![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freshfeelingMy fourth session with the voweless knights was played on January 13, 2022. Between the third session and this fourth one, I also started a GameFAQs topic about it to share some details with the community that partly inspired it. There wasn't a whole lot there, though, other than a list of pretty much exactly what everyone would have access to throughout the game in post #5.
At the start of this day's session, their equipment looked like this:
We were starting with the Sea Shrine, which has loads of great equipment. Some of the Opal gear will be usable by No I and No E, a Ribbon will still be an asset for No A, the Mage Staff is usable by No O or No I, and No O will also benefit from a Light Axe.
The first goodie we picked up was Opal Armor, which No E will be using for the rest of the game. For now at least, No E is my best defensive knight. No O also claimed his Light Axe, which granted an extra hit, effectively. It pained me somewhat to discard the Opal Bracelet; the only knight who could use it was No I, who already had Flame Armor that had the same absorb and a useful resistance. As well, No I will have Dragon Armor later in the game. We also had to discard the alphabetically unfortunate Opal Shield, which none of the knights can use. No I got the Opal Helmet and the Opal Gauntlet. With that, No I was once again the most defensive knight.
We had no particular issues reaching Kraken. Kraken himself... was Kraken, dealing 296 damage to No I on the first turn, 253 to No on the second turn, 340 to No A on the third turn, and 291 to No O on the fourth. At least he was spreading it around! Amazingly, No I finished off Kraken with a critical on the fifth turn before anyone could be squidded to death.
I learned a new language, got some Heal Potions, and bought a CatClaw to see whether it might be better than some of our current weapons; I didn't recall. It turns out it's decisively better than the Giant Sword and situationally better than the Flame Sword or Light Axe. For now, we're keeping the Flame Sword and Light Axe ready.
In the Mirage Tower, we got a Heal Helmet and put it on No O, an Aegis Shield for No O, the Thor Hammer for No I (whose Mage Staff was swapped to No O), the Sun Sword for No E (replacing a CatClaw), and Dragon Armor for No I. I tried out spellcasting for the first time against the Blue D, putting up an ALIT spell, but it didn't end up mattering since it got chopped to bits on turn 2 without using Thunder.
In the Floating Castle, No I claimed the Bane Sword. I was excited for the second Heal Helmet, but since the same two knights can use the Heal Helmet as the Heal Staff, it doesn't actually carry any benefit at all. The moment where I discarded the Opal Helmet ended up being a silly one. No I got killed but I thought I should press on anyway.
With the White Shirt and Black Shirt, things got maybe tricky. The FF1 NES community overwhelmingly refers to these as White Shirt and Black Shirt, perhaps owing to the Nintendo Power Strategy Guide (page 72)... but in all future translations and the rest of the Final Fantasy series, they are the White Robe and Black Robe. And I mean, really, do we think they're shirts? I decided to play this sort of as safely as possible: I discarded the Black Shirt/Robe, and gave the White Shirt/Robe to No A whose alphabetic preferences aren't infringed by either interpretation.
Shortly after, we grabbed one of the two ProCapes in the game, which is an okay upgrade for No I replacing their Buckler.
There were many encounters on WarMech's bridge but no WarMech, and I ran from almost everything. We healed up and fought Tiamat. Unfortunately, our Bane Sword is on No I, who is dead. Changing things up, I decided to layer some defensive buffs, with ALIT, RUSE and White Shrobe stacking up for a bit. We maxed our evasion to be functionality immune to physical attacks and used our few CUR2 charges and the Heal Staff to keep No O's HP up despite the breath attacks. It was really the first strategic battle we'd had so far in the game!
We took our Adamant to get Xcalbur.
Now this is a funny one, because it's spelled Xcalbur in-game. If it weren't so... character-limited, it would probably be Excalibur and be banned for everyone but No O. Well, it turns out I want No O to have it regardless, because No E can use the Sun Sword, No A can use the Defense, and No I will eventually be able to use the Masmune. Unfortunately, No I is currently stuck with their crappy Flame Sword. There are other arrangements I could make in the meantime and I did consider some of them but... this is probably fine.
I decided to take exactly one shot at the game's last area. Our levels aren't great; I was remembering that the Nintendo Power guide mentioned earlier used to encourage level 24 for the end of the game, and that was without characters with banned vowels!
We made it pretty far before our first casualty, where No O succumbed to a set of Frost D Blizzards immediately before the earth floor.
We survived Lich Deux, although he hit us with a rather nasty turn 1 NUKE that did nearly 300 damage to No E.
Kary wasn't much nicer, doing 368 damage to No A on turn 1, and finishing him off with FIR3 on turn 2. We won and used up most of the rest of our potion stock. This didn't feel like it was going well.
A flock of Waters on the next floor took out No I, so now it was a solo, moderately equipped knight vs. the last three bosses.
We had 7 Heal Potions left, and ran into another group of 6 Waters. And that was how this run ended!
