FF1 No Start Menu Part I
May. 2nd, 2021 02:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorWhen I was trying to figure out the controls on MSX FF1, I had difficulty finding the key to get into the menu. Turns out, it's F1, and F2 to switch party order. I didn't really want to try that quest without menu access, so it's a good thing I found that button. That got me thinking, however. Could you beat FF1 without ever going into the menu to do anything, except of course to use quest items? Or check stats of course.
To sum up what this means: it means No Items, just like before - with the astrisk that I can use them in battle. It means No Weapons, because you need to go into the menu to equip them. It means No Armor, for the same reason. It means no using magic in the menu. And no dropping or rearranging anything - the spellcasting items - that you do pick up. Rearrange your party and get it right the first time. Quite the big list. Of course there's three exceptions: you'll need to use the ROD, FLOATER, and LUTE, which are allowed. And a mercy rule: you can use SOFT potions as part of town visits, because petrification is otherwise permadeath. And to clarify, this doesn't mean no Select menu: you can swap party order all you want.
So what's left? There's magic in-battle, of course. And spellcasting items are still in play, as those are plopped directly into your inventory - just need to make sure they wind up in the right inventory. Which you can because you rearrange the party in the Select menu. And of course there is a class that doesn't rely on equipment or magic for offense or defense...
Party composition was more key than ever here. I want at least one Black Belt to deal heavy damage independent of equipment, while also having natural defense. At least one White Mage for healing, and I think I might want two to be absolutely sure I have enough in-battle healing. Slot 4? There's no reason to consider a Thief this time, it would be too much of an anchor. A Fighter, being equipment based, is also out. A Black Mage? Lots of AoE magic, though extremely frail. A Red Mage? A touch more durable with more Cure spells and AoE magic before the spellcasting items. I could go one Red and one White, chancing it with an easier early game in exchange for a tougher late game. And finally, I think I want two Black Belts, because for the fiends, magic won't cut it.
I started this challenge off originally using two Black Belts and two White Mages. I think I'm going to stick with that, despite the reasons to take a Red. Those two being FAST and early AoE spells. I'd gotten a ways into the challenge before with this party, and didn't think there would be too much trouble from enemy groups before I got spellcasting items. I'd miss FAST, sure, but survival is more important, and those heal-casting items aren't always practical for topping off, especially with no equipment. Speaking of, Reds' physical offense is about as irrelevant without any, and White Mages are a touch more durable on average based on sheer HP. Strange, but true. However, either or is an acceptable choice - or even a Black Mage.
First order of business was to purchase CURE spells. Second order of business was get to level 2. The two White Mages shined brightly here, giving me that much more leeway to fight while wearing down the IMPs around Coneria. Speaking of, the correct way to fight them was to dogpile them, even if attacks fall ineffective. It was boring stuff as usual, the highlight being an IMP somehow landing a critical hit. Twice.
I had to return to the inn after every battle. However, once I did hit level 2, everyone got a strong HP up. That meant it was plausible to fight for longer.
In my last variant I made fun of how pathetic the Conerian army had to be to be done in by Garland, their former greatest knight. To just hammer that point home, this party has nothing equipped. They have pitiful offense. They are level 2. The only magic is a handful of CURE spells. And they still won. The only fraud bigger than GARLAND is the Conerian army.
Moving on. The goal in the early game is level 6 for decent offense, and eventually level 10 so my Black Belts get four hits. Okay. There's at least ways to speed up grinding in the early game, so it's not going to be as painful. This is gonna suck a bit, but at least the worst part is early on.
