@database FFTAC.Guide @author "Stephen aka Marvick & Sipos (Dark) Zsolt" @$VER: Playstation Cheat's 8.50 @font phxmagyar.font 8 @node Main "Final Fantasy Tactics Faq" /=================================\ | Final Fantasy Tactics FAQ | | Ver 0.15 | | | | Mantained by Ignacio de Lucas | | (delucas@hotmail.com) | \=================================/ Special thanks to Eugene Shen (eshen+@andrew.cmu.edu) for a LOT of ability translations and contributions to other areas, not to mention the Introduction and Chapter One translations. This guy rules! Special thanks also to Darren Chan (hhchan@sfu.ca) for tons of info about side quests, ability points and the Chapter One and Two Translations, among others. Thank you very much! Lots of thanks to Somsak Sriprayoonsakul (b39ssy@std.cpc.ku.ac.th), Tassapol (tassapol@asianet.co.th), Ashkaan Rahimi (RahimiM@aol.com) and Slick (jlin@megsinet.com) for translations of the abilities. Thanks also to Wardancer (shard@aa.net), Dixie (dixie4@rad.net.id), James Jacobs (CHIBI@oro.net) and again Somsak Sriprayoonsakul, for info on obtaining the missing jobs. Thanks to Lahseng (lahseng@speednet.com.au) for general game information. Thanks to Oscar Ramos for the auto-potion trick. Thanks to everyone! What's new: 0.15: Split FAQ into General FAQ and Abilities List Added Story Introduction ! Added Chapter One and Two translations by Darren Chan! Ignacio's note: they are supposed to be melded together with Eugene Shen's soon. Added how to obtain Samurai, Ninja, Mathematician, Bard and Dancer Added Elementalist, Dragon Knight, Talker and Summoner's abilities Added special jobs : Apprentice Warrior (Ramza, Dirita, Arugas), Holy Knight (Agurias), Engineer (Mustadio) Corrected Apprentice job name to Apprentice Warrior (rookie) Corrected some abilities (Mostly Reaction, Support and Movement) Added training methods in Miscellaneous sections by Eugene Shen Added info on sub-quests by Darren Chan Added how to know when a charged ability will take its effect in Miscellaneous section Added auto-potion trick by Oscar Ramos Translated character names in Chapter One's translation 0.1 : Added Chapter One translation by Eugene Shen ! Added ability list for White mage, Black Mage and Time Mage Finished the In You Shi action ability list Added some more explanation on Ability use Added town menus translations Added "Miscellaneous" section Made some reorganization Made some more ability corrections Removed the second appearance of the Monk's abilities list :) 0.05: Added status change translations Added status screen explanations Added item help translations Added map menus and sub-menus translations Added some explanation on ability use Added some explanation on "Can't fight" status Made some ability corrections 0.01: Initial release Hello! This is an FAQ designed to help non-Japanese players through this superb game. You will need a Japanese ascii viewer to display the Japanese characters : you can find one at (www.njstar.com). It comes with a handy Japanese-English translator, which is what I used to make most of this document. From version 0.15 on, I had to split the FAQ into two parts: the General FAQ (this part) and the Abilities List (the other part, generally fftabil.txt), because NJStar can only work with files of less than 64K. I'm Spanish and my knowledge of English is not very high, so apologies in advance for any grammatical and spelling errors you may find in this document. Eugene, who made many of the ability translations (as well as the Chapter One's) is Chinese, so he will be able to translate the meaning of the Kanji, but not the pronuntiation as it is different between Japanese and Chinese. As the pronuntiation of a Kanji is needed to write it down with a Japanese word processor, what this means is that we may not be able to transcribe some Kanji to the document, even knowing it's meaning. I will usually put four things in each translation: Japanese : The original Japanese name in Kana or Kanji (Japanese alphabets). Romanji : A phonetic translation of this name in Romanji (Roman alphabet). Translation : A literal translation, to the best of my ability. Effect : A translation of its effect. In many cases I will not be able to write down some or all of the Kanji in the ability's name. In these I will put a single question mark for each untranslated Kanji so you can match the lenght of the name and the relative position of each of the other Kanji. ＊ Ｉｎｄｅｘ ＊ 1. - Begining the game 2. - Battle menus 2.1 - General menu 2.1.1 - Option menu 2.2 - Unit menu 2.2.1 - Action menu 3. - Map menu 3.1 - General menu 3.2 - Town menu 3.2.1 - Shop menu 3.2.1.1 - Shop equip menu 4. - Status Screen 4.1 - Status Main menu 4.1.1 - Items menu 4.1.2 - Ability menu 5 - Job and Ability System 6 - Status Changes 7 - Job's requirements 8 - Translations 8.0 - Introduction 8.1 - Chapter 1 8.2 - Chapter 2 9 - Miscellaneous ＊ １ ‐ Ｂｅｇｉｎｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｇａｍｅ ＊ * Choosing your character's name * The default name for your main character is ラムザ (RAMUZA), which may also be spelt as Lamuza, Ramza or Lamza. Japanese Romanji Translation かな Kana Display Hiragana alphabet カナ KANA Display Katakana alphabet ？？ ?? Display Romanji alphabet 漢字 Kanji Choose one of three ways to select Kanji 終了 End Finish your character's name You must now enter your character's (Ramza from now on) birth date. Left/Right switches between month and day. This date determines Ramza's Zodiacal sign and how good he will be in battle against people of other Zodiacal signs. After the intro, you will begin your first battle. This is pretty much automatic, as you can only control Ramza. ＊ ２ ‐ Ｂａｔｔｌｅ Ｍｅｎｕｓ ＊ * 2.1 - General menu * To activate this menu, press Triangle when no character is selected (so you must press X to de-select your current character before) Japanese Romanji Translation アクテイブターン AKTEIBUTAAN Active Turn (Display the order in which units will make their next turn) ウニットリスト UNITTORIST Unit List オプション OPUSHON Option * 2.1.1 - Option menu * Japanese Translation １ カーソルの移動方？ Cursor movement axis (which axis is the left-right on the joypad; it is the NW-SE by default) ２ カーソルのリーピトの速度 Cursor repeat speed ３ ？？？？？のカーソル？？速度 Cursor ?? Speed ４ ？カーソルのリピート速度 Menu cursor repeat speed ５ メッセージの？？？？ Message ??? ６ ナビゲーションメッセージの有無 Navigation Message Frequency? ７ アビリテイ？の？？ Ability ??? ８ ？？メッセージの？？ ??? Message ??? ９ ？？？Ｊｐ？？の？？ ??? Jp ??? １０ ターゲット？？の？？ Target ??? １１ ショプ？？？？可アイテムの？？ Shop ??? Item ??? １２ ショプチェンジ？の？？？？ Shoptender ??? １３ サウンド Sound (Monaural/Stereo/Wide) １４ ？？？？た？す Option set (Customize/Standard, basically a way to reset the options to default) * 2.2 - Unit menu * Activated by pressing O over one unit Japanese Romanji Translation 移動 Idou Move unit 行動 Koudou Action ？？ ?? End active turn ステータス SUTEETASU Status オートバトル OOTOBATORU Autobattle * 2.2.1 - Action Menu * It varies depending of the abilities of the selected unit, but it will always include たたかう (Fight). ＊ ３ ‐ Ｍａｐ Ｍｅｎｕ ＊ * 3.1 - General menu * This menu is activated by pressing the triangle button. Japanese Romanji Translation 移動 Idou Move (Selec destination) ？？ ?? Status screen ブレイブストーリ BREIBSTOORI Brave story (see events and char. descriptions) チュートリアル TYUTORIARU Tutorial (in Japanese :) ) データ DEETA Data (Save/Load) オプション OPUSHON Options (See above) * 3.2 - Town menu * This is activated by pressing circle on the city you are in. Japanese Romanji Translation 酒場 Syujou Bar ショップ SHOPPU Shop ？士？？？ ?Shi??? ?? Person ?? (Recruit rookies) * 3.2.1 - Shop menu * Japanese Romanji Translation 購入 Kounyuu Buy 売？ Bai? Sell ？？？ ??? Equip from shop stock ？？出る ??Deru Leave shop When buying and selling, remember that you can go from one type of items to another by pressing left/right. When buying : Pressing triangle over an item will display your unit list telling you who can equip the item. Japanese Romanji Translation - Can equip 装備不可 Soubihuka Can't equip 装備中 Soubinaka Already equipped You can then position the cursor over any unit and press circle to see how equipping it would affect that unit's stats. When selling : The numbers displayed next to each item show : how many you have/how many are equipped. * 3.2.1.1 - Shop equip menu * This is where you can equip all your units and when you are finished, you pay all you have bought. Japanese Romanji Translation 試着 Sityaku Try wear (Equip) ？？試着 ??Sityaku ??? Try wear (Optimum) 試着？？ Sityaku?? Try wear ??? (Unequip, leaves you with what you had before) 売？ Bai? Sell 試着修了 Sityaku Finish try wear syuuryou ＊ ４ ‐ Ｓｔａｔｕｓ ｓｃｒｅｅｎ ＊ ------ -------------------------- | | Lv.01 Exp.00 | O 01 Ｒａｍｚａ | | | HP |||||||| 010/010 | ___ ナイト | | | MP |||||||| 005/005 | \ / | | | CT |||||||| 100/100 | /_\ Brave 72 Faith 70 | ------ -------------------------- Explanation Lv and Exp are your general level and general experience points, as opposed to job points and levels. HP, MP and CT are your Hit points (current/Maximum) Magic points and Charge Time. The last tells you how much time remains until that character's next turn. 00 means he/she has just finished a turn and must wait one full round, and 100 that this is his/her active turn, unless there are other characters who have 100 CT as well. The CT charge speed is determined by that of the character. O 01 : Here, the O is supposed to represent a colored ball that tells you which side is this unit on. Blue is your side, and red the enemies side. The number indicates the number of this unit on the current combat (not the turn order, just for reference purposes). Brave and Faith : These are characteristics that I suppose affect the reaction and power of the unit, but I don't know in which way exactly. -------------------------------------------------------------- | Move ... 