DISC ONE: Character Strategies: -- Decide before you start playing if you want the badges; the reward at the end of the game is minimal for them, a Power Ring S and an S charger which you can just buy. So I almost recommend skipping them. If you have a saved game where you missed one (I missed the H+S the 1st time) don't re-start! -- Don't leave the first town without the Mermaid's Tear, all the stuff at the bottom of the well and the spider web. -- Don't leave Citan's hill without the spider and Midori's ring. -- Don't hit the forest without better hat and clothes and two deathblow combos. Rings? enh, you pick. -- Unequip Elly before she runs off, if you are a completionist freak like me and want to have one of everything in your inventory; the pilot's items do not come back with her. -- Weltall's "Old Circuit" is the bomb. You'll only ever have a few. Keep it on him until you can get Simp Circuits for everybody (much later on). Response and Defense are nebulously defined and you won't see the attributes change on the gear menu~ but they will always perform better in battle with Old or Simp Circuits. -- Make Bart fight out of his gear in the cave. His whip is enough to kill the big jellyfish and throughout the game, you'll notice the gear-size monsters tend to ignore out-of-gear people if there is another gear on screen. Cool, huh? -- Don't fuss with earning lotsa money from battles early, because the shops will continue to sell the same stuff on the first continent until you start the Billy versus the Wels ship subquest. -- Play the "merry-go-pop" games and such until you also get the iron helmet etc. It is inexpensive to play and you can sell the stuff you win at a profit. -- Do give the little boy a loan. He will sell you meat later that is easy to score $200,000 from when you resell at the end of the game at the Kaiser town's vending machine. -- The beret wearing girl in the tournament is the best place to stall. Go easy on her, no combos/deathblows. Even heal her sometimes. She will get angry and poison you worse if you weren't nice to her in the tent and then stalling during her battle. Big Joe is easy to stall too, but has that weird sometimes one-hit crowd kill. The "stalling" should allow you enough time to expore the sewer with Bart and get the nugget out of the fishtank. -- Let Rico beat you after you knock 1000 HP off him. He is particularly vulnerable to ether attacks. Yes, I know the girl before drains EP. You have Rosesols and an Ether Doubler, right? -- You should have a backup save prior to trying to remove your collar. Whether Hammer will offer to buy it is totally random (like chocobo breeding), so reset and try again. It is like $5000. -- Sewer hunting is the first place you want to "waste time" gaining levels. You have Citan and Rico. Get started now with building up Rico's combo attacks. He is the hardest to complete for these. Fei gaining huge levels will mean that Maria/Emerelda/Elly/Chu-Chu join your party at signifigantly higher levels and they won't need as much screen time. Bart gets left out of the mix a little, but his fuel economy sucks so you don't want him later anyway. -- AS SOON AS YOU GET THE SUBMARINE: Go back to the southeast shore of the continent and drive up into the sand, use the secret road to Nisan. Go back to buy AT LEAST 4 ETHER DOUBLERS AND 2 HOLY PENDANTS. If you don't have money for it, try to fight sea battles for the sellable drop items. These items are not purchasable later (only one more of each is win-able and it takes FOREVER to earn the Battle Points). -- MAKE RICO FIGHT OUT OF HIS GEAR: Keep at least one gear on screen: the enemies will tend to hit the big gear and ignore the little Rico whacking for no damage but many points toward learning combos. This is good for Fei too. Stop when they have everything subsequent to the 7 pt combos. -- INITIALLY USE ELLY FOR YOUR "ANCHOR" If things go awry: Elly's character has ether doubler and such equipped on her person and E Circuits/Power Magic filling her gear slots, so that even a low-level Elly can whack 10,000 points of damage off with magic or Aerods. Never let Elly take a turn, and if she does don't use fuel on anything but Aerods. If her fuel is spent, swap to Billy's Gear. -- The elusive "Simp Circuit" is a drop item from a rarely occuring gear enemy called Shinobi. This gear part is exactly like an Old Circuit. Every Gear should use one or the other equipped in the first slot at all times. The "defense" circuitry continues to be worth it all the way through the end of the