Final Fantasy VI Bosses

Tunnel Armor is more or less a scripted battle; it forces you to use Celes as a Runic user while Locke should Attack, Attack, Attack!

Tunnel Armor is boring. He uses Attack, !Drill, Fire, Thunder, and Poison to hurt you. If he hits 384 HP, he'll swap the possibility of casting Poison for the ability to fire off Magitek Lasers. If he's been damaged, he'll sometimes counter with Attack.

Have Celes under continual Runic during this fight. If your enemy casts a spell, have her use it as soon as possible. If the enemy uses a physical attack, just have Celes wait; there'll be a magical attack around the corner. Locke should try to steal something as long as Tunnel Armor still has anything. If you steal a second Air Knife, and Locke still has a Genji Glove with a Main Gauche equipped, you can use the second Air Knife by equipping it mid-battle. Have Locke use a Hi-Potion if either character gets low on HP; the strongest attack he'll be able to successfully use is !Drill, which hits for slightly over 100 HP worth of damage on a Genji Glove wearing, Front Row Locke. Otherwise, he should simply attack. Expand Full Strategy

Remember when some scholar-type guy told you there were two so-called Atma Weapons? Strangely enough, you ought to own one and have defeated the other, so what's the deal with this guy? Clearly, now that Kefka has control over the Goddesses, he's made them craft an even stronger version of the legendary beast of mass destruction we destroyed a year ago. Or something.

I am the one known as Ultima...Forged an eternity ago and left here...Forgotten in the mists of time...Long have I pondered what I should do...Long, long have I pondered...But now it seems I have an answer...

Ultima Buster isn't as interesting as it hypes itself up to be. Normally, he uses the level 3 spells, switching to a Northern Cross or Southern Cross attack every now and then. When he hits 32640 HP, he'll revert to Firaga, Quake, Meteor spells, Tsunami, and Flare Star. When you hurt the fiend, he may counter with Battle, but what Ultima Buster is actually doing here is storing the hate he develops from your blows into the ultimate attack: whenever he is hurt 12 times, he will stop acting and start storing energy: "A strange light surrounds Ultima Buster" The boss will proceed to glow yellow and do nothing for two turns before unleashing the strongest attack known to man: Ultima. It hurts really bad (count on around 2400 HP worth of damage), and you don't want that.

Ultima Buster's unique elemental coverage makes Holy Lance Dragoons useless, so give them Partisans at the start of the battle. Summon your barriers: Mighty Guard, Hastega, Zona Seeker's Wall, Earth Wall, Moon Song, Life Guard, you know what works. Don't forget to set Slow on Ultima Buster, and you might try Stealing too, although there's nothing especially grand to obtain in this fight.

Keep yourself healed and make sure you only execute the strongest attacks. Ideally, if you don't have Runic, you want to take out Ultima Buster in twelve hits or less, which makes for a needed average of around 4600 damage a hit. That shouldn't be too much of a problem, right? If it is, there's a few ways around the situation:

• The Reraise spell;
• Have a character summon Quetzalli around the time Ultima Buster flashes yellow for the second time, causing Ultima to miss all your characters.
• Don't attack Ultima Buster - just set Reflect and keep yourself healed with Healing Rods, Hi-Potions, and White Wind until his own level 3 spells have damaged him enough to lower him into his 'dangerous phase'. Debilitator might help to speed things up there. Now that he's already fairly damaged, you should be able to kill him before he gets to Ultima.

Obviously, if you do have Runic at your side, there's nothing to worry about as, when Ultima Buster starts glowing, you can just initiate the Runic skill and watch the attack be absorbed by the blade. Expand Full Strategy

Ultima Weapon is quite a challenge. Not quite as disgustingly horrible as Air Force, but you don't have the ability to divide and conquer that made the Air Force battle palatable. Ultima Weapon starts like a rather tough monster, and as he has the most HP of any normal monster so far (Intangir excluded), he'll be quite the little troublemaker.

His normal battle script starts with a pretty rockin' speech, and then it continues to simply pound your character into submission with Attack, Flare, and Blaze. Flare is a snazzy new spell you're probably not familiar with yet. Flare is non-elemental and barrier-piercing, though you can protect yourself with Reflect Rings and the like. This is, until he reaches 12800 HP, at which point he'll start casting Bio, Quake, or the enemy version of Meteor, use either Attack or !Full Power, use an multi-target Fira spell, and end with Mind Blast.

