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

Rumor has it there might be a thread for just that sort of thing pretty soon.

This update is presented in Pseudo-futuristic Steel-plated Teal.


FuSoYa wastes no time getting to the heart of the matter: All of Cecil's bumbling and/or tomfoolery have finally led to the planet's utter annihilation. He managed to save exactly zero crystals, and as a result Golbez (at the behest of this Zemus fella) has managed to awaken a technological horror unlike any the world has ever known.


Which... uh... strikes me as kind of underwhelming, actually? I mean, it doesn't look all that much bigger than Leviatan, does it? In fact...


...the indisputed King of All Monsters is just about the right size to be a WMD surfboard! (Have fun with that one, Photoshoppers!) Point being, Leviatan compressed nicely down into a single battle screen, and then we kicked his ass. Why is FuSoYa so convinced we should be scared of this oversized tin can?


Oh! Okay, yeah. Yeah, that's a pretty good reason. Huge explode-y circles are a good reason. (And gives a nice double meaning to Ring of Bomb's song title.)

So, ah, isn't there anything we can do?


Yes, Rydia, I believe I just asked that, albeit not in so retarded a fashion.

I wonder what sort of fortuitous deus ex machina has arrived to bail Cecil out this time?


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

Looks like the cavalry's here! The dwarven cavalry! That's, like, the best kind of cavalry there is!

Oh, snap! And they brought some KARATE along with them! I wonder if they intend to pack Yang into a cannon and blast him feet-first towards the Giant's face. It seems like that would be a great way to end this war single-handedly.

It looks like things are pretty well in hand here. What say you guys we kick off for--


Geez, guys, come on! This is just overkill, now! No need to gang up on the poor bastard!


Isn't that sweet? Everybody we've ever brushed elbows with has turned up on this remote, nearly-uninhabited continent to help combat the invading robot menace! It kind of gets ya... right here.

I particularly like this scene because it implies the Mysidian Elder had the ability to un-petrify the twins at any time, but decided not to because, well, fuck twins. On the other hand, in the absence of any visible parental figures maybe the Elder was just using petrification to buy a few precious moments of peace and quiet, the way modern American parents use television.

I like Edward's scene, too. "Cecil! Look at me! I'm finally out bed, and I'm totally brave now! Watching your adventures from underneath the covers in the land of scantily-clad women and crystal-clear water has given me the courage to ogle this dancer's ass while standing on the deck of an airship safely outside the effective range of the enemy's blast radius!"


Yes, friends, this is the total culmination of all of Golbez's schemes and assaults over the course of the game: a big metal weiner-head. The thing is, all these tanks and airships and bombs and whatnot were already built at the outset of the game. What chance did the giant really stand anyway?


Cid must have snuck aboard and installed a CB on the Big Whale while we weren't looking, because as soon as FuSoYa mentions that we need a ride, Cid pulls up with his airship.


Look, FuSoYa, we appreciate that you're an immortal moon magician, and we respect the fact that you have to tuck your beard into your socks to keep from tripping, but nobody lips off to Cid that way. Now hurry up and apologize so we can go and save the world.


♪♪ Within the Giant ♪♪

With that, Cid guns it for the Giant's head and catapults the heroes into its oversized gullet. Which means somewhere there are a pair of Lunarian supervillain engineers going, "Hey, why did we design our ten-story battle-monster with a mouth, again?"

Cecil lands safely towards the back of the tongue and spins around with a determined little flourish. Sometimes it pays to wear a cape!

So it's been a while since I just up-and-out gushed about FF2's music. I think I'll do that now. I mean, Within the Giant, man. Are you listening to this? Be honest. This song makes you want to get up from the computer, gird yourself for battle, and go save the world right now.

