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How many characters have I soloed Phantasy Star 4 with now? Four? Five? Well I'm not done yet. Let's meet our latest contender.
Here is Hahn, Mr. Mediocre. When I was thinking how to accurately sum up Hahn the term "red mage" kept jumping to mind. It's not entirely accurate but it is close enough. For those who aren't familiar with Final Fantasy the red mage is a hybrid spell user with access to basic heals and direct damage spells, as well as some status effects, and an assortment of gear options that defy easy classification.
Hahn's starting stats don't give much of an indication of where his strengths lie. The only standout is his Mental of 8. Since Hahn is one of the three starting characters in the base game and joins at level 1 his starting stats and equipment are unchanged by the party select hack.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
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| 02 | 02 | 02 | 02 | 02 | 02 | 02 | 00 | 01 | 02 | 02 | 00 | 02 | 02 |
Hahn's resistances are about what I'd expect from a biological character in this game. He is immune to factors 8 and 12, and resists factor 9, but has no immunities. He also doesn't have any weaknesses which means Hahn won't face the same threat of a sudden brick wall that prompted Raja to grind 22 levels the last time I played this game. (Well, in theory anyway but we'll see how that works out once we start reaching some of the more difficult bosses.)
One thing that won't become apparent for some time is that Hahn requires significantly less experience per level then many characters. He sits around the middle of the pack in that respect but this means less time has to be spent grinding experience. This isn't necessarily a good thing as it also means he'll earn less meseta per level up. I don't expect that to be a problem as Hahn is cheap to equip. He finds most of his good equipment.
Hahn has slightly more defense then Raja but he still cannot survive a battle against the weakest enemies in the game without drawing on his training as a biologist (yeah I know it says his 'class' is scholar but biologist wouldn't fit in the space allotted). Hahn gets exclusive access to a number of debuffs and it is fortunate for him that he starts with Gelun. Gelun attempts to reduce the attack power of all enemies by a base 32 points, modified by the user's Mental stat. Gelun and several other techniques Hahn will learn check against factor 10 resistance. Being a debuff automatically makes Gelun less useful then Blessing because anything that resists or is immune to factor 10 cannot have its attack power reduced. These resistances will become relevant very soon but for the moment Hahn was in the clear. He reached level two without dying although he had to make frequent trips to Piata's inn to recover his tech points.
As a side note this playthrough will make heavy use of composited screenshots because merging two together just makes more sense.
Hahn ground up to level 4 before challenging Igglanova. The above screenshot is from after the fight since I forgot to take one beforehand. After three level ups his stats have started differentiating so we can see better where Hahn's talents lie. He will gain Mental quickly (but not quite as quickly as Raja), followed by Dexterity, then Strength, while Agility will lag behind in the rear.
Hahn sits in an awkward area between Raja, Rune, and Chaz. He can only equip circlets and suits (a type of light armor) but can use light and medium weight shields. Meanwhile Hahn gains enough Strength and Dexterity to be decent at hand-to-hand combat but can only use knives/daggers and those are low on the attack power scale. However since daggers are one-handed weapons Hahn doesn't have to give up using shields entirely while holding a weapon. He isn't completely reliant on his lackluster weapon selection because he learns the Wat technique line. At the same time he will also learn the Res technique line so he isn't completely reliant on items for healing.
At level 3 Hahn picked up his first true offensive tech when he learned Wat. After reaching level 4 he tried to defeat Igglanova but ran out of tech points and died. Before making another attempt I stopped in at Piata's item shop and bought five monomates. That did the trick.
Hahn used the first turn to raise his Dexterity with Vision, then the next to cast Wat on Igglanova, then took a turn to Gelun the Xanafalgue minions it had spawned in those two turns. Igglanova is immune to factor 10 but at least the Xanafalgue would never do more then 1 damage. Hahn then keep chanting Wats into Igglanova until he was down to 6 TP. At that point it seemed better to get two Res uses rather then one more Wat so Hahn switched to stabbing with his knife. One more Wat might have killed Igglanova but knife attacks did the job just fine.
Afterwards it was time for the long trek. Since Hahn starts with equipment his would be less ardurous then I was accustomed to which was fine by me, quite frankly.
In Miles Hahn had to stop and watch the sandworm being raised on the ranch. It's almost kind of cute.
Likewise Hahn stopped in the outskirts of Molcum to admire the peaceful village.
Then he made it to Krup on the first try. Not encountering any Locustas or Sand Newts on the trip helped. He bought a Carbon Suit and Carbon Shield and settled in for the necessary grind to get to Tonoe.
Gelun saw frequent use which meant many trips back to the inn. At 5 tech points per use it was far more efficient than healing with Res.
Wat is pretty much a win button against Motavian bio-monsters. As mentioned in Raja's solo report damn near every biomonster on Motavia is weak to factor 5.
