Category: PlayStation

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back – 100% Completed

January 5, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

As I promised, today, after about 15 years, I can finally say I’ve accomplished all the goals in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. It took me a few days of persistence and it probably did some damage to my nerves, but I did it.

The most difficult level? I’m surprised to say it was Un-Bearable. It contained the last clear gem I got and I found what I needed to do by pure accident. I kept missing about 20 boxes at the end of the level and I was sure I didn’t miss any forking paths or anything of the sort. On one of my many attempts, it just so happened that, on the point where the big bear falls through the wooden planks,very few of the planks got broken. At that point, I was sure I had to now jump over the gap and go back to find some hidden passage.

That save slot looks so nice I’d like to frame it and put it on my wall.

I failed to jump over, but I managed to fall in. THAT was the secret passage. You actually have to jump into the hole. About ten lives later, I managed to get through it to, and even found the two sneakily hidden extra life crates at the only checkpoint in the area. Finally, I got the last gem.

My reward? An extra ending scene where Coco, Crash and Nitrus Brio use a cannon powered by all the gems to destroy the Cortex Vortex. Well, I got that, a nice “100 %” on my save slot image, and the satisfaction of completely clearing one of my most fondly remembered games.

I’ve 100% cleared Crash Bandicoot 2 and all I got was this scene.

What now? I’ll move on to another one. I also might write up a short guide on all the gems,or at least on how to get those I personally found the most difficult to find or get.

Crash Bandicoot 2 – Cortex Strikes Back, Completed!

December 31, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

Well, it’s the last day of the year and I managed to squeeze in one more game before it’s over. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is completed.

I’m not done with the game, though. Even though I beat the last boss and gathered all the crystals, I still have loads of gems to collect. Luckily, the game gives a convenient “percentage completed” statistic, which now tells me I’m at 73% overall. I was in the higher sixties when I beat the last boss, so I did make some progress towards 100% completion, but it will still take a while. As a kid, I never managed to reach 100%, partially because I was a kid and partially because I didn’t have Internet access so I couldn’t “cheat” my way through by reading guides. I’ll try not to cheat my way through this time as well, but I make no promises. If it gets too dull, or I get stuck, I’ll find a guide.

As I said, I’m at 73%

I love the look and feel of the game. It aged really, really well and the graphics don’t look outdated at all, thanks to a great, timeless style. Most of the levels, I’ve enjoyed, but some of the last few got a bit annoying. The levels which contained bees got a bit tedious towards the end, but by the two most annoying levels were definitely the two where you used a jetpack to fly through a space station – “Rock It” and “Pack Attack“. These two were simply too different compared to the rest of the game. It was disorienting and annoying to play through them. I do get why they exist, though. The last boss uses the same control scheme, so the game had to get me used to it. I’d prefer if Cortex just didn’t use this mechanic, though.

In any case, Neo Cortex was defeated and everything was well and dandy, but as I said, I still have a whole bunch of gems to collect, which I’m guessing will allow me to destroy the Cortex Vortex and beat the third mad scientist, whose name I forgot. As of now, I got close to half of the grey gems, I think; as well as one of the several colored gems. I also managed to find two of the five secret levels.

And what about the Cortex Vortex? It’s still up there.

I’ll make use of the plethora of spare moments on train rides I have to complete the collection. The PSP is a great gadget for stuff like that, and Crash Bandicoot is an excellent series for short sessions. Well, the first three games of the series are.

Crash Bandicoot 2 – Cortex Strikes Back

December 30, 2012 by Nikola·1 Comment

OK, full disclosure here. Sonic wasn’t my Mario, not really. He never stuck around long enough to become my Mario. Crash was actually my Mario. I met him a bit later, but we hung around for a long, long time.

You see, the only mainstream console I owned in my early years was a Genesis (or Mega Drive II over here in Europe). The console was expensive and way above my budget, and so were the games. This is why I only ever owned a single 6 in 1 cartridge and Sonic was the only high-profile platformer I ever got to play on the console. To make things worse, I didn’t even have the console for more than a year. It brook relatively soon and I wasn’t able to fix it.

