Red Mages Only: Final Fantasy - Summary
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- I've decided to compare the experience of doing a Red Mages only playthrough in Final Fantasy games. This means I need to do a red mages only run in some Final Fantasy Games. That concludes this week with the summary video.
If we count Nes FF I red mage is the best mage as the lower magic stats doesn't matter because those were bugged and didn't worked so a red mage heals as much as a white mage and deals damage as a black mage
In the DS version of FF III they buffed a lot red mages, they learn to level 5 spells instead of 4 so they now can learn curaga, raise and tier 3 offensive magic, and unlike the nes version they still get gear past the floating continent
In FF V something i want to add is that giving dualcast to another job it automatically gives them black and white magic to level 3, so that character can cast raise (probably the only good spell of those levels in later parts of the game)
But we can't forget that the best thing about red mages is how cool they look
@@rayquazathenoodledragon9630 They keep their Rank 5 spells in PR. PR being a weird mix between both the NES and DS version isn't much in their favor here, though
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 yeah i noticed how in pixel remaster just as the Nes versión red mages stop getting new gear despite that level 5 magic can only be purshased out of the floating continent
My favorite Red Mage is in Final Fantasy Origin: Stranger of Paradise. It's really slick.
Edit: The Sage is the "Jack of all trades" magic job (Black, Summon, White) and isn't really an upgrade for every caster as you would want a Devout, Magus, or Summoner to do those specific jobs. There's not really a "jack of all trades" martial job as martials got the short end of the stick when it came to cool abilities (hey, look, another thing FF took from D&D at the time :p).
It's funny how V gave Red Mage one of its most iconic abilities, but its so bad as a main job there.
time to do bravely Default, Explorer, and XI lol
Don’t forget Tactics!
@@ThisIsntARUclipsr Tactics Advance (and TA2). As pointed in the video, it doesn't exist in the original.
Actually they suffer a similar issue in those games as they do in 5. Double cast benefits other classes more than themselves.
They can however stay at a Red Mage afterwards, because they have some pretty decent growths overall
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740
True, Red Mage has a relatively poor spell list, but they have a really important niche that most Vieras don’t have: double Sleep. It’s especially strong when your accuracy isn’t the best and/or you’re not in a position to raise your accuracy any higher. Also helps that all the way to the end of the game, Sleep works on pretty much every mob with a few exceptions.
…I do agree that they really could use a better offensive spell list though.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 there is TECHNICALLY a mod for Red Mage on PC, if we really wanna scrape the bottom of the red bucket lol
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 Double Cast is the best Summoner, Illusionist, Blue Mage and Seer ability.
Red who? lol
I think they legitimately coud be first in the FFIII 3D Remake. Their offense is way better, despite having slightly inferior offensive stats (in exchange of slightly better magic stats), due to having new equipments until the very end of the games.
Now, the game is much harder, in particular the final boss, but they wouldn't have the worsf ride
I think the closest thing to an "upgrade" Red Mage get may be Scholar, honestly. They're more offensive, and lack multi target moves, and are really frail, but they are surprisingly strong physically (somewhat limited by their limited equipment), and can heal a tons of damage or deal high single target damage (though it requires lot of grinding to be efficient, even with a Thief army).
The job class system in 3 is just very weird in some ways from a progression standpoint. I really wish Red Mage had a clear better version (and not just because it would have made it less miserable). It would be interesting to see if the improved equipment in the DS remake would outstrip the game just being harder in general.
I just remember that I never got anywhere in FF3-DS because I didn't know what to do very early on, then quit FF3-NES because I didn't want to do the mini dungeon the way the game wanted me to.
for FF5 i dont think it shouldnt be there, i do think it should have been a wind crystal job though like in 3. that way it isnt instantly stone walled in terms of progression and you have more time to build up to that insane 999 ap requirement. honestly i feel swapping it with bluemage would have been good, as then you would start with all the FF1 jobs on the wind crystal. sure this would make getting learn slower, but honestly there arent any bluemagic skills unique to between wind and water crystals. so not much of an issue there. and in terms of versatility without it, agreed mixing wht and blck with freelancer basically gives you a stronger redmage off the bat, but again i feel thats an issue of getting RDM at the water crystal, by which time you could easily have level 3-4 wht/blck and put it on your mage of choice. if it was a wind crystal, you would have probably max level redmagic by the time you hit water, which could go on your time mage or even blue mage to make it versatile while you learn enemy skills etc so on. again it does feel like it gets shafted on with the game design more than anything. should have had one or two more magic levels to let it keep pace but not overshadow wht and blk.