As much as I love chiptunes, it can be pretty difficult for them to capture feeling the way excellent music is supposed to do. It's hard enough for a big-budget modern soundtrack to convey the proper emotions at the proper times -- how many tepid videogame soundtracks have you forgotten this year? -- so pulling it off so consistently on the SNES hardware was no small feat.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Beam is a stupid attack that always deals 10% of the target's total HP in damage. This attack is never dangerous and you will see it three hundred times during your sojourn through the Giant's guts. I'd say it's as annoying as Vampire, except the animation is much shorter and you never have to sit through it six times in a row.

♪♪ Within the Giant ♪♪

Every area of the dungeon is named after part of the Giant's body. I have an inexplicable fondness for tiny, mostly-pointless dungeon floors, and Neck is the only spot where FF2 indulges me.

If there's a secret passage leading down to Bollocks, I've never found it.


At one point one of this thread's tags was "pictures of treasures". I know it was meant to be a joke but I'd be lying if I said I weren't also a little proud of having probably the most complete collection of Final Fantasy 2 treasure boxes in the world. We'll just file that under "stupid Brickroad nonsense" and move on.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

The monsters in the Giant are all machines, which means they're weak to Lit spells. In Rydia's case, though, it's best to stick to spells with really high base damage, like Quake. Her batch of original summon spells is now officially and totally obsolete.

Lit damage does seem to Confuse the laser gun critters, though. After sustaining Lit damage they will start Beam-ing their comrades instead of you. This is about as helpful as it sounds.


♪♪ Within the Giant ♪♪

Okay, so my collection of treasure box pictures isn't as complete as I'd like. This "Empty" message is actually an Ether1 that I forgot to screencap.


Just a few more treasures before we're done in Chest. You could say there are more chests in Chest than any other section of the dungeon. You could also say that my irrational need to catalogue every single treasure chest has also left the reservoir of All Possible Treasure Chest Commentary somewhat dry. You could, in fact, say that said reservoir dried up sometime around the third or fourth update. But then, you people keep on reading this thing, so what do I know?


In case you were wondering what the digestive tract of a giant planet-destroying mechanical monstrosity looked like, here's your answer: exactly like every other part of the giant mechanical monstrosity. (Alternate answer: nanomachines.)


I literally do not have the strength to make another Life joke. I literally do not.

No, wait... I think... if I could just...

"Look, Talking Time! He likes it! Cecil really likes it!"

I knew I could do it, if I just believed in myself!

(If you're too young to get the reference, consider yourself lucky. Everyone else is groaning themselves stupid right now.)


True story: this map was called "Colon" until Nintendo's censors got hold of it.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

None of the battles in the Giant are pushovers, but this D.Machin is probably the tougest monster in the joint. I think it's the rarest, too, which must be why I thought to screencap it. The plan here was to switch rows as quickly as possible, hope it didn't flatten Rosa or Rydia, then throw Lit and Cure spells until it died.

The Giant's one spiked treasure box has a palette swapped eyeball called a Last Arm, notable only for its pretty swank explosion attack. The chest contains an Elixir, which is nice, but not exactly the kind of treasure you'd expect to be guarded by a unique enemy type with a unique attack animation.


♪♪ Within the Giant ♪♪

The dungeon's only save point is just outside the Lung, which for some reason is situated underneath the Stomach/ColonPassage.


♪♪ Tower of Zot ♪♪

Oh, snap! Boss refights!

As a kid whose most relevant gaming experience had been Final Fantasy and Mega Man, it wouldn't have occurred to me to not have a second clash with the four fiends. In fact, I distinctly remember considering The Legend of Zelda as something of an anomaly because it didn't stock its final dungeon with Digdongos and Dodoggers.


Rubicant, the honorable foe as always, refills your health before the epic scuffle. This is particularly helpful if you get half-raped by a D.Machin between here and the save point.

Two other things are noteworthy about the four fiends. First, now that FuSoYa has sprung the whole man-behind-the-curtain twist on us, they've dropped any pretense about serving Golbez, and acknowledge Zemus directly as the top shot-caller. And second, you have to admire Rubicant's ability to learn and grow as a villain. "Hmm, I schooled that ninja twerp in a one-on-one, but then he teamed up with those other lamers and kicked my ass. What can I learn from this?"

