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FFMQ Low Level Challenge Part II
Nov. 22nd, 2016 07:23 pmSo why did this take so long? Because...well, you'll see. Been forever, though, so I've forgotten some of the details, also neglecting to write some of them down, so forgive me if I'm a bit vague in places. One thing worth noting - I had to buy 17 or so Seeds instead in that glitch, getting me the Mobius Crest along with the Sun Coin.
So the Alive Forest was the first instance of allowing me to flex my muscles with the power of Exit. Just about every encounter could be dealt with by zapping it with Exit, leaving behind no money and/or experience. Obviously to conserve Seeds, I needed to make sure I used as few as possible.. Well, actually? I could farm them from the Bone Dungeon. I didn't even need to use a single one to reach the chest with them, assuming I got good enough enemy groups.
Before heading there, I took a moment to retrieve the Noble Armor from the Ice Pyramid, now that I could do so without The Gaea's Armor is a way's off in Mac's Ship, and having the water and poison resistances it offers would surely come in handy. Or at least, I thought I did. Apparently, I didn't. So I guess it was hardly necessary.
One exception to the enemy Exit strategy were the Oozes. These are immune to all White magic and reflect any other kind. To deal with them in accordance with the variant, I needed to fight as few as possible. Against enemy groups such as this one, I could simply run away if one spawned. Against actual Ooze enemies on the map, I needed to make sure as few came into the battle as possible.
I also needed to take care around enemies who could confuse. Kaeli would gleefully attack them occasionally, forcing me to run, suicide, and/or reset. The Skuldiers on the later floors were among these enemies, and two accompany the boss as well!
Gidrah was a terrible fight until the Skuldiers were down from Exit. Once they were, it was routine - just throwing out Aeros at him. Most bosses are immune to Exit. It helped that he played nice, and didn't paralyze Kaeli too often. I beat him on the first try after getting by the first phase.
After beating Gidrah, all the enemies clear out. This meant being free to pick up the Meteor spell. Occasionally overlooked, this Earth-elemental spell does heavy damage that's comparable to White and Flare. If you skip Fireburg (speedruns, this challenge), it's the attack-all spell of choice before Flare or against enemies that resist it. I could also pick up the Cupid Locket in Windia, protecting against Confusion and Blind. And Mount Gale added the Apollo Helm to the defensive collection, offering up Fire resistance.
Nothing else but the boss was noteworthy about this dungeon. Dullahan is weak to Earth, so even outside of these settings, Meteor is ideal for dealing with him. He is also strangely vulnerable to poison and paralysis. I tried having Kaeli use Heal on him (don't ask how that works) to inflict the status, but it didn't take. It didn't need to, anyway. This was a very easy fight.
Just like with Ooze from before, Pazuzu's Tower had Beholders who had similar immunities. Mega Grenades dealt with them. As before, had to make sure I had minimal encounters with them wherever possible. Other than that, it was fairly straightforward.
As an aside regarding this place, the low level GameFAQs guide has a route without using Exit...but it takes an unoptimal route through Pazuzu's Tower, taking you through several floors to fight him at floor 3. Optimal is him spawning on floor 6, flicking the switch, and just fighting him there.
What I needed to do is walk by him on the third floor. I fought my way up to the seventh, right before the spot in front of his "perch" on this floor. Then run back down to the third, talk to him, and run back. The problem with this is that I still had to fight a couple encounters to see if it even worked. And both of these could have Beholders, which I didn't want. Running is difficult in this variant, so that was in the way too. Once I did beat the two - the Sorcerers below and Thanatos to the right - I could enter a staircase just north and see if Pazuzu was there. My chances were 1/5 due to talking to him on the third floor rather than the seventh, and I thankfully got this on the second try.
Before fighting him, I went down and grabbed Flare. The big bird himself thankfully wasn't too bad. I hit him with Flare and Aero when I could, and healed when I needed to. Nothing really to it. The last 2200 or so HP took forever to take down, but as long as he didn't pull out any insane criticals - which he didn't - I was in the clear. Ben and Kaeli traded off on healing duty, depending on what was necessary (for example, he was set to heal her here). Easy fight.
That just left Doom Cast-oh right, I need the Thunder Rock, don't I? You get that from Reuben's father, who I never bothered to rescue due to skipping Fireburg. The pains of absolute low leveling...will not be felt here. By glitching my inventory again and using Cure Potions when I have 0 in the fourth item slot, I can change up my inventory and end up with the Thunder Rock.
