FF1 Four Monks (MSX) Part IV
Oct. 6th, 2019 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorThat was among the most satisfying things I've ever done in FF1. Apparently I got EXTREMELY lucky too to even see that, from a video I saw it may not be as easy to do that as I thought, bug in this version or not. Amazing comedic timing in any case. But as much as I love kicking things down stairs, I don't think it's the most satisfying way to end this report, either.
Fine, fine, I guess I am going to grinding hell after all. That'll give me some more damage once I get the Masamune and hopefully give more of a buffer for Kraken's stupid overpowered attacks. As mentioned, I'm first going to try level 26, maybe 28 for the next strong HP up after that. It's only a third of the grind, as well.
I tried a few places. Waterfall was too variable for my tastes. Problem with the Beholder in the Ice Cave was using speedup and have very little wiggle room for it. Blue Dragon just killed me. So I went for random encounters, and went for the biggest balled option out there.
This actually wasn't a bad place to level at all. Even against Mindflayers, it seems Monks retain their abnormal magic defense growth on this version, preventing their paralysis. As I figured they would, so there's no reason to change class to what's known as "Supermonk" at all. Even their instant death physicals never went off - wonder if they're death elemental on this version? The fights paid out handsomely each time.
No more robots, but I did run into a couple Dark Fighters. Here's an odd change I learned, too: the NES version may have made him the 3/64, compared to being 1/64 on Famicom and subsequent versions. Dunno if it's true or not. I actually hit level 27 on everyone before going in.
Anyway, the second run at the temple. Got through the first room without an encounter. Partway through the second I ran into an Ice Gigas/Winter Wolf encounter. Easy to wipe out the wolves then heal up. As I rounded the bend in the next floor, I ran into a group of BADMEN/Black Knights. Took it out no problem. Two rounds of attacks brought down the Death Beholder. Dragon Zombies after heading beyond the plate let me heal scrapes. I ran from these after, Chimeras and Goh Chimeras. No sense fighting them. Another wolf/gigas group after that let me heal up. Back on the main floor, it was White Dragons! But, I instantly escaped and made it to the Earth floor.
Four straight groups of Earth Medusas followed. They stunned Tetsuya in the first fight, but were no threat otherwise - attack items wiped them. That was all I ran into on the way to Lich, just them. I used three potions to top everyone up before fighting him. He hit Koji with the legendary max damage NUKE/Flare! But with the Monk's high HP, he survived. The boneman went down on round 2. I used potions to get Koji and Daisuke over 300HP for some buffer.
The next encounter on the fire floor was Lava Worms, a perfect opponent to heal against. I ran into more of them in the room, and Fire Lizards a step before Marilith. I ran from both, the latter being a preemptive. Potioned Daisuke since he took some attacks on the first of them.
She started off with a 187 damage physical on Ryoma, following it up with 173 on Daisuke. Everyone but Tetsuya was attacking her, him using the White Robe. She missed Ryoma altogether on turn 3, then missed Tetsuya on turn 4. So she never did anything but physicals, dying on turn 4.
Healed up against the Water Elementals afterwards, though it got slightly dangerous before I got the evade stacks up. Next group was trolls, lobsters, and snakes. Easily erased with items. Another group sans the lobsters showed up after. And yet another as an ambush after that. I went ahead and healed there. Daisuke hit level 28 from that. One step later was more waters, with yet more a short time after - healed off them again. Then trolls and lobsters right before Kraken.
The octopus opened up with a pair of LIT3s/Thungahs (サンガー) that brought everyone to this amount of HP. Better than physicals, I suppose - got them up in enough time so that his attack of Ryoma in this turn did manageable damage. He missed Daisuke on the next turn. I thought I was in the clear at this point, but..
NO NO STOP I MISSED THAT BECAUSE OF MSX'S BOXES VANISHING TOO FAST BUT HE HIT FOR LIKE 400 YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT WITH THAT MANY STACKS UP
Thankfully, all he did from there on the next turn was hit Ryoma just once, and died on said turn. Ughhh...I'm starting to dislike this fight. I healed up with potions. I would just use them from this point out in the temple, the healing items had done their job in getting me this far.
The Masamune awaited on the next floor. Had no encounters on the way to it. Koji got it this time, as the Ribbon-bearer in the back and tying for the most strength anyway. I ran from a group of Air Elementals and something else that escapes me before running into...
