Chapter 27: The End

As we get through the assault of the Silver Dragons and impact the barrier to this new area, we are immediately confronted by this game’s version of Shinryu, the Nova Dragon.

We enter Memoria through portal that Quina had discovered back on Terra. Memoria is an interesting place that was conjured by the memories of everyone. A voice speaks to Zidane and we get to reform our party. Again, we want Amarant, Eiko and Vivi.

Memoria is a very straightforward area. I’ll simply point out special areas since there’s no way to really get lost here. All of the enemies here can be petrified via the Sargatanas+Soul Blade trick but petrifying them gets us no EXP or AP. So we really don’t want to do that. It’s a good idea to have status preventions on though, especially Locomotion, Jelly, Antibody and Body Temp. Move foward when you are prepped and ready.

The second screen  has a few things of note. On the landing that we start on we have a warp back to the Invincible. There is an orb that resembles one of those novelty electro-static balls, these serve as save points. The third is the hidden treasure. Heading towards the door at the top of the screen, hug the right wall, you’ll find a hidden path. Follow it until you see the “!” and examine. Head through the door. In this next room (Stairs of Time), before taking the staircase, if you examine the left hand corner, you’ll find a Card Phantom. You can challenge him if you want to try and win a rare card or two. In the next room (Recollection) you can find the Tower, another weapon for Zidane, located in the offshoot nearest the exit. Alright. Before you proceed, equip Auto-Reflect and Body Temp. Be sure that Amarant has Aura. Giving Vivi equipment that boosts Ice Magic isn’t a bad idea either (Ice Staff, Magician Cloak, Magus Hat,

Proceed through the next room, an arcing slope. At the top of this room is the Chaos of Fire...

After putting this medusa in her place, remove Auto-Reflect and replace the abilities you had to de-equip. Heal and move on to the next room. In “The Past” we get to see a short scene. Inspect the platform to find an Angel Flute for Eiko and a Save Point, Tent and Save.  Equip the Ribbon back and make sure you have Body Temp on before heading on your way through a few more rooms and seeing a scene or two. In the rainy room, just atop the first set of stairs, in a little nitch, you can find the next Card Phantom. He has ALL RIBBON cards. Before heading up the long stair case, inspect the leftbottom of the staircase for Amarant’s Ultimate Weapon, Rune Claws. Give Eiko the Rosetta Ring so she can absorb fire-elemental and be available to heal others. Proceed into the Eye and face the Chaos of Wind...

Two more screens, in the corner of the pathway is the Strong Card Phantom. The next point of interest is the Portal, where you see a Save Orb. Tent and Save before going to the next room, Birth. After the right wall we need to do some prep before finding ourselves an optional boss to fight. Egoist Armlets or Pumice Pieces, Auto-Regen, Body Temp, Clear Heaed, Anti-Body, Bright Eyes, Auto-Haste.

You will see, beside the stairs in this room, what looks like a path. Walk down it and mash the X button until you trigger the encounter. Choose Don’t Leave and you will meet...

Heal and save back at the Save Orb and then proceed up the stairs to the Ocean. Climb up the stairs to trigger...

In the next room, Time Warp, you can find a hidden save point by the balcony. Up the stairs and in the little alcove is the next Card Phantom, Rare Phantom. Before moving on, be sure of these four notes: No level is divisible by 5, you have Antibody and Locomotion and you have Earth-Absorption items (Gaia Gear, Feather Boots). In the next room, Gaia’s Birth, climb to the first landing and search for the Mace of Zeus. Equip this on Vivi right away. It will be very useful very shortly. Head up the next ladder aand face:

When Lich is gone, if you by some miracle made it to this spot within 12 hours of gameplay, in one of the pillars you can find the Excalibur II, Steiner’s true ultimate weapon. However, this is a pointless matter because most likely, you did not make it within 12 hours. It requires a lot of work, opening and closing the disc cover to skip cutscenes, missing other important items and is just not worth it.

After dealing with this fool, pass through the Space room (it’s confusing, just keep moving upwards towards the glowing light at the end). You’ll eventually wind up in the Crystal World. The only enemies are either Crystal versions of the Chaos Fiends. They are slightly easier and give out 7 AP each! This is a great time to get some last minute abilities.

When you reach the Save Orb towards the end of the area, Tent up to full health (might take 2 tents), Save and go through this opening. We find Kuja and face an FFVI reference...

