Final Fantasy IV Classic Jobs Part II
Aug. 17th, 2023 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freshfeelingWe're picking up with our strict knight, thief, white mage, black mage party in Final Fantasy IV, starting with re-doing the Antlion's Den.
The Antlion's Den wasn't any more interesting than the previous time I did it, although I noted the odd difference in the frequency of certain formations. In fighting the Antlion, I had Palom Boast an extra time (four, I believe) to see the damage difference. It ended up being 1900.
I had removed some scripted battles or re-worked them, but I guess I hadn't considered that Edward's Sahagin battle was going to be so problematic. It didn't even pop up this time and thus there were no issues, besides the usual oddities with the map sprites. Then it was on to Mt. Hobbs.
Cecil and Thief still can't reliably kill Bombs with an attack, which meant as with everything else so far the battles took way longer than they normally do with Cecil as a Dark Knight. I was somewhat worried about surviving the Mom Bomb given that, normally, you would have Cecil and Yang present in that battle with over 300 HP to survive the explosion. Mom Bomb didn't end up being a problem, actually. Palom used Boast a few times and then Blizzara, first for 728 damage on its bomb-like form, and then 1001 and 975 damage on its big, cloud-like form. Perhaps because of it being weakened effectively by Palom, the explosion damage was just double-digits all around.
...and then with Palom's Boastful spellcasting, the battle wrapped up quickly from there!
We proceeded on to Fabul. This was an uneventful trip but battles that are normally quick and easy with dark knight Cecil, Yang and Rosa, such as the formations with Gatlingers, take considerably longer. It's kind of strange how my team seems so much more survivable than the vanilla team would be, but slower/weaker on the offense.
The Fabul gauntlet had some funny behaviour caused by the use of "solobattles" (as they are noted in FF4kster). In vanilla FF4, Rydia is never actually removed from your party in Fabul, but instead is designated as a non-participant in those specific battles. Similarly, we did the Fabul battles with Cecil, Palom and Porom, but no Thief!
Unfortunately, the one-on-one battle with Cecil and Kain - who I guess is an uninitialized character? - glitched out as a black screen. I had said I was satisfied just stopping at this point if there was a problem, but it turns out I lied. I opened FF4kster mid-stream (although you can't see it), found the Fabul battle event, and removed that one scripted battle from it. Then we re-did the Fabul section and everything worked out great. I mean, not for the game's characters, but in terms of how it was running.
On to Mysidia! It was maybe somewhat comforting somehow that Palom and Porom are sort of legitimately in the party now. I bought a whole bunch of equipment for the team; Thief, Palom and Porom can all use Silver Rings and Gaia Gear, and Cecil can use all of the knightly armor that he would normally get as a Paladin. I can't afford all of it yet, but I got a good selection of it, plus a Flame Rod for Palom and a Healing Staff for Porom.
Mt. Ordeals went a bit more quickly; Palom and Porom are starting to have more useful MP pools such that blowing a Cura or a Fira against a squad of undead enemies seems like a worthy use of our resources.
For our first battle with Scarmiglione, we used Cura and Fira to get rid of all of the undead goons. The rest is easy but, as usual, slow. I used Fira a couple of times and I figured we had to be close enough that I didn't need to cast it again, but this turned out to be a bad decision as Thief and Cecil and Palom's Flame Rod did pathetic damage over nearly 5 minutes. I really should've just committed the MP to get 'er done, it just seemed like it would be overkill! Oh well.
Then, onto the real Scarmiglione battle. I remembered to swap my rows, which is nice. Porom used Slow, as is tradition for bosses in this game, and then she mostly used Pray while Palom Boasted and Boasted. Thief and Cecil contributed some tiny numbers by waving weapons around. I didn't think Palom's Fira was going to kill this boss, but after 4 Boasts it did 3168 damage and ended the fight.
Then we did the Mt. Ordeals peak cutscene... but I decided I ought to backtrack it since I forgot to add in the Legend Sword/Mythgraven Blade. I don't want to miss that! It will be very nice right now, but much more importantly I think I need it to get Excalibur later. I'll quickly make that minor fix before the next session. I had saved after Scarmiglione anyway!
