Final Fantasy VI Bosses

Yeeesh. First turn, he casts a level two spell. Then, he casts a level 3 spell. Then, he casts two level 3 spells. After that, it'll follow up with another double cast of two level 3 spells. On the fifth turn, it'll use a single level 3 spell, and, on his last turn before looping, Magic Master can make use of Death, Bio, or Silence. All of this is coupled with a spectacular 50 Magic Power, which means that if you don't absorb the attack or have the Reflect status, you'll likely die a painful death. If Magic Master has the Reflect status, he will bounce a level 3 spell off of himself every turn; Magic Master will never self-apply the status though, and there's no reason for you to cast it.

You may have noticed that every spell Magic Master uses is reflectable; yes, that they are. However, the thing about Magic Master is that not only is he the ultimate mage, he's also fiercely loyal to Kefka. Given this, it's only logical that Magic Master would be able to cast the strongest spell in the game: Ultima, and he won't let you go before casting it. As soon as you kill the Magic Master, he will cast Ultima. It will deal between 5400 to 6100 damage to all of your characters; unless you've overleveled (level 53 with Muscle Belt, 58 with Red Cap, 67 without any HP boosting equipment), that gonna kill you dead.

Let's go through a few potential situations now:

If you've followed the walkthrough, or know Reraise at the very least, keep yourself draped in Reflect Rings at all times, as this will essentially make you invincible. Do not attack Magic Master; as soon as you do this, he will use Barrier Change and he start countering all your attacks with Barrier Change, making him that much harder to take down. He will also counter to his own spells reflected back at him. If you just keep still, he won't start using Barrier Change, not even under the torment of his own attacks. Cast Reraise on all your characters, and just wait this one out. Eventually, when Magic Master has killed himself, he'll cast Ultima: everybody dies and is subsequently revived. You're free to go.

Without Reraise, this one's a tricky pony. You can cast Rasp over and over and over again until his 50000 MP are all gone; he won't be able to cast Ultima as a result. You'll have to keep him alive this way. This is easily done by casting the Berserk spell on Magic Master while casting Vanish or summoning Phantom to protect yourself. Now, Rasp away. It'll take a very long while. You can check his MP periodically with the Libra spell. When he has less than 80 MP, you can kill him. There you go.

Alternately, you could just damage the boss a lot and summon Quetzalli; the trick here is to kill Magic Master with one or more characters in the air. Ultima won't hit them, so you win. If you want to do this, carefully keep track of his HP with Libra; for optimal damage output, you'll want to equip barrier-piercing weapons where possible (Ultima Weapon on Terra/Celes/Edgar/Locke, on Locke, Fixed Dice or Dice on Setzer) to try and circumvent Magic Master's crazy 250 Defense.

If you don't have Rasp... and you don't have Quetzalli either... eh... yeah. Last chance, honest. Equip a character (Terra, Celes, Edgar) with a Reflect Ring, Genji Glove, Rune Blade/ Ragnarok/Lightbringer, and the Soul Sabre. The MP-critical weapon in the Right Hand, the MP draining weapon in the Left Hand. Now, cast Berserk on Magic Master, vanish your party, and then cast Berserk and Haste on your magical weapon character. Every turn, he or she will attack and deal twelve to nineteen MP damage. If you're setting this up so you can go do something else in the meantime (I trust you have taken a liking to your sanity?), Berserk a Healing Rod character to make sure Magic Master doesn't die from the physical blows. Go take in a museum or something. Honestly, this is going to take ages. Expand Full Strategy

Malboro Menace will just try to take you down with status-inducing attacks such as the bloody obvious Bad Breath and the surprising Diabolic Whistle and some physicals. A rare !Tentacle sets Poison, so that's not too bad. Whenever you attack the thing, it has a 1/3 chance it'll counter with a Blaster attack on a random character, so that sucks. Also, whenever you kill the Malboro Menace, two appear; when you kill the last one of those two, four appear. That's a multitude of Malboro. Luckily, Malboro Menace is vulnerable to instant death attacks, which allows is to circumvent both troubles; target with Malboro Menace with either Banish, Shin-Zantetsuken or some such and you should never see more than the initial one. Note that only instant death attacks that stall counterattacks work like that; Malboro Menace will be more than happy to multiply after being successfully struck by a Death spell. Expand Full Strategy

