Final Fantasy VI Classic Jobs Part VI
May. 20th, 2023 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freshfeelingThis session was played on November 7, 2017.
Entering the Imperial Magitek Research Facility, I said I was likely to run away from these battles. In an unmodified game, this area is designed to encourage you to use your newfound magic powers by introducing enemies with high physical defense, but in practice it doesn't do a great job of this since at least three of your characters have unlimited, easy-to-use, defense-ignoring attacks (Edgar, Sabin and Cyan). In this modified game, however, none of those abilities are available to me. While I've got some options that don't use physical defense, they're pretty much limited to one character (my current black mage, Mog) and by MP (which is currently not super easy to restore). Battles like 2x Belzecue and 2x Sergeant took a really long time.
Cyan, as the party's knight, was the only one able to equip the elemental swords that are found in this area. Once I got it, I opted for the ThunderBlade given that its elemental properties are useful against some of the machine-based encounters here.
I got to the Ifrit and Shiva fight and then said aloud, "How am I going to do this fight?". I do have some elemental abilities, but not many: Basically Cyan's new elemental swords and Mog's basic spells. Mog's Blizzard spell ended up doing about 900 damage to Ifrit, so it didn't end up being much of a barrier - although the incoming damage was fairly high in this fight, too. With two Blizzards and some attacks with Cyan's new Icebrand it wrapped up quickly; Shiva didn't even show up.
The end of the IMRF is sort of a boss rush. You got Ifrit/Shiva, then Number 024, then Number 128, then Cranes. Because of the odd limitations of this party it was perfectly realistic that any of these could been borderline impossible, but given the traditional ("classic") party formation, now that they are realized characters with a reasonable spread of abilities they actually are able to handle most scenarios pretty well.
Number 024 was okay. I got Mog to cast Thundara twice before we used Barrier Change, so he had already received a lot of damage by the time the fight really got underway. Locke was confused for a good chunk of the fight. Then, with 024 changing weakness and using Acid Rain, I decided to use Thundara one more time. It turned out that was the right move. This fight was pretty quick.
So now we were going into the mode 7 minecart-type scene without a white mage. It really wasn't too bad in general. When we got to Number 128, however, the battle felt kind of slow despite some targetted Thundara use. This was partly a mixture of me trying to steal with Locke (done out of personal compulsion; although the Kazekiri/Tempest is really cool, nobody can use it) and partly because I was constantly healing with Hi-Potions. Near the end of the fight, Cyan went down, then Locke finally stole Kazekiri, then Mog revived Cyan, then Cyan got knocked out again, and Locke dealt the killing blow with his boomerang while Cyan was still knocked out.
All that was left here was the end of our escape and the cranes. During the escape, Mog happened to learn Rasp and Osmose from Shiva, which is wonderful news. For a single battle, we were going to have two black mages on the team (Mog and Setzer). However, Setzer has literally no learned abilities so I wasn't worried about this compromising the challenge or anything.
The battle with the Cranes was also pretty easy; I wasn't even completely positive which of the two was weak against lightning (the other absorbs it!) but I took a chance, and on turn 1 Mog targetted the right crane with Thundara and defeated it in a single action. Cyan carefully de-equipped his ThunderBlade and attacked with an IceBrand. Mog doesn't have Fira yet anyway, so he cast Blizzara... which was reflected and very handily knocked himself out. After that, Mog and Setzer just stayed on item duty and Locke beat the other crane with his boomerang.
Then, once again, we ended up with screwy cutscenes. This time it actually was my fault rather than that of Ted Woolsey Uncensored Edition. Mog had no instructions so he kept appearing in random doorways throughout the Esper World cutscenes.
I was worried he would block something and break the game, but it didn't. In terms of the underlying TWUE patch and translation choices, I have to say this was the part of the game where the text choices - particularly punctuation and spacing - seemed problematic. And this was in several different parts of the Esper World scenes.
I did some equipping and also some shopping in Narshe. I sold the DragoonBoots I had stolen/found since I didn't think I'd use them, along with some other relics that weren't necessary, and used that money for some of the equipment, plus the Seraphim esper. I then headed directly to the sealed gate with Cyan the knight, Gau the thief, Sabin the white mage, and Terra the black mage.
The Cave to the Sealed Gate seemed pretty fair for this team. Cyan's damage remained reasonable, especially when he hit weaknesses as he sometimes did with the IceBrand. Sabin was frequently using Pray, and it was just generally okay. In an unmodified game, this is one of those areas that is pretty favourable for some characters (e.g. Mog, Setzer, Edgar) and potentially bad for others (anyone dependent on fire and poison, like some setups for Sabin and Gau). Here though nobody was particularly strong nor particularly weak. Battles were both abundant and slow though, and Lifeshaver is no fun at all.
Honestly, I think Cave to the Sealed Gate is maybe my least favourite part of this entire game, in a vanilla game or otherwise.
We finished that up and made a party of our lowest-levelled characters in each category: Edgar the knight, Gau the thief, Sabin the white mage, and Setzer the black mage. I saved on the imperial continent next to the crash-landed airship.
