Insane Difficulty: Level 1 Challenge - Final Fantasy IX Steam Version - Insane Difficulty

EDIT: https://www.youtube....1FqRf0n&index=1 Playlist is here!

As some of you might already know, this is a challenge that has been done by quite a lot of people (I think), and it's been proven that it's possible, but very tedious at moments.

I already started about 2 days ago or so, and I'm done with what would be Disc 1, but Hart requested some sort of playthrough topic in which I talk about my experience with this challenge. This is a challenge I tried and beat probably around 4-5 years ago on console, granted, I had used a guide, since I was just curious to see how it was all possible. It wasn't really any "easier" with a guide, considering there's a few battles in which RNG is needed to win.

That being said, I will try this challenge once more just to see how less troublesome it is to try it on the Steam version, due to certain boosters I will talk about later. Of course, I won't be reading any guides this time around, and I definitely don't remember most of the things I am "supposed" to do, other than a few basics in what would be the Disc 1 portion of the game. Therefore, what I will be talking about here will be a combination of both my own experience and what could possibly be glimpses of that guide I used long ago, so some parts might be similar to that guide in question.

Since the Steam version has these "boosters" (which are: no encounter mode, speed up, 9999 damage with any attack, full ATB/HP/MP/Trance bar, max gil, master all abilities, infinite magic stones; also the possibility to skip certain FMVs), I will also be talking about certain restrictions and maybe some kind of freedom I can take with these, which will be:
- I will be using the speed up booster as much as I can. This booster affects how fast the game goes, but does not affect the game timer, which makes it easy to complete the game in a rather short amount of time, combined with the FMV skipping. However, I will not be aiming for a Excal II low level run, since I already wasted a good amount of hours stealing Phoenix Pinions from Pythons outside of Dali for extra cash.
- Following with the speed up booster, since it does not affect the timer in the Chocobo Hot & Cold mini game, getting points is stupidly easy. That being said, it's easy to grind for points and get really good equipment early on (mainly protect rings and robes of lord), so I will restrict myself from getting those until Disc 3. However, I will not refrain from getting any of the lesser items (on that list, I will not go further than trying to get ethers, so anything below ethers I will probably get, like phoenix pinions for money).
- I will be using the no encounter booster very frequently, unless I am either trying to get a blue magic spell for Quina or trying to steal certain item(s) from monsters.
- I will not use any of the other boosters at all.
- If possible, I will be stealing each and every item from every boss (yes, Hilgigars, I'm looking at you)
- Eventually, I will be grinding for Zidane's Thievery and Freya's Dragon Crest, probably on Disc 3. The only reason I will ever try to catch Frogs is to eventually face Quale, not necessarily for Frog Drop, since I won't even be using it at all most likely.

So far it's all I have thought of, and all I've been doing up to Beatrix 1, pretty much. If anything you guys see that I miss that seems important, whether it is a restriction or otherwise, or maybe something I should've done in a certain part of the game, feel free to comment and discuss about it here.

Without further ado, I will be double posting for my Disc 1 playthrough (as long as I don't get ninja'd). Enjoy.

So here we are, at the Theatre Ship, after a nice intro FMV of some of our beloved heroes. We, of course, start to explore the room we are in with Zidane, lighting the candle in the middle, when suddenly, the rest of the bandit crew appears. The boss doesn't seem to be around though, except a man with a dragon mask appears to attack the bandit party. Easy thing to do here, I stole everything he has and got him down in a few turns. No biggie here. The guy reveals himself to be Baku and we carry on to the meeting to abduct Princess Garnet. All good so far.

Our sights change for the next of our heroes, Vivi, seemingly overwhelmed by the liveliness of the town of Alexandria. After running into Puck, all that's left is to explore the whole town before getting further in the story, which means getting a few Tetra Master cards, some items hidden in corners, meeting Alleyway Jack, stealing some gil under some beds and night stands, and then finally jumping some rope (didn't spend much time here, only enough to get the Genji Armor card). We finally get into the play after being the owner of a fake ticket, thanks to Puck's sneaking around the roofs and naming us his official slave (because being a lifeless Black Mage in this game wasn't enough). Then we get focused on the play, performed by the bandit troupe of Tantalus. After some lengthy part of the play, we get to an interesting part: a duel between Zidane and Blank, played by triggering certain buttons at Blank's behest. Getting a perfect timing earns you the love of all the nobles and even the Queen, not to mention they will shower you with gil. I went for the perfect timing, since I will be needing the gil, got all 100 nobles, and claimed my Moonstone from the Queen once our camera changes to the dutiful knight, Adelbert Steiner, which will gather every Knight of Pluto for a nice reward at the end (we even get to see a bit of Quina as well in the kitchen, s/he sure knows how to get around, probably the best option to get Garnet back to the castle, since Steiner was so useless). Steiner spots both Garnet and Zidane, who are running around. Then we go to Zidane's perspective.

Not much to say in this part, just follow the story, getting inside the engine room of the ship, to finally confront Steiner (I got some steals here as well, he doesn't really have anything else on the subsequent fights). Everything goes boom and we crash into the Evil Forest. Once I get control once again, I bought a few potions (probably around 20-30) and phoenix downs, and then Zidane ventures into the forest, only to find Vivi and Steiner confronting a monster who has captured the princess. Then we go into battle with Zidane and Steiner, with the first demonstration of the Trance mechanic. Nothing to steal here, just nuke him with a couple of Free Energy attacks and he's done, no need to even heal Garnet. The monster gets away with the princess, but suddenly comes back and surprises the party, trying to capture Vivi as well, going into battle once more with Steiner and Zidane, with Vivi within the monster's plant cage casting some powerful Fires. The monster has some steals here, but don't overlook Vivi's HP, since his death results in a game over. Stalling enough for steals and maybe a few hits from Steiner will get the monster down in no time. Story goes on, Vivi and Steiner get poisoned, they receive treatment, Zidane decides to leave the band to save Garnet, and our adventure officially begins (also changed everyone to the back row, since being lvl 1 means you're squishy. Not that it matters that much later on, but it helps now that it's the beginning of the game). Once we go deeper into the forest to save Garnet, we get the chance to recover some HP/MP at a spring, as well as saving with a Moogle (the game has an autosave function, which pretty much works like a quick save before any major scene or every time you enter/exit a map/place, but you can also save on the Moogle to keep a more structured progress, since you have 10 slots available with 15 spaces each to save). We finally get to the Plant Brain. I didn't really use any special equipment here, I got every steal of the monster and got Zidane killed so that Blank would appear to "save the day". Then it was just a matter of going Fire Sword on his sorry ass and he was done. Those potions are definitely useful at this point. We kill Plant Brain and focus all of our energy in escaping unharmed from the forest's wrath. A key point here: there is only one mandatory fight in this particular moment of the game, against some spiders. The idea here is to make sure you get to fight only TWO spiders in that battle (it can range from 2 to 4, if I remember correctly), and also make sure everyone is alive at the end of the fight, so that the experience gets split between all 4 and no one levels up. We live, we run, we get out (except Blank, hang in there, boy).

