Final Fantasy Classic Jobs Part V
Jul. 31st, 2023 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The fifth and final part of this lightly hacked FF1 playthrough with a party of knight, thief, white mage, black mage was originally played on June 29, 2017.
We did pretty well everything up to the final dungeon during the last session, so today we're just descending through the Temple of Fiends of the past (or ToFR: Temple of Fiends Revisited).
In a lot of battles, Bartz carried the team. Bartz would attack, Faris and Lenna would use a healing itemcast, and Galuf would use some other itemcast. It was slow, but it was the most stable option.
The first attempt had a lot of dragons. By about 6 minutes in I was saying it was a bad run, having run into Frost Ds (which are not that bad) and Gas Ds (which are that bad). I also said the first few floors were probably the hardest, which is probably true. Gas Ds are among my least favourite things to run into here, and they're quite common on the first few floors. Faris got one-shot - 396 damage - by the Phantom but Galuf was able to revive them.
Lich used NUKE on round 1, doing plenty of damage as you'd expect and killing Lenna. Galuf was able to fix that, too. Kary was no particular issue. Lenna died again with a pack of Waters immediately before Kraken, and Galuf got her up before Kraken. Faris once again got one-shot against Kraken for 399 damage (after FOG2!). Then Kraken took out Galuf on the next round, also dealing over 300 damage. Galuf, of course, is the only one with access to LIFE which left us with Bartz and Lenna.

I spent a lot of time moving magic items around so that Bartz and Lenna could be their most effective, but Lenna died in the very next battle against 4 Worms. Bartz beat Tiamat with 69 HP remaining but with enough potions remaining to fix that. Level 24 solo knight vs. Chaos!
Attempt 3! We did run into Gas Ds but they weren't quite so dangerous this time. Phantom didn't cause much harm. We managed to take Lich out on turn 1 and he only did 18 damage. Kary targetted Bartz with attacks and thus nothing too unusual happened. Kraken hit Faris for a cool 496 damage on turn 1 and Lenna was killed too, but Galuf lived which means we were able to get them back on their feet. Since we got to Tiamat's floor with everyone alive, I went for the Masmune and got it. With the Masmune, Faris not only deals a useful amount of damage but can do 4 hits; Faris' per-turn damage ends up being pretty close to Bartz! With this kind of damage potential, Tiamat wasn't too bad and didn't kill any of our team.
We started a battle against Chaos with all four members with a few buffs, using FOG2, FAST on Bartz, and Bartz himself used the Defense to boost his evasion. A few turns in, Chaos' Swirl special got Faris into a critical position, but Galuf was slinging HEL2 and HEL3 to account for it. Faris got clobbered by a physical attack shortly after, which is too bad; they really could've used a chance to shine. By about this point, Bartz and Galuf both had 255 evasion and thus were more-or-less immune to physical attacks. Chaos used CUR4 to fully restore his HP, and on the next turn used the Tornado special, which ignores resistances and such. Things really started to slide when Chaos used Crack and it actually worked against Bartz. With just Galuf and Lenna, it was unlikely we were going to win. Galuf was even trying to use the Bane Sword, given a lack of better options. That didn't work out.

Attempt 4! We beat Lich without getting NUKEd. Kary killed Faris; I was fast-forwarding at the time so maybe I deserved that. We got to Kraken in great condition but, once again, Faris was one-shot on round 2. Galuf dealt with that, as usual - what a terrible thing to be developing a rhythm for. I consciously chose to skip the Masmune on this run since it didn't really contribute meaningfully last time. Galuf got hit pretty hard by Tiamat but nobody died.
Once again, we came into the Chaos fight in good condition, although without Masmune this time. Faris was just going to be using the Heal Staff each round. Bartz was FASTed and then got pounded by Chaos for 294 damage + stun (thankfully the stun wore off quickly). Lenna doesn't have great offensive options so after a few rounds we were sort of depending on Bartz to do the damage while everyone else supported him... and then Bartz got hit by Chaos' SLO2 spell. This reduced our offensive potential by roughly half. We had a ton of defensive buffs, but that didn't help when Chaos used NUKE that killed Galuf and then Faris and then Lenna in short order. Then came CUR4. We did not win.