After the battle, go back to the save orb. We have one more loose end to tie up before we go after the end game bosses. Teleport back to the beginning of Memoria and go to the pad we use to teleport back to the Invincible. Find Choco and hop on. Find the Air Garden on the map and fly there.

Zidane and Amarant should wear the Ninja Gears. Eiko and Vivi should get the Pumice Pieces. All four of them should wear Chimera Armlets. Abilities: Auto-Haste, Auto-Regen, Auto-Potion, Clear Headed, and Antibody. Zidane should of course have Bandit, Mug and Master Thief. Give Vivi and Eiko the Mage’s Hat. Amarant and Vivi should have Return Magic.

In the Air Garden, take Choco over to the second last mass, to the little mound of earth there. And it’s time for...

Beating Ozma nets you a full Pumice. The Pumice will give Dagger her ultimate summon, Ark. A little pointless at this stage of the game but it’s better than a guardian acorn and at least you can say that you beat the hardest boss in the game. Way to go. And because we never, never want to do this again, save immediately upon leaving the Air Garden. If you are playing with an emulator, Save State immediately.

Heal and return to Memoria. It might be a good idea to restock on healing supplies somewhere. You will have to traverse the whole thing again, but it’s worth it for the extra experience anyway. Back at the Save Orb just before you fought Deathguise, save and proceed in to challenge, Kuja. Leave the Shadow absorb items on so that Vivi can use Doomsday with impunity. Give Amarant the Kaiser Knuckles.

When Kuja loses his mind, he uses the Ultima spell, supposedly killing everyone. The party wakes up on the Hills of Despair. We are given a chance to regroup and prepare. Zidane, Eiko, Vivi and Amarant, like we’ve been using. Set up: Remove all abilities that will have no point from here on like Master Thief, Alert, etc and reallocate those stones to all Status Protections, Auto-Haste, Auto-Regen, Auto-Life, Bird Killer. Leave the Shadow-absorption stuff. Exit the menu and save state (If you’re on an Emulator) and it’s time for the final battle, against: Necron...The Giant Space Flea From No Where.

With that, there is nothing more I can guide you on. This is the end of the game. Enjoy the end scenes, you’ve earned them. Next chapter: Conclusive Review. I would include the cutscenes here as usual but there's just too many.

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Chapter 26: Disc 4, Sidequest Completion (for the most part)

After some story line, we are now able to use the Invincible. It operates the same way as the last one did. What we want to do first is enter the ship. Down the stairs, you will see a chest. This has the last Stellazzio, Pisces. Pick it up. Return to the bridge and retake control of the ship. Your party right now should consist of Eiko, Quina and Zidane.

Our first stops are Burmecia and Dali. We want to pick up the fixings for the Cotton Robe Trick and we want to do this a few times around. On the way, stop at Daguerreo to talk to the old guy on the third floor by the many shelves of books. He mentions wanting to see the Magical Fingertip before he dies. This triggers the quest to get one of the rarest swords in the game. There is one that is even more rare, so rare that it practically requires cheating to get it. We don’t want to cheat.

Hit all of the Qu’s Marshes and catch frogs. You should be up to 99 at the last marsh. When you hit 99, Quale appears to battle us as Quina’s final test. You want equipment that absorbs or nullifies Water. The Ribbon is a good piece of equipment for this. 

Before stopping in Burmecia, go ahead and go to Alexandria. In the church, buy Stiltskin’s last round of stuff. Talk to him again and if you have gotten every single Stiltskin’s Steals, he will gift you a Ribbon. Talking to Kupo about Mognet will initiate the Help Mognet Central sidequest. The first letter in this sequence goes to Atla, who is in Burmecia. Since we have to talk to her to buy 99 Steepled Hats, it made more sense to get her letter first. She will give us a letter to take to Mogryo in the Black Mage Village.

Head to Dali and buy 99 Wrists before going to Treno. In Treno, we first want to sell four of the key items we won in the auction house back in disc 2. The fat nobleman will buy one of them, the adventurer (a Burmecian) will buy two (you will have to go out and come back to the screen) and the scholar in the Synth Shop will buy the fourth. Doing this will make the Magical Fingertip appear in the Auction House. This thing will run you about 55,000 to 60,000 gil.

Talk to the Queen to drop off what should be the last Stellazzio. She however feels that one is missing. Agree with her. She will return all twelve coins to you and instruct you to bring them back with the missing coin. The missing coin is located in the same place we found Scorpio earlier, the Ophiuchus. Take all the coins back to the Queen and she will give us the Hammer. We will find a special Synth Shop later where we can turn this into Tin Armor but we don’t want to do that because we ultimately want the extra ending scene and we need the Hammer to get it.