Finally at the Mist Continent, I travel to the depths of the valley to find a Gate, where I can find a few goodies and buy some medicine from the girl there (a few more potions here to make sure you survive against an upcoming boss). The no encounter booster allows you to walk on the windy paths so no chance of encountering Wyerds in any situation. Get every treasure here, save with the Moogle, and progress to the first of the Black Waltz mages. I equipped the Mage Masher here in case I decided to just fuck it all and go Tidal Flame on both of them, but I never did. Instead, I patiently stole everything from the Black Waltz, got enough damage to trigger a Trance and sent him to the grave with a Free Energy. Then it was just about stealing some stuff from the Sealion (I like me some Mythril Dagger), and calculating the damage to end the fight as safely as possible (got his core to yellow tint with dagger attacks, which triggered a Blizzara I was ready to survive, then healed myself until another Trance and got him down with a Free Energy). Everyone wakes up, we see the sun, and off to Dali.

Before heading into Dali, I got myself a few extra Phoenix Pinions (I got a total of 5 before going into the town), so that I could sell both the Ethers and Phoenix Downs to the shop there, only to start with the "Cotton Robe trick" for some money later on (I bought 99 wrists, and then got enough of the rest of the equipment I didn't have to get everyone geared properly, and I still had a nice amount of money to spare). Got further and finally got to the Black Waltz 2. Easy also, got to steal everything he has, never attacked him with Vivi, and had everyone but Zidane on a support role until I got all his steals (some cures and some potions here, and a few phoenix downs because Vivi is very squishy). Finally ended him with some good old Sword Magic of Fire. Saved in town, got around 20 phoenix downs total and 99 potions just to be safe, and went to the airship. Before fighting the third Black Waltz, I made sure I equipped both Zidane and Vivi with Silk Shirts, and Steiner with Rubber Helm, so I could have a chance at surviving the thunder spells. Never attacked with Vivi, I had everyone on back row, but Steiner's Iron Sword with Fire Sword wrecked his day with around 250 damage. Of course, I managed to steal everything while I depleted his HP. 5 Sword Magics got him weakened enough to end the fight with one last attack from Steiner, way to go!

Lindblum it is, and we finally get to do the Cotton Robe trick here (Google it for references if you don't know what it is about), and ended up with around 70k gil, which allowed me to get some good synths and extra equipment. Explored the town, ravaged every single key item and treasure chest (always love to get the Moogle Suit), and moved on to the great Festival of the Hunt. All I did here was to do just a couple of battles, waited around for the Zaghnol (and for Freya to be the lead right before the fight, in case I failed) and entered battle. I didn't really feel like using the Tent strategy (or more like, I forgot I could do that) so I only used Soul Blade with The Ogre to inflict Blind. I was still vulnerable to his Thunders but that was okay, since I needed him to kill Zidane at some point with something other than his physical attacks. I stole the Needle Fork from him (very important) along with the other stuff and proceeded to deal enough damage to get Freya the last hit with Jump (Zidane got Trance here, and it helped with the physical damage I needed to weaken him fast, without resorting to Dyne). The Zaghnol, effectively, massacred Zidane while Freya was airborne, allowing her to slay him and earn the title of champion. The Coral Ring is now ours!

Once all the banquet bullshit is over, it was time to reach Burmecia. Got a few items from the base level of Lindblum and set forward to meet our next party member: Quina. Once I got her, I went straight to the forest near the South Gate nearby to fight some Mandragoras, or well, eat one of them to get the Limit Glove Blue Magic spell (will be VERY useful). Then I went to the Chocobo Forest and got every Chocograph and Chocograph Piece, along with some items and gil. Managed to get every Chocograph Treasure available to me this early and moved to Gizamaluke's Grotto. So far, so good. Except we start to see some mandatory fights that will be a pain, depending on your luck. We get to fight two Type A Black Mages here, who give exp after you defeat them, something we do not want. For this, we will be using the Needle Fork we got from the Zaghnol, and the Add Status ability endowed by the Glass Buckle synth item I got back in Lindblum. The idea here is to petrify these guys, so that we don't get any experience after clearing the fight (the same applies to stopped enemies, but we don't have access to the Stop spell yet). Once this battle is cleared, we are free to roam the rest of the grotto to get the treasures and see the Moogle couple that's living inside. We get ourselves ready and off we go to fight Gizamaluke. Here, I equipped Zidane with the Mythril Dagger, so that I could get the Bandit ability and make stealing a bit easier, resorted to the Tent strategy to get Gizamaluke both blinded and silenced, which gave me enough time to get all of his loot, and then proceeded to kill and revive Quina until she had 1 HP and unleash the monstrous power of Limit Glove on this guy, earning me a 1 hit kill.

The focus changes momentarily to the missing party members: Garnet and Steiner, who try to cross the border to Alexandria and have a talk with the Queen. How naive. I took this moment to unequip both of them and stripped them naked. Back to the Burmecia party, we get out of the grotto, and I took this chance to get Choco the Reef upgrade, which ultimately lets me backtrack a bit to get some more treasures (one of them containing the Oak Staff, allowing me to cast Stop, one more tool to prevent exp gain!). I also learned Night from a Nymph nearby because a late game fight reminded me this one is important, but for now it's merely optional. Into Burmecia, we get into another mandatory fight against more Type A Black Mages. I went with Needle Fork petrify proc, however, you can still go for the Stop strategy since you have the Oak Staff. After this, it's just a matter of going forward and getting all the treasure, (I think Mimics are vulnerable to petrify and stop, earning you an Ether after the fight, but it's probably too troublesome considering the Mimics summon minions, so I left them be) and finally reaching Beatrix. I stripped everyone of their equipment, having the Mythril Dagger on Zidane for the Bandit and the Ice Staff on Vivi for Slow on Beatrix. Also a good deal of Phoenix Downs to drag on the fight until the scripted end. Once I got all the steals (on a pretty close call), the battle ends and we're finally done with the Disc 1 portion of the game!

This is all I've done so far, I will be playing some more along the week and will get further. Until next time!

I'm actually really interested in this.

Keeping tabs. I love trips down insanity.

Treno/Cleyra segment!

So, once I got control of both Garnet and Steiner on the South Gate stop, I got myself a few more restorative items (I try to keep myself on max pots and around 40-45 phoenix downs, just to save myself some money. This might bite me in the ass later though, seeing how everyone is squishy and I will need lots of revival). Look for any treasures available and get on with the story, off to Treno. Oh, but before Treno, I made a pit stop at Dali, going through the other available path in the South Gate trail. I bought 99 Wrists in order to be able to do the Cotton Robe trick once I get back to Lindblum's business district (which won't be until the whole escape from Alexandria is cleared), you can also buy 99 Steepled Hats before getting on the trolley to Treno (where you meet Marcus and Cinna), but I'd rather save the money to get some valuables at Treno's Auction and Synth Shop. Anyway, after doing this, I went to Treno.

