______ __ __ _ __ __ | ___| | | | \ | | / \ | | | | | | | \ | | / \ | | | |__ | | | \ | | / /\ \ | | | __| | | | \| | / /__\ \ | | | | | | | |\ | | __ | | | | | | | | | \ | | | | | | |_____ |__| |__| |__| \__| |__| |__| |________| ______ __ _ _ _________ __ _____ ___ ___ | ___| / \ | \ | | |___ ___| / \ / _ \ \ \ / / | | / \ | \ | | | | / \ / / \__\ \ \/ / | |__ / /\ \ | \ | | | | / /\ \ \ \___ \ / | __| / /__\ \ | \| | | | / /__\ \ \____ \ \ / | | | __ | | |\ | | | | __ | ___ \ \ | | | | | | | | | | \ | | | | | | | \ \_/ / | | |__| |__| |__| |__| \_| |_| |__| |__| \_____/ |__| __ __ ___ | | \ \ / / | | \ \ / / | | \ \/ / | | / / | | / /\ \ | | / / \ \ |__| /__/ \__\ Final Fantasy IX FAQ/Walkthrough Version 2.0 Copyright 2003 RichardB Email: Gbness@aol.com ======================================================================= -<------------------------------------------------------------------->- CHAPTER ONE: The Old Boring Stuff -<------------------------------------------------------------------->- ======================================================================= ****************** 1. Version History ****************** I might update this Final Fantasy IX guide, so here is the version history of it. ======================================================================== Version 2.0: Holy! Didn't know that I had left out so much stuff in this guide, like all the lists and stuff. I updated quite a bit of the guide, so I am quite good to go. Yes, and for that reason the guide must be Version 2.0. ======================================================================== ======================================================================== Version 1.0: I took out some stuff that I found in my FAQ that I have _no idea_ how it got there, and I also did jump roping and the auction house in the guide due to some e-mails. Well then, no more updates again for a while. Also, I decided I might as well make it 1.0. ======================================================================== ======================================================================== Version 0.82: Certain things like, say... the abilities updated. The monster list was also updated, and I'm adding a list of attacks and comments to it, so I am quite pleased with this update. Hooray. Still, it'll be a while before I finish the monster list. ======================================================================== ======================================================================== Version 0.8: This is the original version of the Final Fantasy IX guide, and the walkthrough is totally complete. However, some stuff will have to be adjusted in the future and a bit of it needs a little completion, but it's okay now I guess. ======================================================================== ******************** 2. Table of Contents ******************** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHAPTER ONE: The Old Boring Stuff 1. Version History 2. Table of Contents 3. Introduction 4. Legal Disclaimer 5. E-Mail Rules 6. IM Rules CHAPTER TWO: Characters 1. Zidane Tribal 2. Vivi Orunitia 3. Garnet Til Alexandros 4. Adelbert Steiner 5. Freya Crescent 6. Quina Quen 7. Eiko Carol 8. Amarant Coral CHAPTER THREE: Basics: Read Before Playing 1. Stats 2. Trance 3. Ability System 4. Status Effects 5. Elements 6. Tips CHAPTER FOUR: Walkthrough: Disc 1 1. Theater Ship 2. Alexandria 3. Evil Forest 4. Ice Cavern 5. Dali 6. Lindblum 7. Gizamaluke's Grotto 8. Burmecia CHAPTER FIVE: Walkthrough: Disc 2 9. Summit Station 10. Treno 11. Gargan Roo 12. Cleyra 13. Red Rose 14. Alexandria Castle 15. Pinnacle Rocks 16. Fossil Roo 17. Conde Petie 18. Black Mage Village 19. Conde Petie 20. Madain Sari 21. Iifa Tree 22. Madain Sari 23. Iifa Tree CHAPTER SIX: Walkthrough: Disc 3 24. Alexandria 25. Treno 26. Alexandria 27. Lindblum 28. Black Mage Village 29. Oeilvert 30. Desert Palace 31. Esto Gaza 32. Mount Gulug 33. Lindblum 34. Alexandria 35. Daguerreo 36. Ipsen's Castle 37. Earth Shrine 38. Terra 39. Bran Bal 40. Pandemonium CHAPTER SEVEN: Walkthrough: Disc 4 41. Black Mage Village 42. Memoria 43. Crystal World CHAPTER EIGHT: Side Quests/Mini Games 1. Chocobos 2. Stellazio 3. Coffee 4. Skipping Rope 5. Racing 6. Class S Rank 7. Friendly Monsters 8. Sword Fight 9. Ragtime Mouse 10. Excaliburs 11. Tetra Master 12. Frog Catching 13. Codes/Secrets 14. Mognet 15. Auction House CHAPTER NINE: Equipment 1. Weapons 2. Armor 3. Helmets 4. Armgear 5. Add Ons CHAPTER TEN: Bosses/Enemies 1. Bosses 2. Optional Bosses 3. Enemies CHAPTER ELEVEN: Abilities 1. Zidane 2. Vivi 3. Dagger 4. Steiner 5. Freya 6. Quina 7. Eiko 8. Amarant CHAPTER TWELVE: Shops/Items 1. Shops 2. Items CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Closing 1. Outro 2. Credits ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *************** 3. Introduction *************** Hello! Welcome to my newest, latest, and very greatest guide, my Final Fantasy IX guide! It's Gbness back again, and he's here for his fourteenth FAQ. I've recently worked for Mega Man Legends 2 and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, so I decided to get in something that might make me more respectable and is a little more fun to do. Then I looked over my PS1 collection and knew I'd have to do Final Fantasy IX. A great game, this game is! Seriously, if you do not own this game I will strongly recommend that you pick this title up. Trust me you will not regret it, it's one of PS's great achievements! I love FFIX quite a lot, and I chose to write a guide for it because many people have problems with it, even though I personally find it a rather easy game. Final Fantasy IX is the ninth installment in the popular Final Fantasy series by Squaresoft, and it is arguably the best game yet in the series. I do not enjoy it quite as much as I love the awesome Final Fantasy X (whoosh, I shiver just at the meer mention of that game), but this is still a fantastic title in the series, and definitely worthy of the Final Fantasy name. Having been annoyed by Final Fantasy VIII and finding Final Fantasy VII a little overrated, I am not disappointed by this game in the slightest! Anyway, excuse my rather poor format, and you can use this guide and really guide yourself through Final Fantasy IX. I'll explain a little bit about how this guide will go around. The characters section will explain the characters' personalities, their usefulness in battle, a rundown of their stats, and their Trance modes. The game basics chapter will teach you the elements, status effects, the ability system, and nonsense like that. And then since there are four huge discs that make up this game, the walkthrough is split up into four chapters. Each will detail the guide as well as I can manage. The side quests and mini games part will introduce all of the optional stuff and secrets in the game, then there's the equipment list which will show you to everything you can wear, and the boss and enemies list will show you to all the bosses if you're too lazy to look in this guide, then the enemies and basically everything that I can detail about them will be listed there. You'll find all the abilities after you find the bestiary. After that, you'll find yourself with a good closing, my friends. This, in case you might be interested, is the first walkthrough that I've written for a game that the classics of GameFAQing have written for. I already honor the works of the extremely intelligent ATadeo, the wonderful GheddonLN, the great Psycho Penguin, and of course Nemesis, for their great contributions to gamers going through this game, so it's my job to stand up to them. I can assure you that you are going to have a great time reading through this guide, and perhaps one day I'll be respected like them. Who knows? Well, anyway, feel free to send me feedback, positive or negative, because I enjoy getting the kind of stuff. I'll add anything that'll need to be added, and I like anyone that gives me some good information, and I'm a friendly guy. So don't hesitate if I miss something important! Thanks in advance. -Rich "Gbness" B. ******************* 4. Legal Disclaimer ******************* You are NOT permitted to put this FAQ on your site without my permission first. All you have to do is email me or IM me saying you want this FAQ on your site, then you can tell me your site and the chance is high that I'll let you. But if you put this FAQ on your site without my permission I swear you will regret it. If I let you, not ONE word should be changed from this FAQ! NOT ONE! Got it? Good. *************** 5. E-Mail Rules *************** I love getting good emails, so you're free to email me with a question any time, but I will not answer questions already answered in this FAQ. I prefer e-mails with good grammar, and subjects with FF9 or I will delete them, sorry. Also, don't send me e-mails about other FFs with a FF9 subject, please. And don't bother sending things like: "You friggin' idiot. Your guides suck, you suck, and everything about you sucks. DIE DIE DIE!" "BURN IN THE FLAMES OF HELL, YOU STUPID RETARD!!!" "What the hell did you think you were doing writing all that garbage, you piece of crap? "I hope you fall down the stairs and break every bone in your body!" "u su><0rz, eVrYtInG BoUt u sUx, dIe ass!!!!!!1" I will laugh at e-mails like that and delete them. *********** 6. IM Rules *********** IM Rules: I also like getting IMs, but don't send them to me too often, or they may be ignored. I am on often, so feel free to IM me, but keep it light. The same rules apply. ======================================================================== -<-------------------------------------------------------------------->- CHAPTER TWO: Characters -<-------------------------------------------------------------------->- ======================================================================== There are eight main characters in the world of Final Fantasy IX. All of them are unique, unlike Final Fantasy VII and VIII, and each of them have their own set of abilities, stats, Trance modes, and all of that stuff. Here's an introduction on all of the eight main characters of the game. **************** 1. Zidane Tribal **************** HP: High MP: Low Strength: High Defense: Medium Magic: Low Mag Defense: Medium Speed: High Quote: You don't need a reason to help people. Zidane Tribal is a thief, and a member of Tantalus. He's the strongest, smartest, and overall best member of Tantalus. He's left Tantalus many times and just come back, but this time he'll decide to leave so he can free Dagger and make out with her. Zidane is really crazy and totally girl obsessed, and an overall very useful character, despite what many people have to say about him. And as he's a thief, he can use thief skills and steal from enemies. In battle, Zidane's an excellent character. His thief skills may not seem like much at first as he can detect an enemy's items, flee, turn the enemy's back around when yours is turned around, do damage when he's got a 7 in his HP, do a status depending on his weapon that the enemy is usually immune to, and sacrifice himself. He doesn't sound too useful, does he? Well, once you get his Thievery skill you've got one of the most powerful skills in the game, and his HP and Strength are high enough to make him super powerful. Zidane has perhaps the best Trance mode in the entire game. His Thief skills are replaced with Dyne skills. Once you reach the higher levels, even the very weakest of his Dyne skills can do the very maximum of 9999 damage, and he has such skills like Grand Lethal that even at some of the lowest of levels can do up to 6000-7000 damage. His Trance mode is one that you will want to use in some of the toughest fights. **************** 2. Vivi Orunitia **************** HP: Low MP: High Strength: Low Defense: Medium Magic: High Mag Defense: High Speed: Low Quote: How do you prove that you exist? Maybe we don't exist... Vivi is one of the most important characters in the game, and he's your typical moody little kid personality: shy, quiet, cute, and lovable. The storyline mainly focuses upon him, and he is a black mage. This makes life difficult for him as he sees his own type controlled, and what his type are like once they're controlled. Although he's very quiet and cowardly at the start, he will show great courage and bravery as the story progresses. At the early part of the game, Vivi is a highly useful character. I mean, his black magic simply owns. His magic defense and magic power are very high and he'll basically be your savior. Such spells like Fira will just guide you through the game, but that's at the start. When the game goes on, he becomes weaker and much less useful. His final spell Doomsday is not useful at all and he's weaker than he will appear at first sight. Still, he's an average character. Vivi has an excellent Trance mode, at the early or late parts of the game and 100% of the time this is a cool and pretty powerful Trance mode. Black Magic is replaced with Dbl. Blk, and as the name applies he can cast two black magic spells simultaneously. This, just like himself, will get less and less useful as time goes by, mainly due to the fact that his magic isn't too great in the end and that it takes up double MP. ******************* 3. Adelbert Steiner ******************* HP: High MP: Low Strength: High Defense: High Magic: Low Mag Defense: Low Speed: Low Quote: Having sworn fealty, must I spend my life in servitude? Adelbert Steiner might just have the worst personality ever to come out of a Final Fantasy game, which explains why a lot of people hate this man's guts. Steiner is very overprotective of Garnet, and he cannot stand to let her go anywhere without him, which drives him crazy and makes him super annoying. He is also covered head to toe in dirty, rusty armor. Although he despises Zidane at the beginning, the two become loyal friends later. He's a character you will probably dislike a lot. Steiner's main purpose in battle is to use his incredible physical attacks. Of all the characters in the game, Steiner has the strongest physical attack and highest HP. His defense, due to his filthy but still mighty armor, is also fantastic, which makes for a great physical character. Still, Steiner lacks any skills except Attack and Item (which everyone has), and Sword Arts. While his Sword Arts are almighty, it's disappointing those are his only skills. He can however use Sword Magic if Vivi is in the party, so that evens it out a little bit. The only main character in the game not to have a Trance mode, Steiner just gets his and gets no extra skills. (None to fill in that empty spot of his, darn it.) Still, it's not a total loss. His Trance mode is arguably the strongest attack in the game in early parts. His sword becomes so powerful that it can kill most enemies and even some bosses in one hit. So don't think that no real Trance makes Steiner useless! Build up his strength and you'll see four 9's of HP get taken away from enemies. ************************ 4. Garnet Til Alexandros ************************ HP: Low MP: High Strength: Low Defense: Low Magic: High Mag Defense: High Speed: Medium Quote: Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself. Garnet is one of the main characters in the game, and early in the game she is very naive and her mother has been acting very oddly for quite a while. She is one of the most emotional characters in the game and even though she seems annoyed by Zidane at first, she really loves him and the two are true friends until the very end of the story. A little later, Garnet will change her name to Dagger, so I will refer to her as Dagger from here on. In battle, Dagger has two main