More Final Fantasy

[System Error]

I hadn't heard of that one, where did you find it?

That... is an amazing discovery. I took the liberty of drafting a list of enemies this works for, in the spoiler below. I just know that'll be helpful somewhere

Er, their MP gets dropped to 9999. It doesn't go to 40 or whatever. :P I forgot who told me about it, but it was during the fiesta last year.

Nah, he's done plenty, we don't want to see if such a solo can take on any bonus superbosses. Right?

Well, such a class I think we can have full confidence in. What would be interesting to see just how many could get the job done, or how far they could go before needing Freelancer. Though horribly time-consuming.

_________________


To begin the postgame, let's take on Arguable Superboss #2, just for the sake of showing off one of Cannoneer's more exploitable quirks.


Gogo the Mime. The way you ordinarily fight him is by not fighting him and waiting for him to call you a good mimic. During the Four Job Fiesta last year, I actually successfully took him head-on (and with an otherwise crappy party no less). But the situation here unlike the one there - zombie meatshields are out, we can't get Shell, and we can't pause time in the menu with only one person.

The big problem with fighting him is his Meteors. He casts three in a row to start his rampage script when he gets below 33000 HP, and every time you attack him below that baseline (including when you knock him under), he also casts a Meteor spell. Aegis Shield can't block this, and even with Shell and max magic defense any one character would be hard-pressed to survive that. Solo Mystic Knight would have no trouble committing mimicide due to his silencing abilities. 99% magic evade or no, that always hits. If there were a Silence Shot, Picard would also have little troubles. Simply fire it after slowing him, hope it procs, then tear into him with Killer Cannon (Fuma Shruiken + Blitzshot). Gogo is classified as a Human, and so that will do massive damage. But all that offense doesn't mean a thing if we can't defend.


So I've mentioned it a few times before, but there are several Combines of the Cannoneer that don't trigger reactions in AI scripts - this appears to be the majority of the status-inflicters. This is sort of probably by design: the status they inflict do trigger counters. But if the target is immune to the status, no counterattack. Ergo, if the attack triggered counters as well, you'd get two counters from one attack - similar to something that's coming up in a bit.


Still, it's semiexploitative at best. Moving onward, I intend to stay away from this if it's remotely practical. The best compromise I felt I could do here was to blast him down to around 16000 HP, hit with a Killer Cannon, survive one Meteor, then deliver a final one to put the stamp down. This took over a dozen tries at Picard's current level, also needing to slow the famed mimic to give himself buffer room, but he eventually made it so.


With that banter done, let's do the Sealed Temple. To boldly go where no man has gone before...except one, but work with me here!! Picard's usual means of offense here was the Water Cannon, due to a surprising amount of enemies being vulnerable to it (these bombs aren't one of them, but were still flatlined by the attack). There were some enemies, however, that demanded alternative approaches.


The first example I ran into Behemoths cast Meteor upon dying. Picard countered this with a Power Shot (used with a Power Drink, appropriately) to Berserk them. He caught one by using three Water Cannons that did just under 5000 (it has 15000HP).


The Gil Turtle here actually differs from the one in World 2 slightly - its Turtle special inflicts HP Leak instead of Poison. Picard went with an upgraded version of his old setup, slowed him, and brought out a new Combine...


The Vulner series is used with an Iron Draft, and has the same properties as Guard-Off or a Turtle Soup mix. Picard could then step into the front row and fight with the Chicken Knife!! There were only two problems with this - first, Gil Turtle's blows did more damage, but he could counter this by falling into the back row and healing.


Second, there was actually a better option - the Needle Cannon (Gold Needle + Blitzshot) does a fixed 3000 damage, which would've been his best damage option. Picard had forgotten to stock up, though. But even without that, what was a doable but scary fight in World 2 was a trivial one here.


Picard continued to blast his way through the dungeon. Unfortunately, larger groups made exploiting EXP Up impractical, save for certain rooms, such as his first trip into the Sealed Temple's Arena. By the way, those guys with their butts sticking out are from the magic side of the Fork Tower. They counter physicals with Meteor. Flaremancers from the tower also show up. Luckily, Picard could easily one-shot them at this point, but other physical classes may have trouble here.

The Dark Elementals on the Hall of Doubt also proved annoying. Even at level 70, Picard's Combine still couldn't reliably one-shot them. He traversed that floor with the Reflect Ring equipped to render their -ga spells harmless.


Before long, it was time for Grand Aevis. One thing that Rathma didn't really mention was this guy's absurd speed - he has an astonishing 70!! Picard could thankfully make it less of an issue with Slow Cannon. His strategy here was to eliminate one of the Dark Elementals, leave the other at low health (rendering its White Winds useless), and Open Fire on the Grand Aevis itself.

The first time he tried this fight, Picard was eventually killed by Blaster. It was also the cause of his second death, immediately at the start of the battle. Without the healing issues of the undead Necromancer, Maelstorm and Breath Wind weren't a problem. Aegis Shield to cover Evil Eye, and though he left himself open to Zombification (if it got to be too big an issue, I would've done the fight with the Angel Ring), it didn't once affect him.



