A note from Eugene Shen: Alright, first things first... The only part that I can both accurately AND completely translate is the first Chapter... I currently can't supply you with any plot for Chapter 2 because it was a little too confusing for me. I'll have to wait until some magazine starts to talk about it before I can tell you much. However, I could give you an outline about some of the major things that's happened. ■ ８.０【ＩｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎｂｙＥｕｇｅｎｅＳｈｅｎ ■ The story that we are playing is essentially a part of history called the "Lions' War". The Lions' War came a year after a war called the "50 Years' War". The 50 Years' War erupted because the former king of this place died without specifying an heir. As a result, two lords in the country fought each other for 50 years until finally, one side (your side, which is the one at the west) had a significant advantage and the other side was forced to sign a peace treaty. The major contributor to this cause was, in fact Ramza's father (the one who told Ramza the importance about integrity when he died). Apparently, after the Lions' War, Ramza's friend became heralded as a hero and became king. And Ramza? Ramza is the real hero behind the scenes who never left his name in history. There are also some other details that I left out in the first Chapter. Remember when you got into a town and you see one Knight choke another, and then after the first one leaves and you have to fight the other one in addition to some Black Magicians? Apparently, the first one is the leader of the gang and HE is asking about the whereabouts of the Duke. Why? Because the second-in-charge was responsible for kidnapping the Duke and he Had nothing to do with it! Also, the guy that he killed in the cellar right before you saved the duke is the second-in-charge. So why si this part important? Because it makes Ramza doubt his own ground. He is starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he is on the wrong side! What I jsut love about the FF series is how deep the storyline is... In FFT, you repeatedly see this internal conflict within Ramza as he asks "Why does there have to be War", or "Why do we have to fight", or "Am I doing hte right thing?". ■ ８.１【Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ１ｂｙＥｕｇｅｎｅＳｈｅｎ ■ At first, you start off in the present and being a mercenary, you happened to fall right between Princess Ovelia and a group of people who want to kidnap her (this is the VERY first battle, where you can only control yourself and all other allies are "Guests"). Then, after the battle, you realize that you've been tricked and Ovelia is brought away from the back door. However, right before the guy gets away on a Chocobo, you recognize his face and you start telling the story about the guy and yourself. Chapter 1: You start out as an apprentice swordsman at some sort of royal institute and the city is being overrun by bandits. At your side are your fellow students and a very close friend of yours, Dirita (recognize his face? That's cause he's the one who took the princess!). After defeating the bandits, you start making your way back home and on the way, you see another apprentice swordsman being attacked! Now you get to choose either to say: "Defeating these bandits is my duty", or "We've gotta help that guy!" I'm not too sure what the different choices do to the plot, but what I AM sure about is that it alters the "criteria for success" for that mission (one is to kill all enemies, the other is to rescue the swordsman). After you save him (that was the one I chose), he'll tell you that his name is Argas, and that a duke he's serving is kidnapped by bandits and he has to go save him... Afterwards, he joins your party and you can go home where you'll meet your father on his death bed who tells you the importance of being honorable. Aruma, your sister, and Teita, Dirita's sister, urge you two to take care. Then you go save the duke, and after you do so, you go home and get scolded because your brother Daisdarg (who's in charge now) thinks you're negligent for not doing your duty and going after the duke. So then you are appointed to get rid of the bandits, and after you do something (sorry, I can't remember what you do here to carry on the plot) and go back home, you realize that the bandits have got to your place and carried off your friend's sister, Teita. Afterwards, Argas leaves your party because Dirita is very upset and Argas commented "what's the big deal, she's only a peasant and expendable!" (actually, Dirita punched him out). Then you set out with Dirita to rescue her sister. However, after defeating tons of bandits and arriving at the last bandit who's holding Teita hostage, your brother Daisdarg and Argas arrived and Daisdarg ordered Argas to kill both Teita and the bandit (which he did). Afterwards, you fight Argas and after you kill him, Dirita goes on the bridge and cries over Teita. However, the house explodes and though you're blasted back, Dirita is engulfed in a ball of fire and disappears. End of chapter one. Note: A little about Dirita and Argas. Apparently, Dirita was born a peasant, however, since the two of you are such good childhood playmates, your father, a duke of some sort, decided to let both of you attend the royal academy, and both Aruma and Teita attend the same school as well. Understanding that the society is VERY feudalistic and the difference between the royalty and commonfolk is a HUGE gap, one can see why Argas called Teita a "peasant" and considered her "expendable". Argas, however, was born a royalty, but since his father (or was it his grandfather) turned out to be a traitor, all was lost and he had to start all over (which explains why he was so interested in saving the duke - he wants to prove himself so he can climb back up again). As a result, he became very power-hungry and didn't care much about anyone else. ■ ８.