53 replies to this topic

[Valor]

Fire kills books. Burns pages. I think it helps him. That guy isn't fun to fight really o.o I usually skip him.

[Dexel Hydagara]

Depends on the party you have, Shino, unless you have a fixed party at this point, I can't remember. This'll be for if you use Zidane, Freya, Vivi, and Amarant.

Equip Devil Killer on whatever charcters you can. You probably already know to use Antibody as well. Have Freya use Reis's Wind for gradual HP recovery, unless everyone has Auto-Regen ( doubt they do, though ). Physical attacks with Vivi's magic are fine when the book is closed. Use Vivi's strongest magic, have Amarant use Spare Change if he has it and use Zidane and Freya's Skills ( namely Thievery/Cherry Blossom if both work well, have Freya just Jump if she lacks CB ). If only Vivi has the above along with Freya's Jump, have everyone else support his MP consumption with Ethers.

Can't say anything concerning Doom/Paper Storm/Edge except to have lots of Hi-Potions and maybe an Elixir or two ( only if necessary, though, you can only get 13 total the whole game ) and Phoenix Downs on hand just in case. Venom should be cancelled out by Antibody.

Also, he has 21,997 HP and a weakness to Holy. Good luck~

Edited by Dexel, 08 July 2011 - 09:29 PM.

[Dion]

So I'm in Alexandria Castle right now fighting with a book that takes up too much time before the time limit ends for me to save Garnet. Advice anyone?

Or you can fight him later.

Minus Strike helps, btw.

[Valor]

Minus Strike only helps if you keep the Stein man alive, broseph.

[Dexel Hydagara]

Or you can fight him later.

...Alexiandra Castle's gonna be destroyed or off limits by then, bro. Where Shino's at, he needs to fight that thing now or never.

Pretty sure you can't go to the Library afterwards, though I might be wrong. Don't recall being able to go to that part of the castle again, though. I know I tried.

Edited by Dexel, 08 July 2011 - 09:41 PM.

[Shino]

Minus Strike only helps if you keep the Stein man alive, broseph.

I ended up beating him with 16 minutes left. Thank you all for the advice. I kept Steiner with 400 HP left and used Minus Strike and I had Vivi use Fira when the book was open. I didn't take much damage since I had antibody equipped for everybody. (didn't know I had it >_>;) I didn't have much trouble this time around. I also ended up getting to Zorn and Thorn in time.

[Dion]

...Alexiandra Castle's gonna be destroyed or off limits by then, bro. Where Shino's at, he needs to fight that thing now or never.

Pretty sure you can't go to the Library afterwards, though I might be wrong. Don't recall being able to go to that part of the castle again, though. I know I tried.

You can go fight him when Bahamut attacks the castle on Disk 3, also. :x

[Lady Sutella]

I've played Final Fantasy VII - X-2, XII, and Tactics and IX was by far my most favorite of all of the ones I've played so far. I've played it at least five times through and I never got tired of it. The story, characters, game play, everything was just amazing.

[Secret Igshar]

I forgot how much I love you, Final Fantasy IX. Oh wait, no I didn't. I just wanted to play you again because you are /fantastic/ in every way.

Also, in starting over, I have noticed some incredibly striking similarities between the initial cast of four characters and the initial cast of four characters in a story I am writing. I think that's kind of lulzy, since it was completely unintentional. That just goes to show how ingrained in my head this fantastic exercise in storytelling is. :D

ALSO. I feel really REALLY stupid. I think this is the first time I've had Vivi learning Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder simultaneously in Evil Forest. I don't think I ever stole the Leather Wrist from the first Prison Cage before. I was always too scared of Garnet dying and running out of Potions that I never tried it. <__<;

It's so nice seeing Vivi already knowing all three spells. :> I overleveled, though. I just got to Ice Cavern and Zidane/Vivi/Steiner are all level 6. Poor Garnet is so far behind. I think this time, I'll have to make Garnet's alias be Sarah. It's only right.

[Xanius]

New Quest Found After 13 Years

Oh look. Something new was found after 13 years. Did you know about this Iggy? :3

[Secret Igshar]

That's pretty awesome but also completely inconsequential since Protect Rings are not exactly hard to come by, especially that late in the game. It's a jokey little easter egg moreso than anything else. STILL COOL THOUGH. And no, I didn't know about it. I usually run Memoria in one fell swoop up and through the Mace of Zeus before doing sidequests and junk.

 

Also yesterday I got Yuko to start this game for the first time ever and it was an outrageously entertaining experience. She got up to the moogle before Black Waltz #1 in ~2.5 hours of play, but yeah. She pointed out a pretty interesting thing I never really noticed. After the gang beats the Plant Brain in Evil Forest, there's a short scene where they waffle a bit about someone staying behind so the others can go forward, foreshadowing Blank's petrification at the end of the following scene. Pretty nifty storytelling devices. She's still not over Blank's self-sacrifice. It makes me chortle wholeheartedly.

