Xenosaga Challange

[Ultima Shadow]

Yes, after many months of being busy with shool, SSBM (because of the SSBM tourney) and other video games like the Lunar series and Dot Hack etc... I've finally decided to come up with yet another challange. This time, however, it's not a FF challange but a Xenosaga challange!

These are the rules:
1) Never use any tech points or skill points.
2) Never upgrade your AGW's.
3) Never equip armors and accessories.
4) No power-leveling. You're allowed to fight normal enemies, but by the end of the game your level shouldn't be higher than max level 30. I'll personally try to keep my level as low as possible.

I started just a little while ago, so I haven't got that far yet. I'll update later, once something intressting has happened.:cool:

Edit: Just completed the "rescue MOMO mission" with Ziggy. The Cyclop was a pushover. The second Gnosis boss (don't remember its name) also went down on my first try without any trouble. So far, it has been very easy overall. The only tough battle was against Margulis, but I still managed to beat him on my first try. I can guarantee that it will be tougher later on, though. :greenie:

[Ultima Shadow]

I've just toasted the "Mother Ship" boss inside the Elsa. It was tougher than usual, but still nothing I had any trouble with. The only thing to worry about was that "Tremor" attack, which you can avoided by simply not letting the boss attack on its "Tremor-slot". Right now, I actually wish that there where more play-time and less cut-scenes in Xenosaga. :greenie:

[Markus. D]

perhaps itd be wise to not double post.

Good work, I love a good challenge :)

[edczxcvbnm]

This challenge of yours is doable to a point. I predict you will break down inside the city against the boss that splits into two of himself. That will be your end with no upgraded skills,ether,techs and low levels. You will be obliterated by that boss. Mark my words.

[raskerino]

Well, good luck!

[Captain Maxx Power]

You will be obliterated by that boss. Mark my words.

That's what they said to me about Edward. Go go Ultima Shadow!

[Shadowdust]

This challenge of yours is doable to a point. I predict you will break down inside the city against the boss that splits into two of himself. That will be your end with no upgraded skills,ether,techs and low levels. You will be obliterated by that boss. Mark my words.

That is too true. That boss puts up a decent enough fight as it is with all of the advantages of a normal game. And if not that, the second boss in the Song of Nephilim will definitely decimate anyone who tries this challenge.

[Ultima Shadow]

This challenge of yours is doable to a point. I predict you will break down inside the city against the boss that splits into two of himself. That will be your end with no upgraded skills,ether,techs and low levels. You will be obliterated by that boss. Mark my words.Well, I'm personally more worried about Timat. :greenie:

Also, you're not able to use any Tech Points or Skill points, but you ARE allowed to use the Ether points. It would simply be too boring if you couldn't get all the cool magic attacks. But Ether points doesn't do any stat-differences and most magic attacks are pretty much useless anyways. Both Tech points and Skill points makes characters far stronger than Ether points, so the dissadvantage is still big.

Anyways... I've finally got to the first really tough battle, Gargoyle inside the Cathedral Ship! My AGW's are pretty much useless at this point since they never have been upgraded and my current average party level is 12-13. The normal enemy-encounters are also a bit harder than before. It's finally getting a bit intressting. :cool:

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, I beat the Gargoyle on my 3th try, but I had to waste an insane amount of items and I was very close to being beaten a few times.

After that part, there's just a great load of cutscenes and stuff, so I have not got into any battles at all since then. I'm currently at the hotel in second militia. :greenie:

[Ultima Shadow]

Okay... so, my current level is 17-18 and I beat Tiamat... and he was actually a lot easier than I had expected. I actually managed to beat him on my first try. I remembered him/her/it as a pretty powerful boss, but for some reason I didn't have any serious trouble with Tiamat at all. It was an insanely long battle, though. It took me about 40 min. I had to cast "Analyze" every now and then to keep track on Tiamats HP.

Also, while on the Durandhal before I got to the dream/illusion world thingy where you fight Tiamat, I tried fighting Great Joe. And I got my ass toasted, because most of his attacks where 1-hit kills because of my low defense. I'll probably have to wait a little while before taking on that guy again. :greenie:

And on a final note, normal enemy encounters are now officially getting pretty tough.

[edczxcvbnm]

Good luck. If I am not mistaken you should be approaching the point where I said you would fail :)

[Ultima Shadow]

Ah... I didn't get any time to play yesterday, but now I'm finally there.

And yes, that boss is by far the toughest battle I've encountered so far. I'm currently at level 18-19 (except Chaos who just went to level 20). I've only fought the boss once so far... and in the begining it didn't seem too bad, actually... but then, they started to use those ice storm and instant-KO attacks, and I went down pretty fast. I managed to kill one of them, but then the other one seemed to get about twice as fast and ONLY use the most powerful moves along with a new move called "Thunderstorm" which did about 400-500 dammage on all the characters. And most of my characters have 500-600 as max HP at the moment so... yeah.

