I have been unwittingly depleting my entire stock of potions think his ability was free. Because it was in FF3 and the game gave me no explanation of what was different this time around. And now I'm narrowly saving Rydia from death as a result of this miscalculation and have to use the Emergency Exit to escape the dungeon.
I hate that this game doesn't explain how its character mechanics work to you. This was a straight-up trap.
The game just dumped a new character on me, Yang, whose abilities (Focus, Kick, and Gird) it doesn't explain. Focus appears to make Yang take more time before doing his next attack, then have that next attack do more damage, and I'm not sure what the benefit is supposed to be over just attacking twice? Gird is… some kind of defense? Kick is like a Darkness that doesn't cost HP?
Earlier on I mentioned the original SNES English port of FFIV being labelled as "Easy Type" mostly for the simplified kanji, and partly for removing "obtuse mechanics". These abilities are the sort of obtuse mechanics that were removed, for the reasons you mentioned. Cecil's Darkness is another one, because I believe you could actually kill yourself using it, while later remakes/remasters greyed out the option when Cecil's HP gets too low. (I could be mistaken on that.)
Yang did retain Kick, since there wasn't a cost for using it other than slightly decreased damage per enemy, and the AoE benefit still made it worthwhile.
So. I think Edward is basically being hated on primarily for discriminatory reasons. Maybe he's not very mechanically useful, but I'd be genuinely surprised if that, and not culturally rooted discrimination, is The Big Reason.
For my part, I personally was indifferent to Edward because he's mechanically not useful, yes. Part of it was also Edward replacing a mechanically useful character in Tellah, so it felt like a downgrade.
Edward's big drawback mechanically speaking is his Hide trait, where if he gets knocked down to low health he'll hide offscreen. Although he'll pop back in from time to time, thus enabling you to heal him, you have to be really on the ball to catch him before he hides again. This sets up a death spiral wherein he's constantly hiding, unable to be healed or contribute to the party, and so essentially becomes a deadweight party slot until either the battle is over and you heal him through the menu, or everyone else is dead and the enemy finally kills him when he comes out of hiding one last time.
But that's balanced by the fact that Edward is, low key, a huge badass as long as you protect him. His status effects can easily set up groups of enemies to get wombo'd by the other party members as time after time you can have him Confuse a foe and basically gain a bonus party member or two to help you slaughter their buddies. I like Edward, and (spoilers for upcoming events) I wish he was a party member for longer; unfortunately FF4 does him dirty and he has one of the shortest stays in the lineup.
A bit late, but I'm surprised you enjoyed the Mini/Toad sections of FF3 so much. Those were my least favorite parts of the game. Different strokes, I guess.
I remember being a kid, unable to read English and thus unable to play our version of StarCraft which was EN-only... but which had a translated manual, thick and full of both the backstory of the whole setting as well as lore for every type of unit, reading the entire thing back to front and front to back like it was a favorite novel.
So. I think Edward is basically being hated on primarily for discriminatory reasons. Maybe he's not very mechanically useful, but I'd be genuinely surprised if that, and not culturally rooted discrimination, is The Big Reason.
Fair and probably true in a lot of cases. On the other hand, do not underestimate the ability of gamers to decide they like or dislike someone for purely mechanical reasons without their actual personality mattering at all (a lot of people would play a cardboard cutout in a fighting game if they were strong).
I remember disliking him for the mechanical reason when I first got him. Because having a party member who is a millstone around your neck isn't fun, either. But, if you grind enough, he does turn out to be useful and that resentment faded away. But if you never got that far in the game, that wouldn't happen.
Edward also has pretty awful stats and stat growths which doesn't help his case. In some versions of the game however (GBA version at least), his stats absolutely skyrocket upon hitting level 70 (which is well above what a normal playthrough ends at), and at max level has the highest stats in the game. Only really useful for the added post-game content but it's a fun inclusion.
Edward also has pretty awful stats and stat growths which doesn't help his case. In some versions of the game however (GBA version at least), his stats absolutely skyrocket upon hitting level 70 (which is well above what a normal playthrough ends at), and at max level has the highest stats in the game. Only really useful for the added post-game content but it's a fun inclusion.
Checking the wiki, that's consistent for all 2d versions of the game. Everybody's stat growths are randomly selected from a possibility table after level 70, with the table varying from character to character.
