1. About this FAQ
- Author Rant
- Normal Stuff
- Copyright Notice
- Thanks & Shoutouts
- Corrections & Stuff
2. Boss Guide
- Disc 1 bosses
- Disc 2 bosses
- Disc 3 bosses
- Disc 4 bosses
3. Boss List
- Disc 1 bosses
- Disc 2 bosses
- Disc 3 bosses
- Disc 4 bosses
4. Outro
/---------------------------\
|A B O U T T H I S F A Q|
\---------------------------/
A U T H O R R A N T
----------------------
Final Version Banter:
This guide is not gonna be updated anymore now, so you'll just have
to figure out how to beat Tantarian and Quale by yourself! Don't
I just suck? However, my Ozma guide is here at last, so I hope I
stop getting emails about it every day. Speaking of emails, I've
removed my mail addy from the guide now due to the sheer amount of
fools mailing me asking for stuff that is in this guide already.
I've received a LOT of emails that go something like this - "HOW
DO I BEAT GIZAMALUKE?" and, "HOW DO I BEAT ARK? THAT GUY IS HARD!
I CANT USE MAGIC! PLZ HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". Anyone with an IQ
of more than 3 should probably realise that the way I beat the bosses
is the only way I know how, and is written in this guide. So, even
if you figure out my addy (it's not hard to guess), don't mail me for
alternative suggestions cos I haven't got a clue. Oh, and I tend
to ignore emails written entirely in caps anyway, so if you wrote
something worthwhile to me and I didn't respond that might be why.
On the other hand, it may be because I'm layzee.
However, if you really absolutely positively MUST mail me, any musings
or questions can be directed to idiotparade@hotmail.com, my new mail
address which I plan to ignore forever. Or at least a few months.
Who knows, there might be something interesting there when I check
back.
Finally, let's talk about Ozma. It just so happens that recently
I've also received a lot of emails saying "THERE'S A BOSS YOU
HAVEN'T FOUND THAT IS REAL HARD ITS IN THE CHOCOBO SKY GARDEN
AND IT KICKS MY ASS EVERY TIME HOW DO I BEAT IT?". Actually, I
have found it, I did so ages ago. And yes, I beat it. So, my
friends, rejoice, as the Ozma guide is _finally_ here after sitting
on my harddrive since December. But it might not make sense to you :)
Still, if it helps, that's good.
On with the show!
N O R M A L S T U F F
------------------------
This is my second FAQ! Yay! I know there will be like, 300
walkthroughs for FF9, a lot of which with boss guides already in
'em. So why bother with one like this? Well, it's something to do :)
Hopefully this'll prove more useful for people who get really stuck
on bosses where other guides have stuff like "just hit them and
cast cure" (although sometimes that's really the best strategy there
is).
Okies, let me tell you that this guide contains mega-spoilers. Not
only as to who the bosses are (you think?), since I have a tendancy
to go off on tangents a lot, I'll probably write things about the plot
in here that really need not be here. So don't read ahead of where
you are in the game (unless you don't care about the plot in which
case it's fine I guess).
C O P Y R I G H T N O T I C E
--------------------------------
I think I'd better draw attention to this part :) This FAQ is
copyright Steven Hand (aka BlurYamaneko!). You are not allowed to
plagerise or make profit from this FAQ in any way (in otherwords don't
charge money for it in any medium). If you do any of this you can
expect to end up facing legal action. And legal action ain't good for
you :)
That said, feel free to put this guide on your website (so long as
it's a non-profit site). I'd appreciate an email telling me if you
do upload it to your page, but it's not like I need one :) However,
if you do choose to add it to your site don't modify or change it in
any way and give me credit for it :) Thanks again.
One more thing, you don't need to ask permission to use this on
your (non-profit) website, just go ahead and stick it up.
T H A N K S & S H O U T O U T S
-------------------------------------
Finally, I wanna thank these people - Ryan and Luke, for
help in FF9 when I needed it. Extra thanks to Luke for offering
to write my guide for me :)
Extra big thanks to Red Scarlet for mailing me with the items
to steal from bosses up to Beatrix on disc 2. Sorry I took
so long to add them ^^; I'll update the names sometime maybe.
Go check out Red Scarlet's abilities FAQ. Finally, I'd like
to thank Richard Kamp and Scarmiglion for providing me with
all of the boss HPs. Thanks sooo much to you all, you've
helped clear up two things that were really missing from my guide.
Anna, just for being mah sweetie, Aileenie for putting up with me
saying everything is "sorta weird" and for helping me out with stuff,
and I'm shouting out to all you lovely people from the channels I
frequent on Espernet, and to Martin, Deano, Anne, Allen, Kenshin Dono,
Mirai, Demerson, Blackbird and NOT Lee! Hey everyone!
Kupo~! Let me now talk some crap.
C O R R E C T I O N S & S T U F F
---------------------------------------
Ok, now that this version is final, whatever is wrong is staying
wrong. Deal with it :)
1. Japanese to English Names
OK not a mistake as such :) I've decided to stick with the jp
names in here. I guess I just like them. And yes, that includes
my mistranslations. Again, don't worry, you'll figure it out.
Here are some important name changes that you might need to know -
Freija - Freya (you knew that already didn't you).
Salamander - Amarant (and that).
Jihad - Doomsday (black magic spell).
Place of Memory - Memoria
/---------------------\
|B O S S G U I D E |
\---------------------/
D I S C 1 B O S S E S
---------------------------
SubBoss: Prison Cage & Garnet (Purizon Keeju & Gaanetto) /
Prison Cage & Vivi (Purizon Keeju & Vivi)
Steal: ??
Location: Evil Forest
My Party: Zidane (1), Steiner (1)
First battle you might (but really shouldn't) get stuck on. Remember
the Adel/Rinoa battle at the beginning of Disc 4 in FF8? Well, this
is similar. . Ok here we go.
This shouldn't be hard at all. Zidane begins this battle in Trance.
To make fast work of the Prison Cage, Have Zidane use his special
Trance skill Free Energy. Err, don't hit Garnet though, not unless
you want a swift trip to the Game Over screen. Use physical attacks
with Steiner. Oh, keep an eye on Dagger's HP. When the plant drains
her HP, she will lose about 24hp. Once she's been drained from 3
times, she will die. In other words, if the plant drains twice,
throw her a potion. One last thing, don't try hitting Dagger to see
if the cage breaks; it doesn't.
When Vivi is trapped in the next fight, just do the same stuff,
although his Fire attacks will help this battle along like Zidane's
Trance did in the last one.
This first boss is easy enough. Have Steiner use his Fire Magic
Sword, unless Vivi is KO'ed (in which case revive him). A little
way into the fight, Blank will come along. Yay. Use him to steal
an eye drop, you may need it because this evil vegetable has a
tendancy to blind people. Its strongest attack is Thunder, which
can come close to killing you totally if you're still on level 1.
Have Vivi cast fire every turn, Zidane should just hit (leave
the stealing to Blank), and Steiner should use Fire Sword, and
if he runs out of MP, just have him attack as normal.
Wow talk about dropping you in at the deep end. After facing
this boss you'd be forgiven for thinking FF9's learning curve is
more like a vertical line :). This can be done with a level 3
Zidane, but getting him to 4 is no bother (in fact he's probably
higher if you're playing first time through or you're getting
all the treasures).
If you attack the Shirion first, the Black Waltz Wizard (hereon BW1)
will heal it with a Blizzard spell. So don't. Finish off big bad
BW1 first. I advise you to steal an Ether from the Sealion though,
as Ethers are fairly rare in FF9 until later on. One more thing,
if your HP drops below 70, CURE.
Soon after the battle starts you'll probably enter trance. If you
have Tidal Flame in the special skills yet, use that (you learn it
from the Mage Masher weapon for Zidane) on BW1 to finish him off
quickly.
When he's finished off the battle gets tricky. Make sure that if
your HP drop to near or below 100 that you heal. After hitting him
a few times (until his orb changes color), Sealion will hit you
with Blizzara (Ice2) for around 70-80hp damage, then follow up that
attack immediately with Blizzard or Wing, taking a futher 35hp away.
When this happens, heal. If you're below 50hp you'd best use a
Hi-Potion (don't worry, you'll get plenty later).
But that's not where the threat ends. Hitting him a few more times,
until his orb changes color to red, will prompt him to unleash his
strongest spell, Tsunami. Hitting for around 100-120 damage, this
is another one that you'll need to heal straight after. Don't
worry, this is as bad as he gets. Hitting him a few more times
after this will win you the battle. Yay! ^_^ Oh, one more thing.
I only got killed off 1 boss more times than I got killed off this
one on my first play through. And that was the second to last one.
---------------------------
Boss: Black Waltz #2 (Kuro no Warutsu #2)
HP: 1030
Steal: Leather Plate, Steeple Hat
Location: Dali
My Party: Zidane (6), Steiner (5), Vivi (6), Dagger (6)
Luckily this one isn't as hard as the last, but make sure you don't
mess up your equipment like I did or you'll be dead before you can
say "wow he looks like a big evil Vivi!".
