Beating Final Fantasy IX at Level 1: Boss-by-Boss Strategies and a Reading of the Story

The story begins in a cabin aboard the theater ship Prima Vista. As the thieves' troupe Tantalus plans to kidnap Princess Garnet, there's a tutorial battle against their masked boss. Here the uploader has everyone use "Steal" to collect items. At level 1, both combat strength and money tend to run short, so stealing the protagonist's weapon in this fight gives you an edge. Once the stealing is done, the uploader deliberately lets the party get wiped out to end the battle and save time.

After that, Guboy hits it off with Princess Garnet, who has been trying to sneak out of the castle, and she turns the tables by asking him to kidnap her. Queen Brahne sees through the plan, and the theater ship is fiercely bombarded even though the princess is aboard. The ship escapes, carrying the black mage Vivi and the knight Steiner along with it, and crash-lands in the mist-shrouded Evil Forest.

In the first boss fight against Plant Brain, Guboy starts by getting himself killed. This brings Blank of Tantalus rushing in to help, so the remaining three only need to attack once each to finish it. Steiner uses "Fire Sword," Blank uses a normal attack, and finally Vivi's "Fire" delivers the finishing blow. Using KOs as a tactic to limit which characters receive experience is an idea that recurs throughout the video.

In the cave fight against Black Waltz No. 1, the cold knocks out his companions and Guboy fights alone. First he steals a "Mythril Dagger" from the enemy, a weapon that comes in handy for the upcoming No. 2 and No. 3 fights. Next he takes advantage of the Trance gauge, which fills each time he takes damage. When it's one hit away from full, he opens and closes a window to bait exactly one enemy attack, then defeats No. 1 with a powerful Trance technique. Sealion, which has somewhat high HP and attacks more fiercely as its HP drops, is hit once and then finished off in one go with a technique.

In a farming village, the party witnesses a factory where black mages identical to Vivi are being mass-produced on Brahne's orders. Princess Garnet takes the name "Dagger" and travels with them, and the party sneaks aboard a cargo ship to seek help from the neighboring kingdom of Lindblum.

Black Waltz No. 2 counterattacks whenever Vivi casts magic. Once its HP drops below half, it counters with "Fira" on all three party members, but this counter doesn't come if even one of them is down. The uploader explains that this is why Vivi had to be deliberately left KO'd. After that, Guboy's normal attacks and Steiner's "Fire Sword" take care of it.

In the fight against Black Waltz No. 3 aboard the cargo ship, the black mage soldiers, who had seemed like soulless puppets, act as if to shield Vivi when confronted by No. 3. In this battle Vivi starts in Trance and can use "Double Black," which casts black magic twice in a row. The enemy floats up as a counter to "Attack," making normal attacks miss. Even so, magic swords still hit, according to the uploader. The uploader rates magic swords as useful at key moments, noting that they can keep an enemy asleep and aren't affected by Protect or Shell.

No. 3 has 1100 HP. The plan is to deal a total of 700 with two "Double Black" casts and whittle down the remaining 400 with "Fire Sword" and "Attack." The party-wide "Thundara" comes twice. Steiner, with his high max HP, simply endures it, and Vivi survives thanks to the "Silk Shirt," which halves lightning damage. Guboy can withstand up to two hits, so one character can attack while the other two heal.

While the party is meeting with Regent Cid in Lindblum, word arrives that the Kingdom of Burmecia is being invaded by black mage soldiers. Guboy and company set out with Freya, an old friend from Burmecia. In a marsh along the way, they catch a frog, and Quina, who wants to learn about the food of the outside world, joins the party. The uploader says that with this, they're "safe for a while."

The reason is the blue magic "Limit Glove." It deals 9999 damage only when Quina's HP is 1, and it can take down in a single hit both Gizamaluke (3175 HP), the guardian dragon brainwashed into a rampage, and Beatrix (3630 HP), the knight who appears in Burmecia. However, the Beatrix fight is a scripted loss in the story, so the party gets defeated. The enemy moves on to Cleyra, where the King of Burmecia has fled, and Guboy and the others follow.