Here in Treno, we do the usual ransacking (make sure you see the Tradition ATE so you can get a Power Belt later on from the 4 armed guy), wish upon the fountain around 12-13 times to get a Stellazzio coin (which ended up reminding me to go to Quan's Dwelling, deep within the forest and mountains to get myself some Ethers and a Stellazzio coin, and if you got the others before, this should be enough to get a Blood Sword from that strange lady who wants your 'Cancer'). After this, well, it was just a matter of going to both the Synth Shop and the Auction, to see what's up with the business. Synth Shop has Coral Rings on sale, as well as a few other nice things. Coral Rings are very important, but I got myself covered and got around 3-4 of each new item here. Down in the Auction House, I got myself all of the key items available (Une's, Doga's, and Griffin's) to sell them back to the nobles for a little bit of profit (any profit is good profit here, after all). Also got myself a Reflect Ring, 3 Madain's Rings (got 'em pretty cheap too, at least one of them for 4500 gil), and Fairy Earrings (I just got this one on a whim, the Pearl Rouge was kind of out of my reach at this point since I had less than 5000 gil left, since I also bought from 2-4 of the new equipment options in the regular weapon shop). These are very good mainly because, well, Auto-Reflect helps a lot, and the Madain's Rings absorb ice damage, plus Body Temp which can be handy later on. I also dared to challenge the beast down in the Knight's House in Treno, which was a Griffin (got your heart, and sold it, bitch). The strategy here was to use Steiner with MP Attack (Power Belt), the Blood Sword, a Chain Mail (for the Defense, mostly. Bronze Armor was kind of a good choice as well because of the Wind reduction and this monster's Aero spell, but on several tries he resorted mostly to physicals, not to mention Chain Mail has HP+10% which allowed me to survive at least one physical hit sometimes, and Bird Killer for some nice damage boost), and the best armor I had for Head and Gloves. Used a Tent on the bastard, causing silence, poison, and blind, and the dude just ended up trying to cast Aero all the time, so it never touched me. One physical attack in the back row and one Darkside ended the fight. Once all of this was done, it was time to follow Doctor Tot to the Gargan Roo, on our way to Alexandria and saving Blank's stoned ass.

Down here, as you expected it, Ralvurahva attacks us in an attempt to feed itself upon us. Not on our watch. For this fight, I went with Madain's Ring for Garnet (for this guy's Blizzara), also a Bandanna, while putting a Coral Ring on Steiner (these last two mainly because of the Insomniac ability, I got Ralvurahva casting Night on me and got me wrecked). I also put a Magician Robe on Garnet to enable her the use of Auto-Potion, to have one less thing to worry about, while the Mythril Gloves on Steiner made sure he got Bug Killer to squash that jerk (another idea was to use Power Belt again for MP Attack, to end the fight more quickly, but that depends on how long Marcus takes to get the steals, a time during which the boss can use Night and wreck it all). Marcus was stripped naked, except for a lovely Broadsword. Got all of his steals and moved Steiner to the front row to deal some nice damage on him with normal attacks, something I got Marcus to do as well when he was done with stealing. Garnet was mainly support, of course. The perspective goes back to our other heroes, heading to Cleyra now.

Before going into Cleyra, I backtracked and played some Chocobo Hot & Cold, to recover from the massive shopping spree I had on Treno. I got around 30 Phoenix Pinions from that (mostly by gathering enough points to buy them, though you can also get a few from the game itself, so it didn't take long). I also realized I could eat Magic Vices for Magic Hammer, which I will use later on. After this, it was Cleyra time. Gather all the treasures, while making sure you get at least one Carrion Worm for Quina, for her to get Auto-Life (important, since it gets her back up with 1 HP and ready to use Limit Glove). I thought about Zuu as well for White Wind, but I only found him alone, which wasn't good for us (once eaten, the monster counts as dead and you get the exp, sucks). Fast forward to the Antlion, since there's not much to do in Cleyra, other than buying some more new equipment. Here, I went with a Soul Blade approach to Blind him (though I'm not really sure if it helped against his Trouble Mucus attack, I think it did because it missed a lot). The good thing about this fight is that he can't multihit you, other than with Sandstorm, but that only reduces your party to critical state and never kills you. Other than that, he has Trouble Mucus and Fira, which can be mitigated with some sandbagging. Seeing this, I had kinda wished I used the Mythril Dagger on Zidane for Bandit, since it took me a while to get the last steal from him. After all that was done, I got Auto Life on Quina, killed her myself, and went with Limit Glove to end his sorry existence. Now, this is where it gets tricky.

After saving the kid, make sure you get all you need and save. This part is tricky because you will confront a series of Alexandrian soldiers (hot blondes, come to me!) and Type B Black Mages. The setup I went with was: Zidane had Madain's Ring, The Ogre, and best armor available. Vivi had the Oak Staff, also a Madain's Ring, and best armor. Quina had her best armor and a Reflect Ring for the spells. Freya had her best armor (except for some Silver Gloves, to reduce ice damage) and a Cachusha to get a little magic defense (I had 3 Madain's Rings, but one stayed with Garnet after Ralvurahva. Still, Freya took the spells like a champ). The strategy was simple: Soul Blade on the soldiers to blind them, Magic Hammer a couple of times on all of them, and pray for Stops with Vivi (I ran out of MP at moments, where I ended up using some Tents and Ethers to get him back on business). Against the Type B Black Mages, it was just a matter of using Stop, and sometimes Magic Hammer. You will also fight a combination of them (2 soldiers and one Black Mage, the latter escaped because I used a Tent on him, which got him silenced), so you gotta stay alert. Stopping them means you get no exp for clearing the battle, so it's all good. Of course, you can also equip Quina with the Needle Fork and Add Status to increase your odds at disabling them, but I didn't go with that. We get on with it, and fast forward up to Beatrix. Same thing to do: I stripped everyone of their belongings, and had Zidane on his Mythril Dagger to optimize the stealing, which was successful. One of the main reasons to strip everyone here is because Quina leaves the party, so we don't want them to keep our goods. Once we're done here, we warp to the airship, and then to Alexandria. Focus changes to Alexandria Castle.

Steiner and Marcus break free from the cage and press on. In this part, I did not fight one soldier, though I had to reset a few times to get the timing right so that they wouldn't trigger a fight. The main reason? I'm low on Phoenix Downs, and I'm gonna want those badly later. Plus, it means I won't be doing a Marcus/Eiko exploit, if it still applies here, anyway. Marcus leaves us and Zidane and co. join Steiner to find Garnet. Same thing here, I avoided every single soldier until I got to the extraction room, where Zorn and Thorn were waiting. A joke of a fight, you can relax and steal their stuff, just make sure you hit them when they're jumping and they will never touch you. We get Garnet and we're on our way to get the hell out of there.

I stopped here, mainly because the next segment will be TRUE HELL. That's how I remember it anyway, one of the few highlights of this challenge, because of the whole escaping thing (only Beatrix can gain levels, which means the others have to die, while also killing the bastards chasing us). Anyway, will update once I get this done!

All right, time to tackle this.

So, we go back up to the chambers, and get Garnet to rest for a while. In the meantime, Beatrix comes again to pester us and kick our asses. Lucky me, I got to steal the Survival Vest as a first steal, and then the Ice Brand, thanks to Mythril Dagger's Bandit (however, I would've loved to get the phoenix down she had, since I'm low on those, but we'll see how it goes). I minimized the use of Phoenix Downs, making sure that the last one standing was an airborne Freya, who triggered the scripted end once she was on screen again. I also minimized the use of them because I equipped both Freya and Steiner with Coral Rings, which allowed me to absorb her Thunder Slashes from time to time. I need those Phoenix Downs, man.

