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

Like, i know that all the older games had transformations, but I feel like this game uses them a LOT more, exhibit A being this dungeon that's practically built for them. (yes I know 3 has the cave you have to go through mini, but that's not the same as being hit with toad repeatedly).

Not to mention the status-effect town of Mithril.

In Cid's younger days his beard was even longer, but a Malboro turned it into a whole mess of frogs, pigs and midgets. Since these creatures strangely had human intelligence and the gift of speech, they filed a successful class-action lawsuit for child support payments. Since Cid killed the Malboro in his encounter, he was the only remaining parent able to pay. Cid was drowning in the ensuing debt until a young Golbez discovered a mithril mine on a remote island. Cid convinced the King of Baron to send the Red Wings to the island to kick out Golbez and give the animals and midgets a new home there with enough mineral wealth to absolve Cid of further payments. Golbez became so bitter about the whole ordeal that he began down the path toward evil, the details of which we'll learn more about later in this LP.

And now you know the backstory of FFII!

Why doesn't this forum have a like button?

Matchstick please no.

No, make him a Mini with a Toad and a Pig for arms.

The answer was inside your question all along!

If it matters, it's my headcanon that this Cid is part-dwarf.

Maybe it's the dwarves that are part-Cid. The guy's been around.

HA! Just to be a smartass I was going to make a tag for "like" and it totally wouldn't let me.

EDIT: It will, however, let me use the tag "like button."

Stephen Hawking mocks you and his bible thumping neighbor.

I support this.

There are forums with like buttons. Such as Exploding Rabbit. And once you have it, it feels weird when it's not there.

I want karma points.

Huzzah! It's back! And to think I'd removed the bookmark from it and everything.

I would very much like to play this prequel.

I don't see the point of a like button in a truly social environment. You have the power to express your approval through writing (and emoticons).

Like

Last night, a friend of mine who hadn't played video games since she was a kid came over to play Super Mario World with me. I was totally reminded of Brick's commentary in this thread, in the "why this game was groundbreaking" sense. SMW was the first SNES game I owned, FF2 was the fourth, and at the time I didn't really have the sense of why they were awesome (even for the time), just that they were.

Lttp on this thread's reemergence, but I had to add my voice to the ever increasing chorus of thanks and praise.

Scary thought: this LP was started at the same time as the FF3US/6 co-LP. "Long-runner" seems inadequate to describe it. Somehow I wouldn't want it any other way, though.

This thread? This thread right here? My second post is in it. Just sayin'.

I Almos completed two entire LPs in the period between two Updates. Repeatedly.

I started and finished about 30 games since this thing started!

Final Fantasy II, like most RPGs of its day, came with a pack-in overworld map. It didn't come with a map of the underworld, though, so I figured I'd whip one up for you hip cats:



The lava oceans are different shades of orange in some spots because I'm an idiot.

Interlude the Fourth: The Land of Monsters

Wait, can you have two interludes in a row? Is that legal? Am I... am I playing by my own rules!? I'd better tread carefully, lest a buddy cop movie break out.


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

The cave on this tiny little island is the Land of Monsters, because apparently the monster-infested rest-of-the-world doesn't count. It's a little like if Beijing had a Chinatown.


I'm sorry(-ish) for the massive .gif here, but I really wanted to hammer home what a terrific graphical effect the webbed floors use here: you can look through the gaps in the material and see the floor below. This creates a really bizarre and unique effect as you're navigating the dungeon, and is just another example of FF2 holding a simple trick in its back pocket to spring on you just when you thought it was out of tricks.

Make no mistake, this is not a particularly muscular feat on the SNES's part. Rather, it's just the simple application of ingenuity. Instead of a parallax background (like the distance shots on Mt. Ordeals, or the rivers in the Watery Pass), they're just using a static shot of the map of the floor below. The end result is the Land of Monsters has a "stacked" feeling to it. It's not a large or complicated dungeon, especially not when compared to its toad-infested next-door-neighbor, but the graphics give it a little extra pinache and helps to make it feel like you're exploring a truly deep place. (Doubly effective, when you consider we were in the Underworld to begin with!)


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Float once again negates the damaging floors here, and has the added benefit of protecting us from the constant Quake spells thrown at us by Arachne. These appear as random encounters, but they can also be spawned by Conjurers, who we'll meet later.


They're also weak to arrows, and Edge's FullMoon counts as arrows, so they always die in one hit. Sheesh. Arachne gives Imp some stiff competition for most pathetic monster in the game.


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

"Brick, shut up and open that treasure box before we all die of old age!"

Chill out, guys, it's just a Cure2. The dungeon proper only has one nice piece of loot, and this ain't it.


