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FFR: DRK/BLU/TRA/BRD playthrough Part I
Nov. 5th, 2023 01:58 amMy second playthrough of FFR would focus entirely on the new classes within the game. The focal points of this would be the Blue Mage and the Trainer. The former is exactly as you'd expect: learning spells from the monsters of FF1 with the advertised ability to have townspeople help with their pets. The latter complimented it with the ability to control monsters and help find rare battles. I'm not sure by how much or what it does mechanically, but it felt wise to take it for synergy sake.
The two others were Dark Knight and Bard. I got to see a lot of what looked like their weapons on my old playthrough, some of which might not be getting because I only found some of them with the Thief. The former had limited black magic access and had a command to make their attacks absorb half the damage they dealt except against undead and mechs. Bard meanwhile, sings and learns songs by talking to townsfolk. The two resisted blind and silence statuses respectively.
I was pleased to see that every class I picked except Bard could use a Chain. What I was horrified to see however was this weapon, the only one the Dark Knight could use. The class started off with 16 STR. The hit penalty didn't stop him from landing any hits, but it definitely had an effect on accuracy. I had half a mind to have him go barehanded. I presume you're intended to work around this with their SHADOWBLADE ability to get an accuracy bonus when attacking blinded targets, but this screamed of a gimmick and needing synergy. This class is already off to a terrible start, and I haven't even stepped outside of Coneria's walls yet!
The good news was, I found two bard songs already. Three people in Coneria and a guard near the entrance of the castle created KNIGHT'S MINNE, a song that boosted absorb by 8 points, as if this party needed to be any bulkier. Meanwhile, the guard near the stairs, the not invisible woman, and an old man near the TNT got me 3/4 of the way to another song. I trained outside until my team was level 2. There were two townsfolk who had Blue Magic fights to offer.
These threw me into battles against later game monsters, though they seemed to be weaker versions of them. The battles started as an ambush and immediately led to them using their skill. In the case of the CEREBUS I fought from the guy on the east side of Coneria, it didn't matter since the attack hit everyone. But for the guy in front of the locked doors in the castle who held a NITEMARE, I needed to retry until it hit Bluto - switching him into the front helped. Thankfully the former didn't use its skill repeatedly otherwise I would've been in trouble: SCORCH may be a joke by the time it shows up normally, but it could've been deadly this early on.
This filled in two of his L1 slots. SCORCH is as mentioned, a very weak Fire spell that hits everything at base 14 damage. It's weaker than FIRE (base 20), although it hits everything. SNORTING meanwhile was single target darkness. Darkness is normally very useless to where some mistakenly believe it to be bugged. It's not, it just has little effect. However, this comboed with Darius.
I would put this to use for testing purposes against GARLAND. I mean he's GARLAND, giant fraud, so of course I could get away with it. I hit him with SNORTING then did my thing. Regarding the Bard: they work by picking a song in combat. On subsequent turns they will get the option to SUSTAIN the song to keep its effects going, or do something else. HIDE can be used to keep a song going while temporarily removing the Bard as a valid target and recharging its spells. Song spell charges automatically recover at the end of combat and when HIDE is used.
A broom (identifying as a mop) in Matoya's Cave completed the second song: VALOR MINUET. It increased the damage of all allies by 8 points. I actually had to run back to Coneria to use the Clinic when some ARACHNIDS showed up and poisoned the team! To contrast, I thoroughly stomped a group of four MADPONYs, and an encounter with two OGREs. Three chains plus the ability to boost that further makes for a really tanky team. SCORCH wiped Bikke's pirates in one go.
Three townsfolk in the town had a portion of a soothing song. There was also a Blue Magic fight, one guy who mentioned Dragon Sages, and of course, the weapon shop. It had something I wanted to get.
So why this? Well, it's because of the Trainer's special skill: AXE PROFICIENCY. It has a simple effect: +10 hit to any equipped axe. This means that in the hands of Tracy, this had just as much Hit% as the infamous Silver Sword. She wasn't quite at 2-hits yet, but would reach it very soon, level 6 to be exact.
I should probably go over the Dark Knight magic while I'm here. Coneria had two available: SLEP and BIO, the latter of which did fixed damage over time. I don't know what that's doing in FF1 because it just doesn't work. DARK and PAIN were the two available in Pravoka. The latter said it dealt damage to one foe equal to the damage the Dark Knight sustains, triggering at the start of the next turn. Probably better if gimmicky. Meanwhile, there was a BigEYE to fight here, and it was definitely weaker than the Sea Shrine ones. It taught FLASH, which is a mass Darkness attack. Again, good for helping Darius and not much else.
After sailing over the seas, an elf near the item shop gave the last part of the next song, ANGELSONG. It bestowed Regen, which is 5% healing at the end of each round. Another elf to his northeast, the prince's aide, and another elf in the castle gave yet more components to songs, but this one would need three more people spoken to. I found the rest with the Dwarves, completing HERO'S RIME. This boosted both party MORALE and LUCK by 12, increasing the chances of fleeing or enemies fleeing. Not bad since the run bug got fixed.
Four more Blue spells were available between these two locations. A dwarf had an AGAMA for HEAT. The elf near the item shop had a R.HYDRA for CREMATE. A blue witch near the locked door in the castle had an EYE! Mercifully, it only ever used physicals and its STARE special, and notably would use it repeatedly instead of any other skill or spell. Thus far, Bluto had three spells that were all Fire-elemental: 14, 24, and 48 base power respectively. CREMATE was flat-out weaker than FIR2 (60 power). Jeez. Finally, there was a MANTICOR from an elf in the top left corner of the castle. It cast STINGER. L3, Poison-elemental poison. No thanks.