The best opponent turned out to be WOLFs. They have unusually low defense, so even Ree and Stor were doing good damage. So I came up with the WOLF trick: the fourth battle in the Pravoka area after a hard reset will be WOLFs, as well as a possible GrWOLF. Save outside Coneria, soft reset the first three, then cross the bridge into the swamp to get the encounter. You can do this outside Pravoka itself, but due to inn costs you'll be slowly bleeding money
Here's a weird thing: STR has no use for a Black Belt that doesn't equip weapons. Its attack power is always equal to Level × 2. Strangely when it does have a weapon (or on MSX), it uses the same formula as the Black Mage/Black Wizard: the same as every other class, just with a +1. In fact the key stats for Kung and Fuu are Agility and, for a while, Luck. The former adds to evade of course, and the sooner I can get the latter to 15, the better. I don't feel like resetting too hard though. BBs are thankfully the second-luckiest class on average: I'll only need to reset for growths at 4, 7, and 10. Agi goes up fixed every even level, for what manipulating that is worth. To this end, I desynched Kung and Fuu's EXP at level 3.
It's an early game grinding hell here, but from my last go at it, it shouldn't take TOO long.
At level 4, I changed course. The sixth battle after a hard reset south/southwest of Pravoka is 1-2 OGREs. Same for the seventh, outside Pravoka. More than good enough to fight them at this point. In addition to the WOLF groups on the fourth and eight around Pravoka, I had a good grinding cycle.
Actually, let's use this chance to talk about the encounter table, in summary here. There's 8 encounter slots. Which encounter you run into is not random: it follows a predetermined table of 255. For example, the first ten encounters are slot 3, 4, 3, 6, 2, 2, 7, 5, 3, 5. This is how the KYZOKU trick works: and how you can actually get two per hard reset. If you're curious, 8 - the rarest slot (WYVERN on the peninsula of power, T REX, IronGOL) is at 129, 197, 206, and 212. 7 (WarMECH, SORCERERs on the air floor) has 12 appearances on the table - notably 190 and 192, which is how I got two WarMECHs in three battles before.
Each area in the game has its own list of encounters. As for the overworld, the sea has its own set of encounters, as do the north and south rivers. On land, it's divided into 32x32 blocks each with their own land encounters. Some of these are misplaced: that's how the peninsula of power works, and how in some tiny strips of land you'll only run into IMPs. This page on FF Origins has a visual map of each block. It even includes the MSX versions of each zone. This FAQ has a list of encounters in each area, although note they use completely different notation: the former goes Y,X, 1-8, and the latter goes X,Y, 0-7. And this page has the full order of encounters after a hard reset on it.
After beating the PIRATEs, My next goal was level 6, followed by 6000G. That would get me two shots of HRM2 on Ree and Stor. SHARKs give a health amount of experience, and a lot of the fights after a hard reset would be fights with them.
At this point, it was time to head to the Peninsula. I could fight large groups of ZomBULLs here and accelerate the process. Better still, they could be manipulated. After a hard reset at Pravoka, heading towards it would get a mixed IMP/WOLF group (run), a GEIST group along the way (HARM or run), and I would always arrive in time for the ZomBULLs. That said, TROLLs also show up here, and are in fact trolls - this is where a Red or Black over one of the Whites would have an advantage: they could bring FIR2 instead to help with TROLLs. Still, they aren't a guarantee, and four shots of HRM2 were guaranteed to wipe out a ZomBULL.
On the way back from my second kill (after getting close to level 7 manually), I get poisoned for the first time. ARACHINDS always show up on the way back because of how the encounter table works, followed by OGREs that are worth fighting. So how does this variant handle this status, without being able to open the start menu to use PUREs?
Simple, the DRINK command in-battle! The variant is no start menu, not no items. It's also worth noting specifically, I ideally leave every battle with as much HP as possible for the same reason. All healing needs to be done at an inn or in combat. No need for a PURE spell. Aside, from discussing with a friend, he pointed out why it's so misplaced: in D&D 1e which FF1 takes heavy inspiration from, the spell to remove poison is a 4th level spell. It's also worth noting that poison is lethal in D&D 1e.
My final goal to put this early game grind behind me is level 10, so the Black Belts both get 4-hits, while making sure both can hit 15 LUCK at level 11. Once I get a bit higher levels, I can in fact start fighting TROLLs.
So into the Marsh Cave. Against packs of undead, I had the WMs cast HARM. Against anything else, I ran unless I could clear the encounter quickly.
