Category: RPG

Grandia [1] – Finally

January 8, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

After I got distracted by Crash Bandicoot (in a really good way), it was finally time to start up Grandia. This is one of my favorite PlayStation RPGs, after the Final Fantasy series. Actually, I’d probably put it above Final Fantasy VIII in many areas.

Every time I see this screen, I can hear the music in my head.

Grandia was originally released on the Sega Saturn, I believe, which I never owned or even saw in real life. It got re-released on the PlayStation two years later, and one year later, I bought it. Since I bought all of my PlayStation games in Germany, this one was in German to. However, the voice acting remained English throughout most of the game, with the exception of the animated sequences.

Voice acting?

Yup, this game had voice acting. It was one of the rare PlayStation JRPGs that had it. It wasn’t very good voice acting, but I didn’t know better back then so I loved every word of it. These days, I still love it, but mostly for nostalgia’s sake.

The Beginning

The game starts in Parm, a town on the shore of the old continent. The main protagonist Justin and his little friend Sue are playing with some kids. Well, they’re dueling, actually. The kid, called Gantz, issued a challenge to Justin – to find four legendary treasures. If Justin fails to do this before dusk, Sue will have to marry Gantz, which she doesn’t like at all.

If he lived in the modern times of the real world, Justin would probably be a nerd.

I basically had to scour through the city to try to find the four items, but there was no real time limit. Sue got the apron (Legendary Armor) and then the two of them got the iron pot and the pot lid (Warrior’s Helm and the Shield of Light). After a while, I also got the wooden sword (Spirit Sword).

Obviously, these are kids we’re talking about here, which is something I love about the game – it does not take itself seriously even for a moment. Another thing I love is the coffee joke. Apparently, in the world of Grandia, coffee is what alcohol is in the real world, and more. Kids hate the stuff and “only adults can appreciate the taste of it”. If you drink too much of it, you get drunk or something. There are people who constantly drink to much, people who drink in secret, etc. Coffee is bad, basically.

Marma Road

After the events in Parm, Justin went to visit the local museum, where the curator gave him back his spirit stone. The spirit stone is something Justin’s dad left him, so he gave it to the curator so he could test it. He didn’t discover anything other than that the stone is harder than diamond.

After a short talk, the curator gave Justin and Sue a pass to a local archaeological dig at the Sult Ruins. To get there, I had to walk the Marna road. Before that, though, it was time for dinner with mom.

Meal Time

This is another great thing about the game. At the end of each day, or when the party is supposed to take a break, determined by the story, everyone gathers around the table or the camp fire and talks about the day. It really adds charm to the game.

Whenever it’s time to take a break, everyone sits to have a meal together.

Anyway, I got to Marna road and explored the area entirely. I didn’t find much, other than some gold and herbs, but I gained a few levels, which means I finally did some battling. The great things just keep coming, so here’s another one.

No Random Battles

Yup. There are no random battles in Grandia. Monsters do randomly appear on the map, but you see them at all times, so you decide when to attack and when to avoid them. Of course, if you keep avoiding them, you’ll probably end up ambushed, but it’s still your choice. If you’re good, you can even ambush them.

The Rah-Rah Cheer has voice acting to, same as almost every other move. Also, the Rah-Rah Cheer is awesome.

There’s also movement and placement in battle, which sort of reminds me of Chrono Trigger from the SNES era. Depending on your placement and the placement of enemies, it absolutely matters which actions you pick. You can hit multiple enemies at once, avoid getting hit yourself, or even counter or cancel an enemies attack.

Marna Road Explored

Eventually, I explored the entire area and gained a level or two. Mostly I’ve been fighting bugs, spiders and some sort of centipede enemy. While doing this, I refreshed my memory about the various moves and mechanics available. I got to the Sult Ruins and saved my game.

The Witcher [24] – Completed

January 3, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

As expected, Chapter V of the Witcher felt far more linear and shorter than the earlier chapters. It was followed by a relatively quick epilogue and that was it.

I started out at the Dike, having to fight my way to the Old Town, where I met king Foltest and was taken to his palace. Once there, I was told I needed to free his daughter from the curse again and find some way of ending the conflict between the Scoia’tael and the Order of the Flaming Rose, which turned Vizima into a war zone.

