CES Challenge notes.
Dec. 23rd, 2007 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elwenSo I just beat Final Fantasy VI Advance with only Celes, Edgar, and Setzer -- the so-called "CES Challenge". Yay, go me.
I'm kind of confused, though. What was so different about the ending? Was it just that Celes' and Edgar's scenes didn't have Locke and Sabin, respectively? Did Edgar not flirt with Celes at the end in the group one?
I mean, I could have gotten those two without going bare-minimum CES... and now I still have to beat the game once without Strago to see Relm's alternate ending. =/
Oh well, I guess it was worth doing once.
Details:
I more or less followed the CES Near-Perfect Stats FAQ (I mean, I figured I was going to be spamming save states anyway -- I might as well do it in style, with near-perfect stats), with some modifications for the sake of my sanity.
First of all, I didn't play the first half as a low level game. (I'm still not sure what the point of a low-level game is, besides the challenge. Is it because later-recruited characters will thus come at lower levels, and you have more levels over which to raise their stats with Magicite?) Completely unplanned but extremely fortunately, I completed the Floating Continent with CES at level 26. [This makes up for the time I went into Kefka's tower with everyone at level 60, I guess. That was painful.]
If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about L.3 Confuse, L.4 Flare, and L.5 Death.
Once I was in the World of Ruin, I figured I'd play along and do it low level. As it turns out, I think running from everything, especially in Kefka's Tower, is probably easier on a CES game than fighting it out. I got so used to running away and not gaining any experience that even when I ran into Great Behemoths (which you can't run away from), I'd painstakingly pick it off and then run from the Marlboro and lizard thing it came with.
The first thing I learned: CES game does not mean you can't get Gau. Nice. He and his maxed-out defense did a lot of things for me.
Playing it this way was probably also the first time I'd ever ventured into the Colosseum besides to get Shadow back. I even came up with a strategy all by myself for killing the Gorgimera, which I needed to do to upgrade my Murasame into a Murakumo -- because trying to steal the Murakumo from Samurai Soul was too painful. (There are a few mistakes in the FAQ, and one of them was suggesting that Samurai Soul is vulnerable to Stop.) Also, stealing aEconomizer Celestriad from the thing you fight after betting a Murakumo is so much nicer than trying to get one off a Brachiosaur.
That brings me to the second clever thing I learned from the guide: even with only CES and Gau, you can steal stuff if you get a Merit Award and equip the Thief Knife. It's not nearly as nice as stealing with Locke, but at least you can do it. And one modification I did not make was skipping the stealing of three sets of imp gear -- though those Tryannosaurs sure sucked. (In hindsight, I still kind of wonder how much I needed the imp stuff. It basically did three things for me: (1) get me Leviathan, (2) kill the Blue Dragon, and (3) allow me to steal the Celestriad. Flood was useful, but I'm not sure I absolutely needed it. Since I ultimately didn't kill the Red Dragon -- I quailed at the thought of going through most of the Phoenix Cave with only CES, especially since there are monsters you can't run from -- I didn't really get anything out of killing the Blue Dragon either. ...but I guess I couldn't have managed without the Celestriad. But then again I only needed one set of imp gear for that.)
In addition to skipping the Red Dragon, I think the only other notable thing in the latter half of the guide that I skipped was leveling Gau to 50. Maybe since I was level 26 instead of 18 or whatever, I made it up the Fanatics' Tower and just killed the Magic Master while I was teaching everybody Quick. Since that appeared to be the only point of having a level 50 Gau (oh, and also for killing the Ice Dragon in the Dragons' Den, which I definitely was not about to do), I didn't bother.
Kefka's Tower, with the exception of getting away from Great Behemoths, was surprisingly easy, actually. And I didn't get wiped out even once while fighting Kefka. (And I did steal the Ragnarok, though not the Red Jacket.) Of course, I had to follow carefully crafted strategies for every single boss, but it still seems kind of amazing. I come away with three important lessons:
1. Celestriad + Soul of Thamasa is so sweet.
2. Quick is teh awesome.
3. Osmose. Mmm.
I don't think I grokked Quick until this run-through. I had an inkling of Osmose -- that's how I got over the can't-use-magic-will-run-out-of-MP fears I used to have (and then I imported the Osmose lesson to FF4, and suddenly that game wasn't hard anymore) -- but now I'm an expert at timing and targeting it. Especially after spending so much time at the Fanatics' Tower. Of course, I always knew about Celestriad and Soul of Thamasa, but I've always tended to focus on physical attacks more than magic in every RPG I play, so I probably didn't use it as well as I could have. Plus, I haven't had a Celestriad since the first time I ever played the game. (That time, I performed the Vanish/Sketch glitch without knowing it, and the next time I looked closely at my inventory I suddenly had 56 Celestriads. Clearing that run was pretty easy after that, but it was a wash because the game crashed partway through the ending, and I never found out what happened to Terra.)
So I guess now I'll give it a rest, and then I'll go start collecting people for a run-through to get Relm's ending. Poor Strago will have to wait yet longer to get his Lores. And I killed the boss with Force Field already, so he has to get it from that crazy-ass monster that has all the Lores.
Oh, I guess another thing I learned is that I can get along fine withoutLife 2 Arise and Life 3 Reraise. And without Cure 3 Curaga, since I was low enough level that Cura did the job. :D
(I'm not even sure it would have been that much easier to kill the Magic Master the normal way and take the Ultima than Rasp him to death. I guess non-elemental spells would have done the job, even with Wall Change.)
