Manual

Overview Status Ailments Menus Statistic Meanings Tips

Overview

The game is split into three sections: the menu screen (where you control the Jobs, equipment, and magic), the overworld screen, and battle. Here's a brief synopsis of how to take advantage of the three. (If you're used to later Final Fantasies, i.e. FF4 and up, there are quite a few differences you'll have to endure.)

CONTROLS: For all three sections, the directional pad moves either the character or cursor around, A is the "yes" button (talks to people, searches, accepts commands) and B is the "no" button (cancels commands). They have specific purposes in each screen, however.

OVERWORLD/FIELD SCREEN: Fairly simple, use the directional controls to move around, press A to interact with things (talk, search, etc.) and press START to bring up the menu screen. Press Select to change the character shown on the screen (this doesn't do anything strategically except for Thieves, who can open certain doors when in front). Press B to bring up an item screen. If you ever have to use an item on something (it doesn't happen often) select it on this screen. If you select an item that has no use in the place you used it, it won't disappear, so don't worry!

BATTLES: Battles are turn-based: you select the commands for your characters to perform, then the battle automatically takes place, with each enemy and character performing exactly one action. Firstly, you can press left or right to see an arrow near the current character. If the character's in the back row, the arrow will point left; it'll point right if he's in the front row. Pressing A will switch rows (this takes up a turn). More about rows in the menu section.

Every character has the Fight (physical attack) and Item (use items) command; the other ones are dependent on the character's Job and are described in the Job section. Just a few common ones: "Defense" raises the character's defense for that turn, causing physical attacks to do half damage; "Run" attempts to run away from battle; "Magic" gives you a list of spells to use in battle. A character who tries to Run has zero defense. If he succeeds, the battle ends.

The Item command: Press left to see the items in the character's hands. You can even use some weapons as items during battle, but they won't disappear; see the Weapons section for more details. (You do not have to be equipped with the weapon to use it.) You can switch weapons in battle by selecting one with the A button, then selecting the other and pressing A. You cannot switch shields, however.

Status Ailments

During battle, you or the enemy may be inflicted with different status properties. Following is a list of them:

	POISON: Appearance: Character crouches, bubbles appear over his head. Character will lose HP after every round. Caused by: Venom and Bio spells, and attacks by Hermit and Hornet. Cure using Antidote, Pure spell, Wash spell, or Heal spell.
	BLIND: Appearance: Character wears flashing sunglasses. Character's Hit % drops by a large amount. Caused by: Blind spell. Cure using Eyedrop, Wash spell, or Heal spell.
	SLEEP: Appearance: Little Z's appear over character's head. Character cannot move or act until time elapses or he is hit by a physical attack. Caused by: Sleep spell, and one of the Glare attacks. Cure by waiting or using physical attack, or end battle.
	CONFUSE: Appearance: Character faces the wrong way; green arc circles his head. Character attacks allies automatically. Caused by Confu spell, one of the Glare spells, and Nightmare and Pharaoh attacks. Cure using Wash spell or Heal spell, or end battle.
	PEtrIFY: Appearance: Small cloud above character's head. Character slowly turns to stone. After a short amount of time, or if the spell is re-cast, the character will turn to Stone. Caused by: Break spell, and one of the Glare spells. Cure using: Soft, Soft spell, Heal spell, end battle.
	STONE: Appearance: Character is crouched and in shades of blue and white. Character cannot act or move. If all characters become Stone or Dead, the game ends. Caused by: Petrify status, Brak2 spell. Cure using: Soft, Soft spell, Heal spell.
	MUTE: Appearance: A speech bubble above character's head. Character cannot use magic. Caused by: Mute spell. Cured by: Eyedrop, Heal spell.
	TOAD: Appearance: Character looks like a frog. Character's attack and defense drops to 1. Caused by: Toad spell. Cure using: MaidKiss, Toad spell, Heal spell. NOTE: You must become a Toad in certain areas to proceed.
	MIDGET: Appearance: Character looks like a very tiny man. Identical to Toad. Caused by: Mini spell, LuckMallet. Cure using: LuckMallet, Mini spell. NOTE: You must become a Midget to enter and proceed through certain areas.
	PARALYSIS: Appearance: Skull above character. Character cannot move or attack. Caused by: Shade spell, Breath attack, Mindblast attack. Cured by: Waiting it out.
	REFLECT: Appearance: None. All spells (even healing ones) will bounce off character and hit other party. Caused by: Wall spell, Bahamut effect 1. Wears off after an amount of time.
	CRITICAL: Appearance: Character crouches; small white lines come out of his head. Character is very low on HP. No other effects.
	DEAD: Appearance: Character is sprawled on the ground. Character cannot move or act. If all characters are Stone or Dead, the game ends. Caused by: HP falling to 0. Cured by: Life spell, Life2 spell, FenixDown.

