More Final Fantasy

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Have a new FF5 variant in mind, as well as an interesting concept for a FF1 one - just need to figure out the angle on it. Not sure how the former is going to turn out long-term, only up to the Fire Ship on it so far. So possibly expect more here from me soon™.

You'd have to be creative to find something for FF1 or FF5 that none of the other Realms Beyond posters have done already.  I'm interested in your next project.  You mentioned the Fire Ship, so is it a class and equipment setup that's meant to have its peak performance early in the game?


Congratulations on being able to find a use for the Thief in an FF1 variant.

[System Error]

You'd have to be creative to find something for FF1 or FF5 that none of the other Realms Beyond posters have done already.  I'm interested in your next project.  You mentioned the Fire Ship, so is it a class and equipment setup that's meant to have its peak performance early in the game?

Well first of all, it's now multiplied into three FF1 variants. Second of all who said anything about THAT? And third, here is the first of the FF1 ones, because I spent hours getting it to even function and figured I may as well knock it out of the way first.

____

The MSX2 was a home computer released in 1985, mostly popular in Japan and Europe. Before Nintendo came along with the Famicom, there was the MSX series. You probably best know it as the thing that had the original versions of Metal Gear 1 and 2 on it. A number of other franchises got their start on the system. Or ports or even full-on installments of games, such as the Castlevania game simply titled "Vampire Killer". Among the games to get a port include some of the first two Dragon Quest games, Ys I because of course that got ported to everything, and Final Fantasy.


So why play this? Well, the novelty, for one! This is probably the second-most obscure port of the game, behind the strange original phone version that was a bizarre chimera and difficult to find methods of playing. Second, besids possibly said version, this is the only port of the game that keeps fully faithful to the NES mechanics - four weapons/armor for each character, and an inventory of items and key items only. And third, it has a number of changes that give it its own unique brand of gameplay...

Of course the question becomes, what can we do on this version of the game that cannot be done on any other version?


Well, let's look to Black Belts, known as Monks in the Japanese version. The late FFClassic rated a party of four of them -43/10, lower than even 4 Thieves, and not so subtly calling them the worst class in the game. As Sullla established in the preamble to his Solo Black Belt, this is kinda bullshit? They hit effectively as hard as Fighters for most of the game, excepting high absorb enemies. The guy cites they don't get magic, but between spellcasting items and Fighters (which he rated 9/10) getting a laughable collection of spells that doesn't help, they're really just a different flavor at worst. He even rated 4 Thieves higher at 1/10! Many written variants and playthroughs can attest to him being uncredible about Black Belts, they are solid enough.

Except this is the MSX version. There's a pretty big change to them here: they do not get their unarmed bonuses. They do not get bonuses for fighting without weapons, and if they're without armor, their absorb will be 0. They're left with only their nunchucks, which peak very early, going unarmed, which is not good here, or the Masmune at the very end. This is therefore their worst showing amongst all the versions.

So, let's see if they truly deserve that -43/10 even in this worst case scenario. Of course one other thing opens up with this if you consider variants already done around Realms Beyond, but let's focus on this for now. It's a nice way to show and talk about some of the MSX version's changes and quirks without getting in the way of the variant too much, either.


Well I was GOING to use fictional martial artist names, imagine my surprise when Kenshiro and Ryu turned out to be rendered in Katakana and this game seems to only has Hiragana as an option. It also of course ruled out my first idea, using Metal Gear names because of course the only game on the MSX is Metal Gear. So I guess I have no choice but to do this...


In the shop, I bought weapons and armor. Many weapons have different names in the Japanese version, and in this instance, the Iron Nunchucks are simply known as Nunchaku (ヌンチャク). I grabbed some - even in other versions they usually want these at first, as well as Wooden, or rather, Leather Armor (かわよろい).


I got to fighting outside, reaching level 2. Right away, however, you can notice something's up. While the Monks in this version do not get their unarmed bonuses, they still retain their double hits. In fact, they retain them even when equipped with weapons. This means there is no reason for them to go unarmed in this version of the game.

Of course because the game was designed with them going unarmed in mind, their weapon selection is pretty atrocious. They get exactly six weapons to choose from, and only one - the Mas(a)mune - gives any Hit%.


Even in this environment, Garland is easy. There are a couple things worth talking about, however: other version differences! The Temple of Fiends, aka Temple of Chaos, uses its past version theme in the present. And I show this screenshot because of the changes to Respond Rate. Whereas 1 is very slow on the original versions, 1 is about as fast as say, 4 or 5 on the MSX. Comparatively 8 has messages stay up for like two frames, even less than on NES. It's going to make capping text boxes very annoying.


Here's another cool fix in this version: the invisible woman of Cornelia (コーネリア) is properly visible! The MSX is the only version that does this. She's just as invisible on the Famicom version, and later versions just remove her entirely.


Anyway, onward. Here's this scene on the MSX version. As another aside, the maps have some serious lag on the MSX. They're fairly slow and choppy due to it not being able to do smooth scrolling very well. It kinda really affects this version's playability.


Still not an issue. An odd change the NES version did, aside: the name of these enemies roughly translates to Sea Thief. In Hiragana, they're Kyzoku. It's the random encounter versions that are called Pirates.


Let's head over here though, as it's an excellent chance to talk about something important in regards to the MSX. The encounter system is VERY different to any other version. First, the encounters on the map have been slightly shifted. In regards to here, this means the big nasty monsters are all on the right side running all the way down. And a few of the tiles to the left are just Goblin/IMP. encounters

And second, whereas NES and pretty much every other version used a step count to determine when you would get encounters and what they would be, MSX seems to use a "danger value" that ticks upward as you takes steps. So for example on NES, if you save and reload state two steps away from an encounter, it will still occur in two steps on tiles which can have encounters. And it will always be the same encounter on the table. On MSX, you'll still likely get an encounter imminently since the danger value is high, but it might not be in two steps. Furthermore, it can be a different encounter entirely.

How the danger value goes up, I'm unsure of - it does seem to start at whatever values after encounters. But during a test I periodically saved to try to avoid an encounter, and it eventually got to the point where I couldn't do so anymore - the most I got was two steps away before one showed up.


Anyway I get bodied if I try to fight here now. But I did see the 1/64. Even by them, however - that one hit with 30 base damage may be able to be shrugged off by Fighters and Red Mages, but not by those with only 5 absorb. Actually, "Armor" (アーマー) in this version


I bought a number of potions before heading out on the sea. Did end up needing them, the encounter rate is pretty nutty.


And here in Elfland - or simply the Elf Village - is where my team picked up their ultimate weapons, with two astrisks beside that. Iron Nunchaku have the highest attack power of any weapon they can equip, at 16. Item ID is 9, and their critical rate if that works in this version is 10.


Because this version of the game is based off the Famicom release, you also get things like churches instead of clinics.


Anyway, I went for a rush into the Marsh Cave, called the Swamp Cave in dialogue. There's another instance of music changing in this version here - it uses the same track used in the Ice Cave and Matoya's Cave. Strange, since the actual song is in the data.


I actually got no encounters up until around that point. The danger value setup is really weird on MSX like that. This encounter showed up twice after, however. The Bloody Bone and Crawler were noticeably more durable, and after the second I decided to run from subsequent encounters to conserve my healing.


And onto these guys with their fancy blue palette in this version, Pisco Demons. I got the lowest draw of two, but still a pain in the ass by any other name.


Amazingly, I did win this encounter, with my Monks only at level 5!! I was able to lay claim to the Crown.


Though MAAAAYBE I should've prepared better? Was right out of healing at the very end, getting back with only Ryoma alive. He was poisoned by the snakes outside, and I didn't pack any antidotes. I was completely out of healing, and didn't bring Tents - which are actually Sleeping Bags (ねぶくろ) in the original version. Yet somehow he made it back, escaping from this last encounter right away at 1HP.

Well, so far so good. May as well keep going and charge right into Astos, right? Another small change, this version doesn't play the item fanfare upon talking to him. It does that in NES because you're technically getting the CROWN. Anyway, shouldn't be too bad, right?