...Iron Golem! I've run into all three rare monsters on this variant, fancy that. Recall from them showing up in my Capitalists challenge this is an unrunnable encounter, so I had to fight it - though was planning to anyway. At least in this run I had an actual weapon and good crit rates to pierce their massive defense.
And that's it. Didn't get a chance to do anything. How boring. As a random rare encounter aside that I've just now realized...I complain/joke about getting Warmeched a lot (who is 3/64 on NES), but I've actually been T Rexed a lot too. They've shown up in every variant of mine without me having to look for one except the Capitalists, where I just went and looked for one. Of course it's probably the least famous 1/64, probably in part due to showing up in multiple places. Compare to this or Warmech, who only show up in one room you're unlikely to spend a lot of time in.
Anyway few steps later was a vampire (lord) group, before Tiamat.
Koji was NOT playing around. The BANE/Clouder (クラウダ - probably a play off Cloudkill because D&D) missed Tetsuya. But the dragon fell on turn 3. I faced no further interruptions from random encounters on either that floor or Chaos'.
Final stats before heading in! Let's get the proper music for this team playing here too.
The only thing to do, to reference another mecha anime entirely, was attack, attack, attack! No bothering with the items, the damaging ones probably won't double and I need to kill him as soon as I can. No bothering with the White Robe or healing either. Ryoma did 56, Tetsuya did 3, Daisuke did 124, Chaos used his first spell for 108/126/214/90, and Koji did 284! 1533 remaining, so far so good!
Next round, Koji did a mere 107 damage. Ryoma hit for 84, Daisuke 61. Chaos decided to use CRACK/Earthquake at this point, which did nothing against the ribbon holders and Tetsuya's massive magic defense. Tetsuya hit for 48. That went extremely poorly, 1233 left.
Turn three! Ryoma hit 67. Chaos did 94/78/178/98 with his next spell. Tetsuya did 90, Daisuke 4, and Koji 240. Not what I need to see, him going through his spells like that. 832 remaining. Maybe it won't matter?
Ryoma did 167 to start the fourth turn. Chaos busted out Thunderbolt for 138/148/266/178, killing Tetsuya! Also not what I want to see! Daisuke did 41, and Koji 294! Chaos has 330HP left, but I have to stay alive and deal enough!!
Koji opened up the fifth round with a 175 damage hit. Daisuke did 83. And Ryoma did 106...
...finishing the battle off! And yes, the shot is maligned like that. The MSX' shaking animation is about as smooth as its scrolling.
Hey, actual credits at the end! Another thing exclusive to this version, checking the Japanese script for the Famicom version which I used as a reference a lot during this playthrough for names. After the initial credits it goes into credits for the MSX version. The downside is that the music doesn't end like it does on the originals, infinitely looping instead.
So that's the MSX version of Final Fantasy 1. Is it worth playing? Casually, not really. There's not a lot it has to offer over the NES version, and if you want, a bugfix patch can give you most of what it has going for it. But assuming everything and every version, it is a unique entity of its own that has reason to play it over other ones. They did put some effort into it, as shown by some of the bugfixes, even if some of the bugs it introduces are even worse than that. If you're a fan of FF1 and are curious or a hardcore fan, it's something to check out. Definitely bring a speedup though, because the map lag can be atrocious.
But let's get to our mission statement. Do the Monks deserve the -43/10 on this version, where most of their advantage is stripped away? I'd say no; they're still better than Thieves but indisputably the second-worst class in the game here. There was really no reason to take away their primary advantage/gimmick. I'm in fact inclined to think it was a bug, due to the hit doubling applying in all instances. If it was a conscious decision...that was an interesting way to try to rebalance them while still giving them use. It improves their early game and makes a grinded one not completely broken. Still, as I mentioned, not having proper weapons for most of the game makes them lag until the very very end with Masamune.
MSX took Monks from an underrated powerhouse class to being underpowered, albeit with a hook in the hit doubling to give them some purpose. Either way, as pretty much everyone knows or should know - FFClassic was totally wrong about them and it is also a dead website. RIP in peace.
One final change: The End just fades in rather than being drawn.
Thanks for reading. Of course, as I alluded to, I'm not done with MSX FF1 just yet. This change to Monk does have interesting ramifications when it comes to variants. Those that didn't consider using them because of their fists for one reason or another now have reason to use them. Look forward to that after I iron out a few things in my life, and maybe do another one on NES that I came up with during this variant. It also involves Black Belts! And should be on the higher end of difficulty too. Look forward to those eventually!
