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FF1 Solo Monk PSP Part III
Apr. 19th, 2017 11:53 pmIt's been another year or so, but let's keep on pluggin away at Solo Monk on the PSP.
So let's do some Soul of Chaos! I'll point you over to GameFAQs and Terrance's guide (TFergusson) for a more detailed explanation of the mechanics of these places. And yes, I did indeed make that huge map collection there. Story behind it is, when I originally got the PSP version I was sick of being lost on certain floors all the time. With no maps available, I decided to do it myself.
An interesting fact about these dungeons is that they all have some lore behind them. I believe Hellfire Chasm is a place where Elven royalty goes as a rite of passage by seeking the treasure within. Lifespring Grotto is a place where humans and mermaids who fall in love can live together in peace. Whisperwind Cove is a place where the Lufeinian people entrusted their treasures, which Tiamat sealed away out of fear of them. Earthgift Shrine...is just kind of there, but I imagine it used to be mined by the dwarves.
So let's continue where I left off, at Hellfire Chasm. Allow me to introduce you to the most common and nonthreatening sight in all the Soul of Chaos dungeons, their very own natural pollutant - the Black Goblins. They have 50HP, and do I really need to tell you any other statistic? I don't know what my original party on GBA got up to, but it had to be well over 1000 of these little bastards killed. My group of four Black Mages on the PSP version checks in at 746, and the undocumented-here solo Warrior had...26. Clearly I just had the smarts/impatience to run from them, and I guess I'll do so here too. Same for other common weaklings, like Gloom Widow (71HP, hit weaker than generic spiders) and Wild Nakk (80HP wolves).
This is kind of my big problem with the Soul of Chaos dungeons. They're a fun concept, and I love the bosses and searching for new equipment. Even the annoying gimmick floors are few in number enough to plug your nose when you get to one. But the enemies, sheesh. Most are just there to annoy you, being bugs on your windshield. Even moderately difficult enemies are uncommon, and the true new threats like the Abyss Worms are exceptionally rare or only show up late. I mean, there's a certain pleasure in hunting some of them down. But like I said, the random encounters in the main game are frequently stronger than what you get here. It's especially bizarre when you consider the bosses outclass those in the main game!
With that mini-rant out of the way and speaking of gimmick floors, there's two really strange ones in Hellfire Chasm. The first of these is this ridiculous floor. All those NPCs are moving back and forth blocking your path. You need to wait for them to pass by, and in some cases, hope you don't hold the directional button for too long and walk by them. The only encounters are in fixed sparkling tiles, which occasionally but not as often as they should allow for shortcuts. Don't know what they were thinking with this floor.
The other is a world map area, which can have three different layouts. All of these have a ship somewhere, a pirate named Thule, and a desert where you can raise an airship after talking to Thule. It's really cool. In one of the layouts, you do need the airship to reach the exit. It's one of the two floors in the dungeon that lets you access all the treasure, and is much more likely to have more chests compared to the other one. Also notable for having varied encounters.
Unlike Earthgift Shrine, you fight two bosses each pass through the dungeon's ten floors. The elemental archfiends of FF4 make up the opposition in this dungeon. Unfortunately lacking Battle Against the Four Fiends as their theme music. Scarmiglione and Cagnazzo are on F5, and Barbariccia and Rubicante are on F10. You have your choice of which to fight. These guys have mountains of HP, but in contrast to the fiends of FF1, paper-thin defenses on the physical side. If you want some actual numbers as an example, Tiamat has 2400HP and 80 defense. Cagnazzo has 7968HP and 20 defense. Tiamat was taking around 750 on average, Cagnazzo was taking over 2000 on average.
I chose to fight the drowned emperor as part of my first passthrough. His most notable attack is Tsunami - the same attack Chaos uses - which does around 280 damage. His physicals are far weaker, even if he decides to Haste himself. The simple math of it was, just attack. Sofia would get him in four blows, so as long as he didn't use Tsunami four times in a row, victory was hers.
The best part about this first trip through was managing to get two pairs of Hermes Shoes. These are consumable items that cast Haste on the user! Useful to have around for any party without a Red or Black Mage available.
Barbariccia was somewhat trickier. She has 12954HP and somewhat more dangerous attacks. Ray can instantly petrify, Cyclone, also same attack as Chaos, deals around 300 damage, and her physicals pack a wallop if all four hits connect. To start, Sofia buffed herself three times with the Defender to max her evasion (already having 121 natural). With this, she could gradually heal herself with Hi-Potions if need be, as long as Barbariccia doesn't decide to go on a Cyclone rampage. Because of the threat of Ray, a couple Giant's Glove uses were in order to get the killing done faster.
Two uses were optimal, getting her up to the point of where she would get it done in four hits (doing around 3300 damage an attack). Six turns overall rather than seven. As an aside, I tried using Strength Tonics, and they did not perform as well. In fact, checking much later showed they only boost attack by 10, compared to Saber boosting it by 16. I almost thought to pop the Light Curtain that Cagnazzo dropped, an item that casts NulAll, thanks to how annoying Ray was deciding to be. But simple persistence paid off.