Also while in Treno fight the Behemoth. Give Zidane the Sargatanas and use Soul Blade to petrify it, simple. You win a Circlet for your trouble. And believe me, you want to use the Sargatanas + Soul Blade trick because Behemoth has Meteor as it’s counter.

Head back to Daguerreo with the Magical Fingertip and show it to the old man on the third floor. He will give you the Excalibur, Steiner’s third best weapon. It will teach Climhazzard. Head to the Lost Continent and it’s Chocobo tracks. Summon Choco and ride it in the middle of where Shimmering Isle USED to be. Feed it a Dead Pepper (there are no bubbles to indicate where to dig) to find 10 Aquamarine, 1 Maximillian, 1 Invincible Card, and the ULTIMA WEAPON for Zidane.

Now we can take Choco back to Chocobo’s Paradise. After some scenes return to Chocobo’s Paradise and challenge the Fat Chocobo to a game of Tetra Master. Win. He will tell you how to use the world’s beaches to restore your health.

We now want to complete the Mognet Central quest. We’ve already delivered one and got another to take to Mogryo in the Black Mage Village. Mogryo will give us a letter for Kumool who is in Ipsen’s Castle. Kumool to Mois at the entrance to Fossil Roo (must have Quina). Mois to Noggy in Daguerreo’s  Synth Shop. Noggy gives us a letter to take BACK to Kupo in Alexandria. Deliver this letter and Kupo will tell us that someone in Alexandria has the Superslick we need. Who? Ruby has it. Talk to Ruby to get the item and take it to Mognet Central on the island near the Desert Palace. Follow the map if you’ve forgotten. Giving him the item will fix everything and we get a Protect Ring as our reward.

Alright, before we move on with the game we’re going to real quick buy 1 last Ribbon at the Treno Auction House. You might need over 100k to get it, so Cotton Robe trick if you have to. And be sure you are stocked! Ethers, Hi-Potions, Phoenix Downs, Tents, Status Remedies (Soft, Antidote, Magic Tag, Echo Screen, Eye Drops, etc). Once you’re in this area, we’re not coming out until much later (we will come out once and only once to face the optional super boss).

Your best party for this next section will be Zidane, Eiko, Vivi and Amarant. You want to equip Vivi and Amarant with Return Magic. Give everyone a Ribbon. Quina is another good member to use if she has Twister. Eiko is important because she has Phoenix, just in case. Amarant has Return Magic and his other various skills. Vivi also has Return Magic and his black magic but if you never got another Coronet to give him to learn Return Magic, switch him out for Quina. However, note, you want to use this next area to level him and the others up ALOT. You want to be at least in the 60s or higher (preferably higher).  Save your game! Take the Invincible to the Iifa Tree and at the very top you’ll notice a glowing purple light. Enter to initiate the next sequence.

Chapter 25: The Place I’ll Return to Someday, Disc 3 Finale

You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: Terra

We have arrived on Terra at last and we are immediately faced with something totally weird. When we get the chance to change our party, swap out the three characters you grinded for before you entered the Shimmering Isle. There is blue magic here, but we’ve got it already, so leave Quina out. My party for this is Vivi, Eiko and Freya. After, run down and to the right to exit the screen.

WARNING:  If you run into Movers, little red dots that always come in threes, kill them QUICKLY! They have an instant death attack called Delta. When they stiffen up into an upside-down triangle, they are about to cast it. Beware!

Go ahead and do a your grinding for these characters. Especially have Eiko work on the Hamelin flute which has her next best magic. Also, if you’re ever going to teach your characters Auto-Reflect, do it in this span of time because it will soon come in handy.

When you’re ready, proceed down the stairs at the bottom left of the screen. Hop the stepping stones and go to the right a bit to get the Coronet. Hop back and hop up now. Follow the path now to get a Dragon Wrist.

Return to where we first saw the girl and exit up the screen. Get the Elixir here and watch the girl run off again. Run across the bridge, following the girl, until we reach some cliffs and some odd netting that looks a lot like shiny spider webs. Climb down the first two webs to grab a Remedy. Climb back up one web than run to the left. Jump across and grab the Mythril Racket. Choose next to climb down the web in between the small crevice to continue the chase. There is a chest at the bottom of the web here with a Demon’s Vest. Run over to the girl. Running after her, up a flight of stairs, if you continue to a hidden corner of the first landing and fiddle around you’ll eventually find a path going down to a Minerva’s Plate.

