ZOMFG! CLICK ME, PLEASE!!! (Ultima Shadow's SO3 challenge)

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, so it's finally time for a new challenge... and this time, it's a Star Ocean 3 challenge! And this time... there's a 96% probability that it will be BLOODY HOLY SMOKING MUSHROOM-SPANKING hard. Yes, THAT hard! :cool:

In other words, there's a 96% chanse that this will, in fact, be my hardest challenge so far (atleast if you include MoT and Sphere 211).

Here's the rules:

1) 4D mode
2) Solo Character
3) No IC (item creation) until after the main game (Maze of Tribulation and Sphere 211)
4) No power-leveling. Must be under level 100 when facing Luther. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it at level 70-80.
5) Gusty Bunny must ALWAYS be equiped after getting it. In every singel battle.
6) No Clone Generators.
7) May only buy weapons, no other kinds of equipments or items until after the main game (Maze of Tribulation and Sphere 211)


Oh yeah, and... if there's any specefic boss fights that people really want me to video-tape, I'll try to borrow a video camera and do so.

And one last thing, don't expect a daily update. There's a lots of other things going on this summer, so there may be a few breaks in this challenge.

Well, that's all! If anyone else wants to attempt this, please post in this thread and keep us updated on your own progress. :greenie:

[Cruise Control]

What happened to SMRPG? I gave up at smithy also

[Zeromus_X]

Yeah, I found FFIV and wanted to write a walkthrough for it. And I couldn't kill those god-damn Aqua Wisps on my Universe challenge. So meh. Maybe someday, now that I know I can recruit NPC inventors, I'll just create a bunch of healing items, but I'm not playing SO3 for awhile. :(

At any rate, good luck! You've been talking about this for the longest time, I hope you do good! (But don't abuse the NMG, if possible. Although I can't really blame you.)

If you could, I'd like you to record the battles against Crossell, the Security Service (which I hate!!!), Azazer, Berial and Beelzebub, the Executioner Sequence, ....

Well, all the bosses after that. xD I don't expect you to, but it'd be funny.

Well anyway, good luck. Fights are going to take a million years, especially if you do the optional bosses. :cat:

[Ultima Shadow]

What happened to SMRPG? I gave up at smithy alsoBeat it long ago: http://forums.eyesonff.com/showthread.php?t=81432&page=2


(But don't abuse the NMG, if possible. Although I can't really blame you.)*can't remember what NMG stands for* xD

Anyways... I've just played for about an hour and I just beat Northon. So far, I haven't had any trouble. Northon was even easier than the guys outside Northon's hideout.

Fayt's current level: 3

[Cruise Control]

Wow. Your oficially kick-ass.

[LunarWeaver]

Anybody with Kossy in their sig is already kick-ass.


Good luck with this! I couldn't even beat it on easy because I was underleveled and unmotivated...So if you do this I'll give you a present. The present is a pickle, just to ruin it :pickle:

[Zeromus_X]

When playing solo, if the character you're controlling moves, the AI gets confused and just stands there, staring into space. It happens sometimes on Galaxy, and more frequently on Universe and Fourth Dimension. It's called the 'No-Movement-Glitch" or NMG for short.

It's how I beat Shelby. And it also takes a very long time to *run* *smack* *run* because you aren't healing, and if your teammates die, they're gone. You're alone. At least in my challenge anyway, because I couldn't have healing items in large amounts until after I actually beat the game...

But yeah, with Nel, *Nel runs into a corner and waits* *Shelby: Take This! I'll make mincemeant out of you!* *Nel runs to the other corner of the arena while the enemy team stands in the other corner* *Nel casts Healing* *Nel runs to other corner as they come over to her.

For such a fat guy, he runs rather fast... It's even funnier when you run into a corner and they're on the other side of the field, and then they trigger their attack and you're on the other side of the battlefield. xD

Anyway, it's pretty useful, even though some people don't like using it, even though it's inevitable sometimes.

[Ultima Shadow]

When playing solo, if the character you're controlling moves, the AI gets confused and just stands there, staring into space. It happens sometimes on Galaxy, and more frequently on Universe and Fourth Dimension. It's called the 'No-Movement-Glitch" or NMG for short.Oh yeah, that! Nah, don't worry. I won't be abusing it. And battles would be too boring if I kept doing that. :p

Also, I forgot to mention that I won't be using any Clone Generators.

Right now, I'm in Ariglypth right after the battle VS that gigantic crab. So far, the hardest battle by far was the battle VS the inquisitor + 2 guards. I leveled Fayt up once so that he learned "Aerial" which does a little bit of MP dammage, which I could kill the guards in 2-3 hits with. Since I couldn't have Nel dead at the begining of the battle, I simply put her tactic on "Do Nothing" and let her die in the begining of the battle. I had to spread out the guards and the inquisitor a bit so that they couldn't attack all at once, because that basically means instant-death. First, I took out the guards one by one with aerial and then went for the inquisitor.

The gigantic crab went down on my first try, and I didn't even use Blazing Sword. I just had to AAA all the non-strong attacks and then counter with an Aerial, or just run behind it whenever it would do a strong attack, and counter with aerial. Whenever the crab didn't get "stunned" by the hit, it countered with a normal weak attack but then I could just run away and use a blueberry... and it got stunned most of the time.

That's all so far. :greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

Who are you best at using?

I loved Nel's Aerial, since it was great at destroying the Giant Crab/Earth Monster/basically those first two 'giant' enemies as it can hit up to five times for alot of damage. I thought it was cool, at least.

Who do you plan on using later? (When you have all the playable characters), and what optionals are you getting?

Edit: Oh, you can buy things. Okay. Lucky bastard. :cat:

[Ultima Shadow]

So far, I've only been using Fayt. That may change soon, though.

Sounds cool. :cool:

Not sure who I'll be using the most later on... but I'm pretty sure that I'll get Albel and Nel just because they are awesome characters. Hey, I know it's a challenge, but you still gotta stick with your favs, you know! :p



Edit: Oh, you can buy things. Okay. Lucky bastard. :cat:Hmmm... now that you mention it, since I haven't had any real trouble so far I'll add that to the challenge as well. I'll ONLY be able to buy weapons (just so that the battles won't take longer than necessary) but no other kinds of equipments or items. This rule will apply until MoT.

[Zeromus_X]

You can make it even harder by never buying anything in stores and fighting Luther before level 60. xD

I didn't read the part on the top about solo, heh. That should make things interesting. Were you inspired by that guy's videos on YouTube? (Marty81.)

[Ultima Shadow]

You can make it even harder by never buying anything in stores and fighting Luther before level 60. xD

I didn't read the part on the top about solo, heh. That should make things interesting. Were you inspired by that guy's videos on YouTube? (Marty81.)Well, like I said... I'll try to keep my level as low as possible. The Gusty Bunny will add some extra EXP for every battle, though. And I won't buy anything but weapons. But weapons is a must or else the CRAZY long battles will drive me insane.

And yeah, I was. xD When I saw that, I just thought I had to do something even worse. It won't get worse than that until I get the Gusty Bunny, though. But once that happens, Oh My... :hyper:

[Zeromus_X]

Are you allowed to fight normal encounters?

[Ultima Shadow]

Are you allowed to fight normal encounters?Yes, because it's so boring to avoid every singel normal encounter. But like I mentioned, NO power-leveling... and I'll try to keep my levels as low as possible. Also, if I use different characters at times, the EXP will be spread among the characters which means it will be easier to keep the even the most leveled character's level pretty low.

[Captain Maxx Power]

The gigantic crab went down on my first try, and I didn't even use Blazing Sword.

You should've just hit it's weak point for massive damage.

And as always good luck with this ya crazy so and so!

[Ultima Shadow]

You should've just hit it's weak point for massive damage.

And as always good luck with this ya crazy so and so!Oh, but that would have been TOO easy! xD



Anyways... here's the current update:

I went to the mines, managed to level up Nel just a little bit so that she could totally pwn that clay-golem-boss-thingy. That boss was also pretty much a pushover. Now, the normal encounters on the other hand are far from pushovers. Every singel encounter inside the mine and after the mine is tougher than that fat golem boss. All, except the bugs after the mine, that is. Those bugs are so slow that you can easily beat them without taking a singel hit.

Anyways... I then went trough all the cutscenes and stuff and now I'm on my way to the Black Brigade's training facility. BUT... I don't have all that many blueberries and blackberries left... and whenever I hit an enemy, there's like a 50% chanse that the attack will be completely blocked. So... I come up with this great idea: I sold every singel Ripe Berry and Perfect Berry I had, along with a few Jewels of Refuge etc and both my scroll that teaches Support Symbology and the one that teaches Attack Symbology. And then, I bought a "Holy Sword" for Fayt in Ariglyph for all that money. So now, Fayt already got a kick-ass sword to show off with. Oh my, I'm SOOO clever!