Attempt 5! Bartz nearly died against Phantom, which would've been an upset. But we pulled through. Once again, we beat Lich without a NUKE going off. Kary broke her pattern by using FIR3 and then killing Faris with a physical. Kraken was no issue at all. I had intentionally saved an extra use of FAST against Kary with the intent of getting the Masmune this time, and I picked that up without any standout encounters.
In battle with Tiamat (and that video link rolls through Chaos), we tried to minimize using spell charges and mostly relied on traditional violence. Given our Masmune, it went okay.
I happened to check the party's status right before Chaos when I was fully healing up:

Thankfully, Bartz survived Chaos' round 1 Crack. We buffed, including FAST on both Bartz and Faris. It was delightful to see Chaos missing attacks on Bartz after his evasion was buffed. Galuf unfortunately died, getting hit by some meagre ICE spell the turn after SWIRL hit. Lenna was getting weak, too, but Bartz and Faris were gradually piling on the damage. And then it happened.

This run wasn't ill-defined but perhaps somewhat ill-conceived. It was weird. But we legitimately played through this game with knight, thief, white mage and black mage, using those classes very much by this game's own definitions of those job classes. Was this meaningful? Well, not really. I mean, this game is pretty doable with a single character and three dead bodies, so it's not like victory was ever in question.
Oh well. It's done. And now we can try doing this in various games in the series, by various means. I am not sure whether that will be any more meaningful but as long as there's fun to be had, who cares?
<< Start | < Previous | Index
The next "Classic Jobs" run in the Final Fantasy series: Final Fantasy II
The next "Classic Jobs" run that I played, chronologically: Final Fantasy V
We did pretty well everything up to the final dungeon during the last session, so today we're just descending through the Temple of Fiends of the past (or ToFR: Temple of Fiends Revisited).
In a lot of battles, Bartz carried the team. Bartz would attack, Faris and Lenna would use a healing itemcast, and Galuf would use some other itemcast. It was slow, but it was the most stable option.
The first attempt had a lot of dragons. By about 6 minutes in I was saying it was a bad run, having run into Frost Ds (which are not that bad) and Gas Ds (which are that bad). I also said the first few floors were probably the hardest, which is probably true. Gas Ds are among my least favourite things to run into here, and they're quite common on the first few floors. Faris got one-shot - 396 damage - by the Phantom but Galuf was able to revive them.
Lich used NUKE on round 1, doing plenty of damage as you'd expect and killing Lenna. Galuf was able to fix that, too. Kary was no particular issue. Lenna died again with a pack of Waters immediately before Kraken, and Galuf got her up before Kraken. Faris once again got one-shot against Kraken for 399 damage (after FOG2!). Then Kraken took out Galuf on the next round, also dealing over 300 damage. Galuf, of course, is the only one with access to LIFE which left us with Bartz and Lenna.