Getting red mage earlier would definitely have helped it feel more usable. It still suffers from peaking in usability pretty early in the game. I struggled a lot thinking of a way to adjust red mage to make it good and interesting without making it inherently better on other classes (which is where red mage already shines, as a secondary class via dualcast).
@@Xephrost_Gaming One of the issues with grading classes based on solo class only runs in multi-classing focused games such as FFV is that the classes were never meant to function on their own. In a run not focusing on solo classing, Red Mage gains a significant magic boost for equipping even the lowest levels of White, Black, Time, Summoning and Blue magic making them a solid midgame casting platform prior to mastering classes due to their +5 Agility. The only real issue is their Stamina and Hp which is partially accounted for by their access to light armor.
fyi in 5 red mage is meant to go into invoker, they get an early upgrade because of their spells being dogshit. That's why invoker does white and black versions of summons. You're welcome for that knowledge.
8:08
I think this point is a more or less deliberate contrast to their design (at the time, at least) of FFXI Red Mage. See, FFXII Red Mage having only the Tier 2 spells, means they're restricted to the AoE ones. A bit of a waste of MP on a single target, but powerful; but also not so powerful later on, I think. By contrast, FFXI Red Mage only ever had single target - and sometimes only self target. The rest of this paragraph is details about spells, specifically. FFXI Red Mages were solo powerhouses who could really soak damage, because they received Enhancing Magic spells from both Black and White Mage. They also got the Curing and the direct damage; but what they didn't get were White Mage status negations from Healing Magic, nor some of the Black Mage travel utilities from Enhancing Magic. They also didn't get *any* of the area of effect spells. The other mages all got the single target spells, as well, but Red Mage got only those - and they didn't get the highest tier even at that. The thing that Red Mage got that Black and White Mage didn't were one or two unique status debuffs for the enemy and a higher tier of all the debuffs than the other mages had available. Also, where White Mages usually got the Healing Magic spells levels before the Enfeebling Magic ones, Red Mages had it the other way round; and generally received the beneficial Enhancing Magic spells a few levels higher than the other mages. Uniquely, while White Mages most powerful ability was to cure and heal all party members in the area with Benediction and Black Mages most powerful was to cast magic without MP for a few moments, Red Mages had 0 casting time for that same few moments. Casting time was a big deal in this game. The basic Cure would take maybe a couple seconds to cast. Elemental protections spells were almost instant (Red Mage, self target only; White Mage, AoE on self only). Basic Protect spells took a couple seconds, AoE Protect spells took seconds longer. Stoneskin, absorbing all damage of an amount based on the current level of your Enhancing Magic, that took several seconds to cast. Raise? That took a few moments, even. Red Mage's Chainspell ability made all of that 0 seconds.
Then there's the weapons, and I'm sorry, but I never got as familiar with physical weapons and attacks in that game, but: Red Mages only had access to Swords and Staves and Shields. (Maybe also clubs, but I think only the maces.) I don't believe they ever had the best of any Weapon Skills (based on the type of weapon currently equipped), but just having access to a decent level of physical damage on top of all that magic was a serious boon in FFXI (even if that physical damage wasn't great) and some of the Weapon Skills available to them were still pretty good, some of them also AoE.
I realize your recent study could not have included a game as deep as FFXI, but in case you do read this; I'd like to draw your attention to how much faster much of FFXI moves, these days. It would still be a bit longer of a run through than the other games in the series, however I do believe running through the main game and reaching Lv50 (or even Lv75) wouldn't be much of a problem for your strategies. Either way, I thought I'd offer some details, as I remember them, from the many years I played.
Perhaps someone else who enjoyed this video will appreciate the nostalgia and/or insight, as well.
Thanks for the series 💙
I forgot to add, tho, too; Red Mages learned Raise, but higher than White Mage; and only White Mage received the Tier 2 and 3 versions. Also, along with Chainspell, Red Mages were the de facto Time Mage until Scholar came along with some similar shortcuts. Scholar received a usable ability to sometimes cut casting time, but Red Mage received an early passive ability that simply made spells take less time, sometimes - and the higher the level, the more often any of the times you were stuck casting an important spell, would it suddenly finish casting and activate much sooner than normal. Very nice to commit to the few moments it would take to put up Stoneskin again only to have the spell go off within a second of initiating the casting.
Given your attention to detail in the rest of the games, I do think it's a shame to not have your view of FFXI included, here; but thanks again 💙💙
Actually, on the point of a "party" in FFXI, sure you would only be playing the one character (assuming), but there's a magic that exists called Trust. There are some NPCs you'll encounter who are Red Mages and whom you might earn the chance to summon (call them a guest) to your party to fill out any spaces not occupied by other players. You will definitely not meet enough Red Mages to fill an entire party, however.
