Board 8 > Kicked off Final Fantasy IX yesterday

(+) Yeah! (+)

Fun fact: the story you tell Ramuh is from FF2!

FFIX is basically a tribute game. It's filled with tons of references to previous games in the series.

fair enough - i guess a lot of that is lost on me; i've mainly just noticed the buster sword!

Even the starting party is a reference! The whole game is a celebration of FF really, and this definitely shows during the game. Now whether this all paid off is a matter of opinion of course, but the history is there.

Neither cloud nor squall shall hinder us

the alexandrian soldier who wants to send a message from nicole to justin of the vigilantes is oddly heartbreaking, as is the upturned pickle cart

one alexandrian soldier isn't thrilled about opening pandora's box...

SeabassDebeste posted...

one alexandrian soldier isn't thrilled about opening pandora's box...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

always like the ff phase when people just say f it let's go at this mf. and this is a "YOU WON'T COME BACK FOR A LONG TIME" warning which i also enjoy

this is our first official decision that we're gonna wreck kuja, though admittedly it's a little weird we're straight up ignoring alexandria instead of infiltrating them again

ayy, quina's back!

and into the FOSSIL ROO we go!

This is the first point in the game where you actually need to get Quina!

Yeah, you'd get Quina there even if you skipped getting him/her earlier.

yeah, that's certainly how it seems

what a weird "boss fight" there with... was it lina?

oh i also finally synthesized some items

Lana

Congrats on finally availing yourself of one of the most useful things in the game!

oh i think i might have stolen a .... gladius?

clocked another hour. i like the music to this game better than ffviii on the whole i think - maybe fewer true standouts but far more consistently fun. it also feels like a throwback soundtrack

out in the overworld of the new continent now. i found another marsh here, but haven't yet found where to go - thr overwhelmed random encounter rate is very high and rotating camera angle is miserable for orientation and visibility - ffvii had it more right!

I think I agree about the soundtrack.

IX's OST is definitely in contention for best in the series.

I think Uematsu at one point said it was his personal favorite of the ones he did.

V-X are all good for soundtracks imo, with VII-X definitely all stellar.

well i wasn't expecting a random bunch of scottish orc-thingys

Rally-Ho

Rally-kupo!

the names here are excellent

thanks barbara gibgab

"Gotta admit, I was pretty drop that night in the black mage village. Maybe that's when she fell for me? I'm such a stud!"

did not expect this little girl to join our party randomly. not i'm wondering if i left anything important equipped to quina...

not sure what to do about this forcefield surrounding the sanctuary!

Eiko sucks

I had always hated Eiko playing the game back in middle/high school, but I thought she was okay when I replayed the game last year (still a lower tier party member, but she annoyed me a lot less as an adult)

She's fine

lmao what

should i be restarting to cook for 11 and get quina back?! that was hilariously unexpected

also zidane and vivi peeing off a mountain together is the true male bonding i didn't know i needed

Eiko is alright and useful
Though as a character I can see her grate people

oh shit eiko can equip phoenix pinions?! had been wondering what use those were!

Nothing like peeing next to your friend to make you forget all your existential crises

whew, lots of progress without many explicit save points

it's not exactly obvious to me why everyone was convinced they'd find kuja on this counting and at the iifa tree, but we've defeated a NORG-like random creature that apparently was responsible for all mist (?!) - feels like mist was a little underdeveloped as a mystery if that's really the long and short of it, but okay! kinda thought that fight was gonna be a storyline loss!

the game gives us lots and lots of warning of big fights to come, though instead of lina we wind up facing off against the other bounty hunter with only zidane. ummmm okay? zidane hits trance immediately so this battle lasts literally two attacks which is hilarious. amarant joins our party and we have our first decision to swap party members and... there's zero story justification for it. i always wonder why they will say we can only select certain characters but no reason is given, whoops

okay so kuja finally shows and we get LOTS of warning it's going down, but... ummm, we fight neither him nor any single boss but just a string of chumps. sure?!

interesting death for brahne, especially following it up with a period of total quiet as dagger has to ascend the throne. any mention of her being remotely good is purely secondhand from dagger, but you still get it from her POV.

in the massive alexandria now!

FYI you just hit disc 3

that makes sense!

oh also kuja has given some interesting backstory hints about himself and his motivations, which are actually kinda interesting as a mystery given they're relatively underplayed

That final stretch of Disc 2 is so good

The iifa tree boss was another roadblock for me. I wonder if they thought it was hard enough to not put another boss at the end of disc 2

pjbasis posted...

The iifa tree boss was another roadblock for me. I wonder if they thought it was hard enough to not put another boss at the end of disc 2

if this is the case then I'm highly likely to be overleveled. which i guess makes sense given that I've given everyone the level-up ability lmao

well you weren't level 25 in any case!

Dont use fire on the not actually a tree boss

yeah, i think lv5 death might have missed on literally everyone, and the fire counterattack was very strong - but having two white mages makes it very safe to turtle and snipe

Is Soulcage considered undead? I can't remember, but if so, you can definitely put Eiko to good use by having her cast healing spells on it.

Yeah iirc you can literally one hit ko it with a phoenix down

that is correct, or life

It is undead so the usual healing shenanigans will end it quickly. Man I remember that first time I used Fira on it. Nearly KO'd whole party.

that boss fight was one of the few times the PlayOnline strategy guide was useful without having to go online

okay i absolutely have no idea how these card games work but i beat the champion

steiner-beatrix tagteam time

First number is attack, the letter is whether it's physical or magical, second number is phys defense, third number is magical defense. All of the numbers are actually the most significant bit of a two digit hexadecimal number (no way to view the least significant bit). When two cards fight, two random numbers are chosen. The first is between 0 and the hex value of the attacking monster's attack, the second is between 0 and the defending monster's defense of the appropriate type. The higher roll wins.

There's some more complicated stuff too (like there's an X attack type or something that will attack the weaker of the two of the opponent's defenses). Your cards also get stronger as you use them.

that's absolute insanity that this is that random/unpredictable/obscured. why not make the logic at least a little more transparent?! all these zeroes that i can't predict were annoying beyond belief

Tetra Master is the worst