Just so you knwo, Wil, I’m pretty sure you don;t have enough Duplicators for the entire game. I mean, I lucked out on a bunch as spoils from battles, and I still need to buy at least ten Duplicators to finish up the Black Box quest.
Val: probably, but I’m not losing any sleep over the Black Box. I know there’s at least one chest I didn’t get (it was too hard to) and I’m not going to look for chests in the overworld anymore, I’m sick of it. And yeah, I know the BB was needed for some of the Ex Files. Next playtrough. Maybe.
Btw, I’m stuck again. I’m in Tower 0, and I can’t finish the room where you have to put out four torches with your freeze ray. They lit up again TOO fast! PLEASE someone tell me there’s pattern to this. And as soon as you can, please, I wasn’t given the chance to save yet and if turn the game off I’ll have to replay at least two Boss battles. If I can’t finish the game because this is too fast for my aged reflexes, I’ll be… not… very… happy. :ark:
All of this talk about Wild Arms 5 is <i> really</i> making me curious and wanting to get it.
^Ditto. I will pick it up anyway I have all of the games. No use in stopping.
I personally fucking hate almost everything about this particular WA. The more I see, the more I hate. So my gf’s in this temple now and she shoots blocks with a fire shot to jump over stuff and the character controls are awful. WA4 is light years ahead of this game. I feel bad this was a gift. Its like having a turd in someone’s living room and saying “happy ____”!
Wow, I so totally disagree with your thoughts about this game. But let’s leave it at that.
Once I opened the Black Market I thought of a great way to abuse it.
-Pick one character to be abused. In my case it’d probably be Carol, since I never use her.
-Use all her levels to buy as many Level Up apples as you can. So now she’s at level 1. Give her a Hen Badge.
-Go to one of the optional dungeons like Tartarus. Keep her out of the main party, then fight any normal battle. They’re hard but doable even when your active party is at level 70-ish. One fight will net her about 80,000 EXP, which should be good for at least 15 or 20 levels off the top of my head.
-Head back to the Black Market, sell the levels until you have 99 Level Up Apples.
-Keep going back and forth between Tartarus and the Black Market and use her levels to buy stuff. When you’re finished buying stuff, just use up all your Level Up Apples to get her back where she was before. Voila!
I’m going to try Tower O soon. I did the optional dungeons first.
What exactly are the different outfits that the Black Market sells good for?
Cid, that’s a great plan for the Black Market, I’ll try it- next time I play the game. Right now I just want to GO ON WITH THE STORY! I hate getting stuck on puzzles that don’t even make any sense! And I’m actually tired of playing by now, especially with my current vision problems, all the fast camera shifting in the game drives me dizzy. I just want to see the ending, but I’m still stuck on that damned floating platform… I may have to use my ultimate failsafe here:
Enlist my best friend’s preteen kids to play this part for me. Their talent at action games is amazing, they helped me out of a similar bind in FFX2. 
I’m more of a “Thinker” kinda player myself.
Cid: the outfits are only useful for fighting two optional bosses: one is in Mithysmere, the other is in the Hillside ruins. Neither one is very hard, and they net you a Terrace Tiara and GOlden Angel. They require all six characters wear an outfit, though.
Speaking of Hillside ruins, there is this one door that talks about “name the pirce on four adventurers’ heads”, and I can;t figure out what it means. Any thoughts?
I DID IT! I passed the stupid platform puzzle! …I don’t even know how, I was so mad I just started firing away randomly- and suddenly all the torches stayed out!
Naturally, I immediately ran for the nearest Save Point to avoid having to ever replay that (it was still some distance away though.) Anyway, I’ve done Tower O up to the “point of no return”; now I’m heading out to do all the optional dungeons, bosses and quest as per Gamefaqs (unless they’re TOO hard) and then come back and finish the game. whew
No, I was wondering about that too. There’s probably some item somewhere…
Wil, another word of advice: there’s a sealed crystal in the desert south of Twelbit. don;t bother fighting him, unless you have a 100% Orange badge. It took me nearly a dozen tries with him without one. You have no chance of beating him normally.
I DO have an Orange Badge, but I found out that it not only limits damage taken and received, it ALSO limits damage healed to 100!! I had given it to Avril who is my resident healer, but it made her nearly useless, except that she could still revive the others (with 100 hp each…) so I used her to defeat the Adult Book Boss (they kept killing my other two characters but couldn’t kill off Avril who just kept reawakening the others and their cumulative attacks eventually did them in.) Still it made for a long and boring fight. Whoever came up with that Badge deserves to be kicked in the ass.
OK, besides the giggle Adult Book, I tried to do Pastel’s quest but I decided that the expense in levels was too high. I MAY do it for last if I’m ridiculously leveled up by them. (Do you get the feeling that quest is nothing but an excuse to show the characters in school uniforms? Sheesh.) I also completed Kresnik’s quest (Asgard did all the fighting, it was easy.) Next I’m doing Cocytus.
