Beating FF4 Pixel Remaster All the Way Through with 0x Experience

The opening introduces the beginning of the story. Cecil, captain of the Kingdom of Baron's airship fleet, the Red Wings, begins to question his mission of seizing crystals from defenseless people. Perhaps because of this, he incurs the king's wrath, is relieved of his command, and is ordered to slay a phantom beast. His best friend, the dragoon Kain, also protests to the king and is ordered to accompany him, and the two pass through the Valley of Mist toward the remote village of Mist.

The commentator also fills in Cecil's background. Cecil was originally an orphan, taken in by the King of Baron and raised as a knight, and because he owes the king for this, he can't firmly refuse any mission. Lately, however, the king has been acting strangely, using airship technology to build up the military and steering his own soldiers down the path of the dark knight. Cecil himself is struggling, unable to come to terms with having chosen the path of darkness—that's the explanation given.

The first boss is the Mist Dragon, which the commentator frames as a tutorial-like battle. Attacking while the dragon has turned into mist is nullified and draws a counterattack. Even so, the counterattack is only strong enough to feel "a little chilly," so Kain is left to keep Jumping regardless, and the dragon is finally finished off with a Jump. Because Kain keeps landing Jumps on the enemy while it's in mist form, there was also a moment where the system displayed the same message over and over.

When they reach Mist, the Bomb Ring they delivered suddenly begins to glow, and the entire village is burned. Cecil is separated from Kain and rescues Rydia, a young summoner girl who survived the village's destruction. Rydia's mother died because the phantom beast was slain, but as Cecil protects her from Baron's pursuers, Rydia gradually opens up to him.

On their journey, they meet the sage Tellah and fight the Octomammoth. Since it's weak to dark swords and lightning, the commentator says it's an easy boss if you attack with Cecil's strikes and Tellah's lightning magic. Level 1 Rydia is physically frail and went down quickly, but the remaining two cut off the enemy's legs one at a time and defeated it after slashing it a dozen or so times.

Damcyan Castle had already been destroyed by the Baron army led by Golbez. Tellah, having witnessed the death of his daughter Anna, swears revenge and parts ways with the group. Edward, the prince of Damcyan who lost his lover before his eyes, keeps crying for a while, but after being encouraged by Cecil and the others, he joins the party.

To make a remedy to cure the illness of Cecil's lover Rosa, the group defeats the Antlion. Since it only uses single-target attacks, you can win even at level 1 just by continuing to attack. Here the commentator introduces the auto-battle feature. It can be turned on at any time with the press of a button, and each character repeats their previous action. The remedy cures Rosa, and she joins the party as a white mage.

On the way to the neighboring kingdom of Fabul, they fight the Mom Bomb while coming to the aid of the monk Yang. The fight starts in a favorable five-on-one situation and is explained as one you can easily win if you fight normally. Rydia had already fallen before the explosion. The Mom Bomb's massive explosion also knocks out the frail Edward, and the enemies multiply to six. Here, an Hourglass is used to stop the enemies' movement, the party regroups in the meantime, and the enemies are defeated one by one. Rosa's "Pray" can sometimes fail, but when it succeeds it heals the whole party. Her bow and arrows are also strong, so Rosa is useful as an attacker too, they say.

During this battle, the commentator says the following about the point of playing with 0x experience. There's the satisfaction of leveling up and powering through, but progressing without leveling up makes each party member's personality stand out more clearly. Even the sight of young Rydia and the originally sickly Edward going down early and lying on the ground starts to feel more or less in character, they say.

At Fabul, Golbez appears with Kain under his command, and the group is no match for him. The crystal is taken, and Rosa is kidnapped. While heading to Baron by sea, their ship is swallowed by Leviathan, and Cecil washes up alone in Mysidia, the land of magic. Cecil climbs Mount Ordeals with the apprentice mage twins Palom and Porom, and there he reunites with Tellah, who had been pursuing Golbez. Cecil, who has realized he can't defeat Golbez with the dark sword and sees hope in the path of the paladin, and Tellah, who climbed the mountain to learn magic, share a common goal and join forces again.

Just before the summit, one of Golbez's Four Elemental Archfiends, Scarmiglione of Earth, appears. Regarding the term "Four Fiends" (shitennō), the commentator shares their impression that while it's a familiar term now, it may have spread through its use in '90s games like Pokémon, Romancing SaGa, and this game. This is presented purely as their personal impression.

