Eyes on Plays Final Fantasy V!

Hello, I am Gill, the wise old Sage you meet in FFV. Many of you might have thought that when I was blown into the zone that I would be gone forever. Nonsense! Here I am alive and well. I'm also ready to present you a challenge. The Eyes on Plays FFV Challenge. Are you ready? The following are the challenges you may play. Note that you don't have to choose any of them if you just want to play through the game for a gold star. You will have until January 1st to complete this.





Complete Game (Gold)
LVL 99 characters (Gold)
Maxed all jobs (Gold)
Bare Job only (Gold)
Single Character challenge (Can't be Galuf due to time in game where you only have the other three) (Gold)
Kill Omega (Silver)
Kill Shinryu (Silver)
All Blue Magic learned (Silver)
Fill Bestiary - GBA Only (Silver)
No secondary abilities equiped (Silver)




Progressive wimpy class challenge: (Double Gold)

The same three characters must progress through the game using these classes.
Bare -> White mage at the wind crystal
White -> Time mage at the water crystal
Time -> Geomancer at the fire crystal
Geomancer -> Bard at the chocobo forest
Bard -> Dancer FOREVER

The fourth character may use whatever class you wish.

I'm ready! Steady! GO!!!

Eeeew, I mean after my breakfast.

Finally, I've been awaiting this, and I'm playing right now =]

What do I do here?

I just might get into this one!

Play the game. Take pictuers at the beginning of the game and then as you make progress, until the last picture of you killing the final boss. The first and last pictures are very important.

I kind of hate this game sometimes... and I'm not sure if I want to play GBA or SNES... hmmmm

I'm in this time. Due to apathy, I missed out on my favorite FF last time.

Just a note, tuh: When done right, Dancers aren't wimpy. :p

Also, I'm renaming characters. I already named Bartz 'Momiji', so I need names for Reina, Faris, Krile, and Galuf.

EDIT: Actually, I don't remember if you can rename characters or not. Someone, refresh my memory please.

Ooh! Ooh! I so gotta do this one. I just gotta find some way to take pictures.

And I don't think you can rename anyone except for Butz in the Advance game. Can't remember in ya can in Anthology or not.

Well, I'm playing a fantranslation of the SNES version via emulator. I have FF Anthology, but the game is too damn slow to keep me wanting to play.

Also, attached is my first stopping point.

I think I'll take this opportunity to give the GBA version a go.

Except it'll be a rom. :P

Here's my first two snapshots. I don't think I fully understand gender roles :p

EDIT: xD Me and Momiji both made the old man a Monk.

A traditionalist, I
http://www.snowy-day.net/stuff/others/eop-1.png

Man, autodash is hard to get used to.

Apparently whenever I take a snapshot, it overwrites my last one. :P

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i2...nce_resize.png

"Balls" is only slightly more ridiculous than "Butz."

This'll be hard to take pictures of. My weak cell phone camera is too weak to see character names when I take pictures of my GBA. Oh well, when in doubt, emulate! (who can reccomend me a good PSP screenshot utility? I guess Gpsp has one built in)
And I feel honored this time; I'm in everybody's game! Please, don't mind the evil, :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Exdeath

This'll be hard to take pictures of. My weak cell phone camera is too weak to see character names when I take pictures of my GBA. Oh well, when in doubt, emulate! (who can reccomend me a good PSP screenshot utility? I guess Gpsp has one built in)
And I feel honored this time; I'm in everybody's game! Please, don't mind the evil, :p

---

Indeed Gpsp has a built-in screenshot capability. Press Triangle, choose Graphic and Video options or whatever it's called, and you have the chance to take a screenshot.

I'm going to get right on this...as soon as I finish FFIV. :/ That last dungeon in there is a bitch and I think anyone that played the DS version should get a gold star just for completing that game.

I will be playing FFV on my PS3...hopefully by tomorrow.

I love how it takes you no time at all to get a full party.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ce2_resize.png

I got my first set of jobs. :o And I don't remember the finer points of how it works. xD Specifically how jobs affect leveling up and basic stat growth. I also don't remember which jobs are more useful than others. :P Oh, well. I guess that's half the fun.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ce3_resize.png

O-!

V time! :D

I need to go get my GameBoy...

Argh. I got all the way to Castle Worus, and forgot that the monsters there kill you in one hit.

I didn't get away in time. ;;

So, I'm back on the mountain, before the fight against Magisa.

Oh yeah-- thought I'd add that I'm going for game completion, all lv. 99, all jobs mastered (is that for just one or all characters?), Kill Omega, Kill Shinryu, and all Blue Magic learned.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Momiji

Oh yeah-- thought I'd add that I'm going for game completion, all lv. 99, all jobs mastered (is that for just one or all characters?), Kill Omega, Kill Shinryu, and all Blue Magic learned.

---

MASOCHIST!!

It's about time this game got an English script worth reading.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ce4_resize.png

And now I'm at what's-it-called. I don't remember the name even though I just got there minutes ago. The music is awesome. I think overall, the music in V isn't that great as far as Final Fantasy games go, but there a few songs that kick ass and the one that plays in this town is one of them.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ce5_resize.png

I barely have time for anything these days, but I've managed to slowly play through a Fire Emblem game which I'm almost done with. I suppose I can substitute that for FFV for November since I do love FFV.

When I last posted there were three crystals and three guys on the team and one girl. Even if she didn't play by the rules. But now a lot of important stuff as happened. Two of the crystals have exploded, probably due to the princess taking a side trip back home to case up the joint. We also got more jobs and was thrown in jail for a little bit, but most important of all Lenna got a lap dance and played the piano!

i might give this a shot when the school year is over (it's still like, 3 weeks away), but i'll emulate it on my psp for ease of screen shots :) i hope it works though...final fantasy VI on GBA always roots up with Gpsp...which is a huge shame (i'm playing the snes one instead :D)

I've been filming the boss battles as I go, will probably tube them all together.

Yeeeesh, Garula totally owned Lenna in that fight :(

Focus pulled meh through~

So far my party consists of 3 Monks and a Time Mage, Tada.

I will most likely change that when I feel like it :O!

When you level up as a certain job, does it affect your base stat growth? (ie, if I level up 20 levels as a White Mage and switch over to a Knight, what will my character's attack power be like?)

Not especially.

Whenever you max a job the statistics of your "bare" job is powered up, forever/perma/no-revert/etc.

So there's really no downside to switching from a mage to a knight to a chemist to a berserker? :P Because that's awesome.

there's an advantage from switching from a monk to a white mage because the monk will learn Bare Hands then your white mage can start dealing some damage :}

So could I spare you my usual walkthrough full of witty jokes and random nonsense...?
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/7...4315286xy1.png

...No, I could not. :D

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6...4545069zs1.png
We start off by seeing our hero meditate on top of a cliff while looking at the sunset, all alone save for his faithful animal companion, blah blah blah, insert random hero stereotype here.

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/4...5121638bt1.png
Which in JRPG terms means "Something's horrible's gonna happen to me, but you stay here because the plot requires so."

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/2...1955177ju5.png
Let's give our hero a hero's name and a matching color!

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/7...5036593pb5.png
First random boss.

http://img370.imageshack.us/img370/7...0317098gx1.png
It made me giggle to see that Galuf's sprite as a thief has a handkerchief tied under his nose like in old Japanese cartoons. XD

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/3...3724849ep1.png
Roast gets totally raped by the usual sexy dancer that's in every respectable FF pub...

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/4...4809940ih6.png
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/3...4843243iw1.png
...But apparently, he and Galuf like men instead. Or do they?

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/2...1143671ar9.png
If I had a lobster that big, I'd be happy!

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/7...3415060zd8.png
The mandatory sexy lady boss.

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/5...4709347av9.png
I don't want to know.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5...4845459ol3.png
In the FFV world, DragonCave is all the rage!

http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/8...2034807oy2.png
Another random lady boss. Please notice the dismissive gesture.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/489...2217280ip7.png
Poor Hiryu looks like he's really taken a beating. :(

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/640...0432787hl1.png
I don't know what kind of game has the heroes fight a super hairy elephant as a boss, but he's in the way and we have to dispatch him, no matter how close to extintion he might be.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/737...5052186ge8.png
Now where are the Invisible Woman, the Thing and Mr. Fantastic?

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/6...5725554gy4.png
Our Roast loves culture. Maybe.

http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/133...2747256nd1.png
Last absurd boss for today.

Is WingRaptor really this easy? Oh dear. . .

So the adventurers went off into a liberry and got a massive paper cut. But they got a boat afterwards. And then they sunk it. Then some old guy made fun of them! How rude! They left and went into a forest and was about to eat a Black Chocobo. But he taught them Bard and Archer. So they decided to ride it instead. Took the chocobo exploring. Ran into some other old dude in a forest. Remembering how rude that one old dude was they decided to catch him on fire!

...now what level do I get Unlimited Blade Works again?

Quote:

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http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/5...4709347av9.png

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I laughed when I saw that part. :P

>>> Finally FF5 time.
I`ll give it a try.

I just beat Garula and the second crystal shattered. I haven't bothered with any pictures because they're not as interesting if I can't rename my characters after body parts and their various functions.

I just took pictures whenever I switched jobs. Already at world two. Will post pictures tomorrow.

tuh, I asked earlier about the all jobs maxed thing-- is that just for one character or all of them?

It's clearly all of them :O You get the same ABP for everyone

Alright time for 'ole Bahamut to get in on this action.

Don't expect a fun little uber walkthrough like last time. Too many projects and I doubt I can make fun of FF V nearly as well as some of the past ones.

Anyways, we need a name for our hero. Since the Captain Maxx Powers just barely missed being in FF IV, I think it's only fair to play through the game of FF V with the best pimp in the world, Maxx.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...x/FF%20V/1.jpg

Alrighty! Here we go!

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...x/FF%20V/2.jpg

For some reason I picture Galuf shouting that at the top of his lungs. Ya....awkward.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...x/FF%20V/3.jpg

Alright we got jobs! Time to mess up some stuff!

I'd normally be plowing through this game, but I have 2 different papers to write! Plus, I'm still finishing my previous walkthrough (getting 3rd tablet, won't take but a day or two).

I'm at that library place now. I'm not making the same mistake I made last time. I'm totally getting Level 5 Doom!

I just got the water crystal jobs and have been power leveling it up.

Despite cheating and using frame skip and turbo buttons and other shenanigans, it's still taking me ages to get jobs mastered!

I'm not going to worry about leveling up the jobs until I get to that basement place where the enemies are easily killed by level 5 doom and give like five ABP. :P

I'm at the crescent island and I don't remember what I'm supposed to do next. xP I guess it has something to do with the black chocobo.

You know, I'm enjoying this game a lot more than I remember.

I cheated and started on Halloween because it'd been almost two months since I had a dose of FF. Don't judge. :choc2:

I'ma chargin' my meteors.

I just mastered the Knight class with both Faris and Balls. :p Now they're both ninjas who dual wield swords. <3

check out the chocobo forest, rotos

I did. :P Now I'm about to enter that desert place.

woohoo, screens.

So I checked out Walse and managed to find the shiva materia magicite summon monster before the meteor even hits (or maybe before I checked out the meteor, whatever), so I quick saved (yay emu) and tried her out. Four monks managed to take down all her soldiers, but the lack of magic defense and healing mechanisms made me decide to hold off for another day.

So *after* the meteor, I crawled up the top of walse tower, saw the val castle guard, cursed that I couldn't get the mimic crystal shard, and got out of there before gogo showed up, and explored castle Exdeath I mean walse, ran into Jackanapes (wait, isn't that my cat?), reloaded, stayed out of the basement and tried out shiva again.

Two monks (to counter the soldiers), a summoner (for the three extra magic stat points), and a mystic knight (woooooooooooooohooooooooo) and I whipped her purple little butt (well, not really whipped, but my summoners can summon her now!).

So now, I'm about to take on the fierce wild dogs of the karnak continent, and hopefully learn ????.