Entering the Imperial Magitek Research Facility, I said I was likely to run away from these battles. In an unmodified game, this area is designed to encourage you to use your newfound magic powers by introducing enemies with high physical defense, but in practice it doesn't do a great job of this since at least three of your characters have unlimited, easy-to-use, defense-ignoring attacks (Edgar, Sabin and Cyan). In this modified game, however, none of those abilities are available to me. While I've got some options that don't use physical defense, they're pretty much limited to one character (my current black mage, Mog) and by MP (which is currently not super easy to restore). Battles like 2x Belzecue and 2x Sergeant took a really long time.
Cyan, as the party's knight, was the only one able to equip the elemental swords that are found in this area. Once I got it, I opted for the ThunderBlade given that its elemental properties are useful against some of the machine-based encounters here.
I got to the Ifrit and Shiva fight and then said aloud, "How am I going to do this fight?". I do have some elemental abilities, but not many: Basically Cyan's new elemental swords and Mog's basic spells. Mog's Blizzard spell ended up doing about 900 damage to Ifrit, so it didn't end up being much of a barrier - although the incoming damage was fairly high in this fight, too. With two Blizzards and some attacks with Cyan's new Icebrand it wrapped up quickly; Shiva didn't even show up.
The end of the IMRF is sort of a boss rush. You got Ifrit/Shiva, then Number 024, then Number 128, then Cranes. Because of the odd limitations of this party it was perfectly realistic that any of these could been borderline impossible, but given the traditional ("classic") party formation, now that they are realized characters with a reasonable spread of abilities they actually are able to handle most scenarios pretty well.
Number 024 was okay. I got Mog to cast Thundara twice before we used Barrier Change, so he had already received a lot of damage by the time the fight really got underway. Locke was confused for a good chunk of the fight. Then, with 024 changing weakness and using Acid Rain, I decided to use Thundara one more time. It turned out that was the right move. This fight was pretty quick.
So now we were going into the mode 7 minecart-type scene without a white mage. It really wasn't too bad in general. When we got to Number 128, however, the battle felt kind of slow despite some targetted Thundara use. This was partly a mixture of me trying to steal with Locke (done out of personal compulsion; although the Kazekiri/Tempest is really cool, nobody can use it) and partly because I was constantly healing with Hi-Potions. Near the end of the fight, Cyan went down, then Locke finally stole Kazekiri, then Mog revived Cyan, then Cyan got knocked out again, and Locke dealt the killing blow with his boomerang while Cyan was still knocked out.
All that was left here was the end of our escape and the cranes. During the escape, Mog happened to learn Rasp and Osmose from Shiva, which is wonderful news. For a single battle, we were going to have two black mages on the team (Mog and Setzer). However, Setzer has literally no learned abilities so I wasn't worried about this compromising the challenge or anything.
The battle with the Cranes was also pretty easy; I wasn't even completely positive which of the two was weak against lightning (the other absorbs it!) but I took a chance, and on turn 1 Mog targetted the right crane with Thundara and defeated it in a single action. Cyan carefully de-equipped his ThunderBlade and attacked with an IceBrand. Mog doesn't have Fira yet anyway, so he cast Blizzara... which was reflected and very handily knocked himself out. After that, Mog and Setzer just stayed on item duty and Locke beat the other crane with his boomerang.
Then, once again, we ended up with screwy cutscenes. This time it actually was my fault rather than that of Ted Woolsey Uncensored Edition. Mog had no instructions so he kept appearing in random doorways throughout the Esper World cutscenes.
I was worried he would block something and break the game, but it didn't. In terms of the underlying TWUE patch and translation choices, I have to say this was the part of the game where the text choices - particularly punctuation and spacing - seemed problematic. And this was in several different parts of the Esper World scenes.
I did some equipping and also some shopping in Narshe. I sold the DragoonBoots I had stolen/found since I didn't think I'd use them, along with some other relics that weren't necessary, and used that money for some of the equipment, plus the Seraphim esper. I then headed directly to the sealed gate with Cyan the knight, Gau the thief, Sabin the white mage, and Terra the black mage.
The Cave to the Sealed Gate seemed pretty fair for this team. Cyan's damage remained reasonable, especially when he hit weaknesses as he sometimes did with the IceBrand. Sabin was frequently using Pray, and it was just generally okay. In an unmodified game, this is one of those areas that is pretty favourable for some characters (e.g. Mog, Setzer, Edgar) and potentially bad for others (anyone dependent on fire and poison, like some setups for Sabin and Gau). Here though nobody was particularly strong nor particularly weak. Battles were both abundant and slow though, and Lifeshaver is no fun at all.
Honestly, I think Cave to the Sealed Gate is maybe my least favourite part of this entire game, in a vanilla game or otherwise.
We finished that up and made a party of our lowest-levelled characters in each category: Edgar the knight, Gau the thief, Sabin the white mage, and Setzer the black mage. I saved on the imperial continent next to the crash-landed airship.