_________________


It only hit me around this point that drastically rearranging the inventory for Combine would be useful. When you put the cursor on memory, it opens back up on the item you used, not the ammunition. You always go ammo -> item, so putting the two I used most side-by-side was a big timesaver


Picard stepped into the front row during the Ronka Ruins section of the temple, remembering Rathma's experience with the Exorays. He could quickly win all the random encounters using one of his Combines anyway. The aforementioned flowers could be killed with Flame Burst, the stronger Flame Cannon simply being overkill. The scary double Iron Giant encounter could be dispatched with Chaos Cannon, or two Water Cannons for 9999 into their elemental weakness.


The Dualists, the Assassins, and Soul Eaters could all be stunned by Berserk, cutting off their dangerous or irritating scripts.


To mention something about the dungeon that T-Hawk didn't with Rathma - here, you need to press a switch to stop a waterfall, but it turns back on very quickly. Picard had to make a temporary swap to a Thief to run by here. The timing is very strict - one step off-course and he wouldn't make it. A total PITA, really.


Bleh...well, after his comrades were re-petrified, Picard made his way back out of the temple, using a convenient shortcut in the ruins section.


So here's Archeodemon. No problem, we'll just blast it with Water Cannon during the charge-up phases and-


Oh.


Okay then.

So two aspects of this fight that the magely Rathma didn't encounter or make clear: first, Archeodemon absorbs all elemental damage. Second, Archeodemon will counter any non-magical attack with Death...ON HIS UNDEAD SELF.

I fought this with my fiesta party last year, and - sticking to my rule of not exploiting the counterattack glitch - I'd employ a similar strategy that they used. That is, cutting its MP from an absurd 62000 to a manageable 9999 with an Ether and repeatedly attacking until it had no more MP.


The Assassin's Dagger was the weapon of choice here. If its death spell went off, Archeodemon would cast Death on itself twice. It was pretty funny, watching it get die and revive three times in a row. At 29MP a casting, plus 39MP per Flare and 15MP per Drain Touch, it actually ran through its MP fairly quickly.

That's not to say the fight was a cakewalk. While Picard was protected from Flare and Mega Flare from behind a Reflect Ring, Archeodemon would occasionally trigger its own ???? counter with the moves, hitting him with the 2300~ damage anyway. Giga Flare would do about the same, and Drain Touch around 800. I thusly kept him around 3200HP with a combination of Hi Potions and Elixirs.

Eventually...


No more MP. Picard's cannon made short work of the creature, doing 6000+ a shot. Only a potential reflected Mega Flare that triggered ???? could have killed him at this point (his Death counter supersedes his ????/Curse/Nothing counter). I probably should've waited around to make sure it had no MP for that either.


But that didn't happen, so Picard won out. Took nearly an hour of game time. Since he was right in the area, Picard left the temple to refresh his supplies and float. Then back in it was. All the way back to the bottom.

_________________


Good lord, the enemies in the Lethe Court were painful. Ironclads, unlike their brethren, only had slow as a status to exploit. Picard's supply of Turtle Shells was limited. Hades were more obnoxious. Picard had to use the Flame Shield and Bone Mail here - the former was to protect against Meltdown, and the latter from the Death spells. I had forgotten to take many pictures in this section.

Idly, he had the option of equipping the Chaos Orb (won from Archeodemon) to increase the damage from his fire and electric shots, boosting them from just under 7000 to a healthy 9999 on a neutral hit. This accessory unfortunately inflicts HP Leak if the user is not a Necromancer or has the Undead ability set - in which case it inflicts Regen instead. I was hoping the Bone Mail would count, but no such luck. Oh well, losing haste was bad anyway.


Picard had nearly run out of Hi Potions by the time he reached Guardian. Yikes. The only other way to heal was with the Protect Ring if the Behemoth group decided to show up. They were more than content to sit around and wait for his HP to go back up; the King only occasionally throwing out a weak physical attack.


At least the boss itself was an easy endeavor. Like before, Picard was able to ignore the aging missiles. Unlike before, he did indeed have the power to just win outright (had that failed, Bone Mail would've stopped the status, though it didn't seem to take anyway). He got hit with Encircle the first time, but short-circuited the cannon under a torrent of water the second go. It revived the Wave Cannon once, but very quickly blew up shortly after.


No effect? Um. Not sure what caused that to pop up, but okay.


Picard barely managed to hobble out after that. I opted to use the GBA quicksave trick to push him through the final stretch. While we're restocking, what say we fight some superbosses?

[Plus C]

Er, their MP gets dropped to 9999. It doesn't go to 40 or whatever. :P I forgot who told me about it, but it was during the fiesta last year.

Well, not quite as big a deal, then :P Still a great find.