Return to the first landing and go up the next flight of stairs. Continue up and up. The game takes over and after a few moments we get this foreboding scene.

Dagger passes out and we have to find her a place to rest. First, for some reason, they think we should change our party around. The only reason you should do this is if you didn’t have each character arranged as mentioned in the last chapter. Refer back there if you need to but it really is not absolutely crucial.

Go to the left. The stairs in this next screen conceal another hidden path. Follow it to a Flash Hat. Back at the stairs, head up from them and into the house with a bunch of people who look just like Zidane. Take the stairs down here and in the lab you can find an Elixir. Back upstairs head down and out to the street. Enter the only nearby door. Grab the Wing Edge and help a moogle out of a basket. Mognet, Tent, Save. Moorock also has a shop for us. If you exit and go back inside, Stiltskin should be waiting. He has more for us to buy and this is the only chance we have to get it. Trust me, take it!

When you are ready, return back to the first screen. There is an inn here, enter it to initiate another auto-sequence. When you have control of Zidane again, re-enter the inn to grab an Elixir. Outside the inn, on a path just in front of a path, closest to the water, there is a pair of Angel Earrings. Go back to the lab where we found the Elixir and talk to the girl to continue. Eventually, Eiko will be in control. Watch the ATEs if you want, and even collect the characters in the ATEs, or just go back to the fork in the road where we began this trek and head north into a green light. If you go all the way around, past the Moogle Room, you’ll also loop back to this intersection. The girl waits at the far end of this bridge and she tells us that Zidane has gone to...Pandemonium. The POV switches back to Zidane and we get his emo moment for this game. FFIV reference coming up in this section. Kudos if you can pick it out. Also turn up your music after Kuja goes away because the BEST song in the game is about to play.

When Zidane wakes up, we see his emo moment is continuing a little while longer. He brushes Vivi and Eiko off and leaves them trapped in the room he woke up in. In the next room, he is ambushed by an Amdusias. This Amdusias cannot be petrified unlike the one at the weapon shop. However, use thievery, and when Amarant and Freya get there the fight should be easy enough. In the next room, Abadon attacks. Steiner and Quistis start off this fight but Zidane jumps in to help out. Twister, Darkside, Attack, Lv3-Def-Less, Thievery will all make this fight a breeze.

The last fight in this gauntlet is a Shell Dragon. Zidane starts off alone and this thing SUCKS! It has an attack that will reduce you to 1 HP. So keep Zidane on the defense and healing. If you’re using an emulator, Save State before the fight starts just to be safe. Just when all seems lost, Dagger arrives and heals us up. Hopefully, you should get Zidane into Trance. Grand Lethal all the way baby.

After the battle; Dagger, Steiner and Quina all gather with Zidane to have an intervention, snapping Zidane out of his funk. After the discussion, Zidane realize he’d left the others behind and so we must backtrack to retrieve them. Here, everyone has a good yell at Zidane and they decide it’s time to find a way out of this strange place. We must form our party again. I suggest taking the lower levels of course, but bring Freya along. She will be terribly useful coming up.

In the room we began in, is a Holy Miter, in the chair.  Moorock followed us from Bran Bal so you can tent and save up. You’ve already got his letter. Here with the moogle is another great place to grind. Take it. Of course, the only characters you should need to grind for are really Steiner, Freya and Amarant who always seem to be behind on abilities. Eiko also needs to finish off her Hamelin Flute. You want a white mage in this area. Curaga will be a must.

Every Final Fantasy game, starting with the original II, has had their own version of... the MALBORO! These horrible creatures are back in this game but praise the Lord they’re not so hard to beat. However, they still have that terrible Bad Breath attack. If you didn’t have Quina eat an Anemone back on Lanar Isle earlier, you can let her eat a Malboro here. However, make sure you have all the status preventions on. The only one you can’t protect against is Mini.

When you’re ready, let’s find our way out of this chicken shit outfit. Head past the room where we fought the Shell Dragon. The first room of importance that we come to is a room with strange pillars sticking up from the ground and a switch. When you flip the switch, the pillars will light up and a 30 second timer will appear. Your goal is to make it to the bottom left exit of this room in 30 seconds without touching the lights. There is no wrong way to do this but the easiest way for me is to go down the right side than just cut across to the exit. Cross the bridge quickly to find another mechanism which we find out works a lift in the room to the left. The mechanism lets us customize up to six positions which allows us to get some treasure. If you’re shooting to get all the ATEs, mess up over and over to trigger “The Elevator.” If you just want to get it done. Switch to 3, go up twice for a chest with 20007 gil. Switch for 4 and take the elevator up twice more.

