AVAST, AN FFV NEWBIE APPEARS!

[Forsaken Lover]

So the Four Job Fiesta has kinda inspired me to finally beat FFV. I have started it and stopped it many, many times over the years but this time, I vow to complete it.

Not with the Fiesta itself, no. I was wondering if I should try that but I was told the Fiesta is more of a challenge run and you shouldn't do challenge runs your first time through a game. You would be missing out on all the fun and trying out different things. I definitely don't want to be cutting myself off from parts of the game for my first complete run.

Now, since everyone says the Advance version is the good one, I decided to play the PS1 version. I'm so contrarian.


Now, from what I remember last time I started up the game, everyone I talked to said Black Mages were useless. But the old guy should be a black mage. Okay? Until such times as a Job more suited for him comes to light, he's gonna be a black mage. He is Not-Tellah. Although I guess Tellah was more of a Red Mage...or just a Mage period because he could do everything.

Gonna be playing this in-between playing Skyrim. I'm just missing team-based RPGs. I like Skyrim, just like I enjoyed Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but I grew up playing team-based RPGs and I miss that.

Now, where does FFV rank on the Difficulty-o-meter? I realize gameplay difficulty is one of the most subjective things in the world. But with FFV, you're presented with a rare opportunity to play the game in any myriad of ways. For example, if I pick all the "wrong" jobs, will that make the game nigh impossible, whereas if I pick the "right" jobs it will trivialize it? An LP'er I was watching start his Fiesta run mentioned that Berserkers are kinda crappy and I've already gone over how I was told black mages suck.

[Wolf Kanno]

In terms of difficulty FFV is a bit more challenging than VI but not quite as hard as FFIV Super Famicom/DS. It really comes down to how well you utilize your jobs and sub-jobs. What FFV is probably the most notorious for is having more missables than other games... like the summons. If you're hoping to make the most of all the job classes the game can be difficult without a guide.

Black Mages don't suck, they are quite powerful if used right and giving them the Barehanded ability helps keep them useful in random encounters without blowing through their MP. It's things like that that keep the jobs useful. Berserkers are also much better than people give them credit for, their strength comes from the weapons you give them but a Death Sickle or Earth Hammer makes them pretty badass on the field. Hell the game may have the most useful version of the Bard class in the series barring the MMOs and remakes.

In terms of bad classes? Trainer is largely only useful for getting all the spells for the Blue Mage. Blue Mages and Chemist are incredibly powerful but require some thorough knowledge and finding everything about them to make them useful. The real issue with most of the jobs is that the sub-job system makes a few of them obsolete once you obtain certain skills from them. You'll use a Ranger to get Rapid Fire/X-Fight and then probably never use them again. Other classes become more useful the further you get in the game such as Freelancer and Mime, but even Red Mage doesn't really come into their own unless you spend time leveling up the Black and White Mages. You can potentially beat the game with any class combination if you build them right, so don't worry about shooting yourself in the foot. Granted some builds are more efficient than others.

Honestly, I would play a fan translation before the PS1 version. It's not technical issues like IV, VI, and CT that hurt this game as much as it's the game's lousy localization that sucks out the ability to take the game serious. Granted FFV is one of the more lighthearted entries but the GBA script is better. On the other hand, the PS1 version has the better music and graphics quality between the two. I do love the soundtrack to this game.

For the most part, the cast of FFV's stats are pretty close to each other. Bartz and Galuf favor melee a little more and Lenna and Krile favor magic, with Faris being the most balanced so you can build people anyway you want and not have to worry about it. The game is flexible as jobs and equipment do all the heavy lifting in regards to stats for the most part.

Hope you enjoy it.

http://home.eyesonff.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=65085&stc=1

[Mirage]

Picking the PS1 version over a fanslated SNES or officially localized GBA version is literally the worst idea ever concieved.

[Forsaken Lover]

But I need mah good music and graphics. The GBA really hurts music quality, I noticed that when I played FFIV Advance. Not enough to ruin the soundtrack mind you but still, if you can avoid it, you should.

I guess I could get that from a fan translated Super Famicom version but meh. I don't like fan translations of anything if an official version is available.

[Galuf]

the game is actually pretty easy for me on the Snes version, except the final boss.
Its the hardest final boss of all FF games for me. by a mile. so be prepared. ( Though its really easy in the advance version because you can exploit the game to farm Movers, they give 199 AP. and you can then mimic spam Bahamut dualcast or something.)

but be prepared to see the most saddest scene in FF history...

PS: how far are you now, or how far have you got to before, if you havent beat liquiflame Watch out. he is the baddest of the bad.

[Wolf Kanno]

The issue is that the translation for the PS1 version is bad...

It would be like saying you want to play the U.S. version of FFIV (SNES) over every other remake of the game. I mean they've got Faris talking like a generic pirate for most of the game in the PS1 translation.

[Galuf]

The issue is that the translation for the PS1 version is bad...

It would be like saying you want to play the U.S. version of FFIV (SNES) over every other remake of the game. I mean they've got Faris talking like a generic pirate for most of the game in the PS1 translation.
That pirate bit sounds awesome. i like pirates.

[Mirage]

But I need mah good music and graphics. The GBA really hurts music quality, I noticed that when I played FFIV Advance. Not enough to ruin the soundtrack mind you but still, if you can avoid it, you should.

I guess I could get that from a fan translated Super Famicom version but meh. I don't like fan translations of anything if an official version is available.
I've played all the versions so I know the differences :p. I still prefer the GBA version though, the script is that much better. The GBA does have a pretty bad sound chip, I'll admit. If someone could just move the GBA script over on the SNES version...

[Wolf Kanno]

I figure their is a fan patch for that on in the emulated version. I know FFVIAdvance rom has a patch that restores the music and color quality to the SNES version. I figured FFV would have one as well.

[Mirage]

It doesn't restore the audio quality. It changes the music "sheets" to play the exact same notes and instruments as on the SNES, but it is still being played by an inferior sound chip (or rather, an emulation of an inferior sound chip).

edit: and yes, there is such a patch for FFVA too.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well that blows.

So Forsaken Lover, have you begun your new playthrough yet?

[Forsaken Lover]

Not quite. I am going to start it Friday when i get paid. I'm just gonna buy it off PSN and play it on my PS3, which is another reason i favored the PS1 version.

As for the earlier question about how far I've made it in the game in the past...I have no idea, really. I think I got to the first town after you find the first crystal and get your first set of Jobs. That is as far as I have ever gotten. Of course, I already know the Big Bad is Exdeath, Galuf dies and....uh...that's it, really. Oh and Gilgamesh. I don't know what Galuf's deal is, or who or what Exdeath is, or anything specific like that.

I don't know what's going on with that meteor at the start of the game or ay of that.

[Mirage]

Seriously though. Many of the characters are much cooler on GBA. It's almost like it's a different cast, at times.

[Colonel Angus]

GBA version is the way to go, fo' sho'.

You also get some cool bonus jobs (even though they come pretty late in the game).

Overall, the whole experience is better, even if the sound quality isn't up to par.

