A Tale of Two Scripts: Let's play FF3 US & FF6 RPGOne!

Out of curiosity, who else always uses Terra for the Dreamscape, just to use her special MagiTek abilities again?

*raises hand*

But then, I like using Terra, she's one of my favorite FF6 characters. And I never use Ultima, just because it's boring and I rather use the characters' Unique Abilties or just breaking them with the Weapon/Relic combos.

I actually do most of the time. But this time I decided to try something different and use Lock and Mog instead. Incidentally, I discovered something funny: Gogo cannot use the Majick command! He/she still has Mimic, and if you input Mimic as the first command of the battle, he/she will use Fire Beam. I guess the developers really did think of everything.

I'd have sworn that when I took Terra to the Dreamscape her special MagiTek commands weren't there and she had just the three basic beams and Heal Force. But apparently I'm the only person to whom that happens.

I was planning to contest this; in the only Final Fantasy game I've played, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, there's a move called Doom Archer which I thought did the same thing. However, I went and looked it up, and it seems it's not quite identical; Doom Archer splits its damage between HP and MP. So I guess it is true after all, barring another counter example.

Wait. I thought he also translated Final Fantasy 4?

No sir. He came to Square just after that. His first project was FF Legend III for GB: Source.

Ah right, forgot about that one. As most people did. *rimshot*

Why the hell does everyone think that? O.o

Final Fantasy 4 was done by a 100% Japanese team with no native speakers between them.

Yeah, I forgot about it too. I had thought it was Secret of Mana until I started looking for that source lol

I got up to three hours on the Veldt and only got three of the decent World of Ruin Rages, so I quit before getting any of the really awesome ones. On the other hand, I did end up running into five or six pairs of Sr Behemoths, each one of which dropped a Behemoth Suit when I killed them.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great armor... for Strago and Relm, the only characters who can equip it. Fortunately, you can bet them at the Colosseum to get Snow Mufflers, armor for Mog, Gau, and Umaro (who starts with one and whose equipment can't be changed) with 128/90 physical/magic defense and 10% Evasion and M.Block. Those are higher stats than the vaunted Genji Armor; resisting Fire and absorbing Ice are just sort of icing on the cake.

Thanks to the Snow Muffler, the three auto-playing characters are also some of the biggest defensive powerhouses in the game. Getting Mog down to low double digit damage will be plenty enough for me this game, but stick his highest-defense equipment on him and put him in the back row, and Mog can potentially take 0 damage from almost any physical attack in the game.

Anyway, I don't have any good places in the actual LP to discuss this, so here's a quick rundown of the most worthwhile Rages from World of Ruin encounters:

Nightshade: Entice. I covered this before, but again: Confuse effect that lasts until the victim or caster is dead. I wish I'd been able to get this. Hope you fought them in that one painting back in Owzer's mansion!

Retainer: Shock. Yep, that's General Leo's special command. The problem is that you have to head into the final dungeon to find this encounter. You'll have to decide for yourself whether it's worth leaving the dungeon and going to the Veldt again to pick this up.

Magic Urn: Cure 3. Self-explanatory, but the monster only shows up in the Fanatics' Tower, so I never ran into it.

Punisher: Bolt 3. These guys are all over Mt. Zozo.

Mesosaur: Step Mine. Celes probably ran into some of these guys before even finding Sabin. The Rage has all the power of the Lore, but none of the dynamic MP costs! If you can find a Mesosaur on the Veldt, anyway.

Gilomantis: Shrapnel. Another common encounter on the overworld, the Gilomantis (or even Toe Cutter, as I eventually got) Rage gives Gau a decently powerful physical special. It's not Catscratch, but the chance to hit all enemies at once makes it a decent choice for random encounters against enemies with high magic defense.

Pearl Dragon: Pearl. Yup.

Luridan: Land Slide. These little pyramid-shaped bugs from Mt. Zozo allow Gau to use a fairly powerful, unblockable, defense-ignoring, non-elemental magic attack. One that Mog's been using in his Earth Blues dance for quite a while.

Tyranosaur: Meteo. Check out the little forest north of the Veldt to find these guys. Meteo itself is a decent non-elemental magic that hits all enemies and ignores defense.