Have Zidane attack (or steal, which I forgot to do). Dagger should
cure whoever needs it each turn (if there's no-one to cure then just
press triangle to switch to a different party member. You'll need
her ready just in case). Have Steiner use Blizzard Sword, and
if he runs out of MP, just normal attack. Now, be careful what
you do with Vivi. Using magic on him (by now I only had Fire
and Blizzard) prompts him to be EVAHL and hit multiple party members
with Blizzara or Fira (depending on which you hit him with), and
this will hurt. In otherwords, don't use Fire or Blizzard unless
everyone is relatively near full HP. And have Dagger cure afterwards
if you do choose to use magic.
One final note, BW2 doesn't like to hit Dagger. At all. He much
prefers to just kill everyone else then cast sleep on her, thus
ending the battle. So beware of that :)
---------------------------
Boss: Black Waltz #3 (Kuro no Warutsu #3)
HP: 1128
Steal: Escutcheon, Linen Curias, Steeple Hat
Location: Cargo Ship Deck
My Party: Zidane (6), Vivi (6), Steiner (5)
VIVI'S GOIN' WILD! YAY!
This battle is easy enough. Have an automatically Tranced Vivi cast
Blizzard twice in a row (W-Magic), and have Zidane hit as usual.
Have Steiner use his magic sword. When the BWW starts to levitate
he's gonna cast thundara on everyone for 2 turns, but that's nothing
to worry about here really.
Wow this guy's a bit of a bugger if your levels are low. All you
people who moan that FF has became too easy should try beating
Gizamaluke on level 7-9 with no potions :p.
First time I played through this battle was easy enough. Second
time through it was nice and challenging :) No hi-potions and
a low level (compared to last time) made it trickier, I guess.
You'd do well to have Freya jump each turn. Isn't that what
dragoons are for? Remember, if you keep her up there she can't
be attacked. Have Zidane steal an elixer, you'll probably need
it, maybe even in this very battle. Vivi should cast Slow,
prompting Gizzers to render Vivi silenced with his Silent Voice
attack. Don't worry though, since Dagger/Dagger isn't around the
party needs a healer. Have Vivi toss a potion to whoever needs
it most (and there's always someone who'll need one in this battle
if your levels are like mine :p). If people start dying, revive
'em and give them a hi-potion or elixer. If there's one thing
that this battle taught me it's that reviving people and leaving
them with about 5hp is just _too_ risky sometimes. Especially
when the enemy counter-attacks (oh yes, Gizzers likes to counter).
His basic attack will do around 200-250 to Zidane (considering he's
in the front row), and about 100 to Vivi, and 70-100 to Freya.
Water will hit Freya and Zidane for about 140, but will only
deal Vivi around 70-80. So remember to heal when your HP drops
below the right levels (ie all the time ^_~)
When weakened, Gizamaluke casts Water on everyone. This is where
you should have everyone use a potion or two on themselves. But
this also means he's nearly finished. Having Freya jump a couple
more times and a few more attacks from Zidane should have him
finished.
And this is where the plot thickens :) Beatrix was that extremely
cute gal you saw on the right of Queen Brahne during the Prima Vista
performance at the start of the game. And she will tear you a new
ass, so get ready. Enjoy the cutie's special music though, this is
one of my favourites :)
The emphasis is on survival here. Which is NOT a good thing when
you're fighting Beatrix, because your chance of survival plummets
when she hits you with Shock for about 700hp damage, her Lightning
Sword attack for about 200-400, or her physical which does about 200.
Characters will die in this battle, mark my words (unless you've
levelled like mad and have something ridiculous like 4000 hp, but
then Beatrix would probably STILL kill you :p). Keep Freya in the
air, unless she needs healing. Have Vivi cure people for as long as
he can before Beatrix kills him. Zidane should try and steal (The
cutie has lotsa cool armor ^_^), or hit. If he gets Trance then you
can breathe a sigh of relief, then realise it was for nothing as
Beatrix does shock on him and kills him :) Ok I'll take it seriously
I suppose. If he gets trance, simply use Tidal Flame or Free Energy.
Finally, if someone dies, revive them as soon as you can! The emphasis
is on _survival_ remember. And the #1 rule of survival is to not die
(or, put in simpler terms, to survive ^_~).
You don't have to deal 3600 damage to her, though. Regardless of
how much you damage her, after a short while, Beatrix will leap
forward and reduce everyone (who's not KOed) to 1hp.
Damn what you'd give for someone that good in your party, eh?
And that's disc 1 over and done with. Moving on, then...
D I S C 2 B O S S E S
---------------------------
Boss: Black Waltz Wizard #3
HP: 1292
Steal: Steeple Hat, Thunder Rod, Fire Rod
Location: South Gate Railroad
My Party: Dagger (6), Steiner (5), Marcus (5)
Wahoo! He's back for a rematch!
He has a weak physical attack which shouldn't worry you, Thunder
will hit for about 130-150, and he will also cast Freeze which dumps
the Cold status ailment on a single character. Fire and Blizzard
are the other two spells he'll cast, but they're both weaker than
his Thunder, hitting for between 100 and 130.
Basically, have Steiner use his normal attack, Marcus can try to steal
(never worked for me), but you'd probably be better off hitting the
wizard. Have Dagger strike too. She may not do much damage, but
every little helps at this point, but if anyone drops below 100hp have
her cure them instead. This fight should be over in no time.
---------------------------
Boss: Raruvaraava
HP: 2296
Steal: Bone Wrist, Mythril Fork
Location: Gargan Roo
My Party: Dagger (8), Steiner (7), Marcus (7)
This one's a pushover too.. I'll try and translate the name properly
later on :) This lil' serpent type thing is big on Status Ailments.
Its physical attack can cause Slow, and it's Poison Kiss attack (or
something along those lines, I couldn't translate the kanji) gives
you, believe it or not, poison. It also uses Thundara (Wahh! Level
2 magic) but it's not that devastating.. It hits for between 130 and
180 (depending on who it strikes).
Have Steiner hit (as usual), Dagger should either heal (again, when
HP gets close to or drops below 100), or cure Poison. But healing
comes first :) Marcus you can try stealing with, but it won't matter
too much. After a while Raruvaraava will disappear into the mist.
Yay!
Antlion seems like a toughie, but isn't that hard. His counterattack
will strike for around 220hp damage, so make sure not to hit it with
a physical attack unless you have at least that many HP left. Have
Vivi cast Thundara, Freya should jump each turn, and have Zidane hit.
If someone dies, revive them but don't cure them at all. Since
Antlion's only all-hitting attack (Sandstorm) reduces you to critical
but won't kill you, you'll be ok as long as when someone falls, you
revive them immediately.
Beeaatttrrriiiixxxxx *_*
Once again, Beatrix proves a worthy opponent. Shock will now hit for
1000hp, which, unless your level is really high, is gonna kill you
outright. Her physical attack will once again hit for about 200-230,
and the lightning sword attack hits, again, for around 300 damage.
Again, if a character is KOed (trust me, it'll happen), revive
them immediately but don't try to heal them. She doesn't have
an all-hitting attack, remember, so you can easily get by with
1 character hitting, 1 reviving and Freya jumping :)
Remember, though, if you're down to one character the battle will
very tricky and you may lose. But if it gets to that stage, you've
most likely nearly won the battle. Either that, or you ran out of
Phoenix items ;) Good luck ^_^
This fight is easier than you'd first think. In a "Turks-from-FF7"
Style, you've only gotta hit one of the lil' jester critters to win
the battle. I just hit Thorn (The one in red). Have Freya jump (a
surprising alternative to my normal strategy for her, that), Vivi cast
Thundara, Steiner should concentrate on healing, but when he can get a
hit in either hit or use Thunder Sword, and Zidane should steal and
then just hit.
The jester kids will do their own Meteo and Flare spells. The Meteo
type spell will do around 300 damage to one target, and a little to
the rest of the party. Don't worry about it, you'll live. Well,
you _should_ live ;) The battle will be over soon enough, so don't
worry.
Beatrix again XD Yay! You know the rap for Beatrix by now, but
this time she's still tough. Don't give up, I was one hit away
from total defeat and just managed to win. Revive whoever falls
and keep on hitting her when ya can. You know the drill :)
Great things happen after this battle ^_^
And then you fight this one :)
If you attack it with a physical attack it'll likely wrap round
itself into a strikingly weird pose. When this happens, do not
attack him with physical attacks because -
a) they will not do much damage (about 50hp if you're lucky) and
b) it will counterattack with Earthshake hitting everyone for about 200hp
damage, if not more.
It also likes to cast Thundara on your peeps, so be wary of that.
To get it to stop doing its curl-up type thing, just cast a spell
on it, which doesn't prompt a counterattack. As usual have Dagger/Dagger
heal (I can't get used to calling her Dagger dammit). And that should
be all you need for this battle :) It may end up lasting a while if
your levels are low, but you'll manage it.
