Board 8 > Andy plays Final Fantasy VI

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've had a Dragoon Relic that gives Jump for ages, can't remember how I got it. I'll mess around the coliseum a bit more when I play again, and I'm not above save scumming in certain situations!

Glad Chaos isn't a mandatory dragon, and I did see the Magus Rod but figured it was just a regular reward. I think I must've confused it with V where I think it's just a standard weapon there.

Grand Kirby posted...

Actually, it was the other way around. While this game was the first appearance of Cactuars, the Jumbo Cactuar was added to the Advance version.

Hey, something that VIII came up with for itself! Woo!

I will be sure to attempt Deathgaze before the bonus dungeon (is that only accessible post-ending like in V?), thanks. So is Deathgaze wandering the map like VII's WEAPONs or is it more like the roaming legendaries in Pokemon?

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From what I remember, Deathgaze is the only thing that can attack you while you're flying the airship though it doesn't appear on the world map as a sprite like the weapons in 7.

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It's not post-game. The bonus dungeon opens up once you kill the eight dragons. (not plot spoilers, just maybe in case you want to be surprised I guess)

You won't see Deathgaze on the map, IIRC it just sits somewhere invisible on the map and you start the fight if you bump into it while flying. And when it flees, it moves somewhere else.

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From what I recall there's randomly spawning map tiles that, if you collide with them, triggers the Deathgaze battle. Because of the way the Mode 7 flying graphics work it can be very hard to actually tell where these tiles are. The best way to force a Deathgaze battle if you really need it is to position the airship so that it's at an slanted angle compared to the world map, and then flight straight. If you fly straight at a angle, you'll eventually pass through every single tile on the map as you continually circle the globe and will guarantee a Deathgaze encounter after enough time.

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9/10

Great story, soundtrack, spritework, and battle system. I only disliked the fairly high encounter rate and a couple of times you may get lost. I disliked the Floating Continent partly for this reason.

You might also find a couple of difficult bosses depending on how well you prepare your setup. I was new to RPGs at the time I played this so I didn't exactly know how to manage my Espers. Look up a guide if you start getting stuck.

Other than that, enjoy your game!

Oh, one more thing. When you're escaping the Floating Continent, select Wait for Shadow. Just stand there and he will show. Otherwise, he's gone permanently.

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I would recommend that you actually beat the game before doing the bonus dungeon. If you go and clear the bonus dungeon first, the final dungeon will feel like an absolute joke in comparison.

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You're a tad late Rango but thanks for the advice! I agree the encounter rate is a bit high. No Deathgaze encounters yet.

First off we land in a curious hole in the mountains down south, where we're encouraged to split into two parties. I am initially worried that I've triggered endgame or postgame stuff by accident, but thankfully this appears not to be the case. As I only have 6 party members right now I decide to come back later.

We then head to Narshe, which is almost completely abandoned. The game hints that we need Locke here to open the doors (I am only now, dozens of hours in, realising the pun in his name.) and I'm just about to call this a wash and come back later when I remember the secret entrance to the mines. We find Mog back at the Moogle Hideout (are the others dead? :( ), and he joins us and tells us the yeti should be somewhere in the mines. I can't find the yeti, but I do find an Ice Dragon. Or rather, the Ice Dragon finds me. I'm not looking where I'm going and run right into it.

Props to the game for making each dragon fight feel different, there's a bit more to them than just selecting the opposing spell to their element. This one has a bunch of spells I haven't seen before including Northern Cross, Avalanche and Absolute Zero. We are introduced to a new status effect, Frozen, which can't be healed by Esuna or Remedy. After being stumped a bit I decide to try using Fire to undo it, which works! Very proud of that one lol, especially using the weakest mage to make sure we don't take that much damage. Once we've solved that trick we manage to get through this fight, though it's still annoying as sometimes the entire party is frozen at once. 3/8 down.

Soon after the Ice Dragon we reach our goal here, the frozen Esper Valigarmanda. From the wording it seems to let us fight because of our Magicite, so not sure if I could've attempted this back in the pre-apocalypse times. Anyway the Esper has the same frozen gimmick as the last boss, but is also very fond of using Rasp, and is immune to physical damage. It can be tricky to get enough damage going, it seems to be immune to Bio as well as other status effects, but thankfully its attacks don't do very much damage once we are Shell'd and Regen'd up. We can use Rasp ourselves and with a couple of Ethers stashed away Celes's Fira eventually melts our new friend down, and Valigarmanda (is this name taken from mythology or something?) agrees to join us and I guess dies, giving us access to the -agas! OK it's x1 so will take a while but woo! I get sick of roaming the mines looking for the Yeti and the encounter rate is bugging me so I decide to come back here later.

Next up we head to the Veldt to look for Gau, and wind up in the Cave of the Veldt, where we're told we need a gap in the party to recruit him. More importantly Interceptor is here, and following him through the cave we eventually find a badly wounded Shadow! We dispatch of the nearby Behemoth King with the usual tactics, and then kill the second from behind us much faster thanks to everybody being buffed already. Shadow is saved, so we take him to... Thamasa? Surely there is civilisation closer than that >_> He sleeps in Strago's house (perhaps this makes more sense if we have Strago back by now) and we seem to witness a dream of Shadow without his mask, telling his dog to stay with his daughter? Not really following this 100%, I remember somebody mentioning Shadow's dreams earlier in the topic but I didn't manage to see them before.

