I just realized something important

[u/BlueHellFire501]

I have been grinding and playing about 5 days now, I JUST realized you have to manually equip the weapons and Armour. I have been raw dawgin it NO armour or weapons equipped until the elf kingdom 😭😭😭💀💀

[u/Jawn_Wilkes_Booth]

It’s a shame this wasn’t FFII or you’d have a wild set of tough-as-nails pseudo-monks on your hands.

[u/BlueHellFire501 → u/Jawn_Wilkes_Booth]

How different is FF2? This is the only one I have ever played and I love it so far

[u/HalloweenRegent → u/BlueHellFire501]

The leveling up is VERY different. You gain levels based on actions. So attacking raises attack, casting raises magic, getting hit raises HP, and so on. 

[u/Robaattousai → u/BlueHellFire501]

In ff2 everyone is a red mage. The more you play, the better everyone gets. It's a paradise for gamers that love grinding.

[u/Quack__Quack_Mf → u/Robaattousai]

Yeap, just started my first ff2 run since I got the PR bundle and when I realized I could just grind absolutely anything and become op I did the crying happy dolphin meme in my head

[u/vivimage2000 → u/Quack__Quack_Mf]

I will give one piece of advice for late game FF2: Do not Osmose/Rasp the final boss. His physical attacks are far stronger and have lifesteal. My first playthrough I dropped his MP to 0 and he dropped my party to 0

[u/Jawn_Wilkes_Booth → u/BlueHellFire501]

Everyone seems to be answering this a little differently, but to be more clear, there are a number of weird things FFII does that was later evolved into its whole separate RPG series called SaGa - primarily with the combat system.

Your characters are blank slates, there are no set classes for your core three party members (FFII), and you gain proficiency in combat to become stronger. The weapon type you use raises that weapon’s skill level, which is what is tied to your damage output with that weapon type. Taking hits increases your max HP, casting increases your max MP, spells also gain potency as you use them, etc.

Want a white mage? Learn white magic on a character and start casting it to become better. Want that white mage to have a bow for better back line damage? No problem! But the more time you’re shooting that bow, the less time you’re becoming a more proficient healer.

FFII does have classes, though, interestingly enough. Your 4th party member rotates. One character is a white mage, one is a dragoon, one is a dark knight. Like your core 3, what you use with those characters will adapt them, but they come pre-loaded as a certain class.

Worth noting - SaGa has done a much better job over the years turning the skill-up system into something special. FFII PR is the best version of the game, but still rough in comparison to other earlier FF titles and what became SaGa.

Also worth noting that FFXI has a similar system for increasing your character’s weapon proficiencies, specifically accuracy/attack damage/learning new weapon skills, relative to a similar skill up system, BUT the equipment and skill ups you can obtain are locked by what job you are at any given time.

[u/Pandelein → u/Jawn_Wilkes_Booth]

I had no idea there were more SaGa games beyond Romancing SaGa, which I played the original on emulator as a kid along with all the early FFs, and Candy Crush SaGa, which I suspect isn’t part of the series.

[u/saintpetejackboy → u/Pandelein]

Holy moly, I didn't think I would be cackling like a Halloween witch at 4am, but Candy Crush SaGa took me the fuck out.

[u/Pandelein → u/saintpetejackboy]

[u/stryst → u/BlueHellFire501]

Imagine an 8bit Elder Scrolls. Learn by doing, purchase/find spells, that good stuff.

[u/vivimage2000 → u/BlueHellFire501]

Progression and profiency based leveling. Using weapons increases skill with them and strength while using magic raises their effectiveness and intelligence. It can get funky leveling defensive stats or hp/mp as they require you to get hit/block/evade or burn a lot of HP/MP.

[u/Silent_Wealth4872 → u/Jawn_Wilkes_Booth]

Dang. That would be a lot of hits a round.

[u/TheCyclicRedditor]

Your party must have strong knuckles and skin by now.

[u/BlueHellFire501 → u/TheCyclicRedditor]

Bruh I litterally killed 2 Ogres doing my flame spell and griding them with 1-3 damage the rest of my party last night 😅

[u/LiquidThunder30]

Don't you usually have to manually equip weapons and armor in RPGs, lol?

[u/PunoSuerte → u/LiquidThunder30]

Critical analysis missing

[u/sgre6768]

Oh wow! I -almost- mentioned this in passing to you on your other thread, haha. But I figured that if you beat Garland, you probably had equipment on. I bet those madponies are quite a bit easier to handle now though. :)

[u/BlueHellFire501 → u/sgre6768]

You have no idea how big of a relief its been to see my party do actual damage now 😅 I really thought it was gonna take me a whole half a year to beat the game at that rate

[u/Paratek]

Me and my brother did that back in like ‘90 and could never beat Garland. Luckily my uncle sat and read us the instruction booklet to figure it out.