The second pass through. Besides the two floors already mentioned, the other standout in Hellfire Chasm is a setting with Sea Shrine graphics, with a lava palette. Sometimes called Scalding Bats, you gradually take damage, 1HP at a time, when not on these grey tiles. There's also a nondescript tunnel in a Waterfall Cave setting. The rest of them are volcano settings; one of these is a rockwall labyrinth and is the only other floor to get you access to every treasure slot, two of these have a ton of lava everywhere, and the remaining is only notable for its treasures being far out of the way. Depending on what's offered in the floor, it may not be worth it to go for.
Pretty sweet battle background in any case. Also despite the name and its monster class, Silver Dragon really isn't all that threatening. Unlike the other elemental dragons of the main game, it has no tricks, so even for a regular party it's just a punching bag, let alone beefy Sofia.
Scarmigilione was a total nonthreat. His only attack is Lightning, which was irrelevant to defend against as Sofia would kill him in two rounds anyway. But much like in the source game, after giving him "a fine death", he comes back for round 2. There was absolutely no time to lose in this fight. He's capable of using an attack called Poison Gas, which does over 400 damage without protecting against it. This was possible for to do so by using the Light Curtain item she had received as a drop from Cagnazzo, but it was easier to just land four attacks and hope he doesn't use the skill twice.
Rubicante has two spells - Firaga and Fire - and one skill, Scorch, which does upwards of 400 damage without protecting against it. Because this was a longer fight thanks to his 40 defense and 15000 HP, using the appropriate Red Curtain was more important. At first, I beat him handily with a few uses of Giant's Gloves and a Hermes Shoes. But when trying to find a way of not using the latter item, a new problem arose: he picked up a habit of using his physical attack, which could do 300-450 damage. After dying a dozen times to this, I had Sofia use the Defender, fully expecting him to switch strategies. But, he didn't.
Regardless of buff choice, using an X-Potion was necessary after the buffs were up. In the former case, this was simply because there was no other way around it - Scorch and the physicals would do too much to rebuild with Hi-Potions. In the latter, it was technically possible to build up enough HP with the Hi-Potions once the physicals were neutralized - only a long string of Scorches (200 after the Curtain) could've outpaced the regeneration. However, I went with the X-Potion, both to be on the safe side and because I only had 19 in stock. Thought 99 would be enough for two trips through, and they indeed were with a dozen to spare.
Also once you do buff up, you're capable of doing absurd damage. It took four rounds of attacks due to damage variance, but Rubicante was easily torn up.
So a bit of preamble before getting into the next two. Both of these dungeons have ten treasures tied to each floor number. However, only one area in each dungeon is capable of having ten treasures (and it will always have ten treasures). The good news is, the floor order is determined via a formula, so it's possible to predict where the floor will be from the first few. The bad news is, this isn't perfect and actually makes it impossible to get a particular piece of armwear in Whisperwind Cove, the Angel's Ring, because the area will never spawn on the appropriate floor.
Furthermore, each place has some very tough enemies waiting at the end. Lifespring Grotto gives you the choice of Omega or Shinryu from FF5. While not as nasty as they are in that game, they're still the second-toughest foes in this game, only dethroned by the PSP version's new superboss. Meanwhile, Death Gaze from FF6 is almost as bad, with very disgusting statistics in its favor.
One of the more important new items is in Whisperwind Cove, the Rune Axe that can be found on F34 or dropped by the Prototype minimechs on Flying Fortress floors 21F and over. This casts Curaga when used as an item. It was critical to my solo Warrior back in the day, and will surely be every bit as important here.
So what's the plan? Well, I guess I'll run Lifespring once, then head into Whisperwind. So what about the ten treasures map? I want to see it appear on B13 or B19. Either of these offers up a Stamina Plus and Strength Plus, along with at least one item to restore all HP. The former has one extra, and the latter has a Speed Plus. All told, there's a 15/256 chance of this happening. Pft. Could get those odds in my sleep. I also don't mind going through multiple times, because Lifespring has the least amount of annoying maps.
Six of the seventeen maps have a Sea Shrine setting. Three of them have a Chaos Shrine past setting. Three outliers are an Ice Cave, Marsh Cave, and Flying Fortress, which show up a lot more in Whisperwind Cove.
Of course, the usual Soul of Chaos enemies not fit to lick your boots in the midgame, let alone the postgame where you're strong enough to face these bosses, pollute this dungeon. I just had her run from everything that was one of those. Not worth my time to fight them.
Gilgamesh is the first FF5 boss you come to, after arriving on the mermaid village of Seahold on the fifth floor, after talking to a series of mermaids hinting at his being here searching for a certain legendary sword. There's two variations of this mini-floor: one ends near the exit, one ends in a cave in the southeast where said sword is. He comes with a ridiculous physical attack, which in particular did 650 damage to Sofia! There's also Excalipur, which does a fixed 1 damage. He also has a Wind Slash attack (around 125), Protect, NulAll, and Haste. so overall, he's very similar to Gilgamesh 2. The main threat is therefore those devastating regular physicals.
Of course, no matter how hard you hit, it means nothing if you can't actually hit. Three uses of Defender and he could barely touch Sofia. Didn't even need to bother with any othef buffs from here, she just healed up in case of too many Wind Slashes and punched him out from there.
