-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- XYTHAR & SPLIT INFINITY PRESENT -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of game: Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (for formats: NTSC-U/C, PAL) Type of guide: Full Walkthrough / FAQ Platform: Playstation 2 Version: Final, released on 17th April 2005 Author/s: Damir Kolar (Split Infinity) Xythar Copyrighted to: (c) Damir Kolar - All rights reserved (c) Xythar - All rights reserved Made in: MS Word, Courier New, Font Size 10, Chrs/Line 79 Best viewed: MS Word, Courier New, Font Size 10, Chrs/Line 79 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAKE SURE to check out mailing policy at the bottom of the document! MAKE SURE to read LEGAL INFORMATION SECTION just below this line! =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 01.) LEGAL INFORMATION - G0100 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== This document is written by Damir Kolar (alias Split Infinity) and Xythar. This document is copyrighted to us. It is intended for *PRIVATE* use only. It cannot be used in ANY form of printed or electronic media involved in a commercial business, in part or in whole, in any way, shape, or form. It cannot be given away freely, as bonus or prize, it can't be given away with the game and so on. It cannot be used for profitable or promotional purposes, regardless of the situation. Breaking any of these rules is in direct violation of copyright law. This document is protected by copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution of this document, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law. Any characters, names, places, or miscellaneous objects are copyright of their respective companies. If you are a webmaster of the site that wishes to post this document, you may do so under one condition - you must e-mail us first for permission. If permission is granted, you cannot change a single character of this document, and you must leave it in txt format. Permission will *not be granted* to fan based websites. *ONLY* following sites can host this guide: - http://www.gamefaqs.com - http://www.neoseeker.com - http://faqs.ign.com - http://www.supercheats.com =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 02.) TABLE OF CONTENTS - G0200 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== If you need to find something quickly, press and hold CTRL (Control), then press F button. This will bring up 'Find and Replace' box. In it type the word you're looking for and you should be taken to it immediately. This is much faster than scrolling thru entire guide. For your convenience I've inserted special search codes near every section to help you easily hop on to that section by using search code provided. Each search code will appear only twice in whole guide - thus getting stray hits will be impossible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION NUMBER & NAME | CODE | WHAT IS IT ABOUT? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01.) Legal information | G0100 | Copyright protection and legal info. 02.) Table of Contents | G0200 | Sections of this guide. 03.) Latest Updates | G0300 | Read what was added in last update. 04.) Introduction | G0400 | Just some small rambling from us... 05.) Abbreviations | G0500 | What do abbreviated words stand for...? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 06.) Party Members | G0600 | Short character bios of party members. 07.) Control Basics | G0700 | All the buttons, all the actions! 08.) SOL System | G0800 | What's SOL and its effective use. 09.) Main Menu | G0900 | Explaining main menu and its features. 10.) PETS System | G1000 | What's PETS and how to master it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.) Battle System | G1100 | In preparation (battle system). 12.) Character's Status | G1200 | In preparation (chr's status). 13.) Walkthrough | G1300 | SpoilerFREE guide from start to finish. 14.) Weapons | G1400 | Ryu's swords, Lin's guns, Nina's staves. 15.) Armors & Shields | G1500 | Info on protective equipment. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16.) Kokon Horay | G1600 | Hooray for completing bonus dungeon. 17.) Bestiary | G??00 | Good to know stuff about enemies. 18.) Past Revisions | G??00 | History of this guide resides here... 19.) Credits | G??00 | All who contributed... Thank you. 20.) Contact Info | G??00 | Find out how to reach us. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 03.) LATEST UPDATES - G0300 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== - Final Version (17th April 2005) # Finalized the guide. # Battle system, Character's status sections added. # Updated the Bestiary with movelists. # This file will no longer be updated with supplemental information. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 04.) INTRODUCTION - G0400 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Hello and welcome to our Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter guide. Document that you're about to read will be a joined effort of both Xythar and Split. Why have we decided to do it like this, you ask? Well, a few reasons... Split - So far I've always been going solo when writing guides. But recently I laid hands on BOF: DQ - a very kickass game, I think. So I thought about making a guide for it. But at the time being still remaining busy with some other guides I've decided to perhaps try co-write. So Xythar came to mind - I asked him if he wanted to write a guide with me and he agreed. Xythar - While I've written some guides before, I haven't yet tackled the tricky (and somewhat scary :P) project of writing for an RPG. I do like Dragon Quarter a lot, but I hadn't given serious thought to writing an FAQ for it until Split approached me with the proposal. And then I thought... why not? I need some experience with RPG writing anyway, and Dragon Quarter is a good one to start with because it's relatively short and in this case I can also concentrate on what I'm best at, the walkthrough (as opposed to the lists). I'm honoured to be working with Split on this project. Now that you know our reasoning behind joined effort, let us tell you a bit what will you be able to find in this document in the long run. Document will be divided in rougly three main sections: - Basics This section will include information on controls, battle system, trap system, SOL system, character's condition and more. In short, it will cover information that player must know to play the game efficiently. - Walkthrough The lifeline of this document. First and most important aspect of the walkthrough is that it will be written without ANY spoilers. Think it's impossible? Absolutely not, for there are many ways to mask spoilers and present them somehow else. Have you come to our guide to seek help on beating the game? Or to be spoiled about story? Which of the two you pick? - Appendices This will include all the stuff that doesn't belong in Walkthrough part. To name few issues covered here: Equipment, Items, Bestiary, Kokon Horay, Secrets and so on. Our first priority is to complete Basics and Walkthru main sections. Appendices section is second priority issue. Xythar will write the Walkthrough and some Basics subsections, while Split will take care of Appendices and Basics, as well as formatting. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 05.) ABBREVIATIONS - G0500 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== There will be a lot of abbreviations. They're as follows... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ACCU - accuracy property AOE - Area of effect AP - Active Point/s ARM - armor ATK - Attack statistic CATT - counterattack chr - character chrs - multiple characters CRIT - critical property DEF - Defense statistic DR - item that can be dropped EATT - electric based MATK EATTP - electric based PATK ELE - electric ele mgd - electric based mgd ele phd - electric based phd FATT - fire based MATK FATTP - fire based PATK FIR - fire fire mgd - fire based mgd fire phd - fire based phd HP - Health Point/s IATT - ice based MATK IATTP - ice based PATK ICE - ice ice mgd - ice based mgd ice phd - ice based phd LOS - line of sight LV - level MAG - Magic statistic MATK - magical attack mgd - magical type damage MOV - Movement statistic na - not applicable NATT - non-elemental MATK PATK - physical attack phd - physical type damage POV - point of view PXP - Party XP SHI - shield SHSK - shield skill SPD - Speed statistic ST - item that can be stolen std - special type damage UNIV - universal damage univ dmg - universal damage VS - versus WPN - weapon WPSK - weapon skill XP - experience points ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 06.) PARTY MEMBERS - G0600 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Main issues addressed in this section are: =============================================================================== Ryu's background and personal action information ------------------------ G0601 Bosch' background and personal action information ----------------------- G0602 Nina's background and personal action information ----------------------- G0603 Lin's background and personal action information ------------------------ G0604 =============================================================================== Yello. In this short section we'll list down some of background information regarding four people you will be able to control during your adventure. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RYU - G0601 | AGE: 16 | JOINS: He's present from the beginning ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BACKGROUND | Ranger and member of the working class section of Sheldar. With his D-ratio of 1/8192 he's just a basic grunt, with every day being the same as previous day - in other words, boring. His usual assignments are to patrol a designated area or to guard something of great importance. His life is about to change drastically as he undertakes latest mission: he and Bosch must escort one of BioCorps transports safely to target location... His weapon of choices are swords. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EVALUATION | Ryu's got the strength, HP and DEF. But he lacks somewhat in MOV and MAG range. Still, this can be remedied by equipping him properly. His SPD is also not the greatest, but he doesn't really need it. What he does excel at are his skills, esp Crimson Raid, which is the only other way of restoring HP (not counting items). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PERSONAL | Sword Slash - when on field screen, press X to have Ryu slash his ACTION/S | sword; use it to destroy boxes or to gain extra turn ON FIELD | when attacking a genic SCREEN | D-Dash - when on field screen, press and hold R2 for Ryu to become | invulnerable; as long as R2 is pressed, Ryu can move | faster and will knock aside any genic that gets in his | way; beware, this action causes D-Counter to rise | rapidly; do not exaggerate using this ability; this | ability is not available straight away, it is obtained | later in the game ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BOSCH - G0602 | AGE: 16 | JOINS: He's present from the beginning ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BACKGROUND | A friend of Ryu and member of same working class section. But with D-Ratio of 1/64 you gotta ask yourself just what the heck is he still doing down here? Does he have any hidden agendas Ryu is unaware of? His weapon of choice are rapiers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EVALUATION | A simple look at Bosch' stats at start of game should tell you an obvious clue. That not helping? How about I also tell you that you can't equip Bosch with other equipment, nor change his skills? I hope you realize what I'm getting at. Anyway, for the time being Bosch will be immensely helpful. He's got so much HP more than Ryu it's not funny, and he's quite strong as well. His other stats are roughly in same category as Ryu's. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PERSONAL | Kick - when on field screen, press X to have Bosch perform a kick; ACTION/S | with it you can destroy boxes or gain extra turn when ON FIELD | attacking a genic SCREEN | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NINA - G0603 | AGE: 12 | JOINS: She joins after first boss battle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BACKGROUND | First of two characters we cannot leak much info about, as it contains heavy spoilers. She will be in typical damsel-in-distress situation, when she's saved by Ryu. Why exactly is Nina so important for BioCorps? Could it have something to do with the wings on her back? Her weapon of choice are staves. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EVALUATION | Nina's MAG is far superior than Lin's and Ryu's. She's also the fastest of the trio with a long MOV range. Unfortunately her HP and DEF aren't that great, making her easy pray for genics wielding powerful PATK. But against genics that have element weaknesses, she's their nightmare. Once you also obtain some of her more potent Lv2 and Lv3 skills, you're almost invincible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PERSONAL | Staff Smash - when on field screen, press X to have Nina perform a ACTION/S | staff smash; with it you can destroy boxes or gain ON FIELD | extra turn when attacking a genic SCREEN | Item Vacuum - when on field screen, press and hold R2 for Nina to | lift her staff; doing so will allow Nina to suck up | any and all items laying around on field screen | close to her position, thus allowing you to collect | items with ease. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LIN - G0604 | AGE: 21 | JOINS: She joins a bit before second boss battle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BACKGROUND | Second character we'll have to keep a secret from you. We can't tell much anyway, since Lin's role is tied heavily to Nina's background and revolves around Nina's wings. Why is Lin so determined on rescuing Nina from clutches of government? Her weapon of choice are guns. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EVALUATION | Lin's stats fall somewhere in the middle. She has average HP, STR, DEF... just about everything. Her main advantage are long range attacks she can easily pull off with her weapons. Her skills, if chained together properly, can produce a variety of effects. Use them in conjunction with Nina's trap skills for a battle to be ended rather quickly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PERSONAL | Gun Shot - when on field screen, press X to have Lin perform a gun ACTION/S | shot; with it you can destroy boxes or gain extra turn ON FIELD | when attacking a genic SCREEN | Lock On - when on field screen, press R2; if there's a solid | target (box, genic) in Lin's LOS, a crosshairs will | appear around that target; this is very useful for some | Goo genics, which are invisible | Charge Shot - when on field screen, press and hold X; Lin will | take a stance and begin charging her gun; when you | have the feeling it's enough, release R2 and Lin | will fire charged shot at locked on target (if it's | a box, it'll be destroyed; if it's a genic, it will | knock it back several steps) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 07.) CONTROL BASICS - G0700 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Main issues addressed in this section are: =============================================================================== Basic control explanations ---------------------------------------------- G0701 Battle screen controls -------------------------------------------------- G0702 Field screen controls --------------------------------------------------- G0703 Menu screen controls ---------------------------------------------------- G0704 Shop screen controls ---------------------------------------------------- G0705 =============================================================================== -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------- A - BASIC CONTROL EXPLANATIONS - G0701 -------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- We'll get you started by explaining what are the controls you'll be using when playing the game. There are four distinctive control modes you'll have to get used to. These are battle screen controls (inside any battle/s), field screen controls (when walking about), main menu screen controls (when inside many menus, accessible with Start button) and shop controls. May be hard for a start, but you'll get a grasp of it in ten minutes. Note: All actions described here pertain to default settings. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- --------------------- B - BATTLE SCREEN CONTROLS - G0702 ---------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Directional b. - move cursor inside Item and Equip submenus in battle Left analog stick - move chr around, move cursor in different submenus Right analog stick - change battle's POV X button - confirm selection, perform LV2 skill, skips order, uses traps on battlefield (only if near the trap) [L2 menu], gives access to Equip submenu [R2 menu], confirms Penalty retreat, allows Ryu to use Hurricane (special form) or D-Charge (special R2 submenu) Circle button - confirm selection, perform LV1 skill, ends current move picks up items on battlefield [L2 menu], gives access to Item submenu [R2 menu], allows Ryu to use Vortex (special form) or D-Breath (special R2 submenu) Triangle button - gives access to End turn submenu, cancels selection Square button - perform LV3 skill, resets AP to last action performed, allows party to escape if near the door [L2 menu], allows Ryu to use D-Dive [L2 menu], allows Lin to use Profile [L2 menu], allows Nina to use Erase Magic [L2 menu], allows Ryu to use Twister (special form) or Cooldown (special R2 submenu) L1 button - hides any and all menus on battle screen L2 button - gives access to L2 submenu R1 button - Skip order shortcut R2 button - gives access to L2 submenu Start button - pauses the game, gives access to Penalty Retreat Select button - allows you to manually change orders of active chrs (Triangle moves them ahead, X moves them back), then displays entire field along with names of all genics involved in current battle R2 + Triangle - ends chr's current turn -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ---------------------- C - FIELD SCREEN CONTROLS - G0703 ---------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Direct. buttons - not used Left analog stick - moves character about Right analog stick - rotates camera X button - performs one of chr's personal actions Circle button - shows the minimap of current subsector, then the entire map you've uncovered so far Triangle button - cancels selection Square button - sets traps L1 button - swaps between available traps L2 button - swaps between available traps R1 button - changes chr in the lead R2 button - performs chr's special action Start button - enters main menu Select button - not used -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ---------------------- D - MENU SCREEN CONTROLS - G0704 ----------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Direct. buttons - moves cursor, moves between backpack pages Left analog stick - moves cursor, moves between backpack pages Right analog stick - rotates chr around when in Equip submenu X button - confirms selection, advances to next selection Circle button - displays inserted skills into equipment when in Equip submenu Triangle button - cancels selection Square button - not used L1 button - switch characters, moves between backpack pages L2 button - switch characters, moves between backpack pages R1 button - zooms character out when in Equip submenu R2 button - zooms character in when in Equip submenu Start button - not used Select button - not used -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ---------------------- E - SHOP SCREEN CONTROLS - G0705 ----------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Direct. buttons - move cursor* Left analog stick - move cursor* Right analog stick - not used X button - confirm selection, advance to next selection Circle button - displays skills already threaded into the weapon/shield Triangle button - cancel selection, return to previous selection Square button - not used L1 button - switch between backpack pages L2 button - not used R1 button - switch between backpack pages R2 button - not used Start button - not used Select button - not used * When buying or moving (when inside Item Linker menu) desired item, pressing right increases amount of item bought by up to 9 units, while pressing up increases the amount by 1 unit. Likewise, pressing left decreases the amount by up to 9 units, and down by 1 units. This is a fast way of buying items in lots of quantities. Note that this doesn't apply to equipment. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 08.) SOL SYSTEM - G0800 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Main issues addressed in this section are: =============================================================================== SOL System the short way ------------------------------------------------ G0801 SOL System the long way ------------------------------------------------- G0802 =============================================================================== -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------------------- A - SOL SYSTEM THE SHORT WAY - G0801 --------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- One of Dragon Quarter's fairly unique features is the game's Scenario Overlay (or SOL for short) system. Well, truthfully it isn't *that* unique, it's basically a "New Game +" with some additional twists thrown in. Thinking of it that way might help if you get hopelessly confused trying to work out its quirks. Or, you could continue reading for a full explanation. :) The SOL system, in general, allows you to return to a prior point in the game, but allows you to retain certain things from the "future". The *only* difference between the two options you are given, SOL Restart and SOL Restore, is where they return you *to*. SOL Restart will, as the name suggests, return you to the beginning of the game, whereas SOL Restore will return you to the last hard save (ie, a save made with a token at a telecorder, the only kind of save you can make if you have the PAL version) that you made. Other than that, both kinds of SOL will allow you to take some things with you, but not others. Things that come back with you are: * Party experience * Zenny * Learned skills * All carried and identified equipment * The contents of the lockers * The colony's progress * Your game timer Things that are reset to what they were at previously are: * Character experience and stats * Key items * The D-Counter And the one thing that's a special case is: * Your carried items, which are always reset to 5 Heal Kits, 1 Tonic and 1/9 Save Token(s) (depending on NTSC/PAL version) - NOT to what they were when you saved. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- --------------------- B - SOL SYSTEM THE LONG WAY - G0801 --------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- That's the summary - now, for the more long-winded explanation. Firstly, make sure you understand the difference between party experience and character experience. Party experience is the "pool" of unused experience that gets added to when you find party experience in a dungeon or receive it after battle. You can share this experience out to your characters, whereupon it becomes character experience. Character experience is what actually increases your characters' levels - you receive both it and party experience after battles. Character experience does not come back with you. If you save the game at level 10, level up until you're level 15, and then SOL Restore, you will be back to level 10. You will, however, retain any party experience you managed to collect, so it is still possible to "level up" by amassing party experience. Similarly, every time you SOL Restart you will return to the level you are at the start of the game - 1. If you plan on leveling your characters up, it's best to be safe by not spending any party experience until you're finished. If you have any skill items, make sure you use them before performing a SOL - you can't keep your carried items but you can keep your skills. On the other hand, any stat-boosting items will have to be stored in the locker because your character stats will return to what they were (most of the time you simply won't have the locker space, so you'll probably have to waste them). Unidentified equipment counts as carried items which you'll lose - but if you identify the equipment, you can then either carry it as one of the 3 weapons, armours or shields you can have on you (which you'll keep) or you can store it in the locker (which also means you'll keep it). So, the simple rule is that you can keep all equipment as long as it's identified. And now, the special case of carried items. Capcom decided to be as confusing as possible and make carried items work differently to anything else. When performing an SOL, even an SOL Restore, your carried items are always reset to 5 Heal Kits, 1 Tonic and either 1 or 9 Save Tokens. If you're playing the NTSC (US, Canada, Japan) version, you will get 1 Save Token. If you're playing the PAL (Europe, Australia, New Zealand, etc) version you will get 9. It is very important to take note of this point, because it's the only way you can actually screw up a previous save by SOLing to it - you may have been carrying lots of items when you saved, but SOL Restore that save (which overwrites the same immediately, I might add) and you'll find they've all disappeared. Because of this, NEVER PERFORM ANY KIND OF SOL WITHOUT PUTTING ANY AND ALL ITEMS THAT YOU WANT TO KEEP IN THE ITEM LOCKER. I can't stress that enough. If you die in a battle, you most likely have *not* put your items in the locker, and therefore you should NOT do an SOL Restore. Choose The End, load your save normally, and do it again. (Also, if you SOL after dying, your party experience and zenny will be halved. I suggest you only ever SOL by choosing Give Up from the menu - hold L2 and press X.) When we consider the little quirks of the SOL system, there are two particularly useful tricks that can be done. INFINITE SAVE TOKENS, HEAL KITS AND TONICS If you're groaning at the concept of having a limited number of saves in an RPG, don't worry! The way your items get reset is a blessing as well as a curse, because you can use it to get your last Save Token back after you use it. This is especially useful in the NTSC version where Save Tokens are much harder to come by. Here's the step-by-step procedure to do this. You can only do it somewhere where there is both a telecorder and access to the Item Locker (in other words, Jaju. The Momo-lookalike who identifies things for you and lets you access the locker) - if there's just a telecorder, this won't work. Step 1: Talk to Jaju and put all your items in the locker. Later on in the game your inventory space will increase but the locker won't, which will put you in a bit of trouble. But, by that point you will probably also have a bit of zenny to spare, so just store the valuable items that can't be bought (Gold XPs, 7th Senses, etc) and with whatever space you have left, the most expensive or rare healing items you have. Cheap healing items can just be bought again after you've done the trick. Step 2: Confirm that the only items left in your inventory are items you are prepared to lose, and your last Save Token (which you can't put in the locker at all). Only do this trick with your LAST Save Token, or you'll just be wasting whatever extra ones you have on you. Step 3: Go to the telecorder and save using the token. Now, open the menu, hold L2 and press X to choose Give Up, and then SOL Restore. This will increase your Retry count by one but the Retry count doesn't affect anything other than your sense of perfectionism. Step 4: Now load the game you just did an SOL Restore over. You will be back where you were, but you'll have saved, and you'll have 5 Heal Kits, 1 Tonic, and 1 (or 9, PAL users) Save Token in your inventory. As you might imagine, PAL users won't have to do this very often, but NTSC ones will have to do it for most of their saves. And, as you might have noticed, if you store the Heal Kits and Tonic you got in the Item Locker and perform the trick again, you'll get another 5 Heal Kits and 1 Tonic. Low on healing items and money at the start of the game? Just SOL Restore and start stockpiling! Those Tonics sell for a fair bit then, also :) Just remember, never go anywhere without at least one save token on you or you'll be SOL (haha). LEVEL UP WITH XP LOOPS: Firstly, if you do this trick anywhere but at the end of the game, for any other purpose than to collect party XP for another playthrough or the Kokon Horay, you suck :P Dragon Quarter is very beatable without leveling up at all. But, this is an FAQ, and the idea is to provide information, so I'm obligated to explain the method by which one levels up in Dragon Quarter (the conventional way won't work because the enemies never come back). The idea is to build up a large amount of party experience, then SOL Restore so that the enemies come back but you still have your experience. This, by itself, is not complicated - just MAKE SURE ALL ITEMS YOU WANT TO KEEP ARE IN THE LOCKER BEFORE SOL RESTORING. However, a more important point is that SOL Restoring also puts your D-Counter back to where it was when you saved. :) So, yes. You can greatly speed up the battling process by going nuts on every genic you see with D-Dive. You'll even get more party XP (which is your goal here, considering character XP isn't coming back with you) for beating the battles quickly. I recommend you store everything you want to keep before you leave town - you're not going to need them in battle if you plan on just abusing D-Dive. When your D-Counter is close to 100% (don't actually let it hit 100% or your party XP will get halved, which you don't want) then choose Give Up from the menu and SOL Restore. There's no need to save after doing this, SOL Restore saves for you. However, DO NOT USE UP THE PARTY XP WITHOUT SAVING IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS. You can then go, kill things again, and SOL Restore to make them reappear and to get your save token back. There are two parts of the game in particular where you can rack up a lot of experience quite quickly by using this trick (the "XP Loop") and I'll tell you when they are in the main walkthrough. One's midway through, the other's right at the end. While I'm at it, you should never need to use SOL Restart unless you did something stupid like saving with your D-Counter at 99%. That's really the only thing it's useful for. And, that's it for this section, which by the way ended up a lot longer than I had originally anticipated, but then I probably should have because everything I write ends up painfully long-winded. Hope you kept awake through it all. I'll see you at the walkthrough section. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 09.) MAIN MENU - G0900 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Main issues addressed in this section are: =============================================================================== General info about main menu -------------------------------------------- G0901 Main menu - Item heading ------------------------------------------------ G0902 Main menu - Trap heading ------------------------------------------------ G0903 Main menu - Equip heading ----------------------------------------------- G0904 Main menu - Skill heading ----------------------------------------------- G0905 Main menu - Party heading ----------------------------------------------- G0906 Main menu - Options heading --------------------------------------------- G0907 Main menu - Quit heading ------------------------------------------------ G0908 Main menu - L2 Emergency ------------------------------------------------ G0909 =============================================================================== -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------ A - GENERAL INFO ABOUT MAIN MENU - G0901 ------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 1. Access the menu by pressing Start anytime when on Field screen. 2. In top row chrs' boxes are displayed - single box contains chr's graphic, chr's current and max HP, and chr's AP. 3. In top right corner three hexagons are found (but only after specific event in the game occurs. This is called D-Counter - if it reaches 100%, it is game over for you, so be careful! 4. On middle left you'll find Command menu with seven subheadings, which will be explained below. 5. Below D-Counter, D-Ratio guage is displayed. During your first play it will show 1/8192. But as you keep replaying the game, your D-Ratio might improve. Highest D-Ration is 1/4. 6. In lower left corner L2 Emergency box is displayed. By pressing L2 you'll be asked if you really wish to restart your game. Press X and again choose between 'Yes' or 'No'. 7. Lower right corner hides Data box, which contains four pieces of info: - amount of zenny your party has - total amount of PXP your party has - total amount of SOLs you've performed so far - total time this game has been played 8. On the bottom help line is displayed, telling you what does currently selected feature do. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------------------- B - MAIN MENU - ITEMS HEADING - G0902 -------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Pick this command and contents of your backpack will be displayed. Note that Command box will now contain four new commands - Use, Drop, Sort, and Key. At the very beginning of your game your backpack will only be able to carry 10 groups of items, ie two pages. 5 groups of items = 1 page. You can increase amount of pages in your backpack by finding 'Backpack' items which are scattered all over dungeons. In the end you will be able to have 10 pages in the backpack, subsequently being able to carry 50 groups of items. 1. USE COMMAND Allows you to use recovery type items and items that raise attributes, as well as some special items (Fairy Drops). Items that aren't usable will be greyed out. Once you select the item you wish to use, you will be prompted to select party member you wish to use the item on. Press X for the item to be applied. 2. DROP COMMAND Allows you to get rid of items you don't need. Once you've decided to ditch an item, you will be asked if you're sure you want to do that. 'Yes' to confirm, or 'No' to change your mind. 3. SORT COMMAND Automatically sorts items in your backpack and groups together similar items. Note that if you have say unidentified weapons, they will not be grouped together. 4. KEY COMMAND Allows you to view all key items you've obtained so far. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------------------- C - MAIN MENU - TRAP HEADING - G0903 --------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This command allows you to change the order traps are used in. Once you select the command, a list of all 10 possible traps will appear. Each trap is represented by a simple graphic - also displayed will be the amount of any trap you currently have in your possession. Press X once on any trap, and then you'll be asked to select the trap to switch places with. Follow up with X once again and two traps will change places. FRESH MEAT - Will attract some genics, who will then be distracted by eating. Strike them while they're feeding. ROTTEN MEAT - Will repel some genics, allowing you safe passage. CONFUSHROOM - Will attract some genics - the one that eats it will be confused as battle starts (unless genic is immune to confusion). SLEEPYSHROOM - Will attract some genics - the one that eats it will be asleep as battle starts (unless genic is immune to sleep). POISONSHROOM - Will attract some genics - the one that eats it will be poisoned as battle starts (unless genic is immune to poison). DYNAMITE - When thrown, explodes on impact and deals fire MATK. Covers small area. BOMB - When thrown, explodes by using Use command when in battle and deals fire MATK. Area of explosion is much greater than that of Dynamite. BIND BOMB - When thrown, it explodes after a while. All genics caught in blast area receive bind status (unless genic/s is/are immune to bind) and fire MATK. FIREBOMB - When thrown, it explodes after a while. After initial blast flame pillar rises and continues to deal damage, which is classified as fire MATK. PROX BOMB - When thrown, it will remain on the floor. As soon as something gets close enough within its proximity, bomb explodes and deals fire MATK. You can't place traps on every field screen. Also, max amount of traps you can set on single field screen is 3. If you wish to set other traps in same field screen, you have to go back and pick up traps already placed. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------------------- D - MAIN MENU - EQUIP HEADING - G0904 -------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This submenu allows you to equip your party members. Single party member can carry up to 3 weapons, up to 3 shields and up to three armors. 1. On left of the screen you'll see three boxes: Weapons on top, Shields in middle and Armors on bottom. Each of the boxes will display names of weapons, shields and armors character currently holds. Piece of equipment with letter E in front of it means that this piece of equipment is equipped. Note: You can have no armor and no shield equipped, but you cannot remove your weapon. 2. By equipping weapons following statistics may change: ATK, MAG and SPD. 3. By equipping shields following statistics may change: DEF, SPD and AP. AP statistic is usually reduced when you equip a shield with threaded shield skill. You can tell by how much your AP was reduced by checking description of said shield skill. 4. By equipping armors following statistics may change: DEF and MOV. 5. Stats that will grow after eq. piece is equipped wll be displayed by blue arrow pointing up, while stats that will decrease are showed by red arrow pointing down. In both cases a number telling by how much stat increased or decreased will be displayed. 6. Pressing and holding circle will allow you to view skills threaded into currently selected eq. piece. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------------------- E - MAIN MENU - SKILL HEADING - G0905 -------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Select this and you'll be taken into skill equipping process. Press left/right, or L1/R1 to switch between characters. 1. You can only thread skills to weapons (weapon skills) and shields (shield skills). You cannot thread skills to armors. 2. First select one of three weapons chr is equipped and cursor will jump to the right, where three boxes labeled as Lv1, Lv2 and Lv3 are. Each box contains three skill slots, represented by Circle, X and Square (denoting to which buttons they will be assigned during battle). This means that a single weapon can have up to nine weapon skills threaded. 3. Place the cursor over the free slot in say Lv1 box, and press X. Cursor now goes over to the left, where all the lv1 WPSK your chr has learned so far are shown. Choose one and press X to equip the WPSK. 4. Reapply as necessary for Lv2 and Lv3 WPSK. 5. You cannot thread Lv2 WPSK in Lv1 box, and vice versa. Lv2 WPSK can only be threaded into Lv2 box - likewise applies for Lv1 and Lv3. 6. When you're done threading WPSK, go back and choose one of shields your chr carries and press X. List will be immediately replaced by all SHSK chr has learned. A single shield can have only one SHSK threaded. There are some SHSK which cannot be used by Nina. 7. Special attention must be paid to two specific skill slots: - if there's a lock over the button, followed by 'UNAVAILABLE', this means that you cannot thread any skills to that skill slot (for example Lv3 Square skill slot of Violet Blade) - if there's a lock over the button, followed by skill name, this means that you cannot remove said skill from skill slot, but instead you'll be able to use it in battle (for example Lv3 Circle Violet Death WPSK of Violet Blade) 8. Selecting LIST entry under Shields will take you to the list of WPSK and SHSK currently selected chr has learned. Switch between pages with left/right or L1/R1. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------------------- F - MAIN MENU - PARTY HEADING - G0906 -------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Use this to view your chrs' status and distribute PXP. Two commands are available here: 1. STATUS Displays chrs' status and parameters. In upper left corner chr's graphic, HP and AP are shown. On the left of the screen you can view chr's status (contains current LV and statistics info). Below this box you can view currently equipped stuff. Right of the screen is reserved for telling you what are WPSK and SHSK you have threaded into currently equipped stuff. 2. ADD XP Use this command to distribute PXP you've accumulated from battles among your chrs. 3. Here's a short description of how to interpret various statistics. LV - Stands for level. Once chr gains predetermined amount of XP, both chr and his stats advance a level. Max LV is 99. HP - Stands for health points. If it's reduced to zero (0), chr is KO-ed and cannot perform any actions. If KO-ed at end of battle, chr is revived with 1 HP. Max value is 999. AP - Stands for action points. You need AP for just about anything you perform in battle. No AP means no action is possible. Different actions require different amount of AP. Max value is 500. ATK - Stands for attack. The higher this stat, the more damage you deal to target genic with your PATK. DEF - Stands for defense. The higher this stat, less damage you take from genics' PATK. MAG - Stands for magic. The higher this stas, the more damage you do to target genics with your MATK and less damage you take from genics' MATK. SPD - Stands for speed. The higher this stat, the sooner you can act in single battle turn. MOV - Stands for movement. The higher this stat, the larger the area you can access during single battle turn. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------- G - MAIN MENU - OPTIONS HEADING - G0907 ------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Here you can adjust various features of the game. 1. MSGSPD Set message speed to slow, normal or fast. 2. VIBRATION Turn vibration feature on or off. 3. SOUND Choose between Stereo or Monaural. 4. EFFECTS Adjust the sound effects volume. 5. MUSIC Adjust background music volume. 6. CONTROLS Choose between four different control styles. 7. ADJUST SCREEN POSITION Self-explanatory. 8. RETURN TO DEFAULT SETTINGS Self-explanatory. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------------------- H - MAIN MENU - QUIT HEADING - G0908 --------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If you're playing PAL version, choosing this option forfeits your current game and returns you to title screen without saving. If you're playing NTSC version, this option allows you to make a temporary save. The game will be saved at your exact location and you will be returned to the title screen. When you later load this save, it will be deleted and you will be returned to where you were. Think of it as an "extended pause" that lets you turn the console off as well. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------------------- I - MAIN MENU - L2 EMERGENCY - G0909 --------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Use this feature if you find yourself in a dire situation, such as D-Counter being around 90% and you're still long way from beating the game. Once you confirm that you wish to retry, you'll be asked if you want to SOL Restart or SOL Restore. Please refer to SOL System section of this guide for more info on how does the system work. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 10.) PETS SYSTEM - G1000 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Another unnecessary acronym that Dragon Quarter adds to the mix is PETS, or Positive Encounter and Tactics System. It is, however, one of the game's best features. It refers both to the game's encounter system and your trap-setting ability - in many cases, what you do before a battle is as important for influencing the outcome as what you do in the battle itself. The first and simplest way to give yourself the edge in battle is to snag the extra turn. This is done by initiating battle by hitting the enemy with your weapon. Whoever hit the enemy will receive one additional turn at the start of the battle (this doesn't affect the turn order of the rest of the battle). You cannot carry AP over from the extra turn, so use as much as you can. Usually you will want Ryu to get the extra turn (except at the start of the game where it should be Bosch), but there are cases where you will want Nina or Lin to instead. Be careful with Nina, as her attack is hard to time correctly. If the enemy hits you first, it will receive an extra turn instead. The percentage of battles you get extra turns on directly influences the D-Ratio you will receive upon beating the game, so try and get them on as many as possible. There is more that can be done than that, of course - to be specific, the use of traps. There are basically two types of traps - those that influence the movement of genics, and those that damage them. There is some overlap with items such as the status-inflicting mushrooms (which attract genics and then cause status ailments to them) but for the most part, they fall into those categories. The damaging traps (dynamite, bombs, etc) are fairly straight forward. You can throw them at genics to soften them up before battle, or (my preferred action) you can set them on the ground near where the genics are, begin battle, and then inside battle set the trap off, damaging the genics in range. This seems to do significantly more damage than simply throwing the trap at genics before battle, but it's also consequently usually harder to pull off. Contrary to what I might have thought before this is pretty much useful all through the game as the damage bombs do rises with your level, so it's always pretty high. The other kind of traps, those that influence the movement of genics (fresh meat, rotten meat, mushrooms, etc) remain useful throughout the game. This is because of the relatively realistic way that Dragon Quarter handles encounters. While there is still a battle transition and your other party members kind of appear out of nowhere, you battle in the same area you were just walking around in. That is, for example, why it is possible to set up damage traps beforehand. More importantly, when you initiate battle with an enemy (or one initiates battle with you), any nearby enemies (I don't know the exact range) will also end up in the battle. Logically, the less enemies you have to deal with at once, the easier a time you're going to have. That's why, if you see a group of powerful enemies, it pays to throw a Fresh Meat or two (Rotten Meat should work even better but it's much harder to come by) to try and separate the pack. If you can manage to just pick off the stragglers one by one, you'll find the odds have significantly improved in your favour. There's another principle that comes to mind, however. There are no abilities in Dragon Quarter that simply damage all enemies - all multi-target abilities are area effect abilities of differing area shapes and sizes. If you enter a room with a large pack of fairly weak enemies that die in one hit (for instance, a room full of weak bats), it'll take a long time to pick them off a few at a time. Rather, it is to your advantage to throw a Fresh Meat for the purpose of attracting all the enemies to one spot. If you can then get the extra turn with a character capable of damaging a wide area at once (Lin in particular is good for this) it's quite possible to take the entire roomful of enemies out on your extra turn. This is worth a large chunk of party XP, saves time, and is also very satisfying. :) Just be certain that it's enemies you're sure you'll be able to take out in one hit, because if it gets to their turn (as a rule of thumb, assume you'll get one turn with whoever scored the extra and one with Nina) you'll be sitting through quite a few enemy turns in a row. Which could be damaging or even fatal, depending on what you're fighting. Set your battles up wisely. You can also use Fresh or Rotten Meat to get enemies out of the way so you can run past them and avoid combat, but if you do this much you'll find yourself quite underleveled and you'll get creamed on the boss fights. So watch out. Finally, don't forget about Lin's ability to begin battle from a distance. If you fight a powerful enemy which only has hand-to-hand attacks, see if you can get them stranded on top of a high step or on the other side of a barrier. Then begin the battle with Lin's gun. You'll only be able to attack them with Lin and Nina and the battle will probably take a while, but it'll definitely be the safer option because they won't be able to attack you at all. Always be mindful of your environment. As far as what traps to carry, travel light. You simply don't have the inventory space to carry some of everything. Personally the only traps I ever used were dynamite, bombs and fresh meat - and I only bothered carrying dynamite and bombs in the game's early stages. It's a good idea to always have 5-10 Fresh Meat on you later on however (considering how cheap it is). Don't bother storing it in the locker when you SOL Restore, you're not exactly going to go broke buying it again (except perhaps early on... you're probably better off going with what you find then and saving your money for healing items). That's about all I have to say on this subject right now. Keep your wits about you, think before fighting, and remember to always try for those extra turns! =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 11.) BATTLE SYSTEM - G1100 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Battle system section, short and sweet. RULE #1 - If an on-screen enemy bumps into your on-screen chr first, battle initiates with that enemy having extra turn. RULE #2 - If your on-screen chr kicks, slashes, smashes or shoots on-screen enemy first, battle initiates with your on-screen chr having extra turn. When battle issues, this is the stuff that appears onscreen: a) Chr's avatars, along with current HP / MAX HP, and remaining AP in upper portion of screen b) Magic and trap counters in upper left corner - you can have three traps maximum in a single battle - you can have three magic circles maximum in a single battle c) Available attack / other menu options in lower right corner d) Event messages portraying the flow of battle appearing in lower left corner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Everything is pretty self-explanatory, but let's look at the attack / menu options more closely. On chr's turn, an attack level choice will pop up. First see if there's an enemy in chr's line of sight / in reach of chr's weapons. If there is none, you'll need to expend some AP to get closer. After you have done so, you need to decide which level of attacks would you like to begin with: - pressing Circle will lead to LV1 submenu, where attacks worth 10AP are located - pressing X will lead to LV2 submenu, where attacks worth 20AP are located - pressing Square will lead to LV3 submenu, where attacks worth 30AP are located NOTE: If the weapon doesn't have any LV2 or LV3 attacks available, or you forgot to thread them into relevant weapon slots, the choices you can make will be greyed out and you shall be greeted with notice "No skill assigned to that button.". Once you select initial attack LV, choose one of available attacks, which you have assigned to Square, X or Circle buttons. Then you need to select a target and press the corresponding button again. During attack animation you can hold down R2 to bring up Combo window - doing so allows you to chain together string of attacks, which consists either of same attacks being used until you run out of AP, or you combine together more powerful attacks with a nice addition of increased damage. Let me give you an example. Ryu has Ruby Maser. LV1 - Circle - Slice - X - Side Slash - Square - Thrust LV2 - Circle - Vert Slash - X - Fang - Square - Hyper Kick So once you attack an enemy with LV1 Slice, you can just keep on pressing Circle for a string of Slice attacks. Or during the animation of Slice attack, press and hold R2 to bring up Combo selection. By selecting another available attack (in this case Side Slash or Thrust) or higher LV attack (in this case Vert Slash) Ryu will switch to that attack, and gain 10% damage bonus. You can overlap that to a maximum of 80% damage bonus. Once you run out of AP or you choose to do so, chr's turn ends, and next enemy / chr is now up. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Pressing L2 will bring up these choices: Circle - Pick up - pick up an item on the battlefield and put it in inventory X - Use - use an item on the battlefield (bomb, for example) Square - Retreat - escape from battle thru nearby door (muct be close to it) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Pressing R2 will bring up these choices: Circle - Item - use an item from inventory (you can use as many as you like) X - Equip - change equipment (once per turn) Square - D-Dive - Ryu's exlusive command, allowing him to turn into... - Profile - Lin's exclusive, brings up scan window of target enemy - Erase Magic - Nina's exclusive, insta-clears all magic traps - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Pressing Triangle will bring up these choices: Circle - End move - chr ends his/her turn X - Skip order - chr temporarily delays his/her turn and gives initiative to next chr / enemy in turn line (only if chr hasn't acted yet) Square - Reset all - unless chr hasn't acted yet, using this command will negate any AP loss you have used so far to move around and will return the chr to starting position NOTE: You can also end your turn instantly by holding down R2 and pressing Triangle. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If Ryu's in... other form, following commands are available: ATTACK COMMANDS Circle - Vortex - +1% to D-counter; base: ATK x2 X - Hurricane - +1,25% to D-counter per enemy hit; base: ATK x2 Square - Twister - +2% to D-counter; base: ATK x3 R2 SUBMENU COMMANDS Circle - D-Breath - hold down Circle for continuous dmg, while D-counter grows X - D-Charge - +2% to D-counter per use (10 times max); increases ATK Square - Cooldown - reverts Ryu back to human form In addition, Ryu expends no AP while moving around in special form. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - D-RATIO (credit: Brady guide) Reflects on how well you did throughout the game. Deciding factors are: a) clear time (in hours) 8 - 10 pts 9 - 9 pts 10 - 8 pts 11 - 7 pts 13 - 6 pts 15 - 5 pts 17 - 4 pts 20 - 3 pts 23 - 2 pts 26 - 1 pt 26+ - 0 pts b) extra turn rate 95% - 10 pts 90%+ - 9 pts 85%+ - 8 pts 80%+ - 7 pts 75%+ - 6 pts 70%+ - 5 pts 65%+ - 4 pts 60%+ - 3 pts 55%+ - 2 pts 50%+ - 1 pt 50%- - 0 pts c) Map completion rate 98%+ - 10 pts 96%+ - 9 pts 94%+ - 8 pts 92%+ - 7 pts 90%+ - 6 pts 88%+ - 5 pts 86%+ - 4 pts 84%+ - 3 pts 82%+ - 2 pts 80%+ - 1 pt 80%- - 0 pts d) treasure boxes opened 42+ - 10 pts 39+ - 9 pts 36+ - 8 pts 33+ - 7 pts 30+ - 6 pts 25+ - 5 pts 20+ - 4 pts 15+ - 3 pts 10+ - 2 pts 5+ - 1 pt 4- - 0 pts e) number of saves 0 - 10 pts 1 - 9 pts 2 - 8 pts 3 - 7 pts 4-5 - 6 pts 6-7 - 5 pts 8-9 - 4 pts 10-11 - 3 pts 12-13 - 2 pts 14-15 - 1 pt 16+ - 0 pts f) Highest floor reached in Kokon Horay 50 - 10 pts 46+ - 9 pts 41+ - 8 pts 36+ - 7 pts 31+ - 6 pts 26+ - 5 pts 21+ - 4 pts 16+ - 3 pts 11+ - 2 pts 6+ - 1 pt 5- - 0 pts g) Average level Average party level is added to your total score (doesn't exceed 50) FINAL SCORE 100 pts - 1/4 95+ pts - 1/8 90+ pts - 1/16 85+ pts - 1/32 80+ pts - 1/64 75+ pts - 1/128 70+ pts - 1/256 65+ pts - 1/512 60+ pts - 1/1024 55+ pts - 1/2048 50+ pts - 1/4096 50- pts - 1/8192 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PARTY EXP SYSTEM (credit: Brady guide) It is affected by three things: a) tactical bonus system - party starts the battle: +2% - battle starts while enemy is eating: +3% - no chr was hurt during battle: +5% b) time factor - EX turn: 12 - turn 1: 10 - turn 2: 8 - turn 3: 6 - turn 4: 4 - turn 5: 2 - turn 6-9: 1 - turn 10+: 0 c) enemy factor - 1 enemy: x0,5 - 2 enemies: x2 - 3 enemies: x4 - 4 enemies: x6 - 5 enemies: x8 - 6 enemies: x10 - 7 enemies: x12 - 8 enemies: x14 - 9 enemies: x16 - 10 enemies: x20 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - By pressing Start during battle you will bring up pause screen. You can force a penalty retreat here by pressing X. Be warned that you will receive no XP and you will lose 10% of your total zenny. Pressing Select brings up Change order screen, where you can change the order of active chr (Triangle - move ahead, X - move back). Further press of Select brings up battlefield map. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 12.) CHARACTER'S STATUS - G1200 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== There are several negative statuses that are running around in the game and here they are: Status | Effect | Remove ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIND | Can't move for 3 turns | After 3 turns, Footloose BLIND | Evasion and accurasy drop | After 3 turns, Eye Drops CONFUSION | Chr moves/attacks randomly | Until hit, Wake Up LOCK | Can't attack for 3 turns | After 3 turns, Unlock POISON | Lose fraction of HP each turn | Antidote SLEEP | Can't move/attack for 3 turns | After 3 turns, until hit, Wake Up STUN | Lose current turn | Nothing KO | No action possible | Tonic, 1 HP revival at battle end VIRUS | AP recovery halved | Vaccine =============================================================================== =============================================================================== 13.) WALKTHROUGH - G1300 =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Hellooo and welcome to the walkthrough! There's a few things I need to mention before we start, however. Firstly, the items found inside regular boxes are quite random, so all I will be able to say in the walkthrough itself is "take the items from the boxes here" or when I get sick of that, "there are boxes here". The exception to this is that certain yellow boxes will always contain save tokens. The contents of the blue chests are fixed. Secondly, the game has two (or possibly more, but it seems like it's two) genic layouts for each dungeon. You will end up with one of them. Some of the changes are large (such as the 'sub-boss' in the first dungeon) and some of them are simply certain monsters that may be there or may be missing completely, or even just the positioning. I don't know the extent to which the monster layouts are variable, so I will simply describe what I see. If what you get varies significantly, let me know about it and I'll mention the difference in the guide at that section. Got it? OK, let's get started then. As you begin, you'll have to enter a name for the main character. The default name if you press Start without entering anything is Ryu (as per Breath of Fire tradition) and so that is what I'm going to call him in this guide. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ranger HQ 1F -980.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- SOL scene will play, but only if you've already beaten the game at least once. So any time I mention SOL scene, and it doesn't play for you, that means that you need to have beaten the game at least once. After the opening, you'll start in the Ranger HQ... The -980.0m is how deep you are underground. FYI, while the camera angle in towns is fixed, you can rotate it and angle it up and down with the right analog stick in dungeons. Leave through the door at the top of the screen. The door on the right beyond the one you just came out of leads to a room containing an NPC that will give you some (very) basic advice. Talk to him if you like, but otherwise there's not much to do here. Continue along and head up the stairs. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ranger HQ 2F -980.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I don't think that depth figure is entirely accurate, but meh... who cares. The door to the north isn't accessible yet. Follow the path around and enter the door you come to. In the next room, go all the way right and talk to Bosch. There'll be a cutscene. Ask all the questions, if you want. SOL scene. After the cutscene, go back to the left, through the door, and back around to the northern door that was blocked earlier. The two Rangers here will give you some more basic advice, but if you've been reading the basics sections in this guide it won't be anything new to you. Head through the door. SOL scene. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- LowSector Junction -990.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Head down the stairs. Ignore the telecorder for the time being. While you can go to the lift now, I strongly advise you head through the left hand door to visit town first. aaa1 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- LowSector Borough -1000.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Someone really needs to tell Capcom what '10 metres' means... But I digress. There's a telecorder here on the upper level, but again disregard it for now. Head down the stairs, looking at the 'sky' and talking to people if you wish. As with most of Dragon Quarter's towns, there isn't a lot to do here other than buy things. Take note of the vendors, because they're the same people through the game. On the right is Jaju (bottommost, red hair, hat with what looks like feathers or probably bunny ears, given her Momo resemblance) who identifies the items you find and lets you access the item and weapon lockers. aaa2 Above her is Arma who sells weapons and armour. You most likely won't be able to afford anything yet and you shouldn't buy equipment very often anyway, so disregard for the time being. As you head left, there's a guy blocking the BioCorp labs and then further left you'll see Leo the item vendor cunningly hidden behind one of her customers. I suggest you spend the 300 zenny you have now on 5 Heal Kits, which you can add to the 5 you have already (the maximum of one item you can stack in one inventory space is 10). Now, if you like, you can do the SOL Restore trick to save. This is explained in greater detail in the SOL section - but basically, store all your items in Jaju's "ItmLkr" (except the Save Token which you can't), go up and save on the telecorder, then choose Give Up from the menu and SOL Restore over your game. If you're playing the NTSC (US, Canada, Japan) version, don't save if you're not going to use the SOL Restore trick to get your token back, because you're not going to find many save tokens just lying around. Load the game and you'll get your save token back, you'll have another 5 Heal Kits and another Tonic, *and* you'll have your 300 zenny back (it only gets reset to 300 if you have less, so don't get any ideas about going on spending sprees later in the game). You can spend that on another 5 Heal Kits if you like and now you've got 10 more than what you started with, which will certainly give you the edge when you're still trying to figure the game out. I can't stress enough how important it is to have a large supply of healing items. Because using items in battle takes no AP (ie, 'time') at all, you can use as many as you like every turn. Unless you lose everyone at once, if you have enough items you *cannot die*. Note: After completing the game at least once and using that save to start a new game, you will find a fairy to the left of Leo. You can access fairy Colony at this point already that way. After using the SOL Restore trick (or not), go back up the stairs and out of town. This time at the junction, head right. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- LowSector Liftport -1000.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- As you head down the steps, there'll be a cutscene. In case you didn't know, any time you see the "fast forward" symbol in the corner of the screen, you can press Start and then X to skip the cutscene - not that you should do this on your first playthrough, of course. After the cutscene, Bosch will join you. I suggest you leave him in the lead, as it's better to get the extra turns with him because he's more powerful. Walk down the little set of stairs to your upper left and enter the tunnel. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Lift to Biocorp 1 -1000.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Here we are in the first dungeon. Take note of your minimap (the "Navi") in the corner of the screen, as it's quite useful. You can see the whole map by pressing Circle. If you wish to leave at any time, just walk east from here (it's at the bottom of the screen as you enter but I'm going to be giving compass directions with respect to the minimap when in dungeons) and press X to open the exit door. But, I assume you don't want to leave immediately upon arriving, so head west, breaking the boxes and collecting the items along the way. If any of them contain a Fresh Meat or other trap/bait item, you can press L1 to select it and Square to throw it. Get used to the timing of Bosch's kick now, when there are no enemies around. Now head to the door to the west. As you enter there should be a Duke directly ahead of you. Approach him and try to get the extra turn - time for your first battle. Have Bosch inch as close to the Duke as it takes for it to light up, signifying it's in range. Now, when attacking with Bosch, I recommend you use his special Twin Wake combo, which is Snakebite followed by Lion Smash. To do this, press Circle to select Level 1 Skill, press X to select Snakebite, and then press it again to choose the Duke as your target. Then, immediately hold R2 to begin a combo and press X again to link Lion Smash, which will cause Bosch to perform Twin Wake. This takes 30 AP. If you have 40 or more, start with a Thrust instead (Circle to select level 1, Circle to select Thrust, Circle to set target, then hold R2 and press X, and X again to follow up with Twin Wake) to do more damage and increase your combo %. If you have any AP left over, use it to do whatever. When Bosch has less than 10 AP left, end his turn by either pressing Triangle followed by Square, or the quicker method of R2+Triangle. Most likely Bosch will receive another turn after this and will finish off the Duke. If Ryu gets a turn he doesn't currently have any special combos he can access, so just go for the best use of AP you can (this will probably be Vertical Slash + Deathbringer for 50 AP). After the fight, continue west. Head up the stairs and enter the northern door and take whatever you find in there, then leave. Go back to where you entered this room and this time take the southern branch. There may be some Nuggets here, but they don't pose much of a threat - Bosch should be able to take them out on the first turn. The next room should contain Nuggets and a Duke, but as I said your mileage may vary. After you kill them, the treasure key for this floor should materialise. Take it and continue west over the bridge to the next door. The next room has some more Nuggets and Dukes. If you run into a Duke Lord, despite its menacing appearance you can still win with no damage if you fight it alone, get the extra turn with Bosch and use Twin Wake twice. Tactics, people! :) To your west is the treasure chest for which you found the key just a moment ago. Open the chest to receive the important Steal skill item. Use the item immediately and then thread Steal onto both Ryu and Bosch's shields. This skill is very useful because it gives you a chance to steal an item every time an enemy hits you - you can get some nice stuff this way. The only time I stopped using Steal was when I got its upgraded form later on. Go north, collecting items from boxes on the way. Head east and enter the door directly north of the one you came in by. Follow the bridge east and enter the door at the end. You'll come out in an inaccessible part of one of the first areas, where you can snag a Save Token from the box. Now head back west over the bridge and through two doors. Back in the large room, take the northwest door. Talk to the girl with the puppet (who you may recognise) if you want tips. Then take the lift down. SOL scene. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Lift to Biocorp 2 -1020.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Head through the door, past the room with the corpses, and into the next. Lurking around the chest here (which you can't open yet) will be either a Goo Element or a Death Cow. I've always gotten the Goo Element, and I guess I'm lucky as the Death Cow is apparently harder. The strategy here is still the same, however - use Twin Wake with Bosch, use a combo that ends with Deathbringer if possible with Ryu, and use Heal Kits if necessary. Considering that item use takes no AP and that it's almost the only way to heal in the game (there's certainly no inns or such), there's no need to wait until you're low on HP. Heal as soon as you're 50+ HP below maximum. Oh, and if you're fighting the Goo Element try to spread your characters out a bit so they won't both be hit by its magic. After you beat the Goo Element or Death Cow, you'll get the key you need to open the chest. It contains the Side Slash skill item for Ryu, which you should use. If you use Side Slash in battle followed by Vert Slash, it will activate Ryu's only special combo, X Slash. However at the moment Slash and Vert Slash are both locked on the Circle button - so in order to be able to use Side Slash and then Vert Slash immediately afterwards, you will have to combo Slash + Side Slash + Vert Slash in that order - the initial usage of Slash is so that Vert Slash will end up on the Circle button, meaning you can use it right after Side Slash. Anyway, head south, through the door, and over the bridge. Puppet girl is there to tell you things I've already said. Go through the door and head south, collecting items from boxes along the way. Then head up the stairs and through the door to the west. In this next room take items from the boxes and then go through the door to the northeast. (By the way, you might notice you've collected a bit of party XP by now. Give it to Ryu if you like - you might be able to get a couple of levels for him. You should use your party XP up periodically... it is useful for leveling up, but there are times where it's best to do that and the amount you can harvest from that tends to dwarf whatever little amounts you're getting now. It's of more benefit to you to just use it.) Then take the elevator down. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Lift to Biocorp 3 -1040.