¶ The Title Screen
When you first boot up the game, the game will start on the story screen, explaining the basic plot of the game. This will be a text scroll that will play along with the “Crystal” theme from Final Fantasy. You can then press any button and it will take you to the title screen where you can select “Continue” or “New Game”. If this is a fresh, randomized rom, those two buttons will do the same thing, so you can just press A (or Start) and go into Character Creation.
However, before we discuss that, let’s first take a moment to look at that title screen because, below the “New Game” button is a bit more important information. There’s Response Rate, which sets the actual text speed for the game. This is, by default, set and locked at 8 (the fastest speed), so we don’t encourage messing with that.
More importantly, however, is the section at the bottom which has three lines of text. The first tells you the version of the randomizer your game was made in. If you ever need to know what version you were on when your game was made (if, for instance, a developer asks you about it when you’re reporting a possible bug or something that you think isn’t working quite right) that’s where to find it.
Below that is the Seed you’re playing on. The randomizer is, in effect, broken into two parts: seeds and flags. Flags are all the functions you turn on at the randomizer site, from available party members, to the kinds of enemies you’ll be fighting, where key items are placed, what kind of magic you’ll have, and more. The seed is then the specific randomized instance of those flags, tailored together for you by the randomizer site. Two players can play the exact same set of flags but, unless they are also playing the same seed, they will have drastically different play experiences through the game. You need to make sure you’re on the same seed when you’re playing a race against anyone else.
That’s where the third row, the symbols across the bottom, comes in. When in a race (assuming you do race the randomizer against other players) you will be asked to “confirm hash”. The hash is that string of eight symbols. In our example here we have [SHIELD HAMMER SHIELD SWORD GAUNTLET AXE AXE SHIRT]. That’s your hash, which you will type out (or screenshot and paste) into the race room chat as your confirmation.
¶ Character Creation
Having confirmed our version, seed, and hash, we can now begin our game and that truly starts with character creation. Past the title screen, the first thing you will see is character select. This takes the form of a four square window. There you will see a few randomly set characters, and you have the option (by clicking directionally on the controller) of choosing what characters will be represented in each slot (don’t worry about getting their position just right, or what that position even means just yet, as that can be adjusted, and explained, later). The default classes in Final Fantasy are:
- Fighter: A warrior who can use a lot of weapons (from swords to axes to sticks and more), and a fair bit of armor. They’re your general all-around good combatant, although, when they class change (and we’ll explain when class change happens later in the guide) they also gain the ability to use most of the legendary weapons, most of the legendary armor, and a limited amount of white magic as well.
- Thief: A melee combatant whose primary skills come from evasion and running. Thief isn’t as powerful at the start of the game as the Fighter, and they can’t use as much in the way of weapons or armor. Instead, they can use the five Ds (dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge) to great effect. They have the highest run chance of any character in the game, they are the least likely to be surprised (when in the lead slot of the party), and they also have high evasion (in most flagsets) making them an excellent character to have around. When they class change they gain access to the Katana (a legendary weapon) as well as limited black magic.
- Black Belt: The black belt is the most limited warrior in the set. It only has access to a small selection of weapons and armor, and, no matter what, never gains the ability to use magic. That’s fine, though, because you don’t really care about any of that with a Black Belt. The trick for this guy is that everything he lacks he makes up with his fists. Black Belts scale with their level meaning that, of all the characters, they have the most direct benefit from leveling up. While a Fighter or a Thief will be a more powerful warrior at low levels, when you get them higher levels, the Black Belt becomes an unstoppable freight train. And who needs magic when you can cast PUNCH?! Bare-handed, naked, and at high levels, Black Belt is the most powerful warrior in the set.
- Red Mage: The jack-of-all-trades in the group, Red Mage can do a little bit of everything. They can use some weapons and some armor, as they can also use some white magic and some black magic as well. In most instances, Red Mage is a solid backup mage to fill in for any weaknesses in your party. They aren’t necessarily great at anything, but they’re basically okay at everything.
- White Mage: The dedicated white magic user, White Mage can use most of their school of magic up through spell level 6 and, once promoted to a White Wizard, can use all White Magic. They gain no black magic of any kind, and has only limited options when it comes to weapons and armor. Still, because of their ability to use protection, healing, and life-granting magic (all part of their school) they’re a good defensive choice to have around.
- Black Mage: Black Mage is actually the weakest character in the game when it comes to physical attack and defense, but they make up for it with their school of magic: black magic. Almost all the attack magic in the game, as well as all the offensive buff and physical debuff magic in the game, comes from black magic. A black mage can use most of their chosen school of magic up through spell level 6, and they gain the rest after promoting to Black Wizard. They’re an essential choice in most parties given the magic power they bring to the table.
Alongside these six classes there is a seventh option you can use at party select: “None”. If you wanted, you could choose not to have a slot filled with a character. Only the first slot has to have a character in it (because you can’t play an entirely empty party) but the other three slots can be empty (or, depending on the flagset played, any of those other slots could be forced to be empty). Whether or not to choose a none is really up to the kind of flagset you’re in, but we’ll later cover some reasons why a none may be preferable over having a character in that slot.
“What party should I choose?” is a question we get a lot. The short answer is “it depends” and that’s because there are a lot of flags and a lot of ways to play so we would be loathe to say any one party is always going to be right, but here are some general party concepts that work well:
- Fighter/Red Mage/White Mage/Black Mage: Often called “Fighter Rainbow” because it has “the rainbow of mages”, this is the safest party in the vanilla game. You have a Fighter, for melee damage and absorbing hits, and then you have, in effect, a back up melee, two white mages (Red and White) and to black mages (Red and Black). Your run chance isn’t great, because your best runner is the Black Mage (who has good early game luck but you’ll find that doesn’t scale over time) but you can certainly do a lot of damage (and then heal nicely after, as needed).