In the Antlion fight at Cleyra, Quina's HP has recovered on its own and no longer meets the condition for Limit Glove. So the uploader adjusts it with the blue magic "Auto-Life." Quina casts Auto-Life on itself, gets knocked out by some attack, and is automatically revived with 1 HP. This sets up the condition, and the boss is defeated. The same method is used later in the fight against Lani.

Around the same time, Dagger's group heads to Alexandria to talk with Brahne. On the way, they face a rematch against the surviving Black Waltz No. 3 (1292 HP). Marcus of Tantalus, whom they happened to meet at a station, also joins, but the uploader remarks that his damage output is lower than the princess's, making him "little more than a bullet sponge." This No. 3 never attacks Dagger at all, and once Dagger is the only one left, it breaks down on its own from self-inflicted damage. The uploader describes these small touches as a fun, very FF-like element.

Ralvurahva (2296 HP) in the underground tunnel can be defeated with two of Steiner's "Darkside" attacks and a few hits from his companions. However, the enemy's attacks are almost instant death if they land, and the uploader reflects that they were lucky to dodge them this time.

Back at the castle, Dagger is captured and subjected to a ritual to extract summons from her body. Dagger has lost her memories, but she was originally a survivor of a destroyed village of summoners, smuggled to Alexandria and secretly raised as an adopted daughter. In Cleyra, Beatrix seizes the jewel "Desert Star." The second Beatrix fight is also settled with Limit Glove, but the party ends up getting taken out by "Stock Break" anyway. Afterward, the summon "Odin" is called forth using the power extracted from Dagger.

Returning to the castle's basement via a teleporter, Guboy and the others fight Zorn & Thorn. Defeating either one is enough, and it takes only two of Steiner's attacks, so Guboy steals in the meantime. The enemies power up before casting magic, but dealing damage to them prevents it.

The third Beatrix fight has to be fought properly, since the party got separated from Quina at Cleyra. Her HP is 5709. Since Beatrix uses only single-target attacks, the uploader judges that they won't lose as long as they keep reviving. Each turn follows the pattern "one person goes down, one revives, two attack," with Vivi using "Bio" when alive and the others using "Attack." The treasure chest just before this holds Steiner's weapon "Ice Brand," setting the stage for Steiner to shine.

Here the uploader touches on how Steiner is portrayed. Although he constantly talks about "myself," Steiner never really had a self of his own, but from around this point there are more scenes where he values his own will, depicting his growth as a person. The uploader considers it one of the game's great strengths that, despite being an ensemble drama in which many characters cross paths, each one's struggles and growth are portrayed with care. As expected, the fight ends with Beatrix defeating the party. But on seeing Princess Garnet sleeping as if dead, Beatrix's doubts about Brahne turn into certainty, and she sides with Guboy and the others.

Ralvuimago, which appears during the escape, is the earlier Ralvurahva evolved from larva into imago, and its behavior pattern is slightly different. Its party-wide "Thundara" can easily be dealt with using a "Reflect Ring" or "Coral Ring." However, the uploader says that handling it with Reflect has the drawback of dragging out the animations. Its HP is 3352, and Vivi's "Blizzara" does about 1200 per hit, so three casts finish it off.

Brahne's fleet also invades Lindblum with the power of summons. Dagger's pendant also seems to be involved in activating the summons, and the assassin Lani is sent after it. Quina had rejoined in the marsh, so it uses Auto-Life to get down to 1 HP and then defeats her with Limit Glove.

Having crossed to the Outer Continent in pursuit of Brahne's fleet, Vivi discovers a village where black mages who have awakened to self-awareness live in hiding. There he learns that black mages have a lifespan of just one year. After thinking about life, Vivi chooses to see the outside world with Guboy and the others rather than spend the rest of his days in the village with his fellow black mages. On a mountain path, Eiko, a girl who seems to be a survivor of the summoner tribe, joins the party.

