Yeah, I'm going to guess that in these "greatest hits of another FF game's bosses" things that the remakes and re-release of the early FFs do, like those dungeons in Dawn of Souls, FFV is represented by monsters from this lot.
In the relevant Soul of Chaos dungeon the FF5 representatives are Atomos, Gilgamesh, Omega who you actually could have already encountered back before even going to Galuf's world, and Shinryu who is indeed one of the rift bosses.
It should go without saying that the latter two are spoilers at this stage, hence why I put them in spoilers. Duh.
Though I think you can just straight up never meet number 3. Kinda hidden.
I recommend picking up the Gaia Bell next, because it's obviously the strongest and most useful of the weapons. Yep, definitely not a gag weapon with no real uses.
Nothing to be ashamed of. At least she was a main character. Down south here you'd have some trouble to find an equivalent that isn't sexist or a secondary character. (That said, 10~ year old Minime had... awakenings, when he discovered Martha Hólmez in Superlópez. A plucky freckled ginger teen delinquent and one of the few likable and reliable characters? Talk about slam dunks.)
As you say, it's a fairly effective scene if you ignore the fact that the world is so small for it. Bartz just having an absolute rage-filled breakdown over his hometown being sucked into the void is pretty memorable.
Thankfully they get better for the next game, with things like the first approach to Vector and the floating continent presentation using some perspective, zoom and speed tricks to make them look hella convincing.
Are we talking about the same Mr. "Imma wander around this transitional room for no other reason than to fuck you up for being careless on the main path to the final battle" Omega?
EDIT: maybe? Double checked the wiki and I might be getting slightly thrown here.
The island chain that includes the catapult includes a completely nondescript island- I think it specifically had a forest? but it's been awhile. Anyways Omega is just... he's just an overland encounter there.
At random.
And he's still in the exact same spot now that the worlds are merged. You can do him before the ancient ronkan ruins, if you want and have an overpowered enough build.
EDIT: Refreshing my memory that might have just been the Omega Prototype? Not entirely sure.
EDIT: maybe? Double checked the wiki and I might be getting slightly thrown here.
The island chain that includes the catapult includes a completely nondescript island- I think it specifically had a forest? but it's been awhile. Anyways Omega is just... he's just an overland encounter there.
At random.
And he's still in the exact same spot now that the worlds are merged. You can do him before the ancient ronkan ruins, if you want and have an overpowered enough build.
EDIT: Refreshing my memory that might have just been the Omega Prototype? Not entirely sure.
Yeah, pretty sure it's the prototype you're thinking of. Shows up in the first world on one specific island, has a few early blue magics you can nab, and is one of the better places to farm ABP before Galuf's world. The actual Omega only shows up in the Inter-dimensional Rift, and going by its statblock and moveset, you're uh... absolutely not killing it that early without some seriously insane cheese.
The Masamune actually has a unique feature that to my knowledge isn't mentioned anywhere. It can be used as an item in battle to cast Haste, and has a semi-hidden effect that causes the wielder to start battle with a full ATB gauge.
Odds are it'll never happen but I'm going to warn you now just in case; do not land the Black Chocobo in the middle of the Guardian Tree's forest. It's a valid location for landing as it's a forest tile, but you will not be able to get back on as you'll enter the screen you fought Melusine on when trying to step back on that tile. To my knowledge this bug was not fixed in the Pixel Remaster.
Anyway, Melusine. Melusine is a spirit/fairy figure of French and Dutch lore, who is portrayed as a woman with snake-like traits; in her most famous tale, she marries a noble on the condition that he not look into her room on Saturdays, for this is the day when she turns into a serpent from the waist down. As is typical in fairy stories, her husband breaks the rule, and when she learns he's seen her, she turns into a dragon and flies away.
The island chain that includes the catapult includes a completely nondescript island- I think it specifically had a forest? but it's been awhile. Anyways Omega is just... he's just an overland encounter there.
At random.
And he's still in the exact same spot now that the worlds are merged. You can do him before the ancient ronkan ruins, if you want and have an overpowered enough build.
EDIT: Refreshing my memory that might have just been the Omega Prototype? Not entirely sure.
Yeah, pretty sure it's the prototype you're thinking of. Shows up in the first world on one specific island, has a few early blue magics you can nab, and is one of the better places to farm ABP before Galuf's world. The actual Omega only shows up in the Inter-dimensional Rift, and going by its statblock and moveset, you're uh... absolutely not killing it that early without some seriously insane cheese.
