Final Fantasy IX Disc 2

Cleyra

Optional: Road to Clyra: Serious Levels Ahead!

Strictly speaking, the next thing you really have to do is head to Clyra. However, I really enjoy creating OP characters early in the game and then waltzing through the rest of the game. I know not everyone does, but if you do, there are Great Dragon enemies you can fight near here that use massive thundaga attacks which will KO most low-level characters. But if you can reflect or absorb Thunder magic, you can defeat them at a rediculously low level and gain massive levels super quick. If that sounds like fun, check out the Grinding Grand Dragons section to learn how to earn nearly 9,000 XP for each battle (more for Freya, if you learned the “Level Up” ability from an ).

If not, skip this section and head head straight to Cleyra.

Grinding Grand Dragons

Optional: Grand Dragon Level Rocket Ship

There are Great Dragon enemies you can fight who use massive thundaga attacks. But if you can reflect or absorb Thunder magic, you can defeat them at a rediculously low level and gain massive levels super quick. If that sounds like fun, follow along with this section to earn nearly 9,000 XP for each battle (more for Freya, if you learned the “Level Up” ability from an ).

Save your game and equip the cool stuff you bought in Treno - especially the and any Coral Rings you managed to Synth. If your goal is quick levels, the is the key. You’ll want all your characters to learn auto-reflect. It’s gonna take some time, but I think it’s worth it. To go quicker, give the to Freya and have her learn Ability Up, then go revisit Qu’s Marsh to do some frog catching and obtain the , which will allow both Vivi and Quina to learn Ability Up. You can either have Freya learn Ability Up and Quina learn Millionaire by random low-level enemies, or you can jump straight into the hard battles, knowing you’ll need to use a lot of to keep your characters alive.

When you’re ready to begin, head back through the grotto and climb the vine I warned you about earlier. To prep for these battles:

If Freya hasn’t learned Ability Up, keep the equipped.
Give the and the to Vivi. Be sure to enable auto-reflect and ability up.
Give Zidaine and Quina a . If Quina doesn’t know Millionare yet (and you’re up for a really hard fight), leave the on Quina until that ability is learned, then switch to the .
By the time Vivi has learned auto-reflect, Freya should know Ability Up. Swap the reflect-ring to Freya and enable auto-reflect.
Since Zidaine is the only one in the party who doesn’t have access to Ability Up, give him the last.
If your characters still have ability points left over, set Antibody first (the Venom attack is brutal), then Level Up.

Head back into Burmecia and make your way to the Moogle shop toward the back of the town. Buy as many as you can. Now head back into Gizamaluke’s Grotto and go find the Moogles. Give your to Moguta and you should receive a (remember to keep one or two of these in your inventory at all times - I’ll explain why later.) /Save with Mogmi and head up the “Dangerous Vine.” You’re going hunting for Great Dragons. Quickly move out of the trees and onto the green plains area. Walk around until you get into a fight a Great Dragon. You’re concentrating on SURVIVING, not winning, for the first battle or two:

Have Quina and Freya use
Have Zidane try to steal
If Quina ever only has 1 HP, use to do massive damage
Vivi should cast Bio or Poison until the Great Dragon has the little purple flame indicating he’s poisoned
When he’s poisoned, have Vivi cast blizzara all on the party if you have reflect for everyone, or cast thundara all if you don’t (otherwise the blizzara will kill off your any characters using Coral Rings
Note that Zaidane can wear , which reduces Ice Damage by 50%, and your characters can equip a to absorb Ice attacks)

If you’re new to Final Fantasy, reflecting magic off multiple allies will multiply the damage to significantly more than simply casting the spell against your enemy directly. Let the Great Dragon kill himself off by casting thundaga against your whole party. As your characters learn Auto-Reflect, the reflect will bounce it all back at him, doing LOTS of damage. You should be able to win at least one battle this way, and you’ll get massive ammounts of EXP and Gil (Quina’s Millionaire ability RULES!) At least one of my characters went up 5 levels after the first battle. :) Now call your friendly moogle and /save. Repeat.

After 5 to 10 levels, you’ll stop having to call Mogou and /save after each and every battle. You can go maybe two. :D When you’re more confortable with this, have Quina use his blue magic on the enemy if he’s near-death but not exactly at 1 HP; this will do MaxHP - CurrentHP damage. If you find it’s too hard to stay alive, forget having Vivi use magic and instead have Freya and Quina attack while Vive uses . If you have Freya use Cover and put her next to Vivi, you’ll almost never have Vivi get killed. In either case, be sure to make use of Quina’s Blue Magic.

