Final Fantasy 9 - Final Thoughts

We return once again to this historic page. It's just you (readers), me, and my final thoughts. We'll be flying over Final Fantasy 9 with as much grace and ease as I normally do. That means...prepare for an all out ridiculous and often poorly worded post!

Final Fantasy 9 - Final Thoughts

We begin with a little overview of my game stats.
Game Stats 
Hours Played - 65-1/2 Hours
Final Party Levels

• Zidane - Level 61
• Vivi - Level 51
• Steiner - Level 50
• Dagger - Level 53
• Freya - Level 49
• Quina - Level 49
• Eiko - Level 47
• Amarant - Level 48

As far as levels go, this is nothing purely amazing, but it's still a decent lineup. Keep in mind, I needed at least 10+ more levels if I wanted to attempt Ozma. Considering time constraints and weakening resolve, I didn't do that, so...these are the levels! I'll consider going back to attempt Ozma at some point, but it won't be anytime soon. That is fo sho!

As an added bonus for this review, I'm going to nominate a MVC (Most Valuable Character) for Final Fantasy 9. As far as overall power and ability goes, I think Quina comes ahead in all of it. His Blue Magic opens up a lot of interesting and awesome options. The Auto-Life spell is incredibly useful, although not quite as good as Aura. White Wind is a decent heal that can't be reflected. Mustard Bomb and Freeze cause their respective status effects (Heat and Freeze). I could go on and name every attack, but I won't. Aside from his magic, he can actually hold his own on the front line with a decent HP, physical attack, and physical defense. He's an overall fairly powerful character. Sure, I realize he isn't the most loved character in the group, but you can't deny his power or abilities.

(Small side note here! I'm planning to do a MVC side post at some point, but I dunno if I should wait until I beat them all or just go with those I know. I'll at least wait until after Final Fantasy X. BACK TO THE REVIEW!) 

I figure to go over my usual reviewing guidelines, but I figure presentation will probably only get an honorable mention here. Namely because they didn't really improve so much as they just changed the style and ran with it quite well. After presentation, I'll follow with the system, the characters, wrap up with the story, add in a review paragraph with blunt opinion and finish it up from there! So let's not mess around any longer and get to the going!

I won't stay on the graphics for too long, but I would like to say that...They are good. They aren't really improved over Final Fantasy VIII, but they use the graphics in such a way that it just works for the game. It goes from the realistic look of 8 to a slightly more fantasy and goofy look in 9. For the overall setting and idea, this works out really great. The characters and people look, feel, and act like they should. They get a bit eccentric with characters at times, but overall, it's a nicety to see all the different kinds of people in the world of Gaia. Apart from the in-game graphics, the cutscenes, technically known as FMVs (Full Motion Video), easily break this game out of the mold! The cutscenes are all really well done and super epic across the board. The overall presentation of the game from looks to music is just so well done. This title includes some of my favorite Final Fantasy tracks like You Are Not Alone, the battle and boss themes, and my current new favorite of Gizamaluke Grotto's theme (I dunno the name >_<). Overall, for the time, it was a really good looking game that pleases the eye. Let's jump this topic and move on to the meat content of this post!

For the next part, we're going over the most important element in any game...the gameplay! Without the gameplay, it's just a horrible interactive movie. Some people might say that's what an RPG...Regardless, Final Fantasy 9 runs with the ATB (Active Time Battle) formula, so nothing really changes there. They do add in a few random statuses, and these are one of my few true complaints about the game. The Heat and Freeze statuses are annoying as all get out, and they might as well just be "Death 1" and "Death 2". If you want my honest opinion, I'm tired of there being "death" spells in RPGs in general. They're annoying as all get out, and they are never as successful when you use them as compared to the AI. Zombie is a regular status and isn't too out of place, but the Virus status seems pointless outside of player applications. (IE using virus to level a single character up so the others gain nothing while still helping.)

The monsters in this game are easily some of the most challenging ones so far. I might have just been behind on levels, but I often felt like the monsters were almost too much trouble. They often required as much time and effort as a boss did. Honestly enough, this got annoying as the game got further in. It wasn't too bad until I reached Disc 3, and that's where it really amped up. Around that point, random encounters turned into single enemy battles versus something that easily seemed to hold its own against a party. It wasn't always super hard, and this should be expected near late game. However, at the same time, I found this kinda annoying with some enemies.

Apart from battles, you have the system that this game uses. I can't quite remember what they call it, so I'll refer to it as the "Abilities" system. Under the Abilities system, you learn new moves and abilities by equipping your armor. Each piece of armor offers a combination of new or old abilities. The AP you earn in battle is used to permanently learn the move, and this allows you to gain new moves as you earn new equipment. I enjoy this part of the system very much! Each character is more or less their own class, and they each bring something great to the table with their abilities. It seems a bit lazy that Dagger and Eiko are the same class, but they each excel in different directions, so I can forgive that.

Apart from active abilities like spells and special attacks, you gain a huge set of passive abilities. These abilities reflect themselves in battle through things like Antibody, which blocks Poison and Venom, or Auto-Haste, which automatically hastes the character ...obviously. These are just two of a plethora of abilities allowing you to customize characters to the fullest. On top of this, each character also has a couple of special and exclusive abilities like Zidane's bandit ability (improves stealing) or Freya's Dragon Killer (improves damage versus dragons). The number of passive abilities is limited per character based on their level and therefore their "crystal number". Each ability costs so many crystals to equip and so on and so forth.

Of course, the Abilities system does present a few small flaws. The inability to get some equipment during gameplay means you completely miss out on some abilities. It's mostly ultimate weapons or super equipment that need to be synthesized, but it can still be annoying to a perfectionist. There are also times where the game presents a scenario that basically goes like this..."If you don't equip this ability, you are basically screwed for the upcoming boss." This is greatly reflected in the final grouping of bosses in that most of them, namely the Chaos Guardians, can cause the Heat and Freeze statuses. It's easily blocked with one ability (Body Temp), but it means everybody has to tie up their crystal numbers with that ability. Honestly, this complaint is more against those specific statuses than the Ability system.

Apart from the actual battles, the game offers the largest and most diverse grouping of side quests and extras to find, acquire, discover, and more. The sheer number of side quests gives this title more content than either of the previous games. Every nook and cranny of Gaia is covered in treasure. From Chocographs to hidden spots, the treasure just piles in from every direction. The game even has a "Treasure Hunter" rank that places you in a letter rank depending on how many items you find, treasure chests opened, and other little things. I could go on and on about all the things available, but I'm going to assure you...It is a lot.

The only weakness in their side quest front is the card game Tetra Master. Tetra Master isn't that great of a card game, and it is greatly inferior to the fun and incredibly challenging Triple Triad from FF8. Tetra Master feels too random and almost luck based. The game doesn't ever truly teach you all the details of it, and you have to go about and talk to random people to learn what you can. It can be fun at times, but it never truly shined through like Triple Triad did to me. It also doesn't have any use outside of being a card game. So...point said.

Overall, the gameplay doesn't necessarily go out of its way to do anything different, but it does enough that you can easily keep busy for hours with just the extras. It's a fun game, and now we move onward to...Characters!

Characters are the number one part of Final Fantasy IX. They are the greatest part of the game, and the cast is by far my favorite collection of characters from the entirety of the series. (I doubt it changes with future ones....sorry.) I'm going to try to not ramble on about each character, but I find it almost hard NOT to. Each character brings their own personality and interests to the overall story at hand. Each one has something that they learn and accomplish as the game moves forward.

If I had to summarize each character in a sentence, these would be those sentences! Zidane wants to help people. Vivi is trying to learn about life. Dagger aims to improve herself. Steiner learns that he is a person beyond his duty. Freya learns to learn from the past. Quina learns that life isn't just food. Eiko realizes that being alone can only be solved when you try to fix it. Amarant learns that life is more than battles and survival. They each learn and grow. They feel like actual people, minus the super powers and abilities of course. (Side Note! I'm actually considering a side post to talk about all these characters, but that depends completely on my ability to not be lazy! DON'T BE LAZY DANIEL!)

Are they all original character ideas or profiles? Not at all, but they are done so well that they shine past that. As you play the game, you find yourself wanting to learn and know more about everybody. You pick your favorites and stick with them. Honestly, before it was said and done, I liked each and every character for their very own reason. Unlike previous titles, each of the characters gets more than their share of airtime. They each get their own story, and a lot of that story is fleshed out thanks to the ATE (Active Time Events) system. It's a pretty nifty idea, and I wish it had been used again in later titles. (Not 100% sure that it didn't, but I really doubt that it did.)

As for the NPCs, they are pretty well done too. They aren't the best, but many of them do grow and change as the game continues. Since you revisit all the major places as the game goes, most NPCs grow and change as you go. Many NPCs even get their own name! This is somewhat unusual since well...most of the time, people could care less about NPC names! (It's not an unusual feeling really.) It's nice seeing the interaction and such that goes on around you with all the NPCs.

Now for Kuja...Kuja is a decent villain. He has an unusual and weird style, but he proves several times throughout that he is fully prepared for anything that happens. All of his planning throughout shows its face when he uses the characters to propel his own ambitions, and just when you think he hits the peak of it all, he breaks down...like a normal person should. Upon learning of his impending death, Kuja throws himself into despair and plans to destroy ALL OF EXISTENCE! I realize that this isn't too far from most of the Final Fantasy villain motives, but his motive is purely out of anger and envy. He doesn't want anything to exist past himself, so he aims to destroy it all. Is he the best villain? In my opinion, he easily ranks up among the best, but it can be hard to call him the true villain of the piece. I guess you can consider him the main villain of the entire game, but he is definitely not the only villain. Overall, I find him both interesting and evil.

To simplify that paragraph, I enjoy Kuja's part in the game, and in passing, I enjoy Kuja as well. Overall, the characters of Final Fantasy IX are the strongest part of the games. Unfortunately, this does mean one big tipping point for anybody...If you don't like the characters, you won't like the game. They are the heart of it all, and it's going to be very hard to push past anything if you don't like them. I don't like hearing that, but I can understand that feeling. Great characters are great. Now we head from the characters and dive into the story!

The story of Final Fantasy IX is a long and curving path. It goes all over. The problems and conditions of the story are almost constantly changing. If the game had an overall theme to it, I'd probably say it comes down to the game's main theme song "Melodies of Life". It's all about the life of the characters and their memories of that life. Beyond that, there is a constant world of strife and trouble. The game opens to a simple night at a castle, and from there, the game's story grows and evolves into something more.

As far as it is concerned, all the major ideas of a story get covered! There is war, life and death, love and friendship, happy times, sad times, and everybody in between all of that. As the characters go about trying to save what they can, they learn that the true enemy and story behind it all is nearly beyond their small grasp. They do what they can to try and save it all, but they find out that half of what they've done has just helped the enemy do their part. It's got a lot of stuff going on, and behind that, you get a nice glimpse of events all over with the ATE in places. These are great for giving you a view into all the different happenings.

If a complaint about the story was to arise, it'd probably be all the little details. As you continue throughout, little things said by characters can turn into moderately important details later on. Not every detail said sounds like it would be important, but then it turns out it is. I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you miss out on the details, you might find yourself in the middle of a confusing mess of "What is all this again!?" The four jewels are barely talked about and all of a sudden become a key thing but then drop out. The lack of knowledge on the jewels is explained of course, so I can't say it isn't covered.

