Back to the Basics….

I can still remember the first time I ever played FF9. It was the first time I ever played an FF, so things like turn-based fighting and equipping characters for battle was pretty darn confusing for me. Yeah, I was a total RPG newbie.

I know, I know, FF9 isn’t the hardest FF out there. In fact, it’s pretty easy.

But when you first played the game, were there any parts that you struggled with or needed help with at all?

Once I got past the basic controls, I think just getting used to the abilities and figuring out what protected against what and how certain enemies attacked was my biggest worry.

And I hated Desert Palace!! :eye:

Ozma? lol

Well, I think the area which gave me the greatest frustration was Oelivert and Gulug Volcano (the former because I didn’t have a White Mage in my party, due to the dungeon’s ‘anti-magic field’), and because curative items are so underpowered, I was basically skirting death throughout that dungeon. If I didn’t have Freya’s Reis Wind ability, I would have been dead meat. And trying to steal the Holy Lance from Ark was monotonous too.

Gulug Volcano was irratating because of all the enemies there which like to cast Heat and Freeze on your party, not to mention those bloody Red Dragons. And Garnet’s illness didn’t help either (although I kept her in my party purely because it seemed ‘like the right thing to do.’ Thank god Meltigemmini wasn’t that hard. One Mini spell and it’s a joke.

The World Map i found hard…no wait. That Red Dragon that hangs around Daguerrio (sp) has always given me trouble. It’s almost impossible.

Originally posted by Roukie
The World Map i found hard…no wait. That Red Dragon that hangs around Daguerrio (sp) has always given me trouble. It’s almost impossible.

Those are Grand Dragons sweetie. 😛

Thinking back……waaaay back to the last time I played this (Thought it’s my favorite, I never get to play games anymore)….Yans were the only creatures on the game that gave me a lot of trouble. I always tried to keep my party leveled up pretty good, so battles ususally weren’t difficult. But those always seemed to kick my ass. =P

Game was simple. Grand Dragons are easy and best to lvl off of (lvl 5 death anyone?)

Yans, are tough.

Embarrassing enough Desert Palace was kinda hard too.

I gotta agree about Desert Palace. I never woulda gotten out of there without looking at a walkthrough. BTW, though, as far as the enemies there go: LV5 death! It kills all of them, except for the boss, who’s sucky anyway if you get all the Bloodstones. I have it memorized now though. I used to find Chocobo Hot and Cold hard, then, finally the light went off: at any given time, there’s only one treasure to be found! Yans? Great to level up against, but only if you have a good strategy. Auto-Regen, Auto-Haste, Auto-Life, and instant 9999 attacks for easiest battle. Also, watching your characters to turns and keep track of who’s in Virus/KO to prevent losing the EXP. Grand Dragons? Not tough to kill at all once at higher levels, even without LV5 death. Antibody, armor that protects against thunder or Auto-Regen/Auto-Life. Two hits of 9999 and their dead. I didn’t find the Gulug Volcano too rough, except when I played for the Excalibur II. Then, I absolutely hated it. But otherwise, I think I was already wise to Body Temp by that point, so I just put it on all my characters.

Ozma. Definitely. Also, that castle

SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!

where the trick is to use weak weapons or something 2 that effect. well, i never did figure that out until i had already finished the game. so you can just imagine how hard that was for me. gosh i can be so extra-chromosomish.

where the trick is to use weak weapons or something 2 that effect. well, i never did figure that out until i had already finished the game. so you can just imagine how hard that was for me. gosh i can be so extra-chromosomish.

You never clued in when they gave you crappy weapons in the castle?? Hate to be you.:lol

I didn’t find the Gulug Volcano too rough, except when I played for the Excalibur II.

You actually tried to get excalibur II? I haven’t seen anyone that has gotten it before or seen any screenshots with someone getting excalibur II.

You never clued in when they gave you crappy weapons in the castle?? Hate to be you.
It actually doesn’t really matter too much because the encounter rate the castle is so low and if you do get into battles, you can just escape from them. And magic isn’t affected by it, so you can easily take out the joke castle boss with Vivi’s Blizzarra or Flare and maybe some Sword Magic from Steiner.

You actually tried to get excalibur II?
No, I didn’t try to get Excalibur II, I did get Excalibur II. 🙂

I haven’t seen anyone that has gotten it before or seen any screenshots with someone getting excalibur II.
I’d show you screenshots, except that I don’t have anything that really lets me capture good images from TV. It really is doable, you just need a good guide. The first guide I played with was all right, but not enough to quite make it. Then I found a modified-form version of that guide and with it, I was actually able to do it with time leftover. (And probably coulda had more time if I had really focused to do even better.) Suffice to say, there are a few tricks involved, the main ones being:

– Near the beginning of the game, there’s a way to Synth items and then sell them at double the price to make fast money. That really helps.

– Skipping FMVs, that helps a lot too. And, of course, all optional Active Time Events with only a select couple.

– Leveling against Grand Dragons – Quina’s LV5 Death really helps. It’s a lifesaver in Kuja’s castle.

– The end bosses actually aren’t too hard if you’re using the right strategy.

Other than that, it really helps if you know the game well. It’s helpful to do a run-through just once with the idea in mind that you probably won’t make it, just so you know certain little things to expect so that they won’t throw you off next time. (Which directions to go, which things to avoid doing, so on.)

I never had problems with this game at all..think i only died like twice and I dont see why everyone had trouble with Ozma…..I fought him and killed him first time, very easy:S

Stealing the Fairy Flute from that Orge thing on the Mountain Path (Disk 2 after getting Eiko). It takes me hours to get… But sometimes worth it, especially for Eiko…

Ozma was kinda hard at first then I strategized… Ozma did Curse and guess what… All 4 of my characters went into Trance (on purpose) so they got stronger attacks, got cured of the status ailments, and got fully cured as the time of the transformations from character into Trance was long enough for Auto-Regen to work all the way… 🙂

.

I like Trance better than the limit break systems of FF7 and 8, (it removes status effects when your chars enter it, does not require you to be relly low in health to use, and the trance meter thing does not go to zero if you get KO on that char…) and I thought the way they got their abilities from eq was neat, it gave a little bit more to the collecting of better stuff that just the effect of making your characters better.

The thing which REALLY annoyed me about the Trance system is that, each time my character decided that it would enter trance, one of the others would invariably end the battle before that character could do anything, thus nullifying ALL that time it took to charge up the Trance meter and making it redundant. That really got on my nerves. REALLY.

**SPOILERS***

The only truly tough things I found were the Desert Palace, because I had sent all my non-Mage characters to the other place, and so had only Quina causing any physical damage in my party. And Quina and I don’t get on well. At all.

The other thing was levelling up my party high enough so that Kuja, and later Necron, didn’t eat them alive. Apart from that, I enjoyed the game.

But Quina is your best asset in the Desert Palace because LV5 Death kills everything there except the final boss. Anyway:

Does anything special happen when you get Excalibur II?
Nope. No fireworks, nothing. Just a short, kinda funny note and then you get the sword.

Yeah, it took me a while to fully understand the equipping of weapons and skills in FF9 but it’s pretty basic really. Apart from that FF9 was fairly easy-going but there were a couple of bosses that I have some trouble with.