As McFluffles said, Prototype is the monster that shares Omega's sprite that can be encountered in the first world. It's hard to say whether it's meant to be an Omega prototype or a Mecha Head prototype as they all use the same sprite. One small correction is that you can't find it on the world map in World 3 (at least according to the wiki), only in the sunken Walse Tower or as a 50/50 chance of appearing in a monster-in-a-box in the Island Shrine.
Like what is the mechanism through which this is happening. How did Hiryu's attack/sacrifice result in the demon being expelled? Did he burn his life force in an impromptu exorcism that dragon can do somehow? Did he just literally physically attack Lenna and that was enough to drive the demon out? I would like to understand because this is Final Fantasy V being mean to animal friends once again, and that's quite enough!
This is such a cheap, unmeaningful "heroic sacrifice" that I genuinely didn't even remember it happened. Since Lenna is still not in the party for the Melusine fight, I always think we're beating up Melusine in Lenna's body.
Yep! Ghido makes a big deal about how you'll need the tablets to unseal the 12 legendary weapons, but once you do just the first one Exdeath opens a sucking hole in the fabric of reality for you! What a pal.
I recommend picking up the Gaia Bell next, because it's obviously the strongest and most useful of the weapons. Yep, definitely not a gag weapon with no real uses.
Hey now, hey now. It has one real use, in that it buffs the damage of Earth spells. I mean, there aren't a lot of those, but there's Titan's Earth Shaker.
Hm a couple things to try. Assume you're on windows?
Try "Start" (Windows key) => "Settings" => "System" => scroll down to "Clipboard" and then click "Clear" to clean out the clipboard. Then try again.
Maybe try doing it in smaller bites, a few at a time? There's not like, a size limit to how big of a file you can pretend to have in the clipboard, but sometimes applications get pissed off if it includes a bunch of formatting data they don't understand.
Maybe copypaste into a Word doc and see if the pictures show up there? I get my test pics in, but it was an actual pic not a link, so maybe the browser is having to decide how to parse that the clipboard is telling it both the hotlink location of the picture, and also, like, the actual picture?
Also belatedly since I snuck the original comment in an edit, evidently I did end up making the update work, but I did so by going into incognito mode, copying the document there, and pasting it into the reply box, whereupon it Just Worked. So I am no wiser as to what the hell kind of eldritch process unfolded on Google's back end there.
Also belatedly since I snuck the original comment in an edit, evidently I did end up making the update work, but I did so by going into incognito mode, copying the document there, and pasting it into the reply box, whereupon it Just Worked. So I am no wiser as to what the hell kind of eldritch process unfolded on Google's back end there.
:: Quietly flips the "Days since last accident" counter back to zero ::
Man, being a mode of transportation in FFV is rough.
[edit: Oh, and the Melusine fight is another great example of Berserker unga bunga'ing all over boss mechanics. Yes, you're supposed to be using Libra to identify the new elemental weakness before blasting. Does a Berserker give a shit about this? No, no they don't. 2.5k a hit with a doublehand Poison Axe (I'd decided to forgo the RNG of the Gaia Hammer) because axes and hammers really don't give a solitary shit about enemy defense.]
We're still in what looks to be an endgame clean-up phase with side quests left and right, with the final dungeon technically already open but too tough to challenge without first going around and picking up actual endgame tech.
On the way, I typically put down the airship when I see a town to check any changes; usually there is some updated dialogue to reflect the merged world, but no big new gameplay development. For instance, an old guy in Jachol refers to Castle Bal as having appeared north of their town, which is going to be very relevant very quickly.
Hey, remember how Castle Bal had this sealed basement with the Objets d'Art we spent an hour farming for ABP?
It has now appeared right next to what was the Skull-Eater cave in Bartz's homeworld - incidentally another potential ABP grinding spot, funny how that worked out. That same cave which had a climbable wall which led to a big spot of nothing at all.
So, the dead end cave and the sealed basement have appeared next to one another. Not too hard to put 2 and 2 together, yeah?
Bam! We appear through a hole in the ground beyond the sealed door in that basement. Which leads us to…
What on earth could you possibly be that busy with inside a sealed basement.
…it's gonna be Odin, isn't it?
You know how I know that?
Because for some fucking reason, this is the third game Odin appears in, and the third game in which he is hanging out in some royals' basement for some reason. Seriously! First it was an alcove linked to the catacombs of Castle Fynn! Then it was King Baron's resting place under Baron Castle! Now it's under Galuf's own castle! It's not just royal basement, it's specifically royal basements tied to the most important kingly dude we know, every time! What a weird trend to have.
