Lunar Practice
Over the last few months, I started playing a Final Fantasy 4 randomizer called Free Enterprise. It’s probably the best Final Fantasy randomizer just due to the structure of the game - there are plenty of key items gating access to various locations, so some of the problems of the FF6 randomizer (though that one is also sweet) aren’t present here. Free Enterprise has a great community that is largely located on their Discord server, which I strongly recommend joining if you’ve got any interest in it.
How does this randomizer work? Well, you start with the airship, named the Enterprise in-game (hence the name “Free Enterprise”), as well as two characters, one key item, and some other goodies depending on the setup. Your ultimate goal in most circumstances is to defeat Zeromus, the final boss, who must first be weakened using the Crystal before they can be attacked. Those are some of the only constants - the locations of characters, bosses, and key items in the game are randomized, with bosses’ stats set by the location they end up in. That way, if you end up fighting an endgame boss in an early-game spot, you don’t have to contend with endgame hit points and combat stats.
Free Enterprise has gone through a lot of iteration and revision. These days, most “seeds” (randomly generated versions of the game) are based on some kind of objectives. As the game starts, you’ll be shown a set of tasks you need to complete - sometimes, they’re “quests” like “Unlock the Sealed Cave” or “Launch the Falcon” that require you to perform in-game storyline actions. Sometimes they’re character hunts, though those are a bit more uncommon and usually used to set a particular meta-theme. Right now, though, it’s tournament season, and we’re focused on another theme: boss hunts.
An example of a Blue Moon boss hunt seed. Golbez and the Fabul Gauntlet are always present, with the other six randomly drawn from the boss pool.
Free Enterprise features 35 total bosses, with 34 appearing in any given seed. With a few exceptions for safety checks (particularly murderous bosses won’t block your progression from the Overworld to the Underworld), any of those bosses can appear in any boss spot. The current tournament season actually features two tournaments: Blue Moon and Red Moon. The moon is kind of a big deal in Final Fantasy 4, with the original translation featuring this delightful exchange between two characters:
Bless you, Ted Woolsey.
The main commonality between the two tournaments is that both are focused on boss hunts. Each seed will give you eight bosses to hunt for, and once you find and defeat seven of the eight chosen foes, you’ll receive the Crystal. At that point, you can go ahead and challenge Zeromus, the final boss, as long as you can get to them via traveling to the moon (using the Darkness Crystal) or sneaking in the back way by turning in your Pass. Red Moon has some more restrictive settings overall, with the contents of treasure chests being generally worse and the boss hunts being focused on scarier enemies, among other things.
Even though I haven’t been playing long, I decided to compete in the Blue Moon tournament. I’ve been practicing as much as I can - while I’ve been traveling recently, I’ve managed to play in a few asynchronous races set up by other community members, and my times are improving steadily. When’s my first match? Well, it’s actually tonight! I’ll be going head-to-head with Professor Renderer at 8 PM Eastern tonight, so keep your eyes on my Twitch channel if you’re interested in watching. I’ll be on a delay with chat on emote-only and my mic off, so hopefully we get picked for restream - if we do, check out the Free Enterprise Twitter account for more details. No matter what, if you’re a fan of JRPGs or speedruns, I encourage you to check Free Enterprise out and get involved. The community is super friendly and supportive, and there are even some Magic players in the mix - no surprise there.