While I was there, I managed to miss the last gambling quest. The gambler was the king, but when he offered me a match, I declined, hoping I could save my game first. Sadly, after the conversation, he wouldn’t talk to me any more. I guess I deserved it for trying to “cheat”.

I went back to the Old Town, where I cleared the area and met Shani and Kalkstein again. After that, I had to go out to the swamp graveyard. This was the large area of the chapter, with several smaller locations to explore and outlying areas to visit. I spent about an hour there, solving various quests, including the one which involved saving the princess again.

That one was a bit confusing. I got locked in the crypt with her, so I had to either kill her or somehow free her from her curse. I didn’t want to kill her, so I opted for the other choice, but I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do. I though I need to somehow hide from her so I could leave combat and then meditate at one of the two campfires there, but this didn’t work. Eventually, I let her chase me around her sarcophagus for a bit and then the game finally revealed what I needed to do.

Why couldn’t I have just blown the candles out with Aard?

After leading her around long enough, one of the candles on her sarcophagus went out. After four more candles, it was finally over. I have to say, I did not like this mechanic. It wasn’t very obvious and it felt very clunky. Still, I did what I needed to do, so the mayor let me and the princess out of the crypt.

The second major quest I did in the swamp revolved around me gathering all the pieces I needed to craft the legendary witcher’s armor I found out about in the previous chapter. I had to bring all the pieces to the blacksmith at the Old Town, which got me what I’m guessing is the best armor in the game. It reduced all damage I received by a fifth and had three potion slots.

Raven’s Armor doesn’t just look awesome, it IS awesome!

Eventually, I cleared everything I could and went to the old manor, where the king sent me. This is where I found out the Salamandra laboratory was, with Azar Javed hiding inside. I met Yaevinn there, so he followed me in. After along trek through the catacombs bellow, I finally reached Javed and was able to fight him. He fell really fast, so it was a bit of a letdown. The monsters he threw at me before I could reach him didn’t fall nearly as fast, though, so there was definitely plenty of challenge.

Once all of that was over, I found out the leader of the Order of the Flaming Rose was behind everything. I got back to the city, which ended Chapter V and started the Epilogue. I fought through the streets, met some old friends along the way and finally got to the Order’s castle, where Jacques de Aldesberg was waiting. Before I could fight him, the teleported both of us to some icy area in the future.

Apparently, some sort of major cataclysm, called the White Frost was coming, so Jacques’ intentions were to create a new breed of human which could survive it. Of course, his intended results weren’t exactly what most people would agree with, so he definitely didn’t turn out to be a good guy, just a misguided crazy guy.

The icy area actually looks cool. I wish there was an actual chapter there.

What followed was the game and Jacques prolonging the inevitable. Instead of me just having the final showdown, I had to fight random battles on the long way to Jacques for about half an hour. It wasn’t hard or challenging, it was just tedious, so it kind off took away from the ending and the game. Eventually I got to him, beat him, and the game was won.

Oh, and it’s possible Jacques might be Alvin all grown up. The same amulet I gave Alvin was on Jacques body, except it looked aged, and Triss already said it’s possible Alvin could actually teleport through time. The game didn’t confirm it, but it’s a definite possibility.

In any case, the game is won.

Also, the final movie looks awesome. I wish there was more of that. In fact, I wish there was a full-length movie.

The Witcher [23] – Wrapping Up Chapter IV

January 2, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I finally got back to the Witcher, after a two-week break. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bored with the game or anything, I just didn’t get the chance to play it. Today, I finally decided to wrap up Chapter IV.

The Heat of the Day and the Witcher

I started out with the quest to free the two wraiths from their curse. In case you don’t remember, a jealous girl killed her sister, after which the sister’s boyfriend killed the girl. The event turned both into wraiths. I spoke to Abigail who told me to gather the pieces of a broken magical mirror one of the girls, Alina, owned. Apparently, the mirror is the reason she transformed into a wraith upon her death.

The wraith quest was weird, but I guess I enjoyed it?

In order to get the pieces, I had to do a pretty dull quest which involved visiting five locations in “The Fields” area, killing the noonwraith there and getting the piece. Once I was done, I asked the blacksmith to fix the mirror, which involved a waiting period.

The Witcher’s Ripples

While waiting, I went to deal with the Lady of the Lake and her quest to negotiate peace between the villagers and the fish people. Both sides offered three gifts for the Lady, so I had to pick the right one from each side. Eventually, I figured out it was the alabaster figurine and the gold bracelet. The Lady gave me a Ruby I placed on the Altar of Dagon, which summoned the creature so I could kill it. It was an easy fight, so that quest was now done to.

