Check out what happened last time!
For completing the stelazzio quest, you get the Robe of Lords, a very good robe.
For finding the elusive 13th stelazzio, you get Cinna’s hammer, for some reason. Why or how she has this, I don’t know.
Oh, also, the Light Robe that we stole off of Kuja goes straight onto Eiko!
It’s at this point I spend a few hours grinding everyone. Freya, Dagger, Steiner and to a lesser extent Quina were all very behind in levels and abilities.
I choose the area outside of Daguerreo.
Grand Dragons appear here, which are quite difficult to kill normally, but with Quina using Level 5 Death, they instantly die since they are level 60. If you have any thunder resist/null/absorb gear, now is the time to equip it, because their Thundaga hurts.
They can also use Venom Breath, which inflicts Venom, but Anti-Body blocks it. They also can use Poison Claw, which deals a crap ton of damage and inflicts Poison. Anti-Body blocks this as well, but not that damage, which can OHKO a low level character easy.
I have Dagger summon Leviathan and Bahamut, just to see it. Leviathan was always one of my favorites.
I had everyone level up to about the mid-fourties. No idea if that is good enough, but I am really ready to finish this game now.
The group heads for the Iifa Tree, where this giant purple orb now looms!
Once the group gets close enough, a ton of silver dragons start pouring out of it!
Right before they slam into the ship, the silver dragons start getting blown out of the sky!
It looks like the cavalry is here in the form of Cid and his airships.
He clears a path for us as Zidane guns it for the orb.
Even Beatrix helps us by blocking some that were on the ship’s tail.
As the Invincible slams into the orb, there is a huge flash of light.
We are then thrust into a fight with a Nova Dragon!
The Nova Dragon isn’t that bad, if you know to equip wind rest/absorb gear. Otherwise, you are in for a bad time.
It is similar to Garland in that it knows Shockwave and Psychokinesis, but it also knows Tornado and Tidal Wave.
Thankfully, it is weak to ice, so Vivi works wonders here, dealing 9999 damage after
spending a few minutes using Focus while Zidane stole everything.
It eventually goes down and we are plopped into a strange place.
Zidane begins to a hear a voice in his head that claims to be Garland.
He tells him this is Memoria. It seems our memories brought us here and that we will learn the truth.
Let’s explore Memoria, shall we?
Instead of moogles, we get these odd orbs that let us rest with tents, save and switch party members. Handy.
The enemies here are pretty strong, such as the Chimeras which can inflict all kinds of status ailments and hit decently hard.
While exploring, we run into Marlilis again out of nowhere!
She hit pretty hard, and loved to use Mustard Bomb, inflicting Heat. Thankfully, I had Quina in the party, so they used Auto Life on everyone they could.
She was weak to ice, so Vivi did his usual focus while Zidane stole, then spammed his spell of choice, in this case, Blizzaga.
Even Thievery from Zidane is dealing great damage now, almost 7000 a pop.
She also busted out Reflect and caused me to panic. I didn’t have Vivi equipped with Reflect-Null, so his focused Blizzaga bounced off onto poor Quina. Marilis saw her opportunity and attacked Quina, taking them out.
But that was nothing a Full-Life couldn’t fix.
When she finally goes down, she has one last attack, which dealt pretty good damage to everyone. With Quina and his Auto Life spells, it wasn’t an issue and all those that died got right back up.
As the group explores, they start to see moments of the past, like the attack on Alexandria. But only those who were actually there and remember it can see it.
Continuing on, we end up fighting Tiamat, the wind guardian!
They weren’t too bad, especially with everyone decked out in wind resist gear. Tiamat had a nasty habit of also absorbing our stats, which sucked. Vivi was dishing out 9999 damage with Blizzaga, until his magic got absorbed. Then he was only dealing about 5000.
Tiamat goes down, however, without too much of a hitch.
Moving on, we find another save point, and it looks like we are in an underwater zone!
Behind this hidden point, a voice tells us to leave.
Of course, we don’t and Hades pops out!
This guy is the real deal. Judgement Sword can bring someone to 1 HP, Cleave is pretty much a two hit KO to everyone and a OHKO to Aramant.
