beating the game with 3 characters

[Mgia]

Has anyone beaten the game with only the three required characters? And if so...
help?

[Strider]

I haven't yet, but I'm going to undertake that mission soon. (http://www.eyesonff.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31593) I'll help you any way I can.

[chadmonkey]

Obviously having your characters level 99 will help. Also, do as much of the caves/dungeons as possible. Don't forget that many you can do up until the very end, where story might take over and you'd get a character, then warp out, allowing you to get the goodies. Ragnorak's the only esper that I can think of offof the top of my head that you can't get with only the three characters, but then again I'm not thinking too much about this. Gool luck! This is always something I've meant to do but haven't gotten around to.

[DJZen]

Hmmmmmm, last time I checked there were 4 required characters....

[Mgia]

There's three. (You can skip over Tsen when Celes is the only one in the party...and you just need the airship to get to Kefka's tower...)
Well, I see I have a lot of leveling up to do...

[chadmonkey]

Another thought I just had is to make sure that you have a good esper equipped when you level up so you can take advantage of as many stat increases as you can. Since you won't be getting anything fancy like the gem box(i don't know that you can ever take less than 9999 damage from the mage-master's ultima) or offering, you don't have to go crazy on the stats to do 9999 damage.

[Yoshimitsu]

Here's the way I did it:

When I usually reach WOR, Im at around lv 19 - 23. In order to survive against the tentacles in Basement of figaro castle, you have to be at a level significantly higher than you usually are because sabin will not be with you and not having an extra character is severely crippling in a fight against the tentacle. You'll be frustrated as the tentacle grab both of your characters and end up dying or being immediately grabbed by another free tentacle upon your release... if you go in at the same level I usually encounter them (I'm not a big believer in spending time to level-up guy, so you might experience different situation).

If you are seriously under-level like me, then you can level up in the figaro desert before you chase gerad into the cave. Since you're alone, you should get huge experience.. and they are vulnerable to ice so use only Ice2 agst them. Oh and make sure you have plenty of sleeping bags (they are cheaper than tincture).

I was so frustrated when I first attempted to beat that boss that I leveled celes up to lv.30 before I entered the castle again. I'm guessing that was a bit overdone cause I didnt have any diffculty beating the bosses after that. I'm guessing at 28 - 30, they should be no problem. But remember, the characters you re-acquire, if their level was lower than average level of all your parties you re-acquired, will be adjusted to average experience of parties that you re-acquired. So gerad will be at same level as celes if you level her up alot... same goes to setzer and all other characters (if you wanna grab them).

After you get gerad, I remember it being real easy. You can get setzer pretty easily afterwards. Daryl's tomb can be hard depending on your level, but there are plenty of undeads that you can tackle. If you;re desperate you can always avoid the combat by running. The boss in daryll's tomb should be dealt with classic vanish/doom.. unless you can use conventional force to take him on.


After you get the airship, these are the things you should do:

- you should goto narshe to take on Tritoch. Elemental 3 spells will be your most reliable and strongest magic since you wont have access to ultima and many other spells that involve unlocking other characters. Besides if the enemy is immune to one form of elemental, you can usually rely on the polar opposite, so Tritoch will be the most versatile.

- Goto maranda desert to use vanish and doom combo on zone eater(?). It gives alot of experience for one enemy. You might wanna avoid dinosaur forest because you could be caught in a pincer attack, or face 2 dinos which can be hard to survive.

- If you have trouble agst zone eater, you're not using the right equipments. Sandstorm does zero damage when you have thundershield equipped. and you can convert at least three thunder shield from coloseum. If you have items that reduces 50% damage of wind thats fine enough, because all you have to survive is until you cast vanish and doom, but healing often is annoying for me so I try to acquire 3 thunder shield.

- Convert 2 Tintinabar into exp. egg and find Exp.Egg in daryll's tomb. You should have at least 2 tintinabar (1 from wounded soldier in Veldt and 1 from emperors gift)

- Get espers that give +2 magic power on level up. I think those are zoneseek and tritoch. Another reason why Tritoch should be acquired. Edgar can stick to drilling/chainsawing, but setzer lacks powerful attack. You want to pump his magic stat up so switching to magic bonus esper before he levels up would help him in dealing damage more as a caster.

-Get Raiden. Learn quick cause you'll need it when you're in kefkas tower. You'll only have 1 person per party!

-Get Gem Box. Do this after you have built up a significant magic skills beauce if you're like me and you moogle charm your way to the top usually.... you wont be prepared. And dont convert gem box into economizer because you can find economizer in dino forest (this applies in regular game too anyway)

- Enough Xping in maranda desert should allow you to tackled the dinosaurs in forest. You can also find economizer here. Preferrably at a minimum of 3, (1 for each). You should quickly escatalte into level 80 because you are only party of 3 (less people to distribute experience ) and all of you has exp egg. Use vanish and doom if theres only one dino, but if your magic is strong enough, they usually go down in 2 ICE3 spell, so it ammounts to just about same in speed kill.


In kefka's tower, rely on using warpstone to get out of messy battles that kills your character instantly. You dont want to gamble with lv.x doom or roulette when you only have one character in party. If you cannot warp, you'll have to speed kill everything and have a little luck with enemies that cast roulette when they die. Im not sure if you can have safety bit at this time, so if you have one, that could help.

Whenever you're swithcing party, unequipp gem box and give it to the party ur playing. Gem box and quick oddly gives 8 magic turns instead of 5. Its real easy to go thru the tower with 8 turns every one turn, so enemies/bosses shouldnt be a problem. (and your level 3 elements should be doing 9999 most of the time)

[DJZen]

Don't you need to have Terra, Locke and Sabin alive for WoB? What about the moogle battle?

[m4tt]

Yes you do, but that is the WoB. This challenge only involves the WoR.

[Mgia]

Quick question, where exactly is the EXP. egg in Daryl's tomb? I did the little tombstone thing, then still couldn't find it...
And can you get more tintinabars from the Colloseum?

[m4tt]

The EXP egg in Daryl's tomb.. From that room with the tombstones, go down, then go right down some stairs. You should end up in a room with a stone in the middle of it, stand in front of that stone, then walk towards the bottom wall, so that only your head shows. Then walk right, through the wall. When you can't go right anymore, go up to the chest. The exp egg is yours! ;)

You don't even have to do that THE WORLD IS SQUARE thing.

Uh, to get Tintabars in the Colloseum, bet either a Megalixer or Marvel Shoes.

[Yoshimitsu]

Originally posted by Gau

Uh, to get Tintabars in the Colloseum, bet either a Megalixer or Marvel Shoes.

Uh you wont need to waste time looking for marvel shoes or sacrifice a megaelixir if you're only gonna collect 3 characters. You should have 2 tintinabar by the timw you reach WOR anyway.

-Gesthal should give you one during banquet
-Wounded soldier should give you one after all the letters.

So no need to waste megalixir or spend time converting things into marvel shoes.

Remember tintinabar <-[/!] exp egg. So theres absolutley no risk in betting your tintinabar.

[Edgar]

The final battle will be a bit tough, because the third part will kill at least one of the 3 characters.