Final Fantasy Tonight: January 17, 2015

I wonder which version of Final Fantasy 4 the Chronicles version is based on...?

I know there are several variations on the title, with the one that originally got released here in the US as Final Fantasy II being based on the so-called “easy type” variant of the original Japanese title. This was the one I did my Text Play of the game on back in late 2011 and early 2012. But there are other versions, with increased difficulty, some additional moves for characters, and quite a few more items than the version I'm more familiar with.

In fact, all those additional items have proven to be the most difficult thing to figure out this time around. Whereas there was just one item, the Heal potion, that took care of pretty much every status effect that might get inflicted on the party in the original US version, in this version, there are different items for most of those status effects. Also, there are some additional combat items that didn't get put into the US version. These do prove interesting, and in some cases, useful. There are some that I've not yet worked up the nerve to try. There's one called kamekazi, that I presume works very similarly to a monster attack called Exploder, which tends to kill the user as well as damage the target.

There have been moments when I had thought getting through a section of the game was going to be easy, but it proved to be way more difficult than I had expected. One such area was the Land of Summoned Monsters. Part of what made this more difficult is that Rosa, the party's white mage, learns the Float and Wall spells at slightly later levels than I had remembered, making the trip a little more interesting.

The fight against Leviathan, the king of summons, was more difficult as well, as his speed was up from what I remembered. Fortunately, though, Rosa did have the Slow spell by then, and I had a stock of an item called Silk Web, which puts the Slow status on an entire enemy party. Taking advantage of that proved to be key to winning that fight.

Next up is the Sealed Cave. This should also prove interesting, considering the various changes that there are in this version. But that's for another time. More then, as always.