Board 8 > Andy plays Final Fantasy V (Blind playthrough)

(+) Yeah! (+)

The "ride a Chocobo around the entire world" thing was also from FF3. I liked that little reference.

---

"World 3" is the best. I love when a game opens up and allows you to explore it and tackle various objectives at your own leisure.

---

The Island Shrine isn't that bad, but unfortunately isn't as fun as the Pyramid. There are a bunch of multiple paths and puzzles, but they're all just trial and error. One of the chest monsters has boss music, but he's not so tough. There's a bunch of chests around, and we gear up at the top for an actual boss fight this time!

Wendigo's gimmick is that there's four of him but only one is real, and there's no way to know which. I try using spells to attack all 4 at once, and this does reveal the true one, but then he immediately switches to something else. Much like the Shrine itself, this boss is very trial and error. We don't have any special tactics here, just keeping everybody buffed up (the repeated Frosts are annoying but manageable with Shell) and whacking around until we find the right one seems to do the job. He eventually goes down, the copies soon follow, and we have Tablet #2!

The barrier at Fork Tower is unlocked, and we get a message telling us to remove the two powerful spells there simultaneously. First off though, it's off to the Sealed Castle to get three new weapons- Masamune, Magus Rod and Sage's Staff. After that I'm not really paying attention and we get sucked into one of the void portals. I was sure I attempted to go in one of these before but nothing happened... We are taken to a strange desert with some really annoying triple Earthquaking Back Attack enemies that I loathe so much. We then go through some ruins using a rope and pulley system, after that we wind up going through the mysterious door in the Phantom Village!

The Village is stuck in time though, and we can't interact with anyone. Attempting to leave takes us to a Moore-esque forest area where we encounter Calofisteri, another naked demon lady who doesn't put up much of a fight. After her I expect a reward but instead we enter some caves, and the nagging feeling that I shouldn't be here right now gets stronger. If this is the endgame dungeon I definitely don't want to be here! Surprised it would let me just waltz right in though if that is the case. Either way I backtrack with my new loot and figure someone will tell me if I should be in there or not, and we head to Fork Tower.

We split the team in two and I take my Mages left and physical attackers right as recommended. We start with Lenna and Krile, where we are soon beset upon by a Chrono Controller who casts Meteor and wipes us out. Oops! Maybe I got the teams backwards. I'll come back to it another time, anyway.

---

You don't want to be there.
---

Lol yeah, the game just lets you waltz into the final dungeon whenever you please. Ideally you do the other quests and get stronger but it's open ended

---

Chrono Controllers are indeed magic side enemies. The gimmick of magic side Fork Tower is that, if you do something that isn't Magic, the enemies will be very upset. I don't recall offhand whether things like Geomancy and physical Blue Magic set them off, but it's probably best to play it safe and stick with "proper" Mages.
---

Beating the mage side of Fork Tower with a thief+geomancer (I think) was by far the hardest part of my four job fiesta run

---

Thanks for confirming I shouldn't be there! Can you realistically beat the game after just doing one tablet? Lol.

Fork Tower is more simple than I expected, two pretty short runs up through some simple floors. Knowing to use only magic on the west side helps a lot, and on the east magic options are greyed out entirely. Bartz and Faris face a Minotaur at the top, which I expect to be easy given their strong weapons and Faris's Chemist item boost for healing. Not to be however, as Minotaur absorbs Excalibur's damage. So much for being a legendary weapon! Faris can't hold it down alone and Bartz is utterly useless without his weapons, so we lose and have to try again.

Second attempt I switch out Bartz's weapons and the battle goes off without a hitch. Minotaur amusingly attempts to cast Holy but isn't allowed. I wonder why a magic spell is kept in a non-magic tower come to think of it. Anyway, Lenna and Krile face their own boss by the name of Omniscient. We do OK but his attacks seem to get stronger and stronger, and Krile dies shortly before the end. I was counting his damage since Libraing him and knew there was only one hit left, so I decided to Firaga him with Lenna instead of reviving Krile. Big mistake! This guy actually knows how to use his magic (duh!), and Flares Lenna to death with his dying breath. Oops! How on earth does anyone do the Four Job Fiesta here with no proper mage classes?

Third time's the charm, no messing around this time. We get Holy and Flare, and the tower disappears entirely, revealing our old underwater base. Cid is caught rolling around in some gears casually as you like, and apparently that helped spur an idea in him to give our airship submarine capabilities. Krile has a nice subdued little scene with Mid, where she seems to see some of herself in his relationship with his grandfather, and we have the submarine again! Yay!

