Board 8 > Andy Plays Final Fantasy IX

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm pretty sure Quina can eat all of the guardians.

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Maliris took me quite a few tries back in the day because of that stupid finishing move after it dies
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The final dungeon bosses showed me how underleveled I was too
I didnt even have the best spells and weapons yet
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Oh yeah I think my characters were only like level 30 when I entered Memoria. I purposefully avoided battles for most of the game since your stat growths actually depend on how much bonus secondary attributes your gear gives, and if you have random gear on to learn abilities it's probably not optimal for growth...!

(Though doing that is just kind of fun-sucking and you don't need the extra stats at all for anything)

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Is not as bad as farming luck spheres in FFX or grinding statboosts in FFVIII
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Emeraldegg posted...

Maliris took me quite a few tries back in the day because of that stupid finishing move after it dies

Yeah I think that's the first time there's been a finishing move in this game, it did catch me off guard but thankfully didn't kill anyone.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Oh yeah I think my characters were only like level 30 when I entered Memoria. I purposefully avoided battles for most of the game since your stat growths actually depend on how much bonus secondary attributes your gear gives, and if you have random gear on to learn abilities it's probably not optimal for growth...!

Yeah I was a much lower level before I decided to go sidequesting in Disc 4, now I'm probably about right. Thankfully I don't care about min/maxing if it's absurd like that.

htaeD posted...

I didnt even have the best spells and weapons yet

So about ultimate weapons, do I have any of them yet? The highest power weapons I have for each character:
Zidane- The Tower (has all his abilities)
Vivi- High Mage Staff (He is notably missing one magic spell at the end of the list)
Eiko- Priest's Racket (all abilities- she has an Angel Flute but that is lower power)
Dagger- Tiger Racket (sounds like it might be ultimate by the description, but she is missing a summon)
Quina- Bistro Fork
Steiner- Ragnarok (all abilities)
Freya- Dragon's Hair (all abilities)
Amarant- Rune Claws (all abilities)

Some of the descriptions say 'legendary weapon' but some of those aren't even the highest power weapon for that character!

And Tiamat goes down! Now there's a familiar name. I've mixed up the party a bit to Steiner/Vivi/Freya/Eiko, and it's working well. Garland also confirms that it was Zidane's memory of the storm, not Dagger's. Once again I must say hmm...

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htaeD posted...

Is not as bad as farming luck spheres in FFX or grinding statboosts in FFVIII

I don't think it's that bad in FFVIII because it's much easier to survive without fighting and leveling up until you get to the endgame.

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Zidane's Ultimate Weapon (Ultima Weapon) is gotten by using a dead pepper where the island to Terra used to be.

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For Dagger's last summon, there's an item you can get that has it, and it's not a weapon. Here's more info about how to get it, but I recommend playing more before reading:

It's in Memoria. There's an optional, hidden boss that gives you access to the item that has it. I think you can also steal it from Ozma, but most will probably use this way.

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You have Steiner's, Freya's, and Amarant's.
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You have Freya's, Amarant's, and one of Dagger's/Eiko's Ultimate weapons.

Steiner's ultimate is probably impossible to get at this point. It's the infamous Excalibur II. The only way to get it is to reach a certain room in the final dungeon in under 12 hours. I don't know what your play time is, but I'm guessing you might have surpassed that. Ragnarok is a runner up.

Two weapons you're missing can be found in the final dungeon.

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technically you can wait for the timer to roll back around to all zeroes and get the Excalibur II that way

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oh I wasnt' counting excal 2

I also missed eiko
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Oh right, I forgot. I think you'd have to leave your game on continuously for like two years or something though.

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SSJSephirothGokuX123 posted...

Zidane's Ultimate Weapon (Ultima Weapon) is gotten by using a dead pepper where the island to Terra used to be.

Oh is this what GK was referring to before? Because I call complete BS on this one. There's no foam and I spent ages lining Choco up with the dot on the map for Shimmering Island to no avail, then eventually just started diving around in frustration and found it way to the west of the marker! No wonder there's a free restock of Dead Peppers in Chocobo Paradise. Thanks though (and thanks to the others who hinted at it before), glad to have it.

Grand Kirby posted...

Steiner's ultimate is probably impossible to get at this point. It's the infamous Excalibur II. The only way to get it is to reach a certain room in the final dungeon in under 12 hours. I don't know what your play time is, but I'm guessing you might have surpassed that.