Anyway we have to leave Shadow for now, and I head to the forests to the north as we were tipped off in the Cave of the Veldt to some tough dinosaurs that should give good rewards here. We beat a Tyrannosaur and receive Impartisan, a spear with comically low attack in the inventory. Well ok then! We successfully recruit Gau, who seems to have zero awareness of the world being any different, and head back to Terra to see how she's doing. Katarin is pregnant now and Duane is having concerns, but before we can resolve things Humbaba shows up again to attack. We handle it well enough thanks to Gau's Thunder Shield absorbing most of its attacks, until it Humbaba Breaths my two strongest fighters out of the battle.

Terra goes Super Saiyan and suddenly gets her powers back and then some, remaining in Trance mode the whole battle and annihilating the beast. She finally realises the revelation she was so close to before- it's love! She now wants to fight to protect those she loves and to make the world a better place, so joins us. I'm not sure what really changed between last time we were here and now, she already loved the kids and wanted to protect them, and now she wants the same thing but by leaving. It's a decent development though, I'm glad that the love she needed in the end was familial not romantic, and it makes sense for her to be so confused by it given how she's grown up. It's interesting how the game has shifted her to the sidelines so much, but we have her back now, presumably for good. I still hope we get some more background on the past between her and Celes.

Heading back to Thamasa we learn Shadow has traveled to the Coliseum (how, exactly?) to find an Ichigeki, which we conveniently picked up in the cave near him earlier. Hmm, I was told back in Jidoor that a man was looking for this weapon in the Coliseum, I wonder if that was a bit of an error to have that line of dialogue so soon or if that's what Shadow was doing before he went off to that cave we found him in. Anyway we put up the weapon for a fight and sure enough recruit Shadow once more.

Now seems a good time to head back to that hole in the mountains, and split into two groups- Celes, Sabin, Edgar and Gau, and Shadow, Terra, Cyan and Mog. Turns out this is just a really cool unique dungeon, the gimmick is a really nice way of getting me to try party members I don't normally use. I hope there's more stuff like this to come, it's very fun. The dungeon feels pretty long and the enemies are manageable but also annoying- some stop us from fleeing and others turn us to Zombies or cast Bio a lot. It doesn't help that after the first couple of chests the rest we find are all empty. I start to realise what's going on- the chests have all been looted, the location we're in is around where Vector was before, and I guess this might be a star-shaped mountain range (I didn't really notice it but it would track!). Love how the game does this, letting the player realise Locke must be here rather than just showing him to us.

Locke has been very noticeably absent so far in this world so it's only fitting he gets a grand old dungeon to welcome him back, and sure enough after a long long stretch we find him (thankfully I was with team Celes at the time, I didn't realise he'd be right there but she gets some unique dialogue). He discovers the Phoenix Magicite, which of course is the treasure that can bring someone to life. I thought he'd be on a fools' errand and learn in the end that there was no such life-restoring item, but this is Final Fantasy of course. Kinda makes a certain other FF game's crew look lazy for not bothering to try anything after a tragedy.

He does miraculously manage to bring Rachel back to life, though only for a short time. It's enough to give him closure and peace (and permission to bang Celes), and man he's lucky with how well Rachel responded to this! Though I guess she knows him and knows what he needed to hear. Props to him for actually succeeding in the end. We get the Phoenix Magicite and access to Reraise (fitting!) and Arise, and I equip it to Locke purely for sentimental reasons.

Unfortunately we've been kicked out of the cave so I have to go all the way back through to fight the Red Dragon I noticed earlier. It's easier than the other recent ones, except one massive attack it does near death, but we take it out. 4/8 down, and Strago is the only party member I need to get back. Plenty for today!

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If you inspect the spot where Mog was staring at you'll get a Relic that eliminates random encounters.

If you fail to save Shadow then it's Relm who is found in the caves. The original English translation didn't account for this, so the dialogue would refer to the person as female either way, which set off a LOT of conspiracy theories about Shadow's identity back in the day....

I guess I should mention by now there are two secret characters you can get if you search for them. I can't remember if there were good hints in the game for them, so I don't want to just give it away if you want to search for yourself, but you were very close to one of them, so I'll throw out my own hints and give the answer in a separate spoiler if you give up.

First character: You were close but...
Hint: You should explore Narshe more.
Answer: Jump down the hole where Valigarmanda was to find more of the mines.

Second character:
Hint: Explore the island to the northeast of the world map.
Answer: Let the Zone Eater enemy eat your entire party.

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Oh man theres something funny about that last update but I wont say more
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Yes, you did find the star shaped mountain.

Also, theres a choice youll make likely soon. Heres a hint on the best strategy if youre interested: youll have a choice between an esper and a weapon. In the GBA version, its best to choose the Esper, as its possible to get other copies of the weapon. This wasnt possible in the SNES version, and you could only get one or the other.

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The theory behind the name Valigarmanda is that it is a combination of three other mythological gods/creatures' names combined together, since it teaches three separate elements. Usually Salamander is one of them but there are multiple possibilities. No official explanation has emerged and its few other appearances in other games haven't shed any more light on the question.

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in the SNES translation he was just called Tritoch lol... which is what I would then name my Feraligatr in pokemon gold

and yeah the Shadow script goof in the Veldt is something I was referencing earlier about a change with saving him in WoR



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I hadn't realised there were such varying translations across the different versions. Sure am glad I took the board's advice and went with GBA!

Grand Kirby posted...

If you inspect the spot where Mog was staring at you'll get a Relic that eliminates random encounters.

Oh god thank you for this! I was sure I inspected that spot earlier but it must've been the darker one to the right.

WazzupGenius00 posted...

The theory behind the name Valigarmanda is that it is a combination of three other mythological gods/creatures' names combined together, since it teaches three separate elements. Usually Salamander is one of them but there are multiple possibilities. No official explanation has emerged and its few other appearances in other games haven't shed any more light on the question.

