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

Since we're pretty well agreed on this project, I propose it be posted to one of the main Gamespite boards that we're working on this project. It would be a good way to put out a call for a ROMhacker to the larger TT community.

What we need from this ROMhacker is:

* The ability to add a variable width English-language font for the out-of-menu text, and fixed-width English-language font for the in-menu text
* The ability to extract and reinsert the relevant parts of the script, as well as item, enemy, location, player character, Job, and magic names, and all relevant menu entries

Any other credentials anyone can think of that might be important?

This is why TT is such an amazing forum.

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Regarding the translation: wouldn't Creative Endeavours be a good place for the project thread? I'd love it if fan translations became something TT was known for, and that seems like a great place to host them.

I'd be more than happy to help proofread once things get under way.

Sounds good to me. We could even set up a core team of translators, proofreaders, testers, and ROMhackers/recoders. I'll make the thread in the creativity forum, then.

In other words, all we need is someone to take on the most difficult, laborious, and time-consuming job and we're in business

I'm looking into what's involved in this sort of thing, since I know absolutely nothing about what I have to do, and am not a programmer. This hex editing thing will take a while to learn. There are some FFV-specific tools out there, so maybe they can help? I'll start a dedicated thread at some point if I think I can start chipping at it.

Why oh why am I not surprised.

So, are we done here? Four level 8 Freelancers on level 5? Wow, I get to cross out the #1 item on the Secret LP Goal Sheet after a day?

Seriously though do you guys want me to keep doing the LP? One spoiler in? Question mark question mark question mark?

Nah, keep the LP going! A preview of what's to come only becomes more tantalizing when more is put on display to whet the palette.

My question is, why wouldn't we?

I mean, the excitement over a possible translation is proof enough that we're interested in seeing more of the game, and there's been conversation about the updates in the LP besides. I've a feeling things will go back to normal once the project stuff gets splintered off into its own thread.

You should continue the LP, but only if you use nothing but four Berserkers the rest of the way.

Nah, just keep on doing it like you've been doing.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be a sour puss. I am following your LP eagerly.

No, I just don't want to spoil too much for the people that have yet to play it. i'm totally not afraid everyone will stop reading and then I will die forgotten and alone

The next update is coming soon.

Yesssssssssss!

I don't think you should worry that your Let's Play will spoil things for people. That's kind of the point of a Let's Play.

This. Besides, if we don't want it spoiled, we won't follow it.

I would never disagree with this statement, I was just expressing my joy that some professionals were willing to help with this project.

As regards to the LP: It absolutely must continue. I need to at least be able to read about this glorious game I currently am incapable of playing.

Let's get this show on the road!

It's been said that the general rule of thumb for roguelikes is, "What's abundant on this run will be rare the next." That's as true of this game as any other, as we'll soon see. I'll only be showing you the best stuff from here on out, and that means skills, jobs, and noteworthy treasures. I know you were keeping tabs on how many Iron Helms I dug up, but I guess I'm just going to stomp all over that dream and make it cry.

Time for a treasure hunt to give us more build options. You can rely on me, your infallible narrator, through thick and thin! I will never let you down, sweet reader.



Here's a shot of level 8 Krile doing 200 damage with her Icebrand. You normally find Icebrand in Exdeath's castle quite late in the game, so it is our most out-of-depth powerful item in the inventory. Our early strategy will be centered around it twice as much as you think.



Down to floor six, and what a floor it turns out to be. This is the stuff dreams are made of, people!



We find our first blue magic, Frog Song.



Then right next to it, our first summon: Remora.





Passing through the hidden passageway on the right side, we unlock Red Mage and win our third elixir.



To top that all off, the final chest on the floor holds Shiva! I hope floor 7 is as lucky as this one was!



Floor 7 is taken from the Forest of Moore. Treasure chests are hidden underneath the tree branch layer, and it takes a while to seek them all out. We find a few Phoenix Downs and other small niceties, but the real treasure here is...



Yes, a second Icebrand! Our team is just mopping up the enemies, who are mainly from the North Mountain area. Now, we could have swapped in a White Mage to start picking up AP, but against parties of four we'd be taking a hit every turn. With several fights per floor and no reliable way of healing without burning through MP or items, you'll come to see that a strong offense is truly the best defense.



Floor 8 is part of what I believe is the sunken tower beneath Crescent Island. What have we here?



Samurai!!!



And...thunder! Yeaaah...



Our characters are level 8 on floor 8, and their HPs haven't fallen that much since I fed them a potion at the very start of the update. Since we're still steamrolling everything and healing is still so scarce, not to mention we haven't found any good job-specific equipment, I opt to keep going as-is.



Floor 9 is a section from the pyramid with lots of treasures at the ends of hidden passages in the walls. That little box to the right there is your visual cue to look in the walls.



Fire. I chuck it on the pile of other level 1 magic that's already been made obsolete by pure muscle.