In the late nineties, though, I got a PlayStation and that one stuck around for a long, long time. The first two games I got were Rascal and ReBoot and both were complete crap, but soon after, I got Crash Bandicoot 2 on a discount. I loved that game and played it to the point of my disc becoming unreadable.

Cortex is the big-headed, comical baddie of the game.

So after completing Final Fantasy IX, I started sorting through my PlayStation backups (legal, I swear) and stumbled upon this one. I really, really intended to play Grandia next, but when I saw Crash, I just felt the urge, so I copied it to my PSP and started it up. It’s still just as fun as it ever was. I played through a big part of it in my very first session, but this time, I’d like to write a bit about something I noticed in the design of the game.

First of all, I should probably say there’s a hidden intro level you can get access to if you decide not to skip the starting sequence. This intro level really shows how a game can teach the player how to play, without using tutorials. The game uses this method mostly abandoned in modern games through its entirety, but the intro level really paints a clear picture. Well, it will be more of a series of pictures, with subtext, but you know what I mean.

How Crash Bandicoot 2 handles tutorials

Your sister, Coco, wants you to go get her a battery. Immediately, you see two crates. One of them should be jumped on, while the other can be smashed from any side, as indicated by their markings. You can figure this out now, but you don’t have to. It’s all OK.

The first two crates.

Next up, you see your first pit, but it isn’t a danger yet. You can fall in, but you can also practice jumping over it. In the background, you can see a crate containing your first protective mask.

The pit and the mask.

Now that you got the mask, you see your first enemy. You might not figure out it can hurt you, but that’s OK, because the mask will save you, once. If the enemy hurts you, you’ll see it’s bad, mask or no mask. In the background, you can see your first surprise crate, which has special goodies – an extra life, in this case.

The first enemy and the first surprise crate.

Here comes the first real pit. This one is obviously way deeper than the last one, so I hope you figured out your jumping by now. Actually, If you haven’t you’re still stuck in your first hole, so it’s all good.

The first real pit.

Wow, this crate bounces me around when I jump on top of it! WOW! This other crate gives fruit if I hit it from the bottom to! Oh, wait, I could’ve hit that other crate from the top to get fruit to. Shame I just destroyed it from the side. Oh well…

The first “up” crate and the second “special” crate.

And that’s it. That was the first intro level and it taught you all the basic mechanics without any explanation, reading, pushing through annoying conversations or anything of the sort. The same thing happens throughout the game. Sure, your main goal is explained to you through the story, but the mechanics are left for you to figure out, with the game designed in a way that subtly guides you into figuring it out.

I’m sad to say that it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen such design. It’s only recently that I started appreciating this, though, mostly thanks to egoraptor, a known youtube gamer and his Sequelitis series, especially the Megaman episode.

In short, Crash is a beautifully designed classic platformer, which I greatly enjoyed as a kid and intend to enjoy just as much now.

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.

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.

Final Fantasy IX [22] – Marathon

December 9, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

This weekend, my Internet was down, meaning there was almost nothing productive I could do. Well, there was something productive. We got snowed in, so I’ve spent a couple of hours yesterday and today shoveling snow. Other than that, I was free to game and free to spend hours playing Final Fantasy IX. Since a lot has happened during this “marathon”, I’ll try to keep it short.

The Story

There was some story building in Alexandria, where Kuja attacks and destroys most of the city with Bahamut, in a battle against Alexander, who gets summoned by Eiko and Dagger. These events do psychological damage to Dagger, which causes her to lose her voice for a period on the story. In the process, a new villain is revealed. His name is Garland and he’s working against Kuja, but that definitely doesn’t make him a friend. Not much is revealed about him, though.

This is the coolest version of Alexander ever.

