Grandjackal's Final Fantasy Games Voting

[grandjackal]

Christmas was quite generous to me, scoring me a PS3 and essentially $40 worth of virtual buying power. This is enough to net me the classic Playstation Final Fatnasies, and have them forever on a non-scratchable form that I also cannot possibly lose or misplace. It's good to have the 3 back after so long a time away from them. Yes, I even miss FF8. As much as I know I am going to hate doing a run on that, I do it for your entertainment. In fact, just to bear through FF8, I'll most likely be riffing the story as it goes, or pointing out my own little musings.

However, I find myself at an impass. I want to play all 3, but which do I play FIRST!? Help me decide, folks! Use your voting power to dictate which I play first, and I shall entertain as I can while being informative to how to efficiently play the game itself. Whichever comes in second place I'll do after completing whichever comes in first.

Hmm...Wonder if I can get Anthology, now that I think about it. Would get me Chrono Trigger AND FF6 to go with it all!

So anyways, to the rest of ya reading this, hope you're having happy holidays out there. I know I am.

[Integrity]

Do 9. We've already got Case doing a 7 run ...eventually.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

1. 9

2. 8.

3. Any other game

4. 7

[Life]

Zidane, Zidane, Zidane!

9 is possibly the best game in the series. Aside from the final dungeon which makes me want to punch a baby.

[grandjackal]

Very well then, it is settled! Since I'm probably lucky to get 7 votes total, and that at least one vote for 8 was volcal ALONG with the fact another playthrough of 7 is already in progress, this shall be the order I do it in!

9

8

7

I shall logs here as to not waste space with topic flooding. So, off we start with FF9!

So, we start with some nightmarish flashback with a princess, the harsh stormy waves rocking the boat of hers and whoever was with her. The flashback ends to realize she's a princess in a castle, and it's all cool. No horrific flashback is real. Gazng upon the land, town and skies of Alexandria, we are greated to the sight of hte airship Tauntulus, a merry band of thievesperformers. It is here we meet our entrepid hero Zidane, the mane with the tale. I enter upon a dark unlit room, wondering if I have a spare charge of Magic Missile. Luckily, Zidane's a good RPG player and brings out a match for light. I go to the center of the room to light the way, and someone shouts for my name. I easily reply Zidane. 3 bastards pop out of the room, Blank, Marcus and Cinna. Cinna's a weirdo, Blank's a dick, and Marcus is a bro. That is all.

Holy shit, fight!

Boss?: Dragon Masked Man

Well that was quck. This is about as easy as it gets, but do not be so hasty with this fight. Have everyone steal what they can, as this bastard has some real nice equipment to nab. Well, he's got a Potion and a Mage Masher to nab, but don't stop stealing untl you get that Mage Masher. It's delicious. After you get it, just wail away on him till you split the mask.

Meet Baku. He is an asshole. He leads you and the other 3 bastards in another room to explain their plan for tonight's show. We are to put on a show to get everyone distracted while the others make off with the princess, then we get the hell out. Simple plan. So with that out of the way, the airshp flies over town, where a small black mage catches sight of it flying overhead, filling him assuredly with amazement and wonder. Upon the gleam of the strange blade in the center of the castle, the title screen shows.

We now take control of the black mage, VIVI! La Vive! Bit of a clumsy derp, he is. But alas, there is rading to do! Go back a screen, search the lower left area to find a Zombie Card (don't worry, these might as well not exist). Search near the statue for a Potion. North of the statue is a Lizardman Card. It's at this point I start to pity a foo' who wants a 100% treasure pickup in this game. Upon one of the doors in hte square is a Sahagin Card. Go back to where you were and head to the right, entering the house and search the bed for 9 Gil. Check the table for a Potion. Climb up and search the dresser for a Fang Card. Head outside and directly left of the building you exit has a Potion. I try to continue on, and some punk rat runs into me! Dick. Keep going till you see a fruit stand, pick up another Potion. Jeez, these things grow on trees around here. I REALLY pity a person who has to 100% treasure this game. Whatever, continuing on. We see some nobles from Treno and they move on as they say.

In the bushes near the screen near where you came in is 33 Gil. On the opposite side of the screen is a Goblin Card. Enter the tavern and search around for some Gil and a Flan Card. Go to the next area and enter the item shop. You will find 38 Gil on the floor. Oh, and before I forget, equip the Wrist you just got to Vivi. Go to the next area, head right into the Weapon Shop (too bad he's closing up shop), find an Ether on the right side (Ethers are quite valuable in this game, because for the most part I remember Ethers being quite rare and having limited resource of it. You'll want every one you can get). Go across the street (No, no jumping rope), find the Inn where some lady red mage gets pissed and storms off. Wait...No, coming here was absolutely pointless. Go back to the ticket booth at the center, you get told the ticket you got's a fake. What horseshit. Who dares scam The Vivi!? The dude gives me a Fang, Goblin and Skeleton Card to help me feel better. I just wanna sock him in the face for that. I head north a bit, searching a wagon wheel, and...Wow! A Phoenix Pinion! Seriously! I have 2 for some reason. So I enter an alleyway, finding a signmaker who gets pissed at me, then walks away for his break. It's then the punk rat comes back to call Vivi a cracker, forcing him to be enslaved by the rat bastard. I say the coast is clear, and the rat makes off with the ladder. Follow him, but not closely as you want to enter a door to the left before the steeple to find some Eye Drops.

Search about the base floor of the steeple a bit for a Potion and a Tent. Attempt to climb the ladder to get hit in the face by a moogle. Rat takes the ladder, I save up (I don't want to have to go through all that again), and I continue on. Also, be sure to talk about Mognet. You can get some nifty prizes through it. So, we scale the rooftops, Vivi showing a fear of heights, of which comes to a point when a beam of wood falls under your feet and you barely just make the jump. While you're up on the roofs, search around for bird nests. You can net 29 Gil, 63 Gil, 92 Gil (I'm already stacked!), then continue on with Puck, the king of dicks. We blink, and suddenly it's nighttime here live at the Tantalus. We get here a brief look at our poor depressed princess, her loyal knight who starts the show with a wave of his sword, and EWW the queen! Some fireworks, some stage magic, we're treated to a genuinely fun show. Baku on stage looking hilarious, talking about the show tonight. Time for us to put on a show.

Lolfight: "King Leo and his servants"

Do not bother with "magic". Just KILL! Easy enough. They may take out Cinna, but screw him.

It's here we have a sexy swordfight (Not THAT kind of swordfight) with Blank, and I have to show off some fancy footwork. Put on a perfect show, they give you a TON of Gil. 865 to be precise (I'm not gonna bother with full 100). Money an issue? Nonsense!

So, backstage we go to kick some guard ass and steal some steel to properly disguise ourselves to kidnap the princess. Do remember to equip the Mage Masher, then head upstairs to find a white mage. Zidane takes the time to show what an incompetent fop he is, flirting with this random someone instead of going about his job. Zidane realizes that was Garnet before she ran off.

Then we meet Zorn and Thorn be annoying...You will learn to hate these two. They report to captain rusty and Beatrix the almighty about Garnet's disappearance and the queen demands they are found. Steiner attempts to summon the Knights of Pluto...and a grand total of 2 of them show up, the two that we knocked unconcious earlier. Go out to the grand hall with the queen's portrait, and wait for one of the 6 morons to come running about. You find Dojebon running the halls, and you tell him to get his stupid ass in gear. Head to the right side of the hall, find Mullenkedheim eating food like a slob, Steiner telling him to suck it up and get a move on. Go down the stairs and take the left side (nothing on the right side), find Laudo wondering if he should even be in the military, thinking of becoming an author instead. You tell him he can't leave because he just freaking joined! You start to pity Steiner, really. Head out the front gate and head left. Well, rather, head for the docks to find Haagen, having a meditative moment by the river. He seems a peave unfil you tell him that the princess is missing. Then he gets fired up, searching high and low for her like he's on fire. NOW head left to find Weimar hitting on one of the female guards (of which you notice is a majority of the guards. Apparently, women are the ones depended upon in Alexandria). Steiner tells him to cut it out and get to searching. Now thinking about it, head back to the guard post to find 2 more of the idiots (who were supposed to be searching already), telling them to move their asses. Go back and enter the tower, climbing up till you meet Breireicht marching up the tower as exercise. Valiant, but duty calls. Talk to him twice, and he asks if you have summoned all the guards. Since you have, he gives you an Elixer. Sweet! Thanks Beirbreich. Now finish your climb.

We see here a strange scene of Steiner being in the wrong tower at the wrong time, as his princess and some brigand are in a constant chase loop around the other tower top. It is here he takes a strand of festival flags to swing on over to save his princess, but she falls off! Steiner and Zidane both have a moment of brick shitting before they chase on after her. Steiner flies a bit off course as he slams right into a part of the airship, Zidane and Garnet landing on the band. You both run into Ruby, and Garnet makes her escape while Ruby gets all white trash on you. You shove the ho aside and run for Garnet, trapping her in the room you fought Baku n. To your surprise, she requests you steal her off, Zidane saying of course because his boner is unkillable. Cinna barges in to help you hdie as Steiner comes barging in. Steiner comes after you, but one of his knights offers to go first and blocks his way in a moment of epic failure...At least it would be, if that knight weren't Blank. Go down to the engine floor to find 2 chests on eithe rside of the engine, a Phoenix Pinion and a Phoenix Down. You try to move on, but Steiner cuts you off ina flash of craftiness.

Fight: Steiner

Steal! I wouldn't worry about Cinna if he goes down, he sucks anyways. Then Steiner in a fit of badassness pulls off some awesome wizardry and simply blows Blan's armor to pieces. Unfortunately, this also sets off the pacage of oglops, and all hell breaks loose as you have to go on stage at the wrong time. You rise up, Steiner bitchslapping Cinna aside (Not a hard task), and you're in for another Steiner fight. Unfortunately, during the climax, Vivi gets ran on stage by crazy pluto knights, Vivi busting out some dangerous magic. Unfortunately, the jig's up.

Fight: Steiner 2.0

Ok, not really. No stealing here. Just bash Steiner's peons away, and then mess him up fierce.

So, we take a hurried escape out, but the Queen will have none of it, demanding they fire a cannon at us. That, and Steiner is ust refusing to stay down. I like how they have spiked cannons exactly positioned for such an event.

Fight: Steiner 3.0+Bomb

Again, just wail away at him until the bomb goes kaboom.

So the bomb goes off, and we escape...Though not far. The bomb heavily damaged the ship, and we crash land in a forest of beasts and thorny doom. It's here we are introduced to Active Time Events, something I don't give a damn about, but can potentially lead to yummy prizes.

I'mma take a break here. Wow, 1656 Gil already.

[Life]

Fucking Meltigemini. That's all I'm going to say.

Aside from Memoria having more boss fights than fucking Kefka's Tower (which has Inferno, Guardian, Demon, Goddess and Fiend before Kefka), FF9 is incredible.

[grandjackal]

Moving on!

Evil Forest

Ahhh, my first fight with a goblin. Feels good. A bit annoyed I ran into 2 random encounters before the boss, but whatever.

Mini-Boss: Prison Cage

What helps is that Zidane's in trance mode, and has nothing else to burn the MP on. 2 Free Energies should make him run. Asa note tough, next time you won't have Trance. This thing will do a pattern normally of "suck HP out of my captive", which puts you against time, and then ttack with right and left stems. Warning: This thing is pretty fast. Kill it quick. Luckily, Vivi helps slow it down with a long magic animation along with helping kill it quicker.

You get 3 AP, 436 Gil, Eye Drops and a Goblin Card for your troubles.

So Steiner and Vivi get poisoned, you bring them back to Tantalus, you say you want out and Baku picks a fight with you because he's a raging dick. But first, some picking around. Next to Baku once you get control is a chest with Bronze Gloves for Steiner. Vivi's room contains an Ether and 116 Gil (up in the bunk bed). After pep-talking Vivi, he reminisces about the few seconds he was checking out Garnet. Sheesh man. As you head left, you will find a chest containing a Wrist, which is pretty useless by now, since everyone should have one. Continue on past Steiner's room, go down stairs and head north to find a Rubber Helm. Relax, this will come in handy. Baku's room has a Potion. Now, let's go kick us some...What the hell IS Baku anyways? Either way, he's about to feel the wrath of DAS BOOT!!

Mini-Boss: Baku

Baku's got 4 moves. 1. He trips, does nothing. 2. He charges, but stumbles into you for weak damage. 3. A competent slash, doing normal damage. 4. His leaping slash, which you could consider a critical hit. Now, he's got nice stuff to steal, but unfortunately you aren't infinitely stocked with healing items (which you may not want to waste during this fight). If you find yourself running low, simply don't risk it, or just don't bother stealing. He's got a Hi Potion and Iron Sword. 3 strikes after that should do him in, because that Mage Masher is bitchin'. Aren't you glad you stole it now?

Now, go get Steiner and Vivi. Now, we got a lot of equipment for Steiner. Equip him with the Bronze Gloves for now, and leave everything else as it is for now. He's got several awesome Slayer abilities (Beast/Bird/Bug), which is basically the entire forest. This allows him the ability to get away with the Broad Sword for now to work up Beast Killer. Also, Antibody never hurts. Upon recruiting Vivi, Steiner essentially gains Sorcerer/Mystic Knight powers when they're both on the same team. Vivi's got no new equipment, not that it'd really help. All he needs is FIYAH!!

So you leave, Blank giving you some guff and medicine, and now it's time to tackle the forest proper. I go through a rather starightforward path, leading to a spring and a mog. Keep going until you find what you came here for.

Boss: Plant Brain

Equip Steiner with the Rubber Helm and the Iron Sword for this fight. It will be important to keep your potion stock. Be sure to steal the Iron Helm from it. 5 AP, a Phoenix Down and a big sum of cash for your troubles. An annoying fight, but you should muster.

Equip Steiner back to his normal stuff so he can learn slayer stuff. Don't worry, won't hurt him a bit. So anyways, we run like mad, seeing the whole forest after us and turning to stone (for some reason). Blank gets caught by them, but before turning to stone he tosses the map your way (which has incredible bounce, all things considered). The forest turns to stone, and Blank is left frozen within...

So we camp out to catch our breath and recover, Steiner being a dick all the while. Afterwards we head south for the Ice Caverns, and catch our first glimpse of the overworld. It be a very misty place. Instead of south though, I head west for a gate. Mainly because treasure. Eye Drops and a Potion...Wasn't worth it. Head for the cave, as it's around the part of the mountain range sticking out.

Ice Caverns

First treasure chest requires you to ledge jump, and it nets you a Tent. Now as you move on, you will notice odd sheets of ice. You can have Vivi melt these away to net treasure, first of which is an Ether. Take a wrap-around path for a Potion.

Steiner mastered Bird Killer!

Garnet mastered Cure and Panacea!

Moving on, you start to see a network of paths. Take the north end for an easy treasure behind a wall, containing an Elixer. Moving south, there is a Potion on the cest belove, and being on a certain point allows you to melt the pillar of ice, allowing you another chest with a Mage Masher in it (Why don't you have it already!?).

Gahhhh, Cold Imp with flans. caught me with a back attack and essentially focused down Vivi. That sort of pissed me off. However, continuing on to the right we see a cest containing a phoenix down, and to the left a chest containing a Leather Wrist. This should be equipped to Vivi for Blizzard later. Once you hit a fork in the road, take the left path for a save point to use a Tent if you need to. Now, take the right path. The frigid wind proves too much as the team starts to pass out from the cold. Well it turns out this is from the act of a Black Waltz and it's Sealion...

