FF6 Nudists Part I

In the Realms Beyond thread, Sofis did a FF6 Strago Solo, and English Language was doing a few as well, including a "Berserk Brothers" challenge, consisting of Mog and Umaro. The FF6 hype was clearly on, and I wanted in too. And so on October 19th, 2014, I started this. As of posting it, I still haven't finished.


I was reading a particular FAQ the other day. Good FAQ, but man, that writer. Beginning and end of all his strategies are "DRAPE YOUR CHARACTERS IN THE APPROPRIATE ELEMENTAL AND/OR STATUS PROTECTION AND LAUGH." So in his honor, and to place the stamp of overpreparedness incorporated on his guide, let's play through without any of that elemental and/or status protection.

In other words, let's get naked.

Just like T-Hawk's variant in FF5, my characters will be unallowed to equip anything for this challenge. Weapons, Armor, Accessories, Espers, all out! Because of that last one, this is also a Natural Magic Game. We must bullrush through whatever's in our path with whatever options we have that are not that.

And just because, I'm playing a version of FF6a heavily tricked out on the mods. People like some of the extra stuff this version has to offer, but they don't like the screen changes, translation changes, music changes, fixing the font...so there's patches to fix the lot of that. This is basically just cosmetic for reporting purposes.


The first little bit of this quest is a joke. Magitek Armor makes the lack of offense irrelevant, as does Magic a bit later. The enemies' offense is about as irrelevant, so Terra having no armor is no deal whatsoever.


It seems a bit unfair to use the Moogles when they have equipment, but even given that, Mog can punch the enemies to death easily. One battle sees him earn his first Dance, which he uses to dispose of everything in his way, including the boss. Things get a bit fidgety and he has to heal a few times, but it's nothing too serious.

The battle against the Magitek Armor is an interesting one. Locke gets a lethal kick to the face and dies, but Locke is pretty much just a stealbot in this variant quest. Plus we have Edgar for this fight. His Tools are completely uninhibited by our equipmentless restriction, so he and Terra are free to clean up.


Going up Mt. Kolts isn't too bad, but the damage from the enemies - many of which do have physical attacks - does adds up. Just need to use some healing items from time to time, really. I also found that sometimes, attacking with the fists is helpful for that extra push.

Vargas at the end, I thought I could handle and soldier through...


...then Locke pulls a desperation attack out so none of that even matters.


Banon is another character who we can't deequip, but that just helps. First time against Ultros, Terra got taken out by a combination of his fixed Tentacle and his counter-Ink on being struck with a Fire attack. Then Banon died after a combination MT Tentacle followed up by a ST

Tentacle is an unblockable physical attack with a high power of 146. It does in the neighborhood of 160-180 damage to our naked characters ST in the back row, and around 75ish when MT in the back - double these numbers if they're in the front. Ultros' battle script has fixed Tentacle attacks in his script, which target Terra, Sabin, and Banon individually at some points.

That all said, short of situations such as that, it's just barely enough to be able to handle from the back with Banon's Pray ability, and between Autocrossbow (210~), Fire (270~), and Aurabolt (410!!), he drops before that attack on Banon.

So scenarios. We want to do Sabin's last, and that's about it. For variety, I do Locke's first.


There's really not much to say about it until I reach Celes in the basement. Idly, one of the patches restores the violence in her introduction scene in this version, which was taken out to meet with Japan's CERO's ratings board, though the coding still remains.

The escape see Celes carry with her magic. An encounter with Vector Pups on the way out demonstrates just how painful physical attacks can get when you get caught naked in the front row. No Back Guards here, they're equipment too!


The boss at the end is Tunnel Armor, and provides an...interesting challenge. See, this is one of those fights in Final Fantasy where you're expected to use a certain job class. In this case, it's Celes with her Runic ability. Problem is...a naked Celes has no blade to support Runic with. So we're forced to deal with this thing and it's absurd magic power, capable of killing our characters in a single hit with any of its spells.


Conveniently, the game provides you with a Thunder Rod in this cave, provided you did not pick up the box with it in the first trip through. This can be broken to deal enough damage to kill the machine in a single shot. In FF6, you don't even need to be able to equip rods. Just click it and blow it up. So...what? You're saying rod breaking is cheap?


