Boss Battle: Lich

Villagers in Melmond will try to tell you that a vampire has taken up residence in the Terra Cavern to the South and is subverting the power of the elemental Earth Crystal found there, thus causing the land to sicken and decay. Well, as is often the case, the villagers are only partially correct. There is a vampire lurking in the Terra Cavern, but one good hit with Fire 2 will send him permanently to the grave, and you won't see hide nor hare of the Earth Crystal until you do some more digging, pun intended. The real fiend responsible for the decaying soil is the Lich, and one spell is not nearly enough to send him on his merry way.

It only took me one try to defeat the Lich, so I can't swear that he follows a set pattern the way that Astos did. I can tell you that he possesses all of the rank two black magics: Fire 2, Ice, 2, Bolt 2, Sleep 2, Haste 2, and Slow 2, and will make ample use of them. I attempted to cast slow once and silence twice and all three attempts failed, leading me to believe that he's immune to at least those if not all status effects. He also takes depressingly little damage from physical attacks, so be prepared to burn through your spells. Fire does the most damage, and Ice the least.

At least from my one experience, the secret to defeating this guy is to cast NulIce, NulFire, and NulBolt as quickly as possible. Without these protections the Lich's spells will deal out around 100 damage to your entire party, and keeping up with healing won't really be possible. With protection the damage is cut to 30 - 50, and a potion or Cure 2 here or there will keep you alive. Not once during the fight did the Lich hit me with a physical attack, I assume you don't need to worry about such a thing.

Burn through your spells and hope for critical hits from anyone doing physical damage and you should be able to outlast the gruesome corpse with the protection spells and a decent supply of healing spells or potions. Put the Lich in his place and then restore power to the Earth Crystal and you will officially have proved yourself a warrior of the light.

Breaking the level 10 barrier

Still having trouble defeating the constant stream of enemies that stand between you and any attempt you might make to leave town? In addition to the general strategies that I've already provided (saving often, running from battles you can't win, and making sure not to skimp on the latest spells and equipment) there is one more thing you can do to improve your survivability.

Get to level 10.

Why level 10? Simple. Once you hit level 10 your warriors will suddenly stop missing their targets as often as they had been, and will begin hitting twice per swing instead of just once. (In the case of the monk you'll actually begin to see 3 or 4 hits per attack.) You'll also find that your mages have finally accrued enough spell uses that you're no longer terrified of wasting a spell. The difference in damage here is tough to imagine, and you have my word that post level 10 you'll suddenly find yourself feeling simply annoyed by monsters that used to inspire terror.

If you haven't hit level 10 yet and can't seem to progress I suggest you go kill ogres in the forest near Elfheim until that magic double-digit level rolls around and then see how you fare.

FF1 - Getting into the Story

I'll be the first to admit that story telling wasn't Square's strong point in the beginning. FF1 is about as bare bones as its physically possible to get and still claim that there's a story being told. If I weren't familiar with the rest of the series and able to see how these early story elements eventually evolve into some of the most enchanting stories I've ever experienced, I might be sadly disappointed. When combined with a frustrating difficulty level the general lack of story makes it challenging to continue playing, and I have to admit that I would not recommend FF1 as a starting place for players who have never visited the Final Fantasy world. All of that said, the basic elements that make up the FF1 story are the building blocks on which an empire has been constructed. Read on for cursory analysis.

The fundamental principle on which the FF1 story is built is one of the oldest mythological conceptions in existence - the idea that the world is made up of and preserved by the existence of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. This basic understanding of world functions has shown itself in ancient Greek, Hindu, Buddhist, Tibetan, Japanese, and Chinese mythology, as well as in the myths and legends of countless indigenous peoples across the world. Where the idea originally came from I'm not sure anyone can say, but its proliferation has been outstanding and in some ways the basic concepts of an elemental existence are still alive today in varied forms.