Rani was hired by Queen Brahne (I think) to find and kick the crap
out of Zidane. Or maybe she's after Dagger, or perhaps both. Either
way, she prolly coulda picked a better person for the job than Rani
here. Her magic is weak and her physical attack is nothin to shout
about. Try to steal a Gradius from her, it's the best weapon you can
have for Zidane at the moment I think. Just have Vivi cast Thundara,
Quina use his regular attack, Dagger heal or summon Ramuh, and Zidane
steal the Gradius from her, then attack as usual. This battle shouldn't
prove any significant problem :)
---------------------------
Boss: Hill Gigas | Hiru Gigaasu
HP: 8106
Steal: -
Location: Conde Petie Mountain Path
My Party: Zidane, Dagger, Vivi, Eiko
Conde Petie! Lali-Ho!
Anyways, this boss again isn't really a challenge. His strongest
attack (the name of which I forget ^^;) will hit for about 500 damage,
but only strikes a single target. Eiko has Cura so that shouldn't
be a problem to rectify even if you're curing everyone at once.
This battle is also pretty straightforward, just have Vivi use his
strongest magic (for me, still Thundara ^_^), Eiko should heal whenever
she can, or cast protect on people if no-one really needs it.
Dagger can also focus on healing and also attacking (she should have
a good weapon by now), and Zidane should just attack as usual.
---------------------------
Boss: The Soulcage | Za Sourukeeji
HP: 9765
Steal: Brigandine, Orcstaff
Location: Iifa Core
My Party: Zidane, Dagger, Vivi, Eiko
Oh I like this guy :) He was talkin' about Kuja which can't be
a bad thing :)
The Soulcage opens up the battle with Level 5 Death. If you have
people on a level multiple of five (most likely 20 or 25), level
them up before you fight this guy. Or, you'll have to bring 'em
back to life in battle. His other attacks include Mustard Bomb,
a spell that you will learn to not like. Basically, when he uses
Mustard Bomb, your character will turn red. Don't mistake this for
the Beserk status ailment. When your character is red like this,
do not do ANYTHING with them, don't even defend, just press Triangle
to skip to the next character. If you do something, you die. Simple
as that. Don't worry, it wears off quickly enough.
Other things to not do in this battle include using Fire magic against
him. It might just have been coincidence, but every time I cast Fira
on The Soulcage, it countered with a nasty Fire attack that knackered
my whole party. Hitting everyone for between 100 and 300 hp. Also,
he has Fira up his sleeve himself, which hits for around 500 damage
(individual target). Having 2 potential healers (Eiko and Dagger)
means this battle is not so challenging, but don't neglect your healing
duties or you'll end up fried. Remember that Eiko has Cura (Cure 2),
don't hesitate to use it.
One last tip. When people fall in this battle (maybe at the start
from Level 5 Death), make sure to heal the people that are still
standing first. If you're all on low HP and he uses an all-hitting
attack, you'll be dead faster than you can say "Kweh?!" in a japanese
chocobo manner.
NOTE - The Soulcage is an undead. Cast life on him. Watch him
un-undie.
---------------------------
SubBoss: Scarlet Hair
HP: 8985
Steal: -
Location: Madain Sari
My Party: Zidane
I decided to add this here because, although not strictly a _boss_
fight, it can be tricky if your levels are low. Make sure you have
plenty of Hi Potions at least. When Salamander is in his starting
position, and only then, try to hit him. Attacking anywhere else will
prompt him to counterattack and hurt you. If your HP drops below 500
you're probably best off healing, as you never know (well, you can
probably guess) when he'll get an attack in before you, or when he'll
get a critical hit, or when he'll counterattack your next strike. When
he's jumpin around the place trying to be smart, heal yourself, if
possible back to max HP. Sometimes he'll jump back to his original
position, but then he'll jump away again. You know when he's gonna
stay in his original position when he says something (a message appears
at the top), then he jumps back to his original position :)
Good luck ^_^ If you have 1400hp or above this fight shouldn't be a
problem.
Hmm there's a whole section to go after this guy, but no more bosses.
The end of disc 2 rocks, enjoy it :)
Oh disc 3 ^_^
D I S C 3 B O S S E S
---------------------------
SubBoss: Antlion | Antorion
HP: 2938
Steal: -
Location: Eastern Desert Whirsands
My Party: Zidane, Dagger, Quina, Salamander
Okies you may fight this again if you enter the wrong whirlsand (the
one you need to enter is the one furthest north). Just refer to the
strategy earlier to beat it. Although this time around it shouldn't
be much of a threat at all.
Wow this one was interesting at such levels. I'll write here how I
just there now beat it, but first I'll do the overall strategy (my
levels are probably abnormally low because I'm rushing through it
second time).
Arc's attacks are Photon, which reduces a single character to 1 hp,
Boomerang which is an all-hitting physical attack which hits everyone
for around 300 hp, Propeller Wind which causes your whole party to
become confused if it hits, and another wind attack which causes 200
to 300 damage to all party members and causes whoever it hits to Float
(I was thinking maybe if you stop your characters floating then
Propeller Wind won't effect them but I didn't test that theory out yet).
When confusion hits your people, you'd better hope that Vivi or Quina
break out of it first :) Use them to hit your confused party members
to make 'em snap out of it (doing that with Zidane or Salamander may
result in death though, since they tend to be very strong). If you're
lucky then soon after Propellar Wind, Arc will soon use its Boomerang
attack which will cancel confusion on everyone simultaneously.
Here, it's best to have Salamander attack when he can, Quina and Vivi
should focus on healing the party, particularly Zidane, and make sure
Zidane keeps hitting when he gets the chance.
If your levels are as low as mine were (Believe me this was probably
my worst party to bring, baring in mind that magic is rendered obsolete
in Oeilvert), then you may need to do something a bit silly :) This is
what I did:
Make sure you have the counter attack ability on as many people as you
can get it on, and definately on Zidane. Now, don't concentrate on
keeping everyone alive, just use 'em until they die. Apart from with
Zidane. Now, do _not_ attack unless your HP is over 500 at least.
(600 is the safe zone). Use hi-potions every turn until your HP
is over 600 (or just below). If Arc uses Photon on Zidane, then just
keep healing again. With Hi-Potions, your HP will be restored faster
than he can take you down, and if he becomes confused he'll only hit
himself for around 250-300hp. Every so often, he'll counter attack,
and soon enough he'll reach Trance. When this happens, you've still
gotta keep healing but if you're over 500hp, hit Arc with Solution 9
(or your strongest Trance attack at the time). Just keep doing this
and sooner or later (took me about 20 minutes) Arc will fall :) yay!
Of course, it probably won't come to this, but good luck all the
same :)
---------------------------
Boss: Varia Vira
HP: 12119
Steal: -
Location: Desert Empress
My Party: Eiko, Steiner, Freya, Dagger
NOTE - upon playing the English version of the game, I realised that
the more 'bloodstones' you activate, the weaker this boss will be come;
I don't mean it'll have less HP, I mean each bloodstone takes away
a certain element of its 'system' - it's massive defence and it's magic
guard are the two you'll most wanna get rid of.. But I managed to
do it with both of these activated in the jp version anyway, so if
you're as stupid as I am, and you're stuck, read -
A boss that has a mega-high physical defence, guards against all your
summons and casts reflect on itself so you can't cast basic magics
on it. How the hell do you win? Hmm it's not that hard, you've just
gotta be real patient.
Make sure that Eiko has learned (or is currently learning) Carbuncle
(The item she learns it from is the Ruby I believe). Anyways, that's
basically it; summon Carbuncle at the start of the battle so its
magic can't hurt you. Don't think you'll win the battle by reflecting
its own magic though, as it will guard all spells (there may be a way
to stop it from doing this but I am not sure). Some status spells will
hit though. Blindness at least, but it's sorta useless here.
Anyway, as long as you keep carbuncle's barrier up, just keep Freya
jumping, Eiko casting Carbuncle and Dagger handing out the Ethers.
If you wanna speed things up (a lot), kill steiner then revive him
with a Phoenix Down. Now, make sure you have reflect on him at all
times so he can't be hurt. The reason is this - his second swordskill,
"Sagaku " (I'll translate that one later, maybe) does damage
depending on how many HP Steiner is short of his maximum, meaning
he'll be hitting for 1000+ with that every turn. And yeah, it ignores
defense :) Just what you need, eh?
After a while, this guy will drop. And you'll be relieved :)
---------------------------
SubBoss: 2x Red Dragon
Steal: -
Location: Gulg Volcano
My Party: Zidane, Vivi, Dagger, Steiner
This battle can be tricky because of the birds' tendancy to cast
Twister. I'm not sure what the damage of Twister is based on,
sometimes it will wreck your people, and sometimes will hit for
a mere 50hp damage.
Anyways, Auto Potion will come in very handy. Dagger has an ability
which doubles item efficiency (or somethin like that), so if you clear
your inventory of standard potions and leave only Hi-Potions, each
time she's hit she'll recover 900hp, which is enough to keep her
alive almost always throughout this battle (unless twister decides
to be nasty and take mega amounts of hp away from her). And use her
for healing purposes and revival purposes. Because of her condition
she may sometimes fail to carry out her actions, but don't worry, if
you're unlucky one turn you might get lucky the next. Don't give up.
