1.2 - The Wutai War

A few scenes take place. Kunsel, a SOLDIER 2nd Class and a buddy of Zack, comes to talk to Zack. After this, you'll end up meeting Lazard in the Briefing Room together with Angeal. When you're back in control, speak to Kunsel and follow him into the next room.

You have to walk over to the terminal which will give you a short tutorial on how to do Missions. If you go to the menu when you're at a Save Point, you can select Missions. Missions require you to beat up enemies, pretty much, and often there are treasures to be found. A Mission reward is granted when you complete the Mission.

The first Mission, number 1-1-1 is actually mandatory, so you must go and do it now. Beat the 8 Soldiers (same as at the start) and receive an •ELIXIR as a reward. After the scene with Kunsel, check locker 6 (near Kunsel) for a •BRONZE BANGLE. Check the locker another 20 times (which initiates a dialog) and you'll get the •CURSED RING. This increases ALL your main stats by 10, and your HP/MP/AP by 10%! The only thing is.. well you see, there's a reason it's called Cursed Ring. You can't get the D.M.W in battle anymore, which means no Limit Breaks nor any Leveling Up!. This accessory has a good use when you want to play a low level game, but for now I suggest you don't equip it, just the Bronze Bangle.

When you're done fooling around, go back into the Briefing Room and talk to Angeal to process with the story.

After the scene you'll be in Wutai. You'll have to fight 3 Wutai Privates.. They are weak: 178 HP, 1 SP, 12 Gil each. After another scene, you're free to roam the continent of Wutai...err.. Not quite. You can move where the path leads you to. A red dotted line indicates you cannot leave the zone from there, and a blue dotted line indicates you're good to go, and you may pass.

When you are walking around you can now also get into 'random' encounters. It's true that these aren't completely random, because they'll often only appear at places where the area is large enough to fit a battle in, and you can often avoid 'random' encounters by hugging either side of the path you're walking and not crossing a room or plains point blank. Keep this in mind during the game. On the other hand it's also possible to trigger the same fight area twice or even more, when you're looking to rotate the camera or when you want to grab a treasure.

Head down the path. You can press Square to bring up a map. I will sometimes be referring to the map when I'm talking about North/South/East/West. When you get about halfway you'll get another scene with Angeal. There's a Save Point afterwards, and you can go to the next area. After the scene, you'll get a DMW memory (nothing special, and I won't mention these again), and you'll get into a battle with many Wutai Privates, 25 regular and 2 Sergeants. The sergeants are yellow and have 575 HP, 8 SP, 24 Gil. They're not tough at all. There are an additional 3 Wutai Privates standing on the wall, you can kill them with magic. After the battle you'll get a short scene followed by a battle with 2 Privates and a Sergeant. Finish them and Zack gets a phone call from Angeal.

You'll now have stars at the upper left of your screen. The idea is that you must kill as much enemies as possible to get the best possible ranking. Later on, you'll get a reward based on this ranking. Go through the gate and battle some enemies (they look like dogs with masks and make-up..heh). Those are worth 12 SP, 22 Gil. Check the chest for a •SOMA. Proceed and battle another Foulander with two soldiers. Proceed and battle two more Foulanders. Soldiers will fire at you from a distance. Run toward them and try to move on. Enemies will come from a rotating wall. Check it after the battle and you'll get a short scene with an other battle as result. Check: You should now have 6 filled stars.

The next chest holds a •POTION, but the one after that is a 'mimic' and triggers a battle with soldiers. Continue and fight two more Foulanders. After that, you'll get another battle with two 'doggies' and two soldiers. Check the room nearby for a chest with an •ETHER. You'll also get a battle here with two soldiers and a Foulander. There's also a rotating wall here so check it and fight the sergeant and the three soldiers. Now check out the Scout Tower and you'll have to fight two sergeants and two Foulanders. The chest behind the Scout Tower holds a •HI-POTION.

After the phone call, you can backtrack to where you started and check an other scouting tower to fight 3 captains. Now move on until you get to a few soldiers shooting at you. Choose the second option and backtrack around the corner and check the rotating wall for a short scene which nets you a Potion. Check the rotating wall again to battle three Foulanders. Now continue until you get to the last battle with three Foulanders coming through the door. Check the chest in the corner for an •ETHER and proceed with the game.

From now on, I won't be mentioning all the battles. I did so because it was related to the stars mini-game. Either way, take the right path to a chest with an •EARRINGS, then backtrack and take the left path to get a chest with a •HI-POTION. Equip the Earrings, it gives you +5 Magic. You'll get to a Save Point and a shrine. Save your game and inspect the shrine. After the scene, fight the 3 Wutai Commanders. They have: 1055 HP, 16 SP, 55 Gil each. Head to the Arena to the north and you'll get a scene with someone who should look familliar.. Save your game and head into the Arena for real now. You'll face two Ogre-like creatures.. It's boss time!

Strategy

If you glance over their stats, you'll notice they have decent defense versus physical attack, but no defense versus magic. I'd suggest spamming massive Blizzard magic on their heads which inflicts like 400 HP damage per casting. Should you run out of MP you can either use an Ether or go with physical attacks. Dodging their attacks isn't all that hard. Just look out for when they move their arm back, because that's the time they're going to swing. The attacks that have a scene cannot be dodged or blocked. If you attack them from the back with physical attacks, all the better as you'll inflict critical damage. Keep your HP above 200 and you'll be fine.

They give a nice Exp value.. Yeah..a nice number. Err, so another scene takes place in which the legendary Buster Sword is used. After more scenes you'll get an evaluation from your executive manager Lazard. Depending on how well you did with the stars mini game, you'll get the following reward:

After more scenes, you'll have to fight against 3 Genesis Clones. They have 720 HP, 24 SP, 58 Gil each. More scenes take place. You'll get to a Save Point which you'd do well to use. If you managed to get 16 Stars from the minigame, equip the Fire Armlet! Proceed and choose the first option to initiate another scene and another boss fight...

Strategy

Ifrit isn't all that hard, but you should know that he's weak VS Ice Magic. Ok, so now you know, and now you can happily spam your Blizzard Magic against him which will do ~775 damage. Alternatively you can aim for his back and slash him 4 times for critical damage, then dodge his attacks and repeat. In any case, keep your HP above 450 if you don't have the Fire Armlet, because Hellfire no matter how kickass it looks, still inflicts about 400 HP damage. Fire Armlet reduces Fire attacks by 50%. When you're far away from Ifrit, he will attack with Flame Shot, which is easy to dodge. All in all, this is a really easy fight.

Sephiroth enters the scene, and it's the end of the Chapter!

End of Chapter 2 Picture: Angeal Praying with his head against Buster Sword.