FINE. Sheesh. Took me about six tries to get this, featuring a lucky streak of turns where Tunnel Armor only attacked physically and missed. The two other ways I see to do this without Runic or the Thunder Rod are overleveling until Celes' magic can just potato it, and somehow outlasting its 900MP, which requires Gil grinding for all the resources and maybe a bit of leveling. Not that you have much else to spend money on if naked...wasn't an option for me, though, since I'd saved after leaving the town, and the game doesn't let you return.

Nothing to note about the Terra/Edgar/Banon scenario, except that I fail the checkpoint a few times to fight some monsters for later Rage purposes.


But the next scenario brings a new character to the fore. Shadow can physically attack, and deal quite a bit of physical damage, by throwing things, including the cheapy Shruiken. I thought that the solo Cyan vs. the Captain would be difficult, since he has no access to his swordtech skills, but he just had to chug a single Hi Potion to make it through.


The Telstar monster-in-a-box at the Imperial Camp was no issue. It counters Blitz techniques with Megazerk, but Shadow was able to throw Shruikens until it went down. I KO'd Shadow so he would not randomly leave before reaching the Phantom Train. On it, there were a few things of threat, including Bombs (who once killed me by going crazy with Blaze) and the Apparation monster-in-a-box, whose magic came this close to taking me out. Most of the monsters in here were wrecked by Sabin's Aurabolt.


Despite it being a meme, the best way for Sabin to deal damage to the Phantom Train turned out to be the Suplex, also known as Meteor Strike in this version. It beats out Aurabolt by about 100 damage. Unfortunately, my first attempt at this went awry when Diabolical Whistle confused Sabin, causing him to Suplex himself instead. I couldn't recover from here. Second fight, both Sabin and Shadow got Imped, blocking off their commands. I tried to punch it to death from there and failed.

Third time was the charm, though. Interceptor chipped in at the start for 800 damage, which was followed up by 400+ apiece Suplex and Shruiken, along with a 110~ damage punch from Cyan. Another Suplex finished it off.


And one leap down a waterfall later, enter Gau. He is notable for two reasons in this challenge, perhaps to the point of dodging some of the points of this challenge: first of all, he can give himself various elemental properties and status protection with his various Rages. Second, his physical attack does not require weapons to be effective. And of course, certain rages use special attacks that do increased physical damage.

I spent about two hours in-game time getting just about everything Rage I could want so far, stocked up on Potions, Hi-Potions, and even Dried Meat with the money I got from it, and moved on.


Party setup for the Narshe battle...we put our three powerhouses at the head of each team. Edgar is so strong with his Bioblaster being able to run through most of the human enemies here, so he needs the least help and gets Cyan to accompany him. Gau will be taking on the miniboss and Kefka himself, both of whom I want to steal from, meaning Locke. Celes is in as support, also because if she gets confused, her magic isn't as destructive to my own party. That leaves Terra to go with Sabin.


I charge Edgar forth and put him in a position so the bulk of the enemy soldiers will walk by him, and when I can (because they kept running into him), stick Sabin and Gau at other chokepoints.


The Hell's Rider miniboss, I manage a rare Elixir steal from before Gau roasts it. I spent a long time searching for the Oversoul Rage, getting it just as I was about to give up. End result? 100 more damage over the Fira-using Templar. Yay?


Kekfa was...somewhat harder. The first time, not wanting to exploit a Stop-based option because that's no fun, I went with Stray Cat. One of the most infamous rages, its !Catscratch special is four times as powerful as a normal physical blow. However, I was pasted by a multi-target Blizzara that gibbed Locke and Celes (doing more/as much damage as they had HP), leaving Gau to die alone. Luckily, losing to him doesn't result in a game over, so I got up, sucked down a few potions, marched right back up, and took him on again.

Next battle, I outsmarted him and went with the lowly Leafer to absorb the ice spells. Which turned out to be the right move for that moment in time, because his companions were wiped by bad luck again, and Kefka cast one single-target on him.

I decided to make an Executive Decision at this point. Gau makes this variant all too easy from a defensive standpoint. So whenever possible, I'll try to avoid using him against bosses unless absolutely necessary. Of course, this also opens up the door for solo naked Gau later on, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.