FF1 opens at a time when the elements have gone dark, and a cloud is slowly obscuring the world. According to an ancient prophecy four warriors of light will announce themselves at the time of greatest darkness, and will dedicate themselves to restoring balance to the world. The four warriors you chose at the beginning of the game are, surprise, the four warriors of light.

Sadly the game tells you almost nothing about the developing story as you go along. The opening consists of about two paragraphs which say almost exactly what I just said above, and after 15 hours of gameplay those opening paragraphs are the only actual story telling that I've been presented with. Any other glimpses into what's happening in the world come from NPC's throughout the various towns, who will tell you such things as "A vampire is obstructing the flow of the Earth Crystal and the land is dieing." After you go out and restore the Earth Crystal you can return to the town to be told, "The vampire is dead, the land is restored!" That's it. No party in your name, no deeper explanation of who was behind the plot to obstruct the flow of the earth crystal, nothing. Perhaps these things will come later, but my previous experience with later games has primed me to expect more depth. C'est la vie.

If, as I progress, the story begins to depend in meaningful ways I will revisit this section of the blog. If not, this is really all I need to say about the FF1 storyline, and I am anxious to progress passed this first game.

Boss Battle: Astos

Astos. King of the Dark Elves. Responsible for the theft of the witch Matoya's crystal eye and the eternal slumber spell that has kept the King of the Forest Elves in stasis for the last five years. Finally, a boss! Technically Garland, the corrupted Cornelian Knight is the first boss of FF1, but the fight with Garland lasts about 2.5 seconds and I'm confident that you don't my help in defeating him. Astos might be a different story.

The fight with Astos commences when you attempt to return the stolen Crown from the Marsh Cave to the oversized King of the Western Kingdom. The polar bear proportions of the chubby king might have tipped you off that he isn't altogether wholesome, but in event that it didn't, he reveal his true intentions when you attempt to hand over the crown.

Astos is virtually immune to physical hits, so if you haven't bought along either a black of red mage you're going to have some difficulties. Critical attacks will still deal substantial damage, but the average physical attack is going to be sadly ineffective. Fortunately black magic users make up 1/3 of the total available character classes, so chances are high that you've got one in toe.

Unload with your most powerful spells from turn one, no particular element is more effective than any other. My attempts to sleep, silence, slow, or blind Astos all failed, and while I don't know for sure that he is immune to these status ailments the use of them was surplus to victory. Hit him with spells and he should die in relatively short order.

Offensively Astos follows a fairly simple pattern. (I only fought him twice, but his actions were identical for both fights.) He begins the battle by casting an instant death spell on a member of your party. If it hits, simply reload and start the battle over again, as you don't really want anyone to miss out on experience for this fight. If it misses, which it did in both battles for me, he'll follow up by casting Slow II on one of your characters, and then Haste II on himself. At this point if you have a red or white mage with the NulFire spell you'll want to cast it, as Astos will follow the Haste II spell with Fire II, and this can do some damage if you're not prepared (though it wasn't enough to kill any of my party members even without the use of the NulFire.) After the Fire spell he'll begin using physical attacks, but by this point in the battle, if you've been using black magic each turn, he's nearly dead. Get in your last hits and congratulate yourself on your first real boss fight.

Your reward for dethroning the Dark Elf King is the Matoya's crystal eye. Take the eye to the witch in her cave to the north and she'll reward you with a Jolt Potion. The Jolt Potion can be used to awaken the sleeping Elf King, who will then reward you with something of actual value, the mystic key. Hurray! You can now open all of the Sealed doors that you've been encountering - assuming you remember where they all are.

FF1 - Hours 3 - 7

When I mentioned earlier that this first game in the Final Fantasy franchise was hard I wasn't exaggerating. Difficult, frustrating, agonizing, and capable of eliciting the most colorful of epithets. There's always something to be said for the thrill of surviving a brush with death, but the sheer regularity with which one of your warriors will die coupled with the exorbitant cost of reviving them leads to a potent desire to throw your controller across the room. Still, the true gamer soldiers on. I've spent the last several hours mapping the territory, so to speak, a learning how best to stay alive on journeys farther and farther away from the safety of town. These are my suggestions to you.

