Oct. 16th, 2017

Going back to Mystic Quest for a new variant, one that was suggested to me a while back - Low%. This is exactly as it sounds, and similar in concept to the FF1 Capitalists challenge. I have to get as little as possible when advancing through the game. Recall that big damage in particular comes from magic, which is all optional...and you can see how you may run into problems in the later stages.

In some senses, this is therefore similar in some respects to the Cheerleader challenge I did. However, instead of only being able to act as healing and defensive support, the player character - B because that uses as few characters as possible and therefore fits for getting as little as possible - is free to do whatever within the constraints of the variant allowing him options. Furthermore, I will have full control of the partner character in this challenge. Which is good, because B will be dead weight offensively in many situations. As a bit of an extra twist to make this slightly more interesting, I'll also be abstaining from opening regular treasure chests - if I want consumables, I'll have to buy them.


The only notable part about the first portion of the game was not picking up the Cure spell. This would nonetheless affect the entire rest of the playthrough. Instead of B being able to heal himself, he had to rely on his partner for healing - since Cure Potions and their fixed 1/4 max health restoration certainly weren't reliable. Luckily, every partner character in the game comes with at least the Life spell, and casting it in-battle acts as a full HP and status heal, regardless of current condition.

It also by the way acts as an instant death spell on any non-undead enemy you cast it on. So just to be a jerk, I kicked Minotaur in the groin with this.


The second partner character brings forth a minor problem. Tristam's main means of offense is through Ninja Stars, a limited resource given my self-inflicted additional rule of not opening treasure chests to replenish his supply. This meant I had a pseudo time limit on beating the Bone Dungeon - if Tristam ran out of Ninja Stars, that would be it. His offense would be crippled (attacking with his bare hands for minimal damage), and I'd have to rely on grinding B up to extreme levels to get by. That's just not practical. Yet.

That said, the limitation wasn't too terrible. With him starting off with a full stock of 99, it simply meant I couldn't grind. Unfortunately this was going to affect my performance against the boss of the dungeon...thinking about it in retrospect, I probably should've done some more grinding with Kaeli before losing her.


Becuase of my additional limitation of not even opening regular treasure chests, this was an endurance test of a dungeon. I wanted to get to Flamerus with as many of Tristam's Life charges as possible, leading to several deaths along the way. Unfortunately I just couldn't avoid using them, and so he had exactly zero left by the time I got there. Well, shit.


Partially because of this, partially because of being too stubborn to redo it, and partially because of just genuine difficulty under my circumstances, Flamerus Rex was an incredibly difficult opponent. The offense was no issue - Tristam had a healthy enough supply of Ninja Stars, and B's Bombs did acceptable damage as well. No, the problem was winning before dying. Flamerus does fairly decent damage with its attacks, and has enough HP so that Tristam would eventually run out of Life Spells if he kept using them. Furthermore, it can use Rip Earth to damage both at the same time. One of the issues of Life in battle compared to Cure is being exclusively single-target.


With all that coming together, this was actually one of the hardest fights in the challenge! Though at core, it was just down to attacking and repeating the fight until all the bounces went my way. It took several attempts, but thankfully, it did come to pass.


With that awful experience out of the way, I could move onto the next region. B was able to replenish his bombs here. While he couldn't really afford to do so just yet, with what was to come affording any refills was easy.


With the next partner character also being limited in their basic attack ammunition after a short while, I decided it would be best if I got the needed grinding out of the way right then and there. Don't want to end up in that situation again. Grinding would be a necessity for this challenge, and in that sense it's kind of the opposite of Low Level. There I had (almost) unrestricted access to anything in the game, but with minimal levels. Here I can and will grind as much as I please, to make up for the deficiency of not being able to use anything but what's mandatory.


This may have been excessive, but with Phoebe switching to a weapon that requires ammunition, I'd rather get as many levels as possible ahead of time before she has to worry about running out. The bed in Foresta is a free source of healing, the only restriction being that it naturally can't be used mid-dungeon. I would return there several times over the course of this grind in order to refresh Phoebe's healing and magic stocks.