While this will make battles take less time for a while, I'm still so weak as far as HP and Defence goes that I'll die in a few hits. So even though I got this uber cool sword to chomp stuff with, I still need to be careful.

Yup, that's all for now. :cool:

Current levels: Fayt: 8, Nel: 6, Cliff: 2


Also, I'll be off for 7 days, so yeah... I won't update this for 7 whole days! ZOMFG! :eek:

[Zeromus_X]

Shadow...you should've just sold all the Map Bunnies you get up to that point. :cat:

[Ultima Shadow]

Shadow...you should've just sold all the Map Bunnies you get up to that point. :cat:Nah, those can actually be useful. Having as fast characters as possible will probably be important later on, so I won't waste any Map Bunnies. :greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

Well...you only need one Bunny. The factors don't stack up. :( I usually just sell them anyway, because it's only a 5% boost. :cat: And we all love getting Airyglyph equipment early.

[Ultima Shadow]

Well...you only need one Bunny. The factors don't stack up. :( I usually just sell them anyway, because it's only a 5% boost. :cat: And we all love getting Airyglyph equipment early.Oooooh... it doesn't stack? Are you SURE about that? I always thought it did. :p

Awww, crap! >_<

Well, then that only means I can get a kick-ass weapon for Nel as well. :greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

It's what many faqs, the official Brady guide, and many people at Gamefaqs say, and I've never actually noticed a difference myself. (Otherwise, everyone would act like they had Bunny Shoes, and Maria is still as fast as a dead yak.)

Still, I guess it works out anyway. :p

[Ultima Shadow]

When I think about it... I've never really noticed any big difference either. But it would have made more sense if it DID stack, though. :p

However... collecting bunnies is fun... and one day... one day, I'll be the greatest bunny collector there ever was! That's my dream! My reason! So I'm NOT going to sell my precious bunnies! :(

[Ultima Shadow]

Finally time for an update. I'm home again from my 7 days off, and now I finally got to play some more.

I beat Shellby thanks to my new, cool sword and double-Charge (cancel-bonus charge once with another charge). Two charges + 1 weak attack would kill a normal Black Brigade Guard. It took a while to get Shellby and his pals separated, but I managed to take the guards down one by one. Once Shellby was alone, he was pice of cake. just AAA every weak attack and dodge every strong attack and counter with a long-range strong etc. Shellby's just too predictable. Overall, he was one of the tougher fights so far, though. If you ever get attacked by even 2 guards at the same time, chanses are that you're screwed. The other guards will catch up, and then you'll get trapped in an almost unescapeable instant-death combo.

After that, I went back to Aquiros and bought some flashy daggers for Nel. Then, I went to Peterny. The monsters are pretty dangerous at this moment as far as stats goes, but most of them got a pretty predictable and easy fighting style, so it's not too bad... yet.

So... I went to save Ameena and... watch out for some of the creatures in the forest, man. the monster Tree's are the easiest you'll encounter since they die in about 3 good hits from "Blazing Sword'ed" attacks. Now, those little Gnoll-troops on the other hand, are better off avoided completely. I basically avoided every battle except trees and slimes. Also, I beat those silly thiefs who had Roger locked up. Super pushovers. The Mud Golem is slow, extremely predictable and overall easy. But on my first try, I went for a HP-kill. I soon regreted that, as Mud golem suddenly healed itself and recovered 7000+ HP... twice! >_< So, I restarted and went for an MP-kill with my precious Blazing Sword instead, which was much more effective.

Well, that's it for now. Right now, I'm back in Peterny, just about to leave for Aquaria! :cool:


Current Levels: Fayt: 12, Nel: 10, Cliff: 2.

Fav skill right now: Blazing Sword.

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, I haven't done this challenge for a few days now... because Oblivion and heroes of Might and magic V are taking over my life. xD

But I'll continue on this challenge... tomorrow. Or maybe the day after tomorrow. But right now I'm going to join the Dark Brotherhood and pwn a horde of Titans with my unbeatable undead army etc. :cool:

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, so I finally managed to stop playing Oblivion (most addicting game ever) like crazy and spent some more time on this challenge. :p

Also, I went to Portugal for a week, which is another reason this thread hasn't been updated for some time.



Anyways... I'm now about to get the copper ore in the mine. The Dragon Brigade Guards went down pretty fast thanks to Nel's Aerial, even though Nel's at such a low level. Nel leveled up, and I went back to revive Fayt and use him instead once inside the mines.

Here, I encountered a pretty annoying part. The random encounters are seriously getting pretty hard. And there's 4 unavoidable battles in a row at one point inside the mines. I had to restart 3 times during those battles. >_<

The boss right before getting the copper ore (that big bird thingy) was an uber pushover though. Possibly the easiest boss fight so far.

And... that's all for now.

Current Levels:

Fayt: 16, Nel: 12, Cliff: 2

Fav skill right now: Side Kick

[Ultima Shadow]

Gurads, clear. Dragon Brigade dudes, clear. Albel, clear.

School started 2 weeks ago so I've been pretty busy lately.

Anyways... Albel was suprisingly easy. And so was those dragon dudes. The 4 normal guards on the other han where really hard.

The Guards would gang up on me and trap me in a chain of attacks that would eventually kill me before I got a chanse to escape. And their attacks are actually pretty fast. Thanks to their low MP, I could MP-kill them pretty fast, though. Once I actually got a chance to attack, that is.

The Dragon Brigade dudes are slow, slow and slow. And yes, that means they where pushovers.

Albel wasn't too fast either. I could easily kill the guards one by one thanks to Aerial, and then I just had to AAA all of Albel's weak attacks and avoid his strong ones. I had my AAA set on "homing", by the way.

Yup, that's all for now. It seems like no one's reading this, but I'll still finish it... eventually. :p

[ValkyrieWing]

I am not hardcore enough for this.

[Zeromus_X]

I did an SO3 challenge, but it wasn't as masochistically challenging as this one...

Anyway Shadow, did you ever figure out what Freya's stats are in 4D with the Gutsy Bunny equipped were? I remember you saying that the stats are altered differently depending on the enemy, and not on a set rate.

[Ultima Shadow]

Well... I think they are, atleast. However... I now know that Freya's stats, atleast, are doubled. So... she'll have 120,000,000 HP and 9999 attack etc. :greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

Oh my god. 0_o;

[Raven Nox]

You, my sexy little friend, are INSANE!

Seriously though, I'd never be able to do this, but it'd be an awesome thing to do. xD I'll make sure to be annoying and kick you until you finish this. =)

[Reine]

Holy damn crap :O

The only challenge ive done is no item crweation till post game, and im stuck on Luther atm because of being underlevelled (No Rings of Erudition :()

And this is just on Galaxy..

I cannot fathom your challenge :(

[Zeromus_X]

I only did Universe/set party/no IC until post game/can't buy items from stores/must be at level 60 or below when you fight Lucifer, but this tops that.

And Reine, beating the game without IC is easy...if leveling is a problem, then use the wonderful Bonus Battle Guage...:cat:

[Reine]

Yeah, I know about all the levelling methods, but I can only possibly keep a bonus battle for around 2 battles late in the game..

As for why im sucking so hard, its either my party (Roger, Albel and Adray) or because im too used to having IC items that are overpowered at this point. Besides, im busy these days on my other SO3 file, which is just beating all the secret bosses etc, with Fayt, Nel and Maria

[Zeromus_X]

If the current character you're controlling recieves a critical hit (I'm pretty sure, ciw), then the Bonus Battle Guage will shatter (even if you don't take damage from the attack). A good way to prevent this is to switch to a side-character (like your spellcasters/bomb users) when you finish a combo and the enemy can move again. That's what I do, at least. :cat:

No party is bad, per se, although Albel and Adlai are much better controlled manually to be put to good use then from crappy AI. Then again, I never bothered with overpowered IC, I find Galaxy mode too easy as it is. :cat: And good luck on your other file!

Eh...sorry to take your thread off-topic Shadow. xD :cat:

[Ultima Shadow]

You, my sexy little friend, are INSANE!Luckily, I'm sexier than I'm insane, though. :cool:



Eh...sorry to take your thread off-topic Shadow. xD :cat:Heh, that's okay. Atleast you post in it. I started to feel a bit lonely after the 4th quadruple post. xD

Defeated Vox. And dude... he was really easy but... it took at the very least half an hour to get all that freaking HP down. If the battles are going to be this long, Freya will take like... 10 hours!

