******************************************* * XENOSAGA: Episode I * * Der Wille zur Macht(The Will To Power) * * * * SPOILER-FREE WALKTHROUGH * ******************************************* By Meh1 Copyright to Meh1. 2003. You You can contact me through E-mail at meh271@yahoo.com Before you contact me, make sure you check Gamefaqs for the most up-to-date version of the walkthrough. It's possible that your subject had been dealt with already. !!!IMPORTANT NOTICE!!! 4/14/03 Unfortunately, I will be unable to update this walkthrough in the near future. I have just taken a job which will take me to rural China for probably a year. Yes, this means no time for going online or playing any video games. I'm deeply sorry to all the readers, since there's much more that I wanted to add. Besides, there are quite a few errors and incomplete portions to thiis walkthrough. Problems which will be left uncorrected for now. I apologize for this, but my job is much more important than writing walkthroughs. I would also like to take this time to thank all the contributers to this walkthrough. Your contributions really helped me greatly. !!!END NOTICE!!! Updates ------- V1.71(4/13/03): Added the above notice. There will be no further updates nor e-mail answering any time soon. However, this walkthrough is nothing near being final. It's simply that my job will prevent me from having any time to work on this walkthrough. I do thank all readers for read V1.7(3/23/03): I have gone over the whole walkthrough and corrected hopefully all the mistakes. Monster list added, although it's still under construction, courtesy of yamcha213. MOMO character analysis up. V1.63(03/21/03): Fixed TONS of typos. Not much else added. I know some readers have sent in other things. I'll try to get to them asap. I've been quite busy the past week. Still a lot more typos to correct, though. *Sighs* V1.62(03/14/03): Oy, so many bits and pieces here and there. Found so many errors that needed to be corrected. I also wrote a cheap way on beating Mintia, based on readers' suggestions. Thanks to all. Oh, and KOS-MOS section is up. V1.61(03/14/03): NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok. My computer froze on me. So I lost quite a bit of stuff that I was working on. Now my own ideas are easy to re-write. But the reader contributions and corrections aren't. Since my mailbox has been kind of stuffed, I basically read a e-mail, make the necessary changes, respond, then delete the e-mail. So it's impossible for me to recover those files. If you made a contribution that didn't get updated, you can e-mail me again. Sorry. V1.6(03/12/03): Changed the Drilling section to flybri's faq. I'm sorry about the earlier contributers. I wouldn't have changed to someone else's guide except it's so much more comprehensive than what I have currently. Sorry to Master Tony and IRCGEEK. I really do appreciate your contribution, though. Also added some other stuffs, like what the stats mean, Mintia strategies by some. Added a tips section, although it's hardly complete. V1.57(03/11/03): A.G.W.S. battling guide up. Corrected some prize info in the drilling section. I also updated some boss strategies in the last dungeon, and corrected some problems. Also, finished Shion's character section. V1.54(03/10/03): Ok. The drilling game section is up. The slots section has been updated. It's the same as flybri2001's FAQ on Gamefaqs. But I have permission to post it here, for those who don't want to go through the trouble of looking at two guides. Also had a reader tell me the location of Star Hat, an useful item for those powering up. It's at the begining of 1.12. Also added frames for game basics and character section. V1.53(03/09/03): A reader brought to my attention that the optional boss and character section(done by The_311_Saint), are copied off of Bradygames guide. I did not know this at all, since I don't own this guide. So I have deleted those sections as of this moment. I will add them up again later with full credits where credits are due. Sorry to all the readers. Also note that I'm currently working on other areas of the guide. So some parts might seem messy. But bear with it, because this is so important. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. V1.52(03/09/03): Made some corrections to 1.13. Also cleaned up a bit of section 1.14. However, still haven't worked on the final boss yet. V1.5(03/09/03): Slot section up, thanks to FlyBri for explaining the slots. Also, game basics section is up, thanks once again to The_311_Saint. Don't know what I'd do without him. Thank you so much. ^_^ As for me, well, I cleaned up section 1.10 thru 1.13. Included a lot more in terms of strategies. The biggest change would be more info on boss fights, including data and item drop/steal. This will help those who want to get everything in the game. Also corrected some errors in other parts of the walkthrough. V1.3(03/08/03): Optional Boss section up, thanks to The_311_Saint. Cleaned up section 1.8 and 1.9. Also fixed the bit about the Flower Seed. V1.21(03/7/03): Cleaned up section 1.7. Also realized that 'chaos' is suppose to be all lower case. Oopsy! V1.2(03/07/03): Added a whole bunch of stuff. Character info is up, thanks to The_311_Saint. I also added the side quest section for people who simply care for those items. It's nothing new, but it's easier for the readers this way. I guess I'm turning what's suppose to be a short walkthrough into a typical big one. ^_^ Oh, also cleaned up 1.5, and 1.6. V1.1(03/06/03): Cleaned up the section 1.1 to 1.4 of this walkthrough. Added extra items you can get, some optional fights, more refined boss strategies, etc. Random stuffs. V1.0(03/05/03): Completed the game. ------------ Introduction ------------ This is a spoiler-free walkthough for Xenosaga. Xenosaga is, in my opinion, perfect for this type of a walkthrough. It's easy to tell people where to go without having to mention any spoilerish info. And spoiling this game just isn't right, in my opinion. It would ruin the game. That's why I made this walkthrough spoiler-free. However, I might add a little 'spoiler section' if I ever get the urge to comment on the story. ^_^ Also, keep in mind that I didn't bother to mention every single insignificant item in the game. It's just not worth the time. So if you get items not in my walkthrough, don't assume that I've missed it. However, if you get a RARE item not in my walkthrough, please E-mail me. Ok, that's it for the introduction. It's not like you're reading this part anyway, right? ;) ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- Note: Use the 'Find' function(Ctrl + F) to find the section you want quickly. This is quite important now as this walkthrough is getting really big. Much bigger than expected. Section 0: Basic Information 0.1 Stats 0.11 Character Stats 0.12 A.G.W.S. Stats 0.2 Note on buying items 0.3 Damage Calculation Section 1: Main Walkthrough 1.1 Simulator 1.2 Woglinde(Part 1) 1.3 Woglinde(Part 2) 1.4 Plemora 1.5 Elsa 1.6 U-TIC Battleship 1.7 Dock Colony 1.8 Cathedral Ship 1.9 Durandal 1.10 Kukai Foundation(Part 1) 1.11 Encephalon 1.12 Kukai Foundation(Part 2) 1.13 Song of Nephilum 1.14 Proto Merkabah Section 2: Side Quests and Mini-Games 2.1 Locations of Decoders and Segment Addresses 2.2 Shion's Erde Kaiser 2.3 Optional Bosses 2.31 Great Joe (strategy under construction) 2.32 Mintia 2.33 Ace Pilot 2.34 Meld Gareth 2.35 Din Gareth (under construction) 2.4 Casino 2.41 Poker 2.42 Slots 2.43 Item Exchange 2.5 Drilling 2.6 XenoCard (under construction) 2.7 A.G.W.S. Battling 2.8 Emails 2.9 Miscellanious 2.91 MOMO's Transformations 2.92 Flower Seed Section 3: Character and A.G.W.S. Analysis. 3.1 Shion 3.2 KOS-MOS 3.3 Ziggy 3.4 MOMO 3.5 chaos {under construction) 3.6 Jr. {under construction) 3.7 A.G.W.S. {under construction) Section 4: Monster Analyze List. 4.1 KOS-MOS Simulator 4.2 Woglinde 4.3 Plemora (Under Construction) 4.4 Elsa (Under Construction) 4.5 U-TIC Battleship (Under Construction) 4.6 Cathedral Ship (Under Construction) 4.7 Encephalon (Under Construction) 4.8 Kukai Foundation (Under Construction) 4.9 Song of Nephilim (Under Construction) 4.10 Proto Merkabah (Under Construction) Section 5: Other Stuffs 5.1 Random tips that doesn't belong anywhere else 5.2 My thoughts on Xenosaga and this walkthrough 5.3 Credits ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Section 0: Basic Information + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ =============================================================================== 0.1 Stats =============================================================================== /0.11 Character Stat/ HP: Easy to understand. It's how many hit points you have. When it reaches 0, the character dies. When everyone's HP reaches 0, it's game over. EP: Basically the equivalent of MP in most other games. Ether points let you cast ethers. Again, simple stat. Str: The physical strength of a character. This affects how much damage your character does using a physical attack. Basically, all slash/hit/pierce attacks use this to determine damage. This includes the square attacks. Obviously, the higher the more damage. VIT: Phyiscal defense of a character. The higher, the less damage you take from a physical attack. EAtk: Ether attacking capability. Everyone but Jr.'s triangle attack are ether based, so this stat will affect the damage. Also, the power of ether spells, both healing and attack, uses this stat. Furthermore, the damage from Beam techs and Beam weapons on A.G.W.S. uses this stat. EDef: The higher, the less ether damage you take from an enemy. DEX: This affects the hit percentage of an attack(both physical and ether based) on the enemy. Normally it's not useful. But some flying bosses can be quite a hassle for characters with low dexterity. EVA: The evasion stat determines how many times the enemy scores a 'miss' on you when attacking. Again, useful against specific enemies, but generally not too useful. AGL: Agility, which is basically speed. The higher, the more likely a character goes first in battle, and faster time to recover. Note that this is the only character stat that does not change with levels. So the only way to raise it is thru the White Ring and it's extracted skill. Of course, using speed boosting items/ethers/accessories will also help with speed. But won't change the value of your agility. /0.12 A.G.W.S. Stat/ FHP: Frame HP. Same concept as your character's HP. DPOW: The AGWS equivalent of Vitality. PARM: The AGWS equivalent of Strength. EARM: The AGWS equivalent of Ether Attack. Note that this number is basically your character's EAtk plus the default Ether bonus for that particular AGWS. AGL: Same as the one for characters. WAGL: This is the penalty for equiping heavy weapons. It makes you lose speed in combat. I'm not sure exactly how it works though. It doesn't seem to be a direct penalty, though. Meaning the battle Agility is not your AGL - WAGL. If someone has detailed info, please tell me. Note: All the other stats not listed here, EDef, Dex, and Eva, are the same whether you're in an AGWS or not. Only the above stats are changed. =============================================================================== 0.2 Note on Buying Items =============================================================================== As you play the game, you'll come across store. Now, in practically every other game, you can see all the items by scrolling down. However, Xenosaga throws a twist at you. Because not only can you scroll up and down, but also left and right. Yes, I know this might sound obvious to many of you. But there are plenty of people, including yours truly, who did not figure this out until mid-way through the game. =============================================================================== 0.3 Damage Calculation =============================================================================== This is based on some trial battles I fought in just to test out the effects of stats and tech levels on damage. I hate to say it, but this is only from a few trials. So my conclusions are likely off in some regards. It's more to make you 'think' about these things before choosing your weapons and where to spend you tech points. Ok. First of all, the damage in this game seems to be calculated by this formula. (Attack - Defense) * Multiplier There are two types of attacks(Str and EAtk) and defenses(Vit and EDef). So if you use a physical attack, then your strength and the enemy's vitality comes into play. The same for ether attacks and EAtk/EDef. From this we can see why W-Act tends to deal more damage than two normal, seperate attacks. By using W-Act, you double your strength. But the enemy vitality remains the same. Hence you should deal extra damage to the tune of (Enemy Defense * Multiplier). The Multiplier here depends on what kind of attacks you're using. Every attack should have its own default multiplier. Also, I *think*, not sure, that as you raise the power level of techs, this is the stat that gets raised. However, the effects look to be exponential, not linear. So leveling up from lv1 to lv2 might not have much affect, but the difference is more apparent from lv9 to lv10. This last part is based more on thoughts I had while playing, so I can't be certain of its accuracy. One thing people might have noted in this game is the way Beam weapon power is determined. Specifically, it uses percentages. The higher the percentage, the more powerful it is. To know just how powerful a beam attack is, you can compare it to your good old triangle attack. One triangle attack, I have found, has 50% attack. So you can adjust the damage for other attacks accordingly. The only thing I'm not clear about is whether the percentage is calculated as damage or attack power. [I'll come back to this section once I have cleaned up(I've been saying this forever now...) the rest of my guide. In the meantime, some of you can take it upon yourselves to perform better tests on this matter. Esepecially if you can hack into the game. Anyway, just something kind of fun to throw out there.] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Section 1: Main Walkthrough + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ =============================================================================== 1.1 Simulator =============================================================================== After an awesome opening video, you'll be taken to the battle simulator. Take this opportunity to learn the controls. Don't worry if you don't get everything at first. You'll get it eventually. When you're ready, tell KOS-MOS to simulate real combat to get out of there. The first dungeon is pretty easy to navigate. The enemies here are weak. So take time to get used to the controls. For the expert RPG players, try killing the enemies during 'point bonus' of the event slot. You get more tech, ether, and skill pts this way. Read the manual for details. There are no important items. However, there is a easy-to-miss ladder on the screen with the save point. Go down and follow the path to a locked door(segment address #10). We'll come back to it later, but keep it in mind. Eventually you'll open the door that requires the mission-key. Heal up if necessary. Enter and boss fight will begin. *Boss: Drone GX* HP: 420 Weakness: Slash Rare Item: None Item: Ether Pack S Have Shion enter her A.G.W.S. on the first turn. Then simply attack until it dies. If you want to be safe, have KOS-MOS guard one turn and use Square, Square, R-Blade the next. If you want some easy extra pts, make sure you kill it while the Event Slot is at Point Bonus. *End Boss* [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.2 Woglinde(Part 1) =============================================================================== After more dialogues, you'll get to control Shion. First, you can talk to the researcher by the red machine. He will let you return to the simulator. If you do so, you can find a Battle Passport in the room where you fought the boss. It opens up a mini-game later on. Not necessary, but kind of neat. To avoid enemies, make sure you have Shion walk(not run) by them. She's kind of weak to take on them alone at this point. Exit the lab on the right. Just follow the linear path. There's a guy on the screen with Zohar who has some 'information' he wants share with. Agree to listen and he'll tell you about investing. MAKE SURE you speak to him and give him your e-mail. This will open up a very profitable e-mail side quest. Keep going and you'll find a door called Segment address #18. Like the one in KOS-MOS simulator, just press circle by it and leave it alone for now. The door after that is Shion's room. Pick up the Maintenance Data and go to the Realian Lab(you need to backtrack a bit before heading left). [Story Skip] Talk to all the Realians. You'll then get a scene. [Story Skip] After you get done here, exit and re-enter the lab. You'll get an e-mail about a hacker. Reply and say you'll help. This will start a quest that can net you 200,000G later. On the next screen, talk to the man by the drill(Mr. Holgar). Agree to his request and you can play a little drilling mini-game. The reward is a Drilling Passport. The Drilling Passport will allow you to play a drilling mini-game later on. So keep it in mind. Now exit to the top. On the next screen, there's a little resting area on the left you can turn into. Do so to get a 'secret' e-mail. Give the first response, "I Read Your Secret Email". You'll eventually meet Sgt. Swaine. He'll tell you about Segment addresses. To use the Segment File, go look it up in your item section. It will list all the keys you have, the doors you encountered, and where you found the doors. This little side quest will be VERY rewarding later on. Don't worry, I will give you all the locations in this walkthrough. Now exit to the right. You should get a nice little Spam on the way for Namco's Ninja Assault game. LOL! Anyway, take the orange elevator up to the bridge on the next screen. Talk to the captain. [Story Skip] You'll now need to go the A.G.W.S. hanger. Go right. As you turn at the corner, stay to the left as you head up. This will trigger an Email. Reply by saying you want to invest in Vector(reply #2). Also note that the lounge here will let you turn on/off the music video. It will be useful later. You'll also pass by Segment address #16 as you follow the path into D-04. The hanger is in the upper-left corner of D-04. You'll need to play a little game of tag along the way. Make sure you know how to win this game, as it will be useful later. After you get the M.W.S., you'll need to return to your room and rest. If you want another Namco ad, head to the Vector lab first. Walk by the left wall for the Email. Note: For the 'leveling' people, here's a good place to beef up Shion. In the AGWS hanger is the AGWS simulator. Always kill it during the 'point bonus' spot for some nice tech and skill points. If you can't hit that in the event slot, get out of the AGWS and fight bare handed. The difference in speed will eventually allow you to get it. If you do this, switch Spell Ray to hi speed and raise Shion's EAtk/EDef. Also have her extract Search Eyes from Scope. [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.3 Woglinde(Part 2) =============================================================================== Once you gain control of Shion, return to your room and save your game. Then go back out and get into a fight. Shion will realize that she can't fight them. For the next part, you'll need to do some dodging the Gnosis. DO NOT get into a fight. You can't escape from battle and they will always deal 9999 to you, while you can't harm them. Yes, this means instant Game Over. Here's how to avoid them. 1. Run by him and press the switch after you get over to D-05. 2. Press the switch in the lounge to turn on the music video. Go by while it's distracted. 3. Draw its attention first. Then hide in the room with the save point. Note the chest here. You can come back later to get it. 4. Go up the ladder and press the green switch. Once you're through, go down at the intersection. The soldier will tell you to get the Plug-in in the hanger. Get the Vaporizer plug-in and you can now blast stuffs just like in the simulator. :) There are some nice things you can get simply by blasting around in this hanger. When you're done, go to where you blew the Gnosis out of the airlock. There are two crates up the ladder with some nice items. Simply blow them up to get the stuffs. Return to where the soldier was and keep going. Blow the path open and two more Gnosis will appear. 