*Looks at playtime* Uh... yeah, just missed it >_>
I'd be more likely to get the two years playtime option.

I finally 'beat' the Lindblum sidequest I think- Zidane comments on them being a huge family and we get... a third Protect Ring. This really wasn't worth it. But hey, no more back and forth.

Meanwhile, we see Terra and Gaia merging, Quina thinks s/he's in the ocean, and I turn a corner looking for secret items and instead find a boss fight with Hades!

The music is different here, and I am entirely unprepared for a boss fight and soon get wiped out by his countdown moves of Curse (status effects for all!), and Doomsday (Eiko survives briefly with Auto-Life but it doesn't last). I try to put together a better team second time round having seen what Hades can do: I bring Quina, Steiner, Eiko and Dagger, and equip various abilities to try and help. Everybody has Auto-Haste and Auto-Regen on. Quina gets off a Mighty Guard, and gradually Auto-Life on everybody as the battle goes on. Eiko focuses on healing, Dagger on summoning Bahamut and healing as backup, and Steiner uses Shock (this is my go-to for him now, it does 9999 damage against seemingly everything at this point).

This is not an easy battle, I can't counter every single status effect and some things go wrong. He begins his countdown for some unholy party-wiping attack, and I very luckily kill him on the 1 with Dagger. Phew! Our reward: actually some good stuff this time! Hades has a synthesis shop with absurdly expensive goods. We merge two Pumice Pieces (I knew it!!!) and get Ark, the final summon for Dagger. I also pick up some gear, including Save the Queen which it seems nobody can equip? Ah well, I had the money to spare. There's a couple things I can't get as I don't have a Hammer, I've never sold a weapon so idk where I missed this. Still no ultimate weapon+spell for Vivi.

I summon Ark on the way back out of Memoria and laugh at how absurdly long the animation is. This is our Eden/KOTR reference I guess. It's a cool summon, but after two minutes it does... 7k damage. I thought it'd at least break the 4 digit limit! Steiner immediately follows with another 9999 Shock in 5 seconds, and I decide I will never use Ark again. Honestly I might switch Eiko in for Dagger for whatever is to come plotwise, she has Holy which does a lot of damage and she's flat out better at everything else.

Just before quitting I head to the marshes and sure enough get the 99 frogs. Our reward is... another boss fight! Thankfully I have the team equipped the same as I did for Hades, but swapping out Dagger for Zidane. I don't bother stealing. The battle seems alright at first, but Quale is able to cast things like Silence and Mini on the entire party at once. This is very annoying. I drain through my Remedy supply (reminder: buy more before going back into Memoria) but his HP can't have been that high and we again get lucky and finish him off, being rewarded with Gastro Fork (presumably Quina's ultimate). I'm on a roll!

I'm tempted to try Ozma too but I've done enough for one day. Whew! I really feel like I've worked through most of the sidequests now.

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I was about to say you shouldn't use the Hammer right away but you never got it, whoops

keeping the Hammer in your inventory until the end of the game gives you an extra scene in the ending

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The Hammer is from finishing the Stellazio side quest

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Eiko does kind of outshine Dagger once you're on disc 4. Holy tends to do better than Dagger's summons, and Eiko's Double White trance is one of the few ways to get more than 9999 damage in one turn. There aren't that many battles in Memoria against multiple targets either, IIRC, so Holy being single target isn't too bad.

That said, I kind of like the two healer party myself.

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Hades does have a fun reaction with him going 'wait, you beat Ozma already?' if thats the case.

Also I guess Tiamat was not a remarkable boss fight at all for you. For me he was a major hurdle back in the day.
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htaeD posted...

Also I guess Tiamat was not a remarkable boss fight at all for you. For me he was a major hurdle back in the day.

Can't say it left much of an impression, but I'm probably way overleveled after running around doing side stuff for so long. I'm into the 50s now.

LordoftheMorons posted...

The Hammer is from finishing the Stellazio side quest

Rats, I do have to finish that then. Especially if it gives me an ending scene!

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For what it's worth, the extra scene isn't important. It's just a bonus.

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The pumice pieces are a mistranslation. They're supposed to be the Float stone from Final Fantasy 1 which in that game was used to raise the airship. Which is why it summons Ark.

