Another great strategy guide for the FF library.

I just have to say that I have not beaten ANY FF game without a strategy guide. On my first try, I just try to get through the game and get as many items that comes along my way and then my second time around, I’m serious about it and I get all the items and level up more often and NEVER run from battles. Anyway, FF10’s Strategy Guide was done well. I own 7 strategy guides (which includes FF10) and FF10’s is the best. FF7’s strategy sort of stunk and FF8’s was OK and Onimusha’s was good and Diablo 1 and 2’s was fine and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3’s was awesome, but FF10’s was definitely the best because you can totally tell that the author, Dan Birlew, really spent some time on it instead of just rushing through it.

I just want to say this before I get to the actual review…the screen shots in this guide were done well and were clear and informative. The drawings that were done in the guide we also cool which showcased each character and things like that. The guides’ length is 273 pages which practically a novel. That’s a good thing because it helped me a lot on the overall game. Now back to the review:

Author’s Note

If you don’t understand what I’m saying about the guide, click over to my review on FF10 to be informed.

RPG BASICS: HELP MENU:

Since every FF has a different battle system, this is the first place where I go in a strategy guide for an RPG like this. This chapter is great and it can help beginning gamers get acquainted with the FF franchise by showing them how the Aeons work and how there’s no world map and how to manage your party. It also tells you about the elements, Trigger Commands, Overkill, Status Ailments, and all those other goodies about FF10. This is a great part of the guide.

CHARACTERS/AEONS:

This section teaches about each character and Aeon and tells what the Aeon’s Overdrive(s) and special attacks are and they also tell some info about the Aeon. It also tells about how to teach the Aeons new spells and what will work to make the spells. With the Character part, they teach about each character and their Overdrives and what they do on the Sphere Grid and after they’re done with the Sphere Grid on where to go. This is a great part of the guide also. During the game, I found myself frequently looking at this section.

ABILITIES AND THE SPHERE GRID:

This section is devoted to the abilities that characters learn throughout the game and teaches the basics of the Sphere Grid which really helped me in the overall game because at first, I didn’t really get the Sphere Grid, but after reading this section a couple of times (6 times to be exact), I understood it clear as crystal.

WEAPONS AND ARMOR:

Personally, this is my favorite part of the whole guide. This section gives a list of all the weapons and armor for each character and shows a couple of pictures of what one or two of the weapons look like. This is the flaw of this guide. It only gives a list of the weapons and that’s it. It doesn’t say where it can be found or what abilities are on each weapon. In this chapter, it also tells what the spells on a weapon mean and it also gives you information about customizing your weapons.

ITEMS AND KEY ITEMS:

This section was a great help for me because it told me what all of the items and key items were. Key items are basically important items that you find on your journey, like the legendary weapons for each character and the Primer Novels to learn Al Bhed.

SHOPS LIST:

This is a list of all the shops that you can go to in the game and what the shops sell. This is also a great help because before I get to a new town, it tells me what to expect from the shops.

WALKTHROUGH:

This is the basic walkthrough to the game. From page 62 to page 166, it’s the whole walkthrough guide. Each area is displayed in a couple of pages each, which really help you a lot. It also tells you what items and key items to look for in the area. This is probably the biggest help when you are searching for every single item. The last things they show are Boss Tips. These helped me a lot also (for example, it took me a total of 8 tries to defeat the last boss, Braska’s Final Aeon. The tips that the guide gave me helped me a lot in the long run.) and they kept me from going on the Internet to go to Gamefaqs to get every walkthrough there.

SIDE QUESTS AND MINI-GAMES:

This section gives you a thorough list of the things that you can do in this game. The side quests that you can do to get secret aeons, collect all the butterflies in the Macalania Woods, and things like that. The Mini-games part informed me of where to go to play those fun mini-games we know from all of the FF games.

SECRETS:

This section tells you how to find the Legendary weapons, where all of the Al Bhed Primer Novels are found, what the Airship passwords are, and various things like that.

BLITZBALL STRATEGY:

This gives you information on how to play and, better yet, MASTER the sport of Blitzball. Yes, Blitzball FF10’s main mini-game (like FF8 and FF9’s card games) which I don’t really like that much. You can find out why if you view my review on the game. This also gives you a list of all of the teams’ stats in the game.

BESTIARY:

What FF guide wouldn’t have it’s own Bestiary chapter? This is probably the most informative Bestiary I have every seen (aside from FF9’s which was wonderful). The Bestiary tells what items can be stolen from a beast, what their weaknesses are, what they are immune to, and various thing like that which help a lot in the long run. I always look at this chapter when I am about to embark onto a new area. The Bestiary itself is long.

INTERVIEWS:

The last (FINAL) chapter in this strategy guide is the Interview section which interviews the creators of the latest masterpiece by Square Soft. In this chapter, they interview the genius producer of FF10, Yoshinori Kitase and also the brilliant battle director known as Toshiro Tsuchida, and of course, my hero Nobuo Uematsu who is the awesome composer and sound producer of all the FF games for PS1. Man, this guy is cool.


OVERALL:

I hope I convinced you to buy this great strategy guide. This helps a lot especially if you are a beginner at RPG games or the franchise. Please get this guide along with the game (of course) and write back to me and say how much of help I was to you and how much you enjoy the latest chapter in the hopefully never-ending FF series.

Until My Next Review, probably on Gran Turismo 3 for PS2, I remain

JiggyJay