5. To avoid them, simply do what you did earlier in the game of tag. Sgt. Swaine will give you Decoder 7, which will unlock segment address 7 next to him. Exit at the bottom of the screen. [Story Skip] When you gain control of Shion, examine the dead soldier for his key. Open up his room for an item. The next room has a save point. Use it. Now exit to the south. [Story Skip] A mini-boss follows. *Boss: Cyclops* DON'T use ether attacks(triangle attacks for KOS-MOS and Shion). If you do, it will counter with some nasty stuff. Stick with alternating between Square and Square-Square-Tech for Shion and KOS-MOS. Virgil doesn't have ether attacks or Techs, so just normal attacks for him. Heal when necessary. Quite easy. Again, kill it on the 'bonus pts' round for more pts. *End Boss* [Story Skip] NOTE: Now that you have your first A.G.W.S., check it out. Change the equipment around a bit. Put in SMG99AG in place of your SW021AG for your R-Arm. Also put in the missle pod you got from the soldier's room on the R. Shoulder. There's a room in this area where you can open up a path back to your room. I suggest you go back and save/rest. Note: When Shion has 40 ether pts, have her learn Goodbye. Then set it so you can use it in battle. This is the only way to escape in battle unless you use the escape pack. VERY useful. Also, if you haven't already done so, see if you have enough skill pts to learn Search Eyes from Scope. If you do, then take off Scope from Shion so you can use it later. Now you can go grab some items. If you just want to fight the boss, skip this next paragraph. Head up and follow Shion's old path. Blasting stuffs along the way will net you items. Finally, go in the door with the save point. Blast the glass and get the chest, decoder 18. Now keep going til you see the AGWS hanger door. If you draw the Gnosis it's attention, it will blast open a path for you. Grab the chest. That's it for this optional area. Head back to segment address 18 and open the door for a Coat-Lightning. Equip it on KOS-MOS can be helpful. Now go back to your room to rest and save. Walk downward, fighting(or not) along the way. If you get into a fight with Gremlins, make sure everyone guard the first turn, then have KOS-MOS kill it with R-Cannon the next turn. If you don't kill it in one turn, the Gremlin can counter with a nasty Acid Rain. Exit the screen south for a boss fight. Obviously heal up beforehand. [Story Skip] *Boss: Minotuar, 2 Sky Fish* Get Shion into her A.G.W.S. first turn. KOS-MOS should alternate between triangle(or guard, depends on the situation) and triangle/triangle/R-Cannon. Have her use items to heal when necessary. Shion can use the Circle attack to damage all enemies, but she can only use it once. Afterwards, have Shion alternate between Guard, which builds up 2 AP, and W-Act which requires the full 6 AP. This is better than attacking twice because you gain the advantage of being in Guard position for one turn. You can decide whether to take out both Sky Fishes first or not. Take out at least one. If you take out both, Minotuar will use a powerful Gravity Pulse. But he'll use it anyway at low HP. I'd take out just one because it doesn't do much damage anyway. Not tough, but you may get unlucky with critical hits and such that you can lose. The Coat-Lightning can be pretty handy for KOS-MOS here. Once again, try to kill it during point bonus slot. *End Boss* [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.4 Pleroma =============================================================================== After that long break, you'll control Zigguarat. Follow the path and his invisibility suit will malfunction. Too bad. :( Note: With only one character, it's quite easy to mess up and die. So if you're ever in trouble, use the escape pack. I suggest you avoid battles until you get MOMO. If you do fight, have Ziggy guard one turn and use his circle attack the next. There are some some nifty stuffs in this area. First get to the 2nd room of patrols. At the left wall in the 2nd room are some things you can vaporize. The top one leads to segment adress 4 and a snake hunter. Equip this ASAP, as the enemies here can poison you. On the right-middle portion of the 2nd room is another vaporizing target. You'll get decoder 11. Then exit to the right. To get past the A.G.W.S., simply operate the crane. Don't try to fight it unless you have a death wish. The next screen is where MOMO is. You'll now need to find the master key. Go down stairs and then exit at the bottom-right. On the next screen are 6 boxes. Unless you want a fight, don't break the bottom-left box. The others have nice goodies. Enter the control room on the right. Heal up for your next fight. *Mini-boss: Gardis M1* Use ether attacks(triangle) and Techs. It will summon some Gardis F10 after you hit it, but just ignore them. Heal when necessay. Easy battle unless you started with too little HP(like I did once, oops...). *End Mini-Boss* Get the key and save MOMO. Now have Ziggy learn Bodyguard(ether spell) and set it so he can use it in battle. If you don't have the pts, then learn it when you can. Put MOMO right behind him. Give MOMO the Scope so you can see enemy's HP. NOTE: Remember the AGWS Ziggy distracted earlier? If you want, you can go back now and try to kick its ass. It's a pretty long battle, but not too hard. Ziggy should use Bodyguard and then just start whacking with physical attacks. The reward is decoder 4, which will open the door you past by earlier. While you can't get it right now, you'll pass by that place later to get it. The Thief Ring in the door(rare item acquisition +10%) isn't too important. So you can come back later with powerful characters for a much easier battle. Up to you... Ok. There's a save point here. Save and head back to the control room where Ziggy got the Master Key. Push the switch and enter the newly opened door. Head down the ladder. Keep moving left fast if you don't want battles. There is a door in the middle of the screen here. Go in for some nice goodies and return to the previous room. Keep going left and exit up the ladder. But heal up before you do. *Boss: Zolfo, 2 Mercurio* This battle isn't hard, but a bit long. Take out the Mercurios first(go for the one that's not blocking). Ziggy can use bodyguard if you want, but ether attacks(which does not rely on strength) seems to work better. So it's not really too helpful. I'd just stick to triangle attacks and techs. You can have MOMO try to cast Sheep Beam on a Mercurio. This way, Zolfo will 'wake' him up by blasting him. LOL! (Thanks Paladin2ez for this info). *End Boss* Exit north and save. An optional boss is coming up next. If you want to go for it, do the following. I suggest you try beating him, as the reward is quite good. 1. Have Ziggy learn and activate Bodyguard if he has not done so. 2. Put MOMO directly behind Ziggy if not done so. 3. Upgrade Ziggy's techs. If you have 200+ tech pts, upgrade Cyber Kick's speed to hi. So you can use it every turn. Otherwise, just just upgrade the wait. 4. Use a Bio Sphere to heal up. If you don't want to fight it, don't bother doing anything. Go up to the next room, and you'll find yourself in the patrol area. If you have decoder 4, get the item right now. Then exit left. *Optional Boss: Margulis* HP: 820 Rare Item: Purple Ring Item: Red Ring There are two ways to go through this battle. One is to simply die. To beat it, simply have Ziggy use Bodyguard first turn, and recast when needed. Then alternate between Guard and a tech. Keep in mind that Ziggy's techs are both elemental. Cyber Kick is fire based, while Lightning Fist is lightning based. So if he's set to absorb one type, use the other. Otherwise, use Square-Triangle-Cyber Kick. It seems to deal the most damage for me. You can speed things up by using the Speed Stim on Ziggy. Anyway, a long fight. But not difficult if you're prepared. MAKE SURE you kill it while on pt bonus. He gives out tons of pts. Either way, the story will continue. *End Boss* [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.5 Elsa =============================================================================== After gaining control of Shion, you can explore the Elsa. First exit through the bottom-left door into the dining hall. Talk to the robot for a card passport. Now exit north. Go downstairs and into the door in front of you. Press circle around the couch on the left side of the room to find the Disarm Key. Now exit this room. When you're ready, Take the elevator on the left side of the main cabin down to B1. This part of the ship is pretty confusing. I suggest you explore around. There are lots of goodies around. If you have the Disarm Key, you can use it at a terminal down here and grab more goodies, including decoder 10. Eventually, you'll get to a room with a save point and chaos. From here, go down to the hanger. A robot here will sell you AGWS stuffs. If you want to keep fighting with AGWS, then upgrade the frame and the generator. Make sure you have at least 1000G left, though. If you prefer fighting as humans, then don't buy anything. When you're done, take the left lift up. Enter the door. [Story Skip] Afterwards, the captain wants you at the bridge. In the hanger, Tony's looking for the Hazardous Area Map. You can help him out if you want, but you don't have to. Now go the bridge(the map's not in the hanger). NOTE: The save point by the bridge is now an EVS save point. EVS save points allow you to access older dungeons(through the UMN) and mini-games(click on the respective passport). Right now, you can go back to KOS-MOS simulator, Woglinde, and the Plemora. You can also play cards(card passport), AGWS mini-game(battle passport), and drilling(drilling passport). Only the drilling game will get you items useful to the main game. But it's quite costly right now at 200G a game. After the scene, talk to Matthews again. He'll fork over the Map. Now go right towards the save point after exiting the bridge for another investment Email. Reply and invest in Venture(first choice). If you have it, give the map to Tony for a Med Kit DX. To get to the catapult, return to the screen above the B2 save point. Keep going north until you get to the door. Don't go through the door, but turn left instead. To proceed with the story, simply press the switch at the very end of the huge catapult room. Note that there's a segment address(#14) here as well as a fiber suit. Equip the suit on Shion since it's better than the uniform she has on. After you've checked the equipments, you'll get an Email about the hacker. Reply with the 3rd choice, "Cargo Ship Seems Suspicious". Now return to the bridge. [Story Skip] Ok, now chaos and KOS-MOS joins your party. chaos comes with another AGWS, which is very nice. Now go to the shop and buy some equipments for KOS-MOS. Shion and chaos don't really need any, since they have AGWS to hide in. But also buy stuffs for them if you want them to fight as humans. Also, this is a nice time to open up those segment doors. The disarm key should've gotten you decoder 10, which you can use to unlock segment door 10 in the KOS-MOS Simulator. Segment door #18 and #4 are both available if you haven't gotten them yet. Go down to B1. Some crates are reloaded with items, so it pays to blast them again. Make your way towards the hanger. On the way, you'll switch to Ziggy and MOMO. Eventually, your two teams will meet. And you'll get to switch party members. Pick whoever you like. I recommend Shion, KOS-MOS, and either chaos or MOMO. Use MOMO if you're into getting the rare stuffs in the game, as she's the only character who can get some of these. Otherwise, chaos is more useful. If Shion and KOS-MOS have enough tech pts, upgrade the speed of Spell Ray and R-Cannon, respectively. Set them into the 'hi' slot tech. Make sure both of your AGWSs are with active party members. Now head down. Save at the save point. If you want more items, exit right and grab some stuff. When you're done, return to this room and keep going down. On the screen below the hanger is the boss. There's a Coat-Beam at the bottom of the screen here if haven't gotten it yet. Equip it on someone(who's not going to ride in a AGWS) to lessen the beam rifle damage of the boss(Thanks to MasterChief for pointing out this item). *Boss: DOMO Carrier* HP: 1800 Weakness: Lightning Rare Item: Item: Anti-Beam Armor If you've upgraded your VX-10000. Immediately have the two characters with AGWSs go into them. AGWSs should use the Guard/W-Act continuously. The 3rd character(KOS-MOS for me) should just stick to ether attack/techs, and heal with items. Not a hard fight. It all depends on the event slots. If you want to fight as humans, STILL have one person enter the AGWS. If you didn't upgrade the VX-10000, use the VX-7000. There's a good reason for this. If the DOMO Carrier's turn comes up during its predetermined slot, then it will use tremor. And this can easily happen every turn, as it has a similar agility to your characters. However, you can mess up the timing by entering a AGWS, which is slower than regular characters. As long as DOMO carrier doesn't use tremor, his attacks are easy to deal with. Oh, and be sure you save up the boost til near the end, because he will heal himself at critical health. Actually, sometimes he just self-destructs instead. Anyway... *End Boss* [Story Skip] You'll now get to show Ziggy and MOMO around the ship. First, take them to the B2 Save point. Walking in the northern part of that room should trigger an Email for 4000G. Now go to the catapult to trigger another Email. Invest in Vector(3rd choice) for best results. That's all for now. You can end the tour by going to Cabin 2(where you found the disarm key) and taking a nap. [Story Skip] You'll now control Jr. The robots are easy. [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.6 U-TIC Battleship =============================================================================== Once you gain control of Jr, save your game and enter the battleship. Make sure you destroy the generators to take out the lasers. If you don't, you'll trigger a fight. Note that there are two vaporizable objects by the locked door No. 4. The one to the left is a soldier. So don't blow it up. If you want exp, this is not the place to get them, since the exp will be divided 3 ways and Jr is the only one who needs it. Anyway, follow the path to the control area after you take out the laser beams. Flip the switch. Enter the newly opened up area. Follow the path to the room which opens door #4. Go through it. The door to your left here opens up door #3. But you'll need a key first. The other room's a save point. Keep going right into the next area. The first two doors here are guarded by alarms. So destroy the alarms first(all vaporizable objects) before going in. The 1st door is pointless. The 2nd door has segment address 11, which you can open. It's a Coat-Ice. The 3rd door is locked. So ignore it for now. Keep following the path into the next room. Open up door #5 in the control room here. Then exit south. Here, you can go down stairs and destroy some crates. But make sure you don't blast the right-most one, as it will alarm a soldier. When you're done, exit to the south. The door to your right has the U-TIC card, which opens that locked door. The door at the end of the corridor has the important Card No. 3. Now go back to that locked door and get the decoder 16 from the chest. Exit to the screen with locked door #3. Use the card to open it up. Then save your game in the other room. Follow the newly opened path to a scene and a boss fight. NOTE: For the people who are doing the decoder side quest, MAKE SURE you get decoder 16 right now. There's a bug that will prevent you from getting it later on. *Boss: Ambix* HP: 1200 Weakness: ???? Probably Lightning Rare Item: Item: First get Jr into his AGWS asap. Then just have everyone Guard/W-Act. This is a battle where if you can actually kill off your comrades, it would be useful. Too bad, since only Jr. will use the pts. *End Boss* [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.7 Dock Colony =============================================================================== If you want, you can open Door #16. Go back to the Woglinde for this segment address. I suggest you do so, since the Stim DX is pretty useful. When you gain control of Shion, go get Ziggy in the B2 save point room. Then exit the Elsa by going left in before the bridge. Now go into the AGWS shop 'Talk to Me'. There's a kid here name Tom that you'll need to talk to for another decoder. There's also another segment door in the basement area(#2). But you won't be getting this one for a loooong time, unfortunately. :( Also, you can get better equipments here.If you haven't been fighting much, you probably can't afford everything. Anyway, the priority is human accessories and weapons first, then AGWS frames, then other AGWS stuffs. The next dungeon is fairly good for leveling up, so get some Bio Spheres if you're the leveling-up type. Also, you can probably skip the AGWS upgrade if you're going to level up. But it never hurts to have back-up. The next boss is one of the more difficult ones in the game. Also, buy Ziggy his weapon. It's his only other weapon in the game for those who want EVERYTHING. And you seemingly cannot get it later. It's not great. but it's RARE. So it must be valuable, right? When you're done, exit the shop and walk south. Hammer will tell you to follow him. Do so. [Story Skip] Once you gain control of Shion again, go to the bridge. You'll receive an Email containing the F-BSHOT on the way(if you've made the right investment). Download it so KOS-MOS can use it. You can now fight Ace-Pilot Meld Gareth now on the U-TIC battleship. He's located in the room with Segment Address #5. He's a good source for all sort of points, but you'll need some pretty powerful characters/AGWS to beat him. Talk to Matthews to proceed with the story. But make sure you're ready. [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.8 Cathedral Ship =============================================================================== Note: Once you have enough tech points, upgrade the speed of one tech for each member of your party. Also invest in Wait too. Power level isn't a big deal. I personally would suggest Spell Ray, R-Drill(or save your tech pts if you already have R-Cannon on hi speed), Floral Tempest, Lunar Seal, and Cyber Kick. Ok, when you're ready, start exploring. The first screen is pretty straightforward. You'll find a nice hat(Nightwalker) along the way so equip it. Eventually you'll exit to the right. The Cerberus enemies along the way are weak to ether. On the next screen, there are Faries, which are strong against ether, so stick to physical attacks. They have low HP, so it's not too big a deal. There's a Coat-Fire along the way that's kind of useful in this place. Exit to the right. On the next screen, there are three paths. You can blow open the door to some items. The Revive DX is worth the trouble of the extra enemy. After that, climb back down the ladder and head down. Blow away the crates. Now return to the intersection and head up. Follow the path to the elevator. Ride it down and exit to the right. More branches on the next screen. First head upstairs. If MOMO's not leading the way, make her the lead. If she is, the bookcase at the top of the stairs should shine. Examine it to get some stuffs for her. Note on MOMO's new stuffs: Magic Caster should be MOMO's first far range tech, unless she has very high levels. Equip it. Also equip Star Wind in her Ether section. In battle, you can have MOMO steal items by first transform, then use Magic Caster tech. She will ALWAYS steal the rare item listed in the enemy's item data. Quite useful in boss fights. Switch back to your main party if MOMO's not in it. Keep going and you'll get to blow up a bridge. Go back down now. If you go across the newly-made bridge, you'll get into a semi-difficult fight and a Tuned Circuit(AGWS Agility +1). You should do this either now or later. Depends on you. The Tuned Circuit is very useful. Oh, and eqiuping a Coat-Fire is useful. *Optional Mini Boss: Svarozic* HP: 1500 Weakness: Ice Item: Tech Upgrade S Rare Item: Tech Upgrade Z Not too difficult, as his attacks don't do too much. You can let the weaker characters guard/heal at all times, so it won't use it's counter often. Also, don't use ether attacks. If you are using MOMO, have her nab the Tech Upgrade Z by transforming and using the Magic Caster. If KOS-MOS is in it, use the Down Force ether. *End Boss* After you're done, take the only remaining path and follow it to the exit. The next screen is linear. Follow the path to the save point(heal up and save) and enter the building. Another mini-boss here. Have your weakest character equip the Coat-Lightning. *Mini Boss: Perun* HP: 1500 Weak: Slash Item: Ether Upgrade S Rare Item: Ether Upgrade Z Don't use ether attacks/techs. It seems to absorb beam(absorbed my Spell Ray). Not too difficult, since you can go all out on him(there's a save point nearby, remember?). If MOMO's in your party, have her transform and use Magic Caster. You'll nab an Ether Upgrade Z. If KOS-MOS is in it, use Down Force ether. *End boss* Now head upstairs. Another optional fight here for decoder 15. But this one's a lot easier, as long as you don't attack the ones blocking. There's also a Flower Seed here. Pick it up. Now keep going into the next screen. Here, take the U-shaped path to the next screen. When you get to the elevator, you can choose to go down. This