In the fight against Hilgigars (8106 HP), Limit Glove can't be used because Quina has run off trying to eat Eiko's moogle companion. Instead, the boss is finished off with the secret technique "Lucky Seven," which works only when the last digit of the user's HP is 7.

In the deepest part of the Iifa Tree, the great tree that emits the Mist, Soulcage politely answers a barrage of questions. Here is the uploader's summary. There was originally a planet in the universe called "Terra," which survived by merging with a young planet each time its life ran out. Eventually it could no longer find a planet to merge with, and forced a merger with "Gaia," a fully matured planet. As a result, Terra was absorbed inside Gaia, and the life of the two planets became mingled. The Iifa Tree is a mechanism that sorts the souls trying to return to the planet, discarding Gaia's unneeded souls as Mist. Kuja was using this Mist to start wars and increase Terra's power. Soulcage itself has undead properties, so it falls to the white magic "Life."

The following fight against Amarant (8986 HP) is one-on-one. First, "Lucky Seven" takes out most of his HP, and then, to be safe, Guboy uses "Defend" to raise his evasion against the upcoming triple attack before closing out the win.

Brahne sends Bahamut against Kuja, whom she has decided she no longer needs. But Kuja uses the power of Terra's airship to brainwash Bahamut and blasts Brahne's fleet to oblivion. Bahamut is sent to Alexandria as well after it welcomes its new queen, but Dagger and Eiko summon the legendary Alexander to protect the city. This too was just as Kuja anticipated, but then Garland, Terra's caretaker, appears, takes back the airship he had lent out, and wipes out Alexander.

With their companions taken hostage through Kuja's trap, the party fights Ark (20002 HP) in a land sealed by a barrier against magic. Amarant, puzzled that Guboy spared his life in their duel, has joined the party to figure out why, and the boss can be defeated with everyone simply hitting it once each.

Valia Pira, fought by Eiko and the other hostages, is a boss that gets stronger in tandem with the dungeon's mechanisms. This time all the mechanisms have been disabled, so the presentation is a somewhat lonely one where only an error log keeps scrolling by. Its HP is 12120, and Limit Glove alone isn't enough, so the white magic "Holy" is used as well. The enemy uses only magic, so it can simply be reflected with a Reflect Ring.

Meltigemini (24348 HP), the fusion of Zorn and Thorn, has a nasty party-wide attack, so it's taken down fast. Eiko casts Holy (it's weak to the holy element), Quina prepares Limit Glove, and Amarant hits hard. The one enemy attack that came was fortunately single-target. The uploader comments that this game's Holy animation feels like it gets especially favorable treatment within the series.

It's revealed that Kuja is an invader from another planet, Terra, and the party plans to transport themselves there. When obtaining four mirrors in an old castle, Taharka appears, but it's defeated by inflicting Heat with "Flametongue." The four shrines are tackled simultaneously in pairs, and the uploader fights the Earth Guardian (20756 HP) at the Earth Shrine with Quina. The plan is to chip away at it by reflecting its "Blizzaga" with a Reflect Ring, then finish it with two Limit Gloves. The enemy's next action was "Earthquake," but earth attacks have been nullified with equipment, so the win comes without trouble.

Arriving on Terra, the party finds a tailed race closely resembling Guboy, but they all seem somehow hollow. Guboy goes alone to Garland, who tells him about the failed merger of the two planets, the existence of the "Genomes" as a race of vessels for souls, and his own role as Kuja's successor. Guboy flatly refuses the invitation to join Terra's side and is reduced to a hollow being like the other Genomes. Even after regaining consciousness through his companions' voices, Guboy insists on solving things by himself. The uploader says that because he had always stood at the front of the group setting others straight, this self-righteous side of him hits hard.

The three consecutive battles that follow are said to be the only fights in this challenge where main party members can't avoid gaining experience. So the uploader decided to continue the level 1 run by forcing the experience onto one person in each fight and then removing that member from the front lines thereafter.

