HSUP B TCELES - Let's Play FF1! Again!

Who is Kuwazu? I'm picking up from context that he's the guy responsible for FF2's monster closets.

Kawazu is the SaGa (And FFII) guy.

Wikipedia says that he also worked on FFI, so maybe!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akitoshi_Kawazu

He was, to a great extent, responsible for FF2, period.

EDIT: Gah, ninja'd.

Okay well if he made monsters closets then fuck that guy.

But without him, you wouldn't have your hat!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akitoshi_Kawazu

Square's most brilliant but least disciplined early game designer. He created my favorite 8-bit RPG but I think it was just the exact right magic of technical limitations streamlining his stream of consciousness game design to the point of being playable and fun.

EDIT: Also, yes, the source of my previous avatar and your current hat.

Hilariously, my old hat came from some fanart done of my RPGMaker game, specifically of an enemy crab I stole from Secret of Mana, which was another series that originally flew in under the Final Fantasy monicker rather than its proper name.

In a weird way, we've come full circle. (Or would have, if Destil had kept the goddamned hat.)

Here's a secret: When I was planning to do my game, if the guy who's role was you would die, I'd say at the end of the scene "The next morning, [name]'s avatar changed", and then there would be a picture of just the old hat and some blood.

BUT YOU CHANGED YOU HAT

Man cannot live by one hat alone.

What about Indiana Jones Brick? Huh?

He's not dead yet.

I seem to get by with just the one.

You're already dead.

What about me, Brick? I don't have a hat.

You're not a man.

Your hat was inside you all along!

I have a crown.

crowns are like hats+1

YOU LOOK UPON A WOMAN

Oh yeah...

The Marsh Cave isn't that hard a dungeon. What makes it somewhat painful is that it's the first dungeon of any serious length, and comes at a point where there are few alternatives aside from grinding levels.

I didn't know that DoS thieves were non-crappy. Nice to know that.

Here's a question -- my understanding is that Black Belts are the hardest solo, right?

What's harder, a party of 1 BB or 3 Thieves? I'm morbidly curious, but not enough to try it out.

THIEF is the hardest solo. Bl.BELT is probably second hardest, although that's misleading. It'd be more appropriate to say that THIEF is the hardest and Bl.BELT is the 87th hardest, because that's how much empty space there needs to be to properly convey the idea that a Bl.BELT solo is possible and a THIEF one is "possible".

In the early game more characters is always better than fewer, except classes that can wear heavy armor (FIGHTER and RedMAGE). So two THIEFs beats a Bl.BELT, simply because they have more chances to land crits and a much larger HP pool.

(Actually I think a single Bl.BELT might have an equal number of chances to crits as two THIEFs. So maybe I'm wrong.)

That's not what my pants say.

Hey, are THIEFs the hardest solo in DoS, considering they're non-gimped and can do a ton more damage?

You can probably get them past Astos with a ton of grinding, but I'm not sure of the ability to do enough damage to Chaos even with the Masamune.

So, the easiest solo is FIGHTER, but I can't tell through this game of forum MasterMind if the RedMAGE is second or fourth after the other MAGEs.

Second. The big hurdles in a solo are either the pirates or Astos, but the Red Mage is almost as good as the Fighter at survivability in the early game (the big difference is the Silver Sword in the elf town). The RM has enough spell charges (and maybe even SLEP, I can't remember) that the pirates aren't a problem, and Astos jobs to Lit2 / Ice2.

After a certain point, you can get anyone past anything with careful application of the right items. For instance, the second you get something that casts RUSE you may as well be invincible. The question then becomes if you can do enough damage in the time provided to subdue Chaos, and I don't think a RM has much problem in that department.

I've only done solo Fighter. The only thing that's even hard about it is those stupid stun-damage-causing zombies.

Yeah, a Thief gets his second attack at level 10 (with pre-Astos equipment), which is when a Black Belt gets his third and fourth attacks.