Told ya.
Okay, see that counter in the top right corner? We have one minute to defeat Odin. If we can't pull it off, he boots us out of the battle and tells us better luck next time. First time's a trial run, no real expectation of success, and while we manage to weather Odin's Zantetsuken, we don't have the DPS to beat him in time. When the timer hits 00:00, the party is at full health, but I haven't dealt even half of the damage required.
Okay, so.
Odin has 14,000 HP, which isn't much for a boss that level, but I have to deal that much damage in under one minute or I lose regardless. Zantetsuken is a heavy party wide attack but it only really matters insofar as it might require Krile to spend a turn healing instead of contributing to DPS. I used Libra but it didn't identify any elemental weakness, which seems like it means I can't use Spellblade…
…except.
Odin isn't immune to Petrify.
Which means I can make Bartz a Freelancer, equip him with Mystic Knight's Spellblade to grant his sword Break properties, then Ranger's Aim to guarantee a 100% hit rate on the next turn and kill Odin in a single blow.
Then I remember Catoblepas exists and I summon him, winning on Turn 1 before Odin has time to act or Bartz time to complete his setup.
Well, a win's a win!
In an ironic twist of fate, I turned around only to instantly wipe to Objets d'Art after running out of summon MP and temporarily forgetting how they're supposed to be fought without spamming Titan, so I had to reload the Odin fight anyway.
In that whole process, Lenna masters Two-Handed, meaning I can swap her back to Samurai, two-handing Masamune, and Krile masters White Mage, which… That's… Summoner, Time Mage, and White Mage all mastered on the same character.
Well, I guess the only thing to do next is maybe grinding Monk/Thief for passive Speed/HP bonuses? I'm definitely not starting another Red Mage at this stage of the game. I… Guess I'll keep her a Freelancer for now?
Oh, and it looks like they might have finally fixed Odin; now it seems like he delivers his normal "instant death to everyone" attack when faced with only normal enemies, but if an enemy has the Heavy tag that protects them from instant death, he instead uses a single-target high damage attack? I have no idea if this makes him more worthwhile than in past games but it's an intriguing development!
A brief stop by the werewolf village shows they are in mourning.
Next stop: North Mountain, and getting Bahamut.
…unfortunately it would appear the entire area around North Mountain, stretching to this new tower that has appeared, is now a desert. There is not a single plains tile on which to land the airship, and the desert is completely surrounded by mountains, making it impossible to reach with our current means. However, it does have a minimal forest area, which means…
Sigh. I hate having to jump through hoops like this.
We head all the way down to the Phantom Village to grab the black chocobo, which can land in forests, then head back north for North Mountain. On the way, though, I decide I might as well drop by some places… Like, say, the Pirate Hideout.
What happens next isn't something I expected. As soon as we enter the hideout, the group moves to the side…
SYLDRA?!
What a twist. Unfortunately for Faris's suddenly renewed hopes, Syldra isn't alive as such - in fact, Faris is the only one who can see Syldra, as indicated by her sprite's translucent filter. Well, Faris… and Krile, our child wonder.
;_;
Syldra's spirit lives on, after a fashion, and she wants to help Faris - in a way now familiar, by joining us as a summon.
And what a summon it is.
Also given she mostly only appeared as a head over the waves, it's nice to have confirmation that Syldra is a plesiosaurid kind of thing. Also that attack deals in the 3,400 damage range.
I've been stuck with Titan as my most powerful summon, who is both useless against floating opponents and starting to really lag behind in raw power, for what seems like forever. But Syldra is a straight upgrade; she gives me access to a Wind-elemental attack, something I don't have outside of Blue Mage right now, does not fail to floating opponent, and is more powerful than Titan besides.
Welcome on the team, Syldra, your service is appreciated o7.
Okay, now that it's secured, let's drop into that forest in the sealed mountain area and head to the North Mountain.
The mountain's mobs haven't upgraded with the world merge, so they're all trash easily disposed of.
Jesus he's big.
Damn that's a sick sprite. Look at how there's lightning inside his wings, hella cool.
I am tackling Bahamut, traditionally the strongest summon (Libra reveals him to be "Level 99" and have 40k HP), before I even got Leviathan, and just after only managing Odin with a cheat move. I am expecting a rough go of it. You may notice my party doesn't have Freelancers - that's because I just wanted to throw a 'dummy run' at Bahamut with Bartz's underpowered Ranger and Krile's current job set, see what I could learn, and then reload to kick his ass.
