Day #291 Recap (Final Fantasy IX)

Current Game: Final Fantasy IX

Current Play Time: 6:08
Total Play Time - 606:53
Current Game Overs - 0
Total Game Overs: 59

Where I Currently Am: Gizmaluke's Grotto
Stuff Did Today: We went to the Village of Dali, where strangely, no adults were around. We scoured the village and discovered a secret factory for Black Mage Dolls which sent Vivi into an existential crisis. The villagers kidnapped him and tried to send him off with their latest shipment, but we stopped them. We then had to take out Black Waltz #2 and Black Waltz #3 as we escaped on the cargo ship. Then we hijacked the ship and steered it to Lindblum, where Dagger knew the regent, who had been turned into an oglop because he cheated on his wife. Oops.The festival of the hunt was held, and Freya, an old acquaintance of Zidane's won, beating out Zidane and Vivi. During the celebration a soldier from Burmecia came in and requested help as Black Mages were sacking the kingdom... so off we go to help them out... but first, Chocobo Forest! We caught Choco and then took him to the forest where we started digging up Chocographs.

Current Setup:

Zidane - Lv 11
HP - 531 MP - 60
Equipped Passive Abilities: Beast Killer, Add Status, Protect Girls, Flee-Gil, Bright Eyes, Bandit
Equipment: Butterfly Sword, Headgear, Glass Armlet, Bronze Vest, Yellow Scarf

Speed: 24 Strength: 27 Magic: 12 Spirit: 25
Attack: 21 Defense: 11 Evade: 10 Magic Def: 8 Magic Eva: 7

Learned Active Abilities: Flee, Detect, What's That (L)
Learned Passive Abilities: Beast Killer, Steal Gil, Add Status, Protect Girls, Flee Gil, Antibody, Bright Eyes, Bandit

Vivi - Lv 7
HP - 194 MP - 62
Equipped Passive Abilties: Add Status, Antibody
Equipment: Mage Staff, Feather Hat, Glass Armlet, Cotton Robe, Glass Buckle

Speed: 16 Strength: 16 Magic: 28 Spirit: 23
Attack: 12 Defense: 10 Evade: 10 Magic Def: 9 Magic Eva: 12

Learned Active Abilities: Fire, Blizzard, Thunder
Learned Passive Abilities: None

Freya - Lv 11
HP - 194 MP - 62
Equipped Passive Abilties: Bug Killer, Man Eater, Cover, Level Up, Insomniac
Equipment: Javelin, Iron Helm, Mythril Gloves, Linen Cuirass, Coral Ring

Speed: 21 Strength: 23 Magic: 20 Spirit: 27
Attack: 18 Defense: 10 Evade: 13 Magic Def: 7 Magic Eva: 10

Learned Active Abilities: None
Learned Passive Abilities: None

Not Currently In Party:

Steiner - Lv 6
HP - 183 MP - 25
Equipped Abilities: Bird Killer, Bug Killer, Antibody
Equipment: Iron Sword, Bronze Helm, Bronze Gloves, Bronze Armor

Speed: 18 Strength: 25 Magic: 13 Spirit: 22
Attack: 16 Defense: 9 Evade: 8 Magic Def: 6 Magic Eva: 2

Learned Active Abilities: Minus Strike,
Learned Passive Abilities: Bird Killer, Antibody

Dagger - Lv 5
HP - 159 MP - 54
Equipped Abilities: None
Equipment: Rod, Leather Hat, Leather Wrist, Silk Shirt, Moonstone

Speed: 21 Strength: 15 Magic: 24 Spirit: 18
Attack: 11 Defense: 7 Evade: 7 Magic Def: 6 Magic Eva: 5

Learned Abilities: Shiva, Ifrit, Atomos, Odin, Bahamut, Cure, Panacea, Protect(L), Shell(L)

Tetra Master:
5x Goblin 0P00
5x Fang 0P00
Skeleton 0P00
4x Flan 0M00 - 0M01
Zaghnol - 0P00
Lizard Man 0P00
Zombie 0M00
Bomb 0M00
Ironite 1P10
Sahagin 1P00 
Mimic 0M11

Chocobo:
Type - Yellow
Beak Level - 10
Chocotreasures dug up - None

Status & Notes: 

So, finally a very productive day. Maybe not as far as I had hoped, but I forgot how long I was going to spend in the Chocobo Forest... I love the chocobo forest... really I do. Still have a couple chocographs to dig up in the first place, I'll be taking care of that today. Also, you can see I tweaked the Current Setup section ever so slightly, I like this layout a bit better, that's all. I also like showing the difference between the active and passive abilities.

I want to talk a little about one of the main mechanics of the game. Our main character, Zidane, in this game is a Thief. Now, this is the first game I can think of in the series... and maybe the only one at that where you can steal multiple items from an enemy. In fact, most of the boss battles in this game revolve more around being able to disable a boss enough so that you can steal from it than actually killing it, because you can get unique or advanced items by making sure you steal everything from a boss. This is fine, I have no problem with it, with a couple of exceptions. Firstly, the steal rate is way too low. There are some bosses in previous playthroughs which have taken me well over half an hour just because I couldn't steal the last item from it. Secondly, Zidane's limit breaks which are actually kind of cool, are pretty much wasted and never seen, because any time he gets into a trance, you're probably too busy trying to steal something from a boss to actually use it! I wish stealing didn't use up your trance meter.... alright complaints done.

Today's goals include: Finishing up the first chocobo forest, recruiting Qu and getting available Blue Magic, making it through Gizmaluke's Grotto and into Burmecia... all this with an outside chance of finishing Disc 1... let's see how it goes.