Don’t forget to equip new abilities as you level up and earn more skill points. In case it’s not obvious, you don’t need to equip Ability Up if that character has nothing learnable equipped. Here’s my list of what order you want your guys to start equiping which skills:

Zidane: Auto-Reflect, Antibody, Level Up, Ability Up, Bandit, Steal Gil, Distract, Alert.
Vivi: Auto-Reflect, Antibody, Level Up, Ability Up, Loudmouth, Insomniac
Freya: Auto-Reflect, Antibody, Level Up, Ability Up, Dragon Killer, Distract, HP+10%
Quina: Auto-Reflect, Antibody, Level Up, Ability Up, Millionaire, MP+10%

Since you’re saving/tenting a lot, it’s awful nice of the Dragons to let Zidane keep stealing them. ;) Repeat for best results. If you level-up until your characters have learned all the abilities they can learn from weapons, armor and items, you’re basically invincible going forward.

(Side note: While writing this walkthrough, none of my characters started with auto-reflect. I gave one a , and the other three a . I had vivi cast blizzara at the dragon for the first few battles, then when someone learned reflect, I gave someone a and had him cast blizzara on the party. I ended up doing damage to my own guys and having to heal a lot, but they quickly learned auto-reflect and then I was able to just kill dragons for fun and profit. In the 2 hours or so it took all my guys to learn auto-reflect, they were all over level 50. That’s what I mean by: “This is THE place to level up.” )

Clyra

Area Enemies & Blue Magic: Cleyra’s Trunk

Enemy	Eat to learn

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See Blue Magic for the full reference.

Take care of any side questions you’re interested in:

Blue Magic: See Disc 1 and the start of Disc 2 in the Blue Magic Section
Chocobo Treasure: See the Chocobos Overview and Treasures sections.

When you are ready to advance the story, head toward the big tornado south and west of Bermecia. When you fist arive at Clyra’s Trunk, the wind abates just long enough for you to enter. You’ll be greeted with a cut scene, then it’s time to go. Be sure to check out the Area Enemies & Blue Magic panel to see what Quina can learn. Some of these are the most useful blue magics in the game.

Head forward one screen. On the next screen, go up the path to the right and examine the thing over there. “Pull Lever” then head through the now-open door. The chest on the right of the next screen has a in it. Grab it, then head forward to the next screen. You’ll see a tree in the middle of the sand there. Nearly hidden at the bottom of that screen is a chest with . Equip this to Vivi first, then Freya, then Quina, then Zidane; clear-headed prevents Confusion, and is VITAL to have later on. There is also a chest near the top of this screen, obscured by the tree, which contains an .

When you have those two chests, head out the door to your bottom right and take the path to the right. At the top of the path is a cave in which you can open a chest wih an . Then go to the bottom of that screen and “Put hand into hole.” Leave this screen and go back down toward the cave you came out of, but don’t go in (not that you could). There’s a vine outside you can climb up. Climb it, and then climb the one on the next level.

Go into that cave, and through it. On the next screen, you’ll see a chest on the left. Open it for a . Up the pathway to the right is another chest with a in it. Head directly left from that across the little “sand fall” and mognet/ /save with the moogle there (Monev). You’ll get a for delivering a letter, the continue up the path to the top of the screen and beyond. On the next screen there are two paths. The one going up and left leads to a (and a short, dead-end branch). Grab that, then take the other path to the top right.

Cross over to the other side of the bridge and head right one screen. Head right on the next screen and grab the chest that scrolls into view for a . Continueing past the chest and wrapping left will dump you out toward the middle of the screen. Straight up from that is an exit. Head out and follow the path there for . Continue down along that path and you’ll see a lever you can pull. Pull it, then back track two screens. There is a psudo-exit to your immediate left with a chest contaning a . hidden from view.

Grab that, then come back into view. Head straight down to find a chest with hidden behind the main support root for this cave. Head off down the path to the far left. On the next screen, grab the chest near the entrace for a and head up the right fork to get the on the next screen. Come back and take the left path this time, to the room with the sand whirl pools.

If you don’t have the Blue Magic you can learn in this area, it’s worth backtracking a bit to make sure you learn them before moving on. Otherwise, walk along the top wall VERY closely so that you can get the chest on the upper right for a . Go back along the wall and try to “fall in” to the bottom left sand pit. Press ‘X’ repeatedly until you jump out. You’ll randomly jump to one of three places, one of which is where the upper left chest is. Get it for 900 Gil. Repeat the Fall and Mash procedure on the far left pit until you end up on the far left of the screen, then exit the screen via the doorway there.

On the next screen, go under the ladder on the next to the chest at the far edge. It has a in it. Make sure anyone who can enable the Bright Eyes ability has done so, then jump up onto the ladder and head up. At the top of the ladder head up and right to Clyra Settlement.

Clyra Settlement

When you first reach Clyra Settlement you’ll lose Freya and pretty quickly Quina too. Feel free to let the lady there guide you around town. When you’re finished, you’ll be right back where you started. Head right one screen and walk along the bottom edge of the screen to pick up the 970 Gil hidden behind the broken sign. Head back to the village entrance, and up one platform to grab a , then up and follow the path to the right. In the flowers to the right on the next screen, you’ll find an . Up the stairs on your left, you’ll find a friend from Burmecia. Talk to him and buy all the weapons you’ll need, then head into the inn behind him.

