You can buy Holy in Mysidia, which can be accessed before Red Soul though the journey is perilous. Holy is actually non-elemental in FF2 making beating Red Soul doable.
@@Xephrost_Gaming It's super unintuitive because you have to know that you can get to Mysidia early and that Holy is non-elemental. The second bit's the most cruel too as the game (the PR version anyway) explicitly says the spell "Deals holy damage." but that element doesn't exist in FF2 at all.
@@blastaroopyro Unfortunately not, Red Souls absorb all elements (even status elements) and Scourge is poison element. The only magic that can damage is non-elemental like Drain and Holy (and Flare but I don't think you can get that early enough for the boss)
You don't need to grind and the game progresses very naturally if you just stick to a role for the characters. Instead of having the mages sitting the entire dungeons because you can't waste MP, you use their spells (you can rotate to the ones that need leveling) in every fight. That solves the problem of having the physical attackers being the only useful roles for most of the game. You can give cure to everyone for menu healing, but mostly you'll want to have a white magic user (it uses a different stat than black magic), a black magic user and a physical attacker. As you use magic, the corresponding stat and MP grows. As a physical attacker you get strength and more attacks. HP grows naturally as you receive damage (and every 10 battles or so you have a guaranteed growth). The only real problem with the system is the implementation of back rows, because ranged weapons decrease magical stats by 70% and it also halves the HP growth because you receive less damage. So the idea of placing mages in the back row with bows is very counter productive, and as most people played that way (following the logics of other FFs and RPGs) they feel that magic is pretty weak in this game. Another trap of the system is that shields are almost a must to survive because all attacks, including magic, factor evasion, because everything is multi hit (from 1 to 16, that's why everything has 16 levels); and many feel tempted to dual wield weapons (to also level up them quicker) and have the instinct of thinking that more HP is the rule to follow, an mid game onwards you can have lots of HP and you'll still be deleted by a 16 hit attack. The game also has a hidden lvl value for every enemy that progresses as you fight tougher enemies that makes your spells and stats lvl up faster (that's why, for example, you lvled up your weapons to 2 in a single fight with the red soul). So the popular "hit yourself" tactics that most people recommend and use to grind for hours in the first areas are tedious and unnecessary. In this case you should've every character dedicated exclusively for a magic type and stick mostly to that. Also, as you won't use attack, you can dual wield shields, they stack, but you still need to attack with them equipped to lvlup them.
If you owned a copy of Final fantasy origins for the PS1 the manual shows which effects are temporary and which effects are permanent, they also show the rank that requires their effects to basuna and esuna. Here's a quick guide for the Basuna and Esuna spells for FFII Basuna (Levels in number and their effectiveness) 1.Venom 2.sleep 3.silence 4. Mini 5.paralysis 6-(16) Confusion Esuna 1.Poison, darkness 2.curse 3.Amnesia 4. toad 5.stone 7-16 On occasion revive a downed party member. hope this guide helps those of you who play ffII pixel remaster. Also When Ultima was made for FFII there was two different concepts for it the one we all know (and isn't even in the game) and the Ultima that deals around 500 damage regardless of what level the other spells are (Ultima probably included)
This was an interesting idea. Thanks for exploring it! FF2's magic is both cool for its accessibility and banal for how much functionality is locked behind high spell levels. I was sure that spells didn't benefit from enemy rank when leveling, but while I was looking up the evasion formula I saw that they do. So it was useful for you to level up in a strong place. And then I looked up the bonus exp thing I was going to mention and it only applies to weapon attacks. (If you gain at least 1 weapon exp in a battle, 10 more gets added to the total) It's kind of interesting. Your weapon/spell level is subtracted from your total exp gain per battle, and the enemy rank is added. So if you cast a level 1 spell 1 time against a rank 6 enemy you would gain -1+1+6= 6 exp, but a level 7 spell 1 time against a rank 6 enemy would gain -7+1+6=0. In my playthrough I took the time to cast all of my spells once per battle (and didn't learn many for that reason) and I felt like my spells were okay. Don't think any spell made it over 7 across the whole playthrough though. Speaking of my playthrough, _evasion._ By wearing equipment with as little weight as possible* and starting out with shields to get the ball rolling, you can snowball the evasion (agility) stat. Becoming effectively immune to physical attacks by the end of the game. The downside is low hp since you rarely take damage, but endgame enemies solve that with aoe magic XD *Armour lowers evasion directly. So until the thief gloves come along with their huge agility boost, you really can't wear anything with a penalty since it lowers your growth rate. It's well worth the hassle though.