I had a hunch and forgot to check something. So I did. Sure enough, the Silver Sword was usable by Blue Mage. A Whip was also in the shop, giving a +20 to hit. However, the Hand Axe would get Tracy to 2-hits at level 6 and was stronger. Trainer was gaining +2 Hit% per level. Same for Blue Mage. That meant Bluto would also get 2-hits with a Silver Sword there. Finally, there was even a Silver Greatsword: 40 power, -15 hit. All this meant it was time for KYZOKU farming!
FFR emulates the classic encounter order after a hard reset. This is where the famous money-farming trick derives from: the first three encounter slots for example will always go 3-4-3. So you can actually get two KYZOKU encounters per soft reset: there will be a SAHAG group fight in between them which can make for a better enemy to inn investment ratio. It was in the process of this that I saw the first clear sign of a leading Trainer's LURE ability at work. The first battle with the Trainer in the lead was a KYZOKU group as expected. But this was followed by another one with the Trainer in the lead! Having someone else in the lead for the first fight then switching up the Trainer resulted in the same thing. The opposite, switching the Trainer after the battle, gave the SAHAGs instead, but switching the Trainer in after those still resulted in the KYZOKU.
So what was it doing? I tried some experiments. In the Pravoka area, the 3 slot is a GrIMP, GrWOLF, IMP group. There were similar results. After further testing, I found I would sometimes get a SAHAG group right after a hard reset, and it other times would skip the KYZOKU slot anyway. My impression is that this skill allows them to skip ahead in the encounter table sometimes, but not always, and hopefully there's code to make it stop on slots 7 and 8 at the very least.
Level 6 is when I feel fully comfortable taking runs at the Marsh Cave. I'll sometimes go before that, but that's when Black Belts can start fighting barehanded effectively, Red Mages get 2 hits with a Silver Sword, Black Mages get 2 L3 charges and Reds get their first, and 4/6 classes get a strong HP up at the level. I went and checked the Northwest Castle first on another hunch. Sure enough, some old guy was wandering the bottom left corner of the castle. He was one of the Dragon Sages that I saw mentioned in some dialogue with a Blue Mage as the leader. He had a Frost D ready for me to fight!
Yeah, that didn't go so well. It booted me out with everyone at 1HP. One thing that I haven't mentioned about Blue Mage so far since it hasn't come up: not only do they need to survive the battle to learn the skill, but it's also only a CHANCE to learn the skill! This is kind of awful design, even if the odds increase as you increase in level. There's a reason why Blue Mages in Final Fantasy games always succeed when they're hit with spells, short of fringe cases like certain high level spells in FFT, but even the ones that can only be learned in that fashion are guaranteed in that game. It was possible for Bluto to survive with a lucky roll, but then I'd have to win the battle and the dice roll from there.
I did get the chance to experiment with CONTROL a little on the way to the Marsh Cave. I'm assuming a weaker monster is in-part easier to hit from the description. A menu would pop from there: FIGHT, MAGIC, SPECIAL, and RUN. A controlled monster was considered defeated for the purposes of ending the battle and would give additional EXP equal to what they normally give after, effectively doubling their yield. Furthermore, they would immediately be considered an ally: spells would not hit them, they could not be targeted, and any attacks aimed at them would redirect (Renaissance mode doesn't have Ineffective hits). Not every thing could be controlled: the failure message would say as such. OGREs and KYZOKUs for example didn't work, but CREEPs did. Here's a shot of it in the cave itself, using a CRAWL to attack an enemy.
On my run of the upper quadrant, stunning undead tried to end the run on the way out. I anticipated this and had Barbra use HERO'S RIME. She ducked into hiding, not coming out because her allies weren't dead, they were paralyzed. After a few turns of this nonsense, I had her RUN. And it worked! She was paralyzed while singing when trying to get out of another battle which does shut off the song; but Tracy got me out.
Barbra was unexpectedly killed by a critical from a R.BONE on my first attempt at the bottom floors. That was a reset on the spot since I wasn't far in.
There wasn't much to write about my successful trip in up until the WIZARDs. I drew the max of four. Instead of worrying, I employed some of my party's special skills. On one hand, BLOOD WEAPON proved to be thoroughly useless! It lasted for two turns. Darius missed on the first attack. On the second, he did all of twenty-something damage and only healed half of that. Not a very good skill. Bluto ate dirt, and my first two attempts to CONTROL failed. But the third time was the charm. Suddenly, one of those hard-hitting monsters was on my side. It managed to bring down one of its comrades before another attacked and killed it! That's uh, I'm not sure how to feel about enemies doing that. Interesting and keeps the heat off you, at least. CONTROL would land a second time and the WIZARD would deliver the final hit. Phew.
I had little trouble getting out of there, no paralysis to worry about at all. I had run out of HEALs by the end so I had to RUN some of the way, but no big deal. It was annoying that Bluto fell behind since his chances of learning spells are supposedly tied to level, but oh well.
After regrouping at Coneria, I checked the list of available spells to see if I'd missed anything. Turns out there were two I could get that hadn't yet been offered to me by an NPC. The first was GAZE, a L1 spell that the goggler-type enemies use. I got it off OddEYE. For the second, I had to go to the Peninsula of Power!