In the first battle, against Amdusias, Guboy falls to the opening "Bio" and gets back up thanks to the effect of a "charm," but he can't win alone. Freya and then Amarant join in, and Freya receives the experience. In the second battle, against Abadon (10926 HP), damage doesn't go through for the first two turns, so Limit Glove is prepared during that time. Quina, knocked down by the party-wide "Kamaitachi," gets back up with 1 HP thanks to the charm, while Steiner endures in the back row. Once Guboy enters the fight and damage starts going through, Limit Glove is fired, bringing the boss's remaining HP to 927. The other members kill themselves one by one, and instead of the long Limit Glove animation, Quina finishes it off with "Pepper Dead." Quina, who had done so much with blue magic up to this point, is given the experience, and Steiner becomes the cornerstone of the offense from here on. In the third battle, against Shell Dragon (10921 HP), Guboy, lacking earth protection, falls to "Earth Shake," and Dagger joins in. The uploader describes this sequence as reminiscent of FF4. The summon "Shiva" deals heavy damage, and with only Guboy down, Dagger is left to take the experience. The fight is wrapped up with Pepper Dead. After the three battles, Guboy heeds his companions' persuasion and decides to fight alongside them.

From here, the main weapon is Steiner's "Charge!," a technique in which every ally in critical condition attacks. In the fight against the Silver Dragon, the three critically wounded members other than Vivi each unleash one normal attack. In the fight against Garland (40729 HP), the enemy uses only single-target attacks, so the party repeatedly uses Charge! while keeping one person on revival duty. Charge! requires MP, so it's restored with "Ether." A single Charge! is said to take off about 30% of the enemy's HP. According to the uploader, had Quina been kept around, it alone could have dealt close to 10,000 damage, but from around this point, as enemy HP increases, Charge! has a higher expected damage output. Since more battles follow, allies are revived as a precaution before the finishing blow.

For the following fight against Kuja (42383 HP), the uploader explains its meaning within the story. Kuja uses only single-target attacks and casts things like "Thundaga," which is easy to protect against elementally, and "Demi," whose power and accuracy are unreliable, clearly not going all out. Previously, when he tried to kidnap Eiko, her attendant Mog had Tranced and resisted with tremendous power. With neither the airship nor the summons to rely on anymore, Kuja has set his sights on the power of Trance and is secretly watching for a chance to Trance during this battle, according to the uploader's reading. Furthermore, the colors during Trance reflect the difference in the planet of birth: only Guboy was red, while the other companions were blue. The uploader points out that the foreshadowing of the difference in origins had already been laid there, and says to watch closely, since Kuja, his older brother figure, also Trances red.

Kuja does indeed glow red and Trance, scattering the party and killing Garland as well. But the dying Garland informs him that, as a failed creation, he was only a stopgap until his successor Guboy grew up, and that he wasn't given a lifespan beyond that. Learning that he too is a puppet-like being no different from the black mage soldiers, Kuja falls into despair and begins destroying Terra. The party rescues the Genomes, escapes Terra, and heads for the Crystal at the heart of the planet.

Nova Dragon (54941 HP), before the final dungeon, is vulnerable to Sleep. Guboy puts it to sleep with "Soul Blade," and while waiting for the gauges to fill, the party attacks with "Blizzaga" so as not to wake it. When Guboy's gauge fills, the commands for the remaining members are entered all at once. Charge! wakes it, but since Soul Blade has already been entered too, it can be put back to sleep without the enemy getting a turn in. Nova Dragon counterattacks "Attack," so Amarant attacks with "Throw." Judging that the last two characters' actions can finish it off, the uploader enters them without waiting for the ATB gauge and ends it with "Attack."

In the final dungeon, Memoria, the four Fiends, an homage to the original Final Fantasy, lie in wait. The uploader feels the way they're encountered abruptly, and the way previously fought foes return stronger, are faithful to the original, and calls it a fun touch.

