"One to be born from a dragon..." -- Let's Play Final Fantasy II

Like all undead, Milon Z. is weak to fire, which means Palom's Fire2 spell is almost as strong as Flare is. It's certainly better as far as MP is concerned!


After thoroughly stomping Milon's gnards, he decides to end it all by falling off the bridge. When we were kids his death cry struck us as so funny that we incorporated it
into our daily lexicon. We use GRRRR-BAAAH! as a declaration of frustration to this very day.


Having slash'n'burned our way through the army of undead, it's finally time to strip off all this Black gear. I've been doing this to every character as they leave the
party, but for Cecil it's especially important; all that heavy armor fetches a pretty penny, and there's lots of expensive stuff to buy over the course of the next few
adventures.

Oh, and since this will cease to be relevant in a couple seconds: Cecil never scored another critical hit his entire time leading the party. Either crits are so
unbelievably rare that a player can only expect to see one every couple of hours, or he really did lose his ability to do so during the Edward/Tellah scuffle.


♪♪ The Lunarians ♪♪

Standing at the altar on the summit of Mt. Ordeals, a mysterious voice calls out to Cecil, and then drags him into this curious room of mirrors.


A sword descends into Cecil's hand, and with a swirl of light he is transformed! The trial doesn't end there, though, as the light immediately sets in with scolding Cecil
about past transgressions.


And with that Cecil's reflection -- still a DKnight -- steps out of the mirror to challenge him.


However! Unlike that time he had to rob Mysidia, and that time he had to burn Mist, and that time a Titan dropped a mountain on him, and that time Golbez stole his
girlfriend, and that time a sea monster smashed his boat...


...this time Cecil refuses to cry about it, rises to the challenge, and shoves the evil bizarro-Cecil back into the mirror.

Cue triumphant music!

♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

The "trick" to this fight is to stand still, and take no actions whatsoever. Cecil will eat the damage and eventually the D.Knight will give up.

This is another spot where the mechanics in different versions of the game dramatically change the player's perception of the story. The waves of darkness the D.Knight
throws are an utterly alien concept to an FF2 player, but that's not what's important. Cecil is told to overcome his dark past, not destroy it; attempting to
attack is fruitless and merely prompts further scolding. One cannot defeat the evil within oneself by whacking it with a sword, after all.

In less awesome versions of the game, Cecil actually gets that darkness wave attack from the get-go. Its effect varies from version to version, but they all eat Cecil's HP.
So in this fight, you just stand there and let the D.Knight run his HPs out. As you can see, Paladins have way more HPs than DKnights, so you win quite handily.


...right in this world. Some day, you will see. Go... Cecil..."


With those parting words, the D.Knight fades away and entrusts his capital-L Light to Cecil, once and for all. And thus...

Cecil - Paladin

Cecil's class change is more than just a symbol of his spiritual growth; it's a complete upset and overhaul of all his stats, gear and abilities. Right down to the
programming, the DKnight and Paladin are two completely different characters.

Command List:

• Fight: Cecil's Fight command is one of the most fearsome attacks in the game. His swords have their own unique graphic on the equipment menu, and some of
  them get absolutely ridiculous boosts in attack power. I'm talking a hundred points plus in some cases towards the endgame. What's more, most everything Cecil can
  equip has the Light element flagged, which means even more damage against pretty much anything that pleases to call itself "evil".
  
• White: Cecil also gains very rudimentary access to the White magic set. He gains Cure2, Exit and Heal, which are all useful, but never learns Cure3 or Life1, which would just be marvelous. There's nothing else to spend his MP on, though, so you might as well have him use Cure2 to heal up between fights so Rosa can conserve hers for more important things.
  
• Cover: Next, Cecil gains the unique ability to absorb damage in place of an ally. Simply target this command at one of his friends and Cecil will jump in and take all that hero's physical damage.

