I’m too lazy to do walkthroughs, but I do have a few tips and tricks to dispense that may help you out if you’re having trouble in any of the games, so they’re listed here. (Ask me for any specific advice, if you need it, or clarity in one of my tips).
This page contains spoilers. Do not complain to me. You have been warned.
This is a “non cheat” page. In other words I will NOT be advising you to exploit glitches or programming flaws, because that’s just cheap. The overflow glitch is an exception, simply due to the colossal amount of time and effort you need to activate it.
Finally, I make reference to a “joke character” a number of times; this is simply someone that is largely useless in battle. If you can find a legitimate use for them, go ahead and use them, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
All games
- When you’re putting your party together, there are a number of things to consider:
- Firstly, don’t consider each member individually; consider the party as a whole. Yes character X may have some good spells, but character Y is already your spell caster, and it is rare that one black mage and one white mage won’t be enough for even a multi phase battle.
- Keep your tactics and strategies in mind when picking your party. E.g (FFIV). If you’re an aggressor without a plan, don’t bring both Rosa and Porom, or Edward, or Kain. Pick one white mage, and Edward and Kain’s strength lies in their ‘hide’ and ‘jump’ abilities, both of which need planning and timing to properly use. Switch them for a black mage or physical attackers.
- Strategy not working? Try another one! Not everyone plays the same way, and not everyone builds their parties or trains their characters in the same way. Sometimes it’s best to take it in three rounds;
- Save before the fight; go in with the survival as your only priority. Learn its moves, their elements, any patterns, strengths, weaknesses, and any other quirks that go with the show. Watch for in battle text; these are usually a safe place to heal. Sound effects are give-aways of in battle script.
- Round two; your purpose here is to see how well you go just going with the show without prior knowledge. Use this to see when you get hurt the most, and when you get hurt the least, and see what you can do to reduce the former and increase the latter. Also watch out for the striped bits; see if they are timer or HP based.
- Round three: bring it all to bear. Use everything you’ve learned about the boss to equip your party beforehand (best to strip your characters and start from the ground up), assign abilities or jobs, and stock up on supplies. Then hit them where it hurts; elemental weaknesses, status effects, scripts and high damage moves can almost always be used against the enemy if you plan ahead.
- Just because it’s cool, doesn’t mean it’s useful. Your playing a video game; it doesn’t matter if you use a bard or a dragoon, the moment you turn the game off, it’s like it never happened.
- A good solid party structure (others vary from game to game, so don't take this for granted); meat-shield, glass cannon, healer, speedster. Or in FF terms, that translates to something like this: Knight/Fighter, Black Mage, White Mage, Theif/Ninja. Any one with a load of HP and defense, anyone that can deal a lot of damage regardless of how much of a beating they can take in return, a healer, and someone that will get lots of turns.
FFI
- I know I say this a lot, but this is the prime piece of advice I can give for this game; DO NOT USE THE RED MAGES! Your party is better off with separate white and black mages (look in rants for reasons why)
- The black belts are a pain early on, but your master is your damage powerhouse late in the game. After the elfin city, sell those nunchakus and let him beat it with his fists. (ecchi?)
Job Analysis
Warrior - High strength, high defense, high hp, low speed. This is the definition of a meat shield. They're expensive to equip, but once you have there is no cost again. And later on when you start getting loot that's better than the store stock, their upkeep drops to zero. Every party should have one.
- Black Mage - Black Mages are your glass cannons: They deal a hell of a lot of damage, but they will fall in minutes. Until they reach higher levels, have them just use physicals and save your spells for bosses. Later on use your lower level spells for wandering enemies, and blast the bosses with your best.
- White Mage - Your nun with a gun. She will spend most of her time in the early game using that hammer of hers, but later (around the class upgrade time) she will switch roles: She will be healing most of the time, and on rare occasions using her hammer. Once again, save her high levels spells until later.
- Red Mage - A bad choice: Wrap your White and Black mage together, but only leave them in one of the mage's MP. Then carve all the best spells from their list of death and life spells, and to top it all, reduce their already inadequate MP. They just don't have enough stamina to be useful, and in the re-releases their spells are weaker than the white or black mage, rendering them useless.
