Archers to prevent the Archers from hitting the characters running for the

chest. Don’t turn back to revive any downed characters; remember, as long as

one character reaches the chest, you win. Finally, try to keep your front side

towards the bulk of the enemies to maximize your evade rate.

Although the enemy Thieves can steal your equipment, you may not want to block

their steals with Safeguard. If you DON’T have Safeguard, they’ll waste some

of their turns trying to steal your equipment instead of attacking, which helps

keep you alive! (You get your stolen equipment back after the battle in

Rendezvous Mode.) However, a Nu Khai Armband (not for sale until Chapter III)

is helpful for blocking their Steal Heart attack. Since there are Thieves of

both genders here, deploying a single-gender party is not helpful :(

Chapter II has a lot of guest characters. They can’t participate in this or

other Rendezvous Mode missions, but you CAN strip them of their equipment and

give it to your main team.

If you DO want to take out all the enemies, be warned that it’s pretty tough

-- you’re outnumbered and the enemies have a lot of annoying abilities. Try to

gather your characters into one group quickly. The Thieves are probably the

most dangerous enemies because of their Steal Heart ability, so take them out

first. If you’re planning on fighting, blocking their steals with Safeguard is

a good idea. Also, once you get to Chapter III, a Nu Khai Armband is great for

blocking Steal Heart. If a character DOES get Charmed by Steal Heart, use a

weak attack to knock some sense into him or her. A magick user’s physical

attack or the Squire abilities Rush and Stone are good for removing Charm

without inflicting too much damage.

Watch out for the Monks, too. Although fists only have a range of 1, the Monks

will often have Martial Arts abilities that let them attack at a distance!

(i.e., Aurablast and Shockwave)

Even if you’re planning just to KO all the enemies, you must keep the enemies

from picking up the chest. You’ll especially need to watch out for the male

Thief in the center of the enemy group. He tends to hang back instead of

advancing with the rest of the enemy forces, and in a few turns, he’ll pick up

the chest and cause you to lose the battle. To prevent this, you must advance

quickly and he’ll come forward to fight you instead of chasing after the chest.

As long as you are in range of the enemies, they should fight you instead of

going after the chest (even when they could pick it up in a single move!).

Other useful abilities for taking down all the enemy forces include Archer’s

Bane, Counter, and Defense or Attack Boost. Don’t forget, too, to check your

Zodiac compatibility with the enemies. It helps to attack the enemies with

whom you have high Zodiac compatibility as you can more quickly defeat them --

plus they’re the ones who can do a lot of damage to you!

Once Mustadio joins the party, his Leg Shot ability is quite helpful here as it

allows you to Immobilize enemies in place and keep them from getting to the

chest, and his gun gives him a long range with which to inflict it. Do NOT use

Arm Shot. If you Disable an enemy with Arm Shot, the enemy will drop out of

the main brawl and go back to pick up the chest, causing you to lose!

Again, since you can earn medium-quality items more quickly from Chicken Race,

there’s not too much point in trying to KO all the enemies. (And it’s actually

pretty challenging.) Picking up the chest is the real reward. If you want to

earn 5 stars on this battle just for completeness’ sake, you may have better

luck as you progress through Chapter II and get some of the special story

characters to join your roster.

TITLE AWARD: Retriever

---Rendezvous Mission 4: Teioh-------------------------------------------------

AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 13: Zaland

BATTLE MAP: Araguay Woods

ENEMY FORCES: Teioh [Black Chocobo], Chocobo x4, Red Chocobo x2,

Red Panther x1, Pig x2

The goal of this mission is to defeat Teioh, a Black Chocobo with a ginormous

amount of HP. (Teioh’s specific level and max HP are based on your own levels,

but even at a low level, he’s going to have over 1000 HP.) Teioh is also

accompanied by a gang of other chocobos and some other miscellaneous monsters.

Although you only need to KO Teioh to win the battle, to get a good rank you’ll

need to defeat the other monsters as well. (If you KO only Teioh and no other

monsters, you’ll receive only a single star and single chest!)