This makes a lot of sense, I thought it might be like Quezacotl where it was a mythical being I just wasn't aware of. The sprite looks like a regular dragon, wonder what the Thunder/Ice names could be.

We start right at Narshe. First things first I zoom over to get the no encounters relic (no intention of abusing this except for this one specific location until I find the Yeti). Unfortunately my party can't equip it, and reading the text it sounds like it's Mog only. A quick Teleport out and we're good to go.

With a knock and a wink Locke can open any door in town, but all the homes are empty save one. This is where we're given a choice, so I read Fiop's spoiler text here and go for the Esper over the weapon (I would've picked the Esper anyway probs, Crispy mentioned something about this back at the start, but I very much appreciate the advice and not having to worry if I did the right thing!). Ragnarok holds Ultima, and nothing else. Gotta grind up some Cactuars later I guess.

Unfortunately I look all over the mines and can't find the Yeti anywhere, so taking a chance I read Grand Kirby's first set of spoilers- I recently picked up a Berserker Ring that I couldn't equip on anyone and its description straight up mentions a Yeti so I figured that's our next character. Sure enough it is (thanks GK!), and I descend into Yeti's Cave which seems to have its own theme (which is good, as they all are in this game). I remember seeing that piece of ice fall after beating the Esper, but I really didn't see any sign we could drop down from there. And I was sure Mog mentioned him being 'in' the mines, but whatever.

Yeti's Cave is pretty small but hard to move around in, there's holes in the floor everywhere. We steal a piece of Magicite from a Bone Carving, and the Yeti (quite rightfully!) attacks. The fight is very easy, and I feel bad about hurting this guy. After winning, Mog berates Umaro, claims to be its boss, and tells it to join us. That's not very nice, he was just defending his own property in his own home and now he has to follow us? Ah well, we have a Yeti on side now, woo. And Midgardsormr, who has percentage based spells that will probably fail on every boss. I wonder how this scene goes down without Mog.

Also in the cave is a treasure chest with three Tonberries in, which prove significantly more difficult than the actual boss. After learning their pattern I have Celes attack each with Firaga, as she has strong magic and has no trouble tanking the countered Holys. Physical attacks just don't hit here, and it takes a while to get through these guys (and a lot of heals and some items), but they eventually go down. Damn Tonberries. That seems to be all we can do here, so we head to our next location, which turns out to be the cabin with the Aged Man in. He's still around, huh.

Sabin openly questions whether this guy is Gau's father, so I swap in Gau. Then it turns out I need both Gau and Sabin here. I wonder why they kept this locked to World of Ruin, because I definitely brought Gau here ages ago after hearing the rumours about this dude. Oh well. What follows is a really fun bunch of scenes of the crew shaping up Gau for his dad- the party interaction here is legitimately great, I didn't expect anything like this after how this part of the game has gone so far. Lots of comic relief, I'm glad I have pretty much the whole crew around for all the little jokes here. My fav is Shadow sleeping in the corner while the others try to teach Gau how to be sensible, lol.

After the comedy we get a surprisingly sad scene with Gau and his father (with great music, as per), as he tells the story of his 'dream'. It's both cruel and tragic, his dad isn't all gone mentally but there's no tearful reunion here between father and son. I brought Cyan along based on his past relationship with Gau but it's Sabin who stands out here, he's really good in this scene- very protective of Gau. Gau shows a great deal of maturity and is merely happy his dad is alive, and we leave it at that. Really enjoyed this sequence a lot, didn't expect Gau to have such a good moment.

Before leaving things today I head back to the Cactuar area and grind up some AP. Eventually we do manage to fight the big boy Gigantuar, and he is... way too much for me to handle right now. Hoo, we are badly equipped for this. He avoids all non-guaranteed hits (including magic!), retaliates to any successful hit with an OHKO, and regularly casts 1000 Needles 2-4 times. After flailing around a bit I get into a rhythm- have Cyan hit him with Bushido 1, have Locke Arise Cyan and the other two Curaga each other/everyone as necessary (which is pretty much always). Everybody is in the 2K max HP range except Sabin who is just over 3K, so we're never out of danger. I go through many Elixirs and Ether items here, too many really. Eventually Gigantuar goes to cast 1K Needles only to find his MP has been depleted. Take that! One more hit from Cyan finishes him off, but not before he impotently tries to cast 1K Needles about a dozen times in a row. We laugh over his body and acquire the Cactuar Magicite, which has... Hastega. Oh heck yeah, we're untouchable now!

While we're here I check in to see Lola in Maranda, and she reveals she kinda knew that the letters weren't from her boyfriend, but that her and Cyan needed each other to work through their own grief. Cyan stops us from revealing his identity, but I'm glad she got closure. Really nice close to this quest, not at all how I expected this to go after all the back and forth we were doing earlier.

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It's not all that important but I think you missed something in Narshe: Behind one of the locked doors is a guy who has an item called the cursed shield. This shield is actively harmful, but if you equip it for 255 battles, it becomes the best in the game.

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I don't think you can recruit Umaro without Mog. IIRC if you beat him without Mog, he just kinda sulks in a corner until you come back with him.

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Yeah, you need Mog in your party to get Umaro.

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There's another type of dinosaur enemy in the northern forest beside the tyranosaur. It's not a boss or anything but it's worthy of a fight I think. It's called a brachiosaur (or at least it was in the original) It can cast Ultima. You can steal a relic from it that reduces the MP of every spell to 1

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I think Gigantuar is the hardest fight in this game give or take. Maybe 2nd or 3rd. So congrats!

