I Golem As I See 'Em

In my Final Fantasy Chronicles strategy guide, it clearly states that Golem (In Zeal Palace) is impossible to beat and that I should let it beat me. Another reason it gives to let it beat me is that, even if I could beat it, I would get captured anyway. Well, you know me. Any time a strategy guide tells me something is impossible (or next to impossible), I take that as a challenge.

So, I killed him in six turns relatively easily. Six Volt Bites while Frog did the healing and Crono counter attacked which is weird because I didn't know you could counter a counter.

Anyway, this got me to thinking, Either Dan Birlew (The guy who wrote the guide) sucks at Chrono Trigger or I can do the impossible with little difficulty. Anyone else beat Golem in one playthrough? (New Game+ doesn't count because he says it's possible in a second playthrough.) How much difficulty did you have? How bad does Dan Birlew suck? Any other comments or questions on the situation? Anything relevant that I forgot to bring up?

I beat Golem, it wasnt that hard. I havent read the guide but the guy doesnt seem to know what he's talking about.
The only boss I didnt beat was the first time Lavos appears.

Eh, I beat him too, but to be fair, Golem can be very difficult if you don't go about fighting him the right way. If you let him copy physics he'll have your characters down to very low health very quickly, and it won't take him long after that to finish you off.

I'm a bit suprised, though, 'cause I didn't know you could lose that fight and continue on with the story. :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blackmage_nuke

I beat Golem, it wasnt that hard. I havent read the guide but the guy doesnt seem to know what he's talking about.
The only boss I didnt beat was the first time Lavos appears.

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Ditto. He wasn't a hard boss if you had an idea of what you were doing. It is interesting though that a strategy guide would be that wrong.

People who write strategy guides tend to miss things or say the possible is clearly impossible. That's why I don't like using them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Momiji

People who write strategy guides tend to miss things or say the possible is clearly impossible. That's why I don't like using them.

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I think he just said it was impossible for the sake of ease. He said that it's possible second time around which is correct, at least.

Yeah, I lost the Golem fight first time around but made a proper effort to beat him second time around just to see what would happen. Slightly disappointing, but still glad I did it.

I wonder if beating Golem changes the ending. I hear there are fifteen possible endings.

As far as strategy guides go, I tend to be a lot better at boss fights than the authors. I'll read the strategy they have listed and say to myself, "That's retarded. Who would beat the boss like that? It would be so much easier to do it this way." The only reason I even have strategy guides anymore is to make sure I don't miss anything in the game. Point me to all the side quests and missable items because most of these authors have no idea how to play the game.

It doesn't change anything.

i use Strat Guides mostly for the Maps, Side Quests, and Bestiary other than that i tend to find that guides strategys on fighting bosses almost always never work for me and i always end up doing it my way with greater success then when i try someone elses way... as for Mr. Birlew i tend to like the guides he writes but we can't expect the authors to get everything right, especialy when they assume the player is doing the minimal amount of leveling necessary to progress the story...