The battle was over, we got the goodies, and then we fight some Bandersnatch, rocking Beatrix on our side. Freya, being on the back row and with the best armor she can wear right now, could take a hit from the Bandersnatch, which was its first action. I healed Freya up with a potion, and slashed the monster once with Beatrix. Next thing to do, Lancer on the Bandersnatch, which lowered him enough to just need one more slash from Beatrix. I had a little bit of trouble here because the Bandersnatch inflicted Sleep on Beatrix, which meant I had to wait it out, rather than risk it by hitting her. The Bandersnatch simply tried to cast Thundara on a Coral Ring Freya, much to its chagrin. With Beatrix back in the fight, I made Freya kill herself, while Beatrix slashed the beast to oblivion. Good going!

Now we get a party consisting of Zidane, Vivi, Garnet, and Steiner. I put Zidane's Mythril Dagger away and equipped him with The Ogre, to blind those Bandersnatches, since I will be going for elemental and magic resistance here. The idea here is to, once again, cast Stop on these guys so that we don't get any exp. Zidane had the Reflect Ring, with best armor possible (yay Survival Vest), Dagger had her best armor, a Bandanna (Insomniac), a Madain's Ring, and Mythril Rod for Life (still on an attempt to save my Phoenix Downs as much as I can) and also Silence to help against the Mages; Vivi had his best armor, a Bandanna, obviously the Oak Staff, and a Madain's Ring, and Steiner had his Ice Brand, a Barbut to raise his Spirit if only by a mere point, Thunder Gloves to reduce Thundara, Chain Mail for some HP+10%, and a Madain's Ring. So now, let's see how this goes. We then fight three Type C Black Mages. These guys gave me a handful because they made me use quite a few Phoenix Downs, by killing Garnet. But got them in the end with Stops. I had Zidane blind them with Soul Blade, a couple of Silences with Garnet and got to use a Tent on the other one. We then go and fight two Bandersnatches with the same party. Since I didn't prepare, some of their Thundaras were very dangerous. That's the only spell they know, so if you blind them and have Coral Rings on everyone or almost everyone, you're good to go. Anyway, I got to use a Tent on one, and Silence+Soul Blade the other, eventually, the Stops kicked in. I just have 1 Phoenix Down left now, let's see how this shit goes. >_>

Talk about underwhelming. Steiner leaves us, so it's Zidane, Vivi, and Garnet vs 1 Bandersnatch. Vivi got first turn, and got a Stop on the first try, ending the battle. Yeah... let's see how the other battles go now.

Next we have Freya and Beatrix vs 2 Bandersnatches. This was supposed to be one of those hard fights, since Freya is now dead, and they can inflict Sleep on Beatrix. However, Beatrix had her ATB gauge near full this time, and I got a Climhazzard on both of their asses, killing them swiftly (I also got 2 Phoenix Downs as rewards, talk about lucky). Next up is a fight consisting of Steiner, Freya (still dead), and Beatrix, vs 2 other Bandersnatches. The 2 Bandersnatches attack with Rush, one targeting Beatrix, and the other targeting Steiner, none of them die since Beatrix got a good amount of levels from these past fights, and Steiner is clad in his best armor up to this point. I get Steiner to use an Ether on Beatrix (also could be an Elixir, if you run out of Ethers), and now she has enough to Climhazzard them both Bandersnatches to death. The Bandersnatches do the same again, one Rush against Beatrix, and another against Steiner, killing Steiner in the perfect moment for me to sweep the floor with their ugly faces. Beatrix gets up to lvl 13 and it's time to say goodbye to her! (A shame as well, her portrait was significantly improved in this version, I love her <3).

After going through all of that, I finally get to the Moogle and save, (this part made me very nervous, I'm actually surprised it all went so easy, since I reset quite a lot on console. Granted, console didn't have autosave, so if you lost one of those fights, you had to start it ALL OVER. My few resets only led me to just before the next fight, so it is a lot less annoying) getting ourselves beyond Alexandria's domain. Oh, but something stops us... another filthy snake, the Ralvuimago. Luckily, this guy doesn't even need a setup, as long as you hit him with physicals, you can get him to become compact, giving you some time to steal his items, and then exterminate him. Zidane or Garnet can make him become compact, while Vivi uses Focus and then Bio to take around 1100 HP from him, eventually leading to his demise. Alright, now for a bumpy ride, off to Pinnacle Rocks, get the old man in our side (and a nice FF2 reference), and then back to Lindblum, where we can resume our Cotton Robe trick affairs. Or so I thought - a little lack of foresight, since the shop here no longer sells Steepled Hats, so it will have to wait until Black Mage Village, perhaps. Still, I had enough money to get max pots back, 40ish Phoenix Downs, and 10 Tents, plus a Barette and a Power Belt from the Synth Shop. We take off, getting Quina back, and a little bit of Choco Hot&Cold for extra money, don't want to travel overseas without some cash on you! After this, we finally get to the excavation site, and confront the bounty hunter, Lani, after surviving the onslaught from Armodullahan.

AND MAN, HAS THIS BEEN THE LUCKIEST FIGHT I'VE HAD. I went in with Water resistance (reduction with two pieces of equipment on everyone: Headgear and Mythril Vest, with an assortment of magical absorption, meaning some Madain's Rings and Coral Rings, Zidane with the Mythril Dagger, Garnet with Multina Racket to land a Blind on Lani, and Vivi for support). Quina was meant to use Auto Life on herself and maybe the others to survive the multi-target Water (which I never got to survive despite the resistances), while I attempted to steal her stuff and Blind her. At one point, only Zidane and Quina had Auto-Life, and Lani hit us with Water. All cool, Zidane and Quina got back up, I already had 2 of her 3 steals. Lani charged up a Blizzara on Quina, but she had a Madain's Ring so I was safe. I got Garnet up with Quina while I stole with Zidane, getting her last steal. Lani charged up a Thundara on Garnet, who had a Coral Ring ('sup with you, AI). Then I went to Auto Life everyone, except Lani never gave me a chance to do that and only Quina had Auto Life. With all of her steals, Lani blinded, Quina on 1 HP, I thought I was dead. Lani resorted to a physical attack, and since she was blinded, she missed, which gave me the chance to go for a Limit Glove, except, apparently, Lani's so goddamn fast she got another turn, even though Quina was halfway on her ATB gauge. LUCKY ME, Lani decided to use Scan, who knows why, but gave Quina the chance to unleash her spell, winning the fight. Hurray!

So finally, I resume my journey, getting every treasure and stuff (also getting Kuppo out of his hiding place), and it's already about time to get out of here.

All right, I'll save it for the next segment. Wish me luck here, off to the Outer Continent!

Okay, Conde Petie/Black Mage Village/Iifa Tree segment.

Ah, fresh air, and without Mist at that. First thing I do is to look for Chocobo tracks and get myself one of the available chocographs, getting myself a good amount of Phoenix Pinions to sell later, among other things. Then, off to Conde Petie. This place is always funny because of the dwarves, but enough of that. I ransack the place, go to the weapon shop and get myself enough of everything, and get on with the ATEs that will lead me to a hidden village inside a dying forest. Time for some Black Mage Village action.

