Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - Lowest Level Part 6: Lich

Channel:

MoogleBoss

Subscribers:

6,670

Published on May 4, 2023 3:17:44 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlzVnlRibwQ

Game:

Final Fantasy (1987)

Duration: 5:11

629 views

25

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

Party levels (not subject to change again in this challenge):
Warrior lv. 1
Red Mage lv. 1
Red Mage lv. 1
Red Mage lv. 2

Levels shown after the battle instead of before.

Here we are, the single boss who forces the party to level up should we want to advance. There just aren't enough options to affect survival until after Lich is felled and we can travel the world freely. There is good gear to improve the warrior's physical bulk, but that does nothing against tanking Lich's -ara magic, withstanding which requires having higher health and Nul-elemental spells, both of which demand a few level-ups on the characters (red mages specifically, but the warrior's not taking a spell at 35 HP either).

Can we not beat Lich the same way we beat Astos, i.e. hope it doesn't cast its offensive spells, of which he has three (Thundara, Fira and Blizzara) over Astos' two? Sure, let's see what the chances are... The three aforementioned spells have a 3/8 chance to be randomly picked on any given turn among others, including Slow, Haste, Sleep, Sleepra and Hold. Some of these other spells hurt our chances of keeping consistent damage coming, but at the very least we stay alive during that turn. Lich also casts spells only 75% of the time (at least, in the original version of the game), the other time using physicals, which are not only absorbed by the warrior when Haste is not in effect but can be endured by the red mages as well. On turn 1, if these numbers are accurate, there is a 72% chance we will not have to start over. Every two turns, these odds get halved, as a rough estimate. In the 9-turn victory recorded in this video, our chance of making it alive is around 5%. Not too bad, I say, considering we have to restart early on much of the time.

But I did level up one red mage to greatly improve my damage output (levelling up all three red mages or all four party members would help me even more, but is not strictly required to advance). Let us consider the implications of keeping everybody at level 1. On turn 1, all three red mages landing a Fire spell for 25-30 damage and the warrior getting decently lucky with a non-critical blow can inflict around 100 damage. This would've been great against Astos (the video I put up shows me fighting with the old party consisting also of two white mages, who are notoriously inept at fighting before item magic becomes accessible right after this battle), who only has 420 HP, but Lich has 1,200. We're not going to win in 12 turns, either. At lv. 1, we can afford to cast Fire twice until we have to get the lost spell charges back with Ethers - one at a time. Yeah. Fallen members also need to be revived, units inflicted with Hold have to be cured of paralysis with a Remedy (sold in Crescent Lake, and I think a second place at this point of the story as well) and attacks whiff and deal poor damage often when we're slowed. So we're really looking at about 24 turns of combat in the end. 24 turns of rolling the dice with a 72% chance to stay alive. By turn 24, our odds of survival are...

0,04%.

That's one successful attempt out of 2,500! Likely, 100+ hours of retrying with each attempt taking 2,5 minutes on average. I'm sure somebody out there might have the patience. I don't, and am still pretty excited to continue the challenge. One of the red mages is levelled up once, which has random stat increases. We could get 2 HP, but we could also occasionally get 22-26. I reset until the roll is on the most extreme end.

So, what are we doing with that single RM level-up? We do have more health, as well as access to six black and white magic spells. The only one that truly matters is the black magic spell Temper (not glitched like the original). One of these increases any ally's attack power by 14, and they do stack. The first one will have the strongest effect, getting us to 100 damage per hit at times, which is about as much as the entire party could inflict in 2 turns, but keep using Ethers on the red mage so that he can target the warrior again the following turn, and we'll be close to doubling that (the damage variance is great depending on how many hits we score) and attacks of 300+ damage are very possible when crits proc, which they do often enough.

The other unoccupied red mages can still add chip damage with Fire castings. By placing the Temper red mage and the warrior in the 3rd/4th party slots, they have a 25% to be targeted by the ST spells and can quickly get the momentum going.

The Earth Crystal is finally ours, and we can travel the world on a variety of vehicles.

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