Master Tonberry is very mean. He'll start the battle off with a Battle attack, and after this the madness will begin. Every 15 seconds, Master Tonberry takes a step forward; after seven steps, he'll use !Knife on a random character and retreat halfway back, meaning that he'll have to take just four more steps after that to reach the !Knife position again. Every step is accompanied with the ever-frustrating Barrier Change attack. Master Tonberry casts spells of the type opposing his current weakness, not unlike Number 024 way back in the day. Each time he changes his weakness, he has a two in three chance of using a magical attack that will indicate what his new weakness is. This will give you a chance to load up on that weakness until it changes again.

Indicator Attack	New Weakness
Firaga	Ice
Blizzaga	Fire
Thundaga	Wind
Bio	Holy
Tornado	Lightning
Holy	Poison
Quake	Water
Tsunami	Earth

One of the worst parts of this battle, though, is Master Tonberry's Traveler counter to every damaging attack you perform. Depending on your actions and style of playing this game, this move can do a lot of damage.

The way to victory lies in the enemy's status ailment vulnerabilities. Cast Sleep on Master Tonberry, and pair it up with Slow as well. If you have enough people with control over the Rasp spell, you might try removing all his MP first; better safe than sorry, right? If you're done with that or simply don't want to bother, start attacking him with magical attacks. Physical attacks will wake him; stick to magical ones only. It's highly possible you may manage to kill him before he even wakes up once. If he does wake up, just cast Sleep again; Strago's Bad Breath Lore also works (sets Poison too, by the way). Expand Full Strategy

Curlax is the strongest of the three Dream Stooges, and also the most vital one to take down. He has a random shot at casting White Wind every now and again, which heals the other Stooges and himself. Even worse, he will cast Arise on a fallen comrade when he notices they're down. He'll attack with the status-inducing spells when all three brothers are alive, and with the Fire-elemental offensive spells when a comrade has been slain (which is a useless bit of the AI script, as Curlax will always immediately make sure this is never the case with Arise). When he's hit four times by a Magic spell, he'll cast Reflect on himself and start bouncing Fira and Firaga spells off himself. When all three Stooges are alive, he'll cast Delta Attack every 30 seconds; Delta Attack is an unblockable single-target attack that sets Petrify (doesn't work on targets immune to Petrify, obviously). He has a 33% chance of countering any of your attacks with a Fira spell.

Laragorn is the weakest of the three Dream Stooges; his amount of HP is the lowest and his status vulnerabilities are horrible; as if Death wasn't enough, he's an almost exclusive spell caster susceptible to Silence and Confuse. He's the Ice-elemental of the three. Like Curlax, he'll cast Delta Attack when all three Stooges are alive and 30 seconds have passed since the beginning of the battle/the last time Delta Attack appeared. He'll cast Reflect once he's been hit by Magic four times and start reflecting Blizzara and Blizzaga spells off himself. Laragorn will normally just attack with Battle; he'll start using Blizzara and Blizzaga spells when one Stooge is down. He'll counter 33% of the time with Blizzara. The interesting thing about Laragorn is that he may run away in the middle of a battle. When one of the Stooges is down and Laragorn has been hit by four Magic spells, he'll run away. After 30 seconds (if you haven't won the battle yet), he'll return; his HP will be back to maximum, but his MP won't have changed and any status ailments you might've set will still be there.

Moebius is the middle child, and the only one without an elemental weakness. His bane is the Berserk status, and he has the Lightning-element. Like his brethren, he casts Delta Attack after 30 seconds, will cast Reflect on himself after four Magic spells, and start casting Thundara and Thundaga on himself which bounce off; normally he uses support spells (Protect, Shell, Haste, and Cura), but he will start to cast offensive spells (Thundara and Thundaga) when one of the Stooges is down. He may counter any attack with a Thundara spell. Moebius is certainly the most boring of the three.

A note about Delta Attack: when the global battle timer reaches 30, the first Stooge to act will attack with Delta Attack. After that, the global timer is set to 0, so that neither of the other two Stooges can use it. In other words, every 30 seconds only one Delta Attack will appear, not three.

