Level 15 Holy Dragoon Kain

A guilty pleasure of mine is the WiiWare version of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. In this version of the game, the HP and MP growth for the Hooded Man and the Holy Dragoon forms of Kain differ. For optimal stat growth, the Hooded Man should be kept at his starting level (level 15) so that all of his level-ups occur after he transforms into a Holy Dragoon.

Is it worth it? No, lmao. You can farm consumable items that increase HP and MP in the late game. However, I thought I’d make this post anyhow just in case there are still other masochists trying to take down false Kain at level 15.

Keeping the Hooded Man at minimum level is pretty simple: just make sure he is always knocked out. Grind Ceodore some levels so that he can take on everything himself. The blood sword is excellent for this.

The part that gave me actual trouble was the fight with the false Kain, which you must win in order to graduate the Hooded Man to Holy Dragoon Kain. This fight is winnable, even at level 15, with some luck. Here’s how:

First, after defeating the three zombie infantry in front of the castle, revive the Hooded Man and equip him with the following armor (or better, if that’s even possible?): mythril shield, mythril helm, flame mail, and mythril gloves. You should have 42 or more defense. His weapon doesn’t matter since it gets replaced in the second phase of the fight.

In the first phase of the fight, your goal is to survive. You don’t need to do any damage in order to progress to phase 2. Whenever you get hit, use a hi-potion. If your armor is high enough, you should even be able to withstand the jump attacks with a sliver of health remaining. Keep healing until the second phase begins. If you have an unusual surplus of decoys, you can utilize these as well.

In the second phase, start by using a spider silk to slow down false Kain’s attacks. Whenever you get hit, heal to full with hi-potions. When you can, get a second spider silk off, as well as hermes sandals. If you have them, use a decoy whenever false Kain jumps, as there is still a small chance his jump attacks can do just over 600 damage, which happens to be your max health at level 15. I only had two decoys, so I had to retry the fight a couple times, as I got one-shot by jump attacks.

I wish I knew more of the game internals in order to give some solid numbers such as minimum required defense as well as where to obtain decoys in bulk, since with enough decoys this fight is a cakewalk. If I ever obtain such information, I’ll update this post. Until then, enjoy this purely anectodal strategy.