This Is The Path To Hell (The Final Fantasy II Trip Report) [Part 4]

(Continued from Part 3)

This mirror unlocks a Wyvern which gets you into
the Cyclone, and I can't not include this screencap.

So, last time we climbed a tower and came back to half the world having been killed by a giant tornado. You know, lovely misery and setbacks. That being said, the Emperor's cyclone was cleared without relative incident. I do love that the dungeon map for it has the swirl of a cyclone which gets larger as you ascend, a great visual detail of you climbing a funnel. The Emperor himself, the self-absorbed vain fascist that he is, is a pushover. A dragon guarding a sword outside his chambers was a bigger threat. Of course, now we have to raid his castle and stop the new Emperor, and it's here with the penultimate dungeon that the claws really come out.

At this point you get that Final Fantasy staple, an airship, but it's worth noting the odd tone of this. In the previous game, you got an airship at about the halfway mark or so and it opened up so many new avenues of exploration for you. In Final Fantasy II you get it bequeathed to you by the very first Cid in a Final Fantasy game, who dies from cyclone-related injuries. It opens up no new freedom or exploration, only mild convenience and a key to the penultimate dungeon in Palamecia Castle. You can explore the world, alright, a hellish place where half the population has been crushed by the oppressive boot of fascism. Isn't this game just a joy? Lest you think the downer is contained only to the fledgling plot, watch the fuck out. Final Fantasy II is about to get real mean, and Palamecia Castle has a double whammy of a mean streak ahead.

I have previously explained the concept of the "plot dungeon", a story-relevant dungeon crawl which prohibits teleporting out and thus must be cleared in one go. After encountering this phenomenon, I naturally always started every dungeon with attempting to warp out. Once I knew if it was a plot dungeon or not, I could plan my dungeon crawl accordingly and know when to retreat or when to push on because I could warp out. Landing atop Palamecia Castle, only accessible by airship, I tested my teleport spell. It worked, so this must be a non-plot dungeon. Hey wait. Where the hell did my airship go? I had to look this up to ensure I did not softlock myself or something. I did not, but the answer is far more insidious. If you warp out of Palamecia Castle like this, it resets your airship back to where you found it. You would have to walk back, halfway across the world, to get it back. Did I mention that with the advent of the cyclone, all the overworld enemies have been replaced by difficult Imperial soldiers and mages? Oh, what fun!

The fun doesn't stop there, however. The way this dungeon is designed is that you land with your airship on the top floor, but then fall down to the bottom and have to climb your way back up. Eight floors of agony await, but I was okay. This wasn't a plot dungeon! I could use my MP freely, maybe build up my spell levels a bit as I crawled through. Okay, that's enough, I'm pretty low on health, let me just warp out of here and--

Oh you motherfuckers. They tricked me. The opening bit of Palamecia Castle, between landing on your airship and falling down, is not a plot dungeon. Once you plummet into the abyss, it suddenly magically becomes a fucking plot dungeon to give me a little surprise when I try to leave it. That's so mean! It's a cheap shot, but it's one I have to worry about and consider now as I try to beat the dungeon. So, that attempt goes south and I'm dead as shit. Let's try again. I get much further this time, but there's a trapped treasure chest with an enemy that's a recolored Emperor. The Imperial Shade. Well, I can deal with that-- OH IT JUST CAST DEATH AND KILLED 3/4THS OF MY PARTY. My loyal and valiant physical powerhouse tries to hold out, but he falls too. I do have a plan for this, though. I've been hoarding a few items in my very limited storage space (Final Fantasy II is especially mean about inventory, cluttering a third of it with key items well past their usage point that cannot be discarded) and one of them casts a Wall spell to protect against status. I used that on my powerhouse and managed to survive against the Imperial Shade this time.

I let my guard down against the game a little here, and it really punished me for it. Still, I managed to clear Palamecia Castle. The Emperor who I killed managed to overthrow Hell and now he's actually Satan incarnate. Great. Just great. The final dungeon crawl, the last and desperate struggle against Final Fantasy II, will take place in Hell itself. I mean that both figuratively and literally. The final dungeon is actually a double header, as you crawl through four or five floors of the Jade Passage to Hell before arriving in the Castle Of Hell, Pandaemonium for another seven or eight floors of friction and dungeon crawling. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't even making it that deep into the Jade Passage. The enemies down here were hitting really hard, and that was a bit of a problem. As mentioned, what didn't kill me made me stronger and increased my stats, but there was a different issue at play: Healing. My white mage was curing everyone after every hard-hitting battle, and each cast was increasing her proficiency with Cure. Each level of Cure adds more MP cost, and that was not increasing because I was healing out of battle.

There was a way out of this, I thought. The Osmose spell. Simply put, it drains MP from enemies. Giving Maria one would theoretically give her infinite MP. So, I went to look up where I could find one. Unfortunately for me, the only enemies which dropped the tome for it were in one-time dungeons which cleared out when you completed them. The only Osmose tome I had found was used on my main lead, Firion. Still, I needed MP gains. Thus for the second time I used the old chestnut of dropping my MP myself. Firion would Osmose Maria, and the massive drop in MP from her max at the end of battle would increase her max MP count. As furious as this levelling exploit makes some people, I didn't mind. I have only had to do this twice, and better planning and awareness would have meant I wouldn't have to have done this. It was the consequence of my own poor planning, and I would simply have to plan better... and another exploit was on my mind for such planning.