I encountered the minimum draw of two WIZARDs. One of them died before taking a turn, and the other fell on the next turn. It doesn't get any cleaner than that in a party without offensive mages.
The way out wasn't too bad. I got poisoned a couple times and had to heal that in-battle. The really obnoxious thing is when it happens when you're running and it takes forever to get to the next encounter, but nobody died. First try!
Like in No Items, I had to walk to and from my destinations rather than saving outside them. As usual for my variants, MUTE turns the ASTOS fight into a huge joke. He did a physical attack on the first turn, and I immediately landed the debuff. He proceeded to due nothing at all the entire rest of the fight. I got up some INVS spells as further insurance, and closed the fight out rather easily. First try again!
Of course, No Start Menu means just exactly that. I could still loot after collecting the Mystic KEY and sell all the items
After this, I went back to the grind again. The goal now is level 13. This will give both of the White Mages 2 charges of level 5 spells, which I want before heading into the Earth Cave. It was much easier now: I could fight TROLLs with impunity, and had more than enough HP to consistently survive ZomBULLs
I got it. And here's the ultimate rarity in FF1: skipping the LIFE spell. You have to be under some sort of variant restrictions to even consider doing that. Not being able to go into the menu to use it is one way. It does mean that HRM3 is going to see use, that said.
Earth Cave would be the first real test. Just like in No Items, there would be no healing out of battle with my potions. Unlike No Items, there was also no healing outside of battle with my spells, either. This meant occasionally taking some less dangerous fights where I could have my White Mages use healing without getting knocked around too much. Alternatively, when a fight was too dangerous, I would have them cast the healing while having the BBs retreat.
Poison was still a nuisance in the cave. Had to take a few battles in order to heal it. The VAMPIRE was too easy. Died without getting to move. On the way out, I ran into way more undead than I would've liked.
How I typically deal with them with this party is having the BBs run while the WMs cast HARM spells. If they go first, they blow up the undead and reduce their numbers, meaning less chance of getting paralyzed. The BBs get me out of there.
After this and for the next run in, an idea came to me, and I went and bought 99 HEAL potions. I could still use them in battle when retreating to heal up scratch damage without using a spell slot. It was time to take a shot at LICH. I was pretty sure I could do it at this level.
For the record, a HEAL potion used via DRINK is exactly the same as a casting of CURE. They both have the same effectiveness at 16.
On floor two, some ARACHNIDs poisoned Stor. I took a battle against BULLs to heal him. On floor three some MUMMYs ambushed me, knocking everyone below 200. On Ree and Stor's turns, I typically had them throw HEAL potions, saving the bigger healing spells for emergencies. I'd actually used 0 spell charges by the time I got down to floor 4, despite a run-in with WIZARDs. I even healed against the undead.
First fight in down there: COCTRICEs. I even had the WMs run here. Fuu ran before they could do anything. Next encounter was three WIZARDs. I started this off by ganging up on one while the WMs healed Kung. Ree got hit down to critical, so my next two CUR2s went to her and Kung. I aimed HEAL potions for them on turn 3, but Kung OHKO'd the last enemy.
The next fight was perfect: a WrWOLF and GrIMP! I seized the chance right away. I knocked out the WrWOLF and left the GrIMP. With it being a nonthreat to even Ree and Stor, I could sit back and have my characters DRINK their wounds away. That got me to floor five. I ran from IMAGEs, fought and healed against a GIANT, and had no further encounters on the way to LICH. Everyone was at max HP except Kung, who was at 209/234. I hadn't used any spell charges aside from those CUR2s.
Ree started the battle off with HRM3 for a mere 60 damage. Kung did worse with 3Hits!/17DMG. Stor cranked out a massive HRM3 for 208, and Fuu did 38. Lich replied with an ugly ICE2 that took the BBs to critical, but Stor finished things off with another HRM3 for 78.
Still had to get back to town. No start menu means no TENTs. Against GHOULs and GEISTs, I had the WMs use HARM and the BBs run. Two SHADOW ambushes followed from here which were harmless. And I made it back. It was official, the first fiend down!