Who to take to Zozo, then? Edgar and Sabin are givens. Locke and Cyan are just itembots. With Gau off the table for the time being, Celes is number three, and the recruitable for 3000 Gil Shadow is our fourth. He carries a high risk in using him, since there's a 1/16 or 1/32 (read both numbers) chance of him running off at the end of each battle.

Though it's certainly high-reward, especially for our party. And the addition of ninja scrolls into the throwing mix certainly helps.


Shadow manages to avoid running off the whole trip up. The end result of this is that the boss battle was even more of a joke than it normally is. Dadaluma has specific counters in place for the Fight and Magic commands being used a certain number of times, but with Celes restraining herself and the guys not using those commands, he was dead before I even knew what was happening.

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FF6 Nudists Part II

After this point in the variant is when the natural magic game portion of it starts. You get Magicite after ocmpleting Zozo. However, it's arguably just as much equipment as anything else. So we'll not be using it for this, just to add to our plate.


As an idle mention of it, one of the features that the sound patch boasts - which converts all the audio into its SNES equivilant or close to it aside from this one instance - all the Opera scenes are sung by .


Ultros 2 is in the code, an interesting fight. He moves to four different positions on the stage, each with their own HP bar. In the actual game itself, you will likely blow him away before he even has the chance to do anything. These nudists were no exception. The Figaro Brothers went in with Drill and Rising Phoenix respectively, both dealing high amounts of damage. He bullied Sabin over the course of the battle, hitting him with Acid Rain (by the way, the rain only hits one side) and a Tentacle to kill him. It was ultimately Locke who got to deal the final blow, embarassing Mr. Octopus with a punch to the backside.


That took the group to the Imperial Continent. Nothing to do except walk around, look for regular Potions which I had just run out of, find that no stores over here sell them, and head into Vector and the Imperial Magitek Research Factory. Dungeons in FF6 often have some sort of theme amongst the enemies in its dungeon. In this case, it's ridiculously high defense. And wait, did I seriously not take any pictures of this? Oh well, have a picture of a humorous random battle before that.

Anyway, high defense. Good thing that Edgar's Drill and Chainsaw ignores defense then, his Flash and Sabin's Rising Phoenix are magical in nature, and Celes can use Blizzard for admittedly paltry damage. Shame about Locke though, special little snowflake that he is. He was even more useless than usual, as his regular attacks did only 12 damage or so.

The usual tactics for battle with Flash + Rising Phoenix + Blizzard as needed + Steal. That knocked down just about all comers.


This is the first serious dungeon in the game in that respect, particularly for the four bosses. Ifrit and Shiva are the first up. The former has 3300HP and the latter has 3000HP. They periodically switch in and out, based off a bit that is incremented each time the esper is damaged or hit by magic (only increasing by one in the case of damaging magic). Speaking of, three magic attacks will provoke a counter in the form of Firaga and...Reflect. They're also immune to all elements except their own.

This fight was a snap. Lack of armor doesn't really change too much when being targetted by magic. Edgar went big with the Chainsaw, taking the extra damage and risk of doing nothing with the 25% instant death attempt over the weaker Drill. Sabin was reduced to Raging Fist on Ifrit, since they can't be Suplexed, but Rising Phoenix worked wonders on Shiva. Celes slung Blizzards at Ifrit. And Locke just attacked with his bare hands and accomplished nothing useful. They did some heavy damage in turn, but nothing that we couldn't push through.


Next up is Number 024, some sort of cross between a royal, a cyborg, and Baraka from Mortal Kombat. He's much like Hyne from Final Fantasy III - remember him from my Solo Monk report? He uses Barrier Change 30 seconds into the battle, which not only changes his elemental properties (he absorbs one element, is weak to another, and the other six he becomes immune to), but also his battle tactics. If he's struck with his weakness, he uses it again.

This battle went sideways the first time I tried it. He's vulnerable to the Imp status, which locks out all his attacks and forces him to rely on physicals. But FF6 has a special property on certain enemies which causes all of their physical attacks to go critical when Imp. Number 024 is among them, and with his omnipresent counter on being damaged for around 230~ damage a shot, my party quickly fell under his assault.


So I had to forgo clever plans and just violence him to death. It wasn't that difficult - he has no elemental properties before using Barrier Change, so Rising Phoenix and Blizzard both worked for 470~ and 330~ respectively (using the former was a mistake on my part: Suplex would've done 710~, and Aura Bolt 810~). I kept Locke on standby, as Number 024 would occasionally confuse my party members.

