Part 21: GBA Bonus Run Part 3

Cure tome cure tome we're getting the cure tome guys!

Ahem, anyway, it's time to head to castle Cashew.



I guess this sort of run would forbid using Cid's airship service, but... eh... Never really used it in the last run, so I guess I will here.





Admittedly had I just walked I might have gotten more precious items, but... eh.

Eh.



Eh.



Believe it or not, I'm not going to kill off Gordon. Instead, he gets Dee's leftover bow, sits in the back and stays out of the way. I won't bother wasting any resources keeping him alive, mind you. While I did steal his equipment, I don't really see a use for any of it. Mac's evasion is so high he doesn't need armor at the moment, and Charlie needs what little evasion he can get.

And running out and saving, it's time to start exploring the castle.



It's so beautiful.



And the very next battle the game pretends it's funny and drops a potion. Cute.



Of course, now that healing isn't a huge problem anymore, now we run across the problem of status ailments. While I've got about 10 antidotes, and lots of early game monsters drop them, eye drops are another story. Only the vampire thorn drops them right now, and at a 5% drop rate. There's only one other random monster that drops the drops, although at least there are a few in treasure chests. The Shadows inflict blind upon hitting, and we're starting to encounter Ogre Mages and Ghasts, both of which cast blind. This could suck.



The game throws you a bone at this point by providing a shield that protects against poison. Mac also gets another boost to his evasion, bringing him up to 3-70%. Not bad at all! Mac's agility is starting to shoot up as a result.

This dungeon is going way, way more smoothly than any of the dungeon runs thus far. Hell, Dee's barely had to use her fancy new Cure spell!



And the good news keeps coming! There's also a Mythril Sword and Mythril Axe here, so both Charlie and Mac get shiny new weapons!



And this monster right here is what caused everything to start to fall apart. Land Turtles also show up around here, but they're easier to kill. The Adamantoise, on the other hand, requires three level two Blizzards, or two level three Blizzards. Either way, that's a minimum of 6 MP every time one pops up. And if you can run from this monster, it never worked for me. I had Dee throw her magic around a bit, not thinking that these guys would be a problem. This is an interesting case of the remake's rebalancing fucking me over. If this monster had the same amount of HP as it did in the original it'd probably only take 4 MP or, which believe me is substantial when you keep running into them. And no, this remake doesn't really change how you get MP; it's still a pain in the ass.



Not bad, although frankly Mac's better off with the Golden Shield. They have the same evasion bonus anyway.



Woo. I just get this out of obligation, honestly. Gotta fight a monster in a box, but it probably won't be that-



Oh, that can be a problem. Now, Dee can take them out one at a time quite easily... but that'd be 4 MP per enemy and fuck that. If Charlie and Mac concentrate on one enemy at a time, they can take it out in a turn, so that's probably the best course. It seems like they redid how the balloon monsters work. It seems like they'll only cast self-destruct when you do damage them, rather than in the original where they'll cast it frequently but it'll only work when they're damaged. They also seem to self destruct less often in this version.



Despite all the roadblocks, I managed to get to the boss with only 2 MP left. Some of you may always start to see the problem here.



Thanks for that Ogre Mages.

Actually, I wanted to run into Ogre Mages. They're one of the first enemies that drop spell tomes.



In any case, the Red Soul is just a formality boss. Dee uses up the last of her MP to bring Charlie back from the brink, and I throw a potion on Dee. Gordon dies but who cares. Before too long the Red Soul uses up its MP, and my fighters take the chump down pretty soon after. No sweat.



Or so I thought. You see, for whatever reason I was under the impression the game had something that warped you out here. I am stupid and it doesn't. And Dee doesn't have MP for a teleport. I'm starting to think that maybe piling all my spells on one character was a mistake.

Well, I wasn't dead yet. Let's just walk out and hope.



Oh fuck you.

Actually, Charlie picked up a Blizzard tome from the Ogre Mages. So Charlie can get us out of this mess!



Nope.

So you'd think I'm dead here, but what actually happened is more insidious. You see, Mac has an evasion of 3-70% or around, remember? The Adamantoise can't kill him. But Mac and Dee can't really damage it either. We're at a stalemate. Technically, I can hope for critical hits. Critical hits add the character's attack score to damage roll, and that bonus ignores defense, so I could eventually kill this thing.

Fuck. That. I reset.



Oh, I never encountered one in the previous run, but here is the highest tier goblin enemy, the goblin prince. They're absurdly rare enemies, considering that they're not particularly notable otherwise. They can cast sleep and can drop potions, and that's all you can say about them.



I was hoping to do one run straight through, but just so I was sure not to repeat the last attempt I warped out here. Time to head back to town.



They made the chocobo forest a lot easier to find this time around. Anyway, once I inned I hitched another ride back to the castle.

This next run through the castle went really well. I had to fight the mines again, and Dee spent some MP on that, but otherwise she kept her MP up. Fewer Adamantoises spawned, and I encountered more Ogre Mages.





Both of these go to Charlie, actually. I plan on giving him most of the buff/debuff spells. Any extras will go to Dee, and I did get an extra Blind. I don't really see needing blind, since I've got insta-death spells in play, but if I want it I have it.





