Blame yourself or God! Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!

Is there even a point to apologizing about not finishing this game off? Well, that ends today.

This is it, the penultimate battle of the game. There's not really much to say about this fight specifically; it's quite
easy... well, at least with Two Swording a Chaos Blade and Excalibur. Otherwise, standard equipment load-out
for Ramza including a Thief Hat (+2 speed), Robe of Lords (+2 PA) and Bracer (+3 PA).

Throw is kind of useless, but I still wanted something Junk could maybe Mime (it wouldn't matter). Auto-Potion
and Move +3 should be pretty self-explanatory at this point.



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Vormav: ...No, that can't be. Certainly, Virgo did react.

Ramza: Virgo's not working! So give up and hand over Alma!!

Vormav: You didn't hear? If just needs more blood... Lots of blood is needed for the
Angel's resurrection.

Vormav: Heh, heh, heh... Don't worry...

Ramza: Please! Open your eyes!! Alma!!

Hashmalum: When she wakes, she will remember her missions...

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This fight is generally pretty short and sweet. Hashmalum summons no guards to get between you and him, and
he doesn't have a large amount of HP you might normally expect a solo-boss to have. Hashmalum is nothing
special, your typical mix of attacks that deal large damage to multiple units, or painful status effects to multiple
units.

Let's go over his abilities:

Speed Ruin: This is just like Zalbag's Destroy Sword ability: -3 speed to a small area within four squares, with no
tolerence for height. I've never seen him use this, and it's really one of the "best" moves he can use against you.

Spell: Stop on a small area (no height tolerence), 100% success rate. This can potentially be really bad, but the
terrain is sloped enough that it's pretty easy to avoid being bunched up (and hopefully at this point, you've learne
d not to be sticking together unless there's a really good reason for it).

Death Cold: Same as Spell, except 100% success rate at slowing units. Haste is so good in this game that you
can cancel this pretty easy, should he choose to use it over the superior "Spell" (see above).



Melt, Tornado, Quake: I've thrown all of these together because they're functionally identical, save for the
element they target, and the amount of damage they do (Tornado < Melt < Quake, although the difference is,
overall, minimal). They all come out fast thanks to Hashmalum's innate Quick Charge, and they all effect a very
large range. They're functionally similar to the Summoner's "Salamander" and "Leviathan" spells in terms of
area of effect and damage. Fun fact: these three can all be subject to the "Counter Magic" Wizard ability, albeit
you would need to survive the spell. You would also need 70MP, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Meteor: Just like the Time Mage ability. The trio of spells above come out much quicker (CTR 4 versus Meteors
CTR 7), and since the AI usually tries to avoid getting caught with the pants down, I don't think I've ever seen
him try and use this spell.

Fun fact: Hashmalum is one of the three Zodiac Beasts that is considered to be "male" for the purposes of
Zodiac Compatability.




Like most specials, Hashmalum is immune to most every status effect under the sun, but curiously, he appears to
be vulnerable to the "Don't Move" effect. This isn't really as useful as it sounds as his spell range is pretty high.

If Ramza wasn't wearing the Robe of Lords (with it's inate Auto-Shell) whatever move that Hashmalum was
doing would outight kill him (I didn't bother to check). Of course, the speed boost from the Thief Hat coupled with
Auto-Haste from Excalibur ensures Ramza will get a second turn before Leo there does.

And as you might remember, attacking a unit that has the "Charging" status deals double damage.

A quick change for reasons. Junk can't mimic Yin Yang Magic worth a damn (as his Faith is rock bottom),
but the rest of the gear and skills is unchanged.

This is the final battle! FINALLY.

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(Ultima, the Nice Body)

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Not going to lie, this last fight is going to be a bit of a gong-show.

For reasons that I'm not entirely sure of, Altima, the final boss in the game, is vulnerable to Don't Act.

This isn't necessary to use, as the real threat in this battle is the four Ultima Demons, who all sport some
powerful magic along with innate Short Charge. of course, I'm being a little stinker!




Unable to do anything except retreat, Altima runs behind her wall of soldiers.

Casting Innocent on himself prevents Ramza from casting any more Yin-Yang magic (remember: Innocent sets
effective Faith to 0, which prevents any spell from either hitting or doing damage), but it also protects him
from a huge range of stuff that can be used this battle.

Of course, the Ultima Demons and Altima aren't without abilities that can hit regardless of Faith, but in the
case of the Demons, Auto-Shell + Auto-Potion will be pretty much all Ramza needs to survive.

I've talked about the Ultimate Demons before, but a quick run-down of their abilities:

Nanoflare: Low damage over a wide area (ignores Faith).

