Ok so I've finally decided to play through FFIV to the end. I've started it numerous times (always the SNES version) and never stayed with it for long. This time I'm running through it on the PSP and I'm determined to see it through to the end. I'm really enjoying it so far, however I just experienced something which I'm pretty sure isn't right...
If you aren't familiar with the story or the game then be warned as this could give away a bit of the story I guess? I put it inside spoiler tags just in case
I got to the point where you return to Baron after Cecil becomes a Paladin and you have a fight against Yang the monk in the Inn. This was by far the longest battle I have experienced in the game so far. It took so much longer than any boss yet that it didn't seem real. Part of what took so long I think was that mini had been cast on Cecil so he was pretty much worthless except for healing magic, he would have been dealing very little damage though. With that said I was just hammering away at Yang with Firaga and Twincast.
The problem is how long this battle took me. I'm pretty sure it took me at least 20 minutes. At first I didn't realize I could cast osmose on him (doesn't really make sense lol) and sap his MP, so before I realized that I exhausted all my ethers (9 I think) filling Tellah's MP back up since I was wailing away with Firaga for 1500-1600 damage each hit. Cecil ran of MP casting Cura all the time and the twins MP was tapped after using Twincast exclusively for around 700 damage a pop. I then used up all my potions keeping everyone alive (30 potions).
Once I was out of potions and ethers I realized that Tellah could use osmose and refill his MP each time, so I spent forever casting Firaga twice in a row, then maybe Cura to heal everyone, and then osmose again to recharge the magic.
I did this forever.......I thought the battle would never end. I thought the game had bugged out and damage wasn't really registering.
I easily dealt 60,000-65,000 damage to him over the course of at least 20-30 minutes before he fell.
According to the character page on the FF wiki he has 62,000 health but "only a fraction of Yang's total health needs to be taken off for the battle to be won. "
To be sure I wasn't totally crazy I whipped up a Let's Play for the game on youtube and watched the battle:
I counted up the damage dealt and it took 6575 before he fell and the battle was only about 2 minutes long. My battle lasted easily 10 times longer! He easily got 15-20 of those "Die!!" and "Hiyah!!" attacks in on me. I had to heal myself so much. Also, he didn't go down like in that video. He never said "Ugh" before the fight ended. Somewhere around 40,000 damage I imagine his sprite changed to the "weakened" one and he was sort of laying on the ground. He took another 15,000-20,000 damage before he was defeated and did that classic disintegrate thing.
I've also been grinding a bit before each section, so the 3 mages were all at roughly level 25 at this point and most things have been a breeze so far. If anything I should have been more than prepared for this fight.
What the heck was that all about??? Why didn't he fall after taking "only a fraction" of his health? lol
I googled around for anyone else describing this but haven't seen anything yet. I came here right after the battle to describe my experience and ask about this. I'm saved right before the battle so I think I'm going to save in a new slot now that it's done and go back and see if it happens again. I want all my ethers back!
I'm pretty sure it was not supposed to play out like that lol.
haha WOW. So I went back and did it again, much different outcome this time and I think I figured out what's going on lol:
You have to be attacking with Cecil I think. He is the only one that can end the battle!
I went back and did the battle again because I wanted all my ethers back. This time I made it into the battle without Cecil being shrunk down (I don't have anything to counteract that in my inventory or a spell for it at the moment). At first I did a couple attacks with him but then just started using him for healing. It looked like this battle was about to repeat itself. This time I was tracking how much damage I was doing. I did over 19,000 damage to Yang before I happened to attack with Cecil again and bam, the fight ended. It looks like you just have to damage him a certain (undetermined so far) amount and then hit him with Cecil to end the battle. It took about 10 minutes this time.....
I wasn't fighting with Cecil the first time since he had been shrunk and was doing like 10 damage at a time. If you don't attack with Cecil they make you fight him for the entire 62,000 HP!!! I checked the times on my saves before and after I went into that fight the first time. It took me 50 minutes (minus a couple for dialogue) to get through that fight the first time! Almost twice as long as I realized!
I guess the moral of this story is attack with the main character more often...haha