Index
Fine, fine, I guess I am going to grinding hell after all. That'll give me some more damage once I get the Masamune and hopefully give more of a buffer for Kraken's stupid overpowered attacks. As mentioned, I'm first going to try level 26, maybe 28 for the next strong HP up after that. It's only a third of the grind, as well.
I tried a few places. Waterfall was too variable for my tastes. Problem with the Beholder in the Ice Cave was using speedup and have very little wiggle room for it. Blue Dragon just killed me. So I went for random encounters, and went for the biggest balled option out there.
This actually wasn't a bad place to level at all. Even against Mindflayers, it seems Monks retain their abnormal magic defense growth on this version, preventing their paralysis. As I figured they would, so there's no reason to change class to what's known as "Supermonk" at all. Even their instant death physicals never went off - wonder if they're death elemental on this version? The fights paid out handsomely each time.
No more robots, but I did run into a couple Dark Fighters. Here's an odd change I learned, too: the NES version may have made him the 3/64, compared to being 1/64 on Famicom and subsequent versions. Dunno if it's true or not. I actually hit level 27 on everyone before going in.
Anyway, the second run at the temple. Got through the first room without an encounter. Partway through the second I ran into an Ice Gigas/Winter Wolf encounter. Easy to wipe out the wolves then heal up. As I rounded the bend in the next floor, I ran into a group of BADMEN/Black Knights. Took it out no problem. Two rounds of attacks brought down the Death Beholder. Dragon Zombies after heading beyond the plate let me heal scrapes. I ran from these after, Chimeras and Goh Chimeras. No sense fighting them. Another wolf/gigas group after that let me heal up. Back on the main floor, it was White Dragons! But, I instantly escaped and made it to the Earth floor.
Four straight groups of Earth Medusas followed. They stunned Tetsuya in the first fight, but were no threat otherwise - attack items wiped them. That was all I ran into on the way to Lich, just them. I used three potions to top everyone up before fighting him. He hit Koji with the legendary max damage NUKE/Flare! But with the Monk's high HP, he survived. The boneman went down on round 2. I used potions to get Koji and Daisuke over 300HP for some buffer.
The next encounter on the fire floor was Lava Worms, a perfect opponent to heal against. I ran into more of them in the room, and Fire Lizards a step before Marilith. I ran from both, the latter being a preemptive. Potioned Daisuke since he took some attacks on the first of them.
She started off with a 187 damage physical on Ryoma, following it up with 173 on Daisuke. Everyone but Tetsuya was attacking her, him using the White Robe. She missed Ryoma altogether on turn 3, then missed Tetsuya on turn 4. So she never did anything but physicals, dying on turn 4.
Healed up against the Water Elementals afterwards, though it got slightly dangerous before I got the evade stacks up. Next group was trolls, lobsters, and snakes. Easily erased with items. Another group sans the lobsters showed up after. And yet another as an ambush after that. I went ahead and healed there. Daisuke hit level 28 from that. One step later was more waters, with yet more a short time after - healed off them again. Then trolls and lobsters right before Kraken.
The octopus opened up with a pair of LIT3s/Thungahs (サンガー) that brought everyone to this amount of HP. Better than physicals, I suppose - got them up in enough time so that his attack of Ryoma in this turn did manageable damage. He missed Daisuke on the next turn. I thought I was in the clear at this point, but..
NO NO STOP I MISSED THAT BECAUSE OF MSX'S BOXES VANISHING TOO FAST BUT HE HIT FOR LIKE 400 YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT WITH THAT MANY STACKS UP
Thankfully, all he did from there on the next turn was hit Ryoma just once, and died on said turn. Ughhh...I'm starting to dislike this fight. I healed up with potions. I would just use them from this point out in the temple, the healing items had done their job in getting me this far.
The Masamune awaited on the next floor. Had no encounters on the way to it. Koji got it this time, as the Ribbon-bearer in the back and tying for the most strength anyway. I ran from a group of Air Elementals and something else that escapes me before running into...
...Iron Golem! I've run into all three rare monsters on this variant, fancy that. Recall from them showing up in my Capitalists challenge this is an unrunnable encounter, so I had to fight it - though was planning to anyway. At least in this run I had an actual weapon and good crit rates to pierce their massive defense.
