FFR: RDM/THF/GEO/EVO playthrough Part II
Nov. 1st, 2023 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorCompleting the class change quest in FFR unlocks far more for classes than in the original, which only changed the equipment and magic available (and in BB's case, magic defense growth for the worse). Each job can obtain extra equipment as well as a LIMIT command. These are special battle commands that require "a certain quest" to unlock. Which, was just the class change quest. They can only be used once before returning to an Inn.
- Red Wizard gained the CONVERT battle command. This allows the user to swap the available magic levels of any two levels of magic. This can exceed the maximum for each level and even let the RW use spells they don't have levels for in the first place. This is uh, yeah. If you can't tell how good this is, it's very good.
- Their LIMIT is REFRESH. It allows them to restore any other party member's LIMIT command.
- Ninja gained the THROW battle command. This used up special items to deal damage and give the target elemental weaknesses. I found one of them in Bahamut's Room: both did elemental damage and gave a weakness for two turns.
- They also gained the SNEAK ATTACK trait. This not only increases the chance of a preemptive strike, but it prevented "most" (which I take to mean non-fixed) ambushes. However, the Ninja has to be the lead character for this to work. Which it was anyway because of SEARCH.
- Their limit is SMOKE BOMB, a guaranteed escape from any battle.
- Summoner gained the CALL battle command. It works just like in FF5: summoning a random monster. However, the Summoner gets the Fatigued status after. I'm unsure if it has any other effects other than preventing the use of battle commands. This command was bad since it could lock down the summoner or even bring CARBUNCLE to screw over Geomancy (or Heal Staff) healing!
- Their LIMIT is ASTRAL FLOW, which is a recast of the most recently used summon spell instantly at the start of next round. Going first sounded like it had some interesting uses.
- Elementalist gained the RESERVES battle command. This allows you to use any of the four MAGIC spells from a stored terrain, each with their own set of spell charges. They did not recharge at an Inn. Couldn't be used in the same location you sampled from, but otherwise was a second set of spell charges you can take anywhere.
- They gained a world command, SAMPLE, tied to this. It was as simple as using the command button and answering the prompt in the positive.
- Their LIMIT is GEOSTORM, an AoE nuke that targeted weaknesses.
So with this done, I mostly went touring around the northern continent for stuff. There was a Wind Bell hidden in Lufein, same as before except now I learned there was a quest in Pravoka to turn in these bells for something. There were no other items. I also found that the Oasis now sells unique items that were dropped or sold. Handy quality of life I suppose.
I went back and got TITAN without incident: 160 base damage, same charging nonsense. I also grabbed a sample of terrain from the astral plane while I was in there. This gave Georg additional spell charges that could be spent on any spell from the terrain in question. Resweeping Ordeals revealed no summon that I missed. But I found one in Gaia of all places, which, speaking of, also sold the Ninja THROW scrolls. But at 5000 a shot, it seemed wasteful even if it was all I could spend money on at this point. It was full of AIR enemies that I mostly ignored because Gaia is huge and I didn't want to waste time when I inevitably died horribly.
When I saw one of them charge and the others do this and an immediate ambush, I got worried and threw out confusion. It didn't work, because of course it didn't. If there's one complaint I have about FFR so far, it's these summon bosses' incessant immunity (apparently CARBUNCLE was vulnerable to death? If you can get through the reflect wall.). However, paralysis and sleep of all things worked here! It was through Geomancer, but it indeed stopped the FAIRYs from attacking or made them miss a turn. I wonder if HOLD would've done it, or if they had status-elemental immunity? This prevented the second WHISPERING WIND from blasting me, the first destroyed Redall for over 300 damage. So I did win on the first try.
The FAIRY summon again had the charge gimmick and did 240 base wind damage to an enemy. That's uh, more than NUKE, which should be 200 base. But it's elemental, single target, and takes two turns to go off. On the bright side, any damage it dealt was converted into healing, split evenly across all party members.
Finally, I went and fought SHIVA, grabbing a sample from Gurgu Volcano before doing so. I failed again the first time when a COCTRICE got Thea. The second time I went all out. Redall ended up going first with FIR3, wiping all the birds out at once. I had Georg pop his LIMIT skill as well. It did like 290 damage, not bad. I was having Evelyn charge for FAIRY, but it never got used. A FASTed attack with a critical from Thea, another FIR3, and a geomancy nuke brought her low.