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Stellazio locations, if you want them (stolen from Bover's guide):

Aries: Dali Windmill, ground floor near crankshaft
Cancer: Burmecia, second screen behind overturned cart
Scorpio: Quan's Dwelling, near southern cave wall in lower section
Gemini: Treno, throw Gil in the fountain 13 times
Taurus: Treno, behind Item Shop in a crate
Virgo: BMV, in the Inn's bedroom
Libra: Madain Sari fountain plaza
Leo: Alexandria Castle, in the room with the Neptune statue
Sagittarius: Lindblum, large plaza in Business District (check the left side of the screen)
Capricorn: Daguerreo entrance, in the water on the right side of the screen
Aquarius: Ipsen's Castle, behind a pillar on the second screen
Pisces: Invincible(Disc 4), inside a chest

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Last one (separating this out in case you want to figure it out by yourself; the text on the Stellazio key items are supposed to hint at it):

Ophiucus: Quan's Dwelling, near southern cave wall in lower section where Scorpio was (must have all previous Stellazzio turned in)

Also I needed to make this a separate post because gamefaqs said I couldn't have more than 15 spoiler blocks even though I only had 13??

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Oh yeah and the actual good thing about Garnet's ridiculously long summon animations is that they give your team time to restore an absurd amount of hp from regen...!

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Last one (separating this out in case you want to figure it out by yourself; the text on the Stellazio key items are supposed to hint at it):

Ophiucus: Quan's Dwelling, near southern cave wall in lower section where Scorio was (must have all previous Stellazzio turned in)

Also I needed to make this a separate post because gamefaqs said I couldn't have more than 15 spoiler blocks even though I only had 13??

I think it counts italicized stuff as separate spoilers because it doesn't reveal them all if something is italicized.

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Ah yeah, that must be it

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Thanks so much LotM! I really thought I had scoured everywhere. From that list the Treno fountain one is definitely one, I did not throw anything in 13 times, and I don't recall getting Leo. I'll check tomorrow anyway. Haven't looked at the second post.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Oh yeah and the actual good thing about Garnet's ridiculously long summon animations is that they give your team time to restore an absurd amount of hp from regen...!

Haha but that's a double edged sword! Quina had been hit by Venom but also had Auto-Regen, so the summon was a nice way of finding out that those two statuses function at identical rates, the HP kept bouncing around the same level while the MP drained to 0.

It is weird that in this game Regen/Poison work during animations, and so do time limits. Especially given how cumbersome some of the animations can be. Imagine if you could accidentally cast Ark during an escape sequence with a time limit lol.

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I do wonder about the implications of the Oeilvert Boss becoming an Eidolon
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Couldn't you open the disc cover on the Playstation version and all actions in battle would stop but effects like Regen would still work? Get a full heal anytime you wanted it as long as you were patient.

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I head back to Chocobo's Paradise, and Choco leaves us. Then comes back. Alright! Poor Mene.

I also gear up to try Ozma, do terribly, then gear up and try again and get instantly party-wiped by Meteor. I didn't have Auto-Life set up that time but damn, this thing is a mess. I'm gonna leave it til postgame.

The Stellazzio are done now, thanks again for the help. I did not figure out where the 13th one was myself, sadly. And I think that's about it for sidequests? There's been no more quizmaster sightings, so I might as well just go on with the plot unless I've forgotten something else.

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Did you ever race Hippaul?

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The hippo in Alexandria? No, I don't believe so. He's running the reception desk at the hotel now.

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The best strat to deal with Ozma is just to YOLO and kill it before it kills you with curse or meteor. I use Freya and Steiner with Dragon Crest and Shock for 9999 and have Amarant throw Wing Edges. You can swap Steiner for Quina if frog drop is strong enough but I prefer Steiner because he's a little faster. Zidane either heals with Elixirs or Remedies or I try to have his trance near full before I fight him.

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Hippaul can be raced only in Disc 3 when exploring Alexandria as Vivi. If you take him to some really high level, you get a key item, the Athlete Queen, that you get nowhere else. The key item does nothing and apparently can be really annoying to get.

Ozma counters attacks against it with its own attacks or healing, so you need to be really calculating about what attacks you use against it and when. Only use high damage attacks. I read a FAQ to understand his attack patterns and when the best time was to attack. Finishing the friendly monster sidequest really helps too. IIRC, I used Eiko, Dagger, and Amarant in order to have two healers who could also do a lot of damage, and Amarant for throwing Wing Edges.

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I made sure everyone had darkness protection against Doomsday, and then I had Vivi cast it for damage and free healing.

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Ah another missable sidequest! If the racing is anything like Jump Rope I wouldn't have been very successful anyway.

Thanks for the Ozma tips, I'm definitely leaving it til postgame though for now.