Gogo the Mime. The way you ordinarily fight him is by not fighting him and waiting for him to call you a good mimic. During the Four Job Fiesta last year, I actually successfully took him head-on (and with an otherwise crappy party no less). But the situation here unlike the one there - zombie meatshields are out, we can't get Shell, and we can't pause time in the menu with only one person.

I actually took him down the hard way with Frog as well, he's not that difficult with access to Rapid Fire

So here's Archeodemon. No problem, we'll just blast it with Water Cannon during the charge-up phases and-

Oh.

Okay then.

And Frog beat Archeodemon by alternating between Hero Cannon and Dragon Defence; whenever I used Dragon Defence he;d counter by casting Death on himself... Which would reflect off onto my own Bone Mail and fully heal me. That was sadly the end of the interesting parts that remained.

Picard barely managed to hobble out after that. I opted to use the GBA quicksave trick to push him through the final stretch. While we're restocking, what say we fight some superbosses?

Make it so.

[System Error]

Picard would use the following setup for Omega. Aegis Shield would block 1/3 of all attacks being thrown at him. Hermes Sandles for haste, and Chicken Knife for a +5 to agility. The Royal Crown and Robe of Lords gave magic defense to help stop Encircle. As usual, it's the big danger for a solo character.


Omega has a vulnerability to Slow. So Picard hit with Slow Cannon for the big speed advantage. Again sticking with the policy of not abusing the no-counter bug, Picard did not use one of those combinations. He instead used Spark Cannon.


The machine's inherent Shell reduced this damage, but it couldn't stand up to this. Picard went a little crazy on the Aegis Shield blocks and dodges. That lingering float status also served to prevent a potential Earthquake (another reason I've been keeping it up). And with the huge speed advantage, he made short work of the boss.


Boom. Victory on the second try; the first was a back attack I decided to reset.


He can still rot. Picard could easily do this fight at this point, but he can still rot.


Funny enough, I always forget that Ramuh can show up here. He's almost useless for his worth at this point, unless you forgot him and want to use him on Omega (a friend of mine did so last year during the fiesta), but it's pretty amusing all the same. A single Water Cannon ended it.


Yeah. This wasn't a contest. It was a curbstomping.


Much like Omega's stop/song weakness, Shinryu has an infamous vulnerability to Berserk. Main Gauche and Genji Shield made things a breeze...though the attacks that did get through hurt like hell. But that's no fun.


Aegis Shield to block his opening Tidal Wave, Slow Cannon, and devastate him with Dragon Cannon. Shinryu knew what was best for him and cast Mighty Guard to reduce the damage, but it was too little too late. He didn't even reach the second no interrupt part of his script.


An easy victory.


Back out of the cleft. I found out that GrassTurtles can be fought here in the third world, just south of where Tycoon used to be. Picard stocked up on around 30 Turtle Shells for the random encounters.

_________________


So Omega Mk-II. This time, the Lamia's Tiara was worn, after Rocket Punch's confusion kept popping up. Can Picard succeed where Rathma could not? He opened with a Flame Cannon to fish for his elemental weakness, to try to get an extra 8000~ in. If it didn't work, he went to Spark Cannon, before resetting. He would follow up the successful attack with Slow Cannon.


Sticking by my rule of not abusing the no-counterattack bug. So here's Normal Cannon, which is powered by Shruikens. It has a base attack of 210 and has no special properties. More often than not, it's not worth it. But for our circumstances, it's the best we got. At Picard's absurd level of 89, this did in the neighborhood of 3800~ damage after inherent Shell reduced it.


This battle was more or less the same as the fight against the original. It's just that with the lower damage, Picard had to deal with twice as many counterattacks. He had a few tricks up his sleeve - after Omega Mk-II used Search, he swapped to the Flame Shield and waited. Omega would either used Rainbow Wind (no harm done), Atomic Ray, or Flamethrower (would heal him). This saved him an Elixir or two. The Aegis Shield again kept Picard safe from some of the attacks whenever it was in-place.

The robot went through three loops of its AI routine. I was especially afraid of Blaster...more than once, a death shot instantly ended the attempt. Once even at the very beginning of the fight.


Yet fortune smiled on Picard after about nine tries at the battle. He lost three times to a Blaster, three times to not landing the first shot, and at least once to a Rocket Punch/Wave Cannon combo. There's vengeance for Rathma!!


The prize for this fight is the Force Shield. It nullifies all elemental attacks that happen to be directed at the wielder. It has a defense rating of 15, as much as the unobtainable Cursed Shield. While its evasion is better than that's 1%, 10% is not really that good. Furthermore, its description is no lie - it has a weight of 15! Yikes. To add insult to injury, it also imposes an agility penalty of 5. Despite these flaws, the advantages it brings gives it a place in Picard's future.

_________________


Into Shinryu's lair, which is full of dragon enemies. Behind the Force Shield, he could steal Elixirs from these Crystal Dragons at his leisure - no need to worry about Breath Wing. And of course, Dragon Fang shots overkilled everything.