No, a Red Mage can wield any weapon a Fighter can except for the silly ones like axes, hammers, and staves (though a Red Wizard is not as comparable to a Knight). The real difference is in armor. Pre-Astos the best a Red Mage will be wearing is a suit of chain, a buckler, cap, and gloves for 19 total ABSORB, whereas a Fighter should be decked out in iron armor, an iron shield, wooden helmet, and gloves, for an ABSORB total of 32.

A Fighter will also have more HP, a higher innate hit% (so he gets his second attack sooner) and more Strength (so he'll hit a bit harder). A Red Mage, of course, gets all those cool spells (like LIT2 and FAST), and gets his first level 4 spell charge (to cast FAST) at level 10 (with the Silver Sword equipped, he should be getting 2 attacks starting at level 6; a Fighter so equipped would get his second attack at level 4).

Edit: reference link.

Sleep is bugged to never last more than a turn, I think, making it a wash on the pirates in a solo run. But redmage is easily #2... ninja would actually be better if not for the starting as a thief part.

♪♪ Sailing Ship ♪♪

One important difference between RPGs and real life is that in RPGs is it always safe to sail your boat into a raging whirlpool. In reality it is almost never okay to do this.


♪♪ Chaos Shrine ♪♪

"Yipes! Peoples!" is unambiguously the best line in the game, or any game, ever.

Once she's convinced the gang's not here to kill her, the mermaid tells us a little about this decrepit place. This is Lifespring Grotto, and back in the day dudes would come here to fall in love with mermaids. I can only assume the place closed down because of overcrowding issues because seriously, who doesn't love mermaids?


No mermaid hanky-panky for us, though: a Kraken-shaped statue stands in our way. Nothing we can do here for now.


♪♪ Town ♪♪

Just west of the whirlpool is the town of Melmond, and here's one place where the graphical overhaul really pulls its weight. In the NES version Melmond was just a regular town with square patches of sand all over the place, as though it were in need of a good landscaper. In DoS the soil really does look rotten, the grass yellowed and sickly. (The broken stone pathways can probably be chalked up to bad maintenance, though.)


Why on earth would I want to trek halfway across the continent to meet with some guy who knows much when there's a guy who knows EVERYTHING right here in town?

Well okay, our mission here is pretty clear: go see a wise-ass sage, then stake us a vampire. Hop to, heroes!


♪♪ Shop ♪♪

Melmond doesn't have much in the way of upgrades, except for Silver Armlets. The free one in the Marsh Cave is really the only one you need, but there's nothing wrong with giving the guys on your back line a bit more oomph if you really want. As you can see, BlBelt's natural Monk DEF can't keep pace with the Armlet upgrade. I'll have to keep a close manual eye on this whenever he levels up, though, since the equip screen is too stupid to know the difference.

Also of note here is the Knight's Armor. I have never bought this. I have no doubt it's a worthy upgrade, but between L5 and L6 magic there's just no way to afford it without grinding. Besides, the armor Zach's already wearing causes most attacks to deal 1 damage anyway... and he gets a great free upgrade in a couple dungeons. I might have gotten this in the NES version when I did my FIGHTER solo; I can't remember.


Having just found four swords in the various locked rooms of the Newbie Sea, Melmond's weapon shop is pretty lackluster. I show the Longsword here for comparison's sake, though; in the NES version you would never, ever buy this since the superior Silver Sword is available in Elfland. In this version though you might end up using a Longsword for a while as Garland randomly drops it upon death. The Silver Sword, now called the Mythril Sword, is only accessible as a random drop from Astos... I think. Anyway, it's not worth farming the boss fights for either of these swords, but if you luck into one you're in for an easy early game.


Ika sucks too much still to learn L5 magic. The most important spell, Teleport, isn't available to black mages anyway. He'll have to wait until after promotion.


♪♪ Victory ♪♪

I... forget what level I'm on now! Best LP ever. At least I finally uploaded the Victory music, though.