FFL2 Solo Robot Part I

All right, it's showtime. Solo Robot.

To go over the mechanics of them again, Robots are a unique brand of character in FFL2. Very little classes are like it in any other RPG. They have base stats of 33HP, 6 DEF, and 5 AGL. All of the rest come from their equipment. Just about every item in the game will give a bonus to HP and a stat to a robot, the former corresponding with the stat it helps raise on a human/mutant (armor giving DEF). The stat bonus can be zero, such as with MANA-based weapons, potions, or things like SMGs.

Robots have some interesting advantages over the other classes. Armor works uniquely on them - unlike humans and mutants who can only equip one piece of armor class at a time, robots can equip as many pieces of any armor class as they want. All pieces within the same class the same bonuses - for example, Gold Gloves give +10 DEF, as does Gold Armor, Gold Helmets, and Gold Shields. Meaning it's often cheaper to outfit them - instead of buying Giant Armor, you can buy three gloves for a little more than the same price and get way more DEF. Second, they can easily push their stats beyond the displayed 99, just by equipping powerful equipment. Third, any* breakable weapon equipped on a robot will become a rechargable ability, although with only half the uses. And fourth, they have a natural O-Para/O-Poison.

They have their disadvantages, of course. They aren't good at being jacks of all trades, and it is impossible for them to gain MANA, meaning they can't use magic (without MAGI at least) and are more vulnerable to it. They also can't use martial arts, which are also the only weapons that don't get halved when equipped. These are great for gaining AGL, though!

For more on robots, see the excellent guide to them on GameFAQs.


The naming scheme this time is a bit of a slapdash one. You've probably noticed that I've had naming schemes for the other three characters in the other three solos. I did the same here, and made the name a tie-in with it as well. Which kind of fits with the character's adaptability, because Mic Sounders the 13th can transform between a toy boombox and a rocker. I actually originally named him J, but changed it and some screenshots around after the fact because this fit better.


With that said and done, let's start the game! I had to play the early game kind of carefully, due to Jaguars and other Tusk-users being able to do heavy damage to Mic. Lucked into a Long Sword drop within the first few encounters, which would come in handy shortly.


With everything from the North Cave equipped aside from the Cure, here's what Mic's stats looked like. Every piece helped to increase HP, but the two most important at the moment were the initial Colt and Bronze Shield.


The Colt dealt with the BabyWyrm, no problem.


From here, the next goal was to earn enough money to afford a SMG. To get there, I got Mic some Punches to boost his AGL/accuracy and farmed more Long Swords. He could one-shot anything he came across with these stats, and and just enough DEF to protect against some, but not all threats.


After earning some cash, I moved onto the Hidden Ruins to advance the story and obtain the remainder. I did have to be careful in there, because just this one bit of DEF wasn't enough to stop everything. Large groups of Lizards in particular could tear Mic apart. However, I could fight as often as I pleased, thanks to an oversight in the game...


Well, here's how it goes. You take a martial art or piece of armor on a robot. You unequip it. The robot's max HP lowers, but its current HP stays the same. You then reequip it. The robot's max HP and its current HP both raise. You repeat this numerous times, and eventually, the robot's health can be topped off. You can do this with two pieces of armor at the same time to get it done even faster, but I only had the one.


The money I'd built up was enough for the SMG. This is a weapon that does a fixed 250 base damage to a group. It can be reduced by high DEF or O-Weapon, but at this stage of the game, it'll shred almost anything in the first four worlds.


From here, I purchased and gave Mic six Bronze Gloves, logic and basic physics be damned. With this much DEF, absolutely nothing was hurting Mic in this world.


In Ashura's Base, I had Mic repeatedly run into the zombies to face off against groups of Lizards and Flys. This earned him tons of money, which I used...


To buy Gold Gloves! These give 8 more DEF than the Bronze Gloves, and made Mic that much more of an invincible robot.


By the way, one thing that should be mentioned that I brought up before with four robots, but is worth re-mentioning for this challenge anyway - you want to fight large single groups of enemies wherever possible. This may look like a desirable group to fight, and indeed, in the DS remake, you will indeed always get a ton of cash from an encounter like this.

The gold formula is kinda weird: It's (33 * [DS] * g) + (3 * [DS] * g * (g-1) where g is equal to the size of the group. Repeat this for every group left to right...except there's a bug. If an enemy group drops meat (which happens at 20% + number in group odds) and possibly an item, it skips any further enemy groups' gold drops. Due to this factor and the exponential natural of the formula, single groups are more dependable. Not to mention they die quicker.


Once Mic had a full set of those, his DEF was just absurd. Since most enemy attacks are physical at this stage of the game, and actually for much of the game, he was set for a long time to come. I continued to farm up more money after this for a second SMG, to be implemented later on in the next world. This is already plenty, but low ammo was a concern in keeping farming cycles going.


The Rhino was no exception to this. Mic does have two weaknesses as he is, of course. The first being pitiful AGL. That said, as long as the enemy attacks are physical, it doesn't matter - anything and everything that tries is going to do no damage. The second being a vulnerability to magic, but I'll deal with those threats when appropriate.


And I'd have to deal with that in the very next world, because Ashura's World has Slimes in it. These enemies can use the Dissolve attack, a move that deals damage based on MANA and drains HP back to the user - it works regardless of enemy type, unlike other moves. And a robot with zero MANA is going to take a ton of damage from these kinds of attacks. I dealt with these enemies by...running away.


I gave Mic the second SMG in Ashura's Tower. Groups of Beetles could show up here, and get gunned down for plenty of cash.


