- Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... My first All S Rankings in Chapter 8-2!
I didn't originally plan for this playthrough to be so focused on gaining top rankings. I wanted one more casual playthrough where I learn stuff here and there before I do my serious, very potentially tedious "Record me gaining all S ranks" playthrough. I am still doing that of course and I did plenty of experimentation with equipment in Chapter 8-2 before I decided on what is good enough. There is also the fact that I have never played through Hard Mode in JORG with a Lv1 Vincent and I just want to confirm beforehand 100% that I can clear a Lv1 challenge.
- Leaving the game and revisiting a checkpoint has multiple benefits. Let's call it "
Checkpoint Utilization". This is not only useful for when you want to restore Vincent's HP or for when you want to make sure that the Rosso boss battle starts out in your favor by landing a super-critical hit with the killchain that you built up before the boss battle. It can ALSO be used to respawn mako points, boxes and drum cans.
In the area where you fight the Shrikes at the end of Chapter 8-1, there is a Mako Point. Step on the Mako Point and initiate the boss battle. When the boss battle starts there will be no juice in the Mako Point. BUT if you leave the game, then return to the boss battle checkpoint, the Mako Point will have been restored! This methods allows you to use up the Mako Point TWICE, because the checkpoint save data does not remember whether you just stepped on said Mako Point or not.
This revival of a Mako Point can also be employed earlier in Chapter 8-1. After you have saved the five-member WRO squad, leave the game, go back to the checkpoint where you have saved the squad, then backtrack through the stage to the Mako Point that you stepped on about a minute or so earlier.
Because Chapter 8-1 is fairly lenient when it comes to the requirement for an S ranking in completion time, I will most definitely employ
Checkpoint Utilization here even though I add about 50-60 seconds from this backtracking. By gaining that extra Mako Point both early in the stage and in the boss battle area, you may easier achieve those 6 required Galian Beast transformation for an S ranking in the Limit Break category. Your dependancy on Ether restorative items or having to wait several minutes for a Mako Point to respawn is seriously reduced.
In Chapter 8-2 you can exploit the checkpoint system in a very risky way... What I did was that after restarting the checkpoint after the three aerial mines, before the Black Widow that comes running down the stairs, I backtracked through the area with the aerial mines and EM barriers! I was able to pass through unscathed purely based on luck. By doing this I was able to re-use two Mako Points and destroy eighteen boxes for a 17 killchain. The gil rewards had respawned as well, granting me about 3000 extra gil (I forgot to count the exact reward but it was AWESOME) that I would not have gained otherwise. Like a BAWS I travelled yet again through the EM barriers and avoided the aerial mines. Then when I encountered the Black Widow, a normal hit killed the robot instantly thanks to my 17 killchain. Normally with the Black Widow you have to shoot its belly for a critical hit that may defeat it instantly (if your equipment is powerful enough).
That particular playthrough of Chapter 8-2 was pure magic and the S rankings you see above is a result of that playthrough. My playtime was increased with about five minutes because of the backtracking, but I was well within the margins for an S ranking in completion time. Repasting the Chapter 8-2 requirements in JORG:
Targets Destroyed - 70 or more
Accuracy Rate - 70% or more
Damage Sustained - 7999 or less
Critical Hits - 50 or more
Killchains - 70 or more
Items used - 6 or fewer
Limit Break Used - 6 times or more
Mako Collected - 90% or more
Times KO'd - 0
Time Expired - Less than 28 minutes and 20 seconds
So if you are feeling super-brave or just confident in general, I recommend backtracking in Chapter 8-2 either before the first or second Black Widow. With the chapter already having many stage missions that could easily be messed up, you are truly making a gamble here since you risk two more times to have an aerial mine destroyed and thus not get an S ranking in the
Avoid the Aerial Mines challenge.
- I wish I had recorded this boss battle against Rosso. When you manage to score that delicious first-blood super-critical hit, Rosso is pretty much always knocked back and will still be recovering her stance even after the cutscene that transitions to her "Bloodburst Rosso" form. By walking straight up to Rosso, you can shoot her right in the face for another critical hit that has high odds of knocking her back AGAIN! Which means you can get yet another critical hit by going Trinity on her ass.
After this she will almost definitely not be knocked back again, but she will have lost so much HP that all you need is two or three more critical hits to defeat her. Thanks to this, I did not need to restore Vincent's HP in this battle and I felt like a SUPER BADASS! The worst boss battle of the game becomes among the most satisfying.
From there you can snipe your foes, most of them hiding on the second floor, as you gradually move to the right but without exposing yourself to multiple foes. It was in this spot where I noticed the unexpected dark blue on the other side of the floor.
Also after that I found that the game refused to enter the menu or to be paused. All of this in the same spot in Chapter 10 in JORG. =/