![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freshfeelingI played this session - the final one of this run! - on October 25th, 2024.
Last time, we had finished Eureka and even built in a little bit of a grind session, leaving my team of warrior, onion knight, viking and magus at levels of 55 and 56. We recently got a bunch of crystal equipment given us a big defensive boost, as well as some excellent spells for Borlon, and with that it's time to see if we can stand up better against the tough enemies in the Syrcus Tower.
In short: yes, we can. However, we still need to be mindful of our dwindling healing resources.
Treasure in the Syrcus Tower wasn't doing us a whole lot of good; we certainly weren't getting any more equipment or anything for this team here, although we did get several more Elixirs. I was surprised to eventually find the Elder Staff in a treasure chest.
Wasn't this thing the most well-guarded relic weapon in existence like 15 minutes ago? Now it's just in a box here?
Enemies weren't too bad for the mostpart. I only encountered Blucks once and when I did, Borlon let loose some Meteors. Some enemies were a bit more defensive or evasive than others; the Thor enemies were somewhat tough here, but not nearly as dangerous as Blucks and Qumqums.
Floors 5, 6, and 7 are home to powerful Yellow Dragons, Green Dragons and Red Dragons. These are the enemies who famously drop Onion Shields, Onion Swords, and other onion stuff, which are incredibly powerful and uniquely usable by onion knights. I was kind of hoping I might get some of these items to make the onion knight useful. While encountering the dragons didn't seem that rare once I got up near the top of the tower, I think the onion items are still quite rare.
The first dragon I encountered... I accidentally left auto-battle on with everyone set to Flee and we ran away. D'oh!
The next dragon I encountered was a Red Dragon on 7F. What a gigantic HP sink this guy is!
It took several Flare spells to defeat this guy! In the end, he gave 80000 experience points (which is probably 2x boosted really) and an Elixir - still a fairly good prize.
We got all the treasure through 7F and then descended a bit. Next we fought a Green Dragon. It was noticeably weaker than the Red Dragon but still fairly tough. Again, we got an Elixir as a prize.
While I wasn't super consciously trying to fight every different type of dragon, I did happen into a Yellow Dragon shortly after. It also dropped an Elixir.
I was low on Hi-Potions so shortly after this I left. The team is legitimately getting stronger so the trip through Ancients' Maze to shop is definitely getting faster and using fewer resources. The return trip up Syrcus Tower was when I encountered Blucks.
We got back to the top of Syrcus Tower without encountering another dragon.
On the way, I was debating whether it made sense to grind further (both for levels and perhaps for onion equipment) or just rush the endgame. Eventually, I convinced myself that we were just going to push toward the end! We found a mirror and some dragon friends.
After this, we have to fight Xande. The fight with Xande is actually amusing because the first thing he did was cast Blizzaga on Drile the viking for 533 damage. I may have been a bit cocky about this lame effort... but he didn't do anything that weak again. After that Blizzaga warning shot, there were Quake spells, and Meteor spells and other nastiness. I won, but it was close!
Now we're onto the World of Darkness.
This was much more... straightforward than I remember it from the 3D version of the game. Just three little "rooms" each with a treasure chest with a Ribbon and a boss at a crystal. At the crystals, you can check them for a full heal... but I didn't really intend to grind here. The Xande Clones that guard the chests with Ribbons aren't particularly hard.
The Ribbon is a step down from a Crystal Helm in terms of pure defense, but it's a small magic defense boost and it prevents status effects. It seems worthwhile. I put the first one on the warrior. On a related note, as you can probably tell from the pictures, I'm still rotating jobs among Archibald, Captain and Drile to help them gain high HP values. I ended up just sticking to that right to the end.
The first World of Darkness boss I encountered ended up being Echidna.
The damage was pretty intense from Echidna. You can see that Captain, as an onion knight, went down pretty quickly. We have no means to heal the whole group, so things like Quake and Meteor are awful for us. We almost didn't make it, actually! Borlon held through with his magical hardiness.
phew, that was a close one! I wonder what kind of decision I might've made if I died against Echidna; I'd quite possibly go back to grinding.
