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Lumpy Onion · Jun 1, 2012

Jucksalbe said:
Isn't this the only way to get Aerith's level 4 Limit Break early enough to still make sense?

Not sure. I did get the Mythril, but the man in that house on the penninsula isn't home yet to do the trade. In all my replays I have always ignored the hell out of Aerith. Kinda excited I am gonna finally see here other limits, as I don't think I ever got past her first limit list.

Damn, can't believe I was up till 5AM this morning playing this darn game. So much to see if you go off the beaten path. I am actually debating playing Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core after this because I love the FF VII world so much. I love CC, but thought Dirge was rather meh. Now that my expectations are a bit lower I think I wanna give Dirge another go. At least the soundtrack and CG are to die for.

Heropon · Jun 1, 2012

Just when the party was going to the orphanage, a wild garden appears. The fated hour has come, it's time to settle things. Zell asks for Squall's ring just before the battle, how opportune.

The first wave of enemies arrives. The group has split in two and Zell's group goes take care of them.

But Rinoa falls and she remains hanging.

As these stupid characters are so useless, they have to ask Squall for help, but he has other things to do. The second attack comes, and this time it has the rare breed of green soldiers.

Squall and his partners have to defend children from them. They're weak but like to silence other people. Having taken care of them, it's time to attack themselves the other garden and they decide to crash into it.

The other characters keep getting angry at Squall for not rescuing Rinoa. Why don't you do it if you all are so clever to demand so many things???!!!

Nida crashes the garden and the rest of the party goes to enemy territory.

Meanwhile, Squall tries to save a boy and he gets attacked by a soldier. After a stupid minigame, Squall manages to kill him and save Rinoa with his new shiny toy. How convenient.

With Rinoa saved, it's time to talk with the witch.

For some reason, we can name the mythological animal that is in the ring. The rest of the group is just beyond the door.

There're certain students of this garden that help giving keycards to open doors and advance.

For some reason there's a wild G.F. inside the hall and we can fight it. It starts the battle casting double and triple, causing that everytime it casts something it does it three times dragging the battle too much. It likes to cause blindness and earthquakes too. The characters can steal an item that teaches to a G.F. an ability to junction magic to the speed stat.

I like this G.F. as it has some good and original abilities. We get the last keycard, and it's time to see the witch.

Before attacking the source of evil, the group has to take down the lap-dog.

I do the usual thing of stealing and doing damage.

The witch hides in another place and the group has to find her again.

The battle starts and Seifer has to be defeated again. I'm starting to get bored of these things.

Once Seifer is sleeping, the real fight begins. Edea likes to do an attack that leaves the HP at yellow numbers. She has an item that teaches Magic Power +60% and the G.F. Alexander to draw.

She can be a b...ad person and kill someone with Death. Apart from that it isn't a too difficult battle, as always.

Edea is defeated for good and we get a new G.F.

Edea becomes a good person and Rinoa faints after doing some strange things.

END OF DISC 2

Entropia · Jun 2, 2012

Uuuuuuugh, got to Sephiroth, and uh, what the fuck am I supposed to do? My party is fighting him on both sides. He kept healing and I couldn't do anything to him :\

Professor Beef · Jun 2, 2012

Entropia said:
Uuuuuuugh, got to Sephiroth, and uh, what the fuck am I supposed to do? My party is fighting him on both sides. He kept healing and I couldn't do anything to him :\

Depending on how you do during the JENOVA fight beforehand, you get to choose a 1, 2, or 3 party battle with Sephiroth. In either case, you're supposed to kill his body parts and attack the Body. The Body is invincible until the other parts are killed (specifically, the Magics then the Core).

If you have Knights of the Round, you can instead just summon it once, and the fight ends.

Heropon · Jun 2, 2012

Rinoa doesn't wake up and Squall is sad

Edea explains why she was doing evil things: She was possessed by the witch Ultimecia, who plans to compress the time. It sounds pretty bad.

Squall is still thinking about Rinoa, then he takes a nap. Ellone does her magic now that he sleeps and this game becomes the Laguna's show again. This time he wants to earn some money and becomes an actor.

He has to protect a witch from a dragon in the movie, but the monster ends being real and the director and the actress flee.

After another minigame about pressing buttons, Laguna escapes but he has to fight in the end.

For the first time in one of these "travels to the past", we have the option to choose who transfers their magic to Kiros and Ward but not the G.F. and I have to junction them manually. This time the stupid elemental attack junction makes my normal attacks to cure the dragon because I didn't revise it when I used the automatic junction. I'm going to erase it when I can.

Ellone takes Squall to another moment in Laguna's life and Squall has an idea thanks to these conections to the past and plans to use them to know what happened to Rinoa. It's time to meet with her. Edea tells him where the boat that took her could be.

Watts and Zone are in there but not Ellone, as she left in an Esthar's ship.

Next stop, Esthar. Squall decides to go alone with his new girlfriend.

But the others ruin the party and join the group. Edea becomes a temporal party member, but I pass about including her in the active group. Esthar doesn't appear anywhere and the party decides to cross a salt lake.

There's a Meteo draw point in there and a boss!

Abaddon is a zombie and that means that it's time to use healing magic.

Another easy battle! A strange passage appears at the end of the zone and the party can reach it thanks to an invisible ladder.

What could this mysterious facility be?

Wow, what a boring update. I think I don't like very much this part of the game.

Entropia · Jun 2, 2012

I probably put my last save point in the worst spot possible... right as I'm to make the final descent into the core of the planet, oops. :\

I don't even know if I can continue/beat the game at this point. I can't form my party and back track out. I am more or less at the point of no return

Krelian · Jun 2, 2012

Entropia said:
I probably put my last save point in the worst spot possible... right as I'm to make the final descent into the core of the planet, oops. :\

I don't even know if I can continue/beat the game at this point. I can't form my party and back track out. I am more or less at the point of no return

You should be able to get out and do whatever else you want, even at that point. I remember grinding inside that last dungeon and going back out all the time.

