C.O.M - help!

[jodymcdougle]

I don't know if anyone plays this title anymore. I have flooded the forums with "C.O.M." posts and haven't received many replies. I beat the game once. but on this play through I am having a hard time beating Riku after the Destiny Island Stage. if anyone has any tips or suggestions, I am open. please help EOFF! I am stuck bargaining with moogles and trying to level up to + HP. :)

[Tavrobel]

GBA or PS2? Different summons are better in different versions of the game. Cloud is your best option in the GBA, whereas in the PS2 version, you can get away with anything.

Unfortunately, the Riku 4 fight is probably the hardest fight in the whole game. There's no particular strategy you can use to cheese him into losing. You just have to get good and develop good habits. What level are you and what is your deck composition? How much CP do you have?

There's a couple of things you can do for immediate improvement. Make sure your deck has plenty of 0 cards in them, and place them at the bottom of your deck. 0 cards cancel out all other cards, including 3-card-combinations, which can save you a lot of hassle. Putting them at the bottom puts them in the easiest position to access them, because you can scroll left across the stack and they will be right there.

If there is downtime in between his attacks and you're not in a position to attack him, charge your deck until it's about to refresh the stack, and then stop charging it. This can used as an excellent panic button when you're in the middle of a good situation and you need to continue the attack or if you just got wrecked by one of his combos and you need immediate healing.

You could spam combos and hope that he just eventually dies. This is better if you have low number cards but with good stats. Remember that the yellow numbered cards can only be used once, so use these to start a 3-card-combination, as you lose the first card no matter what. If you've run out of yellow numbered cards, try to start a combination with a low card (6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1).

Otherwise, use the highest cards you have and only the highest cards even if the stats on the cards suck, because his deck is littered with low quality cards. Spam your attack button and hope RNGesus is on your side.

Specifically, save your 0s for when he is about to use Dark Aura, and this one makes him fly around, and is mostly unavoidable. You can just dodge Dark Firaga.

The real big thing here, though is patience. The first time I beat this boss, it took thirty minutes. I played super passive and focused more of my time on positioning myself well so that I wouldn't get hit by any of his attacks or card combinations. 0 cards will momentarily stun the boss, but the window of opportunity to attack is pretty short if you're not already next to him.

... also you should be bargaining with Moogles. Not sure why you're so upset that you have to talk to vendors.