Part 20: GBA Bonus Run Part 2

Next up on the agenda: getting the Mythril back to Altair.



I'm certain he'll figure out what to do with it. Anyway, after that it's off to Bofsk/Bafsk to destroy the Warship/Dreadnought. (I dunno, are the different names confusing? Does that help?)



Seriously, potions are as precious to this party as agility was for Vivian, at least for now.

Honestly, there's not much to say about the cave in Bafsk. It was filler in the original and it's filler here. However, there are two chests.



The first equipment pick up we get!



And now we can start dual wielding.





Just to show that dual wielding, does in fact, work in this version. You may notice that the other weapon's damage is way worse. Well, it is a worse weapon, and it's in Charlie's non-dominant hand. I didn't mention it before, since this doesn't come into play for unarmed character, but FF2 characters have hand preferences. Mostly this just works to screw you over with Layla/Leila and Dennis, since they're the only southpaws. Interestingly there are no ambidextrous characters.



Oh and Dee gets a bow upgrade.



Gosh who could you be?



I gotta mention Borghen also gets some pretty swanky portraits too.





They make a little cutscene here for the Dreadnought taking off. There's a couple of cutscenes like this in the remake. Again, nice but not fancy.



Since there's no reason not to, I'm gonna grab the pass. Yes, killing the captain still works, and I may do that anyway, but in case that turns out to be really difficult I've got another option.



Oh, and Mac got the first magic defense level of the game! I mentioned the growth formula for magic defense has been changed in this game. Vivian's endgame magic defense level of 13 was very unusual for the original FF2; for a full party it's usually level four to six. Magic defense levels much more slowly in this version, but since we'll actually get magic defense from multi-targeted spells, it'll shoot up once we start facing true spell casters. I'd say normal end game magic defense levels in this version is around six to nine.



After Bafsk, I switched Charlie and Mac's weapons around. I had Charlie practice bows and sit in the back for while, mostly just to get Mac to gain a damn evasion level. That happened in the very next battle, as a matter of fact, so I guess that was a good call. Mac got the Longsword. This was just until they reached level 3 in their respective weapon skills, so in practical terms it was just on the way back to Altair. I really don't think I can overemphasize how you fast you gain levels early on. After training with bows, Charlie starts on axes. I'm basically hoping to get him to at least level three in all weapon types, except for shields. (Can't have two evasion tanking characters; have to maintain some challenge in the game.)



All the towns that got attacked by the Dreadnought actually display damage. That's cool. Anyway, it's time to drop off Minwu. See you in Valhalla buddy.



This is just a random aside, but if you mention the Sunfire to Hilda she'll tell you it's in Kashuon, and to go there, but I never realized what a dick move that was before. If you don't talk to the king you'll probably take Hilda's advice, and while you can go to Kashuon, there's be no reason to. This message is just here to waste your time.

Anyway, I remembered to get the correct keywords, so it's off to pick up Josef.



He won't live, but then again, who does? Anyway, we pick up his snowcraft.



You remember that if you press A and B button a buncha times while on the boat in FF1 you'd trigger a sliding title puzzle? There isn't a similar minigame in the original FF2, but they added one in the remakes. I mentioned this minigame much earlier, but let's actually look at it.



It's a memory game. Once you complete the game, you get a prize depending on how few mistakes you make.



Not bad! Apparently this minigame only has thirty two different solutions that it cycles through in order, so that means on the thirty second try the game is exactly the same. As you might imagine that's abusable as hell. However, right now we'd just get high end consumables. You can get elixirs, though, that's nothing to sneeze at. However, to get the really nice stuff you have to have level 16 toad. I'd argue that level 16 toad is its own reward.

In any case, I don't consider this in-bounds, so I reset.



This is where my party's lower tier equipment starts to really drag me down. Fortunately, icicles are some of the higher defense enemies around, but this may start being a problem.



Otherwise the gang makes it to the snow cavern without issue. It starts pretty smoothly, actually. I only begin with four potions, though, and nothing in this cave drops them, so I still had to be careful.



But here you see the problem. Mac can't make it through the grenade's defense, and the last thing we want is to damage a bomb enemy without killing it. Dee's Fire 2, even multi-targeted, kills them in a hit, but as you can see her MP's at a premium. While I was able to trigger a few MP gains for her, Dee's max is still only 41. That's... not great.