Borlon has been the sole survivor a couple of times recently, and on fights like this with big experience yields it makes quite a difference to his level. He is actually pulling ahead of his teammates now.
We went to the next area and got another Ribbon.
I put this one on the viking, since the onion knight with two shields has quite a bit more magic defense and quite a bit less general utility. Then it was time for Cerberus. Cerberus was really easy, actually, partly because attacks like Flame and Lightning are no longer very damaging.
Another room, another Ribbon, and then it was time for Ahriman. Unlike future instances of Ahriman through the Final Fantasy series, this one doesn't go all-in on instant death attacks and instead uses quite a lot of strong spells like Meteor. We've seen already that this isn't super great for my team.
It didn't take too long for these strong attacks to defeat the team, one by one. Archibald went down first, and Captain trying to use an Elixir on Borlon for safety but getting clobbered on his last turn. The same thing happened to Drile as a warrior next. Note the unusual state of the auto-battle commands in the bottom-right.
With this, as with Echidna, we were down to just Borlon against this enemy. But, even though it was probably relatively early in the fight, we had made so much progress through the World of Darkness and I was feeling optimistic! I decided we were really going to push this. Borlon kept up his offensive and used an Elixir on himself every time his HP dipped below 2000.
It only took a couple of Elixirs and Borlon emerged victorious! He gained yet another level beyond his peers.
That was a close call! But we still have over 20 Elixirs because we've been saving them for endgame... which is now.
We have one more World of Darkness boss to defeat. This time, I skipped the Xande's Clone and Ribbon although I went and got those after, just for fun. We had to fight Two-Headed Dragon.
This was actually pretty tough, and different from the other fights, as it emphasizes physical attacks. They are absurdly strong physical attacks, dropping characters in a short span of time! We didn't weather it especially well, but the good news is that these attacks are always single-target and that means we're able to keep the team up by throwing a lot of Phoenix Downs. That's exactly what we did.
This leaves our stats as follows before our final battle with the Cloud of Darkness:
When you play conservatively with consumables, you end up with lots of goodies for a final battle like this! I used Bacchus' Wine on both Archibald the warrior and Captain the viking. I also used Shining Curtains, although those didn't seem to do anything since this thing used Particle Beam 90% of the time.
After the buffs, when healing wasn't required, Drile tried things like White Musk (which casts Holy) and Chocobo's Rage (which casts Flare) but they were both very disappointing in terms of damage. It ended up that focusing on support was really the best idea.
Borlon's damage, of course, was key, with Flare going over 7000 damage. Archibald and Captain were mostly attacking but generally doing roughly 1000 damage.
Particle Beam is a rough attack. It ended up being a little bit like Ahriman vs. Borlon where everyone had to use an Elixir on themselves when they got below 2000 HP.
With a bit of bad timing and some prioritization, Drile eventually died. Captain was going to revive him, but in the meantime... Borlon defeated the Cloud of Darkness.
These jobs were pretty terrible! I mean, well, they're good when you get them but this version of this game isn't balanced around using any job at endgame. It felt nice to get warrior, it felt nice to get viking, and it felt nice to get magus. The endgame was a bit rough but... well, I managed. I did use boosts in moderation, but I think I can safely say I played how I wanted to play and I'm satisfied with the result. I... would've been happier without an onion knight.
At the end, I went and perused the FF3 Four Job Fiesta site only to see that PJ was on his third run, having finished the Warrior/Ranger/Viking/Magus run I had noticed earlier, as well Monk/Scholar/Viking/Ninja, with Warrior/Onion Knight/Evoker/Magus still to finish. I just thought it was funny that PJ had two different teams so similar to mine! I can't imagine that last one is very fun.
I rather like this game, in general. I'm not sure I would've said that with certainty after playing the 3D version. Or, y'know, I might've but it's probably more that the end of this game feels a lot better than the beginning and middle. Regardless, this Pixel Remaster version is pretty great. Since I bought the bundle, I suppose I should come up with something wacky to do with Final Fantasy I, II, IV, V, and VI!
In the meantime, we can donate to Trans Lifeline, which was kinda the point of the event.