Ahahahahahaha. Welcome to hell, me! Astos is an infamous roadblock boss for Thieves due to not being able to break through his 40 defense. Every other class on NES has a way to deal with him: Fighters and Black Belts can accumulate enough to break it, Red and Black Mages can cast, and White Mages can silence him and cast RUSE a bunch. Except this version of the game cripples Black Belts!


I couldn't try to ride this out, either. He would eventually get around to his offensive magic, and that would easily tear my team apart.


This meant it was grinding time, and I felt there was only one place to go, even if it wasn't exactly ideal. It was still faster, when I could win anyway. I got everyone to level 9 before trying again.


It still went poorly. Piss poorly, actually - I got no critical hits at all. One weird change to add: this is Astos casting FAST/Haste (ヘイスト) here. Unlike in the NES version, there's no graphical effect for this. Was a bit confused at it at first.


The annoying thing about the pennisula grind was that my team wasn't really optimized for it. Had to reload from deaths from time to time. I should also mention saving in this version: you need two disks, the game itself and a specially formatted user disk. You need to switch to it every time you use an Inn or camping item. Loading back from it isn't nearly as swift as the NES, either.


But I made it to level 10, where my Monks would get 4-hits. If it didn't work from here, I wasn't sure what I would do.

I sailed to the Elves' land, saved, and made my way to the castle...only to have to go back when a bunch of ghouls got Koji.


Much better! The more hits you have, the more chances you have to critical. I'm still not sure if the critical hit bug was fixed on this version, or if their unique unarmed formula for them still applies like the hit doubling. Either way, I was getting a lot more of them. In fact, their damage was high enough that I'd sometimes see more damage than there were hits even without a critical.


His death spell missed, and I killed him off before he could get to his nasty spells. Phew. As another version difference aside, enemies vanish when the terminated message pops up.


With this, I could run a few key-related errands, including picking this up. The Power Staff would in almost any other scenario be just selling bait. It has 12/0 offenses, and despite only Thieves and Red Mages/Wizards being unable to equip it, other available weapons outclass it. However, besides the Masamune, it has the highest item ID of all weapons Black Belts can equip.

Documentation on this version is practically nonexistent. But if the critical hit bug still exists (and they're not using their own critical hit formula too like hit doubling), this is one of the only situations where it is genuinely useful. Only a party with multiple White Mages who must attack really have a reason to use it otherwise for the same reason. For Monks if it exists, it's slightly weaker than the Iron Nunchucks but probably more worth it due to the criticals.


A neat little detail about the MSX version is that towns on the overworld have different colored roofs. Cornelia and and the Elf Village had orange ones, but here there are blue roofs.


Anyway, I picked up Silver Bracelets, which are in fact Silver Bracelets in this version, unlike the likes of Silver Swords which are actually mythril in the original Japanese.


The going through was simple. I picked up a few chests that had good money in them. I had to fight a few Earth Elementals because of it, but since I outnumbered them, all this did was cost me some potions. What I didn't pick up however were softs, aka Golden Needles. I fled on sight of any birds that showed up in front of me.


I actually had a lot of problems with getting batblocked in my trip through the cave, including with this little prick right here. You have no choice but to back up and wait for him to get out of the tunnel, and it took like two minutes with the emulator at over 500% speed. I also got a Pisco Demon group which thankfully played nice.


Nothing to see here. I just ran over the Vampire. I had more Cockatrice encounters on the way out, at least able to make it away from them.


In the "Cave of the Stone Giant", there was another music change! This uses the Sea Shrine music in this version of the game.


This time I did make sure to stock up before going back in for the second time. One annoying thing about it though, the different encounter formula was really starting to get obnoxious. On the NES I'd have like 3-4 encounters, but I had over a dozen going there and coming back, that I just ran from. They're really obnoxious and not worth my time.

There was really nothing to say headed through the cave up until B4. One of my warriors got petrified along the way, but after running I healed that easily. In B4, the strange encounter system in the MSX version struck again: I got through it encounter-free through the whole floor. Only a couple weak ones stood between me and Lich.


My warriors refused to get any critical hits for a while in this fight. That gave Lich plenty of time to go through his spell-progression, of which I presently had no way to counter.


My own damage was very slow to come out. If the criticals had cooperated, this would've been so much easier. I wasn't testing Power Staff at the time, I really should've had it on. Koji eventually went down when the next AoE spell came. Things were really bad, especially when the next hits did little damage.


But the rest of them decided to start dealing real damage, and this was the final hit.


More small things to finish this off, in the church, characters now kneel if they're weakened, say after coming back from revivival.

And that's the first part of the game! So far, I haven't actually really been affected by this change much. At this point, my Monks have 22 attack, aside from Koji who has 23. At the same level on NES, this would be 24, albeit with a much higher critical chance. Because of the quirk of hits doubling anyway, it really meant they were actually better or as good as they would be on NES. But as the game continues, that gap is going to widen, and they're going to become a low offense class. That's when the real challenge is going to begin.

Need to check the Power Staff next time too. It'll be an easy check: if I get criticals, either the NES bug is still in play or they still use their unarmed formula for criticals. Need to actually check that with another class, preferably. In any event if it actually is fixed in all regards, the nunchucks are better due to their 10% crit rate.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Except this is the MSX version. There's a pretty big change to them here: they do not get their unarmed bonuses. They do not get bonuses for fighting without weapons, and if they're without armor, their absorb will be 0. They're left with only their nunchucks, which peak very early, going unarmed, which is not good here, or the Masmune at the very end. This is therefore their worst showing amongst all the versions.

So, let's see if they truly deserve that -43/10 even in this worst case scenario. Of course one other thing opens up with this if you consider variants already done around Realms Beyond, but let's focus on this for now. It's a nice way to show and talk about some of the MSX version's changes and quirks without getting in the way of the variant too much, either.

Well, I certainly didn't expect an MSX playthrough!     Black Belts without their "no equipment" bonuses will probably chug even more potions than normal outside of combat.  Wonder what differences exist in MSX class promotion. . .

[System Error]

Well, I certainly didn't expect an MSX playthrough!     Black Belts without their "no equipment" bonuses will probably chug even more potions than normal outside of combat.  Wonder what differences exist in MSX class promotion. . .

That's the catch, as I'll get to in this update. MSX...isn't really well documented. Like some of the first few things I'm going to talk about in here wasn't even documented anywhere to my knowledge until I ran headlong into it. Of course in the original they just lose their massive magic defense growth from promoting - they get no new equipment or spell access. But I'm not sure whether or not that was changed on this version. I have no reason no to think that though, so I may go without promoting the whole way through.

_____


Here's a cool little tweak to this version; the canoe now shows in the inventory! This as an item actually existed before, it was just never put in there in the NES or Famicom versions. But it is here.


Let's otherwise open this part with some interesting/disturbing news. The run bug appears to have been fixed. Tetsuya here has 15 luck, but he still failed to run. This is going to make things harder. The flipside of it is, the last two characters have a better chance of running. And it gives Thieves their use back. Assuming running works the same way, of course.

As for the other bug, the critical hit bug? Well, it exists in some capacity for Monks. Koji with the Power Staff was still getting criticals way more than at 1%. I'm just not sure if they're always using their unique formula or if it's still bugged in the same way. I'd have to use another team to definitively check this.

Oh, and on one final bugs' note: there you won't see this encounter on the NES version. The reason being that the OddEYE/Big Eye enemy would show up in the wrong color palette. Formations were swapped around to get around this bug, although Sea Trolls still can get affected. This version fixes that and it shows up orange just fine.


But some bugs still exist. Castle of Ordeals first here. While the lack of magic really shouldn't be a strike against this team, at least any more than it should be for Fighters or Thieves, they still want the spellcasting equipment inside.


This went very smoothly for a while. The only encounter I ran into on the first floor was a set of Minotaruo Zombies (ミノタウロゾンビ), aka ZomBULLs near the end of it. The Nightmares (ナイトメア) on the spike weren't hard to dispatch, they just took a bit. Picked up the Staff of Healing afterwards. Of course there was also what is called the Ruby Bracelet (ルビーのうでわ) in the original Japanese. It's still the Monk's best purchasable piece of armor, whatever you want to call it.


