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[R^2]

Gettin' real sick of this "disembodied voice from offscreen" shit.


???: If you are a true paladin, you may pass. Are you a true paladin? You must prove yourself. I'll be waiting for you, paladin.




In the next room, a girl has lost her chocobos. You can just leave, but shouldn't a true paladin help those in need?




The next room has a monster who claims he's a human put under a curse. You can attack him, but a true paladin doesn't slay the innocent just because they look funny.








The room following is a castle under siege by giants, and the occupants ask for help fighting them off. You can leave them to their fate, but a true paladin is a valiant warrior!

[R^2]

The next room has a kid getting bullied by his peers. If you look that much like a bipedal pig, what do you expect? Again, we don't have to help the little pig-boy, but...


Anyway, after scaring the kids off you get some thanks from Porky, and it's on to the next area.




This is the first room to actually tempt you into doing wrong. Golden Apples are quite rare, and you can keep this one for yourself if you want. You can even go stand in front of the guy and eat it. But that's not what a true paladin would do.


???: Show me you are worthy of being a paladin. First, I shall grant you a weapon. Take what is in the box.


Your reward for doing good in all five missions is the Lightbringer.


It maxes out Brent's attack power and randomly casts Holy on a successful hit.

[R^2]

Lunar Odin has the soft spot for Lightning that regular Odin does.


He also whips out Zantetsuken much faster.


Yowch. Zeromus might be the game's big bad evil guy, but in true Final Fantasy fashion he's easily outdone by completely unrelated plot-unimportant boss monsters.


Brent gets three or four Holy procs off his new sword, speeding the battle significantly.




The reward is a Grimoire for Lunar Odin.

[R^2]

Tower of Zot...


Mt. Hobbs...


Sylvan Cave...


Trial room.


It's a town...


???: ...the weight of your crimes... Taste my justice!




The woman splits into three orbs, which fly around casting bolts of lightning and baleful polymorphs all over the town's citizenry. Now whose Trial could this be?


Oh, right. The ultra-compassionate ever-forgiving baby-devouring white mage.

[R^2]

Soldier: Thank heavens... The sky suddenly got dark... Then we were attacked by spheres of light... Most townspeople were fatally wounded!
Brent: Friday... You must help everyone!
Friday: Yes, I must!




I don't think the game shows it onscreen, but there's a time limit involved where you have to run around talking to all the wounded or transformed townspeople. Each one gets a Cure or an Esuna, as appropriate, from Friday.


Some of them are monsters in disguise intended to eat up time off the clock, of course.


That's the last of 'em... the last frog is swimming in a pool in the top-right corner, but the only entrance to the waterway is in the bottom-right. So you have to cure everyone but him, dive into the water, and run like hell to make it up here before time runs out.

Yes, this is the last wounded townsperson. The pig in the bottom-left corner of the screenshot is another monster in disguise.




When time runs out or you've saved everyone, the orbs close in.

[R^2]

Lunar Asura has many of the same moves as before, including strong physical hits and powerful HP-restoring magic to cast on herself.




But as indicated in the Trial, she's also quite fond of transformative magic...


And just blasting the everloving crap out of dudes with -aga level black magic.


As before, casting Reflect on her will bounce her restorative magic onto the party.


Even with reflected cures from Lunar Asura, Rosa can hardly keep up with keeping everyone on their feet, but manages to protect Romo and D.Ni from getting wiped out by magic with Reflect.


OH COME ON

(Restore pierces Reflect.)


That was probably the hardest fight we've won so far.


It may not surprise you to learn that the reward is Lunar Asura's Grimoire.

[R^2]

Brent: What was that about?
Friday: I think it wanted... to tell us something... Anyway, I'm just glad the townspeople are safe.


Elder: You have taught everyone a lesson. We should be helping each other out, not fighting against one another. Maybe that was what the light was trying to tell us... This is a token of our appreciation.




After everyone says their goodbyes, Friday puts on her White Ring. It changes her Pray into Miracle. Pray has a 50% chance of failing and a 50% chance of casting Cure on the party. Pretty lousy! But Miracle never fails and usually casts Cura for a few hundred HP a pop... and sometimes it casts both Esuna and Curaga on the whole party instead.

