FFT - Reclass+ Challenge Finale: Altima

Channel:

MoogleBoss

Subscribers:

6,670

Published on December 15, 2013 4:04:28 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FW0OclVcZY

Game:

Final Fantasy Tactics (1997)

Duration: 10:15

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12

Challenge completed! It's been a while since I first started this run.

Challenge playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c28iO0sXp0n5C1gPO2daByy

All the endgame battles from the point of no return turned out to amount to just 10 minutes of footage when sped up 2x so I thought Altima would also be included in the same video, but this didn't happen because the final battle alone took nearly as much time as all the endgame battled did put together. I guess that's what fighting Altima is like sometimes.

In the battle preparations menu, I switched Ramza to Summoner, giving him the Oracle Yin Yang Magic skillset as secondary, and focused on making him, first of all, healthy. MA wasn't a big concern because the attacks I planned to use were all status-based, reliant on mostly faith and compat.

Meliadoul was warming the bench, as there was nobody whose armour I could break and Malak had Phoenix Down and Hi-Potion which was at least *some* support (though still really bad, but I had no time to build him into anything). Malak was a Monk with a PA stack setup (no Twist Headband for a Monk sadly), so that he'd punch Altima whenever he got close enough to her. The only skill learnt as a Monk was Earth Slash, which was a bad idea as it barely helped me before this (even with Earth Clothes) and can't connect either form of Altima at all because of innate Auto-Float.

Mustadio was Chemist last battle, so the best choice for him was Summoner, allowing me to use both Golem and restorative items. Since Summoner is a slow class, I tried to maximise his speed so that he wouldn't take long to aid the party in peril.

Agrias was a Knight last battle, so I had to choose between Holy Knight and Geomancer here. Former equips knightswords (Excalibur still banned in this run), while the latter gets Ice Brand which can be powered up with the Black Robe and can equip Thief Hat for extra speed or Twist Headband for more power. I decided I value the 2 points of speed more.

Finally, Rafa. Much like Malak, she didn't learn much of note on this run, and her initial skillset had only two spells unlocked, only the first one powered up by a Black Robe. She didn't learn Life Drain, unlike Ramza, and she didn't have any Wizard spells either (not even the lv. 1 ones), so I made her a Wizard with the best MA stack equipment setup and tried to make use of just her gimmicky gamble spells because I didn't have anything better.

Kind of an underwhelming party, which is good for a themed/challenge run, though Ramza and Agrias alone were walloping quite well.

Altima has one annoying feature about her - charging a spell on the party, offence or status, and then retreating to the opposite corner of the map where you usually can't reach her (besides with, like, Math Skill and lolWiznaibus). This also explains the length of the video.

Retreating to the corner of the map was how she started the battle too, so I had no choice but to focus on the demons first, so that they don't make a game over more possible by contributing more chip damage (which can get fairly big depending on what spells they cast). When Altima did come back, I was naive enough to think I could just use Life Drain two more times on her, chip in with my other characters and she'd transform to her second and last form, the demons disappearing. Kind of a big mistake, because Malak could've punched the critical demon instead of Altima instead, as Ramza and Rafa wouldn't be eating an AoE spell soon afterwards.

When Altima first retreated, Ramza pretty much had a spare turn so I went ahead and healed Alma. This was probably the best decision made in the whole battle, as Alma kept giving great MBarrier buffs to everybody in my party throughout the battle. I even felt like throwing a Hi-Ether in her direction with Mustadio.

With Mustadio healbotting and Alma granting everyone MBarrier, survival wasn't all that hard and I did my best to spread my units around so that Ultima and more importantly Grand Cross wouldn't connect on multiple characters at once. Grand Cross is especially painful, because if that hits the whole party it could be too crippling to continue the battle. Malak could've learned Stigma Magic instead of Earth Slash to help out in such a situation, but he didn't, and Mustadio didn't have enough time to learn Remedy as Chemist (I prioritised X-Potion and Hi-Ether). Luckily, Grand Cross was cast towards the very end and was blocked by Ramza, not touching anyone else.

And about the last turn of the battle... Can you believe who got the final boss kill? Yeah, ironic I know.

Well, this challenge is over and I must say I found it very fascinating to do, and it gives me more ideas about more runs to hold in this game. There's another one coming up very soon; see if you can predict what it is.

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