I also tested something while I was at it because it jumped into my mind: and indeed, UNICORN can heal petrification! Though even if I'd known that the first fight, because summon spells lock the user down for a turn, I was not able to have Evelyn react to this. I'm really souring on the offensive spells of this class. SHIVA is exactly what you would expect: base 200, charging, and Ice-elemental.
Before I went into Gurgu Volcano, I decided to run the Waterfall for my first Ribbon and the Defender. I wasn't surprised to find a summon waiting for me there, but I was surprised it was right ahead of the entrance. I had to reset twice because of PERILISKs before even reaching the boss. I could have bought Prorings, but there's at least two freebies (granted one is in the final dungeon) and Ribbon blocks the death element anyway. The boss itself was ODIN as I suspected from the text. I had a plan: Thea FASTs herself and smashes, the mages use LIT3 and RAMUH. Normally, Redall was too low level to use LIT3, but the CONVERT command allowed him to do so. However, ODIN attacked him twice in a row with huge physicals, so despite doing over 500 damage (thanks to Georg buffing), that was the only nuke he dropped. This boss had a ton of HP, way more than even TIAMAT. His third turn was spent charging, and I killed him before the inevitable Zantetsuken. ODIN was a level 7 spell that Evelyn couldn't yet cast. Another charge spell (ugh) which performed a non-elemental instant KO on all enemies.
I also did some various other cleanup before then. I ran the upper floors of the Sea Shrine. And uh, yeah. That is an insane find. I also picked up the CHIME and grabbed the Sun Sword from the bottom of Mirage Tower (which just had the artificial terrain). Weapons were looking nice. With the Thor Hammer, now I could have all four party members do item spam, already!
I also found FENRIR in the town itself after missing it on my first trip there: he came with three MAGEs and FIGHTERs each. His special, instantly cast, threw up two blink images. I ignored the gimmick since he'd just spam it more and tried magic. Even with three boosts from Georg however, the big bad wolf resisted all conventional elements: ICE3 did like 104 after buffs. Because of course he did. However, the wind element from FAIRY did just fine. He didn't have nearly as much HP to chew through.
Partway into the Volcano, I found the Flame Bell with the Ninja. I got the Thunder Bell in Mirage Tower, so I handed the rest in at Pravoka. The reward was the Blessed Bell. It was only a little stronger, but I assumed it boosted all the spells of the class. No way to get a second set from the looks of it even with the extras from Thief's ability, though. The guy called it one of a kind.
Earlier in Mirage Tower, I learned that the Ninja's limit indeed work against inescapable encounters. So I tried using SMOKE BOMB against KARY to see if it would work. It did, but it didn't let me skip her. She had some hilarious dialogue reacting to it, though.
There really wasn't much to this. I completely crippled her by taking advantage of her status weakness: SLOW, CONF, and MUTE. I figured she might be vulnerable to the new Water element and had Georg ready, going as far as to use DROWN. Didn't hit. Dunno if she was made explicitly immune to OHKOs or if I was just unlucky. But when I used the elemental attack, it did a healthy 390 damage! Nice! So I tried the GEOSTORM limit to see how much that would do. It hits all elemental weaknesses, right? And it did well before. So it should be pretty strong for a one-time use skill.
Excuse me? EXCUSE ME???
Um.
Well, I was going to win on the next cast anyway, but what? Just, what? That is enough damage to one hit kill CHAOS six times over. Was this a bug?!
There was of course a summon boss there. I went back in for it. IFRIT ambushed and instantly started to charge for an attack. What I would've done is get some VOLCANIC terrain for a free casting of AFIR and went from there. Instead I tested GEOSTORM again. 10000k again. The Blessed Bell seemed to be enabling this from what I could gather from vague information about it having a hidden ability. Just an "I win" button. This is uh. Yeah, I think I won't be using this again. Funny as hell especially if intended.
With three LIT2 users who had unlimited charges on demand and a fourth who could effectively get as many of that and LIT3 as he pleased, the Sea Shrine was extremely easy - even easier than usual. There wasn't too much to report on the hidden item side; I think I found a third heal helmet here? It was here or in the Flying Fortress. I also experimented around and found GOLEM had scaled a little into being decent, so I sometimes used it against WATERs.