It really is impressive how Cid managed to turn our airship into the identical submarine sprite from the other world! More importantly, a sub means that lovely underwater music again. There's a few points on the map to check out, and the very first one gives us our next tablet dungeon in the form of a Great Sea Trench. Of course I don't want to go there yet, so I check out the other spots. One just leads us back to Moore, and one leads us to Istory Falls! I take a quick peek inside and love the aesthetic here. So the dungeons are open now, and we can do whichever we'd like! Hmm, what to do first...

Before that, there's another point on the map to go to. I figure it has something to do with Phoenix Tower, but no, it's the Tower of Walse. We have a 7 minute time limit and make our way down to the bottom, fleeing the shadowy enemies that are thankfully as low leveled as they were the first time round. At the bottom we finally find that crystal shard from way back, but it is guarded by Famed Mimic Gogo, who challenges us to a fight.

Gogo helpfully informs us of his gimmick (while the timer keeps ticking...), which is to copy our every move. Well not exactly but he counters magic with magic and physical with physical. Flare is very dangerous so I try hitting him with Bartz. His counter one-shots, but we can revive and try again. I do this for a while until he gets really mad at us, tells us to start over and casts Meteor 4x in a row on the party, obviously wiping us. Welp. Maybe I'm supposed to come back later or I'm just missing the trick, but the time limit has me on edge so I'll come back tomorrow. I'm thinking Istory first maybe, it seems like the out of order one and I like doing that as long as it's not too hard. We still have a few summons to get, too...

In the meantime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaizBK7jLxU

---

You can definitely beat Gogo right now.

Also I actually didn't do FJF this year and this thread is making me want to do one casually... Might do that.

there's a gimmick to fighting Gogo - think about it a bit before trying again and if you don't get it someone could tell you the answer.

---

Yeah. I won't want to spoil and reveal things, but the Gogo battle is doable now and honestly it's amazing when you figure it out. Keep at it.

---

I'm pretty sure all the SNES Final Fantasies let you change weapons in battle. Go to Item, hit Up to select your weapon (or shield), and scroll down through your inventory to pick whatever you want to swap it with.

How on earth does anyone do the Four Job Fiesta here with no proper mage classes?

It's a pain, to be sure, and it may not be completable for all job combinations. The good news is that you don't need to beat Omniscient to beat the game. The better news is that you can probably do it, anyway... but it might take a while.

Unfortunately, the most obvious plan - items that reproduce spell effects - is ineffective; Omniscient counters them. (The game cares about the command you selected, not the attack you produced, or some such.) Still, FFV is a game which provides the player with options. Here are a few of the ones that work on Omniscient.

A) Set up at least one character with a Wall/Reflect Ring (probably all of them, Reflect is a huge help against Omniscient) and another with the Mage Masher dagger, which randomly casts the Silence spell when attacking. Have the Mage Masher wielder attack your own Reflected party members. Any Silence produced will be reflected onto Omniscient; it'll wear off quickly, but your other characters can deal some damage after each Silence.

B) Inflict Berserk on Omniscient. His physical attacks are murderous, but survivable, and this disables his counterattack. Although I think that if you use an item to inflict Berserk, he will counter that, so you'd want to use it after briefly Silencing him as per Plan A above.

C) Set up a character to be nigh-immune to Omniscient's skillset. Wall Ring and Bone Mail, generally. Start the battle, and then walk away and do something else for 6-8 hours. Omniscient begins with Protect/Shell/Regen set, so typically he won't be able to kill himself, but once he runs out of MP, he's helpless. Of course, his counterattack (the Time Mage spell "Return": undoes everything that has happened during the battle) only costs 1MP, so you have to be sure that he's spent every last one of his 30,000 MP before you start attacking. Not recommended.

If anyone playing a Four Job Fiesta rolls two or more Beastmasters, I encourage them to try a fourth tactic: whips. That's what I used in my Freelancer SCC (no character is allowed to choose a job, ever.) Most whips have a 50% chance of inflicting Paralyze, and Omniscient's not immune to that, and his counter fails while he's Paralyzed. I don't know how lucky I had to get; it's been over a decade. I do know that I tried the Mage Masher plan, said "there has to be another way", looked up his stats in a FAQ, and then let out a shocked "...he's not immune to Paralyze? Seriously?" and got it to work. But most random parties won't have multiple whip users, and the less whips you have, the more likely you are to have your progress undone by a Return.