Here we go. Neo Shinryu attempts to start the battle with Mighty Guard. This is a fruitless effort due to his gimmick - his vulnerable form starts the battle in False Image status, and so it never actually affects it. So Picard could still do 9999 damage with every Dragon Cannon.

Picard tried to inflict Slow status on the dragon, and appeared to succeed. However, it didn't actually seem to be affecting the rate of attack. Hm. Let's check out his AI script.

Maelstorm
{Ice Storm,Ice Storm,Blaze}
Zombie Breath
{Earthquake,Earthquake,Lightning}
No Interrupt{Attack
Attack}
{Poison Breath,Poison Breath,Breath Wing}
Curse
{Tidal Wave,Tidal Wave,Almagest}

A lot of elemental attacks, so the shiny new Force Shield seemed like a no-brainer. But also around was a 1/3 chance to counter any successful strike with White Hole. Aegis Shield had its merits too. Then there's the nasty physicals.


These were highly damaging to Picard, and could very quickly kill him.

So the strategy for this battle was actually pretty complicated. Picard would walk in with the Force Shield equipped. Around the time or just before Zombie Breath popped up, he'd swap over to the Aegis Shield to guarantee cutting out White Hole - and for extra evasion. He could then swap back before Poison Breath or Tidal Wave/Almagest came along.


And once Neo Shinryu crossed over the 15000 HP threshold, Picard would swap to the Genji Shield, sporting 50% evade. A convoluted mess of shield swapping, but a strategy that works. Well, should work.

The whole danger in this fight came from the physicals. He just kept on getting unlucky with accumulated damage. The few times Picard did get by, he got wasted by the dragon's parting Giga Flare/Meteor combo. Isn't there anything we can do to make our chances better?

Well, let's look at the Algorithms guide. Neo Shinryu is vulnerable to slow as I figured he would be, he can't be Berserked, and...wow, seriously? Just what I need!


Dark Cannon, go!! And it worked!! ...but it didn't. Like the slow status from before, this only seemed to be affecting the vulnerable part of Neo Shinryu - not the invincible attacking part. So the physicals were going to be an issue, one way or another, ugh.


White Hole didn't show up that often, and sometimes - even without the Aegis Shield helping as seen here - Picard would simply dodge it. That high level helped a lot.


Picard got to the physical rampage part of the script several times. Here, he had noticed that he had been aged by an earlier Curse - it's kind of difficult to notice if that status has been inflicted with a big hat covering my character's head. This didn't affect his damage output, but now making enough dodges before he could attack again was nearly impossible. In another attempt...


Oh, great. Now he'll take more damage from physical attacks, and-...hmm, wait a minute. This could be a blessing in disguise. Mini doubles the target's evade. And with the Genji Shield's evasion of 50%...!


Yes!!


NOOOOOOOO!!!


Well, okay. We have our strategy. Picard managed to pick up Mini status from a Hades' Curse, and set back out. He kept a Reflect Ring on while going for it, because sometimes the Hades' would hit itself with Roulette, then counterattack by using Flare on Picard for over 7000 damage.


To go over the plan one more time, Picard went in minified with the Main Gauche, Force Shield, and magic evasiveness. He would swap to the Aegis Shield sometime after Zombie Breath in Neo Shinryu's script for added evasion and protection from a potential White Hole, and swap back to Force Shield after the physicals. He would try to hit with Slow Cannon (this would affect the vulnerable part's rate of switching), then tear into the dragon with Dragon Cannon for 9999, because its opening Mighty Guard never hits its first form. When the dragon went under 15000 HP and started its physical rampage, he would switch to the Genji Shield for maximum physical evasion. Picard had to use four Elixirs, and a Maiden's Kiss when Curse rolled frog status. Then it was just a matter of hoping Meteor rolled low enough damage on its four hits.


It took four fights to get the desired result, but it happened.

[Plus C]

Extremely nice work Neo Shinryu is a brilliantly designed boss, I always enjoy that one!

Oh, great. Now he'll take more damage from physical attacks, and-...hmm, wait a minute. This could be a blessing in disguise. Mini doubles the target's evade. And with the Genji Shield's evasion of 50%...!

Sadly it does cap at 99%, but Shirahidori, Main Gauche/Defender/Sasuke's Katana and Elven Mantle all stack with it, throw in Darkness and you can end up with like 1/144 of a percent of being hit. Combine with the Dancing Dagger for Jitterbuggery to get past the low damage (On characters with no other source of damage only, obviously!)

Enuo and the Cloister to go, good luck!

Not that either are very hard with the Force Shield but still.

[English Language]

IIRC, Slow Cannon didn't work because the part that's vulnerable to damage and the part that actually attacks are considered two separate entities.

[T-hawk]

It only hit me around this point that drastically rearranging the inventory for Combine would be useful.

Yeah, I did lots of inventory arranging for Daniel's Chemistry and for Merlin's long list of swappable weapons. I don't like putting the cursor on memory, but rather put the commonly used items on top.

Picard had to make a temporary swap to a Thief to run by here.