- Thief - When ever I think of these guys I think of Garret. Sadly, they're not nearly as awesome; while the ninja upgrade is very useful, having to drag a thief's sorry ass all the way from start to finish is quite a burden. Like I said though; the ninja is a party member I'm glad to have, but it's a task to get them.
- Black Belt - The black belts are a bit of a hassle during the beginning (pre elf land), but they quickly surpass everyone other class. The Master can deal more damage than your Black Mage, take more hits than your Knight, and is faster than the Ninja. All he needs is the ability to heal his own wounds (Chakra in later games...) and wouldn't need a white mage, but four Black Belts. Every part should have one... or two... or three... or six... In fact, just hack the game so you have use forty two of them.
CHALLENGE
No fancy plaques for this, but you will get recognition for it. The challenge is this: Beat the game using only ONE job type. That's right: Four fighters, four black mages, four white mages, four red mages, four thieves, or four black belts. No other restrictions or conditions; use any version of the game, but any glitch exploitation or cheating will void your victory. Kill chaos, and then tell my the version and job, and you get your name on the list. Yay!
Fighter - None
White Mage - None
Black Mage - None
Red Mage - None
Black Belt - None
Thief - None
FFII
- Specialise. It’s probably the best bit of advice I can give you. Pick a white mage. Stick to it. Pick a black mage. Stick to it. pick a meatshield/brawler. Stick to it. Trying to have your characters change rolls half way through the game is disastrous. Take it from someone that play the first half of the game three times; the rest is much easier when they are good at what they do.
- Two ways of crafting your character's stats in this game:
- A) Give them the weapons and armour they will use for the rest of the game. You will want to think carefully, for the above reason, before deciding on the outfit of any character. Spells should be used often to keep them up to scratch, and consider your stats before tackling any dungeons.
- B) Remove ALL weapons and armour (no I'm not insane), and watch as their stats go mental. Just before the Jade Passage, give them the weapons and armour they will use for this assault, and grind for a short time to give them decent proficiencies. This has full potential to break the game.
FFIII
I’ll add some advice when I finish the game… If I finish the game.
FFIV
- The side quests in this are quite painful to do, simply because they take so long, but you are usually apply rewarded in this game, particularly with the ultimate weapons.
- Warning: joke character. Edward.
Character Analysis
T.B.C.
FFV
- Don’t play V?
- On a more serious note; you have two ‘ultimate trio of power’, one of which I sometimes label a cheat tactic, the sometimes not.
- First; the famous dual-wield/rapid fire/spell blade combination. Master the ninja class, the ranger class and the mystic knight, and switch to freelancer and blast away. When all is said and done, you have 4 high powered shots at random enemies, without sacrificing your life or anything.
- Secondly; dual-cast/meteor/quick. Master the time mage and red mage, and switch to a mime. Dual cast quick and meteor, follow this by two double meteors, rinse and repeat. Have someone throwing ethers on the powerhouse mage, and even Exdeath won’t hold out for long enough to be a threat.
Job Analysis
The job system is a little cumbersome in this game, so I'll do my best to make this as in depth as possible, to help you lot navigate it, but this may get a little long.
Free Lancer
Both the best, and the worst class: The Free Lancer gets all the Innate Abilities (natural abilities) that your mastered jobs have. Switch out of him the first chance you get, but jump back in when you are facing the Exdeath or any super bosses.
- Command: None (you get a second slot to choose one)
- Innate Abilities: All mastered jobs' Innate Abilities
- Stat boosts: All Mastered Jobs' stat boosts.
- Useful Abilities:
- None.
Knight
Knights are your physical hitter in this game. They hit, and they hit hard. Consider mastering, just for the stat boosts.
- Command: Guard - Guard means the next physical hit does 0. Sweet huh?
- Innate Ability: Cover - Will take a bullet for any friend on low HP.
- Stat Boosts: Strength +23, Agility +1, Stamina +20
- Stat Penalty: Magic -14
- Useful Abilities
- Two-Handed - Sacrifice your shield for double damage. Pump up your hp and defense a bit, and you won't miss your shield.