So, if you're asking whether the game can be beaten on one tablet... well, I know from experience that you can beat the game on zero jobs. FFV gives you so many options. It's great.
---

MalcolmMasher posted...

A) Set up at least one character with a Wall/Reflect Ring (probably all of them, Reflect is a huge help against Omniscient) and another with the Mage Masher dagger, which randomly casts the Silence spell when attacking. Have the Mage Masher wielder attack your own Reflected party members. Any Silence produced will be reflected onto Omniscient; it'll wear off quickly, but your other characters can deal some damage after each Silence.

Yeah I did this. Mage Masher on the geomancer attacking my own guys to reflect silence, and then Mug (with the chicken knife) from my thief to do damage. The main issue is that silence wears off really fast and if he gets in Return you're fucked, so I needed to make sure that my thief was ready to Mug immediately after silence was applied.

---

You can also beat the game using only one character locked into any single job throughout!

(I had a lot more patience in my younger years, ha)

---

Wow I had no idea there were so many options to get through stuff like that! I have to say this seems like the most replayable Final Fantasy by far, just from how different the gameplay is depending on the jobs you pick. I've tried to mix it up but there's a few jobs I have barely touched still, I kind of wish it let you set two abilities so you can experience more stuff but that'd be too easy and I guess they want you to replay it. The level of depth is well beyond what I expected, though. Not just with jobs but items, too, what you have equipped can be vitally important it seems.

I like that the bosses aren't typically immune to every status effect in this game, it makes a nice change from those spells usually being entirely useless against RPG bosses. I don't think any of them have been immune to Slow (of the ones I tried it on, at least!).

Thanks for the equipment change heads up, I did scroll around but didn't find the option, and I guess maybe I was thinking of Tactics where you had to equip a separate skill to change your equipment in battle. I'll try Gogo again later too.

tcaz2 posted...

Also I actually didn't do FJF this year and this thread is making me want to do one casually... Might do that.

My fav thing about doing these playthroughs has been people getting the itch to play the games again!


---

Not Dave posted...

You can also beat the game using only one character locked into any single job throughout!

laughs in Berserker

---

Well, I feel like a right idiot after beating Gogo. The answer was, of course, to mimic him by doing literally nothing. I believe I did briefly consider this the first time round but the timer was forefront of my mind. Also you have to do nothing for two full minutes, I was sure I'd gotten it wrong and decided to just let the timer run out anyway. Phew, gotten the Mime class (is this the last job?), and Gogo Banishes himself to the abyss... maybe we'll meet him again in the rift!

Back to Istory Falls, I really love the aesthetic of the opening room. Water cascading to look like staircases and the waterfalls around, it's all really cool looking. Sadly it's just the one room and the rest of the dungeon is a bit more mundane. One enemy, Alchymia, is a lady and a toad, and text comes up at the top about how a Maiden's Kiss wasn't used. Naturally I use a Maiden's Kiss on it and it transforms into a Red Dragon. Well, won't be doing that again.

Wandering through we pick up our third Protect Ring (just one more to complete the set!), and face our first Tonberrys of the game. They work precisely as you'd expect, slowly teleporting closer to you then whacking you a whole lot. Down we go through the spike-ridden traps to find the Tablet quicker than I expected. Of course one of Exdeath's allies shows up to fight us, but Leviathan appears from behind a curtain of water, and dispatches the beast instantly. Gonna be honest, I thought Leviathan was possessed and we were gonna have to fight him there. It's a really cool entrance for him, gonna give him the edge over Bahamut in this one (as well as in IV!). When was Leviathan demoted to regular summon and Bahamut given the title of default Biggest Baddest Beast I wonder. Leviathan's design has always been cooler imo.

We fight him anyway of course, and he's pretty aggressive. Slow just does not hit and he loves to repeat Tidal Wave multiple times in a row. We lose, I gear up a bit better and try again. Equipping Black Mage Lenna with the Magus Rod is the best move I make here, as each Thundaga does over 7K damage this way. The rest focus on keeping everyone buffed and alive, and she takes him down pretty quickly. Leviathan get! Still some more summons left though...