I've finally got Maria, though. Maria, the ass-kicker, that is. :cool:

[Zeromus_X]

2P Costume ftw! :cat:

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, even normal encounters are pretty crazy now. The Shrine of Kaddan is even more troublesome than I had expected. I'll have to get trough this place, avoiding every singel avoidable battle. Crystal Cerberus is giving me some trouble right now. >_<

The first Crystal-Statue dude was pretty tough, but Ice Blade was really effective so... I managed to MP kill it in a couple of mins. A short battle compared to my last ones. Ice Blade's not as effective VS Crystal Cerberus, though. So that's a problem. I'll probably beat it soon, though. I just need to come up with an half-assed strategy. :greenie:

Maria's awesome. I'll need to get a better weapon for her before she'll become more useful than Fayt, though.

Scatter Beam, Scatter Beam, Scatter Beam, Scatter Beam! :greenie:

Current levels: Fayt: 21, Maria: 21, Nel: 14, Cliff: 2

Current fav skills: Ice Blade and Scatter Beam




Edit:

Ok, so the Crystal Cerberus wasn't so tough, once I ignored the fact that he got such a low MP, and went for a HP kill with homing AAA and Side Kicks. All I really had to do was AAA his normal weak attack + Tri Spike, and avoid his strong attacks. And it really wasn't hard to do that at all.

Now, those Vendini Soldiers on the other hand... DAMN! Those are INSANELY annoying, and hands down the hardest battle so far... by far. Since I don't have any anti-petrification amulets, I can get an instant-game over just by getting hit once. Ugh... >_<

[Ultima Shadow]

Thanks god for the awesomeness that is Ice Blade and AAA!

Ok, so at first those soldiers seemed almost impossible at my current level. No matter what I did, I would get killed in a matter of seconds. No really. A strong hit would do like 800-900 dammage, and a weak would do 300-400... not to mention that the weak ones hit 3 times! And there's 4 of those soldiers! And my HP with Fayt was like... 2600 maybe? On top of that, atleast 50% of all my attacks would be blocked completely because of their "agility" being higher than my "hit". Basically... any approach would only get me killed or petrified. If I got hit once, I'd get hit again by another soldier... and then again and again until I'd die.

But after a couple of patetic attempts, I decided that I'd have to change strategy. In most cases, atleast 1 soldier would do a strong attack if I tried to AAA. But after running to a corner and doing Ice Blade, I managed to AAA-stun all of them once. I ran away until I got "long-range" and did Fayt's long-range strong attack to send 3 of them into the air, followed by 2 more "anti-air strongs" and then a "anti-air weak". Out of all of those attacks, only the last weak one was blocked. So atleast 2 of them were already at about 200-300 MP left. After that, I managed to split them into 2 groups by just running around and evading. Then, I managed to AAA 2 weak attacks from one of the groups and then do another long-range strong combo with Ice Blade, killing one of them.
The soldiers got into 1 group again, and I managed to AAA 2 weak attacks, but got hit by 1 strong. Since I hadn't stunned them all, and was hit in the process, I didn't bother trying to pull off a long-range strong, but just attacked the closest soldier with a close-range strong. And waalaa! The biggest and baddest out of the soldiers aka the one who can turn you into stone (I figured out there was only 1 who could do that) went down! Yay! Before recovering from the attack, I got hit by another strong from the un-stunned soldier. But luckily, I only got hit once. So I survived, ran away to another corner and healed myself. And when there was only 2 soldiers left, it became easy to AAA-stun and punish with a long-range strong combo.

Still... this really seemed like a hopeless battle at first. I hope there won't be too many more battles like this one for a while. I hate it when you have more than 1 or 2 opponents at the same time. >_<

Off to the Mossel Dunes... or whatever they were called! :greenie:

Current Levels:

Fayt: 23, Maria: 21, Nel: 14, Cliff: 2

Current fav skill: Ice Blade

[Zeromus_X]

The only really irritating battle after this is the Security Service and Security Service/Azazel.

Of course, for the first Security Service, you can use Flying Guillotine or something to kill them (you may be forced to use the No Movement Glitch), and for Security Service/Azazel, you can hide behind the desk to avoid their shots.

[Ultima Shadow]

Ugh... isn't security service like... 6 guys or something like that? And at that point, I'll have the Gusty Bunny... >_<


Actually... it won't take too long until I get the Gusty Bunny. I've already got Albel and I've beaten the Zombie Dragon. The only boss battle that's left before I get the Gusty Bunny is Robin Wind. Crossel will be a pain because of his high HP. Even if he's easy, getting down all that HP, which is also increased along with his agility and defense thanks to the Gusty Bunny, will take a damn long time. >_<

Anyways... those Dragon Brigade dudes that you battle before you cross that bridge when you're on your way to that desert... well... those where ultimate super-pushovers. Any random encounter in the desert, spare those slow dragons who looks like the dragon-zombie, would be a whole lot tougher than those Dragon Brigade wimps.

Inside those ruins in the desert, I just avoided every singel random encounter.

Well... then I went back and got Albel, and then I went to those mountains and beat the Dragon-Zombie, who was even easier than those Dragon Brigade dudes (thanks to Maria, of course).

Current levels: Fayt: 25, Maria: 25, Albel: 24, Nel: 14, Cliff: 2

Current fav skill: Scatter Beam

[Ultima Shadow]

I NOW HAVE THE GUSTY BUNNY!!! ...god, have mercy.


Yeah... so after beating that push-over dragon, I went to kick some kid-ass (Robin Wind). Sadly, the kid kicked my ass a couple of times before I managed to kick his. :( Oh, well. Such is life.

First attempt: I tried to HP-kill him. Big misstake. Then I remembered that his MP is SOOOOO much lower, so I restarted.

Second attempt:
Ice Blade! then, I'm hit by his retarded Thunder-Flare (he just keeps spamming it in the begining). I then wait for him to prepare a second Thunder-Flare, and right before he casts it I press O for a long-range strong. Thanks to this method, the Thunder-Flares will miss Fayt. So... I hit him with that long-ranged strong, and he blocks it completely. >_<

I run away a bit, he prepares a 3th Thunder-Flare, and... yeah... the process is repeated several times. About 50% of my attacks got blocked. After a while, he stops spamming Thunder-Flare and goes for his standard strong/weak attacks along with his precious Aerial-something-thingy-green-flashy-Whirl. Up to this point, I didn't know that Robin Wind hardly ever uses his green-flashy-aerial-thingy close enough to actually hit unless you move towards him. Anyways... I just avoided all his attacks except the weak ones, which I AAA'ed. And... after a while, he hit me with a Rising Stream, resulting in pretty much instant-death.

So... I had to start all over again. I got killed by that Rising Stream maybe... 4 or 5 times, I guess. >_<

Oh well... once I managed to predict when he was going to use his Rising Streams and AAA them, I beat that little annoying kid.

Now... I couldn't even touch those fire-creatures, except the Magma Golems, at all! No matter who I used, no matter which attack I tried... I always did 0 dammage. I mannaged to kill one of those really fast dudes who uses Star Fall, with AAA alone, though. So... homing AAA was the only was to dammage them.

I went to that little Bunny-guy and got the Gusty Bunny. Wheeeheee! I avoided every singel enemy on my way back to the save-point, saved, and then fought 2 of those same fast flame-dudes. And... I managed to kill them both with AAA only. While their HP and MP is much much, higher, so is their attack power. Which means the AAAed attack will do more dammage back at themselves as well. So... in a battle where you can only kill with AAA, the Gusty Bunny doesn't make such a big difference, actually. Well, except for tha fact that instead of being able to survive 4-5 attacks, you can barely survive one with the Gusty Bunny on (I got into another battle with lots of enemies and got hit by a strong attack which did around 6000 dammage... in other words, instant-kill). :greenie:

From now on, even leveling will be a major pain in the ass.


Current Levels: Fayt: 26, Maria: 25, Albel: 24, Nel: 14, Cliff: 2

Current fav skill: Ice Blade



Edit: Crosell is... harder than I had expected. Even though he's big and his moveset pretty much sucks, he blocks about 70% of my attacks completely, has an absolutely insane amount of HP during his second stage, and can kill in a singel blow unless it's a standard weak. I can't take the risk of triggering his AAA either, as even that is almost instant-kill in most cases. >_<

Edit 2: Crosell is worse than those Vendini Soldiers. He's by far the toughest thing I've encountered so far. If he just stomps on me even once, it's over. And I need to hit him about 200 times. Right now, I don't even want to think about Freya. >_<

[Ultima Shadow]

Yaaaay!

I defeated Crosell... with Albel. I leveled him up to level 26 first, though, so that he would learn Palm of Destruction.