The see-through floor gimmick seems like it could be used to create some neat navigation puzzles, but the dungeon designers didn't push it. It does serve to hide the hidden passageways in a clever way, though: rather than being blatantly visible, you can only spot them if there's something to see on the floor below. Here, for example, we can look through a passage and see a treasure on the floor beneath us.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Here's a Conjurer at work. A semi-famous gameplay tip is to continuously kill the monsters they spawn -- which never approach even a passing threat -- in order to rack up lots of EXP. Of course this is one of those gameplay tips that's too clever for its own good. How is killing conjurered monsters in a single endless battle any better than killing regular monsters in a long series of them?


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

That about does it for the first floor.

...and that about does it for the second. Look, I told you this wasn't a very long dungeon.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

LOOK GUYZ ITS THE FOUR FIENDS, ROFLBOATS.

But no, seriously, these guys are a pain because they counter damage with Charm and don't have any glaring elemental weaknesses to exploit. If your luck goes sour you might end up mopping someone off the floor after Cecil accidentally stabs them to death.


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

Looks like we're coming up on the end of the dungeon. The next floor down looks... constructed. (Also, it looks treasure box.)


But that's getting ahead of ourselves. First up: new weapons! Useless new weapons, as it happens, but them's the breaks. As always, nobody wants to use an axe. And while that Ninja Sword would have been an upgrade if Edge had visited here before the Sylvan Cave, it's not powerful enough to replace the Mute Dagger or the FullMoon.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

This box, however, contains a pretty beefy upgrade for Cecil... who I'd like to remind you was already pretty beefy in the first damn place!


The stat gains of the Defense Sword over the Avenger are pretty huge, but keep in mind the Avenger also applies Berserk, so there's a net loss in damage output. On the other hand, the Defense Sword is one-handed, so Cecil can pick his shield back up.

Both swords have their use. You can always swap to the Avenger mid-fight, if you decide you want Cecil Bersk'd and don't want to waste one of Rosa's turns.


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

Just a couple more potions for the giant, omnipresent pile.

Of note: that tiny notch of a passageway off to Rydia's right near the Life chest? That's actually just a tiny notch of passageway. It's designed so you can't tell you can't walk through it until you actually try it, and you're forced to come at the three treasures boxes on the other side of the wall from a different angle.

That... that probably would have worked better if I hadn't already collected those three boxes. I'd go back in time and stop myself from making this terrible mistake, but the itme machine's the shop. Sorry!


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Oh, and speaking of Charm shenanigans, yes, the question marks get flipped during Back Attacks. As if regular question marks weren't already confusing enough!

That monster is called a Hooligan. Why, what were you thinking?


♪♪ Illusionary World ♪♪

Heading through this teleporter, the music changes and the monsters get quite a bit friendlier. Even more interestingly, we can see buildings on the floor below, and lots and lots of treasures!


Said treasures amount to a nice fat stack of free cash, which invites the question as to why Rydia showed up at the Dwarf Castle broke.

Tucked away in one of the crannies of this bizarre monster township is a nearly invisible warp tile. You would never find this unless you are specifically looking for it, and actually, it's hidden by a pretty ingenius clue. But that's getting ahead of myself.


No more mapshots sliding around the parallax background; this must be the very, very bottom of the Land of Monsters. Which, of course, means...


...hella treasures! Aww yeah.

It only just now occurs to me that I could have made that little montage look a lot nicer if I'd opened the treasures in a different order. But, you know. Broken time machine. Whatyagondo.


Straight-up damage boost for dear ol' Rosa. The upgrade looks nice at first glance, but as always, Rosa reaches 90 Attack about two dungeons too late for that to matter. Not to worry, though; she'll enjoy a real weapon upgrade in just a few short moments!


Another hidden warp tile here on the bottom-of-the-bottom-of-the-bottom-of-the-world serves as a handy dungeon exit. No need to tromp back through hordes of Fiends, Arachnes and Hooker Demons once our business here is concluded.

One last important, semi-hidden item to grab...


OOHH!! It stinks! Throw it over... No! Don't do that!!

You can't reach this box without stepping on the teleporter leading down into town, which creates the illusion that you can't reach it at all. The solution is to simply warp to town, then warp back. This will put you on top of the teleporter, free to leave from whichever direction you wish.


Here we are in the Town of Monsters, the very last town in Final Fantasy II. (Well, there's still two more shops, but that's not the same as a full-blown town.)

Peeking through the gaps in the floor here you can see the treasure room containing the Samurai Bow. This is your clue that there's one last teleporter to find, which should send any good explorer to scouring the area looking for it. And before any of you young'uns turn your nose up at it, I'd like to point out that's exactly how we found our way down there as kids. "Hey, it looks like there's one more room." "Oh cool. But how do we get there?" "Did you notice that tile looks a little weird...?"