Aside: don't do this to get the Captain's Hat. Talking to Kaeli and receiving it is the trigger to be able to enter Mac's Ship, not having it in your inventory. And if you do have it in your inventory, she won't give it to you. You also needed to have spawned the Mobius Crest into your inventory earlier if following this route; you'll have zapped the Libra Crest away which you need to reach Mobius Crest, but just having it is enough. That's why I needed to reset and adjust my purchase accordingly.
Mac's Ship introduced the Shadows (not in this shot because I forgot to take a picture of any). They're able to use a Selfdestruct attack to kill themselves and give me EXP. They're not the first enemies capable of doing this - the eye enemies in particular can do this as well - but unlike the Beholders, I can kill these things with Exit. Ergo, I needed to save before any fight with them and hope they don't do it, running if I can and making them priority targets if they aren't the only enemies.
The Ship itself gave up the Gaea's Armor, and shortly into Doom Castle I could get the Aegis Shield. The first encounter here was of note - two Shadows. If they both Selfdestructed, that was a reset. No big deal since I could just save, right?
Well, they're with Skullrus Rex too. The missing one in this shot blew up on Phoebe, so I had to suicide to keep low level going. Although he actually managed to kill me on his own power yet again!! Phoebe was petrified, and Ben was killed off before he could heal her. Skullrus is actually vulnerable to Exit, so once that comedy was out of the way, this was a simple affair.
There were also Shadow groups in the Ice Pyramid part of Doom Castle, but they would always spawn with another enemy. Cerberus enemies make their debut here, so I needed to watch out for their attacks, including being able to instantly kill a party member or confuse Phoebe. Two of them accompanied Stone Golem, but all three were vulnerable to Exit.
And there's really nothing to say about Twinhead Wyvern! I had Phoebe use Blizzard on it to add in a bit of extra damage while Ben set to work with Exit on the two goons, then unloaded with Meteor (he resists fire/Flare) and White.
Zuh. Nothing it did except Doom Dance was really dangerous. Even Ben could survive some of his blows. The same strategy of waiting for Psycheshield to drop before unleashing the magic applied, but in the meantime, Excalibur or Mega Grenades sufficed for chip damage. The experience from this fight was just enough to push him up to Level 13.
That just left Dark King.
And holy shit. This guy is a beast of a whole different level under these kinds of circumstances. He can easily kill Ben with his low HP, and it doesn't take much more to wreck Phoebe - a single spider web is all it takes. The extremism in skipping Fireburg means no Life spell to possibly get out of it, either. Not that it makes too big a difference - just about everything Dark King can do could one shot Ben. Cure? That's for babies and people who aren't really asking for it.
This fight is why the second part of this report this took so long. I actually got here a day after posting the first part. General distractions, ramming myself against this brick wall too much, and once getting to within a single hit to victory only to fail at the very end wore me out. So I took a big break, and...well, you'll see.
The first phase was straightforward. A few Whites and Flares would quickly push him over the edge to the next phase. He could occasionally kill off Ben with Dark Cane, but it's easily remedied. Using Refreshers to recover from stat lowering was helpful in a few instances. In the second phase, I would have Ben Flare away while Phoebe covered him. It was almost free - a critical Dark Saber could've killed Phoebe, or bad turn order, but none of those happened. I occasionally had Ben guard Phoebe if she really needed to heal.
In phase 3, the roles reversed. Ben would cover Phoebe while she Whited away. This was incredibly dangerous. Almost everything the Dark King could do would kill Ben instantly, with two exceptions. Mega Flare was survivable thanks to fire resistance, and Golden Web did exactly 480 damage. If it hadn't been for that last minute level, there would be only one ability that Ben could survive. With it, the odds were better. Still not good, but every little bit counts. I only had Phoebe attack when Ben was up and she was at full health. What I would often do is let Dark King kill a weakened Ben, but have Phoebe follow up with Life so he'd be back to full health. The odds of her going before Dark King were low, and even if she did go first, I'd be no worse off.
Nevertheless, during this cycle of death and revival, there were two problems. The first of these was Silver Web. This would confuse Phoebe and unless she recovered instantly, was a death sentence. The second of these was Golden Web. This inflicted petrification and instantly ended her and the attempt. Well...a third I guess would be critical hits, but he strangely never pulled any out at any critical moments.
As I said, I got very far once. He was dead on the next hit or two...and then Silver Web came out to put an end to things. I made it to the octopus phase several times (around the last 5000-6000HP), but the odds were far from in my favor.