It's NOT impossible, though. And I WILL beat them the next time! :p

[edczxcvbnm]

That is why I said you would lose to that boss. Because when you kill one form the other does get faster and uses more hurtful moves.

[Ultima Shadow]

Hah! I managed to beat them on my 3th try! It was pretty close, though. I discovered that "Phys Atk Down" works on them. And even though it only effects 2 of their moves (normal attack and shockwave), those 2 moves are some of their most used moves. With this advantage, I also dammaged them both about equally instead of focusing on just one of them since, when there's just one left, that one starts using its powerful ether attacks more often, which NOT are effected by "Phys Atk Down". So, after killing the first I only needed about 2 more hits to finish off the second one too.

Anyways... now it's time to enter the Song of Nephelin! :cool:

[-N-]

Your challenges are always insane. I enjoy reading them. You're close - good luck!

[Ultima Shadow]

Heh, thanks. :p

Anyways... I'm now in the Song of Nephelin... and I've got some major trouble with the first boss in here. I can't freaking do any serious dammage to that thing! I'm currently at level 22-23 and my characters has no upgraded Tech Attacks, no boosted stats and no powerful AGW's. The first boss in the Song of Nephelin got a crazy defense, more than 5000 HP and the, from now on, officially most annoying move in the entire game... Soul Drain (it drains HP). Most of my attacks will do 0 dammage, and only a few can do more than 100 dammage. It takes a great deal of effort to get 350 dammage down from that thing. Sadly, this annoying boss will recover just about that amount of HP in a singel turn, while at the same time doing the same painful amount of dammage to one party member.

On top of that, I actually DID manage to get its HP down to 300 (I used Analyze to check its HP) after about 1 hour of fighting. And what happens? That little ******************* uses Sould Drain 3 times in a row, restoring a total amount of about 1000HP! WTF!? AAAARGH! Then I got finished off.


Edit: Ah, nevermind. It actually only got crazy ether defense. The fact that it's flying means that you only can use ranged attacks... and since most of the ranged attacks in this game are ether attacks, it's hard to dammage with a party like mine. However... just about all Rubedo's moves are both "physical" and ranged. So... I just had to use Rubedo in my party in order to own this boss. Hah! :p

[Ultima Shadow]

I defeated Siemon (Albedo's AGWS) on my second try and the blue-masked guy on my first. I'm now very close to the end of this challange, and I'm currently at level 26-27.

Siemon was actually pretty tough. Its HP took some serious time to get rid of, and all its moves could kill a non-defending character in 2-3 hits... which become a bit of a pain when it boosted and used moves that hit all the characters. Mr. Blue-masked guy's first form was suprisingly easy and I had no trouble with it at all. It's second form was a bit more difficult, but nothing all that bad.

The final boss will probably be a hard nut to crack, though. "Black Omen" can do some major dammage to leveled characters on a normal play-trough. In this case, you'll probably need to defend in order to stand a chanse to survive it at all.

[Slicksword45]

well.... i'm now the worst xenosaga player ever.....

took me 8 trys with leveled people to beat the blue-masked guy.....

[KentaRawr!]

I've heard of double-posting, but this is ridiculous!

However, you are quite the Xenosaga player. :)

[LunarWeaver]

*Bows*

[Acid Raine]

Wow....I now worship you. I just finished the Pleroma escape. I jes delivered Cherenkov the food, and am on my way to check the catapult. I have an average level of 10, and Margulis gave me much trouble. Well, good luck with Albedo and Sophie Peithos. Jes remember that over in the midwest, you have a cheerleader. GO SH-ERL! GO SH-ERL!

[-N-]

Dude, good luck with the final boss. Can't wait to hear your success. :D

[Ultima Shadow]

Wow....I now worship you. I just finished the Pleroma escape. I jes delivered Cherenkov the food, and am on my way to check the catapult. I have an average level of 10, and Margulis gave me much trouble. Well, good luck with Albedo and Sophie Peithos. Jes remember that over in the midwest, you have a cheerleader. GO SHA-DOW! GO SHA-DOW! (if I may call you that...)Ah, nice to hear that someone else is doing this challange as well. :cool:

Anyways... I didn't get any time to play the last 2 days, but today I finally did.