Atomos is on F10, a very odd pick for a boss. Unlike most of the Soul of Chaos bosses who at least resemble their original fight, the interdimensional portal fights completely differently. It still has its Comet spell, which did a massive 450 damage to Sofia, and its Wormhole is now a Time-elemental death move, necessitating the use of a Light Curtain to cast NulAll. Its Firaga did about 230 damage, and physicals did only 100.
The trick to beating this fight without using an X-Potion was just to go all-in, full YOLO mode. Healing with Hi-Potions was impractical due to Comet and Firaga putting Sofia too far in the hole. She used the Curtain, popped a Hermes Shoes item to double her damage output, and let him have it. I thought I might have to use a Giant's Glove Saber or two to increase her rate of damage even further (she was doing 2500 every attack, more depending on criticals), but there was no need - got it done the first fight after settling on the strategy.
It only has 13000HP, and Sofia racked up enough additional damage to kill it in five shots. The portal used enough Wormholes and physicals so that Sofia survived the bigger attacks. She was down to double digit HP at the end, but Atomos' low speed made me unafraid. No random turn order shenanigans in this version! It drops an item called the Judgment Staff, which casts Flare when used as an item. Yeah. It's very nice to have, needless to say.
In the back half of Lifespring Grotto, a few more worthy opponents start to show up. These sharks in particular can deal respectable damage (this screenshot showing off a weaker hit) and have a massive 1200HP! The Sahagin Queens by comparison are just another flavor of punching bag; statistically stronger than the red ones, but weaker than the Princes.
Though that's the lingering problem with the encounters here - these stronger enemies aren't all that common, and are often mixed in with weaker enemies.
There are five oddball maps in Lifespring Grotto. The biggest one of interest is referred to as "Shimmering Walkways". It's a flying castle (not like the hi-tech fortress setting), and is the only map in Lifespring Grotto to have all ten chests. It has no random encounters, but has a maze of the aforementioned flickering tiles over the air. If you step off where they are when crossing from place to place, you get thrown back to the entrance. It's not too terrible unless you want to get the treasure in slot 9, which is really out of the way. Sadly both my desired positionings of this map have something important there: an Elixir (F13) and Stamina Plus (F19).
The second of these features several screens of dancing girls. A neat map with lots of unique dialogue. The only annoying part is the third map, the walking course, which forces you down a winding path for one of the chests. The third is a library maze, which is also filled with people with dialogue regarding (not) getting out of your way. However, it's nowhere near as annoying as similar map in Hellfire Chasm; there are no spike tiles and they don't move in fixed patterns. The fourth is really cool - it's a flooded village with no random encounters, just treasure and an exit placed randomly on one of the doors.
The final really interesting stage features Dark Bahamut, who challenges you to defeat a number of three kinds of any of the dragons in the game, including the new Silver, Yellow, Holy, and Black Dragons. Silver and Yellow aren't too spectacular. The former is weak with no abilities, and though the latter has 500HP and Thunderbolt, it's not a serious threat (though stronger than main game dragons). Holy and Black...are kind of threats. They have 1374 and 1600 HP respectively, respectable defense, and hit fairly hard. They can cast Holy and Kill (XXXX) respectively. Or they would, if Sofia didn't one-shot them.
Unfortunately, I made a miscalculation here. I thought there was an unguarded exit, but nope. Something has to die to end the dungeon, be it Omega, Shinryu, or Sofia. Thankfully, they made it so death in these dungeons with their usually pathetic randoms and murderous bosses just kick you out at 1HP.
Sadly, that something had to be Sofia. I looked back at what my Knight Midas did for Shinryu. Two key things there was that I did it after Whisperwind (and so had access to the Rune Axe), and he took much less damage from its magical attacks. I'm not sure what level he was at, but it wasn't 99. As-is, the numbers were against Sofia. Knight is on the left, Sofia is on the right.
Physicals through Blink: ~160 vs ~210
Icestorm/Thunderbolt: 80-90 vs ~150/~200
Tidal Wave: ~270 vs ~410
Flare: 320-340 vs 490-530
Rune Axe: 280-290 vs Don't have, but it'll be a bit more due to higher Intelligence
Very problematic, although the additional Magic Defense from leveling up will make it more manageable.
Oh, I could do it! And in fact, did do it. Hermes Shoes, three Defender uses, a few Giant's Gauntlet Sabers, luck in not seeing Flare twice in a row without a chance to heal, and either a Ribbon (biting the bullet) to buy more time from not using a Light Curtain or a bit more luck and using it saw Sofia through the fight. After using all five of her max HP healing items. This is kind of unacceptable, since I need a number of those for a certain boss in Whisperwind Cove unless I want to farm for a Rune Axe drop. Given the choice, I'll just take solace in the fact that I was able to do it and try my luck later.
So Whisperwind Cove is next up. The reason for the big delay in getting this update out is that rerolling these dungeons can get super annoying. I have a 8/256 chance of seeing what I want here. It requires a certain floor with all 10 possible treasures on a floor to spawn on B34; Rune Axe is the tenth treasure there. TFergusson's really useful guide has a list of all combinations, including a list that's ordered by where the floors in question spawn.
