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Thread: WK does an FFV Let's Play?

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    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fynn View Post
    You can still replace thief with red mage
    Actually Red Mage isn't available yet. You get the class with the Water Crystal of Walse.

    My available classes, excluding Freelancer, are:
    Knight
    Thief
    Monk
    White Mage
    Black Mage
    Blue Mage

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    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Update!

    Well with Fynn's suggestion, I made Butz a Knight, Lenna, a Thief, Galuf a Blue Mage, and Faris a Monk. I'm going to give an overview of the classes and post the real update a bit later once I dwindle down which screenshots I want to use.
    **********************************************************************************************
    The Knight class is the armored bruiser of the Job Classes.
    FF5-Knight.png
    Overall the Knight grants the following:
    Strength: +23
    Agility: +1
    Stamina: +20
    Magic: -14
    Ability: Guard
    Innate: Cover
    Class Type: Take
    Weapons: Knives, Swords, Knightswords
    Armor: Heavy armor including gauntlets, helmets, shields, and Light Armor

    With the ability to equip heavy armor and use shields, Knights are naturally durable, especially with the Stamina bonus. They are loosely based off of Cecil's Paladin form, gaining his innate Cover ability to protect weaken allies and gaining the ability Guard, which significantly reduces all physical damage that hit them which works great with their innate Cover ability. The skills this class teaches are mostly situational. Doublehand, their Lv. 3 ability, is easily the best skill they teach, granting a +13 bonus to Strength which I'll remind you, their swords naturally scale with. This skill is easily their best offering being the best support ability for melee classes until Dual-Wield and/or Rapid Fire are obtained. Most of their other skills are situational at best. Cover is only really useful for durable classes like Knight and frankly I feel the Monk is the best choice to use the skill. Guard is a pretty useful skill if you know you're up against a heavy melee hitter and want to use a squishy mage, otherwise don't bother. Equip shield can be useful since shield block attacks and elemental ones can no-sell their respective element making them a viable defensive support skill if you're using a class that can't equip shields. Equip Armor is not as useful as it sounds, since Heavy Armor tends to lack the special bonuses most other armor types grant. Equip Sword is a much better skill than you might think, largely due to its ability to let you use not only Knightswords, but also granting the user the Knights +23 Strength, which makes it pretty excellent for classes that need more oomph.

    Overall, I find the Knight is a Take type class, by which I mean it's a class that is strong on it's own and benefits from using other class abilities as opposed to having a great skill selection itself. Mystic Blade, Dual-Wield. Rapid Fire, Bladegrasp, and even high level magic like White or Time. This is a class that can carry you through the whole game and is one of the best starting classes as usual for the franchise. While it's very equipment dependent, said gear is often the best in the game.
    ********************************************************************************
    Thief is a dungeon crawlers best friend.
    FF5-Thief.png
    Stats
    Strength: +1
    Agility: +16*
    Stamina: +2
    Magic: -6
    Ability: Steal
    Innate: Secret Passage, Vigilance, and Sprint
    Class Type: Give
    Weapons: Knives and Boomerangs
    Armor: Light Armor, Armlets, Cloth Armor, and Thief Gloves

    Thieves are a mix bag. Combat wise, they leave much to be desired with low stat gains outside of agility, and while their weapon type scales with agility, it also has to scale with strength which will likely be low, evening it out. On the other hand, knives tend to come with special secondary effects that offset their crummy attack potential. Thieves are also pretty squishy overall and won't last long on the front lines without a meat shield like Knight or White Mage medic on constant alert. Course you don't use a Thief for combat potential, unless this is any of the post-FFV entries cause hot damn if Locke and Zidane aren't OP in their titles. Instead it's their support abilities and signature Steal command that make them desirable. Letting you score lots of goodies early on and helping you find hidden treasure behind invisible paths and locked doors. Not to mention the Sprint option and Back Attack protection are wonderful anti-frustration features. Most of their abilities are pretty useful with the possible exception of Find Passage if you're using a guide or are a veteran who simply remembers where all the good stuff is. Sprint/Dash is also not as useful for anyone not playing the original Super Famicom version since Square came to their senses and added a dash command in all their later ports of this game. Steal, and especially Mug are easily the best skills they grant which work well with other speedy classes like Ninja. Vigilance is an underrated ability but one that will be very useful in a future dungeon. Back Attacks are annoying but usually manageable, yet FFV decided to have some really nasty enemies in this game primarily show up only in a back attack formation, and this handy skill will likely save you from a few extra party wipes. Flee/escape is great for low level runs or inexperienced players who simply want to have fun since it grants 100% success rate in running from battles. Artful Dodger is a weird skill, cause all it does is grant any class the +16 Agility the thief possesses. It may seem like useless skill, but given to a class like Hunter or Ninja whom use weapons that scale with Agility and Strength and you can see them gain a great boost, especially since one class can't make use of some of the other useful melee skills.

