From Friday last week to Monday this week I went on a Final Fantasy IV marathon (European GBA version). It's been a long time since I last played through Final Fantasy IV, and I must say, playing through it brought back so many good memories and it reminded me just why it's my favourite Final Fantasy. The theme of redemption, victims of Golbez'/Zemus' evil throughout the world uniting to fight their enemy, the strong story all throughout the game (that doesn't have characters forcing players into 10 minute monologues or identity crisises), the varied boss strategies that you have to use with the team you're given at the time (which gives all FFIV players an even playing field with no cheap strategies like Ultima x 5 or Dual Wield-Rapid Fire), I really have to wonder why I don't replay this game more often.
...yeah, a big portion of my FFIV is probably nostalgia, but even without it it'd still be my most favourite FF since there's something "pure" and classic about it.
Now that I've also got plenty of RPG experience in my sleeves, I was also suprised at just how much my tactics have changed when playing through the game. I found myself using Rods and Ice/Fire/Thunder Rods as items a lot more with my mages. I also found myself defending on my magic casters' turns during random encounters so that I wouldn't be facing strong counterattacks from dealing weak damage to them. I was also taking advantage of spells like Berserk and Slow a lot more than I did as a kid (especially against bosses. Slow didn't always seem to have an effect, even if it did always hit, but it did make some boss battles much easier). There was also some unique properties to enemies that I took advantage of (eg: some enemies in the Giant of Babil get confused if lightning magic is used on them, a Black Flan x 2 and Grenade x 2 random encounter will automatically be defeated if lightning magic is casted on all enemies, regardless of how strong it is since a chain reaction will be set off killing them all in an explosion). As a kid my main strategy was "RRRRUUUNNN!!!" and go all out on MP usage until my mages run out of HP or MP, in which case I resort to the former strategy.
Another interesting thing I noticed is that some playable characters get weaknesses at certain levels. Cecil got weak against ice magic around the Tower of Zot area (he was equipped with the Flame Shield and Mail, and both of them say they resist ice in-game), and once I got to the Tower of Babil area, Cecil lost the ice weakness and Kain became weak against ice. It wasn't the equipment since Kain was weak against ice when the only elemental armor he had was the Flame Shield (which is supposed to resist ice). Also, in the Lunar Subterrane, Edward had a weakness to Ice for whatever reason (that's what Zemus' Breath casting scan on him revealed, that and he took heavy damage against Blue Dragons' blizzard attacks). He was the only member on my team that had an elemental weakness at the time.
I defeated the game in 16:44. I wasn't really doing a speed run (especially since I was aiming to get all treasure, all lost forever bestiary entries, and I switched around my team at the end since I've always stuck with the original final five and I wanted to switch it up this time), but I'm still quite impressed with that time since I always remember having my hour number be 18 or higher by the time I defeated the game. My final team was Cecil, Cid, Yang, Edward, and Porom. That team was actually pretty awesome. Cecil's Ragnarok, Yang's Godhand, and Edward's Apollo's Harp made undead and dragons, respectively, really easy to dispatch (especially since Dinozombies, Dracozombies, and Lunasaurs all took 9999 damage from their physical attacks). Edward's Apollo's Harp's effectiveness against dragons also proved insanely useful against other dragons like Red, Blue, Gold, and Silver Dragons (and it made quick work of the White Dragon and Dark Bahamut battles). Cid's Thor's Hammer was useful, but not as much as the latter three (it did nicely against Li'l Murderers and Wicked Masks though). Lacking an offensive magic caster didn't hurt much. Actually, I'd say having 4 fighters made random encounters much easier and quicker. As for bosses, only some of them were harder due to not having an offensive magic caster (Zeromus and Plague Horror) while the rest were actually easier (thanks to Edward being an awesome dragon slayer with Apollo's Harp).
Anyways, for a topic... I guess discuss either how your strategies for FFIV have changed from as a kid to now, or help me out with some of the oddities of FFIV like elemental character weaknesses or unique enemy properties. (know any ones besides exploding Flans?)