A weaker FIR2 is still sufficient here, especially with INT in-play. So I could grind here if I wanted, and indeed, ended up at level 9 on everyone by the time I found what I was looking for. FrWOLFs teach FROST. I failed on the first attempt because the CREMATE killed all seven that showed in one hit! Wow! It almost did the second time too, but one survived and indeed used the spell. This was ice-elemental, L3, and the same 34 power as CREMATE.
I went to ASTOS after this diversion. I didn't have MUTE to ignore his RUBs, and indeed, all of my resets were because it landed. But I had another thing to pull out on him: HOLD! This was one of the L3 spells I could use with Darius (The other, BIO2, was just a multi-target version of BIO. It wasn't even guaranteed to land.). Even if I didn't have it, GAZE let Bluto inflict paralysis. The dark elf broke from the initial paralysis on his first turn at 9.8% odds, only to immediately get locked down again. Ha! Meanwhile, Barbra was able to buff my physical attackers to where they could deal damage through ASTOS' 40 defense. With Bluto casting FROST and then STARE when that ran out, I eventually won.
I ran a couple of the KEY errands after this. I saw something mentioned in the Discord so I wanted to go to Melmond. And sure enough, I found this weapon waiting for me. All of the Dark Knight's weapons so far have had a negative accuracy bonus. Not the Bastard Sword. I had been noticing how awful the class was compared to the Trainer and Blue Mage who had already gotten two hits, and they're not full-time physical attackers. I actually accidentally unequipped Darius' weapon a bit ago and didn't bother to put it back on. But with this, he finally had a real weapon instead of something gimmicky. Glad I didn't bother with the Silver Greatsword.
The townsfolk in Melmond got Barbra 3 steps towards a song of enchantment and 1 step towards a song of mitigation. There were also NPCs with Blue Magic. It was here that I first ran into the first instance of failing to learn a spell after battle. Again this is very questionable game design, to be generous about it. The two spells I got were SQUINT and GLANCE, both instant death in the death and poison element respectively. (Technically, it said Stone-element, but unless FFR changed that, the two share the same byte). I was also definitely noticing how much better Darius was now with the new weapon!
There was also a whip there: 20/20/1% crit that inflicted stun on hit. This was not to be confused with paralysis: it instead made the target miss their next turn. Silver Axe was going to be five points of damage stronger, but I picked it up for the novelty. The Great Axe in Titan's Tunnel was inferior to both, by the way.
I went ahead and unleashed one of my new spells on the Frost D from the Dragon Sage in the Northwest Castle. It took several tries, both to survive and for it to land. Maybe I could've killed it outright, but meh. Use what you have!
As I mentioned in the last report, the Rune Harp was in the treasure room in there. +5 power, +10 hit, effective on spellcasters. There's a lot more of those than you may think. Then I found I missed a piece of equipment since I didn't check the armor shop in Elfland: Bard could equip the Wool Scarf. It was considered a shield and gave a mere +1 to absorb, but a +5 to hit. This gave Barbra 2-hits with the Silver Knife. Not that she was attacking much, but it felt better than a weakish hit-all. The Ash Harp, found in the third room in the bottom of the Marsh Cave, also allowed her to achieve the magic 32% hit threshold with its +15 bonus hit. It had only 4 power and was effective on undead instead. I switched over for now, just because.
A woman and two of the circle of sages in Crescent Lake finished off MANA'S PAEON, which boosted ally magic by 30%. There was another part of mitigation here, and another sage gave an eighth of the song of ruthlessness. I had to take a shot because what the hell? This dialogue is insane. There were three Blue spells available to find here. One summoned a PHANTOM of all things. Surpisingly, I actually beat the dice roll and learned GLARE on the first try! It was a Time-elemental instant death spell that I couldn't use yet because it was L6. Well, that was lucky. The other two had a Gas D and something called a ZoneEATER respectively; the latter used SWIRL which is otherwise exclusive to CHAOS. I didn't think I'd be getting either of those now. I grabbed a Silver Axe from the store and got on my way.
Now for the Earth Cave. I skipped the chests on B1 and B2, at least for the time being. They're just junk and I could get them later. But well, I ended up skipping the ones on B3 too because of the VAMPIRE. He has a special to teach: DAZZLE. I switched Bluto into the front for this. Of course I failed around half a dozen times due to bad game design before this finally took hold and Bluto learned the spell, but Darius ate dirt during the fight. I had to run alllll the way out and back to Coneria to get him back up. Because I did that, I also did some Penninsula fights to make up for lost experience. Normally I don't abuse it too hard, but it's useful in situations like this.
Sarda had another portion of the next song. I was almost wiped by undead when heading back into the Tunnel, where there was another Blue Mage spell - and I wanted to save a TENT by using it near the tunnel entrance instead. I did get out, but Darius had died again. Back to Coneria I went before I could take a stab at learning it.
The monster this time was JIMERA, who casts STONE - originally known as POISON. Only Darius got hit by the obligatory ambush turn blast. I can't catch a break with him lately. The Stun Whip helped make up the difference by making the monster lose some turns, and I mercifully learned the move on my first try: stone-elemental petrify to all enemies.
Back into the cave. It turned out that Barbra could use the Magemsh on B3: it was 5 points of damage stronger than the Silver Knife. It did have 5 less hit%, but the Linen Cloth - bought in Crescent Lake - increased hit% by 8 to make up the difference. I put it on her because I wasn't impressed with Harps' damage. Far worse to the point of hilarity was the Crimson Sword in the same room: 8 points of damage weaker and 35 less hit% than the Bastard. But 5 more crit. Whoopdeedoo. Apparently this has a hidden effect, probably auto drain, but so what?
