Chance of Encounter: 0.0000042%
 

I'm making this thread because of the current rage I am in in trying to find an Iron Golem in Final Fantasy I. Seriously, I've been looking for the past 4 hours to find an Iron Golem in order to complete my Beastiary. Like, it's not a problem for those who don't intend to master a game, but for those who do, do you guys get really pissed off when you can't find something because the game designers thought it'd be cute setting the encounter chance to some miniscule number that has you running around in circles for 2 hours before you find what you're looking for? This is just infuriating. I've leveled up about 13 times looking for this thing and I still haven't found it yet. And considering the time it takes to level in this game, this has gone on just too long.

So, any stories of finding the impossible?

Earthbound...

Ah yes, trying to get all of Poo's equipment then trying to get the special bat in Ness's dream (killing those krakens then resetting when you killed them all and have yet to obtain it). Very very tedious...ended up never picking it up.

I spent an hour or two fighting goblins in FF IV Advance trying to get the Goblin summon. I ended up resetting since it was towards the beginning of the game and I didn't want to be that over-levelled. Despite playing through FF IV several times before then, I'd never heard about those normal monsters that drop summons. I gave up eventually, and then by pure luck obtained the Cockatrice summon from a random battle during Rydia's trial in the Cave of Trials. Never managed to get any of the others though.

HA! Finally found that bitch! Ugh....that took way too long to find one monster. But at least now all I have to do to master the game is to kick Chaos's ass, which shouldn't be too hard since I leveled up to the maximum level before finding the Iron Golem.

Ok, I had a small encounter of that sort.

Midway through FFXII, I was searching for a mark, the guy specifically said (and it was in yellow to showcase its importance) that the mark (The beast) was to be found in the Highlands of an area, but upon inspecting a FAQ, it was actually at the bottom-most portion of the area :mad:

I remember trying to complete the Monster Arena in Final Fantasy X, and I couldn't find the last Tonberry that I needed. I think I ran in circles in the same cave for at least two hours before finally finding one and finishing that side quest.

Was this the Behemoth or something, yeah he was a pain to find, especially when you had to kill all the other monsters before they respawned. I also didn't like the fog, seriously.

I never could defeat the 99 Devil Kings in the last dungeon of Might & Magic II. Heard there was a "glitch" that let you defeat them if you did a certain thing in a certain order, etc. I had extremely high-powered end-game characters. That was the only RPG I had for Apple IIgs, and this was before I had my SNES so the Apple was my lone gaming system. So, I put about 2 years/500 hours into the game easy. And I could only ever wipe out about 9 of the 99 before being utterly destroyed.

I forget the exact name, but it was a giant ass dragon, the kind
with the rings around the neck. Seriously, motherfucker was HUEG.

It's the fucking Lindwyrm. That getting that thing to appear thing was fhorrible, since you had to zone completely the fuck out of Tchita Uplands. When you came back in, you had to have cloudy weather and hope it stayed that way while you headed for the map it spawns on.

Oh, as for nearly impossible, the Larvae Eater is ridiculous. And if you don't have the guide book or access to the internet, you'd miss the Wild Snake completely.

Where did you end up finding the Golem? I grew up with FF1 and was 7 when it came out. Immediately when I saw this post I thought.. "that enemy can probably be found in the waterfall or in the final dungeon after the first couple floors".

I tried for it many times as well only to discover by chance that the Player's Guide was wrong. It's the Bionic Krakens in the final dungeon of the game that drop the Gutsy Bat and not the Krakens in Magicant.

Speaking of Earthbound, I tried for a very long time to get the Star Pendant that the Major Psychic Psycho supposedly drops and never got it. Same goes for the Goddess Ribbon, though I did get that one by chance on one file when I wasn't trying for it.

The Iron Golem can be found on in the Temple of Chaos, B4 Floor. This is supposedly the ONLY place it appears and it occupies the rarest encounter on the floor (like 1 / 255 I think)

The Excalibur from Vagrant Story. So many hours spent in the Iron Maiden...