Scarmiglione appears with zombies in tow. First, an Hourglass is used to hold them in place, and in the meantime Palom and Porom begin casting Twincast. After a long incantation, Flare goes off and wipes out the zombies, and continuing with Twincast triggers Meteor. The commentator also says the "mumble mumble" during the incantation is cute.

The second form that follows hits back with a powerful counter against ordinary attack magic that targets its weakness. So it's whittled down with Twincast, which doesn't trigger the counter, while Tellah focuses on healing. Since all that's left is to repeat the same actions, using auto mode, which doubles the battle speed, lets you defeat it almost hands-off. The commentator praises this Pixel Remaster addition as "super convenient and the best." They also add the reason that it's not just easier—inputting commands by hand inevitably gives the enemy more time to act, so having the game automatically input at the fastest speed is a big tactical advantage too.

Cecil becomes a paladin on Mount Ordeals, and Tellah remembers all his spells.

After reuniting with Yang at Baron Castle, the captain of the guard, Baigan, attacks. He's a boss split into a left arm, a right arm, and a main body, and the commentator introduces him as a storied boss that pioneered the multi-part bosses that appear later.

This is where the basic strategy for the rest of the game appears. Baigan's attacks hurt a lot. So the level 1 members with low HP are kept at critical HP. Now that he's a paladin, Cecil can cover allies in critical condition, so Cecil is set to Defend and takes the enemy's attacks. However, he couldn't fully cover the right arm's Vampire attack, and the twins ended up falling. If you defeat both arms, the main body regenerates them, so one arm was left alive while they kept attacking the main body until it fell. Once the main body is gone, the remaining arm self-destructs.

Next, Cagnazzo of Water appears, revealed to be the true identity of the King of Baron. The commentator describes his appearance as "a super gross blue turtle" and says that while Scarmiglione was called "the weakest of the Four Fiends," they think this one is actually the weakest in terms of abilities. The plan is to exploit his weakness to lightning and defeat him with two Thundagas from Tellah, who has regained all his magic. Partway through he begins wrapping himself in water, but that's removed by hitting him with magic. Even when he goes on the defensive and starts healing, one more Thundaga ends it. Prefacing it with "there's no particular point to this," they show Palom's Thunder dealing only 1 damage, confirming just how strong Tellah's Thundaga is.

As he dies, Cagnazzo springs a trap, sealing the exits on both sides and making the walls close in. Palom and Porom cast petrification on themselves to stop the walls and let the party escape. Because they petrified themselves of their own will, healing magic can't undo it. Cecil and the others give up on rescuing the two and renew their resolve to defeat Golbez.

As a condition for Rosa's release, Cecil and the others are ordered to retrieve the crystal guarded by the Dark Elf. Fighting normally, they're no match for him, but the reunited Edward plays his harp, and its melody weakens the Dark Elf. While the music is playing, the enemy's magic is greatly weakened, and Cecil's holy-element attacks land well. After revealing his true form, the Dark Elf's attacks hurt quite a bit at level 1. Even so, the commentator explains that there's no problem as long as you keep countering party-wide attacks with Tellah's healing magic and single-target attacks with recovery items. They also mention that there was a problem with the recording's capture settings at this point, and there were moments where the healing numbers were garbled and unreadable.

In the Tower of Zot, the Magus Sisters, who use the Delta Attack, stand in the way. They cast Reflect on the blue one in the middle and bounce their magic off her to attack. As long as the middle one isn't defeated, the other two will revive any number of times, so she's steadily whittled down with attacks that can't be reflected. Cid, who can cause earthquakes with his weapon, is extremely useful in this battle, and they broke through after a few minutes of continuous attacking. The commentator calls the lineup including Cid the "Quad Attack of 'earthquakes, thunder, fire, and fathers,'" and finishes things off with Tellah's lightning.

Even after receiving the crystal, Golbez doesn't keep his promise to return Rosa. Tellah, whose daughter was killed, tries to take his revenge here. Tellah, who once reached the pinnacle of mages on the surface, unleashes the forbidden spell Meteor at the cost of his own life, and Golbez withdraws. Although he was wounded, he wasn't defeated, and the crystal ended up being taken anyway.