Boogiepop · Jun 2, 2012

Entropia said:
I probably put my last save point in the worst spot possible... right as I'm to make the final descent into the core of the planet, oops. :\

I don't even know if I can continue/beat the game at this point. I can't form my party and back track out. I am more or less at the point of no return

I beat him at, like, level 55 with the only "hard to get powerful thing" I had being Bahamut Zero and Ultima. Did you try summoning all your powerful stuff at him? The battles are all separate and imagine you'd have enough elixirs/megelixirs to get through by now. Worst case scenario, I'd imagine the old FF standby of throwing all your crap at the final boss still proves helpful here. (Assuming you picked up Yuffie to get the throw materia, which I think she came with.)

Heropon · Jun 2, 2012

The party uses an elevator and arrive at Esthar, that was hidden beyond some panels.

It's nappy time for our heroes. This time Laguna is some kind of slave in Esthar, but he doesn't work too hard.

The lack of freedom doesn't goes with Laguna and he beats some soldiers. We can see for the first time the famous Professor Odine.

Just when they were going to leave, they get back so Odine tells them where Ellone is and they get the first number of the weapon magazine.

Finally, Laguna rescues Ellone thanks to his might. Say goodbye to Laguna, this was my last time controlling him.

Back to the present, some people of Esthar come to take the party to the presidential palace so Odine can remove Edea's powers.

Ellone isn't here either, as she's in a base near the Moon. How lucky are our friends, only very rich people can normally go to see the outer space. The party has so many money that they feel like renting a car so the random battles don't bother them.

The group supposedly was going to the Lunagate base, but they have other things to do like getting the Solomon's ring in Tear's Point.

Squall goes to the launch base at last and he wants to take Quistis so she can do nothing in the trip.

Now that Squall is far, Zell becomes the leader, but he has some work to do as the Lunatic Pandora is being controlled by Galbadia.

The plan is to go inside and break things, but before that we get an easy Rosetta Stone (4x support skills).

Then they go to a place in the city where the Lunatic Pandora is passing. They find more of the valuable Meteo magic inside.

But things aren't easy and a robot guardian ejects them. The baddies win this time!

Thanks to Galbadia's best efforts, the Lunatic Pandora ends in Tear's Point and is going to cause a Moon's Tear (monster rain from the Moon).

Heropon · Jun 3, 2012

I'm going to put a famous piece of music of Johann Strauss for this place. The people of the station pick up the group safely.

Squall has to see Ellone so she sends him to Rinoa's past. But before that they see the monsters of the Moon's surface getting ready for E3 the Moon's Tear.

Red alert! Rinoa has become evil and is hurting people!

Rinoa is trying to free Esthar's former dictator witch from the space seal chamber and opens the first seal.

We can see how the Moon's Tear begins. This Moon seems to be pretty close to the planet, I suppose that's the reason it appears so big in cutscenes (yeah, fridge logic, in every game the moon/s is/are pretty big).

The next seal is in the proper Adel's Tomb and maleficent Rinoa leaves the station. Squall fails following her.

We can see in this image how Dark Rinoa opens the last seal.

And the reward is to wander the space for all the eternity. Maybe she can meet Bender.

The monsters land on the planet and Adel falls into the Lunatic Pandora. "All according to plan", must be thinking Ultimecia.

For some strange reason the lunar base hasn't been destroyed by the monsters yet and the people flee in their pods. Then the base is finally devastated.

Squall convinces his "sister" to send him to Rinoa's past, but the first two attempts are too far away from the point he wants to visit.

Now we can see how she was possessed by the sorceress Ultimecia. She has some nice BIG HORNS.

And then she sends him to Rinoa's present so she can activate the extra oxygen tank and doesn't die.

Squall has been lucky so far and thinks he can rescue Rinoa, and he achieves it! But how do they return?

Surprise! An abandoned airship appears from nowhere (well, it has its reasons, but I won't discuss it right now).

"This is, by a wide margin, the least likely thing that has ever happened."

Oh no, there are other passengers, eight to be more concrete. I have to kill them in pairs of the same color. For example, if the sequence is purple red red, the purple revives when the first red is dispatched, but then the two reds are gone forever when I kill the second. The most dangerous thing that can happen in the battle is ending up with the two characters silenced and without the item command.

But the aliens die easily.

With the monsters in the heaven, the couple can return while this music plays.

But this moment doesn't last forever and the people in the planet reminds Rinoa about her status as an evil sorceress.

Esthar special forces take Rinoa with them to the Sorceress Memorial.

We have the other partners in the group again, and Quistis insults Squall for letting Rinoa go.

Selphie becomes our new pilot and makes a reference to something Setzer said. We have wings now!

Let's rescue Rinoa so we can be six again!

logo.png

When they're about to escape, a person similar to Ward appears and "tells" them to go to Esthar. Now that the group is complete and they have an airship it's time to do optional things, in the next post!

Entropia · Jun 3, 2012

I'm kinda giving up on FF7. Kept getting frustrated when I tried Sephiroth,

I moved onto FF8. I'm at the Dollet mission and man, I remember that while some parts of the game are fun I really dislike some of the mechanics. The Draw system kinda penalizes you for using your magic.

Lumpy Onion · Jun 3, 2012

Entropia said:
I'm kinda giving up on FF7. Kept getting frustrated when I tried Sephiroth,

I moved onto FF8. I'm at the Dollet mission and man, I remember that while some parts of the game are fun I really dislike some of the mechanics. The Draw system kinda penalizes you for using your magic.

Depending on how much optional stuff you did, FF VII's final battle could definitely wipe the floor with someone. If you have level 4 limit breaks it shouldn't be that bad.

