I've got a Job for you! - Let's Play Final Fantasy V!

My first thought was that modern-day "miracles of medicine" seem more focused on getting things hard and keeping them that way. My second thought is that he should give it to Cecil. Like the chainsaw gas in Zak McKracken.

I wonder - could there have been an overflow error with the magic defense stat?

Actually, I decided to perform !Science! on this problem. The test is simple: I have Lenna cast Flare on herself with various equipment setups.



Test Run #1: Lenna w/Masamune, Ice Shield, Ribbon, Robe of Lords, and Crystal Orb. Magic Defense is 49.

Result: Massive damage!



Test Run #2: Lenna w/Masamune, Flame Shield, Ribbon, Robe of Lords, and Crystal Orb. Magic Defense is 49. (Attempting to duplicate results with different sources of Magic Defense.)

Result: Also massive damage!



Test Run #3: Lenna w/Masamune, Crystal Shield, Ribbon, Robe of Lords, and Crystal Orb. Magic Defense is 44.

Result: Slightly less massive but still massive damage!



Test Run #4: Lenna w/Masamune, Crystal Shield, Ribbon, Rainbow Dress, and Crystal Orb. Magic Defense is 25.

Result: Again, less massive damage.



Test Run #3: Lenna w/Masamune, Crystal Shield, Ribbon, Rainbow Dress, and Genji Gloves. Magic Defense is 6.

Result: Even less massive damage.



Test Run #3: Lenna with nothing equipped. Magic Defense is 0.

Result: Lowest damage yet.

Conclusion: Magic Defense is bugged up the arse!

Edit: Okay, so it turns out Magic Defense works right for SOME spells, but not ALL spells. Thundaga hit Lenna for around 3000ish at 44 MDef, and around 3700 at 0 MDef. It seems it might be intentional that some spells reverse Magic Defense's effects. Then again, it could all be a horrible glitch too.

Edit 2: The only spells properly affected by Magic Defense are the Fire/Blizzard/Thunder-class spells. Everything else reverses its effectiveness based on your Magic Defense. How did a bug like that get past play-testing?

Fairly certain that flare just ignores 31/32'ths of your magic defense (followed by an integer floor, so basically all of it), additionally a number of enemy spells use the same formulas. The number differences you are seeing is due to the randomness built in.

The damage difference is too huge for that, and what's more, it was consistent: I always did about 700 or so less damage with Flare when completely unequipped than with high Magic Defense. Every spell save fire/ice/lightning ones is behaving that way, from the tests I've done so far. Even Bio consistently hits higher against high Magic Defense.

Edit: Okay, I have a definitive idea now of what causes this. Non-elemental spells all do additional damage for each extra point of magic defense you have. What's more, certain Dark Arts are far more powerful when the target has high Magic Defense, significantly moreso than normal (witness Deep Freeze on Krile vs. Meltdown on Lenna before; the two spells are supposed to hit for roughly the same damage).

Unless magic defense potentially also contributes to attack? What about having a different PC doing the casting?

...I just realized why the spells were doing more damage after you said that. The Crystal Orb boosts the caster's Magic score, as does the Robe of Lords. I cannot BELIEVE I made such a basic oversight! Of course what this tells me is that most non-elemental spells actually ignore Magic Defense to some extreme.

Oh, Bio and Almagest also use 31/32's formulas but yeah, increasing the magic stat would account for some of that . But yeah, looking at the formulas, magic defense does mainly seem to only be good against the elemental spells/summons, stuff like meteo/comet, rods (har har), quake (and the other earth spells like squirrel), and a few other enemy abilities. Not sure on the new abilities added for the new bosses from the snes version, but i don't doubt most of those ignore mag def as well. Its too bad the magic bug doesn't work anymore on this version. It was quite amusing to underflow the magic stat on a berserker with the rune axe.

Reading Lucas' description of the final battle of FFVI made me remember something: it's actually possible to steal things from Neo Exdeath. The skeleton thing at the very left holds a Ragnarok, the thing in the middle holds a Dragon Lance, the head holds a Murakumo, and the thing at the bottom holds a Fuma Shuriken.

What makes this different from pretty much every other boss in the game, who also had things you could steal, is that Neo Exdeath does not have a "common" drop you can steal instead. He only has the super weapons, but since they still count as rare drops, you only have a 8 in 256 chance of succeeding. So while you could conceivably farm Neo Exdeath for some ultra equipment, it'd take a long time, and would probably be harder than just beating Neo Exdeath.

