How to Beat Bosses 1-4 in Final Fantasy IX

Well, technically, Baku is your first boss, but we’re going to skip past him. In this game, it’s a bit subjective as to what is an actual fight and who is an actual boss, so I’m just going to write about the battles that I think are boss battles. If you disagree, you can come up with a compelling argument and send it over to me and I’ll consider writing about it.

Anyway, onto the battle with…

Plant Brain

Start out this battle by using Vivi’s Fire and Steiner’s Flame Sword. Use a couple of potions if you need to, as well. After you deal enough damage, Blank will come in and help you a little bit with this battle. From here, all you have to do is physically attack until it’s over.

Black Waltz #1

The next boss battle precedes a couple more as it is the first of the Black Waltz baddies. They resemble Vivi and that causes great concern to the little guy. For the most part, focus your attacks on the Black Waltz himself as he has the ability to heal. Then, you’re free to kill his pet. It’s too bad the battle isn’t over when the owner dies, though. Oh well. Heal Zidane as often as needed, as you might be able to get go into Trance mode with him. His Dyne Trance will help the party win this battle a lot quicker.

The next battle is (drumroll)

Black Waltz #2

This battle’s only slightly harder than the last Black Waltz battle, which is good, because you’ve had time to strengthen your characters a bit.

Dagger is going to be your healing character because she has the strongest cures of the bunch. Zidane is going to use physical attacks. Make sure you DON’T use Vivi’s black magic because the Black Waltz will just one-up you and do a stronger version of it to show off. You can use Steiner’s magic sword abilities, though. They’re quite effective. If dagger can’t heal anymore, switch her with Vivi. Since he’s not a very strong attacker anyway, and he can’t use magic, it’s best to have him heal. If he’s got a weapon that affords him that ability, then use his mp to heal, but if not, just use his turns for potions. If you need to use both of them to heal, I suppose that would work, too, but just KEEP YOUR HP UP. That way, this battle is a piece of cake.

Black Waltz #3

This is by far, the most frustrating of the Black Waltz battles. He’s way more difficult than the other two, which puts you up a bit unprepared. I died the most times fighting him. More times than any other boss in the game because I prepared myself for them, but you can’t really do much before fighting him.

Use all of the strategies set in the last battle for every character EXCEPT for Vivi. He will start the battle in Trance mode because he is upset about the deaths of all the other black mages, so make good use of his double magic attacks. Just use a few potions if you need to heal yourself (I’d expect you need to at some point.)