Captions:
Camping on top of a castle is no problem for our heroes.
Didn't Bartz say he was afraid of heights? Is that ah. . . bile I see?
Oh syldra! Such fierce beauty (that's the second time I tried to type fierse)

Screw emus, my sp is smaller than a PSP. So easy to play in those boring idle moments in class, :p. I'm kind of taking my time, btw, heading through Walse canal.

I'm in Galuf's world now and I just beat Gilgamesh and got blown away by the barrier. :P Balls and Faris are Ninjas with Equip Swords, Lenna mastered White Mage and is now a Blue Mage with White Magic, and Galuf mastered Black Mage and is now a Red Mage with 30% MP+ because I don't have any level 4 black magic anyway. Once I get the -aga spells, I'll probably switch his second skill to Black Magic until he masters Red Mage.

I tried starting this on my PS3 but it kept freezing up during saves so I had to start again on my PS1. I'm on the North Mountain trying to find some Dragon Grass...I think. :cat:

http://leezas.com/FF5-1.jpg


http://leezas.com/FF5-2.jpg


http://leezas.com/FF5-3.jpg


http://leezas.com/FF5-4.jpg

Leeza, I'm so sorry.

I kinda want to try and write a walkthrough. I think I could do where I am by memory, but I'm not sure.

Spoilers, I guess?

Chapter 1: OMG SKY FIRE.
Welcome to FF5. My first Final Fantasy and one of my most dearly beloved, this game is a bit. . . let's say "unlike any other ff you've ever played". And yet, it is exactly the essence of the series, do you dig me?

We start off in a wonderful land called "World 1". After the opening scene, where a great big chunk of rock ruins your morning by landing a short distance off, our hero (and herobird) set off to investigate. You notice the beautiful (in terms of 16px tall ladies, she's definitely a hottie, trust me) lady lying unconscious (from the blast I'm sure) while two imps are trying to wambezzle her. You, a hero, can't allow this to happen, so strut in there and SLAY THOSE IMPS (you don't have a choice).

Two hits (one per imp) and you're golden.

The little lady wakes up, introduces herself, and then you get to NAME THAT CHARACTER.
Because I'm boring, my guy will be Bartz, the default name. Bartz and Lenna hear a strange humanoid sound, find a dude, etc etc, blah blah, but make sure before you leave the area, head to the bottom right of the screen, find the place you can walk through the bushes, go over, down as far as you can and hit A/X whatever. FENIX DOWN!

Now, head back to your chocobo, hop on and take off wherever the wind leads you. It will just happen to lead you back to Lenna and Galuf. Quelle coincidence! Save them (again), fight a few more imps (they're really not any harder than they were, plus you should level up by now), then decide as a group to go down into a little hole in the ground.

Bartz, the perceptive boy he is, notices a funny looking spring nearby. FREE HEALS. Take this chance to level up a bit because free healing is always a good thing. You can settle for simply getting Galuf and Lenna up to level 2, or maybe even taking everybody to level 3, just until you get bored, basically. Continue through the cave, get the leather clothing or whatever in the chest, watch a pirate throw a switch, throw the switch yourself (all the cave!switches in this game look like skulls. They're pretty easy to spot) and head through another cave room (you can see a neat little cutscene if you look out the hole in the wall), then, OMG pirates.

Run around, but there's nowhere to go but on the ship, so voila, enjoy the storyline.

After all's said and done, your party, now stronger one Faris, decides to go to the Wind Shrine together. On the boat, a pirate will offer to sail you, but it's just a waste a time. Politely decline, then immediately start heading toward the northwest (up left). You should reach a quaint little town called Tule. Head to the leftmost house and tell the lady you're a beginner (lie if you have to!) and go in and get some free tips, tricks, but most importantly, free items. This game is really stingy with its items (have you checked the price of phoenix down? Don't even think about selling the one we found. You won't get a Life spell for a looooong time). Anyways, leave the house (talk to the lady to exit), and wander around the town. Pick up whatever armor and swords you can afford (x3 longswords if you levelled galuf and lenna up long enough to get the Gil for it), plus armor, and check the barrels at the top of the town (by the big mansion) for a couple of items. Whatever they are. There might be some other items in here, but heck if I can remember. AREN"T YOU SATISFIED WITH WHAT YOU HAVE?

Anyways, head out of town and hop back on the ship, this time, head to the northeast (up right) corner. There will be a little forest with a building in the middle. It's a long ways up there, but you really can't get lost if you stick to the north mountains' edge). Save and head inside!

Inside, over to the left, it turns out Lenna knows these guys (well, they followed her father there, too!), so talk to one of the scholarly red robed guys to get some free items, then check out the urn down in the front of the room. FREE HEALS. You know what that means, I wager.

Time to gain some free levels! Run around on the first floor and give Faris some much-needed luv, heal when necessary(srsly, don't bother with potions unless you're like completely dead or something) When you're bored of this (or level 90), head over to the right side of the first floor and move on to the next floor. There's two options here, you can head to the third floor immediately, or you can get an item. Which do you choose? (item). Get that, then head to the third floor anyways! Then the fourth floor! But what's that? Some pigeon is blocking the way to the crystal! (walk past him to the other side of the fourth floor and go through the door for item justice).

Check your HP and your equipments 'cause it's BOSS TIME.

Wingraptor:
Is not hard. Don't even bother healing, just slap him with those longswords. Srsly.

After you stick a fork in him, go through the door he was blocking. OH SNAP scene time!

Afterwards, you will gain your first job classes (YAY). These are really what make ff5 so special. You may recognize them from a number of other final fantasies, but some would argue this game presents them in their pure unadulterated form. (yes). Anyways, Lenna points you to a little warp platform, so go ahead and use it. Then run back inside the temple and heal again just 'cause it's free and we want to spend our gil on magic, not inns.

Chapter 2: OMG YAY JOBS! HO NOES CRYSTAL :cry:
So you have six brand new spankin' jobs. Here's a run-down.

Knight: Knights are pretty much as noble as you've always imagined. They'll block for near-death characters, have pretty good HP, strength, and defense, and use swords (duh).

Monk: Monks are like, your ultimate damage dealer in the early-game. seriously. Check out Lenna as a monk, you'll thank me. These guys have excellent HP and attack, plus they have free counters!

Thief: Thieves can dash (useless for GBA version unless you like to play it hardcore), see through holes in walls (think back to the Beginner's House), steal (what?) and they're pretty fast. Unfortunately, they're rather weak as far as hitting goes, but who cares! They're thieves!

White Mage: These kids are sweet and innocent looking, plus they're always ready to heal your booboos. Just don't expect to do much damage dealing with them.

Black Mage: Black mages will do some modest damage dealing, but you might find yourself a little lacking in MP to do much good with them. And you're not going to win on physical attacks either.

Blue Mage: Blue mages are pretty special, but ultimately useless at this juncture.

So which of these classes do you pick?

The game is flexible enough that you could really pick any conceivable party that you want. I'm serious. But some make more sense than others. Some suggestions:

You may not have very useful magic potential right now, but go ahead and learn Black and White level 1 with a couple characters apiece while the enemies are easy. You won't want to waste time on them later when they'll be more useful.

If you have time, get to level 2 Blue Mage with somebody to get the passive ability Learning. (blue mages automatically have this ability btw) You won't run into any blue magic for a little while, but it will be more useful to set Learning as a secondary ability and forget about it then have to traipse around for four blue mages, or just one and hope the spell hits them specifically.

Thieves are okay, but they lose a lot of their power in the GBA with Auto-dash. There's really not that much to steal, but you're welcome to try (more potions never hurt, I guess).

Knights are kinda ehhhh compared to monks in damage dealing at this point.

Monks monks monks. They will get about 1.5 times the number of hits in, after counters, and since each hit is actually two hits, you effectively double your odds at getting a critical hit (although you also double your odds at getting a Miss, too, I guess). They learn barehanded first (learn this and give it to your mages! never will they be weaklings again!), then the ability Chakra (self healing/poisona), then the passive ability Counter. It takes a while to get to Counter, so don't worry about it too much yet, that's a lot of ABP to get.

But yes, I really love Monks early on, and I think you will too. Especially Lenna. Especially Galuf (TRIVIA: the first time I played this game, I played him as a monk so long I forgot that that wasn't actually his day-to-day clothing)

Anyways, head back to the town of Tule on your pirateship, Faris will head to the Pub with his crew, you should go buy some magic, now that you have mages. The shopkeepers are very sweet and won't let you buy spells more than once. And you only need to buy a spell once for ANYBODY to be able to use it! Awesome!

If you didn't get a full accoutrement of armor/weapons, stock up now (surely you have enough gil?), head to the pub and sit in the chair in front of the stage and push A/X/whatever to talk to the dancer. She'll come and ahem, service you, but more importantly, she leaves the path clear to the piano. Go play it! YAY you're terrible at the piano >:{

Anyways, head upstairs and check out Faris. Bartz and Galuf will act preeeeeeeeeeetty goofy. Are they into dudes or something? Anyways, he declines joining you for the time, so leave the Pub and head into that mansion.

Lenna knows this guy too (man she gets around), but he just won't give you that key you need, but you can stay the night anyways! Anyways, blah blah blah, cut-scenes, and you finangle that key!

In the morning, save, then weigh anchor!

If you noticed a little weird place on the eastern mountain wall, where it kinda looks like a manmade wall across the water, that's exactly where we're headed (it's a little southwest of the Wind Shrine).

Make Lenna and Faris monks (the monsters only attack females, and the free counters/hp will serve you well here), then Galuf and Bartz can have white or black magic, whatever they desire. Hopefully you bought some Bolt/lightning magic.

There will be a cute little scene while Bartz opens the Torma Canal, and then watch out! You'll be attacked onship. I'd grind a little bit in the first vertical stretch of canal, but you probably get bored of that before I do. Anyways, when you're sick of fighting, go ahead and go further.

KARLABOS!
If you didn't get too tired of fighting too quick, karlabos will be pretty simple. Heal, attack, Lightning him until death. He probably has an item to steal too -.-

But wait! That's not all! You'll go through some SWIRLING events (ahahaha) and wind up in a very strange place. How are you gonna get to the next crystal if you're shipwrecked?!

[and now I'm bored of writing. Tune in next time!]

Final Fantasy V has issues on the PS3, too?

*sigh*

PS3 backwards compatibility sucks.

Still grinding when I have free time. Been too busy to play of late.

Currently at level 30-ish with most all jobs mastered before the fire crystal. But it doesn't count since I'm cheating with frame skip, but hey it's funny as all heck when I walk up to a boss and one shot em. =P

Why would you even want to do that :P

It only took me like 2-ish hours between classes and work. I started out just wanting to master 1 or 2 fast then moving on, then I got OCD and decided to just master em all. XD

Everyone went Master Berserker first for Berserk, so I don't need to have them attack, they just do it by themselves. XD

that's how jason maxed his levels out. Wrote a macro to make the characters move and just had them berserk.

crits of walkthrough so far? ^_^_^

xD Very amusing walk through.

I was gonna wait for my next update, but I made it to the 2nd world. Got kidnapped, got slingslotted across the map, danced for money, avoided drowning, followed a rat, cosplayed a rat, kicked a dog, climbed a mountain. Also remembering that the Bone Mail has a really negative effect at the worst possible time. Then we got to watch ExDeath drown a turtle. We avoided drowning again. Then we got to a big boat. And Archer one hit killed Gilgamesh, that must be in Heaven's Feel because I don't remember that part :p

I'm skipping ahead because I want to get to where I'm currently playing xD Karnak spoilers!


-----------------------Chapter Something: Fireland!
Once you get off the rollercoaster that is the meteorite warp (no one told these people that once they hit the ground, those things are called meteorites -.-, also that sounds like a good dance name!), you'll find yourself on a WHOLE OTHER CONTINENT! Yay explore time!

