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Print Page - FF4 - The Handicap "Challenge"
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Banon's Donkey Farm => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Deathlike2 on November 08, 2012, 01:54:11 AM
Title: FF4 - The Handicap "Challenge"
Post by: Deathlike2 on November 08, 2012, 01:54:11 AM
Although that Spoony Bard helps you out, the "challenge" that is the Magnetic Cave (or more recently renamed Lodestone Cavern) is one that's actually a lot more disappointing that difficult. Like many of the other FF series, these were somewhat designed to test your knowledge or at least improve your understanding of the game. It is what also builds many of those cliched self-imposed challenge restrictions...
With that said, a little history: NES FF1 - None that I recall. IIRC, the PSP version added one more dungeon that drains HP per step... though I doubt that's actually going to hurt. NES FF2/FF3 - Not too familiar with them to comment. FF5 - Tower of Power and Magic was designed for having the rare split parties, which became more prevalent in FF6. It also caused some planning to be done when you build your characters... FF6 - Tower of Fanatics easily is the most annoying place ever. Considering how much you can stack magic evasion together and accentuated the entire purpose of getting Espers in the first place, you could really just run the place with your magic heavy users (Terra, Celes, maybe even Relm and Gogo) or fight almost "nobody". Most disappointing aspect was that Lores were a form of magic that were forbidden, and not having all elementals represented properly in this trek like Wind (Merton/Meltdown was Fire+Wind, so it was limited) and Water (though Flood was added in FF6A to "fix" that error). Espers weren't really that useful a solution since they were single cast (of course, can be Mimiced, but that isn't entirely practical). FF7 - The only thing that comes close IIRC was when Yuffie stole your materia and did her own trials. Outside of that, I don't recall anything offhand resembling a challenge.
Back to the original topic...
This challenge is really simple. You use shitty weapons, which generally affected Cecil and use shitty armor, which affects Cecil and Cid for the most part. Obviously, Yang and Tellah should be the star of the show... Yes and yet... no. You will soon learn to "optimize" your use of Tellah's pathetic 90MP through Osmose/Psych and find out that certain monsters are simply rich in MP than others like the Ogre and how Cure is simply the best healing spell outside of battle. Yang doesn't really change too much when you use him... unless you use bad claw combos...
Buying equipment for this trek sounds easy on paper as the classic gamer will just buy whatever junk is sold in the local shops. Unfortunately, the best thing you buy there is the GreatBow... everything else is a waste. It would've been nice to have collected RubyRings in advance, but the game spots you two of them in the castle treasure. You could have picked up three of them through Edward, Rydia's home secret passage, and Damcyan's basement. Then again, this equipment is only good for reducing damage from those annoying bats...
The real secret is to have acquired the good stuff from Baron and Mysidia. Baron's greatest contribution is providing the Karate Robe aka Kenpogi. As somewhat pricey as it is, it provides the greatest bit of protection through its naturally high evasion. Remember the hat you bought for Tellah? It's nice to know that mage equipment is generally not heavy... so you have a nice choice between the Headband and whatever the hat is named at Mysidia. This is how you really do bargain basement shopping in FF4. :tongue:
I hadn't mentioned yet what arrows you should be using. If you analyze what the elemental weaknesses the monsters in the cave have, you will come to the conclusion that those White/Holy arrows from Mysidia are the best out there, as only 2 of the monsters are not weak to Holy in that cavern. At least now Cecil can actually do something in the cave... (although, I liked FF4ET's Piggy Stick better...)
When equipped properly, the cave really isn't that hard... However, I think the Tower of Zot is a harder test in the game than this... at higher levels, it is actually more difficult to heal from your wounds (having to consume more MP to heal proportionally higher HP growth for Yang and Cid). Tellah then becomes a great godsend.... kinda.
Title: Re: FF4 - The Handicap "Challenge"
Post by: Pinkpuff on November 08, 2012, 08:22:56 AM
FF3 had a dungeon where your guys had to be Mini. So you basically have to mess up your regular/desired party in favor of all mages. Pretty annoying.
Title: Re: FF4 - The Handicap "Challenge"
Post by: Dragonsbrethren on November 08, 2012, 06:33:05 PM
And another right after that where you needed to be toads to enter, but the game neglects to tell you that, unlike the mini dungeon, you can revert back once in.