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My FFIX guide at 458K. Here it is for you: ############# ############# #### ## ## Final Fantasy IX FAQ/Walkthrough ====================================================================== CHAPTER ONE: The Old Boring Stuff -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- ====================================================================== ****************** I might update this Final Fantasy IX guide, so here is the version history of it. ====================================================================== ******************** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHAPTER ONE: The Old Boring Stuff 1. Version History CHAPTER TWO: Characters 1. Zidane Tribal CHAPTER THREE: Basics: Read Before Playing 1. Stats CHAPTER FOUR: Walkthrough: Disc 1 1. Theater Ship CHAPTER FIVE: Walkthrough: Disc 2 9. Summit Station CHAPTER SIX: Walkthrough: Disc 3 24. Alexandria CHAPTER SEVEN: Walkthrough: Disc 4 41. Memoria CHAPTER EIGHT: Side Quests/Mini Games 1. Chocobos CHAPTER NINE: Equipment 1. Weapons CHAPTER TEN: Bosses/Enemies 1. Bosses CHAPTER ELEVEN: Abilities 1. Zidane CHAPTER TWELVE: Shops/Items 1. Shops CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Closing 1. Outro ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *************** Hello! Welcome to my newest, latest, and very greatest guide, my Final Fantasy IX guide! It's Gbness back again, and he's here for his fourteenth FAQ. I've recently worked for Mega Man Legends 2 and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, so I decided to get in something that might make me more respectable and is a little more fun to do. Then I looked over my PS1 collection and knew I'd have to do Final Fantasy IX. A great game, this game is! Seriously, if you do not own this game I will strongly recommend that you pick this title up. Trust me you will not regret it, it's one of PS's great achievements! I love FFIX quite a lot, and I chose to write a guide for it because many people have problems with it, even though I personally find it a rather easy game. Final Fantasy IX is the ninth installment in the popular Final Fantasy series by Squaresoft, and it is arguably the best game yet in the series. I do not enjoy quite as much as I love the awesome Final Fantasy X (whoosh, I shiver just at the meer mention of that game), but this is still a fantastic title in the series, and definitely worthy of the Final Fantasy name. Having been annoyed by Final Fantasy VIII and finding Final Fantasy VII a little overrated, I am not disappointed by this game in the slightest! Anyway, excuse my rather poor format, and you can use this guide and really guide yourself through Final Fantasy IX. I'll explain a little bit about how this guide will go around. The characters section will explain the characters' personalities, their usefulness in battle, a rundown of their stats, and their Trance modes. The game basics chapter will teach you the elements, status effects, the ability system, and nonsense like that. And then since there are four huge discs that make up this game, the walkthrough is split up into four chapters. Each will detail the guide as well as I can manage. The side quests and mini games part will introduce all of the optional stuff and secrets in the game, then there's the equipment list which will show you to everything you can wear, and the boss and enemies list will show you to all the bosses if you're too lazy to look in this guide, then the enemies and basically everything that I can detail about them will be listed there. You'll find all the abilities after you find the bestiary. After that, you'll find yourself with a good closing, my friends. This, in case you might be interested, is the first walkthrough that I've written for a game that the classics of GameFAQing have written for. I already honor the works of the extremely intelligent ATadeo, the wonderful GheddonLN, the great Psycho Penguin, and of course Nemesis, for their great contributions to gamers going through this game, so it's my job to stand up to them. I can assure you that you are going to have a great time reading through this guide, and perhaps one day I'll be respected like them. Who knows? Well, anyway, feel free to send me feedback, positive or negative, because I enjoy getting the kind of stuff. I'll add anything that'll need to be added, and I like anyone that gives me some good information, and I'm a friendly guy. So don't hesitate if I miss something important! Thanks in advance. -Rich "Gbness" B. ******************* You are NOT permitted to put this FAQ on your site without my permission first. All you have to do is email me or IM me saying you want this FAQ on your site, then you can tell me your site and the chance is high that I'll let you. But if you put this FAQ on your site without my permission I swear you will regret it. If I let you, not ONE word should be changed from this FAQ! NOT ONE! Got it? Good. *************** I love getting good emails, so you're free to email me with a question any time, but I will not answer questions already answered in this FAQ. I prefer e-mails with good grammar, and subjects with FF9 <insert whatever here> or I will delete them, sorry. Also, don't send me e-mails about other FFs with a FF9 subject, please. And don't bother sending things like: "You freaking idiot.. Your guides suck, you suck, and everything about you sucks. DIE DIE DIE!" "BURN IN THE FLAMES OF HELL, YOU STUPID RETARD!!!" "What the hell did you think you were doing making a piece of crap guide like your FF9 guide?" "I hope you fall down the stairs and break every bone in your body." "u su><0rz, eVrYtInG BoUt u sUx, dIe ass!!!1" I will laugh at e-mails like that and delete them. *********** IM Rules: I also like getting IMs, but don't send them to me too often, or they may be ignored. I am on often, so feel free to IM me, but keep it light. The same rules apply. ====================================================================== CHAPTER TWO: Characters -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- There are eight main characters in the world of Final Fantasy IX. All of them are unique, unlike Final Fantasy VII and VIII, and each of them have their own set of abilities, stats, Trance modes, and all of that stuff. Here's an introduction on all of the eight main characters of the game. **************** HP: High Quote: You don't need a reason to help people. Zidane Tribal is a thief, and a member of Tantalus. He's the strongest, smartest, and overall best member of Tantalus. He's left Tantalus many times and just come back, but this time he'll decide to leave so he can free Dagger and make out with her. Zidane is really crazy and totally girl obsessed, and an overall very useful character, despite what many people have to say about him. And as he's a thief, he can use thief skills and steal from enemies. In battle, Zidane's an excellent character. His thief skills may not seem like much at first as he can detect an enemy's items, flee, turn the enemy's back around when yours is turned around, do damage when he's got a 7 in his HP, do a status depending on his weapon that the enemy is usually immune to, and sacrifice himself. He doesn't sound too useful, does he? Well, once you get his Thievery skill you've got one of the most powerful skills in the game, and his HP and Strength are high enough to make him super powerful. Zidane has perhaps the best Trance mode in the entire game. His Thief skills are replaced with Dyne skills. Once you reach the higher levels, even the very weakest of his Dyne skills can do the very maximum of 9999 damage, and he has such skills like Grand Lethal that even at some of the lowest of levels can do up to 6000-7000 damage. His Trance mode is one that you will want to use in some of the toughest fights. **************** HP: Low Quote: How do you prove that you exist? Maybe we don't exist... Vivi is one of the most important characters in the game, and he's your typical moody little kid personality: shy, quiet, cute, and lovable. The storyline mainly focuses upon him, and he is a black mage. This makes life difficult for him as he sees his own type controlled, and what his type are like once they're controlled. Although he's very quiet and cowardly at the start, he will show great courage and bravery as the story progresses. At the early part of the game, Vivi is a highly useful character. I mean, his black magic simply owns. His magic defense and magic power are very high and he'll basically be your savior. Such spells like Fira will just guide you through the game, but that's at the start. When the game goes on, he becomes weaker and much less useful. His final spell Doomsday is not useful at all and he's weaker than he will appear at first sight. Still, he's an average character. Vivi has an excellent Trance mode, at the early or late parts of the game and 100% of the time this is a cool and pretty powerful Trance mode. Black Magic is replaced with Dbl. Blk, and as the name applies he can cast two black magic spells simultaneously. This, just like himself, will get less and less useful as time goes by, mainly due to the fact that his magic isn't too great in the end and that it takes up double MP. ******************* HP: High Quote: Having sworn fealty, must I spend my life in servitude? Adelbert Steiner might just have the worst personality ever to come out of a Final Fantasy game, which explains why a lot of people hate this man's guts. Steiner is very overprotective of Garnet, and he cannot stand to let her go anywhere without him, which drives him crazy and makes him super annoying. He is also covered head to toe in dirty, rusty armor. Although he despises Zidane at the beginning, the two become loyal friends later. He's a character you will probably dislike a lot. Steiner's main purpose in battle is to use his incredible physical attacks. Of all the characters in the game, Steiner has the strongest physical attack and highest HP. His defense, due to his filthy but still mighty armor, is also fantastic, which makes for a great physical character. Still, Steiner lacks any skills except Attack and Item (which everyone has), and Sword Arts. While his Sword Arts are almighty, it's disappointing those are his only skills. He can however use Sword Magic if Vivi is in the party, so that evens it out a little bit. The only main character in the game not to have a Trance mode, Steiner just gets his and gets no extra skills. (None to fill in that empty spot of his, darn it.) Still, it's not a total loss. His Trance mode is arguably the strongest attack in the game in early parts. His sword becomes so powerful that it can kill most enemies and even some bosses in one hit. So don't think that no real Trance makes Steiner useless! Build up his strength and you'll see four 9's of HP get taken away from enemies. ************************ HP: Low Quote: Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself. Garnet is one of the main characters in the game, and early in the game she is very naive and her mother has been acting very oddly for quite a while. She is one of the most emotional characters in the game and even though she seems annoyed by Zidane at first, she really loves him and the two are true friends until the very end of the story. A little later, Garnet will change her name to Dagger, so I will refer to her as Dagger from here on. In battle, Dagger has two main abilities: Summon and White Magic. Her summons are ultimately powerful, although at the start of the game you cannot summon any eidolons. Well, you can. But that's only if you over level to hell. The least MP that a summon costs at that time is 96, and you get that much at around Level 15 or so. Early in the game, Dagger is nothing but a healer. However, around Disc 3 all her eidolons can be put to good use for cheap MP. Dagger has perhaps the weirdest Trance mode in the entire game. This Trance mode is plain useless in the beginning of the game because you cannot summon any eidolons, but later it will be terrific. After she summons an eidolon, she will randomly summon that same eidolon (slightly weaker), on future turns. Her Trance mode is useful enough for my taste, I guess. ***************** HP: Medium Quote: To be forgotten is worse than death. Freya is a young woman Zidane used to know. He meets her again in Lindblum, and then she's basically with him for the rest of the game besides an incident on Disc 2. Eventually a wounded Burmecian soldier makes his way up to Lindblum saying that Burmecia is being attacked, and since Burmecia is Freya's home town, she has to go there to help out. Zidane, being the loyal person he is, goes with her and she joins. She is also seeking her lost love, Sir Fratley. Now right now you're probably gawking at her stats up there saying how they're all at "Medium", meaning that Freya would be an average character at best. This is far from the truth. Freya is an extremely useful character for the wonderful skills that she has, like Jump. She won't be attacked while in the air (although she can't be healed there either), but she has such skills like Dragon's Crest that make her beyond useful. Trance mode for Freya is pretty weak and perhaps the most useless in the game. Fortunately though, Trance in not very important for Freya. In Trance mode, Freya can jump and stay in the air slightly longer, and when she lands she'll hurt all of the enemies. But there's one thing I've never quite been able to understand: when she lands she doesn't do much damage at all! Sometimes she does a lot more than the last time, but almost never as much as usual. It's truly a pity. ************* HP: Medium Quote: I do what I want! You have problem? This may very well be the most interesting and strange character that SquareSoft has ever thought up. Quina Quen is part of a race called Qu, and for heaven's sakes we don't know what age or gender it is (although I personally think that Quina is a male.) In Qu Marsh, Zidane meets Quina and he joins to be broaden his horizons and find more food. He also loves eating frogs and is a blue mage. One of his most special blue magic spells becomes stronger with more frogs. In battle, Quina is quite underrated and he is actually quite a useful character. While many agree that his Blue magic sucks, it is actually quite useful. Frog Drop and Limit Glove can do 9999 damage. His physical attack though, is a bit strange. It is rather powerful, but there is something very weird about it because it does random damage. Sometimes with the Bistro Fork (my experiment), it did about 70 damage and sometimes it did more like 2000. So be prepared for a weird character. Tying with Freya, Quina has one of the worst Trance modes in the game. Regularly, Quina can eat enemies when they're at about 1/8 of their HP. In Trance, Quina goes to 1/4 of their HP and at that point Eat is replaced with Cook. Quina's Trance gauge also fills rather slowly so he'll basically never get to use this ability in a real situation where you'd actually need to use it. However, don't just judge Quina by the useless Trance. ************* HP: Low Quote: I don't wanna be alone anymore... Eiko is a 6 year old little girl who lives in the town of Madain Sari. That summoners' town is a big mess, but she lives with tons of moogles. Her parents and grandparents died when she was very little, so she is just on her own now. She has a horn of some kind, and can even summon eidolons. Inside her skirt, her little sister Mog lives. The two are very good friends. Eiko also seems to have some relationship to Dagger in some way. Whether Eiko is better or worse than Dagger I cannot say. However, there are a lot of weaker spots about Eiko compared to Dagger. She has less HP, Strength, Defense, and summons (4 to Dagger's 8), and summons are a bit weaker. Still, Dagger is the summoner! Eiko is basically your white mage, so in times of trouble where you need to heal, Eiko is there for you with powerful White Magic. She can also use Holy, one of the most powerful attacks in the whole game. She's a medium character I guess. Eiko's Trance mode is very similar to Vivi's and it totally fits in with the fact she is a white mage and makes her an even stronger white mage. It's not as good as Vivi's or Dagger's Trance modes, but it's still fairly good. Eiko can use two white magic spells in a row, so in a case where you need immediate healing on your whole party, two Cura or Curaga spells can heal it completely with ease. Still, her Trance mode comes up often and it's not as useful as it sounds. Not to mention that it's double the MP too! STOP THE TOTAL RIPS, SQUARE! **************** HP: High Quote: The only dependable thing about the future is uncertainty. Amarant is without a doubt the most alone, selfish, and silent character in the game. Because he's a pretty bad and mad guy, he hardly ever talks except when supposed to. He and Zidane met each other in Treno a long time ago, and Zidane did some pretty nasty stuff on him. Amarant comes back wanting revenge a little later (in Madain Sari), and loses, and just joins to learn more about friendship, although he doesn't show much in the later areas. There's basically not much to complain about in Amarant. His HP is second only to Steiner's, and he's got super speed, which is surprising as for the fact he's a monk. His strength is extremely high and his skills are really good. However, he's one of the four powerhouses who cannot use magic, so basically his magic and magic defense are only average. Still, this doesn't lower his use in battle. Amarant's a great character, period. Amarant might just get Trance mode the least of anyone in the whole game, as for some reason he is rarely attacked and as opposed to me getting Zidane's about 20 times and Vivi's about 18 times, I got Amarant's 3 times in the game. His Flair will be replaced with Elan, and then you might notice that Flair always hits one character/enemy. Elan will hit all of the party members/enemies. It makes a fairly good Trance mode, especially with Chakra on the whole party to save up Ethers! ====================================================================== CHAPTER THREE: Basics: Read Before Playing -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- Alright, you'll probably know some of the stuff in this section if you've played other RPG's. In fact, nothing except the ability system is really different in Final Fantasy IX than in most other RPG's, but I feel that I should still put every bit of detail I can about the game in this guide. However, there are some new things introduced in the world of Final Fantasy IX, so here we go. ******** HP is the main stat of the game. It is a number to the left of the character's name that determines their health, and without HP you simply cannot fight. If it runs out, you are knocked out and you will have to use a Phoenix Down or a similar item or spell to revive yourself. If all of your characters get knocked out, you get a Game Over. However, at first you might think that since you cannot live without HP, you will probably think it is the most important stat in the game. DEAD WRONG! Defense and magic defense are much more important at many times. However, it's your choice. MP is quite similar to HP and is displayed to the right of HP. It determines how many points they have to use magic. Obviously, each spell in the game has a certain MP value and when you use that spell your MP decreases. If the value is more than your current MP, you cannot use that spell. To regain MP you basically have to use an Ether or a similar item, and they are hard and rare items to find unfortunately. MP can also be used for Trance modes, so I'd say it's a fairly important stat. I still wouldn't pay more attention to it than any other stat in the game however. Speed is in my opinion one of the most important stats in the whole game. It has many uses. For instance, the ATB gauges to the right of your characters fill up quicker with more speed. Zidane also has a skill called Thievery that relies very much upon Speed. With more Speed, the damage that Thievery does goes up. Speed can also be used for some other purposes. I'd recommend with all of the less speedy characters like Vivi, Steiner, and Quina to get weapons that build up their speed because they have lots of powerful attacks that you will definitely want them to use quickly. Strength is what you will basically need if you want to do any damage to your opponents. The higher your Strength is, the more damage you will do to your enemy. It increases as you level up, unlike Attack. Attack just goes up with weapons. Strength is incredibly important if you're a physical attacker, and if you like Zidane, Steiner, Amarant, or Freya in your party, you will want to build this stat up. I would suggest doing so because I personally like to use Strength more than Magic. Don't bother with it if it's Vivi, Dagger, Eiko or possibly Quina though. Vitality is your defense, and if you are facing really strong physical attackers you are going to have to have Vitality. However, I really do not care all that much about Vitality. Since a lot of enemies use magic as opposed to physical attacks, I think that it is more important to build up your nice magic defense and just leave Vitality. However, there are some bosses like Gizamaluke with ultimately powerful physical attacks, and in this case you will want your lower defense characters like Dagger and Vivi (they are not in your party when you fight Gizamaluke), to have high defense. Magic is one of the most important stats in Final Fantasy IX, and basically what it does is increase the magic power of the spells and summons in the game. I wouldn't call it more important than Strength though, because there are more characters in the game with huge physical attacks rather than nice magical attacks. In fact, magic is almost useless to Zidane, Steiner, Amarant, and Freya. They can't use magic of any sort, only skills. However, the summoning of Dagger and Eiko and spells of Vivi and Quina's become extremely nice after this stat is really high. Magic defense is another stat that will probably be quite vital within the world of Final Fantasy IX, and since there are so many enemies who are totally crazy about using spells, Magic Defense will have to be as top-notch as it possibly can. In my opinion, magic defense is more important than Vitality is, but don't make it the most important stat in the game! In some bosses like Gizamaluke who have magic that hits the entire party, you will it to do as little damage as possible, especially with strong physical attacks. Overall you should pay attention to magic defense if you don't want to get crushed. Spirit is a rather mixed bag of what it does. What I mean by that is that it has a lot of different effects on a character. It's sort of like Luck from some previous Final Fantasies, and if you have high spirit, there's a higher chance that Zidane will manage a Steal, it'll make Trance bars fill quicker, it'll have Vivi's status magic spells hit more often, and it'll also do more lucky things for your party. Usually it's best used for the stealing, so I suppose that its best use is when you're trying to steal from someone like Tantarian or Hilgigars. Evasion and magic evasion don't really have much to talk about, so I'll put them in one paragraph. Evasion determines how often you miss an attack the enemy throws at you. I don't really recommend booting this up too much because even at 25% (which is QUITE a lot for evasion), there's only a 1 in 4 chance the enemy will miss. With magic evasion, it doesn't determine normal spells like Fire or Blizzard. It's just spells like Blind or Bio that can miss that matter. Magic evasion goes even less high than evasion does, so there's a small chance of avoiding it. Don't bother with it. ********* Trance is very similar to Limit Breaks from Final Fantasy VII and Overdrives from Final Fantasy X. To the right of the MP, there's a gauge. It fills up as you get hit. Once it reaches its end, the character will turn white and his/her physical power will increase. The character will then get another ability in which they can use. Before difficult battles, you might want to get the Trance bar as filled up as you possibly can. ***************** Abilities are learned from equipped weapons. When you have the weapon on, you get AP. When you have enough AP for the ability, you can use the ability without equipping the weapon. There are also a lot of weapons that only certain characters can learn. There are two kinds of abilities in the game. Action Abilities are the abilities you use in battle and fall under lots of categories like Black Magic, White Magic, Skill, etc. These are the more important of the two. Support Abilities are also learned from weapons, but you equip them with your Magic Stones. You get more Magic Stones as you level up. ***************** There are a LOT of status effects to be found in Final Fantasy IX, so you'd best avoid being under any bad status effect and try to use some of the good status effects to your own advantage. These are all of those evil status effects that simply make Final Fantasy IX slightly harder. (In no particular order.) Here's the legend: Name: The name of the status effect, silly! === Name: Petrify Name: Sleep Name: Silence Name: Slow Name: Darkness Name: Heat Name: Confuse Name: Berserk Name: Freeze Name: Doom Name: Gradual Petrify Name: Mini Name: Trouble Name: Stop Name: Poison Name: Virus Name: Venom Name: KO ==== Name: Regen Name: Protect Name: Shell Name: Reflect Name: Haste Name: Float Name: Vanish Name: Auto-Life *********** There are eight elements in the game, and a lot of the enemies in Final Fantasy IX are obsessed with an element. You can learn from these enemies and use their weakness on them or protect yourself from their power. ---- ---- Fire Ice Now, here's a list of what these elements will likely be effective/ineffective against, and a little more onto the basics of them. FIRE: Effective against ice enemies. Fire is the most basic of all the elements, and the earliest spell Vivi learns. So fortunately, it can be used to some great powers. ICE: Effective against fire enemies, large enemies, and dragon creatures. The second most basic of the eight elements, and it's effective against a LOT of enemies. THUNDER: Usually useful against water creatures and a good deal of machines. The third most basic of the eight elements, and a favorite of quite a lot. EARTH: To our disgust, earth usually isn't that useful to a whole lot of people, due to how it's not very special. On wind enemies on the ground, it's extremely useful. But it misses against flying enemies. WIND: What I don't understand is that Vivi can't cast Aero and Aera, because they're very nice spells when enemies use them... anyway, this is useful against most earth elemental enemies. WATER: Unlike FF10, it's not a core element in this game, but against most thunder elemental enemies and monsters in the desert, water is extremely good. HOLY: This is something that even Vivi cannot use, and only white mages can. Few attacks are holy elemental in Final Fantasy IX, and this is useful against dark enemies and undead monsters. SHADOW: Like Holy elemental attacks, Shadow has very few attacks in its element. The element is very powerful and useful against holy monsters. Too bad there are few of them and it heals the undead... Yes, you might want a bit of help before taking on the gigantic world of Final Fantasy IX. I do know that it's MY advice in which you are probably not going to need, but you'll probably want all the help that you can get. • There's the Trance mode around. Several times in the game, you are going to encounter a lot of enemies that are extremely powerful. In this case, you'll want all the preparation you can get. Since Trance is extremely powerful, there can be no harm in simply using it and blasting your enemies. However, try very hard not to get it before you want to, or you might end up hitting your TV in anger and doing a lot of damage to it. • Basically, there are three ways of tackling the ability system. One - don't bother fighting too many enemies. Only equip weapons with the abilities you need. I don't recommend this as it takes a lot of memory. Two - just learn abilities that you really need. Then just equip some that you have around so you can use them. This is my recommendation. Three - learn every ability from every item you possess. This will make the game too easy, plus it is tedious and time consuming. Choose two, none others. • In battle, there's front and back row, and there's first strike and back attack. If an enemy hits you while your back is turned to them, you can expect to drop and take a whole lot of damage. That's called the back attack. In first strike, the enemy's back is turned to you. Now for rows. In front row, your characters will take a whole lot of damage, but do more damage in return. This is for well defended attackers. In back row, you do less damage but take less. For mages who never attack, put them there. Well done choices will make the game easier. • Having the correct support and action abilities at the right time is a good thing. Before fighting a boss with strong fire attacks for example, equip fire resistant equipment and if the boss has a weakness to ice, be sure to have the strongest ice magic you possibly can to do tons of damage to the enemy. Also, you will want to protect yourself against status effects that enemies use with the proper weapons and support abilities. Use magic stones very well, as you never have nearly as many as you need. • You are going to shortly grow to hate status effects. Avoid them at all costs if possible and against bosses like Meltigemini (who uses Poison and Venom), simply have support abilities that guard against these nasty effects. However, get the right weapons! Shop at every store you go to and get as many weapons as possible. Effects like Poison, Blind, and Silence are not too bad, but Confuse, Berserk, and Mini are dreadful. Heal them at all costs if you possibly can. • Shops are one of the most important parts of the game. Shortly near almost every single shop in the game, there are enemies to fight and they give you Gil. Know what you're buying all the time. Equip the things and have the perfect stuff to use against your enemies and get the proper abilities! If you can't afford it, fight powerful enemies and get Gil. Fear nothing so you'll get all the things you need to lead your way through the game. • Unlike a lot of RPGs, levels are hardly of any importance in Final Fantasy IX. The game can be completed at a mere Level 1 if you try to. As long as you have the right weapons and preparations, you could easily beat the game at Level 15-20. Just with a little wisdom you can get your abilities fixed up well and no enemy can even touch you as long as you can kill them nicely. Final Fantasy IX is not a difficult RPG. • It would be very impressive if you could find a single enemy in the whole game that doesn't have some sort of weakness. A lot of enemies and even some bosses can be affected by status effects, and there are tons of monsters with elemental weaknesses. Also, physical attacks are your king. With skills like Limit Glove in the early game, you can really play wisely and get your opponents to lose against you. Trust me, it will not be very hard to find a way to beat just about any boss in the whole game. • Search everything! Talk to every single person you see, and talk to them more than once. They might be important characters or they might give you something. Also, search every corner of every place. Leave no stone unturned. This guide won't need to help you find every odd and end there, so be sure not to miss out on anything. And pay attention to the stuff that you read or what characters say! You'll need this information in a lot of circumstances. You won't regret it listening to this tip! • Take care of your characters! Don't underestimate bosses because if you aren't spoiling ahead of yourself with this walkthrough you never know that you'll find an enemy or boss that kills everyone if they're at 1-10 HP and you've been too lazy to heal everyone. Also, there's the deal with status effects and weapons. Get them the best abilities you can to make them real strong and make sure that level-wise they don't end up ten levels behind. To see more information on the characters' stats, go to Chapter Two. ====================================================================== CHAPTER FOUR: Walkthrough: Disc 1 ====================================================================== This is literally quite a long game, so also expect this to be quite a long walkthrough as well. Otherwise, simply enjoy the walkthrough while it's here! *************** Enemies: You'll start the game off in a dark room. Well, it's the starting area of the game anyway. Read the sign to your right to learn a little about the city Lindblum and Tantalus, and then go to the top area. To the left sides, you'll find some Gil. After collecting it, light the candle in the middle of the room. You can then get the chance to name Zidane. His Tantalus pals Cinna, Blank, and Marcus will come in. A man with a mask barges in at that moment and we have to fight him. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As you've probably already guessed, the masked man is the easiest boss in the game. He can hit on Cinna pretty hard but that's basically all he's got to strut. You'll probably want to have Marcus and Blank attack a little to wear him down a bit, then have Cinna and Zidane steal. He can hardly touch anyone but Cinna. Once you've stolen a good weapon for Zidane called the Mage Masher, all you have to do is hit him a little more and the mask will fall right off his head. That will automatically win the battle. After that fight, everyone will look rather worn out. Baku will call them to the next room. Everyone will automatically go and Baku will explain the mission. It is to play the beautiful play "I Want to Be Your Canary" and then capture the beautiful princess of Alexandria, Garnet. We're then done with that part... ************* Enemies: We'll see a scene with a dark little boy with yellow eyes on the street. He carries a ticket with him. A little girl will then bump into him and give him his ticket. Be sure to stop in some of the houses around here and pick up cards and such. About halfway around this street, a little rat kid will be running toward you. He'll bump into you and yell at you, and then run away. Just ignore the kid and go forward. You'll see some nobles from the town of Treno talking, and they'll go on. Just head forward to the left. On the next screen, you will see a ticket booth right ahead. Talk to the people here if you want, and then just go to that ticket booth. Once you're there, talk to the guy at the ticket booth. Choose other options to learn more about Princess Garnet, Queen Brahne, and Alexandria. After that, just talk to the guy and ask him to stamp the ticket. Apparently it's a fake. He'll give you three cards and tell you to talk to Alleyway Jack. To the left side of this place, you might find three girls jumping rope. If you want, go ahead and try for it. You can get some awesome cards if you're good enough. For help on this, go to the Mini Games section. Once you're done there, just go to the left. Go down that path, and Dante the Signmaker on the ladder will miss the sign he's trying to hit. He'll scold the pointy hat boy and walk off. You'll then see the rat kid. Tell him what ever you want, and then he'll offer to take you to see the play if you be his slave. Agree and just go on. Down this path, you will be following the rat kid. Go to the end and to the left. Check this circular area for a Tent, and then go to the ladder. A moogle will fall on the pointy hat boy's head. The moogle's name is Kupo. He'll tell you a bit, and then another moogle named Stiltzkin will appear. He'll tell Kupo he's going and then fly off. Before heading up, talk to Kupo. He'll offer you to help with the Mognet Mail Network. Agree and then just go up the ladder. On the rooftops, the pointy hat boy will slowly walk across them. Just cross it and get further for a rather funny scene, and then the rat kid will stop and ask the boy for his name. His default name is Vivi. The rat kid will introduce himself as Puck. After that, just go. You can walk across one of the lower logs and cross the rooftops for some Gil if you want, but otherwise just go to where the rat kid is and go on. After he lays the ladder down, Vivi will automatically cross and it's time for the play. We will see an FMV. Vivi and Puck will run to the play and get there just in time. The screen will turn to Garnet, who does not look happy in the slightest. Steiner glances at her while carrying his sword, and the play begins. Baku (playing King Leo), introduces the play, and then Zidane, Cinna, and Blank do their parts. As it is part of the play, the four will have to have a fight with Baku/King Leo and his two assistants. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As the battle starts, you'll notice that for everyone, Steal is replaced with SFX. You might just want to use these awesome looking spells and find they do 0 damage. Well, to tell you the truth, SFX (Stage magic) is extremely useless and does absolutely no damage. The three will use this stuff but none of it is any good. Still, that doesn't matter. King Leo can take out Cinna in one hit but does about 10 damage to the others. You do not need to defeat Zenero and Benero to end this battle; all you have to do is waste King Leo to his death. You can probably do that in five attacks at most. Simply do that and the battle will be over. You can't steal in this fight. After that fight, King Leo will walk away in anger and then tell Marcus he hasn't seen the last of him and will return to haunt him. Blank will then tell Zidane some things about if the princess were to marry Prince Scheneider, there would be peace. And now in this play, we'll have to have a sword fight between Zidane and Blank. Please go to the Side Quests/Mini Games section for help on that. After the sword fight is over... In black so we don't see it, Blank and Zidane will beat up two of the Knights of Pluto for their armor and things. Blank will find every bit of problem with his armor and then Zidane will take off his helmet as it smells. After that, Blank will tell you to find Princess Garnet. Head to the next room to your left. Do NOT go up or down or two Alexandrian Soldiers will walk around and you'll waste time. Go up the stairs and you'll find a hooded girl. Pick whatever option you want, but either way she'll run through Zidane and Blank, then disappears. After that, we see two jesters by the names of Zorn and Thorn run around talking to each other, trying to find Queen Brahne. They'll talk a bit and then go to Queen Brahne, and tell her that Garnet left her seat. The captain of the Knights of Pluto and the General Beatrix will argue a little, and then Queen Brahne will order the captain (his name is Steiner), to find Princess Garnet. Looks like we have to do that task then, don't we? Steiner will yell at all of the Knights of Pluto to assemble, but only two appear. They are the ones whom Blank and Zidane mugged, and are half naked. Steiner will shout at them to find Garnet, and they will run off. Now, depending on how you did in the sword fight with Zidane and Blank, you can head back to where Queen Brahne is and get an item depending on how well it was done. Anyway, let's go find Garnet, shall we? There's a little thing we can do inside this large castle. We can try to find all eight Knights of Pluto and the final one right before Garnet will give you an Elixir. Refer to the Mini Games section for that help. Otherwise, just go up from there. If you talk to the soldiers around here, they'll tell you that a girl with a hood was just spotted. I think we all know who that is. After that, head around and go down the stairs, and just go to the south. From there, we'll be outside the castle itself. Go down from there and to your left. Steiner will hear that the play was a big hit and realize that if he doesn't find Garnet soon, he'll be a laughingstock of Beatrix. If you go to the right screen, you will find a Knight of Pluto (who is actually Blank in disguise), guarding a door. Ignore that. Just go to the left from there. We'll find ourselves near a really large tower. Go up all the stairs on this tower, and you'll find the final knight near the top. Talk to him if you've found all the other 7 knights, and he'll give you an Elixir. I'd say do this because Elixirs are always very well worth it. Once you've done so, go further up and Steiner will get worn out. He'll then see Zidane chasing Garnet on one of the opposite towers. He then runs to rescue her. We then see a nice FMV with Zidane and Garnet. The Princess stands on the tower and falls off with a nice smile on her face while doing it. Both Zidane and Steiner freak out at this, and then they see she fell off the tower on purpose. She then goes down and Steiner crashes, getting rid of him. Zidane then lands in a music room, and Garnet lands on top of him. She then runs away. Talk to the musicians if you want, otherwise just go to the right to continue. Garnet will run through a young woman named Ruby, and then the two will argue a little. She'll then run off and Zidane will then appear. Garnet went downstairs, so just go down there. You will be in the room where we began the game in. Zidane and Garnet will talk a little, and she will tell Zidane that she wants to be kidnapped. Cinna appears and then the two run off to the room to the right. Steiner enters in fury mode, and then Blank (in Pluto knight disguise) will appear. Zidane, Garnet, and Cinna will reach a dead end. Cinna however has something worked up for this. He will get a hole to escape in, and they get away. We then get a humorous scene when Steiner runs in and sees the hole. Blank jumps in first, but he pretends to get trapped there. Steiner then gets so mad that he runs away. Blank laughs at his victory, and then we return to where we were with Zidane, Garnet, and Cinna. The three then jump into an engine room. Zidane compliments how athletic Garnet is, and then they jump down. Zidane automatically goes to the right at the point. Now, we'll see a big wheel in this room. Turn it to the right. Cinna will scold Zidane that if it goes any higher, the ship will be in trouble. He then turns it back. Now turn it to the left. Two treasure chests will drop. Get down to the floor and grab these chests! They contain a Phoenix Down and Phoenix Pinion. When ready, go through the door next to Cinna. You'll then wind up in a small room, and Steiner will appear. Blank as the Pluto Knight also comes in, and Steiner tries to urge Garnet to come. Blank then gives away he's not one of Steiner's knights by telling Garnet that he'll get her out of there. The enraged Steiner sees this fact and gets mad again, then the three say he can leave the princess to them. Guess whom we have to fight next. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Steiner is one of the easiest bosses in the entire game. All he can do is attack and his attacks are very weak. You'll want to steal in this fight as well. Steiner's Silk Shirt is well worth stealing and the Leather Hat can be sold for a little bit of money. Now on for Steiner. Unless he hits Cinna, you shouldn't have one worry in this fight. He might be able to knock Cinna out but don't worry about him since he's not permanent. Just hit him a bit more and then he'll use Armor Break on Blank. He will then be distracted by oglops and the fight is over. After that stupidly easy battle, Blank has released his oglops and they dance all around the room making Steiner furious and distracted. The four run away. Unfortunately, in the next room Zidane, Garnet, and Blank make it up but Steiner smacks Cinna silly and follows them up. And now we finally reach the point where we progress with the play "I Want to Be Your Canary." King Leo steps on stage speaking his evil plan to himself, and then Zidane and Garnet get on stage from the platform below. Marcus and Garnet (who is playing Cornelia), hug each other and then King Leo steps in the way. Marcus tries to stab King Leo but Cornelia blocks him. The sword goes through Garnet/Cornelia and she drops and pretends to be dead. Marcus acts in his pity and Queen Brahne from the crowd starts crying. Then we see Vivi and Puck, who are both watching it. Two of Steiner's knights (Haagen and Weimar), appear and chase Vivi. He falls down and Puck gets mad at him and runs away. We won't see him again until much later. Vivi runs on stage and tries to cast Fire on the two knights who are chasing him, but he misses and hits Garnet. Her white mage robe catches fire and she takes it off. She yells at Steiner to stop following him. Then it's another battle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aw, this fight is even easier than the last fight with Steiner was! I admit that he's got Haagen and Weimar with him, but you can defeat them in one hit apiece. In this fight, Steal has been replaced with SFX again. The magic is still useless though. Steiner will not hit Garnet (he occasionally hits her very gently for light damage), so actually you don't even need to win this fight. He will just finish everyone off and let Garnet live, and that's the end, although the game will continue. Have Vivi use Fire on Steiner to reduce his HP a large bit while Marcus and Zidane attack, and Steiner will be defeated for the second time. After that fight, we see yet another spectacular FMV. Queen Brahne fires cannons at the theater ship and Garnet gets really worried. Then, from inside one of the cannons, a bomb in unleashed. The bomb goes on stage right behind Steiner, who has not given up yet. The bomb looks like it is angry but of some use... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This fight is a bit weirder than the last fight, but it's the easiest of all three of them. This time, you will see a bomb right behind old Steiner's head. Everyone will warn him about it but because he's so stupid, he won't notice it. Also, you might notice in this fight Steiner has no HP. You can do whatever you want with the game; you can get a GameShark and have Garnet summon something for about 2000-3000 damage or you can have Vivi cast Fire for 60-70 damage while having Zidane and Marcus slash away with their strong attack, but Steiner will NOT be defeated. Period. The bomb will swell three times and then blow behind him, so don't worry about anything after that. After Steiner's ass is kicked, the bomb explodes on him, making an extremely beautiful explosion. =P The theater ship took severe damage from Queen Brahne firing the cannons, so it catches fire and crashes in the Evil Forest. Baku, Cinna, and Blank do their duty to get it in shape, but nothing works there. It's crashed in the Evil Forest, where we are going next. ************** Enemies Now that we are out of that mess, we have to find Garnet. Blank's searching inside the ship, so Zidane gets the dirty work with searching in the forest. Go figure. Just head down and talk to the moogle to the left, and he'll teach you about ATE (Active Time Event) and show you a nice one. After that, just go to your right and proceed into the forest. At the beginning of it, there are two enemies: Goblin and Fang. Goblins are very weak creatures and can usually be taken out in one hit. Fangs are a bit stronger in every way, but you can still probably take them out. They each dish out a fair amount of EXP, so I really recommend getting up to Level 3-4 before handling the bosses right up ahead. When you're ready, go on and you'll see Steiner trying to tackle a strong plant. He can't do it. Thus this battle begins... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Prison Cage is a rather complex boss but it isn't very difficult. It only has the Left and Right Stem attacks that do some small damage to Zidane or Steiner, but what makes it slightly harder is that it holds Garnet captive. It uses Absorb sometimes and drains HP from Garnet, and when she loses all her HP she dies. (Sort of similar to Rinoa and Adel from Final Fantasy VIII.) After Prison Cage has absorbed HP from Garnet twice, you'll want to heal her immediately. Don't bother trying to steal because you cannot yet. After that, just go ahead and hit the Prison Cage to its death with Steiner's attacks and Zidane's Free Energy. It's not hard. After the fight, the Prison Cage will simply carry Garnet away. Vivi says he tried to do something but couldn't. Poor kid. Steiner will mope about Garnet's being taken away, but then suddenly the Prison Cage returns and takes Vivi as its new captive. Oh brother, we have to fight the Prison Cage again? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Prison Cage isn't finished yet, but it's just as easy this time around. Vivi is trapped inside the Prison Cage this time and he's always casting Fire on it. He does about 70-80 damage each he hits it so it won't take long to burn it up. Steiner and Zidane are also always attacking for a good 60 damage or so, but we also must worry a little on Vivi. He's still trapped within the Prison Cage and it will Absorb HP from him just like it did Garnet. We can't let Vivi die. Still, this fight is very simple. Go ahead and steal the two items (you might want to equip the Leather Wrist on Vivi later and sell the extra Broadsword), and then just wear the Prison Cage down with a few attacks at it'll die. Vivi will be rescued well and the Prison Cage will finally die. However, Garnet is still yet to be found. As the Prison Cage dies, it lets out some venom. Steiner and Vivi get really sick and then Zidane apparently has no choice but to bring them to the theater ship to be taken care of.... We'll see Blank taking care of Vivi. He'll tell him what could have happened if he and Zidane hadn't been doing all this. He appears to be healing nicely. After that we see Zenero pushing Steiner into a storage room. Steiner has been poisoned and can hardly do anything. Benero gives him some medicine and then they both lock him into a storage room. Zidane will talk to Baku. He wants to go out into the Evil Forest and rescue Garnet, but Baku won't let him. Zidane yells at him and calls him a big coward. Check the right for Bronze Gloves, and then go back. You'll see Baku look in that direction. If you go back in there you might notice he's gone. Don't mind that. Go down the stairs to the bottom and talk to Blank. He'll tell you to talk to Vivi. He's in the room behind Blank. Go in there and Zidane will compliment Vivi's powers. He'll also promise to find Garnet. Get the treasure chest on the upper side of the room and leave. When you leave, Zidane will start thinking. He'll then remember when he met Garnet and how pretty she was, and then he'll decide to save her. Tell Blank your plan, and then he'll tell you to talk to the boss (Baku). Okay, let's just go. Head to the left and you'll find Zenero and Benero guarding the storage room where Steiner is locked up. Just let that be. To the right of them, go down the staircase. From there, go to the right and you will find Baku in a small room. He'll sneeze a little and then tell Zidane's he's going to bust him up. He'll then tell him to get his ass in the cargo room. That was the last room. Go back in there and talk to Baku. We now have to fight. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Baku, being the leader of Tantalus, is actually a real wimp. His attacks only do about 30 damage or so and he trips over his own feet a lot. Add to that you can take him out in three hits or so. First of all, we'll want Zidane to steal a new sword for Steiner and the Hi-Potion, because both of them are worth it. Baku, although he is really weak, is pretty fast. His weak blows will soon start getting high, so don't let Zidane get KO'd. Heal with a Potion when HP drops, and then steal and attack Baku. It'll basically alternate between the two as they've got the same speed. Baku lets Zidane leave and just goes back. Talk to Blank and he'll tell you he unlocked the storage room so he's free to talk to Steiner. Now go back through the door on the left and go to the storage room. Zidane and Steiner will argue a little and then Steiner suggests that it is best to get Vivi to go with them as well, because he's got a lot of power. After doing that, go back into this room and open the treasure chest for an Ether. After doing that, just go south and all the way across the room to talk to Vivi. He'll agree to join. Steiner will also ask to do a special experiment with Vivi's magic to power up his sword. Now that we have our third party member, go back to the cargo room. Instead of heading right, go down. Around there you'll find Blank again. He'll give you a note from Baku, some advice on abilities, and medicine. Zidane then leaves for the Evil Forest. From here, just go the way we went to the Prison Cage in the Evil Forest. (Go down, and turn right.) Now go to where Prison Cage is and head beyond him. Now, just go straight ahead. You'll find Monty the moogle drinking water out of a spring. If your characters are short on HP or MP, drink from the spring to restore HP. You'd best save your game with Monty too. After doing so, go to the right to proceed deeper in the forest. You may find a new enemy called the Dendobrium here. This flower is pretty simple, although it uses Pollen on the party. Try to finish this off quickly with a physical attack and Vivi's Fire spell. Doing so is a good way to build up a little. Try to get Vivi and Steiner to Level 3, where I was at the time. After you pass this area, we'll see a short scene across the water and a deadly looking plant can be seen. We're going to have to fight it soon. After that screen, just go right ahead to the chamber. Keep in mind: right before you enter you'll almost ALWAYS have a random encounter with a Dendobrium! I mean, this is so dang annoying! WE WANT TO FIGHT THE PLANT BRAIN RIGHT NOW, NOT THESE STUPID ANNOYING PLANTS. Head into the chamber after you sadly run into the random encounter. The Plant Brain is right there looking very dangerous, and behind it is Garnet, who has been very badly poisoned. I suppose it's time to fight the master of the forest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Plant Brain is not very difficult, but it's the toughest boss this far. It's 930 HP will probably discourage you and you'll want to steal the Iron Helm from it which will really slow you down. The Plant Brain can cast Thunder on the entire party and it's got some DARN good physical attacks. Thunder can be quite painful and Plant Brain is rather speedy as well. It can also use Pollen very freely and this is going to be extremely annoying. However, the Plant Brain is vulnerable to Fire. Steiner's Fire Sword with Vivi will do nearly 400 damage and Vivi's Fire will do about 150, so it won't take long to wear down the Plant Brain. Have them do that a bit while Zidane attempts to steal the Iron Helm from it. If Plant Brain gets Blind on everyone, use an Eye Drops or two if you're going to attack physically. After you've done some reasonable damage, Blank will show up. He's ready to fight and he can steal. Have BOTH Blank and Zidane steal until they get the Iron Helm. You won't regret it. After you've got it, you may want to heal a little because the Plant Brain will have probably worn you down a little by now. But once you've done so, just have Steiner use Fire Sword, Vivi use Fire, and Zidane and Blank attack. They do a good 100 damage or so a blow, so Plant Brain will be little more than sacrificial lamb. After the battle, Steiner will hold Garnet, and Zidane gives her Blank's medicine. Then the Plant Brain's children: the Plant Spiders, appear. They are dangerous and this will be rather fun. All four of them will run. You might want to fight these creatures for fun too, because they give respectable amounts of EXP. Once you're done doing that, just hop from the cliff to the ground. You'll have to fight 2-4 Plant Spiders when you land. After beating them, go ahead and Zidane and Blank will talk a little. Then more Plant Spiders come! We see a wonderful FMV where the four run from all of these nasty Plant Spiders. Everyone is managing to run very well... except Blank. We see some spiders turning the forest into stone behind them, and then they grab Blank. Before Blank is gone, he tosses them a world map. Zidane grabs it and he, Vivi, and Steiner roll out of the forest. We then see the forest, and Blank, who is now nothing more than stone. Zidane will punch on the stone, but Blank is gone now. He, Vivi, Steiner, and Garnet will sit by a fire for the night, and then Zidane and Steiner argue some. Garnet thanks Zidane and Vivi for helping her. For the night, Steiner guards the Evil Forest making sure that no harm befalls Garnet, and then everyone goes to sleep. Upon waking up, Monty appears. He decides to give you a little lesson from the veteran Mogster. Learn from him a little if you want, but after that you will leave. Zidane suggests to go to a cavern to the south. World Map We are now on the world map for the first time. Right to the south is the Ice Cavern, but let's not head there yet. Go there, but don't enter. To the far east of it, you can find an entrance to the South Gate. A woman there can sell you some Potions. You will want to use these for building up. Wander around the world map mindlessly and get EXP to build everyone up, but when you're ready go to the Ice Cavern and let's get a move on. ************* Enemies: Upon entering, Vivi will explain a little about the cavern. Go further in and Garnet, as the naive girl she is, will examine a crystal. Steiner will yell at her to be careful, and then we take control of Zidane once again. Go up the samll hill and jump right below it and take the tent inside the chest, and then jump back to ground and head beyond that into further depths of this cold, icy cavern. I'll now talk a little about enemies. The Fang can be found in here, which is no big deal. Around the winds, you can find Wyerds. These are the most difficult enemies in the Ice Cavern because they have strong attacks and can switch their HP with a character's HP. Cave Imps cast Sleep a lot which makes them really annoying, but that's all. Flans just cast a little bit of magic but that's the only thing they've got. One Fire spell on all of them eliminates all of them. In this next room, go to your right and inspect the wall. Zidane will suggest that if Vivi were to cast a Fire spell on it, it would break. After Vivi burns it down, check the treasure chest and get an Ether. Get the chest nearby for a Potion and then go to the top of this screen and get out of it. Beware of some of the winds around here as you may end up fighting some of those Wyerds here. Oh my beans! In this room, go to your right and get the treasure chest, and then examine the icicle after getting it. Be very careful as it may be a little tricky. Vivi will hit it with his Fire spell, and you can go down the icicle and get another Mage Masher dagger. Go to the left side of the room from here and burn down the other wall. (It might be a little hard to see.) Get the Elixir inside that chest, and then go to the upper-right side of the room and get out of that area. Go to the top of this room and check the left ice wall. Vivi will burn it down and you can go down this path to get the Leather Wrist in the chest. Keep in mind you'll also have to go through a random encounter due to the stupid wind. Also around this room, you may also notice a Phoenix down, so get that if you want. It always helps to save up. Once you've done that, go up and we'll come to a fork. Head left on the fork, and you'll find an icicle and a moogle inside it. Get Vivi to burn it, and then the moogle will be freed. He'll go into frantics, but then he'll realize what you've done for him. He also lets Mogster teach you a little bit here and there about elements, status effects, and the card game. Now use a Tent, for we are about to fight a boss soon. Go back and head to the right fork. Everyone will pass out, including Zidane. He'll wake up in this storm. Go to the right and we'll find what's causing the storm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- These two as a pair are rather nasty, but they're not really that bad. Black Waltz #1 uses Fire and Blizzard for about 30 damage each, and the Sealion uses Wing (about 40 damage), and Blizzard (50 damage). When the battle gets further, the Sealion uses Blizzara (80-90 damage), and Tsunami (70-80 damage). Therefore, you could end up dead meat to it because it and Zidane alternate, making it very fast. Plus, you might see it has an Ether and Mythril Dagger to go with it. Sometimes it will take an eternity to be able to steal the Mythril Dagger. If you attack the Sealion, Black Waltz #1 will cast Blizzard on it, healing it. We don't want to go down that road. The Black Waltz #1 really doesn't have anything nice to steal, so you probably don't need to go around stealing from it. Just hit it some for about 90 damage and it will be falling real soon. Undoubtedly in this battle, Zidane will go into Trance mode. Once he reaches Trance mode, you are free to use Free Energy or Tidal Flame. However, you may not want to do to use Tidal Flame unless you have a good amount of HP remaining. With Tidal Flame, Black Waltz #1 will die but Sealion will probably be left. But at the point, it'll be using Tsunami and then Blizzara. If you've been neglecting healing, you could be breaking your TV because Tsunami could wipe you out. With Free Energy, you could try a little trick. You could use it on Sealion for about 350 damage. Black Waltz #1 would cast Blizzard on it for about 160 HP back. That would be about 190 HP lost. That's not enough HP to make it use anything too nasty. You could then use another Free Energy and Sealion would be dead before Black Waltz #1 could heal it. With Sealion out of the way, Black Waltz #1 would be no problem at all. So do whatever you want to do in this battle, but if you're at around 300 HP and are fully healed, use the Tidal Flame strategy and don't worry about the Sealion wiping you out. Still, be sure to heal once your HP drops to 100 or so, just to be safe. Zorn and Thorn will tell you that you defeated #1, but #2 and #3 will reclaim the princess. Zidane will wander back to where the three were, and then that stupid idiot Steiner will shout at him some more. Zidane hides the thing about the Black Waltz, and then the four reunite. Go back to where the Black Waltz was, and this time go to the right and climb all the way. Get all the way to the top and exit the Ice Cavern for good. The four will walk down a small path on the outside, and Zidane will see a village that's familiar to him. (As every village is.) Zidane will tell Garnet that she needs a new identity. Steiner yells at him some more, and then the two start yet another argument. Garnet looks at Zidane's dagger, and chooses to name herself Dagger. Zidane then teaches her how to sound like a regular village girl, and then the four go down. World Map We have a little thing we can do here. Head right north to the village, but before entering go to the grass on the right. Make sure you have an Ore before doing so. Around there a cute little monster will ask you for an Ore. Give it to it and it'll thank you, tell you to tell Mr. Ghost it said hi and give you 10 AP (Zidane's Mythril Dagger's Bandit should get this AP for sure!). Now stop inside the Observatory Mountain to the right. Examine the ship inside and the old man will tell you to get his three favorite coffees. After that, just head into the village. ******* Enemies: Vivi will look at a windmill upon entering, and then Zidane will suggest going to the inn. Two kids will then run around. (They mean nothing.) Upon entering, Zidane will find the innkeeper asleep. He'll then wake him up, and then Innkeeper Hal (that's his name) will stare at Vivi and point them to the room. Everyone enters, and then Zidane and Steiner get into another argument. Vivi falls asleep, and then everyone calls it a day. On waking up, Zidane hears a voice singing a very pretty song. It was Dagger. Get the treasure chests in this room and view the ATE's (Vivi being curious of people hating him and Dagger trying to speak properly with an old woman). Go north to the top of this place and you'll find Vivi. Poor kid's a little down. After a small talk with the two, you'll seem some bastard carry him away. Dang it, stupid idiot taking a small, innocent, cute kid like Vivi. After that, we get another ATE, and now it's time to find Dagger. One of the ATE's will show her talking with Shopkeeper Eve at the Item Shop. Head to the shop to the left of the inn and you'll find Dagger looking at some stuff. Zidane will give her some more advice on sounding just like a regular village girl, and then she'll go back to the inn. Buy something from Shopkeeper Eve if you want, but otherwise go back to the inn. Go to the main room and find Dagger there. Zidane and Dagger will chat a little bit and then we'll see Steiner cleaning some stuff in a shop. He obviously wants to find some transportation to get Dagger back to Alexandria Castle. The shopkeeper will tell him to go to the Observatory Mountain and talk to the old man named Mr. Morrid, who owns the cargo ship. That bastard Steiner. Zidane and Dagger will both wonder where Vivi is, and then they decide to go off and look. Head back to where we found Vivi in the first place. Zidane will hear a chocobo and go there. He'll then hear someone crying. He'll check a hole and hear Vivi. He was apparently taken underground, and now Zidane has to find a way there. Dagger fortunately comes along. Now, go down a little bit and head to the left. Check behind the windmill in here and you'll find the Aries. Now check on the lower side of the room for a latch and you'll find a ladder that leads underground. Climb down and find the elevator. Let it take you down and get the 156 Gil below it, and then continue down this tunnel. You'll see (not too clearly though), two men talking about what they've found. They will carry Vivi away and then Dagger will grab Zidane and pull him away. Dagger will tell Zidane that he can't cause trouble yet, but she recognizes the design on the barrel in that room. Go back there and check where those two men were for a treasure chest. Go to the next room and you'll see a barrel with a moogle in it. Save your game here and then examine the wheel here. Collect a Potion and then climb up the crates and check the top one for an Ether. Now jump right back down to the ground and go further on and you'll find some boxes. Zidane will hear something crying from one of them, and then you'll find Vivi. Some scums took the poor kid and stuffed him into a box. Child abuse! Well, now it's time to continue. At the top of this room, there is a door with mist coming out of it. Open it and we'll have to fight some Ghosts. These creatures are very simple, but they use Thunder and Osmose. Be careful. In that room, you'll find three treasure chests. After collecting them, just turn back and go to the bottom of this room and further. Continue down this narrow tunnel, and we'll see something that we really don't see every day... A huge lot of black mages are in this room, and they look exactly like Vivi. At the time, everyone will think they are only dolls. Now, the next scene is really funny! I won't spoil it for you. After that, we'll see Steiner in the Observatory Mountain, talking to the old man Mr. Morrid. Morrid apparently isn't fond of Steiner and will just ignore him. Wait for the old timer to head back to his house, and then enter. After Steiner and Morrid argue a little, Morrid will tell him that the cargo ship is being loaded right now. Get outside of this ship and turn left, and now it's time. Steiner will run towards the cargo ship and we can see some men working. They'll think that the scary guy in armor (Steiner), is running towards them and they'll run away. Steiner will find a familiar looking barrel and then it will shake. Now we have two choices: Observe the barrel more or poke it with a sword. If you observe it the barrel will move some more and collapse on Steiner. If it's poked, Zidane will hop out of it in fury. After another commotion with Steiner and Zidane, a Black Waltz arrives to take Dagger away. It's time to fight. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The second Black Waltz is bigger and better than the first one was, and it has some nasty attacks. In this fight, Vivi cannot cast magic. Well, he can, but at a price. The Black Waltz will counter with that same spell on the whole party, and the damage is very deadly. The Black Waltz uses Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder, plus when you've taken about half of its HP off, it'll be Fira, Blizzara, and Thundara. Thankfully, Dagger is with us to use a Cure spell on the whole party. The problem though, is that the Black Waltz #2 is after Dagger, so he won't touch her. If Zidane, Vivi, and Steiner are knocked out, the Black Waltz will wait a few turns and ask Dagger what she's going to do, then he casts Hypnotize on her to put her to sleep, and that's the end of that. Besides doing that, the Black Waltz #2 can use a physical attack called Teleport and rarely (very rarely), it will use Osmose to drain someone's MP. It obviously has more attacks than any boss you've fought thus far. The Black Waltz has some pretty good things to steal, so make sure you have Zidane do that. It isn't too hard to steal from. Vivi should definitely refrain from using magic and should perhaps use a Potion or two if the need arises. Dagger should be on standby at all times to use Cure on the party. Steiner has two things that you might want him to do: If he's really low on HP, have him use Minus Strike. He should have over 300 HP by now and if he reaches 10 or so Minus Strike will do about 300 damage! With Vivi around, he should also use an elemental sword. That will do about 300 damage alone, so the Black Waltz's rather low HP should fall to nothing before a really long amount of time. After that fight, Steiner will run to the cargo ship and Dagger realizes he's trying to take her to Alexandria. Zidane, Dagger, and Vivi run to the cargo ship. We then see a funny scene with Zidane and Dagger climbing up the ladder but Zidane climbs too fast and grabs Dagger's butt, saying "Ooo, soft...". Is that perverted or what? We then see the cargo ship flying, and then Vivi and Dagger run inside. Dagger then tells Zidane there's a problem with Vivi. Vivi tries to talk to some black mages in here but they don't even turn around. Zidane tells the two that he has to turn the ship around. Go further on and up the ladder, and we'll see Steiner, who thinks that the ship had gone off without Dagger. Zidane tells him that she's on the ship, and then Steiner tells him he'll be hung when they get back to Alexandria, and guards the way back to the engine room so Zidane can't get to Dagger. Go to the back and Steiner thinks happy thoughts about Brahne being pleased. Then the ship shakes... We see a demon with lightning sparking around it. Zidane will turn the ship, and then Steiner catches him. He then punches him and grabs him and has him hanging by the tail on the ceiling, and then the black mages get angry. Dagger and Vivi can be seen at that time, and the Black Waltz arrives on the ship. It appears to be the strongest and most evil of all them. It then blasts Vivi with lightning. Dagger pulls him away, and then some black mages guard Vivi. After that, a spectacular FMV plays where the Black Waltz causes a lightning storms and kills all of the black mages. Vivi watches sadly and then everyone sees the Black Waltz landing on the ship again, to kill. Vivi will not be able to take it any longer and will run in anger at the Black Waltz. Steiner and Zidane follow, and Dagger pilots the ship. The Black Waltz says something about black mages being produced, and then we have to fight it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ANOTHER Black Waltz? Yes, this is the final Black Waltz and it is the most evil and powerful. But that doesn't exactly mean it's hard. It's actually the easiest of all the Black Waltzes, but its attacks are very powerful and without a healer it'll be tough going through all the Black Waltz's attacks. It basically has the Hit attack which does about 60 damage (more to Vivi), and it has Fire and Blizzard. They each do about 80 damage. Also, when it gets low on HP, it'll start floating, and then it will use Thundara on the party. This will do about 100+ damage to it. On its next turn, it uses Thundara for the second time and damages for the same amount, then gets down. But I have one thing to say that I haven't already said: since the Black Waltz killed all those black mages and Vivi couldn't take it any longer and went after him, and because Trance is a surge of emotion, Vivi's in Trance during this fight. This means he can use a spell (about 120 damage) twice in a row. Steiner also has his sword magic skills, so the HP will drift away from Black Waltz #3 before he manages to do something really bad. Also, you might notice that it has a good mage's hat, a Linen Cuirass, and some great gloves for Steiner to use, so you might want to waste a little bit of time stealing from it if you want these items. After the fight, Steiner will get mad about the Black Waltz, and everyone will go back down. We then see Zorn and Thorn on a ship (called the Viltgance), cursing about Steiner and the defeat of their Black Waltzes. Black Waltz #3 will then knock them out of their ship and shout "I exist only to kill!" in fury, and then we go back. Dagger can see the Black Waltz approaching. Apparently, the only way to do this is to go through South Gate quickly before it closes and shut the Black Waltz out. We now see yet another wonderful FMV. The ship is flying, and Vivi is seen sadly gazing near the edge of the ship. Zidane tries to get him, but then the Viltgance arrives. Vivi then casts a Fire spell on the Black Waltz and the ship spins around. Everyone gets further in but the Viltgance arrives again. The Black Waltz then charges up a super powerful lightning spell, but he overpowers it and sets the Viltgance on fire. Right before the door closes, everyone manages to get out and that's the end of that. *********** Enemies: Upon coming in, everyone will be amazed by how big the castle is. Zidane and Steiner will yell at each other and some soldiers will check Dagger's pendant, which resembles a Falcon Claw. Minister Artania will arrive. He'll then take Dagger to see Regent Cid. Follow Artania and Dagger and head to the lift. The Minister will take you up and explain a little about Lindblum. At the top, they arrive at the throne room. The throne is rather small. Actually, it's not RATHER small, it's VERY small. Then from behind it, a small bug comes out. It has a moustache! Wow. Steiner gets mad, walks over to the oglop, and punches it back to the throne, shouts at Artania to get the repulsive bug off the throne room and call the regent, and overall acts like the stupid idiot he is. Artania tells him he's before the regent. Dagger remembers the moustache and they talk a little. Cid suggests they rest up. We then see Zidane walking to a bar. He enters and then finds a guy named Bobo and gets his stuff. A girl tells him he's in everyone's way, and then Zidane asks her out. A young woman tells him he's disrupting the customers, and then Zidane recognizes her. He plays a couple jokes with her, and then we know her as Freya. The two chat a little bit and we learn that Freya came from Burmecia, never found her boyfriend, and came to Lindblum for the Festival of the Hunt. After a meal, Zidane rests up. After that scene with Zidane, we go back to where Dagger is. A person had attacked Regent Cid in his sleep and turned him into an oglop before anyone could do something and abducted his wife Hilda and then ran off with his airship the Hilda Garde 1. Dagger and Cid will talk some and we learn that Cid fancied some other woman and Hilda ran off and used magic to turn him into an oglop. Cid will help Dagger a little about her mother and tell her that he ordered Tantalus to kidnap her. That's good information! Cid and Dagger will go to the airships and after that we go back to Zidane. Vivi enters Zidane's room. He says he'll just explore on his own and Zidane tells him a little bit about Tantalus, then he decides to go to his home in the Theater District and then Vivi goes away. Now just go further and talk to the moogle. Get the letter from Ruby and walk out of the bar. You'll find yourself in the Shopping District. Lindblum is a HUGE town, so make sure you check everything out! You'll want to explore as much of this town as you possibly can. Now heading to the main place... Southeast of the bar, you can just head right for an aircab to the Industrial District and Theater District. Check out the Industrial District if you like, but otherwise go to the Theater District. There's a little thing that we can do outside of going to Tantalus's home that we can only do now. Get to the Theater District and turn left. Go right on forward and go down the stairs on the right, and you'll see some nice ladies there, appearing to be waiting for someone. Since Zidane is such a lady-obsessed pervert, we all know what'll happen now. Check the second lady there, and she'll ask Zidane whom he is in a rather angry tone. Zidane will introduce himself as the most famous bandit in the world. The women will tell Zidane to go away, and the guy who they are awaiting arrives. His name is Lowell. All the women say things like "Hold my hand!", "Kiss me!", "I LOVE YOU!", and other silly junk. Lowell then runs away and right after he leaves a huge moogle man walks by. He apparently can't see anything. He gets furious and leaves. Now go back. We have to find this moogle! If you go back and talk to Member No. 24 (the lady in green back there), she'll tell you a huge dizzy moogle passed by a while ago. Now return to the screen before the lift. To the right of that is a little studio. Lowell and another guy are in here. Check the bottom-left of this room for a Lapis Lazuli and the right side for a Moogle Suit. If you talk to Lowell, he gives you his Autograph. Apparently he was wearing the moogle suit. Now we can go back to our main job. Turn right back. Go to where the two women were standing, and enter through the left. Zidane will enter and see that nothing's changed. Bells ring and we see what Dagger is up to. Like before, people are still trying to protect her. She tries to get out but a soldier won't let her for her own safety. Dagger gets angrier and angrier, although she doesn't show that. We then go to Zidane. Two kid members of Tantalus suggest him that he goes off to see what Dagger is doing. Before leaving the room, check the treasure chests for Gil. Then climb the ladder and get the Mini-Burmecia. Exit the room and then turn back to the aircab and let it take you back to Lindblum Castle. Now go to the right and down. Climb up the stairs on the left and turn to your right. In the hall, turn right and go to the guest room. Zidane will find Steiner here. Dagger apparently escaped from here and Steiner has to find her. He then runs away. Save if you want, but otherwise continue. Go to your left and Zidane will hear Dagger singing a beautiful song. But to get to Dagger is the problem... Go to the lift at the bottom of the room that leads to Cid's throne. A soldier says it's only for the authorized. Zidane knows he can disguise himself as a guard and do it. Go back to where the guest room was. Go down the stairs and you'll see a soldier on your left. Zidane will lie to him saying he saw a suspicious character somewhere. Zidane will lead him to the guest room and then he'll enter, only for Zidane to beat him up and steal his clothes, then stuff him into the closet. (Go back in there to hear the naked soldier say this!) Zidane will be disguised as a guard. Now return to where the soldier was and he'll fall for Zidane's trick. Continue and Zidane will press the button on the lift. He'll then go up and when we gain control again he's dressed like his old self. Go on and proceed to the left. Running forward is a little dangerous for him. In the next room, just head up the stairs and we'll appear at the top. Go even higher up from the left, and we see an FMV. Dagger will be singing and stroking some birds, and then they fly off. Zidane compliments the song, and then the two engage in another nice conversation. There's a telescope nearby so we have to check out the following places: Ceebell River, which is by the South Gate, Aerbs Mountains on the left with mountains the surround Burmecia, South Gate in the middle of the mountains, the ??? Forest (chocobo forest), and a Marshland where Zidane intends to go sometime to see what's there. Dagger finds out that Zidane left the band to help her and how Zidane planned to kidnap her. Zidane was apparently going to use sleeping weed. Dagger borrows the sleeping weed (her tricks, you'll find out later). Zidane then asks Dagger to sing the song again and we see Vivi thinking of the black mages, Steiner yelling at a customer in the armory, and Freya jumping on buildings looking for her lost love. Zidane then asks her out! Dagger agrees, and Zidane leaves. A bit later, we'll see some soldiers standing next to a car. They say some things about the lives being lost each year, and then they release the Fangs. Some other soldiers release a bunch of Mus, and then an old man releases the main enemy, the Zaghnol. We then see Zidane in the guest room with Vivi and Freya. Zidane had signed Vivi up and Freya is obviously participating. The rules are to kill as many monsters as possible and accumulate points in twelve minutes. If you lose, you automatically retire. Zidane will tell Vivi he signed him up, and then Zidane says if Vivi wins he'll fix him up on a date with the princess. Steiner will hear this and start yelling at Zidane. Now SAVE YOUR GAME. You might want to win, or perhaps you'll want Freya to win for the Coral Ring. Vivi will take a card and Zidane will take 5000 Gil if they win. Obviously: Coral Ring > 5000 Gil > any card. So you might want to let Freya win. Well, on to the festival now, shall we? Vivi will start in the Business District, Freya in the Industrial District and Zidane in the Theater District. Go to the aircab and select the Theater District, and then it begins. Exit this room, and we'll see a Mu chasing an old man. I hope you have Zidane's thief sword "The Ogre", because this will annihilate anything except the Zaghnol, but we're not fighting it yet, are we? After defeating the Mu, head west. Defeat the Trick Sparrow around here and head southeast to where you found the ladies and Lowell. There a lot of barrels here. Behind the barrels is a Fang. It will jump out and attack. Defeat it and then that's the end of the business in the Theater District. Go back to the aircab and go to either the Business District or the Industrial District. I chose the Business District. Exit the room where you arrive and soon you'll be ambushed by a Trick Sparrow. Defeat it and continue. To the left of this area, you'll find a Fang. Kill it with The Ogre and head north. You'll find another Fang around here. After defeating it, fight the Trick Sparrow if you want (fight it to kill time), and then turn back. You'll see Vivi running from another Fang. (What is with all these Fangs here anyway?) After defeating it, just go east. MAKE SURE THE CLOCK IS UNDER 4:00 TO FIGHT ZAGHNOL. IF IT'S NOT, DON'T SEND ME A BUNCH OF FLAMES LIKE "I DIDN'T FIND ANY GODDAMNED ZAGHNOL THERE, YOU LYING BASTARD!" When you find Zaghnol, you'll see him trying to eat up the two Tantalus kids. Zidane will provoke it and it'll turn around, then Freya will help out. If you want Freya to win, use Scoop Art and then have Freya jump on the Zaghnol. If you want Zidane to win, have Freya heal or use Jump, and if you want Vivi to win, have Zidane knock Freya out and then let Zaghnol destroy Zidane. Whoever defeats Zaghnol first gets the points, although Vivi is not here. Remember: Zaghnol is very powerful and might knock you out. By the time you defeat Zaghnol, the clock is probably already nearing 0:00 and the two behind in points will not catch up. So you might just want to stand there and wait. After that, we'll be in Regent Cid's throne room. The winner will be granted their prize and the Master Hunter. Then, a panic theme starts and a wounded Burmecian Soldier arrives. Burmecia is being attacked by a group of steepled-hat mages, just like Vivi. Now, this is not a good thing at all. Everyone being their overprotective selves, they won't let Dagger come with them, even though she has faced great danger in coming this far. Vivi wants to find out about the black mages and Zidane is concerned, not to mention it's Freya home so the three of them choose to go. Regent Cid starts the feast. Everyone starts eating... except Dagger. She hesitates a little, then Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Cid pass out, and Steiner comes close to passing out himself. Dagger slipped sleeping weed into the food! After that, Steiner and Dagger leave. When Zidane wakes up, he sees that Dagger is gone. He now thinks that she went to Burmecia. Now it is time to go. Preparations: Equip everyone with their best equipment, make sure everyone's at least Level 7, if Zidane hasn't learned Bandit from the Mythril Dagger and has The Ogre on, equip him with the Mythril Dagger until he learns it. Make sure you have Mythril Dagger and The Ogre, plus if you're collecting you'll want the Butterfly Sword to go with it. He should have his best support abilities on, and Vivi and Freya should be similar. Once you're ready to go, return to the lift. Ride it to the Base Level and ride on the aircab to your left. Ride it to the Dragon's Gate, and now it's time to head out. Talk to the moogle and save your game, then check the upper-right side of the screen for a Remedy and perhaps buy something from the Merchant, but when you're ready exit Lindblum and now we've got to go to Gizamaluke's Grotto. There is however some stuff we can do before then... World Map There are two places on the World Map we can go to: the Qu's Marsh or the Chocobo Forest. If you choose to go Chocobo Forest and do some stuff there, please refer to the Chocobos section in the Side Quests/Mini Games chapter. But anyway, the place that we really want to go to first is the Qu's Marsh. It's pretty close to the grotto, so just go there and it's time to work a little bit and get an interesting new character. Qu's Marsh Go north and you'll see Mogster and Moggy, the two moogles. If you need to refresh your memory a little about things in the game, just talk to Mogster to learn some stuff. When you're ready, just continue through the forest. There aren't very many hard enemies in this forest, and none that Vivi can't take out with his magic or Zidane can't kill with his dagger shortly. When you get out of there, we'll arrive at a pond. There is a mysterious creature at this pond, sniffing the water for frogs. Catch one of the frogs at the top of this place, and talk to the creature. It will sniff the frog and ask you to give it to it. The creature will then introduce itself as Quina, a member of a race called Qu. Then another creature appears and says that Quina is pathetic. Quina and its master Quale will go to a hut and talk a little about going out into the world. Quale will let Zidane take care of Quina, and then Quina becomes a new party member! When they walk out, Vivi will know that Quale looks a lot like his grandfather. He'll then walk into the hut and ask Quale if he knows a man named Quan. Quale gets mad and chases Vivi out. When you get back to the pond, Quina will ask Zidane for permission to catch frogs. Catch them if you want (recommended), but when you're done in here get out of the Qu's Marsh and go back to the World Map and now it's time to go to Gizamaluke's Grotto. World Map Now that you have Quina, I strongly suggest that you wonder around the Qu's Marsh and get him some good Blue Magic. Not to mention that the next boss is tough. If you want to win easily, you will definitely want to get good magic like Limit Glove by eating enemies and level up a little. I was personally at Level 9 after I built myself up and Level 10 before fighting the boss, so make up your own mind. Play the Chocobo Hot & Cold game if you want, but otherwise follow the roots in the ground to Gizamaluke's Grotto. ********************** Freya will notice some dead Burmecian soldiers lying dead on the ground right before entering. She'll then force everyone in, and now we gain control again. Right ahead is a door with a bell on it, but we can't do anything with it. On the right side of this room, there's a Burmecian Soldier who has almost been completely killed. Talk to him and just before he dies he'll give you a Gizamaluke Bell. Now return to the door with the bell and ring the Gizamaluke Bell. It will shatter and the door will open. On entering this room, you'll see the two jesters Zorn and Thorn. They will choose to kill Zidane even though they don't know him, and we have to fight two Black Mage Type A's. Defeat them both, and then Zorn and Thorn run away. Proceed further and find the black mage on your right. Defeat it and you'll receive a Gizamaluke Bell. Now go to the top of the room and use the bell on any of the three doors. I strongly prefer the middle door but if you need another bell you can check the soldier you got the first bell from to receive another one. Head through the central door. Go right ahead and you'll see a female moogle standing next to a huge bell. Right when she and her husband were doing some stuff, two clowns (do I really need to tell you who these two clowns were?) put her husband into the bell. She'll then run around Vivi and then she'll ask the kid for his Kupo Nut. (He picked it up in Lindblum.) Give it to the poor moogle, and then she'll thank Vivi a lot and run to the bell, telling her husband she has a Kupo Nut. The bell will start shaking and then the male moogle (his name is Moguta) will be so happy he doesn't even eat the nut. He runs around the room dancing and goes through the door on the right, with his wife chasing him. What a crazy couple, if I may borrow Zidane's quote. Check the right side and get on the stairs to find a Magus Hat and Mythril Gloves, and check where the bell fell down for a Gizamaluke Bell. Now enter the room that the two moogles ran in. Talk to Moguta, and he'll ask you if you like Kupo Nuts. Tell him yes and he'll tell you he likes you, and then you can give him a Kupo Nut if you want. He'll be sure to reward you. Now, SAVE HERE! If you want, you can risk it by climbing up the vines and you'll find two super tough enemies called the Garuda and Grand Dragon. If you have Limit Glove and a 1 HP Quina and a LOT of luck, you can beat the Grand Dragon and with enough effort the Garuda is beatable. These will give you tons of EXP if you are talented enough. Once you're ready, try to leave the room. The female moogle will run after Zidane and give him the Holy Bell. She'll then tell you to bring as many Kupo Nuts there as possible. Exit the room, and go around the room. You can't just go to your left because of the bell. Ring the Holy Bell on the door and enter, and you'll find a wounded Burmecian Soldier. Two clowns (Zorn and Thorn of course), have been possessing Gizamaluke. Right when he passes out, the monster arises from the water. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Gizamaluke is difficult and is probably the hardest boss thus far, despite the fact he's got only three attacks. I sincerely hope you're equipped with The Ogre or Gizamaluke will prove even more dangerous than he already is. If you have The Ogre, you can use Soul Blade and this will Blind Gizamaluke, and he can't use his physical attack Crash. Speaking of his attacks, let's go over them. He can use Crash as his physical attack which does a little below 100 damage to one character, he can use Water which hits one character at first (about 80 damage and one character at FIRST.) When Gizamaluke gets low on HP, he will start using Water on the party and the spell will do a little more damage too! GIVE ME A BREAK! Also, when you use a magical attack on Gizamaluke, he'll counter with Silent Voice. Thankfully, you can erase Crash from there because he'll almost never hit you if he's blinded. There is a quick and easy way to win this fight in little time at all. You can simply use Limit Glove if Quina has it and if he's got 1 HP (you can use a Phoenix Down and hope he'll be at that much), Limit Glove will do 9999 damage. If you are too lazy to hope for this, then the fight is a little tougher. Of course, Gizamaluke has GREAT stuff, and this is practically what makes the fight so hard! The Ice Staff is extremely important if you want some good power on Vivi (Blizzara, whee!), and the Elixir is always worth it. Steal if you want, I hope you've got Bandit on. Once you've got that, the fight really isn't that hard. Vivi and Quina (if you aren't using Limit Glove), are both useless here because Gizamaluke will counter with Silent Voice and it's not worth it to use up a bunch of Echo Screens. Have both of them serve as healers, especially once Gizamaluke's lost most of his HP. Zidane should simply attack (or better yet go into a Trance mode and use your strongest Dyne. With Freya jumping all the time and Zidane using his best stuff, there is no possible way that you can lose. After that, Zidane, Freya, Vivi, and Quina go on and then we go to where the other two are. We find Steiner carrying a huge barrel and going up to South Gate. Two Lindblum Soldiers are guarding it. The two look into the barrel that Steiner is carrying and thinks it's full of poison because of the horrible smell, when it's really gysahl pickles. (Dagger is actually under there too.) The two fools then let Steiner and Dagger in. South Gate Steiner wants to go down the alley, but there are two people there whom he has to avoid first. Talk to the young woman first, and that'll be her out of the way. Now it's time for the guy on the left. This scene is VERY funny, as Steiner finds out the guy was the reason he couldn't get through easier, and then you have the option "Kill!". (Steiner doesn't kill him though.) Now go back to the alley and talk to the guy in green. After that, just head down the alley. In this room, Steiner will put the barrel of pickles down. Dagger will get out and choose to change her clothes while Steiner looks away. Steiner also has the option to look and see her while doing it too! Haha... this game. Dagger will finally get out and now it's time to leave this place. You can find a Multina Racket around here, and on the right side an immensely annoying shopkeeper can sell you some stuff. It's just a medicine shop so don't bother. When ready, go to the cable car and the two will get on and chat a little, and then we go back to the other party with Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Quina. *********** Enemies: Upon entering, Freya will remember Burmecia and then everyone will enter. In the next screen, check the cart on the left and you'll receive the Cancer Stellazio! Just go north and Zorn and Thorn come out from inside the large house. Instead of taking you on themselves, they just sick two black mages on you. Well, they're extremely easy, so just flatten them with some physical attacks, and then Zorn and Thorn go back into the house. They also tell you that the general's not going to like this and stuff like that. Enemies around here are very simple. Magic Vices are annoying and steal from you, so try to avoid them getting Elixirs or Ethers. You can also learn Magic Hammer from them. Black Mages are extremely easy to defeat, and Mimics just summon some Magic Vices to aid them. Basilisks aren't too dangerous, and just about the only tough enemy here is the Ironite. It has some strong attacks, but it can easily be defeated with physical attacks and you can Eat it to learn Angel's Snack! Very nice stuff, you have to admit. On this fork, just turn left. In this room, you can find a Soft and a Potion. Get both of these items and then get out of here. (You can't go forward.) Go to the right this time and climb up the stairs and enter through the door. Go right up from here and check right under the stairs for a Soft. Now go up the stairs and go to the left. Unless you want to fight a Mimic, do not open the next chest. Go even further and you'll come across a door with a bell on it, similar to those doors in Gizamaluke's Grotto, but it won't budge. Alright, the next part is a little tricky. Walk to the left side very slowly so this floor doesn't collapse! Get the treasure chest and you'll receive a Germinas Boots. After doing that, step on the floor that you walked across and it'll collapse. Okay, now it's time to do what it's time to do! Go all the way back to the central area where Zorn and Thorn attacked. Go through the left door and head up the stairs, and now we have a bridge! Now cross, but don't open the next chest. It's just a Mimic. In the next room, go southeast and choose to go out the balcony, and Zidane will jump from where Zorn and Thorn were across the balconies, and we'll find ourselves in a small room. Find the half-dead Burmecian Soldier and he'll tell you to look under the bed. Go to the bed and look under it for a Protection Bell. To your left, you can also find an Ether. Okay, now that we have the bell we have to go all the way back to where the door with the bell was. (Square, stop with the stupid backtracking.) When you get there, just ring the bell and we'll be at a staircase. A Burmecian soldier with his wife and kid will appear and accuse Vivi of being one of the black mages who is destroying the town. He then tries to convince Freya to leave the king alone. Freya won't give up though. Now, go to the door that you can see in plain view. You'll find a woman and a wounded man next to a statue. The statue will then collapse and Zidane will save the man. Then, the two decide to go to Lindblum and manage to make it out of this room. Now head right up the stairs outside of the room to the door above. Check the door on the left and you'll find a Phoenix Down and a Tent. Collect them and head to the end of this path. Do not open the other chest because it is just a Mimic. In the next area, go to your left and Freya will take the spear in the room. It's a Mythril Spear and much stronger. Be sure to equip it. Now proceed to the room on the right and you'll find a moogle. Buy something if you want, but otherwise try to exit and Stiltzkin will arrive. Buy a Soft, Hi-Potion, and Ether from him for 333 Gil and then get out of here. Go to the area between those two areas to get to the palace. Freya will know someone's inside and will jump to the top. Quina will want to check for food inside the palace and Vivi falls down in one jump. Zidane will then make it up in six jumps or so. Zidane will then see Queen Brahne and General Beatrix. Freya will remember this as the place that she and her love Sir Fratley last saw each other. Fratley had left to go on a journey, but had never returned, even though he had sincerely promised Freya that he would indeed return. Now, it's time for the action. Near Queen Brahne and General Beatrix, a strange looking crossdresser will appear. His name is Kuja and he is indeed a guy, although he is the most feminine looking man I have ever had the pleasure of viewing, and he looks very sexy. :-* He'll tell the two women that the King of Burmecia has escaped to Cleyra and then Brahne will mention the whirlwind defending Cleyra. At that moment, a lone Burmecian Soldier will run in to attack Beatrix, but she knows no mercy. Zidane and Freya run in to defend the soldier and to get rid of her, and then Vivi and Quina come in. With the party united, it's time to face the general! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Beatrix is a lot easier than most people seem to think that she is, but still she cannot be defeated. She has four attacks: her regular sword attack (about 150 damage), Thunder Slash (misses a lot, is thunder-elemental, and does about the same amount of damage as her regular physical attack), Stock Break (she only uses this at the end of the battle and it takes everyone's HP to 1, and Shock, her ultimate attack. This attack does 800 damage and unless you're at a rather high level and she's targetting Zidane, this attack will wipe the party member out and if it doesn't the party member will be severely weakened. First of all, you really want to steal from Beatrix. A Phoenix Down never hurt anyone, the Chain Plate is rather useful and the Mythril Sword will be a little useful for Steiner later on in the game. Freya has Reis's Wind so you'll want to use that and Vivi can heal. Beatrix has a high magic defense so magic won't be all that wonderful. Quina has some Blue Magic to use, so I personally wouldn't mind having him do something. After you are done stealing, Zidane should slice away at Beatrix. You don't have to reduce her HP to 0 and nor will she be defeated once this happens, but when she is ready she'll cast Stock Break and heavily wound the party, and that will be the end of that. After that, Beatrix will walk away in disgust and then Kuja will look at the party. He apparently recognizes Zidane. We'll learn more about this when we get to Disc 3. After he does this, he'll get on his Silver Dragon and laugh at the party. Freya will raise her hand at the dragon, and then it rises into the sky and disappears, that being the end of that. The party will continue to lie there until recovering. That ends Disc 1. Now it's time to change to Disc 2. ====================================================================== CHAPTER FIVE: Walkthrough: Disc 2 -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- ***************** Enemies: We'll see the South Gate that Steiner entered and the two guards will talk a little about war. After that, Steiner and Dagger will be inside the car, and then you arrive at the Summit Station, but it'll be awhile to go to Alexandria. A man will tell you to go to the rest area. Now, take either path you want to the right. It doesn't matter as both of them lead to the same place. To your right, you will find Steiner, but just leave the old fool alone. Over here, talk to the man right below Dagger, and the car to Lindblum will leave. A familiar voice will complain that he missed it. Turn southeast and save your game with the moogle, then go further to the left to pick up a Phoenix Down. Take either path you want out of here, and on the other path you'll find Marcus and Cinna. Cinna was the one who missed the car because he wanted to stay around here and eat South Gate's cake while watching the scenery. They will then go to the right, into the rest area. Go right as well, and surely enough that excuse for a knight Steiner will be shouting at the two of them for being thieves. He thinks that they're here to kidnap Dagger. Then she'll give the man some motherly scolding. You can talk to Cinna or Marcus if you want, but then Steiner will yell at Dagger not to waste her breath on criminals. Now the car going to Alexandria will arrive at last! Okay, it'll soon be time to go. Marcus will come with them to help his bro (while Steiner is ashamed of himself). Now, get out of this place and head north to get to the Alexandria car, and then tell the guy you're ready to go. Once inside, we'll learn that Marcus is going to Treno to get Supersoft so he can cure Blank. Then, the car will stop running and a demon will appear outside. Everyone will go outside and we find Black Waltz #3, back for another round. Okay, let's show him. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- So, we have to fight it again, do we? Well this time it's pathetically easy, and it was already easy enough the last time we fought it. And believe it or not, you CANNOT lose in this fight! Like the other times, it's only after Dagger so he can take her away, but he's so weak he can't do that. If he kills Steiner and Marcus, he will pull his back ("Crack!"), and lose about 250 HP until he dies while muttering that he wants the Princess. On to the Black Waltz himself. He has five attacks: Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder which do about 70 damage each, Hit which it about 50 damage, and Freeze. If he does this on someone and uses Hit, then that character is a goner. Fortunately though, it'd be really nice if he uses Fire right after Freeze! I'm sure you know what'll happen then. Dagger is the healer here. She has Protect, Shell, and Cure. Three spells that will be extremely useful in this fight. Marcus can hesitate from stealing here because he very rarely manages a steal, and the three items can be bought anyway. So he and Steiner should just attack and Dagger can heal if the need arises. This battle cannot be lost even if you want to. After that fight, Marcus will sort of say that it's really obvious why the Black Waltzes are after Dagger and where they came from. Then we go back to the car and then Marcus and Dagger chat a little. Marcus talks to himself saying that Dagger has really changed, but then that she hasn't changed that much. Eventually the car stops and we gain control of Dagger. Right ahead of you, you'll find a fork: left side goes to Dali, right side goes to Treno. Head there and show the man your Gate Pass, and go to the World Map. World Map There are two places that we can go to, Treno and Quan's Dwelling. Save Quan's Dwelling for later because the monsters that live in the forest behind it are rather strong. Treno's where we need to go anyway. Only go to Quan's Dwelling if you want the extra Stellazio and Ethers as quickly as possible. You might find a Ragtime Mouse in the forest, so go for that if you want to, and there's a Ghost right outside Treno and in the forest. But when you're ready, just go to Treno. ********* Enemies: When you enter Treno, Steiner learns that Marcus plans on stealing the Supersoft. He's shout at him that he can't do that and while Steiner and Marcus are at it with each other, Dagger sneaks by and disappears. Steiner, who is currently in a raging fit, does not see that but Marcus does. He notifies Steiner about this. Now we have to control Steiner. You may want to view the ATE Treno Tradition now. You'll see Alleyway Jack from Alexandria sneaking up on Dagger. Press X right when he gets up on her, and that way you'll lose 500 Gil instead of 1000. Believe me, losing Gil in the first place is worth it! On the left, you might notice a little fountain. Throw 10 Gil into the fountain 13 times, and each time Steiner will feel happier. On the 13th, the Stellazio Gemini will pop up. Now go to the left. The bridge leading to the left will go to a tower, but it's locked for now. Ignore it, and instead forward from between those two. Now, just head to the mansion on the upper-left. You'll find that thief that's stolen 500 Gil from Dagger! Talk to him, and then he'll drop a hint he's stolen from Dagger. He'll then give you the item he bought from her money, a Power Belt. Well, it was worth it for a mere 500 Gil in my opinion. Now that we've got this little problem sorted out, you might find Unexpected Visitor as an ATE. Okay, this is rather unusual so I'll explain it: Dagger will walk into an auction house and above she'll find Kuja. That's not good. Now, there are some things you can do here. You can go around the entrance and you'll find a path that will lead you to Queen Stella, and you can trade Stellazios! There are four you could have gotten by now if you haven't been to Quan's Dwelling, so that's the Blood Sword. (I'll explain the fourth shortly.) Equip this on Steiner and go to the east of the second screen before the auction house. You'll find yourself at a shop. Buy something, and ask the shopkeeeper about the monster and tell him you want to fight it. You'll have a battle with a Griffin. Blood Sword, Steiner must have and he can just attack. It'll be dead in no time. Now for that Stellazio. Return to the entrance of Treno and go to the right, then go down the street and to the right. To the right of the Item Shop is the Stellazio. Buy something if you want, but otherwise go to your left and you'll find a pub. Go downstairs all the way and you'll find Marcus. Now he's joined, so go even further downstairs. When we reach here Steiner will be running for Dagger, trying to get her to not travel with Marcus. Ignore him and do not talk to him. Just go to the end of this place, and Dagger will scold Steiner some more. Serve him right. The three (Dagger, Steiner, and Marcus) will get on a boat to get to the back of Treno and to steal the Supersoft. Dagger starts thinking about how much she dislikes Zidane and Steiner thinks of how he is serving criminals. Eventually, they get there. Marcus reveals to Steiner that he is trying to steal the Supersoft. Then the three hear someone coming. Steiner and Marcus hide, and Dagger sees that it is a very familiar looking man. She runs to this man before Marcus kills or Steiner stops her. It appears to be Dagger's old scholar, Doctor Tot. Someone will then be coming and Tot will tell you he'll give you the Supersoft a little later. Marcus and Baku then talk a little about Dr. Tot (Baku keeps calling him Toot, Tootsie, and such a lot though) giving them the Supersoft. Baku can't believe that Tantalus is at the mercy of a little man. Now we have control of Dagger again. Now, return to where that bridge to the left of the entrance was. This time, just go all the way across the bridge and enter that door on the left that was locked before. Now it's open, so just go up the stairs from there and we'll meet Doctor Tot again. Dagger, Steiner, and Tot will talk a little bit, then Tot will point towards the chest on the left and say it contains the Supersoft. Marcus appears and takes it. Steiner (who has done enough yelling already, that idiot) will shout at Marcus telling him to thank Dr. Tot. Now Dagger and Doctor Tot will talk a little, and we see a flashback of Dagger (Garnet as she was then), when she was a little girl and being tutored by Tot. Tot will show Garnet about the world, the castle, that kind of stuff. After Doctor Tot and Dagger's greetings, we must continue to get out of Treno. Doctor Tot will show everyone a secret passage on the right that leads out of Treno and goes out to a place called Gargan Roo. Before going down this ladder, you may want to check that you've got everything in Treno, just in case. If you want to play cards or buy stuff, do so before going down that ladder because we won't get back to Treno for a while. When you're ready, just climb down and let's enter this place. ************** Enemies: Dagger and Doctor Tot will climb down the ladder. No one knows anything about this place except Doctor Tot, but he forgot where the switch for this place was. First of all I'll discuss the enemies. Both of them are easy, but when faced with Crawlers you shouldn't let yourself get low on HP or you could end up in a spot of trouble. Okay, now at this fork, turn left. Go down and grab that treasure chest. Then go to the top and pull the switch. Okay, now that that's taken care of, go back and to the right. Return to the fork and go right this time. Doctor Tot apparently has something important to show Dagger. At the bottom of the next room, you'll find a switch but it won't move. Go further and Doctor Tot will show you to the transportation of gargants, but you need to find another switch. Go back to where the inactive switch I mentioned was, and pull it. Then return to where Doctor Tot was, and we can find the gargant. With Dagger, jump on board the gargant and Doctor Tot will wave goodbye. Right when everyone gets past Treno, the gargant stops and the party is attacked by a giant snake. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This battle isn't very hard, but Ralvurahva's got some tricks up its sleeves. It uses Mini sometimes, and when you're under this your attacks will be totally pathetic. It's very bad if it happens on Steiner or Marcus, because both of them are this fight's primary attackers. Also, it'll make Dagger's magic ability worthless as well. Overall, try to avoid this getting on your party. He's also got Blizzara, which will roughly do about 100 damage on a character. He can also use an attack called String, which will slow your character down. It also has a physical attack called Devil's Kiss, and when it uses this you can also expect poison status. Also, he sometimes (but VERY rarely), uses Night, I believe. This will not inflict Ralvurahva though, so this can be a bit bad. With Marcus, don't bother stealing unless you feel lucky. Stealing from this demon is not easy but I suppose that the Mythril Fork can be worth it. Steiner should just whoop up on Ralvurahva's fat ass, but if his HP wears low have him use Minus Strike. With Dagger healing, you simply cannot lose this easy battle. After beating the crap out of Ralvurahva, it simply runs away. How pathetic. Anyway, the gargant will move very slowly as it's very scared. It eventually continues... and we get to Alexandria Castle. As soon as you get in, the three start arguing and then they go forward. A gate comes up right ahead of Steiner, and he yells at Marcus and blames him for it. Marcus didn't do it... of course. Then a gate appears behind them and they're trapped. All the fault of Steiner's mouth. Then those evil bastards Zorn and Thorn appear, and they say some rather bad stuff about Queen Brahne and Garnet... We then see what's going on in Burmecia, with Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Quina. Freya understands with Brahne, Beatrix, and Kuja were talking about, and they understand that he's heading to Cleyra. And there, he'll do some horrible stuff. Freya knows she must protect it, so now we have to go there. When you get on the world map, just turn far to the west. Fight a few battles to build up perhaps, but otherwise go to the desert and to the huge whirlwind at the end of this place and we'll enter Cleyra's desert. ********** Enemies: Now first of all, I strongly despise the first part of Cleyra. Due to how large this desert is and the majority or time that it takes to get through it, I certainly detest it and please do forgive me if my walkthrough is rather shoddy. Freya and Quina will talk a little bit about Cleyra, and then everyone will go right in. The very first part of the desert is not difficult in the slightest. Inspect the switch on the right, and it'll open the door right ahead of you. Now go in there to progress. Before I continue with the walkthrough for this place, I'll talk a bit about the enemies. Dragonflies and Carrion Worms are quite pathetic and need not be feared. However, try to eat Carrion Worms, they have some good Blue Magic! Sand Golems take a LONG time to defeat because they tons of HP, so run if you see them. Zuus take long to defeat and are very annoying, but they have White Wind for a Blue Magic! Unless you fought Garudas, this is the first place you can get it. We'll fight Alexandrian Soldiers and Type B's later. Neither of them are difficult, although the physical attacks and Fira spells can add up to a lot of damage. Now, back to where we were when we flipped the switch. In the next room, just gnab the chest and head right on. In the next screen, just go south and search around there and you'll find another treasure chest. After finding that, search the top of this screen to find an Ice Staff, then continue to the next part. We'll be on a straight path. This is where you will find Zuus, so make sure you find White Wind, as it is very helpful. After fighting the battles to build up or whatever you do, head to the next screen, at the end of this long path. In this next room, pick up the treasure chest for an Ether on the left side of the room, and find the hole. Stick your hand into it, and you'll hear a big noise. Ah, this will be important. Return to the previous room, the one with the long path. You'll find that the whole left is covered with a sandfall, and you cannot go back that way. Just climb up the vine right next to the sandfall, then enter the path right ahead of there. At the area right there, just turn left. There's where you'll find the Sand Golem. Run if you encounter this enemy because it is a total waste of time. Anyway, on to what we were doing. Turn left as I said before, and you will find a chest. Collect the Needle Fork inside it, then go up and to the right. You will find yourself in a room with two paths. Go to the left one to find a moogle. I strongly suggest you save up in case you choose to fight through Sand Golems. After that, just go back a little and head up that path on the right. It will turn left around the middle. Now in this room, just head to the top of it and open a chest for the Flame Staff. If Vivi doesn't have this equipped or isn't learning something else else, immediately equip it because it is a great staff for now. After collecting that, just go to the left and cross the bridge. You'll be in a huge room. You can find a Remedy to the right just in case you need it. Around the middle, search behind the tree trunks to find the Desert Boots. Go out from behind and look a little northwest of that and you'll find a Mythril Vest. Now go further north. Get the Mythril Gloves from the treasure chest and equip this on Freya if you want. Proceed and you will find a switch. Pull it and then go back to the room where you go a bunch of stuff like the Remedy and Desert Boots. Go forward on the upper-left path. Get the chest right next to you for a Potion, and we'll come to a fork. Now, time to get what we wanted from the switch. Go right and you'll find a treasure chest with an Elixir in it. Go back to the fork and turn left this time, and we'll find an area full of whirlpools and a few treasure chests. For these whirlpools... if you end up in them Zidane will be pulled to the bottom. Mash X to get back up, or at the bottom you'll have to fight some Scorpions. These monsters are very easy and are hardly any challenge. The idiots who designed these whirlpools do deserve a thorough beating for this though. While inside them, Zidane will spin around and when you get to the top, he'll jump out in the direction he's facing. HOW STUPID IS THIS? Not to mention that the exit to this desert is faced with a whirlpool, so it's a matter of luck to get to the exit, when this god-forsaken desert has already been bad enough. Anyway, go slowly and attempt to get the chests (900 Gil and a Hi-Potion), and then just go past the final whirlpool to the real Cleyra. In the next room, get the Gysahl Greens and then just climb up the ladder. Inside, Freya will just rush ahead to the cathedral and leave Zidane, Vivi, and Quina. An oracle will ask you if you want him to show you around. Quina will say he'll look for stuff to eat himself, and then he disappears. It's your choice whether or not to let the oracle show you, but it's a real snore if you choose to, I must say. You will get a thorough look around this huge place and get to know it better, but it takes a lot of time. I usually just turn him down, but do what you wish. Now, this is a guide, not your mother. I won't direct you to every single place here because a lot of it is pointless. I will just guide you. There are a lot of little things to collect in Cleyra, so be sure to try and get it all! At the entrance, head up the stairs on the left side and at the fork, go right and search the ending point for an Ore. You'll find a series of ATEs around here showing people hating Vivi and Quina shouting at the Burmecians for having no good food. Back to after you found the Ore... just continue left and across the ladders and stairs while watching ATEs (Quina's are especially important). You'll find a Burmecian Soldier named Dan shortly, and he has the best shop yet. Be sure to check it out. Near the Burmecians, you can also go to the Inn just in case and talk to Vivi, but talk to the moogle if you want and you'll get a letter from Ruby! How nice. Now, before we handle the thing about Freya at the cathedral, do you remember me saying that Quina's are important? After viewing his two ATEs, go back to the entrance of the Cleyra Settlement and you'll find Quina, gazing into the whirlpool, imagining its ice cream or something, and he falls in. Zidane cusses at Quina and jumps in after him. Now we end up back in the desert with only Quina. I have nothing to say. Anyway, you'll find a treasure chest up where you arrive, but just jump down and get back to the area you remember the first time that you were in Burmecia, and return to Cleyra Settlement. I'm not going to guide you through Cleyra Desert again because you know how much I hate it and I already wrote for it, for heaven's sakes. Return to Cleyra Settlement and go to the very north of this place and you'll find the cathedral. Enter the cathedral and you'll find two oracles. They can't let you further in, but they have a letter from Freya. Freya says she's away but she'll meet Zidane at the inn. Now get out of here and go back to where Dan was, right by the inn. This time, Dan will arrive in panic, telling a Cleyran that an antlion is attacking a kid. The Cleyran just walks away. MAJOR SHAME ON YOU, CLEYRAN. Anyway, Dan will let you handle it. Go back to where the whirlpool that Quina was staring at, and you'll find the antlion. It's attacking a kid that Vivi and Freya recognize as Puck. The antlion then throws Puck away and gets new victims... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Antlion isn't too hard, but if you're asleep in this fight it will simply ambush your party, which is why I place this boss on the Medium level. He's got some really bad attacks like Sandstorm, Counter Horn, and Fira. Sandstorm reduces everyone's HP to the critical stage, Counter Horn is a counterattack that does around 200 damage, and Fira does similar damage. First of all, you probably don't need to steal in this fight because you can buy Annoyntments, you already have a Mythril Vest, and the Gold Helm isn't very important. So don't bother wasting your time, because you never know that the Antlion will just use Sandstorm and quickly kill everyone. Now for what the characters should do in this fight: have Zidane just attack and if you REALLY want that stuff that the Antlion has, you can steal from it. Vivi should be casting Blizzara as much as he can. If you don't have it or aren't learning it, turn your game off right now. Every time he uses it he does about 1200 damage so you can kill Antlion in just a few hits with it. What Freya should do is cast Reis's Wind because you'll need the extra HP back when Antlion brings everyone down with Sandstorm. Reis's Wind is Regen, and Regen restores 1/16 of everyone's HP each time it is used. Not bad at all! Once she uses that, just have her Jump. With a few Jumps and Blizzaras, it won't take long to kill Antlion. As for Quina... just have him heal with your new White Wind. This will almost completely heal everyone. Although if Sandstorm is used, Reis's Wind has not been cast, and Quina ends up with 1 HP, don't hesitate to use Limit Glove and do 9999 damage for one second! Best of luck. =) After you beat Antlion, Freya and Puck will talk a little bit. They'll talk about the king, but Puck will say he doesn't want to see him and runs away. The scene will switch to Freya instead the cathedral, talking to the king of Cleyra. He says he hasn't seen Puck in years, and then a ceremony starts. Freya and some Cleyrans will start dancing while very nice music plays. It's almost worth restarting your game to hear it. After that, something rather unusual happens: a string on the harp is broken and the sandstorm covering Cleyra disappears. We seen an FMV showing it. Now we go back to Dagger, Steiner, and Marcus. Alexandria Marcus and Steiner are trapped in a cage at the top of the room thanks to Zorn and Thorn. Steiner will start cursing about Marcus, and then we see what Dagger is up to. She's busy thinking about Queen Brahne and what she's doing. After that, Zorn and Thorn run in to tell Dagger that she has been summoned by Queen Brahne. She'll argue a little and then shout "Get off of me, you scumbag!", the line from Zidane, and then Zorn and Thorn bring it to tough measures... Dagger gives in and goes. Dagger asks Queen Brahne why she has been starting the war with Burmecia, and then she gives some foolish excuses about Burmecia starting it. Select whichever option you want with Dagger, and then Kuja appears. Dagger recognizes him. Kuja talks some crap about her and then he casts a spell on Dagger and puts her to sleep. Queen Brahne orders Zorn and Thorn to extract the eidolons from her. Take this moment to listen to this beautiful piece of music, but otherwise watch as the eidolons are extracted. Now for Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Quina's part. Cleyra Zidane and Freya will talk a little bit, and Freya will be curious about the sandstorm's disappearance. Have Zidane choose any option you want. Afterwards, we have control of Freya. Wander around this beautiful town if you want, but to continue go to the entrance. Although where the string on the harp was broken, you can collect a great Add-On called the Emerald there! Zidane, Vivi, and Quina want to enter the trunk and check some things out about why the sandstorm disappeared. Now just head into the desert if you don't have anything further to do at Cleyra. You'll see those damn whirlpools are gone. That is a good thing because we didn't like them at all. Two Alexandrian Soldiers will also attack. They are easily gotten rid of with a physical attack or two. Throughout getting to the bridge here, you'll have to fight about three or four groups of two soldiers. None of the battles are hard, so don't worry about them. When you get to the bridge, Freya will talk a little and Puck will come to the bridge. He'll tell Freya that the town's in an emergency and run off before Vivi can say anything. Then everyone runs back. A group of black mages are currently wrecking havoc and causing evil in Cleyra, and killing Dan. We're then thrust into battle with Black Mage Type B's and Alexandrian Soldiers. They are not very hard at all unless you are asleep while fighting them. Before going up, turn right and you'll find Stiltzkin and a friend of his. Talk to the regular moogle to save if you want, and then buy stuff from Stiltzkin. After that, go back and climb up the stairs to continue with this horror that the black mages are giving Cleyra. Two oracles will await you, asking Zidane for orders, but black mages are on the way. Tell them to go right, because if they go to the left black mages will appear and burn them. Now, I don't need to provide a walkthrough, but just choices on where to go when you direct these people: (at least I think this is the right order, if it isn't e-mail me and I'll fix it) Right, left, right, left, right, up, and you'll reach the cathedral. Some black mages will surround the oracles. And more than Zidane can fight off. Then suddenly, a mysterious man jumps out from behind the cathedral and kills all of them. Yay to him! A second later, it is shown that the mysterious man is Freya's love, Sir Fratley. Freya will ask him where he's been, but apparently Sir Fratley has forgotten her. The priest explains that Sir Fratley had an accident and lost his memory, and then Fratley runs off. Zidane will comfort Freya a little, and then Beatrix arrives. She points her sword at a helpless oracle and kills him, then steals Cleyra's gemstone and runs away. Now run after her! Here's an opportunity to pay off for what we've done. Talk to everyone you saved to get some great stuff. Once you've done so, continue outside the cathedral and it's time to fight... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Beatrix is a little bit harder than she was the first time we fought her, but it'll still not a noticeable difference. She still has the same ultra powerful attacks that she had in the first battle. Her physical attack and Thunder Slash are just the same as we probably remember them, but Shock is a little stronger. This time, there's a little less chance that we're going to survive through it then there was the first time we battled Beatrix. Anyway, she's still not too hard, but this time she's got better things to steal. The Ice Brand is a very powerful sword for Steiner that will prove useful a little later, but the only problem is that it's extremely hard to steal. The Thunder Gloves could also prove useful. If you give up on stealing or don't want to, just have Zidane attack or defend. Vivi should be casting whichever "ra" spell he currently has, if any. Freya, as usual, should be jumping like crazy. If anyone runs low on HP, she can also use Reis's Wind or Lancer. Quina might want to use White Wind which you should definitely have by now, or you can have him use Magic Hammer just for fun. Just like before, you don't have to take 4736 HP away from Beatrix but just hang around alive for a little bit and wait for her to grow tired of you and use Stock Break to drop you all to 1 HP, which is totally unavoidable. WHERE'S OUR CHANCE, YOU SQUARESOFT BASTARDS? After you defeat Beatrix (or should I say, after Beatrix defeats you), the party will be left weak like before. Beatrix and the black mages will then disappear. A group of black mages use spells to transport them to the Red Rose (Queen Brahne's ship), and there are enough for Zidane, Vivi... and Freya. But not for Quina. He doesn't like heights, so he just evacuates from the town and we have to say goodbye to him for a while. Anyway, we then see a FMV with Queen Brahne summoning Odin, and all of Cleyra is totally burnt down and destroyed. ************ Enemies: Everyone will appear out of some pots. We'll see some Alexandrian Soldiers and Beatrix talking then... and now Zidane chooses to follow her to see what she's up to. Follow her through the door upstairs and we see her talking to Queen Brahne. Brahne appears to want to behead Garnet, for her nonsensical foolishness. Okay, no time to waste. You'll find a moogle up here so save (especially if you're going to fight a super hard optional upcoming boss), and heal up with a Tent. When ready, go back to the pots and Zidane, Vivi, and Freya go to Alexandria, and we switch to Steiner's party. ************** Enemies: Steiner will cuss some more about being stuck in the cage at the top of the room. Marcus will try to calm him down, but then he thinks of a way to get them out. We now have to play a sort of game to get them out. Push the Left Analog Stick to the left to move this cage to your left, and push it to the right to move it to the right. Move it quite a bit and it'll move faster and faster. Always alternate it from left to right or it'll screw up. Once it gets faster and hits the right side, the hunk o' junk with go BANG CRASH BOOM and we're out! Now time to find Garnet. This place is very straight, but it's crowded with Alexandria Soldiers. Oh well, they're very easy to defeat and die in one hit. The Blood Sword that Steiner's got will eliminate them totally. Also, this is a spectacular place to build Steiner up because he's undoubtedly behind in levels and we won't get him again for a while. You might want to knock Marcus out as he's not a permanent character to the party. Not to mention we can fight a super-hard optional boss soon. Anyway, fight as many as you want and get to the end of this room and to the ladder. Climb up to continue. Go up this huge flight of stairs. There are no enemies here so don't hesitate. Once you reach the top, Zidane, Vivi, and Freya will appear right in front of Steiner to try and find Dagger. Steiner will be a little surprised but won't be as mad as usual. The five will continue, but Marcus decides to leave. Steiner yells at him some more, and then they reach a gate. Marcus traps a bunch of Alexandrian Soldiers behind it. Now, we have just 30:00 to reach Dagger, before Queen Brahne executes her! Anyway, just go straight ahead fighting soldiers if you want, until you get to the middle room with the stairs and libraries on the sides. If you want, enter the library and check the bookcase at the bottom of the room and talk to the book on top to fight it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There are two points in the game that you can fight Tantarian. The library of Alexandria in Disc 2 during the 30:00 time limit or the same place in Disc 3. This strategy is assuming you're doing it on Disc 2, and believe me that's a BIG mistake. Tantarian has super powerful attacks that are going to tear you a new behind, the last save point is a long while back, and you have a 30 minute time limit to defeat them and then rush to where Dagger is to defeat Zorn and Thorn. Anyway, if I haven't made it clear what a bad choice this is if you aren't building up, here we go. Tantarian has two forms: The book form and the cute form. In the book form, Tantarian is dangerous. He does two attacks called Paper Storm and Edge, which will add up to a lot of trouble. He also uses Doom occasionally. He'll switch to the cute form after taking some damage on his book form. In the cute form, he just uses Poison and he can use Doom sometimes. Unfortunately, he's a little wimpy here. If you hit him with a physical attack, he says "Ouch!" and disappears. If you don't, he'll stay for a while. After a long bit of time of being there, he'll disappear into the book again. Big bummer on that. That's why you should only Steal from him, have Freya heal the party, have Vivi cast Bio, and Steiner use Bio Sword, and Tantarian will be taking about 6000 damage before he disappears into the book again. Tantarian only has four attacks: He can use Paper Storm for around 500-600 damage to the party. This is his worst attack and the reason this battle is hard. I recommend a full stock of Hi-Potions and Phoenix Downs, because this could result in very high damage, it could add up, and the party will be in miserable pain. It might even be a good idea to put everyone in the back to avoid being in worse trouble. He also has Edge, which does about 800 damage to a character. Since this is only on one character, it's not a big deal. In fact, it'll be good if it's on Steiner. If he survives he'll be at a very small amount of HP, and if he is he can use Minus Strike, which'll take a good deal of HP from Tantarian. Anyway, on for character duties. Have Freya cure the party and make sure it's at maximum HP at all times and use Ethers if required, have Steiner use his Sword Art Minus Strike or Bio Sword, have Vivi use Bio over and over, and as for Zidane... get him to steal if you want, but Tantarian doesn't have anything good except the Silver Fork. This is a great fork for Quina so that might be worth it. Be careful at all times and you should come out okay. Making it through that tough fight at this point of the game will be an achievement indeed. Anyway... return to the stairs and go up this time. Now return to the place where you first found Dagger, and head through the large door right ahead, where Alexandrian Soldiers were guarding on Disc 1. Enter and we'll reach Brahne's chamber. Dagger isn't in here. Go to the purple fire and activate it to open a secret passage. Go through it and we'll reach a mysterious room. The floors in here will move, and it'll be really slow. They will move to the opposite side and then to where you are facing. There's an Ice Brand and a Tent to collect, but if you're running short on time from battling Tantarian or you were goofing around fighting Alexandrian Soldiers, you might as well get them now. Go ALL the way down this huge flight of stairs and forward. You'll reach a chapel where Zorn and Thorn have Dagger. Now it is time to get even with these evil jesters! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Boss: Thorn Now we finally have the chance to fight them. Ah, that's good. =) Fortunately, both of them are extremely easy. First of all, neither Zorn nor Thorn have regular attacks. They pass each other power, then a turn later they dish out this strong power. If you attack one of them, the power is neutralized. Zorn will give Thorn a power called Light Flare, which does Fire damage to a character. This does above average damage and if you haven't been leveling Vivi he might not survive through it, although if you have some sense to level him he will. Thorn will give Zorn a power called Meteorite. This attack hits a character and then does a little less damage to the other three characters. This is definitely much worse, but this battle is like Palom and Porom from Final Fantasy IV: one gone and they're helpless. Fortunately here, we only have to take out one of the two to get them out of here. I recommend taking Thorn out because he has much less HP. Have three characters attack him while one attacks Zorn so he doesn't end up using Meteorite. For the character duties now: Zidane does not need to Steal here. Neither have anything good to steal. Partisan's useless, Stardust Rod we don't need, Mythril Armor and Mythril Armlet we have. So don't bother, just have him attack Zorn. Vivi should be using his strongest spell (mine was Bio because I played Chocobo Hot & Cold a lot before now), but if you don't have Bio use a 'ra spell. Freya should stick with attacking Zorn because she's the weakest of everyone and we don't want Zorn using Meteorite. Steiner should use Bio Sword every turn unless you run low on MP, whereas Zidane can toss an Ether. After this fight, Zorn and Thorn will retreat. Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Steiner will examine Dagger. Steiner will moan and then Zidane sees she's not dead. The party carries her back. Now return to the chamber, which is just one screen back. We'll find Beatrix here. She is fooled into obeying Queen Brahne's orders, so we obviously have to handle her for the third time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The first thing that you might notice is that both of the previous fights with Beatrix were given a Medium, while the third fight with her is given only a Semi-Medium. Well, Beatrix is still evil and has the same powerful attacks that will give you nightmares. Still, she is a bit different. Thunder Slash and physical attacks are a little stronger, but not by much. Beatrix occasionally uses Cura to heal herself, but this is pretty pointless. Shock exists, but it's not really the killer move that it was in the second fight. Also, instead of Stock Break to finish this battle, she uses Climhazzard instead. It's the same powerful move, just a different animation and name. Now for the character duties as always. Zidane shouldn't bother stealing unless you need an extra Ice Brand to sell for Gil since they really do fetch a good price, but don't bother with Survival Vest. Vivi should use Bio if he has it (Blizzara was my spell to use in games I don't have Bio), Freya should Jump all the time or cast Reis's Wind or Lancer if you want, and Steiner should use a sword attack. This will work very well against her, so it won't take long before she finishes the battle off with a Climhazzard. We still can't defeat her. After the fight with Beatrix, Zidane will try and talk some sense in her and tell her that her mission was to protect Garnet/Dagger and Queen Brahne wants to kill her. Beatrix finally gets a good mind on what's happening, and then she walks over to Dagger and casts spells on her to try and wake her up. Zorn starts shouting that it is no good, but Dagger finally wakes up. Queen Brahne arrives and demands that Beatrix gives her over. Beatrix refuses, and then Freya and Beatrix are faced with an enemy called Bandersnatch. Now, we finally get to experience Beatrix's power! She has wonderful White Magic like Cura and Holy, but she also has Thunder Slash, Stock Break, Climhazzard, and Shock. Thunder Slash is totally worthless because it almost always misses, Stock Break and Climhazzard are great moves even though they don't put enemies at 1 HP, and Shock is a killer. Suffer one hit with Shock, you usually die. Against the Bandersnatch, just have Beatrix use Shock or Holy. If you want to save her MP, just let attack physically. Now, we're with Zidane, Vivi, Steiner, and Dagger. Head all the way down these stairs and get the Ice Brand if you didn't. Steiner will leave at a certain point to assist Freya and Steiner and then you'll fight another battle with them... anyway, just go all the way down with the three and fight as many battles as you need. You will fight some tough Type C's midway though. These black mages are very agile, so handle them with spells and physical attacks, while Dagger heals. Go further down. At the bottom, you'll find that passage that led to Gargan Roo. Zidane, Vivi, and Dagger will get trapped inside by Zorn and Thorn, but then Marcus and *gulp* Blank will beat the two of them senseless. Now go further onto the gargant. It'll be moving fast, until it suddenly stops. A huge, green snake will be facing the party. Dagger will recognize it from when she, Marcus, and Steiner went down this road, so now it has to be fought. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, remember Ralvurahva? This is it, but just like a Pokemon it has evolved into a stronger form and changed color from purple to green. Well, enough about that, on to the fight. Ralvuimago has the following attacks: Stab, which is his physical attack. This doesn't do much damage and is nothing to worry about; Ultra Sound Wave, an attack that does no damage but causes Mini on a character; Thundara (while he used Blizzara the first time we fought him; and his combo: Becoming Compact and Power of the Land. If you physically attack Ralvuimago, it will coil up and use Becoming Compact and his defense will grow by a huge amount. Now, DO NOT attack Ralvu now, or he will counter with Power of the Land. This is a very powerful attack that hits everyone (including him). It's also an Earth elemental attack, and Ralvu absorbs Earth, so his HP will jump up by about 300. Therefore, I don't recommend physically attacking Ralvuimago very much. First of all, you probably don't need to steal from Ralvu. You don't need the Oak Staff as you can already have one from Chocobo Hot & Cold (although few people will go through Gizamaluke's Grotto, then get the Reef Chocobo, return to Chocobo's Forest and then dig up a hard to find treasure which contains an Oak Staff). Well, if you didn't, remember that shortly after this fight you will go back to Lindblum and you can buy it, and you don't need a Phoenix Down or Adaman Vest. So don't bother; just attack if you want. Zidane's pretty useless in this fight. Vivi should be casting Blizzara or Bio if he has it every turn. He's the most useful character here. Dagger is as always the healer, so just have her cast Cura on the party if Ralvu uses Power of the Land, and have her cure Mini if Ralvu gets Mini on the party. Have Vivi do the real attacking, and this fight will be over in short time. Ralvuimago will remain still, but so will the gargant, as it is very scared from what's been going on. By the time it starts, Ralvu starts chasing you and the gargant has to go REALLY fast to avoid him. Unfortunately, the party doesn't get to Lindblum, where they all want to go. Instead, the gargant simply crashes and then you end up in a mysterious place called Pinnacle Rocks. Not necessarily worth an entire section, but I'll make it anyway. ****************** Enemies: Before we actually enter the Pinnacle Rocks, we will see what Queen Brahne is up to. She is extremely furious, and she calls two hunters to her room. One is Lani, and another is mysterious man with flaming red hair. Queen Brahne will order them to find Dagger and collect her pendant, and extra credit to kill Vivi as well. Lani goes off with her axe to obey this order. The man with red hair mentions that there's a monkey boy (Zidane) traveling with them, and Queen Brahne offers more pay to kill him as well. Not that good of a thing. After that furious scene from Queen Brahne, Dagger and Vivi will be seen at the Pinnacle Rocks. The gargant apparently crashed and landed here. Zidane then shows up after exploring the place and he of course recognizes it. An old man then appears. He talks to Dagger about Odin destroying Cleyra, and then he introduces himself as Ramuh. Dagger knows his name from a book on summons, and knows that he's the Thunder Eidolon. Dagger begs him to help, and then Ramuh puts you through a test to find five pieces of a story. Now before I guide you through finding the five manifestations of Ramuh hidden in the Pinnacle Rocks, I'll talk about the danger of the enemies around here. Seeker Bats are really no problem, but they get really annoying sometimes since they can drain HP from your characters, and since you only have three in your party right now they get dangerous. Sand Scorpions are absolutely no problem and the least annoying. Remember Zaghnol from Lindblum? Well, weaker versions of him can be found here, and even though they have high HP they're not that strong. First of all, this finding of Ramuh's five parts of a story is totally optional. However, if you wisely choose to do it now, you have the earliest possible opportunity to obtain Ramuh. You can leave this place anytime you want, but I still recommend that you get Ramuh now. We'll start off here on the screen right after that first one that we were on. Return to that screen and talk right where Ramuh was earlier. That is "Hero". One down, four to go. Now if you want, go back and head down the slope then talk to the moogle to save your game. Going further... head down that slope and open the treasure chest to collect a Mythril Vest. Then just go a little further north and you will find "Human". After finding that, turn left and you'll see two treasure chests. Go to the left side to collect "Cooperation" and then jump to the lower-right side to find a treasure chest with The Ogre. Now, just jump down. Head to the upper-right and forward toward the next screen, and you'll find another manifestation, this one called "Silence". After finding that one, return to the last screen. Now climb up the green slope right above you. At the top, go up and then jump to collect a Mythril Armlet. After finding it, jump down and reclimb the slope, and instead of going up, go down this time and you will find "Beginning". Now head to the end of this place, and you will talk to Ramuh. Now that you've found the five parts of the story, you need to arrange them. Only four parts are supposed to be used. It is in this order: Beginning, Cooperation, Silence, Hero. When you give the story to Ramuh, he will ask why you chose Hero as the last part. Dagger will explain a little and then Ramuh will become her first eidolon. Well, Dagger has eight eidolons in all and seven of them are better than Ramuh. Still, Ramuh has about twice the power of a normal 'ra spell if you get his full animation but you only have one Peridot. With the Peridot, you can summon Ramuh. Alright, enough about summoning stuff. Dagger will walk off, and then Zidane and Vivi will wonder why Ramuh made them play that silly game. Now continue forward. At this point we are faced with a dark sky and a cliff. Choose to jump off the cliff, and then Zidane and Dagger will talk. Dagger is immensely worried about her mother. We now see one of the best FMVs in the entire game. Queen Brahne will look positively furious and she'll call up some black mages to burn everything. She is attacking Lindblum. Dagger almost faints in horror. Queen Brahne will finally summon an eidolon known as Atomos. It will create a large tornado and eat everything in the whole town. Wow, not even Quina could do that... Lindblum Dagger still hasn't gotten over the fact that Queen Brahne attacked Lindblum. Zidane tells Vivi to stay put and keep watch, and Vivi, as you probably wouldn't expect, agrees. Now, just go north, all the way up and you will encounter Minister Artania. Cid defended Lindblum well, but still, the Business and Theater Districts were badly damaged, and the Industrial District was totally destroyed. Cid will then talk about Brahne, and we'll know that Kuja is supplying her with weapons, and he's at the Outer Continent. To get there, we need to go through Fossil Roo, which is hidden in a swamp. A man will then appear and tell you to talk to him before leaving. Two men will then find Vivi and yell at him for being a black mage, but then they realize that he's much smaller than the others. Okay, now it's time to leave unless you have something to buy. Make sure to check out the shops around here, because they have new, valuable stuff. You can even get Zidane's Exploda now, which is to my intelligence his strongest weapon as of now. Once you're ready, talk to the guy and we are ready to go. You'll then be in the castle, so go down to Serpent's Gate and head out. World Map There's not really much to do on the world map except build up Dagger, and to accurately build her up you'd need to knock Zidane and Vivi out, and with Dagger alone it'll be extremely tough. So just go to Qu's Marsh, north of where we are now. Now, if you don't have Quina... shame on you, but anyway, look at the Qu's Marsh part before Gizamaluke's Grotto on Disc 1's walkthrough, but this is assuming you had him before. Qu's Marsh Just go right to the north. There's nothing really here. When you reach the pond, you'll find Quina. Zidane will welcome him back. Now if you've fought Tantarian and stole the Silver Fork from him, just give it to Quina right now. When you're ready, just go north and forward. You can enter Quale's house for some tips if you'd like... but just go to the right. Quina will wander off saying he smells some frogs. Zidane gets furious and chases him, and then they find an old excavation site. Quina breaks some chains but fails to capture the frog. Now in we go! ************** Enemies: On entering Fossil Roo, just head forward. Suddenly, the ground will start to shake. Zidane will look behind him and see a purple creature. It does not look very happy, and it will start chasing you. You probably want to avoid it, but it's somewhat tough to avoid because while you're running away from it, there are a lot of obstacles on the way. They will block you for a while, allowing Armodullahan to catch up with you. Try to avoid it and get to the end, but in case you do end up fighting Armodullahan... Since Armodullahan is not a real boss, instead of putting him in the boss section I'll leave him here. He's got four attacks: Spear, Death, LV5 Death, Thundara. Spear does a little bit of damage, Death will kill a party member, LV5 Death will instantly eliminate any characters with a level divisible by 5, and Thundara is regular lightning damage. Armodullahan is fast and hits pretty hard. Still, he's not too hard, just don't slouch too much while fighting him. You can also steal Ore, Hi-Potion and Ether from him. Once you get to the end of this long path and Armodullahan falls into a pit, everyone will stop. Zidane will also run straight into Quina, knocking him down. Then, a woman appears out of the tunnel right up ahead. It's the bounty hunter Lani. She'll see Dagger and ask her to hand over her pendant. Dagger and Lani will then argue a little bit about Queen Brahne, and then Zidane will step in. Lani loses her patience and asks Dagger to give the pendant over. Dagger refuses, and then Lani really does lose it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Despite what some people think, I find Lani an average difficulty boss, and I put her skills above what most people seem to think of them. Still, what takes it from Easy to Semi-Medium (that's actually a big jump) is that Dagger is extremely weak against her physical attacks, and so is Vivi. Lani can take about 250-300 damage away by a single attack from the two of them if she wants to, and my Dagger only had about 500 HP, while Vivi had around 600. This means that both of them will fall pretty quickly. As for Quina... he's almost as weak, but for some reason Lani almost always misses when she attacks Quina, so that's not really something to worry about. Her attacks on Zidane aren't very troublesome. However, Lani's got more than physical attacks. She has the 'ra spells all around, but they're not really too bad. She has Aera though, and if this is on a low HP character like Dagger, you could find yourself with another KO'd character. And if this brown hag didn't already have enough attacks, she also has Water to cast on your whole party. This can do up to 300 damage. BLAST THAT. She sometimes uses Scan on a character to see their weakness so she can use that elemental spell on you as well, so all this combined makes her a medium boss. Early in the fight and through a good other deal of it as well, Lani only hits Dagger, although after she is knocked out she'll start hitting everyone. Now for the duties of the characters... Zidane should be stealing like crazy. The Ether is worth it as we all know, and the Coral Sword can be extremely valuable. You probably don't need a Gladius because Zidane should have Exploda by now, but if you don't just steal that. If you don't need it and/or you get all the other things that Lani has, or you just plain don't want them, just have Zidane attack. Vivi should be casting his strongest spell. It's either a 'ra spell or Bio. Dagger has to cure the party to have hope in this fight, and 50% of who she should heal is herself. Quina also has the great pair of Auto-Life and Limit Glove. It just goes with Quina casting Auto-Life on himself and then you just attack him then he's back with 1 HP, where he can use Limit Glove and do 9999 damage. Anyway, you shouldn't have too many more problems with this fight. After that fight, Lani will retreat and let you pass. Okay, just go ahead. On the next screen, Zidane will see a gargant at the top of the screen. Go to the left side and you'll see some flowers. Pick one up and then when you see the ! sign, press X so the gargant can see it. It will then take the flower, pick Zidane up, and take him across a cliff, water, or whatever you'll find here. After doing so, just go up and you'll see a treasure hunter. He'll explain some stuff about the gargants here. The switches here will change where the water flows. The gargants hate water, so I think you know now... I'll talk a little about the enemies now. Seeker Bats are as you remember them, they're not hard in the slightest but they're annoying because they use Suck, Suck more, and Suck even more attacks a lot. Feather Circles aren't dangerous either, but they cast Trouble on the party a lot, and their attacks are a little strong, especially spread to the whole party. Abominations are not very strong, but you can learn Night from them, so try very hard to do so. Griffins are probably the hardest enemies here, but they're not too bad. Okay, now that you've got a firm grip on what kind of enemies live in this place, go down before going northeast. You'll see everyone's favorite Moogle - Stiltzkin. He'll sell you a Phoenix Pinion, a Remedy, and an Ether for 555 Gil. Buy this immediately, and then just go up and to the right, unless you want to save, receive a letter in mognet, use a tent, or buy something at the mogshop. On the next screen anyway, pick up one of the flowers and get a gargant ready, and it'll take you further. When you reach the next screen, go to the right. You'll find one of the switches... just pull this and look on the upper-left side of the screen. You'll see a path for a gargant changing. Now return to where you arrived in this little, get the gargant with the flower again, and it'll take you down a new path. When you get off, go to the left and up the stairs, then forward all the way to find a chest with an Ether in it. Not bad. Return to where the gargant was and then go straight up. On that screen, you'll find the second switch. Pull this one, and then back to the gargant again. After you return, go back to where the first switch was. Pull this, and then go back to the gargant. Make it go back to where you found the treasure hunter. Now go down to where Stiltzkin was. If you haven't bought the stuff from him, do it now. After taking care of business, go southeast further. We'll find another gargant, so take it further. On the next screen, you'll find a second treasure hunter and we can buy items from him if we want. Do so if you need something, but to advance further, just go right up the stairs to the right of him. You'll find the fourth switch there. Once you've pulled the fourth switch, you will somehow know that you are almost finished with Fossil Roo. And that's not bad, considering how this is one of the worst places in the whole game. Go to the right and get a gargant ready, and then ride further in, and then head to the right, and you'll find yourself on a cliff. There's a chest with a Lamia's Tiara here. Pick this up, and then go back. Call the gargant again, and ride back to the fourth switch. Once again, pull it and ride the gargant on the right for the second time to go to a different area. The gargant will drop you off in an area full of vines. Grab them and go towards the right side. A face in the middle will spit water at Zidane and he'll be knocked into the water. Wait until you get a field icon "!" and then jump out of it with the X button. Go up the slopes right ahead of you and then to the right side and you'll be at a mining site. Talk to the treasure hunter here, and he'll let you dig with his pick if you give him a potion. Giving him the potion is well worth it, because hidden in the walls there are much more valuable things than silly potions. Dig in random areas to find random things, but there is one notable part where we can find something that we don't find everyday. Go to the upper-right wall and start digging there. You might have to dig several times before you hear a "Ku" sound. Dig some more and you'll hear "Kupo..." and then dig some more and a moogle named Kuppo will dash out of it. Buy some stuff from Kuppo's mogshop, save your game, use a tent, or let Kuppo write a letter to Kupo if you want, and then return to the room with all the vines. Climb even higher. Don't worry about the faces, because they won't shoot water at you and knock you off... yet. Get to the other side on the left and pull the third switch. Return to the floor with the gargant and go to the right, then take the gargant out. Go to the end of this tunnel, and then you'll see an exit, with light on the outside! And good for me, I hate this place. Worst. Place. In. The. Whole. Game. Get the heck out of this piece of crap of a place, and now we're on the Outer Continent. World Map You will see that there is absolutely no Mist here, and there are some great enemies to fight while out here. You may want to spend a little time fighting them. Once you're done wiping the asses of some enemies, try to get on top of the large hill. You may see a huge forest somewhere, and this is a place to note. When you get there, turn to the right side and you might find a small village there. This is our next stop: Conde Petie. *************** Enemies: You'll see a path leading to a small village. Quina will run towards the village in a hurry, saying that he might find good food there. Zidane is annoyed again and asks if that's all he ever thinks about. Dagger then tells Zidane that all he ever thinks about it girls. Zidane then hits on Dagger again, saying that his mind is filled with thoughts about her... geez, now he's getting annoying. Anyway, Zidane and Vivi will then enter. Welcome to Conde Petie, the village of dwarves. Inside, you'll be greeted to several dwarves. They will be making the party say "Rally-ho" and if they don't say it they can't pass. Everyone finally passes through, and we get to explore this village. Go a little bit north, and you'll find 2700 Gil. We'll see some ATEs like Hungry Bryan (where a dark figure appears), Quina Accused (where Quina is accused to stealing food), Vivi and the Couple, and Dagger and William, where Dagger is at the Inn and some dwarves annoy her. Anyway, head north. When you get there, you will find a pair of doors on the left. Enter and you can find some dwarves in here... you might want to rest up. Afterwards, exit the inn and then go north instead. You'll find yourself in a holy room. At the north, you'll find some dwarves that will block you due to some marriage deals... oh well, worry about that later. Go to the left side and you'll see Vivi. He'll run away. Now just return to the entrance of Conde Petie. Instead of going north, go east and you'll find yourself at the Item Shop. Vivi will spot a black mage here! Remember the dark figure from "Hungry Bryan"? This is it. Vivi will then run after it. Follow him back to the entrance, and a dwarf will tell you they left for their village. It's a good deal away, but it's in that huge forest that I mentioned a little bit earlier. Alright, that is our next destination! Exit the town. World Map Now that we're here, get down to the ground, off of this hill. Locate the huge forest around the Black Mage Village we are supposed to find. Once you get to the forest, you may not want to just go all the way over there right now, because you can find two creatures here: The Ragtime Mouse, who is most famous for appearing in this forest a lot, and the Friendly Ladybug. You should definitely meet both of them if you know what's good for you. Refer to Chapter Eight for more information. Anyway, get all the way across and enter the village. ********************** Enemies: Another place I hate, this forest is. You have to cross a big forest before you get to the village itself. A lot of irksome random encounters can be met here, which will really drive you nuts. Anyway, this place isn't really that much for enemies. Myconoid is not a very dangerous enemy at all, and while Zemzelett uses some nasty wind attacks (and White Wind, but you definitely should have learned that by now), but besides that there's nothing extremely dangerous. Now for the place itself. =) Follow the black mage northeast. I believe that the pattern was Northeast, Northeast, Northeast, Northwest, Northeast, and then you get there. Well, if you can't trust that, just go to the path with no owls. You can see the owls right above. Once you get to the end of this god-awful place, you'll find a black mage making the village appear. Good, so we've finally got to the real village itself! The black mage, of course, does not know that you're behind it, so it goes in normally. When entering, the black mages will freak out that humans are there and will run away. The party will be rather surprised that these black mages can actually talk. Vivi runs off to chase the black mages, Dagger wanders off, and Quina runs away to find some good food. To the left, you can find an equipment shop. This village has some really good shops, so be sure to check all of them out until the very last one of em! On the right of that, you can also pick up an Elixir, which is very handy. Now go northeast to save your game with a moogle. That's a good thing, because you wouldn't want to have to go through that pain in the ass forest again. Enter the house and you'll find Quina trying to eat a chocobo egg that the black mages are guarding. Quina wants to share the yummy egg with the mages, because they happen to be very tasty, but the black mages will not allow this. Nothing more to do in here except find a Gysahl Green inside. Now return to where the fork of northwest or northeast was. Go northwest and then head into the house on the left and you'll see that it just happens to be the Synthesis Shop. Zidane will talk to Dagger in here a little, and then Dagger will run away to find Vivi. Get the 2000 Gil inside the treasure chest here, and then synthesize some stuff if you need to. Now climb the ladder at the north side of this room and get to the roof. Up there, you can find a chest for 843 Gil. Now go back to the shop and exit. Upon leaving the shop, you'll see Vivi run away. Zidane will be a little puzzled... enter the house on the right this time and you'll see it's the Item Shop. DEFINITELY shop here, it has Hi-Potions! Very valuable, those are at this point! Check on the right side and you'll see a path that leads to an inn. Enter the Inn, and talk to Vivi. Dagger and Quina will arrive. After that, choose to rest. Vivi will walk out and Quina will leave you alone. Now, Zidane and Dagger together, you know what'll happen! Vivi will be outside the inn, talking to one of the black mages, and one of the friendlier ones at that. Zidane then informs Dagger that he's looking for a place he can call home, and he may just have found it. Zidane then wants to tell Dagger a bedtime story. *grin* It's about a guy who didn't know who he was, where we came from, or anything. At one time, he left his father's house to find a place he could call home, but he found nothing. He returned, and then his "father" gave him a huge beating, and smiled. That was his place to call home... And now, I believe you might realize what this story means. The guy is Zidane, and his father was Baku. His place to call home was Tantalus with his brothers Cinna, Marcus, and Blank. We'll then see Vivi talking to the friendly black mage, No. 288. They'll talk about the death of one of the black mages... in the morning, Dagger will wake up and hear a bit of news. It's about the familiar guy that we probably know by now, Kuja. He was flying around the town on a silver dragon. Zidane, Vivi, and Dagger will reunite, and then Quina will come along, disappointed he couldn't find any food... now we have to return to Conde Petie. I won't make the world map stuff this time. *************** Enemies: You should at least know your way around Conde Petie by now, but we are now going to see some new places... go back close to where you found Vivi, around the dwarves blocking the path. They'll tell you that you need His Holiness's blessing to pass. Now, go to around the inn, and you'll see a guy with a long white beard walking around. His name is Father David and he is of course the His Holiness guy. You have to attend a ceremony where you get married here... now, I suppose you know what Zidane is like in these cases? Zidane and Dagger will go a church will having this ceremony. Zidane will talk to himself about things to do with Dagger. Then after that is over, we see perhaps the most hilarious scene in the entire game. When Zidane and Dagger become husband and wife (not really, just so they can pass, they aren't husband and wife... yet), Zidane tells Dagger it's time for the kiss. Dagger walks away and then Zidane jumps at her, only to fall flat on the floor on his stomach, which a loud BANG. Trust me, it's funnier than it sounds! Upon exiting the church, Zidane and Dagger will met Vivi and Quina. Now it's time for yet another hilarious scene. Vivi and Quina will talk a little, and then Zidane can suggest they get married too. You'll then see them inside the church too, and then Vivi and Quina will say some happy stuff to each other. Okay, now that Zidane and Dagger are "married", they can get out of this place and into the Sanctuary. Now return to where the dwarves were blocking the path, and we'll see a little scene. The dwarves will let you pass, but then some more dwarves will go around chasing a little girl and a moogle for stealing some things from the town. The girl and the moogle will run away. Now, just go forward and then the dwarves will be disappointed they couldn't catch her. Okay, now it's time to meet the girl. Go to the next screen, and you'll see the little girl, trapped on a branch. She will yell at the moogle (Mog) to do something, yet it does nothing, except fly away. The girl will shout some more. She will then say that she does not taste good. Zidane informs Quina about this. =P However, Quina takes this information but he's not about to give up. Quina notes that the moogle passing had some pretty good color, so he jumps off a cliff and lands with such a BANG that the little girl falls off the branch. Quina is then like Shadow from FF6, leaving for the second time! The girl then says some things about Zidane and Dagger being married, and she introduces herself as Eiko, a young summoner from Madain Sari. Eiko gets very worried about the moogle (Mog), so she decides the party had better head off. Now, this is another bad part of the game in which I rather dislike due to the random encounters, and Eiko's not really that great of a replacement for Quina yet. Her physical power is very weak, and she also doesn't have very offensive magic besides her Fenrir summon, but she's better than nothing. Go to the vines on the left side of the screen, and climb up the vines and at the top you will find a Remedy item. After collecting it if you wanted it, it's time to proceed. However, I'll talk a little about the enemies. None of the enemies here and tough, although sometimes the Gnolls get annoying because they cast Blizzara quite a lot. Ochus aren't very hard compared to how difficult they can be in FF8. Trolls aren't dangerous. Also, if you have Eiko summon Fenrir (or Phoenix if you give her a Phoenix Pinion as an add-on), Dagger will be extremely impressed and tell her she didn't know that Eiko could use eidolons. On the next screen, find the statue around here and examine it to collect a Blue Stone. Now go right back, and climb another vine on the bottom-right side. When you get up there, turn to the left side and you'll find another statue, this one holding a Red Stone. After collecting it, get the treasure chest with the Ether in it. Return to the ground and then go back to the right, and then go forward! Finally... go right straight and you'll come to a slope. Head up and you'll find Stiltzkin and a regular moogle... buy from Stiltzkin. When you're finished with the business with the moogles, go to the left. Climb up the ladder, and then we'll end up a huge tree root. Zidane, Dagger, and Vivi will look at the Sanctuary, or the huge tree on the other side. Eiko will explain that it's the Iifa Tree (IT IS NOT THE LIFA TREE! PERIOD!), and the dwarves just call it the Sanctuary. After that little scene, go to the right side, and then the ground will start shaking. I guess that huge giants really can shake up the ground and make a little surprise. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hilgigars is probably the easiest boss we have fought in quite a long time. He's got four attacks: Hiphop, where he jumps in the air and lands on a character for about 400 damage (which hits only one character and can easily be met by a Cura spell from Dagger or Eiko); Knock Down which is basically the same attack except it's actually a little weaker; Earthquake, which is his strongest attack and if you get Eiko to cast Float on the party, it won't matter at all; and Curaga, which really isn't an attack but Hilgigars will restore about 2000 HP upon using this, so we don't want that. Hilgigars is also a pretty slow boss, so he can't do too much stuff in a short amount of time. First of all, the stuff you can steal from Hilgigars... he's got a Phoenix Down which is not very hard to steal, Mythril Fork (there really isn't too much point in stealing this because you might already have the Silver Fork and you're not going to get Quina back until Disc 3), and the worst of all them - Fairy Flute. I mean, it's a powerful flute and very nice, but it is NOT WORTH STEALING! Know why? There's a 1/256 chance that you will succeed to get this flute. Really, I'm not exaggerating. So once again, don't bother stealing it. Instead, just attack Hilgigars or use one of Zidane's skills. Dagger should heal the party or use Ramuh if she gets the time. Have Vivi cast some of his strongest magic like Thundara every turn, because it'll take about 500 HP from Hilgigars. Eiko could also cure someone if Hilgigars uses a lot of stuff, or you can just have her use Fenrir or Phoenix. It won't be long before you defeat Hilgigars. After that fight, Eiko will say that Hilgigars just shows up when he feels like it. Dagger asks her why she's able to summon eidolons, but of course Eiko doesn't have much of a reply. Zidane compliments her fighting ability, and then Eiko leads everyone to her home. However, this place isn't finished yet. It's time to collect two items: the Green Stone and the Yellow Stone. Actually, you don't need them if you don't want them. The only reward you get is a Moonstone, but that's a useful item. Right in front of you, there's a statue. Collect a Yellow Stone inside it. Now turn to the right and go up the trunk to find an Ether and inside the statue, the Green Stone. Now if you want, you can return around the entrance and go to the southeastern side to find a large statue, where you can place the four colored stones and you will collect a Moonstone. It's a long way back, but it can be worth it. To continue, go to the left path instead of the right one. World Map You might notice a village right ahead of you, Madain Sari. However, you probably want to check out the forests first, as you will find a friendly monster called the Yeti, and he wants some Ore. Give him two Ores and then he'll be happy. I also believe it's possible to find the Ragtime Mouse in there. When you're ready, enter the village Madain Sari, and we're ready to have some real fun with our new friend Eiko. Moogle-lovers rejoice... *************** Enemies: Zidane will be fascinated that Eiko lives in Madain Sari, which is basically a pile of rubble. A lot of moogles will then arrive and welcome Eiko home. Eiko then notices that Mog is not with them, and then she gets all worried. Mog then comes... it seems that the little moogle escaped from Quina. =P After that, everyone will enter the real village. Eiko will order all the moogles around, but she lets Mog stay in her dress. Well, if I were Eiko I sure wouldn't let something furry stay inside what I was wearing. Eiko then asks Zidane a whole lot of questions about himself, like what kinds of foods he likes, what kinds of girls he likes, what kinds of moogles he likes, and other random nonsense. Dagger quickly becomes very annoyed. After that, Eiko goes away to cook. After that, you can watch an ATE with Vivi. After that, inspect the fountain in the middle of the room for a Libra. Then look around for a Tent. Go to the left now and speak with Vivi. He's still worried... after talking with him, you'll see an ATE with Dagger. Turn to the left now and a moogle will block you from entering, because Eiko is still cooking. Now for what she's doing! You'll see an ATE with her, and this one is one of the only interactive ATEs in the game. Eiko will be ordering the moogles for what to do, and deciding the dishes. In the choices, select any moogle, it doesn't really matter. Eiko will then start. Return to the second screen of Madain Sari and then take the right fork instead. You'll come to a restricted area and meet up with one of our friends... As soon as the moogle finishes talking, Quina is seen from above the Eidolon Wall (the restricted area). He tells you he's been eating rocks and sand, and that the food is different. He'll then jump down with a huge BOOM and then decide to look for fish in the water, and find that the water looks very tasty. He then jumps in the water. Now return to where Vivi was and talk to the moogle that was blocking the way to Eiko's kitchen. He'll give you a tour of the Eidolon Wall and now we see perhaps the best ATE in the whole game. Eiko will be thinking of how many people to cook food for. There are Zidane, Vivi, Dagger, and herself, and then there's the six moogles, but even though she doesn't know it, there's Quina... *grin* Decide to cook food for 11 people. The fishing moogle will say that he's caught a fish, but a very heavy one. Three guesses who or what the fish is. ^_^ You then get a choice of letting the moogle fish what he's got out, or let Eiko give him a hand. Choose to give him a hand, and then the two will pull the fish out, and Quina will jump onto the dock. Nice fish. Go to the Eidolon Wall, the restricted place. Zidane will tell the moogle that he wants to get Dagger to see the eidolons. Return to