Like many Rage specials Meteo can be gotten from other enemies, in this case the Boxed Sets from the Ancient Castle, but Tyranosaurs showed up a lot while the Boxed Sets didn't show their faces. If anyone else likes to use Gau, please share your own preferred Rage lists. Gau is kind of an opaque character to use, so let's pool our Raging knowledge.

And, I hear, absorb for all elements.

Thanks for the reminder. Yes, yes the Magic Urn Rage does absorb all elements. It also provides all status immunities; it doesn't get auto-Protect or Shell like some Rages, so physical and non-elemental attacks are still a (minor) worry, but otherwise it's a perfect defensive Rage. I was even thinking about that only a little while before writing up that list, so you can just imagine how hard I slammed my face into my hand when you reminded me.

I've never had any patience for rages, so I tend to ignore them. Hopefully in a remake they'll give you some in-game data about them to help you out. I don't play games with Gamefaqs printouts.

HOWEVER, I figured out at some point that Gau has a sick-high magic stat (I want to say the best of all the male characters) so I tend to make him a mage and bust out catscratch for everything else.

EDIT: According to this Gau has a base magic power of 34, equal to Strago, but Mog actually has 35! Shadow has a surprisingly high 33, and Umaro has 37 for some damn reason.

Personally, I'd like to see a menu on Gau's status screen that'll let you get details on any Rage you've unlocked (attacks, stat bonuses, etc.) and toggle which Rages are selectable in battle. I mean, no one's ever going to use the Nohrabbit Leafer Rage, so why not let us turn it off so we don't have to skip past it in battle?

Actually, Nohrabbit's not half bad, since its special is Cure 2.

He has that because of the Storm Orb. Blizzard/Storm is a magic attack, thus if his Magic score were too low, it would barely do any damage at all under the best of circumstances.

Last week we helped the two oldest members of our gang put aside the obsessions that had been consuming them and come to terms with the new post-Kefka lives they must lead. That leaves us with only one last place to explore: the final dungeon.


The others gather on the deck ofthe Falcon.
Edgar: It's time to break into Kefka's domain!
Setzer: What's wrong? Celes......
Celes: The Statues give the Espers the magical energy they need to live. If we destroy the Statues...
Edgar: What'll happen?
Celes: I'm really not sure, but...
Strago: The Espers... and Magic, too, will most definitely disappear from this world.
Edgar: And then...
Celes: What will happen to ...Terra...?



The bosses, the many, many bosses in Kefka’s Tower are frightening, but not nearly as much as the random encounters. At least the bosses only need to be fought once, but random enemies like these Brontaurs can hit almost as hard as the bosses (powerful physicals, attacks that hit everyone at once, using Lifeshaver twice in one action) and can show up over and over (this party ran into this battle at least four or five times in a row).


After getting half the party wiped out by the Retainers’ Tradeoff attack, which counters their death with a physical instant death (which can’t be stopped by I.D. immunity) attack against their killer, the Dark Force eventually takes pity on me and ends the battle by killing itself with Exploder to take out Umaro. At this point I admit that this isn’t going well and abort the run so I can come back with a better plan. Or any plan, really.


Alright, plan: Mog’s group has great defenses; with Strago’s Heal Rod they can last quite a while. It’s not defense that wins battles, however, so instead they’re going to abuse the Moogle Charm to run around without hitting random encounters and they’re on the left because that’s the path with the fewest boss battles.

Setzer’s group is going to be depending on Setzer and Thrown Ninja Stars for damage while Celes heals, using a Gold Hairpin to lower MP usage and Runic against any spell-tossing enemies to reload that MP. Locke will just be in the corner, doing Locke things*

Terra’s group will be depending on Sabin and Gogo to Bum Rush everything they encounter – Sabin does ~7700 damage to almost everything here with Bum Rush and Gogo’s putting out about eighty percent of that. Terra will be healing up with Cure 2, contributing damage and keeping her MP up with the Illumina/Soul Sabre combo, and Edgar will be using whatever Tools seem appropriate.

*Locke’s getting a bit shortchanged in this playthrough. He has amazing stats... once he’s at a high level, anyway. Locke could eventually hit the damage cap with his basic Fight command fairly easily and with a Genji Glove and Offering could deal 79,992 damage in a single action, far and away more damage than anything else in the game. That’s when he’s almost hit the level cap, however, and right now in the mid-30s he’s easily outclassed.


