- The final mission lets you tackle the goddess Minerva. This is, without a doubt, the toughest fight in the game. Before you even think about facing her, make sure your Spirit and Vitality are maxed out to 255. Having at least 150 in Luck helps a bit too, since it can help you avoid critical hits made against you. Obviously, your hit points should be as high as possible -- max them out if you can, but 70,000 is enough. Really though, the best way to beat Minerva is to lose to her a few dozen times.

You see, with Mug materia (or Steal) equipped in conjunction with the Brigand's Gloves, you can steal 99 phoenix downs from Minerva. You can repeat this as often as you like. We highly recommend snatching the Phoenix Downs, lather, and repeat as needed. You can build up a ton of Gil to use for Gil Toss or you can buy materia for the sole purpose of converting it to SP. For the latter, we recommend DMW materia of Dualcast. After a few dozen Phoenix Down thefts -- or a few hundred if you're really ambitious -- you should have all the Gil and SP you need. The SP can be used to fuse materia that will max out your stats or for materia like SP Master.

For gear, we used Genji Armor, Genji Shield, Genji Gloves, and Ziedrich when going up against Minerva. There are other variations you can use, but obviously you should trot out your best stuff against the lady.

As for offense, most people use Costly Punch against Minerva, but we found it easier to load up on Gil and just Gil Toss her to death. With the Phoenix Down trick and some time, you can build up tens of millions of Gil. With enough Gil, you can do much more damage with Gil Toss than Costly Punch.

One of Minerva's attacks cancels out your "raise" status from Phoenix Downs, so you'll need lots of backup Phoenix Downs. You'll need to be able to heal yourself with items or materia, so stock up and plan accordingly.

Beating Minerva can take upwards of 20 minutes. Unless you have stout stats, top gear, and plenty of restorative items, you won't last three. Your preparation is really the key to victory here. The more time you spend buffing up your stats and materia, the easier it will be to execute your battleplan.

That's a wrap for our Mission Survival Guide. We hope you came away with some new insights that will help you get to "100% mission complete" status. We hope you use this guide responsibly. Don't let us catch you selling any stolen Phoenix Downs to your friends!

Apr 18, 2008