Short X: Palm of Destruction
Short O: Palm of Destruction
Long X: Air Slash
Long O: Air Slash

I'm sure I could have done it with Fayt as well. Maybe it would even have been easier with fayt. However... Crosell got a huge amount of HP, and Palm of Destruction was the most dammaging skill I had... so in order to prevent the battle from being far too long, I used Albel and his PoD. Then again... maybe Fayt still would have been better. Oh well, whatever. The only thing that matters is the fact that I beat him. :p

Once I had figured out everything about the way Crosell's AI works along with all his moves, it really wasn't all that hard. So I'd probably still say those Vendini where a little harder... maybe. Crosell was a hell of a lot more time-consuming, though. Probably took me almost an hour. I would wait for a good opportunity to AAA one of his weak attacks, and this time I had "standard", rather than "homing" which I used in my first attempts. Once Crosell was stunned, I'd use Palm of Destruction twice (canceled). If he would get knocked down by them, I'd use another one and in some cases even a 4th. As soon as Crosell would stand up again, I'd just stand there waiting. If he would do another weak (he actually went for that Storm Raid-attack most of the time), I'd AAA it and do some more PoD's. If he'd go for his strong attack, I'd run... quickly. Albel's just a little faster than Crosell when Crosell's doing his strong attack. After escaping a strong attack, I'd do a Strong Air Slash if Crosell would stand still, and a weak one if he'd move. If Crosell would move towards me and I'd do a weak Air Slash, I'd get out of his attack range just before he'd reach me. Then, I'd try to make him go for another weak attack, stun and PoD etc.

In order to recover HP used for the battle skills, I'd run away to a corner and stand still for a while to fill up the HP a bit with Standby Healing. It become pretty time consuming after a while, though, when I ran low on HP. So I used 2 Blueberries in the battle, even though I hardly had any left.

Well, that's it for now. :cool:

Current Levels: Fayt: 26, Maria: 25, Albel: 30, Nel: 14, Cliff: 2

Current fav skill: Palm of Destruction!


Edit:

Crap! Sorry, Zeromus_X. I forgot that the Crosell battle was one of those you wanted me to video-tape! >_<

Oh well, I'll remember to video-tape the Security Service and the other ones, though.

...and once I get to Sphere 211 after the main-game, I can video-tape that Super-Crosell dude instead. :greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

That's okay Shadow. :cat: :p Although, if you wouldn't mind...could you film some of these battles?:cat:

-Proclaimer
-Azazel/Security Service ('Azazer')
-Belial and Beelzebub ('Berial and Belzeber')
-Executioner sequence
-Battlecopter
-Psuedo Blair
-Three colored crystal boss monster sequences
-Lucifer ('Luther', first form with Moody Goddess)
-At least the ending part of Luther's second form with Highbrow.

Well, those are some of my favorite fights anyway. Good luck Shadow! :cat: :)

Edit: At least Standby Healing is going to level up alot from standing there and healing with it. xD

[Ultima Shadow]

That's okay Shadow. :cat: :p Although, if you wouldn't mind...could you film some of these battles?:cat:

-Proclaimer
-Azazel/Security Service ('Azazer')
-Belial and Beelzebub ('Berial and Belzeber')
-Executioner sequence
-Battlecopter
-Psuedo Blair
-Three colored crystal boss monster sequences
-Lucifer ('Luther', first form with Moody Goddess)
-At least the ending part of Luther's second form with Highbrow.

Well, those are some of my favorite fights anyway. Good luck Shadow! :cat: :)

Edit: At least Standby Healing is going to level up alot from standing there and healing with it. xDYeah, I'll try to remember to video-tape them all. :cool:

I've been busy with school a bit, but I've just made it to Biwig. I've only made 2 attempts so far, but it's yet another one of those "get hit once and you're dead" kind of battles. The Vendini Soldiers got a pretty low MP, though so I can probably take those 2 down without too much trouble. And once Biwig is alone, it should be pice of cake.

[Reine]

Ugh... isn't security service like... 6 guys or something like that? And at that point, I'll have the Gusty Bunny... >_<

I remember getting utterly pwnt by them once, because I had left the Gutsy Bunny equipped for bloody ages, Id even gotten through Styx and Moonbase with it equipped, but those dudes wasted me in no time, I only beat them like twice, and Azazer afterwards I JUST beat (and got a BT) but after resetting, I couldnt get past the Security dudes again...until I realised I had the Bunny equipped..

If I had that much trouble on Galaxy, I utterly cannot grasp your challenge, and how that fight wil be for you

[Ultima Shadow]

I remember getting utterly pwnt by them once, because I had left the Gutsy Bunny equipped for bloody ages, Id even gotten through Styx and Moonbase with it equipped, but those dudes wasted me in no time, I only beat them like twice, and Azazer afterwards I JUST beat (and got a BT) but after resetting, I couldnt get past the Security dudes again...until I realised I had the Bunny equipped..

If I had that much trouble on Galaxy, I utterly cannot grasp your challenge, and how that fight wil be for you

.....ouch. It seems like I'll probably have even more trouble with those guys than I had expected. >_<

In any case, I just beat Biwig. He was just as tough as Crosell and those 4 vendini Soldiers in the Shrine of Kaddan, though.

I used Lightning Blade with Fayt, ran around for a bit until they would use weak attacks. AAA 2-way up their asses, and then Long-Strong combo them.

...Ok, it wasn't really that easy. Even though they shoot 3 times with their weak attacks, I barely ever managed to AAA them all and atleast one of them would usually go for a strong attack, breaking my sheild and possibly killing me while I AAA'ed the weak attacks from the other 2. After managing to get a full Long-Strong combo with the Lightning Blade on one of the vendini Soldiers, I didn't want to take any risks so I came up with a more safe method, which also took a whole lot more time. I'd make my fury go all the way up to 100%, and then I'd charge at them. Since my fury would be 99, they would all pretty much all the time go for a strong attack. But during the charge-time for their strong attacks, I could usually slap one of the Vendini Soldiers with a Short-Weak, and then just run around to avoid the Strong Attacks. Then I'd repeat the process until I had killed both the Vendini Soldiers. Something really annoying, though, was that like 80% of all the weak attacks would get blocked. With the Long-Strong ones, there was more than 50% chanse that I'd hit. Oh well... I managed to endure it.

When Biwig was alone, I made a scary discovery. He could sometimes block my attacks without even flinching... which basically means that if I manage to hit him with a Long-Strong, and he blocks it, there's a chanse that he'll be able to counter instantly. So I got hit by all the 3 hits of his weak attack. LUCKILY, I survived on fury. Then, I spent some serious time running to corners and letting Standby Healing do the job. After that, I decided that I wouldn't do anymore Long-Strong attacks for a while. So I charged at him with Long-Weak into Side kick instead. It happened twice that he would block all the hits from Side Kick, but I managed to avoid his attack both those times. After a while, he started using that "Enchant Rifle" thing, which made the battle a whole lot easier. Almost every time I'd get close to him, he'd just use "Enchant Rifle", and I could just keep spamming Long-Strong combos. Bye, bye Biwig! :cool:

Current Levels: Fayt: 30, Maria: 26, Cliff: 2

Current fav skill: Lightning Blade and Side Kick... and Standby Healing!

[Zeromus_X]

Side Kick = <3

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, so... I went to the moon base and fought the Proclaimer, who really wasn't that hard at all. But don't worry, I've kept a separate save file right before the Proclaimer so that I can fight it again and video-tape it. :greenie:

I don't have a video camera myself, though, so I'll have to borrow one of a friend whenever I'm going to video-tape a battle. I'll try to borrow one soon, though. :greenie:

Anyways... I went up 2 levels with Fayt at the Moon Base, and found some nice armor. And since I'm allowed to buy weapons, I bought my little Fayt a nice flashy sword. :)

Fayt didn't keep his new cool stuff for long, though, as I got him a Laser Weapon and Aba-something Sheild once I arrived at Styx.

Yes, it was a bloody pain in the ass to beat those big metal-spider monsters, and restarting whenever I wouldn't get any Aba-something Sheilds or Laser Weapons. But Ice Blade and Side Kick made it possible. Ice Blade took care of those small little helpers that the metal-spiders sometimes had with them (helicopter-like robots with machine guns). Also, even though Ice Blade dissapears whenever you use Side Kick, I always had an Ice Blade ready before approaching, just in case I'd manage to AAA-stun the spiders, in which case I could Long-Strong combo them with Ice Blade for about 10,000 dammage. But man... I sure hate those metal-spider's homing missiles. So annoying. >_<

Oh well... Fayt is now level 34 and got a Laser Weapon and an Aba-something Sheild! But......... the Security Service can still shoot him dead in an instant. >_<

Really... those guys are just soooooooo annoying! >_<

[Zeromus_X]

Do you have any Bombs or damage items?