Same process, ransack the place, except now we can finally go for the Cotton Robe trick again, since these guys sell Steepled Hats (they're wearing pointy hats all day, they better have those there). Get on with the synthing process, and getting a lot of gil while we're at it. Manage to synth around 2 of every new item, a new Madain's Ring, except no new Reflect Ring since I don't have an Anklet, bummer. Also, got myself about 2 more Power Belts to have 3, just in case of anything. To vary things a little, I bought myself 99 Steepled Hats this time, since I had more than enough money to do it. Now, next time I get access to Wrists, I might be able to get the trick going again.

Now that we're done here, it's time to head back and meet our new party member, Eiko, but not before unequipping Quina, since s/he will leave us again. Dammit, Quina, you quitter. So we get Eiko now, and we're off to see her home! But not before running into this giant piece of crap called Hilgigars. All right, so, here was my strat: since I don't give a damn about his steals (which doesn't go with the spirit of this challenge, but I really don't have either the time or means to survive his attacks for very long), I went outside Conde Petie with the party, entered a random battle with a Griffin, Tented him, and got Zidane on a death/revival loop until he came up and about with 7 HP, finishing the fight with a Stop on the Griffin. Now that we're set here, I put Lamia's Tiaras on Eiko and Garnet to get some Float action, so that at least Zidane and someone else can survive it and cast some Lucky Sevens. On paper, at least. I only got to cast Float on Zidane, and my first Lucky Seven was of 777, he proceeded to Earthquake my ass and, of course, only Zidane survived, and he was already charging another Lucky Seven, which was, lucky me, 7777 damage, ending the fight. Fuck you, Hilgigars.

A bunch of fun stuff happening at Madain Sari. But it's time to go to the Iifa Tree and one of the worst parts of the game. The first time I tried this challenge and got to this part, I simply tackled the fights with just minimum preparation (pretty much hoping I'd get 2 Zombies on the first fight of the gauntlet, and 2 perfect Stops, or at least one mistake allowed as long as they didn't kill Vivi and the third attempt would get the remaining Zombie). This time I tried to "increase my odds" by letting Zidane get infected with Zombie (Dracozombie from random battles, try to get him to inflict Zombie Breath on a Zidane with good mdefense, and Shell, only to survive it. Afterwards, heal with a Tent if you want, so you can have a full HP zombified Zidane), then, when I got into the fights, I got 3 Zombies (the worst setup of the two that you can get, the other one being 2 Zombies), I managed to blind one of them, stopped the other, and one of them cast Roulette, killing the third one, leaving me with just a blinded Zombie. Trying to foresee what was going on, I made Zidane kill Eiko, and made Vivi kill himself, so that way, when the remaining Zombie attempted to use Melt, there'd be a 50% chance that Zidane would get picked for that attack, (or that's what I think, I guess, since it was just Garnet and Zidane left) and Garnet was the one who got killed by it. Nice going, thanks to Zombie status, Zidane did not get a single exp point. Aftet that, we get a Dracozombie, which was cake. Bastard killed my Zidane with a Thundara, but I used a Magic Tag and got him back up, and got him after a few attempts of Stop. Then it was Soulcage time. I attempted to steal from him, and reset a few times, but frankly the steals weren't really worth it, plus it had 2 multitarget attacks that could wipe my party, so I was against the wall here. First time, he used a lot of Mustard Bombs, but I had everyone on Body Temp, and it was my best shot at getting every item, but it didn't happen and I got killed. After 3 attempts or so, I simply decided to use an Elixir on him to get it over with. Soulcage = dead.

Mist clears up, magical stuff, and then we gotta head back to Madain Sari because of Lani and Amarant. The Amarant duel is pretty simple. I slapped on some defense equipment on Zidane (Headgear, Brigandine), a Gold Choker for Auto Potion, and Rune Tooth to get some good attacks on him (I actually got to Trance at one point, but the Dyne skill available with Rune Tooth was 48 MP, I couldn't cast it... I was probably better off with a weaker weapon and then crush him whenever I got to Trance, but this worked anyway.) I stole his Ether and Poison Knuckles (funny he doesn't come with those when he joins, or even add it to the inventory, talk about selfish), and then proceeded to hit him, slow and steady. Could've saved some potions had I used a weapon that enabled a good Dyne skill to use with my low MP, but oh well. He's done.

More Iifa Tree action, where we see Brahne get wrecked by her own eidolon. Oh well, we get to fight Mistodons. These guys are not really that bad; it's only bad the first round, mostly because it's two of them, which can use Mist at any moment and most likely wipe your party (not always, apparently). Strategy here is to use Stop, and maybe fire resistance and magic defense would help (pretty much Adaman Vest and Madain's Ring). I used a few Tents to get them blinded and silenced, while I went for Stops. Next rounds only have one Mistodon, so it's all good. A new queen is about to be crowned so things will change around here! ... Or so they thought. I'll talk about my progress next time, for now, Disc 2 portion is now over.

Back on business!

So now we're here to celebrate Garnet's crowning as the new queen of Alexandria. Right. Let's just ransack the town as much as we can. We can get a few gil around and some pinions to sell. I particularly got a few items from the synth shop here, but saved a little money for later on, since we can go to Dali while we're in Treno. Finally those 99 Steepled Hats from Black Mage Village will pay off, as we're about to do the Cotton Robe trick again by buying Wrists at Dali. We need as much money as we can to get at least 3 of every item in the synth shop (mainly the ones we don't have, and especially the Reflect Rings) while also being able to afford stuff at the Auction House (the Dark Matter, some Feather Boots since I ran out of pinions, and maybe some other stuff you want).

Before going to the Card Tournament, we challenge the beast in this part of the game, which is a Catoblepas. Easy thing to do: a bit of evasion, Feather Boots on (you don't even need Auto Float since it already absorbs Earth element), and Jelly to prevent Petrify. Tent trick here is crucial, and the blind+evasion will help so that he won't be doing any weird shit. His Earthquake will be absorbed, his Devil's Bell is useless, so now it's just a matter of the poison inflicted by the Tent and I resorted to Thievery (I only deal around 1012 damage so far, but we'll work on that), ending the fight in no time.

Now we're here at the Card Tournament, not a difficult challenge if you've done a few things around (collecting cards from jump rope and Hippaul's racing, which I finished for the sake of completion), only to get a Rebirth Ring at the end. A nice accessory, though.

With all the chaos and all, we get control of Steiner and Beatrix, to protect the kingdom. First, we have to deal with a single Mistodon, which seems kind of weak. Their stats will seemingly increase in further battles. I simply killed Steiner off after the Mistodon's turn, to make sure that whatever it did didn't compromise my victory. Then I proceeded to kill him with physical attacks. Around 2 or 3 should suffice. The levels Beatrix is gonna get will make sure she's strong enough to survive the rest of the fights. Most of the battles are against single Mistodons, which is good because we just have one Beatrix. Gotta pray a bit so that they don't use Mist and inflict sleep on her. There will be 2 fights in which you get 2 Mistodons instead of 1. These are still easy but can be tricky due to Mist, especially the last battle, which is at the end of a gauntlet of 4 battles in total, the first 3 against single Mistodons, so you don't get to cure between battles. On the first double Mistodon battle, I took it slowly and defeated both of them with 2 Climhazzards, so that they would die simultaneously. On the second double Mistodon fight, since I didn't want to risk it, and Beatrix had around 90 MP (plus I used an Elixir on the previous battle), I went with Shocks, one at a time, since I figured that it'd be easy to deal with just one after killing the other. Shock uses a lot of MP, so I only resorted to it on the very last fight. It's not a really hard part, but it can be tricky indeed...

