FF4 3D Solo Cecil Part II

Getting Cecil some levels so he could actually do damage was actually a snap. Tossing a Hi-Potion at a Lilith gave him 10 levels. This result was from two Ghouls and a Revenant, which was less efficient on my resources - less experience and two more Hi-Potions used. Also here I got the Curse augment partway down the mountain. The ailment itself is handy, but the augment is mostly best spent being given to a temporary character to get their augments.


The Baron Guards before Yang were easy. They counter physical attacks with Mini, but I could just attack again to reverse it. Or just sit back and let Cecil's own counters do the work. Yang himself was little threat.

Nothing to say about Yang himself. As in the 2D versions, an attack from Cecil after a certain point is all that it takes to end it


One of the good parts about Cecil's class change is that it provided a free and efficient source of out-of-battle healing, and even in-battle to an extent. No longer do I need to buy gallons of Potions to get by.


The Ancient Waterway isn't much to talk about. One thing I should talk about though is that this game really buffs certain enemies, such as the worms. It took several attacks to bring this one down. Also in this dungeon at the end was the Ancient Sword. This as usual can inflict Curse, a status which halves attack and defense, which has a lot more use from the player end in this version of the game. Particularly against bosses.


You can see it in action against Baigan here. After the curse was inflicted, Cecil did more damage (even more because of the critical hit). He's mostly the same fight in this version of the game. He can occasionally inflict Mini and a status that inverts HP healing/damage called reverse on you, which hilariously killed me one time. I could and did curse him with the Ancient Sword to up my damage output just a bit. Oddly, it was better to leave the left arm alive, despite its paralyzing properties. The HP leak inflicted by the right arm is just a bit excessive. It was also very important to lower them down from their max of 2000HP, otherwise the explosion would be really fatal.


Cagnazzo was ironically significantly easier to defeat on this version than on other versions. His AI is a lot more elaborate on this version. He in particular enjoys casting Slow, and frequently will counter with Hold when attacked. He still gathers water for a Tsunami, but will stop after one attack. The theoretical problem with Tsunami is that it can inflict instant death, but Cecil's Luminous Shield protects against that. I threw a Spider's Silk, and when he retreated into his shell, busted out a pair of Hermes Sandals. He doesn't seem to heal in this version, but that does drastically reduce the damage done against him.


Before the battle, I gave Porom two augments: the Auto-Potion augment and Curse augment. Talking to the Mysidian Elder from there caused him to give me several augments tied to their abilities. The one pictured here is Cry, which is fantastic and halves the defense rating of every enemy in the battle. I also got Palom's Bluff, which isn't as fantastic and only gives a boost to the next spell cast. Finally, a pair of Twincast augments rounded it out, which is neat but useless in a solo challenge.


The Eblan Castle battles were somewhat tricky. I could deal with the Skuldiers (only two in this version) and Steel Golem by equipping for magic defense to weaken the former's obscenely high-damaging Thundaras and repeatedly healing. I got off a Cry at the very start, which helped in taking them down ASAP - too many Thundaras would eventually put me in the hole on healing. I used Cura for healing in this fight. At the very end, I could defend and let the counters do the work.

The prize for was as usual the Sleep Sword. I also wound up with a Gaia Hammer drop. FF4 3D differs from the original game in how you can't use a weapon or shield you're equipping as an item normally, you need to set it as a command in-battle. So no free Sleep spells for Cecil, he has to use a command slot on it.


I employed the sword on the very next fight, which was weird and took several tries. The Lamia's physicals not only inflict confusion, but also the Bubble status which doubles HP. Cecil would massacre himself with the Sleep Sword if allowed to attack himself, and oddly, once induced a game over despite surviving his own blow. The Couerls would usually hit him out of it before this could happen, thankfully. The strategy was to put one to sleep with the sword's strikes, then beat down the Lamia. Once I finally managed to take her down, the fight was elementary from there.

Funny aside, the game's achievements for filling in the Bestiary still go off if you get a game over when crossing over a threshold.


And there's really not much to write about the three Mad Ogres. Sleep Blade handled them beautifully, Counter did the damage, and Item Lore boosted Hi Potions could outpace their own damage, especially once one was put to sleep.


Moving on with the story proper...I did something completely braindead to make it through the Lodestone Cavern. Ordinarily, Cecil would have on an elemental Shard weapon (added for this version of the game, he can't equip bows) and non-metallic equipment. Instead, taking advantage of the autosave, I marched through, getting a game over every time I ran into a random encounter, and taking advantage of the autosave to reloading where I was every time. The alternate would be running from everything, because those Shard weapons are hopelessly weak.

Silly or not, it did work! I would make a straight-shot to the boss, cleaning out the dungeon of treasures on the way out. I did need to watch out for those things when I did that. Their Mind Blast special could paralyze and stunlock Cecil. Luckily, it wasn't a sure bet and took them a while to wear him down, so he eventually could escape and strike them down.