SON OF A BITCH!

And guess what? I had only had one eye drop left. Fuuuuuck. I don't wanna warp out this was going so well!

There's actually some good news here. In this version, being blinded doesn't prevent you from gaining levels and stats. That's a huuuuge weight off my shoulders. Mac, being my evasion tank, gets the eye drop. I just kept going.



As luck has it, I had forgotten that there is some treasure behind this door.



That was unbelievably lucky. There was also an antidote and a mallet, which cures amnesia/permanent silence. Definitely not a bad idea to keep this stuff on hand. The eye drop goes to Charlie.



The Red Soul remains a chump. Also, Dee has enough MP for teleport. Yay!



THANK YOU.

Finally, I got to warp out and save. This time around I knew better than to walk back to Altair without picking up the sunflame.



Once you get the sunflame you see the Dreadnought capture the princess again, but this time in pixel-arty goodness.



Heh. That makes me laugh every time I see it.

Anywho, we're need to go back to town to rest up. However, Dee's still blinded. Like in Final Fantasy 1 the inn does not cure status ailments. Hm, what to do about Dee's blindness? Now, in Sullla's run he allowed purchase of items in town to cure current status ailments, and only as many items as needed to cure the ailments, since there are very few of those items in chests and enemies don't drop items in FF1. Enemies do drop items here, but if I wanted a eye drop I'd fight for a while. I really, really would prefer to avoid any sort of grinding if at all possible. Hrm. Do I allow the purchase of a single eye drop, do I grind for one, or do I just ignore it because I don't really care about Dee's attack and evasion.

Actually, I have a very roundabout solution.



Kill Dee.



Bring her back.



Viola! No more blind!

...

...yeah, you can go a little too far in trying to maintain the rules of a challenge run. Next time, I'm just gonna buy the eye drop.

Since we've got time, to the Dreadnought!



A magician dropped a Fire tome and Mac got some magic defense, and that's all there is to say about the trip to the flying boat of evil.



I don't even have to do this. I just want to.



Didn't stick on the first time (and the captain got Charlie good in the meantime!) but the second time was the charm.



Although I do have to run back to town now. At least that gives more opportunities to fight magicians and ogre mages and get more spells. Got Aero/Scourge on the way!



Much like the Ancient Sword this would be worth using if it didn't have such piss-poor accuracy. I did get something from this, though. I fought two magicians and a sergeant for it, and what did I get from that battle?



Oh lovely. Obviously the real catch is Berserk, but the Mage's Staff is a pretty good weapon, actually. It's stronger than the Werebuster, so it's worth switching to. (I didn't because I'm stupid, but it is a good weapon!)



Sadly, I just don't see a use for this. This inflict blind and like the other status inflicting weapons has little accuracy. Dee really needs a bow upgrade, but I'd rather use a bow that can hit something, you know?



This, however, I can use. This goes to Charlie. While they did remove spellcasting penalties from shields and weapons, they didn't from armor. So Charlie's not gonna be worth much as a spellcaster right now. At this moment I just want to help his lagging evasion, and this brings him up to 2-36%.



If you recall, once we rescue Hilda we have to complete the dungeon. So will this dungeon be the first one the party completes in one go? Well, it kind of has to be. Whether we beat it on the first go is the question.

There's also two more chests, one with a hi-potion. Not so vital anymore, but still nice to get a new one, especially since it was a potion in the original.



Yay!



While Dee got the first Berserk tome, the game smiled on me and I ended up getting four of them throughout the whole dungeon. That's enough to give Charlie and even Gordon one. Also, the Thunder tome allows Dee to round out her elemental spells.



And the awesome pick-up train keeps rolling. Sadly, Charlie doesn't have any knife skill yet, so he'll be gimped for a few battles. The chest next to the knife is the Trident, and Charlie wields that, too.



Out of all these treasure, the one I don't want is the ice shield, and it's the one trapped! None of my fighters can scratch the Hill Gigas without berserk, but guess what I've got.



Although even with berserk Charlie ain't doing so well. I probably shouldn't have had him fight this battle with a weapon he's not trained in. Mostly everyone just flails their weapons and hopes for a critical hit while Dee heals Charlie whenever he's hit. Eventually they take the gigas down.



And finally, I'm actually going to have Mac wear this. His evasion's high enough he can take the hit, and the plus ten to strength is worth the trade off, I think.

By this point, there's only one more floor and these guys can clear it with no problems. Honestly, the Dreadnought was easy. The mages could wear the party down a bit, but as long as Dee's got enough MP kicking around for Cure that's not a problem. Wererats and Werepanthers can poison, but they have to hit to poison, meaning they only ever poisoned Charlie. And they did it infrequently enough that I never came close to running out of antidotes. The one major fear I had was the ghasts, who can cast blind. There wasn't much I could do about them but to just kill them first and hope they never cast the spell. And they didn't.

Really, my major disappointment is that I didn't get Berserk higher than level 2 and Dee didn't get an MP increase.





This time the party actually runs out of the ship, rather than... slideshow out.





And with the big mean old warship destroyed and the rebels having achieved... nothing, really, in the long term, we stop for today.