4 Wep.Power AT C-EV S-EV A-EV | | Jump ... 3 R...003 / 05% (Sword) 06 / 10% / 13% / 00% | | Speed ... 06 L...000 / 00% (Rod) 04 / 00% / 03% / 00% | -------------------------------------------------------------- Explanation Move is the number of steps the unit can make in one turn. Jump is the maximum height the character can overcome when changing from one square to the other. I think this is the upward jump height but I don't know if this affects the downward jump (units can't jump down from too high places) or the horizontal height (units make this when jumping from one building to other, and in order to take shorcuts. I love the way the AI is implemented in this game :) ). Speed affects the CT recharging rate. Wep.Power shows the start for both arm's weapons. The left number is the weapon's attack power, but the right one is defined in the help option (and translated with some NJStar help) as "Evade Rate". I don't know if that means the chance of blocking an attack with that weapon, or the chance the enemy has of evading that weapon's attack. The first one would make more sense as increases in this parameter when equipping new weapons are listed in blue (positive) and obviously you want to have a higher chance of blocking an attack yourself. The next part shows your general attack power and evade rates, both physical and magical. The sword symbolyzes physical parameters, whereas the rod means magic ones. As for the parameters themselves, they are: AT : Attack power C-EV: Character's innate evasion chance S-EV: Shield block chance A-EV: Accesory evasion/block chance I know it sound a bit strange listing all those evade rates separately but I'm almost sure of all of them, except for the character one. Notice how there is no "defense power" stat anywhere. That's because this game hasn't one! The attacks and spells always do around the same damage even to different enemies. If you notice, armors and helmets only raise your character's HPs (and MPs), and shields and accesories give you evade rates. It seems somewhat strange not having different defense power and that, but I'm pretty sure that's the way it works. * 4.1 - Status Main menu * This menu is activated by pressing triangle button when inside the status main screen. Japanese Romanji Translation アイテム AITEMU Item アビリティ ABIRITI Ability ジョブチェンジ JOBUCHENJI Job Change ？名 ?Mei(?) Dispose unit ユニット？？ YUNITTO?? Unit sort method * 4.1.1 - Items menu * Japanese Romanji Translation 装備 Soubi Equip items ？？装備 ??Soubi Optimum equipment ？？ ?? Unequip items リスト RISUTO List This menu appears when selecting an item from the list (press circle button twice over it). Japanese Romanji Translation ？？ ?? Dispose item 一？？？ Ichi??? Unequip this item from all units ？？ ?? Item sort method These are translations of the red Kanji that say some things about the item or ability you are asking about (press select). Japanese Romanji Translation 武器攻撃力 Bokikougeki Weapon attack power: chikara 回避率 Kaihisotsu Evade Rate: ？程 ?Tei Range: 両手可 Ryouteka Can be used with "Two-Handed Weapon" ability 二刀流可 Nitouryuuka Can be used with "Weapons on both Arms" 回復 Kaifuku Recover: 解消 Kaisyou Cure status: * 4.1.2 - Ability Menu * Japanese Romanji Translation セット SETTO Set ("equip" abilities from the ones the character has) ？？ ?? "Unequip" abilities ？える ?Yeru ?? Gain ("buy" abilities with the JPs) ＊ ５ ‐ Ｔｈｅ Ｊｏｂ ａｎｄ Ａｂｉｌｉｔｙ Ｓｙｓｔｅｍ ＊ This section intends to explain the 3.1.2 menu (just above) and give you an idea on how to use these abilities. The first step when learning new abilities is choosing a job for your character. Each character can change jobs at any time in the Abilities menu, as many times as he/she wishes, but he can only change to a job he has already received (more on this later). When you choose a job, you will notice that your character can equip different weapons and armor than before. His/her Stats will also vary, and if you change from a Monk to a Black Magician you will notice a drop in his/her HP max level, as well as an increase in his/her MP max level. When you enter a combat you may notice some other differences in his/her performance: namely, he will have a new command under "Fight". At first the character will not be very good in his/her new job. If you chose a Black Magician, he will not have any Black magic spells and so his/her Black Magic command will appear grayed and may not be selected. To make the most of his/her new job, you will want to learn abilities. As he/she fights and wins, he/she will gain, in addition to general Experience Points (used to raise his/her