Okay, I'm currently playing it but I'm still on disc 1 so nothing to report/ask yet. However, I wanted to make a post covering Aeris' weapons. I've come up with a few tricks to get the most out of them and wanted to inform whoever might be interested in getting more mileage out of Aeris' arsenal when using her for the full game. This is easily done with a combination of wallmarket and whitechocobo, the only issue that arises for non-hackers is being unable to edit acquisitions from monsters and treasure chests, which will result in having access to some powerful ones earlier than should be possible.
1. Guard Stick - Improve slightly - 15 ap, 3 mag, 2 linked slots. This makes it a tier 2 weapon (like Cloud's Buster Sword) and Aeris can use it the entire time you're in Midgar. She isn't in the party for as long as Tifa or Barret so she really doesn't need 2 weapons here. Besides, the other Mythril weapons are sold in Kalm.
2. Increase the stats on each of her subsequent storebought staves to match the one just above it :
a. Mythril Rod - moved to Kalm, identical to unmodified Striking Staff
b. Full Metal Staff - moved to Junon, identical to unmodified Striking Staff
c. Striking Staff - moved to Cosmo Canyon, identical to unmodified Prism Staff
d. Prism Staff - moved to Wutai, identical to unmodified Aurora Rod
e. Aurora Rod - moved to Icicle Inn, make up stats similar to the other weapons offered there (I chose 61 ap, 15 mg). Note how (like Mythril Rod), this one is
particularly thematically appropriate (Aurora = north pole, get it?).
3. Extensive modification for the following -
f. Wizer Staff- Redundant with Wizard's Staff. I renamed this to Stardust Rod and made it a late game triple growth weapon with 64 ap and 32 magic, 4 unlinked slots.
g. Fairy Tale - I renamed to Crystal Rod and put it in Mideel's shop - 73 ap/20 magic.
h. Umbrella - Umbrella is useless, it exists as a novelty. Every other character has one so removing it sucks for uniformity, but with only 11 total weapons, Aeris just
can't afford for one of them to be novelty only.
Using this patch, this is replaced by Aeris' ultimate weapon. I renamed it (Dream Waker) and modified it slightly (reduced ap to 92).
i. Princess Guard - I like having this be a normal growth, endgame worthy non-ultimate weapon. 81 atp, 31 mag/12 vit/20 spi. Again, you'll get this in the Temple
so it will be overpowered until late in the game. I would like to see a monster/treasure editor. Come to think of it, I haven't bothered looking for one.
Ideally, I would like for the Princess Guard and Umbrella spots to be switched, so that her ultimate weapon is the one with the highest weapon ID
number and always gets sorted last. That's just an OCD thing though, not a big deal really.
So there it is - this is an effective way to spread her weapons out across the entire game. She won't have any major lulls or gaps, she'll just lack a tad bit of the end game variety the other characters get. Again, the only issue, and someone please inform me if there's a way around it, is not being able to modify when she obtains certain weapons, which will cause her to have access to very overpowered weapons fairly early in the game. In particular these are the Wizer Staff, Crystal Rod, and Princess Guard.