There's also the chance to engage a group of players to complete the game together in a full party, but perhaps I'm being rude and that's going a bit beyond your format 💙
Just found your channel the other day and its been interesting to see the differences between black and red mage. Cool to see black mage mostly blitz down enemies with overwhelming power with struggles here and there in certain parts but red mage ended up mostly smoothing sailing in comparison. Now that you have done black and red it would be interesting to see how white mage deals with these challenges.
Please, you GOTTA do Bravely Default & Bravely Second Red Mage! It does justice by FF.
(Also you could use a completed save file to start NG+ with access to the class but nothing else to test it throughout the entire game)
I love the Bravely games so much.
The Best Red Mage is stuck in XI, you just gotta put in a few hundred hours to really enjoy it
there is one final fantasy game that is part of the series that is on mobile phone, final fantasy dimensions. it has jobs also. i would love to see you do these types of challenges on that game also!
As much as I love FFV I agree 100 with you about the red mages!
If they gave the Red Mage like level 4 magic and that includes Time Magic, they'd be super great.
Sadly 5 really hindered several of the classes, like they did for 3
5 is definitely my second favorite of the four games, right behind 12. And I didn't want to say so many harsh things about red mage in 5. But I really didn't have a choice here.
@@CMB505 Honestly, it really would better fit the "jack of all trades" idea if it had more than just black and white magic, as that way it would genuinely have stuff to offer that couldn't be replicated by just slapping a dedicated magic onto something else. (Or both Black and White onto Freelancer). Maybe give it the lower tier summons, possibly even a limited selection of blue magic (thinking Aero and Aera here, for example, even if wind doesn't get its damage-boosting weapon until much later)
I'd think if they had normal access to Shell in Five they'd be so much better. Protect and Raise are their best tools.
I agree. I think Red Mages shine best when they have access to as many buffs as possible to augment them. This helps cover their weaker defenses and offenses.
Your note about red mage dealing more damage than blm, thats because your not using blm ultimate spell which is scathe, ive seen scathe hit for 20k damage
I agree. I was comparing it to Shock, because shock is considered the best single target damage spell because it's cast animation is a lot faster than Scathe. And I was thinking Ardor's animation was faster than it was. Looking at the footage, I'm not sure whether Ardor or Scathe is faster. So, comparing it to Shock is unfair to black mages.
Thank you for taking the time and giving us such valuable insight.
I played a decent chunk of Bravely default 2 years ago, and recall enjoying it (and red mage). I'm not actually very familiar with the others, despite the strong link to classic final fantasies.
I've really been enjoying your Final Fantasy single job runs! However I get the unfortunate feeling that a lot of the placings for Final Fantasy 1 and 3 in future summary videos are going to be pretty consistent throughout these challenge runs. You probably want to use the pixel remasters for all the 2D FF games, since it lets us see the official chronological evolution of the jobs and it makes those NES games look so much better now, but I wonder if you'd ever be interested in playing though unofficial version of those two games. I've recently been having a lot of fun playing through Final Fantasy Renaissance, which is a fan-recreation of FF1 made through unity that has 2 modes, one that is a simple bug-fixed recreation of FF1, and the other adds new jobs seen in later game entries like FF3 and 5 with new abilities inside and outside of battle. If nothing else, you seem like someone who would have some fun messing around with FFRenaissance and seeing the changes.
And while I cannot personally vouch for the quality of it yet, I've been planning to play the FF3 romhack Final Fantasy III Neoclassical next, which fixes a lot of the bugs and rebalances the game and from the readme I like what it's been doing. Everytime I've thought about doing another run of FF3, I always consider just playing until I reach the Crystal Tower and calling it there, but that leaves things feeling a little anticlimactic, so the romhack is my planned next way of playing the game. Ultimately I've really enjoyed these videos so far and I would love to see more content surrounding the job-oriented FF games from you, even if it's an encore round for one of the jobs in a non-official version of the original game or just making you aware of them
For these series, I will probably stick to official releases for consistency. However, thank you very much for bringing these to my attention. I need to check both out in my free time (and maybe make a one-off video on them if I find them interesting and find the time).
@@Xephrost_Gaming That's very fair! I've been enjoying your videos a lot, so regardless I'll still be watching. I've been on a bit of a romhacking; randomizer; modding kick recently, so I've been playing and looking for stuff like that. I've been really enjoying Final Fantasy Renaissance so I'm sure you'll find it interesting too if you decided to check it out!
Red Mage was my favorite job in FF
I was very disappointed with how it plays in FF14.