[Forsaken Lover]

From what I understand, the Advance translation is akin to Woolsey's works. The PSX localization is much truer to the original while the GBA translation inserted a lot of whackiness and humor that wasn't there before.

This is just what I've heard, mind.

Anyway, I got a question. How many playable characters are there in this game? 'cuz it just struck me that I have never heard of a single FFV character not named Bartz, Faris, Galuf or that other one. Lenna or Leena. No, it's probably Lenna. Leena is in that other JRPG.

But yeah, four characters is pretty paltry. I hope there's a lot more than that.

[Vermachtnis]

There is a fifth. But since you can change your jobs whenever, having a big party isn't necessary.

[Wolf Kanno]

From what I understand, the Advance translation is akin to Woolsey's works. The PSX localization is much truer to the original while the GBA translation inserted a lot of whackiness and humor that wasn't there before.

This is just what I've heard, mind.

Quite the other way around actually. The PS1 version based it's script off Woosely's unfinished script for the game back when they were planning to release it on the SNES.

While the Tom Slattery localization adds jokes in places that weren't there, I was always given the impression it was due to replacing humor that was out of context for English speakers like word puns that only work in Japanese. Honestly FFV isn't exactly dark and is one of the more lighthearted entries so the humor never felt out of place. Of anything, Slatery's version gives more justice to the characters as the PS1 script makes them caricatures while the Slattery one gives them more personality.


Anyway, I got a question. How many playable characters are there in this game? 'cuz it just struck me that I have never heard of a single FFV character not named Bartz, Faris, Galuf or that other one. Lenna or Leena. No, it's probably Lenna. Leena is in that other JRPG.

But yeah, four characters is pretty paltry. I hope there's a lot more than that.

Five playable characters but there are quite a few NPCs as well. V isn't exactly a story driven game like IV and VI are. It still has great characters and a good story but don't go in expecting better writing than IV.

[Galuf]

Not quite. I am going to start it Friday when i get paid. I'm just gonna buy it off PSN and play it on my PS3, which is another reason i favored the PS1 version.

As for the earlier question about how far I've made it in the game in the past...I have no idea, really. I think I got to the first town after you find the first crystal and get your first set of Jobs. That is as far as I have ever gotten. Of course, I already know the Big Bad is Exdeath, Galuf dies and....uh...that's it, really. Oh and Gilgamesh. I don't know what Galuf's deal is, or who or what Exdeath is, or anything specific like that.

I don't know what's going on with that meteor at the start of the game or ay of that.
aw, the best/worst bit is spoiled for you already. Galuf dying.

[Forsaken Lover]

Reina huh? I wonder if that's right or if it's just some Japanese rangauge going on.

I like the SUCCESS written at the top of the screen after battles.

Galuf: Great! Who's idea was it anyhow to steal a @#* PIRATE SHIP?!?!?

Whoa Galuf, watch the language. This isn't an FFVII, this is a kids-friendly game. I enjoy the plethora of punctuation marks though.

Oh dear the four crystals are in great danger, who could have ever seen this coming. Let me guess, our intrepid heroes will arrive JUST a second too late to save each one of them, resulting in the end of the world which is only narrowly averted by killing the final boss.

Ever notice our heroes can never actually succeed or win at anything of substance until the very end of the game? In fact, in pretty much everY FF game, our heroes are directly responsible for the world ending in the first place.

I can't wait to see how Bartz and co. bungle things. Maybe they're like "you know..this X-Death guy? He doesn't seem so bad. We can trust him."

FINAL FANTASY!

So if I'm remembering right, Faris is Reina's or Lenna's or whatever's sister. Awful nice of Spirit Dad not to say anything to her.

Okay I thought about it and these Jobs felt the most right to me.

Bartz: Thief. This guy is not the Warrior type. He's certainly no Knight.
Reina: White Mage. Kinda tailor-made for the role, to be honest.
Galuf; Black Mage. Old vaguely mystical guy who knows stuff but can't remember. He's Tellah and thus should have powerful magic.
Faris: Knight. It was either this or Monk. I'm not really satisfied with either choice for her but I didn't have a lot of options at the moment. I just figure, she had a shield, and she would have had to be really strong and tough to make it a as a pirate captain. Thus she should have the Job that is the strongest and toughest.

A rather humorous way to reveal Faris' sex. Although, Bartz and Galuf keep calling her "he"...

The tentacle boss thing in the canal was pretty simple. Galuf's Bolts spells wrecked it. Although, I'm curious. How useful is Stealing in this game? Do bosses only have one item to steal?Like that boss only had a Tonic, not exactly an item worth wasting turns over trying to get.

Poor Hydra... I hope he's still alive.

Wait...they didn't realize Faris was a woman? I thought that was the whole point of them being stupid and getting hearts above their heads after looking at her sleeping. I'm so confused.

I suppose I should mention I'm I'm loving the fact this game gives you oodles and oodles of "GP." I can't remember having this much money so easily in an RPG in a long time. Of course I've been playing a lot of Western RPGs and they're stupid about this sort of thing. What do you mean shopkeepers don't have infinite money and supplies????

Alas poor Galuf died against Siren. Her Squeeze move did like 100 damage and he was just a few points too low. I didn't go into the battle at full HP or MP so that didn't help. I used up the one Phoenix Down I found when she killed Reina. Oh well. I have so much damn money that I'm not really worried.

Everyone is Level 9 and has Level 3 of their Job. Well, except Faris. Knight takes way more ABP for whatever reason. She's only at 40/50.

What does ABP do anyway? Like, Bartz is learning abilities, but the others all just get "Black/White/Guard Level 2" and I don't get it. Is that like Fira or Cura?

I think this is a good place to stop and post. 4 hours in, having a good time. The music for the Ship Graveyard was pretty cool.

Favorite character at present is Faris.

[Mirage]

White magic lv2 means you can get lv2 white magic when you set "white" as a command for a different job. When you are "maining" the job, you get all magic levels regardless of how many levels you have in the job.

Each line of spells in the menu corresponds to one level of magic. Black lv1 is fire ice thunder, black lv2 is uh... poison and some other trash i don't remember. black lv3 is fire 2 ice 2 thunder 2.

If you know Fire 2, but only have black lv2 learned, that character can not get access to fire 2 if you set !Black as a sub ability when you are a knight or a white mage.

I usually make galuf a monk in the beginning, then change to a mage when he learns barehanded.

[Wolf Kanno]

Actually FFV is probably the first FF where stealing is practical since it's the first game to allow you to actually steal the rarer items a monster may drop. There are also quite a few pieces of equipment and gear you can get really early if you steal from enemies. Some bosses have great gear (Gilgamesh and Twin Tania for instance) but others might have common items. Still, stealing is pretty useful overall.

ABP is basically the points you gain to level up your jobs and get new skills/abilities to use for sub-jobs. Knight gives your character the ability to equip knight exclusive gear and the sword ability also gives the character a knight's strength. Mages give your non-mage characters the ability to use the different levels of magic as Mirage explained, Thief teaches thieving and exploring skills, Monk gives powerful monk skills and HP boosts. Mastering a job not only gives you all their abilities to use for sub-jobs but Freelancer and Mime gain access to many of their support skills and the positive stat boosts from the job as well for each mastered job.