abilities: Summon and White Magic. Her summons are ultimately powerful, although at the start of the game you cannot summon any eidolons. Well, you can. But that's only if you over level to hell. The least MP that a summon costs at that time is 96, and you get that much at around Level 15 or so. Early in the game, Dagger is nothing but a healer. However, around Disc 3 all her eidolons can be put to good use for cheap MP. Dagger has perhaps the weirdest Trance mode in the entire game. This Trance mode is plain useless in the beginning of the game because you cannot summon any eidolons, but later it will be terrific. After she summons an eidolon, she will randomly summon that same eidolon (slightly weaker), on future turns. Her Trance mode is useful enough for my taste, I guess. ***************** 5. Freya Crescent ***************** HP: Medium MP: Medium Strength: Medium Defense: Medium Magic: Medium Mag Defense: Medium Speed: Medium Quote: To be forgotten is worse than death. Freya is a young woman Zidane used to know. He meets her again in Lindblum, and then she's basically with him for the rest of the game besides an incident on Disc 2. Eventually a wounded Burmecian soldier makes his way up to Lindblum saying that Burmecia is being attacked, and since Burmecia is Freya's home town, she has to go there to help out. Zidane, being the loyal person he is, goes with her and she joins. She is also seeking her lost love, Sir Fratley. Now right now you're probably gawking at her stats up there saying how they're all at "Medium", meaning that Freya would be an average character at best. This is far from the truth. Freya is an extremely useful character for the wonderful skills that she has, like Jump. She won't be attacked while in the air (although she can't be healed there either), but she has such skills like Dragon's Crest that make her beyond useful. Trance mode for Freya is pretty weak and perhaps the most useless in the game. Fortunately though, Trance in not very important for Freya. In Trance mode, Freya can jump and stay in the air slightly longer, and when she lands she'll hurt all of the enemies. But there's one thing I've never quite been able to understand: when she lands she doesn't do much damage at all! Sometimes she does a lot more than the last time, but almost never as much as usual. It's truly a pity. ************* 6. Quina Quen ************* HP: Medium MP: High Strength: High Defense: Low Magic: Medium Mag Defense: Medium Speed: Low Quote: I do what I want! You have problem? This may very well be the most interesting and strange character that SquareSoft has ever thought up. Quina Quen is part of a race called Qu, and for heaven's sakes we don't know what age or gender it is (although I personally think that Quina is a male.) In Qu Marsh, Zidane meets Quina and he joins to be broaden his horizons and find more food. He also loves eating frogs and is a blue mage. One of his most special blue magic spells becomes stronger with more frogs. In battle, Quina is quite underrated and he is actually quite a useful character. While many agree that his Blue magic sucks, it is actually quite useful. Frog Drop and Limit Glove can do 9999 damage. His physical attack though, is a bit strange. It is rather powerful, but there is something very weird about it because it does random damage. Sometimes with the Bistro Fork (my experiment), it did about 70 damage and sometimes it did more like 2000. So be prepared for a weird character. Tying with Freya, Quina has one of the worst Trance modes in the game. Regularly, Quina can eat enemies when they're at about 1/8 of their HP. In Trance, Quina goes to 1/4 of their HP and at that point Eat is replaced with Cook. Quina's Trance gauge also fills rather slowly so he'll basically never get to use this ability in a real situation where you'd actually need to use it. However, don't just judge Quina by the useless Trance. ************* 7. Eiko Carol ************* HP: Low MP: High Strength: Low Defense: Low Magic: High Mag Defense: High Speed: Medium Quote: I don't wanna be alone anymore... Eiko is a 6 year old little girl who lives in the town of Madain Sari. That summoners' town is a big mess, but she lives with tons of moogles. Her parents and grandparents died when she was very little, so she is just on her own now. She has a horn of some kind, and can even summon eidolons. Inside her skirt, her little sister Mog lives. The two are very good friends. Eiko also seems to have some relationship to Dagger in some way. Whether Eiko is better or worse than Dagger I cannot say. However, there are a lot of weaker spots about Eiko compared to Dagger. She has less HP, Strength, Defense, and summons (4 to Dagger's 8), and summons are a bit weaker. Still, Dagger is the summoner! Eiko is basically your white mage, so in times of trouble where you need to heal, Eiko is there for you with powerful White Magic. She can also use Holy, one of the most powerful attacks in the whole game. She's a medium character I guess. Eiko's Trance mode is very similar to Vivi's and it totally fits in with the fact she is a white mage and makes her an even stronger white mage. It's not as good as Vivi's or Dagger's Trance modes, but it's still fairly good. Eiko can use two white magic spells in a row, so in a case where you need immediate healing on your whole party, two Cura or Curaga spells can heal it completely with ease. Still, her Trance mode comes up often and it's not as useful as it sounds. Not to mention that it's double the MP too! STOP THE TOTAL RIPS, SQUARE! **************** 8. Amarant Coral **************** HP: High MP: Medium Strength: High Defense: Medium Magic: Medium Mag Defense: Medium Speed: High Quote: The only dependable thing about the future is uncertainty. Amarant is without a doubt the most alone, selfish, and silent character in the game. Because he's a pretty bad and mad guy, he hardly ever talks except when supposed to. He and Zidane met each other in Treno a long time ago, and Zidane did some pretty nasty stuff on him. Amarant comes back wanting revenge a little later (in Madain Sari), and loses, and just joins to learn more about friendship, although he doesn't show much in the later areas. There's basically not much to complain about in Amarant. His HP is second only to Steiner's, and he's got super speed, which is surprising as for the fact he's a monk. His strength is extremely high and his skills are really good. However, he's one of the four powerhouses who cannot use magic, so basically his magic and magic defense are only average. Still, this doesn't lower his use in battle. Amarant's a great character, period. Amarant might just get Trance mode the least of anyone in the whole game, as for some reason he is rarely attacked and as opposed to me getting Zidane's about 20 times and Vivi's about 18 times, I got Amarant's 3 times in the game. His Flair will be replaced with Elan, and then you might notice that Flair always hits one character/enemy. Elan will hit all of the party members/enemies. It makes a fairly good Trance mode, especially with Chakra on the whole party to save up Ethers! ====================================================================== -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- CHAPTER THREE: Basics: Read Before Playing -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- ====================================================================== Alright, you'll probably know some of the stuff in this section if you've played other RPG's. In fact, nothing except the ability system is really different in Final Fantasy IX than in most other RPG's, but I feel that I should still put every bit of detail I can about the game in this guide. However, there are some new things introduced in the world of Final Fantasy IX, so here we go. ******** 1. Stats ******** HP is the main stat of the game. It is a number to the left of the character's name that determines their health, and without HP you simply cannot fight. If it runs out, you are knocked out and you will have to use a Phoenix Down or a similar item or spell to revive yourself. If all of your characters get knocked out, you get a Game Over. However, at first you might think that since you cannot live without HP, you will probably think it is the most important stat in the game. DEAD WRONG! Defense and magic defense are much more important at many times. However, it's your choice. MP is quite similar to HP and is displayed to the right of HP. It determines how many points they have to use magic. Obviously, each spell in the game has a certain MP value and when you use that spell your MP decreases. If the value is more than your current MP, you cannot use that spell. To regain MP you basically have to use an Ether or a similar item, and they are hard and rare items to find unfortunately. MP can also be used for Trance modes, so I'd say it's a fairly important stat. I still wouldn't pay more attention to it than any other stat in the game however. Speed is in my opinion one of the most important stats in the whole game. It has many uses. For instance, the ATB gauges to the right of your characters fill up quicker with more speed. Zidane also has a skill called Thievery that relies very much upon Speed. With more Speed, the damage that Thievery does goes up. Speed can also be used for some other purposes. I'd recommend with all of the less speedy characters like Vivi, Steiner, and Quina to get weapons that build up their speed because they have lots of powerful attacks that you will definitely want them to use quickly. Strength is what you will basically need if you want to do any damage to your opponents. The higher your Strength is, the more damage you will do to your enemy. It increases as you level up, unlike Attack. Attack just goes up with weapons. Strength is incredibly important if you're a physical attacker, and if you like Zidane, Steiner, Amarant, or Freya in your party, you will want to build this stat up. I would suggest doing so because I personally like to use Strength more than Magic. Don't bother with it if it's Vivi, Dagger, Eiko or possibly Quina though. Vitality is your defense, and if you are facing really strong physical attackers you are going to have to have Vitality. However, I really do not care all that much about Vitality. Since a lot of enemies use magic as opposed to physical attacks, I think that it is more important to build up your nice magic defense and just leave Vitality. However, there are some bosses like Gizamaluke with ultimately powerful physical attacks, and in this case you will want your lower defense characters like Dagger and Vivi (they are not in your party when you fight Gizamaluke), to have high defense. Magic is one of the most important stats in Final Fantasy IX, and basically what it does is increase the magic power of the spells and summons in the game. I wouldn't call it more important than Strength though, because there are more characters in the game with huge physical attacks rather than nice magical attacks. In fact, magic is almost useless to Zidane, Steiner, Amarant, and Freya. They can't use magic of any sort, only skills. However, the summoning of Dagger and Eiko and spells of Vivi and Quina's become extremely nice after this stat is really high. Magic defense is another stat that will probably be quite vital within the world of Final Fantasy IX, and since there are so many enemies who are totally crazy about using spells, Magic Defense will have to be as top-notch as it possibly can. In my opinion, magic defense is more important than Vitality is, but don't make it the most important stat in the game! In some bosses like Gizamaluke who have magic that hits the entire party, you will it to do as little damage as possible, especially with strong physical attacks. Overall you should pay attention to magic defense if you don't want to get crushed. Spirit is a rather mixed bag of what it does. What I mean by that is that it has a lot of different effects on a character. It's sort of like Luck from some previous Final Fantasies, and if you have high spirit, there's a higher chance that Zidane will manage a Steal, it'll make Trance bars fill quicker, it'll have Vivi's status magic spells hit more often, and it'll also do more lucky things for your party. Usually it's best used for the stealing, so I suppose that its best use is when you're trying to steal from someone like Tantarian or Hilgigars. Evasion and magic evasion don't really have much to talk about, so I'll put them in one paragraph. Evasion determines how often you miss an attack the enemy throws at you. I don't really recommend booting this up too much because even at 25% (which is QUITE a lot for evasion), there's only a 1 in 4 chance the enemy will miss. With magic evasion, it doesn't determine normal spells like Fire or Blizzard. It's just spells like Blind or Bio that can miss that matter. Magic evasion goes even less high than evasion does, so there's a small chance of avoiding it. Don't bother with it. ********* 2. Trance ********* Trance is very similar to Limit Breaks from Final Fantasy VII and Overdrives from Final Fantasy X. To the right of the MP, there's a gauge. It fills up as you get hit. Once it reaches its end, the character will turn white and his/her physical power will increase. The character will then get another ability in which they can use. Before difficult battles, you might want to get the Trance bar as filled up as you possibly can. ***************** 3. Ability System ***************** Abilities are learned from equipped weapons. When you have the weapon on, you get AP. When you have enough AP for the ability, you can use the ability without equipping the weapon. There are also a lot of weapons that only certain characters can learn. There are two kinds of abilities in the game. Action Abilities are the abilities you use in battle and fall under lots of categories like Black Magic, White Magic, Skill, etc. These are the more important of the two. Support Abilities are also learned from weapons, but you equip them with your Magic Stones. You get more Magic Stones as you level up. ***************** 4. Status Effects ***************** There are a LOT of status effects to be found in Final Fantasy IX, so you'd best avoid being under any bad status effect and try to use some of the good status effects to your own advantage. These are all of those evil status effects that simply make Final Fantasy IX slightly harder. (In no particular order.) Here's the legend: Name: The name of the status effect, silly! Cancel: Anything you can use to get the effect off. Comments: My comments on the status effect. === BAD === Name: Petrify Cancel: Stona, Soft, Remedy Comments: Having all of your characters under Petrify is very bad, because the game will be over should that happen. What it does is turn the character into stone and they can't do anything. Name: Sleep Cancel: Esuna, Effect expires, Physical attack Comments: If a character is put under sleep, they are inactive in the fight and cannot do anything. More damage will be done to you than normal if you are attacked. Name: Silence Cancel: Esuna, Echo Screen, Remedy Comments: If a character is under Silence, s/he cannot use magic and I'm pretty sure that s/he can't use summons either. This status effect is pretty bad, so get rid of it quickly. Name: Slow Cancel: Dispel, Effect expires Comments: Slow is annoying, but it's nowhere near as bad as Stop is. It halves the speed of your ATB gauge, thus making you twice as slow as you already are. Name: Darkness Cancel: Esuna, Eye Drops, Remedy Comments: Under darkness, the character will have about half the chance of hitting the enemy then he had in