Monk
Monkey boy! Chimp man has really let himself go since FFI. Back there is was the ultimate bad-ass, but here he's just another gorilla brute. What you're really here for is that "Counter". It kicks ass, as always.
- Command: Kick - A weak physical hit on all enemies. Worthless.
- Innate Abilities: Counter - Return a physical hit, with a physical hit. Barehanded - removes the penalty for fighting without a weapon. Not useful.
- Stat Boosts: Strength +26, Agility +1, Stamina +26
- Stat Penalty: Magic -23
- Useful Abilities
- Counter - Get it! Get it! Get it! Seriously; it is one of the best abilities for any physical attacker. Master the job, if only for this.
- HP + 30% - Another very useful ability. The lesser forms are a good substitute, for a time. Does what is says on the tin.
Thief
Garret refused to take the position, again, so we've got this guy. Not a bad class, but we're mainly here for the Vigilance ability. I consider it a prerequisite for entering the void. With their poor stat boosts, master it and move on.
- Command: Steal - Does what is says on the tin. If you've played FF3 or later, you would have seen this.
- Innate Abilities: Find Passages - Lets you see secret passages, as plain as day. Vigilance No back attacks. Sprint - lets you move really fast.
- Stat Boosts: Strength +1, Agility +16, Stamina +2
- Stat Penalty: Magic -6
- Useful Abilities
- Vigilance - You did read the introduction, didn't you?
- Find Passages - I guess. Use it when you need it, leave it otherwise.
Black Mage
The series mascot. Blast your foes with a few elemental spells, and leave them in a crater. Useful for a good majority of the game.
- Command: Black Magic (obviously)
- Innate Abilities: none
- Stat Boosts: Magic +31
- Stat Penalties: Stamina -2, Strength -9
- Useful Abilities
- MP +30% - I don't really need to explain. Kind of obvious what this does.
- Black Magic - No need to explain.
White Mage
We had the black mage, now we need the white one. What FF game would be complete without a black and white mage? Your friend is here, and the doctor is in.
- Command: Guess...
- Innate Abilities: none
- Stat Boosts: Magic +25, Agility +1
- Stat Penalties: Strength -7
- Useful Abilities
- MP +10% - If you don't have the +30% one from BM.
- White Magic - The whole reason we're getting this job in the first place...
Blue Mage
Do I really have to do these guys? ... Come one man, they' blu- ... Alright, alright, alright. You don't need to get the chicken involved. So, here we are, blue mages. They are mages that dress in blue. They use attacks that the enemies use. Let's just get this over with, ok?
- Command: Blue *shudder* magic
- Innate Abilities: Learning - Learn blue magic... whooping f***ing do...
- Stat Boosts: Agility +1, Stamina +3, Magic +23
- Stat Penalties: Strength -8
- Useful Abilities
- None.
Red Mage
Another of my favorites... goody... </sarcasm> Ok, we're here for one reason, and one reason alone: Dual Cast. Master and move on.
- Command: *shudder* Red *double shudder* Magic
- Innate Abilities: None
- Stat Boosts: Strength +8, Agility +5, Magic +8
- Stat Penalties: Stamina -6
- Useful Abilities
- Dual Cast - Make sure every single mage knows this: It is very powerful. It is the key to one of the ultimate-trios-of-power mentioned above. Learn it, learn it now!
Time Mage
With Time Guy we're getting to the end of the useful jobs. Time mages are the "grey mage" of FFV: They have all the magic that didn't fit anywhere else.
- Command: Time Magic
- Innate Abilities: None
- Stat Boosts: Magic +24, Agility +2
- Stat Penalties: Strength -5, Stamina -3
- Useful Abilities
- Time Magic - Get to level 6 A.S.A.P. Don't worry too much about mastering, unless you need the stat boosts.
Summoner
The Summoner has returned from III, and was made kick-ass awesome in IV, but drops the ball a little here. Still good, but certainly not a high point of them.
- Command: Summon
- Innate Abilities: None
- Stat Boosts: Magic +33
- Stat Penalties: Strength -10, Agility -1, Stamina -1
- Useful Abilities
- Summon - Replace black magic with this, if you have the MP to support it. Otherwise, just stick with the black until you do.
