T w e n t y S i d e d
It is finally time to finish out the Elfheim story and prepare for the next quest. Although technically, the next quest is the prep quest for accessing the rest of the map. It’s hidden behind A) completing the game to this point, as you have to finish this story to get access to a quest item you don’t know you need to finish a quest in an area you’re not sure the location of but have heard about. Technically you have access to this place, and could have got pointers to the quest item you will receive soon, but then again; you may not have gone that direction yet. B) Figuring out that all that stuff is connected…it’s obtuse, but *not impossible*.
We stopped last week by returning to Elfheim City, the possible location of Elfheim Castle. The Elf Elf King in the Dark Castle to the Westnorth claimed his castle was ruined, and if we returned the crown to him from where it was hidden in the third level of Marsh Cave, he could restore it and fix all the other various problems with his kingdom. This didn’t 100% jive with everything else we saw and heard, such as the citizens of Elfheim City not really being aware at all of the Dark Castle. The Elf Prince is magically asleep in the Castle near Elfheim City, so I don’t know for sure what’s going on. But we were about to tackle the lowest level of Marsh Cave last time, so that’s where we’re going.
The party levels up to 14 on the way to Marsh Cave, so that’s useful.
I did finally purchase some 3rd-Tier spells on my last visit to Elfheim City, but no 4th-Tier spells yet. I’ve been told they can be very useful, especially the Haste and Confuse offensive magic, but we’re doing the next little bit without that aid. The Black Mage now has the ability to fireball an entire enemy party, so as long as I can get that one cast a few times a day, I’m really not sure what else you need. (That’s a joke. You need a White Mage or someone else using heal and cure items and one other heavy hitter to do some damage while the Black Mage chants.)
The third level of Marsh Cave is like an organized crypt. There are sixteen rooms in a 4 x 4 pattern with chests in most of them. I know from planning the game, and because the Pixel Remaster does in fact change the drops and even adds some, that we need to check every room on the first three rows, but all four rooms on the BOTTOM row should require that Mystic Key that we don’t have yet. And the goal of a current quest, the Elf King’s Crown, is in a room on the third row guarded by a set of monsters attached to the chest itself…something that we will see quite a bit soon. Also, in case you were wondering what all the bats flying around do:
I loot throughout the level, until one of the rooms in the third row looks different. Sure enough, I get the Monsters! warning when I open the chest. I guess they were in the chest? I don’t think that’s what the game means but it kinda feels that way.
A group of Piscodemons appear, squid-headed casters that can also hit physically…hard. A group of four is on par with the hardest battle we’ve fought so far. If the random number generator has them attack your Black Mage four times straight, which *could* happen, it’s enough damage to kill them. Depending on your level, of course; but for most newer players a group of Piscodemons can be problematic.
Following the demise of the Piscodemons I obtain the Elf Elf King’s Crown, and use up my remaining resources fighting my way back to the surface; where I use a Cottage to fully restore my stats.
Being fully refreshed and still having a good load of potions and antidotes, and being on the surface where the fights are a bit easier, I head straight North back to the Dark Castle. After all, our current quest is to return the Crown to the Elf Elf King.
The King is waiting in the Dark Castle and is thrilled to have his crown back.
…that’s probably not a good sign. By the way, if English isn’t your first language and you don’t have a solid grasp of the history of pop culture, “Muwahaha!” written or said, is shorthand for “I am evil!”
Sure enough, it turns out the Elf Elf King we retrieved the crown for is actually Astos In Disguise! The Dark Elf King now has Matoya’s Lens and the Elf Elf King’s crown, which will allow him to be the TRUE ELF KING! Somehow. I can see the crown being part of the scheme, but as far as we can tell, Matoya’s Lens is just glasses (mine are supposed to be here in a few days, btw). How they figure into the deal is…unclear. On top of that, Astos doesn’t look like any elf we’ve seen in the game…in fact, he looks like the King of the Imps, not King of the Dark Elves:
Astos is supposed to have some powerful spells. To be sure, he opens with two rounds of debuffs on my two guys with swords, significantly cutting their damage. “Dark” is technically the 2nd-Tier Blindness spell, but its effect doesn’t nullify attacks, just reduce the damage by half or more. It also, according to what I’ve read, can only be resisted; not cured. Haven’t tried…this is the first time I’ve run into it. At the same time my Silence debuff doesn’t work on Astos, so I have the White Mage just cast Invisible or Protect on my own party. Despite Astos reducing damage from my two physical attackers, they’re still able to do about 100 points of damage per turn. My Black Mage is unmolested and is able to cast their most powerful attack spells three times in a row, and that combination takes Astos down in three turns. Astos went only twice that I remember; my third Black Mage attack went off before everyone else.
Astos drops Matoya’s Lens (the Crown is never mentioned again). This means running back to Elfheim City for a quick nap, then jumping back in my ship to sail back to the port next to Corneria, which is due North across the Aldean Sea. Usually two random fights. If you’re counting. From Corneria we run across the rebuilt bridge back to Matoya’s Cave; the first place we visited outside Corneria back at the beginning of the game. Matoya is so happy to get her Lens back she gives you a bottle of Jolt Cola Tonic.