    Overall Thief has some great skills to give to other classes, but the weak stats and limited build options make this more of a Give type of class. With that said, if you're looking to make a great endgame party utilizing the Freelancer/Mime combo, you need to master this class. You not only gain all of the innate skills but Thief gives the highest Agility bonus to the Freelancer/Mime classes.

    **************************************************************************************************** **
    Monk's are the best damage dealers in the early game.
    FF5-Monk.png
    Stats
    Strength: +26*
    Agility: +1
    Stamina: +26*
    Magic: -23
    Ability: Kick
    Innate: Brawler and Counter
    Class Type: Give
    Weapons: Barehanded
    Armor: Light Armor, Armlets, Cloth Armor

    Granting the best Strength and Stamina bonuses in the game, Monks are certainly a class you'll want to master for the Freelancer/Mime classes. What's really odd about the class though, is despite having the highest strength bonus of any class, as far as I can tell, the class never makes any use of it. Monk's use barehands as their only weapon type, and barehand normally has an innate power of 3, basically Attack = 3. With the Brawler skill, this formula changes to Attack = (Level*2)+3 meaning the attack of a Monk is completely dependent on their level and not their stats, even Kick is based on the formula. So the class that gives the highest strength bonus ironically doesn't need it. The only way to boost their power is to gain level or equipe them with the Kaiser Knuckles which changes the base power of unarmed to 50. Course Barehanded attacks twice, so regardless of how the damage formula works, this class is pretty OP in the damage department, especially in the early game. Another weird element of the class is that despite Kick being the default ability for the class, it's not a learnable skill. Only Monks and technically a Mime can use the skill.

    Several of the classes skills are pretty useful. Brawler grants a class both the Monk's strength bonus and allows them to fight barehanded. Due to the damage algortihm, this makes the skill highly useful for mages who don't need to worry about losing out on the strength bonus due to their handicaps and they can fight just as well as a monk. Counter is an amazing ability, especially for Knights who can utilize it with the Cover/Guard combo to mnake them work double dute as a meat shield and meat cleaver. Focus is a pretty good skill that uses up one turn to double normal damage the following turn, though it will remove any special abilities in the algortithm such as elemental wekaness if used on a character using a weapon. Not so useful for slow classes but speedy ones will find it useful, though Jump is still superior. Chakra is a great free heal ability that is very useful in the early game, especially since it also heals Poison and Darkness. The rest of it's skills are just HP%+ type skills that have so-so usefulness. I often feel they were put at the end to discourage average players from mastering the class so they won't get the stat bonuses for Freelancer/Mime classes the game never tells you about.

    Overall, while the class is prety powerful with some great skills, it doesn't mesh well with other class abilities, giving it few exploitable options. It's ridiculous Magic Stat penalty, which is tiued with the Beserker for worst, makes it pointless to use any spell type dependent on Magic Power such as White, Black, Red, and Summons. Like many classes that are genuinely self-contained in their design, Monk often works best with some of it's own skills such as Focus and Chakra. It's a Give class that works well on its own.

