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

I actually have a run-related question. It contains spoilers.

I did one run with basically zero planning, just to see what was at the bottom. Once I realized what it was, I actually did plan. I had Bartz master Monk, Ninja, and Ranger. Lenna had Summoner/Black Mage. Krile had White Mage/Time Mage. And Faris had Knight, Ranger, and Samurai.

I got to the final boss thinking this was a great setup. My mages had Dragon Blade to get MP if they needed it. I set up everyone but Bartz as a Mimic (I left Bartz as a Freelancer to equip whatever the hell he wanted, which let him Dualwield the two Mutsunokamis I found).

Sure enough, the boss is set up like the original FFV final boss (something I didn't know to expect because I've never beaten FFV): multiple places to hit, only one of which actually does damage. So while Bartz had the best katanas the game had to offer, and Barrage, he would rarely hit more than two or three times out of the eight he was getting.

I figured that it would be a great idea to summon Bahamut with Lenna, and then have the other characters Mimic it, healing when necessary. But apparently that strategy is pretty moot too.

I know now, of course, that Magic Sword with Flare is a much better idea. But that still leaves the problem of only randomly hitting the right spot, doesn't it?



~DS

I'm no expert on the boss, but I think you're better off with Flare sword and dual-wielding instead of using Barrage. I was also able to do a significant amount of damage by throwing all my extra weapons. I haven't fought the boss in a long time, but I remember he was a bitch and a half, and I seem to remember thinking 2 Freelancers and 2 Mimes would be best, with both Freelancers dualwielding and using Flare sword and the 2 Mimes having White Magic. Other necessities would be Mix and maybe Throw (when I took down the boss I did about half of my damage by throwing everything and the kitchen sink down his throat). Aim might even be useful for one of your attackers, but I never tried it. Mixing the leveling potion is a must.

The boss actually works a little bit differently than the normal FFV final boss. The normal boss has four parts that you need to kill, as well as two invincible dummy targets that soak up randomly-targetted attacks. This hack's boss only has one part to kill, but it still has the dummy targets and I suspect that those actually have their own attack patterns here.

The only things that the dummy targets will actually affect are Rapid Fire, Meteo, and Berserkers. You're never going to accidentally hit the dummy targets with a single-target attack, since they're normally completely untargetable. Bahamut should work fine too. If it's only showing one damage number, that's normal.

Is there any point to having summon in the final boss? I am thinking the ultimate two-mage set up would be mime/white/blue/mix and mime/white/time/mix.

Not really. Elemental Power/Sage's Staff + Holy hits harder than Elemental Power + Leviathan, and for half the MP. The best thing you get from Summon is probably Golem, but the boss doesn't use physicals all that often, and Blink will cover you when it does happen.

I usually try to work Dualcast in there somewhere. Dualcasting Holy will do around 10k damage a turn without any level boosts, and being able to cast multiple buffs a turn is pretty useful if someone gets hit by Dispel. I'm thinking remove Mix from one and either Blue or Time from the other, then just set up a third character with Mix and the removed magic. Probably Time. The only thing Blue is really used for in the end is Mighty Guard, but the Mixer can use Quick to mix twice a turn.

So do you think it's best to have 3 mages and 1 melee, or half and half, or 1 mage and 3 melee? Also, what do you think about Throw?

For Butts's run I was thinking 2 mages and 2 melee.

I usually do 2 mages, 1 melee, 1 mixed/support. The support character's pretty much melee for most of the run, but has things like Mix and Control when they're useful. I usually just master Time Mage on that character somewhere in the later floors, where someone else is basically soloing every battle.

The melee character always gets the Ragnarok and Chicken Knife, and the support character gets whatever my next best weapon is. Just Haste and Mix as needed, then attack when there's nothing better to do.

This thread page looks like a redacted NSA document.

My vote would be to a 4 job fiesta type thing as your first challenge, though if you want to try the hack a few times first, that might be good too (I'd say do the 4jf thing before trying to beat the hack though).


Easiest solution would be 1-2 bards to abuse the first form(Sing up speed/level/power/magic). Its fairly easy to get to the point where you are getting 2x the turns you otherwise would have, and doing 9999x2 with dual wielded somethings w/ flare spellblade. The bards can double as your white mages/mixers/blue mage for the 2nd form.

