Final Fantasy V Advance Walkthrough By MajesticMystic (aka RegalStar on the newer forums I go to) Version 1.02 May 1, 2008 (I'd like to do an ASCII art, but I suck in any form of visual art) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Content ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 1 - Introduction Section 2 - Version History Section 3 - Walkthrough 3.1 - Prologue 3.2 - The diminishing wind 3.3 - The journey to Walse 3.4 - Spreading Grand Wings 3.5 - The stagnating water 3.6 - The dying flames 3.7 - Marching onwards - the Library of the Ancients 3.8 - Sailing the seven seas 3.9 - Wings regained 3.10 - The last towns of this world 3.11 - The forgotten ruins 3.12 - The mysterious Ronka Ruins 3.13 - Bidding farewell to our world 3.14 - "This is... Galuf's World?" 3.15 - A rescue mission 3.16 - The Clash on the Big Bridge 3.17 - Finding our way home 3.18 - Yet another Wind Drake in distress 3.19 - Free rein within the unknown world 3.20 - One Barrier Tower, going down 3.21 - Twenty Thousand Grids under the sea 3.22 - I fail to say something witty about Forest of Moore 3.23 - Final Fantasy Gil Quest 3.24 - Time to remove Ex from ExDeath 3.25 - New world, new mission 3.26 - Tomb raiding time 3.27 - Interlude 1 - an item here, a sidequest there, and monsters everywhere 3.28 - The tablet of wind 3.29 - The tower of SCC bane, and the strongest black and white magic 3.30 - Interlude 2 - more sidequests! 3.31 - The tablet of fire, underwater 3.32 - The last tablet (about time) 3.33 - Bonus content #1 3.34 - The prelude to void 3.35 - The epic conflict Section 4 - Lists 4.1 - Jobs and abilities 4.2 - List of abilities 4.3 - Item Lists Section 5 - FAQs Section 6 - Legal Stuffs Section 7 - Contact information Section 8 - Credits ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 1 - Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi. I'm known as MajesticMystic around these parts. Below this section lies a vast amount of carefully chosen arrangement of alpha- numerical characters designed to aid you in the game known as Final Fantasy V Advance. Like all (or most anyways) FFs, FFV was quite a masterpiece in the genre of RPG, and while it was rejected by Woolsey as something that's not accessible enough to the average gamer, it provided a unique experience for those of us who enjoy strategical elements. And where the SNES version of FFV was excellent, the GBA port of FFV was nothing less than incredible, in my opinion. Of course, your opinion may differ, but we're not here to argue about that, are we now? There are so far three FAQs on the GameFAQs website for this game. Each of the three FAQs has something unique to offer to potential audiences - Ebmid has the most complete lists of things that you need to know, and things you don't need to know but are interesting anyways; Courante has well written directions, lists that are actually in GBA translations, and strategies for those who enjoy simple overlevelling; when those who do not overlevel is in need of some simple strategies against bosses, Kia Lobeli provides. I seek to fill in from a different angle - much like Djibriel's FFVI guide, this document attempts to provide complex and long informations for those who do not fear foretresses of texts and seek to own enemies so badly that even pixels are compelled to cry at the player's boots. I'm no Djibriel, and I realize that both the information and the humour in this document are severely lacking comparitively. But it'll have to do :) While I have written guides beforehand, the second longest guide I've written is about 6% as long as this one, so I'm sure there are many things that can be improved upon here. Please do not hesitate to comment, criticize, or even flame me, as long as you make them constructive. I don't mind if someone spends ten minutes telling me how much as I suck, but it wastes ten minute of the sender's life, and a minute of mine too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 2 - Version History ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 1.02 - May 1, 2008 Now that the new algorithms guide are out (for a while, actually, but I was busy with MapleStory and never got around to update this), I need to add new data to reflect the new knowledge. Will probably get back to clearing the temple soon. Not that anyone cares... Version 1.01 - January 28, 2008 Fixed some rudimentary mistakes, such as consistently misspelling Lenna, missing an ENTIRE SECTION. Also some trivial updates on item functions and Cannoneer's !Combine. Changed the guide to "full walkthrough" because I realized that Sealed Temple technically isn't a mandatory part of the walk- through. Version 1.0 - January 18, 2008 This guide is (mostly) completed. I still need to write in the bonus dungeon, but aside from that, I think I've gotten everything. And to think, I spent all but 1 month of time between then and now in hiatus... No version number - somewhere early 2007 I got into the idea of writing this guide after playing through the advance port for the first time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 3 - The Walkthrough ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The main course of the meal, and the most important part of this document. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1 - Prologue ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Intro Er... yeah. Watch the Intro. If you're like me and gets bored by the sheer longness of it, I suggest you keep a save file right away on a seperate file than what you're going to be using, so that when you start a new game you can skip right past it. Anyways, when all of that is done, head east. You won't get attacked while riding on Boko, so no worries about random encounters yet. Head inside the Meteorite. Tycoon Meteorite Follow the path. You will see Lenna being dragged by two creatures, who notice you, attack, and turn out to be a pair of Goblins. Just fight until they're dead - they have a measly 1 HP. Anyways, watch the ensuing scene, talk to the old man (Galuf), and watch him and Lenna leave. Before you leave, though, go southeast. There's a hidden path in the forest that leads to a chest with Phoenix Down. When you get that, leave. Overworld Back on the world map, you'll notice that you can't really go anywhere short of going west, then north, so do that (unless you feel like sitting there and doing nothing). You will eventually get in a valley of some sort. Some sort of valley that I cannot think of a better name for Well... cutscene time. Head north, take out any Goblins that lurches at you (they're still the weak 1 HP type), collect Lenna and Galuf (literally!), and get out of there by continuing to head north. More cutscene... Joy. When all is done, Galuf and Lenna joins. Wee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2 - The diminishing Wind ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back in the overworld Head North, into the cave, ditch Boko, and head inside, where you will have your first random encounters in the game! A mysterious cave My team's level: Bartz level 2, everyone else level 1 So, let's talk about the monsters you will meet here. The three foes that lurks within this cave are Steel Bat, Stroper, and Devil Crab. Steel Bats are not very interesting. They will either attack physically (occa- sionally using their !claw on you for 50% more damage), or use Vampire, which will drain back all the HP they've lost. However, they only have 20 HP, meaning that you probably can terminate it in one shot anyways. At least, Bartz (or whoever's wielding the Broadsword) could. The other two need to team up on one or a kill before a couple of level-ups. The only thing of note about these guys is that they have a stunning 10000 MP. Not that it matters much but... still. Stropers are even more boring. They're SLIGHTLY stronger than Steel bat, but all they do is Fight, which will still have an incredibly small effect on your characters right now. Same 20 HP, same defence. Just take them out. Like, kill them, not take them on a date or something. Devil Crabs are the only monsters here that can actually give you any more trouble than an ant on the floor. They're pretty weak offensively, and they only fight physically (occasionally using !Pincer for 50% more damage), but they have defence. Anybody without a weapon (Galuf by default, but I guess you could've stripped a weapon from someone else and gave it to him, or just have stripped someone's weapon and making them rot in your inventory) is going to do dual 0s on them, so have him attack something else or just defend. Other than that, they have even less HP (16), so Lenna and Bartz can still kill them as quickly as they can with others. There's not much strategy here, owing not so much to the enemies' simplicity as to the fact that you can do nothing more than Fight, over and over again. So just do that. The only thing you should keep in mind is to never send Galuf (or whoever you've made unarmed) against Devil Crabs. A few steps in, and Bartz already noticed something interesting! Wow. The spring is a recovery spring, so it will... well, recover your characters. This means you can probably train a bit around here, but I wouldn't recommend it even if you like powerlevelling, as you still have a fourth slot, and the unnamed-person-who-will-fill-in-that-slot probably would appreciate it if you don't leave him/her underlevelled. So yeah. Use the spring, train a bit (or not), then head up to the door. You will probably immediately see your first treasure chest of this game as soon as you enter the next room, but as you make your way to it, you will see... a pirate! Quickly hiding yourself, you notice that the Pirate flipped a switch to open a door. I wonder what could be beyond it? In any case, collect the chest (it contains a Leather Cap), equip it on whoever you feel like, flip the switch, and get in the door. The next room holds yet another startling discovery! This cave certainly doesn't lack interesting material, let me tell you. Anyways, Bartz will notice that, despite that the winds have just died, a ship was able to make it back to a dock. But how? Mysteries. You haven't got time to figure that out yet, anyways. Time to head on. Note that you can save by heading out that door (into the Overworld map), but that's not necessary. Just take the winding path to the left, and enter the door. Lo' and behold, it looks like you've entered a Pirate's hideout! Lenna proposed to "borrow" (emphasized for the lack of sarcasm rather than the presence of it) the ship from the pirates, while Galuf has a better plan - since asking pirates for stuff usually doesn't lead to anything productive (to the non-pirate party at least), we'll just have to steal the ship from them! Brilliant! Yeah. In any case, there isn't anything interesting you can do in the cave right now (the skull switch has no effect for now), so you might as well just head for the docks. Go to the north end where the wheel is, "talk" to it, and it's time to take off! Or not... as it looks like you lack the whatever key that makes the ship move, and before you can figure out what it is, the leader of the pirates, Faris (who gets his own spirte when talking! Oh my!) enters and reprimands you for trying to steal from PIRATES. Lenna reveals her status as princess of Tycoon (to the great surprise of Bartz and Galuf) as she asks for a ride (she certainly has a lot of logic in her mind...), and her pendant catches Faris's attention. Unfortunately, the attention seemingly doesn't have any effect on him, as he still orders to toss the lot of you into the brig. Damn. Well, more cutscene in the brig, then to Faris (who seem to have the same pendent as Lenna), then he decide to help you out anyways! He orders the pirates to set a course to the Wind Shrine (to their bewilderment), and reveals to you the secret of the ship's mobility without wind - it moves using no less than the power of a dragon! Rock! Anyways, once all the cutscene's done, you'll gain access to the ship, as well as having Faris joining you! Yay! Anyways, Head out of the dock, and a Pirate will offer to sail the ship to Wind Shrine. I would say no, though, since we still have something to do. So, you gain access to the ship now. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do in these waters. You can access the cave again (not recommended, I'll get to it later) by landing near the south end of the cave, as well as the Meteorite (though right now it's about useful as a club when you're trying to stab people). To the east is the Tule Canal, which serves no purpose to you right now other than some monsters since you can't get past the locked door. To the northeast is the Wind Shrine, and to the west is a town. We'll go the town first. Tule As soon as you enter the town, Faris and his pirate crew will ditch you. However, as soon as you try to leave, he will rejoin, so don't worry about that. Time to enjoy the first town in FFV! The first place you should go is the Greenhorn's Club. You can talk to the wizard-looking guy to get there, or just walk to the southwest part of the town. Tell the woman that you are a beginner, because if you don't... well, the ensueing scene is funny to watch but not productive in any way. Even if you played FFV before, you should go in for the treasure at least. On the first floor, the chest on the right holds 100 gil; the three containers hold (from left to right) a Potion, a Phoenix Down, and a Tent. Take the secret passage on the wall between the three containers and the wizard in the bottom to access the chest on the left for an Ether. Now, head upstairs. The sole chest there contains a monster-in-a-box (the game says that's it's a trap, but I felt that monster-in-a-box is much better). The monster? A solitary 1-HP goblin. Hooray. Take it out, and you'll get yourself a set of Leather Shoes. Equip it on anybody you see fit. Now, talk to everybody here for advices if you're a newbie. Whether you do that or not, talk to the woman to leave. Now, if you've played RPGs before, you probably know that in just about any town, you can loot hidden stuff from containers that may or may not be inside an NPC's house and/or be the life saving of said NPC. Tule is no different. So, let's loot the town! The box on the right side of the Inn holds 150 gil, and the top two boxes of the seven container cluster south of the river hold a potion and a tent. Head north past the bridge, and Lenna will comment on the owner of the solitary house north of the river (you can enter if you want, but the owner isn't there, so it's just useless cutscene). Anyways, go left around the house, and inspect the lump of grass for a Phoenix Down. After that, head right around the house, and inspect the lone box for another set of Leather Shoes. Anyways, now that you've done looting everything, it's time to shop! Weapon Shop: Broadsword 280 Rod 200 Staff 200 Buy two or three broadswords. Faris's Dagger will hold her out for a while, and you get a free Broadsword later, so you really only need to buy two. If you want to buy one more though, feel free. Rod and Staff are a waste of money, since Freelancers can equip anything anyway, and those suck more than just pure fists anyways other than back row compatibility. Oh and one more thing: Don't sell your dagger and knife, OK? Armour Shop: Leather Shield 90 Leather Cap 50 Leather Armor 80 Buy three Leather Shields and Leather Caps. If you remember, You just found a Leather Cap, and Faris comes with a Leather Shield, so you only need to buy three each. You can settle with two caps right now if you seriously want to (you'll find one later), but they only cost 50 each so I don't see too much of a point. Magic Shop: Fire 150 Blizzard 150 Thunder 150 Cure 180 Don't bother. You don't have a spellcaster yet, and those spells pretty much suck anyways. If you seriously want them for a purpose that include the word "complete", come back later when you have more gil. Note that any magic you buy is permanent - you buy them once, and they'll be with you forever (as far as that playthrough is concerned). Also, anybody with the appropriate skill will be able to use them (unlike FF3j, where you must buy a copy of each spell for every spellcaster who want to cast that spell). Item Shop: (Note that the Item Shop is in the Inn. In fact, most itemshops in FFV are in Inns.) Potion 40 Tent 250 You shouldn't be needing those stuff right now, but stock up on Potions if you have extra gil. Uh, yeah. You should be able afford all of those stuff if you at least fought every battle you've encountered so far, but if you don't... you can always fight stuff outside the town for more gil. In any case, let's head inside the pub and check on Faris, shall we? The first thing you'll notice in the pub is pirates. Lots and lots of them. The second thing you may notice is a piano, which is being blocked off by some dancers right now. You can get them out of your way by sitting on the chair just left of the stage, and turning to the right. After the dancers have uh... done their stuff, inspect the piano and Bartz (or whoever you've arranged to be the sprite on map - I just went with Bartz) will play a scale (rather poorly), followed by the message: "Piano skills leveled up!". Well, I guess going from nothing to almost nothing is a start. Oh well. Playing it again won't get your skill level up any further (he'll just play the scale poorly again), so unless you want to hear that again for some reason, leave it alone now. Go upstairs. As soon as you ascend, you'll notice Faris sleeping in the room on the right. Try to enter, and you'll get a rather funny (and prophetic) cutscene. I wonder how can the leader of pirates exert such a charm on these two men? Anyway, he'll lock the door as he begin contemplating something on the desks. Oh well. Leave the pub. And the town, since you're done here. Last thing of note: When Faris rejoins (as you leave town), make sure you equip him. Overworld again Yeah. This section is dedicated to the monsters you'll fight in the overworld. You probably won't meet them, but hey... you have a Bestiary, so might as well fill it up, right? Note that you probably don't want to get TOO levelled up. You'll see why. You've seen Goblins before. The ones you see on Overworld are slightly different, though. They're no longer 1-HP wimps, but rather 16-HP wimps. They will use Goblin Punch 1/3 of the time, which is slightly weaker than their physical attack but will do 8 times, defence-piercing damage if the target's level is the same as the attacker's level. Their level is 6, and your level should be nowhere near that much unless you've been overlevelling, so no worries. Besides, even if you are level 6, it will only do about 40 damage, which isn't too dangerous. One attack should take them out. You can find them near Tule. Killer Bees are equally silly. They have slightly more HP than Goblins, but not enough to be of worry (20...). They will also occasionally use !Needle to inflict 50% more damage. Still, one fight command should take them out. Again, find them easily near Tule. Stray Cats are almost completely identical to Killer Bees. Same 20 HP. Same offensive capabilities. !Tail does 50% more damage as well. Ho Hum. Take them out with one blow or something. Find them close to the wind shrine. Nut Eaters are possibly the most interesting one out of the bunch you'll meet near Wind Shrine and Tule. Same 20 HP, same offensive capabilities. However, !Incisor doesn't do 50% more damage - instead, it hits all the time and pierces defence, which actually makes it (slightly more) damaging than !Tail, !Needle, and stuff. They also come with auto-regen, meaning that every once in a while they will recover... ahem, 1 HP. You shouldn't see either of those, though, because you will be too busy taking them out in one shot. Find them close to the wind shrine. Bandersnatches are the most dangerous ones you can meet right now. They only appear on the land where the canal is close to, so you shouldn't be encountering them normally, but still. They have a stunning 120HP (meaning that you actually won't be killing it in one shot), can do around 50-60 damage in a physical attack (ouch!), and can actually make your physical attacks miss 10% of the time. They (and their palette swaps) are famous for the Blaster attack, which will either paralyze the target, or kill him/her/it. Luckily, this monster won't use it on you, so all you have to worry about are its physicals and !Body Slam (50% more damage). 1 Bandersnatch is possibly doable right now, so if you want the entry right now and no later, fight this formation. Run from 3 Bandersnatches if you want to embrace life a bit longer without a reload. If any of your people are killed by a Bandersnatch, don't waste a Phoenix Down. Just go to the Wind Shrine and use the healing pot there. So, yeah. There aren't much of a strategy here, again not owing as much to the simplicity of the monsters as your lack of any non-Fight abilities. Just use your newly gained sharp swords to take them all out, and run from 3 Bandersnatches. Seriously. Anyways, once you're done, head for the Wind Shrine. Wind Shrine My team's level: 4 Go to the room on the left and... cutscene. Looks like King Tycoon went up there and haven't returned, and now monsters are filling the shrine (typical... they usually fill up the space between you and anywhere you want to go). Anyways... the pot is a healing pot (much like a recovery spring), and if you talk to the scholar to the left of the pot, he'll give you 5 Potions, for free. When you're done here, head up the door on the right and enter 2F. You'll start meeting monsters here. Black Goblins are just like Goblins, except for stronger by a margin. They have the same 33% chance of using Goblin Punch, so watch out if your level is 7 - it will do 120 this time, which is nothing to scoff at. Other than that, though, 20 HP is still 1HKO fodder. They'll drop Leather Shoes 1/16 of the time, which is nice. White Serpents have slightly more HP than Black Goblins, but 25HP is still in the 1HKO fodder range. They will either Fight, use !Tail for 50% more damage, or use Entangle to paralyze someone. Paralysis is not fun. Kill them before any accompanying black goblins. Moldwynd are possibly the most dangerous enemies here. Their HP and attack are the same as Black Goblins, but they can use Aero every two rounds, which will hit a nice chunk of damage. Fortunately, they never use it on their first turn, so take them out ASAP. They, however, drop Elixirs 1/16 of the time, which makes them much hunted for challenges. Mani Wizards are odd, at first glance. They're given the sprite of a mage, and their very name foretells a magical nature, yet they do nothing but physicals for the first two turns, occasionly using !Magic Stick for more damage. On the third turn, however, its true nature will become clear, as he blast your entire party with either Fire, Blizzard, or Thunder. It won't sting that much (about 15-20 HP), but it's annoying regardless. Try to kill them before that happens. Same 20 HP, same treatment. You will only find them on the second last floor (right before the Crystal room). From your starting point, head left for a treasure chest containing a Tent. Now, head into the door and you'll see a glowing circle. Step on it, and you'll find out that it's a consecrated circle (which I shall refer as Save points from now on, since that's a lot less hassle to type and make a lot more sense), in which you can save your game and use a Tent/Cottage. Save if you want, but don't waste a Tent here (you got healed two minutes ago, remember?). Proceed. As soon as you head out, you will be faced with a fork in the road. Head right for a room with a chest containing a Leather Cap, then head left to proceed. On 3F, there's a hidden passage that'll reduce the length of travel - head right in the wall right below a door you'll see, and you'll pass through. Enter the door for a Broadsword, equip it if you want, then talk to the bird guarding the door. It'll push you back, and start a battle with you. Welcome to the first boss battle in FFV! Wing Raptor Level: 1 HP: 250 (both forms) MP: 25 Elemental Attributes: None Status Immunity: N/A Creature Type: Heavy Drops: Phoenix Down (always) Steal: Potion (Common) Wing Raptor will spend his first two turns attacking you with either Breath Wing (which deals damage equal to 25% of its targets' maximum HP) or just plain physical strikes, then close its wings. While his wing is closed he won't do anything, but will counter any physical attack with !Claw, which always hits and pierces defence (along with a message saying that "A fierce talon swipe will meet those who attack when its wings are closed!" when you do that the first time). He'll continue to hide for two turns before opening its wings to rear his ugly head again. Knowing that, the solution for him is simple. Attack him while his wings are open, and heal up when they're closed. You should be equipped in Broadswords, meaning that he should go down before he can even transform. But if he doesn't... then just wait until he comes out, OK? You'll be doing zero damage when his wings are closed, anyways. Once the Wing Raptor has been disposed of, you will be able to proceed to the 4F, where you can also find Mani Wizards. Anyways, collect the chest on the bottom right (secret passage is right to the left of it) for an useless Staff, then go upstairs. Enter the Crystal room and behold the mess! Crystal shards are everywhere, and the team is stunned in general. A cutscene then cuts in (as they do in general). Watch it (FFV's plot is rather cliche, but people generally herald it for its gameplay, not plot), and you'll gain your first jobs! Hoorah! But first, let's blow this joint. Step on the warp tile at the north to get the heck out of there. Watch the description of the job system if you want to. Now, you'll probably wonder what to turn your characters into. Well, a good idea is to have two physical characters and two magical characters, so they can each hone on a wide array of abilities. You can find a more detailed description and comment for each job on a later section. For now, though, here's a runthrough of each job's effectiveness in general: Knight: It's an OK physical job. Swords are highly damaging in general, so Knight will have no problem dishing out melee damage, and their high stamina as well as abillity to equip Heavy Armours enable them to do well even in Front Row. However, the abilities you gain from them aren't that hot, except for one. I would say, turn one of your characters into a Knight, but only until you learn the two-handed ability. After that, ditch the job. Monk: Monk is highly damaging in the beginning. One fist can do more damage than a sword, and Monks have two fists (as do most people). Counter is also a nice perk, even though it isn't of much help. Later on, though, their damage edge begin to diminish, and they begin to fall in usefulness. Turn one character into a Monk if you want, since Barefist will still be fairly brutal at early points if you're going for a low damage job for their abilities. Thief: Due to a bug, they're horrible at damage dealing, and have to stay in the front row to boot with not much defence. They have a couple of nice innates, though, so they're worth mastering in the end. But still... leave end-game stuff end-game, because right now you probably don't really need one. Blue Mage: Blue Magic is definitely one of my favourite abilities, and it's nice to have on all characters, not just your caster characters. A lot of the blue magics are very useful even on a character with low magic power and low MP. Definitely get a character into one. Or more than one, if you want. They can use swords (albeit their damage is fairly low), so you'll be able to get by without using MP for a while. White Mage: White mages are not great spellcasters. Out of the dedicated casters, they have the lowest magic power, and white magics by themselves aren't going to clear a path for you, which is bad as their weapons absolutely suck. White magic is awesome as a support ability, though, so you might wanna use them occasionally to at least get your !White level up to date. Black Mage: Well. A black mage casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down, which are definitely useful. However, they aren't THAT proficient at doing so. Their multi-target damage is lower than a certain caster class you'll get later, and their status spells can be inflicted more reliably in general by another class you'll get later. Still, the spells are pretty powerful especially when single-targetted, and they can nail more weaknesses than that "certain caster class", so you probably want to keep black magic around too. Not now, though. In the end, I would recommend a Knight-Knight-Blue Mage-Blue mage for maximum efficiency. However, if you're going to build up abilities later anyways or you simply can't live with non-versatility (like me), then you can switch a Knight with a Monk, and a Blue Mage with Black Mage. For now, though, change your characters into blue mage only, because we will be blue magic hunting right now, which is much easier with four people who can learn them rather than one. Hang around in the Wind Shrine for now. Remember Goblin Punch and Aero? They're blue magics, and we're here to learn them. So, keep them alive until they cast those spells. It may be annoying with Moldwynd as they only cast it every two rounds, but just bear it for now. The optimal Moldwynd hunting floor is floor 3, by the way. Done? Good. We'll head for the next section and gain one more blue magic in the process. Tule revisited Do anything you haven't done before, if you want to. If you're planning to use a White/Black mage, then make sure you buy the spells (Thunder takes priority over fire, which takes priority over blizzard). In any case, you probably want to head north to visit Zok right now. Watch the long cutscene, and you'll get the Canal Key. Now, head out of the town, and Faris will ditch his pirate crew. This also means that now Faris won't leave you when you enter Tule from now on, by the way (even though you really shouldn't have any reason to enter Tule again until much, much, much later.) There's also another cutscene when you get on the ship. Watch it (I wonder why Faris shows such faith in King Tycoon?), and sail back to the Pirate's Cave. You can't use the dock, so just sail to the desert south of it (where you can land on the east side), and enter from the cave. Pirate's Cave revisited My team's level - 5 As soon as you walk to the entrance, you will notice that... Boko is gone! Bartz will notice more than that, though. It looks like Boko followed you in! Well, that means we gotta find him. Let's head in. The last blue magic we'll learn for this section is in here, and that is Steel Bat's Vampire. Learn it, get your characters in your favourite jobs, and continue on. There's nothing interesting on your way to the hideout. Once you enter it, enter the door on the north, and you'll see Boko, who apparently has hurt itself in the cave. Poor Boko... Well, there's nothing you can do about him right now. However, there *are* treasures in the cave which you can obtain. Remember the skull switch? Flick it, and go to the door on the left for three chests containing Tent, Ether, and 300 Gil. Also, one of the wandering pirates in the lounge will give you 8 potions for free. Score! Now, let's head out of the cave. It's time to go to the canal! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3 The journey to Walse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Torna Canal My team's level - 5 Head up the door, and open it with the key (inspect the door to do that). Now you can sail through the canal - but remember, Zok mentioned that the canal is now infested with beasts which multiply like rabbits, so your journey isn't going to be a safe one... at least, not a *perfectly* safe one. Especially for Lenna and Faris. You'll see why. Suckers are your basic squid. They seem to have an inherent violence towards Lenna and Faris, as they will always target either one of them, and do nothing when neither of them are alive. Fortunately for Lenna and Faris, they will only use their physicals and !Ten Arms, neither of which are remotely threatening. They also die rather quickly, as they only have 50 HP. Octokrakens... looks very, very, very weird. Sprite craziness aside, they share the same weird hatred towards the seemingly unrelated two persons. What makes them different from Suckers is that, every second turn they have a 33% chance of using Electrocute. It will do around 70-80 damage, which is annoying. Take it out ASAP. Their physicals and !Eight Arms (50% more damage) aren't anything to worry about, though, and 60 HP isn't a lot better than 50. So yeah. Lenna and Faris are the people to protect at this point, as they're being targetted with an unreasonable passion. Fortunately, the monsters here are rather weak, so as long as you take out Octokrakens ASAP, you shouldn't suffer too much injuries here. We press on! The canal is, more or less, a straight line, so just sail through the damn thing. However, the canal aren't just being guarded by hateful water creatures - it's also guarded by a boss. As you sail through, it'll come out of a whirlpool and... well, attack you. Name: Karlabos Level: 5 HP/MP: 650/100 Elemental Attributes: Weak to Bolt Status Vulneribility: Nothing you can exploit, sonny. Creature Type: Heavy Drops: Tent (Always) Steal: Potion (Common) Karlabos has exactly three attacks - a physical attack, !Feeler which is basically fight+paralyze, and Tail Screw. The former two aren't too dangerous (though !Feeler can be annoying, and it's the scourge of single character challenges and their derivatives), but you don't want to see the last one - it will lower the target's HP to a random single-digit number, which is highly undesirable. One last thing: Karlabos isn't too picky about his targets - he'll attack all of you without remorse. Yeah. His physicals will do maybe about 30 damage at most, so normally it wouldn't be much of a concern. However, if someone who's not a Blue Mage get Tail Screwed, you'd want to throw a Potion or a Cure spell on him/her ASAP (a Blue Mage can simply use Vampire to drain all of his/her lost HP back). So basically, your strategy is - attack (using whatever's most effective - Black mage should use Bolt while Blue Mage should use Aero), heal when tail screw comes aronud unless it hits a Blue Mage (who should immediately use Vampire) and... that's about it. Bolt on a decent level will do more than 150 damage, which, when combined with a couple of physical attacks and/or post-tail screw Vampires, will kill him very quickly. Unfortunately for you, the great victory came with a great loss, a loss that takes the form of a dragon that just happens to be the only reason why your ship is still sailing according to your will. Yeah, Syldra is gone, and now your ship is just drifting on the water. Yay. Optimistic views aside, watch the ensueing cutscene, and your team will end up in... of all the places, the Ship Graveyard, a nesting place for the undead. That's just dandy. I guess we'll have to kick-ass our way through this stupid place. Ship Graveyard My team's level: 6 Yeah. The theme of this place is Undead. Everything you'll meet here is an undead (at least in some point). Anyways, the first thing to know is that you can rest on the bedroom of the ship, if you want. You can't save, though. Got it? Good. Let's say hello to the local inhabitants who will greet you in the form of random encounters. Skeletons are your basic cannon fodder of the place, lacking any interesting features whatsoever, offensive-wise or defensive -wise, and show up in large numbers. With 70 HP, you'll be able to take them out very easily. So do that. Calcruthls are also not very interesting at all. They have slightly higher HP, slightly higher attack, but they don't even do a !Critical Attack or anything. They just fight, over and over again. Two things of note about them, though - they take on a water elemental's elemental feature rather than an undead's elemental feature (null fire, absorb water, weak to thunder), and they also drop Elixirs 1/16 of the time, but you probably don't want to farm them for it since Moldwynds are easier in both accessibility and beatability. Undead Husk is the first rock type creature you will see. In FFV, every rock type creature will respond to a Gold Needle with Vanish, which kills itself, making it a rather handy way of dispatching rock creatures. You don't have any gold needles with you, however, so you're just going to have to kill them with violence. They have 130 HP which is fairly high, but their battle script is boring (66% fight, 33% !Critical Attack). They will also drop Elixirs 1/16 of the time. Also, they take on the usual elemental attributes of a rock creature rather than undead - they absorb Earth, while being weak to water and lightning. Mindflushers are the most annoying enemies here. 90 HP isn't that assuming, but their special, !Tongue, sets HP Leak, which is very, very annoying. Take them out first, when you see one. They don't have any elemental attributes. The strategy here is still fairly simple. Kill mindflushers ASAP, then just waltz through the rest of the enemies. Aside from the fact that your blue mage can't Vampire his way through, there's nothing that needs to be adjusted in your usual monster-slaying routines. Anyways. Starting from your ship, head east, and head down on the first plank onto a rock. The rock isn't a dead end, as much as you may think it is. Hold down the "down' on the D-pad, and be amazed as jumping rocks magically appear before you. Make use of them to reach a chest containing a Flail, a horrible weapon that is made for a White Mage (though if you have one, give it to him/her - it's superior to the Staff or fists). Now, head back, and continue to head east. Eventually you'll see a broken ship with a door. enter the ship, and head downstairs. Head through the opening in the middle (where you can see some light) for a chest with Tent inside, then head down the door on the right, and into the water (despite Faris's protests). Head downstairs from there. The new area is entirely underwater. Check the skull-decorated chest for 990 gil, then go up to where two doors are. Head through the one on the top first. Collect the chest (containing a Phoenix Down) by walking down then below the upper deck, then go out and go through the door on the bottom. Go down the stairs there, then around the middle block in the new room, collect the Potion and proceed upstairs, then through the door on the bottom (watch out for the pitfall on the left side!). Finally, a dry room for some rest! Watch the cutscene and be amazed to discover that Faris is, in fact, a woman! (I guess that will make sense of the attack pattern of those monsters you've met in the Canal - they simply have a hatred towards women) Anyways, watch the scene, and then proceed. Save if you want, but don't bother with a tent (You just got healed, remember?), then continue to head up until you're outside again. Follow the path until you hit a jumping stone that seem to lead to nowhere. In reality, it DOES lead to nowhere (other than a dead end), but you don't proceed by it. Instead, if you've played Super Mario Bros before, you should know that you can run past the small gaps on the plank. So do so. (In fact, you don't have to run across the gaps. You can even stand on a gap if you'd like.) Head in the door you will promptly see. The new room SEEMS like it's devoid of anything... but if you look carefully, there's a sheet of paper on the NW corner. Inspect it for a WORLD MAP! Make sure you pick it up. Head downstairs for two antidotes (will come in handy a bit later) and a Phoenix Down. Now, leave. Back on the surface, head right via the stones, and open the chest, which will (instead of giving you an item) raise the entire ship! (Why would a chest do that is beyond me, though.) Head north, for a scene (slightly prophetic on two accounts), and a boss battle with Siren. Name: Siren Level: 2 HP/MP: 900/200 (both forms) Elemental Attributes: None (living form), Weak to Fire, Absorb Poison (Undead) Status vulneribility: Nothing you can exploit, sonny. Creature Type: Human, Heavy, Undead (undead form) Drop: Bronze Armour (Always, 1st form), Bronze Shield (Always, 2nd form) Steal: Nothing Siren starts in her living form in the beginning, where magic is generally rather ineffective compared to physical assaults. She spends three turns flinging spells at your direction: Mute, Slow, or Haste in 1st round; Cure, Ice or Scan in 2nd round; Protect, Sleep, or Bolt in 3rd round. After doing all that, she'll change to her undead form. Her undead form is rather boring, as she just either use a plain physical or !Venomous Clasp, which sets poison (and has the potential to be annoying). She'll do this for three rounds, then swap back to her living form again. The strategy here is simple. Start with all of your guys on the front row unless they have some sort of back row physical attacks (Goblin Punch and the Flail), and attack physically. With the exception of Haste, none of her spells are that annoying, so have a field day attacking physically. When she cast her last spell (count 'em!), get everyone (except for Monk, maybe) to the back row, since her physicals will do a lot of damage. After the switch-a-roo, Monks can still physically atatck if they want, while others should either stick with Magic (Fire is super-effective for you black mage evilwizard/witchingtons), or throw potions at her (or defend). She'll go down fairly easily. You'll win a bronze equipment for your troubles. Well, the exit is in sight, so what are you waiting for? Unless you've missed a bestiary entry or something (I believe Undead Husks and Mindflushers only appear in the room region), leave. Seriously. Overworld again My team's level - 8 So, we have finally escaped the dreaded Ship Graveyard. Unfortunately, your ship is now nothing more than a memory of the better things in the past, and you still have to get to the next crystal. Well, we'll see what we have around here. Bring up the World Map (by pressing R). See that shining dot below you? That's a town. Go there. Obviously, you'll need to kill everything you see on the way. Let's take a look at the soon-to-be-history creatures that we may run into. Gatlings looks like hedgehogs. They act like hedgehogs too. Normally they will just use fight, but if you use Fight on it without killing it, it has a 66% chance of countering with !Needle, which is a tad stronger. That also makes it the first monster you see with the ability to counter. Boring otherwise, though. 80 HP. Bighorns... has an inherent fear to anything fire. When hit with anything fire- elemental and non-fatal, they'll flee. Still fight/!horn fodder otherwise, though, so you might wanna let them die rather than run away (hey, free exp, right?). Tatous are the bane of your casters. They have twice the magic defence as anything you've met so far, so if you cast a MT fire/thunder/aero, you're probably going to score a big fat zero against them. They can also evade attacks 10% of the time, which is odd as they look about as evasive as an elephant. Otherwise, though, they're easy enough to take down physically. Offensively, they're still your average fight/150% power special joe. Garula is an odd creature that you can only find on the plains right around the town. It has a whooping 500 HP, but doesn't really do anything, provoked or not. Nay, it will simply stand there for three turns, then escape on the fourth if it hasn't bitten the dust yet. They're weak to every element you can inflict, so your spellcasters will be able to make short work of it. You still don't need any fancy tricks to take these beasties out with violence. Just stick with your strongest attacks til they're all dead. So... yeah. Head for the town. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.4 Spreading Grand Wings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carwen What a cheerful music! The usual "town visit" routine apply. Loot the place, gather information, and shop. Let's loot the place first. Head for the pub. Take the secret passage on the bottom left into a narrow room. One of the pots there has 1000 gil in it. You can also use the other passage in that room to talk to the pub owner for a rather interesting monologue. Also, play the piano there, and watch as Bartz learn to play the scale perfectly! On the right hand, at least. You probably figured out the trick by now - you need to play different pianos to level up the piano skill. We'll keep a sharp lookout for more of these beauties later. Now, leave the pub. Head down the stairs outside, and head left for a row of five barrels. The second one on the left has an antidote in it. Head back to where the staircase was, and head down between the two columns of boxes. You'll eventually make your way to a couple of boxes under a bridge, and the bottom one has a Frost Rod in it. The Frost Rod is basically like an upgraded Rod, except for it's really upgraded. It has twice as much power, but it also does one thing - it boosts the damage of any ice-elemental magic attack coming from that person. Every blizzard spell coming from the wielder is 50% more effective. It can do upwards to 200 damage if it hits a weakness, but all rods come with the inherent problem - its damage is randomly chosen between 0 and its maximum damage, so you'll see 0s occasionally when you use a Rod. Still, for now, it's an awesome weapon for a Black Mage, so keep it on him/her. You can also break the rod by equipping it then using it. Breaking this rod will give you a single cast of Blizzaga, which will do ridiculous damage to those who're weak to ice (but the rod will, well, break, and you'll have to get a new weapon). Since they (along with their fire and thunder counterparts) will become buyable sometime soon, many brainless people who knows nothing except for breaking rods and what's weak to what have been breaking them by the dozens versus every single boss they come across. In this walkthough, however, I discourage the breaking of rods (since relying on them has a nasty tendency of driving you very, very poor), and you won't see any mention of this tactic outside of this paragraph. Still, if you've tried EVERYTHING against a boss except for this tactic and just can't seem to work it out, keep this knowledge in the back of your mind. But enough talk about a single item. There's still one treasure here, but a guy is blocking your way, so we'll have to come back later. MUCH later. Now, let's shop! Weapon Shop Dagger 300 Long Sword 480 Rod 200 Staff 200 Long Sword is the upgrade of Broadsword, so buy one for everyone who can use it. If you need any extra Daggers, buy them too. Rod and Staff just suck. End of story. Armour Shop Bronze Shield 290 Bronze Helm 250 Bronze Armor 400 Copper Cuirass 350 Cotton Robe 300 Buy a Cotton Robe for every white mage/black mage you have, a Copper Cuirass for every Blue Mage/Monk/Thief you have, a full set of Bronze stuff for every Knight you have, and a Bronze Shield for every Blue Mage you have. That's about it. Keep in mind of the free bronze equipment you received from Siren. Item Shop Potion 40 Antidote 30 Eye Drops 20 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Gold Needle 150 Phoenix Down 1000 Tent 250 It's always a good idea to have at least 20 potions and at least 10 of each status restoratives, just in case. For the next dungeon it's also a good idea to have at least 20 Antidotes. Don't bother with Phoenix Downs and Tents though, the former is crazily expensive (and you shouldn't be dying a lot anyways) and the latter is not used often enough (so your existing stock is more than enough). Magic Shop Fire 150 Blizzard 150 Thunder 150 Sleep 300 Cure 180 Poisona 90 Silence 280 Protect 280 Of these, Silence is the only one mandatory. Still, buy as many as you can, since empty holes in your magic list are horrible, at least aesthesically speaking. When you're done all the stuff, talk to as many villagers as you see fit. To save you time, here's a summary of your situation: 1) You're without a ship right now, and with the dying of the wind, getting another ship is not a possibility as you can't get another Syldra. 2) You need to go to Walse, because that's where the water crystal is located in. But you can't walk there since you can't waterwalk, or pass over mountains. 3) There's the rumour of a Wind Drake on the North Mountain. I think we should check out the Wind Drake, if only so we don't get stranded in this part of the land. What do you say? Let's head there, then. Overworld Nothing much to do here. Just head northeast for the North Mountain. Use the map if you need directions. North Mountain My team's level - 9 Well, here we are. Another dungeon awaits you to traverse before the ultimate prize, which is (probably) a wind drake that can get you off this miserable place. March on, I say! Since a new dungeon means new enemies, let's take a look at the local inhabitants. Rock slug looks really, really boring. But, the truth is that they really, really are. They do nothing except for Fight, and they don't have a lot of HP. They lack any interesting features whatsoever, so just take them out and get on with it. Gaelicats are ever so slightly interesting, in that they can use !Catscratch 33% of the time for 50% more damage. Though, they still have low HP, and still don't do enough damage to impress anybody. They'll become important later on, though. They have 15% evade, by the way. Cockatrice is not something you want to keep alive for very long, especially if you're familiar with their nature in games like D&D and NetHack. They are not as dangerous in here as they are in NetHack (where so much as a physical contact to even their corpse will petrify your character instanteously), but still. They're usually content in just using physicals, but every once in a while they'll throw in a Beak attack, which petrifies. Petrify is basically the same thing as dead, except for you still have HP. Fortunately, their survivability isn't very strong (though they do have a 30% evade). Headstones are only interesting for one thing - they can teach the fourth blue magic you'll come across. They have a 33% chance of using Flash every turn, which is a blue magic. Unfortunately for them (and you), they start with 0 MP, meaning that they can never actually pull it off. This also means that you won't be able to learn it off them normally, but one thing to know in FFV is that monster's MP doesn't have a cap. In other words, just use an Ether on one, and whoever received that blessing will be able to use Flash for a while. It's probably worth it, given that Flash will become useful a bit later. Learn it here. (Remember to use eyedrops to cure your character afterwards, by the way.) Other than flash, though, they have only 50 HP, so even their higher-than- normal defence isn't going to save them from a gruesome death. Their attack is quite strong, though. You can steal a set of glasses from them most of the time, and since Flash will make an apparence regularly on the other side in a future dungeon, feel free to nab three. (You'll get one more later) Now that's over and done with, head inside the cave entrance. In the first forkroad, head down for a chest with Phoenix Down. The second down fork will lead to a Gold Needle. The next two areas are just straight lines with no interesting features, so just waltz through. Behold, the purple flowers of doom! Stepping on them will cause everyone to lose 4 HP and become poisoned, so try to avoid them. If you stepped on one by accident, make sure to use antidote/poisona ASAP. That's about it. Pick your path carefully, and head for the next cave, which is your basic "small room with save point" room. Save and heal up if you want, then proceed. Try to have a White Mage or someone with at least level 2 !White for the next section, by the way. You step out in the sunshine for no more than maybe ten steps, befoer Lenna notices something on the ground - King Tycoon's helmet! (Which is actually a Mythril Helm, heh) But just as she picks it up, she gets arrow'd by some female treasure hunter or something named Magissa. As if on cue, the ground collapses as Bartz and co tries to rescue her. Faris wouldn't let a gap stop her, though, and flings her way over to save her after an insult that would've made a dictionary proud if a dictionary could be proud. Watch the scene, be awed at Faris's strong will and body, then get ready to beat the crap out of this arrogant woman! Name: Magissa/Forza Level: 8 (both) HP/MP: 650/200 (Magissa), 850/100 (Forza) Elemental Attributes: None Status vulneribility: Silence (Magissa), Darkness (Both) Creature Type: Human (Magissa), Human, Heavy (Forza) Drop: Whip (Always, Magissa), Power Drink (Always, Forza) Steal: Nothing You start the battle with Magissa only. Like Siren's living form, she spends her turns attacking with almost exclusively spells - a level 1 spell in 1st turn, then either Aero, Drain, or !Critical Attack (which is nothing more than a physical attack) on 2nd turn, go back to level 1 spell again, rinse, lather, repeat. If her HP is depleted to be less than 300 and she gets a turn, she'll call Forza in to "take out the trash", then cast Regen on him (which heals for like... 4 HP per interval... yay?), before continuing to throw spells at you again. Forza, when summoned, will simply continously pound on you with either phycial or !Critical Attack, which does 1.5x damage, doing nothing else. Ho-hum. Anyways, Lenna starts the fight poisoned, so fix that when you see fit. Now, the next chance you got, cast Silence on her. This will only work for about two turns, but it'll take out 67% of her arsenal while it's in effect. Just beat her up (but don't beat her up too much if you want Forza's bestiary entry). When Forza joins the fray, cast Flash to neutralize him. Finish off Magissa with whatever, then Forza with whatever. A very easy boss battle, and you get a Whip for your troubles (which no job other than Freelancer can equip yet), and a Power Drink if Forza was involved. Now, equip the Mythril Helm if anybody can, then continue through the door. Go up to the wind drake and watch the scene (how can a wind drake cure a person is beyond me, but meh), and you'll have an airborne mode of transportation! Yeah! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.5 The Stagnating Water ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld (on Hiryu) Well, as you will soon discover, the Wind Drake cannot fly over mountains, and since you seem to be in an area enclosed by a ring of mountain, you really can't get to a lot of places, so the Wind Drake isn't all THAT hot. Still, you can now access Walse, as well as Tycoon Castle. I'd recommend the castle first, since you can get some nifty items there. Tycoon Castle Lots of items await you here! First thing first, before you even enter the castle, go to the north-east corner of the courtyard (which should be straight north of a solitary tree). Now, head down until you hit the tree, then head right to a tower with two Cottages in two chests. Collect them, then go in the castle. Your party will rest a night here, but the night is not uneventful... watch the scenes. When the morning comes... it's treasure hunting time! Head downstairs from the guest room and collect a Hi-potion from the pot on the right. Head downstairs again to the castle hall, then go through the door on the right. In the first room you come across, hit the pots on the right side for a cottage and an ether, then a Phoenix Down and an Elixir in the two pots on the left side. Now, head in the Throne room, and head through the door on the right. Go up until you see a room with some pots. There's an Ether, an Elixir, a Maiden's kiss and a Phoenix Down to be found in four of the pots. Now, head downstairs and out of the castle, into the Courtyard. Head left, go through under a bridge, and go in the storehouse. Hit the switch and go through the passage. The chests there contain a Shuriken, a Diamond Bell, and an Ashura. Also, the Chancellor will give you a Healing Staff when you talk to him. The Healing Staff is an odd weapon indeed. Instead of hurting its target, it will cast Cura instead. This is an excellent weapon for any class who can wield staves, because more often than not they're magicians who needs something to do that doesn't use up MP for random encounters. It can also be used to damage an undead. Keep in mind, though, that it can be reflected (just as Cura can). You've looted the castle all you can, so it's time to leave for Walse. Overworld Not much to do. Just head for Walse. There are no new overworld monsters either. Ho hum. Go to the town first. Walse Ahh, Walse. The town made prosper at the expense of the crystal. Well, let's see what this town can offer to us. Unfortunately, there aren't so much loot in the town - in fact, there's only one (albeit a fairly important one). Head left from the entrance and descend into the water, then go to the house on the left. The bottom pot on the right side contain a Silver Spec, a cool assessory that prevents Darkness and gives some defense. Give it to someone. Now, It's time to check out local shoppes! Weapon Shop Battle Axe 650 Long Sword 480 Dagger 300 No job outside Freelancer can use Battle Axe yet, and even though you will soon get a job that can use it. both the job and axes in general suck. Leave. Armour Shop Iron Shield 390 Iron Helm 350 Iron Armor 500 Kenpo Ji 450 Cotton Robe 300 Yay for simple defense power upgrades. Mythril Helm is better than Iron Helm, but buy the rest of the iron set for your Knight. Kenpo Ji are suitable upgrades for Thieves, Blue Mages and Monks. If you're short on money, sell the Ashura, since you won't be getting a job that can use that for quite a while. Item Shop (in Inn) Potion 40 Antidote 30 Eye Drops 20 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Gold Needle 150 Phoenix Down 1000 Tent 250 If you think your stock of anything is lacking, fill it up. Use your own judgement here. Magic Shop Slow 80 Regen 100 Mute 320 Haste 320 Chocobo 300 Sylph 350 Remora 250 These magic are neither white nor black. You won't be able to use them (yet) even if you buy them now. So leave it alone for now. You COULD buy them if you want, but don't do that unless you're sure you won't be buying anything else in the town. That's about it for the town's shops. Talk to people if you want. When you're done, leave for the Castle. Castle of Walse Just head straight up, for now. King Walse will talk to you; a meteorite will fall, the king and his army will go investiage, and you're free to explore the castle. Start by going through the door on the main hall. Keep going up until you hit a storage room. Three containers there contain a Phoenix Down, a Tent, and 490 gil. Now, head downstairs from the main hall. The immediate downstairs lead to a jail. You have the option of whether or not freeing the two prisoners on the left - DO NOT let Lone Wolf out, since he'll take some of the treasure you'll come across for himself, and effectively screwing you out of well-earned phat loots. You can let the guy on the left out, though - it'll trigger a funny scene. There aren't any loot down here or anything, though, so head up again. At this point, you have the option of going to the basement of Walse right now. There are a couple of stuff you can take there, but you will have to fight Jackanapes on the way. Jackanapes are very dangerous, very hard-hitting, and very hard-hit-resilant. I tend to come back a bit later when I'm more prepared, but since one of the stuff on the basement is so awesome, You can just go anyways. If you do, make sure that you have some spare Phoenix Downs - around 10 or so will do. Know that Jackanapes ALWAYS catch you in a back attack unless you have Caution, so either just put all of your guys in the front row, or make a character a thief. The latter is recommended since you won't be doing any fighting anyways. See that door on the upper right in B1F? Dive in. Save beforehand, as well. The basement is pretty much a straight line, so just go in. When Jackanapes attack, just run (or better, use Thief's !Flee if you have it), and all in all, pray that he doesn't attack in general. At this point, pretty much any job but Knight and Monk will die in one hit, so PRAY that you run away fast enough. Anyways, head on until you see two doors. The door on the right leads to three pots that give 1000 gil, a magic called "Speed" which nobody can use, and another 1000 gil. The left door leads to a chest containing a Elf Mantle, a very very cool assessory that evades physical attack 33% of the time, as well as adding some fringe benefits to your stats. ROCK! Immediately equip it on someone so they can resist Jackanapes better. Now, get the heck out of here. Note: You can learn Moon Flute from Jackanapes, but that will require you to 1) do HP damage to him and 2) win the battle. 