Final Fantasy VI Bosses

First off, a note of warning: Samurai Soul is unique in the fact that he's a monster in a box you can run from. Doing so hurts your game though; you won't be able to fight him when you return to the chest, and thus you'll miss out on the Master's Scroll.

Samurai Soul is the perfect hybrid between a Samurai and a Ninja, as will become apparent by his AI script. Normally, his attacks will consist of Battle, any of the three offensive ninja scrolls (Flame Scroll, Water Scroll, or Lightning Scroll), and Gale Cut, 1000 Needles, or Shockwave. This isn't half bad for an opponent, but nothing spectacular either. It's when the enemy is aggravated that it becomes lethal. When you've battled him for longer than 40 seconds, he'll pump himself up. The message "Samurai Soul's power up!" will appear, and he will self-apply the Image and Reflect statuses, making him immune to every blockable Fight attack for the duration of Image and most Magic spells for the duration of Reflect. He'll also try to set Haste, but with inherent Slow immunity it will fail. Sad thing.

He may counter Fight, Magic, and Lore with a Battle, but that's not the purpose of his counter script there; when hit six times by Fight, he'll use !Assassin Blade on a random party member, which is a simple one-hit Wound attack with an admittedly poor Hit Rate of 100. When hit three times by any combination of Magic spells or Lore attacks, he'll chuck a weapon (either Kunai or Ashura) at a random party member, doing about 8000 damage to him/her. He'll then spend the next turn using Setzer's GP Rain, dealing exactly 915 HP worth of damage to four party members (1220 to three if one is still down from the thrown blade).

Samurai Soul's glaring weakness is the combination of vulnerability to the Confuse status and its own Special, !Assassin Blade. By setting Confuse with the Confuse spell, Strago's Bad Breath Lore, Cait Sith's Cat Rain, Edgar's Noiseblaster, or whathaveyou, Samurai Soul has a 50% chance of killing himself with !Assassin Blade. Sketching nets you a 25% shot at !Assassin Blade too. Exploit this weakness for a far easier battle.

If you're looking for more of a challenge or for some other reason don't want to muddle the poor warrior into defeat, here's what you'll want to do. First, throw up your barriers. Focus on the magical side; Mighty Guard (for Shell) or Zona Seeker's Wall, Hastega, Kirin's Life Guard, etc. Golem and Fenrir help against !Assassin Blade, but you shouldn't see it directed at you anyway.

Now, let loose with your characters. There's no reason to use Fight, Magic, or Lore on Samurai Soul. Terra, Celes, and Strago should really just wait out this battle. Attack with Phantom Rush Blitzes, Cyan's SwdTech skills (Tempest is nice), Jump attacks, the Drill Tool, etc. If you're really unlucky and brought all the wrong characters, just Fight (!Assassin Blade every sixth Fight attack isn't all that bad). When Samurai Soul powers up, Dispel removes all three positive statuses immediately. If you want to be evil, you can break the no-Lore rule one time and steal all three with Rippler (provided Strago's not prancing around with something like a Guard Bracelet or Miracle Shoes). Expand Full Strategy