Is it me or nothing works as it should in this game?

[Elgroscriss]

I read that Esuna level 5 removes stone, yet cockatrice's stone cannot be removed at level 5.
Black Garb says it prevents Stone, yet, again, cockatrice's stone aint prevented.
Black Flans are weak to fire yet my Flame Lance does nothing against them.
Barrier is supposed to prevent status ailment yet everything passes through.

Thats just a few examples that annoy the hell out of me.

[HexGramarye]

FF2 is weird.
So each level of a spell adds a "dice roll" that can hit or miss. So if Esuna is level 5, you'd need all five rolls to hit, which is unlikely. So you'd need better magic stats and/or get Esuna to a higher level to improve your chances to cure stone. For this reason, I'd use items before resorting to Esuna.
https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/spells/esuna
Not sure about Black Garb. The documentation doesn't say anything about nullifying Stone. Instead, it says there's a resistance against the Matter element, which can include Stone, but if it's just resisting, than protection against Stone is not guaranteed.
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Garb#Final_Fantasy_II
https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/elements/matter
Black Flans have 210 physical defense, so even with that fire weakness, no physical attack will do much damage unless your physical stats are redonkulous. Try a Fire spell.
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Flan_(Final_Fantasy_II)
Barrier works like Esuna. It doesn't prevent all status aliments. Instead, the status ailment(s) it prevents depends on the number of "hits" your spell lands, which is again dependent on luck, your magic stats, and your spell level. Sometimes it's useful, like against the Lamia Queen, but normally it isn't great.
https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/spells/barrier

[spoonygundam]

Esuna 6 cures stone.

Black Garb doesn't protect against stone, it protects against Matter element spells (Break and such). Physical attacks are nonelemental, so there are no resistances to guard against a status effect attached to those. The item description is pretty misleading, yeah.

Elemental weapons just get 20 attack added when used against enemies weak to that element.

[Elgroscriss]

Well then, since most offensive spells are influenced by what your mage is equipped with (or rather, with he isnt equipped with), is, as example, Esuna's success influenced by equipment as well?

[HexGramarye]

Originally posted by Elgroscriss:

Well then, since most offensive spells are influenced by what your mage is equipped with (or rather, with he isnt equipped with), is, as example, Esuna's success influenced by equipment as well?

We don't know. In the original, the INT/SOUL penalty also applied to all magic, including Esuna. But for the Pixel remaster, people are saying in the forums that they had shields equipped and haven't seen a difference in White magic spells, but they're also being disputed.

Originally posted by spoonygundam:

Esuna 6 cures stone.

Black Garb doesn't protect against stone, it protects against Matter element spells (Break and such).

Stone is Matter elemental, btw. Refer to the link I shared in my last reply for proof.

[spoonygundam]

Originally posted by Sir Gramarye:

Stone is Matter elemental, btw. Refer to the link I shared in my last reply for proof.

Break, the spell that inflicts Stone/Petrification and is called Stone in some translations, is Matter elemental. Stone/Petrification the status does not have an element. It's an effect attached to spells or attacks, and you need to protect against the element of the spell/attack it's attached to in order to prevent the status. Physical attacks are nonelemental, so there are no resistances for them.

That same source says that status effects on physicals bypass resistances.
https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/systems/

[HexGramarye]

Originally posted by spoonygundam:

Originally posted by Sir Gramarye:

Stone is Matter elemental, btw. Refer to the link I shared in my last reply for proof.

Break, the spell that inflicts Stone/Petrification and is called Stone in some translations, is Matter elemental. Stone/Petrification the status does not have an element. It's an effect attached to spells or attacks, and you need to protect against the element of the spell/attack it's attached to in order to prevent the status. Physical attacks are nonelemental, so there are no resistances for them.

That same source says that status effects on physicals bypass resistances.
https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/systems/

Huh. That's really weird. But this is FF2, so I'm not surprised that's how it would work. Well, that explains the Cockatrice dilemma.

[spoonygundam]

Yeah, it worked like that in FFI as well. These games were just made before a lot of JRPG concepts and mechanics were standardized, so it seems really odd at times looking at them from a modern POV.