The plot starts off pretty basic at first but it will get more interesting as time goes on. If you've played FFIV... well yeah the search for the crystals is only the beginning.

[Forsaken Lover]

But that seems kind of cheap though and defeats the whole point of Classes to begin with.

I mean, I guess functionally a Knight with White Magic abilities could be a Paladin, but "combinations" sounds kinda broken. You're gaining all the strengths with none of the weaknesses.

I'm a Knight and physical tank but I have all the best magic abilities and can just destroy you with Fire 3 or whatever.

FFIV would have been a lot easier if Tellah had a lot more defense and health, basically.

[Wolf Kanno]

That only applies to Freelancer and Mime, and you still need to master the classes to get those bonuses which is far more time consuming than you would think so it balances itself out.

You can give white magic to a Knight but you really would just get Cecil with his crappy white magic. The reason why is because the Job Classes raise certain stats and lower others, so giving magic to a knight makes him a more flexible fighter but his MP pool and magic stat will always be significantly lower than a proper mage because his class gives penalties to magic focused stats. In truth it's generally better to give skills and abilities from similar style classes to each other than trying to build a better Red Mage. Berserker is a powerful physical class in it's own right but giving it the Knight's Two-Handed ability makes it one of the best damage dealers in the game. Likewise Ninja's are awesome for having Dual-Wield but it's better in the hands of a Knight who has access to the strongest weapons in the game. That's how how I generally approach it but everyone has their own way of doing it so just experiment and see what works best for your play-style.

Yes, Freelancer and Mime have the potential to be the strongest classes in the game, but it requires tons of grinding to do so and frankly you can finish the game without resorting to it. In a way, it feels similar to FFIII where the Onion Knight is the best and worst job in the game depending on whether you bother hunting down the equipment and grinding to lv.99.

[Mirage]

job mastering is kind of like stat maxing, really. Also, you still don't get *all* the traits of the mastered jobs. Some passive abilities that you get automatically when you are the actual job would still require you to manually set the skill in one of the few available slots if you want it to work on a freelancer.
I think.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm pretty sure Freelancer got most of them except the equipment passive but since the class can equip everything from the go it';s a moot point. I know Mime definitely has to use the Equip Item abilities because they can't naturally use Knight Swords and stuff which is why the Freelancer class is always chosen for the famous Dual-Wield/Spellblade/X-Fight combo.

Yeah, according to this (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Freelancer_%28Final_Fantasy_V%29), Freelancer gets all innate skills except three of them and two are from the Advance version.

[Forsaken Lover]

Hm...well I guess the idea is you sort of create your own custom class in a way. That does sound interesting. Once I get to the next crystal and have more jobs to choose from, I'll try and give it a shot.

I have no intention of ever maxing everything though. I want everyone to have firmly defined and unique roles.

[Mirage]

Can freelancer use ribbon without the equip skill?

[Wolf Kanno]

Yep.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Ribbon_%28Equipment%29

[Forsaken Lover]

Also I kept meaning to put it in my "update" but Bartz apparently had a dad who was some sort of crystal guardian or something too.

Awful lot of coincidences happening in this game. Or maybe it's..... FATE?

You know, the giant evil supercomputer.

[Forsaken Lover]

Ah, the fifth party member is Gogo, right? Ironically I've heard more about him from FFVI which he is apparently in for some reason.

Reina is all self-sacrificing sweet innocent princess lady, poisoning herself to save Dragon. She is totally White Mage to the core. I might take her down the White Mage/Summoner route a la Garnet and Yuna but we'll see.

Got my first game over. At Walz Castle and a guard said there's great treasure down in teh dungeon. I go down to explore and a random encounter, a Harpy, does like 500 damage to everyone. Yeah....

Okay I went back down to the dungeon again. Apparently those things are Level 20. No wonder I never stood a chance. Nevertheless, I got First Strike on it and managed to steal a Hard Body item. Also I ran for the treasure chest right by the entrance and got an Elf Cloak accessory or "Relic." That's cool. Now I just gotta run my ass outta here.

Exploiting the crystal's power huh? That is what's supposed to have shattered it?I don't remember them saying a thing about that till now. Oh well. Also Garula just attacked everyone. That kid needs to be put in line.

Aww...Hydra was alive but only long enough to keep us from dying. That's kinda sad, and contrived.

But now I have all these new Jobs to choose from! But i kinda feel like I should at least learn the next level of my current Job before changing things up. Sorcerer and Time Mage sound interesting and useful.

Well this is an unexpected development. First there's an inexplicable warp thing then I go to this new town to restock on items and see what new stuff they have to buy and I get thrown in a dungeon out of nowhere.... Aren't all the kingdoms of this place affiliated with each other? The Walz King new Reina. Surely this other king must know her too and thus won't let her good budy and protector Bartz rot in a dungeon.

Huh, so Cid ruined the world by creating this amplifier for the crystals. FFV Cid and FFVI Cid are mad scientists who helped set the world on the path to ruin, just like FFXII Cid. Well, FFVIII Cid also screwed a lot of people over but that was less because he was a scientist and more because he was just incompetent. Headmaster Cid wasn't even a scientist or inventor! Worst Cid confirmed. But yes, good thing the idiots came to their senses and called for us. Something tells me we'll be just a smidgeon too late.....again. Oh well.

Man I love Karnak. It has all the Level 2 spells and in the forest right nearby you get guaranteed encounters with five Wild Dogs which net you 625 GP a pop. And Galuf can kill them all with a Fire spell in one turn. Raking in that GP like nothing.

Hm, so this isn't some sort of environmental message. It's not the ruthless exploitation of the natural world that is destroying the world but an evil thing possessing people. Final Fantasy VIi this is not. Although, I guess you kinda had both of those in FFVII...oh well.

Another Crystal down, who could have ever predicted this would happen. You know, I think our "heroes" are really just failing on purpose because with each destroyed crystal they get new powers. I'm onto you, you bastards. Once all the crystals are destroyed and you have like 12 different super forms you can take over the world as demigods. Surprise twist ending, our heroes were the villains all along! That needs to happen in an FF game. It won't, but it should.

Anyway, stopping for now. I am like Level 15 or maybe 16, have up to Level 5 in each of my old Jobs. Maybe it's time to try out new things. Thief becoming Ninja is only natural of course so that will be Bartz's new job. . As for the others...well, Galuf will be Time Mage I think. Faris will be Sorcerer 'cuz it sounds cool and Reina will be Summoner or maybe Trainer. Trainer is like FFX-2, right? Using animals and stuff? Never actually used it in X-2.

As for the story, not much to say. More MYSTERY surrounding Galuf with no real answers, our heroes continue to fail, and now they just introduced "Werewolf" only to have him die immediately. Well, he's probably not dead, but our heroes think he did.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well it does have a bit of a environmental message to it with the amplifiers, yes a great evil is trying to break the crystals but Cid's machine's and people's greed are just making things easier for him. Also ExDeath's origins can be an interesting parallel to removing nuclear waste if you think about it.

Trainer is a class that can capture weakened monsters and then use them later for one time summons. When the job gets leveled up, it learns the Control/Manipulate ability which is excellent for teaching Blue Mages their skills.

