STRATEGY TO DEFEAT THE FINAL BOSS IN FINAL FANTASY II US WITH A PARTY LEVEL IN RANGE L.44 TO L.49 (AVERAGE ~L.47).
OVERVIEW Rosa and Cecil standing up must be the priority. No matter what, Rosa must stay up and be at full health. No matter what, Cecil must stay up and be at full health. An extra ally up is likely to be a priority over an extra offensive move done... ...but if you won't have time to heal it right after, don't use a LIFE POTION. Below level 50 the battle is rather long, be prepared to this. You will, of course, need about 14 NINJA items to DART and about 14 ELIXIRS. You have the Crystal, Dragoon and Samurai equipment, and the best Robes and Ribbons. "Secret" or "extremely rare" items (SPOON, GLASS thing, and so on) aren't needed. If the RNG says so (e.g. two BIG BANG and a NUKE in sequence), you won't make it anyways.
FRONT ROW: EDGE, KAIN BACK ROW: CECIL*, RYDIA, ROSA *(not sure about this, probably it makes no difference defense wise, so FRONT would be best).
ROSA ELIXIR on her SELF if her HPs or MPs are critically low; else CURE 4 on the whole party if she's NOT FULL HEALTH (what you do 95% of the times); else LIFE 2 on CECIL if he's down and she's FULL HEALTH; else ELIXIR on CECIL if his HPs are critically low and she's FULL HEALTH; else LIFE 2 on EDGE if he's down and EVERYONE ELSE not down is close to FULL HEALTH; else LIFE 2 on KAIN/RYDIA if he/she's down and EVERYONE ELSE not down is close to FULL HEALTH; else CURE 4 on the whole party (which is what you do 95% of the times, never attack with her).
CECIL LIFE POTION on ROSA if she's down; else ELIXIR on ROSA if her HPs or MPs are critically low; else ELIXIR on him SELF if his HPs are critically low; else LIFE POTION on EDGE/RYDIA/KAIN if down; ATTACK (I know the temptation is to always attack: at level <50, don't).
EDGE/RYDIA/KAIN LIFE POTION on ROSA if she's down; else ELIXIR on ROSA if her HPs or MPs are critically low; else LIFE POTION on CECIL if he's down; else ELIXIR on CECIL if his HPs are critically low; else ELIXIR on him/her SELF if HPs are critically low; else - EDGE: DART (order: Excalibur, Grungnir, Light, Ninja(blade)/Ninja(stars)) - RYDIA or KAIN: LIFE POTION on EDGE if he's down; else - RYDIA: CALL BAHAM(UT) - KAIN: JUMP
@Brock: Rather than recopy all this, it might be simpler to just include a link to this post in the main index. That will also allow me to edit this information or add to it in the future, if necessary.
Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball
You must play 22 contests to beat the game--twenty season games and two playoff games. All season games are against teams in your own league--four games against each of the three other teams in your division and two games against each of the teams in the other division. After 20 games, the teams with the best records in each division face off against each other in the league championship game. The winner of that contest goes on to face the champion from the other league in the overall championship game.
Set-Up
First thing, go to the option screen and turn off "Zoom Windows". This feature will basically rob you of easy outs, turning them into bases hits for the CPU.
I recommend playing in Thomson Dome. The pixelated texture of the turf in the other two stadiums obscures the ball's shadow, which makes it more difficult to catch the ball.
Team Selection
Not all teams are created equal, so pick a good team. I can't stress this enough. It's very hard to generate base hits in this game. You're going to have to rely on the long ball to score runs, so it's absolutely essential that you have plenty of homerun power in your lineup. Good defense on the corners (1st, 3rd, RF, LF) will also aid you immensely.
You can't re-arrange your batting order, which is a huge flaw in the game. You can only make player-for-player substitutions from the bench. Nevertheless, you may need to make a few of these substitutions in order to ensure that your team is playing to its full offensive potential.
With appropriate substitutions made from the bench), I rank the teams as follows.
LA *
Baltimore *
Oakland *
Chicago (National Division)
Chicago (American Division)
Detroit
Texas
Boston
New York (National Division) *
Atlanta
Pittsburg
San Francisco *
New York (American Division)
Minnesota *
Cincinnati
St. Louis
If you plan to follow my pitching strategy (see below), then you'll also need to pick a team with pitchers who have curve ball ratings of at least 8 and an aggregate stamina of at least 10. On the list above, I've added an asterix after the teams which meet these criteria.
Los Angeles is easily the best offensive team in the game and they have a great pitching staff, but their speed is poor and their defense is atrocious. In particular, 1st and Right Field, which are both disasters.
IMO, the two best teams in the game are Baltimore and Oakland. Oakland has better speed, while Baltimore has a slightly better defense, as well as Cal Ripken Jr. himself--and Cal's stats in this game are gaudy (.348 AVE, 51 HR's, and a 10-out-of-10 ranking in every skill category.) Cal can single-handedly keep you competitive in most games. When I played against Baltimore, I issued Cal an intentional walk every time he came up to bat.
Detroit and the two Chicago teams are also solid offensive and defensive teams, but their bullpens aren't a fit for my pitching strategy. If you can come up with a pitching strategy suited to their bullpens, then these teams should also be viable.
Batting
Each batter has a sweet-spot on his bat, the size of which is proportional to his batting average. The higher the average, the larger the sweet-spot. To produce quality hits, you want to adjust the position of your batter and the timing of your swing so that the bat contacts the pitch within this sweet-spot. However, I believe that a pitcher's ERA works to effectively reduce the size of this sweet spot and there seem to be stochastic elements in play as well. Bottom line, unfortunately, is that hitting feels indistinguishable from randomness most of the time.