That's something three decades' worth of cartoon villains had never worked out before.


♪♪ The Dreadful Fight ♪♪

There isn't enough space on the combat screen to squeeze in all four fiends at once, so despite Rubicant's "Moar You Know" moment, they still come at you one at a time. The fight is pretty ridiculously easy, too. Before this point Kainazzo was the easiest of the four fiends, simply because you could blast him with the appropriate *-3 spell. Well, this time around all four of the fiends has to face off against their third-tier weak point, and there are two casters slinging it at them.


So you stack 9999s on Milon until he turns into Rubicant, then switch to Ice-3 and stack 9999s on Rubicant until he turns into Kainazzo, who is like "oh man shit dude fuck yeah I've been here before."


The only fiend with a new trick is Valvalis, who can now use Storm. This can catch you off guard if you've cruised through the boss to this point, sure, but it's still nothing a quick application of Cure4 can't fix.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Valvalis's weakness turns out to be Lit, for some reason, which makes no sense to me but okay whatever. If she's high enough level Rosa can contribute some damage to the fight by casting White, although I think this actually heals one of Elements's forms.

The order you re-fight the four fiends is hard-coded and actually significant. So significant, in fact, that I noticed it my very first time playing the game. Would anyone like to venture a guess?

And with one final volley of futile death cries, the four fiends vanish for good.

The whole point of this fight -- outside of rehashing four of the game's more memorable villains, of course -- isn't so much to challenge the player as it is to provide a benchmark for how strong the heroes have grown over the course of the game. Valvalis's Storm spell is the only curveball here; the rest of the fight is a straight-up copy/paste. (Well, not exactly. Gimmicks like Rubicant's cloak and Kainazzo's shell have been removed, as though those were ever problems in the first place.) Even a player who struggled against Rubicant just a few hours ago are likely to steamroll this fight. It's a pretty good way to make you feel all beefy and strong before riding off into the endgame.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

All those bouncing nines took a toll on Rydia and FuSoYa's MP, and it's more efficient to use one Cabin rather than twenty Ether1s, so that's what I do. Rydia learns some junk spell on the walk back through the Lung.


♪♪ Within the Giant ♪♪

Tucked up in between the Lung and the Stomach is the CPU. Which makes total sense, of course. I mean, that's where I keep my CPU.


As soon as we approach the huge black orb, the Giant's internal alarm systems kick in, and everything goes all red and noisy. FuSoya has some choice advice for how to dismantle the thing, and then...


♪♪ Fight 2 ♪♪

...on to the real boss fight!

These are the only two attacks you'll have to deal with over the course of the fight. The Defender will repeatedly cast Remedy on the CPU, restoring 2000 per cast. This spell is distinct from the Cure spells in that it pierces through Wall, which is pretty helpful if you're a CPU, because one of its first actions is to Wall itself. So there's no circumventing the boss's constant healing like there was during the Asura fight.

The Attacker repeatedly uses Maser on you, which is just a boring ol' Beam attack that hits the whole group. This can safely hit you eight or nine times before you have to start thinking about healing.

So... what? Multiple targets? Wall spell? This shit's a no-brainer.


A single Bahamut is all it takes to wipe out the smaller turd-things, and deal hefty damage to the big turd-thing at the same time. Easiest fight ever! Shit's in the bag son.


lolwut

Okay, so, ahem. Just as with Baigan or the Magus Sisters, it seems like taking out the bit parts first isn't a winning strategy. Globe199 is unblockable and the damage from it can't be reduced. It is, as far as I know, the only enemy attack in the entire game that is 100% guaranteed to kill a hero outright. If CPU ever finds itself alone, it retaliates immediately by using a devastating Globe199/Globe199/Recover combo, trading two dead heroes for two live bits.

I like how the Globe199 graphic is the same as the two bits, just spinning and over-saturated. It's like the CPU attacks you with the angry ghosts of its dead turd-ball children.