The enemy chocobos have some powerful attacks, so come prepared with shields

and cloaks to block them. (The only potential status ailment you’ll face here

is the occasional Poison from the Red Panther’s Poison Fang, so you needn’t

worry about any status-protection accessories.) Auto-Potion is a great

defensive ability here, especially if you buy Hi-Potions (or, later, X-Potions)

and discard all your regular Potions. This will allow you to use Hi-Potions

when you activate Auto-Potion. Counter is also quite useful since you’ll

mostly be hit with close-range attacks and Counter lets you strike the enemy

back. (Do not use First Strike here; it doesn’t work against monsters.)

When deploying your characters, both players should place their characters in

the front row (i.e., the first row in the direction the characters are facing).

Characters placed in the rear will end up on top of the cliff at the back of

the map and have a hard time getting into battle.

Your first target needs to be the Red Chocobos; their Choco Meteor attack does

a lot of damage, has a good range, and is completely unblockable. Concentrate

on chasing them down and defeating them.

The yellow Chocobos can use Choco Cure to heal themselves and other enemies.

This can be a real pain, but the good news is that Chocobos tend not to use

Choco Cure unless they themselves have been injured. So, don’t attack the

yellow Chocobos until you’ve finished off the Red Chocobos, then just attack

one Chocobo at a time. This will minimize the amount of healing they do.

The Pigs and Red Panther are not much of a threat at all, so just ignore them

until you have finished off all the Chocobos. If you have someone with

Counter, you have a pretty good chance of finishing them off just with your

counterattacks. (While Pigs are normally good for poaching rare items, you

can’t poach monsters or recruit them in Rendezvous Mode, so they just function

as weak oppoents here.)

Because all the enemies here are monsters, they can all have a chance of

Countering your melee attacks. You can avoid this by using attacks that hit

from a distance, like spears and the Monk’s Aurablast. Once Agrias joins the

party, her sword techniques will be quite helpful as well. Magick could also

be useful, especially Summons (which will hit many enemies at once), but you’ll

need to shield your mage from enemy attacks. Equip Heavy Armor would be good

for giving a mage enough HP to survive the initial wave of Choco Meteors. The

Dragoon’s Jump attack also lets you escape counterattacks (as long as you

use it at a range of more than a single tile), but can be tricky to use since

the chocobos are all fairly quick and can often move out of the way before you

land the Jump. Only target chocobos that have just moved or that have been

Immobilized.

Position your characters next to each other will limit the number of directions

some of the enemies can attack from you. Since no enemy here has magick that

hits more than one character, there’s no harm in standing next to each other.

Try not to leave enemies standing with critical HP. They’ll usually flee into

a corner of the map, which will make it hard to finish them off before you

fight Teioh.

Once you’ve wiped out all the minor monsters, it’s time to take on Teioh. As

mentioned above, he has a ton of HP, but if you’ve defeated all the other

monsters, you’re pretty safe as he can’t do all that much damage to you (and

his Choco Beak and Choco Pellets attacks can both be blocked). While you’ll

generally want to keep him from attacking your back (since your shields don’t

work against rear attacks), in practice this is pretty tricky since he can fly

over your head. Still, in some cases you can put your back to a tree.

Pretty much any attack is good against Teioh. Ranged attacks are particularly

useful since they won’t allow him to Counter. If you have any attacks that do

damage based on the target’s maximum HP, like the Time Mage’s Gravity and

Graviga, the Mystic’s Invigoration, or the Lich summon, these attacks are quite

useful since they will quickly knock down Teioh’s sizable HP total.

As the battle progresses, many of the defeated monsters will start turning into

crystals. You want to be sure to pick these up before the enemies can; it’s a

real pain if Teioh heals himself. Check the Turn List to see when the enemy

will move and be sure to have a character grab the crystal before any of the

enemies will be available to pick them up. (You can use them to heal yourself

too, but even if you don’t need healing, you’ll want to grab the crystals just

to prevent the enemies from using them.)