Boss: Black Waltz No. 1 and Sealion

Yet another solo fight. Just wail away at the Waltz, then attempt to steal from the Lion, since I recall it having good stuff. The only thing worth stealing from the Black Waltz is a Silk Shirt, the Sealion has a Mythril Dagger. Once you get the shirt, just keep stealing from the Lion until you get it. Once you trance, it only takes 1 Tidal Flame to take out the Black Waltz. You really need trance power to take out Sealion, because it instantly sets him in the red, which means he can possible double-tsunami ot double blizzara you, and becomes astoundingly fast. You need to be astoundingly precise here. This fight is pretty annoying.

So, once you beat those punks there, it's time to save and take a breather.

[grandjackal]

It's a good sign when you put down a game, but then instantly pick it back up cause you just really love playing it.

So yeah, Garnet decides to change her name, not that I care, and I now have Bandit (The ever useful increasing success rate of Steal ability), and Steiner's near mastery of Antibody. Also, can't believe I missed this, but Silk Shirt gives Thunder. Probably should have had Vivi equip it a long time ago. Don't bother going to the gates to the east. I try to remember how the hell I find this certain friendly monster Mu, but then I decide I don't care because it's a lousy sidequest. I head for town.

Village of Dali

We start off by taking a well deserved rest. Not much raiding to actually do here. There's a chest at the inn and some interesting stuff at the windmill, but that's about it. However, the notable thing at the windmill is the Aries Stelazzio. After that, just try to progress through the story. I forget if you can shut off the windmill currently, or if that's way later. You eventually wonder where Vivi went and discover he went underground. Head for the windmill and open the bomb shelter door to the underground area, finding a chest with 156 Gil. In the steeple next to the chocobo stable is a Potion. Plenty o' chests around here, some requiring a bit of switches and navigation. Overall, you should get a Potion, an Ether, a Leather Wrist (we just bout a few...So if you're reading this and you're getting to this point, stock up on one less at the shop) and an Iron Helm (We have one already...), 95 Gil, a Phoenix Down, a Phoenix Pinion, another Potion, and then we see the end of hte assembly line...BLACK MAGES MASS PRODUCED! This deals a crippling blow to Vivi's psyche...and really, why wouldn't it? Either way, we get caught in a bit of bad luck and end up as cargo. Steiner on the other hand is too busy being a stoner and hanging out with Mr. Morris. When you're steiner, at the base of the hill, check the right side for 135 Gil. He then leaves Mr. Morris's fine establishment to head for the cargo ship. He tells us it's going to "Lindblum", and claims the old man told him as such. As he pointed in that direction though, it turns out that something wicked was coming from that very direction...

Boss: Black Waltz No. 2

Hitting him with magic tends to be disasterously ineffective. He doesn't start off bad, but it's when he starts whipping out Fira nukes that he gets dangerous. Make sure to steal the Leather Plate and Steepled Hate off him, as that is some mighty fine armor. Basically though, concentrate on having Garnet occasionally do a party heal while everyone else wails away. Do not use magic on him unless it's coming off Steiner's sword. He will simply counter you with a nuke of the same spell.

If you feel that took a bit out of you, go rest for a spell. Give the Steepled Hat to Vivi and the Leather Plate to Zidane. NOW board the ship. It's the skies for us! Though t seems there are those strange black mages maintaining the ship. Unfortunately though, someone comes by to disturb the FF9 rendition of Idiot Interrupted.

Boss: Black Waltz No. 3

Oh, he must be the badass of the three, and I have no healer! Superfuck!

Actually, not really. In fact, the guy's kind of a pushover, since he doesn't double attack like the 2nd one did. You can steel a Linen Ciurass off him, along with an extra Steepled Hat. It's kinda disappointing now.

So, now we have an epic airship chase with magic blasting, and is a fucking kickass scene. That explosion had to have made some front page headliners back in Lindblum.

Oh Lindblum. How I love thee. Adventure begins here, ladies and gents. It begins here. However, after all the scenes and such, I'mma take a nice little break for today.

Oh right. Let's not also forget FREYA!!

Edited December 26, 2010 by Amaterasu

[Life]

I can understand a love for Stella since we all know you love them furries but please don't share the same love for Freya.

I find Freya annoying when it comes to gameplay. She's great up when you lose her (Alexandria Palace after Zorn & Thorn) but her next appearance isn't until deep into Disk 3 and she's super underleveled without stuff like HP +10% to back it up. Kinda bothers me, actually, since I really like my Dragoons and Edgar and Mog were amazing at Jumping. Freya's meh even though she has some strong points in Disk 3 (Oeilvert).

[grandjackal]

I can understand a love for Stella since we all know you love them furries but please don't share the same love for Freya.

Can we please stop assuming I love all furry characters on the basis that they're furry? Even if we're going to keep assuming that, you do realize that Freya's a rat girl, right?

I find Freya annoying when it comes to gameplay. She's great up when you lose her (Alexandria Palace after Zorn & Thorn) but her next appearance isn't until deep into Disk 3 and she's super underleveled without stuff like HP +10% to back it up. Kinda bothers me, actually, since I really like my Dragoons and Edgar and Mog were amazing at Jumping. Freya's meh even though she has some strong points in Disk 3 (Oeilvert).

You have no dedication to the title of Dragoon then!

So, now it's time to look about Lindblum for all the magical power it has. This place is huge, so there will be a lot to explore. Don't go too far south of where you come out of the inn, or you'll end up out on the world map. Don't go to the building east of it quite yet, we got snooping and shopping to do while we're in this district. Keep going north till you're past the pickle lady and enter the church, climbing a ladder near a painting to find a Leather Plate. Go back a screen outside of the church and enter the house north of pickle lady to find 2 chests with an Echo Screen and a Hi Potion. Now head to the right. Enter the weapon shop to get some glass armlets and silver gauntlets, and another Linen Cuirass (since I forget if Freya comes pre-equipped with it). Go to the forges to synth up a Glass Buckle, some Desert Boots and The Ogre. Don't equip The Ogre quite yet though, you'll want Zidane to master Bandit. It'll make life easier. After you get all the forging you need done (a lot of this stuff teaches some good stuff as a note), continue to leave the district via the building I didn't quite enter earlier. Go to the Industrial District first, since we don't quite want to go to the Theatre District. Near the bar just a bit to it's right is a Bronze Vest! Sweet! There is absolutely 0 reason to keep the Leather Plate on, so slap that Bronze on! House just north of said bar has a Steepled Hat and a Mimic Card. That's all there is in the Industrial District, so go to the Theater District.

The house near the taxi dock has Ore in it. Check the bushes near said house for 127 Gil. I enter the place with the clock overhead (since downstairs has nothing but a pointless scene), finding hte Tantalus base filled with treasure. After a bit of a nap and deciding to go hit up the castle, I rob the base, finding 68 Gil, 282 Gil, 97 Gil, and a Mini-Burmecia. You find Steiner in Garnet's room having a panic attack since Garnet's not there, and he runs out. Time to raid! In this room is a prize of a Glass Armlet, an Ether, and Mogki to give a letter to. Mogki also asks you to deliver a letter to Mogki. After that, I head out to hear music, venturing it's coming from upstairs. I can't go upstirs because the guard tells me I have to be wearing one of their dickheaded uniforms to get in. So I find the sleeping man, fool him into the royal chambers and knock his ass out to nab me one. I go up to the top of the tower to see her singing with doves flying aroudn her. t ends triumphantly for no apparent reason. I guess Link was nearby and learned a new ocarina song. We take a look through a telescope and she asks for some sleeping weed you were going to use way back when to kidnap her. Now, time for the Festival of hte Hunt!

The rules are whoever gets the highest score of the hunt wins a fancy prize of your choice, so it's between me, vivi and Freya. Zidane wants Gil (OK), Vivi wants a card (BOOO!!), Freya wants an equippable (Yaaay!). So basically, make sure it's Freya who wins, and not Vivi. If Zidane wins, that's ok I guess. Start off at the theater district, and if you find Vivi, don't let him get kills. Ifyou find Freya, make sure to let her get all the kills. In fact, if you see Freya winning, just sit on your ass and wait for the timer to run out. I'm pretty sure once she gets the lead, she won't let it go. Only way to take the lead from her is to take the Zahgnol kill away from her. But if you're really hellbent on letting Zidane win, have Beastkiller and Birdkill equipped. You'll one shot anything you run into, and try to get to the Zhagnol fight, letting Zidane deal the finishing blow. I will not let you help Vivi though. No way in hell.

So after Freya murders the festival, you get a Coral Ring. Aren't you glad we let her win now? Coral Rings have a history of being awesome. However, during the ceremony where Freya is rewarded, a bleeding Burmecian soldier enters the regent's chambers, saying Burmecia was attacked and that basically it's screwed. Freya'sobviously not too happy about that, btu the fact is Burmecia was attacked by a force of mages wearing steeple-crowned hats. So, black mages...Alexandria attacked Burmecia it seems. Well, time ot teach them a lesson. No one fucks with dragoons. But first, a feast of the hunt to get us well fed and energized for the trip. We pass out though. Must be the stuff lke how turkey knocks your ass out. Oh wait, just sleeping weed I had given to the princess. Clever girl. So, she runs off with Steiner while we're out, and we gear up to head for Burmecia.

So, now we got Freya on our team. For some damned reason she places herself in the back row. Fix that. Looking at her equipment, she has a Rubber Helm, Bronze Gloves and a Linen Cuirass (Dammit! Shouldn't have bought an extra). Equip her with the Coral Ring and Silver Gauntlets along with an Iron Helm. What abilities do we have for her? Level Up (for anyone bitching about how she vanishes for too long), Cover (Just in case), Insomiac, Bright Eyes (Both great statuses to be immune to), Man Eater, Undead Killer, and Dragon Killer (something I recall that we're all gonna run into on our adventure). Equip Vivi with a Glass Buckle and one of your Cotton Robes, that way he can learn Thunder without keeping the worse Silk Shirt on, and a Glass Armlet for Antibody.

Time for a break.

[Life]

Can we please stop assuming I love all furry characters on the basis that they're furry? Even if we're going to keep assuming that, you do realize that Freya's a rat girl, right?

You have no dedication to the title of Dragoon then!

But it's funny! And no, I just don't support Dragoons that suck during parts of their game. Show me where Kain, Mog and Edgar suck and then I'll agree with you on this statement.

[Original Alear]

Show me where Kain, Mog and Edgar suck and then I'll agree with you on this statement.

Mog and Edgar aren't dragoons just because they use spears...

[grandjackal]

Ahhh, yes, the area outside Lindblum. Qu's Marsh and Chocobo Forest is here. Now, both these got mini-games and side quests that would be considered inefficient, but screw it. I'm going for it because I just miss this game so much. Besides, in a normal run, you'd at least want to catch all the frogs in the pond as it nets Quina a shiny new fork. Also, let's see all the treasures I can get. That, and I forgot to go to the docks before leaving. I pick up a card bleh, and that's it. Ok, no point going to the docks. Time to depart!

Vivi mastered Thunder!

Qu's Marsh

Just head straight up, talk to the weird thing trying to catch frogs, recruit Quina. Catch frogs, get the new fork, leave. Equip Quina with at least a Yellow Scarf and a Cotton Robe. It will have Millionaire, High Tide and Antibody. While you're in the swamp though, if you see pink lizards named Axols, have Quina eat one for Aqua Breath. One attack from Zidane should weaken them enough. As for when you're on the world map, make sure to eat a Serpion for Mighty Guard. Zidane+Fire. Eating an Ionite (2Dragonslayer attacks from Freya) gets you Angel Snack (Remedies on the whole team at once). For those of you who are wondering what the hell I mean by Eat, Eat is Quina's ability. Basically it finishes enemies off if they're at a weak enough state, and Quina can potentially learn an ability from them, depending on what monster they are. Quina's a Blue Mage.

Ahhh, Chocobo Forest. Been a while. You come here to get access to chocobos, get some nice items, but more importantly have a way to get fantastic treasures on the world map, along with a good form of transportation if you're not keen on enemy encounters (and why would you be?). Your first chocograph contains some Potions, Elixers, Ethers, and 2 Germinas Boots, so you can get some reletively easy stuff at first. Second chocograph has 5 Potions, 5 Hi-Potions, 2 Tents, and 2 Cotton Robes (So uch for synthing them...). I feel unhealthy doing this. No sane man takes this long for chocographs, but I find myself addicted. I ain't stopping till I find all the chocographs I can. Be back in 10 hours. Well...Seems like you can't get anything but the first two for the moment anyways.

Now, Gizamaluke's Grotto, right after having blown efficiency out of my ass from all that Chocographing.

Gizamaluke's Grotto

We come up to the sacred cave, finding the guards dead. Freya's pissed and goes charging in. Did I mention the music here is awesome? As a note, you need bells to open the doors here.

We enter the place proper when we see 3 mages corner a soldier and kill him, Zorn and Thorn hanging around and generally being douchebags. They sick 2 black mages on you, and fighting them is easy. Freya with Man Eater nearly does 300 damage to them. They even drop an Ether, which is cool. Careful though, they hit hard with their magic. Freya doesn't have to worry though, Thunder heals her, so she's at least resistant to 2/3 their arsenal. Thanks, Coral Ring.

Vivi mastered Antibody!

So after you kill the 2 mages, Zorn and Thron run off. Feel free to kill the spare Black Mage durfing around. Whoops, you sort of hav to because it holds a bell.

Zidane mastered Bandit and Beastkiller! Finally, now I can equip him with good stuff.

Now, you have an option of 3 doors it seems. The left door just takes you to the soldier, who gives you another bell. So, it's pointless. Take the center door, since I think you need a special bell for the right door.

Freya mastered Bright Eyes, Undead Killer and Man Eater!

Zidane mastered Bright Eyes! Quina mastered Antibody!

Entering hte center room, I find a bell has fallen, and a moogle is trying to get her husband out of it. But no fear! For the power of Vivi's Koopo Nut brings the husband to a hunger-filled hulk rage and lifts the bell off, and throws it aside! The bell has a...bell in it's treasure, and I ring for the door nearby to open. You meet the moogles here, so rest, save, all that jazz. The husband gives you a Holy Bell to continue onward. But before you go, on the winding way to the bell room, under the small bridge is a Magus Hat. It has Slow, of which is about to be ridiculously important. Also, be careful of a Lamia back attack. Lamias are fast and have Might, along with the fact it puts everyone in the position they don't want to be in. Ring the last door with the Holy Bell and move on.

I find myself in a water chamber, and Freya tends to a dying soldier who says Gizamaluke has gone mad. Not good...

Boss: Gizamaluke

One of the harder fights out there. First off, Soul Blade to Blind it (The Ogre is mandatory here for when he starts double attacking). Have Vivi cast Slow then Focus magic, Freya attack (Attacking does 200, Jump does 280 on top of waiting. Only use Jump defensively here), and just have Quina throw potions and act as the healer. If you managed to eat a Lamia, cast Might on Zidane and Freya when you have the chance. As for what he has to steal, Magus Hat, Elixer and an Ice Staff. You'll want the Ice Staff for sure. Actually, Focus Thunder along with Zidane and Freya attacking constantly while it's Slow and Blind...Makes it far easier than I remember. Focus is so awesome in helping deal a finishing blow, but doing Focus-magic-focus-magic is generally a bad idea. More focuses over time deals significantly more damage. I never realized how flexible Vivi's damage output in a boss fight was. Shows how much I know. The fight was literally (Slow, Freya Attack, Steal 5 times (2 failures on Ice Staff), Quina Heal with Potions, then Vivi casts Thunderand just blows the damn thing to pieces).

5 AP lets Freya master Insomniac and Cover, along with 1200 Gil and a Tent.

After some worrying for Burmecia, we return to South Gate with Steiner and the Princess. After a bit of talking and such, go to the equip menu and slap a Linen Cuirass on Steiner (He most likely hasn't mastered his slayer abilities yet), give Garnet a Cotton Robe and Germinas Boots for Chemist, Shell and Scan. To the left is a Potion and a moogle who wants me to deliver a letter to Nazna. I take a sit on a seat on the uhh...mountain climbing rig. Then, some talk about the queen and Zidane and yadda yadda, then we return to this episode of Frey is Pissed, co-starring Zidane and friends. We leave Gizamaluke's Hellhole, and to the right is a gate, so I want to visit it to see what big nothing's going on there. Also, for some reason, Vivi and Freya switched places for no reason. Well, there are two chests here, one containing a Tent, and the other a Hi Potion...So, not a total nothing. I then enter Burmecia, which is certainly wrecked.