There are also little details that are never really talked about, the idea of the other continents outside of the main one with big three countries. It seems like they are all completely clueless about the outer continents, yet they have boats. Boats that could have been used to go to those continents! Until you leave the main country, everybody acts like the outside world is a complete mystery, but later on, you find people from all over are located in a couple of the outer continents. It just seems...kinda glossed over and not explained. I guess it comes down to nothing formalities, but I feel like it should have been covered. Of course, maybe that is just me? Moving on.

Lots of story happens throughout, but the story behind the story is dumped on your lap in the last 5-8 hours of the game. Terra becomes important because of something about planets being able to absorb other planets. (Never goes into super detail on this, but it is mentioned quite often later on.) The entire idea of Memoria is interesting, but it's kind of ill placed. Up until that point, there is nothing said about any form of detail of what goes on in Memoria. They dump a planet of history on you there and inform you that everything ever relies on the existence of a crystal. My best position on this is...mixed feelings. It's not a bad idea, but it seems like the game kind of threw it in last minute. I mean, you just learned that Terra is trying to nom Gaia out of existence so that it can exist instead. Now you are learning that none of that matters because Kuja is going to destroy the crystal that is all of existence in one spot. It's not in the category of "impossibility" it's just a lot to take in as you are coming to the finish line.

Overall, I really do enjoy the story. There is a lot going on as you progress through the game. You're doing your best to save what you can, but everything seems to be falling apart around you. I'd say the key focus of the story is more or less based around the characters. In part, this makes the characters a bigger part of the game better, but it tends to weaken the overall story. Honestly, I'd take characters over story any day, so this works out for me in the long run. If I had to give a final word approval of the story, I'd probably just go with...good not great. The biggest point affecting my final word is the entirety of the last couple hours. The learning of all the workings outside of what you are doing. It's interesting, but it's all so late in the game that you might just go "...what?"

The story really comes down to liking the characters. I realize that a lot of stories are that exact thing, but you can have a great story with great characters without making either one overshadow the other.

Review time! To reiterate what I've said in just a few sentences, it goes as follows! The graphics and presentation are good for the time and work very well for the look and feel they are aiming for. The battle system is nothing new, but it introduces annoying things that don't need to be in it. (Looking at you Heat and Freeze.) The Ability system is an easy and nifty way to customize your characters, but you are fairly limited in comparison to the Junction system or Materia system. The characters are the #1 factor of this entire thing. They are the best part of it all, but for someone new playing it, they will make or break the game for them. The story is good, but in this game's case, the story is more about the character's on their journey than the events going about.

Final Fantasy IX is my favorite title in the series. Nothing has topped my enjoyment of it so far, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a fun and enjoyable RPG with a recognizable battle system and amazing characters. This means you should play it...PLAY IT NOW!

I'm going to start Final Fantasy X soon, and I look forward to scrutinizing it to the best of my ability! MWAHAHAH! I kid...I'm going to enjoy it while I can because I still don't look forward to 12 or 13, but those are in the future, so let us enjoy the now! Final Fantasy IX, I love you and will greatly miss you with my finishing you. Thank you to everybody who took the time to read this, and stay tuned to hear of my adventures in the land of...Final Fantasy X!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

^That ending signature certainly holds true for this game and a couple of the previous ones, but it's going to lose it's ability to be relevant as I go through the next couple of titles. XD

Day 67

Game - Final Fantasy 9, Day 67
Hours Played/Hours Total - 15 hrs / 65-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Pandemonium
Current Goal - Stop Garland and his plan. Deal with Kuja when that comes up. Save Gaia!

