For Jenova Synthesis I equipped my party with armor/accessories that protected from status ailments (ribbons) and/ or drained elemental attacks. I filled in any gaps the best I could with paired elemental materia, and paired added effect materia added to the armor(pairing those with elemental magic or summons drains the effects you see), I also used Hyper on everyone to make the limit bar increase faster. It also didn’t hurt having the ultimate weapons and limit breaks

I also gave Cloud a Slash-All materia so that he would hit all parts of Jenova with each physical attack, and gave tifa a mega-all materia so that all of her magic and physical attacks would hit all of jenova as well (not to mention making reviving party members easier with Life2)

Yuffie was the healer and had some magic paired with all-materia as well as having the an enemy skill materia with the important offensive spells (cloud had the other, more complete one). I also made sure to have her Limit Break ready upon entering the battle (All Creation)

Finally, my first move at the start of the battle was to cast Big Guard. After that, between the limit breaks (tifa had one too) and large amounts of physical damage to all parts of Jenova each turn, the battle was over fairly quickly, it was just a matter of making sure to keep the party’s health and Big Guard up. This actually worked pretty well against sephiroth too.

I wish there were more game that had a system to the materia system, there are some incredible things that come out of it if you get the right combinations. (Now that I think about it, Chrono Cross does something similar…gonna have to get through that one soon too…)

Sorry if that got a little too thorough…:D

Though I think Hojo deserves more blame than Lucretia. He brought all of this about just to see what would happen, he didn’t even do it for the science!

FFIX for me felt more like an old school Final Fantasy. It sort of went back to more of a medieval/magic type feel rather than moving into mecha like FFVII and FFVIII did. Airships included, of course. Still, the thing that got me with FFIX is the personal journey and growth that almost every character goes through in the game. It’s a group focus instead of having a primary focus on one or two characters. They change and evolve like a character should, as does their relationships with each other. Also, the story is serious without taking itself too seriously. There are plenty of moments of respite from hectic moments. The gameplay is ridiculously fun, battles are challenging, and there are some facts that will throw you for some serious loops. It’s a tad quirky at moments, but that’s what set it apart. But, I won’t spoil it for you. Let me just say that if you like Final Fantasy, it’s one you should definitely play!

..And now I want to play it. Lol. Great.

– Britney

On a related issue, I suppose you went and got Vincent and Chaos right? When you really think about it, Hojo is the true mastermind behind everything, and Lucretia is his dim witted accomplice. Like, seriously, a lot of fighting and Sephiroth’s madness would have been prevented if Lucretia had done more to let him know that he’s her child. I mean, the JENOVA cells made her immortal. I’m sure she could figure out how to contact him somehow.

I got 100% in “Metroid Prime”, but never the second game. That one was hard. I’ll need to get 100% in my next playthrough, though. Last time, I just wanted to win with any percentage at all. So hard… And I thought the first game was hard.

I think that last fight was Sephiroth trying one last time to exert some sort of will over Cloud, it didn’t work but it didn’t destroy Sephiroth either, he is still somehow a poisonous presence in the LifeStream, maybe he always will be.

I’m curious, do you remember what your average level was when you fought him? I’ve been told he gets more powerful if you have level 99 characters in your party.

As for what I’m going to do next, I’m sort of just killing time until Destiny comes out. The beta runs from this Thursday to Saturday the 26th, which should be nice, but in the intervening times, I’m making my way through Metroid Prime 2 again. I’ve never gotten 100% of the items you see, I’d like to change that. :)