<< First | < Previous | Index | Next >
At the start of this day's session, their equipment looked like this:
| No I | Flame Sword, Flame Armor, Wooden Helm, Copper Gauntlet, Buckler |
| No O | Silver Axe, Silver Bracelet, Silver Helm, Zeus Gauntlet, Flame Shield |
| No E | Giant Sword, Iron Armor, Ribbon, ProRing |
| No A | Defense, Cloth, Silver Helm, ProRing, Ice Shield |
The first goodie we picked up was Opal Armor, which No E will be using for the rest of the game. For now at least, No E is my best defensive knight. No O also claimed his Light Axe, which granted an extra hit, effectively. It pained me somewhat to discard the Opal Bracelet; the only knight who could use it was No I, who already had Flame Armor that had the same absorb and a useful resistance. As well, No I will have Dragon Armor later in the game. We also had to discard the alphabetically unfortunate Opal Shield, which none of the knights can use. No I got the Opal Helmet and the Opal Gauntlet. With that, No I was once again the most defensive knight.
We had no particular issues reaching Kraken. Kraken himself... was Kraken, dealing 296 damage to No I on the first turn, 253 to No on the second turn, 340 to No A on the third turn, and 291 to No O on the fourth. At least he was spreading it around! Amazingly, No I finished off Kraken with a critical on the fifth turn before anyone could be squidded to death.
I learned a new language, got some Heal Potions, and bought a CatClaw to see whether it might be better than some of our current weapons; I didn't recall. It turns out it's decisively better than the Giant Sword and situationally better than the Flame Sword or Light Axe. For now, we're keeping the Flame Sword and Light Axe ready.
In the Mirage Tower, we got a Heal Helmet and put it on No O, an Aegis Shield for No O, the Thor Hammer for No I (whose Mage Staff was swapped to No O), the Sun Sword for No E (replacing a CatClaw), and Dragon Armor for No I. I tried out spellcasting for the first time against the Blue D, putting up an ALIT spell, but it didn't end up mattering since it got chopped to bits on turn 2 without using Thunder.
In the Floating Castle, No I claimed the Bane Sword. I was excited for the second Heal Helmet, but since the same two knights can use the Heal Helmet as the Heal Staff, it doesn't actually carry any benefit at all. The moment where I discarded the Opal Helmet ended up being a silly one. No I got killed but I thought I should press on anyway.
With the White Shirt and Black Shirt, things got maybe tricky. The FF1 NES community overwhelmingly refers to these as White Shirt and Black Shirt, perhaps owing to the Nintendo Power Strategy Guide (page 72)... but in all future translations and the rest of the Final Fantasy series, they are the White Robe and Black Robe. And I mean, really, do we think they're shirts? I decided to play this sort of as safely as possible: I discarded the Black Shirt/Robe, and gave the White Shirt/Robe to No A whose alphabetic preferences aren't infringed by either interpretation.
Shortly after, we grabbed one of the two ProCapes in the game, which is an okay upgrade for No I replacing their Buckler.
There were many encounters on WarMech's bridge but no WarMech, and I ran from almost everything. We healed up and fought Tiamat. Unfortunately, our Bane Sword is on No I, who is dead. Changing things up, I decided to layer some defensive buffs, with ALIT, RUSE and White Shrobe stacking up for a bit. We maxed our evasion to be functionality immune to physical attacks and used our few CUR2 charges and the Heal Staff to keep No O's HP up despite the breath attacks. It was really the first strategic battle we'd had so far in the game!
We took our Adamant to get Xcalbur.
Now this is a funny one, because it's spelled Xcalbur in-game. If it weren't so... character-limited, it would probably be Excalibur and be banned for everyone but No O. Well, it turns out I want No O to have it regardless, because No E can use the Sun Sword, No A can use the Defense, and No I will eventually be able to use the Masmune. Unfortunately, No I is currently stuck with their crappy Flame Sword. There are other arrangements I could make in the meantime and I did consider some of them but... this is probably fine.
I decided to take exactly one shot at the game's last area. Our levels aren't great; I was remembering that the Nintendo Power guide mentioned earlier used to encourage level 24 for the end of the game, and that was without characters with banned vowels!
We made it pretty far before our first casualty, where No O succumbed to a set of Frost D Blizzards immediately before the earth floor.
We survived Lich Deux, although he hit us with a rather nasty turn 1 NUKE that did nearly 300 damage to No E.
Kary wasn't much nicer, doing 368 damage to No A on turn 1, and finishing him off with FIR3 on turn 2. We won and used up most of the rest of our potion stock. This didn't feel like it was going well.
A flock of Waters on the next floor took out No I, so now it was a solo, moderately equipped knight vs. the last three bosses.
We had 7 Heal Potions left, and ran into another group of 6 Waters. And that was how this run ended!
<< First | < Previous | Index | Next >