leads to some nice items and segment address 13. It's optional. Do note that the enemy in there, the unicorn, is pretty difficult. But gives very good exp. If you fight, consider saving the killing blow until the point bonus appears. The path south lead deeper into the ship. The path branches off in this next place. Go left and up if you want to quickly exit the screen. Go right and down(and take the long route to the exit) if you want items. There's another guarded chest with decoder 9 on the way. Fight it if you want. Equiping Coat-Ice is helpful. *Optional Boss: Stribog* HP: 1500 Weakness: Fire Rare Item: Skill Upgrade Z Item: Skill Upgrade S Anyway, you should know what to do by now. Again, have MOMO do some stealing if she's in the party. *End Boss* Head up for a scene. Then enter the building. There's a chest on the top-left of the screen. The exit's top-right. Save in the next room and blast the stuffs by the elevator. The red holdings should disappear. Exit to the top-left. There are stairs at the top-left and top-right at the next screen. Take the hidden chest in the bottom-right cubicle(forgot the reader who sent me this info, if you want credit, e-mail me again). Take the top-right one first. Flip the switch and blast the side of the elevator. Return to the previous screen and go up the other set of stairs. Again, blast the side of the elevator. Take the ladder up and blast the 3rd floor elevator sides. This should activate the elevator. There's a door on the right side here that leads to segment address 9. You should be able to open it if you've bothered to collect the decoder earlier. Ok. Now go back all the way to the save point. Heal up your characters(and AGWSs if needed) and save. A tough boss is coming up. Have KOS-MOS learn Down Force if she hasn't already. It's useful here. Shion NEEDS to learn Medica All if not already done so. Use ether upgrades if you need points. Then, put Shion in the back row. Put the other two characters in the front. If you don't like to use MOMO, try to have Shion learn Queen's Kiss. You'll want to steal from the next boss. However, it takes A LOT OF ether pts to learn Queen's Kiss. So you really should just go ahead and use MOMO. Turn her Magic Caster to hi speed if you can. When you're ready, take the elevator down. The enemies in the next area go clockwise. So just follow them clockwise and you'll reach another elevator with no encounters. Take the elevator down. Once you're down there, hit the switch at the end of the path to open up the door to a scene, and a boss fight. *Boss: Gargoyle, 2 Oudogogue* Gargoyle HP 3600 Weakness: Lightning Rare Item: Commander's Crest Item: Silver Crown Oudogogue HP: 1000 Weakness: Slash Rare Item: Frame Repair Z Item: Frame Repair A Tough battle. First the attacks. The 2 Oudogogue's will use Hell's Flash(around 50-120 to everyone depending on your luck) every round. The Gargoyle will use a physical attack, what seems to be a fire attack, and a ether-block attack. If you attack the Gargoyle before killing the right Oudogogue, it will heal the Gargoyle. So no matter what, kill the right one first. Unfortunately, this boss attacks hard and fast enough so that you can't just out-last them in your AGWSs. KOS-MOS should use Down Force on the Gargoyle first thing. Basically, Shion should heal while KOS-MOS, chaos or Ziggy attacks. MOMO should steal the Commander's Crest. If her Magic Caster is set on Hi, then also steal the Silver Crown. This will guarantee that you get both items. Otherwise, there's a slight chance that he won't drop the Silver Crown if you just steal the Commander's Crest. The Gargoyle's strength increases every time an Oudogogue dies. If you kill both then his attacks become quite strong. This is more of a problem if you're not using AGWS. If so, only take out the right Oudogogue. Shion's Medica All should be more than enough to counter the other's Hell's Flash. If you have upgraded AGWS, you can consider killing off both Oudogogues. Then simply enter your AGWS and let the extra HP/Defense take over. KOS-MOS might die, but that doesn't matter too much. Remember, pts are shared, so you don't really lose anything with a character dying. Finally, if you can't beat him, then level up. I know this goes w/o saying, but sometimes you may get frustrated and forget. ;) *End Boss* [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.9 Durandal =============================================================================== When you gain control of Shion, you'll need to find MOMO. She's in the Park. But before you do so, take a detour first. First go to the residential section. In the room with the save point, there's a chest with a casino passport. This is the key to tons of $$$$$. Now go to the save point and save. Then enter the casino by pressing circle next to the casino passport(in the item section). You'll want 6000G asap. as well as the Stim DX and the Bravesoul. So play enough poker/slots for these things(check the Casino section for playing and item exchange). You can sell stuffs at another room in the residential area. When you have have at least 6000G, go to the hanger. Walk right and you'll eventually trigger another investment Email. Respond with the first choice, Shijima, for 72,000G. However, if you somehow missed the FB-Shot earlier, invest in Alchemia to get it. FB-Shot, although unique, isn't really all that good. And investing in Alchemia will only get you 24,000. Of course, you can skip this Email if you made it big in slots. If you have coins in the millions, there's literally no more need for making more money for the rest of the game. 500,000G will more than cover EVERYTHING, even if you are feeling extra extravagrant. Now go to the park. [Story Skip] When that's done, go back to the residential area and sleep in your room. Your room is to the left of the entrance. On the way, you should've gotten your dividents from your investments. :) [Story Skip] Go to the dock and take the escalator up. Talk to Jr to get your party together. Then take the shuttle to the Kukai Foundation. NOTE: From this point on, you can fight the optional boss Great Joe. It's listed in section 2.31 of this walkthrough. Fighting it now can be quite hard if you haven't been severely leveling up. [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.10 Kukai Foundation(Part 1) =============================================================================== Note: From this point on, you can go to the Dock Colony by speaking to Captain Matthews. The Elsa is at the Durandal dock. Dock Colony has a different set of weapons at its AGWS shop, as well as selling new AGWS. Right now, their only AGWS for sale isn't really better than your given ones. But later there will be some good ones available. Also, if you have the flower seed, give it to Luty in the Dock Colony Clinic. It leads to a Tech Upgrade Z later. Thanks to Nick for this info. When you try to leave the beach, you'll get an e-mail from the hacker's sister. The correct response is Durandal, choice 2. Now leave and you can explore the Kukai foundatation. First go to the AGWS shop. If you feel like continuing to use AGWS, then upgrade everything. Buy Guard Cleaner/Recovery for all AGWS and equip them. They're very useful to use in conjunction with W-Act. Feel free to skip all this stuff if prefer to fight as humans. AGWS in general become less useful as you level up. When you're done buying stuffs(or not), go down the left stairs to see the professor. You'll find out what all this robot parts stuffs are all about. There's also a machine on the right side of the AGWS shop that lets you play a game. The prize is PM Card C. The answers, after lots of trial and error, are (1)Talk to Me, (2)Professor, (3)Smelly T-Shirt, (4)Holgar, and (5)Luty. Now go to sector 26/27. First enter the bar and talk to the girl at the left table. You can try to get her engagement ring. Now go to the next building, which is the hotel. Speak to the girl there to sleep. When you're done, exit the hotel and go left. In the next area, go up the stairs and enter 'East 6'. There's a Pink Bug in one of the crates in the back. Don't destroy it. If you've talked to Tom earlier in Dock Colony, it will tell you some stories a while. If you haven't, you can still go talk to Tom right now by going to Dock Colony via the Elsa. When given a choice, pick the 'Great Story' and he'll tell you where to find decoder 1. Now exit back out to the street. Go to the left side of this screen and up the stairs, then into the dry cleaning shop. In here, go up the first stairs you see. Examine the clothes hanging on the wall for a fish detector. Segment door 3 is also in this room. And, if you're a card player, check on the machines for PM Card B. When you're done, exit the city to the RIGHT, not left, because you'll want to see that nice looking picture the pink bug took. :P Now you can go to the beach and get the engagement ring. Give it to the lady for decoder 8. When you're done, go to Durandal through the Launch Pad. If you want decoder 1, go to the park right now. It's on the right side, sparkling among some plants. The Elsa is in the Dock of the Durandal. Talk to Allen when you're ready. [Story Skip] You'll gain control of the party again after Super chaos(how else do you explain his sudden invincibility?) takes care of the guards. Go up and right, into the room with your equipments. Also take this time to upgrade everyone's equipments, if you haven't done so already. I would recommend upgrades for EVERYONE, yes, even people you don't normally use. Money should not be a factor now that you have the Casino. Now pick your party. Give someone with good physical attacks/techs(Jr, chaos, and later KOS-MOS are all good candidates) the Bravesoul. This person will deal very heavy damage at low HP. Quite useful. But make sure you stick to physical attacks. Ether attacks do not benefit from this. Also, have Shion teach MOMO the Goodbye spell. Jr. in particular can kick major a$$ with the Bravesoul, because he has Attack-all physical techs. You may consider waiting for Angelic Requiem(lv30) or just go ahead and level up Storm Waltz now. Then you can watch Jr. dispatch all enemies in one turn. Your goal is the Elsa. But first stop by your room. Bust open the closet that the robot had covered earlier for the Armory Key. Leave and ride the train to the hanger. There's a locked door here that you can open with the armory key. Grab the decoder 5 among other things. Now go to the dock. You can't go in the normal way, so take the stairs at the bottom of the screen. Follow the path to the 'back door'. Now you need to get to the KOS-MOS maintenance room. In case you forgot, take the left elevator up from the Elsa Hanger to get there. [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.11 Encephalon =============================================================================== You'll be in control of Jr/MOMO/Ziggy. Avoid the search lights if you don't want to fight. I personally think the enemies here are not worth fighting against, but if your default party is Jr/MOMO/Ziggy, then you should fight if you're powerful. They give great pts. It's just that it's kind of wasted since you have no reserve characters. And it's really not good 'bang for the buck' if you haven't been using some of the characters in this party. Now follow the linear path, blowing up junk and taking items along the way. Eventually you'll exit south. [Story Skip] Take control of Shion/chaos. Note the little purple cave-like thing at the bottom of the screen. Later, you can get a kid to lead your party inside for PM Card A. But don't bother unless you play card. Go north. Save and proceed. Avoid the green mark on the radar if you don't want to fight. On the next screen, follow the zigzag path. The same advice on fighting applies here. Do so only if you're up to it. There's a chest along the way for PM Card F. Get it if you want. Eventually, you'll see a manhole. Go past it to a lady. Talk to her if you want a fight. Or simply go past her to blow up a new path. Note: The lady turns into a Larva Doll. This enemy will absorb ALL attacks, but takes damage from healing. So you need to use healing ether/items to kill it. Keep this in mind because you'll see a lot more Larva Dolls later in the game. This 2nd manhole takes you to where you started... sort of. Anyway, trigger the buttons so you can get the Guard Cleaner here. The guarded door is segment address 5. You should be able to open it for the Double Buster. Note: The Double Buster can be a very useful item. It allows your character to do something similar to 'W-Act'. Simply have your character guard for one round and do a double tech the next. If you have the Commander's Crest equipped with this item, then you can use 2 techs every two turns! Combined with Bravesoul, and we're talking about some very quick boss fights. However, you'll need to have the tech in both the low and the hi slot for it to work. Suppose you want to use X-Buster twice. Simply set it for Triangle slot and Triangle-Triangle slot. If you want to save, do so now. Then return to the first manhole which you skipped. Go down to the sewers. Note that the enemies here are quite tough. If you have trouble use your AGWS. Both chaos and Shion's gears should have a tuned circuit, anti-beam circuit and guard recovery. Both needs long range weapons, hopefully with W-Act. Of course, you could just continously escape with Goodbye... It's up to you. And if you are against Larva Dolls, you simply need to heal them. First go to the right and press a switch. When you're done, exit by going down, right, then up. [Story Skip] Gaining control of Jr now. Switch back the AGWS to Jr/MOMO if you want. Enter the shop left for a Rejuvenator. No other items on this screen, so exit to the bottom-left. On this next screen, go into the door in the middle. You can't see inside, but search around for segment address 15. It's an useful angel ring. Now save at the save point, and choose between the two stairs. The upper stairs is a dead end with some unspectacular items. The bottom stairs is where you need to go. On the next screen, exit through the big middle hole at the top of the screen when you're done wandering around. The next part can be a bit hard to navigate. If you want to just go on with the game, blast a door open when you get on your first broken subway. Follow the newly opened path to the exit. If you want an item, then take the right path first. Doing this will net you a Venom Block. I know of only one battle where this could be useful, and that's against Mintia(an optional boss) later on. Now you're in the same sewer Shion went through. Follow the linear path and climb up the ladder. Pick up the decoder 12 along the way. [Story Skip] Gaining control of Shion now. On this screen, there's a hidden path near the first enemy(Basilisk) here. It leads to PM Card D. Go right and exit. On the next screen there will be a branch. The right path leads to the exit. The left leads to a rare blue topaz. Could be useful in some battles. The next screen has a 3-way intersection. The top road leads to the exit. If you want decoder 3, go left instead. At the end of this path are some carrot juices. Now go back to the intersection and go right. Put the juice on the table and wait for the bunnie to appear. When the game let you, run immediately to it's house. There you'll find decoder 3. If he gets back before you, then you need to try again. Nothing more to do here, so exit. [Story Skip] Go right and enter the church. [Story Skip] Save your game. If you're fighting in AGWS. Make sure Shion and Jr both have one along with your 3rd member. Make sure every AGWS can W-Act, and also has the Guard Recovery/Guard Cleaner. If necessary, heal your AGWS. If you're fighting as humans, then you MUST have Shion's Boost 1. If she has extra ether pts, teach it other party members. Commander's Crest, Double Buster and Bravesoul makes for a very cheap combo on Jr. Put Shion behind him so you can trigger Dandyism. There's a rare item here you can steal. If you want to get it, have Jr. or Shion learn their respective ethers. Otherwise, stick MOMO in here for her Magic Caster. *Boss: Tiamat* HP: 6400 Weakness: Beam Rare Item: Revenge Power Item: B-MAX-Circuit Note that this enemy's attack depends on whose turn it's after. The only big worry is if he goes after Shion's turn. This can cause him to use the Ruined Earth attack, dealing big damage to everyone. So boost can be very helpful in this regards. If you're fighting with AGWS, have everyone enter them once you're done mugging. From there on it's just Guard/W-Act. As humans, just have Shion support and Jr. attack. The 3rd person doing whatever's needed. Shouldn't be too tough with Bravesoul and low HP for Jr. If Shion has Safety Lock, use it to prolong Jr.'s life at low HP. However, make sure either Shion or Jr. deliver the finishing blow. This is cause it to heal for 1500. Now have the other person deal the finishing blow. Only when both Shion and Jr have delivered the final blow will the boss be defeated. Otherwise, it will keep healing itself. *End Boss* [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.12 Kukai Foundation(Part 2) =============================================================================== You can now open segment door 3 and 8. Both contain robot parts which you can take to the professor. In return you'll get 2 new ethers for Shion. Also repair you AGWS here. You can also return to the Encephalon with the EVS. In the back room of the church, where you fought the boss, is a Star Hat(thanks to Jason for pointing this out). Also, the first portion of the dungeon(with the search lights) is very good for getting money/pts in general. It's a good source because it's fairly easy. If you have some good techs, the battle can be over in less than a minute. So fight a bit if you want to beef up. When ready, go to the bar in section 26/27 and talk to Allen. [Story Skip] Now you'll need to get to the city. So exit the bridge and head over to sector 26/27. When you get in, the mayor will ask you to save 13 people. If you don't have too many Med Kit S, buy a bunch from him. You'll need them against Larva Dolls here. Put Jr in your party if you haven't been using him. You'll want to build up his tech pts for a future fight. NOTE: Another optional boss becomes available now, Mintia. Check the section 2.32 for details. Doing this allows you to obtain the Dark Scepter for MOMO and start turning Gnosis into items. There seems to be some unique Gnosis in this area(unlike other dungeons, you cannot return here with the EVS later), so you may consider doing some dark sceptering before moving on. If Mintia keeps kicking your butt, you can do this later. Ok, back to walking you through the place... First head over to the hotel and save your game. Then head left and kill the monster here. Use AGWS if your characters can't handle the monsters. Input 1028 as the pin# and save little girl #1. There's a chest with a swimsuit here. It's quite useful if you fight in AGWS a lot. And if you're a guy and a Shion fan, you should definitely have Shion put it on for at least one battle. Now head up the stairs and exit right. Press the switch and return to the previous room. Now go up the ladder and exit south. The roof is slippery, so walk by pressing the stick in the NW or NE direction, depending on where you want to go. If you have decoder 1, go right and open the segment address 1. Then return to this same spot and head left, exit the screen to the left. You'll find decoder 13 at the end of this path. Now return to the previous screen and slide down just to the left of the green symbol on the radar. This will get you into the trash area. Here you'll find person #2. Now head to the bar. Find the green dot on the right for guy #3. The top-left corner of this room has a lot crates that you can destroy. One contains guy #4. Take the Wooden Idol in the nearby chest and leave the bar. Head all the way left to the next screen. You're done in this sector. Go up to the statue and kill the monster. Destroy the statue to save old guy #5. Then head all the way left and up the stairs, into the dry-cleaning shop. Talk to the lady here, gal #6. Go up the stairs in the back of the room, and exit south. Follow the path into the next room. The path here is quite linear. You'll eventually end up outside again. Go left down the slope and push the button. This will allow you to go to the middle room. Now take the ladder up and enter the middle door. Take care of the monster to save guy #7. Don't follow his advice on the shortcut. Go back out the way you came in. Now head all the way right. Ignore the door at the end for now and go down the stairs. Enter East 6 and kill the monster. Blow up the crate and talk to the lady for gal #8 and guy #9. Go back out and up the stairs, into the door here. The King here is guy #10. Now take the top-left exit. Keep going until you're back at the cleaners. Kill the monster to save part-timer #11. Return to the room where you saved the King. There's a switch here guarded by a