In FF VIII try and learn the refining abilities asap. ie: T Mag-RF, I Mag-Ref, etc. You can just make spells from all the items you pick up, steal, or buy from the shops. I rarely draw in this game except for the summons you draw from bosses. You would really be surprised how easy it is to get magic once you have a lot of refining abilities.

Heropon · Jun 4, 2012

My first stop is the cactuar island, where the Jumbo Cactuar lives along its little relatives. It's weak to water and has Meltdown as a drawable magic.

This guy does the frightening 10,000 needles attack (inevitable death).

It tries to flee when it has low HP, so it's necessary to do devastating attacks. After it dies we get the Cactuar G.F.

With the Ragnarok the party can go to the Islands Closest to Heaven or Hell, which are at the North of Esthar and West of Galbadia respectively. They have powerful magic to draw and level 100 monsters. One good AP grinding spot is the Cactuar Island, where the only random encounter are Cactuars. They have a very high evasion but Squall, thanks to his 255 Accuracy, can kill them in one hit with a good magic junctioned to the ATK stat. For every cactus destroyed our G.F. get 20 AP.

I'm going to get my next G.F., which isn't Odin. In the Centra Ruins there are Tornberry encounters. If we kill many of them a surprise appears.

To kill these little monsters fast we can use the Kamikaze command given by the Cactuar G.F. The user, in this case Rinoa, needs a high a HP to kill the enemy in one hit. She's removed from battle and appears K.O. after the battle, so we need many Phoenix Downs.

After killing many of them, the king appears. It doesn't do much damage, but it has lots of HP, so prepare to use many special attacks.

The battle ends and we get another G.F. Its most important abilities are those related to shops: Shop everywhere, rare items, more money for every item sold, cheaper products, and two abilities that double or halve the enemy's level... This G.F. in unconventional but awesome.

The next thing I'm going to do is getting Selphie's ultimate weapon. That's because she gets 255 accuracy with that equipped and it's easy to get. Ingredients:
-Adamantite: Minotaur card/Adamantoise.
-Star fragment: Iron Giant at Tear's Point.
-Cursed spikes: Tri-face.

With this weapon Selphie becomes a mass murderer of Cactuars. If the third party member has an ability to junction magic to the evasion stat, all the group can enjoy Cactuar hunting.

Another G.F. awaits us. We have to get 6 units of Remedy+, Malboro Tentacles and Steel Pipes and summon it with the Solomon Ring. First, we use Med Lv Up from Alexander to upgrade 60 remedies into the 6 Remedies+ (Thanks to Tornberry it's easier to get them).

Next step: Getting some tentacles from Malboros (Grandidi Forest, North of Esthar). They can be pretty nasty, so take care.

Last step: Stealing Steel Pipes from high level Wendigos (Level up skill from Tornberry).

And the Doomtrain G.F. is ours.

We're going to get another G.F., this one is hidden in a facility in the Southwest corner of the world map.

We have to avoid walking when the lights are up, and when the party reachs the central device it's time to answer some questions and defeat Red Dragons. They have a powerful breath, but have some interesting magics to draw at high levels.

The third time it does a question there's a hidden third answer. If Squall responds that, a battle against Bahamut happens.

It has a item that teaches the ATK+60% skill and uses the powerful Megaflare. It has Full-Life to draw from it.

When it's defeated, we get the second G.F. with the Mug ability, the only one with Ability x4, attack +60%, magic power +60%, Rare Items and an easy source of Megaelixirs.

Heropon · Jun 4, 2012

My next objective is getting the Lionheart sword, and I need some Pulse Ammo. To get that I'm going to refine an Energy Crystal. It's a rare drop from the evil Red Dragon enemy at high level and a normal drop form high level Elnoyle. There's a fixed encounter in Esthar, but it has a fixed level and you can't use Level Up on it, so the characters have to be at around Lv. 40.

I get the energy cristal and with the Ifrit ammo skill it transforms into 10 Pulse Ammo.

Thanks to this, some dragon teeth and adamantite, Squall gets his last weapon. The prupose of this weapon is allowing Squall to use his final Special Skill (and has a nice ATK bonus).

It's time to return to the Centra Ruins.

After some climbing around the place the party finds Odin. The only thing it does is causing a Game Over if twenty minutes have passed since the party entered the ruins.

It has Triple to draw and a Luck Book to steal.

I think I've had enough sidequests and it's time to advance a little the story. The party finally meets Laguna.

Odine explains the plan to defeat Ultimecia, but I won't do it for now.

Laguna puts a good name to the plan and Squall discovers some terrible family secrets.

The place where Bahamut was has more secrets inside. After some decisions about the management of water pressure resources, the party arrives at the Underwater Ruins. There are lots of evil monsters like red dragons, behemoths and iron giants. Enc-none doesn't works in this place.

There's a machine at the bottom that needs ten blocks to be used. Activating it summons Ultima Weapon!

The party can draw the last G.F., Eden, and lots of Ultima magic (up to 300) without refining Energy Crystals or drawing from islands/Shumi cities. It's important to not steal anything from it.

This monster does an attack that deals 9999 points of damage sometimes, but it isn't a pretty much difficult battle.

The reward are 100 Ultima Stones (100 more units of this magic refining them) and the Eden summon.

The most important Eden's skill is GFAbl Med-RF. Thanks to this and the Esthar's pet shop we can get some +60%/+80% skills easily.

Before going to the Lunatic Pandora I'm going to get another Rosetta Stone. We find an UFO across the world.

Then the party goes to the forest north of Esthar and battles the UFO. It seems that it lands at Balamb's crater after being defeated.

The little alien wants 5 elixirs.

The party gets its card. After doing some transformations (card -->> Hungry Cookpot --Tool-RF>> Shaman Stone --GFAbl Med-RF>> Rosetta Stone) we get the precious Rosetta Stone.

The next chapter is inside the Lunatic Pandora. Until next time.