The party escapes to Lindblum, where Cid develops a plan to track down and defeat Kuja. Before that, there’s a realization the black mages are working for Kuja again, so the group decided to go back to their village and see what’s happening. One of the remaining mages there tells them where Kuja’s base of operations is.

We enter the base, but it’s a trap and the group gets captured. Kuja sends Zidane and three other people to an area on the Forgotten Continent to the west, to get an item. The place has an anti-magic barrier so he can’t get it himself.

While one group is getting the item, the rest of the party manages to escape on their own. Zidane and his group returns and everyone faces Kuja, but in the whole mess of it, Zorn and Thorn managed to kidnap Eiko. They take her to the Lost Continent to the northwest and the group follows them to Esto Gaza.

Oeil Vert was the place for backstory.

From Esto Gaza, they take the route to Mount Gulug, where, just as the group is about to engage with Zorn and Thorn, Mog intervenes and reveals that he’s an eidolon meant to protect Eiko. She saves Eiko and stops the eidolon extraction, but sacrifices herself in the process. Kuja flees, but there’s a positive.

It turns out, Kuja was keeping Cid’s wife prisoner at mount Gulug, so she’s free now. She turns Cid back into a human and is able to tell the group everything about Kuja’s plans. Apparently, there are two worlds. One is Gaia, where everyone is now. The other is Terra and it somehow exists in parallel to Gaia. That’s where Kuja is from. He wants to destroy Gaia and get an incredible amount of power that way, all in order to get rid of Garland.

The plan now is to somehow get to Terra and get more information there. Instructions on how to get there are at a castle on the Forgotten Continent – Ipsen’s Castle.

The Game

Alexandria was mostly storytelling, with a couple of minor side quests mixed in. During the attack, Steiner and Beatrix were kicking some serious but as a team and I definitely loved that part, especially the music, but that was about it. Same goes for Lindblum – lots of interesting story telling, but little actual gameplay.

Before I got to the mage village, I used the ship I now had to train my chocobo more. It took me a couple of hours, but I got him to the point where he was able to climb mountains. Then I got to the mage village and Kuja’s palace, which got finally got me access to the Forgotten Continent. I used my chocobo to explore around for a bit, but eventually entered Oeil Vert and got the item I needed.

The escape part with the other group allowed me to play as Cid for a bit. It was funny, and involved some skill based challenges, as well as a puzzle, but it didn’t take long. The group that was left behind was also behind in levels, so for the first dozen or so random battles, I basically gained levels after every victory.

The more thoroughly you explore the desert palace, the less “enhancing” the boss can do.

When I finally went after Eiko, I was already familiar with Esto Gaza, because I got there a bit earlier, while treasure hunting with Choco. However, the store had much better items this time, including a staff for Vivi, which taught him the *ga spells (Blizzaga, Firaga, Thundaga). Mount Gulug was tough, but I didn’t stay there long, so I managed to get through it without to many issues.

After I finally got everyone back together, I also got the airship, meaning I now had access to most of the world. I got to Daguerrero, which is a sort of a “bonus” city of this game. It contains some puzzles and high level shops, so I made use of that. I also tried to train on the grand dragons in an area nearby, but, although I get a lot of experience, I don’t think the difficulty makes it worth it.

I decided to complete the rest of the chocobo treasure hunting side quest, so the next several hours were devoted to that. I upgraded chocobo all the way and got all the chocograph treasures apart from the one in the middle of the ocean. I hope I’ll stumble into that one eventually, but for now, it seems ridiculously hard to find. In any case, I got some nice items from all of that, as well as access to the optional boss of this game. I won’t even try to defeat him at this point.

Besides digging for treasure, you can also fight a difficult optional boss at the Air Garden.

From my first play through, I remembered there was something important at one of the islands in the center of the map, but I immediately regretted going there. The only enemies there are some extremely dangerous sheep. I’m sure the rewards for beating them are great, but for now, I don’t stand a chance.

In any case, that was about all I did during these two days. It’s a lot, but there’s still a long way to go. For now, I need to go to Ipsen’s Castle.

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