After collecting our next three weapons (Fire Lash, Yoichi's Bow, and Apollo's Harp) we head to the last of the tablet dungeons, the Great Sea Trench. This is ostensibly the fire dungeon, and it's a pretty inventive idea to place it at the bottom of the ocean and use magma in place of fire. The enemies aren't fire-based at all though, none of them are named and they all have vibes of death. Krile's Sage Staff pretty much one shots anything here, and turns out Mime is way more useful in this game than Tactics, as you can equip three commands in addition to Mimic itself. Neat!!

We learn Doom, Float over some magma and reach... the Dwarven Kingdom! Now this is a surprise. Dwarves have been mentioned a few times but I couldn't see how they'd fit in this game. Turns out they... kinda don't. There's only five of them and they don't seem to do much. Still, neat to see them! One of them is digging a tunnel around the world and the map pulls out to show where he is, I think it's just a tease for the Phantom Village if I hadn't found it already. One mentions taking a Magic Lamp back to where it came from, too. Beyond the 'kingdom' is a seemingly useless spring, going into the corner triggers the blue healing flash but nobody actually gets healed.

The last proper room is easy enough to figure out, the only problem is one of the enemies being very fond of using Possess, which removes Float from the affected character and hits them with magma damage the second we leave battle even if we don't move. Into the tablet room we face three little piggies, and I soon confirm my suspicions that we have to kill all three pretty much simultaneously. They really pose next to no threat, Delta Attack is their only really harmful one and they only do that when I mess up and kill one too soon. Graviga is very useful here, and they soon go down. Last tablet get!

We stroll back through and pick up the remaining legendary weapons (Gaia Bell, Rune Axe and Holy Lance), then somebody helpfully informs us where to go next. There's been an earthquake down south and we must use the submarine to reach the underwater volcano it came from. Guess that's my next destination. I'm glad there's more to do, I'm not ready to go to the ending just yet, having way too much fun!

---

Mime is the last vanilla job. FF5 Advance added some new ones in a new 'post game' area (The Sealed Temple, shows up when you get all 4 tablets).

I'm not sure if it's ever mentioned outright, but Mime (and Freelancer) automatically gain all passive abilities and stat bonuses from every Job that character has Mastered. So once you're satisfied with everything you've learned they make a good final class to put a character in.

---

To be more specific they get the best stat boost for each stat among mastered jobs for that character (so you get, e.g., Monk's strength, not Monk's+Knight's+White Mage's+...)

---

The way Alchymia works is that she will eventually cast Toad on the Toad to transform it into the dragon and then leave the battle. But if you transform the toad before she does, she'll still cast the spell, which means her Toad spell will turn it back to a toad. If you kill the toad before she leaves she starts casting Death on you over and over

Also, Triton Nereid and Phobos are not immune to instant death, so you can just summon Odin to kill all three immediately. Unfortunately not something you're likely to learn until after you beat them and take a look at the Bestiary.

---

Yes I experienced her casting Death over and over... I guess I killed the toad too soon. How am I ever supposed to know which enemies are immune to death or not lol.

I went into the ??? place and picked up three new jobs (Gladiator seems the easiest to use), and now... I have no idea what to do. One door is jammed and the other says I can't get through because it's pitch black (could it be related to the magic lamp the dwarf mentioned?), and I can't figure out how to get ahead at Phoenix Tower (something to do with the one set of enemies we get I'm sure but no idea what!). I'll wander around for a bit, I'm trying to think of anywhere I forgot to check out again after the worlds merged or something.

Any vague hints would be welcome!

Edit: Well I found Syldra! But no idea where to go next still.

---

The undersea temple is actually a bonus dungeon added to the remake. You can't access it until you beat the game.

The Phoenix Tower has a trick to it inspect the walls. It also might be one of the worst designed dungeons in an RPG ever. Have fun.

---

I literally just came back here to post that I found the hole in the wall in the Phoenix Tower! Thanks! Is this all I have left to do then before the final dungeon?

---

Gladiator is straight up broken strong, the other two are pretty gimmicky but one has a EXP Boost skill and the other has an ABP Boost skill

---

I love mimes

---

I'll try all three and see! If Gladiator's too broken I might not use it in the final dungeon.

So going around the world we find Syldra's spirit in the Pirate Hideout. Faris gets a bit of closure, and we get Syldra as a summon, which is neat. Then we head to the Phoenix Tower, and I swear last time I tried this I pressed A on all the outer walls and all the pillars numerous times but for some reason must've missed the three inner spots on the front wall. Oops! Well it would probably have been too tough for me back then anyway.