Entropia · Jun 4, 2012

Wow I did not do any of those sidequests in my previous playthrough, pretty neat seeing all of that stuff.

CorvoSol · Jun 4, 2012

Geez. I've beaten Lightning and Amodar multiple times now and failed to collect either Crystal. UGH. Why is something I paid money for a 7% drop?

Is it luck based? I've done it 5+ times.

HiddenWings · Jun 4, 2012

Entropia said:
Wow I did not do any of those sidequests in my previous playthrough, pretty neat seeing all of that stuff.

I still haven't played through 8 (or 13), so this is kind of cool to see.

Heropon · Jun 5, 2012

There are many more sidequests like Lake Augbert, chocobo's forests, Triple Triad, the Shumi Village, etc., but the party has to save the world.

The first thing they have to do is opening a hole in the Lunatic Pandora so they can enter.

Our old friends appear again. Raijin is defeated soon.

Fujin expresses pretty well how she feels before fleeing (humiliation if no one can tell).

Biggs and Wedge appear again, but they aren't too willing to fight and defect.

Selphie finds a familiar face, the stupid robot that kicked her ass. It likes to counterattack everything.

Thanks to Squall's thievery skills, Quistis can learn another blue magic. Oh, I forgot to tell something. I've given GFs to everyone in the group, included those who aren't in the active party so I don't have to juggle with them. The lack of stat junction skills is resolved thanks to the pets shop and its items, so every character can have the basic stats (HP, strength, defense, magic and spirit) junctioned to a magic.

The next room contains people like Ellone, Raijin, Fujin and Seifer. Finally, the two cohorts tell Seifer how wrong he is and they leave after showing their respects.

Boss battle, Seifer: It looks like it will be short.

Poor Odin has a horrible death and someone picks his Zantetsuken.

Squall is going to take revenge with Lion Heart!

17 hits x 9999 = almost 170000. If this game were called FFX, that would be OVERKILL.

This isn't Seifer's lucky day and GILGAMESH appears!

YESSSSS!

Seifer plays dead and grabs Rinoa.

I have to change party members, evidently.

Sudden END OF DISC 3.

But unlike the disc, this update doesn't end. Something has appeared in the past room so the party can go to see Adel.

Seifer doesn't cares about his former (girl)friend and throws her to Adel's claws.

The fusion dance went wrong and that starts a boss battle. The first thing I do is casting regen on Rinoa (she has that magic to draw). Adel will borrow some HP from her sometimes. The party has to be careful and don't hurt their endangered friend.

The sorceress (sorceror???) dies and Rinoa becomes possessed by Ultimecia again. But this time Ellone can send the two to the past and return only Rinoa.

Thanks to this the Compression of Time starts.

After some hallucinations, the party ends in a familiar place. A person looking like Edea transforms into some kind of monster sorceress.

Succession of witches! (Difficulty: Easy)

The last one is the mighty worm witch. She has more HP, but nothing more.

Another place I know.

But it transforms into a future version where some seeds are dead and an imponent castle lies in the sky. If Chrono Trigger had CG, this would be a good one to present Magus Castle (the Fiendlord Keep, sorry).

There are some doors to go to a watered down version of the world map (many blocked places), but the party member's bodies are ready to fight!

Jucksalbe · Jun 5, 2012

Heropon said:

I remember the first time I played this game, this fight was the first time I took a deeper look at the junction system. Up until that point I had mostly been using the GFs to get through. Oh, that fight screwed me up.

Heropon · Jun 6, 2012

The party can make two groups without leaving people behind thanks to being six.

The evil sorceress uses her powers to seal many abilities of our heroes. They have to defeat the bosses in the castle to recover them, and the first of them appears.

Sphinxaur/ara: The game designers knew the only thing the characters can do in this battle is doing normal attacks, so it's easy.

The first command I unlock is Item. If this were another Final Fantasy I would have chosen another one, but items are pretty easy to get with the Tornberry abilities (get the items before entering the castle!) and you can use them without fear of weakening the junctions. After crashing a lamp to the floor, the party can open the trapdoor to the basement.

Next boss, Tri-point: It says something about absorbing every element except one, but I don't care.

It counterattacks every physical attack with a powerful electric attack to everyone, but my X Potions are plenty and I continue attacking until it falls.

Speed +40%, great! Next skill: Draw.

The next thing to do is lower the lever in the party-changing circle so the lamp doesn't fall this time. After some tricks, the other party ends doing it for them and the Squall one can cross.

Krysta, it has HIGH defenses and counterattacks everything. I don't follow any strategy, but I suppose someone else would do something more intelligent than attack.

Fortunately, Gilgamesh appears and deals some high damage.

It uses Ultima before dying, so one has to maintain the HP at good levels.

Thanks to this battle someone can enjoy junctioning four magics to the elemental defense, and the group can do special skills again.

The party keeps receiving money even after the time compression. Puzzle time. There are some pictures with latin titles

You have to choose three words, what's the trick? The clock drawed in the floor has the key: VIII, IIII, VI.

The correct word order is VIVIDARIUM, INTERVIGILIUM, VIATOR. And thanks to this, the party finds another boss.

The party can abuse Special Skill spam from now on.

I'm not afraid of death, buth it's good to be cautious and I choose the ability to resurrect people.

The other group is playing with an organ while the others kill stuff. Playing all the keys at the same time opens a passage nearby.

Oh, water! Let's follow another path. That key over the bridge falls somewhere.

And that somewhere is near where I left the others. That key opens a door in that same room.

Hey, another Ultima draw point. Neat, but I already have like 590 units. The next boss is a common enemy?

It transforms into the Gargantua. One word: Easy.

I regain the ability to save the game ???. The next room has another key.

Surprise, another boss!

It has very high defenses, but you can draw Gravity and do some serious damage.

Now the party can use the special commands in battle (Recover, Revive, etc.) The two groups fail at manipulating a balance elevator at first. The heaviest group (the one with Quistis in this case, hehehe) has to be the one going to the elevated platform.