Have Zidane hit as usual, try and keep Steiner and Vivi alive as much
as possible to do more damage to them, but as long as you have Dagger
and Zidane you shouldn't have too many problems. They take priority
here :)
I had a sneaking suspicion that Zorn and Sorn would do this ever since
I first clapped eyes on 'em :)
This battle isn't too tough, seeing as you have two healers. Steiner
should use his usual physical attack, or if he's on low hp, his second
swordskill. Zidane should also attack. Have Eiko cast regen on
people, but she should also concentrate on curing as Dagger might fail
at a critical time. Dagger should heal, though, if you decide to
have Eiko summon. I did fine here when Dagger only had Cure (Cure1),
so you shouldn't have too many problems on that front.
The attack to watch out for here is their physical attack, which took
out Zidane in one hit for me given that he was in the front row (weak
party ^_^). They will cast Bio either on a single target or on the
whole party, so get Cura out :) This fight is simple enough, just
a basic hit-and-cure type thing. You know what to do :)
Another high-defense nasty :) And I bet that name's mistranslated
badly by me ^^ Anyways, if you brought along Eiko and Dagger
you have two new all-powerful summons to try out :) Have Eiko
call Madeen (Maduin..?) and Dagger summon Bahamut about 4 times
each and this battle will be over :) Of course, if you can't spare
the ethers, then you can do what ya did for the Varia Vira in
D.E. and let Steiner die (or kill him off yourself), then revive
him with a phoenix down, and use his second swordskill. Works
a treat :) Again, nothing too difficult, but remember to keep
an eye on the party's condition. Don't go mad summoning and forget
to cure :)
Another way is to bring along everyone's favourite lil' black mage
(and everyone's favourite ff9 character) Vivi! And, if you have some
good offensive blue magic, Quina could be good also; magic is this
guy's weakness. Casting reflect or summoning Carbuncle will be good,
but remember to repeat it once reflect wears out.
This battle can be really tough, but shouldn't be too worrying if
ya do this - Have Zidane learn Auto Potion, and equip him with the
Auto-Regenerate ability. It goes without saying that Auto Levitate
will be brilliant in this battle, so if you have it, use it. To
hell with Bird Eater or whatever.
As for Quina.. Well, unless you've been using Quina a lot,
he will die here. And even if he doesn't he'll be next to
useless I guess. This fight is virtually a one-on-one from the
offset, so don't worry and don't be surprised when he snuffs it.
Oh, you can grab the item which allows you to learn Auto-Regenerate
from the moogle (mogri) in Ipsen's Heritage. Anyways, once all that
is sorted, you're ready more or less. You'll need about 2000hp,
which you should prolly have by now.
Basically, each attack he does (Firaga, Thundaga, Blizzaga, an Earth
quake attack, and physical) will hit for between 1000 and 1500 damage.
Auto Potion and Regen between them will heal around 700-900hp worth
of that damage per turn. If he does his physical attack or if Auto
Potion fails then you'd better heal yourself, but otherwise
just keep hitting him. Soon enough Zidane will reach trance, at
which time hit him with Solution 9 or (if you have it by now)
Grand Lethal. Grand Lethal hits him for around 9000-9999 which,
of course, rocks :)
Hmm I was sorta hoping that I'd get to fight the Water, Wind and
Fire guardians too. Ah well, can't have everything :) Anyone else
think these guys look a lot like FF1's Fiends? :) I really liked
this whole lil' cutscene, and the music with it... *quits rambling*
---------------------------
Boss: Dragon type thingamajigger (I'll get the proper name later)
Steal: Tent
Location: Pandemonium
My Party: Zidane
Wow does this music rock or what? :) Hmm this shouldn't really count
as a boss I guess, but hell it's going in here anyway. Don't worry
about the one-on-oneness of this battle, once it starts to fly,
Freya will join you and help out. Then, a little later Salamander
will also accompany you. Oh yay! Anyways, this one can be tricky
because of his phyisical attack when he is airborne (I forget the
name). This can hit for about 1500-1800 damage and if he scores a
critical (which can happen more than you'd expect), you're looking
at 3000-4500 damage, which pretty much equals one dead character.
Have Zidane hit him (auto potion and auto regen will help a lot here).
If auto-potion fails, use a hi-potion yourself. Also, if you drop
below 1000 hp, heal. as soon as it starts to fly, defend, or if you
have low hp (again, below 1000), use a hi-potion or better yet, an
elixer. Have Freya jump, or heal if that's necesarry, and Salamander
hit & heal. You can steal a tent from this guy, which isn't really
needed but if you can afford to you might as well grab one. Remember,
defend when it flies.
Wow! 2 bosses in a row with no time to heal. Ouchu!
Well, it's a bit late to say this now, but equip everyone as best
you can while you still have the chance back in BranBal. And shove
Quina into the back row while you're at it, he's your healer again.
Have Steiner attack every turn (unless, once again, extra healing is
needed), and that's basically all. After a small while, Zidane will
join the struggling duo and the battle will be easier. Remember to
try and keep everyone alive, if you're down to only Zidane, and are
out of Elixers, then you'll probably lose unless you get Trance
or have nearly finished it off. Anyways, Abadon isn't too tough.
Make that 3 bosses in a row :) If you die now you'll be well pissed.
Well, you'll prolly be glad that you'll get to hear the amazing music
some more ^_^ The Shelter Dragon has a tendancy to cast Earth Shake.
Don't worry, it's not too devastating. His physical attack isn't too
worrying either, it'll hit for about 800-1400. Don't worry about that
either, it's nothin really as long as you have Auto potion and Auto
regen on. A little way into the battle you'll kuso a brick when he
hits Zidane and takes his hp down to 1. But then kiyootie Dagger
arrives and replenishes his HP. Yay! First thing to have her do
is cast Levitate (Float) on both her and Zidane. Then, have her
curing each turn and have Zidane hit. That should finish him off
soon enough.
If Dagger gets KOed then don't worry, just have Zidane heal himself.
Remember my strategy for Arc? You can do a similar thing here.
Zidane will soon get his trance (if he didn't get it already in
these three battles), and then one or two hits with Solution 9 or
Grand Lethal will do the trick. Yay! A much respected savemoogle
follows, but remember to backtrack a screen to find it.
Wow if I didn't know better I'd say this was the dragon that Kuja was
flying about on. And I don't know better, so I'm gonna say this is
the dragon that Kuja was flying about on. Enjoy the music, FF2j fans
everywhere should recognise it ^_~ (err, and the dungeon you've just
done). Anyways, that's probably enough pointless babble :)
Kuja's strangely green Silver Dragon has a wide array of attacks which
will almost kill you unless your levels are high (bare in mind when
I wrote this I did hardly any level building at all and got very few
random attacks, some of which I ran away from because I was going for
a fast time).
Her attacks include an all-hitting wind attack, which will strike
everyone for about 500 (amusingly it hit Steiner for 2800 hp but
because of his armor it healed him). Another all-hitting attack
where it emits this white ball of energy which will hit for between
800 and 1500 damage (ouch!). Also, Gin Ryuu is another one that does
Twister (dammit!), and we all know what a pain in the ass that can
be. Her physical attack, Claw, will hit for about 1600 damage.
Have Eiko equip Phoenix Feather so she can summon Phoenix here for
multiple revivals at once (if needed). Dagger should be the main
healer, using Cura for the whole party, but just regular cure should
do for one person. Have Zidane steal, as she has some stuff well
worth getting. Once you've got all three items, just keep hitting,
and have Steiner attack too. She doesn't have too many HP, well not
when you're doing a total of about 5000 damage each round. After
a short while she'll disintegrate and then you'll face, almost
immediately afterwards, with no chance to save... *drumroll*
FF1 nostalgiaaaa! In name, at least. Garland is weird. Anyways,
he has a ball-of-energy type attack (he throws a white ball of
energy towards a single character), which hits for about 800 damage.
His strange attack (where he lifts a character up and then drops
him down, and lots of red bubbles (kweh?) appear below). That does
around 1500hp damage and I believe is his counterattack. Flare will
hit for anything between 1300-2000, and he also casts stop. Damn what
a bastard!
The strategy for Garland isn't much different from the last one.
Simply have Eiko and Dagger be the healers and revivers, and Steiner
and Zidane attack. Cast Regenerate on Dagger so the chances of her
dying are even slimmer, and so you'll always have at least one person
alive with Life (which you should've learned by now). The thing that
makes this fight real easy is that he can only hit a single character
in each turn (unless he counter attacks), so you can probably get by
using just Phoenix Downs to revive with. After hitting him a lot
Garland will go "Uh!" and that's that :)
Kuja! I've been waitin so long to fight him/her/it! Yaaaay!
Kuja isn't exactly difficult, although he's slightly harder than the
last two bosses. Kuja likes to use Thundaga, but will only hit one
person at one time with it, hitting for between 1000 and 3000 damage.
He also likes Gravity. I'm not sure how that works in FF9, but it
might get you in some pretty nasty situations. Still, it only hits
one person at a time.
Basically, do what ya did for the last ones ;) Zidane and Steiner
hit, Eiko and Dagger heal. Revive whenever someone is KOed, though.
This fight shouldn't be too much of a challenge at all. Again, the
battle is ended with a "Uuh!". But then you recieve a little surprise
and witness FF9's Ultima spell for the first time :) Yaaaay!