This tower is... unusual. It's one of the hardest areas in the game so far, largely because the random battles are all inescapable and packed with enemies that love to spam annoying status effects. On each floor there's a chance we'll hit an enemy in the wall but they're usually not too bad, it's the randoms that cause more problems. Every five floors we get a pot of gil and a Magic Pot enemy, and I don't know what this enemy does in this game but the potential of it wiping out my party has me running away as soon as I encounter it every time.

I start to worry we're headed for a 50/100 floor trial for which I am not prepared, and there are no saves so I have to start dipping into my Ether/Elixir stock to keep my mages up. Mime proves really useful here as I don't think it uses MP to mimic the spell that was just cast. There is one encounter about 25 floors in that nearly kills us, three of us are undead and asleep and it's one of those dancing enemies that just keeps casting really fast again and again. Thankfully Lenna gets knocked awake and not wanting to take any chances I use an Elixir on her Mini'd self and just cast Firaga til the enemy is dead. Other than that we get through pretty OK, it is just annoyingly long and I always feel like I'm only a couple mistakes away from wipeout. I always choose the leftmost wall part, if that changes anything.

Thankfully the tower is only 30 floors high, and I get really worried seeing there's no save here assuming I'll have to fight a boss. That's not the case though, Lenna's Wind Drake (that I was sure died freeing Lenna from the demon) is here and jumps off a cliff, turning into a Phoenix and becoming a summon too. Way to upstage Syldra, Hiryu. We get a flashback to Lenna as a kid and I choose to not cut out its tongue (I wonder what happens if you choose yes). If I were Krile's Wind Drake or Boko I'd be a little wary right now seeing how every mount is sacrificing itself to become a summon and I have one summon space left...

It's a nice scene getting the Phoenix and it is explicitly foreshadowed in one of the towns, I haven't used either new summon in battle yet but I look forward to seeing how they look. So as of now, I have 12/12 legendary weapons, all White/Black/Time spells, 11/12 summons, 5/8 Bardsongs and I'm missing 14 Blue Magic spells (>_>). Is there anything else I should do before we hop back into the gaping void?

---

Stuff to do before the final dungeon? Hmm.

> You can find the Magic Lamp that NPCs have been talking about. Use a chocobo to explore around Istory Falls.
> To get your piano payoff, talk to the bard in Crescent Village.
> I think your missing summon is Carbuncle, as I don't see any mention of it in your Exdeath's Castle post. Sadly, I do not believe you can obtain Carbuncle after clearing that dungeon.
---

Youre actually supposed to use elixirs on magic pots, not fight them

And whoops, forgot about Carbuncle; shouldve warned you about that one!

---

Yeah aside from those few loose ends you've pretty much done everything.

Oh rats, I'm vaguely remembering an ominous big orb in Exdeath's Castle around the point where you have to be careful not to trigger the falling traps or something. Completely forgot about it after I passed that floor! Oh well, I never use Carbuncle anyway, too gimmicky for me and I like my healing spells. Thanks though, Malcolm, nice to have it confirmed.

Got the Magic Lamp! Thanks for telling me how, I noticed those chocobo-friendly rivers a while ago and tried to ride Boko that way back when I was trying to figure out how to get into the Falls, but couldn't forge a path. Didn't think to go all the way around the other continent and up.

I am fond of my Elixirs, but 100ABP is good... Eh, I'm doing OK for now anyway.

Got the two bardsongs, still missing one though. I have Sinewy Etude, Swift Song, Mighty March, Mana's Paean, Hero's Rime, Requiem, and Alluring Air. Have I missed the other one? Thanks all three of you for the help! Looks like I'll be heading for the final dungeon tomorrow (and nice to know there's a postgame one still to come!).

---

there's an enemy group that offers more abp per battle in the final dungeon (movers)

note that there's a couple of optional superbosses in the final bosses in the final dungeon. I think one of the books in the library mentions them. One appears on the map (so don't try to interact with it if you aren't prepared to fight). The other is in a trapped chest, so make sure you save often when you're going through it.

---

The last Song was in Istory, cant get it now that Exdeath put it in the Void. It inflicts Stop on all enemies. Certainly useful in certain situations but not a huge loss.