When Teioh gets low on HP, he’ll start trying to flee while continuing to shoot

Choco Pellets at you. This is pretty annoying, but you’ll just have to chase

him down and keep hitting him. Again, Immobilizing him, or even hitting him

with Rend Speed to slow him down, will help keep him from getting away.

If you’re having trouble here, this battle is much easier after at least one

player has progressed further through Chapter II and acquired the two story

characters available in this chapter. Agrias’s sword techniques are great for

damaging the monsters without being counterattacked, and Mustadio can use Leg

Shot to inflict Immobilize on Teioh or the other chocobos.

TITLE AWARDED: Chocobo Hunter

---Rendezvous Mission 5: Lost Heirloom-----------------------------------------

AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 16: Goug Lowtown

BATTLE MAP: Goug Lowtown

YOUR FORCES: 1-2 characters per player

ENEMY FORCES: Knight (female) x2, Archer (male) x3, Time Mage (female) x2,

Thief (male) x3

The enemies here don’t have much in the way of special abilities, but the catch

is that each player is limited to 2 characters. And, to get the highest

possible ranking here, you must only deploy a single character each!

There are three male Thieves here, which puts female characters at a risk for

being Charmed with Steal Heart. This is very bad news when you have such a

small fighting force, so deploying all male characters might be advantageous.

Once you get to Chapter III, you can also buy Nu Khai Armbands to immunize

yourself against Charm.

As with many Rendezvous Mode battles, the emphasis is on physical defense.

This map features Knights and Thieves, and most perniciously, three Archers,

two of whom like to hang out at the back of the map and rain arrows on you.

Equip shields and cloaks to boost your evade rate, and Defense Boost [Mystic]

to reduce the damage you sustain. The Archer’s Bane reaction ability is

particularly well-suited for this map, since it gives you a good chance of

blocking the Archer’s attacks outright. (Shirahadori, which blocks both arrows

and melee attacks, is even better if you have it.) If you don’t have Archer’s

Bane, Auto-Potion makes a good substitute. You could also use Counter -- this

won’t improve your defense, of course, but if you already have a good shield

and cloak, Counter is a great way of improving your damage output. Knights

make a good overall choice for this map since they can use shields and heavy

armor and have a good offense as well.

You’ll probably also want a way to restore your HP and revive KOed characters.

Since you have so few characters here, you may not have space for a dedicated

healer, plus Chemists and White Mages will get killed pretty easily here.

Instead, try adding Items or Martial Arts (or even White Magicks) as a

secondary action ability to one of your other characters. Auto-Potion and the

Monk’s Lifefont movement ability are also good for restoring HP over the course

of the battle. If you’ve progressed far enough to steal the Blood Sword, it

can be pretty helpful as it will allow you to regain HP when you attack. (If

you’re tackling this mission much later, though, you won’t want to use it as it

won’t be very strong compared to other weapons and the enemy HP levels.)

Between the Thieves and Knights, there are also a lot of opportunities for your

equipment to be broken or stolen, so Safeguard may be helpful. This is

particularly important for female characters, since losing their Nu Khai

Armbands means they can be Charmed. (Remember, if lose your equipment in

Rendezvous Mode, it IS restored to you after battle, but losing it during the

battle still makes it difficult to win!)

When the battle starts, you’ll want to take out the Time Mages first. If they

get off a Haste, Slow, or Stop spell, this can be big trouble when you’re

already outnumbered. (They may hit you with Gravity magicks as well!) There’s

one on each side of the map, so have each player quickly move foward and KO

one. There’s a good chance that the Time Mages may have the Mana Shield

reaction ability, which allows them to take damage to their MP as a buffer

against your attacks. Draining their MP in this way is pretty much as good as

KOing them since they won’t be able to use magicks, so you can then leave them

be. (Their physical attack can still do SOME damage, but the Thieves and

Knights are a much higher priority.)