1) is hard enough to do right now since his defence is so high (in fact, the only way I can think of that would damage him is Vampire if you're not at full health), and 2) is plain undoable especially with a party that can only attack. There are better ways to learn this blue magic. Or, if Jankanapes keep on killing you, you can take a few steps, Quicksave, continue, take a few steps again, quicksave, continue, rinse, lather, repeat. This will circumvent any encounters, but only in American versions. It's a bug, so I'm not supporting the use of this. Finally, there's a sidequest you can do in the castle right now. It will be difficult as of now, though. The segment on her is just a bit later. There's also a blue magic to be learned here, and since that's useful against the next boss, I'll talk about it now. In B1F, head down the door on the bottom right. Follow the path until you see a waterfall. Run into it and you'll enter a tower of some sort. You'll randomly encounter Elf Toads here, who has a 33% chance of using Pond's Chorus when alone. Learn it, then get out of there unless you want to deal with the boss there. It is possible to beat her, but it's pretty hard and you gain nothing of value from it right now. Leave the Castle of Walse when you're done or if you decide to leave her til later, and head for the Tower of Walse, which is somewhat northwest of the castle. Tower of Walse My team's level - 10 As soon as you walk in, you'll notice two guards who seem to have learned a good lesson on the art of receiving a whoop-ass. Talk to them, and you'll learn that the said whoop-ass has been delivered by Garula, the passive creature you've defeated many time before on the plains of Carwen. I guess he decided that it's only fair if he gives the gift you've bestowed on him so many times to someone else. In any case, violence is bad, so it must be stopped with more violence. Or something. Let's head in. Perdictably, the tower is full of monsters. Ricard Mages are, like its name depict, almost pure spellcasters. They can cast Sleep, Slow, Stop, Cure and Drain. Most of them are low-level magic that doens't really do damage, but Drain can put around 180 damage worth of hurt on you. Fortunately, they'll only cast it on even-number turns. Try to destory them before they can do that. 100 HP is easy to dispose of. Wyverns in FFV has one thing in common with their counterpart in FFVI - they're not floating. Not that you can take advantage of that right now, but still... They have wings. Their sprite looks like they're flying. Their shadow is like, three meter below their body. Yet, they're not floating. Brilliant job there, Square. On the offense, they can use Breath Wing when they're alone which is annoying as always, so try not to leave them alone if you can. 200 HP. Pas De Seul has an odd name, but the odd name doesn't cover its inherent boring nature. It's fairly long lasting for a random encounter, with 280 HP. However, all they do is attack and very rarely use !Fin to poison you. Their physicals do hurt, though, so watch out for that. Walse Tower is fairly simplistic in its structure. More often than not, the path is so blanatly obvious that you have to blind and/or stupid to have problem finding the right path. However, do note that the vines are climbable, which lead to treasures as these hidden pathes often do. The first one you'll come across is at 4F, which leads to a chest containing a Silk Robe, a very simple upgrade to the Cotton Robe your mage(s) have been wearing for a while now. The easily reachable chest on 5F contains a Maiden's Kiss. on 8F, the middle vine leads to NOTHING; the left vine leads to a chest with a Silver Armlet (a defensive assessory for light armor and robe users); the right vine leads to a chest with an Ether and the crystal room. Geez... that was easy. You probably didn't read half of what I said :/ In the Crystal room, You'll see Garula in its full fury, utterly destorying the mystery knight that was trying to stop him. It then turns and, filled with the rage and fury it stored from the times you've whooped its ass back in Carwen (unless, of course, you didn't meet him back in Carwen... then maybe it just doesn't like you), attacks you. Oh my. Garula Level: 3 HP/MP: 1200/100 Elemental Attributes: None Status vulneribility: Toad, Mute, Darkness Creature Type: Beast Drop: HiPotion (Always) Steal: Potion (Common), HiPotion (Rare) Normally, Garula will simply use Fight. Over and over again. However, once its HP is depleted below 800, it will start countering your attacks with a guaranteed battle, followed with a 33% chance at !Rush, which sets the very very annoying HP-leak. Its physicals are not THAT strong, but they can hurt for monks or thieves who have to stay in front row and aren't as covered in shining armour as Knights are. Finally, if you cast Toad on him, he will cast Toad on himself next turn immediately. You should open the battle with Flash to stop the majority of his assaults. Next, if you feel like it, use Pond's Chorus to turn him to a Toad and keep him silenced so he can't turn himself back. As with all bosses who are mean because of their counters, you shouldn't attack him if you're trying to heal (though you can do whatever you want as long as you're not causing HP damage). Keep in mind, however, that a 0 damage !Rush can still cause HP Leak. Garula isn't all that threatening if you know what to do. After you beat up the oversized beast, the mystery knight will get up and try to leave the tower, but collapses convinently at the entrance so you can't leave. Oh well. More crystal shards = more jobs (and I swear... when the shards sparkle, they look like crystalline sandwiches), so let's collect them to recompensate our loss. There's one shard you can't reach as of now, and when you collect the rest of them, the tower sinks. Damn. At least you're saved, even though you just suffered yet another loss. Man. This just isn't our day. You're back on the overworld now. Overworld At least the wind drake has magically (or instinctively) transported itself to safer grounds, so you can still fly around on him. Let's head back to Walse. But first of all, let us take a brief look at the jobs we just got. Mystic Knight is a very powerful job. !Spellblade is very, very overpowered. Elemental spellblade, when hitting weakness, will ignore defence and do a lot of extra damage, and status spellblades will simply inflict that status ALL the time. Since in this game, physicals can be made unblockable whereas magic cannot, Mystic Knights are often very, very powerful. If your Knight already learned two-handed, I suggest switching him/her into a Mystic Knight, and give him/her the Two-handed ability on the second slot. You will be satisfied with this job's performance. Trust me. Summoner is sorta like Black Mage, in that summons hurt things like black magics do. The difference is that Summons are almost always area hitting, so they have higher damage against Multiple targets. Black Magic has higher performance against single enemies, however. Also, high end summons are rather expensive. They also has a couple of utility summons that are very, very useful against bosses, but you don't have any of them right now. Time Mages use Time Magic. Time Magic lacks versaility on the damage department, but their support abilities can be very, very useful against bosses. It's always a good idea to keep Time Magic around. Red Mage can use low level white and black magic. For the first one third part of the game (which you're in right now), that's every white and black magic you can get except for one, so Red Mages rock there. However, they cannot substitute the more powerful magic you'll obtain later on, so later people usually only use Red Mage for learning its ultimate ability - Dualcast. Still, for most of world 1 Red mage will outshine both White and Black mages, and the AP you've earned in these periods will help when you go for X-magic. Don't be too excited about their sword fighting abilities though - their damage sucks, their durability more so, and unlike Blue Mages, they can't make their damage back-row compatible (Blue Mages can use Goblin Punch). Equip the Healing Staff instead, or an elemental rod if you need to power up a spell. Berserker is permanently berserked. That means they're inherently immune to Confuse, and that they do more damage with their strike. They're fairly useless, but not because of berserk - they suck because their weapons suck. Axes simply don't do a lot of damage with its weird damage formula, except for against high defense enemies, which are few and far in between. You can give them two-handed, or give Berserk to something with a better weapon for more damage, but that's counterproductive in the long run as ultimately you will gain abilities that hits harder than Berserk status. So, unless you plan to build up, I wouldn't recommend a Berserker. If you REALLY want to use one, switch a person with two-handed to this class so they can actually do some good damage. In the end, I switched my Knight to a Mystic Knight (with Two-handed), my White Mage to a Red Mage, and my Blue Mage (who already have !Blue earned) to a Summoner, but in the end it's still up to you. Let's head back to Walse. Town of Walse Not much to do here. Buy the time and summon magic from the magic shop if you haven't yet, and heal up or something. Head for the castle now. Castle of Walse Talk to people. You'll know that a Karnak soldier seem to have warped to here with a meteorite. Also, you need to go to Karnak to stop them from amplifying the fire crystal. I guess we should investigate the meteorite, then. This will be the last time you need to ride the Wind Drake, by the way. Walse Meteorite Go inside. The path is very, very simple. Just get to the warp point and warp. Dammit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.6 The dying flames ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Karnak Meteorite Leave the meteorite. Need I really say this? :/ Overworld - Karnak Region So, we've reached a new continent, and logically a new continent contains new monsters. As always, let's take a look at them. Wild Nakks will show up en masse when you wade through the forests. They have only 95HP, so they drop rather quickly. However, they will rarely use the "???" attack on you. You won't see the name "???" when they execute that attack, but will only see the Wild Nakk flash, a brief pause, then a larger series of punch. ??? deals damage equal to caster's maxHP-current HP, so with a max damage potential of 94, it is not too dangerous. However, it is a blue magic, so you may want to learn it here. For imminent death on these rabid canines, fire works well as it hits weakness. Each fight with these beasties also yield 625 gil, so if you're short on that green... uh, gold filthy stuff, these things are a good source for it. Grass Tortoise has every feature you would expect to find on a turtle. They're rather durable, with 250 HP and 11 defence, and they're weak to Ice. On the offense, however, they're entirely uninteresting fight/!Critical Attack fodders, so take them out in any way you see fit. They will always drop Turtle Shells, which is the first chemical reagant you're likely to see. You'll see what they can be used for later. Aegirs are very annoying. Like Grass Turtles, they're your basic fight/!Feeler fodder, but !Feeler adds Aging, a status you probably haven't seen before. Basically, it decreases ALL of your stat to 1. I trust you would realize that it will cut down your damage so much, it's not funny. You don't have any means to remove or circumvent the status yet, except for killing these damn things before they can start decrepifying your characters. So do that. Zu is a very, very big bird, with a very, very large amount of HP to go with it. 850 HP means that you won't be taking them down in a hurry, and their attacks are fairly powerful. Thankfully, they lack any worthwhile offensive tricks, so their longetivity achieves little significance. !Critcal Attack always hits and pierces defense, though, which is rather annoying. So yeah. On the plains, take out Aegirs quickly, and use Stop (if you have it) to subdue Zu. If you want to get rid of Grass Tortoises quickly, cast magic. Karnak is quite a distance away from the Meteorite, so consult the map if you have to. Eventually you'll hit it. Karnak Well, you can't enter the castle, so might as well check out the town. And... WHY THE HELL DO WE HAVE THE MUSIC FROM THE SHIP GRAVEYARD HERE? Well, there's no loot in the town (for now), and the magic shop is closed, and the town is filled with fire. Adding up the stupid music from ship graveyard... something is not right! Well, the Inn and the item shop within is still open. and you will notice that the weapon/armour shop sells stuff for crazily cheap price. However, if try to buy any of the stuff in the arsenal, a scene will happen and you will get arrested. You will keep an item for that charge, though, so choose carefully... or something. Either way, just do that to get the story moving here. There are a couple of stuff you can do in the town, but we'll come back to it when we're finished with the story. If you insist on making maximum profit from this ONE item, though - scroll down a bit and pick the most expensive item that's still useful to you (likely the Mythril Sword). Karnak Castle Just sit there for half a minute and the guy on the left will blow up the wall between you guys. Talk to him, watch the ensuing scene and you'll get freed! Yay! Well, as you explore the castle, you will surely see many, many chests, but they're blocked off in one way or another. Drat. Well, you have nothing to do here other than maybe talking with people. Do that if you want, then leave for the town. Town of Karnak... again Well, the magic shop is open now, but the weapon/armour shop now feature stuff at regular price. Well, let's take a look at what upgrades we can get. Weapon Shop Mythril Knife 450 Mythril Sword 880 Mythril Hammer 1050 Flame Rod 750 Frost Rod 750 Thunder Rod 750 Flail 780 Upgrade as you see fit. Don't bother with the rods yet, since you only need the Frost Rod for the next dungeon, and you should have two free ones (well, at least one. The other free one is held by Shiva). Again, don't bother with a sword for your Red Mage - have him/her hold a Healing Staff instead. Armor Shop Mythril Shield 590 Mythril Helm 550 Plumed Hat 350 Mythril Armor 700 Silver Plate 600 Silk Robe 500 Mythril Glove 600 Silver Armlet 500 Upgrade as you see fit. Note that don't overlap the Silver Spec or the Elven Mantle with anything else, since their special effect make them a lot more useful than a simple armlet/glove. Item Shop (in Inn) Potion 40 Antidote 30 Eye Drops 20 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Gold Needle 150 Phoenix Down 1000 Tent 250 Buy lots of eyedrops for the next dungeon. About 20-30 will do. As for anything else - stock up if you feel your stock is understocked. Magic Shop Cura 620 Raise 700 Confuse 650 Silence 280 Protect 280 Cure 180 Libra 80 Poisona 90 Fira 600 Blizzara 600 Thundara 600 Poison 290 Sleep 300 Fire 150 Blizzard 150 Thunder 150 Gravity 680 Stop 580 Haste 320 Mute 320 Slow 80 Regen 100 What a list! In other news - all the level 3 spells, including the level 2 elemental spells and Cure 2... uh, I mean Cura, are available now. Yay! Definitely get them all, as they'll be serving you for the rest of World 1. Also, with Fira and Cura, you can now go back and have a much, much easier time with Shiva. We'll get to her as soon as we're finished with this town. Leave the shop, and head for the pub. Play the piano there - Bartz is making progress! He can play a Hanon now (albeit semi-crappily). Now, leave the town and let's head for Shiva. If you already fought her, then skip the next section. <Start skipping from here> From Karnak, go back to the meteorite and warp back. Ride the Hiryu back to Castle Walse. Go down to B1F, and take the bottom right door. Make your way to the north, and head in the waterfall for Shiva's tower. Walse Tower My team's level: 10 As you can see, I went for Shiva as soon as I reached Walse. Like I said, it's hard, but doable, especially with an ample supply of Blue magic and blue mages to cast them. But first, the monsters you must wade through in the tower. Ice Soldiers are nothing more than cannon fodder. They fight physically most of the time, casting Ice every once in a while with little effect. Weak to fire. One thing of note is that you can often steal Mythril Swords from them, which is a nice upgrade for your Knights and Blue Mages if you haven't visited Karnak yet. Elf Toads are just as silly. They use fight all the time unless they're alone, in which case they have a 33% chance of using Pond's Chorus, which sets Toad. Usually they're too dead to cast it, though. Go to the tower in Walse castle again (or ignore this sentence if you're already there), and scale up. The tower is completely straight forward, so you shouldn't have any problems here. On 4F, You'll see a green orb in the middle. Make your way around the landmass to inspect the orb, and Shiva will attack you. Shiva/3 Ice Commanders Level: 11/4 HP/MP: 1500/1000 (Shiva), 600/200 (Ice Commanders) Elemental Attributes: Absorb Ice, Weak to fire Status vulneribility: Slow (Shiva), Just about everything (Ice Commanders) Creature Type: Human/Heavy (Shiva), Human (Ice Commanders) Drop: Frost Rod (Always, Shiva), Regal Cut (Rare, Ice Commanders) Steal: Mythril Sword (Common, ice Commanders), Hi-potion (Common, Shiva), Phoenix Down (Rare, Shiva) Shiva comes with three Ice Commanders. The Ice commanders themselves are just lackies, but they do their job very well. Not only do their physicals hurt, Shiva also take half physical damage with any of them present unless said physical damage ignores row. Shiva herself simply blast Blizzara at you, alternating between your front row characters and back row characters. If there are nobody in the row she's about to attack, she'll simply cast a focused Blizzara at a random person. An unfocused Blizzara does about 75-100 depending on magic defence, while a focused one does around 200. With a party who does not yet have Fira, The key in this battle is Blue Magic. A lot of blue magic you've learned so far will play a key role in this battle. First thing first - open with Flash to make her Ice Commanders much less threatening. If you want to, spam Pond's Chorus as well to make them nothing more than roadblocks. All blue mages should use Vampire whenever they find themselves a target of a Blizzara. Any other jobs you have simply need to focus their offence on Shiva. If you're not using a full blue mage party against her, then make sure you have at least one white mage who should do nothing but smack people with the Healing Staff. Alternatively, you can spam Goblin Punch on her if your level is 11 - assuming Long Sword equipped, it will do 500+ damage against her. Remember, the more Blue Mages, you have, the better. If you have a time mage here, cast Slow on Shiva to... well, slow her down. A party with Fira and Cura needs little assistance. Just spam Fira on them all, use Fira Magic Sword with a Mystic Knight, and cast Cura on all when needed. Shiva will go down VERY easily if you can heal and damage efficiently. After the battle, you will receive the Shiva summon! Yay! As a summon, Shiva does less damage than Blizzara, but since summon does not spread damage when used against multiple targets, the damage becomes higher when talking MT. A great summon to have for your summoners. Now, leave the tower and go back to the place in the walkthrough you were in. <OK, you can stop skipping now> Note: Armed with confuse, you can now learn a new blue magic. Calcruthls in the Ship Graveyard will use Transfusion 50% of the time, when confused. However, for the trouble you have to go through to do that, Transfusion is not that great of a blue magic and certainly won't help you much between now and when you can learn it easily again, but if you want to have it ASAP, go for it. Head for the fire-powered ship. fire Powered Ship My team's level: 11 Cool music, no? Anyways, board the ship. Cid will talk to you, then ask you to stop the engine. Also, to nobody's surprise, he reveals that the ship is filled with monsters. Head down the first two monster-free rooms to the core, where you will find all the aforementioned monsters. Crew Dusts are rather wacky with the elements. They null Earth, Holy, Poison, Fire, and Thunder, and are weak against the rest - Wind, Water and Ice. Normally they will simply use fight or !Sap, which sets HP Leak, but when they're alone they will use Flash 66% of the time, and unlike those miserable Headstones, they DO have the MP to cast it. Major annoyances, they are. Take them out quickly, if you don't have enough Glasses to satisfy everyone. Crew Dusts are sometimes accompanied by Defeaters. Defeaters are also weak to Ice, but they have slightly more HP. They're rather boring by themselves, but if a defeater dies last, it will send in two Motor Traps, prolonging the battle. If you don't want to see Motor Traps, then don't let them die last. The aforementioned Motor Traps are rather annoying. Aside from fight and !Critical Attack, they can also use Gamma Ray to put a literal Stop in a character's violence for a while. They also have a fair physical defence, so they won't die very quickly - normally. Using anything thunder elemental and non-fatal on them will cause them to spontaneously combust via Selfdestruct, which kills themself and deal damage equal to their current HP, which can amount to something as they have 240 to begin with. It's a blue magic, by the way, so you can learn it here. As a blue magic its... well, rather crappy. Unlike Explosion in Pokemon, this does damage equal to the caster's current HP rather than a spell with huge base power, and your HP is almost always inferior to anything that's worth sacrificing yourself for. Poltergeist is a palette swap of the Mindflusher, and is just as annoying. They will usually just fight, but rarely they will use !Tongue to confuse a character. You REALLY do not want a confused character, especially if said character decide to use something like Shiva on you or whack a motor trap with a Healing Staff. They absorb ice, so lay off your ice-elemental attacks here. Still easy to take out though. They're undead, so the Healing Staff will do respectable damage against them. Yeah. The theme of the monsters here seem to be annoying statuses. HP Leak is annoying, stop is annoying, and Confuse is annoying. Get rid of things quickly here. Ice-elemental stuff will work great on anything non-poltergeist, so keep that in mind. First room and already so many choices! Well, the door immediately above the entrance houses a Mythril Glove, and a cottage resides inside the chest on the northwest. head left first and climb the ladder on the bottom. Follow the path for a chest with Elixir. Go back to the first room. In the first room, go up, but skip the door for now. Come around to take the staircase down, and collect an Elixir from the chest, then go up and head inside the door I told you to skip before. See that switch on the left? Flick it. It's an elevator, and will get you to the next floor. Collect the chest in the vicinity for a Phoenix Down (and you can find the world map here if you haven't taken it in the Ship Graveyard), then head the other way. Take the elevator down. In the new room, take the ladder on the left, and go through the pipe. Take the next elevator to reach a place with four pipes and three doors. Go through pipe 3 (the third pipe from the left) first, and you'll land in an area with a chest you couldn't have gotten before. It contains a very rare, and a very useful Thief's Glove, which aside from giving a large assortment of stat bonuses, also doubles steal chance! Be sure to keep it around. Take the conveyor belt, and make your way back to the pipes n' doors room. Now, go down pipe 4. The belt on the left goes against you, and the door just leads you back to the pipes n' doors room, so ignore them for now. Head right, go down the pipes in the first room, and the second room. This is the tricky part: In the third room, head UP (yes, I know it looks like you came through that direction, but listen to me here), to collect a chest containing a Green Beret, a nice helmet for monks and thieves. Now, go past the conveyor belt (or walk all the way back from the pipes), and go through the door for an elevator back to the pipes n' doors room. Head through pipe 2 this time. Go to the upstairs. In the new room, flip the switch to reveal a room containing a Moonring Blade, a very useful long range weapon for any thieves you may have in the party. Now, go back to the room you landed in, and head through the door on the left (the belt on the right merely leads you back to the pipes n' doors room, again). Save and heal up in the save point, and proceed. The next room is some sort of a puzzle room. To start off, flip the switch you can reach, and your platform will move to a new position. Now, flip the other two switches you can reach now. Head right, then flip the two switches there. Now, head down through the newly opened passage, and flip the top switch WHILE ON THE PLATFORM. Collect the Elixir on the left, then go through the door on the right. Head up and... well, you'll find the missing Queen Karnak. However, she seems to be controlled by something (why would a sane person who is *alive* mention something about a revival?), then sics a patch of flame upon you. Fight time! Liquid Flame (three forms: Humanoid, Hand, Tornado) Level: 19 HP/MP: 3000 HP (All), 100 MP (Humanoid), 50 MP (Tornado), 30 MP (Hand) Elemental Attributes: Absorb Fire, Wind (Non-hand), Nulls Water, Poison (Non- hand), Nulls Water, Air, Earth, Holy, Poison, Lightning, Ice (Hand), Weak to Ice (hand) Status Vulneribility: Confuse Creature Type: Heavy (Hand only) Drop: Flame Scroll (Humanoid), Flame Rod (Hand), Fire Bow (Tornado) Steal: Nothing Liquid Flame starts the fight in Humanoid form. Whenever you inflict some ouchies on it, it'll respond by a counter (depends on form), then change randomly into another form. Each form has its own MP Count, though not the HP count. Each form has its own unique one-turn script - The humanoid will either use Fight, !Rush (unblockable and ignore defence), or Flame (Fire version of Breath Wing); The Tornado will cast Fira on itself over and over again (to heal, of course); The hand will either use Fight or !Fingertips, which paralyzes. The counters they use are as follows: Flame (Humanoid), Magnet (pulls someone to the front row, Tornado), Fira (hand), which will shave off 250-300 damage on someone, most likely killing him/her. You can confuse them, but I don't see the point - they'll still counter, and the new form won't be in a daze any more. His attacks can be worrysome at this stage, so what you might wanna do is to tap him gently until he changes into a tornado. Let him cast Fira on himself five times (which will exhaust his MP). This way, you will be able to have a chance to heal up when he changes into a 'nado again. As for the actual offence - Blizzara works great when he's not in hand mode, but when he is in hand mode, stick to physicals. Also, note that both the Humanoid form and the Tornado form have a fair evade rate, but they're both vulnerable to Demi. Just keep at it, and it'll eventually fall. This is the first boss you'll meet that you won't be able to cruise through. After the battle, Queen Karnak confirms that she was being controlled, and ask you to save the fire crystal. Well, I guess we better go, then. Before you do, though, change your monk to a thief, or just make sure that someone has access to Steal. You'll see why. Also, equip someone with Learning. Now, Head inside the crystal room, and watch how the heroes fail catastrophically in their task again. Now that the very foundation of Karnak Castle is gone, and you're stuck inside the bottom floor... well, you have 10 minutes to hightail it out of there before all is lost in a fiery explosion. It may seem to be unnecessarily long, but remember all those blocked off chests? We're going to collect them. It won't be easy, though. Ready? Set? Go. Castle Karnak Yeah. We're back. and We're going to get the treasure. But first thing first - Save, go down and use the pot to heal, then let's begin our grand escape! For some reasons unknown to us, the castle's now filled with monster (well, not much as *filled*, since you meet them rather rarely). And remember those chests? Minor chests with 2000 Gils in them are risk-free, but all the other chests have monsters in them. That's just dandy. Let's take a look at them. Cur Nakks will sometimes appear by themselves, and when they do, they will escape as soon as they can. However, they can also come in threes, along with a Seargent, and they would exhibit a whole new behaviour. Not only will they actively attack you, they will also !Bite you whenever the Seargent order them to attack. 140HP means that they drop rather quickly, though. Also, they escape whenever alone. Seargents will simply issue their underdogs to attack, or, if they don't have any underdogs anymore, they will escape. So, you can either take him out first for more exp, or just kill the Cur Nakks and get on with it. I recommend the latter since time > exp right now, but you might want to kill Seargent at least ONCE if you want a perfect bestiary. Gigas will only appear in chests, and they are rather dangerous. 760 HP aside, they will use Aera on a fairly regular basis, and counter 66% of the ouchies coming his way with an all-targetting Aero. You can learn Aera as a blue magic, but time is pressing here, and you can learn it just a bit later, so don't feel pressured. They also have a common (!!!) Elixir to steal, so if you have a thief like I recommended you, try and get it here. Don't feel pressured to get every single one, though, since you won't be using Elixirs that much. Sorcerers appear both in chests and in random encounters, and they will use Charm and Toad sometimes. Both of which are not nice spells, and Toad takes time to dispel, so get rid of them quickly. They have 350 HP, meaning it'll take some hits. Oh, they have a common Mage Smaher which is nice, and a rare Gaia Robe which is *very* nice. Try stealing from them. So yeah. Aside from nabbing Elixirs from Gigas, make sure that you deliver ouchies as quickly as possible. Shiva is pretty much not an option since she takes so damn long to put the hurt on anything, and same with Sylph (though Chocobo is feasible here). Black mage is good, same with Blue. So... yeah. Let's begin. Save, use the pot downstairs to heal, then head upstairs. Head up, and open the nearest door for a chest with 2000 gil. Now, head for the exit, but before you actually leave, go down for a chest with Elixirs and some monsters. Leave the room. In the next room, collect the chest on the left and right for a Ribbon (make sure you get this one) and a Shuriken, both of which contain monsters. Leave the room. The next room holds nothing, so go through to the main hall. In the main hall, head to the door on the left (don't bother with throne room - nothing there). Look like you've hit a treasure storage! But first, take the stairs. head down the path, then to the tower. Keep going down til you see a chest. Hit it for an Elven Mantle (very useful). Head back to the room. Collect chests as you see fit, then exit on the bottom and take the opposite door. Another treasure room. Collect as you see fit, then go through the upstairs. Path again, tower again. This time the chest contains a Main Gauche, which is just as nice (it has a 25% evade rate that stacks with Elven Mantle). Now, go back to the main hall. Collect the two chests on the sides for a Thunder Scroll and the white magic Esuna (the only magic Red Mages can't cast in World 1). Leave the castle. But before you leave, you'll fight a Seargent and Cur Nakks battle again... or so you think. After all the Cur Nakks go down, the Seargent will reveal his true self - Iron Claw! Iron Claw uses Death Claw sometimes, but pretty rarely, and with a timer on your head, you probably can't stay around too long to learn it. Try to learn it, though - it'll make a couple of boss battles a breeze. Of course, I won't assume that you did - I didn't on my second playthrough (he death clawed everyone EXCEPT for the person with learning). You'll receive new jobs. Head back to Karnak. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.7 Marching onwards - The Library of the Ancients ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Karnak Two things of interest here - The weapon shop now has a new guy selling more weapons, and there's a Flame Rod to be found somewhere. We'll go with the shop first. New Weapon Shop Mythril Spear 790 Kunai 600 Whip 1100 Diamond Bell 500 Buy a whip if you plan on using a Beastmaster (more on the new jobs later), and maybe Kunais if you have a Ninja, want someone else to have the Main Gauche (for its block purpose) and don't have Mage Mashers. Diamond Bells suck though - stick with the Main Gauche for evasion, or maybe a Mage Masher if you have one (which boost magic power by 1). The Flame rod can be found by scaling the walls. Go left from the staircase (at the north side), and follow the path til you hit a barrell. Check it for the rod. Speaking of rods, I highly recommend that you buy at least 2 of each elemental rods. Even though their damage becomes rather piddlish by now, the elemental spell boost aspect is quite nice and very useful for bosses. Buying more won't hurt anything other than your wallet, either, as you can always break spare ones for tricky bosses. I will not mention breaking rods in my strategies, though. Anyways, let's take a look at our new jobs. Beastmasters are much like thieves - their damage has been pimped (though not as severely) because of the bug that lessened the effect of agility on your power. However, Whips are still rather damaging, are back row compatible, and can paralyze enemies 33% of the time (though some whips cast a spell instead). Furthermore, Catch is a one shot cannon that can really really demolish stuff (I'm talking about 2000+ damage in world 1, and 5500+ damage in world 2), even though it's rather some work to keep it loaded. Also, They can use Control, which are almost essential for learning some blue magics before they become obsolete. Their regular damage is nothing to write home about, however. As a boon, you don't have to keep !Catch to keep the monster you caught, so you can just catch a monster, switch to other abilities, and switch back once you get to your boss. I will not mention catch strategies against bosses, as it really doesn't take a genius to figure out how to use it. I will mention about catch- worthy monsters, however. Geomancers main selling point is its Terrain command. Terrain isn't terribly powerful as it can be rather random and can't be adjusted for enemies, but the one great thing about it is that it cost no MP. Having a spellcaster with the Earth command means that he/she can do moderate to high damage to most enemies you come across for no MP at all, which is very, very nice for randoms. Against bosses, though, you wanna stick with traditional spells. All in all, use it on your spellcasters until they learn the Earth command, then ditch it for now. Later on, though, the two innates it have will become important, but we can wait until then. Ninjas are totally sweet. Their damage is also nerfed by the same agility bonus bug, but since they can wield two weapons at once, their damage isn't all that terrible compared to high power jobs like Knights. As if that wasn't enough, they can also chuck stuff at things for almost 4x damage, and has some neat abilities. Mastering Ninja later on becomes very important for your physical fighters, though right now it's a lower priority (You should keep a Mystic Knight at least, and your other physical attacker wants to learn Control, so give the other physical attacker this class if they're done and you haven't unlocked the next set of jobs yet). Right now, my party consist of a Mystic Knight, a Red Mage, a Geomancer who will go back to his Time Mage/Summoner routine when he's done learning Earth, and a Beastmaster. Of course, you can tweak your team to be whatever you wish to be, because quite frankly - that's why FFV's gameplay is so great. Leave Karnak. You can go see Cid in the fire powered ship, but he'll just go in a spiritual slump and reckon that he's hopeless. There's nothing you, a party of strangers, can do for him, so leave. Overworld again *NOTE: You can learn the blue magic Missile as soon as you get your hands on the Control ability. Those Motor Traps that appear in the ship has Missile on their control menu. Well, looks like the explosion took down the wall for you. Hooray for the power of plot device. Anyways, if you haven't figured out yet that you should go past what lies beyond the now-nonexistant wall, you haven't played enough RPGs. You will find the same beasts you've fought before, but you will also find some new ones. Silent Bees are rather boring creatures that will even attack physically, or use Needle. Not !Needle, mind you, just Needle, which is a spell that cause Dark 50% of the time and Silence 50% of the time. 220HP means not a lot of durability, so take them out with whatever. Dhrome Chimeras are creatures you will only find in the desert. They're REALLY tough creatures - not only do they possess an attack powerful enough to demolish someone in two hits, they can also cast Aqua Breath, doing 200-300 damage to EVERYONE, which is rather nasty. It's a blue magic though, so you probably want to learn it. They are also rather durable, possessing 1000 HP and no elemental weaknesses, so use your toughest attacks to take him down. Try to learn Aqua Breath, though - it's a non-elemental magic that can do 8x damage to some desert creatures (not Dhrome Chimera itself, unfortunately), which will usually result in a very, very lethal damage. Make sure you save before you decide to challenge this beast, though. You can control them, by the way, though you won't be able to learn Aqua Breath this way as it ALWAYS targets the opponent. Finally, you can end the battle by dealing 875 or more damage to it, then catching it, though you won't receive any experience or gil, and the Aqua Breath it does when you release it is nothing special when it comes to the enemies. Mythril Dragons are creatures you will only see in forests. It will normally simply attack you physically or use !Tail, which pierces defence. However, When its HP is lower than 300, it will cast Transfusion at an ally, effectively killing itself but healing the target to full. (Obviously, if it can't find an ally to transsue into, it won't do that.) You can make it cast that on you, however, with Control or Confuse (obviously Control is more reliable), and it's a blue magic. You'll be hard pressed to find a use for it, but I suppose if your favourite white magic user is out of MP, You can have someone use Transfusion on that mage, then follow up by a quick Raise/Arise. Whether you learn it or not is up to you. Just head west from Karnak, then go south. Try to circumvent the desert if you don't want to battle with Dhrome Chimeras, and go southeast. Eventually you'll see a forest. Head into it, and you'll see a library sitting inside it. Head into it. The Library of the Ancients My team's level: Lenna and Galuf 15, Bartz and Faris 16 (IMPORTANT: Make sure that you don't have an entire team of a level that's divisible by 5. A possible occurance is a team of level 15, in which case, make sure that you enter with at least one person whose level is not divisible by 5 by levelling outside the forest. It will be beneficial, though, if you keep at least one person whose level IS divislbe by 5.) On the first floor, you will see a bunch of scholars running frantically and randomly across the place, exclaiming that Mid went to the basement, but has yet to return.. Well, I guess it's our job as a bunch of unlikely heroes to rescue him, whoever he may be. Explore the library first, though. The pot on the second floor is a healing pot, and there are also lots of scholars with lots of infos on the second floor, as well as a book that seemed to have lost half of its pages. On the third floor are three books - the left two can be read, while the third one is possessed and can be fought (details on the monsters below). Anyways, once you're done exploring the place, it's time to head down to the basement, where there are monsters. Again. The theme of this dungeon is, not surprisingly, books. Or to be more precise, pages of the books. As you never read more than one page (or two) at once in a book, but rather read one page, then turn into another, so will the monsters always attack in single formations here, but turn into a different monster when they're defeated. You must defeat a certain number of enemies in each encounter before you win that encounter, though Control will prevent them from turning pages, as with level 5 death on Page 064, effectively netting you a win right there. Keep that in mind. Page 032 are the secondest weakest of the bunch. This monster's special attack is Aera, a learnable blue magic that can be picked up if you haven't done so back in Karnak Castle. As a monster attack, though, Aera will only do maybe about 200 damage, which is not much of a concern. Weak to fire, like books usually are. Page 064 are also pretty weak. They can be potentially game-ending, as their special attack is level 5 death, which kills anything whose level is divisible by 5. The only entities that can escape such a gruesome fate are those who are undead, have a level not divisible by 5, or have the reflect status (provided that the spell wasn't reflected off in the first place). This is why I told you to not enter with a level 15 party. It's also a learnable blue magic, so that's why I told you it's beneficial to enter with at least oen person whose level is divisible by 5, as it's a blatantly cheap spell that can kill off a lot of stuff, including bosses. Weak to fire, and ironically, they themselves can be killed by level 5 death. (Special note: With level 5 death in your arsenal, you can now inflict sweet, sweet revenge on those Jankanapes that tormented you before. Just use it and it'll like, die. You won't receive any rewards, though, other than a bestiary entry.) Page 128 are not very strong, but their special attack, Slimer, can be annoying as it sets HP leak and Slow. Other than that, though, they're weak and unimpressive. Weak to fire and susceptible to level 5 death. Page 256 is the most dangerous one of the bunch, rare as their occurance may be. It uses Moon Flute every second turn, which turns your ENTIRE team berserk. It's a blue magic, by the way, so you CAN pick it up (though it's not worth it as Moon Flute ALWAYS targets your party). Whenever you see it rear its ugly head, strip the Healing Staff immediately (switch it for a Flame Rod or something). With 900 HP it'll take a while to bring it down, but I still recommend you to finish it off ASAP so you won't get afflicted with Moon Flute. I really shouldn't have to say this by now, but they're weak to fire. Finally, if you control them, you can get them to cast Guard Off, a blue magic. That's FOUR blue magics you can get... I guess its not called a library for nothing. The first level of the basement contains no monster, but rather a strange puzzle. To start, keep going up until the shelf moves aside, then head in the hole in there to get another shelf to move. Head through the newly opened hole, climb up the ladder, and keep going as if you're going to inspect that tomb-like structure to get the self move back again. After that, Go as to the right as you can while staying above the shelves to make the shelf move again. Head down, inspect that black thingy to open a hole, then head through. This is where the monsters start to roam. Anyways, head right from the second fork for a free ether, then head back to the main path. Head out the door there. In the new room, you COULD go through the door, but it would achieve nothing as the shelf will block you. So, head up the ladder instead and inspect the bookshelf for a hole. Head through until you see a book. Inspect it and... it's Ifrit! And it attacks you! Name: Ifrit Level: 23 HP/MP: 3000/1000 Elemental Attributes: Absorb Fire, Weak to Ice, Water Status Vulneribility: Confuse, Poison, Slow Creature Type: Heavy Drop: Flame Scroll (always) Steal: Phoenix Down (Common) Ifrit is a fire entity, and thus uses fire-elemntal attacks (surprise surprise). Each turn may feature Flame (33% chance), and when he's not in the mood for such an attack, he'll cast Fira on odd-number turns and use either Fight or a paralyze-inducing special on even-number turns. That about wraps him up. Keep in mind that Aqua Breath is non-elemental rather than water elemental, so don't bother casting it here. Instead, focus on ice-elemental magic to bring him down. Blizzara, and Shiva are all good choices. Ifrit's offence is not all that strong, so you don't have to worry about him bringing yourp arty down anytime soon, but if you want some insurance, cast Slow. He isn't very difficult and will go down very easily. After the battle, you'll receive him as a summon beast! Whoo! Now, head back to the shelf, who will... well, *recognize* your newly gained summon and let you pass. Before heading through the door, however, make sure you go down the ladder here for a Ninja Suit. Now, go back and head through the door. The next area is dark again. Head left at the first fork, down at the second fork for a Phoenix Down, then right at the second fork to exit this room. Head to the next room on the balcony. Yay, another bookshelf puzzle. This one is significantly easier, though - just head up to get past the first shelf, then inspect the bookshelf above the ladder to get pass it again on the other side. Using the door below does not get you anywhere, so inspect the bookshelf on the ladder on the right, instead. You'll fight a book, but will get past after the battle. The next room has a save point, so save and heal up, then head through. The next part of the basement is straight forward, so just head through. As soon as you see Mid, you'll get attacked. Again. This time, it's a book demon. Name: Byblos Level: 24 HP/MP: 3600/1000 Elemental Attributes: Weak to Fire, Absorbs everything else Status Vulneribilities: Poison, Slow, Paralyze Creature Type: Creature Drop: Protect Drink (Always) Steal: Mallet (Common), Dark Matter (Rare) If you're the type of person who think books are generally useless and for nerds only, you're about to have a rude awakening. Byblos is possibly one of the most annoying creatures you'll ever have the "pleasure" to deal with, and the bane of challenges. Be prepared for a hard battle here if you don't want to resort to cheap moves. So what does this book demon do? Well, his normal battle scripts consist of Fight (around 150 to front row physical fighters, 100 or so to back row casters), Wind Slash (250sque damage to all), Magic Hammer (halves MP, learnable), Web (sets slow), Confuse, and Dischord (halves level). Now, that's not all - every time you physcially damage him, he counters with Protect 33% of the time; every time you magically damage him, he counters with Toad 33% of the time. To complete the annoyingness, when his HP gets below 800, EVERY attack you throw at him gets a 66% chance at a Drain counter, which will drain around 250 HP. See what I mean? No? Get in battle with him and you'll know. Finally, he absorbs all element except for fire (his weakness), so... yeah. Before the honourable tactics of ouchie sticks, know that whips can paralyze him occasionally. Also, Death Claw will reduce his HP to single digits, meaning anything following up will finish him off. Now, if you don't want to resort to them, then you're in for a tough fight. Your first course of action should be to release that Sand Bear if you have it, which will do somewhere around 2200-2400 damage. After that, blast him anything fire. Fira, Fira sword, Gaia (which will use a fire attack all the time), Ifrit, et cetera. If he begins draining and you need healing, stop attacking while you heal. Also, know that you can cast Slow on him to slow him down. That's about it. If you release that Sand Bear, he'll go down easy as you just took out 2/3 of his HP. If you don't, though, then he can be tough as his attacks are rather annoying. You can pick up Magic Hammer here, but I'd recommend not to as it's too risky to screw with learning here, and Magic Hammer is not that great of a spell anyways. Fun fact: if you finish him off with Ifrit, he'll say something different than if you finish him off with anything else. Also, he's the first boss you will face that displays the special boss death animation. After all that, go up and talk to Mid to get the heck out of here. You will learn that Mid found a way to get the fire-powered ship moving, but he first needs to talk Cid out of his slump. Follow him out of the library, after some healing if you need to. Overworld Well, You know that Cid's in Karnak. So get the hell over there. Karnak Go in the pub's second floor, and watch Mid knock some sense into Cid... literally. Looks like the good old method of punching hasn't lost its power on Cid. They will then leave to work on the ship. Well, nothing else is new for you now, so leave for the ship. Fire powered ship Well, looks like you clumsy laymen are simply getting in the way of those two mechanics, so they ask you to get in the room and rest there. While in the room, Galuf founds some parallel in the scene he just saw to... some of his memory! Well, he remembers why the hell he's here, but that's about it. Fortunately, it adds a little more purpose to why you should protect the Earth Crystal, so it's all good. In of any case, once you're done, head out. Talk to Cid to wake them up, and you'll again have a mode of transportation that is not attached to your body! Woot! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.8 Sailing the seven seas ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's exploring time! My team's level: 16 Enjoy your new ship! With a ship that does not rely on wind and now actually sails in a region that's NOT enclosed by a ring of landmass in general, you can reach anywhere! Well, not *quite* anywhere, as there are still a couple of places where there are no place for you to dock, and you still need to use the meteorite if you want to access anything pre-Karnak. Still, we can now reach a rather large amount of place in this world. The only drawback is that, you can get attacked by monsters in here. Damn. Well, we'll just have to burninate them as we go along. Sahagins are your basic sea creatures. Absorb water, weak to thunder, and uh, that's about it. Easy enough to dispose of. You can get it to use Goblin Punch if you control it, By the way. Level divisible by 5. Thunder Anemones exist solely to annoy those people who use Thunder and nothing else. They, unlike most aquatic monstrosities, absorb lightning, so it'll simply eat your lightning like breakfast and get healed by it. Other than that, though, they're just as silly. Sea Ibis is an odd enemy. With 25 HP, it won't take hits very well, which is why it hardly ever takes one - at least, not with 90% evade and 80% magic evade. Practically anything that can miss will miss against it most of the time, but unfortunately for him, all magic spells hits all the time. A multi-targetted level 1 spell can waste him. That covers up about the sea monsters you'll meet right now. As you can see, all of them are very, very unimpressive, so wading through them will have pose no problem at all. Now, you have three new places you can visit with the ship; I recommend you to start with jachol, as that's the closest place to you right now. Just head almost directly south, hugging the landmass to your left (and the party's right), until you see a cave enclosed in mountains. Land nearby. Overworld - jachol area My team's level: 16 Yeah. More monsters for you to slay on the way. How fun. Bombs are... well, if you've played a couple of FFs, you would probably know (and maybe hate) them for their uncanny ability to self-detonate on you, doing a lot of damage. Fortuantely, this particular bomb aren't very willing to give up their life, as they will only use it 33% of the time every two turns. They have 440 HP, so taking them out before the second turn comes should be no problem, and you should do that. Doublizards are not exactly two lizards, but rather one lizard with two head. It does a fairly lousy impression of having two forms, though all it actually does it just turn over. This also means that it wastes half of its turns turning over. Not that its "attacks" are of any threat - A physical and !Sap, which sets HP Leak, depending on its orientation. They have a fair defense, though, but you should be able to reduce them to Nilizards fairly easily. Bio Soldiers are the most annoying of the bunch. Normally they're just punching bags that hit slightly harder than the enemies nearby, but when you hurt them while they're alone, they'll counter with a Bio spell to all of you. Bio is a level 4 black magic spell that actually pack quite a punch, so it'll do around 200 damage to all of you. It'll also set HP Leak, which is even more annoying. Try to take them out at once with magic spells. So yeah. The only thing you need to know here is to try and take out Bio Soldiers first or failing that, spread the damage evenly if you can. A bio-all is not very fun to eat, as you can't really protect yourself against it. Find your way between the mountains and head southwest. The town you seek should soon present itself to your greedy eyes. Jachol This town isn't too important plot-wise, but you're not here for its position in the plot. What you're here for is shops. There are no items to loot here, either, so let's just go straight to the goodies. Weapon Shop Ogre Killer 3200 Coral Sword 2800 Mage Masher 900 Trident 2700 Ashura 5800 Silver Bow 1500 Ogre Killer is not a bad upgrade for any Berserkers you may have (though why would you keep a berserker is beyond me). Coral Sword is also a nice buy, but keep that Mythril Sword unless you have a Mystic Knight, because this sword is thunder-elemental and can result in awkward moments with the likes of Thunder Anemones. Mystic Knights can simply use a status sword to dissolve the elemnt, though. Mage Masher is a semi-decent buy for any thieves and ninjas you may have if you haven't stolen enough back in Karnak Castle. You can't use the rest of the equipments without changing into a Freelancer yet. Armour Shop Green Beret 2500 Ninja Suit 3000 Sage's Surplice 1000 Green Berets and Ninja Suits are both nice buys. Green Berets can boost damage for any thieves, monks, mediators, and the like you may have in your party if you need more, and Ninja Suits are good for even heavy armor users, as it sports the same defense as Mythril Armor, but is much lighter and provides some bonus to boot. Sage's Surplice is an OK upgrade for pure caster jobs, though the silence protection is utterly useless, as you'll be hard-pressed to put together a list of 20 enemies that can actually inflict that status on you, and even then most of the enemies you'll find there are late-game. Item Shop Potion 40 Antidote 30 Eye Drops 20 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Gold Needle 150 Phoenix Down 1000 Tent 250 You do realize that now I'm just copy and pasting the list from previous sections, right? Bottom line: stock up if you need to, leave it alone if you don't. Magic Shop Cura 620 Raise 700 Confuse 650 Silence 280 Protect 280 Cure 180 Libra 80 Poisona 90 You could've bought all the white magic you can buy in this world back in Karnak. In other words - this is a bloody useless shop that will never appreciate your non-existant patronage. Also, you can find a piano in the pub. If you haven't played the one in Crescent yet, Bartz will play yet another Hanon piece here. You know, he's actually playing it pretty well. Talking to everybody here will tell you that most of the stuff you bought from here are from the cave up in the north, which is right now pretty much running dry on treasures now. However, there may still be a couple of goodies you may dig up. That's why we're heading there next. Rest up in the Inn if you'd like, then leave town. Overworld Hug the mountain on the northern side. The cave is pretty much in plain sight once you're close enough to it. Jacohl Cave My team's level: 16 In here, thre are three things you will find en masse: switches, empty chests, and Nut Eaters. You should have absolutely no problem dealing with these 20 HP critters by now, and they make for rather nice ABP training. However, the one thing you will also meet in here is a Skull Eater. At first glance, Skull Eater may look like just a harmless palette swap from Nut Eater, but that could not be any further than the truth. Fine, its HP isn't very impressive, unless you consider 1 to be dazzling in a way that's not sarcastic. BUT, that's where the weakness part ends. First of all, Skull Eater can hit for over 500 damage to a back row character easily. That alone is scary enough, but it can also channel it in !Incisor, which pierces defence, and adds Poison and Confuse to the target if he/she is lucky enough to survive the blow to begin with. Also, it has a defense of 90, a magic defense of 90, an evade of 90%, and a M. evade of 90%. That ensures that pretty much ANYTHING you throw at him will just get greeted by a big fat zero, provided that said thing can get past its massive miss barrier first. FORTUNATELY for you, it has a 33% chance of escaping every turn, being the timid creature it is, so you can simply revive everyone until it goes away. If you want to take a more active routine, though, I recommend the Gaia Command. Ignus Fatuus will *maybe* hit him for non-zero damage, and can sometimes confuse the Skull Eater, which is a good thing as a confused Skull Eater can sometimes hit himself with !Incisor for 1600+ damage, which is overkill by 1600+ minus 1 damage. Also, the Stalactite attack WILL get past the tremendous defence of the bastard and do non-zero damage against it. Finally, controlling also works, since you can turn its !Incisor (Special technique on the menu) on itself. Confuse isn't too useful in here since it has to work with that 90% m. evade. But enough talk about a single monster. Flipping the switch near the door has no effect at all, so flip the other switch, which will cause a section of the wall to move so you can proceed. Go down and behold, SEVEN switches in a row! (At least it's not thirty-seven.) Most of them also don't do anything. Well, if you've talked to the people backin Jacohl, you'll know that you're supposed to wait until the true switch come out. So do that, and after about two seconds you'll see the true switch. Flip it to open a new passage. The door at the end of the passage is locked, and you don't see any switches nearby. However, check the empty chest on the top, and you'll find the switch in there. Flip it to make the door open, then proceed. The next room is devoid of switches and any other ingenious devices, so that's good. Ignore the two empty chests and head north until you see a fork. Head left and you'll find two UNOPENED chests. Check them for a Tent and a Shuriken. Go back to the fork and head the other way. When you reach the second fork, head down for a chest with a Blitz Whip... that is, if you haven't freed Lone Wolf. This is one of the treasures that Lone Wolf will screw you out of if you let him roam free. Anyways, the fork on the north is just that enclosed cave entrance that will get you nowhere, so head all the way back. The switch close to the door will open it, if you are wondering. Overworld Get on the ship. We're going somewhere else. Open up the world map. See that dot on the southeast part of the map? We're going there. That means that we need to sail all the way to the east, and southward a bit. BUT, before you enter the town, Know that you can meet a special enemy nearby. Go to the second island south of the town, and you'll meet an enemy named Prototype. Quite a powerful one, too. It's entirely optional and you don't really get a lot out of defeating it other than a beastiary entry for perfectionists, but if you want to check him out, the next couple of paragraphs are devoted to strategies to beat him. Once you defeated him (or decided not to mess with him), head for the town. Prototype on the offense is nasty but not all that nasty. Its physical attack won't 1HKO anybody, and its other moves are Missile (75% current HP shaved off), Mustard Bomb (a moderately powerful attack that also sets HP leak), Blaster (50% paralyze, 50% 1HKO), Emission (moderately powerful fire attack). As you can see, aside from Blaster, Prototype isn't all that dangerous when it comes to hitting you. However, the thing to Prototype isn't its offense, but its defense. Yeah, Prototype is also very, very defensive, and is even more defensive than Skull Eaters. It has 100 defense and magic defense, which means that you're probably not going to penetrate through that armor easily. Also, it possess something Skull Eaters don't possess (in large quantities): Hit points. Prototype has 5000 hit points. Despite all this, however, there are ways to defeat him. The easiest method is to control him. He has Selfdestruct in his control menu, so that's a quick ticket for a victory on your side and possibly a blue magic as well if you haven't learned it. The second easiest method I find is to spam Guard Down on him a couple of times until his defense becomes workable. Prototype has no weakness, so using spellblade is not going to help you, but if you can get more than three Guard Downs on him, you will be able to hurt him with no problems at all. You can also catch a bunch of Sand Bears/MiniDragons, but catching stuff is tedious work. Of course, if you're here after you finish the entire Ronka ruins, then you can also spam 1000 Needles on him until he dies. Your reward for beating him up? A couple of blue magic (Emission and Missile), 500 exp and 4 ABP for everybody, and a guaranteed Dark Matter. You won't be able to use the latter yet, but Prototype is your only infinite source of Dark matters in this world. You also get a bestiary entry registered, and... that's about it. Well, you can also catch him. Its release attack is Mega Flare, which can do about 1000 damage to everyone on the other side of the battlefield. Quite a nice attack, though for single target Sand Bear and Mini Dragon are better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.9 Wings regained ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crescent Town As soon as you enter, an earthquake will start! You can walk around the town if you want, but there are only like, three NPCs you can talk to, and none of them say anything