Game Diaries – Final Fantasy VII New Threat Arrange Episode XXXI

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

Otherwise, let’s go!

Next, I got something called the Junon Leagues out of the way. I thought it was like a boss rush, but instead it’s more like Battle Arena Classic. You pick one character (and can reequip between each battle) and face off against some other competitors so that you face them twice. Become the best in the League to get a prize. There are three levels.

Of course, I brought my girl Yuffie for the slugfest. Not going to post since it’s pretty boring (KOTR and 4x spam), but you do fight an Aerith hermit look-alike and Elena with a very bad camera angle. But the text says Tseng, so perhaps SegaChief changed who entered? Did lose a couple of rounds due to status effects in the top tier, but just knew what to equip the second time around. It’s not a game over or anything, so not counting those. Sneak Attack came in handy to get set up quickly. Got Long Range Materia though.

With that rather boring section done, off to the additional special battles in Battle Arena.

Speed: 1.5x

Well, this again is a second attempt because I wasn’t about to waste a lot of time waiting for my party to die. You see, this machine uses Summons, and in this game, almost all have a 100% chance of inflicting a specific status effect. (The status effect depends on the summon: Shiva – slow, Titan – Petrify, Bahamut – Debarrier, etc.) I got hit with Berserk, and Aerith, of course, keeps hitting the machine to both heal and inflict Shield. So protecting against Berserk was most important. You think in Advent Children they wear Ribbons because of Aerith? No, it’s because they don’t want to be Berserked or Confused. (Just kidding of course. It’s so sweet how they all wear one. Might be a nice scene for Remake.)

Anyway, probably should have given Tifa Slash-All so that Yuffie could Mime it until only the main part remained. W-Summon as a reward.

I’ll just skip to the end of the next fight.

OUCH!! Dang, that Ultima is powerful. The second time I kept Wall up, but look at how much damage it did even with Wall up:

I had to make sure Aerith and Yuffie also protected against instant Death, and I boosted the ladies’ SPR and LCK as much as I could.

Tifa’s Grit continues to be very useful, and Yuffie just wrecks things with 4x Cut. Sometimes hard to keep her on offense though, as even with Aerith on healing duty, Omega can be nasty. Where’s all the Holy Wars when you need them?

W-Magic as a reward.

Let’s get this next fight over with.

Wow, status effect city.

As I found out during my various attempts, he can inflict any and all status effects. I thought about using Sneak Attack to give Resist, but the target of the Sneak Attack is random. And characters kept dying too often, and keeping up Resist proved to be difficult. I only had one Ribbon, so I hiked back to the cave to Morph some Ribbons. In fact, one for everyone. In this late game, I’m finding it hard to believe I’ll be able to survive without using 3x Ribbons all the time. Sure, there’s Added Effect, but each the HP penalties from Magic/Summon Materia weigh you down quickly. Plus, a lot of Bosses hit with too many statuses to protect against.

My next idea was to W-Summon KOTR and Phoenix and Mime chain it while also paired with both HP and MP Absorb. That way, no matter who was down, they could get up and then wreck with the awesome knights. However, Penance (I believe that’s who it is, from FFX) absorbs Fire. I thought maybe I could accept the hit since that basically only cancels out one hit from KOTR.  That’s how I defeated him the first time, but it’s a horribly boring watch. So here’s the revised version with no KOTR. (You can do these matches as many times as you want.)

Only thing is I forgot to take Aerith’s Command Counter-Mime off since I wasn’t using a Summon strategy anymore. *facepalm*

I did learn there’s a big element of luck in this battle. Sometimes he will open with Ultima that does 9999 damage, and yet other times he’ll never use it. Final Attack also works once, and it carries a hefty HP penalty.

Next, the bonus dungeon the Dark Cave. And that was video #100.

KO KOunter: 122