But speaking of, I want to draw attention to Darius just now. Greatswords hit HARD. The Bastard's 35 power is 3 stronger than the Sun Sword. And I simply bought it in a store! Of course, it has far less hit%: as a point, Fighter with the Ice Sword (25%) would already have 3 hits by level 11, and Darius would only hit that at level 18 with this weapon - where Fighters would be a level away from having 4! I also did a quick test on B4. It turns out that SHADOWBIND actually boosts hit% too (by at least 32% as I would later learn) and not just accuracy, so he could reach 3-hits against blinded targets. There weren't that many that necessitated this, but it was certainly neat.
I found another Dragon Sage in B4, who offered me a Red D to fight. Uh, how about no? Not now, at least. I could get that later, either from a return trip or in Gurgu Volcano. It would be useful on LICH, but I felt I didn't need it to defeat him.
There was no status trickery I could pull on the boneman besides grinding enough to get L6 charges for Bluto and zapping him dead with GLARE. So all I did was attack backed by VALOR MINUET. He just used his spells: I survived ICE2, he did indeed use SLP2 this time instead of skipping it in the presence of a wall like last time. Man, CARBUNCLE sucks even more. He FASTed turn 3 but died on that turn as well.
I went to Crescent Lake after and picked up POISON off the Dragon Sage with a Gas D there. Sure, it hurt a lot and could indeed repeatedly spam the move, but I had SQUINT to win on turn 1. The bane of my existence during my Capitalists challenge was a L6 spell with base 136 damage. Little is actually weak to poison in the main game: only Red Ds and Sky Castle TIAMAT. But hey, it still hits ridiculously hard against the many things that don't resist it.
I decided to take on Gurgu Volcano first out of whimsy. I didn't see this party having any trouble with this dungeon, and it would add levels for the Ice Cave. I forgot to mention it in regards to the Earth Cave, but by now I was realizing the full potential of CONTROL. It worked on so many different things, most notably the elementals. It was effectively an instant death spell as long as I ended the battle within two turns. Or in the case of the Grey Ws and FIREs who were guarding a lot of the chests here, ended the battle instantly. The bonus experience made it appealing to do this against juicy targets.
Bluto could equip the Ice Sword. This got him on the doorstep of having 3 hits. There wasn't much of interest in the Volcano equipment-wise. It was bland, and there was no random old man with a dragon to fight this time. I had to skip the Red D/Flame Armor since I was cautious and low on HEALs.
The battle with the second went as such: Bluto went first with SQUINT. KARY was hit and died immediately. Hey, instant death spells are there to be used. Sometimes, showing off involves making use of them.
It wasn't too much hassle to make a return trip. I realized I'd missed some new items on the bottom floor too: the Scale Mail in the bottom center room sported 32 absorb and -10% evasion. Darius could equip it, but he could use the Flame Armor. So it went to Tracy instead, who also could. The top center room also had something for her: the Lava Axe had 26 attack, 2% crit, and a 25% hit after factoring in AXE PROFICIENCY. Essentially just a counterpart of the Flame Sword. Naturally, it was also fire-elemental. It was enough to get her to 3 hits. No issues from the Red D, it used BLAZE then my warriors killed it. Bluto learned the spell after battle.
I fought the ZoneEATER in Crescent Lake too. I'm not sure about its stats because this is a new enemy created solely to give access to the SWIRL ability: a L5 spell that was AoE and did a base 128 water-elemental damage. BLAZE was the same in a fire-element.
Ice Cave time, and admit it. You were thinking of this too the moment you heard about CONTROL, unless you thought you wouldn't be able to hit them with it. This also exposed what I had a feeling about, that a controlled monster's physical attacks deal way more damage than they should. I'm guessing it might be based off the Trainer's attack in some way. It meant this wasn't technically an instant kill the way they do it, but still.
Speaking of, I was able to pick up the infamous TRANCE from them. You know what this does: status-elemental paralysis to everything in sight. Enemies only recover from it at 9.8% odds, so they have it even worse than players. I reset a couple times when I got RUBbed out by a MAGE ambush, but this place was otherwise pleasantly smooth sailing. There were two chests of note besides the usual: the Crystal Harp in the money room was another bard weapon. 20 hit aside, 6 power really doesn't cut it at this point. There was also the Frozen Axe. This was to the Lava Axe to what the Ice Sword is to the Flame Sword: 3 points of attack and 5 hit stronger. I kept the latter on for the dungeon due to its functional elemental properties.
With the airship claimed, I went and explored the northern towns. Across Gaia, Onrac, and Cardia, I finished off MAGIC CAROL (+100% magic defense), got one away from the Ruthlessness song, and halfway to the Celebration song. However, there were no Blue Magic sources around that I could find. I would later learn there was a Blue D in Lefein, but not that knowing that would've did me any good: THUNDER is a L7 spell.
Before heading into Ordeals, I fought a Sand W. This enemy is normally very unremarkable if not forgotten due to having a very limited range of appearance on the overworld. But it had CRACK to claim. Bluto was wearing the Earth Armlet I'd picked up in the Earth Cave, rendering him immune to it. His allies fell, but he killed the worm and got everyone back up at Coneria.