I was actually pretty proud of solving this fight as a kid. Since you can't take out both bits without drawing the Wrath of the Nightmare Orb*, and leaving the Defender alive means having to outpace constant 2000 heals (which is doable, but annoying), the solution is to remove the Defender and then focus on the CPU with single-target attacks. Since the CPU is Wall'd, that removes black magic as an option, making Sylph the absolute perfect spell for this fight.

Of course, Sylph is more than enough to fix any damage caused by Maser, which means neither of your healers has anything to do. Rosa can switch to a bow for at least some damage output, but FuSoYa isn't good for anything except Haste. Good job, beardo!


*This may or may not be a Kirby game. I haven't been keeping up.

Dart is always a good option in boss fights, but its damage is even more pronounced here, since it isn't competing with ubermagic.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Once the main target is dead, all that's left is to hit the Attacker with pretty much whatever you want. For a flashy win, you could have FuSoYa queue up a Meteo spell halfway through the fight and hope it goes off just after the CPU dips below 9999 HP. I'm too much of a pussy to risk anything quite that awesome, so I take the coward's way out and just have him Parry through most of the fight, then fart out a single Lit-3 at the end.

In other news, Rosa now knows White! This is helpful for those unbelievably rare moments during the endgame boss fights where she has a turn but nobody needs any healing.


Kain seems pretty happy about "our" victory, from whatever offscreen hidey-hole he's watching us from. Aw, I knew he weren't such a bad guy after all!

Hilarious dialogue snafus aside, the CPU destroyed and the Giant comes to a halt. Which means...

...wait...

...did we manage to get one over on Golbez? Finally? At long last!?


Holy cow, we did! The dude is totally butthurt!



Before we can enjoy more than a few seconds of smug satisfaction, FuSoYa rushes forward and does... uh... something glow-y.

Man, beardsley, don't you get it? We've tried all kinds of glow-y shit against this guy. We tried KARATE and Mist and Meteo and all kinds of nutty shit, and nothing worked. What's your master plan?


♪♪ The Lunarians ♪♪

Psychoanalysis! Tell us about your father.


Dredging up Golbez's repressed memories turns out to be just what the crazy bearded lunarian ordered. Just as the wild eleventh hour plot twist comes soaring out of left field, Golbez and Cecil simultaneously lose their will to obliterate one another.


Which sounds like a pretty definitive win for Cecil's crew, but you know, I'm going to call this one in Golbez's favor. I mean, all the dude's plans have just come crashing down, all his dreams and hopes and aspirations shattered by some fairies and a couple of Lit spells. Pretty convenient for him that this moment just happens to coincide with a dramatic heel-face turn!


But Cecil can keep his one point. He's earned it!


A brief conversation ensues about the relative blackness of Cecil's soul versus Golbez's, but it isn't developed very well and kind of doesn't go anywhere. As best I can figure, good and evil are primal forces in the world of FF2, and each person is born with a set capacity for both. In other words, Cecil was destined for good and Golbez was destined for evil regardless of what paths they chose along the way. This would explain why Cecil was such a self-loathing DKnight, and why there are no allusions to some past event where Golbez "earned" his evil stains.

There are no instances in the game where an evil entity tries to control a good one and fails. I think that's what it might have taken to really sell this whole aspect of the plot. The implication here is that Kain, too, is just "naturally evil", but that neither Zemus nor Golbez had any way to control any of the other characters. They don't even consider it as an option. The closest anyone comes is taking advantage of Yang's amnesia. (A plan which would have worked if it weren't for those darned kids and their pesky Paladin.)

It really does feel like there's a hole in the setting, here. Oh, well. Golbez was Bad but now he's Good. Just wave at it as it goes by, I guess.

Now that he's on the winning team (or, as it was known until the moment he joined it, the losing team), Golbez resolves to punk Zemus's bitch ass all by himself. That plan sounds just peachy to the guy who spent the past two dungeons being shown up by two little girls.