That is correct. I did in fact farm him for Ragnaroks and Dragon Lances on my cart save. Each time I fought him was a torturous half-hour-long experience, and that was with level 99 characters wearing Hermes Sandals!

I could see why you might want to farm him for Ragnaroks, but why for Dragon Lances? You can get them much more easily from Crystal Dragons. (And how did you survive having to watch the credits each time?)

Also, just to clarify, it's an 8 in 256 chance with the Thief Gloves on.

I bothered with the Dragon Lance mostly just because it was there. And it's a lot easier to put up with the ending on repeat when you can just snap your GBA or DS closed and go do something else while the credits roll.

Oh mai gawd NecroKirile is so adorible I don't care how Mary Sue she is

I dunno, I really liked the extra dungeons in FFIV. I can't remember how the dungeons themselves were designed, so I'm going to take your word for it and assume they were RPG Maker-ish. But at least it had more interesting scenarios (Cecil's trial was especially cool). I mean, it doesn't really compare to the main game, but it's something that I actually enjoyed doing. It also helps that it gives you something to do with the other 8 or so characters instead of just beating the final boss over and over and over again.

Part XXV - Ye Shall Be as Gods

Last time the party invaded Enuo's personal space and gave him a new face. They were rewarded with the final Job (and more skill grinding, sigh), as well as access to something called the Cloister of the Dead. Today they're going to finish up both that and the tackling of the two super-bosses they skipped last update.



Are you certain you wish to enter? > Yes / No

First stop: the Cloister of the Dead. Our setups of choice: !Rapid Fire and !Mix on Bartz and Lenna, !Mug and !Mix on Krile, and !Summon and !Mix on Faris. There's no kill like overkill!

(Today's update is in Light Green, because I felt like it.)



♪♪ Searching the Light ♪♪

Looks ominous! The gimmick here is that all of the bosses in this challenge (well, most of them anyway) have been beefed up to end-game levels of power. Let's see how well they hold up!



♪♪ Battle 2 ♪♪

Fight 1: Wing Raptor! A single !Rapid Fire cooks his goose.



(Yeah, the regular boss music plays for each of these fights. I'm not going to link the regular boss music 30 times; once is enough.)

Fight 2: Garula! See: Wing Raptor.



Fight 3: Siren! See: Wing Raptor, Garula.



Fight 4: Magissa and Forza! This one takes a bit more: TWO !Rapid Fires!



Fight 5: Gil Turtle! As before, !Mix Blessed Kiss, Golem, and !Rapid Fire save the day.



That's it for batch #1. Let's see what we've got next, shall we?



Fight 6: Liquid Flame! See: Wing Raptor, Garula, Siren.



Fight 7: Soul Cannon! !Rapid Fire, Bahamut, an X-Potion !Mix, and another !Rapid Fire finishes the fight.



Fight 8: Purobolos! This is the first (and practically only) potential stumbling block fight if you take it the wrong way, since they have 6000 HP apiece and now cast Curaga instead of Cura (which causes full healing to single targets). The solution for this group is Two Dragon Powers on Faris, then !Summon Bahamut.



Fight 9: Minotaur! !Rapid Fire, and then he caused Lenna to counter and kill him. Amusingly, his Holy at the end bounces off whomever he targeted's Reflect Ring even though he doesn't have enough MP to actually cast it.



Fight 10: Triton, Nereid, Phobos! Magic Lamp to call Odin. Yep.

Batch #2 was a bit tougher. Place your bets now on batch #3!

Fight 11: Byblos! See: Wing Raptor, Garula, Siren, Liquid Flame.



Fight 12: Tyrannosaur! See: Magissa and Forza.



Fight 13: Dragon Pod! See: Wing Raptor, Garula, Siren, Liquid Flame, Byblos.



Fight 14: Archeodemon! Yep, same as before. Given our limited setup, we have to take this the old-fashioned way: !Mix 2 Dragon Powers and a Hasty-ade for Faris and have her !Summon Bahamut repeatedly. Revive/reapply Hasty-ade as necessary.



Fight 15: Apanda! !Rapid Fire, Bahamut, !Rapid Fire, done.

Seems like they're getting easier, not harder! Batch #4, come on down! You're the next contestant on My Boss is Fight!



Fight 16: Manticore! See: Wing Raptor, Garula, Siren, Liquid Flame, Byblos, Dragon Pod.



