I was thinking. Once I have a game on either my emulator or Wii where I have maxed out my characters (like on the save on my original cartridge) I want to try a little challenge: finishing the game without getting the Hovercraft or Landrover. It is possible. The Landrover isn't needed at all. The Hovercraft is not needed to get any essential items (like the Prism or Nuts or getting to the Aircastle).
It will present several problems: Odin won't get the Mirror Shield. It should be considered giving the Laconia Shield to him and buy Alis a Laser Shield since he lacks natural defense. You should still be able to get the Laconia Axe, I have beaten Medusa without the Mirror Shield. It involves Rope, a some luck and a lot of swearing. Alis won't get the Laconia Sword and will be stuck with a Light Saber. You won't get the Gas Shield but since you won't get the Mirror Shield either you don't need to get Sofia. And it's possible without a Gas Shield, I did so on my very first game (I missed the Hovercraft for some reason and the fact that the weird things in dungeons could be disarmed by Myau).
The real challenge lies in the fact that, before you get access to the Luveno you must visit the church in Paseo and then never visit any church again. Without the Landrover or Hovercraft there's no way to Paseo once the Spaceport is closed. This also means you can't use Fly/Transer, EVER, since you will trap yourself in Paseo forever. And THAT is the challenge I think. Although of course by the time you can buy a Wand you can Bye from every battle. It will still make for an interesting game I think.
What do you guys think?
Like I mentioned, in my very first game, which took years and years and years (we had to rent the game at a video rental so there were some periods of play and long periods of not playing. Luckily hardly anyone else rented the game so my saves remained in effect until the rental store sold the game to me when they got rid of their 8-bit games) I hadn't figured out the essence of the weird things in the dungeons (pit traps), mainly because my English wasn't that proficient back then (I wasn't even in High School and we didn't have English in grammar school) and I had somehow managed to miss the hint for the Hovercraft (probably only chose one of the Yes/No options from the Casba guy while I normally ALWAYS explore all options). My characters had become level 30 wandering around Algol endlessly searching how to proceed. I lacked the Laconia Sword and Armor (behind a trap), the Mirror Shield and couldn't find Lassic's castle. So in my eyes it's possible to play the game without the Laconia Sword and the Mirror Shield, although I don't know how that will translate into the boss battle.