My First Encounter with... WARMECH!

I'm not one to level like crazy. I'm only on 19 across the board. Red Wizard, Black Wizard, Black Wizard, Black Wizard. RW has the Opal bracelet, I think everyone else is sporting Gold.

I've been playing this game since I was a young kid on NES. I've always known about WM, but nothing more than he was a super-hard monster somewhere in the game. I had a Nintendo Power poster with all the monster's stats.

Well, about two hours ago, I walked across the bridge like I owned the place... And Warmech pounced me. I was like, "You're kidding. Warmech?! No way!"

I expected to get killed. I was only about 3/4 correct. I chose to run with everyone, he chose to nuke me. Killed the bottom two BW's, sent my RW to single-digit HP. Surprisingly, my second only had half his hitpoints fried off his bones.

One of them made the "close call" in the second round before WM's turn. I didn't think you could run from him, but we did. I cast Life1 on the dead guys, drank about 50 Heal potions, and destroyed Tiamat with the Bane sword.

Someday, I'll go back and face him. But, not tonight!!!

If I remember, he appears randomly. You might not have the luck later. :(

I remember the first time I ran into Warmech on the NES version, I was not prepared and I barely survived with only two party members left. I escaped to the outside, using up all my potions to keep my remaining party members alive, because I wanted to save (as if saving would commemorate the victory). I got outside but was out of houses somehow, so I could not heal any more or save. All I could do was head back to town. I was three steps from my airship at the edge of the desert when two ankylos attacked and killed me off.

Fought him again last night. All my guys are around level 26. Figured with 3 nukes/round I would put him away. Pfft. Trouble is, Warmech went first in the first round and killed one BW on sight. One of the remaining BW's nukes failed to do anything impressive, like ~100 damage or whatever. It was a slaughter.

Funny thing is, I met him about half way across the bride on my first pas north. That's 2/2 times I've met him crossing the bridge!

http://www.necronopticous.com/upload/ff_blm_15.gif

Cool.

I might be willing to do a solo RW. But, I hate leveling, so I don't think I would enjoy doing a solo quest. Still, it's impressive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sharpe

I might be willing to do a solo RW. But, I hate leveling

---

With only one character, leveling is quite fast.

You can't level more than once per fight, though, right? What happens when you kill WM with one guy?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sharpe

You can't level more than once per fight, though, right? What happens when you kill WM with one guy?

---

Same thing that happens when you kill him with any other amount of guys--nothing.

I've faced him, and beat him. He wasn't that impressive to me. I guess he took it easy on me

I managed to beat him with LV30 characters a few months ago, with the party Knight/Ninja/White Wizard/Black Wizard.
My strategy was to focus on preparing my party the first round, so I threw INV2 and FAST and whatnot, and the White Wizard used HEL3;
then I spammed physical attacks and NUKE while the White Wizard kept focusing on healing.

It was easier than I thought, I managed to beat him in a few rounds, but I did get several characters in the near-death condition.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Christmas

If I remember, he appears randomly. You might not have the luck later. :(

---

From what I understand, he has a 1.5625% chance of appearing on Tiamat's floor, and he doesn't appear anywhere else. If you're "lucky", you'll only encounter 1 Warmech. However, it's possible to encounter 4 of them in the same battle, which is easily the most difficult battle in the game. Keep in mind that even just 1 Warmech can easily wipe most any party at that stage in the game [I'm not counting people that over-level their party].

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khalin

it's possible to encounter 4 of them in the same battle, which is easily the most difficult battle in the game.

---

I've played this game quite a lot in the past and have never come acroos this. I'd really love to see a legit screenshot of this if it has ever happened

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MedctnStn

I've played this game quite a lot in the past and have never come acroos this. I'd really love to see a legit screenshot of this if it has ever happened

---

Hm, it's actually happened to me twice. The first time this happened, I had run into them by accident and was destroyed because I was caught off-guard. After that, I was pretty dead-set on a rematch. I was wandering around, waiting for a fight with Warmechs to trigger because I wanted to fight one. However, instead of one, I got four, and I just thought to myself "4 of them? really?" and failed to get a "Close Call", and died. I think it happened one 1-2 other occasions, but that's all I can really remember.

