Rydia/Gameplay

Rydia is a playable character in Final Fantasy IV and its sequels, Final Fantasy IV -Interlude- and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. She is the first dedicated Summoner in the Final Fantasy series, and also excels in casting Black Magic, making her an excellent offensive mage and thus her stat growth is geared toward magic use.

Final Fantasy IV
As a Summoner, Rydia has high magic stats but low physical stats and can summon Eidolons, magical creatures that appear at her behest to devastate enemies.

Abilities
Rydia can use Black Magic and learns every spell, up to and including Meteor, but she learns them later than Palom due to her emphasis on Summon Magic. As a child, she can cast some basic White Magic. When she returns to the party as an adult, she has forgotten these spells.

In the 3D remake versions, Rydia can learn more White Magic as a child, and learns her later Black Magic at different levels. Rydia joins the party at Level 7, while she joins at Level 1 in all other releases, and thus knows several spells already. When she is reverted to a child during her Lunar Trial in the Advance and Complete Collection releases, she can cast her White Magic while retaining her Black Magic.

When Rydia rejoins as an adult in the Dwarven Castle after beating Golbez, she has Fira, Blizzara, Thundara, along with Cura. At this point, she no longer has the White Magic command and cannot use her White Magic spells and thus Cura can never be used outside of her trial in GBA and PSP versions, when she'll lose Summon Magic and temporarily regain White Magic.

In all releases, Rydia learns her Eidolons the same way.

Equipment
As a child, Rydia equips rods, staves, bows, daggers, and whips. As an adult, she loses the ability to equip staves. In the Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable versions, there is a loophole the player can use to equip the adult Rydia with a staff: when she transforms into a child in her Lunar Trial she regains her White Magic and the ability to equip staves, and will not remove any equipped staff she is given when the trial ends and she turns back into an adult. However, once the staff is removed it cannot be re-equipped without repeating the trial.

In the 3D remakes, she cannot equip bows. Her armor is limited to universal equips and mage equips. In Final Fantasy IV Advance, equipping Rydia with the Mist Ring allows summoning the Mist Dragon to grant a Blink effect on the entire party.

Boss
Rydia appears as the Girl in the scripted battle with Cecil and Kain in Final Fantasy IV at Mist.

Rydia's Lunar Trial


Rydia enters a cave filled with mist. She turns back into a child, and Ifrit, Titan, Ramuh, and Shiva abandon her. The party must find them and defeat them to regain them. After defeating them the mist dissipates, and the party fights Lunar Mist Dragon. After defeating it, the player gets the Mist Ring, which improves Rydia's Mist Dragon summon and grants the party the Blink status.

The Lunar Trials are available in the GBA and PSP versions of Final Fantasy IV.

Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-
Rydia appears for the final battle against Rydia?. She knows all her Black Magic up to Blizzaga, has all her summons except for Goblin, Bomb, Cockatrice and Mindflayer, and is equipped with a Stardust Rod. She has 1100 HP and 330 MP. Her level and full equipment except her equipped weapon are unknown, as the player cannot enter the menu while she is in the party.

Stats
Rydia's MP and Intelligence are high, but her HP is among the lowest in the game. Compared to the other Black Mage of the game, Palom, Rydia's stats are inferior in all areas except for Speed and Spirit.

Abilities
Rydia retains her Black Magic, and her Summon abilities, but cannot summon anything as she loses her Eidolons at the start of her tale. With the exception of the Eidolons dropped by enemies, she cannot relearn them until The Gathering chapter, where the player must explore the world and defeat them. This is excluding Leviathan, Asura and Bahamut, who are fought and reacquired in the True Moon. The Chocobo Eidolon is also found in the Chocobo's Forest on an island west of Kaipo during The Gathering. Depending on the player's actions during the fights, it is possible Rydia may not relearn all her summons.

Permanently missable content
The Eidolon Chocobo can be missed if the player does not pick it up inside the Chocobo Forest during the Gathering's Tale: The Moon's Gravity. It is located on the island in the middle of the ocean between Troia and Kaipo.

Many Eidolons can be permanently missed if killed during their battles.

If Rydia has recovered Leviathan and Asura as summons, Bahamut will turn on the Mysterious Girl and destroy her before returning to Rydia, but if not, Bahamut must be slain and will not be available to be summoned.

Several items are only obtainable in Challenge Dungeons; once the final section of the game is started, anything that isn't imported from those is permanently lost.

Rydia's Challenge Dungeon


Rydia's Challenge Dungeon is a three floor cave. Many doors are actually Trap Doors, while several walls are Demon Walls and cause doorways or staircases to appear when defeated. The first two floors are mazes of doors, while the third floor consists of several platforms that are connected by ropes. On each platform only one of the ropes can be climbed safely, the other two trigger a scripted encounter. The dungeon is accessed by speaking to Challengingway in Agart. During some plays of the dungeon, certain doors will be locked. Though the player will always be able to reach the end, some side passages with treasure may be blocked off.