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If you select a character's move, then cancel the next character to go back and redo the first character's move you still get the experience from the first time you selected the move. Repeat this N times and you can guarantee a weapon/spell level up for that battle (you can only get one level per weapon/spell per battle). It's tedious and can't be done to your fourth party member (as selecting their move executes everything), but it's fast. And in the meantime it also triggers you gaining Strength and Intelligence.

Oh Yeah, I forgot about that one.

You basically can swing your sword or cast magic 20 times in battle and gain a whole bunch of stats afterwards.

For me, I'm with the stats that I can control. Weapon and Magic Level is stats that I can make bigger. I know how to do that and it's easy.

HP, MP, Strength, Intelligence, Quickness are stats that I cannot control. Those happen by the game's doing and I just let it be. I hope for them and I would love for them, but it's not something I'm going to loose sleep over. As long as I don't fall too far behind and spend time to grind, I should be able to keep up with the game and not fall too far behind stat wise.

But, I forgot to mention, Thank You Exhuminator! Even though I played only for a few hours, I was very happy to see myself on your list.

And your beginning and ending posts have been amazing. Here's to another Great Together Retro Month!

How are you equipping? I usually do weapon + shield and nothing else for that sweet sweet evade bonus. And since magic is based on a number of attacks system as well you don't run too much of a risk of getting blown away by spells as you do in other games where you evasion tank.

Sword and Shield for Firion. He is going to be my basic fighter and physical damage dealer. He'll have a low level cure spell and some small spells as well, but his main focus will be hitting things hard.

For Maria, I will be equipping a Staff and she will be my white mage. Only one handed and she will be wearing cloth type armor. She will get the high level white magic and the stat boosting ones as well.

For Guy, he will be equipped with a dagger and he will be my black mage. Once again, one handed and he will be a clothy as well. Any status effect or damaging spells will be his.

And for the fourth rotating party member, I will be keeping them fairly standard and with what they have equipped.

I heard that it is better to only have one handed weapons for mages as they gain stats better that way.

A pretty boring party, but something standard on my first play through on the NES is not a bad idea. On other play throughs, I may change it up.

I would personally swap the cloth armor for a shield. As far as I could tell when I played through the game a few years ago, the weapon your casters wield is less important (other than any inherent stats they have) than making sure you keep using spells with them. The shield gives a big evade boost, which will also get your agility up.

Thanks, Ex, for doing an awesome job running this month. The bar has been set high! Someone lower it!

MrPopo wrote:I would personally swap the cloth armor for a shield. As far as I could tell when I played through the game a few years ago, the weapon your casters wield is less important (other than any inherent stats they have) than making sure you keep using spells with them. The shield gives a big evade boost, which will also get your agility up.

I saw that the Shield lowered their attack when Equipped.

Granted, they are spell casters, so I can't imagine it would matter a ton. But, at the very beginning, I was hesitant at lowering their attack.

Now, I think they are powerful enough where a shield would really help.

Thanks for the tip and I will be sure to buy two shields for them next time. If you have any other tips on the game, I would love to hear them!

If I recall correctly, you either are considered to be two handing the weapons or you still get an unarmed attack; I don't remember which. In terms of other tips, Berserk is a great spell; it increases your damage per hit (but doesn't remove control of your character) so I recommend training it up, as well as Blink and Haste. The game is quite soloable thanks to the mechanics; getting extra hits and increasing your evasion goes a very long way. You'll probably find that damaging magic isn't as good; I'd keep my mages on the side of buffing and debuffing.

MrPopo wrote:If I recall correctly, you either are considered to be two handing the weapons or you still get an unarmed attack; I don't remember which. In terms of other tips, Berserk is a great spell; it increases your damage per hit (but doesn't remove control of your character) so I recommend training it up, as well as Blink and Haste. The game is quite soloable thanks to the mechanics; getting extra hits and increasing your evasion goes a very long way. You'll probably find that damaging magic isn't as good; I'd keep my mages on the side of buffing and debuffing.

I know if you unequip your weapons, you attack with your fists. But, I think you are two handing the weapons without anything else equipped.

Berserk doesn't loose control of your character? Oh, that is super nice! And I did use Blink/Haste on the PS1 version, so I know how well those attacks do when buffed.

I'll make sure to keep up to date on the game, especially in the RPG Progress thread. I'm not as scared as I was when I played through Final Fantasy V recently. I think this will be an enjoyable ride of a normally looked down classic.

I'm a couple of days late here, but I just wanted to thank Exhuminator for an interesting topic and for being a fabulous curator thereof. Great month Ex!