Berserker
Completely worthless. Don't even consider using these guys. Their innate ability will render your free lancer and mime jobs completely worthless, thus screwing you over completely in one fell swoop.
- Command: None
- Innate Abilities: Berserk - You no longer control him/her, and the character just uses physicals. Do not get it, under ANY circumstance.
- Stat Boosts: Strength +21, Stamina +25
- Stat Penalties: Agility -9, Magic -23
Useful Abilities
- None.
Mystic Knight
Just as Summoner replaced Black Mage, Mystic Knight replaces the tiered old Knight. You charge a sword with a spell, then wallop the enemy with it. How long does it last? Till the end of the battle, or until you change it.
- Command: Spell Blade - Charges the weapon with a spell.
- Innate Abilities: Magic Shell - reduces magic damage when they're low on health.
- Stat Boosts: Strength +14, Agility +14, Stamina +14, Magic +1
- Stat Penalties: None
Useful Abilities
- Spell Blade - As said above... twice. Charge it with flare, and watch the damage fly.
Mime
The magic version of the Free Lancer. Get him for your mages. Not much more I can say...
- Command: Mime - repeats last action. Some people swear by it. It can be difficult to use, but can also be very powerful is used correctly.
- Innate Abilities: All mastered jobs' Innate Abilities
- Stat boosts: All Mastered Jobs' stat boosts.
Useful Abilities
- None
Beastmaster
A compliment class of the blue mage. In other words: The Beast Master is about as useful as your blue mage. Scroll up to see how much that was.
- Command: Catch
- Innate Abilities: None
- Stat boosts: Strength +13, Agility +1, Stamina +8
- Stat Penalties: Magic -3
Useful Abilities
- None
Geomancer
The Geomancer is the precursor of the gambler class. The Gaia ability casts a random spell, based on your environment. This can make it extremely powerful, or utterly worthless. Understand the risks of using this class, but all around, not bad at all. With a measly 100 AP needed to master this class, you should do it for at least one character.
- Command: Gaia
- Innate Abilities: Find Pits, Light Step
- Stat boosts: Strength +4, Agility +2, Stamina +4, Magic +24
- Stat Penalties: None
Useful Abilities
- Light Step - means you can walk over spikes and lava without getting hurt. Useful, but not amazing.
- Find Pits - Cuts out massive detours sometimes. Very helpful.
Ninja
A fast hitting, dual wielding ninja. Has some very good abilities. All physical hitters should master this one as soon as humanly possible.
- Command: Throw
- Innate Abilities: Dual-Wield, First Strike
- Stat boosts: Strength +15, Agility +14, Stamina +3
- Stat Penalties: Magic -10
Useful Abilities
- First Strike - Increases the chance of hitting first
- Dual-Wield - Weapon in each hand. Combine with Spell Blade to "see some serious shit".
Ranger
Rangers use bows. Bows ignore all lines. Stick them in the back row. We're really here for one reason: Rapid Fire. See below to see what it is, and what it does.
- Command: Aim
- Innate Abilities: None
- Stat boosts: Strength +16, Agility +12, Stamina +1
Useful Abilities
- Rapid Fire - Attacks four times at half power, so it's really two attacks. Couple with dual wield, and that's four hits. Couple it with spell blade on flare, and it's eight attacks hitting around 5000 odd damage. 40 000 damage. Get it, now!
Bard
At first glance, the Bard seems useless. Then you look at his songs, and he looks useful! Then you remember you have to give up one of your characters to use them, who could be using either SB + DW + RF to give 40 000, or Quick and Meteor to give an in-finite amount of damage.
- Command: Sing
- Innate Abilities: None
- Stat boosts: Agility +8, Magic +11
- Stat Penalties: Strength -8, Stamina -9
Useful Abilities
- None
Dragoon
The Dragoons, in the hands of a skilled player, can be one of the most powerful jobs (stand-alone), but for the most of people, it will just be a cool name. Not really useful in view of our other job combos
- Command: Jump - Up, up and away, web! Go up, one turn passes, does one blow of line ignoring damage at the rate of two hit's worth in one hit. The main power is it's ability to dodge the intervening blow. Timing needed
- Innate Abilities: None
- Stat boosts: Agility +5, Strength +18, Stamina +15
- Stat Penalties: Magic -12
Useful Abilities
- None
Dancer
Another glorified gambler. We have better jobs, and better gamblers.