general level), Job Points (JPs from now on) for his/her current job. These have two meanings: First, pretty much like regular Exp, earning certain amounts of Jp for a single job will raise that job's level for that character, giving him better characteristics. You don't have to accumulate Jps without using them, however, because for raising levels purposes all Jps received so far are counted (both used and remaining). Second, you can use those Jps to learn or "purchase" new abilities. Perhaps the first type of abilities you should look for are "Action abilities". These are marked by a Thunderbolt Arrow sign. This kind of abilities are the ones that can be used by means of that job's special command. In the above example, you could buy "Faia" and "Burizado" and your black mage would be able to cast them by selecting "Black Magic" from the action menu, then the spell you want to cast. The difference in Final Fantasy Tactics's system, however, is that it allows you to turn that Black Mage into a Knight, and keep the ability to cast those spells. To do this, you just have to change the job of that character, then use the first option in the abilities menu to "Set" the second Action Ability of him/her to "Black Magic" (the second, because the first one would be "Sengi", the Knight's innate ability, and couldn't be changed). The new Knight would now be able to cast ALL the black magic spells he/she would have learnt (with the MPs and magic power of a Knight, though). So in short, you can use ALL the action abilities for the job you currently have (and that you have learnt), and ALL the action abilities of any other job you want. There are three other types of abilities besides Action. To see these abilities lists, you just have to press left/right when selecting which ability you would like to learn. These types are: Reaction: Their symbol is a V-shaped arrow. These can be randomly activated when the character is attacked, and are generally counterattacks of some type. Not all of them are activated by the same types of attacks, and some are more general than others. The Itemshi's "Autopotion" can activate anytime he/she loses HP, while the Thief's "catch" can only be activated when a Ninja throws an item at him/her. Support: Represented by a loop arrow. These are "general" abilities and are most varied in the ways they can be used. They may be continuous or not, or even be activated by an additional command (such as the Itemshi's "Change equipment"). Note that some of these are inherent to its job and as such do not require to be "equipped" or even "purchased" as long as you do not change that character's job. The purpose of their existance is to allow you to "export" them to other jobs. Movement: Represented by a foot. These are activated when the character moves. These three types of abilities work in a somewhat different way than the Action ones. You must "Learn" ("purchase") and "Set" ("Equip") them separately, and because there is just one slot for each of these types, you can never have more than one of these active at any time. (Excluding the current job's inherent support abilities). ＊ ６ ‐ Ｓｔａｔｕｓ Ａｉｌｍｅｎｔｓ ＊ * 6.1 - Negative Status Ailments * Japanese Romanji Translation Effect 毒 Doku Poison Lose HP gradually 睡眠 Suimin Sleep Can't do anything 沈黙 Chinmoku Silence Can't cast spells 暗闇 Kurayami Darkness Hit rate goes down 混乱 Konran Confusion Attack units on both sides チャーム CHAAMU Charm Attack own units バーサク BAASAKU Berserk Attack automatically. Attack power up 死の宣告 Shinosenkoku Death Sentence Countdown to 'Can't Fight' ドンムーブ DONMUUBU Don't move Can't move ドンアクト DONAKUTO Don't act Can't perform actions 石化 Ishika Stone Can't do anything オイル OIRU Oil Fire damage is increased カエル KAERU Toad Can't use abilities but fight and toad spell. Stats are lowered チキン CHIKIN Chicken Flee automatically アンデッド ANDEDDO Undead Receive damage from cure spells, etc... スロウ SUROU Slow Halves charge speed 戦闘不能 Sentouhunou Can't fight Can't do anything (all HP lost) Sleep, Charm and Confuse status are cancelled by a physical hit. Some notes about Sentouhunou : when a character loses all of his/her HPs, a counter will appear above his/her head. It will usually start on 3 but it may also begin with 2. Each full turn of combat, the counter will decrease one unit, and when it's on 0 and another turn passes, the character will die PERMANENTLY. So if you don't want to lose that character, you better use a Fenix no O or Raise magic on him/her! There are two exceptions to this: Special characters (guest) are of vital importance for the plot and they never die (they have stars over their heads instead of a counter). Ramza, however, does have a counter and I supppose the game would be over if he dies. When a character dies, he/she