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

This is so cruel that it's almost difficult to watch.

I am seriously cringing here. I don't think I can keep reading this, it's like watching a 3-legged puppy get kicked over and over.

Ninjas can cast fast. (and lit2/fir2, but FAST)
You want to get some use out of the coral/were/rune swords.
You can't make a party with only 3 characters in it.
8-Bit Theatre.
Variety.
You don't like good characters.

Those might actually have come out in order of best->worst.

Poor Brickroad. If you manage to do this you might never want to play this game again.

It's worth noting that GARLAND has 106 HPs. So if FUKT could reliably trade hits with him, his L4 gains would be sufficient to win. Sadly, though, that is not the case. He can afford a few more HEALs, though, so he stocks back up and is ready to give it another try.


MOVE IT, JERK.



Dammit FUKT, you're gonna have to do better than that!


Fuck.



Short of grindgrindgrinding, literally the only other advantage FUKT could possibly eke out is equipping this Cap. The 1 ABSORB it provides will pretty likely to nothing to mitigate the beatdown GARLAND continues to administer, but hey, it can't hurt, can it?

Actually, it might, because the Cap lowers FUKT's EVADE by 1% as well. Remember: we don't want GARLAND to do less damage, we want him to miss entirely. That's the only way FUKT can restore his HP and have any hope of winning the fight.

Also keep an eye on FUKT's HIT%, because that governs how often he misses. Once that reaches 32% he'll be able to land two hits instead of one. This dramatically improves his damage output since 1) he'll hit more often and 2) he'll double his chance at landing Critical Hits. I don't point this out because it's something to look forward to; I point it out because I want you to notice how late FUKT hits that magic number. FIGHTERs, Bl.BELTs and I believe even RedMAGEs all get that glorious second hit much, much sooner than THIEFs.

This time FUKT is packing sixteen HEALs. GARLAND's going down... maybe!


Come on, FUKT! Sack up and hit him!!


After a few weaksauce hits, FUKT gets the boon he was waiting for: GARLAND has missed him. He can take this opportunity to suck down a HEAL and actually come ahead in HPs for once.


After many weaksauce hits, FUKT finally tastes the sweet, suculent flavor of victory. Hip hip... huzzah!


...it only took him half of his goddamn HEALs.


Ha ha ha... fat chance, lady!


Next stop: Pravoka. Will the PIRATEs give FUKT as much trouble as GARLAND did? Will they give him as much trouble as they did IKA? Stay tuned!


The first thing FUKT does in Pravoka is drops some GOLD at the weapon store and gets equipped with Scimtar. This is the best practical weapon a THIEF can get before ASTOS.

No, really, this is it: the pinnacle of THIEF warfare. Very very slightly increased damage output, but at least he won't miss quite so much. There's a more powerful sword in Elfland, but its HIT% is lower so it's not worth equipping until FUKT can get two hits with it.

But come on -- there's no way this challenge is as fucking impossible as I'm making it sound, right? Surely FUKT will be able to edge out his most difficult trials long before he's had to do that much grinding, right?

Right?

...right?

Maybe this is all an elaborate April fool's joke? I can't see why anyone would abuse themselves in this way.

Anyway! The PIRATEs. These guys are notorious for being the biggest pushovers in the game. Sure, IKA had problems with them... but IKA had Cloth Armor and pretty much no HPs. FUKT's got over 100 HPs and doesn't have to worry about spell charges. Advantage: FUKT!




Haha no.

This was FUKT's first run against the PIRATEs, and unfortunately, it was a pretty spectacularly lucky one. He managed to kill the first four without missing, but after that everything fell apart. He couldn't keep his HEAL'n'stall tactic up long enough to survive the constant attacks. More often than not he's going to have trouble getting through the first four...


...like so. This is more typical of a PIRATE fight.

FUKT has two very strong forces working against him here: his high tendancy to miss and the PIRATEs' ability to land criticals. A miss is essentially the equivalent of giving every PIRATE a free hit against him, and a PIRATE crit can eat upwards of 25 HPs. The first problem leads directly into the second, as more misses = more criticals.

In order for FUKT to win this fight in his current state he has to land five straight hits. Then he has to HEALstall long enough to replenish some HPs, hoping none of the PIRATEs crit him in the meantime. Then he has to land four more straight hits to finish the fight. It's like IKA all over again, except IKA could at least guarantee his kills thanks to LIT and ICE.