- Command: Dance - random effect
- Innate Abilities: None
- Stat boosts: Strength +5, Agility +5, Stamina +10
- Stat Penalties: Magic -5
Useful Abilities
- None
Samurai
A glorified knight. Has some useful abilities though; details below.
- Command: Gil Toss - It's got some fancy name, but I use this one (because I can remember it). Costs cash to do lots of non-elemental damage.
- Innate Abilities: Evade - makes it less likely to be hit with a physical hit
- Stat boosts: Strength +19, Agility +2, Stamina +19
- Stat Penalties: Magic -12
Useful Abilities
- Gil Toss
- Evade
- Iainuki - Two turn attack that can kill everything on screen
Chemist
I hated chemistry in school, and a chemist in an RPG is enough to inspire suicide.
- Command: Drink - Boasts stats. It's like trying to polish a turd.
- Innate Abilities: Pharmacology - doubles the effect of items. Meh-ish
- Stat boosts: Strength +2, Agility +3, Stamina +6
- Stat Penalties: Magic -4
Useful Abilities
- Pharmacology - If you want to spend a slot use it, use it for our Quick-Meteor combo.
- Revive - Life on whole party, no mp cost. Get it if you have a spare slot.
FFVI
- This game is rather sexist, though we can work with that! The females of the gang; Celes, Terra and Relm are very powerful mages, and thus you have one mage per group when you're spread thin!
- Near the start, have them focus on white magic and elemental spells, the status spells may be useful later when stratagy becomes more important, but they are not so towards the beginning of the game.
- I keep ranting on about teamwork, and it REALLY shows here: If you try to have every character fill every role, you'll be grinding for six years to get anywhere. You have four members per party, not four one-man-parties per group. This is a big deal for the final dungeon, unless you grind as much asA certain user that will remain nameless.
- Everyone's special abilities are the key to their strength, learn how, when and why to use them, and you shouldn't have too much trouble with anything in your path.
- If you don't like sidequest or character-sub-plots, well stiff bikkies; there's a LOT to do in the World of Ruin, and I mean a LOT; most characters have a optional quest to locate them, and a second quest to unlock their ultimate equipment and/or ability.
- Though not entirely a joke character, Umaro and Gogo can count if use incorrectly. Watch what you do with them carefully.
Character Analysis
T.B.C. (I know I have most of these on TBC at the moment, but I'll get there, alright!)
FFVII
- The awesome characters usually suck pretty badly in battle, I’m sorry to say. Though with even a little effort Sephy won’t stand against any party at all.
- The band of ownage this time around looks something like this; fighter (normally Cloud), summoner, mage. The mage has both healing and offensive (seriously, we have summons we don’t need black magic every turn in this game; the summons are quite powerful in this game), the summoner summons, and the fighter hits things without remorse.
- Once again; specialise. Don’t try to have everyone fulfil every role; teamwork guys! Teamwork!
- Joke character warning: Cait Sith.
Character Analysis
T.B.C.
FFVIII
- Spending the time to hunt down ALL the GFs; it makes your life sooooooooooo much easier.
- Use enc-none to farm the islands closest to heaven and hell, to get all your stats to max with very little effort at all. Seriously, from the moment you can do so onwards, there is no excuse to die against anything except from Omega Weapon.
- Our army this time around? Fighter-healer-mage.
- Squall is best suited to fighter; Lionheart will kill almost everything in one round. Give him Doom Train to open with.
- Your healer (whoever) will have Siren, Alexander and Leviathan junctioned. Use treatment, revive and recover as your abilities; treatment is basically a free ensue, revive is a free full-life, and recover is a free full heal. Heal any character of anything in either one or two turns.
- Your mage has to have a good stock of aura and triple. I recommend you use Irvine and give him Cerberus; use Cerb to give everyone triple, then triple cast aura so Squall can unleash Lionheart, and Irvine can use shot constantly.
- Instead of using the slow pulse shot, use AP shot; it fires at about twice the speed, and ignores defence, so it will hit 9999 against Omega Weapon (done that before), almost consistently.