will turn into a chest or a crystal. Chests usually contain and item that was worn by that character, and are generally left out by humans. Crystals may be of two colors: the blue one restore full HP/MP to the one that touches them, while yellow ones can be exchanged by the automatic learning of an ability or by full HP/MP recover as the blue ones. A menu with those options will pop up when you touch them. * 6.2 - Positive Status Ailments * Japanese Romanji Translation Effect ヘイスト HEISUTO Haste Doubles charge speed リジェネ RIJENE Regene Recover some HP before each turn リレイズ RIREIZU Reraise See below プロテス PUROTESU Protect Halves physical damage シード SHIIDO Shield Halves magic Reraise avoids the character's death when he/she is in the 'Can't fight' status and the counter above him/her reaches zero. Instead, he/she will be revived just as if Raise was cast on him/her. ＊ ７ ‐ Ｊｏｂｓ Ｒｅｑｕｉｒｅｍｅｎｔｓ ＊ * Job Change Chart * Apprentice Item User (2) / \ (2) (2) / \ (2) / \ / \ Knight Archer White Mage Black Mage (3) | | (3) (3) | | (3) | | | | Monk Thief Yin/Yang Mage Time Mage (4) | | (4) (3) | | (3) | | | | Elemental Mage Dragon Knight Speaker Summoner \ / \ / (5) \ / (5) (5) \ / (5) \ / \ / Dancer Bard (female only) (male only) Samurai Ninja Mathematician (Archer : 4) (Knight : 4) (White Mage : 5) (Thief : 5) (Monk : 5) (Black Mage : 5) (Elem.Mage : 2) (Dr.Knight : 2) (Yin/Yang Mage : 4) (Time Mage : 4) Example : When Archer level reaches 3, the "Thief" job will become available (but only for the unit that reached level 3 on Archer). When Elemental Mage level reaches 5 AND Dragon Knight level reaches 5, "Dancer" job will become available. For the Samurai, Ninja and Mathematician, I have listed the prerrequisite jobs with their levels. The abilities list is in the other file ("fftabil.txt"). ＊ ８ ‐ Ｔｒａｎｓｌａｔｉｏｎｓ ＊ A note from Eugene Shen: Alright, first things first... The only part that I can both accurately AND completely translate is the first Chapter... I currently can't supply you with any plot for Chapter 2 because it was a little too confusing for me. I'll have to wait until some magazine starts to talk about it before I can tell you much. However, I could give you an outline about some of the major things that's happened. ＊ ８.０ ‐ Ｉｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎ ｂｙ Ｅｕｇｅｎｅ Ｓｈｅｎ ＊ The story that we are playing is essentially a part of history called the "Lions' War". The Lions' War came a year after a war called the "50 Years' War". The 50 Years' War erupted because the former king of this place died without specifying an heir. As a result, two lords in the country fought each other for 50 years until finally, one side (your side, which is the one at the west) had a significant advantage and the other side was forced to sign a peace treaty. The major contributor to this cause was, in fact Ramza's father (the one who told Ramza the importance about integrity when he died). Apparently, after the Lions' War, Ramza's friend became heralded as a hero and became king. And Ramza? Ramza is the real hero behind the scenes who never left his name in history. There are also some other details that I left out in the first Chapter. Remember when you got into a town and you see one Knight choke another, and then after the first one leaves and you have to fight the other one in addition to some Black Magicians? Apparently, the first one is the leader of the gang and HE is asking about the whereabouts of the Duke. Why? Because the second-in-charge was responsible for kidnapping the Duke and he Had nothing to do with it! Also, the guy that he killed in the cellar right before you saved the duke is the second-in-charge. So why si this part important? Because it makes Ramza doubt his own ground. He is starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he is on the wrong side! What I jsut love about the FF series is how deep the storyline is... In FFT, you repeatedly see this internal conflict within Ramza as he asks "Why does there have to be War", or "Why do we have to fight", or "Am I doing hte right thing?". ＊ ８.