Final Fantasy: The Thread
Okay. So we all know Final Fantasy. It's a game about picking a party of 4 from a pool of 6 blank slates and killing imps until you ruin time or something. But the game has a fair number of glitches, esoteric game mechanics, and other little things which I can (and will) go into too much depth about. you know, while I play through the game and post screenshots and make smarmy comments.
Yes. This is a thread about me playing Final Fantasy 1.
This playthrough will not be all on me, however. You--yes you-- will have a hand in the decision making process. For starters, I'll leave it up to you guys what party I use and how much NPC dialogue to include. Other decisions will pop up as we go along.
But first thing's first.
Welcome to Final Fantasy!
Before we get started, I need to know what party to use. Let me start by describing every class in depth, and general party selection theory.
Classes
Fighter
The Fighter is far and away the best character in Final Fantasy. In the early game, he has the best weapon and armor selection. The the late game, he has the best weapon and armor selection. Because of how magic works in this game, a lot of your time will be spent not using it and the Fighter is really good at not using magic. When you class him up to Knight, he learns some pretty underwhelming white magic, but any spell charge of curing is welcome in my books. Even if you consider this a comparative downside to the classes that get more out of the class change, the armor selection he gains from being a Knight would make up for losing white magic, let alone gaining it. There is enough Knight-only gear to support 2 Knights (at least). A Fighter is always objectively a better choice than the other 2 melee classes, unless you want to grind your way into very high levels. But for variety's sake I rarely pick more than one.
Black Belt
The Black Belt is buggy. But excellent. In the very early game he's pretty useless as his defense is low and his HP pool is too small to make up for it. he's also not a particularly useful attacker until level 10 or so. He remains fairly squishy throughout most of the game, and by the endgame he is competing with your mages for their armor. But from level 10 on he is a useful attacker, and for the most part keeps up with the Fighter in a normal playthrough. At high levels, he will out-damage your Knight. If you care to level up the Black Belt to the highest possible level (50) he is capable of killing basically any enemy in the game in one hit. A maxed Black Belt is quite likely the best character in the game. One of the biggest problems is that the Black Belt requires a lot of attention because of bugs. Depending on how you have him set up, his defense can get set to the wrong value. If you don't know it's coming, or forget to pay attention you might find him suddenly dead. But the worst problem with a Black Belt is that when you class him up to a Master, he gains less magic defense (a hidden stat) per level than in his base-class. As such, it's usually worth it to keep any party with a Black Belt in the base class until at least level 20.
Thief
Let me start by saying that liking and using a Thief is not a crime. But they are the worst character in the game. In the early game, they have abysmal armor and spotty weapon selection. The upside is that after classing him up to Ninja, he gains a very nice armor selection and access to a class-specific specialty weapon. The downside is he's still a wimp compared to the other two melee classes. But he can learn the FAST spell, which is probably the most useful spell in the game. So by the endgame he is somewhat useful, and since he becomes something other than useless, he is rewarding in that respect. He can use some armor and weaponry that you'd otherwise just sell so he is occasionally a neat alternative to the usual Fighterfest. It just so happens that during all the hard parts, before class change, you'll have to drag him around and afterwards, he's not much more than a weaker Knight. This is where many people would step in and point out, hey. They may be lousy at fighting but they're great at running! Well. Okay, this is sort of true. But running is bugged in this game, so the naturally high luck stat doesn't help as much as you might think. I'll get more into running later on. There is another benefit to having high luck, and that is an increased 'chance to strike first' in battle. But for that to work, you'd need to put the thief in the first position. And if you do that, well... I guess you eventually get a LIFE spell.
Red Mage
I find that the Red Mage is a fairly divisive class. People either love him for being an all-rounder or hate him for not being specialized. "Jack of all trades, master of none" is something I hear a lot about him. And this might be true for the remakes. But in the NES version, spell strength has nothing to do with character stats so he winds up being just as effective as the other two mages. He has fewer charges than the specialized mages, sacrifices some spells at the top end, and some useful white magic spells here and there, but in general he's a capable mage who also happens to be able to take a few hits. In the early game he's a useful attacker, typically outpacing the Thief, and can do better in the second position than the Thief or the Black Belt. After the class change to a Red Wizard, his weapon and armor selection drops off, but he's still useable as a mage. Like I said before, he misses out on the big spells like CUR4 and NUKE which is a bummer in some situations, but in general he's usable throughout the entire game, if you're willing to be a bit flexible with his role. And he winds up with most of the useful spells. I find the Red Mage to be the most useful mage and in general, if I'm using a balanced party, I'll take him and a "regular" mage.