To begin with, I just realized that I've done a grave misstake in the begining of the game. I forgot to reply to that e-mail that you needed to reply to in order to get the F-Scythe. Sub-Weapons are normaly pretty useless compared to tech attacks and even the powerful F-Scythe is overshadowed by X-Buster. However... I'm sure the F-Scythe could have been of some help in this challange, considering you can't upgrade tech attacks, thus giving it a power advantage over the X-Buster. Oh well... you can only use it once a battle anyways, so I guess I can live without it. :greenie:

Now... for the actual challange... I'm at level 27 with my main party, which is KOS-MOS, Chaos and Shion/Rubedo. I've still not reached the final boss, however. And that's all because of a boss that I had completely fogotten about. The robot boss Proto Dora, which is the first boss you fight in Proto Merkabah... is hands down by far the hardest and most annoying boss so far in this challange. And it's all because of that annoying attack "Steel Press" which does about 75% of my characters max HP in dammage with a non-critical hit... and it uses that move often! On top of that, it can heal more than 2000 HP while I can do 350 dammage at most with tech attacks (critical strikes). Yeah... it's no pushover. :p

[raskerino]

Ouch, good luck on this. I may try this or a similar challenge sometime...

[Ultima Shadow]

Whoooooooohooooooooooooo!!! I finally defeated Proto Dora! Seriously... that thing was twice as hard as any of the other bosses I've fought so far in this challange. Tomorrow... I'll be fighting Albedo and that freaky Sophie Peithos... and they will probably be twice as tough as Proto Dora! :cool:

Current level: 29

[Ultima Shadow]

Unexpectedly, "the elevator" was a pretty hard and extremely annoying part. The few unavoidable battles that you can't escape from are like boss fights... and on top of that, I had to let my main-party characters die before finishing the battles in order to prevent anyone from getting above level 30. That's what made it so frustrating.

Anyways... I've finally got to the very end of this challange... and I've fought the final boss once so far. Everyone in my main party is at exactly level 30. Ziggy and MOMO are level 28 and 29.

Albedo is actually pretty easy. Or... atleast he was that one first time I fought him. Now, Sophie Peithos is a different story. At first, it seemed extremely easy. Even easier than Albedo! Then, Sophie Peithos summoned those self-destruct freaks... but the battle was still easy! But THEN, Sophie Peithos summoned those 2 insect-like gnosis servants... and the battle suddenly become really hard! 300 dammage + Ether Atk Down against all the characters hurts. I hardly got any time to attack because i was too busy healing all the time. After a while, I managed to kill 1 of those 2 freaky bugs, though. And what happens? Black Omen! Schram! Bam! Crash! Game Over!

Black Omen is an instant-game over attack as long as your party isn't fully healed and defending. Since you never get warned (there's no charge up turn or anything), you'll probably need to have atleast 1 character fully healed and defending whenever Sophie Peithos gets a turn during the later part of the battle. Ouch.

[raskerino]

I would say you're screwed... but you never seem to be in this type of challenge.

[Shadowdust]

I have to admit, I'm really impressed. Just based on how you've been able to beat the other bosses, I'm sure Sophie Peithos will go down eventually too. And to think, your only at level 30. I'm normally at 40 before I fight that thing. Anyway, good luck to you.

[Ultima Shadow]

Aaargh! I've still only fought the final boss once as I've not got the time to play Xenosaga the past 3 days. Tomorrow, I'll finally make a new attempt, though. :greenie:

[Ashi]

This is very impressive. Good luck with future attempts!

[Ultima Shadow]

Whoooohoooo! I finally defeated Sophie Peithos aka the final boss on my 3th try! I'm now officially done with this challange! :cool:

Even though Proto Dora took me more tries, I think it's safe to say that Sophie Peithos was this challange's toughest boss. Because against Proto Dora, I didn't waste any important items since I wanted to save them for the final boss. Against Sophie Peithos, I had to waste all my Revive DX and Rejuvenators.

Sophie Peithos was divided into 3 phases: Easy, Hard and Very Hard. It becomes "very Hard" after the first "Dark Omen". Every Dark Omen is like a package of pure pain. If you don't defend and are fully healed, you're dead... but you still can't waste turns just defending all the time. I figured out Sophie Peithos always use Dark Omen directly after using Dark Prophecy... so Dark Prophecy is your "warning signal". Once Dark Prophecy has been used, you must make sure atleast 1 character is fully healed and defending before Sophie Peithos gets its next turn.


Oh well... this was an extremely entertaining challange. :cool:


Top 5 toughest fights:

1: Sophie Peithos
2: Proto Dora
3: The 2 Gigas (that clone-gnosis)
4: Gargoyle
5: The battles on the elevator before the final boss

[Slicksword45]

yay!!!!!!!! now i will worship you!


ummmmmm... hmmmmmm

*builds a shrine to shadow*
i'm not worthey *worship*
i'm not worthey *worship*


you should do this with Xenosaga 2 (witch IMO is 762348967298698353896x harder then Xenosaga)

once again good job