Phantasy Star IV No Hands Challenge Part II

[freshfeeling]

[This entry is adapted from the original GameFAQs posts written around the time the gameplay took place in October of 2015. It is actually being posted in March of 2023 around the origin of this blog. There may be minor edits.]

I've been doing this No Hands game on my Ouya. Earlier, I was hanging out in my basement where my Wii is hooked up and decided to play Phantasy Star on the Wii... and thus started the next thing I thought I'd consider, a No Techs challenge. I played for a bit, got to Tonoe, and it wasn't really hard at all. I figured the biggest barrier would be trouble healing but I didn't get far enough for that to be important.

I played a bit just now on my Ouya though, so back to No Hands. I found myself confused, not sure if I was allowed to cast Ryuka or not because I was confusing the two challenges... so, uh, from now on I'm going to try to stick to one or the other.

Ladea Tower

I went in and got a bunch of treasure. I fought some randoms and was really disappointed that quick burst of Hewn or Gra are no longer very significant. Most randoms weren't worth it. I ran from lots of things but eventually decided to fight two Haunts and a... I forget, something else that appears with Haunts. They kicked Rika's butt. I proceeded to get the treasure and Hinas'ed out to rest up, only afterward realizing I could probably just have stayed with one use of Medic Pw at the time. Ah well.

Next attempt went well: ran from everything. I had only a single unsuccessful run attempt and it was a Haunt who tried Evil Eye, so I got to Gy-Laguiah in perfect condition.

Gy-Laguiah

Over two turns, I got up Barrier, Deban and Saner. Gryz was in the first position defending every turn. What was kind of cool was that, perhaps because of Saner, Gryz was often going before Gy-Laguiah which meant he could tank the physicals. Rune couldn't; he got 1-shotted from full health from a physical critical at one point. The next round, Gy-Laguiah got a critical on defending Gryz for 1 damage! I was pretty impressed.

This battle reminded me that Phonon is nothing to sneeze at, doing nearly 200 damage... though I only had one use. Chaz was using Tsu at first because Githu has a pretty poor power-to-TP ratio, but then I tried it and noted that, since Gy-Laguiah is vulnerable to it it does just over twice as much damage for just under twice the cost. So Chaz switched to Githu and ran out of TP pretty quickly. Suddenly, it was the "Everyone Support Rune" show. It wasn't really hard at all, Gy-Laguiah went down and Rune would've had plenty of Giwats left.

Nurvus

I feel like I remember this place being loaded with treasure, but there's only three boxes here that aren't consumables and only one did me much good. I took two tries because I ended some random battle with Gryz and Rune dead and, again, forgot that I could probably power through with Medic Pw. The only things I really fought were Floatmines and Tarantellas because I knew I could wipe them pretty quickly. The Zios Guards can really do some damage.

On the second attempt, I ran from almost everything but I think I did one or two Blizzards against randoms because Chaz got to Zio with 58 TP.

Zio

For the first turn, knowing that the Psyco-Wand cancels the party's buffs, I made a macro specifically to use Psyco-Wand, Saner and Barrier in that order (I then removed this macro at the next opportunity since I'm only going to allow myself to use the Psyco-Wand this one time). Rika used Deban in the next round, since Zio does have a physical; he actually used it quite a few times.

This battle went a lot like the battle with Gy-Laguiah, though it was longer and, oddly, kind of "safer". Chaz used Githu until his TP was gone. Demi used Phonon once. Gryz stood in front and defended. Rika healed. Rune's job was to use all of his Flaeli, all of his Hewn, and then all of his Gifoi until Zio went down. I hadn't actually checked whether it was mathematically possible to win before the TP ran out but I had a feeling it was.

It wasn't long before Chaz's TP was gone and the party were a bunch of idiots standing around with shield icons, but no equipped shields, waiting for Rune to kill Zio alone. Something I already knew, but was cool to observe in this fight, is that the Defend command works by reducing all damage from elemental factor 1: physical/wind. This means while 4/5 people were defending and mostly going first, I was repeatedly watching Hewn and Corrsion and even Black Wave doing pathetic damage to my shieldless party! Corrsion and Hewn only did 1 to most of the group. Surviving Zio's assault was not much of a problem at all, killing him was the bigger issue.

