it made no difference.

The good news about Pig is being able to resist any status with a lower priority than it. The bad news is that it disables certain commands. This includes all of Yang's commands. However, since I wasn't using them in this battle anyway, it was handy to have on for the time being.


I went a different route this time against Golbez, just reviving Cecil, having him revive Yang after Black Fang hit, and having him and Rydia commit suicide. This is the last time I have to worry about this across my solos (if I do Kain myself, he can just Jump over it). Yang used a couple Hi-Potions and attacked. Golbez is also weak to Fire, so this one ended in short order. On second go at the fight becuase I was curious, there was actually enough for the Rydialess here - Yang was fast enough to attack Golbez twice before Rydia came in. Speaking of, that gives the full amount of experience and Rydia the same amount, as if she weren't in the party at all.


New equipment awaited Yang in the underworld. In the Dwarves' Castle was the Power Armlet and Black Belt. The latter was a straight-across upgrade from the Kenpogi (+5 Str/Sta over +3 Str). The former was best not used in favor of the Rune Armlet. In Babel, there were two more. The Green Beret gives +5 to Strength and Vitality, a nice upgrade over the Twist Headband except in how it doesn't protect against Charm. The ultimate claw in the vanilla game, Cat Claw has 99% accuracy, gives +5 to Strength and Agility, and can sometimes put enemies to sleep.

The Chimeras were big threats when going through this place. It was often ideal just to run from them if they got an ambush or back attack, to prevent Blaze shenanigans. When fighting them, it was important to unequip elemental claws, due to their resistances.

As for Lugae and Barnabas? They can be summed up with four referential but appropriate words.


YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD. Even made a video for the fun of it.


Fun glitch - one frame after you regain control after the Super Cannon scene, you can reenter (the easiest way to do this is just holding up when the sad fanfare plays). You get trapped in the SNES version, but the GBA version repeats the scene with you misaligned. And a fun oversight - the game doesn't revive your party if everyone but Yang happens to be dead. If you don't rectify this, you'll get an instant game over. Even if it's against like an egg or something.

Eblan Cave had a lot of annoying bats that I preferred to run from. There's a notable monster-in-a-box at the end of the cave. Not for what the chest contains (a Blood Sword), but rather, the fact that there's two of the Steel Golem enemies, easily accessible and easily killable with Fairy Claw. They have a drop for us. One that's much more common than some of the other drop-only items we've been running into, occupying the semi-common, semi-rare, and rare slots.


The Giant's Gloves are one of the more practical (not to mention more common) drop-only items. Their downside is that they're not Rune Armlet and don't give magic defense. Their upside is +10 to Strength and Stamina. Yang has recently just hit 32 Agility for his first Magic Defense multiplier. Which one I use depends on the situation.


Rubicante boiled down to just being unafraid to pop an Elixir. Yang could tank the Scorches easily enough, but between that and the fire lord's Fira counters every time he was hit, he needed to either get lucky or just use a resource that's there to be used. Damage was of course no problem with an Ice Claw equipped. Yang even did decent numbers in spite of resistance/absorption when his cloak was closed, although to maximize the damage done vs. amount of damage that I needed to heal off, it was best to wait for him to open it. Just needed the one Elixir and a couple Hi-Potions.

I was greeted with some very good news when testing in the Sealed Cavern - Yang could beat the Trap Doors at this point simply by equipping the Fairy Claw/Cat Claw and attacking three times (for over 2000 damage a hit) before the door could move again!! Very lucky break there. Naturally, we're going to do this after the side dungeons.


Sylvan Cave with its obnoxious Bog Witches. A funny thing about them - while Kick is not normally usable as a frog, it will still go through if you select the command (even in the brief interval while you're being ravaged by the Tiny Toad's croaks). Even better, it does full damage as a frog. Two kicks would wipe out the toads, and a punch when Yang was himself would dispose of the witch.


At the end of the cave was an additional Hell Claw and Cat Claw, as well as another instance of Yang seeing himself. Double Cat Claws would hereafter become my default weapons setup for Yang, whenever a weakness or status wasn't needed.