Finally, Cecil gets an auto-ability to round out his skillset. Cover triggers automatically whenever anyone is low on HP. This doesn't help against magic or area attacks, or in those rare cases wherea monster can plant a squishy from full HP with a single blow, but it's certainly welcome when Cecil eats damage that would have killed Rosa or Rydia. If the enemy's only source of damage is physical attacks, you can survive forever by keeping Cecil healed and leaving everyone else in peril. Careful, though -- Cecil can and will auto-Cover himself into an early grave if the opportunity should arise.

~~~


♪♪ The Lunarians ♪♪

In case the bag of toys that comes along with Cecil's promotion weren't enough, Tellah miraculously edges towards useful by remembering all those old spells that had been rattling around in his brain. A second or two later, he is granted the greatest black magic spell of all.

...not that Tellah can actually cast it. Meteo costs 99 MP, but Tellah never gets more than 90. There is a dummied-out item that raises max MP which can be accessed with cheat codes, but outside of that Tellah is locked out of using this spell until dude seriously, you can't wait three more updates? Shame on you.


The kids stand in hushed awe for a few moments, then excuse themselves to the other side of the room to discuss something in private.


They're about to come clean with okay really? You can't even scroll down the page? What kind of impatient monster are you!?, but...


...Tellah's got Meteo and a raging hard-on for some fiery vengeance! Either that, or he's just a master of selective hearing, and literally can't tell when the children are speaking. (My grandfather achieves the same results by adjusting his hearing aid.)


Cecil clearly has more questions for the wall of mirrors...


...but it has nothing left to offer him but his reflection, now a Paladin itself.


♪♪ Mt. Ordeals ♪♪

Promoting means starting all the way back over at L1, which is fine because an L1 Paladin blows a L19 DKnight out of the water. It also means being totally unable to use any of that old Darkness/Shadow/Black gear. Magic glowy mirror light came through with the sword -- the super fantastic Legend Sword Cecil's rocking here -- but otherwise leaves poor Cecil naked except for a flimy strap of Cloth.

Fortunately, I stocked up on as much newbie Paladin gear as I could afford back in Mysidia, so Cecil is all decked-out and lookin' fine.

...it does raise the question of why the Mysidia armor shop stocks gear that can only be equipped by a particular character class which by the Elder's own admission nobody's ever attained before. That strikes me as sort of a strange business decision.

Note, too, that Cecil can now use wizard's armor, such as the Gaea Gear in the corner of the equipment list. That's not a super important feature of his new class, but it'll be relevant in at least one update.


Tellah's new spell lists. Pretty beefy! I've gone ahead and sorted the most useful ones to the top. Counting the empty spaces, you can see Tellah is missing one white spell (White) and three black spells (Fatal, Quake and Nuke). Some of these spells are useful, but Tellah doesn't have the MP to put them to work anyway, so it's not worth getting all complain-y over.


Well, that's the end of the last mountain dungeon in the game. How's about one more spectacular view before heading down, eh?

♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Aside from the more powerful Cure magic, the most welcome addition to Tellah's spellbook is the incomparable Virus spell. This spell hits for decent non-elemental damage,
so there's no guesswork involved when you go to reach for it. It also adds a constant HP draining effect, which can result in hilarious "HP ran out" kills if a battle drags
for a while.

(This effect isn't Poison, though; Poison is a distinct and much less annoying status ailment.)

Virus costs 20 MP, which means Tellah gets four shots of it between recharge points... so budget wisely. More competent mages later in the game can use this attack as their
bread'n'butter.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Because Cecil starts back over at L1, he makes some sicknasty experience gains on the walk down the mountain. In his first two successful fights as a Paladin he
gains seven levels and learns two new spells.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Here's his sword upgrade in action. It feels pretty good to finally put the main hero to work punking some gol-durn undead for a change! In addition to the damage boost and
Light element, Cecil's new attack comes complete with an impressive shimmering slash animation and an endlessly satisfying "shng-shng!" sound effect. In FF2 there
are swords, and then there are Cecil's swords.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

One more level-up just a step outside of the chocobo forest.


♪♪ Chocobo-Chocobo ♪♪

With Cecil's boosted attack, Tellah's new spells and a free white-chocobo-flavored recharge point waiting at the end, coming down the mountain is a much simpler affair than
going up. More of a jaunt than a trudge, really.



It's a shame there's nothing else to do on the Mysidian continent, because it has some pretty interesting geography. This is a pretty common problem in SNES-era RPGs; the
early game is very compact, with stuff to do every screen or so on the overworld. As the heroes advance and the world gets bigger, though, the designers want to convey the
idea of covering more territory without actually adding a corresponding amount of content. Thus, the road from Baron to Damcyan to Fabul is crammed full of towns and
dungeons, while the comparably-sized Mysidian continent is empty except for two measly locations.

Look at the world map for Secret of Mana sometime. That's got to be by far the worst offender.


♪♪ Mystic Mysidia ♪♪

Now that Cecil has received the Mt. Ordeals stamp of approval, everyone in town seems pretty much floored that this dude from Baron now walks among them with the glowing
aura of holiness hanging about him.

...except that one dude. That one dude is a prick.


Plus, we earned enough cash from mountain monsters and pawned Black gear to finish outfitting Cecil in holy-tastic equipment.


With all the shopping done, it's time to report back to the Elder. The twins step forward and present Cecil in all his newfangled majesty, but they're acting slightly fishy
about something.

Sidenote: I do believe this is the only point in the game where everyone in the party wears a cape. It is therefore the most fashionable party Cecil ever travels in.

This may or may not come as a surprise, but using five-year-olds as spies is a time-honored tradition!

And remember: the Elder had no time to coordinate with his pupils once frogpig-Cecil wandered into the Hall of Wishes, poisoned and heartsick and all alone in the world.
This suggests that Palom and Porom had been training for this mission all their lives.

Cecil, of course, accepts the twins' apologies humbly, asserting he got what he deserved, considering he burned Mysidia down in the first place. Whether he's referring to
being spied on or being stuck with a couple of magic-slinging brats, we'll never know.


Finally, the Elder takes note of Cecil's new Legend Sword. As it turns out, it's not just a clever name; the sword actually has a for-real legend inscribed upon it:



♪♪ Long Way to Go ♪♪

"For you see, blind faith goes hand-in-hand with the unimaginably destructive magic power of our people."


Tellah quickly tires of all this legend/destiny/wishing hornswaggle, and gets back to the subject of melting Golbez's face. Apparently Tellah and the Elder go way back to
their short-pants days. I wonder which of the two used to take the other's lunch money.


It looks as though Tellah's always been something of a hothead. The Elder tries to calm him down, but Tellah insists that he's going to burn Golbez even if it means
throwing his life away in the bargain.

Finally, Cecil runs down the checklist: sacred sword? Check. Meteo? Check. Airship? Still wanting.

The Elder opens the conveniently-placed magical road leading to Baron, and wishes Cecil and Tellah luck.


♪♪ Palom & Porom ♪♪

Of course, the kids want to tag along, too.


The Elder's explanation makes no sense here. He seems genuinely surprised that the kids came back from Mt. Ordeals alive -- it's common knowledge in Mysidia that nobody
ever has.

Which raises the question of why he sent them in the first place. Was he really trying to rid himself of them? Is he still trying to?


♪♪ Mystic Mysidia ♪♪

Well, no matter. Everything seems to be in order.


Our heroes step onto the warp tile and enter the Serpent Road. Time to take the fight to Baron.

Next: "I am the captain of the guards. My loyalty to the state is unwavering!"

Okay. Now that we have a party full of wizards, how about a complete rundown of the entire black and white magic sets?