With no random encounters, Team Mog’s run through the dungeon is pretty quick and painless. After scampering through a couple screens of straight path, they hit a dead end and have to wait for Setzer.


“Left here since birth... I’ve had an eternity to... ponder the meaning of things... And now I have an answer...”


Atma is hard. He’s also standing where Kefka stood while he was imprisoned in Vector, and unlike most of the bosses here you can walk right past him if you want. If you do take him on, however, he’ll turn into your first save point


Atma’s initial movelist includes nasties like third-tier elemental magic, the powerful multitarget S. Cross (pictured) (despite its graphics of snowballs flying at the screen, S. Cross is supposed to be a Fire attack), and N. Cross which has a chance to Freeze the entire party. After you take off about a third of his health, Atma’s movelist changes to Fire 3, Meteor, CleanSweep, Flare Star, and Quake. After taking damage twelve times, Atma will start glowing and spend a couple of rounds charging up an Ultima.

Atma’s Ultima isn’t nearly as painful as Magimaster’s (10 magic power compared to 25), but you should still try and use those two rounds to pile on all the hurt you can. Alternately, Runic. Runic’s actually generally useful in this battle, even if it won’t stop everything. Just remember that Runic lasts until Celes actually stops a spell or she’s given a new command; even if you tell her to Runic again, she won’t stop any spells between selecting the command and her new “ready” animation.


Watch out for that first step after leaving Atma’s room. It’s a doozy. Head up the stairs and you’ll find yourself at...


This important junction. It’s hard to tell, but that little thing to the left of Setzer is actually a doorway (there was one on Mog’s path that’s the only way forward, so I hope you found it then) and there’s another door set in the wall to the right with the orange arrow over it. That shade of orange usually indicates a door in this dungeon, which is handy since some of the doors can be really hard to see. But for now let’s see what Terra’s team is doing.


The third team’s path is also pretty dang straight except for a couple dead ends with minor loot, but Terra does manage to hit level 37 and learn Dispel, which removes Slow, Stop, Berserk, and all buffs from the target. They do run into one room that has a door arrow without a door, however; I’ve never found anything special in this room, but that lonely arrow has always been suspicious to me.

After a quick ride up a conveyor, Terra reaches a save point. This is a good time to check in with the other teams, but first can you spot the giant jerk boss hiding in the second screenshot here?


Mog’s still stuck at his dead end, so Team Setzer presses on. Right into the seventh Dragon.

The Gold Drgn only uses Thunder attacks, its strongest attack is Bolt 3, and it has to charge up to use even that. It’s weak to Water attacks, which this party doesn’t have (well, Shadow probably has a couple Skeans he could throw, but why bother?). That’s honestly pretty much all there is to say about it. It was there, it has less than 34K HP, it is no longer there.

It does drop the Crystal Orb, a Relic which multiplies the user’s max MP by 1.5. Celes is already getting a similar effect from the Gold Hairpin she’s using, but Terra could probably make use of the Orb - higher MP means more spells means more stealing MP with Soul Sabre.


Past the Gold Drgn Setzer’s team finds this place, home to... well, not so much a team puzzle but a way to decide which team will face which of the right-before-the-end bosses. They won’t have much to do until the other teams arrive. Time to reactivate Terra’s cell, since Mog’s still stuck until someone can help him.


See the boss now? When Terra moves toward the stairs Inferno jumps down on her. Inferno himself can use nasty multitarget attacks like Atomic Ray and Meteor, and counters any attacks with a powerful physical called Sobat. Like his palette swap Number 128 way back in Vector, his arms are separate targets but here they’re much more important for one big reason: while both his arms are in the battle, Inferno can use Delta Attack to Petrify a party member.

The arms themselves are mostly damage sponges with physical attacks. Striker, Inferno’s big left arm (Inferno’s left, not yours) is weak to Fire and uses Shrapnel, which is far more dangerous than Rough’s Rapier.