The mirror was now fixed, so I brought it to Alina, but it didn’t work. I went to ask the hermit for advice, but he just sent me back to Abigail. The witch suggested I tried a poem, so I asked Dandelion to compose one. This finally worked and that quest was also done.

I reported what happened to Julian, who tanked me and sent me to the Fisher King who was apparently asking for me. As I expected, the Fisher King just sent me back to the Lady of the Lake. She finally gave me a reward for everything I did. Geralt was knighted and got an awesome silver sword to play with.

This might be the best silver sword I’ll get in the game.l

On my way back, I was confronted by Berengar, who admited betraying the witchers and basically doing lots and lots of bad stuff. I figured this was the one choice I had that wasn’t morally ambiguous so I decided to kill him. It turned out I was wrong. I found a letter on his body, which indicated he was actually extremely conflicted about what he was doing. I also found about 800 oren and some alchemical recipes, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.

Once I got back to the shore, I met a military leader of the Order of the Eternal Flame who informed me the order was there to capture the elven refugees. The elves’ backup arrived, though, so they are now cornered in the village, with the villagers, including Alvin as their hostages.

This was finally a situation where I had to pick sides, so I opted for the side that wasn’t overly religious or fanatical – the elves. I get that this is still another ambiguous choice and I get that there’s a downside for picking both sides, but I just really don’t like fanaticism, so the elves felt more suitable. In any case, there was a big battle, during which Alvin teleported to some unknown place. Afterwards, I got back to the Fisher King’s hut and got a ride back to Vizima, with Dandelion as company.

I think I might miss the openness of the village.

During all of this, I got to level 31. As expected, once I got to 30, the amount of talents I received changed. I’m now getting one bronze, two silver and one gold talent point. I decided to prioritize building up my primary attributes, after which I’ll start building up weapon skills. As usual, signs will be the last think I’ll invest in. Sadly, since I’m now entering the last chapter, I don’t think Geralt will get much stronger than he is right now. On the plus side, he’s really, really strong, so I’m not worried about the difficulty.

Final Fantasy IX [28] – Final Impressions

December 27, 2012 by Nikola·2 Comments

I get it. I finally get why so many people consider Final Fantasy IX to be the best of the era. This is a game that did an insane amount of things right. It looks and sounds great, plays amazingly well and it actually fixed a lot of things people complained about in Final Fantasy VII and VIII.

A lot of the story and talking is optional, so those who don’t feel like going through it on their second play through, or even on their first, can easily skip it. As for myself, I enjoyed every moment of the story, and probably would do so again.

The part I did make use of are the optionally long summoning animations. Apparently, there was a lot of understandable complaining about the long summoning animations in Final Fantasy VII and especially VIII, so Square did what was probably the best solution. The first summoning of an eidolon shows the full length sequence. Future summoning only show the short version, unless the Boost ability is enabled on Dagger/Eiko. In that case, the full sequence is played, but the summon also does more damage. This way, people who are willing to wait through it get rewarded a bit, but most of the time, the extra damage is not needed.

It’s a classic happy ending, but it’s a classic game, so it works.

In one of my earlier posts about this play through, I complained about the frequency of random encounters, but over the course of the game, I’ve noticed it really isn’t a huge issue. Most of the time, the encounters are frequent only in areas where your characters could probably use some training. Other than that, I only rarely had trouble with to many encounters.

As I said, the game looks and sounds great. It’s probably one of the best looking games of the era and the soundtrack is something I often listen to as part of my regular playlists. It’ not just about the quality of the graphics, though. It’s design that makes it timeless and provides the atmosphere and charm. Everything just blends and works together perfectly.

Yes, Final Fantasy VII still is my favorite, simply because the story and the setting are probably the most developed (or the most familiar to me personally), but would have to agree that overall, Final Fantasy IX is probably the better game. Any fan of what JRPGs used to be should play this one.

Final Fantasy IX [27] – I beat Ozma!

