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Deathlike2

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FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« on: December 22, 2007, 02:46:43 PM »
I guess I could write parts of it out and you can copy+paste whatever you think is appropriate... I don't feel like writing it in one big post because I know I'm gonna forget.

Baron:

Like the original trial, don't fight your opponent, because he will own you.

You do actually battle on the airship. There is no silly auto-battle where the main character decides to use items that are obtained late game. :P

Minor strangeness:  After being "teleported out", you can run like the wind, and that kinda stops..

Pay attention to how enemies actually can rape you and can take some punishment. This means that you need to heal up (and save) early and often. Save money by using the Baron Chocobo forest instead of the Inn.

Level suggestion: James to level 8 or whenever Kain gains one level. I guess one could overlevel, but Cecil will never have decent enough Will to heal, so you're better off just buying potions for now.

Status lookout: Unlikely the original FF2/4, being devoid of a helmet, ring, or robe will provide no evade bonus, so it does you good to actually have something equipped. Also, Kain and Cecil's magic defense stats are... crap.

Boss: Mist Dragon behaves the same, so don't be retarded.

Post Mist disaster:

Try to save often and hold out long enough (try not to use items) before heading into Kaipo for Rydia's sequence. The levels will be beneficial when you have you level Rydia up.

Boss: They are stupidly easy, and fortunate for you, the leader of the pack don't run away... meaning free EXP!

Level suggestion: Rydia to level 10 (well, that's what I always do). Rydia's starting stats are a godsend, but she will still have to gain enough levels for a second attack because Cover only automatically works when less than 1/4 of a character's HP is remaining.. so you have to be really weary of her current HP.

Rydia's starting weapon is useless when the enemies HP is beefed.. so consider liberally using Chocobo so she isn't useless. Level 1 elementals not as useful  since you must take advantage of an elemental weakness, and they won't kill on the first go.

Wanderers drop a nice weapon upgrade, if you want a nice STR boost to increase your attack multiplier.

Kaipo's equipment is a god send for Cecil. Decide whether you prefer trading defense for magic defense (I'm usually pro magic defense over defense) or defense for evade.

Wooden Staff targets the enemy.. but doesn't do anything that I can tell...  :hmm:

Getting Tella is not a bonus, but just another body to take hits. The best thing he provides is a healing staff, which is definately worth using virtually every turn so Rydia can focus on casting magic. Tella's starting magic is still the same, but his tweaked MP makes him even more useless, not that it wasn't already the case. You only need him to do two things anyways.. heal, or do one major attack.

The elemental rods you pick up are still useless, but if you need the extra magic boost, then go for it. The Thunder Rod is the strongest of the bunch, but that's not saying very much.

Magic: Warp has become a nifty spell. Remember the Molbol (FF2)/Marlboro (FF4)? Well, this spell does exactly what their bad breath attack does. The only issue is if the targets are resistant to one status attribute, it is immune to the attack.

Also, Rydia learns Toad at level 13... removing the need for CureToad.

Realize now that Cecil will never be the healer you want him to be.. other options will present themselves so take advantage of them.

There is one enemy in the Watery Cavern that plays the boss music. You can certainly run away, but if you know what you're doing, you just treat the enemy like if you were facing a boss... go all out.

Fear The Monsters:  Minimages in huge groups are very annoying. The chance that someone will end up being paralyzed is pretty high, and that can prevent you from healing. Some of the attacks will include HP leakage, which can do a lot more damage than it normally does.

Boss: The 8-legged monster is still weak against the "Dark Knight's" weapory, so 2x damage is a good thing. However, those weapons are still useless against the Zombie that roam around the area.

The Berserk spell is still useful, but at a tradeoff... not that it should matter.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2007, 02:39:08 AM by Deathlike2 »
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2007, 04:14:09 PM »
Damcyan

The "prince" is called Cefca (Ks damnit  :tongue:)

Equipment selection resembles James (in fact, if you still have Kain's shield, you can give it to him for a great benefit), except poor HP growth forces you to keep him in the back row. The "Steal" command is your friend, for the brief time you will have him. "Potions" are worth stealing from the Imp/Goblin type monsters.

There is no exact need to level Cefca up, however, it would help his hit rate (back row reduces the damage output and hit rate), depending on the weapon you give him. Level 10 should be enough.

There is nothing of note in the Antlion's Cave other than a palette swap (it looks good anyways).
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #2 on: December 22, 2007, 06:32:39 PM »
Kaipo Revisited

Getting Rosa is great, but she's probably the slowest member on the team at the moment...

Level suggestion: Rosa at level 14 so she has Cure2 accessible. On the other hand, Rydia should have already had it by now so this isn't required. However, leveling Rosa up will allow Rydia to focus on using her other spells w/o having to use her for healing.

Fear The Monsters: Each and every Bomb monster will explode sooner or later. The longer it takes you to kill them increase the chances of taking massive damage. Also, the Spirit monsters will eventually put you on death notice especially if you decide to be slow on the trigger.