This battle is, generally speaking, my least favorite in the game, I think. It was certainly the hardest for me; Inferno took me down at least half a dozen times in this playthrough and it was almost to the point I thought I’d have to abort the run again and go grind some levels or something. Morph’s doubling of Terra’s stats is probably what gave me just enough damage potential and endurance to finally triumph. Thankfully, since I never used Morph other than here and against Phunbaba (I think), Morph lasted through the entire battle.


Once again we find a spot where the first team needs help to progress; in this case team 3 has to activate the sparkly chest to complete the staircase on the other side of the wall. After that Terra’s team can just breeze on farther down the dungeon.



It’s the Skull Drgn! Let’s see, we’ve taken out Fire, Pearl, Water, Wind, Ice, Dirt, and Thunder dragons, so that means this must be the Poison dragon. Most of his attacks inflict status ailments, and almost every turn he can use just a plain attack. The party takes a few hits and Edgar gets Condemned, but the Skull Drgn is wiped out before anything worth talking about can happen.

A couple little details: it might be named for a bone, and it might be made of bones, but it’s not actually undead. It still has the undead’s weakness to Fire and Pearl, however. It also has only 1,999 MP and dies when it runs out of MP. Its drop is a Relic called the Muscle Belt, which is the Crystal Orb but for HP.


And that’s the last Esper. Well, it would be if I hadn’t missed a couple from the Auction House.

And with that, Terra’s able to move forward to the end of her path. Now we just need to wait for Team Mog to come up and... ummm... I might have missed something.


Yep, at that important junction I pointed out long ago, I went the wrong way and never noticed. Now I run over one screen from that intersection, pick up a Ribbon, and hit the switch to allow Mog to finally move.


Mog’s team breezes through his path with nary a care in the world. This is the vital point where we decide how to face the coming bosses. All our previous efforts could be for naught if I screw up this decision and get myself locked into a series of boss fights with bad teamups.


Notice that the path closes behind Mog once he chooses a direction. We’re locked in now. Only way to go is forward.


Mog pushes the weight over the edge so it smashes on the switch below, opening the gate to the central path so Setzer can run forward.


As soon as Terra moves out of the way Setzer pushes the weight over the edge and lets Terra up the middle path.


As soon as all three parties step on their respective switches inside the castle, a new path appears for Terra. This lets her hit the switch out on the balcony to open new paths for the others. Good luck spotting the new doors on either side if you don’t know what to look for!

Seriously, I hate the doors in the Imperial Castle.

Whoa, that looks scary. Glad it’s not Team Auto here facing that thing.


Moving forward, Mog runs into one of the Goddess statues. Doom starts off the battle with N. Cross, which despite a low hit rate manages to freeze Umaro, Gau, and Strago before anyone can do anything. Her powerful Ice attacks hit everyone, killing Strago while he’s still frozen. Mog, Umaro, and Gau all absorb Ice attacks thanks to their Snow Mufflers however, so there’s very little Doom can do against them.

Sadly, the same is true for my team against Doom. I have no way of unfreezing Gau and Umaro (though they will thaw on their own eventually), but one bright spot is that Mog still has the Dragoon Boots and Pearl Lance, and Doom just happens to be weak to Pearl.


The actual Pearl spell, when the Lance casts it, does almost twice as much damage as Mog’s Jumps do, a little over seven thousand. Did I mention that at 63,000 HP, Doom has the highest HP in the game? (At least until the GBA version, where she’s third highest.)


Once her health gets low enough she’ll start using Force Field, which grants her immunity to a random element. She never got Pearl immunity to protect herself from Mog while Umaro and Gau are using physical attacks and Meteo, which is non-elemental despite having a fireball graphic; we’re able to finish her off before she can effectively charge up her extremely powerful – and physical, so the Snow Muffler won’t stop it like all her other moves – desperation move, Demon’s Rage.

Incidentally, Force Field is the last Lore in the game, and only Doom uses it. I suppose maybe I should have brought Strago back to life for it. Oh well.


This is Cyan’s most powerful Knife in the SNES game. It has 215 battle power and 20% evasion, but otherwise has nothing special about it.

The Doom statue glows and melts down into a save point; Mog’s team heals up with a Tent and saves, but other than camping this save point for the other guys their part in this dungeon is more or less done.