~~~

White Magic

Healing:

• Cure1, Cure2, Cure3, Cure4
  Very possibly the most important spell line in the game. Restoring the party's HP is the most basic way to keep them from dying, and these spells are the most direct way to
  do that. Cure2 is most often-used from the menu between fights, and is where 90% of Cecil's MP will end up going over the course of the game. Cure3 is the most useful
  during actual combat. Cure4 will fully restore a single target regardless of how hurt that target is, and can often do the same for an entire group. Cure spells deal damage
  to undead, but not as effectively as does Fire.
  
• Life1, Life2
  These spells restore slain heroes to life. Life1 is good for only a fraction of the target's HP, but Life2 will bring them back at full health. Life2 is quite pricy,
  requiring a whopping 52 MP, but it's well worth it in some of the game's rougher boss fights.
  
• Heal
  A catch-all spell for restoring status ailments. It can cure anything and everything except KO; that's what the previous spells are for. Though it sounds invaluable, it's
  actually very situational; Heal items are plentiful, after all, and status ailments that require your attention mid-battle are few and far between. Only a few ailments
  follow you back to the menu screen after the fight's over, and most of those are transformation effects that can be handled more efficiently with other spells.
  
• Size
  This spell inflicts or reverses Mini status. Midget-ified heroes still have access to all their magic, although their physical stats drop to nothing. Casting Size toggles
  between normal and midget status, so if you have multiple midgets to take care of you have to cast it on each of them individually.

