Phantasy Star IV Gratitude Challenge Part XI

[freshfeeling]

[This entry is adapted from the original GameFAQs posts written around the time the gameplay took place between February and April of 2016. It is actually being posted in April of 2023 around the origin of this blog. There may be minor edits.]

This is the final update! And, oddly we take a bit of a nosedive here. But let's start with the good parts.

Before I tried to run the end of the game, I figured I should go get Megid. Recalling that Anger Tower is super short I figured I wouldn't fight a single random and just get Megid. Ryre was no problem: Chaz finished that fight in two Crosscuts without being in any significant danger. So Megid get. No levels gained.

 

I also took the time to go get 4 Repair-Kits from Weapons Plant and got rid of some of the missable equipment that I've been hoarding in case someone unlocked it, like Plsm-Rifle and Head-Gear. My inventory consists of things I can't discard, 2 Flameswords, Psyco-Wand, Pow-Shield, Silvr-Tusk, Wood-Cane, Guard-Rod, 4 Repair-Kits and the rest is all dews. I could be forgetting something but I think that's pretty accurate.

 

 

I decided to start with Hahn.

 

Endgame with Hahn

I sold his stuff, decked him out as described in the previous post, and ran on down through the Edge. No real danger. I ran from every fight, got hit by one Soldrfiend but otherwise in good condition. Unfortunately the first time I ran into the final boss, I forgot to change my order. I like having Wren at the front for randoms since he gains HP by walking, but having the only character who can't heal in the first position against a boss is stupid. I realized how bad this was pretty quickly and loaded my save and walked back down there.

 

PD1: After buffing, used an "A" macro of Wren: Attack, Chaz: Attack, Hahn: Wat, Rune: Wat, Rika: Guard-Rod. Totally safe. And thanks to Elsydeon, it didn't even last long. Maybe worth noting that my buffing macro was Barrier, Saner, Chaz: Pow-Shield, Hahn: Wat, Rune: Tandle. Yes, Condctthnd, for style points.
 

PD2: There are several attacks here that put Wren at risk and he went down once here. For the mostpart I stuck with a very basic macro to save the big guns for PD3. Sometimes I instead used one that had Hahn and Rika both using Gires while Wren used Flare, Chaz used Crosscut and I forget what Rune was doing.

PD3:

 

Not bad, though I came into this form in rough shape. My primary macros in the early going, after some Gisar action, were Rika: Gires, Hahn: Astral, Chaz: Rayblade, Wren: Burstroc, Rune: Foi (again, the Shootnstar was strictly for style points, Rune has a few stronger options) as well as Rika: Gisar, Hahn: Astral, Chaz: Rayblade, Wren: Burstroc, Rune: Foi. Paradinblw was the powerhouse you'd expect, doing damage in the mid-700s. Considering Pow-Shield/Elsydeon/Crosscut is significantly stronger than Rayblade, that's not bad at all. Once we'd run through our strongest moves I mostly moved away from macros. Chaz used Crosscut for 400+. Rune used his Tandles. Wren stuck with Flare. Hahn had a few extra Astrals that, on their own, did damage in the mid-to-high 200s, then he moved into Nazan.
 

I didn't see Cancelling until quite late in the fight and it didn't make too much trouble for me. Rika ran out of TP early from all the Gisar usage, and I used a few Star-Dews and had a couple of turns where I changed the healing strategy in such a way that Chaz and Hahn pitched in. I didn't use Megid even once.
 

 

All in all... we won on the first (real) try, and it wasn't that bad:

 

 

Yay! Challenge complete.
 

 

Ignoring my own suggestion about character order, for some reason I chose to do Raja next.

Endgame with Raja

I set up his equipment as described in the previous post. I ran to the end much as I did with Hahn. PD1 was much as it was with Hahn, too. A buff macro to start: Barrier, Saner, Blessing, Chaz: Pow-Shield and Rune: Guard-Rod (figured we might be a teensy bit hurt).

Now, I did win on the second try... but then this got weird because I didn't realize there was a rule violation in the list above. I had accidentally used Blessing, forgetting that I didn't have access to that! It's a bit odd because Deban and Warla have a more-or-less identical effect although one can certain argue that using it with Raja is different because he's better at it.

Perhaps in an effort to confuse me - as minotaurs do - ZomBULL posted in the challenge thread with a very final set of gifts including Blessing, and then said I guess you need to do it with Raja again anyway. I didn't want to violate my challenge rules so yeah, I went along with it, but it was somewhat demoralizing.

