FF4 Solo Edge Part I

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(art by koushi rokushiro)

The hotheaded prince of Eblan, Edward "Edge" Geraldine, is a combination of the series' thief and ninja classes. The Throw command makes its formal debut with him, after Shruikens were present as consumable weapons in FF3. It has the notable trait of ignoring all manner of defenses the enemy has. Its damage formula is simply Level * WP + Random (0-98).

Steal is a weird one. The chance to steal is 1/20 if the target's level is over Edge's. If not, the formula is 4*(Edge's Level - Enemy's Level)/100. And yes, that does mean the odds are actually less if Edge is less than or equal to the enemy's level. There's a chance to take damage if the steal fails. The item stolen is always the first item on the drop list of the enemy. He can steal repeatedly from the same enemy. There's an interesting bug in the SNES version where, if the item you steal is a weapon or shield and is the first of its kind in your inventory, you may equip the next character to take a turn with the item. This doesn't work on GBA, nor do I believe it works with Edge alone.

Finally, there's Ninjutsu. Edge has a magic command all to himself, with six spells in this version. He begins with Flame, a fire-elemental attack with 80 power. He gains Flood and Blitz through the story, 120 and 160 power respectively and of the ice and lightning elements. Through leveling, he can gain Smoke (escapes from battle), Pin (Paralysis), and Image (a self-cast Blink).


Edge begins at what for most parties is the pathetic level of 25. For us, it's the absurd level. This is probably why he levels up faster than any other character in the game...not that it's good design to begin with, anyway. His Agility may not impress that much when you just look at it, but it's the highest of all the characters. Strength and Stamina, likewise, aren't as good as they look on-paper. The magic stats are lowish, which IS a factor, as Intellect is used with Ninjutsu.


With this in mind, all of the early game was pathetic. I'll spare you the details. Mist Dragon was dead in one hit, the guards in one Flame, Octomammoth survived for a while and only lost three tentacles before dying accomplishing nothing significant, Antlion died in two attacks. He couldn't kill Mombomb before it blew up, but he could take out all the little bombs in a single Flame. The Fabul battles were similarly not worth talking about.


The first battle that was even remotely scary was Scarmiglione. His drones died in a single Flame, but his Thunder barrage did manage to threaten Edge. Not enough to actually kill him, but it was something. Meanwhile, his undead form just died under a flurry of attacks, only getting in a single attack that whiffed against Edge's evasion.

Liliths on the mountain were the first interesting opponent in regards to Steal. They give up Kiss of Liliths, which act like Osmose, only twice as potent. Not a bad pickup. Enemies do have MP in this game, but they rarely ever run out of it.


I didn't do this as Palom, but did do so as Edge. The Dark Knight only has around 4400HP, so this is quite doable normally. It was even easier for Edge, who either dodged the Dark Wave or found out it was single target, and killed Cecil's dark side.


After arriving in Baron and making a solo exception to defeat Yang, Edge made a trip to Mist to pick up Dancing Daggers. These babies are...actually, better than what he has equipped? Wasn't expecting that. Edge liked them so much he bought seven.


Baigan wasn't anything special. After the body was down, Edge was able to kill the Right Arm before it selfdestructed. As for Cagnazzo...I'd planned to throw those Dancing Daggers at the shell form. It turned out to be unnecessary, because Edge was able to break through its evasion with his regular attacks and do enough damage for the kill.


The Magnetic Cave was up next, and Edge's katanas, while received long past the point of relevancy, are considered magnetic. While Claws are typically associated with Yang, Edge can use them as well. The Fairy Claw in the cave itself was of particular interest. Some weapons do extra damage - four times, in fact - against monsters of a certain species. The Fairy Claw really lays the smackdown against giants.

Edge also suffered his first wipe in this cave, to a Cait Sith casting Blaster on him. Bleh. He was at least able to get a measure of revenge on the reset, confusing one with the Fairy Claw and having it cast Blaster on itself.


The Dark Elf...Edge intentionally got himself pigged here. Nothing special against him; Edge could just overpower his weak physical defenses. The Dark Dragon had an Hourglass thrown at it to render it helpless, then beaten to death.

Before heading to Zot, Edge bought some more knives, and also made a trip to his castle. He was able to destroy the Mad Ogres with the Fairy Claw, and took out the Couerls and Lamia without incident. He had to pass on the Skuldiers and Steel Golem, though. Oh sure, he COULD do it with Fairy Claw for the latter and Flame for the former, but that would mean removing Piggy.


Claws, while providing no bonuses to raw attack, are really nice on Edge to expose elemental and racial weaknesses. This Fiery Hound? Dancing Dagger + Ice Claw put it to sleep. Zot was the first place where the leveling curve caught up to Edge, but it just meant a few Hi-Potions every three battles or so.

The Magus Sisters' Delta Attack gave Edge a measure of protection in the latter half of the fight once Cindy was taken care of - Edge had a wall to protect against Sandy's status moves. Which actually wouldn't have worked anyway due to Pig and status priorities.


And Barbariccia, Edge completely took a dump on. I actually miscalculated something - apparently, gradual petrify ignores status priorities in this version. Edge couldn't equip the Gaia Gear...but then something funny happened. Barbie hit Edge with all these Rays, and yet he was no closer to being petrified than he was. As it turns out, gradual petrify is also different in this version in how it takes much more time/gradual petrify attacks to advance to the next stage. It's kind of hard to tell in this version, since it's just a paralysis-like effect graphically instead of showing the victim partially petrified.

I was sure about was my offensive strategy all along, though. Throw ignores her evasion, so Edge tossed out a bunch of knives and obliterated her. A Hi-Potion after every Tornado...I tried to steal Decoys, but the puppets (Level 22) kept detecting Edge. Bleh. Ninjutsu was out because Piggy - which may or may not have been pointless - prevented him from using Blink. Which he hadn't even learned yet, because he was only Level 37.

Ironic - the soloist who started at a higher level than any of the rest is now lower leveled than the rest so far. Not for running away either, nor for experience curve - as mentioned, Edge levels faster than anyone else. Also, I summed it up with just a dozen images - because he's just that good. Will Edge's dominance continue? Turn the page to find out!

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