After he used his first Barrier Change, a mistake led to amusing results. I had Sabin use Aura Bolt instead of Suplex. Holy happened to be his weakness, and so it dealt heavy damage and finished him off, just like that.


Third on the list is Number 128. That FAQ I talked about named him as one of the nastiest bosses this game has to offer. There are three opponents in this fight: Number 128 himself, the Left Blade, and the Right Blade. We really don't want to kill off the blades, as it makes 128 cast Haste on itself and throw out nasty magical attacks. Blitz was right out for this reason. And with Locke useless, this left Edgar and his Drill as our only reasonable option.

Still, this was scary. His Net attack stopped anyone it hit in their tracks, and with heavy damage flying my way, death was hanging over me at all times, Edgar attacked while the other two healed when they were not stopped. By some miracle, I do this on the first try - even with my healers getting stopped as shown above.


Lastly, on the way out you fight the Cranes. This was over so fast, I was like, "wait, what?" The thermal one on the right has 2300HP, the electrical one on the left has 1800. They have an interesting AI script consisting of charging up with attacks of that element, but they were very quickly scrapped by my attacks. To add insult to injury, Setzer pulled out Mega Flare against them.

By the way, Sofis, you can save after Number 128. Just head north slightly after crashing into the Magitek Armored guy, and you'll find the sparkly blue light.

Setzer's slots are notable for being able to derig them by using an Echo Screen in the SNES version, allowing you to get any result so long as no other magic is used. You can use this at any time in this version, simply by confirming the first reel when a message box is on the screen. This can be more easily done by pausing and unpausing repeatedly. I won't be actively abusing it unless I feel like it. Timing's kind of a pain, too - unless you're on Active ATB, in which case it's relatively easy.


A quick trip into Narshe gets me Mog as well. Two new party members who are fully capable of dealing heavy damage without needing to rely on weapons or espers. Yes, while some characters are rendered impotent in this variant, we have absolutely no shortage of offensive options.


Random hilarious scene from getting Gau more rages. BAR-BAR-BAR occasionally gets you Crusader, which is pretty much instant death. Thankfully, I am smart and saved often.

So who to take with me to the next dungeon? Terra is mandatory. Locke and Cyan are useless. Mog and Gau can both dish out painful water damage. It's tempting to take both, but two random uncontrollable characters that may not even use the desireed attack isn't exactly the wisest of ideas. Edgar and Sabin can both wreck faces as they did before, although all but one enemy absorbs Rising Phoenix. Setzer does Slots.


Whatever, this game is easy anyway. I mean, how much resistance could one dungeon put up?


Without getting lucky (or rather, me getting unlucky), I mean.


Terra actually turned out to be the most useful member of the party. She could fling Raise spells at everything, and though expensive at 30MP, it's not like I was going to use those Ethers for much else anyway. Later on into the cave, she learned Fira, allowing her to take out Zombones at a more efficient cost. Everything else in here absorbs Fire, unfortunately. Non-traditional undeads.

Gau and Mog used Chimera (occasionally Hill Gigas) and Water Rondo respectively. The latter was especially annoying whenever he decided to stumble, which he had a 50% chance to do due to having to change the background.


I pulled Joker Doom on Kefka, for the fun of it. He actually has a dead sprite, it's just that you can only see it if you do this, or for a split second if you do enough damage to him in the Imperial Base back in Sabin's Scenario.

Imperial Banquet, nothing really to say. I finished the first part with 30 seconds to spare.


Oh, look! Weapons we actually have a use for! As explained before, since rod breaking in FF6 involves not actually equipping the rod, these nudists do have a use of it. Which might come in handy as a last-resort in certain spots, so I plan to stock up on some. We get two freebies of the Flame and Ice Rods in the next dungeon.


Flame Eater in the burning house could be utterly decimated. Terra could Trance into her Esper form, then break an Ice Rod over its face for ridiculous damage as long as it's alone, which Strago is perfectly capable of doing via killing the balloons with Aqua Breath. But just to dispel any notions of taking the easy way out or anything, I decided to give the hard way a shot. And besides, it's the first boss that has a respectable HP pool to survive an onslaught, so may as well.

