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

[Ultima Shadow]

WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The game was finished with Fayth on level 60.

Edit:

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

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

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