It's more of a Black Mage with a melee combo duct tapped onto it.
More that plus the bonus of having a heal ability. My friend who mains Red Mage isn't called Rez Mage nothing when our healer friends go down in party content.
Play it more for fun (and because every class I have, including Blue Mage) is dressed in blue attires. Just like I drew in high school. XD
FFX|V's problem (so to speak) is that it doesn't have room for a job with real diversity. It's built too strongly on assuring that a stable party comes together. For this reason, jobs like Summoner suffer, as well. (They can only do damage and don't have much or any ability to protect or cure any of the party.) I think that's why Blue Mage is "Limited", too; since they're actually built with that diversity. (Really, tho, I'd like to see a *second* job released, just so that when the game explains "Limited Jobs", the plural on that can be more than conceptual) 💙
@@InimicalWit Summoners do have Psychick as a healing ability (more like a cure 1).. And Radient Aegis (which is sort of a protect but for yourself) and a raise.
I think splitting Summoner into two jobs - being Scholar (since they both level together) is in a sense trying to fulfill the dual role of the job.
But it's like for "Hybrid" casters they narrowed down what a healer is to a weak healing ability and a raise.
And it's it not like I want Red Mage to be able to use white mage spells like that... but when it's major rotation is, Do a black magic spell, Red magic, Then do it again White Magic, Red Magic...
Like that's just how the Black mage works but one of them has a instant cast.
Red Mage to me always seemed like a melee job that should be able to cast spells but in 14 it's a caster job that has a melee combo for some reason.
@@NotTheWheel Well, to put it simply, your love of Red Mage is similar to my love of Summoner.
I mean, sure, Summoner and Scholar being related by Arcanist can seem like “where the summoners’ healing ability was realized”, but it doesn’t change how little else SMN and RDM are actually worth in battle in FFX|V, as secondary healers. 💙
Personally, I was always waiting for the Class/Job system to get more complicated. That is, I thought we’d receive more gems to go with existing Classes, but that the Class requirements would become more than just Lv30. So, for example: we might only be able to unlock Red Mage once we had Gladiator, Conjurer and Thaumaturge all at Lv50. Or as another example, Viper would be available to Gladiators upon Lv70 - instead of introducing all these Jobs that have no Class requirements. (You’ve learned how to use a sword and shield, but now you’ve unlocked dual wielding swords and have branched away from the Class that made you a tank, and like SCH are doing something different than the Class that got you there.) (You’ve mastered white and black magic and front line attacking, now learn to integrate them. Perhaps this would have meant RDM was another Limited Job.)
Frankly, I really don’t understand why they haven’t introduced more healers and tanks, but maybe it’s important for FFX|V, somehow, to have DPS so greatly outnumber the others.
(Actually, in healers’ case, it might be related to how seemingly unpopular it is, these days, to be an actual, dedicated healer. Too many people want their healer to be more DPS heavy, thus the recent release of Sage, whose healing comes (in great part) from their damage dealing. 🤷🏻♂️)
💙💙💙
@@InimicalWit 💙Yeah that is a shame but maybe that's the direction they'll go after since we're at level 100. In FF11 that's where they introduced the whole branching out style of jobs.
I agree with your take on FFV's Red Mage. I've realized that Dualcast could have gone to any other caster and FFV would have still had builds with Dualcast/Black Magic or Dualcast/Summoning. It's why I argue that Dualcast was more a thing the developers attached to Red Mage because that job didn't have a clear cross-class gimmick for FFV's job system. No different from attaching a racing fin to an economy car. Considering the offshoot games that just fixate on dualcast, it hasn't been a good thing in the long run.
FFXII I think had the problem of trying to repurpose the license board system for jobs, and that was bound to lead to some questionable decisions. Red Mage being given Dark and Ardor was clearly an attempt to close a theoretical power gap for late-game. Locking sections of the board behind espers sort of makes sense if you think about them as specializations or as a way to differentiate characters with the same job. There may have been a better alternative, though it probably would have required overhauls beyond the scope of the Zodiac edition.
I think any game that has a versatile class system almost inherently struggles to find a place for a class like red mage. There's incentives to build a diverse character from specialty parts. Whereas a diverse class will always slot in weirdly and be second best.
And yeah, I rate FF12 second for red mage design, but I agree that this is likely almost entirely due to the limits the IZJS team were under when porting 12 back to Japan (which would then be used as a basis for the Zodiac Age version). I think if they'd designed 12 to have job classes from the start, it would have been a better overall design.
I think my biggest criticism about the espers locking licenses is the early espers usually lock nothing, and the later espers lock very mid-game upgrades. Which you won't get until end game.