Terra and Locke were good for only one thing in this fight: and that was feeding Strago healing items. He meanwhile, went to work with Aqua Breath and the odd Revenge Blast, when his HP was low enough so that it'd be more worth it. Strago took heavy damage from the counter-Firas, heavy enough so that sometimes, it was more worth it to get the extra damage in and worry about reviving/healing up after. Flame Eater summoned a more powerful Grenade at the end of the battle, which could have spelled problems with its 3000HP if it weren't for the fact that Strago immediately killed off the boss right after.


I get Strago to Level 25 before taking on Ultros for the third time. Stone, as discussed in Sofis' solo Strago playthrough, is essentially the Goblin Punch of this game - doing eight times the damage if the user and target's level match up. Ultros happens to be Level 25...and also has Stone himself. He never used it, thankfully - even if it wasn't used on Strago, it confuses anything that survives the hit. Terra Tranced and unloaded with Firas that did around 3000~ damage (rod breaks did around 2.5x that). Together, and with Locke and Relm around to watch, the octopus was violenced to death. No need to use Sketch.

I was going to open what on Realms Beyond (it's broken up a bit differently here) was the third part of this FF6 variant with a briefly comment on every character and how they perform in regards to this...then I realized it's pretty pointless. Does the character have a secondary command they can use without equipment? Congrats, they have a use.

So who to take to the Floating Continent? Shadow will be mandatory. Celes and Cyan are right out. The latter can't use his attacks, and the former joins us anyway. Locke has one use: stealing a Debilitator for Edgar. I could've gotten this on the Cranes, but they died too quickly. He's otherwise as useless as ever. This would come in handy on the boss, but it'd require two trips. Relm has some passable Sketches along the way, even through the command's flaws, but Ultima Weapon will be problematic with her.

We start off with a series of battles, though - including the Ultros and the Air Force. With this in mind, I decide to go with Gau, Mog, and Locke to start off with.


This fails. While they're able to destroy the sky armors with Wind Slash from Marshal and Wind Rhasphody respectively, Ultros and Typhon massacre me with Tentacle (can deal close to 700 damage to Gau!) and Fireball (also painful). Second time was also a failure. I switched Celes in the place of Gau, after leveling her enough so she'd learn Blizzara along the way. She was also able to use Protect to reduce the Tentacle damage.

Though the first phase was just as easy, Ultros and Typhon went sideways when Mog refused to use Elf Fire on the former. I still got by, but then he killed the Missile Bay before Locke could steal the Debilitator.


Finally, I got it to work, using Gau in place of Mog because that was so dumb, but not before two more wipes - once because Gau wouldn't use Wind Slash and a Spitfire kept using Absolute Zero, and once to the Air Force itself. Then I proceeded to pay for it trying to get off the Floating Continent with this worthless excuse of a party. These guys are jerks, throwing scrolls at you. You can Imp them, but they can still use throw.


After this, I returned with a party of Edgar, Mog, and Strago. The latter was able to pick up the Level Lores and chip in some major damage with Stepmine and Aqua Breath. He also one-shot the Gigantos monster-in-a-box, with L5 Death, who could brutalize my unarmored party.

Shadow threw stuff, Edgar did his usual tool thing, and Mog was able to heal with Wind Rhapsody's Sunbath. Which was good, as I forgot to buy Hi-Potions.


The Debilitator turned out to be more trouble than it was worth, but that's certainly not to say it was worthless. This sets a random weakness on the enemy. I got wind the first time which was swell for Aqua Breath and Wind Slash purposes, then after holy and poison, fire popped, so Shadow started throwing Flame Scrolls.

Not much to say about the escape. I got Doom and Roulette off Nerapa before splattering her. Then I got the god Cid rescue, that speedrunners would be jealous of if Sketch didn't break the game to pieces.

Next | Index

FF6 Nudists Part III

The World of Ruin is a more open-ended area of the game, particularly after getting the Falcon. Naturally, I'll be completing every quest that it has to offer, to squeeze as much out of this as possible.


I certainly did not want to go through with only a solo Celes, so into the collapsing house it was. Even the game itself highly recommends petrification protection here, although only one of the three enemies uses it and only when alone. They're always encountered with another type of enemy though, so I simply had Celes kill them first. The game was very rude with the encounters though, and I made it out with only two seconds to spare.