Not even Ashura could break through these absurd defenses. He does of course pack Flame as one of his moves, so he could theoretically damage Mic. That is, if I hadn't equipped him with a Fire MAGI. Mic went in gangster-style on the goblin turned New God and brought him to his knees.


Because obviously Mic doesn't have enough defense already, I bought two Giant Gloves. They boost DEF by 18, eight more than the Gold Gloves. By fighting the Terorists in this world, I eventually built up enough money to get Mic six of them, for a total of 96 DEF. So uh, yeah. Shoutouts to never ever taking physical damage for basically the entire main game.


There were a few Dissolvers in the Giant's World and Ki's Body - namely Amoeba and Plasma. None of the Phagocyts decided to use it at the end though, instead just trying fruitlessly to paralyze Mic. So I won the encounter on the first try.

A very easy solo so far. Spoilers: it's going to be that way for a while, so enjoy the domination. While it lasts, anyway.

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FFL2 Solo Robot Part II

Before moving on into Apollo's World proper, there's something I should talk about. Whip weapons. They deal damage based off STR, but help to raise AGL. That's interesting enough in itself, but they have a flat chance (roughly one-half) of paralyzing their target. This winding the whip does not check any immunities. Thus, anything is fair game. It can be of great benefit in a solo playthrough like this of course, but it was never necessary for Toma or the mushroom. It might be here, but probably not.


I decided to take on the dungeons of this world in the 'proper' order this time around. The undersea volcano has damage tiles, but for Mic and his ability to heal at will, it wasn't an issue. Actually, I didn't once use it in this dungeon - just relying on the healing tiles, his absurd DEF, and running when necessary. Such as against enemies like these!

...except I varied things up. Mic had plenty of DEF, so I decided to try giving him some Headbuts instead to boost his AGL and seeing if he could outspeed and kill them before they could move.


And it...sort of worked? Enemies in this world occasionally don't die to SMG bursts, and as seen here, enemies in general can have variable amounts of starting HP. But dealing with most of them worked. Importantly later on, a SMG blast consistently worked to deal with Medusa groups in the mountains, helping in farming more of that precious gold.

Nothing to say otherwise about this dungeon and Bright Cave. Mic actually ran out of uses of SMGs in the latter, and so had to run from every enemy encounter the rest of the way out.


Dunatis was helpless. You can see from him though that I do eventually need to upgrade Mic's SMGs. Luckily, just such an opportunity is in the next world. No, not even the first two minibosses could do anything against Mic's absurd DEF.


The strategy of a slow block of solid steel gunning things down isn't perfect against everything, one such example being against this guy in the Guardian's Base. It's capable of using both Fire and Ice spellbooks. If it were just one, I could use the appropriate MAGI to get elemental defense. So instead...


SYSTEM CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGE!!!!


With some Headbutts and a Laser Sword on, with Speed MAGI for good measure, Mic outsped the Magician and slaughtered it before it could move.


I kept this on when confronting the next couple enemies. Like with my four-robot party, I wanted to get a Bazooka drop off the Commando. The weapon once actually killed Mic when resetting to try to get it, due to the Commando going first and blowing him away with it. His defenses weren't impenetrable with this setup, so it's all about winning fights with speed and power here.

It eventually did drop, though. Instead of having a base damage of 250, Bazooka has 490. There is only the one until the Dragon Circuit, unfortunately. So I also purchased some Grenades in the Pillar of Sky. Their base damage is 350. I probably should've mentioned this in an earlier report, but the physical damage formula is BD -- DEF*4, with some unknown/untold variance. O-Weapon halves the final damage. Base damage for most weapons is a stat multiplied by a number.


Adding an additional Laser Sword (AGL*11) bought from the shop in the Pillar of Sky was enough to deal the Ninja in with one shot. It had nothing that Mic couldn't deal with, so no problems there.


I had Mic use a mixed setup throughout Venus' World, although that might have to change back to full-on physical DEF for the next few worlds when enemies can start matching this. But I'll be getting Dragon Armor in the next world too, so I don't need to worry about at least some MANA-based attacks.


Actually, Grenades weren't all that helpful. Their damage really isn't that much more impressive than SMGs, and only certain enemy groups in this world can be one-shot by it - such as these things. At least their animation is cool, the grenade actually being thrown! I ditched them after the sewers and just went with the Bazooka, using Elixiers to keep Mic's uses of the weapon replenished.


In the ancient volcano, these Hawk enemies (the floating surveillance cameras) could actually deal a bit of damage to Mic on their own through their own Grenades. And I do mean a bit. Also present were Magicians as regular enemies, which I had to be prompt in running away from.


Venus was just as useless as Ashura. Robots are naturally immune to her Charm and Erase attacks by virtue of oPa/Po. That absurd DEF meant that Blitz Whip couldn't hurt him. And equipping a Fire MAGI negated her Flame.


It took several blasts of the Bazooka to deplete her 2500HP, but she couldn't do a thing. The Bazookas were doing more than enough damage to last through their 15 uses and defeat her. All in all, this was a mindlessly easy battle.


Here's the Dragon Armor, once again. So the likes of those Magicians won't be bothering Mic anymore. He only needs to watch out for things like Tororos (seen on the racetrack), enemies that can petrify him (for now), or other enemies with MANA-based moves. The armor immediately would've seen use against the Adamants, though Mic is naturally immune to poison anyway.


The Watchers are of course the big threat in the racetrack and incredibly dangerous, having one of the attacks Dragon Armor can't defend against. Two Beams or a successful StonGaze would destroy Mic, just like that. But they have a lot of junk in their moveset that he resisted as well. I fought two Watchers and though Mic was hit hard by one Beam, it wasn't too hard to survive and get the victory.

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