KRAKEN at the end was splattered by Thea in one blow: FAST+TMPR+SABR (the last two can't stack even though other spells can, but they can stack with each other) plus some crits destroyed the big octopus. Of course, Redall was able to cripple him with SLOW. I even paralyzed him with BINDWEED that I brought with Georg, which was more insult to injury.
Only one dungeon remained. Two of the Geomancy spells here were similar to the Astral Plane's random status and magic buff. The others were PLASMA: ST Lit, and METEOR SHOWER: AoE NE. Of course, the big finds here were vanilla: the Katana is the Ninja's ultimate weapon and has a 15% critical hit rate. It was strictly better than the Defender, so I passed that to Redall for use when he could get 4-hits with it but not the stronger Sun Sword. A third Ribbon an the Black Shirt were also welcome finds. I also found something that looked like it was going to break great when I play Lancer.
I healed before the inevitable WarMECH on the bridge, only to find it didn't show. I had brought some Marsh terrain to hit TIAMAT's poison weakness. 168. Boo. then I shrugged and used the Bane Sword to fell her instantly while laughing maniacally. May as well.
I had missed the summon and had to leave because I was nearly out of HEAL potions. Before I did so, I went and found the ultimate summon, which the game had helpfully pointed me towards and was an obvious guess to begin with. That being BAHAMUT. Getting to him involved walking through a corridor while he recounted a story that definitely does not match up with Stranger of Paradise and only slightly with Dissidia in that a COSMOS was mentioned. I had to fight groups of four dragons, all the ones in the game. I nearly died to the Blue Ds because they were spamming THUNDER hard and FFR currently has a bug where their fire weakness doesn't exist.
The boss itself was...shockingly easy? He used some of the big bad elemental moves, but FAST+TMPR+SABR buffed Thea hard. She did ~1100 and then ~900, which was enough to KO with the additional chip I put in with GOBLIN, doing a healthy 281. Kind of sad yet great how the basic L1 spell holds up well into the late game.
So far, the summons had been steadily increasing in power. LEVIATHAN was 280, and it went down in multiples of 40. But BAHAMUT was a 1-turn charge move with base 600. That is certainly a thing.
I found the last summon in the top right of the eight-pointed room in the Sky Fortress. This was PHOENIX. I gave BAHAMUT a whirl here back by some Geomancy buffs: Thea and Redall buffed with FAST and attacked. Evelyn first hit for 900 damage. But then the next one used through LIMIT did 2200, instantly...not ending the battle because PHOENIX then used its SPECIAL to restore 1000HP. But the physical attackers won from here.
Before heading into the past, I decided to try my luck against WarMECH. To manipulate this, I did a hard reset then went in; FFR maintains the encounter order of the NES game, so I would be seeing one in slot 24. I had a wait on my hands after arriving, mostly ran and kept myself healed after I lost count of the numbers due to distractions. The play-by-play: no ambush because of Ninja. FAST-FAST-COSMIC RAYS-Charge BAHAMUT, WarMECH hit Thea for a little over half her HP. Turn 2, Evelyn moves first, 1100~ damage, WarMECH is dead. This is pretty excessive. Definitely seems more balanced for NG+'s higher HP values.
Unfortunately, the spells Georg could use in the ToFR were the exact same set as way back in the start of the game! Aside from the ability to boost attack (and it did stack), these aren't really impressive spells. I brought in the ice set after some thought: it included a buff (more stacking!) and a heal.
The hidden treasures that I could find with Ninja were frontloaded. I indeed found a fourth Ribbon at the top of the floor just past the PHANTOM. Then there was the Diamond Bracelet on his floor: it was a nice defensive upgrade. I didn't find a second Opal Bracelet like I thought I would though, or I just completely glossed over its location. Evelyn had to make do with a Gold. There were also HEAL3s in the walls and stuff. I still didn't find HEAL2s for sale. I assume these play a bigger role in NG+.
Not much to say about heading through. PHANTOM was roadkill, I beat LICH before he could move, KARY got wiped by LEVIATHAN, and I used SMOKE BOMB on KRAKEN - this effectively skipped the battle and risk of having Redall splattered, ha! Not that it would've been a problem because Evelyn can revive too with PHOENIX.