Dark Holy: Moderate damage, single target spell, functionally identical to Holy but dealing a lot less damage.

Ultima: Moderate damage over a small area. Ramza and Alma can learn this, although it's quite late in the
game to do so at this point.

Hurricane: Similar to Demi, deals damage to a targets in a wide area equal to 1/3rd of their maximum HP.
Moderate success rate (ignores Faith).

Ulmaguest: Deals damage in a wide area equal to the Ultima Demon's max HP - current HP with 100% success
rate. The Demons don't have a lot of HP, so you can usually just beat them down so this will never be an issue
(ignores Faith).

Ultima Demons are vulnerable to every status ailment you would reasonably want to use on them, but they're
immune to Holy damage, so keep that in mind that Flare might be more appropriate if you're looking to use high
powered magic.




As you can see above, Innocent prevents Ultima Demons from doing anything particularly nasty to Ramza, and
coupled with the innate Auto-Shell and Auto-Potion, they're unlikely to kill him.

I still have Ramza give his little sis' a few hit points via Wish. I never thought I would be using THAT in the final
battle, but at this point Altima was lacking any sort of offensive weapon, and Ramza was lacking any sort of
ranged weapon (Faith = 0, remember!). With so few targets, I didn't expect Alma to survive long, but what the
heck.

Speaking of Altima, she basically has three moves she can do. The first is a basic attack; it's not particularly
strong, but her ability to teleport anywhere with unfailing accuracy means that she can catch your guys
charging a spell.

She can also cast Ultima, which works pretty much just like Ramza's (and, like the Ultima Demons, Ramza and
Alma can both learn the spell from her if they survive its casting).

Her final, most dangerous ability, is Grand Cross. It is basically a large AOE "Bad Bracelet" but with more
status ailments that can be conferred. Targets hit have a 25% chance of getting independently hit with the
following status ailments: Petrify, Darkness, Confusion, Berserk, Frog, Poison, Slow, and Sleep. Half of these
aren't fun to be hit with, and the other half are fairly neglible. You'll generally be pretty spread out, and (unlike
me) surely have realized the wisdom of keeping a pocket healer (Chemist or Priest) either in a primary or
secondary role.

Speaking of the wisdom of keeping someone who can heal in a secondary role, Junk goes down thanks to repeated
attacks from the Ultima Demons.

Uh oh.

I don't have any way of reviving him.




Junk's on a clock, and Alma goes down temporarily (Reraise from her MBarrier kicks in)!




Killing my sister is one thing. But gaining a level for it?

Blood will be repaid with blood.



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(Ultima, the Perfect Body!)

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Second form! Altima gains a few new attacks in her second form, but notably gets rid of all her demon helpers.
She's no longer vulnerable to "Don't Act", but she is now vulnerable to "Don't Move" if that's your thing. She
keeps her innate "Short Charge" and "Teleport 2" abilities, and gains "Face Up" as a Reaction ability.

Altima upgrades her "Ultima" spell to "All-ultima", which is pretty deadly, dealing damage comparable to a Holy
spell (but as per Ultima, it's non-elemental damage). It has a huge area of effect, but it has a long casting time
(even with Short Charge).

Her new abilities are Mute (removes all MP from the targets it hits over a wide arae), Despair 2 (basically a
mass dispel that hits over a wide area), and Return 2 (Sets CT of targets to 0 over a wide area). However, the
success rate of all of these abilities, like all status ailments, use Faith values.

As you'll remember, Ramza's Faith is currently "0" thanks to Innocent. Ramza is effectively immune to every
thing that Altima can do to him, except attack (which she does for measly damage that Auto-Shell and
Auto-potion can handle), and Grand Cross.

I think anyone who has played this game can vouch for the AI's stupidity, but this is literally a situation where
a single Grand Cross that gets lucky will end the game. For reasons that escape me however, the AI doesn't
seem to realize that, and (thanks to the Innocent status I think) will do nothing but ineffectually attack Ramza,
perhaps under the theory that pitiful (but steady) damage is preferable to random chance, or that innocence
treats all "spells" are being worthless (more likely).

Well, whatever! Time to take this demon down, right Junk?



Uh... Junk...buddy?

. . .



Junk. You were a good friend. Maybe even more than a good friend. I will take this final gift from you as a sign.

A sign that a disease must be cured.



I know exactly where to put that Remedy.

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Last Battle's End

you know, i've played this game for something like 300 hours or more over the years, and have never seen the last two battles before.

So glad to see this back Eddie! and Almost done too! I don't think anyone will meet your record with this FFT LP.

Ye gods finally. Just the ending to go.