I did take a screenshot of this at some point on my NES emulator several years later. I'll see if I can dig it up later and post it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khalin

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Christmas

If I remember, he appears randomly. You might not have the luck later. :(

---

However, it's possible to encounter 4 of them in the same battle,

---

That sounds like it's the original Mega-ten moment :(

It's not possible to fight more than one at a time.

Yeah, I agree with theundeadhero as long as you're not messing with the game. I always thought Warmech was a fixed battle.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theundeadhero

It's not possible to fight more than one at a time.

---

Of course it is. Why do you think when you only fight one, it appears in a fixed corner [as to be able to fit exactly 4 in two rows of two] as opposed to the exact centre, like a normal "one at a time only" monster would appear [ie. something like Garland appearing in the middle even though his sprite is small as shown here]? I've seen this happen myself though, which I described earlier, yet you claim that it isn't possible. I feel like you're trying to insinuate that I'm a liar.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MedctnStn

I've played this game quite a lot in the past and have never come acroos this. I'd really love to see a legit screenshot of this if it has ever happened

---

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/8...mechscreen.jpg

Don't laugh at my character names, I had to think of names with only 4 letters maximum to work with.

I wonder what the developers were thinking when they decided to throw in a random chance for four of them to appear at a time. Putting just one in is already kind of a cruel joke.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VeloZer0

I wonder what the developers were thinking when they decided to throw in a random chance for four of them to appear at a time. Putting just one in is already kind of a cruel joke.

---

I have no clue, and practically any party at that stage in the game will not be able to defeat 4 of them at a time, or even stand a chance [obviously, since we've already agreed that most parties at that point will struggle with just one]. I was considering making a party specially designed for fighting 4 WarMECHS someday and just staying there all day waiting for them to show up, but that would be a long effort, and I would have to get extremely lucky and pray they don't all sit and spam Nuclear simultaneously. This is aside from the fact that I would have to actually encounter 4 of them in the same battle, which alone would be quite a feat. However, I'm sure it can be done though. If it ever happens, I'll be sure to youtube it or something.

Quote:

---

Of course it is. Why do you think when you only fight one, it appears in a fixed corner [as to be able to fit exactly 4 in two rows of two] as opposed to the exact centre, like a normal "one at a time only" monster would appear [ie. something like Garland appearing in the middle even though his sprite is small as shown here]?

---

Size doesn't matter. You could fit four of any of the fiends into a combat screen but it's only possible to fight one at a time.

That picture means nothing. To whoever made it~ I can edit them too:



It's not possible to fight more than one at a time.

I never played through the entire NES version of Final Fantasy, but a quick search reveals that others talk about a four Warmech encounter. Why not verify it through the game's coding? The game is old and its programming has been dissected, surely.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theundeadhero

That picture means nothing. To whoever made it~ I can edit them too:

---

Don't feign ignorance by hiding behind "to whoever made it~". I plainly said that I took the screenshot myself, and it isn't edited.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theundeadhero

It's not possible to fight more than one at a time.

---

Proof? I explained my personal encounters with this and I showed a screenshot doing so, and I also explained some reasoning behind the size and positioning of the WarMECH sprite. I feel like your counter to my statement is "it's not possible".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theundeadhero

Size doesn't matter. You could fit four of any of the fiends into a combat screen

---

Really?

Attempt 1:
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/3696/4lich.jpg

Attempt 2:
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/361/4kary.jpg

Attempt 3:
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/2452/4kraken.jpg

Attempt 4:
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/5500/4tiamat.jpg

As you can see [with all due respect], even if I noticeably overlap their sprites onto each other, they still can't fit into the box. And for the record, this game does not overlap monster sprites under any circumstance the way I just did in these screenshots to test the validity of your statement, so they would actually be going much further off the monster box than that.