By extension, the Zodiak Spear from FFXII (the one in the Henne mines). Talk about ridiculous odds.

Even more annoying to me than rare monsters were the rare monsters that you had to break a specific part off of in Valkyrie Profile 2. You want that rare item? You have to find some random bad guy in the middle of a giant cave, then break off his left bracelet that's way above your head. That kind of thing's pretty troublesome; if it's not too hard for you to struggle to hit it, you're too powerful and flatout kill the baddie before you can break it off.

In Suikoden I, you have to fight an enemy called a Holly Fairy in order to get an item called a "Nameless Urn." You need this item to recruit an appraiser into your 108 Stars of Destiny. They only appear in certain green areas on the world map, and if I remember correctly, there has to be a certain number of them in the party.

I got tired running around--although leveling up was fun.....

Historical File #1: The final dungeon of Phantasy Star IV contained enemies based on the DARKFALZ boss of the original PS game. They coughed up an obscene amount of XP when slain and, all things considered, weren't even that hard to put down. Pretty sweet deal. Problem is, they only appeared in the last screen (or 2 maybe) of the dungeon and at that, appeared quite rarely. So you have a combination of having to wander in circles forever to find one, and the added danger of accidentally wandering too far while on a simple level-grinding quest and winding up fighting the last boss instead.

Historical File #2: Castlevania AoS/DoS. "Peeping Eye" soul. Do I really have to explain this one?

That was going to be my answer to this topic. I'm sure I must have spent nearly two hours fighting Peeping Eyes before one of those bastards finally dropped a soul. The 'best' part is that you don't even get anything for 100% souls in AoS. Other than the sense of achievement...

I had that same problem. I started Suikoden back in 2003, and managed to get that urn after 2 battles. I later quit, and decided to play again in 2006, so I started a new game, and got to that point, and spent 2 days trying to get that goddamn urn.

Jabba can burn in hell.

I actually replayed Suikoden about a week ago and I got the urn within three battles. And then I got a SECOND one just a few minutes later. That was pretty painless. ;)

Too bad the game doesn't really hold up. I'm surprised at how shallow and undeveloped the plot and characters are. Thankfully, they fixed that in the sequel (which I replayed just a few weeks ago).

I much prefer the first Suikoden to the second. Plus, Suikoden 1 has the superior protagonist (and rune).

I agree. The improvements of the second Suikoden over the first are greatly exaggerated. The first game has the superior soundtrack and I found the characters more likeable than anime girl Nanami and emo Jowy. I don't know why most Suikoden fans underrate the first game and overrate the second game like they do. More shallow characters? Not really. Flik for example is actually a more dynamic character in the first game than in the second.

Finding the goddamn Crissaegrim in Castlevania SOTN took so long I could've started a new game and finished it faster. I must've killed about 4 billion Schmoos before I finally found one.

I guess if you don't buy into the relationship between the hero and Jowy, you'll probably find the game less engaging. I personally found the story very moving. It just resonates more with me. I suppose the first game is supposed to be about a son surpassing his father but the theme is underdeveloped (like most of the game).

(And I prefer the score to the second game. It has all those great emotional and battle tracks)

I think the Crissaegrim was alot easier to get then that damn Ring Of Varda. Only thing that held it was the Golden Skeleton and its drop rate was brain damaging...even with the Lapis Luzil it took some time for that item to come out :(...but its well worth it once you get it ;)

I have to say that the most frustrating enemy encounter for me is variable. It's whatever the last 3 rages happen to be that I'm trying to leap on the Veldt in FF VI. Trying to get that one enemy group to appear so you can jump it and get the final enemy skill is fucking irritating. For instance, I just spent like three hours trying to get Hunting Hound, an enemy I will never use, purely for the completionist in me. Bah.

The veldt is clearly a perfectionist's frustration. You could spend hours upon hours in the WoB trying to fight the right enemy formations and getting all the missable rages, and even then you wouldn't even have half of the game's rages yet. As well, the fights that you can only fight once, have to trigger before the areas become inaccessible, etc. add to the frustration.

