The Marsh Cave is the first true test in the game. It is a dungeon filled with nasty Monsters and a difficult boss encounter. It is also the first time you will run into FF1's strange multi-chest system. Some items can appear in multiple chests, but as soon as it is found in one of them, it disappears from any others. This sometimes allows you to pick and choose where to hunt for Treasure.
There are two distinct areas in the Marsh Cave, depending on whether you head north or south from the entrance. The northern path leads to four Treasures, though only two (the Dagger and 620 gil) cannot be found on the other path. It might be a good idea to head in and collect these Treasures first to gauge the difficulty of the Marsh Cave, and perhaps return to town to rest up and purchase new Spells or gear before tackling the more difficult southern path.
There are three chests on B2 of the southern path, but if you collected all the Treasures in the northern path, there is nothing new here. The stairs down to B3 are in the southeast corner. B3 consists of a 4x4 grid of Treasure rooms, the bottom row of which is locked with the Mystic Key. The only shared Treasure on this level is the Steel Plate, which first appears in the northwestern room near the stairs. For the specific locations of the Treasures, check the Treasure list below. Your goal is the Crown, which is two rows south and one row east of the first room. But be careful—stepping on the square in front of the chest will trigger a difficult encounter with 2–4 Piscodemons. You can't run, so you'll need to slug it out, and these are no weak foes.
The easiest way to beat the Piscodemons is to get lucky and only have to fight a pair of them. They have high Magic Defense and resistance to Fire and Ice, so while Bolt2 may be tempting, that Spell slot is probably better saved for some of the more dangerous Random Encounters. They hit hard, and twice, and have good Defense and Evasion scores. Hitting your melee characters with Steel can help them bust through the Piscodemons' defenses and take advantage of their relatively low HP. The same strategy applies to any Piscodemons encountered while retrieving locked Treasures later. You will also encounter Anacondas, which are not particularly difficult non-Poisonous snakes.
The primary rule of the Marsh Cave is to conserve resources. You only have so many Antidotes and Fire2 Spells, and you need to stretch them through a trip down three floors and back up with a boss fight in between—not to mention the walk back to Elfheim. (Or, for the truly daring, to the Western Keep to fight Astos immediately.)
There are two distinct areas in the Marsh Cave, depending on whether you head north or south from the entrance. The northern path leads to four Treasures, though only two (the Dagger and 620 gil) cannot be found on the other path. It might be a good idea to head in and collect these Treasures first to gauge the difficulty of the Marsh Cave, and perhaps return to town to rest up and purchase new Spells or gear before tackling the more difficult southern path.
There are three chests on B2 of the southern path, but if you collected all the Treasures in the northern path, there is nothing new here. The stairs down to B3 are in the southeast corner. B3 consists of a 4x4 grid of Treasure rooms, the bottom row of which is locked with the Mystic Key. The only shared Treasure on this level is the Steel Plate, which first appears in the northwestern room near the stairs. For the specific locations of the Treasures, check the Treasure list below. Your goal is the Crown, which is two rows south and one row east of the first room. But be careful—stepping on the square in front of the chest will trigger a difficult encounter with 2–4 Piscodemons. You can't run, so you'll need to slug it out, and these are no weak foes.
The easiest way to beat the Piscodemons is to get lucky and only have to fight a pair of them. They have high Magic Defense and resistance to Fire and Ice, so while Bolt2 may be tempting, that Spell slot is probably better saved for some of the more dangerous Random Encounters. They hit hard, and twice, and have good Defense and Evasion scores. Hitting your melee characters with Steel can help them bust through the Piscodemons' defenses and take advantage of their relatively low HP. The same strategy applies to any Piscodemons encountered while retrieving locked Treasures later. You will also encounter Anacondas, which are not particularly difficult non-Poisonous snakes.
The primary rule of the Marsh Cave is to conserve resources. You only have so many Antidotes and Fire2 Spells, and you need to stretch them through a trip down three floors and back up with a boss fight in between—not to mention the walk back to Elfheim. (Or, for the truly daring, to the Western Keep to fight Astos immediately.)