And with that, and a few excellent (to say the least) cutscenes, it's
time to wave goodbye to the wonderful world of Terra, and hello to the
final part, aka Disc 4 :)
D I S C 4 B O S S E S
---------------------------
Boss: Shinryuu
HP: 59940
Steal: Grand Armour, Dragon Wrist
Location: Warp
My Party: Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, Eiko
(I guess I should mention this. In the game's translation, Shinryuu
is called Nova Dragon).
The beginning of the last dungeon brings nasty death to your party
in the shape of Shinryuu, or more likely in the shape of Shinryuu's
Tidal Wave attack :) But more about that later.
What we have here is one hell of a tough boss (at around level 32
anyways). If you have Zidane near Trance, then you're in luck but
you'll still have a hard time keeping him alive. Here's what to
do. Bring Eiko and Dagger along, you need two healers :) Bring
the character with the most HP (other than Zidane) along too, in
my case Steiner, and stick whoever it is in the back row, too.
In Salamander's or Steiner's case, they'll still be able to hit
for a decent amount of damage in the back row. In Freya's case,
jump! In Quina's case, you'd better have some good enemy skills
otherwise he's gonna strictly be a third healer. In Vivi's case
just throw your strongest magic at him.
Ok, now let's see what Shinryuu has to offer, remember how billy
buckmere solid he was in FF5? Well thankfully he's nowhere near
that hard, but still.. Tidal Wave is hell, if your HP ain't high
(and mine _wasn't_) it will wreck your party, probably kill off
Dagger and Eiko (too bad you need 'em), and leave the others
on critical. Twister is still confusing to me, it will demolish
some characters sometimes and then do next to nothing later. Well,
it's still scary. Shinryuu has the weird "bubble" attack (the one
where the screen goes dark that it also likes to use as a counter
attack), and it also has a physical counter which tended to miss
Steiner every single time for me, but also tended to take Zidane out
in a single hit. Ouch! Finally, it has the all-hitting wind
attack and the all hitting wings-in/ball-of-energy-out attack that
the Silver Dragon had. And to cap it all off the guy has around
40,000 hp. I believe the words "oh" and "shit" are springing to
mind round about now.
Don't worry though, once you get used to the idea that you'll be
scrambling for survival the battle gets quite easy. At the beginning
of the battle have Dagger cast Shell on herself, then on Zidane, then
Protect on Zidane, then Shell on Eiko. Continue that cycle when they
wear off. The only times you should break this cycle is if someone
is knocked out (revive 'em), or if the party needs curing (Cura the
entire party). Eiko should concentrate on curing, so Cura all round.
Again, revive whenever someone is knocked out. Zidane should just
hit each turn, unless you have plenty of HP (at least 2000 for every
character. My Eiko had about 900 hp in this battle ^_~). Your fourth
member should heal with items if needed (Phoenix items to revive
Dagger or Eiko, Hi-Potions, Ethers and Elixers to whoever needs them),
or otherwise just hit in the best way they can.
If Dagger and Eiko are knocked out at the same time, have Stiener (or
whoever you brought) use a Phoenix item to revive them. If you follow
this basic strategy you shouldn't have too many problems. Have fun :)
---------------------------
Boss: Kary/Maliris | Maririsu
HP: 59497
Steal: Masamune, Ultima Sword, ??
Location: Place of Memory - Soto Bu Tsuuro (Outside Pathway)
My Party: Zidane, Dagger, Freya, Eiko
Wow FF1 or what? :) Hell this is so much like FF1's finale Temple of
Fiends that the boss fights are entered without any kind of warning
^_^ Welcome Kary (or in the jp version, Maririsu (Maliris), the Fire
fiend. Note that the translators for FF9, whilst doing a great job
almost all the time so far (although I'll have trouble forgiving them
for "Rally Ho"), didn't stay true to FF1's translated fiend names,
so this remains Maliris in the english version.
Anyway, this is the one you saw Salamander and Freya face waay back
on disc 3 when Zidane and Quina went to the Earth Shrine; none other
than she, the 'Torchy girl' herself (thanks to FF1's manual for that
one ^_^), the Fiend of Fire, Kary.
Her attacks then, are Mustard Bomb (argh!), a Blaze Slash (or somethin
like that) type attack which slashes one target and does about 1500
damage, her physical attack hits for about 1800, and her special attack
(looks like her pysical) which hits for about 1600 and she also casts
Reflect a lot (which is why I recommend not brining Vivi here).
Kary has some stuff well worth stealing (the fabled Masamune!),
so be sure to have Zidane try to steal from her. Freya should
jump every turn no matter what (go grab the Lance of Kain in the
first room of the last dungeon if ya didn't already. Oh, and it's
hidden). Have Dagger cast Protect on herself, Freya (do it just
after she's came down from a jump, or before ya tell her to jump
in the first place), Eiko (so she doesn't die from a single hit),
then Zidane. Keep this cycle going when they start running out,
and otherwise use her for the usual - curing/reviving/summoning
if ya get a spare turn. Eiko should heal whoever Kary hits (she only
hits one character per attack) with Cura. After dealing a lot of
damage (somewhere between 40000 and 50000 I think), Kary will fall,
but unleashes a deadly all-hitting final attack which may wipe out
your whole party unless they have Protect on :)
Oh, and a little tip, there's a hidden savepoint in the room after this
fight, but you can find it yourself (not that it's hard to find) ^_^
---------------------------
Boss: Tiamat | Tiamatto
HP: 59494
Steal: Broadsword, Grand Helm, Feather Boots
Location: Place of Memory - Toki no Hasa Aida (Pause in Time)
My Party: Zidane, Dagger, Freya, Eiko
Tiamat doesn't like you, and since he has an attack which casts the
Hot status ailment on _everyone_ at once, he's not someone it's
healthy to be disliked by. But it's not as if you have a choice,
so here's what to do.
Jet Somethingorother hits the entire party for between 600-1500
damage and casts Burn on everyone. He also uses Twister (me no
like!), also, Silent Claw which will hit for around 2000 and
silences (if it doesn't kill) whoever it hits. In addition,
he has three nasty drain attacks. MP Drain will steal _big_
amounts of MP from a single character, Strength Drain will diminish
physical Strength (defense or attack, I'm not sure which), and
Magic Strength drain which will render spells like Cure next to
useless, but Rise (Life) will still work (phew). He also casts
Levitate on single characters, but I'm not sure why. Maybe Twister
wrecks you even more if you're floating... Not sure...
Anyway, Tiamat shouldn't be too hard as long as you do this. Always
wait for him to attack first. If you tell everyone to do somethin
then he casts Jet Whatever, you're dead. When your time bars fill
up, leave them full until he attacks. Then, immediately after,
have Zidane steal or attack (again, cool stuff worth pilfering here),
Dagger should heal and revive as is regular for her (and indeed Eiko)
in these parts. Freya jumps as always (as if I needed to say that).
Although if it comes down to just her, revive Eiko and have her cast
Phoenix.
That's pretty much all there is to it. As long as Twister and Jet
don't get you, you should do ok :)
---------------------------
Boss: Kraken | Kuraaken
HP: 59496
Steal: Wizard Rod, ??, ??
Location: Place of Memory - Gensho no Umi (Ocean of First Origin)
My Party: Zidane, Dagger, Stiener, Freya
Kraken has 3 parts - her two arms/antennae/tentacles and her main
body. Here, just concentrate on taking out the main body, as taking
away her antennae makes her use her nasty physical attack which will
more than likely kill a person straight away. And she'll use it every
turn.
Anyway, Kraken's attacks include the now common Breeze (Freeze?),
a strange attack where she shoots black stuff (oil maybe) at you
called Sumi, which strikes a single target for around 1000, Waterga
(Water 3) which hits all targets at once and does around 1000 to all
party members or around 2500 to a single member, and finally a water
jet couterattack which will hit for between 1500 and 2500.
Have Zidane steal the Wizard Rod then hit as usual, only stopping to
throw someone a phoenix down if needed. Dagger should cast shell
on herself so she doesn't get killed easily, and conentrate on keeping
the party healthy as always. Only cure one person at once, unless
Kraken hits the whole party with Waterga, in which case cure everyone
at once with Cure 2. Freya should jump all the time, although if
Dagger is KOed, revive her as soon as possible. And if that means
missing out on a jump or an attack, do so. Steiner should just
attack as usual also, but have him be your secondary healer (if you
have enough items) unless his physical attack does more than Zidane's
in which case swap their roles :) Kraken should be no problem.
---------------------------
Boss: Lich | Ricchi
HP: 58554
Steal: Black Robe, Siren Flute, ??
Location: Place of Memory - Kyo Sora he no Mon (Gateway to Empty Skies)
My Party: Zidane (41), Dagger (32), Freya (30), Eiko (30)
The first fiend of FF1 is the final fiend of FF9. Are we gonna come
full circle and run into Chaos? Well, we'll soon be finding out,
but not before we've kicked the crap out of the Earth Guardian. You
fought this guy before, altho this time round he's bigger, meaner,
had new attacks to bap you with and has a great fat wad of HP.