Doesn't have to be the solo character, I'm pretty sure I used one of the dead ones. A dead Thief still runs just fine, somehow.

So two aspects of this fight that the magely Rathma didn't encounter or make clear: first, Archeodemon absorbs all elemental damage. Second, Archeodemon will counter any non-magical attack with Death...ON HIS UNDEAD SELF.

I'm not sure I noticed either of those. Rathma's attack was always the non-elemental but magical Drain Touch which avoided both of those problems.

Picard had nearly run out of Hi Potions by the time he reached Guardian. Yikes. The only other way to heal was with the Protect Ring if the Behemoth group decided to show up.

Bone Mail + Assassin Dagger self-attacking will work in a pinch, for anyone able to wear and wield them.

Sticking by my rule of not abusing the no-counterattack bug. So here's Normal Cannon, which is powered by Shruikens. It has a base attack of 210 and has no special properties. More often than not, it's not worth it. But for our circumstances, it's the best we got. At Picard's absurd level of 89, this in the neighborhood of 3800~ damage after inherent Shell reduced it.

Something's wrong here... How did that much damage happen? Rathma only got about 2400 tops and that was with Dark Flare at 200 attack plus defense piercing. Omega II has 200 both physical and magic defense. Does Normal Cannon pierce or ignore that somehow?

So the strategy for this battle was actually pretty complicated. Picard would walk in with the Force Shield equipped. Around the time or just before Zombie Breath popped up, he'd swap over to the Aegis Shield to guarantee cutting out White Hole. And once Neo Shinryu crossed over the 15000 HP threshold, Picard would swap to the Genji Shield, sporting 50% evade. A convoluted mess of shield swapping, but a strategy that works. Well, should work.

Beautifully done. Access to shields makes for a major advantage for Picard over Rathma. (And of course that Force Shield from beating Omega II.)

[System Error]

Doesn't have to be the solo character, I'm pretty sure I used one of the dead ones. A dead Thief still runs just fine, somehow.

Their innate Caution remains active, which is why I preferred to not go that route

Something's wrong here... How did that much damage happen? Rathma only got about 2400 tops and that was with Dark Flare at 200 attack plus defense piercing. Omega II has 200 both physical and magic defense. Does Normal Cannon pierce or ignore that somehow?

Yeah. All the Combines _completely_ ignore all forms of defense save for elemental and Shell (enemy defense is simply not part of the damage formula). At level 89, M would be equal to 34, halved to 17 after Shell. A Normal Cannon thusly did 3570-4012.

Beautifully done. Access to shields makes for a major advantage for Picard over Rathma. (And of course that Force Shield from beating Omega II.)

I think shields are the biggest advantage any job class can have. Aegis' protection and the physical blocks are INCREDIBLY useful.

_________________


Picard went back out of the temple to restock, because his supplies had really somehow run low during that excursion. Elixirs in particular had been drained, and that forced Picard to farm.


He settled in the Ronka Ruins section of the rift, where groups of Level Checkers were common. He used Blastshots with Mallets (Mini Burst) as the most cost-efficient Combines that could still one hit kill. During this, Picard was inducted into the 1/4096 club by getting a Phoenix Down, Elixir, and Rune Chime drop all at once.


He settled on 18 Elixirs, and bought 7 more for a total of 25. Let's hope it's enough.

_________________


First attempt. Picard annihilated the first form of Enuo. At his level of 94, he could nail the ancient necromancer with Slow Cannon then fire away for over 9000 damage. Grand Cross came once, and did nothing. His equipment setup was Chicken Knife (+5 Agility), Force Shield, Royal Crown, Robe of Lords, and Hermes Sandles.


Ow. Dimension Zero hurts. It pierces defense and always hits. It also inflicts HP leak. That no interrupt section at the beginning really is brutal. Two of them in a row, or Meteor followed by Dimension Zero, would be invariably fatal for Picard. So would Dimenson Zero (including the one at the end of the script) into a successful Maelstorm.


Damn!! Using Force Shield means no protection from White Hole, or more importantly, Delta Attack. Well, I suppose shield swapping strategies are in order for that. The right timing to switch was roughly before the left arm charged for Grand Cross in phase 1, and right after the no interrupt section in phase 2. What to do...well, there is a way out of every box, a solution to every puzzle. It's just a matter of finding it.

For the heavy damage, Freelancer Rathma was able to use the Defender for Armor, as well as Shell to help with Meteor. Picard could only equip for Magic Defense and hope for luck with the latter. And there was only one option for the former...


And that was Golem from the Magic Lamp! The final decision I made was to use the counterattack exploit here. It felt okay - it really only served to eliminate an obnoxious omnipresent diceroll from the battle. Overcoming it was an inevitability at the end of the day.


By the way, I tried to see if you could skip the second phase. Unfortunately, you couldn't. They actually planned for that. Enuo disintegrates, but after a while, the message pops up, and he reintegrates. Damn. It does give a breathing period to heal up and use the Magic Lamp, though, so I used it.