However, I also want a certain town floor to spawn between B31-B39. This will allow Sofia to buy Hermes Shoes for Haste to her heart's content. There is exactly one combination that allows me to get both, 1/256. Yup.
Whisperwind Cove is the longest of the dungeons at 40 floors. Many of these are gimmick-based, such as this one I want to start off with. Set in a derelict town, your goal is to go around examining all the junk robots until you find two that have parts in them, then take them back to this robot. The fact that there's no random encounters could be seen as a blessing, but with no way to tell which robots have the parts you need aside from talking to them all, it's a fairly dull floor.
The first time I got this I was baited pretty hard. I got the desired second floor, but the third one - a village of fairies that either talk or restore/take away HP/MP - was not the right one. So much for quickly being able to march forward with this challenge. It took a stupidly long time to show up, that drained nearly half my PSP's battery and gave me a hand cramp, but sheer stubbornness saw me through.
As usual, there's nothing to say about the enemies here. They're useless filler who only serve to annoy you with random encounters that lightly tap you regardless of whether you're an overleveled solo character, a normal functioning party, or even playing a low level game. With the maps I made way back when and the Soul of Chaos guide aiding in determining whether or not it was worth it to seek out the treasures on any given floor, Sofia was able to make her way through the first nine floors of the dungeon without incident.
FF6 bosses make up the opposition in this dungeon. Typhon is the boss on the tenth floor. This prick right here is capable of using his trademark Snort, in this game a move that can inflict instant death with no respect for resistances. To deal with him, I had Sofia use Hermes Shoes to double her damage output and attack away. There was no time to lose - the more time spent buffing, the more opportunities he has to use Snort and instantly end the battle.
Ironically during my winning fight, Typhon loved spamming Snort, but Sofia resisted it every time. He has only 10000HP, and with Sofia doing variable damage that averaged around 2000, it took her five attacks to do him in.
There are two different towns within Whisperwind Cove. This one, called Mysidia in the Soul of Chaos guide, is noteworthy for its shops. The various paletted White and Black Mages sell every single spell in the game! So if for whatever reason you don't have a full list of spells on anyone, you can fill them up here. The Red Mages, who are either green or pink here, usually chat. But a few of them sell weapons, armor, and items. Unlike the floor I was manipulating floor, these don't vary by floor, and consist of various mage-related and spellcasting weapons/armor and the curtain items. Sofia brought her stack of Light Curtains to 99 before proceeding on.
One cool non-gimmicky floor is set in an overworld area in the sunset, on a floating island. Many of them are Ice Cave based, however.
An odd gimmick floor is this mysterious dream-like world full of little boys playing. A pretty creative idea, if slightly disturbing if you think about it and read some of their dialogue about not knowing how they got there. Your objective is to navigate the maze of houses to reach a kid with a unique hair color, to assist another one at hide and seek. Another weird one features the proto-Moogles, the Beavers from FF2 - your goal is direct a certain number of beavers specified by an old man into the left and right rooms. A trivially pointless task. Then there's a floor where you embark on a long annoying trade quest with dwarves to eventually get a ruby to feed to a giant. It takes forever, and I'm not sure to call the lack of random encounters a bad thing or a mercy.
Ultros, also known as Orthros here, uses an identical strategy to his octopus counterpart in the main game. That is to say, he has a monstrous physical attack and also uses Ink a lot. Granted, he uses his physical attack more often than Kraken does, but he can still easily be neutered just by using the Defender thrice. And it's just making seafood soup from there.
He gives up a Rune Staff when defeated. A nice item for parties, given that it casts Healra/HEL2 when used as an item. Notsomuch for a solo character.
There really is nothing much to say about Sofia's trip through the dungeon. She continued to run from just about everything she saw, only fighting when she couldn't run from an encounter. One such encounter is against enemies called Death Elementals. Despite their scary name, they're just black palette swaps of Waters and Winds. But things like those are the exception rather than the rule.
B30 is probably one of the creepiest things in a Final Fantasy game. Set to the game over music, it's a cursed dead village littered with gravestones, statues, and zombified people crying out in agony. And this out-of-place jerk is the cause of it all. This Acid Rain attack in particular is why I needed to reset Shinryu despite being able to pull out a victory - it's his favorite move, and it does more damage than Hi-Potions can outpace. Being a train, he has a really painful physical attack - but it's only one hit, so it's not as big a threat as others' can be.
This is all he has, and in spite of thinking it might be poison-elemental, Acid Rain has no element. Sofia therefore started out with the Defender thrice, followed it up with Hermes Shoes, using X-Potions as she needed, and started the beatdown. And actually, he only has 9999HP. Sofia easily dealt with him. So maybe all that buffing wasn't needed. My Knight didn't hit as hard though, and did need the defense. Hm.
The town becomes a bright flower-filled field after this, although there's nothing to do in it but talk to people and leave.
On the floor after this. I reached my destination. With this purchase to get her to 99, as excessive as it was, Sofia was effectively free to use these and get a haste effect in whatever battle she pleased. This is the second town in Whisperwind Cove, and has more than a passing resemblance to Pravoka. Unlike Mysidia, the contents of its item shop vary by floor, with different sets depending on which set of ten it falls into. The bad news is, none of these have X-Potions in them...
