Final Fantasy 9

~B
Secret Boss Hints
By Odge (djgaunt86@hotmail.com)
Version 1.0 written 28/11/01
Final Fantasy IX © Squaresoft
All credit to them for this fabulous game
- CONTENTS-
1) Introduction
2) Tantarion
3) Quale
4) Hades
5) Ozma
6) Legal stuff and Credits
1) INTRODUCTION
In Final Fantasy IX, as with the other games in the Final Fantasy series,
there are several bosses in the game which you don’t have to fight, but will
give you some precious rewards if you manage to defeat them. Of course,
since these bosses give you lots of EXP., AP., and rare items, they’re
obviously going to be tough, so here is a special hints section dedicated to
beating them. Please note that these methods are not the only way to beat
these bosses, and perhaps not necessarily the best, but they do work,
because I beat these bosses using these techniques.
2) TANTARION
Location: Alexandria CDs 2-3
You have two chances to fight this monster, once after the destruction of
Cleyra when you are on a time limit to find Zorn and Thorn, and once when
Kuja attacks Alexandria, and you are rushing to the Altar where Eiko and
Garnet had previously summoned Alexander. Enter the library, and you will
spot a book on one of the shelves. Go up to the book and press X when the !
appears. Choose the upper option twice to battle Tantarion, a monster
resembling an ancient tome.
It is useful in this battle to equip the antibody ability, and unequip the
Mug ability if you have it. Any abilities which enhance Vivi’s spell-casting
are also useful. Equipping everybody with Auto-Potion reduces the pressure a
little, and equip Zidane’s Bandit ability to allow easier stealing. When you enter battle, you will notice that Tantarion is currently closed
and extremely resistant to any type of attack. When you attack it, it adds
the damage you do with the attack on to the damage it has taken in total
since it last shut, and opens at that page number. Its body is at page
150-200, and so about 4 attacks are sufficient to expose his main body. If
you’ve got Steiner and his Minus Strike attack, and Steiner has lost
150-200, you can quickly get him open by using this attack. Never queue more
than one person to attack at the same time, as you may expose his body with
one attack, and then close him up with another. When you attack him
physically when he is open, he shuts, and you have to do the whole process
again to get him to open up again.) While the other characters try to open
Tantarion up, have Vivi use the Focus command.
Once the body is exposed, have Vivi cast Fira or Firaga repeatedly (magic
attacks will not shut him) while Zidane tries to steal items. Tantarion has
a wealth of stuff to steal, including an Ether, an Elixir, a Silver Fork,
and a Demon’s Mail. The latter two of these are quite powerful at this stage
of the game. The other characters should wait or heal any characters that
have been poisoned by Tantarion’s only attack at this stage, poison – of
course, if enough characters have Antibody, you shouldn’t need to worry
about this. Freya can use Reis’ Wind to aid the party’s healing. After a
while of beating from magic, Tantarion will eventually close up again
automatically.
Open him up again, and beat him with magic, and he’ll eventually give in. Of
course, you may not even have enough time to reach Zorn and Thorn if you
have beaten him on CD2, and you may die anyway. I advise you try him on CD3
– the pair of Running Shoes he leaves behind are not valuable enough to
warrant the battle on CD2.
3) QUALE
Location: Any Qu’s Marsh CDs 1-4
This guy is Quina’s master, and appears after you catch 99 frogs. This
requires perseverance, and the knowledge that there are 4 marshes on the
planet. One you already know about, and is on the Mist Continent. Another is
on the Outer Continent, and is near Black Mage Village. The third is on an
island, in the south-west of the map, near Daguerreo, and the last is on the
Forgotten Continent, in the North. Make sure you leave at least 1 male and 1
female in each pond so that the frog population can recover. While you wait
for the frog population to recover you can embark on other subquests, or
just train your characters in Memoria (if you’ve got that far.) You will immediately enter battle as soon as you catch the 99th frog, so
when you catch the 98th, return to the outside and modify your equipment.
