Living off of the Land: FFIV No Shopping Run

Geologist or armor junkie?

Either way, looks like this is the "I am wrong about things" thread. Enjoying the run, though!

Yeah. I always thought Mythril in the LOTR stuff was supposed to be some kind of magical silver anyway, but I'm not some expert. I mean it kind of predates all the fantasy RPGs using the same name for different metals, but it's magic, not real, so it doesn't have to follow reality.

Though what's always fun is to imagine like diamond armor in a JRPG as being like diamond-studded (as opposed to rhinestone) or diamond grills and stuff.

I'm a physicist and a little bit... ok a lot nerdy and watched arms and armor documentaries while watching my daughter as a 3-8 month old. I think it's really cool that one of the first bullet resistant armor sets was made out of layered silk.

plain old paper works pretty well, too, at least according to mythbusters.

(that's an aftershow clip, but the episode is on Netflix and it does stop a bullet from that time period)

PART III

The Two Towers and Sacrifice Nobility.

Full stream right here

McClain, my good man, I am enjoying your (mis)adventures in the electronic world of Final Fantasy but given your self-imposed restrictions I really don't know how long you can continue to play as sloppily as you have been.

hahah, I never claimed to be "good" at video games.

Anything in particular bugging you?

Eh... Some different things. In general you seem to be playing this like you're playing the SNES version, not the balls-hard version you're actually playing. I think you mentioned in one of the videos how you should probably stop trying to bum rush things. And you sure are forgetting a good number of things - where treasures rooms are, when to unequip characters, etc.

It made me really nervous when you didn't heal while trying to leave the Tower of Zot with the Rune Armlet drop. Especially with the ridiculous encounter rate in this version of the game. (Seriously, what's the deal with that?)

So... Things like that.

...Wait. This is the "hard" version? This was the first version I managed to beat. Go figure.

In my experience, the moon is the same between the US FF2 and the hard/original version of FF4.

Kinda not sure why McClain is hanging on to the Silver Apple, but if it's the MP increasing item, then I get it (as that obviously should be given to Kain).

HP, actually. I don't know which video it'll be in, but for part of the stream, we ended up mentioning how the non-DS versions don't actually have Soma Drops.

The way you consistently target the back row with physical attacks is giving me hives. And they were just clearing up after watching Nodal do the same through all of Lufia 2.

Also, it bothers me when people run from too many random encounters in FFIV, because I feel like it's one of the best RPGs I've ever played with respect to player progression, in that if you just fight every battle you come to then you shouldn't ever have to grind (yes, even under these restrictions, I think). I find it particularly perplexing when you run from fights where you have First Strike.

I typically save all my HP boosting items to feed to Rydia, since by the time I get to Zeromus the biggest limiting factor that decides whether I need to grind or not is her Max HP.

Kain??

I'm not sure if this is a joke or if there's a mechanic I'm missing here.

Yeah, I think I good chunk of my sloppy play is just rushing because I'm streaming and don't want it to get bogged down. That and forgetting the game and getting distracted.

It's part of my charm.

I assume joke, at least in this version, because Kain gets no MP or any abilities that would use it. Unless there's a huge secret I'm forgetting.

Here's today's follies.

It's not completely bonkers in FF4DS, where there are good ways for Kain to use MP. I haven't played Advance, so I wasn't sure.

It's definitely a joke. I mean it's kinda funny to see him have like 5 or 10 MP but there's nothing he can do with it in the game.

I had forgotten about this until JBear mentioned it.

I think enemies don't have rows in this version.

They do. You can notice it in Cecil's attacks against the puppeteers.

(Note: I'm not actually watching the Youtube videos since I was in the stream, so I don't know where you guys are.)

I haven't paid much attention, I guess, but there is this:

...Huh. I hadn't actually known that. I'll keep it in mind next time I play the game.

EDIT: Actually, that time is now. This thread's made me want to replay IV, so that's what I'll do.

Sorry for the second post, but I keep forgetting to tell you this and I feel you might be able to put it to use.

Certain party positions have higher turn priorities than others. That is, if two characters get their turn at the same time, their position determines which menu you see first. The way it works is that the center gets top priority, top gets second, bottom gets third, top-center is fourth, and bottom-center is last.

This is why I usually stick characters with white magic in higher-priority slots, and seeing your configurations "unaligned" from my perspective is throwing me for a loop.

I think this version of FF4 is my favorite overall. Even if it has menu bugs, I always noticed what felt like bugs in the delay between choosing commands and having them actually happen in the SFC version (just to be clear that I don't mean FF2 US). I doubt it was related to emulation, but I guess it could be.

Anyway, I like this version for the whole "take whoever you want with you to the moon" bonus at the end. The DS version is pretty good from a challenge standpoint, but then I remember in the DS version I was just auto-running from 90% of battles in the final dungeon because they were too much of a hassle and I didn't need to grind out more levels or equipment. And I really don't like the augments system compared to mix-and-match parties in the GBA version.

Huh. Replaying the GBA one on an emulator has me with that same delay. Though it's more like input lag where it eats up some of my key presses.

(I wonder how long it'll take me to catch up to McClain. I just picked up Yang from Baron.)

EDIT: I just discovered a great strategy for Baigan. First, nuke him with a Bio (from Palom if level 19, Tellah otherwise) to get him to pull up Reflect. Then, cast a weak spell on him (you might be able to get away with Cure). This should get him to cast Reflect again, which will reflect off of him and hit one of your party members. Now, start getting Tellah to nuke the arms with Bio and Bluffed Palom (for the love of God, only use Bluff once and not fifty times) can reflect some second-tier elementals (or Bio) off of the Reflected party member for massive damage.

tl;dr - Use Delta Attack.

EDIT2: Apparently Cagnazzo is absolutely demolished by Blizzaga. Tellah used it, it did nearly 5000 damage and killed him before he could even blink. I mean, I knew he was weak to Ice when the water wall wasn't up, but...geez.

But if you put rydia in the middle then she forms a pyramid of power when casting a summon, which is clearly the right way to play it.

Considering that this is just three stream sessions and like 6-7 hours on the game clock, not too long.

I was a cold med fog for a couple of days and forgot to post this.

The Golbez battle always bothered me. They very clearly established at the beginning of the game that you die if your summoned monster is defeated. This is a fairly important plot point, and yet Golbez doesn't blink when his monster is killed.

Also, the disembodied hand looks like it would be the easiest thing to stop, but everyone just watches.

THRILLING INVENTORY MANAGEMENT! /capsban

I've always thought the hand was hand sized, not huge. Just the sprite needs to be that large to make it out. That's also how Golbez keeps getting up when you kill him, in my mind.

I'll give you the hand being hand-sized thing, but he did not go into spooky hand mode after he was "killed" by meteor like 20 minutes ago. He just died in the battle, and then was mildly irritated in the next cutscene as he walked away.