Larva Doll. Smack it and press the switch to open a new path. Exit through this new path. On this next screen, talk to the cat to save cat #12(what the heck is this about???????). Anyway... continue on outside and head right. Bust open the wall to save last little girl #13. Phew. That's everyone. Now go back to the hotel to save and heal up. This includes your AGWS if you're still using them. Now try to exit the town for a boss fight. Preparations should be similar as the Tiamat fight. Also, have Jr. learn Misty if he has not done so. Alternatively, AGWS seems to work fairly well in this battle. Equip Guard Recovery, Guard Status, and Tuned Circuit(for 2 at least). For weapons, just put on the ones with the most power boost. *Boss: 2 Gigas* Left Gigas HP: 2800 Weakness: Spirit Rare Item: Soul Item: Spirit Right Gigas HP: 2800 Weakness: Slash Rare Item: Soul Item: Spirit Soul and Spirit are rare items. So mug them if you're into collecting. You start off fighting one Gigas. On the first turn, it will split into 2 of them. If you get in your turns before the boss splits, don't bother attacking, as it will heal up with the split. Also, if you kill one of them, the other Gigas gains major status boosts and will use much more annoying attacks. If you use the AGWS, just stick to Guard/W-Act. Kill the one on the left(it seems to be more resistant to physical attacks) before the right. But preferably around the same time. This battle a breeze by using Jr.'s Misty. Down Force on the left Gigas is also helpful if you're using KOS-MOS. Like in AGWS, try killing both around the same time. Support using Boost 1 and Heal with Medica All. Safety Lock and Dandyism again helps. If you finish off the Gigas with MOMO's Dark Scepter, you get a diamond from each. Nothing special, but you might want it for selling if you don't like the Casino. Thanks to Wiqd for doing this. *End Boss* Exit the town and go to the Launch Pad. [Story Skip] Try to leave the dock and Shion will be worried about MOMO. So head back to the Launch Pad. MOMO's not here. Try to leave the screen and Shion will want to go back. Now head back to the dock again and go to the residential area. [Story Skip] You can now get new equipments and AGWS stuffs. Do so before leaving for the Song of Nephilim. If you enjoy fighting in AGWS(or aren't powerful enough to fight as humans), do some upgrading. Dock Colony now sells a new AGWS for 80,000G. The new AG-04 is better than your current ones, but not THAT much better. If you feel like paying, grab it. But the real prize is the gear they sell after you've cleared the Song of Nephilim, AG-05. You'll need a whooping 300,000G for it(but you'll get 200,000 for the Hacker Email sidequest later). If you don't like the casino much, save your money now and buy the AG-05 later. Also, get some good weapons for AGWS. Make sure all AGWS has a pair of longe range that can W-Act, a pair of close range weapons(which tend to be more powerful and more accurate) that can W-Act, and a pair of flame launchers(optional). Also get 3 Engine Shields. Of course, just ignore the above if you think AGWS sucks(meaning you have good levels). Notw: you'll be stuck at the Song of Nephilim once you go there(although the Elsa has most of what you need). So if you have extra space, put up a back-up save just in case. Anyway, when you're ready, tell Matthews you want to go to the Song of Nephilim. [Story Skip] =============================================================================== 1.13 Song of Nephilim =============================================================================== Exit the ship and go left. [Story Skip] MOMO now rejoins your party. NOTE: There are some very hard enemies here. Some arguably harder than the ones in the final dungeon. But the pts they give aren't that special. If you want to level up, this is not the place. You can go back to the Encephalon or fight Ace Pilot/Meld Gareth(in the U-TIC Battleship) for this purpose. It's much easier to fight here once you get the Speed Shoes later, so you can get in the first turns. Back to the walkthrough... You'll enter a room with lots of crates and a button in the middle. Each crate has a different size, but is made up of 'cubes'. Each crate contains between 1 and 4 'cubes'. Destroying different number of 'cubes' will result in the elevator taking you to different floors. Here's how many 'cubes' you'll need to destroy for each floor. Floor 2: 3 Floor 3: 6 Floor 4: 9 Floor 5: 12 Floor 6: 15 Floor 7: 18 Note that if you destroy any other number of boxes, the elevator won't let you go up. Here's what each floor gets you. Floor 2: Crate with an enemy(you don't get anything good for the fight) Floor 3: Button which opens a path to the 2nd tower and Med Kit DX. Floor 4: Nothing Floor 5: Decoder 14 Floor 6: Path to the 2nd tower(the path to the 3rd tower is blocked right now) and Neo Armor Alpha Floor 7: Crate with an enemy. At the very least, you'll need to go to floor 3 to activate the switch, and then floor 6 to go to the next area. In the 2nd tower, you'll come to an area with a save point. There are many doors you can go through. The lower-left door is to tower 3, but closed off right now. The upper-right door leads to another transformation for MOMO. She needs to be leading the party for you to get it. The upper-middle door leads to a Cross accessory(damage received reduced by 10%). The upper-left path leads to deeper into the tower. Follow the path. When you have to choose between a ladder or right, take the ladder for a seemingly useless Soldier's Honor. Now go back down and continue right. Take the ladder down and continue left. You'll come across a ladder down. Ignore it for now and take the next ladder up. Go into the door here. Before proceeding, check your equipment as you'll get into fight. You'll get decoder 2 for your trouble. Keep going for segment address door 12. It's a W Hammer Rod for MOMO. Return to the ladder I told you to ignore earlier. Climb down. There are three doors here. Go to the middle one first and press the switch. Now go to the right one and blow up the container. Return. Finally, go through the left door and blow up the container. A boss will appear. Unfortunately, he's quite tough against AGWSs. If your levels/techs aren't good, then I suggest you trek all the way back and save. You can certainly kill him with AGWS, but there's a chance that you'll lose. And you don't want to waste all that effort now, do you? Ok. If you want to fight this boss with AGWS, then equip flame launchers on everyone's AGWS. If you want to fight in human form, then the same method used for previous bosses still applies. Again make sure you can steal. Also make sure your main attacker has a healer behind him/her. This boss has a push-back attack. *Boss: Rianon Se* HP: 5600 Weakness: Fire Rare Item: Shield Armor Item: Boost Pack This boss has a physical attack, a status attack that prevents boosting, a 'push back' attack, and an HP absorbing attack. The HP absorbing attack will absorb 1/2 your max HP, and 1/4 max HP if you're guarding. Yes, this includes AGWS! That, plus his high evasion and flying condition, makes a AGWS battle very annoying. Fortunately, he's weak against fire. So flame launchers should deal massive damage. Unfortunately, I did not have them when I played, so I can't tell you the exact effectiveness of them. But unless Shion's Analyze is lying, it should be fine. But still, it's too much of a risk to fight him in AGWS, in my opinion. If you've been utilizing AGWS until now, fighting as humans maybe a challenge. So you should play it safe. Only keep Jr. in the front row. Have him be around 50-60% HP during the fight. This will help out Bravesoul, but will keep him alive should the boss use his HP drain attack. Pile on Boost 1s so he can get in lots of turns. If you have no problems with previous bosses as humans, this one should be no exception. Make sure you steal its items. Both are rare and very useful. *End Boss* Now exit south. Flip the switch outside and take the elevator up. Save your game back at tower 2 and proceed to the last tower. First exit left. Take the ladder down one level. Go left and blast the blocks for a path to a Field Ring(useless). Now go down the ladder once more and again blast the crates to the left. Cross the bridge and up the ladder(the stairs on the bottom is a dead end). Follow the path to another ladder. Go up first and head right. You'll come across some junk that you can blast. Do so. Now jump down from there. Take the decoder 17 and head down. Go back to that last fork and go down the ladder this time. Exit left. Here you'll get to blow up some colorful rings. Blast the Blue rings 3 times, the Red rings 4 times, and the green ring 1 time. Now follow the new path to a switch(push it, duh!) and an elevator back up. There will now be a newly added elevator between tower 1 and 3. But before you head down, go back and save your game. If you're going to use AGWS, then give your AGWS some powerful weapons like LM11VX or HMR55AG. Equip Anti-Beam Armor and Gear Shield. Obviously with Guard Recovery as your 3rd accessory. Also, check to make sure you have 3 Engine Shields. If you're missing these things, go back to the Elsa Hangar and buy them. When you're ready, take that new elevator down. Here you'll have to kick MOMO out of the party if she's in it. Switch to another character if necessary. Note that if you're into stealing, Shion and Jr. both have ethers to do so. So have them learn it if you haven't already. [Story Skip] *Boss: Simeon* HP: 8400 Weakness: None Rare Item: Fast Circuit 25 Item: B-MAX Circuit As AGWS, this is a very simple battle. Guard/W-Act until he croaks. If you've set up your AGWS as I've said, there should be no problems whatsoever. With humans, it's a pretty standard battle. Unless your levels are pathetic, he doesn't attack fast enough or hard enough to be of any trouble. Medica All can provide more than ample healing. Unload your beam attacks after he uses Aird(ahhh... Xenogears nostalgia ^_^). However, either way, you should try to nab his items. His Fast Circuit 25 is useful if you like using AGWS. *End Boss* [Story Skip] If you're going to use AGWS again for the next fight, do the following. Heal your AGWS again. Then MAKE SURE you switch to long range weapons(although preferably not beam type) Equip the Fast Circuit 25 on the AGWS w/o the Tuned Circuit. Now equip the Engine Shield in place of the Gear Shield. And replace Anti-Beam Armor with speed boosting stuffs. If you want to save your game, do so now. If you want MOMO in your party, put her in now. I suggest you do so if you want rare stuff easily. When you're ready, talk to the masked man for another boss fight. *Boss: Ein Rugel/Doppelwogel* Ein Rugel HP: 3600 Weakness: None Rare Item: Master's Pendent Item: None Doppelwogel HP: 4400 Weakness: None Rare Item: Gemini Clock Item: Samurai Heart /In AGWS/ First you fight Ein Rugel. Get into your AGWS. Guard/W-Act should do the trick. He's kind of annoying with his high evade rate and the ability to put you to sleep. But he doesn't deal much damage, so it's not that bad. Have MOMO jump off to nab the Master's Pendent right before you kill him. When you kill him, he'll transform into Doppelwogel. Now have MOMO steal again before jumping back on the AGWS. It helps if you've boosted her earlier. After that, just Guard/W-Act again. If you don't have Engine Shield, though, you better hope for some luck or start fighting as humans. Because Engine stop is a deadly status. /As humans/ Both bosses have pretty low HP. Just equip Jr. with Commander's Crest, Bravesoul, and Double Buster. He should take out both bosses in no time, especially if you have a powerful tech. The other characters should simply support him with Boost 1 and Safety Level. Nab his items. *End Boss* After the scene, exit the room. [Story Skip] Exit the bridge and go to the dock. You can go to Proto Merkabah now, or do some optional stuffs. Here is a list. 1. Some more segment address doors can be opened now. You can also obtain Shion's best Ether, Erde Kaiser at this point. See Side quest section for details. 1A. If you get the Erde Kaiser and haven't beaten Great Joe or Mintia yet, you can try again now. Erde Kaiser = Instant win. But do remember to mug Mintia before killing her, though. 2. You can now buy the AG-05 from the Dock Colony shop. If you haven't been powering up your characters much and relies on AGWSs, then this is pretty much a must-buy. But if you leveled up your characters(both in terms of levels and techs), then you can go ahead and skip this. Anyway, the AG-05 costs 300,000G. You should have at least 200,000G from the hacker thing. Make sure you buy a pair of HGG-AG5 for it. And other weapons if you like, too. Due to its low agility, you'd do well to stack it with speed boosting accessories, like Fast Circuit 25 and Tuned Circuit. 3. If you gave the flower Seed to Luty, visit her again for a Tech Upgrade Z. 4. You can now visit Din Gareth in the U-TIC battleship. If you haven't fought him before, I think the first fight will be Meld Gareth. Then laters ones will be Din Gareth if you're in 0 or 1 AGWS before Ace Pilot croaks. This is a good way to gain exp. After you're done with preparations, talk to Matthews on the Elsa. Chose to leave for Proto Merkabah. =============================================================================== 1.14 Proto Merkabah =============================================================================== If you have been following this guide, most of the items in the final dungeon won't interest you. I mean, why would they when you have much better equipments from segment doors and rare boss items? So I'm going to ignore most items in this final dungeon. Concentrating only on the rare ones. When you're ready, exit the Elsa. Note: The enemies in this first area is fairly easy. And they give tons of exp. If you want sheer experience, stay in this area to beef up your characters. You should be able to kill them quickly. But if you don't mind being cheesy about the Erde Kaiser, enemies later on are better for leveling. But if you don't use the Erde Kaiser, they will be much harder to kill. Take the stairs down if you want some items. Otherwise take the other path. You'll find the exit at the northern end of the corridor. There's a Gnosis Delphyne in a crate. If you use MOMO's Dark Scepter to kill it, you'll get Holey Gloves(literally, with holes ^_^). It's chaos' best weapon. There are a lot of this enemy in the dungeon, so you can keep going if you don't want an extra fight. Follow the path, blow open the crates(beware of the enemy in the big one) and go down the ladder. Now head left. Thre are two yellow switches at the left end of the room here. Push both. Now return to the ladder and head up. Again, you'll see two buttons. Push the right switch and head up conveyer belt. Follow the new path to the next room. Here you'll go up the stairs. Floor 41&42 has only story tidbits. But no items. The only floors you really need to check out are 43(save point) and 44 to continue on. Enter the room on floor 44. There's a nice Dragon Rod for her here. It's her most powerful Rod. The enemies here are stronger than in previous places. So be cautious. As you head down, stop by 43. You can unlock segment door 17 and go back to the save point. Floor 42 will open up a path back on floor 44. Floor 41 has an M Chip Guard, which doesn't seem all that important. Now go back and take the newly opened path. Go left and you'll eventually be asked to jump down. Heal yourself up. Equip the Erde Kaiser if you want to be cheap. If you want to fight cleanly in AGWS, equip Beam Swords for those who can. AG-05 can keep his big gatling guns. As humans, whatever you used previously should work here. If you can choose, equip some beam techs. Although physical techs work with Bravesoul. When you're ready jump down. *Boss: Proto Dora, 2 Schutz* Proto Dora HP: 12000 Weakness: None Rare Item: Fast Circuit 50 Item: Frame Repair Z Schutz HP: 3800 Weakness: Lightning Rare Item: Fast Circuit 25 Item: Frame Repair A It's your choice whether you want to take out both Schutz or not, as it will power up the boss. If you want to use the Erde Kaiser, do so after you've brought down his HP to less than 9999. This boss does recover health at critical HP. As humans, the cheap Bravesoul/Commander's Crest/Double Buster won't work as well, because he's strong against physical attacks. But powerful ether attacks will work well after a while. Make sure you get your characters boosted for the last stretch of the fight. You want to kill it before the healing. I didn't have problem W-Acting the whole way with with AGWS. But this is with the AG-05, which pretty much couldn't die with the Guard Recovery. Of course, nab the Fast Circuit 50. Very useful for the AG-05 or to add to your collection of items. *End Boss* When it's dead, head to the ladder and then the exit. Go north on the the next screen. You should now be in a room that looks like a planatarium. The final segment door is here. Use the decoder you just received from the Proto Dora. When ready, go through the door on top. If you want to go back to the Elsa, take the right door here. Follow the path to the door to the right. In this next screen, go through the door on top for a scene. Of course, you can just skip that and head downstairs to the elevator. There's a save point on the bottom. This is the last save point before the boss. If you're playing this game the hard way, be prepared. After saving, head left and down the elevator. There will be some fixed fights here. Erde Kaiser's actually probably the fastest way to kill them if you don't have strong characters. After you're done, you can still go back and save again if you want. When you're ready, continue the path. Eventually, you'll reach Albedo. [Story Skip] *Boss: Albedo* HP: 7400 Weakness: None Rare Item: Rejuvenator Item: Revive DX AGWS aren't great against this boss, as his HP steal spell will take/heal for mega amounts. I suggest you stay in human form. He's not too difficult if you play conservatively, even with a pretty bad party. I mean, you can't get much worse than lv28 and lv4 techs that I had. If your characters are powerful, just use their best techs. Otherwise, play conservative. Keep Shion in the back. Let Jr. use Bravesoul and keep his HP down. And so forth. From the e-mails, not many people care for AGWS anyway. So basically, whatever strategy you've been using would work here. Of course, Erde Kaiser = Instant Win. Just thought you might want to know. :) *End Boss* [Story Skip] *Boss: Sophie Peithos, 3x Jaldabaoth, 2x Ratatosk* Sophie Peithos HP: 16000 Weakness: None Rare Item: None Item: None Jaldabaoth HP: 1200 Weakness: None Rare Item: Revive DX Item: Revive Ratatosk HP: 1800 Weakness: None Rare Item: Revive DX Item: Revive Woohoo!!! Different battle music. Anyway, this music ROCKS! Feel free to just listen to it for a while and enjoy. Anyway, my strategy is to bring it down to less than 10,000 HP, and then use Erde Kaiser. The boss is very easy at the beginning, so you should have no problems getting him down to 9999 HP or less. If you're going fight it for real(which means no Erde Kaiser), Do not kill both Ratatosks. It will then use a Dark Omen attack which deals pretty sick damage to everyone. Otherwise, their attacks aren't too bad. If you have the AG-05, it's possible to beat the boss simply by W-Act with all your AGWS. If you're fighting as humans, normal boss strategies would work. *End Boss* [Ending Story Skip: Grab some popcorn and enjoy the ending!] When you're done. You can save your game. It's only useful when episode 2 comes out. So if you need a save spot, don't bother with this. This isn't like Chrono Trigger or Chrono Cross, where you get a New Game+. Although that would've been cool. :P [The End Skip] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Section 2: Side Quests and Mini-Games + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ =============================================================================== 2.1 Location of Decoders and Segment Addresses =============================================================================== /Introduction/ As you wander on the Woglinde, you'll meet a man name Sgt. Swaine who will tell you about the segment addresses. This is one of the sidequests you can go for while playing this game. Below are the locations of each decoder and segment addresses you'll encounter in Xenosaga. If you find any directions too hard to understand, please e-mail me. And I will try to clear it up. This section is mostly spoiler free. But there will be location and very light event spoilers. If you don't want to be spoiled, stick with the main walkthrough. /Locations/ Decoder 1 --------- First talk to Tom in the Dock Colony AGWS shop. In sector 27 of the Kukai Foundation, enter the door marked East 6. Blow up the crates at the top-right corner. Talk to the Pink Bug that appears. DO NOT blow him up. If you've talked to Tom, he will tell you stories. Hear the 'Great Story'. Now go back to the Durandal and