It's Ablative, Shadow. :)

Did you get the stuff in Moonbase's storage with Peppita? :cat:

[Ultima Shadow]

Nope, actually not. :p

Aha! Okiedokie! Thanks. Ablative Sheild, then. xD

Nope, forgot about that. xD I've missed a few things (not anything really important, though) because I'm kinda rushing trough most parts. For example, I've only completed like... 2 maps. xD

What was it in the storage room? I've completely forgot.

[Zeromus_X]

Just some free weapons and stuff. I guess it isn't too important, but it could help.

[Ultima Shadow]

Oh yeah, that! Nah, don't worry. I won't be abusing it. And battles would be too boring if I kept doing thatWhen I said that, I had no idea about how necessary it would be in certain situations.

It happens really often that it's inevitable... but against the Security Service I had no choise but to truely abuse it. And I'm seriously pretty sure it would be almost impossible otherwise. >_<


Well, in any case... I actually beat the Security Service. I won't bother explaining how, as there will be a video up on sunday that shows exactly how I did it (along with the battle VS the Proclaimer). The reason it has to wait for sunday is because my friend won't get home (so that he can transfere the files to his computer and send them to me) until sunday.

The Security Service was by far the worst battle so far... until I started to seriously abuse the glitch. However... it didn't really make the battle pie-easy, it's sometimes inevitable and... yeah, well... it would probably be seriously impossible to beat these guys in this challenge without abusing it.

Right after beating the Security Service, I just saved and quit. So right now, I've just entered the 4D world. :greenie:


Levels: Fayt: 37, Maria: 30, Nel: 14, Cliff: 2, Sophia: 1

Fav Skill: Side Kick


Edit: What the f-

I put the wrong quote in the quote-tag. I meant to quote "Oh yeah, that! Nah, don't worry. I won't be abusing it. And battles would be too boring if I kept doing that", but accidently quoted "Not using Clone Generators". And I didn't see that misstake until now!? OMG! Dude, SERIOUSLY! :p

Clone Generators are absolutely not needed at all. The glitch, however, sometimes is. *sigh*

[Ultima Shadow]

No in-game updates, sadly. I've been a bit busy.

However, here are the videos that I forgot to upload on sunday, as i promised:

The Proclaimer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3TjO8x73oM

I didn't really put my all into it, since I had already beat it once and knew it was a pretty easy battle. The fact that I got hit by the Dark Sphere and survived on fury in the very begining only makes it look cooler. :cool:


The Security Service:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aavr6mvaPuc

Right now, I regret using that blueberry. I've only got 4 left! :(

I could have beaten it without using that blueberry but since I had some trouble with this battle before I power-abused the freeze-glitch, but I didn't want to take any risks as this actually was the first time I beat the Security Service.

Oh and, before anyone asks, yes I do buy the item "Fresh Sage". I need those when I want to change the character to solo with.

[Reine]

Inside the storage area, well, the most useful item in there for you, I would say that it would be the Battle Armour, the most powerful armour until post game (I cant remember if IC can make better armour than Battle Armour, but I dont think so)

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, so after not playing SO3 for about 3 weeks or something like that, I finally got back to it today. Yay! However... I didn't really progress at all, though. I only fought "the second security service" that you'll have to face right before Azazer about twice before I took the 3 weeks(or something like that) break... so I didn't realize how absolutely ridiculously insane it was until now.

Yeah, they are only 4 this time... but they got atleast 10 times as much HP as the last guys... which means the battle takes a whole lot more time. And they are just as dangerous as the last security service. Now, I actually managed to beat them twice... but when you finally manage to beat them, you'll have to fight Azazer right away... who MP-kills with a single attack! Ooooouch! And yeah, Azazer both moves and attacks pretty fast.

2 hours of failed attempts so far. I guess I'll have to level up just a little bit and boost my MP so that I can take atleast 1 hit from Azazer after finally managing to beat those super-annoying security guys. >_<

I guess it's safe to say that this is the BY FAR worst battle so far and one of the hardest and most annoying fights in ANY of my challenges so far. Ugh!

How much HP does Azazer have? Is it better to go for MP-kill?

[Captain Maxx Power]

Azazer has 99,000 HP and 9,000 MP, but that's without the Gutsy Bunny I believe, and I don't know if you're sticking to your word of keeping it equipped once you got it. In any case, he has about a 10th of his HP in MP in most cases.

[Zeromus_X]

Well, in 4D mode, Azazer would have 297,000 HP and 27,000 MP, and that's not counting whatever boost Gutsy Bunny gives.

I can only pray for you, Shadow. :( During my challenge, I used Nel's Whirlwind for supreme juggling pwnage (it also helps to get it up to level four or so, it's a relatively easy skill to level up because you can activate it anywhere in the battlefield). The other two characters were basically meat shields for her to cancel to 175% for Whirlwind and kill all the soldiers at once. Azazer took even longer to kill, but that was only on Universe mode without the Gutsy Bunny. I have no clue how long it'll take for this. :( :cat:

[Ultima Shadow]

Well, then I'd guess his HP would be around 450,000-500,000 total since I've got the Gusty Bunny. And I do about 3000 with a side-kick... around 1000 for each successful, un-blocked hit. That... just doesn't feel enough.

Since I'm not ambushed this time (by the security service), I guess I can actually try out another character this time. Nel might actually be a good idea, if I can level her up quite a bit first (right now her level is FAR too low). Relying on hitting a fast-attacking guy, who can 1-hit mp-kill you with just about any attack, like... 150+ times with Side Kick just doesn't seem like a good enough strategy. Especially considering, even though Azazer will only MP-kill me, my HP will run low countless of times because of Battle-Skill usage, not to mention that my healing items are running low and I'm sooooo tired of spending hours of just Standby Healing. >_<

So... if I can get Nel's Whirlwind to rack up some serious dammage, that would be awesome. I'll try it out. :greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

Luckily you can easily level her Whirlwind up in the AAAAA team in the Ranking Battle Arena (it's a Nobleman who doesn't attack you), or any skills like that for that matter. The Battle Arena itself is a great way to level up, since you can't go back into the Eternal Sphere at that part of the story if I recall.

[Ultima Shadow]

Wow, it's been a while. But I was busy with Xenosaga 3 (a great game that I'd recomend to any RPG-fan), so yeah.

I've finally got back to SO3 now, though... and hopefully I'll be able to atleast complete the main game in this challenge before anything else gets in between again. :p

Anyways... I'm currently leveling up Nel, which is extremely annoying since all I can do so far is fight the weakest enemies in team Battle with her, or else it will take ages for her to beat a singel enemy. She doesn't even have Whirlwind yet. >_<

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, first of all... thanks a whole lot for the tips about using Whirlwind, Zeromus_X. It made both the security guys and Azazer a whole lot easier, even though Azazer still was a major pain in the ass. But I finally managed to beat them with a level 36 Nel + Level 6 Whirlwind. YAAAAAAY!!!

Now, when I finally managed to beat the thoughest guy up to this point, I'll suddenly have to beat 2 new dudes who are like... twice as tough. Yes, I'm talking about Berial and Beelzebub. They are... slowly but surely killing the little bit of sanity I had left. SO FRUSTRATING! xD

In the worst case, I'll have to go level up a bit more, I guess.

[Frozen Phantom]

Really, I can't believe you've gotten this far....I really can't.....you deserve a metal for this.

[Ultima Shadow]

Really, I can't believe you've gotten this far....I really can't.....you deserve a metal for this.
Heh, thanks. ;)



And holy unexpected muppet masters! I beat them! I honestly overrated them, and I actually think Azazer possibly was harder. Even though these guys took a little longer to beat. But when I finally got their patterns and movesets down (I never payed any real attention to that in my earlier playtroughs), they wheren't all THAT bad. Whirlwind was once again the way to go. And once Berial was out, Belbeburbwebbvfbzer (yeah, I don't remember his name xD) became really, really easy.

I've got a savefile right before the battle so that I can record it some other time.

Now, ONWARDS! :hyper:

[Zeromus_X]

Excellent work, Shads! The Executioners should be pretty easy, with Whirlwind.

However, beware. Once you hit the final dungeon, Nel will probably be nerfed with all of her elemental skills.

Edit: What level is Nel at currently?

[Ultima Shadow]

Yeah, and I don't want to use Whirlwind more than I need to, actually. So I'll try to beat the Executioners with Fayt.

Nel is currently at level 41 and Whirlwind's at level 6.

Fayt's at level 38, Maria... don't remember. Same as before, I think. And the rest are the same levels as before.

[Ultima Shadow]

I beat the Proclaimer, Enforcer and Convictor. I tried it once with Nel, and defeated them all on my first try. Then I loaded and tried with Fayt instead. But even though it was a bit tougher with Fayt, I didn't have too much trouble using him either. The Enforcer took much longer to beat with fayt than with Nel, though. The Convictor was just pathetic. One of the easiest bosses I've fought so far, even though it took very long to beat.