December 25, 2012 by Nikola·5 Comments

I did it! I finally did it! I beat the strongest enemy in Final Fantasy IX – Ozma. It wasn’t easy, though, and there’s definitely a story to it, so here goes…

Last time, I beat the final area of the game and saw the ending. This was the easy part and I’ve done it with three of my characters being in the high 40s/low 50s. Final Fantasy IX at no point makes you grind, at all. In fact, with the proper items, which were easily obtainable, I could have probably done it in the 30s.

EDIT: Ok, Johnny got me in the comments. As with any JRPG, if you want to do the optional stuff, you’ll grind. To beat the story, though, you can just go through it the regular way. No grinding required.

In any case, while the game was beaten, some of the goals I’ve set for the game haven’t been accomplished. I’ve done all the side quests I wanted, but I haven’t gotten all the ultimate equipment, I haven’t learned all the abilities, nor have I beaten the optional boss. As I previously wrote, I decided to skip the optional boss of Final Fantasy VIII, simply because he seemed not at all interesting, and I haven’t even tried beating the optional bosses of Final Fantasy VII because I’ve actually done it as a kid, so didn’t feel the need to do it again this time.

For this one, I decided to go for it, since it just seemed like a hard battle, not an especially long one, or one that requires a lot of preparation. In fact, I was convinced it was doable right after I beat the game, so I decided to go for it immediately.

Well, not immediately. First, I wanted to learn all the abilities on all of my characters. For that, I needed to do several things. First, I needed to go back to Hades’ synthesis shop and synthesize a Pumice from the two Pumice Pieces I had. This was costly, but didn’t involve any challenge, since Hades was already beaten. Second, I had to learn the two remaining blue magics for Quina, both of which could be obtained from the “fake” guardians in the final, crystal area of Memoria. This didn’t take to long either.

The crystal guardians are ugly, to put it bluntly.

Lastly, I had to grind for a bit to learn all the remaining abilities. Luckily, the fake guardians were worth 7 AP each, which adds up to 14 points per battle, when combined with Ability Up. I didn’t time myself, but it probably took me about an hour to learn most of the remaining abilities that way. I got impatient, though, so I decided to go back outside, gathering all the remaining weapons I missed on my way in and make an attempt at Ozma now, thinking 60 000 health can’t be that hard to take away.

Boy was I wrong. On my first attempt, Ozma outright killed my party with one move – Meteor. On my second attempt, I tried the Auto-Life ability, but all that got me was that after his Meteor, Ozma used Curse to kill my recently revived characters all over again. I tried it another few times, but I didn’t have a chance. Sure, with some luck, I might have been able to do it, but that wouldn’t have felt like an accomplishment then.

I didn’t feel like going back to Memoria, so I trained on Grand Dragons for a bit, until everyone but Dagger learned all of their abilities. This got my main party, now consisting of Zidane, Dagger, Steiner and Freya to their mid 50s. It also maxed out Freya’s Dragon’s Crest ability, so this was now my second character able to reliably do 9999 HP of damage. In case I haven’t mentioned it, the first one was Steiner, with his Shock! ability and he was able to do it ages ago.

By the time Zidane got to the low 70s, leveling on Grand Dragons was really started to get slow, so I decided to take my chances with Yans on Vile Island. These guys are tough, really tough. They are fast as hell and counter every action directed at them with either Float or Snort, regardless of the action hitting or doing damage. Snort removes the targeted character from battle and if everyone gets snorted out, this means Game Over. In addition to that, their most common attack is Comet, which can do all the way up to 9999 points of damage, determined randomly. Luckily, Comet misses often, but when it hits, it hurts badly. Lastly, they also use an attack which causes the Virus status effect, though that isn’t completely bad, since the experience is never wasted, as long as at least one character is able to receive it.

They have close to 20000 health and they give over 40000 experience each, shared among the party members. Since they attack in groups up to three at a time, this is definitely the best enemy to train on, once you’re able to do it.

Final Fantasy IX – Yan Strategy

The problem was, I didn’t feel I was able to do it. I persisted, though, in spite of the Game Over screens, so I eventually figured out the proper strategy. I put Auto-Regen and Auto-Potion on all of my characters. Chemist wasn’t needed here, because it doesn’t matter how much the used potion heals for. What matters is that there’s an animation during which no one is attacking, but Auto-Regen is doing its thing. Next up, I added Auto-Life on top of that, just to make things a bit easier when a Yan manages to get an instant kill with Comet. Lastly, I added HP +10/20% and Gamble Defense to cut the chance of an instant kill, Restore HP to add a buffer on top of that and Distraction/Awareness to further nudge things into my favor.