First, equip yourself with some Blue Mages, or people with Learning. The Wild Knakks in these woods will use a silent, usually 0 dmg attack on you, it's unlabelled, and on the whole, very creepy. This is ???. It does damage based on the difference between your max HP and current HP. Make sure you learn that (because it's best to learn blue magic on the way rather than going back for more later). If you run into Zuus, make sure you steal steal steal from them for Elixirs! (it might take a while)

There really isn't a lot of choice in the way you go. If you go West of the mountain range, then south, you'll see a wall, a ship, a castle, and a town. Save and head into the town.

There really isn't a lot of choice here either, but once you've satisfied yourself talking to townspeople and cursing that the magic shop is closed, go ahead and try to buy a weapon. I dare you.

Scene time! Not a very interesting one, but you get to meet a very influential man!

CID YAY!

Anyways, now that you're in the ineffable Karnak castle, take some time to learn the layout a bit(or you'll wish you had, later!), gossip about Her Majesty, Queen Karnak, then get out of that creepy firepit and go buy yourself some weapons and magic (yay level 2 spells! Finally, we are freed from the tyranny that are Phoenix Downs!)

Now, they expect you to go save the world again, so save again (you didn't really need to earlier I guess, it's just good practice) and head on the boat.

Cid gives you the skinny, gotta stop the engine, save the crystal, yada yada yada. How dull. Anyways, head in the door, through the hallway, through the door, and down the stairs!

Okay, so this ship is like, a cyberpuke's wet dream. Or maybe it's just kinda like something out of 2300AD in Chrono trigger, idk. There are some new enemies here, nothing really especial as far as stealing goes. Explore all the doors in the first room, saving the one at the very top right for last. You'll get like an elixir, some mithril glove or whatever.

Head for the top right door. You'll find yourself in a claustrophobia inducing elevator, so hit the red lever and move on up. This next room is pretty straightforward, just get the chest to the right and head to the door at the left. Another elevator! Yay!

This room has a conveyor belt. But you can't get anywhere on it, so just go up the ladderstairs instead and head through the airducts. You can't really go anywhere but onwards, so head onwards, and go through the doorway you'll come out by. It's an elevator! YAY.

anyways, you'll find yourself facing FOUR shafts. 'Ware now.
Take the second shaft from the right (third from the left). This drops you down in front of a chest with thieves gloves! YES! If only we had had these with those Zuus! Anyways, take the conveyor belt (this was the first one we saw) back into the next section, then head back through the airducts alllllllllllll the way back to the four air ducts.

Go through the second from the left (third from the right) duct. This drops you into the other side of the big room, the part you avoided by ductwalking. Go up the stairs on the right, first, flip the switch and get a Moonring Blade. (This is a good place to have a Thief in the party, if you hadn't noticed).

Go back down the stairs, and head through the door on the left. You're presented with two options: Conveyor belt door will lead you back to the four air shafts, so let's not go that way. Go through the door by the stairs! Save point! So save.

Now we get to the puzzle rooms.

Head up, 'cause it's the only way you get to, and hit the red switch to move the platform. Go ahead and hit the one up there at the top of the screen, then walk down and to the left and get that one there. Now you can walk across.

On the otherside, hit the switch on the left to bring the bridge back after you, then hit the right one to extend down. If you need to get back to the save point, stand on the little one and hit the switch there, but otherwise, stand on the big square one and hit that switch.

You should be able to walk across to the Elixir box, then head back. If you need to back, stand on the square platform and hit the switch there, else heal and go through the door.

CUT SCENE! Fire boss! (if you weren't a pyrophobe before this game, you should be by now. . .)

Liquidflame:
In hand form, Ice won't hurt him.
In tornado form, he will cast fire on himself to heal for ~300 hp.
In man form, he is a stud casts nasty Blaze on you for massive damages.

Set up:
Three Black mages (if your characters have the ability to cast Level2 Black Magic, make them a summoner instead for the extra magic power). Equip with a frost rod.
A white mage (if your characters have the ability to cast level2 white magic, make them a monk instead).

Whitey should cast Cura (if you don't have Cura for whatever reason, use two white mages) on everybody every turn.
Blackey should cast Blizzara (if you don't have blizzara, then use Shiva. If you don't have these, use Frost Rods as an item. If you don't have these, well I guess you're stuck with Blizzard. Your funeral).

Don't waste your MP by casting when he's in hand form, just use physical attacks if anyone doesn't have a Frost Rod equipped, and heal up. He's only got 3000 hp.

Cut scene, and on-wards.

Now, you've got ten minutes. Save first, then practice changing your job classes really fast until you can get them all changed in 30 seconds or less, then use a tent.
(shoot for lots of physical/magic attack power, Learning ability, and a healer. Blue mages with mithril swords or Black lvl3/White lvl3, monks, knights, Red mages with Counter, whatever you have to use.) Use a tent, or go to the bottom door to use an urn for free healing.

Head into the next room and it's your old prison. Enter the alcove on your right, go through the gate to the top and get a chest for 2000 gil, then go around the top of the room and in the gate close to the door to fight a Gigas for an Elixir. Hurry, because monster battles eat clock time.

In the next room, go to the top left corner to fight for a Ribbon, then to the top right for a Shuriken. Head out through the top door.

Go around this room and out the door at the bottom, quick quick!

Go up the stairs, ignore the doorway.
If you're feeling panicky and rushed for time, just go straight out down the bottom. If you're feeling pretty good, head up through the doorway on the left and start running and grabbing chests with abandon (they're almost all battles). You'll go down through a doorway cut around outside, then back up through the otherside of the room you were just in (lots of elixirs, and 4000 gil here), then take the doorway (not the stairs) and come out back in the main hall. Go to the doorway, don't go out, but go to the left and fight the Gigas for the spell Esuna (YES!), then to the right and fight for a Lightning Scroll.

Head outside, but wait, that's not all!

Battle!

This isn't your ordinary sergeant and Cur Nakks.

This is IRON CLAW!

He's not too hard, but wait as long as you before you kill him because he uses the legendary Blue Magic Doom Claw.
(unlike me, I killed him too quickly :( with almost three minutes left, SHEESH, but I got Aera unlike most of you suckers because you probably didn't fight all the Gigases for the Elixirs >:[ )

Once outside, the castle crumbles and you get three new jobs!
Beastmaster
Geomancer
Ninja

(or according to most people 'one really good one and two ty ones', but I disagree)

And now, there's a new guy in the shop selling weapons conveniently suited for your new jobs. But more importantly, the explosion took out the wall blocking our way to the Library of the Ancients! yes!

(come back next time for more ff5 walkthrough goodness)

So I just beat the whole little fire place, and accidentally saved over my game and have to redo it. Not like it's a problem since I'm level 33 now. I think I might redo the game though since it's tad boring when you power level that much.

Good walkthrough, rubah. That's exactly how far I got today. :) I missed all of those Elixers though.

go back and steal from the Zuus :bigbiggri

I did some job grinding in Bal yesterday. :P I had Lenna and Galuf master Red Mage so they could get double cast and be extra awesome mages.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bahamut2000X

So I just beat the whole little fire place, and accidentally saved over my game and have to redo it. Not like it's a problem since I'm level 33 now. I think I might redo the game though since it's tad boring when you power level that much.

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It should even out later. :P Especially if you run from stuff. I'd say run from things until you get to the second world.

then take the chicken knife!

But I already have like 2000+ fights under my belt! Besides I still got jobs I need to work on mastering anyways off those 1-2 ABS!

The Chicken Knife as the potential to get way stronger than the Brave Sword FYI

QUESTIONS!

Is Excalipoor good for anything or should I just throw it away? And what about the Cursed Ring or whatever it's called? And the Blood Sword doesn't seem to do a whole lot of damage. :P

The cursed ring is pretty good if you can finish your battles really fast.

Excalipoor is pretty much useless, and well, Blood Swords are bloodswords.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vermachtnis

The Chicken Knife as the potential to get way stronger than the Brave Sword FYI

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Also: Power lost by running from battles cannot be restored with the Brave Blade.

At least the Blood Sword doesn't get automatically equipped whenever I change classes. :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rubah Mortis

The cursed ring is pretty good if you can finish your battles really fast.

Excalipoor is pretty much useless, and well, Blood Swords are bloodswords.

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Bloodsword has a 1 in 4 chance of hitting. Aim or Rapid Fire is reccomended.

Walkthrough time!

Chapter +1: Let's Get Some Learnin's.

After the events at Karnak town, switch up your jobs a little if you'd like (I'd keep a blue Mage or someone with Learning, preferably two people, but other than that, just make a balance of new jobs and known healers/damage dealers)

Go to the fire ship and Cid is there. Talk to him and he'll get kinda PMSy. Then go back to the town and head to the Pub's upper story and talk to him again there. Afterwards, he'll give you the silent treatment. (If you're interested, Queen Karnak is in the upper room at the Inn). Make sure you're well-equipped, and let's head west!

Go west past the broken-down wall and then south. Try to keep to the grassy areas unless you just simply feel like dying (we'll get to the desert, but not just yet, and one Dhorme Chimera may just be one too many at this point).

Follow the seacoast on the east side until you come to a little grove of forest with a temple in the center. This is the infamous Library of the Ancients. Make a save and head inside!

Talking to the scholars running around yields very little info, so just head upstairs. There's an urn to heal with on the second floor, then head on up to the roof. These scholars are trying to burn possessed books, so go ahead and help them by checking them out 8)

After that, go back to the first floor and go down the ladder to the left. Go through the door, and now you're in the library stacks.
Walk straight forward and the shelves will shift to let you through. Go to the black hole to the left and they will close back behind you. Go back to the right and down through the black hole, then left and down through the next one. Head up the ladder, over to the right and forward, shifting the shelves again. Head all the way over to the right and run into the wall, shifting the stacks, then go down the ladder, around and forward, and touch the black thing over at the right. Dive on in!

It's pretty dark in here, but head down and go right for an ether. Go back left and down out the bottom. It's lightened up considerably. Go down the ladder, and over to the ladder on the left. Hit the shelf at the top and crawl through. Continue through the next room and heal in the one after. If you approach the book lying on the floor, you will fight Ifrit.

IFRIT:
Not too hard with Blizzara or Shiva, and Cura. He will cast Fira for 200-300 damage on one person, or Blaze for 100-200 on the whole party, or a 50-100 dmg "High Kick" which will also inflict paralyze status. Magic Swording Blizzara, casting Blizzara, or summoning Shiva are all excellent ideas. (you also might use a Frost Rod if you're desperate)

Once you beat Ifrit, you get his power to burn books summon in battle. Head back two rooms and go through the door. A fiesty bookshelf wiill try to block your passage, but seeing that you control Ifrit will put him back in his place. Go up next to the but double back through the hole into the room you were just in. Pick up the chest for a Ninja Suit. Go back and through the door.

Another dark room. Go down the ladder and to the left, down the next ladder and all the way down for a Phoenix down. Head back up and to the right. Go through the next door.

Go around and touch the bookshelf, walk up, over to the right up the ladder to touch it again. Go down and to the right and up the ladder to touch, a book will pop up, but don't fret, it's just a normal encounter.
Up through the hole and a save point you'll find. Go down, around and up for a boss!

BYBLOS:
Basically, he is a book. And we know that Ifrit burns books, so let's use Fira and Ifrit and Flame rods.
You can pick up Magic Hammer as a new blue magic if you're fortunate.

After you win, you will be treated to a scene! Afterwards wander back out of the Library (still avoiding the desert) and go to the upper level of the Pub in Karnak. There, Mid will bring Cid to his senses, and the two mad scientists will head off to make the fire-ship work again!

Mention that you can get Level 5 Doom from Page 64 because it is awesome. :p

So I decided to just restart and play the GBA version so I can make use of the added jobs in it.

Good times to be had. Up the fire boat already.

Point of advice on the Chicken Blade:

It's how many times you run away before you get the sword. You could run away a million times after you already have it equiped but it will never get any stronger after you have it. Do you really want to spend all that time running before you choose it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

Point of advice on the Chicken Blade:

It's how many times you run away before you get the sword. You could run away a million times after you already have it equiped but it will never get any stronger after you have it. Do you really want to spend all that time running before you choose it?

