The Bridge of the Warmech

[StewShearerOld]

The Bridge of the Warmech

The original Final Fantasy isn't widely remembered for having many big moments. Within the confines of its cartridge however, exists one of the franchise's most nerve-wracking sequences.

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[JonB]

What a fun piece, Stew! I remember having to get a friend to beat the WarMECH for me - she'd played hundreds of hours of FF and knew all the tricks!

 

[Pyrian]

Just a 1 in 64 chance of encountering it? Maybe most people don't remember it because most people never met it.

 

[thoughtwrangler]

1 in 64 really isn't that bad, as anyone with the patience to get the Gutsy Bat AND the Sword of Kings in Earthbound can attest

 

[deathmothon]

Just a 1 in 64 chance of encountering it? Maybe most people don't remember it because most people never met it.

I believe it's 1/64 per step. I don't know how long the bridge is. maybe 30 steps.

 

[Pyrian]

Just a 1 in 64 chance of encountering it? Maybe most people don't remember it because most people never met it.

I believe it's 1/64 per step. I don't know how long the bridge is. maybe 30 steps.

Well, that's much more likely, but still most trips would never encounter it. (And a depressing number would hit it more than once...)

 

[Jadedvet]

The fact that I never fought the warmech shames me to this day. I need to fire up an emulator and correct that.

Don't give me that look, I still have the cart. I just lack an NES that has been plugged in within the last 20 years.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Oh hey you put in my post in. Thanks.

I've never run into the Warmech, only seen other people get destroyed by it (I beat the nerfed version in Final Fantasy Legend 2 if that counts). Not sure if it was the first bonus boss ever, but definitely the first one that people really remembered. There's a novelization of the game I'm fond of where it takes the combined effort of the Light Warriors, the restored Bahamut, and all the weapons on the airship to finally bring it down.

I do still have the PS1 remake. Perhaps I'll now go rectify this gap in my gaming experience. Wish me luck- they buffed all the Fiends so they probably did the same to him.

 

[Tanis]

I call BS on the 1/64 crap.

I've run into that damn thing EVERY-SINGLE-TIME I've played the game.
:/

 

[Recusant]

I call BS on the 1/64 crap.

I've run into that damn thing EVERY-SINGLE-TIME I've played the game.
:/

I don't. I've never encountered it once. I didn't even know it existed until I heard people talk about it years later. Nor was I alone in this; I suspect the reason more people didn't mention it was that they didn't know about it.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I call BS on the 1/64 crap.

I've run into that damn thing EVERY-SINGLE-TIME I've played the game.
:/

I had a run that did that to me. And likewise I had a run after that where I had a party specifically targeting Warmech who never showed up for his surprise.
Its like my WoW career, I've never once had a Baron Mount drop despite numerous killings across multiple characters and servers and accounts... never even seen it drop. I've seen the much rarer sword drop but never the frakkin' mount.

 

[Veylon]

You might be overselling the claustrophobic experience. By the time you face Warmech, you've got the EXIT spell so - assuming your White Wizard survives - you can simply teleport yourself completely out of the dungeon and be ready to scale the thing again sans the distraction of chests once you've reacquainted yourself with a clinic and an inn. Really, after Crescent Lake there's never the obligation to completely clear any dungeon in a single go. Grab what you can as deep as you can, beam yourself out, and make a beeline for the exit on that floor next time around.

 

[StewShearerOld]

You might be overselling the claustrophobic experience. By the time you face Warmech, you've got the EXIT spell so - assuming your White Wizard survives - you can simply teleport yourself completely out of the dungeon and be ready to scale the thing again sans the distraction of chests once you've reacquainted yourself with a clinic and an inn. Really, after Crescent Lake there's never the obligation to completely clear any dungeon in a single go. Grab what you can as deep as you can, beam yourself out, and make a beeline for the exit on that floor next time around.

I would to agree to an extent. While the EXIT spell is very much a godsend, it doesn't change the fact that eventually, if you plan on beating the game, that you have no choice but to march across the Warmech's bridge to fight Tiamat. Even if you've already picked the dungeon clean of its loot and treasure, getting to those final rooms is still a difficult trek. The only way you can really make it easier is to spend some extra time level grinding so that your party is stronger than otherwise necessary to complete the level.

 

[Veylon]

While the EXIT spell is very much a godsend, it doesn't change the fact that eventually, if you plan on beating the game, that you have no choice but to march across the Warmech's bridge to fight Tiamat.

In full disclosure, I barely gave WarMech a second thought and have never seriously expected to encounter it.

It is a tough slog, though, I'll admit, even if you flee more than half the battles the way I do. A character going down is a serious deal before the days of easy resurrection. Your white wizard can only cast LIFE two or three times and it shares usages with EXIT, so there might be a hard choice up on WarMech's bridge between bringing your guy back and trying to finish out the Sky Palace or running away with your tail between your legs.

I think Final Fantasy is a bit oversold as a hard game, but it's not as though it's a cakewalk either.

 

[zodas]

I used to run around on the bridge so I could find the Warmech to get the xp and gil reward. 32k xp and 32k gil was nothing to sneeze at.