game. Shinobi occurs in the cave north of Nortune when you go to steal the big battleship. -- YOUR GOAL IS TO ACQUIRE MARIA/CHU-CHU/EMERALDA AT LEVEL 60 OR BETTER Boost everybody all the way up on combos during the Wel fights and Sea Battles. Also: you need Fei at level 80 for "Yamikei" the coolest deathblow! -- BILLY: Is really cool on the ground as a character fighter, but even with the ether doublers has a sub-standard gear, since all his best gun attacks are elemental based. (It is a nightmare to bring him thru the Final Seraphim dungeon). His fuel economy is also really bad and he isn't even very fast. The Jesse Gun isn't as strong as Aerods/Yggsadril/2nd Infinities. You really want his "heal everybody" spell as soon as possible, it comes sooner than Citan's "affect-all"/"heal." -- WHEN FEI LAYS DOWN, HURRY TO GET HIM BACK: His X,T,X is key for mutliple sellable duneman isle drop items. He should hit level 95 to 99 by end-game for speed's sake. If he scores his last 6 pointers early, have faith that he's earning points toward 7 pointers you can't see. -- BEFORE YOU ENTER SOLARIS: Have at least one 7 pointer on Fei. You may want some higher Elly combos as well, but concentrate on her spells-learned, she's got them all, right? -- EMERALDA IS THE BOMB: There is nearly no disadvantage to her. She only suffers in that, although she gets mad and has infinities ready all the time; they use a lot of fuel for her gear and with few HP, she'll need to waste too much fuel to heal (But she is perfect when paired with a +50,000 HP healing Chu-Chu). Take extra time to play cards for her dolls. You want them equipped on her person EVERY TIME she is in a gear! You get truly wacky miraculous things out of her gear when she has Billy/Fei/Elly dolls equipped (but leave a slot for an ether doubler). -- Don't leave the Flying City without the stuff out of Wiseman's Room. -- There is crazy money to be had wandering back down into the vent pipes after you get Maria OUT of your party. Let Emeralda go nuts! -- YOU ARE SAVING MONEY FOR AT LEAST 4 POWER MAGICS. Personally I like to have 6 for 2 on each person with an added Simp Circuit; but you may like to keep 1 Simp 1 Frame HP50 and an Ether Armor on Rico's. (Rico's Gear Magic is really bad). -- Cheat at the card games by using rapid-pausing. Queenie is tougher than the "penguin" at the end. The Goggles and Shoes for Citan you need to keep him equipped with all the way thru the game: attack/evade percents aren't drive-able.DISC ONE: Gear Strategies and Definitions: -- GENERAL STRATEGY: Have ALL characters when in gear equip 1. Holy Pendant = double infinity use 2. Ether Doubler = double ether machine effect note: the MPG are the same on all gears for light, mid, and fierce hits; but Frame HP usage and sp. options, etc. are way different! -- DON'T WASTE A DIME ON HEIMDALL: It is all for naught, since you won't need this gear at all. Save it all up for FENRIR later (if you like Citan). -- FORGET SIEBZEHN: Siebzehn can buy all he needs. But he sucks anyway: He does have infinities but he doesn't get "mad" like Stier and Crescens, you'll see so few that it is like they aren't there. He is really slow and his MPG is almost as bad as ANDVARI's. -- BART'S 1st GEAR IS BETTER: It matches punch for fuel quite well and has good well-rounded attributes. The ANDVARI is a gas-hog and is way over balanced for offense over defense. Stop playing with Bart after he gets Omnigeared. -- ELLY IS YOUR FIRST ANCHOR: She needs all spells quickly, then she lives in VIERGE with every available upgrade until the Thames, when you should stop buying for her. Her combos are funny, but they are all elemental so you may not even want to bother with her. Robot guards dislike her elemental attacks. -- RESPONSE IS THE BEST NON-MAGIC ATTRIBUTE: It'll be your turn slightly more often and you won't miss/might be able to dodge the full percent of damage. Old Circuit/Resp Circuit/ Magnetic Coat on at all times. Response is better than A/B/C/D cicuits at environment compensation. The O2 canister doesn't work as well as the regular circuit. Also, the Simp Circuit is a drop-item that boosts both response and defense. It proves to be nearly as useful as the Magnetic Coats. -- EQUIPPED CHARACTER ITEMS AFFECT THE GEAR: Most notably the ether doubler and ether veil. The speed shoes don't seem to help. -- BILLY'S GEAR, RENMAZUO: Only use the ether mid hits. Never use the elemental light hit pistol! Use ether doublers and E Circuits/Power Magic (x2?) for HUGE, CRAZY damage! The AA mid gun is the one that