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I wish I had known that yesterday.

Ah well. I was never planning on powering it up anyway. :P

Yeah, I would've put that in about Lvl5 Doom, but I wasn't a level multiple of five and didn't feel like levelling forever ;D

I'm totally stoked about getting magic hammer though; I didn't know byblos had it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

Point of advice on the Chicken Blade:

It's how many times you run away before you get the sword. You could run away a million times after you already have it equiped but it will never get any stronger after you have it. Do you really want to spend all that time running before you choose it?

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Could you cite the source you got that from? I don't think that's right, you should still be able to strengthen the Chicken Knife because you can weaken the Brave Blade post get.

EDIT: Guess what? I've got end of trimester exams next week! Yay, devoting time to studying.....

It came straight from the Brady Games strategy guide. It doesn't mention any before or after for the Brave Blade but with the Chicken Knife it specifically mentions that it has to be before getting it.

I really need to get back into this. I haven't played at all since the first day.

Then again, hours of wiki work along with large doses of Taigadora and Nodame Cantabile will do that.

I'm not taking many pictures for this game, but I am now on Galuf's world and he just rescued us so now we are on to new adventures. :cat:

Sidequest Interlude #1:

Once Cid and Mid fix up the fire-powered ship, you get a certain range of freedom of movement, so before we head off to the Crescent shaped island, let's stop for a second and get a new esper!

Istory Falls: Dude, is that. . is that an old guy?
rubah's level: 18
Classes: Ninja+Magic Shell, Red Mage +!Chakra, Berserker+Barehanded, Blue Mage + White (These are not recommended classes, just what I had on at the time. Ideally, you want high amounts of healing (white mage/summoner with white level 4) and some good offense (I don't really recommend berserker, so try a Monk or Mystic Knight).

Obviously, Ramuh is the lightning elemental summon in ff5. He's lurking in the forests of Istory, so to get there, take your ship and sail down. . . down . . . down over the edge of the world (you'll end up at the top of the world map) then head west/left to a little town at the northwest corner of the world. Watch out for the encounters on the ship. You can go in the town to pick up the spell Toad from a little flower patch and the Bard song Romeo's Ballad (stand behind the sheep the little shepherdess girl warns you about and try to "talk" to it) and sleep for a measly 30gil/night. After this, save and head out into the woods. You should run into Ramuh pretty dang quickly. He doesn't have an amazing repertoire, mostly just Thundara and Flash. Just hit him, heal, and don't cast lightning magic on him, and he should realize Ifrit's with your party and decide to join. (To stop him from casting Thundara, you might try using Magic Hammer if you got it from Byblos). Now you're a summon richer!

I recommend getting out of the forest because there is an encounter of 5 mini dragons, and they're a little annoying with 1000 hp apiece. (two lightning scrolls will take them down, but I have other plans for those), so head back to the ship (save and sleep if you want), then head north until you reach the southern side of the map, go east a little ways, then start heading north again. We're headed for the little town of Jachol. If the Western continent (where the Library is) is Europe, Jachol is in Italy. You have to go to the eastern coast to be able to slip between the mountains, so dodge the islands and land where they seem to connect to the mainland (checking the world map to do so).

Once on land, walk past the cave (saving if you'd like), and just head west then south into town, since Jachol supposedly has such awesome amazing weapons and . Watch out for Bio Soldiers (steal a War Hammer from them if you have a thief around) since they cast Bio, doing about 200 dmg and inflicting sap status on you. Nasty, nasty.

Anyways, the armorer in Jachol has Green Berets (one of my favorite hats in the game) and ninja suits. Stock up so your thieves and ninjas become UNSTOPPABLE, or just really awesome. You can buy some of the equipment for the next job classes you'll get, if you want, but I'd shy away from the Coral Sword just yet, since you're still fighting the monsters on the open seas and they absorb lightning.

In the pub, you'll find an "Interactive" dance, but more importantly is the chance to improve your piano skills! Hey, you're getting pretty good by now!

Anyways, talking to the townspeople just gets you clues about Istory Falls and the Crescent Isle and what to do in the cave we're about to visit. Grab someone that can cast black magic and someone who can throw Scrolls and let's go to the cave!

Jachol Cave: Where did that damned squirrel come from?!
Required Items: Lightning/flame/frost whatever scrolls. x A lot.
Recommended Level: Any
Recommended Jobs: Any that you want to level in ABP; a fast black magic caster (thief with Black lvl2 for example), someone with Throw; a white magic caster with the ability to cast Raise.

Inside the cave, which is the one you passed by on the way to Jachol, you will find two types of encounters. One is the cute little red squirrels, Nutkins (Nut Eater in my babyhood rom fanslation) and the nasty grey squirrels, Skull Eaters.

Nutkins are pretty straight-forward. You hit them, and they die.

Skull Eaters, on the other hand, you hit them and they are not phased. In fact, they hit you, and you die. For this reason, I will request that your entire party be placed in the back row.

The way you handle skull eaters is this. If someone that is not a person with black magic gets a turn, they either heal or defend. If someone who is a person with black magic gets a turn, they cast fire/thunder/blizzard.

It is imperative not to freak out. I realize the prospect of fighting so many skull eaters is ah, liable to make you soil yourself, but it will [probably] be okay!

Now, as soon as possible, get your ninja to THROW a scroll on them! (Hopefully you got some of these from the scores of Sahagins you had to fight in order to make it to Istory and back!)

If you do not have these scrolls, don't even think of casting any magic, just run. Run run run.

Now, there are other reasons to visit this cave than the sweet sweet APB you can gain, so after saving, enter and walk down to the bottom and hit the skull switch there. The walls will move, so head to the right and go down. There's an empty treasure chest (:() so just continue down. On the wall to the right, there is a literal metric crapton of skull switches. stand still and one of them will reveal itself to be the correct one (just like the guy in Jachol said, if you talked to him). Hit it and you'll hear a rumbling.

Head back up to where that treasure chest was and go right past it. There is a door (locked) and another treasure chest. I realize this doesn't make any sense, but check in the treasure chest and 'Lo and behold, there is a switch! Flip it and the door opens! yay!

Head through the door and go up, ignoring these empty chests. At the fork, head left and get the Shuriken from the chest. Double back around to get the chest behind it for a tent. Head right through the fork.

At the next fork, go down for a Blitz Whip (unless you were a jerk and let Lone Wolf out of the jail in Walse). That's pretty much it for treasure in this cave, so settle back and wait for the skull eaters to pop out of nowhere if you want to grind som AP, else, continue on! (if you go to the end of the cave, you'll climb the wall and end up on the worldmap, but there's not really anything to do there) But seriously, 2 abp for something as easy as three nutkins is a dang good deal. You'll be hard pressed to do better on World 1.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Roto13

Despite being banned, I'm the first person to finish Final Fantasy V for Eyeson Plays. So suck it, bitches.

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I am just the messenger.

I think we can arrange something for this

It's been awhile. My character's have mastered their classes and moved on. Getting ready to storm X-Death's castle at the end of the second world.

I'm determined to have lenna master Red Mage before I move on from jachol cave, so um, that's what I've been doing the last week or so xD

rubah's Walkthrough: Chapter next!

Once you get tired of Jachol Cave and Jachol town, get on the steamship and sail East to the Crescent Isle. It's the one that looks like a crescent ;) Save outside, then head into the town. CUT SCENE! Try to leave, MINI CUT SCENE. Oh well!

Head to the forest outside of town and walk through it until you run into a chocobo forest. Catch a black[purple] chocobo (and some crystal shards!), park your chocobo somewhere that ISN"T the center square of the forest ,then run back to town to get some new armor and weapons if you'd like.

Remount your beast and head to the Ancient Library! (yes again). Enjoy a scene with Cid and Mid (make a trip to the heal pot if you'd like). Go west through the mountain pass towards the Great Western Desert.

Cid and Mid have this terrible terribly clever idea to get you into the desert. Unfortunately, it involves fighting a monster. If you're ready, go ahead, otherwise, hold off a sec to prepare.

SANDWORM:
This guy isn't so difficult. Cid and Mid claim you shouldn't use Magic, but it's not so bad. He has quicksand which will do middling damage and inflict a drain effect, but his Gravity spells are more annoying.

Blizzara is pretty nice, and physical damage will always be in vogue. Just remember to keep healing. A jikuu mage who can cast cura wouldn't be a bad idea, hasting the black casters and all.

To get through the desert. Um, it's kinda complicated, but you can see which directions the sand flows, so just pick the route that takes you away fromw here you currently are? :D

Head south to the Town of Ruin. You'll see a darting figure running about. Head up to the platform and confront it.

Fall. Cut scene. Reunite!

You're in some strange ruins now, so go through the door and walk up onto the platform. TELEPORT. You end up in a place with a bunch of earthquakes! HMM

Head to the bottom of the room, through the door. Rest up if you'd like, then head to the left hand side to try the switch at the bottom. It won't budge, but you are recommended to try the plants in the center room. Refrain from resting again, and touch the rightmost plants in the center room. They refer you to the table in the righthand room, so go try that. It refers you to an urn in the left hand room, so go back over and check the urns over there. A frog comes out and knocks down a book, so read it then try the switch again. Bam! treasure! Some Shuriken and the Mini spell for your trouble.

Go to the previous room and pull the switch at teh top to freak out Cid and Mid, then continue through the door. Save, and see where you come out to!

BAM

And now you have airship :)

Of course with everygood, you have bad. Check yourself before you talk to Cid.

CRAYCLAW:
He's not too hard. He's got an attack that will take you down to single digit health, but just smack him and cast a few ara spells.

And here comes Evastio's favorite line from any Final fantasy!
Lol.

and now, you're free to roam the skies!

Sidequest Interlude #2:
Lix: Whoa, flashback, man. . .
Once you have your airship, let's take a trip to a certain little mountain-locked town on the north end of the world map, look in the center.

In the town, every one knows Bartz, and you'll find flashbacks almost everywhere you go.
1) Talk to the scholar around the center of town to find out why Bartz is afraid of heights.
2) Stay (for free) in the inn to see Bartz's mom.
3) Go to the house at the top left to learn more about his parents (talk to the bard and touch the pink thing on the desk. Afterwards, talk to the bard again for a Song)

You can buy Shurikens and Ninja Scrolls in the second floor of the item shop, so stock up if you'd like.

Save and fly back to Gohn, the town of Ruin in the airship. As you approach the town, a cutscene will trigger.

Chapter: Where did the town go?
After the town of Ruin sinks, a new structure rises up and. . . flies into the sky? That 'wtf?' feeling in your stomach should be a clue that we need to run to Cid and Mid and find out 'wtf'. Go back to the crescent island and land the airship in the little square in between the horns of the crescent.

Walk towards the steam ship and our friends will intercept you. Apparently this is the doing of the earth crystal, which means that someone is up to no good. Cid reveals the ship will fly higher if you reënforce it with adamantite, which makes no sense from a physics standpoint, because well, air pressure gets less with height and heavy materials like adamantite make ships heavier, right? But that's what Cid wants, and Galuf just happens to know where to find some adamantite.

Take the rudder at the top of the airship and head to the meteor crash site outside of Tycoon. Go ahead and save. These 'get item' quests are never easy!

Enter the meteor (remember to land on the side with the gash, else you can't enter!) and walk to where you found Galuf. He'll open the meteor, so head on inside. The meteor is out of energy, so don't worry if you step on the warp panel. The adamantite is blue and purple in the back, so go gather it. Of course, somebody has something to say about that. . .

ADAMANTOISE:
Like all turtles, adamantoise hates ice. Cast Blizzara, summon Shiva, Magic Blade Blizzara, whatever you like. He can attack two people at once and is generally resistant to physical attacks, but he's not too difficult.

Take the adamantite back to Cid and Mid. While they make the upgrades, you go sleep in the underground ruins. When it's done, Cid tells you that you push A to make the airship fly higher, but warns of some weapons defense systems that are enabled.