When I did the Raja finish over again with legalized Blessing, it really was considerably easier this time. Besides the earlier error being corrected, ZomBULL's post also allowed a Laco-Helm on Chaz and about 2 extra levels on average from time getting Repair-Kits and Defeat-Axe which I had done in preparation for other characters.

 

I slightly changed my base A macro to Wren: Attack, Chaz: Attack, Rika: Guard-Rod, Rune: Wat, Raja: Flamesword because PD1 is trivial. I used Barrier, Saner, Blessing and Pow-Shield on turn 1. All went well.

 

With PD2, I had good luck with lots of hits against Rika but eventually Wren did die. I've kind of finally learned my lesson about PD2, who kicks Wren's butt with multi-target non- and electic- elemental magic attacks, and didn't bother reviving Wren until PD3. But otherwise there was nothing really notable here.

 

PD3 was a balanced, fairly challenging battle. Not easy like with Kyra, not stupidly hard like with Gryz. There were about 5 Megids and two Cancellings. An oddity of the fight is that, with Saner active, Raja always went before PD3 which was a huge issue in my last runthrough - you may recall me saying having Raja as a primary healer was a giant mistake - but it would've worked out. Still, I mostly had Raja as the backup healer (i.e. using Guard-Rod or Gisar after Rika's Star-Dew or Gisar when the party had been Megid'ed). On "clear" turns he whipped out some St.Fire for significant damage.

 

Done:

Endgame with Gryz

 

The thing with Gryz is that I have very little interest in attempting the endboss without the Defeat-Axe. He's already got the worst defense and terrible resistance; I'd like him to at least be able to make a bit of a dent. So I took several runs probing The Edge to find Chaosbrngrs. It took a long time! It also reminded me that - at least with suboptimal equipment - endgame enemies are no joke. I had a fair number of deaths and one TPK. Any time someone died that I would depend on, I just reset, as I didn't want to gain a ton of levels anyway.

Took a long time, but it happened:

 

Thanks to ZomBULL's final gift, I went and grabbed Laco-Helms for Chaz and Gryz. We took no damage on the way to PD.
 

My macros, oddly, didn't require much in the way of adjustment. I mean, Gryz using Attack at the end of each macro was a good bet, although I changed "D" to Barrier, Saner, War Cry, Chaz: Pow-Shield, Rune: Guard-Rod. PD1 was trivial, as usual, though it was fun to see Gryz's damage. After War Cry and with Defeat-Axe, his regular attacks do damage in the mid-300s. Chaz was still higher, usually high-300s or low-400s, and of course quite a bit higher with Crosscut, but Gryz was certainly out-damaging Wren and Rune.

 

Wren died twice vs. PD2 and was dead when PD3 came out. Everyone else was in reasonable shape. Awkwardly, this meant (with Saner and my team going first) they revived Wren who immediately took a Megid to the face.

 

I actually had terrible, terrible luck against PD3. After the first Megid I literally took 5 more consecutively. The best healing for this was Rika using Gisar or Star-Dew while another character used Guard-Rod. I had Rune as my backup healer because he damages a bit less than Wren (who I also didn't expect to live very long; may as well use all his Burstrocs while I can) and far less than Gryz and Chaz. So that was an odd scenario. Wren died again in the wave of Megids, though thankfully from full HP and with Barrier he was able to take 3 Megids before dying (damage in the 190s).

 

I was begging for an end to the Megid onslaught when I finally got Cancelling and a regular attack, so that was nice. Then came Cancelling followed by Megid... before I could get Saner and Barrier back up. Yuck. It took out everyone except Rika and Gryz. They Sol-Dewed. No Barrier. Megid. Left with Rika and Chaz. Sol-Dew. Physical. Sol-Dew and last Repair-Kit. No Barrier. Megid.

It SUCKED. Wren - and thus, Barrier - was gone forever, and I was struggling to keep anyone upright. And then, on the turn when I used my last Sol-Dew on Chaz...

Gryz (57 HP) lands the killing blow at the 11th hour.

Endgame with Kyra

Well, I had Kyra all decked out already in her Silv- gear, and I had even made macros as soon as I finished with Gryz. An interesting difference with Kyra compared to other characters - well, about as interesting a difference as I could find - is that she only has two uses of her strongest attack, Tandle. While Gryz has massive output with a regular attack, Hahn has plenty of Astral, Raja has 6 (I think?) St.Fires, etc., Kyra has a relatively limited contribution on the offense. Hewn is still reasonably powerful though.