The Tornberries have this gimmick where their attack raises with how much steps you have taken since the start of the game, or something like that, so they can be pretty unfair.

^Ah, glad it was supposed to be hard! And I figured the step count in the menu was there for a reason so that makes sense.

First stop today is Doma Castle, which has... nothing at all. Nobody around, not even any monsters. I'm here for a while before I try resting, which progresses the plot. Cyan doesn't wake up with the rest, and we follow some Dream Stooges into his head (That's a thing I guess! Sure.). This is another unique dungeon, starting off with just Terra on her own trying to gather the others and move ahead in this non-linear realm. The stooges are not a difficult boss, but there's an order to them. One Curas the others so I try to take him down first, but then another one Arises him so he's clearly the priority target. These guys are no threat, Sabin can punch through anything these days.

After they're down we are suddenly back on the Phantom Train! Cool! There's some treasure chest puzzles here and the enemies aren't pushovers, but no plot stuff (I was anticipating Siegfried!) and after messing with the switches in the engine room we step out into an entirely different area I don't recall seeing before. And we're all wearing Magitek Armour! Notably Terra has more abilities than the other two, and again we have to navigate the non-linear space around us. I'm enjoying this, they've done a good job with putting unique spins on dungeons so far in the back half of the game.

Finally we end up back at Doma Castle, where apparitions of Cyan's wife and kid show up to get us to help him. We witness a few of Cyan's memories around here, he's clearly still torn up with guilt/regret over what happened. It's nice that they don't have him magically cured of his grief after that one epiphany earlier with Lola, of course he's still hurting. The one taunting Cyan is a monster named Wrexsoul (Shepardsoul), and here's our second boss fight.

He helpfully tells us his exact strategy, we just need to carefully kill one of our party at a time until we find the one he's possessed, then he's vulnerable. Again this isn't much trouble, cool gimmick though. Cyan gets some more closure from his wife and kid (I guess they're meant to be real but you could read it as this all being in Cyan's mind too which is nice, allowing himself to move on), and we get Masamune (which isn't as good as the weapon I already have on him!). We also acquire Alexander, and with him access to Holy.

Next up is the only dot on the map I don't think I've been to yet, which is the Cult of Kefka. Hey, Strago's here! ...Seemingly a part of the cult himself, he doesn't engage with us. I bring Relm and that does the trick, he snaps out of whatever trance he was in and rejoins us. How did he wind up in that cult? What is the deal with them anyway? Hopefully we'll find out later. There's a thief here who scams me out of 100K Gil to tell me about a Weaponsmith in Narshe (Think this is the Ragnarok guy, but this does remind me I need to go back there as Fiop suggests) and an Ancient Castle underneath the desert in Figaro?? I hope he doesn't mean Figaro Castle. I consider save scumming here but I have plenty of cash and it's possible that talking to this dude is what triggers one of these things, so I leave it.

The main purpose of this location is a very tall tower where you can only use magic (flashbacks to that one dungeon in V! Aaah!). I set up a team of Mages but I'm not really well equipped for this, Terra and Celes are the only ones I've been building up. Nonetheless we head up the tower, very slowly. Each battle here can take a while, I quickly decide that equipping the two Reflect Rings I have and bouncing spells off them is the way to go but we progress at a pretty slow rate here. There's no escaping and no EXP gains, and the enemies are pretty tough and each has their own gimmick. I wonder if I could cheese this with Mog and his Relic...

Progressing up and up we get a few nice sounding items and a couple of encounters with some very friendly Magic Urns which heal our MP sometimes. Many floors up I enter the item room to discover a Holy Dragon, again they really do a great job of making each of these dragon fights completely different! Thankfully this guy isn't too bad, he doesn't have Reflect up himself and many of his spells bounce off the girls. I have Celes use her fancy new Ultima spell for massive damage, and we get a Holy Lance for our troubles.

Sadly this run comes to an end in a pretty anticlimactic way, the Level 90 enemy + friends group is a bit much for me right now and we get wiped out. Until now I've been a fan of how the Game Over system in this game works, it's great at not making you feel like you've lost a ton of progress. But we had no EXP here, so we lose aaalll of our tower progress- AP, items, even the dragon. Ugh. Salty runback time, I race back up the tower via the power of annoyance and get back to the Dragon, then just climb back down to be safe and record progress. I'll have to come back here later!

That's pretty much all for today, I do head to the forest where the Brachiosaur lives and encounter it twice- the first time it Ultima's us to death and the second time we have it on the ropes but it Snorts everyone away at once. Charming. We do Mug a Ribbon from it, but not the relic colliding is talking about. Ribbons are usually super useful though so I'll take a spare! I also do a couple Coliseum fights, and this thing seems pretty dang trial and error for now- some of the rewards don't even seem to be better than the item you wager, and it's a crapshoot whether Sabin will just beat an enemy down or waste time doing useless Blitz moves before they one-shot him with a super attack.

So we have a new lead with the Ancient Castle, and I need to do the Cult Tower properly. I'm still missing 11 Espers, 3 Dragons, Deathgaze and one character, so there's plenty more to do yet! There's also Ebot's Rock to figure out (maybe taking Strago and Relm to Thamasa will help), and Narshe to go back to.

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andylt posted...

I wonder if I could cheese this with Mog and his Relic...

It doesn't hurt to try.
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

It doesn't hurt to try.

You cant cheese the boss with Mog though.

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Also, the relic that reduces MP costs to 1 isnt a steal from Brachiosaurs, its a rare (1/8) drop.

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Glad you took Terra to Doma. Its a nice touch to get a chance to use those Magitek abilities again. Save scumming is also pretty much needed for the coliseum, unless you want to lose super rare stuff.