The last floor of course had the Masmune, but there was another interesting sword that the Ninja found. Glass had insane attack and yet little chance of criticals and no bonus to hit. As things stood, neither could get 3-hits with this weapon. I used EXIT at this point, I was curious about its performance (and worried it might instantly shatter like what it references) and wanted an extra save anyway. So I did the only logical thing: I gave the Masmune to Evelyn and grinded out the last level Redall would need for 3-hits!
She actually was decent at using the thing. She had 21 STR to Thea's 27 (Redall had 31). The weapon's massive +50% hit bonus kicked her up to 84%, good for 3-hits. And Thea had the Katana for criticals anyway. Though part of this is indicitive of that no matter how much better Thief/Ninja is here, their STR will always leave a lot to be desired.
I blitzed through the dungeon. It went much better without having to fumble around for hidden items. Even with a LICH NUKE, I still got through with much fewer HEALs used. Blades got through the first three bosses. I did fight KRAKEN this time, all it managed was a weak LIT2. BAHAMUT helped bring down TIAMAT. There was nothing stopping me from the goal. The final hidden items on CHAOS' floor were two HEAL3s and 7777777G. Uh, thanks?
I used SMOKE BOMB, but CHAOS screamed "I DON'T THINK SO!!" (verbatim) and immediately started the battle again. I buffed Thea and Evelyn with FAST before having Redall do the same to himself. Georg was casting FORGED IN IRON to boost the attack and critical rate of everyone. All the while, the big boss was just flying through his spell progression, casting one right after another. The elementals didn't do much. 572 by Evelyn on the first turn, 723 on the second plus a 604 from Thea. So suddenly on turn 3, he was sitting at 101 HP. Even if he somehow survived and cast CUR4 next turn, the battle was over before it even began.
Screw it. I'M HERE TO KILL CHAOS.
He even cast SLO2 on this turn before dying horribly. If he kept it up CUR4 would've been next turn, but with this or not, he wouldn't have been alive next turn - there was no way Thea, Evelyn, and Redall weren't doing enough damage. Really, I was just adding insult to injury.
So far, FFR has been an interesting experience. Geomancer was enjoyable enough, although I will fully admit that Evoker was frustratingly flawed. Red Mage is as reliable as always, but while I did like Thief, it has been worrying so far. I just hope there's more locations for some of the unique equipment I found.
With this, I've also unlocked NG+. But I'm going to sit on that until completing standard playthroughs with all sixteen classes to get a "proper" look at how they perform in a vanilla-ish FF1 experience without the enemy differences. Look forward to those.
Index
- Red Wizard gained the CONVERT battle command. This allows the user to swap the available magic levels of any two levels of magic. This can exceed the maximum for each level and even let the RW use spells they don't have levels for in the first place. This is uh, yeah. If you can't tell how good this is, it's very good.
- Their LIMIT is REFRESH. It allows them to restore any other party member's LIMIT command.
- Ninja gained the THROW battle command. This used up special items to deal damage and give the target elemental weaknesses. I found one of them in Bahamut's Room: both did elemental damage and gave a weakness for two turns.
- They also gained the SNEAK ATTACK trait. This not only increases the chance of a preemptive strike, but it prevented "most" (which I take to mean non-fixed) ambushes. However, the Ninja has to be the lead character for this to work. Which it was anyway because of SEARCH.
- Their limit is SMOKE BOMB, a guaranteed escape from any battle.
- Summoner gained the CALL battle command. It works just like in FF5: summoning a random monster. However, the Summoner gets the Fatigued status after. I'm unsure if it has any other effects other than preventing the use of battle commands. This command was bad since it could lock down the summoner or even bring CARBUNCLE to screw over Geomancy (or Heal Staff) healing!
- Their LIMIT is ASTRAL FLOW, which is a recast of the most recently used summon spell instantly at the start of next round. Going first sounded like it had some interesting uses.
- Elementalist gained the RESERVES battle command. This allows you to use any of the four MAGIC spells from a stored terrain, each with their own set of spell charges. They did not recharge at an Inn. Couldn't be used in the same location you sampled from, but otherwise was a second set of spell charges you can take anywhere.
- They gained a world command, SAMPLE, tied to this. It was as simple as using the command button and answering the prompt in the positive.
- Their LIMIT is GEOSTORM, an AoE nuke that targeted weaknesses.
So with this done, I mostly went touring around the northern continent for stuff. There was a Wind Bell hidden in Lufein, same as before except now I learned there was a quest in Pravoka to turn in these bells for something. There were no other items. I also found that the Oasis now sells unique items that were dropped or sold. Handy quality of life I suppose.