Right after rescuing Rosa with the guidance of Kain, now freed from his brainwashing, Barbariccia of Wind attacks. In this battle, the restored Kain shines. Barbariccia quickly wraps herself in wind, and only Kain's Jump can strip away that barrier, so Kain is made to Jump nonstop. However, the commentator adds that attacks actually land normally even while she's wrapped in wind, so there isn't really much point in stripping it.

Her attacks hurt a lot, and the commentator regards her as a pretty tough foe among the Four Fiends. Here too, the party's HP is kept critical, and Cecil, Defending in the back row, covers them. This keeps the damage down to 1, so after that you'll eventually win just by continuing to attack.

All the surface crystals have been taken, but according to Kain, there are still crystals in the Underworld. Plunging boldly into the Underworld, the party emerges right in the middle of the battlefield between the dwarven army and Golbez's forces. After crash-landing at the Dwarven Castle and meeting the king, they learn that two of the four Underworld crystals have already been taken. Peeking into the crystal room, they find suspicious dolls that had snuck in by possessing the princess's dolls.

Cid leaves the party to build an airship that can withstand the Underworld's heat, and the remaining four take on Calca and Brina. It's a boss with painful physical attacks, but having Cecil, moved to the back row, cover the others keeps most of the damage in check. This enemy changes form if only one type is left. So they whittled them down at critical HP while carefully keeping both types alive, and finally defeated them all together with a party-wide attack.

Here Golbez appears again. The wound from Tellah's Meteor seems to have healed, and he reveals that his reason for gathering the crystals is to activate the Tower of Babil, a dimensional elevator connected to the moon, and bring an immense power to the surface. Without Tellah, the party is no match for him, and they're defeated one after another by the black dragon Golbez summons.

Then the Mist Dragon appears, and Rydia shows up, now grown into an adult. After being swallowed by Leviathan, she was raised in the Feymarch, where time flows differently, and grew up. However, since this is 0x experience, the commentator points out that her HP is still 30 and her max MP is only 10, so she can't summon the dragon anymore. Since Golbez only uses single-target attacks, after regrouping with Phoenix Downs they kept attacking while repeatedly reviving and defeated him. Even so, Golbez, reduced to just a crawling arm, takes the crystal from them yet again.

Only one crystal remains in the Underworld. The party turns the tables and sneaks into the Tower of Babil to try to take back the crystals. In the battle against the mad scientist Lugae, his attendant robot only uses physical attacks, so it's handled with the usual back-row Cecil. After the first form is defeated, Lugae transforms into a form that is the culmination of his science, spreading sleeping gas every time he attacks and dragging out the battle. Struggling with poison and gas, they built up attacks over several minutes and defeated him, with the two members with high magic defense assigned to healing.

From Lugae's dying words, they learn that the Underworld crystals have already been transported to the surface, and that a plan is underway in the Underworld to wipe out the dwarves with giant cannons. Defeating Lugae doesn't stop the cannons, so Yang stays behind alone to stop them, and the dwarves' lives are saved.

The airship they escape on is pursued by enemy ships upgraded for high speed. Cid, judging that the engine won't hold out, hands the helm over to Cecil and resolves to jump off as the airship emerges onto the surface and blow himself up along with the enemy. Following Cid's last words, Cecil and the others head for Baron Castle.

After having Cid's apprentices upgrade the airship, the party storms the surface Tower of Babil. There, the people of Eblan, driven from their castle, have taken refuge, and the young prince Edge is fighting one of the Four Fiends. When they recruit Edge and infiltrate the tower, the King and Queen of Eblan, turned into monsters, attack Edge. Rubicante of Fire appears before Edge as he trembles with rage, and that rage awakens Edge's dormant power, letting him learn a new ninjutsu that becomes the key to the fight. Rubicante also shows a classy touch by healing the party before the battle.

Elemental attacks only land on Rubicante while his cloak is open. So Edge attacks with his new ninjutsu, "Flood." Since his counter hurts, they avoid physical attacks and have Kain use the Ice Lance to attack with Blizzara. The plan is to wear down his 34,000 HP with these two. His powerful attacks are all single-target, so they're perfectly manageable. When the cloak closes, they stop attacking, Cecil Defends in the back row to cover physical attacks, and they wait for the cloak to open again, continuing to attack with Flood and Blizzara until he's defeated.