Then these guys showed up. They're called Horned Devils (ホーンドデビル) in this version, but whether they're those, R.GOYLEs, or Hellbats, they start off with FIR2. I knew I had to dip as soon as I saw them, but they JUST took out Tetsuya exactly before I could escape. But there were no other encounters to bother me.


The Zeus Gauntlet, known simply as Gauntlet in Katakana (hold up, why's it in the game but not for names?!), is as good as always.


It did the majority of the damage against the single Dragon Zombie that showed up. It ultimately wasn't an issue even with a man down, Also, terminated does show up if magic lands the kill.

No problems on the way back, aside from MSX's seas that have an absurd encounter rate. Made it to the Elf Village to heal. Next up, the Cavern of Ice. I had switched the Mazin duo to the back because they were lower on levels. Daisuke got the Ruby Bracelet, Koji got the Gauntlet, and Tetsuya the Staff of Healing.


I fought mindfully through this dungeon, running from big groups of stunning undead, though still fighting those that I had to or weren't dangerous. I ran into a group of these before the end of the first floor. The Gauntlet cleaned them up quite nicely.


Small but nice change here: walking over a damage tile results in a single sound and flash, instead of the buzzing and screen blinking gray repeatedly.


One Mindflayer showed up in the pit floor. It stunned my leader, but died easily.


I also took the time in here to pick up the chests of money, as I would need to purchase the bottle soon. Showing this also to contrast the flashing palette with the normal one. Aside, the top right chest has very little cash in it and a spike in front. You can just ignore it and get the other chests from the bottom to save having to fight it.


And here it is, the Beholder. One of the more well-known changes from the original version of the game, what was in English and future versions the EYE was just straight up not even trying to hide the Dungeons & Dragons influences on the game.

Its script however, it no different. All it managed to do was miss Tetsuya with a physical, and ultimately died in one round. Got out without any incident, there was nothing else of note besides a Frost Giant. First try!


Now for yet another change to the MSX version: Ruby/Gold Bracelets cost only 10k, instead of 50k. Much more affordable. I promptly bought up three more for my remaining party members, as well as grabbing a Protection Ring on the side.


Decided to head to the waterfall next...but then Crocodiles got me. Not even the advanced ones, eesh. That meant a retreat back to Onrac.


Got to flex the Gauntlet in here, except against the MudGOLs, aka Clay Golem (クレイゴーレム). For them, I just attacked. Staff of Healing came in handy as it always does to save a few scrapes here and there


It could even wipe out a big group of Pyrolisks! Yeah, no big advanced spell charges needed, the item magic that you get is often enough for the likes of these. Criticisms of parties that don't get magic are almost completely invalid, or at least shouldn't be considered that big a strike. Magic isn't everything.


Here I am picking up the Cube. In the item menu, it's more fully rendered as the Warp Cube.


The Wizard Staff is usually the least of all the items you pick up from here. I gave it a try anyway, and if you know me, yeah, I'm totally using it on Marilith. Confusion is still bugged/strange: they still cast Fire instead of doing physicals or anything.

As an aside, it is also possible to read the weapon's name as the "Puzzler Staff". Makes sense given the spell it casts. It could very well be a pun that carries both meanings.


With this done, may as well head to the volcano next. It's had many translations over the years. If taken literally Gurgu is correct (グルグ). However, Gulug could also be appropriate, and is what FF9 and the Japanese translation script goes with. Here's another small change while we're at it: you appear under the airship instead of over it


It's a fast dungeon as always if you're not going for the loot, and a lot of it is questionable anyway. I broke up some of the monotony by actually fighting some of the encounters in it for once. Didn't get much of a chance to use the Staff of Healing.


Eek. That color for a flash is annoying here. It's not even like that on the first two floors either, it's more of a white that seems to light the place up.

There really was nothing to this one. None of the enemies here were remotely threatening, at least the ones I ran into. I saw an AGAMA, aka Fire Lizard (ファイアリザード) right at the end. I ignored it and beat it down, I can just heal with and don't have the mojo to fully restore against their damage yet anyway.


Well, here's the second fiend, Marilith in the original Japanese - another thing that was likely changed due to copyright reasons. Again, here I am running into the problem with Monks in this version of the game: they are bad at breaking defense. It's an issue with them on NES too, but one that isn't nearly as prevalent due to their criticals and scaling damage.


Making matters worse, the stupid Wizard Staff did not want to inflict its status. To remind: the base chance for a spell to hit is 148. If the target is resistant to the element, you set it to 0, and if it's weak, add 40 - these can go together for a 40. You take that number, add it to the spell's accuracy, and subtract enemy magic defense. Then roll from 0-200. If the number is less than or equal to the chance to hit, it hits (or does double damage). And 0 always hits, 200 always misses.

CONF, or Confu (コンフュ), has a base accuracy of 64. Her magic defense is 184. So assuming that's right and I did the math right too, there should be roughly a 1/3 chance of it hitting. Yet I just kept missing and missing and missing.


Finally I did hit, but she just immediately recovered. She proceeded to kill off Ryoma after previously having hit him with a huge physical. At least the staff was doing a lot to keep me going in this fight.


You might say that it might've been better to just attack her outright. And you may have been right, at least in hindsight considering the atrocious luck I had. I never have this much difficulty hitting her with status magic, sheesh! Yet eventually I landed it again, and this time, it stuck. She ended up killing herself in the end. Worth it!

Also oddly, her resistance to fire didn't seem to be applied here. In fact she was doing more damage with Fire than she should've, once hitting herself for 48.


I think there's room for one more here. After a bit and back and forth because I forgot to get the OXAYLE - called the Airwater (くうきのみず) here, I moved onto the Sea Shrine. It's known as the Temple of Onrac in dialogue in the original Japanese version, a nuance that's been lost from every other English version. Even later Japanese versions call it Undersea Temple.

What a makeover in this version of the game! It's gone for a lavender color instead of blue. Furthermore, it uses the song for the past version of Temple of Chaos. As usual for any party that allows it, the electrical weapons carried the day.


And here's the Mage Staff (まじゅつのつえ) to make it that much better. Again, it could be more literally translated as "Sorcery Staff", but it's an acceptable translation. Another thing you'll notice is that the upper floors aren't brighter on this version of the game.


What's there really to say? Whatever you want to call this place, the only trouble you can really run into here are GHOSTs/Ghosts (ゴースト) attacking you, ganging up on someone, and dealing tons of damage. That didn't happen, so it was smooth sailing indeed.


Preparations were in order for Kraken, now in his purple glory. I had Ryoma use the Defender repeatedly to cast RUSE/Blink to boost his evasion. This fight was very dangerous, he was able to overkill my leader. Tetsuya used the...Giant's Gauntlets? I read they were fixed in this version of the game, and figured why not here to try them out. Koji stuck to LIT2 itemcasts? Anyway, I wasn't anticipating too much danger from this fight. I mean come on, it's Kraken.


But he still hit 7 times anyway! I was using the Defender right, I just got horribly unlucky - Dark status didn't help either, effectively giving the octopus much more Hit% that cancelled out my buffs. Should've given him a Ribbon...


The octopus then cherry tapped him with one hit.


Soon thereafter, he landed another massive hit on another warrior, and it was down to one. Ugh. Come on, don't make me repeat this all over again!


Yes! But, that was strange. There were no critical hits here, which were otherwise needed to do damage. Tetsuya was using the Giant's Gauntlets. But...they seem to act weird in this version. I tested them out before on a shark and after on goblins, and they didn't seem to be increasing his damage to crazy heights through repeated use. However, they evidently were here, as he was able to deal damage without a critical to get me the win here.

Which is strange. I've seen at least one source directly say the magic bugs were fixed in this version, and another indirectly say so. Here it was working...yet it wasn't working. What is going on here??? Well, I won. As far as some bugged spells are concerned, I can say through some quick no effort testing that LOCK/Shape (シェイプ) was fixed and can now hit. I hope Temper works at least...it's important for another variant I have in mind after this.

This is what I get for playing on the MSX version, I guess. Running headlong into things like this. Hope it actually works out the same way on future bosses though, it'll save me a lot of hassle.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

That's the catch, as I'll get to in this update. MSX...isn't really well documented. Like some of the first few things I'm going to talk about in here wasn't even documented anywhere to my knowledge until I ran headlong into it. Of course in the original they just lose their massive magic defense growth from promoting - they get no new equipment or spell access. But I'm not sure whether or not that was changed on this version. I have no reason no to think that though, so I may go without promoting the whole way through.