Most other characters' tables top out at +3 to a few stats. His top out at +4 to almost all, so assuming he doesn't roll one of the rare dud possibilities, some of his low-growth post-70 levels match other characters' high-growth levels.
So far Rydia seems like one of the potentially most useful characters by far, having summoning, black, and white magic. Edward's class/abilities do seem not especially well setup, but 'this class is worse than an omnicaster' isn't exactly a damming statement in my book.
Yeah, comparing any character to Rydia is not fair to the other character; she's a walking nuke.
I personally never disliked Edward; there's worse members of the cast to dislike. Kain, for one. I do agree that he's mechanically disappointing, but since you get him alongside Cecil and Rydia (probably the best two characters in the game), it's not really that big a deal in my book, and being overshadowed was sort of unavoidable there.
Edward is by far the weakest party member in the entire game and his sing and status gimmicks do not at all make up for it. The second weakest at least has good stats and equipment to let them do decently with auto attacking.
Notably the FF4 randomizer gives him a literally max attack weapon if you can find it, and it really doesn't help that much.
I disliked Edward myself, both because he was mechanically useless without some significant grinding, and because he was a whiny bitch. Individually I could deal with either problem. In FFX Tidus was whiny, but he was useful enough I could ignore most of his personality issues. In FFIX Quina was a fun character, but they needed a fair bit of work to make useful.
Also while Edward's hatred has sexist roots because he is an effeminate man, one must remember female party members in IV except when they are fridged by the plot are both mechanically useful and badass. Rydia has her moments especially after an upcoming event in the game while Rosa is at least a good healer and while damseled is not whiny.
Also from what I remember Edge is also hated by the fanbase and he is very toxically masculine.
Being able to provide an experience of that sort to people who haven't played the games is a big part of why I write that LP in the thorough detail-by-detail breakdown I do instead of glossing over stuff, so thanks.
It's also fun for someone who played it a decade ago. My favorite moment so far is going 'Huh, I have zero memories of this city' right before Edward joins.^^
Edward also has pretty awful stats and stat growths which doesn't help his case. In some versions of the game however (GBA version at least), his stats absolutely skyrocket upon hitting level 70 (which is well above what a normal playthrough ends at), and at max level has the highest stats in the game. Only really useful for the added post-game content but it's a fun inclusion.
Yeah, I remember when I had the GBA version and Edward is just such a millstone around your neck, but once you get his first super weapon from the caves and then he starts levelling up a bit, he just suddenly becomes my highest damaging party member and just keeps getting better.
By the time you're taking on the superboss with his ultimate weapon and level 80+, he's regularly dealing 8K+ damage with his attacks and just generally being a complete beast, I love it.
This beginning of FFIV makes me remember of the beginnig of good ol' Suikoden II.
Everything fails one thing after another, sliver of resistance totally crushed everytime, things going continuously downhill, and of course, there is a vilain which he is not here for joking around and like to move fast on accomplishing his purposes (drama bitch too ? Well, kinda...)
I just hope that Golbez will give you a final fight as much as fierce and terrific than the fight against Luca Blight.
Lightning round here. The part I'm covering in this update barely has any gameplay at all. But I needed to post it before moving on because… I'm gonna need… a return to my old format with a lot of pictures. Just putting this one out there quickly. You'll understand.
Following the Baron raid on Fabul, our heroes take a moment to feel sad, but they know they can't afford to just feel sorry for themselves. And, as usual, Rydia is the one kicking them into gear. For someone with so much baggage - perhaps because she has so much baggage - she's certainly highly driven and resolute.
Cecil thanks them, and the group heads for the local inn, discussing their plans before going to bed.
Cecil explains that to fight Golbez, they'll need an airship on their own. Which is kind of a problem, because only Baron has airships - that is the source of their supremacy over other countries, after all. Yang proposes a surprisingly sneaky plan, infiltrating Baron and stealing an airship for themselves. But how? It's Cecil's turn to opine with his intimate knowledge of the place - precisely because it has such air power, Baron neglects its navy, and they might be able to slip through a water route. Yang announces that he will ask the king to lend them a ship in the morning, and everyone gets some well-needed rest.
For once, nothing happens during the night.