 

PD1 - no big issue. Macro was Wren Attack, Rika Guard-Rod, Chaz Attack, Rune Wat, Kyra Flamesword (yes, it's still stronger than her Foi). As with the other macros I've used for PD1 the idea is to conserve resources and stay strong, which there was no real issue with. I only broke the macro once or twice after someone got nailed with Shdwbreath.

 

PD2 - a bit of an issue. Wren died twice. I revived him once, which I think I should stop doing as I don't whip out the big guns really until PD3 and PD2 can 2HK0 Wren with Lightshowr + anything. Otherwise, this wasn't hard. Occasionally I had Rika using Guard-Rod and Kyra using Gires to supplement. On a few occasions after Distortion, etc. I had to use Gisar with Rika. I actually did revive Wren after his second death but it was on the exact turn that PD2 changed to PD3.

 

PD3 - definitely the most boring PD3 fight I've had, which is to say I met with great success but it wasn't because Kyra is better than Hahn or Gryz (in all cases, I'm thinking of with respect to this challenge and the things that are unlocked, not actually arguing that Gryz generally beats Kyra). PD3 starts with Megid, as expected. Then two rounds of Evil Eye that Rika and Rune wake up from immediately. Then Cancelling. My party still acts first after Cancelling so Barrier, Warla and Saner are back in place, then Rika gets Evil Eye again. I didn't even see another Megid or another Cancelling, just one of each. It was mostly red blast physicals from that point onward.

 

So yeah... I'd say it's due to luck but that was one of the easiest PD battles I've ever had. You can see I emerged completely fine, though Rika's TP took a bit of a hit (not even as bad as my first Raja runs!).

Endgame with Demi

It was called into question a long time ago, but as I suspected, as long as you open the Platesystem it's possible to take Demi there at endgame to install Phonon. And indeed, she has her normal number of uses for level 44.

 

With having to sell Demi's stuff I had to discard something, so I chose to ditch one of the two Flameswords. And then I figured I could use more Repair-Kits when I have two androids (both of whom are allergic to the electric attacks used by PD1 and PD2), so I went back to the Weapon Plant and grabbed one from the final terminal. Up to 5 of those in total.

I also put Wren's Stun-Shot on Demi; he has a good supply of Flare anyway. With that, our status is as follows:

 

Wren (Level 40, 147 Def, 28 Res)

Equipment: Laco-Armor

Techs: (none)

Skills: Flare [207 power, 22 uses], Spark [14 uses], Barrier [10 uses], Burstroc [223 power, 6 uses]

 

Rika (Level 50, 168 Def, 64 Res)

Equipment: Silv-Crown, Silvshield, Silvshield, Psy-Mail

Techs: Gires, Saner, Deban, Gisar

Skills: (none)

 

Rune (Level 42, 159 Def, 108 Res)

Equipment: Silvcirclt, Silvshield, Silvshield, Silv-Mantl

Techs: Foi [114 power], Wat [122 power], Hinas, Ryuka

Skills: Hewn [154 power, 15 uses], Tandle [234 power, 7 uses]

 

Chaz (Level 47, 141 Def, 64 Res, 197 Atk)

Equipment: Laco-Helm, Elsydeon, Psy-Mail

Techs: Hinas, Ryuka, Gires, Githu [153 power], Nazan [185 power], Megid [312 power]

Skills: Crosscut [277 power, 17 uses], Rayblade [233 power, 7 uses]

 

Demi (Level 44, 151 Def, 28 Res, 116 Atk)

Equipment: Stun-Shot, Laco-Armor

Techs: (none)

Skills: Spark [14 uses], Barrier [10 uses], Phonon [248 power, 14 uses]

 

Common Itemcasts available:

Flamesword (1): [112 power]

Guard-Rod (1): [64 power heal all]

Pow-Shield (1): [attack +48]

These were the worst set of runs at the Edge ever. I literally took probably/nearly ten runs to get to PD. The first couple of times, weird things happened like Imagiomages getting a surprise round with a successful Diem on Chaz, so I just reloaded my save outside the Edge. Three runs in I literally had a TPK trying to run from Soldrfiends using Hakenbolt. I was very close to deciding that this was the fates' way of telling me not to do the Demi run that night. It finally happened around run six... when I left Wren first in the party order and he ate lightning breath immediately against PD1. Eff that.

