FF4 Solo Yang Part I

[sirsystemerror]

(art by yukki (rffcq251))

Yang Fang Leiden (carrying his daughter from the sequel there, couldn't find anything better) is of the Monk class, and as an aside has some of the most awkward-looking sprites in the game - right up there with pastel-haired hobo Paladin Cecil. Much like in many earlier Final Fantasies, his strength comes from training/leveling up. His sole weapon class, Claws exist to boost his accuracy and give his attacks elemental or racial properties. Much like Edge, he's ambidextrous, and capable of equipping two at a time. When he has two on at once, he takes the average of the accuracy bonuses.

He has three battle commands. Gird is a self-cast Protect. It can sometimes fail to be applied, however. Power is similar to Kain's Jump, minus the invulnerability. In fact, it lowers his defense until the attack is made. And while this is not a factor for this version, Power also ignores Yang's row in regards to calculating damage. Usually not worth it except in certain circumstances, due to that defensive reduction and the charge time - it's almost always more efficient to just attack twice. It is nice to have against counterattackers, of course.

And finally, Kick damages all enemies. No elemental/racial effects from Yang's weapons are applied. What seems to happen and what the Algorithms Guide says doesn't quite jive, though it could be an observational error or GBA difference. What may happen: the attack multiplier is halved, rounded down. What the guide says happens: the attack power is halved. Whatever the case, it's a decent, if quirky command when facing down groups.

Because Yang fights with his fists/claws, his attack power is not calculated by his weapons, but by the formula (Level+1)*2 + Str/4.


We're getting into the more interesting characters from here on out, ones who have more noteworthy flaws than the rest. Pay close attention to those last two stats on the page. Yang's big problem is that he does not gain any Intellect or Spirit over the course of leveling up to 70. These stats go into helping determine magic defense - every 32 points between them contributes a multiplier. So for most of the game, Yang is going to be stuck with a painfully low amount, only saved from having none at all by how every 32 points of Agility also contributes a multiplier. He of course has high Strength and Stamina and his HP growth is only challenged by Cid's, though his Agility disappoints a bit right now.

There's a couple interesting statistical changes to Yang across the various versions. Most relevant now and for our challenge is that I'm playing the European version, the 1.1 release, which allows him to gain HP after level 60. The other is that in the PSX release of all things, his post-70 level ups are improved. Could party switching have been planned for that version? Who knows? All that matters now is that these changes are not in this version, which is a shame, as he'd otherwise be more capable of addressing his poor magic defense in the late game. I'll go over those when relevant.


The only interesting thing about Mist Dragon was that Yang ripped out a critical hit on it. It wasn't enough for the one-cycle (was one hit away!), but it was still absolutely zero threat.


This...actually was a minor threat, that actually killed me when all the soldiers went after Yang when killing Cecil. I tried using Gird, but it really takes a lot of casts to build up defense. I needed to duck into the back row to take care of Cecil, then go to the front to get the General (because of course I want the experience!). A quick Kick and cleanup took care of the guards.

As an aside, it was possible to fight the jellies in the path to Damcyan - the boost from Power made it possible for that plus the Fire Claw he was equipped with to break through their insane defenses. So I did so! Sadly, the same didn't apply to the yellow ones later on in the Antlion's Cave - I would've needed a Thunder Claw there. Power was also helpful on the Water Bugs, to kill them in one hit. The Zombies died very quickly to Fire Claw, and Kick could take out groups if I felt like using it.


The optimal, or a least a creative strategy on Octomammoth was to pump up Yang's defenses with Gird some, then repeatedly use Power. This did lower his defense and made hits in the meantime deal tens of damage, but once it was completed the octopus as back to dealing 1, maybe 2 damage a shot, which was easy to heal up from. Doing this skipped out on its becoming stronger as it loses its tentacles; it died with five of them left.

Same goes for Antlion - although Counter Horn is weak and not really too much of a worry, it certainly didn't hurt to use Power to get it done in fewer of those attacks.


On Mt. Hobs, Yang hit level 21 for 4 hits, which also buffed the damage of Kick. Speaking of which, here's something you won't see every day - Yang's initial Kick taking out all of the enemies in his automatic battle. Although they all went before him anyway, removing the point of this. Mombomb was easy - attack until it swells up, and Kick away after it explodes. Two of these did the trick.

Fabul finally offered up a chance to own the other two elemental claws, so I picked those up. Note that equipping multiples of the same elemental claw carries no benefit. The battles were all easy, with Yang able to flatten everything in one shot - two for the generals.


One annoying thing about heading up Mt. Ordeals were the Spirit-class of enemies. These things absorb Fire, which amounts to simply resisting it as far as physical attacks are concerned (halving damage, this damage is without the claw). Since Fire was still extremely effective on everything else here, I chose to keep on attacking rather than annoy myself with claw switching every time one of these showed up, which was most battles. I also had Yang use an Ice Claw to tear apart the Liliths.

Scarmiglione in either form posed little threat. The first one had too little HP, and I left one of the Skullnauts alive so he wouldn't throw out more Thunders. The second one did have one catch - if he poisoned Yang, he couldn't use Power. Regardless, I was only using it to see in how few attacks I could get the job done - the first did 1500, the second 1200. Couldn't get it in two, so just attacked normally from there. Fighting the Dark Knight normally was no threat.