I’m one of the few who actually likes this game. Sadly it doesn’t tell its story well, and you have the boss that magic doesn’t work on (I had to attack it also). But I also allowed myself to grind so I was a bit OP at that point. End game caught up with me. But anyway, awesome video!! I kind of need to do this again now that I saw you do it. And can’t wait for the next one!
If you wanted to take the time you could travel up a little bit further north from the main castle itself to fight ogre mages and I think also you can go towards the dreadnought too if you're really desperate but seeing how you have the pixel remastered you can turn off encounters and just go down to the magic City and by the spells that you needed 8:42
If I remember coorrectly, success rate for spells increases as they level up. But equipment can also give a magic penalty, especially heavy armour, so there's that. I', not sure if teleport works on Red Soul, but it's a spell that can work on most enemies including some bosses if at a decent level. I still remember the GBA version. I ended up beating every late to endgame boss with magic only, as this was my only source to even do damage at all. For some reason, hitting with weapon did no damage at all. And my magic only did scratch damage. Though the GBA had no life hacks to increase stat increases. 10 Minutes for the final boss sounds perfectly normal. I would have also equipped everyone with shields, as attacking was no option. If I recall correctly, shields increase the evasion stat, so the emperor's physical attack might have been not as fatal during the first try. I shopuld finish the FF2 Pixel Remaster some time.
I guess magic-only is already covered for 1,5,12 because of black mages. Though at least 12 might be worth a revisit since "all" magic is a much different story (leagues easier) than black-only, plus archaeoavis would be "legit" possible with summons I think.
To everyone saying to use the teleport spell on Red Soul, it’s worth noting that he’s playing on the Pixel Remaster version, in which far fewer enemies are vulnerable to teleport, or at least had their resistance to it increased. But Holy will work even in PR due to it being non-elemental. As for 24:28, the back row in the PR was changed to how it works in other Final Fantasy games, halving short range damage dealt and taken.
Yeah, the other thing that made getting accurate information on FF2 is it's been released so many times and they are all a little different. I don't really have an excuse on holy though. lol.
Teleport also got nerf in Pixel Remaster it's base accuracy has been reduce compare to previous version, and the Red Soul is a foe immune to Teleport anyway.
Gordon's diaapearince post Mythril Mines is pretty much the reason why the party had to fetch to Goddess Bell. Scott or Gordon apparently could open the door without it according to NPCs. Also boosting agility which affects Evasion(the god stat) would be helpful. IRRC Evasion is the stat actually used to determine turn order and training increasing the number of evades you get can make physical attacks a non issue anyways. Some enemies have pretty dangerous effects tied to their physical attacks so evading them is better than tanking them, drains on physical attack don't matter when they can't hit you. Draining Physcial attack do damage equal to 1/16 of targets Max HP per hit in addition to the regular damage they deal. Armor also has some pretty strict penalties to not only evasion but also Magic Damage and Magic Accuracy which has an effect on all magic including buff spells. It was even better in before the Pixel remaster due to the original row system, the row system was changed to be more in line with later FInal Fantasy Games. Many bosses become regular enemies in later dungeon so them having lower HP makes sense.
I really like FF2 leveling system in theory. The practical application of it though leaves much to be desired. There are some funny ways to cheese the hell out of it which is fairly interesting at least. I've only played the GBA version of the game. Other than FF6's remaster, I really don't care for the sprite work in the pixel remaster games. Most of them end up with an art style that feels like two games smashed together.
Shields are very useful. At least in the original version…..I don’t know if your playing a “remastered” version or original. But since yiu aren’t attacking….did you equip 2 shields?