    **************************************************************************************************** ***

    Making their series debut, the Blue Mage
    FF5-BlueMage.png
    Stats:
    Strength: -8
    Agility: +1
    Stamina: +3
    Magic: +23
    Ability: Blue Magic
    Innate: Learning
    Class Type: Give and Take
    Weapons: Knives, Swords, and Rods
    Armor: Cloth/Robes, Light Armor, Shields, Hats, and Armlets

    Meet one of the game's three "Veteran Classes" I call them that cause only a veteran of the series is ever going to bother putting in the effort to make the most of the class and learn how they work out of sheer boredom. Blue Mages learn select enemy skills that are used on them in battle. Contrary to what you may beleive, the Blue Mage doesn't actually have to survive the battle to learn the skill, as long as someone on your team wins the battle they learn the skill in. Another bonus is that all learned Blue Magics are shared, so you only need to learn the spell once. There are 30 Blue Mage spells available in the game. Unlike conventional magic, Blue Magic tends to be less direct in it's useability. Many of the skills either inflict status effects on the enemy or party, or utilize unique formulas that only damage enemies of the right Multiple of a number. The few normal offesnive spells it possees like the Aero class of spells or Aqua Rake utilize uncommon elements that few ennemies have defenses against, making this a pretty strong class when used right. I don't think any game in the series with the exception of FFIX have ever really given this class justice without changing the class basic arounds like VII and XI did. You will be surprised how many enemies in this game, including several bosses can be crippled by a Blue Mage with the right skill, it's almost ridiculous and you would be hard pressed to find a game where the class can be this OP. With the exception of Learning and Blue Magic, the other two Blue Mage skills are garbage. The stat changes are only slightly different from a White Mage with a slight dip in Magic but increase in Stamina which is neglible in the long run. Of anything, I feel like the Blue Mage would have been better served getting the stat bonus/penalties of the Red Mage as Magic isn't a terribly useful stat for the Blue Mage since only a few of its skills utilize the stat. On the other hand, this makes the Blue Mage work well with another magic class as it's secondary job since it's stat bonuses are comparable to the White/Black mages. The fact it can use Rods and Knives to boost elemental power and can naturally use shields, makes this class actually a potentially better Black Mage than the class itself. With that said, Blue Mages tend to lure players into thinking they're decent front line fighters since they can use swords, but you really need to treat the class more like a Mage.

    Overall, the Blue Mage is a difficult to master but incredibly rewarding and fun class to use who can easily be made into a powerful secondary or primary mage dpeneding on the sub-job given. they can be decent fighters in the early game, but you'll want to put them in the back row and treat them like a Mage for most of the game. Learning can be an annoying skill to use, as most players would prefer not to waste a slot, but proper use of the class can be pretty rewarding. Blue Magic is just a great class cause it's not as dependent on Magic Power liek other magic, making it pretty ideal for melee classes with steep Magic penalities or quirky classes that get mediocre bonuses. It's honestly one of my favorite classes in the game.

    *************************************************************************************************
    Once I use the other two starting classes, I'll do an overview of them as well. I'll do one for each class I actually use in the game. I'll likely have the actual real update posted either later tonight or more likely sometime tomorrow.

  5. #20
    Trial by Wombat Bubba's Avatar
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    Just popping in to say I haven't played FFV and I want to avoid spoilers for when I do.

    Good luck with the LP though!

  6. #21
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Okay so one change up, I completely forgot about North Mountain, so today's episode will end before that point instead of Walse, meaning we get another shot at playing Job Classes.So I have my quirky team of Knight, Monk, Thief, and Blue Mage. All I can say for now is that despite the game's best efforts to make all the starting classes relevant in the beginning, this isn't exactly the ideal team for this part of the game. Ideally, I would drop Thief and Blue mage for the White and Black Mages due to the nature of the next major area I'm heading towards. Still, there are some things I can do right now with these classes.