Leonhart4 posted...

I'm pretty sure Quina can eat all of the guardians.

So it turns out this is not true!

Also I accidentally cast Doomsday not realising it would hit my party too >_>

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You can get around that by having Steiner use Doomsday Sword

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doomsday sword OP

Also yeah the "real" benefit of having the friendly monster quest done is that ozma is now hurt by shadow damage instead of getting healed. The fight sometimes just boils down to "I hope he uses doomsday"
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Doesn't Ozma refuse to use certain attacks if all your party members are protected against it? You have to make at least one person a sacrificial lamb so that it'll waste a turn using an attack that the rest of the team can tank.

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Yes, so you want like a lv5 and a lv4 person to draw out lv5 death and lv4 holy, which are positively tame compared to stuff like curse and meteor

Edit: I think the difference is that he won't "Target" party members with attacks if they can absorb it. You can be immune to it though. So since doomsday doesn't target it will use it even if your whole party absorbs it I think. Likewise, it will use regular and lv4 Holy if your party member is simply immune but doesn't absorb (but won't use lv4 holy if you don't have a lv4 member in the first place, same for lv5 death). You can also apparently auto-reflect and it will still use things like berserk.
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IIRC, if a character has auto-reflect, Ozma will not use a reflectable spell against that character. This means auto-reflect is usually bad because spells like Holy being single target is usually better than alternatives that attack everyone. Beserk is the exception to this, which Ozma will cast at certain HP thresholds.

I don't think it checks elemental absorption though.

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Fuck Hippaul

I actually got the Athlete Queen in my recent playthrough without too much suffering, but I still loathe that fucking hippo and his button mashing game

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Thanks for more Ozma tips, I will make another attempt another time. For now, I have a game to beat.

Kraken and Lich are disposed of without much issue, as are the remaining card masters. We walk through space and Garland tells us how memories are connected and traced back to a single origin of life, a crystal. I feel like they shoved this in out of the blue to give another crystal reference to old FFs, the metaphor stood fine on its own without a physical crystal being the origin of life imo.

Garland exits the narrative here, and I have to say I really enjoyed his presence. He does not regret his birth, and leaves Zidane with the advice to 'take care' of Kuja. I guess you can read that both ways, but it's probably meant in the literal sense.

We enter the Crystal World. Honestly all the static background images in this last dungeon have been gorgeous. We confront Kuja, who has nihilistically accepted his own mortality but insists on bringing the world down with him. Zidane has some good lines countering him, and we're into a fight with Deathguise.

Deathguise very rudely starts the battle with Meteor, wiping Vivi and Dagger (yes, I couldn't help myself and went back to the OG team for the finale). We manage to recover and aside from that he's not much issue, and then we're onto our big showdown with Kuja. Good music here. This fight isn't too tough either, he's basically an easier version of Hades. Zidane enters Trance and fittingly ends him with Grand Lethal, and of course Kuja casts Ultima once more, seemingly killing himself and triggering the end.

Now even for this series, the introduction of the final boss is veeeery late. IV's was earlier than this and X's was mentioned before he appears, but this guy literally shows up out of nowhere. Necron appears to be the embodiment of death, and surmises that Kuja's attempt to destroy the crystal conclusively proves that life only exists to die (...OK). He wants to send us to the Zero World, a place with no life and therefore no fear. A pretty terrifying concept. The gang help each other get up, Zidane declares that our memories will survive even if we don't, and it's time for our final boss fight.

Necron is indeed more difficult than the others. He has a barrage of impressive spells, and constantly casts Protect on himself, neutering Steiner's Shock a bit. But by far the most annoying attack of his is one he borrowed from Exdeath, Grand Cross. The name of the spell alone conjured bad memories for me, and sure enough it inflicts a ton of very bad status effects. Remedies for all! Thanks LotM for the Regen tip, I cast Ark in lieu of Curaga and it works just as well. At one point Vivi is dead and Zombied and it takes a bit for me to realise the problem and get him back up, but there's no reason not to use every item available here so I do just that.

In the end, it is a confused Steiner who gets the final hit on this guy. I briefly wonder if there's going to be another phase, but nope that is it. Necron disappears as quickly as he arrived, and it's time for a long set of ending scenes. The gang is rescued thanks to Beatrix, Cid, Mikoto and in a surprise twist, Kuja! Zidane decides to head back to the Iifa Tree to be with Kuja, reasoning that in different circumstances he could very well have ended up like him. It's a nice hero move, particularly because he's not rescuing Kuja here, merely providing comfort for him at the end. There's some slightly dated scenes of Zidane running along the roots, and we get some more shading on Kuja in his final moments.