So far, this is an interesting challenge! Things I'd never thought I'd see in Final Fantasy 1: liberal use of the DRINK command! Going well so far, but the midgame challenges lie ahead.
Next | Index
To sum up what this means: it means No Items, just like before - with the astrisk that I can use them in battle. It means No Weapons, because you need to go into the menu to equip them. It means No Armor, for the same reason. It means no using magic in the menu. And no dropping or rearranging anything - the spellcasting items - that you do pick up. Rearrange your party and get it right the first time. Quite the big list. Of course there's three exceptions: you'll need to use the ROD, FLOATER, and LUTE, which are allowed. And a mercy rule: you can use SOFT potions as part of town visits, because petrification is otherwise permadeath. And to clarify, this doesn't mean no Select menu: you can swap party order all you want.
So what's left? There's magic in-battle, of course. And spellcasting items are still in play, as those are plopped directly into your inventory - just need to make sure they wind up in the right inventory. Which you can because you rearrange the party in the Select menu. And of course there is a class that doesn't rely on equipment or magic for offense or defense...
Party composition was more key than ever here. I want at least one Black Belt to deal heavy damage independent of equipment, while also having natural defense. At least one White Mage for healing, and I think I might want two to be absolutely sure I have enough in-battle healing. Slot 4? There's no reason to consider a Thief this time, it would be too much of an anchor. A Fighter, being equipment based, is also out. A Black Mage? Lots of AoE magic, though extremely frail. A Red Mage? A touch more durable with more Cure spells and AoE magic before the spellcasting items. I could go one Red and one White, chancing it with an easier early game in exchange for a tougher late game. And finally, I think I want two Black Belts, because for the fiends, magic won't cut it.
I started this challenge off originally using two Black Belts and two White Mages. I think I'm going to stick with that, despite the reasons to take a Red. Those two being FAST and early AoE spells. I'd gotten a ways into the challenge before with this party, and didn't think there would be too much trouble from enemy groups before I got spellcasting items. I'd miss FAST, sure, but survival is more important, and those heal-casting items aren't always practical for topping off, especially with no equipment. Speaking of, Reds' physical offense is about as irrelevant without any, and White Mages are a touch more durable on average based on sheer HP. Strange, but true. However, either or is an acceptable choice - or even a Black Mage.
First order of business was to purchase CURE spells. Second order of business was get to level 2. The two White Mages shined brightly here, giving me that much more leeway to fight while wearing down the IMPs around Coneria. Speaking of, the correct way to fight them was to dogpile them, even if attacks fall ineffective. It was boring stuff as usual, the highlight being an IMP somehow landing a critical hit. Twice.
I had to return to the inn after every battle. However, once I did hit level 2, everyone got a strong HP up. That meant it was plausible to fight for longer.
In my last variant I made fun of how pathetic the Conerian army had to be to be done in by Garland, their former greatest knight. To just hammer that point home, this party has nothing equipped. They have pitiful offense. They are level 2. The only magic is a handful of CURE spells. And they still won. The only fraud bigger than GARLAND is the Conerian army.
Moving on. The goal in the early game is level 6 for decent offense, and eventually level 10 so my Black Belts get four hits. Okay. There's at least ways to speed up grinding in the early game, so it's not going to be as painful. This is gonna suck a bit, but at least the worst part is early on.
The best opponent turned out to be WOLFs. They have unusually low defense, so even Ree and Stor were doing good damage. So I came up with the WOLF trick: the fourth battle in the Pravoka area after a hard reset will be WOLFs, as well as a possible GrWOLF. Save outside Coneria, soft reset the first three, then cross the bridge into the swamp to get the encounter. You can do this outside Pravoka itself, but due to inn costs you'll be slowly bleeding money
Here's a weird thing: STR has no use for a Black Belt that doesn't equip weapons. Its attack power is always equal to Level × 2. Strangely when it does have a weapon (or on MSX), it uses the same formula as the Black Mage/Black Wizard: the same as every other class, just with a +1. In fact the key stats for Kung and Fuu are Agility and, for a while, Luck. The former adds to evade of course, and the sooner I can get the latter to 15, the better. I don't feel like resetting too hard though. BBs are thankfully the second-luckiest class on average: I'll only need to reset for growths at 4, 7, and 10. Agi goes up fixed every even level, for what manipulating that is worth. To this end, I desynched Kung and Fuu's EXP at level 3.
