Character Completionist?

[Pete]

I'm just wondering what you guys did as you leveled your parties up. Did you try to keep them balanced, or did you decide to have one main party and disregard the rest? When you got a new character, did you take the time to catch them up with learning new spells, or did you say screw it?

Right now, I've been trying to make my entire party (Just got Terra back for good in WoR) as dominant and magic-proficient as possible. The goal is to have every character learn every spell, with Gau and Strago also learning all the Rage and Lore skills I can find.

Your thoughts?

[Xanatos]

Well, I've played this game only once and I was quite surprised with the number of characters in it, to be honest I just didn't have the will to improve all of them. I did train every character to some degree and they did have the most important spells at that time but after a while I just formed a main party and directed my full attention to them.

Later on I realized it was a mistake since two of my teams didn't stand a chance in the final tower, the Kefka tower. After that I decided to train other characters as well and to learn them at least the most important spells. They weren't nearly good as my main party but they were a force to be reckon with. The results were quite impressive since I managed to beat everyone including Kefka with quite ease.

In my entire party only Celes, Terra, Locke and Sabin knew every spell, Terra and Locke were on the highest level, Celes and Sabin 95 lvl, I think. Others were above 60 lvl. and they knew most of the spells. I didn't bothered with the Gau's and Strago's Rage and Lore skills although I did learn few Lore skills but more by coincidence nothing more.

[Alpha]

Learning the Rage abilities is the biggest waste of time. Try and get a few important ones, and leave it at that. If you start trying to complete the list, I doubt you'll ever have the will to complete it, so it will be for naught, imo.

Good luck if you're determined enough.

[Freya]

Someone had told me that I had to use ALL of my characters for the final battle, so I levelled them all equally. Besides, I liked all characters, so it was no problem, though, if I remember correctly, Gau and Relm weren't as strong as the others.

I didn't bother much about the spells, to be honest. I don't really like spells at all, so I just fought with weapons. :3" I think they all learned quite a few spells and I used Cure quite a lot. But that's basically all. ^^"
Also, I didn't want to have all special attacks of Gau and Strago. xD" I didn't use them much, they weren't in my main party, so they were of no use for me. I just needed them for Kefka's Tower. ^^"

If I ever play the game again, I'll probably level all characters again. It takes time but it's worth it. (Of course without all the spells and special things... I'm not determined enough for that xP)

[Pete]

Yeah, my first game was more or less a disaster when I got to Kefka's Tower. I tried sending my strongest party in, with two weaker parties. I got my ass handed to me. Then I tried putting at least one powerhouse in each of the weaker parties, but it was equally bad.

At this point, I'm just shooting to have everyone strong enough to make it competitive and to more or less have a spell for every occasion. In my first game I only had 3 dedicated mages, and if they got knocked out at any point, I wouldn't be able to really focus on attacking at any point.

Plus, it's kind of fun to grind in the dinosaur forest in WoR, with the vanish- xzone trick.

[Kindushin]

I challenged myself with the parties. Only the women were allowed to cast spells... And the game actually became easier due to the fact that I had specific things for each character to do.

I also tried to level everyone equally... Except Umaro. Can't use him at all >

[Noczod]

hey if anyone could just tell me at what point you get all the characters that would be great, I am in the WOR and I dont have MOG gogo or umarao well I have never seen these guys anyway. I am in the middle of finding everyone again, still have terra relm and stargo to find.. having some trouble with the terra part.

[Sasquatch]

Put a Gauntlet and the Rage Ring on Umaro, and he'll do more physical damage than anybody else, he's awesome. Just don't put him with Relm.

I have a few simple rules for party formation. Mainly, they concern Relm. You can't put the girl with Umaro or Gau because you can't control what they do, and you can't put her with Sabin or Cyan because you can't control who they hit with their Blitz/Swdtch, respectively. ... Other than that, during most of the World of Ruin, my party usually consists of those with the lowest levels. I might ignore Strago because the guy's just about useless, or maybe Setzer, but I'll make sure that I have twelve characters that are at close to the same level, with close to the same amount of magic.

[Locke4God]

You know VI is the best game to ask this question on because the cast was so diverse in every way, and I love debating and learning about people's set ups for this game.

The only character I abandoned was Gau. I just hated that dude. Never knew what he was doing or how to use him effectively.

Basically I established a higherarchy. Sabin and his brother I usually had seperated, or leading at differnt times. I thought they were both strong and with good multi attacks, and by switching them out it leveled them up evently, or gave two parties a good multi attack option.

Celes, Terra, Relm & Strago I just concentrated on getting good magic for and leveling up. I really didn't use them much Physically.

Spider would go on the team who needed an extra guy, or I specifically wanted physical attacks, but I didn't pay much attetion to him as more than that. Locke sadly was much the same way, although he would always be in there as my first physical attack option.

Then I would divide up Cyan & the dude from the airship who both eventually got really strong special attacks and were generally good fighters. They were always on seperate teams or not in together.

Lastly I would divide up Umaru and the last weird dude with the multicolored cape, and use them as the 4th team member, esspecially once you got the point that you had to use 3 teams. Umaru was a strong asset. That guy would rock out some damage.

Overall I tried to keep them as balanced as possible. Umaru didn't really matter as he'd do massive damage anyway, so I really left him out unless I needed him, and then sometimes just for fun. Newer characters I didn't use much more than normal ones, because since it takes fewer points to level up, they catch up to near where the other guys are anyway pretty quickly.

By the way, if you just get everybody to learn Ultima, you can fly through the last world. Also get whatever item it was that allows you to avoid random encounters and place it on every group.