Thunder Gigas is weak to Scourge. Barrier is the opposite of Dispel in a way, negating the effects of Random elements against you (Ice is somehow the last resistance you get for some reason?) Dispel actually (attempts to) negate the enemy Resistances in that same order. No effects on absorptions, though. Wall negates Black Magic spells if they are a lower level than Wall (so Wall VIII would negate Fire I-VII). I had to check the guides many times to get it right (and I may still get it wrong here), because this game is a mess, with 0 explanation.
Mages that spawn north of the first town occupied by soldiers have a low chance to drop drain I believe. I didn't do magic only but I did magic centric Maria only recently
It's a shame you didn't know that Staffs have the least amount of Magic Penalty. You could've bought 3 staffs from the start of the game and never buy weapons again.
Yeah, in a casual run, it's very difficult to have more than 1-3 spells leveled up per character. For anything outside that, throwing tomes is your best bet.
Does PR force 4 Chimera for that cave boss fight, or did you get really unlucky each time? Other versions have that encounter as variable. (something like 2-4 chimeras)
Every time I tried the fight, I got 4. Not sure if that's guaranteed in the pr version, but the wiki does say it varies. So maybe I just got super unlucky
You should have just equipped double shields, even if you don't raise Shield LV and Shield reduce your magic, Evasion is just the most important stat in this game, getting high Evasion (and some Blink) is much more effective to survive physical attacks than raising Defense and HP, Evasion is also for some reason the stat that determine turn orders. Also the way Blink works in this game it only increase the left number of the Evasion stat which can only be max out to 16, so it was pointless to cast it a "comical number of times" with Blink VIII your left number of Evasion was max out after 3-4 cast XD. Also the way Back Row works in regard to physical attacks was change in Pixel Remaster to be the same as the other FF games, so you had the right information... but not for this specific version of FFII.
Good to know. I had trouble finding any exact numbers on what any of the buff spells do. I didn't realize that evasion maxed out so quickly. And that makes more sense on the rows. I assumed the emperor was cheating because I never put characters in the back row in this game. I did it once in my first playthrough on the GBA version and I ended the game with my front row characters having 2,000-3,000 hp and my backrow character having about 900.
@Xephrost_Gaming Yep sounds about right, if you put them in the back row in previous version, they only take damage from ennemies's spells, plus the GBA and onward versions added a mechanic were characters are set to gain Max HP regardless after a certain number of battles, as a trade off on previous version every physical attack in the back row will miss unless the character use a Bow.
In future, I'd recommend setting attribute levelling to 1x or 0.5x instead of 0. Even if it's lessened it'll prevent the awkward situation you created for yourself in this run.
oooh magic only in FF2 if you don't know the game in and out is ill-advised. I expected red soul t obe a run ender and was right^^ Teleport level 6+ when grinding teleport that high is a bitch. I do believe it is undead but am not sure, but iif it is, cure could kill it (but lets be real who thinks to use cure to kill an enemy? I typically only kill zombies that way to meme around, turns out "cure" is a damage type that everyone but undeads has "absorb" for. while undead are weak to it). But when I saw you didn't grind north of Fynn or did the captaib grind in Fynn after that I fully expected you to get slaughtered 90% of the game. grinding is VERY mandatory but also rewarding. Once you're able to kill a captain, no matter how lucky you need to get, they bring a lot of skill levels and money in shape of good gear. but well you got grinding later. And yeah blink is almost mandatory on the emperor. I think I didn't need it on my all fists run, but that was it essentially. (because fists in FF2 are absurd. they are nuts in early game, bad in midgame and good in end game again)
The intent was mostly just to give him something to do, as he joins too late for me to actually take the time to make him useful. The other thought was getting toad up to 16 to access the better minigame to get powerful equipment. But I have since learned that the matching tile minigame doesn't exist in the pixel remaster. So, it was actually just a waste of time.
It's a shame that shields only level up by attacking, as just dual wielding them would've otherwise been a viable way to dodge tank large chunks of the game.
Yeah, I briefly equipped shields to dodge the emperor's attacks, but because my shield levels were at 0, it didn't actually improve evasion. Real bummer.
I didn't use shields for most of the playthrough because they have high magic interference which can make some spells (mostly status spells) less effective. They would also be less effective because I can't increase the shield skill since I can't use the attack command. I did dual wield shields with everyone in the final emperor fight, though. Mostly because evading every attack was essential to my strategy (and ultima is not affected by magic interference).