Buffs:

• Float
  Causes the target to float in mid-air. This spell has precisely two uses: floating characters avoid all damage from the Quake spell, and aren't harmed by damage-dealing
  floor tiles. Float can be targeted at the whole party at once, but is erased if you transition between floors in a dungeon. If you're using the spell for its second
  purpose, remember to re-cast it every time you go up or down a set of stairs.
  
• Blink
  This is a pretty swank buff that causes the target to evade the next few physical attacks. Its usefulness is limited by the number of monsters with dangerous physical
  attacks, but it's more cost-efficient than, say, casting Cure3 on Yang every goddamn round.
  
• Fast
  This buff causes the target's invisible ATB meter to fill up, granting them more turns. It's pretty much my go-to spell on those rare turns where Rosa doesn't need to heal
  anyone.
  
• Bersk
  Berserk is technically a status "ailment", but truth is, you're only going to care about curing it if it hits a magic-using character. A berserked hero will attacked his
  opposition blindly, and enjoy a decent bonus to his attack, to boot. This is especially awesome in the mid-game when you're lugging Cid, Yang or Edge through boss fights,
  who don't have anything appreciably interesting to do but wave their weapons around. Fire and forget!
  
• Wall
  This spell erects a magical barrier around the target which, in turn, reflects any magic spells sent his way. With very few exceptions, every white and black magic spell
  will bounce off a Wall, although Ninja and Summon magic will pierce right on through. Spells can only bounce once, so if your opponent is Wall'd you can still hit her if
  you lob your spell at a Wall'd ally. There are very few fights where casting Wall is at all helpful; what usually ends up happening is an enemy will Wall itself as a
  safeguard against your magic. Then, thanks to the wonders of blindingly-stupid enemy AI, that same enemy will attempt to cast it again later. This second Wall will bounce
  off the first, landing on one of the heroes instead. This is somewhat irritating since a Wall'd hero can't be targeted by area-effect Cure magic.

Debuffs:

• Hold
  Every white mage starts with this spell, but no white mage ever casts it. It paralyzes a target, causing it to be unable to take any actions. This is, of course, only
  useful in boss fights -- and every boss is immune.
  
• Mute
  Silences a target. There are a few spellcasting monsters in the endgame you might want to use this against, but it's probably easier to just kill them. Bosses are, of
  course, immune.
  
• Charm
  Charms a target. Charm is similar to Berserk, except the target will try to attack his allies instead, and will attempt to cast spells if he is able. You can't hit bosses
  with it, but even if you could it would be next to useless since a single point of physical damage breaks the effect. Monsters that end up charmed have an annoying tendancy
  to attack themselves and thereby break the effect.
  
• Slow
  The opposite of Fast. This is the best offensive spell in the white magic set, because 1) it can target an entire enemy group and 2) it hits bosses. Slapping Slow on
  the opposition is the functional equivalent of slapping Fast on everyone in the party. It doesn't always hit, but it certainly never hurts to try!

Utility:

• Sight
  I've already shown this one off a few times. It zooms the world map way out, so you can see twice as far in each direction. Theoretically, even a new player should never
  need this spell because he'll have the fold-up map insert that came with the game. What would be great is being able to cast this in dungeons!
  
• Peep
  Displays how much HP an enemy has, and whether it's weak to anything. This would be useful except for the fact that FF2 is seldom subtle about enemy weak points. Burn it if
  it's blue, freeze it if it's red... rocket science, this ain't.
  
• Exit
  Teleports the party back to the world map. The spell doesn't function in some dungeons, and sometimes is blocked from individual rooms inside of dungeons. If you ever try
  to cast it but can't, it's probably because the game has something planned for you on the walk out.

