Let's Play Final Fantasy IV - Free Enterprise

oh yes

i am very afraid of golbez's incredible magic stat

of 1.

it's very lucky that coldmist doesn't key off it

oh wait. it does.

using the d.mist's magic stat of 10 normally

of course, it wouldn't matter if the magic stat was 1 or 10 or 1000

coldmist can be completely nullified (except for, as seen, 1 point of damage) with a grand total of eight magic defense

the magic stat is, at best, a multiplier after defense

...Anyway. I vote either Cid or FuSoYa; leaning FuSoYa because Cid's as good as you're gonna get him with the Rune Axe anyway, and bosses have better chances to be interesting with him over FSY.

Tellah would have known Float. *cough*

Anyway, I say bench Cid and pick up the mop, although I don't like him nearly as much as Destil apparently does.

Virus solves many problems, including the ones that Quake doesn't.

Can I change my vote to "Buy a stack of alarms and win the game now?"

... I can't. Damn.

*looks forward to 4 updates of "I killed another dragon egg"*

Quake does more damage and hits all the dudes. Virus is only better when you need to conserve MP or you need to not hit all the dudes.

I'm sure there are others, but the only such boss that springs to mind is the CPU, where Virus won't help you.

It's a trap! Alarms are the items that cure Sleep. You want Sirens.

I have made this mistake at least once.

Things that fly can’t be Quaked, virus is NE so it works on nearly everything.

Bosses who fly:

• Milon Z.
• Plague

Right -- you'd rather use Fire2 than Quake on Milon Z, so Plague is the only boss that you might want to use Quake but can't. If Virus doesn't cure you of Plague, Quake probably wouldn't have pushed you over the edge, though.

Part 5: Cashing In



We've decided to let Cid go. Between Cid, Tellah, and FuSoYa, FF4 has the highest OMQ (old man quotient) in the series.

If you were worried about the Rune Axe going to waste, good news! It's a suppository! Kain can use it, too. It has the disadvantage of being two-handed, but it's still a fair bit stronger than the Blizzard Spear he's been hauling around since the start of the game.



Because we killed the Mist Dragon, we can make this sunbathing woman transform into a literal plot hook.

It always bugged me that the game sets up this bit of worldbuilding right at the very start -- kill a summon, kill the summoner -- and then proceeds to forget it completely and forever. Why doesn't Rydia kill Golbez when her Mist Dragon takes out his snake-thing?

Key items: 9/18



The Hook is unique among key items in that it never enters our inventory. It gives us the capability to pick up the hovercraft from Damcyan.



This has two purposes. The secondary one is to give us access to the tail collector.



It's not a key item, but it's really good! The Avenger Sword, equippable by Cecil and Kain, confers Berserk status on its holder. This can't be dispelled.

Berserk is great in FF4, because the ATB is super busted in this game. Your Berserked characters will act roughly twice as often as everyone else.



And the Pink Tail gets us the Adamant Armor, as usual. Also not a key item; also really good.

Besides giving twice the defense of the next best armor, Adamant Armor gives +5 to lots of stats and resistance to all elements. Better yet, it can be equipped by every character but one.

There is one notable downside: should you ever remove it, the former wearer becomes vulnerable to all elements. This is very probably a bug, but it's also an interesting balancing feature for the purposes of Free Enterprise. Because of this, we won't be putting it on anyone just yet.



Our next destination is lower Bab-il. The trapped chests here all contain Alarms, which summon help when alone and attacked. In this case, we've turned the helper into a pig.



We find our way to the control room, where Rubicant is about to have his world rocked.



Ordinarily, this is where you'd fight three Dark Imps, which are particularly weak fodder, especially at this point in the game. Rubicant inherits their stats.

I make a play at having the casters beat him down, but then he uses Glare on Kain. That's ordinarily a one-hit kill, but backed with Dark Imp power, it just puts Kain down in the red. Edge finishes the job.



Finishing the control room sequence triggers this cutscene, awarding us with another "also not a key item, also really good." This is endgame-quality gear for Edge.



It occurs to me that we could've seen who was at the top of lower Bab-il, since that's another key item location, but instead, we set our sights on Cave Eblan.



The Eblan refugees have set up a Tiara shop here. Rosa is the only one who can wear it, and she may as well. This is a good time to discuss something that I should've mentioned in the first update.

Shop flag: S2

Shops contain random items of the type they'd normally sell. At S2, the items are balanced: better items are located in harder-to-reach shops, and the best items aren't for sale.

S1 merely shuffles the shops, but at higher levels, things get wacky: S3 doesn't balance which shops have what, S4 doesn't restrict the top-tier items from showing up, and S5 makes all shops sell only Cabins (with the possible exception of the Pass shop, depending on how you've set that up).

