Love/Hate #30 Final Fantasy I - while it's still fresh in my mind and 100% completion

 Hiya - I was studying how to play Final Fantasy 2 as I intend to play that next but my eyes were starting to blur at all the preparations so I said f it I'll throw together a quick FF1 review while it's still frehs on my memory and I remember what my screenshots meant at the time.

I've never played FF1 before so this was fun and I really did enjoy it. It was tedious at times but it gets a pass for the nice sprite graphics, nostalgia for the first entry of my beloved series and the few nice things they added/improved in the recent Steam edition.

I did not even click on the 'class' button so I did not realise that was how you got the Black Belt/Monk and the Red Mage. Oh well! I probably would have gone with Red Mage instead of White Mage purely for the 8-bit Theater party composition but it's fine. Worked out pretty well but in hindsight I probably would have dropped the Thief for Red Mage or Monk as they might have been more interesting and less fragile. I spent half the game thinking 'when am I going to meet the other 2 party members' and 'does Thief learn Steal later?' both wrong.

Loved the graphics. I'm so glad I played this first and not my original plan to play 6, then 5 and backwards to 1 for some reason.

Humble beginnings. The first half of the game was refreshingly difficult.

Garland beat me the first time, thank the gods for auto save. A welcome feature in the PC port!

I visisted the Inn in Cornelia a LOT at the start. 30 gil for some sleep and back to the grind.

Spent 500 gil on a Phoenix Down before discovering the priests who can revive you for cheap. Even though this came first technically I was reminded of Golden Sun where you can get revived by priests for cheap or spend stupid money on Water of Life.

Got him the second time after some levelling.

And your reward is... a bridge! Do we own the bridge? They are valuable!

So the adventure begins again.

I got a ship! First a bridge, then a ship.

I'm kind of glad they kept the battles coming when you're on the ship but at the same time man it was rough for a while at the start of the game. I played it cautiously and was only game over'd three times: versus Garland at the start, some random birds mid-game insta death'd me and versus the Warmech death machine toward the end.

Really enjoyed the spell slots in this. Coming off the back of lots of DND it was nice to keep using Vancian Magic.

Some battles you could just mindlessly auto-battle attack through, but some enemies would appear that hit like freight trains, these guys early on did anyway.

Oh yeah.

Ah yes when I barely escaped the Marsh Cave with 2 party members so just fled most battles or killed what I could. Harrowing experience.

Back to safety in Elfland!

State of the party after 3 hours.

I lol'd.

I kind of enjoyed the non-linear 'oh you need the Mystic Key from the bottom right corner of map to open the door in the top left corner of map' fudgery going on but I had a guide open the whole time as I am not spending days on finding the one NPC you need to talk to at any one time.

Do we own the Panama Canal now too?

Poor mud town. Will have to resolve first Crystal dungeon to fix you. Earth Shrine next!

Loved having a few anti-Undead spells. I didn't grab them all but had the basic one Dia and I think the second most powerful one later, Diaga. Did not go for Diara or Diaja opting for different stuff instead.

He's not the real Earth boss...

He is! 

Woohoo! My fave is done first.

There was a lot of exploration coming up... good for levelling though.

A canoe! I know every FF game slowly upgrades your methods of getting around until you can fly/teleport around but I liked the progression in this game.

Using fire and thunder spells on me canoe...

Did not enjoy the hunt for the cave of ice...

I liked the little sprites and the charming little music.

The peninsula of Power. It if FIXED in the Steam version of 2021 and you cannot use it to level up. All my life I read about this place and I finally get here and it's just the same enemies you encounter elsewhere, no bonus powerful enemies.

I did the Airship Levistone detour first before going to the Fire Shrine but opted not to upgrade classes before the Fire Shrine even though I could have - I couldn't figure out how to land airship near the castle with Rat Tail. Turns out I just needed to land a bit further east. Oh well!

Woohoo! No more random encounters while moving. For now...

I did not save enough, thank the gods for autosave. I'd remember to save the old fashioned way every now and then.

I had to, for the achievement. Thanfully I did not have to beat it.

Just a shout out to the maps/mini map in this. Not sure if its exclusive to Steam or was absent in the original versions or not but these were AMAZING and made the game so much easier, exploration anyway and finding all the treasure chests/where to go next.

Enemies starting to use spells. Not good.