As I have to go back through Corneria anyway, I stop to see what the prophetic Dancing Girl has to say (the two Sages in Elfheim City are still awaiting revelation):
I knew that already. But it’s interesting none-the-less. Back to the ship, across the ocean, and back to the castle at Elfheim City. Talk to the Elf Prince’s attendant, who will recognize that you have Jolt Cola Tonic with you. It is indeed super-effective.
You will notice ever since we retrieved the irrelevant crown, the game has become a series of fetch quests…most of which we were actually given early on. And things don’t improve yet. The Elf Prince gives us the Mystic Key, which he apparently had with him under the covers for the past five years, and that means we’ve got some stops to make. First, the Elfheim City Treasury at the back of the castle. This gives us one weapon upgrade. I decide to do the easy part first and sail to Corneria AGAIN to loot the Corneria Castle treasure vault. There is a minor armor upgrade here, but more importantly we get the NITRO POWDER, which we didn’t even know existed. We know it’s a quest item because we get this screen instead of the regular loot notification:
Returning to the Chaos Shrine, the second location we visited in the game; nets us two swords for the fighter. They have identical upgraded stats, but one does more damage to spellcasters and one does more damage to were-beasts. You can change out equipment in the middle of a battle, no charge! But it hasn’t been necessary so far. On the way back through Corneria I stop at the Dancing Girl again:
Ah. So the Nitro is for Nerrick, a Dwarf. In Elfheim we learned there were Dwarves in a cave on the Western End of the Aldean Sea. One other new bit of information that I noticed earlier is that there is an AIRSHIP “buried somewhere.” And the Dwarves are in a Cave…Oh, and the Aldean Sea must be the interior sea that we’ve had access to…because there is no way to cross *in the boat* from the interior sea to the exterior sea, despite having seen a couple of ports in that outside sea. So my *guess* is that we solve the Dwarf’s problems for access to the outside sea…possibly via an airship. How that interacts with the boat I guess we’ll see. There’s actually an extensive section to the East we haven’t visited yet, but we have already been told we need to go West, and we’ve covered almost all the area from the North to the Northeast, and from the South to the West, so we are specifically heading to the Northwest.
There are two more loot locations as well; the Dark Castle where we defeated Astos and the bottom row of rooms in the Third Level Cavern of Marsh Cave. The Dark Castle is simple and has some generally useful loot. The chests are defended by Monsters! again. Getting to the bottom of Marsh Cave is getting easier, but each room on the bottom row is guarded by Piscodemons on top of the broadly more difficult level of enemies near the bottom of the screen. By the time we finish looting and return to Elfheim City, the party is Level 18…four levels achieved just finishing out this quest line:
Next time in Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster, we’ll go find some Dwarves! And maybe get an airship…who knows, really. See you next week!
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Looks like they changed how the monster chests work. Original Final Fantasy 1 was unique, in that your classic monster-in-a-box was not actually… you know, in the box. Instead it was on the panel in front of the box, which is why the important ones like the CROWN can only ever be approached from one side. It also meant you could refight those guys by stepping on the panel again. Because you can never have enough Piscodemons. (And I’m pretty sure you still get a random number of those guys, between two and four. Four is a nasty bit of work, those things can two-shot your tank.)
Not sure if they toned down Astos here; in the original, the reason he’s so memorable is he’s the first enemy to have a straight-up instant death spell. And with no way to revive a character in battle, the poor OCD players who try to keep their characters at the same experience growth the whole time, are at the mercy of the luck of the Drow. (Er, draw.)
Also originally those weapon bonuses were bugged and didn’t work, so those two swords were exactly the same.
One encounter, I can’t remember if it was the Crown room or the first of the unlockable rooms, although it would make sense if it was the crown, had a “monster” character on the screen before the chest. I “talked” to them and immediately got a battle with 4 or 5 Piscodemons. THEN got the “Monsters!” warning when I opened the chest, as well. The monster character disappeared and I haven’t gone back to the room to see if they respawn; I might at some point. Pretty sure I got 5 Piscodemons for one fight.
I was expecting the Astos fight to be more difficult. It surprised me that he debuffed twice instead of using the instant death spell, I can’t remember if I had picked up a Phoenix Down (Fenix Down!) yet, but I’m pretty sure that came later when I was looting chests locked behind the Mystic Key. I did check and the Dark debuff *is* one of his skills…I may have just got lucky in my encounter.
I tried swapping out the swords and didn’t see a real difference on werewolfs or piscodemons, so that issue may be ongoing. If you use the Optimum configuration setting it always chooses the Runesword for the fighter, even though the two swords have identical stats. I’m guessing that’s because “R” comes before “W.”
Phoenix Downs are also a new addition; the original had Antidotes, Softs, and the basic potion that heals like 20 hp (and you had to buy them one at a time). If a character fell, you either had to haul them all the way back to town and revive them in the Temple, or use magic that’s locked behind Astos.
I think it wasn’t until 3 that we got any revival items. Maybe even 4.
The first NA use would have been FF 2, which was actually FF 4. I think it was the Advance version that introduced many of the “retroactive” changes to the original game. Or the PS version, but probably the Advance version.