The Zeus Gauntlet, known simply as Gauntlet in Katakana (hold up, why's it in the game but not for names?!), is as good as always.



Now for yet another change to the MSX version: Ruby/Gold Bracelets cost only 10k, instead of 50k. Much more affordable. I promptly bought up three more for my remaining party members, as well as grabbing a Protection Ring on the side.

Did the MSX have enough of a memory limitation that it was the reason the programmers omitted katakana for names?  Calling the item "Gauntlet" instead of the more descriptive "Zeus Gauntlet" sounds like it was done to save space too.  (I could be wrong about all this.)


Are other items noticeably cheaper or more expensive in this version?


As for the "Mage/Sorcery Staff", does Japanese make subtle distinctions among various types of magic like in English?  In several of the Spanish gamebooks I played, I ran into this issue.  (e.g. "rey brujo" became "warlock king", and "sorcerer" seemed right for "hechicero").


Would it be possible to make a separate save state or something to mess with promotion?

[System Error]

Did the MSX have enough of a memory limitation that it was the reason the programmers omitted katakana for names?  Calling the item "Gauntlet" instead of the more descriptive "Zeus Gauntlet" sounds like it was done to save space too.  (I could be wrong about all this.)


Are other items noticeably cheaper or more expensive in this version?


As for the "Mage/Sorcery Staff", does Japanese make subtle distinctions among various types of magic like in English?  In several of the Spanish gamebooks I played, I ran into this issue.  (e.g. "rey brujo" became "warlock king", and "sorcerer" seemed right for "hechicero").


Would it be possible to make a separate save state or something to mess with promotion?

There shouldn't have been a problem with Gauntlet's name. The only item that I know that's changed in price is that one. Unsure about the Japanese, though I'm getting most of it from this handy translation guide. As for promotion...to jump ahead of even this update, I'm 100% sure that BBs still get their +4 to Magic Defense. There's no reason to promote at all in this game.

Makes them interesting in parties, that said. Some classes will want to promote ASAP, but the later you promote a BB, the better. Still, if you're going through the game normally, they'll end up with fairly comparable MDef stats to the other classes, as long as you don't grind a ton after the fact.

_____

I wanted to do some equipment planning before heading into the last couple dungeons. I wanted all characters to have at least one attacking item. I also wanted to have all three of the healing ones in play. Thankfully an unstated advantage of Monks is that they have no reason to consider their shield slot. So that's fully free. Two can hold the Heal Helmets, and the other two get the Black Shirt and Gauntlet.

Now there's only three Ribbons in the game...oh, damn it, I forgot to get the one in the Temple of Onrac! Had to go back and grab that, but it at least helped with grinding. Anyway, three Ribbons. So I can sacrifice a cap on someone to give them something else. But do I want that to be the Giant's Gauntlets banking on them having something after that debacle, or do I want it to be the White Shirt? I'll have to figure that one out.

Weapons-wise. Everyone will want their attacking weapon of course, that's one slot each. The two helmet wielders will want the Mage Staff and Thor Hammer. One of the others gets the staff, and I guess I can wing it from there.


T REX, aka Tyrannosaurus, actually showed up as I was heading to pick up the CHIME, still in fact called a Chime in Japanese. This was for the most part a simple melee. My Monks could deal good damage, and he couldn't deal enough to kill before he got killed. It was as simple as that.

...then I found out I forgot to use the Rosetta Stone. Ack. Hate the overworld on this version, it's so slow, so in doing as much to avoid going on it as possible, I avoided Melmond. Well, more grinding from the back and forth I guess.


Once that was out My first trip into the tower came to an abrupt end on the second floor. I ran into a random Blue Dragon! It promptly wiped out half the party with its lightning (いなずま). I was doing little physical damage, and was forced to get out of there while I still could.

Oh yes, it uses the volcano/Earth Cave song instead. They completely scrubbed the theme it uses from the game! Again, it's still in the data. You can listen to it here, it's just not ever used for some reason. Aside, give some of these tracks a listen if you can. The battle theme in particular sounds like a prototype of what they'd do with later remixes.


It's felt like it's ages since I've been in this room. Here's the Thor Hammer, still in fact called that in Japanese. Now 3/4 of my warriors had an itemcast weapon. I gave this one to Ryoma, because Tetsuya was still using the Staff of Healing when involved with things.


Something was amiss with the Blue Dragon, however. When I was testing fighting it before, my hits were pretty weak, so I tried magic. It's weak to Fire, so I figured that could do a ton of damage. Instead, it was doing less than expected, only around 71 at most. And instead the electric ones were doing tons of damage.

Heading into the Floating Castle (also a banger) I picked up the Raze Sabre (レイズサーベル) along the way, quite naturally. You might know it better as the BANE sword. Of course I'm going to use it to kill Tiamat, there's just no other way to do so at this point. His fault for having a weakness to it...


The other big pickup was the third Ribbon, hitting level 21 on everyone along the way. On NES this would be the big breakthrough point for them. But for this team, it's just an extra set of hits. The Black Robe was the last thing I wanted in here. Now everyone had a itemcasting piece of equipment.

Here's the other graphics that were changed for the US release of FF1, the topless Medusa. I also mention it because I actually had to pause here for a moment. I was like "what are those blue things?" Then I remembered those are Mancats and I probably wanted to run from this even though I could've fired all the spellcasting items off. At this point everyone had one.


Anyway--


Yuuuuuuup, here it is, in its fabulous pink palette in this version of the game. Didn't leave me alone in my variant playthroughs for very long. Fine, let's just get this over with. At least I actually got a preemptive attack on it, miraculously.


Uh, hold up, what? I forgot where I put my items and accidentally ended up using the Black Robe on it instead of having Tetsuya try and use the Giant's Gauntlets to buff again. That was did way more damage than it should have. Warmech, or Death Machine as it's known as, is supposed to be immune to all elements. Yet here I am hitting it for more than ICE2 usually does...unless hitting a weakness. Consider the what happened a bit earlier with Blue Dragon too. Is this for real...?


Yes, yes it is. This version is completely screwed up. The others got some crits in first round, so they did some damage, but I had a way to fight this thing.


It got in one attack, a physical, before being killed by the items on turn 3.


Absolutely ridiculous. I've never seen this talked about in the MSX version before. Resistances seem to count as weaknesses, at least when it comes to damage. I'm not sure if it does when it comes to status, but if it does - and I'm going to test if it does, that has HUGE ramifications for this version.


Well, the instant death spell didn't want to cooperate, so I really had little choice but to take advantage of it. From what happened with Marilith and trying to land the Confu too, weaknesses may also be bugged in some way - come to think of it, my damage was pretty low in the Temple of Onrac against Sahagin groups too. I'll have to do a bit of testing on that to be sure.


This fight started going south really fast. I didn't get a chance to use the Raze Sabre because Tiamat just flattened the wielder of it. Then Ryoma went down to another ability burst, and Koji was killed by a physical.


Daisuke did pull through in the end, however.


All four crystals lit. It also occurs to me that I never actually showed a picture of an unlit one before - this version gives them different palettes. Here's what they look like unlit from way back when.

Anyway, a brief diversion. To sum it up, what seems to be happening on this version is that weaknesses are not applied to enemies, and resistances instead count as weaknesses. For fixing some of the bugs from the original, this sure is a massive coding failure on their part.

What about actually making use of this besides the desperation/styling on the idiot who dared show his face in front of me yet again? Well. As I stated in the preamble, the partial purpose of this variant is to see whether this party is truly as bad as the FFClassic guy claims it is even in their worst showing. Bug or not, it is an aspect of this version of the game that affects/improves mages too. It can't really be ignored, especially if you're going all out. So I'll use it if I have to, but will stay away from the most obvious abuses of it.


Anyway I'm going to grinding hell! It is a very real place. Since my plan is to try to win without relying on this resistance bug overly much, I need to do so. Monks rely almost entirely on critical hits in this version of the game. Since I didn't strength grind, my best and only way of making it is adding more hits, which means adding more levels. This means level 32, which means 399250 experience.