Catch the final part of this variant soon™ to see what's left of the game start to fall. Hopefully without another absurdly long delay.
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So let's do some Soul of Chaos! I'll point you over to GameFAQs and Terrance's guide (TFergusson) for a more detailed explanation of the mechanics of these places. And yes, I did indeed make that huge map collection there. Story behind it is, when I originally got the PSP version I was sick of being lost on certain floors all the time. With no maps available, I decided to do it myself.
An interesting fact about these dungeons is that they all have some lore behind them. I believe Hellfire Chasm is a place where Elven royalty goes as a rite of passage by seeking the treasure within. Lifespring Grotto is a place where humans and mermaids who fall in love can live together in peace. Whisperwind Cove is a place where the Lufeinian people entrusted their treasures, which Tiamat sealed away out of fear of them. Earthgift Shrine...is just kind of there, but I imagine it used to be mined by the dwarves.
So let's continue where I left off, at Hellfire Chasm. Allow me to introduce you to the most common and nonthreatening sight in all the Soul of Chaos dungeons, their very own natural pollutant - the Black Goblins. They have 50HP, and do I really need to tell you any other statistic? I don't know what my original party on GBA got up to, but it had to be well over 1000 of these little bastards killed. My group of four Black Mages on the PSP version checks in at 746, and the undocumented-here solo Warrior had...26. Clearly I just had the smarts/impatience to run from them, and I guess I'll do so here too. Same for other common weaklings, like Gloom Widow (71HP, hit weaker than generic spiders) and Wild Nakk (80HP wolves).
This is kind of my big problem with the Soul of Chaos dungeons. They're a fun concept, and I love the bosses and searching for new equipment. Even the annoying gimmick floors are few in number enough to plug your nose when you get to one. But the enemies, sheesh. Most are just there to annoy you, being bugs on your windshield. Even moderately difficult enemies are uncommon, and the true new threats like the Abyss Worms are exceptionally rare or only show up late. I mean, there's a certain pleasure in hunting some of them down. But like I said, the random encounters in the main game are frequently stronger than what you get here. It's especially bizarre when you consider the bosses outclass those in the main game!
With that mini-rant out of the way and speaking of gimmick floors, there's two really strange ones in Hellfire Chasm. The first of these is this ridiculous floor. All those NPCs are moving back and forth blocking your path. You need to wait for them to pass by, and in some cases, hope you don't hold the directional button for too long and walk by them. The only encounters are in fixed sparkling tiles, which occasionally but not as often as they should allow for shortcuts. Don't know what they were thinking with this floor.
The other is a world map area, which can have three different layouts. All of these have a ship somewhere, a pirate named Thule, and a desert where you can raise an airship after talking to Thule. It's really cool. In one of the layouts, you do need the airship to reach the exit. It's one of the two floors in the dungeon that lets you access all the treasure, and is much more likely to have more chests compared to the other one. Also notable for having varied encounters.
Unlike Earthgift Shrine, you fight two bosses each pass through the dungeon's ten floors. The elemental archfiends of FF4 make up the opposition in this dungeon. Unfortunately lacking Battle Against the Four Fiends as their theme music. Scarmiglione and Cagnazzo are on F5, and Barbariccia and Rubicante are on F10. You have your choice of which to fight. These guys have mountains of HP, but in contrast to the fiends of FF1, paper-thin defenses on the physical side. If you want some actual numbers as an example, Tiamat has 2400HP and 80 defense. Cagnazzo has 7968HP and 20 defense. Tiamat was taking around 750 on average, Cagnazzo was taking over 2000 on average.
I chose to fight the drowned emperor as part of my first passthrough. His most notable attack is Tsunami - the same attack Chaos uses - which does around 280 damage. His physicals are far weaker, even if he decides to Haste himself. The simple math of it was, just attack. Sofia would get him in four blows, so as long as he didn't use Tsunami four times in a row, victory was hers.
The best part about this first trip through was managing to get two pairs of Hermes Shoes. These are consumable items that cast Haste on the user! Useful to have around for any party without a Red or Black Mage available.
Barbariccia was somewhat trickier. She has 12954HP and somewhat more dangerous attacks. Ray can instantly petrify, Cyclone, also same attack as Chaos, deals around 300 damage, and her physicals pack a wallop if all four hits connect. To start, Sofia buffed herself three times with the Defender to max her evasion (already having 121 natural). With this, she could gradually heal herself with Hi-Potions if need be, as long as Barbariccia doesn't decide to go on a Cyclone rampage. Because of the threat of Ray, a couple Giant's Glove uses were in order to get the killing done faster.
Two uses were optimal, getting her up to the point of where she would get it done in four hits (doing around 3300 damage an attack). Six turns overall rather than seven. As an aside, I tried using Strength Tonics, and they did not perform as well. In fact, checking much later showed they only boost attack by 10, compared to Saber boosting it by 16. I almost thought to pop the Light Curtain that Cagnazzo dropped, an item that casts NulAll, thanks to how annoying Ray was deciding to be. But simple persistence paid off.