the entrance of Madain Sari and talk to her, and then go back to the Eidolon Wall. Zidane, Dagger, and the moogle will enter. Dagger will immediately recognize Atomos and Bahamut. Just let her continue to look at the Eidolon Wall and then leave this room and you'll be able to watch yet another ATE with our new character Eiko! Ah, I like these very much... Eiko is very suspicious about Quina. She mistakes him for Kuja, but Quina introduces himself as a gourmand and suggests that he could help Eiko with some of her kitchen work. Choose to allow him. Quina will be happy about the fact Eiko made food for 11 people, and then he'll talk about the ingredients for the meal. He'll look at Eiko's stove some, and then he mentions that there's a black mage (Vivi, DUH) traveling with them who could be useful, so then he goes off to find Vivi. Pretty entertaining ATE in my opinion. Now our back and forth trip is finally over. Go to Eiko's kitchen, and the moogle will tell you she's done at last! Zidane will then notice how good the food looks! To make the perfect meal, you must not have put an oglop in, cooked food for 11 people, and let Quina help. If you put the oglop in the meal though, you'll see a hilarious scene as Vivi eats something, and then he notices it tastes bad, and then he realizes there's an oglop in it. Zidane also mentions that the food is bad if that happens. If it's good, Zidane and Vivi will say good things about it. There's no further reward though, which sucked. During the meal, Dagger and Zidane will ask Eiko some questions about herself. After the meal, Eiko tells Zidane to fetch the pot and give it to her. Before grabbing the pot though, go to the left and into her real kitchen. Check the pot on the left side to find a Burman Coffee. Go to the room where you ate the meal, and you'll find two chests for a Phoenix Pinion and an Ore. When you get back with the pot, Eiko will say some trash to herself about how slow Zidane and Dagger are. Also, at the bottom of the room you can see Quina and a moogle. The moogle complains about Quina telling him to catch more fish, and Quina says stuff about this place's fish being different. To proceed, talk to Eiko. The real reason Zidane came here was for the Iifa Tree, so he'll ask Eiko about it. She'll say that there's a seal blocking it. Zidane then asks her to break the seal, but Eiko shouts at him and tells him no. You can then talk to her some more, but she says no period. I pity all little kids who are that grumpy, because if I had a girl as yelly as Eiko, I'd give her a big, thorough spanking. Go to the previous room and you'll see one of Eiko's moogle friends. He'll suggest that you sleep for the night. Choose to do so. In the night, Zidane will wander up and see that Vivi is up, and thinking as usual. Vivi will then ask Zidane some questions, and then Zidane explains some things about friendship to Vivi. After that, he does perhaps the most perverted thing in the entire game. He tells Vivi to join him in the bathroom so they can do a ritual between male friends. Both of them go into the bathroom and piss. TOGETHER! Geez, he is such a perverted monkey. Eiko is also spying on them both from down below, and she says to herself that she'd indeed break the seal to the Iifa Tree. Once the morning arrives, the party (except Eiko) gathers outside. Dagger says things about Eiko's power, but Zidane knows that she's six years old, and very lonely. Eiko then arrives, and she says that she will break the seal. That's a good thing. The party then leaves Madain Sari and at last it is time to go to the Iifa Tree! Upon leaving, you will be on the world map. Go back to the mountain path, to where you fought Hilgigars. Conde Petie/Mountain Path If you haven't gotten the Moonstone yet, you had best do so now. Remember that the tree trunk on the bottom of the room is a little difficult to climb up due to all the plants right next to it. When you've gotten the Moonstone if you want to do that and you're ready to leave for the Iifa Tree, take the left path instead of the right one and you'll be on the world map. In the distance, you may see a gigantic tree. This is the Iifa Tree, our destination! However, outside the Iifa Tree you'll find the friendly monster Nymph. It wants a whooping three ores. Whooping greedy beasts. ************* Enemies: Mist fills up the entire Iifa Tree, in which Zidane does not hesitate to make a comment about. Zidane runs inside, but is shocked by electricity. It doesn't hurt or take HP off though, so don't worry. You then have the options of touching the seal, slamming it, or asking Eiko. Choose to ask Eiko to break it. Eiko then acts strange and starts calling the eidolon Carbuncle to break it. Although we don't see this cute as hell dragon appear to destroy it, the shock disappears and you get the Ruby, which will allow Eiko to summon Carbuncle. Now before I guide you through the Iifa Tree, I'll tell you one thing. The Iifa Tree has the hardest enemies you have yet to fight. The Myconids are no real threat, but the Stropers are annoying, the Zombies cast Roulette and do other various mishaps, the Dracozombies are awful beasts which do Zombie attacks, and I believe Nymph can be fought here, but I'm not exactly sure. If it can, remember it is no real threat. You probably want to have Phoenix Downs to deal with Zombies and Dracozombies and a Soft on a Stroper kills it. Low, but good. The first part of the Iifa Tree is extremely straightforward. In the beginning of it, the random encounter rate is pretty low. Not to mention you'll probably only fight Zombies and Stropers, both of which can be defeated very quickly with just a Phoenix Down or Soft. The place will just be straightforward, until it gets to a path that leads to the left side. In this area, just continue all the way across it and you'll find a moogle. Save up and proceed, and then you'll find a very strange looking area. Eiko does not know the Iifa Tree, so she can't tell you anything about it. In the center of this place, there's an elevator, so Zidane volunteers to check below and see what awaits them. He jumps and sees it goes down, and then he gets off of it and climbs up. The elevator returns up, and this time Zidane sees nothing's wrong. Everyone except Vivi proceeds very quickly. Vivi hesitates but still gets on. Now we're going to have to fight Dracozombies a lot down there, not to mention the Zombies and Stropers aren't one bit better than they were in the previous area. The tunnel in the bottom of the Iifa Tree is very straightforward, but the enemies are tough and there are some passages that will end up to you getting some treasure chests. =) Go down a little, and check a hole in a wall on the right to collect an Ether, and you'll find a Lamia's Flute, Remedy, and Hi-Potions a little further left and down in this place. Eventually, you will find an area with a mysterious, huge, green leaf at the right. Everyone stands on the leaf, and it starts taking the party down, and further towards the bottom of this hellhole. Mog, who is still inside Eiko's dress, will sense some life down below, being a faerie after all. After that, you'll fight some Zombies. As long as you aren't hit by Roulette and you quickly kill them, they're not hard. After that, go to the left and talk with Vivi, who is very depressed. He will once again be worried about Kuja's factory, the Mist, and the black mages that he is somehow working with. After that, the party has to fight a Dracozombie. Use a Phoenix Down, or it'll use Zombie Breath. After defeating that mother, you'll finally arrive at the bottom of the Iifa Tree. Dagger can see some green, pretty water at an abyss below. Check the right side and go down the stairs, and you'll find an Elixir. After collecting it, talk to Eiko. She'll ask Zidane if he wants to watch the water with him. Zidane will watch in a normal way, but Eiko will pout and say it has to be romantic. Zidane then asks Eiko a question about the light shining from the water and then Eiko says something about the light shining from Zidane's eyes. Zidane finally realizes what he's putting Dagger through! At the bottom of this room, you will find a Brigandine Vest. Then go talk to Dagger. She'll fall down and notice that the earth is moving. Zidane will run away, and a mysterious tree appears. This Jenova-looking undead, good-for-nothing demon will talk to the party and tell the party all about Kuja using the Mist to make black mages. He then spills the beans about himself being undead! Although many won't see it, he really did tell you that. Soulcage is also the source of the world's Mist, so for the world - Soulcage must be defeated to get rid of the Mist! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Soulcage can be the easiest boss in the game or he can be the very most difficult boss you have fought thus far, or possibly in the entire game. Soulcage has some nasty tricks up its sleeve, and it's a complex boss, perhaps the most complex in the game. There are two real strategies that you can use for this fight. The first will make you feel a little better, but it's a little hard, and would increase the difficult to Semi-Hard up there. The second is VERY low, but it is guaranteed to make this a very easy fight and an automatic win. Anyway, here they are. Oh yeah, and before I begin, let me tell you that you don't have to steal much here, because everything here can be bought and are not expensive. After the Soulcage falls to yet another death, Zidane will be glad about the Mist disappearing, but Vivi won't. Since the Mist was used to make the black mages, there would be no more that would be made. Once the talk is over, you are brought outside of the Iifa Tree. Return to the Mountain Path and go to the right path, and now it's back to Madain Sari we go. It appears that Lani is back at Madain Sari, and ready to commit a crime. And this time she has a partner with her. :D *************** Enemies: Eiko will yell at the moogles and say she's home. The moogles will then come to greet her, but apparently a disaster has happened. Eiko will then run away. Follow her to the kitchen, I think you know where it is by now. Go in the room that a moogle and Quina were blocking on your first trip to Madain Sari. Eiko will see that a shiny red stone that has been passed down through her family for generations has been stolen. The party will offer to find the thief, but Eiko wants to find him/her herself. A second later, a scream is heard. Vivi arrives and reports that it was the girl from Fossil Roo (Lani). Lani has kidnapped Eiko at the Eidolon Wall, so it's time to go there. First of all, get the semi-hidden chests in this room for a Survival Vest and a Phoenix Down. Now, go back to the Eidolon Wall. You should remember it from when you went here with Dagger. A bunch of moogles surround the door, and they are scared to death. You will have an option of peeking in or having the moogles heal the party. Choose to heal if you have some wounds and then take a peek. Lani holds Eiko and is scolding her. Time to save her. When you get another chance, choose to ask Mog. A moogle will say that Mog's always been a coward. Another moogle gives you an Exploda and an Elixir. Now choose to save Eiko! Lani still holds Eiko, and says that she was too rambunctious and she fed her some sleeping weed. She then forces you to give Dagger's pendant over. Zidane surrenders and tells Vivi to give it to her. Right as he's about to give it to her, a scarlet haired man jumps right on Lani's hand and knocks Eiko out of her hand. The man then tells Lani to go away. Lani gets furious at him and withdraws. Then the man challenges Zidane to a duel. Zidane tries to impress Dagger and agrees to it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Scarlet Haired man is a little bit of an oddball, but he's still very easy. The man is right ahead of Zidane at the beginning of the fight, but he moves quite a lot. When he moves, DON'T HIT HIM! The damage will be weakened and the man will just counterattack. And adding to the fact that it takes a long while for characters to take actions, it's a bad idea to attack him when he's in the center too, because you never know that he'll move, you hit, and he hits. Also, the man is pretty fast. After counterattacking, he'll probably just hit you again. Luckily though, Attack and Counter are his only attacks; he does not use any strange abilities, spells, or Flairs. But attacking yourself, you might ask? You should definitely attack when he says "Here I go!". When he says this, he's ready to attack, but it's your attacking period as well. To guarantee that you'll win, you should use Auto-Potion or have heavy armor on. If you're anywhere above Level 20 or so, go ahead and scratch Auto-Potion. With good armor, the Scarlet Hair should do about 70 damage or so when he attacks. This being the case, you will almost never have to use a Hi-Potion to cure up. Anyway, the Scarlet Hair has Poison Knuckles, which you will probably want for him when he joins the party. Not to mention an Ether never hurt anyone. If you steal them, do it when he's at a side, because I don't think he'll counter and even if he does it shouldn't be that dangerous. Zidane will probably do a lot of damage if he has good weaponry, so the Scarlet Hair shouldn't prove a very tough challenge. But if you don't have great armor or Zidane is very weak, make sure you have Hi-Potions and/or Auto-Potion. Either way, this fight is very easy. The man will be very much weakened. Zidane demands that he hands over the stone, and then he does so. After that, he'll order Zidane to kill him. Zidane says some of his friendship things, and refuses to kill the man. Then the guy jumps up the wall and retreats. Now return to Eiko's room at the kitchen. She wants to go with the party very badly, even though her grandfather told her not until her 16th birthday. Either choice for her will still make her join, so don't worry. ^_^ You then get that stone, the Memory Earring, as a key item. Eiko wears it as a key item. Mog then enters the room. Once again, the little moogle left Eiko on her own! Eiko gives Mog a huge scolding, and then tells Zidane that the two of them are sisters, but Eiko came out first and is the older sister. Zidane didn't know that Mog was a female... and I wasn't trying to let you know either, because I never said s/he, him/her, or sister while referring to her yet. :D Now get out of this room and go to the room with the fork of the kitchen or the Eidolon Wall. Zidane will hear that song that Dagger sang in Dali and Lindblum and finds her on a boat. Zidane talks to her, and here the affection between the two begins. Dagger asks Zidane why he went with her, and then Zidane tells a story of a man named Ipsen. He and his friend wanted to go with each other, and Zidane answers Dagger's question: because he wanted to go with her. The boat will then move a little, and someone is heard singing the same song that Dagger was singing. It then hits Dagger of what happened with her mother... a flashback of a ship getting hit by a fierce tornado is then shown. Dagger passes out. She then realizes that she was born in Madain Sari when she was a young child, but the boat she and her mother were on was caught in a storm, and her mother died. She then became the Princess of Alexandria. After that, Zidane, Dagger, and Eiko will be together at the Eidolon Wall. Eiko is glad that she's not alone anymore, and that she now has friends. Like Cait Sith from FFVII, Eiko will say that she's going with you, no matter what. Then the party is going to call it a night. Upon waking up, the party will be at the entrance and the moogles tell Eiko goodbye. Then the red-haired man appears, yet again! Zidane asks if he wants some more. The man doesn't understand Zidane and his ways, and how he beat him. Zidane then suggests that the man come with him. Dagger does argue some, but they all give in. Zidane asks the guy his name, and we get a chance to name him. The default is Amarant. Amarant will introduce himself as the Flaming Amarant, or just Amarant, and we have our final party member! Now, get the right party. I suggest Zidane, Vivi, Amarant, and Eiko. Equip Amarant as you want, and then head out and go through the Mountain Path again, and go to the Iifa Tree! ************* Enemies: A little Mist can be seen left, but it's all good. Eiko talks some about the defeat of Soulcage, and then Amarant whispers to himself about the incredible powers of the party. In the skies, Kuja will arrive. He is on his beloved Silver Dragon, and the one that we saw at the major cool ending in Disc 1. Kuja says some evil things to himself about the tree. When you regain control, just head straight and follow Kuja. You'll arrive at a big tree trunk. And it's one that not too many here can climb. Vivi, Dagger, and Eiko will all refuse to climb. Zidane will ask himself what to do next, and Amarant glares at him and asks how "this wimp" ended up defeating him. Being the very rude man he is, he walks through Vivi, Dagger, and Eiko. Eiko then whines at him, and Amarant just tells her to shut up. Zidane then knows it's time for Amarant to pay him back, and then he notices there's gargant grass there. He tells him to catch a gargant. Amarant gets even angrier, and then he picks Eiko and Vivi up, then jumps off the tree trunk. Zidane carries Dagger and jumps off just the same way. Kuja is seen and he mutters an awesome line: "The weak lose their freedom to the strong. Such is the way of the strong. And it is the providence of nature that only the strong survive." He says some nasty stuff about Queen Brahne, and then we go back to Zidane. Once again we get to choose our party. Vivi and Eiko say some angry things about Kuja, and then the party meets him. They all have a long conversation. Dagger gets extremely furious at Kuja about her mother, because Kuja says things about Brahne wanting the huge war. Then, Kuja says some more cool things, and we see a scene with Queen Brahne. Brahne laughs in her anger, and says some stuff about killing Kuja. After that long scene, Dagger yells at Kuja some more. Zidane tells Kuja that he won't let him get away, but Kuja creates Mist monsters with magic and sics them on the party. We are then thrust into a fight with two Mistodons. These creatures can cast Sleep and Fira, but that's basically all they've got for offensive things. If you have some, you can use Phoenix Down or Hi-Potion on both of them. If you don't, just have Dagger or Eiko cast Cure or Cura on them or Zidane harass them with physical attacks. They aren't hard. After the fight, Kuja will have gotten away. He is seen on the Silver Dragon and says evil things to Brahne. The two of them then engage in a bloody battle. Dagger is determined not to let anything happen to Brahne and runs to the bottom. Now we have to chase her! Dagger knows there's an eidolon at the bottom, so she wants to summon it to save Queen Brahne. You'll have to fight two more Mistodons. They are as weak as before; just beat the hell out of them. Now when you gain control, go to the right side and save with the moogle! You'll even read a letter by Stiltzkin. After that, run to the left and all the way done the huge slope. When you get down, you will no doubt have to fight more Mistodons. There's no way getting around it. Anyway, defeat them with Vivi's Fira, Eiko's Cure spells, Zidane's attacks, and Amarant's attacks/throws/flairs. At the bottom of this huge slope, Dagger is calling Leviathan. She realizes she can't use it to save Brahne, and then she gets even more worried. We go to the battleship of Queen Brahne. They are getting ready to summon Bahamut. Brahne summons him, and then he uses his Mega Flare attack on Kuja. It does nothing, and then Kuja laughs and the Silver Dragon descends at the queen. Amarant, Dagger, and Eiko say some stuff, and then Kuja laughs some more. Things about Bahamut not being able to touch him. He threatens the dragon, and then he controls Bahamut. Bahamut blows a Mega Flare at Queen Brahne and all the Alexandrian Soldiers, and we are taken to her grave. She regains her senses, and Zidane talks to himself about how much he loathes Kuja. Dagger has a funeral for her mother, and then Queen Brahne says that the people will be happier with Dagger on the throne. She stops breathing, and dies. Dagger is sadder than ever. Beatrix, Steiner, Doctor Tot, and Dagger talk a little at her grave on Alexandria, and we see an FMV with Dagger. This ends Disc 2. It is now time to change to Disc 3. ====================================================================== CHAPTER SIX: Walkthrough: Disc 3 -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- ************** ====================================================================== CHAPTER EIGHT: Side Quests/Mini Games -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- Unlike the massive number of side quests that we probably remember from Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX doesn't have too many side quests. While it does have its fair amount of side quests, you will notice that this section is undoubtedly shorter than you probably thought it'd be. Oh well, it's still a section. *********** Ah yes! Chocobos are back and this time they actually have a really fun mini-game! It's called Chocobo Hot & Cold and this is an extremely enjoyable mini game, I can promise you that. Now be warned this is a really long part, but you're here, aren't you? If you are, be my guest. GETTING STARTED Around Gizamaluke's Grotto, you may have noticed a Chocobo Forest around there. This is an important part to getting some items and is one of the most fun parts of the game. Inside the Forest, you'll meet a moogle named Mene. He'll want you to train up his chocobo friend Choco, since he can't ride a chocobo himself. He then gives you Gysahl Greens, the chocobo's favorite eat. If you use this on chocobo footprints on the world map, you can call a chocobo. Exit the forest and go to the footprints, and then use the Gysahl Greens. Ride it and enter into the forest again, and Choco is yours. Mene will also tell you there's a secret. Ask him for it and he'll tell you that Choco has the ability to dig for items underground. He can't read Choco himself, but he'll let you train Choco and make him strong by hunting the treasures under the ground for 60 Gil per minute. Well, this is a very cheap price, so how can you turn this down for such an important and interesting mini game? Now, this game is pretty complicated, especially when digging on the world map, so I'm going to have to give you an accurate guide on this. Pay attention or shove off. You have to go around digging with Choco's beak looking for treasure in this place. The closer you are to the treasure, the better sound that Choco will make. For every treasure you find, you gain points. These vary in how good the items are. For example, Potions are not valuable at all, so you only get 1 point for them. For more important items like Chocograph are worth 15 or so. When you find it, you have to start digging. When the depth number reaches 0, you'll get the item. Better items are buried very deep underground. Now for the sounds. Here are the sounds, meanings, and some tips. Sound: Kweh. Sound: Kweh!? Sound: Kwehhh!? Sound: K-KWEHHH!!! And what's the point of those points that we are getting from Chocobo Hot & Cold? Not much, but with these points we can buy items from Mene, which is always a good thing. It may not be so great in this case though because none of these deals are actually worthwhile, but it's better than nothing, isn't it? Here is a list of the things we can buy and the price (in points), for them: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Item: Protect Ring Item: Wing Edge Item: Viltgance Card Item: Ether Item: Ore Item: Phoenix Down Item: Gysahl Green Also, you might be wondering what kind of stuff you can dig up while searching for treasure in Chocobo Hot & Cold. Well, here's a list of every single thing that you can find while playing this mini-game. Here we go... and also, just in case you didn't already notice, it's in alphabetical order. • 50 Gil CHOCOGRAPHS Eventually, you might come across a treasure called a Chocograph. These are important items to collecting stuff on the world map. With a Chocograph equipped on Choco, a treasure will appear somewhere in the world. Take note that without it equipped than you cannot find the treasure at all. Period. Here's the legend, if you're dense enough to need it. Name: Name of the Chocograph. ********************************************************************** Name: Streamside Name: Between Mountains Name: Uncultivated Land Name: Healing Shore Name: Abandoned Beach Name: Cold Field Name: Forgotten Lagoon Name: Faraway Lagoon ********************************************************************** ABILITIES There are several abilities in Chocobo Hot & Cold that will make the areas Choco can go to less limited. Here is a list of all those abilities: ====================================================================== Name: Reef Name: Mt. Name: Sea Name: Sky ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ozma is extremely, extremely hard. In fact, he's the hardest boss of all FF9, and most likely the hardest boss FF may have seen thus far. He has a LOT of attacks, and more than any other boss in the game. I'l start with some of the less major ones. He has LV4 Holy to use. He ONLY uses this if there's someone with a level divisible by 4 in the party, and this attack is VERY weak. In fact, you might consider being at Level 68 (level I beat Ozma on) or something like that. As for Holy attacks, Ozma's also got Holy. It's pretty strong but it's really one of his weakest attacks. There's also the time when someone in your party's at a level divisible by 5. In that case, Ozma's got LV5 Death to eliminate that character. Ozma's best attack (in your case, not for him), is Doomsday. If you've met the Friendly Yan, it'll do about 9999 damage to Ozma and it'll totally heal your party! Hope that Ozma uses this attack as often as he can. Ozma's also got Flare Star, in which Trance Kuja uses. This, as opposed to Kuja's Level x 35 = damage equation, does your Level x 50 damage. For example, if you are at Level 50, then 50 is multiplied by 50 and it does 2500 damage. (To everyone.) Ozma also has some stuff he uses when he's in a bit of trouble. He uses Curaga sometimes when he gets hit (about 7000-8000 HP restored), Esuna when under Darkness or Slow (the two status effects he can be affected by), and last but not least Absorb MP. Ozma has 9,999 MP and when his MP gets reduced to 0, he uses this and drains one's MP. This happens if you have Quina using Magic Hammer over and over again. Now back to Ozma's attacks. He uses Flare as well, which does a big amount of damage, even to Steiner. Ozma has Mini and Berserk too. If one is affected by Mini, you can say "you're dead". If Quina has Angel's Snack that might work, but the Mini is not good at all because Ozma might use something really nasty on the party and destroy it. Now, I will get to Ozma's absolute worst attacks. First of all, there's Meteor. This attack NEVER misses. EVER. Don't email me asking if it can miss because it CANNOT. It does totally random damage to the party. It can do as little as 200 to as much as 9999 to everyone. It will usually just sweep up the ground with the whole party. And Curse. It does random damage but is usually tied around 2000 damage. If Ozma uses this, there's every status effect on everyone. Oh man, I hate when this happens so much I could hit my screen. Now to begin this fight, you'll want the blessing of the Friendly Yan. If you've met all the Friendly Monsters, you can reach the "big guy" and he's weak against Holy and Shadow. Regularly, you cannot hit Ozma with physical attacks, but you can if you've got the blessing. First of all, there's stealing. You probably don't need to steal here because Ozma might drop a Dark Matter, the Pumice Piece isn't worth it, this isn't the time for a Robe of Lords, and Elixirs are not worth the time. Second of all, there's a problem with speed while fighting Ozma. You can try as often as you want, but Ozma doesn't have a set speed value. He attacks right before you do and quite a lot. He'll always get to use something before you manage to and there's no getting around that. But that's not to say if you sit around doing nothing Ozma won't do anything, because he will. Third of all, there are several ways you can get around fighting Ozma. One way is to just have Quina there using Magic Hammer over and over again. I strongly advise against doing this because Ozma's got MP Absorb and there's always the chance that Magic Hammer will take off about 2 MP or something. The other one is based on just luck. Have Zidane, Steiner, and Freya in there. Armor that heals Shadow damage is almost necessary for this fight, and their Thievery, Shock, Dragon Crest, and Quina's Frog Drop must all do 9999 damage. If they don't, get them booted up more. If Zidane can't get Thievery higher, have him right near Trance and use Scoop Art or something on Ozma, which will do 9999 damage. Also, there's leveling up. Try fighting Yans and Grand Dragons to get the highest possible level. I managed to defeat Ozma at Level 68 so try fighting Ozma at that level. And there's defending against status effects. Devote all of your magic stones to useful abilities like Auto-Regen, Antibody, and stuff like that. Then, enter the battle with a luck charm. Do your 9999 damage attacks, hope that Ozma only uses Doomsday and doesn't use Curaga, and don't give up! This is totally based on luck, so let me wish you that! Congratulations after you beat him, he's the toughest boss in Final Fantasy IX. ************ In Treno, you may have happened to come across a bird lady known as Queen Stella. She has an interest in collecting small star-shaped coins called the Stellazio. There are 13 of these coins and they can be found all around the world. Here are the locations: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Taurus: On the right side of Treno, you'll find the item shop. Behind it, there's the Taurus. Gemini: Right near the entrance to Treno, go to the fountain and throw 10 Gil into it 13 times. The Gemini will come up with the 13th. Cancer: On the second screen of Burmecia, look around the cart and you'll find Cancer. Leo: The Leo is around the left tower of Alexandria, near the Neptune Tower. Check the upper right corner to find it. Virgo: Search the Inn in Black Mage Village. The Virgo can be found in there. Libra: On the right side of the fountain in Madain Sari, the Libra is a collectible. Scorpio: In Quan's Dwelling, you'll find the Scorpio to the bottom-right side of the fountain. Sagittarius: After Lindblum is rebuilt, find the Sagittarius to the left of the pickle cart, before the shopping areas. Capricorn: This is in Daguerreo. Head to the right of the entrance and you'll find it in the water. Aquarius: In Ipsen's Castle, enter and check the right pillar. Aquarius is there. Pisces: Pisces is inside the Invincible. Check the left side of the ship. Ophiuchus: Make sure you have all other 12 Stellazio. Talk to Queen Stella and suggest that there's another one. Go back to where you found the Scorpio and pick it up there. With each coin you give to the Queen, you get a reward for it. Here are the rewards you can get: ------------------- ********* In the Observatory Mountain right outside of Dali, you might find an old man living in the house on the bottom-left side. His name is Mr. Morrid and he has the Mini-Prima Vista. If you can find all three coffees, he will mail it you. Here are the locations of these three coffees that we need... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kirman Coffee: Around Eiko's kitchen in Madain Sari, search the tables on the left side of the room. Somewhere around there you will what you are looking for. Burman Coffee: This is no doubt in mind the hardest coffee to get. In Treno at the card tournament (Disc 3), leave Treno. It's best to have Freya (near the auction house) and Vivi (in the back area of Quan's Dwelling) with you. Go south of Treno from there and go through South Gate and head to Dali. Go inside the mayor's house and check his desk three times. Be sure not to wake his son up. Get the Mayor's Key from the stove after doing that and leave. Go to the windmill where you found Aries and use the Mayor's Key. You'll find yourself in the chocobo pen. Just head to your right and you'll find 30,000 Gil and the Burman Coffee. Keep in mind that you must find all three coffees for Mr. Morrid before Terra. You can't get back to Gaia once you're on Terra, so you'd have to wait until Disc 4. In Disc 4, Mr. Morrid will not be there, so it's pretty obvious to get all of the coffees BEFORE Disc 4! ***************** The Ragtime Mouse is very similar to the Friendly Monsters, only he appears with an X and an O right next to him, and he is only found in the forests. Also, he asks you a true-or-false question. Attack the X if it is false, attack the O if it is true. He'll appear in the forests randomly 15 times. If you answer all of his questions correctly, he gives you a ton of EXP, and he gives you a Protect Ring. Here are the answers to his 15 questions (his questions are in random order, my numbering means nothing): ====================================================================== 2. The 15th Lindblum War started in 1600. 3. The theater ship Prima Vista was built in Artania Shipyards. 4. Lindblum Castle is larger than Alexandria Castle. 5. Some Mu's are friendly and won't attack. 6. Burkmea Cable Cars have been running for eight years. 7. Only one desert exists in the entire world. 8. Conde Petie is a village of Goblins. 9. Prima Vista means love at first sight. 10. Treno's cafe, Card Carta, is members only. 11. Bobo bird is a bird that brings you fortune. 12. You can defeat Ragtimer. 13. Chocobo Forest is located between Lindblum and South Gate. 14. The theater ship uses Mist as its energy. 