FUKT needs more HPs, but he is absolutely hopeless against the monsters in the Pravoka wilderness. IKA could just barely win some of these fights, but then, IKA did more damage and never missed.


No, FUKT has to march his stank ass back to Coneria and harvest the only monster he can kill: IMPs.

Needless to say, I've been playing at about 300% speed. I don't know how long it takes to legitimately grind to L6 on IMPs, but it has to be some number of hours.

Here's where the other solo runs might be at about L6:

• FIGHTER and RedMAGE are happily eating up the bounty of the sea in order to get the gear or spells they need to kill the ZOIDBERGs. (FIGHTER wants a Silver Sword, RedMAGE wants LIT2.)
• Wh.MAGE is TENTed outside the Marsh Cave, waiting for her lucky two-ZOIDBERG fight where she can RUSE up and win.
• Bl.MAGE and Bl.BELT are still having problems with PIRATEs, but they can at least earn their EXP on OGREs and GrIMPs outside Pravoka.

I had no idea a Solo Thief run would be so bad.

Brick... I HAD NO IDEA

Yeah, so this definitely beats my FFIII LP on the "hates the player" scale of difficulty.

It's kind of funny, really: every pertinent bug and programming error that affects THIEFs does so to their detriment compared to FIGHTERs. The FLEE bug is one (and actually, THIEFs are better FLEErs, up until the other classes hit 15 LUCK); the weapon-index-as-crit-rate is another one.

Then, the best weapons a THIEF can equip before class changing are the Rune, Coral, and Dragon swords, which are supposed to do extra damage to magic, aquatic, and dragon foes -- but don't, because of yet another glitch.

And on top of that, even if everything worked properly, FIGHTERS would still outclass THIEFs because of better growth in pretty much every stat. They just weren't balanced all that well at a design level.

After many hundreds of dead IMPs, and having never once won a fight anywhere within eyeshot of Pravoka, FUKT finally gets lucky enough to barely slide through the PIRATEs.

Full disclosure: I didn't grind FUKT up past L6, but I probably should have. I was playing at 450% speed or so by this point, so I could literally get through a failed PIRATE fight in about ten seconds. If I were playing on the actual console (where I completed all the other solo runs) there is no way in hell I would have had this much patience. What you're seeing here is not FUKT reaching the power level required to defeat the PIRATEs; you're seeing one extraordinarily lucky fight amidst countless dozens of failed ones.


If Bikke were smart he'd challenge FUKT to a rematch. "Come on, one more go-round. Double or nothing. I win, you give me two SHIPs!"


FUKT's next stop is the free GOLD up in the Dwarf Cave. There's nothing particularly helpful he can buy with these monies, but there's no reason to just leave it here either.


Here's FUKT's "more powerful" sword. It's very slight damage bonus isn't worth the trade-off in misses. There's no point in equipping this until he can get two hits with it.



The Copper Bracelet is worth buying, though, because of the nice EVADE boost. Of course, the days where HEAL'n'stall works are long behind poor, hapless FUKT; in the next two big fights, one-shot kills are the order of the day.


If he's lucky, FUKT can just barely win a fight against two KYZOKUs. He's in desperate need of more HPs and that second Scimtar hit, but he's still not good enough to kill anything but IMPs. The few hard-fought victories he could carve out for himself wouldn't even pay for their own INN stays, which means FUKT would eventually find himself penniless, in single-digit HPs, with absoultely no way to recharge or get more GOLD.

The two-KYZOKU fight is therefore attractive for three reasons, even though FUKT can only win it about 20% of the time. First, he can fight it near Coneria where the INN costs 30 GOLD instead of 50. Second, he earns enough GOLD to pay for an INN stay and purchase two HEALs. And third, he can use power cycles to pop this exact fight over and over as often as he likes, without any danger of running into any other battle on the ocean (which he could not win anyway).

FINAL FANTASY ENCOUNTER LIST REFRESHER COURSE:
FF1's encounter list is hard-coded. Each region of the world has its own sequence of encounters, and you always meet these encounters in the same order. The first encounter on the ocean is always 1..5 KYZOKUs. You have to power cycle regardless of whether you win or die, but as long as you do, you can kill KYZOKUs to your little heart's content.