As Cecil stands dumbfounded while Golbez and FuSoYa depart, the rest of his crew try to guilt trip him into some brotherly love. Given the abruptness of Golbez's salvation, I think this whole scene is a little forced. I mean, it's taking the poor guy a little time to come to grips with it, you know?

Or maybe Cecil's just a big poopy-head. After all, if you tally up all the crimes Golbez has committed against the present company, Cecil's actually gotten off pretty light. Nobody he knows personally was brutally murdered, nor was he kidnapped and tied to a wall for six months. In fact, you could argue that it's Golbez's "fault" that Cecil has that badass sword and stylish yellow cape!


♪♪ Run! ♪♪

There isn't much time for soul-searching, in any case. Apparently when you disable the power source of a twenty-story-tall humanoid war machine, it starts to crumble and explode right where it stands.

If only there were a nearby exit! Maybe even one that two people left through as recently as thirty seconds ago!


Oh hey look there is. Sup, Kain.

All the people who wanted to get all wubby-dubby with Golbez want to stand around yelling at Kain, but of course that can wait until we are no longer in mortal peril.


You just know Cid watched that part with a proud tear in his eye.

Safely back on the Big Whale, Kain looks ready to commit some Edge-assissted seppuku.


♪♪ Theme of Love ♪♪

Unfortunately, Rosa has to go and ruin the show by being all girly, what with the feelings and emotions and other such garbage.


She and Rydia summarize the previous scene for Kain who, as we've already established, witnessed the entire event. "Yeah, I know. They passed me in the hallway as they left out the back of the Spleen."


Edge manages to settle for the promise of hypothetical future Kain-murder without losing too much face.

It's then decided that the company will head for the moon to defeat Zemus, even though Golbez and FuSoYa just did that, and the situation is probably well in hand, and they could all just kick back on a beach somewhere and enjoy some peace and quiet for a change. And also nobody really dwells too much on how those two got to the moon in the first place, probably some complicated lunarian shit we shouldn't worry about too much. Just wave at that as it goes by too, I guess!


Ha ha ha, oh man, did he really just say "all wimmins and chilluns off the boat"!?


Ha ha ha, he totally did! So awesome. Rosa, being the mild-mannered and obedient little sandwich-maker she is, takes all her feelings and emotions and huffs off.

Cecil just looks ashamed at the whole situation. Come on, man! If you're going to be an insufferable pig-headed macho-man, at least sack up and own it. You put your foot down, bitch knows her place. That's something to be proud of!

Paladins are Lawful Good.


Edge is inspired by Cecil's show of chauvanismchivalry and tries to emulate it, but Rydia is not so demure as Rosa is, so breaks his balls a bit.

She still leaves the ship anyway, though, so she and Rosa can paint their nails or have PMSes or whatever chicks do after you kick them out. I think Ben & Jerry's might be involved. It's... it's been a while since I've seen a modern romcom.


♪♪ The Big Whale ♪♪

And so our three manly heroes head back to the moon, presumably to hook up with the two manly heroes who already departed, so that the five of them can take turns bludgeoning Zemus with their powerful lumberjack arms and/or power tools.

Wait, shit, no. Not "hook up". That sounds gay. Meet up. Yeah, meet. No homo.

The Festival of Man-love comes to an end as soon as the Big Whale touches down on the moon. Looks like Rosa decided to do some ball-breaking of her own and tag along!


"Yeah, take her, Cecil! Right here on the floor! I mean she's only wearing panties and shoulder pads anyway, she's practically begging for it!"


♪♪ Theme of Love ♪♪

D'awww. In the end, Cecil's just a big ol' softie. (No homo.)


♪♪ Hey, Cid! ♪♪

Of course, Rydia decided to tag along too. And she makes a good point. I mean, all that sexism kind of went to my head and I totally forgot she's the only person in the universe who can conjure angry space dragons out of thin air.

