Ex2PG Combined Stats - 13 Reef Choco Upgrade & The Robe of Lords

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Justin-credible

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Published on September 28, 2022 11:08:30 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP6MsZH46TU

Game:

Counter-Strike: Source (2004)

Duration: 23:42

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CH&C Treasures: 7 Chocographs (Between Mountains, Uncultivated Land, Abandoned Beach, Cold Field, Faraway Lagoon, Bird's-eye Lagoon, Small Beach), 2 Chocograph Pieces, Varying amounts of the following: Ore, Gysahl Greens, Phoenix Pinion, Echo Screen, Eye Drops, Antidote, Soft, Annoyntment, Potion, 50 Gil, 200 Gil

Chocograph Treasures: Reef Upgrade, 4 Remedy, 2 Elixir, 8 Rising Sun, 1 Oak Staff

This segment's video was intended to be over 65 minutes long due to the long grind of Chocobo Hot and Cold, but there is only 23 minutes. I spent a lot of time practicing CH&C to prepare for this long session and managed to get 10000 points but I wasn't recording practice, plus I was about 10 minutes too slow. For about 4 days of trying to record a full grind of this at the time, two power outages in two days stopped attempts, and then about an hour into a good session, the computer blue-screened and I lost my footage again. I called it quits on trying to record everything. I stopped and saved what I had on hand, and worked on getting big limit bonus games to off-set the time took to save.

The start of the CH&C games here is just fill-in footage. It's very bad and slow due to my hand problems from speedrunning and other IRL factors. There is a cut to the final games that demonstrate how to play CH&C at a optimum level to get good limit bonuses to reach 10000 points. This segment thankfully is the last where I have any computer or power issues.

Monkeyslinger, another Ex2PG collegue whose run I am following did manage to complete a whole recording of this, and inspired me to do one more Ex2PG after nearly 10 years, so big props to him for pulling off the grind. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWXnh-_o7vU and he commentated his video so most of what I have wrote below might be redundant.

Now to explain some of the CH&C mechanics. Each game costs 60 gil. Each item has a rarity and is worth points based on that. There is also a possibility to dig up a chocograph (if any are left) in a game but the chances start off rather small but increase (up to 1 in 2) as you dig up more treasures. If you dig up a treasure within 5 seconds of the last one, you get 5 bonus points. This won't happen much as you start out, but as Choco levels up and now that we have the Reef upgrade, Choco digs faster which will make these 5 point bonuses more important. As you get more points, Choco's beak will level up and the number of pecks it takes to dig will decrease, eventually you will peck only once to get a treasure.

Once you dig up 4 treasures, you will get 10 additional seconds and points are now doubled, so if you can dig up treasures quickly and/or even get a Chocograph, one of the two Chocograph Pieces available now, or even an ultra-rare item. That will help greatly. If you get all 8 treasures, the game ends and any time left gets converted to bonus points. These points also goes towards Choco's beak level.

There are 8 locations in the forest without the mountain upgrade and 8 treasures, so each spot will be used once. With enough practice you can memorize where you have already dug and can use process of elimination to narrow searching for subsequent treasures. This is the key to getting those big limit bonuses. I use numbers (1 for the bottom of the forest, 8 for the top where the stump is) to keep track of where I have been.

Here is a link to a picture of the 8 locations (red lines) from the FFIX Ultimania: https://imgur.com/a/5FRKxb3
It's not a great image but It's the best I could do.

You will for sure dig up gil in 50 and 200 amounts, all of the remaining chocographs that are available now, plus the two chocograph pieces. Once you do, Phoenix Pinions will be more likely since they are the same rarity as chocographs. They sell for 1000 gil each so a nice stock of them will make up for not doing a whole 99 Cotton Robe trick back in Lindblum. Also possible are 5000 gil, 10000 gil, and even some equipment like a Barette, Extension, Cachusha (all of these 3 you will use later on) one of which I got in the footage I lost.

Here is a link to the CH&C minigame on the FF Wiki: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Chocobo_Hot_and_Cold

Once you have 10000 points, get your Robe of Lords, and dig up the Small Beach chocograph. Saving before going into the grotto is the safe play and had I got a full recording of CH&C, I would have done just that. Before saving outside Burmecia, give Zidane the Mage Masher and Leather Wrist, optimize Quina then Vivi to get his Oak Staff on, then remove the Robe of Lords and Glass Armlet from Quina so he/she can be knocked out in the next fight.

Target Time - 3:32:15, Gil ~ 3700, Random Encounters - 0

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