Fight 17: Adamantoise! !Rapid Fire, Golem, !Rapid Fire, win.



Fight 18: Jackanapes! See: Wing Raptor, Garula, Siren, Liquid Flame, Byblos, Dragon Pod, Manticore.



Fight 19: Calofisteri! See: Magissa and Forza, Tyrannosaur.



Fight 20: Twintania! This time I actually had to heal occasionally since Twintania counters everything with Tidal Wave. But he still went down like a chump in the end.

Man, that was shameful. Okay, on to batch #5!



Fight 21: Omniscient! Hahahaha, he can't even hit the party. Dragon Power x2, Hasty-ade, Bahamut and Syldra, occasional Water of Gilead, it's all good.



Fight 22: Wendigo! Fought exactly the same way Wendigo was fought before: target Wendigo, if fake, target a different Wendigo, repeat until no more Wendigo.



Fight 23: Sandworm! Ahahahaha you're kidding right? !Rapid Fire and screw the consequences! Graviga always misses thanks to those Reflect Rings!



Fight 24: Atomos! Remember when this guy was intimidating? Yeah, we had about a quarter as much HP back then, too. And about 1/10th the arsenal. Two !Rapid Fires, sorted!



Fight 25: Halicarnassus! See: Adamantoise.

This is just embarrassing. Can batch #6 save the reputation of boss monsters everywhere? Let's find out!

Fight 26: The Four Seals! Single-target attacks and Golem are pretty much the order of the day. Fire and air can't hurt us, so they're the last to go.



Fight 27: Melusine! See: Magissa and Forza, Tyrannosaur, Calofisteri.



Fight 28: Catastrophe! A Blessed Kiss and Golem make for an Earth Shaker-free fight, where you're free to !Rapid Fire to your heart's content.



Fight 29: Azulmagia! See: Magissa and Forza, Tyrannosaur, Calofisteri, Melusine.



Fight 30: Necrophobe! Bahamut, !Rapid Fire, the occasional X-Potion !Mix, and Golem are the orders of the day. He lasts longer than the others as of late, which isn't saying a lot since he falls within 3 !Rapid Fires.

I am utterly disappointed in you, Cloister of the Dead. You were about as challenging to defeat as a wet newspaper.



Then I bestow upon you this token extolling your triumph.
♪♪ Fanfare 1 ♪♪
Received "Medal of Smiting"!

Somehow that was worthy of the Medal of Smiting. That gauntlet was not exactly up to par with defeating the god-dragon and death machine of yore, if you ask me. Speaking of which, we've still got one other pressing issue to address here (or two, if you want to be technical): the forsaken beasts of THIS dungeon!



♪♪ Slumber of Ancient Earth ♪♪

First stop: a knock-off of Moore Pyramid!



You do NOT want to fight the roving machines here.



DO. NOT. WANT. (Oddly enough, Omega is vulnerable to Blessed Kiss. Crazy, huh?)



Those roving Omegas are blocking the way to this, another of the new unique weapons. It's poison-elemental and generally sucks.



Up on the next level, a switch opens that blocked area from before.



Do not press this switch.



DO NOT PRESS THIS SWITCH.

Past the death switch is the switch to open the way forward into this pyramid's depths.



The depths of this pyramid appear to have been designed by someone who doesn't understand what purpose WALLS serve in a tileset.



The way forward is blocked? That can't be right...



Turns out we just had to find the right hole to fall down in the no-walls area above.



There's a lot of switches to hit down here...



That's no ordinary Omega, is it?



Oh bullshit, I talked to it to fight it!



♪♪ Decisive Battle ♪♪

Omega Mk. II here is the epitome of goddamn-I-hate-you-developers.



He's just as loaded with bitch-moves as his little brother.



Including the meanest and most impossible-to-deal-with move in the game. Oh yeah, and he's immune to Blessed Kiss, unlike Omega 1.



And he randomly counters with a full-heal, resetting the entire fight. Can you see why this fight is a middle finger to fun yet?



This is going to take a special variety of cheese...



♪♪ Victory Fanfare ♪♪

Yep, Romeo's Ballad is the key to beating Omega MKII. It paralyzes him for roughly the span of a single Haste-boosted turn for Krile, and with Masamune and Hermes Sandals on her, she can always get in a song before MKII can attack. The others can then !Rapid Fire and !Summon to their hearts' content.



The reward is a situationally useful shield. It has interesting elemental defenses, but has pretty piss-poor evasion too.