I went up to level 15 as shown there before stopping. By the way, as a demonstration of how strong bombs are, even with all these levels, they (with 63 attack power) were still outclassing the strongest weapon B had. It won't be like this forever even for this challenge, but still, they were a weapon of choice for this challenge. I did reset and give Phoebe her proper statistics after this - I kept them on Tristam's so she'd have just a bit more attack, but for the world as a whole, her own natural water resistance in particular was more useful. Except I actually didn't do this? Did I seriously go through the whole way including Ice Golem without water resistance?!


The cave itself was mostly a non-issue. I did try to conserve Phoebe's arrows throughout, this time far more successfully due to the presence of her magic and B's increased levels. With Thunder and several charges saved up, I could easily wipe the floor with Squidite.


With the Wintry Cave completed, I had the chance to purchase Cure potions. I am allowing myself to buy consumable items, if only because going without bombs, B's primary damage source for a good chunk of the game, might push this into unreasonable territory. However, I chose to forgo this for three reasons. One, I might want said bombs instead. Two, Seeds are more beneficial in the end. And three, Cure potions are of questionable help, as mentioned restoring only a fixed quarter of the target's max HP.

There really isn't too much to say about Falls Basin. It isn't a long enough dungeon for things to really matter, and the myriad of Desert Hags and Lamias went down easily enough. Neither was the boss that big of an issue, going down to several spells and some bombs. This earlier part of the game comes before the low% restriction can really come into play. The only major difference was, as mentioned, not having the Cure spell. Which simply meant Phoebe had to do healing, as opposed to B being able to do so while she continued attacking. And when he didn't need to, he still had bombs available for use. And would get the Jumbo Bomb upgrade after the boss fight...


At the very end, Snow Crab was also a non-issue. Fire burned it down very effectively, and B could contribute just as well/keep piling the damage on while Phoebe healed due to its axe weakness.

One thing to note about Falls Basin - you can't return to it after you leave...through the north. If you leave through the south you can return, but can't advance on the map either until you exit through the north. And if you fail to pick up the Heal spell that's right there in plain sight, you can't ever get it.


The Ice Pyramid is the first really long dungeon of the game. It's where not getting those three Seeds in the ordinary chest in the Bone Dungeon came into play for the first and only time. I needed to play as conservatively as I could throughout. Some of the worst enemies because of this were these things. If an enemy in the battle was reduced to low HP - including they themselves - they would respond by casting Cure. Very obnoxious to say the least. The ideal way to deal with them was landing a paralysis via the Cat Claw, stunning them so they had no chance to cast the spell.


Though it was a struggle to get there, the result of this all was the Ice Golem being relatively easy. B tossed Jumbo Bombs as his strongest attacking option, and Phoebe attacked with Fire and healed. Didn't take much effort to win at all with B's high HP count.

Leveling and power saw me through Aquaria after a rough early game. Will the difficulty carry over to to the rest of the game, or will things still be all right? Click ahead to find out.

Next | Index

Upon reaching Fireburg, I was finally able to purchase Seeds. Granted, the only spell that Reuben has access to is Life, but that alone is handy to be able to replenish - it is my only effective in-battle healing option with this character. I only picked up 10 for the time being.


The Mine is a really fast dungeon if you're just heading directly to the goal. Aside for some trolling from the Zombies and paralysis, this wasn't an issue. Jinn, please remember to heal your characters before going in, thank you. Despite this slipup, it wasn't too bad. Its assault is fire-based, meaning Reuben resisted it all. He played healer with Life and attacked with the Morning Star when needed. B threw Mega Grenades.


Reuben is actually a fairly strong character in spite of his lack of magic. Since his basic attack does not use ammo, this was a fantastic opportunity to gain some levels, and much more easily than I could with Phoebe's pathetic Cat Claw. I fought as much as I could in the Volcano and the Lava Dome, with Seeds to replenish my healing stocks. When all was said and done at the end of the world, he'd hit level 24.


Medusa was thankfully not too bad. She could've been a serious threat with her petrification, especially if she put it on Reuben in which case I'd have no means of healing him. Heal Potions are never sold in stores. Nevertheless, she only pulled it out once, and on B. A combination of Mega Grenades and Reuben attacking saw me through.