Despite the fact that it's fairly lucrative, Eblan is not an area most runners want to see. This area will lead us to upper Bab-il, which will set us down a path that leads to the underworld. But we already found access to the underworld thanks to the Magma Key. The 15-second Magma Key cutscene is far preferable to the detour through two dungeons, especially if upper Bab-il is guarded by something particularly mean.



We get a peek at what's to come: MomBomb is filling in for Rubicant today, while Porom takes Edge's place. A short cutscene later...

Porom

Porom is ever so slightly worse than Rosa in every way that matters. Not worse enough that you'd boot one for the other after Porom gets a few levels under her belt, mind you -- she's only just barely worse enough to notice.

If you're running J2, Porom picks up Cry, which does nothing, and Rosa gets Pray, which does nothing half as often. The other consideration is Twin, but that stops being useful long before you start worrying about your party being too full.

I don't suppose anyone feels like taking twin number two along for the ride?

Next: Exploding

drop fusoya

I like Porom, but she's not any use to you at this point. Leave her.

Hello, Porom.

Good bye, Porom.

What spells does FoSoya have so far, by the way? I haven't been counting bosses.

Oh, good question. You'll notice he's got 1900 HP -- he joined full up.

This does make me wonder if anyone has ever made a randomizer with the option to guarantee that nothing is in its original location (also known as a derangement).

Dump Rosa, then only use Twin magic for the rest of the game. Challenge run!

Part 6: Top to Bottom



Porom doesn't get a spot on our roster this time.



The cutscene where Edge ninjas his way through the wall? It uses whoever your current party leader is in FE, so I choose to canonize my FuSoYa fan fiction.



Edge's parents are replaced by a lunar boss.



It's the Lunar Ds, who don't have Mist Dragon's overworld sprite after all! My bad. They are also very dead.

Ordinarily, this is an interesting battle, as a direct physical attack prompts the Lunar Ds to Wall themselves and start bouncing Viruses onto your party, so you have to be a little careful.



Edge is so angry about the Lunar Ds that he learns some new Ninja spells. The chivalrous MomBomb restores our party to fighting form before the fight.



We return the favor by piling on the damage.

Rubicant's slot is uncharacteristically difficult for the part of the game where he appears. We are a little ahead of the curve.



Bombs do not resist fire in this game. Quake works better, though.



We are very surprised that the crystal room is a trap!



In the couple of floors between the pitfall and the airship, we find the game's second-best armor.

Of course, it's useless, and not just because only Cecil can equip it: it prevents Berserk. But it sells for a song!



As soon as we get out of Bab-il, we go right back in, heading to the top of the lower half. There, we find a robed figure teleporting the boss we just killed.



It's Milon! This is a good opportunity for Edge to use some of that Ninja magic.



And any excuse for a Nuke is good enough.



Hey, it's the Baron Key! This is good for two more key items, a character, and a bunch of treasure.

Key items: 10/18

We've reached the magical number! Due to our experience flag, we'll get double XP from here on out.



You might remember from the very start of the game that Baigan is the CPU.

The CPU does nothing but cast Wall on itself. The Attacker repeatedly attacks for 10% of your party's health, and the Defender heals CPU for 10% of its health. If you take out both helpers, the CPU kills a couple of your characters and revives them (the helpers, not your characters).

Normally, you fight this boss at the end of the Giant of Bab-il. Your modus operandi for dealing with this boss depends entirely on the circumstances under which you find it. If you have low offense but a decent source of healing, you prefer to take out the Defender. If you can outpace the healing, you take out the Attacker and automatically win the fight (though it might take some time). This is a great example of why the boss shuffling makes Free Enterprise so good.

Of course, in our case, we just hit it a few times and it dies.



Oh, look who got a promotion! Baigan can be seriously nasty in some slots. He's a lot like the CPU -- two helpers, casts Wall on himself -- but there's nothing keeping you from taking out his arms. Quite the contrary: they can dish out a lot of damage. He doesn't take long to revive them, but if you can keep them down, then Baigan himself isn't bad at all.

We, uh, we can keep them down.



Rydia takes Cid's spot.

Rydia

You again?

She's bigger, she's badder, she's... actually way badder, because I already sold off the whips and summons. She's also this seed's repeat. Everyone else will be someone we haven't yet seen. But hey, the option's there!

Next: You Bardy Spoon

good bye old man

Rydia was bad before and she's worse now, so leave her where she is.

Yeah, if you sold off the summons there's no reason to take her.

I’ve been playing this non-stop since it came out. It’s the best.

It’s worth playing once with completely random shops and free items just for the insanity of free Gold Apples and Soma Drops. It's the only time Tellah is good.
OHHHH so that’s why I sometimes get to the end without Exit. I wondered if it was a bug of the randomizer.
I also did not know that.