Time Mage is probably one of the best new mage classes in this game and if you've played FFTactics, you know what to expect. Also don't underestimate the Return spell. It seems useless at first but it's highly invaluable against certain attacks.

Sorcerer is called Mystic Knight in the Advanced version and is one of the coolest warrior classes. They cast elemental spells on their weapons to make them more powerful and exploit weaknesses. They are more frail than Knights or Samurai but have excellent damage potential. Even better is that the spells they use is based on what White/Black magic you've bought up until now.

Ninja is pretty cool but isn't quite the dominating force it was in other installments. A huge upgrade from Edge in FFIV but nowhere near as bullshit as Shadow, FFIII Ninja or anything from the Ivalice entries.

[Forsaken Lover]

There are 4 crystals so does that mean I'll be getting samurai and Dragoon and the rest next? The Earth Crystal would be the last set of new Jobs, unless the game is gonna pull an FFIV and have another set of crystals.

Hm...sounds like if you wanted maximum broken-ness you level up one job to a high level then switch to another. Like Spellblade get up to Level 5 or 6 or something and then switch to some other job. Dragoon maybe? I dunno, I obviously have no clue how to break the game. Point is, there are probably several different combinations that will break the game in half. I'm trying to avoid that and stick to one job as much as possible.

Well I changed things up a bit. As I said earlier, I want to keep everyone to a certain role. As such, I made Reina my Time Mage because this way she stays in a support role. Meanwhile, Galuf is a Geomancer because this fits his Elemental mage thing which is what he's been doing so far.

I tried out Trainer but it seems really impractical. Only one use out of captured monsters? Just a waste of time.

I have Sorcerer Faris rockin' 2-Handed and I can't wait to test her Sword abilities out against an enemy weak to a certain element. I have no idea if the two things stack though... For example, she does like 400 damage because of 2-Handed. Yet if she attacked an enemy weak to Fire with Fire 2 Sword, will she be doing like 800 damage? I guess I'll find out.

Well with Ice 2 Sword she did 1400 damage to Ifrit.. Very nice.

So yeah, this game is not the best at giving direction. I had no idea where to go after the castle blew up. I wandered a bit, ran into this QuadrHarpy enemy which annihilated me in short order and that was kinda lame. The main problem was I kept trying to steal from it because I figured, powerful enemy, has to have something good to steal. Only stealing failed every single time and it kept getting me killed when I wasted time trying. Eventually I gave up and just killed it for the nice 3 ABP.

Anyway, I eventually found myself at the Library of the Ancients which has been mentioned a couple times now. I had no idea what I was even doing here. I didn't know if this was the next place I was supposed to go or not. The fact people were running around screaming about monsters made me think i was in the right place. But after exploring it, I just got Ifrit. I'm not complaining mind you, it's just that I thought this was like a plot dungeon. Also apparently Mid is missing.

Or...nevermind. This was where I'm supposed to be. Huh. And Mid is related to Cid, makes sense. But now it's time to head back to town. Ifrit made short work of that boss, and you can spam him. I dunno if this one boss is any indicator or not but Summons seem overpowered.

I'm kind of waggling back and forth on what I want Reina and Galuf to do... Galuf is either a Geomancer witH Black Magic as I said before with Reina as a Time Mage with White Magic. But then also I make Galuf a Time Mage with Black Magic while Reina does what I said earlier with being a Summoner with White Magic. I just, after I got Ifrit, I felt like I had to use him even though Reina should stay in her support role. I dunno.

So what is the poitn of Red Mages in this game? You can already combine classes to enable use of multiple kinds of magic.

Galuf is an alien trying to stop another evil alien from reviving? He's FuSoYa, not Tellah. Or he's a weird combination of the two. And Krile...that name sounds familiar. I know I've read it once or twice on forums or something. Maybe that's the fifth party member.

This game feels like it's short. I mean, getting the sea ship usually takes, what, a 1/3 of the game? Am I that close to being over with this/

Anyway, everyone is Level 20, I have mountains of GP and things are going well. Is there like a difficulty spike in this game? Maybe once you have all the different jobs?

Oh and the Library of the Ancients theme was the best song I've heard all game.

[Wolf Kanno]

There are 4 crystals so does that mean I'll be getting samurai and Dragoon and the rest next? The Earth Crystal would be the last set of new Jobs, unless the game is gonna pull an FFIV and have another set of crystals.

The earth Crystal does give jobs but I'm pretty sure there are three jobs not acquired when you get to the crystals. I know one for sure can't be obtained until the end of the game.


Hm...sounds like if you wanted maximum broken-ness you level up one job to a high level then switch to another. Like Spellblade get up to Level 5 or 6 or something and then switch to some other job. Dragoon maybe? I dunno, I obviously have no clue how to break the game. Point is, there are probably several different combinations that will break the game in half. I'm trying to avoid that and stick to one job as much as possible.

That's one way of doing it but spell-blade works better with Knight. The skill doesn't work on spears or samurai swords.


I tried out Trainer but it seems really impractical. Only one use out of captured monsters? Just a waste of time. It gains a few new abilities as you level it up, the best ability is Control, which is useful for building up your Blue Mage spell book and helps with one of the game's leveling spots.


I have Sorcerer Faris rockin' 2-Handed and I can't wait to test her Sword abilities out against an enemy weak to a certain element. I have no idea if the two things stack though... For example, she does like 400 damage because of 2-Handed. Yet if she attacked an enemy weak to Fire with Fire 2 Sword, will she be doing like 800 damage? I guess I'll find out.

Well with Ice 2 Sword she did 1400 damage to Ifrit.. Very nice.

Spellblade is pretty brutal in this game.


So yeah, this game is not the best at giving direction. I had no idea where to go after the castle blew up. I wandered a bit, ran into this QuadrHarpy enemy which annihilated me in short order and that was kinda lame. The main problem was I kept trying to steal from it because I figured, powerful enemy, has to have something good to steal. Only stealing failed every single time and it kept getting me killed when I wasted time trying. Eventually I gave up and just killed it for the nice 3 ABP.

Anyway, I eventually found myself at the Library of the Ancients which has been mentioned a couple times now. I had no idea what I was even doing here. I didn't know if this was the next place I was supposed to go or not. The fact people were running around screaming about monsters made me think i was in the right place. But after exploring it, I just got Ifrit. I'm not complaining mind you, it's just that I thought this was like a plot dungeon. Also apparently Mid is missing.

Or...nevermind. This was where I'm supposed to be. Huh. And Mid is related to Cid, makes sense. But now it's time to head back to town. Ifrit made short work of that boss, and you can spam him. I dunno if this one boss is any indicator or not but Summons seem overpowered.

Yeah, it's more about exploring than following a plot. It's probably not going to improve anytime soon either.


I'm kind of waggling back and forth on what I want Reina and Galuf to do... Galuf is either a Geomancer witH Black Magic as I said before with Reina as a Time Mage with White Magic. But then also I make Galuf a Time Mage with Black Magic while Reina does what I said earlier with being a Summoner with White Magic. I just, after I got Ifrit, I felt like I had to use him even though Reina should stay in her support role. I dunno.

