Is it possible to skip Ana entirely in Earthbound Zero?

I'm curious because I know that you can Sequence Break the game, and I heard that you can beat the game with Teddy in your party at the final boss, and since the only scene where you need Ana is in the same place where you lose Teddy, I'm wondering if it's possible to skip Ana. Please don't say it's impossible because of how Nintendo Hard the game is, unless it's Fake Difficulty or something like that.

The game is hard? Aside from a few odd enemies who were ungodly strong for little to no reason it's one of the easiest JRP Gs I've ever played. I was god. From what I've read you can avoid getting her and the possible parties are...

Ninten and Lloyd

Ninten and Ana

Ninten, Lloyd, and Ana

Ninten, Teddy, and Ana

I don't know how to do this mind you. You can apparently skip anything that happens in Reindeer and Ellay.

Is Ninten and Teddy impossible, too? I can't really see why, or do you need three people in order to dance at Ellay?

I've no idea if you need three people for that scene.

You can beat the game alone if you don't get Lloyd and ditch Teddy with the Onyx Hook after he makes his phone call and leaves you with Ana. Apparently she's not in your party when that happens.

I can't find anything in regards to beating it with Ninten and Teddy though.

edited 23rd Jan '11 10:27:47 PM by Aondeug

Let me see the possible teams and how to get them, if someone can prove me wrong...

Ninten Only

After getting EVE, dance at Ellay, get Teddy, go to the place where he dies, and when Teddy calls and Ana blocks the door, Onyx Hook out of there and proceed to the end.

Ninten and Teddy

With no Ana and after EVE, dance on the stage. Not sure if Teddy will replace Loid or will just join the party.

Ninten, Loid, and Ana

Pretty much the "normal" way to beat the game.

Ninten and Loid

Don't dance at Ellay and don't go to Reindeer.

Ninten and Ana

After EVE, dance at Ellay and don't talk to Teddy on his deathbed.

Ninten, Teddy, and Ana

After getting EVE's melody piece, go to Ellay, dance, and get Teddy.

Those are all the possible combinations (not counting letting Ninten die and having solo-Ana/Teddy/Loid games) I can think of.

edited 24th Jan '11 7:26:31 AM by AwesomeZombie22

Those are the methods I've read. I can't find anything in regards to Ninten and Teddy as a final party though. Try your method and see what happens?

edited 23rd Jan '11 10:31:41 PM by Aondeug

May I take the moment to ask why Loid is such a bad character? I mean I like him...but as a fighter he's ick. I guess that's supposed to be the point, he's the wimp that likes things that go boom, but Teddy is really good physically, Ana has powerful PSI, Ninten has a nice balance between the 2, and the only good thing I can think about for Loid is that he's kinda fast.

The items he uses are supposed to be his defining point, but the inventory in the game is so small it's hard to carry around a decent amount of the stuff at all times unlike Ana who can recover her PSI easily enough with PSI Magnet. That and I never found his items useful. I just sort of kept him around attacking...I honestly have no clue why he sucks so much.

edited 23rd Jan '11 10:45:21 PM by Aondeug

Yeah, Earthbound definitely did the item thing better with Jeff, even if you don't count his lolrockets. Heck, even if you don't count his bazooka, he still had a lot of tricks that he could use to take the enemies down. (Though he also had a tendency to be the weakest link in boss fights at least).

I also hardly used Loid's items, because the better ones were the ones that broke after a couple uses. It wasn't worth my time, and like you said, EB 0 really isn't THAT hard. A few trouble spots alike Mt. Itoi, the Desert and the Swamp (for me) but nothing horrible.

The Desert I luckily managed to avoid difficult encounters in. I got ass raped by Lone Wolves in Snowman once. Mt. Itoi had those Cerebrum bastards among others... Wanting to get the thing over with I just took to running from all the encounters after EVE kicked the bucket using 4th D-slip or state abuse. I was a lazy bitch.

I haven't got Jeff in Earthbound yet which I started a file in recently.

edited 23rd Jan '11 10:54:14 PM by Aondeug

Question: how do you save in that game? I got no idea of how to save NES games on an emulator: I got no reset button to hold.

You just save in a game with Nestopia as you would on an actual NES. So in EB:0's case you use a phone to speak with your dad. You can make quick save states by pressing SHIFT+a number 1-9 and load said state by pressing the number of the state you want.

Yes, but when I reload the game, bwop. My save files are gone.

Really? Huh... I've never had that problem with it though I have with another emulator. My save files load just fine when I start a ROM up. As do my save states. Are the paths for your save states and game save files correct? Check in the emulator by going to Options and then Paths. I'm not sure what it could be other than that...

edited 23rd Jan '11 11:35:57 PM by Aondeug

Try FCE Ultra for emulating. It's the best nes emulator imo.

I forgot about Snowman. Yeah, that area is stough too, especially since Ana starts at level 1. Loid does too, but at least he benefits from being in a lower leveled area...for Ana the best option seems to be using the Magical Pokemon hook to go into Magicant to level up.

I'm really curious about getting Ninten and Teddy. Can someone try it to see if he'll replace Loid or just join? I only have the game in Japanese along with Earthbound, and it's the only one I can't beat because of the language barrier. Hell, I got Poo playing Earthbound in Japanese, but I never get past the first city in the first because it's a lot more text dependent than Earthbound. (Especially since I know how to beat Earthbound by heart, and I liked Earthbound's gameplay more, though I do like the first's story.)

edited 24th Jan '11 7:39:42 AM by AwesomeZombie22

Why don't you use the Earthbound Zero ROM? It's the official translation that never made it out on the market. The translation's quite nice too. It's how I beat the game.

I could and probably will do another run with sequence breaking, but not any time soon. I have 2 and 3 to beat.

Also I suppose we should move the general talk about the series to this thread. That I forgot existed until now though I made it...

edited 24th Jan '11 11:35:43 AM by Aondeug

There's also a version with an updated translation (and some updated graphics) made by Tomato.

Or you can just hack the game to get the Zoo Key and never have to take Pippi home. Then you can just rape everything with Pippi and Teddy, and have Ninten heal when necessary. Bonus points for creating a time paradox when you visit Pippi in the Swamp despite still having her in your party.

I don't have an emulator...

Get one?

It's possible your save trouble may stem from copy protections that the cart infamously had.

That said, if you can savestate, that kinda renders it all moot.