enter the Park. Decoder 1 is on the right side of the screen, sparkling between some plants. (Note: If you missed Tom when you first went to Dock Colony, you can still return there after you reach the Foundation. Simply ask the Elsa captain to take you) Segment Address 1 ----------------- In sector 26 of the Foundation. Go up to the roof through the hotel(only during/after the event where you save the 13 people). It's on the right side of the roof. You need to point your analog stick in the NE direction to prevent from slipping down. [Robot Part Head] *** Decoder 2 --------- In the 2nd tower of the Song of Nephilim. From the save point of the 2nd tower, enter the NW door. Follow the path(the first stairs up takes you to another item) and take the stairs going down. On the next level, keep going until you see stairs going up. Take it and enter the door. Now you'll be on a screen with many crates. Keep blasting them until a Gnosis show up. Kill it for the decoder. Note that Segment address 12 is also on this screen. Segment Address 2 ----------------- At Dock Colony. Go into the A.G.W.S. shop 'Talk To Me'. There's a stair leading down at the bottom of the shop. On the next screen, blow all the rubble away to find the door. [Robot Part Body] *** Decoder 3 --------- In the Bunnie's house at the Encephalon(in the woods section of Shion's path). The door is locked. So first, get the S Carrot Juice. You can do this by taking the left path on this screen. Follow it to a bridge and then a cave hole. When you exit, you'll be on a screen with some canisters. Blow them up to get 4 S Carrot Juices. Now go back to the Bunnie's house. Set the S Carrot Juice on the table outside. When it comes out to get it, run into his house before him. Segment Address 3 ----------------- At the back of the cleaning shop in sector 27 of the Foundation. From the entrance of Sector 26&27, head to the next screen. Then head left until you're near the exit. Go up the stairs and enter the shop. The door is hidden behind a vaporizable object in the back. [Robot Part Right Leg] *** Decoder 4 --------- At the Plemora. Defeat the AGWS that Ziggy had distrated with the crane earlier while rescuing MOMO. Segment Address 4 ----------------- At Plemora. Blast the upper-left wall in the 2nd room of patrols. [Thief Ring(10% increase in the rate of a rare item drop)] *** Decoder 5: ---------- First you need the Armory Key. It's in a closet in Shion's room on the Durandal. However, a robot covers the closet at the beginning. So you can't get to it. But it does leave after you escape from capture, on your way to the Elsa. After you get the Armory Key, head to the Hanger on the Durandal. Open the locked door here for the decoder. Segment Address 5 ----------------- In the Encephalon. If you're going through it the first time, first get to the point where Shion enters the sewers. If you walk up, you'll see a woman. Beyond her is a big crate. If you're going through the place through the EVS, first follow Jr.'s path. When you've entered the Space-Time distortion, you'll be in the forest. Now go right and you'll be at Shion's path. Backtrack your way through. After you leave sewers, go up. I'm not sure if the woman's still there. But you should be able to find the crate. Blow it open. Go down the manhole opened up and follow the path. Blow up the door behind the monster. [Double Buster(2x tech possible, Square-Circle-Circle or Triangle-Circle- Circle)] *** Decoder 6 --------- Defeat Proto Dora in Proto Merkabah. You can't miss it, since Proto Dora is a mandatory boss. Segment Address 6 ----------------- In the room that looks like a planatarium in Proto Merkabah. It's right before the room with the elevator to the final save point. [Trauma Plate(Prevents critical hits)] *** Decoder 7 --------- Sgt. Swaine of Woglinde gives it to you. You can't miss it. Segment Address 7 ----------------- On the Woglinde. It's by where Sgt. Swain gave you the segment file and decoder 7. If you're exploring this place in the EVS, then follow the path to to a fork. Going left from there leads to the AGWS hanger. You want to go down. Follow the path to a dead end. The door is around here. [Robot Part Right Arm] *** Decoder 8 --------- Go into the Ironman bar in the sector 26 of the Kukai Foundation. On the left is a lady missing her engagement ring. You'll want to get it for her. You can find her at any time in the bar, except while saving the 13 people. First go to the cleaning shop. Refer to directions for Segment Address 3 if you don't know how to get there. In the shop are two sets of stairs. Go up the one in the front. Look at the clothes hanging on the wall here for a fish detector. Go to the beach now and head to the water. Play the catch-the-fish minigame. One of the fishes here has the engagement ring. Take it and return to the lady for decoder 8. Segment Address 8 ----------------- On the Elsa, in B2F. It's on the screen above the save point in this area [Robot Part Left Leg] *** Decoder 9 --------- In the Cathedral ship. On the screen near the end of the dungeon. There is a Gnosis guarding a chest in the western area. This chest contains Decoder 9. Segment Address 9 ----------------- In the Cathedral Ship. 3rd floor of the building where you needed to break the elevator seal. When you're breaking the seal on the third floor, head right and enter the door. [Robot Part Left Arm] *** Decoder 10 ---------- First get the Disarm Key on the Elsa. Tod do this, goto the cabin next to the dining hall. Press circle while standing next to the couch. It's by the orange part. Now use the Disarm Key to extend the bridge in B2F. Follow the new path to decoder 10. Segment Address 10 ------------------ In KOS-MOS Simulator. At the save point when you first fought there(and EVS escape point in the EVS), go down down the ladder nearby. Follow the path to this door. [2 Booster Packs] Note: The segment file will say that you get a Boost Pack from this door. This is a mistake. This door gives you 2 booster pack items, not the useful Boost Pack accessory. *** Decoder 11 ---------- At Plemora. In the middle-right side of the 2nd room with patrol soldiers. Segment Address 11 ------------------ One of the rooms in the U-TIC battleship. It's in the same U-shaped hallway as the door to decoder 16. You know you're in the right room if you see a soldier who's not running at you. Keep in mind that if you entered using the EVS, the soldier will turn into Ace Pilot/Meld Gareth. This is a difficult fight if you're still in the early part of the game. So run away if you can't beat him. Yes, you can run past him while 'invisible'. [Coat-Ice] *** Decoder 12 ---------- At the Encephalon. When you first enter the sewer as Shion and chaos, go right and press a button. Later, you'll come through the same sewer with Jr., Ziggy, and MOMO. They can pick up the decoder. The chest is very obvious. You won't miss it. Segment Address 12 ------------------ At the Song of Nephilim, where you get the decoder 2. So refer to the directions for that decoder. From decoder 2, just blow up some more crates to reveal this door. Hammer Arm(Atk +10, 'Confusion' Against B&G types)] For MOMO. *** Decoder 13 ---------- You need to get on the roof of sector 26 through the hotel(only during/after the event where you save the 13 people). Then proceed left but don't slide down. Exit the screen to sector 27. Follow the path to decoder 13. Segment Address 13 ------------------ In the Cathedral Ship. In the same 'mall' where you got decoder 15. From the location of decoder 15, keep going til you get to an elevator. Take it and enter the room. It's in the back here. [Samurai's Heart(Increases Counter rate 10%)] *** Decoder 14 ---------- The fifth floor of the first tower in the Song of Nephiliim. Segment Address 14 ------------------ On the Elsa, in the room with the Catapult. [Speed Shoes(increases speed by 25%)] *** Decoder 15 ---------- In the 'mall' of the Cathedral Ship, right after the 2nd save point(or EVS escape point for those coming back later) of the dungeon. There's a non-moving enemy on the 2nd floor. Kill it to get the decoder. Segment Address 15 ------------------ Encephalon, in the first area of the Subway station. Go into the door in the screen here. Search the back of the dark room for the door. [Angel Ring{1/2 EP consumption)] *** Decoder 16 ---------- On the U-TIC battleship. The exact directions are hard to indicate. The door containing the decoder is in a U-shaped hall. There are three rooms in this hall. This is the locked door. So you'll need the key card. To get the card, exit that screen on the lower-left. Then keep going down. Two screens later, you'll see a door to the right. Enter it and grab the U-TIC card. Return to the locked door and open it. *IMPORTANT NOTE* There's a bug with this door. If you use the U-TIC card while in the EVS, the game will freeze. This won't happen if you've unlocked the door when Jr explores the area. So DON'T leave the U-TIC battleship without this decoder when you are exploring it as Jr/Mary. *END NOTE* Segment Address 16 ------------------ Woglinde, just outside the room with decoder 18. [Stim DX(item: Str increases by 50%)] *** Decoder 17 ---------- 3rd tower at the Song of Nephilim. From the room where you needed to figure out the sound(you'll need to be here in order to complete the dungeon), go right. Take the ladder up to the top. Head right. There's a bunch of junk in the corner in this next area. Blow it up and walk to the edge. You'll be prompted to jump down. Do so and open the chest for the decoder. Segment Address 17 ------------------ In Proto Merkabah, 43rd floor on the left side. You can get this as you're heading down from the left exit of floor 44. Enter the room and break the door cover. [BLOOD9(Jr.'s best weapon)] *** Decoder 18 ---------- On the Woglinde. You must have the Vaporizer plug-in before getting it. I'll give the directions from Shion's room. First go up to the next screen. Now head right, following the path up. You'll find a room eventually with a save point(or an EVS escape point if you've entered through the EVS). Break the glass for the decoder. Segment Address 18 ------------------ By Shion's room on the Woglinde. [Coat-Lightning] ----------------------- 2.2 Shion's Erde Kaiser ----------------------- You can give the Robot Parts from the Segment doors to the professor at the Foundation's Robot Acadamy. Get there by going down the left stairs in the A.G.W.S. shop. You can now exchange your robot parts for Shion's ethers. The prizes are as follows. For 2 arms, Shion gets the ether Throni Blade. For 2 legs, Shion gets Dominion Tank. For the head, she gets Seraphim Bird. When you give him all six parts, you get nothing... yet. You'll have to find assitant Scott. Go to the bar in the city and find him. You'll now get the Erde Kaiser. It requires all 12 of Shion's ether slot, and has a whooping 60EP casting cost. But the 60EP becomes manageable with the Angel Ring, which reduces it to 30EP. Now you can summon the robot to deal 9999!(no joke) to ANY enemy. Oh, and if you don't like the long animation sequence, simply press start to skip it. !!Possible Glitch!! Sent in by Bolix. Apparently, it's possible to get the Erde Kasier w/o all six robot parts. Just make sure you have everything except for the body(which you can get right before the Song of Nephilim). Give the professor your head to make Shion's 3rd ether. Then exit and re-enter. Apparently, the game will think that you have collected all the parts, and proceed with the Erde Kaiser sequence. Go get Scott from the bar and you can get the Erde Kaiser one full dungeon early. This will make the bosses in the Song of Nephilim a breeze. Meh1's note: I have not tried this out. So I would like to get some feedback as to whether this works in your game or not. Thanks. !!End Glitch!! =============================================================================== 2.3 Optional Bosses =============================================================================== ************** 2.31 Great Joe ************** HP: 9999 Weakness: None Rare Item: None Item: Swimsuit TIME and LOCATION: You can fight him any time after Jr. enters your party. To find him, enter the 2nd area in the residential area. There's a room in the upper-right hand corner with a white 'store' icon. Make Jr. the lead character and blow up the right closet. Great Joe will appear and challenge you. Jr. MUST be the on-screen character for this to happen. [Short strategy sent in by the pancake man. Hope it helps] Hard to believe, but harder than Mintia. I dont remember many details, but have everyone decked out in the best armor and weapons (I had KOS-MOS using the same rail canon), and put the commander's crest to good use. have Shion be you healer again, and put her on the back row like before, allowing Jr. to use his Dandism ether (VERY HELPFUL). Just try to keep everyone at or very close to full hp, and use boosts to revive peoplewith one person, and use an ether or item to heal them with the other. another long-ass battle, so take lots of items (cure-alls in particular). *Rewards* Aside from the Swimsuit drop, Jr. gets the tech Soul Rhapsody. He also learns ether Magnum Joe. You can then learn Buster Joe(the attack-all version) in Jr.'s ether menu. The power of his Joe ethers will increase as he kills more Gnosis using Soul Rhapsody. *********** 2.32 Mintia *********** HP:7777 Weakness: None Rare Item: Craft Apron Item: Penguin Rod TIME and LOCATION: You can fight her any time after you enter the Foundation city to save the 13 people. To do so, first go to the left of the Ironman bar door. Turn the crank here. Notice the 2nd floor window to your right. That's where you need to go. Now go to the roof using the hotel stairs(which was blocked before). Keep going right, falling down onto the canopies and enter the window. Now make sure MOMO is your on-screen character. Walk up a bit more and Mintia will challenge you. My strategy(for when you can first fight her) --------------------------------------------- You can beat her easily by utilizing cheapness. How, here's the setup. Jr.: Commander's Crest, Bravesoul, Double-Buster Shion: Angel Ring, White Ring, Orange Ring. MOMO: Silver Crown, Orange Ring, Swimsuit(just for tech pts) Shion/MOMO should both have 'Boost 1' and hopefully Safety Level. Jr needs to pump up one of his single enemy techs as much as you can. The less of those rare equipments you have, the better tech he needs. MOMO should have Magic Caster on high speed, while Shion should be right behind Jr. If You have Venom Block, extract it for Jr. If you want to, extract ether def+2 for everyone. ----------------------- Mintia’s attack [This is sent in by kuser9.] Dexterity down Poison attack Disable Circle button Regular attack Push to the rear row Attack all that damages 1/4 of each character Absorb HP from one character and reduce to 1 --------------------------------------------- Mintia will use some fairly harmless attacks at first. She'll counter all of Jr's attacks, starting with Attack poison status(use cure-all if Jr can't guard against it), push to back, and absorb down to 1 every subsequent times. If you don't have Venom Block extracted, pile on the good statuses(Dandyism, Safety Level) after her initial Counter. MOMO should be stealing the Craft Apron, then switch to helping out Jr. Shion should be boosting Jr from the start. With enough boosts, Jr should have no problem finishing off Mintia in a few turns. This is especially true with Bravesoul, since he'll do ridiculous damage with it. Of course, Erde Kaiser = Instant Win for those who are even cheaper than me. :) *Reward* In addition to the two items you could've snatched, MOMO also learns the tech attack Dark Scepter. If you kill Gnosis with this tech, it will turn into an item. Some items, like chaos' Holey Gloves, are unique to this ability. ************** 2.33 Ace Pilot ************** HP: 300 Weakness: Fire Rare Item: Ether Upgrade A Item: Skill Upgrade A LOCATION AND TIME: He's in the U-TIC battleship. In the room where you find Segment Address #11. He will always go into an A.G.W.S when you kill him. Also, he does not drop his items after the battle. So if you want them, you have to steal. IMO, they're not worth the trouble. **************** 2.34 Meld Gareth **************** HP: 5500 Weakness: None Rare Item: B-MAX Circuit Item: Frame Repair Z He's one of the AGWS Ace Pilot crawls into when you kill him. =============================================================================== 2.4 Casino =============================================================================== First you need some coins. You don't need too many. 100 should be enough if you're playing Poker. You might want a bit more for the slots though. Check o ********** 2.41 Poker ********** You only need a few coins to start. Even 100 or so coins can get you started. Begin by playing level 1 just to get a feel for it. If you know about poker and gambling, don't bother with this tutorial and just start earning coins. You'll be winning really quick after you understand the game. Eventually you'll want to play at lv4 to make tons of coins. For those who have absolutely no clue about poker and gambling in general, here's a quick explanation for this mini-game. First part is the poker game is the '5-Card Draw'. You will be dealt five cards. If you want to keep certain cards, then press circle on the 'Draw' button under that card. It will change to 'Hold'. Once you've set the cards you want to hold, press the Draw button on the 2nd row. The cards you did not hold will be replaced. To 'win' this first part, your cards need to fit one of the descriptions at the bottom. Each one gives it's own amount of extra coins, depending on how rare an occurence they are. 'One pair' means you have two cards of the same kind, such as '2 3 2 J K'(two 2s) or 'Q 4 2 Q 8'(two Qs). 'Two pairs' means two pairs of cards that are the same kind, like '3 3 4 4 9'(two 3s, two 4s) or 'K 3 3 Q K'(two Ks, two 3s). 'Three of a kind' means three cards of the same kind, like '7 7 7 8 9'(three 7s). 'Straight' means the cards are in order, like '3 7 5 4 6'(go from 3-7). 'Flush' means all cards of the same suit, either all hearts, diamonds, spades or clubs. 'Full House' means having a pair/three of a kind, like 'J J J 5 5'(three Js, two 5s). 'Four of a kind' means, well, you can figure it out by now. :) 'Straight Flush' means it satifies both the conditions of a flush and a straight. 'Royal Flush' is a straight flush with the cards '10 J Q K 1". If you do satisfy one of the above conditions, you'll go to the 2nd part. This is a 'high low' game. K is the highest, 1 is the lowest. Each time you guess correct, you'll get double the money. If you guess wrong, you lose your current holdings for the round. You can do this up to five times. Here's the general rule for those who don't want to think too much in the hi-low game. 1. Be more aggressive early on. The potential reward/risk ratio is greater. 2. Be more aggressive when small amount of money is at risk. 3. In general, you shouldn't even THINK about stopping unless you get a 6, 7, or an 8. The only time might be when ridiculous amount of money is at stake, like after getting a 4 of a kind and 3 rounds of hi-low or something. 4. If you're not certain about what to do, keep playing. Chances are it's the percetage play. ********** 2.42 Slots ********** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks a bunch to FlyBri2001. Yes, this is the exact same thing as his FAQ on gamefaqs. But thankfully, he's letting me use his guide. :) -------- Contents -------- 1. Introduction 2. Important Information 3. Three step process to winning big 3.a. Step One: Getting used to the Normal Reel 3.b. Step Two: Special Reels and matching the Super 7's 3.c. Step Three: Mastering the Nine Reel and Raking in the Coins 4. Investment vs. Results 5. FAQ 6. Credits --------------- 1. Introduction --------------- I have used the Walkthroughs on GameFAQs from time to time, and I decided it was the least I could do to contribute something. I have seen the walkthroughs for the poker game, and they do strategize well how to win over time for sure. However, after winning about 150,000 on poker I started to get bored and decided to give the slots a try. Two hours later I have...hold on let me check.... 