Picard got really close the first time I tried this. He got within three attacks of winning, getting around to three loops of Enuo's AI routine, dodging three Grand Crosses, before HP Leak and Maelstorm did him in.

What else to do? Well, the basics first. At level 98, the multiplier would be 20 - just one over the present 19. I calculated, the average hits (15) to take down Enuo would not increase. Unless we're using Divine Cannon. It'd be 14 at the current level and 13 at 98. Not worth the counters. Level 99 would give 21, but would open him up to Level 3 Flare.


Nothing else really helps. The Bone Mail helps stop some of the counterattacks and Berserk, but does nothing for Danse Macabre, and turns the Flare/Holy/Delta Attack part of the script into a diceroll. Chaos Orb lets Picard do 6600~ after a Shell, but loses haste and makes any Maelstorm or Hurricane fatal. Sorceror's Mantle increases Magic Evade and makes it easier to go without Force Shield for longer, but also loses haste. Vishnu Vest loses too much Magic Evade. Looks like I had the right setup to begin with.

So let's recount our attempts after settling on the strategy. Full disclosure and whatnot - I reloaded a savestate from just before the fight, rather than walking back from the save point each time. Because there were a _lot_ of tries involved.

1. Condemn from Grand Cross. Went for broke at that point and died to Reaper's Sword.
2. Mistimed the shield switch, and Delta Attack appeared
3. First phase got hasted, Confuse from Grand Cross while waiting for White Hole/Evil Eye, things got out of hand
4. Berserk during phase 1
5. Meteor rolled too high damage, second cycle of phase 2.
6. Double Dimension Zero
7. Meteor into Dimension Zero.
8. Like 3. Decided not to switch the shield after Slow couldn't be reapplied, and petrify of all things came from Grand Cross.
9. Aging status out of Grand Cross in the first phase. Picard fought on and successfully handled the status, then Meteor into Dimension Zero.
10. White Hole in phase 1, couldn't switch shield.
11. Berserk during phase 1.
12. Berserk during phase 1.
13. Berserk during phase 1.
14. Triggered the second phase while poisoned. Meteor.
15. Zombie out of Grand Cross
16. Got really far - he had to have been dead within the next hit or two - then double Dimension Zero.
17. Berserk during phase 1.
18. Graviga and Meteor combo
19. Was presented with a decision due to poison: Magic Lamp to stop Dimension Zero, or heal to stop Meteor. I went with the latter, and got double Dimension Zero
20. Graviga and Meteor combo
21. Meteor into Dimension Zero.
22. Zombie out of Grand Cross
23. Double Dimension Zero. Began keeping track of second form HP at this point. It had 27149 left.
24. Berserk during phase 1.
25. Berserk during phase 1.
26. The first phase was routine. During the second phase, White Hole was the second attack of the no-interrupt phase all three times, and all three times it missed. Delta Attack showed up twice, and Holy was blocked once. The Grand Cross in phase one did nothing, and one that showed up in phase two did Mini. Picard just kept on blasting, and just before Enuo got to his third fixed Dimension Zero...


Finally, FINALLY it was over.


Picard was victorious!!

I tried to get an emulator movie of the Enuo battle, but unfortunately, it desynced when I tried to play it back. Similarly, I was streaming a few attempts at the fight, but wasn't streaming on the winning attempt.

_________________


So before the Cloister of the Dead, Solo exception #3 is here. If you don't have a Necromancer, this enemy just sits here growling at you. With it...


Picard used the Chaos Orb and Flame Cannon for fun here, hitting for 9999.


It's worth noting that the Ultima Weapon sword is a light sword, meaning it's not limited to the Knight and Gladiator. It actually does almost as much damage as the fully powered Chicken Knife. Picard equipped it at times for the novelty, but mostly stuck with the Main Gauche.

Not much to say about the boss rush. I realized at about Twin Tania that I had to be conservative with the Blitzshots. Even after that, Picard ended with only 8 of them in stock. A few highlights...


This time, it was Combine that did the most damage.


Sweet, sweet vengeance.


To stop its ???? counters, Picard used Power Cannon on Tyrannosaur


This time, the flowers didn't even get to show up.


Against the two who counter things that are not magic, Archeodemon got Power Cannoned to death, with it not triggering counters. He did the same to Omniscient before realizing he's vulnerable to Berserk - the attacks would do around 1000 damage. Picard pulled out Silver Cannon for aging to be on the safe side.


As mentioned before, Atomos will drag petrified party members if at least one is dead, but will Comet you if everyone is petrified. But it was petty damage at this point.

Catastrophe finally put an end to the Float nonsense, and-


Oh.


Oh god.


OH GOD.


Yes!!


For the final fight, Picard used two shots to down the barriers, Dark Cannon followed by Slow Cannon on Necro, then blew him away.


And that's the postgame!!