    I head back into the Wind Shrine in order to pick up the two Blue Magics in here and make the most of the Thief class. Black Goblins possess Goblin Punch which is an average physical attack with a few quirky properties that have some interesting potential much later in the game. One of which is the fact the game does 8x more damage if the attacker and target share the same level. Something I learn painfully when my team reach Level 7, and the Goblins start ganging up on poor Lenna. Speaking of which, I'm having Lenna steal potions off of all the enemies I encounter and hopefully I'll get a few of the rare drops like Elixirs and Leather Shoes as well. Since I don't have a dedicated healer yet, this is a good way to have some quick healing unless I choose to cheat... This is also important cause sadly, the next two areas don't have much in the way of great items to steal or use of the class dungeon crawler skills. In truth, Walse is where the Thief really shines cause the enemies in the area have invaluable items, and Vigilance will be incredibly useful to avoid a certain trolling enemy the devs threw in. MoldWynns possess Aero, which most players probably don't know about because they only use it on their sixth to eighth turn. Unfortunately, the Monk becomes a huge liability since they have innate Counter so it takes a while to even see the spell because the damn things keep attacking Faris and she in return beats them into the ground. It takes a few attempts but thankfully, the first time the enemy lasts long enough to use the skill, they use it on my actual Blue Mage! Hurray! With that done, I head back to the Pirate Hideout to fight the Steel Bats, they use Vampire, which turns into a great asset later as it's the most effective healing (for the Blue Mage at least) I have available at the moment without a White Mage. I can't progress through the canal due to the gate being locked, so I head back to Tule to meet with Zokk, a friend of Lenna and quite possibly the inspiration for Dr. Zot in FFIX. We get some interesting story moments here with a bit of foreshadowing on Butz's past and connection to the Dawn Warriors. Zok gives him the key and we can proceed to the canal.The canal is pretty short with only two new enemy types and a Jumbo Prawn type enemy as a boss. Fun Fact: The squid/octopus enemies in this area only target the female party members. Devs getting pervy stuff past the radar again. The boss of this area isn't too much of a handful except for one attack that does a lot of damage to a single party member. My party doesn't have too much trouble taking him down, though if you want a quick and easy way to beat this guy, turn everyone into a Black Mage cause he's extremely weak to Bolt/Thunder magic and you can take him down really fast. We get a heartfelt scene with Syldra helping the party and lose our ship in the process. The party winds up in the Ship Graveyard. This is where a Black and White mage would come in really handy as every enemy in this area is undead and weak to healing and fire magic. Most enemies don't carry anything important though some can still drop elixirs while the golem looking enemies do have Ethers as a rare drop but good luck getting that. There is a flail in the first area, but since I don't have a white mage, it goes into the inventory. Roughly halfway through the dungeon, you'll get a hilarious sequence where the party finally discovers Faris' true gender. The added heal up and save point are just added bonuses. The last stretch has a few easily missed treasures but the most important is the World Map. You can get one later but it's so easy to find it here that it would be a shame to miss it now. Just as the party feels their out of spooksville, the team is confronted with apparitions of important people in their lives. Butz thinks of his mother, Lenna her father, we get another not-so-subtle hint about Faris's true identity. We also get to meet Krile for the first time but in an odd case of amnesia actually proving to be useful, Galuf doesn't really fall for the apparition and instead snaps the party back to their senses before Siren makes her series debut. Siren is a bit of a tricky boss, she jumps between two phases, living and undead. Her living form is weak to melee while her undead is weak to magic. She can silence characters and hits surprisingly hard for a future summon that is usually physically frail. Sadly, she's not a summon in this title. The easiest way to deal with her is similar to the crab battle earlier, even make a team of monks or black mages and just nail her when she shifts to the appropriate form. Also, note that she drops a treasure when she dies but what you get depends on which form you end up dealing the fatal blow to. Her living form drops Bronze Armor, while her undead form drops a Bronze Shield. Since both become available in the next town, it's not terribly important which one to go for, but I went for the armor since it usually costs more. The lack of a dedicated healer did cost me here though as Siren wailed on my team pretty bad. Galuf largely stayed alive due to Vampire. Her levels is too low to make use of Goblin Punch and since Blue Mages have low attack power, I had him using Aero and healing instead. Everyone else attacked except for Faris, who used Focus which she learned earlier in the dungeon. I did sadly have to use a Phoenix Down to save Faris after she got nailed twice in a row with her heavy critical attack. Once finished the party leaves and you need to head south to reach Carwen. The party still needs to reach Walse to save the Water Crystal but they no longer have a boat and conventional ships aren't going to work. So what is a a ditz like Butz suppose to do? The next update will cover North Mountain and end with the team reaching Walse for real this time. Should I switch out the jobs or keep going? Everyone is level 2 with their current jobs which gives me a few, though not seriously great customization options.


