FF2 Magic-Only Challenge Part II

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Our next objective in-game is to go to the ruined castle of Kashuon to obtain the Egil's Torch, which can be used to obtain the SunFlame, which we can use to overload the Empire's Warship's engine and destroy it. A quick airship taxi takes us there.


Gordon joins us for this task. He too, has no magic of his own; this Bolt is another spare drop that I had on me. What he does have is 22s in all his stats including Magic Power, the latter meaning he gains MP fairly rapidly. I add a Cure spell to his collection from a freebie in the castle.

The opposition isn't too much to talk about. Enemy strength is beginning to ramp up a bit. Ogre Magi in particular have a Rank of 3. The first use of a spell in-battle gets you 3+Uses+R-Level experience. R is the rank of the lowest enemy in battle. It's possible for this value to be negative, but it doesn't decrease.

In layman's terms, the first time you cast a spell in battle will give more experience, but all subsequent uses of a spell in battle will always give 1 experience. Out of battle, spells that can be cast always can 2 experience.


Umm...oops. Out of MP by the end? This is a problem. I have an Ether, but I decide to just Exit out of here.


I do two things when I'm out here. First, I use the Anti spell to grind some MP. Recall that this skill, if it succeeds, reduces the target's MP. It seems to half it, to be specific (these two screenshots are from different uses of the skill, it doesn't always take). This should mitigate the problem of running dry.


While I'm at it, I decide to take my magicians on another trip to Mysidia in the process. My party is now strong enough to take on many of the encounters here. Marisa, Patchy, and Gordon are able to gang up on a Bomb and take it out. I get a Barrier spell and a third Thief Gauntlet while I'm here.


So after those festivities and another romp through Kashuon, I'm back at the boss. Much better!


So here's Red Soul. This is why I had to go to Mysidia in the first place. Red Soul absorbs all elemental spells, as you can see with this screenshot from the past (haven't been prudent on taking pictures). Holy is non-elemental though, and kills it just fine. The other option would be trying to get a Drain spell, but that's the tougher option.


A quick heal in Altea, then we set up north to where the Warship's docked. We're running into skill level 3+ enemies fairly routinely now. These Big Birds are a bit annoying. Magic isn't that strong when it's not hitting an elemental weakness, of which they have none. There's ways around this, though...and stronger enemies.


You're supposed to present a Pass item from the Bofsk Sewers dungeon. I skipped it, however. You can tell the Rebel password to the guard instead to fight your way on board and save an item slot.


These Captains are what we would fight in Phin if we attempted to talk to anyone there, as well as what we face if we talk to anyone else here. That let's play abuses these guys for their Toad spellbook drop - instant kills are actually quite capable in this Final Fantasy.

I'm going to be playing through without use of it, partially because the final boss absorbs instant kill spells of all types - and thus I would rather train spells that can kill him through HP damage. That's not to say it's not on the table for certain cases, however. Alice and Marisa take off all their equipment to negate the spellcasting penalty, Gordon takes up the position of meatshield, and the duo unleash a Warp and Exit at the Captain. Marisa gets the kill with Warp. Patchy casts a revival spell on Gordon, in case it takes too long to level.


And yes, select/canceling each spell once is very very nice for our spell gains. They're skill level 5. Our level 5 skills gain a total of 4 experience from these encounters at first use.


For the Imperial Warship, there are surprisingly few Imperial enemies. The Mine enemies were some of the more common ones. There's these Stunner rats who do what their name suggests with their physicals, assorted undead, and that jolly green giant, a monster in a box.


Whoa, how did I run out of MP on the last floor? Thankfully, Gordon had a sizable stock left, and had enough mojo to carry us the rest of the way.


After blowing the Warship to smithereens, we return to Altea to hear the king's final words. Minh has to go and break the seal on ULTIMA, THE FORBIDDEN MAGIC. Gordon is to be commander-in-chief of the rebel army, so he's not with us anymore. We are to go to the island of Dist and strike up contact with the Dragoons. Which means procuring a ship.


Like in FF1, we end up engaged with pirates. And just like in FF1, these aren't much to talk about. A single barrage of spells ends this fight, and gets us our ship and next party member.


Layla comes with a free Bolt spell, and it's at Level 2. Hooray!!


I end up getting lost on the way to my destination, and end up here. This is the Black Mask Cave. You're ordinarily not supposed to come here until a little later on in the game, but it's a simple enough dungeon and fully doable at this stage (much like the Ice Cave/Ordeals situation in FF1), so I go ahead and do it.


The enemies aren't necessarily that strong...these slimes are pretty weak, and the Stunners and Wererats show up as well. Notable are the DualZombs, two-headed undead ogres who die quickly to fire and have a skill level of 5. Again...wasn't really prudent with picture-taking. >_>


A side-path in here allows us to access this shop, which has these Ruby Plates for sale. They're a much-desired defensive upgrade, are lightweight, and have only a -1 INT/SOUL spellcasting penalty. Not that the latter matters much with dual-shields...but still!


The Big Horn is the boss of this cave. Its got 1140 HP and no real weakness, so I just blast away until it croaks.


Checkup time, this time with stats as well. Marisa's magic is at level 5, with Ice at 6.23. We haven't yet located some of the magic I'd like Marisa to have, but what's there is good enough for now. Intelligence is coming along nicely.

Alice has really benefitted from the probably-pointless select/canceling once in each battle with a skill level 5+ enemy...and seriously, what the _hell_ is with that Soul growth? 8 more points, and she'll be maxed out. This is apparently what happens when you select/cancel a lot of magic spells; since the game keeps track of how many you cast in a fight, she gained a ton of it all at once.