- Before you get to the point where you can do this, here’s a VERY useful set up: Give two of your characters whatever set up you like, then junction sleep to the third’s attack. You want the other two to attack, then the third before the enemy can attack. Most bosses on the first and part of the second disk are weak to sleep, so use that.
- Also: GFs do NOT wake sleeping enemies. Sleep is your greatest ally for a long time. Use it well, and always keep a good stock.
- Warning; joke character: Selphine. (hopeless to get a useful spell out of her bloody slot limit)
Character Analysis
Due to the ability to equip spells to increase stats, and it being rather easy to raise your team out of compatibilities with the GFs, what we're mainly looking at here, is their limits.
Squall
Squall has one of the simplest of limits, and possibly the most powerful. Just hit the trigger at the right moment, and BAM! You can deal a lot of damage with this, and the higher finishing moves and very powerful. Upgrade to the Lion Heart at the first possible opportunity, and Squall should be able to obliterate almost anything in his path in seconds.
Due to the random selection of the limits, you don't really need to know anything about them, only that you want as many Lion Hearts as you can. Not that that helps mind.
Quistis
Quistis has an unusual spin on Blue Magic, and is one of the few instances when I don't mind Blue Magic in the slightest. A number of items can be used on her to teach her a new unique spell, that can not appear in the slots (see below).
- Laser Eye: I'M A FIRING MA LAZA and Eye Beams rolled into one? Sweet. In reality it just hurts your enemy. Use it if you have no alternative at the time.
- Ultra Waves: Hits all enemies, so it's useful against a crowd of weak enemies.
- Electrocute: A free thunder spell. Pump them out if you don't have anything better.
- LV? Death: Quite a useful little spell; depending on how banged up Quistis is (Don't say anything... perverts), it can eliminate no enemies, one enemy, or possibly every enemy at once.
- Degenerator: Instant death. Use it if she's got a limit against normal enemies, but that's rare, and it fails against everything that has a reasonable chance to cause her harm.
- Aqua Breath: Water spell. Rare element, so I don't use it often, as not much is weak against it.
- Micro Missiles: Gravity spell that gets stronger as Q gets hurt. Not a bad spell.
- Acid: Poison spell, wrapped up in status effects, and deep fried in uselessness. Seriously, it is rare that status effects are worth the trouble. You should have better spells, use them instead.
- Gatling Gun: Never really used to enough to give an honest opinion on it.
- Fire Breath: Lots of fire. Firga has the same effect. Use this instead of wasting your stock.
- Bad Breath: The Big Mac of status effects. Not really worth the trouble, unless the boss your facing has almost no immunities, which is only early in the game, and the Marlboros only appear later. You do the maths.
- White Wind: Free regen. Your healer shouldn't really need the hand; he/she should be handling it fine.
- Homing Laser: Never used it to enough to give an honest opinion on it.
- Mighty Guard: Gives you lots of buffs. Useful in tough fights, as you don't resist the bluffs.
- Ray Bomb: I never used it to enough to give an honest opinion on it.
- Shockwave Pulsar: The ultimate. Use it every turn if you have it.
Zell
Hit combination of buttons and Zell does some cool stuff. Reminds me of Sabin for VI. Except each of Sabin's were useful and significantly different. And to use them you didn't have to remember thirty different combos, you just need one string of three to six buttons.
If you can take the time to memorize some of Zell's combos, go ahead, but remember that his strength comes from chaining the combos, so it's like memorizing an entire move list from a brawler, but then remembering the order in which each move was listed, when there is no logic to the order.
Selphie
Who let her in here? Anyway, I suppose that your here now, so I may as well give you a review... let me see here...
Selphie's limit is Slot, and is as useless as it sounds. It picks a spell at random, and lets you cast it. Yes, that means in Dollet you may be able to cast Ultima, but you would have to be VERY lucky for it to pop up. Later on you'll get tired of flipping through fifty sub-par spells, for that part of the game, to find a standard spell that you already have. Not worth giving up five turns just to get an okayish spell.