isn't elemental so wait til you have it for Renmazuo. -- ONLY ONE ETHER DOUBLER PER GEAR: More is wasted. But you CAN double up the Power Magics/E Circuits for insane magic damage. The reason you buy many is so that you can lose Elly's if you use her fighting Hammmer (disc 2). Magic/Aerods will bring him right down for the Trading Card. -- ARMOR IS NEAR A TOTAL WASTE OF SPACE: Except for the later Anti-Angel Armor, you will never need to waste a slot with extra armor. Keep selling all your extra dropped item armors. (Ether Armor is only really helpful versus Kahr's Omnigear) -- RICO'S GEARS ROCK: Either Stier needs little help. He won't even use half an 8000 fuel tank to hit a Frame HP70/90. His MPG rules! You can be sure that you want to hit his Zangief-like infinites as often as possible. (and they come almost as often as Emeralda's) He has other built-in attributes on his gear, check them by comparing his gear unequipped to other people's (Citan's Fenrir has these too).DISC TWO: Character Strategies: -- You have both the Deathblow Gainer (Wizardry) rings, right? Get Rico/Emeralda pumped! It's okay to score Billy/Citan too, but I would skip Bart's altogether. Their 7 point char deathblows feed their type-less infinity gear combos. -- You get people again in the Relic Caves. Quit working on Elly and Bart. DON'T FORGET TO HIT THE YGG CANNON FIRST on the super-dimensional Gear Yggdrasil IV! It uses up 9000 Fuel, so if you wait, you won't get to see it! -- Keep Rico and Emeralda on, with mild switches for Chu-Chu just to keep her within 15 levels of Fei. -- Take special note of the bots that guard the hall down to Billy's relic. You will return for them later. -- NOTHING BRINGS HAMMER DOWN LIKE ELLY AND EMERALDA Hit him repeatedly with the girls' magic while saving up with Fei for infinites. YOU'VE GOT TO GET THE T-CARD! (Yes, you get the Rico heir "lines" with Rico there, but it doesn't help him reclaim the throne or anything). -- Once the T-Card is yours, return to the bots mentioned earlier. They routinely drop Cast Ar when you have T.Card which resells like Gold Nugget. You also get 3 at a time! The bots are also a good place to earn up your combo points. This should be the second time you "waste time" building levels. -- The money you need is not only for Big Joe's gear upgrades (which are not always the best) but more importantly for the HP boosters. Feed all of 'em to Chu-Chu. Her "gear" is a muliplication of whatever her "character" has so that she can wind up with WAY OVER 50,000 HP. -- The magic attack DRIVE is good for pumping Emeralda and Chu-Chu, but remember that Chu-Chu can use an Ether Doubler with the Goddess Robe and Chu-Chu Idol for humongous heals on the gears, so she doesn't need much magic pumped. -- Swap Mermaid's Tear for Mermaid Ring. Always keep this on Emeralda unless its Gear Time, and then you swap for 2 dolls and an ether doubler. -- Let Emeralda grow up. There is good stuff back down there anyway, so you might as well. You won't feel like such a pedophile anymore, either. -- After enough bots-for-dropped-then-sell-money; change over to Duneman Isle level-gaining. -- Fei should be dropping the big dragons with three hits at nearly 5,000 pts of damage a pop. Citan and Bart are exceptionally badly equipped for Dragon fights. The dragon will appear randomly and with different elemental status so that sometimes fire heals him and sometimes wind will heal him. grrr... Use Emeralda for support-fire and Billy(or Chu-Chu's) heal/speed magic. NOTE: Chu-Chu's spells are NOT element based even though they have names like "forest wind", etc. She can beat the hell out of elemental monsters. -- You can get multiple drop-items: Blessed Helms, Kaiser Helms, Swords, etc. They sell for a huge amount.DISC TWO: Final Character Set up: -- I know it seems cocky to suggest all the following, but just set it up as such and then compare what it does to stats. I had a hard time letting go of stuff like the Memento Chain, and letting Rico (not Fei) have the Dark Armor: but it works way better that way! -- FEI - Manly Mantle Power Crisis Trader Card Why? Because he's tough. He gets so strong with Yamikei he doesn't need his gear anymore. The Manly Mantle + Power Crisis work great together! If Fei's the last guy standing, his defense and attack go up! He is also the only character that really has room for the T.Card. -- CITAN - Mumyo Sword Hero Costume Super Goggles Premier Shoes Why? Because the attack/evade attributes are the only attributes that can't be "sourced" with Drive. Moreover, Citan