* Boss: Mombomb is not that scary in this incarnation. Good targeting makes the battle easier.

Equipment: Claws can be equipped by others, not just Chang. The thing is that Chang does not take in any attack power bonuses at all as he strictly follows a different attack power formula that primarily relies on his level (a level up virtually increases his attack power by 2 pts), which behaves a lot like the FF1 Monk/Black Belt.

It is worth pointing out that Chang can equip bows+arrows.. and although that won't increase his attack power... it doesn't decrease either. This might come in useful... perhaps.

There's some good stuff worth buying at Fabul...

*Battle of Fabul isn't that difficult, given that some of the battles are rehashes of older enemies.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2007, 11:29:43 AM by Deathlike2 »
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #3 on: December 22, 2007, 11:19:13 PM »
Looks pretty good so far.  I'd be glad to see this finished and into a proper FAQ for my hack.   :cookie:

Oh, please no one use the duplication trick...that significantly makes the game way too easy.  And thus takes the fun out.

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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #4 on: December 22, 2007, 11:24:23 PM »
The only duping that is worth doing is the Cure staff early game. The other situation is that the weapons become "hand me downs", which doesn't really matter in Cefca's case (contribution is minimal because he survives longer in the back row).
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #5 on: December 22, 2007, 11:46:59 PM »
Trial at Mt. Ordeals

The twins should be your new best friends, especially with some extra MP...

Make sure you BUY the Mage equipment for Palom+Porom. Early stat boosts are great, plus petrification immunity cannot be understated (unfortunately, that means James can only be victimized... 1 of 3 chances!).

Level suggestion: 13 for both twins so they have the level 2 set of elementals+healing, 19 for Palom and Bio/Virus and 23 for Quake... both late Palom requirements are optional, but more HP can't hurt you here  :tongue:

* If you feel lucky, go try the peninsula of power for some harder enemies... (they are much more competitive that the ones you currently fight)

If you bothered to buy the Ancient Sword, you will have a great time annihilating the Spirit+Soul enemies that will try to kill you... even better if you bought  1 or 2 Chicken Knives to make fights even quicker as both twins can equip them.

Tella is still useless when he comes back... what a sham.  :bah:

* Bosses: More of the same undead trash

Once you cleanse James' soul, you'll find Tella with some magic.. unfortunately he's still be a one-hit wonder.  :bah: Back to forcing him to heal.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2007, 11:30:35 AM by Deathlike2 »
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #6 on: December 23, 2007, 02:25:33 AM »
Taking Back Baron

After waking up Yang, you finally get some awesome options at the Weapon+Armor store... not every good piece of equipment is expensive...

It may be worth your while to make that side trip to Mist for some goodies.

Baron's Weapon Shop has the rest of the Claws so you can complete the set... worth buying if you ask me.

* Bosses: The more they change, the more they really are the same...

The Airship, The Crystal, And Power Overwhelming

Level suggestion: Get Cid up to level 24... but that's not really needed

Cid can equip most of the stuff James can equip.. so a shield is in the cards!

* If you got the balls, try to claim some treasure at Eblan... significantly worth your while if you are smart enough. (If some of the current monsters you faced were retweaked to 90% of the attack power of those at Eblan, that would be better)

Several places have better sets of armor you can take advantage of... make sure you have the money (spend wisely too).

The Magnetic Cave sucks, but it's not that hard.. the best armor that isn't magentic can be bought from Baron, Agart, Mist... and one piece can be found at Eblan. Many sets of arrows have been graciously made available... so don't be stupid and pay up.

* Boss: Dark Elf is still a joke... unless you let him attack.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2007, 11:33:57 AM by Deathlike2 »
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #7 on: December 23, 2007, 02:51:34 AM »
Bosses: The more they change, the more they really are the same...

The Airship, The Crystal, And Power Overwhelming

Care you explain?  I need to know what things I need to improve upon also.  ;)

Mark your suggestions with * so I know that's something I need to look at for my next hack. 

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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #8 on: December 23, 2007, 02:57:49 AM »
Bosses: The more they change, the more they really are the same...

The Airship, The Crystal, And Power Overwhelming

Care you explain?  I need to know what things I need to improve upon also.  ;)

Mark your suggestions with * so I know that's something I need to look at for my next hack. 

There's a difficulty gap that starts sucking post Antlion. Maybe it's the overleveling, but the enemies aren't hitting hard enough and/or not doing anything worth speaking of. Probably has to do more with their HP being low too (easy to kill).
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #9 on: December 23, 2007, 03:01:25 AM »
Its hard to balance really, I kept running into problems.  You'll notice probably about 3~5 spikes in difficulty that require you to level...which sometimes results in overleveling.  In the end I guess its up to each player's style. 

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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #10 on: December 23, 2007, 03:09:13 AM »
Its hard to balance really, I kept running into problems.  You'll notice probably about 3~5 spikes in difficulty that require you to level...which sometimes results in overleveling.  In the end I guess its up to each player's style. 

Well, let's start at the Mombomb boss. Explode doesn't do enough damage, as it only requires a Cure2 to fix the damage. The individual bombs are annoying, but with a full party, you're not really running into real trouble.

The battle at Fabul is pathetic.. the Generals can fall asleep (Catclaw->Tiger Claw) so the individual soldiers are harmless. Plus, they don't hit hard at all. Heck, unlike the original battle, the soldiers don't even attack by themselves as they are still stuck waiting for the General to call for an attack. Worse is that some of the older monsters are used in the rehash, which by themselves are already beatable by this point (you don't even need the Chicken Knife to beat them that they are this easy).

Milon in both forms are essentially the same being. Lit 1 is not scary (how about Lit 2 instead?), and undead Milon virtually does the same shit and doesn't hit hard enough to scare children.

Kainazzo is still pathetically weak.. just give Yang Ice+Lightning claws and he's a one man death machine.

Dark Elf doesn't scare children. Give the Paly a Legend Sword and you have Holy hell.

Did I mention that the regular enemies in between die too easily? Where's the beef? If you are giving the equipment that increases stats or expose elemental or enemy type weaknesses, you need to rescale their HP properly to take those details into account. The Eblan battles are difficult, but reasonably doable. If the enemies were scaled towards what the current Eblan enemies are, the balance is closer to being restored.
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #11 on: December 23, 2007, 03:36:56 AM »
Here's another example of rebalancing...

Remember that peninsula north of Mt. Ordeals? Well, most of the monsters there have insane attack power. Using 90% or so of those monsters attack power and readjusted the attack power of the monsters on Mt. Ordeals.. sure they are easy to kill, but they will beat you down.. and most of them are not spirits to boot (mostly undead, which you provide no armor for resisting them).

Then again, that also means you need to increase the attack power of those monsters by the time you get Cid...

See my logic here?

Remember that elementals increase damage output (2x, max of 4x), but it doesn't ignore defense (think in terms of elemental Flans). Enemy types modifiers completely ignore defense, so those Ogres at the Magnetic Cave should have like 20000-40000 HP because of the Charm arrows+Charm Claw... or something along those lines (or they should pound you hard, especially with the ghetto armor you should have bought... and I'm not talking about the crappy stuff from Toroia).
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #12 on: December 24, 2007, 11:40:00 AM »
Trading for Rosa in the Tower of Zot (if there was a way to get in/out of said tower... it would be awesome)

The only irony is that some of the treasure chests contain equipment that is clearly not good for the current scenario... not that it matters.

* Boss: Magus sisters tend not to attack enough, but the tallest sister tends to over Reflect her middle sister.. so you may want to take that to your advantage.
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #13 on: December 24, 2007, 01:31:40 PM »
The Elemental of Air and Darkness is Cool

* Boss: The fact that she takes just as much damage "unwhirly" than "whirly" makes her an easy target. At least she doesn't do the lame gradual petrification attack...

If you already know what happens next, you don't have to worry about buying more equipment for Kain...

* Boss: Golbez is still not a match against you, but the more time you give him, the better the chance he will succeed in killing you (that window is short though)

Try not to use the Darkness Crystal trick, as there are so many goodies in the Sealed Cave...

The treasure in the castle isn't great, but a number of the treasure chests are worth your while....

It is a good time to be stocking up on Whistles, since there is a limited number of Greens around, and you never know when you'll need that item space.
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Re: FF2us HardType Walkthrough by Deathlike2
« Reply #14 on: December 26, 2007, 10:08:59 PM »
The Doctor's Crazy

Some of the Fire equipment drops seems odd at the moment, but it pays off later... well, at least the fire weaponry.

Fear the monsters: Flamedogs and Chimeras are not as harmful in groups, but solo, they prefer to hurt you big. Chimeras are far harder to take down because of they are immune to the basic elementals.. elemental weaponry don't look so good.. but they kill so many of the existing enemies well...

Tip: Switching weapons in combat is not a evil thing... even better... switching shields in combat is much better than swapping armor...

* Boss: Noone understands why the "undead" verson of the doctor is mechanical... go figure...

Once you lose Chang, you will have a slightly tougher time beating those same monsters.

Rubicant and Tower of Zot Revisited

Note: You cannot deliver the letter to Lord J until you've given him the Rat Tail...

When you have Cipher and manage to meet the Golems, it may be worth stealing an Ogre Axe or two from them. In fact, many of the steals are worthy, depending on how much you value cool free stuff.

*Boss: Rubicant is not that hard. However, he is able to kill anyone without Fire protection especially with that beefed up magic power.

« Last Edit: December 26, 2007, 10:48:17 PM by Deathlike2 »
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