What Happened - Considering what little is left, I do hope that this post will be the last Final Fantasy 9 post. I will make it so if I have to! No point in rambling here, let's get it going.~
     To put this quickly...I left off last time that Zidane wanted to take care of business solo, but the group wasn't about to let him do it alone. (Also it played one of the better songs in the game "You Are Not Alone". It is really good...You should go listen to it!) From there, they all band together and head off to fight Garland! I head out and begin my exploration of Pandemonium. The monsters here are not fun and basically mini bosses. The next room is a setup of a switch in the back with all forms of pipes jutting out of the ground. I went outside and found that it leads nowhere. Back inside, I hit the switch and start the un-fun game. The un-fun game is where I have to run all between the pipe-things and avoid the lit up ones. Hitting anyone that is lit up results in a battle, but after several tries (all my stupidity), I finally make it past and outside. With the switch on, a bridge of light extended from my area to the next...so I crossed it!
     On the other side, I ran into another delightful puzzle of sorts. In one room, a control panel allows you to change the direction that the elevator in the next room is facing. I actually figured out the solution on accident my first time, but I ended up going back to try and get the treasure chest in there. As it turns out, the puzzle isn't that hard! It mostly requires a bit of time and patience. (To quickly explain, the platform spins as it goes up, and you have to point it the right direction at the right point so that it'll go up and into the next floor.) Next room is just teleports and treasure chests, but it also leads to...GARLAND! The Moogle warns me that danger is ahead, but I ignore it!
     Garland speaks with the group, more directly Zidane, and tells him that life itself is death. Survival is killing others around you. To live is to give life meaning, but even then one must take others' lives to survive. He says that Terra's souls will sleep until they forget about this and start a new life in a dimension where life and death are one and therefore transcended. He once again asks Zidane who he is. Zidane answers that they aren't perfect, and they have friends to help one another. That is reason enough to live. Depending on the party members, each one has a different piece to say. Vivi says that it took some time, but they found their way. Freya says that one should live not to forget the past but to learn from it. Eiko says that living is protecting the ones we love.
     In response to this, Garland throws a dragon at us. BOSS BATTLE TIME! Honestly, I did a little preparation for this battle, so there wasn't a lot to lose right here. I stole some nice equipment off the dragon, and then I smacked him all forms of around. With the dragon's defeat, Garland is somewhat impressed. Zidane asks him what he wants to accomplish. Garland replies with the restoration of Terra (of course!), but that isn't the answer Zidane meant. He knows that is what the people of Terra want. Why isn't Garland asleep with them? Garland says that he was created to oversee Terra and wait for the time when the world is without life or death. He is the controller of the planet!
     BOSS BATTLE TIME! GARLAND EDITION! Garland proves to be a difficult boss...NOT! Although he had some powerful moves like Flare and Stop, he was no match for my team! I gave him the ol' one-two attack-spell! (Can't remember the exact moves I used, but it was mostly physical strikes from the two while the other assisted where need be.) As we defeat Garland, he's quite surprised to find that we were able to weaken him. However...it's all a ruse. The Invincible flies in and targets Garland. Who's flying the Invincible? It's Kuja! On board the massive airship, Kuja says that he now has the power to control all souls and obtained it from Garland without a fight! (Thanks to us you jerk!) Kuja comes down to see the group and gladly thanks us. He set up the group to break the seal on Terra and defeat Garland for him. He tells Zidane that he is a truly extraordinary Genome and fully deserving of his love. Zidane tells him to shut up, and Kuja turns to Garland.
     Kuja tells Garland that Zidane plans to fight Terra, but Garland just asks what Kuja is scheming. Kuja claims to not be scheming anything and simply wants to defeat the enemies of Terra. Kuja turns towards us for BOSS BATTLE TIME! KUJA EDITION! Kuja brings a bit more to the boss battle table though. His biggest attack, Flare Star, is cast anytime you attempt to use magic on him. I managed to avoid this attack for a majority of the battle, but at some point, it activated and messed my whole team up. Regardless, I managed to finish Kuja off...or so I thought. As I hit him for what seemed like the finishing blow, Kuja hit his Trance! He casts Ultima and blows everybody away! That ends the battle because...we got our asses blown  up!
     Outside of the battle, Kuja is still in trance, and he's incredibly excited about achieving Trance. He talks about how it is the mighty power held by souls being assaulted by a destructive threat. Zidane asks what he means, and Kuja explains further. When he saw Mog achieve Trance earlier (refer to previous post), this gave him an idea. He needed to obtain a powerful soul in order to defeat everybody and achieve his own Trance. He devised a way to borrow the power of the wretched souls that wouldn't die. These souls were those of the people at Madain Sari, the Iifa Tree, and Alexandria. He mentioned that a particularly powerful spirit was drawn in during the Bahamut attack on the Iifa Tree...Queen Brahne's soul! When he took over the Invincible, he released the souls trapped inside, and they were quite eager to get out. He tells Garland that he is no longer needed, and that Kuja will rule over both Terra and Gaia with his unconditional love.
     Garland questions what Kuja plans to do with all this power, but Kuja replies that Garland should accept his defeat gracefully. Kuja asks Garland if he has any last words but then kicks him off into the depths of Terra. Kuja starts asking the group if they want to die quickly or slowly, but he doesn't get to say too much when a voice chimes in out of nowhere. Garland isn't ready to check out yet though, and despite his fall, he lives on to reveal a secret to Kuja. Garland tells Kuja that his rain could never be eternal because Kuja is defective and was built to last only until Zidane was ready. He figured it was too dangerous to let Kuja live any longer. Kuja asks what he means....Garland says that the limit on his life is coming close, and he will die very soon. As he dies, Kuja will be unable to leave a mark on the world. Kuja doesn't want to believe anything Garland says, but Garland says he was created to destroy and is just a mortal.
     Kuja is furious and hysterical at all of this. He doesn't want to die and lose his soul. He mentions that it is basically comedy that he will die just like the black mages he despises. He proclaims that he won't let this world exist without him! CUTSCENE! In his Trance form, he flies up and starts destroying all of Terra. He blasts everything in sight, and the world begins to fall apart. It cuts back to the group, and Steiner suggests they make use of the abandoned Invincible to go back. Zidane fully agrees, but he wants to go back to Bran Bal to rescue the Genomes. Dagger tags along with him, and the two make their way to Bran Bal. On the way, Zidane takes a moment and thanks Dagger for saving him earlier. (It's better said in the game, but I'm trying to wrap this up now!) The rest of the group is seen running out of the tower and making their way to the Invincible. Zidane and Dagger make it to Bran Bal and start telling all the Genomes to evacuate.
     Zidane finds the last Genome and tells her she needs to escape. It's the girl from earlier on (previous post), and she doesn't see the point in trying to escape. She says that none of the Genomes have souls and don't even matter. Zidane asks if she truly believes that. She reveals that Garland gave her a soul just like Kuja and Zidane in case they needed to be replaced. She restates that with Garland dead and Terra destroyed...What's the point? Zidane admits that he considered that thought himself, but he came to the answer of "just try". He realizes that the going will be hard, but he has friends so he wants to try. He finally asks her name, and she says that it is Mikoto. He tells her it is a nice name, and that people will call her that from here on. She has to find the answer to all of it herself. It will be hard, but she can do it. They run off to the Invincible, and it's time for another cutscene!
     The Invincible is starting to fly up and away from Terra. The planet has seen better times, and it is almost completely gone by the time the Invincible gets away. Next thing I know, the Invincible is flying through the warp and reappears back on Gaia. Once there, Zidane is seen aboard the Invincible. He talks briefly with Amarant and Freya who ask him directly if he thinks it is really over. Of course, nobody thinks it is over. They doubt Kuja is dead and figure he'll try to destroy Gaia next. About this time, Steiner comes from the bridge and tells them they need to see something. They go up to the bridge, and Steiner points out...clouds? Steiner quickly explains that they aren't high up enough to be clouds. They all come to the sudden realization, and Vivi says it...It's the Mist. The entirety of Gaia is now covered in Mist, and it seems Kuja's plan has already started. /End Disc 3.
     Insert Disc 4, and I find myself in the Black Mage Village. Vivi is talking with the well known Mr. 288. He says something about them being uneasy at first but thinks they'll all get along. Zidane walks up as Vivi is walking away, and he asks Mr. 288 if it really is okay. Mr. 288 confirms it is okay and asks if it was Vivi's idea. Zidane confirms that and said that Vivi thought this would be the best place for them to start their new lives. (If it isn't obvious at this point, they are talking about the Genomes.) Mr. 288 says that the Black Mages and Genomes are a lot alike, and maybe they can understand one another and help each other open up. Even better, Zidane thinks this could help the humans and Black Mages get along someday. Mr. 288 points out like Zidane and Vivi do, but Zidane admits he doesn't think he truly understood Vivi until now. They conclude their talking, and I get a glimpse at the rest of the village.
     One of the Genomes is looking at the chocobo and asks about it. A Black Mage and Eiko explain that it is a baby chocobo whose name is Bobby Corwin. The baby chocobo chases after the Genome and scares it off. Next up, a Genome is asking all forms of question of the Black Mage at the Item Shop. It's your basic "why?....why?" scenario. Quina interrupts him and tells him to stop caring about small things. "World is simple place with only two things: things you can eat and things you no can eat." Amarant and Freya are outside of the item shop and listening to a Genome and Black Mage talk. Amarant says they all act like kids, but Freya responds that they are just starting their life after all. Amarant asks her if lost time can be recovered. She isn't sure about that, but she knows they can all do one thing...They can protect the village from anyone who might try to take their time away.
     Dagger and Steiner are conversing near the front of the village. He asks her if she is completely sure of what she wants to do. She isn't sure what he means, and he restates if she is determined to go after Kuja alone and without consulting Cid. She says that with all the problems, like the Mist appearing again, that she doesn't want to start a panic. Zidane comes up and asks them if they are all ready to go. Mikoto walks in and comments that we don't stand a chance against Kuja. The way she words it confuses the nearby Black Mage, and he adds that she's smart and knows a lot of big words. Zidane chimes in that she is a bit cynical, but he wants them to take care of her because she is basically his little sister. This flusters Mikoto. Zidane says that although they are small compared to Kuja, they will prove how powerful they can be! And so...we need to head for the Iifa Tree for the final battle...
     After I complete some of the last side quests of course! I only lack a few more, and then I'll head off for the Iifa Tree and the final dungeon. There's not a lot left to do of course, but there is some useful stuff to gain. The first thing I do is turn in the last Stellazio. (the fancy astronomy sign coins) After turning it in, the lady collecting them informs me that there is a secret hidden in their messages. Basically, there is a 13th Stellazio out there! She gives me all twelve of them to try and locate it. I don't have to do that since I have online guides though! I head towards Quan's Dwelling and pick up the 13th Stellazio. I return to Treno, and she rewards me the Hammer for the 13th Stellazio. The Hammer (Cinna's hammer actually) is a special item for synthesis and story reasons! My understanding is having the Hammer on hand for the ending credits adds extra scenes to it all. With that done, I start on another quest.
     Next in line is the Moogle Mognet problem. Mognet is the secret station where all the Moogle mail gets sorted and delivered from. Once again, I hit up the guide (out of impatience and wanting to wrap it up) and immediately find the place. Long story short, one of the Moogles messed up the sorting machine. Rather than use the Superslick on the machine (keeping it running), he used it on himself to make his fur all nice and shiny. I have to fly all about and deliver mail from one moogle to another while they try to figure out the problem. Eventually, one of them works out that they need the Superslick. It turns out that Ruby (random lady from the beginning...mostly unimportant) has the Superslick and lets me have it. I hand it over to Mognet, and it gets going again! It's a fairly simple side quest overall, and it is more or less worth the award for as little trouble as it truly is. With that done, it's time to do some Frog catching!
     By now, all of the Qu's Marshes in the game have recharged their frog supply. Unfortunately for me, even when I catch almost all that I can, I only end up with 74 Frogs. I need 99 Frogs to unlock a special battle versus Master Quale for Quina's Ultimate Weapon. Despite my want for that weapon, I don't waste anymore time with Frog Catching and head for the next activity. Despite the frog disappointment, I do obtain a couple new Blue Magic spells like Earth Shake. (Just a note now...I don't get all of them.) Before heading off for the final side quest, I take Choco, the Gold Chocobo, for a quick flight and swim. I dive beneath the remains of the Shimmering Islands (gone now with the portal all destroyed I guess?), and I locate Zidane's Ultimate weapon...Ultima Weapon! (Soooooo original) From here...I lack only one more quest, the Friendly Monster quest!
     Before I get into the details, I'd like to say one thing...THIS IS AN AWFUL SIDE QUEST. The only benefit of the Friendly Monster quest is that you obtain their blessing when fighting Ozma. (Will touch down on this in a bit.) What does that translate to in game terms? You can physically attack him now....and that is it. Back to the quest! You have to fly around to special spots all over the world and meet these "friendly" monsters. When they show up, special music plays, and the monsters looks all nice and asks for an item, typically Ore or other jewels. This went pretty well...except for the last 2 monsters I needed. While searching for the monsters, I kept running into another side quest known as Ragtime Mouse. He's a "special" monster that asks you True or False questions about all kinds of things in-game. It's mostly actual details of the game like "What happened when" or "This thing is this". I cheated for it of course, and the reward was worth the effort. The only bummer is that encountering him occurs in the same fashion and music that friendly monsters do. I ran into more Ragtime Mouses than I did Friendly Monsters. I managed to complete both quests before it was said and done, but I ran into one thing that really irked me (aside from Ragtime Mouse).
