It's so hard to play a game that I haven't played before without stumbling down beginner's traps. First of all you don't know who's going to leave, so you're never too sure about who to devote your leveling up on. It's especially heart-breaking when the person that you've been leveling up leaves and you lose a chunk of your equipment. In Final Fantasy IV, I knew exactly when to strip Kain's armor off when he deserts you; it really came in handy later on. Anyways, I finally got Leon, and it seems like he is the last party member.
I fought some notable bosses. First up, the Roundworm that was infesting inside of Leviathan. Yes, he's in this game, and he does wreck your ship (as a prequel to what will happen in
FFIV?). But instead of just separating your party, he swallows you whole and you have to battle the monsters from within him. The cool thing is that you gain RICARD. Can we say Kain's template? He's a dragoon that's been trained from the Kingdom of Deist. I guess it was shocking to see him for the first time in Final Fantasy II, but now it makes
FFIV not so ground-breaking. I thought that they just added
Chocobos and Dragoons out of no-where. Nope, they both started in
FFII.
Next there is this White Dragon. Dragons look really cool in Final Fantasy, and for some reason, you can't help but wonder how
Enix thought about this. If Final Fantasy had dragons, imps, and
golems to fight, what special monsters were reserved for Dragon Quest? Anyways, the boss was a cinch, and I really think I'm a bit over-leveled for the game again.
I reached
Mysidia, the land of the
Mages, and bought the HOLY spell. I found FLARE in
Mysidia Tower. Naturally I found the
ULTIMA spell there too. I guess it's the first time to see that spell. It was not in Final Fantasy IV, but returned in later episodes. This is so
trippy, I'm finally piecing the parts together. The spells sound strong, but the game's spell system involves powering them up, which is a total drag. You get
ULTIMA, and it starts at level 1
ULTIMA, that does like 60 damage. You can hit like 1000 already. Anyways, tough stuff.
After defeating the Emperor at
Paloom, we find out that LEON was leading the empire to destroy you again. You confront him at his palace, and just when the fight begins, he says something totally wicked. Actually, it was kind of funny, I had to take a picture of it. "Weak words, from the weak". There's something so blatant about it that it cracked me up. The fight did not happen because we find out that the Emperor resurrects himself from HELL and claims Ricard's life. Yes, he dies. For a silly video game from the 80's, a lot of people die. Of course Leon realizes his wrong ways and to combat a greater evil, he joins me. Hurrah! I'll leave you guys with some numbers.
- Game Time: 19 hrs 7 mins
- Total Time: 40 hrs 45 mins
- Deaths: 2 (from FFII)
- Days: 24 of 80
So the final four does turn out to be the main character, Maria, Guy, and Leon. The same four guys that you started with? Well yes! We find out that the Emperor has resurrected himself with the powers of hell, and to defeat him, you had to travel through the Jade tunnel and into Hell itself, the Pandemonium Palace. This is not without some bosses.
The King Behemoth was a push-over. I used the basic Haste + Berserk spells on my fighters and kept healing with Leon. I was hesitant to use magic on it because I feared that it will do WEAK on me, a spell that was automatic in Final Fantasy 4 when you attacked a behemoth. I think they do METEOR on you in Final Fantasy 10 if you use magic on them; what mystical beasts they truly are. It was nothing that the Excalibur couldn't cut through.
Next up there was the multi-headed dragon Tiamont. Didn't we see him in FF1? Well, yes he was. Not a bad idea to bring him back. He looks like he went on a work-out regime and yoked up a bit. Not to worry, magic works well on him as well as the old-fashioned wacks from from hard steel. I really should look up where the name Tiamont came from, it seems to go well with dragons.
Next up, Beelzebub, the lord of the flies. Odd how many references there are to Satan in these games. This one is a bit more complicated as magic does more damage than physical attacks. I started using my Fire spells along with Ultima, Flare, and Holy. My party wasn't meant to be mages, so it took a bunch of ethers to complete this battle.
Lastly there is Astaroth, a prince in Hell. Well, not according to FF2, he's a lady in this one. Quite a change of appearances between her and the Astaroth in the Soul Calibur series. He does have the wings, and besides that there wasn't much to it. By the time I met him/her I had the Masamune and it was enough to fix her good; even without enfeeblement boosts. Nice outfit, hotshot.
But who has the greatest outfit? Of course the Emperor himself. Sure he looks like a amazon shaman from San Francisco, but hey, he's the emperor. He can do anything he wants. I played around with using two swords: Excalibur and Masamune with the hero, but it really didn't do much of a difference. I stuck with the Masamune and a shield for him. It really didn't matter because the person that did the most damage was Guy, with his Rune Axe. Somehow with Haste, Aura, and Berserk, he was able to do 3000 damage per hit. Quite substantial since the Emperor only has 15,000 HP. Leon was on stand-by again. It was a much more easier boss than Final Fantasy I. Yet I'm not done yet, FF2: Soul of Rebirth begins now. Another 20 hours of pain and leveling? Maybe just leveling.