“Protect me!”
Yunalesca Goddess is the second goddess statue we encounter and the least threatening by far. She starts off the battle by using Love Token on Setzer, forcing him to take physical damage in Goddess’ stead. He can’t Cover his own attacks, however, or Shadow’s Ninja Stars, and Celes is just using Runic to keep Goddess’ Bolt 2s and 3s from the party, so the only thing that ever hits Setzer is Locke’s Capture. The horror!


Like Doom, Goddess also has a Lore (though this one is also available from Dark Force, a random encounter in Kefka’s Tower). Quasar is a powerful hit, but it’s no Grand Train, and it doesn’t buy her the time needed to cast her nastiest spell. If she did get it off, Overcast would give everyone a timer like Condemned, but when time ran out they would turn into Zombies; even if they’re healed if they are knocked out and brought back they will be Zombies again. Despite its effects, Overcast counts as an Instant Death attack and not a status ailment, so you need to use a Safety Bit or Memento Ring to block it instead of a Ribbon or Amulet.

Goddess drops Excalibur, a decent Pearl-elemental sword. It’s overshadowed by Illumina in just about every way, but Celes can still use the little boost to her stats that it will provide.


Finally, Terra’s team is going to take on Guardian, the apex of MagiTek research, and the invincible terror that told you when you were going the wrong way in the World of Balance. Well, it’s not invincible now.

The gimmick to this fight (besides its high HP and Sketching it to get the Big Guard Lore) is that it cycles through various battle programs that imitate different WoB bosses. Its basic program will do decent damage, but by this point in the dungeon getting hit by Atomic Ray and Missile is nothing special.


After running its default program for two rounds, it will switch to a boss program. The first one is Ultros, which can use Tentacle, Entwine, Ink, and Stone. After four rounds, it will switch back to the default program, then it will imitate Dadaluma, Air Force, and finally Atma Weapon, using signature moves of each of those bosses.

Guardian never got that far for me, since two Bum Rushes, Illumina, and Drill each turn can go through sixty thousand HP pretty quickly despite Guardian’s 150 in Defense and M.Defense. I suppose if I’d had someone with Bolt spells I could have shown off its weakness to Thunder attacks. Locke could have stolen Force Armor or a Ribbon from it. Oh well.

Well, that’s a major boss for each of the teams, I think we can move up to the portals to the final boss now.


Team Mog shimmies through the pipe behind Doom and steps on the first switch. Once there’s a party on each of these switches, we’ll be teleported to the final confrontation.


Setzer’s party walks through the door Goddess was blocking and hits their switch.


And poor Terra is stymied by a simple conveyor belt in front of the door to her switch. Oh well, guess she’ll circle around and


SWEET CHEESUS. I almost never see Poltrgeist hiding there at the top of the stairs. She just sits up there, blending into the background and waiting for some foolhardy party of adventurers to blunder into her.


And a blunder it is. Poltrgeist uses some extremely powerful physical attacks like Shrapnel and the unique Tyrfing; once she’s down to about two-thirds health she’ll start tossing out Flare Star, Meteo, S. Cross, and Aero. She also uses Wave Cannon when she’s been hit eight times. The statue is weak to Poison and can be hit by Stop, but since she has auto-Haste that won’t last too long.

Anyway, Terra’s team doesn’t last long and I’m forced to play with their equipment, which is probably overdue anyway. Terra finally gets put in a Minerva, which lowers her defenses slightly but pops her up to 77% MBlock, gives her resistance or immunity to all elements, and frees up the Genji Armor she was wearing for Edgar. Sabin trades in his Diamond Vest for a Dark Gear; the Gear is a generic armor with no special powers, but every point of defense helps. Edgar gets a good boost to almost everything from putting on Terra’s hand-me-down Genji Armor, and Gogo...


He’s still got lousy defense, but a 96% chance to avoid any blockable attack works for me. The Pod Bracelet he got from Wrexsoul does a fair amount to blunt any attacks he can’t block.


Poltrgeist still puts up a fight, but once I stop wasting time trying to keep Sabin and Edgar alive and focus only on two characters I’m eventually able to wear her down. She drops the Aura Lance, the most powerful spear in the SNES game (except, that is, for the Imp Halberd when wielded by an imp).


“Kefka drained the Statues’ power, the source of magic...?”