Black Mage
The Black Mage is a harbinger of death and distruction. Or at least, that's his reputation. In reality, his naturally high INT stat literally does nothing and because this game uses charges in stead of an MP pool, he winds up going largely unused. Using the Black Mage for melee is useless for almost the whole game, and since a lot of your time is spent saving charges, he spends a lot of his time being useless. Luckily, when you first get a new spell, it is quite useful the few times you can use it and he can get you out of a jam. Unfortunately, lower level black magic spells typically become crappy quickly. Changing class to a Black Wizard gives access to all sorts of spells that only he can learn, and using NUKE is strangely satisfying. In my estimation, the Black Mage is the least useful mage, but that does not mean he is not worth taking. He does get more charges than the Red Mage and as such he can take out more large groups of annoying monsters with his tier 2 and 3 elemental spells. There are plenty of normal enemy groups in this game which are arguably more threatening than bosses, and being able to end them quickly is very useful. That's where the Black Mage really shines, and if you're saving these spells for the bosses, you're making things hard on yourself, with a few exceptions. And as I've said before, FAST is probably the best spell in the game. A big upside is the Black Wizard's class specific armor has a nice in-battle use. But we'll talk about that when the time comes.
White Mage
For most of the game, the White Mage hangs out in battle doing nothing much. There are some fun spells that you can bust out now and again, but the main reason for taking one of these guys (girls!?) along is to use CURE and LIFE. And EXIT. Now, these are all spells a Red Mage/Wizard can use but access to HEAL and HARM makes White Mages a bit more useful in my eyes than Black Mages. having said that, all of the mages are at least useful, so you can mix and match all you want with little downside, depending on your overall party makeup. After the class change to White Wizard, you can learn CUR4 and LIF2 which basically render all other restorative spells useless. Or they would if you didn't have to deal with pesky charges. They can hit harder than Black Mages and the White Wizard's weapons and armor also have good in-battle uses.
Party Making Selections (PMS)
Still with me? I wouldn't have read all that. You're a trooper.
Party selection is probably the most important choice in Final Fantasy. But it's not really that complicated. The game has pretty severe balance issues. Or rather, Fighters are amazing. If you don't take at least one, you're doing it wrong. Two Fighters and anyone else will make a good party. In my estimation, 2 or 3 Fighters and 1 or 2 Red Mages is basically easy mode. But that's no fun.
I prefer variety in a normal playthrough. As such, I consider Fighter/Black Belt/Red Mage/White Mage to be the ideal party. In the early game, the Red Mage is your second member because he starts out far more defensive than the Black Belt. Later on, Black Belt takes the second position as the Red Mage drops off. Since early black magic spells stop being useful and any curative spell is welcome, even if it doesn't do much, the Red Mage/White Mage combo means you can have some attack magic when it's useful, enough curing that you don't have to buy hundreds of crappy potions, and the FAST spell (did I mention it basically rules?).
BUT! What I think isn't important now, is it? Now it's your turn. You tell me what party I should use. You can say why if you want. Or not. It is up to you! Some sort of balance would make it easier to work in game mechanic explanations but isn't totally necessary. So basically, toss out party suggestions and 4-letter names. If you want the light warriors to all be named FUCK, well, you're juvenile! So am I so it's ok. If there's a consensus I'll go with it. If not, I'll pick whatever I find most interesting. Keep in mind that I have done some challenge playthroughs of this game. Picking something like 4 White Mages isn't really a punishment for me. I've done it and I enjoyed it. It might make the thread a little boring though. But I dunno, you're the ones who have to read it so you tell me.
Also, and this is arguably more important, how much NPC dialogue should I include? As much as possible? Only key dialogue? None whatsoever? Those... are basically the 3 choices that I can think of. What do you think?
Comments
I'm mostly with you and your reasoning for your ideal party. HOWEVER, as much as you'd be doing it wrong to omit a Fighter since he's pretty necessary, I can't imagine not including a Black Mage, because he's the coolest looking. Shrug.
Also, I say only necessary NPC.
White Mage (Mona)
Black Mage (Bach)
Black Mage (Zoah)
Go through a magical journey without the benefits of the most offensive weapons / characters.
As for dialogues, it all depends on how you want to build your story. Only key dialogues should be enough unless you want to joke around and make an in depth journal with personal commentaries.
Red Wizard gets Life and Exit too. You do have to do a couple extra dungeons without Life if you don't have a White Mage though.
No kidding?
Wow, all these years I just believed the NP strategy guide. I could have sworn it said only the white wizard could get those two spells.
Then again, there are quite a few typos in that issue, along with images being reversed or upside down, so I shouldn't be too surprised at the omission.
I will probably start the run proper sometime tomorrow so keep the party ideas coming dudes!
http://www.nesmaps.com/maps/FinalFantasy/FinalFantasyMaps.html
You can even order a 2" x 2" poster of it if you want
I've always considered trying a Red Mage, but I feared he would be damn expensive to back up, but also they lose out on a few spells that makes me fear making the late bits of a game a true bitch as the white mage heals great and the black mage is devastating.