We can also see the limitations of FF2's graphical capabilities here: the treasure boxes always appear closed, regardless of their current looted-status. That would have required fifteen additional backgrounds just for this map, plus the capability to load different backgrounds based on treasure flags from elsewhere in the dungeon. (Which may or may not have been possible in FF2's game engine, I don't know.) I'm sure somewhere there is an insufferable, impossible-to-please player whose authentic game experience was totally destroyed by this minor incongruity.


Most monsters wear heavy cloaks so as to hide their terrible, deformed bodies. When not rampaging across the countryside in the world above, or being forced into bondage by green-haired women, the monsters' favorite pasttime is to sit around gossipping about one another.


On a scale of one to HILARIOUS, an Inn stay that costs more than a Cabin is at least an 83.6. But of course they'd have to gouge you on this; it's not like there's going to be a save point in the middle of a town in the middle of a dungeon, is there?


Why yes, actually. Yes there is.

"Yeah, I don't know, that bitchy Caller girl showed up again. She and her friends built a little house in my living room. No, it wasn't a Tent, it was more like this little Cabin. Weird. They snored all night long, then robbed me blind and took off without so much as a 'thank you'."


Of course, no town would be complete without shopping! The weapon store has some pretty tasty whip upgrades for Rydia, as well as a Charm Rod in case you didn't find the one in the Sylvan Cave. (Or haven't been there yet.) Most importantly, though, is the Lunar Staff for Rosa.


Yes, it is time at long last to give up the conceit that Rosa's Fight (or Aim) command will ever be worth more than one-eighth of a shit. Trading damage output that never gets used for ten points of Will is a goddamn bargain.


Brother, you don't know the half of it. Let met tell you about these GiantBat assholes...


The Armor Shop sells Sorcerer Armor, which is a solid defensive upgrade for both Rydia and Rosa. In addition, it beefifies Rydia's Wis. by another five points.

Cecil and Kain both get Aegis Shields. which is the only other thing the shop sells.


The final building in the Town of Monsters is the library. Each shelf contains a short blurb about one of the game's Call spells. Most of these are just flavor text for spells you already know and love, but a couple are clues to the existence of more powerful Call spells we don't have yet, such as Odin or Sylph.

The three super-secret Call spells -- Imp, Mage and Bomb -- are of course not clued at all. Why do you ask?


"Actually, from what I can tell, there are only twenty bookshelves in this library, each of which holds twelve copies of a single book. And one of them is sitting directly behind another bookshelf, so it's impossible to actually reach any of the books. But nevermind that. I counted them, and now I'm bored, so you're a liar."


I'd comment about how this guy a racist prick -- yes, motherfucker, we can read -- but Rydia's tribe has his people well and truly enslaved, so I suppose we'll just call it even.


"And then the moon whale went to sleep inside the dragon. The end. Now go to bed. What? Yeah, sure, it was a space dragon. Go to-- no, I don't know how whales can swim in space. They have special space flippers. They also have special stomach-acid-retardant skin so they don't get digested while they're asleep inside their dragons. Okay? Good nigh-- yeah, I know I promised I'd do the voices, but the whale and the dragon don't talk. I don't know, telepathy probably. God dammit, go to sleep."


I like to think Rydia initiated this conversation by accusing this old purple man of leaping out from behind a dumpster to serve her a hamburger and fries.

Uh oh, guys, looks like it's time for a boss fight. And, what's worse... a gimmick boss fight!


♪♪ Fight 2 ♪♪

Asura's only action is to sit perfectly still casting White Magic on herself. She alternates between casting Life1 (pointless), Cure3 and Cure4, depending on which of her three heads has spun around to the front position. She casts quickly and constantly, and if this were the only thing she did she would already be next to impossible because there's really no way your damage can outpace her healing. Even Slow'd, she can restore her HPs faster than you can deplete them.


But that's not all she does. She counters all damage with a powerful physical attack, meeting you blow for blow without disrupting her healing cycle. There isn't enough Blink and Cure3 in the world to keep on top of the damage she dishes out. Even the Auto-Cover trick we used against Valvalis would be doomed to failure, since even Cecil's heavy armor can only absorb a few of Asura's punches before his inevitable and untimely demise.


Since you can't out-muscle her, you have to out-think her!


Once Asura is Wall'd, she can no longer heal herself. Her magic will continuously bounce off of her and heal you instead, turning the tide of the fight in your favor for good. Unlike most targets, Wall won't wear off once placed on Asura. She'll still rain counterattacks down on you, but now if you feel like you're being overwhelmed you can just back off the attack and let her fix you up.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Asura doesn't have any weaknesses to exploit, but Cecil and Edge's new goodies combined with Rydia's Titan spell will bring her down eventually. (If Rydia gets really bored during the fight she might decide to lay down and take a nap, as pictured above.)

