It's like chocolate in my peanut butter. Let's Play Final Fantasy V: The Ancient Cave

I use SNES9X 0.4.2 but that locked up on me once. I don't remember if it wiped my save state or not (I think it did), but I'd recommend anyone playing on the PSP to save their state after every floor.

Can anyone else weigh in on this?

Uhm, you're playing on Wait, right? Because time pauses in item/spell sub-menus on wait except target selection on a few commands (like fight, which is super-annoying with a heal staff). If you care about the timer it's preferable to swap weapons/shields in a fight, usually.

And as I said, there's outliers. If you get dragoon on floor 2 or something of course it's good to grind as much as possible to pick up Lance early. And there's a few jobs like thief and monk that are way better/easier to master early, assuming you get the gear. But something like a mastered samurai in the 30s isn't really nessessary unless everything else you get entirely sucks and you can only make it !Slashing your way through every fight (which, again, likely falls into the outlier category of runs).

Apparently my information on Bare runs comes from hilariously bad GameFAQs guides.

For PSP, use Snes9xTYL. Been completely stable for me.

I'm reading this right now, and let me just say: My God, I'm so glad I never had to play the PS1 version. AdamanTiMi?!

That's the RPGe translation, actually - according to the FF Wiki, it would be Adamataim otherwise. Also: a bigger tip-off is that Lenna is used instead of Reina, which was her PSX name.

I first played the game with the Anthology version, so I've kinda got an eye for that version's quirks. :T

For reference, I started a new game and got White Mage on floor two. I stuck one of my characters as WM immediately. I didn't get anything spectacular that helped me win battles faster than a fight or two from everyone: no Gaia, Hayate bows, etc. I think my strongest weapon was a main gauche. By the time I had wiped floor 11 of all fights, the WM was about 100 AP away from job mastery. She had gotten about 500 AP in those first 11 floors (and I only fought the crayfish duo once). That's pretty substantial.

WE! ARE! IN! ENGLISH!!!





That looks pretty damn good to me! How about you? Awww yeah!

Let's get down to business and check out what the stuff in the bar does, one more time.



If you go to the left or right immediately when you enter the door and check the far left and right barrels from the inside, you get new functions!



Here's some old data of mine. Thought I cleared the cave more times than once, but then again I thought I had seven mistakes in that first run.



The bottom right barrel takes us to...the last dungeon in Final Fantasy IV??? What the fuck?

We already have a guy to show us around this place around this time next year, so we'll head back out.





This character chart just breaks so many rules. All the rules! It breaks them all.

In honor of the endless, painful hours put in on this wonderful patch, I decide to go with the most accurate, appropriate romanization I can think of that I definitely would have suggested had anyone asked me...



Hee hee hee!



This little guy resets your flags so you can get on with the game after you get out of the cave.





His big brother here will set your levels to 1 or reset them to whatever you had when you came in.



Once you've reset to level 1, they won't let you back out. What service!





I will, little midget man, I will.





The guy on the far right lets you manipulate the escape settings. We hit the button on "always run" so hard this kid will let us always run for the next 10 dungeon dives.

Finally, we get to collect our freebies. These two chests are the only treasures the game lets you take into the dungeon, so if we were to get a good job here, it could have a huge effect on our overall run. In fact, if you want to make real progress, you might even reset the game until you get jobs from these chests.

So that's exactly what I did. About 20 times, actually. I picked up mediocre jobs a few times and headed down the first three floors, only to find nothing else useful. Once I even got wiped out by a chest monster. Butts I - XIX will be sorely missed.

But Butts XX? You guys are not going to believe this.

This is going to be sweet.



Alright, let's see what the game decides to give us on these first few floors...



You have got to be kidding me.





You have got to be friggin' KIDDING ME!

Did you guys do something with this patch?





Oh Shirt Shirt and Hearty got levels up!

Just you wait, it gets even better.



Here's what we are looking like after Floor 1. Everyone is up to level 4 with some minimal HP damage, Lena already has White Magic 1, and Butts has Gaia. You can really see how much we missed out on by keeping our Freelancers around too long last time.



Floor 2 is a treasure floor.









One of the other chests had Bolt in it, but I figured next to this stuff it doesn't really warrant a screenshot.





By the time we're ready to go down to Floor 3, everyone is at level five and we are starting to pick up more skills.

You might ask yourself, can this run get any better? Is that even possible?



Well, the first treasure we find on Floor 3 is a powerful weapon for Lena. That's one thing. In fact, she might be our hardest hitter now, but I didn't get the chance to test it, because...



Floor 3 is a merchant floor. What is a merchant floor? Well, as many times as we exit and enter Boko's For Sale menu, he randomizes his stock. We now have the chance to buy any item in the game.



I mean any item.

This was the point that I figured it was time to turn this one over to you guys. If we sell off the Light Staff and the four leather shields we picked up by now, our holdings will just about hit 3000 gil. Outside of the Light Staff, we are still carrying around default equipment, so any weapon we buy here will be a big step up. Also, we have the chance to stock up on status healing items for cheap, which could potentially come in handy for Mix later.