[三Akiyama]

Originally posted by Sir Gramarye:

FF2 is weird.
So each level of a spell adds a "dice roll" that can hit or miss. So if Esuna is level 5, you'd need all five rolls to hit, which is unlikely. So you'd need better magic stats and/or get Esuna to a higher level to improve your chances to cure stone. For this reason, I'd use items before resorting to Esuna.
https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/spells/esuna
Not sure about Black Garb. The documentation doesn't say anything about nullifying Stone. Instead, it says there's a resistance against the Matter element, which can include Stone, but if it's just resisting, than protection against Stone is not guaranteed.
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Garb#Final_Fantasy_II
https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/elements/matter
Black Flans have 210 physical defense, so even with that fire weakness, no physical attack will do much damage unless your physical stats are redonkulous. Try a Fire spell.
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Flan_(Final_Fantasy_II)
Barrier works like Esuna. It doesn't prevent all status aliments. Instead, the status ailment(s) it prevents depends on the number of "hits" your spell lands, which is again dependent on luck, your magic stats, and your spell level. Sometimes it's useful, like against the Lamia Queen, but normally it isn't great.
https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/spells/barrier

Oooohhhhh... Damn I love FF2 but the more I spend time here the more I realize that I know so little about it haha.

[Elgroscriss]

Oooohhhhh... Damn I love FF2 but the more I spend time here the more I realize that I know so little about it haha. :FFXIII2cactuar: [/quote]

I hate it....so much.
I feel like 5 teams of different people with different opinions decided to make a game with each their own ideas and put that ♥♥♥♥ together to become FF2.

Only reason I am bothering finishing it is because I want a 100% completion for the 6 games. And thats with taking into consideration that I might miss chests in temporary locations AND bestiary entries if I finish the tower too soon.

[三Akiyama]

I really love it, but I love messy JRPG games hehe.

It's hard to miss chests because your map shows you how many there are in each location.

[Elgroscriss]

Originally posted by 三Akiyama:

I really love it, but I love messy JRPG games hehe.

It's hard to miss chests because your map shows you how many there are in each location. :FFXIII2cactuar:

Lol, tell that to the dreadnaught if you dont know its blowing up and become unavailable after ...
But yea, Im careful!

[Spooniest]

You can kind of see why a lot of this got simplified for FF3. What's the guy's name, Kawazu?

(googles it)

Akitoshi Kawazu is the one who envisioned all this ridiculous stuff. He went on to be the head of the SaGa (aka "Final Fantasy Legend" on the Gameboy) games.

FF2 is full of ideas that would not really be practical on a NES, and as evidenced by this thread, it shows.

[三Akiyama]

Originally posted by Elgroscriss:

Originally posted by 三Akiyama:

I really love it, but I love messy JRPG games hehe.

It's hard to miss chests because your map shows you how many there are in each location.

Lol, tell that to the dreadnaught if you dont know its blowing up and become unavailable after ...
But yea, Im careful!

Wellllll... You go into the Dreadnaught in order to blow it up, and it's not like you don't see the moment when you'll trigger it.

[Ostarion]

This game has always had strange mechanics, and I am happy that most of them are intact in some form or another, because that's what makes playthroughs of it very interesting. Yes, the beginning of this game is very easy, but it was also easy in the original too if you just blasted your way through the opening areas without a plan, but that kicks you hard later on, so planning right from the beginning was very useful, unless you wanted to spend a lot of time grinding away just to overpower everything.

[Topaz Light]

Final Fantasy II's biggest flaw is that it is absolutely terrible about telling you extremely relevant information about how things work.

Esuna's status-curing may fail when used in battle, but is guaranteed when used from the overworld.

Most status ailment-inflicting abilities actually have an associated "element"; either Mind, Body, Matter, or Death, the last of which is exclusive to the Death spell... which actually makes it the WORST of the game's whopping SIX player-usable instant death abilities, because it's resisted by the most things, but I digress. Incidentally, this is why you'll see multiple ailment spells, like Stun and Stop, that seem redundant. Stun is Body-elemental, while Stop is Matter-elemental, so different enemies may be vulnerable to one or the other.

Barrier also raises elemental defenses, not ailment defenses, though raising defense against the element of a status spell will make it less likely to inflict its ailment. An additional element is added with each level. The order is Matter, Fire, Mind, Lightning, Death, Poison, Body, and finally Ice at level 8.