Near the tipped over cart is the Cancer Stelazzio. Next screen, we see those damned jesters agan, and they sick black mages on us once more. When they say KILL, I always imagine it in the Urien voice from Third Strike. Also, Vivi can attack them physically for a decent around 100 damage. This ensures that he+Freya=Human enemy dead.

Zidane mastered Jelly!

House to the right has a Potion and a Soft. Basilisks can be annoying, but easily dealt with. Zidane can OHKO them, and Freya with the others can kill one. Teams of 3, you should never worry about anyone getting petrified. Go to the house to the right, climb up the stairs to find a chest-DAMMIT a Mimic! It calls in a Magic Vice. Don't worry about the Mimic, Zidane just OHKOs it. Have Freya hit the Magic Vice, then have Quina eat it to learn the everuseful Magic Hammer!

Vivi mastered Slow! Freya mastered Level Up! Got 2 Phoenix Downs and an Ether too. Also, you are free to equip Freya with Bronze Gloves, if just for Antibody. 15 AP isn't that hard, and all you lose is some pointless evasion. I'll take the immunity to poison, thank you. Keep going, then you hit a bridge that falls. Do not worry about the chest. I know all you need to do is walk, but all it contained was some Germinas Boots I already have, not to mention they're crappy equips compared to the Glass Buckle. Alert is fine and dandy, but I'll live...Well ok, I remove the Coral Ring for now (Thunder's not a problem here, I'd rather have the +Str and putting AP into HP+10% (not helpful at the moment, but better to learn it now than later). Go back to the left house, take the new bridge and DAMMIT another Mimic! Oh well, should be just as easy as the last. Anyways, going through the door, umping the balcony, find a soldier who tells me to take the bell and go protect the king, of which I will use on a door I passed by at the right house. It's around this point that Freya starts to get a level lead with Level Up. Also, Ether hidden behind the shelves.

I ring the final doorbell (HA!), and we find stairs leading to the royal palace, Freya troubled to see it in ruins. We worry about the state of things, along with Vivi's confusion only to find a soldier and his wife fleeing with his kids, but prepared to fuck you up if it means getting out of their way of escape. The soldier Dan recognizes Freya and calms his aggression (Good thing. If these guys lost to Alexandria of whom I am kicking their royal ass quite easily, then Dan here should be no problem.). We go in to see an injured soldier Kal and some girl named Wei trying to convince him not to die here. We rescue him before a statue falls on him, and a fellow soldier Grey comes in to be of aid. Head upstairs, run over the statue to find 2 chests containing a Tent and a Phoenix Down. The chest around the bend is a Mimic though. Vivi is immune to Eat. Wtf. Anyways, I exit through the nearby door and find myself before a grand palace with two doors to my left and right along with a set of stairs forward. To the left is a new Mythril Spear for Freya (I just saw another reference with Freya. Left handed dragoon...). You probably haven't mastered Dragonkiller yet with the Javelin, but Rei's Wind is gonna be too important in a few seconds. Make sure you have it equipped before taking the stairs. Going to the right door, I find a chest containing a Lightning Staff for Thundara. Nice, but I don't qutie have Blizzara mastered (By not quite, I mean 33 AP). It's also got Poison, which is a useless spell. Stilskin will sell a Soft, Hi Potion and Ether for 333 Gil, which is a steal when you consider the Ether. I talk to Atla, delivering a letter, resting up and saving. Also, Mogshop. By a spare Glass Armlet for Garnet later, a Needle Fork for Quina, 2 Pairs of Mythril Gloves (1 for Steiner), 2 Barbuts (Oh hey, Dragonkiller! Drop the Javelin), and you'll be good. Also, Freya by now should now have enough crystals to equip either Insomniac (Sleep's not a problem at the moment), or HP+10% (gonna be more helpful at the moment, giving her an extra 50 HP), along with some random slayer ability.

As you enter the palace by unconventional means, you look down to see the Queen and Beatrix discussing battle plans with their "arms dealer" named Kuja (DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUN!!), gufawing about how the black mages helped them steamroll over Burmecia (what pathetic soldiers Burmecia had. Where the hell were their dragoons? Oh right, one ran off and possibly died, while the other got drunk while spiraling into a deep depression). They speak of how they're going to go after Cleyra next, but have no way of piercing their sandstorm. Kuja however, has something up the frilly sleeve of his half-shirt (if it even can be called that. It's more like leggings, except for your arms). They see a soldier come in, thinking he can throw down against Kuja and Beatrix, and we jump in to save his doomed ass. The soldier realizes it's the famous Beatrix, and runs away, thanking us for saving what should be his doomed ass. You get off lucky for now, since I know what your future has in hold for you, you unfortunate bastard.

Oh wait, now we're in front of Beatrix and Kuja...Whoops.

Boss: Beatrix

STAY ALIVE! That's all you have to do. Steal, Slow, Rei's Wind, and just keep yourself alive! This battle is one you cannot win in the end. But first, you want those stealables. But of course, she just HAS to Shock the everloving hell out of Zidane! I could only get away with stealing a Phoenix Down. What crock, I was robbed!

We are crushed in the rain under Beatrix's boot, Kuja has one last laugh over our wasted bodies before simply flying off on his Silver Dragon. Thus ends Disk 1.

Making a seperate save just in case I missed something big off Beatrix. I'll take a breather here.

[Life]

Mog and Edgar aren't dragoons just because they use spears...

Come on. How else do Mog and Edgar kill stuff late in WoR? Tools? Dance? No, they do it by equipping a Holy Lance, Dragoon Boots and Dragon Horn for pretty damn nice damage along with a chance of casting Holy after the jumps.

[Narga_Rocks]

That depends on how much you are using Cactrots/The Veldt for magic learning. Everyone pretty much becomes mages that refuel with Osmose if you go for training. I've never tried to play ff6 like I do ff5 so I don't know how well anyone does if you never grind for magic (I no longer grind for exp or AP in ff5). I suspect that Edgar and Mog are bench-warmers in WoR, though, rather than dragoons.

[Life]

That depends on how much you are using Cactrots/The Veldt for magic learning. Everyone pretty much becomes mages that refuel with Osmose if you go for training. I've never tried to play ff6 like I do ff5 so I don't know how well anyone does if you never grind for magic (I no longer grind for exp or AP in ff5). I suspect that Edgar and Mog are bench-warmers in WoR, though, rather than dragoons.

Edgar and Mog? Benchwarmers in WoR? What are you smoking, Narga?

Cyan - Go directly to the Bench, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Useless fuck...

Gau - If you have patience, he's a tank. If you don't like the Veldt (he also came back 10 levels underleveled so WTF was that shit), he's also on the bench.

Locke - Last guy that you recruit most of the time and only useful for Valiant Knife and Steal. Valiant Knife is awesome though.

Umaro - Uncontrollable and does good damage (2000+ most of the time).

Gogo - Mimic. He does everything everyone else does but just weaker.

Setzer - Ok, I won't lie. I recruit Mog ASAP, grab the Molulu's Charm and raid Kefka's Tower for the Fixed Dice ASAP. It's nice seeing 9999 early in WoR although it ain't consistent.

Sabin - Eh... Phantom Rush?

Shadow - Fuma Shurikens cost 500 a shot. That's 49500 for a full stock. Throw on Scrolls and the guy costs a lot but he does clean house too so all is forgiven. No esper time though (doesn't need it but it would nice if he knew stuff like Stop before WoR).

Terra - Goddess.

Celes - Goddess. With Runic.

Relm - Well, when I fought Kefka, I started Relm, Setzer, Edgar and Sabin off on the bottom tier. And Relm and Edgar both made it to Kefka while Shadow and Terra had to take Sabin's and Setzer's places. Then again, Shadow and Terra were sitting in spots 5 and 6, mind you. And Edgar was up in the air for most each battle. So... goddess.

Strago - Grand Delta and Osmose but you're useless aside from those (actually, White Wind goes through Reflect so that could have been useful in Cultist's Tower).

That's the 12 other characters. Edgar is basically there from the start and all you need to do to equip him properly is go to the Collesium and bet a Ward Bangle for a Dragon Horn. And the Masamune (either Masamune or Muramasa) can eventually turn into a Holy Lance. So basically, we have Dragoon Edgar as early as Darill's Tomb. That's quite awesome.

[grandjackal]

Moving on to disk 2!

We open up at South Gate, and I know exactly what's gonna happen. Marcus shows up, we equip stuff, we get into a fight. I equip Garnet with a Glass Armlet and keep her accessory while I give Steiner the Mythril Gloves (for Man Eater), and some Germinas Boots (HP+10%). I equip them both (just barely enough crystal power), and let Garnet equip Antibody. Deliver a letter to the moogle to get a Kupo Nut, then ride the departing car.

Boss: Wrecked Black Waltz No. 3

How the fuck are you not dead!?

This guy's not dangerous in the slightest. As for his steals, he's got a Lightning Staff (useless), a Steepled Hat (Outdated), and a Flame Staff (HELLO!). The Flame Staff will be a bit troublesome, but this fight is so easy it's worth it. Just wail on it. You can't lose this fight.

Steiner mastered Bug Killer!

So, now it's time to depart for Treno. Don't forget the chest with 1610 Gil! Jeez game, do I really need MORE money!? Oh hello, a friendly ghost! He asks for Ore, I give him someand he tells me to send my best regards to Ladybug. I then see he gives me 10 AP, and now I have a reason to keep an eye out for these things. 10 AP is HUGE!. Garnet Mastered Antibody and Chemist! Steiner mastered Beast Killer! Now I can finally equip the Iron Sword! Lulz. I unequip Antibody and HP+10% for now, because if I meet a random encounter, I'd like for Steiner to get what levels he can, due to his lack of availability. Before stopping by Treno though, I stop by a cave to the side...

Quan Cave

We come here merely for the Ether, another Ether, the Scorpio Stelazzio (for those keeping track, that's 3 so far), and a third Ether. As a note, the liquid at the bottom of the cave heals you, so take a sip before heading back for Treno.

Steiner mastered Man Eater, Cover, and HP+10%! Man, already? Thank you, friendly ghost!

Treno

First thing you should do here is donate some coins to the nearby fountain 13 times to get the Gemini Stelazzio. In fact, there's not only a lot of Stelazzios in Treno, this is where you go to hand them in for prizes! Also, dequip some slayer abilities (I think you'll want either Undeadkiller or Bug Killer still equipped) for Antibody, it'll involve a boss fight soon. Next Stelazzio, Taurus, is somewhere behind the item shop to the right. This should put you up to 5. Now, let's go hand these to the queen Stella first before anything. For Scorpio she gives 1000 Gil. For Cancer, she gives a Phoenix Pinion. For Gemini she gives 2000 Gil. For Taurus she gives the Blood Sword. Finally, for Aries she gives 5000 Hil. So yeah, we're rich now. The Blood Sword is also a great weapon to get, and for those of you who don't know, the Blood Sword recovers damage dealt. Problem is, if he has it equipped and you're fighting hte undead, Steiner's pretty much useless. Visit the Knight's House to stock up on weapons. I wouldn't worry about the beast down there, it's pretty much impossible to beat at the moment because 1 Aera is your doom. Well actually...Lessee...Equip the Bronze Armor, Blood Sword, and make sure you have HP+10% equipped along with Birdkiller. Then, just attack attack attack. 3 attakcs should do it. You actually can't lose that fight. Coolio. Too bad the prize is just a Tonberry Card. When you buy your armor, make sure to buy for the whole team rather than just Garnet and Steiner. Marcus can burn in hell. As for between Armor Break and the Blood Sword, I'd opt for Armor Break now, because reducing armor can make up for the might loss, and is not ineffective vs Undead. We'll pick up the Blood Sword once we got Armor Break mastered, but leave it for now. Don't bother with the Air Racket I suppose. Buy it if you want Garnet to have "attack" from the back row, but otherwise Life takes far more priority. Don't bother with the auction, nothing good's happening there at the moment.

Go to the place you saw Marcus go, partake in that whole scene and such. You're told to go visit Dr. Tot's, so go do that. You get the supersoft, he shows you a secret passage to Alexandria, and we run into some weird damned snake thing. Also, there's a spare Chain Plate and Phoenix Down here, so might as well equip Marcus with the spare Plate.

Garnet mastered Scan and Shell!

Boss: Ravulahva

Devil's Kiss is annoying, because it hits pretty hard and poisons, and Marcus is a complete pussy. It also has Blizzara for some damned reason. It doesn't help this thing absolutely HATES Marcus. After enough of a beating, it will run away. Only managed to pilfer a Bone Wrist. What a gyp. As a note, Steiner after Armor Breaking is doing up t 550 damage to this thing, to give you an idea on how good Armor Break is.

Then we reach Alexandria and get captured by the jesters. We get trolled a bit before returning back to Freya, I mean Zidane. We get the idea to head west to help Cleyra in case of a pending attack. Cleyra's hard to miss. I'll give you a hint: It's the giant goddamned sand tornado just a bit west of Burmecia. The Chain Plate gives Zidane Devil Killer. This won't come in handy any time soon, but why not? He's pretty much got no other skills to invest in currently. Your mages appreciate the Insomniac. Freya, as usual, has a lot of ground to cover with her slayer abilities, and might have to downgrade to catch up on some (only notable one is Bronze Helm for Bug Killer, thanks Chain Mail for being awesome with Bird Killer AND HP+10% with best defenses). But before Cleyra, I notice a path behind hte mountains in the back with a beach, and I see chocobo tracks! I recognize the mountains now, and I have the chocobo peck about for the chocograph treasure. And I get...SMOG!! Gahh...Ya got me..Muddafuckas...Just kidding, it's just a heavy dose of ether that causes the chocobo to fly off into space to a small planet with a castle, dancing chocobos, and a fat king chocobo who makes Choco turn light blue. So we wake up, and Choco can cross shallow rivers now, yaaaaay! Too bad we can't quite do anything with it currently. So, head for Cleyra.

Cleyra Treetrunk

I hate this dungeon. It's not hard, just annoying and dull. Combining the fun of crossing a desert and climbing a tree with the color brown and frankly boring music. First chest contains a Phoenix Down. Rather straightforward path (when you choose between a path and climbing vines, take hte path first. The vines currently lead to a dead end). Next contains an item I missed that I felt was of no consequence, and I check a hole by sticking my hand in it like I'm Tyr. Sand starts to fill the room below, so NOW I take the vines. In said room in the lower left corner are some Magician Shoes! Clear Headed is always excellent, and unfortunately everyone can learn from hte Magician Shoes. I say unfortunately, because it means competition, and NO ONE likes confusion. Confusion removes my big source of magic damage, or it makes a random person do damage to my own team (like Zidane, who hits like a truck). All I know is the last person I care is confused is Quina, and the extra magic best benefits Vivi. I want my master exploder not nuking my own team when confused. Next chest in the path is right in front of you, a Needle Fork. Why do I need 2? Guess I'll keep it in case of Synthing. Then we got a Tent. Climbing up still, if you ever meet pale dragonflies, nuke Blizarra. Fighting them physically is hopeless, and you got the power to spare. The nuke should OHKO the whole group of them.

Freya mastered Antibody! Now to equip the Mythril Gloves to learn Bug Killer (Oh, guess I don't need the Bronze Helm then). Zidane mastered Steal Gil!

Next chest is a bit off the path, but it holds a FlameStaff (So that was a lot of time wasted on the wrecked black waltz...). You'll eventually come to a fork with 3 paths, to the right path is a Remedy. The right path is fake and leads to the center path.