How to fight this battle? Set Mute on Laragorn (the Silence spell is obviously the most prominent way, but Strago's Bad Breath is also a highly acceptable means of setting the same effect (not to mention that it'll also set Confuse); and Berserk on Moebius (with the Berserk spell, possibly). Don't kill off Laragorn with a quick Death spell just yet; our main priority is Curlax. Cast a Sleep spell on him (once again, Bad Breath works there) and pound him with magical attacks, preferably Ice-elemental attacks. When he's dead, abuse Laragorn's vulnerability to instant death attacks and dispose of him quickly. What you have left is a Berserked Moebius who is no threat whatsoever.

So long as you know what you're doing, it's really an easy battle; barriers like Mighty Guard, Hastega, Moon Song, Earth Wall, and Life Guard are nice, but really not necessary. You don't get any items for beating the Dream Stooges, but you will receive 6 Magic Points. Expand Full Strategy

The big sparkle's name is Nelapa. He gets 10 out of 10 for style, but minus one billion for good thinking. I mean, here you are, with a timer quickening your pace, and he thinks it's a good idea to cast Doom on the party. A bit redundant, if not outright illogical.

Sillier yet, the battle with Nelapa (or a Naude) will automatically terminate as soon as the global timer hits 0:04 seconds; enough time to dive from the Floating Continent to "safety". What was the point of the timer in the first place? 0:04 isn't enough time to wait for that special someone, though...

Anyway, after the pompous chatter and casting Doom on the party, he will finally get around attacking you. He can use Attack, Fira, Firaga, and Fireball. Very spooky. Firaga actually hurts a bit. Now here's a hoot: If you hit Nelapa with six Attack commands, he'll use Roulette. Next to the fact that Roulette can actually take Nelapa himself down, the mere thought that Nelapa could even survive six Attacks is laughable in itself. You'd need a Healing Rod or a rat-flail in order to pull that off.

Anyway, back to not insulting this guy into submission (although you could). He's weak to Lightning and Ice and Holy. He's also Floating. Just make sure you keep in the back of your mind this guy is inherently Reflective, which means you'll need to resort to your skills and summon attacks. There are literally hundreds of ways to off this guy, and they're all very easy. Gau's Mu Rage can enSnare him for a one-hit KO, as can a fatal Chainsaw attack. Bouncing a few Rasp spells off yourself will kill him. Bouncing a Death spell off yourself will kill him. You can even confuse him; enemies don't get any more pathetic than that.

Just use your strongest attacks, be it Gigavolt, or Aura Cannon, or Diamond Dust, or what have you. Nelapa has 2800 HP. That's it. If you played your cards right, you were doing 2800 in one attack back there against Ultima Weapon. Pushover. Expand Full Strategy

Here's the thing. Neslug's Head will pop in and out of the shell every now and then. It'll start the battle with a Slowga spell and will randomly use physical attacks, set Stop with !Tongue Bath or use Sticky Goo to set Slow. Bo-oring. The shell will use White Wind once every time the Head is out of the shell, counter any attack with the instant-kill !Megaton Smash and will randomly attack with !Megaton Smash as well. Did I mention the shell is invulnerable to attacks and will therefore always heal the full extent of 9999 HP?

The defense isn't difficult. Throw up the Maginot Line to protect yourself from !Tongue Bath and !Megaton Smash and the stray physicals and equip Hermes Sandals to turn yourself immune to Slowga and Sticky Goo. The thing is that you'll need to do more than 9999 damage to the Head, preferably targetable. It can be multi-target, but only if you have Golem up.

Neslug's awesome Magic Defense ensures that things aren't quite as simple as you'd like them to be. Barrier-piercing fire-elemental attacks reign supreme. Flare Star is a good one coming from Gau and/or Gogo, as is the Meltdown spell if you have it handy, though you'll want to make sure you don't suffer from any kickback. Breaking Flame Rods is great and/or Flame Shields are great as well. It may be cheap, but so is total invulnerability/White Wind combinations, so shut up, Neslug. You can target the head only by trying to set yourself as a target for the broken item, then switch back to the monster's side, where you'll find the pointer has gone single-target. Clever!