Once I got inside the battle, it all depended on how many Yans I was fighting. With one or two, Zidane had to act first. Soul Blade with a Masamune equipped meant I was able to cast Doom on one of the Yans. This meant that Zidane was out of the battle after this, because the Yan usually retailiates with Float, meaning the next retailation would Snort Zidane out of the battle. After Doom, Steiner and Freya do their thing with Shock! and Dragon’s Crest, killing the second Yan. Throughout all of this, both Yans usually get to act at least once, so there’s a good chance someone will die. If that happens, either they get revived after the fight, or during it, by Dagger or Zidane. Of course, this is only the cause if Auto-Life already got depleted, which rarely happens.

The heroic party that got me this achievement.

If the battle is against three Yans, then Dagger acts first, with Odin. Odin is an eidolon with a Death attack. The chance of it directly depends on the number of Ores the party has in their inventory and maxes out at 50% with 99 Ores. This means that with 3 Yans, one or two are usually dead immediately. With that out of the way, the three other characters could do their usual routine with Soul Blade, Shock! and Dragon’s Crest.

The Application

I used this strategy for about 30 minutes, which got Zidane to level 78 and the rest of the group to somewhere around 65. I got confident, so I decided to try my luck with Ozma again and this time, it worked. Ozma started out with Meteor, but the party survived and, thanks to Auto-Potion and Auto-Regen, almost completely recovered before anyone could make another move. After that, Freya and Steiner did their 9999 damage moves, with Dagger throwing a 7000 Ark on top of it. That was 27000 out of 55000 HP gone right there. Ozma then tried using Mini, which got reflected back at him, meaning he wasted a turn. I got a chance to do another Shock!, but Freya didn’t get a chance to act before Ozma’s next move. This one killed both Stiener and Freya, but Auto-Life brought them back and Zidane and Dagger’s Auto-Potion gave them a chance to recover with Auto-Regen.
Finally, Ozma used Curse, which killed Zidane, causing him to come back with Auto-Life, while causing various status effects on the rest of the party. Freya managed to Squeeze in another Dragon’s Crest, with another Ark from Dagger, bringing me to a total of about 53-54000 damage. Then Ozma threw another Curse, casting Stop on anyone but Zidane. That was all I needed, though, because one last pysical hit from Zidane was the final killing blow.

Ark wan’t the biggest damage dealer, but it tipped the scales.

Final Fantasy IX – 100% Completed

With the optional boss defeated, all the interesting side quests solved, and all the abilities learned, I can now put this game on the 100% completed list. It took a surprisingly small amount of grinding to get to this point, but the game was no less fun because of it. In fact, I’d consider this a strength. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good JRPG grind, but I love it even more when there’s a point to it, without any boring filler.

Now I have to decide what to play next. I’m thinking one of my other JRPGs from the era, perhaps Grandia. I also have Koudelka, which I never properly played. Heck, I even have Final Fantasy VI, which is another game people consider a classic. Maybe Vagrant Story? Or I might just buy another one from the PSN. Who knows…

Final Fantasy IX [26] – Completed, But Not Done

December 24, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

Since the last time I wrote about Final Fantasy IX, I’ve spent a good hour or two fixing up Mognet Central. This side quest involved a lot of trecking back and forth, delivering letters to various moogles in order to figure out which item I need to fix the Mognet Central mail sorting machine. I had to go to Alexandria first, then to Burmecia, Ipsen’s Castle, Daguerreo and the Qu’s Marsh among other places. Each letter I delivered rewarded me with a kupo nut I promptly delivered to the moogle family at Gizamaluke’s Groto. It wasn’t really worth it, though. Past the first nut I delivered, which got me an Aloha T-Shirt, all I got was a couple of Ether’s and a Phoenix Pinion or two.

The item needed was Superslick, which is some hair gel that Ruby had.

The side quest itself, though, was well worth it, getting me a Protect Ring which, apart from teaching me a bunch of useful abilities, also halves damage from all the elements.

Eventually, I learned all or most of the abilities I could, so I decided to go to Memoria, the final area, just so I could get all the rest of the abilities and items. Killing the Nova Dragon was easy enough and the first part of Memoria wasn’t much of a challenge either.