     The final friendly monster is called Friendly Yan. Yans are the devils in FF9 form. They look like tiny little sheep with big heads and big eyes, but they are far from just being sheep. They have the most random combo of ridiculous power behind those tiny little bodies. They can and do cast Meteor with varying amounts of success. It can do anywhere from low hundreds to high thousands to basically just insta-kill. To accompany this, they have a lot of HP, a Virus spreading ability, the ability to kick a person out with Snort, and above all, they tend to run in groups of two or three. I only tried to fight a few, and then I just started running. I died several times before that though, and I was incredibly frustrated. By the time I found the Friendly Yan and finally received the blessing...I realized something. I did all of this for nothing because I was ready to just beat the game.
     I stopped right then and there, but I decided to give a shot at the ultimate side boss Ozma before I went. I mean...I did do all that extra crap back there just for fighting him! As I stated earlier, the Friendly Monster's blessing is simply to allow you to physically attack Ozma. As for Ozma, Ozma is a massive ball of ridiculous power. As far as I've read, it is one of the hardest side bosses in the entire series. It is definitely the hardest boss in Final Fantasy 9 by a long run. I can't remember any of the spells it cast...because it feels like it cast them all at once. As soon as I entered the battle, it was over before it really got anywhere. I might have gotten in one attack before it threw me around like a rag doll. At that point, I was just scrambling to get everybody back up, but it was already over at that point. Ozma kicked my ass in all forms of ways, and I wasn't ready to face him at all. Unfortunately, I wasn't up for trying again or fully preparing. At best, I'd have to pour another 5+ hours to gain the extra levels to give me any kind of a chance against the monstrous planet of evilness. (Ozma looks like a giant glowing orb of a planet. Evil personified!) With that in mind, it was time to quit the side dishes and head for the main course.
     I did a little stocking up and supplying at the Black Mage Village and then made my way to the Iifa Tree. Above the tree is a large glowing portal of sorts, and I enter inside for a cutscene! As we are flying towards it in the Invicible, hundreds of dragons fly out of it and right at us! It already doesn't look good, but as they close in, explosions happen all about and blow many of them out of the sky. A pile of airships (identified as Lindblum's air fleet) come out from the clouds and start firing upon the dragons. It jumps over to the Hilda Garde 3 where Cid and Baku are sitting, and they are here to help us get through. Continuing the cutscene, the Invincible heads straight for the portal, but dragons begin to pursue us. They don't get too far when the Red Rose flies in between us and the dragons! Beatrix is aboard along with the Pluto Knights. She tells them that they need to protect their captain as he is entering Valhalla! One of the Pluto Knights comments that she came along because she was worried about him. Going back to the group, Zidane comments to Steiner that he fell in love with quite a woman. Steiner says that he is one to talk, and Dagger asks Steiner what he meant by that! The Invincible finally hits the massive portal, things get all bright as it slips partway in, and...
     BOSS BATTLE TIME! #1 (Counting the final battles starting now.) The boss for this battle is one of the dragons (might be bigger...hard to tell), and it's not letting us get to Kuja without a fight! Honestly, the dragon wasn't that hard to fight at all, but nobody told Dagger that. For some reason, she was the only person I couldn't keep going. I had to revive her two or three times before the battle was up. It might have been more of bad luck on my part, but she wasn't up for surviving it seems. With the dragon defeated, it was time to enter the final area. The group departs from the Invincible and finds themselves in a mystical place. The area has a giant castle of sorts (Why is it always castles?) with paths going in all different directions. Zidane wonders where they are and receives an answer from an unlikely source! He hears a voice and asks if anybody called his name. As it turns out, Garland is speaking directly to his mind. (Still alive! No clue how either...) Garland tells Zidane that this place is Memoria, a place of memories. He says that Zidane's memories are what brought forth this place. Zidane looks about and realizes he's been talking with himself while conversing with Garland. He tells the rest of the group what Garland informed him. With that out of the way, it's time to make it through Memoria!
     As I'm going along, I quickly run into Memoria's cast of monsters. Many of them are memorable faces from the past like Chimera and Iron Giant. While walking through one area, I run into a random...BOSS BATTLE TIME? (#2) This boss battle is a familiar foe that I haven't fought before! It is the Fire Chaos Guardian from the Fire Shrine, Maliris! She's a fire snake of sorts wielding several swords, and she is one mean boss. The very first thing she does is cast Reflect on herself. This is great considering I have Vivi in my party, so he's almost useless for this battle. I have to use the workaround of casting Reflect on him and having him reflect spells off himself. (For those who don't know, you can get past Reflect by reflecting off yourself.) I only lost one party member to this fight, but I managed to get Dagger back up. I also got to steal some pretty nice equipment off of her. It seems that most of the final bosses, outside of the final-final bosses, have items on them. She has a nice grouping of fire attacks, but those aren't enough to save her snake-y hide! I beat her and continue my journey through Memoria.
     We are just moving along when we find ourselves in front of...Alexandria Castle! (The undestroyed version) The castle seems to be fully intact, but it doesn't stay that way for long. Suddenly, the background flashes scenes of the destruction that went down, and suddenly the castle is fully destroyed. Quina wonders what everybody is talking about because he doesn't see it. Zidane thinks he knows why and explains that Quina wasn't there when it happened so it isn't his memory. Garland chimes in a little side note after this to add in extra detail. (Going to warn you now...obviously a lot of SPOILERS ahead, but there is also a lot of background information to explain the story and such. Going to try and shorten it where I can.) He says that Kuja tried to acquire Alexander in a plot to defy him. An incident ten years ago started everything...
     Moving right along, we come to another area of Memoria where it suddenly starts to storm. Before I get much further, Zidane spots a couple people below a bridge. He yells at them about the storm, but I don't understand why. They quickly disappear, but Zidane says that can't be from his memory. As he starts to walk away, Dagger tells him that was one of her memories and wonders why he could see it. Zidane is curious about the same thing and asks Garland for an answer. Instead of giving an answer, Garland talks about Gaia a bit more. He says that he feared the eidolons of Gain more than anything, so he felt he needed to deal with them before they became a major problem. Continuing from there, the enemies are pretty hard in this area. Many of them are more like sub bosses than just your average enemies. Luckily, most of them don't have any moves that truly put them over the top. The next screen surprises me with a giant eye in a swirling red vortex in the sky! (The Invincible's Eye) Dagger says that this is the eye she saw the night of the storm in Madain Sari.
     Garland jumps in and tells Zidane that the memory earlier was from him and not Dagger. Zidane says he wasn't there during the storm at all. Garland says that he still doesn't understand but will find out soon enough. Zidane asks him if other people's memories can somehow become his, and Garland replies that the answer will be in front of him when he accepts everything. Garland goes into history mode by talking a past event in Gaia. It seems that a tremendous force was summoned to Gaia during its age of war. However, the Gaians weren't ready to harness this power and it terrified them. They broke the jewel into four pieces and prayed to never see it again. (If you haven't been following all the story, they are talking about Alexander.) I take the path upward into the eye and....random BOSS BATTLE TIME #3! (Yeah, there are a couple more like this coming up.)
     The boss for this round is another Chaos Guardian! For this time, it is the wind dragon Tiamat. (Although some of you probably recognize the name as a commonly known evil dragon's name.) This was an interesting battle...Namely because I didn't get too far before he flung Freya from the battle. Apart from that, I was prepared enough to deal with him effectively. The biggest concern for the majority of these boss battles is blocking Heat and Freeze. I had to permanently equip Body Temp, an ability, to deal with this, but it keeps you from dying from a lame status effect. Apart from that, Tiamat didn't throw anything too powerful my way. With its defeat, I continue through Memoria.
     The next area of Memoria starts by throwing gravity right out of the window. Several of the paths become confusing to walk on since the camera's orientation seems to mess with the movement. Further along, there is an area that displays a pair of planets colliding. Zidane recognizes the image from Oeilvert, and Garland explains that this is an image from 5,000 years ago. It is when Terra, an already old planet, was trying to assimilate Gaia to survive. However, Gaia already had life and caused problems with the fusion of the two. Life on Terra was coming to an end and was forced to proceed with the fusion regardless. Terra was too old to assimilate everything and ended up destroying Terra's native civilization. To ease the process, Garland created the Iifa Tree to regulate the flow of souls back to Terra. I continue on and find myself in the middle of the ocean. Quina is swimming about and trying to catch the fish that are around. He starts drowning when Zidane informs him that the ocean isn't real. Quina snaps to his senses and falls down from where he was swimming. Looking about the area reveals a secret something. Behind a large rock and coral area, I find a mysterious voice. It tells me to leave because I have disturbed its sleep. I refuse and begin a round of (OPTIONAL) BOSS BATTLE TIME #4!
     This optional boss isn't to be scoffed at. The boss is known as Hades, and he even got his own special music! (Dunno why but he did...) Before I get anywhere, Hades starts flinging all forms of status effects my way. Luckily, I already had the Body Temp equipped...to everybody but one person. This threw a wrench in my already half-assed battle plan. From there, things just got worse and worse. He had some fairly powerful attacks that were wiping the floor with me. I was down to one person as he unleashed his ultimate attack upon our group! I couldn't stop him in time and was defeated....Let's try that again. I had to sit through a few extra scenes, but I came back for a second attempt at Hades! I came fully prepared this time and started swinging as soon as the battle started. Thanks to the extra prep, the battle went off without a hitch. I threw all I had at him and came out with barely a scratch! (At this point, I think the party was Zidane, Eiko, Steiner, and Quina.) With his defeat, he congratulated me on beating him and told me he could make something special with two Pumice Pieces. Basically, I unlocked the Legendary Synthesis shop!
     With this shop open, I could synthesize some special items like the Tin Armor and Pumice. I didn't want to sacrifice my Hammer to make the Tin Armor, but I did come out with an extra Robe of Lords (actually stole this off Hades...), a Save the Queen (It is Beatrix's sword, but it supposedly unlocks an extra ending bit for the credits like the Hammer), and the Pumice! The Pumice is an accessory for Dagger that lets her learn the Ark summon. The Ark summon, like most final summons, is incredibly lengthy and insanely awesome! An airship flies down to the planet from the moon and...transforms into a giant robot. I found this both awesome and hilarious though. The entire game sticks to an almost purely fantasy setting throughout the entire game, but then it breaks character for a single summon. Don't get me wrong! It's a cool and powerful summon, but it is hilarious that they did it. Moving right along, I decided to switch up the party (namely to get Dagger) and do a bit of extra leveling before I moved on.
     For the next couple of portions and bosses, I used the lineup of Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, and Amarant. That's right! Amarant might not seem the best, but his abilities make him an all around decent character. He has fairly strong physical attacks and can double as an extra healer with his Chakra and Revive abilities. Moving along, I made use of the Ark ability and was glad to finally use it! I didn't spend too long on this activity because I kept running into Behemoths. They wouldn't be that bad of an enemy, but they can counter with the damn Meteor spell. Meteor is random in the damage amount, and although it doesn't always hit, it tends to hit with a huge amount of damage. Basically, if I met a Behemoth, I had to either take my chances to beat it or run away. So...I moved on!
     The next area has the group looking out over the ocean that they just walked out of. Zidane tells the group that Gaia used to be one big ocean long ago, Eiko asks how he could possibly know, and he responds that he doesn't but his memories tell him that it is. It is even weirder for him because he was born on Terra instead of Gaia. Vivi chimes in and says that his memories say the same thing. Gaia used to be covered with water. Freya says she gets the same feeling as well. Zidane thinks to himself that maybe all existence can be traced back to a single source. As I start to move on, I find my path impeded by BOSS BATTLE TIME #5! GET KRAKEN EDITION!
     Sorry for the bad pun, but I had to use it. As you might have guessed, the next boss is the Water Chaos Guardian Kraken. This water monster didn't have too much power behind him, but a poor ability choice on my part made this battle last a bit longer. Amarant has the Return Magic ability, and this causes him to cast any spell cast on him and throw it back at its caster. Keep in mind, I still receive the spell and its damage, but he throws it back at the enemy with power and such. Unfortunately for me, this Return Magic messed me up by throwing the Waterga spell back at Kraken. He's a water-based enemy, so this just healed him every time Amarant threw it back. Thankfully, the healing wasn't more than most attacks caused, so I managed to prevail regardless of my bad choice. With Kraken defeated, I left the water portion of Memoria behind.
     After we passed the water, the castle starting looking like it was all broken up. The path at this point is just pieces of castle floating about in empty space. One noticeable part in particular is a large clock that's stuck in time. Past this area, we see a massive ball of fire in the sky. Garland tunes in to tell me that this is the birth of Gaia. It's from over 5,000 years ago, but that doesn't explain how they know this. A strange ladder leads straight up into what seems to be nothingness. Zidane asks where it goes, and Garland says to see for himself. Garland goes off into another story bit after that though. He says that Terra had reached its peak of prosperity around that time. He says the people of that time believed their future was fully secure, but that very hubris is what ultimately lead to Terra's demise. Garland was created at that time to deal with their plights. I take the ladder up, and it leads me into a mysterious room with multiple doors. However, that is just a huge ruse, and the room melts into an open space of outer space!