Patchy, not specializing in either school of magic, has kind of lowish stats by comparison, but for this stage of the game, it's by no means terrible. Definitely going to look into getting more spells for Patchy.

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So take a look at this. Recognize the weapon? Anyone familiar with Final Fantasy V should, even though it has a slightly different name in the SNES translation - the Guardian. Base Evasion is determined by Agility. You then gain a bonus equal to (L + 1) * B depending on equipment, where L is the level of your equipment and B is the bonus it gets. Then subtract out equipment weight.

Most every weapon in the game, with the exception of this little dagger (5), the Defender Sword (8), and Masamune (2) have a bonus of 1. They also all happen to have a small(er) spellcasting penality than shields, at 5%, 50%, and 0%! The catch for our specific case - there's exactly one Main Gauche in the game.


So Dist Cavern. Before going in, I take a trip to Mysidia and get Patchy a Holy spellbook.


There's hordes of undead in here, along with Souls. Like the Red Soul boss from before, these guys absorb all elements you throw at them. Holy does just fine though, so they go down easily enough.


The Chimeras are the boss of this dungeon, Their main attack is this party-wide flame, which manages to bring down Marisa. Still, nothing my magicians can't handle.


On returning to Altea, we find Princess Hilda has been replaced by a Lamia!! I save before jumping into this boss, as she has a drop that I want. To quickly dispose of her, I have Alice and Marisa take off their equipment aim their Exit and Warps spells at the snakelady.


Don't want the huge pile of cash. This is also known as the Protect Ring. It's part of what I consider the mage equipment set. All of it is lightweight and offers a +21% boost to magic defense, Protect Ring has a weight of only 3, has 18 defense, and offers death protection. Tempting, but not what I'm looking for.


There we are. The Ribbon stands as a fantastic piece of equipment. With resistance to all elements, all status ailments, 21% magic defense, no spellcasting penalty, and even a pleasant 10 defense, this is undoubtedly the ultimate headwear. Genji Helm? An overweight amateur. Alice ties this into her hair, and we set off.


But not before I somehow found a way to freeze the game. Remember how there must be at least one person in the front row? Well, everyone was in the back row for the Lamia Queen fight, and Gordon - who rejoined us - was in the back row when he left. He rejoins in the back row, so everyone is in the back row. The game just locks up here.


Anyway, the real princess got kidnapped, and she's in the Empire's Arena. However, a giant behemoth is also competing for her. What exactly this thing wants with her is unclear, but it's a toughie: no elemental weaknesses and 1620HP. The boss theme of this game plays for the first time in this fight. It's more bark than bite, though. With Alice dodging its purely physical attacks, the magicians simply chip away at it until it collapses.


The jail beneath the arena isn't worth talking about. This rare encounter shows up as I'm leaving, which I'll be exploiting in a bit for its drops, in a far better place to find it.


I get my first 1000+ damage hit on the walk back, from Marisa blasting an Antlion with Ice.


Time to retake Phin Castle!! Layla rejoins a bit in. Those Sorcerors and Wizards are about twice as common here as they were back in the Arena. And um, highly dangerous. Wow.


Luckily, Alice is a beast.


The drops I get from the first several though...aren't really that good. Aura, as I've learned gives you bonus damage when physically attacking certain enemy types. So, still useless to us. Drain is nice to have around; I end up with several of these. Two go to Marisa and Patchy, the rest get sold. And there is a lot of junk I get before it's over.


The Ribbon drop I get puts in work!! The bad news is, Alice's Heal needs a bit more training before it can remove petrify.


Seriously, those mages are nuts. Here's their attack "script". They choose one of these each turn at the specified odds.

Sorceror: Drain (20%), Flare (20%), Osmose (20%), Toad (10%), Fire (10%), Stop (10%), Warp (5%), Break (5%)
Wizard: Drain (20%), Blizzard (20%), Fire (20%), Haste (10%), Stun (10%), Confuse (10%), Death (5%), Curse (5%)

Break, Toad, Warp, and Death are all very painful, and the rest are pretty bad too. But finally, after about a dozen of those big fights...


Booya. The Flare spell is essentially the Black Mage counterpart to Holy. Aspil is the MP counterpart to Drain. I only get one, so I have to go around hunting more.


The only thing worth noting about Commander Gotus, the boss of this place, is that he actually smacked Alice around a bit. Still, he was blasted into submission before he could do too much.


With Phin now reoperational, so opens its magic shop. Which actually has some unique stuff in it. Alice picks up Fog and Slow, just because. The castle basement is the next stop.


The first few floors have monsters from several dungeons ago. Another Soul enemy shows up a few levels down. The Green Souls throw Cure at us while we wail away. The Brains are weird enemies with a peculiar vulnerability to Mind spells. Alice hits them with it to neuter their magic, because why not?


These guys, a monster in a box shortly before the White Mask, are highly dangerous...their breath skill inflicts petrify. They never get to use it though, as Alice Barriers up her comrades while they Aspil away their MP.

Next stop: Mysidia, when we're actually supposed to be going to Mysidia. Now seems a good time for a skill checkup.


Most of the status skills Marisa has are there for the fun of it. Flare is already starting to get broken in, and Ice is nearly at 8. Intelligence is nearing the ceiling...

Holy wasn't select canceled, unlike some of the support stuff. It really did get that strong just through constant use, and those solo battles Alice ended up win certainly helped. Her HP really went through the roof because of those encounters.

Patchy's skills are improving. Holy's gone up to 4, which is good. Bolt is also nearing level 8. Stats still leave a lot to be desired, though...but they should get to where they need to be by the end.

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