9,699,999 more coins than I know how to deal with. That amount of coins is the result of only 7 or so payouts. All you need is minimal luck, some sense of rhythm, a quick trigger finger, and far less patience than you need to win 300,000 coins in the poker game. ------------------------ 2. Important information ------------------------ /UPDATE - IMPORTANT, READ THIS FIRST/ Ok, if you take some time using this method to build your coins up to 9,999,999 for every coin above 9,999,999 you earn, the casino apparently rewards you by placing 8 GP in your account. So that means if you have 9,999,999 coins and win say 100 GP in double or nothing, you wont see it added to your coins total above 9,999,999, but you will be awarded 800 GP. Yes, that means you don't have to go through the trouble of trading in your coins for items and then selling those items for GP. The first time I checked my GP after playing slots up to 9,999,999 coins, I had 11,942,823 GP. Thank you casino. Forget what you have heard anywhere else, this is the fastest way to make money in Xenosaga(TM). I do not know what will happen if you go over 999,999,999GP and I don't plan on finding out for myself. Do so at your own risk. /END UPDATE/ In this slot machine game, there are three reels rotating vertically to begin with, similar to classic style slots. There are five places where you can bet money on the reels. The more places you bet on means the more chances you have to match three icons in a row. Each betting location matches up to a line through which you want to line up icons. These lines are from left to right, the three horizontal and two diagonal lines for a total of 5 chances to win if you bet them all, which you should. You can then bet up to three coins per line. Each coin you bet multiplies the payout you'll receive if that line is a winner. So the maximum bet per spin is fifteen coins, three coins per line times five lines played. Fifteen coins may not seem like a lot right now, but if you are playing level 4 slots, this will add up to 450 coins bet per spin! There is a legend at the bottom telling you the payouts if you match up any three like icons. As you can see three 7's are the highest payout. However, even more important are the three icons that if matched bring a new reel. These new reels are special payout reels that are timed, that is you only have as many spins as you can fit into about 20-25 seconds. You do have to pay for spins in the special reels, so keep that in mind. These special reels are where the money is made in slots though. After the timer runs out on a special reel, you will be returned to the normal game, unless you are in the middle of a spin, which you will be allowed to finish first, with one exception being the nine reel which I will explain later. Unlike in the casinos, you determine whether or not you become a millionaire on slots in Xenosaga. That is, this is a game of skill not chance for the most part. You are the one who stops the reels in this game with a tap of the circle button. This is the key to winning. ------------------------------------ 3. Three step process to winning big ------------------------------------ I'd say there is about a three step process to win big on slots... ---------------------------------------------- 3.a. Step One: Getting used to the Normal Reel ---------------------------------------------- First, take five minutes to play the level one game. Only bet one coin on one of the payout lines. This is merely a practice for you to get used to the timing of when you hit the circle button and when the reels stop. If you bet one coin on each of the five pay lines, you have a good chance of accidentially matching three new reel icons. The important thing is to get the timimg of hitting the circle button though. Now, once you are comfortable with this, you should let all three reels spin and just take a minute to observe them. The icons repeat in the pattern they appear as if they were painted on a circle that continuously spins. That is, if you look only for the sevens, you will see they appear in a group of 2 on the first reel every 2 or so seconds. Do something whenever you see the 7's appear like nod your head or tap your fingers. This will help you get a sense of timing for the sevens and when they will appear. Once you think you have the timing down go ahead and try to stop the first reel so both 7's are within sight. If you did this great, if not, try again. If you're on level one slots you're not gonna go broke anytime soon. Now for reel two. This reel only has one 7. It can be tricky to do, but the goal is to stop this one right in the middle. the reason for this is that if you stopped the first reel with both 7's showing, a 7 in the middle will give you two chances to match with a 7 in the third reel. You will have a potential horizontal and diagonal combination. Now for the third reel. This reel has three 7's on it, one by itself, and two that are grouped together maybe two spots down the reel from the first 7 kind of like this but scrolling downwards * 7 * * 7 7 * *. You will see what I mean for all of this if you try the slots for yourself. Anyways, you can use the first 7 as a cue to let you know the next two are coming up soon. When you see the first seven appear, you will want to wait a split second, then stop the reel. If you did this right, you will have stopped the last reel with two seven's showing. If you stopped all three reels perfectly, you can have two lines with three 7's matching. If, not just a little practice will have you matching 7's on almost every spin. Do not leave this step until you are comfortable matching 7's on the normal reel, for this skill will become crucial later on. ------------------------------------------------------- 3.b. Step Two: Special Reels and matching the Super 7's ------------------------------------------------------- Second, get used to the special reels. I have minimal success matching up any other symbols besides the 7's but you may have better luck than I do. However, if you bet five lines at a time, you will not have to wait very long to get a special reel, maybe 10 spins, if you just mash on the circle button. This is the most luck you will need in this strategy unless you use the 7's as cues for the position of the new reel icons. For example, I noticed that the gold/white icon ususally follows the 7's in the reel, so if I wait until I see the 7's to stop each reel, there is usually a good chance of matching three new reel icons, thus brining on the new reel. The new reels are special because they have new icons added to them. There are several kinds of new reels, and matching up any three same new reel icons in the normal game can bring about any of the new reels, except for the nine reel which I will talk about soon. One new reel has jokers, which are wild like in poker and can help in matching up new reel icons if you do not like the special reel you are on. There are icons that have 'out' written on them. These icons are dead spots on the reel that will not match up with anything including other out icons. The most important new reel to you will be one that has the 'Super' 7 icons. The icon will say super 7 and it will be gold in color. There are two setups of special reels that have this icon on it. One is much like the normal reel, except the 7's have been replaced with super 7's. Remember step one when I said you wanted to be good at matching up 7's. Well this is your chance to shine. You have about 20-25 seconds to match up three super 7's. If you do this you are money. Well, you at least have the chance to win lots of money, er coins. It will bring you to the Nine reel special reel, we will cover the nine reel very soon. The other type of special reel that has super 7's is a three reel like the normal one except that all the normal icons have been removed. Instead you have only super 7's and 'out' icons. Once again you have to match up three super sevens. By this point you should know how to time the reels so you can stop then with super 7's showing. One tip I can give is that the second reel has a pattern something like this moving downward of course 07070007700. You want to use the first grouping of 707 to tip you off so by the time you hit the circle, the reels will have stopped on the 077 or 770. Once again, if you have done this right, you will go to the nine reel special reels. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3.c. Step Three: Mastering the Nine Reel and Raking in the Coins ---------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, its time for the Nine Reel special reel. This is your big opportunity. In this special set of reels, there are nine horizontally scrolling reels with x's and o's on them. The patterns on these reels repeat just like every other reel we've seen up to this point. The only difference is that these scroll horizontally. There is a time delay between when you hit the circle button and when the reel stops so take this into consideration when you hit the circle button. The delay is maybe a half second, but it enough to cost you if you don't know about it. Landing on a O is good and landing on an X is very bad. Each O doubles your winnings from the super sevens in the previous reel which is either going to be 2700 or 5400. So say you won 2700 in the super sevens the first O you hit will make it 5400, the second will be 10800, and so on until you have done this nine times and have a cool 1382400 coins. Yes 1382400 coins. If you start with 5400 coins, that is going to be 2764800 coins. Not bad for a short bit of work. Now, the arrangement of x's and o's can vary from reel to reel, with some having all O's and some being XOOOXOXOXOOOX, so use your own discretion of when you want to stop, because you can stop anytime before you hit an X. An X completely wipes any winnings you have from this double or nothing reel. Also, you only have 20-25 seconds to go through 9 reels, so you need to keep that in mind. But do not panic, 20-25 seconds is quite enough. ------------------------- 4. Investment vs. Results ------------------------- Lets recap the investment here. On level four to play 5 lines with three coins bet per line is 450 coins per spin. If it takes ten spins to get a special reel that is 4500 coins, and say you have to repeat the process in order to get a reel with super sevens, that could be 10000 or so. So, the risk is moderate, but to be on the safe side win 20000 either betting lower stakes slots or my recommendaton is to play high stakes poker to win the initial 10000-40000 you will use in high stakes slots. But when you want to multiply that 10-40K into a cool 1-4 million in not time flat, then is the time to move over to slots. Plus it feels good to know that your skills from years of hitting the circle button played a large part in your winnings, not just merely stacked odds in your favor like in the poker game. So, whenever you feel confident, step up to level 4 slots and let it ride! ------ 5. FAQ ------ Why would I want 3 million coins, when it only costs about 300000 to trade in for the AG-05 with all of the accessories? I can win 300,000 coins in only 4 hrs of mind numbing poker and doubling up to 16x my 100 coin winnings for a measly pair. Thats right, I can win a whopping 1600 on an original wager of 100 coins. Why bother with that slot machine game that only pays out 2700 coins with me betting 450 coins a spin? Well, ma peche, I am not lying when I say I won 2700000+ coins in only an hour's time at the most. Actually, it might have taken me about 45-50 minutes to win the first payout of 1300000 coins and once I knew how it worked, it took me about 5-10 minutes to repeat it. So looking beyond that normal reel that admittedly pays out only 2700-5400 for a risk of 450 coins, a relatively small investment can pay out whopping dividends in a SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME. I want someone to show me how they are going to win 3 million coins playing poker for an hour. The nine reel takes your winnings of 2700 or 5400 based on a bet of 450 coins and it multiplies it by 512. 512x2700or5400 was significantly more than 16x100 the last time I checked. Now for the first part. I like having 3000000 coins because they mean nothing to me now. The important thing is to trade these coins in for real (well, video game) money. Well, we know trading the recovery sets is the most efficient way to make a buck off coins. Well, with 3000000 coins you can forget efficiency. Buy 99 starter packs that trade in for 200g. Buy the card packs that trade in for 50 g apiece and also buy the recovery sets. The point is that the trading game is the most insanity inducing boring process of the whole game and by having enough coins to not care about being efficient and to care only about laundering these coins into real gold, you can save yourself so much time by reducing the number of casino/store trips you make. On each trip you'll be selling about 48000g worth of stuff instead of 11000. Or just go with the starter card sets and sell those for about 20000 a trip. Not efficient but its fast and fast is good. Or, just check the 9,999,999 coin carryover note up under important info in order to see why having this many coins is good. If you have any other questions, please contact me at bjbradach@yahoo.com. I will respond, and if there are the same frequent questions/submissions, I will update this guide. I hope this guide helps you. ---------- 6. Credits ---------- Thanks to DooMZDay for pointing out 9,999,999coin glitch. I had that many coins, but I failed to check to see if they carried over into actual GP. They do and then some. THE END ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ************ 2.43 Rewards ************ Here's the list of items you can exchange from the casino and the exchange rate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Recovery Set(Med Kit, Ether Pack, Revive, and Cure-All) 100 Coins Escape and Rest Set(Escape Pack, Bio Sphere) 150 Coins Golden Dice 10,000 Coins Bravesoul 15,000 Coins Revive DX 18,000 Coins Stim DX 12,000 Coins Design Sketchs 1-30(drawing of characters in the game) 2000 Coins each Starter Set 400 Coins Card Pack #1 100 Coins Card Pack #2 100 Coins PM Card F through Q 1000 Coins each Note(1): All items except for Recovery Set, Escape and Rest Set, Starter Set, and the two card packs are one-time only sales. The PM cards only appear after Proto Mekabah appears. Note(2): If you want real-world money, you can sell items received here. Recovery Set can be sold for a total of 110G, which is the best bargain. So get exchange for 99 Recovery Sets and then sell the items. Repeat until you're satisfied with your money. Since you'll want to make exchanges quickly in this situation, press R1 button rather than circle. It will make the process go A LOT faster. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== 2.5 Drilling =============================================================================== *NOTE: Like the Slots guide, this is written by flybri. I greatly appreciate the fact that he let me uses this info.* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Copyright/Trademark Info/ This guide is copyright 2003 Brian Bradach (flybri2201). Reproduction of this guide without consent of the author is strictly prohibited under federal copyright laws. This guide has been released exclusively to GameFAQs and Mehl's Spoiler Free Walkthrough guide to Xenosaga(TM). If any unauthorized reproduction of this guide is recognized, please let the author know at the above email address. Guide History 1.0 Original -------- Contents -------- 1. Introduction 2. Important Information 3. Drill game basics 4. Drill Equpiment Set-up and controlling the camera 5. The two move system for people who are WINNERS 5.a. The Accurate Strut Move 5.b. The Accurate Bit Move 6.The Missions 6.a. Mission 1 6.b. Mission 2 6.c. Mission 3 6.d. Mission 4 7.'Free' Game Mode 7.a. Getting Drill Keys 7.b. Using Drill Keys 8. FAQ'S 9. Credits --------------- 1. Introduction --------------- This is my second contribution to GameFAQs, and I have again chosen to write about Xenosaga(TM). More specifically, I will try to explain how to become as accurate as possible with the drill, saving you money in both the mission and "free" modes. To be successful at this mini-game, you do need to have quick fingers, but I don't think all of you adept video game players are lacking there. So read up and good luck! p.s. you are hereby begged to only laugh at intentional humor contained within ------------------------ 2. Important information ------------------------ Ok, in order to play the drill game, you need to have the drill passport. Do not worry, you receive the drill passport early on in the game, while aboard the Woglinde. It is a reward for using the drill. However you will not be able to use the passport or any other passport until the EVS becomes available at save points. You will know it is an EVS point, because it will have a blue EVS set on top of a normal save point. When you are at an EVS point SAVE. Now, go to your menu and select the drill passport. You will find it in the key item list(press R1 when looking at your normal items to look at your key items). Eventually, I may add an item list of every single worthless item you can win in the drill game, but for now I will just focus on strategy and how to win the important items. Then, when you get to be good at drilling, you can break each of the individual little boxes to find what is in each of them. As they say, it's your quarter. Note, you only get 5 tries at the drill game per visit, so when they cut you off, leave and reenter. There is no such thing as free mode in drilling... I call it "free" mode. You will learn why. -------------------- 3. Drill game basics -------------------- When you use the drill passport at an EVS save point, you will find yourself in a game show looking room. This is different than the other passport mini-games. You can actually control your character here instead of just dealing with an interactive menu. Your first order of business should be to introduce yourself to Hollyanna and Holgar, the co-hosts of the drilling game. Yes this game is a bit on the corny side, but as they will tell you, they have a real passion for drilling(decide for yourself whether or not they are pathetic losers). Whatever, we're just here for the items, but until you get them you will just have to fake a passion for drilling. They will explain the basics of drilling to you. It is basically like any crane game you have seen in an arcade or supermarket. Press the button until you want the claw to stop going forward, and then press the button again until you want the claw to stop moving to the right. The only difference is in this game, we're dealing with a drill that wrecks stuff, and you can change the camera angle you use to control the drill. Sounds pretty easy doesn't it? Well, to that I can say yes and no. It can take some getting used to, but once you get the hang of things, it can be relatively easy. ---------------------------------------------------- 4. Drill Equpiment Set-up and controlling the camera ---------------------------------------------------- When you begin a drill game, your view will be from the perspective of someone standing at ground level. Change this view using R2 until you have the bird's eye view. Things should look something like this... || o || O || [] || 0 [] || o || o o \/------------ In this view, the || arranged vertically represents what I will call the drill arm. The - arranged horizontally represents the drill strut. The \/ represents the drill bit resting in its initial position. The various o, O, 0, and []'s represent the debris you are trying to hit. Keep in mind that we are talking about a 3 dimensional setup, which is why I like the bird's eye view. It keeps things nice and 2-dimensionally simple. Ok, now that you have some idea of how the intitial bird's eye view looks, I will now ask toy to rotate it using the left analog stick so things now look like this... <============= | 0 o | o [] O | o | [] | o | I think you should be able to follow that rotation, it's merely rotated 90 degrees clockwise. Our objective is going to be to hit debris on the floor with the drill bit. There will be two movements required in order to have your drill bit end up over your desired target. The first I will call the strut move and the second I will call the bit move. This system works very well for the missions because you can do this accurately without changing camera angles more than one time, which saves you plenty of time in the long run. When you get comfortable with this set of moves, you will be able to do mission two flawlessly. Thats right, in 9 fell swoops, you will be done with that mission. ------------------------------------------------- 5. The two move system for people who are WINNERS ------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- 5.a. The Accurate Strut Move ---------------------------- In order to practice drilling you will want to practice in "free" mode. 