Freya mastered HP+10%!

Ther eis a hidden chest in an alcove to the center path containing a Mythril Vest. It gives teh ability Auto-Potion, which is an excellent ability, but while it gives +2 Def over the Chain Plate, it's 1 less strength. I'm not quite done with Devil Killer yet anyways, so I'll wait till that's mastered. Also, when you fight Sand Golems, knock out hte Golem first before you attack the core, or else it counters for about 100 damage. Also, remember to heal Trouble. Counter+Trouble is one big owie.

There's also Desert Boots hidden behind a root-pillar. Take the left path first though. Eating a Carrion Worm gets you Auto-Life (WOW, really!?). Take the center path first. I move to pull a lever, then I wrap around to the left path.

Zidane mastered Undead Killer! Now to equip a Headband for Man Eater and Insomniac.

Whip around hte left path, climb up the hill for an otherwise inacccessable chest had I not pulled the lever for an Elixer! Going back and going right back on the normal path. Ahhh, the sand whirlpools. These have always been an annoyance for me because of how narrow the paths are. First chest contains a Hi Potion. Second contains 900 Gil. So I manage past that, and I am now on the side so that I might run into Zuuz out here. If you encounter a Zuu, just use Blizarra once, then eat it. You get White Wind! Now Quina is definitely a more bonna-fied healer!

Vivi learns Clearheaded! Freya learns Dragonkiller! Vivi mastered Insomniac!

I give the Magicians Shoes to Freya (for some reason, she can learn MP+10%). I climb the ladder, and I finally reach Cleyra, a very serene looking tree town with sand. Quite a unique town to say the least, but I still find it boring.

Cleyra

Near the odd looking cone before going up into town is a Phoenix Pinion. Stairs down from the shop to the right is some hidden Ore. Err wait, no, the Inn. This place doesn't have a shop. Oh well, the Inn has an Ether and more Ore. There is still once again nothing. *Sees the cutscene with Dan the soldier confronting Vivi, sees that he thinks Vivi killed his father* OYAJIIIIIII!!!

Gaaaaaawd, there's NOTHING TO DO HERE! There is one last valuable thing at the palace though, where you need to go to get Freya's message. By the doorpost, there is a Yellow Scarf. Nifty way to get Zidane Bird Killer. You head for the inn, but then you're told some beast has some kid! The Cleyrans don't give a shit, so Dan tells you to get your ass in gear to help out. So yeah, let's kick some ass!

Boss: Antlion

It has a Mythril Vest and an Annointment, but most importantly it has the Gold Helm. Man, Bandit makes stealing so hassle free. Also, important for Zidane to have Bright Eyes on, along with Freya. Slow and Rei's Wind is great here, along with White Wind (gets you out of the Sandstorm damage quick if you hi potion Quina right after). Careful though, Counter Horn is annoying. Blizzara is excellent here, as is Jump.

So now we rescue Puck, and we dance. *Goes to make a sandwich* And we're back, and all hell's broken loose! So much for dancing! Seriously, I'm glad Cleyra gets nuked to hell. The sandstorm subsides for the first time in a long time, being absorbed into a photoshop flare, leaving the tree vulnerable to an attack from the...badass?...Alexandrian army. Apparently the sandstorm subsides when someone tries to invade...That is the most useless barrier to ward off foes I have ever heard of. Cleyra had this shit coming in my opinion.

We then switch over to Steiner and Marcus cursing their fates, and Garnet contemplating what's going on. Zorn and Thorn come in to take her to the queen. Garnet demands an answer for Burmecia, and the queen replies that it was taking initiative as the Burmecians were plotting to take Alexandria (Then why just defend? With these weapons, there's no way in hell they'd have even come close to doing any damage). I opt not to believe that pathetic lie, and Kuja comes in to be evil, knocking her out with some ether. Zorn and Thorn then prepare a ritual to extract her Eidolons.

We return to Freya, and we have control of her. Don't equip the Gold Helm. It bestows some magic defense, but you should be fine. You're already learning Rei's Wind and Clear Headed, so just let Steiner have it for when it cuts back to him. Head to the palace and talk to the pope there to get an Emerald. This bestows White Draw, an ability that gives MP to the rest of your team at the cost of 36 of her own...Ok, equip the Gold Helm on her then, because she can still learn MP+10% off the Emerald, and this speeds up how quick you learn Rei's Wind. It should also be noted that it can help someone learn Haste. BUT, Garnet will not be awake for a long time, and we will not have another white mage for a good amount of time. It's best that Freya gets what she can out of it now. We join back up to go down the trunk to find Puck, and see if there's an invasion impending (why not ust set the damn tree on fire? What're they gonna do about it?). Alexandrian soldiers! And not the Black Mages, some of their lady soldiers. They hit decently and have Blizzara, but shouldn't pose a threat. Freya and Zidane can OHKO them.

Freya mastered Bug Killer!

Go down the trunk to fight a gauntlet of such soldiers till you find Puck.

Vivi mastered Blizzara! Freya mastered Bird Killer! I equip Vivi with the Lightning Staff next, since I don't care about status magic, and I recall Thunder being useful in the near future.

Wait, I just realized that Quina can petrify stuff with her fork using Add Status! Man, how did I miss that...Well, certainly fixing that! Anyways, we find Puck who had come back from up top to tell us they're attacking from the air. JUST SET THE DAMN TREE ON FIRE! Don't attack where they are most prepared for you! Jeez, guys!

So we go back up, and we see the black mages teleporting in from the sky and generally killing everything in sight. You are to save them while going through a gauntlet of soldiers and mages. Now the order is to tell them to go Right, then Left, then Right again, then say We're Not Safe Yet. I learned the Left portion the hard way, having gotten a mother killed on accident. I saved 2 priests, 2 dancers and 2 kids so it wasn't a total massacre. We get to the cathedral, but we get surrounded. However, before we all get set on fire, Sir Fratley comes to our aid! He expertly jumps about to kill the three in a flash. He tells us to run, and we don't waste the opportunity for the badass.

Freya and him reunite, but it seems he has completely forgotten about her. In fact, he's forgotten about the king, and everything. Only reason he came here was because Puck told him of hte trouble here, and he just felt like helping. He can't even remember who he is! Why the memory loss, man? He only remembers that he was a dragon knight once, and he jumps off like Batman. Freya doesn't follow, simply glad to know he's still alive, despite not remembering anything about his past. Perhaps she feels a great weight was lifted of her shoulders. Then, Beatrix comes in, takes the crystal and steals it away! 'm sorry, but WHO THE FUCK LET HER IN!? How did we miss her!? She just waltzed on in and completed the mission by herself! God, Cleyra must BURN for this! Talk to the people you saved before you go to fight Beatrix.

Now to fight Beatrix...After I take a nap and save.

Boss: Beatrix, Fight 2

So, just stay alive again and steal what you can. Rei's Wind, Slow, and now White Wind and Mighty Guard are here to help. However, I cast Auto-Life on Zidane, because I don't want him getting shocked to hell again. Got a Phoenix Down and some Thunder Gloves, but was unable to manage to get what the third item was. Eh...Thunder Gloves is A-OK by me.

She nukes us again and just walks off. The black mages start to warp out, and we hitch a ride with them. Well, all but Quina does, Quina just decides to get the fuck out of there. We then see Odin be fucking badass and throws the almighty Gungnir to blow the fucking treehouse to ashes, leaving a mushroom cloud in his wake. Cleyra got destroyed hardcore. Zidane's pissed, Vivi's scarred for life, and Freya is driven to serious drinking problems over it. We overhear Beatrix being pissed about how overreactive that summon was, pissed that she and her soldiers are slowly being replaced by magic and summons, seeing as how she and her soldiers were enough to take Cleyra. They didn't HAVE to destroy it after all. The queen doesn't even thank her for her services for getting hte jewel. She even mentions having Garnet executed for "committing a crime", her own freaking daughter! Needless to say, no sympathy can be felt for this awful bitch. So yeah, after realizing that, we decide to take a teleport pod over to Alexandria to stage a rescue mission.

Meanwhile, Steiner and Marcus are reenacting One Who Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest, and I swing my way out of our imprisonment. After that, kill Marcus and simply have Steiner go rambo. This way, he gets all the EXP and benefits the most off of Level Up. With Man Eater equipped, he should OHKO even with the Mythril Sword. As we escape the prison, we see Zidane and co. warp in to Steiner's shock, who comes to help in order to save the princess. Go to where you first met Garnet, and go to the opposite door, go straight ahead to the throne room and fiddle with the weird candles. Navigate your way down till you find Zorn and Thorn. You'll have plenty of time, and you can get an Ice Brand and a Tent.

Boss: Zorn and Thorn

Basically, just wail away, and if one starts bouncing, HIT THEM! Steal what you can though, they got crazy good stuff. Zorn's got a Partisan and a Stardust Rod, and Thorn's got a Mythril Armlet and Mythril Armor. If you beat one, you beat both. This fight is ridiculously easy. If you run out of time doing this, you suck.

Give the Mythril Armlet to Zidane, the Armor to Steiner, and the Partisan to Freya. Obviously nothing to be gained from the Stardust Rod quite yet. So, we get Garnet and continue on our adventure. A moogle shows up, and I save. Time for a break.

[Narga_Rocks]

Edgar and Mog? Benchwarmers in WoR? What are you smoking, Narga?

Cyan - Go directly to the Bench, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Useless fuck...

Gau - If you have patience, he's a tank. If you don't like the Veldt (he also came back 10 levels underleveled so WTF was that shit), he's also on the bench.

Locke - Last guy that you recruit most of the time and only useful for Valiant Knife and Steal. Valiant Knife is awesome though.

Umaro - Uncontrollable and does good damage (2000+ most of the time).

Gogo - Mimic. He does everything everyone else does but just weaker.

Setzer - Ok, I won't lie. I recruit Mog ASAP, grab the Molulu's Charm and raid Kefka's Tower for the Fixed Dice ASAP. It's nice seeing 9999 early in WoR although it ain't consistent.

Sabin - Eh... Phantom Rush?

Shadow - Fuma Shurikens cost 500 a shot. That's 49500 for a full stock. Throw on Scrolls and the guy costs a lot but he does clean house too so all is forgiven. No esper time though (doesn't need it but it would nice if he knew stuff like Stop before WoR).

Terra - Goddess.

Celes - Goddess. With Runic.

Relm - Well, when I fought Kefka, I started Relm, Setzer, Edgar and Sabin off on the bottom tier. And Relm and Edgar both made it to Kefka while Shadow and Terra had to take Sabin's and Setzer's places. Then again, Shadow and Terra were sitting in spots 5 and 6, mind you. And Edgar was up in the air for most each battle. So... goddess.

Strago - Grand Delta and Osmose but you're useless aside from those (actually, White Wind goes through Reflect so that could have been useful in Cultist's Tower).

That's the 12 other characters. Edgar is basically there from the start and all you need to do to equip him properly is go to the Collesium and bet a Ward Bangle for a Dragon Horn. And the Masamune (either Masamune or Muramasa) can eventually turn into a Holy Lance. So basically, we have Dragoon Edgar as early as Darill's Tomb. That's quite awesome.

eh. I only really fight bosses most of the time. And if I'm trying to fill the monster thing in ff6a I'll make sure to fight everything once (Or trying to steal enough suits in Owzer's Mansion to go to the Coliseum and get one of everything from that chain). Dragon Horn Edgar will do less damage than Terra/Celes/Relm hitting weaknesses with aga spells or Sabin with bum rush, so I figure why bother? Maybe on some bosses that don't have an easily exploitable weakness, but I don't see what it matters. Besides, sure, he can be a dragoon. But so can people that don't use Lances. They don't do quite as much damage, but it's not a unique ability. 1.5x per hit instead of 2x per hit (not sure if that works with Valiant Knife or not). I wouldn't be surprised if Valiant Knife Locke can do more damage than Edgar or Mog. Particularly if you let him get smacked around a little first.

Also, I recruit Locke pretty early. Just need Moogle Charm and a good group of 4. No problem. Celes, Terra, Edgar, Setzer, Mog, Gau are usually my first 6 (5 of them are either automatic or really really easy, the other one has amazing utility), and Locke is 7th if I don't feel like trudging down to get Umaro immediately. Want as much time to learn Ultima as possible, and life3, and having a faster fire3 than Tritoch. Why don't you get him early? Also, who else will steal all those pretty suits while we are getting Relm? Or whatever else.

Also, Shadow doesn't have much in the way of cost if you aren't fighting every single encounter along the way. Been so long I can't remember if his Fuma Shurikens will out-damage a two-jump Edgar or tie a three-jump Edgar.

I forget, does Dragon Horn always hit the same enemy or does it randomize targets? Anyway, I'm pretty sure Bum Rush will damage more than a 2 jump Edgar, which is the most common result from Dragon Horn. 75%. And of course there's the boss thing where Bum Rush is concerned. To be a bench warmer, he doesn't need to be 11th or something, just 5th if I'm actually spending time grinding rather than revolving the party in an attempt to be able to beat Kefka's tower without grinding or warping out and facing the tower 3 times to get the best party to fight all the bosses. If he's 5th then all he'd be used for is getting grinded and maybe helping my second best party get through Kefka's tower. If he's 7th then I won't even need him to fight in Kefka's tower, and he might just be 7th. You only need 3 good units to easily beat the bosses and then another 2 or 3 good units to get the second party through kefka's tower and then the Mog party to get the third group through. Warping lets you use your 3 best units (or 4 best if you have enough good units) on all the bosses anyway.

If I were to try to never grind and never retrace steps if it is avoidable, I'd probably need to have a rotation for building levels while trudging through the various dungeons fighting everything so that all 3 groups would be able to defeat the bosses each route encounters, so then Edgar would not be a bench warmer since he and Mog would likely not be 13th and 14th. Umaro alone guarantees that. If he did Bum Rush level-damage I maybe wouldn't mind his frailty and uncontrollability, but he doesn't do that reliably. I say frailty since you can't ever give him more than the snow muffler so he's stuck with limited elemental resistances, mediocre defence for lategame and limited ability to get mblock (and evade in ff6a I guess).

Oh, and while you could get the Holy Lance that way, it's not like getting Mog and his charm and taking on the Dragon in the Fanatic's Tower takes all that long. You don't encounter much of note in the mean time. Plus you could just run away anyway. It's not like he needs the advantage in Darill's Tomb since we don't have a choice as to whether or not we use him. I'm perfectly aware that you can get a Holy Lance pretty early (even without the coliseum).

And if I'm really feeling crazy, I could teach Cyan quick and suddenly his sword techs aren't so bad. Two Quadra Slices versus two jumps with Dragon Horn (getting at least 4, praying for anywhere from 5 to 8) is probably not that huge a difference. If you get a few lucky Holy spells it probably helps, though. Especially since they are double-powered Holies (though Edgar doesn't have all that great magic power and Holy isn't the amazing spell that it was in ff5). And for random battles if the enemies aren't invulnerable to death...

and how in the heck did you manage to get Gau down 10 levels? What did you do, spend an hour or so grinding before taking on Darill's Tomb? He should be recruited almost immediately after you get the new airship. Of course, I generally recruit everyone without gaining enough levels for them to be auto-leveled (Gau maybe doesn't get auto-leveled at re-recruitment. Probably only at the point you finish the floating continent). Nobody misses out on Esper bonuses when I play. Nobody. At least, not as many potential bonuses as they can get. I recruit Relm while Terra and Locke are level 6. I get everyone to the same level before finishing the floating continent and then don't gain any levels (if possible) until everyone is recruited in the wor.

[Life]

Also, I recruit Locke pretty early. Just need Moogle Charm and a good group of 4. No problem. Celes, Terra, Edgar, Setzer, Mog, Gau are usually my first 6 (5 of them are either automatic or really really easy, the other one has amazing utility), and Locke is 7th if I don't feel like trudging down to get Umaro immediately. Want as much time to learn Ultima as possible, and life3, and having a faster fire3 than Tritoch. Why don't you get him early? Also, who else will steal all those pretty suits while we are getting Relm? Or whatever else.