The elevator leads to another room with a key. This one is for using a lever that controls the water level in the castle.

Now we can get another key in the fountain that is used to open a "hidden" door.

This room has a puzzle about opening tombs. Solving it has another boss reward.

This one counterattacks with Meteo when it dies. At last, I get the Magic command.

With the water level down the party can get another Rosetta Stone.
The next post contains the end of the game, stay tuned.

Heropon · Jun 7, 2012

The heroes take a detour to beat up the last optional boss (Omega doesn't exist), a copycat of our beloved Bahamut.

It tries to charge a powerful attack, but a pair of special attacks later, it dies.

Someone can equip 4 magics to the status defense and now the characters can summon GFs again, yay?

The last save point. This game is ending, isn't it?

Almost 44 hours??!!! That is a new "record" in these playthroughs.

This woman is the cause of most of the bad things that have happened and has some kind of obsession with Seeds. People says that Ultimecia talks with KKKK, but Artemisa doesn't. She chooses the battling party, let's see.

Quistis, Squall and Rinoa, good! First things first, let's cast some Auras.

Ultimecia loves healing my characters and I love hurting her.

Oh, she has summoned Gryphus.

Quistis casts Mighty Guard as she is afraid of a particular attack. For some reason, it scans Rinoa.

And then it quits Full-Life to Rinoa, which is junctioned to her HP stat. She's going to die thanks to that low HP cap.

When the group depletes its HP, it uses Shockwave Pulsar, an extremely powerful attack, so one has to be at high HP levels, have high spirit or have some protection.

As expected, Rinoa dies. Then Ultimecia junctions herself with Gryphus.

Next form, more damage to her.

Too easy.

But she has another form. I would say this is a new record, but Kefka and his "look-alikes" had the same number of battles.

She starts strong, and she drops the HP of everyone to 1.

It seems that a second part of her becomes targetable from time to time so she can draw a powerful spell and damage my poor characters. I use that before she does and that part disappears thanks to some massive damage.

"And then..." you die.

It's time to return, but Squall gets a little lost.

Squall discovers when Edea inherited Ultimecia's powers and he returns to his time and his parents do a logo.png

Squall smiles and THE END.

led4lyfe · Jun 9, 2012

Finished FF7 today, found it to be pretty easy. It took longer then I was hoping for (additional 16 hours of gameplay from Temple of the Ancients, I was at ~31), for a total of 47 hours. Granted a lot of that time was the game being idle while I did other things or flying around in the highwind trying to remember where towns were!

I didn't bother getting most of the optional rare stuff so I was a little worried heading into the last part of the game, but I managed. I mainly made sure I stole whatever I could from enemies(thank you Turks) and got all the enemy skills I could (Big GUAAAAARD).

Here's some of the pictures:

I embarassed Red Dragon not once, but TWICE. I by a mistake hit the X button on the item drop screen and missed out on the dragon armlet, so I reset and beat him again. Second time I just let everyone skip their turn and had Cloud counter him to death with the with Cover/Counter-attack combo.

The last part of the game I had no idea what was going on. I had a party of Cloud/Tifa/Yuffie going down, then when the party split up halfway I rolled with Cloud/Cait Sith/Vincent. Since Tifa/Yuffies materia was removed automaticaly, I thought the same would be for Vincent and Cait Sith when I removed them for the Final Battle in favor of Yuffie and Cid. Wrong.

So this happened:

Luckily the boss is a cakewalk and I just had Yuffie and Cid attack with their ultimate weapons so they were doing massive damage.

Cid deathblowed, Cloud 2x attack(im not even cool enough for 4x!!) and Cait Sith just cheered everyone on. Had I known what was going on and just stuck my 3 best characters on one party with all he best materia, would've ended a lot sooner.

Didn't have any problem with this either. Obv it was close when I got SuperNova'd, but I was able to rebound quickly and finish him off with a Highwind. I was a little disappointed overall by the lack of difficulty, but I suppose I was overleveled.

Ova

Sorry for the crap pictures, taking it on my TV.

6 and 7 are done. 10 will be the next I finish, followed by 1, 12-2 and 8.

Boogiepop · Jun 9, 2012

Well, I've advanced a good bit in VIII, and it's definitely been an interesting journey. Finished up the first disk, and then played up through the Fisherman's village thus far.

I have to say, for me at least, the end of the first disk was a HUGE turning point in the game. Up until that point I was just kind of coasting, moving along bit by bit. The big issue I was having was that the game world and characters just felt flat and bland, something that still remains true to a certain degree. Walking around schools, driving crappy little cars, and having detailed plots that amount to "do something simple that will be explained more simply later anyway" just wasn't adding up to anything interesting for me. Additionally, Squall's just felt kind of bleh, like Cloud if his emo got amplified and took control. But then the end of the disk came, and I finally got a likeable character in the form of the Sorceress. She just oozes character unlike much of the stuff in the game, and the whole parade scene was fantastic. Really made up for what came before, and finally made me feel like I was playing the game for more than the battle system. And then they even kill off Squall!

Of course, that (unfortunately) doesn't stick, but at least he's reaching the point of character development where he's less of an unlikeable douche. The game also feels a lot less flat, and the plot's even opening up into something more interesting than "do these missions here, have a little character development, repeat." I've also really liked the Laguna parts, and it's nice to see how those are unfolding.

And then there's a few other small things that I've found interesting. Though the game is probably even worse than VII with the constant party switching, at least it makes it a LOT easier to deal with through the junction switch system, which is great. Also, leveling up and customizing your summons (GFs I guess, but we all know they're summons and as such I'm not bothering to call them otherwise) is a lot of fun. Though the fact that they're so useful and important makes it all the more frustrating that there isn't a skip button for them, as you have to watch the same animation a LOT. Oh, and they really made limits kind of useless here. Outside of battling Diablos to obtain him, I can't say I've seen them appear more than once or twice. Also, I just... have no use for gold, even though the game keeps throwing it at me. I keep just using spells instead, so I don't really need to buy items. And weapons are cheap (yet require weird random drops that make them take forever to get) and hardly upgrade your power at all. It's all very strange.