For offense, physical-oriented jobs are probably your best bet. Magick tends

not to be so good, since magick-using jobs are at a disadvantage for evading

attacks and are even more vulnerable when charging magicks. The Dragoon’s Jump

attack is particularly useful, since it temporarily removes you from the

battlefield and prevents you from being attacked. (Just watch out for the

slight overhang with the spinning wheel on Player 2’s side of the map. If

you’re standing directly underneath this overhang, you won’t be able to Jump.)

Mustadio will have joined you by the time you get to this mission. His Arm

Shot and Leg Shot abilities can be useful in temporarily taking an enemy out of

play. As a Machinist, he’s probably going to be too weak to survive here, but

you can turn him into a Knight and then equip Aimed Shot as a secondary

ability.

If you have a shield, cloak, and Archer’s Bane, the Archers will really have

quite a low hit rate against you and you won’t need to worry about them too

much. First, take out all the melee fighters on the lower level.

Remember that shields aren’t effective against attacks from the rear, and your

own job’s innate evade rate is not effective against rear nor side attacks.

(Cloaks and Archer’s Bane work at all angles.) So, try to position yourself

after each move so that your back is not vulnerable. You want to avoid turning

your back on the Archers so that you can keep blocking their arrows.

Conversely, try to attack the enemy Knights from the rear so they can’t use

their shields to block your attack. You also won’t want to attack the enemy

Thieves head on, as they have a high evade rate from the front. Of course, the

Concentration support ability [Archer] allows you to circumvent enemy evade

rates.

Enemies that you’ve weakened to critical HP may start to flee towards a corner.

Don’t worry about these guys; they’ve essentially removed themselves from the

battle. Focus on the enemies who are still fighting you.

After you’ve defeated most of the enemies on the ground, you have a good chance

to heal before the final charge to the roof where the Archers usually are. Try

to revive any KOed characters -- remember, your star ranking may decrease if

any of your allies have to teleport out of battle.

Although this battle is fairly do-able with four characters, completing it with

just two characters to earn 5 stars can be tough early on. To succeed, you’ll

really need to have the best possible defense; Jump, Safeguard, Lifeont are all

advantageous too. Of course, like all Rendezvous missions, this gets easier as

you go through the game, since better cloaks and shields become available and

your offensive capabilities increase as well.

TITLE AWARDED: Count’s Guard

---Rendezvous Mission 6: The Fete----------------------------------------------

AVAILABLE AFTER...: Start of Chapter III

BATTLE MAP: Lionel Castle Oratory

YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player

ENEMY FORCES: Knight (male) x2, Monk (female) x2, Bard x3, Dancer x3

You’ll fight a large group of enemies in close quarters here, including a rare

encounter against enemy Bards and Dancers. The two Knights will rush you

first with their Move +2 movement ability, and tend to be quickly followed by

most of the rest of the group.

Depending on your level, the Bards here may have Lamia’s Harps, which sometimes

confuse your characters when they strike. This is bad news if it happens, so

equip Nu Khai Armbands (newly purchasable in the Outfitter) to prevent this.

If you don’t have or can’t afford the Nu Khai Armbands, you can cure confused

characters by hitting them with a weak physical attack. If you’re at a high

enough level, the Bards will just have Bloodstring Harps instead, which drain

HP back to the Bards. While annoying, this is less dangerous to you, and you

can just mop up the Bards after you’ve KOed the real threats.

You’ll face mostly physical attacks here, so a good physical defense is a must.

Use armor to raise your HP, and equip shields to help block physical attacks.

(Note, though, the two Knights always have Concentration, which prevents you

from evading their attack.) If you have the Samurai’s Shirahadori reaction

ability, this battle will be pretty easy as you can block most all the attacks

you’ll face, even the Knights with Concentration. You can still win without

Shirahadori, though; the Chemist’s Auto-Potion is another good reaction

ability for keeping your health up. The Mystic’s Defense Boost support ability

is also helpful. Finally, you could try the Golem summon to absorb some of the

physical attacks, but you’re being bombarded with so many attacks that the

Golem effect is likely to wear off too quickly to be much help.

