Part 41: Angel Armband (the g is pronounced like an h)

Well, I was going for a retarded scene transition, and I grabbed screens of a lot of KMs while in the Cave of Trials, so I just used that really ridiculous-looking one where she ducks and covers. I can't tell if it worked or not.

Also, the story of Santa and the 40 Thieves was the best thing. I couldn't stop laughing

Chapter 39: Angel Armband (the g is pronounced like an h)

DRAGON'S NEST!

Wait, that's not a fucking dragon.


It's like


a retarded space pegasus


All you need here is Dragon Howl. You can put Ten Thousand Volts on OPTIMUS to make things go faster (it's the only other reliable anti-air attack in the game), but I clearly neglected to, as you can see here.


Also, we maxed out Billy's skills and got her SP to 999 somewhere along the line, which means she won't accumulate them any more.




The "Dragon" Tyrant teaches us Float, which is the second-most useless skill in the game, and flies off.


Basically, if you hit an enemy with a normal attack, you have a chance of throwing them into the air and dizzying them, freezing them in midair. This sounds cool, but when you realize that there are no anti-air attacks in this game, it suddenly becomes retardedly horrible.


So after all that, we can't even go to the next floor.


Welp, may as well warp to the top.


To open that door, you have to have two people in your party.


There's only one person I can rely on for this.

This part is stupid. You have to take your main character, and one other character, and go to the bottom floor. This is not a problem if you chose Geese, but if you chose Billy, not only are you probably fucked because all she can do is heal, which you shouldn't need anyway, but even if you CAN beat enemies without getting gang-tackled, it'll take FOREVER because you only have ONE CHARACTER DOING DAMAGE.

IN THE DUNGEON WHERE NORMAL ENEMIES HAVE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF HIT POINTS.








If you're very lucky, you'll be able to make it to the twelfth floor.


Yes, that's all this floor is. Seriously. The entrance, and the boss. Not that I'm complaining.


I hate fighting it without Geese anyway, though, but as good as he would be against this SPECIFIC enemy, OPTIMUS is much better against EVERYTHING ELSE in the dungeon, which is what you should be worrying about rather than this thing, since OPTIMUS still does have Ten Thousand Volts.




So apparently, there's this thing about the Phoenix where you're supposed to have to fight it over and over every time you come to this floor. I think it's related to loading your saved game, because I just marathonned the dungeon from here on out and he didn't respawn.




This would be much more exciting if this was actually the final dungeon, because the most exciting thing that happens before the final dungeon is Narl tells you that you're probably going to die, and you tell him that he's probably going to shut up.


If you want to equip the Holy Sword of Farwell, you have to sacrifice your Eternal Sphere. Honestly, it's probably better to put it on Ashton if you have him; either way, it's totally worth it.

Actually, that's exactly what we do.


Also, splitting up the party apparently empties your Accessory slots.

Maybe I just didn't even give Knox any equipment even though I have enough Tri-emblems for everyone.




This is where I wonder about how this part of the game is programmed. You can get a Holy Sword of Farwell from Santa's Boots, so theoretically, you would be able to trigger this event. However, I'm pretty sure the event switch is the Phoenix boss fight, because the lid of the coffin isn't on anymore, and "if Holy Sword Farwell is equipped/in inventory" seems kind of too roundabout every time you reach the ninth floor.

But then, this is Enix we're dealing with, for all I know, that's exactly how they programmed it.


IMPORTANT FACT: you have to EXAMINE the coffin. You can't just walk by it.




WiseSorcerer brings along a trio of Dreamshades, which is a fucking pain if you don't know the solution of bringing up the menu as brought up by someone in this very thread.

I didn't know about it, so I was completely pissed off at this retarded travesty of a mechanic in which the enemies can freeze time, but are immune to your item that freezes time. Whoever came up with that one should have to face a firing squad.


To make matters worse, WiseSorcerer casts Extinction, which is the spell for Leon we found on the fourth floor that we couldn't get because we don't have Leon in our party. Wonderful.