As odd as it is for the game to give Kuja a last minute face turn, it works pretty well imo. Largely because it's not framed as a grand redemption and it doesn't really change anything, he just realised what it meant to live once he had nothing left. What really sells it is a nice monologue from Mikoto vowing to remember him fighting against his destiny. I really like how they use her here in the ending despite her being such a small character.

Some time later, we get an overview of how everybody is doing now, with some really nice narration cutting between each scene. My initial assumption here is that this is Dagger's narration, but the last one talks about their memories becoming part of the sky, so maybe that bit was Zidane. Maybe it's a mix of everyone. I guess it's not important, the themes of the game and Zidane's impact have affected all the characters in large ways and they've all grown to look at life differently.

The scenes are pretty good here (Fratley! Though we don't know how he lost his memory still, it's nice that he still loves Freya), though there is a worrying omission of Vivi. Has he died, gone adventuring himself, maybe the narration was him? What did they mean by 'sons' anyway? IDK, I don't want to think about it if he is actually dead >_> The more I think about it, the more his absence can only mean one thing, but I am going to stay in denial.

We finally see I Want To Be Your Canary performed, and of course Zidane reveals himself to Dagger. Cue the actual ending, with Dagger's song given lyrics over the end credits. I'm gonna need time to process this. It's a good ending, a little cliche in places but the game stuck to its themes and wore its heart on its sleeve to the end.

I'm so happy I met everyone... I wish we could've gone on more adventures. But I guess we all have to say goodbye someday.

I - II - III - IV - (TAY) - V - VI - VII - (VIIR - DoC - CC) - VIII - Final Fantasy IX - X - (X-2) - XII - (RW) - XIII - (XIII-2 - LR) - XV - Tactics - (TCB)


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andylt posted...

I feel like they shoved this in out of the blue to give another crystal reference to old FFs, the metaphor stood fine on its own without a physical crystal being the origin of life imo.

fun fact: FFIX was promoted as being the game when "the crystal comes back" and then they just shoehorn it in at the end of the game lawl

Kuja's boss theme is indeed fantastic

And I think the ending narration is meant to be Vivi, but it took me a while to put that together. I used to think it was each character saying the part that came before/after their scene.

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The crystals even in the logo...!

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Necron is probably one of the most infamous final bosses in RPG history. It just shows up out of nowhere and it's never fully explained what it is. I think the best interpretation of it is that, in a game filled with references to past titles, it was supposed to be a reference to other final bosses in FF games that kind suddenly appear near the end of the game, in particular (spoiler for a game you haven't played yet) Cloud of Darkness, which also a fairly last minute swerve boss. Aside from that I guess it is simply supposed to represent death, to tie into the theme of the game and be a literal version of the concept of the heroes fighting for Life.

And yeah, I figured the ending was narrated by Vivi. It fits his story.

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Necron feels like he's supposed to be a manifestation of death itself, hence the name. A lot of people think the FFIX party was killed by Kuja's Ultima and him destroying the crystal, but defeating Necron brought them back to life or something.

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There is also a theory that Necron is the true form of the Iifa tree/Soulcage. But that seems tenuous at best to me. Apparently its Japanese name is Eternal Darkness.
I also like its music, its pretty groovy for a death avatar.
Fiop posted...

Ozma counters attacks against it with its own attacks or healing, so you need to be really calculating about what attacks you use against it and when.

Ozma doesnt technically counter with its attacks.
It pre-empts them.
Every time you put in an action, it will decide to move first.
(This is especially bad if you get wiped out by a meteor and come back due to auto-Life, but Ozma just uses Curse right afterwards)
The trick is to declare your moves during the animations of its attacks, so it cannot register your inputs at the moment.
Even then it has set moments where it does counter with Berserk, and it can randomly counter taking a hit with Curaga whenever it feels like it.
And yeah highdamage moves are the best. Shock or Dragons Crest, Frog Drop, Thievery if those are fully powered up.

If I remember correctly, Ozma doesnt use attacks that will be absorbed.. but it will use attacks that are going to just be reduced. But I am not sure on that.
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The ending is indeed vivi, and the implication that he died, yes. And because this takes place before the ending, the implication is sadly that he did not live long enough to see Zidane return from the Iifa tree.
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