---

Sounds like you're missing Romeo's Ballad, which is obtained in Istory in World 1, and is thus also unobtainable now. :/ It inflicts Stop.
---

Oh well, not too bothered about that one song.

So I head through the Rift, quickly getting past the areas I already went and into a cave which thankfully has a save point. I try out a battle with Omega and get wiped in its very first attack before any of us can make a move. Welp, gonna save that for postgame I suppose! We beat Apanda without much difficulty, he's weak to Fire (and amusingly is very afraid of Ifrit and turns away when he's summoned), and head back out into some sky land with Dragon Aevises (which are fine) and Ninjas (which evade too much).

Finally we end up in Dimension Castle, and I search frantically for a save point. I avoid the treasure chests as per the warning before, but am unable to find any kind of save. The only room to go in is the prison below, and I talk to the wrong person and end up in another boss fight. It goes OK at first but it's tough to get the finish done as I'm very low on MP. I cast Libra and see he's only one hit away, so I take the hit and use Elixir on Krile, who casts one final summon to end it and...

The game crashes. Well, freezes with wavy graphics and replaying one second of sound. At first I think it's part of the game but nope! This is the second time this game has crashed on me (once it failed to quicksave and I had to reset then but didn't lose any progress). Until now the bootleg seemed to be perfectly fine and I was even looking into getting a VI Advance bootleg as that'd be way way easier but now... idk. Ugh. My save seems to still be there and it won't take long to get back where I was, but this has me very worried now. Also idk where the next save point is even. Really hope it holds out!

---

I, uh. I think the fight that gets you another save point was, in fact, the one that crashed the game. (Boss was "Azulmagia"? 'Cause that's the save point fight.)
---

the treasure chest I was talking about was further in past the castle part, in one of the last areas of the dungeon.

---

Mr Crispy posted...

the treasure chest I was talking about was further in past the castle part, in one of the last areas of the dungeon.

It is at a dead end at the bottom of a long flight of stairs

---

That's handy, I will open every other chest I see then!

I decided to Teleport out of the rift and just stock up on a bunch of Cottages, Ethers and heals so I didn't have to worry about MP so much, then rush back through again. Hermes Sandals on my physical attackers makes the non-evasive fights go so much faster. The crash fight was indeed the one that triggers the save! He wasn't so tough this time, and I then beat up six dragons disguised as old men. The Catastrophe mini-boss proves tougher, he loves to spam Earth Shake putting me at a disadvantage. I could power through but decide to try and actually use tactics (!), trying out Float. He then uses 100G to ground me and repeats the same routine, but when I equip a Reflect Ring on Krile he just gets stuck in an endless loop of 100G. Didn't mean to cheese it quite that much but lol!

We are rewarded with a kiss from a lady who is 100% definitely not going to be another naked demon monster, and I just leave it there for now. The crash put a downer on things but I'm revving back up again, and will properly go through til credits tomorrow hopefully!

---

Bless you, Gilgamesh.

---

The prisoner lady turns out to be Halicarnassus (I like that it makes you walk to the door twice and bounces you back). She's not difficult at all, I quickly learn not to cast spells as she retaliates with an instakill hit, and her gimmick of turning us into toads only takes a few Maiden's Kisses to solve. I manage to steal a Staff of Light from her, and she's really not a problem.

Up on the castle roof we fight Twintania, and this one is tougher. It counters attacks by casting the top level summon spells, so we sit ourselves down and Shell everybody up. It begins charging Giga Flare, and thanks to reading a library book I know this is the time to attack. A few minutes into the battle Bartz's Assassin Dagger triggers its Death effect and we win the battle. Oh. I figured the bosses would all be immune to that but lol, I'll take it.

We finally get into the void itself, I like the look of this area and love how Exdeath's roots get more and more prominent the further in we go. The enemies give a lot of AP but we have to be careful not to trigger their bad sides (King Behemoth x2 + Meteor = oof). We talk to a familiar figure on the map and enter a fight with Gilgamesh! I didn't expect to see him here! After a brief bit of fighting he recognises us and we have a very sweet chat where it is made clear he sees us as his pals. Sadly we can't let him join our team, but he leaves us alone and heads off to the next dimensional portal. Thank you, Gilgamesh.