I generally like comboing Time and Black magic together. The White Mage/Summoner build is also pretty solid.


So what is the point of Red Mages in this game? You can already combine classes to enable use of multiple kinds of magic.

You can have a character whop can use black, white, and one other magic skill of your choice and have better guild to stay alive. Course the real usefulness of the class is that mastering it teaches your character Dualcast which is immensely useful for mage characters.


Galuf is an alien trying to stop another evil alien from reviving? He's FuSoYa, not Tellah. Or he's a weird combination of the two. And Krile...that name sounds familiar. I know I've read it once or twice on forums or something. Maybe that's the fifth party member.

Galuf is just... well Galuf.
http://home.eyesonff.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=65220&stc=1


This game feels like it's short. I mean, getting the sea ship usually takes, what, a 1/3 of the game? Am I that close to being over with this/

Just keep going...


Anyway, everyone is Level 20, I have mountains of GP and things are going well. Is there like a difficulty spike in this game? Maybe once you have all the different jobs?

All in good time.


Oh and the Library of the Ancients theme was the best song I've heard all game.

I honestly feel FFV is where Uematsu really came into his own as a a composer. The music in this game is gorgeous.

[Forsaken Lover]

You don't think Uematsu came into his own with FFIV which has the best FF OST of all time?

[Wolf Kanno]

FFIV certainly has some great tracks but I really feel that in terms of style, complexity, and emotional impact, FFV is where Uematsu really came into his own. Though I do say you get glimpses of it in IV with Theme of Love, Red Wings, Lunarians, and Inside the Giant.

[Galuf]

Galuf is god actually, he never did die. he became one with the planet.and maxed all jobs.
Also, how did you find Liquiflame? He is so strong.

[Forsaken Lover]

He was the hardest boss yet, that is true. He also seemed to counter everything. But his weakness to Ice meant he didn't last very long. It was a quick if somewhat tense fight.

[Forsaken Lover]

Decided to do a bit of exploring now I have my ship. I was trying to look for Walz Castle in order to get a summon as per a recommendation i received. Unfortunately this map kinda sucks in that it doesn't tell you what any of the little glowing places are. It's like "there's a town here. What town? I have no friggin' clue." So eventually I just wandered about, found my way to Jachol. Tried going into Jachol Cave and got wiped by the first enemy. Frickin' squirrel thing that eats SKULLS.

Oh fuck you game. I was exploring like I said and I found this new place out of the way called Crescent Town. And boom, there goes my ship. No more exploring for me I guess..... At least I found Jachot and got some nice new weapons.

Katanas - and I guess Samurai swords in general - are ridiculously expensive BTW. Like twice as much as any other type of weapon being sold there. I guess maybe because Samurai are supposed to be one of the most beastly jobs in the game.

Well hey, that wasn't so bad. I got a better mode of transportation out of it and two new Jobs! I was going to complain about this game's lack of direction but I guess it isn't so bad. If you don't know what to do, just talk to everY NPC in the town and they always drop a hint about where your next objective is. Earlier on it was "get Dragon Grass and Dragons from North Mountain" and this time it was "Black Chocobos are extinct...OR ARE THEY." Shame about Boko probably having starved to death forever ago.

Anyway, this really worked out perfect. Straight north from Crescent Town is Walz which was my goal all along.

So Bards can only learn abilities from people? I would not imagine you can buy a Song from a shop like you can a spell. I got the Strength Song from the one Minstrel in Crescent Town but unless there are minstrels in every town now, I'll have to do some hunting in order to make Bard as useful as I have heard it can be.

Well I looked it up and wasn't Walz Tower the one that sank? It was right next to the meteor? That's where people online say Shiva is but it's gone now as far as I can see....

Whoa, I found Bartz' hometown in my travels. From what I could discern in the flashback, and based on previous snippets, his dad was away a lot, protecting the crystals or killing evildoers or both. And then his mom, who was either chronically sick or came down with something, must have died right before Drogan set off to do whatever it is he does. And then he must have died at some point as well. Bummer. This game is supposed to be happy fun silly time. It has a villain named X DEATH. You can't be serious or sad when you have a villain named Evil Mc Cruelty.

Anyway, I got the Temptation Song for my troubles... Kind of weird that this is the song inspired by Bartz's memories but fair enough. Always good to get new songs.

Huh...the Sandworm boss was pathetic. Mid said not to use magic on it but it didn't counterattack and destroy me when I had Galuf attack it. Hasting everyone and Slow on the worm made its stupid Whack-a-mole gimmick useless as well.


Also Str Song does not increase physical damage which is what I thought it would do. But Bartz was doing exactly the same amount of damage even afte I used the song twice. Maybe it increased defense? I dunno, I got Faris as my Bard right now because I felt like I was brute forcing everything with her as a Sorcerer. But I need more Songs if I want her to be a more valuable asset.

Also switched Reina back to White Mage. She has access to up to level 4 Time spells and I'm pretty sure that will be enough for a long time to come.

It's gonna take forever but when Bartz learns whatever it is he's trying to learn in Ninja, I'm switching him back to Thief. I'm so fucking tired of failing to steal from enemies. I need the added bonus from Thief Gloves.

Anyway, stopping right after that annoying sand place. I guess maybe Reina's dad isn't actually dead? Or maybe he's a ghost. Or maybe it's X-Death manipulating all of us. Either way, I am sad at the fact Faris has kind of fallen out of focus. Galuf is the one at center stage right now. Even Bartz's stuff was completely optional, which is weird. Oh well, there's still plenty of game left, plenty of time for everyone to shine and get their due. We just need to get passed this annoying "Look For Crystal, Fail To Save Crystal" phase. Once our heroes have sucked completely and the world is doomed, things should pick up.

[Mirage]

Exdeath could have been a mistranslation of "exodus" that they just stuck with because tradition or something

it's too bad you lost shiva. didn't you have an earlier save to go back to?

[Karifean]

IIRC Shiva should still be available, she's in the Castle not the Tower.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I don't care about summons anyway.

More backstory out of nowhere. Faris and Reina finally discovered their relation to one another and then we got an airship which I promptly took all over the planet trying to find pianos to play. i accidentally found Tycoon and got a nice little flashback for my trouble. I gotta admit, Faris is a better name than Salsa. Between that and the fact he took his daughter riding on a dragon King Tycoon is not a very good dad.

I also got Love Song from a minstrel in Easterly Village. Which is on the West of the map.....

I've played pianos in Tule, Kerwin, Karnak, Crescent and maybe one other place?Still no new Song. Maybe it takes every piano in the game or something. I can be patient.

But yeah, with that done, I guess it's time to resume the quest! ....now I just gotta figure out what the hell to do.

Again, it bears repeating, this game is awful about telling you what you need to do. I see a city take off into the air and am like "well...I should probably go after it." How do I do that? I had no idea. Had to look it up. Went back to Cid and Mid and got the upgrades for the airship.