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, so I'm at the Shrine of Kaddan... for the second time... and it's a pain.

The Lesser Eye wasn't too bad, even though it got a whole lot of HP. Fayt and Side Kick got the job done. The Dark Armor dudes wasn't too bad either, although extremely time-consuming. I used Maria and her Aiming Device to MP-kill them from afar. I hardly ever used the strong one, though, and didn't Cancel-Bonus until there was only 1 of them left, because:
1) It's too expensive MP-wise. Even though I have a few Blackberries left, I don't want to waste them unless I absolutely have to.
2) It's quicker and safer to just shot once, then back off. When I Cancel, there's a chanse I'll get pwned by Hammer Quake... or whatever it's called.

Anyways... it wasn't too bad until I got to the Crystal Statue. That thing's seriously getting on my nerves. It kills me in 1-2 hits, it's extremely fast, it almost never gets stunned by attacks and it got a whole lot of HP... and it's immune to all elemental attacks so Whirlwind is out of the question. Whenever I hit it in close combat it almost always, instead of getting stunned by the attack, counters directly and 1-hit kills me unless I survive on fury.

[NeoCracker]

If I had any Idea how this game worked I might be able to help. Good luck Shads, you chalange Crazy man.

[Ultima Shadow]

YAAAAAAAY! I finally defeated that stupid statue! :greenie:

I actually used Maria with Aiming Device against this thing as well. But this time I did Cancel-Bonus pretty often, so I had to waste some blackberries.

Ummm... no comments about my skills with paint, ok? xD

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7489/thispictureissoohothz5.png

I had Maria stand in one of those positions with maxed fury, until the statue got close. It would usually go for a Strong Attack, in which case I'd run behind it and do 1 weak Aiming Device (it usually got blocked, though), and then reposition myself at the other "wait position". Since my fury would be lower because of the aiming device, the statue would now usually go for a weak attack instead. But by the time the statue would launch the weak attack, my fury would be maxed, so the statue would get stunned. Now, I'd quickly run to one of the position with red arrows coming out of them. xD

From there, I'd start off by doing a weak Aiming Device. Since the statue was stunned, it couldn't block. So the first Aiming Device would always do some dammage. If the Statue would be sent into the air by the attack, I'd start Cancel-Bonus like crazy. By doing this, I could sometimes do a total amount of over 2000 MP-dammage. If it didn't get sent into the air, I'd just run away and repeat.

It took a lots of time, but once the statue started using that triple-beam thingy, everything got a lot easier since it's a slow-charging weak attack, which means it's easy to block= stun. :greenie:

I'd still have to say that this probably was the second worst battle so far though, next only to Azazer.

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, so I defeated the Dark Eye too. It's just a stronger version of the Lesser Eye, but the battlefield made it a little more difficult. I managed to beat it on my 3th or 4th try, though. So it was absolutely nothing compared to the Crystal Statue.

However... then I encountered the insanely annoying "so-called mini-boss", the Chimera... which is absolutely ridicolously difficult.

Whirlwind could have absolutely pwned this boss, if it wasn't because of that burning tail, which does almost 2000 dammage each time I even touch it. And the Chimera's standard strong attack= around 20,000 dammage= instant-kill. And you can't heal with magic, because the Chimera's too fast. And I have almost no healing items left at all. And Standby Healing takes absolutely too much time since, again, the Chimera is fast and you can only stand still for like 1-2 second(s) before you'll have to move out of the way in order to avoid a standard strong. >_<

I'll come up with something, though.:greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

In my challenge, it took several tries with long range X-> O Whirlwind cancel chains to beat him. I can only imagine how tough it'll be on 4D (with Gutsy Bunny) though...however, you do at least have the NMG to work with before he dashes across the field. I'm sorry I can't give you any more advice though. :(

[CelestialStarDust]

i dont think i ever fought that crystal statue....i think i just ran around him or something :P but fayt is SOOOO useful later on with his dimention door attack i use it all the time.though it is kinda annoying how many times he says DIMENTION....DOOR!
NOW YA SEE ME....NOW YA DONT!!

[Ultima Shadow]

In my challenge, it took several tries with long range X-> O Whirlwind cancel chains to beat him. I can only imagine how tough it'll be on 4D (with Gutsy Bunny) though...however, you do at least have the NMG to work with before he dashes across the field. I'm sorry I can't give you any more advice though. :(Well, I've pretty much given up on whirlwind as that tail can mess things up pretty badly. And sometimes the Chimera doesn't even get juggled at all, which means it can counter instantly whenever I'm in front of it (which I'll usually have to be in order to avoid the tail).

I've found Fayt with X-Side Kick -> O-Air Raid to be the most effective moveset so far. I wait for the Chimera to execute a standard strong, move out of the way and then quickly triggers a Side-Kick which I cancel into Air Raid. It's the quickest dammage-dealing method I've come up with, and it almost always knocks down the Chimera. The only problem is the very few cases where the Chimera doesn't get knocked down, though. In those cases I can just pray that I'll survive on fury. And sometimes I even get hit by the tail during Air Raid as well, while the Chimera's getting knocked down. Luckily, I can easily survive a few hits from the tail. But it still causes some dammage, and interrupts my move.

And as mentioned before, even healing is a problem. And the fact that I'd run out of HP because of battle skill usage alone before I'd even get close to kill the Chimera doesn't make things better (and I have a Life Saver as 2nd equipment). Well, atleast I still got those 7 Magical Berries left. Oh well. xD

[NeoCracker]

It's time's like this I wish I had an Idea of what your talking about.

[CelestialStarDust]

It's time's like this I wish I had an Idea of what your talking about.
its the video game nerd language.it takes time to understand.

[Ultima Shadow]

I FINALLY defeated the Chimera! I hadn't played for nearly a month, but yesterday I decided to seriously try to beat that annoying thing. I tried out a couple of methods with different characters and came to the conclusion that Nel and Ice Daggers would be the safest method.

Even though it would be about 10 times as time-consuming as my tactic with Fayth's Side Kick + Air Raid, it would also be much safer.

So here's what I did:

I made sure Nel had 100 fury, waited for the chimera to perform its standard long-range strong move, and ran out of the way as soon as it did. Then, I simply used a singel weak Ice Daggers. I only used weak ones in order to prevent too much of my HP from being used, so that I could recover large enough amounts of HP trough Standby Healing. I also had the Life Saver equiped. Anyways... as soon as I had used Ice Daggers, I just stood still and waited. If the Chimera would go for a strong attack, I'd run out of the way and do another Ice Daggers. If it went for a weak attack, I'd just stun it with AAA and then use Ice Daggers from a safe distance.

This battle probably took me nearly an hour (it felt like almost 2 hours). >_<


Oh well, now I can finally keep going. :greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

Well, hopefully Battlecopter won't be too much of a pain with his weakness to water. You can use quite a few different characters to put him out of his misery.

But I see difficulty in the Chimera Hawks.

[Ultima Shadow]

But I see difficulty in the Chimera Hawks.
Yeah, those scare me. :greenie:



The Stone Golem was a pushover, as expected, even though the battle took a pretty darn long time. I used Nel with Flying Guillotine. When I was about halfway into the battle, I realised that it would probably have taken much less time if I had used Whirlwind instead. xD
But atleast my Flying Guillotines leveled up quite a bit. :greenie:

In any case, I returned to Gemity to fight in single mode at the arena and get a few Magical Berries. However... so far, I'm only able to win with Fayth, Nel and Maria. So I've only managed to get 3 Magical Berries so far, as you can only get 1 for each character. Oh well, hopefully 3 more will be enough. I think I've got like 8 total or something like that, so I should be fine I guess. I just don't want to be completely out of healing items when facing Luther. xD

[Ultima Shadow]

I went trough Firewall and fought the Battlecopter, which was a whole lot easier than I had expected. It was both easy and quick. All I had to do was the following:

1) Use Ice Blade with Fayth.
2) Let fury go to max while waiting for the Battlecopter to get into attack-range.
3) Run under the Battlecopter, avoiding its attacks, and use a Standard Strong anti-air (the backflip) attack.
4) Get out of range and let fury go to max.
5) Repeat all the above steps until Battlecopter dies (only do step 1 whenever you need a new Ice Blade).

Now it's not much left to do until I get to Luther, even though I might get stuck on the Chimera Hawks if I'm unlucky. Oh well. :greenie:

Next up's Pseudo Blair. :greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

Ooh, good luck Shadow! :) You're almost there. :cat:

[Eiko Guy]

Shadow chica the easiest way would have been to use a hundred fury on his tail. The chimera gave me trouble to. That is until I figured that part out. I would let him hit me continously with his tail and beat him up while he was stunned.