Terra drops through the little hole in the room behind Poltrgeist and is dropped into her switch chamber. She can leave through the door at the bottom of the room if you aren’t ready yet, but she’ll end back on the conveyor belt she tried to climb up earlier and have to circle around again.

So, I sent Mog back to his save point so I could save before the final battle, but Setzer and Terra are in place and as soon as Mog returns to his spot everyone will be warped to the final encounter. Let’s do this!

Next week, that is.

Part XXX - Kicking Butt Three Ways Past Sunday

The time has come at last to tackle the final dungeon! But first, a few small preparations.



Step the first: getting everyone's equipment up to snuff. Can't raid the last dungeon with half your characters using second-rate equipment!



Step the second: learning a few key spells for a few key characters. Not strictly necessary, but it beats the alternative.



Step the third: get some useful Coliseum items.



This odd little item is part of the Kappa armor set, and when you bet it...



You have to face off this bad boy. He's... not very nice.



Really not very nice. This team doesn't stand a prayer of defeating him, in fact.



So I'm making a controversial judgment call here and leveling up Lock a bit. Actually, a lot: to level 85. The reasons are threefold: one, it will let me showcase Wind God Gau. Two, Lock's Steal command works better when he's at a higher level than his target. And three, it would be horribly remiss of me not to showcase the ultimate easy leveling area in Final Fantasy VI.



Just outside the Dinosaur Forest (which is smack between the Veldt and Narche; you can't miss it, it even looks a bit like a dinosaur head), you can fight Sprinters, Lycaons, Grand Insects, and Plelantars. The important thing about these enemies is that they all use physical attacks only*, thus Vanish completely disables them as a threat. A little strategic Ultima and Figa, and you're set.

* - Plelantars can use Life Shaver (which is magic-based) if you don't kill them outright, but that's easily dealt with via single-target Figa until your level's high enough.



The experience for a solo character is already pretty great.



But of course it can be made even better with a Grow Egg.



Keeping MP up to snuff is never a problem with Asper, and Drain lets you keep your HP high, meaning you never have to take a break to go heal or restock.



By level 66, Lock's Ultima is hitting for max damage on a 4-enemy group.



By level 72, Ultima Weapon has gone from mostly useless to insanely deadly. Incidentally, for HP/MP-maxing perfectionists, equip Bahamut for level-ups 69, 70, and 71. You will get 9999 max HP at level 99 for any character you do that with, guaranteed.



Finally level 85! Brachioridos doesn't last long to a Master Scroll + Ultima Weapon from Lock. And Lock is even lucky enough to steal a Ribbon during the fight!

The reward is a unique helmet for Relm that doubles Gil earned after battle. The only problem here being that, well, we already have a cool million Gil sitting around. But what we're after isn't the Cat Ear Hood.



We're gonna bet that bad boy away for a mystery item!



And that mystery item is the Medal! This delightful accessory breaks the game by letting anyone who equips it wield almost any weapon or armor.



Though Gau cannot equip the Medal in some versions, in the SNES version he most certainly can. And that's where the Kazekiri Blade comes in.



Gau's Stray Cat rage has this special attack in its arsenal, which hits for 4x damage. Combined with a Master Scroll and the Kazekiri Blade, you can hit all enemies for massive damage pretty regularly. That may not look like a lot, but keep this in mind: Gau is only level 25 in that shot.



So then, off to conquer Kefka's tower!



*Celes looks down and takes a few steps up*
*Setzer and Edgar look over sidelong at her*
Setzer "What is it? Celes......"
*Celes looks left*
Celes "The Three Gods of Battle are the source of all magic for the Eidolons and this world...... If we defeat the gods, then......"
*Edgar walks up closer to Celes*
Edgar "What will happen?"
*Celes blinks and looks down*
Celes "I'm not certain, but..."
*Strago steps left and looks down; Edgar faces him*
Strago "The Eidolons... They will most likely disappear fromt his world, along with all magic......"
*Edgar blinks*
Edgar "Then......"
*Celes looks over at Tina*
Celes "Tina will......?"
*The camera pans over to Tina, who looks down*

Such dramatic tension...