has a huge HP advantage, so he does not need the armor like the other characters do. Likewise, he's the best recipient for Hero Costume, because his Renki/Sazanami will keep everyone alive, so his defense won't drop. -- BART - Death Adder Kaiser Helm Kingly Armor or Golden Vest Evasion Ring -- RICO - Dark Helm Dark Armor Momento Chain or LongDarkCoat -- BILLY - Godson Kaiser Helm (the dragons drop them, you can have three) Kingly Armor or Golden Vest Ether Doubler The above three get lumped together because you kind of need to decide~ okay I'm not going to play with one of 'em. There is a deficit of cool armor for the male characters. Rico kind of needs the Dark Armor to survive the Dragon eth attacks. Billy kind of needs more defense to compensate for poor HP. Bart doesn't need much, but his HP is low enough to make evasion a must. He is not that fast either and doesn't pack a wallop like Billy's middle guns with eth doublers. So I tend to leave Bart alone and set up Rico for defense and Billy for offense. The LongDarkCoat does NOT give Billy a +10 to his attack! agh! Jessie Blasta and Cannon will damage at 9,999 with 3xPow Magics Rico can hit Frame HPs with a bonus economy on fuel consumption. Bart's Ygg Cannon is bizarre. Higher ether doesn't help it hit harder. the only advantage to Bart in/out gear is "wild smile." -- ELLY - Pyscho Rod Angelic Robe Starlight Ether Doubler 3x Power Magic on Vierge (Aerods go BOOM) Okay. You can let her leave the party with the above items equipped. You will find better items later. Just make sure that you have 6 more power magics for Emeralda and Billy! She leaves the party for a long time immediately after fighting Hammer so you won't have time to unequip her, and you need to use her for Aerods to drop Hammer before he self-destructs. -- MARIA - Blessed Helm Blessed Habit Maria does not get helped or hindered with much else~ there is little to both her and Siebzehn. You will never see a 9,999 attack from her unless she is using an infinity combo. And she in/out of gear is SLOW. -- CHU-CHU - Goddess Robe Ether Doubler Chu-Chu Idol Chu-Chu never has great attacks. But with DRIVE she can withstand Angel Attacks no problem and then heal your gears for between 1,500 and 6,000 HP at a time. Then her MP is refillable, so that you can't lose and you have all the time in the world to save up for infinity combos if you want to see everyone's. -- EMERELDA - Executor's Gown (only if T.Card at Miang) Vivid Turban Mermaid Ring CRESCENS - Fei jr. Doll Elly jr. Doll Ether DoublerDISC TWO: Gear Strategies: -- GENERAL STRATEGY: Have ALL characters when in gear equip 1. Holy Pendant = double infinity use 2. Ether Doubler = double ether machine effect GEAR EQUIP: 1. GNRS50 2. Z Charger 3. FrameHP 30 -- WELTALL 2 IS WAY BETTER THAN XENOGEARS: Enjoy it while it lasts. Hitting your Infinities will never come easier. -- IFF FENRIR: You won the Citan goggles/shoes from the card game, right? Keep them on for "critical" Gear Sword Hits. Don't miss the gear-sword re-forge Kishin to Kijin the best one. -- IFF ANDVARI: Don't put Big Joe's crazy engine on him or he'll run out of fuel faster than anybody. You are essentially bound to keep a Z charger on him. -- IFF SIEBZEHN: What are you nuts? There's no reason to use him. Infinities come seldom, bad MPG, no magic; and special options that don't always work? His fierce, X, hit: always misses! -- ELLY'S: No spoilers, but don't bother upgrading her gear. Her uh, second gear, will take care of itself. -- RICO'S: STIER the OMINIGEAR RULES! even Kahr's isn't as good. The best MPG! He can with the 8000 fuel tank hit Frame HP70s two or three times! Keep the Better Buyable Magic Defense Armor on! Always keep at least a Frame HP50 on him. This omnigear will be READY FOR INFINITIES almost at a par with Emeralda, only Rico won't run out of fuel after 2 pops. It is kind of sad that there aren't hard-enough enemies for Rico at the end of the game. His "Iron Kaiser," "Drill-Kaiser," and Zangief-like piledriver are the reason for the season. -- EMERALDA'S: oh baby. magic to cry over. She is so fierce and so fast with so many critical hits and infinity-readiness; that it doesn't matter that she has poor HP. She'll never fall. (Especially if you use Chu-Chu just to heal her every round) I swear that it almost feels like you can beat the Nephtali (Alpha Weltall) gear with Emmy and Chu-Chu. I took near 200,000 hit points off him before I gave-in to his invincibilty. Remember to keep 2 dolls on her character with an ether doubler and then 