First time playing ff2

[Beans]

Any tips/tricks for beginners? Thanks

[SC_Nikki]

Well, this one's a doozy. You just have to know how to play the system.

One pretty good tip... once you complete the Semitt Falls quest and are able to purchase Mythril weapons, go a bit north of Fynn where you'll encounter Ogres, Ogre Mages, and possibly Magicians. They drop lots of spell tomes that can be sold for lots of money. And this wasn't originally my tip, but I heard it somewhere else a very long time ago.

If you're going to have someone use black magic attack spells (Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, Scourge, Flare and so on), don't give them any weapon but knives and staves, and keep them in the most basic, lightweight armor. This is because stronger weapons and heavier armor penalize magic damage. I don't think it matters for healing.

They made dual-wielding even better in the pixel remaster, as you actually get two separate attacks. However, you should build your shield levels early in the game so you can score up some evasion, which is important when facing enemies that inflict status ailments with their physical attacks. Then, if you like, you can switch to dual-wielding.

I tend to value Agility over any other stat. In the pixel remaster, you can get more Gold Hairpins than any other version (as they're renewed each time Leila rejoins the party). I recommend outfitting your three main characters with them, as well as the Thief Gloves you can purchase in Mysidia.

You can go to Mysidia early, by the way, and it might be difficult due to the advanced enemies. However, you can buy some very strong weapons there, including the Flame Lance, Ogrekiller (axe), and Power Staff. Personally, I like to train the characters in the use of these types of weapons to take advantage of the benefits that come from visiting Mysidia early. Of course, a lot of people keep Firion, Maria, and Guy with the same weapon types they start with, and that's okay too.

[fxiv]

The biggest thing about this game is that it plays very differently from every other FF game. Contrary to what you'll see on a lot of guides, heavy grinding isn't required (you don't need to do silly things like attack yourself or do anything of that nature).

This game does NOT have levels - rather, it increases the skill levels and stats of your characters based on what you use the most. For example, if you get hit and take damage, your HP starts to go up. If you use MP your MP goes up.

That goes for spells, weapon skills, everything - and any character can learn any ability, it's up to you to customize them how you want.

The drawback to this is that spells and weapon skills aren't automatically good - you've got to use them. This most commonly hurts people with magic, you've got to be using that spell ability for it to level up and remain consistent.

The key isn't to try to learn every skill on every character - focus on who you want to learn what skills.

The encounter rate is very high in order to give you maximum opportunities to level up skills and stats - you don't need to grind in one spot, just progress naturally.

Dungeons are designed to wear you out - much of it is designed to go as far as you can and teleport out if you have to in order to resupply and go again (think more Dungeons & Dragons).

A few very valuable ones:
-Swords are top tier.
-Unhanded is very viable (no weapon).
-Evasion is key (equip shields - evasion is how you avoid very detrimental effects, such as certain status effects that will automatically hit you no matter what level you are if the monster "hits" you, hence you want to dodge them).

Spells:
Magic effectiveness is tuned around whether a monster is weak to that spell type or not. So just because you have say, Blizzard 10 doesn't mean it's going to do a lot of damage if that monster isn't weak to ice.
-Out of the elemental spells, Fire is most useful since it has the most weaknesses.
-A good amount of early bosses are weak to ice.

-Level Esuna to at least level 6 (only one character is really required).
-Scourge is OP. So is Curse.

-Teleport and Warp are amazing and don't require leveling (unless you want to use them to attack)

-Berserk is insane, next would be Blink, then haste / protect secondary for buff spells.

Ultima is underwhelming unless you level up all your stat skills (it's damage is based on the sum total of all your weapon + spell skills + ultima's level and it comes later in the game).

[TheLastLine]

Originally posted by Beans:

Any tips/tricks for beginners? Thanks

The Way of the fist. No shields, just buy the best armor and helms you can get. Fists are OP AF in this game. In the beginning to do some easy stat grind, kill all but 1 enemy then have your party members wail on each other and heal each other, you'll get stats fast. Do bear in mind using the inn the cost is based on how much hp and mp need to be restored, so don't overdo it too much so you can hit up the inn afterwards. And use a bunch of magic too, this will level up your spells and how much MP you have, Magic is OP too as long as you use it. Later on in the game you will want to consider weapons and shields and such but you can do just fine without them for a while and it will allow you to save gil for good armor and spells. And diversify the spells you allot, since you have to consider that each member can only have 16 spells. You can forget ones you dont want anymore but if you want it again it starts at level 1.