Nothing to write about the Dark Elf or Dark Dragon. Cry crippled their defenses which let Cecil hit for around 400-500 more damage. I used the Mythgraven Blade here instead of the Sleep Blade, to take advantage of the elemental weakness. The damage they did was easily healed off with Item Lore boosted Hi Potions, but also enough to take out the extrenous party members in a hurry. It's worth noting Dark is an element that sees use in this version of the game beyond Dark Knight Cecil's swords, at least according to Lustrous Shield halving the element. If so, it may have been useful for weakening Dark Breath.


256/10, game. This is my first time getting this drop in all of FF4! Shame it's on this run, as it's actually half-decent. Now granted, the odds of a drop are way more in this game than in the versions based off the original SFC version - indeed, they're "only" 1/256 (although you can only get one drop from one enemy in a battle per battle). But still, that was pretty hilarious to see. And gets me a quarter of a way towards an achievement.

Anyway, heading out was not an issue at all now that Cecil was able to fight. Everything fell in a single blow, and lots of things had a weakness to the light-element on his sword. I kept it equipped instead of the Sleep Blade because of that fact.


Edward will give you this augment by default, and the Salve and Hide augments depending on how much you gave him before he left. This one is handy, with the owner learning several spells as he or she levels up. Most of them are best for a party, however, so this is sadly a candidate for transfer to someone else for their augments. Salve is also improved in this version, being able to use multiple items all at once en masse rather than splitting a mere Potion. If I actually had it, it also falls into the category of being more useful in a party. Hide is legit, but isn't as horribly abusable as in FF5. In fact, Rosa and Edge can use this quite well, as they can still use Aim and Throw respectively when using it. Again however, I don't have it anyway, on account of distributing my augments to the twins instead.


Speaking of augments, one of the nicest things in the basement of Troia Castle is 55000 gil (this shot taken before getting the 5000). The Pass to get into the special area of the town's pub has been jacked up to 100000 gil. In it is another augment - incidentally one that increases the amount of money after battle. It is hardly worth it given that most encounters give up a few dollars and dimes in this remake, but being an augment it is needed for an achievement eventually.

But I did end up getting the Gil Farmer augment after a bit of deliberation (and a quite lewd show), giving it to Cecil. Most guides recommend farming it up only to give it to Yang on the first playthrough for stat maxing purposes, but that doesn't matter too much to me. Don't plan on playing through the three times you need to max stats, anyway. In regards to getting it in the first place, I figured that I'm going to get it anyway, and it makes sense to get it sooner rather than later as so to maximize my potential with it.


Shortly into the Tower of Zot (which has unique graphics in this version), I could grab this, from the Fiery Hound as usual. Note that even though it appears you get chest rewards on opening them in this version, you don't. The canine wasn't a problem. Note that in this version, the Flame Armor on the floor below doesn't give you a weakness to fire, so there was no need to unequip it before this fight.


The Flame Sword would've been the weapon of choice through this tower - with several enemies having a weakness to it - if not for these jerks. In the 3D versions, elemental physical attacks are able to be absorbed. Furthermore, it takes a turn to switch weapons and shields in this version, so it was more troublesome beyond simply being awkward to switch all the time. Ergo, I stuck with the Sleep Blade for the random encounters.


Let's take a quick look at the ability equip screen. Auto-Battle Command is interesting. I usually have it set to Fight, so I can just mindlessly deal with random encounters. But on bosses, I can set it to something like Cry, allowing me to use it without taking up one of Cecil's...four slots. You always need to have the Items command equipped for some reason. Speaking of the usual, I usually have Counter, but given the next boss is purely magical in nature, I swapped it for White Magic for access to Shell.


The Magus Sisters were a simple fight. Cry crippled their defenses, and Cecil quickly tore up Cindy. Mindy even helped out a little by hitting her for around 1000 damage when the Reflect wore off, and a Shell helped protect against their magic. The only potential trouble spot was when Sandy tried to inflict Confusion on Cecil. But she failed to do so, and so that was that.

Gil Farmer may not help a lot on randoms by the way, but it sure does on bosses.


Meteor in this version. Just thought I'd show it off!!


Barbariccia is changed up somewhat in this version of the game, which would make certain solos very difficult. Her physical evasion when spinning is high enough to make just about anything futile. What does work in this version are magical attacks. In Cecil's case, the Dancing Dagger offered up an excellent attacking option, doing around 600 damage after a Cry. The only problem is that this - or any magic attack when she's spinning - occasionally causes her to counterattack with Maelstrom.

Which isn't much of a problem at all. Her attack pattern goes Tornado -> Stone Touch -> Lightning. The first of these isn't a problem. The second is prevented by Gaea Gear. And as long as Cecil healed up after it in preparation for the third and waited to attack until after it had passed, this fight was in the bag. Victory eventually followed.

Well, this isn't as much of a challenge as I expected it would be. Aside from the rough patches in the early going, this has been relatively smooth sailing for a while. Will I eat my own words? Let's keep going and find out.

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