Valor is another way to make targetable attacks even more powerful. Valor will triple the power of Fuma Shuriken, Attack commands and Edgar's Drill (superior to Chainsaw now that it's so powerful, since Chainsaw will do nothing 25% of the time). Those that are stuck without targetable attacks such as Sabin and Gau just aren't all too suited for the fight, thus making them prime candidates for casting Valor. Expand Full Strategy

Machines tend to have that crippling weakness to Lightning, and they also usually have some sort of Program ## move to dish out. This guy has neither. He uses spells and wields swords, so you'd almost assume he was a human if it wasn't for the 'System error!' message that goes off in the middle of the battle. A cyborg, then, like the Sergeant? We can only guess. The facts remain that Number 024, while no real challenge even if you forget about his status ailment weaknesses, is just so darn versatile we still love him anyway.

The guy's main move, Barrier Change, shuffles all the elemental properties of the caster and picks one element to set as its weakness. Then, it sets one element as the element it absorbs. First effects: You'll never know what exactly your elemental attacks will do: 75% chance they'll do nothing, 12.5% chance they'll heal him, 12.5% chance they'll do double damage. Conclusion: Waste of time, think of alternative means of violence. But this fellow adapts his fighting style according to his weakness. You can sort his weakness from what he hits you with, if you like. If his weakness is fire, you'll see ice attacks. Vice versa, too. If lightning, you'll see water. Again, vice versa. If it's wind, he'll use earth-based attacks like Magnitude 8 and Cave In, and if it's earth he'll go to wind attacks like Sonic Boom and Gale Cut. If he's weak to poison, he'll try to cure himself, and if he's weak to Holy-elemental, he'll try to attack you physically or use Reverse Polarity.

Here's what he'll do. He'll simply strike you physically for 30 seconds (this first round doesn't indicate Holy weakness). Then, he'll do his first Barrier Change. When you manage to strike his weakness (you can figure it out via Libra spell), he'll perform it again. If 30 seconds of action elapses first instead (are you taking a nap?), he'll perform another Barrier Change anyway. After he has performed a Barrier Change three times, he'll go haywire, even though you haven't destroyed him; the result of this 'System error' is apparently calling up Arctic Hares (the more successful branch of the Lagomorph family), enjoying Sunbaths, and finding his true self with the Libra spell. After 30 seconds of this, he'll snap out of it again, starting over as if he had cast his first Barrier Change of the battle. Weird stuff, man.

But you won't have to see all this madness. The Sleep spell, taught to you by Siren, works on the fiend, as does Cait Sith's Imp spell. Alone, they severely cripple him; together, they are an unstoppable force. Keep him sleeping and make sure you only cast Magic. If that blasted neutral Tapir shows up and awakens him, cast Sleep again as soon as possible. If Gau is among your forces, just have him relax. Try to steal with Locke; Rune Blade or Blood Sword, both are nice additions if nothing else. I'd especially go for the Blood Sword if you have any choice in the matter, as it's quite unique. In the end, Number 024's Hit Points will run out, and he will die. Victory dance, coffee break, et cetera. Expand Full Strategy

Number 128 is not so much a human with the cybernetic parts in him as a robot with flesh on it. To top it, he's stronger than anything you've ever encountered so far. There are three attacking parts here, and only three party members. The absolute worst part is the fact that he carries a very rare sword on him, a sword that will remain useful throughout the entire game, of which only two exist; one in a chest you'll find two dungeons from now, one as a rare steal on this very opponent. It's by no means horrible if you don't obtain it, but it's really nice if you do.

There are two blades. Left Blade and Right Blade. They're to the left and right of Number 128. Hence their names. They attack physically every round, and throw in a mean Special if you're in bad luck. If you kill them, they'll be back within 15 seconds. Left Blade knows Shamshir, which is especially dangerous as it reveals invisible characters.

The main body is the worst, as you could imagine. Physical strikes more powerful than those of the blades, a Special that drains HP, the ability to cast the Blizzard spell, and cast a Net over a character. The latter two reveal invisible characters. But when both blades are killed, he gets really mean. He will cast Haste on himself to increase his amount of turns and begin using almost exclusively magical attacks. Gale Cut and Atomic Rays are both multi-target attacks, and Atomic Rays hurts quite a bundle. Shockwave is an attack you saw earlier on Dadaluma, and Blaster is its most dangerous move; while inaccurate, it will simply kill any character it does hit. If you are under the influence of Invisible, you get a Game Over.