The King suffered injuries in the battle and must stay in bed, again similar to FF2. Although he declares that, as a former monk himself, he'll be just fine.
The King's words are intriguing, although kind of frustratingly so. Once again, we are treated to the ambiguous nature of the 'darkness' that Cecil is wielding. It can't defeat evil… but why? Is his own power inherently evil? But then, why all his scruples and his abillity to do good? Or is this merely a philosophical statement, that he must change his outlook and find a different reason to fight to stand up to evil? It's not clear.
The sword, Deathbringer, lives up to its name with a random chance to inflict Death.
We now have a ship, a destination, and a power upgrade. Time to head out to sea! But first, let's visit Fabul - likely because of Cecil and his companions' resistance, the castle fared much better than Damcyan. For all the losses in the fighting, the civilians are safe, housed in the castle's towers.
The local dancer's routine involves her transforming into an ostensibly male, bare-chested monk, and doing a whole dance on top of the bar counter. I don't know what to do with that. Hurray for gender fluid dancer-monks?
THE RABBIT IS STALKING ME.
Yang has a wife, incidentally, which I wasn't expecting. She has an inexplicable country accent, and has the incredible line "I gave 'em [Baron bozos] a helluva thumpin' with my non-stick frying pan!", raising wild questions about the technological level of cookware in this setting.
This whole sequence is the breath the story needs at some point, bringing in some rest, some needed levity, and giving us a clear, achievable objective that isn't "keep running around catching up to Baron."
The way the water flows around the ship is genuinely really cool.
As I suspected, trying to bring Cid on board is going to be one of our protagonists' objectives going forward. Getting Baron's airship engineer on board against Baron could really change the game.
However, as our characters speak, Edward starts behaving oldly, shaking with cold, fear, or something else, and the waves around the ship intensify…
If you've been keeping track of the way this game keeps borrowing from FF2, you might sense what's coming next.
Shiver my timbers, shiver my soul…
Leviathan is here, and he's not happy.
The ship shakes terribly, tossing all sailors to and fro, and, well, let's say one member of the party doesn't have a lot of mass to resist being tossed about…
Yang immediately jumps after Rydia while Cecil stands around not knowing what to do - which, granted, if I was either wearing, sealed into, or magically fused with a suit of plate armor, I probably wouldn't go for an impromptu swim - and Edward falls on the deck, then things take a turn for the worse.
Chaos. Horror. Devastation. The whirlpool drags in the ship, and the screen goes dark as Cecil is knocked unconscious…
But this time, when he wakes up, it's not in the gullet of Leviathan.
No, it's on a beach. A perfectly innocuous beach.
He is on a perfectly ordinary beach somewhere, having been separated from his companions and the rest of the ship.
Cecil shouts for them, calls out, but no answer.
He is well and truly alone.
Well, nothing left to do but try and find his way to some kind of civilization, eh? No comrades, no ship in sight, no ways of communicating… But maybe if he can find his way to a town, someone can help him.
And would you look at that:
A simple coastal town, on a western peninsula at the westernmost edge of the Southeastern Continent. What luck! And so close, too!
Cecil, lost, injured, confused, heads into town, to find what awaits him there…
…and we find out that it is the funniest possible reveal in the whole game.
Oh.
This is going to be weird to say, because Mysidia is home to a great tragedy, Cecil's greatest personal sin (if we consider that he didn't know what the Bomb Ring would do, and therefore that Mysidia is the one where he actively took the decision to kill innocents), what started the game, but this is the funniest bit in the game.
Like, you might think, "well, Cecil is about to get arrested and put on trial for his crimes," but no. For one thing, we probably murdered most of Mysidia's military/law enforcement, if they even had one in the first place. And they don't seem to roll that way. No, what happens is, like, you approach a villager, and what happens next is…
…they refuse to talk to you, sure, fair…
…or they run away in fear, also fair…
…or they take executive action…
…so, of course, what do I do? I look for some comfort at the inn, where hopefully all travelers will be welcome;
This isn't very cash money of them.
Hopefully, a refreshing pint of something alcoholic will wash away the taste of war crimes and bullying.
Thankfully, I have an Antidote in my backpack, or else this might genuinely have killed me.
Okay, okay, let's find refuge in our last possible hope:
The dancers would never hurt me, right?
