I know I have the Moekuri thread which has been utterly silent for months now, but I guess cute monster girls giving panty shots just isn't enough to get me to really sperg. No, for that, we need a good solid JRPG, something that can really get me to autistically rip it apart...ah-ha! Final Fantasy 1, specifically, the Origins re-release on PS1.
If we want to get my original autism, well, you'll have to wait for the Let's Sperg Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal for that.
I'm using ePSXe specifically so I can capture images. My capture program decided it likes the title bar.
The original Final Fantasy was released in December 1987, just in time for Christmas (literally, it came out on December 18th of that year, so a week before, how nice). The Origins re-release came out in 2002 in Japan, then 2003 everywhere else, and came bundled with the titantic pile of crap that is Final Fantasy 2. I'll be getting to that eventually. This first one allows for you to build a party how you like (in stark contrast to most future installments), and was built on the back of the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop RPG-that's right, the massive world-devouring series with legions of fans that'll argue endlessly on how big Sephiroth's dick is owes fucking everything to Gary Gygax's original magnum opus. Bust out that little factoid when someone's sperging about how great the series is, and let me know the reaction.
Speaking of Party Creation, you get 6 classes to choose from: Warrior (originally Fighter), Thief, Monk, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage. The best set up is the one that FF14 uses way on down the line for dungeons-One Tank, One healer, Two DPS. So this basically means you're getting a Warrior and a White Mage, don't even fucking argue, I don't care if you beat the game with one single Black Mage because if you did, you're even more of a sperg then I am.
So, what should your DPS choices be? That depends. Every class has good bits and bad bits, let's go over them now:
That all said, here's the party:
Warrior: Named Bruce because of my original plan to name everyone Bruce. I realized that was a stupid plan and would have gotten old, no matter how much you like Monty Python, by the time we get the ship.
Monk: Named @Jaimas because I want the Monk (and therefore, the party) to walk all over any resistance, and I figure someone that speedruns Salt and Sanctuary and visits horrible amounts of rape on enemy teams in Destiny is someone I want on my team.
White Mage: Named Tina because of a healer I made for a D&D group. Technically the White Mage is supposed to be Ambiguous Gender, but everyone thinks it's a chick-hell, I thought it was a chick, even after they class change to White Wizard...maybe Gandalf would be a better name, but I can't get that to fit in the 6 character limit.
Black Mage: It's me. Because I like explosions.
We're also playing on Easy Mode, where stuff is 10% cheaper, it costs 10% less XP to level up, the level cap is 99 instead of 50, and the mages get a shitload more spell points. It's because I want to actually beat this game in something resembling a decent amount of time (10 hours, even if you're fucking around and grinding for goddamn everything).
We start off in front of Cornelia. Welcome to Cornelia. You actually have to walk on top of those comically small buildings to enter the town, like you're Godzilla rampaging through. At least a visit from the real Godzilla is better than a visit from the Godzilla of Tech Feminism.
Oh, and that thing to the south? It's a dock. We can use them when we have a ship. We don't have a ship yet. That's later.
As we enter Cornelia, our way back out is barred by a guard-he appears there automatically. There's a guard at every exit, and it's to make sure we actually talk to one before we leave-if we do, we're teleported to the King of Cornelia's throne room, with a cutscene playing urging us to head off on our first heroic quest. However, first things first, and the first thing is an activity both RPG protagonists and vapid blondes share the world over: SHOPPING!
Every city-well, most cities-have a few standard amenities for our intrepid heroes. The first is the Inn and Rez Altar. The Inn lets us pay a flat fee to restore all our HP and MP, and is invaluable. Inns are also our only save points, and I can't remember if the world map lets us save or if we need a Sleeping Bag/Tent/Cottage first. The Rez Altar lets us pay to get resurrections done. Phoenix Down do not appear in this game, and yes, you have to pay for resurrection-not as ridiculous a price as 5,000 GP in diamonds like D&D demands, more on the lines of a few hundred.
There's also the weapon and armor shops. Standard fare. Magic shops are also divided into White Magic and Black Magic shopping. We'll get to those in a minute. Finally, there's the item shop, for potions and antidotes and anything you need. I recommend stocking up on Potions and saving healing magic for battles.
Final Fantasy 1 has some weirdness for its first installment. Weapons have two stats: Attack and Accuracy (the ACC). Attack is simple-damage. Accuracy, however, not only determines hit rate, but also determines amount of hits. For every multiple of 32, you get an extra attack, meaning sometimes, it's better to go with a weaker weapon if it means getting an extra hit....BWAHAHAHA, I'm just kidding, every good weapon you find in the dungeons increases attack and accuracy by good amounts, so just strap your best shit to the Warrior and tell him to go beat people stupid. Unless you have a Red Mage or a Thief, you don't need to worry about the Attack/Accuracy split.
Armor increases Defense, but lowers Evasion-except for certain Armlets found late in the game. This includes shields, I believe. This is why the Monk is best without anything-even a shirt lowers Evasion by 2 for 1 point of Defense. Still useful to put on your Mages, though...anyway, like before, load down your Warrior. He can handle it.