All right, so, after some scenes and a bunch of summoning stuff, we get control of Zidane, Vivi, Amarant, and Freya. It's just a matter of going upstairs and finding Garnet and Eiko. Except... there's one guy we haven't visited yet. The great Tantarian. He was available before, but I wasn't really sure I was gonna be able to get him back then, mostly because I lacked damage. Now, it's not that I have tons of DPS, but there's a couple of ways to go about this. I came up with two potential strategies, one much more reliable than the other. The one I used consisted on using Thievery to deal exactly 1150 damage, which requires 100 steals in total. The idea here is to get him to open up to page 150, since he's hiding between pages 150 and 200. If you go over 200, the damage resets and counts to 0, so 1150 was just right, since it pretty much reached 200 five times and then the remaining 150 would get him to open up. All he does when he's finally outside is Poison, so I equipped everyone with Antibody. Damage dealing would be done by Vivi, who would use Focus two times then cast Fira, and by the time Tantarian closes up, Zidane will already be in position to go for another Thievery, making sure he wouldn't go for a Paper Storm or something to wipe the party. Slow, but reliable to get him down. The other strategy I had in mind was to use Lucky Seven, by getting Zidane on 7 HP when he's in Treno, since he won't heal any damage when we get back to him in Alexandria. Lucky Seven's good side is that both 777 and 7777 damage would make Tantarian open up, and the chance of getting a 7777 would make it faster to get rid of him. Bad thing is neither 7 or 77 would be enough to get him to open up in the right page, and could be a wasted turn. So I went with Thievery instead... Plus I only did it for the luls, since I can't really clear that fight and move forward (Tantarian does give experience after killing him. Though I would've loved to get the Running Shoes from him).

A bunch of shit going on, Alexandria gets wrecked, and we gotta move forward to stop Kuja from his childish fit of rage. So we're on Lindblum, and we get the Blue Narciss. However, there's a number of things I have to do here. I will get money from Choco Hot & Cold (we can go to the Lagoon now as well, so I'll get more Chocographs done and possibly get up to the Ocean upgrade), and then from the Cotton Robe trick (which I can now do indefinitely thanks to having access to both Dali for the Wrists and Burmecia for the Steepled Hats), then I will buy Thief Gloves from the Auction, plus I also need to work on Thievery, and will probably work towards getting a Robe of Lords or a Protect Ring (just one of them, and one of it). Might be a while till I come back to report, since I need around 870 steals with Zidane's base speed to get maxed Thievery and I just have 100 steals so far. >_>

All right, this will take a while...

Okay so, I got myself quite a few chocographs, which included some nice goodies (Light Robe, White Robe, Black Robe, some weapons, a Protect Ring even), plus I got a Protect Ring from amassing points at Choco Hot&Cold. I also maxed out Thievery, by stealing from Pythons outside Dali (these guys have 4 steals each, and they come in threes most of the time, which means 12 steals per battle. Just get Master Thief and Bandit and you're set.) so now we're good to go and crush Kuja, all thanks to the speed up booster, which made the stealing a lot less tedious. A little bit of Cotton Robe for money, and we're good to go.

We go to Kuja's palace, only to get caught and forced to do his bidding; he wouldn't last a second in Oeilvert, so he wants us to go. Pretty easy though, I brought Freya, Steiner, and Amarant, mostly because they're the ones with most HP, and they can take a hit. I put Gamble Defense on both Amarant and Zidane for that gamble factor against Ark's Boomerang attack. Also, everyone had protection for his wind attacks, and confusion protection, so it was not much of a threat in general. I could've taught Auto Life to a few or used the Rebirth Ring, but well... I didn't. I stole everything from Ark (the important thing was the Holy Lance, so we'd get access to Dragon Crest, and we can start grinding for that), I threw a few Wing Edges and did a couple of Lancers to Ark while I was attempting the steals, and finished him off with a Thievery. So long, friend, will see you later in the game on my side.

Then we have the other party back at the palace: Eiko, Quina, Garnet, and Vivi. Pure magic, right there. Anyway, since we're picking up all the treasure here, Valia Pira is just a pushover. What I did do was to put the Rebirth Ring on Eiko for Auto Life and the racket to use Mini (All of this in preparation to Meltigemini, since Eiko gets abducted here), and the rest of the party didn't have a particular setup, I simply went with Auto Life Blue Magic on Quina, she got killed, and Limit Glove on the boss. Easy shit.

After that, well, time to chase them to Mt. Gulug. I took this chance to kill the dragons necessary for the Dragon's Crest to be maxed (100 dragons). I got Zombie from the Zombie Whale at the beach near Esto Gaza. I had Zidane, Freya, and Quina on Zombie, and had Vivi on normal status but dead. Went back to the Mist Continent, near the Chocobo Forest, to kill Ironites and Serpions, free of EXP gain (sadly, also free of AP gain). I kept the Zombie on those three (and Vivi dead as well), while getting Quina to 1 HP and went on to Mt Gulug to kill the Red Dragons. The idea here was to just use a bunch of damage (Thievery, Dragon's Crest, Limit Glove), since they don't have more than 9k HP, and Zombie will prevent the exp gain, instead of hoping for Stop/Petrify. Luckily, on the last couple of Red Dragons, the finishing blow character (Freya in this case) survived a Twister. Everyone had wind protection, but Freya had the most equipment to reduce wind damage (Gauntlets, Protect Ring, Lamia's Tiara, Bronze Armor), so she ended up surviving that Twister like a champ. Anyway, it's a pretty straightforward strategy, that can go wrong anytime if the dragons go first and wreck you.

Next we have Meltigemini, who took me only two tries. First one he wiped my party with Viral Smoke, and then some more wiping attacks like multitarget Bio. Then, when I tried again, he only used his Wings physical attack, he only got to use it twice, and even missed the second time. I got the steals pretty quickly, so it was just a matter of nuking him with all we got (3 of any 9999 attack should suffice). Pretty simple, but I was lucky because he didn't do any crazy stuff, plus I got the steals right away.

Now that Hilda explained all that stuff about Kuja, we finally get an airship. But more importantly, that means we can finally access the Gold Chocobo. Get going with that, getting all the treasure that's left (thanks to the speed up booster, getting points at the Air Garden is so good, too). I also visited Daguerreo and got myself new pieces of equipment, plus some synth shop goodies. Last but not least, before we go to Ipsen's Castle, I'll go and kill the new beast at Treno, which is an Amdusias. It's pretty simple here, since all I did was to use Soul Blade with the Sargatanas equipped, petrifying him in the act. Gg ez.