I went back and got TITAN without incident: 160 base damage, same charging nonsense. I also grabbed a sample of terrain from the astral plane while I was in there. This gave Georg additional spell charges that could be spent on any spell from the terrain in question. Resweeping Ordeals revealed no summon that I missed. But I found one in Gaia of all places, which, speaking of, also sold the Ninja THROW scrolls. But at 5000 a shot, it seemed wasteful even if it was all I could spend money on at this point. It was full of AIR enemies that I mostly ignored because Gaia is huge and I didn't want to waste time when I inevitably died horribly.
When I saw one of them charge and the others do this and an immediate ambush, I got worried and threw out confusion. It didn't work, because of course it didn't. If there's one complaint I have about FFR so far, it's these summon bosses' incessant immunity (apparently CARBUNCLE was vulnerable to death? If you can get through the reflect wall.). However, paralysis and sleep of all things worked here! It was through Geomancer, but it indeed stopped the FAIRYs from attacking or made them miss a turn. I wonder if HOLD would've done it, or if they had status-elemental immunity? This prevented the second WHISPERING WIND from blasting me, the first destroyed Redall for over 300 damage. So I did win on the first try.
The FAIRY summon again had the charge gimmick and did 240 base wind damage to an enemy. That's uh, more than NUKE, which should be 200 base. But it's elemental, single target, and takes two turns to go off. On the bright side, any damage it dealt was converted into healing, split evenly across all party members.
Finally, I went and fought SHIVA, grabbing a sample from Gurgu Volcano before doing so. I failed again the first time when a COCTRICE got Thea. The second time I went all out. Redall ended up going first with FIR3, wiping all the birds out at once. I had Georg pop his LIMIT skill as well. It did like 290 damage, not bad. I was having Evelyn charge for FAIRY, but it never got used. A FASTed attack with a critical from Thea, another FIR3, and a geomancy nuke brought her low.
I also tested something while I was at it because it jumped into my mind: and indeed, UNICORN can heal petrification! Though even if I'd known that the first fight, because summon spells lock the user down for a turn, I was not able to have Evelyn react to this. I'm really souring on the offensive spells of this class. SHIVA is exactly what you would expect: base 200, charging, and Ice-elemental.
Before I went into Gurgu Volcano, I decided to run the Waterfall for my first Ribbon and the Defender. I wasn't surprised to find a summon waiting for me there, but I was surprised it was right ahead of the entrance. I had to reset twice because of PERILISKs before even reaching the boss. I could have bought Prorings, but there's at least two freebies (granted one is in the final dungeon) and Ribbon blocks the death element anyway. The boss itself was ODIN as I suspected from the text. I had a plan: Thea FASTs herself and smashes, the mages use LIT3 and RAMUH. Normally, Redall was too low level to use LIT3, but the CONVERT command allowed him to do so. However, ODIN attacked him twice in a row with huge physicals, so despite doing over 500 damage (thanks to Georg buffing), that was the only nuke he dropped. This boss had a ton of HP, way more than even TIAMAT. His third turn was spent charging, and I killed him before the inevitable Zantetsuken. ODIN was a level 7 spell that Evelyn couldn't yet cast. Another charge spell (ugh) which performed a non-elemental instant KO on all enemies.
I also did some various other cleanup before then. I ran the upper floors of the Sea Shrine. And uh, yeah. That is an insane find. I also picked up the CHIME and grabbed the Sun Sword from the bottom of Mirage Tower (which just had the artificial terrain). Weapons were looking nice. With the Thor Hammer, now I could have all four party members do item spam, already!
I also found FENRIR in the town itself after missing it on my first trip there: he came with three MAGEs and FIGHTERs each. His special, instantly cast, threw up two blink images. I ignored the gimmick since he'd just spam it more and tried magic. Even with three boosts from Georg however, the big bad wolf resisted all conventional elements: ICE3 did like 104 after buffs. Because of course he did. However, the wind element from FAIRY did just fine. He didn't have nearly as much HP to chew through.
Partway into the Volcano, I found the Flame Bell with the Ninja. I got the Thunder Bell in Mirage Tower, so I handed the rest in at Pravoka. The reward was the Blessed Bell. It was only a little stronger, but I assumed it boosted all the spells of the class. No way to get a second set from the looks of it even with the extras from Thief's ability, though. The guy called it one of a kind.