  7. #22
    Witch of Theatergoing Karifean's Avatar
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    Man Blue Mages are so damn badass in this game. I can get behind the current party, Knights as well as Archers (Rangers in this game) tend to be my favorite job in any job-based game (they also totally dominate in XII Zodiac) and I may have made the endgame a bit too easy for me doing so, but I did make sure to max out Thief and Monk on everyone to have maxed out Freelancer stats eventually. Not sure if you'll use them, or if they're too OP for your taste.

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    Slothstronaut Recognized Member Slothy's Avatar
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    I seriously didn't know that about the battle speed. Nor did I know as much about the nitty gritty details of, well, everything. But I've only played the game a couple of times.

    Also blue mages are fantastic. Though I never actually have the patience to learn most of their spells.

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    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    So I have one vote for just sticking with this party. Does anyone else want to suggest a different line-up?

  10. #25
    Do Myself a Mischief Vermachtnis's Avatar
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    Blue Mages aren't that good early game. I always have a White Mage just to have a dedicated healer. Not a bad line-up though. I think Blue Mages learn !Learn so you can give that to Galuf if you do switch.

  11. #26
    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    I like the party as is. It seems it’s giving you a decent enough challenge so far - just as I intended

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    Slothstronaut Recognized Member Slothy's Avatar
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    I really don't have much of a preference. You can keep the present jobs or change them as you see fit. Part of me is interested in seeing you continue if only because it's a team I would never have picked for myself.

  13. #28
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Okay, so just to get this out of the way, let's do a quick overview of the last two classes from the Wind Crystal.

    White Mages are the go to team medic of any scrub.
    FF5-WhiteMage.png
    Stats
    Strength: -7
    Agility: +1
    Stamina: 0
    Magic: +25
    Ability: White Magic
    Innate: Nothing
    Class Type: Give
    Weapons: Staffs and Flails
    Armor: Hats, Robes, and Armlets

    The foundation of any good adventuring party, White Mages are a bit of a downgrade compared to previous incarnations in the series. Largely cause they lost of a lot of their versatility and good support options to Time and Blue Mage in this entry. Blue Mage has most of the same status inflicting spells that White Mage has going for it and losing Haste and the Aero spells hurt this class overall. Thankfully it still has Protect and Shell until TA2 Zing! The weapon options are not terrible, but nothing to write home about either. Staves base their damage off of the users Magic stat instead of strength and damage is calculated on the targets M. Defense rather than their actual defense stat. Flails works like axes and hammers which base damage on strength but ignore 75% of the enemies defense, but with the low strength stat, it's only a minor trade off.

    Still, the class is solid overall. The White Mage is pretty useful before you get the second set of Jobs due to consistent healing as well as the life spells, not to mention a few instances in the early game makes them pretty useful such as the undead Ship Graveyard and being able to Silence a few annoying bosses. Holy, as usual, is also a pretty powerful spell though the Mystic Knight makes better use of it. It's a class I would recommend leveling up as you go and then giving their skills to another class instead. The class basically teaches six levels of White Magic which allows another job use a certain amount of the spells. In addition, the ability grants the job a part of the White Mage's magic power with it, so even magically inept classes can make use of the spells, though you'll only see noticeable power the higher level of White Magic you've learned. Their final skill is MP+10% which is absolutely useless and one of many final Mage skills that feel like they exist to troll the player with. With that said, they can be made useful by either giving them a secondary magic art to play with Like Blue or Summon magic, or you can give them barehanded and watch as they beat the crap out of everything for the first half of the game.

    **************************************************************************************

    Black Mages are the fireball throwing glass cannons of the team.