Note that this does put a pretty strict level-gate on the fight. It's impossible to win without Wall, but absolutely trivial with it. It all depends on how much EXP Rosa has sucked down. Getting through the Land of Monsters without Float is extremely difficult as it is, so there's not much chance of coming here on too low a level, but if you want to clear this dungeon before the Sylvan Cave you might have a bit of grinding to look forward to.


And so Rydia finally overcomes her first Call spell trial, and learns a new spell! Asura costs 50 MP to summon, which is a bit steep, but the price is worth paying in some situations.

Each time you cast Asura, you randomly get one of her three spells: the grey face casts Life1 on the party, the white face casts Cure2, and the red face casts Cure3. Except these versions of Cure2 and Cure3 are way way way stronger than the ones in Rosa's set. As you can see, they are essentially both full-party full-heals.

I ran twenty-five trials and got Cure2 thirteen times, Life1 seven times, and Cure3 five times. Assuming that ratio holds, if you're in dire straights and it happens to be Rydia's turn you can have her cast Asura and have a better-than-even chance of healing everyone up to full. (Life1 would be considered a whiff, in these cases.)

The reason I had to run these trials? Well, as you've guessed, Asura isn't exactly at the top of my priorities. Why not? Well...


...because very shortly after Wall, Rosa learns Cure4. Cure4 is cheaper than Asura, more reliable (you'll never see a Life1 whiff), and doesn't compete for turns with powerful attack magic. Remember, a round Rydia spends Calling Asura is a round she's not Calling Titan!

Cure4 isn't as powerful as Asura, but it's always good for over a thousand HPs, and scales up with Rosa's Will. It's definitely one of the most useful spells in the White Magic set.

I am a huge fan of the spell animation for Cure4. In most RPGs, FF2 included, healing spell are just this generic sparkly nonsense. But Cure4 is one giant sparkle, instead. The King of All Sparkles. A goddamn Brontosparkle. As though all the healing in the universe has congealed onto this one spot. So wonderful!


♪♪ Illusionary World ♪♪

So if Asura isn't all that amazing a Call spell, why come all the way down here? Because after beating her up, the not-the-king (but-totally-the-king) guy decides you're worth talking to. He, too, goads you into a fight.


♪♪ Fight 2 ♪♪

OH SHIT IT'S LEVIAT-- huh. You know, I remember you being a lot bigger for some reason.

Leviatan is so cocky he doesn't deign to face you at the start of the fight. That won't last long, though, and once he turns around, watch out!


Big Wave hits for... uh... not that very much damage, actually. I guess the fabled King of the Seas is kind of a wuss when he's out of his element.


Leviatan's only other trick is spamming Ice-2, but that's nothing a little Cure4 can't fix. He's also susceptible to Slow, which will cut the amount of Ice-2s and Big Waves you have to eat by about half.


Useful tactic #1718: if Rosa aims a multi-target healing spell at the party while Kain is in the air, it'll miss him even if he lands in the meantime. This means slightly enhanced healing for the rest of the group. Because Kain takes so little damage (heavy armor, back row, untargetable half the time), this can be used to your advantage in many tough fights.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Not that Leviatan is a tough fight. I'm just sayin', is all. Something to keep in mind.

This is what we came here to get! Well, this and the pretty awesome wealth of treasures and new equipment.


♪♪ Illusionary World ♪♪

That's about all she wrote for the Land of Monsters. Time to make use of the hidden-tile-behind-the-hidden-tile and warp back to the surface.


Levia is a devastatingly powerful Call spell. Twice as strong as Titan, easily. At 50 MP per cast, it's not something she'll be using the entire course of a dungeon (Titan's 40 MP price is already a little too costly for that as it is), but it's great for smearing particularly troublesome encounters, and becomes her bread-and-butter during boss fights.


♪♪ Land of Dwarves ♪♪

Hey, whoa, wait, what? What is this rad little house!?

♪♪ Welcome to Our Town! ♪♪

When I was a kid I didn't have a real clear idea on what a blacksmith was, so I always thought this was just the home of Kokkol Smith and the Smith Family.


Well, okay, master blacksmith, lost his gumption, can't get his life back on track, yadda yadda. I'm-a raid his pots.

There was a Life1 or something in one of the other pots, but I forgot to grab a screenshot. I'm sure somewhere there is an insufferable, impossible-to-please TTer whose authentic LP experience is totally destroyed by this minor incongruity.


What does Kokkol, the Smith have to say for himself? Not much, really. Just waaah waaaah waaah I want some Adamant waaah waaah.


His cartoon sleep bubble doesn't have much to say either.

Wait, hold on a second...

I think I see where this is going, you guys!


Next: "What a petty trap!"

You call this an interlude? The Land of Summoned Monsters is, as ludes go, pretty far out there!