Ooh a load of treasure chests...

Ah it's sort of guarded.

Some of the spells I had. Tried to keep a bit of variety for both casters. I mainly healed with White Mage but she would cast the occasional Protera or Invisira especially versus later game bosses. Out of combat stuff like Poisona would come in handy and of course Life.

Woohoo! Upgrade!

Though I already miss the old sprites. Could never get into these guys as much.

White Mage made no longer flips the bird. Sad.

Black Mage was just so good at either eliminating large mobs of enemies or buffing the two melee attackers. Boss fights? Temper-Haste Fighter then Thief. 9 enemies? Blast them.

Boss fights? Invisira and Protera and heal heal heal. Regular battles? Just use the hammer!

Glad I got this now, I hate backtracking.

No more Kraken. None of the boss battles were particularly challenging.

Lol 3 hour gap and no main save. The upgrade!

I just had to use Flare at least once.

The main map. I found it useful for clearing the treasure chest achievements.

I love when they just palette swap sprites but also enjoy new ones coming online. The Air Elementals are just pink versions of the Water Elemental but love 'em. 

Shit is on.

I got the Ninja and Fighter as half casters, I would use Temper and Haste via the Ninja quite a bit at the end to free up the Black Mage. He was finally useful!

Fighter was such a tank I never used his spells really, a few out of combat cures maybe but that was all.

TWO battles into the infamous bridge and I got this guy. There is a small chance of him appearing and he's a BEAST toughest monster I fought in the game. Needless to say he killed me the first time, again thanks autosave I was transported a few feet back and tried again. I healed up and tried to get him again but no luck.

I got bored of trying to find Warmech again so detoured to kill Tiamat. Easy peasy. 

Went from maybe level 45 ish to level 50 grinding for Warmech. Had to turn off auto battle in case I got aced again.

Lots of random battles but was good for experience. Would have to heal up a lot between every few battles to be ready for him.

Got him again, and a first strike! Needless to say I took full advantage by buffing.

Buffs...

More buffs... Temper was good for sheer damage, but Haste gave access to multiple hits.

God damn. He cast this like 4 times in the battle but with Invisira I only took maybe 200-300 a pop.

Got him. No specific achievement for him but he was my 115th monster of the bestiary killed, of a possible 128.

There is an achievement for Excalibur, so I got that. Also, just good to have!

Time to go back in time...

You have to fight all the bosses again at some point in Chaos Shrine. Nothing too difficult.

This guy is rare apparently, so made sure to collect him. Got all the treasure chests completed in the end but NOT the bestiary, would have to simply play the game after the end credits for that.

15 hours and right before Chaos, this was the party situation.

Garland again???

Oh no it's Chaos.

He was not particularly difficult he just had a lot of HP.

WOO!

Just let these play for ages to get past them...

Sorry I was wrong I did have to get treasure after the end, there were 5 chests in the pre-time travel shrine that I did not get until after.

I had 5 monsters to get, none of them were particularly difficult I just flew around map and got them. Only one was rare to encounter:

There he is! Took a little while but eventually hunted him down and completed the Bestiary and got the Master of I achievement.

Goodbye Final Fantasy I it was a fun weekend!

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So yeah, I really enjoyed the difficulty of the first half of the game it was refreshing having to worry about healing, distance from Inns, spell slots and so on for a while. Everything started to click together after the Fire Shrine-upgrade-Airship.

Really fun to see where it all began and the obvious Dungeons and Dragons influences were really fun for me. It was never difficult to pick up and play every evening this bank holiday weekend but I was never totally blown away either. I definitely rank this above FF13. I got nostalgic for FF9 in fact and 8 bit theater, both of which call backed to FF1 a lot.

So that's it time to move onto FF2! It looks complicated but might be a refreshing change.

Screw the update, let's do even more DnD 5e Campaign updates and whatnot

 Haven't done a post for July yet or an update on DND since April so here goes.

There have been 7 sessions since the last update. They had just turned level 8, now they are level 10. Hm.

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On reflection, Roll20 is just fine for now, mainly due to the processing demands required by Foundry et al. also having to learn a new VTT. Maybe if this campaign ends I might look into Foundry and what people can and can't do and go from there.