Menus

OK, here goes the tough part. There are several parts to this screen, and I'll go through all of them.

ITEM: Use an item. To use an item, press A twice on it. If the item used is a spell, you will select the character to receive the spell (as long has he still has room). Characters can hold spells even if they can't use them. You can switch the positions of two items (or move an item to an empty space) if you press A on one item, then move the pointer to another item or an empty space. To throw an item out (not recommended), move it to the trash bin at the bottom of the screen.

MAGIC: Select a character to use the magic. There are three options here: Use, Swap, and Item. Selecting Use will use the magic selected. (There aren't too many spells you can use outside of battle; see the Magic section for more info.) Selecting Swap and selecting another character will change ALL magic spells between two characters. Selecting Item and selecting a spell will put that spell back into the inventory. Note that no character can carry more than three spells per level; there are 8 levels of magic. (You can have three L.1 spells and three L.2 spells at the same time, but not four L.1 spells.)

EQUIP: Change a character's equipment. There are five spots here: Two for weapons (or shields if that Job can equip them), one for head, one for body, one for arms. My experience is that it's much more useful to equip two weapons on strong physical fighters than to give him a shield. To remove an item, just put the cursor on it and press A. (You can't just swap positions of items in the inventory and equipped items, like later FF games. Sorry!) To equip an item on an empty space, select the space, press A, then select the desired item and press A. Items which can't be equipped by that Job have an X on their icon. You can see the changes the equipment makes on the character's attack and defense stats by looking at the numbers at the top of the screen. You can also select "Remove" to remove all equipment at once (as long as there's room).

Jamesbld36@aol.com reminded me that when facing only physical attacking enemies, it's a very good stragety to equip a Knight character with two shields. If all your other characters are already in critical condition, the Knight will block all the physical attacks on them, which will usually result in very low damage or a miss. He won't be very useful as an attacker though, so keep that in mind.

STATUS: There are several things to look at here. A character's level raises after gaining Experience points (EXP; gotten by winning battles). When the level raises, all stats also raise. You can see the character's current EXP and amount needed to raise the next level on this screen. As well, you can see the character's current (not total) MP here. (The only way to see total MP is to go to the Magic screen.) The character's Skill level is also shown here. Each character has a separate Skill Level for each Job. The Skill affects 3 things: attack power and amount of attacks, defense power and defense multiplier, and the amount of Capacity points needed to switch to that Job later, from a different Job. The higher Skill, the lower the amount of Capacity needed. There are several stats mentioned here; see Statistic Meanings for what they're all about.

ROW: Select a character to change his row from front to back. Back row characters' attack and defense stats are halved; as well, enemy attacks often miss them, and their attacks often miss the enemy. Put magic users in the back, leave physical fighters in the front.

JOB: Change the character's job. Before you can do this, you must go to the Equip screen and select the Remove option to remove all equipment. Then go to the Job screen and select the Job you wish to change to. The number beside the Job reflects the amount of Capacity points needed to change to that Job (Capacity points are dealt with in the Jobs section.)

Statistic Meanings

Although I can't know for sure, I've made my best guess (with great help from Jim Shaheen) as to the meaning of the statistics in the Status menu. Note that whenever you see the Skill stat, subtract 1 from it; Skill is assumed to start at 0 (even though a Skill Level of 0 is impossible). The five stats on the left are innate and depend on the character's level and Job. The stats on the right are derived from the ones on the left.