So I don't break Photobucket, I'm going to hold off posting the ending until after the 8th. That will allow my baudwidth to reset, so there (will hopefully) be no "baudwidth exceeded" messages.

I also apologize for posting these images exclusively in jpg; I will convert them to png once I'm relatively sure the traffic won't kill everything.

- Eddie

I thought that both Alma could only learn Ultima if Ramza/Luso cast their version, cause I'm pretty sure The final boss's versions are different (first one is what I'm implying.) also, damn, didn't realize photobucket can have heart attacks. Worrisome, since I upload 150-300 at a time. Anyway, this was a great LP! Can't wait for your next one.

The worry was that 50 megs worth of images (the above update in png form) would cause issues, especially once the ending screenshots were added.

I admit I might be wrong about learning Ultima from Atma; I'm pretty sure I've played games where Alma's learned it through her tho (but they occured ages ago). I'm reasonably sure that "All-Ultima" can't be learned at all tho.

- Eddie

Altima has two spells called Ultima. Aside from the learnable one, there's one with more range, AoE, and power but is still inferior to All-Ultima. They're listed in the Battle Mechanics Guide as 09A and 0E5, respectively.

Ultima is kind of a big deal in this game.

It makes me wonder a bit. Ramza is (I think) traditionally seen as a fairly "weak" lead compared to characters with powerhouse abilities like Beowulf and Orlandu. His Guts skill set is solid (thanks to Yell, and later, Scream) plus the ability to equip heavy armour and Knight Swords as a Squire.

But his Ultima spell sticks in a lot of people's craws; it's not easy to get, and on top of the limited time window you have to obtain it, your reward for actually getting Ultima is a slightly improved Fire/Lit/Ice 3 spell. Ho hum. Hardly a capstone ability worth getting.

Considering the monstrous power that other characters possess, would it have hurt anything to make it deal double its current damage? Certainly, there would be a case that doubling the damage would make it harder to survive a casting from the Assassin Twins, but as they (mostly) use attacks that have a 100% success rate anyway they could simply give them a low MA to ensure Ramza has a decent chance of surviving it.

- Eddie

I kind of like Ramza as a "weak" lead. He's not the level of warrior that Beowulf and Orlandu were, so it makes narrative sense. His power comes in his versatility -- more finesse in his skill sets, and strong growth in both PA and MA. Works better for this sort of game than a pure bruiser would.

I love that Altima uses one of Exdeath's attacks. The FFV love holds up to the bitter end.

Don't get me wrong; I think Ramza is one of the strongest characters in the game in spite of his Ultima being kind of junky. Dash, Heal, and Throw Stone might as well not exist past chapter 2, but Yell is an incredibly strong ability, and Cheer Up is a must get to turn your entire party into Countergrasping machines. Accumulate is good (but not as good as Yell), but Scream is probably one of the best "self-buff" in the game after Haste. Even Wish remains relevant as it scales as you grow, and it rocks with Auto-Potion.

Certainly, Ramza's Squire class is versatile. Much like FFV, it becomes an incredibly solid class to "end" him in come chapter 4, once you've cherry picked a good secondary skill set, reaction, and move ability. The ability to equip Knight Swords and all armour (sans female only) alone is worth the price of admission. Only Orlandu (I think) gets that kind of versatility in his base class, and hopefully we can all agree that Orlandu is silly character to compare anyone too.

I could make the case that Ramza's "Heal" should work more like the Monk's Stigma Magic, that his Throw Stone should have a higher chance of knockback (maybe 75% rather than 50%) and that his Dash be based off of Weapon Power rather than straight PA with a bit of random chance. But, none of those changes would really make Ramza any better in a comparative sense. Preventing status ailments (through equipment) is a much stronger strategy than curing them afterwards, the vast majority of maps don't make knocking an opponent back a square worth it, and the only time physical evade is an issue is when facing enemies with shields and mantles; if FFTA2 is any indication, I doubt giving a character a "weak" attack with a near guaranteed success rate would be terrible useful in a game where "one-shotting" enemies is the path of least resistance, as well as given that most enemies has a miserable "evade" rate when attacked from the side or behind.

But Ultima? Ultima I think, could be awesome as a "stronger" Flare, or even as an exact clone of Flare. It would give his class a great ranged attack that Ramza's Squire class lacks (and which the other heavy hitters have). And to your point, I think it would differentiate itself from all of the "_____ Sword" attacks that all the other special characters have, allowing him to retain his "not a bruiser" status.

- Eddie

Dash and Throw Stone should have a 100% knockback rate, because it would give the squire skill set in general a bit of utility it lacks.

I pretty much only ever use Dash/Throw Stone to knock Zalmo off his tower. They're worth it just for that.

Oops!