Okay, now I'm just babbling and name-dropping.
I'm kind of confused, though. What was so different about the ending? Was it just that Celes' and Edgar's scenes didn't have Locke and Sabin, respectively? Did Edgar not flirt with Celes at the end in the group one?
I mean, I could have gotten those two without going bare-minimum CES... and now I still have to beat the game once without Strago to see Relm's alternate ending. =/
Oh well, I guess it was worth doing once.
Details:
I more or less followed the CES Near-Perfect Stats FAQ (I mean, I figured I was going to be spamming save states anyway -- I might as well do it in style, with near-perfect stats), with some modifications for the sake of my sanity.
First of all, I didn't play the first half as a low level game. (I'm still not sure what the point of a low-level game is, besides the challenge. Is it because later-recruited characters will thus come at lower levels, and you have more levels over which to raise their stats with Magicite?) Completely unplanned but extremely fortunately, I completed the Floating Continent with CES at level 26. [This makes up for the time I went into Kefka's tower with everyone at level 60, I guess. That was painful.]
If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about L.3 Confuse, L.4 Flare, and L.5 Death.
Once I was in the World of Ruin, I figured I'd play along and do it low level. As it turns out, I think running from everything, especially in Kefka's Tower, is probably easier on a CES game than fighting it out. I got so used to running away and not gaining any experience that even when I ran into Great Behemoths (which you can't run away from), I'd painstakingly pick it off and then run from the Marlboro and lizard thing it came with.
The first thing I learned: CES game does not mean you can't get Gau. Nice. He and his maxed-out defense did a lot of things for me.
Playing it this way was probably also the first time I'd ever ventured into the Colosseum besides to get Shadow back. I even came up with a strategy all by myself for killing the Gorgimera, which I needed to do to upgrade my Murasame into a Murakumo -- because trying to steal the Murakumo from Samurai Soul was too painful. (There are a few mistakes in the FAQ, and one of them was suggesting that Samurai Soul is vulnerable to Stop.) Also, stealing a
That brings me to the second clever thing I learned from the guide: even with only CES and Gau, you can steal stuff if you get a Merit Award and equip the Thief Knife. It's not nearly as nice as stealing with Locke, but at least you can do it. And one modification I did not make was skipping the stealing of three sets of imp gear -- though those Tryannosaurs sure sucked. (In hindsight, I still kind of wonder how much I needed the imp stuff. It basically did three things for me: (1) get me Leviathan, (2) kill the Blue Dragon, and (3) allow me to steal the Celestriad. Flood was useful, but I'm not sure I absolutely needed it. Since I ultimately didn't kill the Red Dragon -- I quailed at the thought of going through most of the Phoenix Cave with only CES, especially since there are monsters you can't run from -- I didn't really get anything out of killing the Blue Dragon either. ...but I guess I couldn't have managed without the Celestriad. But then again I only needed one set of imp gear for that.)
In addition to skipping the Red Dragon, I think the only other notable thing in the latter half of the guide that I skipped was leveling Gau to 50. Maybe since I was level 26 instead of 18 or whatever, I made it up the Fanatics' Tower and just killed the Magic Master while I was teaching everybody Quick. Since that appeared to be the only point of having a level 50 Gau (oh, and also for killing the Ice Dragon in the Dragons' Den, which I definitely was not about to do), I didn't bother.
Kefka's Tower, with the exception of getting away from Great Behemoths, was surprisingly easy, actually. And I didn't get wiped out even once while fighting Kefka. (And I did steal the Ragnarok, though not the Red Jacket.) Of course, I had to follow carefully crafted strategies for every single boss, but it still seems kind of amazing. I come away with three important lessons:
1. Celestriad + Soul of Thamasa is so sweet.
2. Quick is teh awesome.
3. Osmose. Mmm.
I don't think I grokked Quick until this run-through. I had an inkling of Osmose -- that's how I got over the can't-use-magic-will-run-out-of-MP fears I used to have (and then I imported the Osmose lesson to FF4, and suddenly that game wasn't hard anymore) -- but now I'm an expert at timing and targeting it. Especially after spending so much time at the Fanatics' Tower. Of course, I always knew about Celestriad and Soul of Thamasa, but I've always tended to focus on physical attacks more than magic in every RPG I play, so I probably didn't use it as well as I could have. Plus, I haven't had a Celestriad since the first time I ever played the game. (That time, I performed the Vanish/Sketch glitch without knowing it, and the next time I looked closely at my inventory I suddenly had 56 Celestriads. Clearing that run was pretty easy after that, but it was a wash because the game crashed partway through the ending, and I never found out what happened to Terra.)
So I guess now I'll give it a rest, and then I'll go start collecting people for a run-through to get Relm's ending. Poor Strago will have to wait yet longer to get his Lores. And I killed the boss with Force Field already, so he has to get it from that crazy-ass monster that has all the Lores.
Oh, I guess another thing I learned is that I can get along fine without
(I'm not even sure it would have been that much easier to kill the Magic Master the normal way and take the Ultima than Rasp him to death. I guess non-elemental spells would have done the job, even with Wall Change.)
Okay, now I'm just babbling and name-dropping.