He also used Reflect, which sucked because Eiko had tranced and I used double Holy, they bounced off and killed Zidane real quick.
His main move, however, is Doomsday, which he thankfully never used. Doomsday deals shadow damage to everyone. Including the party and himself. Since Hades absorbs shadow, this heals him while also dealing a crap ton of damage to the party.
He goes down after a few double Flares and Holys. He gives us access to his synthesis shop, which allows some of the best equipment to be crafted. Unfortunately, I don’t have much of the required materials to craft the best stuff.
Moving on, we find Kraken!
Kraken wasn’t too bad. He came with two tentacles that knew Ink and Water Gun, but after stealing from them, they weren’t hard to take down with Thundaga and Holy.
Kraken himself knew an assortment of attacks like Freeze and Waterga. Waterga in particular hurt decently bad, but with Auto-Regen and the occasional Cura, it wasn’t too bad.
He could also cast it on himself to heal the tentacles and himself for about 3000 or so.
Eventually, it goes down and the party moves on.
We also come across an invisible save point. I am glad it’s there, but dang, game, that’s pretty dirty.
They then find the last of the guardians…
Lich! Lich has gotten pretty beefy since last we fought him. He can now cast a multitude of Doom/Death spells, like Level 5 Death and knows a physical attack that inflicts Doom when it hits.
With Aramant on Aura(Auto-Life) duty, it wasn’t much of an issue. Eiko proved to be the powerhouse, with her Holy dealing a steady 9500+ damage. Zidane actually stole all of the items relatively quick this time, so Vivi didn’t get to Focus as much, but he was still dealing almost 7000 damage a hit with Firaga.
Lich falls and we find another hidden save point.
The group then moves on.
Zidane walks out into a black void and he begins to shout at Garland, pondering why he can see other people’s memories, even though he wasn’t there.
Garland tells him that all life is connected and that he must protect the crystal from Kuja.
He gives a final goodbye and tells Zidane he is on his own.
After that, we are teleported to another strange place.
The group reaches Kuja, who tells us this crystal is the birthplace of all things, and he plans on destroying it!
If he can’t live in this world, he wants everyone to go down with him. Of course, Zidane and the others aren’t having that, and he summons Deathguise to fight us!
Deathguise wasn’t that bad. He knew Twister, but at this point, that does almost no damage to us. His worst attack was an attack that hit the party for 1000+ damage. He didn’t use it that often, but Auto-Regen was usually enough to patch everyone back up.
After the fight, Kuja waits for us.
I go back and switch around my equipment and abilities. We are heading into the final
showdown, and this is the time to do anything else before the final battle.
I equip everyone with as much elemental resistance/absorbing equipment I can. I also finally take off non-essential abilities, like Mug, Bandit, Alert, ect, and put on as many status ailment immunities as I can.
Zidane had the most, but poor Eiko only managed a few, like Loudmouth and Body Temp.
Everyone was equipped with Auto-Haste and Regen, of course.
The group then faces down Kuja!!!
Kuja starts with a bang by OHKO’ing Eiko. His magic is very powerful, consisting of the elemental -aga spells, Holy, Flare and the deadly Flare Star.
I didn’t have Zidane steal anything at this point, so he immediately went on the offensive with Thievery.
With Vivi busting out Flare, Aramant on Aura and Chakra duty and Eiko healing with the occasional heal, Kuja goes down, but he isn’t happy.
He uses Ultima again, which blows the whole joint sky-high.
Zidane awakens, barely hanging on, in a very strange realm, where people are screaming and crying. Is this hell!?
Suddenly a voice rings out and gives him some information on his where-bouts.
He collapses and we get one final chance to change and equip our party. ‘Hill of Despair,’ huh? Yep, sounds like a place in hell!
I choose the dream team of Zidane, Aramant, Eiko and Vivi.
The others that weren’t picked send forth their power to our chosen party to heal them and prepare for the real final battle.
Necron comes out of nowhere and assaults us!
Necron is the ultimate. He knows all -aga spells, Holy, Flare, along with some very deadly moves, like Blue Shockwave, which instantly brings someone down to 1 HP. (I hate those moves!!!)
