The Final Fantasy Legend
And here we have the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the reason I hunted down this book in the first place: Jeff’s terrible, terrible coverage of Final Fantasy Legend. The man simply didn’t understand rpgs, and honestly, I’m pretty sure he didn’t even read the entire manual.
As a reminder,
my Let’s Play of FFL is probably the most in-depth LP I’ve done, and can certainly teach you everything you need to know about the game.
Jeff calls this a “role-playing quest” and correctly notes that you’re trying to find Paradise by climbing the Tower. In the hero section, the problems begin: He says, “You earn greater strength (Hit Points) as you win battles, the results of which are decided by the computer...The more Hit Points you have, the stronger the weapons you can purchase.” And wow. Strength is a different stat than HP; only Mutants gain HP (or strength) via fighting battles; the results of battles are determined by the actions you input; and your HP has no influence on what you can purchase or equip. Maybe he’s somehow conflating HP with GP? You do get money after every battle and basic capitalism is in effect.
In the strategy section, Jeff claims that “how to win” is relatively easy and all you need to do is “build your Hit Points, arm yourself to the teeth, talk to just about everyone you meet, and the rest is like playing connect-the-dots.” I mean, Nintendo Power’s readers apparently beg to differ, as it seemed like all of the Counselor’s Corner questions were “Where do I go next?” Then again, Jeff doesn’t even get to the battle with King Sword in his coverage, which is maybe halfway through the base world. The manual takes you through the beginning of the ocean world!
So instead of extensive walkthrough, Jeff spends a lot of time on team composition. He claims, “Monsters are especially good at the later levels,” which I suppose you can claim is true if you build up a powerful monster in the early game (which I did in my LP), but is absolutely false when you take the game as a whole. Monsters are actually the worst for the endgame because they top out at the same strength level as non-boss enemies you’re fighting stacks of. I’m reasonably certain a 4-monster party mathematically can’t beat the Creator without the saw glitch.
Jeff is really down on Mutants, claiming that they are more trouble than they’re worth because they only get experience by striking the final blow in battle. This is not true, but even if it was, the fact that Mutants can use magic books would make that extremely easy to arrange for the majority of the game.
Jeff recommends for your Humans, “boost their Hit Points to 200 and don’t let them drop below that.” He later notes, “If you have enough Gold, you’ll be able to purchase 200 Hit Points from a merchant. You can’t make a better investment than that!” This is all indicating that Jeff didn’t understand the system at all, by both advising that your Human characters should...never take damage, I guess (because max HP can never be reduced in this game), and confusing the HP200 item (which raises Human max HP by 10-20 points up to 200) with just buying 200 HP. Oh, and he only mentions the Inn in relation to finding the Guild at the beginning; I don’t think he knows that you can heal there, or if he’s somehow mixed up the GP/HP exchange it does. (He has one line that you should also buy strength and agility from the shops because they are “enormously valuable to Humans,” but gives no indication as to why. He doesn’t actually reference any stats other than HP anywhere else.)
Jeff’s ideal team is two Humans (male and female) and two Goblins, and there shouldn’t be any surprise that he thinks you want Axes or Long Swords for both of them because he doesn’t distinguish between strength-based and agility-based weapons. He directs you to fight 3-4 random battles on your way to the Bandit’s Cave (hah!) and doesn’t mention the treasure room there at all. Afterwards he gives the big hint that there’s another castle you can find by circling to the south, but there are dangerous Wererats and Karatakas there, so keep those Hit Points up!
Jeff gives this game an A rating, which is absolutely valid though strange given he really doesn’t understand how to play it. He says it’s “not quite as complex” as Zelda (which is a statement well-suited to starting a fight) but that “Role playing buffs will eat it up like they were Monsters faced with Meat!”
And yeah, this is the most hilarious bad coverage I think I’ve ever seen of a video game, with outright counterproductive “tips” and a complete misunderstanding of all of the game’s systems. Like, just reading the manual and never touching the game would make it clear Jeff doesn’t know what he’s talking about, as would playing pretty much any other console rpg.
...And now I’m desperately curious to know if the rest of his books included Final Fantasy or any of the Dragon Warrior games.