All right, time for Ipsen's. The usual, ransack and kill boss. Taharka here is a pushover, to be honest. He's vulnerable to Sleep, so everyone with Insomniac and Night from Quina should put him at ease, so that we can steal his stuff. After that, just maul him with Thievery/Dragon Crest/Limit Glove. He can't be blinded, and he only uses Ram when he curls up, I think, which is a waste of his turn. Other than that, he can use Blizzaga, so I put everyone with a Madain's Ring to avoid that. Another easy fight.

So, after the mirror collecting, we go to the shrines. It'd be so cool if we could fight all guardians with the pairs they set up (like Wind Guardian vs Vivi+Steiner and such). Zidane and Quina are an odd pair, but they work perfectly well for this fight. Since I wanted to make sure I could steal from the Earth Guardian, I was planning on using Night to make him fall asleep, so I put Insomniac on Zidane, but not on Quina. Quina had Auto Reflect and Gaia Gear to absorb his Earthquake, plus I also planned on using Soul Blade with The Ogre to make him a Blind Guardian (haha, metalhead reference) so that he would miss his physicals on the party. It was pretty good because, even if Quina fell asleep, whatever he attempted would get either absorbed, reflected, or dodged by her. Zidane's only job was to steal, and once he was done with that, Thievery to finish him off. I had to pick him up from KO a few times, but no big deal. Earth Guardian was still easy.

So it's time to go to Terra, and the end of what would be Disc 3. Frankly, this part scares the hell out of me, because of the Zidane's emo section and the fights against the Silver Dragon, Garland, and Kuja on a row. Hopefully, everything will be all right...

Amazing. Rooting you from here.

Thanks, man. I will probably keep going on the weekend. I'm scared of Terra.

Terra seems dangerous, but I think a lot of enemies use elemental attacks there that are bosses, so you might be able to reduce damage. I'm impressed you've made it so far in such a short amount of time.

I have to thank the speed up booster for that. Frankly, that's one of the reasons I even bothered to do this challenge again. Emulator would've made it less tedious as well, but I don't like the prospect of using save states... And it was hell on console (I'm also unemployed and have lots of free time )

I've already kind of made a setup in my mind to tackle Silver Dragon/Garland/Kuja. Also for the emo section but that one is VERY luck dependent... Granted, another thing that has enabled me to progress so quickly is that I've been hella lucky, but it seems like a stretch in this particular section... We'll see.

I started to record after Hilgigars, and given that anything before it wasn't really hard, I will re-record those that I missed so I can include it in a YouTube playlist. I think it will represent a lot better what I've been explaining so far here.

Terra/Memoria section here. Quite a lot.

So, finally at Terra.

I bought everything I could, got everything set. I brought Steiner with me and put him a Coral Ring because we won't be able to equip him later. Same with Dagger, I put some Feather Boots on her, and Freya to put a Reflect Ring on her. All because of the battles in the emo section and the enemies they have to face. Speaking of which...

I chose Amarant and Steiner to get the exp on these battles (Dagger will earn the exp inevitably). Though, one option is to let Zidane take all the exp so you can keep 7 characters in lvl 1, I would prefer to have Zidane because of the stealing and the Thievery. Anyway... I put Reflect Ring on both Amarant and Freya, since they have to fight an Amdusias with Zidane, and that monster uses Bio and Thundara, so it's a good chance to get those spells to reflect on him. This fight is particular in the sense that, you have to put Zidane on Auto Life, so that the Amdusias can kill Zidane, he'll get back up, and once his ATB gauge is full, Freya will come in. After that, if you go for a Thievery to deal max damage on the Amdusias, Amarant will come in, and then we can start to kill it. What I did was to kill Zidane off ASAP, and have Freya handle the reviving if needed, while Amarant threw some Wing Edges. Actually, only a couple of Wing Edges will do. So Freya should be ready to kill herself once you can throw the last Wing Edge and finish the fight.

Next fight, it was Quina and Steiner. Coral Ring on Steiner for the Thundara, and Auto Life on Quina. This one is tricky, since High Wind from the Abadon can wipe your party, and it's non-elemental (despite its name). I did have a reset here. Luckily, the auto-save feature from the Steam version does save between fights, so I just kept going, instead of praying for godly luck to have every fight go my way. One Thievery from Zidane, and timed physical attacks with Steiner got it done (timed in the sense that, once I knew it was going to be the last hit, I had Quina and Zidane dead).

Last fight, against a Shell Dragon. Also quite a bit of a gamble, since the Charge attack can wipe the party. I got 2 game overs here, one of them was because I was careless, the other one was purely bad luck. What I did here was that I had Zidane use Thievery on the monster, hoped that the monster would kill him or otherwise have Zidane kill himself, and then cast Shiva with Garnet. Much better if you can get 99 Opals, by synthesizing in Daguerreo. Thanks auto-save, for making this less tedious. Zidane also had Feather Boots as well.

As for the next gauntlet, we have Silver Dragon, Garland, and Kuja. I set them all up to make sure they would make it through all battles. I had Zidane, Eiko, Freya, and Quina with me. Most of them had Coronets for Wind reduction (100%), except Freya who had a bunch of Wind reduction equipment (Bronze Armor, Lamia's Tiara, Gauntlets), because she needed a Coral Ring like the rest (to protect ourselves from Kuja's Thundaga), so I didn't put a Ribbon on her to absorb Wind. Anyway, they all had Locomotion to avoid getting stopped by Garland, and also had Insomniac to avoid getting slept by Quina's Night versus the Silver Dragon. So, basically, the idea here was to put the dragon to sleep, steal all his stuff, and then pound him with Thievery (I wanted to save Freya's MP for later, since Dragon's Crest costs half her MP). I made it so that Thievery would hit the dragon and I had Night follow up right after, so that it would get slept again and never got a chance to hit me (it can wipe the party with a Shockwave attack). After the dragon, we had Garland. Garland wasn't really difficult, since all his attacks are single target. I blinded and silenced him with a Tent, he actually got to Stop Zidane before I could cast Reflect on him (hence why I brought Eiko and not Vivi), so I had to kill Zidane and get him back up. Thankfully, his Wave attack misses when he'd blind, but his Psychokinesis attack does not. He wouldn't cast Flare or Stop once silenced, though I still wanted Zidane to have Reflect JUST IN CASE, since I like being careful. I ended up using Thievery and a Limit Glove here to get him down, once I got all his items. Last but not least, Kuja. Also easy, Demi doesn't really kill you, Thundaga gets absorbed, Flare Star doesn't kill you either, and Eiko was around with Cure to heal all the damage and make sure none of those attacks would indeed kill us later on. So, Thievery and Dragon's Crest, once I got all of his items. Nothing special here. It's a matter of being quick/lucky, since HP carries over from the previous battle, but he won't really go for a Flare Star until much later in the fight, and I made sure that never happened.

With Disc 3 portion done, we are now going to Memoria and fight all of those bosses.

Nova Dragon was a pushover, since it was just the same strategy I used vs the Silver Dragon (wind reduction, Insomniac, Night, steal, repeat until you get all the items, Thievery+Dragon's Crest followed by Night).

Maliris was also rather easy. Rosetta Rings and Body Temp for everyone should do the work. I got the Ultima Weapon on Zidane to cast Sleep with Soul Blade on Maliris, so that Quina could cast Auto Life on everyone, to make sure no one died when Maliris was defeated. Anyway, after everyone got Auto Life, Zidane started to steal everything, and once that was done, Dragon's Crest and Thievery would come. Of course, it took me quite a lot of time (and Ethers) to get the damn items from her, so it became a long battle.

