We defeated Garland and rescued Princess Sarah! Yay! A grateful king embarked on an impromptu “Infrastructure Week”, and built us a bridge because that was exactly the reward we were looking for. Sure, he could have given us gold or weapons, but instead the Cupertino Corps of Engineers lali-ho’d their way north and built a bridge.
Not like he didn’t have loot to give. There were some vaults sealed with mystic keys below. We saved the king’s daughter, but we weren’t important enough for the good stuff. Garland, undefeated, now defeated by us, sure. The King of Constantine couldn’t get rid of us fast enough.
Wandering around and leveling as fast as we could eventually brought us to the city of Pravoka, which had recently suffered a pirate invasion. Chief Pirate Brikke and his crew were pretty receptive to a little diplomacy, and after awhile we got him to agree to leave his piratey ways behind and give us his ship!
It’s very lucky that Warriors of Light can crew a ship by their lonesomes. It’s a talent we possess.
We soon found ourselves in Elfheim, where they have a sleeping prince problem. Game bad guy of legend Astos put the prince to sleep and stole off with everything that wasn’t nailed done, and some things that were. Helpful elves mused loudly that there must be some kind of potion that could break the curse. Other elves would proclaim to the air that Matroya is known for her potions.
After awhile, I put two and two together and went in search of this elusive witch.
I found her easily enough, but she had no idea what I was talking about. She eventually wondered if I were maybe several games too late, and perhaps seek her out in the first Final Fantasy?
What, she’s there, too? (Hmm… I should have changed to my Red Mage job for this screenie…)
While seeking for her, I came across a marsh cave, three levels deep. I fought to the very edge of my health and magic, had cleared the entire place, was all out of potions but that was okay because there was just one chest more to open.
Four Cthulhus spawned and killed me immediately. All the time spent clearing the dungeon was wasted. Luckily, the Pixel Remaster autosaved from the start of the floor, so I didn’t have that far to go to get to the chest. Once there, when the Cthulhus spawned, one zap from Tom’s Thundara took them out in a flash.
And I got the crown. I have no idea whose crown it is, but I have it.
The magic system in Final Fantasy is kind of different. Newer games have magic points, that deplete when spells are cast. This first Final Fantasy, though, uses spell slots, like Dungeons & Dragons. Black Mages like Tom’s can cast several first level spells, somewhat fewer second level spells, and so on. Thundara, a fourth level spell, can only be case three times. The Ether potion restores one charge of each spell level, instead of just dumping more magic points into a pool all spells share.
Matroya, when I found her in FF1, was in no mood to talk about making potions. All SHE wanted to talk about her missing eye. Who took it? Astos. Astos took it.
Dude gets around.
And now I have to hunt up some Lali-Ho dwarves (we FFXIV players know dwarves are just Lalafell in disguise, but shhhhhh….)
So where would one hide a dwarf… mountains?
Because I don’t want to play the game twice at the same time, I stopped playing the NES version after the Garland fight. The remake is much easier to play 🙂
Ooh… autosave to the rescue! Sounds like they didn’t nerf the difficulty all that much. Not that that’s a bad thing as long as you’ve got autosave to fall back on.
I can’t tell you how much I dreaded having to replay that hour again. Even with all the QoL changes, the Marsh Cave was a real slog.
That looks a lot better than the version of FF I tried to play once. It was a pixel perfect port of the original to the Playstation…I think I managed to stick it out for an hour.
Yeeeeah I played the original for about half an hour to get to the first boss, Garland. That was enough. Lots of respect for those early fans who loved it so much that they made a few dozen more (main games and tie-ins).