Phantasy Star IV No Hands Challenge Part III

[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 took some pictures this time although they aren't nice, native screenshots because of the nature of the hardware I was using.

Kuran

As I said in my last update, I wasn't expecting much of an issue. The problem is that Raja has nothin' on robots, and fire and wat aren't really effective, either. So my offense mainly consisted of Wren (Spark and Flare), Rune (Gra) and Chaz (Githu/Tsu). Chaz's offense is terrible compared to the others so I mostly didn't bother with his contributions. In fact, given how other recent dungeons have gone, I mostly ran.

• Attempt 1: Made it to room beyond the Hijammer. Raja and Chaz died trying to run from the Xren86 series. Eff this. Went back to Dezolis for a heal square.
• Attempt 2: Made it to the 3rd room. Total party death trying to run from the Xren86 series. First one of those I've seen in this challenge, actually, and the first I've had in this game in an awfully long time.
• Attempt 3: Made it right to the end, the final elevator down to the boss. I forget the group, but they got a surprise round and killed Raja and Rika. I tried running and it failed, and Chaz and Rune died. The next turn, Wren ran away. Good thing I've been keeping some escapipes. I got all the chests at least.
• Attempt 4: Made a beeline for the boss while mostly running from enemies; had better luck with that and the surprise rounds. Rune still died on the way there but I had Raja use Rever.

There was a lot of Res tossed around between quick battles and failed run attempts. I barely fought anything at all.

Dark Force (1)

It started out really badly. I was really happy though that my buffs all went first in the first round, so I had a nice Saner/Blessing/Barrier trifecta on the go. After that, my entire party consistently went first. DF did Burstroc in the first two rounds, which totally sucked. I had to have Rika and Raja both using Sar to keep up, and I was really worried about my TP... until, kinda partway through the fight I remembered that I had a couple uses of Ataraxia.

So Chaz used Githu basically every turn, Wren used Flare or Recover as needed, Rune mostly whipped around Giwats, and Rika and Raja kept everyone alive. I actually won with a fair chunk of resources left.

Here is how our status appeared afterward, in Zelan:

Dezolis Surface again

It was fun using the Ice Digger and I found that my party gained levels pretty quickly now; I think I was at fairly normal levels despite the (minor) challenge. I decided to save myself some future trouble and maybe beef up slightly (what with all the death I suffered in Kuran) by riding around in the Ice Digger and visiting all of the towns. It's a good way to get some equipment and makes Ryuka easier later.

 

First things first, Mystvale. I thought I'd maybe go through for funsies and then not actually get Silv-Tusk. I got the Trimate and then ran into some regular enemies (a mole and an owl I think) and this happened:

So... that sucked. Escapipe. Telepipe. Let's do something else.

Visited all the towns. By the time I got to Jut and bought all the gear I wanted, I thought... why not up my non-weapon-based offense, especially while I've still got Raja and Ataraxia? So despite getting my butt kicked in Kuran, I headed for the weapon plant.

 

Weapons Plant

Surprisingly, this went extremely well. I ran from a good few battles but I also started being more aggressive. I avoided hard-to-kill things like Silvalts (mostly) but I killed a lot of those groups that can merge into Lifedeletrs by having Wren use Spark or Flare on the Wiredine and Rune using Gigra. When TP got low, Raja brought the Ataraxia. Wasn't too bad!

We got some high-level armor for Wren and Burstroc, and gained a few levels. Lookin' like this now:

Given that I was able to secure Burstroc a bit early, I'm not expecting big hangups... though I suppose, sort of as with a normal playthrough, things will get a bit harder when I switch from Raja to Kyra and harder again when that changes. Perhaps it'll be a bit more pronounced because I'm more TP-dependent without weapons. I mean, normally Ataraxia is a nice-to-have, not something I utterly depend on to fuel Rune in each dungeon.

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