２【Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ２ｂｙＥｕｇｅｎｅＳｈｅｎ ■ You start out going after Princess Ovelia and realize that Dirita and Ovelia are surrounded by people from your brother Daisdarg's army! After saving Ovelia and Dirita, he puts Ovelia in your care and leaves (apparently, he didn't kidnap the princess, he was just trying to save her). Afterwards, you learn of the 12 mythical stones and the legend surrounding them by saving the mechanic Mustadio. Entering Mustadio's city, you leave Ovelia in the ruler Drakrowa's care and get ready to go and find Mustadio's father, Basrodio. After saving Basrodio, obtaining the Tauros stone, and on your way back to Mustadio's city, you find Agurias (the Holy Knight that was protecting the princess) badly hurt. You realize what has happened by now (that Drakrowa is on the enemy's side) and hear the rumor that they are going to execute Ovelia at the execution ground. When you get there to save her, you realize that it was a trap, and Gafgalion, the dark knight who was a guest in the first fight, has sided with Drakrowa. After defeating those guys, and showing up at Mustadio's city, Ramza has to take on Gafgalion one-on-one while everyone else takes on little guys outside the town gate. Thankfully, this time you get to kill him. When you get inside, you find Drakrowa alone behind an altar (easy kill, right? Wrong!). Unfortunately, he transforms into a monster called Kyukrein with the "aid" of one of the stones he obtained and, well, you've just gotta kill him. After you kill him, he reverts to his human self and you take the Scorpio stone that he drops. End of chapter two. ■ ８.２ｂ【Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ２ｂｙＤａｒｒｅｎＣｈａｎ ■ Basically the former King's brother Gorutana and the brother of the former King's "smaller wife" Laak are having wars against each other for the matter of to who should inherit the throne. (grammatical er?) This war is known as the war of the lions since Gorutana'a army has a symbol of black lion while Laak's army has a symbol of a white lion. During the warfare peasants and such are suffering from heavy taxation and poor harvest and such. And after the former 50 years war the former king (forgot his name) held against another country many of the knights who participated in this war were abandoned by the royal families because of some reasons that I cannot understand. So they formed an "army" themselvs called the "Skull travellers" (rough translation) and captured a duke in chapter 1. (Some characters and events that are involved I cannot comprehend) Later on Ramza learned that it was his brother Daisduke's plan to capture the duke with "political" or "military" reasons, and he thinks his brother is on the wrong path and that should not be the way of the Beluof family (Ramza's bloodline), so he deserted the "North Sky" army that his brothers lead and became a mercenery afterwards with Gabugalian. Actually Ramza and his sister Elma do not have the same mother as their brothers Daisduke and Balzak. That's why their brothers do not really like them and do not consider Ramza to be of the pure bloodline. Then in chapter 2, Ramza learned about the legend of the Zodiac Braves. In the ancient times twelve warriors seal the dark lord with the twelve zodiac stones and this became a legend everyone knows about. Twelve centuries before a Jesus-like figure in this world called Saint Ajola appeared like a prophet and many people thought he would save the corrupted world. A lord in one of the seven kingdoms was obsessed with ambitions and he called upon the dark lord Rukavie (?) Then Saint Ajola and his twelve disciples used the twelve stones and sealed the demon. Many people then believed he's the savior and thus the Gravadox religion is created. However the priests and such were afraid of Saint Ajola's authority and his audience so they had to kill him, somewhat like the Bible story Saint Ajola's thirteenth disciple betrayed him and so he died, but then again like Jesus he is said to have revived and became one of the God or God's son :) Now here's the twist of the story, Ramza, after he picked up Princess Ovilia from Dilitar, brought her to the Church's authority (or a priest whose position I cannot understand) called Drakrowa. Then he learned from Basrodio, the engineer whom he saved earlier that another one of the 12 zodiac stones was discovered in the engineer's hometown Gook, so Drakrowa asked them to go get it for him as the stones may lead the people to peace by the power of God. However after Ramza and co retrieve the stone a merchant was out to get them and the stone. He was co-operating with Drakrowa. He succeeded by using some nasties and took the stone. Then Ramza knew the princess would be in danger in Drakrowa's hand so he ran back to the Church to find Drakrowa gave his body to the spirit of the stone and became a demon! It was at this moment Ramza found out that these stones are not "holy", they are evil relics that can bring the world to destruction! So that's it for now. Whew.... I know I'm missing a lot of stuff and the translations are not exact. So now you know the plot has a lot of twists to it - like what you thought was good turned out to be bad :) ■ ９【Ｍｉｓｃｅｌｌａｎｅｏｕｓ ■ IMPORTANT! : You can see how much damage an attack is going to do just before confirming it. It will be displayed