'Free' mode has no time limit, so you have all day to thin about where you want to place your drill bit and what you may have done wrong. You can also use your time to become familiar with controlling the camera angle as well as getting used to the general set-up of the game. Once you have shelled out your 200G in order to play "free" mode, you will be at a ground level viewpoint. Change this so things look sort of like what you see below. <============= | 0 o | o [] O | o | [] | o | There, that's better. Now for the strut move. This move is very simple, yet tough to do accurately at first. The reason why it is tough to do accurately is because of the camera angle. But when you learn to understand the camera angle you will become extremely accurate by using the strut as a guide. To learn the camera angle you need to look at the strut with respect to the beam that runs between the strut and drill arm. I will call this beam the support beam. In this beginning position, it looks like the strut is further to the left than it actually is. This is because of the camera's challenging placement. The place where the strut holding the drill bit will actually touch the ground is along a line sticking out perpendicularly from the spot where the support beam meets the drill arm(the base of the drill arm). As you can see from this birds eye view the initial distance between the strut and base is quite significant, about 2 squares of the checkerboard floor. You may ask why not just use the base of the support beam as a guide for knowing when to stop the beam. The reason is because the base of the beam does not 'touch' the squares of the checkerboard floor, making it a difficult tool to use to judge when to stop moving the strut. The strut does 'touch' the checkerboard squares in this bird's eye view, which is why I have found it to be an extremely reliable tool for judging when to stop holding the square button during the strut move. I would say I am about twice as accurate using the strut as a as I am when using the beam as a guide. As I said before, the strut appears to be about 2 checker blocks to the left of where it will actually land. You can see that difference when comparing the location of the strut to the base of the beam. I am going to illustrate this using an adaptation of the above diagram.... ==<=========== | 0 o | o [] O | o | [] | o | The < represents where the drill bit would actually touch the floor if you kept the strut in the initial position. This is assuming that one = equals one square on the floor. Now try something for me, and pay close attention to the distance between the strut and the base of the beam. Hold down the square button, and do not release it until the strut automatically stops. See how the distance between the strut and base of the beam closes at the strut moves towards the right? In the middle, the apparent location of the strut and the location of the bast of the support beam are one and the same. This is the easiest place to hit stationary objects in the entire drill game. Below is a representation of the place the bit would touch the ground with respect to the strut. Yes, no difference at all... ======<======= | o o | [] O o | |] o | | As the strut continues towards the right, the gap between the base of the beam and the strut begins to widen again. The size of the gap on this side of the middle of the floor is proportional to what it was on the other side. It is just opposite now. For example, when the strut is completely to the right, the distance to the base of the support beam from the apparent location of the strut is two squares of the floor to the left as seen below... ===========<== 0 | o [] O | o | [] | o | | Where the < represents where the drill bit would actually touch the ground. Once again, one = equals one square of the floor. If you move the strut through the entire length of the drill arm a few times, you will begin to see that to hit an object about 1/4 of the way down the drill arm, you will need to stop the strut about 1 block to the left of that object you want to hit, as I will show below... ====<========= | 0 o| [] O |o | [] o| | Trust me, as you run through this a couple of times you will be able to plan out the spot of a certain square you want to stop the strut on in order for your drill bit to be lined up, halfway to hitting your target. Now take a couple of runs to get the timing of stopping the strut excatly in the spot you marked to stop it in. That shouldn't take very long. If you saved your game before starting the drill game, you can run through 'free' mode a few times as practice without worrying about the 200G you're spending for each game. When you are done practicing, or out of money, just soft reset and go at it again. Now it is time for the second move of the drill game, the bit move. -------------------------- 5.b. The Accurate Bit Move -------------------------- Ok, I will begin by saying this move is more challenging than the strut move in some ways. The Bit Move is also performed by holding down the square button until you wish to stop the drill bit moving downward along the strut. As soon as you release the square button, the strut and srill attached to it will begin descending towards the ground. After it hits the ground it will come back up and everything will return to the initial position. Being accurate with the bit move involves knowing the difference between where the bit appears to be over the floor, and where it will actually touch down on the floor. With the drill bit you begin with, from where it begins on the strut to about 1/3 of the way down the strut if you stop the bit directly on or parallel to the object you are going for, you should at least graze it enough to destroy it. From the 1/3 to 2/3 point you should try to go about a square's distance further down the strut than the object you are going for. As the drill reaches the end of the strut, where it looks like it will drop, and where it will actually touch the floor are about two squares apart. I will now demonstrate in a couple of diagrams, where the drill appears to be and where it will actually touch. These are estimates just to give you an idea not specifics. The < is where the drill bit appears to be at the end of the bit move and the x is where the bit will actually touch the floor. One I represents one square on the floor. Not to scale, just intended to show you how many squares off the bit will be from where it appears to be in different situations. ============== I have the boss info. Goodbye(1/1): Usefulness depends on you. If you don't like to fight in random encounters, then this spell is perfect. If you like to fight every enemy, this spell is useless. Escape packs will be more enough. Medica All(2/8): Ridiculously useful. The best all-healing spell in the game. Handy in every battle from Gargoyle on. Refresh(1/2): If you need the space, get rid of this. You can use items instead to heal status for one less AP cost. Otherwise, it saves you an item. Boost 1(2/4): Quite nice. Suppose Jr.'s your most powerful attacker with the Bravesoul. Now you can have him attack twice with this spell. Basically, this spell lets you sacrifice Shion's turn for someone else's. Useful mostly in boss battles, though. Jamming(1/4): I've never tried this enough. I guess this would be useful mech bosses. But is it worth the ether pts? If you have plenty, then be my guest. Unlike the other statuses, Dex down doesn't say much about just how much it reduces the opponent's hit%. Medica Rest(2/8): Less useful than it seems. Most of the time, Life shot will do the job for only 2 AP. But if Shion has 1/2 EP consumption, you can use this instead of Life Shot. Revert(2/12): This revives for more than the item Revive. Not bad. Useful but not terribly so. The EP cost is quite high. Safety Level(3/12): Awesome in conjunction with the Bravesoul. Even without it, it's a great spell for boss fights. However, make sure Shion has 1/2 EP consumption so she won't run out of EP fast. Quick(2/6): Not too useful. It speeds up someone by 25% for five turns. Good if your party has a designated attacker. But Boost 1 is more flexible. *The following ethers cannot be transfered* Queen's Kiss(4/8): Depends on who else is in your party. MOMO should always be the one stealing if she's in it. If so, Shion shouldn't bother with this. Otherwise, not a bad spell. The instant KO is pretty much useless. You're better off just attacking instead. Throni Blade(4/16): Attacks all enemies for pretty crap damage. If you have her tech Rain Blade, then this is useless. Even w/o it, the EP cost isn't really worth is. Domninion Tank(4/20): See Throni Blade Comment. Seraphim Bird(4/24): See Throni Blade Comment. Erde Kaiser(12/60): Pretty much imspossible to use without Angel Ring or the extracted 1/2 EP consumption skill. But if you do use it, it will make the game very easy and boring. I suggest you have it as 'backup' in case a boss unexpecetedly begins to kick your ass. Also, very good while leveling. /Tech Attacks/ S = Single A = All N = Near F = Far Lightning Blade(S/N) -------------------- Lightning based phyisclal attack. So if you're going to use it, better beef up Shion's strength. Not worth it, IMO. Granted, mechs in general are weak against lightning, but they also tend to be strong against a physical attack. Spell Ray(S/F) -------------- Beam attack, which makes it pretty good. Upgrade this one's speed ASAP. Then how much power you want to add depends on you. I'd go with 3-4 levels. Then save the rest for her later good ones. But if you're the type who don't level up much, then you may consider boosting this one a lot. Her next good ones don't appear for quite a while. Shock Blade(S/N) ---------------- Get this at lv11. It's a status tech. I could never make this useful. If you can drop me a note. Thermal Blast(S/N) ------------------ Get this a lv15. Like Lightning Blade. Same problems. Except people, who tend to be weak against fire, are fairly weak against physical attacks. Still, better techs ahead. Ether Amp(S/N) -------------- Get this at lv20. Not worth it. You're basically sacrificing Shion's turn to have someone else deal double damage. Boost 1 is a more useful alternative. Gravity Well(S/N) ----------------- Get this at lv23. Slow is kind of nice, but really not nice enough to make it worth investing in this tech, IMO. But if you've been upgrading Shion's strength, this is quite nice. Lunar Blade(S/N) ---------------- Get this at lv27. My prefered near tech for Shion. Very nice beam damage. You get this kind of late, though. Rain Blade(A/F) --------------- Get this at lv30. Beam damage to all enemies, and at far range. Certainly the best tech for her. Useful for levling up late in the game. /Rating/ My Rating: 8/10. If you like being a cheap person and use the Erde Kaiser, then 10/10. Basically support character. But with Erde Kaiser, she is God, err... Goddess. :) =============================================================================== 3.2 KOS-MOS =============================================================================== Favorite Quote: "My external appearance is down 5%. Shion, I need to be cleaned." "Charging, R-Cannon!" A power character. She has very good stats all around, except for speed(agility of 7). And most importantly, she's a damn good story character. However, her power diminishes if you're the type who likes to max out characters' stats. Because none of her weapons add to your attack power. I know you probably don't believe this, because when you equip her big guns, your attack power rises. However, this only applies to that gun's unique circle attack. Don't believe me? Try using her Square attacks on the same enemy with weapons of different attack power. She'll deal the same damage. /Strengths/ She starts off incredibly strong in all areas. Her HP is one of the highest. She also gets her attack-all tech fairly early in the game. If you're not the big-time leveling up type, she should be the first person to get the attack-all tech, X-Buster. Plus, she's definitely pleasing to the eye for male players. :P /Weakness/ She's slower than most people, but still faster than the turtle-speed Ziggy. As I've said earlier, her max strength will be lower than the characters who can equip weapons that boost their attack. She also cannot enter an AGWS. This means that if you like AGWS, she'll be a terrible third party member. /How to use her/ At the beginning, level up R-Cannon and R-Drill's speed. Or if you're feeling good about yourself, don't. You do want to unload TONS of tech pts on her X-Buster, as attack-all techs in this game are VERY useful. She should always be in the frontline as an attacker. She has some decent ethers, but none that are gernerally useful. You may consider transferring Medica All to her just in case she needs to cast it. /Ether/ Ether Chart ----------- *Note: Amount of pts needed for upgrade in paranthesis.* |--Down Ether |--Down Dex(360)--| | |--Gate(660)--Satellite Mode A7(100)--| | |--Dex Ether Ra |--Down Force(480)--Ether Limit(620)--| |--Dex Ether Fe | |--Dex Ether Le Ether Analysis -------------- *Note: The first number in the paranthesis is the weight. The 2nd is EP Cost. For example, (3/10) means the ether has a weight of 3 and a casting cost of 10. Mode A7(1/2): Ups attack power. Useful in early boss fights. But keep in mind that it doesn't affect ether attacks. Down Dex(1/4): Lowers enemy hit rate. I have tried this on several bosses with powerful physical attacks. Doesn't work too well. Down Force(1/4): I like this one. Reduces damage. Works quite well on bosses. Keep in mind that it doesn't affect ether attacks. Down Ether(1/4): This would be very useful in the Gargoyle boss fight. But you probably don't have the ep for it yet. There are some bosses later in the game which this would help. Gate(4/8): This reminds you of the Demi spells of FF games with the whole 1/4 of HP damage thing. Usefulness depends on you. If you have solid techs, then this is useless. The occassional KO doesn't exactly happen often enough, and too unreliable. Ether Limit(3/16): The equivalent of Ether Doubler for Xenogear fans. Quite useful in boss fights. Why? Because it not only doubles the ether damage of your spells, but also attacks and techs! So if X-Buster was dealing 500. Now it deals 1000! Of course, no casting cost penalty either. Just like abusing Ether Doubler with Billy's ether guns in XG. Dex Ether Ra(4/12): Ice damge to all enemies. Can't think of a reason to use this. Just use X-Buster. Dex Ether Fa(4/12): Look above Dex Ether Le(4/12): Look above *The following cannot be transfered to other characters. Satellite(6/16): Look above. Yes, basically, X-Buster beat all of these. Overall, KOS-MOS' ethers are quite disappointing. /Tech Attacks/ S = Single A = All N = Near F = Far Note: Unlike other characters, KOS-MOS gets her techs via game progression. R-Blade(S/N) ------------ An initial tech. Don't bother to level it up in any way. But use it against enemies weak to physical attacks. R-Cannon(S/F) ------------- An initial tech. Useful until you get the X-Buster. Leveling up the speed is good. But don't spend too many pts on power. R-Drill(S/N) ------------ Depending on your patience, you can put a lot of tech pts here or little. If you do put a lot here, it will be your main physical tech for the rest of the game. X-Buster(A/F) ------------- Her only attack-all tech. It's beam damage. VERY useful. S-Chain(S/F) ------------ The descriptioni makes it sounds quite appealing. I'm not a fan of status techs too much. But if you like them, go ahead. The fact that it's long range is quite useful. R-Hammer(S/N) ------------- If you haven't heavily invested in R-Drill yet, and doesn't want to wait a bit more for the next tech, then invest here. R-Dragon(S/N) ------------- Her best physical tech. You get it REALLY late in the game, though. /Weapons/ Her weapons, as I stated earlier, doesn't affect the attack power of other attacks. So my comments are simply about their 'circle' commands. F-GShot: I think this is an initial weapon. The circle command's useless. You are better off with R-Blade. F-MShot: Also an initial weapon, I think. The circle command doesn't seem too useful. But not bad against big groups. All-attacks are hard to find early in the game. F-BShot: Kind of disappointing considering the steps you need to get it. But if you want fairly nice Beam damage before getting X-Buster, this would be it. Better than her previous weapons. F-RShot: Pretty nice. It's her most powerful long range physical attack. Useful against annoying flying bosses you find late in the game. F-Scythe: Like F-BShot, it's an optional weapon. If you did the quest, you get this kind of late in the game. And it's really more affective to use the X-Buster instead. But if your X-Buster isn't powered up, this isn't a bad alternative. The attack animation is kind of neat. :) /My Rating/ If you don't like to power up much, then 7/10. If you do like to power up, then 5/10. KOS-MOS can fall behind pretty quick if you're the leveling up type. =============================================================================== 3.3 Ziggy =============================================================================== Favorite Quotes: None, his quotes sounds stupid. Unfortunately, there seems to be a Ziggy-type character in every single RPG. The big, strong, slow guy. I've never liked any these characters, as they tend to be the least useful in battle. Ziggy's no exception. /Strengths/ High strength, high defense, high HP. Typical of a character built on brute strength. His techs are also fire and lighning elemental, which tends to be the weakness of Bio and Mech enemies, respectively. /Weaknesses/ Low EAtk, EDef, and terrible speed. The low speed is a BIG weakness. It limits the flexibility of your strategies in boss battles, as you get less turns. In normal encounters, Ziggy rarely gets in his turn before the enemy. This becomes more and more annoying as the game goes on, and enemies' attacks become nasty. The low EAtk is another big negative. Ziggy, despite his stats favoring the physical side, has only ether based attack-all techs. To a lesser extent, the elemental nature of his techs will be annoying against certain Gnosis which are resistent towards them. /How to use him/ If Ziggy's on your team, he should equip the White Ring for most of the game. You should also try to extract the agility +1 from it asap. This should lessen the problem regarding his speed. Also, you must decide whether you want to concentrate on his physical techs or ether ones. If you concentrate on physical techs, then you'll miss out on his attack-all techs. If you want to concentrate on ether ones, be prepared to invest a lot of tech pts on his EAtk stat. Finally, utilize his ethers to the fullest extent. Ziggy's ethers are great at covering his weaknesses. So giving him some Ether upgrades early in the game to obtain ethers like Speed Boost is a good idea. /Ether/ Ether Chart ----------- *Note: Amount of pts needed for upgrade in paranthesis.* |--Ether Shift A |--Bodyguard(200)| | |--Ether Shife B My Guard(40)--| | |--Red Mark |--Recharge(280)--Charge X(480)--| |--Speed Boost Ether Analysis -------------- *Note: The first number in the paranthesis is the weight. The 2nd is EP Cost. For example, (3/10) means the ether has a weight of 3 and a casting cost of 10. My Guard(1/2): Fairly useless. You gain defense at the cost of attack. But ok if you stick with ether attacks. Bodyguard(1/2): Quite Nice in boss fights, provided you use MOMO. The strength and defense boosts are quite significant. Most useful against Margulis. Recharge(2/4): Useful at the beginning of the game. Although eventually, Ziggy should leave the healing to healers like Shion or MOMO. Ether Shift A(1/4): This is good if you've set up Ziggy to be a physical attacker. The ether defense is quite useful with later boss fights, who tend to use some powerful spells. Pointless in non-boss fights. Ether Shift B(1/4): This is very useful if you've developed Ziggy in the ether direction. Will help out his ether techs. Pointless in non- boss fights. Charge X(2/4): I don't think it's worth it to waste a turn to cast this spell. Doubling HP recovery isn't too useful. Doubling EP recovery is pointless, since Ziggy doesn't have any ethers you're likely going to use over and over. Red Mark(2/4): Considering you're likely going to get this pretty late, this is only useful against two mech bosses late. And even then, it's debatable whether you should waste a turn on this or not. Speed Boost(4/10): Once you have this, you should cast this at the beginning of every boss battle, and recast if necessary. Very useful. /Tech Attacks/ S = Single A = All N = Near F = Far Cyber Kick(S/N) --------------- An intial tech. Fire elemental means it's good against Bio enemies. Pretty useful near the beginning of the game. Don't spend too much pts on the power, though. Lightning Fist(S/F) ------------------- Not worth upgrading. If you want to invest in Ziggy's ether techs, there are better ones. Meteor Shot(A/F) ---------------- He gets this at lv15. In my opinion, Lightning is a more useful element. But if you can't wait another 11 levels to get Executioner, then invest in this. Cyclone(S/N) ------------ He gets this at lv20. If you can wait another 4 levels, you'll get his best non-elemental tech. You probably should wait... Cross Lancer(S/N) ----------------- He gets this at lv24. If don't want to get screwed in certain battles due to elemental properties, invest heavily in this. Executioner(A/F) ---------------- He gets this at lv26. Best ether tech. Hell Fire(S/N) -------------- He gets this at lv30. Pretty disappointing for a final tech. Again, fire based. I don't see too much of a point for this tech. /Weapons/ Ziggy has two weapons, although his 2nd weapon has 2 types of ammo. Like KOS-MOS, his weapons do not augment the attack power of his other attacks. IMO, his circle attacks are useless once you're out of Plemora. /Rating/ Honestly, Ziggy sucks. If you want physical fighter-type characters, Jr. and KOS-MOS are superior. So there's no point in using him unless you simply like his character. However, this DOES NOT mean that he's useless. It's quite possible to beat the game with him. There are also several bosses where he's pretty handy. But when compared to other characters, he just doesn't measure up in terms of general usefulness. 