Obviously this can be dangerous if you're playing on a real NES, since it has a nasty habit of wiping battery saves the more you hit the power button. So here's another technique I'm only getting away with because I'm on an emulator! On the cart I could either pull this trick and run the risk of seeing my save erased, or I could play it safe and grind more motherfucking IMPs.

You tell me, Talking Time, what's the better option? Are you starting to see why I've never completed this challenge before? Are you starting to taste my anguish?



KYZOKUs, INN, power cycle. KYZOKUs, INN, power cycle. KYZOKUs, INN, power cycle. Ad nauseum. Over and over. Unceasingly.

Hey look, I made a video of it. (Be sure to mute your sound though. I mean that.)

Yes, FUKT is winning far, far less than half his fights. He can't kill more than two at a time, and even two will occassionally destroy him. The only reasonable alternative, for honest and for true, are IMPs.

Run FFIII without ever changing jobs. That'll even things up!

Why would you people do this to poor Brick? You know he has a problem!

Besides, I don't think there's anything cool you can do with a solo Thief that we haven't seen done with Ika / Ruga.

(Not that it matters too much, but is FUKT going to promote?)

*Edit* - My favorite part of that video was "Dammit, five! RESET!"

Sure there is. We get to see Brick battle his greatest nemesis ever: his own sense of self-preservation!

Does he really have a choice?

It's been brought to my attention that there is a much better way to experience the KYZOKU-farmin' video:

Benny Hillified.

Enjoy.

No, FFIII is higher on the "game hates the player" scale. This is a case of "player hates the player" difficulty.

Doesn't promoting discourage stat growth? And FUKT needs EVERY DAMN ADVANTAGE he can get.

Of course, it also increases the amount of weapons and armor FUKT can equip, which has a more immediate and appreciable benefit.

Granted, it's not like he's ever going to live that long

Finally, at L10, FUKT's HIT% is high enough to let him take on more challenging monsters. His damage output should now go straight through the roof!


...well, you know, there are some really low roofs out there.

Say, how are the other classes doing at L10?

• FIGHTER is riding high with his unbreakable armor, Silver Sword and hundreds of HPs. He's been clearing two hits with his Scimtar since L5.
• RedMAGE has been getting two hits with his Silver Sword since L6... if he even bothered to buy one, since that's the same level he learns LIT2. At L10 he's got three shots of LIT2 plus one of ICE2. He's long since made the ZOIDBERGs look like fatty-fat chumps.
• Bl.BELT has been having trouble up until now, though his attacks have been steadily getting stronger and his HPs have been rising quickly. At L10 he gets his second unarmed attack, meaning he's either ready to take on some ZOIDBERGs or at least ready to step up the monsters he's grinding on.
• Wh.MAGE has RUSE, MUTE and three doses of CUR2. If she hasn't killed ASTOS by now she's taking her sweet time.
• Bl.MAGE has LIT2 and ICE2 coming out his ears... if he's killed the PIRATEs. Which he probably hasn't, actually. As soon as he gets to Elfland, though? All bets are off.

Now that he gets two (lousy) hits, let's see how much headway FUKT can make against the ZOIDBERGs. Fortune smiles upon him, even: only two of them! If he's going to win, this is the fight he'll win against.


I'm sure FUKT is just toying with his prey... cat-and-mouse, see? See?


rofflezoidbergs


So okay, that's not going to happen. Which means... BACK. TO. GRINDING.

At least FUKT can now usually take down an OGRE. OGREs are pretty plentiful around Elfland, and they pay for their own INN stays. Not that FUKT has any use for money anymore... he's long since purchased his optimal equipment and 99 HEALs.

If only he could use black magic, a measly 1500 GOLD would solve all his problems.


HAHA RETARD YOU CAN'T USE THAT. WHY EVEN BOTHER LOOKING AT IT. GTFO LOSER.


Grindgrindgrinding gets FUKT to L11, and serves up a nice HP boost...


...but ZOIDBERGs can land two hits. So.

I don't even think this was a critical. I think this was just two regular-strength ZOIDBERG hits. A crit or, god forbid, double crit would easily land for 90-100 damage or more.


Trading hits is getting FUKT nowhere. Worse, he has nothing to look forward to. He won't get his third hit for many, many levels, and his HPs just aren't going up fast enough to matter. HEALstalling isn't going to work here since he's taking more than 30 damage per round. To win this fight, FUKT has to get lucky.