Since attacking from the surface didn't get the crystals back, the party decides to obtain the last crystal remaining in the Underworld before Golbez does. When they try to take the crystal out of the Sealed Cave, a defense mechanism activates, and the Demon Wall starts moving to crush Cecil and the others. Cecil Defends in the back row as usual, and the two in the front row are given Berserk, which raises their attack power, to defeat it even a little faster.

Even so, they can't beat the wall's approach, and the Demon Wall enters a mode where it fires off attacks in succession. Here they barely managed to create openings with Phoenix Downs and got through. Kain is equipped with the Avenger, a weapon that automatically applies Berserk, so as soon as he's revived he goes right back to attacking. Since Edge's and Kain's damage output is quite high, the commentator feels it's going well, saying "this might actually work out," and they succeed in defeating it.

However, the crystal they brought out is taken by Kain, who has been brainwashed again. With the crystals assembled, the Tower of Babil's path to the moon is completed.

According to the lore of the dwarves and Mysidia, the Lunar Whale, an ark that reaches the moon, lies dormant in Mysidia. The prayers of the people of Mysidia, who have kept praying for ages, are answered, and the Lunar Whale appears. Crossing to the moon, the party meets the Lunarian FuSoYa and hears the history of the Lunarians: that they fled from another planet; that because the Blue Planet was still immature, they went to sleep on the moon while watching over its growth; and that Zemus, a villain who hated the long slumber, is sealed on the moon yet manipulates people with his thoughts. It's also revealed that a Lunarian named Kluya traveled to the Blue Planet on the Lunar Whale, and one of the two children born there was Cecil.

They return with FuSoYa in the party but are too late, and a giant is summoned by the tower's power. It's big enough to step easily over the surrounding mountains and even has a beam that burns everything to the ground. Just when all seems lost, the dwarves rush in from the Underworld in tanks. Yang, saved by the Sylphs; Cid, who was alive; Baron's Red Wings; Palom and Porom, saved by the Elder of Mysidia; and Edward, the prince of Damcyan, also join the fight, and in an all-out battle they stop the giant's legs. Seizing the opening, Cecil and the others make their way inside the giant.

With the giant's core just ahead, the Four Fiends they had defeated once appear again. Having learned from their previous defeat to combine their strength, the Four Fiends attack in rotation. Their physical attacks hurt a lot, so Cecil Defends in the back row as usual. They wanted to go in with everyone at critical HP, but Rubicante heals the party before the battle, getting in the way, and the commentator grumbles, "How dirty, before the fight even starts."

This time they have FuSoYa, who can use all magic, so first he raises action speed with Haste and raises everyone's defense with Protect. In the meantime, the party's HP is adjusted to critical so Cecil covers them automatically. On top of that, they use the precious Lunar Curtain item to nullify physical attacks for a set time, completing their preparations.

The Four Fiends have 100,000 HP total, and they switch out each time the cumulative damage reaches 20,000, 50,000, and 70,000. The commentator fought with these switching thresholds factored in. Firaga deals 9,999 damage, so two casts come to just under 20,000 total. Since going over 20,000 triggers a switch, the aim is to prepare while it's still the weak Scarmiglione and then rack up nearly 30,000 at once. They dealt 19,998 damage total, then hit one more Firaga to trigger the switch.

Next, Cagnazzo is the only one of the Four Fiends who uses party-wide attacks, so everyone uses the consumable item "Zeus's Wrath" for an all-out lightning attack to rack up damage as fast as possible. The commentator enjoys that the battle is now producing "damage that would have been impossible up to this point." However, a party-wide attack comes, the three at critical HP who were being covered go down, and from then on it's just Cecil and FuSoYa fighting.

Once the total passes 50,000, it switches to Barbariccia. Kain isn't here this time, so the wind can't be stripped. Since she has no weakness, they attack with the high-powered Flare, dealing 6,144 damage. The commentator explains that each spell in this game has a casting time, and Flare's casting time is quite short, making it a relatively high-DPS spell. When FuSoYa runs out of MP, Cecil restores him with an Elixir, but doing so requires dropping his Defend, so it was "an all-out Elixir, putting his body on the line."