Shields should level by being attacked but nope. In FF2 they are treated like every other "weapon". Which is a real bummer. Having high level shield skill would have been very helpful in this run. Depending on how much magic interference actually impacted spellcasting (which is questionable).
Time for a couple crazy facts about my relationship with this game. FF2 was my first foray into the final fantasy series so this game has some weird nostalgia for me. I might be one of the tens of people who actually DOESN'T hate the stat progression system! Crazy, right? I know, I don't even believe it myself. This final fantasy is the one i have completed the most challenge runs of.(If it's not this, then it's definitely FFX). With those facts aside, the only thing about this game that i am unfond of, it's the fact that the majority of extra rooms have nothing in there except for enemy hell.(GET ME OUT OF HERE!) Hot take: Gordon is not actually the worst guest party member like everyone says he is.
People who don't hate FF2's stat progression system: There are dozens of us! Dozens I say! I've always thought it was really cool, and have been disappointed that they never went back to something similar.
fyi if you want to see a version of this levelling system that is far far far better check out the gameboy SaGa games. the 2nd and 3rd also got ds remakes(like ff3/4) that generally kept it as well but helped to smooth it all Edit: Also you can get drain via drops before you reach red soul.
Guy sure can speak beaver, wink wink nudge nudge. I still play this every now and again, but it is pretty odd. Great ideas dismantled for the 8 bit hardware, to my mind.
This game's leveling system is not a good thing given your spells require you to grind them against the wall of progress. Only to not matter cause Blink Spam beats everything. Game really wants you to use physical given Leon has the same MP he started with.
Magic is hopelessly undertuned in this game. It's only useful early on because your starting stats are terrible so there are enemies you just can't damage with weapons. I didn't notice this until I tried a magic-only run myself and enjoyed it way less than I expected to.
Oh by the way, Gordon got into the castle ahead of you because his voice has the ability to open the door. The Goddess Bell is the option for those who aren't nobility. I think it's in like one line of NPC dialogue somewhere that's easily missed. There's no explanation for Minwu though :P
FF2 is such an absolute mess of a game lol. To this day its still one of the few mainline Final Fantasies ive yet to beat. I just cant bring myself to slog through it
A. I'm sorry you're playing FF2. B. I'm sorry you're doing an all magic run. I shall subscribe to pay my respects. Please provide us more of your suffering 🥹
You can buy Holy in Mysidia, which can be accessed before Red Soul though the journey is perilous. Holy is actually non-elemental in FF2 making beating Red Soul doable.
Adding to the list of ways I could have beaten Red Soul. Apparently there were a decent number I missed. lol.
@@Xephrost_Gaming It's super unintuitive because you have to know that you can get to Mysidia early and that Holy is non-elemental. The second bit's the most cruel too as the game (the PR version anyway) explicitly says the spell "Deals holy damage." but that element doesn't exist in FF2 at all.
Scourge which from mages deals damage to it I believe
@@blastaroopyro Unfortunately not, Red Souls absorb all elements (even status elements) and Scourge is poison element. The only magic that can damage is non-elemental like Drain and Holy (and Flare but I don't think you can get that early enough for the boss)
You can get Flare from battles in Fynn Castle's entrance. Takes very long though, Holy is easier to grab.
You don't need to grind and the game progresses very naturally if you just stick to a role for the characters. Instead of having the mages sitting the entire dungeons because you can't waste MP, you use their spells (you can rotate to the ones that need leveling) in every fight. That solves the problem of having the physical attackers being the only useful roles for most of the game. You can give cure to everyone for menu healing, but mostly you'll want to have a white magic user (it uses a different stat than black magic), a black magic user and a physical attacker. As you use magic, the corresponding stat and MP grows. As a physical attacker you get strength and more attacks. HP grows naturally as you receive damage (and every 10 battles or so you have a guaranteed growth).