Once I killed the first two Chaos Guardians, I got to an area where the random encounters involved fighting Behemots and enemies who look like the Materia Keeper from Final Fantasy VII. At this point, I also decided to switch my party up, so the less trained guys could advance a bit to. This was a huge mistake. Both of these enemies did a load of physical damage so several times, my whole party was nearly wiped. Somehow, I managed to survive and, once I gained a few levels and switched to stronger items, the place became easy again.

I kept pushing further, fighting fresh enemies, killing guardians and missing on items which were the only reason I entered the place (sigh) and eventually got to the final area. This is why I like this game! The very final save, which is located right next to the final room, with the final three bosses, has a “teleport back to the entrance” option. Basically, there is no “point of no return” in this game. Even better, once you kill the first of the three final bosses, you still get to exit the room, go to the save and teleport to the outside. Only the final two bosses are tied battles.

In any case, I saved my game and decided to just go for it. Killing Deathguise was easy, while Kuja might have been even easier. The final boss, Necron, provided a bit of a challenge, but I don’t think I was ever in real danger. It just took me a while because he kept killing my characters, so I had to play defensively.

Necron is introduced a bit out of the blue, but I didn’t mind.

Eventually, he fell and Final Fantasy IX is now the last Final Fantasy game of the PlayStation era to be completed by me. Did I like it? Yes, absolutely. Is it my favorite? It might actually be. I have to think about it. For now, all I can say is that I’m not done yet. I’ll reload on my final save, learn the Blue Magic from enemies in Memoria I can eat, gather up the rest of the items and then go back outside to max out my characters and kill Ozma.

I forgot to mention, I also killed Hades, which is an optional boss in Memoria. Killing him got me access to his hidden synthesis shop, where I made a Pumice accessory. This one allows Garnet to learn Ark, her final Eidolon. I also made a full stack of Phoenix Pinions, so Eiko’s Phoenix does more damage now.

In any case, it’s time to do some final grinding, before tackling Ozma. Lot’s of “finals” in this article. 😀

Final Fantasy IX [25] – Sidequests

December 23, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

I trained on Grand Dragons for a bit, but I got bored soon, so I decided to start checking side quests of my list. In order to do that, I actually had to make my list, so here it is. I’m only listing stuff that gives equipment rewards, etc. I’m not interested in cards, flair key items or anything of the sort.

Find all the friendly spirits to weaken the optional boss
Beat the optional boss
Find all 12 (13) Stellazio coins
Fix Mognet Central
Get kupo nuts to the Moogle family
Answer all the questions of Ragtime Mouse
Beat all the monsters in Treno
Find all the chocobo treasures
Get all the ultimate weapons
Upgrade all the special character skills (Frog Drop, Thievery…)
Learn all the abilities
Get the ultimate gear

As of now, I got all the friendly spirits. I even got lucky with the friendly Yan, what with getting it in my first fight on the island of sheep from hell (TM). I haven’t even tried beating the optional boss, but I’ll guess I’ll have to get around to that soon.

The friendly Yan is by far the cutest critter of the series.

I got all 13 coins, with Sagittarius and Scorpio giving me the most trouble. I remembered where the 13th coin was from my first play through, so that wasn’t an issue. This means I now have my first Robe of Lords.

I’ve found Mognet Central and even got my first letter to deliver, but I haven’t started the deliveries yet. This ties to the Moogle family feeding, since I get a kupo nut for each letter I deliver. I already had one nut, though, so I gave it to the family and got an Aloha Shirt. It’s a useless flair item, so I wont be using it.

I’ve encountered the Ragtime Mouse several times and already failed a few questions, so I’ll need to be really careful from now on. If I remember correctly, if I don’t get enough questions right, I won’t get the final reward, whatever it is. I might go for a guide on this one.

The monsters in Treno were beaten easily. That is, the final monster, a behemoth, was beaten easily by a tranced Zidane. While I was there, I also bought some items on the auction, but the one I needed the most wasn’t there yet. For this, I had to go to Daguerreo and make a guy there tell me he wants a Magical Fingertip. One he told me that, it instantly appeared at the auction so I bought it, with having just enough money for it. I’m serious here. I had 60 000 on me, and I bought the item for around 59 000. I brought it to the guy in Daguerreo, who gave me Excalibur, Steiner’s “ultimate” weapon.