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redrocket posted...

Also, the relic that reduces MP costs to 1 isnt a steal from Brachiosaurs, its a rare (1/8) drop.

yeah my bad. I remembered this exactly when I saw that you stole a ribbon from it.

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Brachiosaur's are probably the best for XP grinding in the game, or at least in the SNES version they were.

I can't remember if you've come across the Offering relic (or even if its still called that in the SNES version, it makes your fight command attack 4x), but when you do, try pairing it with a Genji Glove for all sorts of fun

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Honestly, I don't think I've ever done the Cultists' Tower without using the Moogle Charm. Much like Phoenix Tower in FF5 it's just a long, repetitive, boring dungeon. I never felt it was worth my time to battle through it.

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Offering = Master's Scroll, which is obtained in the Ancient Castle

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I take Strago, Relm and Shadow over to Thamasa and get exactly what I hope for, scenes and access to Ebot's Rock! Shadow doesn't say anything but Strago meets with a dying Gungho who convinces him to finally go kill that monster. Ebot's Rock is another odd one, it's like a pokemon dungeon without Flash and there's a hungry hungry treasure chest who wants a bunch of coral. At first I try to map the place out in my head but I soon give up on that and just start wandering around randomly, eventually I get 25 pieces of coral and the chest is satisfied with that. Another unique gimmick!

Hidon has 4 underlings but the fight is super easy, between this guy and the monsters around here it feels like I should've come here earlier but you need Relm and Strago so it's not like I could've gotten here that long ago. Back at Thamasa we learn that Gungho and Relm had plotted to fake his injury to get Strago up and about again, and Strago is more energetic than we've ever seen him. It's a nice sequence and some good adoptive grandfather/daughter bonding, though I guess we're just not gonna address how/why he got into the Cult of Kefka.

While we're here a guy outside the inn points us to an island with a monster that inhales people. Not sure how I missed him last time I was here! Naturally we fly right up there and sure enough fight the Zone Eater, only to kill it and nothing happens. Next time around I sit back and let it suck us all up ("Mmm... munch, munch!"- Zone Eater for SMFFFC), and we have another dungeon in its belly. Take that Jabu Jabu, FFVI did this first.

Now this is a cool dungeon. The music, as always, kicks ass (amazed at how many cool themes only seem to get used for one area), and there's a bunch of cool loot (including Genji Armour and... a Fake Mustache?) and traps/puzzles. Past the guarded (for some reason) bridges, a very handy save point, some crushing rock, and bouncing over treasure chests we face our bo- oh, not a boss. We get our final character, Gogo the Mime! I didn't click the spoiler bars before so this is a nice surprise. I was all ready to mimic him in battle like that mime in V, but he joins us right away so as to mimic us saving the world. Can't set Espers on this dude but we can pick any command for his list, and he seems to know all the Magic that someone else already knows. Not sure how much I'll use him but I'm sure there's some mighty powerful Mimic builds here, as there tends to be in these games. Woo, full roster!

We then head to Figaro to look for the Ancient Castle, and I scan over the desert but don't see anything. On the way to Figaro Castle to look for clues we bump into Deathgaze for the first time! He seems to have some decent spells but we throw everything we have at him, and Celes manages to get off an Ultima before he flees. Glad I finally found him but probably not the best time to test out Gogo in battle for the first time!

Finding nothing here I decide to just try moving the castle back to Figaro for the sake of doing something, and it works! We bump into something, and head through the Cave to the Ancient Castle. This is pretty open and every path seems to wind around to every other path, there's some more good items and a monster box fight with Master Tonberry. Thankfully I don't take him lightly, knowing what these assholes are capable of, and smash him with two consecutive Ultimas and a few hits until he's down. He gets off a Barrier Change but it doesn't save him for long.

We wind up at the Ancient Castle itself, and witness some flashbacks to shed light on what happened here a thousand years ago. Not sure if I should've brought a specific character here, I have Edgar for the Figaro connection but the party dialogue is generic, not specific to anyone in particular. Odin's statue crumbles into Magicite and we pick him up for our own, and there's some more items lying around and a note from the Queen detailing her love for Odin. Feels like the plot is unfinished here but nothing I can see to do while looking around. Except another monster-in-a-box!

Samurai Soul is the hardest fight of the day, until this point I was thinking I'd gone here too late in the game but this guy catches me off guard. For a while he's not a problem but he pulls some status shifts and seems to gain power after a while, as well as gaining Reflect at the worst time for us (thankfully I only used Holy on him and not Ultima, phew!). We manage to outlast him and get the Master's Scroll you guys were talking about, as well as stealing a Murakamo. I feel bad about leaving this place but I just can't see anything else to do, so I head back to the castle where an NPC alerts me to new info in the library. For once the inhabitants of this place actually looked around and saw what was going on, and investigated it themselves! Good on them. The guy in the library tells me an excerpt from a book: "when the queen stands and takes 5 steps...". That's all. I guess I should head back to her room and walk out of her bed or something and hope something happens, but that will have to wait.

3 new areas today but no new dragons! Still, we got an Esper and the final character, and I didn't mention it but I did head to Narshe to pick up that Shield, thanks Fiop. I have many more things to do but I'm running out of places to look for them! Hoping the three remaining dragons (and... 10 Espers >_>) are all together somewhere cos I'm not sure how I've missed 3 full locations. Not asking for spoilers, just thinking aloud!

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You didn't mention if you got it or not, but the REAL reward for doing the Ebot's Rock quest is the chance learn a powerful Lore from Hidon. Luckily if you missed it you can reset the quest and try again.

andylt posted...

as well as gaining Reflect at the worst time for us (thankfully I only used Holy on him and not Ultima, phew!).

