Updatage!
After getting the Bell it was time to grind Guy so I didn't end up in the same situation as I did before with the post-Ice Cave where I got back to town by the seat of my pants. This is part way through my levelling session which resulted in about 1200 HP, 270 MP, Level 7 Fire and Level 8 Cure. After that it was time to move on.
...ah damn it! As I'm sure many of you have been discovering temporary party member's stats are grossly below much of your own party. In this sense, Gordon had even more grinding to do.
Chocobo! I don't know if anyone's posted any pics of them, or indeed even found where the forest is. It's directly south of Kashoun Castle, but there's no visual marker in the NES version meaning I had to wander around the forest until I bumped into it. These little fellahs are super useful for getting around the map quickly early on in the game without having to deal with loads of random encounters.
Now I am a great magician, your clothes are red!
Pft, women ay? You let their fiancee die horrifically in a coup and they never let you forget it.
Now here's me setting fire to a tortoise. I'm actually making heavy use of the Magic cane as an item since it's basically a free Bolt 5. I use Fire on powerful single enemies or anything resistant to Lightning.
Also there are giant rats.
And here's the little bleeder of contention, R. Soul. Hacking the game files reveals it's completely immune to all spells, so I forced to break the "no physical attacks" rule for this fight. I levelled up my Unarmed skill to Level 3 beforehand since I would have done single digit/zero damage with anything less, plus it meant I could still follow the "No Equipment" rule as well while I was at it. For the record I actually tend to go completely naked since I need as much Evasion as possible and armour reduces the potency of your spells, so the starting equipment is completely useless for my purposes.
It's Egil, Egil I tell you! I've always been caught out by this torch by heading back to town without remembering to re-enter the fort and get the flame itself.
It appears Cid is being chased by a giant flying waffle-iron. Surely this deserves investigating.
Behold, the interior of the mighty Warship! It's rather art-deco if you ask me. By the way all those soldiers, if you talk to them they kick your ass. Hard. Even if you kill them they still stick around, so basically they're walking S&M NPC's for your self-destructive pleasure.
Look, pet imperials!
The Gigas in one of the chests is one ugly mofo. I mean look at the guy. Looks like Sloth from The Goonies had sex with the Jolly Green Giant. Thankfully he succumbs to being set on fire quite nicely.
Well I just blew up your Dreadnaught, so yeah, I think I've won pal.
Pixelated!
So yeah, I've finally made some serious progress for once, but the hardest parts of the game are still to come. Leila is going to need yet more uber-levelling to get herself up to speed, which will be the next step on the road. Really this challenge is less challenging and more long-winded. I wouldn't have been able to do this in reasonable time were it not for the frame-skipping available to me. It doesn't help the NES version is also a lot harder in general, and everything takes an age to level-up. But still I'm determined to get there. My claim to #1 FF2 fan will be kept by golly!