It's an early game grinding hell here, but from my last go at it, it shouldn't take TOO long.
At level 4, I changed course. The sixth battle after a hard reset south/southwest of Pravoka is 1-2 OGREs. Same for the seventh, outside Pravoka. More than good enough to fight them at this point. In addition to the WOLF groups on the fourth and eight around Pravoka, I had a good grinding cycle.
Actually, let's use this chance to talk about the encounter table, in summary here. There's 8 encounter slots. Which encounter you run into is not random: it follows a predetermined table of 255. For example, the first ten encounters are slot 3, 4, 3, 6, 2, 2, 7, 5, 3, 5. This is how the KYZOKU trick works: and how you can actually get two per hard reset. If you're curious, 8 - the rarest slot (WYVERN on the peninsula of power, T REX, IronGOL) is at 129, 197, 206, and 212. 7 (WarMECH, SORCERERs on the air floor) has 12 appearances on the table - notably 190 and 192, which is how I got two WarMECHs in three battles before.
Each area in the game has its own list of encounters. As for the overworld, the sea has its own set of encounters, as do the north and south rivers. On land, it's divided into 32x32 blocks each with their own land encounters. Some of these are misplaced: that's how the peninsula of power works, and how in some tiny strips of land you'll only run into IMPs. This page on FF Origins has a visual map of each block. It even includes the MSX versions of each zone. This FAQ has a list of encounters in each area, although note they use completely different notation: the former goes Y,X, 1-8, and the latter goes X,Y, 0-7. And this page has the full order of encounters after a hard reset on it.
After beating the PIRATEs, My next goal was level 6, followed by 6000G. That would get me two shots of HRM2 on Ree and Stor. SHARKs give a health amount of experience, and a lot of the fights after a hard reset would be fights with them.
At this point, it was time to head to the Peninsula. I could fight large groups of ZomBULLs here and accelerate the process. Better still, they could be manipulated. After a hard reset at Pravoka, heading towards it would get a mixed IMP/WOLF group (run), a GEIST group along the way (HARM or run), and I would always arrive in time for the ZomBULLs. That said, TROLLs also show up here, and are in fact trolls - this is where a Red or Black over one of the Whites would have an advantage: they could bring FIR2 instead to help with TROLLs. Still, they aren't a guarantee, and four shots of HRM2 were guaranteed to wipe out a ZomBULL.
On the way back from my second kill (after getting close to level 7 manually), I get poisoned for the first time. ARACHINDS always show up on the way back because of how the encounter table works, followed by OGREs that are worth fighting. So how does this variant handle this status, without being able to open the start menu to use PUREs?
Simple, the DRINK command in-battle! The variant is no start menu, not no items. It's also worth noting specifically, I ideally leave every battle with as much HP as possible for the same reason. All healing needs to be done at an inn or in combat. No need for a PURE spell. Aside, from discussing with a friend, he pointed out why it's so misplaced: in D&D 1e which FF1 takes heavy inspiration from, the spell to remove poison is a 4th level spell. It's also worth noting that poison is lethal in D&D 1e.
My final goal to put this early game grind behind me is level 10, so the Black Belts both get 4-hits, while making sure both can hit 15 LUCK at level 11. Once I get a bit higher levels, I can in fact start fighting TROLLs.
So into the Marsh Cave. Against packs of undead, I had the WMs cast HARM. Against anything else, I ran unless I could clear the encounter quickly.
I encountered the minimum draw of two WIZARDs. One of them died before taking a turn, and the other fell on the next turn. It doesn't get any cleaner than that in a party without offensive mages.