I always recruit Locke last. I could probably speed it up with the Moogle Charm but at the same time, I can just get Gogo quick for Steal.

Also, Terra's a better 5th recruit than anyone else. If you haven't gone to Mobliz yet, fly there, fight Humbaba who can be beaten with a weak Celes and Sabin, so never mind Edgar and Setzer. Leave Mobliz, go back in, kill Humbaba again and recruit Terra. Gau can still be your 6th pick-up.

Also, Shadow doesn't have much in the way of cost if you aren't fighting every single encounter along the way. Been so long I can't remember if his Fuma Shurikens will out-damage a two-jump Edgar or tie a three-jump Edgar.

I forget, does Dragon Horn always hit the same enemy or does it randomize targets? Anyway, I'm pretty sure Bum Rush will damage more than a 2 jump Edgar, which is the most common result from Dragon Horn. 75%. And of course there's the boss thing where Bum Rush is concerned. To be a bench warmer, he doesn't need to be 11th or something, just 5th if I'm actually spending time grinding rather than revolving the party in an attempt to be able to beat Kefka's tower without grinding or warping out and facing the tower 3 times to get the best party to fight all the bosses. If he's 5th then all he'd be used for is getting grinded and maybe helping my second best party get through Kefka's tower. If he's 7th then I won't even need him to fight in Kefka's tower, and he might just be 7th. You only need 3 good units to easily beat the bosses and then another 2 or 3 good units to get the second party through kefka's tower and then the Mog party to get the third group through. Warping lets you use your 3 best units (or 4 best if you have enough good units) on all the bosses anyway.

Edgar may not be 11th person but he can easily be in the front 4. There's no good reason why Edgar isn't in your party from Opera House all the way to when Locke and Terra go to Thamasa. IMRF? He rapes that place with Drill and Chainsaw with Gau being the second best person there (if you picked up Aspiran since it hits weaknesses like crazy there). Esper Gate? He's already far ahead of everyone else in the Esper department and still does very fine damage with Drill. That's more than half of the WoB right there. Then he comes early in WoR and has a giant Esper lead on everyone not named Terra.

If I were to try to never grind and never retrace steps if it is avoidable, I'd probably need to have a rotation for building levels while trudging through the various dungeons fighting everything so that all 3 groups would be able to defeat the bosses each route encounters, so then Edgar would not be a bench warmer since he and Mog would likely not be 13th and 14th. Umaro alone guarantees that. If he did Bum Rush level-damage I maybe wouldn't mind his frailty and uncontrollability, but he doesn't do that reliably. I say frailty since you can't ever give him more than the snow muffler so he's stuck with limited elemental resistances, mediocre defence for lategame and limited ability to get mblock (and evade in ff6a I guess).

Cyan and Umaro always have 13 and 14. Always. Unless you hate Gau (like me) and don't mind the fact that Umaro gets outdamaged heavily.

Oh, and while you could get the Holy Lance that way, it's not like getting Mog and his charm and taking on the Dragon in the Fanatic's Tower takes all that long. You don't encounter much of note in the mean time. Plus you could just run away anyway. It's not like he needs the advantage in Darill's Tomb since we don't have a choice as to whether or not we use him. I'm perfectly aware that you can get a Holy Lance pretty early (even without the coliseum).

No, it doesn't take long to fight the Holy Dragon in that tower and it's piss easy too (Silence it and the battle is over). But having 2 Holy Lances > 1 Holy Lance. The only problem is that the 2nd Dragon Horn is in Phoenix Cave and like I said, I don't do that dungeon early. Mostly because the enemies there are harder than most other places.

And if I'm really feeling crazy, I could teach Cyan quick and suddenly his sword techs aren't so bad. Two Quadra Slices versus two jumps with Dragon Horn (getting at least 4, praying for anywhere from 5 to 8) is probably not that huge a difference. If you get a few lucky Holy spells it probably helps, though. Especially since they are double-powered Holies (though Edgar doesn't have all that great magic power and Holy isn't the amazing spell that it was in ff5). And for random battles if the enemies aren't invulnerable to death...

Quick. Are you kidding me? Both Gilgamesh and Raiden teach it at a 1x rate. Gilgamesh is possibly better since he also teaches Valour so that gives Cyan some more power but that means 500000 Gil. Learning Quick on CYAN of all people is fucking nightmare with Raiden since he's got to, you know, earn 100 AP. And I'll pass on farming at Cactuars just to make him usable, thank you.

and how in the heck did you manage to get Gau down 10 levels? What did you do, spend an hour or so grinding before taking on Darill's Tomb? He should be recruited almost immediately after you get the new airship. Of course, I generally recruit everyone without gaining enough levels for them to be auto-leveled (Gau maybe doesn't get auto-leveled at re-recruitment. Probably only at the point you finish the floating continent). Nobody misses out on Esper bonuses when I play. Nobody. At least, not as many potential bonuses as they can get. I recruit Relm while Terra and Locke are level 6. I get everyone to the same level before finishing the floating continent and then don't gain any levels (if possible) until everyone is recruited in the wor.

This one was probably my bad. I kinda decided to fight Leviathan ASAP for quick Flood and decided to farm Tortoise Shields to make the fight a joke (they absorb or nullify Water). Took a while but it made the Leviathan a complete joke.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Life Admiral

[grandjackal]

So FF5 sparked conversation about FF5, and FF9 sparks conversation about...FF6. Interesting. So, when we left off, we were just rescuing Garnet from the clowns.

So as we try to leave, we get cornered...

Boss: Beatrix Fight 3

Time to steal, though I recall this battle is the serious face one. As far as combat goes, sheesh! nearly 2HOs Zidane with just a normal attack! Actually no, seems it's just another you have to survive. Try to steal the Survival Vest though, and the Ice Brand is nice. Rei's Wind, Slow, yadda yadda.

So after that, we talk sense into Beatrix before she slays us in the name of the law, telling her that we were trying to help the princess. She helps revive her from her unconcious state, all the while the clowns trying to troll us. Bhrane comes in, tells the clowns to throw us in prison, but Beatrix stands against those orders to protect the princess with Freya opting to help out. We book it out with Garnet while we can. For a brief moment we control Beatrix with Freya, and Beatrix is pretty badass with Sword Arts and White Magic. It's strange though, because the Bandersnatch does a good amount of damage on Beatrix.

I slap a Mythril Vest on Vivi for Auto-Potion, opting to save the Survival Vest for later to learn this handy skill on him and Zidane, and I equip Dagger with the Magician's Shoes for Clear Headed and Blind. We escape a bandersnatch only to be caught off by 3 staff wielding black mages. They are of little consequence. But, the Bandersnatch catches up with us. They're not any harder.

Zidane mastered Insomniac!

At this point, Steiner goes off on his own to help Freya and Beatrix, because Steiner's a boss. Then, we're interrupted by another Bandersnatch. As Zidane and co escape, we cut back to Freya and Beatrix for another Bandersnatch fight. Don't worry if Beatrix dies, just means more EXP for Freya. Steiner then comes to help as 2 more Bandersnatches come in. I like how Freya just can't die.

Now, I save as Zidane and attempt to flee via the tunnels back to Treno. We flee, but we get caught in hte cage that got Marcus and Steiner earlier. However, we just happen to BE saved by Marcus, and old buddy Blank! You guys are literally lifesavers. So we take hte Gargant, and we run into another one of these snakes. I think we ought to get an exterminator down here.

Boss: Ralvuimago

Ultra Sound Wave is annoying, in that it can Mini you. But do try to steal the Oak Staff and Adaman Vest. Also, Slowing it kills it's speed. Zidane can get two actions in before it can even get 1. Also, Trance cures Mini. When ge gets compact, do nothing until it unwinds or else you will eat a counter. Use this time to have Vivi just focus. When it uncompacts, drop a bomb. Wow, 1800 damage! Lolololol. Vivi is a gangster.

7 AP lets Vivi master Sleep and Auto-Potion!

We also get an Ether.

However, another one of those snakes starts chasing us, and we end up flying past Treno to an unintended destination...After crashing.

We cut back to the queen and the clowns, and the queen wants to see neither of them. However, they only came to see that the bounty hunters the queen hired have arrived. It's here we're met with a boisterous woman with a giant axe, and some frighteningly tall crimson haired bastard of a human being. The tall one remains quiet, while the woman makes it clear to everyone that she is Lani, the best and most beautiful bounty hunter. Their mission is to get the pendent back from Garnet and assassinating Vivi. They're eager to comply. The red haired guy asks if one of them is some pun with a tail, and Brahne offers extra to take care of the accursed monkey. He seems to know of Zidane.

So now we return to our vehicle crash.

Pinnacle Rock

We talk about borrowing an airship from Lindblum (as this rock is close to Lindblum), and heading to Treno with it before WHOA, floating old man! Relax, just good ol' Ramuh, and he asks us what are we to do now that Garnet's eidolons are in the hands of one filled with greed (a good question). She says that she needs power to go against this, but Ramuh questions it, thinking she might only cause more destruction. Garnet feels no fear in being able to control the power for their intended purpose. Ramuh is willing, but he is to test us. He will hide 5 manifestations of himself with parts of a story that we are to assemble for him. There's a moogle to save and rest, but he has no mail.

The point here is you must find the 5 Ramuhs hiding about here, then find the path out of here, and tell him the story fully assembled. Problem is, they're invisible, and this place has Zahgnols running around. Ever fought a Zahgnol? They're annoying. The story itself is easy to assemble, especially if you've played FF2 (It's the story of Joseph as he helped you retrieve the Goddess Bell). In the first area is a Mythril Vest for Garnet so now everyone can learn Auto-Potion while they're here. There are also 2 Ramuhs here, one having Beginning (the bridge), and the other is Human (in the water near the landmass). Traveling via the water gets you to a chest, and another Ramuh incarnation having Cooperation, the chest containing The Ogre (We already have it, but it's important to nab it if I remember correctly). Stay about in the water, you'll find another Ramuh having Silence. Oh, also at where you started is another Ramuh (sneaky), containing Hero. There's a chest on a ledge containing a Mythril Armlet if you're interested. Sorta helps Garnet witht he Spirit boost. Finally, go to where the path leads you to find the last Ramuh asking you to assemble the story. The order is Beginning, Cooperation, Silence, then choose between Hero and Human (it doesn't matter, long as the end is one of those 2). He then gives us the Peridot, which teaches Ramuh. We go towards Lindblum castle in the distance, but we also see airships...Namely the Alexandrian Red Rose...

Navy ships fire from the seas, blitzing the kingdom of Lindblum by surprise. The guards inside attempt to move out, but they're caught off guard by Black Mages who commence to light the place up like christmas. The problem is...Didn't they use summon magic afterwards? Oh, there it is...Watching Atomos essentially swallow most of the kingdom is pretty chilling. It absolutely crushes Garnet to see it all happen. We venture forth into a ruined Lindblum. We tell Vivi to hide. Head towards the shopping center, and the path to the church (now blocked) has the Lindblum card. Then, head to where the synth shop is to find Artanis who leads you to Cid, who is rightfully concerned with Garnet and distrought over the condition of his kingdom. Seems Cid had surrendered before Lindblum would get nuked. Also, the soldiers find Vivi and bring him in, the regent telling hte soldiers it's cool and it's just a disguise. It's then we learn more about Kuja through Cid's spies, and realize he seems to be up to something on the outer continent. However, there's no mist out there, so we can't fly over there. We can't exactly afford to boat it over because...Well, Alexandria. So, we have to take an underground route, via a tunnel found in the swamps (Qu's Marsh to be exact, it's behind the house of Quina's sensei-san). Cid gives us 3000 Gil to see us off. Cid's the best uncle ever. Forge all the new accessories now available to you, and an Exploda (You'll need to buy a spare Mage Masher). Also, get 3 Mage Hats, 2 Mythril Armors, 1 Thunder Glove and 2 Mythril Helms, since they've probably got useful stuff for you. Oh, and 3 Silk Robes. Silk Robes are great. Ability Up and Loudmouth for my mages? Fuck yeah! Before you leave to go down to Dragon's Gate, the guy who lived in the house with the clocks has 2 more chests with an Ether and a Phoenix Pinion.

So we go down to Dragon Gate, waiting for Cid, wondering where he is. Turns out he just wanted to troll some Alexandrian soldiers by stopping a trolly midway down the path. Cid's awesome like that. He gives us a World Map and tells us ot be on our way. Now that we got Vivi back, equip him with the Mage Hat. He should have the Flame Staff's Sleep mastered, so the hat will teach him Fira and you're free to get the Lightning Staff on to master Thundara and Poison. Also, Loudmouth. Equip him with a Gold Choker, just for the extra magic. Also, he could have Auto-Potion mastered, so he's free for a Silk Robe for Ability Up and Loudmouth.

God, even after all that spending, still have like 20K. I think this best describes how stacked you are in this game.

Anyways, while you're hear, just off the nearby coast on an island is a chocograph for your brand new river chocobo. It contains 9 Potions, 4 Phoenix Downs, 3 Ethers, and 1 Magician's Robe! On the other side of the continents coast is a small island with another graph containing 4 Remedies, 2 Elixers, 8 Rising Suns, and 1 Oak Staff! (Dammit, I didn't have to steal it!?). Actually now that I see it, I'd rather have the Oak Staff equipped. Thundara's good and all, but Stop/Bio/Drain s excellent. Not like I can't go back to Thundara anyways. As for the Magician's Robe, Auto Potion and MP+10%. Gives a boost to magic, and is an incredibly tough piece of armor. Let Garnet equip the Robe for now, since she's most likely still learning Auto Potion. That, and it's gonna be mighty helpful in a sec. Go to the swamp, meet Quina again, and catch what frogs you can here. 9th frog gets you another Silk Robe (For Eiko I suppose). You should have up to 13 when you're done. Go back to the house, and go to the back of it to continue, chasing Quina as it chases frogs to an abandoned mineshaft. Let's get down into it.

Fossil Roo

Ominous music plays, and I notice a strange symbol on the wall...When it comes time to run? RUN! I know there's a way to beat it, but I'd rather not deal with it. It's after we run from what I am going to call the Dullahan that we meet with Lani. How did she know we'd come here? How did she know this place existed? Shut up, and play the game.

Boss: Lani

She has a Gladius and a Coral Sword to steal, so nab those. Slow her, and make sure Garnet has Chemist equipped. Lani will do nothing but focus on Garnet the whole battle, and Chemist Potion alone will outdo whatever damage output Lani does. Easy fight. It's funny how hte person she focuses down actually trivializes the fight.

Whatever happened to bosses dying and giving you stuff on beating them? I've had like 5 boss fights in a row that was just a bit fat waste of my time. It's getting kind of annoying. I wants mah AP!! The Gladius is 1 point weaker than Exploda, but has Annoy instead of Lucky 7. Neither ability are particularly any good, but the Gladius is part of a synth coming up. Coral Sword? Fuck yeah.

Moving on, the fossil roo is like the Gargant Roo exept it's untamed. Pluck some flowers it eats to ride it. You meet a treasure hunter who basically tells you what you need to do, and you meet stilzkin along with another moogle. Stiltzkin offers a Pinon, a Remedy, and an Ether for 555 Gil. Another steal. The moogle has a letter from Kuppo saying he's just going to hide away somewhere in the roo. How random. So rest up and save after that dumb fight we just did.

Quina mastered Insomniac! Garnet mastered Insomniac!

Anyways, ride the gargant first to adjust a switch to alter the path, then ride the gargant again. Go on to adjust the paths, and remember to get the chest on the way back (Ether). Quina can learn Night from Abominations (a -Ra spell should do the trick).