If I remember correctly Ultima bypasses Reflect.

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Ultima definitely bypasses reflect.

There's actually an interesting quirk with that Samurai Soul fight in that if you manage to confuse him he...uses a move on himself that kills himself. One thing I appreciate about this game is AI quirks like that and how it sometimes rewards you for trying out different strategies.

Fake Mustache is definitely helpful for Lore hunting, too.

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If you have Terra in the party, she'll react to the Queen's note. ("Love between a human and an Esper...") I don't recall any other characters who comment on the Ancient Castle.

If I recall correctly, there's one empty slot even in a full Esper menu, so that you can select it in order to remove your currently set Esper.
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I did indeed miss that Lore for Strago, and Ultima absolutely does bypass Reflect, thank you for that!

First things first I head back to the Ancient Castle and try walking 5 steps from all different chairs (I misremembered a bed being here). In the end the trick is to walk in front of one of the thrones and just press A on the 5th step, and a secret stairway opens up in the Queen's room. Down here we finally find another dragon, at this point these guys are worthless and we quickly toss Blue Dragon aside. The Queen herself has been turned into a statue, but she still sheds a tear and merges with Odin to become Raiden. Cool finish to that story, they're together now at least. Crispy had mentioned losing an Esper to gain another, I guess this is what was meant by that. Raiden does take up a different slot to Odin, so is Odin's the one that stays blank? Also we have Quick now, aw yeah if it's as OP as in V. I hadn't learned Meteor yet though, oops!

Not knowing where else to go I head back to the Cult Tower, hopefully better prepared this time. I have two Gold Hairpins, two Reflect Rings, and decide to take Gogo with Strago and the girls, partially to try him out properly and partially to conserve MP. For some reason Gogo can only use Mimic, I loaded up his menu list with Magic stuff but oh well, I brought him here for that anyway. The trip up isn't so bad, we're definitely better equipped and know what to expect. We grind a ton of AP for handy spells and eventually hit the roof, where we collect a treasure and are then accosted by the framerate-shattering cult, and one ghost named Magic Master. This guy really likes to use Barrier Change! He's not easy but we get into a groove of Celes casting Ultima, Gogo Mimicing her, and the other two healing as necessary. After a while it looks like we have him, and with his dying breath he... casts Ultima himself? And kills the party? And I have to do this whole ****ing tower again?! Well... dang.

Time for another rebellious run, and this time I'm not messing around. Right from the first battle I just have Celes spam Ultima and Gogo copy her all the way up. No other spells, no other commands except Osmose when necessary, we have a one track mind as I am determined to be done with this damn tower. To solve the Ultima problem I make sure to teach Celes and Strago Reraise on the way up this time. Yes I could've cheesed with Mog, but that would be lame and besides the AP is nice.

This time we get to the top faster, and I think to actually investigate our treasure this time. Good thing too, because it's a Dualcasting Relic! It goes on Celes right away. It takes a while to get Reraise set up against the Magic Master this time, but once we're all ready I start the Celes+Gogo Quad-Ultima show, and he doesn't last long after that. The Reraise trick works (thank God), and we have our victory! Now... wait we really have to go all the way back down the tower again? Jeez! This time it's even easier thanks to the Soul of Thamasa, and once at the bottom we leave and I vow never to return.

I head over to Thamasa for a cheap heal (no new dialogue that I can see) but as luck would have it we are accosted on the way by Deathgaze! I'm still in the Ultima setup so we kick off with that, and before long he actually dies. Only two encounters, that wasn't so bad! And he gives us Bahamut and Flare! After getting Odin I had been wondering about where Bahamut+Leviathan magicites were, they've both been important in the other SNES games and are staple series summons so nice to have one. I don't remember any water area in the World of Ruin, the Serpent Trench is above ground now and the rapids are gone, perhaps I can take a few boat rides or something to look for Leviathan.

I'm a bit lost as to what to do now, so I decide I should try revisiting every single area with appropriate characters and hope something else shows up/I missed something. This seems like a pretty good idea because at the very first place we visit (Cid's Island) we get Quetzalli on the beach! I leave it here for now, but there's still two Dragons wandering around somewhere, and 8 empty Esper slots (7 if one really is blank, and I will be missing fewer than that if some are postgame). I also had a sudden thought earlier today when my mind drifted to this game- I haven't seen Banon since the world ended yet! I think he was last at Vector but Vector is gone now, but he might be in Kefka's Tower. Also whatever the deal with Siegfried is, we need that sorting sometime. I will try to have a think about what else I've been missing so I'm not just stumbling around when I next play.

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If the memory serves me right:

Storm is in Mt. Zozo, Frost in Narshe mines, Dirt in the Opera House, Blue in the Ancient Caves, Red in Phoenix Cave, one in the Zone Eater, one in Fanatic's Tower, one in Kefka's Tower approach?

I genuinely don't recall and am running off my memory from a MUD.

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^The spoiler text contains the locations of dragons. Andy should avoid it unless looking for help with it. Though there is one inaccuracy:

There are two dragons in Kefka's tour and none in Zone Eater

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Leviathan's one of the espers that were added for GBA, and yeahhh you're on the right track there. IIRC though you may need to speak to some rando NPC that vaguely hints about it in order to "unlock" its appearance.

Actually another let's say uh thing you may wanna find is linked to speaking with a hinting NPC first... I can't think of much ways to vaguely lead you there so I'll just say which town you can find that hinting dude: Jidoor

As for dragons I mean I feel it's worth noting that you're not missing anything so far so you don't go on a goose chase >_>

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i think there's some way to cheese Magic Master's last attack (besides casting reraise), like I want to say that you can just get him to use up all his mp or drain it from him and then it fails when he tries to cast it... but I'm not sure since it's been a while since I played it and I might actually be thinking of another boss/game.