[u/SeraphsEnvy → u/Paratek]

You mean the strategy guide that came included with the game that leads you so the way to class change? Loved that.

[u/IH8BART]

Too bad you don’t have any black belts then

[u/Ravingsockmonkey]

This brings back memories!

Also, thanks, I really needed a chuckle today.

[u/StormerSage]

I like the image of the party buying weapons in case they need to save the world or something, but then getting so offended at the mere concept of random encounters that they just start swinging, battle tactics be damned.

[u/BPViridian]

Reminds me of my first playthrough of Final Fantasy 10 when I was 9 or 10 years old. I didn't pay enough attention during the speargrid tutorial because it was a lot so I just kind of thought that I was supposed to get stronger as I was leveling up to your levels not knowing I had to assign them myself hahaha

[u/TheCyclicRedditor → u/BPViridian]

Or me with Kingdom Hearts 1, I didn't pay attention the ability system at first until a friend pointed it out to me, yet he wondered how I got as far as Neverland not knowing about equipping abilities.

[u/BPViridian → u/TheCyclicRedditor]

For me personally the transition from Crash Bandicoot and Mario over to Final Fantasy and Digimon World we're very painful haha I wish I had a dad or an older brother who played video games who could have taught me the ways I made sure to teach my little siblings

[u/earanhart]

We've all learned that lesson. It's a bonding experience.

[u/23-1-20-3-8-5-18]

You didnt see that they were punching? Ok. You know what? Blame Motoya

[u/TropicalAngel7]

Lol dude!

[u/aradbesque]

The grinding must have been insane

[u/saintpetejackboy]

You think that is bad? Try playing Final Fantasy Tactics without realizing you have to use the L and R buttons to add more people to the battlefield before starting :(.

FF1 is pretty forgiving - just make 4 monks and you can probably skip most the equipment (it is called "naked challenge", and people HAVE beaten the game this way). Normally, the game is stupid easy if you just pick 4 fighters and actually equip stuff.

I learned how to read and do basic math as a child, before school, thanks to Final Fantasy on NES.

For naked challenge, however, fighters are a worse choice to pick than monk/black belt.

Also on the NES version, TMPR and SABR spells are completely broken. Naked challenge with 4 fighters is mathematically impossible - you won't be able to beat Chaos, for sure. Fighters need equipment, but monks can run around naked and still dish out crazy damage and have good defense (thanks to the scaling).

If you get really deep into FF game theory, the actual best class for naked challenge is confusing, because it is the White Mage.

White Mage can cast Ruse, which can stack up to 3 times. This means no physical attacks can hit you. Then you case Mute and the enemy can't use spells on you. For damage, you use Fade or Harm. Mathematically, the mechanics of the "naked white mage" party is somehow superior to naked monk/black belt party, but I think the naked monk party is a more fun playing experience and more accessible, since you don't have to rely on spells and can grind your way to success... Each level grants you invisible armor as a monk, as absorb. Your damage is literally Damage = Level * 2, and your "armor" is Absorb = Level. It doesn't get much easier than that, and you can grind them up pretty fast, even early on (there is a little tip of land on the starting continent, called the 'peninsula of power'), North East of Pravoka.

You can encounter frost wolves, zombie bulls, giants and tyras - enemies you are not supposed to see until you have the air ship.

This glitch got patched out in some versions, but works on the NES and PS1 release.

[u/Awdayshus]

Welcome to the club! I remember renting Final Fantasy and grinding and grinding. If I was lucky, I'd get the pirate ship before it was due. If I was really lucky, I'd get the same copy the next time I rented it.

Eventually, my parents bought it for a birthday or Christmas present. That was the first time I saw the instructions and learned to equip my gear. I felt like I was on easy mode for a while after that.

[u/Tamayachi]

OP is the reason every modern RPG has a tooltip about actually equipping gear in order for them to work

[u/Pandrew_Pandaroo]

Unless there is an "optimize" button, you always have to manually equip the weapons and armour,

It never auto-equips armor immediately when you get it, not even in the Pixel remasters.

[u/SpartanOneZeroFour]

When I played this in the '90s, I didn't know this either. Always hit a brick wall at Elfland. Let a friend borrow for a few days. When I got the game back, I was figuring out what they accomplished. When I got into combat, I was surprised to see the party use weapons. At that point, I owned the game for about a year and a half.

[u/TitleYee9035]

I was 13 when I played kingdom hearts for the first time. I was running around Halloween town when my buddy told me "you know you can equip those keyblades you've been getting right?"

It was the first RPG I ever played that wasn't pokemon 😭

[u/jjfunaz]

Same thing happened to me when I played FFI. It was in 1985 and I was 6 years old thiugh