Not much to say about Ordeals itself. The Zeus is probably best with one of the ones who can equip it (Darius or Tracy) but for now, I put it with Barbra. Just two failed attempts, one because of FIR2 spam and another because a SORCERER landed a KO on Darius. Third try, there was nothing of note. I burned down the Zombie Ds and got out without incident.
That led me to class change, so I'll divide up again.
Next | Index
The two others were Dark Knight and Bard. I got to see a lot of what looked like their weapons on my old playthrough, some of which might not be getting because I only found some of them with the Thief. The former had limited black magic access and had a command to make their attacks absorb half the damage they dealt except against undead and mechs. Bard meanwhile, sings and learns songs by talking to townsfolk. The two resisted blind and silence statuses respectively.
I was pleased to see that every class I picked except Bard could use a Chain. What I was horrified to see however was this weapon, the only one the Dark Knight could use. The class started off with 16 STR. The hit penalty didn't stop him from landing any hits, but it definitely had an effect on accuracy. I had half a mind to have him go barehanded. I presume you're intended to work around this with their SHADOWBLADE ability to get an accuracy bonus when attacking blinded targets, but this screamed of a gimmick and needing synergy. This class is already off to a terrible start, and I haven't even stepped outside of Coneria's walls yet!
The good news was, I found two bard songs already. Three people in Coneria and a guard near the entrance of the castle created KNIGHT'S MINNE, a song that boosted absorb by 8 points, as if this party needed to be any bulkier. Meanwhile, the guard near the stairs, the not invisible woman, and an old man near the TNT got me 3/4 of the way to another song. I trained outside until my team was level 2. There were two townsfolk who had Blue Magic fights to offer.
These threw me into battles against later game monsters, though they seemed to be weaker versions of them. The battles started as an ambush and immediately led to them using their skill. In the case of the CEREBUS I fought from the guy on the east side of Coneria, it didn't matter since the attack hit everyone. But for the guy in front of the locked doors in the castle who held a NITEMARE, I needed to retry until it hit Bluto - switching him into the front helped. Thankfully the former didn't use its skill repeatedly otherwise I would've been in trouble: SCORCH may be a joke by the time it shows up normally, but it could've been deadly this early on.
This filled in two of his L1 slots. SCORCH is as mentioned, a very weak Fire spell that hits everything at base 14 damage. It's weaker than FIRE (base 20), although it hits everything. SNORTING meanwhile was single target darkness. Darkness is normally very useless to where some mistakenly believe it to be bugged. It's not, it just has little effect. However, this comboed with Darius.
I would put this to use for testing purposes against GARLAND. I mean he's GARLAND, giant fraud, so of course I could get away with it. I hit him with SNORTING then did my thing. Regarding the Bard: they work by picking a song in combat. On subsequent turns they will get the option to SUSTAIN the song to keep its effects going, or do something else. HIDE can be used to keep a song going while temporarily removing the Bard as a valid target and recharging its spells. Song spell charges automatically recover at the end of combat and when HIDE is used.
A broom (identifying as a mop) in Matoya's Cave completed the second song: VALOR MINUET. It increased the damage of all allies by 8 points. I actually had to run back to Coneria to use the Clinic when some ARACHNIDS showed up and poisoned the team! To contrast, I thoroughly stomped a group of four MADPONYs, and an encounter with two OGREs. Three chains plus the ability to boost that further makes for a really tanky team. SCORCH wiped Bikke's pirates in one go.
Three townsfolk in the town had a portion of a soothing song. There was also a Blue Magic fight, one guy who mentioned Dragon Sages, and of course, the weapon shop. It had something I wanted to get.
So why this? Well, it's because of the Trainer's special skill: AXE PROFICIENCY. It has a simple effect: +10 hit to any equipped axe. This means that in the hands of Tracy, this had just as much Hit% as the infamous Silver Sword. She wasn't quite at 2-hits yet, but would reach it very soon, level 6 to be exact.
I should probably go over the Dark Knight magic while I'm here. Coneria had two available: SLEP and BIO, the latter of which did fixed damage over time. I don't know what that's doing in FF1 because it just doesn't work. DARK and PAIN were the two available in Pravoka. The latter said it dealt damage to one foe equal to the damage the Dark Knight sustains, triggering at the start of the next turn. Probably better if gimmicky. Meanwhile, there was a BigEYE to fight here, and it was definitely weaker than the Sea Shrine ones. It taught FLASH, which is a mass Darkness attack. Again, good for helping Darius and not much else.
After sailing over the seas, an elf near the item shop gave the last part of the next song, ANGELSONG. It bestowed Regen, which is 5% healing at the end of each round. Another elf to his northeast, the prince's aide, and another elf in the castle gave yet more components to songs, but this one would need three more people spoken to. I found the rest with the Dwarves, completing HERO'S RIME. This boosted both party MORALE and LUCK by 12, increasing the chances of fleeing or enemies fleeing. Not bad since the run bug got fixed.
Four more Blue spells were available between these two locations. A dwarf had an AGAMA for HEAT. The elf near the item shop had a R.HYDRA for CREMATE. A blue witch near the locked door in the castle had an EYE! Mercifully, it only ever used physicals and its STARE special, and notably would use it repeatedly instead of any other skill or spell. Thus far, Bluto had three spells that were all Fire-elemental: 14, 24, and 48 base power respectively. CREMATE was flat-out weaker than FIR2 (60 power). Jeez. Finally, there was a MANTICOR from an elf in the top left corner of the castle. It cast STINGER. L3, Poison-elemental poison. No thanks.