 

I kept going anyway and eventually got to PD in perfect shape, which I've mostly not had any problem with. My first-turn macro was Wren: Barrier, Rika: Saner, Chaz: Pow-Shield, Rune: Wat, Demi: Attack. Wren's still significantly stronger than Demi so I don't even want her to contribute with Barrier. My PD1 macro, then, was Chaz: Attack, Rika: Guard-Rod, Rune: Wat, Wren: Flare, Demi: Attack. It went okay.

 

PD2 was nastier, of course. It wasn't long before Wren and Demi were both down. Surviving PD2 without them isn't hard or anything, so I let Chaz pound away on PD2 mostly - moving ahead to using Crosscut this time to accelerate things - while Rika mostly used Gisar or Star-Dew and Rune backed her up with Guard-Rod. The Guard-Rod sure doesn't seem so special when you've got two androids in the team. I knew I wanted Wren and Demi back up before PD3 so I took a turn to do that and then tore through PD2 without any big struggle, but I was down to three Repair-Kits.

 

Frankly, I don't remember precisely how my PD3 went. I know it took considerably longer than usual, though. The second Megid turn left Demi KOed and Wren with precisely 1 HP. I had a macro with a Repair-Kit as a part of it which I thought was really clever, figuring it would target whoever was down, but instead it targetted Wren; not that this was a giant, critical misstep, but it left me down one team member for an extra turn and I didn't expect it. I didn't like it.

Demi was doing good damage with Phonon. I realized not long into this fight that Wren and Demi weren't going to last very long so I had them focus entirely on offense, using Phonon and Burstroc. They didn't get close to using all their valuable damaging skills. It ended up like this:

 

Note Rika's damage in that screenshot; on a turn like this, Rika would use Gires. Rune, out of Tandle, would be using Hewn while Chaz does real damage, mostly with Crosscut for over 500 damage (oddly, exactly once it did damage in the high 400s instead and that really shocked me at the time). Mostly though, if we were hit by Megid, Rika would use Star-Dew or Gisar, Rune would use Guard-Rod, and Chaz would be the only one on the offensive... and that's just how the turns went.

Thankfully there was no more Cancelling; with my androids, and thus Barrier, out of play I would've been screwed... but eventually this terrible deadlock was broken:

Oh, that was Chaz's very last Crosscut.

 

So that was great!

 

This terrible deadlock, by the way, leaves me with some confidence for the 4-person finish. To go without a 5th member I've resumed my old save, so my levels are back down to Wr40/Ri49/Ru41/Ch46 as in the previous post. The only difference, I suppose, is that I'm allowed a Laco-Helm if I want one.

 

I may have to level a bit to do it without a 5th member, but, as predicted, I think Demi was actually just a liability that didn't help at all; I mean, she could hold her own at endgame with Phonon, but keeping her alive meant sacrificing Wren which could've been a big problem. It would almost certainly have been safer (if not easier) to keep her KOed.

Endgame with Four Characters

 

You'll note it's pretty much identical to the one from when the fifth party members were being reviewed/selected. I saved at the edge of the Edge without any further experience gained. I had a run through the Edge with few encounters and I was able to run. I remembered to adjust my party order to reduce Wren being the target of single-target attacks.

 

This was going perfectly.

 

PD1: After buffing - which takes two turns, sort of, when you want to get a Deban in - I was largely able to stick with the A macro to conserve some stronger attacks. Occasionally, Rika had to use Gires and there were no appropriate macros; I recognized that Wren should use a few Flares, since he's loaded with them and he might not last for the whole fight, so I went ahead with those on those turns. No big issue vs. PD1. Wren didn't get hit by anything other than a Firebreath for 14 damage.

 

PD2: This wasn't too bad either. There were two Lightshowrs so Wren died... and I chose to revive Wren before the end of the fight. I'm a bit more defensive with four members than five, which I think is sensible. Nothing special here; this part was actually probably easier than usual. There was no Distortion and no Anothrgate.

 

PD3: Weathered the round 1 Megid, got hit by a few physicals, things weren't bad. At one point a short while in, there were at least four rounds of Megid consecutively (and it sucked) but I was able to manage with Rika using Star-Dew and Rune supplementing with Guard-Rod. Occasionally Wren died. I did have one or two turns where the whole party was healing, which I hate since Chaz can pretty consistently do ~500 damage/turn (Rune's best is Tandle for ~220 and Wren's best is Burstroc which is also ~220).