The best strategy I found was to sit on specific pitches. The CPU only gives you 6-8 different looks and a couple of those pitches are more-or-less down the middle. Wait on those pitches and try to put your best swing on them. If you see that a pitch is starting to break, lay off of it. Your chances of getting a quality hit off a pitch like that are remote.
The CPU will occasionally walk you, either with four balls or by hitting you with a hard breaking pitch inside.
If you're having trouble getting quality hits, you're probably swinging too early. Try and hold back a bit, but not too long because swinging at the last possible moment won't make for a good hit either.
Don't stab at the swing button. Squeeze it in a controlled fashion, mimicking the rhythm of a natural swing.
Squeeze and *HOLD* the swing button to ensure that you're making a full swing.
Stepping back in the batters box when facing pitchers who are throwing a lot of fastballs can help you with the timing of your swing, as can stepping forward when facing pitchers who are throwing a lot of change-ups.
You will need to shift laterally in the batter's box to square-up certain pitches, especially those coming from a pitcher who has positioned himself all the way out to one end of the mound.
I didn't experiment with this aspect of the game much, so I can't speak with authority about it usefulness, but the few times I tried, I didn't have much luck either bunting for a hit or laying down a sacrificial bunt in an attempt to move a runner over.
Pitching
Pitcher's don't need rest between starts. You can start the same pitcher every game.
If you just stand on the mound and randomly throw any old pitch, you're going to get rocked.
There are a number of ways to strike out CPU batters in this game. However, doing so consistently is quite difficult because your pitcher's speed and control drop over time, which constantly shifts the breaking points of your pitches and makes it hard to stay in any one groove for very long. You'll find that a pitch that was a guaranteed strike in the first inning suddenly becomes a guaranteed base hit in the second inning and a guaranteed homerun by the third.
I'm sure there are other pitching strategies that you can have success with, but the strategy that worked best for me was using right-handed pitchers to throw change-ups tight to the inside. I wasn't necessarily trying to strike out batters with this strategy. It was more of an attempt to deny batters quality hits by inducing them into hitting foul balls and easily-fielded grounders.
Here's how it's done:
—Move your pitcher out to the end of the mound closest to the batter. Throw a change-up. Pretend to be the batter and track the flight of the ball. At the moment you would begin to make your swing, tap the d-pad so the ball breaks a tick inside. This late movement will freeze numerous batters for a called strike on the inside corner of the plate, and those batters that do get around on the pitch will still get jammed, most likely hitting a foul ball or a groundball straight to the third or first baseman for an easy out.
—Keep one eye on the batter, however. If you spot him make a sizable leap to the outside, it means he's squared up the pitch. Immediately press and hold the d-pad to break the ball hard inside so that the batter will layoff of it for a ball, or hit it foul. If you don't break the ball inside enough in this situation, a quality hit, usually a homerun, is likely.
—As your pitcher's control drops you may need to tap and briefly hold the d-pad to get the pitch to break properly. Whenever you are pitching to a left-handed batter, you may also need to press and hold the d-pad like this to generate enough inward break. At some point, your pitcher's control will fall to a level where you can no longer get the ball to break effectively. Get that pitcher off the mound immediately or you risk giving up a homerun on your next pitch.
—In the first inning, your pitcher's velocity may be a bit too high to throw change-ups effectively (they'll be too fast). Mix in a few fastballs for balls (well off the plate) to burn off some of this velocity and lower the speed of the change-up. Ideal change-up speeds seem to run from the low-70's down to the high-50's.
—I couldn't get this strategy to work with left-handed pitchers. For some reason the break-points are in different locations when things are reversed.
Develop a lightning-fast pick-off move and relentlessly attempt to pick-off baserunners. If you see a baserunner take a two-step lead, try to pick him off. If you fail, retry anytime the batter/pitcher screen resets after a foul ball or an out. You can catch a surprising number of runners daydreaming for easy and, at times, critical outs. It also seems like the fastest runners in the game are the ones most prone to being picked-off, which is nice.
Intentionally walk dangerous hitters. Don't take chances pitching to the opposing team's best hitter(s). You stand a much better chance of getting these guys out by issuing them a walk and then picking them off at first.
Watch for the CPU to sac-bunt whenever a runner is on first with no outs.
The CPU will also steal bases occasionally, but with my pitching strategy of strictly throwing change-ups, there was nothing I could do to prevent this.
Fielding
Press the select button on the pitcher/batter screen to set your defensive alignments. The "B" button switches between infielders and outfielders. Up and down on the d-pad switches between alignments. I left my infielders alone, but moved my outfielders deep because I wasn't very good at defense and found it best if most everything hit to the outfield stayed in front of my defenders.
Chase after foul balls and try to catch them. You can get numerous outs this way. Moreover, my pitching strategy produces numerous foul balls. I actually rely on them to generate easy outs.
Press the "B" button to jump for balls that are just over your fielder's head.
Baserunning
You have to manually advance your runners if you want them to take multiple bases. You also have to manually return them to their original base on fly-outs. Be aware that the controls for returning a runner to his base on a fly-out are not very responsive. You may have to give the command multiple times.
Learn who your fastest runners are (guys rated 9 and 10) and if they get on base, try to steal 2nd and, maybe, even 3rd. If you get a bad jump, you can return to your previous base without much risk of getting caught.
Watch out for the game automatically advancing your unforced runners. This can lead to some really aggravating and unnecessary outs.
Take just a one step lead-off or else you are almost guaranteed to be picked-off (turn about is fair play, after all).