Mind Blast is a multi-target attack that randomly selects a character four times and sets one randomly selected status ailments out of the following possibilities: Darkness, Zombie, Poison, Imp, Petrify, Doom, Silence, Berserk, Confuse, Sap, Sleep, Slow, and Stop. If a character is never chosen, he won't be affected by the spell; if a character was randomly selected three times, he'll get three randomly selected status ailments set on him. As you can imagine, you can come away from this attack with relatively minor damage, or with some fairly severe damage. It might be a good idea to summon Unicorn if you have it after Mind Blast has been used.Due to a GBA-exclusive bug, you can circumvent all effects from the attack in this version by equipping a Relic which – under normal circumstances – only protects against Imp (such as the White Cape). Gaining Imp immunity with a Rage will work as well.

After Mind Blast, Ultima Weapon will get even stronger. The message "Focusing energy" will appear, and Ultima Weapon will give himself Protect, Shell, and Haste status and glow an eerie yellow. He'll wait for his next turn and glow yellow again. That next turn, he'll glow yellow for a long time, some cogwheels will spin (as a hobby assembly enthusiast, I wonder how the heck they did that), and Ultima Weapon will use the move Flare Star.

Flare Star is a neat attack. It's fire-elemental and its damage depends on your level. It multiplies the level of a random party member by 80 and splits the damage by the amount of characters you have. So, if you have a four-headed party, all level 25, the damage will be 500 per party member. After Flare Star, he basically starts over again with Bio/Quake/(enemy) Meteor, etc.

When you knock him below 6144 HP, he'll start using another set of spells: Attack, Graviga, Tornado, Rasp, and Blaze. Every time he is damaged in this stage, he'll have a 33% chance of countering the attack with Flare. He'll keep this up until he dies.

You can basically do two things here. In both scenarios you'll want your party covered in Reflect Rings. Celes shouldn't need to use Runic until the final stage of Ultima Weapon, when he gains the ability to cast Graviga, as this can be absorbed by Celes' Runic blade yet flies past Reflect Rings.

If a lot of your characters know the Rasp spell (say, three or four), you could try to Rasp his 5000 MP down to 0 and kill him that way. It will take longer than HP violence will, but if you just stick with attacking his MP, he'll never leave the 'safe' offensive scheme (Attack, Flare, and Blaze), against which Zona Seeker and Reflect Rings result in easy victory. Even without those two, it'll still be easier on you to handle it than the standard HP-depletion method will.

If you decide to just smack him to death with your ouchies, beware. Start the battle off with Zona Seeker to soften the blow of his magical attacks. Make staying alive priority one: Flare can do over 600 damage, so be prepared for a Flare spell at all times if you're not covered in Reflect Rings. Cast Slow on him to slow him down.

Try to steal a Ribbon with Locke; you'll thank yourself for the effort later. If Edgar is in your party and can use a Debilitator, use it until you've nailed a nice weakness to exploit. Then exploit it (as if you needed me to say that!).

If he uses Mind Blast, cure the most dangerous status ailments and proceed. If the message "Vast energy focused" appears, use Dispel to remove your adversary's positive status effects (and don't forget to cast Slow again).

Basically, it's a story of heal first and damage later. Terra, Celes, and Relm should just use their level 2 spells (Blizzara is, by a very slight margin, the strongest of the three – unless, of course, you've Debilitator'd him to have a weakness). Have Locke steal until he has acquired either an Elixir or a Ribbon, and use Hawkeyes to fight with for the duration of the battle. Edgar can use Drill and Sabin Aura Cannon for superior damage.

Mog's Dance is up for debate. The Earth Blues is the home Dance, so it will never fail, and it also has the most damaging attack of all Mog's attacks: Rock Slide. The Water Harmony, on the other hand, has a more constant damage output, as both El Niño (most common attack) and Plasma (2nd most common attack) will work. In contrast, Earth Blues' Sonic Boom will fail whenever it's used. I'm leaning toward Earth Blues myself, but it's more a matter of personal preference.

Setzer will probably want to stick to Gil Toss. Even with double Earring, his level 2 spells are inferior to Gil Toss and his Slots aren't very useful in this fight. Prismatic Flash can't compare to Gil Toss, Chocobo Stampede misses entirely due to Ultima Weapon's inherent Float and the other attacks are too rare to consider an option.

Cyan's Flurry out-damages Fang, so try to have other characters attack while you wait for Flurry to load. It might be safer, if you're less experienced, to simply stick to Fang and have him run utility work if that's necessary. If you seriously brought Cyan for some reason I expect you to have taught him at least one level 2 spell; with one pair of Earring, a level 2 spell will outdamage Fang.

Strago's Aqua Breath attack is the strongest he'll be able to do. If you equipped Reflect Rings, his White Wind move will be very nice to have around. Traveler might be stronger than Aqua Breath, but it should also be much more troublesome on your MP. Try it out and see what works for you. An added benefit of Aqua Breath, by the way, is its dual-elemental nature; if you brought Edgar, there's a double chance Strago can exploit the Debilitator-induced weakness with the attack.