Damage:

• White
  Deals huge amounts of holy-element damage, albeit only to a single target. Though its function is terrific this spell sees next to zero use, since Rosa virtually never has
  a round free to cast it. This is the only white magic spell Tellah doesn't learn.

~~~

Black Magic

Damage:

• Fire1, Fire2, Fire3
  Deals fire damage. Ice monsters, plants, undead creatures and red jellies are all vulnerable to fire.
  
• Ice-1, Ice-2, Ice-3
  Deals ice damage. Fire monsters, reptiles and blue jellies are vulnerable to ice.
  
• Lit-1, Lit-2, Lit-3
  Deals lightning damage. Most useful against aquatic monsters, machines and yellow jellies. Famous for having far more kickass attack animations than the other two basic
  damage types.
  
• Drain
  Takes HP from a target and gives it to the caster. Pretty much a worthless spell, although it works backwards on undead, in case you ever wanted to watch Rydia kill
  herself.
  
• Psych
  Works like Drain, only targets MP instead of HP. It's the only spell in the game with no MP cost. In theory this is a good way for Rydia to stock up on MP during dungeons,
  but in practice it's more trouble than it's worth. It only hits spellcasting monsters, and it can be pretty tough to know what those are beforehand. Even when it does work,
  you're going to have to cast it repeatedly in order to get an appreciable amount of MP back... and even then, it's quite common for Rydia to be missing way, way more MP
  than a group of monsters can possibly provide. Did I mention it doesn't hit bosses?
  
• Weak
  Reduces a single target's HP to single digits. Almost never hits, except for one famous exception, where it is practically required.
  
• Virus
  One of the most useful spells in the set. A little more powerful (and expensive) than the middle elemental damage spells, but comes packing an HP-draining effect, and isn't
  quite as susceptible to the "what's it weak to?" guesswork as the basic types are.
  
• Quake
  Pretty good multi-target spell. You could almost call this "Virus2", except that would be more letters than FF2's system can handle. This spell never hits flying creatures,
  but most of the flying creatures appear early in the game, so by the time you learn it you can pretty much cast it with reckless abandon. Tellah can't, though, as it's one
  of the three black spells he never learns.
  
• Nuke
  The black magic counterpart to White. (That sentence is so stupid it might actually stub your brain, so be careful with it.) Tellah never learns this, and you'll die of old
  age before Palom gets it, so that just leaves Rydia -- you almost always has better options available to her. Still, it's fun to play with if you want to level her that
  high.
  
• Meteo
  The so-called "ultimate black magic". This is more of a plot device than a real spell you're meant to make use of. It almost always deals 9999 damage to everything it hits,
  but it costs 99 MP and has a fucktardedly long charge time. Tellah technically learns this, but he'll never have the 99 MP to cast it. Rydia learns it after hours and hours
  of level grinding, but has better ways to spend her time.

Debuffs:

• Sleep
  Puts monsters to sleep. Would be worthless even if it worked on bosses (which it doesn't) since a physical attack would wake them up, and there's no boss fight in the
  entire game where you aren't relying at least in part on physical attacks.
  
• Venom
  Poisons monsters. Doesn't work on bosses, and it's better to just kill regular monsters outright than to poison them and wait for them to die.
  
• Toad
  Transforms monsters into toads. Being a toad is similar to being a midget, except you aren't able to cast any magic spells (except for Toad itself). This spell is far more
  useful for curing the toad effect than inflicting it.
  
• Piggy
  Transforms monsters into pigs. Once again, the spell is more useful in curing the effect than in inflicting it. Pigs can't cast spells, but their physical attacks don't
  suffer as much as midgets or toads.
  
• Stop
  Stops the target's ATB meter from rising. As far as I can tell this is the functional equivalent of Hold, and is about as useful.
  
• Stone
  Turns a monster to stone, effectively killing it. Bad guys don't have the luxury of multiple losing states the way heroes do; once they're out, they're out. Misses more
  often than not, and doesn't work on bosses.
  
• Fatal
  Kills one monster outright. High miss rate, doesn't work on bosses, blah blah. Has a pretty cool animation, though. Tellah is denied access to this spell because he is
  ugly.

Utility:

• Warp
  A lesser version of Exit. Only takes the party back to the previous floor, rather than out of the dungeon entirely.

~~~

All in all, fewer than half of the white/black sets are actually useful. Most of the spells are outright junk, and most of the rest are invalidated due to unfortunate game
mechanics. (Palom and Porom aren't in the party long enough to learn anything really awesome, Tellah doesn't have the MP for anything outside of the most basic
functionality, Rosa is always too busy healing to make good use of her buffs, and Rydia's worthwhile attack magic all lives in a different spell menu entirely.)

This is actually pretty fitting with tradition, though; white and black magic was mostly useless in FF1, too.

No mention of the fact that Meteo/Meteor is holy-elemental for some reason in FF4? Because Meteo/Meteor is so totally holy-elemental for some reason in FF4.

