Final Fantasy II: Growing up

I'm shamelessly stealing the title of a post written by my fellow gamer and talented fellow blogger Geddy, because that title describes exactly how I feel about my FFII run right now. The walkthrough I'm following tells me that I've polished off two thirds of the game already, which places the end mark at roughly 25 hours of play. I can deal with that, all the more so as I refined my FFII routine to near perfection. See for yourself the novelties since my last post, dear fellow gamers:

— I upgraded my gear, going from Mythril sets to even more powerful stuff: Giant accessories, fancy elemental Armours, deadly weapons such as Orichalcum and Wing Sword — you name it. Thanks to that and to my dutiful grinding, my party is blatantly overleveled, and vanquishing bosses in a matter of turns without major HP depletion — let alone fainting. As you may expect, I'm not complaining.

— There was a time when money was hard to come by; but that time is now well and truly over. I'm currently swimming in money à la Scrooge McDuck; and since I'm hardly using any item and hardly purchasing any new gear, I'm saving that money faster than I can spend it. A little bit more, and I'll be able to stock up those absurdly expensive Elixirs for the game's late stages.

— The 'Ambushed!' occurrence rate is slowly but surely diminishing. It remains a mite too high for my taste; but it's still much more bearable than a couple of hours ago, when half of the dungeon encounters were Ambushes. That would already be nice enough, but there's more: I'm now getting a Preemptive Strike even now and then. Joy and glory! It may look like I'm going full Stockholm Syndrome, getting overjoyed when the game stops roughing me up and throws me a bone; but don't worry, I'm fully aware that FFII is majorly and laughingly biased against the player, and I'm chuckling at my own masochism.

Well, that's is for the new stuff. My run is pretty much on autopilot now, with only the occasional surprise to stir me from my grinding transe. Surprises such as being ambushed by Green Souls, and... having them healing my party, because that's apparently the only move in their arsenal. Best foes EVAH! Gee, FFII can be a dear when it really wants to, can't it? And now, dear fellow gamers, it's time for me to dive back into my delicious grinding routine. I'll see you later with my 4th — and hopefully last — FFII run report. Take care and keep gaming!