I avoid the treasure chests here as I know one of the ones at the end of a staircase has a superboss, and we make our way eventually to a spot of light that turns out to be Necrophobe. This guy is invincible til we take out his four Barrier chums who bounce magic off of each other onto us. Unfortunately the Assassin Dagger comes back to haunt us here, Bartz hits a Barrier and the Death bounces off and kills Krile at a very bad time, and we lose. Oops! Oh well, it gives me an excuse to replay the Gilgamesh fight and this time remember to steal his Shield.

I swap weapons out for the Necrophobe fight and this time it's not much trouble, Necrophobe himself isn't too tough once he is vulnerable and we get into a rhythm of- what's this? The return of Gilgamesh! He truly becomes a hero here, and sacrifices himself to help save the world. We love you, Gilgamesh! The dialogue in these last two fights of his is very good, and it's nice that he gets a goodbye for everybody (poor Faris's isn't as nice as the others though). Hopefully Bartz and he can have a one on one fight someday. I like that he probably canonically survives this given his later appearances, but it's a great exit to a great scene stealer who livened up the whole game and took the game's tone from slightly quirky to outright wacky and wonderful.

We get our final save point here now. I come across the Mover enemies that apparently give great ABP but the battle just cuts out back to the map partway through. No animation or anything. Well, I'll take that over crashes! I decide to not bother grinding a bunch and simply head up to the final encounter. Exdeath awaits us, and before our eyes transforms into his natural tree state and teleports a bunch of areas to the Void, including... us? What is this, a void inside the void or something? The Dawn Warriors and King Tycoon help us out somehow (that's right, Galuf gets the front spot. Good.) and we're into the final boss fight!

Tree Exdeath has a pretty cool design, and puts up a bit of a fight but honestly it's not worth saying much about it, it's the obligatory first form. Cool to take a step back and realise we are fighting an evil demon tree in the space between worlds though! I do waste some powerful items on him too. After a bit he is taken into the void himself and transforms into Neo Exdeath (badass name for a final boss), giving a really cool brief monologue that is very similar to Ultimecia's final fight one, guess she ripped him off. The background goes crazy here, pretty colourful for a void, and Neo Exdeath himself is a true eldritch abomination.

I am Neo-Exdeath! All memories...dimensions...existence... All that is shall be returned to nothing. Then I, too, can disappear... forever!!!
(Seriously is this not an Ultimecia 'All Existence Denied' line?)

Now this is a final boss fight. There are four different targets to hit, he has a lot of health, and continually casts devastating new attacks. The game slows way down at several points here. His most annoying attacks are Almagest, and the incredibly devastating Grand Cross, which takes forever to cast (rising my anxiety every second!) and can just kill people instantly no matter their defences, and often petrifies a dead body too. We use everything at our disposal here but things go against us just a bit too much, and I have to try again.

This time I swap classes and abilities a little bit (Black and Blue magic get no use here so I dump them) and save all my best disposable items for the final phase. Fuma Shurikens do a crapton of damage to Exdeath's front, and Lenna's Zeninage is the single most useful attack in this entire fight, hitting every part of Exdeath for 3K damage at once. It's still a tough fight, I prioritise buffing whenever possible, and freely drink up the Elixir supply as necessary. Faris's Meteor is helpful too, and when Krile isn't healing I have her Mime one of the more powerful attacks for a free hit. We hit a scare when we kill the third of the four targets, and he casts a string of Meteor, Comet and Vacuum Wave. At one point Krile gets Silenced, and this is the first time I realise there is no anti-silence item in this game! Where's the Echo Herbs, Square? What gives?! I consider killing Krile myself and reviving her, but that's too risky so I just abuse Elixirs and Phoenix Downs until she's herself again. Faris goes down and instead of reviving her I go for one final hit, which kills Neo Exdeath and wins us the game.

The ending sequence is pretty decent if a bit standard- the crystals still contain their base elements and thus can restore the world to its true state thanks to the Warriors of Light imbuing their essences. The dead gang show up again (why the hell is Galuf not at the front this time??), and poor Kelger and Xelzat seem like afterthoughts that Bartz has to mention given that everyone else has a relation lol. Faris fails to rejoin the world of the living with the other 3, and I am very pissed that I didn't just wait a single turn to revive her before finishing Exdeath. I'm assuming this is why she 'dies' here as there was no plot buildup for this.

In a way though, having one party member absent gives the ending a bit more weight, Lenna is a lone princess and Bartz remembers those who have been lost. Cid even has a black and white flashback of Faris's memorable moments (they were mostly in the first part of the game, huh), and Faris eventually is revived. The last lines are nicely underplayed, gentle musings on a far off voice the four can hear. They set off together on another adventure, and cue credits, ending in a very fancy Word Art version of The End bouncing around the screen.

