I'm still behind a bit, but should get caught up relatively soon. For now, I have Chapter 2 finished.
What were your exam scores? How do you feel about your performance?
Conduct: 70
Judgment: 100
Attack: 100
Spirit: 100
Points Deducted: 100 (meaning no points deducted)
Bonus: 100
SeeD Rank: 10
I feel quite good about all this, considering that 10 is the highest starting rank.
I don't think it's possible to get a perfect score on Conduct if you take the time to destroy the X-ATM092. I just don't see how you could manage to take him out and get back to the beach in under five minutes, no matter what your junctions or levels happen to be. Under ten minutes for the second best time, sure, but I've never done it in under five.
Did you get the Battle Meter?
Of course.
Any trouble finding the "secret area" in the Training Center?
Not this time, thankfully, but the first time I played the game, I wandered around for literally hours since that doorway is only accessible this one time during the game. I had already been spending some time in the Training Center before this development in the story, so I "knew" there was actually no door there and never bothered trying to check it for the longest time.
I got really frustrated for a while and thought I was either stuck or that my game was broke.
Did you get the Magical Lamp? Did you use it?
Yes, and yes.
What rare cards have you gotten so far?
All that are available right now -- Seifer, Quistis, Zell, MiniMog, Ifrit, Diablos, Angelo, Siren and anything else I may not be thinking of.
Well, not Kiros, because I haven't started the Queen of Cards quest yet (out of choice), but everything else.
Did you give the Card Queen the MiniMog card?
No, I'm going to do all that much later.
Did Laguna fall asleep while talking to Julia or just talk too much?
I got him to fall asleep. I think it's funny, and what Julia says about him being adorable when he's asleep is sweet.
Did you perform the train mission flawlessly or have to do anything over?
Flawlessly.
Did you take the cheap way out for the Gerogero boss fight?
Nah, I didn't exploit his Undead status this time. I have before for shits and giggles, but I took him down honest this time.
Did you visit Dollet again? What did you do there?
I did! I went ahead and did the Bone Quest. I know I would get better items for doing it later, but I just wanted to get it over with.
I also went ahead and played cards with the pub owner, got the Siren card from him, got Occult Fan II and eliminated Random and Elemental from this region.
I also did some weapon remodeling while I was here after fighting Adamantoises on the beach. Since I went ahead and did the forest dream sequence before coming here, I could fight Grendels, which I did to get four Dragon Fangs.
You can probably guess what that means? Yep, I already have Lion Heart. I also have Ehrgeiz for Zell and Strange Vision for Selphie.
I would have Shooting Star for Rinoa, but I didn't get the Force Armlet off the X-ATM092 earlier. I took the Hypno Crown for the Mag+40% ability to improve Zell's crappy Draw rate at the time.
I kind of wish I had done it now, as -- though Ochus will drop them on rare occasions -- Ochus themselves are extremely rare encounters around Timber's forests and it's too much of a pain in the ass dealing with the much more frequent encounter with two Funguars and a Cockatrice, particularly when you're trying to keep your levels low by defeating them with the Card ability.
Yes, Lex's insanity bug has bitten me too and I'm trying to keep everyone's levels down until all the Bonus abilities become available. I let them get just high enough that Elastoids would occasionally be at level 30 and have Meltdown, Ochus would occasionally have Pain and Adamantoises would drop me some Adamantine (as well as have Reflect for me to stock), but to where lower level monsters in the 20s range would still appear too so I could get the Dragon Fangs off the Grendels.
It's a difficult balance to strike, but I did it successfully. I did actually manage to encounter high-level Ochus a few times (got 100 Pains for three characters that way), but they never did drop the Force Armlet and I got sick of dealing with Funguars without giving into the impulse to just kill the bastards.
I could get one as a rare drop off the rarely encountered Forbiddens in the Tomb of the Unknown King a little bit later, but I'd have to increase someone's levels enough to offset the fact that Irvine is going to lower the party's average level when he comes rolling in at level 13 (Rinoa's current level). Since only level 30 and above Forbiddens will drop the Force Armlet, someone would have to miss out on several possible stat increase levels just for the sake of Rinoa having the weapon now.
Not really worth it since you're guaranteed to get a Force Armlet from the last boss of Disc 2 (provided you don't use Mug), and since I'll probably get one from an Ochu before then anyway.
Once I have Carbuncle and Leviathan, between them, Ifrit and Siren, I'll have Str Bonus, Mag Bonus, Vit Bonus and Spr Bonus. With the Rosetta Stones I plan to get at the beginning of Disc 2, someone will be able to have all four abilities as they level up by putting all four GFs on them.
With that in place, I'll just go ahead and start leveling everyone up to 100 early, starting with Quistis using Degenerator over and over while the other two party members are in KO status. Once she's done, I'll wake a second party member up, give them the GFs, then continue the process -- and so on and so forth.
Right now, most of the characters' levels are still low. Squall is at 40, but he's had Str Bonus and Mag Bonus for quite some time, so he's been benefitting. Rinoa and Irvine are at 13, Zell's at 23, Quistis is at 22 and Selphie is at 17.
They're going to be some badass motherfuckers when I'm done with them.
While I might be insane, I'm not going to pull a Lex and get the four Energy Crystals still needed for Save the Queen now by playing cards, though. =P I have the two for Shooting Star (only used one for Pulse Ammo since I got a couple Laser Cannons as Elastoid drops), and that's plenty for now.