 

It makes me want to play the game all over again on my own to see what other fun foreshadowing the characters do early on. I would try for an Excalibur 2 run, but I really don't see much point to it. It doesn't seem particularly enjoyable to me, and it's not even a difficult thing to do. It's all about exploiting glitches and skipping everything non-essential. It really loses the spirit of the game for me, and so I don't have any real want to do it. I've done literally everything that can be done in the game (besides that newly-discovered sidequest) in at least one playthrough I've done, and I have one play stuck on a PSX memory card that has all of everything done in one game so like whatever, man. I don't need some stinking 100+ Attack sword for Steiner to show that I've kicked this game's ass there and back.

[Xanius]

Yea, the quest really isn't all that amazing or worth it really but it's still pretty cool that something new was discovered 13 years after the release of a game. Makes you wonder what all is put in Final Fantasy games and if we've really seen everything that there is. Can tell that things get removed and added all the time, even very late in development. As seen in FF7 with dialogue thats in the game with characters that are suppose to be dead and such. And with the whole hidden cave before the temple of the ancients and the materias found in the coding,


As for Excalibur 2 runs, meh. I've done one, took me a whole summer of planning, resetting, and screaming to get it done. The sword is fairly worth it considering how powerful it is in comparison to the other weapons Steiner can muster. Excalibur 1 has only 77 power and it's actually pretty sad for what the sword is suppose to be and represent. Then his second strongest sword is Ragnarok at 87. Pretty sad again when Excalibur 2 is sitting at 108... I mean, Ragnarok beats every other weapon besides the Ultimate Weapon of Zidanes, so it doesn't really 'suck' but it's a full freaking 21 points lower then the best Sword he can have.

Speaking of getting people to play FF IX, I have to get Azzy to play it. She's played a rather decent part of VII, never touched VIII, only say me play IX and barely did anything in X. Want get to play IX pretty badly because it's one of the best out there and really captures the fantasy part of the series to me. Plus the way you 'level' up and improve yourself is quite amazing. She loved the similar system we had before on the Inferno, so she'll likely love that. Gotta tell her about how weapons effect stats when leveling up though... don't want her to get upset later down the line when she finds out one weapon was giving her shit she didn't want. <_<;

Also, another PC version of VIII is coming out or came out, can't recall which. But it's said to have better graphics and such. I'm rather interested in them doing an 'upgrade' to IX and releasing it. IX wasn't realistic as VII, VIII, or X. But it does have some pretty nice moments, so I'd love to see it polished up a bit.

I wish Square would give some of the more recent FF the Chrono Trigger like revamp. Re-releasing it and giving it new weapons, items, monsters, whole new areas and such. I could just imagine playing IX and doing a ton more of the hunts and battles and shit. I think it'd be pretty neat to have more to experrince within the FF IX realm. Even though a good deal of fans would be worried about it diminishing the luster of the game.

[Secret Igshar]

I'm one of those fans. I don't want a remake or rehash of FF9 at all ever. It WILL kill the game. Voice acting, high-quality renders and all that jazz would be cool, I guess, but the game right now functions as a well-oiled machine with a beautifully engaging plot that unfolds neatly through the course of the game. It reaches a really nice conclusion and wraps in 8 unique, interesting characters.

 

Would I buy/play a remake? Yes. I don't want one, though, because the current direction and trend of Final Fantasy does not match 9 in the least. I'm too worried they'd muck with the core gameplay and add/remove things that make the game... bad. Maybe fixing Shock/Iai Strike/Thunder Slash would be cool, I guess. Maybe. And I wouldn't be against them giving Amarant some more compelling story, but blah. Neither of those things justify a remake to me. Neither of those things are needed.

 

New weapons, armor, etc would only cheapen the experience. If they don't give new abilities, they're a waste of space. If they do give new abilities, what could they even give? They've already covered everything you could possibly want or need. Vivi's spell listing encompasses practically EVERY black magic spell ever made in any FF game, discounting -ja spells and a few 12/Ivalice-specific skills (Scathe) which have parallels. Ugh. ADDING shit to FF9 would have a 90+% chance of fucking the game up too much and making it worse than it is, because it's absolutely excellent as-is, with only a couple of downfalls (which are primarily based in glitches; Steiner's Sword Arts and the Collector Level, to name two).

 

Ick.

[Xanius]

Yea, I wouldn't want them to change anything of the way things work. They are pretty much perfect to be honest. A few new abilities would be slightly interesting. If they added something for enemies and gave them something new they could inflict on you or something of the sorts it would be amusing.

Yea, the fixes with Steiner would be very nice. Always hated that in the game.

I wouldn't want much done to it really. Just a sort of Chrono Trigger treatment. A few new things added in and what not but nothing game changing. At least I didn't find anything in the new Chrono Trigger to be huge overhauls. Updated graphics would be really neat for certain. I don't want a full on 'remake' of the game. Updating it to FF XIII graphics or anything. Since that would be changing the game completely in my eyes. But crisper and cleaner looking characters and videos would be pretty nice. And as you said, maybe a backstory on Amarant or so would be pretty cool too.