Gau's best choices are probably Ninja (Water Scroll), Chimera (Aqua Breath), Bomb (Blaze) or Outcast (Lifeshaver). Ninja is the strongest offensively, but you probably didn't go back to pick it up. Outcast is very defensive; since it makes Gau absorb Fire-elemental attacks, is inherently Floating, and gives the Undead property, Outcast will protect against Fira, Bio, Quake, Blaze, Flare Star and (due to a bug) all the effects of Mind Blast. If you have level 2 spells on Gau, I'd advise you to use Magic rather than Rages in this battle, as the level of control will be nice to have. And, with all the Attacks Gau uses, damage output will be higher overall. Expand Full Strategy

Before you try to hurt Ultros, make sure your Ramuh-wearing character is equipped with an Earring relic (or two). If you have a Burning Fist-wearing Sabin, he should be in the third or fourth position, as this will ensure that he faces Ultros' back at the start of the match. Make sure that your party is covered in Peace Rings/Ribbons, as Ultros has the ability to set Confuse, which is serious business.

Ultros is back and he's better and badder then ever. Only not really, because he actually has fewer HP than he did when you first met him. To compensate, he has quite a few spells to throw at you, and has a nasty Command Script that gives him the power to, at the worst situation possible, actually take 10197 HP of damage before going down. Here's how that works:

Ultros has four positions. He starts at Position 1. Every time he completes two turns he'll make a comment, switch to another position and start using different spells. Now the story and our eyes will have us believe that it's one Ultros, hopping about; the game, however, treats this battle as one with four Ultros's, each with his own set of 2550 HP. If you hurt Ultros but let him escape to a different position, you can Libra him and see he will again have 2550 out of 2550 HP. At least, that's what you would see if this Ultros weren't immune to Libra. So, the trick is to kill him as quickly as possible, before he can move around at all.

For the record, he will go like this: 1 - 3 - 2* - 4 - 2 - 1 - 4 - 2 - 3 (If he reaches the 3 at the end of the chain, he'll attack four times before sliding back to 2*).

So what does Ultros do? He counters Blitz techniques and Bushido skills with Acid Rain, a nasty Water/Poison-elemental attack that sets Sap. I'd advise against using those skills, especially because Sabin will inflict more damage with the Burning Fist then he will with his Blitz attacks (unless it's Rising Phoenix, and only if he's hitting with the Burning Fist in the back of Ultros). After every minute of battling, Ultros will use Imp Song, which changes the living characters on one side of him into Imps. This is very annoying and yet another reason to deal with Ultros as quickly as possible.

Finally, his attack pattern is this, depending on his position:

1. Attack, !Ink or Tentacle
2. Attack (33%) or Fire (66%)
3. Attack (33%) or Lv. 3 Confuse (66%)
4. Attack or Megavolt or Drain

Locke is fairly useless; Ultros has nothing to steal whatsoever. If Locke knows Slow or Thundara, have him cast it. Otherwise, just attack. Edgar's Chainsaw inflicts very decent damage, and I've said hopefully enough about Sabin's Burning Fist already to generate the impression that I actually want you to use it. Cyan should ignore his Bushido command and act like Locke. Gau, finally, can either pick a Rage like Aspiran or Cloud for direct violence (Aspiran is godly), or Acrophies/Alacran for causing Stop if you want to prevent him from changing position rather than going for a speed kill.

Unless it's equipped on Sabin, summoning Ramuh takes priority over anything else; you may consider giving it to one of the others in the case that Ramuh is paired with Sabin leading up to this battle. It's basically a Thundara spell coming from someone who probably hasn't learned Thundara yet, which makes Ramuh incredibly effective against your marine adversary. Expand Full Strategy

Ultros isn't very hard this time around. He starts the battle off with the message "Thought you wouldn't see me again? I've got more lives than I do arms!" He'll normally use Attack, !Ink, Stone, and Tentacle. After every minute of battle, he'll use Hailstone, a percentage-based attack that removes 75% of your current HP.

Every other turn, he'll start by taking a little slither in your direction. Once he has slithered eight times, he uses a particularly nasty spell: Either Aqua Breath or Magnitude 8. You can easily take both (especially the latter if you're equipped with Gaia Gear, as you should be), but you can make him back off one slither if you hit him three times with a Magic spell (not a Lore, however). Not that that's really advisable, but I'll explain that in a minute.

When Ultros reaches the low grounds of mere 15360 HP, he'll cast Haste and Protect on himself. "I know what you're thinking... Man, that was cheap! Sorry, so sorry!" Indeed. Once you've cast five spells on him, he'll go red and the screen will say: "Ultros alters his body composition! Use elemental attacks at your own risk!" This means that any Fire-elemental spells will be countered by Firaga, Ice-elemental spells by Blizzaga, and Lightning-elemental spells by Thundaga.