I think that once you get Leviathan, you've got pretty much everything that you can get done before the final dungeon (maybe one more that was added to the gba version, dunno if you can get it now or if it's too hard to beat since I haven't played the gba version). Well, I might be mistaken and you might have missed some minor espers from the original too that I didn't notice when skimming over your posts but I think you're mainly just missing one esper from the original game and three that were added to the gba version including Leviathan.

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Due to a programming quirk Gogo can only use Magic in the Tower if you give them an Attack command.

While you can learn Meteor from a different Esper, some people preferred to not transform Odin because it was the only Esper to grant a Speed level up bonus. But the added Espers in the GBA version cover that now.

Random fact, while it was called the Gem Box in the SNES translation, when it reappeared in other games the Soul of Thamasa was mistranslated as "Samantha Soul" for years and years. It's something I find really funny. Like, I had always wondered who the hell was Samantha...

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It's also possible to dodge Magic Master's Ultima by using a Esper that makes the entire party use Jump. Just be sure he dies before the 4th character lands.
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There's a couple other things you can do besides that, I don't think you've done yet (unless I overlooked them or you didn't mention them). I'll spoiler them, but they're just vague clues to point you in the right direction.

There's a location on the world map you haven't been to yet. It's rather secretive as it doesn't have a dot on the map and isn't immediately obvious it's a location you can enter. More specific: It's in the north, look for a bit of an odd looking formation.

And an esper in a location you've already been (you didn't miss it, it wasn't available at the time you were last there). More specific: Somewhere you were at early on in the World of Ruin.

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andylt posted...

You're a tad late Rango but thanks for the advice! I agree the encounter rate is a bit high. No Deathgaze encounters yet.

As long as you're enjoying the game.

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Quick is really good on Cyan. Actually it's good on everybody, but for Cyan is a goodsend because you may have noticed by this point his bushido mechanic is badly designed, and Quick fixes that.

I'm not sure if he went there already but there is Sabin's master's house and it gives a great reward. Worth going.

Basically look for a small house in the middle of nowhere.

Thanks for all the tips, I'm not clicking the spoiler tags yet but we'll see how desperate I get. The only one I clicked is this:
GuessMyUserName posted...

Actually another let's say uh thing you may wanna find is also linked to speaking with a hinting NPC first... I can't think of much ways to vaguely lead you there so I'll just say which town you can find that hinting dude: Jidoor

I went to the Auction House after a guy mentioned a sword and tried bidding on Excalipoor. The price went up to 500k and I don't have that much right now, so just checking before I grind up some cash- is this just a goof or do I want to buy this? (Also does it stop at 500K or does it go higher)

I'm playing now and will update properly later, just checking on this!


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yes you do actually want it and it does stop at 500k

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Deleted my spoiler post, was dragon locations and was incorrect.
Moment of honesty, 6 is one of my LEAST favorite FFs, mechanicswise.

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Grand Kirby posted...

Random fact, while it was called the Gem Box in the SNES translation, when it reappeared in other games the Soul of Thamasa was mistranslated as "Samantha Soul" for years and years. It's something I find really funny. Like, I had always wondered who the hell was Samantha...

I distinctly remember Samantha's Soul being a really rare item in FF8 and wondering where on earth that name came from! Cool tidbit, this series ran on mistranslations for such a long time lol.

First, I take a boat ride from South Figaro and, yes, immediately come upon Leviathan! Glad my instincts were right. I had heard an NPC saying they saw a shadow under the water ages ago, but I remember thinking it must be a reflection of Deathgaze from the sky or something. Silly me. Leviathan isn't super easy considering how late we're getting him, he counters every physical hit with Entangle and at one point spams double Tsunami (FFIV flashbacks!). We manage to take him down though. So this guy wasn't in the original? That's so weird to me, Leviathan and Bahamut seemed like a yin/yang duo in these games- sea/sky, both mythical monsters, both having important roles in IV and being counterparts to each other in V. I guess this is where Leviathan sank down the ranks to becoming a regular summon while Bahamut remains the Ultimate Summon to this day. Sad times.

Over in Jidoor we hear about a sword but get outbid on Excalipoor. Thanks GMUN for confirming I wasn't wasting my time, we grind a bit of cash and come back to buy the useless thing. And while I'm here I leave and re-enter the auction house to see if I missed anything else- we pick up a Hero's Ring (already have some of them), Zephyr Cape (same), and... Golem! Another Esper for 20K. I think after I got Zona Seeker when I was last here I just figured that was the big reward and left this place alone. Golem slots in pretty early into the Esper list, but he does have Slowga which we haven't had yet. Seems to be all I can get here but please let me know if there's more!

Not knowing what to do next with Excalipoor I wander around looking for this hint from mnkboy:
mnkboy907 posted...

There's a location on the world map you haven't been to yet. It's rather secretive as it doesn't have a dot on the map and isn't immediately obvious it's a location you can enter.

(Thanks for being vague with it, I like having to search). I don't do very well here (it's so much harder to discern locations from the air than it is from top-down), but then I spot some oddly arranged trees near Narshe and take a chance. Hooray! We arrive at a house, where none other than Master Duncan resides! (Completely forgot about him and thought this would be Banon at first lol) It's a good job I have Sabin here because this is an event for him, he is sad then happy and we do a dance to learn his final Blitz technique. Fun times! Nice to hear this old music again too. Wonder how this goes down without Sabin.

