Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope - Bunny Racing

Today's subject will be about Bunny Racing.  Bunny Races are located in the Colosseum, after entering, go left or right and you will see a staircase.  After going down the stairs look to your right to see a woman standing next to a Big Pink Bunny.  Talk to her, and take on the Quest that she gives to you.  After finishing it, she lets you have the Bunny, which after talking to it, allows you to give it a name.  I named my Bunny "Hops."

Anyway after naming the Bunny, you can talk to it again and a menu will pop up containing its Status, as well as the option to feed it some pie.  The pies you are allowed to feed it are, Speed Pie, Acceleration Pie, Stamina Pie, and Miracle Pie.  My Bunny started off with Speed 15, Accel. 18, and Stamina 32.  After feeding it a Stamina Pie it's Stamina raised to 35.  I am going to assume that if you use the other pies they will raise the stat that they are named after, and that Miracle Pie will raise all or some of the stats.

To participate in a Race, you must have at least 5 Fight Coins, which can be won from the Arena, which is located on the floor above.  There are 3 Classes to race in, Class 5, which takes 5 Fight Coins to participate, Class 20, which takes 20 Fight Coins, and Class 100, which takes 100. Each Race goes up in difficulty as you enter the higher Classes.  There are 5 Bunnies participating in the Race, including yours.

During a Race, you can Coach your Bunny by telling it what to do.  You can have it Jump, which causes the other Bunnies to temporarily stop running, and you can Dash, which makes your Bunny get a boost of speed.  Dashing and Jumping cause your Stamina meter, which is located in the top left corner of the screen, to lower.  If you run low on energy, just let your Bunny run for a little while and the Stamina will refill a little bit at a time.

After placing 1st or 2nd in a Race, you receive Fight Coins as a Prize.  The amount is based on which Race you entered, and you get more than what you had to pay.  Getting 1st obviously pays more than 2nd, and anything lower than that receives nothing.  Races are 3 Laps around a figure 8 shaped track.

Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope - Arena

I have been working my way up in the arena for a while now.  For those of you who don't know how the arena works, you can enter into either a Solo, Team, or Survival Tournament.

Solo Tournaments are where you choose a single character and fight one enemy at a time.  Each character has a separate ranking starting at 103 and goes all the way to 1.  You are able to challenge enemies that are 3 ranks above you, which will raise your rank faster. In the Team Tournament, you fight using your whole Team of Allies and the ranking works the same way, except instead of each person having a separate rank, the whole team now has one.  Adversely, you have to fight a lot more enemies and this can prove to be more of a challenge if you don't level up your characters.  Finally, in the Survival Tournament you fight using your Team, and it goes on for 10 Rounds, after winning each round you are offered the option to back out and take what you have earned.  If you continue you double what you have earned so far and keep fighting, if you lose you don't receive any Fight Coins, but if you fight all 10 rounds you are rewarded with a nice amount of coins.

Also before each Tournament you are allowed to Select a Type of Item set you wish to bring with you, there is an Offensive Set, Curative Set, and a Strategic Set.  Each set has different items based on what type you chose.  Offensive Set contains attack items, Curative contains Healing Items and Strategic Set has more stat boosting items.  The amount of items you can use differs for each Tournament, but they contain the same items.

If you want to survive during Solo Tournaments, I suggest you learn how to use the Blindside feature, because it is needed for some of the enemies later on.  I will also add that when you Blindside an enemy you have a far higher chance to score a Critical Hit on them than when you are in Rush Mode.  Be warned, some enemies come with the ability to Counter a Blindside attempt. You have to watch out for when the Target on you is Red, do not perform the Blindside.  Instead, wait for it to be either Yellow, or Flashing Colors. Unfortunately you can be hit out of a Blindside, if the enemy is performing an area attack or if the enemy is too far away from you.  One thing that can Counter a Blindside Counter, is being able to perform another Blindside Attack.

You gain this ability by leveling up your BEAT: S (strike).  There are 3 different types of BEAT that you can equip your character with during the game, those are Strike, Burst and Neutral.  Strike and Burst level up throughout the game from battling and they raise some stats depending on how high leveled you have them. At rank 20 Strike raises your ATK +100, INT +100 and HIT +78. Strike gives you some nice abilities for Blindside Attack like being able to perform 2 Blindside Attacks and Increased Damage to Blindsided Enemies.Neutral does not rank up at all, nor does it give any extra abilities, but offers some nice stat boosts such as, Max Hp +20%, ATK +100, INT +100, DEF +100, HIT +78, and GRD +78.  Burst offers Max HP +20%, DEF +100, and GRD +78, but along with that you receive an Increased Chance for Critical Hits during Rush Mode, and MP Cost -25%.

After you win any of the Tournament Battles, you receive EXP and FOL just like any ordinary battle, along with Fight Coins which amount is determined by what rank of enemy you fight.  Fight Coins are used to trade for weapons and armors at the counter on the right in the Colosseum. One great thing about the Colosseum is that if you lose during a match, the game is not over, you just lose the match and have to heal your character.