That, huh, is not going to happen.
Each Sylda summon does around 3k damage and Faris can dualcast them with halved cost from the Golden Pin, Bartz has somehow decided to get off his ass and start doing meaningful damage with his attack (the Hayate Bow randomly causes him to use Rapid Fire way ahead of class progression), Lenna is two-handing Excalibur, and Krile has Quick to ensure she can combine buffs and healing every turn. Bahamut's Atomic Breath is briefly a threat - a laser beam attack that hits everyone for heavy damage - before it turns out Krile's Curaga can heal all damage from it completely while everyone piles on the attacks.
We've cleared the Dragon King with the entire team at full HP. Goddamn.
Well, with the most powerful summon in the game (I assume; I imagine the games will inevitably start introducing summons beyond Bahamut as things go in the same way they eventually introduced swords superior to Excalibur, but this is still early in the franchise) in our pocket, it's time to…
Do some cross country chocobo riding?
Boko is still faithfully waiting for us by this cave's entry.
And then we go do the 'run around the entire world' thing. You can kinda see the path we too in the mini-map above, I think? Some of the passages are pretty tight but there is one uninterrupted, continuous route across the major northern continents. Once we do, we head back into Phantom Town to receive our reward:
And he gives me the Mirage Vest, a piece of main gear which causes the character with it equipped to start every battle under the effect of the Blink spell/Mirage ability, which seems… really good? Blink basically creates two illusory duplicates, and attacks aimed at the character instead miss and delete one of the duplicates. "Two free dodges" seems like a pretty solid effect, especially for a shirt (headgear and accessories are competing with a lot of special item effects), but I don't know if the stats also back it up. For now, I'm equipping it on Krile.
While we're in the region, let's check out Crescent Town!
Oh no! Mid is running around in a panic because Cid is trapped underground under a giant tower full of monsters! He needs help quickly!
Anyway, let's finally tackle the Island Shrine.
The shrine is guarded by two gargoyles. They instantly eat shit. This is why I love summoning.
So, the Island Shrine. I'll try not to spend too much time on it, but.
Here's the thing. Some people have accused me of being 'overleveled,' which is a blatant lie, as I specifically only did grinding for ABP, not character levels. I am totally character level-appropriate for this stage of the game, I swear. But.
At one point during the dungeon, Krile levels up. This prompts me to, for the first time in half a dozen hours, actually look at my character levels. Which is when I realize that Faris, Bartz and Krile are all lv 37. Meanwhile, Lenna is 35.
I am fine with there being some disparity in levels from the happenstance of who levels what. But I'm only just now realizing that Lenna's trek through the Shadow Realm left her two full levels behind the rest of the group, and I just.
I can't accept that. I need to level her back up to par with the others.
Anyway the solution is suicide.
Yes, I do in fact have all the party members attack themselves until they're all dead and Lenna is still standing. Yes, even Krile.
Now, is doing the whole dungeon with only one character, one that has zero support abilities, an act of impossible hubris?
I mean, is it hubris if I win?
Lenna alone is a powerhouse. Samurai is just very tough and strong as a baseline, but she also has one of the legendary weapons equipped, Masamune has the special effect that Lenna starts every turn with a full ATB gauge, and she is two-handing it thanks to Knight levels, meaning she hits for around 3,000+ damage. That's enough to kill most enemies in either one or two hits. Now, that might not be enough - if I roll five enemies, Lenna simply won't have time to kill them all before she takes a dozen of attacks.
But in that case she can just use Zeninage to wipe out the enemies from her full ATB gauge before they got to do anything.
So yeah, Lenna can solo (most of) the island shrine. She quickly grabs the two levels I wanted for her, at which point I can raise the rest of the team and get back to normal dungeoneering.
So, most of the island shrine's foes are humanoids of some stripe - ninjas, dancers, samurai, 'executors' which are wizards with age/death spells, as well as imp-type opponents called 'Oiseaurare,' which is French for 'rare bird,' no idea what that's about.
Ninjas, dancers, samurai… Okay, yeah, the shrine is basically throwing player jobs at me, I appreciate this. This is funny. They even have some similar mechanics - the Shadow Dancer can use a dance to confuse, while the Samurai has a paralyzing attack, which is one of these moves Samurai gets that I don't use because I always have something better in my second command slot. There's also a Mecha Head hiding in a treasure chest.
