A Discovered Trick in Final Fantasy IV
To have your characters in Reverse status for one battle. I won't call it an exploit but I figured it's an interesting trick. Here's how I discovered it.
I love Final Fantasy series and FFIV is one of the best in the main series despite being one of the oldest. A a while back, I wrote a Review on Final Fantasy IV after I finished it. This post was planned since that time.
The final dungeon of FFIV was tough on hard mode, so I had to heal my party after every battle. Once I casted Mini on Cecil by mistake (instead of Cura) between the random encounters.
I removed Mini effect, but in the next battle I found that Cecil strangely had "Reverse" effect all the battle long.
After some checking I realized that using Mini on any party member gets them reverse status effect on the next battle. For that battle only, even if you remove Mini items or spells, the Reverse status effect will stay intact.
The character affected with Reverse, gets their HP gain/loss reversed. (Get healed every time they're supposed to take damage, and damaged every time they're supposed to recover.)
This effect is what makes Dr.Lugae battle so hard that I wrote a post on it last month.
I don't know if it's a glitch, or intended by the developer but I believe it's the latter, because of how fitting that Mini spell also makes everything in the player reversed... Maybe not?
Cecil in Reverse.
At first I only tested this on the final dungeon, with Rosa as a caster, and she had no Augements. The reverse status is added only when Mini is used on the the map. So I wanted to try in my second play-through.
Second Play-through
Luckily this version of Final Fantasy IV had New Game+ system, since I haven't played with Augments (except Counter for Cecil late in game.) in the first time. I started an augments play-through.
I played until I reached a point where I got the spell 'Mini.' This spell is one the spells Tellah recalls from his youth at the end of Dark Knight arc of the game. Unless you grind for hours, he's the first character in the game to acquire the spell.
Cecil in Reverse, AGAIN! with Mini this time.
Not only I confirmed that Mini causes Reverse no matter which character casts it. I also found that if you used it on a character that has both "Counter" & "Draw Attack" augments at the same time, you'll get the most OP character in the game regardless of your level.
- Draw Attack: makes the character receives all the (normal) attacks of the enemies. No other character gets attacked by normal attacks.
- Counter: The character attacks every time (s)he gets hit by a normal attack.
- Reverse: Attacks increases the character HP instead of decreasing it.
Coupled with the other two effects, the character will not receive damage while defending other characters and attacking enemies at the same time. This will work on most of the normal enemies, some bosses but won't work on most of the late game bosses.
Final Thoughts
Reverse has many downsides: The status can't be removed (at least I don't know a way yet.) Healing damages the character. Dead characters can't be revived & MP can't be recharged.
This trick won't work on most of the late game bosses, because some of them "heal" you before the battle, removing all your status effects. Some bosses can't be beaten unless you solve them like a puzzle, making Reverse unnecessary. Still, it's a good trick to find and I'm glad I learned it by myself without finding it in a guide.
I searched some FAQs/guides to see if anyone talked about this before, even on steam discussion section but I didn't find any for some reason. Somehow I feel a bit proud.
What do you think?
Did you like the article, found a typo? Do you have anything to add?
I'm waiting for your comments.
If you liked this post you might want to check my Review of the game. or ... I'm also write stories so you might want to check my FFIV fanfic "Flames of the Mist." or download my Short Story Collection.
Weird, I wonder if the reverse glitch happened in the original version as well.
I wonder about that too, sadly I don't own the 2D versions & I don't want to Emulate them just for testing this.