This is even more frustrating because it has Supernova Syndrome. Twenty minute animation, barely does 4000 damage. Enix these days is just inflating HP more and more and more and normal enemies now have millions of HP like it weren't no thang, and with their hardon for graphics and shit, I'm estimating that in ten years' time--unless people wise up and realize that Square-Enix is actually a really shitty company--games will take the upwards of 1,000 hours to finish just because every unskippable attack animation takes five minutes to watch and caps at 9,999 damage against the "Imps" of the game who have 15,000,000 HP.


Anyway, you beat him and he apparently has the same retarded complex as Cyril from back when we were actually still doing the story and offers us something for beating him, but there's no strings attached since we already beat him.

... what?


Well, at least he knows how to impress.


The Levantine Sword is, unquestionably, THE ultimate weapon.

Now, those bitches on GameFAQs will sperg about how you should actually be using the Holy Sword Farwell because it has a higher HIT rating than the Levantine Sword, but this is completely fallacious because OPTIMUS/Chisato can't even use the Holy Sword of Farwell. Hah!


So go back down to the floor with the Phoenix boss and, like I said earlier, you're supposed to have to fight it again. I must've either done something very, very bad, or really, really right to not have to fight him again, but whatever it was, I got to skip it.

Since there's no way to get a Levantine Sword before beating the Phoenix/getting a Holy Sword of Farwell (short of hacking one in), you can't open this door until now.


It leads to the final floor in this dungeon.


It's full of enemies so ridiculous that you'll want to run from them because holy shit otherwise you're gonna spend ages down here because they literally take five minutes to kill each at least. Pair that with this floor's ridiculous encounter rate (you seriously hold your breath after five steps praying that you'll get another fucking step before you hit an encounter) and you're looking at being here for at least an hour if you try to take it legit.


There are two levers on this floor. You need to pull them both, then go to the center room. There is no puzzle here, and literally no smart or more efficient way to do this.


Finally, when you're sick and tired of ALL this game's fucking bullshit, you arrive here: what is pretty much the last door in the entire game.

More last than the last boss, because holy shit

--and do I mean holy shit--


this boss


can kick


your


ass


.

If you're doing this the normal, not-cheaty way (like I did), what you want to do is put on as many ground-based indirect Killer Moves as possible. This is problematic in that there are like two in the entire game: Sword Bomber and Ten Thousand Volts.

So why do you want to use ranged Killer Moves? Because Gabrie Celesta, whatever the fuck that's supposed to be, has an incredibly high Evasion stat, meaning that every hit to the front of her sprite will most likely be blocked and countered with a star spray not unlike the one we've been abusing with Geese all game. The exception is OPTIMUS, because her natural Dexterity stat is SO UNBELIVABLY HIGH that NOBODY--NOBODY--can block her. EVER.

Incidentally, you still want to give her ranged KMs because everyone else is going to get blocked, and if she's in the danger zone, she'll be instantly killed by resulting star spray.

If you don't want to engage her in a fair fight, well, the answers are coming.


Our prize is the Silver Trumpet. It is the eighth and final instrument, and we can compose the most useful song in the game with it.

Well, I dunno if it's useful or what, but I guess you can call it that if you're playing a certain way.


The box behind her contains the Angel Armband.


It raises a bunch of stats, but its secret bonus effect is that it will make anyone--ANYONE--who equips it use the same star spray as the Eternal Sphere, with any weapon.

Even Dias. Seriously. I lied earlier. In my defense, I believed what the rest of the Internet had told me up to that point.

And still, somehow, Dias continues to be utterly useless because he has the most delayed attack animation in the game.


Isn't the Angel Armband pretty? I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. It's the same reason why I enjoy playing FF10 with its Christmasy Sphere Board.

I'm like a fucking magpie or someshit.


ANYWAY, once you beat Gabrie Celesta, you can walk right out of the Cave of Trials with no encounters. This is a one-time thing, and the encounters come back once you leave, so loot all the treasure boxes you missed (keeping in mind that not even 10% of them have anything worth keeping in them).

This is also the solution to the tenth floor, by the way.


But really, it's time for us to go home.