The Chemist’s Safeguard support ability can also be somewhat helpful here since

it prevents the Knights from breaking your gear. That said, Defense Boost is

probably the better choice if avaialble.

Since you won’t be hit with magick, this is one battle where it helps to

place your characters next to each other. This minimizes the number of

directions from which the enemies can attack each character. As the battle

progresses, you can also stand next to the bodies of KO enemies to block off

more lines of attack. In addition, if you mostly stay put in this formation

and attack enemies as they come to you, you can get more turns as you won’t

need to use up CT by moving.

Your best offense here is probably Summons. Since you’re crowded into such a

small space, they will hit lots of targets, and they won’t damage your own

allies. Use a strong summon, or pair one of the initial three elemental

summons (Ifrit, Shiva, and Ramuh) with a Flame, Ice, or Lightning Rod for extra

damage. The Moogle and Faerie summons can also be used for emergency healing.

Black Magick can work too, but will hit fewer targets and can also damage your

allies. Either way, Chakra is quite useful for recovering your MP -- you can

give this to the Summoner, or have an adjacent character use it. (The latter

is probably better since it allows the Summoner to spend all his/her turns

casting Summons.) You’ll also need to protect your magick-user since they

tend to be pretty fragile. Giving the caster a shield or heavy armor can help

somewhat, but remember that shields are no good against the Knights and their

Concentration ability. The best tactic is to put your magick-user in the "back

row," behind characters with a better defense. These characters can block the

enemy from getting to your Summoner and absorb some of the hits while your

Summoner blasts away at the enemies with magick.

Other good attacks include sword techniques (especially Hallowed Bolt and

Divine Ruination) and the Monk’s Shockwave. All the Bards and Dancers have the

Defense Boost support ability, which automatically reduces the damage they take

from all physical attacks, including things like sword techniques and Jump.

You can still use these attacks, of course, but magick is going to be the most

effective. Ranged weapons tend not to be useful here; since the enemies are

close to you anyway, the long range doesn’t help you much, and you’ll want the

higher attack power of a close-range weapon.

The Knights are probably your first target since their Concentration ability

makes their attacks largely unblockable. After that, you’ll want to go after

the Monks, who always have the Items ability and can heal other allies. Watch

out, though -- the Knights have Counter, and the Monks have the First Strike

reaction ability, which allows them to cancel direct physical attacks and hit

you instead if you attack them from an adjacent tile. To avoid these

counterattacks, don’t use direct physical attacks, but target the enemies with

magick, Jump, sword techniques, or other ranged abilities like the Monk’s

Aurablast and Shockwave. (You can also use a plain physical attack if you’re

attacking from a distance, like with a bow or polearm.) Note that the Monks

are also always given the Equip Heavy Armor ability, which gives them a fair

amount of HP.

The Dancers and Bards are less of a priority to defeat (especially the Bards),

but ANY enemies you can defeat early on will help relieve some of the pressure

on you.

Both the Monks have Items and can use Phoenix Downs to revive KOed allies;

other enemies may also be randomly assigned the Items ability. If you’re using

Summons, this isn’t too much of a problem; the revived enemies will come back

with only minimal HP and will be wiped down the next time you cast a Summon.

Otherwise, try to pick off these weak enemies before they get healed back to

full HP.

One last caution: it’s likely that at least one of the enemies will have the

Geomancy ability, and will use the Contortion ability from the back of the

battlefield. While this attack won’t do much damage, it has a chance of

turning you to Stone, so bring an ability that can cure this status, like

Purification [Monk], Esuna [White Mage], or Gold Needle [Chemist]. Or, if your

levels are high enough that the Bards have Bloodstring Harps, you won’t need

a Nu Khai Armband to protect against Confusion, so you can equip a Jade Armlet

to protect yourself against Stone. (However, if the Bards are still using

Lamia’s Harps, the Nu Khai Armband is more important.)