...





You know what? Let's just go. If I die too many times, well, still probably less bad than grinding hell. Final music change, it uses the song originally used in the Sea Shrine.


First trip in met up with my other nemesis besides Warmech! At least with Ribbons, they're relatively tame. Of course, only three can have them. Not too difficult to recover from. Other than that, this was about the most threatening thing I saw on the way.


Death Beholder, as it's known as, was physically vulnerable enough to be damaged without criticals, although I still saw a few X-Hits/X-Damage shots. Still keeps its status as the least threatening of the trio.


I ran into three sets of Earth Elementals on the way to Lich. Mostly an annoyance. Their damage did add up, however. In fact, I took lots of scratch damage along the way. I may have to get that White Robe after all, just to have enough healing to get through. Especially with the likes of Lich and his Flare.


But speaking of, I wanted to test one thing before inevitably failing. And yup, the resistance=weakness thing even extends to status spells. Lich is supposed to be immune to poison effects. Combined with its reasonable Magic Defense of 140 (how I was able to bank on QAKE in some previous challenges), he never stood a chance.


I kept moving on for the hell of it. Turns out I may have just missed the crit box on Kraken with the Giant's Gauntlets before, or at least if not that, it takes a lot more casts than the single one I tried. I'm inclined to think that even if it does do something, that it isn't going to be much help, whereas the White Robe will be. With that I can heal up with the item casting equipment on anything that's strictly physical.

Got destroyed against her, too. Definitely will need to use that against her and Kraken, so time to go get it. I somehow ended up not taking any pictures along the way. The fastest way out from there was across the dreaded bridge, but the robot stayed away this time.


My first trip into the temple met an end on the way to the Earth floor by way of these things. On the second trip, I got ambushed by SLIMEs/Black Puddings (ブラックプリン) two steps in who took out a huge chunk of my HP. Felt it was better and quicker to reset. Then it happened AGAIN, same two steps, same ambush. Fourth is when I finally started making progress.


Any encounter with only physical enemies, or that I could get down to only physical enemies, were excellent for restoring HP. It sure took time, however. Thank goodness for speedup.


Lich hit with his big nuke, but I brought him down without incident.

I healed up on a Fire Gigas afterwards. Not AGAMA, the spread damage fire is too obstructive for a team that doesn't have full protection.


This was a bit of a tight thing. No issues here otherwise once I got up the evasion stacks, however.


Used potions to rebuild Ryoma's HP to a safer value before healing up the reset of the way against Water Elementals. The rest of the opposition on the floor were groups with Sea Trolls, Snakes, and Scorpions, that I just ran from. Kraken was going to be the big gut check.


And of course he did this. Why would he not? I may have to grind not necessarily for the added hits and damage potential, but just to survive this guy.


I did beat him, but that could spell trouble for the rest of the temple. I rearranged my inventory and kept going. I ran into a bit of trouble here when I rearranged it wrong and the White Robe and Staff of Healing ended up on the same character, heh. Did fix that and was able to resume my healing, eventually. My potion stocks were right out by the end of the floor...


But never mind that, now I could lay claim to the Masamune! Indeed, like any other weapon (or lack thereof) a Monk wields in this version of the game, it gets double the hits. In fact, this could expose a bug in this version where four digit damage isn't properly shown, although it still did the full amount of damage.


And here I am running into this 3/64 encounter again. Got out of it no problem.


I still needed critical hits to do any amount of real damage to high defense things. My damage varied greatly against Tiamat, which ended up being a bit of a tight thing because of that. She at least didn't use any of her AoE moves. Towards the end, Tetsuya ripped out first a 276, then that last one sealed the deal! That's what I like to see, and what I need to see against Chaos!


This version of the game retains two things about this floor from the Famicom version. First, there's still random encounters here! I don't know where they draw from, but I saw Purple Worms among them, so I assume it's similar if not identical to the Air floor. Second, the layout of the room is a pentagram, which meant a bit more running around.

I was able to get some worms to fight, which I used to heal back up to full despite a bit of nonsense with critical hits.


Can I do this a man down? Here's Tetsuya's stats. If he'd hit level 26, he would have 10 hits with the Masamune, so i guess I don't necessarily have to go to 32.

Well, here I go.


The initial going was good. Koji and Ryoma did 63 and 80 respectively, Chaos physically attacked Koji for 140.


Tetsuya landed some good solid hits over the next two turns. Slowly getting there.


Chaos landed one of his own on Koji, however. Could I still do this? I definitely theoretically have the damage at this level. My hits were generally good enough. I wasn't damage counting, or tracking it via a code, so I didn't know how close I was.


But alas...there's CUR4/Curega (ケアルガ). And yes, the level 4 spell uses the -ga suffix, even though the Black Magic ones use -ga as well. CUR3 is Cureda. That really was it, no way to deal enough damage in time before getting wiped from here, especially with yet another one of my warriors down on the floor.


...



Whatever. CUR4 this, bitch.

I'll do this properly on the other side of the grind next time.

[T-hawk]

Fun reading. It's definitely a different experience on a platform where you don't know the underlying mechanics, unlike the NES version where every byte has been disassembled under a microscope.

The Canoe exists and can show up as an item in the NES version by hacking. I once was playing around with hex-editing an emulator save-state and that happened.

Does the MSX emulator have any memory-view functions? You might be able to find the character stats and track what's going on with the Giant's Gauntlets. You'd have to disassemble code to find out what's going on with crits, though.

[System Error]

Fun reading.  It's definitely a different experience on a platform where you don't know the underlying mechanics, unlike the NES version where every byte has been disassembled under a microscope.

The Canoe exists and can show up as an item in the NES version by hacking.  I once was playing around with hex-editing an emulator save-state and that happened.

Does the MSX emulator have any memory-view functions?  You might be able to find the character stats and track what's going on with the Giant's Gauntlets.  You'd have to disassemble code to find out what's going on with crits, though.

More or less! It's the same, except when it's not. And that's when you get taken off guard. Did know about the Canoe thing in NES, yeah, as mentioned. Pretty neat that they added it. And I believe blueMSX does has memory viewing. A bit late for it now though, since I turfed the things.

_____

That was among the most satisfying things I've ever done in FF1. Apparently I got EXTREMELY lucky too to even see that, from a video I saw it may not be as easy to do that as I thought, bug in this version or not. Amazing comedic timing in any case. But as much as I love kicking things down stairs, I don't think it's the most satisfying way to end this report, either.

Fine, fine, I guess I am going to grinding hell after all. That'll give me some more damage once I get the Masamune and hopefully give more of a buffer for Kraken's stupid overpowered attacks. As mentioned, I'm first going to try level 26, maybe 28 for the next strong HP up after that. It's only a third of the grind, as well.


I tried a few places. Waterfall was too variable for my tastes. Problem with the Beholder in the Ice Cave was using speedup and have very little wiggle room for it. Blue Dragon just killed me. So I went for random encounters, and went for the biggest balled option out there.


This actually wasn't a bad place to level at all. Even against Mindflayers, it seems Monks retain their abnormal magic defense growth on this version, preventing their paralysis. As I figured they would, so there's no reason to change class to what's known as "Supermonk" at all. Even their instant death physicals never went off - wonder if they're death elemental on this version? The fights paid out handsomely each time.

No more robots, but I did run into a couple Dark Fighters. Here's an odd change I learned, too: the NES version may have made him the 3/64, compared to being 1/64 on Famicom and subsequent versions. Dunno if it's true or not. I actually hit level 27 on everyone before going in.


Anyway, the second run at the temple. Got through the first room without an encounter. Partway through the second I ran into an Ice Gigas/Winter Wolf encounter. Easy to wipe out the wolves then heal up. As I rounded the bend in the next floor, I ran into a group of BADMEN/Black Knights. Took it out no problem. Two rounds of attacks brought down the Death Beholder. Dragon Zombies after heading beyond the plate let me heal scrapes. I ran from these after, Chimeras and Goh Chimeras. No sense fighting them. Another wolf/gigas group after that let me heal up. Back on the main floor, it was White Dragons! But, I instantly escaped and made it to the Earth floor.