Quale is not really a problem if you’ve waited till the last disc to do all
the subquests (which I do.) You obviously need Quina and Zidane in your
team, and I advise having Vivi to cast spells, and either Garnet or Eiko to
heal.
As for equipment, you’ll need armour and accessories which absorb or
neutralise water damage. Vivi can equip his weapon Octagon Rod, and you can
use Ribbons to protect the rest of the characters. Believe it or not, there
are in fact 3 ribbons in the game. One is given to you automatically, the
other is a treasure from the 21st Chocograph, and the last is given to you
by Stilzkin after you buy his items in Alexandria on disc 4. You may have
had to buy all of his items to get this, but I’m not sure. If you can’t be
bothered to get these Ribbons, then you can use Black Hoods, Glass Armlets,
or Mythril Vests to partially reduce the damage.
He uses a lot of status attacks, so equip abilities such as ‘Clear Headed,’
‘Loudmouth,’ and ‘Bright Eyes.’ Equip Zidane with MP Attack and Man Eater
for the attack, and Bandit and/or Master Thief to improve your stealing
chances – believe me, Quale has some good items. Half MP is useful for Quina
and Vivi to decrease MP expenditure. Equip Eiko/Garnet with Concentrate and
Chemist to allow for easier healing. Also, Auto-Regen and Auto-Haste is
useful to heal and speed up your party.
In the battle, try not to inflict too much damage until Zidane steals all of
Quale’s items, which are: an Elixir, a Ninja Gear, a Glutton’s Robe, and a
Robe of Lords. Choose Vivi’s Focus command, heal your party and try to cause
the Protect status on them, and try and inflict the Slow status on Quale.
Once you have stolen all of the items, unleash your most powerful attacks on
Quale. Use Vivi’s Thundaga, Quina’s Frog Drop or Twister, Eiko’s/Garnet’s
most powerful summons, and Zidane’s attacks. If you’re battling him on disc
4, he should never inflict more than about 1000 damage on you, which should
be healed with Regen anyway. After 65,535HP damage, Quale will give up the
ghost. He might drop an Elixir, and you’ll obtain the Gastro Fork, Quina’s
ultimate weapon, from him as a reward after the battle.
4) HADES
Location: Memoria, Birth Room
The first of the ‘really hard’ bosses, Hades hangs out in Memoria. Do you
remember that room which Quina thought was underwater and full of fish?
Well, go there, and head to the bottom of the stairs. Now head right into a
hidden niche, pressing X repeatedly as you go. Eventually a message will
come up. Choose to stay and you’ll be attacked by Hades.
You’ll need characters with at least 3000HP here, since Hades uses a
disastrous attack called Curse, which not only hits all characters with
nearly every status effect in the book, but also does considerable damage.
Since Hades is weak against Holy, Eiko will be immensely useful for her Holy
and Madeen attacks. You also want Vivi for his attacking spells, and two
powerful fighters (I chose Zidane and Steiner.) Steiner is useful because of
his Shock ability, and because of his Excalibur (I or II) which has a Holy
elemental attack element.
As for equipment, you’ll need stuff which absorbs Shadow damage. Ninja Gears
(which only Zidane and Amarant can equip,) Egoist’s Armlets, Demon’s Mail
and Pumice Pieces are all useful to nullify Shadow damage. Other than that,
equip your strongest weapons and armour.
On the abilities front, your fighters need MP Attack, Bird Killer, and Devil
Killer. If you have Zidane, equip Master Thief and Bandit, because Hades,
like Quale, has some excellent items on offer. Equip Vivi with Half MP and
MP +20% to allow him to cast more spells. If you have enough magic stones,
Boost is useful to increase the power of Eiko’s summons. Just in case Hades
casts Curse, equip the Clear Headed, Bright Eyes, and Antibody Abilities,
and stock up on Remedies beforehand. Auto-Regen and Auto-Haste are very
useful in this battle.