Lich will cast Death at the start of the battle, meaning you're one
person down right away. Great. Have Dagger or Eiko revive whoever
is KOed first. Another attack he will use is Powder, which stops
whoever it is cast on and adds some weird status ailment which I'm
not sure of :) He casts the Mirror of Death on one person, which
is basically Doom/Condemn, he has Stop, and 2 Earthquake spells,
Earth Shake and another one (Ground something), which hit the whole
party for about 1500 damage. Then, he has his physical attack
Death Cutter which strikes a single target for about 3000 and also
causes Condemn. Finally, he has Level 5 Death, which can take out
your whole party instantly if you're unlucky enough to have levels
multiple of 5 :)
The easy way to beat him would to have everyone equip Feather Boots
and attatch the Auto-Levitate ability, and then he'd only be able
to kill one person per turn (with the possible exception of level
5 death). But that may not be an option. Anyway, I beat him
by equipping Auto Levitate to Dagger and Eiko (the healers/revivers
are ESSENTIAL here thanks to Lich's love of instant death spells),
and having Zidane hit each turn, Freya jump, and leaving Eiko and
Dagger's timebars full until someone needed healing or reviving.
The Powder attack and Stop can be countered with a simple remedy,
of which you should have plenty by now, and any death spell can be
rectified by casting Rise/Life (or Arise/Life2 if you have it by now).
Earthshake and Earthquake can be a real pain, so if you want,
cast Levitate on Zidane and Freya, although it's not essential to
do so. And that's all really :)
---------------------------
Boss: Doomgaze (Desugeizu (Deathgaze))
HP: 55535
Steal: Duel Claw, Black ??, Elixer
Location: Crystal World
My Party: Zidane (41), Dagger (32), Steiner, Freya (30)
After FF1 comes FF6. Who woulda thought :) The translation is
Deathguise, but if you know FF6 you'll know what it looks like;
Doomgaze. And for those who don't know (and actually care), in
FF6j, Doomgaze was called Deathgaze (and while we're at it,
Tina/Terra's morph was called Trance. How about that! Oops
almost forgot.. I'm meant to be writing a boss guide).
Doomgaze can be tricky because he hits _hard_. At the beginning of
the battle he casts Meteo and wrecks your party goood, hitting all
targets for around 2000-3000 damage (in some strange cases it will
only do about 700, though). After that he starts pulling out stuff
like Demon Claw, which hits a single target for about 1000, an all-
hitting physical attack which swipes away around 1500 damage, Death
and Level 5 Death which as you know can be nasty, and Twister (ARGH!).
Prioritise in keeping Dagger alive. Keeping your HP high is vital
here because of Doomgaze's hard hitting attacks. At the start of the
battle don't have anyone attack until he casts Meteo. Now, if
Dagger dies from the meteor's hit, revive her with a phoenix down
with Steiner, have Freya jump and Zidane attack (or steal). If
she's not dead but other people are have her use Rise on the others
(Zidane first, then Freya, then Steiner). Otherwise, have her cure
the whole party each turn (Curaga/Cure3 is probably best).
Zidane should hit as usual, if he gets Trance hit with MiiruTsuisutaa
(MiiruTwister), Freya should jump as usual and Steiner can hit.
This battle isn't too difficult if you can get past his nasty
attacks.
---------------------------
Boss: Trance Kuja (Toransu Kuja)
HP: 55535
Steal: White Robe, Ether
Location: Crystal World
My Party: Zidane, Dagger, Eiko, Freya
Trance Kuja! You'd think he'd be shooting all them cool streams
of energy at you that he was using to destroy the vast skyscapes
of Terra with. But he doesn't. Instead he uses Flare, Holy,
Flarestar, Reflect and Curaga. No biggie, right?
I don't think Trance Kuja has a set attack pattern. His actions
at the start of the battle differed from time to time. Sometimes
he'd cast reflect, sometimes Flare or Holy, sometimes even Flare
Star (thankfully he hasn't yet been dumb enough to cure before
taking damage like a certain Bizarro Sephiroth does).
If your party averages Level 40 or above, you shouldn't have many
problems. If you're level 30 or something I recommend bringing
both Dagger and Eiko for curative purposes, and your two strongest
characters. Front and back row doesn't matter here (as far as
I know) because Kuja here only uses magical attacks.
If you're short on items you might benefit from pilfering an
Ether, and a white robe will come in useful (you'll get a chance
to equip it before the next battle). So stealing's good.
Also, to make the battle go a little quicker, you may wanna
use Zidane's MP hit ability (not sure of the proper name yet).
That way you can do about 5000 damage per hit for a few turns
until his MP reaches zero. Just remember that if he's about
to enter Trance, throw him an ether or two so he can perform
his strong trance skills.
You could summon Madeen with Eiko, or cast Holy, but you're
probably better off conserving your MP for curing. A good tip
here is to 'queue' your attacks. Especially as the battle
progresses. After you have relieved Trance Kuja of around
half of his HP he will start counterattacking. Most frequently,
he will counter with Flarestar, which will strike your entire
party for.. well I think it really depends on equipment (a lot
more so than normal). It was striking my level 28 Eiko for less
than 900, but my level 40 Zidane for over 1000. I don't think
it is determined by rows, though. I'd have to check it out.
Sometimes he will counter by using Curaga on himself. healing
about 3000-4000 of his hp. Nothin you can't take away with one
or two hits. Other counterattacks are Flare and Holy, they can
kill you if you're not high on hp, but you have two healers so
whoever falls you should be able to revive immediately.
Anyways, about queing your attacks. Once Kuja counterattacks
(that's when he gets at least 2 attacks in one turn :p),
start fighting thus - only strike once. Leave your other
attacker(s) time bar full. Now, if Kuja counterattacks,
heal if need be. If not, attack with the other person. Keep
this going and you shouldn't get beaten.
The main problem in this battle is when those attacks and
counterattacks of Trance Kuja's add up, and all of a sudden
you're out of MP. Chances are you'll get Flarestar cast on
you and next thing you know only Zidane is still standing.
Don't despair. Now, if you have auto-potion and auto-regen
on, you can still pull this off. Revive Dagger or Eiko (whoever
has the most MP I guess) with a Phoenix item. Now all she
has to do is concentrate on healing while Zidane is hitting.
Keeping two people alive for long enough to finish the fight
should be easy. But again, watch out for those counterattacks.
At the end of the fight you get to see that lovely Ultima
for the second and last time. Get ready my friends. It's final
battle time.
---------------------------
Boss: Eternal Darkness (Eien no Yami)
HP: 54100
Steal: Elixer
Location: Zetsubou no Oka (Hill of Despair)
My Party: Zidane (51), Dagger (43), Vivi (43), Eiko (42)
NOTE - this guy is called Necron in the english version.
OK, first things first. Don't worry about the way Trance Kuja
kicked the crap out of you, the characters you pick are fully
recovered before the battle starts. Take your best characters.
If you don't have any 'best', then take the most useful. Sort
out your equipment and abilities. I'd give everyone their best
equipment (although if you're still learning Arise or Curaga or
Flare or some other big spell, keep on learning it. It's not
as if weapons on mages will matter here anyay). As for abilities,
I advise equipping as many status ailment guarding ones as
you can (especially Body Temp), and also Auto Regen. One more
thing, you need your white mages. Take at least Dagger or Eiko
(helps to have both), and one of your other best characters.
Got all that sorted? Good! Let's get started!
Eternal Darkness, who looks like FF1's Chaos as my friend Luke
pointed out, is great. If you want him to be a challenge,
fight him at level 30 or so. If you're very far over level 45
he isn't _that_ hard.
Eternal Darkness casts Shell and Protect on himself. You may
want to dispel that but he re-casts it (as a counter attack
sometimes I think). He will also use Blizzaga, Firaga and Thundaga,
again, mostly if you use these elements on him, he will counter with
them. Same goes for Flare. I didn't try using Jihad (Doomsday).
Also, he casts the occaisional Meteo. He has an attack that reduces
one character's HP to 1, "Blue Light" or something.
All of these spells are relitavely weak (apart from Meteo,
which is random), and are easily rectified with Curaga or
two Curas. If you brought Freya, jump after Eternal Darkness casts
Shell or Protect on himself. This is because the nastie stuff usually
starts after Shell/Protect:
The real fun starts when the words "Grand Cross" appear on
your screen. Images of FF5 and FF Tactics come flooding back already.
Grand Cross is the ultimate status ailment attack. It can
inflict stone, hot, cold, petrify countdown, condemn, mini,
zombie, beserk, and even instant death. (Don't you wish it was
obtainable as blue magic?) Also, it hits everyone. Grand Cross is
seriously not good for your party's chance of survival. He
will usually cast it after he has at least either Protect
or Shell on and after he's used 2 or 3 other attacks.
After Grand Cross hits, you gotta scramble to get your party back
to health. Revive anyone who has been killed, summon Phoenix if
necessary (if you have Eiko), clear status ailments (especially
stuff like Beserk, Stop, Stone or Sleep). However, if you can
help it, don't revive Zidane (or whoever your highest level character
is) yet. The reason is this -
Soon after casting Grand Cross, Eternal Darkness uses his strongest
spell, Neutron Ring. This hits everyone and is quite weird; if Zidane
(my highest level character by 10 levels or so) was alive, it'd hit
for between 2000 and 4000 damage. But, if he was KOed, it'd only
deal about 1000-2500 damage. I guess it could be based on levels
but I don't know for sure.
