Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - Lowest Level Part 4: Astos

Channel:

MoogleBoss

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6,670

Published on April 30, 2023 3:19:53 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suO3YGbwF2o

Game:

Final Fantasy (1987)

Duration: 5:39

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

Another major difficulty spike in this challenge run, Astos is considerably harder than the previous Piscodemons fight, which was already challenging enough. Whilst you could secure yourself victory fairly reliably in that one after getting a pre-emptive attack on the inescapable enemy encounter and then sticking to a proper strategy as long as you weren't crit, Astos is the first boss that utilises AoE magic in Thundara and Fira (see my previous upload).

At level 1, we have both insufficient HP (only 30-35) to be able to take one of the elemental spells and no way of halving the damage with a higher-tier magic spell like NullBlaze. This means there is only one way to win - outlast the boss while hoping he casts neither of his two offensive spells. Besides those spells, he still has his regular physical attack, which is all too likely to take somebody out in one blow, and a grand total of SEVEN other spells to cast. This does mean our odds of making it till the end of the fight when his HP of 420 is whittled down are non-negligible.

Said spells include Slow and Slowra, which make the warrior, the sole unit in the party capable of attacking physically somewhat proficiently, find it more difficult to land an offensive attack, and Haste, which the boss casts on himself, serve seemingly the same purpose, though you'd think he would make his own physicals more reliable with its casting (this could perhaps also be true, but I do keep noticing Haste makes our attacks whiff and deal less damage noticeably more often).

Another spell of his is Death. It's the only other spell besides Thundara and Fira that he can kill us with, but luckily for us it only targets one unit at a time and can whiff to boot. Sleep can shut down anyone in the party when used and often leads to the whole party missing a turn. As long as they're not dead, this is acceptable in my book! Finally, Dark makes attacking even more difficult than Slow, but unlike the Slow status we can actually recover from it by using Eye Drops.

Because the white mages can't attack, the best they can do is support the party and restore the red mage's MP with Ethers so that we can use Thunder another time. Unlike the warrior's physical, its damage is totally reliable, but it cannot crit either. My most successful runs had me crit up to 2-3 times for up to 80 damage, but it's not mandatory in the slightest and it's really up to Astos not to give us yet another game over screen.

This is the last fight I recorded before deciding to restart the challenge with another party. In it, the two white mages get replaced with two more red mages, who can access basic black magic that is so reliable early on and have better equipment options, too. This battle is a good demonstration how pointless white mages and their access to Blink are.

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