The thing is, it isn’t really ultimate. First of all, it provides less strength than Ragnarok, which I already got somewhere, can’t remember where. Secondly, if you get to the final area of the game in under 12 hours total, you get Excalibur II, which is the true ultimate weapon. Since I’m at 40 hours right now, I don’t think I’ll get there in time.

I also finally managed to dig out (or dive out) Zidane’s Ultimate Weapon, after spending a bunch of Death Peppers. You can see the location on the screenshot (unless I forget to upload it). Same goes for Dagger’s ultimate weapon, which was hidden in the treasure chest for the Ocean Chocograph.

Final Fantasy IX - Zidane's Ultimate Weapon

You should probably use the small island in the background as a guide.

This brings me to the next point – I got all the chocobo treasures, including all of the Death Pepper ones (or at least I think I got all of them). In addition to Dagger’s ultimate weapon, this means I also have the Tiger Racket which is awesome for both Dagger and Eiko, as well as Freya’s ultimate, the name of which escapes me right now. I think it was Dragon’s Hair or something.

Four or five ultimate weapons are actually in the final area, but before the point of no return, so I’ll probably head there soon to get them. There’s also another optional boss there, Hades, which opens up a special Synthesis shop if I beat him.

Lastly, I wan’t to learn all the abilities on each character and boost their special attacks to the max. Not all of them have these attacks, but what I’m referring to are Zidane’s Thievery, which is maxed out by stealing, Quina’s Frog Drop, for which I need to catch a total of 100 frogs, and Freya’s random skill the name of which I forgot again. I must subconsciously dislike Freya or something. Consciously, I like her and her abilities very much.

Speaking of abilities, most of my characters already have most of theirs. I just need to figure out which ones I’m missing and which items I need to get those.

Overall, Final Fantasy IX has no shortage of side quests, and most of them are really fun to do.

Final Fantasy IX [24] – Training on Grand Dragons

December 20, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

Again, due to work, Final Fantasy IX has been played extremely sporadically over the last few days, with not much of note happening in the game.

Before I get to the final area and complete the game, I’d like to get the ultimate weapons for all of my characters, possibly gather all the Stellazio (or is it Stelazios?), train up a bit and learn all the abilities. Additionally, I wouldn’t mind killing the optional boss, which I never even saw as a kid, for some reason.

In order to do all that, I need lots of money, which means I need to kill enemies. At first, I thought I could get money by buying the several key items at the Treno auction house and then sell them at a profit to various NPC, but after trying that for a while, I concluded it would be just as fast, or almost just as fast to get the money through fighting, and that way, I also get experience and ability points.

I forgot to take pictures, so here’s a random moogle letter, kupo!

I’m still not using guides, but I think I will become necessary very soon, at least so I can get the ultimate weapons and the stellazios in a reasonable amount of time. I’ve already tried going for Zidane’s ultimate weapon, because I distinctly remembered it’s underwater at the place where the entrance to Terra used to be, but I used several death peppers with Choco and I couldn’t find it. Either I’m missing something, or it needs to be a very specific spot.

What I’m doing now is training on grand dragons around Daguerreo. I’ve equipped my party with Thunder resistance and absorption gear and enabled the Antibody and Auto-Regen abilities, so I don’t even have to heal while killing them. Since their health is pretty low, a single Shock! by Steiner and a regular attack by Zidane are usually enough to take care of them. The only annoyance is the appearance of the black cat enemy, which gives almost no experience at all. Still, at least I get some money, so it’s not a complete waste of time.

The Witcher [22] – Still in Chapter IV

December 17, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

I finally went to explore the southern fields today.

It was mostly an empty area, with an abandoned mill I couldn’t get into at the center, an abandoned farm to the east and a hermit’s hut to the south. The hermit was probably the most important person there. He asked me to kill some wraiths at a druidic circle nearby, which were being summoned by the Spirit of the Hunt, which is some entity I already encountered once, at the outskirts of Vizima. There was a lot of wraiths, so I nearly died a couple of times, but thanks to the King and Queen bombs I had, I managed to get away in time and heal. Eventually, I cleared all of them and the hermit awarded me with my very own house. I have no idea what to do with it, but I have it!

The hermit is my new favorite NPC.