• Maliris (59497 HP) is vulnerable to Sleep. Attacking is left to Steiner's Charge!, Amarant restores MP with Ether, and Vivi, with nothing else to do, uses "Focus." Defeating it normally triggers a party-wide attack as it dies, so it's finished off with black magic or a magic sword while still asleep.
• Tiamat is also vulnerable to Sleep and has no death counterattack, so it's dealt with using Charge!.
• Kraken deals no damage since everyone is wearing water-resistant equipment. To prevent counterattacks with "Ink," the left tentacle (10000 HP) is destroyed first, and then the main body (55536 HP) is hit repeatedly. It's dull footage where only a water squirt comes back after each hit, so it's sped up and skipped.
• Lich (58554 HP) has many elemental weaknesses and is easy to defeat. Even when the enemy chooses "Doom," it's finished off by the second Charge! before the countdown ends.

Before the Crystal, Kuja, driven by fear of death to the extreme of a desire for destruction, intends to destroy the original Crystal and return everything to nothingness. The uploader explains that the idea of the planet itself having life is a symbolic concept carried over from FF7, and that this game incorporates the traditional theme of protecting the Crystal into it.

The opening act, Deathguise (55535 HP), uses the party-wide attack "Meteor" on its first turn, but it's vulnerable to Sleep, so the party fights it after putting it to sleep with Soul Blade. Because three of the eight characters received experience in the three-battle gauntlet, making the most of Charge! means the three melee-focused characters are essentially fixed, leaving the last slot as a choice between Vivi and Eiko. This time Eiko was picked on a whim, the uploader says. Eiko has "Rebirth Flame," which activates when the party is wiped out, and the uploader thinks it might serve as insurance against Meteor too. Eiko's max MP is 42 and Holy costs 36 MP, but with "Half MP" equipped, she can cast it twice.

Trance Kuja (55536 HP) has a nasty party-wide attack, "Flare Star," so the goal is to defeat him before he uses it. Since there won't be another chance to use it, "Dark Matter" is spent to deal big damage, and then the party presses the attack with Charge!. The enemy's next action is "Flare," and after reviving, the party orders Charge! and wins. The uploader reflects that thanks to Dark Matter, it was over sooner than expected.

The defeated Kuja blasts the surroundings with "Ultima," and the party washes up on the "Hill of Despair," where they confront Necron. The uploader speculates that it's an entity summoned as an incarnation in response to the fear, despair, and hatred of Kuja, whose life was nearing its end. At the same time, they say it's a pitiful being that comes out of nowhere yet goes on at length about abstract ideas, and tends to be treated as a joke. They also say this kind of final-boss presentation has the flavor of classic FF.

The uploader further reads the game as being depicted in a seemingly Western style, with a narrative that takes a dialectical structure of "the cycle of life" and "the fear of death," yet the answer that emerges at the end of the dialogue is, in a sudden turn, a view of life and death strongly colored by Buddhist values. This mishmash quality is also very FF, they say.

The final party is Amarant, Vivi, Steiner, and Guboy. When the remaining companions share their power, the critical condition needed for Charge! is pointlessly restored to full. So at the start, Vivi casts "Fira" on the entire party, putting everyone into critical condition. Necron changes its actions according to the number of healthy members, so with everyone in critical condition, its actions are narrowed down to just "Blue Shockwave." This technique reduces a single ally's remaining HP to 1, and Guboy, on receiving it, Trances, gaining resistance to status ailments and 1.5x damage output. Steiner's knight sword "Ragnarok" has an added effect that inflicts Slow, increasing the chances for Charge! to attack before the enemy acts. Guboy uses a Trance-exclusive secret technique to deal big damage even at level 1. The enemy's next action, "Grand Cross," is a powerful move that hits everyone with 16 status ailments, so the hope was to finish Necron off before then, and the party succeeded in defeating it beforehand.

The final dungeon explodes, and the Iifa Tree begins to go berserk. The party is whisked to safety by Kuja's teleportation magic. Realizing Kuja is still alive, Guboy bids farewell to his companions and leaps into the rampaging Iifa Tree to save Kuja, who helped them at the very end. The ending depicts that rescue and the continuation of the play from the opening.

The uploader sums up that many characters each found a place to return to, ending in a beautiful grand finale. They conclude that playing with levels kept low made the companions' personalities stand out even more, and allowed them to reaffirm the depth of the game.