A PIG
THEY TURNED ME INTO A PIG
This is bullying. This is, straight up, outright bullying. Everyone who talks to you have some absolute shenanigans to drop on you. Poisoned beers. Sleep-inducing dances. Turned into a pig. Frog Prince bullshit.
There's more dialogue from incidental NPCs, two of whom just drop factual information on a "Devil's Road" that leads from Mysidia to Baron and which has been closed since the Baron attack, and which warps space and time and costs a sacrifice of one's vitality to cross through. The latter are a mix of running away from Cecil, calling him names, drunkenly shouting at him, demanding he release the Mysidian prisoners, and so on.
There is a genuine tragic vibe to it, when you dig a little. It's clear that these mages mostly wish they could punish Cecil for his crimes, but for whatever reason, they don't feel they can. Whether because they're afraid of punishment from Baron, or because there are too few of them left to feel confident they can take him on, or just because that kind of institutional punishment isn't in their culture, they don't gather as a group to arrest and punish him. They just spurn him individually, or play the equivalent of fairy pranks on him - but with a genuine edge of anger and spite to it. That black mage who turns Cecil into a toad isn't doing it to be funny, he's clearly doing it because it's what he can do, and it'll have to suffice.
But also it's genuinely extremely funny. Cecil is just being relentlessly bullied by a bunch of magic nerds. He can't even defend himself, because he's legitimately hurt these people and he doesn't want to hurt them anymore, so all he can do is wake up in the gutter hungover, turned into a pig, try to find a cure and limp his way to the next person who might hold information for him or might make him drink a poisoned Hi-Potion, as a joke.
I love this entire sequence.
We'll leave it off for now and next time we're moving back to the plot proper.
God I didn't even know about the dancer putting you to sleep and the old woman turning you into a pig, I learned my fucking lesson after the barkeep served me cyanide.
I see you cured the status effects, but for the record - the spells that cause transformations also cure it, so talking to the same person who cursed you a second time turns you back to normal as they run the same dialog/curse script without noticing your current status, which makes no narrative sense but is certainly convenient
I see you cured the status effects, but for the record - the spells that cause transformations also cure it, so talking to the same person who cursed you a second time turns you back to normal as they run the same dialog/curse script without noticing your current status, which makes no narrative sense but is certainly convenient
Yeah, that is how I cured them. I just assumed it would follow the same logic as FF3, where casting Mini/Toad either inflicts or removes the status effects depending on whether the target already has it, and it did.
Otherwise I would have been in some trouble, as I don't actually have an item capable of curing Pig.
I see you cured the status effects, but for the record - the spells that cause transformations also cure it, so talking to the same person who cursed you a second time turns you back to normal as they run the same dialog/curse script without noticing your current status, which makes no narrative sense but is certainly convenient
"I'm SO. FUCKING. ANGRY at this guy. I'm gonna turn him into a TOAD. I wish I could turn him into a toad TWICE. I'm gonna turn him back into a GUY so I can turn him into a toad AGAIN. FUCK."
"This is not healthy coping."
"FUCK YOU! TOAD!!"
Huh, there's actually a decent bit of (possibly unintentional) gameplay and story integration here. Or, at least, I suspect there might be.
I can't recall if this actually applies to FFIV (while I have played both the GBA and DS remakes, I recall basically nothing from them other than maybe one or two scenes), but RPG conventions dictate that most of the "true evil" you're going to face will be in the shape of boss fights and that all of those bosses are going to be immune to Death.
So in a very real sense, Cecil cannot rely on the power of Deathbringer to succeed.
Also, there's another bit of that "Gameplay and Story Integration" bit coming out momentarily that helps shine a light on the King of Fabul's remarks there.
But the issue at hand boils down to "Darkness may or may not be evil, but it specializes in facing off against people, and True Evil has usually long ago left that sort of thing behind." You can't kill a demon with a sword fueled by your own life, because they've got more of it than you and all that. Even if you win, you're not likely to walk away from that battle.
It kind of feels like 'darkness' in this context is 'Evil Lite' and so can't defeat True Evil, the same way Coke Zero can't give you diabetes like True Coke can.
Also the Mysidians just absolutely clowning on Ceil is darkly hilarious.