Four straight groups of Earth Medusas followed. They stunned Tetsuya in the first fight, but were no threat otherwise - attack items wiped them. That was all I ran into on the way to Lich, just them. I used three potions to top everyone up before fighting him. He hit Koji with the legendary max damage NUKE/Flare! But with the Monk's high HP, he survived. The boneman went down on round 2. I used potions to get Koji and Daisuke over 300HP for some buffer.

The next encounter on the fire floor was Lava Worms, a perfect opponent to heal against. I ran into more of them in the room, and Fire Lizards a step before Marilith. I ran from both, the latter being a preemptive. Potioned Daisuke since he took some attacks on the first of them.


She started off with a 187 damage physical on Ryoma, following it up with 173 on Daisuke. Everyone but Tetsuya was attacking her, him using the White Robe. She missed Ryoma altogether on turn 3, then missed Tetsuya on turn 4. So she never did anything but physicals, dying on turn 4.


Healed up against the Water Elementals afterwards, though it got slightly dangerous before I got the evade stacks up. Next group was trolls, lobsters, and snakes. Easily erased with items. Another group sans the lobsters showed up after. And yet another as an ambush after that. I went ahead and healed there. Daisuke hit level 28 from that. One step later was more waters, with yet more a short time after - healed off them again. Then trolls and lobsters right before Kraken.


The octopus opened up with a pair of LIT3s/Thungahs (サンガー) that brought everyone to this amount of HP. Better than physicals, I suppose - got them up in enough time so that his attack of Ryoma in this turn did manageable damage. He missed Daisuke on the next turn. I thought I was in the clear at this point, but..


NO NO STOP I MISSED THAT BECAUSE OF MSX'S BOXES VANISHING TOO FAST BUT HE HIT FOR LIKE 400 YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT WITH THAT MANY STACKS UP


Thankfully, all he did from there on the next turn was hit Ryoma just once, and died on said turn. Ughhh...I'm starting to dislike this fight. I healed up with potions. I would just use them from this point out in the temple, the healing items had done their job in getting me this far.

The Masamune awaited on the next floor. Had no encounters on the way to it. Koji got it this time, as the Ribbon-bearer in the back and tying for the most strength anyway. I ran from a group of Air Elementals and something else that escapes me before running into...


...Iron Golem! I've run into all three rare monsters on this variant, fancy that. Recall from them showing up in my Capitalists challenge this is an unrunnable encounter, so I had to fight it - though was planning to anyway. At least in this run I had an actual weapon and good crit rates to pierce their massive defense.


And that's it. Didn't get a chance to do anything. How boring. As a random rare encounter aside  that I've just now realized...I complain/joke about getting Warmeched a lot (who is 3/64 on NES), but I've actually been T Rexed a lot too. They've shown up in every variant of mine without me having to look for one except the Capitalists, where I just went and looked for one. Of course it's probably the least famous 1/64, probably in part due to showing up in multiple places. Compare to this or Warmech, who only show up in one room you're unlikely to spend a lot of time in.

Anyway few steps later was a vampire (lord) group, before Tiamat.


Koji was NOT playing around. The BANE/Clouder (クラウダ - probably a play off Cloudkill because D&D) missed Tetsuya. But the dragon fell on turn 3. I faced no further interruptions from random encounters on either that floor or Chaos'.



Final stats before heading in! Let's get the proper music for this team playing here too.


The only thing to do, to reference another mecha anime entirely, was attack, attack, attack! No bothering with the items, the damaging ones probably won't double and I need to kill him as soon as I can. No bothering with the White Robe or healing either. Ryoma did 56, Tetsuya did 3, Daisuke did 124, Chaos used his first spell for 108/126/214/90, and Koji did 284! 1533 remaining, so far so good!


Next round, Koji did a mere 107 damage. Ryoma hit for 84, Daisuke 61. Chaos decided to use CRACK/Earthquake at this point, which did nothing against the ribbon holders and Tetsuya's massive magic defense. Tetsuya hit for 48. That went extremely poorly, 1233 left.


Turn three! Ryoma hit 67. Chaos did 94/78/178/98 with his next spell. Tetsuya did 90, Daisuke 4, and Koji 240. Not what I need to see, him going through his spells like that. 832 remaining. Maybe it won't matter?


Ryoma did 167 to start the fourth turn. Chaos busted out Thunderbolt for 138/148/266/178, killing Tetsuya! Also not what I want to see! Daisuke did 41, and Koji 294! Chaos has 330HP left, but I have to stay alive and deal enough!!


Koji opened up the fifth round with a 175 damage hit. Daisuke did 83. And Ryoma did 106...


...finishing the battle off! And yes, the shot is maligned like that. The MSX' shaking animation is about as smooth as its scrolling.


Hey, actual credits at the end! Another thing exclusive to this version, checking the Japanese script for the Famicom version which I used as a reference a lot during this playthrough for names. After the initial credits it goes into credits for the MSX version. The downside is that the music doesn't end like it does on the originals, infinitely looping instead.

So that's the MSX version of Final Fantasy 1. Is it worth playing? Casually, not really. There's not a lot it has to offer over the NES version, and if you want, a bugfix patch can give you most of what it has going for it. But assuming everything and every version, it is a unique entity of its own that has reason to play it over other ones. They did put some effort into it, as shown by some of the bugfixes, even if some of the bugs it introduces are even worse than that. If you're a fan of FF1 and are curious or a hardcore fan, it's something to check out. Definitely bring a speedup though, because the map lag can be atrocious.

But let's get to our mission statement. Do the Monks deserve the -43/10 on this version, where most of their advantage is stripped away? I'd say no; they're still better than Thieves but indisputably the second-worst class in the game here. There was really no reason to take away their primary advantage/gimmick. I'm in fact inclined to think it was a bug, due to the hit doubling applying in all instances. If it was a conscious decision...that was an interesting way to try to rebalance them while still giving them use. It improves their early game and makes a grinded one not completely broken. Still, as I mentioned, not having proper weapons for most of the game makes them lag until the very very end with Masamune.

MSX took Monks from an underrated powerhouse class to being underpowered, albeit with a hook in the hit doubling to give them some purpose. Either way, as pretty much everyone knows or should know - FFClassic was totally wrong about them and it is also a dead website. RIP in peace.


One final change: The End just fades in rather than being drawn.

Thanks for reading. Of course, as I alluded to, I'm not done with MSX FF1 just yet. This change to Monk does have interesting ramifications when it comes to variants. Those that didn't consider using them because of their fists for one reason or another now have reason to use them. Look forward to that after I iron out a few things in my life, and maybe do another one on NES that I came up with during this variant. It also involves Black Belts! And should be on the higher end of difficulty too. Look forward to those eventually!

[System Error]

Well I'm bored and had more spare time than I expected the past few days, so I'll post the first part of this now. Also because I hit the max of 100 screenshots on the emulator and needed to cut anyway. It went in a very different direction than I was expecting, that said.

_____

Black Belts/Monks had a significant change to them in the MSX version of Final Fantasy 1, as I went over in my previous report. Regardless of the nature of it, it can now be considered for variants that it was not before. That said, there's two with little point: they're mostly inferior to another FIghter for Capitalists, and Living Off The Land gives them like nothing to work with.

So let's look to another variant that was done here on the NES version, the Iron Fists. A crazy silly challenge done by Sullla on NES FF1 - to play out by fighting unarmed with non-Black Belt classes who suck at fighting unarmed. Due to the changes on the MSX version, however, Black Belt itself sucks at fighting unarmed. What's more, due to still maintaining the double hits, this gives it a real reason to be used here.


So with that in mind, how does this change the party? Not much. Fighter is still a superior option for defense, White Mage is still wanted for healing, and Red Mage for more healing and further utility. The messed up Black Belt will be a far superior offensive presence over the Fighter.


Except for one thing that I thankfully had the sense to sanity check. While LOCK seems fixed, TMPR and SABR are still broken. Exploring that was the whole point of me wanting to do this challenge on this version. There's not too much point without, though - a Monk will just end up doing more 1-damage hits, and they'd have huge magic defense if you delay your class change for as long as you can. Not too much purpose when you can just stall forever. I could use a bugfix patch, but those tend to change way too much - notably the most prominent one even kills the Peninsula of Power which every official version has maintained!


