sirsystemerror | FFZZ 1.5 [TH/RM/WM/BM] Part III

I go to the Waterfall before hitting up the sea shrine, but the going isn't easy. These guys in particular, the NITEMAREs use VOID to make your resistances worthless, and the MAGEs use WARP to kill you.

This spike guards the treasure room. That's the good news, it's easy to take down. The bad news is, a spike is in front of every other chest. I only manage to get this and the chest to the left, containing a Wizard Staff (CONF), before I have to bail. Kinda forgot to talk to the robot too. Oh well, return trip.

I dive into the Sea Shrine for a bit, but decide to head to Leifen to pick up Level 8 magic. LIF2 and FADE are here on the White Magic end. Sullla gets only the latter for now. As for Black Magic, NUKE is as you'd expect, only way nicer due to intelligence being fixed. MEGA is twice as strong as NUKE, but single-target.

There's plenty of nice loot to be had here. Note that the shrine is now more straightforward in its design, so I just keep on pressing on after reaching the upper wing. Circlet is a mage-exclusive piece of headwear. Fun fact: it used to be Red Mage exclusive, and provided the second-highest defense boost out there. There's the Opal equipment, the gaunlet which Sofis gets. The Hyper Knife is most notable for its absurd crit rate, and goes to Plus C.

I do have to make a second trip in after beating it; the only thing of note I find is the Opal Helmet. The best defensive helmet in the game, even sporting some resistances, Sofis can equip it. The Thief/Ninja really is damn good in this hack. It can equip almost everything that the Knight can post class-change, though lacks the tanky HP. It doesn't get the Excalibur, but has the Light Axe to abuse. It can't equip the Opal Armor or Dragon Armor, but gets something almost as remarkable in the ToFR.

Kraken. I buff hard and unload on the octopus. He's far more competent than in vanilla, but he still dies really easy. After taking him out, I take out the EvilEYE again in front of a spiked chest for a CUR2-casting Cure Staff, leave, and make the aforementioned revisit

On the way to pick up the CUBE, I run into these things. T Rex is one of the rarer encounters in vanilla. They're a bit more common here, have boatloads of HP, and hit like trucks. But with enough buffing, T-Hawk becomes a destroyer of worlds. None of those hits were crits, by the way. This is what TMPR/SABR would've been able to do if they worked.

So here's our stats, since it's been a while. Pretty self-explanatory. Again, note that the Ninja gets a lot of nice equipment options. Plus C has overtaken Sullla in physical fighting, though the Thor/War Hammer will be coming up soon. You can't see it in these shots, but you actually get more than 9 spell charges a level eventually. Not too helpful, but it's there.

The way to the tower and sky castle is a lot longer, now. Not to mention having some obnoxious enemy groups along the way.

Heal Helmet is nice. I give this to T-Hawk, and give Sullla his old Circlet, turfing the Zeus Gauntlet in the process.

Not too long after that, I get a weapon upgrade for Sullla in the War Hammer. So he can still toss of LIT2s on demand, Also among the items in the tower are Aegis Shield and Dragon Armor - we can't use either.

In the Sky Castle itself, we get this beauty. In vanilla, it's most notable for letting anyone one-shot Tiamat if they want. In this hack, it's most notable for it's 80% crit rate. This goes to T-Hawk, but he keeps his Defense around for healing purposes. (speaking of, I get another in here for Sullla)

I somehow forgot to take any pictures of them, but the LAMIA/AIR groups make a fine time to use items to heal up with items - just kill the former and all but one of the latter, Rain Staff/FOG up, and have everyone use their Defense/Cure Staff

More decisions to make and equipment shuffling to do. I turf T-Hawk's Axis Armor (34/16 + Fire/Ice) and give him Sullla's Opal Gauntlet (37/1 + Fire), since his Axis Shield protects against Fire/Ice anyway. The Black Shirt is BW only. It protects against Ice and Time - the only piece of equipment in the hack besides the Ribbon that protects against the latter. I can then swap Sulla's Circlet with Plus C's RIbbon to give both the full monty of status protection.

Still a nice item. No special properties, but it goes to Sullla due to the Magic Shield being effectively redundaunt. I have to make a trip out after this. And on the way back in...

Yep.

Luckily, I kick his face in. NUKE and FADE the NITEMAREs, pump it up, and blast him into oblivion.

Katana is still the Ninja's ultimate weapon. Compared to the Light Axe, it has 3 less power, but makes up with it with twice as much accuracy and 18 more crit rate. It casts HOLD instead of HRM2, mostly irrelevant at this point

Meanwhile, ADAMANT is still of some use to us, in a way. Excalibur casts HRM3 when used as an item.

Sage Staff is effectively the White Mage's ultimate weapon, despite the fact that all Wizards can use it. With 20/20/20 stats, this beats out War Hammer's 18/15/8 as a monster basher.

Last fiend hype!!

I go with the usual buff and destroy strategy. Plus C also joins in the festivities, using SABR. Tiamat gets off a CUR4, but with three powerful physical attackers assaulting the big dragon, it soon falls under the onslaught;

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