So here's the strategy if you don't have Phantom at your disposal and/or have summoned him earlier: Ignore the blades and try to focus on the main body. Locke should use Hi-Potions or Phoenix Downs when necessary, and spend all other turns trying to get that Kazekiri blade rare steal. He's also useful for casting Slow spells on the blades to dampen their aggression, if he has learned it. Edgar is reliable and powerful with Drill or Chainsaw, but his brother not so much. If Sabin doesn't know the Thundara spell, I suggest Rising Phoenix. Eventually it will take out the blades, but Phantom gave us a head start at the very least, and you can always summon him again if you entered the battle while invisible. With Cyan, it's the same, only with Fang. If you obtain the Kazekiri, give it to him and simply Attack the body. Gau can Rage Anguiform to be sure to hit the body every Aqua Breath, or Rage Aspiran if you're feeling lucky. Gigavolt is stronger, yet not always multi-target. A few additional tips:

1. If (most of) your party is revealed and you can still summon Phantom, do so. Invisibility is definitely a positive status as long as you can keep at least one blade around at all times.
2. Counter your adversary's Haste spell with a Slow spell from your side when possible.
3. If you find yourself in the rare position of having Catoblepas equipped but not Phantom, summon the piglet Esper right away. There's a rather large chance he'll take out both blades in one go.

Number 128 is one of the most dangerous opponents of the game given its relative setting, and if your luck is just really, really bad it's possible to die even if you're a rather experienced player, especially if you're trying to get the Kazekiri. Expand Full Strategy

Omega Weapon's first life will use monster attacks. These include randomly (enemy) Meteor, Flare Star, Quake, Tornado, Aero, Tsunami, Lv. 3 Confuse, Lv. 4 Flare and Lv. 5 Death. Omega Weapon will stop using level-based spells once he dives below 32000 HP on his first life. Every 20 seconds, Omega Weapon will glow and will use Grand Delta on the subsequent turn. Grand Delta functions like Ultima, only it cannot be absorbed by Runic. Make sure that you have Reraise on all characters for this. Omega Weapon will counter-attack any atack you make use it with either Dischord (2/3 chance) or Freezing Dust (1/3) chance. When killed, Omega Weapon will glow without a message and use Vengeance to dispel all positive statuses, including Reraise.

Ideally, all characters are of suitable level to avoid Lv. 4 Flare and Lv. 5 Death, else they'll have a hard time surviving them. Lv. 3 Confuse shouldn't be a threat due to Ribbons. Since you used Float beforehand, the only attacks you'll need to worry about are Meteor, Flare Star, Tornado and Tsunami, which shouldn't be able to kill you. Heal up with Curaga whenever any of these moves slam a nasty dent in your HP. If Grand Delta is used, heal up and re-set Reraise ASAP.

The second life will be Omega Weapon in machine mode. It will randomly use any of the following attacks: Atomic Ray, Absolute Zero, Delta Attack, Blaster, Launcher, Wave Cannon, Magnitude 8, Gravity Bomb, Launcher and Metal Cutter. Every 20 seconds, Omega Weapon will glow and will use Mind Blast on the subsequent turn. When killed, Omega Weapon will use Heartless Angel to reduce all characters down to Critical status and move on to its third and final life. When struck by any kind of attack, Omega Weapon will counterattack twice; the first counter is either a physical (1/3) or Missile (2/3), the second is either Missile (2/3) or Blaster (2/3).

Delta Attack and Mind Blast, otherwise supreme nuisances, will have no effect due to your Ribbons. The biggest threats here are instant death attacks and Metal Cutter; should they hit, make sure to heal back up. Keep Reraise in place at all times, even without any attacks you know will kill you a surprise KO is right around the corner. Keep healing and damaging and you should have relatively little trouble with Omega Weapon's second life. When Omega Weapon uses Heartless Angel, I advise using a Megalixir to heal back up, as they require no casting time.

