Final Fantasy (idea)

How it's supposed to work

Instead of gaining levels through experience, the characters gain skills with weapons or magic depending on their actions in battle. For example, having Firion swing a sword around a bunch makes him better at using swords, having Maria getting beat down by a giant turtle (but survive the battle) will net her more HP, casting Cure repeatedly raises that character's Cure potentcy, etc etc.

Why it doesn't

Final Fantasy II has one of the most embarrassingly broken battle systems ever to be released as a retail commercial product. Due to several programming errors, you can essentially have a group ready to fly through a majority of the game just by fighting monsters around the first town. I'd recommend doing this trick for a few hours right at the very absolute beginning, saving, then loading up the tweaked save instead of ever starting a new game from scratch.

Whether you're playing this on original Famicon, NES emulator or in the strangely unfixed Playstation update, it's all the same and it's reeeeal simple.

1. Make sure the character being tweaked isn't the last person to take commands in a battle
2. Go get into a battle
3. Choose Fight (or the desired spell you wish to improve) and confirm the attack. This brings the weapon being used or spell up 1 or more skill point(s)
4. Instead of choosing commands for the rest of the group, press the cancel button to return to the character being tweaked
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 one hundred times, then finish the battle
6. The character's skill with the weapon they had equiped or magic spell being used will go up one level
7. Repeat the process until the desired weapon skill or spell is maxed out at level 16. As long as you have up to date weapons, everything (including bosses) should die in about 1 hit until near the end of the game.

And wait! That's not all! The previous trick just builds up skills, but what about HP and MP? Yes, the amazingly inept quality assurance team for FF II overlooked another abusable piece of the battle system.

1. When you reach the mage town Mysidia, buy the "Swap" spell from the magic shop
2. Return to the earliest towns in the game and get into a battle
3. Have one character cast Swap on the extremely low level enemies to switch their HP and MP values
4. Finish the battle. The character that cast Swap will gain Max HP and Max MP as they 'lost' the requiste amount HP and MP to warrant a bonus.
5. Repeat the process with the other characters, heal up at an inn and start over

How it's supposed to work

You have a weapon. This weapon follows the regular laws of physics dictating it can only be in one place at one time.

Why it doesn't

There is a bug which allows you to duplicate one handed weapons. The early advantage to doing this is you can then proceed to sell the duplicates and buy whatever you want that's available with the dirty gil. Late in the game, however, you can pull off some powerful tricks with the ninja Edge. For example, you can wantonly throw spare Excaliburs at monsters for a heaping of damage. Even better, you can duplicate Edge's best weapon, the Masamune, and put one in each hand for maximum ninja beatings.

To duplicate items:

1. Equip the weapon you want duplicate on a character
2. Get into a battle and choose the 'item' command for the character who has equiped the weapon being duplicated
3. Scroll down until you see an empty slot in your inventory. Select the empty slot.
4. Scroll up all the way until you see what that character has equiped in both hands. Choose the weapon being duplicated, thus effectively placing it in that empty slot.
5. Run away immediately after exiting the item menu
6. Open up the menu screen, select Equip and choose the character that was holding the item.
7. Re-equip the item being duplicated. Then unequip it. There should now be one in your inventory and one still in the hands of the character, thus making two.

How it's supposed to work

Bosses are mean, nasty creatures that you have to struggle to defeat.

Why it doesn't

There is a Blue Magic spell by the name of "Death Claw," available for learning quite early. Until late in the game, Death Claw reduces nearly every boss' HP to single digits (basically killing them).

Make sure one or more characters is either in the Blue Mage class or has learned the Blue Mage skill "Learning". At the end of the sequence where Karnak Castle is about to explode, you fight a mini boss that uses Death Claw. Learn it from him.

Use it liberally on random enemies with too much HP and try it on every boss you run into. It'll work often until around the beginning of the Third World.

How it's supposed to work

Bosses are mean, nasty creatures that you have to struggle to defeat.

Why it doesn't

99.9% of the enemies in the game have the potential to be killed by casting Vanish and Doom, two early game spells. The esper Phantom teaches Vanish and the esper Shoat teaches Doom.

To PWN3D teh emeniess!!1, first cast Vanish on the target. Being 'vanished' has two properties: 1. The character or monster that is vanished cannot be hit with normal attacks and 2. the character or monster will 100% always be hit by the next magic spell that it is targetted by. Therefore, after casting Vanish on the enemy, simply cast Doom for a nice clean 100% chance insta-kill. If Doom doesn't work, try the spell X-Zone. It probably will. The only foe I can think of that this trick doesn't work on at all is the final boss.

Bonus!! For more information on taking advantage of bad programming in this game, see Final Fantasy VI evade bug.

How it's supposed to work

You have an item. This item follows the regular laws of physics dictating it can only be in one place at one time.