15. The Lindblum War started in 1500. **************** First of all, let me tell you that I am NOT a fan of Tetra Master. In the slightest. I believe it is one of the worst mini games that was ever created, so forgive me if my Tetra Master parts aren't as good as they should have been. Okay then, there are a lot of things to cover. I'll start with card locations to get you started! ========= This part will direct you to every single place where you can get all of the cards in the whole game. How do you like that, eh? Well, here we go with the whole boredom of 1000 ways to get every card in the game. ********************************************************************** Win this card from: Noble Lady in Alexandria: Main Street 2. Fang Win this card from: Mick in Alexandria: Main Street 3. Skeleton Win this card from: Noble Lady in Alexandria: Main Street 4. Flan Win this card from: Noble Lady in Alexandria: Main Street 5. Zaghnol Win this card from: Noble Lady in Alexandria: Main Street 6. Lizard Man Win this card from: Noble Lady in Alexandria: Main Street 7. Zombie Win this card from: Alleyway Jack in Alexandria: Pub 8. Bomb Win this card from: Man in Alexandria: Main Street 99. Boko Win this card from: Rare Phantom in Memoria: Time Warp 100. Airship Win this card from: Rare Phantom in Memoria: Time Warp ***************** Once you go to a Qu's Marsh, you might realize that there's a pond with frogs in it. If you have Quina in your party, you can go ahead and catch these frogs. This makes up a simple Frog Catching mini-game, but there are still more rules that I have to give you for this mini game. Catching all 8 frogs in every pond is a bit too simple, isn't it? FROG TYPES The frogs are different in two ways: male or female, and baby or adult. There are also Golden Frogs. Here's how to tell whether the frogs are male or female, and baby or adult. ------ Male frogs have a darker color to them and have green feet. Female frogs have a lighter color to them and have pink feet. -------- Adult frogs are much bigger and don't jump around as much. Baby frogs are a little brighter and they are harder to catch as they jump around quite a bit. CHANGING Ever notice the tadpoles in the water? You cannot catch them, but these mean a lot because they become baby frogs later. Also, baby frogs shortly grow into adult frogs. Now for the appearance of the tadpoles... do yourself a favor and in the water when you catch frogs, leave one male and one female frog so they make new tadpoles. Also, you might want to leave a Golden Frog in the water as well, because this make it much faster. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Actually, Quina's master Quale is a PUSHOVER. It all depends on how well you know this fight. Now first of all, Quale has more HP than any other boss in the whole game. Even Hades and Ozma don't have as much HP as Quale has got. Also, Quale is crazy about status effects and he thinks the best way to destroy your party is to put them under so many status effects that the party will fall. Now, for his status effects. He's got Poison and Blind, neither being that bad. You won't do too much physical attacking and he doesn't even use Bio, just Poison. That isn't that bad. Silence is close to being bad, although Echo Screens do it. Confuse and Mini are AWFUL, especially the latter. Confuse can be gotten rid of by just a physical attack (preferrably by Vivi or Dagger), but sometimes it hits everyone. This will make you go nuts and your characters could do something horrible. And even then it's nothing compared to Mini. Mini is almost always on everyone and it makes your attacks absolutely worthless. Magic is also weakened and in addition to all of Quale's other horrors, it makes it even worse, especially for the fact that it could be on everyone while they're under Confuse. If one of your characters is confused but not Mini'd and is a powerhouse (Zidane and Quina), and attack someone with low defense (Vivi and Dagger), you can kiss them goodbye. Now for all of Quale's other stuff. He uses Water for about 1200 damage to a character and it is sometimes on everyone. This is a really nasty one. He also casts Aqua Breath for around 600 damage to the party (this isn't bad either), but he's got Rolling Attack which does close to 1800 damage to a character unless they're protected or have great defense. Now for what your characters should do... Zidane might want to steal. The Ninja Gear and Glutton's Robe are extremely useful, but the Robe of Lords is almost impossible to steal. It's almost not worth it with all the time it'll take to steal it. If he isn't under some great status effect, just use Thievery if it's built up well, or physical attacks. Vivi should use Thundaga or Flare every turn, because Flare is extremely strong and Quale is weak against Thunder. Dagger is the party's primary healer, so have her cure status effects and heal the party if Quale adds up the damage with Rolling Attack or Water. By now you have 100 frogs and Quina should be at least Level 40, so Frog Drop should do around 4000 damage. You might also want to knock him out and hope he gets at 1 HP or simply have him cast Auto-Life on himself and then when it's his turn have him use Limit Glove, which does 9999 damage as always. As long as you don't let the status effects get to you and be careful, this battle is easily won with enough luck. However, this battle will be very long due to Quale's huge HP. ***************** CODES To start out with, here are the codes in the game. Enjoy them all, they'll help a little later. And credit to all who have submitted. A Secret With Ruby: At the beginning of the game, after fighting Baku for the first time, Baku will start explaining about the first mission that you will be having. Your first mission is to go to Alexandria and kidnap Princess Garnet. Baku will ask you whether you are kidnapping Queen Brahne or Princess Garnet to ensure that you know your mission well. If you keep answering Baku's question incorrectly for 64 times by choosing Queen Brahne, Ruby will then storm into the room. Play BlackJack while listening to the ''Crystal Theme''! All you have to do is to imput in this code once you get to see the The End screen after everything (note that it will not work if you try the short-cut-to-The-End method): R2, L1, R2, R2, Up, X, Right, Circle, Down, Triangle, L2, R1, R2, L1, Square, Square At the second press of the Square button you should hear a sound as if you're using an item. Now press Start and you'll be able to play BlackJack at your leisure while waiting for DragonQuest VII! Do you know that you can have up to two players controlling your players during your combat. All you need is to go to the main menu, go to config and then click battle control. Choose the CUSTOM option and an extra menu pops up, listing the names of all the characters and beside each name, you can select whether you want controller 1 or 2 to control each individual character. During combat, you will then notice a controller icon with either the word '1' or '2' on the top right hand corner of the screen. That indicates which player 1 or 2 is controlling now. Note that this ONLY applies to BATTLES and NOTHING else. You MUST have the Doga's Artifact and Une's Mirror. You can bid for these two key items at the Treno's Auction house. After the world of Terra has been destroyed, at the beginning of disc four and onwards, return to Black Mage Village. Examine the gramophone at the Black Mage Village inn. You notice that the background music will change to a beautiful melody taken from the Final Fantasy III [Japanese] soundtrack and this melody continues on until you leave the Black Mage Village. Reach the Terrace in Memoria within 12 hours. You will encounter a boss fight there. Defeat Lich there and quickly check the second pillar from the right. You should see a '!' mark appearing over Zidane's head. This mark indicates the position of the sword, Excalibur II. If you exceed the time limit, the '!' mark will immediately disappear. To skip FMVs open up your PSX cover, and wait for the disk to stop spinning, and close the cover, or on your PS2, eject the disk and put it straight back in. This is especially useful when you are trying to get the Excalibur II as even when FMVs are playing the clock is ticking! Contributed By: kingmark ====================================================================== CHAPTER NINE: Equipment ====================================================================== ********** Here's a list of everyone's weapons in the entire game. You'd better appreciate this. ********************************************************************** ------- Name: Angel Bless Name: Butterfly Sword Name: Dagger Name: Exploda Name: Gladius Name: Mage Masher Name: Masamune Name: Mythril Dagger Name: Orichalcon Name: Rune Tooth Name: Sargatanas Name: The Ogre Name: The Tower Name: Ultima Weapon Name: Zorlin Shape ------ Name: Cypress Pile Name: Flame Staff Name: High Mage Staff Name: Ice Staff Name: Lightning Staff Name: Mace of Zeus Name: Mage Staff Name: Oak Staff Name: Octagon Rod ------ Name: Blood Sword Name: Broadsword Name: Coral Sword Name: Defender Name: Diamond Sword Name: Excalibur Name: Excalibur 2 Name: Flame Saber Name: Ice Brand Name: Iron Sword Name: Mythril Sword Name: Ragnarok Name: Rune Blade Name: Ultima Sword ---- Name: Asura's Rod Name: Healing Rod Name: Mythril Rod Name: Rod Name: Stardust Rod Name: Whale Whisker Name: Wizard Rod ------ Name: Dragon's Hair Name: Heavy Lance Name: Holy Lance Name: Ice Lance Name: Javelin Name: Kain's Lance Name: Mythril Spear ----- Name: Bistro Fork Name: Fork Name: Gastro Fork Name: Mythril Fork Name: Needle Fork Name: Silver Fork ------ Name: Angel Flute Name: Fairy Flute ******** Here's a list of the armor... at least this was easier to do than the weapons. Name: Adaman Vest ====================================================================== CHAPTER TEN: Bosses/Enemies ====================================================================== There are a lot of bosses in Final Fantasy IX, and you are going to need help beating some of them. Here is a list of all the bosses in the game, and a good strategy on beating each and every single one of these buggers. The same applies for the enemies... ********* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As you've probably already guessed, the masked man is the easiest boss in the game. He can hit on Cinna pretty hard but that's basically all he's got to strut. You'll probably want to have Marcus and Blank attack a little to wear him down a bit, then have Cinna and Zidane steal. He can hardly touch anyone but Cinna. Once you've stolen a good weapon for Zidane called the Mage Masher, all you have to do is hit him a little more and the mask will fall right off his head. That will automatically win the battle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As the battle starts, you'll notice that for everyone, Steal is replaced with SFX. You might just want to use these awesome looking spells and find they do 0 damage. Well, to tell you the truth, SFX (Stage magic) is extremely useless and does absolutely no damage. The three will use this stuff but none of it is any good. Still, that doesn't matter. King Leo can take out Cinna in one hit but does about 10 damage to the others. You do not need to defeat Zenero and Benero to end this battle; all you have to do is waste King Leo to his death. You can probably do that in five attacks at most. Simply do that and the battle will be over. You can't steal in this fight. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Steiner is one of the easiest bosses in the entire game. All he can do is attack and his attacks are very weak. You'll want to steal in this fight as well. Steiner's Silk Shirt is well worth stealing and the Leather Hat can be sold for a little bit of money. Now on for Steiner. Unless he hits Cinna, you shouldn't have one worry in this fight. He might be able to knock Cinna out but don't worry about him since he's not permanent. Just hit him a bit more and then he'll use Armor Break on Blank. He will then be distracted and the fight is over. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aw, this fight is even easier than the last fight with Steiner was! I admit that he's got Haagen and Weimar with him, but you can defeat them in one hit apiece. In this fight, Steal has been replaced with SFX again. The magic is still useless though. Steiner will not hit Garnet (he occasionally hits her very gently for light damage), so actually you don't even need to win this fight. He will just finish everyone off and let Garnet live, and that's the end, although the game will continue. Have Vivi use Fire on Steiner to reduce his HP a large bit while Marcus and Zidane attack, and Steiner will be defeated for the second time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This fight is a bit weirder than the last fight, but it's the easiest of all three of them. This time, you will see a bomb right behind old Steiner's head. Everyone will warn him about it but because he's so stupid, he won't notice it. Also, you might notice in this fight Steiner has no HP. You can do whatever you want with the game; you can get a GameShark and have Garnet summon something for about 2000-3000 damage or you can have Vivi cast Fire for 60-70 damage while having Zidane and Marcus slash away with their strong attack, but Steiner will NOT be defeated. Period. The bomb will swell three times and then blow behind him, so don't worry about anything after that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Prison Cage is a rather complex boss but it isn't very difficult. It only has the Left and Right Stem attacks that do some small damage to Zidane or Steiner, but what makes it slightly harder is that it holds Garnet captive. It uses Absorb sometimes and drains HP from Garnet, and when she loses all her HP she dies. (Sort of similar to Rinoa and Adel from Final Fantasy VIII.) After Prison Cage has absorbed HP from Garnet twice, you'll want to heal her immediately. Don't bother trying to steal because you cannot yet. After that, just go ahead and hit the Prison Cage to its death with Steiner's attacks and Zidane's Free Energy. It's not hard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Prison Cage isn't finished yet, but it's just as easy this time around. Vivi is trapped inside the Prison Cage this time and he's always casting Fire on it. He does about 70-80 damage each he hits it so it won't take long to burn it up. Steiner and Zidane are also always attacking for a good 60 damage or so, but we also must worry a little on Vivi. He's still trapped within the Prison Cage and it will Absorb HP from him just like it did Garnet. We can't let Vivi die. Still, this fight is very simple. Go ahead and steal the two items (you might want to equip the Leather Wrist on Vivi later and sell the extra Broadsword), and then just wear the Prison Cage down with a few attacks at it'll die. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Baku, being the leader of Tantalus, is actually a real wimp. His attacks only do about 30 damage or so and he trips over his own feet a lot. Add to that you can take him out in three hits or so. First of all, we'll want Zidane to steal a new sword for Steiner and the Hi-Potion, because both of them are worth it. Baku, although he is really weak, is pretty fast. His weak blows will soon start getting high, so don't let Zidane get KO'd. Heal with a Potion when HP drops, and then steal and attack Baku. It'll basically alternate between the two as they've got the same speed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Plant Brain is not very difficult, but it's the toughest boss this far. It's 930 HP will probably discourage you and you'll want to steal the Iron Helm from it which will really slow you down. The Plant Brain can cast Thunder on the entire party and it's got some DARN good physical attacks. Thunder can be quite painful and Plant Brain is rather speedy as well. It can also use Pollen very freely and this is going to be extremely annoying. However, the Plant Brain is vulnerable to Fire. Steiner's Fire Sword with Vivi will do nearly 400 damage and Vivi's Fire will do about 150, so it won't take long to wear down the Plant Brain. Have them do that a bit while Zidane attempts to steal the Iron Helm from it. If Plant Brain gets Blind on everyone, use an Eye Drops or two if you're going to attack physically. After you've done some reasonable damage, Blank will show up. He's ready to fight and he can steal. Have BOTH Blank and Zidane steal until they get the Iron Helm. You won't regret it. After you've got it, you may want to heal a little because the Plant Brain will have probably worn you down a little by now. But once you've done so, just have Steiner use Fire Sword, Vivi use Fire, and Zidane and Blank attack. They do a good 100 damage or so a blow, so Plant Brain will be little more than sacrificial lamb. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- These two as a pair are rather nasty, but they're not really that bad. Black Waltz #1 uses Fire and Blizzard for about 30 damage each, and the Sealion uses Wing (about 40 damage), and Blizzard (50 damage). When the battle gets further, the Sealion uses Blizzara (80-90 damage), and Tsunami (70-80 damage). Therefore, you could end up dead meat to it because it and Zidane alternate, making it very fast. Plus, you might see it has an Ether and Mythril Dagger to go with it. Sometimes it will take an eternity to be able to steal the Mythril Dagger. If you attack the Sealion, Black Waltz #1 will cast Blizzard on it, healing it. We don't want to go down that road. The Black Waltz #1 really doesn't have anything nice to steal, so you probably don't need to go around stealing from it. Just hit it some for about 90 damage and it will be falling real soon. Undoubtedly in this battle, Zidane will go into Trance mode. Once he reaches Trance mode, you are free to use Free Energy or Tidal Flame. However, you may not want to do to use Tidal Flame unless you have a good amount of HP remaining. With Tidal Flame, Black Waltz #1 will die but Sealion will probably be left. But at the point, it'll be using Tsunami and then Blizzara. If you've been neglecting healing, you could be breaking your TV because Tsunami could wipe you out. With Free Energy, you could try a little trick. You could use it on Sealion for about 350 damage. Black Waltz #1 would cast Blizzard on it for about 160 HP back. That would be about 190 HP lost. That's not enough HP to make it use anything too nasty. You could then use another Free Energy and Sealion would be dead before Black Waltz #1 could heal it. With Sealion out of the way, Black Waltz #1 would be no problem at all. So do whatever you want to do in this battle, but if you're at around 300 HP and are fully healed, use the Tidal Flame strategy and don't worry about the Sealion wiping you out. Still, be sure to heal once your HP drops to 100 or so, just to be safe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The second Black Waltz is bigger and better than the first one was, and it has some nasty attacks. In this fight, Vivi cannot cast magic. Well, he can, but at a price. The Black Waltz will counter with that same spell on the whole party, and the damage is very deadly. The Black Waltz uses Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder, plus when you've taken about half of its HP off, it'll be Fira, Blizzara, and Thundara. Thankfully, Dagger is with us to use a Cure spell on the whole party. The problem though, is that the Black Waltz #2 is after Dagger, so he won't touch her. If Zidane, Vivi, and Steiner are knocked out, the Black Waltz will wait a few turns and ask Dagger what she's going to do, then he casts Hypnotize on her to put her to sleep, and that's the end of that. Besides doing that, the Black Waltz #2 can use a physical attack called Teleport and rarely (very rarely), it will use Osmose to drain someone's MP. It obviously has more attacks than any boss you've fought thus far. The Black Waltz has some pretty good things to steal, so make sure you have Zidane do that. It isn't too hard to steal from. Vivi should definitely refrain from using magic and should perhaps use a Potion or two if the need arises. Dagger should be on standby at all times to use Cure on the party. Steiner has two things that you might want him to do: If he's really low on HP, have him use Minus Strike. He should have over 300 HP by now and if he reaches 10 or so Minus Strike will do about 300 damage! With Vivi around, he should also use an elemental sword. That will do about 300 damage alone, so the Black Waltz's rather low HP should fall to nothing before a really long amount of time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ANOTHER Black Waltz? Yes, this is the final Black Waltz and it is the most evil and powerful. But that doesn't exactly mean it's hard. It's actually the easiest of all the Black Waltzes, but its attacks are very powerful and without a healer it'll be tough going through all the Black Waltz's attacks. It basically has the Hit attack which does about 60 damage (more to Vivi), and it has Fire and Blizzard. They each do about 80 damage. Also, when it gets low on HP, it'll start floating, and then it will use Thundara on the party. This will do about 100+ damage to it. On its next turn, it uses Thundara for the second time and damages for the same amount, then gets down. But I have one thing to say that I haven't already said: since the Black Waltz killed all those black mages and Vivi couldn't take it any longer and went after him, and because Trance is a surge of emotion, Vivi's in Trance during this fight. This means he can use a spell (about 120 damage) twice in a row. Steiner also has his sword magic skills, so the HP will drift away from Black Waltz #3 before he manages to do something really bad. Also, you might notice that it has a good mage's hat, a Linen Cuirass, and some great gloves for Steiner to use, so you might want to waste a little bit of time stealing from it if you want these items. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Gizamaluke is difficult and is probably the hardest boss thus far, despite the fact he's got only three attacks. I sincerely hope you're equipped with The Ogre or Gizamaluke will prove even more dangerous than he already is. If you have The Ogre, you can use Soul Blade and this will Blind Gizamaluke, and he can't use his physical attack Crash. Speaking of his attacks, let's go over them. He can use Crash as his physical attack which does a little below 100 damage to one character, he can use Water which hits one character at first (about 80 damage and one character at FIRST.) When Gizamaluke gets low on HP, he will start using Water on the party and the spell will do a little more damage too! GIVE ME A BREAK! Also, when you use a magical attack on Gizamaluke, he'll counter with Silent Voice. Thankfully, you can erase Crash from there because he'll almost never hit you if he's blinded. There is a quick and easy way to win this fight in little time at all. You can simply use Limit Glove if Quina has it and if he's got 1 HP (you can use a Phoenix Down and hope he'll be at that much), Limit Glove will do 9999 damage. If you are too lazy to hope for this, then the fight is a little tougher. Of course, Gizamaluke has GREAT stuff, and this is practically what makes the fight so hard! The Ice Staff is extremely important if you want some good power on Vivi (Blizzara, whee!), and the Elixir is always worth it. Steal if you want, I hope you've got Bandit on. Once you've got that, the fight really isn't that hard. Vivi and Quina (if you aren't using Limit Glove), are both useless here because Gizamaluke will counter with Silent Voice and it's not worth it to use up a bunch of Echo Screens. Have both of them serve as healers, especially once Gizamaluke's lost most of his HP. Zidane should simply attack (or better yet go into a Trance mode and use your strongest Dyne. With Freya jumping all the time and Zidane using his best stuff, there is no possible way that you can lose. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Beatrix is a lot easier than most people seem to think that she is, but still she cannot be defeated. She has four attacks: her regular sword attack (about 150 damage), Thunder Slash (misses a lot, is thunder-elemental, and does about the same amount of damage as her regular physical attack), Stock Break (she only uses this at the end of the battle and it takes everyone's HP to 1, and Shock, her ultimate attack. This attack does 800 damage and unless you're at a rather high level and she's targetting Zidane, this attack will wipe the party member out and if it doesn't the party member will be severely weakened. First of all, you really want to steal from Beatrix. A Phoenix Down never hurt anyone, the Chain Plate is rather useful and the Mythril Sword will be a little useful for Steiner later on in the game. Freya has Reis's Wind so you'll want to use that and Vivi can heal. Beatrix has a high magic defense so magic won't be all that wonderful. Quina has some Blue Magic to use, so I personally wouldn't mind having him do something. After you are done stealing, Zidane should slice away at Beatrix. You don't have to reduce her HP to 0 and nor will she be defeated once this happens, but when she is ready she'll cast Stock Break and heavily wound the party, and that will be the end of that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- So, we have to fight it again, do we? Well this time it's pathetically easy, and it was already easy enough the last time we fought it. And believe it or not, you CANNOT lose in this fight! Like the other times, it's only after Dagger so he can take her away, but he's so weak he can't do that. If he kills Steiner and Marcus, he will pull his back ("Crack!"), and lose about 250 HP until he dies while muttering that he wants the Princess. On to the Black Waltz himself. He has five attacks: Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder which do about 70 damage each, Hit which it about 50 damage, and Freeze. If he does this on someone and uses Hit, then that character is a goner. Fortunately though, it'd be really nice if he uses Fire right after Freeze! I'm sure you know what'll happen then. Dagger is the healer here. She has Protect, Shell, and Cure. Three spells that will be extremely useful in this fight. Marcus can hesitate from stealing here because he very rarely manages a steal, and the three items can be bought anyway. So he and Steiner should just attack and Dagger can heal if the need arises. This battle cannot be lost even if you want to. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This battle isn't very hard, but Ralvurahva's got some tricks up its sleeves. It uses Mini sometimes, and when you're under this your attacks will be totally pathetic. It's very bad if it happens on Steiner or Marcus, because both of them are this fight's primary attackers. Also, it'll make Dagger's magic ability worthless as well. Overall, try to avoid this getting on your party. He's also got Blizzara, which will roughly do about 100 damage on a character. He can also use an attack called String, which will slow your character down. It also has a physical attack called Devil's Kiss, and when it uses this you can also expect poison status. Also, he sometimes (but VERY rarely), uses Night, I believe. This will not inflict Ralvurahva though, so this can be a bit bad. With Marcus, don't bother stealing unless you feel lucky. Stealing from this demon is not easy but I suppose that the Mythril Fork can be worth it. Steiner should just whoop up on Ralvurahva's fat ass, but if his HP wears low have him use Minus Strike. With Dagger healing, you simply cannot lose this easy battle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Antlion isn't too hard, but if you're asleep in this fight it will simply ambush your party, which is why I place this boss on the Medium level. He's got some really bad attacks like Sandstorm, Counter Horn, and Fira. Sandstorm reduces everyone's HP to the critical stage, Counter Horn is a counterattack that does around 200 damage, and Fira does similar damage. First of all, you probably don't need to steal in this fight because you can buy Annoyntments, you already have a Mythril Vest, and the Gold Helm isn't very important. So don't bother wasting your time, because you never know that the Antlion will just use Sandstorm and quickly kill everyone. Now for what the characters should do in this fight: have Zidane just attack and if you REALLY want that stuff that the Antlion has, you can steal from it. Vivi should be casting Blizzara as much as he can. If you don't have it or aren't learning it, turn your game off right now. Every time he uses it he does about 1200 damage so you can kill Antlion in just a few hits with it. What Freya should do is cast Reis's Wind because you'll need the extra HP back when Antlion brings everyone down with Sandstorm. Reis's Wind is Regen, and Regen restores 1/16 of everyone's HP each time it is used. Not bad at all! Once she uses that, just have her Jump. With a few Jumps and Blizzaras, it won't take long to kill Antlion. As for Quina... just have him heal with your new White Wind. This will almost completely heal everyone. Although if Sandstorm is used, Reis's Wind has not been cast, and Quina ends up with 1 HP, don't hesitate to use Limit Glove and do 9999 damage for one second! Best of luck. =) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Beatrix is a little bit harder than she was the first time we fought her, but it'll still not a noticeable difference. She still has the same ultra powerful attacks that she had in the first battle. Her physical attack and Thunder Slash are just the same as we probably remember them, but Shock is a little stronger. This time, there's a little less chance that we're going to survive through it then there was the first time we battled Beatrix. Anyway, she's still not too hard, but this time she's got better things to steal. The Ice Brand is a very powerful sword for Steiner that will prove useful a little later, but the only problem is that it's extremely hard to steal. The Thunder Gloves could also prove useful. If you give up on stealing or don't want to, just have Zidane attack or defend. Vivi should be casting whichever "ra" spell he currently has, if any. Freya, as usual, should be jumping like crazy. If anyone runs low on HP, she can also use Reis's Wind or Lancer. Quina might want to use White Wind which you should definitely have by now, or you can have him use Magic Hammer just for fun. Just like before, you don't have to take 4736 HP away from Beatrix but just hang around alive for a little bit and wait for her to grow tired of you and use Stock Break to drop you all to 1 HP, which is totally unavoidable. WHERE'S OUR CHANCE, YOU SQUARESOFT BASTARDS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Boss: Thorn Now we finally have the chance to fight them. Ah, that's good. =) Fortunately, both of them are extremely easy. First of all, neither Zorn nor Thorn have regular attacks. They pass each other power, then a turn later they dish out this strong power. If you attack one of them, the power is neutralized. Zorn will give Thorn a power called Light Flare, which does Fire damage to a character. This does above average damage and if you haven't been leveling Vivi he might not survive through it, although if you have some sense to level him he will. Thorn will give Zorn a power called Meteorite. This attack hits a character and then does a little less damage to the other three characters. This is definitely much worse, but this battle is like Palom and Porom from Final Fantasy IV: one gone and they're helpless. Fortunately here, we only have to take out one of the two to get them out of here. I recommend taking Thorn out because he has much less HP. Have three characters attack him while one attacks Zorn so he doesn't end up using Meteorite. For the character duties now: Zidane does not need to Steal here. Neither have anything good to steal. Partisan's useless, Stardust Rod we don't need, Mythril Armor and Mythril Armlet we have. So don't bother, just have him attack Zorn. Vivi should be using his strongest spell (mine was Bio because I played Chocobo Hot & Cold a lot before now), but if you don't have Bio use a 'ra spell. Freya should stick with attacking Zorn because she's the weakest of everyone and we don't want Zorn using Meteorite. Steiner should use Bio Sword every turn unless you run low on MP, whereas Zidane can toss an Ether. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The first thing that you might notice is that both of the previous fights with Beatrix were given a Medium, while the third fight with her is given only a Semi-Medium. Well, Beatrix is still evil and has the same powerful attacks that will give you nightmares. Still, she is a bit different. Thunder Slash and physical attacks are a little stronger, but not by much. Beatrix occasionally uses Cura to heal herself, but this is pretty pointless. Shock exists, but it's not really the killer move that it was in the second fight. Also, instead of Stock Break to finish this battle, she uses Climhazzard instead. It's the same powerful move, just a different animation and name. Now for the character duties as always. Zidane shouldn't bother stealing unless you need an extra Ice Brand to sell for Gil since they really do fetch a good price, but don't bother with Survival Vest. Vivi should use Bio if he has it (Blizzara was my spell to use in games I don't have Bio), Freya should Jump all the time or cast Reis's Wind or Lancer if you want, and Steiner should use a sword attack. This will work very well against her, so it won't take long before she finishes the battle off with a Climhazzard. We still can't defeat her. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, remember Ralvurahva? This is it, but just like a Pokemon it has evolved into a stronger form and changed color from purple to green. Well, enough about that, on to the fight. Ralvuimago has the following attacks: Stab, which is his physical attack. This doesn't do much damage and is nothing to worry about; Ultra Sound Wave, an attack that does no damage but causes Mini on a character; Thundara (while he used Blizzara the first time we fought him; and his combo: Becoming Compact and Power of the Land. If you physically attack Ralvuimago, it will coil up and use Becoming Compact and his defense will grow by a huge amount. Now, DO NOT attack Ralvu now, or he will counter with Power of the Land. This is a very powerful attack that hits everyone (including him). It's also an Earth elemental attack, and Ralvu absorbs Earth, so his HP will jump up by about 300. Therefore, I don't recommend physically attacking Ralvuimago very much. First of all, you probably don't need to steal from Ralvu. You don't need the Oak Staff as you can already have one from Chocobo Hot & Cold (although few people will go through Gizamaluke's Grotto, then get the Reef Chocobo, return to Chocobo's Forest and then dig up a hard to find treasure which contains an Oak Staff). Well, if you didn't, remember that shortly after this fight you will go back to Lindblum and you can buy it, and you don't need a Phoenix Down or Adaman Vest. So don't bother; just attack if you want. Zidane's pretty useless in this fight. Vivi should be casting Blizzara or Bio if he has it every turn. He's the most useful character here. Dagger is as always the healer, so just have her cast Cura on the party if Ralvu uses Power of the Land, and have her cure Mini if Ralvu gets Mini on the party. Have Vivi do the real attacking, and this fight will be over in short time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Despite what some people think, I find Lani an average difficulty boss, and I put her skills above what most people seem to think of them. Still, what takes it from Easy to Semi-Medium (that's actually a big jump) is that Dagger is extremely weak against her physical attacks, and so is Vivi. Lani can take about 250-300 damage away by a single attack from the two of them if she wants to, and my Dagger only had about 500 HP, while Vivi had around 600. This means that both of them will fall pretty quickly. As for Quina... he's almost as weak, but for some reason Lani almost always misses when she attacks Quina, so that's not really something to worry about. Her attacks on Zidane aren't very troublesome. However, Lani's got more than physical attacks. She has the 'ra spells all around, but they're not really too bad. She has Aera though, and if this is on a low HP character like Dagger, you could find yourself with another KO'd character. And if this brown hag didn't already have enough attacks, she also has Water to cast on your whole party. This can do up to 300 damage. BLAST THAT. She sometimes uses Scan on a character to see their weakness so she can use that elemental spell on you as well, so all this combined makes her a medium boss. Early in the fight and through a good other deal of it as well, Lani only hits Dagger, although after she is knocked out she'll start hitting everyone. Now for the duties of the characters... Zidane should be stealing like crazy. The Ether is worth it as we all know, and the Coral Sword can be extremely valuable. You probably don't need a Gladius because Zidane should have Exploda by now, but if you don't just steal that. If you don't need it and/or you get all the other things that Lani has, or you just plain don't want them, just have Zidane attack. Vivi should be casting his strongest spell. It's either a 'ra spell or Bio. Dagger has to cure the party to have hope in this fight, and 50% of who she should heal is herself. Quina also has the great pair of Auto-Life and Limit Glove. It just goes with Quina casting Auto-Life on himself and then you just attack him then he's back with 1 HP, where he can use Limit Glove and do 9999 damage. Anyway, you shouldn't have too many more problems with this fight. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hilgigars is probably the easiest boss we have fought in quite a long time. He's got four attacks: Hiphop, where he jumps in the air and lands on a character for about 400 damage (which hits only one character and can easily be met by a Cura spell from Dagger or Eiko); Knock Down which is basically the same attack except it's actually a little weaker; Earthquake, which is his strongest attack and if you get Eiko to cast Float on the party, it won't matter at all; and Curaga, which really isn't an attack but Hilgigars will restore about 2000 HP upon using this, so we don't want that. Hilgigars is also a pretty slow boss, so he can't do too much stuff in a short amount of time. First of all, the stuff you can steal from Hilgigars... he's got a Phoenix Down which is not very hard to steal, Mythril Fork (there really isn't too much point in stealing this because you might already have the Silver Fork and you're not going to get Quina back until Disc 3), and the worst of all them - Fairy Flute. I mean, it's a powerful flute and very nice, but it is NOT WORTH STEALING! Know why? There's a 1/256 chance that you will succeed to get this flute. Really, I'm not exaggerating. So once again, don't bother stealing it. Instead, just attack Hilgigars or use one of Zidane's skills. Dagger should heal the party or use Ramuh if she gets the time. Have Vivi cast some of his strongest magic like Thundara every turn, because it'll take about 500 HP from Hilgigars. Eiko could also cure someone if Hilgigars uses a lot of stuff, or you can just have her use Fenrir or Phoenix. It won't be long before you defeat Hilgigars. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Soulcage can be the easiest boss in the game or he can be the very most difficult boss you have fought thus far, or possibly in the entire game. Soulcage has some nasty tricks up its sleeve, and it's a complex boss, perhaps the most complex in the game. There are two real strategies that you can use for this fight. The first will make you feel a little better, but it's a little hard, and would increase the difficult to Semi-Hard up there. The second is VERY low, but it is guaranteed to make this a very easy fight and an automatic win. Anyway, here they are. Oh yeah, and before I begin, let me tell you that you don't have to steal much here, because everything here can be bought and are not expensive. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Scarlet Haired man is a little bit of an oddball, but he's still very easy. The man is right ahead of Zidane at the beginning of the fight, but he moves quite a lot. When he moves, DON'T HIT HIM! The damage will be weakened and the man will just counterattack. And adding to the fact that it takes a long while for characters to take actions, it's a bad idea to attack him when he's in the center too, because you never know that he'll move, you hit, and he hits. Also, the man is pretty fast. After counterattacking, he'll probably just hit you again. Luckily though, Attack and Counter are his only attacks; he does not use any strange abilities, spells, or Flairs. But attacking yourself, you might ask? You should definitely attack when he says "Here I go!". When he says this, he's ready to attack, but it's your attacking period as well. To guarantee that you'll win, you should use Auto-Potion or have heavy armor on. If you're anywhere above Level 20 or so, go ahead and scratch Auto-Potion. With good armor, the Scarlet Hair should do about 70 damage or so when he attacks. This being the case, you will almost never have to use a Hi-Potion to cure up. Anyway, the Scarlet Hair has Poison Knuckles, which you will probably want for him when he joins the party. Not to mention an Ether never hurt anyone. If you steal them, do it when he's at a side, because I don't think he'll counter and even if he does it shouldn't be that dangerous. Zidane will probably do a lot of damage if he has good weaponry, so the Scarlet Hair shouldn't prove a very tough challenge. But if you don't have great armor or Zidane is very weak, make sure you have Hi-Potions and/or Auto-Potion. Either way, this fight is very easy. ****************** Okay, a lot of the optional bosses are rather difficult. Still, if you're powered up to gear and have got the power, speed, and skills to beat them, you can triumph over them with enough effort. Here are all of them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHERE: Tantarian is in the left library of Alexandria Castle. Simply step in there and go to to lower-left side of the room. You'll find a book on the top. Talk to it and it will challenge you. That is Tantarian. There are two points in the game that you can fight Tantarian. The library of Alexandria in Disc 2 during the 30:00 time limit or the same place in Disc 3. This strategy is assuming you're doing it on Disc 2, and believe me that's a BIG mistake. Tantarian has super powerful attacks that are going to tear you a new behind, the last save point is a long while back, and you have a 30 minute time limit to defeat them and then rush to where Dagger is to defeat Zorn and Thorn. Anyway, if I haven't made it clear what a bad choice this is if you aren't building up, here we go. Tantarian has two forms: The book form and the cute form. In the book form, Tantarian is dangerous. He does two attacks called Paper Storm and Edge, which will add up to a lot of trouble. He also uses Doom occasionally. He'll switch to the cute form after taking some damage on his book form. In the cute form, he just uses Poison and he can use Doom sometimes. Unfortunately, he's a little wimpy here. If you hit him with a physical attack, he says "Ouch!" and disappears. If you don't, he'll stay for a while. After a long bit of time of being there, he'll disappear into the book again. Big bummer on that. That's why you should only Steal from him, have Freya heal the party, have Vivi cast Bio, and Steiner use Bio Sword, and Tantarian will be taking about 6000 damage before he disappears into the book again. Tantarian only has four attacks: He can use Paper Storm for around 500-600 damage to the party. This is his worst attack and the reason this battle is hard. I recommend a full stock of Hi-Potions and Phoenix Downs, because this could result in very high damage, it could add up, and the party will be in miserable pain. It might even be a good idea to put everyone in the back to avoid being in worse trouble. He also has Edge, which does about 800 damage to a character. Since this is only on one character, it's not a big deal. In fact, it'll be good if it's on Steiner. If he survives he'll be at a very small amount of HP, and if he is he can use Minus Strike, which'll take a good deal of HP from Tantarian. Anyway, on for character duties. Have Freya cure the party and make sure it's at maximum HP at all times and use Ethers if required, have Steiner use his Sword Art Minus Strike or Bio Sword, have Vivi use Bio over and over, and as for Zidane... get him to steal if you want, but Tantarian doesn't have anything good except the Silver Fork. This is a great fork for Quina so that might be worth it. Be careful at all times and you should come out okay. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHERE: Tantarian can be fought in the same place where you could have fought him before. He is still in the left library of Alexandria Castle. Note that if you beat him on Disc 2 you cannot fight him on Disc 3. There are two points in the game that you can fight Tantarian. The library of Alexandria in Disc 2 during the 30:00 time limit or the same place in Disc 3. This strategy is assuming you're doing it on Disc 3, and that is the exact time you should do it. Tantarian has some really powerful attacks that are really going to show you a bit and the last save point is a long while back, but this is still much easier. Anyway, Tantarian has two forms: The book form and the cute form. In the book form, Tantarian is dangerous. He does two attacks called Paper Storm and Edge, which will add up to a lot of trouble. He also uses Doom occasionally. He'll switch to the cute form after taking some damage on his book form. In the cute form, he just uses Poison and he can use Doom sometimes. Unfortunately, he's a little wimpy here. If you hit him with a physical attack, he says "Ouch!" and disappears. If you don't, he'll stay for a while. After a long bit of time of being there, he'll disappear into the book again. Big bummer on that. That's why you should only Steal from him, have Freya heal the party, have Vivi cast his strongest spell, and Amarant use his best Flair skills, and Tantarian will be taking about 6000 damage before he disappears into the book again. Tantarian only has four attacks: He can use Paper Storm for around 500 damage to the party. This is his worst attack and the reason this battle is hard. I recommend a full stock of Hi-Potions and Phoenix Downs, because this could result in very high damage, it could add up, and the party will be in miserable pain. It might even be a good idea to put everyone in the back to avoid being in worse trouble. He also has Edge, which does about 800 damage to a character. Since this is only on one character, it's not a big deal. Not to mention by right now, you should be able to survive through it. Anyway, on for character duties. Have Freya cure the party and make sure it's at maximum HP at all times and use Ethers if required, have Amarant use his Chakra if necessary or heal if you absolutely need it, but otherwise throw something, have Vivi use a strong spell over and over, and as for Zidane... get him to steal if you want, but Tantarian doesn't have anything good except the Silver Fork. This is a great fork for Quina so that might be worth it. Be careful at all times and you should come out okay. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHERE: Quina's master Quale will appear to challenge you in any of the four Qu's Marshes once you've managed to pick up and capture a total of 99 frogs. Actually, Quina's master Quale is a PUSHOVER. It all depends on how well you know this fight. Now first of all, Quale has more HP than any other boss in the whole game. Even Hades and Ozma don't have as much HP as Quale has got. Also, Quale is crazy about status effects and he thinks the best way to destroy your party is to put them under so many status effects that the party will fall. Now, for his status effects. He's got Poison and Blind, neither being that bad. You won't do too much physical attacking and he doesn't even use Bio, just Poison. That isn't that bad. Silence is close to being bad, although Echo Screens do it. Confuse and Mini are AWFUL, especially the latter. Confuse can be gotten rid of by just a physical attack (preferrably by Vivi or Dagger), but sometimes it hits everyone. This will make you go nuts and your characters could do something horrible. And even then it's nothing compared to Mini. Mini is almost always on everyone and it makes your attacks absolutely worthless. Magic is also weakened and in addition to all of Quale's other horrors, it makes it even worse, especially for the fact that it could be on everyone while they're under Confuse. If one of your characters is confused but not Mini'd and is a powerhouse (Zidane and Quina), and attack someone with low defense (Vivi and Dagger), you can kiss them goodbye. Now for all of Quale's other stuff. He uses Water for about 1200 damage to a character and it is sometimes on everyone. This is a really nasty one. He also casts Aqua Breath for around 600 damage to the party (this isn't bad either), but he's got Rolling Attack which does close to 1800 damage to a character unless they're protected or have great defense. Now for what your characters should do... Zidane might want to steal. The Ninja Gear and Glutton's Robe are extremely useful, but the Robe of Lords is almost impossible to steal. It's almost not worth it with all the time it'll take to steal it. If he isn't under some great status effect, just use Thievery if it's built up well, or physical attacks. Vivi should use Thundaga or Flare every turn, because Flare is extremely strong and Quale is weak against Thunder. Dagger is the party's primary healer, so have her cure status effects and heal the party if Quale adds up the damage with Rolling Attack or Water. By now you have 100 frogs and Quina should be at least Level 40, so Frog Drop should do around 4000 damage. You might also want to knock him out and hope he gets at 1 HP or simply have him cast Auto-Life on himself and then when it's his turn have him use Limit Glove, which does 9999 damage as always. As long as you don't let the status effects get to you and be careful, this battle is easily won with enough luck. However, this battle will be very long due to Quale's huge HP. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHERE: In Memoria. Where Quina is swimming in water, check the right side of the area, behind the rocks. A ? will not pop up there so just mash X. A voice will tell you to go away. Refuse and the voice will tell you to prepare to die. You'll then fight Hades. Hades is rather difficult to handle, but if you're at a high level, you should make short work of him, but man has he got power! First of all, he's got the two attacks Freeze and Mustard Bomb. They cause Freeze and Heat to you respectively. Hades also has Reflect although he rarely uses that unless you go crazy on magic, and he has Cleave! First of all, before I explain to you what Cleave does, let me tell you that everyone should be in the back row. Hades uses Cleave: everyone takes 1600 damage. And believe me, I'm assuming everyone's in the BACK ROW. In the front row, this attack will do about 3000 damage! This will probably annihilate Eiko, and the three powerhouses will be in some trouble themselves. Thankfully you have Eiko in here to use Holy on Hades and Curaga on the party, but she must be in the BACK ROW 100% OF THE TIME. But still, I haven't told you Hades's worst deal. He's got Powering Sword, where his sword counts down from 5 to 0. When he gets to 0, he can use one of these two. 1. Doomsday: This spell does about 4000 damage to everyone in a disgusting sort of way, and it also heals Hades quite a bit. Think that's bad? Well, you haven't heard 2. 2. Curse: This spell does large damage to everyone, and leaves EVERY SINGLE STATUS EFFECT IN THE WHOLE GAME ON EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER USUALLY UNLESS YOU HAVE LOTS OF STATUS-BLOCKING ABILITIES. Man, this blows and it makes me furious when I see the words Curse up there. Worst of all is when it causes Mini on everyone and healing becomes totally useless, not to mention Zidane and Steiner do 50 damage or something like that to Hades! So, I'm guessing you're really scared from what you've been reading right now? Here is what you HAVE to enter the battle with: Zidane - he must have Thievery and it'd be best if it does 5000+ damage. If it doesn't, enter the battle with him nearing Trance. Steiner - make sure he has the Ragnarok and Shock. This does 9999 damage per hit! Freya - she must have Dragon Crest. It has to do 6000+ damage (it's very easy to get it to do higher damage than that). Eiko - she has to have Curaga and Holy. Hades has a large weakness to Holy, so she'll do 9999 damage all the time, and if you don't use Curaga there's always the chance Hades will use Cleave and eliminate 1-2 party members or end up using Doomsday. Protect to block that awful Cleave will also be extremely helpful and Shell will really help to prevent the evil damage that Doomsday will do to your party. Speaking of Doomsday, you can get it to heal your party. Equip armor that blocks or preferably heals the party, and that'll get that out of the way. Also, everyone should have Body Temp to stop Mustard Bomb and Freeze, as well as any other status-blocking abilities. It might also be a good idea to have Auto-Regen if this battle, but it's not mandatory. If Zidane has the Ultima Weapon, then I really don't see how you could lose this battle unless you're at really low HP. I recommend a good Level 50+ for this battle if you want it to be reasonable. On to the battle: hope for good luck and that Hades doesn't use Cleave on the party or Countdown at the start of the fight, or you will definitely end up in a spot of trouble. Freya should be jumping all the time! She might do a really high amount of damage and if you don't want her in the air for some reason she should use Dragon Crest. If you're careful and are prepared at all times, you will soon end up beating Hades with ease. Also, Hades has a Robe of Lords. You might want to consider stealing from him. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHERE: Get the Gold Chocobo and go to Chocobo's Air Garden. From there, go to the eidolon rock on the upper side of the area. Examine it a time or two until Mene warns you about it. Decide that you want to fight and then you'll automatically fight Ozma. Ozma is extremely, extremely hard. In fact, he's the hardest boss of all FF9, and most likely the hardest boss FF may have seen thus far. He has a LOT of attacks, and more than any other boss in the game. I'l start with some of the less major ones. He has LV4 Holy to use. He ONLY uses this if there's someone with a level divisible by 4 in the party, and this attack is VERY weak. In fact, you might consider being at Level 68 (level I beat Ozma on) or something like that. As for Holy attacks, Ozma's also got Holy. It's pretty strong but it's really one of his weakest attacks. There's also the time when someone in your party's at a level divisible by 5. In that case, Ozma's got LV5 Death to eliminate that character. Ozma's best attack (in your case, not for him), is Doomsday. If you've met the Friendly Yan, it'll do about 9999 damage to Ozma and it'll totally heal your party! Hope that Ozma uses this attack as often as he can. Ozma's also got Flare Star, in which Trance Kuja uses. This, as opposed to Kuja's Level x 35 = damage equation, does your Level x 50 damage. For example, if you are at Level 50, then 50 is multiplied by 50 and it does 2500 damage. (To everyone.) Ozma also has some stuff he uses when he's in a bit of trouble. He uses Curaga sometimes when he gets hit (about 7000-8000 HP restored), Esuna when under Darkness or Slow (the two status effects he can be affected by), and last but not least Absorb MP. Ozma has 9,999 MP and when his MP gets reduced to 0, he uses this and drains one's MP. This happens if you have Quina using Magic Hammer over and over again. Now back to Ozma's attacks. He uses Flare as well, which does a big amount of damage, even to Steiner. Ozma has Mini and Berserk too. If one is affected by Mini, you can say "you're dead". If Quina has Angel's Snack that might work, but the Mini is not good at all because Ozma might use something really nasty on the party and destroy it. Now, I will get to Ozma's absolute worst attacks. First of all, there's Meteor. This attack NEVER misses. EVER. Don't email me asking if it can miss because it CANNOT. It does totally random damage to the party. It can do as little as 200 to as much as 9999 to everyone. It will usually just sweep up the ground with the whole party. And Curse. It does random damage but is usually tied around 2000 damage. If Ozma uses this, there's every status effect on everyone. Oh man, I hate when this happens so much I could hit my screen. Now to begin this fight, you'll want the blessing of the Friendly Yan. If you've met all the Friendly Monsters, you can reach the "big guy" and he's weak against Holy and Shadow. Regularly, you cannot hit Ozma with physical attacks, but you can if you've got the blessing. First of all, there's stealing. You probably don't need to steal here because Ozma might drop a Dark Matter, the Pumice Piece isn't worth it, this isn't the time for a Robe of Lords, and Elixirs are not worth the time. Second of all, there's a problem with speed while fighting Ozma. You can try as often as you want, but Ozma doesn't have a set speed value. He attacks right before you do and quite a lot. He'll always get to use something before you manage to and there's no getting around that. But that's not to say if you sit around doing nothing Ozma won't do anything, because he will. Third of all, there are several ways you can get around fighting Ozma. One way is to just have Quina there using Magic Hammer over and over again. I strongly advise against doing this because Ozma's got MP Absorb and there's always the chance that Magic Hammer will take off about 2 MP or something. The other one is based on just luck. Have Zidane, Steiner, and Freya in there. Armor that heals Shadow damage is almost necessary for this fight, and their Thievery, Shock, Dragon Crest, and Quina's Frog Drop must all do 9999 damage. If they don't, get them booted up more. If Zidane can't get Thievery higher, have him right near Trance and use Scoop Art or something on Ozma, which will do 9999 damage. Also, there's leveling up. Try fighting Yans and Grand Dragons to get the highest possible level. I managed to defeat Ozma at Level 68 so try fighting Ozma at that level. And there's defending against status effects. Devote all of your magic stones to useful abilities like Auto-Regen, Antibody, and stuff like that. Then, enter the battle with a luck charm. Do your 9999 damage attacks, hope that Ozma only uses Doomsday and doesn't use Curaga, and don't give up! This is totally based on luck, so let me wish you that! Congratulations after you beat him, he's the toughest boss in Final Fantasy IX. ********** There are a lot of enemies to be found in Final Fantasy IX. This huge list will include bosses and everything possible, so I figure a legend couldn't hurt, could it? Name: Name of monster, of course. Fire Damage: The amount of damage fire does. Petrify: Vulnerability to petrify. ====================================================================== Name: Abadon ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Abomination ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Adamantoise ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Agares ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Amdusias ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Anemone ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Antlion ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Antlion (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Ark (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Armodullahan (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Armstrong ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Ash ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Axe Beak ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Axolotl ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Baku (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Bandersnatch ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Basilisk ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Beatrix (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Beatrix II (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Beatrix III (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Behemoth ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Black Waltz #1 (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Black Waltz #2 (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Black Waltz #3 (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Black Waltz #3 II (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Blazer Beetle ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Bomb ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Cactuar ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Carrion Worm ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Carve Spider ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Catoblepas ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Cave Imp ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Cerberus ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Chimera ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Clipper ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Crawler ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Deathguise (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Dendrobium ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Dracozombie ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Dragonfly ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Drakan ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Earth Guardian (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Epitagh ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Amarant (Epitagh Clone) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Eiko (Epitagh Clone) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Freya (Epitagh Clone) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Quina (Epitagh Clone) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Steiner (Epitagh Clone) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Vivi (Epitagh Clone) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Zidane (Epitagh Clone) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Fang ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Feather Circle ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Flan ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Gargoyle ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Garland (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Garuda ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Ghost ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Gigan Octopus ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Gigan Toad ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Gimme Cat ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Gizamaluke (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Gnoll ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Goblin ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Goblin Mage ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Grand Dragon ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Grenade ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Griffin ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Grimlock ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Hades (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Hecteyes ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Hedgehog Pie ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Hilgigars (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Hornet ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Iron Man ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Ironite ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Jabberwock ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: King Leo ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Kraken (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Kraken: Left Tentacle (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Kraken: Right Tentacle (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Kraken (Crystal) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Kuja (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Ladybird ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Lamia ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Land Worm ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Lani (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Lich (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Lich (Crystal) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Lizard Man ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== Name: Magic Vice ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Malboro ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Maliris (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Maliris (Crystal) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Mandragora ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Masked Man (Boss) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Meltigemini ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Ironite ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Mistodon ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Mover (Left) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Mover (Middle) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS Name: Mover (Right) ELEMENTS STATUS EFFECTS ====================================================================== CHAPTER ELEVEN: Abilities ====================================================================== There are QUITE a lot of abilities in Final Fantasy IX. Here is a list of every ability in the game (both Action and Support Abilities), a description for each of them, and all of the equipment you can wear that has the ability on. ********* ACTION ABILITIES: (I'll do this in regular order because there are only 8.) Name: Flee Name: Detect Name: What's That!? Name: Soul Blade Name: Angel Bless Name: Butterfly Sword Name: Dagger Name: Exploda Name: Gladius Name: Mage Masher Name: Masamune Name: Mythril Dagger Name: Orichalcon Name: Rune Tooth Name: Sargatanus Name: The Ogre Name: The Tower Name: Ultima Weapon Name: Zorlin Shape Name: Annoy Name: Sacrifice Name: Lucky Seven Name: Thievery ******* ACTION ABILITIES: (I'll do this in alphabetical order because I'm too lazy to take notes. I might rearrange it in a future update.) Name: Bio Name: Blizzard Name: Blizzara Name: Blizzaga Name: Break Name: Comet Name: Fire Name: Fira Name: Firaga ********** ACTION ABILITIES: Name: Darkside Name: Minus Strike Name: Iai Strike Name: Power Break Name: Armor Break Name: Mental Break Name: Magic Break ********* SUMMONS: Name: Shiva Name: Ifrit Name: Ramuh Name: Atomos Name: Odin Name: Leviathan Name: Bahamut Name: Ark ******** Name: Lancer Name: Reis's Wind Name: Dragon Breath ******** Name: 1000 Needles Name: Angel's Snack Name: Aqua Breath Name: Auto Life Name: Bad Breath Name: Doom Name: Earth Shake Name: Frog Drop Name: Frost Name: Goblin Punch Name: Limit Glove Name: Level 3 Def-Less Name: Level 4 Holy Name: Level 5 Death ====================================================================== CHAPTER TWELVE: Shops/Items -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- For some reason, I decided to put Shops and normal Items in the same chapter. I don't really know why, but I thought it'd be easier. Anyway, here's a list of every shop, the items you can buy, and the price for the item. After that, it's the items. ******** DALI ============= Potion - 50 ========= Dagger - 320 LINDBLUM ========= Potion - 50 ====== Dagger - 320 ========= Butterfly Sword - 300 - Dagger, Mage Masher BURMECIA ============== Needle Fork - 3100 SUMMIT STATION ==== Air Racket - 400 TRENO =============== Dagger - 320 ========= Potion - 50 ============== Butterfly Sword - 300 - Dagger, Mage Masher CLEYRA =============== Partisan - 1600 ============= Potion - 50 LINDBLUM (2) =========== Dagger - 320 ============= Potion - 50 ============== Butterfly Sword - 300 - Dagger, Mage Masher FOSSIL ROO =============== Potion - 50 =============== Potion - 50 ====================== Ice Brand - 3780 CONDE PETIE ============= Potion - 50 ============ Poison Knuckles - 5000 BLACK MAGE VILLAGE ============= Potion - 50 =============== Mage Masher - 500 ============== Butterfly Sword - 300 - Dagger, Mage Masher MADAIN SARI ======= Dagger - 320 ALEXANDRIA ========= Potion - 50 ******** Here's a list of all the HP, MP, and status effect restoring items in the game. There are few of them so go to other sections for other things. I think we know the legend by now so I'm not gonna make one this time. ********************************************************************** Name: Annoyntment Name: Antidote Name: Dead Pepper Name: Echo Screen Name: Elixir Name: Ether Name: Eye Drops Name: Gysahl Greens Name: Hi-Potion Name: Magic Tag Name: Pinwheel Name: Remedy Name: Rising Sun Name: Tent Name: Wing Edge ********************************************************************** ====================================================================== CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Closing -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- ******** Well, I'm really glad that I got to bring this guide to you. :) It took me a long time, so my best reward will be you appreciating it! Thanks for reading it and look for more of my guides in the future. I promise to bring you, the reader, as many as I can write! So hasta la vista! Goodbye! Hey, why are you still here? Go away. Buzz off. Shoo. Stuff it. Scram. ARE YOU STILL HERE? ********** Here are the credits that I will have to dish out for the making of this guide. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CJayC: For hosting this guide, of course. IGN: They hopefully posted the guide... CNET: I guess I should thank them, as they have lots to do with the site as well... Psycho Penguin: He let me use some odds and ends from his guide. Thanks a ton, Steve. Be sure to check his guide out. StupidGenius11: Giving me the Soul Blade information. Credit to you. YSF: For contributing eight codes to the game. That is very impressive for a RPG. JL Lee: He contributed one of the codes for the game. kingmark: See above, just for contributing a code to the game. SquareSoft: Well! They made this wonderful game and I love them for that. Nobuo Uematsu: For making an under-rated and wonderful soundtrack on Final Fantasy IX. Various web sites: I can't remember the web site names, but they helped me a bunch. Thanks a dillion. And of course, there are a lot of FANTASTIC authors on the GameFAQs FAQ Contributors and Social Boards. Some day, I really want to meet these authors in person; they rule that much! Check them out at these links: • Cyril: (Stephanie Nutter) ---END OF FILE--- |
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