Luckily for me only one of them blew up. That probably should have been my cue to pack this run up and walk out (remember? Teleport's disabled for this dungeon) but I just gave her a potion and kept going.



I forgot Shadows can blind you. I was really annoyed when the vampire thorns kept dropping eye drops instead of potions, but it turns out I shouldn't have been.



More weapons!



Charlie got evasion yay! I did end up going to unarmed for him, since he does more damage that way, but it's a double edged sword (fist?). Remember how fists don't increase evasion percentage? And unlike Vivian he doesn't have seven evade levels to bolster a low percentage, and he didn't start with fifteen agility. I still have him wearing his starting leather armor, but I'm beginning to think that's a mistake. It's minus six evasion for two points of defense. What was I thinking? The armor goes off!



Although maybe if he had his armor on he would have survived that hit. Or maybe if I hadn't been so stingy with the potions. Yeah, this time I did walk out.



Well, first I got all the nearby treasure.



It was protected by a monster. Yeah, probably should have thought this through better. Eh, Dee still has even MP to make the problem go away. Let's hope she has enough to get her and Mac out.



Oh holy crap that's close. Unfortunately, there's only one potion left.



I'm probably going to regret this, but I really didn't wanna wipe here. We are getting the cure tome next dungeon, so hopefully this will break us of our potion reliance. Ha. I am thinking that is an over-optimistic statement.



Whatever, I got back to town. I never showed in the last run, since it doesn't apply to solo character, but in FF2 they dispensed with the clinics and instead have shrines that revive all of your characters for free. That's awesome, although since it revives everyone we have to kill Josef again. Oh well.



And Charlie trains up yet another weapon type. If nothing else, the Mythril Mace is actually a really good weapon for this point of the game. It's crazy, though; that attack with both weapons is just 5 points shy of his unarmed score. Honestly, though, I think I'd rather have the small evasion boost from weapons.

The run back through the snow cavern goes very well.



It definitely helps that at least Mac is getting some decent evasion. Level 3 evasion is going to be pretty good for a while at least. I'd say this dungeon has less enemies with magic, so that helps converse resources. That's especially nice I've only got one potion.



Okay, two.



Another magic tome! Dee still gets it.



Guess what Charlie you're training spears now.



Damn it Dual Heads this run was going really well. It's almost as though I should have made sure to get more than a potion when trying to run through this dungeon.

Fortunately I grab another potion out of a chest so Charlie can be healed out of the red. Of course, soon after I was forced to use my last potion. But I soldiered on!



Nice! The Mythril Shield gets two extra to its evasion bonus, and that bring Mac's evasion percent from 39 to 53! Not bad at all! If I take off his armor, that gives him 59%!



Not nearly as nice. While curse would be very good to have right now, this sword is just too inaccurate to bother with. Accuracy was another thing Vivian didn't worry about; fists start at 80% accuracy. Weapons start much lower, around 40% to 60%. The game adds the character's strength to the accuracy score, so at least Mac has decent accuracy.

My party was running a little ragged, but I was feeling good about my chances of finishing this. One more floor!



Oh, and I'd feel remiss if I didn't mention this little gem:






Anyway, Charlie got the Silver Cuirass. He's by far my most fragile member, and the plus ten defense is a pretty big jump in defense for this party. It's unfortunate about the evasion hit, but it's worth it in this case.



Fight time!



I got Dee's Blizzard up to level 2, so she's doing decent damage. Again, they boosted this monster's HP, so it'll take longer than two rounds, but I can make it through this fight.



But then I have Mac use the Antarctic Wind you get in this dungeon, just to make sure. I'm not taking chances.



Now we've got the Goddess Bell, time to walk out. Just one more enemy.



Oh my god fuck you Borghen.





Go away.



And here you go: the flimsy excuse as to why Josef has to be flattened by a rock.



And least this rock's a lot more impressive. Anyway, we know the drill here; Josef goes squish, and the party are assholes don't tell his daughter, despite being in town. And Charlie manages to survive the way back. Go Charlie.

Next time, I get the cure tome. The beautiful, beautiful Cure tome.