I tried to fight Humbaba normally, but these nudists couldn't handle his attacks. But there was one thing I could do - Magicite Shards summon a random Esper. I spun the wheel with the five that I had, and not only did I get ZoneSeek, but Carbuncle as well with the fourth. This turned the fight into a huge joke once he started throwing out Thundara after Thundara.


The Cave of Figaro's dungeon theme is confusion. Every enemy in this dungeon can set it, but the only one who uses it regularly are Neck Hunters. Who are inconveniently among the harder ones for me to take out. Amusing moment happened when I entered Rising Phoenix wrong before getting muddled, multiple times. If I had fightsticked it in right (I do the diagonals instead of multiple directions, easy for me esp. on this keyboard), it would've been directed at me.


Tentacles were an easy fight. I played around with Debilitator a bit, and landed an Ice weakness on the bottom left one, overruling its absorption of it. Celes was thusly able to take it and the bottom right one (naturally weak to it) out easily, while Sabin got to work with the Razor Gale I only realized he learned when confusion made him use it on my party, dealing around 850~ to each Tentacle. Edgar threw out some Drills, and that was that.

I deequiped Edgar after the fight, since he was auto-optimized.


The name of the game in Darill's Tomb is zombification. After stocking up on Holy Water, it actually turned out most efficient to forgo healing altogether, since most enemies liked to inflict it more than anything else, and the occasional damage healed with Mysidian Rabbit when I messed up gave a buffer on health anyway.


Next is Dullahan. That FAQ's recommendations are Edgar: GOGO DRAGOON. Sabin: BURNING FISTS AND HASTE SHOES. Celes: RUNIC NONSTOP AND COUNTERS. Setzer: COIN TOSS. He then recommends getting up defenses in the form of ZoneSeek, Golem, Fenrir, etc. Yeah, see what I mean?

We're more than a bit impaired, however. This guy has a lot of nasty stuff. Blizzaras and Blizzagas which can either flatline a single member or wreck the whole party (and I have no good MT-healing at this point), Holy including L? Holy, brutal physicals that hurt even more naked, the freezing Northern Cross, and 23450HP to deplete.


My cumbersome solution was to just out-Elixir his damage, and hopefully not get wrecked by multitarget hits. It was more or less the only way I could keep up. I had 14 in my inventory at the start of the battle, and ended with one.

So I explored my other options. Joker Doom is a thing, 7 broken Flame Rods would destroy him. But bleh to both. Super Balls would be less reliable. Debilitator would work to turn his ice absorption into an ice weakness, but to best take advantage of it, Celes would need to be level 42 for Blizzaga. Carbuncle summon from Magicite Shards didn't help too much. Had the right choice form the start, and I could always get them back from stealing.


It was ultimately an Alexander Summon from BAR-BAR-BAR that did him in. If you're wondering where Setzer is, Palidor also showed up from that combination earlier in the fight, which causes a minor glitch where Setzer moves too far back.


Speaking of stealing, that is useful. But Locke is kind of a pain to recruit besides being, you know...fairly useless. So Gogo first it is. This also has a secondary, more important purpose that will become apparent later on.


Just an amusing battle result. All my party members got zombied, but some of them got snorted out of battle. This humorous first fight aside, there were some pretty heated encounters here. Wart Pucks did the snorting, Kamui did the zombies. Covert Ninjas could wreck me with scrolls. Even though I could Imp them, they could still use these. I made it through after about five tries at the cave.


Gogo get, and then I went and picked up Gau. I couldn't get him first since you need an open slot in the party; it was possible by going to Kefka's Tower and backing out, but it slipped my mind; though I wouldn't have taken him into the cave anyway. I got him some new rages, including the ones from that cave, which included Wart Puck and what the SNES version calls Woolly.


Next stop, something I really should've done before the Zone Eater: getting Sabin's ultimate Blitz technique from a Banon palette swap.


Phantom Rush is a magical attack of 128 power. It pierces defense and does insane damage - a shade weaker than desperation attacks and stronger than most summons. Damage output was a bit dubious there for a while, but now we're good again.