By the way, as being demonstrated there: Life completely obsoletes Heal except in two regards. One, while it does heal all negative statuses as well, that property only works in-battle. And second, you can cast Heal on enemies to potentially inflict negative statuses. Other than that, no issue.


The Lava Dome was an excellent chance to train. There's tons of enemies everywhere, and with Life around to heal up and Seeds to spare, I cleaned out the entire dungeon when going through. Nothing really posed a threat - B was high enough level to tank hits, as could Reuben do so, who was able to take out most of the enemies quickly.


Dualhead Hydra. Starting off with this fight was finicky. When it entered its second phase, it became much easier - B could just endlessly defend Reuben, who went to work, healing with Life as needed. The big danger of course was Stone Gas, which could be used in a one-two punch to take out both party members. I lost the first time not because of this, but when Reuben got hit with a critical Scrunch before he could heal - having gotten very far in the meantime. It took several more tries from there to get going, for reasons such as that one seen there, and the spread damage of its flame breath.


Moving on into the Windia region...the solo encounter against the Mummy was handled with Mega Grenades. Thankfully you don't need to use Tristam for long, because his Ninja Stars are very weak at this point of the game.


Finally, with this plot progression, B finally has a real weapon. The Dragon Claw can compete with the Mega Grenades and will eventually surpass it, hits single targets for full damage, and can inflict almost any status in the game on enemies. This includes petrification, which spells instant death for anything vulnerable!


By the way, I was saving up some battlefields to shamelessly use with the double level bug - I wanted B to be at max level by the end of this variant...but I learned here the benefits these provide are short-term. All this does is get you the second level early, you still need to grind to get as much total experience as you would've needed for the next level. Still, the short-term benefits are useful, so I went ahead with it where I could.


The Giant Tree was an unexpectedly obnoxious place due to all the Mad Toads. Rare was it that I had a battle agsinst them where one of the characters escaped unpoisoned. They could also petrify B. The Oozes were at least not too bad, since the Dragon Claw could instantly slay them via petrification. And when you're not relying on magic, having to abstain from using it against them isn't that bad.


Gidrah. Kaeli's natural resistance to petrification was a useful asset here. And she herself could do 1700+ damage by using Aero. B went down a few times over the course of the fight, but this was a overall non-threat.


Mount Gale is a large and slightly confusing place with some annoying enemies, so I avoided them and went straight for the boss. Dullahan is actually vulnerable to a few of the statuses from the Dragon Claw, although only blind came into play during the fight. It otherwise was just up to plinking it down - it's not weak to Aero, unlike Thanatos, its regular enemy counterpart, and other bosses in the region. B got three critical hits with the weapon over the course of the fight, and it chose to not use Doom Dance repeatedly. That sealed its fate right there.


All this fighting gave me the money to purchase tons of Seeds. I bought a full compliment of them and still had cash to spare. This was a game-changer, allowing me full access to partner characters' magic without worrying about running out of healing.


The dynamic in Pazuzu's Tower changed slightly because of this. Despite being the world associated with wind, tons of enemies in the tower (including Pazuzu himself) are weak to Kaeli's Aero: only the Manticores (who can be instantly slain by Life) and Beholders (who reflect all magic) are exempt. Kaeli's regular attacks would not one-shot anything, but she could one-shot anything else but the Beholders - who could be killed by Dragon Claw, and Manticores able to be instantly slain with Life. This was an excellent opportunity to gain tons of levels. Pazuzu spawned on the first floor, the second-best for speedrunning and best for myself, as it allow me to go through every floor and wipe out everything in the way without need for backtracking.


Pazuzu himself wasn't bad at all. B covered Kaeli when needed, reducing the spread damage from Sky Attack, as she set to work using Aero when Psycheshield was down. There was no nonsense with critical hits or anything like that to be had, despite a few incidents of B getting petrified. Very easy fight.

With this only Doom Castle remains.

Next | Index

Despite Reuben returning, he was not the optimal character to grind whatever levels I needed remaining with, which turns out to be not a lot at all. With all my Seeds, I could just use magic. He has a White spell, but then again, so does Phoebe, and she's much better at using it. So I just went straight for Mac's Ship, though for some reason kept running into status-related issues along the way.