the past. Actually, this effect isn't really too bad but you'll want to heal it quickly. Name: Heat Cancel: Ice, Esuna, Effect expires Comments: Under Heat, the character can take no actions. Well, they can, but at a terrible price. If they try, the action fails and the burns knock the character out. Truly horrible. Name: Confuse Cancel: Esuna, Physical attack Comments: Under confusion, the character cannot do anything. He might heal the enemy with anything, heal you with anything, attack anyone in any sort of way, and cannot be controlled period. This is VERY bad and you will want this effect off immediately. Name: Berserk Cancel: Gysahl Greens Comments: Depending on the situation, Berserk can be an advantage or it can be the worst status effect in the game. The character goes nuts and starts attacking with a higher attack power, but out of control. Name: Freeze Cancel: Fire, Esuna, Effect expires Comments: Another one of those motionless status effects. Under freeze, the character can take no action, and if attacked the ice will shatter and the character is gone. Luckily it wears off quickly. Name: Doom Cancel: End battle, KO Comments: As you can see above, once the character is put under Doom you can pretty much see his/her end unless you're quick to finish the battle. A counter appears above the character's head, and once it reaches 0 s/he will die. Name: Gradual Petrify Cancel: Stona, Esuna Comments: Gradual Petrify is similar to Doom, but isn't as nasty in a few ways. If a character is under Gradual Petrify, a counter will appear above the character's head. Once it reaches 0 s/he will die. However, it can cured more easily. Name: Mini Cancel: Esuna, Mini, Remedy Comments: If a character is put under Mini, s/he will shrink and all of his/her stats will decrease, especially attack and defense. This could be the one of the most deadly status effects. Name: Trouble Cancel: Annoyntment Comments: Not very major, but if a character is put under Trouble, then whenever s/he is attacked half of their damage is spread to the other members of the party. Name: Stop Cancel: Dispel, Remedy Comments: One of the worst status effects in the whole game. If a character gets under Stop, s/he cannot move. If the whole party is under Stop, the game is over. Name: Poison Cancel: Antidote, Esuna, Panacea, Remedy, Effect expires Comments: Poison isn't really that bad. If poison is cast on a target, their HP gradually decreases. It wears off eventually and isn't really all that bad. Name: Virus Cancel: Vaccine Comments: Virus means nothing inside battle, but outside of battle is where it is bad. Growth is stunted and the character can gain no EXP or AP. Name: Venom Cancel: Remedy Comments: This status effect is totally evil. The character is strongly poisoned and not only HP but MP decrease, and the character cannot move. The game is over if everyone is effected. Name: KO Cancel: Life, Full-Life, Phoenix Down, Phoenix Pinion Comments: Once a character is put under KO, his/her ATB gauge stops and s/he is put out of commission. If all characters are under KO, the game is over. ==== GOOD ==== Name: Regen Cancel: Dispel, Effect expires Comments: Under Regen, the character will gradually recover their HP. Every turn, they will get 1/16 of it back, so this is a very nice and often helpful status. Name: Protect Cancel: Dispel, Effect expires Comments: When a character is under Protect, the damage that the character takes from physical attacks will be half of what it normally is. Good against physical powerhouses like Hilgigars. Name: Shell Cancel: Dispel, Effect expires Comments: When a character is under Shell, the damage that the character takes from magical attacks will be half of what it normally is, like Protect with physical attacks. Name: Reflect Cancel: Dispel, Effect expires Comments: Reflect is probably the least useful status effect in most cases. When a spell is cast on the character with Reflect on, it is reflected at the enemy. Not all magic can be reflected though. Name: Haste Cancel: Dispel, Effect expires Comments: When under Haste, the character's speed is doubled. In some cases, Haste is the most useful status effect in the entire game, I love it a lot. Name: Float Cancel: Dispel, Effect expires Comments: DEFINITELY the least useful status effect. It floats the character above the ground so they take more wind damage, but less earth damage. Against earth monsters like Hilgigars, it's good. Against enemies with wind powers like Yans... Name: Vanish Cancel: Dispel, Effect expires, Magic Comments: If a character is under Vanish, s/he disappears from the battle and all physical attacks are avoided. Unfortunately it doesn't work with magic and s/he appears when hit with it... Name: Auto-Life Cancel: Dispel, KO recovery Comments: Once a character is put in Auto-Life, s/he can die and be reset a 1 HP. If this is on Quina and he uses his Limit Glove ability, this is wonderful! *********** 5. Elements *********** There are eight elements in the game, and a lot of the enemies in Final Fantasy IX are obsessed with an element. You can learn from these enemies and use their weakness on them or protect yourself from their power. ---- ---- Name Weak ---- ---- Fire Ice Ice Fire Thunder Water Earth Wind Wind Earth Water Thunder Holy Shadow Shadow Holy Now, here's a list of what these elements will likely be effective/ineffective against, and a little more onto the basics of them. FIRE: Effective against ice enemies. Fire is the most basic of all the elements, and the earliest spell Vivi learns. So fortunately, it can be used to some great powers. ICE: Effective against fire enemies, large enemies, and dragon creatures. The second most basic of the eight elements, and it's effective against a LOT of enemies. THUNDER: Usually useful against water creatures and a good deal of machines. The third most basic of the eight elements, and a favorite of quite a lot. EARTH: To our disgust, earth usually isn't that useful to a whole lot of people, due to how it's not very special. On wind enemies on the ground, it's extremely useful. But it misses against flying enemies. WIND: What I don't understand is that Vivi can't cast Aero and Aera, because they're very nice spells when enemies use them... anyway, this is useful against most earth elemental enemies. WATER: Unlike FF10, it's not a core element in this game, but against most thunder elemental enemies and monsters in the desert, water is extremely good. HOLY: This is something that even Vivi cannot use, and only white mages can. Few attacks are holy elemental in Final Fantasy IX, and this is useful against dark enemies and undead monsters. SHADOW: Like Holy elemental attacks, Shadow has very few attacks in its element. The element is very powerful and useful against holy monsters. Too bad there are few of them and it heals the undead... ******* 6. Tips ******* Yes, you might want a bit of help before taking on the gigantic world of Final Fantasy IX. I do know that it's MY advice in which you are probably not going to need, but you'll probably want all the help that you can get. • There's the Trance mode around. Several times in the game, you are going to encounter a lot of enemies that are extremely powerful. In this case, you'll want all the preparation you can get. Since Trance is extremely powerful, there can be no harm in simply using it and blasting your enemies. However, try very hard not to get it before you want to, or you might end up hitting your TV in anger and doing a lot of damage to it. • Basically, there are three ways of tackling the ability system. One - don't bother fighting too many enemies. Only equip weapons with the abilities you need. I don't recommend this as it takes a lot of memory. Two - just learn abilities that you really need. Then just equip some that you have around so you can use them. This is my recommendation. Three - learn every ability from every item you possess. This will make the game too easy, plus it is tedious and time consuming. Choose two, none others. • In battle, there's front and back row, and there's first strike and back attack. If an enemy hits you while your back is turned to them, you can expect to drop and take a whole lot of damage. That's called the back attack. In first strike, the enemy's back is turned to you. Now for rows. In front row, your characters will take a whole lot of damage, but do more damage in return. This is for well defended attackers. In back row, you do less damage but take less. For mages who never attack, put them there. Well done choices will make the game easier. • Having the correct support and action abilities at the right time is a good thing. Before fighting a boss with strong fire attacks for example, equip fire resistant equipment and if the boss has a weakness to ice, be sure to have the strongest ice magic you possibly can to do tons of damage to the enemy. Also, you will want to protect yourself against status effects that enemies use with the proper weapons and support abilities. Use magic stones very well, as you never have nearly as many as you need. • You are going to shortly grow to hate status effects. Avoid them at all costs if possible and against bosses like Meltigemini (who uses Poison and Venom), simply have support abilities that guard against these nasty effects. However, get the right weapons! Shop at every store you go to and get as many weapons as possible. Effects like Poison, Blind, and Silence are not too bad, but Confuse, Berserk, and Mini are dreadful. Heal them at all costs if you possibly can. • Shops are one of the most important parts of the game. Shortly near almost every single shop in the game, there are enemies to fight and they give you Gil. Know what you're buying all the time. Equip the things and have the perfect stuff to use against your enemies and get the proper abilities! If you can't afford it, fight powerful enemies and get Gil. Fear nothing so you'll get all the things you need to lead your way through the game. • Unlike a lot of RPGs, levels are hardly of any importance in Final Fantasy IX. The game can be completed at a mere Level 1 if you try to. As long as you have the right weapons and preparations, you could easily beat the game at Level 15-20. Just with a little wisdom you can get your abilities fixed up well and no enemy can even touch you as long as you can kill them nicely. Final Fantasy IX is not a difficult RPG. • It would be very impressive if you could find a single enemy in the whole game that doesn't have some sort of weakness. A lot of enemies and even some bosses can be affected by status effects, and there are tons of monsters with elemental weaknesses. Also, physical attacks are your king. With skills like Limit Glove in the early game, you can really play wisely and get your opponents to lose against you. Trust me, it will not be very hard to find a way to beat just about any boss in the whole game. • Search everything! Talk to every single person you see, and talk to them more than once. They might be important characters or they might give you something. Also, search every corner of every place. Leave no stone unturned. This guide won't need to help you find every odd and end there, so be sure not to miss out on anything. And pay attention to the stuff that you read or what characters say! You'll need this information in a lot of circumstances. You won't regret it listening to this tip! • Take care of your characters! Don't underestimate bosses because if you aren't spoiling ahead of yourself with this walkthrough you never know that you'll find an enemy or boss that kills everyone if they're at 1-10 HP and you've been too lazy to heal everyone. Also, there's the deal with status effects and weapons. Get them the best abilities you can to make them real strong and make sure that level-wise they don't end up ten levels behind. To see more information on the characters' stats, go to Chapter Two. ====================================================================== -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- CHAPTER FOUR: Walkthrough: Disc 1 ====================================================================== -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- This is literally quite a long game, so also expect this to be quite a long walkthrough as well. Otherwise, simply enjoy the walkthrough while it's here! *************** 1. Theater Ship *************** Enemies: -------- Masked Man (Boss) You'll start the game off in a dark room. Well, it's the starting area of the game anyway. Read the sign to your right to learn a little about the city Lindblum and Tantalus, and then go to the top area. To the left sides, you'll find some Gil. After collecting it, light the candle in the middle of the room. You can then get the chance to name Zidane. His Tantalus pals Cinna, Blank, and Marcus will come in. A man with a mask barges in at that moment and we have to fight him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Masked Man HP: 160 Steal: Wrist, Mage Masher Party: Zidane, Cinna, Marcus, Blank Difficulty: Easy As you've probably already guessed, the masked man is the easiest boss in the game. He can hit on Cinna pretty hard but that's basically all he's got to strut. You'll probably want to have Marcus and Blank attack a little to wear him down a bit, then have Cinna and Zidane steal. He can hardly touch anyone but Cinna. Once you've stolen a good weapon for Zidane called the Mage Masher, all you have to do is hit him a little more and the mask will fall right off his head. That will automatically win the battle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After that fight, everyone will look rather worn out. Baku will call them to the next room. Everyone will automatically go and Baku will explain the mission. It is to play the beautiful play "I Want to Be Your Canary" and then capture the beautiful princess of Alexandria, Garnet. We're then done with that part... ************* 2. Alexandria ************* Enemies: -------- King Leo Steiner We'll see a scene with a dark little boy with yellow eyes on the street. He carries a ticket with him. A little girl will then bump into him and give him his ticket. Be sure to stop in some of the houses around here and pick up cards and such. About halfway around this street, a little rat kid will be running toward you. He'll bump into you and yell at you, and then run away. Just ignore the kid and go forward. You'll see some nobles from the town of Treno talking, and they'll go on. Just head forward to the left. On the next screen, you will see a ticket booth right ahead. Talk to the people here if you want, and then just go to that ticket booth. Once you're there, talk to the guy at the ticket booth. Choose other options to learn more about Princess Garnet, Queen Brahne, and Alexandria. After that, just talk to the guy and ask him to stamp the ticket. Apparently it's a fake. He'll give you three cards and tell you to talk to Alleyway Jack. To the left side of this place, you might find three girls jumping rope. If you want, go ahead and try for it. You can get some awesome cards if you're good enough. For help on this, go to the Mini Games section. Once you're done there, just go to the left. Go down that path, and Dante the Signmaker on the ladder will miss the sign he's trying to hit. He'll scold the pointy hat boy and walk off. You'll then see the rat kid. Tell him what ever you want, and then he'll offer to take you to see the play if you be his slave. Agree and just go on. Down this path, you will be following the rat kid. Go to the end and to the left. Check this circular area for a Tent, and then go to the ladder. A moogle will fall on the pointy hat boy's head. The moogle's name is Kupo. He'll tell you a bit, and then another moogle named Stiltzkin will appear. He'll tell Kupo he's going and then fly off. Before heading up, talk to Kupo. He'll offer you to help with the Mognet Mail Network. Agree and then just go up the ladder. On the rooftops, the pointy hat boy will slowly walk across them. Just cross it and get further for a rather funny scene, and then the rat kid will stop and ask the boy for his name. His default name is Vivi. The rat kid will introduce himself as Puck. After that, just go. You can walk across one of the lower logs and cross the rooftops for some Gil if you want, but otherwise just go to where the rat kid is and go on. After he lays the ladder down, Vivi will automatically cross and it's time for the play. We will see an FMV. Vivi and Puck will run to the play and get there just in time. The screen will turn to Garnet, who does not look happy in the slightest. Steiner glances at her while carrying his sword, and the play begins. Baku (playing King Leo), introduces the play, and then Zidane, Cinna, and Blank do their parts. As it is part of the play, the four will have to have a fight with Baku/King Leo and his two assistants. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: King Leo HP: 188 Steal: N/A Party: Zidane, Cinna, Marcus, Blank Difficulty: Easy As the battle starts, you'll notice that for everyone, Steal is replaced with SFX. You might just want to use these awesome looking spells and find they do 0 damage. Well, to tell you the truth, SFX (Stage magic) is extremely useless and does absolutely no damage. The three will use this stuff but none of it is any good. Still, that doesn't matter. King Leo can take out Cinna in one hit but does about 10 damage to the others. You do not need to defeat Zenero and Benero to end this battle; all you have to do is waste King Leo to his death. You can probably do that in five attacks at most. Simply do that and the battle will be over. You can't steal in this fight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After that fight, King Leo will walk away in anger and then tell Marcus he hasn't seen the last of him and will return to haunt him. Blank will then tell Zidane some things about if the princess were to marry Prince Scheneider, there would be peace. And now in this play, we'll have to have a sword fight between Zidane and Blank. Please go to the Side Quests/Mini Games section for help on that. After the sword fight is over... In black so we don't see it, Blank and Zidane will beat up two of the Knights of Pluto for their armor and things. Blank will find every bit of problem with his armor and then Zidane will take off his helmet as it smells. After that, Blank will tell you to find Princess Garnet. Head to the next room to your left. Do NOT go up or down or two Alexandrian Soldiers will walk around and you'll waste time. Go up the stairs and you'll find a hooded girl. Pick whatever option you want, but either way she'll run through Zidane and Blank, then disappears. After that, we see two jesters by the names of Zorn and Thorn run around talking to each other, trying to find Queen Brahne. They'll talk a bit and then go to Queen Brahne, and tell her that Garnet left her seat. The captain of the Knights of Pluto and the General Beatrix will argue a little, and then Queen Brahne will order the captain (his name is Steiner), to find Princess Garnet. Looks like we have to do that task then, don't we? Steiner will yell at all of the Knights of Pluto to assemble, but only two appear. They are the ones whom Blank and Zidane mugged, and are half naked. Steiner will shout at them to find Garnet, and they will run off. Now, depending on how you did in the sword fight with Zidane and Blank, you can head back to where Queen Brahne is and get an item depending on how well it was done. Anyway, let's go find Garnet, shall we? There's a little thing we can do inside this large castle. We can try to find all eight Knights of Pluto and the final one right before Garnet will give you an Elixir. Refer to the Mini Games section for that help. Otherwise, just go up from there. If you talk to the soldiers around here, they'll tell you that a girl with a hood was just spotted. I think we all know who that is. After that, head around and go down the stairs, and just go to the south. From there, we'll be outside the castle itself. Go down from there and to your left. Steiner will hear that the play was a big hit and realize that if he doesn't find Garnet soon, he'll be a laughingstock of Beatrix. If you go to the right screen, you will find a Knight of Pluto (who is actually Blank in disguise), guarding a door. Ignore that. Just go to the left from there. We'll find ourselves near a really large tower. Go up all the stairs on this tower, and you'll find the final knight near the top. Talk to him if you've found all the other 7 knights, and he'll give you an Elixir. I'd say do this because Elixirs are always very well worth it. Once you've done so, go further up and Steiner will get worn out. He'll then see Zidane chasing Garnet on one of the opposite towers. He then runs to rescue her. We then see a nice FMV with Zidane and Garnet. The Princess stands on the tower and falls off with a nice smile on her face while doing it. Both Zidane and Steiner freak out at this, and then they see she fell off the tower on purpose. She then goes down and Steiner crashes, getting rid of him. Zidane then lands in a music room, and Garnet lands on top of him. She then runs away. Talk to the musicians if you want, otherwise just go to the right to continue. Garnet will run through a young woman named Ruby, and then the two will argue a little. She'll then run off and Zidane will then appear. Garnet went downstairs, so just go down there. You will be in the room where we began the game in. Zidane and Garnet will talk a little, and she will tell Zidane that she wants to be kidnapped. Cinna appears and then the two run off to the room to the right. Steiner enters in fury mode, and then Blank (in Pluto knight disguise) will appear. Zidane, Garnet, and Cinna will reach a dead end. Cinna however has something worked up for this. He will get a hole to escape in, and they get away. We then get a humorous scene when Steiner runs in and sees the hole. Blank jumps in first, but he pretends to get trapped there. Steiner then gets so mad that he runs away. Blank laughs at his victory, and then we return to where we were with Zidane, Garnet, and Cinna. The three then jump into an engine room. Zidane compliments how athletic Garnet is, and then they jump down. Zidane automatically goes to the right at the point. Now, we'll see a big wheel in this room. Turn it to the right. Cinna will scold Zidane that if it goes any higher, the ship will be in trouble. He then turns it back. Now turn it to the left. Two treasure chests will drop. Get down to the floor and grab these chests! They contain a Phoenix Down and Phoenix Pinion. When ready, go through the door next to Cinna. You'll then wind up in a small room, and Steiner will appear. Blank as the Pluto Knight also comes in, and Steiner tries to urge Garnet to come. Blank then gives away he's not one of Steiner's knights by telling Garnet that he'll get her out of there. The enraged Steiner sees this fact and gets mad again, then the three say he can leave the princess to them. Guess whom we have to fight next. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Steiner HP: 169 Steal: Leather Hat, Silk Shirt Party: Zidane, Cinna, Blank Difficulty: Easy Steiner is one of the easiest bosses in the entire game. All he can do is attack and his attacks are very weak. You'll want to steal in this fight as well. Steiner's Silk Shirt is well worth stealing and the Leather Hat can be sold for a little bit of money. Now on for Steiner. Unless he hits Cinna, you shouldn't have one worry in this fight. He might be able to knock Cinna out but don't worry about him since he's not permanent. Just hit him a bit more and then he'll use Armor Break on Blank. He will then be distracted by oglops and the fight is over. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After that stupidly easy battle, Blank has released his oglops and they dance all around the room making Steiner furious and distracted. The four run away. Unfortunately, in the next room Zidane, Garnet, and Blank make it up but Steiner smacks Cinna silly and follows them up. And now we finally reach the point where we progress with the play "I Want to Be Your Canary." King Leo steps on stage speaking his evil plan to himself, and then Zidane and Garnet get on stage from the platform below. Marcus and Garnet (who is playing Cornelia), hug each other and then King Leo steps in the way. Marcus tries to stab King Leo but Cornelia blocks him. The sword goes through Garnet/Cornelia and she drops and pretends to be dead. Marcus acts in his pity and Queen Brahne from the crowd starts crying. Then we see Vivi and Puck, who are both watching it. Two of Steiner's knights (Haagen and Weimar), appear and chase Vivi. He falls down and Puck gets mad at him and runs away. We won't see him again until much later. Vivi runs on stage and tries to cast Fire on the two knights who are chasing him, but he misses and hits Garnet. Her white mage robe catches fire and she takes it off. She yells at Steiner to stop following him. Then it's another battle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Steiner II HP: 162 Steal: N/A Party: Zidane, Garnet, Vivi, Marcus Difficulty: Easy Aw, this fight is even easier than the last fight with Steiner was! I admit that he's got Haagen and Weimar with him, but you can defeat them in one hit apiece. In this fight, Steal has been replaced with SFX again. The magic is still useless though. Steiner will not hit Garnet (he occasionally hits her very gently for light damage), so actually you don't even need to win this fight. He will just finish everyone off and let Garnet live, and that's the end, although the game will continue. Have Vivi use Fire on Steiner to reduce his HP a large bit while Marcus and Zidane attack, and Steiner will be defeated for the second time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After that fight, we see yet another spectacular FMV. Queen Brahne fires cannons at the theater ship and Garnet gets really worried. Then, from inside one of the cannons, a bomb in unleashed. The bomb goes on stage right behind Steiner, who has not given up yet. The bomb looks like it is angry but of some use... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Steiner III HP: N/A Steal: N/A Party: Zidane, Garnet, Vivi, Marcus Difficulty: Easy This fight is a bit weirder than the last fight, but it's the easiest of all three of them. This time, you will see a bomb right behind old Steiner's head. Everyone will warn him about it but because he's so stupid, he won't notice it. Also, you might notice in this fight Steiner has no HP. You can do whatever you want with the game; you can get a GameShark and have Garnet summon something for about 2000-3000 damage or you can have Vivi cast Fire for 60-70 damage while having Zidane and Marcus slash away with their strong attack, but Steiner will NOT be defeated. Period. The bomb will swell three times and then blow behind him, so don't worry about anything after that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After Steiner's ass is kicked, the bomb explodes on him, making an extremely beautiful explosion. =P The theater ship took severe damage from Queen Brahne firing the cannons, so it catches fire and crashes in the Evil Forest. Baku, Cinna, and Blank do their duty to get it in shape, but nothing works there. It's crashed in the Evil Forest, where we are going next. ************** 3. Evil Forest ************** Enemies ------- Goblin Fang Dendobrium Plant Spider Prison Cage (Boss) Baku (Boss) Plant Brain (Boss) Now that we are out of that mess, we have to find Garnet. Blank's searching inside the ship, so Zidane gets the dirty work with searching in the forest. Go figure. Just head down and talk to the moogle to the left, and he'll teach you about ATE (Active Time Event) and show you a nice one. After that, just go to your right and proceed into the forest. At the beginning of it, there are two enemies: Goblin and Fang. Goblins are very weak creatures and can usually be taken out in one hit. Fangs are a bit stronger in every way, but you can still probably take them out. They each dish out a fair amount of EXP, so I really recommend getting up to Level 3-4 before handling the bosses right up ahead. When you're ready, go on and you'll see Steiner trying to tackle a strong plant. He can't do it. Thus this battle begins... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Prison Cage HP: 513 Steal: Broadsword, Leather Wrist Party: Zidane (3), Steiner (1) Difficulty: Semi-Easy Prison Cage is a rather complex boss but it isn't very difficult. It only has the Left and Right Stem attacks that do some small damage to Zidane or Steiner, but what makes it slightly harder is that it holds Garnet captive. It uses Absorb sometimes and drains HP from Garnet, and when she loses all her HP she dies. (Sort of similar to Rinoa and Adel from Final Fantasy VIII.) After Prison Cage has absorbed HP from Garnet twice, you'll want to heal her immediately. Don't bother trying to steal because you cannot yet. After that, just go ahead and hit the Prison Cage to its death with Steiner's attacks and Zidane's Free Energy. It's not hard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After the fight, the Prison Cage will simply carry Garnet away. Vivi says he tried to do something but couldn't. Poor kid. Steiner will mope about Garnet's being taken away, but then suddenly the Prison Cage returns and takes Vivi as its new captive. Oh brother, we have to fight the Prison Cage again? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Prison Cage II HP: 533 Steal: Broadsword, Leather Wrist Party: Zidane (3) Steiner (1) Difficulty: Easy The Prison Cage isn't finished yet, but it's just as easy this time around. Vivi is trapped inside the Prison Cage this time and he's always casting Fire on it. He does about 70-80 damage each he hits it so it won't take long to burn it up. Steiner and Zidane are also always attacking for a good 60 damage or so, but we also must worry a little on Vivi. He's still trapped within the Prison Cage and it will Absorb HP from him just like it did Garnet. We can't let Vivi die. Still, this fight is very simple. Go ahead and steal the two items (you might want to equip the Leather Wrist on Vivi later and sell the extra Broadsword), and then just wear the Prison Cage down with a few attacks at it'll die. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vivi will be rescued well and the Prison Cage will finally die. However, Garnet is still yet to be found. As the Prison Cage dies, it lets out some venom. Steiner and Vivi get really sick and then Zidane apparently has no choice but to bring them to the theater ship to be taken care of.... We'll see Blank taking care of Vivi. He'll tell him what could have happened if he and Zidane hadn't been doing all this. He appears to be healing nicely. After that we see Zenero pushing Steiner into a storage room. Steiner has been poisoned and can hardly do anything. Benero gives him some medicine and then they both lock him into a storage room. Zidane will talk to Baku. He wants to go out into the Evil Forest and rescue Garnet, but Baku won't let him. Zidane yells at him and calls him a big coward. Check the right for Bronze Gloves, and then go back. You'll see Baku look in that direction. If you go back in there you might notice he's gone. Don't mind that. Go down the stairs to the bottom and talk to Blank. He'll tell you to talk to Vivi. He's in the room behind Blank. Go in there and Zidane will compliment Vivi's powers. He'll also promise to find Garnet. Get the treasure chest on the upper side of the room and leave. When you leave, Zidane will start thinking and he wishes that he didn't make that promise to Vivi because he doesn't know that he can find Garnet. He'll then remember when he met Garnet and how pretty she was, and then he'll decide to save her. Tell Blank your plan, and then he'll tell you to talk to the boss (Baku). Okay, let's just go. Head to the left and you'll find Zenero and Benero guarding the storage room where Steiner is locked up. Just let that be. To the right of them, go down the staircase. From there, go to the right and you will find Baku in a small room. He'll sneeze a little and then tell Zidane's he's going to bust him up. He'll then tell him to get his ass in the cargo room. That was the last room. Go back in there and talk to Baku. We now have to fight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Baku HP: 202 Steal: Hi-Potion, Iron Sword Party: Zidane (3) Difficulty: Easy Baku, being the leader of Tantalus, is actually a real wimp. His attacks only do about 30 damage or so and he trips over his own feet a lot. Add to that you can take him out in three hits or so. First of all, we'll want Zidane to steal a new sword for Steiner and the Hi-Potion, because both of them are worth it. Baku, although he is really weak, is pretty fast. His weak blows will soon start getting high, so don't let Zidane get KO'd. Heal with a Potion when HP drops, and then steal and attack Baku. It'll basically alternate between the two as they've got the same speed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Baku lets Zidane leave and just goes back. Talk to Blank and he'll tell you he unlocked the storage room so he's free to talk to Steiner. Now go back through the door on the left and go to the storage room. Zidane and Steiner will argue a little and then Steiner suggests that it is best to get Vivi to go with them as well, because he's got a lot of power. After doing that, go back into this room and open the treasure chest for an Ether. After doing that, just go south and all the way across the room to talk to Vivi. He'll agree to join. Steiner will also ask to do a special experiment with Vivi's magic to power up his sword. Now that we have our third party member, go back to the cargo room. Instead of heading right, go down. Around there you'll find Blank again. He'll give you a note from Baku, some advice on abilities, and medicine. Zidane then leaves for the Evil Forest. From here, just go the way we went to the Prison Cage in the Evil Forest. (Go down, and turn right.) Now go to where Prison Cage is and head beyond him. Now, just go straight ahead. You'll find Monty the moogle drinking water out of a spring. If your characters are short on HP or MP, drink from the spring to restore HP. You'd best save your game with Monty too. After doing so, go to the right to proceed deeper in the forest. You may find a new enemy called the Dendobrium here. This flower is pretty simple, although it uses Pollen on the party. Try to finish this off quickly with a physical attack and Vivi's Fire spell. Doing so is a good way to build up a little. Try to get Vivi and Steiner to Level 3, where I was at the time. After you pass this area, we'll see a short scene across the water and a deadly looking plant can be seen. We're going to have to fight it soon. After that screen, just go right ahead to the chamber. Keep in mind: right before you enter you'll almost ALWAYS have a random encounter with a Dendobrium! I mean, this is so dang annoying! WE WANT TO FIGHT THE PLANT BRAIN RIGHT NOW, NOT THESE STUPID ANNOYING PLANTS. Head into the chamber after you sadly run into the random encounter. The Plant Brain is right there looking very dangerous, and behind it is Garnet, who has been very badly poisoned. I suppose it's time to fight the master of the forest. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Plant Brain HP: 930 Steal: Eye Drops, Iron Helm Party: Zidane (4), Steiner (3), Vivi (3), Blank (3) Difficulty: Medium The Plant Brain is not very difficult, but it's the toughest boss this far. It's 930 HP will probably discourage you and you'll want to steal the Iron Helm from it which will really slow you down. The Plant Brain can cast Thunder on the entire party and it's got some DARN good physical attacks. Thunder can be quite painful and Plant Brain is rather speedy as well. It can also use Pollen very freely and this is going to be extremely annoying. However, the Plant Brain is vulnerable to Fire. Steiner's Fire Sword with Vivi will do nearly 400 damage and Vivi's Fire will do about 150, so it won't take long to wear down the Plant Brain. Have them do that a bit while Zidane attempts to steal the Iron Helm from it. If Plant Brain gets Blind on everyone, use an Eye Drops or two if you're going to attack physically. After you've done some reasonable damage, Blank will show up. He's ready to fight and he can steal. Have BOTH Blank and Zidane steal until they get the Iron Helm. You won't regret it. After you've got it, you may want to heal a little because the Plant Brain will have probably worn you down a little by now. But once you've done so, just have Steiner use Fire Sword, Vivi use Fire, and Zidane and Blank attack. They do a good 100 damage or so a blow, so Plant Brain will be little more than sacrificial lamb. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After the battle, Steiner will hold Garnet, and Zidane gives her Blank's medicine. Then the Plant Brain's children: the Plant Spiders, appear. They are dangerous and this will be rather fun. All four of them will run. You might want to fight these creatures for fun too, because they give respectable amounts of EXP. Once you're done doing that, just hop from the cliff to the ground. You'll have to fight 2-4 Plant Spiders when you land. After beating them, go ahead and Zidane and Blank will talk a little. Then more Plant Spiders come! We see a wonderful FMV where the four run from all of these nasty Plant Spiders. Everyone is managing to run very well... except Blank. We see some spiders turning the forest into stone behind them, and then they grab Blank. Before Blank is gone, he tosses them a world map. Zidane grabs it and he, Vivi, and Steiner roll out of the forest. We then see the forest, and Blank, who is now nothing more than stone. Zidane will punch on the stone, but Blank is gone now. He, Vivi, Steiner, and Garnet will sit by a fire for the night, and then Zidane and Steiner argue some. Garnet thanks Zidane and Vivi for helping her. For the night, Steiner guards the Evil Forest making sure that no harm befalls Garnet, and then everyone goes to sleep. Upon waking up, Monty appears. He decides to give you a little lesson from the veteran Mogster. Learn from him a little if you want, but after that you will leave. Zidane suggests to go to a cavern to the south. World Map --------- We are now on the world map for the first time. Right to the south is the Ice Cavern, but let's not head there yet. Go there, but don't enter. To the far east of it, you can find an entrance to the South Gate. A woman there can sell you some Potions. You will want to use these for building up. Wander around the world map mindlessly and get EXP to build everyone up, but when you're ready go to the Ice Cavern and let's get a move on. ************* 4. Ice Cavern ************* Enemies: -------- Fang Wyerd Cave Imp Flan Black Waltz #1 (Boss) Sealion (Boss) Upon entering, Vivi will explain a little about the cavern. Go further in and Garnet, as the naive girl she is, will examine a crystal. Steiner will yell at her to be careful, and then we take control of Zidane once again. Go up the samll hill and jump right below it and take the tent inside the chest, and then jump back to ground and head beyond that into further depths of this cold, icy cavern. I'll now talk a little about enemies. The Fang can be found in here, which is no big deal. Around the winds, you can find Wyerds. These are the most difficult enemies in the Ice Cavern because they have strong attacks and can switch their HP with a character's HP. Cave Imps cast Sleep a lot which makes them really annoying, but that's all. Flans just cast a little bit of magic but that's the only thing they've got. One Fire spell on all of them eliminates all of them. In this next room, go to your right and inspect the wall. Zidane will suggest that if Vivi were to cast a Fire spell on it, it would break. After Vivi burns it down, check the treasure chest and get an Ether. Get the chest nearby for a Potion and then go to the top of this screen and get out of it. Beware of some of the winds around here as you may end up fighting some of those Wyerds here. Oh my beans! In this room, go to your right and get the treasure chest, and then examine the icicle after getting it. Be very careful as it may be a little tricky. Vivi will hit it with his Fire spell, and you can go down the icicle and get another Mage Masher dagger. Go to the left side of the room from here and burn down the other wall. (It might be a little hard to see.) Get the Elixir inside that chest, and then go to the upper-right side of the room and get out of that area. Go to the top of this room and check the left ice wall. Vivi will burn it down and you can go down this path to get the Leather Wrist in the chest. Keep in mind you'll also have to go through a random encounter due to the stupid wind. Also around this room, you may also notice a Phoenix down, so get that if you want. It always helps to save up. Once you've done that, go up and we'll come to a fork. Head left on the fork, and you'll find an icicle and a moogle inside it. Get Vivi to burn it, and then the moogle will be freed. He'll go into frantics, but then he'll realize what you've done for him. He also lets Mogster teach you a little bit here and there about elements, status effects, and the card game. Now use a Tent, for we are about to fight a boss soon. Go back and head to the right fork. Everyone will pass out, including Zidane. He'll wake up in this storm. Go to the right and we'll find what's causing the storm. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Black Waltz #1 & Sealion HP: 229 (Black Waltz #1), 472 (Sealion) Steal: Silk Shirt, Remedy (Black Waltz #1), Ether, Mythril Dagger (Sealion) Party: Zidane (7) Difficulty: Semi-Easy These two as a pair are rather nasty, but they're not really that bad. Black Waltz #1 uses Fire and Blizzard for about 30 damage each, and the Sealion uses Wing (about 40 damage), and Blizzard (50 damage). When the battle gets further, the Sealion uses Blizzara (80-90 damage), and Tsunami (70-80 damage). Therefore, you could end up dead meat to it because it and Zidane alternate, making it very fast. Plus, you might see it has an Ether and Mythril Dagger to go with it. Sometimes it will take an eternity to be able to steal the Mythril Dagger. If you attack the Sealion, Black Waltz #1 will cast Blizzard on it, healing it. We don't want to go down that road. The Black Waltz #1 really doesn't have anything nice to steal, so you probably don't need to go around stealing from it. Just hit it some for about 90 damage and it will be falling real soon. Undoubtedly in this battle, Zidane will go into Trance mode. Once he reaches Trance mode, you are free to use Free Energy or Tidal Flame. However, you may not want to do to use Tidal Flame unless you have a good amount of HP remaining. With Tidal Flame, Black Waltz #1 will die but Sealion will probably be left. But at the point, it'll be using Tsunami and then Blizzara. If you've been neglecting healing, you could be breaking your TV because Tsunami could wipe you out. With Free Energy, you could try a little trick. You could use it on Sealion for about 350 damage. Black Waltz #1 would cast Blizzard on it for about 160 HP back. That would be about 190 HP lost. That's not enough HP to make it use anything too nasty. You could then use another Free Energy and Sealion would be dead before Black Waltz #1 could heal it. With Sealion out of the way, Black Waltz #1 would be no problem at all. So do whatever you want to do in this battle, but if you're at around 300 HP and are fully healed, use the Tidal Flame strategy and don't worry about the Sealion wiping you out. Still, be sure to heal once your HP drops to 100 or so, just to be safe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Zorn and Thorn will tell you that you defeated #1, but #2 and #3 will reclaim the princess. Zidane will wander back to where the three were, and then that stupid idiot Steiner will shout at him some more. Zidane hides the thing about the Black Waltz, and then the four reunite. Go back to where the Black Waltz was, and this time go to the right and climb all the way. Get all the way to the top and exit the Ice Cavern for good. The four will walk down a small path on the outside, and Zidane will see a village that's familiar to him. (As every village is.) Zidane will tell Garnet that she needs a new identity. Steiner yells at him some more, and then the two start yet another argument. Garnet looks at Zidane's dagger, and chooses to name herself Dagger. Zidane then teaches her how to sound like a regular village girl, and then the four go down. World Map --------- We have a little thing we can do here. Head right north to the village, but before entering go to the grass on the right. Make sure you have an Ore before doing so. Around there a cute little monster will ask you for an Ore. Give it to it and it'll thank you, tell you to tell Mr. Ghost it said hi and give you 10 AP (Zidane's Mythril Dagger's Bandit should get this AP for sure!). Now stop inside the Observatory Mountain to the right. Examine the ship inside and the old man will tell you to get his three favorite coffees. After that, just head into the village. ******* 5. Dali ******* Enemies: -------- Ghost Vice Black Waltz #2 (Boss) Black Waltz #3 (Boss) Vivi will look at a windmill upon entering, and then Zidane will suggest going to the inn. Two kids will then run around. (They mean nothing.) Upon entering, Zidane will find the innkeeper asleep. He'll then wake him up, and then Innkeeper Hal (that's his name) will stare at Vivi and point them to the room. Everyone enters, and then Zidane and Steiner get into another argument. Vivi falls asleep, and then everyone calls it a day. On waking up, Zidane hears a voice singing a very pretty song. It was Dagger. Get the treasure chests in this room and view the ATE's (Vivi being curious of people hating him and Dagger trying to speak properly with an old woman). Go north to the top of this place and you'll find Vivi. Poor kid's a little down. After a small talk with the two, you'll seem some bastard carry him away. Dang it, stupid idiot taking a small, innocent, cute kid like Vivi. After that, we get another ATE, and now it's time to find Dagger. One of the ATE's will show her talking with Shopkeeper Eve at the Item Shop. Head to the shop to the left of the inn and you'll find Dagger looking at some stuff. Zidane will give her some more advice on sounding just like a regular village girl, and then she'll go back to the inn. Buy something from Shopkeeper Eve if you want, but otherwise go back to the inn. Go to the main room and find Dagger there. Zidane and Dagger will chat a little bit and then we'll see Steiner cleaning some stuff in a shop. He obviously wants to find some transportation to get Dagger back to