Game Diaries – Final Fantasy VII New Threat Arrange Episode XXIX

If you don’t know what my Diaries are, please go here. Spoilers ahoy!

Otherwise, let’s go!

There are a lot of new quests (or new threats as the game likes to remind you). There’s so much to do:

• Get Level 4 Limits
• Battle Square
• New sidequest
• Weapon fights
• Ultimate weapons

For the ultimate weapons, you have to turn in two weapons and a key item for the Gongaga weapon seller to make them. Most of the materials are in Northern Cave, so I will have to do some farming there. Some will have to be Morphed, so Yuffie’s Conformer will be a high priority.

First though, I got my Master Magic Materia. Since I was in the area, I dropped by Shinra Mansion.

Ouch!!

Also, doing nothing does not work. Copying his actions does not work.

After some experimentation, I found out Zack is susceptible to Demi, so Quadra Magic helped whittle him down to nothing. I’m not exactly sure how Zack’s attacks are calculated. I think maybe his Grand Braver powers up from being physically attacked? It went from potential 9000 damage to 1/10th of that just by switching into the back row and Barrier.

If you count the losses, which I guess I will even though it wasn’t a game over, that was seven attempts.

Now, to get the Ultimate Weapons, you need two specific character weapons and a special item. Some of the weapons I’ve acquired through drops or steals,  but many of them require farming in the crater either through drops or Morphs. Well, Morphs require Conformer, so that puts Yuffie’s weapon as a high priority. First, though, off to the Battle Arena. I’m not going to show my first few attempts. I’ll just show my relatively safe, slow way to go through the Special Battle which gives 20,000 BP without being at the mercy of the slots. First couple attempts I was tossing Ethers like crazy.

Speed: 4x

Again, it’s slow, but it’s reliable. And as long as you put up Resist by the time the Materia Keeper clone comes up and keep up healing, it’s safe. Ideally, I’d put a magic-heavy team in, but I already had these three and didn’t feel like losing my BP by exiting to get characters like Red or Vincent. Also, cast Mini/L5 Suicide on the Golem. Didn’t do it here since this was still a relatively early attempt, but it’s something I learned as I went along. Tried to upload a video with a later attempt, but was having problems.

Tifa could use her Final Heaven, so off to Nibelheim! Zangan’s note says to meet him by the Reactor.

Speed: 2x

Note that in vanilla, he’s says he can’t even jump anymore and that’s at least one reason he isn’t fighting Shinra. Seems pretty spry here…

Unlike Cloud’s Omnislash quest, losing to Zangan counts as a Game Over. (I just put it together in one video since it’s not very exciting.) In fact, Cloud’s is the only one who lets you keep rechallenging and requipping. I do wish the others let you were as redo-friendly, as as you see, it’s impossible to know until you fight whether to get their Lvl 4 Limit is a team fight or a 1-on-1.

In the end, I decided to just wait out Poison. I was just about to cast Haste on him instead of Slow, but I won anyway.

By the way, let’s leave it all up to the ladies! Leader Tifa, yay!

I though Aerith’s Great Gospel might be useful in a pinch, so off to the Forgotten City. (The guy on the Highwind gives you hints where to go.)

Skipping the first defeat because it was long.

Speed: 2x

Yeah, waiting for those little flame things to emerge was annoying even though I knew they were weak to wind. For an Aerith clone, she’s actually quite powerful. She says in the beginning to give her the party’s stats, so I guess her strength is based on the average of the party’s? Again, status effects are the worst.

Let’s go get Yuffie’s so that the ladies can all have their level 4 limits.

Speed: 2x

Another second attempt just so you can see the idea. (Sheesh, first attempt videos just aren’t working for me today.) I figured this battle has be like the one for Quatra Magic, as otherwise your party members go bye-bye. Unfortunately, even when I knew the idea was to Confuse the enemy, it didn’t go smoothly.

Speed: 3x

This is what I affectionately call the “Screw It” method. I wasn’t having any luck keeping more than one party member around, and I didn’t know what the odds are of, out of the three, having Aerith be the one still standing. She had the best odds of survival thanks to KOTR.

By the way, Yuffie comments after that she gets the second-worst Limit in the game.

Well, with that, let’s stop for today. Still a lot to do.

KO KOunter: 113