- Fighter White Mage/Black Mage/Black Mage: Referred to as “Fighter Oreo”, since you have two Black Mages with a White Mage “in the middle”, this is a solid variant of the Rainbow flagset. You lose the backup melee since you lack a Red Mage, but the Black Mage has better access to upper-level firepower. And two Black Mages are kind of equivalent to a single Thief, so the run rate is better. It’s a riskier party, since Black Mages have less health than Red Mages, but the benefits can outweigh the risk.
- Thief/Fighter/Red Mage/Black Mage: This is probably the safest party in the randomizer (with all the bug fixes and standard adjustments turned on). Like the Rainbow party, you have a melee carry in the Fighter as well as two black casters. Your white magic caster is weaker (since the Red Mage doesn’t get full access to everything), but for most players the best defense is overwhelming power. Plus you have the Thief, who can run and dodge, so you’re likely going to escape from runnable fights quickly (and avoid a fair bit of physical damage as well). This is a solid beginner party, and even plenty of vets like to play it.
- Thief/Black Belt/Red Mage/Black Mage: Whether to take a Black Belt or a Fighter really comes down to the flags. There are some flagsets where you’re going to have to open chests and spend time collecting gear, whether you want to or not. Gear is the Fighter’s friend, since they get their power from what they equip, so gear friendly seeds are generally skewed against a Black Belt. With that said, there are flagsets where you don’t have to open many boxes, or where the enemy scaling is so high that you need a whole lot of power to get through big, beefy bosses. The best solution is to go ALL-BEEF yourself, and there’s no character beefier than a high-level Black Belt. If you have to worry about bosses, or can just focus on grab-n-go gameplay, the Black Belt party could be right for you.
- Thief/None/Red Mage/Black Mage: Now we’re getting into trickier territory. This is a party built around speed and power. You only have three characters so (as we’ll explain later) experience will get pumped onto the remaining characters. You also only have to give commands to three characters, and not four, so you have less button pressing to do. Plus you have that Thief, who can run, and two black casters (one of whom can also perform a bit of white magic backup). Of course, you do lack some offensive ability here, but the Thief is able to swing some magical swords, and they can use that Katana (if you get one) after class change, so there is some power in this party.
There are so many character combinations you could go with (and this is only compounded by character Blursings, which we’ll get to in a moment), so the party you want can rely on many factors. It all comes down to gut feeling and what you’re comfortable with.
¶ Advanced Concepts
¶ Ignoring Intelligence:
While there are a number of stats you will likely care about for your characters, one stat you can ignore in Final Fantasy (and, thus, FFR) is Intelligence. Although the stat exists, it does nothing in the game, either vanilla or FFR. The reason for this is because it wasn’t actually connected to anything in the game. While all of the other improperly coded issues in the game at least have a reference to what they were likely meant to achieve, INT was never connected or set to anything. Characters start with INT, and they earn INT over time, but there’s no reference to what the stat could have done. It just exists and that’s it.
The most likely explanation is that Final Fantasy was very loosely designed and based on Dungeons & Dragons (without, you know, paying attention to any of the pesky legalities of copyright law). INT is a stat in that RPG, and likely the programmers assumed that, like most other stats in that game, INT would also be useful to have in Final Fantasy. They made the stat for the characters and included growth so it would “improve” over time, but then as programming on the game went on, the stat was never attached to anything and no use was determined for it. At a certain point they likely left it in because it was easier to keep it and have it do nothing than it was to remove it.
Since there’s no reference to what the stat should have done, the developers for FFR have left INT as an empty stat that does nothing. The goal of the bug fixes in FFR is to restore the game to the way it was “intended” to be played. Since INT does nothing, and there’s no reason to think that the programmers meant for it to do anything. INT has been left as a nothing stat in the randomizer and can simply be ignored.
¶ Class Blursings:
There is an important factor we have to discuss at the character select screen: Blurses. That word is a portmanteau of “Blessings” and “Curses”. The randomizer provides Class Blursings, which, when turned on, applies bonuses and maluses to the characters. At character select (or when you’re in the game and in the Status menu) you can press select to see what the bonuses and curses for each character will be. How many will be applied depends on the flags set, but a character can never have more than three of each. These can range from granting new weapons or armor to a character that normally can’t use them, to raising or lowering stats, to even granting some characters bonus magic, or bonus experience, or key items. If Blursings are on you will absolutely want to know what they are for each character before you settle on your final party.
¶ Chaos Mode
If you wanted something more complicated, and daring, you could try the Chaos Mode classes. What this does is break each and every character down to their core stats and then shuffles all of these stats across all the characters. So you could have a Fighter with Thief health, Black Mage strength, full White Mage magic, and Red Mage black magic. Every class will get reinvented, creating some very strange combinations. This mode is not for the faint of heart.
¶ Transmooglifier
Finally, the last way to change up the classes is to abandon them entirely. The Transmooglifier flag remakes all the classes in the game, providing a full total of 26 different classes (including the six original) for players to choose from. These include some classes based on later games, like Ranger, Mystic Knight, and Geomancer, and others that are new for this feature, like Pugilist, Juggler, and Chocobo. Note that, due to the limitations of the original Final Fantasy, only six classes will be available in the seed you’re playing, so you can never be quite sure just what classes you’re going to get, seed to seed.
Additionally, we should also point out that any of the classes in the later games still have to play within the rules of the original Final Fantasy. That means that the variations of the classes are limited to the weapons, armor, spells, and abilities of the vanilla game. It’s a fun feature, very much worth checking out, but it can only remake the classes so far.