HCBailly plays Final Fantasy II - Part 3 of 44

Tutorial. Again. Yay.

Strangely, stuff gets a little complicated here, but not too much.

All maps by Paco.

Here is how HCBailly is going to prepare (which means that my strategies/note-taking/whatever will be based off of his prep - go figure): Maria will be Black Mage, Guy will be the Sword Wielder, and Firion will be in control of all the White magic. Give everyone a shield, and stick to one weapon type (unless you really love levelling up). Spears and canes are the best weapons at the beginning, since they're pretty easy to get your hands on. While they're powerful, axes have low hit percentages, just like in the first game...which can cause problems.

Items not only weigh you down and cause your Evade to drop, they also cause Intelligence and Soul to drop as well during battle. The heavier your equipment and weapons, the higher the "Int./Soul Penalty" or "Magic Penalty" will be. This will effect the hit rate and amount of damage spells can do.

You have two item slots per character. This not only lets you circumvent Magic Penalties at times (you can put your Shield here to raise your Intelligence and Soul where necessary and still have it on that character), you can also make it easier to switch between items and weapons and whatnot if it's only useful in specific situations.

Press Select while not in battle to configurate your front and back rows. The back rows take less damage, but they deal less damage against enemies. If you lose your entire front row, the back row becomes the front row.

Magic and bows can hit anyone, but all the other kinds of weapons can only hit the front two rows.

Monsters drop random amounts of Gil, making money gainage harder. You're more likely to get 12 Gil (or a common item) than you would 50 Gil (or a less common item) from an enemy at the beginning.

Altea Map

Unequip everything from all three characters, and give Gus the Broad Sword. Buy a Javelin for Firion, and sell off everything else. You'll want to give Gus and Maria a Buckler, and you'll also want to give Maria a cane, too.

For spells, get Fire. The quicker you level this up to Level 2 (yes, spells have levels), the more damage you can do to large groups of enemies early on. Bolt looks tempting, but enemies that are weak to it are also weak to other spells. Same with Ice, as there are only two mini-bosses where you'll really need it and the enemies that are weak to ice don't show up until later in the game, when you'll be strong enough to deal with them through other means. Cure will come in handy later on.


In your inventory, just select the book and select who you want to learn the spell. They'll learn the spell just like that.