     Also, BOSS BATTLE TIME #6! Lich congratulates the group on making it that far, but he says we won't be going any further. Unfortunately for Lich, I am fully prepared for anything he could throw at me. Sure, he did have the Death spell at his disposal, but that was easily dealt with. Amarant has an Aura ability that casts Regen and Auto-Life on a single character. Despite his "almighty" power, Lich is no power for the combination of friendship and guide reading! With his defeat, I am left with just one path. Zidane walks to the side and sees that there isn't anything more beyond that point. Garland explains to him that this is just space, but that his journey isn't over yet. He tells Zidane to not fear it and step forward to come closer to the truth of it all. Zidane says that is easier said than done of course, but he takes a step and starts moving into empty space. Zidane twirls about and such as I float there. I strangely move forward towards a glowing spot in the sky. As I get there, Garland imparts his last message to us.
     Garland says we are about to enter a new realm where there is no more worlds or space. We need to follow our memories, the original ones, and march onward. Zidane asks Garland what exactly is their memory and why he can remember other peoples' experiences as well as events before his time. Garland hesitates at first but finally gives him an answer. He tells Zidane that memories aren't limited to a single individual's experiences. That is just the surface of it all! Every life born, whether natural or artificial, requires a parent. That parent requires a parent as well and so on and so forth. All of life is connected through this, and if one traces the root of life, you come back to a single source for it all. The same thing can be said for memories as well. They are not isolated within individuals. Memories accumulate throughout generations as they continue to evolve. Most life forms don't truly understand the nature of memories and this explains why memories rarely cross paths. Zidane asks what he'll find by tracing the memories back. Garland answers that the source of it all is a presence that presides over all life and memories...the Crystal. He tells Zidane that from here on he is on his own. He needs to protect the Crystal and take care of Kuja. Before he leaves, he gives us a final parting message. Garland says that despite being created for his one purpose, he doesn't regret being born into this world.
     From here, I enter the new realm of Crystal. This place is a very sparkly and pretty location. It's located in a space of sorts with crystal objects all about. As I go about in this crystal realm, I have to deal with crystal versions of the four Chaoses! Luckily, they don't have as much health as they did before, but they aren't fun to deal with a second round. I reach the final save of the game and take some time to choose the final party. I don't really want to decide, but after some thinking, I come to a decision. For my final party, I picked Zidane, Eiko, Freya, and Vivi. I head into the final area of final areas. Once there, I find Kuja sitting there before the Crystal.
     He says that he is surprised to find that we have defeated the four Chaoses that he recreated from the Crystal's memories. However, he informs us that we are too late! He told us to take a good look at the Crystal (You know...the one I just learned about like 15 minutes ago?) This is the beginning and birthplace of all things. Once he destroys it, nothing will exist ever again. All of Gaia, Terra, the universe, and everything else will cease to exist. Our lives and our memories will vanish into nothingness as well. Zidane tells Kuja to shut up because he'll be the only thing gone when they are finished. He plans to take Kuja down here and now, but Kuja responds that even if he does, it won't change anything. He claims that Gaia is already doomed. It's being assimilated by Terra, and the Iifa Tree will incite a cataclysmic destruction of Gaia beyond that. It is all over for Zidane and his friends. Either way, Kuja figures that he wins. Zidane says that this doesn't matter because regardless of Gaia, the planet will remain. They'll start all over and make a new home. He calls Kuja a coward and tells him that if he plans to die, he can leave the rest of them out of it. Kuja claims that a world without his existence isn't fair and won't allow it. If he is to die, we all shall die!
     BOSS BATTLE TIME #7! FINAL BOSS TIME! You might think it's Trance Kuja, but it isn't! Before we fight the big guy, we are forced to fight his giant demon dragon devil pet named Deathguise. Before I get anywhere, Deathguise casts Meteor and messes up the entire team. Alongside this, he starts attacking the entire party with a party-wide physical strike. I get to spend the next several turns trying to revive people and catch up to him. Luckily, after I got back up, the battle just went downhill from here. I struck out with all the power of a super team and beat back Deathguise. Upon his defeat, Kuja is surprised yet again that we easily beat Deathguise. However, he doesn't plan to let us go any further. It's time for round two of FINAL BOSS TIME!
     BOSS BATTLE TIME #8! Trance Kuja isn't about to give up without a fight. Like a couple bosses before him, he throws up a Reflect spell to protect himself. This eliminates a majority of Vivi's spells, but I remembered about a special detail around this point. Spells like Comet and Meteor are able to penetrate Reflect, so I made use of them here. Unfortunately, the first half of this battle was a constantly fight to revive the two pipsqueaks here. On top of that, Kuja was crazily abusing the use of his Flare Star spell. It seemed to have a low accuracy, but it was devastating when it did hit. At some point, I finally reached a good spot and turned the tables! I started throwing everything I could at Kuja, and he wasn't able to retaliate too well. As I get the final hit in, Kuja talks about there being no point in fearing death now. He doesn't plan on dying alone and unleashed Ultima on all of us! Everything around us blows up, the team is knocked out, and the screen goes white.
     Some time later, the screen comes back and everybody is down and out. It all looks really bad, and Zidane finally comes to. He looks about and wonders where they are and where the crystal went. Then...a mysterious voice speaks to him. The voice tells him that they stand before the final dimension and that it is the darkness of eternity. He asks who or what it is, but it goes on to quote Star Wars. The being responds by saying that all life bears death from birth, and life fears death but lives only to die. This starts with anxiety becomes fear. (Wait for it...and yes, this is EXACTLY how it worded it.) Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate lead to suffering. (Yuuup, that was taken.) It claims that the only cure for fear is total and utter destruction. Kuja, being a victim of his fear, concluded that he could only save himself by destroying the Crystal, the origin of all things. Zidane keeps prodding the being with questions, but it mostly ignores him. The being claims that the theory is undeniable and Kuja's actions were proof that all things life to perish. Life has finally uncovered the truth, and the world must now end.
     Finally, the being does answer Zidane's questions. It claims that its existence is for only one purpose. It is to return everything back to zero world where the crystal doesn't exist and therefore life doesn't exist. In a world of nothing, there can be no fear. That is the world that all life desires. This angers Zidane, and he tells it that it isn't about to end anything. Not as long as they have the will to live! The being calls Zidane a foolish creature who is deluded by his fears. It claims that Zidane will one day choose destruction over existence as Kuja did. It tells him to come and enter the zero world like he desires. Zidane plans to destroy it and prove it wrong. He says that through their memories future generations will overcome any fear. They can't give up now and have to fight it together. Even if they lose, their memories will live on inside others. Zidane ends with saying that even if he was born to die, he won't be afraid and chooses to live!
     At this point, I get to pick my party and enter the menu briefly to prepare. The members that don't get chose give up the last of their energy so the others can go on. They each say a little something before giving us their power. Amarant tells us to not screw up. Steiner claims to be unworthy but gives us his power. Quina tells them to come back after killing the bad guy. He will prepare a big meal for us all. Dagger simply tells us to accept her powers. They've all come too far to lose...It's time to end this!
     FINAL ULTIMATE BOSS BATTLE TIME #9! The monstrosity before us is a massive angelic being with wings and spinning rings. His name...is Necron! Being so ridiculously big, he lifts the group to fight them face to face. He has some pretty powerful moves up his sleeves. Among these, he has the all powerful but rarely seen (in any title) Grand Cross. The video for this attack is the planet being surrounded by six planets and causes explosive forces or something like that. I attack him with everything I have. Eiko is on healing duty. Vivi strikes out with Flare as he can. I use Freya's Reis Wind to fortify the party. (It casts Regen on everybody.) Zidane is just the physical strike king here. I keep after him as I can, but I do have to break strategy here and there to revive a few people. Luckily enough, I was fully prepared for him as far as abilities go. Zidane goes into Trance at one point, and after that, the battle is basically over. I strike out with Grand Lethal, and after three uses of that, Necron is finished. He asks why we defy our fate so much as the final hit finishes him off. As the group teleports out, the place starts exploding and falling apart. He wonders if the will to live is truly that strong. As he starts to fall apart himself, he says that this isn't the end. He is eternal and will be around as long as their is life and death. End scene.
     From here, the group reappears outside and back on Gaia. They are right in front of the Iifa Tree, but it is starting to begin it's cataclysmic reaction. What Kuja said is true, and nobody knows what is going to happen next, but it isn't good. It jumps over to Beatrix aboard the Red Rose, and she doesn't believe anybody could have survived the explosion that happened. However, Mikoto is with them and claims the group is still alive. She points them out to Beatrix, and Beatrix has a Pluto Knight call the Hilda Garde 3 since it is closer. Cid receives the call and briefly talks to Mikoto. She tells him that the group is still alive, so Cid takes the ship down to pick them up. The group is glad to see the Hilda Garde 3, and Cid tells them to hurry up and get on. They all start to board the airship, but Zidane suddenly hears a voice tell him farewell. He says damnit out loud, and Daggers asks what is wrong. Zidane tells everybody to go on ahead because he has something that needs to be taken care of.
     When Dagger asks what it is, Zidane responds that Kuja is still alive and refuses to leave him behind. The group tries to convince him that he doesn't have to do this and shouldn't. Zidane explains that he can't blame Kuja for what he did because he might have done the same thing in his situation. He figures he would have wreaked havoc and fought everyone on Gaia much like Kuja did. He realizes this is crazy, but he has to do it. He couldn't live with himself if he left him behind. Zidane claims that this boils down to a big decision in his life, and he has to face it like Vivi did when he confronted his origin. Zidane claimed that he learned a lot from Vivi about taking life more seriously. The group offers to come with, but he tells them that this is his moment right now. They'll eventually have their own, and that they have bigger things to return to right now. As Zidane is about to speak again, Amarant interrupts him and says what he's about to say. "I can't just walk away. It goes against my nature." With that, Amarant says they can't change his decision and boards the airship. Everybody says a little something as they board the ship to take off. Dagger stays behind briefly to thank Zidane for everything he's done for her. He tells her that the abduction must come to an end and apologizes for being selfish. She says he wasn't selfish and changed her for the better. She thanks Zidane and asks that he promise to come back to her. In a cutscene, the Hilde Garde 3 takes off as Zidane sees them go. He faces the Iifa Tree and prepares to get Kuja.
     Zidane tells Kuja that he is coming to get him. Kuja says that Zidane still has time to run, but Zidane says he needs to shut up and stay put. Zidane starts running down and under the tree while avoiding the living tree roots and branches. They all attempt to strike Zidane down, but he dodges them and actually rides one of them on his way down. He finally flies through the air and dives into a hole leading downward. This takes him through the tree and right to Kuja. As Zidane makes his way to Kuja, Kuja says he doesn't understand Zidane at all. Zidane claims that Kuja would have done the same thing for him, but the silence that happens kinda says the opposite. He tells Kuja that it is their time to go now, but Kuja doesn't believe he deserves to live after all he's done. He feels that he is useless to the world now. Zidane tells him that no one is useless, and he figures that Kuja is the one who helped them escape it all. Kuja admits it and says that he realized after his defeat what it truly means to live. He realizes that it was a bit too late now and passes out. Zidane goes to him, but the roots all fly into the room and seem to crush the two as the screen fades to black.
     The screen comes up with "Some time later...", and it presents a small epilogue of the whole crew. I won't go into details, but it's basically each of them thanking Zidane for changing their life. They were glad to travel together, but many of them realize that time is over and the world moves on. They go about their lives and such. Dagger is Queen now, and the Tantalus group is coming on to put on a play for Alexandria. Everybody has gathered for the play and such, but Zidane seems to be missing from all of this. The play is the same one from the beginning, "I Wanna Be Your Canary", and we get to see a fuller version of the play this time. The robed character is playing the leading man Marcus, and it seems the play is going normally. Suddenly, the leading man removes his robes and calls out for his Dagger! We cut to the final cutscene of Dagger running through the castle and trying to reach Zidane. As she reaches him, she beats him up briefly and the two embrace as the game comes to an end. (If you want to know anymore, play the game yourself! I think it is one of the best in the series, so you should give it a shot.)
     The game plays through the credits, and I come to the final The End with a great feeling of satisfaction. Before I wrap this up though, I will reveal a fun little secret about the end screen. I copied this straight from GameFAQs so I got this right. At the screen that says The End (after the final credits) put in the following command... press R2, L1, R2, R2, Up, X, Right, Circle, Down, Triangle, L2, R1, R2, L1, Square, Square. Finally, press Start to play, and the game loads up a little BlackJack game! It's pretty fun and kinda neat that it exists. I played my hand, enjoyed my accomplishment, and got started on this post.
     And it is finally done! Wooooo! It took me nearly two months to do it, but I finally go through all of Final Fantasy 9 with a few days to spare. The entirety of Final Fantasy 9, despite the long time it took, has been a great pleasure to undertake. Despite some trouble along the way, it still shines through as my favorite title in the series. I've definitely enjoyed the journey as I went back through it all, and it is now time for me to type up the final thoughts. Stay tuned for the Final Fantasy 9 final thoughts! Thanks for reading and soon...I shall begin Final Fantasy X!

