Gameplay Tips Final Fantasy Legend How Characters Go Up In Abilities And Hitpoints In Final Fantasy Legend, your characters don’t go up in levels, but in abilities. Humans have to buy their abilities (instant training?) in agility and strength, and buy hitpoint uppers to raise their hitpoints. In the first world, you can buy HP200, which will raise hitpoints between 9 and 21 for each one consumed. You can raise the human’s hitpoints to a max of a little over 200 hitpoints. In the next world, the ocean world, you can buy HP400. These will raise the hitpoints to a max of a little over 400 hitpoints. NOTE: You can also buy HP200’s (also available in the ocean world) again and feed them to your human(s). Yes, they will only raise 1 hitpoint each time, but you can raise your human’s hitpoints to 999! (Which can’t be done in any other non-game-genie way.) I recently read on a message board that you can go way beyond 999 if you continue to do this after 999. The screen will only show 999, but when you stay at an inn, you’ll be able to tell. (I know that going beyond 999 is possible, as I’ve often gone as high as 1032 for my mutants.) Which leads right into how mutants go up in abilities and hitpoints. Mutants will go up in abilities and hitpoints after battles with specific monsters. It’s kind of a weird system, but it’s a combination of the order your characters are in, and exactly where each mutant’s position is in the order. (I haven’t done a chart yet of which monsters tend to raise which abilities, as there so many different variables, but once the rest of the game info is completed, that will be next). For example, I have a human in the first position, a male mutant in the second position, a female mutant in the third position, and a monster in the fourth position. The party fights a monster. I look at their stats, and discover that some abilities have gone up. The male mutant went up 3 points in strength. The female mutant went up 3 points in mana. As the battles continue, the male mutant will tend to go up in strength and hitpoints, but almost no mana. The female mutant will go up in mana really fast, but will rarely go up in other abilities. Occasionally her hitpoints will raise, often just before the males. (Another odd bit about the game: When a mutant suddenly loses a special attack or defense, his/her hitpoints will very often go up after between 4 - 18 battles. But the mutants often have this weird connection where one will lose a special attack/defense and the other will go up in hitpoints first, followed by the one who lost the attack /defense after more battles.) !!! NOTE: If your mutant suddenly loses a great attack, like gas or ice, don’t reset the game! Try to keep playing until the mutant(s) hitpoints raise. If you keep resetting to preserve that attack, you will have a mutant with very few hitpoints later on in the game, which means a mutant who dies toward the beginning of almost every boss fight!!! Once you’ve got a mutant maxed in an ability, try switching the order. You’ll find the abilities raising differently. Mutant Males tend to go up in strength, Female Mutants in agility. With careful positioning, you should be able to max your male mutant in agility as well though. Experiment with it! You should be able to get your mutants maxed in mana, either in strength or agility, and have a decent amount of hitpoints too! Abilities / Weapons For Those Abilities Strenght - only seems to affect the damage of certain weapons (hammer, battle sword, etc.) Defense - is raised by the armor you equip (or artificially by the game genie). This is very rare, but sometimes a mutant will go up in defense for a while after some battles. If you see one of your mutants going up in defense, keep everything exactly as it is and keep using the same attacks in the battles. I was able to raise a mutant’s defense by over 30 in one game before the cycle ended! Agility - determines the order of battle attacks and the damage some weapons do (rapier, saber, etc.). Mana - determines the damage or healing a spell, spellbook, rod or other spell item will do, and the damage a psi-weapon will do. You need to experiment each time you get a new weapon to see which ability it works best with. Mutants go up in abilities after some battles. The type of monster and the order of your party determines if any mutants will go up in abilities. Try changing the order of your characters if nothing seems to be happening to your mutants! Humans don’t go up in mana. You buy agility, strength, and hitpoint uppers at item shops. I recommend concentrating on agility rather than strength at the beginning, as it allows your characters to attack before the monsters (and rapiers are really cheap!) You can inflict deadly damage with the rapier and saber up through most of the ocean world. Spend your gold raising agility to the max rather than on fancy weapons. You’ll know when you need the more powerful ones. Upgrade then, but keep stocked-up on rapiers until that point! Spellbooks, Rods, Wands and Other Magic Items Your mutant rarely gets to keep any of those nifty spells he/she learns for long, so you need to carry spellbooks and such. You attack or heal with them just like using a weapon or item in your character’s inventory. Most affect only one group of monsters or one member of your group. Experiment with what you can buy in the shops. Wand is cheap, does the same thing as Fire, and hold 30 charges. I recommend your mutant(s) use wand as much as possible, except against creatures immune to fire of course! IMPORTANT NOTE: When you get to the shop where you can buy Flare, stock up after you escape, but before you fight the boss - (you’ll understand when you’re at this point in the game). You won’t be able to return to that shop to buy more flares later in the game! And flares work against all bosses (even the final toughie) and will usually take out all the monsters on the screen. Monster Meat And Transformation Basics One of the coolest things about the Final Fantasy Legend series is that you can have monsters in your party! And if you do your meat-munching right, you can get INCREDIBLY powerful ones at the ocean level world! At the Beginning: The albatross is fast but has a low defense. The clipper is pretty worthless. The lizard has more hitpoints, but its attack is weak. The Red Bull has great hitpoints and a powerful attack. The Goblin has low hitpoints and a weak attack. The WereRat has more hitpoints, and an OK attack. The Skeleton has few hitpoints and a worthless attack. The Zombie has more hitpoints and an OK attack. Some of these monsters are available only as the starting character. If you don’t plan to have a mutant in your group, start with the Red Bull. Then pick the other humans and/or monsters at the guild. (But the mutant will start with stealth and a saber, so you’re better off starting with a mutant and getting your monster to a Red Bull or higher with meat-munching. To get a Red Bull, have your Skeleton eat WereRat’s meat. [ Back To Dreamfire's Main Page ]