Yes, we were discussing final boss strategy. Anyone that has doesn't care about talk that goes past where we are in the LP and anyone interested in taking out the dungeon's boss, feel free to have a look. Anyone that is relying on this LP as a substitute for actually playing the game shouldn't click that text.

Oh, I forgot to mention that.

I don't think it's super valuable on a normal team just because there are plenty of other ways to do even bigger damage. If you have a stock of good stuff to throw, making the hypothetical support a Mime and using Mix/Time/Throw would do significantly more damage than just a standard attack, but it's still not going to stack up to Dualcasting a big spell or someone Dualwielding with Flare Sword.

It's much more important for a no-AP level 1 run, though. Relevant video.

sure is a lot of dark blue

Prepare yourself Censor ship is coming.

Any way I was gonna ask if anyone had beaten the game in a no EXP run but I guess that answers that.

Instead of selling everything we have to get some mid-tier weapon that will be outdated within the next five floors, we blow the entirety of our funds on status-healing items in hopes of someday becoming chemists.



After shopping, I change Butts to Mystic Knight and Lena and Krile to Geomancer. They learn Gaia by the time we finish the floor.



...so I change jobs again and continue. Krile is holding our Staff of Light and Lena is working on Bard in the hopes of having Sing ready by the time we hit the undead floors later on.

We find a few spells like Bolt and Bolt2, which might be crucial on Floor 11.



We also pick up the Time Magic Speed, which I thought was a mistranslation of Haste. I was going to be all like, "Hey look guys, it's that iconic Time Magic spell...Speed! Thanks localizers!" And then I checked a magic list to discover it is in fact a completely different spell that speeds up battles by one point like you can adjust in the menu.





We find Shiva and a treasure/healing Floor. We pick up Ice2, Berserker, Fire, Time Mage, Mime, and a Dream Harp.



What's Lena's favorite Aerosmith song? I'm back in the battle agai-ai-ain!!! Yeah.



Five minutes of careful grinding later we are lucky enough to pick up a second free heal from the pot, and it's time to keep on keepin' on.





Butts gets a pretty big buff from some new equipment on Floor 6. We also pick up Charm and, most importantly, Knight.



Our most powerful attacker is still Krile. She's even hitting from the back row. Our characters hit level 9 before we move onto the next floor, which turns out to be a pretty good one.

In a stroke of excellent luck, we pick up not only Summoner and Freelancer, but Monk to seal the deal! Lena and Krile will jump in long enough to learn the Barefisted ability, but Butts and Faris will stay there until they get the max the job -- or at least that's the plan.



Floor 8 has a Thief's Ring for us and about 30 AP. We also hit level 10 with the whole party.



As luck would have it, Floor 9 is another treasure floor! We get Black Mage, Power song, Main Gauche, a Frost Bow, a Rune Sword, and...



a Dancing Dagger!



Lena and Krile also pick up the Barefisted ability and switch jobs again. Lena is after the MP bonus that comes from mastering the job. As for Krile, there's an excellent explanation as to why I made her a Time Mage. I was drunk.

At this level, they are perfectly functional front line fighters and can one-shot their opponents.



We find Thief on Floor 10, yet another job we're probably going to want to master with someone before this is all over. We also find Goblin Punch and an Ether.



I risked life and limb to get you this shot so you could see how much AP our guys picked up, because I stayed on Floor 10 until time was almost up. Krile, if you're a Time Mage, why can't you do something about that??



Floor 11 is the first boss floor.



We find a dead dragon who must've been executed for cosplaying as an elf. We rip the Elf Cape off his decayed corpse and Lena puts it right on.



"This thing smells so bad you guys, do I really have to wear it? I think I'm gonna puke!"

You wear that Elf Cape, Rena. You wear it good.



Garula tries about 15 times to take us on, but gets wrecked each and every time by our amazing fists of fury. We also fought Siren on this floor, but she died too quickly for me to get a screenshot.



After whoopin' Garula ass a dozen times, here's where our AP stands. Could this run even get any better??