There's also, huh, this fucking thing:
The Tot Aevis is basically a wandering boss. It has 33k HP, a little less than Bahamut, and has both Break and Breath Wing, a multi-attack wind move. Even dualcasting Mega Flare still only takes a chunk of his health, so we have to buckle down, survive with healing spells, and I throw in a couple of Zeninage to confirm the kill - all this for no XP and 7 ABP, a total waste of time and effort, so when it shows up again I run.
At one point during my trek I run into the problem that spamming Dualcast Bahamut is, huh, expensive. The base summon is 66 MP a pop; even with the Gold Hairpin (which you need to constantly re-requip whenever the game thinks Faris would look better with a hat), that's still 33 MP, or 66 total when Dualcasting. And then I start running out of aether.
Which is when I realize a fantastic thing about the job system: I can just swap Faris to Black Mage and dualcast Osmose to refill her HP for free.
This is only my second time playing through a game with the job system (Tactics Advance doesn't really count), so I don't have the intuitive reflex of swapping jobs all the time to best take advantage of the system, but when it clicks it feels really good.
I can definitely see how this would be one of the most popular early FFs (at least among people who got to play it, given its late translation), or one of the most replayable. Now You're Thinking With Jobs moments just feel really good.
Also random fun fact, you may notice that Krile is a Freelancer in these screenshots? Since Bartz is currently a Ranger and Lenna a Samurai, Krile ends up being the one using Excalibur. Which is very fun because, even though her ability set (and stats) are those of a mage, she is still dealing over 1k damage per physical attack.
Anyway dungeon huuuuh. Oh right the central mechanic here is a giant pump machine that sucks you.
What?
Basically at the entrance of the dungeon there is an air intake flow. When we approach it, it pulls us in, the group traverses the big pipe maze there, and then is dumped into that room with two buttons at the end. Both buttons can be switched; each button configuration (both down, left up right down, left down right up, both up) changes the direction in which the pneumatic machine takes you. Two lead to treasure chests, and the other to the rest of the dungeon. It's simple, it's mildly amusing to watch happen, it works well enough.
Eventually, we make it to the end of the dungeon and the tablet… Where one of Exdeath's minions ambushes us!
Okay, this is 1) uncalled for, 2) rude, 3) a pretty dumb thing to say to the fucking Dawn Warriors who've kicked your boss's ass before.
Let's see if this guy can back up his words.
I've compared FFV to an anime many times already (the comparison comes to mind more easily than TTRPG session because, as much as I love a good RPG, my hours watching anime dwarf my hours playing D&D), and in this context, Wendigo is one of these one-episode gimmick antagonists who almost manage to kill the protagonists when they reveal their special trick, but then they are progressively dismantled as the protagonists figure out what their deal is and the antagonist is fundamentally unthreatening once you know how to watch out for their trick.
In this case, opening up with an attack from Lenna causes the first Wendigo hit to take 3k+ damage, then that Wendigo flashes; when I act next with Faris summoning Bahamut, it only damages one of the Wendigo - it's not that the others take 0 damage, like it would be if they were immune to Mega Flare; only one Wendigo registers the hit at all, with the others showing no mechanical acknowledgement of having been hit. That one Wendigo does take 3k damage (so Bahamut is only about as powerful as a two-handed Masamune attack from Lenna, but normally hitting the whole enemy screen), then each individual Wendigo casts Frost, an ice-elemental attack that hits my whole screen for around 200-300 damage, which means I am hit by it four separate times and the whole group is near-death.
Luckily Krile is next and can heal everybody, then Bartz attacks with his bow, upon which his attack also fails to connect. There is no "miss" visual; his sprite attacks, but the game does not acknowledge the attack.
Which is the point at which the gimmick is up.
There is only one Wendigo. He is using an illusion technique and moving between illusions. Every time I successfully attack him, he takes damage, his sprite flashes, and he becomes one of the other four Wendigo on the screen. There is only one Wendigo HP pool, so it's not a matter of destroying the illusions to get at the real one; the illusions simply don't acknowledge attacks, and there is no actual way of telling apart which of the Wendigo is the real one. In addition, any time I make an attack which hits the whole enemy screen, all four Wendigos react with Frost for massive overall damage.
The answer is easy. Turtle down, and use single-target attacks on each of the Wendigos in turn until we found the real one and it swaps, rinse and repeat. It's just a matter of luck, healing, and patience. Wendigo's individual attacks are not very dangerous, and Hastega ensures we have an action economy advantage even with "four" enemies on the screen.