<< Start | < Previous | Index
Last time, we had finished Eureka and even built in a little bit of a grind session, leaving my team of warrior, onion knight, viking and magus at levels of 55 and 56. We recently got a bunch of crystal equipment given us a big defensive boost, as well as some excellent spells for Borlon, and with that it's time to see if we can stand up better against the tough enemies in the Syrcus Tower.
In short: yes, we can. However, we still need to be mindful of our dwindling healing resources.
Treasure in the Syrcus Tower wasn't doing us a whole lot of good; we certainly weren't getting any more equipment or anything for this team here, although we did get several more Elixirs. I was surprised to eventually find the Elder Staff in a treasure chest.
Wasn't this thing the most well-guarded relic weapon in existence like 15 minutes ago? Now it's just in a box here?
Enemies weren't too bad for the mostpart. I only encountered Blucks once and when I did, Borlon let loose some Meteors. Some enemies were a bit more defensive or evasive than others; the Thor enemies were somewhat tough here, but not nearly as dangerous as Blucks and Qumqums.
Floors 5, 6, and 7 are home to powerful Yellow Dragons, Green Dragons and Red Dragons. These are the enemies who famously drop Onion Shields, Onion Swords, and other onion stuff, which are incredibly powerful and uniquely usable by onion knights. I was kind of hoping I might get some of these items to make the onion knight useful. While encountering the dragons didn't seem that rare once I got up near the top of the tower, I think the onion items are still quite rare.
The first dragon I encountered... I accidentally left auto-battle on with everyone set to Flee and we ran away. D'oh!
The next dragon I encountered was a Red Dragon on 7F. What a gigantic HP sink this guy is!
It took several Flare spells to defeat this guy! In the end, he gave 80000 experience points (which is probably 2x boosted really) and an Elixir - still a fairly good prize.
We got all the treasure through 7F and then descended a bit. Next we fought a Green Dragon. It was noticeably weaker than the Red Dragon but still fairly tough. Again, we got an Elixir as a prize.
While I wasn't super consciously trying to fight every different type of dragon, I did happen into a Yellow Dragon shortly after. It also dropped an Elixir.
I was low on Hi-Potions so shortly after this I left. The team is legitimately getting stronger so the trip through Ancients' Maze to shop is definitely getting faster and using fewer resources. The return trip up Syrcus Tower was when I encountered Blucks.
We got back to the top of Syrcus Tower without encountering another dragon.
On the way, I was debating whether it made sense to grind further (both for levels and perhaps for onion equipment) or just rush the endgame. Eventually, I convinced myself that we were just going to push toward the end! We found a mirror and some dragon friends.
After this, we have to fight Xande. The fight with Xande is actually amusing because the first thing he did was cast Blizzaga on Drile the viking for 533 damage. I may have been a bit cocky about this lame effort... but he didn't do anything that weak again. After that Blizzaga warning shot, there were Quake spells, and Meteor spells and other nastiness. I won, but it was close!
Now we're onto the World of Darkness.
This was much more... straightforward than I remember it from the 3D version of the game. Just three little "rooms" each with a treasure chest with a Ribbon and a boss at a crystal. At the crystals, you can check them for a full heal... but I didn't really intend to grind here. The Xande Clones that guard the chests with Ribbons aren't particularly hard.
The Ribbon is a step down from a Crystal Helm in terms of pure defense, but it's a small magic defense boost and it prevents status effects. It seems worthwhile. I put the first one on the warrior. On a related note, as you can probably tell from the pictures, I'm still rotating jobs among Archibald, Captain and Drile to help them gain high HP values. I ended up just sticking to that right to the end.
The first World of Darkness boss I encountered ended up being Echidna.
The damage was pretty intense from Echidna. You can see that Captain, as an onion knight, went down pretty quickly. We have no means to heal the whole group, so things like Quake and Meteor are awful for us. We almost didn't make it, actually! Borlon held through with his magical hardiness.
phew, that was a close one! I wonder what kind of decision I might've made if I died against Echidna; I'd quite possibly go back to grinding.