Still, it's also a lot of fun now that I've gotten used to the battle system. I even had a great little moment where I was battling whatshisface under the school, broke his lid, and then thought "maybe I should check my draws one more time just to be safe" right before my summons were about to blast him to death, and realized his main body had different draws! Fortunately, I was able to get Leviathan just before I finished creaming him!

Boogiepop · Jun 12, 2012

Aaaaand... the game has absolutely fallen apart and become damn near impossible. I'm trying to fight Adel, and she's just pelting me with spells that do a huge amount of damage just... nonstop. I can hardly even move. And seeing as I don't seem to have access to a multitarget cure spell, that means I NEED to be healing with everyone whenever I get a chance. And then I also have to worry about healing an extra party member who just sits there and makes it so I can't use any of my summons, AKA the things that can actually do damage. And THEN there's the damn rubber-banding crap, which means that, much like everything else in the game by this point, she probably has approximately infinite HP (not that the game will even let me check it), and yet I'm still hardly doing any more damage than I would if I was low-level. Ugh. And, looking ahead, it looks like there's a ton of bosses left to fight after this.

What the hell, game? Assuming this isn't an oddity (which I'm guessing it's not, seeing as the last Seifer battle was also a huge pain), it would seem that the game is practically unwinnable right now (unless maybe I go out and do ALL the sidequests, which may well also be impossible, and besides I can't even upgrade Odin now), and all because I bothered to play the game properly and level up. Ugh. Seriously not happy, seeing how everything was relatively smooth up until this point.

Edit: Whoops, double post. My bad.

CorvoSol · Jun 12, 2012

So last night I beat both FFXIII-2 and FFT-0. I cannot honestly say anything but WOW what a difference between endings.

XIII-2's ending was so bad I actually flipped the bird when I saw Toriyama got top billing after that stupid "To Be Continued" bit. I also did not watch the credits for the first time in like, ever, because I was so angry. Everything about that ending was terrible.

XIII-2's ending spoilers:

It completely invalidates everything you did in XIII. Cocoon falls and destroys itself and apparently Pulse with it, and Serah dies. So everybody's home and the girl we fought to protect? Yeah, fuck them they're all gone because Toriyama can't think straight for ten minutes. What was the point of building a New Cocoon? Where did that even come from? One minute we're going to save THE Cocoon and re-levitate it or what have you, the next Hope is like, yeah, lol, no we're gonna just let it die. Also, how the flip did Sazh get there? And why hadn't Dajh or the Chocobo Chick aged at all? And what the hell was Alyssa up to? For that matter, why was Etro's heart inside Caius? And if Pulse is tasked with finding Etro to kill her for Bhunivelze, why in the hell was a Pulse L'Cie protecting Etro's seer, and a Pulse Fal'Cie serving them in their city? UGH.

Type-0's ending at least made sense. It also motivated me to immediately start a 2nd playthrough.

I'm thankful I played 3rd Birthday, because it prevents me from declaring 13-2 as the worst thing Toriyama ever wrote.

Boogiepop · Jun 12, 2012

Okay, so right now I have everything Junctioned and abilitied up the best I can. I've currently picked up all the GFs from the story, but haven't ran out to get the rest (I have the ring for the one, though). I have a save that'd take me back before the last Seifer battle so I can get Gilgamesh if it's gonna be necessary to beat the game, but I'd prefer not to lose the couple of hours of progress I'd have to in order to use it. Right now, my normal attacks are at about 500, and my GFs do about 1000. Meanwhile, I'm taking between 1000-2000 a hit from bosses, and have about 2500-3000 HP.

What do I need to do so I can do the damage, take the damage, or have the HP needed in order to make it through the remainder of the game? After having faced down a Seifer with 28000 HP for a good half hour+ and then getting continually crushed by Adel, it's clear that what I currently have isn't going to cut it.

Professor Beef · Jun 12, 2012

Boogiepop said:
Okay, so right now I have everything Junctioned and abilitied up the best I can. I've currently picked up all the GFs from the story, but haven't ran out to get the rest (I have the ring for the one, though). I have a save that'd take me back before the last Seifer battle so I can get Gilgamesh if it's gonna be necessary to beat the game, but I'd prefer not to lose the couple of hours of progress I'd have to in order to use it. Right now, my normal attacks are at about 500, and my GFs do about 1000. Meanwhile, I'm taking between 1000-2000 a hit from bosses, and have about 2500-3000 HP.

What do I need to do so I can do the damage, take the damage, or have the HP needed in order to make it through the remainder of the game? After having faced down a Seifer with 28000 HP for a good half hour+ and then getting continually crushed by Adel, it's clear that what I currently have isn't going to cut it.

God damn, you are severely underpowered. Do you at least have any special GF Abilities like Recover or Revive?

Boogiepop · Jun 12, 2012

Professor Beef said:
God damn, you are severely underpowered. Do you at least have any special GF Abilities like Recover or Revive?

I do not, outside of Darkside I believe. I'd been ignoring them as they seemed to take up the draw/magic/gf slots. Any easy way to power up/any idea how powered up I need to be to make it to the end? Oh, and my weapons are still crap tier because none of the enemies I've run into drop the stuff I need. Frustrating to hit the end of the game and just hit a big old wall.

Angelcurio · Jun 12, 2012

Just in case anyone is interested, FF XIII-2 PS3 is available on Amazon for 19.99:

http://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-XIII-2-Playstation-3/dp/B003O6JIVE/ref=sr_1_1_title_0?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1339470576&sr=1-1

Professor Beef · Jun 12, 2012

Boogiepop said:
I do not, outside of Darkside I believe. I'd been ignoring them as they seemed to take up the draw/magic/gf slots.