He can also cast Protect and Shell on himself. Thankfully, Zidane’s Thievery goes through Protect, but poor Vivi was shut out a few times due to Shell.
He then busts out Grand Cross! Yes! That Grand Cross from FF5!!!
Grand Cross is the absolute worst. If you are unlucky and/or don’t have the right abilities set, you can lose right away. Eiko got petrified, which freaked me out, but I was spamming Revive, Elixirs and Aura as much as I could to keep everyone on their feet.
At one point, he cast Grand Cross again, this time berserking Vivi, but also giving him Doom, which was kind of nice, since he could just die and be resurrected free of Berserk.
The real annoyance, however, was he confused Eiko. Only Esuna or hitting the confused target removes it and considering the only person who knows Esuna was the one confused, I was SOL. If I tried to knock her out of it, she would probably be killed.
Then, he busted out Neutron Ring.
Yep, that would have been a game over, had three of my party members not had Auto-Life on from Aura. How you are supposed to survive that without Auto-Life, I have no idea.
Eventually, with Zidane trancing, we manage to take him down.
He then explodes and says this isn’t the end, blah blah, like every final boss says when they explode.
Everyone is teleported out and everyone sees the Iifa tree going nuts.
Thanks to that girl from Terra, Cid tracks down where the gang is and lands to pick them up.
However, Zidane hears Kuja in his head and says he has to find him first.
Everyone tells him he is crazy, but Zidane says he has to.
Everyone says their last goodbyes and they leave with Cid on his airship.
Zidane then turns into spiderman and begins jumping, running and climbing on the walls to try and get back into the Iifa Tree to find Kuja.
He tumbles in and finds Kuja badly wounded.
So the teleport that got the gang out of there was Kuja?
He says that in his final moments, he realized what it meant to live…
But the Iifa Tree is pissed and slams onto Kuja and Zidane…
There is a fade to black and we get a snippet into everyone’s lives some time later.
It looks like Vivi somehow had some children!? With who?
Amarant literally is just traveling.
Freya meets up with her lost love and they finally become a couple again, even though he still can’t remember his past.
Beatrix is leaving Alexandria.
Cid and Hilda have adopted Eiko!
Steiner stops Beatrix as she is leaving and finally confesses his love for her. They go for an embrace as we switch scenes.
Dagger has become Queen, and it appears that Alexandria has been rebuilt.
We get to see more of the play from Tantulus and at the climax, Zidane appears!
Dagger immediately rushes down after him.
They hug and she hits him for a second, but they still hug it out.
And that’s that!
Final party screen. Everyone else was in their low to mid-fourties.
Game Overs:
Legit Game Overs: 4
Mandragoras trying to get Limit Glove.
Sand Golem, tried to run, but never could.
Four Cactuars on the Lost Continent.
Amdusias in Pandemonium.
Trying to Steal Game Overs: 2
Seal Lion fight/Black Waltz 1
Mu in the festival of the hunt(lol).
Final Thoughts:
So FF9 was quite a ride. It was fun! FF9 was definitely a departure from FF8, opting for a more “cartoony” look than the others.
But I will say that I enjoyed the gameplay side of things much, much more.
Zidane was actually a pretty good protagonist. Initially, I didn’t really like him, he was merely a skirt-chaser and a flirt, nothing more.
But as time passed, he seemed to mellow out and get more responsible and level-headed.
Honestly, I am surprised at how much I liked Eiko. I thought she would just be an annoying “chibi-child” character. But no, she was actually pretty wise and smart at times.
She was still a child, but it was very tolerable. Especially when she realized that Zidane and Dagger loved each other, she kind of knew to let it go, thank goodness.
She still confessed her feelings for him at the end, but it was more of a friendship love at the point, or at least, that is how I saw things.
On the gameplay side of things, Eiko was a kick-butt white mage. Full-Life, Holy and Esuna? Thank you! I barely used her summons, but hey, that is what Dagger is for, right?