I won't be bringing Lock along on the main combat teams, incidentally; instead he'll be cooling his heels on Mog's no-encounters team. The reason why is simple: he's now so insanely overpowered that he can basically one-shot anything, and where's the fun in that? Gogo's gonna be his stand-in for the party that needs thieving power.



Looks like we're all in position.



Split into three parties. You can change parties by presisng the (Y) button.

♪♪ Tower of Ruin ~ Last Dungeon ♪♪

Okay, let's do this thing.

Kefka's Tower
Enemies: Vector Chimera, Vectorites, Devil Dragon, Great Behemoth, Old Dragon, Great Morbol, Land Worm, Armor Base, Innocent, Prometheus, Death Machine, Metal Hitman, Duel Armor, Gamma, Junk, Black Force, Bodyguard, Demon Knight, Mudsud, Daedalus, Mover, Ahriman, Virginity, Outsider

♪♪ Battle ♪♪

Umaro makes battles funny. This is his Rage Ring attack, where he tosses a hapless ally into an enemy. Somehow it only damages the enemy...



Not far in, Mog's party finds this highly suggestive bit of armor. Tonberries, you may recall, also carry these.



Not far into Mog's path, there's a... um, thing.



♪♪ Fierce Battle ♪♪

Uh oh.

I was born beyond the flow of time itself...... Forgotten forever by all, I was left to my fate...... I have considered long the nature of the universe... Fo so long, I kept thinking about it...... And now, I know the answer at last...



It's NEVER a good sign when a boss monster glows. Gears on Ultima Buster's back also twist, perhaps to remind us that he's a machine.



About the only status he's not strong against is Slow.



He does have a rare Blood Sword for nabbing, or (if you're insanely lucky) a Crystal Orb.



Of course, since Lock is here with his own lightsaberUltima Weapon, this won't be a very hard fight...



He knows all the tricks, this one...



But not enough of them to survive!

♪♪ Victory ♪♪



Victory nets us a save point, handily enough. Let's look in on Team Edgar, shall we?

Wait what's this!? They can save here!? The reason why is simple enough: Mog's team is on a save point, therefore until they move, any team that gets swapped to is also on a save point. Meaning they can use a Tent or save even though they're partway through the dungeon. This is key to low-level runs of this dungeon.



Coin Toss kinda sucks at low levels... Which is a pity since we've got Gil to spare.



And here we have the final grade of "unique" armor for Relm and Strago. It's a squirrel suit, oddly enough. Sadly it doesn't change their battle appearance, though...



Of course Lucas has already sung praises to this thing... Setzer and Gau are gonna be swapping the Warrior's Proof a lot now.



Further in, Team Edgar finds a hidden chest. It's one of THOSE areas...



You know, where the background layer obscures a maze...



The reward is mostly worth it, at least.



Further in still, we find trouble!



♪♪ Decisive Battle ♪♪

This calls for Zone Seeker!



His opener was Atomic Ray, so yeah. Good call on Zone Seeker!



Setzer rolls the bones for a bit and gets some decent damage overall.



After repeated Grand Trine, Fake Dice, and Sun Beam assaults, his arms are finally off!



After a few more assaults, the rest of him is down too!

♪♪ Victory ♪♪

Yeah, I totally needed another one of those...



Note the before and after here. That's opened the way for Team Tina!



Not far from it is Relm's ultimate weapon! Oh, not for attack power, for what it does to her stats and Sketch success rate.



Team Tina can't go any further, so let's try Team Mog...



Success! That's teamwork for ya. Also, that chest has another Ribbon in it!



Suddenly Team Mog finds a dragon!



♪♪ Decisive Battle ♪♪

Not just any dragon, one of the legendary eight! This is the Yellow Dragon, who is of course thunder-elemental.



And 3/4ths of our team is thunder-immune. He's toast.



He's saving up for an ultimate attack. However...



...He doesn't live long enough to use it! Our reward is the other Crystal Orb, which boosts MP by 50%.

♪♪ Victory ♪♪



Excellent. That should be easy enough to find.



Oh hey, there it is.

♪♪ Decisive Battle ♪♪

This is Skull Dragon, who despite his name is not undead. Pity, we could've one-shotted him otherwise.



Setzer rolls the bones on him for massive damage.



Fun Fact: Grand Trine does more damage when you have fewer targets!



Normally this attack causes random status conditions. But it missed, thank goodness!