Ending Point - End of the game!
Current Party -

• Zidane - Level 61
• Eiko - Level 47
• Freya - Level 49
• Vivi - Level 51

Goals Accomplished - Make it through Pandemonium and defeat Garland. Escape Terra via the Invincible. Finish up a pile of side quests. Head for Memoria. Traverse through Memoria and learn a loooot of stuff via Garland. Defeated the Four Chaoses. Defeated Kuja. Defeated Necron and saved the world! Beat Final Fantasy IX! Played BlackJack.
Next Goals - Start Final Fantasy X!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 66

Game - Final Fantasy 9, Day 66
Hours Played/Hours Total - 13 hrs / 50-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Oeilvert.
Current Goal - Collect the Gulug Stone for Kuja. Save the rest of the group. Stop Kuja after that and save the world!

What Happened - So...I'm figuring at least 2 more posts and then finished! Unfortunately, that means two more weeks, so I won't be starting FFX until November...Let's look past that and enjoy the post though!
     I went up to the building at Oeilvert. It seemed locked at first, but it mysteriously opened. With it open, I went inside to explore and found out something awful. As Kuja said to me, magic is sealed here. Therefore, two of my party members (Quina and Eiko) were nearly useless here! Luckily, they had decent weapons for this time and were able to do decent damage to the enemies here. I fought through a handful of enemies as I looked about, and I had to resort to items for healing. Luckily, I've been keeping my items almost 100% stocked at 99 each where I was able. The only real downside to the area is this one "mirror" enemy that copies one of your friends to attack you. If it copies someone on hand, that person is killed off instantly, even if you try to revive them! There was quite a bit of nice treasure to find here, and a whole lot of story. You best get ready...that's about the majority that happens throughout this post.
     One room shows off a strange holographic display of a planet along with strange writing. Despite it's weirdness, Zidane seems able to read the writing. It mentions something about "Mother" and "Terra". They ask how he can read it, and he claims it speaks to him more than him reading it. We move on to the next couple of areas, and each one has more holograms telling of things. One group of holograms start talking about ancient ships and their technology. It says something about a prototype battleship called Invincible. The prototype was a failure but an improved version of it is still in use. Another hologram mentions the word "Terra" again and talks about it rising and falling. Eventually, I make it around to a large room with creepy looking faces decorating the walls. I head over to a platform and earn a history lesson.
     They start off saying that the "seeds" decline wasn't their fault. The decay of vegetation and vessels and how the decay of Terra triggered all of it. Multiple methods were considered to stop it, and eventually, the greatest minds got together and attempted a final resuscitation on the mother continent. Unfortunately, that failed and was discovered later to be the catalyst. Subjects were selected and after four massive sacrifices, eternal prosperity seemed within reach. The flora and fauna were revived but remain in stasis. The final results of all this are still pending. The faces say they were constructed so that the history wouldn't die, and thus ends that large history speech. (I didn't write it down as well as I should have, but that's basically what they said.)
     From the history room, I make my way back around to a previous room where I spotted a few moogles. This room had a strange pit in the middle, but after all that other stuff, it changed into a large star chart. It shows two similar looking planets as they combine together. Zidane isn't sure what it means though, so he ignores it for now. From that room, I found a lift that took me downward and deeper inside. At the bottom, there was a strange statue with a weird object in the middle. Obviously, this was the Gulug Stone that Kuja wanted. I grabbed it, but I wasn't to keep it without a fight! BOSS BATTLE TIME! For this boss battle, I have to fight an...airship. I get to fight off a large and somehow living airship. Luckily, I found out that Freya's Dragon abilities don't  count as magic, so I'm allowed to do a little with that. Apart from that, I am forced to strike at the airship with physical attacks and heal whenever I can. I looted a couple of nice items off him as well. All in all...an easy and profitable fight! With the airship taken care of, the group is ready to head back in. Aaaand we switch back over to group two!
     Before getting to them, I get a look in on Kuja. He's already planning to betray his promise to Zidane. The trap to drop the group into the lava will go off in ten minutes. Overhearing this, Cid decides he needs to go do something, so I have fun controlling a little dressed up frog! As I move about, a pair of Black Mages walk by and start talking about the current situation. One of them asks the other if what they are doing is right or not, but the other one says they can't really do anything about it. However, the second one also reveals how the traps are disabled. He mentioned something about "turning them all on". They walk off, and I head the opposite direction of them to turn the trap off. This involves a somewhat humorous mini game with Cid. This would be a lot more fun if I wasn't timed...like 5 minutes!The first step was retrieving a key from a monster's cage. Being as Cid is the size of a frog, the monster was pretty big in comparison to him. I had to slowly but surely sneak up. This took me way longer than it should have, but I eventually got the key. With the key in hand, I needed it to deactivate the trap switch above. Unfortunately, that switch is high up on a shelf. Lucky for Cid, there's a nice little scale set with weights. Using the weights (four made of different material), I had to get the scale to be fully weighed on one side to climb up. It should have been obvious, but I choose the wrong answer the first time. The second guess come up right though. From there, I climbed up, inserted the key, and flipped over a large hourglass. This stopped the traps and opened the other members' doors. Woo!
     The imprisoned members are all released and ready to escape. I form up the team of Steiner, Vivi, Dagger, and Amarant and roll out! It's a fairly balanced team really. Steiner and Amarant offer all physical, Vivi chimes in with powerful magic attacks, and Dagger just heals it up with some summon sauce on the side. It's your basic team really, but there is one flaw. Dagger is still "recovering" from all the trauma that is happening and can't currently speak. In battle, this is reflected by her having a random chance to "not be able to concentrate". Luckily, it didn't happen very often, but it was not a fun factor to have to account for. The place we are in question is known as the Desert Palace (knew so earlier but it finally did the "intro" words.
     While I wander about, I notice there are candles all over. Basically, the majority of this dungeon is candle lighting to get results. Lighting all the candles or candles in a certain order reveals pathways and treasure. It's nothing too hard for this portion, and I'm finally able to get some decent leveling and ability learning in! This is especially nice for Amarant since I haven't used him much up to this point. The monsters in this area aren't too tough, so I was able to pass through without a lot of trouble. Some of the candle lighting was a bit annoying, but it never proved too tough. I did get a nice selection of items from the Bloodstones that appear as I lit the candles. I didn't know what they were at the time, but they proved to be something special soon enough.
     As I reached the final area, the exit was just before me, but the Desert Palace wasn't completely undefended it seems! I hear a security system go off, and it says something about the "defense system" being activated. Steiner, the current leader, spots out the massive thing and charges at it for BOSS BATTLE TIME! The monster in front of me is not so much a monster but a giant stone slab. As soon as the battle starts, it mentions something about the Bloodstones not being active! It starts calling out a bunch of power-up failures for the system. This was by far one of the shortest battles I've had, and I'm assuming that is in part due to my diligent Bloodstone acquiring. I literally ended this battle in four attacks! Of course, they were some of the more powerful attacks, but I had no reason to hold back. With the final hit, the giant stone slab and security system go down, and the group is able to jump the nearby teleport out.
     From here, I get switched back to Team Zidane. They have just gotten back via the Hilda Garde 1, and they are heading for Kuja to turn in the Gulug Stone. We hit the teleport from outside, but it takes us to a different area. As we arrive inside, Kuja speaks to Zidane and tells him to come alone. Of course, the entire group finds this suspicious (well DUUUUH), but Zidane has to do it for the sake of his friends. I head off and find Kuja in his chamber. Zidane tells Kuja that his friends had best be all right, and Kuja shows off an unconscious  version of the other party in a chamber below. Switching to the others outside, they are waiting when suddenly the other party teleports in. As I put it, KUJA IS LYING! The group realizes this and goes in to stop Zidane. As they all run inside, Eiko gets locked out before she can make it through. She turns back, and we see Zorn and Thorn appear to grab Eiko.
     The rest of the group rushes in to to warn Zidane, but it's most obviously too late. We hear Eiko yelling behind us, but she's being abducted by Zorn and Thorn. Cid tries to help, but he is just a frog. Kuja "magicks" the Gulug Stone from Zidane and tells the group he is taking Eiko as well. Zidane tries to get him, but he teleports out of the room. I try to catch him in the airship hanger, but he's already taken off. Cid suggests we use the Blue Narciss (name of the boat) to chase after him. I head out of the Desert Palace and climb aboard the boat to chase him. This leads us halfway across Gaia and eventually to the icy Lost Continent. We're forced to land nearby but watch as he flies off to a nearby place. Of course, there's only one thing located on the continent...Esto Gaza.
     I head inside the small settlement and run into a bishop there. After a bit of talking, he informs the group that a group of people that look like Vivi came through holding a girl and with a mysterious man following them. They made their way through the temple and towards Mount Gulug. (If you don't recognize it, Mount Gulug is the name of the volcano dungeon in FF1!) I buy any necessary supplies and then make my way into Mount Gulug...which is right behind Esto Gaza. As I enter inside, I'm hit with a bit of a nostalgia bomb when the music starts up. The music used inside of Mount Gulug is a remixed version of the original Mount Gulug background music. However, Mount Gulug brings more than nostalgia to the table! Inside, there is a decent array of monsters, and they aren't quite as big of pushovers as previous enemies. I actually had a Game Over in here when a couple enemies kept hitting me with the Freeze and Heat status effects. (Freeze literally freezes the character and will kill them if they are physically hit after being frozen. Heat will automatically kill a character if he takes another action after being "Heated".) Beyond that, I think the rest of the trip went okay. (I equipped the 'Body Temp' ability and that stops both.)
     I also gained some nifty new Blue Magic! I have a feeling I've forgotten to mention a few in the past, but since I'm not 100% sure what those were...I won't worry about them! The Blue Magic gained here was Twister and Mustard Bomb. Twister is one of the few wind element spells in the game. Mustard Bomb causes the ever so fun Heat status. I didn't have much use for either one at the moment, but it doesn't hurt to get all that I can either. The area inside of Mount Gulug is an abandoned town which used to be lived-in by dwarves or something (I forgot what the bishop said.), so there are remains of several broken down houses all about. There are plenty of goodies to find as well though. It seems that we aren't alone though...While looking about one house, a strange shadow flashes in and out. Zidane ignores it for now, but that's not the last of it. It pops up in a couple other places before finally showing itself for...NOT boss battle time!
     The dormant volcano seems to be occupied by a couple of dragons who are looking for a fight! I had to fight a few of these dragon creatures (looked more like a griffin really...) before I got to the bottom of this mountain stronghold. Despite their dragon-y appearance, none of the creatures were too hard to deal with. After a bit of looking about, I managed to use a centrally placed old well system to climb down to the bottom. I made it to a spot where the group could see the jesters doing something. Zidane figured it was the extraction spell they performed on Dagger, but now they are trying it on Eiko! Dagger comes in about this time, and she desperately wants to save Eiko. Zidane tells her to leave it to them though (Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Quina) and runs on ahead. Dagger stops momentarily but quickly follows them.
     The game switches to the two jesters performing the ritual at the bottom. Despite doing it like they did before, it proves unsuccessful. This is due in part to her being too young for them to extract the eidolons from her. The two jesters start arguing over whose fault it is, but Kuja quickly tells them to shut up and try again. They tell him that another attempt will endanger her life. Of course, Kuja says he doesn't care because he needs a power that is stronger than Garland's. He adds something about how Garland's power is ridiculous in comparison to his own. The final note he makes is how he needs to destroy Garland before Terra's plan is activated and his soul will no longer be his. As the jesters approach Eiko to try again, Mog pops out and protects Eiko. Eiko tells Mog to hide, but Mog stands firm. Kuja tells them to kill it, but they dont' get a chance! Mog thanks Eiko for being with her and that they'll always be together. Mog turns into shimmering light and STORY BATTLE TIME! Zorn and Thorn come at Eiko, and Mog tells her to use Terra Homing. This starts up a summon that involves a crazy-looking lion-angel combo that attacks with a blast of holy energy! This blasts the jesters in one shot and ends the battle.
