Game Systems Breakdown

Miscellaneous Information

This section contains facts that don't really fit on any particular page, but are nonetheless worth knowing.

  • When party members leave, the equipment they were using is gone forever, even if they return to the party (because they will have new equipment). Therefore, you may want to consider unequipping party members before they leave the party, especially if they have rare or unique gear, or if you just want to sell it for cash.
  • When using a bow and arrows, always equip the arrows in your character's primary hand. If you instead put the bow in your primary hand, you'll suffer a 20% penalty to Attack Power.
  • White Chocobos actually restore 500 MP. If you need more than that, talk to them again.
  • If you managed to level a character past the level he or she would rejoin you at, the character will keep the extra levels gained. Also, if you do this, you are crazy.
  • If you teach Rydia a Summon won from an item as a child, she will retain that Summon when she returns as an adult.
  • The Eggs you will run into in and around the Tower of Babil are just monsters in disguise. If you kill them in one shot, you will gain rewards as if you killed the monster inside. You basically get one free attack, so make it count.
  • Monsters that absorb an element will gain HP from spells of that element, but weapons of that element will instead be resisted.
  • You can target your own party members with single-target Summon spells, but the spell will fail when cast.
  • Many creatures will counterattack physical, magical, and Summon attacks. If you're not sure if a particular action is a counterattack, pause the game while your own attack is going on. If the targeted creature responds despite the game being paused, that means they're counterattacking.
  • If you choose to target all enemies or allies when casting a spell, the effects of the spell will be evenly distributed among all targets

Statistics

You have very little control of your party in FF4—you can't choose who's in it, what abilities they gain, or pretty much anything except their gear. Thus, understanding the ins and outs of the damage system isn't as vital as it is in other games (and good thing, because I don't know that much about the damage system anyway). However, a basic understanding of statistics is useful when choosing gear. The game doesn't bother to tell you what effects a weapon or piece of armor has on your statistics, so you may choose a weapon based on its power and not realize that it penalizes your most important stats (the Blitz Whip is a good example of this).

The actual attack calculations appear to be very similar to those of Final Fantasy III, to the extent that if you consult that guide you'll have a decent understanding of how they work. In simple terms, your attack power, defense, and magic defense are raw numbers that oppose those of your opponent (attack vs. defense, and the hidden magic stat vs. magic defense). Thus, increasing these numbers can be very useful. However, you also have multipliers and accuracy/evasion. If you double your multiplier, you're basically twice as effective at whatever you do. Your multipliers are entirely based on your stats, though, so they rarely enter into consideration when choosing gear. Accuracy and evasion are pretty straightforward as well, and you can expect a weapon with 80% accuracy (after the level modifier) to deal about 80% as much damage as one with 99% accuracy. This is an average over time, but you will notice that low-accuracy weapons are much less consistent in their damage.

I will briefly go over how each statistic is calculated, so you can decide what to equip your characters with and how to use them in combat. Note that above level 70, all character stat progressions end and stat changes become somewhat random. However, by that point you're so powerful that it really doesn't matter anyway.

  • Level
    • Characters' levels increase as they earn experience
    • Character gain a bonus to Attack Power equal to 1/4 of their Level, except Yang who instead gains double his Level + 2
    • Characters gain a bonus to Accuracy equal to 1/4 of their Level
    • Characters gain a bonus to Defense Multiplier equal to 1/16 of their level if they are using a shield
  • Hit Points (HP)
    • HP is entirely determined by a character's Level, and each character has his or her own HP progression
    • HP represents how much punishment a character can take. If a character's HP falls to 0, his or her status becomes KO
  • Magic Points (MP)
    • MP is entirely determined by a character's Level, and each character has his or her own MP progression
    • You need at least the MP cost of a spell in reserve MP to cast that spell
  • Strength
    • Strength is determined by Level, and each character has a unique Strength progression
    • Characters gain a bonus to Attack Power equal to 1/4 of their Strength
    • Characters gain a bonus to Attack Multiplier equal to 1/8 of their Strength
  • Agility
    • Agility is determined by Level, and each character has a unique Agility progression
    • Characters gain a bonus to Attack Multiplier equal to 1/16 of their Agility
    • Characters gain a bonus to Defense Multiplier equal to 1/8 of their Agility
    • Characters gain a bonus to Magic Defense Multiplier equal to 1/32 of their Agility
  • Vitality
    • Vitality is determined by Level, and each character has a unique Vitality progression
    • Characters gain a bonus to Defense equal to 1/2 of their Vitality
  • Wisdom
    • Wisdom is determined by Level, and each character has a unique Wisdom progression
    • Characters gain a bonus to Black Magic Multiplier (a hidden stat) equal to 1/4 of their Wisdom
    • Characters gain a bonus to Magic Defense Multiplier equal to 1/32 of the sum of their Wisdom and Will
    • Characters gain a bonus to Magic Evasion equal to 1/8 of the sum of their Wisdom and Will
  • Will
    • Will is determined by Level, and each character has a unique Will progression
    • Characters gain a bonus to White Magic Multiplier (a hidden stat) equal to 1/4 of their Will
    • Characters gain a bonus to Magic Defense Multiplier equal to 1/32 of the sum of their Wisdom and Will
    • Characters gain a bonus to Magic Evasion equal to 1/8 of the sum of their Wisdom and Will