And Mime! This might come in handy...someday? With the jobs coming in at this rate, I'm sure to get the one I'm shooting for soon, right? ...Right?



Floor ten is this section of cave from North Mountain.



We have unlocked the Time Magic, Slow. Someone call Exdeath and warn him we're coming! At this rate nothing's going to stop us now!



OH SHIT GUYS I SPOKE TOO SOON HELP IT'S GARULA HEL-



Hahahaha no. One-shotted by Lena's Icebrand. I told you guys you could count on me!

Floor 11 was so funny I forgot to laugh. I think it was the shipwreck level again, but this time with a leather rod or a hair potion or some imp polish in its one stupid chest.

Hum de dum floor 12...



Jackpot!



Jackpot jackpot jackpot jackpot JACKPOT!!!

See that jar at the bottom? That's basically an Inn. It completely restores HP/MP, status, and brings dead characters back to life. Sometimes it has multiple charges, so if you want to roll the dice you can stay on this floor and grind a while. If you want to avoid that risk, you could blow the rest of your MP on healing up, then grind, then checking the pot...and risk it having had 0 charges to begin with. Either way, it's a gamble.

Since we get a full HP/MP recharge (best used after switching classes), not to mention a few new jobs, don't you think this would be the perfect time to end this update and ask you guys what jobs to pick? Besides, we're only on floor 12, so we haven't missed out on all that much AP yet. Those treasures sure are tempting, though, and I could really use a Murasame...

Reliable...narrator...obeys the peanut gallery...

NNGGGYAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

That's Monk, two Triangle Hats, a Death Sickle, an Ice Rod, an Iron Shield, Mute, a Great Sword, and the lonely chest that nobody ever loved and will be forgotten about forever! Yeah, all mine, mine, mine! But still no kickass samurai sword or snazzy pair of shoes...

I'm sure the next floor will have any one of those awesome things! It's my duty to go and check!




Just Mighty March? Bah!




Time Mage? Who ever used one of those!



Treasure treasure treasure treasure treasure!!!




Mystic Knight and Blue Mage? Close, but no cigar! The next chest will definitely have it!




SHELL AND CATOBLEPAS OM NOM NOM



Huff...huff...hufff...Where am I? Floor, what is it now, 16?



Oh SHIT.

Four level eleven Freelancers without a single ability between the lot of them! What have I DONE?

...heylookitstreasure



Esuna!



Gravity!



OUTOFTHEWAYYOU



NINJA!!!

Whew, all right. Guys, I gotta tell you, this is one addicting game! When every treasure has the chance to give you an amazing prize, and the place is chock-full of them...well, needless to say, it might tempt you to RUSH right through the dungeon without taking the time to properly plan.

Just...just one more...



Oh, here again. Well, let's see if there's anything nice to be had.



Hey, it's Cura. That'd be a nice skill to have, if only we had some way to reliably replenish our HP and make full use of it.

Hum dee dum



What? No! Stop, evil hands! Stop!



See what happens when you get greedy! You get something shitty like Poison! If only you'd showed the tiniest bit of restraint, the Random Number Gods would have been kind to you! Now, you couldn't hold back and shitty stuff like Poison is your punishment!

Frankly, I don't see any other way this could have ended for you, evil FFV AC-addicted hands.

Hey look one last treasure -



Chemist!



Now let's talk shop.

Make full use of your Freelancers, but do not neglect to collect AP and develop skills. Consider swapping the party out from Freelancer one at a time in order to balance offensive power with job growth. Pretend for a moment that I didn't pick up Red Mage way back on floor 6. I wouldn't have found a sword-using class until floor 15, yet all my best weapons are swords. I could just have easily found two thunder bows or fire whips and never found the classes to use them. Had I not been trying to make a point, I would have swapped two people for Red Mage and maybe even have started leveling up a Samurai.



I think we can still save pizzazzy Zazaza and his foolhardy friends. For the next update, I want everyone to think of job skills that can be used for no MP with reliable results each time they are used, and then make some job recommendations. After all, I can use those ten minutes per floor to grind up AP I missed, can't I...?



(Zazaza (back row): Morning star / gold shield / triangle hat / gaia gear / empty
Lena: Icebrand / iron shield / ice helmet / copper plate / leather shoes
Krile: Icebrand / bronze shield / triangle hat / iron armor / leather shoes
Faris: Great sword / iron shield / iron helmet / silver plate / coral ring)

Hmm...

HMM...

Monk and Dancer seem like the obvious choices. Chakra from the former gives you reliable healing and status recovery at no MP cost, while the latter will give you HP- and MP-draining attacks. Blue Mage doesn't have anything useful yet, but you should at least slap Learning on someone just in case you run into something useful and they at least can make use of those snazzy Ice Brands you have. Though I still say you should get a few levels of White Mage under your belt, as even situational healing is better than nothing and you can use the Morning Star you have to deal decent damage from the back row.