     After the battle finishes, Mog tells Eiko that she wanted to be by her side so she turned herself into a moogle. She fades away as the rest of the group finally shows up. Zidane asks what happened, and Eiko replies that Mog protected her and never knew that Mog was actuall an eidolon. As she finishes this, Mog's ribbon pops out of nowhere and floats to Eiko. As this finishes, Kuja walks in and comments on how Mog went into Trance. He realizes that Trance is caused by an eruption of anger against one's surroundings rather than the will to live or the desire to protect another. He mentions something about needing a powerful soul, even if it isn't his. He says he doesn't need us anymore and starts to walk out. As he is leaving, he tells us that the "twins" put on a pretty good show but aren't really twins...Vivi goes after Kuja. The jesters start convulsing strangely and transform into a huge monster! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The jesters have mutated and merged together to make a giant fleshy monstrosity with two heads that look like each of the jesters. The monster didn't offer much of a challenge and seemed to be limited on the kinds of attacks it had. The only bad thing it could truly do was cause the Virus status effect on a character. (Virus stops a character from gaining experience and AP. Basically, you can't level at all.) Anyways, I took the time to steal what I could off the monster and then put it out of its misery. With the battle wrapped up, the group gets a moment to relax. Vivi comes back in with a couple of Black Mages. They missed Kuja, but they were here to say something else. Kuja give them the truth of it all. He told the Black Mages that their life spans couldn't be extended, and that they were all fools for even believing him. They didn't take the news very well, and most of them were sitting about in another area. Vivi goes to sit with his people and to be with them during this time.
     As he leaves the room, the group hears a woman's voice and goes to investigate. The woman seems to recognize Dagger as Princess Garnet almost immediately. This leads to only a few people...and Cid enters in to confirm that this is Hilda! Finally, we meet Cid's wife. She doesn't recognize the frog at first, but she says his mustache gives him away. (How a frog still has a mustache...I guess magic?) She apologizes to Cid for giving Kuja his airship, but he says he doesn't care as long as she is okay. Then...we time jump to Lindblum! Back in Lindblum, Hilda starts talking with Cid. She tells him that Kuja basically gave her all the information for his master plan for no apparent reason. She said it was a horrible plan, and that Kuja isn't from THIS world (Gaia). He's aiming to use Gaia to gain destructive power, and the obtaining of the Hilda Garde I was just part of this plan. However, kidnapping Hilda wasn't part of that, but he never did anything bad to her.
     Hilda wants to call a meeting to inform everybody about this, but before that, Cid asks her to change him back. Hilda isn't sure she can trust him or his skirt chasing ways. Cid says he is sorry and promises to never do it again. After a bit of back and forth, she gives in and agrees to change him back. She does warn him that something worse will happen if he does it again. She changes Cid back, and we finally get to see the REAL Cid! (I honestly like Frog Cid better...JUST SAYING!) From here, the game switches over to Zidane. A soldier wakes him up and tells him that a meeting has been called. I head on up and meet with the rest of the group. As I get there, Zidane asks who the strange dude at the top is, and the group informs him that it is Cid. After the meetings starts, Cid heads out to get the Hilda Garde 3 running and says something about using part of the Blue Narciss to do it.
     As he leaves, Hilda starts filling us in on all the details that Kuja told her. It doesn't get far before Zidane asks where Dagger is. It seems that she has wandered off, and Steiner heads out to find her. Continuing the meetings, she tells the group what she told Cid. Kuja is out for a greater power and isn't from this world. He's from a place called Terra. INSERT ATE! Steiner is looking around the city and runs into Tantalus. He thinks they are still hoodlums at first, but Baku offers to help find the Princess since they know the city better. This changes Steiner's mind about them. BACK TO MEETING! Terra is somehow connected to Gaia through a place called the Shimmering Island. We can't get directly to Terra through the Shimmering Island of course. Amarant adds in that THAT would be too easy. The ability to go to Terra is sealed, and the seal can only be broken in an old castle located on the Forgotten Continent. (Okay, they were a bit lazy on the continent names, but I guess simple and easy works all right.) Seeing as the castle is unnamed, Hilda refers to it simply as Ipsen's Castle. Unfortunately, the only known records of the Forgotten Continent are from an explorer who said the cliffs around the continent were too steep to climb and made the continent inaccessible. This means the only way to get there is with an airship, which Cid is working on. And that is all she knows.
     When asked why Kuja gave her the information, she said that he gave it all voluntarily and wasn't sure why. Amarant figures that he did so because he's so much more powerful than us, and we're already at a huge disadvantage. Thus...he doesn't fear us or anything we could do. As they are wrapping up, Steiner walks in and says he can't find Dagger anywhere in Lindblum. Zidane thinks he knows where she went, so we time jump to Alexandria! Tantalus is looking all around the city for Dagger, but they can't seem to find her. Zidane is sitting by the castle and unsure what to do. He figures she would have been here as well. Baku walks in and says he can't find Dagger, but he did spot THAT chick. Zidane asks Baku who, but Baku walks off. Zidane follows after him and turns out...he's talking about Beatrix. Zidane keeps trying to get to Beatrix, but a nice little back and forth occurs as Zidane tries to catch her and fails. Eventually, she finally comes up and approaches Baku. She asks who he is, and he replies that he is one of the people who kidnapped the Princess. Beatrix says to forget about that for now. Baku comments that she has a big heart unlike the knucklehead Steiner. The group talks briefly, and Zidane asks Beatrix where Dagger could be. She points out the resting place of the late Queen and gives Zidane a Garnet to give to Dagger.
     Zidane heads over and does find Dagger over by her mother's grave. However, it seems that something happened to her because she can talk again! She still plans to be Queen of Alexandria one day, but she wishes to travel with the group a bit longer. She explains that her primary concern when her mother was alive was just being a princess, and that when she was to become Queen, her thought process didn't change. She believes her people won't accept her as Queen nor does she have the right to rule the country. Zidane hands her the Garnet and tells her that it was given a wish and shined constantly. (He's using a metaphor here...) Basically, he says that she can rule someday, but the most important thing here is the desire to do so and shouldn't be rushed. She tries to apologize for using the group to run away, but Zidane tells her that what is important is that she wishes to stay with them. Dagger borrows Zidane's dagger once again and CUTSCENE! Dagger walks out to the water and looks upon the castle. She uses the Dagger to cut her hair, and now things have changed apparently! Before the scene ends, I see a massive airship taking off from Lindblum (assuming the Hilda Garde 3).
     Finally, I have an airship! With the airship in hand, I'm to make my way to Ipsen's Castle and figure a way to Terra. Before I do that of course, I do a bit more side questing! Thankfully, most of the open and available side quests are more or less done at this point. I finish up the remainder of Chocobo Hot & Cold by collected the last couple Chocograph Pieces (6 of them in all). With all the pieces, I can finally upgrade Choco to the ultimate Chocobo...THE GOLD CHOCOBO! With this ultimate Chcoobo, I can fly all over the map and finally make it to Choco's homeland known as the Chocobo Paradise. With a little guide direction-ing, I find my way to it quite easily. I enter inside and get to directly meet the Fat Chocobo. He welcomes Chocobo to his homeland and offers him a place here. He didn't really approve of using the "humans" to help him, but he gives us some gratitude for helping Choco out. When asked to stay, Choco seems to refuse it for now because he isn't quite ready.
     I leave Chocobo's Paradise and head for my next location...Chocobo's Sky Garden! Basically, it's the final frontier for chocograph hunting. However, it's a magical floating island, and you have to look all over the map for a "shadow" and then fly upward using Dead Peppers. Up in the sky, I find the last few Chocographs and obtain some of the best equipment in the game from them! Woo! With the chocographs done, I don't lack a whole lot to do, but there are a couple items left on the list. For now, I head for a city I haven't been to but know of. The location is on a secluded mountain top with a water source about it. I enter inside and find the library known as...Daguerreo! As I said, the place is more of a giant and ancient library than a city. It also houses a large water shrine to the water dragon, Leviathan, and that explains the constant supply of water that seems to be present. (But that doesn't explain the reason of making a water place a library say goodbye to those books if water goes wrong!) Despite this, Daguerreo is home to one of the best shops and synthesis shops in all of Gaia. I use my large pile of money to buy and synth all that I can. That didn't take too long though, and once I finished, I decied it was time to move on...TO IPSEN'S CASTLE!
     The game marked Ipsen's Castle for me, so I'm able to auto-pilot my way there. (You can pick spots on the map while in the airship, and it auto-flies its way there.) Ipsen's Castle is quite a strange castle. It appears to be two castle's stacked on top of each other but with the floors being the connected portion. Before we can enter, Amarant presents a challenge to Zidane. He claims he works better alone, and that he can find what we need before the group can find it together. I'm given the choice here, and I let him go ahead. Zidane claims that "they can't change him", so I followed shortly after Amarant. As for my team, I take in Dagger, Steiner, and Eiko. It's not the most balanced team, but it does offer some extra healing. Upon entering, I prepare for the weirdness. An earlier guide mentioned something about weapon power values doing a flip-flop in here. Basically, the weakest weapons strike the strongest and the strongest weapons strike the weakest. This is proven easily in battle and supported by the items I get from the nearby chests. The chests contain a variety of incredibly old and weak weapons from the beginning. I equip Steiner and Zidane with weaker weapons while I keep the other two fully armed. (I'm trying to learn abilities here!) No idea why they thought this was a good mechanic, but I'm not a professional game designer.
     I quickly make my way through the castle and find myself at the very top. Once there, it seems Amarant was right about something. He did make it to the top first. (I'd like to add that he got a headstart!) Zidane asks if he figured out how to break the seal, but he says he's clueless on it. Zidane walks up to the display and things fall into place (for me at least). There are four mirror objects placed on various points of what appears to be a world map of Gaia. They are each situated in a specific spot where I probably need to do something, and each mirror has a clue on the back as to where we should look. Amarant tells the group he is leaving now since he managed to beat Zidane. Zidane yet again lets him go because we can't really change him. As I try to leave myself, a monster appears out of nowhere and demands we return the mirrors. It says something about us messing with Terra's master plan and attacks us for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     I'm not going to draw this out much. Despite the Ipsen's Castle effect, the boss proved to be little trouble. It helped that I had powerful summons and the Holy spell with Eiko! With his defeat, he fades away on a dying note about how "One is all, all is one". With this bit wrapped up, I decided to head back out and try to get this mirror bit figured out. We make it back outside and find out that Amarant never came out. Zidane heads back in...alone. This presented a very unfun scenario for me. I had to run about Ipsen's Castle and locate a missing Amarant without the team. This wasn't fun at all since I was having a bit of trouble with enemies as is. However, I did happen upon a few extra items I missed, so it sort of balanced out. I find Amarant in an area below the main floor. When we hit the top, it activated some traps, and Amarant went and fell into one of them. Before he lets anything happen though, he asks Zidane why he came back for him. To sum it up, Zidane says it was against his nature to NOT come back and that they are all a team. With that thought in mind, Amarant decides it is okay to rejoin the group. We head back outside and...
     Time to discuss the next plan! Zidane briefly goes over what they do know. The mirrors were situated on a world map in specific spots. This was further enhanced by clues in the Zidane-only language written on the backs of the mirrors. Zidane figures these locations are definitely part of the seal breaking process. On top of this though, he thinks the big monster they fought gave him another insight. He believes the "One is All, All is One" line means that all four spots have to be conquered at the same time. With eight characters total, this means two people are dropped off at four locations. Before this though, I did a bit of side tracking for items and side quest. I returned to Daguerro briefly to buy more items and synth more things. (Still haven't gotten it all!) Apart from that, I stopped off at Treno to deliver a few more Stellazio and hit the auction house up. All I got out of it was Dark Matter, but that is okay since it teaches Dagger the Odin summon. (Woo! Odin is BACK!)
     After that, I revisited Vivi's home for a short and interesting cutscene involving Vivi, Quina, Quale (Quina's master), and Quan (apparently Quale's master). Quina starts this by eating n imaginary feast that isn't there. From here, he runs outside to see the Qu out there. The Qu present is Vivi's grandfather Quan. He tells Quina that what he saw was his imagination, but it was just as real as real could be! Quale rushes in about this time and says that Quan was HIS master but ran off to do something else. Even Vivi came in and was greatly surprised to see his grandpa. What Quan basically said to them was that a powerful imagination can make one live well past their actual self, and a true gourmand is able to taste things even when just being told about it. With that, he says goodbye to the three of them and fades away. However, it seems that Zidane didn't see any of this happening. Vivi tells him that he'll explain to him later, and Quina adds in that Zidane has a looong way to go. After a couple more small stops, I figured to move on and look for those places...called shrines!