I spent a lot of time moving magic items around so that Bartz and Lenna could be their most effective, but Lenna died in the very next battle against 4 Worms. Bartz beat Tiamat with 69 HP remaining but with enough potions remaining to fix that. Level 24 solo knight vs. Chaos!
Chaos went through the spell cycle really quickly, using SLO2 ineffectively on turn 3 while Bartz buffed evasion followed by CUR4. From that point, all that was left was to attack. NUKE came out and did a ton of damage, and Inferno finished Bartz off.
Attempt 2! Gas Ds killed Lenna pretty quickly and I decided to move into attempt 3. This was partly an effort to get into a different part of the encounter table to maybe run into fewer Gas Ds but I don't know that tech well enough to actually know whether this made a positive difference.Attempt 3! We did run into Gas Ds but they weren't quite so dangerous this time. Phantom didn't cause much harm. We managed to take Lich out on turn 1 and he only did 18 damage. Kary targetted Bartz with attacks and thus nothing too unusual happened. Kraken hit Faris for a cool 496 damage on turn 1 and Lenna was killed too, but Galuf lived which means we were able to get them back on their feet. Since we got to Tiamat's floor with everyone alive, I went for the Masmune and got it. With the Masmune, Faris not only deals a useful amount of damage but can do 4 hits; Faris' per-turn damage ends up being pretty close to Bartz! With this kind of damage potential, Tiamat wasn't too bad and didn't kill any of our team.
We started a battle against Chaos with all four members with a few buffs, using FOG2, FAST on Bartz, and Bartz himself used the Defense to boost his evasion. A few turns in, Chaos' Swirl special got Faris into a critical position, but Galuf was slinging HEL2 and HEL3 to account for it. Faris got clobbered by a physical attack shortly after, which is too bad; they really could've used a chance to shine. By about this point, Bartz and Galuf both had 255 evasion and thus were more-or-less immune to physical attacks. Chaos used CUR4 to fully restore his HP, and on the next turn used the Tornado special, which ignores resistances and such. Things really started to slide when Chaos used Crack and it actually worked against Bartz. With just Galuf and Lenna, it was unlikely we were going to win. Galuf was even trying to use the Bane Sword, given a lack of better options. That didn't work out.

Attempt 4! We beat Lich without getting NUKEd. Kary killed Faris; I was fast-forwarding at the time so maybe I deserved that. We got to Kraken in great condition but, once again, Faris was one-shot on round 2. Galuf dealt with that, as usual - what a terrible thing to be developing a rhythm for. I consciously chose to skip the Masmune on this run since it didn't really contribute meaningfully last time. Galuf got hit pretty hard by Tiamat but nobody died.
Once again, we came into the Chaos fight in good condition, although without Masmune this time. Faris was just going to be using the Heal Staff each round. Bartz was FASTed and then got pounded by Chaos for 294 damage + stun (thankfully the stun wore off quickly). Lenna doesn't have great offensive options so after a few rounds we were sort of depending on Bartz to do the damage while everyone else supported him... and then Bartz got hit by Chaos' SLO2 spell. This reduced our offensive potential by roughly half. We had a ton of defensive buffs, but that didn't help when Chaos used NUKE that killed Galuf and then Faris and then Lenna in short order. Then came CUR4. We did not win.

Attempt 5! Bartz nearly died against Phantom, which would've been an upset. But we pulled through. Once again, we beat Lich without a NUKE going off. Kary broke her pattern by using FIR3 and then killing Faris with a physical. Kraken was no issue at all. I had intentionally saved an extra use of FAST against Kary with the intent of getting the Masmune this time, and I picked that up without any standout encounters.
In battle with Tiamat (and that video link rolls through Chaos), we tried to minimize using spell charges and mostly relied on traditional violence. Given our Masmune, it went okay.
I happened to check the party's status right before Chaos when I was fully healing up:

Thankfully, Bartz survived Chaos' round 1 Crack. We buffed, including FAST on both Bartz and Faris. It was delightful to see Chaos missing attacks on Bartz after his evasion was buffed. Galuf unfortunately died, getting hit by some meagre ICE spell the turn after SWIRL hit. Lenna was getting weak, too, but Bartz and Faris were gradually piling on the damage. And then it happened.

This run wasn't ill-defined but perhaps somewhat ill-conceived. It was weird. But we legitimately played through this game with knight, thief, white mage and black mage, using those classes very much by this game's own definitions of those job classes. Was this meaningful? Well, not really. I mean, this game is pretty doable with a single character and three dead bodies, so it's not like victory was ever in question.
Oh well. It's done. And now we can try doing this in various games in the series, by various means. I am not sure whether that will be any more meaningful but as long as there's fun to be had, who cares?
<< Start | < Previous | Index
The next "Classic Jobs" run in the Final Fantasy series: Final Fantasy II
The next "Classic Jobs" run that I played, chronologically: Final Fantasy V