Do you hear what I'm telling you? With every other solo you at least have a goal to work towards. "As soon as I can afford a Silver Sword, I'm good." "Once I can learn ICE2 I'll be fine." "All I need is a couple more HEALs." "Everything will work out once I get the Defense."

Not a THIEF. Grinding at this point isn't getting me closer to victory -- it's getting me closer to the point where if I'm really really lucky I can maybe win. Maybe.

And this is just the Marsh Cave. This isn't even the hard part, yet. All of this, I have done on a console. Thirty hours? Forty? Who knows. All FUKT can do is get back to the grind and hopefully improve his chances by some tiny, miniscule amount.

I prefer the tragic version myself. It is apt.

Grindgrindgrind.

Actually, L12 gives FUKT a new toy to play with...


...it's the level he can get a second hit in with his Sabre. Thus his damage goes up a very small amount. Enough to topple the ZOIDBERGs, though?


Well, enough that an incredibly lucky fight yeilds a... not-quite-as-crushing defeat as his last few!


If only he could DRINK more than one at a time...!

FUKT is getting nowhere. He needs that third hit. It's already a dozen or more fights between level-ups, and the boredom is starting to set in even at 450% speed. Keep in mind, too, that FUKT cannot win all of his fights, so he still has to stay at the INN after every battle.

What I'm getting at here is: I'm gonna fucking cheat.

Go ahead. Try and stop me. I dare you.


Meet FFHackster. This is program that lets you go in and monkey around with the FF1 rom, so you can redraw sprites or make super-weapons or change enemy names. (This is how McDohl and I fought against ZOIDBERGS last year instead of WIZARDs.) My plan is to go into the Enemy Editor tab...


...and make every motherfucker around Elfland give me 5000 EXP.

This doesn't actually make FUKT stronger, mind you. I could go in and give THIEFs monumental amounts of HPs, or access to black magic, or the ability to equip the Silver Sword. Hell, I could just make all the weapon shops sell Masmunes and Ribbons for 1 GOLD each. But no. That's not why I'm here. I'm here to show you how weak, pathetic and useless a solo THIEF is. All I'm doing with this edit is eliminating the grind.


Ahh... that's more like it. Of course, it doesn't speed things up as much as it actually could. FF1 doesn't allow for more than one level-up per combat, so FUKT still has to fight a lot of battles.

L18... that's pretty beefy. Surely FUKT can do something now?


Pfft. If you haven't learned by now to never underestimate the levels to which FUKT can suck complete ass, brother, you ain't been payin' attention.


Even with the ramped up EXP, FUKT needs several battles to go up one level. I have to go back into Hackster a second time and increase the amounts again. I don't even want to speculate how many countless hours this would take on a real console, in a real challenge, where you're getting at most 390 EXP per fight. And FUKT still doesn't have his third hit! He's not even anywhere close!


Screw it, let's try the ZOIDBERGs again. Maybe we'll get lucky.


Off to a good start...


Fucking finally.

I know I'm beating this bloody point to death, but I cannot stress it enough: this is how much grinding it takes just to get through the Marsh Cave. L19? Fucking really? Every other class is reaping the bounties of the northern continents by now. Everyone else has long since gotten their Defense and their Heal Staff. For every other class the game is more or less over. If we're talking full parties, if you have a FIGHTER and a Bl.MAGE you're a contender to win the game at L19. (Maybe. With a bit of luck. And a lot of Heal Staff-ing.)


Hahaha! FUKT didn't make it out of the cave alive!
Hahaha! FUKT has to fight the ZOIDBERGs again!
Hahaha! I fucking hate life and light and all love and beauty.

I went back in and killed them again. A few dozen tries? I didn't take screenshots because if there's one thing this frickin' LP doesn't need any more of it's screenshots of frickin' ZOIDBERGs.

Will... will Youtube cheer you up Brick?

It's a FF1-Roguelike!

I can't wait to see him fight Lich.

Now the fun starts. There is so much working against FUKT in the ASTOS fight, it's not even funny.


First up: FUKT cannot damage ASTOS. I don't know what ASTOS's ABSORB is, but it's high enough that a L19 THIEF can't get through it. Even when he lands all his hits FUKT is lucky to top 3 or 4 damage. Critical hits ignore ABSORB, though, giving some slight shred of bright light.

Hardship #1: FUKT's only source of damage is critical hits.