The second pass through. Besides the two floors already mentioned, the other standout in Hellfire Chasm is a setting with Sea Shrine graphics, with a lava palette. Sometimes called Scalding Bats, you gradually take damage, 1HP at a time, when not on these grey tiles. There's also a nondescript tunnel in a Waterfall Cave setting. The rest of them are volcano settings; one of these is a rockwall labyrinth and is the only other floor to get you access to every treasure slot, two of these have a ton of lava everywhere, and the remaining is only notable for its treasures being far out of the way. Depending on what's offered in the floor, it may not be worth it to go for.
Pretty sweet battle background in any case. Also despite the name and its monster class, Silver Dragon really isn't all that threatening. Unlike the other elemental dragons of the main game, it has no tricks, so even for a regular party it's just a punching bag, let alone beefy Sofia.
Scarmigilione was a total nonthreat. His only attack is Lightning, which was irrelevant to defend against as Sofia would kill him in two rounds anyway. But much like in the source game, after giving him "a fine death", he comes back for round 2. There was absolutely no time to lose in this fight. He's capable of using an attack called Poison Gas, which does over 400 damage without protecting against it. This was possible for to do so by using the Light Curtain item she had received as a drop from Cagnazzo, but it was easier to just land four attacks and hope he doesn't use the skill twice.
Rubicante has two spells - Firaga and Fire - and one skill, Scorch, which does upwards of 400 damage without protecting against it. Because this was a longer fight thanks to his 40 defense and 15000 HP, using the appropriate Red Curtain was more important. At first, I beat him handily with a few uses of Giant's Gloves and a Hermes Shoes. But when trying to find a way of not using the latter item, a new problem arose: he picked up a habit of using his physical attack, which could do 300-450 damage. After dying a dozen times to this, I had Sofia use the Defender, fully expecting him to switch strategies. But, he didn't.
Regardless of buff choice, using an X-Potion was necessary after the buffs were up. In the former case, this was simply because there was no other way around it - Scorch and the physicals would do too much to rebuild with Hi-Potions. In the latter, it was technically possible to build up enough HP with the Hi-Potions once the physicals were neutralized - only a long string of Scorches (200 after the Curtain) could've outpaced the regeneration. However, I went with the X-Potion, both to be on the safe side and because I only had 19 in stock. Thought 99 would be enough for two trips through, and they indeed were with a dozen to spare.
Also once you do buff up, you're capable of doing absurd damage. It took four rounds of attacks due to damage variance, but Rubicante was easily torn up.
So a bit of preamble before getting into the next two. Both of these dungeons have ten treasures tied to each floor number. However, only one area in each dungeon is capable of having ten treasures (and it will always have ten treasures). The good news is, the floor order is determined via a formula, so it's possible to predict where the floor will be from the first few. The bad news is, this isn't perfect and actually makes it impossible to get a particular piece of armwear in Whisperwind Cove, the Angel's Ring, because the area will never spawn on the appropriate floor.
Furthermore, each place has some very tough enemies waiting at the end. Lifespring Grotto gives you the choice of Omega or Shinryu from FF5. While not as nasty as they are in that game, they're still the second-toughest foes in this game, only dethroned by the PSP version's new superboss. Meanwhile, Death Gaze from FF6 is almost as bad, with very disgusting statistics in its favor.
One of the more important new items is in Whisperwind Cove, the Rune Axe that can be found on F34 or dropped by the Prototype minimechs on Flying Fortress floors 21F and over. This casts Curaga when used as an item. It was critical to my solo Warrior back in the day, and will surely be every bit as important here.
So what's the plan? Well, I guess I'll run Lifespring once, then head into Whisperwind. So what about the ten treasures map? I want to see it appear on B13 or B19. Either of these offers up a Stamina Plus and Strength Plus, along with at least one item to restore all HP. The former has one extra, and the latter has a Speed Plus. All told, there's a 15/256 chance of this happening. Pft. Could get those odds in my sleep. I also don't mind going through multiple times, because Lifespring has the least amount of annoying maps.
Six of the seventeen maps have a Sea Shrine setting. Three of them have a Chaos Shrine past setting. Three outliers are an Ice Cave, Marsh Cave, and Flying Fortress, which show up a lot more in Whisperwind Cove.
Of course, the usual Soul of Chaos enemies not fit to lick your boots in the midgame, let alone the postgame where you're strong enough to face these bosses, pollute this dungeon. I just had her run from everything that was one of those. Not worth my time to fight them.
Gilgamesh is the first FF5 boss you come to, after arriving on the mermaid village of Seahold on the fifth floor, after talking to a series of mermaids hinting at his being here searching for a certain legendary sword. There's two variations of this mini-floor: one ends near the exit, one ends in a cave in the southeast where said sword is. He comes with a ridiculous physical attack, which in particular did 650 damage to Sofia! There's also Excalipur, which does a fixed 1 damage. He also has a Wind Slash attack (around 125), Protect, NulAll, and Haste. so overall, he's very similar to Gilgamesh 2. The main threat is therefore those devastating regular physicals.
Of course, no matter how hard you hit, it means nothing if you can't actually hit. Three uses of Defender and he could barely touch Sofia. Didn't even need to bother with any othef buffs from here, she just healed up in case of too many Wind Slashes and punched him out from there.