When the battle begins, try to get Zidane to steal items, and use Vivi’s
Focus command. Keep Eiko on hold to heal the party after Hades’ attacks, and
use Steiner’s Climhazzard or Shock commands to deal damage to Hades. The
only really useful item Hades has is a Robe of Lords, and you don’t want to
stay in this battle for longer than you have to. Once you have stolen the
Robe, get Vivi to cast strong spells such as Flare or Comet (NOT Doomsday –
Hades absorbs Shadow damage), Eiko to summon Madeen, and Zidane and Steiner
to attack (Steiner’s Shock ability is immensely useful here.) If you are
powerful enough, Hades should not get many attacks in before you defeat him. When you have proved your strength to Hades, he will open up a Synthesis
Shop in which you can synthesise some very rare items, including a piece of
Pumice which Garnet can use to learn Ark, her most powerful summon. But,
should you have the two pieces, I advise against combining them unless you
don’t want to fight Ozma. The pieces absorb both Shadow and Holy damage, and
this is very useful in the Ozma battle. Plus, if you beat Ozma, he will give
you a Pumice anyway, saving you the money.
5) OZMA
Location: Chocobo’s Aerial Garden, Eidolon Cave
Ozma is the hardest boss in Final Fantasy IX, and is a real tough cookie.
But there is a sneaky tactic which you can use to kill him very easily. It
only took me three tries to beat this guy, and during the battle which I
beat him, only one character died (briefly,) so that shows how good this
tactic is! Ozma lives in the Chocobo’s Aerial Garden, which can be accessed
once you have obtained most of the Chocographs and got a Golden Chocobo.
There are several places on the world where you can find shadows – the
shadow of the garden moves around over these places. You may find the shadow
to the Northeast of the Mist Continent, in the middle of the map in the
ocean, to the east of the Outer Continent, or on the Salvage Archipelago
near Chocobo’s Lagoon.
Once you have found the garden, you can go treasure hunting in it. I advise
finding the 3 Chocographs in this garden, and all the treasures in bubbles
and cracks, before taking on Ozma. They hide valuable treasures which are
useful for the Ozma battle.
You can always leave the garden and return to the ground. Once you have
found the garden, the location of it will always be marked on the map, so if
it moves, you know where it is.
If you want to use my trick to do massive damage to Ozma, then you must have
completed the phantoms event. Not a clue what I’m talking about? Well, you
may have entered battle where the usual music is replaced by a cute little
ditty, and you come across a friendly monster looking for a certain jewel.
Well, there are nine creatures of this kind, spread all across the world.
You must find all nine, and when you do, you’ll be able to attack Ozma, and
he will become weak against Shadow damage. The locations of all of these
critters are shown below
Name of beast: Brown Mu
Location: Plains between the Ice Cavern and Dali
Wants: 1 Ore
Name of beast: White Ghost
Location: Plains and forest around Treno
Wants: 1 Ore
Name of beast: Colour Ladybird
Location: Donna Plains - Forest and plains
Wants: 2 Ores
Name of beast: Green Yeti
Location: Lucid Plains – Forest near Madain Sari
Wants: 2 Ores
Name of beast: Green Nymph
Location: Pualei Plains – Forest near Iifa Tree
Wants: 3 Ores
Name of beast: Purple Jabberwock
Location: Blairsurpass Plains - Forests
Wants: Emerald
Name of beast: Green Feather Circle
Location: Mitmakis Ice Field - Lost Continent
Wants: Moonstone
Name of beast: Rainbow Garuda
Location: Popos Heights - East forest on plateau above Gizamaluke's Grotto
Wants: Lapis Lazuli
Name of beast: Friendly Yan
Location: Forest on Vile Island
Wants: Diamond
Once you have found the other 8 creatures and given them what they want, you
can find Yan on an island south-west of the Outer Continent. You should
probably save before entering the forest – the unfriendly Yans are really
powerful, and can easily wipe your party out. Once you find Yan and give him
what he wants, he’ll give you the bonuses against Ozma.