The End

...Of all the games to get direct sequels why did they not pick the one where the main 4 are actually together at the end going off on another adventure >_> OK so clearly I didn't get the best ending here, though I kind of like how it went anyway. I'll save my proper overall thoughts on the game until I'm done with the extras, but it was a strong series of ending battles and I like that the gang stays together. Spoilers: I liked this game quite a lot!

Checklist of post-game stuff:
-Do the Sealed Temple
-Beat Omega
-Beat the other superboss
-Replay the ending with everyone alive (Are there different sequences for every permutation I wonder? I don't want to have to do that last fight 14 times!)

If there's anything else to do feel free to let me know!

---

Yeah, the ending changes depending on who survives the final fight. It's nothing major, but it's a cool gimmick. It gets REALLY depressing if only one character makes it out alive.

Edit: Also, I guess I missed the Azulmagia fight because I wanted to talk about it a bit. It's a cool gimmick, since the boss is a Blue Mage and will Learn and use Blue Magic if you use it yourself. You can trick it into killing itself by using the Self-Destruct spell, which is hilarious.

---

Gilgamesh is the best

Fun fact (that I didnt know to warn you about without spoiling the surprise): you can steal the Genji Armor from Gilgamesh during the Necrophobe fight

---

I think the gimmick with movers is that you're supposed to kill them all at once and if you only kill one they run, but it's been a while since I played. At least I think I mostly just spammed summons to kill them when grinding.

---

You got a bit lucky, Twintania is only weak to Death while its charging Gigaflare

---

A few minutes into the battle Bartz's Assassin Dagger triggers its Death effect and we win the battle. Oh. I figured the bosses would all be immune to that but lol, I'll take it.

I think Twintania is only vulnerable to instant death while charging for Giga Flare. Regardless, there are absolutely other FFV bosses subject to instant death - one of Neo Exdeath's targets, even.
---

Lucky again with a boss I guess! As I said before I really do like that FFV's bosses generally are vulnerable to a couple status effects. Also tiny note I forgot to mention: I really appreciate that it lets you run back to save after the pre-final boss scenes so if you fail you can just hop right back into the fight and don't have to sit through it all again. God I wish other games did things like that before tough boss fights *cough* FFX *cough*.

Grand Kirby posted...

Yeah, the ending changes depending on who survives the final fight. It's nothing major, but it's a cool gimmick. It gets REALLY depressing if only one character makes it out alive.

Edit: Also, I guess I missed the Azulmagia fight because I wanted to talk about it a bit. It's a cool gimmick, since the boss is a Blue Mage and will Learn and use Blue Magic if you use it yourself. You can trick it into killing itself by using the Self-Destruct spell, which is hilarious.

I might look up all the endings on youtube after I've redone it and gotten the everybody lives ending myself! I feel like I missed out on experiencing some of the boss gimmicks, I definitely got that Azulmagia was a Blue Mage but I didn't get that it was learning as it goes, that's great. I never learned Self Destruct but that really is hilarious. This game really seems built for multiple playthroughs in a way most other RPGs aren't!

And I did not think to steal from Gilgamesh during that last fight! I saw I could move the cursor around but didn't want to interrupt what was going on. Ah well, I definitely prefer this way to being spoiled so thanks for being careful with that!

---

MalcolmMasher posted...

A few minutes into the battle Bartz's Assassin Dagger triggers its Death effect and we win the battle. Oh. I figured the bosses would all be immune to that but lol, I'll take it.

I think Twintania is only vulnerable to instant death while charging for Giga Flare. Regardless, there are absolutely other FFV bosses subject to instant death - one of Neo Exdeath's targets, even.

Notably, the four crystal bosses in World 2 are all vulnerable to death.


---

So, FF14's Stormblood expansion had a raid themed around prior FF games where you were fighting simulations of 'ancient evils'. It had you fighting bosses from FF1, 5, and 6, specifically. FF5's 4 bosses had a few bosses from the Void, and ended with Exdeath himself. In the hardest version of the fight, they include a phase transition to Neo Exdeath (easier versions stop after the first form), which IMO is one of the coolest bits of animation they've done in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCA1PDJid10

FF14 Savage Exdeath is a super fun fight

---