Earlier in Mirage Tower, I learned that the Ninja's limit indeed work against inescapable encounters. So I tried using SMOKE BOMB against KARY to see if it would work. It did, but it didn't let me skip her. She had some hilarious dialogue reacting to it, though.
There really wasn't much to this. I completely crippled her by taking advantage of her status weakness: SLOW, CONF, and MUTE. I figured she might be vulnerable to the new Water element and had Georg ready, going as far as to use DROWN. Didn't hit. Dunno if she was made explicitly immune to OHKOs or if I was just unlucky. But when I used the elemental attack, it did a healthy 390 damage! Nice! So I tried the GEOSTORM limit to see how much that would do. It hits all elemental weaknesses, right? And it did well before. So it should be pretty strong for a one-time use skill.
Excuse me? EXCUSE ME???
Um.
Well, I was going to win on the next cast anyway, but what? Just, what? That is enough damage to one hit kill CHAOS six times over. Was this a bug?!
There was of course a summon boss there. I went back in for it. IFRIT ambushed and instantly started to charge for an attack. What I would've done is get some VOLCANIC terrain for a free casting of AFIR and went from there. Instead I tested GEOSTORM again. 10000k again. The Blessed Bell seemed to be enabling this from what I could gather from vague information about it having a hidden ability. Just an "I win" button. This is uh. Yeah, I think I won't be using this again. Funny as hell especially if intended.
With three LIT2 users who had unlimited charges on demand and a fourth who could effectively get as many of that and LIT3 as he pleased, the Sea Shrine was extremely easy - even easier than usual. There wasn't too much to report on the hidden item side; I think I found a third heal helmet here? It was here or in the Flying Fortress. I also experimented around and found GOLEM had scaled a little into being decent, so I sometimes used it against WATERs.
KRAKEN at the end was splattered by Thea in one blow: FAST+TMPR+SABR (the last two can't stack even though other spells can, but they can stack with each other) plus some crits destroyed the big octopus. Of course, Redall was able to cripple him with SLOW. I even paralyzed him with BINDWEED that I brought with Georg, which was more insult to injury.
Only one dungeon remained. Two of the Geomancy spells here were similar to the Astral Plane's random status and magic buff. The others were PLASMA: ST Lit, and METEOR SHOWER: AoE NE. Of course, the big finds here were vanilla: the Katana is the Ninja's ultimate weapon and has a 15% critical hit rate. It was strictly better than the Defender, so I passed that to Redall for use when he could get 4-hits with it but not the stronger Sun Sword. A third Ribbon an the Black Shirt were also welcome finds. I also found something that looked like it was going to break great when I play Lancer.
I healed before the inevitable WarMECH on the bridge, only to find it didn't show. I had brought some Marsh terrain to hit TIAMAT's poison weakness. 168. Boo. then I shrugged and used the Bane Sword to fell her instantly while laughing maniacally. May as well.
I had missed the summon and had to leave because I was nearly out of HEAL potions. Before I did so, I went and found the ultimate summon, which the game had helpfully pointed me towards and was an obvious guess to begin with. That being BAHAMUT. Getting to him involved walking through a corridor while he recounted a story that definitely does not match up with Stranger of Paradise and only slightly with Dissidia in that a COSMOS was mentioned. I had to fight groups of four dragons, all the ones in the game. I nearly died to the Blue Ds because they were spamming THUNDER hard and FFR currently has a bug where their fire weakness doesn't exist.
The boss itself was...shockingly easy? He used some of the big bad elemental moves, but FAST+TMPR+SABR buffed Thea hard. She did ~1100 and then ~900, which was enough to KO with the additional chip I put in with GOBLIN, doing a healthy 281. Kind of sad yet great how the basic L1 spell holds up well into the late game.
So far, the summons had been steadily increasing in power. LEVIATHAN was 280, and it went down in multiples of 40. But BAHAMUT was a 1-turn charge move with base 600. That is certainly a thing.
I found the last summon in the top right of the eight-pointed room in the Sky Fortress. This was PHOENIX. I gave BAHAMUT a whirl here back by some Geomancy buffs: Thea and Redall buffed with FAST and attacked. Evelyn first hit for 900 damage. But then the next one used through LIMIT did 2200, instantly...not ending the battle because PHOENIX then used its SPECIAL to restore 1000HP. But the physical attackers won from here.