So Picard had an easier time than Rathma through the postgame, and - certainly no doubt due to not having the Undead handicap - was able to get through it without having to go Bare/Freelancer. The ability to equip shields really isn't to be understated in this game, either. Picard found himself using three different shields at some points. And Combine is a very powerful ability, and was really able to show off its potential in the postgame. Again, that's not to understate the power of Open Fire - the only thing stopping it from being competitive at the end of the game was the power of Combine, as well as Chicken Knife/Ultima Weapon.

And that finally, really wraps up Picard's adventure. There are indeed classes out there that can handle the entire postgame on their own. The question thusly arises of who else can accomplish this task? Picard was able to sleek by Enuo with his non-counterattack inducing Combines, but others would have to deal with them. Perhaps a question for another day.

So what's next for me? It'll depend on a few factors. I may start another FF5 variant - I need to look at a few things before jumping into what I had in mind, or I might look at another FF game. We'll see~

[T-hawk]

Well done again, and great reporting. Thrilled to have you on the FF5 team.

Who else can do it all solo? Good question. The Guardian cannon before Enuo might actually be the worse problem, with that guaranteed Delta Attack. Probably anyone with access to an Aegis Shield or Ribbon can pull it off. Without that, it gets a lot more complicated, with reflecting being the only other answer.

I don't remember the double Dimension Zero being lethal for Rathma... Does Armor status work against it?

[English Language]

I'm telling you now I'm not even going to try running Nostra through that. Neo Exdeath was hard enough, and Oracle's offense doesn't improve at all :V

[System Error]

Still waiting on something else. I'm still looking into that other FF5 variant I want to try, yet want to jump into something new right now, so let's do just this.


Final Fantasy II, undoubtedly the black sheep of the series. It presents you with the ability to develop your characters however you like, much like a SaGa game. Your characters have no levels, they instead develop their stats as they go along. An acquaintance of mine was playing through the PSP version of the game with only magic. Since I've been looking for an excuse to play the NES version, I've decided to undertake the same challenge.


We have four characters to name here and need some kind of theme, so - even though the cast is not all female - I felt like, hey, why not name them after Touhou characters? Marisa is our main character. Danmaku is all about firepower with her. Ergo, we will be using that character as the name of as our character who will primarily focus on Black Magic.


Here's Alice. She likes to use more strategy in her magic...so I guess that's our primarily White Magic user for lack of anyone else, because that involves a lot of buffing and such?


Patchouli, aka Patchy, aka the One Week Witch. She can do a bit of everything, so we'll use this character as our hybrid.


Then we have this character who we won't see for ages, and has associations with the demon realm, so we'll name her after Byakuren Hijiri. Actually, if we're naming after abilities in the games, she would technically best as white mage due to possessing skills to make herself stronger, but meh.


One tutorial curbstomping battle and a couple cutscenes later, we gain control. Let's quickly go over the base statistics in this game.

- Power represents the ability to do physical damage. It's raised by physical attacks, and occasionally lowered when you raise Soul. Obviously irrelevant for this playthrough.
- Agility represents the ability to go faster in battle and evade attacks. It's raised by having high agility and evasion. Yes, you read that correctly.
- Vitality represents defenses and the ability to gain HP. It's raised by taking hits in battle, and occasionally lowered when you raise Intelligence.
- Intelligence represents the ability to cast black magic. It's raised by casting black magic, and occasionally lowered when you raise Power.
- Soul represents the ability to cast white magic. It's raised by casting white magic.
- Defense is the defense rating of your equipped armor.

- Attack is weapon power.
- Hit% is divided into two sections: number of hits and accuracy. It generally goes up as your weapon level goes up.
- Evade is much the same: number of evasions and chance to evade. It goes up as you make successful evasions.
- M.Pwr is...magic power. It increases as you use magic, and also represents the ability to gain MP.
- MDef is just like the above: number of evasions for magical status and chance to do so. It goes up as you're targetted by magic.


Our magicians begin with a mere 400 Gil. As it turns out, magic is...kind of expensive. No problem though, selling off all our equipment save for a Buckler and pair of Clothes gets us enough money to afford Cure for Alice, Bolt for Patchy, and Ice for Marisa.

But why sell all our equipment? Well, there's two aspects of FF2 that often go unnoticed, but are very mechanically important. The first of these is the spellcasting penalty. This guide talks more about it, but in summary, almost all equipment in the game (particularly heavy weapons and armor) carries a penalty to Int. and Soul, that can really cripple a spellcaster - especially in the status department. This is particularly bad for anyone, but especially for our party.

So we're going to just have to get wrecked by physical attacks, right? Not exactly.


In Final Fantasy 2, characters in the back row are completely untargettable by physical attacks. At least one person must be up front though. Evasion is a very important stat in FF2, and I'd say is actually more important than actual physical defense. Later on, we'll gain access to lightweight armor that will mitigate any potential problem with attacks that do get through for Alice.