Quina mastered Millionaire! Give Quina a Glass Buckle after that

Dagger mastered Life and Silence! Vivi mastered Loudmouth! I equip Garnet with the Stardust Rod for Reflect and Float, but more important is Ability Up.

Vivi mastered Stop and Fira! Quina mastered Loudmouth! Garnet mastered Clear-headed!

Go past the moogles once more to ride another Gargant to proceed forward. You'll meetthe treasure hunter again, but he only sells crap you already have. You'll run by a switch, so turn it. This will lead you to a chest containing a Lamia's Tiara, which is a great equip for Garnet as it eaches Clear Headed, Confuse, float, and gives additional spirit over the Mage's Hat. Feather Circles can teach Lvl 4 Holy, and 2 attacks from Vivi and Garnet should do the trick.

Garnet mastered Auto-Potion!

Now go back, flip the switch and ride on over again. Now climb the vines. You'll inevitably be spat on by the statues and forced down below. Don't worry about it.

Zidane mastered Auto-Potion! Garnet mastered Loudmouth! Equipping Garnet with the Tiara, and giving Zidane hte Adaman Vest first before the Survival Vest.

After landing off the recent gargant, head left for a spare Survival Vest (Sweet!). Now, you'll meet upon the treasure hunter, and he'll give you a pick axe to dig up treasure. He'll want a potion though. First thing to note is that giant pile of rock to the far right on the upper side. Remember that letter that said a moogle was hiding? Well, let's free him! He tells you to deliver a letter to Kupo. Fair enough. Save up, and continue.

Vivi mastered Bio! Garnet mastered Confuse, Float and Reflect! Equipping the Barette for Cura (YEEEEAHH).

There was a treasure I missed, but I don't care too much.

Zidane mastered Bug Killer!

Outer Continent

Ahhh, nice to see the whole world map again. I missed you, world of FF9. You'll cross under some bridge structures and buildings, so that is your destination. It's a long trek, but it's manageable. Goddamn, Bio is just so GOOD!!

Quina mastered Ability Up! I give it the Magicians Shoes and a Survival Vest.

First though, there is a Qu's Marsh around here for more frog catching. Eating Goblin Mages nets you Goblin Punch. 15th frog gets you an Elixer. You should have 21 when you're done.

Vivi mastered Ability Up! I give Vivi a Survival Vest for Locomotion, and once Quina masteres it I will give it the Magician's Robe since for some reason, it's the only thing that learns MP+10%.

Vivi mastered Drain! Now to get Thundara.

Oh, and chocobo tiem! On the southern beach near the marsh is another graph, containing 9 Phoenix Pinions, 5 Phoenix Downs, 12 Peridots, and Diamond Gloves! Loving the gloves, but why so many peridots? What the hell could I possibly need them for? Anyways, I remember there was a friendly monster around here, so I get off my chocobo and run around in the forest to find Ragtime! I answer false to his question, and I am correct! Free 1000 Gil...Not that I need it. So I rummage around the forest again to find the real friendly monster, Ladybug! She looks like cabbage. I give her some ore, and she wants some more. I appease her, and she tells me to say hi to Nymph. She gives me a robust 20 AP, and I basically master every ability I haven't learned yet on my current setup. I slap the Survival Vest on Zidane and equip Mug, and give Quina the Magician's Robe, fitting the rest back into Silk for the magic boosts.

We arrive at some strange structure, home of ogres. I say ogres, because dwarves aren't weird green things with fangs. Welcome to Conde Petie. At the item shop is a moogle who wants you to deliver a letter. As we explore town a bit, we see...A black mage!? Weird though, they seem to be friendly with the ogres here, even buying food off them. The ogres tell us to find them at the Sootheast Farest as they say. I ride the chocobo down there, and I follow that damned mage through this weird forest.

Zidane mastered Sacrifice!

Vivi learned Thundara!

Black Mage Village

Catchy tune. Anyways, we find them, and we search about to make themselves known to us. Yeah, they're scared of us oddly enough. By even the strange new equipment from the store that seems crappy, since you should have plenty of money to burn, and more abilities never hurt anyone. We learn more about these strange black mages, how they function and all that, even learning that they do not know much about death, or know how to necessarily handle the issue. They approach it with great confusion. Behind the item shop is an inn, and if you search the back room you'll find a Virgo Stelazzio! ext door is the Synth shop, but first climb the ladder and look about for a chest containing 843 Gil. Also, chest by the mages in the synth shop is most likely their cash register, since you pop it open and nab 2000 Gil. Clearly these guys don't hold value on money. Forge yourself a Maiden's Ring and Fairy Earrings. In fact, forge several Fairy Earrings, cause it teaches Level Up. Also, an Extention. And Rune Tooth. After you're done forging all your crap, go console Vivi at the inn, rest up, then prepare to go back to Conde Petie. Time to find Sanctuary!

Equip your 3 characters here with Magic Armlets (Minor loss to evade, but boosts to Magic Defense), and give everyone their Earrings, with Garnet and her Extention. Body Temp and Level Up is always good. Man, that cost a lot of money. I'm actually broke! But, I got all I'll ever need for a long long while, and it got me Level Up on a lot of people. Worth it in my eyes.

So, do get to Sanctuary, we gotta get hitched. So, Zidane and Garnet are hitched unofficially. It's like Las Vegas. Except everone is scottish, and there is japanese music playing for some reason. Anyways, Sanctuary ho! Oh right, Eiko. Yadda yadda. Give Eiko a Silk Robe, but let her keep everything else on for the moment just to get abilities under her belt. Let her equip Auto-Regen to make up for it, and equip Ability up first and foremost. Run by hte vine and climb up for a Tent, along with a Red Stone by a pedistal. As you continue down the path, you'll reach a fork that splits two paths, a moogle and Stilkzkin offering a Magic Tag, Tent and Ether for 666 Gil. A steal again, but also that Magic Tag is gonna be of great help soon. Deliver a letter to the moogle and save, then take the right path. Put the red stone in for now, we'll be back to this later.

ERr, might have gotten a bit off track...

Boss: Hill Gigas

Accidentally took a wrong turn at albequerque. Float everyone and Cura if he nuked you with Earthquake. Slow on him of course, he hits like a truck. You'll only want to steal the Flute off him. Wish I had the thief gauntlets right now...Again though, not a hard fight. 5 times focused Double Bio deals with him in one shot. You might as well spend the entire battle trying to steal that damned Flute until your white mage's MP stocks run out. Lots of stuff got mastered.

Some nearby pedestals have a Yellow and Green Stone. Go back to where you set the Red Stone to set these ones. Woop, forgot a stone back at the start, along with a Remedy. Take the Blue Stone, fit it in and get a Moonstone.

Eiko mastered Life and Auto-Regen! Zidane mastered Locomotion!

Eiko mastered Cura!

Time for a breather.

[grandjackal]

Kicking things back off!

Madain Sari

Eiko's home. Lots o' moogles, and nothing to do. Seriously, all the scenes of Madain Sari might as well be a fart in the wind. Did I mention I personally hate Eiko? Check the fountain for the Libra Stelazzio, then basically just let this whole portion of the game just...Go by. There are 2 chests by the table, one has Ore and the other a Pinion (what DOES a Pinion do other than teach Phoenix, or revive just like a Down?). Rest up, prepare for Lifa Tree. Go back to the pass and take the opposite path this time.

Zidane mastered Lucky Seven and Body Temp! Garnet mastered Level Up!

Lifa Tree

Make sure Zidane has Undead and Stonekiller on. Stonekiller I believe is just for the Stropers (They suck due to Sweep). So, we unseal the place, and we get a Ruby for our troubles. Just in time too, I'm almost done mastering Fenrir!

Garnet mastered Locomotion! Eiko mastered Ability Up and Fenrir! Equipping Eiko with the Ruby (Carbuncle can be handy when mastered, I'll explain why later), and giving her the Magician's Cloak (Extra Cura out of the +10% MP). There's a moogle up ahead on the roots, so feel free to save up before venturing forth. This place is sort of a one time visit. Speaking of which, doesn't the music seem so otherworldly? It's beyond perfect for this place. Now the good thing about this place is that you don't feel anywhere near as constrained with your magic because everything here is vulnerable to white magic as well as black magic. You got 1 Black Mage and 2 White Mages, so this place is nuke heaven.

This place gets my vote for most misleading dungeon ever. There looks like there are many paths simply because of how the layout is designed, but for the most part, the truth is there is only one straightforward path. The pathing is weird too, always seems like I'm running against a wall no matter what I do. Also, do not fear Dragon Zombies. Life is Death to them. But if you DO meet them, heed my warning! They have level 5 death! Yes, or as I like to call it, The Run Ender. Make sure your team is not multiple levels of 5. If they are...

Eiko mastered MP+10%! (that was quick)

Garnet mastered Ramuh! Man, so much AP here! Take your time to learn all you can while you're here.

Eiko mastered Insomniac and Reflect!

First chest you see is out of reach. It looks like the path should reach up to it, but again that is the dungeon deceiving you. Under that path is a button to push that will release the chest in order to net you a Phoenix Down. Continuing on you find a Hi Potion to the side. Funny how a place chock full of the dead is filled with life-giving items.

Eiko mastered Carbuncle! Jeez, already? I just got the Ruby! Equipping a Pinion for Phoenix.

As you continue on, a split path will lead you to the way forward or the Lamia Flute that teaches Float, Stona and Silence. Bleh, Stona's good, but I don't recall any enemies that instantly petrify you in this game. So, we find a leaf that acts as an elevator going down, forcing us into a gauntlet of the undead. This portion is also kinda creepy with the green revolving wall, which in battle looks like screaming faces like I'm descending into Giygas's hippie cousin. Also, cool how during this portion we get a more classic angle of FF fighting with the camera. That, and I just realized...if Mist is essentially souls, and Black Mages are made of mist...Does that mean that Vivi's golem body imprisons the dead soul of a child? That's...Pretty grim, man.

Zidane mastered Mug! Garnet mastered High Tide(...)! Eiko mastered Protect!

As we reach the bottom (Why is Hell so green!?), we sit there...Kinda stunned...And wondering what the hell we're doing here anyways. We also look down to see Mako, because Square likes to jerk off FF7 at any point they can! Behind the bottom pillar is a Brigandine. This can be given to either Vivi or Zidane, and Zidane learns Ability Up from it, so he gets it first because it's awesome. Vivi can get it later for Return Magic. However, someone interupts our oos and ahhs, and it appears to be some sort of hellspawn that apparently refines souls, of which makes mist that it discharges through the roots throughout the world to stimulate the fighting instinct, basically making all those that venture into the mist go insane. It also knows Kuja for some reason, and thought we were him. Well, he was WRONG! He gives us a proposition. Killing him will stop the production of mist. This is good. However, if he dies, no more mist means no more black mages. Black Mage Village showed us they are capable of conciousness, and obviously Vivi would have a say in this. Will Vivi deny his very birth?

Um...Well...

Boss: Soulcage

This is cruel, it has Lvl 5 Death too. It also has plenty of team damage abilities. It only has a Brigandine worth stealing. In short, don't bother and just cast Life on it. Insta-kill.

Eiko learned Float, Stona, Blind, and Auto-Potion because she basically got 18 AP out of this fight!

Well, after that incredibly anti-climactic fight, the Lifa Tree starts to shake and we run to get the hell out of there. It's then the mist clears, and the sky turns blue. We have cured the curse of the Mist kingdom, perhaps saving it from it's bloodthristy warstruggles! Or mayhaps we're too late to save it?...

We wait for Kuja to show, but figure he'll be a while. Surely he'll notice the fuel for his war machine suddenly vanishing. We return to Madain Sari.

Zidane mastered Level Up! Eiko mastered Phoenix! Now for Fairy Earrings for Level Up, Body Temp, and REGEN!!

Tent up before entering Madain Sari, I recall some throwing down occurs here. Follow Eiko to see a precious stone was stolen, and then take the Survival Vest out of the chest before going to go help her after Lani takes off with her. A moogle tells you to use a treasure, giving you Exploda (useless) and an Elixer (NICE) to go save her. Very well then, let's get ready to rumble. Before we can end up giving in to Lani's demands, that red haired gaunt bastard comes to our rescue...Oddly enough. Thanks much stranger.

...Errr...

Boss: Scarlet Haired Man

When he's jumping around like a lunatic, don't attack him. You'll miss and he'll counter. It's just a quick way to die. Also, be sure to steal the Poison Knuckles off him. He'll thank you later (I know that makes no sense, just go with it). When he says Here I Go, that's your cue to bitchslap him for trying to throw random Ogas at you. Don't worry about this guy being ludicrously fast, you're more than healthy enough to withstand the storm. He on the other hand cannot deal with your brute force 1500 damage hits. Moron should have packed hi potions.

Dude wants to die now that he fucked up, but we obviously are too good for that. He then asks if we are simply to banish him. He's confused on why you wouldn't kill him despite the fact he tried to kill you. A good point raised, but Zidane is really too laid-back. He runs off after we tell him to go fuck himself. Eiko decides to make earrings out of the pendents so she can always keep them safe, and decides to join us on our merry quest. But before we go, we hear Garnet singing, Zidane and her have a moment before interrupted by the sound of hte song being sung by not Garnet...But then Dagger starts to have a hallucination as she gazes upon madain sari. A rather horrifying vision with an eyeball coming from stormy skies, tornadoes bringing ruin and fire to a once great city, cutting to the boat scene that played at the start of the game. Well...Yeah, I'd have fainted too I think. However, something does become apparent. She was born and raised in Madain Sari, as there's no way in hell Garnet would have come from...Brahne...Man, and her only memories of her true home are from fleeing it while it was getting annihilated by some sick nightmarish...Thing. That's rough.

Well, before we leave to go back to the Lifa Tree, the red haired bastard comes back, asking us to finish him off. Man, is it REALLY bothering him that bad? Well, Zidane tells him to join up so maybe we can get something through his skull. His name is Amarant. Bye Eiko! Let him keep the Cat's Claws for now for Chakra (MP Restore, nice) and Counter, Give him some Headgear for Undead Killer (We're gonna need it), and generally equip everything but Alert since he has any slayer ability we would ever need with this setup, along with Counter (Because Counter is good).

Ahh, Kuja. Bout time you showed up. For some reason he seems...Happy. So, we go after him because it's about time someone taught the bastard a lesson. We reach a part of the branches that would get passed the trunk (we want to get TO the trunk), and it seems we have to climb, where 2/5s of the team is afraid of heights, and a 3rd is incapable. Amarant gets pissed, saying Zidane should just go off on his own if they aren't willing, and scoffs at how we don't even have a plan for this guy. While it's not smart to just one on one a possibly superpowered magician, he's got a point about the plan thing. Zidane tells him to go find some Gargant to get us a ride up as there is gargant grass around, and Amarant does us one better and just hefts the 3 up the damn trunk himself like he's a superhuman disgruntled lumberjack. Amarant's awesome like that at times, despite the fact he's a lunatic at times. Kuja notices we're near and decides to sick some hellpsawn on us until Brahne shows up...Why the hell would Brahne be here? Whatever, CHAAAARGE! Bring it on, bitch!

It's around here we see Alexandrian battleships at the coast of the Lifa Tree...Were they REALLY this vehement at finding Garn-OHHHHH, they want Kuja dead! Seems they want him dead as to not offer the power he gave Alexandria to someone else. Man, Brahne is underhanded to the core. Regardless, seems Kuja's not interested in us and casually throws some mist demons at us. Ahhh, the villain rule of not killing anyone even remotely dangerous to his cause. These things are undead, so remember you have Life. With Amarant and Zidane packing Undeadslayer, these teams of 2 are of no issue. While we were distracted, Kuja flew off in order to for Brahne's blind hand to do something...drastic. Uh oh. We need to get the fuck out of here! We decide rather to call upon the failed summon, hoping it will save our asses. First though, more mist demons.