So...keep going? Maybe. But I have a better idea. Mystic Quest has a notable bug in it where partner resistances aren't properly reloaded when a new one enters your party. I kept a save by Pazuzu in anticipation of this possibility. By taking her resistances, half of the problems are eliminated. This isn't without its on set, of course. Phoebe would be weaker in other respects, and I would need to reach here without any Shadows exploding and giving experience, or Phoebe getting confused and killing off an enemy group. Otherwise, her attributes would return to normal.
Still, I was feeling adventurous, so...off we go. I also didn't get Excalibur this time. It didn't make any difference in Doom Castle - Ben was often just attacking with magic whenever he was. And I could just Mega Grenade Zuh - the damage difference was negligible between the two.
First try at this, I did indeed incur a Shadow reset, at Skullrus Rex. The second one blew up and the Exit redirected onto Skullrus. Reset and fight my way back. The second go, I managed to avoid all the combos, although I once had to let the second Shadow blow up because the first one did - which amusingly gives up a victory message, rewards, etc. before the standard retry screen. I did have to do it a third time due to confusion in the Lava Dome area, however.
That problem aside, there was really no problem. I could make my way through the exact same way as last ti-
Oh. Well then. Twinhead Wyvern got more interesting. Phoebe is ordinarily immune to paralysis, which it (and the Stheno) is capable of pulling out. But Kaeli is not.
Still, compared to the horror I just went through? This was a bulletin board notice of retrying at best. Twinhead Wyvern seemed less prone to pulling the move out the longer the fight went on, which was good news for me. I ran into other parlysis-related problems along the way, but this was the biggest one. This was about the only significantly affected fight by the change. I was back at Dark King and ready to rumble before too long!
What an auspicious start. A death to Dark King form one. Dark Cane into critical Dark Cane did this.
I finally got something going on the third try, but Silver Web showed up at around the 10000HP mark, and Phoebe never recovered. But on the fourth try, everything went my way. I started getting some absurd luck towards the end. He would not stop using Mega Flare. Phoebe answered with a Life aimed at Ben to revive him back to full on the next turn every single time. She survived two Golden Webs thanks my efforts in getting this far. And before too long...
...the King was dead!!
Agree, Phoebe.
Mystic Quest may have been marketed and/or thought of as a beginner's RPG, but Dark King is incredibly unforgiving under variant circumstances. It's funny though how that trick/glitch made a world of difference in surviving. It was more than possible to win without it, but it really tilted the odds in my favor. I have at least one more variant in mind for this game. Not sure when I'll do it, but you can bet that it too, is going to have a painful Dark King fight. Thanks for reading.
Fireburg? (maybe) | Index
So the Alive Forest was the first instance of allowing me to flex my muscles with the power of Exit. Just about every encounter could be dealt with by zapping it with Exit, leaving behind no money and/or experience. Obviously to conserve Seeds, I needed to make sure I used as few as possible.. Well, actually? I could farm them from the Bone Dungeon. I didn't even need to use a single one to reach the chest with them, assuming I got good enough enemy groups.
Before heading there, I took a moment to retrieve the Noble Armor from the Ice Pyramid, now that I could do so without The Gaea's Armor is a way's off in Mac's Ship, and having the water and poison resistances it offers would surely come in handy. Or at least, I thought I did. Apparently, I didn't. So I guess it was hardly necessary.
One exception to the enemy Exit strategy were the Oozes. These are immune to all White magic and reflect any other kind. To deal with them in accordance with the variant, I needed to fight as few as possible. Against enemy groups such as this one, I could simply run away if one spawned. Against actual Ooze enemies on the map, I needed to make sure as few came into the battle as possible.
I also needed to take care around enemies who could confuse. Kaeli would gleefully attack them occasionally, forcing me to run, suicide, and/or reset. The Skuldiers on the later floors were among these enemies, and two accompany the boss as well!
Gidrah was a terrible fight until the Skuldiers were down from Exit. Once they were, it was routine - just throwing out Aeros at him. Most bosses are immune to Exit. It helped that he played nice, and didn't paralyze Kaeli too often. I beat him on the first try after getting by the first phase.
After beating Gidrah, all the enemies clear out. This meant being free to pick up the Meteor spell. Occasionally overlooked, this Earth-elemental spell does heavy damage that's comparable to White and Flare. If you skip Fireburg (speedruns, this challenge), it's the attack-all spell of choice before Flare or against enemies that resist it. I could also pick up the Cupid Locket in Windia, protecting against Confusion and Blind. And Mount Gale added the Apollo Helm to the defensive collection, offering up Fire resistance.