Alternatively, you could switch everyone to Mime and keep rocking the out-of-depth weaponry - it's effectively a glorified Freelancer anyway, and at least this way you can start working towards Mimic (which can be used to spam party-wide Curas at no MP cost).

I clearly do not know FFV well enough to play this optimally, but I think if I stuck to the basic classes (assuming I found a few) I would enjoy this quite a lot.

Blue Magic seems like a fool's errand in a game that's so random. Maybe if you are on a floor and you get the same enemy with a useful skill a couple times then slap learning on a guy a hope? But I'd always been kind of a Blue Magic hater anyhow.

Monk and Dancer for sure, and probably hold off on changing someone to a White Mage until you run into trouble and desperately need some out-of-battle-healing. I don't know that working on the AP is going to be worth it for that class.

Judging from your enthusiasm at finding the Chemist class, I'm going to assume that was the class you were hoping for. Hmmm...

*wiki wiki wiki*

Oh hey, the Chemist gets free Esuna and Revive, but you need tons of AP to unlock them. Are abilities also doled out in chests, or do you get those through leveling up?

Sprite: You get them through gathering AP. This game doles out AP at an increased rate sometimes but on that subject we shall say no more for now

I can't remember, can Samurai equip regular swords too or not? Because Throw Gil is too nice to pass up if so.

They cannot. Besides, we might find a better use for our gil later on. Right now I want everyone to think of free-to-use skills, including (hint) passive skills.

MP is lord and master in this sort of game, and any source of free (or near-free) MP is what you want. The Chemist has a near-free source of max MP in the form of !Mix Ether + Hi-Potion, but that takes a bit of work to get to and requires that you have both an Ether and Hi-Potion to boot. Chemist is more of an "end-game" tool in one of these runs, unless you've got a serendipitous item spread for !Mix.

Dancer, on the other hand, is our current MP champion. Right out the gate, you can get Mystery Waltz to show up at random and leech a decent MP amount right out of an enemy. Combined with a quick-thinking job change after such a gift to White Mage to heal, then to a more combat-capable class immediately afterward, you won't be in any dire straits.

So yeah, my recommendation: when HP is a problem, switch one to Dancer for the MP draw, then after battle switch to White Mage and cure up, then switch to a combat class like Monk or Knight to shore up your party's weak link.

Well, hmm. There are a number of free skills on the jobs you've got, but they're either 1) very far away AP-wise (Revive, Conjure) or 2) not very useful (Scan, Sword Slap). The one exception is !Dance, which is probably something you should get sooner than later - it won't take forever to learn, and it looks like the only resource-free way to heal MP right now. If you're concerned about said Dancer's damage output, you could learn the barehanded skill with the monk (which would continue to be useful once you move that character to White Mage.)

The Death Sickle isn't too bad, either, if you want to start building out a Berserker (though with the limited resources, would I want to spend AP trying to finish that class? Especially with Monk available?)

On the other hand, you did gloss over the contents of a chest and made a lot of sideways comments about being a reliable narrator, so my secret real guess is that you're going to spring some game-changing item on us in the next update.

ETA: just saw your edit, and there ARE a lot of worthwhile, cheap passive skills available to you:

-Barehanded
-Swordgrab
-Learning (hey, you've got a long way to go, and a few of the blue spells are phenomenally useful)
-Medicine (at least until you've got your MP situation figured out)

Grasp yourself some blades. If you don't have anything for a Samurai, take Brawler first.

You got a Morningstar and didn't switch to White Mage immediately? And didn't think it was awesome enough to report? D:

It's only a little weaker than the Greatsword and it's back row safe!

Mystic Knight, Monk, and a Dancer are probably best for now. You'll probably want to master Monk on a few characters anyway, just for the HP and strength boost, and Brawl is only really good in the early game. Mystic Knights have some equipment issues during world 2 and 3, but you can still use your Greatsword for big damage during world 1. You want to build the class up as much as possible while normal attacks are still powerful, since Magic Sword is one of the most valuable abilities to have in the end. And you need Dancer for MP restoration. The Mage Masher will still be pretty decent, but not nearly as overpowered as when you picked it up. You probably would have had Dance by now if you switched when you first got the class and used normal attacks around undead!

Also did you mean to gloss over the floor with no time limit, or did you forget to mention it/not notice it/not realize the relevance?

Turtle Shell + Hi-Potion works too, and it's probably easier to stock up on Turtle Shells than Ethers. Just make sure you stick around for as long as possible when Karnak enemies show up, though I think he may already be past them. If you mix it in the Chemist class, the Pharmacology passive will boost the restoration from 160 MP to 320. That's more than you'll ever need.

Thank you, TK Flash! For not giving up on us!

Even if the game is translated and released, I'll probably never actually get around to playing it. Just like normal FFV, which has been on my to-play list for roughly 12 years now.