Final Fantasy 9
-Excalibur 2
There is only 1 thing in the whole game that ever mentioning anything about the Excalibur 2.
First of there is never anything that would make us think that it would exist.
The strongest character in the game Steiner(The Disney character of the game), uses Excalibur as his best weapon. The Excalibur has been in several of the former games where it always have been the best sword weapon, so why would it be a better version? And as I mentioned he really does to much damage already. Why would it be a second one.
The only clue you can find, is to beat the hardest optional boss in the game, many think this is the hardest FF boss ever, its at least by far the strangest. Its a living Beach boll.
The actual battle is also complete random. And that's why its hard, it requires luck not skill to defeat. Its a pure test of masochism, trust me I know, I done it.
And to even get to ozma the player have to first beat the whole mini game Chocobo Hot and Cold
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Chocobo_Hot_and_Cold
This mini game is split into 2 parts.
One where the player digs around on time in a contained place. After this there is another mini game.
Well the music is awesome
Where we use map parts we found at the first one to try and find items in the whole game world.
This mini game is huge, basically its a game in its own right.
And I still remember how hard is it to find the best weapon to Zidane, the ultimate weapon, which is also the only way he becomes useful. The image is literally just blue, its shows only water. I sat for an hour or so, going trough water of water areas in the game world. Spamming the dig command.
After this, most likely farmed the "limit glove" the best magic for Quina or Ozma is basically impossible.
And Quina is famous for being Jar Jar binks, he/she is only good if used from the start of the game because he/she needs to learn the enemy spells. And the only good reason limit gloves works is because Ozma's attack(doomsday) reduces everyone to low health points, but don't kill anyone, is perfect for Quina's limit glove(deals more damage based on his/her lack of hp). So we either have to pick willingly to play the whole game with Quina(which we did not do, for obvious reason), or know how to farm the spells(which we don't know about without outside help)
OK, so if we ever beat this boss, it will drop a part of the best summon in the game(which is worthless we just beat the hardest boss). It also drops a game card. For the game's in game Tetra Master. This card is the Excalibur 2.
Yes it don't actually say anything how to get it, just that it exist.
So everything we did, the whole chobaco mini game, and power grinding up at least 4 characters. Getting their best weapons in game.
Did not actually help us get the weapon, it just let us know we have missed the best weapon in the game.
Or one might think, wait what if we get all the cards.
Remember the part about item X leads to item Y.
The only reasonable logic from beating Ozma, is to go and beat the games other full game in game, Tetra Master. Their is 100 unique cards and we can only have 100 cards in a total. So getting every card, will unlock the sword right.
No actually getting every card in the game, don't give us anything at all, if the game was released today we would at least get an achievement. We don't even get the information how to get the sword.
To get it its not so hard actually, it just goes against everything the whole role playing genre is about.
Beat the game in 10 hours and you get the sword.
This is a Final fantasy game. Just reading the text of the game can take up to 10 hours. And then you have all those random encounters. You cant do any site seeing, you cant do any extra game content. Chobaco game, card game etc.
The biggest problem with this is that it goes against any basic game designer recipe for a fun game. Their is something called fun factors, http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf.
For example World of Warcraft is big on the Fellowship fun factor. Is what Blizzard would claim but its really the Submissive part that make people play it.
Final fantasy fun factors are, “Fantasy.Narrative.Expression.Discovery.Challenge.Submission”.
So by ignoring everything in the game that is supposed to be fun in the game. Narrative is a big part this has to be ignored, all other extra content is Discovery. Which we cant do either. And as I mentioned there is no logic way to ever find out how to understand where the weapon is. The weapon can only be found with out side help, as a guide.
To get this weapon is to basically not play the game. And if you get unlucky with the random encounters you have to reload, so it wont take to much time.