The last life of Omega Weapon is him combining the previous two AI scripts together, using two attacks (one from both lives) every turn. It will now counter twice: the first counter is either !Omega Drive or Freezing Dust, the second counter is either !Omega Drive or Blaster. The level-based Lores will make another appearance, by the way. Every 20 seconds, Omega Weapon will glow and use Forsaken the subsequent turn, which is quite powerful but managable. If not, there's always Reraise.

The trick during all three lives is to avoid Omega Weapon counterattacks, as they are often the most debilitating (Freezing Dust, Dischord, Blaster). Use Quick for this. Within the time freeze that is caused by Quick, no counter-attacks will ever be made. Make your first turn an offensive one; either a mass damage attack such as Gravija, Ultima, Tempest, Master's Scroll Attack or Osmose, whichever you have and need. Never attack Omega Weapon on the second turn; just use a buff or healing spell or use the Defend command.

If the above strategy is well-played, Omega Weapon will be a very easy target. Without Quick though, you'll spend a lot of time taking care of the victims of Omega Weapon's counterattacks, which will slow you down considerably, allowing for more attacks. Expand Full Strategy

The Phantom Train will start with the battle with either a physical attack, !Wheel, or Diabolic Whistle. The next four turns will be spent using normal physical attacks and his Special !Wheel; the fifth turn will be Diabolic Whistle, but only if there are at least two characters still alive.

After every 15 seconds of battle, Phantom Train will use either Acid Rain (2/3) or Saintly Beam, an attack that deals multi-target Holy-elemental damage to your party. Finally, if Phantom Train has been damaged, he has a one in three chance of using !Wheel.

For trivia, Saintly Beam used to be Phantom Train-exclusive until Holy Dragon Redux showed its pasty face for the Advance release. Given it's such a nasty move in that fight, its occurrence here at least shows the Phantom Train was on the right track.

The fight against Phantom Train can be real easy and real bad, and it all depends on his Diabolic Whistle attack. This sets one random status ailment on your party out of the following: Darkness, Poison, Imp, Doom, Berserk, Confused, Sap and Slow. Due to a GBA-exclusive bug, you can circumvent all effects from this attack by equipping a Relic which protects against Imp (such as the White Cape). It should've still applied other status ailments in that case, but it doesn't.

The ones you need to be concerned about are Imp, Berserk, and Confused. If one of your characters is Imped, you'll want to use Hi-Potions to damage Phantom Train. Hi-Potions inflict 250 worth of HP damage, which is superior to your crummy Imped Attack command. Smack your Confused characters, as there's nothing more fatal than Confused characters, especially when they have access to Rising Phoenix or barrier-piercing attacks.

The Phantom Train battle is very much like the Apparition battle in the sense that using a Phoenix Down is the coward's way out, and that the strategy revolves around allowing Cyan to start the battle with his third Bushido skill, Tiger. After this, have Sabin come in with an Aura Cannon and Shadow with Shuriken. A lot of people have dubbed it 'hilarious' to have Sabin use Meteor Strike on the Phantom Train. If you want to see a tiny sprite lift a huge train, be my guest. Expand Full Strategy

Plague is a blue Ahriman that will use Doom on the entire party at the start of the battle. Plague'll use physical attacks, !Gaze and Trine to attack the party. Trine is an attack we haven't seen since Kefka's AI Script; it still sets Darkness and Silence on all party members, and it's still unblockable. When successfully hit by an Attack command, Plague will counter with a Haste spell on the offending character. That may seem nice, but realize that Haste will also speed up your Doom timer. When struck by any Magic spell, Plague will counter with a Roulette spell. Itself being immune to its effects, it'll probably just take out a party member. Good luck actually hitting Plague though, as it has perfect Evasion and Magic Evasion.

There are numerous ways to work around the full-party Doom. Safety Bits, Memento Rings and Lich Rings will all either prevent Doom from working or heal the character when the timer runs out. Having one or two characters with Haste will make them expire before the others, so you can just revive each in turn. You can even let a single character's timer run out when that character has cast a Quick spell and revive.