[Ultima Shadow]

Shadow chica the easiest way would have been to use a hundred fury on his tail. The chimera gave me trouble to. That is until I figured that part out. I would let him hit me continously with his tail and beat him up while he was stunned.Well, sometimes when I waited for it to perform an attack, it actually did hit me with the tail and get stunned. But it's not too much different from having it hit me with another weak move.



Anyways... Pseudo Blair's history. I figured that because of Pseudo Blair's Death Howl, the only character I could beat her with was Fayth. This is because Death Howl executes too fast for any other character to get out of range in time. And getting hit by Death Howl= instant kill. And even with Fayth, I couldn't be 100% sure to get out of range in time, so Death Howl was a big problem until I figured out I could survive it by using the invincibility frames of Side Kick against it. So whenever Pseudo Blair would use Death Howl, I'd just use Side Kick and then cancel the Side Kick into Air Raid.

The first part of the battle was really easy. I'd just use Side Kick, canceled into Air Raid (around 75% of the times knocking Blair down) and if Bloair wouldn't get knocked down, I'd just cancel the Air Raid into another Side Kick and then another Air Raid. When Blair's knocked down, I just stand still and gather fury. Since Blair would always go for a weak attack after getting knocked down by Air Raid, I could just stun her and cancel another Side Kick into Air Raid. As for healing, I'd just run around until Blair would use the spell "Crush" in which case I'd run out of the way and use the healing spell. Since Blair can't move until the end of the crush animation, I'd get enough time to heal without getting interrupted.

Around halfway trough the battle, Blair would start using Death Howl and Eddy of Light, which makes things a bit harder. However, like I mentioned above, I eventually found a way to avoid Death Howl. And Eddy of Light is all about AAA in time. During the last part of the battle I also had to use 2 healing items since Blair stopped using spells.



Edit:

I beat both the Death Monsters and that big, slow demon (its name escapes me) with Nel. The Chimera Hawks are giving me even more trouble than expected though.

Against the Death Monsters I simply used Whirlwind. I could even use whirlwind as a shield for when I needed to heal myself (healing's only required because of battleskill usage, though, as getting hit by a singel attack usually is enough to kill me). I simply just activated a strong Whirlwind and used the healing spell. They would usually just run into the whirlwind and get knocked down or stunlocked long enough for me to escape. Even though they started using new attacks as they ran lower on HP, the only move that ever even killed me once was their "Charge". Whirlwind, whirlwind and whirlwind. That's all this battle really was about. :greenie:

As for the demon-dude, he took a pretty long time to beat down, but didn't really pose much of a threat. Flying Guillotine and homing AAA did the work. I'd just run away from his "Explosion" spells and use Flying Guillotine, AAA stun his weak attacks and use Flying Guillotine and get out of the way whenever he'd go for a strong attack, and then I'd use Flying Guillotine! Once he started to use "Killer Sphere", I'd change the AAA to "Homing" and let it hit him for over 9,000 dammage. Healing wasn't a problem at all since he's so slow.

As for those Chimera Hawks... I have absolutely no idea how the heck I'm supposed to survive Heat Impact. I'm using Fayth for this battle, and I can usually do well until one of them starts using Heat Impact. Once that happens, I'm screwed. >_< Seriously... strong moves are not supposed to be that fast! xD


Must be under level 100 when facing Luther. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it at level 70-80.I also just realised that my highest leveled character is currently 14-24 levels lower than I had "hoped" to be when reaching Luther. Even though Fayth will probably level up after the battle with the Chimera Hawks, I highly doubt he'll go from his current level, which is level 56, to anywhere near level 70-80. So... atleast I've managed to keep my levels a lot lower than expected. xD

[NeoCracker]

I take it the invincibility frame from Side Kick doesn't work here. If its at all possible to negate that attack, I'd look for that way. Or perhaps figure out a patern and predict when it shall come up.

Only other suggestion I have is Gorilla tactics, hit fast and move away.

[Ultima Shadow]

Actually, it IS possible to use the invincibility frame from Side Kick. The problem, however, is that Heat Impact executes so quickly that it's extremely hard to do the Side Kick in time. In fact, the only way I've found that guarantees that I manage to pull off a Side Kick in time to avoid a Heat Impact is to activate the Side Kick right BEFORE the Heat Impact is used (which means I'll have to do the Side Kick before I know if they're really going for a Heat Impact or not).

Luckily, they only start using Heat Impact once their HP is down at around 50%, and then when they're at around 25%, they'll stop using it. The problem is that I can't scan them (or, well... I CAN, but I can't see their HP and MP when I do so it's kinda useless), so I won't know when their HP is down at 50% until they start using Heat Impact. And I usually die on the first Heat Impact because of this. Another problem is that, since there are 3 Chimera Hawks, I have to keep track on which one of them I'm dammaging the most unless I want more than one of them to go into the "Heat Impact phase" at a time (which usually is a bad idea). So the best idea would probably be to try to pick them off one by one.

Oh well... :greenie:




Edit: O-M-F-G!!! I finally managed to beat them! I got hit by 2 Heat Impacts, but survived on fury both times. I used 1 of my Magical Berries, 1 Perfect Berry and a few Ripe Berries for healing as I didn't want to take any risks using the healing spell instead.

The battle kinda went like this: I wait with 100% fury until all 3 Chimera Hawks starts using their standard strong attacks or gets AAA stunned. Then, I run away a bit and use a standard long-range strong attack with Fayth (with "Increased HP Dammage") smacking them into the air and then I follow up with a backflip etc. I repeat this until 2 of them starts using Blizzard Attack. When 2 of them are in the Blizzard Attack phase, I do pretty much the same as before except I keep track on the two who are using Blizzard Attack. I make sure I only smack those 2 around so that the 3th one hasn't even gone into the Blizzard Attack phase yet. After a few hits, I start using Side Kick whenever a Chimera Hawk approaches, and not much later comes the first Heat Impact, which I actually manage to avoid thanks to Side Kick. I chain a few(or actually a whole lot) Side Kicks on the Chimera Hawk (and another of them who tried to hit me with a standard weak, but missed, also gets trapped in the chain). But once my fury gets so low that I can't use more Side Kicks, I get hit by an Heat Impact from another Chimera Hawk... BUT I manage to survive on fury. I then run as far away from the 3 Chimera Hawks as possible and use a Magical Berry. I do the Side Kick thing again and escapes, avoiding all attacks. I then use another Ripe Berry to make sure my HP's maxed. The Chimera Hawk who hadn't gone into the Heat Impact phase yet starts using Blizzard Attack and on my 3th Side Kick approach, I'm hit by a standard weak while escaping (a standard weak does around 9000 dammage and Fayth's max is around 13000 at the moment. Even though my HP wasn't at max, I survived with around 1000 HP left). Luckily, none of the other 2 manages to follow up while I'm locked in place by the first attack, and I can escape and heal with a Perfect Berry. The next approach goes smoothly and one of the Chimera Hawks stops using Heat Impact and uses Wing Cutter (or whatever it's called) instead. While escaping from a Wing Cutter, I'm hit by another Heat Impact but survives on fury once again (that's just pure luck). I heal with a Ripe Berry, and after the next Side-Kick approach, the other one who was in the Heat Impact phase goes into the Wing Cutter phase instead. As none of the Chimera Hawks had any fast strong attack to worry about anymore, I'd just wait for them to come and then I'd act depending on the Situation. Usually, I could get the Blizzard-Attacking one to just use its extremely strong standard attack while the others would use Wing Cutter. I'd just escape, heal when necessary or long-range strong attack them when given a good opportunity.
After a couple of mins, the first Chimera Hawk went down. A while later, the other one using Wing Cutter went down as well. After that, I'd just Side Kick as soon as the last Chimera Hawk would approach. It went into Heat Impact phase after the first Side-Kick chain, but I managed to avoid every singel one with the Side Kick approach. As soon as it went into the Wing Cutter phase, everything became pice of cake. All I had to do was avoid the Wing Cutters and do a couple of Long-Range strong attacks on it. Or if it would go for a weak attack, I'd stun and Side-Kick chain it.

This was, hands down, the worst battle so far. The last 2 days I spent around 5 hours on this battle alone. And if it wasn't because I survived on fury twice, I'd probably still be stuck on it. >_<

Now, all that's left is Luther! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! :hyper:

[Ultima Shadow]

Ok, it would be really great if someone could tell me exactly how to dodge Insanity Prelude. Seriously. >_<

On my 2 earlier non-challenge savefiles I never even payed much attention to the attack. Now, however, I'll need to find a way that guarantees that I'll dodge it completely. And don't forget that I'm playing the PAL version, if that matters.