Eventually, the fiend goes down.
There's something written on the tablet - "if the two towers are not scaled and both spells removed in unison, both shall be destroyed, and the tower rent asunder…"
Ominous! This likely refers to some yet unseen mechanic in Fork Tower. Maybe we'll have to split the party? We'll see. Some of the villagers in Crescent Town had interesting things to say about the towers that I'll go into later (basically they suggest one of the towers has enemies immune to magic and the other enemies weak only to magic).
For now, we just got our second tablet, and before heading to Fork Tower, it's time to reap some new rewards!
With the Yoichi Bow (really only there for Bartz's last stretch as a Ranger), the Sage's Staff and the Assassin's Dagger the rest of the weapons are mostly formality, completion for the sake of completion; I have most of the loadout I'm likely to use at all, unless it turns out Sasuke's Katana is particularly powerful, in which case we'll grab it soon enough.
And that's it for today! Next time: we complete the piano sidequest (forgot that was a thing, did you?) and head to the Fork Tower.
What happens next isn't something I expected. As soon as we enter the hideout, the group moves to the side…
…
SYLDRA?!
What a twist. Unfortunately for Faris's suddenly renewed hopes, Syldra isn't alive as such - in fact, Faris is the only one who can see Syldra, as indicated by her sprite's translucent filter. Well, Faris… and Krile, our child wonder.
…
Syldra's spirit lives on, after a fashion, and she wants to help Faris - in a way now familiar, by joining us as a summon.
And what a summon it is.
I've been stuck with Titan as my most powerful summon, who is both useless against floating opponents and starting to really lag behind in raw power, for what seems like forever. But Syldra is a straight upgrade; she gives me access to a Wind-elemental attack, something I don't have outside of Blue Mage right now, does not fail to floating opponent, and is more powerful than Titan besides.
Welcome on the team, Syldra, your service is appreciated o7.
Well, with the most powerful summon in the game (I assume; I imagine the games will inevitably start introducing summons beyond Bahamut as things go in the same way they eventually introduced swords superior to Excalibur, but this is still early in the franchise)
Fun fact: under most circumstances, Syldra is can actually be more powerful than Bahamut. You can boost Syldra by wielding an Air-aligned weapon, like the Air Knife or the legendary Magus Rod. Bahamut is non-elemental, and can't be boosted.
He does penetrate defence though (I think he ignores 75% of defence), so against truly tough nuts he's still good.
And he gives me the Mirage Vest, a piece of main gear which causes the character with it equipped to start every battle under the effect of the Blink spell/Mirage ability, which seems… really good? Blink basically creates two illusory duplicates, and attacks aimed at the character instead miss and delete one of the duplicates. "Two free dodges" seems like a pretty solid effect, especially for a shirt (headgear and accessories are competing with a lot of special item effects), but I don't know if the stats also back it up. For now, I'm equipping it on Krile.
Wendigo is one of these one-episode gimmick antagonists who almost manage to kill the protagonists when they reveal their special trick, but then they are progressively dismantled as the protagonists figure out what their deal is and the antagonist is fundamentally unthreatening once you know how to watch out for their trick.
IIRC, the Dawn Warriors are the previous generation, the final four party members are the Light Warriors, with the former being called Dawn because Dawn comes before the Light of day.
Which, given they were called the Dawn Warriors before there were Light Warriors, is a bit odd (there's not, like, any prophesies that'd have warned them they're going to be forerunners to a later group of heroes).
In an ironic twist of fate, I turned around only to instantly wipe to Objets d'Art after running out of summon MP and temporarily forgetting how they're supposed to be fought without spamming Titan, so I had to reload the Odin fight anyway.
Also given she mostly only appeared as a head over the waves, it's nice to have confirmation that Syldra is a plesiosaurid kind of thing. Also that attack deals in the 3,400 damage range.[/center]
We're still in what looks to be an endgame clean-up phase with side quests left and right, with the final dungeon technically already open but too tough to challenge without first going around and picking up actual endgame tech.
Having now blitzed through most of the rest of the game and hanging out most of the way through the final dungeon, can confirm this is absolutely just the endgame cleanup/powerup stage.
Because for some fucking reason, this is the third game Odin appears in, and the third game in which he is hanging out in some royals' basement for some reason. Seriously! First it was an alcove linked to the catacombs of Castle Fynn! Then it was King Baron's resting place under Baron Castle! Now it's under Galuf's own castle! It's not just royal basement, it's specifically royal basements tied to the most important kingly dude we know, every time! What a weird trend to have.
Hey, at least by the time of FFVIII he found something different, if I recall? Can't speak for VI or VII off the top of my head (and heck only talking for VIII in the first place because I know you played a good chunk of it).
What a way to go for one of the biggest boss summons, just "your's rocks now".
Also as long as you're here, I can finally post this hilarious bit I had happen to me when Odin simultaneously killed my entire party at the exact moment the clock ran out and kicked me from the fight:
Yes, that is my entire party dead, and yes I could still run around the map just fine like this. Though the second I got into a fight, I instantly got a game over, but still. Pretty funny.
Oh, and it looks like they might have finally fixed Odin; now it seems like he delivers his normal "instant death to everyone" attack when faced with only normal enemies, but if an enemy has the Heavy tag that protects them from instant death, he instead uses a single-target high damage attack? I have no idea if this makes him more worthwhile than in past games but it's an intriguing development!
Honestly the Gungir alternative on Odin is *okay*, but not particularly special. Generally you want summons for multi-target damage in the first place, and Odin is pretty expensive, only beaten out by Bahamut and one other. In fact, you're about the get the real best summon in the game:
I've been stuck with Titan as my most powerful summon, who is both useless against floating opponents and starting to really lag behind in raw power, for what seems like forever. But Syldra is a straight upgrade; she gives me access to a Wind-elemental attack, something I don't have outside of Blue Mage right now, does not fail to floating opponent, and is more powerful than Titan besides.
Because not only is Syldra back, Syldra is OP as fuck. Barring the rare occasion where you fight enemies immune to/absorbing wind, you just slap the magus rod or air knife on your summoner and it buffs up Syldra's base damage to the maximum of 255. Which by the way, bahamut has 250, with like twice the MP cost.
Suffice to say, my strategy for the majority of random encounters at this point is "yeah but what if Bartz just pulled out two Syldra hand puppets and blasted his wind element powers all over the enemy and they all died".
Each Sylda summon does around 3k damage and Faris can dualcast them with halved cost from the Golden Pin, Bartz has somehow decided to get off his ass and start doing meaningful damage with his attack (the Hayate Bow randomly causes him to use Rapid Fire way ahead of class progression), Lenna is two-handing Excalibur, and Krile has Quick to ensure she can combine buffs and healing every turn. Bahamut's Atomic Breath is briefly a threat - a laser beam attack that hits everyone for heavy damage - before it turns out Krile's Curaga can heal all damage from it completely while everyone piles on the attacks.
Suffice to say, Bahamut is... kind of disappointing of a boss fight in this iteration. You didn't even use the real fun strat which is just "lmao Carbuncle" and then he bounces his beams back into himself.
And he gives me the Mirage Vest, a piece of main gear which causes the character with it equipped to start every battle under the effect of the Blink spell/Mirage ability, which seems… really good? Blink basically creates two illusory duplicates, and attacks aimed at the character instead miss and delete one of the duplicates. "Two free dodges" seems like a pretty solid effect, especially for a shirt (headgear and accessories are competing with a lot of special item effects), but I don't know if the stats also back it up. For now, I'm equipping it on Krile.
Mirage Vest isn't super special for say, boss fights (if they drag on for more than three turns which they often... don't if you have a powerful lategame party), but boy does it save a lot of hits in random battles.
Here's the thing. Some people have accused me of being 'overleveled,' which is a blatant lie, as I specifically only did grinding for ABP, not character levels. I am totally character level-appropriate for this stage of the game, I swear. But.
At one point during the dungeon, Krile levels up. This prompts me to, for the first time in half a dozen hours, actually look at my character levels. Which is when I realize that Faris, Bartz and Krile are all lv 37. Meanwhile, Lenna is 35.
I am fine with there being some disparity in levels from the happenstance of who levels what. But I'm only just now realizing that Lenna's trek through the Shadow Realm left her two full levels behind the rest of the group, and I just.
I can't accept that. I need to level her back up to par with the others.
Yep, was doing this with !Lance on Bartz for a while, but once Osmose came in, and now that he's mastered Black 6... My main mage boy has infinite MP reserves, it's quite nice.
The answer is easy. Turtle down, and use single-target attacks on each of the Wendigos in turn until we found the real one and it swaps, rinse and repeat. It's just a matter of luck, healing, and patience. Wendigo's individual attacks are not very dangerous, and Hastega ensures we have an action economy advantage even with "four" enemies on the screen.
The other strat, just for the record, is that Wendigo is susceptible to sleep: if you start the fight with multicast Sleep until all 4 fall asleep, you can just spam AoE magic with impunity since sleeping illusions can't counter you.
Well, I guess the only thing to do next is maybe grinding Monk/Thief for passive Speed/HP bonuses? I'm definitely not starting another Red Mage at this stage of the game. I… Guess I'll keep her a Freelancer for now?
Monk or a similarly beefy class like Berserker is well worth mastering. Monk is best, for the hp+30% which as I recall gets to go full passive, but also for the highest stamina and strength and the usually helpful auto-counter. If you don't want counter berserker gets slightly less stamina but no counter to inherit and much faster in grinding.
Each Sylda summon does around 3k damage and Faris can dualcast them with halved cost from the Golden Pin, Bartz has somehow decided to get off his ass and start doing meaningful damage with his attack (the Hayate Bow randomly causes him to use Rapid Fire way ahead of class progression), Lenna is two-handing Excalibur, and Krile has Quick to ensure she can combine buffs and healing every turn. Bahamut's Atomic Breath is briefly a threat - a laser beam attack that hits everyone for heavy damage - before it turns out Krile's Curaga can heal all damage from it completely while everyone piles on the attacks.
Ominous! This likely refers to some yet unseen mechanic in Fork Tower. Maybe we'll have to split the party? We'll see. Some of the villagers in Crescent Town had interesting things to say about the towers that I'll go into later (basically they suggest one of the towers has enemies immune to magic and the other enemies weak only to magic).
I'll leave it at 'it's a good thing you have more save slots', because Fork Tower can have you save into more or less unwinnable situations if you don't know what's up.
Bahamut works exactly like Flare, except he always hits all enemies with no drop off. Which is to say he ignores 15/16ths of the enemies magic defense.
Of course, elementally effective attacks always ignore all magic or physical defense as relevant.
The king of dragons is handy for the fact that there's very little he's not good against, but if there's a weakness to exploit you're always better off just doing that. He doesn't match -ga tier spells, Bio, Holy, leviathan, Syldra, Aqua Breath, or assorted other high end attacks when those attacks get effective damage between the raw damage boost and the full defense ignoring.
Though since Bahamut's base spell damage is something silly like 255~ and he ignore 15/16ths of an enemies magic defense, not coincidentally capping at 255, he will almost always do good damage, almost never being actually ineffective. There's just... usually better answers if there's any form of weakness whatsoever to pick on.
I'll leave it at 'it's a good thing you have more save slots', because Fork Tower can have you save into more or less unwinnable situations if you don't know what's up.
Well, technically you can't get stuck unless you've been like... relying exclusively on Quicksave the entire game. there aren't any actual save points inside of Fork Tower, so if something goes wrong you would just load back to outside instead of in an unwinnable situation like say, if you let the timer run down in Karnak Castle forever ago and then saved with 3 seconds left on the clock.
And he gives me the Mirage Vest, a piece of main gear which causes the character with it equipped to start every battle under the effect of the Blink spell/Mirage ability, which seems… really good? Blink basically creates two illusory duplicates, and attacks aimed at the character instead miss and delete one of the duplicates. "Two free dodges" seems like a pretty solid effect, especially for a shirt (headgear and accessories are competing with a lot of special item effects), but I don't know if the stats also back it up. For now, I'm equipping it on Krile
I believe they fixed it for the GBA and Pixel Remaster versions but in the SNES version you could re-apply the blink charges by un-equipping and re-equipping the Vest mid-battle under Items. Didn't even cost a turn, so the Vest was basically the best piece of armour in the game.
With the Yoichi Bow (really only there for Bartz's last stretch as a Ranger), the Sage's Staff and the Assassin's Dagger the rest of the weapons are mostly formality, completion for the sake of completion; I have most of the loadout I'm likely to use at all, unless it turns out Sasuke's Katana is particularly powerful, in which case we'll grab it soon enough.
Of the remaining weapons, the "Katana" (only equippable by Ninja and Freelancer) is decent, as it shares the Main Gauche's 25% Physical Evade effect. The Apollo Harp is also surprisingly good. It doesn't attack with % damage like most harps, but instead counts as a 75 power spell that deals extremely heavy bonus damage against Dragons and Undead.