Next, I went for Relm. These flowers hold one of the cheapest Rages. It confuses the enemy in a special way - nothing can resist it outside of magic block. And I do mean NOTHING. Ever. Too cheap for our challenge purposes, however.


Chadarnook was an annoying battle, even with my high damage potential between Sabin and Gogo able to use Phantom Rush, and Gau raging Borghese for Holy - the last two doing over 3500 damage and Sabin over 4000. Holy also has the advantage of healing the woman and not triggering her (somewhat inconsequential) counters. The demon and the woman switch every five attacks on them or every 30 seconds. Unfortunately, it seems the timer is always running, so the demon could pop out but instantly switch back.


It's the fact that you can't damage her in the meantime, and might get messed up by Charm/Entice and the such that could prove problematic. There's actually a nifty counter to this: Muddling a confused party member makes them attack the proper party randomly. Just need to make sure to remove it after the woman leaves, otherwise only Muddle will be on.


Anyway, it took seven tries at this before the eighth got through with nothing stupid happening. Probably wasn't wise to keep fightsticking the Blitzes in such a spot, but I practiced beforehand. End result: didn't fail one in any of my battles. It was all RNG that screwed me over.


This guy showed up for the first time on the way to recruit Strago. Got a few good Phantom Rushes in before he took his leave.


Against this Allo Ver miniboss, Relm used Sketch, killing it instantly.

I would have LOVED to employ the Exdeath strategy against Behemoth King's first form, but it's protected from instant death, so the Condemn attack misses. Even if I were to Rippler the status onto the beast, the death spell at the end of the timer would fail due to protection from death attacks.

The smart thing to do from here would've been to grab Celes instead. The first form is vulnerable to Imp, cutting off its dangerous array of spells Though it in turn deals automatic criticals if you do that and eventually recovers. But if I were to blind it with Flash, that'd be much less of an issue. The RNG decided to be weird though; when I gave it a few goes anyway, I eventually got a battle where it used no spells whatsoever. Thus, Sabin, Edgar, and Strago were able to separate it from its 19000HP without incident.


For the second, undead form, Edgar hit it with Flash, and that was pretty much that. Relm pitched in with Sketch, hitting with a strong Firaga once, but missing two more times. The others' attacks were more than enough to take it down, however.

That gave me Shadow. I was also able to stock up on a few Magicite Shards by battling Cactuars at the Coliseum. I could just set Gogo's commands properly (Blitz/Blitz/Blitz), and he'd take care of them most of the time


Phunbaba 3 is supposed to blow away two of your characters. Out of spite more than anything else, I rob him of this by HP counting, and throwing out Magicite Shards when he's at the magic threshold. Amusingly, the first time I try this, I got Crusader - who killed me. Phunbaba didn't care and still Baba Breathed my dead party, and Terra started the next fight alone. Several more times were wrecked by Carbuncle making him heal with his own lightning attacks, or damaging Espers emerging. But my stubborness pulled through.


It probably wasn't necessary and I even could've done with just resetting until who I wanted was blown away, as the final battle against him was ridiculously easy. Terra did not get to play with Bio, but did 2500~ with each Fira. With Sabin and Gogo Phantom Rushing and Setzer throwing out whatever Slots gave up, the ancient monster did not last long.


You can steal Elixirs from these guys on the Solitary Island. Only problem is, they tend to die instantly due to 1HP and inherent Seizure. But hey, easy Elixirs.


On the way out from recruiting Mog, Terra learned Cura. Hooray for not needing as much Elixirs, I guess.


I was worried about Valigarmanda being a rough fight, with it able to throw out Blizzagas. However, they were survivable. With Flame Scrolls doing 5200~, Fira and Will 'o the Wisp both doing 3500~, and Setzer's Slots doing whatever (including summoning the summon against itself!? This healed it, though...), it didn't take long to take out.


There are three types of monsters in Umaro's cave. Those who set Imp (and drop Green Cherries like nobody's business), Skull Eaters which have nothing to do with Imp, and those who are vulnerable to Imp. The Tonberries are among the latter. While I didn't bring Celes, but with them being purely physical opponents, Shadow made himself invisibile and that was that. Umaro was handled much the same way as Valigarmanda.

That's basically everyone who's worth getting. Next time, I get the two characters of questionable helpfulness, beat up everything else in the World of Ruin, and finish off the main game.

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