Some other thoughts: as much as I love the crunch and gameplay factor of 5e and how that is so easy to do with a VTT in one tab (roll20), all the resources of DND Beyond in the other (recently got Hero Tier membership) and any question answerable by a quick new tab and Google search, the roleplay is suffering.
 It's not totally dead but I do miss how much better as a player I was getting in person pre-2020 and am wondering can I bring back my abilities from my 2008-2016 run as a GM, today. 5 years and counting since I've ran a game in person, wild.
 People (including me) don't want to be on camera all game or at all and microphones can be good but you can deliver an epic line or someone else will and there will always be somebody saying 'can you repeat that' or stepped away from computer at that moment. Not a complaint, just an observation and makes me wish for in-person gaming again a good bit. A mixture of both would be amazing, tablets/character sheets, VTT in the centre of the table and in-person. I think it was kind of going that way pre-pandemic but yeah.

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So they defeated the demon army by and large with lots of fire and then advanced to the primary objective, the mortarhouse on top of the hill. 

^ They got delightfully mauled. I find the tighter the space, the more punishment they take. Heh. A Hezrou with a green stink aura slowly waltzed up while they fight a displacer beast and a tanarukk. The Goliath Barbarian Ephrim the Bold holds the centre; Ari the Fairy, Elven Fighter and her Nightmare mount Gregg fight the Orc demon Tanarukk while the Fire Genasi Wizard Scorch and Aarakocra Rogue (GMPC) look on. Slightly off screen, the GMPCs that have helped them thus far in this sidequest prepare to arrive and help out.

^ The actual mortarhouse, just below them to the right. An Armanite prepares to go out the gate and blast them with lighting (I love lightning spells/effects). At the top of picture a Cambion devil sizes up the battle outside. Top right, Erin the rogue/bard PC sneaks around and blows up the mortar. Bottom right, mortar crew of Dretches and Manes don't know what's coming. Bottom, a Chasme prepares to fly again, love those guys. In the centre, the green clawed thing, the Glabrezu commander. This is a more feminine one so think the Slaaneshi daemonettes.

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They blew up mortar and systematically tore apart the defenders, except a Cambion who escaped again. They long rested in the farmhouse from the previous battle then the Aarakocra left them to resume his courier job. They continued down south to find the prison camp and liberate the prisoners who were largely townsfolk who failed to make it into the safety of Moonwheat's walls.

^ They fought a load of Rutterkin and Bulezau here, a giant Chasme nest. A bunch of prisoners, maybe 5, were staked to the nest as food but they managed to free 1 who made it back, there in top left. All the others died one way or another...

^ They came across this monstrosity which the freed prisoner insisted was a gate they were leading prisoners into. What the hell they decided, le't go in there. It was of course guarded by Barlguras and ROPERS who were quite fun to run. Lots of grappling and dragging by them and some munching by their stone teeth. Barlguras went invisible and appeared at the back and mauled the wizard.

^ This is where they ended up after. A collection of elemental foes fought them next, namely a Salamander, a Galeb Duhr, a Water Weird and an Invisible Stalker. The Salamander engaged the fiery fighter in single combat, the Galeb Duhr created two clones and mauled the party with a rolling attack, the Water Weird dragged people into the evil river and the Invisible Stalker survived to the end, sneaking about.

The 'puzzle' afterward was to open all 7 'doors' on top simultaneously. They figured it out pretty quick, well, the rogue did anyway. In they stepped and only after they stepped through did they see the back of these double doors, ordained with card suits - Deck of Many Things time!

The fighter Elf drew a shiny +2 dagger and someone they trusted now hated their guts.
The barbarian Goliath lost d4+1 Intelligence (he rolled 3 in the end so lost 4) and gained 50,000 gold.
The rogue got cursed -2 to all saving throws and gained possession of a castle somewhere far away.
The wizard is now the enemy of a powerful devil and gained 1d3 wishes (!).

^They then fought Jolly Polly, an agent of Chaos who had appeared before and killed the duplicate of the revolutionary leader they had been assisting. This was a great encounter in the end, full of drama, multiple party members downed, more cards drawn... he was a homebrew creature I messed around with and toned down a bit. He had lair actions and legendary actions that I tracked in the fog there haha. The three copies on the extreme right are his Mirror Image copies, which were effective at keeping him going. The extreme bottom right is the level 4 fighter who appeared via card and was killed soon after. There were a bunch of villagers standing around that suffered some collateral damage too...