Oh, hey, Floor 12 is another treasure floor!!!

I think you're getting too lucky this run... the game is buttering you up to knock you down- watch your back... >_> <_<

You know both squares of that dragon skeleton have treasure, right?

Anyway you got Shiva, you should level up summoner and be ready for the next boss floor. Something like that.

Sixteen jobs by floor 12? Holy hell. Until you hit the really, really low levels, you're going to have to go out of your way to screw this up.

Well, either that or get hit by Lv. 5 Death.

I actually got really lucky during all of my runs so far. Never got hit by Lvl 5 Death. But I ALWAYS get hit by Level 4 Graviga.

~DS

The skull treasure was a potion or dagger or something.

Summoner for Shiva, huh? I guess Krile can move on from Time Mage for a while.

Not only do we have an excellent selection of jobs, we also have good levels and AP progression. Unfortunately we've been a little unlucky on the jobs/items front, and without a few lucky breaks between here and floor 22, we won't be able to take the boss. Level 5 Death is also a substantial threat.

The Library levels give crap AP and experience and the fights take forever too.

Yeah, I don't know about that being a particularly blessed run. It's nice that you got the bucket room twice, but getting that many jobs early on is kinda meh. I mean, you have options, but you really just need a handful of good jobs early on with a combination of good gear they can use. Shiva's nice, but if you don't see Chemist before 22 I'm not sure I'd want to spend the MP/Ethers on that fight (though you do have thief, so you can always mug more).

The treasure trove on Floor 12 gives up Magic Song, a Blitz Whip, an Earth Bell, Samurai, Haste, Chocobo, and most important of all, Requiem. All these treasures and probably only two of them will ever see any use.







Floors 13 and 14 also have plenty of treasure for us, the most notable of which are a Kaiser Knuckle, 2 Gaia Clothes, Titan, and a Flame Ring. The Flame Ring is perhaps the best treasure we've found on this run so far. The knuckles go to Faris.





The AP gains keep rolling in and here's what the team looks like by the end of Floor 16, where they picked up another 39 AP.



We also start to win Turtle Shells from the enemies in this area, which will come in handy if we ever manage to find Chemist.



Floor 17 coughs up Cure 2, Float, and Dancer. We're still mopping up enemies with four Barefisted fighters, which allows us to do a respectable amount of damage every turn and makes everyone useful.

However,





our Barefisted Magicians are starting to lag behind. Faris is hitting almost four times as hard with her Kaiser Knuckles while Butts is doing twice as much. However, this is still plenty of damage for these lower floors, so we linger the full five minutes on each floor and only suffer minimal HP loss.



Floor 18 is a merchant floor. I don't like to spend too much time rerolling Boko's inventory, so I sell all the stuff I think I won't need and go for the first thing that looks useful.



After 3 rerolls our old friend the Ice sword shows back up! It costs most of our money but I think it's a keeper.



In addition to Drain, we also find Speed Song and Life Song on Boko's floor.



We find more goodies on Floor 19: a Coral Ring, Carbuncle, Blink, and an Ice Rod. Since we already have a Holy Staff, I wonder if that Ice Rod will ever get any use?



Right before leaving Floor 19 I decide to make Butts a Knight so he can make full use of that Ice Sword we spent so much on. Something tells me he's going to need to spend some time in his new job for a little while.



Floor 20 is the huge forest level, which is so big we nearly run our five minutes out just by picking up all the treasures. This Reflect Ring means we won't have to worry about Level 5 Death, a lesson we learned with our buddy Zazaza. I also find Tamer and Esuna. We end the floor with Butts and Lena blind, but going down the stairs resets our status to normal.



In an incredible stroke of luck, the very first treasure we find on Floor 21 is one of the most powerful weapons in the game, the Dragon Spear! Even if we never manage to find Dragoon, there is a good chance this will see lots of use in the very bottom floors of the cave. We also find an assortment of magic including Fire 3.



Floor 21 goes from Amazing Floor to Super Double Plus Ultra Happy Floor with this Heal Staff. With this, we can now heal our characters reliably for a respectable amount for free during fights!