Nothing else but the boss was noteworthy about this dungeon. Dullahan is weak to Earth, so even outside of these settings, Meteor is ideal for dealing with him. He is also strangely vulnerable to poison and paralysis. I tried having Kaeli use Heal on him (don't ask how that works) to inflict the status, but it didn't take. It didn't need to, anyway. This was a very easy fight.
Just like with Ooze from before, Pazuzu's Tower had Beholders who had similar immunities. Mega Grenades dealt with them. As before, had to make sure I had minimal encounters with them wherever possible. Other than that, it was fairly straightforward.
As an aside regarding this place, the low level GameFAQs guide has a route without using Exit...but it takes an unoptimal route through Pazuzu's Tower, taking you through several floors to fight him at floor 3. Optimal is him spawning on floor 6, flicking the switch, and just fighting him there.
What I needed to do is walk by him on the third floor. I fought my way up to the seventh, right before the spot in front of his "perch" on this floor. Then run back down to the third, talk to him, and run back. The problem with this is that I still had to fight a couple encounters to see if it even worked. And both of these could have Beholders, which I didn't want. Running is difficult in this variant, so that was in the way too. Once I did beat the two - the Sorcerers below and Thanatos to the right - I could enter a staircase just north and see if Pazuzu was there. My chances were 1/5 due to talking to him on the third floor rather than the seventh, and I thankfully got this on the second try.
Before fighting him, I went down and grabbed Flare. The big bird himself thankfully wasn't too bad. I hit him with Flare and Aero when I could, and healed when I needed to. Nothing really to it. The last 2200 or so HP took forever to take down, but as long as he didn't pull out any insane criticals - which he didn't - I was in the clear. Ben and Kaeli traded off on healing duty, depending on what was necessary (for example, he was set to heal her here). Easy fight.
That just left Doom Cast-oh right, I need the Thunder Rock, don't I? You get that from Reuben's father, who I never bothered to rescue due to skipping Fireburg. The pains of absolute low leveling...will not be felt here. By glitching my inventory again and using Cure Potions when I have 0 in the fourth item slot, I can change up my inventory and end up with the Thunder Rock.
Aside: don't do this to get the Captain's Hat. Talking to Kaeli and receiving it is the trigger to be able to enter Mac's Ship, not having it in your inventory. And if you do have it in your inventory, she won't give it to you. You also needed to have spawned the Mobius Crest into your inventory earlier if following this route; you'll have zapped the Libra Crest away which you need to reach Mobius Crest, but just having it is enough. That's why I needed to reset and adjust my purchase accordingly.
Mac's Ship introduced the Shadows (not in this shot because I forgot to take a picture of any). They're able to use a Selfdestruct attack to kill themselves and give me EXP. They're not the first enemies capable of doing this - the eye enemies in particular can do this as well - but unlike the Beholders, I can kill these things with Exit. Ergo, I needed to save before any fight with them and hope they don't do it, running if I can and making them priority targets if they aren't the only enemies.
The Ship itself gave up the Gaea's Armor, and shortly into Doom Castle I could get the Aegis Shield. The first encounter here was of note - two Shadows. If they both Selfdestructed, that was a reset. No big deal since I could just save, right?
Well, they're with Skullrus Rex too. The missing one in this shot blew up on Phoebe, so I had to suicide to keep low level going. Although he actually managed to kill me on his own power yet again!! Phoebe was petrified, and Ben was killed off before he could heal her. Skullrus is actually vulnerable to Exit, so once that comedy was out of the way, this was a simple affair.
There were also Shadow groups in the Ice Pyramid part of Doom Castle, but they would always spawn with another enemy. Cerberus enemies make their debut here, so I needed to watch out for their attacks, including being able to instantly kill a party member or confuse Phoebe. Two of them accompanied Stone Golem, but all three were vulnerable to Exit.
And there's really nothing to say about Twinhead Wyvern! I had Phoebe use Blizzard on it to add in a bit of extra damage while Ben set to work with Exit on the two goons, then unloaded with Meteor (he resists fire/Flare) and White.
Zuh. Nothing it did except Doom Dance was really dangerous. Even Ben could survive some of his blows. The same strategy of waiting for Psycheshield to drop before unleashing the magic applied, but in the meantime, Excalibur or Mega Grenades sufficed for chip damage. The experience from this fight was just enough to push him up to Level 13.
That just left Dark King.
And holy shit. This guy is a beast of a whole different level under these kinds of circumstances. He can easily kill Ben with his low HP, and it doesn't take much more to wreck Phoebe - a single spider web is all it takes. The extremism in skipping Fireburg means no Life spell to possibly get out of it, either. Not that it makes too big a difference - just about everything Dark King can do could one shot Ben. Cure? That's for babies and people who aren't really asking for it.
