Help How much level grinding do you have to do?

TwoYellowEyes

Newbie
Joined
Nov 15, 2011
Messages
1
Gil
0
Hello everybody!

After having collected dust for several years, I finally decided to play the old FF games, i.e. FF Origins and FF Anthology. FF1 was a blast, but now I'm getting rather annoyed and frustrated in FF2.

I've played for only 2 1/2 hours so far, and all I did was running around between Altair and Gatrea killing goblins, hornets, and stranglers to improve my characters' stats. It's not like I didn't understand the character development system, I'm just wondering how much effort, i.e. grinding, it requires.

After two hours of pure "grinding time", Firion has 60 HP and 10 MP (only has the Cure spell so far), Maria has 45 HP and 25 MP (bought all four spells in Altair for her; Fire is on lvl2, everything else is still lvl1 but rather close to improving), and Gus has 70 HP and 5 MP (no spells). And I've already had Firion and Gus swap their weapons because they won't advance past 3rd level with their respective starting weapons.

It's not that I'm not used to a fair amount of grinding, something that's basically required in (early) FF games. And I even enjoy grinding as long as it stays reasonable. For example, I got all characters in FF7 to level 30+ and acquired all their limit breaks (except the fourth ones, obviously) before crossing Midgar Zolom's swamp in my last playthrough.

Of course I know about the cancel glitch in FF2, but I really don't want to use it. I mean, what kind of game basically forces you to exploit a glitch in order for your party not to get slaughtered by anything but the monsters around the starting town? That's just ridiculous. Although I'm not above hitting my own party with combat spells and healing them with Cure afterwards. I still think it's silly having to do that, but at least not as silly as said glitch. ;)

So, how much grinding will I have to do? Because judging from the stats of my characters after two hours, I'm afraid it's going to be a lot. Even more so since one walkthrough I consulted claimed that your characters need 200 to 300 HP before leaving the "beginners' area" around Altair/Gatrea.
 
Hmm thats odd. After two hours your fire level is still at 2.
You do know that you have to use the spell frequently to level it up right?
 
The FF2 leveling system is very interesting and different, but also a bit nasty.
If you want to play through the game without abusing the system (and it's worth it!) then you need to know how the mechanics work.

for example:
--> you get only upgrades when battles are at least 2 rounds long (if you can end the battle in one round, the game will think the battle was too easy and thus youre not worthy of getting stat upgrades :P )
--> to get above lvl2 skills you will need to fight against stronger enemies, when you realize you hit an invisible wall, teach your char a different weapon type / magic - this game rewards spreading of abilities, not specializations

actually you need less grinding in this game than you think. (at least in the origins version, the invisible caps for enemies were put in only because they massively speeded up the leveling in comparison to the NES original, to prevent you from getting godlike chars from the beginning)

The leveling system is actually quite playable and enjoyable if you know what you have to do. Search google for FF2 NES Gamefaq and check out the second guide from sco. Take 20 mins to check how to upgrade your stats, what INT/Soul penalties are and how evasion works. For example, if your getting below 1/2 of your max hp/mp in a battle, you will gain a HP/MP boost. (when this battle lasts 2 rounds or more) etc.
 
Back
Top