Zidane learned High Tide!

Amarant is rather taking the situation lightly. Then again, I'm supposing he has no clue what sort of hell is about to be rained down upon us. You fight more mist demons as you go towards the failed summon following Garnet, so be sure to have Insomniac up in case of their Mist attacks.

Amarant learned all his Killer abilities at once along with HP+10%!

The summon statue whirs to life, and we get an Aquamarine that contains Leviathan...A summon that attacks with a tidal wave...So, what is Kuja about to do here? Why is he trying to force Brahne to...She summons Bahamut, who sets the sea on fire before jumping out, flying right for Kuja to mess him up. Kuja smirks cockishly as he barely avoids the mega flare setting much of the land ablaze. The dragon king even caused Kuja to bleed. Everything seems cool, until...The eye from Garnet's nightmare shows up and lets off a weird wave that confuses and stuns through harsh high pitches. Kuja smiles darkly as Bahamut suffers confusion and turns on Brahne, blowing the shit out of her ship, along with the rest of her fleet. And with a flash, Bahamut disappears as fast as he had caused destruction. She had somehow managed to escape in a royal fleet lifeboat (of which Amarant takes no problem to raid), and is stranded dying on the beach as Garnet stands by to console her final moments. Her last words tell Garnet that perhaps it would be better for Garnet to take the throne in her place....Yeah, agreed. *Plays the world's smallest violin*

We return back to Alexandria at Brahne's gravesight. She lays a wreath by the sight and stairs upon the castle with determination and silent grief.

Thus ends disk 2. Man, all things considered, Disk 2 was pretty short.

Time for a break.

[Life]

The Hill Gigas' stealable Flute (can't remember which one) is proof that Square likes to troll players. The thing doesn't ever drop.

[grandjackal]

Kicking off disk 3 is an entirely blah point in Alexandria that is mainly just plot progression. Garnet gets crowned queen, and Zidane drinks himself silly over not getting to be with her anymore. Yeah yeah, all the random flirting and an entire 1 slightly romantic scene that was interrupted by hte most unholy hallucination ever known to man, I'm sure the loss would be this devastating. The tantalus members decide to check out what Ruby's got going on and run into Vivi, catch up on old times, and blah-dee-blah, weapon shop time! Well, now that it's open, might as well. Oh wow, it's a Sytnh shop! Get an Anklet, Feather Boots, Black Belt and Pearl Rouge to go with your brand new Angel Bless. Also, Ice Lance and whatever new equipment you'd want. Twist Headbands look derpy though, get only for forging. Before goingto see Ruby, do remember to deliver a letter to Kup and catch up with the moogles. Stlizkin is selling a Pinion, Hi Potion and an Elixer for 777 Gil. Man, this guy gives us some bargains, doesn't he? Now let's go visit Ruby.

As we go through story about how Garnet becomes queen, Tot gives her back the stones of her Eidolons, Opal, Topaz and Amethyst. Then we wait a while for the plot to pretend it's moving forward, and Steiner and Beatrix start falling in love by complete accident. Now we're with Vivi helping lead a drunk Zidane to the castle for Garnet's sake. Make sure to equip the Black Belt. Twist Headband's not bad for Zidane, and gives Gamble Defense which doesn't hurt. That +20% HP is sexy though. We're about to board a boat when Freya and Amarant nearly get into a brawl that started because Freya's abadass who takes no guff from people who look at her funny, and Amarant's a troll. Equip Freya with whatever stuff teaches some no abilities (Keep Partisan for now, due to High Tide). When you reach the castle, check behind the fountain for a Lapis Lazuli (I don't even remember that being there, I just sorta stumbled upon it. Teaches Ability Up and Accuracy+. Hint, one of these abilities is absolutely useless. But still, Ability Up for non-mages is hard to come by, so this is a good find.

We meet Queen Garnet...and immediately leaves. The love accident happen (Not THAT kind of love accident!), all accompanied by what sounds like paper mario music. Padding padding padding, Treno. This is the stupid part where we have to do a stupid card tournament. Why does this part of the game exist? Whatever, go to Queen Stella to refill your bank account with 10,000 Gil and nab an Elixer. Now, to head for the armory for our next beast fight. Oh, also free Chimera Armlet, nice. It doesn't teach anything new, but extra evade is extra evade. The Catoblepas falls easy to the MP Attack. 2 is all it takes with Beastslayer. 15,000 Gil. Store has nothing new to sell. You can try to buy the dark matter, but screw it. Just head to the stadium and pretend to care about the tournament until you finally get back to the actual game.

Now we're back in Alexandria, and all hell is breaking loose. He summons Bahamut, and fire rains from the sky to bring hell to the kingdom, the king of dragons overseeing the destruction it caused. The townsfolk flee, because they don't want to deal with a freaking dragon king. The knights of Pluto gather, and you are to issue commands to them. Gathering information should fall to Blutzel and Kohen. Protecting the townsfolk to Weimar and Haagen. Contacting Lindblum for reinforcements to Breireicht and Laudo. The last order goes to the last knights. You'll get Angel Earrings for doing it right. Just as Garnet asks for a miracle, her pendent shines...But first, it is coward killing time for Steiner and Beatrix! Oh, and be sure to replace all of Beatrix's awesome equipment, so you can keep some of the awesome stuff for yourself. *snickersnort*

Steiner mastered Bright Eyes!

Steiner mastered Armor Break (FINALLY! I'm sick of this fucking weapon!) and Undead Killer!

You then gain control of Garnet. Equip her with the Angel Earrings. Head for the direction of the throne room, except go left the room before. Follow the path, and it will lead to the top of hte castle with the blade, of which the part of hte castle through magic rises from the ground, beckoning Garnet to climb the stairway. Why do I feel like this entire part is an awesome reference to an awesome song?

We cut to Zidane and co flying on Cid's piece of shit airship. Cid Highwind wold be so dissapoint. But then Eiko's pendent glows and hte airship starts to fall apart, and Eiko freaking jumps off the thing towards the castle! For a brief moment, the summoners are reunited again to help bring about Alexander's Holy Judgement. I'll admit, if it weren't for the handholding that happens seconds after, that would be pretty damn metal. Wings sprout from the castle, and it's wings cover the city to protect it from the king. Bahamut attempts to blast the castle, but Alexander will have none of it. His wings glow alight, and many a magic missile is cast at the king of dragons, eventually engulfing him and causing hte king to evaporate. Alexander: I AM BADASS GOD!

Kuja's summon is destroyed, but surprisingly he doesn't care, because the Invincible's eye pierces the heaven at the summon that cannot look up, it's hauntinggazein the air. But from possibly in the ship, a dark armored figure stands saying Kuja has gone too far. He looks as though he has transcended time. He curses XZidane for failure as well, before raising his fist to the sky and collecting red energy which makes the lens before him glow a mysterious light. Kuja for once is actually worried. Cutting to Zidane at the castle, time to rescue Garnet! But first, a save and rest. I have a book I need to check out from the library. Also, help whoever you can evacuate the castle.

Optional Boss: Tantarian

Ahhh, the FF5 reference. The cover of the book has the mask from the book enemies from the ancient library, and when it opens, it's the blue devil. When the book is open, it's barely capable of anything, so take your time to kick it's ass hardcore, or heal up. The key to this fight is to actually utilize stalling tactics for the time bar so you can get all your attacks in, as Tantarian is stupid fast, and Paper Storm hurts like a bitch. When the book is open, it's helpless. Slow is useless here due to how you're going to play it. He's too fast for it to matter much. Rei's Wind and Antibody are credit to team. It has an Elixer, an Ether, and Demon's Mail. When it opens up, only cast magic and continue your stalling. This battle's not hard, just incredibly annoying.

Zidane and Freya mastered whatever abilities they were trying to learn! You get a lot of Gil and a pair of Running Shoes to boot. Unfortunately Vivi and Amarant were dead when I won. Vivi's not too upset, but Amarant is crying tears of blood.

Now, let's go to where Garnet and Eiko are. However, you are stopped when the Invincible gives off a wave of energy that burns Alexander's wings, and the blade starts to shock. The blade impales Alexander, and the machine begins to crumble along with the castle. Zidane just barely to the rescue with a leftover parade banner, hanging on for dear life for Cid's piece of jumk to fly by and pick them up. The eye in the sky unleashes a powerful beam that incinerates the town to ruins. The dark figure in the ship, feeling glad to have Kuja done with. We return to Lindblum to see the rebuilding. Nearby chest has an Egoist's Armlet. This little trinket compared to the Chimera is 2 less evade, but much more Magic Evade, so that's nice. Otherwise teaches Beast Killer and Level Up, both skills that should be learned by now. Still, nice piece of equipment. The chest upstairs has an Elixer, and the moogle there wants you to deliver a letter to Moodon.

Cid wants you in his royal chambers, so don't keep him waiting. We go down to a briefing with everyone but the princess. We accept the fact that Kuja basically has leveled all the power nations of the world (since the mist continent is really the only continent with nations). Seems Kuja had gotten to Alexandria via the Hilde Garde 1 that was stolen by Cid's ex-wife (I suppose Hilde's mindset is "hey, he cheats, I cheat bacl" ), andit seems Kuja is now using the black mages from the village as his peons, along with recruiting the clowns. So, it seems we must somehow find out what has happened with Hilde to know better the whereabouts of Kuja. But first, it seems Garnet has lost her capability to speak. All the shit that's happened so rapidly to everything she'd ever known in such a quick and bloody time, I can see why she's severely shellshocked. So, we leave her at peace to deal with her grief without adding more problems to it, and decide to attempt to fix Cid. We needs 3 potions, Unusual, Beautiful, and Strange. Cinna has the Unusual Potion, some woman in the shopping center has the Beuatiful Potion, and the artist in the Theatre District has the Strange Potion. While you're out and about, check the left side of the screen when you're near the pickle stand for the Sagittarius Stelazzio. The weapon and armor shop has two new hats, Mantra Bands and Dark Hats. Their abilities should be learned by now, but the Mantra Band gives solid boosts, and the Dark Hats give quite a bit of magic defense. Synth shop's got nothing new, so go get the potions and move on with the story. Oh, also do not forget to stop by Tantalus for the crapton of Gil they got in there.

So, we have turned the regent from oglop to frog. Wonderful. We decide screw flying, we got boats! We get the idea that since there were black mages on Kuja's airship, we should go to black mage village to see if everything's alright (probably not). Going down to the base level to go to the docks, and now I gotz a boat! Hooray! The Blue Narciss! Also, time to rearrange my party. Hmm...Who to take...

Pros and Cons time!

Vivi

+Powerful Magic

+Has like no abilities to learn at the moment aside from the brand new Cypress Pile, so he's ready to go.

-Magic dependency

-Bosses are only getting more and more magic defensive

Garnet

+White Magic

-She is suffering from shellshock, so at times she'll just opt to do absolutely nothing.

Steiner

+MY FISTS, THEY ARE MADE OF STEEL!

-So much to learn...

Freya

+Very flexible in skills, hard to kill

-Average offense

Quina

+Millionaire, Blue Magic is good

+A mage with some form of offense outside of magic. It's wonky, but better than shit.

-Blue Magic is very iffy at times for me, such as White Wind requiring the user's HP to be high. In a big fight, might be a bit of a problem.

-Low Level

Eiko

+White Magic without the shellshock

-So much to learn

Amarant

+Chakra. Seriously, that's got me thinking he deserves a slot since it's the only way to heal MP outside of items.

-WAY too much to learn, it's his biggest problem.

-Due to being stuck with Cat Claws, his offense is about as average as Freya's

So I'm certainly bringing Eiko along, no question there. Bringing Steiner because he's done with his shitty weapons at least and has every slayer ability. Question is, who's the last slot go to? I think Vivi is startng to peter out from here on in, Garnet's useless, and I'm not that big a fan of Quina. This leaves Amarant and Freya. Freya's got Rei's Wind and is tough, and Amarant's got Chakra and eventually better offense. I opt for Amarant out of humor. Might as well help him now so he won't suck later, and Freya's already got most of her stuff learned. I'll come back to Freya later.

But first, islands to the west! Yes, the western isles, where I go to find Chocobo Lagoon (See ya in another 10 hours). Well actually, that was a lot shorter than I thought it'd be. One of the chocographs happens to be rather nearby actually, but you'll need to sail ahead a few islands. See on the left most continent? See that long penninsula on the est side? Take the tip, and draw a straight line inland, and that's where it will be (about). It contains 37 Potions (jeez), 6 Magic Tags, 1 Shield Armor, and 1 Gaia Gear! Nice! And this is one you've had for a while, too. Another graph is easy, as it's by Lindblum so it's easy. It's ona patch of reef near the lower right corner of the Mist Continent...and it contains...SMOG! Yup, I'm gett a mountain chocobo now! Yaaaaay! Time to return to the forest for more chocographs, be back in 10 hours!

It's around this point you'll start getting Dead Peppers. These will be useful for when you are able to put the Chocograph Pieces to good use with the Ocean Chocobo and such. I believe there's a dead pepper treasure or 2 on the mist continent. Also, Red chocobo makes cleaning out the forest so easy, and it's only gonna get easier. If you want an easy Robe of Lords, come back when you're packing a gold chocobo for ridiculously easy cleanouts. I go to find one I recognize as the mist continent mountains, and I find a graph near Alexandria, containing...FOG! What are the odds? Alright, so now I got an Ocean Chocobo, making the Blue Narcis meaningless, and I can now go technically anywhere with a beach. Ladies and gentlemen, I have broke the game!!

There's another graph where all the mountain ranges meet, and it contains 7 Ethers, 2 Elixers, 10 Wind Edges, and 1 High Mage Staff (WHOA!!). Now to just list off where the others are and what they hold, since I want to be specific with the graphs now.

Cold Lagoon-North edge of the Northern Continent, you can't miss it. Part of the ocean looks like a wrench. Contains 11 Peridots, 9 Opals, 15 Sapphires, 19 Topaz.

Cold Field-Southern part of Northern Continent. Contains 5 Echo Screens, 7 Hi Potions, 3 Tents, 1 Theater Ship Card

Dead Pepper-Outer Continent-Near the Cold Field one nestled in mountains. Contains 41 Lapis Lazuli (the fuck am I gonna do with all these jewels?), 1 Rosetta Ring, 1 Protect Ring (YEEEEEEEEEEAH!!), 1 Airship Card

Forgotten Lagoon-Actually just south of the Outer Continent on the Forgotten Continent, in the reef. If you have the graph, hard to miss with the picture. Contains 8 Gyshal Greens, 5 Ethers, 7 Hi Potions, 1 Dragon's Claw

Abandoned Lagoon-Southwestern penninsula of hte Outer Continent, looks like a reflection of Forgotten Lagoon. Contains 6 Softs, 4 Ethers, 1 Feather Boots, 1 N-Kai Armlet (WATER!)

Time for more graphs at the lagoon, brb.

Sea At Dusk-Eastern side of the Forgotten Continent, just off the "finger" you see in the pic. Contains 15 Pinions, 1 White Robe, 1 Diamond, 1 Masamune Card

Ocean-This treasure s retarded, and I dare you to prove me wrong. Find a place near Daguerro called Everlang Island, and just go off it's west coast. Not only is the picture it give oyu totally misleading (you are literally just off the coast of the island), where would you even begin to guess where the fuck this thing is? It's an expanse of blue. Contains 27 Ore (I'm a freaking steel baron at this point), 1 Light Robe, 1 Whale Whisker, 1 Alexander Card.

Uncultivated Land-It's hard to miss, go to the basin below Treno, find the river, than find the spot of marshy land. Contains 10 Antidotes, 1 Jade Armlet, 3 Wing Edges, 1 Cargo Ship Card.

Quan's Dwelling Dead Pepper-Do as implied. You have to actually go into Quan's Dwelling and do this. Contains 9 Ore, 15 Topaz, 1 Tiger Racket, 1 Red Rose Card.