For this battle, it doesn’t matter who is player 1 and player 2 since you start

in identical positions relative to the enemy.

TITLE AWARDED: Lord of the Night

---Rendezvous Mission 7: Desert Minefield--------------------------------------

AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 26: Monastery Vaults - First Level

BATTLE MAP: Zeklaus Desert

YOUR FORCES: 1-2 characters per player, Govis

ENEMY FORCES: Bomb x2, Grenade x4, Exploder x5

GUEST: Govis - Chemist - random Bravery and Faith values

Equipment : No weapon, random other equipment

Abilities : Items, random other abilities

This mission is an escort mission. You lose if Govis, the guest Chemist, is

KOed. You win when Govis reaches the far side of the map, or if you KO all 11

enemy bombs. KOing as many of the bombs as possible will earn you a higher

star rating (and hence more chests) at the end of the battle, so that’s the way

to go.

Unfortunately, Govis is a bit of a hazard to himself. He likes to charge right

at the bombs and attack them with his bare hands, which tends to get him

counterattacked and KOed. The best remedy is to bring Mustadio (or, later,

Balthier) and have him use Leg Shot to Immobilize Govis at the start of the

battle. (Player 1 starts directly behind Govis and has a clear shot for this.)

Your odds of successfully Immobilizing Govis depend in part on Govis’s random

Zodiac sign and its compatibility with Mustadio’s, so there’s some luck

involved here. Putting Immobilize on Govis will keep from charging forward,

and he should be pretty safe. Immobilize will wear off after a few turns,

though, so prepared to use it again. If Govis does manage to move forward,

he’ll be in danger. Quickly move some characters between him and the enemies

to shield him. (You could also put Govis to sleep, which lasts longer, but

this has the disadvantage of making him more susceptible to attack if the bombs

DO reach him.)

It’s probably a good idea to bring someone with healing abilities who can heal

Govis, just in case. Mustadio can double with this role if you switch him to a

Chemist (and then assign Aimed Shot as his second abilitiy). Don’t be shy with

your items; you get them all back after the end of the battle, anyway.

Don’t underestimate the bombs. There are a lot of them, and they come at you

quickly. You may be more successful if you generally let them come to you

instead of charging them. This will keep you from getting surrounded.

Equipping Flame Shields here is quite helpful as it allows you to actually

absorb the damage from the Exploders’ Spark attacks. In general, a good

physical defense is important here since the bombs use mostly physical attacks.

Shields, cloaks, and Parry will help you avoid their attacks -- and Shirahadori

is even better, if you’ve already obtained that. Auto-Potion is also quite

useful, especially since you don’t really use up potions in Rendezvous Mode.

Where possible, put your back against a cactus, so the bombs can only attack

you from the side or front, which allows you to use your shield.

For attacking the bombs, Agrias’s sword techniques are always good as they

can’t be counterattacked, do high damage, and can often target more than one

enemy at a time. (Or, if you’re only able to attack a single bomb, use

Northswain’s Strike, which has a chance of instantly KOing its target.) If you

want to use Black Magick, note that the Bombs absorb fire and halve damage from

ice, so use Thunder spells only. The same goes for Summons and weapons; be

sure to avoid the Icebrand sword. (Note that the Icebrand sword will turn even

your sword techniques into ice-elemental attacks!) If you happen to have the

Leviathan summon, it will do a lot of damage since the bombs are all weak to

water.

Finally, you could try using Orator skills (Entice or Tame) to recruit one or

more bombs to your side. This can help even out the enemy’s numerical

advantage, but it has pretty low odds of succeeding.

Of the three kinds of bombs, the Grenades are the most dangerous. Their

Bomblet attack does a lot of damage and is non-elemental, so the Flame Shield

won’t protect against it. Take out the Grenades first, and try to get rid of

them before the Exploders reach you.