Rinoa
Rinoa is a bit different, in the fact she has two limits: Combine lets her use her dog, or her sorceress powers to wipe your enemies away. (Also, every joke about "Combining with her dog" has been done to death, please, spare us all and keep them to yourself)
Dog- Her dog has a number of abilities, but the chances of it using the one you want is slim. I didn't use it much.
Sorceress Powers - She does into a berserk state, and wallops out spells in her stock. That means she may cast "fire" or "meteor", but you have no control over which. This does not reduce from your stock, as if you have only a short supply of a certain powerful spell, try giving it to her and hope she casts it often.
Irvine
Irvine has the simplest and, in my opinion, the best limit in the game.
Shot lets you choose a type of bullet, and then fire them at your enemy. Each bullet has a different reload time, and most have a special effect added in.
- Normal - Medium damage, and normal reload time. Use it when you've got nothing else. This is my standard when referring to the power and speed of the others
- Scatter - Fires a little slower than the normal, just not by much. It does a little less damage, but it hits all enemies. Use to demolish lots of weak enemies very quickly.
- Dark - Slow, and average power. Has a chance to rain status effects on your enemy. Barrage a tough boss with one series on them, then let them collect dust in your bag again.
- Fire - Slow, and greater firepower. It's fire elemental, but that's about it. I say greater, and what I mean is this; I deals more damage than the normal, but it's nothing amazing.
- Canister - Slow, powerful. Your slug rounds. Load, aim, fire, reload, aim, fire. Punch an enemy with high Hp in the throat.
- Fast - Very fast, weak. Is what is says on the tin; you'll get more roads off this way than any other, but you won't deal a lot of damage. If you're out of scatter shells, this is useful for mopping up weak guns.
- AP - normal speed, very powerful. This stuff ignores defense, which means it can hit 9999 on Omega Weapon. That's right: 9999 on Omega Weapon. I have done it before, and let me tell you; it is sweet. Once you get hold of a good supply of this stuff, use if often, the only limiter this one should have is the amount of shells you can carry.
- Pulse - Slow speed, Ultra Damage! (Yes, that does need the capitals). It's the slowest to date; consider yourself lucky if you get two shots off when you've got good health, or five if you're on one knee. I've never been able to launch more than four off in one volley, but it could happen I suppose. Anyway, it deals a lot of damage, and it mostly makes up for the speed. Use it if you're out of AP rounds.
FFIX
- Most of the characters have a “max damage tactic”, that is a guaranteed 9999 damage attack.
- Zidane: Thievery.
- Freya: Dragon Crest.
- Vivi: reflect x2 and flare.
- Steiner: Shock. After you get to a reasonable level (40+) this becomes one, against most enemies.
- Quina: As much as I hate to admit it, Frog Drop is one.
- Most of these can be reached with ease, and some (Vivi and Steiner, and perhaps Zidane, depending on tactics) will have been achieved without any effort at all. Choose three and your favourite healer, and go kick ass.
- Plan ahead; it is not possible, even at level 99, to have all abilities equipped at once. Choose which serve that character the best for that time, and forget the rest. A large chuck of them are useless anyway.
- Warning, joke character: Unless you enjoy the frog catching mini-game (which I doubt, but hey; I get proven wrong on a daily basis), Quina is USELESS. All he can offer can be done better by the other party members.
Character Analysis
Vivi
- Vivi can be an annoyance in the very early stages of the game (pre Lindblum), but KEEP HIM IN YOUR PARTY AT ALL TIMES! Doing so will assure that when you reach items that teach the –ga spells, he will be a high enough level for these to dish out some SERIOUS punishment.
- His main power comes from one ability is particular; Reflect x2. This ability doubles the potency of any spell reflected off of him. Have someone cast reflect on him, or give him auto-reflect and have him cast flare on himself and watch those 9s fly.
- Careful with this though; it means healing spells will be doubled to. If you do this, it’s best to bring along Garnet with Ark, and equip everyone with auto-regen. The long animation of even the short sequence will be enough to keep your party out of trouble for the most of it.
Zidane
- Zidane is fast, very fast. If some have two turns, he’s usually had a third, or even a fourth at higher levels. This means that when everyone in your party is dealing 9999 damage per turn, he will be doing 29997 for their 19998.