The boss guarding the floating ruins destroyed me. My only damage dealers were Galuf and Bartz and they weren't doing enough apparently. That might not have been a huge problem if Bard Faris wasn't completely worthless. Oh sure, her songs work great against normal enemies. Confuse them or put them to sleep (is that what Love Song does?) is great tactics against a horde of nobodies. But against a boss, all she has is her crappy regen song. So it was basically Galuf and Bartz w/Reina trying to support them vs. Boss Cannon while Faris just kinda stood there being pretty.

Maybe Bards are better later on but, for right now, I switched her back to Sorcerer because I need someone who is actually useful in this fight. This guy has way more HP than any boss to date.

Also he kept hitting me with a status effect that lowered my attack power? I noticed because on my several failed attempts, Faris with Bolt 2 Sword went from hitting for 1900 damage to just 800-900 damage after getting hit by one of those beam things you can destroy. I guess it's no coincidence that on my successful run, Faris never got afflicted by whatever status that was and kept wailing on the boss for 2K damage.

I don't feel so bad about "brute forcing" this boss because he had a crapload of health and, as I said, Bard was useless here.

I'm beginning to think having only a single dedicated healer might be a mistake...

So is Bard useless for boss battles? I mean, you all know way more about this game than I do. I don't want to be "cheap" - I want this game to have some challenge. It's just, I saw no way for Bard to be effective in this battle, or any future boss battle. Until she gets better Songs.

And I thinkI'mgonna stop there for tonight. I'm tired and I know a lot of big stuff is going to be going down soon. I already had it spoiled for me while consulting FAQs that there are multiple worlds. I mean, it's not a huge spoiler, kinda obvious really. But after this part, onto the next world. And I want to be fully awake to appreciate the story and atmosphere and all the rest of it. Also want to see what exactly is going on with Faris' and Reina's dad. Maybe he's got some good reason to be doing what he's doing, maybe it's not him at all but X Death like I said before, I'll find out later.

[Vermachtnis]

I also got Love Song from a minstrel in Easterly Village. Which is on the West of the map.....


RuJNUXT2a9U

[Wolf Kanno]

Bard is mostly useful for the song Requiem, which does insane damage to undead and is really useful for two dungeons and a few select boss battles. Love Song actually casts Stop on the enemies and surprisingly works on one of the game's superbosses. Many of the songs need to keep going to be useful. Lv. Song and the Power/MP song need to be used for a few rounds to really see them in action.

Samurai are interesting in this game. In terms of direct damage the Sorcerer Class is probably still better in terms of reliability but Samurai have higher evasion against direct physical attacks and have high critical hit rates due to Katanas having the only critical hit bonuses of all the weapons. What's odd about them is that Samurai have two different critical hit attacks, the basic one all classes can use and a special one that does 4x damage instead of 2x like normal ones. They also get Gil Toss which is actually one of the better moves in this game.

FFV is pretty much a game that hails back to older style RPGs where the player is kind of left on their own to figure out where to go next.

[Mirage]

Well I don't care about summons anyway.

More backstory out of nowhere. Faris and Reina finally discovered their relation to one another and then we got an airship which I promptly took all over the planet trying to find pianos to play. i accidentally found Tycoon and got a nice little flashback for my trouble. I gotta admit, Faris is a better name than Salsa. Between that and the fact he took his daughter riding on a dragon King Tycoon is not a very good dad.

I also got Love Song from a minstrel in Easterly Village. Which is on the West of the map.....

I've played pianos in Tule, Kerwin, Karnak, Crescent and maybe one other place?Still no new Song. Maybe it takes every piano in the game or something. I can be patient.

But yeah, with that done, I guess it's time to resume the quest! ....now I just gotta figure out what the hell to do.

Again, it bears repeating, this game is awful about telling you what you need to do. I see a city take off into the air and am like "well...I should probably go after it." How do I do that? I had no idea. Had to look it up. Went back to Cid and Mid and got the upgrades for the airship.

The boss guarding the floating ruins destroyed me. My only damage dealers were Galuf and Bartz and they weren't doing enough apparently. That might not have been a huge problem if Bard Faris wasn't completely worthless. Oh sure, her songs work great against normal enemies. Confuse them or put them to sleep (is that what Love Song does?) is great tactics against a horde of nobodies. But against a boss, all she has is her crappy regen song. So it was basically Galuf and Bartz w/Reina trying to support them vs. Boss Cannon while Faris just kinda stood there being pretty.

Maybe Bards are better later on but, for right now, I switched her back to Sorcerer because I need someone who is actually useful in this fight. This guy has way more HP than any boss to date.

Also he kept hitting me with a status effect that lowered my attack power? I noticed because on my several failed attempts, Faris with Bolt 2 Sword went from hitting for 1900 damage to just 800-900 damage after getting hit by one of those beam things you can destroy. I guess it's no coincidence that on my successful run, Faris never got afflicted by whatever status that was and kept wailing on the boss for 2K damage.

I don't feel so bad about "brute forcing" this boss because he had a crapload of health and, as I said, Bard was useless here.

I'm beginning to think having only a single dedicated healer might be a mistake...

So is Bard useless for boss battles? I mean, you all know way more about this game than I do. I don't want to be "cheap" - I want this game to have some challenge. It's just, I saw no way for Bard to be effective in this battle, or any future boss battle. Until she gets better Songs.

And I thinkI'mgonna stop there for tonight. I'm tired and I know a lot of big stuff is going to be going down soon. I already had it spoiled for me while consulting FAQs that there are multiple worlds. I mean, it's not a huge spoiler, kinda obvious really. But after this part, onto the next world. And I want to be fully awake to appreciate the story and atmosphere and all the rest of it. Also want to see what exactly is going on with Faris' and Reina's dad. Maybe he's got some good reason to be doing what he's doing, maybe it's not him at all but X Death like I said before, I'll find out later.
Faris' real name is Sarisa in the GBA translation.
As for the diminishing attack power, you might have been hit by the "aging" status effect, which lowers all your stats for every turn you take. It could also have been a "dark spark" like effect, which halves your level with each use.
I found bard to be mostly useless.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I sure lucked out. I think. Galuf's Geomancer Find Hole ability thing saved me a lot of problems when raiding this treasure room in the Floating Ruins or Ruins of Ronka or whatever. I would have been very irritated had I found that room full of goodies and promptly been dropped down a hole.

Are you serious? I did all that for fucking Throw? I have never used Throw in any FF game, ever. And let me guess, Dual Wielding is the ability that will take 450 ABP. Holy fucking shit, I'll be trying to get that for the rest of the game!

Ugh...beginning to think wasting time on Ninja wasn't worth it...

Anyway...Galuf mastered Geomancer and I wasn't sure what to switch him to. He's a Red Mage now. Now say what you want about Red Mage - about them being the Master of None and all that - but they are by far the most stylish of mages. I love the look.

So I am super lost in these ruins place. It has to be the first dungeon in the history of ever where finding the treasure is easier than finding the way out. I've been all over this place around the save point about a half dozen times, which is great for EXP and ABP and GP but not so great when all I want to do is advance in the game. I'm looking up a FAQ for this bullshit. I don't know what I'm missing but I'm obviously missing something and I'm tired of random encounter.

Well it fucking figures. No problems with the stupid invisible bridges, I was just missing a plain old door. Oh well.