I had a hunch and forgot to check something. So I did. Sure enough, the Silver Sword was usable by Blue Mage. A Whip was also in the shop, giving a +20 to hit. However, the Hand Axe would get Tracy to 2-hits at level 6 and was stronger. Trainer was gaining +2 Hit% per level. Same for Blue Mage. That meant Bluto would also get 2-hits with a Silver Sword there. Finally, there was even a Silver Greatsword: 40 power, -15 hit. All this meant it was time for KYZOKU farming!
FFR emulates the classic encounter order after a hard reset. This is where the famous money-farming trick derives from: the first three encounter slots for example will always go 3-4-3. So you can actually get two KYZOKU encounters per soft reset: there will be a SAHAG group fight in between them which can make for a better enemy to inn investment ratio. It was in the process of this that I saw the first clear sign of a leading Trainer's LURE ability at work. The first battle with the Trainer in the lead was a KYZOKU group as expected. But this was followed by another one with the Trainer in the lead! Having someone else in the lead for the first fight then switching up the Trainer resulted in the same thing. The opposite, switching the Trainer after the battle, gave the SAHAGs instead, but switching the Trainer in after those still resulted in the KYZOKU.
So what was it doing? I tried some experiments. In the Pravoka area, the 3 slot is a GrIMP, GrWOLF, IMP group. There were similar results. After further testing, I found I would sometimes get a SAHAG group right after a hard reset, and it other times would skip the KYZOKU slot anyway. My impression is that this skill allows them to skip ahead in the encounter table sometimes, but not always, and hopefully there's code to make it stop on slots 7 and 8 at the very least.
Level 6 is when I feel fully comfortable taking runs at the Marsh Cave. I'll sometimes go before that, but that's when Black Belts can start fighting barehanded effectively, Red Mages get 2 hits with a Silver Sword, Black Mages get 2 L3 charges and Reds get their first, and 4/6 classes get a strong HP up at the level. I went and checked the Northwest Castle first on another hunch. Sure enough, some old guy was wandering the bottom left corner of the castle. He was one of the Dragon Sages that I saw mentioned in some dialogue with a Blue Mage as the leader. He had a Frost D ready for me to fight!
Yeah, that didn't go so well. It booted me out with everyone at 1HP. One thing that I haven't mentioned about Blue Mage so far since it hasn't come up: not only do they need to survive the battle to learn the skill, but it's also only a CHANCE to learn the skill! This is kind of awful design, even if the odds increase as you increase in level. There's a reason why Blue Mages in Final Fantasy games always succeed when they're hit with spells, short of fringe cases like certain high level spells in FFT, but even the ones that can only be learned in that fashion are guaranteed in that game. It was possible for Bluto to survive with a lucky roll, but then I'd have to win the battle and the dice roll from there.
I did get the chance to experiment with CONTROL a little on the way to the Marsh Cave. I'm assuming a weaker monster is in-part easier to hit from the description. A menu would pop from there: FIGHT, MAGIC, SPECIAL, and RUN. A controlled monster was considered defeated for the purposes of ending the battle and would give additional EXP equal to what they normally give after, effectively doubling their yield. Furthermore, they would immediately be considered an ally: spells would not hit them, they could not be targeted, and any attacks aimed at them would redirect (Renaissance mode doesn't have Ineffective hits). Not every thing could be controlled: the failure message would say as such. OGREs and KYZOKUs for example didn't work, but CREEPs did. Here's a shot of it in the cave itself, using a CRAWL to attack an enemy.
On my run of the upper quadrant, stunning undead tried to end the run on the way out. I anticipated this and had Barbra use HERO'S RIME. She ducked into hiding, not coming out because her allies weren't dead, they were paralyzed. After a few turns of this nonsense, I had her RUN. And it worked! She was paralyzed while singing when trying to get out of another battle which does shut off the song; but Tracy got me out.
Barbra was unexpectedly killed by a critical from a R.BONE on my first attempt at the bottom floors. That was a reset on the spot since I wasn't far in.
There wasn't much to write about my successful trip in up until the WIZARDs. I drew the max of four. Instead of worrying, I employed some of my party's special skills. On one hand, BLOOD WEAPON proved to be thoroughly useless! It lasted for two turns. Darius missed on the first attack. On the second, he did all of twenty-something damage and only healed half of that. Not a very good skill. Bluto ate dirt, and my first two attempts to CONTROL failed. But the third time was the charm. Suddenly, one of those hard-hitting monsters was on my side. It managed to bring down one of its comrades before another attacked and killed it! That's uh, I'm not sure how to feel about enemies doing that. Interesting and keeps the heat off you, at least. CONTROL would land a second time and the WIZARD would deliver the final hit. Phew.
I had little trouble getting out of there, no paralysis to worry about at all. I had run out of HEALs by the end so I had to RUN some of the way, but no big deal. It was annoying that Bluto fell behind since his chances of learning spells are supposedly tied to level, but oh well.
After regrouping at Coneria, I checked the list of available spells to see if I'd missed anything. Turns out there were two I could get that hadn't yet been offered to me by an NPC. The first was GAZE, a L1 spell that the goggler-type enemies use. I got it off OddEYE. For the second, I had to go to the Peninsula of Power!
A weaker FIR2 is still sufficient here, especially with INT in-play. So I could grind here if I wanted, and indeed, ended up at level 9 on everyone by the time I found what I was looking for. FrWOLFs teach FROST. I failed on the first attempt because the CREMATE killed all seven that showed in one hit! Wow! It almost did the second time too, but one survived and indeed used the spell. This was ice-elemental, L3, and the same 34 power as CREMATE.