I will i
I have beaten the whole game with as many as three Red Mages and one Black Mage❤ It worked out well actually so forming a party made up entirely of Red Mages does not sound So daunting after all❤🎉
i love the idea of red mage. but the fact a game like ff5. with so much story and boss fight you hit the wall when you hit earth crystal shines hard. in world one and just only get weapons for the rest of the game. i get the point is not to use 1 class. but they could had improved on the class considering this was the 5th game and anything they could o they made it a new class which over complicates it as they made 22 classes
Thoughts on Bravely Default? I know it shares a job system concept with FF5, so it probably won't do well in comparison to everything else, but I like the BP system, dammit.
I've played a decent amount of Bravely Default 2 and really enjoyed it. I thought the Red Mage was pretty good in that game (though I wasn't really examining it at the time). I'm not familiar with any prior games.
@@Xephrost_Gaming The class functions similarly in Bravely Default 1 and Bravely Second, both on the 3DS. Bravely Second is the sequel to Bravely Default 1 - Bravely Default 2 is entirely separate, story-wise. Additionally, Bravely Default 2 has an ATB system, whereas the 3DS games don't.
I know I'm getting ahead of myself here but I don't know how you're going to do a Blue Mage only summary compilation for a good chunk of the FF games. In FF6 Strago is missing for at least half the game. FF7 has E.Skill Materia so you could just equip that only for the whole run I suppose. FF8 only has Quistis with a limit break and you have get specific items for Blue Magic. FF9 Quina is missing for large chunks of the game. FF10 Kimahri only has an Overdrive and only a dozen or so Ronso Rages. 10-2 will actually be possible with Gun Mage if it counts despite not being called Blue Mage. FF11 and FF14 are MMORPGs. And you're not covering spinoffs like FF Tactics Advance, FF Tactics A2, FF Explorers, Bravely Default (Vampire), or Bravely Second (Catmancer). FF7 Remake only gets 4 Enemy Skills, one of which kills you and another that is only available in hard mode, so good luck with that. FF7 Rebirth gets 7 Enemy Skills over the length of the game.
FF7 remake continues to lack the depth of the original game.
@@TengokuchiFinal Fantasy 7 is “Baby Mode” for RPGs. Frankly? Fucking love it for that too!
So, no Bravely Default red mage run?
I'd definitely love to conitbue seeing FF3 runs for classes (when applicable)
I'm not saying FF3 will never reappear. But it did get a rough debut with Red Mages only.
@@ArtUndertheArch It's extremely hard for non magic classes too, because of the Big Rat.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 mm, I had not considered that - I imagine the game doesn’t supply you with enough attack items at that point
Putting red mages at the bottom with 5 is stupid
Imagine thinking breaking rods is a bad thing to rely on, lol.
Plus, you need to keep in mind, using all red mages rather than 1 or 2 is different than taking a job for it's unique merrits and being balanced/helped by other jobs or specialized party members.
Red mages are fine in 1 and 5. But hey, your opinion is one you are allowed to have. 😂
I love the ff1 red mage, but they are way worse in 3 and 5. I did a red mage only run in 5 like 15 years ago and it killed challenge runs for me.
Yeah, Red Mages are very swingy across the series. It's kind of weird that they got them nearly perfect on the first attempt and then did a bad job from then on.
@@Xephrost_Gaming I agree. When I was younger I used the Red Mage in FF5 all the time just to get Duelcast for both Lenna and Krile and just did way too much grinding. But now I don't even bother. Thanks for these videos though. They were really enjoyable to watch.
archer only series? :o
Archer only/ranger only could definitely be an interesting series to do. I know I have to do at least ff12 with only archers (as I am dedicated to doing a run with every class in that game).
@@Xephrost_Gaming YASSS ff12 best ff
What job is up next? White Mage?
Next final fantasy series will not be a class related one. But White mage only is absolutely on the list for future series.
I’d like a knight only run due to limited healing
I will at some point do a class run through FF12 with every single class. I'm very curious to see how each class handles on their own.
what if you try red mage only in Lightning Returns? HAHAHAHAHA
That would require me to play lightning returns again. And I simply do not want to do that.
@@Xephrost_Gaming noooooooooo :(
In FF3 their pure CRAP and NOT much better in FF5 also the RODS Fire Ice Bolt ARE ONLY buyable in World 1 so you screwed if you don't BUY 99 of each one AND 4x Flame rings in world 1 while you can't BREAK Fire rods and hit your own party to heal with 4x Flame rings you can still ATTACK physically to hit your red mages with Flame rings in FF5.
In FF3 they still SUCK.