The only real problem with the system is the implementation of back rows, because ranged weapons decrease magical stats by 70% and it also halves the HP growth because you receive less damage. So the idea of placing mages in the back row with bows is very counter productive, and as most people played that way (following the logics of other FFs and RPGs) they feel that magic is pretty weak in this game. Another trap of the system is that shields are almost a must to survive because all attacks, including magic, factor evasion, because everything is multi hit (from 1 to 16, that's why everything has 16 levels); and many feel tempted to dual wield weapons (to also level up them quicker) and have the instinct of thinking that more HP is the rule to follow, an mid game onwards you can have lots of HP and you'll still be deleted by a 16 hit attack.
The game also has a hidden lvl value for every enemy that progresses as you fight tougher enemies that makes your spells and stats lvl up faster (that's why, for example, you lvled up your weapons to 2 in a single fight with the red soul). So the popular "hit yourself" tactics that most people recommend and use to grind for hours in the first areas are tedious and unnecessary.
In this case you should've every character dedicated exclusively for a magic type and stick mostly to that. Also, as you won't use attack, you can dual wield shields, they stack, but you still need to attack with them equipped to lvlup them.
You need to level up your teleport spell to about level 6 before you can teleport the Red Soul boss. (still not 100% though).
If you owned a copy of Final fantasy origins for the PS1 the manual shows which effects are temporary and which effects are permanent, they also show the rank that requires their effects to basuna and esuna.
Here's a quick guide for the Basuna and Esuna spells for FFII
Basuna (Levels in number and their effectiveness)
1.Venom
2.sleep
3.silence
4. Mini
5.paralysis
6-(16) Confusion
Esuna
1.Poison, darkness
2.curse
3.Amnesia
4. toad
5.stone
7-16 On occasion revive a downed party member.
hope this guide helps those of you who play ffII pixel remaster. Also When Ultima was made for FFII there was two different concepts for it the one we all know (and isn't even in the game) and the Ultima that deals around 500 damage regardless of what level the other spells are (Ultima probably included)
“Guy can speak beaver…and they Guy’s us through.” 😂 comedic genius
We can pretend that was a joke and not just me doing a bad job speaking. lol
@ a w is a w whether or not it’s intentional
I'm pretty sure putting the white mask on the statue unlocks the door being guarded by the doppleganger that you need to remove with the black mask.
This was an interesting idea. Thanks for exploring it! FF2's magic is both cool for its accessibility and banal for how much functionality is locked behind high spell levels.
I was sure that spells didn't benefit from enemy rank when leveling, but while I was looking up the evasion formula I saw that they do. So it was useful for you to level up in a strong place.
And then I looked up the bonus exp thing I was going to mention and it only applies to weapon attacks. (If you gain at least 1 weapon exp in a battle, 10 more gets added to the total)
It's kind of interesting. Your weapon/spell level is subtracted from your total exp gain per battle, and the enemy rank is added. So if you cast a level 1 spell 1 time against a rank 6 enemy you would gain -1+1+6= 6 exp, but a level 7 spell 1 time against a rank 6 enemy would gain -7+1+6=0.
In my playthrough I took the time to cast all of my spells once per battle (and didn't learn many for that reason) and I felt like my spells were okay. Don't think any spell made it over 7 across the whole playthrough though.
Speaking of my playthrough, _evasion._ By wearing equipment with as little weight as possible* and starting out with shields to get the ball rolling, you can snowball the evasion (agility) stat. Becoming effectively immune to physical attacks by the end of the game. The downside is low hp since you rarely take damage, but endgame enemies solve that with aoe magic XD
*Armour lowers evasion directly. So until the thief gloves come along with their huge agility boost, you really can't wear anything with a penalty since it lowers your growth rate. It's well worth the hassle though.
I know for a fact that in the psp version of this game, ALL but two bosses are vulnerable to teleport. Good shit square enix.
I’m one of the few who actually likes this game. Sadly it doesn’t tell its story well, and you have the boss that magic doesn’t work on (I had to attack it also). But I also allowed myself to grind so I was a bit OP at that point. End game caught up with me. But anyway, awesome video!! I kind of need to do this again now that I saw you do it. And can’t wait for the next one!