Now you're back in control of your life. When you push A, a little arrow will allow you to choose to go up or down, so start by going down and saving.

CANNONS:
There are four of these. When you choose to go up in the airship, fly up to the little grey things on either side of the ruins.

The inner pairs:
You'll fight two Rocket Launchers apiece. Like all machines, they are weak to thunder, so use the Blitz Whip, Thundara, Lightning Scrolls, Ramuh, whatever.
Heal if you need to before tackling the next weapons.
The outer pairs:
You'll fight two Flame Throwers. Like all machines, they are weak to thunder. You can bring in the Gaia command for some good (if random) damage if you're low on MP or just get tired of casting spells like I do.

After you fight the fourth pair, a cannon will emerge from the side of the ruins. Eek. However, you can back away slowly (or quickly) and make a quick save. Good thing these guys aren't pushy!
If you're cheap, you can fly back to Lix to stay at the Inn, or you can just head back in.

SOUL CANNON:
There are two little friends tagging along on this, but they'll go down pretty easily when you target them with a few Kicks or Thundaras. The Soul Cannon will more or less "count down" to it's Wave Beam which will do a few hundred damage and inflict a sap status. The simplest method is to cast Thundara, use Sword Magic, summon Ramuh, or throw Lightning scrolls. (wind slash won't hurt him, so Gaia is pretty ineffective)

After Soul Cannon, feel free to fly into the hole in the Ruins where the Cannon stood previous, then disembark the Airship. Enter the Ronka Ruins and go through the doors and around and out the door through the first room.

In the second room, if you have a thief, just follow the path. Else, walk across the invisible squares going to the right, then down right next to the wall all the way to the right. Follow the contour of the wall down and step back onto solid ground. Get the chest for a Golden Armor and leave the room.

In the third room, go to the left side, down the left side all the way to the bottom, take two steps right then go down. Go down the second from the right path, stopping short before the furthest block, then step to the left and around for an Elixir. Then take the fourth path and go straight up.

Go right and up the second stairway for a Save point.

brb

k back. So, go back to the previous room and head right, down and out the door at the bottom. Go around through the next room, then in the one after, go as far up as you can go, and step across the chasm at the second square from the right. There is a chest with a Golden Shield. Return to the room before the save point and go up the staircase to the left. Go through the next room and up the staircase(or down). Go through the next two rooms. (sheesh). On level 5, head to the right and go down through the door, and down and up the staircase.

Back on level four, head straight up for a Hi-Potion then to the right to go up the stairs. On level 5, head around and down and down the stairs. If you don't have a geomancer, just walk all the way around the left side, hugging the wall, to avoid the trap doors in the middle of the floor. You get (among other things) an Ancient Sword (YAY) and a Power Armlet for your trouble. Go ahead and fall through the floor all you want, now! You'll just end up right before the Hi-Potion room. Enter the Hi-Potion room and take the door this time.

Head down and out the door at the bottom. Go through this room and up the stairs. Go through the door in ths next room SLOWLY unless you just like to fall through holes. (this one is visible even if you do not have a geomancer). Go through the doors to leave the room (it takes foreeeeeeeeeeeeeever) and go up the stairs. (up the stairs, down the stairs).

In this room, you have your choice between a door and some more stairs, opt for the stairs at the bottom. Woohoo, save point! Go back to the door/stair room, choose the door, and circle around to the next room, take the stairs, then go down to walk over thin air to get two chests. Go back to the previous room and exit through the door.

At the bottom of the room, there are a couple of bird statues or something with wings, anyways, and a big button on the wall (not a skull?!) so push it and open sesame. Make sure you're healed, 'cause you're about to face . . . FATHER?

Just kidding. Kinda.

ARCHEOAEVIS:
Kinda like a grown up version of Wing Raptor except this guy doesn't hide. King Tycoon gives you a small piece of advice before loosing you upon the creature, it likes to change its weaknesses.

Turns out, he has another trick; He can revive himself.

For his first form, he has a high Defense rating, so you'll have to cast Magic/Summons, but if you want to sidestep the whole elemental weakness guessing, you can just throw Water Scrolls at him. Once he gets into his Revived form, however, physical attacks work much better and you can clear him in a few rounds.

Woohoo, loooooooong cut scene. At the end, you will be one party member short and on the Airship, however you can't go higher. If you set down on the ground, you'll have a short scene with the trio resolving to find Cid and Mid. To find the dashing duo, head to the Tycoon Meteor site (again). You notice the black chocobo is parked there, so head inside to see the meteor recharge. Partially.

The next meteor is in Walse, so head there. Luckily you don't run into any more adamantoises. but you do run into a ring of Purobolos! (seriously, purobolos? I thought we'd established this, Square. . .)

PUROBOLOS:
Bring magic/techs/something that targest all. Summons will probably be the strongest. All they do really is cure one another, but they can cast Arise if one dies, so you need to kill them all concurrently. Not too hard, really.

While you're in walse, equip someone with Time Magic lvl4/Time Mage job and Control command (preferably on a Trainer). Go to the north mountain and encounter the gaelicats inside. Use Gravity or very small physical hits to take their hp down low, and use Control on them. When they are controlled, have the trainer use them to cast float ont he whole party. After you're all floated, leave the mountains and go to the Karnak Meteor. This is near Tule.

Cid and Mid have a surprise for you, so go inside to fight. . .
TITAN:
with float status, Earthshaker will be no problem. He still has some physical attacks, but just attack him in turn.

After that, they head to the meteor in Gohn, so you should [save and] follow.
This time, instead of just taking a long time, they don't come out, so you go in to find. . .
MANTICORE:
He's relatively harder since you can't just nullify his big attack (well, if you want to buy three coral rings you can), but he uses Aqua Breath quite a bit, so make sure you keep healing.

Now all the meteors are activated, so head for the central point, which is somewhere slightly southeast of Tule ona bird shaped island.

Just give me one thing that I can hold on to,
To believe in this livin' is just a hard way to go

Our team doesn't have anything left going for them in this world; Lenna and Faris's dad just died, Bartz parents are long gone, and their new friend is gone too. So, hop in.

Chapter Next: A Brave New World.

After collecting Weapons, and magics, and Espers (Oh my!) I stormed the Cleft of Dimensions. Forgot that it was Super Long and Super Annoying. But I made it to the first save point. And here's my team right now. Doing some prep work before taking on Omega who is setting right outside ready to blast me.

Oh wow! awesome to see people using Trainers :D

xD There's a little treasure chest after Abductor if you manage to beat it xD

Chapter Whatever- A Brave New World:
On what is commonly referred to as "World 2" (because square didn't really give it much of a name other than "galuf's world" you will run into precisely one enemy, which drops precisely one item, and lenna keeps having a cutscene where she urges you to use a tent. If you have plenty of tents, go ahead and use one, else fight the encounters to stock up!

When you use a tent, a cut scene will activate where the sisters are talking, but then they're abducted! An abductor comes for Bartz. You don't have to win this battle, but there's a cute little scene if you do ;)

Afterwards, your party ends up in Exdeath's clutches, and the warlock himself sets about breaking numerous laws of physics, mainly those of Optics and how mirrors and lenses work. Ugh.

Shortly, you end up with control of Galuf and all your equipment (it was lying nearby in a handy chest)

If you would like to save or heal, head out the door to the top. There will be a save point and past that, a healing pool. The door at the bottom is locked, so when you get done saving/healing, head to the left and out that way. The next room only has one exit, at the top left corner.

This next room has our friend Gilgamesh standing in it. As you approach the center, make sure you're healed!

GILGAMESH:
He has nothing to steal (this time) so don't worry about having a Thief or Steal equipped. A heavy physical attacker with some healing will do just fine with him (I used a Ninja with Jikuu if you can believe that. Haste+Regen+2 moonring blades)

He has a hit for about 100-200 dmg, so with only one target, that starts adding up pretty quick, but he can't stand very many physical attacks!

After that, you regain your party, so it's all groovy. There's not really any where to go from here, so head back the way you came. Bartz does some crazy floor crawling when you go past the prison cells xD You can exit out the very bottom door in the first room, and voila, world map!

Wow I never knew you got something for beating that first Abductor. Apart from the first time, I never tried to beat it xD

Also !Control is great for getting Blue Magic and the FireBute whip is awesome. Trainers are underrated.

I finally beat Omega...after a few less then successful tries. I ventured deeper into the rift and played a little. Movers are the best things ever. Then went back and tried again. Got destroyed again. Said screw and used three bards to hold him in place and pounded on him with Thundaga Blade xD
Also my non-spoony, X-Death Annihilation team.

I only beat it by accident xD Bartz had !Gaia equipped and Leaf whirl hit for like 1500 after I'd taken like 800 off xD

Chapter: Battle[s] on the Big Bridge!

Now that you're out of Ex-Death's clutches, it's time to get out of his land. The only way off the continent his castle resides on is over the Big Bridge to the west/left. However, you get ambushed several times on the bridge, so save before you go on!

You will have three encounters of three enemies apiece, they hit for quite a bit but don't have much HP. After the third one, heal before entering the little guard shack looking building.

Inside, it's

GILGAMESH:
He's a bit better prepared this time. He has a very high magic and physical defense and no vulnerabilities. You simply need to use very strong attacks. Summons are good for this.

After you do so much damage to him, he'll cast a bunch of buffs on himself, so if you had been holding back on your strong attacks, unleash them now. This fight is kinda difficult, but not impossible. You can steal a Hero Cocktail or a trident from him.

There is one more encounter after gilgamesh, and then there is an event and your party is thrown to the fourth corner of the globe. Luckily, it's near a town that stocks the Aga spells!

I need to finally finish this up. I'm at Atomos and have been too preoccupied with other things. >.>

I'm staying just a bit ahead of your walkthrough, rubah. :)

I made it to the next world last night. The third one. I tried going into the Void but died pretty quick. I keep forgetting to takes pics. :cat:

I'm still playing, too! I just don't feel like posting pics lately. But I'm in the third world as well. No Void for me yet though.

>>> Damn, i said i was going to give it a try but i barely have free time to play games now..

I'm off to the Void!

So I'm finally getting some time in this since finals are almost done.

I'm up to the end of the Forest of Moore. But I have a few pics to post up before then.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../bigbridge.png

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...antmirrior.png

Their not very imaginative with names are they?

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...0V/mirror2.png

Oh come on! That's not even kinda large, let alone giant!

I haven't gone to the Void yet. Instead, I gave a try to the temple in the desert piramid and the one on the big bridge. I have no idea where to go now though, unless I really go to the Void. And what does that thing that appears when you get the second tablet mean? That I should climb two towers together? Go figure.

You gotta do fork tower next. After that you get the ability to get the last 2 tablets.

As for me I just finished up getting myself 12 legendary weapons and the 3 new jobs and am working on grinding up some levels and abilities for everyone so I can take on X-Death.

Good, where is Fork Tower? I tried the Rift/Void but I got my ass handed over to me twice, so I'd rather do something else next.

It's where Crescent used to be. Fly around the south east hemisphere of the planet by that big long land mass at the bottom and you'll find a tower soon enough.

I'm back, and I'm going strong. As in, I got just Holy and Flare strong. On an awesome note, I mastered ranger class with Lenna, !Rapidfire ftw!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahamut2000X

It's where Crescent used to be. Fly around the south east hemisphere of the planet by that big long land mass at the bottom and you'll find a tower soon enough.

---

Thanks! Fork Tower, here I come!

I have been doing other things rather then leveling for the final battle. I really should get on the ball on that sooner or later. >.>

Question: Do we do a new Eyes on Plays each month? If so, what's the one for January? I might wanna get in on that. :)

If they follow the pattern of one for every 2 months then VI will be done in January. Ohoho how I look forward to making up a walk through of that one. :cool:

we will probably start a new one on or before january, but we haven't decided if it'll be ff6 or something special

I'm leveling up the Chicken Knife.