interesting. All the doors are locked up, as well. What you're *supposed* to do is to exit town to watch your ship get sucked in a whirlpool, THEN re-enter town for its stuff. Done that? Good. Well, looks like you're stranded on this island. Might as well walk around. This town offers no phat loot for you to take, though it does feature a nice set of shops. Weapon Shop Flame Bow 2500 Frost Bow 2500 Thunder Bow 2500 Silver Harp 800 It's always a good idea to carry at least one of each elemental bow. You may have gotten a flame bow back from LiquidFlame, and you will definitely get a Frost Bow later, so buy a Thunder Bow and a Flame Bow if you need to. Don't worry - you'll gain the jobs that can use them *very* soon. Silver Harp is a special weapon that does damage equal to 1/16 of the enemy's current HP, which is almost always a pathetic amount for most enemies, so just forget about it. Armour Shop Plumed Hat 350 Sage's Surplice 1000 If you haven't been to Jacohl yet, then feel free to buy them. Item Shop Potion 40 Antidote 30 Eye Drops 20 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Gold Needle 150 Phoenix Down 1000 Tent 250 Check your stock. If you need anything, buy them. However, chances are, you won't need to. Magic Shop Fira 600 Blizzara 600 Thundara 600 Poison 290 Sleep 300 Fire 150 Blizzard 150 Thunder 150 Nothing new here. Anyways, once you're done shopping, go to the lone house on the southeast. It belongs to a bard and has a piano in it. Play the piano (what a mistake in the last part, but it looks like our hero/heroine is now actually playing quite well). Also, if you talk to the bard, she'll teach you a song named Mighty March. It, when sang, will basically cast Regen on all party, but it'll render the singer immobile until he/she got attacked/killed/shut up'd via silence. Also, the moment the singer stops singing, the regen effect goes off. Bloody useless song, and you can't even sing it yet. Leave the house. And the town as well, you're done here. (Unless, of course, you want to talk to the townsfolks.) Overworld - Crescent Area You'll meet Bio Soldiers and Doublizards here. Also, you can meet two new enemies: Harvester, and Black Flames. Especially Harvester is something you'll meet only aronud these regions, so you probably want to make sure that you kill one for your bestiary (should you actually care about it). Black Flames are odd little entities. They live their life with absorption to FOUR elements, but you can damage them with the basic three as well as water (which is their weakness). They have a flimsy 220 HP, but also comes with 50% evade and 25 magic defence, so they're rather hard to kill off. Level 2 spells will do little against them unless single targetted, so you want to stick with summons here. Also, a water scroll will kill these guys off very quickly. They have a 33% chance of casting Dark Spark, though, which you'll probably want to learn. You can also control them for faster results, by the way. Harvesters are rather simple in their script. They will just use fight, and maybe !Sickle for increased damage. They're rather uninteresting except for one thing - You can get a Doom Axe 1/16 of the time from him, which is a *very* nice upgrade for any Berserkers/Freelancers/anybody you've equipped with EquipAxe you may have, as it cast Death 33% of the time, and sports a high attack power in general. Done wandering around? Head for the patch of forest on south, and you'll see a Black Chocobo. Catch it, and watch it spit Crystal shards (yuck), which... well, give you new jobs. Ranger and Bard. Ranger uses bows. Bows are backrow compatible and does about as much damage as a sword without two-handed, but most bows also come with a special effect which are always nice. Also, Ranger will get an ability which is, for physical fighters, something that can be called a +7/+7 skill of awesomeness, when the job is mastered. I highly recommend you to get at least one physical fighter in the Ranger job. Bards... well, bards sing. So far, you have one song, and it sucks, so right now Bards suck. However, there are a couple of good songs out there, which is good news for our bard here. Still, they're mostly situational, so you don't have to use this job until you really, really need to (or want to) sing. All Harps (except for one one-of-a-kind harp you're going to get in the VERY distant future) are OK damager against bosses in the first couple of turns, but horrible otherwise, so the ability to equip harps is not that much of a sweet deal either. Anyways, after some funny scenes and dialogues (and an awesome chocobo dance), you'll gain access to the black chocobo! Hoorah! Black Chocobo is basically like the Wind Drake, except for it can fly over mountains (not including tall mountains, but those are usually just dotted in place to annoy you, and won't impede your progress as you can ALWAYS make your way around them). However, it can only land in forests, which is not exactly in large supply. Though, you'll find a grove of trees for most places you can visit, with the notable exception of the Prototyep island and... well, that enclosed shrine in the middle of nowhere. Anyways, there are two places you can visit and haven't been visited by you yet. We'll start with Lix, which is just southwest of the Wind Shrine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.10 The last towns of this world ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lix If you talk to people from here, you'll know that this place is Bartz's home town! Well, that's basically what you're here for, to gather flashbacks for Bartz. This is why I will actually tell you to talk to people in this section. However, I won't spoil any of the flashbacks for you. First of all, go north and talk to a scholar looking guy to get in a flashback that explains why Bartz is afraid of the height. Now, go to the second house on the left side. You should recognize this place as Bartz's old home. See that purple box? Inspect it. You'll see another flashblack. After the flashback, talk to the bard and she'll teach you a song, Alluring Air. Alluring Air basically is a multiple targetted confuse, and that can come in handy sometimes. Leave the house. Go to the Inn, and the Innkeeper will let you rest for free there. You will see... well, it's not a flashback, but a cutscene, and it involves Faris too. Watch it. The Inn will always be free, by the way, so it works well as a free healing station (though I perfer the ancient library for that one because it's quicker). Anyways, that's all you can do here as far as character developments go, so, let's shop! Weapon Shop Kunai 600 Shuriken 2500 Flame Scroll 200 Water Scroll 200 Thunder Scroll 200 Ninja stuff here. This is your only supply of those things in this world, by the way. If you're using a Ninja, get a couple scrolls if you want. Shurikens are rather expensive for their damage, so don't bother with them right now. Armor Shop Green Beret 2500 Ninja Suit 3000 You should've have all of those bought back in Jacohl, but if you need any now, it's a lot easier to buy them here than to buy them from Jacohl, since you have to land rather far from that town. Item Shop Ether 750 Potion 20 Antidote 15 Eye Drops 10 Maiden's Kiss 30 Mallet 25 Gold Needle 75 Tent 125 50% discount! SCORE! Unfortunately, you can't buy Phoenix Downs here, and all the other stuff are rather useless, especially with the existance of Esuna. Except for Ethers, that is. Ethers are always nice things to have, so try to increase your stock of them to about 10, at least. Just don't strip all of your money. Magic Shop Esuna 3000 If you haven't gotten it from Castle Karnak, get it from here. Otherwise, forget about it. Anyways, that's about all you can do in Lix, so leave. Overworld See that lone dot on northwest? Head there on your black chocobo. Istory Istory is a rather nice little hamlet with nothing significantly wrong with it (which is more than what could be said for pretty much every other town you've came across), and you can get a couple of stuff here. See that ring of flowerbed on the northwest side? Take a spin around it, and a frog will jump out. Inspect the hole and you will obtain the black magic Toad. Now, check out the shops. Weapon Shop This town doesn't have one. Armour Shop Flame Ring 50000 Coral Ring 50000 Angel Ring 50000 If you can actually afford any of the stuff right now, you must have REALLY been overlevelling. All of them are nice, but you won't be needing any of those in the near future. If you seriously can afford even one ring, get the Flame Ring, as it'll help you in a future boss fight. Item Shop Potion 40 Antidote 30 Eye Drops 20 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Gold Needle 150 Phoenix Down 1000 Tent 250 Thankfully, this is the last item shop with those boring supplies. Magic Shop Gravity 680 Stop 580 Haste 320 Mute 320 Slow 80 Regen 100 Again, this is the last of the boring magic shops that sell nothing you don't have already. And now, for the last thing you can do in the town - go to the sheep farm. Talk to the sheep on the northwest while standing near the fence to have it kick you over. You'll see a bard out there - talk to her and tell her that you're protecting the crystals, and she'll teach you a song - Romeo's Ballad, which sets Stop on all enemies. It's a very nice song that'll work on a lot of stuff, but you don't usually need to stop random encounters to kick their backside. I'll tell you when that song is good to use. Leave the town. Overworld - Istory region Yeah. More monsters to describe. The plains come with Black Flames, which you've seen before, and Stone Golem, which you haven't. The forest provides shelter for Mythril Dragons, which you have seen before, and Mini Dragon, which you haven't. Oh, and it also houses Ramuh, but I'll get to that later. Stone Golems are tanks, like you would think when you first see its sprite. It has 1000 HP, 20 defence, 50 magic defence (meaning most of your available attacks won't do anything against him), and Earth immunity for any Earthquake you may send against him (which would've been a good magic that can get past its tremendous magic defense). They're weak against Thunder, so abuse that. Note that if Thundara is cast as multiple target, it needs the boost from a Thunder Rod to do significant damage. Offsensively speaking, they're rather boring, as they only use Fight and rarely !Headbutt, which increases some damage. Mini Dragons are really tough. They have 30% evade, 30 defense, 20 magic defense, and no readily exploitable weaknesses. Their fight damage isn't all that threatening, but Frostbite will leave quite a mark when it's cast. Also, they ALWAYS show up in groups of five, making the situation even more grim looking for you as they can potentially cast two or more Frostbites before you can cure. There isn't really anything strategically speaking that can be used to neutralize them - just open with your strongest attacks, and finish up with some healing on the side. Hasting your healer will help. Catching and then releasing one of them, by the way, will result in a Holy attack which will do over 2500 damage usually, so keep that in mind if you're going against tough bosses. Defeating five Minidragons will yield 1125 exp for a four-headed party (and 4500 if you have only one character standing), which is the highest exp you can get from a formation in world 1. Also, Ramuh. He lives in the forests, and as long as you haven't defeated him, he will show up VERY often. He's basically a boss (with boss theme and all), so here is a standard boss strategy template for you. Name: Ramuh Level: 21 HP/MP: 4000/300 Elemental Attributes: Absorb Thunder Status Vulnerilibity: Mini, Slow, Stop Creature Type: Human Drops: Ramuh (MAKE SURE YOU TAKE IT!!!!) Steal: Hi-Potion (Common AND Rare) Ramuh attacks with Thundara, Flash, and Electrocute normally, with a rare shot at Fight every three rounds. When hit with Mini (which you probably don't have if you have been following the walkthrough), he'll retaliate by casting Mini on your *whole* party. The bastard. That's it, though. Well, casting Mini is rather pointless even if you have it, as his defense isn't really all that high for a boss, and he hardly ever use his fight command anyways. Putting him to Stop, however, is a grand idea as he lacks the Heavy Status to make it short-lasting. Besides that, there is surprisingly little to say about how to beat Ramuh. His script is simple, and aside from Stop he doesn't really have a lot of weakness, so just go with your strongest attacks, healing every once in a while. That's about it. When the battle ends, he'll drop the Ramuh item. MAKE SURE YOU TAKE THE ITEM, then use it to learn the Ramuh summon. Don't be a wise guy and leave it or anything, because as soon as you defeat him, you can't encounter him any more. Um. Yeah. Istory region is generally a good place to train if you need to, but that's about it. When you're done slaying stuff here, it's time to move on, to the Library of the Ancients. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.11 The forgotten ruins ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Library of the Ancients As soon as you enter, Cid and Mid will come to you. The loss of the steam powered ship seems to be of no concern to them, as they have more important news: They've spotted King Tycoon! Watch the scene, but long story short - you need to get past the Desert of Shifting Sands, which... well, have shifting sands. But hey... when there's a will, there's a way, right? Then let's do this! Overworld Just head west from the Library to reach the desert. Before you get in there, make sure you switch any Berserkers you may have into something else, as they will become a huge drag a bit later. Likewise, if anyone has the Berserk ability, change it into something else. Desert of Shifting Sands My team's level: 18 Well, if you've played Final Fantasy IV, then you may think that Float is the way to go here. Unfortunately, even though you CAN get float at this point (by controlling/confusing a Gaelicat in North Mountains), it doesn't work this way. Fortunately, as soon as you get thrown back once, Cid and Mid will show up with a method. So basically, what we'll do is call the Sandworm which lives in the area, prevent it from killing you by killing it first, then use its corpse as a tunnel to get past. Well, that's nice. Tell Mid that you're ready, and prepare to face a boss battle. Sandworm Level: 18 HP/MP: 3000/10125 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: Slow Creature Type: Desert, Heavy Drops: Nothing Steals: Nothing Ladies and gentlemen, can you say "whack-a-mole"? This is EXACTLY what this battle is about. There are three holes here (I didn't bother to list their stats because they're the same as Sandworm and can't be damaged anyhow), and Sandworm basically pops up in an arbitrary fashion. Every third time Sandworm shows up, he'll stay slightly longer for an extra Fight attack, but usually he'll attack with either Fight or Quicksand (60 damage to all, causes HP Leak). The holes, when attacked physically, counters with Demi, but nobody seem to do anything when attacked by Magic (contrary to what Mid claims). The best way to dislodge this beast is simply to cast Aqua Breath. Since Sandworm is a desert creature, Aqua Breath will do over 4000 damage here, and if you look at Sandworm's stats, he only has 3000 HP. If that's not an option, then just go rambo on him with your best attacks, timing your physicals carefully so you don't end up hitting a hole. Other than that... there's really nothing much you can say about the battle. Magic is the way to go, by the way, as you don't have to deal with the whack-a-mole aspect, and while Sandworm does sport a bit of magic evade and magic defense, it's paltry compared to some other monsters like Stone Golem and Mini Dragon. Game, set and match! Now we can get in the desert. Unfortunately, it only builds our first step, but it's good enough. At this point, you'll have full access to the desert. So, first of all, the monsters. Sandboils are boring. Aside from physical violence, it will throw a Spore at you every once in a while, which poisons whoever that got hit. It's a minor annoyance at most, though, and 420 HP doesn't exactly spell longetivity for them. Weak to water. Desert Killers will sometimes escape as soon as they get a turn, but if they don't, they're guaranteed to stay on the next turn. Offensivewise, they can throw a Quicksand which is rather annoying, so if you see them with Sandboils, kill them first. Weak to water like desert creatures usually are, and they're undeads as well, so Healing Staff can do a nice chunk of damage against it. Sand Bears are rather rare occurances, which is a good thing as they're the most dangerous enemies around. Their physical attacks are quite strong, and the can also use their !Right Arm once in a while to set seizure. They also have 1000 HP, so they'll last a while. Weak to water like the rest, and if you meet one, a good way to neutralize it is to cast Toad. They're also notable because when caught and released, they will use Strong Fight on enemy. Strong Fight lives up to its name very well, multiplying attack by 8 times, and that's before taking defense into account. A Sand Bear executing a Strong Fight will do over 2300 damage to a defenseless enemy, and has enough power to penetrate the defense of even Protoarmor. If you have Catch ability available, catching and releasing this enemy will make short work of practically anything, so keep that in mind. So yeah. The enemies here are still rather pathetic. Just watch out for Sand Bears and you're set. If you do encounter any bears, cast Toad on them, or if you encounter them along with a Desert Killer and a Sandboil, use Flash to weaken the whole bunch. That's about it. Navigational wise, you're supposed to try to go as down as possible. Unfortunately, my description skill kinda sucks in this field, so just wing it and feel your way to the bottom. You MAY come across a pyramid in the middle if you explore a bit, but you can't get in or anything, so ignore it for now. Just head downwards as much as you can, and eventually you should head out the exit. Overworld - Ruined City area No new monsters here. Avoid the desert if you don't want to encounter Dhrome Chimera, though at this point it really shouldn't give you too much trouble. Just keep going south and you'll eventually see a town. Enter. Gohn, the ruined city As soon as you enter, you'll see King Tycoon, trying to hide from you. You can of course try chasing him all over the place, but you really only need to chase him once, then head up the stairs to corner him. Watch the ensueing scene. I won't spoil it for you (which is more out of laziness than anything), but here's a rundown: You find Tycoon, Lenna realizes that Faris is her sister, and now you're down in who knows where. Well, there's really not much to do but follow the path to a warp device. Let it warp you all the way over to where Crescent seems to be, and... well, follow the path some more, until you reach a locked door and a switch. Flipping the switch will open the door (as well as do something else), but don't go through that door yet - go to the bottom room for now. Well, this is a rather nice room. The beds in the middle heals you up, and if you go through the left door and go down, you'll see a switch and three chests out of your reach. There are two ways you can get the switch to work and let you reach the goodies that are inside those chests: Method #1: Push the switch, and find out you really couldn't do that, then find out that you should check out the planter in the centre room, so do that. Checking the planter (on the far right, by the way) tells you to check out the notepad in the room on the right. Do that, and... well, in the end it tells you to check the urn, which is in the room on the left. Doing so causes a frog to pop out and knock down a book. Read the book and it'll tell you to go down 8 and right 4 and pull what you find there. Well, down 8 and right 4 from the book is the switch, so pull it and you'll get access to the chests. They contain two Shurikens and the spell Mini. Method #2: Don't push the switch, and the game will ask you whether you want to pull it. Say yes, and you'll gain access to the chests. They contain two Shurikens and the spell Mini. Obviously Method #2 is a lot faster, but I always find it out the hard way, because it's pretty hilarious. Anyways, once you've done that, go out of the room, flip the switch, and go through the door on the top. There's a save point, so save if you want (but don't bother using a Tent/Cottage), and go through. Follow the path and you'll see... The fire powered ship? But that's not all that's here. Go to the right and you'll see a ship... with propellers? Blasphemy! As if on cue, Cid and Mid fell down and gets in a cnoversation with you. Turns out that this ship is an airship! Hoorah! So, time to cast off! But wait... as soon as you hit the sky, something will try to pull it down. Well, it's time to give this monster a what-for for trying to sabotage our new transportation. Name: Cray Claw Level: 43 Hp/MP: 2000/500 Elemental Attributes: Weak to Bolt, absorbs water Status Vulneribility: Poison, Confusion, Slow Creature Type: Creature, Heavy Drops: Frost Bow (Always) Steal: Coral Sword (Common) Cray Claw is an extremely boring boss, if he can be called as one. Offensively speaking for him, Every turn may feature Tail Screw or Fight, and every 3 turns a 33% shot at Mucus, and that's it. Honestly, this supposed Karlabos upgrade didn't change much. The straetgy is extremely simple. Just hit him with anything Thunder, and he's dead. A two-handed Coral Sword can easily top 1200 in one hit, so add in a Thundara, and a maybe a Ramuh or a Thunder Bow or a Blitz Whip, and he's a goner. Well, after the "boss" battle, Cid lands the ship to make repairs to it, and well... you now own an airship! Hoorah! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.11 To soar straight to the heavens ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overwold - Bird's view So what is the capability of an airship? Well, the airship can surpass any and all obstacle on the map, and lands on plains which is a lot more well supplied than forest is (though this also means that you need to fit the airship in that tiny space near Lix, which can be a pain if you're fast forwarding or something). Also, you won't get in any random encounters while flying, and the speed of the airship FAR surpasses that of... well, anything. Finally, if you land the airship in water, it'll double as a normal ship. It's rather pointless right now as you won't meet any new enemies or anything, but later on the enemies on the sea will change, which... well, means new bestiary entries to fill and more paragraphs about those monsters. At this point, you have pretty much access to anywhere on the map, except for one single tower in the middle of the ocean, which is surrounded by mountains. You won't be getting there anytime soon, either, but you WILL enter it... eventually. For now, you can go back to Tycoon to rest for an optional scene between Faris and Lenna, but you can also watch it later, and it would make a lot more sense then. I'll point it out when we get there. Also, you regain access to Prototype (which you couldn't have fought while on the black chocobo, as there are no forest on the Prototype island). Now, if you do consider the places you can visit, then you'll probably realize that... there really isn't anywhere you couldn't have visited before. However, as you cruise on your airship, you'll eventually head past Gohn, and... well, it looks like someone (and I have a very shrewd idea of who) went and did something to levitate the ENTIRE CITY, which continued to rose, missing your airship narrowly as you veer out of the way, not stopping until it escapes your sight (and your altitude is quite respectible to begin with). Well that's just nice. Let's see what Cid has to say on this subject. Head back to the place where you found the airship (which will be referred as the Ancient's Base from now on). Ancient's Base As soon as you enter, Cid and Mid will come aboard with a bunch of books and tell you that the city was levitated by the power of none other than the Earth Crystal... amplified! Well, from our past experiences with amplified crystals, this is bad news to our goal, so we better get up there and de-amplify the thing. However, there's still the problem of that thing's insane altitude. The good thing is that, we can get there as long as we can find some admantite. The bad thing is that we need to find some adamantite, which... well, I don't know where we can find some. The good thing is that the Galuf remembered seeing them in the meteorite he came from (the one near Tycoon, in other words). The bad thing is that we're not there yet. So remedy that. Overworld - Bird's view Remember where Tycoon Meteor is? Get the hell over there. Land on its south side, by the way, since you can't enter from the north. Tycoon Meteorite My team's level: 19 Get in the meteorite - Galuf will show you the way in. The admantite is in plain sight (it's that weird blue rock thingy), so take it. As soon as you head out, though, you'll get attacked. I guess nothing will come THAT easily. Adamantoise Level: 20 HP/MP: 2000/125 Elemental Attributes: Weak to Ice Status Vulnerilibity: Poison, Slow Creature Type: None Drops: Turtle Shell (Always) Steal: Protect Drink (Common) Adamantoise is a pure physical attacker. He opens with a double Fight, follows up by either another Fight or !Critical Strike (which is basically Fight with a fancy name), then a double !Critical Strike, then either Fight or !Critical Strike, then loops. I should note that his attacks *do* hurt (upward to 300 to a front row fighter and maybe about 200 to back row people). Also, he has a rather high physcial defence, and very good magic evade. See his level? It's divisible by 5, so whip out your trusty level 5 death and end the battle right there. If you don't have access to it (possibly because you entered the library at level 16, didn't decide to level to 20 there, and haven't reached level 20 via normal play yet), Death Claw + A tap from anything with a fair battle power and is not named the Healing Staff will kill it. If you have none of them, Adamantoise is simply weak enough that you can just use whatever works for you (Ice-elemental stuff work best). After all, 2000 HP is still 2000 HP, no matter how strong his physical swings may be. Once you gain the right to leave, it's time to pay a visit to Cid and Mid. Ancient's Base Cid and Mid will relieve you of that adamantite and work on installing it. And by "work on" installing it, I mean "work in a pace so alarmingly quick that it's almost like ten Cids and Mids are working on" installing it. The end result is the same, though - your airship gets outfitted with Adamantite, you can now fly *all* the way up there to the (now floating) city. Watch out for cannons, cold temperatures, and low air pressure. Overworld - Bird's View Well, since you can get up there anywhere, I recommend stationing yourself close to a free healing place. Ancient's Library is my favourite place, though Lix, Wind Shrine and the Ancient's Base will also work. Also, prepare yourself before going up there. Have learning equipped (there are a couple of blue magic for you to learn), and as much Thunder-elemental hurting options available to you as possible. Also, SAVE if you're bent on a complete bestiary. When you're ready, follow Cid's instruction and get yourself to the lost city of Ronka. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.12 The mysterious Ronka Ruins ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lost City of Ronka - Perimeters My team's level - 19 The four cannons you must destory are on the sides of the city. Each cannon will turn out to be either 2 Flame Throwers or 2 Rocket Launchers. I have never seen it happen, but it is possible that you get four same cannons and thus miss out completely on the other, so beware prospective perfectionists. Now, for the cannons themselves. Flame Throwers are the weaker ones. They will do one thing and one thing only - Emission, which is in essence a single targetted Fira with half the MP cost (the latter of which is of no concern to you). If you haven't picked it up from Protoarmor, it's a learnable Blue Magic. On the receiving end, you should probably take about 150-200 damage from it, which is a minor annoyance at most. Weak to thunder, like machineries usually are. Rocket Launchers are the stronger ones, or strictly speaking... the more annoying ones. They specialize in precentage spells, so they won't kill you easily... by themselves. They use Missile, which quarters your current HP if it hits, and Rocket Punch, which halfs your HP and adds confusion. As you can see, the real killer here is confusion, since your confused character can potentially smack someone who just got hit by a missile with a Coral Sword, and that is not as fun as it sounds. Missile is learnable, if you haven't picked it up from Motor Trap or Prototype. The strategy is the same as it is for Cray Claw - blast them with everything thunder. Ramuh, Thundara (spell with or without blade), Thunder Bow, you know the drill. Healing Staff acts nicely to neutralize the effect of Rocket Punch, and otherwise is just a kickass weapon for someone to wield. Once you kill all the four cannons, the MAIN cannon will emerge. Looks like your trouble is far from over. But first, find somewhere to heal (you can leave by sailing out of the map), and then come back and challenge this thing. Soul Cannon w/ 2 Launchers Level: 36 (Cannon), 50 (Launchers) HP/MP: 10800/1000 (Launchers), 22500/1000 (Soul Cannon) Elemental Attributes: Weak to Bolt (Soul Cannon only), Nulls Water, Air, Poison (all) Status Vulneribility: Slow (All), Stop (Launchers) Creature Type: Heavy (all) Drops: Dark matter (Always, Soul Cannon), Hi-Potion (Always, Launchers) Steal: Ether (Common, all), Elixir (Rare, Soul Cannon) First of all, the HP I listed for them are actually misleading. You see, the programmers want to make a nifty self-destruct animation when the cannons die, so they gave them high HP, but make them self-destruct when their HP reach below 10000. So, in fact, the launchers only have 801HP, while Soul Cannon has 12501. In the beginning, the Launchers are the only parts that actually attack. Their unnamed "valiant attack" is basically Demi + Old. Old is VERY annoying here as it basically reduce your damage to crap, so you want to take them out quickly. They only have an effective HP of 800, so take them out with anything that isn't water, air, or poison-elemental (they're NOT weak to bolt, surprisingly). After you kill them, you might wanna cast Esuna on those who got aged, because speed is of the essence in this fight. Soul Cannon itself doesn't seem to do anything in the beginning other than displaying a bunch of message that look neat and possibly makes absolutely no sense to most of us. Beware, however - it's actually charging itself up for a Wavecannon blast. It'll spend 6 turns charging itself up the first time around, hit you with Wavecannon, then charge again, and hit you again, rinse, lather, repeat. Note that it only takes 3 turns after the 1st time around to charge up for another cannon blast. The final message it'll display before "FIRE!!!" is "Energy cell capacity: 128%" or something to that effect, if you want to know. Once the Launchers are out of commission, it's time to take down Soul Cannon. It's VERY durable, however (with 3 times more HP than even the sturdiest boss you've attacked before, which would be Ramuh). Thankfully, it has a weakness unlikes its appendages, so exploit it. You should have plenty of thunder-elemental violence by now, so use them. Also, cast Slow to give you some breather. When he hits you with Wavecannon, heal and strike again. The only thing you can do with WaveCannon right now is to !Hide, and with the pitiful performance of bards in general without Requiem, you probably don't have one with that command around. If you're quick (cast Haste to aid that), you should be able to kill him before the second Wavecannon comes around. Heck, if you're really fast and good with damage dealing, you can probably kill it before the FIRST Wavecannon comes around. After that, it's time to enter the forbidden ruins of Ronka! After healing up, that is. We don't know what type of horrors lurk inside the floating foretress, but we know that the aforementioned horrors WILL be there. Ronka Ruins My team's level: 19 Like I said, there will be horrors that lurk inside the floating foretress. Fortunately, yours truly knows all about them, and thus can give you a etailed description to their behaviours, and what can you do to maximize the speed of their demise should they run into you and decide to have a bout. Ra Mages are mages. Unlike Mani Wizards which you've met so very long ago, they take no time to hide their magical nature. Every turn may feature an -ara spell coming at your whole party, and though they don't hurt that much, it gets annoying rather quickly. Cast Silence at them to stop their magical carnage, confuse to turn their magical arsenal on their comrades (with three spells in its arsenal, it won't knock itself out of confusion anytime soon), or simply take them out as soon as possible. They have no specific weakness, but no defense to speak of either. They rarely drop an Elixir, which is nice. Ronkan Knights are... well, Knights. They come at you with stronger-than-normal physical strength (and nothing else), and live their life with a fair physical defense and evade. If you're looking for a quick way to dispatch them, Mini will quickly turn their formidable strength into laughable scratches. Otherwise, just use whatever you feel like to take them out. Stone Masks are lesser version of Ronkan Knights. They feature the same defense, but less HP and a weakness to Thunder. They do have a lot of status immunites, though. Their offenses are entirely physical, but they don't hurt that much. Enchanted Fans have a lot of HP, and some spells to make your life miserable. They will attack you with either Aera or physical violence for two turns, then use White Wind on the third. White Wind basically heals everyone on the battle field for an amount of HP that's equal to the caster's current HP, so a full health Enchanted Fan would heal everyone for 1000. Since they have equal or more HP than anything else you'll encounter them with, a full health Fan can replenish the entire enemy team to the full, which is not good if you were, say, slaving away Ronkan Knight's HP with physical attacks. Take these guys out first. They have no real defenses other than wind absorption, so use whatever works for you. Finally, note that White Wind is a blue magic, so by confusing/ controlling these strange entities, you can learn the spell, which is quite a good one, too. Remember how the monsters in Tonal Canal ONLY target girls? Do you think that it's rather unfair for the girls to have special nemisises, while the men don't? Well, now we have a creature that has a special hatred (or affinity, if you look at the nature of the attack) to men, and that is Lamia. Every three turns starting from the second, she will target a single male character and use Entice on him, which sets confuse. On other turns, though, her physical violence knows no restriction to her target. There are two other things interesting about Lamia: one, you can control her to make her cast 1000 Needles, a blue magic that does 1000 damage to its target, all the time. You probably don't have this spell yet, so add it to your repertoire. Also, you can rarely (about 3.9% of the time) steal a Lamia's Tiara from it, a very nice headgear that serves a special purpose to a job you do not have yet. You're not supposed to buy this until world 3, to give you an idea. Of course, it will be rather difficult - she has a Maiden's Kiss in her common slot, so you cannot just keep stealing from the Lamia until you get it. On average, you must come across 24.6 Lamias before you can get that thing, so it's understandable if you don't bother with it at all. Most don't, and I don't either. They're weak to Ice, by the way. Archeotoad is rather boring. Weak to ice like Amphebians usually are in this game, every two turns they will rarely try to hit you with Pond's Chorus, but otherwise they just fight physically. Just kill them when you can spare the time. Hydra is something you won't meet until later on, and it's a rather durable bastard that will occasionally send Thunders at you. Thunder is just like Breath Wing, except for it's Thunder elemental, so it will cause much unhappiness. They absorb thunder themselves. One thing about them is that they can be confused to send some rather brutal spells on their party - Poison Breath and Quake, so using Confuse or Control should do you some good. It'll take a while to whittle them down, but you'll prevail. If you think Hydra is the worst enemy you can meet here, you're sadly mistaken. Ghidra is like an improved version of Hydra in every way, and it gets very, very nasty too (in fact, so nasty that it's one of the very few monsters in the game that can actually deliver a Game Over if you're not careful). Next to better stats in general, it also absorbs everything except for fire and holy, can't be controlled, has inherent reflection status to send most magic you can throw at it back at your face, and can occasionally send Poison Breathes at you. Poison Breath is very, very nasty. It's damage varies by a great deal, but the upper spectrum is about 430 to your casters, and almost 500 to your warriors. when it dies, it'll cast Level 4 Quarter, which quarters the current HP of all whose level is divisible by 4. It's a learnable blue magic, but that's about it. You can learn it more reliably later and it won't make fights a lot easier, so I'd say don't feel pressured to learn it here. Also, if some character's level IS divisible by 4, you might want to run from them after the learning. You can rarely steal a Killer Bow from Ghidra, which is not as nice as the Tiara but quite nice indeed, and since Ghidra's common slot is empty you can just steal continously until you get that bow. Or until you die, obviously. You really can't do a lot, so just have your fighters attack while your casters run support. That's about it for the local nasties. As you can see, this foretress hosts a huge step up from the random encounters you've met so far, and caution should be exercised when hunting here. THANKFULLY, the terrain magic here is awesome - most of the time, you'll be casting Wind Slash, which will hit every enemy for 600-700 damage, so if you have two Terrain caster, you can make short work of most stuff here (Enchanted Fans being the notable exception). Now, onto the actual walkthrough! The first room is very straight forward, so just go through it. On the second room, turn Find Passages on to see the terrain clearly, and follow the path to the down stairs, collecting the chest on the way for a Gold Armor. The third room has even more hidden passages - follow the path until you see a selection of four passages to take. The second one on the right leads to an Elixir, while the lefternmost one allows you to proceed. At this point you can ditch Find Passages, by the way :) Ignore the staircase leading down for now. The staircase up leads to a small room with a save point, so use that if you want, then collect the Phoenix Down from the chest, and continue to head down, down the staircase. The next room is completely linear, and will lead you back on the other side of level three. Head up (across the very obvious hidden bridge), and collect the chest for a Golden Shield. Now, head all the way back to the down staircase I told you to ignore before, and go down it now. The next couple of rooms are so small that you can see the exit right as you enter, so just take those staircases until you go to level 5. Going left there won't achieve anything, so go right instead, through the door, and up the staircase. In the next room, collect the chest on the north for a Hi-potion, then head right. Ignore the door, but head down the staircase, and follow the path until you come to a room with FIVE chests. There are hidden holes in the middle, however, but hug the chests and you'll be safe from them. Collect them for, from left to right: 5000 Gil, Shuriken, Ancient Sword, Moonring Blade, and Power Armlet. Score! All three equipments are nice upgrades, so put them on anyone who can equip them. Now, fall down a pit in the centre, and go up the staircase there. In the new room (or the old room, as you've been here before), head down the door, and then the staircase to a genuinely new room. The new room turned out to be another one of those "short rooms with only one path", so take the other staircase there, and in the new room, follow the path (yet again) to a staircase leading down. In this room, head up the staircase for a save point, then go through the door and head up. And this room has another door/staircase choice. The staircase leads to two chests with Cottage and Ether (you need to go through secret passages to get to them), while the door leads to a switch that allows you to go on. You'll see King Tycoon standing there, but before approaching him, know that this is the room where you can meet the fabled Ghidra with minimal effort. Challenge it if you want, then talk to King Tycoon. He'll send you to go against the "bedamned clapperclaw" that's in his way. Boss battle here. Archeoaevis (five forms) Level: 21/19/23/24/20 HP/MP: 1600/2000 for first four form, 2500/2000 for last form (8900 HP total, plus any surplus damage you may have done) Elemental Attributes: 1st form: Weak to Air, Nulls Earth 2nd form: Nulls Earth, Absorbs Ice 3rd form: Nulls Earth, Absorbs Fire 4th form: Nulls Earth, Absorbs Bolt final form: Nulls Air, Earth, Fire, Ice, Bolt Status Vulneribility: Slow Creature Type: Heavy Drops: Hero Cocktail (Always)* Steal: Nothing *This is the drop of the last form. While the first four forms also have items, you never actually kill them in those forms without glitching. King Tycoon claims that it changes weakpoints. It's all folly, though. The only weakpoint change you're going to see if that it changes from weak to wind to weak to NOTHING after 1600 damage. All it changes is its *absorption* point. Yeah. Basically, every time you kill off one form, it'll revive in the next one, with no visual notes or anything until you hit the final form. You can *sorta* guess its form by looking at the attack it performs. Fight will always remain possible, but it'll attack with either Breath Wing, Flame, Frost or Thunder depending on form, and also with different body parts as its specialty attack - !Sap on 1st form (HP Leak); !Wing Attack on 2nd form (Poison); !Tail on 3rd form (Blind), and !Claw on 4th form (Paralyze). Finally, on its final form (which you actually get to KNOW when he changed himself into that form), it comes with a whole new attack script. Every odd turn features equal chance at Maelstrom (BAD - single digit HP for EVERYONE on your party), !Tusk (confusion), or one of those elemental moves (it cycles through Breath Wing, Flame, Thunder, and Frost). Every even turn features Entangle, Fight, or !Fang. Obviously, this is the most dangerous phase of them all, especially with the possibility of a Maelstorm (at least he never follows it up with one of those elemental moves, so you have two turns to heal at least). The point here is to refrain from using elemental magic. He can change himself to absorb them when you least expect it, which is A Bad Thing. Stick with non-elementals, perferablly physical since his defence diminish with each form change while his magic defence goes on a crescendo. Unless you've managed to get yourself some Flame Rings or something, there is little you can do about his attacks, so just heal when need to (which shouldn't be too often, at least til the final form), and poke/slash/whack him with your weapons. With three to four people hacking away each turn, he won't last very long even with all of those form changes. Don't bother with slow - he'll snap out of it whenever he changes form, so you can't expect it to last very long. Level 5 Death is a very respectible option once you hit the last form. Oddity: If you kill any of the form with Level 5 Death (requires the help of Dark Spark), or something that makes its sprite disppaer, it'll revive to the next form, but without any sprite at all (the shadow will be there, though). This doesn't apply to the fourth form, and obviously not to the final form as well. After all this, King Tycoon will commend your effort, then laugh... in an evil way? Well, we must've misheard him. Follow him inside. Looks like that evil laugh was no coincidence - King Tycoon was being controlled! After some conversation, Galuf's granddaughter rushes in to the rescue and hits King Tycoon with a Thunder spell, knocking him back to his senses. Teary reunion ensues for both families, but it's a bit too late for the Earth Crystal, which... well, shatters. And you know what will happen next, don't you? ExDeath appear out of nowhere and, after greeting Galuf sarcastically, sics the cyrstal shards on the lot of you, then leaves. (What a jerk.) Well, Tycoon wouldn't have you helpless little warriors be destoryed by crystals, so he goes up and... well, returns the essence of earth into the crystal shards, or something. I have no idea what the hell did he do there, but the result is rather predictable - the shards calm down, and Tycoon dies. Well, at least you get some new jobs, so it's not a totally bad deal. There's no time to mourn, either - the whole damn city is falling! The five warriors did quite a good job in running the hell away, and... well, you escaped. Bad news to you, though - Galuf decided that saving his own world isn't the other three's responsibility, so leaves them behind as he and Krile uses the last meteorite to warp back to his own world. So now, you're one party member short. Hoorah. Well, you're back on the overworld, with a couple more jobs. Might as well try to describe them. Samurais are pretty sweet warriors. They wield Katanas, which work with two-handed and have a fair chance at critical strike. They can also evade attacks 25% of the time, and has access to the totally sweet Zeninage command, which basically throws a large sum of gils at enemies for a large sum of damage. It's no good at penetrating defense, but against enemies without monstrous defense, it'll do tremensdous damage. It's a lot better than Mystic Knight right now, because most of the boss you will face for a while features no elemental weaknesses, so I switched my Mystic Knight into a Samurai. Dragoons are not bad at being warriors, except for one fact - their skills work very poorly with others. Lance is an OK move... for Mages, not Warriors, and the other two abilities, EquipSpears and Jump, work poorly without each other. Also, about the only secondary command that's actually useful to them is DualWield, which you most likely don't have yet. Change a warrior into one if you want, just note that the ABP you earn with it will pretty much be wasted. Dancers are an odd bunch. They're physical attackers, but their stamina sucks even more than mages. The real kicker to Dancer is their Dance command, which executes Sword Dance 1/4 of the time. Sword Dance basically does 4x damage, which is very, very, very sweet. Unfortunately, right now it really doesn't help a lot, due to that sword dance only comes at 1/4 of the time, and the other three doesn't work so well with warrior jobs. However, it's a different story if you stole that Tiara - With it equipped, one of the (more useless) options for the Dance command will be replaced with Sword Dance instead, turning Dance into a powerful, destructive force. But you don't really miss out on a lot if you didn't get it, since Dancer is not that great without DualWield even with Tiara equipped. Chemists are pseudo-mages. The reason why I say that is because where mages use magic to do arcane stuff, Chemists use mixtures instead. A couple of them are pretty powerful, but hunting down reagents can be tiresome, and you need to train Chemists without the ability to use mixture for a while before you get the !Mix command. I ended up never using it because I don't feel like hunting down reagents, but if you have the patience, then Mix will become one of your most used command due to its ridiculously high versatility. So yeah, after all that blah-blahing about new jobs, it's time to move on with the story, which is usually Cid and Mid's job. If you try to find them from Ancient's Base, though, you will see a note from them saying that they went to Tycoon Meteorite. So go there. (Speaking of Tycoon, you can see another optional scene in Tycoon Castle now, but it's still more logical to leave them til later, so I'll point them out by then.) Finally, as soon as you land, Bartz and the team will resolve to follow Galuf anyways. It's a mandatory cutscene, so I'll leave you to watch it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.13 Bidding farewell to our world ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tycoon Meteorite As soon as you enter the actual meteorite, Cid will point out that meteor is sucking up energy from adamantite. Well, that may be a way to power them up so we can get ourselves over to Galuf's World, and Cid agrees as well (after being followed up on the story, that is). Well, we need to power up the other meteorites as well, so let's go there! So yeah, you now need to go to the other three meteorites. The order doesn't matter, so I'll just go with the order of the date of descent of those meteorites. Well, the next one would then be the Walse Meteorite, so let's go there. Save beforehand, by the way. Overworld - Bird's view As you land near Walse Meteorite, you'll probably find the dragon, STILL stand- ing around, waiting for you to mount him. Loyal, no? Well, he's also useless at this stage, so leave him waiting there. Enter the meteorite. Walse Meteorite My team's level: 21 Well, head in and talk to the duo. Cid and Mid will do their stuff, then some monsters will attack. Puroboros Level: 22 HP: 1500/100 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: Silence, Sleep, Poison, Slow, Stop. Creature Type: None Drops: Potion (Rare) Steal: Eyedrop (Rare) There are six puroboros attacking you for apparently no reason at all. As you may expect from a bomb palette-swap, they have a 33% chance of using Self- destruct every turn (and if they did that with full HP, whoever gets hit with that will just die). What you probably WOULDN'T expect from a bomb palette-swap is that it'll cast Arise on EVERY ONE of its allies when it dies of a reason that does not involve self-induced combustion. Arise + Selfdestruct is not a good combo, let me tell you, especially when said Self Destruct can do enough damage to 1HKO all but the most overlevelled warriors. Oh, and if you use summon magic on them, they will cast Cura on themselves. However, that shouldn't be much of a concern. The trick? MT spells. Get your strongest MT attacks here (Aqua Breath is the most powerful one you have right now), use them like crazy, and pray that they don't self-destruct before they get killed. If you successfully kills every Puroboros at once, all of them will cast Arise in vain; all of them will die, and you'll be dancing your victory dance. But... what if those bastards decide to spontaneous asplode before you can put them to rest? This is a tricky pony, but worry not - you have one more savior up your sleeves. All of the Puroboros can be silenced, so just kill them one by one, and shut them up with Silence before you slice them in half/crush them to pieces/make them die of a horrible death in general. If you lack the Silence spell, smack them with the mage smasher, which can cast Silence randomly. Finally, if you have NONE of the above and didn't save or anything, then I guess you just have to keep yourself healed and wait for every single one of them to detonate, and hope that three of them don't do that in quick success- ion. After the fight, it's time to go to the next meteorite! Don't bother warping - the warp is too weak right now. Get on your airship and... before you go to Karnak Meteorite, let's do ONE thing to get us prepared for there. Remember North Mountain? We're going there. It's surrounded by LOTS of forests, so you'll have to walk all the way there. Run from battles if you don't want to fight them. North Mountains My team's level: 21 Hang around until you see a Gaelicat. Control it and let it cast Float on all of you. Now kill it or run. Leave the mountain. Overworld Get on your airship and go to Karnak Meteorite. DO NOT use a healing pot or tent or cottage. Karnak Meteorite Cid and Mid will go in, then tell you that there's a monster's in there. Well, it's time to clear him out. Go in and talk to the Esper. Titan Level: 1 HP/MP: 2500/2000 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: Slow Creature Type: Human, Heavy Drop: HiPotion (Always) Steal: Potion (Common), Earth Hammer (Rare) Titan will normally attack you either with his physicals and !Critical Attack (which is no stronger than his physicals), with a 33% shot at Earth Shaker every second round. His physicals are rather weak and unassuming, but Earth Shaker will do upwards to around 500 damage. when he die, he's guaranteed to use an Earth Shaker on you, and that's about it. If you've listend to me and got Float upon you, Earth Shaker will do NOTHING, so just relax and beat him with whatever. If you don't have it though, then heal fast when he uses Earth Shaker, and don't finish him off when your HP is low. That's about it. It's a pretty easy battle, and you'll win the Esper Titan in the end, which is a very, very sweet summon. Last meteorite! Overworld Just get to Gohn Meteorite. Heal up first, though. Gohn Meteorite Talk to the duo. They will go in, but not out. Eventually, you decide to go in and investigate and... surprise, surprise... monster. Manticore Level: 19 HP/MP: 3300/1000 Elemental Attributes: Absorbs ice Status Vulneribilities: Slow, Stop, Poison Creature Type: Creature Drop: Phoenix Down (Always) Steal: Dragon Fang (Common), Wind Spear (Rare) Manticore will use two spells on a regular basis: Frost and Aqua Breath. He's unremarkable otherwise though. As you can see, both spells are rather nasty, so beat him up quick. There really isn't much of a specific strategy, though - just use your best attacks, and heal regularly. He's a rather tough nut to crack, but he'll go down if you persist. And that's all of them! Cid and Mid will show you a map where the energy will go together. So, go there and you'll be able to warp yourself to Galuf's World (otherwise known as second world or world 2)! Yeah! Preparation for the voyage Now, know that you won't be able to revisit this world until much, much later. Furthermore, you'll never see some places again. Here's a rundown of the places you won't be able to visit, ever again: Walse Lix Istory Ship Graveyard The meteorites So, amongst the missable stuffs, you will miss the treasures in the bottom of Walse, Shiva, Alluring Air, Romeo's Ballad, the Phoenix Down in Tycoon Meteorite, and all the treasures in the Ship Graveyard. Also, since there are a couple of stuff you can't gain access to until much later, you want to get prepared now. Make sure you have at least two of each elemental rods, as well, as they will still be very useful in second world and you won't be able to buy them any more. That's about it. Don't worry about the assessories in Istory - you'll be able to get them later. Now, whenever you feel ready, go to the warp point. The voyage to the other world Well, it's all mandatory cutscene, so I won't bore you with the details. The three say goodbye to the things that matter to them, and throws themselves within the warp. Congratulations, you have beaten the first world! Now, embrace the world that is about to unfold before you, because... well, there are a lot more stuff to do. So... let's take a look at where we ended up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.14 "This is... Galuf's world?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solitary Island My team's level - 21 Well, this is anticlimatic. You're in a small island, with absolutely NOTHING in it, and only one monster to fight - Pao. They're so boring I'm not going to even give them a paragraph - just know that they fight all the time, their physical damage *can* hurt a bit (nothing serious, though), and they drop Tent all the time. Just walk around and eventually, Lenna will suggest you to use a Tent. You don't have to wait for her, by the way, so just use a Tent and let's get this over with :) Well, the girls get in a chat, but before long, they get grabbed away by monsters. Bartz tries to get them back, but he got attacked by a monster also. It's Abductor. Abductor is not, strictly speaking, a boss. It has 1500 HP, and actually hurt less than those Paos you've been fighting. It can use Hurricane to lower your HP into single digits, but that's all it has. You can make short work of it with practically anything, but you can lose if you want to. So what happens if you win or lose? If you win - You get 1 ABP, an Ether, a bestiary entry you couldn't have filled otherwise, and a treasure chest. The chest doesn't contain items, though - it contains gas, which knocks Bartz out. If you lose - Bartz gets knocked out. Yeah. The ether is sweet, but if you're not a perfectionist and Abductor open with Hurricane, don't bother using a Hi-Potion or anything to counter it. An Ether is worth more than Hi-Potion in monetary value, but you'll need your stock of Hi-Potions soon, which you cannot say the same for the Ether. Though, chances are, you'll beat this guy anyways. I ended up taking him out in one hit with a Critical from my Ashura. You'll see Bartz and his friends in a prison somewhere. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.15 A rescue mission ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ExDeath's Castle My team's level - 21 Well, at least we're seeing a familiar face, even though said familiar face would probably love nothing more than to pull us apart one bit at a time until we die from the torture, or something. Yes, you ended up in ExDeath's Castle. What a fine way to start our journey in this unfamiliar world. Well, ExDeath wasted no time in making Bartz and co.'s situation useful to him, as he uses a magical reflection to force Galuf and his troops to retreat. He then asks a man called Gilgamesh to protect us. Gilgamesh even gets his own portrait! Anyways, Galuf decided to borrow Krile's Wind Drake, and, in what's possibly the second coolest music in this game, he rides the Wind Drake to your rescue! He'll land on a platform, drop down, take all your stuff which ExDeath confiscated, and it's time to help him rescue Bartz. Right now, the middle and the bottom doors are locked, but the top door leads to a save point and a healing pool. Save and heal if you want, then head down left. You will encounter monsters in the basement, by the way, and here are their descriptions. Tarantulas are rather boring. They have a measly 200 HP, and aside from Fight (which hardly leaves a scratch), they use Web to slow Galuf down. One hit from anything would kill them, though. Shell Bears... are just like Sand Bears. Except for that they have 1 more attack point, and 620 less HP. So basically one hit from anything will take these out, as well. Well, that's just nice. So just take them out or something. Make your way downstairs. The road is compeltely linear, so just go until you see Gilgamesh. You'll get thrown in a battle with him. Gilgamesh Level: 26 HP/MP: 11500/2000 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: Mini, Slow, Stop Creature Type: None Drops: Elixir (always) Steal: Nothing Doesn't he just look totally badass? Well, he'll look even more badass eventually. For now, he will simply attack you with physical strikes or !Critical Attack which has no special effect added on. Also, he will run away when his HP hits below 10000, meaning his effective HP is only about 1501. Well, you can simply hit him with Missile or Demi to get him to retreat, so use those if you have access to it. Otherwise, he's simply weak enough that you can just attack and heal as needed. Why did I give him a boss section when I didn't give one for the more interesting Abductor? Well, it's because he's Gilgamesh! Well, once he's taken care of, get back upstairs, and heal if necessary. The bottom door is now unlocked, so use it to exit the castle. Overworld - ExDeath's Castle Region My team's level - 21 Welcome to your first REAL overworld region in World 2, where everything stands new before your eyes. Oh, the monsters! Devilfishes are entirely uninteresting. Next to fight, they will also use Digestive Acid, doing some minor damage and setting HP Leak. Ho hum. Weak to bolt. Treant are slightly more interesting. In case you don't know, these sprites basically signifies Berserk, which they will cast on rare occasions. They will also sometimes cast Death Claw at you, but you have a better source of learning in the plains. Still - if you managed to pick it up before venturing to the plain, more power to you. The aforementioned better source of Death Claw is Strapparer, which appears only in the plains (the non-blackish areas). They don't cast Death Claw by themselves (but they do use Dark Spark, which you can pick up if you haven't learned it before), but you can control them into using it. Offensive-wise, they only use fight and Dark Spark, but that still makes them rather annoying. Take them out first. They're weak to Lightning. Well, there isn't a lot you can do on the land, so let's head left to the bridge, OK? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.16 The clash on the Big Bridge ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Big Bridge My team's level - 21 This music here (it's Gilgamesh's theme) is what practically everyone recognize to be the most awesome track in all of FFV, and possibly one of the more awesome tracks in the video game history. Enjoy it. Anyways, the bridge is completely simple in design - after all, how does one put a maze on a friggin' bridge? So just head straight up. You will be attacked by monsters, though. Merrows are weak creatures. With only 400 HP, a glaring weakness to lightning, and no special tricks whatsoever other than fight and !Critical Attack which is no more powerful than fight, they're easy to take out. Feel free to use Level 5 Death to wipe out the opposition if you see them and them only. Flying Killers are even weaker. Same moveset, same weakness to lightning, and only 300 HP. Can't be killed by level 5 death though, but there are other ways to make them shatter. The only thing about them is that Titan can't get them since they're flying monstrosites, but I highly doubt you want to dish out 25 MP to kill some of the weakest creatures you can meet in World 2 anyways. Little Chariots would also have been weak if it weren't for the move they can use: Mustard Bomb. It actually does some decent damage, and sets HP Leak, making them a pain for LLGers and SCCers. Otherwise, though, same weakness to thunder, and 480 HP isn't a lot better than 400 or 300. Just kill them before they can use enough of those things to be of concern to you. Neo Garula is the only creature here that can actually survive for a while. It isn't weak to Thunder, but absorbs it instead. Also, 980 HP does take a while to remove, especially since Neo Garula sports no elemental weakness. Offensively, though, it is no stronger than the other monsters, though !Rush does do more damage unlike the other monster specials you'll see. As you step on the bridge, you'll eventually be attacked by three Little Chariots, followed by Galuf telling you what you already know - there are monsters on the bridge. Take them out, and proceed. Now, as you go on various event tiles, you'll be attacked by various monsters. I regret to inform that I have no idea which tiles trigger what battle, but just that you will get attacked, and you won't be able to run from those monsters. If you're shooting for a complete bestiary, make sure you move around if you find yourself missing any monsters. You want to fill them before you go through the station, because it's much more convinent before then. Anyways, make your way up, and eventually you'll see another room. Enter, and leave on the north side... or at least, attempt to. Gilgamesh will intercept you and fight you again. Gilgamesh Level: 28 HP/MP: 6500/1000 Elemental Attributes: None Status vulneribilities: Slow, Silence (Mute only) Creatue Type: Human, Heavy Drops: Wizard's Hat (Always*) Steal: Hero's Cocktail (Common), Trident (Rare) *You have to actually kill Gilgamesh to get that, meaning that you cannot allow him to do the "lie & buff" sequence, which in turn means that your final blow must be delt while he has at least 2500 HP left. You can go through intensive level modifying and level 5 death, but if you want to do it through damage, know that Drain Kiss (Mix Turtle Shell and Maiden's Kiss) is the strongest magic attack you can get your hands on right now. No catch attack will produce enough power to do over 2500 damage against Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is a lot more interesting this time around and, in my opinion, this battle is the height of his glory as well. He comes at you with not only physical assaults, but also with a couple of spells: Goblin Punch, Aera, and Wind Slash. Especially Wind Slash will hurt badly, so watch out for that. Once you deplete his HP below 2500, he will ramble about how he cannot fight four people together, while casting Haste, Protect and Shell on himself, then Jumps on you. Note that this Jump attack is not the same as Dragoon's Jump attack, but rather kinda like the Chocobo summon - it's a physical spell. Anyways, it will shave off 300sque damage off someone, and he is pretty fast (which is compounded by the effect of Haste), so if you don't heal quick, you'll have a dead person on your hands. Sometimes, though, he'll simply use Fight or Electrocute, both of which are good breaks. Finally, when his HP goes below 2500, he'll ramble about how he remembered something, then Flee. Now, the strong point of Gilgamesh in this battle is his Jump attack. At a decent level, two consecutive jumps is pretty much guaranteed death for most jobs, so before going into that phase, make sure to have Protect on everyone. With Protect on, Gilgamesh's attack won't sting that much any more, and you should have a pretty easy victory at your hands. If you seriously want to, cast Mute (time magic) before his HP falls below 2500 for a laugh. Just know that Mute will stop your own magic as well, though Blue Magic can still be successfully cast. Other than that, there's really not much to say about this battle. Just watch out for Jump, and you should be OK. After battling with Gilgamesh, keep heading up until you see Krile. At this point, you will try to go through the bridge, but then ExDeath will activate some sort of barrier, and the shockwave of it will knock all of you to cloud nine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.17 Finding our way home ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld - Gloceana My team's level - 22 Well, isn't that just nice. You get knocked to the "back of the beyond", where it's also "crawling with monsters". Well, looks like we better find our way somewhere. But first, the monsters. Tunnelers are creatures that are more annoying than dangerous. It has a fair HP count (1000), and can use Dischord occasionally, which... well, sucks. It lacks any features that make them more dangerous, though. While Birostrises' offensive capabilities are not that interesting still, they will use Transfusion whenever their HP gets low, which can make it frustrating if you're focusing on destruction by means of multiple target stuff. They also have no distinct weakness and 1000 HP, so it'll take a while to take them down. Fairy Orcs are odd. They will usually just attack physically, but if anyone fell in battle, they will use Paraclete on that person. Paraclete revives that person, but also has a chance of setting Zombie on him/her. This is very, very annoying as there's absolutely nothing you can do about a zombie'd ally right now. Try not to die around those guys unless you bought Angel Rings back in Istory. If you feel like you're dying, casting Cure on these beasts will cause them to counter... with Curaga. It's 350+ worth points of healing on everyone. Dispose of them like you would with any other beasts, since they have the same 1000 HP and no weakness either. Devourers are yet another one of those 1000 HP beasts with no weaknesses. They attack with Mucus, which isn't even mildly dangerous but still annoying, and they absorb thunder. You know the drill by now - take them out with your strongest stuff. Whoever designed this piece of land must be in love with 1000, because Mandrake is yet another monster with 1000 HP. It DOES have an weakness, however, so you can scorch it up a bit easier than with other stuffs in the vicinity. Offensive -wise, they rarely use Digestive Acid, which is annoying but not dangerous. Well, head east from where you are right now. It'll take a while, but eventually you'll see a village. Enter. Regole Welcome to the first town you encounter in world 2! Like so many towns before it, this town has NOTHING for you to loot. However, there are a lot of stuff here that would make you very happy indeed. So first of all, the shops. Weapon Shop Orichalcum Dirk 3400 War Hammer 6400 Ashura 5800 Sleep Blade 5600 Wind Spear 5400 Dark Bow 3800 Dream Harp 1600 Chain Whip 3300 You've earned the right to let out a very, very pleasant gasp. For a backwater village, there sure are a lot of upgrades for practically all the jobs you can be using right now. If you need any upgrades, buy them. Just make sure you leave 24k gil for magic shops. Armor Shop Golden Shield 3000 Golden Helm 3500 Green Beret 2500 Wizard's Hat 1500 Golden Armor 4000 Ninja Suit 3000 Gaia Gear 2000 Nice upgrades for both heavy armor classes and caster classes. Buy as you need, just leave 24k gil for magic. Item Shop Hi-Potion 360 Potion 40 Phoenix Down 1000 Gold Needle 150 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Eye Drops 20 Antidote 30 Ether 1500 Holy Water 150 Cottage 600 Goalith Tonic 110 Power Drink 110 Speed Shake 110 Iron Draft 110 Hero Cocktail 110 Yeah, lots of nice stuff to buy. This is the general layout of all the future item shops, by the way. Buy as you need, just leave 24k gil for magic. Make sure to keep a healthy stock of holy water, by the way, as it's the only thing you can use to cure Zombie. Magic Shop Blink 3000 Shell 3000 Esuna 3000 Drain 3000 Break 3000 Bio 3000 Comet 3000 Return 3000 Slowga 3000 Yay for level 4 magic! Buy all of them (except for Esuna, which you should already have). If you're lacking in gils, then buy them in this order: Return, Bio, Comet, Break, Drain, Slowga, Shell, Blink. We're not done here! Head for the pub. See that secret passage? It leads to a piano. Play it. Wow, Bartz is getting really good - he played that song with no mistake, and that's not the easiest song out there. Also, you can go up on the stage and dance, and every time you dance you get 100 Gil. It's a very slow method of earning Gil, though. Also, the Inn is free for the first time. Use it and watch a cutscene. After that, it's time to move on. Overworld - Regole region My team's level - 22 Just keep heading south. Eventually you'll see a castle. First of all, you may want to run around it to encounter a Kuza Beast. Kuza Beast is a rather nasty piece of work. It spends every turn casting ???, and if you think that doesn't hurt much, Kuza Beast has a HP count of 5000, so the damage can quickly add to astronomical amounts as you pour the hurt on him. Now, the easiest way out of this is to kill it without relying on direct damage. How? The spell Break. It will petrify the guy and send you off victorious. If you lack that, Death Claw + a tap from something will also kill it very nicely. If status vulneribilities are too cheap for you, its weakness is Wind, so spam as much Aera at him as you can and hope you can kill him before he can kill you. Now, you're not supposed to enter the castle right now (a person in Regole told you that). Doing so will net you a couple of encounters with Shield Dragons, which will prove to be quite a handful, to say the least. The next section will be devoted to the castle, so if you don't want to explore it now, just skip it. You'll be coming back much later, anyways, and the Shield Dragons will still be there if you want their bestiary entry. Kuza Castle (Optional) So yes. The only monster you will encounter here is Shield Dragon, but it's so tough that most of this section will be devoted to it. Shield Dragon's physical attacks are pretty damn strong (expect up to 500 damage to any front row heavy users and 350+ damage to back row casters), and it can use... ahem, !Knock silly to confuse a character (while doing that damn strong damage on the way), and he also uses Zombie Breath to do heck of a lot of damage. Zombie Breath is basically kinda like Poison Breath - its damage is very dependent on the level fo the caster, and with Shield Dragon's level you can expect to eat up to 500 damage per person (though the average is about 250). Also, anyone who succumbs to Zombie Breath gets zombied, which is A Bad Thing. Finally, Shield Dragon has a whooping 19999 HP, no weakness, a defense of 40, a magic defense of 25, and comes with inherent reflect, shell and protect to make your damage even more piddlish. Also, a battle with shield dragon is very hard to run away from. Finally, if you manage to hurt it enough to make its HP go below 10000, it'll flee from the battle, leaving you with nothing but 5 ABP, which is hardly worth the pain and suffering you must have gone through. The best way to subdue the dragon is to control it. Its control menu has Flame, which will do guaranteed 4999 against it, so five shots of flame will kill it, and it won't run away while you flame it. If you don't want to use control, have fun - this is going to be one HELL of a fight. Berserkers will help to increase your damage output, and have your casters run support. That Ribbon you have is very helpful in stopping Confuse. It's entirely possible for you to finish this fight right now without control, but the amount of brain cells you must kill to accomplish that will give you back less reward than if you just use Control and get it over with. Which is very rewarding, by the way - If you manage to actually kill off the dragon, you get 1000 gil, 2500 exp for everybody (10000 exp for SCCers), and 5 ABP. This makes it a pretty great, though dangerous, training resource. Now, the castle is completely straight forward - there's only one way to go. Just keep going up. Eventually you'll hit a room called "Sealed Room". Go downstairs, and Galuf will tell you that these are the twelve legendary weapons used one thousand years ago. They're all petrified right now, though, so you can't use them or anything. Too bad. You can inspect them to read their names, though, but that probably won't do you a lot of good. Leave the castle. Overworld again My team's level - 23 Keep heading southeast. When you see what seems to be a peninsula leading up, go there. It turns out that it isn't a peninsula, but a path that proceed. You'll see a patch of forests to your east. Go there. (Use a cottage to heal up beforehand, though.) A tiny patch of forest You'll see a pink winged creature, staring at a tree. Talk to it, and it'll just run to the right, falling down a hole. Galuf will explain that this is a moogle, and Lenna implores the team to help the little creature. Jump into the hole. Underground Cavern My team's level - 23 Well, this is a rather strange cavern. It's filled with water, when you step into it, the rapid will carry you through. Also, the cavern is filled with monsters. Figures. Blood Slimes have a staggering defense of 39, which makes them hard to harm with physicals in general. Also, they use Vampire a lot, which makes them even more annoying. Take them out quickly. They're weak to fire. Acrophies also sport some defense, though 20 is much more workable than 39 in general. It also has more HP, more magic defense, and is weak to Thunder instead. On the offensive side, though, they're a lot more boring. Physicals never impress anyone, anyways. Moogle Eaters are probably named just that to give you some urgency or something. They're very weak compared to the other monsters - while their HP count is pretty high, they have no real defenses, and sports a weakness to thunder, so pretty much anything can kill them off nicely. They're also boring on the offense. Lesser Poros is the strongest monster you can encounter here. It has 2300 HP, high defense (30), and pretty high attack power. It's usually content sending physical attacks and !Wing attacks at you, but occasionally it can use Frost and Breath Wing, both of which are rather undesirable moves when they're cast on you. They're weak to fire, and if you feel that you want to end the battle a bit quicker, Break will also kill it in one hit when it connects. That's it about the local inhabitants. It's a very short area, so it won't take very long for you to reach to where you need to go. From where you are, just go down to let the rapids carry you to a new landmass. There's only one staircase there, so take that. The next landmass has two staircases (as well as a chest with 4400 gil), but they end up in the same place - a platform with a chest. Collect the chest for a Phoenix Down. Head right and you'll eventually see a skeleton thingy, standing opposite to the moogle. Try to advance and the skeleton will block you. Tyrannosaur Level: 29 HP/MP: 5000/1000 Elemental Attributes: Immune to Ice, Weak to Fire Status vulneribilities: Darkness, Slow Creature Types: Dragon, Undead Drops: Elixir (Always) Steal: Gold Shield (Rare) You know, come to think of it, it's not entirely clear whether Tyrannosaur is detrimental to the survival of that moogle at all. Maybe he's just trying to protect him from harm (which would certainly explain how the moogle survived a trip with countless "moogle eaters"), and he thinks you're there to harm him, which s why he's attacking you. But still, the fact is, he's attacking you, with the intention of delivering a not-so-nice Game Over. We'd need to stop that from happening. Tyrannosaur, when left undistrubed, mounts his offense by pure physical means - He'll either fight or use !Critical Attack, which (surprise, surprise) does nothing to enhance the damage. However, his true powers lie in his counters - if you attack him with anything but MP-driven skills, you will either get smacked back by a plain physical or ???. Given the HP of the thing, a ??? is pretty much enough to kill you after more than one decent shots. Also, if you attack him with Titan, he'll counter with Poison Breath. He may counter some other attacks with Poison Breath though (I'm not entirely clear what invokes that counter, but only Titan seem to invoke it). Poison Breath is still a pretty nasty attack that can really put the hurt on your party if its damage ends up on the high roll, so you probably want to avoid that as well. The easiest way to dispose of this beast is, without a doubt, using a Phoenix Down. He lacks the Heavy status to block such attacks, so it will just kill him in one hit. If you feel that this is overly cheap (there is no shame!), then simply let loose a barrage of Firas and Ifrits. Titan does more damage than Ifrit, but you'll have to eat a Poison Breath for a bit more damage, which isn't really worth it. Refrain from physical attacks unless you feel like eating thousands of damage. If you just keep up your magical attacks, he should fall after a while. After you defeat the foul beast, Lenna will try to woo the cute fluffy animal. However, being the scared timid creature it is, the moogle will run away from her. Eventually she wins it over though, and it beckons you to follow him. I say, let's do so (seeing how we have nothing else to do). Go up the exit to go back to the overworld. Overworld - Moogle Forest Region My team's level: 24 Remember how the Moogle avoided the desert? If you do, you will quickly notice that there are NO random encounters on the plains or the forest. If you try to venture in the desert, though, you will get attacked. Cactus is nothing to worry about, and it has no resemblance to the more modern Cactuar. It attacks physically, occasionally throwing in a !Needle for more damage, and counters the Fight command with a !Needle. It CAN use 1000 needles, but only when its mind is out of commission - only Control and confuse will invoke the Cactus to use 1000 needles. Its weak to water and Aqua Breath, which tends to wipe out entire groups of cacti as at my level it did over 5500 damage to everything. Sandcrawler is the real danger that lies within this dark desert. It sports 15000 HP, no elemental weakness, a 50% magic evade to make most non-unblockable spells inconsistent, and the attack Maelstrom. Its physical attacks are also strong (though not overly strong), and it can channel it in !Critical Attack, which increases its own attack by 50% (note that at this point, these attack * 1.5 specialties usually result in more than 1.5 times damage, because the the increase is done before defense comes into consideration). All in all, a nasty beast. Break will kill it sometimes (though it has to circumvent that 50% magic evade), and Break spellblade will kill it all the time. If you want to do it through damage, I recommend Aqua Breath, which is unblockable and will kill it in three hits at a decent level. So yeah. Kill some desert creature if you want, but know that ultimately you're supposed to follow the moogle, and battles can hinder your process (not to mention that they aren't very rewarding - Sandcrawler gives a measly 250 exp to a four-headed party, and a single Cactus even less). So just follow the (non-desert) path, until you hit the large patch of forest where the moogle disappeared in. Scout around the forest until you enter a place. Welcome to Moogle Forest. Moogle Forest Upon entering all the moogle will flee from you, being the timid woodlanders they are. Walk around and you'll see moogles occasionally running from you, but it's good for nothing more than a cheap laugh. Head towards the right to see a moogle that's not fleeing. Walk to him, and it'll turn out that he's the moogle you rescued. He'll let you in the house he's guarding, which has six chests! The chests contain, from bottom left to bottom right in a clockwise fashion: Ether, Phoenix Down, 10000 Gil (Score!), 1 gil (Woot?), Dancing Dagger, and Cottage. Special note about the dancing dagger: It makes you dance half of the time, which has obvious implications - half of the time, you'll random confuse, drain HP/MP, or do 4x damage. This is generally an odd quirk at best to a normal gamer (unless you're going after an undead, then in which case you better switch to something else), with a smallish chance to do something interesting, but to challenge players, it's often the only method they have to confuse someone, so keep dear hold of it (It's not exactly one of a kind, but getting more is rather painful). Even if you're a normal gamer you might want to keep it, for cheap laughs against generic monsters (besides, the 2900 gil you get from selling it is hardly useful by the time you actually could use large amounts of gil). We're not done here! As you explore the village, you'll see that the other moogles have also grown accustomed to you, though they're not very interesting conversationists. If you go to the house on the far left, you'll see a rather grumpy moogle with a locked chest. The house in the middle contains a moogle... custom? Wear it, then talk to the grumpy moogle on the left house. He'll... well, suffice to say, he'll open up the chest for you, and the chest contains an Elven mantle. Groovy. You will lose the custom as soon as you leave the village, by the way, which we're about to do now, but not through the entrance. Head to the right side, and you should see that the moogle you rescued is outside now (if it isn't, wait a couple of seconds). Talk to it, and it'll telepathically inform Krile's moogle on your whereabouts, who promptly informs Krile, who promptly gets on her Wind Drake and get the lot of you back to non- backwater and/or animal civilization. Yay! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.18 Yet another Wind Drake in distress ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Castle Bal Lots of stuff to do here! The storyline can wait while we explore the castle fully. First, watch the scene and be amazed at the fact that Galuf... is a king! However, it seems that King Galuf is perfectly content walking everywhere with his companions without them minding their P's and Q's, so that's a good thing. Anyways, Time to explore! The throne room already have two chests: a Hero Cocktail and (through a secret passage), the spell Teleport. This spell is an absolutely godsend - not only do they make difficult fights easy to run away from, they also make you get the heck out of [insert dungeon name] when you're done in there. Very useful! Now, head through the exit on the bottom, then exit the room (ignore the staircase leading down), and you'll be in the courtyard of the castle. Enter the left building first. In here you can find some shops. Weapon Shop Orichalcum Dirk 3400 War Hammer 6400 Ashura 5800 Sleep Blade 5600 Wind Spear 5400 Dark Bow 3800 Dream Harp 1600 Chain Whip 3300 It's the same stuff as sold in Regole. If you couldn't afford something back then, get it. Though, if you've even made an attempt to fight most battles you've come across, this shop really should serve little importance to you. There are absolutely no discounts associated with Galuf, by the way. Looks like he really isn't the epitome of kingliness... Armor Shop Golden Shield 3000 Golden Helm 3500 Green Beret 2500 Wizard's Hat 1500 Golden Armor 4000 Ninja Suit 3000 Gaia Gear 2000 Gauntlets 3000 One whooping new item for sale. If you're like me and left a heavy armor user without an Elven Mantle, get a Gauntlet for him/her. Otherwise, get anything you couldn't afford before if that's the case. Magic Shop Blink 3000 Shell 3000 Esuna 3000 Drain 3000 Break 3000 Bio 3000 Comet 3000 Return 3000 Slowga 3000 Don't get your hopes up - it'll be a while before you have access to better spells. Move along. Once you've shopped (or not), head up the staircases until you're at the roof. Then, just go straight to the right to descend down a hidden staircase (not so hidden if you have the ability to reason logically, though). Descend, talk to the old man if you want, and collect the Angel Robe in the chest, which is a nice upgrade if you have a Chemist. See that switch on the opposite wall? There's another one right opposite to it. Go down and flip it, and you'll be in where the merchants are. Talk to the merchants if you want, but ultimately, go right in the middle between the merchants and face down. After a scene you will receive a Lamia's Harp, which does 3/16 damage to the target's currentHP instead of 1/8 like the Dream Harp, and inflict Confuse rather than sleep. You're done in this building. Leave. The middle building contains an item shop and an inn, but no treasures. The inn cost 50 gil, and the item shop... well... Item Shop Hi-Potion 360 Potion 40 Phoenix Down 1000 Gold Needle 150 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Eye Drops 20 Antidote 30 Ether 1500 Holy Water 150 Cottage 600 Goalith Tonic 110 Power Drink 110 Speed Shake 110 Iron Draft 110 Hero Cocktail 110 Yes, it's the same stuff as Regole. You're not going to see anything different for a long time, by the way. Just stock up if you need anything. A healthy stock of HiPotions is always good, as with cottages. There's one more item to loot in the castle. See that pool of water on bottom left? Head towards the bottom left part of that pool and you'll get flushed out in the moat. Follow the moat all the way to the other side. There's a Great Sword on the wall left of the top right end. Find it, then go back to the courtyard. Go to the right building again. See that staircase down? It leads to a basement with a locked door. You can't open the door right now, but you can still fight random encounters within the place. The only monster that will appear is Objet d'art. Objet d'art is a rather tough cookie to fight normally right now. They have 3300 HP, enough attack power to do over 500 damage to a front row fighter without a shield, and the ability to cast Break. They have a weakness to lightning, but it's a minor weakness compared to the fact that they can be level 5 death'd. There is a practical side to fighting them, you see - an encounter with two Objets d'art gives 4 ABP, while an encounter with five Objets d'art gives 8. Since you can just wipe them out en masse with Level 5 Death, this is a great place to train for ABP if you want to. Also, they give a lot of money. If you lack Level 5 Death, you can load up on Gold Needles and use them all over the place. It'll be slow, yes, but it's still a lot faster than your ouchies. Anyways, when you're done building up (or not), head all the way up. You'll see Krile and the Wind Drake. Talk to Krile for your new mission - find dragon grass and save the drake. Well, better get to it, then. Go to the entrance of the castle, talk to the soldiers, and they'll let you out. As soon as you leave, though, One of ExDeath's minions attack you. It's another Abductor, and aside from the the fact that this one has a bit more HP, there's absolutely nothing much to said about the Abductor. Granted, Hurricane isn't nice, but you'll survive, and he won't. If you seriously have problem (LLG, maybe), Break will kill him in one hit. When you're done, leave the castle. Overworld - Bal castle region My team's level - 24 Yup. With new regions to explore come with new monsters to slay, and since you'll be running into quite a lot of them (you still don't have any safer mode of transportation yet), I'd say you probably want to know what they can do and how to make them fall over and die quickly. The raddish-resembling Aquathorn is not very dangerous. Its special ability is Slimer, which as you know, sets slow and HP leak and is more annoying than dangerous. Its attack power is also unassuming, and they have only 800 HP and a weakness to lightning. They make fairly great catch fodder though - When released, they cast Death, whose nature is rather self-explanatory. And you know, there ARE bosses not immune to it, believe it or not, even though the number is small. In fact, the next boss you'll face IS vulnerible to it, so you might want to catch one. You need to lower its HP by 700 or more to catch it at this point. Weresnake does not, as your knowledge of werecreatures in general may say otherwise, infect you with lycanthropy of any kind. Its a rather standard snake monter with the ability to use Entangle. Weak to Ice, and possess a mere 900 HP. Rather easy to plow over, all things considered. Kornago, like its palette swaps, uses Pond's Chorus occasionally. It's easily remedied though, and Kornago is just as silly as the rest of them. They escape when their HP is lower than 300, by the way. This will become significant rather soon. Cursed Beings are the only ones on the continent that can pose any significant threat. Normally they're content on using Physicals, but when they realize that one of you have kicked the bucket, they will instead use Danse Macabre, which sets Zombie. Try not to die with those guys around. It'll be hard to die, yes, but don't push it. They're weak to lightning, and have 1380 HP, so they're not that hard to kill. Also, they can be "broken" - cast Break to exploit that. Moral of the story - Don't die when you see Cursed Beings around. Other than that, do whatever. The monsters on the continent shouldn't give you too much trouble. From where you are, you have two choices on where to go, though only one is really sensible - head North into the town, as Galuf has hinted. You CAN head east into a cave, but that just leads you to the Big Bridge and eventually ExDeath's Castle, which you can't enter (barrier, remember?). There's something to do in the cave, but the monster involved with it is SO strong, it'll kick your backside in five seconds flat. I'll lead you back at a more appropriate time. For now, just walk for Quelb. You've reached Quelb? Good! Quelb When you enter, you'll notice that the town seems... deserted. Pretty much all the doors are locked, no one is aronud, and the only things that move around here besides you are a bunch of sheeps (which are you may already know, aren't great conversationists). Well, let's try the northern gate first. Figures, it's locked. Guess we need to talk to Kelger, whoever he is. If you look around, you'll find that the door of the large mansion near the gate is unlocked. Enter, but there's still no one inside, and the upper door is locked. However, as you try to leave, you'll get ambushed by some werewolf "allies". A werewolf with a unique apparence appears, and Galuf identifies him as the "Kelger" he seeks. Unfortunately, being the senile old man... uh, werewolf he is, he thought Bartz and his female companions were the ones who let ExDeath loose in the world, and challenges Bartz to a duel. After some fighty action that doesn't involve a battle screen, Bartz knocks Kelger all the way into the next room, and... well, more conversations. Turn out that Bartz is the son of one of the Dawn warriors (small world they live in, huh?), and this fact totally changes Kelger's view about him. The good thing is that now we can get past Quelb! Hooray! But first, time to explore the town fully. First of all, the shops. Weapon Shop Orichalcum Dirk 3400 War Hammer 6400 Ashura 5800 Sleep Blade 5600 Wind Spear 5400 Dark Bow 3800 Dream Harp 1600 Chain Whip 3300 Kodachi 5100 Killer Bow 5000 Poison Rod 1500 Shuriken 2500 Flame Scroll 200 Water Scroll 200 Thunder Scroll 200 It's the guy on the left you want for new weapons. Aside from the Ninja stuff, Killer Bow is a nice upgrade for any Hunters you may have with a 12% chance of 1HKOing enemy (though keep in mind that you can work on getting an even nicer bow very soon), and Poison Rod is good if you're a rod-breaking fanatic as they're buyable in world 2 (as opposed to the elemental rods), and good either way because it boosts Poison Damage (and Bio is already more powerful than your -ara spells). Armour Shop Golden Shield 3000 Golden Helm 3500 Green Beret 2500 Wizard's Hat 1500 Golden Armor 4000 Ninja Suit 3000 Gaia Gear 2000 Gauntlets 3000 Twist Headband 3500 Power Sash 4500 Power Armlet 2500 Again, talk to the guy on the left for the good stuffs. I personally find Elven Mantles more useful than Power Armlets, but the other two piece of light armor class equipment are good buys. Angel Robe is better than Power Sash, though. Item Shop Hi-Potion 360 Potion 40 Phoenix Down 1000 Gold Needle 150 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Eye Drops 20 Antidote 30 Ether 1500 Holy Water 150 Cottage 600 Goalith Tonic 110 Power Drink 110 Speed Shake 110 Iron Draft 110 Hero Cocktail 110 By now I think you can make decisions for yourself on what to buy. Magic Shop Blink 3000 Shell 3000 Esuna 3000 Drain 3000 Break 3000 Bio 3000 Comet 3000 Return 3000 Slowga 3000 Deja vu. See that wolf in the Inn? Sit on the left seat, face the table, and he'll fetch you some meal, which restores you like an Inn would. He also gives you 8 potions as "dessert". He'll do this three times, then he'll run out of stuff. If you want to, just get your 24 free potions right here right now, but I tend to wait until I actually need the free healing to make it count. It's not like potions are going to save your backside anytime soon anyways. Also, see those wolves running in a circle on top right of the town? One of them will teach you the Requiem song, a very, very useful one indeed that can make practically any undead you come across kick the bucket (again) at the speed of light. If you find it hard to talk to one of them, know that you can alter their course by standing around, and make them run into corners. In fact, it's really fun to try and get them stuck in various places. Also, with skill, you can make run all over in the main part of the town as well, not just that circle. Finally, see that well on the bottom left? Inspect it, and a wizard will jump out, murmuring something about "frog". Yeah, he wants a frog. No, casting Toad is not going to do anything for you. What other frogs do you see around here? Kornago, of course. Run outside and catch one for our wizard friend, and he'll sell you a KornagoGuard for 10000 gil and the Kornago. Catching one is not an easy task, though (he run away when his HP hits below 300, remember? And you have to lower his HP to 125 or less). Casting Death Claw will help you well, as it makes his HP very low, and paralyzes him so he can't run away in a hurry. Be fast, though. The KornagoGuard will make it so that the equipper only need to lower a creature's HP to 1/2 rather than 1/8 to catch that creature. It's not that nice of an equipment, but it's good to keep since KornagoGuard is a limited edition item, per se, and it does make catching stuff slightly easier. Anyways, that's about all that Quelb has to offer. So, let's leave for the Drakenvale mountain! World Map - Bal Region The Drakenvale mountain is north of Quelb, and just a stone's throw away. Drakenvale My team's level - 24 So, we're back in a mountain again. Well, this one is obviously a wee bit harder than the last one you've been through, with tougher monsters to take down and stuff. So, let's say hello to the residents which we must plow through to reach our goal. Amongst the first enemies you will meet is Drippy, an imp-like creature with the ability to cast the very annoying Magic Hammer spell. I've mentioned it a LOOOONG time ago with Byblos, but since you probably forgot about it since then - It's a blue magic that halves target's MP. While it's rather meh-ish on your side, it can be really annoying when you're being targetted. Fortunately, he only uses it every two turns starting on the second turn, and with 900 HP he doesn't last very long. Cast Bio for optimal results. Lycaon is a rather weak creature at this point. It has an astonishing 500 HP, and a weakness to fire. They're one of the easiest enemies you'll be able to push over at this point even if they appear in large groups, and offensively they only use physical attacks, which they do not excel in. Wipe them all out with Fire Edge, Fira, Ifrit, or whatever. Poison Eagles have the typical "bird" attributes - very little HP (100), very high evade (both physically and magically). The trick to these birds in general is to use unblockable attacks. All damaging spells are unblockable, as with Jump, Aim, Sword Dance, Lance command, and some other stuff. They're immune to Poison and Earth, but those are certainly not your only option. Also, they have a Hayate Bow for steal rarely, and since their common slot is empty, you can keep stealing and nab it eventually, especially given how they will not be killing you anytime soon. Hayate Bow is one HECK of a bow, as it make you use Rapid Fire 25% of the time. In case you don't know, Rapid Fire make you attack four times randomly at half strength, and it also makes your attack DEFENSE PIERCING. I think the value of such an attack speaks for itself. The above three monsters are your basic cannon fodders, but Drakenvale mountain do star a couple of headache monsters, and Bone Dragon is one of them. It can use !Tail to paralyze you, and the Bone attack as well, which leaves your HP to single digits. Worse, it can sometimes team up with a brethren and attack you together, and two Bone Dragon battle is easily the worst random encounter you can meet at this point. They're undead, but due to their heavy status Phoenix Down will not score you a quick win. Stick with fire elemental attacks, or if you so please, Break can kill one Bone Dragon in one hit when it connects. Zombie Dragon is the other headache monster, and when we're talking about single monsters it's easily the worse one out of the two. Higher HP (4590) Aside, It can also rarely emit a Poison Breath at you, which is a very nasty attack. Weak to fire like undeads generally are, and it lacks the Heavy Status, so a Phoenix Down will kill it in one hit (though you'll be losing money, since it only gives 500 gil). Also, Break will kill it in one hit if it connects. Fortunately for you, the only companions it can enlist are a Drippy and a Poison Eagle, both of which are not even remotely threatening. Finally, once in while, you'll run into a monster named ????, who attacks you once, then escapes immediately. Ignore him for now - his purpose will come soon. Enter the mountain. The cave you'll see first contains a chest with 5000 gil. Moving on, you'll see another cave. Enter. The path is linear in the cave, so just walk it through and exit. The new mountain region is also straight forward - enter the other cave you see there. The cave is yet another linear one. Grab the Cottage in that chest, and keep going. Another straight forward mountian path, another straight forward cave (has this become a running gag yet?), and you'll see a place with some bones and skulls. STOP. This is the place where one specific battle can happen. Remember that stone hulk thing that keep hitting you once then escape? You'll encounter him here, but it won't be as simple as that. He'll show up with a Bone Dragon AND a Zombie Dragon (as well as a name, Golem). However, as soon as you prepare to administer appropriate whoop-ass, it seems that you aren't the one being attacked - Golem is! The two undead dragons are now turning on him, and now he's asking you for help. Touche, but trust me - it's better to be a good samaritan here. So yeah. The two undead dragons are not the usual version, by the way - they're beefed up, though not by a whole not, and you can still take them out with relative ease as long as you deploy magical means. Break will destory the Bone Dragon, but not the Zombie Dragon. For Zombie Dragon, just spam your best fire magic and he'll go down relatively soon. Watch out - he can use Vampire sometimes every three round, and if he does that, Golem's pretty much dead if you've been inflicting any meaningful damage. Though, you can encounter this formation again, so don't worry if Golem is dead - just run around and you'll get another chance at saving him. Eventually, the two dragons will die, Golem will offer his gratitude, and you'll end the battle with a Golem summon item (again, don't be a wise guy and not take it or anything). Use it to obtain the Golem summon! Rock! (Literally). The golem, when summoned, will form a protective wall around your characters. Whenever a physical attack comes your way, it will extend a segment of itself in front of your characters and take the damage instead. It can take (level + 20) * 50 damage before it vanishes, at which point you must renew the wall by resummoning it should you wish to enlist its protection again. As you can see, it can be used to completely shut down enemy physical strikes. Very useful, and one you should definitely get for the upcoming boss battle. Also, in this area, see that three bones lined up *almost* vertically? The bottom one contains a Bone Mail, a piece of armour that have long since been a subject of endless debates. Basically, Bone Mail is a light armour class (and thus can be worn by most non- dedicated casters) armour, with a defense that outmatches even the legendary Genji Armor, at a weight of only 1/3 of it. It also grants immunity to many status ailments (Dead, Poison, Darkness, Aging, Charm, Berserk, Regen), absorp- tion of poison, and it also halves any incoming Ice damage. The cost of equipping such an armour includes weakness to fire and holy, but more importantly - it turns the wearer into an undead. The implication is obvious - Say, when you just got hit by something like Maelstrom and immediately response by casting Curaga, a person with Bone Mail equipped would get damaged instead of healed, which... is rather inconvinent, to say the least. Also, the only way to resurrect a person with bone mail equipped is to have Zombie cast on him/her. Needless to say, that's rather obscure, so for all purposes, when a bone mail equipper bites the dust in battle, he/she stays dead til the end of the batte. Obviously, a bone mail equipper is not impossible to heal as long as he/she is still alive - Bone Mail absorb Poison inherently, so Bio and Poison will heal him (though Bio's HP Leak will come to effect normally, which may be not so desirable). Also, if you give him/her external sources of absorption (elemental rings, elemental shields, resist X mixture, what have you), then you can heal him/her using that element. Finally - and this one probably makes the most sense - White Wind will heal regardless of undead status, so that can be used to heal. Is it worth it to equip the bone mail? That's a subject under constant debate. I'd say that leave it in your inventory for now, but later on, when you have access to getting Reflect Ring, then you can use those two in conjunction as your white magicks that start with Cur- will no longer kill a teammate by mistake. You will still need White Wind at least, though. Later on, you also might want to add a Flame Shield to the outfit, as while holy attacks are rather obscure (the only non-reflectable holy attack your enemies can use don't come until the final bout), fire attacks can be commonplace. Also, with fire absorption, you can simply smack him/her with a Flametongue to heal. But enough talk about a single piece of armour. Head in the hole on the bottom. But what's that? The door wouldn't open for you! Well my friend, try walking around. You'll eventually fall into a pit. Collect the chest for 7000 gil, and head up the door (not the top exit). Flick the switch and lo', a bridge has appeared for you to go on! Head back down, then head down through the top exit (which turned out to be the door that refuse to open on this side). Head through the newly constructed bridge and head in the cave. In the new cave, you're faced with a dilemma. A crossroad. Head left first - you'll eventually see a passage that leads you to two chests containing both one-of-a-kind items: A Hypno Crown and A Wind Slash. The former is a rather nice helmet right now with a good boost to magic defense, and increase the chance of control; the latter is a nice Katana that can not only Critical like Katanas usually can, but also cast Wind Slash instead of a normal attack once in a while. Even with Samurai's rather sub-par magic, you can score a pretty nice damage on all of your foes with a Wind Slash. Besides, it has better battle power than Ashura. Equip it. Anyways, when you're done, head back to the entrance and head right this time. Keep going down, collecting a Phoenix Down on the way, and enter the right exit for a small room with a save point. Save and heal, then go off the other exit. In the new area, make sure that someone has access to the Summon command, then follow the path. Eventually, you will see the dragon grass. As Lenna and Faris try to pick it, though, it suddenly sprout up and attack! But wait... grass isn't supposed to attack people! Well, Faris got it right - it's not just a grass now, it's a foul leafy devil. Well. Guess we have to lay the smack on it. Dragon Pod/Dragon Flower (5) Level: 33 (Pod), 31/31/33/31/35 (Flowers) HP/MP: 12000/1000 (Pod), 100/1000 (Flower) Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribility: Death (Pod), Everything (Flower) Creature Type: Human (Pod) (WTF?) Drop: Elixir (Pod, always), Phoenix Down (Flower, rare) Steal: Nothing Uh yeah. Dragon Pod is, apparently, a HUMAN. Not that you can take advantage of that at this point but still... I speak too much. Anyways, Dragon Pod doesn't attack you directly. Instead, it sends appendages to do its dirty work - the Dragon Flowers. It'll turn three flowers on you for the first three turns, then after the fourth turn it will release all of its flowers on you whenever it detects that you wiped out its underlings, or after some time have elapsed since it last did that. In other words, it's basically a generator. The Dragon flowers are, unfortunately, very annoying. They attack you with various Powders. Each powder does 100 damage to front row people, 50 to back row people, and cause a status effect. The effect of the individual flowers are, from the order of right side to left side counterclockwise: Old, Poison, Darkness, Paralyze, Confuse. The bone mail doesn't stop paralysis, and the Ribbon doesn't stop confuse, so there's no way you can outfit your team to be resistant to those statuses (though, if you're playing a single character challenge and its ilk, you can combine the two). In other words, you can clearly see that this boss fight isn't nearly as dangerous as it is annoying, as flying statuses are rather tedious to cure. But, we have one trump card up our sleeves - Our newly gained summon, Golem, will stop all of the attacks since they are physical, and as a side effect it will stop the statuses as well. Also, since the flowers do so little damage, it's unlikely that it will run out anytime soon (at a decent level it can take more than 2000 HP before it vanishes, which is a lot more than enough). Now, you can either focus on the big prize, or wipe out the flowers consistently... or both. Titan is a great mvoe for summoners as it's the highest damage attack they can dish out right now, and will wipe out the flowers anyways. Black magic users should equip a Venom Rod if they can and cast Bio on the big flower. For other characters - focus your offense on the big prize. Titan will consistently wipe out the flowers anyway, so there really is no reason for others to kill steal, even if they do have some form of multi-targetting attack. If you want, you can simply release an Aquathorn to kill the Pod in one hit once all the flowers are gone. If you're not using Golem (challenge, perhaps?), it's still not that hard. Basically what you want is to wipe out the flowers consistently. The flowers have high magic defense, but high-caliber spells like Bio and Titan will still kill them with ease. Also, consider using a Monk for this fight as their Kick, while weak, will keep the flowers dead. So basically, one (or two) people keep the flowers dead, others focus on the pod. Still easy, either way. Uh yeah. Anyways, once you're done with beatings, it's time to get the heck out of here. Walking works, but so does Teleport, and you just got it. Switch someone to Time Mage (or give someone level 4+ time magic ability), and use that to leave in an instant. World Map - Bal Region Not much to say. Make your way back to Bal. Oh, and if the performance of Death via Aqua Thorn had been satisfying so far, the next two bosses are vulnerible to it to, so catch some additional ones should you wish to. Castle Bal Well, looks like Galuf's soldiers are TOO well trained, and now they won't let you in. Well, Galuf has a plan - jump into the moat. Remember how you got that Great Sword? Use the same method to get back (if you skipped that part, head right and follow the path until you're at the top right section, then search the wall to your left for a Great sword, then head the opposite way and pull the switch to get back in). You can now head through the door anytime should you want to, by the way. Anyways, now that you're back in, it's time to give the grass to the wind drake. On the way, however, you'll find that Krile had apparently collapsed. Now, she's mumbling something about "he is calling". No, it's not her boyfriend - it's Ghido, a sage. Well, we can't get anywhere without the wind drake, so let's take care of that first. Head up, and... well, after a rather long scene, the wind drake is cured and everyone is happy... sorta. Anyways, the important thing is, you now have a Wind Drake with you! Hoorah! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.19 Free rein within the unknown world ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld - On a Wind Drake You'll quickly realize that unlike in world 1, the Wind Drake isn't stuck in a ring of mountains, so you can visit most locations. There are one place which you can't get to with the Wind Drake on the world map, but you'll be getting there so don't worry. Well, our next destination - Ghido's cave! It's easy to spot, so just land somewhere and enter. Ghido's Cave As soon as you enter, an Earthquake happens and the island sinks. Wow, bad timing, ExDeath. Anyways, you manage to survive thanks to the valiant efforts of the drake, but I guess we need to go somewhere else now. Let's talk to Kelger for some clues on where to go next. Why him? Because I said so! Overworld Fly back to Quelb. Quelb Talk to Kelger. The conversation was horribly butchered in the PS version, though it wasn't a lot better in the GBA version in my opinion - but hey, at least now you know where to go. It's time to pay this Xezat a visit. Overworld See that castle on the north? That's Surgate. Enter. Castle Surgate As soon as you try to enter by pulling the switch, you get inquisited by some soldier. Before anything violent happens, though, a higher ranked soldier recognizes Galuf and gives you total access to the castle. Sweet. Apparently Xezat is not here though - he's on a mission to destory the barrier. Still, it's time to see what this castle can offer us on our quest to kill ExDeath. See that stairs on the right? Head down until you hit the shops floor. Yeah, time to go shopping. Weapon Shop Great Sword 8400 Heavy Lance 8100 Osafune 8800 Poison Axe 9600 Rather small selection here. Don't bother with Osafune - the Wind Slash is better. Feel free to upgarde your berserkers or dragoons, though. Armor Shop Golden Shield 3000 Golden Helm 3500 Twist Headband 3500 Wizard's Hat 1500 Golden Armor 4000 Power Sash 4500 Gaia Gear 2000 Gauntlets 3000 Nothing you haven't seen before. Move along, now. Item Shop Hi-Potion 360 Potion 40 Phoenix Down 1000 Gold Needle 150 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Eye Drops 20 Antidote 30 Ether 1500 Holy Water 150 Cottage 600 Goalith Tonic 110 Power Drink 110 Speed Shake 110 Iron Draft 110 Hero Cocktail 110 ...... Magic Shop Blink 3000 Shell 3000 Esuna 3000 Drain 3000 Break 3000 Bio 3000 Comet 3000 Return 3000 Slowga 3000 Last shop before better magic. I promise. Anyways, head back to the throne room. Take the stairs on the bottom left for Xezat's bedroom. See that red book? Read it and you'll learn a song, the Swift Song. It continously raises agility when someone sings it, but it ties up the singer until he/she is smacked out of it by an enemy or an ally. It's the first of the many to come, and most of them are rather crapastic unless you're playing a Bard-only challenge, since they're only good for long battles which should not happen most of the time. Anyways, you're done here. go back to the throne room and this time take the final staircase. It leads to a ceiling with a path to another room in the castle, so go there. It leads to a library, and the scholars seem to be concerned about a certain one-thousand-years old book that lost half of the pages (and I have a shrewed idea on where the other half of the page is...). Anyway, head down, talk to the librarian, and she'll ask you to to organize the three books you see on the table. Well, the shelves are catagorized by the letter the book start with, so put the books in their appropriate shelves (I trust that you need no aid on this). Finally, if you're looking for something extra, examine the shelf on the top left and Bartz will try to look for... something. The scene isn't really all that funny compared to the RPGe's translation though. For trivial information, Bartz's line on the RPGe version is like this: Bartz: M...N...O...P...Pl...Playb... ...I guess they don't carry it. ANYways, when you're done shelving books, talk to the librarian. She'll open up a passage and go through. Follow her. In the new room, walk downstairs. The room contains a chest with 5000 gil, and a wizard talking about some giant eye. We'll meet up with that sometime in the future. Anyways, Head outside from there, walk left under the catwalk, and follow the path until you're in a room with a single chest. It contains Float, a very handy time magic. Now, leave the castle - you've done what you could here. However, before you leave, make sure you're well stocked on items and such, because you won't be able to access a shop for a while. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.20 One Barrier Tower, going down ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld Go to ExDeath's Castle. You still can't get in, but now there's a fleet of ships on the right side (opposite to the Big Bridge). Land on the biggest ship. Xezat's fleet My team's level: 25 So yeah. Greetings are exchanged, and Xezat asks you to rest on the bottom deck. You'll see a soldier there who asks you to use the room on the right, so use that, and it's time to rest. Ah sleep, thou sweet mistress. Egads! Some violent shaking suddenly awakens your party. Apparently, it's a monster attack, and judging by the (awesome) music, I think we have a fair idea who is responsible for this. Well, let's check it out. Sure enough, you see that the person who initiated this attack is none other than the very cool (albeit rather weak) Gilgamesh. Xezat jumps off to battle another monster, and you're now on the ship with lots of soldiers and monsters running around. Well, you know what to do. All the monsters here consist of a single Gobbledygook. If you don't know what that means, it's OK - the very word itself describes nonsensical language. Anyways, this goblin palette swap has 1200 HP, no elemental weakness, a fair attack rating, and weakness to every status you can throw at him. If you're looking for a quick victory at minimum MP cost, throw a Toad/Mini to disable him, as he is incapable of delivering any blows independent of his strength. Kill as many running ones as you want, but ultimately, you want to kill the one that's south of the ship, just blocking the way to Gilgamesh. As soon as you kill him, you'll see Xezat in more fighty actions. Anyways, ignoring him, it's time to go for the big prize - Gilgamesh. HOWEVER, before you go, try and make sure you have someone who can steal. It's rather important as Gilgamesh holds an one-of-a-kind item that you absolutely want to take, and it doesn't even take a lot of effort. Again, this is another place where the RPGe translation was far superior, as Gilgamesh's greeting is far more of an one- liner there: Gilgamesh: Starkle starkle little twink... now it's time for you guys SINK!!! Gilgamesh/Enkidu Level: 31 (Gilgamesh), 29 (Enkidu) HP/MP: 8888/888 (Gilgamesh), 4000/1000 (Enkidu) Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribility: Death, Darkness, Slow (both) Creature Type: Human (both), Heavy (Gilgamesh) Drops: Gold Shield (Gilgamesh, always) Steal: Genji Glove (Gilgamesh, common) (!!), Green Beret (Enkidu, common) Yup, it's another Gilgamesh battle. Gilgamesh is not that hard (since when is he?), as he only use physicals most of the time, though occasionally he can throw Missiles and Death Claws at the fray, which can hurt. However, when his HP dives below 6000 - that's 2667 damage or more, he will spend the next turn calling his pal, Enkidu, who will promptly cast White Wind, which heals 4000 HP. His AI script doesn't change one bit, though. Also, if you manage to kill him before he ever realizes that his HP is below 6000 (which requires a turn, so you can do it via accumulating damage as long as he doesn't get a turn before he's dead) Enkidu, after using that White Wind, will throw a variety of spells in the mix occasionally. He can use Aera, Missile, Web, White Wind, Vampire, Wind Slash, and the ever-so-annoying Dischord. His physical attacks are not that dangerous (same strength as Gilgamesh), but Vampire is murder when he decide to use it and it connects (though, if the person he used it on is wearing the Bone Mail, the murder will be on himself). The strategy? Right. Both of them are vulnerible to instant death, so releasing Aquathorn can kill them in one blow when it connects. Otherwise, slow them down, then gang up on Enkidu when he's summoned so he won't get a chance to cast the dreaded Vampire (even if someone is donning the bone mail, you do not want to take the risk as he can very well target someone else... that is, of course, if you DO have someone for him to target, which is not the case in Single character challenges and their ilks). Once Enkidu is dead, do the same with Gilgamesh. If their physicals attacks are bothering you, cast Flash and/or Golem. This fight is no trouble at all. When you're done, Gilgamesh will drag you down to the ocean... ahem, *attempt* to drag you down. Fortunately, he only succeeded in making you *almost* falling down, and even though you end up doing so eventually, the delay gave the Wind Drake enough time to react and save you from a watery grave (or at least a very annoying inconvinence, heh). Anyways, it's time to do what we're supposed to do here. Follow Xezat (he's in the bottom, the room on the left). When you're in the room, he will ask you to carry some box over to the right, then jump in. You follow suit and... look, it's a submarine! He will lead you to the barrier tower, and ask you to follow. Before you do, though, you may wanna head down- stairs for a rest. Anyways, when you're done, follow him. You'll end up in the barrier tower... or, A barrier tower. Doesn't really matter, though, as that's the only barrier tower you can visit. Barrier Tower My team's level: 26 Well, your mission here is a simple one. Xezat will go downstairs and work on the generator, while you go up and find the antenna. When you find it, use the Whisperweed (which is like a walkie talkie, except not fueled by technology, but MAGIC... or something like that) to notify Xezat. He'll shut down the power, and you'll destory the antenna. However, it isn't so simple. You see, the Barrier Tower is the very source of the protection employed by ExDeath. Break the tower, and he will no longer be protected. Obviously, he will deploy security measures to prevent that from happening, and the security measures take the forms of various monsters. Yeah, we're talking about random encoutners here. Let's get to it, then. Neons are very weak. They do nothing except for using Fight and !Critical Strike (1.5x attack, which at this point can translate to pretty much 2x damage already assuming decent equipment) normally, and the only other attack they can deploy is Flash, which they rarely counter physicals with. Overall, a highly uninteresting monster that can be simply dispatched by any method you fancy. Magnetites are even worse. They don't even attack you normally - all they do is cast Magnet over and over, which pulls a party member from the back row to the front row. Though, when they are alone, they WILL use physicals on you... but their physicals are REALLY weak at this point. Weak to lightning as you may expect from something metallic, and that also makes it the only random encounter in the entire tower that has an elemental weakness. Travellers can be annoying. They can open with Time Slip, which is a blue magic that sets Sleep and Old at the same time, and can hit quite often too. When you're casting it, it's generally not as effective as just casting Old or Sleep individually (as both of them are rather crippling by their own), but against you, it's pretty annoying. They also have a nice 1400 HP and no elemental weakness, so you probably won't be taking them out in one shot with most stuff. However, they are rather weak when it comes to actually delivering a game over. Reflect Knights are the last of the four monsters which you can meet in the "inside" segments on the tower, and it's a rather tricky one, too. As its name implies, you're dealing with something that has auto-reflect. Add in the fact that it has 30 defense to hamper most of the ouchies you can throw at him, and you got something that can be fairly nasty to deal with. Finally, they have 1600 HP, no elemental weakness, and a rather high attack rating. You'd want to deal with them quickly - summons are the best options you have, or if you don't want to spend a lot of MP for a random encounter, use Flash to disable them and slave away with your best physicals. Terrain attacks can also be effective. They have a rare Reflect Ring drop, an assessory that is so good for challenges (due to the difficulty of some challenges in obtaining Reflect) that people spend a LONG time trying to get one. For normal purposes, though, it's only good as a conjunction to the Bone Mail when you know that you won't get killed anytime soon, as to reflect any Cur-anything spells you may want to MT on your party, while letting the undead-tolerant White Wind slip by should you need to heal. Get one if you want. Or heck, get four if you want - it'll take a lot of time, but it'll save you a lot of MPs in some fights, if you don't mind the loss of the assessory slot. Level Trickers only appear on the "outside" segment. As their name imply, they cast level x effect spells at you. Normally they only use level 4 graviga, but you can delve into their inner mind and force them to cast Level 2 Old and Level 5 Death by the control command. Level 2 Old is something you have not seen yet - it basically inflicts old on anything whose level is divisible by 2. Theoritically, that's half the monster you're going to meet, which makes it quite handy. However, learning it can be very tricky - you have to control it, cast Reflect on it somehow (by using a chemical mixture - Dragon Fang + Phoenix Down = dragon defense, which cast Reflect), and pray that it hits the person with learning. It's rather complicated for a spell that doesn't see much use before you can learn it again, so I'd wait for a while. Gravitator... well, it's another monster whose trick is implied by the name. It cast Gravity and Graviga rarely, the latter of which can hurt. Defensive-wise, they have 1800 HP, no elemental weakness, but a slew of status vulneribilities, though their Heavy status makes anything with a duration of effect pretty much a waste of time. Ziggurats Gigas only appear on the upper floors, and they're rather nasty too. Sporting an attack higher than Reflect Knight, absorption to wind (which is actually a rather frequent element if you're into Gaia attacks), 2420 HP, and no elemental weakness. If you see them by themselves (or with a couple of Magnetites), you may want to cast Break to end the struggle quickly. Otherwise, stick with your strongest attacks and hope that you don't run into too many of them. That about sums up the random encounters. As you can see, this place is a rather large step-up from the weakling monsters you've dealt with before, so use caution. Physical attacks tend to do little against some of the monsters, so stick with magical barrages. Just watch out when Reflect Knights are present - I'm sure you don't want to eat a Bio you cast yourself. Anyways, now that's over with, It's time to tackle this tower. It's fairly linear in design, but contains a couple of surprises, so you probably want to read this still. Anyways, head upstairs for a typical small room with save point. Save if you want, and head up. On this floor, there are two chests. The one close to the exit contains 9000 gil, while the out-of-the-way one has a monster-in-a-box: Red Dragon. Red Dragon right now is some serious business. Its attack far surpasses almost anything you have encountered so far, and it occasionally cast Atomic Ray, which can do 500+ worth of fire damage to everyone. To top it off, it has 7500 HP. It would've deserved a boss section except for one thing - it shows up as a random encounter somewhat later. Anyways, the big thing about him is that if you control him, you can get him to cast Level 3 Flare, a very useful blue magic (and I trust that you know what it does judging by its name). However, you can only get it to cast it on himself this way, so you need to add reflect on him by using the mixture dragon defense (Dragon Fang + Phoenix Down), and pray that it hits someone with learning. It's a rather large hassle, but level 3 flare is well worth it. Though, keep in mind that you will meet another Red Dragon later in this dungeon, so if your level is just a bit short of something divisible by 3. For its own demise, control + Level 3 Flare is your best way out, as the dragon itself can be affected by Level 3 Flare. Should you obtain the spell, by the way, you can immediately use it to get rid of everything except for Wall Knights indoors (watch out for reflection from Wall Knight, though). For defeating it, you will get a Blood Sword. Blood Sword is the first of the "Knight-only" sword you get, which means that unlike generic swords, lesser warriors like Mystic Knight, Blue Mage, and Red Mage cannot equip it. Blood Sword by itself is an odd weapon - it sports a very high attack power, and it drains HP from enemies (watch out when they're undead), but it hits only 25% of the time. The Aim command will ensure that it hits, but the Rapid Fire command will be better - not only does it ensure that it hits, it also (for some odd reasons) does not half damage from Blood Sword, turning what's usually 2x damage into 4x. Chances are, though, you won't exploiting that very much until much later, since it's generally not a good idea to use a Knight given how the ABP you earn with it (After earning Two- handed) are pretty much wasted. Head outside, take the up staircase on the left, and enter the door. Follow the path to get outside again. This time, the staircase is on the right side. Follow the path to the next room. The chest here contains 18000 gil and no monsters, so take it. Follow the path to the outside. The stiarcase is on the left. Before you head in the door, though, Xezat reports in and says that he's reached the engine room (and you know, it looks like that in all this time, he took like, TEN steps. Lazy bum). Head in the room, Follow the path to outside again. This time, there are TWO staircases. The left one leads to a chest with a Red Dragon and a Gold Hairpin. The Gold Hairpin is an extremely useful helmet that cuts down MP cost by half. There are only three of those in the game, and one of them is a HUGE hassle to get, so make sure to grab that one (and learn Level 3 Flare if you haven't yet). When you're done, head for the other side. It's a room with save point. Save and heal if you need to. At this point, if you have Dark Spark and Level 5 Death and want an easier time, make sure that you have them. Ohterwise, get !Mix ready for some powerful concoctions. Now, go out of the room. Follow the path up and you'll see the antenna. Galuf will immediately signal Xezat to shut down the generator. However, things aren't so simple for you, because... well, there's a boss guarding it, and it'll attack you. Yeah. Atomos Level: 41 HP/MP: 19997/10000 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: Sleep Creature Type: Heavy Drop: Dark Matter (always) Steal: Ether (Common), Flail (Rare) Atomos is one nasty piece of work. Now, the basic idea behind Atomos is that when all of your party members are alive, it will cast up to two Comets per turn. Now, unless your level is REALLY high and you cover everyone in shell, that's just going to kill you dead right there. As soon as it spots at least one party member dead, though, it'll stop blasting you with Comet, and start pulling the dead person towards him. Once that person is sufficiently close, it'll cast Wormhole to erase that person, then bombard you with Comet until someone dies again. Rinse, lather, repeat. However, very rarely it will sometimes cast time magic while pulling - Slowaga, Old, Gravity, and Graviga. Especially Slowaga is very, very annoying beacuse you don't have an one-turn counter to it yet, and since you're forced to blitzkrieg him, having an entire slowed party is not a sweet thing at all. To cap matters, Atomos's HP is really high, which can hamper things a bit. The cheap way out of this is to cast two blue magics in succession - Dark Spark, and Level 5 Death. You see, since FFV deals with integers only, when you devide 41 by 2, it's going to round that number down to a nice 20, so you can just cast Level 5 Death, and that's it. You win. You can go home now. If tactics involving instant death are beyond you, however, (or if you simply lack those spells) know that Atomos has ONE status vulneribility. Now, since Atomos's creature type is Heavy, sleep is generally going to last very short. However, if you can get a Mystic Knight to constantly attack with the Sleep spellblade, you can basically slow him down somewhat at least, giving you a breather. Other than that, the standard way is to leave one person dead, and just bombard him with your strongest attacks, and pray that he doesn't cast Slowaga (or cover your team with any Wall Rings you may have picked up). You should be able to kill him before your dead party member gets even remotely close into being pulled, but if you're too slow, just revive that person and let Atomos kill another person. Keep it going and Atomos will eventually fall. Good luck! Of course, you can revive people whenever they die, but if you do that, then you definitely want to keep at least two or more people using Sleep spellblade constantly, or you're going to end up wasting a lot of Phoenix Downs. After this, the antenna goes down, but... suffice it to say, Xezat Matias Surgate, one of the Dawn Warriors that sealed ExDeath, dies. It's a rather sad scene, really, but in the end, the lot of you end up back at where the sub is. Galuf stood mourning for him, and you can't get him to move by talking to him. So, just stand there for about half a minute, and you'll be free to leave, with the control of the submarine! Well, Bartz hinted that we should now go see Ghido. However, before doing that, We'll cover a couple more stuff. Oh... and yes, the barrier is down now. However, if you try to go in ExDeath's Castle to give him a piece of your mind? You'll find that the door leading up is locked. It's anyone's guess why a party of light warriors who can scale an entire tower and burn up a dimensional gateway cannot get past a simple work of mechanics, but hey, it IS a game. We'll be there eventually. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.21 Twenty thousand grids under the sea ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld - underwater If you bring up the map, you will see that you only have three places where you can visit - a lone dot on the northwest, a dot on the southwest, and a dot where Ghido's cave is. Let's go to the one on the southwest first. You'll find a small passage that leads to a little lake when you surface at the end of the passage. There's a town on the left side. Enter. Moore Well, storyline speaking, you shouldn't be here until a bit later. However, we're coming here anyways, because of the stuff we can get here. First of all, the free stuffs. There is only one free stuff you can find right now, however. The top barrel on the left side contains a Main Gauche, but it is a rather nice prize. Now, the shops. Weapon Shop Air Knife 6800 Elven Bow 7500 If you don't have a Hayate bow, buy an Elven bow. Air Knife is great for anyone who uses terrain magic, so buy one too. Armour Shop Diamond Shield 6000 Diamond Helm 7000 Tiger Mask 5000 Sage's Miter 3000 Diamond Armor 8000 Diamond Plate 6000 Luminous Robe 4000 Diamond Armlet 4000 Yay for upgrades. Diamond Armlet isn't that useful as you should have three elven mantles and one Genji Gloves right now, but all of the rest are very nice buys. Just know that Sage's Miter is inferior to the Gold Hairpin if you're actually using MP. Item Shop Hi-Potion 360 Potion 40 Phoenix Down 1000 Gold Needle 150 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Eye Drops 20 Antidote 30 Ether 1500 Holy Water 150 Cottage 600 Goalith Tonic 110 Power Drink 110 Speed Shake 110 Iron Draft 110 Hero Cocktail 110 Take the liberty of stocking up as you see fit. Magic Shop Curaga 6000 Reflect 6000 Berserk 6000 Blink 3000 Shell 3000 Esuna 3000 Firaga 6000 Blizzaga 6000 Thundaga 6000 Drain 3000 Break 3000 Bio 3000 Graviga 6000 Hastaga 6000 Old 6000 Comet 3000 Return 3000 Slowga 3000 Hooray for level 5 magic! Almost all of them are really nice (Old and Berserk are more novelty than anything, though). If you upgraded a lot in the armour shop, you may run out of gil. Sell some old gears to help you out right now. The last thing you can do here is to play the piano in the pub. Turkey march! Just a little more practice, and our hero/heroine will be the piano master! (Damn... I wish I can just play seven different pianos and become that good... it took me years) Anyways, you're done here. We'll come back a bit later, but for now, go back to the submarine. Overworld - Underwater Now, let's go for the dot on the northwest. You'll find that it's a cave. Cave to the northwest forest My team's level: 27 It's a rather short area, but you can meet two monsters here, both of which are not very easy. Druids' small shape hides a hideous nature. They can throw a variety of spells at you or their allies, namely Web, Dischord, Blink, Magnet, and Encircle. Encircle is something you REALLY don't want to see, because it bascially removes one person from the battlefield, and the other spells are generally nasty as well. They have no elemental weakness, and no status immunity (though given their high magic evade, you'd be hard pressed to get anything to hit). You can rarely steal an Angel Ring from it, which is nice, but it has a Potion in the common slot, and Angel Ring never really serves any tactical purposes so... maybe not. Ironbacks are the opposite of Druids, in that it's a pure physical speciman. It can do quite a lot of damage with its physical blows (especially if it decide to use !Rush), and it has a HUGE defense... well, not as much as Prototype, but still bad enough that most of your physical damage won't scratch it very well. It has a weakness to Ice, so abuse that. Also, it has no status immunity either, so a Flash can cripple it quite nicely, as with Toad or Mini. They're good catch fodders, as their Strong Fight procures about 5500 worth of damage. Yeah. It IS a short area, so just follow the path to the surface. Overworld - Northwest Forest My team's level: 27 The real reason here is to hunt the eye that the old man in Surgate talked about, though there are three random encounters you may want to meet and add to your bestiary. These are the only monsters that appear in lands where your feet doesn't have to cover, by the way, so you'll find the same things in, say, lands around Surgate, and stuff. Cure Beast is exactly what their name implies. After one turn of physical violence, it will cast Cura on every ally except for itself or, should it find a woeful lack of allies, itself. No elemental weakness, no status immunities, and an HP of 1000. Do as your fit for its destruction. Land Turtles are like Grass Turtle, except for appropriately beefed up for the purpose of that we're in world 2. Weak to Ice, semi-high defense (30), and physicals. Kill it like you would with any turtles. Dechirers only show up in large numbers. They aren't weak against Thunder - in fact, they abosrb it. They don't have any specific elemental weaknesses either, so just go with your most damaging magic. Their physicals are fairly weak, and that's what they do only, so no need to worry. Also, Catoblepas. Catoblepas Level: 38 HP/MP: 5500/500 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: Poison, Mute (not silence) Creature Types: Heavy, Dragon, Creature Drop: Catoblepas (always) Steal: Phoenix Down (Rare) Catoblepas normally just attacks or cast Drain, which can do about 440 worth of damage. The real kicker is that if you try to do any HP damage to him, he will counter with Demon's Eye, which petrifies that character. Well, since you probably want to avoid this as much as possible, You have two ways of doing this. The first way is to limit yourself to using big gun attacks - i.e. use large damage shots as much as possible, because the number of blows you deliver is directly equal to the number of Demon's Eyes you will receive. The second way is to Poison him. Now, this wouldn't have been viable because of the Drains, but you can cast Mute in this battle. So, if you're going for the second way, just cast Poison (it won't do damage, so no counter), cast Golem, and cast Mute. Have everyone defend and chances are, he'll run out of HP before Golem does. Either way, not TOO hard of a battle. Remember to take the Catoblepas item when you're done, and use it to learn the summon. The Catoblepas summon is basically Break that cost a lot more MP and hits almost always barring magic evade. It's up to you whether you find that useful. Anyways, If you want to do something else, go in that little patch of forest. There's a Chocobo there, but it's female so you can't ride it. You'll see her again later. Now, go back to your submarine. Overworld - underwater You know where we're going, right? Yes, it's Ghido's cave. Ghido's Cave You'll meet only two enemies there, despite the fact that the dungeon is fairly lengthy. Dark Aspics are rather annoying. They have large defenses for both physical and magical attacks, and they counter any HP damage with a 33% shot at Vampire, which just sucks (literally). If you can, try to kill them in one hit. They're weak to fire, so one Firaga can wipe them out consistently. Metamorph is a very interesting creature. Basically, it spends one turn in its natural state, then it metamorphes into another creature for one turn, during which it uses one move aligned with that creature, then changes back to the natural state. Each metamorph can only change into one of three creatures (though there are more than three possible creatures to change into). The creatures it can change into are: Ramuh (Thunder), Ifrit (Flame), Shiva (Blizzara); Shiva, Galiecat (!Catscratch, which pierces defense and hits always), Elf Toad (Pond's Chorus); Ifrit, Wyvern (Breath Wing), Enchanted Fan (Aeroga); Ramuh, Crew Dust (Flash), Zombie Dragon (Zombie Breath). There are several blue magic you can learn here, as you can see, including Aeroga which you haven't had a chance to learn yet. If you just want to get rid of it, however, then know that none of the "metamorphed" forms have any status immunities, so one simple Break can kill them (though Metamorph in its natural state is immune). If you kill Metamorph in its natural state, however, you'll have a small chance of getting a Staff of Light. It sucks as a monster basher, but you can break it to cast Holy, which is needless to say grossly over- powered. 7000 HP, by the way. That's it about the monsters you'll face here. From the submarine, simply follow the path until you see a room with five chests. If you inspect the only closed chest, you'll find a big rock in it, and when you lift it, the door you came from will close. That's the theme of this room - every chest governs one door. You'll want to put the stone in the northwest chest first. Head through the doorway and flip the switch. Now, take the rock and put it in the southwest chest. Follow the path to a new room. In this room, go southwest and gaze with awe as a passage magically unfolds before you as you approach. Go in there, flip the switch, then head down the newly opened passageway. The new room has a couple of hidden passageways too, but they're nothing to worry about, so just walk it through. The next room... well, you see a turtle, and the game asks you to jump into the pond or not. RPG wisdom tells us that saying anything but yes is moronic, so follow the wisdom and you'll end up in the final room. Well, Ghido's here. I won't spoil the scene for you (it's quite fun, actually), but long story short - You now needs to go to the Forest of Moore and find whatever it is that ExDeath is trying to find. Also, Ghido gave you Elder's Branch, the key item needed to get in the forest. So now, armed with all we're going to need, it's time to make it happen. But first, cast Teleport to get the heck out of here. Overworld - Underwater I trust that you know our next destination - Moore. Visit the town if you want to, but this time we're going for the forest on the right side. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.22 I fail to say something witty about Forest of Moore ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Forest of Moore My team's level: 27 Well, walk up, and you'll see a grove of trees blocking your path. However, as you approach, the Elder's Branch automatically activates and dispels the grove so you can get in. Unfortunately, this does not mean that you won't get attacked, because apparently the local wildlife pays no regard to the branch. Best be on your guard. Mini Mage is amongst the first monsters you will meet, and one of the most annoying ones too (ain't it always that way?). It spends its time casting two spells: Osmose, which can shave off some MP off someone (though it tends to do no damage against spellcasters who're equipped for magic defense), and Lilliputian Lyric, a blue magic. On your side, it's about as useful as the simplicity of its name, as it basically inflicts Mini at a hit rate inferior to the white magic spell, but it can still be rather annoying on their side. It only has 1100 HP, however, and no real defenses (both damage-wise and status- wise), so just use whatever to dispatch them quickly. Galajelly is a trickery monster. It has a measly 75 HP, but absorbs all elements except for wind, and a very high evade. If you have some non-elemental or wind-elemental magic at your disposal, cast it for a quick win. Otherwise, use unblockable physical commands (Aim, rapid Fire), and it'll go down rather quickly. It can cast Rainbow Wind, which sets Darkness and Silence, but that's generally more of an annoyance than an actual threat. Mammon, the false god of riches and avarice. In FFV, however, Mammon is simply a tree-like object with the ability to use Berserk. It will never cast it on itself unless it's alone, and generally speaking, the majority of the enemies here can actually be made a lot less deadly with Berserk status (with the exception of Mammon itself). It can hit fairly hard, but fire attacks will dispatch it quickly. Imps are bastards that can sometimes cast Confuse, which is really annoying. It has also a fair evade, so you'd want to use unblockable commands against it if you want to hit consistently. Also, !Sap causes HP loss like you would expect. You can kill it quickly with Level 3 Flare. Wyrms can cast Breath Wing. That alone will want you to get rid of that quickly. Break will kill it in one hit, and Level 3 Flare will work against it. It has 2700 HP and no weaknesses. That's about it, though. Yeah, the monsters here can get annoying really quickly. As to make matters worse, the entire forest is filled with a shroudy fog, so you can hardly see your way through. If you're playing on an emulator, you can disable the second and/or third layer to help you see your way through (on VBA it's Ctrl+2 and Ctrl+3) when you're not fighting a battle, but for those of you who're not... well, tough luck. Now, onto the actual walkthrough itself. From where you are, walk north until you see a chest. Collect it for 2500 gil. Now, head east, and you'll see a tree with a hole in it. Walk past it, and you'll see a chest containing an ether. Take it, then examine the tree. Some spirit thingie will come out of it, and make a underground tunnel which you can pass through. So do that. In the next area, head as north as you can while hugging the left wall until you see a chest with 4900 gils in it. Collect it, then keep hugging the wall while heading east and north for a chest with Phoenix Down. Now, keep heading east until you really can't head east any more, then head north for a chest with with 9500 gil in it. Now, backtrack west a bit and you'll see another tree with a hole in it. Open up the tunnel and head through. The next area is fairly straight forward. Head west from the entrance for a cottage, then east and north a bit for a chest with Goliath Tonic. Head north a bit and you'll see a weird glowing ring surrounded by flowers. It's actually a save point, so save and heal as needed, then head north and west a bit for a chest with Elixir. Now, keep heading north until you see yet another chest containing a Morning Star. It's an upgrade to the Flail, so you can expect that it's a horrible weapon. Well, it is, though for White Mage SCC players, this "Super stick of doom (tm)" can be downright salvation. Anyways, head west and... suddenly, a burst of flame begins to consume the forest! Head north a bit, and you'll see a chest to the right of a tree. If you collect it now, it'll be an Aegis Shield, but a bit later it will become a Flame Shield. I always take it as the Aegis Shield because it can block magical attacks as well as physicals (which can be invalvuable), and because Flame Ring does what Flame Shield can do nicely as well, but it's your call. Anyways, whether you decided to get it now or not, you'll quickly find that you really can't get to any- where, so just stand around for a while and eventually a moogle will jump out of a hole. It'll look around, then jump back in. Follow him, and you'll be in a safe area with a healing spring. Use the spring, wait for a while until the moogle guarding the exit starts walking, then leave. Collect the chest for a Flame Shield if you haven't taken the Aegis Shield (otherwise, it'll just be empty), then head west. The next chest contains Ash, a throwable "weapon" that nevertheless does crap damage. Keep heading west and you'll see a chest. Collect it for a Flametongue, a Knight sword that does fire damage. Now, if you head south, you'll be able to exit to the world map, where you can save. Save if you want, then go back and head north. The Guardian Branch saves the day and lets you go on again, so go on (cast Float beforehand, though). Enter the room, and you'll see four *something*. They'll come out of the tubes that were containing them, and attack you. *Crystalline-looking... things* (None of the entities have names) Level: 77 (all) HP/MP: 7777/10000 (All) Elemental Attributes: Nulls Ice, Thunder, Poison, Holy (All), Absorb Fire (top), Absorb Earth (Bottom), Absorb Water (Right), Absorb Wind (Left) Status Vulneribilities: Dead, Darkness, Slow (All) Creature Type: None (all) Drop: Ash (Rare, all) Steal: Elixir (Rare, all) The crystalline looking things all have an element aligned with them - the right one is water; the top one is fire; the bottom one is earth; and the left one is wind. Now, at the beginning of the battle, they will simply use weak physical attacks on you. However, as each one's HP gets depleted down to less than 3000, they will start using a strong magic move associated with their element: Aqua Breath (which isn't water-elemental, oddly), Firaga, Earth Shaker, and Aeroga. Do not underestimate these attacks - they can shave off over 500 HP easily from the entire party. Now, before we get to the standard tactics, there are several ways to dispatch them quickly without having to take into account their desperation attacks. Zeninage, at level 31 to 36, will kill the crystals in two hits without giving them a chance to counter with their desperation attacks, though they will cost you 12.4k to 14.4k (depending on level) of gil. If your level is a bit lower, throw in an Aqua Breath or two to patch in the damage difference. Also, you can inflict instant death by either releasing a caught Aquathorn or by using the mixture Death Potion (Dark Matter + Phoenix Down). Both of these methods will give you a rather quick victory, or in the latter's case, at least help you take out some target points so you have less enemies to worry about. Having said those strategies, we now look at how we can defeat them in honourable combat (No, I'm not implying that using instant death is dishonour- able - in fact, Square made bosses with status weaknesses for a reason). Now, the general accepted strategy is to lay off attacks in the beginning, summon Golem to take care of the physicals, and take your time in covering the entire team with Shell. Casting Hastaga, Slowaga, or Flash are grand ideas as well. Once our defenses are taken care of, start inflicting violence to ONE ENEMY AT A TIME. This way, you will only have on desperation attack to worry about at any time, and 300 damage per turn is a lot easier to heal with than 1200 damage per turn. Now, if you do it right, all the enemies will get low in HP, start using desperation attacks (have your white magic caster cast Cura every turn to counter), then die, leaving you free to start on the next enemy. Keep it up and you'll eventually win. Oh an, now that you've read through that whole thing - If you have !Ianuki, use it. Once it connects, you win. As soon as you're done, ExDeath walks in and... congratulates you. What? Uh, it turned out that the four thingies were crystalline for a reason - they are CRYSTALS! Remember what happened last time when ExDeath controlled some crystal (shards)? Yup, the same thing is happening again. Even the person who come to your rescue is the same one! Krile, sensing danger and mayhem, hurries here. She zaps ExDeath with something, and rescues you. However, ExDeath isn't someone to be pushed over like Tycoon was, and wakes up in like five seconds. He wasted no time exacting revenge. Galuf saw Krile in danger, and suddenly gained superhuman strength, as he edges his way towards ExDeath, shattering the Crystal in the process. He then rescues Krile, and attacks Exdeath mano-a-mano. ExDeath Level: 66 HP/MP: 50000/65000 Elemental Attributes: None Status vulneribility: NONE! Creature Type: Human, heavy Drops: none Steal: None This is actally a scripted battle. ExDeath will attack with third-tier spells and Quarter (as well as physicals), doing heck of a lot of damage, but you'll quickly realize that Galuf doesn't die even at 0 HP. After doing 7001 or more damage to ExDeath, he'll attack with !VacuumWave (learn to hate this when you actually fight him later), then a combination of Holy, Flare and Meteor (gaze in awe at the damage). After that, just keep hitting him and watch the dialogue and eventually the battle will end. Of course, if you've seen this scene already and just want to get on with your life, just kill yourself in a way that doesn't involve HP damage. Break, Selfdestruct, Transfusion, et cetera, et cetera. After the battle, both Galuf and ExDeath gets knocked out. ExDeath, too exhausted to fight, claims the crystals and vanishes. Galuf, however, isn't just too exhausted. The party tries everything they can to help him (including stuff they may not even have!), but it's no good - even the resources that would've been expended on using those techniques take pity on you, as you waste no item nor MP. In short form: Galuf dies. You regain control, but you really can't do anything, so just wait for a while and eventually, a cutscene will happen. Krile inherits Galuf's abilities and joins your party! Yay! Now, you'll have your Wind Drake back, and it's time to pay a visit to ExDeath. But before we do that, let's do the final sidequest in world 2, now that you're definitely strong enough to do it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.23 Final Fantasy Gil Quest ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld - on Wind Drake Fly back to Bal. Heal at the castle if you want, but ultimately we're going for the cave northeast of it. Oh, and don't forget to equip Krile properly and change her into appropriate jobs. Nameless cave that connects Bal and Big Bridge My team's level: 28 Now, the cave, at first glance, seems to be merely a featureless tunnel that connects Bal and the Big Bridge. One monster appears here. Undergrounder is a fairly boring enemy, but it can cast Earthquake. This earthquake is not the same as the gaia magic - it's a lot stronger. However, you can still circumvent it by casting Float. Defensive-wise, it lacks any real interesting features. You can take it out with level 3 Flare, by the way. Now, what you want to do is to hug the south wall. You'll eventually see a hard-to-see passageway which you can pass through. It will lead to a door. Open the door, then proceed (but be ready! Read the boss strategy down there). Now, after a few steps, you will start gaining gils with every step, starting with 10, then 20, then 40, then doubling until you get 40960. That's 81910 gil in total! However, with every step you take, you also risk a random encounter with Gil Turtle. It's essentially a recurring boss, so I'll put a strategy here. Gil Turtle Level: 57 Hp/MP: 32768/8000 Elemental Attributes: Immune to Holy, Weak to Ice, Absorbs everything else Status vulneribilities: Slow Creature Type: Heavy, Undead Drops: None Steal: Potion (common), HiPotion (Rare) Ergh, yeah. Gil turtle actually is fairly simple, script-wise. He fights every round, and when damaged, he sends two !Turtleshells in retaliation. When he's dead, he will cast Earthquake. It will do 3000 damage at least, so you MUST have float for this battle. Now, his physical attacks HURT (think 900+ damage to a fighter in the front row), and !Turtleshell inflicts Aging, Poison, Blind, Paralze, Confusion, HP Leak all at once. Yes, as you can see, it's a rather nasty boss. The trick to Gil Turle is Golem. Golem will stop every single one of his attacks (except for Earthquake, which is covered by Float). However, with incoming carnage like this, you can't expect it to last very long. So, what you need to do is set up your defenses BEFORE you start damaging. Cast Protect on everyone, Slow the beast, and Haste your party. Once everything is set up, it's hurting time. However, take care to use ONLY your strnogest attacks on him. In my opinion, the only two attacks worth using are Blizzaga coming from someone with Frost Rod, and Blizzaga Spellblade coming from someone with two-handed. Keep it up, resummon Golem as needed, and he will eventually go down. Now, on average, you will meet about three turtles, though you CAN get lucky and encounter less (I encountered only one on my first playthrough, and three on this one). Heal up after every battle to prepare for the next one. Once you get the 40960 gil, Teleport out. Don't walk unless you feel like fighting more gil turtles. By the way, you can repeat this after every teleport for as often as you like, so if you feel like you're making a profit (You should if you play your cards right), go ahead and do this ad infinitum. If you really are intent on making a lot of money here, try to go for a total amount of 600k gils (might take a while), so you can instantly buy one copy of Flame Ring, Coral Ring, and Hermes Sandal for everyone once you can buy them. But for this walkthrough's purposes, I'm going to assume that you only did this once for completion's sake, so I'm giong to move on here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.24 Time to remove the Ex from Death ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld - on the wind drake Head for ExDeath's Castle. You can either use the wind drake or, if you'd like, go through the cave and use the big bridge. ExDeath's castle My team's level: 28 As you walk in, you'll see a bunch of soldiers lying around the place. Apparently they tried to stop ExDeath, and that's how they ended up like that (were they expecting a different outcome?). Well, the door is unlocked now, so it's time to head up. But obviously, we have to deal with the monsters here. There are quite a lot of them, too. Remember Doublizards? Twin Lizards are the same in almost every way, except for higher HP, attack power, and exp and gil rewards. That also means like Twin Lizards spend half the turn actually just reversing their orientation, so it's fairly unimpressive. Vulnerible to level 3 Flare, and every status out there except for Mini. Blind Wolf is just like its name - it's blind. That means that its attacks inherently miss 75% of the time, cutting down its threat by quite a large amount. Its attack is nothing to write home about, either, and !Bite just sets Blind, which is easily countered. Vulnerible to level 3 flare and fire magic, as well as every status you can inflict. Hellraisers... can be annoying. You see, whenever you kill a Hellraiser, it will cast Arise on a random ally. Now, this isn't generally much of a problem, but there are formations with THREE Hellraisers and one other monster (Adamantite Golem), so it can get ugly. You'd want to take all of them out at the same time, so stick to MT magics like Titan. They're not weak to anything, so attack it with whatever. They're also one of the two lower floor monsters NOT vulnerible to level 3 Flare. Reflect Mages are like the magician version of Reflect Knight. However, while Reflect Knights are annoying because of their physical defense (which matters a lot for something that can't be attacked by conventional magic), Reflect Mages are simply defenseless against such onslaughters. They spend their turns reflecting first and second tier black magic off themselves, which are far from impressive. While they're technically vulnerible to level 3 flare, their reflect status makes sure that you won't ever hit them with it. You can also steal a Reflect Ring from every Reflect Mage you meet, though it's a rare steal (but you can just keep on trying until you nab it). Magic Dragons can be genuinely annoying for a monster you meet in the lower floors. They cast Aeroga, Off Guard, and Level 2 Old, all of which can be annoying at least. They themselves are weak to wind and poison, and level 3 Flare. If you haven't learned level 2 old yet, I recommend you to get it here. Did I say Magic Dragons are annoying? Black Warlocks are even worse. When they're not alone, they can cast Confuse, Drain, Stop, and Slowaga, and if think those spells are bad, when they're alone they begin casting Death, Break, and Banish. Urgh. Get rid of those things quickly, and perferably first so you don't have to end up wasting Phoenix Downs or MP on Raise. Level 3 Flare-able. Adamantite Golem is your typical rock monster - loads of HP, pretty high attack, and stuff. If you see one not accompanied by Hellraises, feel free to just Gold Needle it. Otherwise, weak to thunder like rock creatures typically are. Bandercoeuri, the famous Blaster lion sprite. It will only use have a small chance of using Blaster every four turns when not alone, but when they are alone, the small chance of using Blaster is enhanced now appears every turn. They can also appear with Black Warlocks, making it hard to decide who to take down first. I'd say, take them down together. Iron Fist are odd physical specimens. They only use normal attacks normally, but they counter every Fight command with either a physical or a defense- piercing counter, which can do 560+ damage to front row characters. So, try not to use Fight against them. Finally, the dragons. You've seen Red Dragons before, and now they show up as random encounters. A 500sque damage inducing Atomic Ray from a random encounter is not fun, let me tell you. As it was when you met it in barrier tower, use Control against it. Use Flame to wipe out the accompanying Blue Dragon if it is present, then just use Level 3 Flare to let it finish itself off. Yellow Dragons appear *very* rarely in those barrier tower chests, but they appear fairly commonly here. They're actually not as dangerous as the other dragons, as Thunder is a precentage based move, but it's still annoying nevertheless. Control also works very well against them - They have Hurricane in their control list, of which they're not immune to. Blue Dragon is the worst one out of the bunch. Snowstorm is like Atomic Ray except for of a different element, and they also cast Frost. They're also the only dragon that can't be controlled. In the event when they show up with a red dragon, you can use the red dragon's Blaze attack to wipe it out quickly, but they CAN show up as the dreaded Blue Dragon * 3 formation. If you get that formation, you're in for a world of hurt. Cast Break to pick them off one by one, is what I would suggest you to do. Phew! That about covers up the random encounters in the castle (as you can see, there are a lot of them). The general strategy at lower floors is to cast Level 3 Flare to pick off everything (watch out against Reflect Mages if you yourself can be affected by it), but only after taking out any Hellraisers. Once you hit the dragon floors, start cherishing the control command. In the event when you run into three blue dragons, use Break to kill them, or just run the hell away with teleport. Anyways, now to navigate through this castle. Head up the now-unlocked door to reach 2nd floor. From there, head south, around the big wall for two chests containing a Diamond Shield and an Ether. Head upstairs. On the new floor, make your way west, and you'll run into... a dead end. As you turn your back and leave, however, Krile senses that it's just an illusion. After that, a lot of bittersweet things happen. Kelgar dies (that's the last of the Dawn warriors), and the illusion is dispelled. Now we can head upstairs... in this really ugly place. On the new floor, head east, then up. Flip the switch, and collect the chest for an Ice Shield. Now, head south and go upstairs. In the next floor, simply head through the windy passages for the door on the right side, and don't forget to collect the chest for a free Ether. The next room features lava, or boiling water, or *some* form of messy soup that I'm just going to refer as Lava from now on. To cross lava safely, you need to either have Float cast upon you, or have Geomancer's Light Steps ability on someone (or failing that, having a Geomancer). Keep in mind that, if you're using Float, then you need to recast Float whenever someone dies. Now, head down the lava and keeps on going down. See that treasure chest in the wall? The secret passage is just to its left. It contains a Hayate bow. If you haven't solen one from Poison Eagles yet, it's a very good weapon with a 25% chance of using Rapid Fire, an awesome ability. Now, go back up to the lavaless surface, and walk around. Walk past the staircase for now, but keep going and you'll see a chest. Collect it for an Elixir. Now, we proceed. On this floor, you'll see a skull, and a bridge that's connecting to nothing right now. What you want to do is to step on the skull, and the bridge still start moving. press A to make it stop. If you land it right in front of a pillar, a monster's going to come out to attack you. Otherwise, you proceed, whether to upstairs or to one of those chests. OK? The monsters that can come out are Imp, Oiseaurare (you haven't seen this one yet), Jackanapes, and Abductor. Treat Imp and Jackanape like you've done in the past (make sure to use something that is powerful enough to kill Jackanape in one hit if you want to avoid Moon flute - third level black magic is a good option), kill Abductor with whatever (same attack pattern as before, but more HP). Oiseaurare is weak, but if you let it live two turns (kind hard with his 1000 HP), he'll cast Charm on the entire party. Also, he cast Charm whenver you damage it, so kill it in one hit (Break is a good option if you're playing an LLG or something). None of them have bestiary entries, so don't bother fighting them if you can. Anyways, the chests contain a Kotetsu and an Icebrand. The Kotetsu is a very powerful katana that is powerful enough to be of an "on switch" weapon for tough single targets if you have a Samurai, though for random encounters the Wind Slash is still better in my opinion. The Ice brand is a Knight sword that does Ice damage, and have similar attack power to Flametongue. Use them interchangably as you see fit. Having gotten them, we proceed. Oh, an watch out - you can start meeting dragons on this floor. Have control ready. The next room features a save point (about time). Save, heal, then proceed. Be alert - dragons roam on the next floor as well. In this room, head right first. The secret passage to the chest is a bit more complicated - enter the wall from two rows above the chest, head right until you can't head in no more, then turn down and you'll reach the chest. It contains an Elixir. After getting that, head back to the left side. Head far left first for a chest with 9900 gil, then head upstairs. Head upstairs, then downstairs. Yay, more messy soup. Recast float as needed (or have a Geomancer ready), and head in. Head up the staircase on the far right first, to find 8000 gils sitting in a chest. Now, go back and head up the staircase on the left. Lots of skull tiles here. The first one you step in will break the bridge that leads down, but do not worry. Now, know that some of the skull tiles in the middle are trapdoors. Have a Geomancer's findpits ability active (or have a Geomancer in your party) if you want to discover them yourself, but here's a run down on how to reach the other side: Right 1, down 1, right 4, up 1, right 2, chest. It contains a Twin Lance, a nifty weapon that attacks twice when used with fight or aim, making it very powerful. Now, head for the skull tile on the north side. Do this by heading through the right skull tile in that northern row of 3 skull tiles. When you head through it, you'll be teleported to a room where you can see an esper orb. Well, talk to it. As with summoned monsters go, time to fight. Carbunkle (two forms) Level: 44/1 HP/MP: 15000/10000 (1st form), 15000/1000 (2nd form) Elemental Attributes: Immune to Earth (1st form), Weak to everything (2nd form) Status Vulneribility: Silence (1st form), Everything but death (2nd form) Drop: Turtle Shell (Rare) Steal: Wall Ring (Common), Goliath Tonic (Rare) Carbunkle has two forms. The first form is as nasty as a boss can get - inherent reflect, 50 physical and magical defense, 70 evade, 50 magic evade. In other words, pretty much anything you can throw at him becomes completely aughable. Now, in the 1st form, he'll cast three spells (count them!) depending on his HP: the -aras normally (which does 500 damage a pop - nothing serious), Bio, Stop, or Charm (a bit annoying but not that hard) when his HP is below 10000, Death, Break, or Banish when his HP is below 3000 (Very serious). All of these spells are reflected off himself, so you can't expect a set of wall rings to save to you. Now, after casting three spells, it'll go in its second form. The second form is completely laughable - no reflect aside, the beast is now vulnerible to every element you can throw at him, and practically every status you can throw at him but Death and Berserk. He'll spend one turn casting Cura, then go back to the 1st form. So yes. Obviously, the game wants you to defend when he's in first form. His spells are not that serious given that they only target one person, but if you're having troubles, give a Mystic Knight the aim command (or give a Ranger equipped with a knife the Spellblade command), and use Silence sword to shut him up. Now, after three spells, when he's in his guard down state, start zapping him with everything you got (or just cast Break/Catoblepas). Rinse, Lather, Repeat. He shouldn't give you too much trouble. After the battle, you will receive the Carbunkle summon. It's your first level 4 summon, and when cast, it'll cast Reflect on the entire party. It's a very useful Esper that you'll be using for quite a long time to come, and works especially well with White Wind. Now, head downstairs. You'll see another skull tile. Walk on it and you'll be warped back to to the two staircase choice. Now, head upstairs on the left side back to the many skull tile room. This time, we want to reconstruct the bridge. Head down 1, right 2, down 2, and to the bottom skull tile. Now, go downstairs without stepping on the skull tile on the left (you don't want to demolish the bridge again, do you?). It's a save point room. Save and heal if you like, then proceed. The next room is completely empty except for one single chest, which is empty. Before heading upstairs, though, head through the stiars on the right side. Two chests await you in the small room, and they contain a Fuma Shuriken and a Partisan. Now, head back to the big room. Make sure you have the steal command ready, and open the chest. Now, go upstairs, but you'll be stopped by none other than Gilgamesh! Yay! (Note: You can skip him if you want to. Just don't open the chest and go upstairs, and you don't have to fight him. However, why would you want to do that?) Gilgamesh (1st and 2nd form) Level: 53/67 HP/MP: 55000/2000 (1st form), 60000/9000 (2nd form) Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: Slow (both forms), Darkness (2nd form only) Drop: Excalipoor (always) Steal: HiPotion (Common, 1st form), Gauntlet (Rare, 1st form), Genji Helm (Common(!!!), 2nd form) Gilgamesh, as usual, is more annoying to fight than anything. His repertoire of attack (aside from your basic physical) consist of Hurricane, Pond's Chorus, Time Slip, Dischord, Lilliputian Lyric (I can never memorise this name... never!), Dancehallen Daze, Flash, and Rocket Punch. As you can see, all of them are basially status related, making him more of a chore than anything. Just blast him with whatever, there's really no tricks to it. Anyways, after you do more than 8000 damage to Gilgamesh, the scripted part of the battle starts. He'll start rambling again about how he likes fighting with you, then asks about Galuf, and seem actually momentarily saddened when he learned about what happened. After a couple of turns, with one of the best one- liner in the game, he morphs into another form, and start whacking you with the Excalibur. HOWEVER, He ends up only being able to do like, 20 damage every hit with his new sword. (By this time, be sure to steal from him for the Genji helm). After a while, ExDeath gets tired of his incompetence and cast Banish on him. In all reality, it's all part of his own script and he basically cast Banish on himself, but we don't care about that. Too bad for Gilgamesh though :/ The Excalipoor is a generic sword which, while claiming to have a power of 100 in general, only does 1 damage (always) when you fight with it. However, you CAN unlock its power by using Goblin Punch or throwing it, and the latter is what I'd suggest you do if you kept a Ninja around (reserve it for bosses, though). Now, at this point, go back and save/heal if you want to. When you're done, head up. The next couple floors are completely linear, so just walk up. But first, you want to make sure that you've gotten everything you want from world 2. There are a couple of things that will be missed: Catoblepas and Carbunkle will all be missed if you don't have them now, and you won't be able to visit the Moogle forest, the underground tunnel that the Moogle fell in, Gil Turtle's Cave, and ExDeath's Castle again. Though, generally speaking if you followed my walkthrough, you wouldn't be missing anything. Now, go upstairs. You'll see ExDeath. After a bit of a conversation, it's time to gather ye powers you've gained over two worlds and show him what you got. ExDeath Level: 66 HP/MP: 32768/32768 Elemental Attributes: Immune to Poison, Weak to Holy Status Vulneribility: Slow* Drop: None Steal: Elixir (Common), Judgement Staff (Rare) *He counters Slow and Slowaga with Haste, and since all other methods of inflicting slow (as well as the method to prevent him from succeeding in casting Haste at himself) are rather esoteric, generally you won't be exploiting that status vulneribility. ExDeath, being the final boss of world 2, is obviously no push over. He has a large repertoire of spells to hurt you with initially. Doom (learnable blue magic you haven't picked up yet, and often his opening move), Reverse Polarity, Earth Shaker, Hurricane, Zombie Breath, Level 3 Flare, Gravity, Flame, and Bio will all make apparences if you don't whittle his HP down quickly enough, and of course, fight and !VacuumWave, which does more damage (600 more damage to front row non-Protected person) and sets HP leak. Once his HP goes below 16000, he will forsake his large stack of spells, and start blasting you with solely physicals and -aga spells, often going twice in a row. Finally, when his HP is below 7000, he has a chance to use Meteor. He counters Slow and Slowaga with Haste, and physicals with a 33% chance at dispel. How to beat this guy? Well, open with Golem, then Carbunkle. Cast Float if you can, as well. This will basically screw a lot of his attacks, and you can still heal with White Wind. For offense, level 3 flare works particularly well, and generally just use anything you find effective. The hardest part is to survive through his first stage, as they actually feature a lot of attacks you can't prevent. Try to get him down before he can get Hurricane in. Once you get past that, ExDeath's cake as Reflect and Golem will take care of all of his offense sans Meteor, which you may not even see. At this point, just blast him with whatever and he'll go down in no time flat. Again, the incompetent heroes are just a bit too late, and the crystals break. The entire castle shakes and everything blacks out. Say goodbye to world 2 - We're going to world 3 now. All of you wake up in a field and... waht's with the music? Lenna takes one look and... Castle Tycoon? Are we back? Well, let's go in and find out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.25 New world, new mission ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld - Tycoon Region If you walk around, you'll find that the landmass has changed somewhat. Also, if you load up your overworld map, you'll find heck of a lot of dots. What's going on? Well, let's go in Castle Tycoon first. If you want to, de-equip Faris and Lenna - they're going to leave you for a while, so if they don something you may want to give to Bartz or Krile, you probably want to do that. Tycoon Castle As you go in, you'll want to speak to the Chancellor. He seems to be really happy that the princesses are back, and doesn't care much about how the King is dead (to me, it looks like he just wants someone else to be responsible :/). There will be a banquet, and you'll be able to see Faris in a dress (LOL). However, Bartz and Krile will decide that they don't like staying here, because they feel something's still incomplete. However, you can't really talk to Lenna and Faris because the dancnig couples will squeeze you down whenever you try to make a move (jerks). So, I guess you gotta leave them behind. Befoer you leave, however, remember how I mentioned about two cutscenes in world 1? Well, you can see them now if you haven't seen them before. Talk to Janice (the maid, remember?) for a cute cutscene of when Faris was young, and go to the King's room to read his dairy for a second cutscene. I won't spoil you the scenes, so watch them yourself. As you leave the castle, a soldier will rush in saying that the bridge leading west is complete. Bartz has an idea of what they can find over the bridge. So, let's go over it and see if we can make a visit. Overworld - Tycoon region There are no encounters in the world map right now, so just go over the bridge, and head over to the cave. The directions hasn't changed much even though the mountain to the south have opened. Pirate's Cave As you head in, you'll see Boko coming out of the cave, and he is just as pleasantly surprised as you are. Well, after some conversations, you will be able to ride on Boko again! Hooray! Overworld - on a chocobo! Being on Boko lets you explore a bit more, because he can cross rivers. So, head back to tycoon, and head northwest. You'll see the lookout on the Pirate's Cave on the way, and eventually, Tule as well. You can visit Tule if you want, but the only new thing you'll find there is if you tell the woman in the Greenhorn's Club that you're a "pro" now. She'll tell you something abuot Freelancers and Mimes. So, apaprently when you master jobs, their stats and innates automatically transfers to them. Interesting knowledge, lady. Anyways, head through the stream northwest of the Tule, and head down. You'll enter Tule Canyon. Tule Canyon My team's level: 30 As you head down, you will suddenly fall into a pit. Things are far worse than that, though, as a monster comes out and attacks you! Antlion Level: 34 HP/MP: 8100/1000 Elemental Attributes: Weak to water, nullfies Earth Status Vulneribilities: Darkness, Aging, Slow Drop: Cottage (always) Steal: Hi-potion (common) This fight is a joke. Antlion attacks you with only physicals and Sonic Waves (which doesn't do damage), and every five turns, a Slimer attack. Golem takes care of most of his attacks, Aging and Slow makes his already pathetic physical completely ineffective, and that's about it. Blast him with whatever. He'll escape when you deplete his HP. After the battle, now you're stuck in there. Just wait for a bit, however, and someone will rescue you with a rope. Well, there are some leeway involved in the actual "rescueing", but suffice it to say, Faris rescues you, and we got ONE party member back. Hooray! Now, let's keep going. Before laving, however, Krile mentioned getting a splinter. I wonder what that could mean... Overworld - on a chocobo! So, let's go on. heading north gets you nowhere, so head south instead. There's a cave. So let's head in... wait... this looks familiar... Ghido's Cave Walk in and sure enough... it's Ghido! What's going on? How did Ghido and Tycoon/Tule/Pirate's Cave come together? Well, talk to Ghido and it'll all become clear... when both sets of crystals break, the world that was originally split in two to avoid the void merged together as well. Storytime! But it was cut short by Krile's splinter, which turned out to be ExDeath! (That sure teaches you to try not to get splinters o_O) Anyways, watch the scene (Ghido's one-liner and ExDeath's response is brilliant). To summarise, Tycoon gets sucked into a black hole, and You'll automatically get blasted all the way to... the Library of the Ancients. The Library of the Ancients Well, remember those two books that nobody can decipher in the respective libraries of Surgate and the Library of the Ancients? Those two books are now reunited. Now, it's time to get those twleve Legendary weapons by gaining tablets. Well, the scene is rather boring to describe, so I won't bother (just know that, given a form of transportation that get you there, I feel confident that we will be able to survive in the rift and defeat everything, contrary to what Ghido claims). Just know that your destination is the pyramid in the west. Remember that pyramid you may (or may not) have seen when you were in the Desert of Shifting Sands loooooong time ago? We're going there. But first, let's finish what we can do in the library. Talk to the scholars around (they give funny conversations), then head upstairs. Talk to the scholar on the right and he'll teach you Mana's Paean, a song that gradually increases magic power. Like all the other "gradual boosting" songs (except for one you'll come across later), this is basically crap, but you can only get it now, and I say one more useless song beats one less useless song. Now, heal up at the pot, and get out of the library. Overworld - Library Region My team's level: 30 Embrace the world 3 world map music! Anyways, walk a few steps and you'll see that monsters appear now. What I generally do is to run away from all encounters so I don't underlevelling Lenna, but I know that some people don't want to do that. So, here's a runthrough of the monsters you'll meet in this region. Sleepy is a funny name for a monster, but in this case, it's an adaquate one. It will usually either use a physical attack or cast Sleep (with a favourism for the latter), making it quite an annoyance. However, once you kill off every other opposing combatant on the field, it will forsake Sleep and start attacking with physicals only (!Critical Attack deals more damage, again). That being said... its attack rating is pathetic, so you don't really have to worry about Sleepies here. 1600 HP, no weakness, no status immunity. Oh, and you can steal a Healing Staff commonly from this guy. You really only need one Healing Staff at any point, but this is a very good way of hoarding unlimited amount of Healing Staff should you want to for collection's sake or something. Triffid is yet another "tree spirit" palette swap. In other words, Berserk. Unlike Mammon, however, Berserk is hardly a positive thing when it comes to Triffid, as it doesn't generally come with a companion that has annoying attacks that can be shut down by Berserk (except for maybe Sleepies). They have 2200 HP, a weakness to fire, and every status you can throw at it. Not much to say. Hedgehog, like its palette swaps, only shows its "true power" as a counter. In this case, it's Needle. Not !Needle, but Needle... you know, the attack that cause either darkness or silence. When unprovoked, it attacks with plain physicals only. 1000 HP, so it's rather easy to push over, but it's immune to Mini. Python is a high-level programming language first released by Guido van Rossum in 1991... Oh wait, in FFV, it's actually a snake monster. It attacks with physicals and Entangle, but when provoked, it can cast Vampire. Now, this would've been extremely annoying were it not for the fact that Python's MP is a brilliant 0, so it'll never be able to cast it unless aided by an Ether. 