Part 7: Parcel Service



Rydia is still naked from the last strip-n-boot.



Oh no! The walls are closing in -- and we only have one twin! What's a party to do?



Well, in this case, they forgot to lock the doors. We just walk out.



As we walk down the secret path to the Enterprise, we stop for a Spoon.

This is considered a key item as far as Free Enterprise is concerned, although it's disposable and sells for a nice chunk. We might as well hang onto it, though, because Edge can throw it for a guaranteed 9999.

Key items: 11/19



We head back into Baron to fight Odin, but we find Bahamut filling in.

In case you've forgotten, Bahamut counts down from 5 and MegaNukes the party. This is the same MegaNuke that Wyvern normally uses, but Bahamut gives you time to put up a Wall or two.



Odin is a very fast slot, and I forget about the StarVeils in my inventory until a couple rounds in. Edge and Palom eat a MegaNuke, and while Bahamut takes the other three, the damage is capped at 9999.



And before the next MegaNuke, some of our older Walls have already vanished.



Fortunately, we finish Bahamut before then, though that's largely thanks to the reflected MegaNuke. This has been one of our trickier battles thus far: there wasn't really any danger of losing outright, but it wasn't easy to keep everyone alive.



Bahamut gifts us a mysterious package, addressed to Mist.



When a dragon-god tells you to play courier, you don't ask him for postage.



Even when he's sending incendiaries. Hey, who's that up there?



It's your friendly neighborhood Titan-calling Karate!



We may have burned his village to the ground, but we didn't cause an ecological disaster.



We take the poor, exhausted Karate to the nearby inn and tuck him in bed.

But someone isn't happy that we left him alive!



Yes, it's Karate, here to stop us from leaving with Karate!

The Kaipo Inn guards are the game's second boss, and they're easier than the first by design, so you can guess how this fight goes.



Grateful for saving him from Karate, Karate offers to join us.

Yang

Yang is exactly what the series has taught you to expect from a Monk: few equipment options, effectiveness highly dependent on level.

While Yang joins with a nice pile of HP, he's nevertheless not usually the one you want to see in your starting party, because his offense is lacking out of the box, and you won't find any endgame equipment to carry him. No, what Yang needs to become a contributor is a big chunk of Vitamin XP.

Fortunately, experience isn't in short supply anymore. While Yang won't be an MVP in the next couple battles, if we recruit him here, he'll have way more HP than anyone else and deal excellent damage as well. Yang is always an excellent candidate for an endgame party, though you might consider passing on him if you find him too late or you already have three solid frontliners with good equipment.

At this point, anyone wanting to join this party has an uphill battle. Does Yang make the cut?

Next: Shadow of Plague

Karate > Old Man

FE doesn't fix the bug where Yang stops getting HP at level 60, last I checked.

It still takes Cecil 10 more levels to catch up, because Yang's HP growth is just that good, but there is a hard cap.

Drop Kain, I think. Slap Adamant on Yang and he's pretty unkillable, and we've got one of those so...

Bench FuSoYa, take Sheila's husband.

(To my mind, the only argument for keeping FuSoYa would be because he's slow and good for ATB scaling in your middle slot, and I resent the hell out of this hack's """newbie guide""" for making me learn that.)

Part 8: Cleaning Up



Old man Fu is our latest casualty.



In deference to Destil's wishes, our Adamant Armor goes to our new recruit. He's our best-protected party member, although he can't contribute much just yet.



While I'm in Kaipo, I check out who's suffering desert fever. It's Edward! Remind me to forget about cashing in the SandRuby.



Our next stop will be the Land of Summoned Monsters. We still have a trapped chest here, which is great for getting Yang in fighting form.

FF4 Trivia: Yang can't Kick while floating. Why they bothered putting this feature in the game is a mystery, given that Yang will never be in the same party as someone who can cast Float.



One spell is all it takes to get rid of this group, and Yang gains nearly 1500 HP from watching it go down.



We're here to fight the Leviathan and Asura slots. I had previously identified these as Plague and Odin, but...



...this isn't Odin.



K. and Q.Eblan do not, in fact, bring us all down to the Hades. They cast Fire2 and Fire1, respectively, a few times and then they wake up and leave.



"I defeated the Queen of Summoned Monsters and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"



Of course, Plague is actually Plague -- I checked last time I was here. The countdown is way, way too fast to deal with. Everyone gets one or two turns before eating floor.



Not to worry, though: we have a contingency plan for this, and it involves not casting Float.



Count is reflectable, and while Plague isn't vulnerable to the status, it also really hates the idea of someone not having a green number over their head. How this ideally works is you get Wall on someone who hasn't been hit with Count, and Plague spends the rest of the battle casting it and refreshing everyone's countdown.