Your characters don’t have to be at level 99 – my characters were at levels
60-70 when I battled Ozma. However, it is important to have a balanced party
to ensure success. You must have Zidane in your party, but what about the
other members? It is almost necessary to have Quina in your party. Not only
can he attack with powerful spells such as Frog Drop and Twister, he can
also heal with White Wind, and induce the Auto-Life status on other party
members. He can even use Mighty Guard to protect the party. However, the
reason why you really need him is because he can use Angel’s Snack after
Ozma uses Curse, which will remove every status effect except for Slow of
every party member, and means you don’t have to waste turns using Remedies.
Of course, because Angel’s Snack uses Remedies, you’ll need a full supply of
99 Remedies, but the cost of buying 99 Remedies is small change compared to
the money you should have by now. As for your next party member, I suggest
Amarant, because not only can he heal with Chakra, revive dead party members
with Revive, and induce the Auto-Life status using Aura, he has powerful
attacks such as No Mercy and Throw. One of his support abilities is also
very important for the trick that you can use to inflict massive damage on
Ozma. As for the last member, Vivi is a good choice. You might think he is
an entirely attack-orientated party member, but you can equip accessories to
change one of his spells so that it heals your party. His Doomsday and Flare
spells are also highly effective against Ozma, and he has the same support
ability as Amarant that is essential for the trick to kill Ozma. What equipment should you equip? Items that absorb or nullify Shadow damage
are absolutely necessary, and items that reduce Holy damage are also useful. Zidane should equip The Ogre, because you can use Soul Blade in battle to
cause the Darkness status on Ozma. You may think this is foolish because the
Ogre is so weak, but even his Ultima Weapon doesn’t do much damage. You
should put either a Golden Skullcap or a Circlet on his head, a Chimera
Armlet on his wrist (nullifies Holy damage,) and a Ninja Gear on his body
(absorbs Shadow damage.) As for accessories, a Ribbon would be useful,
firstly because of its bonuses to several parameters, and secondly because
it absorbs water (the reason why this is good will be explained later.) Amarant should equip his Rune Claws (which you can find in Memoria, near the
pillars at the bottom of the steps up to the ‘eye’ of the invincible, where
you fought Tiamat.) You can choose from a Circlet or a Golden Skullcap on
his head, a Chimera Armlet on his wrist (nullifies Holy damage,) and a Ninja
Gear on his body (absorbs Shadow damage.) Equip Amarant with a Ribbon as
well.
Sadly the other characters, Quina and Vivi, cannot equip Ninja Gears, and so
will have to wear Robes of Lords (or other Robes, if you don’t have enough
Robes of Lords.) If you have Pumice Pieces, then you can equip them, one to
each character, as accessories and absorb both Shadow and Holy damage.
However, if you’ve combined your Pumice Pieces, you’ll have to make do with
equipping Egoist’s Armlets (nullifies Shadow damage) on both of their
wrists. Unfortunately, this means you can’t equip Chimera Armlets to nullify
Holy damage, and so will have to equip a Ribbon on Quina, and a Protect Ring
on Vivi, to half the damage done by Holy. Equip Vivi with his Octagon Rod
(absorbs water damage), and Quina with the ultra powerful Gastro Fork. As
with Amarant and Zidane, a Circlet or a Golden Skullcap will suffice as head
protection.
It is of utmost importance that all of your characters can either nullify or
absorb shadow damage. Firstly so that the trick to kill Ozma quickly will
work. Secondly because Ozma’s Holy attack doesn’t do nearly as much damage
as his Doomsday attack does, so you want to be able to nullify or absorb the
damage.
