Final Fantasy 2 Beginner Club W08
| Week 08 | 2026-02-20T15:00:00Z |
|---|---|
| Previous week | 💍 Final Fantasy 2 - Week 7 |
| Next week | 💍 Final Fantasy 2 - Week 9 |
| Home Threads | FFBC / FF2BC |
Vocabulary sheets, transcriptions etc.:
Stopping point
Find Ultima then return to Altea.
週刊完璧主義通信
Non-revisitable dungeon
The first dungeon of this week is non-revisitable, so you have to make sure to collect everything you want before you face the boss.
Bestiary
After you’re done with the Tower, the game will update the encounter tables on the world map to give you stronger enemies. That means that some of the current enemies will disappear. If you want the full bestiary, you have to make sure that you have the following entries before entering the tower:
ORBS
In the room where Ultima is sealed there are 4 orbs surrounding it. Each of them will boost your stats, but you have to take them before you interact with Ultima otherwise they’ll disappear (at least in the Famicom version, not sure about the remakes).
Of course this is not the end of the world given that it’s just stat points that you can grind otherwise but it’s always nice to have.
More details
Now that we have the Crystal Rod, we can finally enter the Missidian Tower that’s on an island North of Missidia and West of Altea.
Intermission
As you approach the tower a cutscene will trigger that will automatically transport you to a dungeon. You won’t be able to go back before beating the local boss, so make sure you’re ready for that.
Eventually an NPC will block your way. You can chat with them to learn more about who they are, but in order to progress you have to present the Crystal Rod.
Beat the creature blocking the exit and you’ll be returned to the world map. You may want to return to rest in Altea before you proceed. If you feel like it you can also return to Dist for some new optional dialogue.
Missidian Tower
This is a long dungeon, so pace yourself. You should have gotten an アスピル tome in the cave last week, teaching the spell to your most useful mage will be very useful since it lets you restore your MP from enemies.
There’s also a lot of good mage gear to loot in there. On the ground floor you can find a white robe behind a fake wall which is an amazing armor for your white mage: it has extremely high magic defence, a bonus to 精神 and grants immunity to basically all annoying status effects. A must have.
Eventually you will reach a one-way door that won’t let you return to the tower’s entrance, however you can always use テレポ to leave the tower if you want.
Later, in the level that looks like a mutant 手 with doors everywhere, there is a trapped chest with the Flare spell which is a very powerful black magic spell.
Map
Miscellaneous
Ultima
This is the first appearance of the Ultima spell since it wasn’t available in FF1. This spell is going to return in most entries from now on, usually as the strongest offensive spell in the game, outclassing Flare and Holy. Like Flare, Ultima is normally non-elemental, so enemies are unlikely to be immune to it.
Even though the search for Ultima is used as a major plot point in FF2, you will see that, much like the Mithril we fetched at the start of the game, it stops mattering almost immediately and isn’t really brought up afterwards. You can even sell the tome (for 1 gil!) or discard it and lose the spell forever without any consequence. Sorry Min’u.
Apparently in the early drafts of FF2 the devs intended for the spell to become the killing blow for the final boss, but this was dropped eventually.
Ultima is classified as a White Magic spell in FF2, somewhat surprisingly (although I suppose it makes symbolic sense gives its association with Min’u), but given how the damage is calculated it doesn’t matter massively whether you teach it to a white or black mage since it doesn’t use the relevant character stats to calculate damage. Instead it has a very unique damage formula:
The process of damage calculation for Ultima:
Levels = SUM ( All Weapon Skill Levels + All Magic Spell Levels )
Tier = FLOOR ( Levels ÷ 24 )
Base Damage = Ultima Level × [ Tier + FLOOR ( Tier ÷ 2 ) ]2 + 100If multi-target, Base Damage is divided by 4
Random Bonus = RANDOM ( 0 … Base Damage % 256 )
If 5% Critical Hit occurs, Base Damage is multiplied by 2
Final Damage = Base Damage + Random BonusMagic spell levels include Ultima itself, and empty magic slots are treated as level 0.
So you can see that the idea is that Ultima gets more powerful the more levels any ability has, including other spells and even weapon skills.
Unfortunately the calculations don’t work correctly in the original Famicom version, rendering Ultima useless in that game since it deals a mediocre amount of damage even at max level.
Note that the Ultima tome in the Missidian Tower is the only one available in the entire game, there is no other way to get one and therefore only one character can ever learn the spell.
Participation
- I’m playing along
- I will catch up later
- I’m still playing but I haven’t reached this section yet
- I’m a filthy preplayer but I’m here for the discussion