MKII dies in a very anticlimactic way, with no explosions at all; just 3 screen flashes. Boo!



A brief stop at the save point for healing and saving, and it's time to tackle the newly revealed area.



♪♪ Fate in Haze ♪♪

It looks toasty!



Wow, that's... totally useless since we already have 4. But it's the thought that counts!



Mind the switches.



The best prize in this lot is this bit of armor. It's got better defense and Stamina bonus than Genji Armor, but that's all it has going for it.



I didn't mention this before, but all of the enemies here are dragons. And those elemental dragons? Yeah, they're vulnerable to Romeo's Ballad too.



Oh come on, that is so obviously a trapped chest.



Told ya.



♪♪ Decisive Battle ♪♪

Yep, it's Neo Shinryu. He's immune to Blessed Kiss, so don't bother trying. This requires real strategy.



And by "strategy" I mean "Hastega, Dispel, Jump, and pray".



Actually, there is a better way: Ice Shields and Coral Rings all around, dragon-slaying weapons on hand, and Float, Hastega, and Blink for all. That neutralizes most of Neo Shinryu's threat. His only real threat once you do that is Almagest, which of course hurts like hell coming from him but can be dealt with. Keep up on healing, and you'll do alright.



♪♪ Victory Fanfare ♪♪

He finishes off with Gigaflare and Meteor just to make sure you didn't beat him by chance. He failed to kill anyone that way, as you can see!

The prize is the ultimate weapon of all... Ultima Weapon! Unlike the weapon it pretends to be from later games, this one doesn't change in power based on your HP. It just has an astonishing 180 attack power (Brave Blade tops at 150, for reference).

Well, I think we're done. Just one last thing to look at.



How about that... And I wasn't even trying for a full bestiary!

Now we have well and truly finished all that Final Fantasy V Advance has to offer us! I hope you've enjoyed this delightful little look at the once-lost middle chapter of the SNES era of Final Fantasy games, and that you got a few chuckles out of forcing me to go with occasionally awful party setups.

Final Fantasy V Advance
The End (For Real This Time)

Nice job!

You know, Square TOSE, for future reference, you're supposed to make the bitch-hard-to-get optional weapons available BEFORE you beat the game, or have a NG+ at least. Fat lot of good that Ultima Weapon is doing anyone.

The Ultima Weapon's helpful against Exdeath, actually. In the "let's kill him even faster" sort of way.

yeah, but bonus stuff that just lets you go back and kill the boss faster that you already killed to get to the bonus stuff is lame to me.

Well, you could kill Neo Shinryu first then use the Ultima Weapon on Omega MKII. It's not really necessary, but it could help.

Bartz = ?

Haha... Nice work, Sky. A wonderful Let's Play from start to finish!

Look closer.

And yeah, great job speeding through this Sky Render. But since we've yet to have the mandatory "which FF was the best" discussion that all FF threads must have, did you enjoy your LP of FFV or FFVI more?

That's not even a contest: FF5 was by far the more enjoyable for me. FF6 was a torturous slog through one of the most embarrassingly amateur translations I've ever done, while FF5 was a thrilling romp through a campy classic where I wasn't sure what was going to happen next thanks to the peanut gallery deciding who learned what.

That said, FF5 and 6 are both my favorite Final Fantasy. How the hell does that work? Simple: FF5 wins on gameplay and variety, while FF6 wins on story and presentation. They both know what they want to be, and both live up to that promise with no shame in how they put everything else on a back burner to achieve it.

Posting this in the other FF 5 thread as well since it's relavant and a good cause.

Not to hijack the thread for another person's 'Get a bunch of people to play FF5' event, but RevenantKioku's "Final Fantasy 5 Four Job Fiesta" is running it's third year. And the best part is, you can both play the game AND help people out since this year it's also supporting Child's Play.

How this works, in short, is you're given a random job from the possibilities that each crystal gives you and you're expected to play the game with each character representing each job. After you get your first job, every character must be wearing something different (not Freelancer). When you killed Exdeath, take screenshots of each of your four differently jobbed characters during the credits and you are winner.

To register, just post the following to the twitter bot shown below:
And when you get to each new crystal, reply to the bot with
to get your next randomised job. Hope this is not out of hand since it's for a good cause.

Home and Donation page: http://letsplaying.com/FF5FF/
Twitter page and bot: http://twitter.com/#!/FF5ForFutures
Child's Play Homepage: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

I agree wholeheartedly!