I went to ASTOS after this diversion. I didn't have MUTE to ignore his RUBs, and indeed, all of my resets were because it landed. But I had another thing to pull out on him: HOLD! This was one of the L3 spells I could use with Darius (The other, BIO2, was just a multi-target version of BIO. It wasn't even guaranteed to land.). Even if I didn't have it, GAZE let Bluto inflict paralysis. The dark elf broke from the initial paralysis on his first turn at 9.8% odds, only to immediately get locked down again. Ha! Meanwhile, Barbra was able to buff my physical attackers to where they could deal damage through ASTOS' 40 defense. With Bluto casting FROST and then STARE when that ran out, I eventually won.
I ran a couple of the KEY errands after this. I saw something mentioned in the Discord so I wanted to go to Melmond. And sure enough, I found this weapon waiting for me. All of the Dark Knight's weapons so far have had a negative accuracy bonus. Not the Bastard Sword. I had been noticing how awful the class was compared to the Trainer and Blue Mage who had already gotten two hits, and they're not full-time physical attackers. I actually accidentally unequipped Darius' weapon a bit ago and didn't bother to put it back on. But with this, he finally had a real weapon instead of something gimmicky. Glad I didn't bother with the Silver Greatsword.
The townsfolk in Melmond got Barbra 3 steps towards a song of enchantment and 1 step towards a song of mitigation. There were also NPCs with Blue Magic. It was here that I first ran into the first instance of failing to learn a spell after battle. Again this is very questionable game design, to be generous about it. The two spells I got were SQUINT and GLANCE, both instant death in the death and poison element respectively. (Technically, it said Stone-element, but unless FFR changed that, the two share the same byte). I was also definitely noticing how much better Darius was now with the new weapon!
There was also a whip there: 20/20/1% crit that inflicted stun on hit. This was not to be confused with paralysis: it instead made the target miss their next turn. Silver Axe was going to be five points of damage stronger, but I picked it up for the novelty. The Great Axe in Titan's Tunnel was inferior to both, by the way.
I went ahead and unleashed one of my new spells on the Frost D from the Dragon Sage in the Northwest Castle. It took several tries, both to survive and for it to land. Maybe I could've killed it outright, but meh. Use what you have!
As I mentioned in the last report, the Rune Harp was in the treasure room in there. +5 power, +10 hit, effective on spellcasters. There's a lot more of those than you may think. Then I found I missed a piece of equipment since I didn't check the armor shop in Elfland: Bard could equip the Wool Scarf. It was considered a shield and gave a mere +1 to absorb, but a +5 to hit. This gave Barbra 2-hits with the Silver Knife. Not that she was attacking much, but it felt better than a weakish hit-all. The Ash Harp, found in the third room in the bottom of the Marsh Cave, also allowed her to achieve the magic 32% hit threshold with its +15 bonus hit. It had only 4 power and was effective on undead instead. I switched over for now, just because.
A woman and two of the circle of sages in Crescent Lake finished off MANA'S PAEON, which boosted ally magic by 30%. There was another part of mitigation here, and another sage gave an eighth of the song of ruthlessness. I had to take a shot because what the hell? This dialogue is insane. There were three Blue spells available to find here. One summoned a PHANTOM of all things. Surpisingly, I actually beat the dice roll and learned GLARE on the first try! It was a Time-elemental instant death spell that I couldn't use yet because it was L6. Well, that was lucky. The other two had a Gas D and something called a ZoneEATER respectively; the latter used SWIRL which is otherwise exclusive to CHAOS. I didn't think I'd be getting either of those now. I grabbed a Silver Axe from the store and got on my way.
Now for the Earth Cave. I skipped the chests on B1 and B2, at least for the time being. They're just junk and I could get them later. But well, I ended up skipping the ones on B3 too because of the VAMPIRE. He has a special to teach: DAZZLE. I switched Bluto into the front for this. Of course I failed around half a dozen times due to bad game design before this finally took hold and Bluto learned the spell, but Darius ate dirt during the fight. I had to run alllll the way out and back to Coneria to get him back up. Because I did that, I also did some Penninsula fights to make up for lost experience. Normally I don't abuse it too hard, but it's useful in situations like this.
Sarda had another portion of the next song. I was almost wiped by undead when heading back into the Tunnel, where there was another Blue Mage spell - and I wanted to save a TENT by using it near the tunnel entrance instead. I did get out, but Darius had died again. Back to Coneria I went before I could take a stab at learning it.
The monster this time was JIMERA, who casts STONE - originally known as POISON. Only Darius got hit by the obligatory ambush turn blast. I can't catch a break with him lately. The Stun Whip helped make up the difference by making the monster lose some turns, and I mercifully learned the move on my first try: stone-elemental petrify to all enemies.
Back into the cave. It turned out that Barbra could use the Magemsh on B3: it was 5 points of damage stronger than the Silver Knife. It did have 5 less hit%, but the Linen Cloth - bought in Crescent Lake - increased hit% by 8 to make up the difference. I put it on her because I wasn't impressed with Harps' damage. Far worse to the point of hilarity was the Crimson Sword in the same room: 8 points of damage weaker and 35 less hit% than the Bastard. But 5 more crit. Whoopdeedoo. Apparently this has a hidden effect, probably auto drain, but so what?