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Head east. This next room is full of bats, and the only multi-target attacks you have right now are Ryu's Side Slash and Bosch's Fang. Side Slash is very weak (but may still work if you use it over and over on a group of very damaged bats) and Fang hits a very small area, so it's not a very good idea to fight them all at once at this point in the game. Do as the message says and try out your PETS items. You can use dynamite to soften them up, but in particular try to use Fresh Meat to separate them into more manageable groups of 2-3 at most. You might want to use Ryu to get the extra turn on the larger bats as Bosch's kick has a hard time hitting them. If you happen to have a bomb on you, try putting it down near a group of bats (but not so near that any of them come after you) and then dropping a Fresh Meat neat it. When the bats converge on the meat, hit one of them and then set off the bomb (walk over to it and press L2+X) on the extra turn to wipe them all out in one fell swoop. Muahahaha. :) Once you've wiped out all the bats, head south and through three doors. Continue south then switch to Ryu and SLOWLY walk around the corner. A couple of Hychees will drop from the ceiling, and you don't want them to get the drop on you. If you attack them, they'll die without even a battle and drop a handy Heal Kit each. If they touch you, you'll have to fight them, and they have an annoying tendency to confuse both your party members making the battle much longer and more annoying than it should be. (Not to mention that if you're still confused when you finish the battle you'll have to put up with reverse controls for a bit.) If you continue your voyage south, you may run into Mama Nugget along with three Nuggets. Kill 'em all. Now go through the gap to the east. Mind the Hychees and Dukes. Around now you might find that your inventory is full - if so, feel free to head back to town, identify any equipment that you've picked up, sell any that you don't want, buy some more healing items, and save (using the SOL Restore trick if you only have one token left). It really won't take too long to backtrack now that the enemies are dead (and they stay dead too :D). It's important to sell equipment you don't absolutely need, because that'll end up being the best source of zenny for you through a lot of the game. Just make sure you don't sell an old piece of equipment that has innate skills that you don't actually know (not a problem at the moment with Ryu, but watch out with future characters). Then head back to this point. I'll wait for you. Once you're back (or if you never left), collect any items in the area and head south. Take out the Dukes in the area and collect the items from the boxes. Then go through the westmost door for a dead end with another item box. Go back and this time take the eastern door. There may be a Duke Leader right behind it, so watch yourself. Now go over the bridge to the door at the end... BUT BEFORE ENTERING IT make sure you have a few healing items (say about 5 heal kits at the very least, just to be safe, or at least 10 if you've been having a hard time thus far). Go back to town if you don't. Now go through the door and welcome to your first danger room. In danger rooms, the doors lock until you have killed all the enemies. This is why you should always make sure you have an adequate supply of items, because if you don't you'll be in a sticky situation. For me, the welcoming party was about four Duke Hunters (Split encountered 8 various Duke enemies in one of subsequent playthroughs). They look similar to normal small Dukes but don't underestimate them - they take at least two Twin Wakes to kill, not just one. I also had to fight a couple of Nuggets in the adjacent room. Then, further down the corridor, there was a Duke Leader on the Duke side, and a large Mama Nugget on the Nugget side. Watch out for the Mama Nugget... she's dangerous. This room wouldn't be a bad place to use a spare bomb or two, especially if you can cluster the enemies up. Once you've taken out all the enemies the 'danger' music will stop and the treasure key will appear. Use it to open the chest, and receive the Kick skill item. Use it and then thread it onto Ryu's weapon instead of Side Slash (I prefer the standard Slice + Vert Slash + Deathbringer combo to X Slash anyway, and Kick will come in handy at times). Alternatively, if you really like X Slash and have a spare sword on you, you can thread Kick onto it and then equip that sword in battle whenever you need to kick an enemy around. :) If you have a spare 10 AP after a combo in battle, you can kick short range enemies away to make it more difficult for them to attack you when it's their turn. It also has even more useful functions that will become apparent later. After you take Kick, head through the nearby (southwest) door and through the door after that. The puppet girl's here to remind you that the controls can be redefined. Do your best Maxwell Smart impression as you walk through the many automatic doors in a row, but do watch out for the Nugget behind the third one. Then enter the elevator at the end. And that's it for the Lift! But you're not quite home free yet... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Approach South -1020.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Just head north and watch the cutscene... then continue north and through the door. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Genic Processor -1020.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Go across the bridge and there'll be another short cutscene. Afterwards.. Notice anything different? Heh, heh. It doesn't matter yet, so ignore it for the time being. If you've already cleared the game and you're playing it through again, you can go right, down the stairs, and then left through the gate and around the base of the fossil to receive the Dragon Blade, the best weapon in the game (especially if you have a good D-Ratio). But, if this is your first playthrough as it probably is, nevermind. Now just go left over the bridge and through the door. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Approach West -1010.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Follow the path around the corner. It's Girl W/ Puppet again, telling you about the escape function. Continue through the door, and take the elevator. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Genic Accumulator -1000.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Go through the door ahead of you. You'll pass by a telecorder, but ignore it unless you have more than one Save Token on you. Continue until you reach a blue door to your north and another door to your east. Go through the eastern door first and break the boxes in the room beyond it. Then return to the blue northern door. Go through it and then through the one to your west. You will enter a room full of caged (and not so caged) genics. To be more specific, there are Hychees on the ceiling that will try to drop on you, so proceed with caution. Go through the door to the north, raid the boxes for items, and then go east. This room has some caged nuggets and some escaped ones. The small ones are a pushover as per usual, the Mama Nugget much less so. Continue east to find a welcome sight - Jaju. Identify anything that needs identifying, and sell any unnecessary equipment (you can do that by going to the locker, putting whatever you want to sell in your inventory, then pressing X on it and 'moving' it to the Sell button at the bottom of the locker display) as you won't get another chance to for a while and some cash is a lot more valuable than a sword you're not using. Now, if you haven't saved yet because you only had one token, store all your items in the locker, then hike back to the Telecorder you saw before and save, then SOL Restore, then go back to Jaju and take your items out (you know the drill). When you're good and ready, head through the door behind Jaju. There'll be a series of cutscenes, one of them being SOL scene. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Old Waste Shaft 1F -1200.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Looks like you're out of the frying pan and into the... uh, rubbish bin. Head right. You'll notice there is a telecorder here, as well as Leo the item vendor and the Puppet Girl (tm), but Jaju is nowhere to be seen. That means that you can't do the SOL Restore trick, which means that unless you have more than one save token left, you can't currently save anywhere without screwing yourself over. So, don't. Talk to Leo and stock up on at least 20 Heal Kits and 5-10 Footlooses for the upcoming dungeon. If you have any party XP, don't use it. Go through the door to the right. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Old Waste Shaft 2F -1200.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This music rules. But, onto what to do. Well, at the moment, that just consists of grabbing an item from the box and heading west to the next room - however, if your current weapon does not have Kick threaded onto it, either do so or equip one that does. You can't open the chest yet, so ignore it. When you're ready, go west for a pretty cool cutscene and a... ******************************************************************************* BOSS BATTLE - CYCLOPS --------------------------------- STATISTICS ---------------------------------- HP | XP | AP | ATK | DEF | MAG | SPD | MOV | ABD | FIR | ICE | ELE 440 | 70 | 30 | 70 | 42 | 28 | 28 | 30 | 0 | 100% | 100% | 100% --------------- DROP --------------- ITEMS -------------- STEAL --------------- none | Ogre Slash skill none | none ------------------------ % RESISTANCE TO ATTACK TYPES ------------------------- ATK: IMM| MAG: 75%| MOV: IMM| CON: IMM | BIN: IMM| FRZ: 25%| DRK: 50%| HLY: IMM DEF: 25%| SPD: IMM| POI: 25%| SLE: IMM | STN: IMM| SHC: 25%| DTH: IMM| ----------------------------------- ATTACKS ----------------------------------- 1. Spiritcharge - self - increases ATK x1,5 for next attack 2. 'Swipe' - unit - phd 3. Sledgehammer - unit - critical phd 4. - after losing half HP, Cyclops no longer uses Spiritcharge, and can attack twice per turn -------------------------------- BOSS STRATEGY -------------------------------- Why hello, FF Tactics Music. But, anyway, here's the game's first boss battle. Don't take it lightly, because it's just you now, and if you don't remember to heal yourself the instant your health drops enough for you not to be wasting the Heal Kits, and the boss gets lucky, it's game over for you. Basically, you *can* beat this guy by simply beating on him using the standard Slash - Vert Slash - Deathbringer combo and healing when necessary (he's quite capable of doing 100+ damage to you in a round so KEEP YOUR HP UP!). But, if you're careful, you can also beat him without being hit if you get him *just* in range, use Deathbringer ONCE followed by Kick (and nothing else!), and then move back as far as you can. If you do this you should be able to stay just out of his range for the whole battle, although it isn't a sure thing. ******************************************************************************* When (if? :P) you win, there'll be a cutscene and Nina will join you (SOL scene will play as well). She starts at level 1, so if you've got some party XP, give it all to her so that she can catch up at least some of the way to you. If you used up a lot of items on the boss, go back east and buy some more. Otherwise, head west. A message will tell you of the cool stuff you can do now that you have Nina, and cool it is. Basically, Nina has abilities that cast 'magic circles' in battle (ie, traps). These are occasionally useful for blocking enemies, but the real value's in the damage they do if an enemy walks over one. Some (okay, "most" :P) enemies are stupid enough to do this if you simply put the trap between them and you, but there's an easier way to streamline this process. Put down three traps with Nina, as close as you can get them. You can't put them directly on top of each other, but they can overlap almost fully, so don't feel that you need to completely separate them. You can put down three at once - try to make a 'triangle' with their centres so they're as close together as possible. Put down this 'triangle' behind the enemy... and then kick the enemy into it. :D They should hit all three traps and take a ton of damage. This is especially useful for bosses and it's a strategy that should carry you through a good deal of the early game. Oh, and Nina can attract items to herself on the field with the R2 key. There's not much more than can be said about that. Hit the spider ahead of you with your sword and begin by doing a standard combo with Ryu. Nina currently has her first trap spell, G-Flare. Despite the low-seeming AP cost of 10, you'll find it increases the further you want to put the G-Flare from you, about as much as it would cost to walk there. So, you probably won't be able to put down much in the way of traps first turn, but this enemy's pretty stupid and if you put one as close as possible to it chances are it'll walk into it. When that battle's over, continue west. There's a couple of worker ants and a bind spider here. These enemies are more of the "stupid" kind and will usually walk into G-Flares put right next to them (which is fortunate as it's the only way that Nina can attack right now). With Ryu, take them out in the usual way. When you win, a treasure key will appear. You can now backtrack east to the chest in the room east of the room where you fought the boss, and open it for an unidentified piece of equipment. Now go back west to where you were. Firstly go through the door to your west to fight a few ants (and one spider that will drop down) and break a few boxes. Then go back out of this room and and go through the blue door to the south. There are some boxes in this room (including one that should have 1x SAVE TOKEN every playthrough! You can go back to the telecorder and save if you can be bothered), but watch out for the spiders on the ceiling that will drop on you. Then go through the southwest door and follow the passage (along which you may encounter boxes and spiders) to the next door, through which is a ladder to the next floor. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Old Waste Shaft 3F -1190.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Go through the door, follow the passage, and go through the next door to a room with a few boxes. After taking anything you want, go to the northeastern door and through the passage to another room where you can get a box. Then go back to the previous room and this time go through the southeastern door for a couple of cutscenes. When they end you'll have a new party member. Lin seems weak now but she'll get pretty powerful later on - and her range is useful, both in and out of battle. (Make sure you use combos as much as possible, and take note that Outta My Way is even more useful than Kick as it knocks enemies into traps from a distance) She will automatically target enemies and objects on the field (press the R2 button to cycle targets) and tapping the X button to initiate battle from a distance (this has tactical advantages like when a short-range enemy is somewhere where they cannot reach you). Holding the X button down will charge up a shot that will knock an enemy away without beginning battle, although I never used it very often. Don't forget her Profile ability analyses an enemy in battle for free, which you may find useful. And finally let's not forget she yells something in Japanese with every attack :P HORA HORA! GIVE US AN EYE, YO! Er, anyway, you'll also get another inventory page (yay!), and let's move on. If you continue east you'll enter another room that may contain a Goo Element (which will most likely drop an unidentified piece of equipment) and a box or two. Go north from here through the passage and watch out for the hermit slugs in the next room, they look like rocks until you're right next to them. They don't take much damage from weapons but knocking them into a well placed G- Flare or two will take them down quicker than... something quick. If you're lucky one will drop the Jolt skill item for Nina (you might also be able to steal it, I'm not sure. This will let Nina actually attack directly... it's more AP-economical than G-Flare is, but hitting enemies into G-Flares does more damage so I find I do the latter more often at least for the time being. It does, however, depend on distance... at long ranges, Jolt does more damage for the AP you spend because it costs too much to put a G-Flare out that far. You'll need to thread it onto the Pyromania's empty slot before you can use it, of course. Then go through the door to the north and climb the ladder to the next floor. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Old Waste Shaft 4F -1180.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- STOP and make sure you have enough (again, 10 or so is a good safety zone, although I personally didn't use more than 3-4) healing items, because directly through the door in front of you is a danger room. If not you can go back to the vendor and buy some, if you have any money (you might want to sell anything unnecessary to get more money... perhaps even a Tonic or two if you're desperate). If you can't get any more money you might have to hope for the best and wing it, but I don't advise that. Mind the spiders that will drop on you when you enter. Clear out the spiders in this room and the adjacent one and you're done with this danger room. Now, if you've been SOLing (including the SOL Restore trick) you'll get an SOL cutscene at this point. In either case, continue north and through the passage to the next room. Watch out for the Rustphages here (little trilobite-like bugs) as they're pretty fast when they spot you, but you can take them down in the extra turn if you attack first. There is a D-Ratio door in here that you can't open unless you're on a later playthrough. D-RATIO REQUIRED: 1/4096 The door leads to a fenced off area containing blue treasure chest, 1x Lesser Karon and 6x SkullDigger. Because you're still free to use Ryu's powers without penalty, run around until you spot Lesser Karon and smash it down. Once Lesser Karon is history, so are SkullDiggers. If by any chance Nina has Holy Heart from previous playthrus, use Kyrie on these guys for insta-KO. Once defeated, treasure key appears, so grab it and claim the chest for Weaken skill (Nina). That is all folks, so return thru D-ratio door you came thru... Continue west through the passage to the next room where there are a few boxes and spiders will drop from the ceiling (this dungeon's sure full of surprises, eh? -_-) Continue along the path also watching out for rustphages until you get to the next door, which leads north. There are a few worker ants in here. If you can get them grouped up, you'll find one advantage Jolt (if you have it) certainly does have is that it hits a small circular area of enemies, not just one. If you don't you might want to consider either separating them or putting a bomb down because they do more damage than you'd think (upwards of 80) and if several get their turns in a row it hurts. On the other hand if you can get them all before they do anything you'll find that while they dish it out, they can't take it. Continue along the passageway. You may find a box with unidentified equipment at the corner. Through the door you'll find a reasonably large room with the D-Ratio area you may or may not have been able to enter before on the other side of a fence. You've either done what you needed to there or can't do anything at all, so proceed east where you'll find puppet girl again telling you about bombs, and the ladder to the next floor. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Old Waste Shaft 5F -1170.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- You're getting there. By now you might be running out of items and money, but it's quite acceptable to D-Dash past any enemies you don't feel like fighting yet (after all it's not costing you anything... yet...) and come back for them later on when you've got some more items and have saved. In the next room, Hychees will drop from the ceiling (ooh, they're mixing it up for sure!) and you can attack them outside of battle for party XP and heal kits you probably need. There's a D-Ratio area to the north (info coming later!) and also a confused De-Volve sub-boss that you may wish to fight. You should probably de-equip your Steal skill before doing so, as if you steal its "stuffed teddy" item (hah) it will become more powerful (and the item itself is just a sellable). The G-Flare tactic works well here if you wish to use it. He dropped a piece of equipment for me but your mileage may vary. If you don't want to fight the De-Volve, just don't go near the northern end of the room as your next destination is the more southeastern passage. Go down it and into the room and WHOA THAT'S A BIG HYCHEE. I believe if you use fire on these guys (Odd Hychees) you get better items, like Trauma Kits or Mega Aid Kits (200 and 100 HP to everyone respectively!). There's also another D-Ratio door but where we're headed is at the end of the passage and across the empty room beyond that - the ladder to the next floor of the dungeon. D-RATIO REQUIRED: 1/2048 OK, return to D-ratio door behind DeVolve you killed back there. Room you will enter contains 1x Boss Ant and 6x Guard Ant. There's a ledge behind Boss Ant, so you can use it to launch extra turn against them genics - and they won't be able to reach you. Boss Ant can though, because it knows Fireblast, so spread your chrs out. Killing Boss Ant will spawn another treasure key near the entrance you took to enter this room. Grab it, then check the chest for G-Iceblast, a Nina skill. That's not all yet... take another door located in NE corner. There's few boxes here, so smash them, then continue until you find a corpse of DeVolve. Squeeze past the junk on the right and take next door. Kill Guard/Work Ants in this room, then raid the boxes for goodies. Ignore the D-ratio door for now and carry on further W - past the door you will find an armor for Ryu. Turn around and check out thru D-ratio door. That's all folks, so go up that ladder to... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Old Waste Shaft 6F -1160.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Last floor. Go through the door, raid the boxes, and go through the blue door. Mind the Hermits who may drop from the ceiling (I'm seeing a common theme) in the next room, and G-Flare their asses. There are three ways to go here.. go east if you want to fight another DeVolve (unequip Steal, but only bother if your inventory isn't full by this point. Mine was :P) and collect a red box. I like the level of detail in what would otherwise be filler rooms like this... anyway, whether you went east or not, now go west. Then go north and north again. There's a box here and a treasure chest you don't have the key for yet, as well as a room to the north where you can't do anything. So go back to the three-way room and go north this time. Collect the boxes in this next room, then go north and collect more boxes and kill a few Worker Ants while you're at it. HOWEVER you should know beforehand that if you kill them all (including the wimpy one that runs away from you), the doors will lock, the danger room music will start and HOLY CRAP THAT ANT IS HUGE. If you do plan on tackling the Boss Ant, he's not that hard. Don't try to be smart and trap him on the step by attacking from a distance with Lin, attacking from a distance is just the way he likes it. He takes a lot of damage from Ryu (Deathbringer was doing over 100 for me) and not much from anything else. So get in close and smack him one. I don't think you get anything other than experience for winning, however. I would have thought for sure it'd be the treasure key O_o The next room to the north has a few dormant DeVolves and a couple of boxes, including one that should contain 1x SAVE TOKEN. Go north from here and you're finally up to.. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Endsector Borough -1160.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There's a telecorder here (about damn time!), and a SOL scene as well. DO NOT TAKE THE UPPER LEFT EXIT YET (it's along the walkway and past Jaju and the other guy). This music sounds awfully FF7-ish, but it's cool. Anyway, I suggest you go to Jaju first and get all the equipment you've picked up identified. Take anything you want to wear out of the WpnLkr, and sell anything that you're not going to use. You can do this straight from the WpnLkr screen by dropping held pieces of equipment on the "sell" button at the bottom. I personally got better armour for Nina, a better gun for Lin (remember to thread any new weapons you get) and physical defense +25% shield for Ryu that I didn't use because I prefer threadable shields for Steal. Now if you head right you'll see the item and weapon vendors, Leo and Arma At this point you shouldn't be wasting your money on equipment, so ignore Arma and just stock up on some more heal kits and anything else you need from Leo, selling stuff you don't want. If you can afford it, aim for about 20 heal kits to be safe. If you didn't kill all the enemies in the previous dungeon, you might feel a bit more confident about going back for them after you've saved here and restocked on items. You should have picked up a token or two in the dungeon and therefore won't need to use the SOL Restore trick, but if you do remember to do it after identifying all your equipment and storing all your items. When you're done with this area and fully stocked (you might also want to equip the Steal skill on Lin, just saying...), then you can take the upper left exit. Don't read ahead until you do, because I can't give advice for what's coming up without at least spoiling things a little bit. You'll be treated to THE most badass cutscene in the game (seriously, it's *awesome*, although not for the faint of heart) and then you'll immediately be thrown into a... ******************************************************************************* BOSS BATTLE - HEAD HONCHO [A] + GUNNER GRUNT [B] + BATTLER GRUNT [C] ------------------------------- [A] STATISTICS -------------------------------- HP | XP | AP | ATK | DEF | MAG | SPD | MOV | ABD | FIR | ICE | ELE 360 | 300 | 40 | 100 | 45 | 20 | 32 | 50 | 0 | 100% | 100% | 100% ------------------------------- [B] STATISTICS -------------------------------- HP | XP | AP | ATK | DEF | MAG | SPD | MOV | ABD | FIR | ICE | ELE 160 | 150 | 20 | 75 | 40 | 20 | 20 | 35 | 0 | 100% | 100% | 100% ------------------------------- [C] STATISTICS -------------------------------- HP | XP | AP | ATK | DEF | MAG | SPD | MOV | ABD | FIR | ICE | ELE 160 | 150 | 20 | 84 | 42 | 20 | 35 | 30 | 0 | 100% | 100% | 100% -------------- DROP -------------- [A] ITEMS ------------- STEAL -------------- none | Fang skill none | 6000 zenny -------------- DROP -------------- [B] ITEMS ------------- STEAL -------------- none | Pistol+1 none | 300 zenny -------------- DROP -------------- [C] ITEMS ------------- STEAL -------------- none | Ranger Shell+1 none | 300 zenny ---------------------- [A] % RESISTANCE TO ATTACK TYPES ----------------------- ATK: IMM| MAG: IMM| MOV: IMM| CON: IMM | BIN: IMM| FRZ: IMM| DRK: IMM| HLY: IMM DEF: IMM| SPD: IMM| POI: 25%| SLE: IMM | STN: IMM| SHC: IMM| DTH: IMM| ---------------------- [B] % RESISTANCE TO ATTACK TYPES ----------------------- ATK: 75%| MAG: 75%| MOV: 75%| CON: 75% | BIN: 75%| FRZ: 75%| DRK:100%| HLY: IMM DEF: 75%| SPD: 75%| POI: 25%| SLE: 75% | STN: 75%| SHC: 75%| DTH: 50%| ---------------------- [C] % RESISTANCE TO ATTACK TYPES ----------------------- ATK: 75%| MAG: 75%| MOV: 75%| CON: 75% | BIN: 75%| FRZ: 75%| DRK:100%| HLY: IMM DEF: 75%| SPD: 75%| POI: 75%| SLE: 75% | STN: 75%| SHC: 75%| DTH: 50%| --------------------------------- [A] ATTACKS --------------------------------- 1. Snakebite - unit - phd, induces poison 2. Twin Wake - unit - phd, reduces DEF 3. Fang - line - phd --------------------------------- [B] ATTACKS --------------------------------- 1. Stinger - spread - shot phd 2. 'Shoot' - unit - shot phd 3. Heal Kit - self - recovers small HP amount 4. - skips a turn in favor of more AP --------------------------------- [C] ATTACKS --------------------------------- 1. 'Swipe' - unit - phd 2. Heal Kit - self - recovers small HP amount 3. - skips a turn in favor of more AP 4. - if attacked with Dragon powers, shield is destroyed -------------------------------- BOSS STRATEGY -------------------------------- WHY ISN'T THIS MUSIC THE GAME'S MAIN BATTLE THEME?! It's criminally underused! Er, but anyway, onto the battle itself. Ryu will automatically D-Dive at the start and you won't be able to Cooldown, so this battle's basically about getting out of it with as low a D-Counter as possible (yes, you're going to have to worry about that now). So don't mess around, finish as quickly as you can. Every round alone is costing you 2% and attacks will cost you about 1-1.5% as well. I personally finished this battle on my first playthrough with 6.5%, but anything up until about 10% is fine. For interest the lowest possible you can get is 1% if you kill everyone with Nina and Lin before Ryu's turn comes up at all, but that's not going to happen until a later playthrough. Take note that Battler's shield cuts physical damage in half if it triggers. To destroy it with no sweat, release D-Breath in Battler's direction, but do not hold Circle! As soon as beam touches Battler's shield, it goes bye-bye. Take note that you can steal the Fang skill from our fencing friend (and I don't think from anywhere else) but it's not particularly essential and I didn't really use it. If you do want it, you'll have to move Ryu out of his range and Lin (with Steal skill equipped) into it, then hope he attacks her. Other than that, just have Nina and Lin kill one of the two guards and then have Ryu take out the others when it gets to his turn. One Twister will finish off the main guy and one Vortex will be sufficient for the one remaining guard. If Nina and Lin didn't kill the other you'll need to Twister him too. This should all be over in one round if you weren't trying to get Fang like I did on the first playthrough, it might take a little longer if you were. This time I didn't try to get Fang (forgot to equip Steal on Lin :P) and finished with 3.5%, but like I said don't stress if you finish with more. ******************************************************************************* After the boss battle you'll somehow end up at.. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Lift LowSector 1 -1140.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Alright, so you've got the D-Counter now, and let me stress that there is NO way to lower it. So no more free D-Dashing for you. My suggestion is to make that no more D-Dashing, period. It shouldn't be necessary. You can also D-Dive in battle, but again... don't do it. If you avoid using D-Dash or D-Dive, the very small amounts your D-Counter will rise by from just walking around will not matter in the slightest no matter *how* much backtracking you do (within reason... don't start doing pointless consecutive laps of the entire game just to prove me wrong :P). Anyway, if you go south from your starting position you'll find a couple of white boxes, and then the puppet girl and Leo the item vendor. The box in the shaft of light should always contain 1x SAVE TOKEN and whaddaya know, there's a telecorder here as well. Save if you like (I didn't bother saving so soon after my last in the town) provided you have more than one token, which you should seeing as how you just picked one up. :P Anyway, go back to the north (where you started) and go east to start with. Go through the doors and pick up the boxes until you reach a dead end with a couple of large and fearsome looking enemies (a Death Cow and a Beak) on the other side of a barrier, unable to reach you. :P I suggest you begin the battle with Lin and kill them now. You *will* have the opportunity later on to fight them head on, so this is optional, but it's what I recommend you do because while it might take longer it's a lot safer (you shouldn't take any damage at all). The only advantage besides time taken for fighting them head on is that you can steal skills like Wild Swing (which aren't that useful anyway and can be obtained elsewhere). I suggest you walk Lin up to them on her extra turn, then walk Nina as close to the barrier as possible on hers, then put G-Flares in front of them. They'll always walk as close to you as possible on every turn. Once they do this, have Lin knock them back to where they were with Outta My Way then put G-Flares in front of them again. The Beak will still be able to use Howling which will bind everyone but this shouldn't be an issue as long as you get as close as possible on the first turn (just skip Ryu's turn every time, he can't do anything). After you kill them (or not) backtrack along the path to the starting room and this time go straight west into the door there. Go through the doors and then down the stairs, watching out for the Rustphages. Once you've taken them all out and collected an item from the box, open the door to the south and continue on. Turn the corner and open the door to a large room. Go across this bridge, ignoring the bats on the other one for now. The path will loop around and then you'll have to cross the Batbridge, Robin. If you have Jolt, you can try clumping the bats into one spot with a Fresh Meat and Jolting them into oblivion - if you got them all into one spot and then got the extra turn with Nina, effectively giving her two turns in a row. Otherwise you shouldn't take them all on at once. If you kill any of the bats over the gap between the bridges, the items they drop will miraculously float in midair. You'll need to use Nina's item vacuum (R2) to get those. Once you've wiped out all the bats the treasure key will appear, so take it. In the room through the yellow door to the east of the room that you got to after you went over the first bridge but not the second, is the treasure chest along with the Beak and Death Cow you should have killed before. If you didn't bother, you can go in there now and go toe-to-toe with them... good luck :P Either way, once they're out of the way you can go in there and open the treasure chest for Nina's Joltball skill item (basically a lightning damage G- Flare) which you should use. If you've still just got the Pyromania you won't be able to put it anywhere other than in the second slot. If you got Jolt before it'll be there and I suggest you leave it there. If you have a second weapon for Nina or get one later you can thread it onto that weapon instead and then change weapons (you can do this for free once every turn) in battle if you need to do lightning damage with a trap. Now go back over the second, southern bridge that used to have bats on it. Open the door and continue west to the end of the passage. Now you'll be back in the town (go right along the bridge you're on to get to the liftport, then go "downwards" from there, up the stairs, and back "up" to get to the main town. Identify any equipment you picked up, restock your healing items (I suggest about 20 heal kits, preferably 30 if you have the zenny), and save if you like (you can use the SOL Restore trick here if you only have one save token left). Then go back the way you came, back across the bridge, and back into the Lift LowSector. Now go back west, across the bridge, then east across the other bridge, and follow the path back to the starting room. This is the last you'll see of it without purposefully backtracking, so I used one of the 3 save tokens I had left on the telecorder here. Whether you do or not, now take the southeast exit and we'll tackle the actual dungeon. :) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Lift LowSector 2 -1130.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Go east and into the next room. Break the boxes here. There are some Dukes on a step you can't reach at the moment, and attacking them with Lin isn't as useful here because a couple have crossbows. You can still kill them at this point, but there's no real need to. If you do the treasure key will materialise but you won't be able to reach it yet. So go through the door to the south. There are a few Dukes around here, mostly on the ground level. Take them out, and then go up the stairs to get on top of the ledge. Go east from here. The next room contains a couple of Tricksters. They're annoying because they just tend to run from you in battle, but not very dangerous for the same reason. Around the corner to the north is a large Duke Battler. Don't underestimate these guys. If you attack one and you're in its range, it will counterattack after every combo sequence for a fair amount of damage. You can either just attack it from a distance with Lin and Nina (physical attacks won't do much until you've done enough damage to break its armour) or you can do combos on it with Ryu as long as you finish them off with a Kick to knock it away from you and therefore put yourself out of its range. To do this you'll have to just use Slice over and over and Kick as your last attack (BE SURE TO DO IT AS A COMBO - press the Slice button again directly after each hit and then at the end hold R2 and press the Kick button) but it's better than taking damage. Now go through the door to the north and follow the passage to another door. Here's the ledge where the Dukes you saw earlier were. Take them out (unless you already did so) and then take the treasure key and unlock the chest with it. You'll get Lin's Blow up! skill item from it, a supremely useful skill which hits a wide spread of enemies. You'll be using this one often on clusters of weak enemies throughout the game. Now go back along the passage to the previous room and this time go east. Go through that door and the next. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Lift LowSector 3 -1120.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Follow the passage to the next room. If you're wondering what that sound is it's the Black Widow spiders that are about to drop on you (boo!). Stomp them (they take nice damage from G-Flare, FYI). There should also be a Goo Element. Killing all the monsters will make the Treasure Key appear - in order to reach it you'll need to go south along the walkway, through the door, then west to the other walkway and north along that (breaking boxes on the way). Mind the spiders on the second walkway. Then you can go into the room which contains the key and also some boxes and more spiders. :P After taking the key go back over the bridge to the southern room where the chest is. It contains Rust Armour, a level 1 stat-damaging skill for Ryu I don't think I used once. Yay. Now go south. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Lift LowSector 4 -1130.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Follow the path as it loops around and then go through the door to the north. Here, go down the stairs and then walk along the track westwards. There will be some Hychees along the way you can kill for Heal Kits you probably need. Then go north and bust the boxes. To your east there's a sleeping Duke Battler you can either sneak past or pick a fight with if you're feeling brave. I did the latter, of course :P But I'd recommend you firstly kill the Hychees ahead of it just in case they end up in the same battle (which wouldn't be good). Don't forget to end Ryu's combos with a kick. The Duke Battler should drop some equipment. After killing it or ignoring it, continue east and open the door. Go east but watch out for the Odd Hychee that will fall from the ceiling. Remember to use fire on it if you want the Trauma Kit. Before going in the door at the end, STOP and make sure you've got enough healing items, because there's a danger room up ahead. It's a Duke party, and you weren't invited! Okay, you really don't want to take these guys all on at once unless you've got a major tactical advantage. Make liberal use of any fresh/rotten meats on you to separate them and/or any bombs you have to set the battle up in your favour before it starts. Remember to be careful with the Battlers as always. You may find it helps greatly to trap them on the ledge and begin the battle with Lin... sure, the small ones can cast spells at you and the Battlers are smart enough to find their way down eventually, but it should give you a few free turns at least. If one of them uses Spiritcharge I strongly suggest you stay the hell away from it. :P Also, a box in the northeastern corner of this room should always contain 1x SAVE TOKEN. If you win :) the treasure key will appear. Use it to open the nearby chest to get another page added to your inventory. Hooray! You'll probably need it to pick up all the equipment those Duke Battlers dropped. Then go north and into the elevator. You'll see a couple of cutscenes and then you'll be back at.. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- LowSector Borough -1000.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Well, we certainly took the long way around, didn't we? :D You should have a fair bit of money from that dungeon (I had about 2000 zenny) and you can get some more by IDing your equipment and selling anything you're not going to use (I more than doubled my money from that in fact). Your next destination is BioCorp's labs (the entrance is fairly obvious, at the north end of the lower town area), but I wouldn't go there quite yet as I strongly suggest you do everything you need to do in this town first. Restock on items (a good 20-30 heal kits would be ideal... or about half that number of aid kits, if you don't think you can spare the extra inventory space, but I prefer to stick with heal kits until my max HP is higher), also buy about 10 multimeds if at all possible, save at the telecorder, use the SOL Restore trick if that was your last token, etc. Again I didn't bother buying any equipment yet. When you're ready, go into BioCorp. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- CorpLab Entrance -1010.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- It's quiet... a little TOO quiet. Go south and into the door to your east. Follow the passage along, breaking a couple of boxes, until you come to a door you need the BioCorp ID to open. Okay then. Go back and continue south until you get to a couple of doors to the south. Go to the eastern one first for a few boxes, and then go to the western one for a cutscene. Pick "Open door" when given the option, then "Sure!". You can now do the Fairy/Ant Colony sidequest. You might want to wait until you have a bit more money, however. You can get a *lot* of zenny from this sidequest (it's almost like cheating) but you'll need some to start off with. I'll stress that this isn't at all necessary, I didn't do any of it on my first game and it could well make it too easy if you do. For further details about this sidequest, check it in the sidequests section which may or may not have been written yet. :) When you're done (if you want to do anything at all) talk to the fairy and choose Leave. You'll get the Fairy Drops item. This is a standard item that you can lose in an SOL Restore (unless you store it in the locker, which you should), but if you do just find the fairy in a town and she'll give you another one. You can use the Fairy Drops to go to the colony as long as there aren't any enemies nearby. Now leave the CorpLab Entrance the way you came, to the north. You might want to make sure Steal is equipped on Ryu and Lin's shields before you do. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- LowSector Borough -1000.0m -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Immediately upon your return there will be a cutscene followed by a... ******************************************************************************* BOSS BATTLE - GUNNER LIEUT [A] + BATTLER LIEUT [B] + MAGE LIEUT [C] ------------------------------- [A] STATISTICS ------------------------------- HP | XP | AP | ATK | DEF | MAG | SPD | MOV | ABD | FIR | ICE | ELE 500 | 370 | 30 | 86 | 46 | 50 | 34 | 25 | 0 | 100% | 100% | 100% ------------------------------- [B] STATISTICS ------------------------------- HP | XP | AP | ATK | DEF | MAG | SPD | MOV | ABD | FIR | ICE | ELE 600 | 330 | 30 | 82 | 50 | 40 | 36 | 45 | 0 | 100% | 100% | 100% ------------------------------- [C] STATISTICS ------------------------------- HP | XP | AP | ATK | DEF | MAG | SPD | MOV | ABD | FIR | ICE | ELE 520 | 350 | 30 | 55 | 43 | 60 | 46 | 30 | 0 | 100% | 100% | 100% -------------- DROP -------------- [A] ITEMS ------------- STEAL -------------- none | Handgun+1 none | 800 zenny -------------- DROP -------------- [B] ITEMS ------------- STEAL -------------- none | Ranger Edge+2 none | 500 zenny -------------- DROP -------------- [C] ITEMS ------------- STEAL -------------- none | Magic Wand+1 none | 500 zenny ---------------------- [A] % RESISTANCE TO ATTACK TYPES -----------