FF2 Solo Monk Part I
Dec. 1st, 2014 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorSomething had always been on my mind since my first runthrough of FF2 NES. Combined with my runthrough of FF3, a new idea for a variant came to mind. So after FFZZ, I decided, it was time for more copyright infringement.
All right Solo, I've guided you to victory once before. You've conquered the force of chaos and not one but two creatures of the void. It's time for you to conquer an empire in the game of FF2.
Playing through this game with physical attacks as opposed to magic makes for a far different experience, and runs into its own set of issues. The early goings of this quest aren't much to talk about. I take Solo up to around these stats before I set off to Phin.
Solo makes 4 hits on the way to Semitt Falls. The strength of unarmed attacks in FF2 is 8*(Fist Level-1)+(Power/2). I went with this character mainly due to his essentially looking like the Black Belt class from FF2 - though it's worth noting Guy has the highest starting strength of the three. A good case could be made for Maria though, due to her 15 Agility. If you've read my Magicians playthrough, you know how important that stat is. Guy by comparison has only 5 Agility to start.
I went through the entrity of the spellcasters' game relying on evasion. However, at least for the early game, defense is perfectly acceptable. Which is the path Solo takes. Long-term though, enemies will be able to break defenses easier and easier, and worse yet - it doesn't stop effects when attacked unless no damage is taken at all, except in one case.
The advantage to Guy? Well, remember. The first boss of the game is the Sargeant. Without enough power to punch through his defense, we're not getting anywhere. This would take longer if Maria was the character. With Solo's current attack of 36 (25 power with level 4 fists), he makes short work of the soldier.
On the way out of the falls though...roadblock!! The slime enemies have an absurd 210 defense score. Solo can't get through that...yet. Worse yet, this is an unrunnable encounter. What can we do here?
Well, critical hits break through defense. But there seems to be a sort of bug in the game...eventually, no more crits came. This was a reset.
Because of Solo's low agility, I sneak/save him over to Mysidia to pick up a Thief Gauntlet. We need to start building Agility eventually, and with it feeding off itself, the sooner, the better. We can't equip a shield for this challenge - unarmed attacks don't work with shields. This is the problem with going unarmed.
On the second attempt, Solo gets a spellcasting item from a drop. A 5% drop from Soldiers. Garlic inflicts damage to all undead enemies on the field with 30 Power (working out to 30-60 damage) - essentially a HARM spell. Granted, this run is soonthereafter ended by another run-in with slimes, but still.
The notable thing about spellcasting items in FF2 is that they are reusable. Or to be more specific, they won't always disappear when used. In Garlic's case, there's a 50/50 shot of you being able to use it again.
I was debilitating whether or not to allow spellbook use (mainly Cure) or spellcasting items, including spellbooks as items. In the end, I decided the latter would be okay. With that said, it takes several tries before I get a run that makes it through successfully. I actually do run into a group of slimes when I do make it, but critical hits manage to take them out, and Solo successfully makes it in and out.
I felt that this should be included in the report for the sheer amusement value of it. I completely forgot you need to use [Warship] to get by the guy in Bofsk, instead of the rebel password, [Wild Rose]. Whatever the case, I ended up exploring my options via my knowledge of hacking and whatnot. That horribly screwed up picture was the results of one such experiment, in attempt to get by the guy without moving him out of the way - by moving myself behind him
I eventually succeeded in this, but much to my surprise, the Dark Knight wasn't there! The Warship never took off. I started the game over, thinking I messed something up, using memory editing so I wouldn't have to build Solo back up all over again, but ran into the same problem again and again.
Eventually, finally, and a lot of fooling around later, I figure out the problem and load everything back to normal. I don't pick up the Pass at the end of the Sewers again...thinking that Solo will end up strong enough to take on the Captains to fight his way on-board.
Moving on at long last and like 3-4 runs off the early game, even with a roided out character. The Snow Cave wasn't much to talk about. Here, Solo demonstrates his ability to talk to animals
Here, Solo beats up the bosses, and manages an evasion. He currently sits at level 8 evade, which sounds awesome, and comes about as a result of being targetted all at once by a lot of enemies. But the kicker is, it's 8 chances to evade, at Agility + (Weapon Level*Weapon Bonus) - Equipment Weight. Which in this case, is 7%.
This becomes a factor against these fellows in Kashuon Castle. Their attacks have the HP Drain effect. This deals 1/16 HP damage for each successful hit. In layman's terms, they can Blood Sword Solo to death.
Meanwhile, the Stunner rats are left unable to break through Solo's defensive armor, dealing 0 damage and never inflicting their trademark status.
At least the boss is much simpler for Solo than it was for the Magicians. There's no need to muck around with running off to Mysidia early, even though I did. Two punches puts it down for the count.
So far, so good. Again, note Solo's evasion stats. For comparison, Alice hit 10 evasions by the end of the game, and Solo is not far removed from that. However, the big difference between them is the percentage of succeeding on those evasions. His Magic Defense is 6, which is as much as Patchy had in Pandemonium. Remember, due to a bug in the game, target-all spells occasionally cause the first character's Soul to increase, rather than anyone's Magic Defense. Thusly, being the only target in-battle really makes these stats - along with HP - inflate. Unfortunately, the going gets harder from here on out...