We are in the middle of three teleporters. Take the northeastern teleporter. It takes us to the next floor. The left blue teleporter leads to the Carabini Mail. The right-hand blue teleporter takes us to an Elixir. Return to the previous teleporter room. Take the southwest path to take another teleporter back to the previous maze. When you reach the fork, take the southeast branch to reach some Battle Boots. The opposite path takes us to Mozme. Give her the letter, tent, save. Now, I’m going to forewarn you. Once you leave this room, the game takes over and we are hurtled into a major boss gauntlet. 3 hard bosses one right after the other. Worse, you won’t be able to heal in between battles. So, here’s the set up you want. Equipment that absorbs or nullifies wind and thunder and Locomotion. The Coronet is good for this and of course the Rubber Suit too and the Coral Rings. There are other combos too, so figure out which equipment gives all four characters this necessary protection. Quina isn’t a bad idea but there are other ways of inflicting the damage we want without her. One last note: Make sure that you do not have Auto-Reflect on. Reflect in the last of the upcoming battles is simply asking to be killed.

There are very few instances where you actually have to do anything from here on out and even then the path is pretty straight forward (It would take a very concerted effort to get lost). Once everyone is evacuated from Terra and we hop on the commandeered Invincible, we get...

This is the end of disc 3. Thank you for playing and we’ll see you on Disc 4 next time for the last round of Side Questing.

Chapter 24: Upside-Down or Downside-Up? and Mirror, Mirror and Close Encounters

Remember the big crater on the Forgotten Continent that we couldn’t do anything with yet, the one with the strange castle? This is our destination. For those who don’t remember I did include a map to the location. Queen Hilda has also marked it on our map, so if you hit Select to open the big map screen and select the northern most dot on the Forgotten Continent, we’ll automatically be flown there. Whee!

Land the airship IN the pit and enter the castle. Amarant will leave and we’ll get to form the party. You want: Steiner, Freya, and Quina. Steiner and Freya because they are both under-leveled and Quina for the Blue Magic we can get here.

In a strange twist, give everyone their weakest weapons (yet another reason I advised you to never sell anything at the beginning of the game). This castle has a weird mechanic where the weakest is actually the strongest and vice-versa.  If you made an oops and sold the equipment or synthesized it without keeping an extra or two laying around, don’t worry too much. There are chests all over the place with everyone’s level 1 weapon and a moogle inside sells them. Note this mechanic only applies to weaponry. Your best armor is still your best armor. And skills and magic suffer no penalty either. If you wanna cheat your way through the dungeon, you can also keep Zidane on the Sargatanas and use Soul Blade on everything.

Entering the castle, there are two chests on either side. The left hand side holds a Dagger and the right hand side holds the Aquarius. Go through the open door on top right side of the room. Following the small path we entered we find a chest underneath the second tier. Inside is a pair of Cat Claws. Kumool the Moogle is in this room. Mognet, Tent and Save. Kumool also has the Moogle Shop I mentioned earlier. Slide down the fireman’s pole in the room to enter the lower floor. Go up and right to the ladder here and climb to the next tier of this room. Follow the upper path to the door out. Go directly up and through the next door. Out here, jump onto the ladder and climb up. Jump off to the right and grab the Broadsword at the end of the path. Return to the ladder, jump on and jump off to the left this time. Follow the path around to a chest sitting back to back with another chest and find a Javelin. Back to the ladder. Climb down and follow the path up the stairs and to another ladder. Climb up and the first chance you get, jump off. Now we’ll get that other chest, opening it for a Rod. Back to the ladder and climb up the door. You can use either ladder on either side of this door. In this next room, go and look at the Fresco door. Examine, Push, Pound, Think, Repeat, Do Something Drastic, and lastly, Rest. After the door opens, grab the chest on the balcony it opens to. Go back to the previous room and to the lift up there. Give Steiner back his Flame Saber and equip him with Add Status.

Amarant has beat us to the room. He decides that since he beat us here, he can leave the group entirely and that’s what he does. Heal up. Examine the wall and take the mirrors. Go back to the others. We try and leave and we are attacked by...