I too, in Earthbound, liked the struggle of getting exorbitantly rare Sword of Kings for Poo from a certain monster (Gold Starman?). The smiling sphere or something was a rare enemy in the game that also comes to mind.

My favourite horror story about rare monsters is FFIV's Pink Puffs(1/255?), and the equally rare chance of getting them to drop a certain item (1/255?). That must have caused many completionists much agony to have a mere 1/(255^2) chance at an item, when the monster was rare enough.

While moreso for challenge purposes, it's frustrating to try and encounter hamsters in VP1's Seraphic Gate. You could face them in the room before Iseria Queen, but 90% of the time the monster you ran into gives a battle with a deadly Loki Shade instead of the even deadlier 4 hamsters. That place was dangerous enough to loiter around, housing the most powerful monsters in the game which may even kill you at the highest levels even with Guts + Auto Item.

I honestly cannot stand searching for items or enemies or anything else with such an exorbitantly low rate of appearance. Little or none of the difficulty in finding the thing is skill based, but purely luck based. And it often requires constant repetitive action to the point where I will become bored with what I am doing. And since finding these ultra-hidden items usually is completely optional, I have no problem skipping them in favor of more exciting things in the game.

I think the most I ever did involving rare drop items was with Castlevania: SOTN. I filled up about half of the item drop list before I realized that if I finished it completely, I'd never want to touch the game again.

Ah yes, the Pink Tail, that really is hell. Not nearly as bad as 1/255 for each, the chance of encounter is 1 / 64 and the chance of drop is 1 / 64 as well, bringing you chance of getting a Pink Tail to 1 / 4096. Similarly with the Iron Golem in my first post, they can be found in one room and one room only.

My first play through I found the Crissaegrim completely by chance during my normal play through the reverse library. What did take some time was getting two heaven swords from some flying things in the clock tower and getting the rare drop from the dodo in the reverse entrance hall. I can't even remember what the item is now but I do remember that there's only one dodo and it's a three screen journey to respawn it. You can save time by using the wolf dash but then there's a danger you won't stop in time to pick the item up, should the little bastard actually drop it.

Crissaegrim took a while but I did get it without getting too frustrated. It sure did make the last fight a joke. Not that the game is tough otherwise.

Ever since the first time I decided to get it, I go for it in every playthrough no matter how many Starman Supers I have to fight.

You're probably right. I've debated about that particular aspect of the game in the past.

The funny part is that this only applies to the Easytype version. The Hardtype game has those monster summoning whistles which, if blown in that particular room, gets you Pink Puffs 100% of the time.

But yes, I too spent a ridiculous amount of time whacking Starmen trying to get the Sword of Kings. I never did get it, either. I finally just gave up and went on with the game like normal. I couldn't even imagine trying to win the Guts Bat off the Kraken in Magicant.

I remember there being one or two synthesis items missing for me to have everything done in Kingdom Hearts. I forget what the name of said crystal/shard/whatever was called, but it only appear from three seperate enemies in Hollow Bastion and possibly Twilight Town.

It took me 8 hours for that stupid thing to drop and it was so annoying. And somehow worth it.

Sure you do. You get the Chaos Ring (it's in one of the rooms in the Chaotic Realm. Since it's a Castlevania, no one gives you a bloody clue on where it is) which gives you infinite MP. Great for boss rushes and crushing the game in general.

Pink Puffs are like a 1/64 encounter with a 1/64 chance of dropping the tail, but they come in fives, IIRC. So it's actually 5/4096! Probably not worth it, but the Adamant Armor does make you virtually unkillable.

The Excalibur from Vagrant Story sure is a bitch, haven't got it yet :eagletear: To make matters worse I cant find my memory card :gonk:

As for some of the FFXII stuff, there is too much in that game that relies on certain things happening for my taste... guess that is just how things go in Ivalice in general :rolleyes:

Damn right. The most annoying by far was a rare giant in Yggdrasil that once you kill him you had to exit and enter the dungeon again for him to show off. You had to break his weapon to get the item, and it was VERY hard not to break off his arm instead, that is if you even HAVE a attack that targets the weapon area. =(