So endeth the Skull Dragon: in a furious bout of Grand Trine, 4x Fake Dice, and Drilling. He drops a Muscle Belt, which is the HP counterpart to the Crystal Orb.

♪♪ Victory ♪♪



*The screen flashes red!*
Received the Magirock "Jihad"!!

Woot, last summon!

Jihad

Yyyyyeah, I think you can see why this summon got renamed to Crusader. Even back in the mid-90s, calling something "Jihad" in a video game was kinda in bad taste, even though there hadn't been any new Jihad upsets recently at the time. BTW, it doesn't mean "holy war", it just means "struggle". It's often used in the context of religiously centered wars, which is probably where it got that interpretation.



Collapse of Heaven and Earth (yes, seriously) is a DAMN powerful attack. But much like the unique spell this summon teaches, it has a huge drawback: it hits you too. Pass.

Spells Taught
Meltdown x1
Meteo x10

Level-Up Bonus: MP +50%

Meltdown isn't worth the trouble, but Meteo totally is. And the level-up bonus is unparalleled, though not as useful in the Japanese version since most characters can hit 999 MP naturally by level 99 (or with only 1 level of Jihad equipped).



♪♪ Battle ♪♪

Pretty soon we fight a Black Force, an enemy which uses all Memorized skills save Grand Trine and one other...



This includes a few we're missing.

♪♪ Victory ♪♪

Alright, more Memorized skills!

Quasar (50 MP) - Massive non-elemental attack... in SPACE! Seriously, though, this is more or less the equivalent of Grand Trine.

Reflect?????? (0 MP) - Causes Darkness, Silence, and Slow to all targets who have Reflect status. Pretty situational, and exclusive to FF6 too. Similar in execution to Rainbow Wind in FF5.

We've got only one to go!



Thank goodness the other team made the way forward for us earlier.



Eventually all three teams meet up again.



Once again, teamwork for the win!



Teamwork also seems to have convinced Tina not to kill her allies.



Tina opens the way for Edgar's team!



Edgar won't kill his allies either. Boring!



So he just opens the way for Mog instead.



Three obvious switches to stand on...



...means the way is opened!



Mog even performs a bit of double duty for his buds.

Team Mog runs into trouble not far in!



♪♪ Decisive Battle ♪♪

Yep, it's this guy again.



'Cept this time he's not immortal.



He's got nice stuff for stealing.



He has a few of these too. This time he's run the Orthros battle program. Which, as you can imagine, makes him use Orthros' signature attacks (Ink, Entangle, Octopus Tentacle).



Overall, an interesting but fast fight thanks to Lock.

♪♪ Victory ♪♪



Next up is this bad-looking statue.



♪♪ Fierce Battle ♪♪

Majin (Demon God) is the first of the Three Gods of Battle, and he's nasty.



Most of his attacks are ice-based.



After taking enough damage, he glows. Never a good sign, remember?



He immediately casts Force Field and makes himself immune to an element I wasn't even gonna use anyway.

Then Setzer just Fake Dice'd his ass to death. The end.



♪♪ Victory ♪♪

Oh hey, awesome! Force Field was the last Memorized skill!

Force Field (24 MP) - Causes a random element's damage to be completely nullified. Sort of like a reverse Weak Maker.



He also gives us Cayene's ultimate katana, whose US version name is my alias! Mutsunokami really doesn't translate well into English, which might explain why it remains untranslated in most of the FF games it's in.



Majin's statue fades out!



And a save point takes his place! Nice.



Next up: the lady of the group.



♪♪ Fierce Battle ♪♪

This is not Shin Megami Tensei, rest assured. Megami (Goddess) is probably the nastiest of the three, as this encounter's formation may hint. Any time the developers give you an edge, you know it's trouble.



Megami randomly makes allies fight for her instead of against her. And very unfortunately, she picked Umaro.



Fortunately, Kitty Kick x4 still hurts like hell.



This is one of the more delightful glitches with this fight that you don't often see: Umaro threw Tina at himself! And yes, he did hit himself, too.



Then Megami got Gogo too. Fuck I hate Love Sentence.



Megami's theme is Thunder-based spells as well as turning your allies against each other. She also likes to use Flash Rain.