And that's it. Didn't get a chance to do anything. How boring. As a random rare encounter aside that I've just now realized...I complain/joke about getting Warmeched a lot (who is 3/64 on NES), but I've actually been T Rexed a lot too. They've shown up in every variant of mine without me having to look for one except the Capitalists, where I just went and looked for one. Of course it's probably the least famous 1/64, probably in part due to showing up in multiple places. Compare to this or Warmech, who only show up in one room you're unlikely to spend a lot of time in.
Anyway few steps later was a vampire (lord) group, before Tiamat.
Koji was NOT playing around. The BANE/Clouder (クラウダ - probably a play off Cloudkill because D&D) missed Tetsuya. But the dragon fell on turn 3. I faced no further interruptions from random encounters on either that floor or Chaos'.
Final stats before heading in! Let's get the proper music for this team playing here too.
The only thing to do, to reference another mecha anime entirely, was attack, attack, attack! No bothering with the items, the damaging ones probably won't double and I need to kill him as soon as I can. No bothering with the White Robe or healing either. Ryoma did 56, Tetsuya did 3, Daisuke did 124, Chaos used his first spell for 108/126/214/90, and Koji did 284! 1533 remaining, so far so good!
Next round, Koji did a mere 107 damage. Ryoma hit for 84, Daisuke 61. Chaos decided to use CRACK/Earthquake at this point, which did nothing against the ribbon holders and Tetsuya's massive magic defense. Tetsuya hit for 48. That went extremely poorly, 1233 left.
Turn three! Ryoma hit 67. Chaos did 94/78/178/98 with his next spell. Tetsuya did 90, Daisuke 4, and Koji 240. Not what I need to see, him going through his spells like that. 832 remaining. Maybe it won't matter?
Ryoma did 167 to start the fourth turn. Chaos busted out Thunderbolt for 138/148/266/178, killing Tetsuya! Also not what I want to see! Daisuke did 41, and Koji 294! Chaos has 330HP left, but I have to stay alive and deal enough!!
Koji opened up the fifth round with a 175 damage hit. Daisuke did 83. And Ryoma did 106...
...finishing the battle off! And yes, the shot is maligned like that. The MSX' shaking animation is about as smooth as its scrolling.
Hey, actual credits at the end! Another thing exclusive to this version, checking the Japanese script for the Famicom version which I used as a reference a lot during this playthrough for names. After the initial credits it goes into credits for the MSX version. The downside is that the music doesn't end like it does on the originals, infinitely looping instead.
So that's the MSX version of Final Fantasy 1. Is it worth playing? Casually, not really. There's not a lot it has to offer over the NES version, and if you want, a bugfix patch can give you most of what it has going for it. But assuming everything and every version, it is a unique entity of its own that has reason to play it over other ones. They did put some effort into it, as shown by some of the bugfixes, even if some of the bugs it introduces are even worse than that. If you're a fan of FF1 and are curious or a hardcore fan, it's something to check out. Definitely bring a speedup though, because the map lag can be atrocious.
But let's get to our mission statement. Do the Monks deserve the -43/10 on this version, where most of their advantage is stripped away? I'd say no; they're still better than Thieves but indisputably the second-worst class in the game here. There was really no reason to take away their primary advantage/gimmick. I'm in fact inclined to think it was a bug, due to the hit doubling applying in all instances. If it was a conscious decision...that was an interesting way to try to rebalance them while still giving them use. It improves their early game and makes a grinded one not completely broken. Still, as I mentioned, not having proper weapons for most of the game makes them lag until the very very end with Masamune.
MSX took Monks from an underrated powerhouse class to being underpowered, albeit with a hook in the hit doubling to give them some purpose. Either way, as pretty much everyone knows or should know - FFClassic was totally wrong about them and it is also a dead website. RIP in peace.
One final change: The End just fades in rather than being drawn.
Thanks for reading. Of course, as I alluded to, I'm not done with MSX FF1 just yet. This change to Monk does have interesting ramifications when it comes to variants. Those that didn't consider using them because of their fists for one reason or another now have reason to use them. Look forward to that after I iron out a few things in my life, and maybe do another one on NES that I came up with during this variant. It also involves Black Belts! And should be on the higher end of difficulty too. Look forward to those eventually!
Index