Edit: Oh, and I just discovered one of the things I’ve been doing wrong all thru the game… the best (Class S) Badges are ALWAYS located at the end of the list when you use the automatic “sort” feature. I assumed they were the ones on the TOP. So yeah, I’ve been cheating myself of using the best Badges in the game all until now. Someone write that one down for the list of Dumbest RPG Playing Errors. 
Btw, I forgot about the Monopoly Gourd accessory. So if you do the tactic I described above, but also give Carol the Monopoly Gourd, that should net her almost 500,000 EXP per battle. That’s probably at least 30 levels at once. I’m actually going to try it sometime this week. 
See, I could never stand to do cheap things like that. it just doesn;t feel right, doing cheap tactics. I like going through with guts, luck and strength, with a little strategy mixed in.
Oh, and I hear that in order to enter that door, you need to have exactly 221,500 Gella in your purse. No more, no less. haven’t tested it myself, but I’ll give it a shot later.
Cid: Where can I find that Gourd?
Val: I agree with you re: fighting bosses fairly, I mean that’s why I play the game for. I only cheat if I feel a Boss is itself unfair. (I’m crossing my fingers for when I get to Ragu and Angol Mois.)
Btw, I hear that last demon I mentioned is from a Nostradamus prophecy (there’s a character based on it in the Sargent Frog anime series, but of course there it’s a silly version.) Anyone knows if that’s true?
It’s in one of the optional dungeons… Tartarus, I think.
Ok, completed Cocytus and Tartarus (minus the hidden Bosses- my characters are not even level 80 yet! I’ll save them for later like I did the Sentinels.) I found the Gourd too. Next up: Inferno. (What is with all these dungeons named after Hellish places? Kinda takes away from the uniqueness of the Abyss dungeon.)
Note: I AM fighting the Sol Nigers in those dungeons, to finish that particular quest.
OK, good. I’m about ready to report on my Black Market dealings.
First, my Rachel was level 88 when I started. I realized that buying Level Apples actually wasn’t that great an idea, since it costs 10 levels for one. Buying a Level-20 Apple is twice as cost-effective (100 levels for one). I did so (it cost 1-2 levels for the other members of my party, but I’m fine with that). Rachel is now Level 1. I have one Level-20 apple and 15 Level Up apples.
I realize that Carol can now only equip one Badge, so I give her the Monopoly Gourd. I go to Tartarus (the nearest one, no load times) and use the Duel Sign. I use a Lucky Card in the battle. After it’s over, Carol gains FORTY-EIGHT LEVELS. That’s without a Hen Badge. O_o
The next battle isn’t as dramatic; with the Gourd, Hen Badge, and Lucky Card, she only gains nine. It’s good for the 50-level items, but not worth it otherwise.
So basically, going back and forth between Tartarus and Laila Belle is a great way to buy stuff. Remember the apples I had? Together they add up to 35 levels - which puts Rachel easily back at 88 again after my two battles. Also, Lucky Cards cost a measly two levels each, so very useful.
Just try your best to actually spend all her levels with each visit to maximize your level gains in that crucial battle. By the time you’re done you should have plenty of Duplicators, Holy Berries, and other goodies.
The only thing to watch out for is the gella-eating monsters in Tartarus. If you don’t beat them fast enough, they’ll steal a whole chunk of your money. On the other hand, if you let them eat your gella and then beat them, they’ll spit back double what they ate. Just be careful is all. A Sherriff star (I had two at this point) will help to turn the tide.
Progress Report: I’ve now finished all four “Hell” dungeons, sans Bosses (I also couldn’t open any chests in the Abyss, they all require Duplos and I’m out of them right now.) I did finish the Sol Niger quest (though I’m supposed to receive a weapon from that and I didn’t (?)) and the Neutrino Medal quest (Btw, anybody knows who the Bird Hero the parrots keep talking about could be? I don’t remember any such character in any Wild Arms game. I also used the Gourd to raise two of my characters to level 100; when I have three I’ll take on the Hell Dungeon bosses. Right now I’m doing the rest of the sealed Bosses.
I still haven’t done any of those. I’m still raising levels in Tartarus for Black Market goodies (right now I have one set of the school uniforms, one more set of six to go plus enough badges for a third Sherriff Star). I timed it at about 3-5 minutes per trip, so I have less than an hour to go.
The Monopoly Gourd doesn’t actually make leveling up any faster, unless you’re trying to use my Black Market trick. It just makes individual characters grab all the experience. It’s better to put Hen Badges on everybody.
By the way, the gella eater in Tartarus gives mucho money if you let it eat your gella once. Kill it after that and you’ll get something like four times that amount back. Plus Gella Card = hundreds of thousands in cash.
Val: I saw the same thing re the money in the Hidden Ruins, and I tried it myself. It works. Apparently it’s the price on the Wanted poster at the end of Wild ARMS 3. There isn’t all that much in there, though, the only biggie is a Chick Badge.