[R^2]

Old Waterway...


Tower of Babel...


Siiiigh.








D.Ni: Whoa! It's like a playground for us ninjas!
Brent: Something feels... wrong. I think we should be careful...
D.Ni: What's that? How do we get there? Hurry it up! I'm gonna leave you behind!


D.Ni charges forward and immediately falls into a trap door. Welcome to the ninja's trial, the most annoying trial in the game.

[R^2]

The whole place is non-Euclidian, with doors that lead to places they realistically cannot, switchbacks, hidden traps, secret passages... it's a playground for ninjas, but for RPG players it's hell.


Oh, and don't forget the constant random encounters!




D.Ni: I like what you've done with the place.
Lord: So you enjoy my castle? I am pleased you like it. But will you enjoy this as well!?

Another trap door dumps you in the basement, and...


The way back up is blocked by flames now.




D.Ni does the same wall-passing trick he used to get into the Tower of Babel, and...


Steps onto another trapdoor just on the far side of the wall. Yep, the whole palace is built like this, folks.


Now the game introduces floor switches that open colored doors and floors that crumble when walked on into the mix. Because what this part really needed was more gimmicks!

[R^2]

Oh, and I forgot the invisible passages. There's those, too.


Let's just skip to the end, shall we?


D.Ni: Don't you know who I am? I'm D.Ni, prince of Eblan!
Lord: You are courageous. You do not seem to fear death. This will make for an interesting battle!


After the frustrating dungeon layout and nasty boss fights with Lunar Asura and Lunar Shiva, Lunar Ifrit is a refreshingly straightforward breath of fresh air.


Like Shiva and Odin before him, he starts in his more aggressive stance, quickly belts out one of his ultra-powerful attacks, and leaves you on the defensive trying to recover.


Chant helps.


There's not much to discuss, really. Like I said, it's a refreshingly straightforward battle.


The reward is obvious to all by now.




Disposable Ninja we are leaving and I don't care what you say.


Anyway, the Hanzo Gloves change D.Ni's Steal into Plunder. He's slightly less likely to screw up when stealing, and does damage with a regular attack when he succeeds.

[R^2]

There's nothing warning you that this is the case, but this is the Lunar Ruin's "Dragon Floor".




Because it's full of dragons, you see.


Dragons who can cast Maelstrom as part of their basic attack array.


And a bridge maze, to make sure you fight a goddamned lot of them.


The next floor is the "physical resistant" floor. It might as well be the Flan floor, because...


That's all there are here. Dust Mousse are the next step up from Black Flans, without any particular elemental weakness, but they are undead and that gives them some vulnerabilities to exploit. Golden Flans don't even have that, they combine typical Flan defense stats with the ability to absorb all elemental magic. And here I didn't bring anyone who can cast Flare...

There are Princess Flans on this floor (in groups of eight) but as I don't have Lyrai with me I'm not going to go searching for them.

[R^2]

The next floor is a quiz to determine what job you excel at. Are you more intellectual or athletic? Do you prefer to stay in your enemy's face or keep your distance? Do you size up your foe or attack immediately? What you answer determines your job, and the job you get determines your reward gift.


I take Engineer, because the reward includes a Siren, and Sirens give me another shot at Princess Flans. Monk gives both a Golden and Silver Apple, and Paladin gives a Megalixir.





My god, it's full of bombs.


The next floor has doors carved with engravings and items scattered about. Take clear water from the pool to nourish the tree carving, feed honey to the bear carving, light a piece of firewood in a flame to light the lantern carving, and so on.


Another town!


Holy balls, they sell Megalixirs here.


R... really? A buyable item is more powerful than Masamune and Murasame?


Sure is. With two boomerangs in hand, D.Ni can finally do full damage from the back row, bringing his fight power up to par with... uh, Romo.


The armor shop is also stocked with prime goods, but I'm out of money now.

[Büge]

So are the images not showing up for anyone else?

[Thad]

Working for me.

[A²]

After the Trial is over, we're whisked back to the save and exit room. So long as you possess the Grimoire given as a reward for a Trial, you can't go back in. But they're consumable items, so once you use them up you can get another copy by repeating the Trial.