I, uh. I screwed this up, kinda.

For one thing, Yang had already been hit by Count. This isn't the worst thing in the world, and it's why I had everyone get down to critical health before coming in: you kill someone off, revive him, and have Plague refresh everyone's countdown. But you'll notice that Rosa is already dead here. That's because I couldn't finish this whole process before the first countdown started killing everyone, which is also why Yang is at 00.



What followed was a madcap series of reviving dead people until Plague gave up. Half the party didn't live to get the experience from this battle, but a win's a win.



Hey, that's a key item!

Key items: 12/18

Luca's Key grants access to the Sealed Cave. This is normally a harrowing gauntlet of TrapDoors and monster closets, but our no-encounter flag extends to those as well, so this is just a long walk through a cave filled with treasure.



The Darkness Crystal is replaced by a Glass Helmet, which is just as well: the Demon Wall slot is incredibly fast. One infamous seed is bottlenecked by Wyvern in this position. Its opening MegaNuke is impossible to survive, and it's almost impossible to outspeed.

The premise of this LP is that we'll get all the key items, but I didn't say we'd kill all the bosses. If we get something of that caliber, I reserve the right to quit this place.



Oh, it's just you.

Asura is a gimmick boss: she casts Cure3, Cure4, and Life1, and she counters all damage. Cure4 is a full heal, making Asura extremely difficult to kill unless you happen to find her in a very early slot. The intended solution is to cast Wall on Asura. We do that, and the rest of the battle is a simple affair, particularly because Asura is weak to Kain's Rune Axe.



We've done all we can on the blue planet, so we take to the moon. Leviathan is replaced by the Baron Guards. In a relatively difficult slot, this is a nice boss to find, because...



...they can be trivialized without hardly trying.

In a straight fight, these guys are actually pretty tough. They counter your attacks with Piggy and Mini, and in this slot, they hit our front row for about 1600 a pop. (A bit less in Yang's case.)



As a reward, we get the Crystal Crystal! This is the last item we truly need to finish the game.

Key items: 13/18



For kicks (but mostly because I forgot there's no key item here), we next head to the Giant of Bab-il. Starring as the four Fiends today is Octomamm.



This is no garden-variety octopus. In this location, Octomamm has a lot of health and a very decent attack. Even so, Yang has a LitClaw, Palom has Lit-3, and Rosa can easily keep up with the damage.

Octomamm loses a tentacle every three hits. This slows him down a bit. Generally, you can kill him off before he loses all his tentacles.



We can't, but not for any lack of offense. This is just an extremely robust boss slot.



Rosa learns her capstone spell at the conclusion of this battle. If nothing else, the Giant is very generous with experience.



In the CPU slot, we find Milon Z.

This is an easier slot than the Elements. Because the Fiends have obvious, exploitable weaknesses, they have a ton of health, and because CPU is designed to be tricky to hit, it has way less health.

Still, wouldn't it be nice if we had a spell that would really seal the deal on this battle?



Yeah, something like that.

You might notice that Milon took 2500 HP from Kain in a single blow, so we're fortunate that he couldn't take what he was dishing out.



Freed from Golbez's mind control (or was it Zemus's?), Cecil offers us his services.

Cecil

Dark Knight Cecil is the worst character in the game. Even Edward looks amazing by comparison.

First of all, he has the worst equipment selection in the game. In FF4, you'll get his best gear by the time you leave Fabul, which makes sense: you don't really have him for much longer at that point. But Dark Knight Cecil is a bit of a special case. Literally everyone else in the game can equip the Adamant Armor.

Then there's his stats. For story reasons, Dark Knight Cecil is worse at level 20 than Paladin Cecil is at level 1, and he doesn't improve much from there.

Fortunately, Paladin Cecil justifies and redeems the character. Only Cecil can equip the Crystal gear (aside from the accessory we started the game with). The Crystal Sword is for offense what the Adamant Armor is for defense, and even if you can't find that, you're guaranteed access to Excalibur, which is on par with anything anyone else gets. Besides being a top-tier attacker, Cecil is also one of the best defensive characters in the game, and that's before you even consider his passive cover ability.

Speedrunners can often justify passing on Cecil for reasons we won't discuss because they are triggering to JBear, but in a casual run, it's hard to find a situation where you don't want him.

That said, our active party is all level 50 or above, and Cecil will join at level 1. Does the game's central protagonist want on the team badly enough?

Next: The Lunar Subterrane

Palom's done what he needs to do. Move Kain into the back and take Cecil.

I say bench Cecil for novelty's sake, although if it were me playing I'd probably bench Edge or Yang for him instead.

Who will break our tie? Cecil's life hangs in the balance!