Alexandria Castle. The shopkeeper will tell him to go to the Observatory Mountain and talk to the old man named Mr. Morrid, who owns the cargo ship. That bastard Steiner. Zidane and Dagger will both wonder where Vivi is, and then they decide to go off and look. Head back to where we found Vivi in the first place. Zidane will hear a chocobo and go there. He'll then hear someone crying. He'll check a hole and hear Vivi. He was apparently taken underground, and now Zidane has to find a way there. Dagger fortunately comes along. Now, go down a little bit and head to the left. Check behind the windmill in here and you'll find the Aries. Now check on the lower side of the room for a latch and you'll find a ladder that leads underground. Climb down and find the elevator. Let it take you down and get the 156 Gil below it, and then continue down this tunnel. You'll see (not too clearly though), two men talking about what they've found. They will carry Vivi away and then Dagger will grab Zidane and pull him away. Dagger will tell Zidane that he can't cause trouble yet, but she recognizes the design on the barrel in that room. Go back there and check where those two men were for a treasure chest. Go to the next room and you'll see a barrel with a moogle in it. Save your game here and then examine the wheel here. Collect a Potion and then climb up the crates and check the top one for an Ether. Now jump right back down to the ground and go further on and you'll find some boxes. Zidane will hear something crying from one of them, and then you'll find Vivi. Some scums took the poor kid and stuffed him into a box. Child abuse! Well, now it's time to continue. At the top of this room, there is a door with mist coming out of it. Open it and we'll have to fight some Ghosts. These creatures are very simple, but they use Thunder and Osmose. Be careful. In that room, you'll find three treasure chests. After collecting them, just turn back and go to the bottom of this room and further. Continue down this narrow tunnel, and we'll see something that we really don't see every day... A huge lot of black mages are in this room, and they look exactly like Vivi. At the time, everyone will think they are only dolls. Now, the next scene is really funny! I won't spoil it for you. After that, we'll see Steiner in the Observatory Mountain, talking to the old man Mr. Morrid. Morrid apparently isn't fond of Steiner and will just ignore him. Wait for the old timer to head back to his house, and then enter. After Steiner and Morrid argue a little, Morrid will tell him that the cargo ship is being loaded right now. Get outside of this ship and turn left, and now it's time. Steiner will run towards the cargo ship and we can see some men working. They'll think that the scary guy in armor (Steiner), is running towards them and they'll run away. Steiner will find a familiar looking barrel and then it will shake. Now we have two choices: Observe the barrel more or poke it with a sword. If you observe it the barrel will move some more and collapse on Steiner. If it's poked, Zidane will hop out of it in fury. After another commotion with Steiner and Zidane, a Black Waltz arrives to take Dagger away. It's time to fight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Black Waltz #2 HP: 1,030 Steal: Steepled Hat, Leather Plate Party: Zidane (7), Vivi (7), Dagger (6), Steiner (6) Difficulty: Medium The second Black Waltz is bigger and better than the first one was, and it has some nasty attacks. In this fight, Vivi cannot cast magic. Well, he can, but at a price. The Black Waltz will counter with that same spell on the whole party, and the damage is very deadly. The Black Waltz uses Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder, plus when you've taken about half of its HP off, it'll be Fira, Blizzara, and Thundara. Thankfully, Dagger is with us to use a Cure spell on the whole party. The problem though, is that the Black Waltz #2 is after Dagger, so he won't touch her. If Zidane, Vivi, and Steiner are knocked out, the Black Waltz will wait a few turns and ask Dagger what she's going to do, then he casts Hypnotize on her to put her to sleep, and that's the end of that. Besides doing that, the Black Waltz #2 can use a physical attack called Teleport and rarely (very rarely), it will use Osmose to drain someone's MP. It obviously has more attacks than any boss you've fought thus far. The Black Waltz has some pretty good things to steal, so make sure you have Zidane do that. It isn't too hard to steal from. Vivi should definitely refrain from using magic and should perhaps use a Potion or two if the need arises. Dagger should be on standby at all times to use Cure on the party. Steiner has two things that you might want him to do: If he's really low on HP, have him use Minus Strike. He should have over 300 HP by now and if he reaches 10 or so Minus Strike will do about 300 damage! With Vivi around, he should also use an elemental sword. That will do about 300 damage alone, so the Black Waltz's rather low HP should fall to nothing before a really long amount of time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After that fight, Steiner will run to the cargo ship and Dagger realizes he's trying to take her to Alexandria. Zidane, Dagger, and Vivi run to the cargo ship. We then see a funny scene with Zidane and Dagger climbing up the ladder but Zidane climbs too fast and grabs Dagger's butt, saying "Ooo, soft...". Is that perverted or what? We then see the cargo ship flying, and then Vivi and Dagger run inside. Dagger then tells Zidane there's a problem with Vivi. Vivi tries to talk to some black mages in here but they don't even turn around. Zidane tells the two that he has to turn the ship around. Go further on and up the ladder, and we'll see Steiner, who thinks that the ship had gone off without Dagger. Zidane tells him that she's on the ship, and then Steiner tells him he'll be hung when they get back to Alexandria, and guards the way back to the engine room so Zidane can't get to Dagger. Go to the back and Steiner thinks happy thoughts about Brahne being pleased. Then the ship shakes... We see a demon with lightning sparking around it. Zidane will turn the ship, and then Steiner catches him. He then punches him and grabs him and has him hanging by the tail on the ceiling, and then the black mages get angry. Dagger and Vivi can be seen at that time, and the Black Waltz arrives on the ship. It appears to be the strongest and most evil of all them. It then blasts Vivi with lightning. Dagger pulls him away, and then some black mages guard Vivi. After that, a spectacular FMV plays where the Black Waltz causes a lightning storms and kills all of the black mages. Vivi watches sadly and then everyone sees the Black Waltz landing on the ship again, to kill. Vivi will not be able to take it any longer and will run in anger at the Black Waltz. Steiner and Zidane follow, and Dagger pilots the ship. The Black Waltz says something about black mages being produced, and then we have to fight it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Black Waltz #3 HP: 1,128 Steal: Steepled Hat, Linen Cuirass, Silver Gloves Party: Zidane (7), Vivi (7), Steiner (6) Difficulty: Easy ANOTHER Black Waltz? Yes, this is the final Black Waltz and it is the most evil and powerful. But that doesn't exactly mean it's hard. It's actually the easiest of all the Black Waltzes, but its attacks are very powerful and without a healer it'll be tough going through all the Black Waltz's attacks. It basically has the Hit attack which does about 60 damage (more to Vivi), and it has Fire and Blizzard. They each do about 80 damage. Also, when it gets low on HP, it'll start floating, and then it will use Thundara on the party. This will do about 100+ damage to it. On its next turn, it uses Thundara for the second time and damages for the same amount, then gets down. But I have one thing to say that I haven't already said: since the Black Waltz killed all those black mages and Vivi couldn't take it any longer and went after him, and because Trance is a surge of emotion, Vivi's in Trance during this fight. This means he can use a spell (about 120 damage) twice in a row. Steiner also has his sword magic skills, so the HP will drift away from Black Waltz #3 before he manages to do something really bad. Also, you might notice that it has a good mage's hat, a Linen Cuirass, and some great gloves for Steiner to use, so you might want to waste a little bit of time stealing from it if you want these items. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After the fight, Steiner will get mad about the Black Waltz, and everyone will go back down. We then see Zorn and Thorn on a ship (called the Viltgance), cursing about Steiner and the defeat of their Black Waltzes. Black Waltz #3 will then knock them out of their ship and shout "I exist only to kill!" in fury, and then we go back. Dagger can see the Black Waltz approaching. Apparently, the only way to do this is to go through South Gate quickly before it closes and shut the Black Waltz out. We now see yet another wonderful FMV. The ship is flying, and Vivi is seen sadly gazing near the edge of the ship. Zidane tries to get him, but then the Viltgance arrives. Vivi then casts a Fire spell on the Black Waltz and the ship spins around. Everyone gets further in but the Viltgance arrives again. The Black Waltz then charges up a super powerful lightning spell, but he overpowers it and sets the Viltgance on fire. Right before the door closes, everyone manages to get out and that's the end of that. *********** 6. Lindblum *********** Enemies: -------- Mu Trick Sparrow Fang Zaghnol (Semi-Boss) Upon coming in, everyone will be amazed by how big the castle is. Zidane and Steiner will yell at each other and some soldiers will check Dagger's pendant, which resembles a Falcon Claw. Minister Artania will arrive. He'll then take Dagger to see Regent Cid. Follow Artania and Dagger and head to the lift. The Minister will take you up and explain a little about Lindblum. At the top, they arrive at the throne room. The throne is rather small. Actually, it's not RATHER small, it's VERY small. Then from behind it, a small bug comes out. It has a moustache! Wow. Steiner gets mad, walks over to the oglop, and punches it back to the throne, shouts at Artania to get the repulsive bug off the throne room and call the regent, and overall acts like the stupid idiot he is. Artania tells him he's before the regent. Dagger remembers the moustache and they talk a little. Cid suggests they rest up. We then see Zidane walking to a bar. He enters and then finds a guy named Bobo and gets his stuff. A girl tells him he's in everyone's way, and then Zidane asks her out. A young woman tells him he's disrupting the customers, and then Zidane recognizes her. He plays a couple jokes with her, and then we know her as Freya. The two chat a little bit and we learn that Freya came from Burmecia, never found her boyfriend, and came to Lindblum for the Festival of the Hunt. After a meal, Zidane rests up. After that scene with Zidane, we go back to where Dagger is. A person had attacked Regent Cid in his sleep and turned him into an oglop before anyone could do something and abducted his wife Hilda and then ran off with his airship the Hilda Garde 1. Dagger and Cid will talk some and we learn that Cid fancied some other woman and Hilda ran off and used magic to turn him into an oglop. Cid will help Dagger a little about her mother and tell her that he ordered Tantalus to kidnap her. That's good information! Cid and Dagger will go to the airships and after that we go back to Zidane. Vivi enters Zidane's room. He says he'll just explore on his own and Zidane tells him a little bit about Tantalus, then he decides to go to his home in the Theater District and then Vivi goes away. Now just go further and talk to the moogle. Get the letter from Ruby and walk out of the bar. You'll find yourself in the Shopping District. Lindblum is a HUGE town, so make sure you check everything out! You'll want to explore as much of this town as you possibly can. Now heading to the main place... Southeast of the bar, you can just head right for an aircab to the Industrial District and Theater District. Check out the Industrial District if you like, but otherwise go to the Theater District. There's a little thing that we can do outside of going to Tantalus's home that we can only do now. Get to the Theater District and turn left. Go right on forward and go down the stairs on the right, and you'll see some nice ladies there, appearing to be waiting for someone. Since Zidane is such a lady-obsessed pervert, we all know what'll happen now. Check the second lady there, and she'll ask Zidane whom he is in a rather angry tone. Zidane will introduce himself as the most famous bandit in the world. The women will tell Zidane to go away, and the guy who they are awaiting arrives. His name is Lowell. All the women say things like "Hold my hand!", "Kiss me!", "I LOVE YOU!", and other silly junk. Lowell then runs away and right after he leaves a huge moogle man walks by. He apparently can't see anything. He gets furious and leaves. Now go back. We have to find this moogle! If you go back and talk to Member No. 24 (the lady in green back there), she'll tell you a huge dizzy moogle passed by a while ago. Now return to the screen before the lift. To the right of that is a little studio. Lowell and another guy are in here. Check the bottom-left of this room for a Lapis Lazuli and the right side for a Moogle Suit. If you talk to Lowell, he gives you his Autograph. Apparently he was wearing the moogle suit. Now we can go back to our main job. Turn right back. Go to where the two women were standing, and enter through the left. Zidane will enter and see that nothing's changed. Bells ring and we see what Dagger is up to. Like before, people are still trying to protect her. She tries to get out but a soldier won't let her for her own safety. Dagger gets angrier and angrier, although she doesn't show that. We then go to Zidane. Two kid members of Tantalus suggest him that he goes off to see what Dagger is doing. Before leaving the room, check the treasure chests for Gil. Then climb the ladder and get the Mini-Burmecia. Exit the room and then turn back to the aircab and let it take you back to Lindblum Castle. Now go to the right and down. Climb up the stairs on the left and turn to your right. In the hall, turn right and go to the guest room. Zidane will find Steiner here. Dagger apparently escaped from here and Steiner has to find her. He then runs away. Save if you want, but otherwise continue. Go to your left and Zidane will hear Dagger singing a beautiful song. But to get to Dagger is the problem... Go to the lift at the bottom of the room that leads to Cid's throne. A soldier says it's only for the authorized. Zidane knows he can disguise himself as a guard and do it. Go back to where the guest room was. Go down the stairs and you'll see a soldier on your left. Zidane will lie to him saying he saw a suspicious character somewhere. Zidane will lead him to the guest room and then he'll enter, only for Zidane to beat him up and steal his clothes, then stuff him into the closet. (Go back in there to hear the naked soldier say this!) Zidane will be disguised as a guard. Now return to where the soldier was and he'll fall for Zidane's trick. Continue and Zidane will press the button on the lift. He'll then go up and when we gain control again he's dressed like his old self. Go on and proceed to the left. Running forward is a little dangerous for him. In the next room, just head up the stairs and we'll appear at the top. Go