If you wanted to take the time you could travel up a little bit further north from the main castle itself to fight ogre mages and I think also you can go towards the dreadnought too if you're really desperate but seeing how you have the pixel remastered you can turn off encounters and just go down to the magic City and by the spells that you needed 8:42
If I remember coorrectly, success rate for spells increases as they level up. But equipment can also give a magic penalty, especially heavy armour, so there's that. I', not sure if teleport works on Red Soul, but it's a spell that can work on most enemies including some bosses if at a decent level.
I still remember the GBA version. I ended up beating every late to endgame boss with magic only, as this was my only source to even do damage at all. For some reason, hitting with weapon did no damage at all. And my magic only did scratch damage. Though the GBA had no life hacks to increase stat increases. 10 Minutes for the final boss sounds perfectly normal.
I would have also equipped everyone with shields, as attacking was no option. If I recall correctly, shields increase the evasion stat, so the emperor's physical attack might have been not as fatal during the first try. I shopuld finish the FF2 Pixel Remaster some time.
I guess magic-only is already covered for 1,5,12 because of black mages. Though at least 12 might be worth a revisit since "all" magic is a much different story (leagues easier) than black-only, plus archaeoavis would be "legit" possible with summons I think.
To everyone saying to use the teleport spell on Red Soul, it’s worth noting that he’s playing on the Pixel Remaster version, in which far fewer enemies are vulnerable to teleport, or at least had their resistance to it increased. But Holy will work even in PR due to it being non-elemental.
As for 24:28, the back row in the PR was changed to how it works in other Final Fantasy games, halving short range damage dealt and taken.
Yeah, the other thing that made getting accurate information on FF2 is it's been released so many times and they are all a little different. I don't really have an excuse on holy though. lol.
Teleport also got nerf in Pixel Remaster it's base accuracy has been reduce compare to previous version, and the Red Soul is a foe immune to Teleport anyway.
Gordon's diaapearince post Mythril Mines is pretty much the reason why the party had to fetch to Goddess Bell. Scott or Gordon apparently could open the door without it according to NPCs.
Also boosting agility which affects Evasion(the god stat) would be helpful. IRRC Evasion is the stat actually used to determine turn order and training increasing the number of evades you get can make physical attacks a non issue anyways. Some enemies have pretty dangerous effects tied to their physical attacks so evading them is better than tanking them, drains on physical attack don't matter when they can't hit you. Draining Physcial attack do damage equal to 1/16 of targets Max HP per hit in addition to the regular damage they deal. Armor also has some pretty strict penalties to not only evasion but also Magic Damage and Magic Accuracy which has an effect on all magic including buff spells. It was even better in before the Pixel remaster due to the original row system, the row system was changed to be more in line with later FInal Fantasy Games.
Many bosses become regular enemies in later dungeon so them having lower HP makes sense.
Teleport and Toad are very powerful but you have to level them up past 5 or 6 before they become useful, but by 10 to 12, they are rather OP.
You can actually make it to Mysidia at this point and buy FADE, a non elemental damage spell. That's how you can beat Red Soul with magic.
I really like FF2 leveling system in theory. The practical application of it though leaves much to be desired. There are some funny ways to cheese the hell out of it which is fairly interesting at least. I've only played the GBA version of the game. Other than FF6's remaster, I really don't care for the sprite work in the pixel remaster games. Most of them end up with an art style that feels like two games smashed together.
Drain. It absorbs all elemental magic
Teleport (if leveled up sufficiently) can kill all but 4 enemies in the game. Not 4 types, 4 total. Red soul included.
Shields are very useful.
At least in the original version…..I don’t know if your playing a “remastered” version or original.
But since yiu aren’t attacking….did you equip 2 shields?
Thunder Gigas is weak to Scourge.
Barrier is the opposite of Dispel in a way, negating the effects of Random elements against you (Ice is somehow the last resistance you get for some reason?) Dispel actually (attempts to) negate the enemy Resistances in that same order. No effects on absorptions, though.
Wall negates Black Magic spells if they are a lower level than Wall (so Wall VIII would negate Fire I-VII).
I had to check the guides many times to get it right (and I may still get it wrong here), because this game is a mess, with 0 explanation.
That's good info. Because yeah, the game communicates how some of its spells work very poorly.