Dive Spot Dead Pepper-Just north of Alexandria, you'll find it near the Outer Continent. Contains 8 Straw Hats, 8 Pearl Armlets, 7 Aloha T-shirts, and 8 Sandals (lolololol)

Dive Spot 2-It's in a bay area on the southeastern tip of the Forgotten Continent. Nestled away a bit. Contains 10 Remedies, 1 Black Robe, 1 Genji Gloves (YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH), and 1 Blue Narciss Card.

That's all I can get for now until I get the Hilde Garde 3.

Time to save.

EDIT: Wait, the Angel Flute is seriously unstealable? What crock!

Edited December 30, 2010 by Amaterasu

[grandjackal]

Let's start this up again! I am on FIRE!!

So we visit Black Mage village to see that no one but the leader is there, and that the other black mages went with Kuja because he offered an extension on their life, as death is a subject of great fear for the black mages. After some more development of Vivi's character of which by now is complete, we set off to Kuja's base to the eastern desert. The madman lives under quicksand. Enter the quicksand when it flairs up, otherwise you'll have to face an Antlion. Yes, like the boss you met in Cleyra. Once you get it right though...

Kuja's Palace

Everyone ends up in a cell, a cell alone for each to keep them seperated, and a pool of liquid hot mag-ma underneath. Say you have no choice unless you want to see a game over screen. Kuja commands you to go outside and be escourted by black mages to tell you he needs a relic called the Gulug Stone from Oielvert, of which he cannot venture into due to his magical nature. For you see, magic is impossible in Oielvert. Why? Just how it is. He tehn tells you to construct a team to go there. Therefore, you should make a team not dependent on magic at all. Thus, the team will be Zidane, Amarant, Steiner and Freya. Eiko, Garnet, Vivi and Quina will stay behind. Don't worry, they'll get their time.

We take a first class cruise over to the forgotten continent, while the mage half of our team is the sucker-end of a trap in that while one half of the team is away, he kills the other half. Great way to whittle our numbers and power, but not a bright idea if you do it SLOWLY while having accidentally freed another person! Dumbass.

Of course when he teleports you to the airship, he teleports you some yards away from said airship. While out here on your way to the airship, you might encounter Ogres (Ogres seem more like the Trolls back at the Lifa Pass, while these seem more like trolls than ogres), of which are annoying because they like to cause Trouble.

Steiner mastered Alert! Now to equip him with some Lapis for Ability Up.

Steiner mastered Level Up and Jelly! Now to equip him with a Gold Helm and Plate Mail.

Of course during our flight, the 2 troll clowns happen to be on to be assholes to us while we fly to the Forgotten Continent. Now to Oielvert, of which they had flown us about 20 miles away with it. Gee, thanks. Now to see if there are any chocobo tracks here, because there be treasure I want.

Amarant mastered Man Eater and Devil Killer! Equipping him with the Brigandine because of Ability Up, and Return Magic is certainly tasty.

Amarant mastered Alert and Chakra! Freya mastered MP Attack!

Freay mastered Locomotion and Beast Killer! Amarant mastered Insomniac!

THERE we are! Bout time I found you choco! Now the trip there should be painless! But first, 2 more chocographs! Also, lol Ipsen's Castle

Forgotten Peninsula: You'll recognize the picture near Ipsen's castle. First ledge near the second ridge of the butte. Contains 17 Ore, 5 Ether, 14 Opals, 1 Demon's Mail.

Dusk Plains-It is exactly west of Oielvert on a nestled ridge near a single spot of forest. Contains 12 Phoenix Downs, 14 Ore, 1 Kaiser Knuckle, 1 Iron Man Card.

Mountain Dead Pepper 1-There are 2 cracks northeast of Oielvert. This one contains 1 Maiden Prayer, 1 Dragon's Hair (Freya just came), 1 Gauntlet, 1 Odin Card.

Mountain Dead Pepper 2-Contains 19 Eye Drops, 1 Maiden's Ring, 1 Genji Helmet, and 1 Hilda Garde 1 Card.

So happy to have my chocobo. Walking to Oielvert would have been annoying. Cactaurs are nowhere near as nice as they were in older games.

Steiner mastered Darkside and Devilkiller! Amarant mastered Antibody!

Oielvert.

Buy all the new stuff you can. Selling those hawaiian wear will net you a HUGE wallet. Like I am shocked how much money you can make off that crap. Especially GREEN BERETS! At least 2! Oh my lord, they will be so important, like you will not believe! They're great equips anyways.

Zidane mastered Thievery! Freya mastered White Draw! Steiner mastered Clear Headed! Equipping the Trident (30AP is not a lot)

Amarant mastered Bug Killer!

Ok, now that I'm finally passed the front friggin' door, let's do this dungeon! There are 2 chests immediately at the entrance, a Remedy and a Rising Sun. As a note, if you see Epitaphs, remember that they are to Soft what zombie enemies are to revive. Epitaphs suck. They have an ability to make a clone that will instantly kill the real deal, and it will then cast Petrify on everything else. Just soft them. To the left of Rising Sun is an Elixer and a blue orb. Tap the orb, go downstairs and head left.

Steiner mastered Locomotion and Acc+! Equipping Gold Armor for Stone Killer against Epitaphs.

Freya mastered Distract! Steiner mastered Add Status!

Zidane mastered Auto-Haste! Steiner mastered Mental Break! Freya mastered HP+20%! Amarant mastered Body Temp! Equipping Freya with Barette because having a Chemist here is a good idea.

I enter the left room to see a hologram of a planet with a red core. Zidane for some reason can read the text that appears, but no one else can't. He claims the words are talking to him, and it's kinda weird. Yeah, no shit. So, wrao around the hologram to grab the Shield Armor. Head down the nearby stairs. You will have to hit the lights in a certain order before you can continue. Nearby chest has a Power Vest, whcih is an excellent piece of armor for Zidane or Amarant. Upstairs is another chest for Feather Boots, the most worthless equip in the game. Basically, light the holograms in clockwise order.

Zidane mastered Clear-Headed!

Now, head to the left from upstairs. Keep going till you find a ball, and tap it.

Zidane mastered Distract! Steiner mastered CHARGE! Equipping with Diamond Sword and Power Vest.

Steiner mastered Stone Killer! Freya mastered Ability Up and Luna! NOW FOR DRAGON HAIR! This is nuts, I have 77 Atk already.

Continue on, you'll be back in the first hologram room, now enter the blue door. There are many faces here that talk to us about certain things. A record of a lost civilization, and kinda creepy to boot. They had to prevent the decay of Terra, and certain subjects were chosen. While it seemed to work, everything is still in stasis. Nothing there made any sense. Uhhh, moving on.

Whoops, forgot a chest in the first hologram room! Silly me. Contains a Diamond Sword (Dammit, I always buy equipment that shows up moments after!!)

Steiner mastered Ability Up! Freya mastered Gamble Defense and Stone Killer! Amarant mastered Level Up!

Head to the right on the opposite side of the starting area, talking to the moogle while you're there. Deliver the letter and save. The chest before the next room has Gaia Gear, which is always nice. Now before entering hte next room BE DAMN SURE YOU HAVE CLEAR HEADED AND BIRDKILLER EQUIPPED! The upcoming boss is a nightmare without it.

Amarant mastered Level Up!

Boss: Ark

Rei's Wind, first off. This is because it has team hitting abilities, and loves using them. However, with Steiner's MP Attack and Freya Jump with Dragon Hair, this battle ends surprisingly quick. It has a Holy Lance, but seriously. Who cares?

Mastered a lot, and I gets a Pumice Piece.

Gulug Stone get!

So we cut to our mages and Cid, and it's up to Cid to save our asses. You basically got a limited amount of time to get a key from a Hedgehog Pie, then weigh scales to turn off an hourglass. Simple enough. 6 minutes is generous.

Equip Vivi with the Cypress Pile, Dark Hat, N-Kai Armlet, Gaia Gear (Osmose, Flare can wait), give Quina the Silver Fork, and give Garnet the Whale Whisker and the White Robe. Head to the key room and save before continuing.

The idea here is to light candles to activate Blood Stones which give you various equipment, but are important for an upcoming boss. Make sure you have Loudmouth and Body Temp on, Drakans are insanely annoying. Eat them for Vanish. First blood stone has a Promist Ring. This thing has a little something for everyone, but you're probably learning other stuff at the moment. Climb the stairs, and before you continue on, take the etheral stairs. Goddamn, Vivi can OHKO Toramas (you know them better as Courels) with Water. Lulz.

Eiko mastered Regen! Vivi mastered High Tide! Either Garnet or Quina mastered something! Letting Vivi have the Promist Ring and de-quip unimportant status immunities for Mag Elm Null.

Eiko mastered Cure! (Lol).

Next room has 3 braizers, light the two on the outer edges to open a pathway to the next area. Light the inner left braizer in the next area, go back and light the one you didn't light, then go forward again to relight the last two after lighting the ones that were trapped behind the statue. You'll activate a bloodstone along with opening the way forward. The stone contains an Anklet.

Eiko mastered Jelly! I notice the Courel I used Water on took 600 less damage than when I did it normally...I remove Mag Elm Null, because I think it nullifies weaknesses too. In fact, fuck the Promist Ring on Vivi, I'm getting the Rosetta Ring.

Going down the next hallway, light an unlit statue to activate another Bloodstone containing Shield Armor. Continue on up the stairs.

Quina mastered Insomniac!

As you pass by a stain glass window, light it and continue into the library. Lighting the left candles makes stairs to the top floor, where you can light more candles to open up a path to another blood stone, this one containing an N-Kai Armlet. This armlet really only does have use for Vivi. Light the candles on the second end, and ascend the stairs it reveals. Light up another stain glass window, and then another before returning back down.

Eiko mastered Clear Headed! Vivi mastered Jelly!

Go back to the library and light the last candles, light hte candles past the door, then take the new passage to the left. Deliver the letter to the moogle, then tent up and save. Light hte candle to make the demon's shadow look away. Run over to the other side, light both candles for the angel along with the portrait to activate the bloodstone containing a Venetian Shield! Go back to the demon and light the other candle to activate another blood stone, containing a Black Hood, of which gives Vivi an absurd amount of Mag Def, and DEATH! Now go and unlight hte candle so the demon shadow is looking toward the angel, and make the angel look as though trying to flee. Now, equip Vivi with Reflect x2, and prepare for a hilarious boss fight.

Boss: Valia Pira

It fails all enhancements since we deactivated all bloodstones. Here's the deal. Cast Carbuncle, Vivi bounces spells, Quina White Winds if necessary. The end.

Now it wll bounce attacks at itself, and Vivi can bounce double powered spells off himself. It'll cast Reflect on itself...In vain. 3 turns maximum. That was pathetic.

Lots of stuff mastered as usual. Got an Elixer and 6K Gil out of it too. Light hte candle, take the teleporter, we cut back to Zidane. Return back to Kuja's bedroom (seriously, it's just his room), story progression, etc etc. Eiko gets captured, we gotta go up nort dere, yaaaa. I replace Steiner with Vivi for now, as Steiner has no new equpment to learn stuff with. Time to raid Kua's room! Seriously, qualifies as a panty raid. We get a Namingway Card, and that's it. Now get out. Leave where the Hilde Garde was.

Amarant mastered Spare Change! Now Amarant is king of hobos! I equip him with Mythril Claws for now.

Vivi mastered Comet and Water! Now to equip the truly badass High Mage Staff which allows me to equip the truly badass Black Robe WHICH IN TURN allows me to equip a Pumice Piece for the absurd 41 Mag. Mmmmm, MP+20% with Meteor and Flare before airship...

We follow the Hilde Garde to the Lost Continent via the Blue Narciss, and we end up in a town called Esto Gaza. I decide to keep my team (seriously). We're told to venture forth into Mt Gulug, where we are to rescue Eiko, and maybe even kill Lilith if we got spare time. I downgrade to the Heavy Lance for Six Dragons at the moment. It's a reletively easy learn anyways.

Mt Gulug

Love the tune it plays here. Now careful, as on occasion there will be the occasional red dragon crashing through houses. Make sure Freya has Dragonslayer equipped while she's down here. Red Dragons do not mess around either. *Tests out Six Dragons, sees Amarant's HP and Vivi's MP dwindle down to 0* Uhhhh, right...*Re-Equips Dragon Hair*.

Vivi learned Osmose!

Going the right path after going down a rope leads to Gaia Gear, and a possible Red Dragon fight. Red Dragons give 3 AP and a ton of EXP, so it's not a big deal.

Vivi mastered Death! Amarant mastered Curse!

Amarant learns HP+20%!

Down the left path will eventually lead to another Red Dragon fight along with treasures such as an Elixer.

Vivi mastered MP+20%!

Pull down the rope 3 times, and go down, wait for the Red Dragons to bust the well down. You have to do this fight with 2 dragons. Continue on to find Zorn and Thorn conducting a rite to suck the Eidolons out of Eiko. I forget if you need Devil or Undeadkiller coming up, so for safety's sake I equipped both. Seems Mog will protect Eiko from certain death, and...He becomes a summon that basically...I don't know what it does, but it's sparkly and utterly wastes Zorn and Thorn. We get a Ribbon from Mog after that.

But, seems Kuja feels they should have one last hurrah beyond death. We're about to suffer through the twins' final trolling.

Boss: Meltigemini

ECH! That is vile!

It has moves like Venom Powder (Imagine if Poison drained MP as well, along with freezing you), and Viral Smoke (Virus is an annoying status ailment. It doesn't actually do anything, it just makes it so you gain no EXP or AP after battle. It's good for one who's trying to do a close to base as possible run, but I'm not!). I recall he only uses Viral Smoke if you cure everyone of the virus, so if you leave one with a Virus, he won't do it again. Which case, leave Zidane with it, since by now he's got like no skills left to learn. Make sure to steal stuff off him, he's got good stuff like a Gold Hairpin and a Demon's Vest. He's the same now as he was in life. Merely annoying.

Amarant mastered Aura and Jelly! Aura is a great skill, casting Auto Life AND Regen, an ability that gives quite a bit of reassurance.

We make sure the black mages are alright, and then we hear a woman speak out from another room. My, she seems royal. Whatever the hell could she be doing in a place like this? She seems to know of who Kuja is, and is thankful you drove the guy away. She seems to know who Garnet is too...So this is Hilde. Cid certainly seems happy to see her, having learned greatly from his mistake. So, we get the hell out of there, and we return to Lindblum. Hilde gives Cid a hard time before changing him back, just so she knows he learned his lesson. Cid's happy to be back, and we're happy to have him back! So, go to the conference room to talk over new plans, concerning Kuja's otherworldly goals. We must break the seals of Shimmering Island by restoring the adamantite to 4 meteorites, and-oh wait, wrong game. We must find the seals on the northern area of the Forgotten Continent in an old abandoned castle. Ipsen's Castle to be precise, or at least that's the name it's given. Then suddenly, we're in Alexandria. Seriously, what the hell happened? Did everyone just take a quailude and got abducted to Alexandria? That had to be the worst transition I've ever seen.

We meet Beatrix, hoping she might know where Garnet is (How the fuck did she get to Alexandria like that!?), and she has only a thought that Garnet might be at her mother's grave, and gives you a err..Garnet. I'm not gonna cause confusion over it. She loves the stone, then takes the dagger from Zidane, saying remember me for who I was (Scare the shit out of us, why don't ya!?), and then she cuts her hair short. As if we care. Then we cut back to Lindblum, because I suspect we all got hosed with a crapton of angel dust, and this is just part of the ride. So now I have an airship. My team will be Garnet, Vivi and Freya for now.

Taking a break.

[eclipse]

Regarding Phoenix Pinions - Having them in inventory means there's a small chance that Phoenix will revive your party when you've been completely obliterated. The more Pinions, the higher the chance (the highest possible chance was 46% or something like that).