About to go get Phoenix and Bahamut, resupply, then begin the final trek to X-Death.

How do you get those? Are they missable?

Phoenix and Bahumat are in the same area. You know that big desert in the top right of the map with a little forest area near the middle. You gotta land a Black Chocobo there. Phoenix is in the tower at the south end of the desert and Bahumat is in the mountains on the north end.

Bahamut you can't miss as he's open anytime.

Phoenix on the other hand I recall is miss-able depending on your actions in a certain flashback.

EDIT: Alrighty, I have no joined the ranks of the completed. Did all of the rift and void today.

But first Bahamut.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...0V/Bahamut.png

Now who is this handsome devil?

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...20V/xdeath.png

X-Death was no match for my party of non-mimes and/or freelancers.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...20V/theend.png

:cool:

I did Phoenix Tower, I mastered all the jobs, and now I'm going for Bahamut. Then off to the Rift!

I finished just 2 days ago, a little late... but meh. I'm Exdeath, and I approve this game.

I'm still working at this. I'm at the end battle but it's taking me a while.

I beat Omega and Shinryu and finished the game. I might post screenshots to prove all this if you want me to!

Yes, Koshi. Pics please. I tried to beat Omega but gave up on it. I'm finally done. I tossed X-Death to death and it was rather easy, surprisingly. :cat:

http://leezas.com/FF5-5.jpg


http://leezas.com/FF5-6.jpg



http://leezas.com/FF5-7.jpg



http://leezas.com/FF5-8.jpg

Apparently I lied. Rugore doesn't actually have -Aga spells apparently, which is pretty lame. But you get some [not very] exciting spells like Blink, Comet, etc, assuming you don't have half of them already >:[

there is some nice gold armor and some protips about the mysteeeeeeeeeeeerious castle down to the south (and some hints about how you can fight the enemies inside!)

Anyways, stock up on gold armors and wizard hats and equip your best Beastmaster with !Control and head down to the castle!

If you're like me, you enjoy your levelling a little more when it's tinged with that extra hint of sadomasochism.

Excellent setups here would include:
Holy Waters
Any classes you want to level up x3 + Beastmaster x1 (not necessarily has to be a beastmaster, but you will be doing a lot of controlling here)
#First Strike (times as many as you have slots for)
!Time (especially Haste)
White Magic
and something nice and simple to attack rather passively with, like. . .
!Gaia. (But I guess !Animals or !DragonSword would work too. Just save before you try these ;D)

Save outside the castle.

Save outside the castle.

Put everyone in the backrow and head inside. (Just to be safe. I'm level 30, so his attacks didn't really kill anyone, but there is a significant Zombie threat, which may instead).

Go ahead and run through the first room, then circle back and forth just inside the door in the second room. Eventually, this nice creature called Shield Dragon will come say hi
(hi!)

shield dragon has some fairly impressive stats if you've never met him before. 19999 HP, 40 Def, 25 MDef. . . You realize that the monsters you passed on the way here have somewhere between 0 and 5 Def and MDef? yeah, I know.

HOWEVER, that is why we have this funtime trick!

Hopefully, you will get a preemptive strike, if not, well, all is not lost!

Cast haste on your Beastmaster, have your Beastmaster use Control (and pray it works), Have your auxilery attacker (!Gaia!) attack, and your fourth guy stand by.

If the Shield Dragon gets Controlled, congrats, you just got 10000/4 exp, 1000Gil, and 5 AP! (well, not immediately, you have to use his Blaze attack four times in addition to at least one auxilery attack).

If not, well, keep everyone alive and unzombied, and try, try again!

For me, the danger is what makes this kind of levelling more interesting than the easier ways. Of course, I also spend hours upon hours fighting nutkins hoping to get the solitary skull eater. That's just the kind of person I am.

[edit- you also run the risk of running into the occasional ExDeath Soul in this castle, but they're not quite as scary(to me). You can run away if you really want to (or really want the chicken knife)]

Kinda late, but I'm doing a video LP of FFV, check it out in my sig if you want.

When you get bored of that, head south and along the brown swampy area until you reach the eastern coast, then turn north, and go through the little mountain pass. There is a solitary moogle in there. He knocks a hole in the ground, and of course your friends and you decide to hop in there. Turns out it's an underground river. Check that you're all healed, and let the river whisk you off.

There will be a few waves of battles, nothing too very hard, and you get to rest on two plots of ground. At the second one, go around to the right for the chest with 4400 Gil then ride the waterfall (more battles) down. On the fourth little stop, go to the left for a chest, then heal heal heal (there isn't anything through the door to the south, so ignore it for now), and assign some people with magnificent white magic, then go to the right where the moogle and a DINOSAUR?! await.

Tyrannosaur is all skeleton and bones, so some good cure/fire spells should finish him off. He only has 5000 HP, which is nothing on those Shield Dragons, right?!

After fighting him, the moogle walks off and shows you the way to the SUPAR SEKRIT MOOGLE FOREST. He has some round about route that avoids the OMG DESERT, but if you obtained the World Map, it's simple enough to just walk over the narrowest portions of the sand and avoid the battles that way :p (the battles are rather hard, but we've been grinding in the seal castle, haven't we?)

When you get to the forest, step on the hidden entry way square (yeah it took me a few times, I forgot to pay attention while the moogle was showing me :p) and bam, MOOGLES EVERYWHERE.

Actually they go hide as soon as you get there, locking the doors behind you, so head to the right side of the town and walk up to the tree there to talk with our Moogle. He remembers you saved him from the Tyrannosaur, and offers the chests that surround him.

Go back into the village, and all the moogs come out to play. Go to the trees on the left (that were locked before), go in the first one (on the right). You can try on the mog suit here 8)

Take it next door and talk to the moogle there. They will be impressed. After this, head back over to the right side of the forest and talk to the moogle. He'll use his psychic power to contact Cara I mean Krile, I mean Klululu's moogle friend in Bal Castle, after which they will launch an air rescue attempt and take you back to Bal.

First, go to the bottom left corner of the throne room. There are some chests here, including one that is hidden. There is a little alcove on the bottom wall, just walk through it. Then head outside and to the far left to enter a building that houses all the stuff you've ever wanted to buy. Skip the weapons and magics first and walk back to the stairs in the back of the room. Up up up up over down down down and bam, boxen! RAID! Head back and stock up on weapons and armor galore (you should have all the magicks already!)

Then, go back to the throne room and take the staircase in the lower right corner up through the royal apartments, then up onto the dragon ledge where Krilu awaits. She gives you your next quest, finding dragon grass for the dying Hiryû whose only mistake was saving you lot.

However, if you are like me, and I assume that you are, you won't be leaving Bal Castle for a loooooong time.

MEGA AP HARVESTING TIME:
There is a small room in the basement of Bal Castle that contains encounters. Take the staircase from the second castle room down into a small room with a save point (SAVE). Then go through the door.

The Objets d'Art are easily killed in a number of ways, the easiest of which is casting Lvl 5 Death. The next easiest is using a Golden Needle on them. (btw I recommend you do this at least once because it's kinda cool looking). Of course you can still attack them normally, but at 4/8 AP a battle and only having to cast one spell, you will want to be gaining lots and lots of AP.

Objets d'Art have more or less just one strategy they use. "Break". Their normal attacks can hit for about 300hp, so break may or may not be the least of your worries.

If you go the lvl5 death route, you will run out of MP pretty quickly. There is an inn on the palace grounds for only 50gil/night, but another effective method to regain mp if you need it is to use the Dragoon's lvl 1 ability, !Lance. If you don't have !Lance yet, it's only a measly 150 AP if you're a level 1 dragoon already, and 200 if you haven't started the class yet.

You can also use the Dancing Dirk you acquired and pray it uses Mysterious Waltz, but !Lance is more dependable ;)

What I did was deëquip all the "heavy" armors (bye bye gold shield :() and make sure someone had the elven mantle equipped. The Objets d'Art are pretty fast, so you may want to keep First Attack or something equipped. If you run into the party of five and they all use Break on your party successfully, well, there's not much you can do ;)

Anyways, this should keep you occupied for a long time!

geographic spoilers for part 3 of the gameAn interesting thing to note is that when the three worlds merge, your two favorite AP levelling spots from world 1 and world 2 OVERLAP. Yes, Bal Castle lies right on top of Jachol Cave :D You can actually get somewhere from the little climby area in the back of Jachol, but I'm not going to tell you yet!

rubah, will you get this done in time for FFVII? :)

I felt kinda bored with ff6 so I regressed xD I have to finish my walkthrough, though!

Yes. Yes, you do. :)

When you finally get bored of levelling your job classes (I fully expect you to master half of them per character!), head to the front gate of Bal Castle and try to exit. The soldiers there will verify your desire to head out into the wild wastes of World 2, and sure enough, as soon as the gates are drawn, some goons (and I don't mean from SA) show up. Well, just one goon, an Abductor.

He's a bit higher level, and has Power Armlet as a steal, but should be much easier than trying to fight Tyrannosaur without resorting to healing magic.

LVL: 29 (no lvl5 death here 8))
HP: 2500
MP: 1000
STR: 40
DEF: 0
MDEF: 0

Also important to note, I guess, is that this one is green while the first one was blue. Idk.

Anyways, once you're free of the castle, check your handy dandy world map to ascertain that absolutely none of those blinky blink lights are flashing anywhere remotely close to you, and head north, hopefully towards Quelb and the DRAGON LAND.

Also note that there are only two other locations on your continent and it appears to be relatively landlocked and your only source of transportation is a dying Hiryû. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Anyways, head North, young man!

You come to a village in a pass, filled with sheep. When you enter, Galuf makes some vague comments about hoping the gates will be open. Approaching any of the shops, you'll see that they're all closed, so head for the house in the middle of the town that is kinda bridge shaped (AKA the one with the unlocked door)

Go inside, then try to leave, and BAM . . ninja wolves?
Faris makes a good point about the worth of enemies if even friends are pointing sharp things at you, then Galuf's old friend shows up.

Sit back and watch some footage, learn some faxx EXPOSITION EXPOSITION.

Afterwards, Kelger agrees to let you all into Drakenvale, and you're free to roam the city, now that the inhabitants aren't trying to eat you. Head for the Inn and talk to the wolf in the back room. Then sit at the table to get your HP/MP restored and free potions! This can be repeated ;)

Go over to the leftmost side by the well and talk to it. A little wizard pops out and asks for a frog. There are some Kornago out in the swampy areas outside of Quelb, so equip a beastmaster or !Catch and head out there.

Be careful, Kornago only have 1000 hp, so don't over hit them :) They will also use Flee pretty readily, so be quick about it! You might want to use Gravity, Stop, Slow to help you out. Or in a battle with Cursed Beings, use Alluring Air or Tango of Temptation. They have some pretty nice Time spells that will help you if they cast them opposite of how they will.

Hopefully you also have somewhere around 10,000 Gil. The wizard wants that in addition to your frog (DON"T RELEASE IT btw) In return, he gives you the Kornago Gourd, proven to make your time catching enemies easier. Key inside the locked box, anyone? Btw, if you don't have 10,000 gil, you can always get infinite potions from the wolf in the inn and sell them for *ahem* massive profits ;)

The last thing you'll want to make sure you do before leaving for Drakenvale is talk to the wolves dancing in the upper right corner. One of them will give you Requiem. SWEET, could've used that on tyrannosaur. . Oh well.

As you head through the north gates of town, you'll end up in a very small area which consists of lots of forests and one mountain. Since there's not much else in the way of choices, and because it falls under that pretty sparkly dot, head for the mountain. The path is straight-forward. Go into the first entrance you see to get a chest, turn around and go up through the next one. There aren't very many decisions to make here.
You'll start seeing rocks and bones on the ground, I suggest equipping a Bard, so if you run into dinosaurs/dragons, you can use Requiem on them for massive (2000~) damage.