At level 9 Hahn picked up another damage-dealing technique in Zan. Unfortunately since Zan deals factor 1 type damage it will never get a bonus. Nothing is weak to factor 1 but at the same time (almost) nothing is immune to it either. It will deal consistent magical damage to all enemies in the fight. (Factor 1 resistance/immunity doesn't work quite the same as the other factors due to some programming quirks in the game but I won't bog this down with those details.)
At level 10 Hahn learned Vol, a technique he would get a great deal of mileage out of for the rest of the game. Vol is straightforward and to the point. It is a factor 10 ability only Hahn learns (well, for the player's side, anyway). It targets one enemy, checks its power against their Mental and if it wins the target outright dies. It costs 8 tech points per use which is a considerable sum this early but when Hahn needed a biomonster to die right then it was almost always worth using.
At level 11 Hahn picked up Gires leaving him set for tech point-based healing for the foreseeable future.
When he reached level 13 Hahn bid farewell to his hometown once again and set out for Tonoe. The trip was uneventful except for when Hahn repeated Raja's experience of being ambushed by a 3x Blob formation almost immediately in the Valley Maze. With more hit points and some actual armor to call his own Hahn survived and fled for his life.
In Tonoe he picked up the only equipment upgrade available: a single Titanium Dagger. Hahn can dual-wield daggers but he really needs the defense boost from having at least one shield.
The ambushes down in the Basement weren't able to put much of a dent in him. Again, I'm not complaining after the death fest that was Raja.
Hahn... a sturdy character? Yeah actually he is with some levels. I know meteor9 made a lot of jokes on Hahn's flimsiness in their PSIV lp but Hahn actually isn't as bad at defense as he seems. He just seems bad in comparison to Chaz 'I can wear heavy armor' and Rika 'look at that massive defense bonus from all my agility!'. Now Hahn's defense will become a problem down the road when he runs out of equipment upgrades but for the moment he's doing just fine.
It was 1 minute, 9 1/2 seconds from hitting record at the entrance to opening the Alshline chest. Hahn escapiped out then telepiped to Zema. The second Igglanova was no problem at all with Wat and Zan. Afterwards Hahn bought a Circlet in the Zema armor shop to protect his head a little better.
Ok, that and the Mental boost.
Hahn actually did some fighting in the Bio-Plant since Gelun worked on a bunch of stuff in there. It wasn't really efficient time-wise but who better to test the strength of the bio-monsters breeding out of control than the resident biologist? This is all for science! Besides, I don't expect a good chance to show off a screenshot of a Guilgenova with attendant Gicefalgue will pop up with any other character. (Again, I contend the second Igglanova fight would be much more interesting if it was a Guilgenova instead.)
Speaking of Gelun, here are some more bio-monsters it worked on, Ismounos. They would never do more then 1 damage, even on critical hits, once debuffed.
Unfortunately machines are universally immune to factor 10 abilities since they don't have nervous systems to overload or musculature to paralyze. In the Bio-Plant the security bots tend to have higher agility then the bio-monsters so Hahn died once when repeated escape checks failed.
After the Bio-Plant Hahn had no trouble walking to Aiedo where he replaced his Titanium Dagger with a Ceramic Knife. Then he was promptly murdered by Speards in the Passageway to Kadary. Eventually he made it through, leveling to 14 just a few steps from town. Immediate attempts at Zio's Fort proved fruitless so Hahn set out grinding around Kadary.
Gelun was unable to reduce the attack power of Speards enough to make them manageable so Hahn went heavy on Vol-usage. That meant he spent a lot of time in the inn but his experience steadily went up anyway. At level 16 Hahn picked up Giwat and it was a much-needed addition. Vol did nothing if resisted but Giwat would always kill these enemies by sheer damage.
At level 19 Hahn seemed about strong enough to sprint through Zio's Fort to rescue Demi. His status screen says everything there is to know about his stat growth. He favors tech points slightly but his hit points grow at a reasonable rate. He doesn't get a big pile of either but enough to work with. Mental is clearly his priority stat with Dexterity a few points behind. Strength and Agility are almost identical (21 to 20) but the slight edge in Strength growth will widen that gap a little over time.
Five more levels didn't make Zio's Fort a cakewalk or even remotely easy. It just meant Hahn had something resembling a chance. He almost got to Juza on the first try when, several steps away, Hahn was ambushed and shredded by 3 Rippers. There was nothing he could do about their Fire Breath since he can't equip anything that resists factor 3 type attacks.
When he did reach Juza it wasn't much of a contest. I had made some estimates of how many Giwats might be needed which didn't seem promising given how fast they would drain Hahn's tech points. When the battle started I had Hahn attack several times to get a little extra damage in before the tech point tank was drained.
My estimates turned out to have low-balled Giwat's damage. Well that is certainly preferable to finding out midway into a battle that Hahn doesn't have enough firepower.
The Plate System was next. Hahn couldn't do anything to the machines roaming around but he wanted the Laser Knife and Laser Barrier down in the depths. Once they were obtained and the system was shut down to stop the earthquakes it was off to Termi for a Psy Circlet and a Psy Shield. Hahn could have gotten these before the Plate System but I wanted to proceed through dungeons and towns as Hahn came across them.