just above your character's stats. Surprisingly enough, this means that the formula for determining the damage of an attack doesn't have a random factor (except for a few cases) and it will always be the same under the same circumstances. You can also see what the chance of success for the attack is, either for physical attacks (they can be evaded) or for the random chance ones (instant death, status change, etc...) You can also see when an action that requires charge time is going to take effect. When selecting the spell, ability or whatever, if you press Right over it the Active Turn screen will pop up showing the order of the next turns including this action (as if you were going to perform it). This can be used in any ability that requires charge time excep the Dragon Knight's Jump, as in it you don't get to select any ability. Training Method by Eugene Shen: A word on how to train your characters like crazy: As you know, you'll meet enemies randomly whenever you step on a "Green Dot". So what you do is this: First make sure that at least one character in your party has the "steal hearts" thief skill. Second, make sure that you have at least one character who has the healing ability ("Chakra") with the monk. Then, after killing all but one monster, get the thief to repeatedly steal its heart (every successful steal will result in a gain of JP and ExP. Usually, a steal will last 2 to 3 rounds, and the percentage of success is usually above 50%. As a result, you can almost keep this going indefinitely). While the monster is "tamed" in this process, get the remaining guys to surround the monk and do special "attacks" to him. Examples of the "attacks" are: Poison or direct attack with the black magician, decrease mana with the Knight, or whatever other attacks that don't hurt him alot. (Ignacio's note : I also recomend : The Apprentice's "Throw Stone" ability. Attacking with Mages and jobs that don't do much damage. Using the "Talker" abilities. Using any positive status change ability) When the knight's turn arrives, get him to use the heal ability (also, make sure everyone's on level ground, so everyone gets healed). As a result, everyone will gain JP and EXP and you can gain alot of levels without much work. The only thing is that this is very tiring after a while and really not much fun. Side quests notes by Darren Chan When you get to a bar, you can send your characters to do side quests. People sometimes ask you to get rid of monsters or to help them find something, so you send three of your characters in a specified number of days to do the quest (no battles or events involved), and you have to give them money for allowances (?) to do the quest as well. After the completion date you can return to the same bar and ask them to report to you. They will tell you what happened in their quest and finally give you what they found in their quest and each of the participating members get their JP. Some special items that cannot be used in battles are found by using this method (such as books that you can actually read). Sometimes they may even find new "secret" locations that contain interesting stuff. I've found a town where it is said magical knights live there, however this town has not appeared on the map (yet?). Thus I'm not sure whether these places are for real or not (my bet is yes!) As you get more of those treasures that you earn in the side quests your reputation as an "adventurer" or "treasure hunter" increases. (I don't know what these do to the game though) (Ignacio's notes: One day passes for each move you make in the world map. If you want the time to go faster, you can always find two adjacent blue spots and go from one to the other repeatedly (great way to reproduce your monsters, by the way). On the other hand, it is unknown if finishing the game in more or less days will have negative consequences, and you could use this time to train your other characters) Job System notes by Darren Chan: Each time your character earns his JP it goes into his current job's total JP no matter what he did, (e.g. A knight casting a white spell - the resulting JP still goes to the job knight) and 1/6 of this JP goes to the total JP of the same job to the other characters (e.g. A knight gets 36 JP - all other characters in battle get 6 JP for thier job knight) I found that even if one of your character can't change to one particular job yet, s/he can still get the 1/6 JP earned by allies for that job. The JPs will show up after you can change to that job :) Auto-potion trick by Oscar Ramos: Auto-potion is the item user's reaction ability. It works this way: when the character with this ability is damaged, he/she has a very high chance (80-90%) of using the lowest grade potion you have, i.e. he/she will use a regular potion if you have one, and if not he/she will try to use a Hi-Potion or a X-Potion in that order of preference. By now you may have realized the cheat: dispose of all Potions and Hi-Potions and buy plenty of X-Potions (they heal 150 HP and cost only 300 gil), and that character will be almost inmortal. This may spoil the fun of the game, and I myself (Ignacio) have decided not to use it except in desperate situations. There are five FMV sequences that can be seen from the begining: The intro to the main menu, the "New Game" intro, and three others that can be seen just by waiting at the main menu screen (the one with New Game, etc...). There is a screen saver for the Demo Disk that comes with the game. If you don't do anything for quite a long time (around three minutes) in the screen where you have to select which demo you want to play, you will see it.