    Stats
    Strength: -9
    Agility: 0
    Stamina: -2
    Magic: +31
    Ability: Black Magic
    Innate: Nothing
    Class Type: Give and Take
    Weapons: Knives and Rods
    Armor: Robes, Hat, and Armlets

    Normally in these types of class overviews, this is the point where we rip into Black Mages for not being as cool as summoners, but funny enough, their not terrible in this game. Largely cause having to find summons is more of a hassle in this entry, and because the Black Mage can use Rods. Rods work in battle with the same damage algorithm as Staves, but unlike Staves, the Rods real use is their passive elemental boost properties which can keep the Black Mage a viable party member for at least half of the game. Granted once you get access to most of the elemental summons or if you happen to know what you're doing with a Mystic Knight, the class does fall to the wayside. Even Flare can't help it despite being a pretty snazzy spell in this game, and Time Mage stole Meteor from them as well, though surprisingly, the Black Mage is better with it.

    Like White Mage, the class teaches tiers of its magic that grant use of more spells and boosts the users magic based on the Black Mage's stats, This is where Black Mages can be pretty useful cause while it may seem redundant to give Black Magic to say a summoner, the extra magic boost it rewards is pretty useful. In fact the best use of a Black Mage is similar to the White Mage. Either hand them other Magic styles like Time and Blue so you can see how powerful Aero and Meteor can really be, or give them Barehanded. With the second highest Magic stat in the game, BM isn't a bad option if you want to field some magic users as Blue Magic and Time Magic do see some benefits from being used by the class. Course Summoners are still the Achilles Heel of this class. Don't worry Black Mage, VI makes you awesome again. To add insult to injury, the Black Mages final ability is MP+30% which is just as useless as the 10% variant that WM teaches. You would honestly think they would give you the Equip Rod skill, but I'll save that rant for Time Mage.

