Part 11: On the Next Season of FF2...

Now that we've done... er... I have no fucking clue what we really accomplished. Anyway, time to report back in with... urgh... Gordon.



Oh, we actually have to talk to Hilda anyway.





Ah, now we're getting to the famous "Solo gets seduced by an evil-"



Wait, what?





what



...I have so many questions.



Whatever it's boss fight time!



And we're basically already dead. You see, in this game, sleep doesn't wear off when you get attacked. It'll just wear off randomly, like any other temporary status.



Wow, uh... I was not anticipating this. I didn't even get off a single attack.



The Queen Lamia can also confuse you, but honestly that's the least of my worries. If Vivian's confused, at least she'll actually complete her last inputted command. No, it's her normal attack I'm concerned about. Okay, she has sleep touch, but why so much damage?

Now, I don't usually look up anything while I'm playing, certainly not boss stats. But I had to here.

Queen Lamia
Rank 7, HP 1,290, MP 370, Attack Power 50, Attacks 8(!), Accuracy 95%, Defense 50, Evasion 2-75%, Magic Resistance 7-40%

Oh. 8 attacks. That explains it. Okay, so we're going to have to do something about this.



Best I could do with what I had was the Mirror to block the confusion spell, and Thread to lower her number of attacks. While her magic defense is high, the thread casts Slow 9, and that should get through it.



All the prep in the world doesn't help if she kills me before I can do anything.

We have to actually hope for her confusion attack, since her regular attack seems to always inflict sleep.



But I got it off! So we're home clear?



Not with 8 attacks we're not!



Oh, and if I even do manage to get a turn in she casts this. It's actually very rare, but when she does you can forget about attacking. Vivian actually does decent damage, about 200 or so, and magic doesn't come close to that. Dick move.



I'll admit I'm shooting myself in the foot a bit. For this attempt I didn't bring the Mirror in, and while Confusion isn't that big a deal, that means more turns where I can't hit the boss.



Okay confusion is occasionally a bit of a problem, although that happened less often then you'd think.

The other bad choice I made was not wearing armor. I kind of figured that the evasion bonus was more important than 15 defense, but 15 defense matters a lot here. It lowers the lamia's max damage from 800 to 680. Not insignificant.



Still, when the boss is incapacitating you every other round or so, taking less damage from it is prolonging your inevitable loss rather than preventing it. The problem with the thread/mirror is that it takes two turns to set up, where it was often hard to get even one action in. And at the end of that it's not even that reliable! If I could get blind or even curse to stick it would alleviate the problem significantly, but their levels are still pretty low and with the lamia's magic defense meant that was... unlikely.

I was starting to get really frustrated. I've played this game before! I've played solo runs of this game before! Why am I having so much trouble with this boss? This is worse than the damn Captain, and the Captain was optional! I had to think up a better strategy.

And then I realized; there was a very simple solution to the problem. Both sleep and confusion are mind elemental, which barrier protects against. There was a slight issue, though.



You need level 3 barrier to protect against mind, and I've only got level 2. It wouldn't take very long at all, but that would necessitate a bit of grinding.

Yeap, I had to grind to get past the lamia. Less than ten minutes worth of grinding, but grinding none the less. I had to grind in FF2. My shame is endless.



Aside from a level in Barrier, I unceremoniously reached max evasion level. Honestly, it's not going to help as much as you'd think, but any help is more than appreciated.



All right you bitch, let's dance.



Unfortunately, barrier has a chance of missing, and sometimes not all the resistances hit. One note about barrier in this version; the elemental resistances it displays are incorrect (there's no such thing as "critical hit" defense). It actually will work backwards; level 1 barrier shows as giving ice defense, and you're supposed to get ice defense from level 8 barrier. (Supposed to. You don't. It's bugged.) What you need to do instead is count the number of messages. I only got two messages, so only matter and fire defense. Yeah, I died on this attempt.

You know, I wonder if the backwards messages of barrier are the game's fault or the fan translation's. I actually think it's probably the game. I've been looking through Mega64's LP, but I don't know if he actually used that spell in that LP. Hm. Well, at least it gives you some clue what resistances hit; the remakes don't tell you at all.

Anyway, on my second attempt all three levels hit.



Fuck you.

After using the thread to mitigate the damage, there's no more real threat in the fight. Thankfully, she never used blink, so victory followed pretty soon after. And what do I get from the fight?



You know what, fuck you Final Fantasy 2. Yes, I know that this is the most statistically likely possibility, as it's a 60% chance to drop money. I also know that Final Fantasy 2 is a cold, unfeeling program and therefore cannot care if I call a bastard. But I don't care. Fuck you Final Fantasy 2. Do you know what else this fight can drop? A ribbon! A motherfucking ribbon! Or a protect ring! Or a diamond cuirass, which is not as good as those two, is a damn nice piece of armor. Instead you give a bunch of completely worthless money. Can't even buy a single elixir. Fuck you.

...I've written way too many words about this goddamn lamia.



Oh, and the princess wasn't secretly a necrophiliac lesbian lamia the whole time; the real one's being held prisoner by the bad guys.



And for her rescue we get Gordon back for two seconds because I guess he's her love interest now. Poor Hilda.



Gordon is somehow alive with 0 HP. I end up going to the inn before I leave, so Gordon gets his HP restored. No zombie Gordon, sorry. (And if we do get zombie Gordon he's not immortal or anything. One hit and he'll lie back down.)