[Noczod]

What I am doing now is , I found the forest north of the veldt where you can find dinosaurs who are around lvl 57, my guys are in there 30s but if you do things right you can defeat the dinosaurs and get loads of xp so what im doing is switching out teams to get them all above 40 and keep switching espers as soon as they learn all of there magic. So right now I have Terra sabin and Celes have all of there healing abilitys and edgar has almost all of his effects along with Terra so basicly just trying to get them all high lvl along with all the magic they can have, the only tricky part to this is relics... Having to givce the right person the right relics for the job...

[Ralz]

Well, because I got four Growth Eggs (I spent some time in the colisseum), I was able to get ALL characters to Level 99. Except Gogo and Umaro, forget those losers. Actually, I DID level Gogo, but not to 99, I think like 78 or something.

I almost mastered magic for everyone I could, including Gau because I didn't really get any Rages for him in that playthrough. I was lazy...

However, I assembled a final party fairly easily: Terra, Locke, Celes, Edgar. It just seemed so balanced to me. And with spells like Ultima, strategy is non-existant at that point... -_-

[loaf]

I'm sure I've posted this before somewhere.

I spread it out, everybody starts off with there own Esper. When you get the first Espers I just try and make a random party every chance I get so everyone can get all the Magic Esper levelups. More Esper, soon everyone has their own and I just pick and choose parties for whatever I want.

[Alice]

I just stuck with one main party and trained them until I thought they were strong enough. If I found that the other party members were weak in Kefka's Tower and having a fun time getting KO'ed, I'd train them enough just so they'd survive. Or equip Mog with that amulet of his that stopped random encounters. In the end, I only ever take on Kefka with the main party I trained. So meh.

[Zargabaath]

I share the love just like in Big Love.

Though sometimes I may "banish" certain parties members.

I generally keep everyone around the same level or try to at least; I'm not so much into trying to give certain classes to the characters as I have them learn most spells, so they're not that diverse. I do try to have certain espers equipped to the characters when they level up for stat bonuses pending on what I am trying to accomplish.

I'm not so much into acquiring all the Rages or Lores; one day I may do so and if anything I'll probably get all the Lores before the Rages. I don't care if Strago sucks because in that game even if the character sucks they are still powerful - plus I don't hate due to age.

[midgetbob]

Last game I used Setzer / Shadow / Celes / and I think Locke.

Trying it with Mog / Gau / Umaro / Strago now...

[Taco-Calamitous]

The second time I played through, I decided to level everyone up to 99, giving them different magicite to balance out their stats... although my main party of Locke, Terra, Mog, and Sabin got the most love. I didn't quite get everyone to level 99, either; Relm, Strago, Umaro, Gau-and probably Gogo, too-were all lower, with I think Relm being considerably lower (though still in the 70's.) Man, that takes me back... listening to Punk-O-Ramas volumes 2 and 5-and it seems like there was a Less Than Jake CD in there, too-while I leveled up in that dinosaur forest Pete mentioned... Back in like '01 or '02 (I didn't play this game until '01. I didn't have anything above a SNES until '03, either-besides a PC and a GBC.) Anyhoo...

Wuv, Yer Mom

[Trodorne]

My team which i always played through out the game was Edgar, Terra, Relm, Mog. i always thought of it as a family.
and i tried to get all the lores and rages. i don't know why no one would not try to get IO for the rage cause it is the best rage ever. Flare Star. it is practically Merton. and with relm it was so easy to learn the lores. in fact i went through every single area of the world of balance to get as many of the lores as possible before i move on. then again i put all the effort rather then focus on beating the game.

[Zidane77]

I got tired of trying to get all the rages but i got pretty much everything else, all lores and so on. The rages were just too many and few of them you can miss but i got the most of them.

[Confessor]

For my main group who consisted of Terra, Sabin, Edgar, and Mog; I'd level them to the highest and have them learn all of the spells they could. Next I'd put together Celes, Locke, Relm, Setzer and level them to about mid 70s and then drop them completely. Then Gau, the strange fellow from the Zone Eater, The old man, and Shadow for them they'd be in mid 60 or early 70s. The main party was the one I focused on while everyone else was on the back burner until the final dungeon.

[Meier Link]

It depends on the play through. I have completed the game a few times and beat it god only knows how many. If I am on a quick play through I will just level up my main party and a few of the secondaries for the group fights.

When I want to draw the game on I will level mostly everyone with the exceptions of Relm and Strago. Everyonce in a while I get a wild hair in my butt and level everyone.

Seeing I like the magic system and atribute bonus' I tend to have everyone learn all magics. Plus it just feels good to have every magic at my disposal for what ever fight I choose to use them in.

[Xtrmn8r_V.13.7.3]

I'm playing it for the first time and i just take out the people who are lowest level out on missions so that my total party is quite balanced, i just use whatever magicite left over from not using on my other guys

[NeoAquarius12]

I had a couple of characters I used throughout the entire game thatreally helped make a difference. I probably had 8 or 9 good characters and I used strong characters to fill in the rest at the end.

I think I used Terra, Locke, Cyan, Setzer, and Shadow mostly.

[Zidane77]

I learned every ability with everyone except Gau, have like 20% of him left and i probably won't finish that, it's definetly a waste of time.

For me VII was the only game worth mastering fully, although i've mastered I,V,VIII (without the pocket station though) and IX (without Excalibur II).
IV DS,VI and IX 100% mastery is insane and i don't call X,X-2 and XII insane.

[Durai]

If you can avoid using Gau you will have a much better time of it, i used him purely for story sequences, and as a result he was unable to frustrate me with his lameness.