Virginia's Intro

Being the easiest of the four, Virginia's Intro is the one you'll want to begin with. It'll teach you the basics of dungeon exploration, combat, and the use of Tools; all with short tutorials to get the point across.

Enemies in this area:

Name:	HP:	EXP:	Gella:	Halved:	Resistant:	Weakness:	Active:	Absorbed:
Gob	27	1	2	NONE	NONE	NONE	NONE	NONE
Strategy: The enemies in Gob's Hideout consist of simple Gobs; nothing more. They are very easy to defeat, requiring no more than 2 attacks each. Simply select Shoot every round unless your HP is dangerously low, which it probably shouldn't be because your VIT meter will be refilling your HP up after every battle. Simply progress through the dungeon, fighting all the battles, and when Virginia reaches Level 2 or 3, she will be able to take down Gobs in one hit.

Items in this area: Tindercrest (Tool) Revive Fruit Heal Berry Heal Berry Mini Carrot Heal Berry 400 Gella Duplicator Right Half Gimel Coin

We begin Virgina's Intro inside Gob's Hideout, an old derelict mansion that once belonged to a wealthy trading family. The first leg of our long journey is very easy and filled with tutorials and pointers, and with my walkthrough on your side, you should be able to blaze through this game! First, pull the level over there to open the door. Go up to the lever and press X to pull it. The door swings open! Go on in! Oops! Opening that door alerted the enemies! Luckily, it's a simple fight against a couple of weak Gobs. Familiarize yourself with combat at their expense, and take them down! When they're defeated, note that random encounters have now begun! After defeating the Gobs, note that there are two doors in front of you. One is locked (we'll get to that later), and the other is wide open. Go through the open door. This room is full of old crates and old bookshelves. However, rotate the camera around (R1 and L1) to spy a Treasure Chest in the mess of crates. We want it! So what do we do? Pick up and toss the crates out of the way (press X to lift, X again to throw.) Throw them away from the wall; one of them contains a Revive Fruit! Now open the chest (X in front of it) and we now own the Tindercrest! Before you leave the room, you might want to partake in a little light reading. Step right up to the bookshelves, face them and press X. This will check the bookshelves for anything to read. Most (if not all) have books to read which deal with important plot elements and even give out tips for survival, so although reading is optional, it is highly recommended. When you've read enough, leave the room the way you came. Back in the Gob attack room, note the unlit torch that lies in front of us. Seeing that the other one is lit, let's light the other one, shall we? Toss the Tindercrest at the unlit torch and the door opens! Take note of this solution; a lot of puzzles in the game require the lighting and unlighting of torches. Now head through the door, and walk through the next room. You might eye a Treasure Chest in this room, but it's blocked by debris, and we'll have to find another way to obtain it. So just keep going through the next doorway. Watch your step! This next room has very unstable footing; and walking or running through will cause poor Virginia to fall (though you will not lose life or die, just teleport back to the start of the room.) We'll tiptoe across the floor to the other side to play it safe! Hold the Circle Button while walking to tread safely and head to the other side of the room and out the door. Note the ladder leading up; we can't get there yet, but much later in the game, we will have to. Now, head through the next room, ignoring the locked door, and enter the room after that; which appears to be the balcony, shaped like a "U". Each "end" of the "U" has another torch; light both torches then head through the door closest to where you came in. There is another Treasure Chest in this room; open it up to obtain a Heal Berry, the Wild ARMs trademark healing item. Now exit this room, and head to the other door we opened, taking the white gems along the way. Picking up white gems refills our ECN Gauge, which determines how many battles we can skip. Another treasure room, which is almost identical to the one we just passed. Open the chest for a Heal Berry, and check the bookshelf for important information about a key item we'll come back for later. Leave this room, and now exit the balcony room from the east side. Don't know which way is east? Well, my friend, that's where the compass comes in handy. Use the compass to determine which way is East, then take that doorway out of this room. In the next room, descend the stairs, passing by the first door. Pull the switch at the bottom of the stairs, then go through the now-open door. It's that treasure we couldn't reach earlier! Open up for a Mini Carrot; this adds 25 FP to our FP meter in battle! Now, head back to the stairs. See those orange gems? Orange gems refill the VIT Gauge, which is that neat little thing that refills our HP after battle. Pick them up, then head up the stairs and through first flight of stairs and through the door. Now we're on the bottom floor. See the balcony above us? Look around by spinning the camera; beautiful graphics abound, heh. Oh, and while you're at it; note that there are two more doors in this room. The small door (the strange-designed one) can't be opened yet, but the big one can. But how? Well, let's scope the room for things of interest. Hold R2, and press X, and Virginia will turn her attention to a little valve beside the door (indicated by orange-ish triangles.) Items in these "triangles" are usually worth examining; they are usually switches, valves or levers we need to open doors and solve puzzles. Anyway, head towards the valve.. This is gonna take a bit of good old elbow grease (for Virginia at least!) To turn the valve, grab the valve by pressing and holding X, then rotate the left analog stick clockwise. Some puzzles call for us to turn counterclockwise, but not this one. When you've turned it enough, the door swings open. Head on in to find a treasure trove of stolen goods! Lookit all this crazy crap! Open all the chests and toss all the crates to obtain a Heal Berry, 400 Gella, a Gimel Coin, a Duplicator and the Right Half. Note that Right Half is an important key item. Now, leave the room after watching the short scene. Back in the big room, you might want to save your game. Saving the game in a dungeon requires using up a Gimel Coin, and when you find a Coin in a dungeon, it's safe to say a boss is in the very next room. Save if you wish (a boss is soon), then head towards that weird door we saw earlier. This is a Duplicator Door, openable only by using up a Duplicator. In most cases in the Wild ARMs series, Duplicator Doors have great stuff behind them, but in this case it's our only way out of the dungeon. So, head right up to the door, go to the Item Menu, and Use the Duplicator. The door is gone! Walk through the next room, strangely empty as it is. Heal up your HP if you're very low. In the room after this, Virginia is ambushed by a Gob from the air. But this is no ordinary Gob..

Boss Battle: Hobgob Boss

HP:	EXP:	Gella:	Halved:	Resistant:	Weakness:	Active:	Absorbed:
N/A	24	30	NONE	NONE	NONE	NONE	NONE
Hobgob Boss' Attacks: Tackle (physical attack) Battle Axe (physical attack)
How To Win: This battle is more of a tutorial than anything else. Simply blast away at him, ignoring his rather weak attacks. Once you've done about 150 of damage to him, Virginia starts to lose faith. This boss doesn't give up! We're going to have to employ a special tactic. The game should now instruct you to use a Force Power called Gatling. Simply select the Force Ability menu and select the Gatling attack. This will fire all remaining ammo in our guns at the enemy. Regardless of the amount of damage it does, Gatling will kill Hobgob Boss. In fact, even if your ARM is empty, Gatling will kill this boss; it is the only way to win.

Now that he's defeated, we have completed Virginia's introduction. Got your feet wet? Sure you have. Now that you know how the basics of the game, you can move on to the other characters intro quests.