On the way back to the entrance, pitfalls in the large room with the moogle now open up when we step on them. Fall down them to get chests we couldn’t get before. Return to the foyer and go up the new set of stairs and follow the path. Go around the lift to a chest sitting in the left hand corner. Grab the Air Racket and take the lift down. In this room, you’ll see an electrified sword hanging on a wall, three pedestals and two flower pots. There is also a chest in here with a Golem’s Flute. You want to take the flower pots and move them from pedestal to pedestal counter-clockwise until the electricity fills one of the pots. Take the pot for the Ancient Aroma item. Dagger can equip this to learn Odin’s Sword, giving the Odin Eidolon a backup attack if his instant death move fails.

Leave the castle to find out that Amarant hasn’t come out yet. Zidane decides he has to go back in and find Amarant, on his own. On this next trip through, you can climb UP the pole to reach a chandelier. There are two chests on this chandelier with a Mage’s Staff and a Fork. Going down the pole, we hear a groan and locate Amarant. He’s obviously been injured but doesn’t quite understand why Zidane came to find him. Finally, we can leave this place behind for good. We also learn a little more about the mirrors we found. We decide to go hunt down the shrines associated with the mirrors to try and open the seal. However, this has one stipulation. They have to be activated all at the same time.

We first go from location to location, dropping off two characters at a time. You can use the map provided in the chapter to locate each shrine with ease.  Eiko and Dagger go to the Water Shrine. Vivi and Steiner to the Wind Shrine. And Amarant and Freya to the Fire Shrine. Which leaves Zidane and Quina to hit the Earth Shrine. Equip both Zidane and Quina with the Gaia Gear, trust me.

The Earth Shrine is located on the Outer Continent, the area east of the Black Mage Village. You’ll know it when the map starts shaking. Yes, that shaking is normal, there is nothing wrong your game. If you have Bad Breath, Master Thief, Bandit and Thievery, this area will be a snap. As we go through the shrine, it’s pretty much automatic except for one or two instances where you have to quickly press the X button. The characters run through and place their mirrors. From each pedestal rises a Fiend of Chaos (FF1 reference). We fight the Earth Guardian. This is so simple, I’m not even giving him a Boss Box. Just cast Bad Breath with Quina, steal his two items (Rubber Suit and the Avenger), then you can either hit him with Thievery and Twister or in a strange twist, you can have Quina eat him to learn Earth Shake (if you didn’t learn it from the Adamantoise earlier). 

With that done, we now have access to the portal to Terra. Before we do this however, thanks to the Chocobo Hot & Cold game, we have plenty of new abilities to learn, especially Dagger who has to learn her new summon, Bahamut. Everyone has at least a couple weapons with at least a few abilities they need to learn. So yeah, it’s grinding time again. However, what we’re going to do (to save time) is only do three characters now. We’ll do the other three in a little while. On Lanar Isle (the island with the Qu’s Marsh on it west of the Forgotten Continent) has Grand Dragons. They are difficult but with Zidane’s Thievery and Quina’s Lvl 5 Death, they can be taken down for a healthy amount of AP. We can also find the last few Friendly Enemies. Feather Circle can be found on Mitmakis Snow Fields on the Lost Continent and he wants a Moonstone. The forest above Gizamaluke’s Grotto has the Garuda and he wants a Lapis Lazuli. And the last friendly, Yan, is found on the Fairy Island aka Vile Island and he wants a Diamond. Warning, if you run into the regular Yan, have Zidane use his Flee skill because these guys may look simple but they can kill you in a single hit even this late in the game with the deadly Comet spell.

On Lanar Isle (or any of the islands in this area) you may run into a kitty asking you for a diamond, however note that the Friendly Creature theme does not play. That is because the cat is a lie. Have Zidane steal from it before you attack it though to avoid its Meteor counter.

If you choose to fight the Grand Dragon’s, make sure you save every battle or so. Also have at least one character equipped with the Coral Ring.

If you haven’t yet done so, this is also an ideal time to hunt down the Ragtime Mouse and finish his pop quiz. He can be found in the forests of the world but is rarely in the same forest twice in a row so you’ll have to hop scotch from forest to forest to finish this guy off.

Make sure you have delivered those Rare Coffees to Morrid because after the next set of story events, this quest will be locked out until your next new game.

It’s a good idea to hit all of the marshes again and catch some more frogs.