This fight is why the second part of this report this took so long. I actually got here a day after posting the first part. General distractions, ramming myself against this brick wall too much, and once getting to within a single hit to victory only to fail at the very end wore me out. So I took a big break, and...well, you'll see.
The first phase was straightforward. A few Whites and Flares would quickly push him over the edge to the next phase. He could occasionally kill off Ben with Dark Cane, but it's easily remedied. Using Refreshers to recover from stat lowering was helpful in a few instances. In the second phase, I would have Ben Flare away while Phoebe covered him. It was almost free - a critical Dark Saber could've killed Phoebe, or bad turn order, but none of those happened. I occasionally had Ben guard Phoebe if she really needed to heal.
In phase 3, the roles reversed. Ben would cover Phoebe while she Whited away. This was incredibly dangerous. Almost everything the Dark King could do would kill Ben instantly, with two exceptions. Mega Flare was survivable thanks to fire resistance, and Golden Web did exactly 480 damage. If it hadn't been for that last minute level, there would be only one ability that Ben could survive. With it, the odds were better. Still not good, but every little bit counts. I only had Phoebe attack when Ben was up and she was at full health. What I would often do is let Dark King kill a weakened Ben, but have Phoebe follow up with Life so he'd be back to full health. The odds of her going before Dark King were low, and even if she did go first, I'd be no worse off.
Nevertheless, during this cycle of death and revival, there were two problems. The first of these was Silver Web. This would confuse Phoebe and unless she recovered instantly, was a death sentence. The second of these was Golden Web. This inflicted petrification and instantly ended her and the attempt. Well...a third I guess would be critical hits, but he strangely never pulled any out at any critical moments.
As I said, I got very far once. He was dead on the next hit or two...and then Silver Web came out to put an end to things. I made it to the octopus phase several times (around the last 5000-6000HP), but the odds were far from in my favor.
So...keep going? Maybe. But I have a better idea. Mystic Quest has a notable bug in it where partner resistances aren't properly reloaded when a new one enters your party. I kept a save by Pazuzu in anticipation of this possibility. By taking her resistances, half of the problems are eliminated. This isn't without its on set, of course. Phoebe would be weaker in other respects, and I would need to reach here without any Shadows exploding and giving experience, or Phoebe getting confused and killing off an enemy group. Otherwise, her attributes would return to normal.
Still, I was feeling adventurous, so...off we go. I also didn't get Excalibur this time. It didn't make any difference in Doom Castle - Ben was often just attacking with magic whenever he was. And I could just Mega Grenade Zuh - the damage difference was negligible between the two.
First try at this, I did indeed incur a Shadow reset, at Skullrus Rex. The second one blew up and the Exit redirected onto Skullrus. Reset and fight my way back. The second go, I managed to avoid all the combos, although I once had to let the second Shadow blow up because the first one did - which amusingly gives up a victory message, rewards, etc. before the standard retry screen. I did have to do it a third time due to confusion in the Lava Dome area, however.
That problem aside, there was really no problem. I could make my way through the exact same way as last ti-
Oh. Well then. Twinhead Wyvern got more interesting. Phoebe is ordinarily immune to paralysis, which it (and the Stheno) is capable of pulling out. But Kaeli is not.
Still, compared to the horror I just went through? This was a bulletin board notice of retrying at best. Twinhead Wyvern seemed less prone to pulling the move out the longer the fight went on, which was good news for me. I ran into other parlysis-related problems along the way, but this was the biggest one. This was about the only significantly affected fight by the change. I was back at Dark King and ready to rumble before too long!
What an auspicious start. A death to Dark King form one. Dark Cane into critical Dark Cane did this.
I finally got something going on the third try, but Silver Web showed up at around the 10000HP mark, and Phoebe never recovered. But on the fourth try, everything went my way. I started getting some absurd luck towards the end. He would not stop using Mega Flare. Phoebe answered with a Life aimed at Ben to revive him back to full on the next turn every single time. She survived two Golden Webs thanks my efforts in getting this far. And before too long...
...the King was dead!!
Agree, Phoebe.
Mystic Quest may have been marketed and/or thought of as a beginner's RPG, but Dark King is incredibly unforgiving under variant circumstances. It's funny though how that trick/glitch made a world of difference in surviving. It was more than possible to win without it, but it really tilted the odds in my favor. I have at least one more variant in mind for this game. Not sure when I'll do it, but you can bet that it too, is going to have a painful Dark King fight. Thanks for reading.
Fireburg? (maybe) | Index