     Of course, this was a very easy task since the game just gives you the shrine locations! The first one is the Water Shrine, and it is assigned to Dagger and Eiko. From there, I drop off Freya and  Amarant at the Fire Shrine. The Wind Shrine is left to Vivi and Steiner. That leaves Zidane and Quina for the Earth Shrine. All the groups proceed inside with little trouble other than a few traps. They all find the spot where the mirrors go, but they all realize at once...It was too easy. Just as they go to set the mirrors in place, a guardian appears at every shrine. The funny thing about these guardians is that they all resemble the appropriate boss per shrine to the Final Fantasy 1 major fiends! (The elemental crystal ones...FF1 versions not the FF4 ones.) They call themselves the Guardians of Terra, and each group gets to deal with a separate guardian. As for the Earth Shrine, we get to deal with the Lich. (It's also the only battle I have to actually do.)
     BOSS BATTLE TIME! Despite the handicap of only two people, it happens to be that these two people are probably the better characters in the party. Zidane deals out the damage while Quina assists with fairly powerful physical strikes and some great blue magic, namely White Wind and Mighty Guard. With the guardian's defeat, each group places their mirror in place and regroup. They all regroup on the Hilda Garde 3, and I do a quick preparation for my trip to Terra. I really only stopped a Daguerro for supplies and more equipment. After that, I head for the Shimmering Island. To warp to Terra, the group jumps off the Hilda Garde 3 and into the torrent of energies surging from the island...CUE CUTSCENE! The group jumps off the Hilda Garde 3 and fly upwards and onwards in the spiraling vortex of energy. When they awaken, they find themselves in a strange and very blue place.
     I have finally arrived...at Terra! It's a very odd looking place with a lot of blue and funkyness about. Before anything happens, Zidane is approached by an evil-looking man. (We know him as Garland.) He asks Zidane what his name is, and before Zidane replies, he says something about Gaia instilling a different sense in him. He simply tells Zidane to explore Terra and to remember his true self. He vanishes after this, and the rest of the group shows up. I take some time to explore the new place, but I don't get too far when a mysterious girl lies ahead of us. Zidane calls out to her, but she just turns around and runs. This reveals that she has a tail like Zidane's! Of course, I have to give chase here. I follow her all about, and when I finally catch up, she tells Zidane to follow her so that he can remember his heritage. And thus...I find myself in a Bran Bal.
     As we enter inside, she welcomes Zidane home and tells him that this is where he will offer himself. As she finishes, a cutscene pops up and reveals something else. From below our position, a massive airship flies up and above us. As it turns out, this airship is the Invincible. Upon seeing the evil eye at the bottom, Dagger finally realizes that this ship was the cause of Madain Sari's destruction! The trauma of this causes her to pass out, and thus ends the cutscene. Zidane looks for a place for her to rest, and I start to explore this Bran Bal. The people here all look almost exactly like, and even more so, they all look just like Zidane! However, unlike Zidane, they all speak with a very direct and almost scientific tone. One of them gives him an answer about an "inn", and he takes Dagger over to rest.
     Next up, we see Eiko running about the town and trying to find some medicine. She runs into the girl from before who tells her to pass a message to Zidane. She wants Zidane to meet her at the underground laboratory. Eiko passes on the message, and Zidane heads out to find her. Along the way, I talk with a few more of the people around here. The key words brought up throughout are souls, vessels, and life. When I find the girl in the laboratory, it's shown that these people are created! She finally gives us a name for them...the Genomes! Zidane wonders why they all act like they do and is somewhat saddened to find out that this place is his home. The girl (yeah, it never gives her a name at this point...) tells Zidane that he was specially made for a greater purpose. She tells him that the "will of Garland" is absolute, but he just asks who Garland is. (Be prepared! The rest of this post is basically just a pile of story that I'm going to try and summarize where I can.)
     She says that Garland is the one who watches over Terra and his mission is to restore the people of Terra. The Genomes are simply vessels for when the real Terra people awaken from their sleep that has lasted ages. When the time comes, the light of Terra will change from blue to red, and Gaia will become Terra. She acts as if Terra has been absorbing new planets to survive for some time. The Genomes only purpose in all of this is to house the souls of the Terra people. Of course, Zidane asks why they don't simply eliminate them with all the power they have. She responds that Garland tried a forceful method once, but it failed and forced him to wait a long time. He waited until Gaia's civilizations gained the tremendous power of summoning eidolons. And thus came about the destruction of Madain Sari. She explains that planets have a cycle of souls where the souls are born from the planet and return back to it. (Yeah, I'll admit this is a straight rip of the Lifestream theory from FF7.) Garland was trying to gain control of that cycle, and Zidane was created to help him achieve this. However, that's all she says for now and leads Zidane off to talk with Garland.
     Switching back to the rest of the party, Dagger asks Eiko to go look for Zidane. I head on out as Eiko and start searching for him. As I go, a pile of ATEs show other party members talking with Zidane. Quina talks with Zidane and asks why he's so down. They talk about how people look like their people, and Zidane brings up that these are his. Next, Zidane bumps into Vivi trying to speak with the Genomes. Zidane tells him it is useless, but Vivi feels that they are a lot alike. He says that they seem like the Black Mages. They can think and answer, but they are missing something that keeps from from being more. Zidane bumps into Amarant last, and the two of them talk briefly. He asks Amarant about his family, and Amarant says he can't remember any. Zidane simply states that he has no parents and walks on. As I look for Zidane (as Eiko), I run into each of the ATE people, and they join up. I come to a spot where the girl directs Zidane onward into a warp. She says that Garland is at the floating castle where the souls bide their time until restoration...It's name is Pandemonium! (Yes, the name of the purgatory place in FF2. This game is making fun use of lots of past stuff. I STILL LOVE IT!) Zidane heads on to meet Garland and figures it is up to him to deal with this little "family problem". As Zidane leaves, Eiko learns from the girl that Zidane went off to see Garland and mentioned something about being an enemy of Gaia now. Eiko runs off to tell everybody else, and we jump back to Zidane!
     I'm going to warn you right now...This next part is basically the entirety of the "What's going on?" for this game. It is all the secrets piled into one massive speech. I'm going to summarize it as I can, but the biggest thing I wanted to state here was...OMG! SPOILERS ALERT BELOW! OMG!
     Zidane comes face-to-face with Garland, and this is where the story gets nearly fully explained. Garland says that he sent his most prized Genome to Gaia twelve years ago to help him disrupt the cycle of souls. The Genome he sent was Zidane, and Zidane demands to know why he sent him to grow up there and why he even wants it destroyed. Garland claims he has no intent of destroy Gaia and only wishes to make Gaia into Terra. However, problems arose for him during this whole plan, and one of those problems was how Zidane was raised on Gaia. He then changes the subject to say another Genome was created much like Zidane, and that it is the most responsible for his current plans being messed up. Zidane questions who it is, and Garland simply states that Zidane already knows him and that they are quite alike. Garland starts heading towards something and tells Zidane to follow.
     Garland created the Genomes to house the souls of the Terra people when they awaken. (We know this of course) However, 24 years ago, he gave life to a different Genome much like Zidane. The will of this Genome was too strong to be a proper vessel and was going to be discarded. However, he figured out a use for this Genome and tried to use it to disrupt the cycle of souls on Gaia. Zidane asks again who he is talking about. Garland is surprised he doesn't know, and this Genome might even be considered Zidane's BROTHER! So he finally reveals that the Genome in question...is named Kuja! (DUN DUN DUUUUUN!) Zidane says he doesn't have a tail, but Garland explains that he hides it. He hides the tail as a means to reject his existence and tries to assert his own individuality. Zidane claims the two are nothing alike, but Garland replies that Kuja said the same thing about Zidane. Kuja seemed to be perfect for the mission he was sent for. He was sent to bring war and create chaos on Gaia. The disruption of the flow of souls is best brought about by war, and Kuja did this and exceeded expectations.
     Then Zidane was created, and Kuja didn't like this at all. He didn't like that Zidane had more power than his and felt threatened by it all. Kuja threw Zidane onto Gaia since it was going to be destroyed. Zidane's purpose was to be the same as Kuja's, but Garland didn't expect Kuja to abandon Zidane despite it being Kuja's nature. For Kuja, his bringing war onto Gaia was proof of his victory over Zidane. Garland figures that Kuja's desire to justify his existence is the only reason he let Zidane live. Zidane asks if that is why the blood of thousands were so readily spilled. Garland inquires to if he means Kuja's ambitions or the overall plan to disrupt the cycle of souls. Zidane figures both and asked what was to be gained from the disruption.
Garland wants to disrupt the cycle of souls on Gaia, drain them, and replace the void with the souls of Terra. The speeding up of the cycle would speed up the work as a whole, and thus war was necessary. In time, Gaia will be gone and transform into Terra.
     The Iifa Tree's part in all of this was to be the role of Soul Divider. The Mist given out by the tree is comprised of the stagnant souls of Gaia. Zidane told Garland that they stopped the Mist, but Garland claims that what they saw was just the back of it all. The Iifa Tree blocks the flow of Gaia's souls so that Terra's souls can flow freely. The tree actually blocks the souls at the core of the planet where it contains the beginning and end of the cycle of souls. The light that remains is still Gaia's, but he says that it will soon change from Blue to Red, and thus the restoration will be complete. He wrapped that light up in the Iifa Tree to prevent the judgement of souls on Gaia from inside the very planet. And that is the Iifa Tree's true purpose  and form. Everything they saw was simply the material form, and the flow isn't going to change by stopping the Mist disposal.
     Kuja adds to this process by being an "Angel of Death". He sends souls to the tree, and this keeps them trapped. Of course, Zidane's role here was to take on Kuja's role after he passed on. Garland knew that Kuja couldn't last forever and planned to replace him with Zidane when the time was right. With this explanation, he has given Zidane his true existence back. Zidane says he's aware of all his life back on Gaia and just wants a place to call home. Garland tells him he is destined to live among the stars for all eternity. He has the power, position, and motive to accomplish it all. Zidane doesn't want that and just wants to protect his home and freinds on Gaia. He plans to defeat Garland and destroy Terra to prevent more pain from reaching those on Gaia. Garland finds it regretable that Zidane chose this action as he would have been a perfect Angel of Death. Zidane wants to take on Garland here and now, but Garland asks if he knows the phrase "meeting his maker". Garland does something, and Zidane passes clear out. Before everything changes, Garland says something about Zidane being too good to be a regular Genome vessel, but he has no choice. /end scene
     Game makes a quick pit stop at Kuja who is now back on Terra. He can't believe he came back, but he claims that the power will soon be his. He plans to show everybody why he is the ruler of them all. NOW BACK TO ZIDANE!
     Zidane wakes up in a strange place, and he can't seem to think straight. He gets up and tries to stumble away. Eiko and Vivi show up to rescue him, but he just tells them to go away. As he's walking, he gets into a fight with a monster! Things are looking grim, but then Freya and Amarant step in to help him. They beat the monster, but Zidane walks away without them. Next up, Zidane comes into a room where Quina and Steiner are dealing with an enemy of their own. They're fighting some large insect monster, and things are going just okay. Zidane jumps in and helps them defeat it, but yet again...he walks off without them. He comes to a chamber where he is finally alone, but another monster appears to stop him! Things are looking bad, and when the beast puts its foot down...Zidane isn't alone! Dagger comes in and heals Zidane. We fight through this monster, and we finally come back.
     Zidane tells Dagger that he felt he had to do all of this himself and didn't want anybody to get hurt. The group starts coming back together and tell him that he doesn't have to do it all by himself. They have always been with him and will back him up to the death. Basically, they are going to help him do it. He apologizes to them all about his actions, and now it's finally time...Time to take down Garland...
     On the next post! Yeah, I figured I have one big post left for this game, and I'll finally be done! I'm going to pour all of my power and ability into that last post! Also, I'm going to attempt the ultimate extra boss fight...OZMA! Want to learn more? I'll tell you about my horrible defeat in the next and final post of FINAL FANTASY 9! Stay tuned for more Recurring Fantasy, and as always, I thank you for reading my insanely large amount of rambling on. Thank you...thank you very much.

Ending Point - Pandemonium
Current Party -

• Zidane - Level 46
• Dagger - Level 38
• Amarant - Level 34
• Quina - Level 38

Goals Accomplished - Retrieved the Gulug Stone from Oeilvert with Zidane's group. Escaped Kuja's Desert Palace with the remaining party members. Chased Kuja to the Forbidden Continent. Rescued Eiko and Hilda in Mount Gulug. Learned more Blue Magic! Obtained the airship Hilda Garde 3! Located and explored Ipsen's Castle. Obtained the Mirror's necessary to break the seal so we can go to Terra. Side Quest stuff.~ Broke the seals at the four elemental shrines and made it to Terra. Learned a loooot about Terra and the "master plan".
Next Goals - Stop Garland and his plan. Deal with Kuja when that comes up. Save Gaia!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~