Once the Exploders join the fray, they’ll start using their Spark ability,

which heals any nearby bombs and also damages any characters who aren’t

protected with a Flame Shield. This can get quite annoying if the Exploders

get into a big group because the Exploders will just keep healing each other

and you won’t be able to defeat any of them. Attack one of the Exploders at a

time until you KO them. You can also try to use your characters to block the

Exploders from reaching each other, or draw them apart into separate groups.

This will reduce their ability to keep healing themselves. Another alternative

is to use abilities like Arm Shot or Mystic Arts to take away the Exploders’

ability to act.

Be careful about leaving any bomb in a low-HP state. It may use Self-Destruct,

which will do sizable damage to a wide range and has a good chance of killing

Govis.

To earn a five-star rating on this battle, you must deploy only a single

character per player, and you must KO all the bombs. This can be quite

difficult, especially when this mission is first unlocked, since you have to

juggle defeating the bombs with healing Govis and preventing him from reaching

the finish line. You’ll probably want to have one character do the fighting

while another character heals and Immobilizes Govis, but it will be tricky if

you’re not able to easily take out the Exploders.

TITLE AWARDED: Bombslayer

---Rendezvous Mission 8: Littering---------------------------------------------

AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 29: Yardrow

BATTLE MAP: Gollund

YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player

ENEMY FORCES: Ninja (male) x 5, Ninja (female) x5

This is a battle against a squad of ten enemy Ninjas. The Ninjas are extremely

fast and, unless you have an auto-Haste item, it’s likely that all of them will

be able to attack before you can even move. Even if you make your own

characters into Ninjas, the enemies can probably move first because of their

superior level-up history.

So, surviving against the initial onslaught is your first priority. Equip

armor that will boost your HP as high as possible (Equip Heavy Armor may be

useful). Use shields and cloaks to boost your evade rate.

The Thief’s Sticky Fingers ability is pretty much made for this battle. When

activated, it not only blocks the Ninja’s Throw attacks, but adds the thrown

item to your own inventory! Of course, like most Reaction Abilities, it is

dependent on your Bravery and doesn’t always activate.) And, if you don’t

already have it, it costs only 200 JP to acquire. Actually, if you have them,

Shirahadori (Samurai) or Reflexes (Ninja) are even better as they will help you

against even the Ninjas’ regular physical attacks as well as the throws. (They

won’t allow you to keep the thrown items, though.) Auto-Potion is also

extremely helpful, especially if you throw away your regular Potions and/or

Hi-Potions first so you can just use more effective potions.

Teleport and Ignore Elevation can also be helpful for making it easier to get

atop the roof tiles where some of the Ninjas may be, but they’re not really

necessary.

Player 1 starts battling the female Ninjas and Player 2 start battling the male

Ninjas. For the most part, this doesn’t really matter. However, there’s a

chance that the Ninjas will randomly be assigned the Steal Heart ability, which

lets them Charm targets of the opposite sex. Just in case, have the player

with more female characters be Player 1 and the player with more male

characters be Player 2.

At the start of the battle, focus on cutting down a few Ninjas as fast as

possible so you’re not so outnumbered. Strong physical attacks are useful.

Target those Ninjas with whom you have good Zodiac compatibility as you may be

able to defeat them in a single strike. (Fortunately, Ninjas are pretty

fragile.) Mustadio’s Arm Shot ability is also quite useful; Disabling the

Ninjas keeps them out of your hair for a few turns. Leg Shot isn’t too useful

because even if the Ninjas can’t move, they can still throw things at you.

Because it’s snowing, ice-based attacks will be powerful. This might include

Luso’s Icebrand sword, as well as magicks like Blizzard and Shiva. Equip an

Ice Rod on any magick users to make their ice magick even stronger.

Be careful using Aim and especially Jump here; the Ninjas are so fast that

you’ll need to make sure the attack can execute before the Ninjas can move out

of the way.

If you’re already into Chapter IV and have acquired some of the sidequests

characters, they may be useful here. Balthier is basically a stronger Mustadio

and Beowulf’s Disable, Break, and Chicken abilities can be used to quickly stop

some of the enemy Ninjas.