If you survive Neutron Ring (at Level 45+ you should do, as long as
everyone was restored to full health after Grand Cross), then
you're more or less safe. But don't attack with magic until
everyone's back to over half their HP (doing so could prompt a
counterattack). Get rid of everyone's status ailments. Cure
some more if you need. Start casting Haste or something on people
(Zidane first, of course). Okay, now is the time to wail on him
with everything you have. You've only got so long before Grand
Cross comes around again. If you trance with Zidane, you'd probably
do 9999 with Stellar Circle 5 (hey, it worked on Trance Kuja), also,
you can use a Dark Matter item on him to do 9999 damage also (a really
cheap way to win, too). Eternal Darkness has about 54000 hp. If
you can get past Grand Cross and Neutron Ring each time they come
around, you've virtually won. Good luck!
Enjoy the ending! It's excellent :)
S E C R E T / O P T I O N A L B O S S E S
---------------------------
Boss: Hades (Haadesu)
HP: 55535
Steal: Robe of Lords, Battle Boots, Shoes of Elmens, Reflect Ring
Location: Place of Memory - Umareru Mono (One to be born/Birth)
My Party: Zidane (41), Dagger (32), Steiner (30), Freya (30)
How to find -
I had a few mails about this, so here's how to find Hades. In
the last dungeon (Place of Memory/Memoria) go to the place where
Quina was swimming around (it's called 'Birth' in the English
version). Search behind the rocks on the right hand side of the
screen. When ya find it, sort your party out and then let's rock!
NOTE - Jihad is called Doomsday in the english version.
Hades is a peice o' cake at level 50 or so, but not so easy when your
party is a trembling level 30. Firstly, and quite importantly, stick
everyone in the back row. You heard right. Everyone including Zidane
and Steiner. You'll see why soon.
Hades is a nasty chap, sitting there in his big chair with that painful
lookin' sword. He casts reflect on himself, has a similar looking
attack to the last dungeon's Iron Giants (slashes straight down on
a character reducing their HP to 1), and a slash-all attack (Cleave),
which means a loss of between 1300 and 2000 to everyone at once,
and that's in the BACK row. You see now :)
Also, he uses Mustard Bomb and Breeze (or is it Freeze?). If you have
it, Body Temp would be good to equip here. Finally, he has 2 special
attacks that occur after a countdown of three. The first is Curse
(Kaazu), which has been upgraded from a slight stat-decresing spell
to something much like Bad Breath from hell. It confuses, poisons,
slows and dramatically weakens everyone. Curative magic will be much
less effective and physical attack power will be laughable. The second
is Jihad, the ultimate black magic in the game (besides Ultima which
you can't acquire so it doesn't really count). Jihad hits your whole
party for some teradeath-recieving amount of damage around 6000, and at the
same time, (this will make you CRY) will heal him between 6000 and 7000hp.
I can hear them now, those wimps, saying "I'm gonna wait til I'm on level
99 to fight him!"
"So how the hell do you do it at level 30?!" you ask. Well, this
makes it easier - equip armor which reduces, blocks or even
absorbs darkness/shadow damage. This basically means that Jihad
will not completely devistate your party (and may even heal it
depending on what you equip). Remember to equip the Add Status
ability too, tho ;) It goes without saying that Auto Potion
and Auto Regen help here.
The reason that Sakaguchi (or whoever it was who decided) gave Freya
jump was to use in this battle. Have her jump at all times, apart from
when a countdown is occuring (I'll explain that later). Dagger should
cast Protect on herself and then Zidane, and then concentrate on Curing.
If protect runs out, re-cast it. If Steiner should fall, throw him a
Phoenix Down and have him use his second swordskill, Minus Sword,
but if his physical attack will do more than that does, you might as
well fully heal him if you can spare the turn.
In the event of one of Hades' countdowns, have Freya jump when the
countdown hits 2 (if you have other party members lined up for an
attack first), or 1 (if you have no other party members lined
up for an attack). This way, she'll totally avoid Curse and
Jihad. And chances are you'll need to have someone to cure those
status ailments like confusion.
The cycle goes - a few attacks, curse, a few attacks, jihad, etc.
Go for it on level 30. I dare ya!
Where FF1 had Warmech, FF5 had Shinryuu and Omega, and FF7 had
Emerald and Ruby Weapon, FF9 has Ozma. All you weapon lovers
can call it Ozma Weapon if it makes you feel better.
(Side note: Warmech ain't that hard).
Beating Ozma not only requires quite a bit of skill, but also
a bit of good luck. There are things you can do to make this
fight easier (but I didn't do them just to see if I could
succeed without them, and because I couldn't be bothered).
These include:
- Finding all of the Land Spirits or whatever, so you can use
regular physical attacks on Ozma.
- Equipping Pumice Pieces so Jihad/Doomsday doesn't wreck you (I'd
already synthed the two I had into a Pumice so that wasn't an
option).
- Equipping a reflect ring to Zidane and Steiner (which would've
helped a lot to be honest).
- Using Freija's Dragon Crest (9999 a hit for 16mp if she's a
high level). I believe Amarant has a similar attack. Which
I also didn't use.
- Auto Life (Reraise). At first I thought this'd be essential
but it's not. I managed without it, so can you :)
If you hopelessly give up, you might wanna try some of these
things to help out. But even after getting beaten over 30
times I didn't hopelessly give up :) Here's what I did -
PARTY PREPERATION
Now, the party I used in the battle is the one I'd recommend
I guess. Although I heard Amarant and Freya have attacks that
do 9999 if your level is high enough, I didn't use those two much
this time through. If you've got them with a good amount of HP
and if they can indeed deal 9999 to Ozma in a single turn, use them.
I took Zidane because I could level him up easily on the world
map, and I knew that I wouldn't have to find the Land Spirits to
hit cos his Trance attacks would deal 9999 damage each time anyway.
In less than an hour you can get him up to Level 72 fighting
Grand Dragons (go to Popos Heights, the place on the world map above
Gizamaluke's Grotto, to find them). Just kill all your other people
so only he's alive, equip Coral Ring if you have it, and put Auto
Potion and Auto Regen on. Hell, if you're mega lazy like me, put
the Counter and Eye 4 Eye abilities on too and just watch Zidane
win the battles without you pressing a single button. Since the
other three party members are KOed, Zidane will get 35000 exp
a battle. Equip the Level Up ability and you'll get even more
(around 45000 I think). You'll get to Level 72 soon enough.
"What's so special about Level 72?" you ask. Nothing at all.
I'm 99% sure you could do it at a lower level. I just went to
fight him when I had Zidane at level 72 :) My other party members
were all around Level 45-50. So get them that high if you're having
problems. If you do that you'll have to stop moaning that you're
too low in level to beat him :) Trust me, fighting Grand Dragons
and last dungeon battles makes levelling up go quite quickly.
Now, another important thing to do is get everyone near Trance.
I was real lucky in that all of my characters were fairly near
anyway. You could just kill off everyone else then go fight
something and let it hit you until you're near Trance, then
run, and do the same with your other three characters. And
really this stuff doesn't take that long. I'd advise getting
Zidane, Eiko and Steiner 1 or 2 hits away from being tranced.
Another little thing, try and make sure no-one's level is a multiple
of 4 or 5, so Level 4 Holy and Level 5 Death don't hit. Of course,
I kept forgetting to do this :)
Finally, if you're gonna be levelling up, you might as well
take the opportunity to learn some new abilities. I'd learn
all the ones I've mentioned below at least, so you can equip
better armor and accessories for the battle.
BEFORE THE BATTLE
Get your party's equipment and abilities sorted out. And this
isn't like you had to for the last boss, you've got to put some
thought into this. Go beat up the Behemoth in Treno and get an
extra Circlet. Try and have Auto-Haste on everyone (definately
Zidane and Steiner, and preferably Eiko). Auto-Regen is also
something you'll need, so stick that on too. And also Auto-Potion.
If you have any regular potions at this point, which you shouldn't,
get rid of them all and stock up on Hi-Potions. If you have Auto
Reflect, put that on Zidane and Steiner. I don't believe Reflect
has ever been as useful to me as it was in this battle (apart
from maybe in the fight against Baham in FF4 ^_~). The status
ailments you'll need to guard are Confuse, Blind, and Silence
on your mages. So make doubly sure you have Clear Headed,
Antibody, Bright Eyes and Loudmouth equipped. I'm not sure if
Blindness affects Shock and Dyne skills, but you should have
enough points anyways so stick it on. Basically, you need about
35 points for everyone. In addition to all these, I had Steiner's
HP+20% on, Ability up on a few people (Ozma gives you a fun 100
AP after you beat him so you probably won't need it), Healer on
Dagger and Eiko, because it's not as if I was gonna have time to
hit Ozma with them, but I could always heal myself this way a bit
with reflect on. Even though manual healing is mostly obsolete
here as I found out.
Try to equip stuff that reduces (or even absorbs) shadow damage.