Strength (Str): This stat affects the damage done by physical attacks. Attack power and multiplier is affected by this stat.

Agility (AGI): This stat affects speed. Attack and defense multiplier, as well as the order in which characters and enemies act during battle, is affected by this.

Vitality (VIT): This stat affects defense against physical attacks. Defense power and multiplier is affected by this stat.

Intelligence (INT): This stat affects Black Magic power.

Spirit (SPR): This stat affects White Magic power. (I believe that Call Magic power is an average of the two stats.)

Attack Power: This changes depending on what the character has in his two arms. This stat is the sum of the attack power of the two hands.

• If he has one weapon, he will use that one weapon in battle and the stat reflects that weapon's strength, compounded by the Strength stat. However, the multiplier will decrease by half, because he only uses one arm now. The attack stat is found by (Strength/4 + Skill/4) + weapon attack power.
• If he has a weapon and a shield, it's the same as the previous case only defense is raised.
• If he has two weapons, the multiplier is the same as if he had bare hands, and the attack power is the sum of the attack power of both weapons.
• If he has nothing, he will use his fists to attack in battle. Most Jobs consider each fist to have a weapon attack power of 1, except for Karateka and Monk where each attack power is (Level X 1.5). Fists always have a hit % of 80%.
• If he has a bow and arrow, it's like he has one weapon, but add BOth the attack power of the bow PLUS that of the arrow.

Attack Multiplier: This tells the maximum amount of times this character can hit during his turn. This is determined by his Level and Agility stat. (Agility/16 + Level/16) +1.

Hit %: Accuracy of physical attacks. Determined by Agility stat and Skill level: (Agility/4 + Skill/4) + weapon hit %. If you have two weapons this value is doubled.

Defense: His natural defense is half his Vitality stat (depending on the Job, it becomes higher or lower). If he's wearing armor, it adds to this stat.

Defense Multiplier: The defense stat may be multiplied by a maximum of this number during battle for any one hit. This stat is found by Agility and Level: (Agility/16 + Level/16) + 1 * number of shields equipped.
-If you have no shield equipped, it is multiplied by 1/2.

Evade %: The chance he has of evading physical attacks. This is determined by the Agility stat (Agility / 4).

Magic Defense: His defense against magical attacks. No Job has innate Magic Defense; only equipping armor can give this stat.

Magic Evade: The chances of magical attacks missing that character. Usually this is determined by the Job, but a few pieces of armor can raise it. Every spell has a special Magic Hit stat (you can't see it) which interacts with this stat. All-or-nothing spells like Kill, Break, and Death have much lower Magic Hit stats than regular attacks like Ice and Flare. This stat is determined by the Intellect and Spirit stats: (Intelligence + Spirit) / 2.

There is an invisible "magic multiplier" which is given by (Magic stat/16 + Level/16) + 1. The "Magic stat" is Spirit for Black Magic and Intelligence for White Magic; Call Magic is a mix of the two.

Tips

Here are some tips to get you through the game:

• Whenever you open a secret passage and either enter a door or enter a shop, the passage will be closed when you return. To reopen it, go to the previous opening, face up, and press A.
• Don't clutter up your inventory screen with magic. Give it to a physical fighter, even if he can't use it.
• Buy in bulk. If you buy 4 items at once you get a 10% discount; 10 items will get you a 20% discount. However, you can only sell any item at 50% its normal value.
• Don't throw out items. If you think you might need it at some time, head to a Chocobo Forest (they look like small green squares of forest) and use a Carrot on the trees in the center. Talk to the Fat Chocobo; you can give him items and take back ones you've given him before.
• Different transportation have different abilities. Make sure you know what gets you where. For example, although you get the Airship Invincible later in the game, the Airship Nautilus can go places (underwater, Dorga's House) where the Invincible can't go.
• Save your items. Unlike other FF games, you can't buy items like Elixirs and Fenix Downs. Use magic instead. If you think you're running out, go ahead and use the Exit spell to escape from the dungeon you're in. You can always come back when you're healed up.