Amarant… Amarant is a weird character. He kind of came out of nowhere and barely had any character development. If it wasn’t for his extremely useful Flair abilities, I would have probably never used him.
Vivi was a beast, all through the game. With his incredible elemental magic and eventually gaining Flare for monsters that didn’t have a weakness, he was a shoe-in for a party slot. Especially when he got Reflect-Null, he could cast all day long and not worry, especially with Amarant using Chakra on him.
Story-wise, I enjoyed his arc. He really came into his own as the story progressed.
Although, who the heck did he have a bunch of kids with?
Freya was a bad-ass, through and through. Initially, she was great, but for some reason, she kind of just fell to the way-side. Amarant with his Chakra and Aura proved too useful, and I didn’t want to get rid of Vivi or Eiko.
If I had managed to kill a bunch more Grand Dragons, I probably could have used her in place of Vivi and used her Dragon’s Crest attack, but I really didn’t feel like grinding for a few more hours killing dragons when Vivi with a few castings of Focus could almost hit 9999 with much less work.
Steiner… I liked him as a character, but I just ended up using Amarant. Him and Vivi would have made an excellent pair, but I felt my party needed that Aura and Chakra skills.
I love the whole Beatrix/Steiner dichotomy and their dedication to Dagger.
Dagger/Garnet was probably the most “main” character out of all of the characters. She becomes queen, goes through so much character growth it’s crazy and ends up pretty confident and strong. Once I saw what Eiko was capable of spell-casting wise, I ended up using Eiko over her. I had Vivi for elemental damage and Full-Life/Holy was just too good to pass up.
Quina was another odd one. They get a little character development, but it was very slim. I don’t even think the other characters even liked them. It was just weird. Also, their skill set was good in niche moments, but it was the same scenario with Freya, I didn’t want to spend hours and hours building up their “ultimate” skill.
Catching frogs is fun… The first five minutes.
I really liked the ability system, though. The fact that you can tailor your characters between battles was really fun, like if you know you are going against something that can poison, equip Anti-Body to completely nullify it. But you never have enough ability points to equip them all, so you have to make some tough choices about what you are going to take into battles with you.
I loved that.
A few things did bother me about the game, in the end, though…
First, I hate how Protect and Shell literally last like two turns!
What the heck? I used them here and there, but their duration was so short, it seemed like a waste to even cast them! Did I miss something here? Oh and also, I never found a way to cast it on multiple targets, so no Protectaga/Shellga for me!
Mighty Guard was good, but it cost way too much MP and lasted too little to matter. I mean, in some ways I am glad it wasn’t completely broken like in some of the earlier FF’s, but still, it seemed like they nerfed it to oblivion.
I enjoyed the “learn abilities from equipment,” but at the same time, it can be an inconvenience. For instance, if a character starts to fall behind, you have to go back, have the character equip crappy gear and level them in a place where they won’t get one shot.
The steal rates. Oh my, how I hated the steal rates. It wasn’t until the end of the game where it seemed like stealing wasn’t that much of a hassle, but still.
Tetra Master. It was just an over-complicated and random Triple Triad that offered nothing by playing it. It seemed like it could be fun, but the randomness just got to me.
Some of the characters who were just… There. Like Amarant and Quina. They really offered nothing to the party, story-wise and the fact that Amarant came so late was weird. I can say I am glad I had them, though, battle wise!
Lastly, Necron. Where the heck did this guy from? Was he ever mentioned… Ever? I could have just missed it, I am not sure. It seemed weird. Like… Kuja wasn’t “final boss that needs to be huge and look crazy” enough, so they threw him in there at the last second.
Bottom line, would I recommend this game?
Yes, I would. This game was great fun, despite some of it’s oddities. I would say it is a step above FF8 in many ways, as much nostalgia love I have for FF8.
There was many things I never even explored in the game, like the Chocobo Hot and Cold game, or trying to get the Excalibur II (HA! Look that up if you want to know how to get it).
Overall, get this game. You can pick it up for PS4, PC and even your mobile devices if you have to!
Next up, we dive into one of the only Final Fantasy’s that I have never had the privilege of playing…
Final Fantasy X!
ghostlyproton 