This fiend put up a little more of a fight, but honestly not really much – mainly because she actually had attacks that hit the entire party, whiereas the wuss that is Lich was only making a single attack on a single party member each turn.
I’m really starting to pick up on a lot of the changes from the NES original as I get deeper into the game, though – as I mentioned last time, the difficulty settings seem to be completely different – I don’t know if I broke 20th level until the very end of the game with the original, and yet my party is rapidly approaching 30 in this version. I also can’t help but notice that the hit points are a lot higher now then they used to be (i.e. Kary had 600 HP on the NES, now 1200 HP on the iPhone version). That said, it can probably simply be chalked up to the more is better factor, along with a healthy helping of trying to keep the series somewhat in sync – the damage and levels are more in range with the rest of the series just like a Life potion is now called a Phoenix Down, even though those weren’t introduced until FF3 (VI)…
A lot of the names of things have been changed, both items and monsters, which can get a little confusing for some of us purists (i.e. I actually prefer Fire1/Fire2/Fire3 vs. Fira/Firaga/Firaja), and it’s kind of weird seeing a main boss like Kary, the Fiend of Fire, here, renamed to something entirely different!
One change that I absolutely do like, however, is the concept of magic points (MP) instead of only being able to cast a set number of spells for each level at a time. That was always such a pain in the butt to manage that often times I never used my magic for fear that I was “wasting it,” plus now you can just pop an Ether to regain MP, which is actually pretty affordable at my current level.
Also something that I mentioned before, but I really like the ability to save basically anywhere, too, simply because I can get in a quick five minutes here and there, whereas 20 years ago this was one of those classic “Just five more minutes – I’ve gotta save it!” games when you were only allowed to save at an Inn (not even on the world map, like I misspoke earlier – that didn’t come until later games!).
One thing I’ll be curious to explore more later – shortly after my battle here with Kary/Marilith, in searching for the Ice Cave I accidentally stumbled upon what is apparently one of the new challenge dungeons that was added with the remake. I guess they’re supposed to be super-hard and feature bosses from some of the other Final Fantasy games, so it should be interesting to see what comes of those … will I just get absolutely slaughtered, or will these actually prove to just be more of a challenge now that the game itself seems a little easier than it was before?
But more on that later – I’ve got a class change to earn!