Atomos is on F10, a very odd pick for a boss. Unlike most of the Soul of Chaos bosses who at least resemble their original fight, the interdimensional portal fights completely differently. It still has its Comet spell, which did a massive 450 damage to Sofia, and its Wormhole is now a Time-elemental death move, necessitating the use of a Light Curtain to cast NulAll. Its Firaga did about 230 damage, and physicals did only 100.
The trick to beating this fight without using an X-Potion was just to go all-in, full YOLO mode. Healing with Hi-Potions was impractical due to Comet and Firaga putting Sofia too far in the hole. She used the Curtain, popped a Hermes Shoes item to double her damage output, and let him have it. I thought I might have to use a Giant's Glove Saber or two to increase her rate of damage even further (she was doing 2500 every attack, more depending on criticals), but there was no need - got it done the first fight after settling on the strategy.
It only has 13000HP, and Sofia racked up enough additional damage to kill it in five shots. The portal used enough Wormholes and physicals so that Sofia survived the bigger attacks. She was down to double digit HP at the end, but Atomos' low speed made me unafraid. No random turn order shenanigans in this version! It drops an item called the Judgment Staff, which casts Flare when used as an item. Yeah. It's very nice to have, needless to say.
In the back half of Lifespring Grotto, a few more worthy opponents start to show up. These sharks in particular can deal respectable damage (this screenshot showing off a weaker hit) and have a massive 1200HP! The Sahagin Queens by comparison are just another flavor of punching bag; statistically stronger than the red ones, but weaker than the Princes.
Though that's the lingering problem with the encounters here - these stronger enemies aren't all that common, and are often mixed in with weaker enemies.
There are five oddball maps in Lifespring Grotto. The biggest one of interest is referred to as "Shimmering Walkways". It's a flying castle (not like the hi-tech fortress setting), and is the only map in Lifespring Grotto to have all ten chests. It has no random encounters, but has a maze of the aforementioned flickering tiles over the air. If you step off where they are when crossing from place to place, you get thrown back to the entrance. It's not too terrible unless you want to get the treasure in slot 9, which is really out of the way. Sadly both my desired positionings of this map have something important there: an Elixir (F13) and Stamina Plus (F19).
The second of these features several screens of dancing girls. A neat map with lots of unique dialogue. The only annoying part is the third map, the walking course, which forces you down a winding path for one of the chests. The third is a library maze, which is also filled with people with dialogue regarding (not) getting out of your way. However, it's nowhere near as annoying as similar map in Hellfire Chasm; there are no spike tiles and they don't move in fixed patterns. The fourth is really cool - it's a flooded village with no random encounters, just treasure and an exit placed randomly on one of the doors.
The final really interesting stage features Dark Bahamut, who challenges you to defeat a number of three kinds of any of the dragons in the game, including the new Silver, Yellow, Holy, and Black Dragons. Silver and Yellow aren't too spectacular. The former is weak with no abilities, and though the latter has 500HP and Thunderbolt, it's not a serious threat (though stronger than main game dragons). Holy and Black...are kind of threats. They have 1374 and 1600 HP respectively, respectable defense, and hit fairly hard. They can cast Holy and Kill (XXXX) respectively. Or they would, if Sofia didn't one-shot them.
Unfortunately, I made a miscalculation here. I thought there was an unguarded exit, but nope. Something has to die to end the dungeon, be it Omega, Shinryu, or Sofia. Thankfully, they made it so death in these dungeons with their usually pathetic randoms and murderous bosses just kick you out at 1HP.
Sadly, that something had to be Sofia. I looked back at what my Knight Midas did for Shinryu. Two key things there was that I did it after Whisperwind (and so had access to the Rune Axe), and he took much less damage from its magical attacks. I'm not sure what level he was at, but it wasn't 99. As-is, the numbers were against Sofia. Knight is on the left, Sofia is on the right.
Physicals through Blink: ~160 vs ~210
Icestorm/Thunderbolt: 80-90 vs ~150/~200
Tidal Wave: ~270 vs ~410
Flare: 320-340 vs 490-530
Rune Axe: 280-290 vs Don't have, but it'll be a bit more due to higher Intelligence
Very problematic, although the additional Magic Defense from leveling up will make it more manageable.
Oh, I could do it! And in fact, did do it. Hermes Shoes, three Defender uses, a few Giant's Gauntlet Sabers, luck in not seeing Flare twice in a row without a chance to heal, and either a Ribbon (biting the bullet) to buy more time from not using a Light Curtain or a bit more luck and using it saw Sofia through the fight. After using all five of her max HP healing items. This is kind of unacceptable, since I need a number of those for a certain boss in Whisperwind Cove unless I want to farm for a Rune Axe drop. Given the choice, I'll just take solace in the fact that I was able to do it and try my luck later.
So Whisperwind Cove is next up. The reason for the big delay in getting this update out is that rerolling these dungeons can get super annoying. I have a 8/256 chance of seeing what I want here. It requires a certain floor with all 10 possible treasures on a floor to spawn on B34; Rune Axe is the tenth treasure there. TFergusson's really useful guide has a list of all combinations, including a list that's ordered by where the floors in question spawn.
However, I also want a certain town floor to spawn between B31-B39. This will allow Sofia to buy Hermes Shoes for Haste to her heart's content. There is exactly one combination that allows me to get both, 1/256. Yup.