Which one of those white/black would you drop if you just had to have the red guy? I'm leaning probably on black, a CUR3 is still very useful in a fight and having nearly twice as many is a boon.
White Mage x 4. Let's make this a challenge
Picking something like 4 White Mages isn't really a punishment for
me. I've done it and I enjoyed it. It might make the thread a little
boring though.
3 Monks + 1 Red Mage
BUTT the Fighter, SLUT the Black Belt, SHIT the Red Mage, and HANK the Black Mage.
I would sub the Black belt with a white mage because she's sluttier, at least in my mind. Good group though. By the way, EPIC thread. I've been meaning to play this so it'll be kinda fun playing through the game with the thread.
White Mage x 4. Let's make this a challenge
Picking something like 4 White Mages isn't really a punishment for
me. I've done it and I enjoyed it. It might make the thread a little
boring though.
You are a better man then I. I can't believe someone actually read all that text
Thief- What
Thief- Inthe
Thief- Butt
Warrior - BNER
Thief - BOT
Black Belt - BUTT
Red Mage - PENI
FORTHCOMING SCIENCE
Scientific Table of Suggested Parties
Number of parties with LIGHT WARRIOR included:
White Mage: 8
Fighter: 7
Red Mage: 7
Black Mage: 7
Black Belt: 5
Thief: 5
Overall number of calls for LIGHT WARRIOR:
White Mage: 12
Thief: 10
Fighter: 8
Black Mage: 8
Black Belt: 7
Red Mage: 7
Number of parties without LIGHT WARRIOR included:
White Mage: 5
Fighter: 6
Red Mage: 6
Black Mage: 6
Thief: 7
Black Belt: 8
Average SCIENTIFIC POPULARITY QUOTIENT:
White Mage: 0.577
Fighter: 0.346
Black Mage: 0.346
Thief: 0.308
Red Mage: 0.308
Black Belt: 0.154
Looks like SCIENCE has caused a tie! Just one more thing science is no good for. But it's obvious the people of NA really want White Mages and really don't want Black Belts. If a White Mage and a Black Belt collide, the entire REST MASS of the LIGHT WARRIORS will probably be converted into kinetic energy.
So we'll use the 8-Bit Theater party for this playthrough:
Unfortunately, I'm late to the party, but I still wanna give my suggestion.
Thief
Red Mage
Black Mage
White Mage
The idea here is a group of Mages that need a champion to help guide them through the completion of their epic task. After lying his way into the job in order to escape the law, the Thief soon finds that he is over his head, but will never admit it. Comedic mishaps ensue as the distrust the Red Mage has for the Thief grows. Regardless, the Theif's pride keeps him motivated and in the end proves himself with an act of heroism even he didn't think he was capable of.
Probably not much of a challenge especially later on, but by the sound of how well you know the game I don't think much will be. I'm looking forward to this thread. I was just thinking about your amazing low level Zelda II run that was cut down in the prime of it's life.
Chapter 1: In which nothing happens.
Okay, let's form our party. There were a lot of requests for BUTT so that's in. INTHE is 5 letters so we won't be making that joke, sorry. In stead I will make a BASIC MATHEMATICS joke at your expense. But WHAT rhymes with butt so we'll go with that. Niels Henrik Abel was a Norwegian mathematician who proved the impossibility of solving the quintic equation in radicals. That will probably come in handy so we'll take ABEL along. Also there's HANK.
Well. Let's get this PARTY started.
So we start right here in front of a town or something. Before we find out what this game is all about, let's go shopping. And before we go shopping, let's check out our starting stats.
BUTT will gain a STR. point on every level, making him a bad, bad man. His AGL. will be quite high as well, making him... well okay, it won't do much for him since he'll be decked out in the heaviest armor possible.
WHAT gains a LUCK point on every level. If the game was programmed properly, this would make him good at running. Well, okay, it still makes him good at running. But running is bugged. I promise to get into running later. His STR. and AGL. should also grow reasonably well. He gets pretty crappy weapons for the most part and will have fewer hits than the Fighter so the fact that he'll probably wind up with the second highest Strength isn't as nice as it seems. But decent Agility will be welcome.
ABEL winds up pretty average. Big surprise, huh? His STR should grow a bit slower than WHAT's, but since he has a head start, it should stay pretty equal for most of the game. His LUCK should wind up about the same as BUTT's. His HP should stay well ahead of HANK's and there's a chance he'll stay ahead of WHAT as well.
HANK will gain a point of INT. on every level. INT. is not used in any calculations in this game. The rest of his stats should be lower than everyone else's barring some seriously lucky level up rolls. As such, he will be hiding in the back row like a little bitch forever.