As I said before, all monsters that you can only fight "one at a time only", will be placed in the centre of the screen as I have shown with Garland in this example, as well as any of the other four fiends as shown in this, this, this, and this example. Monsters that can be fought in numbers greater than 1, will appear in positions specifically designed to allow other monsters to appear.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roogle

I never played through the entire NES version of Final Fantasy, but a quick search reveals that others talk about a four Warmech encounter.

---

^ This.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roogle

Why not verify it through the game's coding?

---

^ This too. I'd like to see you come up with actual proof aside from "that's not possible". I'm not trying to antagonize you here as I said, but I feel pretty insulted that you're trying to accuse me of photoshopping something, just because I offered some proof aside from describing my personal experience, and explaining some reasoning and rational explanation of their obvious and patterned sprite designs/positioning. Honestly, why would I waltz in and randomly make something like this up? People here that know me well should know that I don't go around spouting a bunch of fake nonsense in random video game discussions.


Roogle, I'm actually considering doing it for myself, but I'm not sure where to start. How would I go about checking the coding in the game to find this?

I'm certain I've never seen an encounter with any more than one WarMECH at a time. I'm also fairly sure that WarMECH can only be found in one "tile" position. Just speaking from the experience I have from playing the game, I seem to remember most encounters similar to that one have a specific "troop" list of enemies. I like Roogle's idea of finding the proof, though. Personally, I'm intrigued now to see whether or not a throng of WarMECHs can indeed be legitimately encountered. :choc2:

Warmech is battle 0x56(a), only shows up on Sky Castle 5F, and there's only one of him. No battle in the game has more than one Warmech at a time.

Random encounters in the NES version aren't very random; they're read from a fixed table. You're guaranteed to find Warmech after 129 or fewer battles in a row as long as you don't turn the NES off. Usually fewer, depends mostly where in the encounter table you are when you start counting.

The NES version of this game has been thoroughly dissected. See any FAQ about FF1 battle mechanics, e.g. http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/file/522595/57009. Or find a ROM and check using FFHackster (http://disch.zophar.net/ffhackster.php). The screenshot is fake or from a hacked ROM.

I know that the screenshot itself is not fake. I would like to know if there are any popular difficulty hacks that might have added a four Warmech encounter as I see it talked about in other places. Remember, many hacks only change statistics and values in the ROM and leave the rest untouched, so it's easy to forget that you're playing one in the first place —

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roogle

I know that the screenshot itself is not fake.

---

Yes, I remember when you and I talked about my four WarMECH encounter a while back, too. I'll concede that I may have been using a hacked ROM, but I find someone else's notion of me making something like this up for laughs or something to be highly insulting. I never found the notion of 4 WarMECHs to be all that unbelievable anyways, and I've heard/read other people mentioning this happening to them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roogle

I would like to know if there are any popular difficulty hacks that might have added a four Warmech encounter as I see it talked about in other places.

---

Yes, and the thing is a few other people I've talked to have mentioned 4 WarMECH encounters as well. I'm still having a difficult time accepting the fact that I was probably using a hacked ROM, but that's fine I guess. I swear up and down that my ROM was normal though, I know I got it from some standard NES ROM site.


So if I dug up my old ROM, then I can use this FFHackster thing to look at it? Also, would it be against the rules to post it here?

Thanks for looking into it for my GodUnne.

Quote:

---

Yes, I remember when you and I talked about my four WarMECH encounter a while back, too. I'll concede that I may have been using a hacked ROM, but I find someone else's notion of me making something like this up for laughs or something to be highly insulting. I never found the notion of 4 WarMECHs to be all that unbelievable anyways, and I've heard/read other people mentioning this happening to them.

---

If you had known it was a different version of the rom and mentioned it I would have let it go, but as it was we were all talking about the original game and I find it important to prevent the spread of wrong information. Don't take it so personal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theundeadhero

If you had known it was a different version of the rom and mentioned it I would have let it go

---

I had no idea. I'm still finding it a little hard to believe that I was playing a different version to be honest with you, I don't really recall any such detail that made it feel any different from the original game... oh well. I do want to know if I'm allowed to post the ROM I was using if I ever find it, just so you guys know this wasn't the right side of my brain talking here.