The Grimores summon the respective Summon Monster for a blast against the monsters, as well as have a unique effect in one specific battle, for those playing at home.

[Friday]

Edge actually becomes better once you have him in full Lunar gear. The best party (as I was able to determine it when I played this version) is actually the normal end party (Kain, Cecil, Edge, Rosa, Rydia)

[R^2]

It's Niku's Trial. You like Crazy Taxi, right?


This guy needs to go to Mysidia, because he's lost.


And he needs to get there inside of eighty seconds.



You start near-ish to Fabul, so you can just follow the island chain connecting the main continent to the Mysidian landmass and get there pretty easily.






Heh.

Troia is northwest of Baron, which is northwest of Mysidia.


Hmmmmmmmmm


Forty-second limit.


Fabul is directly west of Troia.




Kaipo is easy to find, that desert it's in is huge, a bit west of Fabul over Mt. Hobbs.


Problem is, you can't land in the desert. You have to park nearby and hoof it into town.


Thirty-second limit. Agart is directly south of Kaipo past Baron, but you have to walk back to the airship first.

[R^2]

The skies darken, and thunder peals!

Yet Another Offscreen Voice: Are you the annoying bug that's been buzzing through my skies? I will swat you like the little insect you are!


Lunar Ramuh is a bit of a showman, blasting his way onto the deck.


He hits hard and fast, being a fan of swift lightning strikes, but doesn't have any obnoxious tricks I can remember.





The reward is, yes, Lunar Ramuh's Grimoire.


Why the lightning creature carried the Fiery Hammer I do not know.




The Fiery Hammer maxes out Niku's attack and sometimes casts Flare on a hit.

[R^2]

Lunar Core...


Mt. Ordeals...


Some very nice armor for Brent can be found at the mirror chamber.





Opposite of the Flan floor above, this floor is full of monsters who resist magic.


Mostly the Proto Phase, an upgrade to the Wicked Mask.


Niku and Brent's new spellcasting weapons turn into a liability against creatures who cast Reflect...


But a new Ribbon is nothing to sneeze at.


The next floor has a Vishnu Vest, just out in the open.


Don't let it fool you, Romo is still hilariously fragile.


Another level is full of...




Dolls! Good thing I didn't bring Kabbage.

[R^2]

This is... the final floor!


Offscreen Voice from Waaay Back At The Beginning: This is my world... who dares step into it? Who?


Voice: I am complete darkness... I am Zeromus, but at the same time, I am not... I am Zeromus EG. It's been a while since I've seen humans... Don't fail to amuse me...


Okay, so there were three versions of Final Fantasy IV on the SNES/Super Famicom. There was the original version that got ported onto the GBA that you've more or less seen here, and a rather dumbed-down version that in Japanese was called "Easytype" (and retroactively, the other version was "Hardtype"). Characters lost abilities, items and spells were dummied out, and -- notably for this context -- Zeromus's battle sprite was changed to this centipede-cyborg-guy with an elf girl growing out of his crotch.

The game ported to the USA was neither Hardtype nor Easytype, although it was more similar to Easytype. But it had differences all its own, for example, Cecil had his Darkness attack in Easytype but didn't in the USA version.

Anyway, this guy is Zeromus EG, "EG" being pronounced about the same as "easy" in Japanese. They couldn't just call him "Zeromus Easy", though, because... he's harder. What did you expect, he's a Final Fantasy postgame superboss!




Zeromus EG opens with Big Bang, then follows with a combination of Toad and Mini.


He combos Flame, Lightning, and Earthquake attacks and can hit four or five times a turn. That's enough to overkill Brent or Niku, if he concentrates multiple attacks on one target.


He has counters, too. Early in the fight he casts Reflect on himself if you hit him with magic, so it's kind of a good thing I didn't bring Zara. Later he casts Absorb to restore his own HP, but that means he's on his last legs. He starts hitting a little harder and countering attacks with Curse, but it just takes a little more damage to...


Send him slowly offscreen.


Zeromus EG: Now is the time to take a short sleep... I must rest... Farewell...




Your reward for beating Zeromus EG is... that he gets to go take a little nap. No, really. That's it.