1800 HP, weak to Ice, and all status ailments save Mini. When you see Shadow, your first immediate thought is possibly Dark Spark. Well, Shadow does possess Dark Spark, but that requires you to use Control, which means that you should never see it cast on you (unless your life is a failure and you have not learned that spell up to now). It can also cast Vampire and Off Guard when controlled, but a wild Shadow will only use physicals, making it a cinch to push over. Elm Gigas. It's always generated asleep, so if you don't disturb it (with a physical), you will never have to face its wrath. However, should you accidentally wake it up, you will face Aeroga and a fairly powerful physical, none of which are very pleasant. In other words - kill it with magic attacks, and be quick before Sleep times out. If you need a break, you can always put him back into a doze manually with the Sleep spell or its derivatives. Desertpede has one thing going for it, and that's its magic power. It's 250 (!!!), which brings its magic multiplier to 43, meaning that, should it cast a spell on you, you'd die. (To compare, the next strongest magic multiplier you've seen presently is 24, from Gil Turtle.) Fortunately, it never cast a spell on you, so you're relatively safe. If you want to see the magic power in action, control it and cast Quicksand at itself. Funny how a simple 15 power magic spell can hit for over 600 damage, non? Anyways, when you're done screwing around, just finish him with whatever. It has only 2150 HP, and a weakness to ice. Barette... is another desert creature that appears in the desert. It has a rather stunning evade of 55, meaning your physicals will be hard pressed to land unless you were issueing something that's unblockable (aim and rapid fire comes to mind). It only has 1000 HP, though, so if you can land an attack, he'll be dead. Er, yeah. Should you need to run for supplies, Surgate is just north of the library. (For some funniness, check the top left bookshelf in the "shelf the book" room - Lenna will still say something even though who knows how's she doing right now.) Also, there's a Cottage to be found in Surgate that you couldn't have gotten before. If you go in the room under the library keeper after you reshelved the book, you'll see that the old man who told you about Catoblepas is gone. Now that he's out of the way, the wodden box on the top row contains a Cottage that you can get now. It doesn't add to the 100% treasure count (more on that later) as Lone Wolf would've took it if you let him go, but hey, that's... something. Anyways, once you're done screwing in Surgate (or decided to not go there totally), time to head for the desert. On the way, you'll see a small patch of forest - the Guardian Tree, which is all that remained of the once beautiful Moore Forest. The party laments about those who have been lost, and resolves to stop it from happening again. Well, that's nice. Keep heading left. Well, looks like the desert of shifting sands now needs a new name - the desert of non-moving sand. That also means that we don't have to deal with the quicksand puzzle to get to the pyramid anymore - a good thing. Before you go in the pyramid, though, head across it first. You'll see Moore on the other side. That's where we're going. Moore See that building on southwest? Enter from the north end. You'll end up in the bushes. Disable layer 3 if you want to see the way, but either way, just stumble around in the bushes and eventually, you'll come across to a small clearing which just appears out of nowhere, with an old man. He'll tell you to pick something from the left if you're brave, and from the right if you're a coward. Well, this is what the crates contain: The left crate contains the Brave Blade, a knight sword that has an attack of 150. However, every time you run away, its power goes down by 1, until it eventually hit zero. There are no other catch ot it. The right crate contains the Chicken Knife, a dagger that has an attack of 1. However, every two times you run away, its power goes up by 1, until it eventually hits 127. Also, when used with the Fight, Aim, or Mineuchi command, it has a 25% chance of issueing the Flee command instead. Due to a special algorithm (which is supposed to be implemented for all knives, bows, and whips, actually, but wasn't due to a bug), your agility has just as big of a part in its damage as your strength, which means (Assumign equal strength and agility) it does slightly less than twice as much damage as a sword with equal power. Which one is it going to be? The general consensus is to use the Chicken Knife. There are plenty of commands which you can use to avoid the occasional Flee command (the most popular one being Rapid Fire and Sword Dance), and it actually end up doing more damage than Brave Blade at full power, with none of the annoyance of the fact that you have to not run away. Besides, the Brave Blade can only be equipped by three jobs (one of which you won't have for quite a while), while the Chicken Knife can NOT be equipped by three jobs (Monk, White Mage, and another job you won't have for quite a while). Regardless, once you pick one weapon, the bushes will disappear, and that's that. If you want to power up the chicken knife a bit, then spend a while running away from battles. World Map is a poor place for that as encounters are not as frequent as you'd like (when you'er actually hurting for them), so go to a dungeon. Which we're about to do now. Head for the pyramid. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.26 Tomb raiding time ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pyramid My team's level: 30 As soon as you try to open the door, the Gargoyles guarding the door will attack. Gargoyles are not very hard. They have 5000 HP each, but the catch is, when you defeat one of them, the other one will revive it at full HP in the next turn. It's not like Arise - you can't just run them out of MP or something. So, kill them together. Casting slow will help if you lack viable MT attacks. Level 3 Flare works, by the way. Once you kick the gargoyle's butt, the page about the Earth tablet will come out, burn up, and open the door. So now, we can get in. Before I start anything, I want to suggest something. The pyramid is HUGE. It has 28 chests, over half of which contains monsters or are guarded by monsters one way or another. Needless to say, if you decide to challenge everything, and killing stuff en route, you're screwing Lenna out of a lot of experience (yes, she will be back). What I generally tend to do is simply run through the place as quickly as possible, skipping all chests except for three, and then come back later once the party is reunited to fully loot this place. Thus, I will include two sections of this walkthrough - one for just running through quickly and another for fully exploring. The detailed part, including monsters and such, will be on the second part, but I will give some brief notes on the short version. Obviously, if you don't like my way of thinking, you can simply skip ahead a bit and read the detailed version. It's up to you. Short version: Alright. Assuming that we're with the goal of not screwing Lenna out of experience, we should be running from every battle. That being said, the Zephyrus formations are exceptionally hard to run from, so you may want to resort to Teleport, !Flee, !Smoke, or simply winning the battle instead. Zephyruses have 3780 HP and fair defenses, and immunity to most instant death techniques. However, a simple Confuse spell will bring it around, preventing it from doing anything nasty (like calling a monster like it usually use), or you can use control. All the other monsters are easy to run from, but should you decide to stick and fight: everything except for Ushabiti are "breakable", while Ushabitis are weak against Lightning. Having said that, let's run. On the first floor, go in the door, and head upstairs. Now, as soon as you walk in, you'll get locked up in a room with a couple of snakes which you pretty much have to fight. They are Aspises, and you can either Break them or simply whack through that pathetic 1280 HP. Once you're done with them, flip the switches on the wall to open the doors, then head upstairs. On the next floor, ignore the chests (all monsters), and head right. See that road up? Once in a while, it turns into a ramp and dumps you down to the poisonous spikes. So, be fast, and run through the doors. The next floor is exceptionally annoying. Aside from snakes, you also have random machines to worry about. They are mecha heads, and suffice it to say - they're weak against lightning, but don't use Jump against them as they'll shoot you down. Anyways, make your way to the left, ignore the spike filled passage, and instead go for the coffin. A mummy will jump out. Walk up and fight, oh horror, three mummies. Kill them together as they have a nasty tendency to use Danse Macabre when they're alone. The next room is a save point, so heal if you want. In the next room, know that you can meet a unique monster named Sekhmet in here. Sekhmet hits hard, but aside from that has no real attributes. However, it only appears once and once you slay it, it won't appear again. You can rarely steal a Thief's Glove from it, and that's your only source to infinite thief's' gloves, so I wouldn't recommend you to kill him off (not now, at least) without deciding that you don't want any more thief's gloves (to be fair, you really only need one). In any case, head for the staircase on the bottom and go up. In the next room, flip the switches near the sandfalls to stop them, and go up. In the next room, go up. In the next room, just try to make your way to the left staircase (though you may want to pick up the chests here - they contain a Ribbon, Gold Hairpin, and Protect Ring, and surprisingly... no monsters). If you fall, Collect the chest for an elixir (no monster), head up the door, and loop on the left side in the secret passage to get back on track. Anyways, when you arrive in the room after the vanishing floor puzzle, simply head up and you'll see the tablet. Your party will automatically claim it for your own and... well, watch what happens. Head out. Detailed version: Alright, let's do this. Lamia Queens are the first monster that can use 1000 Needles unaided, which means that you want to kill her before she gets taht in. She is rather easy to kill, with only 2100 HP and a weakness to Ice. Level 4 Quarter will work against her, but a smiple Blizzaga will do the job better, as will Break when it connects. Rajiformes are ever so slightly more durable, but aside from a slightly painful attack, he is nothing to worry about (unlike Lamia Queen and her 1000 Needles). Weak to Thunder. Ushabties show up in large numbers, and they can use two blue magic which are rather annoying: Dark Spark and Off Guard. Otherwise, though, they're rather easy to wipe out with magic, as they have low HP and a weakness to Thunder. Zephyrus is an interesting creature. Basically what it does is that it will call forth a creature, then start using white magic on the creature it calls. If the creature dies, it'll call forth another one. Each Zephyrus can only call forth one of two creatures, though, but there are a total of six creatures you may see - Dhrome Chimera, Adamantite Golem, Ziggurat Gigas, Ronka Knight, Bio Soldier, and Tunneler. Every creature it calls is vulnerible to statuses, so a simple Break spell will wipe them out. Zephyrus itself is rather tough to kill, but you'll succeed after some strikes. That's it for the nondescript random encounters, but there are some monsters that only pop up in chests. You'll see a lot of some of them, too. Cursed Ones are the ones you'll see most often, and they're just like your average cannon fodders, incapable of doing anything except for fight and !Critical Attack. You can learn Doom from it if you haven't learned it off ExDeath, though that would require control and an Ether. They absorb poison, and that's about it. Finish it with whatever. Archeosaur is nasty. It has a lot of HP (9960), and likes to blast you with nasty spells like Poison Breath and Zombie Breath. While it does not sport any vulneribility to instant death techniques, it will quickly succumb to earth and fire attacks. Two boosted Firagas should kill it, as with one boosted Firaga and some strong attacks coming from other people. Mummies... they don't appear in chests, but they appear in some coffins that guard chests. They show up in groups of threes and are rather weak... until you leave one alone. Then it has a 33% chance each turn of using Danse Macrbre, which is just freaking annoying. Try to wipe them out all together. Weak to fire, 2900 HP. Boosted Firaga on a decent level will OHKO them. Grand Mummy show up alone, which is a grave mistake as it's really not that much stronger. Danse Macrbre is replaced by... Dancehallean Daze, which is never much, and aside from slightly higher HP (6000) It doesn't really come with anything new. Boosted Firaga = 1HKO, most likely. As you can see, the Pyramid is, non-surprisingly, full of undeads, so firaga will make short work of things here. At least, some of the more durable and dangerous things. Equip a Flame Rod on your black mage evilwizardtons, so you can whip out a powerful attack without having to switch weapons. From where you entered the pyramid, head left, down the hallway (ignore the door for now). Flip the first and third switch on the wall to get by the spike maze unharmed (or just go through the spikes... sissy). See that "sandfalls"? Fall down with it. Open the nearby chest for monsters and an Ice Shield, then continue. You'll see a couple of snakes. They're Aspises. Aspis is an exceptionally weak snake. Like all snakes, it comes at you with physicals and Entangle, but this snake has only 1280 HP, so pretty much anything will kill it in one hit. Not much to say about it... Anyways, get past the snakes, and head up. In the next room, follow the path, and head upstairs. The next room has secret passages that let you go on. Either find them out, or guess them. Either way, head downstairs on the other staricase. In the next room, examine the coffin. A Grandmummy will jump out and attack you. Kill it, then walk in the coffin to claim the chest - Cursed Ring. The Cursed Ring boosts defense by a staggering 25, but comes with the downside of granting the user the "Countdown" status. Generally speaking, that's not a problem if you can kill things quickly (but then again, if you can kill things quickly, you probably don't need that much defense), but you may want to de- equip it for bosses. Or don't equip it altogether if you hate its curse. I chose not to, since the Elven Mantle's evade ability ends up making you take less physical damage anyways, with some extra stat boosts and none of the curse, but it's up to you. If you don't plan on using it, sell it. It doesn't even get any "situational uses" like Bone Mail. Go back the way you came from, but this time... see that switch? flip it, and the sandfalls will cease. Go back to the door/hallway choice, and pick the door this time. In the next room, as soon as you walk in the door, a couple of snakes will jump out and the doors will close. Kill the snakes, then flip the switches to open the doors. Go down and head upstairs. Collect the three chests above you for a Flame Shield, a Dark Matter, and a White Robe, all of which contain monsters. Now, avoid or kill the snakes, then go to the right. See that road leading up? Once in a while it changes into a ramp, dumping you down to some poisonous spikes. So, be quick. Head upstairs. The next room is very annoying as it contains, in addition to snakes, some robots patrolling around. They're Mecha Heads. They have 7320 HP, a host of annoying attacks (including SURGE BEAM), and high defense and magic evasion. Also, they're unique in that they're the only monster that has a defense against jump attacks - as soon as it spots a character jumping (in the order of Bartz, Lenna, Galuf, Faris, Krile), it uses an Interceptor Rocket to shoot them down (though the rocket does no damage). You can "rocket-lock" him by having someone jump constantly if you want to, but employing Thunder attacks generally is quicker. Anyways, Make your way to top right and collect the chest on the altar Elixir, and no monsters. Now, check the coffin and you'll see a mummy standing in there. Walk up again to fight, oh horror, three Mummies. Kill them all, then examine the chest on top. It contains a Thornlet. The Thornlet contains the highest defensive ability of all helmets, but in addition to lowering magic by 5 (big deal), it also puts the user in a perpe- tual HP leak status. It DOES make the user immune to sleep and confusion, but HP Leak is annoying to the point where I believe that no defensive ability is worth it. It's your call, though, really. I would advise against it and sell it the next chance you get (so the game doesn't optimize it on you every time). Anyways, collect the chest on the left (elixir, no monster). Now, go ALL the way to the left. Flip the switch on the wall to lower the spikes, so you can collect the chest on the left safely... from the spikes. It contains monsters, and a Black Robe. Now, go a little bit to the right and examine the coffin. You will see... yet another mummy (or nothing, if you've been here before). Fight the mummy if it's there (another mummy*3 formation), then head up stairs. Save point! Saved! Well, you should, anyways (it's a good habit). When you're done, head upstairs. Know that (if you're here for the first time) that a monster named Sekhmet appears in this floor. As a opponent he is nothing special (pure physical fighter, 6000 HP, no weakness), but he disappears after you beat him the first time (after wailing on something about his brother). Now, the other thing is that he has a Thief Glove rarely up for steal (common is a hi-potion), and since you can run from him to reset his steal inventory, you can get an infinite amuont of thief gloves from him until you kill him. Thus, it's not a good idea to kill him unless you decided that you don't need any more thief gloves (you really don't, to be honest). Anyways, back to the walkthrough. Head left and upstairs. Collect the two chests (monsters) for a Crystal Armor (good upgrade) and a Dark Matter. Now, go back downstairs and head the other way. Check the secret passage on the way - one of them leads to an empty room, and the other to a chest containing Black Garb. Now, head back, and upstairs. The next room contain sandfalls that leads you to rooms below. The second and third sandfalls should be ignored (You already claimed the chest on the second room, and the third one contains nothing whatsoever, remember?), but go down the first falls. It leads to a room with Dark Matter. Now, use the secret passage to get back on track, and head upstairs again. Flip the switch to stop the falls, then go to the room on the right. See those two switches? The one on the right pushes you down, conveniently on the first sandfall so you go down some more. Not good. Flip the left switch instead, and you'll be brought to where the chests are. Collect them. They are, from left to right, Dark matter, Dark Matter, 9000 Gil, 8000 Gil. The dark matter chests have monsters in them, but not the gil chests. Now, go down through the door. Flip the switches to make the falls cease, then go upstairs. In the next room, just go upstairs. In the next room, it's a vanishing floor puzzle. Collect the three chests first (if you haven't before) for a Ribbon, Gold hairpin, and Protect Ring (surprisingly, none of them have monsters in it). Now, before going anywhere, drop down the hole. Collect the chest for an Elixir, then head right. Collect the two chests for 10000 gil and a cottage. Now, go back and go to the left to collect a Chest containing a Gaia Hammer. It randomly cast Quake, so it wouldn't have been that bad of a weapon if Berserker isn't that bad of a class. Now, go back to the entrance of the floor and head upstairs. At this point, if you haven't collected the tablet, then go right first. If you already have, then go left. Regardless of which way you took, you'll see two chests. Now, if you went left first, you can use the ramp to go down to the right side, but then you can't come back up without looping on the bottom floor. The left two chests contain an Elixir and Dark Matter, while the right two chests contain 12000 gil and... Dark matter. So yeah. Once you're done, get the tablet, or teleport the heck out of here. If you went to get the tablet then... watch the scene. I won't comment much on it. You'll automatically get transported to the outside, by the way. World map - Pyramid region Use a cottage to heal, save, then head for the Guardian Tree. You'll see Lenna dragged down by the Hiryu, but she's... not quite herself. Lots of bad things happen, but Hiryu saves the day again to a degree, and it's time to battle the beast that's responsible for this mess. Melusine (4 forms) Level: 29 HP/MP: 20000/500 Status vulneribility: (Sleep, Paralyze, Stop), Charm, Slow Elemental Attributes: Nulls water, air, poison, holy, earth (all forms), absorb either two of other three elements or all three. Creature Type: Heavy Drops: Maiden's Kiss (rare) Steal: Err... one leather gear on each, all rare Melusine is a "weakness changer". All of her forms start with immunity to anything that's not part of the big 3, and she also resists three out of the big 3 and physical, being weak to the last one. She starts out with being weak to fire. Also, her weakness will dictate her fighting style - she will use Fight, Firaga, Blizzaga, and Thundaga, but never the move associated with her weakness (ie. if she's weak against fire, she won't use Firaga). Just before she barrier change, she will use a move associated with her weakness, then change. If you want to know about the name's origin, Melusine is a faerie in european legends, born of another faerie (surprise) who's human husband broke a promise. She imprisoned her father (with the help of her other two sisters) for that, but her mother punished her for it and made her lower body serpentine every Saturday. She later married a human too, and that human broke the promise (never run into her on a Saturday) too. Anyways, to defeat her. First of all, you probably want to throw up Carbunkle at least to deflect her -agas (they can sting a bit), and maybe Golem too. Now, for killing her, you can either play the weakness guessing game, or you can resort to attacks that can get past her barrier. Defense-ignoring physicals will get past her barrier, so Rapid Fire is a good way to go here, as with anything that can invoke a Critical (Katanas, I'm looking at you). Also, non- elemental magic like Comet will get past her barrier quite nicely too - unless she becomes weak to physical, in which case her magic defense goes up through the roofs. Obviously, stuff like 1000 Needles are not out of option, so you can use that if you want. There are a lot of ways to hurt her despite her barrier, and you only need to put them to use. Once she's dead, Lenna notes something about the darkness consuming, then rejoins. Do something about Lenna's dead status, then go and board the ship. A cutscene happens, most of what happened are bad (Walse, Lix, Moogle Village, Istory are all sucked into the void), but you get the control of your airship again. Overworld - on the airship Well, at this point, the game pretty much just opens up. You can go pretty much anywhere you want right now, and there are a lot of stuff to do. In fact, if you want to, you can simply jump into the rift right now. Though, if you do that now, then you'd need heck of a lot of skill and luck to survive. Before everything, though, I would recommend to visit the Kuza Castle, for the twelve legendray weapons. It's straight east of Tule. Kuza Castle My team's level: 30 (Lenna), 31 (everyone else) In the front hall, you'll see the people from the Wind Shrine, all gathered here. The guy on the southeast will open up a healing pot for you, so use that. Now, if you go through, you'll not only find Shield Dragons, but also occasionally, ExDeath's Souls. ExDeath's Soul is a rather annoying encounter. It has three speical moves: Death, Banish, and Reaper's Sword, which basically kills you (and in case it doesn't, it does something like abuot 200 damage). You can slow it down, but that's about it. Overall, just beat it up like you usually would, as there's really not too many things he can do aside from instant death, which may or may not hit. Either that, or just cast Teleport. It always drop a Dark Matter, so if you need any of those, hit him up some times. Anyways, as soon as you walk into the weapon room, inspect the twinkly thing and the tablet will go on it. You can now collect three weapons out of the twelve you see. Remember, there are four tablets, and 4*3=12, so you'll eventually be able to get them all. For now, however, here's a rundown of the weapons, their effects, and my take on their priority: Excalibur... I'm sure we don't need any more introductions on the sword. It's holy-elemental, and pretty powerful, but it's a Knight sword, which hampers its effectiveness. Unless you're keeping a Knight/Freelancer around, I'd suggest against breaking the seal until you really don't have something better. Assassins's Dagger is a knife that can randomly cast Death. As a dagger, it's pretty much universally equippable, giving it some practical edge. If you have a thief/Ninja around, you'd want this if only for its high power. In fact, even if you don't, it's a pretty nice dagger to keep around sometimes. Sasuke's Katana is actually NOT a katana. It's a Ninja-only knife. Ninjas are a lot better to keep around than Knights are, but still - this knife is only equippable by one (two if you count Freelancer) job. If you have a Ninja or plan to have one, go ahead and take it - it has a random weapon block function which is very nice. If you don't plan to keep a Ninja, then don't bother right now. Holy Lance is basically the spear version of Excalibur. Dragoons are not that nice to keep around either, as you will soon find !Lance to be useless, so it's basically a freelancer thing, which means that it's not advisable to make it a priority. Rune Axe is a pretty powerful axe, due to that it uses up MP to do more damage. Unfortunately, Berserkers are even less advisable to keep around than Knights, and for Freelancers Excalibur tends to be better. So, I wouldn't recommend on this weapon anytime soon. Masamune... now we're getting to the good stuff. While Masamune is also a two- job thing, it makes the user strike first in combat, and Samurais are not bad jobs to master (due to its inherent evade ability). You can also use it to cast Haste. Obviously, if you don't plan to get a Samurai, don't bother. But if you do... it's a very powrful weapon that will not disappoint you. Yoichi's Bow is a bow with an unusual critical rate - 30%. It beats the Hayate Bow in every way, as Critical is basically Rapid Fire except for it always focuses on one person. If you plan to keep a Ranger around, this is a very powerful bow to have. Fire Lash is a whip that cast Firaga 33% of the time. It's a very good weapon for beastmasters, if you kept one around. Beastmasters are not THAT bad to keep around, so it's not a bad idea. Sage's Staff is a staff that raises holy-elemental attack's effectiveness. Now, aside from certain weapon smacks (which requires Dualwield... on a spellcaster - crazy idea unless you've build up way too much), the only holy attack you're going to get is... Holy, which you don't have yet. It's not a bad weapon by any means, but since you most likely lack anything to boost right now, just leave it there until you can get your hands on Holy. Magus Rod is a very powerful spellcaster weapon. It boosts the effectiveness of Air, Earth, Poison, Lightning, Ice, Fire attacks. That's a lot of elements. On a black mage, single elemental rods tend to do just as well as you can switch weapon in combat anyways, but it's great for Summoner's "call" ability, because you can't foresee what you're going to get. If you have the call ability, then go ahead and get this wepaon. Apollo's Harp... is a harp that doesn't do fractional HP damage. Rather, it cast a spell that has the power of a boosted -ara spell. That means that its damage is pretty pathetic. It does do 8x damage against dragons, but those things are few and far in between. I'd say keep it in the castle until you absolutely don't have anything better to get. Gaia Bell is a weak weapon, but it cast Earthquake 25% of the time, which is pretty strong. The problem is, Geomancers (the only job you have that can equip it) should be using Gaia for a sure shot on a decent attack rather than a 25% chance at something not much stronger. Use it if you want, but I wouldn't take it now. In the end, I took Assasssin's Dagger, Sasuke's Katana, and Masamune on my first run. Yours may differ, however, and that's no problem. You don't really need the legendary weapons to beat the game or anything - they're just nice to have. Once you're done, get the heck out of the castle. Watch the scene, by the way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.27 Interlude 1 - An item here, a sidequest there, and monsters everywhere ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld - on the airship OK. First of all, if you haven't done the Pyramid properly right now, I'd suggest you to do it now. Now, before we get to any of the things that requires fighty actions, let us get some power ups first. Now, find the big bridge, locate the shrine on top of it (we will be visiting it a bit later, but not now), and head straight south until you see landmass again. From there, fly east, until you see a patch of forest. Walk around in it as if aiming for a random encounter, but instead of dragging into yet another non-descript battle, you'll instead get dragged in... a village? (Note: It IS possible to get in a battle in that forest. However, you'll be fighting world 2 enemies near Bal castle, so that's no worries. Also, should you fly past Castle Tycoon (or what's left of it), you will get sucked into the Interdimensional rift. When that happens, just inspect the airship wheel to get out of there. We'll come back to it (much) later.) Phantom Village Talk to the villagers around. Ultimately, however, we're here for the shops, because if you recall, a scholar in the (now defunct) library of the Ancients mentioned that this town sell "fantastic" equipments and magic. Now, I'm going to give you a little spoiler, because it gets a lot easier to explain shops if I do - every shop has two salesman, the second of which is often hidden. So, let's hit the shops! Weapon shop - shopkeeper #1 Flametongue 10000 Icebrand 11000 Gaia Hammer 12800 Morning Star 7800 Rune Bow 10000 Kiku-ichimonji 14800 Partisan 10800 Excellent upgardes here. They all pale in comparison to the legendary weapons, of course, but most of them are good buys if you don't have the legendary version. The exception is Rune Bow - it's a piece of crap that make your weapon attack do no damage, but cast silence 33% of the time. Ignoring the fact that you can just cast the spell outright, the Mage Masher does the same thing and let you keep (some) damage, as well as boosting magic power minorly. The shopkeeper #2 can't be accessed right now, but we will get to him later on. Be patient. Armour Shop - shopkeeper #1 Crystal Shield 9000 Crystal Helm 10500 Black Cowl 6500 Circlet 4500 Crystal Armor 12000 Black Garb 9000 Black Robe 8000 White Robe 8000 A couple notes about the robes: they have the same defensive power and both can be wore by all casters. However, they provide different stats - black robe gives 5 magic power where as white robe gives 3 magic power and 3 stamina. I personally feels that the 3 stamina is worth the loss of 2 magic power for even black magic casters, but obviously it's up to you. In fact, if you have two or less spellcasters, you may not want to waste 9000 gil on buying stuff here as you already got one of each free from the Pyramid. I usually only ends up buying one Black Cowl, but obviously it's up to you. Now, the secret passage you see on the bottom leads to a dead end. Instead, inspect the desk on the top right open it. Head left pass the merchant, into the passage, to shopkeeper #2. Armour Shop - shopkeeper #2 Hermes Sandal 50000 Angel Ring 50000 Flame Ring 50000 Coral Ring 50000 Lamia's Tiara 2500 Angel Robe 3000 You'd want to leave at least 60k gil for the magic here, but if you have any leftover money, get some stuff here. Four flame rings are of great help a little bit later, and four coral rings of great helps a lot later. Angel Rings are basically crap at this stage, and Hermes Sandal is just auto-haste, which you could've just cast Hastaga instead (though you can buy them if you want - free haste is always good). Lamia's Tiara is a cheap way to boost the rate of Sword Dance, but you will eventually end up wearing other sword dance boosters and use Ribbon for headgear anyways if you keep a Dancer around. Angel Robe is plain underpowered at this stage. Item Shop (in inn - both shopkeepers) Hi-Potion 360 Potion 40 Phoenix Down 1000 Gold Needle 150 Maiden's Kiss 60 Mallet 50 Eye Drops 20 Antidote 30 Elixir 50000 Ether 1500 Holy Water 150 Goalith Tonic 110 Power Drink 110 Speed Shake 110 Iron Draft 110 Hero Cocktail 110 Both shopkeepers are actually in one place. You can buy Elixirs here, which... can be nice... or not. Seriously, You probably will end up never using Elixirs on yourself if you know what you're doing and keep a decent level, but if you find the need... go ahead. Take note that they ARE 50k a pop, though. Other items are basically another "stock as you see fit" lesson. Take heed that you can't buy cottages here. Magic Shop - shopkeeper #1 Mini 300 Toad 300 Speed 30 Float 300 Teleport 600 Chocobo 300 Sylph 350 Remora 250 Well, the summon magic is basically the programmer's solution to that you have to get them somewhere now that Walse is nowhere to be found. Ditto with Toad and Speed. The other magics are basically something to save your face if you're a moron, which you shouldn't be if you actually followed this walkthrough. To access shopkeeper #2, Head in from the hidden top left entrance. This is obviously done by looping to the top west, and head right from there. Magic Shop - shopkeeper #2 Arise 10000 Dispel 10000 Death 10000 Osmose 10000 Quick 10000 Banish 10000 NOW we're talking. THe level 6 magic, all of them are very good or at least decent (in the case of Dispel). At 10k each, they can get expensive, but you should be pretty rich by now. That's it for shopping (almost). Now, let's expore the "hidden" part of the town. If you head in the pub, you'll see an entrance on the top on the left side. That should give you some idea on how to enter it - loop to the pub's north end on the outside, and get in from the far left. Now, corner the pub- keeper as south as you can in the line he patrols, and inspect left (the second bottom pot). You'll find a Thief's Knife. Now, head down the staircase. The first guy you see challenges you to ride around the world on a chocobo to give you something good. It's not that hard to do - just go back to Ghido's Cave, climb on Boko, and ride around the world until you end up back in Ghido's Cave. He'll give you a Mirage Vest when you do that. Keep going. You'll emerge outside. Keep heading south and enter the door there (don't corner the guy or he'll block your way). The pot is a healing pot. Keep going. From when you emerge net floor, go down until you see a door. Trying to enter the door will achieve nothing, so head left instead. Ignore the staircase right now and keep heading left. Lo' and behold, it's a piano! Play it. If you've played all the pianos so far, that would the last one - you will master the piano, and all shall "quake in fear at your superhuman keyboard manipulating skill" (Mwahahahahaha). Once you're done, get back to the corridor and this time, keep going right, past the staircase, and the door you couldn't get in, and get in the staircase on there. You will find weapon shopkeeper #2. Weapon Shop - shopkeeper #2 Fuma Shuriken 25000 Shuriken 2500 Twin Lance 10800 Moonring Blade 1100 Flame Scroll 200 Water Scroll 200 Lightning Scroll 200 Ninja stuff. Fuma Shuriken do some serious damage, but obviously at some serious price. If you're rolling in dough (because maybe you've farmed Gil turtle cave a lot of times?), buy a couple for difficult fights. Otherwise, leave them alone. Twin Lance is an excellent weapon because it deals double damage, but if you already have Rapid Fire then it's pointless compared to, say, the legendary weapon, or the Chicken Knife at any respectable power (somewhere about 50-60 makes them about the same strength as Sasuke's Katana in practice). Now, let's go up the staircase I told you to ignore a minute ago. You'll come out and who do you see? The black chocobo! Ride it out of the forest. You'll need it later. For now, though, just land it in the forest where Mirage is. We'll come back to it when we need it. Overworld OK. Let's get us some more power! Head for Ghido's Cave, ditch your airship (for now), and ride Boko. From Ghido's Cave, head east back to Tule, then north. You'll see Kuza Castle on the way. Keep heading north, and you'll see Regole. Stop for a second. Go in Regole, and talk to the girl in between the counters (secret passage). She'll let you have the Ribbon she lost back in World 2. A RIBBON. Rock on! Leave Regole and get on Boko again. Keep heading northwest until you see a lake with a stream that runs into the mountains. Follow the stream, and eventually you'll see a waterfall. Head on top of it. The back of Istory waterfall Head up to the waterfall and examine it. You will receive a Magic Lamp, a very valvuable item. What does the Magic Lamp do? Well sir, when you use it as an item, it will summon a monster. The monster is summon is fixed: The first time you use it, Bahamut will be summoned. Progressive use will summon gradually weaker summons (it will skip Phoenix), until you hit Chocobo Kick which it will summon not once, but 20 times. After you use up the 20 times, using it will net you "Egg Chop", which does about as much for you as Rune Bow does to a non-spellcasting enemy. The good news is that you cna recharge it. Just come back here whenever you need to recharge it, and it will go back to Bahamut again. Also, there's another spot where you can recharge it, but it will be a while before you can get there and even then it's a pain trying to get there (so I would still say to recharge it here is better). How useful is this lamp? Truth to be told, I never found it to be too helpful given that it isn't exactly "free" (as you have to recharge it every once in a while), and when you actually need summons, the summons themselves are just flat out better. However, there is one brilliant use for this lamp later, so I'd say keep it for now. Leave the waterfall. Overworld Make your way back to the airship. Let's head for the Pirate's base again. Remember, now that you have the airship, you can simply land on the "lookout spot", to save you some walking time. Pirate's Base Just make your way there. The random encounters haven't changed one bit, so they will just get slaughtered. As soon as you enter the base... a scene will happen, and you will receive Syldra as a summoned monster. Syldra as a summon is awesome. It's wind-elemental, so it can (and should) be boosted with Air Knife (or Magus Rod, if you feel like using that). Its power is inferior to an -aga spell on single target, but only slightly so (about 1/12 of difference), and obviously like all summons, its power doesn't halve against multiple targets, making it ideal in taking out groups. In fact, I felt that a boosted Syldra is even more useful than Bahamut due to its cost effectiveness if you're not overlevelled. Leave the cave. Overworld My team's level: 32 Alrighty. We're done with all the "free" stuff, so now, it's about time we start some battles. Well, before we dive into any dungeons, know that since we basically started world 3 with an airship, there are a lot of overworld monsters we don't ever have to touch. However, you can run into them if you're just walking around (unlikely to happen), and some of you may want to fight them anyways for bestiary entries or just for the sake of fighting them. With that in mind, time to land around places and walk around to be ambushed! Note: You CAN find world 1 and world 2 enemies around places. However, I wil only cover world 3 exclusive overworld monsters, because... well, you can always just refer to what I wrote before on how to deal with them, plus at this level, possibly even a Morning Star can make them reel over and die, so there really is no point. Run around Castle Bal to find: Slug is rather weak. 1820 HP, weak to fire, Digestive Acid. Ho hum. Just abuot anything will make them die in less than five seconds. Gloom Widow... you know, take Slug, give it a different sprite, switch the weakness to water, and Digestive Acid to Web, and that's about it. Same strategy, which isn't really a strategy. Mykale is slightly stronger. It has the ability to use Moon Flute in the first turn, which can prove disasterous... or not. But it's still very annoying nevertheless. Otherwise, it's just a neat sprite that is rather weak. You can rarely steal a Death Axe from them, though at this point it's really nothing more than novelty. Run around Regole to find: Remember Mini Dragons? Istory Lythos is the appropriate upgrade of it. It sometimes show up in groups of fives, and it uses Frostbite as well, though at this point Frostbite really doesn't pack anything behind it any more. It does, however, possess a tremendous magic evade of 90%, so don't bother using any magic that can fail to connect, because they will. You can rarely steal a Judgement Staff from it, which is a rather rare item that cast Dispel when it's used an ietm. Whoopee, novelty item. Frost Bull is, again, another upgrade of a world 1 monster - Big Horn. Don't remember him? You probably don't. Anyways, same boring physical/!Horn fodder (though more powerful), and escapes when a fire elemental attack is used. However, with 2300 HP, a fire-elemental attack (which hits weakness too) will most likely just end up slaughtering the poor guy anyways. Spizner looks really, really silly, and is really, really boring. No elemental attributes. No immunites. Uses Quicksand sometimes. Ho hum to the max. Just kill it. And that, aside from the desert creatuers you'll meet in the northeast part of the world map (I'll cover it later when we get there for sidequests), is all of the land creatures you'll ever meet. But wait... we're not done yet! Remember how the airship also double as a ship when you land in water? That's right, we get water creatures to fight as well. We'll cover the difficult to encounter monsters first. Get in your airship, and check the world map often - try to land in the southwest corner sea of the map. You will find Nix, Vilia, and Gel Fish here. Particularly the latter two only appear in this region. Nix is an upgraded Sahagin, and is just as weak. Weak to lightning, 1500 HP... your overpowered warriors can take it out in one blow. Gel fish... is an very odd monster. Unlike its palette swaps, it possess a grand total of ZERO defense. Also, it's a pure physical attacker... with NO physical damage capability whatsoever. You can even go against them naked and they won't do any damage. So yeah. They're only there to make bestiary entry collector's life miserable without a guide (like this). Vilia is a whole different story. Its physicals *hurt*, and she also possess pretty good defense and a nigh unbreakable magic evade. She also has 19000 HP, so it'll take a while to bring her down. Thankfully, Golem nulls her offense entirely, so defense isn't too much of a problem. She has no status immunities, but given her huge (90%) magic evade it can be difficult to make status spells connect, though spellblade will connect a lot easier (hint: Break spellblade). You're rewarded with 10000 gil and 25 AP for defeating her, making this spot even better at AP grinding than Objet d'arts (though the Objets is more consistent in AP awarding and the encounter rate is higher). You also have a 1/16 shot at an Angel Ring, which is not all that useful but nice to have around anyways, or at least good for 25k gil. When you're done finding these three monsters (Vilia can take a while - it's a 60/256 encounter), go back to Regole and land your ship in the water west to it. Hug the northern shoreline and sail around. You will encounter Water Scorpions and Corbetts here. If you see Nix, you've gone too south and needs to head north a bit more. Water Scorpions is another one of those "little HP, exceptional evade" monster. 500 HP, 80% Evade. You know the drill - unevadable commands, or spells. Corbett has an awesome sprite, but it doens't change the fact that Corbett itself is rather boring. It does, however, have a chance of using Breath Wing every 2nd attack - try to avoid that. Not much to say otherwise. 2800 HP, weak to lightning. Now, head back to Tycoon (but do not enter the rift). To its left is a small pond of sea. Land on the northern side of the "pond" and wander around. YOu will find Rukh and Sea Devils here. Sea Devil is nothing to worry about, despite its name. It does have a fair HP (5000), but it's incapable fo doing anything other than physical strikes and the occasional !Critical Attack. Weak to Lightning, so Thundaga will make short work of it. You can rarely steal a Defender from it, a very strong Knight Sword, but you'll find one later anyways. Rukh is, in my opinion, the most dangerous sea creatures out there even with Vilia in mind. Half of the time it casts Breath Wing, which is just plain annoying, and it can also cast Zombie Breath, which just sucks. 9000 HP means that it'll stay around for a while, which you probably don't want. Death and Break will both kill it in one hit, but it does have a fair magic evade rating, so Break spellblade is the way to go. You can get 5000 gil per Rukh, and there are places where you can meet an Rukh every battle, making it a pretty good gil farming location until much, much later. If you want to farm it, just hang out at the sea region of where Lix used to be. That's every water creature you'll meet... save one. The last water creature is so important that I feel that it deserves its own section, so just read on. Overworld - on the airship Alright, let's net us what's arguably the best blue magic in the game, so obviously get someone with Learning. You'd also need someone with Control or at least a way of inflicting Confuse. Now, if you go northwest of where Walse used to be, and sail around the area where Walse tower used to be (Geez, Walse sure gets screwed over a lot), you should be fighting... world 1 enemies? However, keep fighting. Eventually (it's a pretty rare encounter), you'll encounter a beast called Sting Ray. Sting Ray is no push over. He is kinda like Vilia, except for slightly weaker and more endurable. Fortunately, he only uses physicals against you, and his physicals aren't THAT strong, and !Fin only sets Poison (which is hardly ever an issue as long as you don't make it stay after the battle). However, he has a whooping 30000 HP, and immunity to every instant death technique you can throw at him. Now, however, we're not here to discuss about how to defeat him - if you have trouble, keep Golem up, throw a Flash at him, and and just hack away with whatever that's not earth/water elemental. Rather, we want to control/ confuse him. You see, one of the three moves he possess in his control list is Mighty Guard. What does it do? Well sir/madam, it casts Protect, Shell, and Float on EVERY PARTY MEMBER in one single casting, for a cost of 72 MP. Quite costly, but then again you most likely only need to cast it once, and you will take substantially less damage. I'm not saying that you NEED this to complete the game, but it will certainly make bosses MUCH easier. So yeah. Learn Mighty Guard, whack the beast til he drops, and you're pretty set for fighting anything in world 3. Ain't it nice? Oh, and if you have trouble remembering where Walse Tower is, then look for the tower on the southwest of the giant desert on the northeast part of the map. We want to go to the second bay to its southeast. Stick to the northern edge. Overworld - on the airship My team's level: 33 Right. Before we start getting Lithographs, we can still dive in some optional dungeons. A couple of them are rather tough to take on right now, so we'll stick with the easy one first. Remember Jacohl Cave? If you try to find the mountainous exit, you'll find that it has disappeared! Actually, it hasn't. Bal just covered it up quite nicely. So, in other words... if we go to Jacohl Cave and try to stick out the other entrance, we should end up in Castle Bal. But where? I think you can see where this is going. If not... well, just follow my instructions and you'll see. Fly to Jacohl Cave. Jachol Cave The cave hasn't changed one bit, and neither has the enemies. Skull Eater is as troublesome as ever, but now with high attack weapons and magic, you should be able to wipe it out easily. If you need help - just use an -aga and watch them die. Anyways, make your way to where the other exit used to be. If you need help, consult the section on Jacohl Cave in world 1. You'll end up in... THE BASEMENT OF BAL CASTLE? Bal Castle - Basement My team's level: 33 Well, well, well. Isn't this a surprise (or not). Anyways, I suggest that before going further north, go to the save point upstairs first. The door will stay unlocked after you do that once, so no worries. Objet D'arts should be a lot easier now, but Level 5 Death and Level 3 Flare will still work as usual. Anyways, save and heal, then go back to the basement and make your way north. The ruined pillars like to block your way a lot, but navigation shouldn't be too difficult. You'll eventually see an esper orb. Talk to it, and it turns out that it's Odin. Odin claims that he will only give you one minute to kick his ass, so we'd better be quick. Odin Level: 2 HP/MP: 17000/500 Elemental Attributes: Absorb Holy Status Vulnerilibities: Stone, Darkness, Aging, Sleep, Paralyze, Slow, Stop Creature Types: Human, heavy Drop: Flame Shield (Rare) Steal: Protect Ring (Rare) Uh, that status vulneribility chart really does not speak well of Odin. He does get SOME protection (somewhat...) with his massive 80% magic evade, but then again, magic evade doesn't stop everything, so... Anyways, let's see what Odin can do. His first turn is Zantesuken, which slices the entire party for a good 400 to 1600 (!!!) damage. He then targets the party with a physical. After that, he will cast Zantesuken again. Fairly simple script, but Zantesuken hurts like hell - more incentives to finish it ASAP. So, to begin with, cast Mighty Guard on the bat to prevent yourself from getting 1HKO'd, and maybe Hastaga as well. Now, you can do this two ways - the normal way, or the petrify way. The normal way involves smacking him over and over and over and over until he falls. This isn't TOO hard - provided that you don't try to cast summon spells - those things take a LOT of time. Getting his 17000 HP to fall in one minute isn't all THAT hard, and at a decent level, this is very doable. The petrify way, obviously, involves petrifying him. Odin has a magic evade of 80%, so if you're going for Break or Catobleaps, it'll take a while to connect. However, Break spellblade will always work, so that would be the weapon of choice. Just cast it and smack him once. You're good to go. Either way, Odin isn't very hard. After the battle, you will receive the very awesome Odin summon. When you summon him, he will first analyze his enemies. If there are heavy enemies prevent, he will use a Javelin attack which is basically a flare that gets stopped by physical barriers (protect, defense). If that's not the case, however, he will then usually use Zantesuken, which destories everything it touches (literally - it's instant death and never misses). However, there is still a small chance (which depends on your level and your enemy's level) that he will use Javelin, but overall it's a very awesome summon that you'll enjoy. Now, make your way back to the castle. You can either walk back to your airship through Jacohl cave, through the overworld map, or ride the Wind Drake in the top of Bal back to your airship. Don't be too excited about the Wind Drake, however - the airship is flat out better. Just dump it there and forget it for the rest of the playthrough. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.28 The tablet of wind ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld Alright, I think it's about time we dive for the second tablet. You could try to deduce where it is by visiting all over the place, but I'll spare you the trouble - it's in solitary island shrine. You know, the lonely shrine in the middle of world 1 that can't be entered by any means? Fortunately for you, the big bridge materialized right on top of it, so you can get in from there. You won't actually enter the big bridge (no gilgamesh music for you, unfortunate- ly), but you can land on the waters nearby and walk to the shrine. Heal up first, though. Solitary Island Shrine My team's level: 33 Alright, the shrine isn't all that hard to navigate, but there are a couple of problematic enemies in there, so be on your toes. The most important thing here is to enter with a level that's NOT divisible by 5. It's also advised to enter with a level that's not disible by 2 or 4, either. Yeah, there's something in there that can cast ALL level spells, so you definitely want to watch your level. Entering with a level divisible by 3 is OK as that enemy won't cast level 3 flare until the second turn, by when it should be dead. If you MUST enter with a bad level, cover a couple of people in reflect rings (or bone mail in case of level 5 death). Executor is the aforementioned monster that cast the level spells. It has a chance of casting level 2 old, level 4 quarter and level 5 death in the first turn, followed by either level 3 flare, a weak physical, or !Critical Attack (more damage). I've already covered the level information before, so if your level is good (or if you have reflect rings), then you have an enemy with 2000 HP and no threatening moves against you. Dispose of it as you see fit in that case. Oiseaurare like to cast Confuse, which can be annoying. However, aside from that, it isn't really anything special to your now-overpowered team, especially considering that it only possess 1900 HP. Piece of cake. Shadow Dancers like to put you to sleep, via Dachillean Gaze. More durable than Oiseaurares, they are nevertheless easy enough to be pound into submission. Numb Blade is really quite powerful, capable of delivering more pain via its physicals, but on the defense... Laughable as always. 