:|

I forget if it's too late at the point you're at, but you should leave Lunatic Pandora immediately and go get those abilities.

jaxword · Jun 12, 2012

led4lyfe said:

It's funny to deliberately try and lose this battle. Cloud still wins via

counter materia

. Clever developers.

Boogiepop · Jun 12, 2012

I've gone back to before I entered Lunatic Pandora and have conquered the giant Cactuar. Any idea if I'll need to upgrade my weapons, or is that not too important? The guide I'm looking at makes it seem like you need a "rare-item" ability that looks like a bit of a pain to get.

Professor Beef · Jun 12, 2012

Boogiepop said:
I've gone back to before I entered Lunatic Pandora and have conquered the giant Cactuar. Any idea if I'll need to upgrade my weapons, or is that not too important? The guide I'm looking at makes it seem like you need a "rare-item" ability that looks like a bit of a pain to get.

Upgrading your weapons isn't that important for characters not named Squall (his limit breaks are tied to his weapons). If you rely more on physical attacks than magic/GFs, then it's important for the accuracy boosts they give, but you can go through the game without worrying about upgrading.

Boogiepop · Jun 13, 2012

Ugh. Is there any better way to get Malboro tentacles than just running around the Island closest to Hell and hoping one pops up and then trying to mug (with initiative!) and hope it actually works? I got my first 4 this way pretty quickly, but the last 2 are proving IMPOSSIBLE. If I could actually find the dumb things consistently it wouldn't be so bad, but they just never want to show up.

Seda · Jun 13, 2012

Heh, I just started replaying Final Fantasy 8 the other day, and I totally forgot about this thread.

I'm playing a bunch of Triple triad in the early game for items/magic/blue magic

Professor Beef · Jun 13, 2012

Boogiepop said:
Ugh. Is there any better way to get Malboro tentacles than just running around the Island closest to Hell and hoping one pops up and then trying to mug (with initiative!) and hope it actually works? I got my first 4 this way pretty quickly, but the last 2 are proving IMPOSSIBLE. If I could actually find the dumb things consistently it wouldn't be so bad, but they just never want to show up.

It's either farm Malboros, or farm Malboro cards. Personally, I thought getting the cards was harder.

If you have the Treatment command, you can load up that character with resistances to the statuses that make you lose control (Berserk, Sleep, etc), then use Treatment on your Mug character and go to town.

Boogiepop · Jun 13, 2012

Professor Beef said:
It's either farm Malboros, or farm Malboro cards. Personally, I thought getting the cards was harder.

If you have the Treatment command, you can load up that character with resistances to the statuses that make you lose control (Berserk, Sleep, etc), then use Treatment on your Mug character and go to town.

Of course, the last two tentacles finally came immediately after posting this! Gonna grind up my new Doomtrain's skills on Cactuar island, and then I think I'm finally ready to go crush the end of the game.

Cheddahz · Jun 13, 2012

Good luck playing FFXIII-2, it's literally the Ninja Gaiden 3 of Final Fantasy games

CorvoSol · Jun 13, 2012

Cheddahz said:
Good luck playing FFXIII-2, it's literally the Ninja Gaiden 3 of Final Fantasy games

I think XIII-2 gets a lot of undue hate. Yes, the story is absolute bollocks and the ending is the height of flipping the bird at the player, and yeah, there's a lot of DLC shilling, but the game is also not that bad on its own. The load times and frame rate are a pain, but running around killing and collecting monsters remains fun, and the paradox puzzles, excluding the clock one, are pretty fun, too. Noel isn't that bad of a character, and making Serah say stupid stuff with the Live Trigger is genuinely funny. That the game allows the player to mock Serah and Snow's relationship is likewise a plus.

I'm starting FFII, because I want to attempt to play through the series (going in a pretty weird order, I guess, XIII/-2, II-XII, then I.) but MAN is this game reminding me why I've never been a big fan of it. It's like FFI stripped of all my nostalgia. It isn't bad, just really lackluster.

led4lyfe · Jun 13, 2012

I booted up my FFX copy today. I recieved FFX for christmas back in 01(like a lot of people) and played it primarily during my christmas break. I cruised all the way through to Lady Yunalesca, who then gave me the fits. After many failed attempts I stopped playing and moved on to another game(I did this a lot in my youth). Back in 2010 I was clearing out my old room and I noticed my copy of FFX. I popped it in and remembered exactly where I was: LADY YUNALESCA. I grinded for hours , I finally beat her that night.

So today I picked up where I left off, on my ship ready to do sidequests or do the endgame. My party sorta sucks so i'm going to do some side missions. Today I spent a good 5+ hours getting Rikku's GODHAND

I would've saved a lot of time had I owned a no-encounter armor, but oh well. And does anyone know where I can get lvl 4 spheres? I'm in need of a bunch.

cartman414 · Jun 13, 2012

Did anyone here check out Final Fantasy Dimensions at E3? Missed my chance.

Natetan · Jun 13, 2012

CorvoSol said:
I'm starting FFII, because I want to attempt to play through the series (going in a pretty weird order, I guess, XIII/-2, II-XII, then I.) but MAN is this game reminding me why I've never been a big fan of it. It's like FFI stripped of all my nostalgia. It isn't bad, just really lackluster.

Boooo! FF2 is one of my favorites. Which version are you playing? I found the iOS version to be fantastic once I figured out the whole go down to Mysidia early bit.

led4lyfe said:
I would've saved a lot of time had I owned a no-encounter armor, but oh well. And does anyone know where I can get lvl 4 spheres? I'm in need of a bunch.

I like to do no sphere grid runs of this game. Makes it much more fun to play

.JayZii · Jun 13, 2012

Natetan said:
I like to do no sphere grid runs of this game. Makes it much more fun to play

So you just have no skills and shit stats?