The next day (in game), a whole bunch of stuff happened at once. Somehow, Alina, the girl who was getting married, was killed by jealous sister, who was then killed by Alina’s lover. Both sisters got turned into wraiths because of it. I told the groom what happened and was asked to get rid of the wraiths. Alina was dealt with immediately, but now I have to find some magical mirror to get rid of the other sister.He also told me a bunch of stuff about the Holy Grail. I’m not sure if there’s a quest in there, but for now, it just seems to be lore related. Other than that, I’ve spent a bunch of money to buy books from him and also gained some money by playing dice poker with him. Overall, the hermit was worth close to two levels for me.

Other than that, I’ve been killing devourers and the fish people, including two named monsters who were each worth 800 oren. I also got the quest to somehow negotiate peace between the village and the fish people, so I’ve been doing that to. Other than that, not much happened.

I wonder if it’s possible to play as a mage.

Chapter IV is a bit longer than I thought it would be, but it’s looking like I’m getting close to the end of it, so it still might be shorter than the previous chapter.On the character building part, I got to level 29 and learned all the bronze combat talents I was interested in. I’ve also acquired all the bronze talents for Yrden and Aard and will soon max Igni to. As for the primary attributes, those have been mostly maxed a long time ago. I’m also one level away from my next rank.

Final Fantasy IX [23] – Disc 4

December 16, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

I’ve played in extremely short sessions over the past week, so I decided to do another summary instead of spreading it over a bunch of short reports.

Ipsen’s Castle reminds me of Castlevania.

Ipsen’s castle was cleared without much difficulty, apart from the mechanic which is only on issue to figure out on your first play through. You see, Ipsen’s Castle handles weapons in a very special way. The weapons each character starts with do the most damage here, and the stronger your weapon gets in the rest of the game, the weaker it is in the castle.

Since I remembered this mechanic very well from my play through as a kid, I kept all of my weapons from the start. In fact, at this point, I’m pretty sure I haven’t sold any piece of equipment yet. The regular route a player usually takes is to gradually pick up all the starter weapons within the castle, but for me, there was very little difficulty right from the start.

So I cleared the castle and found the instructions on how to get to Terra. There were four shrines in Gaia, each protected by a guardian from Terra. I had to split my party into four teams of two and defeat all the guardians at the same time. This was actually completely automatic. I had no control over party division and I only had to fight one battle, against the earth guardian, with Zidane and Quina. Thanks to Auto-Float, the guardian’s strongest attack couldn’t hurt me, so the fight was a breeze.

As usual, Zidane got stuck with Quina.

After this, I took a bit of a detour and decided to get some items and blue magics before going to Terra, since the world will be changing when I come back. I’ve spent maybe an hour or two in total, training, learning blue spells and just exploring the world, before finally going to Terra.

Terra is basically the final area before the final area. There isn’t much to do there, but the story really takes a jump at this point. It’s revealed that Terra was destroyed and now an android made by the Terrans, Garland, wants to basically destroy Gaia to restore Terra. It’s also revealed that Zidane is one of the Genomes, which are basically advanced versions of the Black Mages, created by Garland instead of Kuja. Kuja is one to, but he rebelled and is now trying to defeat Garland and take over.

All of these revelations are followed by a short section where Zidane finally gets to act like a typical Final Fantasy protagonist – overly emotional, depressed and socially inept. It only lasts for a short while, though and then Zidane is back to his old, awesome self. Not to forget, the whole thing is accompanied by one of the best pieces of music in the series – You Are Not Alone.

You are not alone…

This was then followed by a short trek through a dungeon, where I actually missed a few items because I didn’t feel like backtracking. Finally, I got to the moogle and saved, because three boss battles with no breaks in between followed.

Apparently, I’m really, REALLY overpowered, because none of the battles even made a dent in me. The silver dragon was first and Zidane didn’t even manage to steal all of his items, even though Steiner was the only one attacking. Steiner, thanks to his Ragnarok, is actually doing 9999 points of damage with his Shock skill. There really is no need for anyone else to attack with those numbers. Garland was next and he fell just as fast, followed by Kuja. The fight against Kuja was one of those unwinnable fights JRPGs love to throw at you, but before the “I’m so strong I’m gonna knock all of you out with one move” sequence, he didn’t give me any trouble either.

Kuja just has too much ego.

Finally it was over, I got the airship Invincible and I got back to Gaia, with the Genomes on board. They get dropped off at the black mage village, what with being related and all, and I was now ready to get to the final area and complete the game.

Well, I could do that, or I could get all the ultimate gear, skills, etc.

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