2 Power Magics and a Mag Coat on her. (IFF Chu-Chu) -- BILLY'S: Jessie Cannon is good for 9,999 damage on one enemy. Sometimes. The mid hits with eth doub and 3xPowMagics can give you instant 5,000s sometimes, but many times it will heal who you are fighting if they absord ether (many at the end do). -- Chu-Chu. man. Equip the idol, the ether doubler, and the Goddess Robe. You'll be healing like 5 to 6K hp for every shot that a boss can steal that much. Remember to have boosted her HP with Big Joe's HP drive. I think her max is 60,000 HP but you'll be fine with over 50K. She'll never fall. Yes, I know she is worse than pokemon for design, but she really does have it in healing gear ability. (She can refill her EP during battle and doesn't have to "charge" for fuel).Notes on Rico: -- Number one thing is that his MPG makes his gear the best. He also has all-terrain advantages over the other gears. Then his infinities will be ready more often and wreak more havoc. -- His character deathblows don't earn up in order: You gotta mix up his previous 3 to earn the last 2. Then his character based fire-lariat moves will get you in trouble with elementals. (unless they are suited in which case an ether doubler makes it go BOOM. Good in a gear too.) -- His mother's necklace. Keep it on him for the whole game. -- Set it and forget it: Knight Helm and Knight Mail with Momento Locket~ put them on during the sewer fights. He'll be over-defended at first, but he gains so much Defense each level~ that you never really have to change his equipment all the way until the end of the game. If you need him for Duneman Dragons~ the Dark Helm, Armor and Coat round him off nicely. -- His ending. There isn't one? argh! I find the lack of a scene with his dad recognizing him as irritating as an un-resurrectable Aeris. Square rushed this game? Cut his scene for more CG? grrr... I'd have voted for less CG and more story! -- The "M-Project" has renamed Rico as "Sufradi." He is serving as an experiment for the transfer of altered types into alignment with the omnigear relics. -- "Drill Kaiser" is a wind-based elemental infinity. Try to hit "Iron Kaiser" instead. -- I anticipate the flood of e-mails that will complain about Rico's speed versus Citan's. Before you send any: ask "Do I like Ken better than Blanka?" If you like Ken better, don't e-mail me. If you otherwise feel I am being unfair to the wicked slicing sound of Citan's swords, we can debate the built-in attributes of FENRIR vs. STIER.Notes on Billy: -- Oddly, the LongDarkCoat will not give Billy +10 attack~ it just gives him +10 eth defense. -- The Jessie Cannon is a great attack! It is almost as good as Aerods if he's got Eth Doub and 3 Pow Magics. Likewise his mid shot will come off like a lev 3 attack with no waiting. Not as good as Aerods becuase it only targets one enemy, not all enemies. Same with Jessie Blasta on Disc 2. -- There is no ammo for his good guns after you get to Babel Tower. It is as if they force you to stop playing with him for a while. Then the godson ammo becomes available long before you can buy the gun~ so that they remind you later, "okay, you can play with Billy again." -- When Billy (and also Rico) get their Omnigears~ take note that their engines and armor get downgraded. You may not want to waste money on better than what they have prior to the Anima Caves. It is money wasted.Notes on Big Joe: -- There is a newspaper in the store underground. Read it multiple times to find the story of Joey Balboa, a 4000 year old athlete. -- This newspaper also has specs on the Engine specs for the Eldridge.Twelve OmniGears & Relics & Recipients: (01) JUDAH = KRELIAN (02) ZEBULUN = RAMSUS (03) NEPHTALI = GRAHF (04) REUBEN = note: these four were aligned (05) SIMEON = 500 years ago: one to (06) LEVI = RENE and one to (07) ISSACHAR = MIANG. Other two: unknown (08) DINAH = ELLY (09) ASHER = CITAN (10) DAN = BART (11) JOSEPH = BILLY (12) GAD = RICO NOTE: Fei's Weltall I + II, then Xenogears are NOT Omnigears! Fei is the Anonelbe which is more powerful than persona elements (relics). In other words, he doesn't need a slave generator since he made his own contact with the Zohar wave existence.Gear Ether Response and Alignment: RESPONSE ALIGNMENT CATALOGUE NUMBER -------- --------- ---------------- FEI infinite infinite 001589750 ELLY infinite infinite 6920188-Z CITAN 240 98 584921547 BART 210 90 221589542 BILLY 290 92 321658-11 RICO 160 85 M-PROJECT SUFRADI TEST MIXTURE # 000-215914 MARIA 170 74 unusable-54109854 EMERELDA N/A N/A CHU-CHU N/A N/A