You may run into a cute little rock dude named ???, but he'll run away pretty quickly. Go through some more tunnels, topping to get a chest with a Cottage (it's so cleverly hidden, right on screen). After you cross a little bridge, you'll run into an encounter with little rock guy and two dinosaurs/dragons (he has a name now!) Requiem conveniently damages both of them without hurting the little dude (you can see that they're fighting him because 1) they're turned backwards, and 2) he cries out for help). So kill the dragons, keep him alive, and just wait after they die! He'll join your party.

IMPORTANT: you actually NEED to use the Golem item in your inventory to be able to !Summon him.

As you go on, you'll eventually come to a dead-end. No fear, there's a trap door towards the right of the room. Fall through (unless you're a silly geomancer, then you'll just kinda bounce off first) then grab the chest for 7000 gil. Go through the door to your left and pull the skull switch for massive earthquakage, then go up the stairs through the door you had assumed you would be progressing through. No fear, the earthquake slid some crucial rocks out of the way, so let us be on our merry way. Just don't walk on the trap door again.

Back in the air again, go over to the right and inspect some bones to find a set of Bone Mail. (YAY)

A note on Bone Mail. It will make your team member essentially undead. So don't cast Cure on them, k?

In the next tunnel, take the left fork all the way down and walk through the blackness to the right to get a Wind Slash and Hypno Crown. Go back and take the right fork, also walking through the blackness into another room. At the bottom of the stairs, go through the immediate doorway to find a sweet sweet save point.

Going back into the previous room and then leaving out the left takes out outside again. Go around the rocks and voila, a boss!

Dragon Pod and Dragon Flowers:
These things are pretty annoying because they will pelt you with statuses ad infinitum.
They're very resistant to magic, so your best bet would be to use physical attacks and summons.

Now is the time to start buffing regularly for boss battles. Golem is your first buff. He will stop physical attacks for a certain length of time/duration of damage. If the flowers' attacks can't hit you, they can't inflict statuses :) Equip someone with !Summon lvl 4 or make them a Summoner. Titan will also do massive damages here.

Don't worry about killing the flowers. They have very low HP and will regenerate anyways. Don't worry about stealing, there's nothing to steal. Have everyone focus on doing damage to the big Dragon Pod. If you got any Twin Lances from Bal Castle, they will be good to use, either as a Ninja or a Thief.

Afterwards, you get the Dragon Grass, whereupon you may either walk back along the annoying path up the mountain, or simply cast Teleport.

Back in Quelb, everyone expresses amazement at your safe return. also, the guy at the inn is no longer giving out free dinner/potions :( Since there's nothing more of interest here, continue on to Bal Castle.

At Bal, the soldiers think you are some ruse of Ex-Death's and refuse to let you in. Galuf jumps right into the moat and the party follows. Head around to the upper left corner, where there is a small switch. Pull that and your party will be sucked back into the castle proper. I wonder what they would've done if the enemies had seen that?

Let's go give Krile the dragon grass! Run upstairs through the throne room, but her maid stops you, she's fallen ill! Krile tells you to seek out a sage named Ghido who lives on an island not too far from Drakenvale.

Go upstairs and heal the wind drake, and after a scene, you're off!

This dragon features all the standard amenities; no flying over mountains, etc etc. If you go to the extreme eastern side of the valley Bal Castle is located in, you can find an underground route to the Big Bridge, however as every soldier in Bal has probably said to you, there is a huge energy barrier blocking the way. So don't go there.

Turn right at Drakenvale, and exit through the little pass at the north. If you fly slightly west, the first thing you should see is another castle. This is Surgate castle, home to another of the Dawn Warriors. It's worth a trip inside, if only because they let you have anything you find (without even having to steal it!) From the throne room, go up the lower left staircase into the King's Chamber. There's a red book, read it to get Swift Song.

Up the upper left staircase, you find yourself in a library with a very familiar book. Go up the stairs to the left and talk to the old woman in the next room. She wants help restocking books. Pick up the three books on the table (one at a time) and go inspect the shelves. Put the Weird Ronka book on the W-X shelf, Register of Monsters on the R shelf, forbidden monsters on the D-F shelf. Talk to the woman again, and she'll leave through a secret passageway at the top of the room. Follow her, then go through the doorway at the bottom of that room. You can talk to a wizard there or get the chest with 5000 Gil at the bottom right corner. Go through the doorway there to come outside. Go down a little and head to the left under the bridge. There's a door all the way to the right. Go in, go up the stairs, and you'll come in a little room with chests and boxes. Open the chest for the Float spell (Time lvl 2) Head back to the throne room.

Down the righthand staircase from the throne room, you enter the soldiers quarters. Asking around gives some interesting tidbits: you can land the wind drake on the king's ship, Exdeath's castle is well-protected only on the big bridge side, all unnecessary since I just told you ;)

Going down again, there's an inn, if you'd like, and YAY WEAPONS. No new spells :( and you already have most of the armors, I believe. Rest up if you want, 60 gil is a mere pittance to us!

That's about it for Castle Surgate, so go back and remount your wind drake, and let's find Ghido! It's actually straight north from the little pass we left Drakenvale from. (made that easy, didn't they). If you want, you can also return to Castle Kuza and Rugore, but there's no need atm.

The minute you walk into Ghido's cave, something terrible happens! And the next moment, the obvious perpetrator is revealed. EX-DEATH.

Where to now? You can talk to Kelger in Quelb if you'd like, but the simplest route of action to take would be to fly the wind drake over to the eastern side of CASTLE EX-DEATHU and find the fleet of ships there. Land on the biggest one and Xezat will parley with you.

He tells you to go get some rest, so head belowships. As soon as you lay your head on the pillow, bam "MONSTERS!!"

There are three little goblins running around, then one on the prow. After that, who should show up but your ol' buddy Gilgamesh! (EQUIP STEAL).

Steal a pair of Genji Gloves from him. After you do a bit of damage, his friend Enkidu will show up (a dog, if you played ff12). Enkidu is actually capable and will cast things like White Wind (4000hp healing) and Aera (yuck), so kill him first. Some Jumps (he's in the backrow, so physical attacks are yuck) and Bio should take him out reasonably quickly. Then go back to harshin' on gilgie.

Afterwards, it's back to the plan! If you need to sleep, go back over there, else, go to the opposite room and help Xezat.

WOOHOO SUBMARINE!

As you go up the Barrier tower, (hint, don't follow Xezat, take the lower staircase), the first room has two chests. You have to fight a red dragon for the one on the left, but you'll get a Bloodsword for your trouble. The other has 9000 gil. Btw, if you run into a beast called "Traveller" you can steal a Dream Harp from it if you wait long enough.

It's pretty straight forward up until level 9. Take the left hand staircase there to find a chest to fight another red dragon for to get a Golden Hairpin. This little baby will halve your MP usage in battle! Incredible!

On the 10th floor, there is a save point, so do save.
You may run into a monster called Ziggurat Gigas. If so, STEAL from him. They have Partisan lances, which have 8+ attack compared to Heavy Lances! If you do manage to steal one, please go back and save.

At the top of the tower, there is a boss battle. You may have heard of this guy. His name is Atomos. He's basically a galactic vacuum of the dead.

Atomos:
LVL 41
HP: 19997 MP: 10000
Strength: 10
Defense: 14
Magic: 80
MDef: 20
Steal: Ether, Flail
Drop: Dark Matter

Kudos to Jowy for this strategy:
Normally, Atomos will spam Comet on you until you die, and then he will suck you into his mouth like the galactic vacuum cleaner he is. However, while he is immune to Darkness, Mini, Petrify, Silence, Confuse, Old, Stop, Poison, Toad, Death, Berserk, Paralyze, and Slow, he is *not* immune to Sleep.

Ergo, load up on magic users, cast Sleep, and spam Comet/Bio on him!

Afterwards, there is a scene and you get control of the submarine.

You are supposed to find Ghido, because apparently he could survive being underwater, but first, allow me to make the suggestion of doing a couple of sidequests first.

1) Stock up on massive magicks. I don't know about you guys, but I have been yearning for -aga magic since getting to world 2. Take your submarine to the left bottom dot on your underwater map and surface. You'll find yourself in a lake in front of a little village. Go inside and there are wonderful wonderful weapons and magics. Go around the back of the Pub and check the barrels for a Main Gauche, as well! (The building straight in front of those barrels is locked. . . Hmmmmm)

The bridge leads to a forest that the pub patrons talk lovingly of, but it bars your entry right now. Get back on your submarine, and go to the dot to the north of this one.

2) This leads into a little cave. Enter it and walk around and you'll come out into the overworld. There is a [useless] chocobo forest, but just walk around in the forest proper. You'll come across a chap named Catoblepas, who likes to cast Stone Gaze on you. He has 5000 HP and not much defense, so as long as you stay unpetrified, you should do okay. He will drop a Catoblepas item, and much like Golem and Ramuh, use it to gain the Catoblepas summon! yay

In the sub, go to the last dot. Surprisingly, it is right over the place where the Ghido's Cave dot was in the overland map.

Inside, it looks remarkable cavelike. Proceed to an area with five treasure chests, four of them open. Open the fifth and place the rock inside the upper left chest. Go through the door that opens and throw the skull switch. Return and take teh rock out of the chest and put it in the lower left chest and go through that door.

In the next room, there is a hidden passage at the bottom left hand side, there's a little alcove right there. Go down and to the right to push the skull switch, then take the stairs that just appeared. In the next room, there's another hidden passage. Just walk straight down and to the left. Go to the bottom left and walk through yet another passageway. At the end of that passage, go right through another passage and through the door.

This will bring you to a turtle. Jump in after him and walk up the narrow bridge in the next room.

There is a short scene where Bartz proves once again how naîve he is, and it is revealed that Ex-Death is closely related to that forest you almost went to!

Get your quest to go to Moore Forest and recieve the Guardian Branch that will grant you access, then teleport the heck out of there. (or walk. Exercise will do you good)

Take the sub back to the lower left hand underwater dot, surface, visit the town if you need anything(get the Main Gauche if you haven't already), then cross the bridge to the forest.

Walk up to the little opening in the bushes and the forest will accept your proposal of the Guardian Branch and grant you access. This forest is hard to navigate because of all its shadowy bushes. If you're playing on an emulator, feel free to turn off the layer with the upper trees on it.

Go over to the right and top, and there's a tree with a hole in its trunk. Inspect it and a woodsprite will make its tunnel pop open. Go through into another tree area.

Make your way alllllllll the way over to the right, then go up under the tree cover of the tree at the top there for a chest of gilz. Back towards the middle of the glade, inspect another tree with a hole in its trunk for another sprite tunnel.

In the next screen, go up onto the roots in front of you and to the left for a Cottage chest, then go all the way to the right for a chest with a Goliath Tonic. If you go up from there, you'll see a firy circle. This is a save point, so please please please please use it.

Go to the far left up, and left again and dig around in the foilage. There is a chest with an Elixir hidden within. Step back to the right and go straight up (you can see this one) for a chest containing a Morning Star for your WM. Consider going straight back down and to the right to save again.

From the Morning star, walk to the left and there will be a horrible horrible scene. I can scarcely dare describe it.

Okay, so it involves fire. After you regain control of your characters, walk up, over the tree roots to the right and up again to get an Aegis Shield. EQUIP THIS THING. Shortly, a moogle will pop up out of the ground and indicate that you should fall into a hole. Do so. There is a healing stream, and you decide to hide until the flames are gone. Soon, the moogle guarding the door will begin walking back and forth, indicating you may leave.

The forest is bare. You don't need to worry about not being able to see anything :( The chest containing the Aegis Shield is empty now (it would have contained a Flame Shield if you hadn't picked it up beforehand). Going to the left, there is a chest containing Ash (a throwing item). Further to the left is Flametongue, a sword.

From there, head straight up as far as you can, and the seal tree will be revealed. The Guardian Branch opens a path for you, so make sure you are healed and have Float cast, and walk up into the tree.

Inside, the Seals attack.