Now, Magic. Magic has 8 levels of White and Black, each level has 4 options, and everyone who can learn magic can only learn three per level. Also, they have a certain number of points per spell level, each casting of any spell at that level takes up a point. Points are restored by sleeping at an Inn or using a Cottage on the world map. Each level has a couple good ones, and usually one (or more) that suck. You can also see on the side who can learn that spell, with names being greyed out if that class can't learn it.
At level 1, the White Mage wants Cure 1 (the classic healing spell, based off Cure Light Wounds), Dia1 (a spell that fries the undead), and Shield1 (pick a dude and give him 8 points of Defense. Very nice). The White Mage can ignore the Blink spell, which raises her own Evasion by 80 points, and simply isn't as useful as the Shield spell.
The Black Mage wants Fire 1 and Bolt 1 (damage spells) and Sleep 1 (put all enemies to sleep). Focus1 is a bit useless-it lowers enemy evasion by 10, but accuracy is high enough and evasion is low enough that full on misses are not common in this installment. Sleep 1 won't get much use, but has some use.
Now that we're all kitted out, it's time to see the king.
To sum up the cutscene, and avoid hitting you with a heavy blast of exposition: There's a prophecy that when the world goes to shit, four warriors with crystals in hand will appear. The King begs us to save his daughter from the Knight Garland, who will knock us all down if we're not careful. If we do it, he'll rebuild the bridge to the north.
Swell guy, that king.
Our business in town is mostly concluded-I was one GP short to get Shield1, so it's time to grind. We gotta get to level 3 before we even think about the Temple ofElemental Evil Chaos where Garland is anyway. There's plenty of people to talk to, but they all just beg us to save Princess Sarah, so let's actually be heroic for a change.
If we want to get my original autism, well, you'll have to wait for the Let's Sperg Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal for that.
I'm using ePSXe specifically so I can capture images. My capture program decided it likes the title bar.
The original Final Fantasy was released in December 1987, just in time for Christmas (literally, it came out on December 18th of that year, so a week before, how nice). The Origins re-release came out in 2002 in Japan, then 2003 everywhere else, and came bundled with the titantic pile of crap that is Final Fantasy 2. I'll be getting to that eventually. This first one allows for you to build a party how you like (in stark contrast to most future installments), and was built on the back of the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop RPG-that's right, the massive world-devouring series with legions of fans that'll argue endlessly on how big Sephiroth's dick is owes fucking everything to Gary Gygax's original magnum opus. Bust out that little factoid when someone's sperging about how great the series is, and let me know the reaction.
Speaking of Party Creation, you get 6 classes to choose from: Warrior (originally Fighter), Thief, Monk, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage. The best set up is the one that FF14 uses way on down the line for dungeons-One Tank, One healer, Two DPS. So this basically means you're getting a Warrior and a White Mage, don't even fucking argue, I don't care if you beat the game with one single Black Mage because if you did, you're even more of a sperg then I am.
So, what should your DPS choices be? That depends. Every class has good bits and bad bits, let's go over them now:
Monk: Pro: High damage and evasion. Better unarmed and unarmored, making him a cheap party member. Gets more attacks then he should. Con: Low defense because of the whole "unarmored" thing, meaning if he gets hit once, he is FUCKED.
Black Mage: Pro: EXPLOSIONS! Really, a bevvy of powerful spells to demolish any foe. Cons: Tied to his amount of remaining spell points, fewest options for arms and armor, as squishy as the Monk without the Evasion to dodge like Neo.
Thief: Pro: Incredible Luck stat, meaning enemies get fewer surprise attacks and you get more surprise attacks. Eventually turns into the Ninja and can then use a small selection of Black Magic, which is actually way better then it sounds. Cons: Lowest Damage output of the DPSes, and yes, squishy.
Red Mage: Pros: Does a little of everything, combining solid armor/weapon choices with a good selection of White and Black Magic. Cons: Does nothing well-magic selection caps out at level 7 and doesn't get all the spells the mages do, and can't use all the weapons and armor the Warrior can.
Black Mage: Pro: EXPLOSIONS! Really, a bevvy of powerful spells to demolish any foe. Cons: Tied to his amount of remaining spell points, fewest options for arms and armor, as squishy as the Monk without the Evasion to dodge like Neo.
Thief: Pro: Incredible Luck stat, meaning enemies get fewer surprise attacks and you get more surprise attacks. Eventually turns into the Ninja and can then use a small selection of Black Magic, which is actually way better then it sounds. Cons: Lowest Damage output of the DPSes, and yes, squishy.
Red Mage: Pros: Does a little of everything, combining solid armor/weapon choices with a good selection of White and Black Magic. Cons: Does nothing well-magic selection caps out at level 7 and doesn't get all the spells the mages do, and can't use all the weapons and armor the Warrior can.
