Friday, December 15, 2017

TEXT PLAY: Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation, 2000, Square-Enix): Issue #040: Grinding For Weapons

It's really unfortunate that it doesn't really seem to work that way in this installment of the series.

In the ones I'm more familiar with, it's possible to steal and/or win weapons from random battles for most or all of the game, but in this one, that doesn't seem to be the case unless we're talking event monsters or bosses. I could be wrong about that, of course. It's been too long since I've sat down for a session of this, and even longer since I've made it to this point in the game, so I may be wrong about that.

The best way to find out about that would be to advance the plot some, and after this last bit of running around, it's about time to do that. In my stumbling about on the Outer Continent when I first started this session, I came across the Ragtime Mouse and one of his Pop Quiz bits. The question this time was about if the Chocobo Forrest is in this game. Since these are all true of false, the guy asks if it's between South Gate and Lindblum, if I recall correctly. My guess was true, and it turns out that was correct. Lucky guess on my part. Got 1000 gold for my luck, which really isn't much at this point. Fortunately, though, this was before I decided to put Steiner back in the party, so I guess I didn't lose out on somebody who really needs the XP and AP not getting it.

After I got back on the boat, I tried to find Lindblum, figuring that would be the best place to go looking for new stuff. Ultimately, it was a good idea, but it took a few attempts to finally get there. After accidentially winding up in Burmecia, I decided to switch out at least one party member, since the team I had at the time was all maxed out. When I'd finshed there, I switched Eiko for Steiner, since that's an option now and Steiner has a ton of things to learn and was at minimum five levels behind everyone else.

The next place I accidentally wound up was Alexandria. The best thing to come of that is finding the dude who runs the Synth Shop there. Took advantage of it and got a pair of Feather Boots, which teach Auto-Float, and a couple other things. The people there are wondering if Dagger will ever come back. She will, of course, when the plot demands it. It might be interesting to see what these people say if and when she's in the party before then. I also got some running around done, but it's going to take forever to get aywhere fighting those monsters.

Once I got that taken care of, I wound up finally getting closer to Lindblum. I started out by South Gate, near the Chocobo Forrest, or at least the one that's there. Not sure if there's more than one in this game. I decided not to mess around with it for now, since I'm doing this when I always do, and it was far too late at night for that. Otherwise, the only purpose to being able to go into South Gate is to get one of the Morrid's Coffee sidequest items and use the spring to restore HP and MP if needed.


Once I got into Lindblum, there was some decent weaponry I could finally afford, so I stocked up on that and a little extra armor as well. As it was late, I just found the Inn, spent the night and saved. I'll just get back on with things later on. It'll be off to the east end of the Outer Continent and maybe Kuja's Palace next time, since I'm at a point where I just need to get on with all this. See you then. Until then, stay safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA.

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