Boogiepop · Jun 13, 2012

And I beat the game. I ended up grabbing Cactuar, Gilgamesh, and Doomtrain, and grabbed a ton of spells from the Islands closest to Heaven/Hell (yay No Encounter!), and then pretty much maxed out my GFs on Cactuar Island. Oh, and in the course of grabbing 6 Malboro Tentacles I went from like level 30 to level 60.

Anyway, the whole shot to the end of things really made me feel better about the game as a whole. Really, the only thing that bugs me about the game is that it can be really, really mean in a number of ways that I could see just completely screwing you, and the answer isn't really just "go grind some more, look for some nice loot, etc." It wasn't so bad for me as I saved before Lunatic Pandora and spent a little time to power myself up to a ridiculous degree, but I can see that the game probably got a LOT of people stuck.

Still, the ending was fantastic, and thanks to being overpowered it wasn't too bad. I even finally found a use for Limits: kicking the crap out of the final bosses final form once she knocks you down to 1 hp, meaning lots and lots and lots of limits. To top it all off, I even got the best ending to a final boss battle ever: after I got Apocalypsed and was preparing to recover, an Angelo Rush triggered, causing the battle to be ended by a dog tackling the almighty evil sorceress!

But yeah, the gameplay of course was a lot of fun and the game probably has one of the more interesting systems of a FF, everything with Laguna and Ultemecia was pretty cool, Squall and Rinoa had some surprisingly fantastic scenes, and Doomtrain may just be the greatest summon ever. Really, the only things I'd call really lame are the cars (which are a silly vehicle addition to the series), and Seifer, who just never manages to rise above the level of being really, really lame. Honestly, if they would've just had him become a party member after you get Ultemecia out of Edea, then maybe his character would've made some sense and been halfway interesting. Instead he's an idiot who thinks he's cool, that you have to beat down constantly throughout the game, making him kind of flat out pathetic.

All in all, I'd actually say I enjoyed the game a bit more than VII overall, but it definitely could've used some better/more careful balancing.

CorvoSol · Jun 13, 2012

Natetan said:
Boooo! FF2 is one of my favorites. Which version are you playing? I found the iOS version to be fantastic once I figured out the whole go down to Mysidia early bit.

I like to do no sphere grid runs of this game. Makes it much more fun to play

I'm playing the GBA version. Is going to Mysidia while I still have Minwu in my party viable?

Boogiepop · Jun 14, 2012

Well, just started IX. Definitely seems different so far, though in a different direction than how VIII was different. Looks interesting, but I've hardly gotten anywhere at all (just entered the castle). Anything in particular I should really worry about that I would probably not do otherwise, like grabbing Big Guard by manipulating an enemy in VII (which was pretty much essential)? I'm assuming the card game can just be ignored like in VIII? Unlike with VIII I actually bothered to check it out via the tutorial character, and it seemed pretty uninteresting.

Professor Beef · Jun 14, 2012

Boogiepop said:
Well, just started IX. Definitely seems different so far, though in a different direction than how VIII was different. Looks interesting, but I've hardly gotten anywhere at all (just entered the castle). Anything in particular I should really worry about that I would probably not do otherwise, like grabbing Big Guard by manipulating an enemy in VII (which was pretty much essential)? I'm assuming the card game can just be ignored like in VIII? Unlike with VIII I actually bothered to check it out via the tutorial character, and it seemed pretty uninteresting.

The card game in 8 was somewhat important since it led to getting a lot of items and spells relatively early, but you weren't hurt by not doing it. In FF9, the card game has no real importance outside of a few sidequests, and one area during the storyline (spoiler tagged just in case):

You compete in a mandatory card tournament in order to advance the main game. You don't have to win the tournament, but you get a Rebirth Ring (which contains Auto-Life) if you do.

As for early stuff to look out for in FF9? Steal from everyone. Bosses, Baku in the first fight, everyone. Zidane gets to learn a damage-dealing ability midway through the game that gets stronger with each successful Steal from the beginning of the game until the end.

Once you finally get to the overworld, look up the Friendly Monsters. There are 9 of them scattered throughout the game that request a specific gem (finding said gems isn't hard, since Monster A will reward you with the jewel to feed to Monster B). They reward you with a slew of AP, but they're scattered pretty far apart from each other so you shouldn't worry about trying to get them all on the 1st disc.

You should put some time into Quina as well. Blue Magic in FF9 isn't as strong as it was in FF7, but Quina still learns some pretty nice stuff early on.

Also, invest a lot of time in the Chocobo Forest. The items you can get are really really good.

Cheddahz · Jun 14, 2012

Even though I dislike FFXIII-2, I might go finish it now due to this thread (I'm on the final boss battle). Afterwards, I might play another FF, but not sure which one to play..

Ra\/en · Jun 14, 2012

Im in the middle of exams, so I have no time I'd love to go through final fantasy tactics again some time. Sooo good.

Natetan · Jun 15, 2012

.JayZii said:
So you just have no skills and shit stats?

i guess you can see it that way. I usually do it with no summons either. Rikku is vital of course, and i like that because she is pretty optional in a regular run.

CorvoSol said:
I'm playing the GBA version. Is going to Mysidia while I still have Minwu in my party viable?

That's the best time to go! It will take a little bit of work of course. You'll need to keep pushing as you build up your fire, cure, and especially your teleport/warp spell. You can use it on entire groups of enemies and make them disappear if the spell level is high enough. If you can get to mysidia and buy the awesome equipment there, you are set for the whole game basically. Make sure you buy the swap spell too and read up on its usefulness.

Also, do you have shields equipped? You need them to build up your evasion and speed. Otherwise you'll be the last to attack in battle which is annoying.

And equip maria with a staff and put her in the front row. The bow sucks, the staff is better, and maria will build up more hp, defense etc if shes in the front row and can be hit.

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