Part 64: Working Hard with Iz

Well you know, you gotta set a mood. Some people pull the blinds, some folks burn incense, and others buy cokes and pizzas. We were always fans of getting out the paperweights and sitting out under some palm trees, but I understand that this isn't an option for everyone.

This is an appropriate chapter to share the current memory card files with you guys. I am not really sure which mcr has what but whatev'.


Today, we ruin some ecologies.


It's all rather disappointing.










if you keep making that face

it'll stick like that


Iz also gets his Trance here.


Iz's Trance command is Cook, which requires you to reduce the enemy's HP to 50% before eating it instead of 25%. Useless against bosses, but then, it's even useless on its own in general.


told you we were workin' hard with iz


You know, if I really wanted to break the shit out of this game, I would've gotten eight of these before I even went to Burmecia. I almost wish I had, but then, uuuuuuuugh.


The Protect Ring is the best accessory in the game. While its stat boosts are crap (just +1 Spirit), its abilities are fantastic and it reduces all elemental damage by 50%.

Alternatively, FF9's Ribbon gives you a nice boost to Magic and I think a small boost to Sprit, but only nullifies one or two elements and provides none of its hallmark immunities.


Unfortunately, Long Reach is prohibitively expensive, not to mention utterly useless on Kilika since he can already do 9999 from the back row.


"8 years. O: True X: False"


This is of course true.


We spend a little time grinding out encounters with this asshole. The more you get out of the way now, the less you have to bother with later. There is no real surefire way to get him to appear, but he does seem to move from forest to forest. Nobody has seriously figured out his mechanics to this day, and no one probably ever will.


This is false, of course. He's talking about Gargan Roo.


So that place a long time ago where I was like "haha no fuck that" at the top of Gizamaluke's Grotto? Well we're there now.


This guy wants a Lapis Lazuli, which is hard to come by at this point in the game.


He chokes on it or something, I think.


We get a hell of a lot of AP for having just jammed a rock down a bird's throat. I feel kind of bad now.


And now we go and fight Grand Dragons. This is, of course, an infamous FF9 grind.


Being Level 50, Lv5 Death will kill them 100% of the time. If you give everyone Auto-Reflect and move them to the back row, they will likely live long enough to get all the sweet, sweet EXP. All like 11,500 of them individually if you have Level Up equipped (I think they give something like 30,000 EXP total, then you boost that to 45,000 if everyone has Level Up).


As you can see, your stats can get pretty obscene after a while. I am actually grinding up Makakao's Spirit here, if you can tell. I thought it was an out-of-100 skill, but apparently it maxes at 50. This is what you call Problematic.

See, Makakao's excellently-powerful Meteor spell has a hit rate based on his Spirit and his Level. The accuracy formula is (Level/2)+Sprit, so at 50 Spirit and Level 99, you're stuck at an abysmal 99.5% accuracy. This means you will almost never use it because you can just reflect Bio off your party and do 9999 to almost everything anyway.

Meteor's counterpart, Comet, is terrible. Do not even bother using it. At a 66% hit ratio, and a randomized power (ranging from 1 to however much its damage is capped at based on your stats) as opposed to Meteor's generally-consistent target-all damage, you're just getting the short end of the stick all the time. I think they even come from the same weapon (the High Mage Staff)




True, but only if Alexandria isn't occupying the country.


Also true.


Lindblum Castle is technically the entire fucking city. True.


Also true, we ran into the Friendly Mu waaaaay back.


5000 gil doesn't sound too thrilling, but you have to recall that big bad monsters such as Grand Dragons give, like, 1000. The Gimme Cat gives 5000, and I'm pretty sure he has the second-highest gil reward in the game.


DESTROYING MORE MARSHES



We blow some of our hard-earned cash on the Treno auction house.

We also get Doga's Artifact, the Rat Tail, and the Griffon Heart.








And now I suppose we can resume with the plot-making.

You might also notice that Choco is now dark blue. I did a lot of grinding and found a bunch of treasures, and I skipped over the part where I mentioned Choco turning red, too. Suffice to say, he can now travel across oceans and that teal dot on the Mist continent is our boat.


"They all left because they saw you coming"


This is the only time in the game that you can go behind the desk and grab this treasure. Otherwise, the shopkeeper will always be blocking the way.






"Why!? Why did they go with him!?"
"They learned about our lifespan... We can only live for a given amount of time.
Kuja said he knew how to extend our life spans, so everyone followed him..."
"Look at what he's done to us. He's been using us, treating us like puppets."








well fuck you too








FF9: breaking up the sad times




and then he EXPLODES into a choco-alien, this was all just a lead-up to a horror escape sequence




"But I couldn't... I felt like I was leaving something important behind."
"I wanna ask you something."


"I don't know...
Kuja said the prototype built before us would last longer."
"But... I am gonna stop eventually."


"He told me, 'Makakao, no need be sad.' So I told myself, I can't be sad.
That's why I felt confused again when I heard that everyone was stopping around here."


"I was sad...
If I were just a puppet, I never would've felt that way."


"If it weren't for him, I know everyone would understand someday."




No I won't


"(Unlike me, he's fighting so hard...)
(... I thought I would change after I met Kilika.)
(But nothing has changed...! I feel so helpless...!)"




"Come on, cheer up! We'll beat Kuja, and you'll get your voice back in no time."




Yeah I think we're ready to get going




Hrrrrrngh, I can never remember what the trick is here. I think the entrance is the quicksand pit without dust coming out (you run into an Antlion otherwise), but honestly it's best just to savestate your way in.


UH OH