Evil Forest

The Prima Vista has crashed in the middle of a forest, supposedly no one has ever survived the night. The ATE system will be explained to you by the moogle in this area. Press the ‘Select’ button to view ATEs when the icon on the bottom left of the screen is shown.

Once you have gained control over Zidane once again, move towards the two guys lying on the floor. Search by the boxes to obtain a Phoenix Down. You can save your game using the moogle Mosco if you like. Once you are down move down and go through the log and into the next screen

Evil Forest… Sure sounds inviting! Within this forest is where you will experience you first random battles. A random battle is a battle that happens randomly as you traverse certain areas. Some areas have a much higher frequency of encountering enemies than others. Head into the next area and you will run into Vivi, Steiner and Garnet.

You will now be engaged in a battle with a Plant Cage. The plant has a hold of Garnet and you have to kill it and protect her at the same time. The plant cage is easy to kill, Zidane is in his Trance mode for this battle which makes it even easier. You might have to heal Garnet if he HP is getting to low, pay attention to the little notifications at the top of the screen, they will inform you of her HP. If she is in need of healing just use a potion on her instead of attacking.

Zidane’s Trance allows him to unlock abilities that were previously unavailable to him. Right now you will only have Free Energy but as you learn more skills later on Zidane will receive new Trance abilities. You can steal a Broadsword and a Leather hat if you want. Use Steiner’s physical attack and Zidane’s Free Energy until he is dead. Just keep an eye on Garnet’s health.

When the plant is dead you will have to fight another one, and Zidane won’t be in Trance this time. This is ok because this time you have Vivi and his Fire spell which happens to be very effective against plant type creatures. You won’t have control over Vivi for now, but he will automatically cast the Fire spell on the plant cage when it is his turn. You may need to heal him if he gets low on health. When the plant dies it unleashes some poison and Steiner and Vivi fall unconscious.

When Baku is done talking leave the room, a string of ATEs will be activated. You don’t have to watch them if you don’t want to, you can just skip them but I would suggest watching them if this is your first time playing. Move down the spiral staircase and head to the top left corner of the room and open the treasure chest to find a Wrist. Now head to the right and move past Blank and go into Vivi’s room. Open the chest in the top left corner to get an ether. Climb up to the top of the bunk bed and search for 116 Gil. Climb back down the ladder and head over and talk to Vivi.

Once the scenes are over head back up the spiral staircase and open the chest in the top corner to get Bronze Gloves. Go back down the staircase and move and open the chest in front of the doorway to obtain an ether. Now head through the open doorway to the left. Open the chest to receive another Ether, then go down the stairs that Marcus is facing.

Move to the top of the room and go to the left side to get a Rubber Helm. Go into the next area by going through the door on the right. You will find Baku in the room. Once he is done talking open the chest to receive a potion. Once you are ready go to the cargo room and fight him.

Baku

Another easy battle, he shouldn’t give you any trouble. Start off by stealing from him until you get the Iron Sword. Heal Zidane if needed using a potion. Physically attack Baku until he goes down and heal if necessary. Baku still misses a lot and he doesn’t deal much damage, so this one should go by quickly.

Now move back into the last room and head into the previously blocked door and talk to Steiner. Once they are done talking go back into the room and open the chest to find an ether. Go back to Vivi’s room and talk to him, then head back to the room where you fought Baku in and instead of heading to the right go down into the next screen.

Blank will give you Blank’s Medicine Key item and he will explain how to use abilities. Move back into the ship and open the chest for a Leather Hat. Go back outside and you will then find yourself outside the ship, you can buy healing items from Cinna and you can save using the moogle if you feel the need to. You can talk to Mosh and use Mognet to read a letter from Ruby to Zidane. When you are done go through the hollow log again and into the next area.

Continue moving through the areas until you find yourself in an area with a spring in the middle and a moogle. You will be forced to watch an ATE and once it is over approach the spring and press the X button to restore your HP and MP. Save the game and then head through to the next screen and continue moving until you encounter the Plant Brain.

Plant Brain

This is actually a really easy battle if you know what you’re doing. The Plant Brain uses an attack called Pollen which inflicts all of your party members with darkness which lowers their accuracy causing them to miss physical attacks more often. Steiner now has an extra Set of skills called ‘Magic Sword’ which allows him to attack with extra elemental damage. The Magic Sword skills are only available if Vivi is in the party with Steiner and his abilities depend on the spells that Vivi knows.

If you stole that Iron Sword from Baku, equip it to Steiner and he can deal over 400 damage using the Fire Sword attack. Have Vivi cast Fire and Zidane stealing from the Plant Brain and this battle will be over in no time. When the Plant Brain is almost dead Blank will show up and join the battle, if you haven’t managed to steal all of the items from the Plant Brain yet use Blank to help Zidane steal.

The enemy also uses Thunder attacks and physical attacks using his tentacles. If you need to heal use either Zidane or Blank, concentrate on attacking with Vivi and Steiner.

When the Plant Brain has been dealt with you will be chased away by some Plant Spiders. Run away from them and follow the straight forward path. You will have to fight some mandatory battles but they are easy thanks to Vivi’s Fire spell. When you are in a battle with them press L1 or R1 to attack all of them and divide the damage between all of them. Vivi can kill all of them with a single Fire Spell.

Watch the scenes that take place, A moogle named Mogster will teach you the basics of the game, this is helpful if you are a new player.