2400 HP = pushover, end of story. Tot Aevis is the only other enemy that can give you troubles here. This big bird possesses a whooping 33090 HP (even higher than ExDeath), no elemental weaknesses, a powerful punch (or claw), and a 66% chance of a shot at Breath Wing every 5 turns. It's also immune to instant death techniques, as well as a lot of status effects, and possess 60% magic evade. You may want to run here (using an instanteous technique, since the traditional methods of running tends to take long here), but if you chose to stay - you will earn 7 ABP per aevis, which is hardly worth it, but you also have a 1/16 chance at an Aevis Killer, a fairly decent bow that can quickly shred big birds into nothing. However, it's much better to steal for one, because it's actually pretty easy to do so. I personally killed one (for bestiary), then ran away hereafter with Teleport. As for strategy, Golem nulls its physicals nicely, then just pound on him til he dies. You will also meet Cursed Ones here, but you've seen them before. Anyways, take out the gargoyles (again, remember to kill them in quick succession), and enter. The first room you come across (second if you count the entrance chamber as one) has a passage that leads you to 12000 gil. Liberate them from their prison, then proceed. The next room has an air conduct, and as soon as you approach it, you'll get sucked in. After some flying you'll be in a room with two switches. BEFORE DOING ANYTHING, note that there are two treasures hidden on the walls of this room. A Hi-potion lies on the left wall while an Iron Draft rests within the bottom right wall. Search around until you find them. Having gotten those extremely well hidden treasures, we proceed. So, this is the basic premise - Those two switches control where you end up after approaching the air vent again. Here's a convinent listing of where you're going to end up with different combinations of switches: Both up - entrance Left up right down - a room with an elixir. Both down - a room with 9000 gil. Careful that you don't walk back up to the vent so you waste time. Left down, right up - Onward. Anyways, once you got the treasures (or not) and decided to move onward, you'll see a chest to your left. It's a monster-in-a-box, so prepare yourself. You have a chance of getting either a Covert battle, or a Pantera battle. Covert battle is the harder of the two. Basically, it has 5000 HP, and when you kill it, instead of... well, killing it, you get two Coverts appearing in the same place. You can only attack one of them at a time, but then again, you still only have 10000 HP to push through (which, while MAY have been a lot, is far surpassed by your sheer power at this point unless you've done your characters wrong). Pantera would have been a lot harder than Covert, but it's bugged apparently. It will open with either a physical or Blaster, and then promptly split into three and... promptly die for no reason whatsoever. You can speed up the whole process by casting Break, but it's not really needed. Once you're finished with the battle, you'll be rewarded with the Rising Sun, another one of those iconless long range weapons. Let's push on through the door. The next room is a save point room. Do your stuff, then head on. The next room is rather big, and it's filled with treasures and pits. First, head straight up and you'll eventually see a chest in a niche. You have to fight a Mecha Head for its contents - a Protect Ring. Now, head left and up and you'll find a chest containing Ether. To the right (through a secret passage) is a chest with Crystal Helmet lying witin it. Onto the next room! Head up the staircase at the very north side of the room. In the next room, head inside the door immediately. You'll get Beast Killer, a fairly strong whip. However, it's devoid of any other treasures, so just head up. The passage on the right side is just a detour, and there's a pitfall in front of it on the south side. The next room is featureless, so just head through it. Onto the fifth floor! See those two chests? They have pitfalls in front of them, so open them from the back. You'll get an Ether and a Dragon Fang. Now, head on. Another save point. Save and heal (boss battle coming up), then head up to the lithograph room. Before going up to grab the lithograph, note that there are two chests on the left and right. They contain a Dark Matter and a Circlet, respectively. Now, before going up to the lithograph, outfit your party in ice protection (Flame Ring, Ice Shield, et cetera). Now, walk up, inspect the lithograph, and... something will pop up, insult Bartz's sexuality, then attack. Wendigo Level: 7 HP/MP: 20000/8192 Elemental Attributes: Nulls Earth, Absorbs Water Status Vulnerilibities: Darkness, Sleep, Slow Creature Types: Heavy Drop: Nothing Steal: Dark Matter (common) Yes, there are FOUR of those things. They share the same HP, but they all attack, and only one can be hit at any time (though, in the beginning, you can hit all of them). Also, the "real" Wendigo switches position every time it's damaged, so this is basically your average annoying boss. To make up for the fact that all four of Wendigoes attack, each Wendigo attacks only 1/3 of the time. However, they really needn't have done that, given that Wendigo's attacks are just... horribly weak. A Physical that's barely stronger than most average random encounters (and weaker than the power encounters), Hurricane, Confuse, and... Mind Blast. It's a new blue magic that does (weak) damage, paralyzes, and set HP sap, which is nothing more than a mild annoyance. So yeah, you won't be killed by this boss anytime soon by its own accord. Now, how to kill the thing? Trying to find out which form is which by whacking them individually is rather... tiresome. Rapid Fire will work better and (usually) catch the real form at least once, but it's not that reliable. MT magic is the way to go here. However, know that each form will counter MT magic with Frost, and four Frosts added together can quickly build up. However, that's why I told you to equip Ice protective gears! With Flame Rings, Wendigo won't do a thing to you with its Frosts, so just MT magic away. Ice Shield will also work, but know that the HP leak from Frost will still set if you absorb rather than nulling it. If you don't have ice protection... I suggest you whack it to death then. It'll be tedious, yes, but you won't run risk of getting killed, and safety is more important in RPGs. Once Wendigo's done and dealt with, you'll automatically obtain the second tablet, and the scene will switch to a tower west of Crescent (where the Ancient Base used to be). It is shown that the force field guarding the place is gone, and back in the shrine the party will talk about the tower, on how the ultimate black and white magic rests there, and how they must be "removed as one". Well, we'll see what we can do there. Cast Teleport to get the heck out of here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.29 The Tower of SCC bane, and the strongest black and white magic ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld map First, remember to go to Kuza to get your second batch of Legendary weapons. Once you've done that, head for Crescent. Crescent In the town, the first thing you'll see is Mid. He's running around like a maniac, and if you talk to him he'll mention how Cid's trapped in the base when the tower materialized out of nowhere. First though, go to the bard's house and pounds on her piano. After that, talk to her and she'll teach you two Songs. Hero's Rime is the only one that's good, really, as it raises level constantly as it's sang. But anyways... go back to the town. Talk to the old lady near the pool of water, and she'll say that "the left path is the tower of magic". Another old lady on the southwest corner of the town says that "the tower of strength is on the right". In other words... only magic can be used in the left tower, and only physicals can be used on the right tower. That's handy. Well, we got all the info we can out of this town. Let's head into action. Fork Tower My team's level: 34 Save beforehand. As you head inside the tower, Krile will remark about how both magic must be taken as one, and split the party into two. Send your physical fighters on the right, and magical fighters on the left. It doesn't have to be two/two. Anyways, once you're done, the scene will switch to the left side first. As said by the old ladies in Crescent, in the left side there are only magical enemies, and they each respond to physicals in a not-so-kind way. Let's take a look at them. Tiny Mage will cast Mini, Cura, Confuse, Shell, Libra, and Dispel liberally, and is generally non-remarkable as well as easily disposed. It will respond physicals with Encircle, which removes the offender (or one of his/her partners) out of the battle. If you think that's bad, it's actually the kindest response as it doesn't just kill you outright. Chrono Controller is a time mage. He can cast Quarter, Slow, Regen, Float, Demi, Old, Banish, and Hastaga. Especially Banish is a spell you don't want to be on the receiving end of, so kill it quickly before it has a chance to do so (before the fourth turn). He has a rare Healing Staff up to steal, but since Steal counts as a physical attack, doing so will cause you to eat a Meteor (as when anytime you use a physical move), which will pretty much just kill you right there. Better to get them off Sleepies. Flaremancer is the black mage of the tower. He can cast Poison, Toad, Bio, the -aras, the -agas, and Break. Break is something you don't want to take (like Banish), so kill it quickly. It's the toughest of the three mages you'll be facing, but still easily dispatched with only 3000 HP. When assulted and insulted by a lowly physical strike, it will return favour with two physical strikes of its own, which will do 9999 per strike pretty much every time. The trick here is reflect. If you have it up, most of their attacks can't touch you, and you can pick them off at your leisure. Just remember - if an attack doesn't cost MP, don't use it here. If you don't have reflect. Odin will kill everything soundly as long as Chrono Controller isn't in the battlefield, and if it is, just slave away with your strongest spells. Now, the tower itself is completely linear, so there is little point in explaining how to traverse it. Just make your way to the top, collecting the two treasures on the way. Especially Wonder Wand is something you REALLY want to hang on to, as it's something really useful. When you reach the top, th scene will switch to the party on the right side. The right side is basically the physical side. SURPRISINGLY, only one of the three here actually respond to magic in a negative way, and with their rather low magic defense, you can pretty much nuke your way through here with magic if you want. Anyways, onto the enemies: Duelling Knight is pretty boring. It uses a physical every turn, counters physicals with !Counter (more damage), and counters Magic with a derisive laugh and four physical strikes (which are nowhere near as painful as encircle, meteor, or two 9999 physical strikes). Normal cannon fodder you have to plow through. Iron Muscles... swaps the counters with a 33% chance at !Tackle every turn, which does more damage. It's a bit stronger than Duelling Knight and has more defense, and... that's it. No counters to magic. Berserker is a monster that's RADICALLY different form Iron Muscles. I mean, it has less defense, less attack, does !Critical Strike instead of !Tackle, and has Berserk instead of !Tackle in its control list! They make ALL the difference in the world, wouldn't you say? No? Well, you try to find something more interesting to say about this thing then! So... yeah. Just blast through the tower however you like. The passage itself is linear, and basically the mirrored image of the other tower, so you really don't need a guide to traverse it (or do you?). Just pick up the stuff that're in the way (Hi-Potion, Defender). This time, when you reach the top, you won't switch to the left. You get to go in and inspect the aura of white light. the party on the right will automatically yell at the party on the left to take them at the same time. As you get the white magic, you'll get attacked by a white boss. Minotaur Level: 37 HP/MP: 19850/0 Elemental Attributes: Absorbs Water, Earth, Holy, Poison Status Vulneribilities: NONE Creature type: Human, Heavy Drops: None Steals: Leather Shoes (common), Fuma Shuriken (rare) Minotaur is as boring as bosses gets. He'll just physically attack you every turn, doing nothing else, and sometimes counter your attack with !Critical Strike, which, like most boss specialties, does nothing more than a plain physical strike. Note that time magic Mute is automacially cast on the party, so you really can't do anything else either. Just pound away with physicals and heal once in a while with Hi-potions. His damage is about the same range as a Hi-potion's heal (when you're in the front row), so he should be easy if you have more than one person. If you don't, just put that sole person on the back row and you can attack/heal/attack/heal/attack/heal. When he dies, he'll cast Holy on you... except for he doesn't have enough MP for it. Burn! You'll receive the Holy magic. On the left side, the magical fighters claim the red orb, and they, of course, get attacked too. Omniscient Level: 53 HP/MP: 16999/30000 Elemental Attributes: Weak to air Status vulneribilities: Darkness, Old, Paralyze, Berserk, Mute, Stop, Slow Creature Type: Heavy Drops: Nothing Steals: Potion (Common), Kornago Guard (Rare) Omnisceint starts under the influence of Protect, Shell, and Regen, so cast Dispel to correct that. He can send a great variety of spells at your way (or, in some cases, his own way) at the beginning: Cure, Fire, Slow, Libra, Ice, Regen, Silence, Poison, Haste, Mini, Float, Cura, Toad, Demi, Confuse, Fira, Stop, Thundara, Blizzara, Quarter, Reflect, Drain, and Bio (What a list...). However, once you get his HP to below 4000, he'll get mad and start casting -agas at you. Finally, when he bit the dust, he'll retaliate with Flare. Unlike Minotaur, he won't say anything pompous, and he *will* actually cast the magic. Finally, if you do anything non-MP oriented at him (that includes using an item), he'll cast Reset, making him the only monster who can use that spell. So yeah. At the beginning, dispel his statuses, cast Old for good measures, and keep Reflect up (Yes to carbunkle, for once). Syldra will really wreak havoc on the old guy as with Aera, but anything works, really. Just watch out and don't die, in case Flare comes at a point when you have your pants... I mean reflect down. N.B. He has a Kornago Guard in his rare steal slot, and for some reasons, steal doesn't invoke him to cast Reset, so go ahead and go for it if you really want it, especially since you can just poke the guy to reset the battle for you. You'll obtain the magic Flare. The tower will automatically disappear, and the Ancient's base will open up again. Get on your airship and get in. Ancient's Base Just keep walking downwards and you'll eventually see Cid making a ferris wheel out of one of the base's contraptions (looks like being in confinement had made him snap a bit). After that, it's a rather long cutscene, but end result: Your airship now has submarine capabilities! Hooray! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.35 Interlude #2 - More sidequests! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld Now that you have a submarine, another side quest has opened itself up for you. So, let's get to it! Remember the sunken tower? We can visit it now. Let's go there. What for you ask? Well, remember that shard we left WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back in the first world? Let's see what became of it. YOu remember where it is, don't you? If not, it's southeast of the tower in the REALLy big desert on the northeast. Just go underwater and you should see it. Sunken tower of Walse My team's level: 34 As soon as you walk in (to the top floor), Bartz will freak out and comment on how he can only hold his breath for seven minutes (apparently he breathes for the girls too). Yes, it's another timed area, so let's get cracking. However, the shard's not on the top floor! Looks like we have to go down to find out what became of it. The tower is as linear as ever, and in here you will see a lot of world 1 and 2 (and occasionally, 3) monsters, all in a silouhette and without names. That also means they're wimps to your superpowered team by now and you can dispatch them with ease, but just for giggles, you can meet te following monsters: Level Checker, ProtoType (note that Level Checker is actually a monster in the rift, so careful) Traveller, Jankanapes, Moldwynd Bomb, Wild Nack, Lamia Queen Dhrome Chimera, Drippy, Treant Enchanted Fan, Goblin, Black Flame Elf Toad, Mini Magician, Crew Dust Birostris, Magic Dragon, Blood Slime Yes, you'll see ProtoType there. However, by then I'm guessing you'll be Rapid Firing the crap out of every thing, and you won't even notice that you're fighting something that gave you that much migraine back then (I certainly didn't). So just head down to the bottom floor. You'll see the shard, but you walk to pick it up, a mysterious voice rang in the room and refuses to let go of the crystal. Say no to his ridiculous request for you to back off to initiate a fight. Famed Mimic Gogo Level: 77 HP/MP: 47714/60000 Elemental Attributes: Nulls Water Status Vulneribilities: Silence, Slow Creature Type: Human, Heavy Drops: Tiger Mask (Rare) Steals: Leather Shoes (Common), Gold Hairpin (Rare) The battle music should pretty much tell you that it's not going to be a serious fight. Gogo (yes, it seems to be the same person as the character in FFVI) will start the battle rambling about what mimicry is about (enter a menu if you don't want time to be ticking during that boring speech), and say that he will mimic you, and you can only win by mimicking him. Now, his "mimicking" is cruder than you may think - all he does is basically counters physicals (i.e. anything that doesn't use MP to attack) with either a strong physical or a 9999 damage physical, and magical attacks with Flare, Holy, or Meteo. How do you mimic him? Well, that's easy. Unprovoked, he does NOTHING. So, if you just want an easy victory out of this battle, simply stand there for 24 turns (his), and he'll go emo and kill himself. If, for some reason, your clock is ticking and you want the battle to go faster, cast the Silence spellblade, summon Golem, whack him once, and then cast Haste on him immediately after. Golem will stop his physical while Silence will circumvent his magical counter, so you can safely speed his demise. Now, I should say that mimicking him is not the only way you can win. You can actually kill him by damage if you want. However, once you get his HP to below 30000, he'll become angry, ramble something about you being "unsophiscated" or whatever, and start attacking normally (after flinging a Meteor). His script goes as follows: Triple Meteor, Maelstrom + Snowstorm + aqua breath, Frost + Snowstorm + Aqua Breath, repeat. Also, he'll continue to counter you. In other words, you're in for one hell of a ride if you want to do that. If you seriously want to do it, I suggest having !Mix on everybody, so they can start buffing before fighting. Stuff that you should get on yourself are: Goliath Tonic (Elixir + Dragon Fang) and Dragon's Kiss (Maiden Kiss + Dragon Fang). The former will double your MaxHP, while the latter will prevent Maelstrom from hitting you at all (because remember - it's not fun to eat Aqua Breath immediately after getting Maelstromed successfully). Ice absorption is also a plus, as with Mighty Guard and Hastaga (as always). Once you're finished buffing, you can start attacking. Basically, you want to queue up your turns, and go at him this way: First person summon Golem; Second Person smack him with silence spellblade; Gogo retaliates and gets blocked by Golem (or he uses Strong Fight and screws over someone); Third and Fourth person smack him with a magical attack; Gogo tries to cast a spell but fails. Or, if Gogo managed to Strong fight someone, one of them should cast Arise instead. By doing this, you can prevent his counters as well as having a chance of stopping his devastating triple meteor attack. Aqua Breath will still hurt a lot, but you really can't do much about it. Good luck - if you choose to do this, it's easily the toughest fight in the game. After the battle, you'll receive the Mimic job. Mimic is very similar to Freelancer - your stat is determined by the jobs you have mastered, and you gain the innates of all the jobs you have mastered. However, Mimics have three free commands instead of two - the only mandatory command is !Mimic, so you can forego Attack and Item for more commands. Also, Mimic's equipment arsenal is more limited compared to Freelancer - they can't equip the heavy armors or any powerful weapons. They're perfect for spellcasting, though, since the job allows you to dualcast two types of magic instead of one. (I should say that it's three instead of two, but nobody gives a damn about those low level magic at this point). Anyways, time's still ticking, so cast Teleport and get the heck out of there! Overworld Now that you have got two tablets, I think it's time for an intermission. Remember the desert on the northeast? We're going there. To do that, we need to first find the Black Chocobo (refer to the Phantom Village part if you haven't explored the village). Now, on the Black Chocobo, ride for the desert. There's a patch of forest on its east side, so disembark there. The desert has its own set of random encounters, and it can be rather tough. Let's take a look at them. Ammonite is your average boring random encounter. It attacks physically only, with maybe a Digestive Acid here and there when it's alone. It's toughter than most boring random encounters you've met so far, but not tough enough to pose a challenge, even in large groups. Ankheg is about the same as Ammonite, but it can cast Earthquake, which can do upwards to 600 damage, so you want to cast Float to circumvent that. If you do that, Ankheg is just as silly as Ammonite. Land Crawl is basically an upgraded Sand Crawl which you met back in World 2. It now comes with Stoning immunity so Break or Marijuna will never succeed on it, and its maelstrom is as annoying as ever. However, it lost the heavy status, so something like Death Claw will work well on it (though you still need to get around its fairly decent magic evade). It's also vulnerable to instant death spells, and level 4 quarter. All of the monsters here are vulnerable to level 3 flare, BTW, so that works as a cheap alternative to kill things easily. Anyways, what you want to do first is head for the tower on the southwest part of the desert. It's the Phoenix Tower. enter. Phoenix Tower My team's level: 34 I just love this music. Don't you? Anyways, the enemies here are all very feminine and dancer oriented. Lemure, the flowery dancer. She attacks normally with a chance of using a poisonous Spore, but when you attack her, she can either use Pond's Chorus or, if she's particularly mad, she'll give you a big, healing, PETRIFYING Hug. Yes, she'll attack you with a Hug, and it will stone you. Try to take her out in one shot. Her steal loots are quite nice - Commonly wall ring (which is an very helpful accessory), and rarely a RIBBON. You'll eventually find four ribbons anyways (you should already have three), though, but if you missed the one in Karnak and really wants another one, this gal's your source. Parthenope, the serpentine dancer. Her normal special attack is Roulette, which is a blue magic you haven't seen before. It basically randomly kills someone on the field. In other words, it really sucks when you use it, and it really sucks when they use it and manage to land on you. SHe will counter attacks with Allure or Reverse Polarity, neither of which are particularly dangerous. She has a rainbow suit for steal commonly, which is another dancer-exclusive-sword- dance-chance-raising garb. Since Ribbons are better off than Lamia's Tiaras, you might want to go for this thing to free up your Dancer's head, if you have any. Bella Donna, the... human dancer. She attacks with Dancehallen Daze, and has a higher chance to do so than the other dancers with their special attack. In addition, she counters with Danse Macrabe, which... just sucks. Counter with a healthy stock of Holy Waters, or if you can - go for OHKOs. She has a Red Shoes for steal, which is another Dancer garb. It's a bit stronger than Protect Ring (but without the Regen), so equip it if you want. None of the dancers here are immune to any status, BTW, so you can just Odin them all if you want, or something. Anyways, back to the tower itself. As you enter, you'll soon notice that there seems to be no way up. However, that's not the case - walk up to the wall, and examine the wall. It'll collapse and a stairway will form. Now, know that in the upper stairs, you can only examine two sections of the wall: the middle left or the middle right. Also, one of the sections will throw you into a rather tough battle containing beefed up versions of the enemies you've fought before. Thus, we have to sidestep from the tower for now to look at those monsters: The bandercoueri. It's not that dangerous compared to its previous form, though that may not say much given Blaster is... just really annoying. You still have a 33% chance of getting Blastered, so watch out. It's weak to fire, so two Firagas should kill him. The Luquid FLame. It doesn't change form this time, but just blast you non-stop with Fira and Flame, while occasionally (every five turns starting from third) cast Firaga on himself to heal. weak to water and ice as you may expect, so blast him accordingly. The Kuza Beast. Thankfully, it doesn't do ??? ALL THE TIME like the normal one, but it still does it 1/3 of the time which is annoying enough. You can't mosey out of it by Breaking him, either, so hit fast and hard. Try to line up your character's turns so they act immediately after each other. Either that, or try using Berserk and Flash. No elemental weakness. The Soul Cannon. It's easily the most nasty monster-in-a-wall you can encounter, as it can perform Surge Beam regularly. Missile and Gamma Ray are annoying as hell, as well. Pound on him hard and kill him quickly, and don't let your guard down - it's possibly the first world 3 monster that's liable to kill you. Anyways, now that we're done with that crap, it's time to ascend. The stairs on floor 2 is visible, so we proceed. Left on floor 3, Right on floor 4, and we reach... a room with two pots. If you examine the left pot, you'll find 5000 gil. Examining the right pot, however, will net you a battle with a Magic Pot. As with Gogo, you can tell it isn't a serious battle. All Magic Pot does is whine for Elixir, while refilling his own HP to full periodically. While it IS possible to kill it (you have to do enough damage in between his periodical refills), it requies a lot of preparation, so it's easier just to feed him an Elixir. However, the magic pot will only be satisfied 33% of the time, so you may have to feed a lot of elixirs to get him to run. However, there's another way - equip someone with the Wonder Wand, and if he doesn't go away with one Elixir, use the Wonder Wand as an item to cast Reset (you cannot cast the spell outright since Mute is automatically cast on you), and try again. You'll receive a Phoenix Down, and a whooping 100 ABP. Take advantage of the ABP gain. Anyways, once you're done here, time to ascend. Stair available on 6, Left on 7 and 8, and Right on 9. On floor 10 is another pot room. Left pot has 10k, Right pot has Magic Pot. Keep on going up - Stairs available on 11, Left on 12 and 13, Right on 14. Pot room in 15 - Magic pot on left, 15k on right. Stairs in sight on 16, left on 17 and 18, right on 19, Pot room in 20 - 20k in left, magic pot in right. In sight, Right, Left, Right, Pot room - Magic pot on left (But this time, instead of a Phoenix Down, you get an Avis Killer), 25k on right. Left, left, right. On floor 29, you have to fight a battle by examining the centre, but Floor 30 is in fact... the top of the tower! You'll see Lenna's Hiryu here, badly injured. There will be a scene about Lenna's past. Watch it (choose anything, it doesn't matter), and you'll receive... the Phoenix Summon! It does moderate amount of fire damage and revives one person. Arise does exist, however, and the fire damage isn't that impressive. The cost is quite hefty as well. Anyways, when you're done, Teleport out. Overworld My team's level: 35 The next location we shall hit in the desert is in the northeast, where the North Mountain is. Remember Bahamut setting us up an appointment with him back when we were in the pyramid? We're going to attend it. It's on the northeast side. North Mountain The monsters, surprisingly, have NOT changed whatsoever, so you can just waltz through them. You've been here once, so I'm sure you know how to make your way up. The purple grasses won't poison you any more, by the way. Heal at the save point, and at the top, you'll do battle with Bahamut. Bahamut Level: 99 HP/MP: 40000/10000 Elemental Attributes: Immune to Earth Status vulneribilities: Darkness, Slow, Stop Creature type: Dragon, Heavy Drops: Dragon Fang (Rare) Steal: Dragon Fang (Both) Bahamut is mainly a spellcaster. At the beginning he'll only cast Mega Flare once in a while, but once you whittle his HP down, he'll begin casting spells according to his HP. Allow me to present them in an easy-to-follow table: 30000-34999: Atomic Ray, Frost 25000-29999: Flame, Earth Shaker 20000-24999: Aqua Breath, Thunder 15000-19999: Maelstrom, Snowstorm 10000-14999: Poison Breath, Zombie Breath <10000: Mega Flare Basically, he'll cast one of the two spells 66% of the time, or use a physical. As most of these spells are rather unpreventable and Bahamut doesn't have any staggering weaknesses, the basic premise of the battle is to keep healed and to hit hard. Mighty Guard and Hastaga are must-casts as always, casting Slow will help a bit. After that, just keep pounding. Mega Flare is reflectable, so if you've done more than 30000 damage (either by counting or by seeing regular mega flares slung your way), summon Carbunkle to ease things up. Though, with all you've done before, you can pretty much just slaughter him without him even getting in more than a couple of attacks. Once you're done, you'll receive the Bahamut summon, which as you should know is something you should really cherish (it's the strongest summon you have unless elemental weaknesses are involved). That being done... Teleport out of here. World Map Get back to Phantom Village and board your airship. We will now commence obtaining the third and fourth tablet. Note that you can get those two in any order you want, but why break out of order? We'll be heading for the third one first. Anyways, go underwater, and you should see a lone dot on the east side of the map. Go there. You'll see what looks like an axe wound in the floor. It's the Great Trench, where the third tablet lies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.35 The tablet of fire, underwater ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Great Trench My team's level: 35 Move forward, and you'll see another Gargoyle guarded door. Remove the first two words of that phrase, and get inside. Let's now commence to meet the reception crew that we'll find as we traverse through this place. They're all called unknowns, BTW, and they're all undeads. THey're all physically resistant (high defense + Protect), and they all have counters to physical attacks. Yay. The first brand of unknown we shall discuss looks like a... blob. Every time you use the Fight command on it, it will use Possess to remove one of you from the battle. It will follow by killing itself, but it's still very annoying. So don't use Fight on it. Note that other physical commands are OK, just not Fight. Otherwise, it's attacks are boring and unimpressive. The second brand looks likes a worm, and it attacks with Slimer. Its counters towards Fight isn't that impressive (entangle and mucus), but they still come with Protect. Usual undead treatment. The third brand looks like a spore, and that's what it counters Fight with: Spore. Otherwise, it's another boring undead. Uses Reverse Polarity from time to time. The fourth brand looks exactly like the third brand, but they show up in groups of threes in a triangle. It's more interesting than the rest of them - while normally it will just Fight, if it spots an ally biting the dust (Again), it'll revive the fallen one, follow up by using Delta Attack, which does quite some damage and petrifies too... or should I say, *attempt* to use Delta Attack, of which it has insufficient MP for. It doesn't have a counter to Fight, though it's still pretty resilent. Note that not every triangle unknown formation is this brand - if you see Reverse Polarity in action, that's the first spore unknown. The last brand looks likes a skeleton hanged from the ceiling. It attacks with Doom, and counters Fight with Doom too. Good if you want to learn the (crappy) blue magic, boring otherwise. They have quite a lot of HP, however. Anyways, that's it for the plethora of unknowns. For dealing with them, Requiem is highly effective as they're ALL undeads. Magic will also work, particularly those with fire or holy element. Physical attacks are generally less than desirable here, though if they're poweful enough they can still do something. Now, let's get this dungeon over with. Head on, and you'll see a fork. Head south for a water scroll, then go back and head east. Head on and you'll be in a room with save point. Save if you want, then continue. In the next room flip the switch to open up a path. Move on, but don't flip the next switch - it'll destory the bridge you see in front, forcing you to take the long way through lava. The next room is filled with switches! Each one will bring you downward without having to step into the lava (as you would if you walk down instead). However, some switches will deposit you into little pools of lava. Choose the one closest to you on the left. After you fall, head to the right. The next room is filled with lava, so you have to step in it to proceed (cast Float, or get Light Steps). Head down for a chest with Ether in it. Now, head right, collect the chest in the centre for a Phoenix Down en route, and keep going. Well, look what we have here! It's a five-men... I mean dwarves-kingdom! There's even a shop here. Talk to the dwarve from different angles to buy different stuff: Weapon Shop Gaia Hammer 12800 Morning Star 7800 Rune Bow 10000 Kiku-ichimonji 14800 STuff you could've buyed en masse back in Phantom Village. Armour Shop Crystal Shield 9000 Crystal Helm 10500 Black Cowl 6500 Circlet 4500 Crystal Armor 12000 Black Garb 9000 Black Robe 8000 White Robe 8000 Same stuff as Phantom Village. Anyways, you can choose to go southwest through a VERY VERY long tunnel to talk to a dwarf there, who will point out the location of the Phantom Village and states that something weird is going on up there. Once you're done in this little kingdom, exit in the southeast. You'll see a pool of water here. By heading at the little niche at the southeast side, you can recharge your magic lamp if you used its powers. Take advantage of this facility if you want to, then head up the door. In the next room, you'll see a chest with a door behind it. Opening the chest, however, will simply cause the lava to gush at you. Flip all the swtiches in the room first, THEN open the chest (but before you do that, there's a chest on its east side that contains Kaiser Knuckles). You'll emerge in the tablet room. Walk up and you'll get thrown in a boss battle. Triton, Nereid, Phobos Level: 37/20/39 HP/MP: 13333/10000 (all) Elemental Attributes: Absorb Fire, Weak to Ice (Triton), Absorb Ice, Weak to Fire (Nereid), Absorb Poison, Weak to Earth (Phobos) Status vulneribilities: Stone, Poison, Darkness, Aging, Sleep, paralyze, Confuse, Silence, Stop Creature Types: Undead Drops: Iron Draft (Rare), Power Drink (Nereid, Rare), Goalith Tonic (Phobos, Rare) Steal: Gold Needles (Common), Elixir (Rare) First of all, before I even write anything about their attack pattern and what not, I want to let off this rant: WHAT KIND OF BOSS IN WORLD 3 DOES NOT HAVE HEAVY TYPE SET? Yes, you heard it right. These three little pigs are not Heavy. In other words, you can just summon Odin and one Zantetsuken later, these pigs will be no more. Seriously. OK, now that I'm done ranting, and I'm assuming that you're not going to use Odin (if you are, you can just skip the rest of this section), the little pigs themselves use spells on you. Tirton wields fire spells, Nereid wield ice spells, and Phobos wields Poison spells. They actually do hurt quite abit. Also, like the fourth brand of Unknown, anytime you kill one, it will be revived and a Delta Attack will be sent you way, but unlike the Unknowns, they DO have the MP to cast it. So, kill them all at once. How do you do that? Well, first and foremost is Requiem. All of them are undead, so about five to six requiems will do. Otherwise, you can also cast anything that isn't Fire, Ice, Poison, or Earth-elemental (you don't want to hit weakness of one pig and not the other two). Thundaga, Syldra, Bahamut, they'll all work. These pigs don't have much in term of HP, so they'll fall rather quickly. Once the three little pigs are properly disposed of, the tablet is yours. You'll also automatically gain the spell Meteor. Sweet! Meteor is basically Comet * 2 * 4, if you know what I mean. Basically, a Meteor attack sends down four comets (at slightly less than twice the power of a Comet spell per comet) that strike a target each. It's a bit random when there are lots of monsters around, but it can wreak havoc on single monsters. Now that you're done here, teleport out of here! World Map Head for Kuzar to collect legendary weapon seven to nine. Afterwards, head underwater again. See that dot on the northwest? Go there. Tunnel to the surface You'll recognize this as the same tunnel you took to conquer Catoblepas. The enemies hasn't changed, either, so just walk through this short tunnel. You'll emerge on the other side of the mountain. World Map Head west, and what do you know? It's Istory Falls! Head inside. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.32 The last tablet (about time) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Istory Falls My team's level: 36 You'll see another gargoyle-guarded door. Do your business, and head inside. Istory Fall's local inhabitants generally follow themselves to be water themed, so thunder attacks will reign supreme here. Mercury Bats are amongst the first monsters you'll see. It has a very high evasion, but very low HP. Pretty much anything that can't miss will kill it in one hit. It can use Vampire, but that's generally useless as it's either alive (meaning your hit hasn't landed yet), or dead. Coral, the living mineral, will attack with Spore. It's rather boring otherwise, though. Weak to Thunder, so same treatment. Aquagel, the living water. It attacks with physicals only, surprisingly (and they actually do hurt somewhat, unlike what you may expect from being punched by water). Weak to Thunder. Very boring. Steel Fist is, as you may expect from its sprite, a physical fighter. It attacks physically only, countering fight commands with !Vacuum Blade (sets old and HP leak), but it becomes nasty when it's alone. It will display a message about charging up, then use a VERY strong physical on you. You do NOT want that to happen (it's over 4000 damage, folks), so try not to leave it alone for too long. It rarely drops a Kaiser Knuckles. They're NOT weak to thunder, by the way. Alchymia is, quite possibly, the game's most interesting random encounter (in my opinion). Basically, it always starts with a deceptively simple looking toad. She will lament for two turns about the cursed fate of the frog, then cast Ribbit on the toad (which is basically a fancy Toad spell), after which it disappears, leaving you to deal with whatever the frog turned out to be. The frog can be a Red Dragon, Hydra, or a Bone Dragon. Each of them do possess some nasty attacks (Red Dragon: Atomic Ray, Hydra: Tidal Wave and Poison Breath, Bone Dragon: Bone). When an Alchymia found her pet disintegrated before she can finish her lamentations, she will get mad and cast Death every turn. There are MANY MANY ways to deal with this encounter - kill Alchymia before she can finish; attack the frog but kill only after Alchymia's done; Refrog the demon after Alchymia defrogs it; Defrog the demon before Alchymia's finished so she ends up refrogging it... the great variety of strategy you can take with this encounter makes it very entertaining indeed. The last encounter, and the most nastiest of them all, is Tonberry. You remember what Tonberry does, right? (assuming you played other Final Fantasy games) Well, there's no Karma attack in this game, so it will simply advance forward three steps, then unleash a furious wave of Cleavages (with exclamation marks!) at you. It will then return to to its original position. It's HP is slightly shy of 40000, so it'll take a while to bring it down. If you lack the firepower, consider putting him to a fitful doze with the Sleep spellblade. Note that Tonberry has 90% magic evade, so spells are unlikely to connect at all. Either that, or you can just cast Odin. Anyways, that's it for the local inhabitants of the falls, so let's get back to traversing through it. Head up the stairs here, then walk left, letting a stream of water carry you down to the ledge on lower left. Head up to obtain a turtle shell, then climb back down for the staircase on the far left. Let the stream carry you down the chest containing Ether, then go back down to the bottom. Climb the staircase, and you'll see a chest to the right. Get it - it's an Air Knife. You're done in this room. Find your way to the top door utilize it. In the next room, take the right door. In the area you emerge in, go up to the platform to get that Goalith Tonic, then head down and head right through the secret passage you *should* have discovered. It leads to a chest with Rune Blade inside. Rune Blade looks unimpressive, but it can apply major damage if you can dish out 5 MP per attack, so if you have any Mystic Knights in your party, equip him with this (unless his original weapon was Chicken Knife). Now, head left. You'll see on a far left a chest blocked off by a waterfall. The switch nearby will shut down the waterfall for about two seconds, but you must dash to the other side to get the content: Protect Ring. Once you get it, head down the staircase on the lower left. The next room is a mini-maze. In your first fork, head up for the chest with Phoenix Down. In the second fork, head lower left for a Reflect Ring. You'll soon find yourself in a save point room. Save/heal, then continue. The next room is quite dark. Head down (there's a pitfall, so turn on find pits), and left. You should see a staircase heading down and a door on the north. Ignore the downstairs, and go up the door. You will wind up in a room with a single chest, containing the Artemis Bow. It's raw power surpasses that of the Yoichi's Bow, but it doesn't have as high a chance to critical, though it does extra damage against creature-type enemies. Anyways, collect it, then go back. Keep ignoring the staircase for now, but go west, and you should see a chest on the bottom. Collect it by winding to the left for 12k gil. Now, head northwest through that narrow passage you may have noticed and use the door. You'll come to a platform with a chest you have seen before but could not collect - it's an Enchancer, a blade that raises magic power as well as being a very respectable generic sword in its own right. Now, head back to the staircase I told you to ignore before, and go down. The next room is quite large and spacious. Head southwest, and you'll see a chest sealed off by crystalline spikes. Pull the nearby switch to withdraw them, then collect the chest for a Titan's Axe. Now, head northeast and you'll see a chest. Collect it from the front for a Fuma Shuriken (don't get it from the sides or back; you'll get impaled by a spike). There's another chest in the northwest. Again, collect it from the front for an Aegis Shield (rock on!). Now, head back southwest. See those holes? Jump down them. You'll find yourself in a circular platform, with the tablet in the centre. Make your way to it and collect it. (What, no boss?) Head up both staircases, but as soon as you reach the top, a monster will appear and attempt to bully you out of the tablet. However, wrong move, monster - Leviathan just woke up, and, displeased with the commotion, destoryed the nearest object, which happened to be the monster. He seems to be appeased by the sacrifice, and now you're free to go... unless of course, you want the Leviathan as a summon. Then you must actually fight it. Talk to it to initiate a fight. Leviathan Level: 37 HP/MP: 40000/2000 Elemental Attributes: Nulls Earth, Fire, Absorbs Water, Weak to Thunder Status Vulneribilities: Darkness, Slow Creature Type: Dragon, Heavy Drops: Reflect Ring (always) Steal: Elixir (Common) Leviathan is straight forward. He will either use his physical or Tidal Wave, with a shot at Aqua Breath every 10 turns starting from fifth (god knows if he'll live long enough to use it once, let alone twice). He counters physicals with a 33% shot at Entangle, and magic with 33% shot at Tidal Wave. That about sums him up. Tidal Wave will do around 700 damage to you, and he can use it twice in a row. So, Mighty Guard is very important in this fight, as two unguarded Tidal Wave can often 1HKO weaker characters. Other than that, there really isn't much to say about this. Just blast him with thunder magic (though heal first if you're badly injured, so you don't get screwed by the 33% chance counter), and your strongest attacks. He will eventually fall. You'll receive the Leviathan summon when you're done. As there is no way to boost Water power, a boosted Syldra is stronger than Leviathan. However, Leviathan is still stronger than anything else coming form a summoner against something water weak. Anyways, you'll notice that you cannot Teleport out of this room. However, what you can do is head around the platform to the south. You'll see a waterfall. Let it carry you down and you'll end up on the world map. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.33 Bonus Content #1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Map Alright, time to hit Kuzar and get the last batch of weapons. Once you're done, you will be informed that there was an earthquake in the south end of the world, and you'd need a submarine to explore it. Well, southwest of Phantom Village, you should see two grids of the sea where it's bubbling. If you go underwater, you'll see that it's another axe wound, so head near it. Your submarine will get sucked to... somewhere. ??? As soon as you head in, the door gets slammed shut. That's just great. However, looking around and you'll see... Crystal shards? Collect them, and as soon as you do, a "travelling merchant" gets in (how did he do that?). He then explains about the powers of the jobs you just got: Gladiator, Oracle, and Cannoneer. Anyways, as always, here are my takes on the jobs: Gladiator is called "overly cheap" by many, though I really don't see why. Basically, gladiator has the ability to use Finishers, which will either fail, do a critical hit, or do an elemental finisher, which is a guaranteed 9999 with the element that's tied to the character. It's quite effective, but it's not as powerful as, say, dual wield rapid fire or dual wield sword dance frenzy. The good thing, however, is that you can do all of that with a shield equipped, which gives some additional protection. Also, if elemental finishers are the ones you care about, you can also hide in the back row. Most of its other abilites are rather novelty, though Long Range is a very useful filler ability if you're not using !Spellblade in that slot. Oracle's power lies within Predict. Now with a brand new algorithm, Predict is, well, predictable now, so the usefulness went up a few notches. It's hard to always get maximum effectiveness, though, since the power of the spells are (somewhat arbitrarily) dependent on the last digit of the caster's HP, and it's hard to generate a good last digit of HP on demand. Still, the attacks themselves are generally helpful, so... eh. You might like it. Cannoneer is sorta like Chemists, except for their mixtures are more offensive and status oriented. Some of the creature-type oriented cannons can be very useful as they're like hitting a weakness other attacks can't, while others are pretty much meh-ish. Anyways, once you're done here, leave this place. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.34 The Prelude to Void ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overworld Well, guess what, folks? We've finished everything there is to do before the final dungeon. Unless you feel like building up or something, it's time to hit the Rift and prove our power. In case you forgot, you enter the Rift by flying over Tycoon. You can leave the Rift any time by casting Teleport, or inspecting the Airship's wheels. The Interdimensional Rift My team's level: 37 Alright. The rift is a HUGE place, so I will divide it into subsections, as the Rift seems to be composed of areas of distinct environment. You'll see what I mean when you're done. Anyways, off we go! Section 1 - Beach of Shifting Sands Yeah, this area sorta looks like the Desert of shifting sides, but it also sorta looks like a beach. The enemies you see here are the same you see from the northeast desert, so you should be experienced in killing them. Dhrome Chimeras also appear sometimes. Anyways, head along the path. The shifting sands mostly acts as conveyer belts, and the area is very linear, so just head along it and you'll eventually see a building with a door (not unlike the ones in the Pyramid). Head through the doors. A bunch of demons will pop out and utter maledictions, then disappear (what pansies). Anyways, head through the door. Section 2 - Ronka Chain Foretress You'll end up in what looks like the Ronka ruins, but it's running on chains. YOu will sometimes fight familiar faces from Ronka Ruins, but more often than not you'll instead clash with their upgraded forms instead. Grenades are what you expect them to be - fire emos that unfortunately tends to hurt you as well. It has 3000 HP, and asplodes when magic is used on it. So, use either powerful magic (if it doesn't kill the Grenade, at least leave it too weak to do much damage), or don't use it at all. NOT weak to ice. Balbander is an upgraded Enchanted Fan that can use Aeraga rather than Aera. It doesn't absorb wind, so feel free to use wind-elemental attacks. Not much of a threat. Death Dealer is one crazy bastard. Its entire arsenal composed of ONE attack: Roulette. It sucks, I know - at least he himself can be killed by it. Don't count on it, though - deal with him first where possible. Level Checker is basically what it is - it will perform a search on a character, followed by a level attack on that character. It doesn't say on the script, but I have a suspicion that it's intelligent to know what level attacks will succeed. Try not to let him live too long either. So, basically, as you can see, for the new enemies, you want to kill them sooner rather than later, as almost all of them are not pleasant. Anyways, back to the walkthrough itself. Climb down the chains if you havent done so, and go in the door. In the next room, head left and right first to collect an Ether and a Cottage, then head through the central doors. Collect the two other chests for an Elixir and a Dark Matter. Now, head downstairs. The next room is straight forward - climb down the chain, keep going til you're on the right side with three chains leading up. The right chain leads to an Elixir, while the left chain leads onward. The next room has a fork as well - the right side leads to a Blood Sword, while the left side leads onward. And with that (After some rooms), you'll be in the next section. Section 3 - Phantom Village You'll be in the Rift version of Phantom Village (coming out of the door where you could not enter before in the real world one). Everything here is frozen and non-functional (except for the healing pot in the basement), so don't bother doing anything here. Just heal if you want, and leave the area. Section 4 - Moore Forest Well, that's nice. We're in for another twisty little maze with limited visilbity. Sigh. Oh well. There are three enemies that you can find here. White Flames are annoying little entities. They absorb holy, so they can make your life miserable if you're wielding Excalibur or Holy lance or something. They also have high defense, though to balance that they have only 1600 HP. Rapid Fire with non-holy weapons will kill him easily. They don't do much, either, using either physicals or White Wind. Moss Fungi attacks with physicals and Web, swapping the latter for Spore when it's alone. It also counters !Lance with a 66% chance at Rainbow Wind, which is rather annoying. However, it does not possess significant threat, and is easier to kill. Level 3 Flare will work, amongst other things. Farfarello casts Drain, Osmose, Pond's Chrous, and Lilliputian Lyric. While they may not look much, his Drain can actually quite hurt a bit, as with his Osmose. He's not a particularly dangerous opponent, so don't worry much about him. Level 3 Flare will work on him, BTW. Yeah. If you have any holy weapons that you're actually going to lay the smack down with, equip something else. Level 3 Flare will kill Moss Fungi and Farfarelloes quite readily, but for White Flames you have to resort to conventional stuff. Anyways, let's get out of here. Starting from where you entered, follow the path until you see a big tree. Behind the tree is a small passageway leading to a Dragon Fang. Collect it, and head west. The path will eventually lead you to an... opening (if you count a big field with lots of trees as an opening). If you hug the west wall of the opening and head south, you'll eventually see a chest resting against a tree. It contains a Ribbon. Now, keep heading south, and you'll eventually go into an indent of some sort, and on the far end lies an Enchancer. Head back north out of the indent, hugging the east wall, and you should see another chest. It contains a Lilith Rod. Now, go southeast from there, and you should eventually see a tree with a knot on it. Do your business with it, but heal up first - a boss battle is coming up. (Also, as a preparation, equip Reflect Ring on someone, if you have at least one (you should have two if you didn't sell any)). As you try to head in the tunnel, one of the demons you see when you entered the Chain Foretress will pop up, enter her usual "bad person" speech", and fight with you. Calofisteri Level: 68 HP/MP: 18000/1000 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: Poison, Aging, Silence, Slow Creature Type: Human, Heavy, Creature Drops: Diamond Plate (rare) Steal: Plumed Hat (common), Reflect Ring (rare) Calofisteri's script centres around the reflect status. When no one has reflect on, she will use either Old, Stop, or Reflect. After she cast Reflect on her self, she'll start bouncing Bio, Poison, Old, Stop, or Reflect off her self on you. Once she bounced reflect on you, she will then start casting low levle white magic spells on your reflected characters, bouncing them back to herself. Finally, whenever she's damaged, she will counter with Drain. As you see, Calofisteri fights very defensively. Use this to your advantage - with a Reflect Ring, she'll always reflect spells on herself, and won't hurt you outside of her counter. Her drain can shave off 400 HP off someone, so cast Old if you want to reduce that amount. With her being unable to hurt you (much), put your strongest attacks to use and pound her hard with them. She has low HP so she'll fall fairly quickly. With her out of your way, head in the tree. Section 5 - Underground tunnels Another subarea! Oh my. Three monsters to be found here. Orucat can cast Demon's Eye when alone, something you probably don't want to see a lot. Try not to leave it alone. Its attacks are fairly unimpressive otherwise. Note that it absorbs Holy as well. Achelone can use Demon's Eye too, and this time as a counter. Thus, aim to kill him in one hit and don't give him a lot of chance to counter. It has 3200 HP, so it won't be TOO hard to take down. Great Dragon is the dangerous local here. Its physicals can leave quite a bruise even to people in back row, and it can counter physicals with Earthquake. Stay afloat around here. It thankfully doesn't have any status immunities, so 1HKO spells will work here. Odin is, as usual, the most reliable one. Back to the walkthrough. Follow the path until you reach the room with waterfalls. Head all the way towards the right to the right-most waterfall and enter it. You'll emerge in a room with natural stone furnitures and be hailed as the monkey king... no, wait, you just enter a room with an Angel Ring in it. Collect it, and head back to the door. Enter it. In the next room, collect the Coral Ring from the chest, then go to the next room, which has a save point. Make 200% sure that you saved, then head out. See that robot wandering around? That's Omega. He is one of the "super bosses" of the game (even in the SNES version where the bonus dungeon wasn't there). At this point, you CAN defeat him if you can equip ribbons/flame rings (I was able to do so), but it requires a lot of frsturation, saves and resets, which you could avoid by just avoid contact with him. However, I do assume that you want to defeat him SOME time in the future. With that in mind, I'm going to give a strategy here anyways. If you don't want to defeat him now, just skip this section, and skirt around the robot so it doesn't attack you. Omega Level: 117 HP/MP: 55530/60700 Elemental Attributes: Weak to Thunder, Absorbs everything else Status Vulnerilibities: Stop, Slow Creature Type: Heavy Drops: Omega Badge (Always) Steal: Nothing Like I said, Omega is VERY tough. It will start the battle with either Atomic Ray (which will do over 2500 damage to EVERYONE!), Delta Attack, or Blaster. He will then follow up with a Surge Beam. After that, either another Atomic Ray, Emission, or Rainbow Wind, then another Surge Beam, and... well, put it this way - unless you've REALLY overlevelled, if you've let Omega get this far, you shouldn't really be living any more anyways. The trick to Omega is to stop him from getting his ouchies onto your sorry ass, not to play a war of attrition with him. Oh, and he will counter any HP damage with Encircle, Mustard Bomb, or maybe a Rocket Punch instead of either (or both) of them. Right now, the only option you have, really, is arrange your job as following: Bard * 2, Person with Time Magic and perferably Blue magic, Person with Spellblade, Rapid Fire and perferbly Dual-wield. Basically, the two bards should cast Romeo's Ballad to keep Omega stopped (he has a weakness to song, meaning they will always hit), the time mage should cast Hastaga ASAP (Omega will snap out of it too quickly otherwise), while the spellblade person should cast Thundaga and commence the whacking. It will allow you to circumvent his MASSIVE defense (I'm talking 190 here), and you should be able to kill him in a few sword whacks and HOPEFULLY preventing him from getting in any more attack than maybe two in the beginning. Surge beam is easy to survive (as it's precentage based), but the first turn could be tricky - You can either equip Flame Rings and hope he cast Atomic Ray, or equip Ribbons and hope for Delta Attack/Blaster as paralyze, or do both. If you can survive his first attack and you're lucky, you should be able to kill him. I was lucky and got countered once. My spellblade person died and my time mage got Encircled, but one of my bards was fast enough to revive my spellblade person, who whacked Omega one last time and killed him. Later on, with higher levels, you should be able to kill Omega faster, and/or survive his attacks more consistently, so there will be less luck involved. Nevertheless, this strategy is the easiest one on a decent levelled party, so you should use this unless you've REALLY overlevelled. Once you've defeated Omega (congratulations) or chose to skirt around the issue (there's no shame!), you'll emerge in what looks like a library room. There are two books on the shelves (one of them talks about Omega and its companion, Shinryuu, which you have yet to meet, while the other talks about how Giga Flare leaves the caster defenseless while charging). However, what you REALLy want to do is flip the book on the table, which will throw you into a boss battle. Apanda Level: 59 HP/MP: 22200/1000 Elemental Attributes: Weak to Fire Status Vulneribilities: Darkness, Berserk, Slow Creature Type: Creature, Heavy Drops: Soot (always) Steal: Soot (both) Remember Byblos from WAAAY back in world 1? Apanda is basically a beefed up version of it. It has the same attacks and all, except for the Drain counters were integrated into the physical/magical counters at a 33% chance. However, we're much tougher this time around, so Apanda isn't really much of a threat. For giggles, casting Ifrit will cause him waste a turn cowering in fear, so potentially (if you're really underpowered), you can spam Ifrit to keep him completely stunlocked in fear. Once you defeat him, leave. You'll emerge in... a different area. (You can go back to the underground tunnel by flipping that book again, if you want) Section 6: Invisible Tower Two enemies and a LOT of secret passage here. Ninja is very evasive (as its name suggests). 70% evade, 90% magic evade, and counters Fight with Image (if you've somehow hit him in the first place). Use unblockable attacks to bring him down. 5000 HP. Dragon Aevis is a weird looking thing that can send Breath Wing at you at a rate of 33%/turn. It's rather annoying, but otherwise it does not have too much going for it. Just kill him with whatever. The entire area is filled with isolated areas connected by secret passages bridges. You can feel your way through them (they aren't that hard to find), but turning on Find Passages is obviously quicker. Anyways, this area is very linear, so just get through it. You'll eventually see a door. Enter it for the next area. Section 7: The Interdimensional Castle This is a pretty large area, so prepare to spend some time here. Quite a number of enemies to be found, too. Iron Giants look pretty much like their name would suggest, and they hurt like their name would suggest, too. They're quite tough, as well. With 18000 HP, you won't be bringing it down any time soon - unless you cast Odin. In all fairness, this thing is a chore to defeat, so I would go for Odin. It has a whooping 10000 exp, which ties with Shield Dragon, and making it the best pre- bonus dungeon monster to grind on if you need experience. In other words, I will never kill one more of them than necessary. Go masochism! Oh and before I forgot, it's also weak to water, so Leviathan is useful here. Sword Dancer is pretty weak, but it can use Danse Macrabe on its second turn. Not good. Kill it ASAP. Odin works on it, and while it's the one of the only two thing in the castle not weak to water (discounting bosses), 3000 HP means it won't survive very long. Death Claw casts Death Claw almost every turn. Did you perhaps expect something else? I didn't. Same weakness, same treatment. Odin, Leviathan. Fury... lives up to its name. Every turn it will cast up to two spells, and as one of them can be Death, it's not fun for you on the receiving end. Also, if you manage to leave it alone, it will cast FOUR (!!) spells per turn, including two -agas, a potential bio or comet, and a status spell. Yikes. It's also un-Odinable, though it's still weak against Water. Yojimbo is the last random encounter in the castle. It will attack physically only, so it's of little threat (though their physical attacks sort of hurts). It's also not weak to water, though it really doesn't have much in terms of HP anyways. Alright. Head up to the door and inspect it to open it. The next room has an upstairs, but you can't open the door beyond it, so don't bother using that. Head for the sides, first - the door leading up leads to an empty room, but the door leading down leads to a tower which you can enter (despite what it looks like). The left tower has a Thor's Hammer, and the right tower has a Herme's Sandal. Head back to the main hall, and use the downstairs instead. The jail area has quite a number of things to offer. The first thing you should explore is the bottom left cell. You'll see a guy standing there looking handsome. Talk to him, and he'll demand to know whether you're the ones bearing the Crystal shards. Tell him no and nothing happens (how guillible); tell him yes and you get thrown into a boss battle. Apocalypse Level: 57 HP/MP: 27900/50000 Elemental Attributes: Weak to Poison Status Vulneribilities: Darkness Creature Type: Heavy Drops: Black Cowl (rare) Steal: Elixir (Common), Giant's Glove (Rare) Apocalypse is a blue mage. He will cast Dark Shock, Guard Off, Mind Blast, Doom, Roulette, Level 2 Old, Level 5 Doom, Level 4 Quarter, Mighty Guard, Lilliputian Lyric, Flash, ???, Aera, Emission, Missile, Time Slip, Death Claw, and White Wind. In addition, whenever Level 3 Flare, Aeraga, 1000 Needles, Vampire, Hammer, or Selfdestruct is cast on him, he will learn the spell and try them out on you for a couple of turns, with a smallish chance at some other blue magic. You can only witness Aero, Goblin Punch, and Flash while he's trying a spell. All these make him pretty interesting to fight, but he's still pathetic as ever and will go down like everything you've met so far. The easiest way out of this battle is to cast Self-desruct on him. He will cast self-destruct himself, and you will win. However, this is by no means necessary - You can simply overpower him, as he isn't really all that strong. Bio spellblade works especially well here, but his HP is low enough that it doesn't really matter what you do (heck, if you've noticed, anything regular can be beaten regularly if you at least try, no matter what you do). Once apocalypse falls, he'll form a save point. Save and heal. Now, the next things you want to do is to attack those old wizard looking guys. They're monsters in disguise and if you get in contact with them, they attack you. They're not really bosses, per se, but they are sorta unique. Anyways, Alte Roite is the first form, and you should kill it quickly as it can cast Encircle, which just sucks. Once you kill it, it'll change form into a dragon (Jura Aevis). Just cast Odin to kill it. You COULD grab the chests without killing all of the wizards if you're good, but... I'm not going into how to do it. Anyways, the chests contain a Red Slipper (Top) and Rainbow Dress (Bottom). Get them, then walk up to the top cell where the woman is. Before you open it, though, make sure everyone is afloat, and SOMEONE has a reflect ring on. A black eyeball thing will pop out of the cell, slam you all the way into the other side of the jell, and then attack you. Catastrophe Level: 71 HP/MP: 19997/19997 Elemental Attributes: Absorb Earth Status Vulneribilities: Darkness, Aging, Paralyze, Slow Creature Type: Heavy Drops: Gold Needles (Always) Steal: Elixir (Common), Cottage (Rare) Catastrophe has three attacks: Earth Shaker, which does 1000 or so damage; Demon's Eye (petrifies), and of course his own physical attack. His attacks are fairly formiddable (considering that the last boss we've seen who can even try to break 1000 damage per turn was Leviathan, discounting Omega), but you needn't even see them in action - You see, if any of your character is afloat, Catastrophe will cast 100 Gs on all of your team, pulling them down. The funny thing is, 100 Gs is reflectable. Thus, combining Float with a Reflect Ring, you can cause Catastrophe to waste all of his turns on trying ot pull you down while you finish him off at your leisure. Once the black eyeball is gone, de-equip your reflect ring, then head back to the woman. She'll be so grateful, she'll give you a kiss! Anyways, head upstairs in that cell (You can sorta see how unrealistic is it to be locked in that particular cell for ages, right?), follow the path, and you'll eventually be on the roof the castle. Head all the way left first, and head downstairs. In the room, go right. You can sorta see where this is going now - keep going to collect a chest containing Man Eater, a knife that is NOT affected by the agility bonus bug (meaning it'll do slightly less than twice the damage a sword with its battle power will do). Now, head back to the door you passed a minute ago on the roof, and head in. You'll be on the upper floors of the castle. You can head back downstairs by using the switch near the door that was blocking you a few minutes ago, should you need to access the save point, but you ultimately want to go up. Try heading through the door on the northwest, but you'll be pulled back by A Mysterious Force (TM). Try again, and the woman you rescued a few minute ago will come out and laugh at you. It then reveals its true identity - the king of this castle - and attacks you. Halicarnassus Level: 97 HP/MP: 33333/5000 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: Mini, Darkness, Aging, Slow Creature TYpe: Heavy Drops: Elven Mantle (Rare) Steal: Staff of Light (Common), Aegis Shield (Rare) Halicarnassus will open the battle with Ribbit, which turns some of your party members to Toad. Cure them, then turn on him. He will use very weak attacks for six turns, occasionally with a support spell like Haste, Shell or Dispel, but on the sevneth turn he will cast Holy, and if you are to eat that, you're in trouble (think 9000 worth of damage). So yeah. Do not use summoning on him, BTW, as he will retaliate with a strong physical. Not much I can say about this fight. If you are weak enough that he can live seven turns, try summoning Carbunkle before he can get his Holy in. Once he's done and finished with, head upstairs. once you're at the roof again, head up and you'll get stopped, and attacked... again. (This is getting ridi- culous. It's not even funny any more.) Twin Tania (two forms) Level: 39/30 Hp/MP: 50000/10000 (Shared) Elemental Attributes: Weak to Water, Holy Status Vulneribilities: Slow (1st form), Death, Stone, Toad, Stop, Slow (2nd form) Creature Type: Heavy (1st form only) Drops: Tinklebell (Rare, 1st form), Murasame (Rare, 2nd form) Steal: Phoenix Down (Common, 1st form), Flame Shield (Rare, 1st form), Giant's Axe (Common, 2nd form) Twin Tania will start in its 1st form, where it will cast normal spells at you. His true power lies within his counters, as he will counter every physical with a 66% chance at Tidal Wave, and every magical attack with 66% chance at mega flare. Quite nasty and annoying. He also use Atomic Ray, Snowstorm and Wind Slash in his normal form. The second form is used when he charges for Giga Flare, and as you can see, his defense in that form is PATHETIC. However, should you not stop him from casting Giga Flare, you're looking at something like a 3000 damage spell to everyone before Shell, so that's not so laughable. Anyways, you can either try to overpower him before he can cast Giga Flare, or simply wait and heal until he begins charging, then use Death or something. If you're going for the first way, try having Reflect Rings handy and use solely magic attack, with White Wind to heal. If your magic attack isn't up to scratch, then simply cast Mighty Guard, have your mages heal, and hope for the best. In any case, just know that if you fail, you can still stop him in his second form, so it's not all over. Once he is dead, a stairway will form, and the door to the void will open. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.35 - The epic conflict ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The void My team's level: 39 Yes, you're finally here... the last dungeon of the last dungeon. Know that, starting from now, the enemies will stop giving exp, so if you want to level build, go back to the castle and fight the giants. However, with proper strategy this dungeon is very doable. Anyways, let's go! King Behemoth is one of the first monsters that will impede your progress. It rarely attacks on its own, perferring to counter attack instead. A physical attack is responded with a physical attack, while a magical attack is responsed with... Meteor. Slice him up with Odin, however, and he won't be alive enough to send Meteor over your heads. You can also toad him, which might be more MP friendly and will stop Meteor anyways, but he has massive magic evade so... maybe not. Necromancer will counter your attacks with an appropriate defensive spell - armor for physical, shell for magical. It can also use Zombie Powder, which is basically the same as Danse Macrebe. Very annoying. It's breakable, however, and the ever friendly Odin will be happy to slice it up as well. Gorgimeras will usually attack physically, but if left alone it will start sending some spells your way. None of them are too serious, however, so they're very defeatable as well. Weak to instant death spells. Belphegors are very alike to Gorgimeras. They attacks physically only no matter what happens, and has absolutely no status immunities whatsoever. Kill it with Odin, Death, Break, or violence. Mind Flayer will use Mind Blast, but... that's about it. It doesn't really have anything damaging going on for him, so it's just some useless HP waiting to be depleted. Cannot be odin'd, however, so you need alternative ways to kill it. Death and Break will work. Crystelle is an odd thing. It absorbs every element there is - and has a grand total of THREE HP. That's probably the most fragile monster in the whole game. (Skull Eaters don't count because of its massive defense for its time, and let's not get started on those 1HP goblins). Anyways, anything non-elemental will kill the crap out of it, though Odin or Banish won't. Crystal Dragons, finally, present some challenge. It has a pretty high HP count, quite a number of status immunity (compares to just about everything else here *ahem*), and use Breath Wing quite often. However, it is STILL death- able. You can rarely steal a Dragon Spear from it, which will help you greatly if you want to defeat the second Shinryuu, but that's... for something a lot later. You don't NEED it, in any case. The final monster I present to you is: Mover! This is the only monster here you cannot kill with one spell. It has 10000 HP, and each mover has two positions. It can also end the battle right there (no rewards or anything) at times. However, if you can defeat them (Blast them with Firagas or something), you will be rewarded with 199 ABP (You read that right) and 150,000 gil (again, you read that right). They're the rarest and most sought after monster in the dungeon, so make sure you kick their elusive behind should you run into them. Anyways, that's it about the monsters. Head down from your platform and collect the Fuma Shuriken on the right, then follow the path. You'll eventually see a familiar figure. Talk to him and... it's Gilgamesh? Gilgamesh Level: 59 HP/MP: 37000/0 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: None Creature Type: Human, Heavy Drops: Nothing Steals: Genji shield (common) A scripted battle. After 7000 damage is dealt, he'll ramble a bit, then leave. If you want the Genji shield, this is your only opportunity to get one, so get that Steal command ready. When you're done, head up the teleporter he was on. In the next area, collect the Fuma Shuriken, then keep going. The whole path is linear, and soon you'll see the exit and a chest. The chest has an elixir. In the next area, you'll see a chest, but you might wanna steer clear of it now, as it contains Shinryu inside, and while he is doable, you might want to save before fighting him. Anyways, head onwards to the fork. The left leads to a Fuma Shuriken, while the right leads on. In the next area, you'll eventually hit a fork. The left leads to a light, which you want to examine. You'll get thrown into (yet) another boss battle. Necrophobe, Barriers * 4, Gilgamesh Level: 66 (N), 44(B) HP/MP: 44044/10000 (N), 8000/300(B) Elemental Attributes: Nulls Earth (B), Weak to EVERYTHING (N) Status Vulneribilities: Death, Stone Creature Type: Heavy (all) Drops: Nothing Steals: (N)Elixir (Common), Thief's Glove (Rare), (B) Hi-potion (Common), Reflect Ring (Rare), Genji Armor (Gilgamesh, Common) The battle starts with Necrophobe being totally invulnerible, while he sits back and let his barrier do his dirty work (jerk). His barriers are very annoying - they have inherent reflect, and bounce -agas as well as Holy and Flare off themselves to hit you. Once the barriers are destoryed, Necrophobe will step into the fray himself with his "real power" - Flash. He then starts to pick you off with physicals and occasionally a Hurricane. Once his HP hits below 10000, however, Gilgamesh shows up. What happens afterwards is mandatory, and entertaining, so I won't spoil it for you, but try not to kill Necrophobe too quickly - You can steal a Genji Armor from Gilgamesh, after all. Anyways, when the battle starts, you will want to pick off the barriers. You can either use summons to kill them all together, or pick them off one by one. Catoblepas will get past their reflect and stone them, so if you have a lot of summoners (or mimics), You can get rid of his barriers quite easily. Necrophobe himself isn't anything to worry about - he's weak to all elements, so will go down rather quickly. Eventually, Gilgamesh will show up. A long and touching script will happen. During that time, you cannot hurt Necrophobe, and Gilgamesh heals himself to full every once in a while. The only thing sensible to do now is to wait, and to steal that Genji Armor from Gilgamesh. Eventually, Gilgamesh will Self-destruct on Necrophobe. Quite sad, I know. Once he's gone, he'll turn into a save point. Save and heal, because you're about to do the final battle in the game (before the bonus content). When you're done, just head back to the main path and head straight up. You'll eventually see Ex-Death, and a big cutscene will happen. A lot of bad stuff will happen, but they only make you become more determined to defeat him. You get one last chance to prepare yourself or something (though, you CAN exit the Void if you want to, in which case time flows backwards and everything is undone), then talk to him to end it all. ExDeath Level: 77 HP/MP: 49001/30000 Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribility: Slow Creature Type: Human, Heavy Drops: Nothing Steals: Phoenix Down (Common), Wonder Wand (Rare) ExDeath... is really rather boring for a final boss. It comes at you with only one spell to complement its physicals - White Hole. It's really rather annoying, as it kills AND petrifies a character. Once its HP gets below 30000, it'll have a chance to cast Holy or Flare every four turns, as well as Doom. Once it gets below 10000, it'll have a chance to cast Meteor. Now, White Hole is a rather painful attack to be on the receiving end of (although characters with Ribbon are pretty much immune). However, aside from that, it really does not possess a lot of tricks, and a combination of Mighty Guard as well as Hastaga will allow you to recover from his attacks (don't bother with reflect). You can also slow him down, and unlike before, he won't haste himself. Unless he got lucky and gets a Meteor in, you should be fine here. In any case, after a while, he'll die, and gets "engulfed by the void". He'll then reappear... in a much more hideous form. Say hello to Neo-Exdeath. Neo-ExDeath Level: 83/67/81/86 HP/MP: 55000/65000 (Part 1&2), 50000/65000 (part 3), 60000/65000 (Part 4) Elemental Attributes: None Status Vulneribilities: None Creature Type: Heavy (all but 4), Dragon (Part 1), Creature (Part 2), Huamn (Part 4) Drops: Nothing Steals: Neo-Exdeath has FOUR parts. And ALL of them attack. Fortunately for you, the more dangeorus ones don't attack as often, but still expect a lot of attacks coming from nowhere to hit you everywhere. The more commonly used attacks are physicals, and some -aga spells, while you will occasionally see Almagest and Grand Cross, both of which are rather nasty spells. Anyways, the four parts. The head is part 3, the back is part 1, the chest is part 2, and the tail (with a skeleton) is part 4. Part 1 use Grand Cross; Part 2 use Almagest; Part 3 use physicals; Part 4 use magic spells. Now, all four parts are actually quite slow, and like I said before, Almagest and Grand Cross are rarely seen. Almagest is takeable - it does some high damage, but that's about it - but Grand Cross is something you don't want to eat, as it sets a random status on EVERYONE, and sky's the limit on what the status could be. The spellcaster part will also fling -aga spells (incuding Aeraga) at you, and occasionally a Delta Attack as well. Finally, if one part is alone, it will stop doing what it was doing before, and adapt a new script. Which is bad news for you, because it features two attacks each turn, including chances at Meteor and Almagest (you may even see TWO almagests in one turn). Your strategy: Basically, Grand Cross is the ONLY attack that's of any threat, you should focus on the beast's back (not tail) first. If your character has summon, summoning is superior as it deals damage to all parts (Syldra's the most practical one to use on lower levels, as with Magus Rod it uses about half the MP to deal a fraction less damage than Bahamut). If your character does not have hit-all attacks, focus on the back part first. With Mighty Guard, Hastaga, and Golem, they shouldn't be hurting you too much. Once the back is dead, you can kill the other parts in any order you want. However, Try to spread the damage a bit for the last two parts, so you're in a good position to kill the last part once the third part is dead. Trust me, a part left alone is the only thing in this battle (outside Grand Cross) that's liable to kill a well prepared decent levelled team. Once Neo-Exdeath fell, it's time for the ending. Like the intro, it's long, and it's rather boring. I won't spoil it, however, as it's not that bad when you first watch it, especially considering that you get different scenes depending on who was concious at the end of the final boss fight. So, enjoy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 4 - The lists ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.1 Jobs and Abilities ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alright, given that the job system is the centerpiece of the whole gameplay element in this game, it deserves to be placed in the front. The job system is explained pretty well in the beginning at either the Green- horn's club, or when you get your first crystal shards. Basically, there are numberous jobs in the game, and each character can be one of them at any given time, though you can place more than one character in the same job should you wish to. Each character also has four ability slots. With the exception of two special jobs, the first, second, and fourth ability slots will be Fight, an ability unique to the job, and Item, respectively. Most jobs (but not all) also have a set of innates, which are passive abilities that automatically take effect for a person in that job. In addition, when you finish battles victoriously (i.e. after seeing your char- acters doing the ever famous victory dance), you will earn ABPs. Each job has a set of abilities that can be "earned" with enough ABPs (For example, once 10 ABP as a Knight, then the character will be able to earn the ability "Cover"). The abilities earned are unique to each character, but that character will be able to place any ability in his/her empty ability slot, so that it will func- tion even when the character is not in that associated class (In our previous example, that character would be able to take hits for teammates in danger by equipping Cover in his/her empty ability slot, regardless of whether that char- acter is a Knight in the first place). Finally, each job also confers a bonus or a penalty to each of the character's four main stats. For example, a character in Knight will automatically have +23 in Strength and -14 in Magic. Certain abilities, such as Equip Sword, may also provide stat bonuses. In the case of two stat variables in the same stat, the higher bonus will take effect. For example, a Samurai (who has +19 to Strength) equipped with Equip Sword ability (which gives +23 to Strength) will have +23 to Strength in practice. Well, that's the basics of the job system. The special jobs will be explained later in its own subsection. So, here comes the jobs! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.1.1 Wind Crystal Jobs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These jobs are the ones you obtain at the start of the game in the Wind Shrine. The jobs you find here are the most basic ones in the game, but that is not to say that the're unimportant. ------ Knight ------ Secondary Ability: Guard Innate Abilities: Cover Equipments: Daggers, Generic Swords, Knight Swords, Shields, Medium and Heavy Armours Stat variables: Strength+23, Agility+1, Stamina+20, Magic-14 Total ABP to master: 690 Level 1 ability: Cover ABP required: 10 Description: "Take hits for allies who cannot protect themselves." Effect: If a character with a HP of less than 1/8 of his/her MaxHP (ie. when the character is crouching) is targetted by a physical attack, a random character with this ability will jump in front of him/her and take the hit instead, provided that the "covering" character isn't stoned, dead, craving braaaaains (ie. zombified), asleep, paralyzed, confused, berserked, in a coma, hidden, erased or airborne. Comments: Usually speaking, if you're reading this huge document you probably won't ever get in a position where one of your character is near death (before second world anyways), so this ability isn't of too much use. However, if such a situation arises, a Knight with this ability can be quite lifesaving as they usually are better suited to take physical hits. It can also be combined with !Guard to make physical-only bosses useless. However, once Golem is obtained, this (along with !Guard) fades into the realm of obsoleteness. Not worth an ability slot, in any case. Level 2 ability: !Guard ABP required: 30 Description: "Completely absorb a direct physical attack." Effect: Does what it says. Any physical attacks made on a character who used !Guard beforehand will take zero damage. However, status effects associated with the attack will still take place, and a counterattack will effectively "Guard Cancel" the character. Comments: This ability works best with Cover, in which you can simply nuke your teammates til they crouch, then spam Guard with your Knight, and laugh as the enemy boss is totally unable to harm you with physicals (although if the boss cast some multi-hit magic, it'll quickly wipe the smirk off your face). Other than that, it has its distant uses here and there (mostly against Skull Eaters who refuse to run away), but definitely not worth an ability slot, and will (along with Cover) become useless by the time Golem is obtained. Level 3 ability: Two-handed ABP required: 50 Description: "Use both hands when wielding swords, katanas, or axes to inflict twice the damage." Effect: Any character with this ability equipped will be able to do double damage while equipping a sword, katana or axe without a shield. Note that equipments that require two hands to wield in the first place (bows) is not affected. Also grants Strength+13. Comments: Quite a nice ability to earn for 90 ABP, this will help you quite a bit for a long time, as early shields are not very spectacular and double damage is quite a nice thing to have (and quite difficult to obtain otherwise that early). Loses out to Dual-wield in the long run as this is not an innate, but its low cost warrants usage. Level 4 ability: Equip Shields ABP required: 100 Description: "Gain the ability to equip shields." Effect: Allows the character to learn how to strap a shield on his/her offhand. Surprisingly, the knowledge is forgotten as soon as this ability is taken off. Comments: Shields are not spectacular. This is a lot better than Equip Armour (as it takes less ABP to learn), but really, unless you're making a know-it- all character, it seems out of place to gain 190 ABP on a warrior job to earn an ability that's more caster-oriented. If you're just building up, this is an OK ability. If you, however, intend to play the game with minimum grinding, avoid this. Level 5 ability: Equip Armors ABP required: 150 Description: "Gain the ability to wear armor." Effect: Increase the character's stamina so he/she can handle the big heap of metal that warrior jobs like to don on their body. Unfortunately, it does not boost the stamina stat in any way. Comments: Compared to equip shields, more defense for less block is a fairly even trade, but it takes a turn for the worse when you have to give up the caster-oriented bonuses on the robes, and it loses cleanly once you factor in the extra 150 ABP you have to plow through. Level 6 ability: Equip Swords ABP required: 300 Description: "Gain the ability to wield swords." Effect: Fencing lessons on the spot, allowing your character to wield the sword like an expert, and slice, dice, and re-slice your opponents. WHAM! POW! BOOM! Oh, and you also get +23 Strength. Comments: This ability would've been fine except for one thing: No jobs can make effective use out of this thing. Melee jobs are usually better off with their own weapons, while caster jobs lack the HP and defense to survive long in the front lines. If you're dead set on giving your caster a competent weapon to hurt things with, go with a back row weapon instead. Conclusion: Knights unfortunately fell into the case of "good for a while, not so much in the long run", due to bad high level abilities, sub-optimal stats, and lack of good end-game abilities. The 90 ABP used to earn two-handed is well deserved in my opinion, but other than that... it's not worth hanging onto, even when Knight Swords become available. ---- Monk ---- Secondary Ability: Kick Innate Abilities: Barehanded, Counter Equipments: Medium Armours Stat Variables: Strength+26, Speed+1, Stamina+26, Magic-23 Total ABP to master: 700 Secondary Ability: !Kick ABP required: N/A Description: N/A Effect: A flying kick that damages all enemies. Damage is the same as a single fist, but obviously row comes into effect either, and enemies at the back take less damage. Commentary: For some reason, even though the data says that it should do the same damage as a single fist, it always seems to be weaker even for enemies on the front. It's generally too weak to use, though against very weak creatures it may have its uses, such as the dragon flowers. I put a section for this ability because you cannot earn it in-game. The only way to use this is to be a monk. Level 1 ability: !Store ABP required: 15 Description: "Focus energies for a hit with twice the attack power." Effect: Uses a turn to charge, then hit next turn with double power. Commentary: This skill basically has two uses: against things with nasty counters, or use with Chicken Knife so you don't flee randomly. However, most "monsters with nasty counters" are bosses, thus have good ways to work around with, and by the time you get the Chicken Knife, there should already be a plethora of commands available to cancel the flee effect, most of which out- shine this ability. Level 2 ability: Barehanded ABP required: 30 Description: "Gain the same attack power as monks when unarmed." Effect: Allows you to reinforce your punches with the mystical power of Qi, or something. Also gives +26 Strength. Commentary: Now, this is basically an Equip Weapon ability. However, unlike most of the equip weapon abilities, this one only takes 45 ABP to master. As early on there are really no monsters that endangers your caster's life that much, it may not be a bad idea to give them this to conserve MP. However, your casters aren't made to fight in the front row, and by the time you have !Gaia this ability really falls into disuse. It's up to you whether you want it or not. Final note: It's actually an innate, and for a mimic it will hit harder than most weapons a Mimic can equip. Of course, this requires you to get 700 ABP for a caster-oriented character on a physical job, which could've been better used for things like, say, !Dualcast, but if you're going to build up, it's somthing to consider about. Level 3 ability: !Chakra ABP required: 45 Description: "Healing energies recover HP and cleanse the body of poison and darkness." Effect: Heals caster, and lifts Poison and Darkness. Healing power is about 2/3 of Cura. Commentary: It only heals the user, so that takes a pretty big toll on its usage. Might have uses in a single character challenge, but usually not worth 90 ABP to learn it. Level 4 ability: Counter ABP required: 60 Description: "Automatically counter when hit." Effect: When a character with this ability is attacked physically, there's a 50% chance that the character will automatically retaliate. Seems to prevent the monster from executing the death moves. Commentary: This is a neat ability, but hardly worth an ability slot unless you REALLY can't find something better. This ability can be actually detrimental at times (mostly when you want to learn Blue Magic), but you can just de-equip this ability - unless you're using a Freelancer with mastered Monk. Then you need to change job altogether. Level 5 ability: HP+10% ABP required: 100 Description: "Increase maximum HP by 10%." Effect: Confers the rewards of intense physical training, which is to raise the character's ability to take damage before biting dust. Commentary: In the first world there is nothing tough enough that you need more HP to survive, and by the end of it you'll get !Drink and !Mix, both of which offers the ability to get HP+100% and a slew of other goodnesses. Level 6 ability: HP+20% ABP required: 150 Description: "Increase maximum HP by 20%." Effect: An improved version of HP+10%, it also imbues within you the strength of 1000 snakes and lizards, doubling the power. Commentary: Try as I might, I just can't think of anything funny to say here. If you were expecting something serious, *headshots you* Level 7 ability: HP+30% ABP required: 300 Description: "Increase maximum HP by 30%." Effect: An improved version of HP+10%, not only does this imbue within you the fortitude of reptilian, it also infuses you with the essence of ravioli. The result is a power triple of that of the basic HP+10% ability. Commentary: The earliest level you can obtain 9999 MaxHP at is level 40. Of course, you'd need this ability, plus some other things. What are those things you ask? I'll leave it as a homework exercise. (If you actually care enough about this, that is) Conclusion: Monk also suffers from the lack of useful end-game abilities, much like Knight. However, this job offers significantly better innates (which are all good freebies), and sports the highest Stamina compared to other job. However, if you're not a perfectionist and isn't going to build up, the amount of ABPs you need to spend wading through the HP+x% isn't going to offer much bang for your buck. ----- Thief ----- Secondary Ability: Steal Innates: Find Passages, Sprint, Vigilance Can equip: Knives, Iconless weapons, medium armours Stat variables: Strength+1, Agility+16, Stamina+2, Magic-6 Total ABP to master: 635 Level 1 ability: Find Passages ABP required: 10 Description: "Detect hidden passageways." Effect: Give you X-ray visions to see if there are any secret tunnels about. Commentary: Unless you're not using a walkthrough (in which case, what the hell are you looking at then?) there is no REAL use of Find Passages. It's just a nice convinence. Level 2 ability: !Flee ABP required: 20 Description: "Quickly escape from battle. You may be unable to escape from some enemies." Effect: This allows you to run like the wind, 100% of the time, unless the formation you're encounter does not allow running. Then you're screwed. Commentary: Another utility ability. There are very little things you want to be running away from, except for when you're just downright sick of an area. However, to me casting teleport is much more convinent, and you don't really encounter any hard-to-run formations early-game anyways. Your call, chief. Level 3 ability: Sprint ABP required: 30 Description: "Hold down the B Button while pressing the +Control Pad to move twice as fast." Effect: This imbues your B button with the magical ability to make moving on the field much quicker. It stacks with Dash from the menu. Commentary: There is only ONE area in the entire game where this is actually useful enough to warrant usage, and that's in the bonus dungeon. But really, who can say no to running faster? Well, one might think differently when you need an ability slot for it. You only need one character with this ability for it to take effect, but still. If you REALLY want to run faster, go ahead and get it. Level 4 ability: !Steal ABP required: 50 Description: "Steal treasure from an enemy." Effect: Ditch the job of Thief momentarily in favour of Treasure hunter, and use its trademark ability to "treasure hunt" from an enemy. Remember, you're a treasure hunter, not a thief. Commentary: There are quite nice items to steal from actually, but most of them are far in between and you can just change into a Thief to steal from them anyways. However, some bosses have nice things to steal from, and you probably don't want to use a thief for them as they are, to put it bluntly, horribly weak. It's up to you, really. Level 5 ability: Vigilance ABP required: 75 Description: "Prevent back attacks." Effect: By watching your back as well as your front, you prevent enemies from being able to sneak up on you. Commentary: Back attacks are annoying, but don't happen enough to warrant an ability slot to prevent this in my opinion. Some may disagree, however. Level 6 ability: !Mug ABP required: 150 Description: "Attack and steal from an enemy." Effect: While stealing, the character also attacks. Weapon spells are not cast. Commentary: If you actually want the thing you're going to steal, this skill is detrimental as you want your opponent to stay alive so you can nab the thing. Otherwise, it's a way to prevent Chicken Knife's Flee effect (though you should already have better ways), and... well, if you're dead set on giving Mimic a Fight command and have this ability, you might as well give him this. Whether it's worth an ability is up to yourself. Level 7 ability: Artful Dodger ABP required: 300 Description: "Gain the same speed and agility as a thief." Effect: Agility+16 Commentary: Agility in this game works on an augmenting returns basis. Unless you have a lot of equipments that boost it, this ability is fairly useless as it doesn't really add much to your speed. Conclusion: A true utility class, almost every one of thief's ability is some- thing that's great to have as utility, but not worth it to equip all the time. None of thse abilities are neeed to beat the game, but they can often be very helpful, so it's up to you whether you want to learn them or not. ---------- White Mage ---------- Secondary Ability: White Innates: None Can equip: Staves, Light Armours Stat variables: Strength-7, Agility+1, Stamina+0, Magic+25 Total ABP to master: 580 Level 1 ability: !White ABP required: 10 Description: "Perform White magic." Effect: Allows character to cast Cure, Libra, and Poisona. Also grants Magic+15. Commentary: Pretty much a filler level, none of those magic are spectacular even for when you get them. Poisona is a nice way to save loads of money on Antidotes, while Cure is nothing more than a potion on steroids. Libra just sucks. Level 2 ability: !White ABP required: 20 Description: "Perform White Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast (in addition to previous spells) Silence, Protect, and Mini. Also grants Magic+17. Commentary: Some good stuffs here. Mini is still useless as protection against it seems to be universval, but both Silence and Protect are good deals (though you probably won't use Protect too often). Still not a very powerful level, but it's definitely getting better. Level 3 ability: !White ABP required: 30 Description: "Perform White Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast (in addition to previous spells) Cura, Raise, and Confuse. Also grants Magic+19. Commentary: You can emulate single target Cura with a Healing Staff, but multi- targetted Cura is your only way of party healing in world 1. Raise an Confuse are also great spells, the former of which saves gils on Phoenix Down while the latter of which is pretty much White Mages' best mode of offense. You should have a Red Mage by now, though, and there is no reason not to use that. Level 4 ability: !White ABP required: 50 Description: "Perform White Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast (in addition to previous spells) Blink, Shell, and Esuna. Also grants Magic+21. Commentary: Esuna is the only useful one in this bunch, which is why White Mage still don't get used much in world 1 even though Red Mage can't cast this spell. It's a nice utility spell to have, but doesn't save the entire level. Level 5 ability: !White ABP required: 70 Description: "Perform White Magic." Effect: Allows character ot cast (in addition to previous spells) Curaga, Reflect, and Berserk. Also grants Magic+23. Commentary: Now THIS is where it's at. Curaga is the single most useful spell in the game in my opinion, as you'll either restore a person to full (even if he/she has 9999 max HP), or heal everyone for 1000+. Berserk is also a great boss crippler to those who're weak to it and like to cast big nasty spells (remember, Berserk + Golem = Victory). Reflect, however, sucks once you get Carbunkle, but the other two spells are enough to make this level almost required to finish the game. Level 6 ability: !White ABP required: 100 Description: "Perform White Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast (in addition to previous spells) Arise, Dispel and Holy. Also grants Magic+25. Commentary: Arise is a HUGE step up from Raise, as by endgame bosses begin pouring MT hurt non-stop, and a person who got raised with little HP left is most likely going to get smacked down again in just a while; dispel is mostly novelty but still sees use in a couple of uses (eg. Omniscient). Holy is where it's at, though - it's the single most cost-effective spell in the game, and even though you can't MT the spell, it's enough to wreak quite a lot of havoc to whoever gets hit. Level 7 ability: MP+10% ABP required: 300 Description: "Increase maximum MP by 10%." Effect: Infuse the character with the force of mystical mystery, giving them more juice to fling spells with. Commentary: Pure filler ability. Conclusion: As with all final fantasies, White Magic does a great job in making your lives easier. Granted, it's not the only way to heal (the advent of SCCs prove that quite nicely), but you'll just find it much easier with their high level magic at your service. Not worth mastering in the end, though - it's highst level ability sucks, and its magic bonus is subpar compared to other casters. ----------- Black Mage ----------- Secondary Ability: Black Innates: None Can equip: Knives, Rods, Light Armour Stat variables: Strength-9, Agility+0, Stamina-2, Magic+31 Total ABP to master: 680 Level 1 ability: !Black ABP required: 10 Description: "Perform Black Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder. Also grants Magic+21. Commentary: Basic elemental spells. They'll last you well until you hit about Carwen, then they start losing out. Good thing you get that Frost Rod by then. Level 2 ability: !Black ABP required: 20 Description: "Performs Black Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast (in addition to previous spells) Poison, Sleep and Toad. Also grants Magic+23. Commentary: Poison is useful against bosses with nasty counters, but it's a poor way to do damage otherwise. Toad suffers the same problem as Mini. Sleep, however, is a great debuff on those who are susceptible to it, but as with all status spells, it's better just to let a Mystic Knight use them as they can attack at the same time. Level 3 ability: !Black ABP required: 30 Description: "Perform Black Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast (in addition to previous spells) Fira, Blizzara and Thundara. Also grants Magic+25. Commentary: The -ara spells. They're better than summons at single target hitting, though the summons are better against multiple targets. However, you should be using a Red Mage at this point. Level 4 ability: !Black ABP required: 50 Description: "Perform Black Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast (in addition to previous spells) Drain, Break and Bio. Also grants Magic+27. Commentary: Great spells, these are. Drain tends to miss quite a bit, but it's still a great spell to have. Bio deals quite a lot of damage and also inflicts HP leak, making it a great spell for 16 MP. The star of this level, however, is Break. You won't believe how many tough targets are actually susceptible to petrify, and while it's a bit less accurate than Catoblepas it cost less than half the MP to use. Level 5 ability: !Black ABP required: 70 Description: "Perform Black Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast (in addition to previous spells) Firaga, Blizzaga and Thundaga. Also grants Magic+29. Commentary: Black magic at its peak. All the -aga spells are absolutely devastating when casted on a single target weak to the element, and they can also be MT'd (unlike Holy). There is a relative lack of monsters weak to them by end-game, however, which limits their effectiveness, but they're still very cost effective. Level 6 ability: !Black ABP required: 100 Description: "Perform Black Magic." Effect: "Allows character to cast (in addition to previous spells) Flare, Death and Osmose. Commentary: There are still plenty of monsters end-game susceptible to Death, but they're usually suspectible to Break as well which plain cost less to use. It has a slightly superior hit rate, however. Flare and Osmose are pretty sad, though. There are very little enemies with overwhelming magic defense by end- game, so a boosted holy will almost always hit harder than a Flare, for half the MP cost. Osmose would've been nice, except for it only takes 8 magic defense to totally nullify the attack, which is pretty much the case with every monster out there by the time you get this spell. Level 7 ability: MP+30% ABP required: 400 Description: "Increase maximum MP by 30%." Effect: An improved version of MP+10%, this also give sthe character the ability to self-utilize the mystical powers, giving them greater potency. Commentary: Have you ever ran out of MP at high levels except for maybe in the final fight and/or bonus dungeon boss fights? Yeah, that's what I thought. Conclusion: The consummate offensive spellcaster, Black Mage suffers too much from being overshadowed by the other spells. By end-game, Summoners are better at MT attacks; White Mage and Time Mages are better at ST attacks, and Mystic Knights can debuff more reliably than Black Mages can. However, black magic will still shine when a fire/ice/lightning weak monster shows up, and generally speaking they only get outclassed by end-game, so they're still well worth learning. As for whether to master it or not - well, black mages still have the third highest Magic bonus out there, so it's still well worth considering. ---- Blue Mage ---- Secondary Ability: Blue Innates: Learning Can equip: Knives, Generic Swords, Rods, Shields, Light and medium armours Stat variables: Strength-8, Agility+1, Stamina+3, Magic+23 Total ABP to master: 350 Level 1 ability: !Check ABP required: 10 Description: "Check an enemy's HP." Effect: Deduce an enemy's HP, to an error of plus or minus zero. Also displays enemy's maximum HP. Commentary: Well, this isn't ToP, so you don't need to use this to add the monsters to your bestiary. As a result, this is pretty useless given Libra does more for 2 MP instead of a whole ability slot, and Libra is useless to begin with. Level 2 ability: Learning ABp required: 20 Description: "Learn some monsters' special attacks." Effect: If a character equipped with this ability got hit by a blue magic, the blue magic will be learned (permanently) as long as the battle ended in your victory. Commentary: As much you may hate this ability, it's a must if you want to learn blue magic, and it's well worth it - blue magic is the single most versatile skillset in the game, surpassing even Chemist's !Mix. Not much to say except for this comes as a prerequisite for using blue magic. Level 3 ability: !Blue ABP required: 70 Description: "Perform blue magic." Effect: Allows the character to cast ALL blue magic you've learned. Yes, all of them. Also grant Magic+23. Commentary: Blue Magic is the best ability in the game. Period. You can do practically anything with it, and you only need to get hit with it once to do that. While half of blue magic borderlines useless, Spells like White Wind, Mighty Guard, Level 5 Death, Death Claw, and Level 3 flare make the game MUCH easier than it would be otherwise. Definitely have somoene learn this ability ASAP. And it even only cost 100 ABP to learn! Level 4 ability: !Scan ABP required: 250 Description: "See eemy's level, HP, weakness and current condition." Effect: Bore into your enemy's soul and extract the darkest secrets hidden within its heart - its strength and weakness. Commentary: This ability would've been pretty useful, if you aren't reading this right now. The thing is, since you're reading this, you don't need this command to know how to strike your opponents at their weak points for massive damage. Conclusion: I love blue mages. They can do everything you need to do and then some. If you played a blue mage SCC you would understand why. Blue Mages are' completely self-sustainable, and they only become better when combined with other abilities. However, it is not worth mastering - the final ability is completely useless, its stats are fairly subpar, and there are exactly one world three only blue magic that's really worth learning. Realistically, by the time you're done with ExDeath's castle, you should have everything you need except for Mighty Guard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.1.2 Water Crystal Jobs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These are the jobs you get after you fail at life in Walse Tower. Note that Mimic is not included here as it's obtained much later on. --------- Berserker --------- Secondary Ability: Berserk Innates: None (Berserk) Can equip: Daggers, Axes, Hammers, Shields, Medium and heavy armours Stat variables: Strength+21, Agility-9, Stamina+25, Magic-23 Total ABP to master: 500 Level 1 ability: Berserk ABP required: 100 Description: "Continuously attack until all enemies have been defeated." Effect: Character becomes uncontrollable and use Fight only, but attack is raised by 50%. Commentary: Berserk is not as bad as some people may think, as for most warrior jobs all you do is attack non-stop anyways. However, two-handed is better in most cases, so this is only an option if you want a shield, which isn't that important. Not to mention the advent of high caliber skills like !Rapid Fire throws this out of the water. Level 2 ability: Equip Axe ABP required: 400 Description: "Gain the ability to wield Axes." Effect: Allows the character to equip Axes and Hammers. Just please... don't hurt them. Also grants Strength+21. Commentary: I hate axes. Their damage is so unstable. They're good at piercing defense, but most of the time your opponetns hardly have any defense. There are a couple of good axes, but most of the time they're not worth an ability slot for. Conclusion: Berserkers are actually not bad. Early game they don't have as much to offer offensively as Knights, but they are much more durable. The problem is that their abilities are absolutely worthless in the long run, so any ABP you earn in the job are pretty much wasted. With that said, give them a good passive if you want to use them at any time. ------------- Mystic Knight ------------- Secondary Ability: Spellblade Innates: Magic Shell Can equip: Daggers, Generic Swords, Shields, Medium and heavy armours Stat variables: Strength+14, Agility+14, Stamina+14, Magic+1 Total ABP to master: 680 Special Note: First of all, let me get one thing out of my chest. SPELLBLADE IS NOT SWORD DAMAGE + SPELL DAMAGE, OK? IT'S A MULTIPLIER BONUS. With that said, elemental spellblades will do very high damage versus targets weak to the element, while it will have no effect if the target is not, so don't go using Holy spellblade on something not weak to Holy. Flare spellblade will do more damage period while also reduce enemy defense somewhat, while status spellblade will successfully inflict status as long as sword strike hits (except for Poison, which is actually a poison-elemental spellblade). Finally, when a status spellblade is used, whatever element the original weapon is associated with will automatically be dissolved. That's a general rundown of how spell- blades work. Level 1 ability: Magic Shell ABP required: 10 Description: "Automatically casts Shell when near KO." Effect: Casts shell on character when character is near death. Commentary: I suppose this ability is nice when it activates. I mean, shell is never a bad thing, right? It's not worth an ability slot, though. Level 2 ability: !Spellblade ABP required: 20 Description: "Enchant weapons with different magics." Effect. Allows character to enchant weapon with Fire, Blizzard, or Thunder. Also grants Strength+4 and Magic-9 (Note - as with all stat variables, the magic-9 only takes place if your job's inherent magic stat is lower than -9, so it's actually a good thing). Commentary: The basic elemental spellblades. These will double your damage against enemies weak to the element, while also allowing your sword to bypass defense. However, by the time you get Mystic Knight you should already have access to -ara spells (or you won't be far from it). Level 3 ability: !Spellblade ABP required: 30 Description: "Enchant weapons with different magics." Effect: Allows character to enchant weapon with Poison, Silence, Sleep, in addition to the previous spells. Also grants Strength+6 and Magic-7. Commentary: As with all status spellblades, Silence and Sleep allows you to reapply those easy-to-run-out enchantments while doing damage. Against things weak to Sleep (Atomos come to mind), constantly swinging the Sleep spellblade will at least slow them down somewhat even if they're Heavy. Poison is actually elemental, and has the same potency as the level 1 spells. Level 4 ability: !Spellblade ABP required: 50 Description: "Enchant weapons with different magics." Effect: Allows character to enchant weapon with Fira, Blizzara and Thundara in addition to the previous spells. Also grants Strength+8 and Magic-5. Commentary: The -ara spellblades will do 3x defense ignoring damage against creatures weak to their element. These are highly effective in destorying, oh, anything with an elemental weakness. A Mystic Knight with Two-handed can often do more than 1000 damage with one swing with this spellblade on. Level 5 ability: !Spellblade ABP required: 70 Description: "Enchant weapons with different magics." Effect: Allows character to enchant weapon with Drain, Break, and Bio, in addition to previous spells. Also grants Strength+10 and Magic-3. Commentary: Bio spellblade is very strong indeed - if your target is weak against poison and lacks the Heavy status, it'll be 1HKO'd. If the target does possess heavy status (a likely case), the spellblade will do 4x defense ignoring damage instead - which is very, very strong. Drain and Break are not half bad as well, and Rapid Firing Break Spellblade is a highly effective strategy against a breakable group of encounters. Level 6 ability: !Spellblade ABP required: 100 Description: "Enchant weapons with different magics." Effect: Allows character to enchant weapons with Firaga, Blizzaga and Thundaga in addition to previous spells. Also grants Strength+12 and Magic-1. commentary: These are basically like Bio, but they have FAR more weaknesses to hit. The damage of a combination of these spellblades against elemental weak creatures and Rapid Fire is frightening. Level 7 ability: !Spellblade ABP reqruied: 400 Description: "Enchant weapons with different magics." Effect: Allows character to enchant weapons with Flare, Holy and Osmose in addition to previous spells. Also grants Strength+14 and Magic+1. Commentary: Holy is another of those 4x spellblades, but it generally has even more weaknesses to hit than the big three. Flare will simply increase damage and pierces 3/4 of opponent's defense, making it optimal for non-elemental- weak enemies. Osmose sucks back 1/4 of damage as MP, which is hardly necessary as Mystic Knights don't use much MP to begin with. Conclusion: Mystic Knights really aren't so hot against randoms. They need to waste a turn charge up their magic, and since until Flare you really don't get a general all-purpose spellblade, it's often not worth the trouble to figure out which spellblade is worth it to use. Against bosses, however, they can often either inflict very heavy damage, or crippling status while attacking, and generally wreak havoc on things with utmost ease. Due to the odd ability levels, you need to master the job to wield all spellblades, but it's not a bad thing as Mystic Knight has exceptional speed. --------- Time Mage --------- Secondary Ability: Time Innates: None Can equip: Daggers, Rods, Staves, Light Armours Stat variables: Strength-5, Agility+2, Stamina-3, Magic+24 Total ABP to master: 530 Level 1 ability: !Time ABP required: 10 Description: "Perform time magic." Effect: Allows character to cast Speed, Slow, and Regen. Also grants Magic+14. Commentary: Slow is a fairly useful spell against bosses, as (believe it not) practically everything is vulnerable to it. The other two spells are crap though - Speed basically sets battle speed at 5 (which you could've just do so manually if you seriously want that speed), while Regen heals for so little HP per interval it really doesn't matter much. Level 2 ability: !Time ABP required: 20 Description: "Perform time magic." Effect: Allows character to cast Mute, Haste and Float in addition to previous spells. Also grants Magic+16. Commentary: This level is a significant improvement. Haste only works for one person making it somewhat useless, but Mute and Float are both great spells. Mute basically casts Silence for everybody and never misses or time out, unless the formation forbids its casting. There are quite a number of battles that will become significantly easier with Mute, however. Float is almost essential in beating the game, as it allows you to circumvent some *very* dangerous attacks. Level 3 ability: !Time ABP required: 30 Description: "Perform time magic." Effect: Allows character to cast Gravity, Stop and Teleport in addition to previous spells. Also gratns magic+18. Commentary: Very nice spells. Gravity gets replaced with Death Claw very soon, but it still has its use against Liquid Flame; Stop is an extremely cheap spell on those who are vulnerible to it. However, the MVP of this level is Teleport. Aside from allowing you to run away, it saves you A LOT OF TIME by allowing you to teleport out of a dungeon right after you're done with it. Trust me. That's a LOT of time. In fact, it's one of the thigns I miss the most when I'm playing a non-time mage SCC. Level 4 ability: !Time ABP required: 50 Description: "Performs time magic." Effect: Allows character to cast Comet, Slowga, and Return in addition to previous spells. Also grants Magic+20. Commentary: Slowga is kinda "meh" as most things that would live long enough to warrant a slow spell usually comes at you in groups of one, but it has its uses in a couple of fights. Comet and Return are great, however - the former is an extremely cost-efficient spell (though the fact that you can never boost its damage makes it useless at high levels), while Return allows you to reset battles that have gone badly. The latter is also highly beneficial in stealing something with a desirable rare steal and not so desirable common steal, as you can simply reset the battle instead of having to find a new enemy to steal from. Level 5 ability: !Time ABP required: 70 Description: "Perform time magic." Effect: Allows character to cast Graviga, Hastaga, and Old in addition to previous spells. Also grants magic+22. Comentary: In here you will find one of the game's most useful spells, Hastaga. a Haste-all in one turn is a great boon, as it literally allows you to take two turns in the course of your opponent's one, and given that there are usually four of you and one of them, you basically get eight turns in for every time a boss gets one turn. Though, Graviga is still a lazy man's Death Claw, and Old has too little enemies vulnerible to it in the first place. Level 6 ability: !Time ABP reqruied: 100 Description: "Perform Time Magic." Effect: Allows character to cast Meteor, Quick, and Banish in addition to previous spells. Also grants magic+24. Commentary: Quick's astronomical MP cost prevents it from being used too degenerately, but it's still downright cheap, especially when you combine it with dualcast. (5 spells in two turns anyone?) Meteor is also great too - like Comet, it's fairly random on how much damage you can do, and you can never boost its damage beyond reducing your opponent's defense, but on a single target it will generally cause over 6000 damage, which at a decent level surpasses anything other magic is capable of dishing out. Banish kinda sucks though - You should already have Odin by the time you have Banish, which is flat out better. Level 7 ability: Equip Rod ABP reqruied: 250 Description: "Gain the ability to wield rods." Effect: Your character learns to grasp the the power that is only exceeded by its mystery within rods, and the finger positionings required to hold a cylindral object. Commentary: Breaking Rods? By the time you have this ability, if you still need to break rods (I'm assuming that you're playing in a normal game), you need to shoot yourself. Seriously. Conclusion: Time magic usually plays a support role in battles. However, their spells are more leaning towards buffing and debuffing, and while they don't have the versatility of Blue Mage, Hastaga alone warrants its usage, and stuff like Quick, Meteor and Teleport doesn't hurt its cause either. There's no need to master this job though - it's 7th ability is the worst ability in the game, and amongst casters its magic power is the second lowest. -------- Summoner -------- Secondary Ability: Summon Innates: None Can equip: Daggers, Rods, Light armours Stat variables: Strength-10, Agility-1, Stamina-1, Magic+33 Total ABP to master: 750 Level 1 ability: !Summon ABP required: 15 Description: "Summons magical beasts for aid." Effect: Allows character to summon Chocobo, Sylph, and Remora. Also grants Magic+25. Commentary: This level is fairly useless. Chocobo and Sylph both do too little damage to warrant use, and while Remora has its uses here and there, generally speaking you want to move on here. Level 2 ability: !Summon ABP reqruied: 30 Description: "Summons magical beasts for aid." Effect: Allows character to summon Shiva, Ramuh and Ifrit, in addition to previous spells. Also grants magic+27 Commentary: Ah, the elemental summons. They're all inferior to a single target -ara spell, but like all summons their power doesn't halve against multiple targets. They can take down groups of elemental-weak enemies quickly, so don't miss out on them. Level 3 ability: !Summon ABP required: 45 Description: "Summons magical beasts for aid." Effect: Allows character to summon Titan, Golem and Catoblepas, in addition to previous spells. Also grants magic+29. Commentary: A key level in the scheme of things. Titan is... well, all I can say is that it's blatantly overpowered, as its single target power surpasses Bio, and against multiple targets it's even more powerful than an -aga spell when no weakness is involved. Golem, when cast, will automatically pop up to take physical damage for you for a while, which is a lifesaver against some bosses (eg. Gil Turtle). Catoblepas is mostly novelty - it cost more than twice the MP of Break, though its hit rate is close to perfect barring magic evade, so it's not totally useless. Level 4 ability: !Summon ABP required: 60 Description: "Summon magical beasts for aid." Effect: Allows character to summon Carbunnkle, Syldra, and Odin, in addition to previous spells. Also grants magic+31. Commentary: Carbunkle is like Golem, except for it blocks magic instead - it basically cast Reflect on everyone, and while it may hurt the use of Curaga, White Wind will work just fine for healing. Odin is awesome - there are quite a lot of problematic enemies that are not Heavy, so summon Odin and you are done. Finally, Syldra's damage matches Bahamut when you boost it (via an Air Knife or a Magus Rod), for half of its MP. Do not pass up this level, and remember: Yes to carbunkle! Level 5 ability: !Summon ABP required: 100 Description: "Summon magical beasts for aid." Effect: Allows character to summon Phoenix, Leviathan and Bahamut, in addition to previous spells. Also grants magic+33. Commentary: Surprisingly, not so useful here. Phoenix is moderately useful, but it costs even more MP to use than a freaking Quick spell, turning it pretty much useless (besides, you want to stick with Arise for healing). Leviathan's damage surpasses Syldra, but water element is very hard to boost and doesn't hit much weakness. Bahamut's mega flare doesn't need much introduction, I'm sure, but its damage is only slightly above a boosted Syldra, while it costs much more MP to use, unless the enemy absorbs/nullifies air (which is close to never). Level 6 ability: !Call ABP required: 500 Description: "Performs a random summon for 0 MP. Who knows who - or what - will come..." Effect: Rolls a grim 1d15. If it lands on a high number, your enemies die. If it lands on a low number, you roll again (should you wish to). Commentary: Finally, a filler ability that isn't useless. Call is actually a pretty decent "no-MP move" for mages, since most of your summons are fairly powerful even by end game, and over 50% of the time you'll get something that can still be adaquate. Conclusion: Summoners' attacks have great variety, and they're all very damaging. However, their single target power suffers a little bit, as a boosted -aga will still hit harder than anything except for a boosted Leviathan (which is very hard to do, as you can only boost Water with a mixture). Still, the utility summons' usefulness, plus the huge MT damage this thing can dish out (important against Neo-ExDeath) ensures that there will always be a place for summons to shine. -------- Red Mage -------- Secondary Ability: Red Innates: None Can equip: Daggers, Generic Swords, Rods, Staves, Light and medium armours Stat variables: Strength+8, Agility+5, Stamina-6, Magic+8 Total ABP to master: 1159 Level 1 ability: !Red ABP reqruied: 20 Description: "Perform white or black spells." Effect: Allows character to cast Cure, Libra, Poisona, Fire, Blizzard and Thunder. Also grants Magic+6. Commentary: You should already have level 3 spells awaiting you by the time you get this job, so let's move on. Level 2 ability: !Red ABP required: 40 Description: "Perform white or black spells." Effect: Allows character to cast Silence, Protect, Mini, Poison, Sleep and Toad in addition to previous spells. Also grants Magic+7. COmmentary: We've already went through the spells before. The status spells are fairly important, but Mystic Knights can inflict them more reliably, so they're really a "for random encounter" thing. At least this is early game, so you actually *might* need to use those strategies. Level 3 ability: !Red ABP required: 100 Description: "Perform white or black spells." Effect: Allows character to cast Cura, Raise, Confuse, Fira, Blizzara and Thundara, in addition to previous spells. Also grants Magic+8. Commentary: Red Mages stop growing in their spells here. Since in world 1 you really can't get any spells higher level than 3 (except for Esuna), Red Mage will pretty much dominate White or Black Mage there. However, as soon as you hit Regole, at least the Black Mage starts to outshine red magic. If you want to use this, I recommend giving this ability to another caster as Red Mage's magic power SUCKS. Level 4 ability: !Dualcast ABP required: 999 Description: "Cast two spells back-to-back." Effect: Allows character to cast two spells in quick succession. The spells must either be a level 1-3 white/black magic, or a spell that you can normally cast (i.e. have the approrpiate ability equipped). Commentary: Dualcast is literally the saving grace of this job. It has a VERY steep cost, but the damage from casting two high level spells are INCREDIBLE. However, you probably want to build up for this ability, as Red Mages are completely crap by the time you reach 3rd world. Conclusion: Red Mage themselves shine very brightly in world 1, but like all Red Mages in the FF franchises, they hit a pleatau and never exceeds it. The jack-of-all-trade stat is more of a curse than a blessing - the magic power is plain unacceptable, and while it has a strength bonus, low stamina means that it won't survive long in the front row, and unlike Blue Mages it doesn't get a back row attack option. In the end, the only thing this job has going for it is Dualcast, and it's incredible indeed, even though it will take quite a long time to get it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.1.3 Fire crystal jobs - Karnak ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ These are the jobs you get immediately after Karnak castle goes boom. ----- Ninja ----- Secondary Ability: Throw Innates: First Strike, Dual-wield, Medium armours Can equip: Daggers, Ninja Knives, Iconless weapons Stat variables: Strength+15, Agility+14, Stamina+3, Magic-10 Total ABP to master: 690 Level 1 ability: !Smoke ABP required: 10 Description: "Use the confusion of a smoke bomb to escape from most enemies without them even noticing." Effect: Runs away from the battle with 100% success rate unless the formation disallows running. Unlike !Flee, this ability has a cool smoke animation. Commentary: The extra smoke animation makes it the best command evar! Well, not really, but it's easier to earn than !Flee, so if you're going to learn an ability for running, might as well go with !Smoke. Level 2 ability: !Image ABP required: 30 Description: "Create illusions to absorb two direct physical attacks." Effect: Allows character to create two "Images". Each image will absorb