Next up was Tiamat. I put Ribbons on everyone to absorb Wind, Ultima Weapon for Sleep, and casting Auto Life on everyone to make sure everyone stayed alive. After that, I just tried to steal everything, and finally a bunch of Thievery+Dragon's Crest, followed by Night, to make sure he wouldn't even touch me. Short work of him.

Kraken now, easy enough, with Ribbons on everyone to avoid Water attacks, while the Ink attacks from the tentacles aren't something to be worried about as long as you have decent defense. Also Body Temp on everyone to avoid Freeze. Stole everything from him and killed him with Thievery and Dragon's Crest, much less of a problem since I could absorb/survive most of his attacks. Nothing special here either.

Then we have Lich. Which means, Feather Boots for everyone for his Earth-based attacks. Also protection against Stop (Locomotion) and Venom Breath (Antibody), and you're good to go. His Lvl 5 Death would just miss, as well as his earth attacks, no status would be inflicted on me, and his Doom could be countered by casting Auto Life on whoever had it. Death was easy to fix with a Phoenix Down. So it was just a matter of stealing and then killing him with Thievery and Dragon's Crest. This guy got killed by Quina's Limit Glove though, way to go Quina!

And now... one of the worst enemies in this challenge: Deathguise. He's fast, and he always opens the fight with Meteor. I lost count on how many times I tried to win. He'd get a turn before anyone, and it's important to make him sleep before he does Meteor. I managed to get Zidane to go first and use Soul Blade with Ultima Weapon, because he had his ATB almost full, and I also put him on a speed setup (Thief Hat, Ninja Gear, Running Shoes), while he had Master Thief, Bandit, and Insomniac to avoid Quina's Night. Quina put Auto Life on everyone while Zidane made Deathguise sleep, and then Quina changed to casting Night so that Zidane could get all of his items (particularly the Duel Claws, since the other way to get those is by synthesizing, which I won't do). I also put Quina on a bit of speed with Running Shoes, to make sure she'd get a turn before Deathguise woke up. Freya started with Auto Life thanks to the Rebirth Ring, just in case anything weird happened. After I got all of his items, it was a matter of casting Thievery and Dragon's Crest, followed up by a Night to make sure I wouldn't get touched. This one was hard, RNG-based, and frustrating, but it got done.

Instead of going for Trance Kuja and Necron, I thought it'd be a good idea to challenge Hades. This guy also made me reset a few times, because of his Cleave attack, which wipes the party, unlike his other party-wiping attacks like Curse, which gets used once he powers up his sword. I got everyone infected by Virus because Hades gives exp (it's easy to do once you find a Chimera in Memoria), I put Egoist's Armlets on people so they would absorb Doomsday (except Freya who had a Pumice Piece for that), status protection for Curse was meaningless, since the damage would kill the party anyway, but the idea was to get everyone on Auto Life before he did all of that. So it worked in the end, and I got most of his steals (I think I missed the Battle Boots, since I thought I had it all, but I'm quite content with this), and nuked him with a barrage of Thievery. While Zidane was stealing and Quina casting Auto Life, having Vivi as MP support, Freya would cast Dragon's Crest to make sure that, once I got done with the stealing, he would be weak enough to kill with a few more attacks. Very hard, but manageable and perfectly fine.

Last thing I attempted, I went for the Behemoth in Treno, which got killed by a Soul Blade with Sargatanas

Bosses left are: Quale, Ozma, Trance Kuja, and Necron. I might actually try to go for Ozma first, since I can finish the Friendly Monsters quest quickly. I suppose I would go for Quale next, but I have not caught a single frog in this game, so it'll take a while. Once those two are done, we can move to the end of the game, and since I won't be stealing from Kuja or Necron, I can go all out with abilities. I might actually learn a bunch of abilities by then, so a bit of grinding will be done as well. Anyway, will be reporting in the near future.

Damn. It's funny how easy it is to break FFIX with the equipment (in the game's fair defense, I guess the player is not supposed to prepare so specifically for fights like you'd do in this case. Like if it was 1.3 or BNW or other). Good read.

Well, I know 1 perfectly workable strat with Ozma, let's see what you do.

Well, that's the thing with what I want to do with Ozma.

I just recorded a victory against him, out of frustration, actually... What I intented to do was to steal at least 3 items from him, one of them being the Pumice Piece he has, just for kicks. It's already rather difficult, considering 90% of the time he opens with either Meteor or Curse, and follows up with the other, bypassing Auto Life.

I went full damage on him because I got frustrated and recorded it. I will still attempt what I was trying to do, but at this point, it's more luck than skill involved, even if it means playing with his AI (it doesn't really guarantee you that much).

Anyway, unofficially, there's only Quale left (I already recorded Trance Kuja and Necron), and he won't be such a pest. Officially, I will still attempt Ozma and the steals, at least until my sanity breaks.

Edit: So yeah, setup was everyone on Shadow reduction (Egoist's Armlet), except Freya and Vivi who had Pumice Piece to absorb both Holy and Shadow (dat Doomsday). Auto Life on everyone (I honestly had Master Thief+Bandit on Zidane, because of the stealing attempts), and then just kill him with 6 of your best attacks at this point (Limit Glove/Thievery/Dragon's Crest). For that, I had Quina start the battle with 1 HP, as well as having everyone with Virus to avoid the exp.

Edit 2: I actually miscalculated and thought I had to attack him 7 times, thinking he had 65535 HP, when he actually has 55535. So I won accidentally thinking I'd put him in a critical spot.

So yeah, finally caught all frogs needed to fight Quale.

Pushover of a fight: Ribbons on everyone to absorb water, had Zidane with Master Thief and Bandit to steal all of his junk, also had Clear Headed to avoid Confusion. Freya had Clear Headed, Bright Eyes, and Antibody; Eiko had Antibody and Clear Headed; Quina had Loudmouth, Clear Headed, and Antibody.

A lot of Quale's attacks are just status effects, so guarding against the crucial one (confusion) is the way to go. Loudmouth on Quina so she can avoid Silence and cast Auto Life on everyone and Limit Glove eventually. His Water and Aqua Breath get absorbed, and his only good attack is Rolling Attack, which is single target, so it is just a matter of time. I got all of his stuff quickly and then proceeded to execute him with Zidane and Freya. Quina had the finishing blow. Fitting.

I will now focus on recording the bits I missed (pretty much everything before Hilgigars) but it shouldn't take long since I have a lot of saves before a lot of bosses. So yeah, will post the playlist soon. I will also try to see if I can steal from Ozma AND kill it, but that will come later. >.>

All right, I finally managed to record everything from before Hilgigars and I'm uploading everything right now.

https://www.youtube....1FqRf0n&index=1

I'll edit the first post as well, so it's visible.

Since I started recording from Hilgigars, whatever came before that will obviously be different from what I explained here (some battles were a lot smoother, some weren't, like how I screwed up escaping Alexandria here >_>)

Should be all up in a few hours, but there's a good deal of it uploaded already. Anyway, enjoy!