１ ‐ Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ １ ｂｙ Ｅｕｇｅｎｅ Ｓｈｅｎ ＊ At first, you start off in the present and being a mercenary, you happened to fall right between Princess Ovelia and a group of people who want to kidnap her (this is the VERY first battle, where you can only control yourself and all other allies are "Guests"). Then, after the battle, you realize that you've been tricked and Ovelia is brought away from the back door. However, right before the guy gets away on a Chocobo, you recognize his face and you start telling the story about the guy and yourself. Chapter 1: You start out as an apprentice swordsman at some sort of royal institute and the city is being overrun by bandits. At your side are your fellow students and a very close friend of yours, Dirita (recognize his face? That's cause he's the one who took the princess!). After defeating the bandits, you start making your way back home and on the way, you see another apprentice swordsman being attacked! Now you get to choose either to say: "Defeating these bandits is my duty", or "We've gotta help that guy!" I'm not too sure what the different choices do to the plot, but what I AM sure about is that it alters the "criteria for success" for that mission (one is to kill all enemies, the other is to rescue the swordsman). After you save him (that was the one I chose), he'll tell you that his name is Argas, and that a duke he's serving is kidnapped by bandits and he has to go save him... Afterwards, he joins your party and you can go home where you'll meet your father on his death bed who tells you the importance of being honorable. Aruma, your sister, and Teita, Dirita's sister, urge you two to take care. Then you go save the duke, and after you do so, you go home and get scolded because your brother Daisdarg (who's in charge now) thinks you're negligent for not doing your duty and going after the duke. So then you are appointed to get rid of the bandits, and after you do something (sorry, I can't remember what you do here to carry on the plot) and go back home, you realize that the bandits have got to your place and carried off your friend's sister, Teita. Afterwards, Argas leaves your party because Dirita is very upset and Argas commented "what's the big deal, she's only a peasant and expendable!" (actually, Dirita punched him out). Then you set out with Dirita to rescue her sister. However, after defeating tons of bandits and arriving at the last bandit who's holding Teita hostage, your brother Daisdarg and Argas arrived and Daisdarg ordered Argas to kill both Teita and the bandit (which he did). Afterwards, you fight Argas and after you kill him, Dirita goes on the bridge and cries over Teita. However, the house explodes and though you're blasted back, Dirita is engulfed in a ball of fire and disappears. End of chapter one. Note: A little about Dirita and Argas. Apparently, Dirita was born a peasant, however, since the two of you are such good childhood playmates, your father, a duke of some sort, decided to let both of you attend the royal academy, and both Aruma and Teita attend the same school as well. Understanding that the society is VERY feudalistic and the difference between the royalty and commonfolk is a HUGE gap, one can see why Argas called Teita a "peasant" and considered her "expendable". Argas, however, was born a royalty, but since his father (or was it his grandfather) turned out to be a traitor, all was lost and he had to start all over (which explains why he was so interested in saving the duke - he wants to prove himself so he can climb back up again). As a result, he became very power-hungry and didn't care much about anyone else. ＊ ８.２ ‐ Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ ２ ｂｙ Ｅｕｇｅｎｅ Ｓｈｅｎ ＊ You start out going after Princess Ovelia and realize that Dirita and Ovelia are surrounded by people from your brother Daisdarg's army! After saving Ovelia and Dirita, he puts Ovelia in your care and leaves (apparently, he didn't kidnap the princess, he was just trying to save her). Afterwards, you learn of the 12 mythical stones and the legend surrounding them by saving the mechanic Mustadio. Entering Mustadio's city, you leave Ovelia in the ruler Drakrowa's care and get ready to go and find Mustadio's father, Basrodio. After saving Basrodio, obtaining the Tauros stone, and on your way back to Mustadio's city, you find Agurias (the Holy Knight that was protecting the princess) badly hurt. You realize what has happened by now (that Drakrowa is on the enemy's side) and hear the rumor that they are going to execute Ovelia at the execution ground. When you get there to save her, you realize that it was a trap, and Gafgalion, the dark knight who was a guest in the first fight, has sided with Drakrowa. After defeating those guys, and showing up at Mustadio's city, Ramza has to take on Gafgalion one-on-one while everyone else takes on little guys outside the town gate. Thankfully, this time you get to kill him. When you get inside, you find Drakrowa alone behind an altar (easy kill, right? Wrong!). Unfortunately, he transforms into a monster called Kyukrein with the "aid" of one of the stones he obtained and, well, you've just gotta kill him. After you kill him, he reverts to his human self and you take the Scorpio stone that he drops. End of chapter two. ＊ ８.