Right, now for abilities. Since Ozma, like Hades, uses Curse, you’ll need
abilities like ‘Clear Headed’, ‘Antibody,’ ‘Bright Eyes,’ and ‘Loudmouth’ to
protect yourself. Auto-Haste should also be equipped to all party members –
not only does it speed your party members up, it also stops Ozma inflicting
the Slow status on you when he uses Curse. Auto-Regen is, as always, a
necessity for every party member to aid the healing process. Auto-Life comes
in very handy, but isn’t entirely necessary.
As for individuals, equip Zidane with Master Thief, and Bandit if you have
enough magic stones. The HP+20% ability makes him slightly more resistant to
Ozma’s attacks, and if you have chosen to ignore my advice and are using
Ultima Weapon or The Tower, MP Attack and Bird Killer increase the damage
done by his attacks.
Equip Amarant with Add Status, so that if you get a chance to attack him,
the Rune Claws will cause the Darkness status on Ozma. Equip him with Power
Up, so that the useful Chakra healing spell becomes more potent. Lastly,
equip him with Return Magic, which can be learned from a Coronet or a
Brigandine. This ability is the ‘trick’ I’ve been talking about and is
surprisingly useful when Ozma casts Doomsday.
Equip Quina with the Half MP and MP+10% if you have enough magic stones. But
if you haven’t got Auto-Life on Quina, I advise you use the Magic Stones on
that as Quina has a tendency to die on you.
Lastly Vivi needs Half MP and MP+20%, because his Doomsday and Flare attacks
are very expensive on your MP, and they will soon run out unless you have
these abilities in place. Also, it is imperative that you equip the Return
Magic ability so that you can reflect Ozma’s magic back onto him. Check a few things before you head for Chocobo’s Aerial Garden and battle
Ozma. Firstly put all your characters into the back row. This will improve
your defence. You’ll need to check your items as well. 99 Remedies are
essential if you are using Angel’s Snack, since this move uses 4 Remedies
per time. You’ll also need at least 2 Gysahl Greens, because Ozma casts
Berserk during this battle. If you are using Auto-Potion, then you’ll need
to dispose of all of your Potions and buy Hi-Potions – Potions heal too
little to be effective. Also check that either Zidane, Amarant and Quina
have Ribbons and Vivi has the Octagon Rod, and/or Zidane and Amarant have
Ninja Gears, and Quina and Vivi have Pumice Pieces. This will allow Vivi to
heal the party with his Black Magic. Lastly, make sure you save. You don’t
want to be doing all that ability equipping again.
Go into the Garden and across to the other island where you can see a small
mound of earth. Go up to it and press X when the ? appears. Choose Examine,
followed by Examine, followed by Ready to enter battle with Ozma. Basically, you should concentrate on healing the party primarily, and going
in for the attack only when your party is in its best condition. Start by
using Amarant’s Aura and Quina’s Auto-Life to induce the Auto-Life status on
anybody who didn’t have it already. If you get a chance, use Quina’s Mighty
Guard to cast Shell and Protect on every party member. Zidane should begin
by using Soul Blade to cast Darkness on Ozma, and then try to steal items.
Ozma has several cool items, including an Elixir, a Robe of Lords, a Dark
Matter and a Pumice Piece. The others can all be used to heal, so always try
to keep one waiting for Ozma to attack (so they can then heal the party),
preferably Quina. Here is a complete list of Ozma’s attacks, and what to do
about them.