I didn't notice it in the NP artwork before, but why is paladin Cecil not wearing pants?

I'm not sure I understand the question.

I guess not so much a question as an observation that bothers me. Hes supposed to be a heavily armored knight with lots of HPs. Thinking about it now the Kain picture has the same problem. I think male warriors just don't like pants.

If the designs are by Akihiko Yoshida, that's to be expected. Just look at what he did to the cast of Vagrant Story; those are very nice outfits they're almost wearing. The man has a fetish for assless chaps in place of pants. And he apparently was involved with FF4DS, too.

How about Cecil, Edge, Rosa and Rydia?

One thing I've wondered about dark knight Cecil is if he knows his dark equipment is ruining him, why doesn't he throw them away and use ordinary soldier equipment until he becomes a paladin? The game lets the player unequip and sell his dark equipment at any time. I know, it would be undramatic for the game's main character to wear ordinary gear and reduce his risk, but I'm just wondering.

Now that Cecil's a paladin, can we get lavender windows to match his hair?

When I went back to this game years after it came out, Palom and Porom strike me as overachievers. I imagine them as adults getting into Ivy League schools with Palom becoming a Silicon Valley entrepreneur (or whatever the FF2-world equivalent of that is) and Porom becoming some kind of high ranking politician. Unfortunately, After Years rebukes this and has them continuing as adults to be rather subservient to Mysidia's interests, but we can forget that game, can't we?

My God, it's FF3 Cid all over again.

Cecil: "That would explain this heat."

Tellah: "And your breezy short-shorts!"

Cecil: "Uh... yeah! That would explain it."

Seriously. That, or really fat malformed octogenarians. Truly horrifying, either way.

To me, the Twins' Nintendo Power art makes them look like they would be the freaky offspring of these guys:



What's even creepier is that the Tim Burton-ized counterparts of Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee look even closer in some ways...

Barf, I think I'm going to be sick.

I have never, ever been able to tell which was Palom and which was Porom.

And I never, ever will.

Hey, it works for Orin in 8 Eye's. And for every warrior woman in every game ever.

Oh they said the title!

The localized version of Lufia 1 would like to have a word with you.

While it is frustrating from a gameplay perspective, I wonder if Tellah's 90MP limit is in place to subtly explain a story event. Namely that casting Meteor kills him. Because it costs more MP than he can cast, the act overexerts him and burns out his brain.

That is the reason that he has a 90 MP cap. Didn't Brick alude to that earlier in the LP?

I didn't know what all the stats were for the first time I played this game. I saw Cecil's Will decrease while he was a Dknight, and increase when he became a Paladin (along with a corresponding increase to his confidence and resolve), so I wondered for some time whether Wis. and Will were simply plot-related. Of course, they're black and white magic power, respectively. (And the Black sword reduces Will by 5 points.)

Note: this higher Will power means that Paladin Cecil should have higher magic evade than DKnight Cecil, especially with the Will-boosting Legend sword and Paladin armor.

Ultima was holy in monster-closet FF2, IIRC. Destructive is not always synonymous with evil until later in the series.

True story: chaps are supposed to be assless! Chaps are just leg coverings held up by a belt. Covering the ass requires one to wear (technically optional) pants of some kind underneath.

This game would be nigh impossible without the guiding wisdom of Nintendo Power.

I like to think that is what they were going for. It's cool when story elements are mixed with gameplay mechanics like that.

Yep, definitely, though I like to think that Tellah uses force of vengeful will to convert his remaining life force into magic points, since he does waste them on a few spells before he actually uses Meteo. That HP-to-MP exchange rate must be pretty terrible, huh?

According to the FF Wiki, Tellah's name is slang for "old man" in Hebrew. It just dawned on me that this is a very intentional character description.

In FF3j, the Sage is the most powerful magic class and you get it at the end of the game. Imagine playing thought that game, then this one. You get "sage" Tellah, but he has forgotten most of his spells and some of his stats decrease when he gains levels. He is really meant to be the old man of the group.

One of my favorite lines in the PlayStation script is here, where Palom greets Cecil with..."S'up, dude?"



Porom also has the cutest menu portrait in the series.


It's more like she's an aspiring comedian.



It's Milon. Notice he makes the same noise before you fight his second form.


My first experience with FFIV was one of the versions with the Darkness ability, but that didn't stop me from picking up on the message of the scene.