２ｂ ‐ Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ ２ ｂｙ Ｄａｒｒｅｎ Ｃｈａｎ ＊ Basically the former King's brother Gorutana and the brother of the former King's "smaller wife" Laak are having wars against each other for the matter of to who should inherit the throne. (grammatical er?) This war is known as the war of the lions since Gorutana'a army has a symbol of black lion while Laak's army has a symbol of a white lion. During the warfare peasants and such are suffering from heavy taxation and poor harvest and such. And after the former 50 years war the former king (forgot his name) held against another country many of the knights who participated in this war were abandoned by the royal families because of some reasons that I cannot understand. So they formed an "army" themselvs called the "Skull travellers" (rough translation) and captured a duke in chapter 1. (Some characters and events that are involved I cannot comprehend) Later on Ramza learned that it was his brother Daisduke's plan to capture the duke with "political" or "military" reasons, and he thinks his brother is on the wrong path and that should not be the way of the Beluof family (Ramza's bloodline), so he deserted the "North Sky" army that his brothers lead and became a mercenery afterwards with Gabugalian. Actually Ramza and his sister Elma do not have the same mother as their brothers Daisduke and Balzak. That's why their brothers do not really like them and do not consider Ramza to be of the pure bloodline. Then in chapter 2, Ramza learned about the legend of the Zodiac Braves. In the ancient times twelve warriors seal the dark lord with the twelve zodiac stones and this became a legend everyone knows about. Twelve centuries before a Jesus-like figure in this world called Saint Ajola appeared like a prophet and many people thought he would save the corrupted world. A lord in one of the seven kingdoms was obsessed with ambitions and he called upon the dark lord Rukavie (?) Then Saint Ajola and his twelve disciples used the twelve stones and sealed the demon. Many people then believed he's the savior and thus the Gravadox religion is created. However the priests and such were afraid of Saint Ajola's authority and his audience so they had to kill him, somewhat like the Bible story Saint Ajola's thirteenth disciple betrayed him and so he died, but then again like Jesus he is said to have revived and became one of the God or God's son :) Now here's the twist of the story, Ramza, after he picked up Princess Ovilia from Dilitar, brought her to the Church's authority (or a priest whose position I cannot understand) called Drakrowa. Then he learned from Basrodio, the engineer whom he saved earlier that another one of the 12 zodiac stones was discovered in the engineer's hometown Gook, so Drakrowa asked them to go get it for him as the stones may lead the people to peace by the power of God. However after Ramza and co retrieve the stone a merchant was out to get them and the stone. He was co-operating with Drakrowa. He succeeded by using some nasties and took the stone. Then Ramza knew the princess would be in danger in Drakrowa's hand so he ran back to the Church to find Drakrowa gave his body to the spirit of the stone and became a demon! It was at this moment Ramza found out that these stones are not "holy", they are evil relics that can bring the world to destruction! So that's it for now. Whew.... I know I'm missing a lot of stuff and the translations are not exact. So now you know the plot has a lot of twists to it - like what you thought was good turned out to be bad :) ＊ ９ ‐ Ｍｉｓｃｅｌｌａｎｅｏｕｓ ＊ IMPORTANT! : You can see how much damage an attack is going to do just before confirming it. It will be displayed just above your character's stats. Surprisingly enough, this means that the formula for determining the damage of an attack doesn't have a random factor (except for a few cases) and it will always be the same under the same circumstances. You can also see what the chance of success for the attack is, either for physical attacks (they can be evaded) or for the random chance ones (instant death, status change, etc...) You can also see when an action that requires charge time is going to take effect. When selecting the spell, ability or whatever, if you press Right over it the Active Turn screen will pop up showing the order of the next turns including this action (as if you were going to perform it). This can be used in any ability that requires charge time excep the Dragon Knight's Jump, as in it you don't get to select any ability. Training Method by Eugene Shen: A word on how to train your characters like crazy: As you know, you'll meet enemies randomly whenever you step on a "Green Dot". So what you do is this: First make sure that at least one character in your party has the "steal hearts" thief skill. Second, make sure that you have at