• Make use of the Memo Save function to save your game in between resting. You can memo save any time, regardless of where you are. Save early, save often.
• DO NOT skimp on spells and equipment. Everything you want to buy will cost you hundreds of Gil more than you can possibly afford. Don't leave town without the latest accoutrement. You'll enjoy the levels you accidentally get while slaughtering monsters for Gil almost as much as you'll enjoy the shiny new sword you bought.
• Don't be afraid to run away. Seriously, when you encounter a party of seven enemies two of which cause poison with their attacks, FLEE. There's no shame in living to fight another day, or, in this case, sometime in the next five steps you take. After your first two or so hours of game play, you should have reached the second town and gained access to the ship. Stay in the waters near where you first boarded and you'll find yourself likely to encounter Privateers with some regularity. Said Privateers are worth 150 Gil apiece. I highly recommend plundering their booty for a half hour or so before pushing on, prices at the next town take a steep up turn. (If you're on land, Ogres yield a good payout as well, but they hit considerably harder than Privateers).
  
• Carry potions. Lots of potions. No, more than that. No, still more. There you go. Oh, and carry half as many antidotes (resting at an inn does not cure poison), and a few sleeping bags for the purpose of hard saving before a dungeon.

By the sixth hour my party was level 8 and I'd officially bought everything that I could possibly force myself to stand still long enough to buy. I decided at last to tackle the Marsh Cave in search of a magical Crown rumored to have the power to restore the decrepit Western Kingdom. I escaped with the crown in hand and only 1 of 4 characters still alive. It was good times. My journey continues.

Final Fantasy 1 - A Beginning

Final Fantasy 1 opens by asking players to choose a name and character class for the four warriors who will make up the primary protagonists. While other games in the series offer players a chance to change character names and classes later on, this first game is, if memory serves, the only game which does not provide preexisting names and classes.

Read more »

Final Fantasy 1 - The History

The game that launched the series was originally released in Japan in 1987 before being licensed by Nintendo of America for release in the US in 1990, for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It was created by Japanese game designer Hironobu Sakaguchi whose success with the series has made him a household name in the industry. According to Wikipedia the game was released at a time when Squaresoft (now Square Enix) was facing bankruptcy. I wonder if they realized at the time what the future would bring.

Some Goals

What do I want to do here? Aside from the fact that following this blog may be interesting to some of you, what do I have to offer that is worth your valueable time as a reader? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest, but I have some hopes.

To begin with, I'd love to provide, as I go along, a series of gameplay strategies revolving around particularly difficult sections of the games or unusually tough or tricky boss fights. Those of you following along because you've already played some or all of the games will have little need of these, but I hope that there will be those following along who have not yet enjoyed the Final Fantasy Series, and you may find these to be helpful in beginning your own quest. I would consider my efforts here a success if I inspired even a handful of people to try a game they had not previously played.

Secondly, I want to bring together elements of history and mythology in order to shed light on the cultural diversity of the series. Throughout the history of the series one of the greatest constants has been Square's amazing use of cultural mythology in their stories. Those of you who have played will recognize such series constants as Shiva, Odin, Gilgamesh, Excalibur, and the deadly Masamune - you may not know that these come from Hindu, Norse, Mesopotamia, Authurian, and Japanese mythology. Over the years Square has drawn from cultures all over the world and all throughout history in the fashioning of their stories, and I feel these should be explored and understood.

Along side of the cultural/mythological discussion I'd like to discuss story telling as its portrayed throughout the series. Make no mistake, the games are stories, some of which could and should be considered great literature. I'm a masters student in a Creative Writing program, and story telling is very near and dear to my heart. The majority of the world isn't ready to accept video games as a form of literature, but they should be, and I'm willing to fight for it.
Finally, I'd love to just share the experience with you all.

I know, my posts are LONG. I'm trying to reach a point where they won't be. Hang in there.