Mages that spawn north of the first town occupied by soldiers have a low chance to drop drain I believe. I didn't do magic only but I did magic centric Maria only recently
It's a shame you didn't know that Staffs have the least amount of Magic Penalty. You could've bought 3 staffs from the start of the game and never buy weapons again.
'Why am I not doing FF1? Simple, I don't hate myself.'
I mean, there are other reasons I'll get into. But also, yes. Lol
Step one: Spend 18 hours leveling up before going to fight the first boss, just to have enough MP to actually make it there and back.
I always ignored magic besides Cure, Blink, Life and Teleport in FF2. Leveling spells took to long, I just used the tomes as items in battles
Yeah, in a casual run, it's very difficult to have more than 1-3 spells leveled up per character. For anything outside that, throwing tomes is your best bet.
This is what makes me think Final Fantasy II needs a full blown remake.
Yeah, the idea isn't fundamentally unworkable. The implementation just isn't good. Which is fair, it was an NES game.
Yeah, Teleport is the most overpowered spell in the game. The number of enemies that are immune to it you can count on one hand
I think Primal Liquid done something similar and had to go and farm Holy or something to beat the Red Soul
He has a video where like he maxes everything out at the start of the game, wild stuff.
Yeah I think it's non-elemental in this game, just a white mage version of Flare.
FF5 Summoner only when? I love getting these videos on Fridays to help the afternoon go by.
Does PR force 4 Chimera for that cave boss fight, or did you get really unlucky each time? Other versions have that encounter as variable. (something like 2-4 chimeras)
Every time I tried the fight, I got 4. Not sure if that's guaranteed in the pr version, but the wiki does say it varies. So maybe I just got super unlucky
I wonder how a single class only challenge would go for DQ 3, 6, 7, and 9.
You should have just equipped double shields, even if you don't raise Shield LV and Shield reduce your magic, Evasion is just the most important stat in this game, getting high Evasion (and some Blink) is much more effective to survive physical attacks than raising Defense and HP, Evasion is also for some reason the stat that determine turn orders. Also the way Blink works in this game it only increase the left number of the Evasion stat which can only be max out to 16, so it was pointless to cast it a "comical number of times" with Blink VIII your left number of Evasion was max out after 3-4 cast XD.
Also the way Back Row works in regard to physical attacks was change in Pixel Remaster to be the same as the other FF games, so you had the right information... but not for this specific version of FFII.
Good to know. I had trouble finding any exact numbers on what any of the buff spells do. I didn't realize that evasion maxed out so quickly.
And that makes more sense on the rows. I assumed the emperor was cheating because I never put characters in the back row in this game. I did it once in my first playthrough on the GBA version and I ended the game with my front row characters having 2,000-3,000 hp and my backrow character having about 900.
@Xephrost_Gaming Yep sounds about right, if you put them in the back row in previous version, they only take damage from ennemies's spells, plus the GBA and onward versions added a mechanic were characters are set to gain Max HP regardless after a certain number of battles, as a trade off on previous version every physical attack in the back row will miss unless the character use a Bow.
In future, I'd recommend setting attribute levelling to 1x or 0.5x instead of 0. Even if it's lessened it'll prevent the awkward situation you created for yourself in this run.
I foolishly believed in myself to remember to turn that back on. That was my mistake.
oooh magic only in FF2 if you don't know the game in and out is ill-advised. I expected red soul t obe a run ender and was right^^ Teleport level 6+ when grinding teleport that high is a bitch. I do believe it is undead but am not sure, but iif it is, cure could kill it (but lets be real who thinks to use cure to kill an enemy? I typically only kill zombies that way to meme around, turns out "cure" is a damage type that everyone but undeads has "absorb" for. while undead are weak to it). But when I saw you didn't grind north of Fynn or did the captaib grind in Fynn after that I fully expected you to get slaughtered 90% of the game. grinding is VERY mandatory but also rewarding. Once you're able to kill a captain, no matter how lucky you need to get, they bring a lot of skill levels and money in shape of good gear. but well you got grinding later. And yeah blink is almost mandatory on the emperor. I think I didn't need it on my all fists run, but that was it essentially. (because fists in FF2 are absurd. they are nuts in early game, bad in midgame and good in end game again)
I don't understand the reason you taught Toad to Leon. Can somebody explain it please?
