I saw an ad in for the new PSP version of Final Fantasy and for the first time ever I actually entertained the thought of purchasing said portable console. When it comes right down to it, the original Final Fantasy for the NES has to be my all-time favorite RPG. I sitll have my original copy with all the trimmings which easily qualifies it as one of the most valuable games in my extensive collection (not that that’s saying much).

In order to complete the original game back in 1990, I developed one of the most clever (if I do say so myself) strategies I have ever employed in a video game. My party consisted of a knight, ninja, white wizard, and black wizard. The final dungeon had the party descending down level after level to re-fight the various elementals before making it to the end. My knight was tough and could survive long after the other 3 party members had been finished off. But he couldn’t finish the game all by himself. I reasoned that the knight could make it all the way to the end of the water level to face off with the kraken before more assistance was absolutely required. Though it appeared that I would need to waste more time leveling up so those other 3 could keep up, I figured that it would be nice if I could somehow keep the other 3 party members in reserve and start using them as needed.

Then I realized that I could do exactly that! I could put the ninja and 2 wizards in cold storage and let the knight take care of business until the others’ services were required with the kraken. How? Stoning! Certain monsters had the ability to turn your party members to stone during combat melees. When a character was stoned, they were just frozen– they couldn’t help your party but also couldn’t take any damage. Thus, I went to a section of the overworld where a bunch of cat-like creatures who were known for stoning liked to roam and worked hard to let them stone the other 3 characters. This was a bit tricky, but after it worked (and the correct characters were stoned), I saved the game and was off to complete my quest.

The plan worked famously in the end and I was able to resurrect the ninja first as needed and the wizards even later.

Many thanks to videogamesprites.net for their complete sprite collections.