So we're goin' to the Wonderswan! This was Bandai's foray into the console market, released in Japan in 1999. It was developed in-part by Gunpei Yokoi, the same man who created the original Game Boy. The Color version was released in 2000. It suffered from a lack of third-party support, with most of the games on it being licensed works. However, Square notably gave it support in the form of ports of Final Fantasy and SaGa games - there were even plans for ports of FF3 and Secret of Mana before cancelation. Also it presently has the only Super Robot Wars game with Escaflowne.

FF1 and 2 in particular ended up being the basis for every later port of the game - and Origins in particular is more or less just those versions except on the PSX and a few extra additions. Yet they retain a lot as well, unlike GBA onwards.

So Temper and Saber work. If that were just that, there'd still be little reason to play this for repeating such a challenge myself. But the HP of the fiends and Chaos has been doubled in this version. Sure, now Iron Fists would be able to hit harder, but they'll also have to last through fights longer as well. How different would it end up because of those two changes? That's what I'm going to find out.


There's really no reason to take a different party than what Sullla did on this version. While a second Red Mage for more Tempers is tempting - particularly for Chaos, I feel the higher class White spells will be more important for getting there in the first place. Though I'm going to make one minor adjustment to the rules for the Neo Iron Fists: instead of disallowing any spell that targets an enemy, I'll just be banning those that kill and damage. So status spells are fair game in my version of it.

As I write this my copy of Super Robot Wars V for Switch has arrived at its destination. However, that's not where I am right now. I was tempted to go Ange/Jill/Sala/Tusk in yet more anime referencing, also with the hilarity of the only male being the White Mage. But eh. We'll go with the usual sorts of names.


This is the first version of the game that introduces many of the "hooks" of later versions, like being railroaded into seeing the King or various cutscenes in the game. But while the game has something of a modern makeover and bugs have been fixed, the mechanics are otherwise the original, and a number of quality of life improvements are optional: ineffective retargetting, B-button dashing, SOFT/LIFE/LIF2 being usable in-battle, and another more minor thing I forget.

Note that while you can leave some of these legacy options on, just the different engine for the game means you can't perfectly emulate the NES for any particular challenge. For example, spellcasting items can be used without having them in your inventory, although only once per item you have per turn. While I will be leaving these options off, I'm won't and just can't completely follow every aspect of the NES version.

One that still is in play, though: gotta use an inn or resting item to save.


Nothing to say about the early grind. Still more than capable of killing the basic Goblin enemies at the start of the game while taking barely any damage at all. One thing I was quickly noticing were the misses. I was getting a lot of them. I decided to check the accuracy formula, and if there's anything that makes some weapons (or lack thereof) miss more than others, it's not listed.


I fought Garland at level 2 and trashed him. Unlike later versions of the game, on WSC/Origins, no changes/improvements have been made to either him or Astos.


Even with bare fists at level 2 this guy is like nothing. And he's supposed to be the greatest knight in all of the kingdom, who struck down everyone who attempted to defeat him before this? Shameful display.


Here's a random aside: the gender of the White Mage? In fact, by the original Japanese script the Light Warriors may all be male. Sarah's (unnamed!) sister uses the term Onii-chan (おにいちゃん) here to refer to your team, which of course literally means older brother, and uses a pluralar form. So there you go. Not sure if it differs in later versions. For the record, the line in NES removes any reference to gender, and later English translations are neutral, though she does kiss them on PSP.


The walk to Pravoka was highlighted by opponents who did not want to stop going after Doc. I had to reset or retreat more than one time due to monsters suddenly ganging up on him, though he'd occasionally come through with the big dodges like this.


Boring, boring, boring. Even Doc could one-shot these guys. You know come to think about it, this game goes in a bit too hard on everybody else besides the heroes being useless.


Very quickly I went ahead and picked up the big working spell. If you've read my report of the FFZZ romhack, or my solo Monk on PSP, you already have an idea of what attack buffing can do for a team

And so the grind began. But I'm impatient and was getting less money than expected.


So are you ready for some 15 tile puzzle?! This version of the game was the first to introduce time ranking and additional rewards beyond 100 gil. This is a handy guide on one simple way to approach them. Or you can totally cheat and grab a solver.


By finishing at all, you'll get the same 100 gil you would on NES. But if you finish in first place in terms of speed, you'll get a bonus of 10000 gil, and two of each consumable item. Obviously, this means you'll want to stall until right before time is about to tick over. It's an excellent way of making money without getting experience and is a staple of low level games, but you can use it in any circumstance too.

So should I really use it? Well, it's nothing you couldn't do on the NES version, really. You'd just be doing it about 100x more. It doesn't help much in the long term, especially in a challenge that will be grinding enough anyway and will become filthy rich by default. But in the short term? It'll come in handy. I'll explain in a bit. Not gonna go too crazy with it. Like I said, I do need the experience too.


I did this twice for a boost of 20k. So with the spoils from that, I was able to fully armor everyone up, as well as buy 99 potions and antidotes.


And here I am about to head into the Marsh Cave at level 4, wielding nothing but bare fists. Yes, I can be a bit rushy, I admitted that much from my very first variant here. But I'm confident I can pull it off! Check out that absurd sleeping bag sprite on the map, too - recall that they're not actually TENTs in Japanese. It looks like a sausage roll or burrito or something.


Do expect this to take a bit, though. So there's little reason to fight on the way down. Even if I was fighting on the way down though, I'd still run from these guys. They already have the potential to stunlock and kill an entire proper party, so the Neo Iron Fists who take forever to kill definitely would end up that way if I didn't peace out.

Didn't take long to get down there at all. I got to the Pisco Demons without incident..


Hoo, boy. The max draw. Already however you can see the buffing spell in action. With this, and not a lot of misses as I've been repeatedly getting...


...and uh, not my White Mage getting killed for over his max HP


Damn it!

I'm not giving up! I reloaded and charged right back in there. Had a few incidents of Crawlers being obnoxious with paralysis and having trouble running from Gargoyles, but that's it.


Three of the things. That's better, riiiiii...ugh. I tried, but they kept getting big hits. I died once again.


Next try, two of them! This surely will go a lot bett...err...okay, still alive. I just need to have the idiots stop missing. I swear there really is something that makes you hit or miss more, sheesh.


All right, you miserable mollusk mouthed monstrosities. Look here. I got 95 potions that say YOU DON'T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BRING ME DOWN.


Ha! Told you so! They didn't even go after the very weak Powa, allowing me to heal them up when I was able to. And that's just a taste of what TMPR could've done had it worked on the NES version.


No incidents on the way out, even though there was the potential. Made it out of the cave and saved with a sleeping bag. Good thing too heh, I did get stunlocked and murdered on the way back.


Already I was beginning to notice the team's durability. I had no issues taking this group of Ogres down over a period of several turns. I mean yeah, it's something any party of Fighters could do, but even with minimal offense, they can indeed last for a long while. Especially with item use. This isn't even something exclusive to this version, either: remember, DRINK exists on NES and can be used on any party member.

Here's another fact: although the WSC version of the game introduced the boss themes and a few others, it does not have the ruined castle theme. That came later on in Origins. I actually highly recommend giving the WSC version of the OST a listen. It more or less upscales the soundtrack from the NES, while still retaining the spirit of the original versions. Especially noticable contrasting the dungeon/volcano themes with their Origins versions.


Onto Astos! I had no issues with breaking through his defense with this team. One casting of Temper let me deal damage, and since Powa had three, I used the third on Whak. Being slowed was no issue with only having one hit in the first place.


So I could...eventually get horribly killed by his magic? That's not right!

I thought I would be eventually able to push myself over the hump and win anyway, but my party just kept missing and missing until they died from him cycling to his Death spell again and physically killing the other.


I kept trying and trying. There was one time where Tuff ripped out a critical for 54 damage. I had to have been close on that one, but...dead again.

So that's it. I'm taking advantage of my rules tweaking to put this guy in the dumpster.


I had an incident with paralysis on the way back from getting the relevant spells. Don't think I've ever had THIS happen before, heh. But it was more of an annoyance than a real threat to my warriors.