Then we have RUB, FF1's version of instant death. The only real way around this is a hidden magic defense stat... which THIEFs just so happen to develop much more slowly than other classes. This is the first spell in ASTOS's rotation, so before you can get anywhere in the fight, you have to get through this.

Hardship #2: ASTOS wins with his first spell.


ASTOS's next spell is SLO2, which reduces FUKT's HIT%. This is devastating, since FUKT already only gets two chances per round to land the crits he needs. If SLO2 connects he not only loses that advantage, but he loses his ability to even do the 1 damage per round he'd be capable otherwise. SLO2 is even more gruesome than RUB; at least with RUB you don't have to stand there and let ASTOS kill you.

Hardship #3: ASTOS wins with his second spell.


ASTOS's next spell is FAST, turning his otherwise not-too-harmful physical attacks into bonecrushing double-blows. While FASTed, ASTOS can hit as hard as a ZOIDBERG, meaning he can now not only win the fight thanks to his supply of magic, but through good old-fashioned HP-depletion as well.

Hardship #4: FASTed ASTOS hits really hard.


ASTOS's fourth and fifth spells are FIR2 and LIT2, which each can do a fair amount of damage and never miss. What you really have to watch out for, though, is his sixth spell: SLOW. This complicates things for the exact same reasons as SLO2.

Hardship #5: ASTOS's fourth and fifth spells combine for over 100 damage.
Hardship #6: ASTOS wins with his sixth spell.


ASTOS's final two spells are DARK and SLEP. DARK is the functional equivalent of SLOW; it lowers FUKT's chance to hit. SLEP is even worse, removing FUKT's ability to act for several rounds while ASTOS wails on him. Since ASTOS is guaranteed to be FASTed by this point, and you're guaranteed to be missing HPs from the LIT2/FIR2 barrage, this is almost certainly a loss.

Hardship #7: ASTOS wins with his seventh spell.
Hardship #8: ASTOS wins with his eighth spell.


Even if you make it through all of that, ASTOS just starts his spell rotation over again with RUB.

Shall we recap?

Hardship #1: FUKT's only source of damage is critical hits.
Hardship #2: ASTOS wins with his first spell.
Hardship #3: ASTOS wins with his second spell.
Hardship #4: FASTed ASTOS hits really hard.
Hardship #5: ASTOS's fourth and fifth spells combine for over 100 damage.
Hardship #6: ASTOS wins with his sixth spell.
Hardship #7: ASTOS wins with his seventh spell.
Hardship #8: ASTOS wins with his eighth spell.

In short: ASTOS is a stone-cold motherfucker. How does anyone beat him? Well...

• FIGHTER has strong armor, a lot of HPs and a Silver Sword. He loses if he gets RUBbed or SLOWed, but the FASTed hits and LIT2/FIR2 aren't so bad. Plus he's dishing out more criticals, so it's unlikely ASTOS will survive long enough to get to LIT2/FIR2 anyway.
• RedMAGE has all the benefits of FIGHTER plus he's got LIT2 and ICE2, so he doesn't care about being SLOWed. As long as he gets through RUB he is golden.
• Bl.BELT has it a little tougher than FIGHTER, but he's got similar damage output. He can kill ASTOS before he gets too deep into his spell list. Also, Bl.BELTs have a higher tolerance to stuff like RUB and SLOW, so they can consistently go deeper into the spell list in search of their criticals.
• Bl.MAGE doesn't care about SLOW. His HPs are low enough that he probably can't survive the LIT2/FIR2 combo, but he's got enough spell charges that the fight won't last that long.
• Wh.MAGE can MUTE ASTOS to neuter all of his spells, then RUSE up so all his attacks miss. If ASTOS manages to sneak in a critical (unlikely, since he won't be able to FAST himself) she can CUR2 to get the HPs back. True, she has to kill him 1 damage at a time... but as long as she can get her spells off victory is a guarantee.

FUKT has all the weaknesses of FIGHTER and Bl.BELT in this fight, but with none of the strengths of any class. He has to avoid five of ASTOS's eight spells entirely, and he has to outdamage ASTOS while relying only on criticals.


FUKT needs that third hit, so it's back to grinding. Things cannot possibly get any worse now... can they?

C-can they?

FUKT's plight is one no man should suffer.

This is unbelievable! Damn Thieves suck

Odds are he'll have an easier time with him than Ass-toes, because at least then he'll have access to the sweet, sweet treasure unlocked by the mystic KEY.