For the record, beating Asura and Leviathan was very possible. The catch is that it used precious resources. Yang could not outdamage Asura's Curaga, and Protect was of course around...but neither was a problem. Remember Lunar Asura? Well, the same strategies apply - attack when her face is blue, and she'll shift back to a blue face and use Life again. However, Yang needed a Spider's Silk AND a Hermes Sandals at this point to pull it off - without the latter, she would eventually outspeed him and get a Protect off. The fight also required several Elixirs. Leviathan also needed Elixirs, but didn't require anything fancy beyond the Thunder Claw to hit his weakness. So I just held off on both fights for the time being.


The Black Cowl in the Sealed Cave sacrificed 2 Stamina for 3 Agility, and due to higher defense and evade anyway, was ultimately the superior option to the Green Beret. By this time, Yang had maxed his Strength between his natural value and all the boosts. Unless ATB shenanigans were involved, as long as I held A, Yang would two shot or three shot all the Trap Doors. Not sure what's up with them being slower than expected, but I'm certainly not complaining!


Demon Wall never stood a chance, either. I didn't need Spider's Silk or Hermes Sandals, just hold down attack and watch Yang go. You too, can watch him go.

Speaking of high speed, the extra speed (37 vs. 44 Agility, and more HP) made a huge difference against Asura. Yang was now able to win with without using any Silk or Sandals, even being fast enough to attack before the first Protect. He also needed only a single Elixir.


And fighting Leviathan was just supremely silly. What I needed to do was swap the Giant's Gloves for the Rune Armlet. But the weirdest thing was, this had nothing to do with resisting the Blizzaras and everything to do with switching the RNG. Yang had less attack and one less multiplier, yet this small change was enough to get the win?! What the hell? I had to upload a video of it. Clearly, I'm in a video mood this challenge.

Odin was of course, no threat. Thunder Claw and a 4x weakness meant he was very dead very quickly - 9999 damage, all the time.


The Behemoths before Bahamut, being counterattackers, were fought using Power to minimize their amount of counters. If Yang got too low on HP, he could just chug Hi-Potions. I put on the Fairy Claw in this place to help deal with the Dark Sages - if they got going, they could Tornado Yang, which meant running away or using an Elixir. These however could confuse them and make them cast Break on themselves. As for Bahamut itself...how to deal with its Mega Flares?


If you guessed "just tank it and use two Elixirs" (including once by 6HP!), step right up and claim your prize!

The moon allowed for an interesting demonstration: the Black Flans have no elemental weaknesses and typical Flan high defenses. Yang? He was so strong that Power just busted through their defenses.

Just like with Edge, almost everything in the Giant of Babil (the Mech Dragons being one exception) classify as a mech. The Searchers were also especially generous, giving up three Sirens. Spoilers, these are going to be used to get the Pink Tail again. It was just to see if I could for Palom, more of a "let's see if I can do this" for Rosa (and rarely got used when it did show up), but very totally worth it for Yang.


The Elemental Lords could all be handled with the appropriate claw, with the exception of Barbariccia. Damage on her ranged around the 2500 mark, everything else took, if not 9999, close to it. But she was very difficult, able to get Yang in a loop of Elixir/Attack unless I used a Hermes Sandals or Spider's Silk. I instead used a Lunar Curtain for Barrier status, negating her physical attacks and making the fight free.

Also as you see, I came up with a creative way to avoid having to kill everyone off before starting the fight proper. Which was good, because this took some experimentation and a couple tries. It was often Barbariccia that got me, although Rubicante and Cagnazzo were both capable of catching me with Scorch or Tidal Wave when Yang's ATB was too low.


That just left the CPU to take care of. It was actually theoretically possible to outrace the Defense Node's constant use of Restore. But a quicker race was to just outrace the Attack Node slowly wearing down Yang. His attacks could do 2500-3500 damage. He won out fairly handily - and without Spider's Silk - with two more rounds from the Attack Node to spare. Good, because Hi-Potions couldn't outrace its fixed (10% of Max HP) damage with Yang's very high HP.

There's been some rough patches here and there, but so far, Yang has been asserting his dominance in this game. 8:06 gametime after getting ready to move into the Cave of Trials!

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