At that point Hahn was level 20 and I wanted a bit more health before setting foot inside Ladea Tower. Grinding inside was thus out of the question and the area around Termi is home to many paralysis-proccing Fanbites and Caterpillars. Hahn instead used the Land Rover to blow up wildlife until he reached level 22. Battles in the various vehicles yield little money (most of them are the minimum of 1 meseta) so I wanted to spend as little time as needed grinding experience that way. He just needed to get to the point where he stood a reasonable chance of surviving a random encounter in Ladea Tower.
Most of the denizens of Ladea Tower proved vulnerable to Gelun, even the Centaurs who look like machines but actually aren't. Gelun was still helpful but its effectiveness was definitely declining by this point. Part of that was simply Hahn's stagnant equipment options.
Ladea Tower was broken down into numerous quick trips to pick up a bit of treasure then run back to town. That's because these trips saw intensive tech point use between Gelun, Giwat, Vol, and Gires but Hahn could manage with a Psy Shield + Laser Knife - the knife to finish off anything that wasn't quite dead after a Giwat or two. I was almost certain grinding was going to be needed for Gy Laguiah (the first real Beef Gate for a solo run) so Hahn needed to fight as much as possible on these short jaunts.
The real prizes were the two Star Dews in the tower. Thinking through the next series of challenges in the game it seemed likely Hahn would need as many Star Dews as he could find.
Fly Screamers were still not an option combat-wise. Hell no Hahn wasn't sticking around! Those things were the cause of numerous deaths for Gryz and I learned well to run screaming at the mere sight of one of them.
The test fight against Gy Laguiah didn't go well, at all. Gy Laguiah is the first real "no more kiddy gloves" type of boss in the game and part of that is because zie hits just hard enough that dimates can't keep up. Hahn's armor selection also leaves much to be desired in raw defense. He had thus-far been fortunate in not needing his entire tech point pool for damage output in a boss fight. If he had to fight part of the battle hand-to-hand that meant a considerable defense loss from losing one shield. Should he just wait and keep grinding until he learned Nawat? Some healing via Gires was likely inevitable. Grinding seemed the only promising course of action. First, though, Hahn needed to pass the raw hit point barrier. He could worry about how he was going to heal himself once he wasn't wasted in one shot.
Thus it was off to Aiedo to accept the sandworm job at level 25 the experience from which put Hahn at 27. Giwats for 240 damage per shot made it trivial.
Nawat came along at the next level - 28. Well that was taken care of quickly.
Then at level 29 Hahn learned the other half of what would be his primary boss-killing direct-damage combo: Astral. There are several properties that make Astral useful. First off since it is a skill it doesn't burn precious tech points and that is a huge plus for solo Hahn. Secondly it is one of four player-useable factor 2 attacks. The others are Flare, Posibolt, and Legeon. There are only 3 randomly occuring enemies in the game immune to factor 2 (who are easily dealt with in other ways) alongside a few bosses who are immune due to plot shielding. That means Astral works on damn near anything the game can throw at Hahn and he thus has a way to actually fight things like machines. Third, it is flagged as a magical attack so it uses Hahn's Mental score as its damage modifier and checks against magic defense. Fourth, it has a base damage of 168 which puts it in the top ten in player-useable base damage.
There are some downsides to Astral. It only hits one target. It also won't get a nice x3 multiplier since nothing in the game is weak to factor 2. Finally, like Raja's St. Fire the base power is a bit deceptive. Astral would deal about 220 damage to one target at this point in the game and slowly improve as Hahn's Mental increased but that amount of damage isn't so awesome as boss hit point totals climb.
In short Astral would do highly consistent but only moderate damage to everything it was used on.
At level 30 Hahn made several more attempts on Gy Laguiah but still couldn't quite weather the beating. Instead he went back to grinding. Eliminate came along at 30, Savol at 33. Both of those are death abilities. Eliminate works exactly like Rika's version and wouldn't see much use since Hahn would spend much of his time without a weapon equipped. Savol, however, was excellent for grinding. It does the same thing Vol does but it targets the entire enemy force at once.
At level 33 he started more attempts on Gy Laguiah. Nawat was the main line of offense and did excellent damage per shot thanks to Gy's factor 5 weakness.
Of course even with two Psy Shields equipped Gy could inflict mountains of pain right back. It took several more tries but eventually Hahn managed to scrape by. It only took 9 Nawats to kill Gy Laguiah but a whole lot of dimates and Gires uses to actually last that long. In the end it was actually pretty fun. Both sides brought massive offense to what could be a short, explosive battle! (Defense, what's that?)
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC5LXyD4PpY
There's a compilation video of the three bosses thus far.
Afterwards Hahn ended up addressing himself to keep up morale. Oh game...
These are his stats as he was versus Gy. I forgot to get a shot before the fight but he didn't level so it's all good. Also if you notice what is wrong with Hahn's equipment setup give yourself a cookie because I didn't notice until awhile down the road. (I was kicking myself when I realized what a silly little goof I had made, too!)