I did get B one extra level by grinding in Pazuzu's Tower - it was fairly easy to grind there on the first floor just by casting White on the Garudas, which would cleanly take them out each time. But after gaining said level, I ultimately decided to just go for Doom Castle. You can always back out and grind more, after all, and how Doom Castle is set up allows you to easily do so and jump right back in where you left off should you leave.


Skullrus Rex is not immune to petrification. Phoebe was killed rather quickly into this fight by Doom Dance (after being slept), but it didn't matter - the boss was instantly felled with one slash of the Dragon Claw, and his Shadow minions suffered the same fate soon thereafter. And this time in my challenge runs, I didn't suffer any embarrassment from him killing me. Beat him on the first try.


There's really not a lot to say about most of the regular fights. Phoebe was able to take most of them out with White, with support from B's Dragon Claw. One exception I learned came from the Cerberus enemies. These actually have a petrt-touch counter, instantly taking out B if he tried!

Oh, Stone Golem itself...this one was definitely annoying. You can't instantly defeat it with petrification or Life. While you can with Exit, that's not available to me. It was really annoying getting out of the gates and through the Cerberuses accompanying him - they could instantly kill B or Phoebe, and confusion was a factor in the fight as well. It was nothing some perserverance couldn't cover, but still. When Phoebe wasn't playing healer, she was unloading with White.


Twinhead Wyvern was probably the hardest boss of the gauntlet. Holding onto Kaeli's stats meant that Phoebe was vulnerable to paralysis, and this foiled several of my attempts at the fight before I was able to get one through.


Now Zuh...this was weird. I found that Phoebe's White's could randomly end up doing half-damage to it. I had no idea what was causing it at the time, but on asking those in the know it happens when you petrify an enemy in a battle - multi-target spells still consider it to be present for the purposes of calculating damage. I was using the Dragon Claw to potentially one-shot the Thanatos, and that was causing it.

Under normal circumstances they were doing 2129 when Zuh was alone, but when this bug/quirk was in play, they would do 1053. Very undesirable to say the least. I did it without knowing, simply repeating until it didn't happen, but had I known I would've beaten the Chimera first with the claw, with it being immune to petrification. White would've been able to one-shot the Thanatos from there.


As with the low level run, I was going into this while maintaining Kaeli's statistics and immunities, so Phoebe couldn't fall victim to petrification as well. Every little bit is going to count for Dark King. Also, this late in, I'd finally reached the point where Mega Grenades were outclassed as a basic attack. This could've come sooner with the Giant's Axe or Excalibur, but not in this variant.


Nevertheless, attacking normally against the Dark King was fruitless, so B spent nearly all of the battle doing what he did in the Cheerleader challenge - protecting Phoebe. Except this time I did have full control of her, so there was no need to worry about using turns on Seeds. All his HP plus not having to worry about the AI's incessant healing tenancies made sure this wasn't going to be as bad as that challenge in some respects

Still, it's not like this was going to be an easy fight. Despite that advantage of Phoebe not being able to be petrified, B was still very much vulnerable to everything, and she could still be confused. The strategy through the whole fight never changed, at least - B used defend on Phoebe, she attacked with White, healing and using Seeds as necessary. I did take one luck factor out, but the others were certai-


Wait, that's it? First try?

Okay then.

Well, this didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought, though a lot of it was the experience from the Cheerleader challenge coming into play. As I mentioned at the start, this was close in concept in how it played out - the main character wasn't relegated to support, but he was effectively only good for instantly killing things with the Dragon Claw and protecting his partner from damage by the end. The main difference is that I had full control of the partner character, which made a drastic difference in the difficulty. The Cheerleader has already shown that they're capable of carrying on their own, and when they're in the hands of the player rather than the finicky AI, their full power can be unleashed.

The hardest parts of this was the early game, particularly Bone Dungeon. I also needed to go through Ice Pyramid conservatively in order to not run out of magic. The extra stipulation I took of not opening regular treasure chests definitely played a part in the difficulty of those two. With Seeds I would've had extra Life charges for the Flamerus Rex fight, and I could've played with Phoebe's spells a bit more leading up to Ice Golem. Grinding definitely helped in Aquaria, though. Otherwise it could've been a repeat of the problems in Bone Dungeon.

I still have more ideas for variants of this game, so look forward to those someday.

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