And now, for the mirror match of the century...!


There's really not much to this. The enemy Yang kicks, my own Yang punches. The enemy Yang moves slowly, mine gets 6-7 attacks per kick.


The enemy Yang has 62000HP, mine has 1585. The enemy Yang does 50-100 damage a kick, mine does 400-600 disregarding critical hits. The enemy Yang can't use Hi-Potions, mine can. Used around four of them, and it took about 15 minutes in game time (of course I sped it up), but the result was inevitable. One thing - to save a bit on cash, I had to unequip Yang's Claws before dealing the final blow, which necessitated some HP tracking. I didn't use this in the actual fight, or actually did anything but generally count in my head - which worked out well enough. Although I had neglected to sell anything so far, so had to use an Echo Herb to make room.


Equipment is changed when a character reenters your party, but that's fine on the front of the headwear and armor because new ones are available in Baron. The first two things add to your Strength and therefore your attack multiplier. I also got a Silver Armlet to replace the one I lost on Yang "reentering" my party. A bit oddly, this didn't happen when he first entered, unlike what happened with Palom.


The Old Waterway was similar to Mt. Ordeals in how it had one outlier that resisted elemental weaknesses that (most) of the others share: the Electrofish and lightning. I rearranged the inventory this time as so to be able to unequip and reequip it quickly as required. Perhaps more dangerous were the Hydras. Though Yang could usually kill them before they could, them using Entangle on a back attack would paralyze him for a long time. Thankfully when this happened, I'd just saved, and even if I hadn't, Yang recovered at around 100HP remaining, after which I promptly peaced out of this fight.

Baigan, kill the Left Arm to prevent more such paralysis shenanigans, punch him out, and then finish the Right Arm. No sweat.


So Cagnazzo. Cecil, Kain, and Rosa all had problems with this guy. What about Yang? He was in the group that hardly cares. Ice and Thunder Claws meant being able to damage him both before and after he throws up water (he does absorb/resist Ice when gathering water, but the weakness from the Thunder Claws takes priority). The shell phase was cut out of the picture entirely - the Drowned Emperor was above the threshold and pancaked by elemental damage.

In the Magnetic Cave, I once again claimed the Fairy Claw. The only tiny hitch with it is its low accuracy, but having on another claw counterbalanced it. Yang introduced this new weapon to the hapless Ogres walking around to deal 4x effective racial damage. The claw also boosts Agility by 3, and gives a chance to confuse anything Yang doesn't outright kill.

I went and fought Dark Dragon without Hourglasses. Dark Breath was quite painful, doing around 500 damage to Yang, and his physicals weren't to be sneezed at either. I dealt with this by having Yang duck into the back row when low on health, healing up, coming back, and unloading. That damn back row bug, though...preventing me from fighting there regularly.


With the resources and levels from this, I was able to clear Eblan Castle's trapped chests as well. The Mad Ogres were a total nudist/Berserker variant fight - high damage on both sides of the battlefield! After the Lamia was eliminated, the Couerls only had their deadly Blaster counterattack. Naturally, using Power was the way to go here, although it was important Yang be close to max HP due to the defense zeroing. Finally, the Skuldiers/Steel Golem was a fairly tough fight to crack, but kicking from the back row to wipe out the former, healing up for the latter, and punching it with the Fairy Claw (while never being slept/cursed) did the trick.


I got a Rune Armlet drop shortly into the Tower of Zot, which was welcome. Also in the Tower of Zot was the Hell Claw. This has no elemental or racial properties, but does boost Strength by 3, has a high accuracy rating, and carries a chance of poisoning the target. This boost was enough for another attack multiplier against the Magus Sisters, and Yang had enough power to kill Cindy right before the second Delta Attack. From here with a wall of my own, there was no threat to be had.


Barbariccia was going to be interesting. This is where that oddness with accuracy came into play - in spite of "only" having 79% accuracy, Yang had no trouble hitting her. But even without any claws (bug since I was testing by removing them in battle?), he was hitting perfectly. It makes me wonder how exactly Yang's accuracy works - her evasion boost IS applied since I'm on GBA 1.1, and earlier/later challenges I did indeed had trouble hitting her.

At any rate, I had a pattern that made it free, evasion or no evasion - I threw out Spider's Silk before she could go into her spin, killing off Kain and Rosa. Use some Hermes Sandals for speed...and from there, I could go Hi-Potion -> Hi-Potion -> Gold Needle -> Attack -> Attack after every Tornado. Power was available and I would've considered it to make up ground if Yang was having trouble doing damage. The only hitch is that it'd resolve after the Tornado, only giving time for one Hi-Potion - and there was a chance that the physical from Barbariccia could kill with only one heal. Maybe with some grinded Decoys...but whatever the case, the fact remains that she was by no means a problem.


A three-hour flat Overworld in game time. Not bad. Didn't mark down how fast the others were, but this is probably the fastest yet. So far, so good for this solo character. Let's see if it continues.

Next | Index