I'll be primarily using this opening post to go over some of the mechanics of the game, so it'll probably be a little more long-winded and descriptive than later installments in this report. There's no handy algorithms guide for this game I can point you to, irritably. So here's how stat levels work: the first time you select a spell or use a weapon in-battle, you gain some experience for the spell proportionate to its level and the strength of the enemies you're facing. All subsequent, you gain just a little. Casting a spell outside of battle, if possible, always gives 2 experience. The same applies to weapon skills, although this will only be relevant to shields for this variant.

There's a famous trick called the select-cancel glitch, based on the fact that it's _selecting_ the command the brings experience, not executing it. I may make use of this for this playthrough, but won't be relying on it.


Since our characters only begin with 5MP apiece, the early going is a bit on the grindy side. Kill some enemies, return to the inn, repeat. The cost of inns is based off your missing HP and MP, so it's generally more prudent to heal up with Cure before heading in.


The first quest is to head to the occupied city of Phin. I do enough training near Altea to get Patchy a Cure Book before proceeding. Along the way, Marisa levels Ice to 2. As spells grow in power and level, so do they increase in MP cost. I had to make a retreat to Gatea before heading to the town, to fill up everyone's MP.


Random encounters continue inside Phin. Patchy gets Bolt to level 2 in the town. On the way back, Alice would get her Cure and Shield skills to level 2. Shields are an important part of evasion and agility gains, despite their spellcasting penalty, so for the early game, Alice and Patchy (for now) have two each.


Returning with the Ring we get from a dying rebel soldier in Phin allows us to proceed with the story. We also gain our first fourth party member in the process.


Minh, as he's known in this translation, is the series' first named White Mage. He fits right in with our party of magicians, and has a ludicrous list of spells at his disposal. A spelllist like this, even a party that heavily abuses the select-cancel bug will be hard-pressed to achieve. Though, most of the list is of questionable use...he's still incredibly overpowered.

With the Canoe he brings, we can cross the lake and reach Palm. The magic shop here has a selection of White Magic. These all do what would would expect them to do - Blink increases evasion, Safe increases physical defense, and Shell increases magic defense. The first of these is the most important, so we get a bit of money to purchase it before moving on.

But hm. Is there any faster way to make money? Well, yes. Wandering off-course in Final Fantasy 2 is easy to do. For example, if you head north if Phin...


Oh dear. The Soldiers are enemies we'll be seeing shortly. The Mages we'll have to wait a few dungeons for normally. This is certainly one of the less drastic ways to run astray, but it's quite manageable at this point. Marisa and Patchy are able to down the soldier, but the Mages' spells wipe all but Minh off the map. What can we do? His only means of attack is the wildly inaccurate Exit.

Well, enemies actually have MP in FF2. Their stocks eventually run dry. So a Blink spell to raise evasion and some stalling later, and the Mages can only fail to attack physically. Minh is able to rebuild the party from here. So why go through this trouble?


FF2 is the first game in the series where enemies can drop items, and in fact, is quite generous with it at times. The Mages dropped a Berserk spell and an Aero spell. The latter is a poison-elemental attacking spell in the vein of Fire, Ice, and Bolt. It has less applications, but is useful anyway. The former is one of the most notable spells in the game. It's quite rare unless it's dropped, but a few castings can turn a physical attacker into a powerhouse. It's sadly of only one use to us.


Cha-ching!!


With this lump of cash, I'm able to buy Bronze Shields for Alice and Patchouli, as well as Safe and Shell for Alice. Moving onto the snowy town of Salamando, there's another selection. Life does what it says on the can. Anti is what some games refer to as Rasp. Not particularly helpful for anything other than building our MP. Warp and Exit function much like in FF4; however, they can also be cast in-battle to (potentially) instantly get rid of enemies.

I pick up Life for Alice and Warp for Marisa for now. We don't need Exit, as Minh has it, and we'll be getting a freebie soon enough. We don't need Anti either, at least not yet.


A short trip later, and we arrive at Semitt Falls, the game's first real dungeon. I made sure to grind a bit of MP with Minh's Anti before heading inside.


A few enemies do have long-range physical attacks, such as the Soldiers or these Green Goblins. But even armorless, it still doesn't really hurt Marisa that much.


At roughly the halfway point, Patchy is nearly out of MP. Marisa was able to use some weaker spells to keep things under control, but her compatriot I only bothered to get Bolt for. I have a single Ether in stock that Minh brought, but I'd rather not use it.


Still, not all is lost. You get a free Fire spell on the fourth floor. So Patchy is able to keep on fighting for a bit. I chose to run from a few encounters, though.


So here's the first boss of the game, the Sargeant. He has incredible physical defenses, which is a non-issue for our party. Except we're nearly out of magic. Oops? Minh casts Fog on him to disable his Bow attack, while Alice buffs herself.


Bolt 3, a Fire 2, and an Ice 3 are still enough to take him down.


Before leaving, I go and grab this goodie. It's guarded by a monster-in-a-box, the Land Turtle (which has already been vaporized in the second screenshot) With Minh the only one with any remaining MP, however, he has to use his Exit spell to get rid of the turtle.

Seem interesting enough to continue?