Find the Demon Mail for Steiner, so Jihad/Doomsday heals him,
and put the Egoist's Armlet on Eiko. This means that Eiko guards
Jihad. If you have 2 Egoist's armlets then go ahead and put one
on Zidane too, but it's more important to have Eiko alive as much
as possible so she can help distribute remedies and cast carbuncle
and other stuff. I also gave Eiko the Pumice and a Circlet. I
don't think her weapon makes a difference, so you might as well stick
her best one on. Same goes for Dagger.
Steiner should have the Ragnarok or Excalibur/Excalibur 2 equipped,
and should know Shock. You probably remember Shock as the attack
that Beatrix kept killing you with. That's the one! And it does
9999hp damage to Ozma (and everything else). Make sure Zidane
knows his Tranced Dyne attack Stellar Circle 5. This will do
9999 to Ozma each time also, and I think it's the best looking
one too :) Sure, Grand Lethal and things like that do 9999,
but Stellar Circle 5 costs far less mp. I'd recommend Eiko knowing
at least Carbuncle, and Phoenix is nice too. Madeen and Fenrir
won't even be used. Both Dagger and Eiko should have learned
stuff like Curaga, Life (Life2/Arise is great, preferably on Eiko
so she can cast it twice in a row when she Trances), and reflect.
Once you've done all this, Save your game, fly to Chocobo Air
Garden, go look at the Eidolon Cave, do anything you forgot
to do before, and then fight!
THE BATTLE
The way I fought this battle was quite straightforward once
I had it figured out. Of course, figuring it out is half
the fun, so if you wanna do it yourself, stop reading :)
Ozma has 55535hp. Which lead me to reason that I've gotta
hit him 6 times with Shock and Stellar Circle 5. Again
if you wanna be cheap about it, as with the last boss,
using a Dark Matter item on Ozma does 9999. And you can
steal one from him too. Of course, this isn't essential to
winning the battle. So I'd decided that I'd have Dagger
and Eiko heal status, and Steiner and Zidane hit. But it's not
that easy, because Ozma's attacks do you in really badly.
His attack pattern seems to be something like this -
Offensive spell, Status Spell/Cure, repeat. Sometimes he breaks
out of this pattern a bit, but he never starts doing stuff like
offensive, offensive, offensive, offensive, cure, cure, status,
cure etc. I think the the spells he does use are random though, and
he picks from these -
The offensive spells he uses are: Meteor (Random damage, but
more often than not wipes out your party in a single hit), Flare
Star (3000 to everyone), Flare (3000-5000 to one opponent.
Reflectable), Holy (2000-3000 to one opponent. Reflectable),
Lvl 4 Holy (3000-4000 damage to any opponet whose level is a
multiple of 4), and Jihad/Doomsday (3000-6000 shadow damage
to everyone. Ouchu!).
The status spells he uses are: Curse (seemlingy random damage
to everyone, and inflicts mini, blind, slow, confusion and silence
to all. All of these bar mini can by guarded with abilities.
Usually hits for between 2000 and 5000), Beserk (reflectable),
Death (reflectable), Lvl 5 Death, and Mini (he hits everyone
with Mini at once). His curative spell is Curaga, which heals
him for 7000-9999 each time he uses it. My way of thinking is this -
if he Curagas, I gotta hit him an extra time.
Here's how to fight. Get Steiner to do Shock right away. Whether
he's tranced or not, it should be doing 9999 (or close enough to it.
If it's hitting for less than 9000 then you're in trouble). If Ozma
deaths someone, revive them with one of your mages (use Full Life
if you have it). If Eiko and Dagger both get KOed before you've hit
him about 4 times, you should probably reset and start again. Or if
Zidane still isn't tranced, you might be able to get a Phoenix Down
to Eiko long enough for her to cure and stuff. I pick Eiko over Dagger
a lot here because she has more spells and Phoenix and Carbuncle, and
she also had Auto Haste equipped.
A critical element in winning is Reflect, I think. As soon as you
can, get Eiko to cast Carbuncle. This way, all the spells above listed
as reflectable you won't have to worry about anymore. Avoiding Mini
and Beserk especially can be the difference between winning and
losing here. Ozma tends to cast beserk on Tranced Zidane and Steiner
for me, so having these reflected is a good thing.
Ok, Ozma will attack (probably before you get a hit), and use one of
those offensive spells I listed. If all goes to plan, Zidane will
Trance, but don't worry if he doesn't. Don't do anything (at all)
with Zidane until he trances though, just leave his timebar at full.
Unless you have an idea that I didn't. Maybe giving someone an elixer
who's nearly dead or something. Or you could try stealing, but you
might have to do all that land spirits stuff to be able to steal.
Anyway I just left his timebar at full. Steiner should be doing shock
like I said. Also leave Eiko and Garnet's timebars at full.
Now, after his first attack or two, he'll do Curse. This is where
Trance can save you. When a character Trances, they shake off all
status abnormalities I believe. And if Curse Trances your people,
they aren't gonna suffer the Mini of it. If you're wondering what
the big deal about Mini is, it's that when Steiner and Zidane are
Mini'd, their 9999 attacks are hitting for something like 200.
And curse doesn't reflect, so you probably will end up mini at least
once here. It doesn't really matter if Dagger and Eiko become mini'd
or blinded, because their magic will still be as powerful. Your abilities
should guard all the other status ailments. Now, if all's going well,
Auto Potion and Auto Regen should do all the healing you need almost.
Try and keep Zidane's hp high because curse can wipe him out in one
hit if it's not (infact once I think it wiped him out in one hit
when it was ^_~). Steiner seemed to have a talent for staying alive
longest, so don't worry too much about him. When Zidane trances,
do Stellar Circle 5, Meo Twister, or whatever. I used Stellar Circle
5 all the time, hitting for 9999.
The second round of Ozma's attacks will come around. Meteor can
still kill you and Jihad/Doomsday still hits hard. Again, revive
whoever you need (preferable order - Eiko, Steiner, Zidane, Dagger).
This time, Curse may end up causing Mini again. However, if you
are still mini off the last time it hit, it will probably return you
to normal size; incase you didn't know, casting mini on a character
with already mini'd returns them to normal size. If Zidane and Steiner
are Mini, don't use their attacks remember. Wait until they're normal
size. One last thing, I think curse hits harder when you're mini..
Maybe it's physical damage, I really don't know. I'm an idiot.
But it doesn't matter, it's either gonna kill you or it's not.
Remember to re-cast Carbuncle if reflect wears off. OK, keep going
like this. You don't need Curaga to heal, use an Elixer instead.
If someone gets Death cast on them (and reflect isn't on), revive
them. Same goes for Lvl 5 Death or whatever. The best thing about
Death is you can be sure it's only gonna kill one person. Whereas
other spells tend to kill multiple characters which is a pain in
this battle (and that's what Phoenix is for, by the way). Hit
with Stellar Circle 5 and Shock a bit more. Oh, don't do anything
with Zidane in trance other than Stellar Circle 5 or some other Dyne
skill. If he's mini or beserk, get someone else to remedy him.
Recast Carbuncle if you need. Use Shock and SC5 a few more times.
Now, that's more or less all you need to do. If someone does get
beserked, use a Gyshal Green to cure it (remedy doesn't work).
Beserk is also a pain cos physical attacks don't hit unless you
go get the land spirits. And that's the other main reason why
you should have reflect on. Beserk is very bad.
Another tricky thing is that Ozma will probably use Curaga. If
he does, then you've got to hit him an extra time, basically.
If you can keep getting past Curse and if he doesn't wipe you
out with Meteor or whatever, you should be fine. Again, you've
got to be quite lucky to survive enough to kill him, so don't
go giving up. Good luck!
/-------------------\
|B O S S L I S T |
\-------------------/
NOTE - The sub-bosses (ie, those which are difficult fights but
aren't quite bosses ^_~), are not listed here.
Boss - - - - - - - - - - - - - Location - - - - - - - - - HP
#1 Shinryuu Warp 59940
#2 Kary Place of Memory 59497
#3 Tiamat Place of Memory 59494
#4 Kraken Place of Memory 59496
#5 Lich Place of Memory 58554
#6 Doomgaze Crystal World 55535
#7 Trance Kuja Crystal World 55535
#8 Eternal Darkness/Necron Hill of Despair 54100
Secret/Optional Bosses
Boss - - - - - - - - - - - - - Location - - - - - - - - - HP
#1 Tantarian Alexandria Castle Library 21997*
#2 Quale Qu's Marsh 55535*
#3 Hades Place of Memory 55535
#4 Ozma Chocobo Aerial Garden 55535
*There will be no guides for bosses marked with a '*' because I'm lazy.
/---------\
|O U T R O|
\---------/
Lali-Ho! (or Rally-Ho if you're one of the idiots who translated Conde
Petie).
Any comments/constructive criticism? My new mail addy is -
idiotparade@hotmail.com (know that I will probably never
read anything sent there and if I do I probably won't respond).
Finally, go to rpgamer and grab my friend Luke's Zidane Only guide.
It rocks and is a good read even if you don't wanna play through
FF9 with only Zidane.
Hope this guide helped a little.
Until next time, then...