We're also going to have to plan our jobs out. Remember, I have White Mage, Ninja, Bard, Red Mage, Geomancer, Magic Knight, and Blue Mage. Honestly, the only way we could have been luckier is if we had picked up Monk. Ninja and Magic Knight can hold their own throughout the entire dungeon, so we can level them up on much deeper levels, and Bard will be useful for those undead floors that gave us so much trouble last time. On the other hand, Geomancer and Red Mage will probably only be useful to a point, and both of them might not be worth mastering. Plus, there's no telling what we might pick up on the coming floors. For now, I am thinking of keeping Lena and Faris right where they are, and moving Butts and Krile around as equipment and job finds dictate. What do you think?

I'm not sure if this is a slam or optimism.

With M. Knight skills and a few more lucky drops, I should have no problem taking out the Floor 11 and 22 bosses with this team! Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Hop everyone over to Geomancer and get Gaia.

Then make a Ninja, a Bard and two White Mages for now. Everyone gets Gaia secondary and spams it. Work on getting White 6 and Song. Once Song is done, swap that character for a Ninja as well and pick up Blue on the original Ninja. Once those secondaries are learned, back to Ninja for now.

The WM can switch to a different class if we get Time Mage, Dragoon or Summoner, but if nothing comes up by the time they hit White 6 have them start working to Doublecast. Likewise, if something good like Monk or Thief comes up for the Ninja we can play around a bit.

*EDIT* Grind the clock lower on floors that Whirlwind (or Tsunami) comes up on, down to 2m or so. If you get a floor without Whirlwind, grind until 5m and head out. Remember to grind to the last 30s or so on floor 10!

Save scumming, foreshame. Still, that's a nice set you got going there, looking forward to the Legend of Butts the Twentieth: More Butts than You Can Handle.

I'm not going to play through the whole game just to find out, but I suspect the Lunar Subterrain is there as a means of getting the GBA-exclusive items if you started a new game.

No, the entire FF5A bonus dungeon was added for that. I'm not even kidding. Just go visit the Moai head under the sea after defeating Necrophobe (or at any time from a save loaded from Ancient Cave as long as you haven't reset the flags).

Do those look like bunnies to any one else?

I thought they were bunnies too!

Now I can't un-see them!

That's a problem?

I figured bunnies were much more pleasant than shirts :P

Oh wait not in this game.

I guess they do kinda look like renditions of Mimiga. Which is appropriate, given that this LP is the story of a cave.

I love you.

I love you forever.

Unrelatedly, when I finally get around to beating FF5, should I do a solo and/or single-job challenge run or play this hack first?

Shopping: The Light Staff's holy boost won't be useful for ages and you shouldn't be depending on a White Mage for damage output for long. I'd aim for one good sword for your Mystic Knight (and future Knight) and hope the item gods give you nicer stuff for everyone else before long.


Bard alone isn't good enough. You need the undead busting song. If you get that, switch to Bard for the next batch of undead floors. If you get a decent harp you can Bard up sooner. Either way, I'd ignore Bard until you have the necessary tools.

I'd go for Mystic Knight, Ninja, two Geomancers. One Geomancer switches out once they have Gaia (to bard or white mage or whatever else doesn't have the damage output), the other keeps going until mastery so you can have the anti-lava ability whenever that floor comes up. That lava is too risky when you can get immunity in just 175 AP.

My plan is for the Geomancers to turn into our magic and utility people and the other two concentrate on physical stuff.

If Monk comes up, swap the Ninja over at least. This is assuming you buy a nice enough sword to want to keep that damage output.

Play this hack but don't force yourself to beat it, then challenge run, then back to hack. Both will help you learn more about the game, but the hack is quicker. And the hack might give you some idea what job you want to do for the challenge.

You don't have to reset. You can also grab the chests, go into the entrance, come back out, talk to the first two guys from the left, and get the chests again.

I've done this plenty of times. It usually doesn't help much.

~DS

Yes. I was going to say they looked more like bunnies than shirts.

I'm fine with the shirts being bunnies now. I mean, it's not like they're actually supposed to appear anywhere anymore.

Anything you can buy for 3000 gil is likely going to be replaced pretty quickly. You can barely buy a Coral Sword for that kind of money. Geomancer means your offense isn't really going to be lacking for the moment even without equipment, so I say don't bother.

Spend your 1300 gil on Eyedrops, Maiden's Kisses, and Antidotes instead. Maybe a Holy Water or two. The restorative items aren't super common, and you need them for Mix.

My thoughts exactly. Also, at this level, a light staff is one hell of a find because it gets full damage from the back row. I haven't tested it yet, but it should effectively make White Mage a melee class until floor 20 or so.

On the other hand, it might be a good idea to pick up Sing here on the easy floors, and use that AP on the undead floors with a more durable job.

Absolutely agree. !Gaia is going to handle offense for your mages for a good while, so go ahead and stock up on consumables. Get !Gaia with at least three people. Ninja can stay (knife/dagger will let you one shot things for a good while). I'd start working on Blue Mage, and two Red Mages after that. White Mage and MKnight are good on the lower floors so you can wait for those. And you'll likely want to be in MKnight for liquid flame if you get the spells/gear (with some luck Blue as secondary could be really good there) so you don't need levels in it just yet.

EDIT2: ed.

I just want to mention that I love all the FF5 Job artworks.

If Butts masters Geomancer for the Magic stat bonus, will that make him more durable against enemy magic when he becomes a melee-based Freelancer?

No.

Vitality doesn't affect defense either.