least one character who has the healing ability ("Chakra") with the monk. Then, after killing all but one monster, get the thief to repeatedly steal its heart (every successful steal will result in a gain of JP and ExP. Usually, a steal will last 2 to 3 rounds, and the percentage of success is usually above 50%. As a result, you can almost keep this going indefinitely). While the monster is "tamed" in this process, get the remaining guys to surround the monk and do special "attacks" to him. Examples of the "attacks" are: Poison or direct attack with the black magician, decrease mana with the Knight, or whatever other attacks that don't hurt him alot. (Ignacio's note : I also recomend : The Apprentice's "Throw Stone" ability. Attacking with Mages and jobs that don't do much damage. Using the "Talker" abilities. Using any positive status change ability) When the knight's turn arrives, get him to use the heal ability (also, make sure everyone's on level ground, so everyone gets healed). As a result, everyone will gain JP and EXP and you can gain alot of levels without much work. The only thing is that this is very tiring after a while and really not much fun. Side quests notes by Darren Chan When you get to a bar, you can send your characters to do side quests. People sometimes ask you to get rid of monsters or to help them find something, so you send three of your characters in a specified number of days to do the quest (no battles or events involved), and you have to give them money for allowances (?) to do the quest as well. After the completion date you can return to the same bar and ask them to report to you. They will tell you what happened in their quest and finally give you what they found in their quest and each of the participating members get their JP. Some special items that cannot be used in battles are found by using this method (such as books that you can actually read). Sometimes they may even find new "secret" locations that contain interesting stuff. I've found a town where it is said magical knights live there, however this town has not appeared on the map (yet?). Thus I'm not sure whether these places are for real or not (my bet is yes!) As you get more of those treasures that you earn in the side quests your reputation as an "adventurer" or "treasure hunter" increases. (I don't know what these do to the game though) (Ignacio's notes: One day passes for each move you make in the world map. If you want the time to go faster, you can always find two adjacent blue spots and go from one to the other repeatedly (great way to reproduce your monsters, by the way). On the other hand, it is unknown if finishing the game in more or less days will have negative consequences, and you could use this time to train your other characters) Job System notes by Darren Chan: Each time your character earns his JP it goes into his current job's total JP no matter what he did, (e.g. A knight casting a white spell - the resulting JP still goes to the job knight) and 1/6 of this JP goes to the total JP of the same job to the other characters (e.g. A knight gets 36 JP - all other characters in battle get 6 JP for thier job knight) I found that even if one of your character can't change to one particular job yet, s/he can still get the 1/6 JP earned by allies for that job. The JPs will show up after you can change to that job :) Auto-potion trick by Oscar Ramos: Auto-potion is the item user's reaction ability. It works this way: when the character with this ability is damaged, he/she has a very high chance (80-90%) of using the lowest grade potion you have, i.e. he/she will use a regular potion if you have one, and if not he/she will try to use a Hi-Potion or a X-Potion in that order of preference. By now you may have realized the cheat: dispose of all Potions and Hi-Potions and buy plenty of X-Potions (they heal 150 HP and cost only 300 gil), and that character will be almost inmortal. This may spoil the fun of the game, and I myself (Ignacio) have decided not to use it except in desperate situations. There are five FMV sequences that can be seen from the begining: The intro to the main menu, the "New Game" intro, and three others that can be seen just by waiting at the main menu screen (the one with New Game, etc...). There is a screen saver for the Demo Disk that comes with the game. If you don't do anything for quite a long time (around three minutes) in the screen where you have to select which demo you want to play, you will see it. If you have something to contribute (especially translations of these missing Kanji), please help me by sending it to delucas@hotmail.com. Thanks in advance! @{" Back to Main Menu " Link "playst1.guide/Main"@} @{" Back to DEF SubMenu " Link "playst1.guide/DEF"@} @endnode