I nearly run out the timer fighting on this floor. Three of our characters have nearly mastered their current jobs, and Butts is two points away from his goal...

...which he reaches in the first fight on Floor 22, which is the boss floor/puzzle room.



One of these two switches on the bottom right makes a platform jut through the middle of the room, while the other moves a tiny platform to form a bridgein the corner. We leave the middle platform in and move the corner platform.





Then, we cross the chasm by riding the square platform in the middle. Don't cross over to the left yet, or else you will get stuck! Instead, go around on the little bridge you made and extend the middle platform using the bottom-right switch that does so. Make sure you send the square platform back first though.



Then, just cross over by hitting the switches in the order you find them. You will end up moving a little platform to make a bridge leading to the solitary treasure chest on the floor.



You will eventually make your way back to the right, at which point you can close the bridge in the middle of the room and ride over to the chest on the square platform.

Trust me, if you were playing the game right now, this would be the most easy-to-understand guide ever. Try to imagine it.









A little bird told me we might want to have Shiva ready, so I take the hint and get as Iced up as we can with our current equipment. Butts gets the Flame Ring while Lena and Krile have our two Ice Rods.



Figures.



Welcome, everyone, to the first killer boss fight in Final Fantasy V: The Ancient Cave. For the last five or six floors, we've been fighting enemies from the Karnak area and the Flame Ship, so for us to fight these guys here is quite fitting. However, that's not the Liquid Flame we all know and love.







If it were, this double-Shiva two-handed Ice Sword combo would've done his 3000 hit points in on the first turn. No, this is a Liquid Flame from much later in the game, the Phoenix Tower.



The Iron Claws take Faris and Lena out of the fight in the first turn before Faris can even contribute, and the Liquid Flame casts Fire 3 on itself for a cool 1500 HP recovery.



Krile takes out the Iron Claws with another Shiva, and the Liquid Flame pokes Faris to death with one powerful blow.







Krile counters with Ice 2 for respectable damage, and the Liquid Flame responds in kind by taking Lena out of the fight. Things get so tense that we miss the shot when Liquid Flame pokes Butts for nearly 800 damage.

Krile picks him back up, but it looks like Liquid Flame might get the best of our party...



Except I never told you how much ass Butts has been kicking with his two-handed swings of the Ice sword.







Flamey goes down like a chump because we are awesome, and we reap the hell out of our rewards!



Hoping to finish up Monk, Butts puts on his Reflect Ring and swaps back. We should be coming up against the annoying Library enemies next. We don't have enough Phoenix Downs to keep these guys off the floor if our leading man doesn't reflect Level 5 Death back and it kills someone. We're going to try to squeeze a little more mileage out of Barefisted to see if we can master Black Mage by the time we find Dragoon while mastering Monk with Butts and Faris. Butts will be heading to Mystic Knight next, while Faris will be heading to Ninja. After that, they will probably swap.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's see how these guys do against the next stratum as they are. See you next time!

That boss is downright cruel.

Were you comparing the mage punches against the high-defense turtles with a Butts punch against a not-turtle?

Because Barehanded gives the mages the exact same strength bonus as a Monk gets, and the few extra points you can get from equipment and Butts' slightly higher stat isn't going to make that much of a damage difference. Anything with Barehanded should be doing practically the same amount of damage as a Monk.

Yeah, I must've pulled Butts' numbers from a subsequent battle against some other foes.

Liquid Flame in that chest gets a whole lot easier with 4 Summoners blasting Shiva (or 4 Black Mages blasting Blizzara). Especially if at least one of them has !White as their second.

That boss basically boils down to, "Are you specced for this particular battle? If not, game over!"

And have you found the right gear.

Though with an ice brand and knight you should generally be fine (as long as you had time to learn two handed). The flame ring pretty much cinches it.

I take it we haven't found blink yet this run? Switching Farris to a white mage and putting her in the back with Blink and Cure2 would likely have made that a cakewalk given what you already had.

I am pretty sure we have Blink but I was aiming for a fast kill because the boss heals itself so much. It certainly would have helped though, because we only got hit with Fire spells twice. The rest of the attacks were physical or the Death Claw's special.