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The Antlion's Den wasn't any more interesting than the previous time I did it, although I noted the odd difference in the frequency of certain formations. In fighting the Antlion, I had Palom Boast an extra time (four, I believe) to see the damage difference. It ended up being 1900.
I had removed some scripted battles or re-worked them, but I guess I hadn't considered that Edward's Sahagin battle was going to be so problematic. It didn't even pop up this time and thus there were no issues, besides the usual oddities with the map sprites. Then it was on to Mt. Hobbs.
Cecil and Thief still can't reliably kill Bombs with an attack, which meant as with everything else so far the battles took way longer than they normally do with Cecil as a Dark Knight. I was somewhat worried about surviving the Mom Bomb given that, normally, you would have Cecil and Yang present in that battle with over 300 HP to survive the explosion. Mom Bomb didn't end up being a problem, actually. Palom used Boast a few times and then Blizzara, first for 728 damage on its bomb-like form, and then 1001 and 975 damage on its big, cloud-like form. Perhaps because of it being weakened effectively by Palom, the explosion damage was just double-digits all around.
...and then with Palom's Boastful spellcasting, the battle wrapped up quickly from there!
We proceeded on to Fabul. This was an uneventful trip but battles that are normally quick and easy with dark knight Cecil, Yang and Rosa, such as the formations with Gatlingers, take considerably longer. It's kind of strange how my team seems so much more survivable than the vanilla team would be, but slower/weaker on the offense.
The Fabul gauntlet had some funny behaviour caused by the use of "solobattles" (as they are noted in FF4kster). In vanilla FF4, Rydia is never actually removed from your party in Fabul, but instead is designated as a non-participant in those specific battles. Similarly, we did the Fabul battles with Cecil, Palom and Porom, but no Thief!
Unfortunately, the one-on-one battle with Cecil and Kain - who I guess is an uninitialized character? - glitched out as a black screen. I had said I was satisfied just stopping at this point if there was a problem, but it turns out I lied. I opened FF4kster mid-stream (although you can't see it), found the Fabul battle event, and removed that one scripted battle from it. Then we re-did the Fabul section and everything worked out great. I mean, not for the game's characters, but in terms of how it was running.
On to Mysidia! It was maybe somewhat comforting somehow that Palom and Porom are sort of legitimately in the party now. I bought a whole bunch of equipment for the team; Thief, Palom and Porom can all use Silver Rings and Gaia Gear, and Cecil can use all of the knightly armor that he would normally get as a Paladin. I can't afford all of it yet, but I got a good selection of it, plus a Flame Rod for Palom and a Healing Staff for Porom.
Mt. Ordeals went a bit more quickly; Palom and Porom are starting to have more useful MP pools such that blowing a Cura or a Fira against a squad of undead enemies seems like a worthy use of our resources.
For our first battle with Scarmiglione, we used Cura and Fira to get rid of all of the undead goons. The rest is easy but, as usual, slow. I used Fira a couple of times and I figured we had to be close enough that I didn't need to cast it again, but this turned out to be a bad decision as Thief and Cecil and Palom's Flame Rod did pathetic damage over nearly 5 minutes. I really should've just committed the MP to get 'er done, it just seemed like it would be overkill! Oh well.
Then, onto the real Scarmiglione battle. I remembered to swap my rows, which is nice. Porom used Slow, as is tradition for bosses in this game, and then she mostly used Pray while Palom Boasted and Boasted. Thief and Cecil contributed some tiny numbers by waving weapons around. I didn't think Palom's Fira was going to kill this boss, but after 4 Boasts it did 3168 damage and ended the fight.
Then we did the Mt. Ordeals peak cutscene... but I decided I ought to backtrack it since I forgot to add in the Legend Sword/Mythgraven Blade. I don't want to miss that! It will be very nice right now, but much more importantly I think I need it to get Excalibur later. I'll quickly make that minor fix before the next session. I had saved after Scarmiglione anyway!
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