Wow, this one random enemy was crazy strong. Also appeared to have Auto-Reflect on it. Gave good EXP and ABP though so no worries.

Boss wasn't anything to worry about. He said about changing its weakness? I dunno, I just kept attacking it and eventually its physical defense dropped and Bartz could hurt it a lot. Between him and Galuf it went down pretty quick.

THE KING IS EVIL???? Well, I'm shocked! Who could have ever predicted this development???

Gonna point out a fact I realized some time ago - the FFX Party is the only party in the series that isn't directly responsible for dooming the world. Good job, Tidus and friends.

And the Earth Crystal shattered, also something no one could have ever foreseen. Poor King Tycoon though, reunited with his one daughter only long enough to die.

X-Death's Theme is pretty badass. It made that whole scene quite memorable. That and Krile crashlanding in a meteor and then blasting the king with a bolt spell. Contrived and useless but awesome.

Oooh these new classes sound awesome though... Dragoons are Lancers in this translation? Meh, makes sense. I wanna try out that and Dancer.

And after I eat and take a break, it's off to a new world full of new towns and monsters and maybe our heroes will actually succeed at something this time.

For more serious Plot Talk, I guess Cid's machine weakened the crystals so X Death was able to revive in the first place? So there's a vague environmental message. Although it's Galuf's and the other's fault for leaving their planet's supervillain on Earth. Very selfish of them.

Observation: in everything ever, the old Ultimate Evil can only be sealed away. Invariably, during the course of the story, the Ultimate Evil is awakened. Yet this generation of heroes can actually destroy it permanently instead of just sealing it. Is this a trope? Because it should be. It's in a ton of different fantasy works. The old heroes were terrible at their jobs and only locked the evil up until a better group of heroes actually put an end to the threat forever.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well I sure lucked out. I think. Galuf's Geomancer Find Hole ability thing saved me a lot of problems when raiding this treasure room in the Floating Ruins or Ruins of Ronka or whatever. I would have been very irritated had I found that room full of goodies and promptly been dropped down a hole.

Well happy to see you liking Geomancer, it tends to be one of the more overlooked jobs in this game.



Are you serious? I did all that for smurfing Throw? I have never used Throw in any FF game, ever. And let me guess, Dual Wielding is the ability that will take 450 ABP. Holy smurfing trout, I'll be trying to get that for the rest of the game!

Ugh...beginning to think wasting time on Ninja wasn't worth it...


Yep, but Dual Wield is one of the two best melee moves in the game. You may want to have one or two characters master Ninja for that. Generally the best skills are the most expensive and require you to master several less than stellar skills to reach it.


Anyway...Galuf mastered Geomancer and I wasn't sure what to switch him to. He's a Red Mage now. Now say what you want about Red Mage - about them being the Master of None and all that - but they are by far the most stylish of mages. I love the look.

They are snazzy. I like Blue Mages Domino masks and berets as well.


THE KING IS EVIL???? Well, I'm shocked! Who could have ever predicted this development???
If you mean possessed by evil, then you would be right.


Gonna point out a fact I realized some time ago - the FFX Party is the only party in the series that isn't directly responsible for dooming the world. Good job, Tidus and friends.

Well they did kill the only person who could create the Final Aeon and they only beat Sin due to Jecht's weakness to choral music. Not to mention the whole thing with Seymour though I guess he really wasn't much of a threat. Also FFII and III's cast say "hi".


And the Earth Crystal shattered, also something no one could have ever foreseen. Poor King Tycoon though, reunited with his one daughter only long enough to die.

Yeah King Tycoon gets the short end of the stick in this one.


X-Death's Theme is pretty badass. It made that whole scene quite memorable. That and Krile crash landing in a meteor and then blasting the king with a bolt spell. Contrived and useless but awesome.

ExDeath does indeed have a pretty badass theme which I always use for him when playing Dissidia. Krile... is the master of contrived scenes. Meet FFV's resident Mary Sue.


Oooh these new classes sound awesome though... Dragoons are Lancers in this translation? Meh, makes sense. I wanna try out that and Dancer.
Dragoon is pretty cool and Dancer is a blast actually. They seem weak but they are pretty good damage dealers and have some good abilities. Samurai and Chemist are also pretty awesome.


For more serious Plot Talk, I guess Cid's machine weakened the crystals so X Death was able to revive in the first place? So there's a vague environmental message. Although it's Galuf's and the other's fault for leaving their planet's supervillain on Earth. Very selfish of them.

Observation: in everything ever, the old Ultimate Evil can only be sealed away. Invariably, during the course of the story, the Ultimate Evil is awakened. Yet this generation of heroes can actually destroy it permanently instead of just sealing it. Is this a trope? Because it should be. It's in a ton of different fantasy works. The old heroes were terrible at their jobs and only locked the evil up until a better group of heroes actually put an end to the threat forever.

My general feeling is that FFV's theme was inheritance. I'll talk about it more in-depth when I reach this point in my article series.

[Forsaken Lover]

I really wasn't feeling Dancer... Does it get better as it levels up? That would make sense. Right now, I had to switch it out for the "Kima Brain" boss guarding the last meteorite. Dancer Reina just wasn't doing anything so far as I could tell and I ended up dying. Meanwhile, when I switched in Time Mage Reina, I obliterated the boss no problem.

Congrats our heroes, you screwed up again. It looked like Galuf was leading an army to take down X-Death but nope! He had us hostage so that plan was thwarted immediately.

I gotta say, the music in this part is fucking awesome. It's not very ominous or imposing music for the main villain's castle...it's actually quite heroic and epic. But yeah, Galuf riding in on a dragon to that theme to save us was great.

And speaking of amazing music, I thought Battle on the Big Bridge was the Gilgamesh boss theme. But nope, it's just the theme for every battle on the Big Bridge. I really dig it. I was overly prepared for the fight with Gilgamesh though, Hasting everyone and casting Protect. This wasn't THE fight with him, I guess. Poor guy was screwed though because I had Bartz decked out with two Mage Mashers and so when he tried to buff himself at the end DIDN'T WORK DIDN'T WORK DIDN'T WORK.

Loving these new Halcyon Blades I got for Bartz. He now hits for 450 a shot which means he deals 900 damage per turn.

If I felt badass though, I had a nice reality check in the form of "Shld Drgn."I tried going intot his Sealed Castle place and that enemy wrecked me. Its attacks are fearsome enough but they also inflict...I think Berserk and Confuse? It appears to have Auto-Reflect while also having ridiculously high physical defense. I see no way at all to beat it. Maybe it has some sort of elemental weakness you have to exploit with Sword or an elemental weapon but I have no idea.

I should have listened to that NPC in the previous town who told me not to go in here...

So Galuf is KING Galuf huh? Interesting. So right now we are rocking a team of three royal personages who actually do something. And Bartz, who's family still hasn't been explained really. Will it be? Will i find out just what his father was up to later on?

You know what this game is really about? Being nice to animals. Dragons, Chocobos, Moogles, Hydra....there are so many lovable critters in this game and they get a relatively large amount of focus. We're off to save Krile's dragon right now which will mark the second time in this game we've saved a dragon. Granted, there are pragmatic reasons for doing this but you get my drift.