We have reached another Point of No Return. After we go to Terra, several places will be locked and many items will no longer be reachable.

Places:
Observatory
North/South Gates (from any vantage point)
Oeilvert
Esto Gaza
Desert Palace
Mt Gulug
Ice Cavern
Conde Petie (and the Mountain Path)
Fossil Roo
Iifa Tree
Pinnacle Rocks

Missable Items:
Mythril Sword
Rune Blade
Trident
Heavy Lance
Obelisk
Diamond Sword
Flame Saber
Black Hood
Hamelin
Octagon Rod
Zorlin Shape

Keep in mind, you will need the Zorlin Shape to forge later. Make sure you buy a few and synth an extra Sargatanas.

Lastly, this is the last chance you have to fight the Ambusias in the Treno Weapon Shop. Take it and win the third pair of Running Shoes if you haven’t already.

After you’ve done everything you want to do, head to the icy glacier called Shimmering Isle in the ocean near Esto Gaza.

But wait, before you actually fly in, enter the airship and change and reequip your party until your characters are outfitted like this:

Zidane: Earth Absorption, Thunder Absorption, Antibody
Dagger: Earth Absorption
Freya: Auto Reflect, Antibody
Amarant: Auto Reflect, Antibody
Quina: Thunder Absorption
Steiner: Thunder Absorption

If you cannot absorb an element, try to either nullify or cut the damage down as much as possible.

Drive the Airship into the Shimmering Isle and watch this breathtaking, epic FMV.

We’ll leave it here for now and pick up again next time as we travel through the first bit of Terra. See you then.

Chapter 23: We Be Side-Questin' Mon

And we’re back for more Final Fantasy IX. Where we last left off, we beat Kuja’s minions into the ground and rescued Eiko and Hilda. Hilda returned Cid to his human form and Zidane woke up once again in the castle’s guest room.

And now, the continuation...

We begin the chapter by going to the meeting room where Hilda informs us that Kuja has a big mouth. But uh oh, where is Dagger? Steiner runs off to try and find her while Hilda tells us what she learned from Kuja.  

In an auto-ATE, Steiner actually gets Tantalus to help find her (unintentionally). We actually get a few auto-ATEs to watch and get us up to speed on what’s going on. After she gives us our next plot destination (Ipsen’s Castle), Steiner runs back in and tells us that Dagger cannot be found anywhere. Zidane decides to go look for her and the scene switches to Alexandria.

After a funny scene of trying to pin down Beatrix, she tells Zidane that if Dagger is there, she would be at her mother’s grave. Zidane goes there and indeed, that is where Dagger has been all this time. And yea, she has her voice back. FMV time.

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After some discussion, we can now create a new party. Take Vivi, Quina and one of the lower leveled. We need Vivi and Quina to get another treasure. Before we take off for uncharted skies, reenter the Lindblum Airship Dock and get on the airship again, choosing to go to the bridge. Climb down the ladder, past Amarant, through the golden door and up the ladder that was once occupied by the engineer. Examine the ! for an Elixir. Follow the path to the bridge and talk to Erin to take off.

Controls are the same as the boat, however if you enter the world map and select a location, Erin will automatically take us there.

Our first destination at this time, is Quan’s Dwelling. When we enter the main room, we get a special scene. When the scene is over, examine the grandfather clock. Return to the ship. Drive the short distance to Treno and head to the Weapon Shop. Equip Zidane with the “Bird Killer” ability and ask to fight the monster, Amdusias. Use Thievery and heal as necessary. Or you can give Zidane the Sargatanas and use the Soul Blade skill to petrify the monster for an instant win. Prize: Running Shoes!

Our next mission is to hit all of the Qu’s Marshes again, including the marsh on the Forgotten Continent that we couldn’t get before. Catch frogs.

Now that we’ve caught all the frogs we possibly can at this time, it’s finally time to finish the Chocobo Sidequest. Stop at any of the many Chocobo Tracks and call Choco. Head over to the Lagoon and dig up the last two Chocograph Pieces. These pieces form the Mist Ocean chocograph. 

Now that we’ve found it, activate it and off we go. The treasure can be found on the Northeastern side of the Mist Continent, in between the two tiny islands you see on the map.

The chest opens and a puff of smoke comes out. We finally get the last upgrade to our dear Choco, the Golden/Flying Chocobo. Flying is as easy as entering a forest and pressing the confirm button while on Choco. Landing is as simple as pressing the cancel button over a forest. This mechanic obviously pays homage to the original Black Chocobo design from earlier Final Fantasy games (Final Fantasy IV and V). 