There's no room to revive anyone, so from here on they fight centered on FuSoYa. One more hit will push the total past 70,000, but Rubicante is the strongest of the Four Fiends, so fighting him with reduced HP is dangerous. So they fully recovered with an Elixir before taking him on. Rubicante is weak to ice, so four Blizzagas will defeat him. Weathering powerful attacks like Fira and Glare with healing, they landed Blizzagas one at a time whenever they saw an opening, and defeated the Four Fiends with the fourth.

The giant's core is a three-part boss; they quickly destroyed the healing defense system with Thunder, then attacked the other system. Since it has Reflect, they chipped away at it with physical attacks. The enemy's only attack is a laser that takes away 10% of max HP, so the commentator explains you can win by attacking while healing.

After the battle, Golbez appears, and FuSoYa brings him back to his senses. It's revealed that Golbez and Cecil are brothers, and that Zemus's influence had grown stronger by exploiting their Lunarian blood. Golbez, who had been manipulated, heads to the moon ahead of the others with FuSoYa to settle his own mistakes.

Before the final battle, the commentator voices the question, "Can we really beat Zemus like this?" After saying that various approaches are possible, what they chose here was "eating apples." The Gold Apple is an item that raises max HP by 50, and 99 of them raise it by about 5,000. To make up for what they didn't have on hand, they summoned the Fat Chocobo with the Gysahl Whistle and ate through the ones they had stored there as well. Saying their fingers were getting tired, they kept eating, finishing with "a Gold Apple for dessert." It's a preparation to raise max HP through items while staying at level 1.

In the depths of the moon, Golbez and FuSoYa defeat Zemus with a Twin Meteor. But from Zemus's hatred emerges the final boss Zeromus, in what the commentator calls "a super FF-style entrance." Meteor has no effect, and Cecil and the others fall before his overwhelming power. Sensing this, the elders send the power of their prayers all the way to the moon, and Cecil, rising again, receives the crystal from his brother and illuminates Zeromus's true form.

Here the commentator explains the tactics in detail. Rydia uses the Lunar Curtain. Zeromus counters items with Flare, so they lower his action speed with Spider Silk while dealing damage through reflection. Before a party-wide attack comes, they spam Spider Silk, continuing regardless even as allies are randomly taken out by the counters. The commentator surmises that the effect probably stacks. The party-wide attack Big Bang knocks out everyone except Rydia.

Then Zeromus's Black Hole strips away the Lunar Curtain. Here they recover with an Elixir for the moment, using them without holding back since this is the end. From here on, they attack with Rydia's "Bomb" summon. It's a summon that deals damage to the enemy equal to her current HP, and it dealt 9,999 damage. The commentator ties this to the story, saying that Rydia, who as a child survived the bombing from the Bomb Ring, must have honed her summoner's powers in the Feymarch and turned that into her own strength. Since HP translates directly into damage, they heal immediately whenever it drops to keep HP high. The max HP boosted with Gold Apples comes alive here as attack power.

According to the commentator, Zeromus's first form has about 60,000 HP, and once that's worn down, a healing indicator appears and he moves to his second form. The second form also has about 60,000. When Big Bang comes, they heal first, and since Flare is guaranteed to follow Black Hole, they put the Lunar Curtain back up. This lets them rack up damage while keeping HP high, so they whittle him down quickly with summons. Zeromus's counter Bio also gets reflected for extra damage. When the summon damage pushes him into his third form, he starts using Meteor, but they weather it well and close it out with a final summon, defeating Zeromus.

About the scene after the battle where Edge says something flippant, the commentator says it was really good to have someone like him around amid the heavy atmosphere. Golbez stays on the moon, choosing to enter a long slumber together with FuSoYa. As his brother tries to leave with the words "You called me brother," Cecil reluctantly speaks up and says, "Farewell, brother." During the ending and staff roll, the commentator lets the footage play in silence.

Finally, the commentator reports that at the end of a long journey, they were able to save the world even with 0x experience. The graphics reborn in the remaster, the music that heightens the story, and the well-crafted story told through short exchanges of dialogue were all wonderful, and they enjoyed playing from start to finish. They conclude that playing with 0x experience reveals unexpected sides of the party members and enemies, offering a different way to enjoy the game.