The Let's Play Archive

Final Fantasy IX

by Mega64

Part 96: Level 1 run - Chapter 16


CHAPTER SIXTEEN: A moogle eats a piece of dead pepper "this is pretty good"


Beatrix is back, and she kept her levels from last disc. For a brief shining moment, we have a character who can take damage and toss out power moves.



Relish in it.


Tinhank gets owned immediately by a Fira. That's okay, he was about to shank himself for me.

Mega64 used Steiner for offense while Beatrix kept the team healthy with Cura. Me?


CLIMHAZZARD


STOCK BREAK




I keep up with the demanding MP costs by using Ethers and Elixirs wildly.


Her helmet's magic defense and Save the Queen halving fire damage makes Fira a tickle.

Save the Queen also boosts all of Beatrix's stats, even though you can't really tell because she has no other weapons.


SHOCK




Climhazzard is fairly short of the one-shot.


Unlike with the Bandersnatch, Beatrix can tank hits really well and Stock Break the problem away.




One Mistodon, one Shock.




Her physical attack is respectable, too.




An elixir here, then a second physical, and this Mistodon is down with few problems.


This is the only battle in the whole sequence that doesn't give Beatrix a level.


"Well, I will, at least."


Heck yes, Climhazzard rolled high on the left Mistodon and OHKOed it.


And to close the event, Beatrix shocks the other one to hell.


Goodbye, Beatrix. Goodbye, Beatrix's levels.


The rest of the event is running towards cutscene triggers. Tantarian gives 12,585 experience and no way to avoid it. Alack! It'd be near impossible anyway as Paper Storm would wipe the party and I don't have the power moves to blow through it yet.


This sequence is running towards cutscene triggers as well.


Well, besides the stellazio.


And finally biting the bullet on getting the Angel Bless. Thievery is impossibly important at level 1.


And then, Chocobo Hot & Cold. A lot of it. All of it I can do at this point.


Hm, yes, this is a good place to save.


I wait until Choco gets the Ocean power to dig up things, if only because it means less time not on Choco and thus less time to get into random encounters.


Oh? What neat loot is he


Well.

That explains why they can't deliver mail.

They were stuck in a fucking mountain.

Music here is a remix of Mog's theme from FF6. Maybe Mega64 will link it, some day.

Anyway there's nothing for me to do here because I've been kinda shitty at delivering letters.


Ocean is my least favorite Chocograph and it always takes entirely too long to actually nail down which tiny fucking spot in the massive fucking area where Choco goes "Kweh!?" So here's the exact spot with the nearest landmass for reference. Fuck you, Ocean.

The Light Robe is another one of those "makes this challenge possible" items.

This is also the summary image for me grabbing everything available through CH&C at this point. The items are all valuable, but there's simply too many for me to go through and most of them are little bonuses.


I deliver all the stellazio, for cashmoneys.


Unlike Griffon, I can actually take on this monster.


And by "I" I mean I'm making Quark do it.


They, predictably, get stoned. And owned. Stowned.


But that leaves them at 1 HP for me. Losing to the Knight's monster leaves the participant at 1 HP each time.


Quark has exactly enough magic stones for Auto-Reflect.


If the Catoblepas heaves or stones Quark, they lose, but there's no opportunity cost to this.


If it casts Thundara, it just hits itself, and Quark notably does not get plastered or fossilized.


"Fire glove" Quark shoot at Catoblepas and blood his face off. "NO!"


It's antoher lump some of cashmoneys.


I wait out the auction by practicing NPC clipping. My favorite is the red-caped fellow in front, as being so wide it's easy to stop halfway through and be some John Carpenter bullshit, all while people bet on old FF references.


I have literally no idea why I decided to get this now.


This, though, helps with quite a few things. Notably, the next boss, who has a steal that makes the challenge possible.

Well, that's a bit far. It's more logistics and technicalities than not having this item makes a certain section impossible without levels.

But I really want it anyway.


Anyway, that's it for stuff. Next time: grinding on random encounters.