So I think this game is smarter than I realized. I was exploring Galuf's castle and found the basement. Enemy attacks out of nowhere! Rock Statues huh? And they give 4 ABP!"Aha...." I said as I clap my hands in glee. Then after a couple fights with two of them, the random encounters spawn five of them. "Oh dear..." I think. It's not so bad though and it gives 8 ABP.

Now, if you were some sort of demented madman, you might be tempted to grind and get all 999 ABP here. Me? I'm not quite that crazy. I was thinking mainly of getting the rest of Ninja's 450 ABP as well as Time Mage's 250. I'm guessing I will Master both Jobs after that? Time Mage is Level 6 and I can't see it going any higher than Level 7/Master.

Anyway, I spent a good while killing these things. Then in my latest encounter, I noticed they were hitting a lot harder. Doing like 600 damage to Bartz. They also seemed to be taking a bit longer to kill. I can't remember what level they were when I originally scanned them but I remember they had about 2700 HP. Now they have 3300.

Maybe I'm crazy and imagining it but the game realized I was grinding and was superpowering the encounters to keep me from doing that.

Anyway, I gave up on that and just left the castle to go find the Dragon Grass. Bard is Mastered, working on Chemist and Lancer for Faris. But yeah, with Red Mage Galuf taking 999 ABP, Ninja Bartz taking 450 ABP (well, it's like another 250 at this point) and Time Mage Reina taking another 250 ABP, I think Faris might be the only Job I'll be switching around in the near future.

I am liking this new world though, in Plot News. I don't know what's going to happen while in World 1 I knew that our heroes were going to fail repeatedly and the crystals would be destroyed. Right now though, all bets are off.

[Wolf Kanno]

I really wasn't feeling Dancer... Does it get better as it levels up? That would make sense. Right now, I had to switch it out for the "Kima Brain" boss guarding the last meteorite. Dancer Reina just wasn't doing anything so far as I could tell and I ended up dying. Meanwhile, when I switched in Time Mage Reina, I obliterated the boss no problem.

There are some special Dancer only gear that raises the probability of Sword Dance to be activated when the dance move is used. There is also the Dancing Dagger which will make a character randomly use one of the dances regardless of class.


Congrats our heroes, you screwed up again. It looked like Galuf was leading an army to take down X-Death but nope! He had us hostage so that plan was thwarted immediately.

TV Tropes joked that this was "Nice Job Breaking it Hero" The Game.


I gotta say, the music in this part is smurfing awesome. It's not very ominous or imposing music for the main villain's castle...it's actually quite heroic and epic. But yeah, Galuf riding in on a dragon to that theme to save us was great.

Told you FFV was rocking a killer OST. ;)



And speaking of amazing music, I thought Battle on the Big Bridge was the Gilgamesh boss theme. But nope, it's just the theme for every battle on the Big Bridge. I really dig it. I was overly prepared for the fight with Gilgamesh though, Hasting everyone and casting Protect. This wasn't THE fight with him, I guess. Poor guy was screwed though because I had Bartz decked out with two Mage Mashers and so when he tried to buff himself at the end DIDN'T WORK DIDN'T WORK DIDN'T WORK.

Loving these new Halcyon Blades I got for Bartz. He now hits for 450 a shot which means he deals 900 damage per turn.

Yeah, it pretty much is the Bridge them though I think it does play out in one of the other Gilgamesh fights. Don't expect much from him though, he's nastier in other games than in his own. Though his big ultimate showdown with the party is hilarious and begins one of the persistent running gags in the series.


If I felt badass though, I had a nice reality check in the form of "Shld Drgn."I tried going intot his Sealed Castle place and that enemy wrecked me. Its attacks are fearsome enough but they also inflict...I think Berserk and Confuse? It appears to have Auto-Reflect while also having ridiculously high physical defense. I see no way at all to beat it. Maybe it has some sort of elemental weakness you have to exploit with Sword or an elemental weapon but I have no idea.

Want to take those bad boys down easily? Raise a Trainer up until they learn Control and then just have the Shield Dragon destroy itself with Flame.


So Galuf is KING Galuf huh? Interesting. So right now we are rocking a team of three royal personages who actually do something. And Bartz, who's family still hasn't been explained really. Will it be? Will i find out just what his father was up to later on?

You'll get a few more bits of info but don't expect anything ground breaking.


You know what this game is really about? Being nice to animals. Dragons, Chocobos, Moogles, Hydra....there are so many lovable critters in this game and they get a relatively large amount of focus. We're off to save Krile's dragon right now which will mark the second time in this game we've saved a dragon. Granted, there are pragmatic reasons for doing this but you get my drift.
See we've got that environmental message still kicking about being kind to the planet and all it's inhabitants. Nice that it's not quite in your face like Seiken Denetsu and FFVII were.


So I think this game is smarter than I realized. I was exploring Galuf's castle and found the basement. Enemy attacks out of nowhere! Rock Statues huh? And they give 4 ABP!"Aha...." I said as I clap my hands in glee. Then after a couple fights with two of them, the random encounters spawn five of them. "Oh dear..." I think. It's not so bad though and it gives 8 ABP.

Now, if you were some sort of demented madman, you might be tempted to grind and get all 999 ABP here. Me? I'm not quite that crazy. I was thinking mainly of getting the rest of Ninja's 450 ABP as well as Time Mage's 250. I'm guessing I will Master both Jobs after that? Time Mage is Level 6 and I can't see it going any higher than Level 7/Master.

Anyway, I spent a good while killing these things. Then in my latest encounter, I noticed they were hitting a lot harder. Doing like 600 damage to Bartz. They also seemed to be taking a bit longer to kill. I can't remember what level they were when I originally scanned them but I remember they had about 2700 HP. Now they have 3300.

Maybe I'm crazy and imagining it but the game realized I was grinding and was superpowering the encounters to keep me from doing that.

A Blue Mage with Lv. 5 Death will wreck these guys and is the fastest way to kill them. Also, using a Soft/Gold Needle will instantly kill them.


Anyway, I gave up on that and just left the castle to go find the Dragon Grass. Bard is Mastered, working on Chemist and Lancer for Faris. But yeah, with Red Mage Galuf taking 999 ABP, Ninja Bartz taking 450 ABP (well, it's like another 250 at this point) and Time Mage Reina taking another 250 ABP, I think Faris might be the only Job I'll be switching around in the near future.

I am liking this new world though, in Plot News. I don't know what's going to happen while in World 1 I knew that our heroes were going to fail repeatedly and the crystals would be destroyed. Right now though, all bets are off.

Don't bother with Red Mage just yet, there is a better dungeon that will mostly guarantee 999ABP if you have enough elixirs in your inventory which makes mastering Red Mage and Mime so much easier. After that it's Mover hunting in the final dungeon.

Have you ventured into the Gil Snapper's cave just yet?

[Galuf]

Its awesome to see you are enjoying this awesome game. I dont knw why its so overlooked. But you are not safe yet. 3 very powerful bosses await you in the future. And thats not including the 2 dickishly placed superbosses.