Despite Zio's low output, Rika's TP ran out after a while, and some of my healing dug into my consumables. But with everyone else's TP drained completely, and with all uses of Flaeli and Hewn exhausted, Rune beat Zio with his TP in the 50s!

I was pretty sad to note that all five of the wonderful pieces of equipment I grabbed in Kuran had to be sold.

The Chaossorcr was not a big deal, and then I only had one random on the Dezolis surface which was also no big deal because I was planning to rest in Tyler.

Hanger

Knowing that a healing tile was coming up soon, I took out every random here. Flaeli is fantastic in this area and I used a firestorm macro with Flaeli; I'm also very happy to have Wren and his Flare skill, which contributes reasonably to my offensive potential. In my macros, Raja is going last and throwing out arbitrary 3 TP Res for 70+ HP. So yeah, Hanger was no issue. I think I'll be fine for a while.

I think I'm ready for Zelan! My order and levels are: Wren 20, Rika 20, Chaz 20, Raja 25, Rune 22

It's odd because I feel like this challenge has obstacles but isn't hard. It does alter my playing style considerably which has made it satisfying so far. I haven't done any grinding other than the very beginning and two extra passes at the Passageway, and I've run from a lot of battles; I think the reason I'm keeping up so well must be that I've been entering nearly every dungeon twice - once to get the goodies, and once to beat it. It's not intentional or anything.

---

There was some discussion about the meaning of the challenge and how it varied from characters to characters. Reviewing my understanding of the rules and the impacts they had:

• All equipment is forbidden from being equipped, so stat boosts are obviously affected
• As-item effects from hand-held equipment are forbidden, so no Wood-Cane, Guard-Rod, Mahlaydggr, Flamesword, Thundrclaw, Torndagger, Dream-Rod, Laco-Rod, Moon-Slshr, Pow-Shield, or Mahlayshld in battle
• Consequently, the Attack command is banned
• Psyco-Wand may be used with the item command but only against Zio
• Consumables (xmates, xDews, xpipes, Cure-Paral, Antidote, Repair-Kit, Dynamite) are in play
• Non-hand equipment effects are in play, so that's the Swift-Helm and Eclipstrch; pretty sure this is irrelevant

Techniques are fully in play and the only thing affecting them is that stat bonuses from equipment don't come into play. This won't matter at all.
Skills are pretty dramatically affected though. As most people know, many skills are considered weapon-dependent and can't be used without a weapon. These are as follows:

• Chaz's Earth, Crosscut, Airslash, Rayblade
• Alys' Vortex, Moonshad, Death
• Hahn's Eliminat
• Gryz's Crash, Sweeping
• Rika's DblSlash, Disrupt, Eliminat

This is a huge drawback, most obviously for Rika and Gryz.
Character by character, my breakdown thus far is as follows:

Chaz: The classic cleric. Usually he can use a sword, Crosscut, Rayblade for good damage. His only offense now is the Thu series. His defense is also quite a bit lower because of the defense bonus from swords or shields.

Alys: Just fire. She carries the team at the beginning with her TP pool and Foi... which is more or less all she can do, because of a lack of weapons and healing techs.

Hahn: As usual. Much lower defense, but not affected much. He'll be substantially less durable at endgame.

Rune: As usual. No two-shield option, but other than that he's totally unaffected. It'll basically be a first-timer's (or MaxKnight's) Rune.

Gryz: Jogurt. Most affected! He can no longer tank with his pitiful agility resulting in pitiful defense with no axe, and his only usable abilities are War Cry and Brose. War Cry contributes to a meaningless stat, so it's useless, too.

Rika: Pure healer. She no longer has any means for offense and her only usable skill is Illusion, which is garbage. So now she's a healbot, which is fine. In some cases it makes the decision-making easier!

Demi: As usual. Guns don't contribute to defense or the power of mech skills, so the only difference is that attack is banned. This means Demi's only offense is Phonon, but she's still useful.

Wren: As usual. As Demi, but even less affected since he has plenty of Flare which is just like a slightly better normal attack.

Raja: As usual. No two-shield option, but other than that he's totally unaffected. It'll basically be a first-timer's (or MaxKnight's) Raja. I've always enjoyed using itemcasts with him, so that's out, but no big deal.

Kyra: As usual. I'm usually a two-slasher Kyra user, so this'll be nothing.

Seth: Basically irrelevant.

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