FF4 Solo Edward Part I

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(art by sutei (giru))

The original spoony bard himself, Edward (originally Gilbert) Chris von Muir is the prince of Damcyan and the series' first named Bard character after the class's debut in the previous game. Far from the soaring supportive heights the class would become in later games, Edward as the Bard class in FF4 is a weak character in battle, and some would give him flak for not being a super hardened badass in plot either. At least later releases including this one would do a lot for the guy, particularly The After Years where he is a cunning mastermind (one of the few bright spots on that mess of the game).

He has three abilities and two of them are bad: Sing and Heal. The first of these requires a harp to be equipped (in 2D anyway) has a 25% chance each of inflicting silence, charm, sleep, or nothing. Unless he's a toad, in which case it will always use toadsong. It's by far the most useless incarnation of the ability in the series. Even the 3D versions let you manually choose and gives more spells, as does the After Years to an extent (which unfortunately still keeps randomness). And Pixel Remaster makes it a group cast. Heal (aka Salve) debuts in this game and splits a Potion between the party for pitiful healing. 3D again and even the After Years fixes this by letting you use multiple copies of a healing item all in one turn. Noticing a pattern here? Heck, the After Years even changes Hide to Escape. Functionally identical, just with a less cowardly descriptor more befitting of his character.

Hide has the most use and takes him out of battle until he chooses to return; it triggers automatically when he is in critical health unless alone. Because of a quirk in the coding, a solo Edward on low HP will always be forced to return even if he triggered Hide manually. Also, a solo Edward will be forced to return on the PSP version regardless. Unlike FF5, bosses in FF4 do not use MP (the stat exists but it's calculated based off their HP and is only used for the purposes of Osmose), but he can at least avoid certain telegraphed attacks. This command is better in the 3D versions where you can give it to Rosa or Edge and have them attack with Aim or Throw. Here, you're limited to running, returning, waiting, or effectively passing the turn by defending. In this version, the autohide can be used to trigger the Psycho Edward bug, mixing its invincibility with the berserk status. However, it still doesn't work without a party, so it's outside the scope of this variant.


Here's the guy's stats at his starting level. Not very impressive to say the least. While the butt of many jokes with low stats and questionable skills, this meant this was going to be a very interesting challenge!

There was not much to write about the early portions of the game. Even for a character as weak as Edward, the enemies were simple enough. Not even the Mist Dragon was a problem, with weak physical attacks and plenty of time to heal up when it was in its mist form.


An interesting property of the Dreamer's Harp that Edward starts with is the ability to put things it hits to sleep. Naturally, as the designers were in a bit of a mood, status ailments are universally prevented from working on most boss fights. The soldiers were one such fight. I had Edward hide until Cecil kicked it, bopped him out after the general gave the order to attack, and put him to sleep. The soldiers never attack without orders (and commit suicide if the general goes down). This earned him a nice chunk of experience.


Here's a rarity for you, and actually maybe one of the only times I made use of the Sing command in the playthrough: as a counter to the Gigantoads turning Edward into one. It's a toggle much like the spell itself, so Edward flipped himself back to being human.

Octomammoth is an interesting fight: the more times it is hit, the slower and stronger it gets. Still, from the back row, this was manageable damage. I just had to use Potions.


A numerical weapon upgrade was in the Antlion Cave. This instead has a chance of inflicting confusion on a hit. You might be thinking to yourself that this is better, and in any other game in the series, you'd be correct. However, two quirks about FF4 make that not necessarily the case. For one, sleep is not dispelled on a physical attack, whereas confusion is. So Edward can continue to pummel opponents while they're helpless and sleeping. Second and stranger, confused enemies instead run a different script. This does not necessarily mean attacking their own party. The Tiny Mages in the overworld outside the cave are a particularly rude example. Charm them and they'll respond by casting Death on your party! This meant taking a little more caution in what random encounters I used it against. Against bosses, it was obviously the better choice.

Like the Antlion. It uses Counter Horn whenever struck with a physical attack. This might seem like it would make the fight a huge hassle, but from the safety of the back row, its attacks were pitiful even on Edward. It was simply a matter of not overextending myself too much.


Mom Bomb on Mount Hobs only performs physical attacks until she takes sufficient damage. Then she swells up, performs an explosion attack, and splits into six lesser bombs. It should be noted that enemy AI is unusual and prone to bugs when there are no valid player targets in FF4. This was not one of those cases: Edward could simply sit back and watch as the mom and her children all fruitlessly blew themselves to the underworld.

The captains in the Fabul Gauntlet are another example of an enemy that does not behave how you would expect them to when charmed. They instead continue to order their troops to charge. Dreamer's Harp worked just fine and indeed prevented the troops from attacking.


The most dangerous encounter on Mount Ordeals were the Liliths. They counter physical attacks with Slap, which paralyzes. And if you confuse them, they start using Entice to confuse you right back! There were also groups of seven zombie type enemies. It was far better to simply Hide then run against them.


Scarmigilione was a simple matter of hiding past the Drains, then killing some of the zombies. When I was down to one, I went after the boss to prevent him from going into his own attack routine. Every hit still meant a Thunder, which necessitated healing. The undead form simply does poisoning physicals. No problem and no strategy but to attack and heal periodically. Same for the Dark Knight.


