So I realized that I did tips and tricks for the first Final Fantasy but haven't done any since then. Sure, the first game was by far the hardest but the other games are tough too. Here are a few tips that will hopefully help you out in your own Final Fantasy pilgrimage.
General Tips
-Status effects are the enemy. Many people underestimate these because they don't often cause direct damage. Seriously, status effects are worse than taking direct damage. Being hit with an attack causes a very known and very immediate effect. These are easy to plan for. Being at the culmination of a battle and having an enemy put blind on your heavy-hitter can turn the tide of a battle completely. Confusion statuses are one of the worst, especially in the late game, since your mage can suddenly cast Meteo on your entire party, wiping you out in one fell swoop. To counter this, make sure you always have a small stockpile of every status healing item you can get at that point in the game. I try to have at least 10 at all times. Seriously, these are more important than potions. When the shops start offering these items, it means you're going to be hit by that effect. Preparation is key.
-Always have a designated healer. Especially for boss battles, some people get over-confident and think they can take out that baddie without healing. This is a bad way of thinking. Don't do it. Even if you think a boss is going to be easy, always have a healer and make sure that healing is their first priority. If you can, have a second go-to healer if the going get's rough. It's better to have two attackers that can last forever than four attackers that die in a couple rounds.
-Upgrade equipment ASAP. Whenever you get to a new town, your first thought should be to check which new items are available. If you can't afford some of the heftier equipment, DON'T JUST MOVE ON! Grind some money until you can afford it. The only exception to this is a couple of towns in Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II have equipment that you aren't meant to buy right away. Still, you should be doing the best you can. III on, you should always have your people decked out as much as possible. There's simply no reason not to.
Final Fantasy II
-Seriously not trying to beat a dead horse here but get used to attacking your own people. The best method for leveling up is to go back to the first city and start finding goblins and imps and whatnot. The easiest stats to level up are your HP and MP. Pick one stat for each character. For your HP characters, start beating on each other. For the MP character, use spells to either damage your HP characters or heal, if necessary. Remember, the goal is to end the battle with less than half of your maximum HP or MP. Don't just heal when the health gets down and keep going, this won't help you. When you get down low enough, end the battle. Heal once you're outside the fight. Once you think you're ready, do this a few more times. Trust me, you aren't ready.
-Don't use the inns. Some day I'll talk more about these ridiculous inns in a post but for right now, just know that you can't treat the inns like you do in other Final Fantasy games since the inns charge depending on how much health or MP you're missing. It's way more efficient to use MP to heal up and then go to the inn only when you need an MP recharge. This is way cheaper and will save you a ton of money over the course of the game.
-Don't rely on magic. Having magic is great and will help you through a lot of fights but by the end of the game, it's nearly worthless. Magic just never becomes as powerful as your physical weapons. The best method for avoiding this is to have your magic user wield a bow in the back row. This will let them level up their attack power while you use magic as necessary. Note that you should definitely level up Cure and their MP since the more healing ability you have, the less risky dungeon crawls will be.
Final Fantasy III
-Switch jobs frequently. Yes, there is some cost to switching jobs but this will almost certainly not be a problem for you throughout the game no matter how much you switch. I'm not saying to switch frivolously since you do want to level up their job levels but don't feel attached to one job per character. Certain bosses will be way easier with four black mages or four warriors. One boss you will need to be able to use the Scan ability and need a Scholar to do it. By the end of the game, you're going to want to have two Ninja's and two Sages anyway so don't worry too much about leveling up each job prior to the end.
-Get Ninja and Sage! Technically, these are optional jobs since you have to go all the way to the end of Eureka to get them. These are by and far the best jobs and there is literally no reason to use anything else once you get them. Your fighting characters should be Ninjas and your magic users should be Sages. If you play the remakes of III, this won't necessarily be the case but if you're playing the NES version, do this.
Final Fantasy IV
-If you're playing the US version, there is very little need for tips and tricks. There is the occasional tough boss, don't get me wrong, but all in all the game is extremely easy. If you need help at a certain point, pull up a walkthrough for specific strategies but overall, just follow the general tips and if you get stuck, try leveling up a bit to pull through. Be aware that many of the bosses have special tactics required in order to win. Be willing to change tactics on the fly or you will suffer a few losses. Also, pay attention to the boss dialogue since it often gives clues to these tactics.
Final Fantasy V
-Grinding won't help you as much in this game. Levels are much harder to get and don't provide as much benefit as in other games. The more important thing is to level up your jobs. This is very important. Make sure everyone has certain basics before going too in depth on any one job. Making sure every party member has at least the first level of white magic can be extremely helpful later on. Third level is probably better.