- Stealing can be annoying, but it’s well worth it. If for no other reason steal to boost thievery; it is a guaranteed 9999 attack when you steal enough items (unsure how many, we may have the information on one of the pages around here.)
Steiner
- Steiner can be a burden close to the beginning. But once we get onto disk 2, he’ll really start to pick up the slack if you’ve been using him enough. His physical attacks hurt at even mid levels, and he gets a decent amount of defence and HP early on.
- Shock. If you don’t have it, Climhazzard. Don’t have that? Use sword-mag. What do you mean you don’t have Vivi? Are you seriously insane enough to leave him behind? Do I have to call Gray Lands? If you’ve out of options, try either Thunder Slash if you’re playing the PAL version, or Iai strike otherwise.
Freya
- Freya’s power comes mainly from three attacks:
- Reis Wind. Cheap regen on the whole party. Use it, and use it often.
- Dragon Crest. You only need to kill a few hundred dragons to get it to 9999. You can do it with your eyes closed.
- Jump. When it trance, I don’t want to hear that she’s doing anything other than jumping. Outside trance, it can still be useful if timed right.
- Until' you get these, Lancer is not bad, but drop it when you get Dragon Crest up a bit, or just use jump.
Garnet
- She has all the healing you need for anyone other than Ozma, and even then she still does a good job. She’s mainly a summoner though, so let them feel the hurt of Bahamut or Ark if you have him.
- One of best healing tactics is this; have everyone on auto-regen, and have Garnet summon Ark. The long animation sequence means that everyone will have healed a good 2000-3000 HP, more for the long animation, while still dealing a good amount of damage in the process.
Eiko
- Her summons are weak, but her magic is fierce. She’s a healer born and bred; keep her around and it won’t matter if you bump your head. Ok, enough of the really, really, really lame attempt at poetry. She’s a healer, have her heal.
Quina
- I. Hate. Quina.
- Now that’s out of the road, let’s have a look here: If you find the time to catch the frogs, you can bump the Frog Drop spell up to a decent level, and even 9999.
- When you’re forced to use him/her/it you’ll want to stick him in the back row. His forks do random damage; meaning they can hit from double digits to +3000 even from the back row. You’ll probably land in the 1000-2000 region pretty often. And that is a bit under leveled as well.
Armarent
- Armarent is not that useful in battle, but he does have some good points:
- He’s gets both counter and return-magic, meaning that he will attack every turn he is hurt.
- His Aura spell gives both regen and auto-life. Take a turn in trance to use it on the whole party.
- That spare change reappears again, and while not as powerful as it has been in the past, it is still a good way to deal lots of damage in the final dungeon, were money doesn’t matter anymore.
FFX
- Yuanlesca is dead, so it's the final round of quests and grinding, and then I'll have something to give you all!
FFXI
- ehh... I'm working through it... slowly... At this rate the game will die before I get around to finishing it. Well, it's next in the list after X, so I'll do it eventually.
Crisis Core
- Probably the best bit of advice is this; if you are starting to have trouble, do a complete series of mission before jumping back into the plot. This will easily put you to a level where you can own everything in your path.
- Think before you fuse; what stat boosts are on that materia, will this materia fuse with the one coming up with favourable results? Materia fusion is tricky business. Worried? Walk it through with a few orbs without status effects, or look up a guide.
Advent Children
- Firstly… wait… what?
The Spirits Within
- Stop that...
Unlimited
- STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!
Dissidia
- Back on track… *ahem*; sorry about that.
- Know your enemy; watch them move. Learn the tactics the AI favours with that character and how to counter it.
- Know your character; learning his speed is the main thing (or she with Terra and Ultimecia (I am not counting Cloud of Darkness as he, she OR it. CoD is CoD, end of story)). Also learn the range of his/her/CoD’s attacks, and the height he/she/CoD can jump.
- Know yourself; it’s easiest to see your style of game play in a brawler. Not everyone has the reactions to use the high speed characters, not everyone has the timing need to use the slammers, and not everyone has the experience to use the balance characters. Learn which one you work best with; don’t conform to the “cool” or the “best” character restrictions.
Character Analysis
T.B.C.
That’s about all I have to say. If you have any questions or suggestions, drop me a line and we can discuss it.