All right, where is Paramekia? Well, I've actually shown it to you before. Remember that giant desert south of Kashuon? It's in there. Fortunately, with a boat it's much easier to reach. Let's start by sailing east of Altea.



I will never get sick of cruelty to Gordon.



Unfortunately, no matter what we do it's a bit of a hike to the place. I could park the ship around Kasuon and ride a chocobo down to Paramekia, but I'd still have to walk back. Really, no time saved. So, instead I park right under the strait, right where there's a huge break in the mountains.

Also, new enemies!


Antlion
Rank 5, HP 370, Attack Power 50, Attacks 3, Accuracy 75%, Defense 40, Evasion 1-50%, Magic Resistance 3-50%

Well, enemy. I only saw Antlions on the way. By now, those stats are really mundane. Apparently they have a paralysis attack, but with three attacks they never hit anyway.



And here's the arena! See, told you I've shown this to you before. We can now enter it.



It's the emperor quick get 'em!



Of course not. Instead, we must fight-



Oh that's adorable! I don't wanna kill it!


Behemoth
Rank 6, HP 1,620, Attack Power 85, Attacks 3, Accuracy 95%, Defense 50, Evasion 1-40%, Magic Resistance 4-50%

Okay, less adorable.

Funnily enough this game actually give you proper boss music for this fight despite it a) being an utter joke and b) not a unique monster. In all fairness, you'll only see the Behemoth around Mysidia, and it's a very rare encounter (I think I've only seen it once or twice in the wild).



All it can do is attack, so I went about piling on the status ailments. It's really unnecessary; even though it has high accuracy, with three attacks it's unlikely to hit. All I really need is Curse to make going through the behemoth's admittedly hefty HP go quicker.

No, I think I just wanted to blow off some steam. I was gonna rip this fucker's head off.


_{Sometimes I've just to indulge myself...}



The poor bastard only managed to hit me once.



Behemoths don't drop anything. So worthless.


WHO'S NEXT?!
Uh... no one. You won.
What, seriously? Lame.
Uh... you want Hilda now?
Oh right.


Fooled you.



Well, nuts.



No bars can contain Vivian!



Scratch that, for once Solid Snake will break someone else out of jail.



I have no idea what Paul'd thank us for since every time he shows up he does our job, but whatever. We're free!

This is actually kind of a dungeon area, but it's only two floors and super small. No big deal. There's some treasure to the right.





...look, the joke isn't funny any more. Stop doing it!


Column
Rank 4, HP 240, Attack Power 40, Attacks 3, Accuracy 70%, Defense 40, Evasion 1-30%, Magic Resistance 3-40%

I wouldn't bother showing this encounter, but there's a new enemy. A new enemy that also isn't worth talking about. But it's there, being new, guarding a worthless antidote.



There are several doors on the upper part. The one we need to continue is to the far right, but one of these contains some treasure. Unfortunately, I didn't remember which one.


Sorcerer
Rank 4, HP 140, MP 60, Attack Power 25, Attacks 1, Accuracy 70%, Defense 17, Evasion 1-50%, Magic Resistance 3-60%

Wizard
Rank 6, HP 540, MP 190, Attack Power 40, Attacks 1, Accuracy 75%, Defense 35, Evasion 1-70%, Magic Resistance 4-60%

Oh fuck me.

Both of these new guys are nasty. Both of them know some horrible status spells, and 540 HP for a spellcaster? Ouch.



But it wasn't the sorcerers and wizards that gave me a hard time. It was the good old captain.



Fuck.



By the way, this was the correct door. All it has, though, is an ether, elixir, and a cottage. None of which I'm really lacking for...





They show you a bit of mercy in this room by putting a ton of secret passages in it. I'll be using them, as I'm pretty keen to spend as little time as I can on this floor.



This is why.

I use the thread on them, and I managed to scrap out a victory.



And I got the death spell! Even if I wasn't doing a no insta-death spell run, I wouldn't bother with death. Weirdly enough, the death spell is your worst option for insta-death. Death has an element all to itself, and a lot of creature resist or are immune to it. Worse than it, it's really inaccurate. Why bother?


: Hey Hilda I've got your dead boyfriend! ...man, that's really a problem for you, isn't it?
: ... ... ...look, just give him to me. We'll find our way out.
: If you insist.



Well, that was even more useless than normal, Gordon.



There's another secret passage here. All right, almost home free!



Almost...



DAMN IT.



DAMN IT.


Sucker
Rank 4, HP 300, Attack Power 35, Attacks 3, Accuracy 70%, Defense 40, Evasion 1-40%, Magic Resistance 3-50%

On my third run through, I never ran any of those wizard and captain encounters. I did find these guys, though. Suckers actually have an MP draining attack. It works like drain touch, that is, each hit does 1/16 of your max MP (The base attack just does damage). Annoying, but thankfully they only get three hits. Pretty weak otherwise. They're weak to ice, so that's... something.



Point is, I got out of there alive. There's no random encounters on the top floor, so I can just walk out in peace.


SAVE.


Ray
Rank 5, HP 450, Attack Power 40, Attacks 4, Accuracy 75%, Defense 40, Evasion 1-50%, Magic Resistance 3-50%

Other than a new enemy, nothing else to say about the trip back to the boat. Next we... go back to Altea and report with Hilda and/or Gordon, I guess? That'll wait. Let's just end this train wreck.




Power +4, Soul +2, Magic Power +1, Evade +1, Bolt +1, Curse +1, Barrier +1, Blind +1, HP +42, MP +23