Seals (x4):
HP: 7777
MP: 10000
Str: 40
Def: 10
Mag: VARIES, 1-15
MagDef: 20

You can steal four Elixirs if you care to. Each seal guardian has a different elemental absorption. They start off doing a lot of physical attacks, so summon Golem. If you have pretty good mdef, you can then just start attacking them, else start casting Shell for when they switch to magic attacks. Consider having a Blue Mage or Learning equipped to learn Aeroga.

The simplest way to go about this is to summon Titan, find out which one absorbs Earth magic, then attack all of the others with Physicals/Titan. Once they all die, proceed to either use Comet or Physical attacks on the remaining one. Four Monks will !Summon level 4 or four Summoners with Barehanded would be ideal, but you can use many different combinations. Black magic is almost worthless in this battle because of all the elemental absorptions and immunities (Each seal is immune to Wind, Ice, Poison, and Holy, and two of them absorb fire and earth). Time magic is useful for Hasteaga and regen, and White magic with Curaga and Shell. The Earth seal has a nasty surprise though, which is Earthshaker, but you should be floated, so no worries.

Afterwards is probably one of the most emotional parts of the game, so grab a hanky.

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Spoiler Padding

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Spoiler Padding

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Afterwards, you end up with Krile in your party, with all of Galuf's abilities.

It's time to teach Ex-Death a lesson about killing your friends and loved ones. Get in the submarine (you can't exit the Moore Area with the wind drake, makes a lot of sense, I know) and sail to his castle. As you enter, there are half a dozen of Xezat's men lying prone on the floor, informing you your quarry is on the top floor. If you open the door at the top of the room (i.e. not the one immediately before you), you will find a familiar save point and beyond that, healing springs. Convenient.

Take the other door, then go up the stairs. In the next room, go around the outside perimeter of the lower side of the room for two chests: a diamond shield, an ether. Then take the stairs in the center of the room.

In the next room, go up and around. If you go under the eaves so that you are hidden, you can go past the little barrier there. Turns out there's nothing in the room, so go back.

Krile gets a flash of inspiration however, and calls on the help of friends to break the illusion.

YUCK. The castle is made of living body parts. Gross I know, right?

Go through the walkway that opened up into the next room. Walk around and up to the switch. Throw it and get the Ice Shield from the chest. Go through the little walkway underneath it. Weave in and out of these alcoves and exit the room to the left. Go all the way to the top and walk through the black area to the chest for an Ether, then exit through the ribcage immediately to the right.

In the next room, make someone a Geomancer or give them Light Step, and walk down into the Lava right at the beginning, go all the way down and head right through the passage to get a Hayate Bow. Go back and around the stairs at the bottom to the chest which holds an Elixir, then take the stairs.

In the next room, you have to step on a skull-tile on the floor to make a bridge stop. Get the two chests first, an Icebrand and Kotestsu, then go through the door.
Save point says Save.

In the next room, head to the right and down. Stop a few squares before the end of the passage and go to the right and down for the Elixir. Go back and to the left, skip the hall to the top and go up the far left for 9900 Gil. Then take the hall up and through the door of ribs.

Go up the stairs, go down the stairs, then HALT. Do you have Light Step/Geomancer/Float? We'll be walking through a LOT of damage floors, and you don't want to lose all your hp, do you?!

First, go all the way to the right and up the staircase for a chest, then backtrack and go up the middle staircase on Floor 9. Use a Geomancer or "Find Pits" and navigate your way very carefully to the Twin Lance chest on the other side. Then, on the way back, step on the very lowest tile to untrigger the retractable bridge to the next area. In the next area, there is a welcome save point.

Let's backtrack just a little (wanted to save before doing this), and return to the previous room. This time, head for the very top tile. It will warp you in front of an Esper.

Carbuncle:
Lvl 44
HP: 15000
MP: 10000
Str: 50
Def: 50
Eva: 70
Mag: 50
MDef: 50
Steal: Goliath Tonic, Reflect Ring.

Carbuncle is typically a cute cuddly creature, except when he's battling you to ascertain your strength. The key thing to note here is that he has always got Reflect cast on him. Always. What you'll want to do is equip a Reflect Ring if you've somehow come across one, or keep someone with White Mage Lv 5 in the party. His Eva is so high, that you'll rarely hit him, and his Def is so high that if you do hit him, it won't do much good.

So use his own strategy against him. Cast reflect on a team-member and blast that person with -Aga magic. You can also use Summons and Comet (cast comet on carbuncle, plz). Just remember to use potions to heal the reflected person.

When you defeat him, you will have for your very own, a cute cuddly Reflect spammer.

Afterwards, walk down the staircase and into the next room. Keep walking forward and you'll be warped elsewhere in the room (got your damage floor boots on?). Return to the save point and save again.

Carrying on into the next room, ignore the chest (it's empty) and head to the upper right corner. Go through the door to a Fuuma Shuriken and Partisan spear.

Try to leave out the uppermost room (straight up from the chest). Who should accost you but Gilgamesh!?

Gilgamesh: LVL 53
HP: ????
MP: 2000
STR: 60
DEF: 10
EVA: 0
MAG: 1
MDEF: 15
Steal: Gauntlets, Hi-Potion

After you fight a while, he'll get chatty. His attacks aren't too difficult at all. You might not even need to buff (but of course I'm overlevelled so my perception is skewed ;))

After he chats a bit, he starts bragging about his unstoppable weapon. then GILGAMESH MORPH

Gilgamesh Pt 2: LVL 67
HP: ????
MP: 9000
STR: 50
DEF: 20
EVA: 0
MAG: 0
MDEF: 10
Steal: Genji Helm <-- STEAL THIS.

His super weapon is ah. . . less than stellar. It's so bad in fact that. . .

Well I won't say, but you have to feel kinda sorry for the guy!

Go back and save, equip your genji helm if able, then head up to take on the Man Upstairs.
Ex-death has some evil scheme hatched, so engage him in battle to put it to a stop!

Exdeath LVL 66
HP: 32768
MP: 32768
STR: 58
DEF: 25
EVA: 10
MAG: 0
MDEF: 25

Steal: Judgment Staff, Elixir

This guy is pretty annoying. He will barrage you with debuffs. Dispel, 100G (G as in gravity) etc. He also has an annoying move that switches your rows.

When he's not breaking down your defenses, he might be hitting you with pretty strong physical attacks, or doublecasting magic. He likes to use Zombie breath, so don't let anyone get too close to 600-1000 HP (or just keep some holy waters around)

After the battle, Exdeath will continue to put his evil plans into motion.

Whatever he does, you get flung in front of. . . Tycoon Castle? Might as well go in. The Chancellor makes a big deal out of Lenna and Faris being back, and Bartz and Krile get a little. . neglected. Krile runs up to the balcony, so follow her, then leave the castle.

Bartz recalls his dear chocobo Boko, so head to the west and north into the cave (does this landscape look weird to you or is it just me?). You'll be introduced to an... ahem friend of Boko's whereupon you will be allowed to mount his feathery back. . . I'll just stop here ;)

Go ahead and run back up to the castle then vaguely north/northwest as you are able. You'll notice the town of Tule (you can go in there if you want). Go past it to the west and enter the little pass that is there. As you ride through, an earthquake will tumble you down!

In the hole in the ground resides ANTLION

Antlion: LVL 34
HP: 8100
MP: 1000
STR: 48
DEF: 20
EVA: 10
MAG: 0
MDEF: 20

Steal: Hi-Potion

Just don't summon Titan (immune) or Catoblepas (also immune) and he shouldn't be too hard. A simple party of Fighters + black/time/summon magic should suffice.

After the battle, try to figure a way out of the hole. I dare you. Sooner or later, someone will lower a rope down to you, just out of your grasp. Hilarious antics ensue.

Anyways, you get one of the princesses back in your party ^_^ But Krile has. . . a splinter? Hm, that doesn't seem suspicious at all. (SPOILER)There was totally not a stick that followed you around in ff3 that turned out to be a bad guy, and Ex-Death is totally not a tree, MADE OF WOOD. ahahaha of course not.

Carry on your chocobo riding to the south, whereupon you will find a small cave. WHOA this cave looks familiar, but not from world 2!

Ghido delivers a bombshell.
Our friend Exdeath shows up and delivers a few more!

After that, you get blasted to kingdom come the Library of the Ancients. Ghido is pleased that such an important library is so close, and your party is surprised that the scholars from Surgate are already there!

FINALLY THAT BOOK GETS PUT BACK TOGETHER. It's about time!

We need four tablets to break the seal on the legendary weapons.
1) Rests alongside spirits of the past, blessed by the soil (dead people, earth, burial!)
2) Rests within an island shrine, kissed by wind (the wind shrine!)
3) Rests beneath the Ocean floor, engulfed by flames (submarine!)
4) Rests beyond the river's torrents, protected by water (waterfall, istory falls!)

and there's a vague notion that some things to help you are also sealed: Holy, Flare, Meteor, Leviathan, Bahamut.

Ghido instructs you to start with the pyramid in the Desert of Shifting Sands, which as you remember, is located very conveniently close to the Library of the Ancients. The scholars have some interesting tidbits: There is a town that was sealed into the interdimensional rift which should be showing up; that town sells magnificent supplies; the four tablets are protected by gargoyles.

Go up to the roof and learn Mana's Paean from the Scholar on the right. The pot next to the door still heals you completely :)

Head to the west, and you will enter a grove. What should rest there but the Guardian Tree? Your warriors reflect sadly on the people gone from their lives.

In the desert, Bartz discovers the sands have stopped shifting. You can just walk across it. Walk across (ignore the pyramid) and go through the forest at the top to visit Moore. A little kid tells you the locked shed is no longer locked, so go around the pub and down to the shed. From the barrels in front of the shed, go down 8 steps, two left, six down, two left, then all the way down. A wizard will appear before you and offer the choice of the Brave Blade or the Chicken Knife. The Brave Blade starts off pretty good, but if you ever run, that ruins it for you. The chicken knife doesn't start off as high in stats, but it can only improve (with Escapes).

Head for the pyramid in the middle of the desert between the Library of the Ancients and Moore. As soon as you enter, you should espy two stone gargoyles sitting conspicuously right in front of you. Try to go through the door to initiate battle.

Gargoyle x2 LVL 33
HP: 5000
MP: 300
STR: 58
DEF: 13
EVA: 10
MAG: 50
MDEF: 2

Steal: Phoenix Down, Potion.

These guys would be straightforward if not for a nasty trick they have about regenerating. You absolutely must kill them either right together, or almost right together, because they will simply pop back into existence if you don't.

After the battle, there is nothing outside the pyramid, so head inside. Keep in mind that a lot of the monsters here are undead, so fire and curative magic work nicely. (Dancing not so much)

Ignore the first door and go down the hallway to the left. Push the left and right switches and carefully walk through the spikes. Fall into the sandfall and touch the chest for a monster attack. You'll get an ice shield. Don't linger here too long, there is a hole in the wall that excretes snakes, which you will inevitably have to fight. Go back up and you'll be on the other side of the sandfall. Go right and around and notice the button to stop the sandfall, but quickly go up instead of left and around into a room with hidden passages and a snake hole. Keep going to an inner room with a sarcophagus. Touch that and you'll fight a Grand Mummy. (Mummy=Poobah?)

The sarcophagus opens and a Cursed Ring awaits you inside. If you can win your battles in 50 seconds or less, this is a good thing to equip, else you'll be getting a lot of Game Overs. It has very nice Defense, but the Doom effect is pretty annoying. Head back to the button, and press it and go back to where you started.

Go through the first doorway you originally passed and into the next room. You'll be locked into a little passage with some Asps. Hit the first and last switches to proceed (hit the middle one to go back)

In the next room, go through the doorway to the chests. They all have monsters in them. The one in the middle contains a Flame Shield. There is a Power Sash next to that and a White Robe on the right.

Head to the right. Notice the spikes at the bottom of the floor. When the floor turns white, you will slide into them. Cross then the floor is grey. They're poison spikes, btw. Cool, I know right?

(this post brought to you by not having internet at OHare airport)