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

I strongly suggest you check out Brick's other two FF1 LPs - Black vs White is especially recommended.

In fact, let's link those right up for the sake of convenience.

Brickroad first quested his way through Final Fantasy with a conventional party, then he and McDohl conquered Final Fantasy with dueling single character run-throughs as a black mage and a white mage, respectively.

Highly recommended!

Edit: Beaten to the punch!

Dude, those are epic. TBH I didn't think it was possible to do a solo white mage run until I saw that. (And to go back earlier in this thread, I didn't expect it would be practically impossible to do a solo thief run. That LP was hilarious.)

I agree... Brick's LPs are great reads. Speaking of solo runs...

I'm doing a Fighter solo on my cell phone. I've found that in a lot of cases I've gotten a LOT more experience for certain fights than I would have with a full party. My Fighter just arrived in Melmond and is already at level 13. The only grinding I did was a little bit for supplies for the Marsh Cave and a little bit in Pravoka for gear.

If anyone's played the cell version of FF I'd love to know if this has happened for them too. Does this happen on any other versions? I haven't played the NES one in a long time.

This has nothing to do with the version you're playing. Almost every Final Fantasy follows the standard (classic) D&D rules. Enemies are worth a certain amount of experience, divided by the number of characters involved in the encounter. So a soloist gets "four times" the experience, because there's no one to share with.

That's not to say they didn't tweak the XP curve, mind. Just that what you're seeing has been there since the NES release.

Thanks Phil! I really don't know why I didn't know that already.

Like the bunny above, this is doubling as an intro post - I've been lurking around reading LPs for a good while now. I've gotta say that all of the FF1 LPs are sweet, so well done! Also, I was going through FF1 with a full party on my iPad and am at the Sea Shrine now.

So, yeah, great job all around. Maybe I should give the rest of the forums here a look-see. Oh yeah, what's the proper protocol for giving props to an LP that's been over and done with many moons ago?

I'd avoid reviving the thread, but you could PM the author and say "You did a good job, Mr. or Mrs. LP Robot Being." I don't know if it's an exception or a forbidden rite of evil to revive the Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom thread.

Bumping the Princess Tomato thread is strongly encouraged.

I'll make these hep cats purr, see?

I may be wrong about this, but I think if you have pertinent information about the LP, you may be allowed to go ahead and bump it. I feel like this has been done before. Someone will correct me on this one. But for just props, I'd go PM.

This, however, is the best rule.

...With your naughty bits?

Well, you know, whatever's handy.

Next update is ~60% complete. If I don't get around to the rest of it tonight or tomorrow I'll just chop it in half and post what I have so you guys don't degenerate into punnery or freestyle rap or I HAZ A BUKKIT or whatever else awesome nonsense you might have up your sleeve.

aww, so I should stop recording slam poetry to post on youtube?

not really, but I bet someone would do it.

I have been playing this game a ton lately. GBA FF1, that is. I got a bit bored of the ridiculous length of the new dungeons in my first file so I started a new game with WAR(warrior), FAMINE(monk), PLAGUE(red mage), and DEATH(black mage).

EDIT: I really wouldn't mind if Black and Red Mages could use Teleport in this game. I mean, I love that it follows the original so closely, but man... Just that one little tweak and you could get out of the Earth Cave without walking the whole darn way. Just saying.

Me too, me too! I simultaneously found a need for a good bit of procrastination fodder _and_ discovered that the iPhone has FF1. A fortuitous combination. I decided to go with a pretty traditional party (Fi/Th/WM/BM) to get the whole experience. Stab, Jack, Fix, and Blast just secured their SHIP and are setting sail for Elfland.

I *love* the MP system compared to the spell charges system. My mages can actually, you know, cast spells now, instead of attempting to stab monsters with a dinky knife or club them with a hammer.

But that's the "fun" of the Earth Cave!

I got snagged by this game again too. Coincidentally, my four little buddies: Pearl, Opal, Ivory, and Cream (White Mages all) JUST poofed the Vampire and are ready to go let Sarda give them his Rod.

Aww, Brickroad's getting all shirty. Keep your pants on, boss, we'll behave.

♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

With a sizable amount of loot strapped to their backs, the lads fly back to the Islands of Cardia in order to see about this second superdungeon.


♪♪ Mt. Gulg ♪♪

Let it never be said that Zach and his cronies didn't never proove no elf wrong.


♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

lolwut


So one of the levels of Hellfire Chasm is a brand new world map. You start off in some far-flung corner and have to hunt for the exit. Sometimes (but not always) this requires you to first find a ship.


♪♪ Battle ♪♪

Finally we meet some new monsters to battle! Unfortunately they didn't actually draw any new monsters for the superdungeons; you have to make do with palette swaps of the old ones. (As if you hadn't already deduced that.)

We can also see here Ika's new default action. Without the Healing Staff, or at least a White Wizard with a huge mountain of Ethers, you cannot come close to completing one of these incredibly long superdungeons. Most of the random battles down here aren't dangerous, but all the little bites and scratches add up over time. Hellfire Chasm is only ten floors, but that's already as long as the longest dungeon in vanilla FF1. (Longer, when you factor in how long it can take to solve the Overworld floor.)


♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

Eventually the boys find this pirate wandering around complaining about treasure he cannot get to.


The Overworld level actually has a few configurations. Sometimes it's possible to solve it without an airship, but not always. We already have a levistone -- the game isn't quite sadistic enough to force us to hunt down another one -- but meeting Thule is a requirement to getting the airship to appear whether you need one or not.

The treasure box was a Cockatrice Claw, which attempts to cast Break on an enemy. Worthless.


While there may be desert tiles strewn haphazardly around the various configurations, you'll know which one is the Oasis by looking for the lone palm tree.


Just like before, using the levistone at the desert causes an airship to emerge from the sands. (Yes, you have to watch the whole cinematic again.)

♪♪ Airship ♪♪

Nice!

As we can see here, the airship is not strictly required to finish this particular configuration of the Overworld level. The exit is this Marsh Cave-style hole in the ground, which we could have found simply by paddling out here in the canoe.

Unless you're going to commit each configuration to memory, though, or hunt for a map online, it's probably best to seek out Thule and the airship anyway. Even if the airship is not required to solve the level, it's certainly the fastest way. It's also the fastest way to hunt down all the treasure free of harrassment by bad guys!


This shot exists for no reason other than to show off how creepy NPC sprites look when being manhandled by the tilty effect of the airship. Yeeauugh!


Unfortunately, since the Overworld level was generated at the very top, most of its treasures boxes failed to appear. The only other goodie our dashing lads uncover are these Hermes' Shoes, which cast Haste. There are already two Haste-casters in this team, though, so we don't exactly need them.


♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

There's nowhere to park on the tiny isle with the exit, so we have to abandon our airship and canoe there anyway.


By the way, this is what happens when you have a waterfall tile that doesn't serve as a level entrance. MAGIC CANOE. WOO.


♪♪ Battle ♪♪

Lower in the dungeon, the guys are once again assailed by wave after wave of Black Goblins. These critters literally appear in droves in all four bonus dungeons, and I cannot imagine why. They wouldn't have been a challenge had they appeared outside Cornelia at the beginning of the game.


♪♪ Matoya's Cave ♪♪

Some of the dungeon levels in Hellfire Chasm are blue! Why, that's not very Hellfire-y at all!

As you can see, most of the throwaway chests in the bonus dungeons contain items that didn't exist in vanilla FF1, such as spellcasting consumables or newfangled status cures. This is preferable to the throwaway chests out in the main game, which contain paltry amounts of gil or Staffs.


♪♪ Mt. Gulg ♪♪

Oh yeah. Now here's a level more befitting of the name Hellfire Chasm! As always, it's best to walk on the lava tiles to avoid as many fights as possible. Because you can do this, and because this dungeon has so many volcano levels to it, a run through it actually goes pretty quick. The big timesink here is the Overworld level, which easily comprises half or more of your time spent in the dungeon.


We're still in the shallow areas of the dungeon, so there's only one very large and very-mostly-empty treasure room.


Down one floor, the scenery hasn't changed much. Unfortunately there are no lava tiles inside of rooms, so if you want the treasure here you have no choice but to slog your way through the fights.

♪♪ Battle ♪♪

Ika does his part by keeping everyone healed up. One application of the Healing Staff is good enough to offset an entire floor's worth of mucking through hot lava. Of course it's tricky; Ika is slow and oftentimes doesn't get his turn before his big brothers finish off all the bad guys.


The whole floor is like this. It is an annoying floor.


Once again, mostly consumables. Aside from the awesome treasures guarded by the four bosses, each dungeon really only has a small handful of really good finds. You're almost guaranteed to stumble across some of these, though depending on how long you grind against the dungeons and what order you complete them in they may be obsolete by the time you luck into them.


The exit! Hurrah!

I'm pretty sure this is the only "giant room" floor in Hellfire Chasm, which is good, because who wants to slog against laughably easy random encounters for hours?


Next floor is a boss floor. Where Earthgift Shrine was hard-coded to make you run the entire thing and pick one of the four bosses on the bottom floor, Hellfire Chasm puts two bosses each at hard-coded spots at the mid- and end-points. Result: you can clear the bosses away having only run the dungeon twice, rather than four times.


♪♪ Boss Battle B ♪♪

And where Earthgift Shrine featured four of the most iconic bosses from FF3, Hellfire Chasm features the four elemental archfiends from FF4.

It's worth noting that these trainspotter fights are not exactly parallel to their source games. For all its changes and upgrades, monsters in Dawn of Souls still cannot change state. This means Cagnazzo can't retreat into his shell or erect a water barrier. He can bite super-hard and use his tidal wave attack as much as he wants, though!


Though his physical strike isn't the most dangerous thing he's capable of, it's still troublesome. The front rank prepares for it by getting their Blink on.


Meanwhile, BlBelt and Cagnazzo both get themselves Hasted for the long fight ahead.

Magical attacks are essentially worthless against pretty much every boss beyond Lich. The goal here is to make BlBelt so beefy with Temper he can obliterate the bosses' HP levels all by himself. The Healing Staff is good for the minor scrapes the lads sustain along the way, but it can't hold its own in long battles, so there's an element of luck here: BlBelt needs to do the job before Cagnazzo wipes us out with too many tidal waves.


A good start, but this is only a fraction of what BlBelt is capable of.

Crap.

Aside from tidal waves, Cagnazzo can attack one of us or heal himself for about 350. The healing is obviously what we're looking for here, as too many of these tsunamis will...


...yeah, like that. Well, thank goodness for the "save anywhere" feature!


The second time in, Percy forgoes his Blink in order to get BlBelt Temper'd on the first round. It makes all the difference in the world.


On the next round, and every round thereafter, Ika stacks more and more Temper on BlBelt. Each application is good for about a thousand damage, which means the longer we can keep the two of them alive the greater heights we can reach.


♪♪ Victory ♪♪

This time Cagnazzo behaves, and the boys win a Light Curtain.


This one-time item has the same effect as equipping a Ribbon. Not a terrible item, but not the kind of thing I'd have liked to seen drop from a bitch-hard superboss.


♪♪ Mt. Gulg ♪♪

Defeating one of the bosses on a floor locks you into the teleport room, leaving you unable to reach the other one. Your choice here is to either warp out of the dungeon or continue downward. After chugging a couple Ethers and clutching their Healing Staff tightly, the boys know which choice they must make.

♪♪ Dungeon ♪♪

Many levels in the bonus dungeons are patterend after areas from the main game, but there are some new tilesets as well. This "fire shrine" level is a palette swap of the Sunken Shrine, but it behaves in a unique manner: unless you're standing on the cool, grey tiles you will take continuous damage. It's not like walking through lava, where you take x damage per step; you will continue to be injured as long as you're anywhere on the hot floor, whether you're moving or not.

Of course they threw in some bats to complicate things some. I mean, that's just common sense.


To recap: Fangs cast powerful elemental spells, and Curtains offer protection from various elements. We're practically swimming in these things now, of course. Even if we weren't, we've got half a collection of Ribbons and access to Zach's Nul-spells. Essentially the treasure remains filler.


Ooh! Here's something worth having! I'm pretty sure if you had a mind to do it, you could max out everyone's stats by running the bonus dungeons and stockpiling these Plus items.


With that, we put the cool-ass fire shrine world behind us and...


♪♪ Matoya's Cave ♪♪

...dammit.

Okay, this is the single most annoying floor in the entire game. This floor makes the pink forest from Earthgift Shrine look like a chump.

There are no random encounters on this floor, but it is just stupid with spiked squares. The spiked squares are marked with shimmering lights, but they are only barely perceptible while playing the game (and next to impossible to capture on a screenshot). The trick is, then, to navigate the floor by sticking to the non-sparkly tiles wherever possible.

Only, it's never possible, because of all these NPCs wandering around. The people walk along set paths, back and forth, so you can't simply "wait them out" the way you can elsewhere in the game. They don't pause when they change direction, either, so if the tile you need to stand on is towards the end of their patrol you need godlike timing to step forward without overshooting your aim. You can't simply tap the button to take one step because the window of opportunity is so narrow. And you can't hold the button against them and wait for your chance to move, because then you're too likely to make two steps instead of one. When that happens not only are you pretty much guaranteed to run directly into a spiked square, but you just have to turn around and try your luck again with the NPC.


On the plus side, the treasure in this dungeon is fantastic.

*gunshot*


Here's another of those magic Tonics. We can buy as many of these as we want from the Caravan, up topside. I can't really think of a situation where this item would be very useful, though; why use this rather than an Ether?


WOMAN I WILL KILL YOU. I WILL KILL YOU DEAD. I WILL KILL YOU SO HARD YOUR GRANDCHILDREN FEEL IT.


Who knows how many pairs of these shoes I have at this point.


None of the NPCs have anything funny or interesting to say. In fact, they don't have anything to say at all. This whole floor was made as an homage to the annoying tendancy of NPCs to get stuck in your way in tile-based RPGs, and by "homage" I mean "I want whoever designed this level to be raped by a walrus".

♪♪ Mt. Gulg ♪♪

The next level is a nice, inoffensive volcano maze. Almost... calming, really.


I don't have these levels memorized, but I know for a fact that this second dead end is supposed to have a treasure box in it. Randomly removing treasure boxes from floors is probably the most bullshit thing the bonus dungeons do to you. The RNG is already stacked against you here simply by virtue of only having one or two floors that can spawn all the boxes in the first place. Randomly eliminating some of those boxes for no reason is simply unnecessary.

On the other hand, it was probably a Red Curtain or something, so no big loss.


Yay! Now we can afford that beautiful house by the sea!


It's impossible to reach that little nook behind the staircase. If I'd designed this level I'd have hard-coded a treasure box to spawn back there simply to screw with the player's head. And then some dude would have LP'd my level, and said "I want whoever designed this to be raped by a walrus". And the world would keep on spinnin'.


It took forever to find the route to that box in the corner. I got an Emergency Exit for my trouble, which is actually a pretty useful little item to have considering nobody on the team can cast Exit. We also found a Giant's Tonic, which raises someone's max HP for the duration of a fight. It was liberal application of those Tonics, plus lots of X-Potions and Elixirs, that allowed my Thief✗4 team to beat some of the superbosses.


♪♪ Menu Screen ♪♪

Well, that's it for the dungeon levels of Hellfire Chasm. The back half of the trip was pretty lava-heavy, so the guys need to suck down copious amounts of Hi-Potion to get them back to happy. Zach and Percy also need Ethers to replenish their tiny weiner MP supplies.


♪♪ Boss Battle B ♪♪

Unlike Cagnazzo, who used an elemental attack against which there was no defense, Zach can mitigate the "crucible of Rubicante's flames" thanks to NulBlaze.

Actually, I'm not certain that FF1 makes the distinction between water and ice magic. It's a moot point, though, since NulFrost is L4 magic and Zach can't access it. I suppose I could have tried using a Blue Curtain, though.


Zach, the fire shield works better if you get it up before the boss rocks your face with an explosion. Duh.

To be honest I'm not really sure why they bothered giving any of these bosses a single-target attack. 500 damage to the guy with almost 800 HPs? That's like a gift.


Once again the name of the game is buffing BlBelt to high heaven so he can take care of business for us. In FF4 Rubicante was weak to ice, but could shield himself with his cloak and cause such magic to heal him instead. He doesn't have access to that trick now, but his magic resistance is high enough that physical damage is still the way to go.

And once again, the fight degenerates into a race to get as many Tempers stacked on top of BlBelt's naturally buff Popeye muscles as possible.


Here, Percy demonstrates excellent timing by using a Hi-Potion on Zach after he's already been killed. Excellent work, Percy!

The sad truth about Zach is that his only role in these fights is to eat whatever damage is required to buy time for the other guys to get BlBelt buffed. He can't deal damage and he can't heal. Even NulBlaze is kind of a wash, to be honest. I suppose I could have put him to work feeding BlBelt and Ika some Giant's Tonics in order to get their max HP up, but then he'd just have to heal them and, well, see point #2.


Even with NulBlaze up, Rubicante's fire attack is too much for Ika to bear. The time for buffing is over; now we simply hammer Attack and hope we've got enough Temper stacked on to carve away the rest of Rubicante's health.


Yeah. Kind of like that. Kind of... exactly like that.

BlBelt is the fucking man.


♪♪ Victory ♪♪

Our prize is a pretty awesome new sword, which Zach will put to good use just as soon as he's not dead anymore.


Our second prize is another Ribbon. That's right, one boss here dropped an item that casts NulAll on one person one time, then the other boss dropped an item that casts NulAll on one person forever.

FF1 veterans (or non-veterans who have read my previous LPs) will note that vanilla FF1 only has three Ribbons: one in the Waterfall, one in the Sunken Shrine and one in the Flying Fortress. You always had to choose which of your four warriors would go without protection -- until now. Even though this isn't a new item, it's one of the best treasures you can acquire in the bonus dungeons.


Again, killing the boss locks you in the teleporter room. You have to run the whole dungeon a second time in order to bring down the other two bosses.

Next: "Barbariccia's winds shall cut you down!"

Brickroad, you have to avoid the tiles that are lava. Has childhood taught you nothing?

Well, technically, the NPCs have stuff to say. But it's all a variation on "don't go this way it is a bad idea" and never a really clever variation on it anyway.

One guy does make a Homestar Runner reference. That's the sole redeeming feature of that floor, and it's not even worth seeking out.

"I hope you get raped by a walrus" is the best insult ever. Thank you.

THIS.