(also crossposted here:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/58 ... i/79282394
Since I wrapped up this challenge on the first game (see link here:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/56 ... d/79239950) it's time to do this on the second one! I actually had a save file in progress on an actual cart once that got accidentally overwritten, so I've previously made it to the start of Venus's world on this challenge run. We're gonna finish it this time for sure.
The challenge is to beat the game without ever spending any gold or visiting the Inn or any shops, aside from one gold that's needed for plot reasons. We're not even going to allow visiting the Inn at 0 GP; we're a team of insomniacs!
Because Humans in this game can actually gain stats naturally, and don't gain access to powerful natural spellcasting or passive resistances, this makes a team of 4 Male Humans the hardest realistically possible team to do this with. Male Humans start with Long Swords (ick) and less Agl and Mana, more valuable (and harder to raise) stats to us in the long run, so Males are worse off than Females, who have only slightly less HP to start, which is relatively easy to increase. Mutants would be easier due to their access to passive abilities they can save up (even without allowing any use of Inns ever for recharging they'd be better than Humans). Monsters would be doable but annoying; you'd be forced to eat meat to recharge abilities. Robots would be capable of tanking an recovering their own health, as well as getting decent access to damage by piling on similar equipment (only half the uses though, but it'd still be more than manageable). You could also abuse Robots with the martial arts glitch to make them nearly unstoppable.
So, away our team of 4 humans goes, to beat the game without getting any sleep and spending only a single GP! Fortunately, the second FFL/SaGa game doesn't require repeatedly killing and rerecruiting a single character in order to farm items early on, making the early game easier than it is in the first game. We also automatically revive from fights at 1 HP if killed, meaning petrification is much more dangerous to us than death is, and we also can get items dropped by enemies, allowing us a wider range of equipment to use in general throughout the game. However, the second game is still much harder to do a no shops challenge, namely because of the challenges we'll face later on, and the much slower growth rates characters have in general.
You also start FFL2 with a much better chance of running from encounters; you're pretty much guaranteed to escape when you run from any early fight. This means we can maximize our chances of stat gains and equipment drops by running from anything that isn't a single Gang or Asigaru, and ignoring everything else. We actively want to fight humanoid and robotic enemies that can drop equipment for us whenever possible, especially spellcaster types despite how dangerous they are, since they're the main way we'll be able to use any spells and we'll need to build up Mana for later on in the game for the sake of healing spells. Our very high success rate when running currently means that after we grab the stuff in the cave (Bronze Shield, Bow, Hammer) and use Mr. S to oneshot the minor boss, we're free to hang out near the shrine of Isis getting free healing from Ki while we hunt for the following equipment:
• Punch (from Gang): Starts off dealing no damage, rapidly deals far more damage than Long Swords. Becomes very powerful from 70 uses onward, this'll be my primary means of offense for the early game, with single use remaining Punches being ideal boss killing material. It's also an important way of building Agility, our most important stat, used to run from scary stuff.
• Long Swords (from Asigaru): Fairly pathetic damage per Strength point. Still, until we get the Masamune or the Excalibur, it'll be the primary way we have of levelling up Str. However, Punch will beat out its damage easily; there won't be any real reason to use Long Swords in serious fights unless we manage to have a ton of Str.
Enemies actually have a very decent chance of dropping items. If I had to estimate, the chance of an item being dropped is somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4? I think I recall a previous thread with formulae that put the chance of an item or meat drop at about 20%. This means that without much trouble, we're able to very quickly acquire multiple Long Swords and Punches, all while slowly gaining stats. Our next goal is to make sure each character has a Punch that's at 50 uses or less, so they have a primary attack for serious encounters. Long Swords will never be useful as the stats you'd need for them to hit for 150 damage would be incredibly high, whereas Punch, despite dealing no damage to begin with, very quickly is capable of outputting lots of hits. It's basically a weapon where the first few uses are worthless but the rest are very valuable! One human had lucky Str gains but even at 9 was still hitting for 40s with a Long sword, 3 times less damage than Punch could at around 50 uses! I generally dislike Str weapons in this game and find that martial arts as well as projectiles both tend to be better, and more reliable means of attacking, and they don't rely on slow stat gains for damage. Their accuracy also isn't stat dependent like standard melee weapons are, which helps for the more evasive bosses whose high Agl makes it difficult to land a hit.
After a bit of grinding, here's where we're at:
Hum1: 79 HP, 6 Str, 7 Agl, Long Sword (34), Punch (50), Bronze Shield (50), Bronze Armor
Hum2: 97 HP, 8 Str, 7 Agl, Long Sword (50), Long Sword (17), Cure Potion (4), Bronze Armor
Hum3: 123 HP, 6 Str, 9 Agl, Long Sword (38), Long Sword (50), Punch (50), Cure Potion (4), Bronze Armor
Hum4: 158 HP, 9 Str, 6 Agl, Long Sword (50), Long Sword (43), Hammer (32), Punch (50), Bronze Armor
All have 3 Mana. They also all have 3 Def due to the Bronze Armor they start with. Using the Bronze Shield to try and gain more is an option... but it's frankly unlikely to work, especially at this point. For some reason, the characters who started in the back happen to have gained more HP, so we've swapped 'em around.