The glitch, in action.

Let me explain to you, in brief, the Wall glitch. Wall is a spell which protects against status spells cast upon you, and will block them. This includes instant death spells, which will fail when cast upon a Walled user. There is one odd wrinkle, however. If an enemy is protected by Wall and an instant death spell is cast upon them, the spell will be blocked but the animation will still play out. This animation just so happens to include instantly killing that enemy. You can actually do this on the final boss, and that's one of two ways to infamously cheese him. (The other involves an HP-draining sword called the Blood Sword, and I had them saved in my inventory in case I needed them.) I was not going to do this on the final boss, but for some of the tougher enemies in this final dungeon? You bet I was going to do that.

The slow and steady dungeon crawl continued. I explored dutifully, fought every battle, got beaten up over and over as my stats slowly increased. I was gaining strength through adversity, and knowledge of the layout of this massive maze which I was jotting down with my notepad doodles. A very productive session of exploration was ended about three floors into Pandaemonium when I ran into a new nemesis: the Coeurl. The Coeurl has two things it can do. First, its attacks carry the touch of death and can instantly KO you. Second, it can use a party-wide paralysis attack to freeze you in place... and when you're frozen in place you cannot evade the touch of death. I got ambushed by five or six of the fuckers and wiped out, even though I fought valiantly. (There's a dark irony to the fact that a Coeurl killed me: a coeurl also happens to be the loyal and faithful pet of Kei and Yuri, the Lovely Angels. In this deadly waltz, Final Fantasy II turns my own loves against me.) So it goes, but I still had the knowledge and the drive. I dusted myself off and crawled right through again, a massive 90-minute dungeon crawling session. I faced the hordes of Pandaemonium bravely, fought the bosses guarding its treasures, and cleared it out of every single item. What a night that was.

Then, one morning after the latest episode of my depressing little show, it was time. Time to walk through Pandaemonium once more on the optimal path. Time to face down every fire-breathing Chimera, every tornado-spewing worm, every death rider and lamia and coeurl that the game can throw at me. I survived all of them and more. I made it to the Emperor of Hell himself, and what ensued was a desperate but fair fight. All the strength I had gained through adversity, every sharp sting and stab that this game had thrown at me was now fired right back at it. I fought my heart out, healing away every wound I could, slashing and striking and praying for an end to this struggle. The waltz had reached its final chorus, and though my feet hurt I wasn't about to leave the ballroom. You wanted to dance, game, so let's fucking dance the night away. Then, at last, the crescendo.

I had done it. At long last, I had done it. I had not just beaten Final Fantasy II. I've done that a handful of time. I hadn't even just beaten the hardest version of Final Fantasy II in its purest form. No, I enjoyed Final Fantasy II. This dismissed black sheep entry, mocked for its design decisions and unconventional levelling, this thing which had haunted me for half a lifetime... I had found a way to enjoy it. I crawled through hell and back, literally, and I had fun doing it, damn it. Or is that more a damn me? I understand that it is not a game for everyone. Indeed, while looking up some things to finalize getting this on the page, I came across another similar trip report for the game. This one is much more in line with the usual critical consensus, and I am almost impressed at just how apoplectic it is. Whereas I feel I have taken a matter of fact even tone in describing the game, "and then I hit myself in the head a bit to level up this one time", this piece treats that fact with astonished white-hot fury. "I HIT MYSELF! IN THE HEAD! TO LEVEL UP! IN THIS GODFORSAKEN FUCKING NIGHTMARE VIDEO GAME!!!!!" 

The stats of those who have delved into Hell itself.

Is this how quote-unquote "normal people" see the game? Do they take one look at the yawning abyss of hell itself and scream until their voice goes hoarse as a matter of self-preservation? Maybe I, myself, am monstrous in light of it. They have called me Hard Game Beater, Beast In The Shape Of A Human, and maybe in that light I see the game differently. Maybe I see the things that drive people screaming in madness away from it as strengths in their own right. It was a challenge, but it was also an endurance to finish Final Fantasy II on the Famicom. It is not something to be taken on lightly. It will consume some weeks of your time, consume some part of you and darken you as you experience it. That is what happened to me, and yet I survive. I welcomed it, after my lackluster reception with the ports. Toning down Final Fantasy II doesn't work for me, but it works for others and I find that lovely. For those "normal people", I wish them a very enjoyable walking through mazes while being overpowered. For those of you with a darker persuasion, who don't mind a bit of spice and a bit of pain? Give the original a shot with an open mind.

Were this the only abyss I had plunged into during 2024, we would end here and return to the light forever changed by what we found in the darkness. Regrettably, I can't do that. We have that show to consider, and I must show the other side. I played Final Fantasy II in the afternoons when I had time. Bookending those play sessions, twice a day, was another show. A show which plunged me full on into that miserable abyss, and a show that must be shared with you all for how it impacted me. The horrors on display here make a hard video game from Akitoshi Kawazu look like the toy it is. I will share them with you, in time. Prepare yourself for them. Until then, everyone.