Equip Ribbons to protect yourself from !Gaze, Trine and general ridicule from your peers. Plague has relatively little HP, but you'll need to strike it. Flood, Meteor, Meltdown and Ultima spells are unblockable, as are most of your secondary skills. Throw Fuma Shuriken, use Phantom Rush, etc. Cyan's Eclipse Bushido, due to the unique way it sets Stop, may actually set the Stop status on Plague so you can henceforth nail it with blockable attacks as well. Eclipse, see, is unblockable in nature and simply has a rough 55% chance of setting the Stop status regardless of the target's Evasion or Magic Evasion. Once Stopped, you can set Slow, Silence or Berserk at your heart's content.

Prepare to face Doom and status ailments with protective Relics and you can't really lose this battle. Expand Full Strategy

Tiger will act very rarely, but, when it does, the effects tend to be less than desirable for your part of this ordeal. Characters that absorb Fire are relatively safe from Tiger's attacks, but it'll be rough for the others. Tiger's normal AI script reads Nothing - strong attack - Nothing - 1/3 Battle - loop, but once you pound it below 11520 it'll get mad and start using the strong attacks every turn, with a 1/3 chance of using !Zombie Fang in the same turn immediately afterwards. This frenzied Tiger is far and away the most troublesome opponent of this tier and is priority number one as a result. Since his elemental weakness is the popular and easily exploitable Ice-elemental variant, Blizzaga spells and Thrown Icebrand blades are extremely strong attacks versus the ferocious feline. Did you know: Tiger's image is the exact same one as Sabin uses when he executes his Desperation Attack 'Tiger Break'?

If you'd thought that you had seen the last of those repetitive machine moves when you destroyed the Empire's most powerful weapon, you had better think again. Machine is less than picky with its AI script and will randomly use any of its attacks in any situation with only one quirk: Once Machine hits 11520 HP, it'll stop using Atomic Rays and start using the ever-so-slightly stronger Absolute Zero attack.

Magic uses spells. A lot of them. It has all kinds of conditions too, so allow me to present them to you: Normally, it's Poison, Drain, Bio, Firaga, Confuse, Haste, Imp, Hastega. When its HP drops below 30720, it's: Blizzaga, Thundaga, Holy, Flare, Sleep, Stop, Reflect, Slowga, Reraise. Below 20096, another change: Blizzara, Firaga, Thundaga, Holy, Flare, Rasp, Silence. Below 10240, same story: Starts using 33% Graviga spell as an omni-counter. Finally, below 5120: Starts using 33% Graviga and up to two Dispel spells as an omni-counter. Note that when Magic dies, its Mute status will be removed and its final counter will definitely produce results.

Power hits you. Every turn it uses Battle. It never rests or does something remotely interesting; it just sits there and pounds every character it can get its hands on. When it dies, it uses !10-Hit Combo once and follows up with nine Battle attacks before croaking for good. Obviously you were supposed to expect a tenth hit here, but luckily you have me to suck the fun out of every single one of those little tricks.

You should still be buffed up from the previous battle, so there's no need to redo it now. Don't touch Golem/Fenrir yet. Start by killing Machine ASAP; once again, the Air Anchor really helps. Death spells are a suitable replacement. Cast the Silence spell on Magic, or use the Bad Breath Lore. If Magic managed to set Haste on Power, cast Slow to counter the effects. By this point, you should have killed Machine, crippled Magic into uselessness, and Slowed the inherently inferior Power. What's left is Tiger.

Focus all your attacks on Tiger. Like I said, Blizzaga spells and Thrown Icebrand blades really hurt it. When Northern Cross hits home, use a Fire spell to recover. Don't let Zombies roam either; cure immediately and make destroying Tiger a priority over healing as Tiger is the only dangerous opponent on the field (not to mention the fact that, if you're in trouble, he can't be more than 10000 HP away from defeat based on his AI). Once Tiger is down, recover from any wounds you might've obtained and go for Magic instead.

After you've killed Magic (there's no special tricks), you'll probably have one or more characters who have lost their positive statuses due to !Zombie Fang, dying in some other manner, or Dispel. Re-set them (since Power won't be KO-ing anybody anytime soon) before finally going for the kill on the final part. Power's !10-Hit Combo shouldn't hurt too bad; even in such large numbers, its weak and inaccurate physicals fail to impress. Expand Full Strategy