3/10. =============================================================================== 3.4 MOMO =============================================================================== Favorite Quotes: None, since I can't figure out what she's screaming about in that high pitched voice. Depending on how you play, MOMO can be anywhere from God-like to terrible. She has some distinct advantages over other characters. One is that she has the most powerful weapon in the game. This means that she has the potential to be the most powerful attacker in the game. Another is that she can steal rare items with 100% success rate. Finally, her Dark Scepter allows you to get some very unique items. This includes chaos' best weapon. MOMO also seems to hold the record for the highest amount of panty shots for a video game character. Sorry, I just had to get this comment in here. ^_^ /Strengths/ Her agility is the highest in the game at 9. This is quite good because agility is the only stat you can't use tech pts to raise. Her attack power starts off weak, but will eventually become very strong. This is because she gains better weapons as well as levels as the game proceeds. Her EP amount is quite good, and she has one of the best healing spells for the beginning of the game, Life Shot. /Weaknesses/ Her stats otherwise are pretty bad. Low HP and vitality make her very easy to kill. Her other stats aren't so hot either. finally, other than Life Shot, her ethers are pretty much useless. /How to use her/ MOMO is the perfect character for utilizing tech pts on stats. Boost her up in everything(she needs all of them except for EP) and MOMO will be a powerhouse. This is a good idea if you want to use her for Dark Sceptering Gnosises(is that the plural for Gnosis? :D). Alternatively, she makes a very good back row character. Her low HP and vitality won't be too big a deal there, since most attacks won't hit her. Her speed then allows her to be a perfect support character. However, this is only useful in boss fights. /Ether/ Ether Chart ----------- *Note: Amount of pts needed for upgrade in paranthesis.* |--Prayer |--Miracle Star(240)--| | |--Refine Life Shot(120)--| |--Sheep Beam(320)--Junk Beam |--Star Veil *Star Wind(100)--| |--Star Action |--Star Bell **Starlight(100)--| |-Star Bunnie Ether Analysis -------------- *Note: The first number in the paranthesis is the weight. The 2nd is EP Cost. For example, (3/10) means the ether has a weight of 3 and a casting cost of 10. Life Shot(1/2): Very useful at the beginning and the middle parts of the game. Not as necessary later on but still quite useful. Miracle Star(1/4): Pointless. Unless MOMO's in the back row, and you need for her to deal damage, you'll never have a need for this spell. But if Shion has transferred Boost 1 to her, then that's much more useful. Sheep Beam(1/4): Useful in Plemora. Otherwise, not many occasions where you'd use it. Perhaps against Meld/Din Gareth... Prayer(1/6): Gives a random healing item. The best I've gotten is a Ether Pack DX, I believe. Fairly pointless. Refine(1/6): Pointless. Use revives for the same result and less AP usage. Junk Beam(2/6): Never did try this on Mech bosses(like Proto Dora). If it works, then not a bad spell. Pointless again non-bosses. *The following cannot be transfered to other characters. Star Wind(2/10) --------------- Using Star Wind will allow MOMO to transform into her 'Star Wind' Form. Her transformed stated lasts for 2 turns when she has more than 50% HP. It lasts for 3 turns if her HP is between 25% to 50%. Any less, and she'll be in the transformed state for 4 turns. While transformed, her defense will double. She can use two special ethers in this state. (Thanks to micahgabriel) Star Veil(2/4): Not incredibly useful. Sure, ether damage done to you are reduced by 25%. But so will your healing ethers. There are special cases, like against the final boss's Dark Omen, where this can be helpful. Star Action(2/6): Not too useful unless used on someone with Double Buster. In addition to the above ethers, MOMO can use the Magic Caster in this state. See Tech Attack section for details on the Magic Caster. Starlight(2/10) --------------- Using Starlight will allow MOMO to transform into her 'Starlight' Form. Her transformed stated lasts for 2 turns when she has more than 50% HP. It lasts for 3 turns if her HP is between 25% to 50%. Any less, and she'll be in the transformed state for 4 turns. While transformed, her attack will double. She can also use two special ethers in this state. (Thanks to micahgabriel) Star Bell(2/4): The damage of this spell is mediocre. You're much better off spending your turns on much more useful attacks. Star Bunnie(2/4): See above. In addition to the above ethers, MOMO can use MOMO's Kiss in this state. See Tech Attack section for details on MOMO's Kiss. /Tech Attacks/ S = Single A = All N = Near F = Far Star Strike(S/N) ---------------- Initial tech. Don't bother with this one. Floral Tempest(S/N) ------------------- The description makes it sounds like a physical attack. But it seems more like an ether attack. And seemingly does good damage to all kinds of enemies. A good tech for the early/middle parts of the game. Meteor Storm(S/F) ----------------- She gets this at lv15. Not worth boosting. Magic Caster(S/F) ----------------- This tech steals an item. It will always succeed(as far as I know) and will aim for the rare item first. Very useful. Level up its speed so you can steal both items during boss fights. MOMO get this in the Cathedral ship by examining the bookshelf(see that section of the walkthrough for details). Star Cannon(A/F) ---------------- She gets this at lv20. One of the few physical attack-all techs for a character not named Jr. Which means you can abuse Bravesoul with this tech. Angel Arrow(A/F) ---------------- She gets this at lv24. Beam version of Star Cannon. Which makes it less useful. Dark Scepter(S/N) ----------------- She gets this after you beat Mintia(see optional boss section for details). It can turn Gnosis into items if you use it as a killing blow. Here's a list of the items, courtesy of Bradygames guide. Many of these are rare. Emerald - Unicorn, Wyrm Garnet - Drone G1, Drone G3, Goblin, Kobold, Manticore Ruby - Basilisk, Bugbear, Cerberus, Golem Sapphire - Fairy, Hydra Diamond - Gigas Hemlock - Lizardman Frame Repair A - Ogre Frame Repair Z - Troll Skill Upgrade Z - Armaros Holey Gloves - Delphyne If you just want to get the Holey Gloves, then don't bother leveling up this tech. If you want to use it to collect items, then power it up. MOMO's Kiss(S/F) ---------------- She gets this in the Song of Nephilim. You can only use it during Starlight form. Considering its limited usage, there's no point to use it unless you have no other powerful techs. /Weapons/ All of MOMO's weapons can be bought in stores except for three. 1. Penguin Rod[Atk +7 Slows B & G]: It's the common drop from Mintia. Pretty useful if you get it at the first possible opportunity. 2. W Hammer Rod[Atk +10 Confuses B & B]: You get this in Segment Address 12 in the Song of Nephilim. 3. Dragon Rod[Atk +20]: Get this on the 44th floor of Proto Merkabah. It's the most powerful weapon in the game. /Rating/ She's hard to rate. She's quite handy in the back row in boss fights. And the people who overpower their characters should like her. But if you just want to breeze through the game, then she's pretty bad. On average, 6/10. =============================================================================== 3.5 chaos =============================================================================== Favorite Quote: "Unleash some(sum?) of my powers." chaos is a pretty fruity character, although he does have a big bulge in his pants. That's got to be a plus with the ladies if he's not stuffing it. :P In battle, chaos is reliable but not spectacular. Honestly, there's nothing which really makes him unique. His angel attacks does make you wonder just what kind of person he is, though. Personal Comment: A note about the fact that chaos is all in lower case, while KOS-MOS is in all upper-case. Also, 'cosmos' means 'order'. Anyway, just something to think about. :) /Strengths/ As I've commented, he doesn't excel at anything. Although some of his ethers can be quite handy. /Weaknesses/ He doesn't really have any weaknesses either. /How to use him/ He's pretty flexible. You can have him attack or support. He has a nice array of support ethers while boasting a very good attack. /Ether/ Ether Chart ----------- *Note: Amount of pts needed for upgrade in paranthesis.* |--Healing Dew(240)--Purifying Storm(900)--Best Ally Protective Wear(120)-| | |--Flame Wings(400)--Supreme Judgement | | |-Ice Wings(280)-| |-Cataclysm |-Lightning Wings(620)-| |-Light & Wings Ether Analysis -------------- *Note: The first number in the paranthesis is the weight. The 2nd is EP Cost. For example, (3/10) means the ether has a weight of 3 and a casting cost of 10. Protective Wear(1/4): Not too useful. Healing Dew(2/6): Useful early on, but is overshadowed by Medica All later. Ice Wings(1/4): Pointless. Stick with techs. Flame Wings(1/4): See above Lightning Wings(1/4): See above Purifying Storm(2/6): Not as useful as it sounds, since enemies almost never use statuses on everyone. Not bad if you have the extra space. Cataclysm(4/12): The description says "Resets attack & wait time". I'm not too clear on what this means. Light & Wings(4/12): Pretty useful against enemies that boosts up. A few of the late bosses do this. *You can't transfer the following ethers. Best Ally(8/50): It's certainly quite powerful, the casting cost and weight are prohibitive, IMO. You pretty much need the Angel Ring or the extracted skill to use this. /Tech Attacks/ S = Single A = All N = Near F = Far (Under Construction) =============================================================================== 3.6 Jr. =============================================================================== (Under Construction) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Section 4: Monster Analyze List + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Keep in mind that all points are distributed among your active living party members. So if an enemy gives 15 exp, and there are three people in your party, each person gets 5 exp. The same with T/E/S pts. =============================================================================== 4.1 KOS-MOS Simulator =============================================================================== Note: Drone M, F, and Attack Drone appear only before you defeat Drone SPX. Drone G1, G2, and G3 appear only afterwards. Attack Drone - L 80, 13, 4, 2, 4, -/- Drone SPX L 280, 18, 0, 16, -/med kit s -Drone M -Bio <-> 50hp -Weakness: Fire -Exp 7 T. pts 2 -Money 0 E. pts 2 -Rare Item: Med Kit S. pts 2 -Item: none -Drone F -Bio <-> 68hp -Weakness: Fire -Exp 8 T. pts 2 -Money 0 E. pts 2 -Rare Item: Med Kit S. pts 2 -Item: none -Attack Drone -Mech <-> 80hp -Weakness: Lightning -Exp 13 T. pts 4 -Money 0 E. pts 2 -Rare Item: none S. pts 4 -Item: none -*Mini Boss* Drone SPX -Mech <-> 280hp -Weakness: Lightning -Exp 40 T. pts 18 -Money 0 E. pts 0 -Rare Item: Med Kit S. pts 16 -Item: none -Drone G2 -Gnosis <-> 60hp -Weakness: Beam -Exp 8 T. pts 2 -Money 0 E. pts 4 -Rare Item: Ether Pack S. Pts 0 -Item: none -Drone G1 -Gnosis <-> 82hp -Weakness: Slash -Exp 10 T. Pts 2 -Money 0 E. Pts 2 -Rare Item: Ether Pack S. Pts 0 -Item: None -Drone G3 -Gnosis <-> 130hp -Weakness: None -Exp 20 T. Pts 4 -Money 0 E. Pts 0 -Rare Item: Med Kit S. Pts 0 -Item: None -*Boss* Drone GX -Gnosis <->420 -Weakness: Slash -Exp 100 T. Pts 24 -Money 0 E. Pts 12 -Rare Item: None S. Pts 8 -Item: Ether Pack S =============================================================================== 4.2 Woglinde =============================================================================== -Goblin -Gnosis <->180hp -Weakness: Spirit -Exp 40 T. Pts 6 -Money 0 E. Pts 0 -Rare Item: None S. Pts 0 -Item: Ether Pack -*Mini Boss Cyclops -Gnosis <->560hp -Weakness: Lightning -Exp 560 T. Pts 30 -Money 800 E. Pts 16 -Rare Item: None S. Pts 24 -Item: SMG99AG -Manticore -Gnosis <->90hp -Weakness: Slash -Exp 30 T. Pts 3 -Money 0 E. Pts 4 -Rare Item: Ether Upgrade A S. Pts 0 -Item: None -Golem -Gnosis <->240hp -Weakness: Slash -Exp 110 T. Pts 8 -Money 0 E. Pts 8 -Rare Item: None S. Pts 4 -Item: Ether Pack S -Gremlin -Gnosis <->100hp -Weakness: none -Exp 50 T. Pts 3 -Money 0 E. Pts 3 -Rare Item: Med Kit S S. Pts 3 -Item: Revive -*Boss* Minotaur -Gnosis <->920hp -Weakness: Beam -Exp 720 T. Pts 42 -Money 0 E. Pts 30 -Rare Item: Skill Upgrade Z S. Pts 12 -Item: Skill Upgrade A [The rest are under construction] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Section 5: Other Stuffs + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ =============================================================================== 5.1 Random tips that doesn't belong anywhere else =============================================================================== A. READ THE MANUAL. Too many people fail to grasp the importance of the instruction manual. It has more info than you might think. B. This is fairly obvious, but you might not be too aware of it. Basically, you will see many vaporizable canisters in the game. Blowing them up will affect enemies caught up in them. Here are the effects that's listed in the game. /Red - Flames/ Field: Stop Battle: Boost +1 Comments: The BEST kind. Boost +1 pretty much gurantees finishing off the enemies before they attack. This, of course, doesn't include the possibility of counter boosts. /Yellow - Electrocute/ Field: Slow Battle: +Critical Comments: I never did get too much of an extra critical boosts while fighting in these conditions. So not too sure about this bonus. The 'slow' stat for on the field is pretty much the same as stop. They move way too slow to matter, unless you need to get through a small amount of space. /Purple - Sprinkles?/ Field: Nothing Battle: Skill Lock These only appear by enemies where Skill Lock is useful. So not too bad here. Note that the Field effect seems to be not true. The enemy tends to do the 'yawn' motion continously while in this field. So you can get past them quite easily. C. Another obvious point. Try killing enemies in the 'Point Bonus' slot of the Event Slot(read manual for details). This is especially important in boss battles, since you get massive amount of tech/ether/skill pts from them. It's actually easier to do than you might think, provided the enemy isn't too hard. The rewards are very well worth it. D. In boss fights, the event slot should always be utilitzed to your advantage. Basically, do your best to give the boss the 'Point Bonus' and 'Nothing' slots, while taking the important 'Critical' and 'Boost' slots yourself. This can be done by boosting. And you can start off by using Boost 1 on someone. E. Skipping battle animations: Some ethers/techs in this game have cut-scenes during their attack. If so, you can skip them by pressing the start button. This is very useful if you like to use the Erde Kaiser to level up, since it's a long animation sequence. F. Bravesoul is an incredibly cheap item. Those who have played Xenogears would be familiar with its counterpart, the Power Crisis. It raises the character's attack power as his/her HP lowers. Jr. is the best character to use this, s since he has physical all-attack and long range physical techs. G. Avoiding battles. Anyway, the enemies in this game are easy to dodge if you know how. First of all, they can't see if you're behind them. They're also fairly blind. However, they're NOT deaf. Running will make a nice big sound for them to track. So walk by them. If you walk, you can practically be next to them and not be noticed. Finally, most(if not all) enemies tend to slack off during their guard duties. So when it does that, even running will not cause them to come running after you. H. Commander's Crest + Double Buster is a very powerful combo in boss fights. I. [Come coming as soon as I can think of them...] =============================================================================== 5.2 Frequently Asked Questions =============================================================================== Q: How do you use W-Act? A: First you need to equip the same weapon in both hands. This weapon must have the ability to W-Act(read the description). Finally, you need 6 AP. Guarding is the easiest way to build up the AP. Q: Where are MOMO's transformations? A: The first one is in the Cathedral Ship. It's near the beginning. Read that part of the walkthrough for details. The second one is in the Song Of Nephilim, 2nd tower. Take the Northeast door from the save point. You need MOMO to be leading the party to get these ethers. Q: =============================================================================== 5.3 My thoughts on Xenosaga and this walkthrough =============================================================================== Unlike most walkthroughs, the nature of mine really prevents me from discussing stories, characters, and other non-gameply issues regarding Xenosaga. This is kind of annoying, because I love Xenosaga. Otherwise, why else would I spent so much time writing this walkthrough? This is a popular game, so even if I don't write anything, visitors of the site still has many others to choose from. The following are just some comments. I first played Xenogears two years ago, buying it at the urge of friends. I absolutely loved the game. However, I also felt annoyed at the game. It was not polished. The story was not fluid. Many parts seemed cut out. Basically, it seemed like reading a great story, but only the rough draft version. Not the final copy. Suffice to say I was pretty ecstatic when Monolith announced that Xenosaga is coming out. I pre-ordered my Xenosaga(the first time I pre-ordered ANYTHING in my life), and got it on the first day. Started playing in the afternoon. I immediately fell in love with it. Xenogears was like reading a book, but Xenosaga was like watching a movie. It was amazing. Sometimes I would get lost in the middle of the cutscenes, forgetting that I'm playing a game. Overall, this game did not disappoint me at all. I was surprised because I had such high expectations. It's not so much that Xenosaga met all my expectations, but that it made me forget my expectations. This might sound weird, but it makes sense. My expectations all came from my experience from Xenogears. So I pretty much made a mental list of what I wanted in this game, in respect to Xenogears. But after playing for a while, I immediately stopped thinking about Xenogears. I found this to be a different game, with its own ups and downs. Once I got over the 'comparison', Xenosaga became one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played. I got the idea of writing this walkthrough fairly soon after I began playing. I wanted to write a walkthrough because of my past experiences with them. Specifically, the fact that RPG walkthroughs like to put way to much spoilers in regards to story events. I didn't know how the other walkthroughs here would turn out(they actually do look pretty good as I write this), but I wanted to give people a spoiler-free walkthrough just in case. In this regards, I sincerely hope that I have succeeded. I wish people like the fact that my directions are very simple. That I did not ruin your enjoyment of the story. Because that was my original intent. Granted, this walkthrough has since expanded due to many e-mails asking for more optional stuffs. But the main walkthrough has not changed in its nature. =============================================================================== 5.3 Credits =============================================================================== Thanks to jetfuel's Massive guide on Gamefaqs. It helped me out with many small details that I would've never found myself, like the segment addresses. Also thanks to EChang's Email FAQ at Gamefaqs. I just hope he'll update it one of these days to correct his mistakes, though. Thanks to flybri for letting me use his drill/slots guides. Thanks to all others who have contributed. You have indeed made my life much easier. Even small contributions help. Thanks to the gamefaqs board, where there are many gamers much better at this game than I. Thanks to CJayC for this great website. Of course, I thank Monolith and Namco to make this great game, but curse them at the same time for only providing 1/6 of the story. *Sighs* I'll be so old when episode 6 comes out... :( [The End]