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Anyway they emerged from hell at level 9 and returned to Moonwheat. On the way they encountered the Lacour Army, which marched north to liberate Moonwheat from its blockade and siege. No more tracking rations for a small town yay! They were strongly urged to teleport back to Lacour to compete in the Regional Arena, especially after fighting in the Local and Area Championships (working titles) for the entertainment of one of the three evil Queens who rule Lacour.

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^ They fought in an empty arena Gauntlet match from the get go. Round 1, they fought a progressively increasing CR 0 to CR 8 battle, which escalated nicely. They fought a CR 0, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1 monsters from the first turn and and then randomly the 2-8 CR monsters emerged. CR 8 was a Hydra that underwhelmed but some of the others were good.

Round 2 they fought after a break wherein they went one on one with a CR 9 creature and so on. An Abominable Yeti started the fight, followed by a Dullahan, a Roc, an Archmage, an Adult Copper Dragon and finally a Skull Lord. At 15 rounds they had beaten all the other Gauntlet groups so decided to stop there, won 15,000 gold to share and levelled up to level 10 (reduced experience due to intermittent long rests, but still).

^ The duels! How it all went! In the Round of 16, the barbarian defeated a cloud giant, the rogue defeated a vampire who was exposed to sunlight and the wizard defeated a war priest. The fighter player wasn't there so got a bye on her fight.

In the Quarter Finals the rogue was one-shotted by a giant psychic attack. The barbarian defeated the wizard called Lightning. The party wizard was slain by a mysterious robed fighter with a Nine Lives Stealer, essentially ripping his soul from his body BUT he was secretly an ally in disguise so was brought back to life in the back. Yay! Finally the fighter was gunned down by the artificer gunslinger girl (a former lover of hers) who then shot and killed her with a pistol, revealing herself as the Deck of Many Things enemy. She also took the Crystal of Fire. Woo! But this is not the end of Ari, Pretender to the Elven Throne...

So for semi finals - the barbarian will fight the psychic rogue NPC who hates the queens and on the other side the revolutionary leader who hates the queens disguised as a queen supporter will fight the traitorous artificer. 3 of them are anti-Queens, so the plan is to attack the Queen right as the prize is being handed over, a moment of weakness. Then kill a 2000 year old demi-goddess who enslaves women and makes them do everything.

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Session 27 (6)	6
chasme 1	2300
vrock 1	2300
armanite 1	2900
barlgura 1	1800
tanarukk 1	1800
Session 28	29
chasme 2	4600
glabrezu 1 + mortarsquad	6000
displacer beast1	700
hezrou 1	3900
armanite 1	2900
tanarukk 1	1800
bulezau 4	2800
rutterkin 12	82

Session 29	11
roper 2	3600
barlgura 5	9000
Salamander	1800
water weird	700
Invisible Stalker	2300
galeb duhr	2300
Session 30	21
20 commoners	0
Grim Jester	7200
Session 31	12
quadrone plus 0, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2	200
Uraeus	450
Millitaur	700
banshee	1100
fellforged	1800
young white	2300
oni	2900
hydra	3900
treant	5000
aboleth	5900
roc	7200
erinyes	8400
vampire	10000
adult copper	11500
mummy lord	13000

Session 32	8
abominable yeti	5000
treant clone	5000
dullahan	5900
roc	7200
archmage	8400
level 13	10000
adult copper d	11500
skull lord	13000
Session 33	5
madam sabina	2950
warpriest	2500
imir	5000
cloud g donthra	2500
lightning	2950

The updated kill list and experience gained.

Ingame DAYS:	38	Rations
Ephrim	72359	10
Ari	72359	10
Erin	72359	10
Scorch	72359	10
Kills	737	Session 33
Current Time	16:00
Houses	2	Land/Farm
Cards drawn	13	-
Wishes cast	0/2	-

Some more stats. I rationalised the experience points a few sessions ago, just easier. They've drawn 13 cards between them in their career of the possible 22. The wizard did use 1 Wish but it was too much so I asked him to take it back or I would do a genie on it 'it won't be quite what you want' and neither of us wanted that. They had 3 houses but lost 1 via card. Rations are there as they almost ran out unbeknownst to them. They also have a big trip coming up.

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So that's it! More to come and I'll post an update some other time.