This kinda fits with the spirit in my opinion, which is why I tweaked the rules a bit. The original Iron Fists were about getting up a defensive line and becoming impossible to kill, wearing down the enemy. But what's a debuff on the enemy but another part of the defensive line? One thing to note about MUTE on this and subsequent versions: enemies will no longer waste turns casting ineffective spells and abilities when inflicted by it.

That is once I did get it to hit. Took like two dozen tries. But from there the fight was elementary, even though I had to still hit. And I piled on further by putting the LOCK/Shape (シェイプ) spell to work. This decreases enemy evasion by 10. It's a pretty useless spell most of the time, but the Neo Iron Fists could make use of it here by speeding the fight up. Blind status can do more if you land it, but it's much harder to do so.


And he's dead! Don't completely disregard the status spells in Final Fantasy 1. They can be an excellent defensive asset.


The new aspects about this version allowed me to complete this leg of the game in just under 2:30, at level 5 (having gained level 6 from the Astos fight), using nothing but bare fists. Though truth be told? Even though this was partially to avoid grinding hell, I know I can't avoid grinding hell forever. Sooner or later I'm going to have to go to it - knew that from the start going into this. Ship game just let me get by this part of the game quicker so that I can move onto the part of the game where I can actually start getting decent armor and therefore not have to pay as much attention in grinding fights.

[System Error]

With the ocean opened up, that meant access to Melmond and Crescent Lake, and therefore access to the best storebought armors for Fighters. Of course these all cost tons of money, the armors alone are a cool 45000 apiece.


So are you ready for some more 15-tile puzzle?! One good thing about this version, by the way, is that it's MUCH more manageable to do. The default time on GBA and derivatives is 30 seconds.

You need luck and some crazy savant skills to solve in under 30 seconds. Closest I came was around this much. The default first place time on WSC and Origins is two minutes, very manageable. My average time was somewhere over a minute, so I'd have plenty of time to sit back and wait for time to tick up.

Though the later versions also remove the monetary rewards in favor of the new items introduced, and the ones useful for low level and such you don't need to go too crazy to get - in fact, 3rd place for them is still under two minutes. As long as you save the Emergency Exit (skips the Zombie Dragons) for last, since that requires a sub one-minute time, and the default one minute will end up being pushed to 3rd. It's kind of a bad system of prize-rewarding, really. But that's just diversionary talk to spice this up.


After grabbing those armors I made my way to Crescent to pick up mythril gear. One thing to keep in mind about this version: enemy regeneration has been fixed for this version. This meant the Neo Iron Fists had to run or buff against certain enemies, or else it would be impossible to actually kill them.


The Fighters had tons of defense when all was said any done.


And with that, I could head to the peninsula for grinding! I chose here instead of around Crescent due to having more profitable fights and less annoying poison. My objective was level 11. That would get me two charges of Haste. Hit it before too long. There's nothing really to say about the grind. I used Fog to help buff when I had spare turns, having Doc use Ruse on himself too  With all this plus Temper, fights were simple if only able to be done one at a time.


Earth Elementals hit hard, as I re-realized when exploring for some of the chests for once. But...thinking about it, the chests here kind of suck. There's a lot of these things guarding them, yet they tend to be just money. And not a lot of it, either. So after the one of these, I just made a straight shot through.


And with this partway through the Earth Cave, I have officially been poisoned 53 times! I guess it can happen after all.


The Vampire managed to paralyze Tuff, but that just made me throw all the buffs onto Whak. It didn't take much to do him in.

Anyway these spells are really freaking good. So brb running it back to this point with two Red Mages instead

_____


All right, let's step back and think about this.

Attack buffing is a serious game-changer for this, way more than I expected going in. These Neo Iron Fists have gone from a team forced to win through defensive turtling to one that can simply pump it up and win. There's something else to consider about the White Mage as well, however: HEL2 got fixed. They're not quite as good as they used to be.

Given this and my own style, I expect I'll be able to clear the game at around level 30 - where the Fighters will get 4 hits - contrasted to Sullla going all the way to 50. Certainly, no later than 41, where they get 5 hits. Red Mage has 9/8/7/7/6/5/3/0 spells at 30, whereas monochrome have 9/8/7/7/6/6/5/4. But the short of this is Black Mage will only let me get in there slightly earlier, it ultimately won't matter in the end. They're still pretty much out - the only reason I'd take one is STUN, which is tempting for me, but I think I'd prefer access to the White spells at L6, which RW does get.

Giant's Gauntlets WILL be in-play here, allowing anyone to use them to buff. It can replace Temper. But it can't replace Haste. I would only have half as many with one, but with two I'd have a Haste for every boss in the last dungeon.


This is otherwise mostly an early game investment from me for once.


No difference with Garland. The second RM made it even easier, as I don't have a squishy liability to worry about. I still did a ship game grind. One thing I started doing in this runback as well: just running from enemies who could do poison. It's something that's dangerous enough to be healed in long battles now, but you ideally avoid those to begin with.


No difference with the Pirates either. I was ready for even more 15-tile puzzle after this. This time, I went ahead and did 12 first place completions of it, to get all I would need in the early game immediately.


This was rough and I had to fight two only, but I eventually made it through at level 4 again. I also tried to do strength resets for the Reds to see how that turns out.


Instead of messing with silence, this time I did go ahead and do the grind on the peninsula beforehand with the armor I already had, which was easier with two Temper casters. I got to level 9 for two hits and completely potatoed Astos. It wasn't that much slower up to this point either, with about 10 minutes of this from grinding ship game harder sooner.

I already had enough cash from the ship game to get all of the stuff - less spells than before and I'd definitely want the anti family for Lich, but no issue. With two reds level 10 would've technically been sufficient, but I went ahead and got 11 before the Earth Cave anyway. This time I did use Crescent Lake for it.


Vampire hit Powr hard, but they survived. He again tried to paralyze Tuff, but this time he was not affected. He went down iwthout incient. The only problem was running into an unusual amount of Wizards on the way back. Nothing dangerous, but did hold me up.


And I'm caught up. Due to knowing what I wanted now and the two Reds, I was going much faster. Could've been even faster if I didn't stop for fights along the way in Earth Cave. Worth noting, I was behind at Astos by about 20 minutes...but about 10 of them were from ship game.

There was nothing to note about my trip to the rod or back into Earth Cave. Again, I kept on running into Piscodemons. I actually buffed against some of them to make it go faster. It was also here that I realized that I'd forgotten to actually go and get the anti spells. Oh well. May as well give it a try without. It'll be fine! I'm sure of it! I made it to Lich.


Very quickly, things started going off the rails. He hit Powr with sleep at one point, disrupting my buffing. Then he landed a physical to paralyze Tuff, taking him out of the fight. His Sleepra hit everyone, and he even landed Hold on Whak! They didn't want to recover, so I was finished from there.

So what have I learned today? Two things! I could've indeed done it without the anti spells. Also, screw paralysis. Well now that I'm back out, I may as well go ahead and grab the anti spells now.


The first trip back into the cave ended because of stunning undead on the fourth floor. Man, no matter how much I play FF1, those enemies are always the worst part about the entire game. They can just give you a game over and there's nothing you can do about it. The second trip in was finnicky: I made it to the end, but AGAIN kept running into huge groups of Piscodemons. I have never ever seen them as often as I have here before. I decided to pop some uses of Temper when I ran into four of them a few times, just to kill them fast enough ro avoid taking damage.


Acel went first, getting up AIce before Lich could use the spell. It did pitiful damage as a result. I would get up the necessary offensive buff spells as well. Because of those Piscodemons, I had only three level 2 charges available. I used two on Tuff and one on Whak,


The Hold spell did land on Whak, but that aside, this went incredibly smoothly. Cura use kept my warriors' health high, and Tuff dealt fairly decent damage the whole way through. This was the most he dealt. Since Lich has 800HP in this version though, it was far longer than it would be on NES...that is, if TMPR worked on NES.


Whak eventually snapped out of his paralysis and landed the kill. Needless to say that was very different from how it turned out for Sullla on NES. Aside from the anti spells, the approach was completely different. Goes to show just how one small change in mechanics/a bugfix can entirely change the nature of a variant.

In spite of things almost feeling normal, I'll keep going with this. It will be interesting to see how it turns out at the very end.