Rydia prefaces her appearance by gleefully shouting, "We did it!" My brother and I have spent a lot of time speculating exactly what "it" was in this context. Obviously she's referring to successfully stowing away on the Big Whale, but we were more interested in exactly how the feat was accomplished. Our favorite theory was that Rydia wrapped her whip around one of the Big Whale's external features, Indiana Jones-style, while Rosa held on around her waist and they both held their breath for the duration of the trip.

In fact, that's still my favorite theory.


As it happens, all that Samurai equipment in Cave Bahamut I originally thought was for Kain turns out to... uh... not be. He re-joins the party with a full set of Samurai gear no matter what. So I guess that was all for Edge, and the Samurai Shield just gets thrown away. Fair enough!

Now that we've got the band back together, and have made our dramatic arrival on the surface of the moon, there's just one thing to do...


♪♪ Welcome to Our Town! ♪♪

...turn immediately around and head for the Smith's place! Way to waste untold tons of magical star fuel, Cecil!


Excalbur serves two useful functions. For one, it's a hyoooooge boost over any other sword Cecil could conceivably be equipped with at this point in the game, which is good considering we're about to dip our toes into the final dungeon. Second, Edge can Dart it for stupid amounts of damage, which is good because my goodness do I love stupid amounts of damage.

A favorite tactic is to use a game glitch to duplicate entire stacks of Excalburs, turning Edge into a pure damage machine. However, that is cheating and, as we all know, cheating is the mark of cowardice. So I never do it. And if you do, I'm better than you.


In addition to finishing the most amazing sword ever, one of Kokkol's apprentices now sells Ninja Shurikens for absolutely ungodly amounts of GP.

There's nothing left to buy at this point in the game, though, so you might as well stock up.

♪♪ Long Way to Go ♪♪

Meanwhile, all our friends and companions have decided to kick back in Mysidia and wait for us to save the world. It's kind of touching to see them all in one place like this, really. And it's a useful shorthand for "Nothing else interesting is going to happen here in the real world. Get your ass back to the moon and finish the game, already!"


Heh heh heh, yeah, I think we can probably handle that, Edward. Don't worry your purple little hat. Hey guys, think any of you are up to the task of being helpless and useless?


Cid runs around the Wishing Tower like the impatient, belligerent old fuck he is. God bless him.

I didn't realize it until my RPG career progressed on to other games like Breath of Fire and Final Fantasy 3, but this would have been the perfect opportunity for some endgame party building. Like, why not let me swap Edge out for Cid, or whatever? They will have all leveled naturally while on the bench, although I guess you'd need some way to get them geared up to levels comparable with Samurai Hats and Stardust Rods. Probably you'd have to open up a new, optional dungeon somewhere on the world map, maybe in one of the existing dungeons.

Oh well, missed opportunity. Wave at it as it goes by.


♪♪ Welcome to Our Town! ♪♪

What GP doesn't get spent on Ninja Shurikens gets spent on Elixirs and Ether2s back at the Hummingway cave. No point taking small amounts of pocket change with us, after all!


♪♪ Prelude ♪♪

Speaking of which, I have no idea why there is a small amount of pocket change laying on the ground here. I also have no idea how I found it. I've always just kind of known it was here, and picking it up is just part of the FF2 endgame ritual at this point.

"Hell yeah, we got our 280GP. Now let's go save the world!"


The final piece of the FF1 throwback puzzle is changing the dialogue in the giant circular exposition dump room.


Now that the seal has been broken, standing on the center tile triggers a Moon-Crystal Protocal Alpha-6: to the core!


Next: "The power of this sword which Master Zemus detests shall not be released...!"

Sure, it's the order you're expected to fight the original FF1 FIENDs, if you're a complete chump. Or if you're in the Temple of Fiends Revisited. At least, that's the significance I always noticed.

You know you just have to use an inn once, to get the Excalibur, right? You don't need to wait until you finish off the Bab-il.

Also, I always liked my interpretation that Kain and Golbez are just buddies, and the only reason Kain joins up with you again at the end is because Golbez is good now, so why not? And all that "If I get mind-controlled, go ahead and kill me" thing was just him humoring Edge.

