Has anyone actually played this? I acquired the PSP version a few days ago, and I made it through all the campaigns, though I'm wondering if I missed something because my characters seem awfully weak, despite the fact I thought I had done a fair amount of grinding in most of the character tales (my characters are Lv20-30, 'cept Golbez, Cecil and one or two others). Now I'm on the surface of the attacking moon, with all of my guys and the enemies are annoyingly hard, and give such pathetic XP, and there's no place to acquire equipment except in the dungeon proper and most of my characters are equipped with weak junk you'd find near the beginning of the game. I still have the clear files from all the character tales, so I could restart the main campaign again easily enough... it seems like you get better XP from the junk in those character tales than you do on the Moon at the end which seems really weird.
Having played through the game maaaaaaaaany times, I think I can help. First things first, having your main characters (the ones you want to use, I mean) at level 20-30 is clearly not enough, I usually had higher levels at the end of their respective stories. Have you done the Challenge dungeons? They are unlocked at the end of every tale and they allow you to get some good gear, along with giving you tons of XP (these are pretty short and all have a specific gimmick as well as an unique boss, but if you do them enough times to get all the major loot your chars will be strong enough to carry on with the story, if not overleveled) Second, try to explore Earth as much as possible before leaving to the moon, there's another ton of cool stuff you can get, hidden in forests and deserts (look out for any unusual tiles on the world map) I think it would be better to level up your characters in their tales, and then to start the last one again, grinding on the moon is extremely hard. I'm pretty tired and may be missing some stuff, but feel free to ask me any questions about anything (dungeons, party loadout, anything really) and I'll answer them all once I'll wake up ^.^
Hmmm, no I didn't do the challenge dungeons, but that reminds me there were those rabbit people who kept saying "Come back later....". It didn't occur to me to try loading up one of the clear files and doing exactly that, lol. How hard are those dungeons? Should I be grinding to the level cap before even trying it? And I got all the stuff (AFAIK) during the last chapter on Earth before going to the Moon... what, like ~19 small tails and a few pieces (that Recovery Rod is freaking awesome) of equipment? I remember a couple swords for Edge, the aforementioned Rod... a dagger that I didn't really see any use for (probably for the dolls) and a full set of Diamond gear IIRC. Oh, and an axe for the dwarf girl too.
Difficulty really depends, Ceodore's and Rydia's will go from "quite difficult/impossible" on your first tries to "meh easy" at the end. Most of them require you to just get into it and waddle around to level up a bit, then to leave, restock on supplies, and raid it for good. One thing you must know if that every dungeon contains higher tier goods, and killing the boss rewards you with one item taken from an item pool unique to every dungeon, and each pool contains unique/higher tier weapons and armors, one piece of adamantite, as well as consumables. (Each weapon/armor/adamantite/unique consumables can be dropped once, if you redo the dungeon after getting them all you'll only get elixirs, ethers and the likes) Yeah, challenge dungeons are a pretty big deal. And I think the hardest ones are those Palom's and Porom's, the first because two low level magic users, and so you lack stronger spells to take on big enemies (not to mention the boss's an absolute ass, I never beat him once); and the second because you don't have the time to grind during the tale, and end up with Kain doing all the job. Also because it's a timed dungeon, a timed dungeon with big enemies. Avoid these two dungeons. Edit: holy moly, this text is so cluttered. Let me know if you need more detailed explanations on something~
Ahh, okay. That reminds me. Is Ceodore's tale kinda lumped in with Kain's? I noticed when I went to start The Crystals, it didn't even ask for Ceodore's tale, but rather Kain's fulfilled both Kain AND Ceodore's slots in the last save. That means I shouldn't even touch Ceodore's clear save at all? Or do I have to do Ceodore's challenge dungeons and THEN re-do Kain's Tale all over again, importing Ceodore's stuff AGAIN? And Palom/Porom... well I can grind Palom up easily enough, lol. You find a pot and just Fira/Blizzara/Thundara everything to death and check the pot every few battles, lol. So level capping Palom should be easy-peasy if it a bit grindy. Porom, well... that might be more difficult, yeah. I think maybe when I go to do this, I'll start with Yang and Ursula.... Ursula is SO overpowered, lol.