Next | Index
All right Solo, I've guided you to victory once before. You've conquered the force of chaos and not one but two creatures of the void. It's time for you to conquer an empire in the game of FF2.
Playing through this game with physical attacks as opposed to magic makes for a far different experience, and runs into its own set of issues. The early goings of this quest aren't much to talk about. I take Solo up to around these stats before I set off to Phin.
Solo makes 4 hits on the way to Semitt Falls. The strength of unarmed attacks in FF2 is 8*(Fist Level-1)+(Power/2). I went with this character mainly due to his essentially looking like the Black Belt class from FF2 - though it's worth noting Guy has the highest starting strength of the three. A good case could be made for Maria though, due to her 15 Agility. If you've read my Magicians playthrough, you know how important that stat is. Guy by comparison has only 5 Agility to start.
I went through the entrity of the spellcasters' game relying on evasion. However, at least for the early game, defense is perfectly acceptable. Which is the path Solo takes. Long-term though, enemies will be able to break defenses easier and easier, and worse yet - it doesn't stop effects when attacked unless no damage is taken at all, except in one case.
The advantage to Guy? Well, remember. The first boss of the game is the Sargeant. Without enough power to punch through his defense, we're not getting anywhere. This would take longer if Maria was the character. With Solo's current attack of 36 (25 power with level 4 fists), he makes short work of the soldier.
On the way out of the falls though...roadblock!! The slime enemies have an absurd 210 defense score. Solo can't get through that...yet. Worse yet, this is an unrunnable encounter. What can we do here?
Well, critical hits break through defense. But there seems to be a sort of bug in the game...eventually, no more crits came. This was a reset.
Because of Solo's low agility, I sneak/save him over to Mysidia to pick up a Thief Gauntlet. We need to start building Agility eventually, and with it feeding off itself, the sooner, the better. We can't equip a shield for this challenge - unarmed attacks don't work with shields. This is the problem with going unarmed.
On the second attempt, Solo gets a spellcasting item from a drop. A 5% drop from Soldiers. Garlic inflicts damage to all undead enemies on the field with 30 Power (working out to 30-60 damage) - essentially a HARM spell. Granted, this run is soonthereafter ended by another run-in with slimes, but still.
The notable thing about spellcasting items in FF2 is that they are reusable. Or to be more specific, they won't always disappear when used. In Garlic's case, there's a 50/50 shot of you being able to use it again.
I was debilitating whether or not to allow spellbook use (mainly Cure) or spellcasting items, including spellbooks as items. In the end, I decided the latter would be okay. With that said, it takes several tries before I get a run that makes it through successfully. I actually do run into a group of slimes when I do make it, but critical hits manage to take them out, and Solo successfully makes it in and out.
I felt that this should be included in the report for the sheer amusement value of it. I completely forgot you need to use [Warship] to get by the guy in Bofsk, instead of the rebel password, [Wild Rose]. Whatever the case, I ended up exploring my options via my knowledge of hacking and whatnot. That horribly screwed up picture was the results of one such experiment, in attempt to get by the guy without moving him out of the way - by moving myself behind him
I eventually succeeded in this, but much to my surprise, the Dark Knight wasn't there! The Warship never took off. I started the game over, thinking I messed something up, using memory editing so I wouldn't have to build Solo back up all over again, but ran into the same problem again and again.
Eventually, finally, and a lot of fooling around later, I figure out the problem and load everything back to normal. I don't pick up the Pass at the end of the Sewers again...thinking that Solo will end up strong enough to take on the Captains to fight his way on-board.
Moving on at long last and like 3-4 runs off the early game, even with a roided out character. The Snow Cave wasn't much to talk about. Here, Solo demonstrates his ability to talk to animals
Here, Solo beats up the bosses, and manages an evasion. He currently sits at level 8 evade, which sounds awesome, and comes about as a result of being targetted all at once by a lot of enemies. But the kicker is, it's 8 chances to evade, at Agility + (Weapon Level*Weapon Bonus) - Equipment Weight. Which in this case, is 7%.
This becomes a factor against these fellows in Kashuon Castle. Their attacks have the HP Drain effect. This deals 1/16 HP damage for each successful hit. In layman's terms, they can Blood Sword Solo to death.
Meanwhile, the Stunner rats are left unable to break through Solo's defensive armor, dealing 0 damage and never inflicting their trademark status.
At least the boss is much simpler for Solo than it was for the Magicians. There's no need to muck around with running off to Mysidia early, even though I did. Two punches puts it down for the count.
So far, so good. Again, note Solo's evasion stats. For comparison, Alice hit 10 evasions by the end of the game, and Solo is not far removed from that. However, the big difference between them is the percentage of succeeding on those evasions. His Magic Defense is 6, which is as much as Patchy had in Pandemonium. Remember, due to a bug in the game, target-all spells occasionally cause the first character's Soul to increase, rather than anyone's Magic Defense. Thusly, being the only target in-battle really makes these stats - along with HP - inflate. Unfortunately, the going gets harder from here on out...
Next | Index