    **************************************************************************************************** *So the party reaches Carwen and we get a little shopping done. There are a few more spells to learn for both Black Mage and White Mage, we get access to better armor for the Knight and Blue Mage, and we get access to the RegalCutlass (Long Sword in the official translation which is boring if you ask me) and the real prize is a hidden Ice Rod. This weapon is pretty awesome cause in the hands of Black Mage or Summoner, it grants a passive 50% increase to Ice Magic. It can also be used as an item where it will cast Blizzaga before breaking, so don't do that. In fact, most weapons that cast magic when used as an item in this game will break, so it's an awful feature in this game compared to FF1-IV. The party doesn't know how to reach Walse cause the mountains and sea are blocking their way. Just as luck would have it though, a drunk in the local bar is babbling about seeing a Hiryuu in the local mountain and Lenna knows there is only one in the whole world. Before we head out, we let Butz practice a bit more on a piano in town which is the second piano needed in the Hero Song quest.
    North Mountain is short but offers some unique elements, one of which is an environmental hazard. There are purple flowers on the mountain that will inflict poison on your party if you walk on them, so be careful while moving around. Most of the treasures are fluff, but their are other valuables. The tombstone looking enemies have two things to offer us. Thieves can steal Silver Spectacles from them, which not only offer the same defense bonuses as Leather Shoe accessories, but has the added benefit of giving us protection from Darkness/Blind. The enemy has one other gift, they know the Blue Mage skill Flash. Unfortunately they don't have enough MP to cast it, while you can get this skill later, I opted to hand over an ether I know I'll never use to get the spell now.
    The other enemy to look out for are the flying cat enemies. They don't have any blue spells or good items, but they're one of the first enemies you'll come across to reward 2 ABP instead of the usual one. This makes this mountain a decent early leveling spot, though I would save any serious grinding for later. I used them after the boss battle of the dungeon to level every characters job up one more level. Speaking of Bosses...
    North Mountain is kind of a bad day for Lenna overall, she gets poisoned by a poacher named Magissa. In some translations, Magissa wants to ransom her, in others she wants her to be a plaything for her husband... Yeah. After a seriously goofy rescue by Faris and the others we enter the fight. As you'll no doubt noticed, I switched Galuf to White Mage for this fight for a few reasons. Ideally, I would want to have both White and Blue Magic here but I didn't want to grind too much and instead opted to deal with the lesser of the two evils. Magissa is primarily a spell user, but she's not immune to Mute/Silence, making this fight ridiculously easy if you have a White Mage and the spell handy. In fact this trivializes the fight so much some players may not realize that if you wait around long enough, Magissa is joined by her hulking juggernaut of a husband Forza. If I had bothered to keep the Blue Magic, it's possible to Blind him with Flash which makes him a sitting duck as well. Both go down pretty easily, and I even learn White Lv. 1 for my trouble, which will become Galuf's sub job when I switch him back to Blue Mage. Neither boss carries an item you can steal, making Lenna kind of useless in this fight, but they both drop an item. Magissa drops a Whip, which only Beastmaster's and Freelancers can use. The damage it does scales with Strength and Agility like Knife weapons but also does full damage from the back row as an extra bonus. The Power Drink is mostly useless. The item is suppose to double attack power but it's bugged, and can only increase the damage of Goblin Punch. I'll likely sell it unless I can find a good Mix recipe for it.
    After this, we find the injured Hiryuu, who was on the mountain looking for a rare healing herb that only works on its species. Lenna braves the poisonous plants to get the dragon the herb, and in return the dragon heals her. This is kind of cheesy since you almost feel like their would have been an easier way to get to the plant, but for those who have played the game before, this scene has a bit of an extra punch to it if you remember the full backstory behind Lenna and the Hiryuu. With that the party has a flying dragon to traverse the world, but he can't fly over mountains. We also get a funny foreshadowing to Butz's traumatic childhood when he mentions he's afraid of heights.
    Now the party can reach Walse, but we're going to head back to Tycoon Castle instead, largely cause I don't like going where I'm told and partly to loot the place. Most of the items are pretty decent, Elixirs and Cottages, as well as more Ethers. Talking to the Chancellor activates a scene where Lenna confronts Faris about the possibility that she's her lost sister Sarisa. The whole sequence feels somwhat reminiscent of the Figaro Bros. scene in the next entry. The next morning, we're given permission to raid the castle treasury. I explore th castle and bypass some of it's bizarre architecture to find some hidden treasure here and there. The main trreasury contains a Katana, Diamond Bell, and Shuriken. I won't have any of these classes for a bit, but it's nice to get them now for when I do. I must say, I really appreciate the unique look and layout of Tycoon Castle.
    With that, I head to Walse finally. The Weapon shop only has one new item, a Battle Axe for the Berserker class. the Armor shop has some nice armor upgrades for the whole party and the magic shop sells our first sets of Time and Summon magic. The only other thing of note here is the little girl who talks about the Garula, which I must say is giving me flashbacks of FFXV, as well as a frog you can find in the north of the town. He doesn't ribbit, instead he tells you that it's not so bad being a frog. Apparently, this frog is a running gag in the series. During FFIII's time, someone drew a mini-comic about it with jokes where the team got turned into frog's to bypass part of the dungeon and instead decide that being frogs isn't so bad and simply end their journey there to live as frogs. Square liked the joke so much they've had a frog NPC repeat the line in both FFIV and V. I did got o Castle Walse, and was promptly destroyed when I entered the basement by an enemy called the Jackanapes, but I'll discuss him next time.

    Current setup:
    Butz - Knight with Doublehand as secondary ability
    Lenna - Thief with Escape/Flee as secondary ability
    Galuf - Blue Mage with White Lv.1 as secondary ability.
    Faris - Monk with Chakra as secondary ability.

    I'll likely tackle Walse Tower and Shiva next playthrough.



  14. #29
    Slothstronaut Recognized Member Slothy's Avatar
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    Wait the Regal Cutlass is actually a longsword or vice versa? A cutlass is nothing like a longsword. I am disappoint Square.

  15. #30
    Witch of Theatergoing Karifean's Avatar
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    Wait the rods boost elemental power already? Huh, I don't know if I ever realized that. Kinda wanna see a Black Mage now ^^ they're such a classic staple job that's pretty much always great to have.

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