 

After a while, we got a Cancelling. Rebuff. No big deal. Next turn, Rika uses Deban, everyone else on the offense. Next turn, Cancelling. Rebuff. No big deal. Next turn, Evil Eye on Rika. Deban is not in play. Next turn, physical on Wren. Wren is down. Things got sticky around this part. I was surviving and I was definitely 10 turns in, so I started to feel confident and took a progress picture (which I wouldn't have if I was pretty sure I'd be starting over):

 

You'll notice in that picture that Wren was at 1 HP. This seriously happened twice during this fight, as Megid does just about half his HP of damage.

 

Next turn: recalling that Rika was Evil Eye'd and thus was at her base speed, and Deban isn't in play... Rika get's Megid'd when she should be reviving Wren.

Two turns later:

Yup, this happened right away after I took a picture because I was so confident. It was never an easy battle, but this was irksome.

 

Rune, try healing Rika. Chaz, use a Star-Dew.

PD physicals Rune. Chaz is alone with full HP.

 

Well, this went downhill pretty damn quickly. There's no way Chaz is going to revive the whole party by himself. We're many rounds in and Chaz has been the king of damage through this run... so we're just going to slug it out.

 

One round of Crosscut. PD3 uses a physical and Chaz has no Deban.

Chaz has been my consistent damage guy and he's got no more Crosscut. Screw it, regular attack does as much as Rayblade when you've used Pow-Shield and you're swinging Elsydeon.

On what was almost certainly Chaz's last turn, he took down PD3 with a regular attack.

 

 

A more epic ending than I could ever have planned for this challenge.

 

Done with four party members, the same "legal" list as the previous post, and the levels presented earlier this post. Pretty good, I think!

I would like to thank everyone for their great gifts and for the interest displayed in this topic. I enjoyed the challenge but there's a number of things I would change, so let's summarize.

 

The Good

• Looking back, probably my favorite part was the super early game. I had very few gifts and I basically got to the Bio-Plant with Hunt-Knifes and Crbn-Suits. In that first couple hours I felt like I was doing something novel and different.
• Because of the nature of my unlocks, I had a significant power jump at Aiedo (then nothing for a while), at Tyler (then nothing for a while) and then at the Rykros unlock phase. Those big leaps in my party's effectiveness felt super satisfying.
• I especially liked the part where I reached Aiedo and I had non-attack-capable Rika and Alys working very effectively as meatshields with Crmcshields, lasting through Juza. They were both acting in roles they normally wouldn't and that was entertaining.

The Bad

• My least favorite part of the challenge was doing the endgame with six slightly different party configurations. This really caused the challenge to drag and, with exceptions, there wasn't even that much of a challenge (as proven by me beating it with 4 at a pretty reasonable level).
• This suggests to me that the gifts were too generous. In some cases, this was overt (SatoruMasamune!) but in general I got all of the essentials. It's not improbable that I would be playing the endgame the exact same way with or without my challenge restrictions.
• Having that lagging gradual finish after the challenge was already officially satisfied sucked, too. It just dragged out the end in an exceptionally anti-climatic denouement (although coincidentally the final final battle was actually amazing). I wouldn't stipulate doing that again.
• The single hardest, most-repetitive part was beating Lashiec. That took a lot of tries and eventually some grinding, followed by a lot of tries. Oddly, I never felt like I was sick of playing it, though.

The Ugly

• I had significant boss hangups against Gy-Laguiah (solution was grinding), Zio (solution was grinding), Xe-A-Thouls (solution was grinding), Lashiec (solution was grinding) and... I think that was it. The Rykros bosses weren't near as bad as I was anticipating.
• Considering the amount of grinding, I beat the game with a four-person party with my highest-level character being an even 50. That's not bad at all regardless of gratitude gifts.
• DF1 & 3 were oddly easy.

What I Would Do Differently Next Time

• I would want to eliminate the "clumps" of gifts that happened at Tyler and Rykros.
• What I'd do instead is similar to what I suggested much earlier in the thread: each poster suggests one equip or ability to unlock for each character. I guess I only had 8 posters contributing gifts though, so to make it realistic it might need to be 1 equip and 1 ability per character... or just "2 equips or abilities".
• They'd be character specific, so for example, unlocking Gires wouldn't be unlocking it for 5 characters. You'd need to unlock it specifically for each if that's what you wanted to do.
• It would probably make late-game characters more valuable, but whatever.
• I will never force myself to run different endgame party configurations to consider a challenge saitsfied.

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