Why it doesn't

Yes, this is another item duplication trick due to bad programming. Unfortunately, this trick isn't available until very close to the end of the game. It's still very useful for a few things.

You can quickly get 99 Chocobo greens of your choosing and build uber-fast racing Chocobos easily. An even better use of this abuse is getting 99 megalixers. With all the megalixers you need, you don't have to fuck around trying to steal them from the eternally dangerous and obnoxious Tonberries. Obviously, you go ahead and feed the megalixers to Magic Pots like nobody's business and graciously accept the mountainous experience and AP they give in return.

To duplicate items, you need the "W-Item" materia which is found in Midgar's sewers at the end of disc 2.

1. Equip the W-Item materia on somebody
2. Get into a battle
3. Select the W-Item command and scroll down to the item being duplicated
4. Because of W-Item, you can use a certain item twice. Just use the item being duplicated ONCE, then press the cancel button
5. Use the item again, and press cancel again. You should notice that you're actually gaining the item being used after cancelling. Repeat until you have 99 of the item.

How it's supposed to work

It's not. Ha. The battle system for VIII is even more broken than the terrible bugged one for II. It's not so much programming errors with VIII as much as it is bad design flaws.

Why it doesn't

You could very easily beat the game with just Squall alone. He's so much more powerful than anyone else, it's ridiculous. To take advantage of Squall's unbalanced power, do the following:

Bring his HP down until he's in the "danger" range, where he kneels down and the HP digits turn yellow. Press the "skip turn" button repeatedly until he gets a limit break. Use Renzokuken. When his turn rolls around again, repeat the process and use Renzokuken again. Afterwards, be sure to NOT heal him. Let him suffer in yellow HP and slam enemies with the limit break the entire game.

Icing on top of the cake: Raise Squall's strength stat by junctioning your best spells available to it and/or giving him +20%, +40% or +60% strength bonus abilities. This is priority one. Max it out at 255 ASAP.

Raise Squall's following stats the very same way in this order: Speed, elemental defenses (use 100 Ultimas for the best effect), Defense/Magic Defense and Evade.

Okay, now for even more bonuses that really unbalance the game.

• In Balamb (the city not the Garden), immediately buy "Cottage" items until you're out of money. Use the ability that converts items into Recovery spells and convert the Cottages into Curagas. Junction the Curagas to HP. With this trick, I've had two characters at 3500 HP about 4 hours into the game.

• Get the Guardian Force Diablos by using the magic lamp Cid gives you after Zell and Selphie join your party. Learn "Encounter-Half" and "Encounter-None". Since gaining experience is actually bad in this game (monsters level up based on Squall's level), there's nothing to lose by avoiding all the fights. Whoo! No more useless random encounters!

• If you like the Triple Triad card game, be sure to play Ellone in the Space Station. Win the Laguna Card from her and convert it into 100 Heroes. A Hero is an item that makes one character invincible for about 3 turns. The last boss is freakin' toast if you do this.

How it's supposed to work

As you progress through the game, you fight progressively stronger monsters which give you progressively better experience. Until you're strong enough to defeat these monsters, however, it will be impossible to kill them.

Why it doesn't

With a few hours of preparation, you can take down some Grand Dragons on disc 1! Killing your first Grand Dragon on disc 1 means you get about 7 level ups per character. Subsequent Grand Dragons give a level per battle until around level 40ish. I stop there as level 40 can take you all the way to the middle of disc 3 without any resistance. Theoretically, you can get to level 50 with a little more work and never bother with leveling again. Anyway, here's how to kill some Grand Dragons.

Near the end of disc 1, your party consists of Zidane, Freya, Vivi and Quina. Make sure you win the Coral Ring in the hunting tournament in Lindblum, then go to the Chocobo Forest to the east of Lindblum. Play the amazingly stressful but entertaining mini game, Chocobo Hot and Cold, until you get the chocograph that reads:

"Small Beach (Reef)-It's a beach on a small island! A great place to vacation, kupo."

This is on an island in bay east of Lindbulm. Your chocobo needs to be able to walk on rivers to get it. Inside is a chest that gives you an Oak Staff which teaches Vivi the Bio spell.

Next, go to the shoreline on the north rim of the continent, past Burmecia and west of Cleyra. There should be enemies called Nymphs that Quina can eat to learn the Blue Magic "Night".

Teach Quina and Vivi the "insomniac" ability from the Coral Ring. Next, go to the part of Gizamaluke's Grotto where the Moogles that like Kupo Nuts live. Climb up the rope to the plateau on the world map and save your game.

