4th Time's a Charm

So I randomly decided today that I want to play Final Fantasy IV once and for all.

I can't tell you the amount of times I have started that game, stopped, forgotten about it, and had to start over again. This had to have been like the fourth time. (Hence the title of this post.)

The sad part is, I have purchased this game THREE times. Yeah. Three times, still haven't beaten it. The first time was part of Final Fantasy Chronicles, which came out for PSX (yeah, the ORIGINAL Playstation) in 2001. Then again when it came out for Gameboy Advance in 2005 and finally more recently, when it came out for Nintendo DS. At least I bought it used this time.

But guess what? I only have the guide for Final Fantasy Chronicles. So I'm using that.

Yeah...

I used the guide to play the reincarnation of Chrono Trigger for the DS. It was okay. Obviously there was plenty of new stuff in the newer game, but none of the boss strategies led me hopelessly astray.

Final Fantasy IV, however, has been a whole other fucking story.

So I'm playing along, la la la, and I'm fighting this boss. Now I know from my past experience that IV is a harder RPG and you kind of have to level grind in order to stay ahead of the game and stay alive. So I've been there, done that, I was good to go. Or so I thought. I'm fighting this boss, "Mom Bomb" or whatever, I've got 5 fucking people in my party, and things are going swimmingly. Ye olde guide says that mama bomb will explode at one point into 6 smaller bombs causing, AND I QUOTE "about 60 - 100 points of damage to each member of your party"!!!!!!! Oh noes! Whatever. My current party could have brushed that off like a paper scratch. Okay, so my HP weren't super high, but they were high enough that I could have absorbed that no problem, and gone on with my day.

Only that's not what happened.

Instead, mommy bomb exploded in violent balls of flame, causing 400+ damage to each and every member of my lovely party of five, killing them all instantly. "The Party Has Fallen" the gamely pleasantly informed me in a neat little bar at the top of the screen, as if I was blind and couldn't see my five supposed heros lying flat on their little pixeled faces. That god damn outdated guide! WTF?! How is that 60 - 100 points of damage?! Can someone not count?! Do they need a calculator?! I was so pissed I threw my DS onto the couch proclaiming, "Fuck this game!" And stormed upstairs to check something that wasn't published when Baywatch was still on the air.

So I checked Gamefaqs. Trusty gamefaqs. And you know what I learned? That the only way to survive that battle in this newest reincarnation is to have everybody defend. Because otherwise it's game over.

So I don't know if I should be mad at Square Enix for changing their own game that drastically (can't you leave the boss battles alone at least?) or myself for using a guide as old as the series finale of Daria. (Yeah, it's been that long. Can you believe it? And the DVDs are where, MTV?)

Anyway, lesson learned. I'm not trusting that guide for boss battle advice anymore!

...But I'm still gonna use it. Because I'm cheap. And I'm not buying a new one.