DFFOO GL - Freya Lufenia Saga #14 - Beatrix Lost Chapter COMPLETE

Channel:

ChikoLad

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1,730

Published on January 4, 2021 8:13:27 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNWC2t0PMk8

Game:

Final Fantasy IX (2000)

Duration: 23:31

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I think I'll call this team "Team Steps on You", since it's a full group of powerful warrior ladies.

That being said, I'm really not a fan of Beatrix as a character, and honestly didn't plan on bringing her unless I could make Freya/Steiner/Beatrix work (I almost did, and it may be possible with the right friend unit, but I didn't want to spend too much time on this as I'm back to work now). However, when I saw the bosses' nasty recast attack, I figured I'd just bring her so I can deal with that and the Lufenia Orb in one character. If I had Cloud BT, I may have tried a team of Cloud and WoL instead but I don't so I just went with Beatrix, and then took Lightning for big damage and turn control. Lightning's Thunder Imperil also benefits Beatrix as Thunder Slash is, well, innately Thunder element, so her damage with that attack is higher.

Beatrix's kit is really awkward though and I'm not the biggest fan of it, even putting aside my distaste for the character. For a character who's main defining, memorable trait for most people is being an unbeatable boss in FFIX (or her exposed chest, if the comments on the Tonberry Troupe infographic are anything to go by...), they kind of gave her a lot of weird caveats in DFFOO. She takes up a lot of buff slots on your party members which gives her poor compatibility with some characters who have a lot of buffs or give buffs to the party. This wasn't an issue for me here as Lightning refreshes her own buffs constantly so nothing important stays off and Freya has three framed buffs that cover her support functionality, and Beatrix offers exactly three buffs to Freya so it works out nicely. One of Beatrix's buffs is a HP Regen which stacks with the one Freya offers to the party without taking buffs slots. Honestly, Freya and Beatrix actually have perfect compatibility which is ironic since lore wise, Freya wants absolutely nothing to do with Beatrix. I guess DFFOO makes better use of their dynamic than FFIX does.

However, my bigger issues are that Beatrix's Holy Knight's Safeguard has WAY too much ramp up in this day and age of the game. We have so many characters with "stop the party from being wiped" mechanics (including Freya's AoE Last Stand, but since the enemy recast is two HP hits with battery, it's not sufficient against that attack unless you maybe stacked up on max HP auras with Rude) that are just way easier and more consistent to use. I also found her dispel mechanic not the best for this stage, especially paired with Lightning who really needs to hold back sometimes to give the enemy AND Beatrix a turn. I really wish the follow-up attack with the dispel was actually a counter, as Beatrix is on the slow side and doesn't get as many turns anyway, so it would make more sense. Instead you have to wait for an enemy to act to put the buff up, then wait for Beatrix to get a turn to THEN dispel them to bump up the Orb count. It's a frustrating multi-step process.

The fight itself isn't that hard though, it just has annoying checks in place but it didn't take that long to beat, and like I said, Cloud would make this a cakewalk as a more consistent dispeller and WoL could mitigate the damage on a more on demand basis. Honestly, WoL, Cloud, and Lightning as a team likely would demolish this stage. Beatrix ironically isn't the best character for the stage despite the fact she does handle the two main dangers in some way, but I worked around her awkwardness to make her work. Lightning's turn stealing and delaying does give some leeway to Beatrix to get Holy Knight's Safeguard up and running, despite being a problem for getting dispels in.

Things came down to the wire at the end as I got in a really awkward position (again, because of Beatrix's ramp ups), where the same enemy had the recast gauge charged and the Orb count on the verge of hitting 0, but Beatrix's Holy Knight's Safeguard was just short of being ready, and Lightning had pushed Beatrix behind the enemies in the turn order, and there was no buff to dispel on this enemy just yet so if they acted, I would have been done in by the Orb. Thankfully, I still had Lightning's Burst phase and basically just destroyed that enemy in the Burst and continued to rush down the remaining enemy until it was finished.

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