Wow, disc 2 sure flew by! Well okay, maybe me really getting into this challenge and playing it for 4-5 hour spurts helped, but still. Disc 2 ended up being right around where I expected in terms of difficulty, though only in a few major spots.
Disc 2 starts off with you not playing as Zidane. While I don’t have Zidane as a playable character, I have a “low level” challenge in play. By this I mean while I won’t force absolute minimum level, I will try and run from most everything. I did actually fight a few battles prior to arriving at Treno just to get everyone at level 3. After that however, Steiner sort of just ended up at level 7 or so from being unable to run from encounters. Dagger and Marcus on the other hand though… They just kept getting one shotted.
Ralvuralhva or however it is spelled though… He was a bit of a pain. The first two deaths of the disc happened here and forced me to rethink my strat, somewhat on accident. I was hoping to get the add-on off of Garnet but well, by a happy accident I suppose I left it on her and was able to make her survive a hit to help with healing.
After that was Cleyra’s Trunk. While there wasn’t a death, some of the encounters – namely the Sand Golems – provided some fun as far as how much damage they did. And while I didn’t count it as a game over as I could have won if I had stuck to it, I wanted to switch a piece of equipment so AP didn’t go to waste on Antlion. He was also an… interesting… fight just due to how Sandstorm works (brings me down to single digit HP).
The next notable part was the second Beatrix battle. Thankfully this only took one attempt. After some cutscenes, we’re back for a bit without Zidane… Thankfully not for long.
Zorn and Thorn were whatever, however after them came half my deaths in disc 2. Beatrix 3 and the sequence after her. The first try I got past her surprisingly easy, but not knowing what to expect in terms of difficulty after I didn’t prepare properly. I made it to the final fight in the whole sequence and sort of just died as I didn’t have enough HP on either Freya or Beatrix.
The next three deaths were all thanks to Beatrix, and after that I got lucky and made it past her again. This time, however, I properly prepared and still nearly lost it. Why? Well… I meant to use an Elixir on Beatrix and mistargeted it onto Steiner. Whoops!
Nothing else really of note until the Iifa Tree on this disc – the overall difficulty in that section was fairly low. The Iifa Tree shouldn’t have provided too much difficulty except for one minor detail – I only had 1 Magic Tag. Now, the reason this is important is because one of the enemies there can inflict the Zombie status, rendering me unable to heal unless I cure it with a Magic Tag.
Unfortunately, the first time I got Zombied and was unable to heal it I had Auto-Potion on still. I ended up going into the little fight gauntlet at the end with basically no HP. Yeah, didn’t make it past the Zombie Dragon in that. Okay, no problem! I’ll just not get Zombied next time!
Well, I didn’t. Heck, I even got another Magic Tag to drop! Well, oh wait. Turns out Zombie Dragons can use level 5 death… Oh, and I just so happened to hit level 30 on the previous battle. Well then, new plan! Grind up to level 31 to avoid that. Thankfully on my third try through that whole section I was able to beat it and essentially finish off the disc. The remaining battles really aren’t too notable, and that meant on to disc 3!
Having already played a good chunk of disc 3 I already know that some things are going to be a pain. The first optional boss is (properly) available and there’s two major character splits, one of which will get very interesting. Due to family related things, disc 3 will probably take me a little longer to actually get through than disc 2 did, but it will be done!
Disc 2 Difficulty with Zidane Solo
4/5 – Beatrix and Zombie Dragons. Yeah…
Expected Disc 3 Difficulty with Zidane Solo
4.5/5 – Optional bosses and the Oeilvert/Desert Palace split. Oh yeah, and You’re Not Alone.
You can find my Twitch highlight of the Beatrix 3 and following sequence here.