Before heading into the past, I decided to try my luck against WarMECH. To manipulate this, I did a hard reset then went in; FFR maintains the encounter order of the NES game, so I would be seeing one in slot 24. I had a wait on my hands after arriving, mostly ran and kept myself healed after I lost count of the numbers due to distractions. The play-by-play: no ambush because of Ninja. FAST-FAST-COSMIC RAYS-Charge BAHAMUT, WarMECH hit Thea for a little over half her HP. Turn 2, Evelyn moves first, 1100~ damage, WarMECH is dead. This is pretty excessive. Definitely seems more balanced for NG+'s higher HP values.
Unfortunately, the spells Georg could use in the ToFR were the exact same set as way back in the start of the game! Aside from the ability to boost attack (and it did stack), these aren't really impressive spells. I brought in the ice set after some thought: it included a buff (more stacking!) and a heal.
The hidden treasures that I could find with Ninja were frontloaded. I indeed found a fourth Ribbon at the top of the floor just past the PHANTOM. Then there was the Diamond Bracelet on his floor: it was a nice defensive upgrade. I didn't find a second Opal Bracelet like I thought I would though, or I just completely glossed over its location. Evelyn had to make do with a Gold. There were also HEAL3s in the walls and stuff. I still didn't find HEAL2s for sale. I assume these play a bigger role in NG+.
Not much to say about heading through. PHANTOM was roadkill, I beat LICH before he could move, KARY got wiped by LEVIATHAN, and I used SMOKE BOMB on KRAKEN - this effectively skipped the battle and risk of having Redall splattered, ha! Not that it would've been a problem because Evelyn can revive too with PHOENIX.
The last floor of course had the Masmune, but there was another interesting sword that the Ninja found. Glass had insane attack and yet little chance of criticals and no bonus to hit. As things stood, neither could get 3-hits with this weapon. I used EXIT at this point, I was curious about its performance (and worried it might instantly shatter like what it references) and wanted an extra save anyway. So I did the only logical thing: I gave the Masmune to Evelyn and grinded out the last level Redall would need for 3-hits!
She actually was decent at using the thing. She had 21 STR to Thea's 27 (Redall had 31). The weapon's massive +50% hit bonus kicked her up to 84%, good for 3-hits. And Thea had the Katana for criticals anyway. Though part of this is indicitive of that no matter how much better Thief/Ninja is here, their STR will always leave a lot to be desired.
I blitzed through the dungeon. It went much better without having to fumble around for hidden items. Even with a LICH NUKE, I still got through with much fewer HEALs used. Blades got through the first three bosses. I did fight KRAKEN this time, all it managed was a weak LIT2. BAHAMUT helped bring down TIAMAT. There was nothing stopping me from the goal. The final hidden items on CHAOS' floor were two HEAL3s and 7777777G. Uh, thanks?
I used SMOKE BOMB, but CHAOS screamed "I DON'T THINK SO!!" (verbatim) and immediately started the battle again. I buffed Thea and Evelyn with FAST before having Redall do the same to himself. Georg was casting FORGED IN IRON to boost the attack and critical rate of everyone. All the while, the big boss was just flying through his spell progression, casting one right after another. The elementals didn't do much. 572 by Evelyn on the first turn, 723 on the second plus a 604 from Thea. So suddenly on turn 3, he was sitting at 101 HP. Even if he somehow survived and cast CUR4 next turn, the battle was over before it even began.
Screw it. I'M HERE TO KILL CHAOS.
He even cast SLO2 on this turn before dying horribly. If he kept it up CUR4 would've been next turn, but with this or not, he wouldn't have been alive next turn - there was no way Thea, Evelyn, and Redall weren't doing enough damage. Really, I was just adding insult to injury.
So far, FFR has been an interesting experience. Geomancer was enjoyable enough, although I will fully admit that Evoker was frustratingly flawed. Red Mage is as reliable as always, but while I did like Thief, it has been worrying so far. I just hope there's more locations for some of the unique equipment I found.
With this, I've also unlocked NG+. But I'm going to sit on that until completing standard playthroughs with all sixteen classes to get a "proper" look at how they perform in a vanilla-ish FF1 experience without the enemy differences. Look forward to those.
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