-If you can, max out Hunter, Red Mage and Ninja. Their maximum skills are extremely useful for any job. Hunter's allows your character to do four attacks against random enemies with each attack hitting for about half normal damage. This has endless possibilities and should be obtained if possible. Red Mage lets you use magic twice per turn, devastating against many bosses. Ninja lets you wield two weapons at once. These are all extremely powerful and will help you substantially.
-Don't underestimate the base job. If you are willing to put in the time, the base job actually becomes the strongest by far. Any job you master, the innate skills of that job become available to the base job. That means if you are willing to master several jobs, your base job could have HP and MP +30%, dual wielding any weapon you'd like, using X-Fight on every turn, covering near-death friends... Basically, you'd be invincible. But only if you're willing to put forth the time. And trust me, this would be a lot of time spent.
-Be willing to change jobs. Just like Final Fantasy III, several of the bosses will be much easier if you forgo the traditional party arrangements. If a boss is weak against a certain kind of magic, try using four black mages and just bombarding it to kill it as fast as possible. This can help especially against bosses that use individually weaker all-enemy attacks. Three turns of Bolt 3 is enough to kill Leviathan right away, assuming you can keep your mages alive.
-The tower you go to in order to get Meteo and Holy requires you to split your party into two. Make sure the one on the right is two fighters and the one of the left is two mages. These bosses would be tough even if you had your whole party. Too bad you don't. Note that the mage boss will require some special tactics to defeat or he'll just reset your battle. You'll see what I mean.
Final Fantasy VI
-Use Gau. Several players don't use Gau and some even cite him as the worst character you get. This is far from the truth. They simply don't understand how he works. Basically, every enemy you fight will be available to fight again in the Veldt, the area you found Gau in. When you have Gau in your party, have him use his Leap skill to go with the baddies, ending the battle. Wander around and fight more enemies until Gau returns. When he returns, he will have the abilities of all baddies in the party you were fighting when Gau left and the enemies you were fighting when he returned. By using Rage, Gau can emulate these baddies traits and attacks although you don't get to control him. This requires a strong understanding of the games mechanics and bestiary but if you are willing to put a little effort into it, Gau can be an unstoppable addition to any party. Be aware that any World of Balance enemies you don't fight will be unobtainable if you get to the World of Ruin. Don't worry though, if you fought the enemies at some point in time, they will still show up in the Veldt even once you get to the World of Ruin.
-Check the auction house before the World of Ruin. There are two espers there that can be missed if you don't get them prior to the World of Ruin. It's spendy but it's worth it.
-Explore the World of Ruin. Basically, you can attack Kefka as soon as you get the airship but this would be a really terrible idea. Instead, check out the World of Ruin. There's a ton to do and almost every town has at least one side-quest to accomplish. Here's a basic checklist of things to do.
-Get all your characters back
-Get the two bonus characters (Gogo is in the monster's stomach over in the island to the northeast. Fight it and let it eat all your party members. Umaro is in Narsche, you need Mog to get him. He's not missable though so don't worry about fighting him without Mog, you'll just need Mog in your party when you go back.)
-Fight the 8 dragons. Two of these are in Kefka's tower. The rest are scattered around. Not too hard to find but you'll have to do a bit of looking.
-Fight the Doom Gaze. This monster shows up if you fly around in the airship long enough. Beating him gives you Bahamut. DON'T USE THE VANISH/DOOM TRICK ON HIM!! This will prevent you from getting Bahamut.
-Climb the Magic Tower. This is the place you get Strago although you don't need to climb it to get him. Climb it anyway.
-The vanish/doom trick. The spell is called something different depending on your version. Basically, the two spells to know are the spell that makes you invisible and the spell that insta-kills all enemies on the screen if you're lucky. In the SNES version they are Vanish and X-Zone. Anyway, the trick is to use Vanish on tough bosses and then use X-Zone right away. If Vanish works on the boss, this will automatically kill them since being invisible means spells have a 100% chance of working. Note that this does not work on Kefka or several of the late game bosses. It does work on that annoying boss that requires you to kill your own guys, it works on the three statue bosses and several others. I don't know if it works on the painting boss but that would be awesome if it did. The only guy to NOT use this on is Doom Gaze per my note above as it will prevent you from getting Bahamut. Otherwise, you still get all the gold, EXP and items you would normally get.
If you are stuck anywhere specific, feel free to say so in the comments, I'd be happy to help however I can.
Game on!
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