The intent was mostly just to give him something to do, as he joins too late for me to actually take the time to make him useful. The other thought was getting toad up to 16 to access the better minigame to get powerful equipment. But I have since learned that the matching tile minigame doesn't exist in the pixel remaster. So, it was actually just a waste of time.
It's a shame that shields only level up by attacking, as just dual wielding them would've otherwise been a viable way to dodge tank large chunks of the game.
Yeah, I briefly equipped shields to dodge the emperor's attacks, but because my shield levels were at 0, it didn't actually improve evasion. Real bummer.
I'm guessing you slept on using shields.
I didn't use shields for most of the playthrough because they have high magic interference which can make some spells (mostly status spells) less effective. They would also be less effective because I can't increase the shield skill since I can't use the attack command.
I did dual wield shields with everyone in the final emperor fight, though. Mostly because evading every attack was essential to my strategy (and ultima is not affected by magic interference).
@@Xephrost_Gaming I always thought shields leveled by being attacked and I forgot about magic interference.
Shields should level by being attacked but nope. In FF2 they are treated like every other "weapon". Which is a real bummer. Having high level shield skill would have been very helpful in this run. Depending on how much magic interference actually impacted spellcasting (which is questionable).
Time for a couple crazy facts about my relationship with this game. FF2 was my first foray into the final fantasy series so this game has some weird nostalgia for me. I might be one of the tens of people who actually DOESN'T hate the stat progression system! Crazy, right? I know, I don't even believe it myself. This final fantasy is the one i have completed the most challenge runs of.(If it's not this, then it's definitely FFX). With those facts aside, the only thing about this game that i am unfond of, it's the fact that the majority of extra rooms have nothing in there except for enemy hell.(GET ME OUT OF HERE!) Hot take: Gordon is not actually the worst guest party member like everyone says he is.
People who don't hate FF2's stat progression system: There are dozens of us! Dozens I say!
I've always thought it was really cool, and have been disappointed that they never went back to something similar.
fyi if you want to see a version of this levelling system that is far far far better check out the gameboy SaGa games. the 2nd and 3rd also got ds remakes(like ff3/4) that generally kept it as well but helped to smooth it all
Edit: Also you can get drain via drops before you reach red soul.
I'll have to check that out. FF2's leveling doesn't work, but the idea has a lot of potential.
Can get drain from wizards on the way to Mysidia
8:44 Can’t you walk almost anywhere….or at least to all towns in ff2?
Guy sure can speak beaver, wink wink nudge nudge.
I still play this every now and again, but it is pretty odd. Great ideas dismantled for the 8 bit hardware, to my mind.
This game's leveling system is not a good thing given your spells require you to grind them against the wall of progress. Only to not matter cause Blink Spam beats everything.
Game really wants you to use physical given Leon has the same MP he started with.
Recently discovered your videos on ff12 & ff5, absolutely love them. Pleaaase do more ff12! 🤍
Oh, there will be more FF12 videos. I'm committed to beating that game with every class (eventually).
Magic is hopelessly undertuned in this game. It's only useful early on because your starting stats are terrible so there are enemies you just can't damage with weapons.
I didn't notice this until I tried a magic-only run myself and enjoyed it way less than I expected to.
Oh by the way, Gordon got into the castle ahead of you because his voice has the ability to open the door. The Goddess Bell is the option for those who aren't nobility. I think it's in like one line of NPC dialogue somewhere that's easily missed.
There's no explanation for Minwu though :P
11:43 you do look 7nder leveled.
Shouldn’t everyone have 1000 or so hp.?
a fun run of a terrible game. thanks for the video
Guy speak beaver.
FF2 is such an absolute mess of a game lol. To this day its still one of the few mainline Final Fantasies ive yet to beat. I just cant bring myself to slog through it
Somehow still better than 8
anyway he's dead lmao
A. I'm sorry you're playing FF2.
B. I'm sorry you're doing an all magic run.
I shall subscribe to pay my respects. Please provide us more of your suffering 🥹