I then remember the Coliseum as an option for Excalipoor. I save in case I toss away a 500K Gil item for nothing, but Sabin wrecks the Onion Dasher and we get a Merit Award, and- wait a minute! It's him! This shouldn't be a surprise, but for some reason I had it in my head that 'Mesh only came back in VIII onwards, so it catches me off guard to see him here. Bartz's old pal drops into our dimension to get another failed mimic of Excalibur, and we have a boss fight. Thankfully with the full party.

Gilgamesh is tough. OK the biggest reason he's tough is because I see he has an item to steal but Locke just continually fails to take it, and I don't want to kill him beforehand as V taught me to always steal from Gilgamesh! So Sabin holds back on his x8 attacks (Genji Glove + Master's Scroll is nice indeed, as Black Turtle suggested) and Celes holds off on her Ultima x2 until Locke can get a successful Mug off. Unfortunately Gilgamesh does not sit around waiting, he pelts us with a variety of attacks, and at some point buffs himself then rains down even stronger ones. It becomes clear I'm not getting anywhere so reset and try again. Locke still has a great deal of trouble but I just keep casting Reraise on him and healing everyone else until finally, finally he steals a Genji Shield. Well that's nice and all but I do already have one... meh, I'll take it. Now we can really go to town on the dude, I try out Sabin's fancy new Phantom Rush and sure enough he goes down (but not before using plenty of attacks I haven't seen in this game yet!). Look I love the OST of this game and I know the cart is probably packed to the absolute brim, but it would have been nice to hear a bit of Clash here >_> Yes, I'm being greedy.

He drops another Genji Helm and joins us via Magicite. So he... died? Is Magicite not a death sentence anymore? Or does Gilgamesh just live outside the boundaries of life and death. Probably that. Anyway we have access to Valor, which looks like it could be very handy for Sabin.

After this things don't go so well, I look around all the towns but don't find anything else of note. Time to check out the spoiler tags- phew thankfully the remaining dragons are in Kefka's Tower (thanks Fiop and Earthshaker, and don't worry about that Earthshaker I know the risk of spoiler tags in this topic!). The only marked thing I still can't figure out is mnkboy's other hint:
mnkboy907 posted...

And an esper in a location you've already been (you didn't miss it, it wasn't available at the time you were last there). More specific: Somewhere you were at early on in the World of Ruin.

Unless you meant Leviathan or Quetzalli, I really am at a loss on this one! I have 5 empty slots in the Esper page- one is Odin, a couple are at the end so maybe postgame, but the other two I do not know. I think I'm nearing time to enter Kefka's Tower now, though still not sure what team I'll bring (Celes/Locke/Sabin are gonna be there, but not sure who to bring for the 4th- Terra for the plot maybe).

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I guess this is where Leviathan sank down the ranks to becoming a regular summon while Bahamut remains the Ultimate Summon to this day. Sad times.

In fairness, FF6 does treat Bahamut like a regular summon, albeit a powerful one. (Well, I guess there is also a "summon Bahamut" effect on Setzer's reels, distinct from BAR-BAR-BAR's "summon random Esper".) Better than being completely absent, I'll grant you...

Seems to be all I can get here but please let me know if there's more!

Not really. I think the Auction House offers an unlimited supply of the Auto-Float relic, but you've already beaten Dirt/Earth Dragon. The unpurchaseable joke items might be worth a chuckle, but there are only a few, and I expect you've run into all of 'em already.

Hooray! We arrive at a house, where none other than Master Duncan resides! (Completely forgot about him and thought this would be Banon at first lol)

I think there is an in-game hint for this, if you talk to Duncan's wife in South Figaro. Not sure whether Duncan's even there without Sabin, but certainly you need Sabin in order to get anything out of meeting Duncan.

This shouldn't be a surprise, but for some reason I had it in my head that 'Mesh only came back in VIII onwards, so it catches me off guard to see him here.

FF8 was indeed the first Final Fantasy to bring Gilgamesh back; he is not in original FF6, but was added in FF6a. (Although I'm confident that that Ultros and, especially, Siegfried were inspired by FF5's fan favorite comic villain.)

I have 5 empty slots in the Esper page- one is Odin, a couple are at the end so maybe postgame, but the other two I do not know.

I think it's Odin, one that you can't have acquired yet, two that were added in the remake so I'm not sure if you could have gotten them yet, and the "select me to remove Esper" blank slot.

I think I'm nearing time to enter Kefka's Tower now, though still not sure what team I'll bring

"Team". Heh. Remember the Phoenix Cave? : )
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Oh yes, it was Quetzalli. I missed that you got it already, sorry.

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andylt posted...

for some reason I had it in my head that 'Mesh only came back in VIII onwards, so it catches me off guard to see him here

Gilgamesh was another addition to the Advance version. That's probably why it doesn't really make any sense why he turns into Magicite.

andylt posted...

Unless you meant Leviathan or Quetzalli, I really am at a loss on this one! I have 5 empty slots in the Esper page- one is Odin, a couple are at the end so maybe postgame, but the other two I do not know.

From the description it sounds like they were describing Quetzalli, but I don't know for sure.

I can't tell what Espers you're missing, but there should definitely be 2 you can't get at this point in the game. There's always one blank spot in your Esper list so that you can unequip an Esper, and yeah, I think Odin ends up creating another blank spot because of the transformation, so I don't recall what those other ones should be.

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Also yeah, in the original, Flood wasn't a spell and there were in fact no regular Water magic spells. Just stuff like Aqua Breath, Water Rondo, Gau's rages, and I think one of Shadow's throwables? Odd oversight.

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