That all said, here's the party:
Warrior: Named Bruce because of my original plan to name everyone Bruce. I realized that was a stupid plan and would have gotten old, no matter how much you like Monty Python, by the time we get the ship.
Monk: Named @Jaimas because I want the Monk (and therefore, the party) to walk all over any resistance, and I figure someone that speedruns Salt and Sanctuary and visits horrible amounts of rape on enemy teams in Destiny is someone I want on my team.
White Mage: Named Tina because of a healer I made for a D&D group. Technically the White Mage is supposed to be Ambiguous Gender, but everyone thinks it's a chick-hell, I thought it was a chick, even after they class change to White Wizard...maybe Gandalf would be a better name, but I can't get that to fit in the 6 character limit.
Black Mage: It's me. Because I like explosions.
We're also playing on Easy Mode, where stuff is 10% cheaper, it costs 10% less XP to level up, the level cap is 99 instead of 50, and the mages get a shitload more spell points. It's because I want to actually beat this game in something resembling a decent amount of time (10 hours, even if you're fucking around and grinding for goddamn everything).
We start off in front of Cornelia. Welcome to Cornelia. You actually have to walk on top of those comically small buildings to enter the town, like you're Godzilla rampaging through. At least a visit from the real Godzilla is better than a visit from the Godzilla of Tech Feminism.
Oh, and that thing to the south? It's a dock. We can use them when we have a ship. We don't have a ship yet. That's later.
As we enter Cornelia, our way back out is barred by a guard-he appears there automatically. There's a guard at every exit, and it's to make sure we actually talk to one before we leave-if we do, we're teleported to the King of Cornelia's throne room, with a cutscene playing urging us to head off on our first heroic quest. However, first things first, and the first thing is an activity both RPG protagonists and vapid blondes share the world over: SHOPPING!
Every city-well, most cities-have a few standard amenities for our intrepid heroes. The first is the Inn and Rez Altar. The Inn lets us pay a flat fee to restore all our HP and MP, and is invaluable. Inns are also our only save points, and I can't remember if the world map lets us save or if we need a Sleeping Bag/Tent/Cottage first. The Rez Altar lets us pay to get resurrections done. Phoenix Down do not appear in this game, and yes, you have to pay for resurrection-not as ridiculous a price as 5,000 GP in diamonds like D&D demands, more on the lines of a few hundred.
There's also the weapon and armor shops. Standard fare. Magic shops are also divided into White Magic and Black Magic shopping. We'll get to those in a minute. Finally, there's the item shop, for potions and antidotes and anything you need. I recommend stocking up on Potions and saving healing magic for battles.
Final Fantasy 1 has some weirdness for its first installment. Weapons have two stats: Attack and Accuracy (the ACC). Attack is simple-damage. Accuracy, however, not only determines hit rate, but also determines amount of hits. For every multiple of 32, you get an extra attack, meaning sometimes, it's better to go with a weaker weapon if it means getting an extra hit....BWAHAHAHA, I'm just kidding, every good weapon you find in the dungeons increases attack and accuracy by good amounts, so just strap your best shit to the Warrior and tell him to go beat people stupid. Unless you have a Red Mage or a Thief, you don't need to worry about the Attack/Accuracy split.
Armor increases Defense, but lowers Evasion-except for certain Armlets found late in the game. This includes shields, I believe. This is why the Monk is best without anything-even a shirt lowers Evasion by 2 for 1 point of Defense. Still useful to put on your Mages, though...anyway, like before, load down your Warrior. He can handle it.
Now, Magic. Magic has 8 levels of White and Black, each level has 4 options, and everyone who can learn magic can only learn three per level. Also, they have a certain number of points per spell level, each casting of any spell at that level takes up a point. Points are restored by sleeping at an Inn or using a Cottage on the world map. Each level has a couple good ones, and usually one (or more) that suck. You can also see on the side who can learn that spell, with names being greyed out if that class can't learn it.
At level 1, the White Mage wants Cure 1 (the classic healing spell, based off Cure Light Wounds), Dia1 (a spell that fries the undead), and Shield1 (pick a dude and give him 8 points of Defense. Very nice). The White Mage can ignore the Blink spell, which raises her own Evasion by 80 points, and simply isn't as useful as the Shield spell.
The Black Mage wants Fire 1 and Bolt 1 (damage spells) and Sleep 1 (put all enemies to sleep). Focus1 is a bit useless-it lowers enemy evasion by 10, but accuracy is high enough and evasion is low enough that full on misses are not common in this installment. Sleep 1 won't get much use, but has some use.
Now that we're all kitted out, it's time to see the king.
To sum up the cutscene, and avoid hitting you with a heavy blast of exposition: There's a prophecy that when the world goes to shit, four warriors with crystals in hand will appear. The King begs us to save his daughter from the Knight Garland, who will knock us all down if we're not careful. If we do it, he'll rebuild the bridge to the north.
Swell guy, that king.
Our business in town is mostly concluded-I was one GP short to get Shield1, so it's time to grind. We gotta get to level 3 before we even think about the Temple of