At the far left of the bottom floor of the inn, you’ll find an . At the bottom right of the screen, you can find 1250 Gil. Upstairs, to the right of the top row of beds, you’ll find an . Mognet/ /save via Mopli. You’ll get a letter from miss Ruby. Leave the inn and head up the stairs to the right, pausing to get the hidden near the ladder. Watch the ATEs and talk to the madens on the observation deck, then head left. Where the walkway meets the platform, you can find a .

You can talk to Star Maiden Nina to buy items. Finally! You can buy an here! (Also, if you did the optional leveling, you can likely sell off your extra or 50 here for a small fortune - not that you need since you probably earned hundreds of thousands of gil in the process). After shopping, head down the left path. Search around the edges of the platform here for . You can wander around places and get more information about the ATEs if you want, but that’s all the objects you’ll find on the lower levels.

Head up to the highest level, and search near along the path edge for a and an (along the lower edge and the upper edge respectively). Talk everyone here, then head inside the temple. Just inside the entrance (on the left) is another . Talk to the oracle by the stairs. When they tell you to wait at the inn, head to the lowest level via the left most path. (where you came in) and go right.

Talk to Quina. When you have control again, you’ll find two treasure chests. One has a , the other (hidden toward the bottom of the screen) has . Walk across the ledge there until you get to the middle, then jump down and head back up to the top. Feel free to save on the way.

When you get back to the top, head toward the inn. You’ll be accosted along the way but head into the inn, enable all of Zidane’s steal helpers, then have Mopli save your game. Head to the place were Qunia jumpped into the sand (all the way to the bottom, then head right). Now you get to fight…

Boss Fight: Antlion

Steal	, ,
Weak / Absorbs	Weak to Ice; absorbs Water; vulnerable to Sleep and Slow
Reward	5 AP, 1616 Gil
Drops	,
Strategy	Put it to Sleep, steal if you want, then use Ice magic. Heal immediately after Sandstorm and avoid physical counters.

The should be all you really need to steal. This guy may cast sandstorm pretty early on, which reduces your party to very little HP and causes status ailment Blind. I’ve found a good strategy is to have Vivi cast sleep and knock him out, then have Zidaine steal and other characters either buff or magic attack to whittle him down. If you have very powerful guys, and everyone has reflect still enabled, you can have Vivi cast Blizzara at the whole party which should kill him with one shot. Otherwise, just keep attacking. When you’re finshed, you’ll watch “Lord of the Rat-Dance” and then watch some cut scenes. After that, it’s back to…

Trunk Mages

You’ll watch a bunch of cut scenes, then you’ll regain control as Freya. Equip all her new armor/weapons, then head to the town entrance, but visit everywhere first. Head up to the top of the tower and get the from the Cleyran High Priest. Off to the left from him is an , on the throne is an . Behind the harp is a .

Head down to the inn and head upstairs to talk with Stiltzkin again. Buy a , , and for 444 Gil, then mognet with Mopli and save. After that, head to the bottom and join the party together again. Equip the to Freya; her White Draw skill restores MP of all party members! I’d tell you to equip stuff to your other characters, but it’s pretty minor stuff. Feel free to do it anyway. ;)

Now head back down the trunk (the same way you came up). When you get to the bridge, you’ll end up turning back. You’ll get control again at the bottom of the settlement. Fight a battle, then head right one screen and talk to Mopli there. Mognet until he asks you to deliver a letter to Serino. Save, then head up the tree. You’ll get in a few fights on the way.

You’ll meet people who want to know which way they should go. I told the first two guys to go right. Then I told the woman and her kids to go left. Then, I told them to go right (across the bridge). Finally, I told the kid he wasn’t safe yet. Eventually, you’ll end up at the top of the city and have control of your party right before fighting . Talk to everyone in the room.

You’ll get a Nymph Card, a Zuu Card, an , an , a , a , and a . Remove all non-weapons from Quina. When you’re ready, save (it will be a timed battle, so be sure to save in case you can’t steal something you really want - meaning the ) and walk outside after .

Boss Fight: Beatrix

Steal	, ,
Weak / Absorbs	No elemental weaknesses or absorbs; vulnerable to Slow
Reward	0 AP, 0 Gil
Drops	n/a
Strategy	This is another unwinnable timer. Steal if you want, keep the party alive, and expect Stock Break to end it.

You can steal an , , and a from her. The only thing you don’t have is the , but you’ll find one before too long, so don’t worry about restoring if you miss it. Watch a few more cut scenes. Now is your last chance to unequip this party before you have to fight as a new party. That party will probably want the and the .

Head up the stairs and follow , then after the cut scenes follow Vivi. On your way down the stairs, you should see a Moogle dash into - and just as quickly out of - view. That’s Serino. Change direction and go follow him. Mognet/ /save. Give him the letter from Serino, then get a letter for Moodon. Head back down the stairs, talk to Vivi and hop into the pods.