======================================================== FINAL FANTASY VIII U.S. VERSION SURVIVING ULTIMECIA CASTLE v. 2.0 by Ruk skysenshi@yahoo.com http://www.geocities.com/~kraiders ======================================================== ============================ INTRODUCTION ============================ [v. 1.0 September 16, 1999] [v. 2.1 September 30, 1999] Frustrated because entering Ultimecia Castle means all your powers are sealed off? Wanna return to the days when FFVII allowed ALL your characters to play against the final boss without having to kill some off them off first? Well, stop hair-pulling, read on! ============================ SURVIVING THE CASTLE ============================ PRE-REQUISITE: Get Ragnarok in Disc 4 and re-explore the now dire-looking world map. To get Ragnarok, once you reach a giagantic chain bridge, you'll see 3 windows. Choose the window nearest to the Castle by pressing X. Thanks to Scott Ong's Walkthrough (kangning@mbox5.singnet.com.sg -- I kinda got an idea from there even though his Japanese version is a lot different from the US version) for explaining where the 3 windows lead to. You'll find yourself on the outskirts of Esthar Continent (Grandidi Forest). Head to the north of the portal, going through the forest, until you see a dome like mound of forest structure. That's the Chocobo Shrine where you can get a chocobo. Ride it and head south of the map. You'll see a number of deserted islands (one of them is the island where GF Cactuar is). Look for the nearest docking area (or beach) in one of these desert islands. You will find the Ragnarok there. 1. Get all the items and magic you might have missed or are still lacking. 1.1. Recommended magic to stock up: 1.1.1. MELTDOWN - can be drawn from the Gayla, which can be found on the snow field outside Trabia Garden. 1.1.2. ULTIMA - Since you can't go back to Shumi Village to draw Ultima, kill Elnoyles at the Esthar City. Energy Crystals can be converted into Ultima, the strongest magic that you can junction to strength. Red Dragons at the Island Closest to Hell also give out Energy Crystals. 1.1.3. AURA - Go dragon-hunting at the Island Closest to Hell (with GF Ability Rare-Item equipped) and they'll give out items that you can convert to Aura. 1.1.4. DRAIN - You can either get this from the Blue Dragon at Hell or you can get items that can be converted to Drain from Hell, too. 1.1.5. METEOR - Can be drawn from the Red Dragon at Hell. 1.2 Recommended junctioning: 1.2.1 ULTIMA - To Squall's strength 1.2.2. METEOR - To your other party member's strengths 1.2.3. DRAIN - To ALL characters' status attack. AURA & MELTDOWN are also good for junctioning, but since it's better to use them, I'd rather not junction them. Recommended junction for Aura is HP-J, and for Meltdown is Vit-J. 2. Once you enter the Castle, you won't have to worry about not being able to use Recovery items, the Drain junctioned to your Status Attack will do the recovery for you. I equipped ALL GFs on my main party so I can make use of all their junctioning abilities. You can also spread out your GFs, but I'd rather not. 3. When you take control of your alternate party, switch ALL GF's with them. Yeah, I know that their HP will be only half-full, but enemies you can encounter along the way can be drained to fill your HP. They're all wusses anyways. NOTE: Remember to equip Move-Find Ability because Save Points are kinda rare here. 4. BOSS BATTLES WITH ASSISTANTS. While it's better to ignore the assistants so you can concentrate on the bosses during boss battles, the assistants can be drained of their HP to fill yours once in a while ^^;; Doncha just love draining? 5. UNSEALING ABILITIES. Recommended abilities to unseal in chronological order: 5.1. Magic - So you can use Meltdown and Aura. (I usually don't use magic 'cause they're good for junctioning but this is when magic usage comes in handy). 5.2. Limit Breaks - For quick battles, especially with Aura in hand. 5.3./5.4 GF Ability or Save - Whichever you want to free first 5.5. Revive (Resurrect Dead Party Members) 5.6. GF Command 5.7. Item 5.8. Draw 6. FINAL BATTLE WOES. Ok, so your party is randomly chosen. You can either (1) choose to reset everytime the wrong characters are chosen, (2) Have an undesirable member killed off and removed from the battle scene so the others can replace them, and (3) spread your GFs. If you want to get extra abilities for your GFs, make use of Eden's GF-Ability-Med. You will also want to unlock all your abilities by battling all the bosses inside the castle. Why? Because some of the bosses give out GF Abilities! ============================ BATTLING ULTIMECIA ============================ 1. Make sure that everyone has ample set of magic in their inventories, especially the magic I mentioned above. Everyone should have at least 100 of each magic that you mean to use for junctioning. Make sure that all GFs are also spread out evenly. 2. Spreading GFs out - don't put GFs with similar rare abilities in one person: 2.1. Separate Revive, Recover, and Treatment 2.2. Character with Revive is recommended to have the Item Command Character with Recover is recommended to have the Magic Command Character with Treatment command is recommended to have either Magic, Item, or Draw. Draw if you want to use Apocalypse on Ultimecia. 2.3. Separate GFs with Abilityx3 and Abilityx4 2.4. Buy GF Ability Scrolls from Pet Shops, which you can use to feed to GFs without the junctions that you need most. 3. Start of Battle: If you have Cerberus, cast him while Ultimecia is in her weakest form. If not, cast Triple on one of your characters (if that character has the Expend3-1 or 2-1, then better). Have that character (on triple status) cast Triple on the two other characters while one of them either casts Doomtrain--because first form Ultimecia is susceptible to poison--and the other cast Meltdown on Ultimecia. 4. Once all your characters are in Triple status, have one of them cast Aura on everyone. Wait for the next turns and then push cancel button (circle) repeatedly until the arrow indicating Limit Break appears. Do the same with all the characters. 4.1. Squall: Renzokuken (what else?) 4.2. Rinoa: Whatever you do, don't choose Angel Wing! Her best Limit Breaks so far are the Invicible Moon and the Wishing Star! (reminds me of the Omnislash, except you have a dog with you) 4.3. Irvine: While Pulse and Demolition Ammo are great because of the 9999 damage, AP Ammo is faster and it also gives 9999 damage per hit. 4.4. Quistis: Mighty Guard is truly awesome. 4.5. Zell: His limit breaks are great but a bit stressful if you don't set your combo. Final Heaven is still the best finishing blow. 4.6. Selphie: If you're a fast reader and button tapper with great reflex control, you can make use of her Wall. Side Effects: You can't use Recovery Magic to their fullest capability because you are on Shell status. 5. I found this battle to be quite easy because I made full use of Aura and Limit Breaks. Sometimes I also use GFs to distract Ultimecia (she kills off GFs) while the others do some serious damage. TIP! If all your characters are ready to execute a command at the same time, don't let them all execute the command at once. Execute one at a time, meaning after Character-1 executes his/her command, wait until his meter starts counting again before letting Character-2 execute, and so on. That way, you can have always have one person on standby to recover, revive, or restore positive status (like casting Triple again) in case somebody gets killed, hit, or affected. Ultimecia loves hitting everyone all at once so better be prepared. This tactic applies also to all other lesser battles in the game. ============================ DISCLAIMER ============================ Under no circumstances can the content of this FAQ sheet be copied. If you want this on your page, please give me and my sources proper credit. The Kraiders Otaku Fridge http://www.geocities.com/~kraiders E-Mail: kraiders@yahoo.com FINAL FANTASY VIII is copyright 1999 by Square Soft Ltd. FINAL FANTASY and SQUARESOFT are registered trademarks of Square Co Ltd. and Dolby.