Yeah, you'll need to redo Kain's tale as it uses Ceodore's, but that's not necessary. All of the loot you'll find in Ceodore's dungeon is surapassed by Kain's tale loot, except for the adamantine piece (adamantite comes in limited numbers in the game, and allows you to craft the best armors in endgame.) Ceodore's dungeon mostly serves as an introduction to challenge dungeons, by showing how the bosses and their loot function. I always liked Rydia over Palom as a mage (y'know, summoning...), so I never bothered to grind him Their dungeon is pretty fun, once you're strong enough you'll just steamroll through the whole place and claim your loot ^.^ Anyway, I'm going to sleep now. Feel free to ask anything while I'm away
So I loaded up Ceodore's save, bought a bunch of potions and spider silk. First run gave me a Mythril Shield, then an Elixir and then 3 X-Potions in a row, blah lol. But still, I'm getting levelups. He went from 25 to 33 in a little over an hour, lol. I imagine 40 won't take all that much longer, as I'm getting a good 2k per 10-15 second fight and the golem is a complete wuss now. (Spider Silk is so OP haha)
Try to stockpile Spider Silks whan you can (you can buy them at some point, I can't remember in what tale) because once you fly to the moon there won't be anyone to sell these
I've seen them sold in at least 3 Tales, but by the end, I imagine one probably has a white mage who can just cast slow instead of using the silks, lol. But still, it is nice to have a ninja be able to throw them, lol. EDIT: YES! This morning is MUCH more kind to me. Mythril Armor and Adamantite. Now to level Ceo to 40 (He's like almost 35 now) and on to the next hehe. Kain's tale will be so hilariously easy when I get to it, lol. EDIT2: Well, I've finished Kain's challenge dungeon several times now, hehe. I actually didn't find his dungeon all that hard, just run from the dragons and the black knights, and just gotta be careful with the boss. I ate that boss for breakfast now. Thanks for all the info, things are going a lot better now lol.
YAY! Finally. Worst part of it (or at least one of the worst parts) done. Thankfully, all of the other groups except Golbez's go up to 40... it's the 45-50 stretch that really takes the time. And Golbez's team is only 2 peeps which means more XP, lol. Also got everything out of Kain's dungeon, so yay. Done with this team. EDIT: Surprised it only took 6.5h to do (not counting the time spent in Ceo's story).
I so can't wait to fight the Girl at Baron Castle again.... haha, she's gonna get such a butt-kicking handed to her it'll be rather hilarious. On that note... ugh, I forgot how wimpy Rydia and Luca's team feels... but at least I can levelup in the cave, I just hope it's enough to deal with some of the ridiculous fights in their challenge dungeon. C'mon, 2 mad ogres and 2 grey coeurls against a black mage and a meh fighter? Oh, that reminds me.... Which versions of this game have you played? On the PSP version, I don't know if it's because of the emulator I'm using, but 99% of all attacks are directed at the person closest to the middle of the lineup which means 1 person is taking ALL the hits, almost always. Is that normal? I know the original SNES FF4 wasn't like that, and I had After Years on my Wii but never got very far with it (got sidetracked with other stuff etc). Because 1 person taking ALL the hits from 4, 5 heavy hitting mobs, some battles are far more difficult than if the hits were to be spread out a bit more.
I was playing on the PSP version too, but I don't remember having my middle character taking all the hits... I was playing on an actual PSP though. Oh and yeah, Rydia's team is pretty weak. Try to craft a Dancing dagger if you can, as you can endlessly use it as an item to deal a few hundreds damage, pretty useful for Rydia. By the way, Rydia is quite weak, until you get Bio. After that, you'll destroy everything in your path, and if you osmose enemies frequently you'll never run out of mana (I think eggs can be osmosed, if I remember correctly)
Eh, sadly I found out about the dancing dagger too late and her tale was... not exactly fun. Right now, I have her shooting arrows lol. Which works good enough for leveling up in the Agart mine, 1.5k xp per battle is easily good enough to get to Lv30+. So it sounds like the emulator's RNG is a bit wonky. I also noticed on Kain's Tale, the special item chest after the boss, ALWAYS yielded a rare item until the WHOLE LIST was exhausted, with no remedies, elixirs, etc until I had gotten every single rare item. Not sure if that's normal or not.
Ah, that's bad :/ This weapon is not only awesome for Rydia, but it's also a stronger weapon for Edge in the final tale You can still do without though. Mmh, I can't remember if common items could be dropped before exhausting the list. I think they can, but I'm not sure at all.
Ahh, I see. Another question: Why is it, in the Status screen, that sometimes numbers are displayed in Yellow instead of White at different times?
Ah, stats. White numbers are the base stats of you characters, while the yellow ones are boosted by your equipment (armors and weapons alike), like for example Cecil's paladin armor: every piece gives him a small boost to his spirit. Stat-boosting gear usually gives 3-5 to certain stats, which are often obvious: some robes raise magic, some ninja gear raise speed, and so on. Same goes for the red numbers, some equipment pieces can lower stats but are often accompanied with opposite stats increases (Like the horned helmet, which increases strength but decreases magic and spirit) In short: white numbers are normal, yellow ones are increased by your equipment, and the red ones are lowered by it. Make sure to often watch your stats, especially in the endgame, because some items may give you cool effects but lower your stats as a drawback (Blood sword/spear) Especially in the endgame, as there is a ton of stat-changing stuff, so much that you may not notice that this cool katana took away 5 speed uuuurgh
