Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - Lowest Level Part 3: Piscodemons

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MoogleBoss

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Published on April 27, 2023 1:00:17 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1OyTvtFixw

Game:

Final Fantasy (1987)

Duration: 5:02

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Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c2wEyTpx0c-SRM9yH3kWrJI

Piscodemons present the first huge spike in difficulty in the challenge, demanding that the player bring a functional party (which depends largely on your job choices at the start of the playthrough) and act in a very organised manner. In vanilla versions of the game, you could encounter anywhere from two to four Piscodemons (known as Wizards in spite of their lack of any magic to cast against the warriors of light), which obviously played a crucial role in terms of your chances to succeed. In the Pixel Remaster, you always face a party of four Piscodemons, and they strike both very hard and very accurately, taking out the white mages in one hit and our red mage rarely surviving more than one hit.

The key to winning is stacking up to three Protect buffs on the Warrior, the only class to consistently survive multiple enemy attacks without dying thanks to his access to heavy equipment and having him attack until at least two of the wizards are dead. The warrior also has the highest attack stat when equipped with the Longsword that Garland, the first boss, sometimes drops - it is our strongest weapon for a while in the earlygame, as new resources are scarce when you don't level up to access higher tiers of magic.

We need to restart the fight several times until the first turn begins with a pre-emptive attack. Having four actions before the enemy starts mercilessly dishing out OHKOs right, left and centre is pivotal for success, and I generally find casting Blink with a single white mage while the other two mages buff up the warrior to be the best strat, as it also introduces small rays of hope that the other non-warrior party members will stay alive for the first few turns and not succumb to pressure instantly. A third Protect will ensure the warrior takes 2 damage on most turns, occasionally more. Our sword swings aren't too powerful and their damage will vary wildly, from around 10 damage up to very rare instances of ~70 damage on the strongest of critical attacks.

The warrior never remains safe however, as the enemy is also capable of landing critical blows, and a single one of those may well lead to the game over screen. My counter to this is to fight it out solo until two of the enemies are hopefully dead, and then start trying to resurrect the rest of the party. With up to three more targets for attacks, it will be harder to crit the warrior once we get this far into the battle, and even if the warrior does die to a crit, we can then revive him once more. It is almost certainly going to be case that the warrior will be left without living and breathing allies until two enemies are dead, and bringing anybody back to life using the warrior's own turns is futile under the constant barrage of physical attacks. It is pretty apparent that the warrior is the top candidate for enemy attacks, I'm guessing due to being the first person in the party? Not entirely sure how the mechanics work in this game, but it can't be a coincidence how frequently he gets targeted.

Having a lot of Potions to restore the warrior's health and Phoenix Downs for everybody else is also imperative, as resources are at least as important as the poor lv. 1 warriors of light fighting here. Having some Ethers isn't such a bad idea either, as Thunder magic used by the red mage is consistently decent damage that never whiffs, while white mages casting Blink on themselves can extend the party's survivability for the turns they are alive.

Initially, it may seem that the battle is outright impossible at base level, but with some perseverance it can be done.

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