Fiends: Isn't that just the order you fought them the first time around? Never struck me as super mysterious.

I like how Cecil tries to ditch his most loyal companions and go with just the immature ninja and serial traitor. I've also held the theory the girls held onto the outside of the Big Whale the whole trip to the moon without any negative consequences.

what

what

I'm rather fond of them, myself. And, based on this, I bet you'd love Breath of Fire I.


I know that this was probably meant as a joke, but its Japanese name was actually 巨人内部の通路, or "Giant Internal Passage." Sorry for being nitpicky, but I just have a compulsive need to correct inaccuracy, as you probably know by now from some of my past posts. :P

And all this time I thought you "just" had to go to the moon and return. I learned something new today.

No. The first time, the order was Milon-Kainazzo-Valvalis-Rubicant, and in the Giant, it's Milon-Rubicant-Kainazzo-Valvalis. That said, I have no idea as to the significance. Would someone who does know the significance care to enlighten those who don't?

I always imagined them hiding in the wheel well. Because the Big Whale must have landing gear, right?

Also, re: the fiends... I always thought it was a weakness pattern. Milon's weakness (Fire) heals Rubicant, etc. So you had to be careful not to overstack commands in the queue.

See, Yang isn't piloting the tank here, he's actually plugged himself into the engine. He is powering the tank with the pure force of his KARATE.

There's a few secret items like this in the game, actually. You can find all sorts of interesting tidbits about these hidden items and more here.

I've always wanted to know the real story behind those weird-ass invisible item tiles. did the rest of the development team know about them, or was it just some sneaky map designer goofin' around???

Kay.



(not sure why I gave the Giant something like a motorcycle helmet, it's all I could think of at the moment and all the sprite gives us is a featureless sphere for its face. Maybe one of the recent remakes goes into more detail in how it looks, but I couldn't be bothered)

Clearly the order of the Fiends is alphabetical by element.

except this game was made in GLORIOUS NIPPON

And ultra-weak to Thunder Claws, to the tune of 4x or 8x damage. Did... did you forget?

I figured they just took the Tower of Bab-il. Golbez still has the keys, right?

Last week I rushed through a replay of this game with the PSP complete collection edition and got to the save point outside the four fiends' catwalk severely underleveled. What I discovered was the best place in the game to build levels: there are groups of enemies that are one monster-summoning eyeball thing and two drill things. When you kill off the drills and start attacking the summoner, he summons mecha dragons! Which you can take out in two short turns with FuSoYa casting Tornado or Weak or whatever it's called, then someone else following up with a physical attack!

The most exp I ever got in one fight this way was 220,000. I gained something like thirty levels in an hour or so.

Same here.


This. (The DS remake design is based on Amano's art for the CPU, which I found a shame; I've always been amused that Alexander started out as the Giant.)

The speedrun of FFII uses this, and by using multiple life potions on the dragons after they die and before a new one is summoned. As I understand it, if you use a Life potion on an enemy after it dies, it revives but is considered to die instantly again, granting you the full EXP/Gold reward for its death (in the game, no sprite reappears or anything, it doesn't look like anything happened at all).

Before the battle ends, the speed runner kills everyone in the party but Rosa, and levels her up an absolutely absurd amount of levels to get her White. It's pretty much the only levelling done in the entire run (most battles are escaped from). He uses White to win the game.

I betcha an Palom-Porom unstone quest was in the plans but was cut due to time restrictions.. They even have the 'apply item' menu for the stoned twins all set up...

I leave you with poetry:
Beautious Bounty Befalls Those Who Bravely Beat Babil's Balls.

This has inspired rumors of such a quest since the game came out. The prompt is really just there is so you can try a Gold Needle and have your heart broken when the game tells you it'll never work.

That's easy! Lightning strikes from above, the only direction her tornado spin doesn't protect her from. It's the same reason Kain's jump is so effective on her.

The real mystery here is...

...How exactly did the dwarven tanks make it out of the underground and across the sea?