even higher up from the left, and we see an FMV. Dagger will be singing and stroking some birds, and then they fly off. Zidane compliments the song, and then the two engage in another nice conversation. There's a telescope nearby so we have to check out the following places: Ceebell River, which is by the South Gate, Aerbs Mountains on the left with mountains the surround Burmecia, South Gate in the middle of the mountains, the ??? Forest (chocobo forest), and a Marshland where Zidane intends to go sometime to see what's there. Dagger finds out that Zidane left the band to help her and how Zidane planned to kidnap her. Zidane was apparently going to use sleeping weed. Dagger borrows the sleeping weed (her tricks, you'll find out later). Zidane then asks Dagger to sing the song again and we see Vivi thinking of the black mages, Steiner yelling at a customer in the armory, and Freya jumping on buildings looking for her lost love. Zidane then asks her out! Dagger agrees, and Zidane leaves. A bit later, we'll see some soldiers standing next to a car. They say some things about the lives being lost each year, and then they release the Fangs. Some other soldiers release a bunch of Mus, and then an old man releases the main enemy, the Zaghnol. We then see Zidane in the guest room with Vivi and Freya. Zidane had signed Vivi up and Freya is obviously participating. The rules are to kill as many monsters as possible and accumulate points in twelve minutes. If you lose, you automatically retire. Zidane will tell Vivi he signed him up, and then Zidane says if Vivi wins he'll fix him up on a date with the princess. Steiner will hear this and start yelling at Zidane. Now SAVE YOUR GAME. You might want to win, or perhaps you'll want Freya to win for the Coral Ring. Vivi will take a card and Zidane will take 5000 Gil if they win. Obviously: Coral Ring > 5000 Gil > any card. So you might want to let Freya win. Well, on to the festival now, shall we? Vivi will start in the Business District, Freya in the Industrial District and Zidane in the Theater District. Go to the aircab and select the Theater District, and then it begins. Exit this room, and we'll see a Mu chasing an old man. I hope you have Zidane's thief sword "The Ogre", because this will annihilate anything except the Zaghnol, but we're not fighting it yet, are we? After defeating the Mu, head west. Defeat the Trick Sparrow around here and head southeast to where you found the ladies and Lowell. There a lot of barrels here. Behind the barrels is a Fang. It will jump out and attack. Defeat it and then that's the end of the business in the Theater District. Go back to the aircab and go to either the Business District or the Industrial District. I chose the Business District. Exit the room where you arrive and soon you'll be ambushed by a Trick Sparrow. Defeat it and continue. To the left of this area, you'll find a Fang. Kill it with The Ogre and head north. You'll find another Fang around here. After defeating it, fight the Trick Sparrow if you want (fight it to kill time), and then turn back. You'll see Vivi running from another Fang. (What is with all these Fangs here anyway?) After defeating it, just go east. MAKE SURE THE CLOCK IS UNDER 4:00 TO FIGHT ZAGHNOL. IF IT'S NOT, DON'T SEND ME A BUNCH OF FLAMES LIKE "I DIDN'T FIND ANY GODDAMNED ZAGHNOL THERE, YOU LYING BASTARD!" When you find Zaghnol, you'll see him trying to eat up the two Tantalus kids. Zidane will provoke it and it'll turn around, then Freya will help out. If you want Freya to win, use Scoop Art and then have Freya jump on the Zaghnol. If you want Zidane to win, have Freya heal or use Jump, and if you want Vivi to win, have Zidane knock Freya out and then let Zaghnol destroy Zidane. Whoever defeats Zaghnol first gets the points, although Vivi is not here. Remember: Zaghnol is very powerful and might knock you out. By the time you defeat Zaghnol, the clock is probably already nearing 0:00 and the two behind in points will not catch up. So you might just want to stand there and wait. After that, we'll be in Regent Cid's throne room. The winner will be granted their prize and the Master Hunter. Then, a panic theme starts and a wounded Burmecian Soldier arrives. Burmecia is being attacked by a group of steepled-hat mages, just like Vivi. Now, this is not a good thing at all. Everyone being their overprotective selves, they won't let Dagger come with them, even though she has faced great danger in coming this far. Vivi wants to find out about the black mages and Zidane is concerned, not to mention it's Freya home so the three of them choose to go. Regent Cid starts the feast. Everyone starts eating... except Dagger. She hesitates a little, then Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Cid pass out, and Steiner comes close to passing out himself. Dagger slipped sleeping weed into the food! After that, Steiner and Dagger leave. When Zidane wakes up, he sees that Dagger is gone. He now thinks that she went to Burmecia. Now it is time to go. Preparations: Equip everyone with their best equipment, make sure everyone's at least Level 7, if Zidane hasn't learned Bandit from the Mythril Dagger and has The Ogre on, equip him with the Mythril Dagger until he learns it. Make sure you have Mythril Dagger and The Ogre, plus if you're collecting you'll want the Butterfly Sword to go with it. He should have his best support abilities on, and Vivi and Freya should be similar. Once you're ready to go, return to the lift. Ride it to the Base Level and ride on the aircab to your left. Ride it to the Dragon's Gate, and now it's time to head out. Talk to the moogle and save your game, then check the upper-right side of the screen for a Remedy and perhaps buy something from the Merchant, but when you're ready exit Lindblum and now we've got to go to Gizamaluke's Grotto. There is however some stuff we can do before then... World Map --------- There are two places on the World Map we can go to: the Qu's Marsh or the Chocobo Forest. If you choose to go Chocobo Forest and do some stuff there, please refer to the Chocobos section in the Side Quests/Mini Games chapter. But anyway, the place that we really want to go to first is the Qu's Marsh. It's pretty close to the grotto, so just go there and it's time to work a little bit and get an interesting new character. Qu's Marsh ---------- Go north and you'll see Mogster and Moggy, the two moogles. If you need to refresh your memory a little about things in the game, just talk to Mogster to learn some stuff. When you're ready, just continue through the forest. There aren't very many hard enemies in this forest, and none that Vivi can't take out with his magic or Zidane can't kill with his dagger shortly. When you get out of there, we'll arrive at a pond. There is a mysterious creature at this pond, sniffing the water for frogs. Catch one of the frogs at the top of this place, and talk to the creature. It will sniff the frog and ask you to give it to it. The creature will then introduce itself as Quina, a member of a race called Qu. Then another creature appears and says that Quina is pathetic. Quina and its master Quale will go to a hut and talk a little about going out into the world. Quale will let Zidane take care of Quina, and then Quina becomes a new party member! When they walk out, Vivi will know that Quale looks a lot like his grandfather. He'll then walk into the hut and ask Quale if he knows a man named Quan. Quale gets mad and chases Vivi out. When you get back to the pond, Quina will ask Zidane for permission to catch frogs. Catch them if you want (recommended), but when you're done in here get out of the Qu's Marsh and go back to the World Map and now it's time to go to Gizamaluke's Grotto. World Map --------- Now that you have Quina, I strongly suggest that you wonder around the Qu's Marsh and get him some good Blue Magic. Not to mention that the next boss is tough. If you want to win easily, you will definitely want to get good magic like Limit Glove by eating enemies and level up a little. I was personally at Level 9 after I built myself up and Level 10 before fighting the boss, so make up your own mind. Play the Chocobo Hot & Cold game if you want, but otherwise follow the roots in the ground to Gizamaluke's Grotto. ********************** 7. Gizamaluke's Grotto ********************** Freya will notice some dead Burmecian soldiers lying dead on the ground right before entering. She'll then force everyone in, and now we gain control again. Right ahead is a door with a bell on it, but we can't do anything with it. On the right side of this room, there's a Burmecian Soldier who has almost been completely killed. Talk to him and just before he dies he'll give you a Gizamaluke Bell. Now return to the door with the bell and ring the Gizamaluke Bell. It will shatter and the door will open. On entering this room, you'll see the two jesters Zorn and Thorn. They will choose to kill Zidane even though they don't know him, and we have to fight two Black Mage Type A's. Defeat them both, and then Zorn and Thorn run away. Proceed further and find the black mage on your right. Defeat it and you'll receive a Gizamaluke Bell. Now go to the top of the room and use the bell on any of the three doors. I strongly prefer the middle door but if you need another bell you can check the soldier you got the first bell from to receive another one. Head through the central door. Go right ahead and you'll see a female moogle standing next to a huge bell. Right when she and her husband were doing some stuff, two clowns (do I really need to tell you who these two clowns were?) put her husband into the bell. She'll then run around Vivi and then she'll ask the kid for his Kupo Nut. (He picked it up in Lindblum.) Give it to the poor moogle, and then she'll thank Vivi a lot and run to the bell, telling her husband she has a Kupo Nut. The bell will start shaking and then the male moogle (his name is Moguta) will be so happy he doesn't even eat the nut. He runs around the room dancing and goes through the door on the right, with his wife chasing him. What a crazy couple, if I may borrow Zidane's quote. Check the right side and get on the stairs to find a Magus Hat and Mythril Gloves, and check where the bell fell down for a Gizamaluke Bell. Now enter the room that the two moogles ran in. Talk to Moguta, and he'll ask you if you like Kupo Nuts. Tell him yes and he'll tell you he likes you, and then you can give him a Kupo Nut if you want. He'll be sure to reward you. Now, SAVE HERE! If you want, you can risk it by climbing up the vines and you'll find two super tough enemies called the Garuda and Grand Dragon. If you have Limit Glove and a 1 HP Quina and a LOT of luck, you can beat the Grand Dragon and with enough effort the Garuda is beatable. These will give you tons of EXP if you are talented enough. Once you're ready, try to leave the room. The female moogle will run after Zidane and give him the Holy Bell. She'll then tell you to bring as many Kupo Nuts there as possible. Exit the room, and go around the room. You can't just go to your left because of the bell. Ring the Holy Bell on the door and enter, and you'll find a wounded Burmecian Soldier. Two clowns (Zorn and Thorn of course), have been possessing Gizamaluke. Right when he passes out, the monster arises from the water. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Gizamaluke HP: 3,175 Steal: Elixir, Magus Hat, Ice Staff Party: Zidane (10), Vivi (10), Freya (10), Quina (10) Difficulty: Semi-Hard Gizamaluke is difficult and is probably the hardest boss thus far, despite the fact he's got only three attacks. I sincerely hope you're equipped with The Ogre or Gizamaluke will prove even more dangerous than he already is. If you have The Ogre, you can use Soul Blade and this will Blind Gizamaluke, and he can't use his physical attack Crash. Speaking of his attacks, let's go over them. He can use Crash as his physical attack which does a little below 100 damage to one character, he can use Water which hits one character at first (about 80 damage and one character at FIRST.) When Gizamaluke gets low on HP, he will start using Water on the party and the spell will do a little more damage too! GIVE ME A BREAK! Also, when you use a magical attack on Gizamaluke, he'll counter with Silent Voice. Thankfully, you can erase Crash from there because he'll almost never hit you if he's blinded. There is a quick and easy way to win this fight in little time at all. You can simply use Limit Glove if Quina has it and if he's got 1 HP (you can use a Phoenix Down and hope he'll be at that much), Limit Glove will do 9999 damage. If you are too lazy to hope for this, then the fight is a little tougher. Of course, Gizamaluke has GREAT stuff, and this is practically what makes the fight so hard! The Ice Staff is extremely important if you want some good power on Vivi (Blizzara, whee!), and the Elixir is always worth it. Steal if you want, I hope you've got Bandit on. Once you've got that, the fight really isn't that hard. Vivi and Quina (if you aren't using Limit Glove), are both useless here because Gizamaluke will counter with Silent Voice and it's not worth it to use up a bunch of Echo Screens. Have both of them serve as healers, especially once Gizamaluke's lost most of his HP. Zidane should simply attack (or better yet go into a Trance mode and use your strongest Dyne. With Freya jumping all the time and Zidane using his best stuff, there is no possible way that you can lose. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After that, Zidane, Freya, Vivi, and Quina go on and then we go to where the other two are. We find Steiner carrying a huge barrel and going up to South Gate. Two Lindblum Soldiers are guarding it. The two look into the barrel that Steiner is carrying and thinks it's full of poison because of the horrible smell, when it's really gysahl pickles. (Dagger is actually under there too.) The two fools then let Steiner and Dagger in. South Gate ---------- Steiner wants to go down the alley, but there are two people there whom he has to avoid first. Talk to the young woman first, and that'll be her out of the way. Now it's time for the guy on the left. This scene is VERY funny, as Steiner finds out the guy was the reason he couldn't get through easier, and then you have the option "Kill!". (Steiner doesn't kill him though.) Now go back to the alley and talk to the guy in green. After that, just head down the alley. In this room, Steiner will put the barrel of pickles down. Dagger will get out and choose to change her clothes while Steiner looks away. Steiner also has the option to look and see her while doing it too! Haha... this game. Dagger will finally get out and now it's time to leave this place. You can find a Multina Racket around here, and on the right side an immensely annoying shopkeeper can sell you some stuff. It's just a medicine shop so don't bother. When ready, go to the cable car and the two will get on and chat a little, and then we go back to the other party with Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Quina. *********** 8. Burmecia *********** Enemies: -------- Magic Vice Black Mage A Ironite Mimic Basilisk Beatrix (Boss) Upon entering, Freya will remember Burmecia and then everyone will enter. In the next screen, check the cart on the left and you'll receive the Cancer Stellazio! Just go north and Zorn and Thorn come out from inside the large house. Instead of taking you on themselves, they just sick two black mages on you. Well, they're extremely easy, so just flatten them with some physical attacks, and then Zorn and Thorn go back into the house. They also tell you that the general's not going to like this and stuff like that. Enemies around here are very simple. Magic Vices are annoying and steal from you, so try to avoid them getting Elixirs or Ethers. You can also learn Magic Hammer from them. Black Mages are extremely easy to defeat, and Mimics just summon some Magic Vices to aid them. Basilisks aren't too dangerous, and just about the only tough enemy here is the Ironite. It has some strong attacks, but it can easily be defeated with physical attacks and you can Eat it to learn Angel's Snack! Very nice stuff, you have to admit. On this fork, just turn left. In this room, you can find a Soft and a Potion. Get both of these items and then get out of here. (You can't go forward.) Go to the right this time and climb up the stairs and enter through the door. Go right up from here and check right under the stairs for a Soft. Now go up the stairs and go to the left. Unless you want to fight a Mimic, do not open the next chest. Go even further and you'll come across a door with a bell on it, similar to those doors in Gizamaluke's Grotto, but it won't budge. Alright, the next part is a little tricky. Walk to the left side very slowly so this floor doesn't collapse! Get the treasure chest and you'll receive a Germinas Boots. After doing that, step on the floor that you walked across and it'll collapse. Okay, now it's time to do what it's time to do! Go all the way back to the central area where Zorn and Thorn attacked. Go through the left door and head up the stairs, and now we have a bridge! Now cross, but don't open the next chest. It's just a Mimic. In the next room, go southeast and choose to go out the balcony, and Zidane will jump from where Zorn and Thorn were across the balconies, and we'll find ourselves in a small room. Find the half-dead Burmecian Soldier and he'll tell you to look under the bed. Go to the bed and look under it for a Protection Bell. To your left, you can also find an Ether. Okay, now that we have the bell we have to go all the way back to where the door with the bell was. (Square, stop with the stupid backtracking.) When you get there, just ring the bell and we'll be at a staircase. A Burmecian soldier with his wife and kid will appear and accuse Vivi of being one of the black mages who is destroying the town. He then tries to convince Freya to leave the king alone. Freya won't give up though. Now, go to the door that you can see in plain view. You'll find a woman and a wounded man next to a statue. The statue will then collapse and Zidane will save the man. Then, the two decide to go to Lindblum and manage to make it out of this room. Now head right up the stairs outside of the room to the door above. Check the door on the left and you'll find a Phoenix Down and a Tent. Collect them and head to the end of this path. Do not open the other chest because it is just a Mimic. In the next area, go to your left and Freya will take the spear in the room. It's a Mythril Spear and much stronger. Be sure to equip it. Now proceed to the room on the right and you'll find a moogle. Buy something if you want, but otherwise try to exit and Stiltzkin will arrive. Buy a Soft, Hi-Potion, and Ether from him for 333 Gil and then get out of here. Go to the area between those two areas to get to the palace. Freya will know someone's inside and will jump to the top. Quina will want to check for food inside the palace and Vivi falls down in one jump. Zidane will then make it up in six jumps or so. Zidane will then see Queen Brahne and General Beatrix. Freya will remember this as the place that she and her love Sir Fratley last saw each other. Fratley had left to go on a journey, but had never returned, even though he had sincerely promised Freya that he would indeed return. Now, it's time for the action. Near Queen Brahne and General Beatrix, a strange looking crossdresser will appear. His name is Kuja and he is indeed a guy, although he is the most feminine looking man I have ever had the pleasure of viewing, and he looks very sexy. :-* He'll tell the two women that the King of Burmecia has escaped to Cleyra and then Brahne will mention the whirlwind defending Cleyra. At that moment, a lone Burmecian Soldier will run in to attack Beatrix, but she knows no mercy. Zidane and Freya run in to defend the soldier and to get rid of her, and then Vivi and Quina come in. With the party united, it's time to face the general! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Beatrix HP: 3,630 Steal: Phoenix Down, Chain Plate, Mythril Sword Party: Zidane (12), Vivi (12), Freya (12), Quina (11) Difficulty: Medium Beatrix is a lot easier than most people seem to think that she is, but still she cannot be defeated. She has four attacks: her regular sword attack (about 150 damage), Thunder Slash (misses a lot, is thunder-elemental, and does about the same amount of damage as her regular physical attack), Stock Break (she only uses this at the end of the battle and it takes everyone's HP to 1, and Shock, her ultimate attack. This attack does 800 damage and unless you're at a rather high level and she's targetting Zidane, this attack will wipe the party member out and if it doesn't the party member will be severely weakened. First of all, you really want to steal from Beatrix. A Phoenix Down never hurt anyone, the Chain Plate is rather useful and the Mythril Sword will be a little useful for Steiner later on in the game. Freya has Reis's Wind so you'll want to use that and Vivi can heal. Beatrix has a high magic defense so magic won't be all that wonderful. Quina has some Blue Magic to use, so I personally wouldn't mind having him do something. After you are done stealing, Zidane should slice away at Beatrix. You don't have to reduce her HP to 0 and nor will she be defeated once this happens, but when she is ready she'll cast Stock Break and heavily wound the party, and that will be the end of that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After that, Beatrix will walk away in disgust and then Kuja will look at the party. He apparently recognizes Zidane. We'll learn more about this when we get to Disc 3. After he does this, he'll get on his Silver Dragon and laugh at the party. Freya will raise her hand at the dragon, and then it rises into the sky and disappears, that being the end of that. The party will continue to lie there until recovering. That ends Disc 1. Now it's time to change to Disc 2. ====================================================================== -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- CHAPTER FIVE: Walkthrough: Disc 2 -<------------------------------------------------------------------>- ====================================================================== ***************** 9. Summit Station ***************** Enemies: -------- Black Waltz #3 II (Boss) We'll see the South Gate that Steiner entered and the two guards will talk a little about war. After that, Steiner and Dagger will be inside the car, and then you arrive at the Summit Station, but it'll be awhile to go to Alexandria. A man will tell you to go to the rest area. Now, take either path you want to the right. It doesn't matter as both of them lead to the same place. To your right, you will find Steiner, but just leave the old fool alone. Over here, talk to the man right below Dagger, and the car to Lindblum will leave. A familiar voice will complain that he missed it. Turn southeast and save your game with the moogle, then go further to the left to pick up a Phoenix Down. Take either path you want out of here, and on the other path you'll find Marcus and Cinna. Cinna was the one who missed the car because he wanted to stay around here and eat South Gate's cake while watching the scenery. They will then go to the right, into the rest area. Go right as well, and surely enough that excuse for a knight Steiner will be shouting at the two of them for being thieves. He thinks that they're here to kidnap Dagger. Then she'll give the man some motherly scolding. You can talk to Cinna or Marcus if you want, but then Steiner will yell at Dagger not to waste her breath on criminals. Now the car going to Alexandria will arrive at last! Okay, it'll soon be time to go. Marcus will come with them to help his bro (while Steiner is ashamed of himself). Now, get out of this place and head north to get to the Alexandria car, and then tell the guy you're ready to go. Once inside, we'll learn that Marcus is going to Treno to get Supersoft so he can cure Blank. Then, the car will stop running and a demon will appear outside. Everyone will go outside and we find Black Waltz #3, back for another round. Okay, let's show him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boss: Black Waltz #3 II HP: 1,292 Steal: Steepled Hat, Lightning Staff, Flame Staff Party: Dagger (7), Steiner (7), Marcus (7) Difficulty: Easy So, we have to fight it again, do we? Well this time it's pathetically easy, and it was already easy enough the last time we fought it. And believe it or not, you CANNOT lose in this fight! Like the other times, it's only after Dagger so he can take her away, but he's so weak he can't do that. If he kills Steiner and Marcus, he will pull his back ("Crack!"), and lose about 250 HP until he dies while muttering that he wants the Princess. On to the Black Waltz himself. He has five attacks: Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder which do about 70 damage each, Hit which it about 50 damage, and Freeze. If he does this on someone and uses Hit, then that character is a goner. Fortunately though, it'd be really nice if he uses Fire right after Freeze! I'm sure you know what'll happen then. Dagger is the healer here. She has Protect, Shell, and Cure. Three spells that will be extremely useful in this fight. Marcus can hesitate from stealing here because he very rarely manages a steal, and the three items can be bought anyway. So he and Steiner should just attack and Dagger can heal if the need arises. This battle cannot be lost even if you want to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After that fight, Marcus will sort of say that it's really obvious why the Black Waltzes are after Dagger and where they came from. Then we go back to the car and then Marcus and Dagger chat a little. Marcus talks to himself saying that Dagger has really changed, but then that she hasn't changed that much. Eventually the car stops and we gain control of Dagger. Right ahead of you, you'll find a fork: left side goes to Dali, right side goes to Treno. Head there and show the man your Gate Pass, and go to the World Map. World Map --------- There are two places that we can go to, Treno and Quan's Dwelling. Save Quan's Dwelling for later because the monsters that live in the forest behind it are rather strong. Treno's where we need to go anyway. Only go to Quan's Dwelling if you want the extra Stellazio and Ethers as quickly as possible. You might find a Ragtime Mouse in the forest, so go for that if you want to, and there's a Ghost right outside Treno and in the forest. But when you're ready, just go to Treno. ********* 10. Treno ********* Enemies: -------- N/A When you enter Treno, Steiner learns that Marcus plans on stealing the Supersoft. He's shout at him that he can't do that and while Steiner and Marcus are at it with each other, Dagger sneaks by and disappears. Steiner, who is currently in a raging fit, does not see that but Marcus does. He notifies Steiner about this. Now we have to control Steiner. You may want to view the ATE Treno Tradition now. You'll see Alleyway Jack from Alexandria sneaking up on Dagger. Press X right when he gets up on her, and that way you'll lose 500 Gil instead of 1000. Believe me, losing Gil in the first place is worth it! On the left, you might notice a little fountain. Throw 10 Gil into the fountain 13 times, and each time Steiner will feel happier. On the 13th, the Stellazio Gemini will pop up. Now go to the left. The bridge leading to the left will go to a tower, but it's locked for now. Ignore it, and instead forward from between those two. Now, just head to the mansion on the upper-left. You'll find that thief that's stolen 500 Gil from Dagger! Talk to him, and then he'll drop a hint he's stolen from Dagger. He'll then give you the item he bought from her money, a Power Belt. Well, it was worth it for a mere 500 Gil in my opinion. Now that we've got this little problem sorted out, you might find Unexpected Visitor as an ATE. Okay, this is rather unusual so I'll explain it: Dagger will walk into an auction house and above she'll find Kuja. That's not good. Now, there are some things you can do here. You can go around the entrance and you'll find a path that will lead you to Queen Stella, and you can trade Stellazios! There are four you could have gotten by now if you haven't been to Quan's Dwelling, so that's the Blood Sword. (I'll explain the fourth shortly.) Equip this on Steiner and go to the east of the second screen before the auction house. You'll find yourself at a shop. Buy something, and ask the shopkeeeper about the monster and tell him you want to fight it. You'll have a battle with a Griffin. Blood Sword, Steiner must have and he can just attack. It'll be dead in no time. Now for that Stellazio. Return to the entrance of Treno and go to the right, then go down the street and to the right. To the right of the Item Shop is the Stellazio. Buy something if you want, but otherwise go to your left and you'll find a pub. Go downstairs all the way and you'll find Marcus. Now he's joined, so go even further downstairs. When we reach here Steiner will be running for Dagger, trying to get her to not travel with Marcus. Ignore him and do not talk to him. Just go to the end of this place, and Dagger will scold Steiner some more. Serve him right. The three (Dagger, Steiner, and Marcus) will get on a boat to get to the back of Treno and to steal the Supersoft. Dagger starts thinking about how much she dislikes Zidane and Steiner thinks of how he is serving criminals. Eventually, they get there. Marcus reveals to Steiner that he is trying to steal the Supersoft. Then the three hear someone coming. Steiner and Marcus hide, and Dagger sees that it is a very familiar looking man. She runs to this man before Marcus kills or Steiner stops her. It appears to be Dagger's old scholar, Doctor Tot. Someone will then be coming and Tot will tell you he'll give you the Supersoft a little later. Marcus and Baku then talk a little about Dr. Tot (Baku keeps calling him Toot, Tootsie, and such a lot though) giving them the Supersoft. Baku can't believe that Tantalus is at the mercy of a little man. Now we have control of Dagger again. Now, return to where that bridge to the left of the entrance was. This time, just go all the way across the bridge and enter that door on the left that was locked before. Now it's open, so just go up the stairs from there and we'll meet Doctor Tot again. Dagger, Steiner, and Tot will talk a little bit, then Tot will point towards the chest on the left and say it contains the Supersoft. Marcus appears and takes it. Steiner (who has done enough yelling already, that idiot) will shout at Marcus telling him to thank Dr. Tot. Now Dagger and Doctor Tot will talk a little, and we see a flashback of Dagger (Garnet as she was then), when she was a little girl and being tutored by Tot. Tot will show Garnet about the world, the castle, that kind of stuff. After Doctor Tot and Dagger's greetings, we must continue to get out of Treno. Doctor Tot will show everyone a secret passage on the right that leads out of Treno and goes out to a place called Gargan Roo. Before going down this ladder, you may want to check that you've got everything in Treno, just in cas