SHOPPING
To start out with we have a bit of a choice in weapons. For a Black Mage, the Wooden Staff has one more damage and a very slightly higher critical hit rate (1.5% chance) compared to the Small Knife (1% chance). That's negligable in the grand scheme of things and the small knife has a much higher hit rate. So I guess I'll go with that for HANK. The Iron Hammer has the same damage as the Rapier but it also has a slightly higher critical hit rate (2.5% chance for the Rapier vs 3% chance for the Hammer) so I'll get it for fun for BUTT. Everyone else gets Rapiers.
Not much choice here. The big decision is whether or not you want it. The Chain Armor gives 15 absorb and costs 15 evade. 15 is enough absorb to be worth it at this stage in the game so BUTT and ABEL both get one. Wooden Armor gives 4 absorb and costs 8 evade. Cloth gives 1 absorb and costs 2 evade. 1 absorb is basically nothing so I won't be buying a Cloth. Wooden Armor is the Thief's best armor right now so let's take a break to consider the sociopolitical ramifications of wearing wood.
MATH TIME:
4 absorb doesn't sound like much but if we equip it on WHAT, and fight a whole pile of IMPs, he will take roughly 60 hits in stead of the 56 he'd take without armor over 100 attempted attacks. 4 absorb means he will take 224 less damage over this period at a cost of 4 extra hits. As long as those 4 hits aren't for more than 56 damage each, it's a net gain. You know, as a rough average. But since his absorb is sucky compared to the Red Mage, he's going to be in the third slot for the moment. He'll be targeted a lot less there. I'm pretty comfortable with an evade rate of around 44% for him for most early normal monsters. Not buying Wooden Armor right now also leaves me with 205 gold. Which is two spells in stead of one. So I'll skip buying it. I might buy it later, or hold off until I can buy something better, not too sure on that one.
So for White Magic we have CURE, HARM, FOG and RUSE.
CURE in battle retores 16-32 HP. Outside of battle it restores 16-31 HP.
HARM does 40-80 damage to all undead monsters. There is a small chance it will only do 20-40 damage.
FOG adds 8 to one character's absorb.
RUSE adds 80 to the spell caster's evade.
These are all reasonably useful spells. Red Mage can never learn HARM, which is too bad since it is our first multi-target attack spell. We have to wait for the class change for him to be able to learn RUSE. RUSE stacks, and after 2 or 3 casts, depending on the monster, the caster has roughly a 0.5% chance of being hit by any physical attack. This actually makes White Mages very hard to kill. It allows for White Mages to stand in the front line on bosses who only use physical attacks if you need to draw fire, or for them to survive battles against much stronger opponents. It makes White Mage challenges much easier.
For Black Magic we have FIRE, SLEP, LOCK and LIT.
FIRE and LIT both do 20-40 damage if they aren't resisted. 10-20 if they are. An enemy who is weak to an element just has a lower chance of resisting it.
LOCK is supposed to reduce enemy evasion. It is bugged. It always misses.
SLEP works, and it has a reasonable chance to put enemies who don't resist it to Sleep. Sleep is bugged, however. Any enemy who is asleep wakes up on its next turn. Still, making an enemy waste a turn is not such a bad thing.
FIRE and LIT are musts for a Black Mage, and I'll pick up SLEP down the line because as much as it sucks, there are cases where you might want to burn a level 1 spell to buy yourself a bit of time. I'll get LIT and CURE for the Red Mage, and leave a space blank for RUSE. Or Maybe FOG. Maybe FIRE. or SLEP. I'm not sure yet. Actually, you tell me what the third spell should be.
I'll start with CURE for NIELS I mean ABEL and FIRE for HANK.
So anyway. Let's see what the people of wherever we are have to say.
PLOT ACCUMULATION
Okay. So we are at Coneria. Good tip.
Lukahn sees the future. I bet his SCIENTIFIC KNOWHOW will help us later.
I bet we'll have to remember this.
On it.
Until... DUN DUN DUN! He captured the princess. Okay, no. That's a vague hint that there's something more to Garland. Maybe we'll learn about it. Probably not.
Looks like we need the BLUE KEY to open this door.
And that about explains that. There's a guy named Garland. He has the princess in a castle northwest of here. Lukahn is smart. Whoever he is. There is a KEY at some point. You can tell it's important because it's in ALL CAPS. Pravoka is a port to the east. Also Elves maybe.
I would be remiss if I omitted this:
The notorious INVISIBLE PERSON. The sprite is set to inside, so if you go into a room and use a game genie code or something to walk through walls to come out, you should be able to see her. This is a well known glitch, but a good hint of which way this game is going.
So we're all set to go exploring and fight some nasties and save a princess! But before all of that... it's time to...
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE:
Should ABEL's third spell be FOG, FIRE or SLEP, or should I wait for RUSE?
Should WHAT get the Wooden Armor or should he be NAKED until I can buy a Copper Bracelet?
If you think I have made any MISTAKES feel free to BERATE me.