Part 104: DS Bonus Update: New Game+ 3

Shit I Didn't Cover

Because it requires playing the whole damn game again (twice, for optimal results).

Augments

You get Augments each time a temporary character leaves the party. There were two characters whose personal Augments I didn't get: Edward and Cid.

Edward's Augments Received after the Lodestone Cavern

• Salve- a useful ability that allows you to take a single item and apply it to the whole party at once. It works the best with X-Potions, Phoenix Downs, Elixirs, and Remedies. However, Omnicast renders it entirely redundant. It's a good choice to put on Edge. And you might as well stick Item Lore on him as well to double the efficacy of healing items!
  
• Hide- Protects you from all attacks. Also stops you from being healed. Goes away if you take any action. It sucks. Stick Draw Attacks on Cecil if you're worried about anybody else taking damage!
  

Give Edward Gil Farmer (from your first playthrough) and Auto-Potion to get his Augments

Cid's Augments Received after you get the Falcon

• Upgrade- Applies an elemental property to equipped weapon. Situationally useful, and gives you a reason to keep all those elemental attacking items around. Maybe. I'd give it to Edge, since none of his katanas have elemental properties.
  
• Adrenaline- Doubles your attack power when your HP is at critical. Uh... well, you really don't want to be in critical, but I suppose with Draw Attacks/Cover on Cecil you'd be OK! Just watch out for magic attacks.
  

Give Cid Recall and Gil Farmer (from your second playthrough) to get his personal Augments.

In addition, you get but two copies of Limit Breaker, which allows you to exceed the normal quad-9 damage limit. I recommend you give these to Kain and Rydia, since they're the most likely to ram the damage cap. Cecil can also make good use of it, but he'll be doing plenty of damage thanks to Counter.

Optional Superbosses

There are two Superbosses in this game. They are best tackled with maxed stat characters (which is best done on your third playthrough.)

How do you find them? Well, remember the Dark Matter I stole from Zeromus? That's what it's for. The Dark Matter allows you to fight one, and only one, of the optional bosses. You can get up to two of them, which means you can fight both bosses on your third playthrough. (Or one in the second, if you're feeling cocky.)

Forum user Hobgoblin2099 was kind enough to provide some screenshots of the superbosses and how to unlock them!

There are actually three places where you can fight the superbosses, though obviously you only need to ever use two of them.


Here's where you can find Geryon, the first optional superboss: the pedestal at the summit of Mount Ordeals. Stand in front of the stone, press A, and use the Dark Matter when prompted.


Here's the man himself. Nastly-looking piece of work, isn't he?



You can also encounter Geryon from here. This is where we fought the four archfiends in the Giant of Babil. If you go here with the Dark Matter in your inventory and interact with the center, this dialog box pops up. Select the Dark Matter and Geryon will come out to play.

The other optional superboss is found on the moon. On the second or third playthrough, a new feature appears on the lunar surface: a face, in the north-central area. Press A when facing it, use your Dark Matter and,


You fight this guy, Proto-Babil. Interestingly, his battle model is the same as the cutscene version of the Giant of Babil, which you never fight. You fight his CPU instead. Interesting that Squeenix recycled that model here.

The face on the moon is a reference to the face on Mars, which turned out to be a trick of lighting and shadows and not a real face.

It's odd that the superboss version of the Giant is called Proto-Babil. Proto means "before," a precursor. Why would the precursor be more powerful than the real thing?

As to fighting them, Geryon is the easier of the two. Have a full set of Onion Equipment, Adamant Armors for everyone, and Ribbons on your healers and you should be in pretty good shape. You shouldn't need to max out your stats.

Fun fact, you can fight Geryon as many times as you want. It's not a bad way to grind for EXP and money, if you're so inclined!

Proto-Babil is an entirely different beast. He can easily off your characters in one shot. Having Phoenix on more than one character is the key to victory!

Maxing Stats

I mentioned that maxing out your stats through Augments is way beyond the scope of my LP. In fact, it's impossible to do on a single playthrough.

Here's how it works, in general. From level 1-70, your stat gains on level up are static. You'll always get the same stat increases. Beyond level 70, the stats you gain on level up depend on the Augments you have equipped. Different Augments give different stat bonuses. For example, the magical based ones, such as Dualcast and Omnicasting, increase your max MP and Intellect/Spirit. Interestingly, the Augments that give the best stat gains across the board are the ones you get from the elemental Archfiends: Curse, Tsunami, Whirlwind, and Inferno. Give those to your final 5 party members! The -Love Augment and Limit Breaker also give fantastic stat gains.

If you want to know speficially how to max your stats, I'd suggest consulting a guide. There are plenty of them out there.

And I think that about does it for stuff I didn't cover! Thank you all for reading; I hope you enjoyed it.