Ozma’s Attack: Flare, Flare Star, Holy, or Lv.4 Holy
What to do: These will do little damage (when I say little, I mean it
doesn’t kill your characters…) and can be safely healed by using Quina’s
White Wind, Amarant’s Chakra, , or Vivi’s healing spell. If you equipped the
Ribbons and the Octagon Rod, then you should cast Water to heal the party,
but if you equipped the Pumice Pieces as well as the Ninja Gears, then you
can use Doomsday to heal the party. Bear in mind that if you haven’t
completed the Phantoms event described above, Doomsday will heal Ozma as
well. If it is Zidane’s turn to attack, then you can use the Item command
and use Elixirs to heal the party. If Amarant and Vivi have Return Magic
equipped, then they can return Holy, Lv. 4 Holy, and Flare back to Ozma, and
do some damage. However, Return Magic only comes into it's own when Ozma
casts Doomsday…
Ozma’s Attack: Lv. 5 Death or Death
What to do: The character will automatically revive (if you have auto-life
on that character) and you should use one of the above spells to heal the
party. If not, you can use Phoenix Downs or Amarant’s Revive ability. Ozma’s Attack: Mini or Curse What to do: Use Quina’s Angel’s Snack to cure the status abnormalities, and
then (if Ozma has used Curse) heal with the spells above. Ozma’s Attack: Meteor What to do: Basically you’re in big trouble. There is a high chance that it
will kill every single party member, and if the Auto-Life status then heals
them, Ozma often enjoys to cast Curse (or some other hideous attack) on your
party which kills them without any doubt. So pray that Ozma doesn’t use this
attack.
Ozma’s Attack: Curaga or Esuna
What to do: You can sigh with relief, because it’s a waste of his turn. If
the Esuna removes the Darkness, then use Zidane’s Soul Blade to cause the
status on him again. If you have either Eiko or Garnet in your team, then
you can cast reflect on Ozma and his Curaga spells will heal you. Ozma’s Attack: Berserk What to do: He’ll cast this spell a couple of times during this battle when
his HP get to certain amounts. Use a Gysahl Greens to nullify the effect
immediately. You don’t want one of your characters wasting precious turns by
attacking.
Ozma’s Attack: Doomsday
What to do: This is the attack you’ve been waiting for. I’ve you’ve
completed the Phantom’s event, equipped armour and accessories that absorb
or nullify shadow damage, and have the Return Magic ability on both Vivi and
Amarant, you can watch as Ozma does around 25,000HP damage on himself while
healing (some members of) your party. After casting the initial Doomsday and
inflicting around 7000 damage on himself, Vivi and Amarant will then both
cast it as well. Amarant will do around 5000HP damage, and properly Focused,
Vivi can do up to 9999HP damage to Ozma. If Ozma uses this ability twice,
then he’ll have almost killed himself.
While Ozma’s own Doomsday (and your returned Doomsdays) will do most of the
damage on Ozma, you may need to do a little damage yourself to finish him
off. If you get a chance between turns used healing yourself, then you
should use attack spells and abilities. Quina can use Frog Drop or Twister,
Amarant can use No Mercy or Throw, Vivi can use Doomsday (which you may be
using anyway to heal yourself) or Flare, and Zidane can use Thievery or
Attack. Of course, if your characters get into Trance during this battle, it
will be even easier to beat Ozma. Zidane can use his Dyne abilities to cause
massive damage to Ozma (this is where the Ultima Weapon has the edge over
the Ogre.) Amarant can use Chakra to heal everybody. Vivi can cast Doomsday
twice in a row (which is remarkably destructive.) Quina’s abilities are
enhanced (you obviously can’t Cook Ozma.)
Hopefully, Ozma will cast Doomsday at least twice during the battle, and
this, added to the damage done by the returned Doomsdays will cause enough
damage to himself for you to be able to finish him off with a couple of
normal spells or abilities.
Once Ozma has been defeated, you’ll obtain a whole load of EXP, AP and cash.
In addition, you’ll receive a Pumice, and perhaps even a Dark Matter. Mene
will give you the Ozma card, and the Key Item Strategy Guide, for beating
Ozma, and you can take pride in defeating one of the toughest bosses in the
game. Now there’s just the card game to beat…
6) Legal Stuff and Credits
All material © 2001 Odge
If you want to use these hints on your website, ask me first, and don’t
change anything! I spent hours writing this thing, so I want some credit. Any further tips or boss queries would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to tarojoostvisser@hotmail.com for the tip about reflecting Curaga,
and for testing the Reflect Magic trick.