Get into a battle with a Grand Dragon and do the following. Have Quina cast Night ASAP or you'll die. This will put the Grand Dragon to sleep. Then, have Vivi cast Bio repeatedly on the slumbering beast; don't worry, magic won't wake him... yet. He'll wake up automatically after several rounds and proceed to kick your ass if you're unlucky. However, if he doesn't kill you upon waking, have Quina cast Night again. Eventually, he'll die from the repeated Bio spells and poison damage. You'll get massive amounts of experience that you don't really deserve. You bastard.

Bonus!! See also noder Xmatt's write up in Final Fantasy IX vs. My Chair for abuse of Auto-Regen abilities.

How it's supposed to work

Rikku's overdrive ability, Mix, is a powerful addition to your already impressive arsenal of destruction. Wakka's overdrive ability, Attack Reels, is also a powerful addition to your already impressive arsenal of destruction.

Why it doesn't

One of Rikku's Mix abilities is called Trio of 9999. It bestows herself and two other characters with the ability to do 9999 for every attack. Wakka's Attack Reels ability basically lets him instantly attack 12 times in a row. If you combine these two abilities, Wakka can dish out 119,988 damage in a single turn!

The easiest way to activate Trio of 9999 is by mixing two "Wings of Discovery". You can find 30 in the semi-hidden Remiem temple bonus Chocobo race. This will give you 15 opportunities to use Trio of 9999 which is more than enough to cover every remaining boss in the game (about 10 more).

Wakka's Attack Reels can be won by playing and winning tournaments in the Blitzball mini-game.

The great thing is that this combo is available completely indepedent of leveling up. This means you can race to Remiem temple to get the Wings of Discovery for Rikku without worrying about being strong enough to kill some of the final round of difficult bosses.

I'm not sure if Square intended for Wakka to be able to kill every monster in the game (except for a handful of super difficult optional bosses) in one hit, but I don't think they did. So thus, I consider this trick to be abuse even though it doesn't take advantage of poor or unintended programming.

How it's supposed to work

I have a special guest here to explain the abusable glitches in Final Fantasy Tactics.

Professor Daravon says: "I got a good feeling!there is two instences of using a misaligned plague of a program for cheats. In the game thist is called of Final Fantasy Tactics off course!! Use them in caution when in use, you spoony bard!"

...Sorry about that. It's supposed to work like this.

You have a weapon. This weapon follows the regular laws of physics dictating it can only be in one place at one time. And also...

You fight enemies in a manner which raises your job points at a slow but steady pace which encourages thought and planning for character building and job class selection.

Why it doesn't

Maaaaan, Square just can't get their foot down on counterfeiting items. Here's how to duplicate weapons in FF Tactics.

1. Get the "Two-Swords" ability for the Ninja Class
2. Equip the weapon being duplicated in the person's bottom hand slot
3. Change into a Knight (with Two-Swords ability on)
4. Go to a store that sells the type of item being duplicated (ie, if you're duplicating a sword, go to a store that sells swords)
5. Use the "Best Fit" option which should put the weapon you're duplicating into the top hand slot while a weapon of the same type you need to buy will appear in your lower hand slot
6. Accept the best fit, then move the weapon being duplicated back into the lower hand slot. There should be a dupe in your inventory now.
7. Repeat the process ad infitium for cash if desired

There is also an incredibly nuanced glitch involving getting 9999 free job points, but only for certain classes. Be warned: It's very buggy and I believe it can damage your save if you don't do it correctly. This whole process of manipulating this glitch could take a write up in itself as to what works and what doesn't. It's complex. There's a great guide called "JP Scroll Glitch FAQ" on GameFAQs if you need more details.

Here's the basic premise. You go into the skill learning screen with enough job points to learn a certain ability. Select the ability, but when it says "Do you wish to learn Ability X," don't confirm with yes yet. Instead, hold down the square button and press up and/or down. A weird glitch will then take affect for some job classes. If it does, then say yes. Sometimes, it will give you 9999 job points for that class. Unfortunately, there are varying random effects of doing this, such as losing job points and screwing up classes for characters, so I highly advise saving your game first. Refer to the aforementioned "JP Scroll Glitch FAQ" for more information.

Evidently there is a way to duplicate weapons in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance by linking two Game Boy Advances and trading items a certain way... However, I've never done this (as I know no one besides myself with a GBA and FFTA) and I don't feel qualified to explain it.

The original Final Fantasy has an "easy" mode in the Final Fantasy Origins remake which makes the game laughably easy. The game was not intended to be so simple, so I consider it a form of abuse.

Noder mfk informs me that Final Fantasy X-2 has a fun little accessory called "Cat Nip" which allows your girls to do 9999 while they're in critical condition. Change the job class to gunner, use trigger happy and you can dish out 10k every time you press R1 with this set up. I'll add more once I actually get that far in the game.

Sources: Playing all these games far too long www.GameFAQs.com