But speaking of, I want to draw attention to Darius just now. Greatswords hit HARD. The Bastard's 35 power is 3 stronger than the Sun Sword. And I simply bought it in a store! Of course, it has far less hit%: as a point, Fighter with the Ice Sword (25%) would already have 3 hits by level 11, and Darius would only hit that at level 18 with this weapon - where Fighters would be a level away from having 4! I also did a quick test on B4. It turns out that SHADOWBIND actually boosts hit% too (by at least 32% as I would later learn) and not just accuracy, so he could reach 3-hits against blinded targets. There weren't that many that necessitated this, but it was certainly neat.
I found another Dragon Sage in B4, who offered me a Red D to fight. Uh, how about no? Not now, at least. I could get that later, either from a return trip or in Gurgu Volcano. It would be useful on LICH, but I felt I didn't need it to defeat him.
There was no status trickery I could pull on the boneman besides grinding enough to get L6 charges for Bluto and zapping him dead with GLARE. So all I did was attack backed by VALOR MINUET. He just used his spells: I survived ICE2, he did indeed use SLP2 this time instead of skipping it in the presence of a wall like last time. Man, CARBUNCLE sucks even more. He FASTed turn 3 but died on that turn as well.
I went to Crescent Lake after and picked up POISON off the Dragon Sage with a Gas D there. Sure, it hurt a lot and could indeed repeatedly spam the move, but I had SQUINT to win on turn 1. The bane of my existence during my Capitalists challenge was a L6 spell with base 136 damage. Little is actually weak to poison in the main game: only Red Ds and Sky Castle TIAMAT. But hey, it still hits ridiculously hard against the many things that don't resist it.
I decided to take on Gurgu Volcano first out of whimsy. I didn't see this party having any trouble with this dungeon, and it would add levels for the Ice Cave. I forgot to mention it in regards to the Earth Cave, but by now I was realizing the full potential of CONTROL. It worked on so many different things, most notably the elementals. It was effectively an instant death spell as long as I ended the battle within two turns. Or in the case of the Grey Ws and FIREs who were guarding a lot of the chests here, ended the battle instantly. The bonus experience made it appealing to do this against juicy targets.
Bluto could equip the Ice Sword. This got him on the doorstep of having 3 hits. There wasn't much of interest in the Volcano equipment-wise. It was bland, and there was no random old man with a dragon to fight this time. I had to skip the Red D/Flame Armor since I was cautious and low on HEALs.
The battle with the second went as such: Bluto went first with SQUINT. KARY was hit and died immediately. Hey, instant death spells are there to be used. Sometimes, showing off involves making use of them.
It wasn't too much hassle to make a return trip. I realized I'd missed some new items on the bottom floor too: the Scale Mail in the bottom center room sported 32 absorb and -10% evasion. Darius could equip it, but he could use the Flame Armor. So it went to Tracy instead, who also could. The top center room also had something for her: the Lava Axe had 26 attack, 2% crit, and a 25% hit after factoring in AXE PROFICIENCY. Essentially just a counterpart of the Flame Sword. Naturally, it was also fire-elemental. It was enough to get her to 3 hits. No issues from the Red D, it used BLAZE then my warriors killed it. Bluto learned the spell after battle.
I fought the ZoneEATER in Crescent Lake too. I'm not sure about its stats because this is a new enemy created solely to give access to the SWIRL ability: a L5 spell that was AoE and did a base 128 water-elemental damage. BLAZE was the same in a fire-element.
Ice Cave time, and admit it. You were thinking of this too the moment you heard about CONTROL, unless you thought you wouldn't be able to hit them with it. This also exposed what I had a feeling about, that a controlled monster's physical attacks deal way more damage than they should. I'm guessing it might be based off the Trainer's attack in some way. It meant this wasn't technically an instant kill the way they do it, but still.
Speaking of, I was able to pick up the infamous TRANCE from them. You know what this does: status-elemental paralysis to everything in sight. Enemies only recover from it at 9.8% odds, so they have it even worse than players. I reset a couple times when I got RUBbed out by a MAGE ambush, but this place was otherwise pleasantly smooth sailing. There were two chests of note besides the usual: the Crystal Harp in the money room was another bard weapon. 20 hit aside, 6 power really doesn't cut it at this point. There was also the Frozen Axe. This was to the Lava Axe to what the Ice Sword is to the Flame Sword: 3 points of attack and 5 hit stronger. I kept the latter on for the dungeon due to its functional elemental properties.
With the airship claimed, I went and explored the northern towns. Across Gaia, Onrac, and Cardia, I finished off MAGIC CAROL (+100% magic defense), got one away from the Ruthlessness song, and halfway to the Celebration song. However, there were no Blue Magic sources around that I could find. I would later learn there was a Blue D in Lefein, but not that knowing that would've did me any good: THUNDER is a L7 spell.
Before heading into Ordeals, I fought a Sand W. This enemy is normally very unremarkable if not forgotten due to having a very limited range of appearance on the overworld. But it had CRACK to claim. Bluto was wearing the Earth Armlet I'd picked up in the Earth Cave, rendering him immune to it. His allies fell, but he killed the worm and got everyone back up at Coneria.
Not much to say about Ordeals itself. The Zeus is probably best with one of the ones who can equip it (Darius or Tracy) but for now, I put it with Barbra. Just two failed attempts, one because of FIR2 spam and another because a SORCERER landed a KO on Darius. Third try, there was nothing of note. I burned down the Zombie Ds and got out without incident.
That led me to class change, so I'll divide up again.
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