The way out wasn't too bad. I got poisoned a couple times and had to heal that in-battle. The really obnoxious thing is when it happens when you're running and it takes forever to get to the next encounter, but nobody died. First try!
Like in No Items, I had to walk to and from my destinations rather than saving outside them. As usual for my variants, MUTE turns the ASTOS fight into a huge joke. He did a physical attack on the first turn, and I immediately landed the debuff. He proceeded to due nothing at all the entire rest of the fight. I got up some INVS spells as further insurance, and closed the fight out rather easily. First try again!
Of course, No Start Menu means just exactly that. I could still loot after collecting the Mystic KEY and sell all the items
After this, I went back to the grind again. The goal now is level 13. This will give both of the White Mages 2 charges of level 5 spells, which I want before heading into the Earth Cave. It was much easier now: I could fight TROLLs with impunity, and had more than enough HP to consistently survive ZomBULLs
I got it. And here's the ultimate rarity in FF1: skipping the LIFE spell. You have to be under some sort of variant restrictions to even consider doing that. Not being able to go into the menu to use it is one way. It does mean that HRM3 is going to see use, that said.
Earth Cave would be the first real test. Just like in No Items, there would be no healing out of battle with my potions. Unlike No Items, there was also no healing outside of battle with my spells, either. This meant occasionally taking some less dangerous fights where I could have my White Mages use healing without getting knocked around too much. Alternatively, when a fight was too dangerous, I would have them cast the healing while having the BBs retreat.
Poison was still a nuisance in the cave. Had to take a few battles in order to heal it. The VAMPIRE was too easy. Died without getting to move. On the way out, I ran into way more undead than I would've liked.
How I typically deal with them with this party is having the BBs run while the WMs cast HARM spells. If they go first, they blow up the undead and reduce their numbers, meaning less chance of getting paralyzed. The BBs get me out of there.
After this and for the next run in, an idea came to me, and I went and bought 99 HEAL potions. I could still use them in battle when retreating to heal up scratch damage without using a spell slot. It was time to take a shot at LICH. I was pretty sure I could do it at this level.
For the record, a HEAL potion used via DRINK is exactly the same as a casting of CURE. They both have the same effectiveness at 16.
On floor two, some ARACHNIDs poisoned Stor. I took a battle against BULLs to heal him. On floor three some MUMMYs ambushed me, knocking everyone below 200. On Ree and Stor's turns, I typically had them throw HEAL potions, saving the bigger healing spells for emergencies. I'd actually used 0 spell charges by the time I got down to floor 4, despite a run-in with WIZARDs. I even healed against the undead.
First fight in down there: COCTRICEs. I even had the WMs run here. Fuu ran before they could do anything. Next encounter was three WIZARDs. I started this off by ganging up on one while the WMs healed Kung. Ree got hit down to critical, so my next two CUR2s went to her and Kung. I aimed HEAL potions for them on turn 3, but Kung OHKO'd the last enemy.
The next fight was perfect: a WrWOLF and GrIMP! I seized the chance right away. I knocked out the WrWOLF and left the GrIMP. With it being a nonthreat to even Ree and Stor, I could sit back and have my characters DRINK their wounds away. That got me to floor five. I ran from IMAGEs, fought and healed against a GIANT, and had no further encounters on the way to LICH. Everyone was at max HP except Kung, who was at 209/234. I hadn't used any spell charges aside from those CUR2s.
Ree started the battle off with HRM3 for a mere 60 damage. Kung did worse with 3Hits!/17DMG. Stor cranked out a massive HRM3 for 208, and Fuu did 38. Lich replied with an ugly ICE2 that took the BBs to critical, but Stor finished things off with another HRM3 for 78.
Still had to get back to town. No start menu means no TENTs. Against GHOULs and GEISTs, I had the WMs use HARM and the BBs run. Two SHADOW ambushes followed from here which were harmless. And I made it back. It was official, the first fiend down!
So far, this is an interesting challenge! Things I'd never thought I'd see in Final Fantasy 1: liberal use of the DRINK command! Going well so far, but the midgame challenges lie ahead.
Next | Index
