The CES Challenge

Final Fantasy VI. My favorite, and most replayed, game in the series.

The game’s setup allows for many different personal challenges. I resolved to take one of the most difficult ones for this year’s replay: the CES challenge.

Spoilers abound from here on out!

I forgot to actually publish this article last night, so I made an extra little image for it this morning. Enjoy.

The CES challenge is so named because it represents the party you will use to beat the game: Celes, Edgar and Setzer. Once you reach the World of Ruin and must re-recruit your party members, these are the only three you are forced to get. Therefore, you will not reclaim any other member.

While the rule stated above is pretty simple, I’ll expand on it briefly: You may do as you wish in the World of Balance. You may also freely encounter your optional party members in the World of Ruin… so long as that encounter does not cause you to recruit that member.

For example, you can rescue Relm/Shadow from the Cave on the Veldt. You can also fight Hunumba in Mobliz the first time. You can also fight Umaro (who will not be recruited after because you aren’t allowed to have Mog in your party).

You are NOT allowed to find Gau on the Veldt, and then “leap” him back out of your party before entering the final dungeon. Cheater.

Part of the challenge is getting through the second half of the game with a depleted roster, being forced to run the gauntlet of a final dungeon (and bosses) in three one-member parties, but the other part is how many resources you’ll be denied in the process.

Without Locke (and Gogo), you can never steal items. You cannot get the Phoenix Magicite (and consequentially, learn Life 2 and Life 3). You cannot get the locked-away treasures of Narche, which will prevent you from getting the Cursed Shield and the Ragnarok Esper/Sword. So no Morphing to make up for the no stealing, You can’t get the most powerful weapon and shield in the game, and both ways of learning the spell Ultima are lost.

Man, the game really likes Locke, doesn’t it?

Without Relm, you can never get the Starlet Magicite, and can never learn Cure 3 (the only other Magicite that teaches the spell is Phoenix).

Without Cyan, you cannot enter his dream to get the Alexander Magicite to teach Holy to Edgar or Setzer (Celes will learn it in a level-up)

Without anybody else, well, you just can’t use them. And you’ll have teeny-tiny parties for the sections of game that split you into groups.

The biggest share of the challenge comes from the loss of magic, hindering your efforts for recovery. You can’t even rely on Strago’s Pearl Wind blue magic to do the heavy healing for you. With only the Life spell and Phoenix Downs, your party members can only be revived into a state that any enemy can one-shot kill them over again. And they WILL get hit; you don’t have a full party of four, so everybody is more likely to be the next target. You’ll be using every X-Potion and Elixir you never used before just to make up for that.

With this knowledge, the basic strategy would therefore be to maximize damage and end battles quickly. This, too, is more difficult given the loss of the strongest weapon and spell in the game, and also losing the damage output of a fourth character.

So, the obvious solution is to take advantage of Final Fantasy VI‘s well-known bugs, right? Well…

No cheating!

 

As an additional challenge (or because it’s the only copy of the game I still own), I will be using the Final Fantasy VI Advance edition of the game. This means I’m forced to be on my best behavior.

The Magic Evade bug
In the SNES and PS1 versions of the game, physical evade was ignored entirely; the game utilized the magic evade statistic for all evadable attacks. What this meant was, with the right equipment, you could get a character to maximum magic evade (128%) with a carless disregard to their actual physical defense, magic defense, and physical evade, making them untouchable. As most attacks that were unevadeable also ignored defense, you wouldn’t end up taking more damage from them. This had a few other wacky side-effects, like rendering the “blind” status effect pointless. In FFIVA, this has been fixed.

The Vanish, Death/X-Zone bug
The Vanish spell is supposed to make the target immune to physical attacks, but wear off if that target is hit with a magic. Sounds simple enough, but the downside is that the next magic spell or magic-based attack will never miss. Because of this weakness, it is possible for inflict status effects on monsters (and party members!) that are normally immune to those status effects… including instant death via a Death, Break or X-Zone spell. In FFIVA, this has been partially fixed. While a Vanished hero or enemy does not lose their immunity to instant death, the game still fails to check for immunity to other statuses; you can fake a Full-Cure spell by casting Arise on a Vanished party member who isn’t actually dead, for example. In addition, most bosses and other load-bearing enemies were made resistant to the Vanish spell, preventing you from inflicting non-death status effects on them.

The Sketch bug
The only exploit whose fame rivals Vanish/Death, the Sketch bug can be used to exceptional effect. Triggered by either having Relm use Sketch on an invisible enemy or by attempting to Sketch Gau when he appears after a battle on the Veldt, the bug can freeze the game, cause the graphics to go haywire, temporarily glitch the party’s status, or drop a tremendous amount of extra items into your inventory. Often, it’ll do many of these at one. The most beneficial result, of course, is blessing you with a stack of Paladin Shields as the inventory effect does (you’ll also get more than 1,500 dirks to play with). In FFIVA (and Final Fantasy Anthology), this has been fixed.

I could utilize a new glitch that can reset a character’s level, enabling maximum stats, but it’s very time consuming. Besides, with the level-up bonuses from endgame Espers, it’s pretty easy to get high-enough stats without cheating.

I could also use the very much alive-and-well 0HP Character glitch to create an invincible army. I solemnly swear not to.

There IS one glitch, however, that still exists in FFVIA that does not have a complex trigger and cannot be avoided save for never casting a certain spell. The bacon-saving Quick magic, which allows the caster to immediately take two full turns without interruption by any friend or foe, has a couple of issues. First: If you use X-Magic/Doublecast with the Gem Box/Soul of Thamasa on your second free turn, your hero’s Active Time Battle gauge will not reset, allowing a third turn (though time for everybody else will not be stopped). Second, if an enemy ATB gauge fills at the same time that Quick goes off, that enemy turn is skipped entirely. While it is impossible to know exactly when enemy turns are coming, with the correct timing (and a lot of MP) they might never make a move an entire battle. I am uncertain I wish to swear off the Quick spell considering how depleted my war chest will already be.

I’m already well on my way in the challenge. Once it’s complete, I will share what I have learned, and maybe even kick in a video if you’ve been extra good.

Status report

Just started: Ghostbusters (iOS), Jetpack Joyride

Still Playing: Dragon Quest IX, Final Fantasy VI Advance, Final Fantasy XIII, Gundam: Battle Assault 2, Monster Tale, Picross 3D, Professor Layton and the Last Specter, Sonic Generations

Lagging behind: Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, The Incident, Infinity Blade, Metroid: Other M, Persona 3: FES, Starcraft: Brood War, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, Torchlight, Wii Sports Resort

Just Finished: Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, Plants vs. Zombies

 

Up Next? Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Cubivore, Dissidia Duodecim, Dragon Quest IV, Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman: What Did I Do to Deserve This? 2, Jumping Flash 2, Kingdom Hearts, Mega Man 9, Sam & Max: Season One, Scourge, Secret of Evermore, Snuggle Truck, Star Ocean: The First Departure, To The Moon, Zach & Wiki