Whisperwind Cove is the longest of the dungeons at 40 floors. Many of these are gimmick-based, such as this one I want to start off with. Set in a derelict town, your goal is to go around examining all the junk robots until you find two that have parts in them, then take them back to this robot. The fact that there's no random encounters could be seen as a blessing, but with no way to tell which robots have the parts you need aside from talking to them all, it's a fairly dull floor.
The first time I got this I was baited pretty hard. I got the desired second floor, but the third one - a village of fairies that either talk or restore/take away HP/MP - was not the right one. So much for quickly being able to march forward with this challenge. It took a stupidly long time to show up, that drained nearly half my PSP's battery and gave me a hand cramp, but sheer stubbornness saw me through.
As usual, there's nothing to say about the enemies here. They're useless filler who only serve to annoy you with random encounters that lightly tap you regardless of whether you're an overleveled solo character, a normal functioning party, or even playing a low level game. With the maps I made way back when and the Soul of Chaos guide aiding in determining whether or not it was worth it to seek out the treasures on any given floor, Sofia was able to make her way through the first nine floors of the dungeon without incident.
FF6 bosses make up the opposition in this dungeon. Typhon is the boss on the tenth floor. This prick right here is capable of using his trademark Snort, in this game a move that can inflict instant death with no respect for resistances. To deal with him, I had Sofia use Hermes Shoes to double her damage output and attack away. There was no time to lose - the more time spent buffing, the more opportunities he has to use Snort and instantly end the battle.
Ironically during my winning fight, Typhon loved spamming Snort, but Sofia resisted it every time. He has only 10000HP, and with Sofia doing variable damage that averaged around 2000, it took her five attacks to do him in.
There are two different towns within Whisperwind Cove. This one, called Mysidia in the Soul of Chaos guide, is noteworthy for its shops. The various paletted White and Black Mages sell every single spell in the game! So if for whatever reason you don't have a full list of spells on anyone, you can fill them up here. The Red Mages, who are either green or pink here, usually chat. But a few of them sell weapons, armor, and items. Unlike the floor I was manipulating floor, these don't vary by floor, and consist of various mage-related and spellcasting weapons/armor and the curtain items. Sofia brought her stack of Light Curtains to 99 before proceeding on.
One cool non-gimmicky floor is set in an overworld area in the sunset, on a floating island. Many of them are Ice Cave based, however.
An odd gimmick floor is this mysterious dream-like world full of little boys playing. A pretty creative idea, if slightly disturbing if you think about it and read some of their dialogue about not knowing how they got there. Your objective is to navigate the maze of houses to reach a kid with a unique hair color, to assist another one at hide and seek. Another weird one features the proto-Moogles, the Beavers from FF2 - your goal is direct a certain number of beavers specified by an old man into the left and right rooms. A trivially pointless task. Then there's a floor where you embark on a long annoying trade quest with dwarves to eventually get a ruby to feed to a giant. It takes forever, and I'm not sure to call the lack of random encounters a bad thing or a mercy.
Ultros, also known as Orthros here, uses an identical strategy to his octopus counterpart in the main game. That is to say, he has a monstrous physical attack and also uses Ink a lot. Granted, he uses his physical attack more often than Kraken does, but he can still easily be neutered just by using the Defender thrice. And it's just making seafood soup from there.
He gives up a Rune Staff when defeated. A nice item for parties, given that it casts Healra/HEL2 when used as an item. Notsomuch for a solo character.
There really is nothing much to say about Sofia's trip through the dungeon. She continued to run from just about everything she saw, only fighting when she couldn't run from an encounter. One such encounter is against enemies called Death Elementals. Despite their scary name, they're just black palette swaps of Waters and Winds. But things like those are the exception rather than the rule.
B30 is probably one of the creepiest things in a Final Fantasy game. Set to the game over music, it's a cursed dead village littered with gravestones, statues, and zombified people crying out in agony. And this out-of-place jerk is the cause of it all. This Acid Rain attack in particular is why I needed to reset Shinryu despite being able to pull out a victory - it's his favorite move, and it does more damage than Hi-Potions can outpace. Being a train, he has a really painful physical attack - but it's only one hit, so it's not as big a threat as others' can be.
This is all he has, and in spite of thinking it might be poison-elemental, Acid Rain has no element. Sofia therefore started out with the Defender thrice, followed it up with Hermes Shoes, using X-Potions as she needed, and started the beatdown. And actually, he only has 9999HP. Sofia easily dealt with him. So maybe all that buffing wasn't needed. My Knight didn't hit as hard though, and did need the defense. Hm.
The town becomes a bright flower-filled field after this, although there's nothing to do in it but talk to people and leave.
On the floor after this. I reached my destination. With this purchase to get her to 99, as excessive as it was, Sofia was effectively free to use these and get a haste effect in whatever battle she pleased. This is the second town in Whisperwind Cove, and has more than a passing resemblance to Pravoka. Unlike Mysidia, the contents of its item shop vary by floor, with different sets depending on which set of ten it falls into. The bad news is, none of these have X-Potions in them...
Catch the final part of this variant soon™ to see what's left of the game start to fall. Hopefully without another absurdly long delay.
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