Before heading to Baron, I took a sidetrip back to Mist to buy a Dancing Dagger for Edward. This weapon is slightly stronger than the Lamia's Harp, at the cost of needing to be in the front row (FF4a has a bug where back row doesn't matter and will either always or never be applied, but I don't exploit it). However, it can be used as an item unlimited times to cast a psuedo spell with a power of 40 and a multiplier of 8. As a point of comparison, level 1 elemental spells have a power of 16 and level 2 elemental spells have a multiplier of 64, with the multiplier determined by (stat)÷4+1. It's sufficient, but the way spell damage is calculated in this game means it can also just suck.

I just used the revive Cecil strategy for Yang, meanwhile. He has too much HP and you prove little by depleting it all with a solo. In Baron town, Edward was able to upgrade his equipment a little. There was trouble down in the Underground Waterway named Hydras. If these landed their Entangles, it would paralyze and likely kill Edward. I ended up running from them, only to encounter like seven all in a row. Sheesh.


For Baigan, I destroyed the left arm because it can entangle. I then hit the right arm with Dancing Dagger itemcast once before doing the same for Baigan. The former act gave a safety buffer in case the right arm used Self-Destruct before I could move again. Edward couldn't survive that even at full HP, since his just sucks. I couldn't kill both arms because he simply regenerates them, but killing one was just fin.

It was Cagnazzo afterwards where the hell began. The first phase is a simple dance: gather water, Tsunami, Haste self, repeat. It's that second phase where things get difficult: Cagnazzo will bolster his defenses (technically evasion) and heal himself for 531HP with Restore. My previous soloists had ways around this. Most could just outdamage it, although I had to hunt for a semirare drop in Rosa's case. Even with Hermes Sandals and Spider's Silk to tilt the speed odds in his favor, Edward could not deal enough damage to overcome this. And there was no reprieve in an item drop. Edward could use Bows, but they're inaccurate.


So welcome to FF4's own Penninsula of Power, and also one of the weakest ones out there. This can be found north of Mount Ordeals; you can't reach there on a Chocobo and have to walk by the mountains. The enemies here are the same as the ones found around Troia and Mythril. In other orders, the next story area after I cook the turtle. Still, it was as decent a place as any. Lamia's Harp on the the Hell Needles permanently disabled them: they would spam Needle on themselves, unable to break from it. Confusing Treants made them counter with Peck, petrifying their own party.

Still, I had to save after every battle. A back attack could be very fatal. No, going in the front wasn't an option either: FF4 (and 3) uniquely have ambushes: back attacks without switching rows.


I got up to level 41. Edward now had more attack multipliers, especially with help of a Twist Headband, and a bit more offense. I hoped this was enough...


...and it was. I still needed to use Hermes Sandals and a Spider's Silk to tilt the odds in my favor, but the roadblock was down.

I went to Eblan Castle next for the glory of it. Most of the strong monsters in boxes fell to charming shenanigans, although I lost once against the Mad Ogres when they kept attacking themselves, and multiple times against the Steel Golem and Skuldiers when the former (the only thing that COULD be confused) kept attacking itself rather than its allies. I ended up using Bomb Fragment items to deal with the skeletons.


There was a funny glitch if Edward talked to himself: the player Edward was forced to look left.

Edward had little trouble over in the Magnetic Cave. Cait Siths in particular were very vulnerable to confusion, assaulting their allies and themselves with Blaster for paralysis or even instant death. I could also stun the Mindflayers with it, making them 'attack' Edward with Scan.


As for the Dark Elf himself, his damage was manageable in the first phase. I simply popped a Hi Potion after every Tornado while attacking with the Dancing Dagger. Edward fell into the back row and used the Lamia's Harp when the Dark Dragon came out due to its physical attacks. Just had to heal every now and then.

In Zot, the Ice Lizards cast Blizzara when confused. This healed them. But it was also very effective in eliminating the slime monsters that sometimes accompanied them.

For the Magus Sisters, Dancing Dagger itemcast was the order of the day. It did enough, and physicals happen in the fight. This and a mistimed Fira eventually beat Cindy. The other two cast spells afterward, but Edward still had up a reflected Reflect. Sandy was the first target because of Berserk in particular, and she died before it hit. Then I finished Mindy.


Against Barbarricia, I had a relatively foolproof strategy. Pop a Hermes Sandals, and after Rosa and Kain kick it, do the following. Pop out after the elemental lord uses her Tornado/Ray combo. Attack or heal if needed, taking a physical before popping back in. I had to have Edward in the back using the Lamia Harp; the Dancing Dagger just missed if used as an item, and I'm pretending the back row bug doesn't exist. This was doing absolutely pitiful damage, but it was slowly getting the job done. My only concern was running out of Hi Potions or if Edward was knocked into critical - the damage from the physicals was highly erratic. I won comfortably before any of that happened.


This is pretty rough so far, relatively speaking. I had to use two sandals and a silk to get through; I can farm the latter at least, but the haste shoes are limited in the 2D version. Hopefully I don't run out. 11:11 game time to finish off the Overworld section of the game. But it's not about how you start, it's about how you finish. And I can promise that Edward is going to finish strong, if nothing else.

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