Luther's first form is just pathetic. Especially when compared to around 90% of all the other bosses in this challenge. And while the second form is a lot tougher, it's not too bad either EXCEPT for the fact that Insanity Prelude always kills me. I know there's supposed to be some safe spots somewhere, but it seems like I haven't managed to find any of them as I keep dying each time I get to the point where Luther starts using Insanity Prelude. It's so annoying, as it usually takes over 40 mins to reach the point where he starts using Insanity Prelude. >_<

[NeoCracker]

Probably just have to find the safe spots. Trial and error is your friend.

[Zeromus_X]

You need to stand in between the two bloody pillar things, on any of the 'flaps' on the edges of the battlefield. However, I'm not completely sure if this is different in the PAL version or not. I remember hearing that you can stand right near Luther and dodge it on the PAL version., but I don't know if that has any credibility or not.

For a video explanation, download and watch this:

http://files.filefront.com/DodgeInsanityPreludewmv/;5004729;;/fileinfo.html

At any rate, congratulations on beating the Chimera Hawks! You're doing so great, Shads! I know you can beat Luther easily once you figure out how to dodge Insanity Prelude.

[Ultima Shadow]

You need to stand in between the two bloody pillar things, on any of the 'flaps' on the edges of the battlefield. However, I'm not completely sure if this is different in the PAL version or not. I remember hearing that you can stand right near Luther and dodge it on the PAL version., but I don't know if that has any credibility or not.

For a video explanation, download and watch this:

http://files.filefront.com/DodgeInsanityPreludewmv/;5004729;;/fileinfo.html

At any rate, congratulations on beating the Chimera Hawks! You're doing so great, Shads! I know you can beat Luther easily once you figure out how to dodge Insanity Prelude.
Thanks. I tried standing in that very place, but one of those purple fireball-things exploded close enough to still dammage and kill me. I'll soon try out the thing about standing next to him, though.:greenie:

[Ultima Shadow]

WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Luther has been defeated and the universe has been saved! I'm now done with this challenge, as I won't try the Maze of Tribulations and Sphere 211 for quite a while. I'll probably do so eventually, though. xD

I got the Fayth alone ending, so if I'm going to fight Dark Fayth, his teammate is going to be Dark Luther. xD

Anyways... for the first battle, I simply used Side Kick to avoid any and all of his attacks (except Laser Beam). Then, I'd chain it into an Air Raid, which would almost always knock him down. Even though it was a little risky method at times, the Air Raid almost never failed to knock him down and it was by far the fastest method to get rid of Luther's first form. Once Luther had been knocked down, I'd just stand still and wait. He'd just about always go for a weak attack, in which case I'd AAA him for a whole lots of dammage with the Multi-Homing AAA (each hit would do around 4000-5000 dammage). I'd then hit him once, Side Kick, and then do another Air Raid. I'd just repeat this process until I'd run low on HP, in which case I'd just run around until he'd use Laser Beam. Since Laser beam is so slow, I could just easily avoid it and then have enough time left to heal without having to worry about Luther interrupting. I could never really bother to master Standby Healing, so being able to use the Healing spell instead is awesome.

As for the second battle, I'd be more careful. Chaining Side Kick into Air Raid would be too risky in this battle, so I just Side Kick'd to avoid attacks and then ran away. AAA alone was the key to victory in this battle. All his special weak attacks would return around 10,000-15,000 dammage with each hit from the Multi-Homing AAA. Most of the time, I'd just run up to him and see what he would do. If he would use a weak move, I'd AAA it. If he'd use a strong move, I'd Side Kick to avoid it. And if he'd use Laser Beams, I'd either heal, if needed, or run up to him and use an Air Raid. Since Laser Beam is so slow, I could always escape in time even if Air Raid would fail to knock down. And after knocking him down with Air Raid, Luther's next move would just about always be a weak move which I'd just AAA.

Whenever Luther would use Perfect Symetry, I'd just run as far away as possible and avoid the attack. Even though it was pretty time-consuming, this battle really wasn't much of a problem, until Luther started to use Insanity Prelude. Insanity Prelude killed me almost every time. I tried standing in the exactly same place as shown the video Zeromus_X linked to. However... it would seem like the PAL version's Insanity prelude works a bit differently, and I died every time. But when I tried to stand just a little bit from the thing in the center of the stage, I actually managed to avoid getting hit. I figured out that standing too close will get you killed, but as long as I kept small distance from the center, I'd be able to survive. Once I figured out exactly where to stand, I managed to safetly avoid Insanity Prelude each time, allowing me to finally defeat Luther! :cool:

So... it would seem that what you had heared about the PAL version was correct after all, Zeromus_X. Atleast it worked for me. Seriously, thanks a lot for all the information Zeromus_X. If I hadn't found a way to avoid Insanity Prelude, I'd have gone insane. xD

...

...

...And finally, I'd like to mention that this is BY FAR the ABSOLUTELY HARDEST CHALLENGE THAT I HAVE EVER ATTEMPTED! Especially the Chimera Hawks had me almost throwing the controller out of the window several times. xD

The game was finished with Fayth on level 60.

Edit:

After finishing the game, I loaded my old non-challenge savefile where I'm in Sphere 211 with a level 210-220 party and ultimate weapons for each character. It felt strange to enter a battle that was over before it even started, with me on the winning side, for once. I doubt Energy Burst would be all that effective in my challenge, though, if I even ever manage to get to Sphere 211. xD

Well, atleast the "no IC" rule won't apply anymore according to my challenge rules, though I have decided that the only kinds of IC I'll be allowed to use are Synthesis, Forge and Alchemy (for Synthesis material only). So no stunbombs or other trixy things will be allowed.

But like I said, I won't do this for a while now. The main challenge is finally finished. :greenie:

[Zeromus_X]

Congratulations, Shadow! :cat: :D

Yes, Wide Area Homing AAA is a godsend. It definitely helped when I did solo Luther battles awhile back.

I am happy you figured out how to dodge Insanity Prelude. The way I actually heard of the way of dodging it in the PAL version actually comes from this parody:

Luther: Grrr, that does it. Witness my most powerful program! For now anyway, as soon as I upgrade the OS, it’ll be even better.

Cliff: I don’t what your stinking upgraded Osmium!

Mirage: He means operating system.

Cliff: I know that! I’m just trying to be cool and make wisecracks in the face of certain doom. You’re not helping!

Luther: Do you hear that sound?

Peppita: Your computer enhanced voice?

Luther: It’s the gates of the netherworld, opening to take you away...

*A giant anchor slams into the middle of the area, pouring what could be blood, or maybe raspberry jam, all over the floor.*

Nel: It’s going to take weeks to get this out of my clothes!

Fayt: Run away everyone!

*Everyone runs as far away as possible.*

Luther: Everyone go boom!

*A mass of explosions appear, but they don’t hit far enough to reach the party members.*

Roger: Ha, you missed me!

Luther: Let’s load the PAL version program this time... INSANITY PRELUDE!

*Another chained anchor slams into the ground, let more jam, blood, red cordial, whatever, floods the arena.*

Fayt: Run away again!

*The explosions hit further out this time, knocking everyone out. Except Adray, who chose to stand right next to Luther.*

Luther: What are you doing in my face?!

Adray: Now everyone can see how tackling the enemy head on is a good idea!

[Ultima Shadow]

Congratulations, Shadow! :cat: :D

Yes, Wide Area Homing AAA is a godsend. It definitely helped when I did solo Luther battles awhile back.

I am happy you figured out how to dodge Insanity Prelude. The way I actually heard of the way of dodging it in the PAL version actually comes from this parody:

Luther: Grrr, that does it. Witness my most powerful program! For now anyway, as soon as I upgrade the OS, it’ll be even better.

Cliff: I don’t what your stinking upgraded Osmium!

Mirage: He means operating system.

Cliff: I know that! I’m just trying to be cool and make wisecracks in the face of certain doom. You’re not helping!

Luther: Do you hear that sound?

Peppita: Your computer enhanced voice?

Luther: It’s the gates of the netherworld, opening to take you away...

*A giant anchor slams into the middle of the area, pouring what could be blood, or maybe raspberry jam, all over the floor.*

Nel: It’s going to take weeks to get this out of my clothes!

Fayt: Run away everyone!

*Everyone runs as far away as possible.*

Luther: Everyone go boom!

*A mass of explosions appear, but they don’t hit far enough to reach the party members.*

Roger: Ha, you missed me!

Luther: Let’s load the PAL version program this time... INSANITY PRELUDE!

*Another chained anchor slams into the ground, let more jam, blood, red cordial, whatever, floods the arena.*

Fayt: Run away again!

*The explosions hit further out this time, knocking everyone out. Except Adray, who chose to stand right next to Luther.*

Luther: What are you doing in my face?!

Adray: Now everyone can see how tackling the enemy head on is a good idea!

xD! That was awesome. Where did you find that?:cool: