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. His exact starting equipment is sufficient for this fight, though increased defense may be helpful if you find yourself getting oneshot by jump attacks. His equipped weapon gets replaced in the second phase of the fight with the Dragoon Lance, so you may as well unequip his weapon.

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. Do nothing but heal yourself until the second phase begins.

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. As soon as possible, get a second spider silk off, as well as hermes sandals. At this point in the game, there are two obtainable decoy items, both found in chests in the Devils’ Road; you may want to use one of these 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.

During this phase, the Hooded Man will also gain the ability to jump. Don’t bother. With your current stats, a jump will only do roughly 250% the damage of a normal attack, but takes far longer than 250% the time of a normal attack. More importantly, it introduces the risk that false Kain might jump while you are charging the jump attack or are in the air. When this happens, your jump attack will miss since false Kain is in the air, and guarantees that false Kain will land his jump with no time for you to react. Stick to normal attacks and hi-potions until you win.

Here’s a video of my successful attempt:

You may notice a few things:

• Hooded Man only has 204 EXP remaining until level-up. This is because there are a few parts in the story that automatically revive him, such as after staying at the Kaipo inn. I forgot to knock him back out a few times, so he gained some EXP. I only noticed this after he gained a level during grinding, and that forced me to reload an old save. Oops!
• I forgot to unequip the falchion, so it’s gone forever. Oh well.
• Hooded Man has his starting equipment. I was under the false impression that the armor slots would also be overwritten during the fight like how his weapon is. This is not true and it is safe to equip whatever armor you please to Hooded Man. That said, I suffered no oneshot jump attack game overs, which is a problem I did have in a previous attempt with a full mythril armor loadout. There could be some resistance to his starting gear I’m unaware of, or maybe I just got lucky. Further research is required.
• I keep jumping, though my provided advice is to not jump. This is because I am a stranger to reason. It also happens to be an excellent visual demonstration of what happens if you also choose to jump.