With Golden Choco, we can finally access the last special Chocobo ONLY location known as the Chocobo’s Air Garden. Fly around until you find a dark, round shadow and feed Choco a Dead Pepper. You can find the last three Chocographs in this location. Digging is a little more difficult and navigating this place is needlessly complicated but it’s worth it.

After you’ve found the three chocographs, let’s go hunting for the treasures. I’m going to detail them from the bottom and working up (call me weird) but you can find them in any order you want.

Forgotten Island is the previously unreachable island just north of the Forgotten Continent. Just use the map above. Inside: 1 Ribbon, 1 Rebirth Ring, 13 Amethyst, and 1 Ark Card.

Fairy Island is the previously unreachable island (noticing a pattern yet?) a touch south-west of the Iifa Tree. The treasure can be located on the side closest to the tree at the base of the mountain. Inside: 33 Potion, 15 Annoyntment, 1 Holy Miter, 1 Dark Matter Card.

Outer Island 2 is the previously unreachable island close to the shore we docked at to reach Kuja’s Palace. The treasure is found in the forest tip pointing at said shore. Inside: 11 Sapphire, 1 Circlet, 1 Pumice Piece, and 1 Hilda Garde 3 Card.

And the last one (if you’re following my order) is Outer Island. It’s the small island off the north-eastern tip of the Outer Continent. Inside: 21 Amethyst, 16 Garnet, 1 Genji Armor, and 1 Ragnarok. Assuming Steiner’s learned the abilities off the earlier swords, you want to equip this ASAP.

Our next destination is a special place only accessible with the Airship or the Golden Chocobo. We want to go ahead and use airship so go pick it up where you left it (follow the blinking blue light on the map if you forgot). Use the auto-fly option to fly to Chocobo’s Lagoon and go to the large island with the plateau just a couple islands away. We find a new place called Daguerro, a secret library with many secrets we can have fun finding.

At the entrance, go right and down the stairs. Check the dead-end path for Capricorn. Continue on the path and enter a room where you’ll see the Four-Armed Man from the beginning of the game (Alleyway Jack) talk to him to find out your treasure hunting rank. If you are Rank S (if you’ve been following the walkthrough this should not be a problem), he will flee. Follow him back to the entrance and talk to him to find out his real name (FFV reference alert).

Return to the right-hand room now and take the elevator to the second floor where a moogle waits for us. Save, Tent, Mognet and run out the door on the left. In this room, talk to the men arguing at the item shop. Agree with one of them enough to get one of the cards in list. You can only get one but really it doesn’t matter since unless you’re a masochist and a glutton for boring card games we probably won’t be playing any cards for the foreseeable future. 

Next to the item shop, in between it and stairs, is a strange looking statue. Touch it to send it to the first floor.

At the far left end of this floor, at another set of shelves, talk to the scholar to find out he is looking for a specific title. This title is located on the far right side of the room, amongst a pile of books. Tell him where it is to get him to move out of the way. This lets you access a secret area. Choose to go down the ladder. At the end of the path to the left is an Elixir. Talk to the guy on this side to get the option of renaming one of your characters. On the far right side of this secret spot is another Elixir. Return to the second floor and now go down the stairs. Talk to the Green Weapon Shop Man to initiate another small mission for this area. He tells you that the left is broken. Take the long way back to the entrance of the library. Take the left path to the lower floor of the weapon shop room. Fiddle with the levers and lower the left lever twice. Talk to the hole that was revealed. Next, take the rod leaning against the bookshelves and put it into the hole revealed. Lower the right lever twice now. The lift is now repaired. Use the lift to go up to the Weapon Shop.

Shopping:
Rune Blade
Obelisk
Tiger Fangs
2 Defense Gloves
6 Coronets
2 Diamond Helms
2 Diamond Armor

Buy the Rune Blade and Obelisk now because after Disc 3, they will disappear forever, never  to be seen again.

Synthesis
Sargatanas

If you’re not playing the Frog Quest, go ahead and buy a Glutton’s Robe. If you are, save the money.

Back on the first floor, if you go to the statue beneath the Leviathan etching on the wall. The statue will let you synthesize Aquamarines with Ores at a 4:1 ratio. The Synthesis Shop will also let you synthesize other gem stones using Ores and various healing items.

Exit the library and grab your airship. It is now time to go to Ipsen’s Castle. Next time!