Borlon has been the sole survivor a couple of times recently, and on fights like this with big experience yields it makes quite a difference to his level. He is actually pulling ahead of his teammates now.
We went to the next area and got another Ribbon.
I put this one on the viking, since the onion knight with two shields has quite a bit more magic defense and quite a bit less general utility. Then it was time for Cerberus. Cerberus was really easy, actually, partly because attacks like Flame and Lightning are no longer very damaging.
Another room, another Ribbon, and then it was time for Ahriman. Unlike future instances of Ahriman through the Final Fantasy series, this one doesn't go all-in on instant death attacks and instead uses quite a lot of strong spells like Meteor. We've seen already that this isn't super great for my team.
It didn't take too long for these strong attacks to defeat the team, one by one. Archibald went down first, and Captain trying to use an Elixir on Borlon for safety but getting clobbered on his last turn. The same thing happened to Drile as a warrior next. Note the unusual state of the auto-battle commands in the bottom-right.
With this, as with Echidna, we were down to just Borlon against this enemy. But, even though it was probably relatively early in the fight, we had made so much progress through the World of Darkness and I was feeling optimistic! I decided we were really going to push this. Borlon kept up his offensive and used an Elixir on himself every time his HP dipped below 2000.
It only took a couple of Elixirs and Borlon emerged victorious! He gained yet another level beyond his peers.
That was a close call! But we still have over 20 Elixirs because we've been saving them for endgame... which is now.
We have one more World of Darkness boss to defeat. This time, I skipped the Xande's Clone and Ribbon although I went and got those after, just for fun. We had to fight Two-Headed Dragon.
This was actually pretty tough, and different from the other fights, as it emphasizes physical attacks. They are absurdly strong physical attacks, dropping characters in a short span of time! We didn't weather it especially well, but the good news is that these attacks are always single-target and that means we're able to keep the team up by throwing a lot of Phoenix Downs. That's exactly what we did.
This leaves our stats as follows before our final battle with the Cloud of Darkness:
When you play conservatively with consumables, you end up with lots of goodies for a final battle like this! I used Bacchus' Wine on both Archibald the warrior and Captain the viking. I also used Shining Curtains, although those didn't seem to do anything since this thing used Particle Beam 90% of the time.
After the buffs, when healing wasn't required, Drile tried things like White Musk (which casts Holy) and Chocobo's Rage (which casts Flare) but they were both very disappointing in terms of damage. It ended up that focusing on support was really the best idea.
Borlon's damage, of course, was key, with Flare going over 7000 damage. Archibald and Captain were mostly attacking but generally doing roughly 1000 damage.
Particle Beam is a rough attack. It ended up being a little bit like Ahriman vs. Borlon where everyone had to use an Elixir on themselves when they got below 2000 HP.
With a bit of bad timing and some prioritization, Drile eventually died. Captain was going to revive him, but in the meantime... Borlon defeated the Cloud of Darkness.
These jobs were pretty terrible! I mean, well, they're good when you get them but this version of this game isn't balanced around using any job at endgame. It felt nice to get warrior, it felt nice to get viking, and it felt nice to get magus. The endgame was a bit rough but... well, I managed. I did use boosts in moderation, but I think I can safely say I played how I wanted to play and I'm satisfied with the result. I... would've been happier without an onion knight.
At the end, I went and perused the FF3 Four Job Fiesta site only to see that PJ was on his third run, having finished the Warrior/Ranger/Viking/Magus run I had noticed earlier, as well Monk/Scholar/Viking/Ninja, with Warrior/Onion Knight/Evoker/Magus still to finish. I just thought it was funny that PJ had two different teams so similar to mine! I can't imagine that last one is very fun.
I rather like this game, in general. I'm not sure I would've said that with certainty after playing the 3D version. Or, y'know, I might've but it's probably more that the end of this game feels a lot better than the beginning and middle. Regardless, this Pixel Remaster version is pretty great. Since I bought the bundle, I suppose I should come up with something wacky to do with Final Fantasy I, II, IV, V, and VI!
In the meantime, we can donate to Trans Lifeline, which was kinda the point of the event.
<< Start | < Previous | Index