As soon as you bring Ultros down to 10240 HP, a cutscene will trigger to bring in Relm. She'll chat with Ultros, and some moments later - after the obviously hi-la-rious cutscene has passed - will join you on your side against Ultros. If you use her Sketch ability on him, Ultros will say: "How can this be? I'm just a...washed-up old octopus?" and leave.

The strategy is pretty straightforward. I wouldn't bother with offensive spells whatsoever if I were you (other than two Slow spells, one to start off with and one to counter his Haste/ Protect combo with). If you have Golem's Stop spell, use it to great effect and cast it every time you see Ultros taking another turn. Strago's Rods, should they have the Fire or Lightning element, will do decent damage overall (especially when that random spell steps in). Ultros Floats, so Locke can horribly abuse that with his Hawkeye(s) (you can cast Berserk on Locke if you feel like you can sacrifice controlling him). Terra can wield Flametongues and/or Thunder Blades to hurt Ultros a bundle. If Strago's level is 25, he can rock out with his rock out; Stone will do major damage. Try to Steal a White Cape, as it's basically free and generally useful. End the battle with Sketch if you want to. Expand Full Strategy

Ultros is an absolute joke this time, with a very simple script and weak stats. He has three attacks: Attack, !Octopus Ink, and Tentacle, so we're back to basics. If he reaches 12800 HP - that's about 5000 damage, something a Bio spell coming from a normally leveled Earring-boosted Terra can do in ONE hit - he will complain and call his buddy, Typhon. "Ultros: Looks like I lose again! But today I brought along a buddy of mine! Mr. Typhon! Come on down!!!" From here, he'll keep attacking like he used to, only he'll talk about the monstrosity now.

Typhon is nothing to worry about either. His attacks are unassuming, his stats fairly weak: Attack and Fireball are past their prime. When he dies, he'll use a final Snort attack on everybody. Gezondheid!

Strategy? Psh. Summoning Phantom at the very start takes care of Attack and !Octopus Ink, and you can Berserk or Silence Mr. Typhon as soon as he comes down. You're invulnerable. Not that a normal Cure or Cura spell couldn't prevent any kind of danger, but... on the offensive side, Fira and Bio work very well on Ultros (yes, he suddenly traded his Lightning-weakness for a Poison one), and Chupon can suck down some Blizzara spells. It's just acceleration material though, as this is a very easy battle. Expand Full Strategy

Ultros is a tough octopod whose Tentacle attack can be a huge pain if you're playing the game without over leveling. Everybody must be in the Back Row. If you are a moron and played with any of your characters in the Front Row, fix that. He'll start by delivering his intro speech and using an Attack. Then, if 10 seconds have passed (and they will have), he'll say "Oh, that one's a tasty morsel! I'd love to get my tentacles around her... *sluuuuuurp*!" and target Terra with a single-target Tentacle attack. If at his next turn another 10 seconds have passed, he'll say "Muscle heads? Hate 'em!" target Sabin with a single-target Tentacle attack and use a multi-target Tentacle attack on his next turn, followed by either Attack, !Ink or a single-target Tentacle in that very same turn; if not, he'll spread the happiness with a multi-target Tentacle/follow up with Attack/!Ink/ single-target Tentacle, wait a turn, and then hate on Sabin for his body. His next turn is devoted to an Attack and either an Attack, !Ink or single-target or multi-target Tentacle attack in the same turn.

Then, he'll say "Your ugly mug gives me the creeps!" and use a single-target Tentacle attack on Banon, from where he'll start at his first multi-target Tentacle-Attack/!Ink/single-target Tentacle turn again. Also, every time he is targeted by a Fire-elemental attack, which at this stage is either a Fire spell from Terra or Sabin's Rising Phoenix Blitz, he will say "Yeeeouch! Seafood soup is NOT on the menu!" and counter with an !Ink attack... yeah, he's a talkative guy.

Beating Ultros down is relatively simple if you pay close attention to his AI script. Have at the very least Terra and Banon in the Back Row using their Defend skill to reduce the power of Tentacle when you know they'll be targeted by it. Have Banon use Pray at all times, as his Attack is nothing to consider seriously (even though he possesses a snazzy weapon that you won't get on other characters for a long, long time). For damage output, have Terra use her Fire spells, Edgar fire off arrows with the Auto Crossbow, and Sabin use Aura Cannon. If he knows Rising Phoenix at this point, it's stronger than Aura Cannon, but if you're that highly leveled you probably don't need to worry much in the first place. Expand Full Strategy

Valigarmanda is attacking you. That's not very nice of him. Luckily, he has very little to damage you with. Blizzaga is his only offensive spell, and as most of your party is easily covered in Flame Shields, Ice Shields, or the Minerva Bustier bustier, the spell will do nothing to them. If you lack the above equipment for all characters, it's worthy of notice that the Thunder Shields and Force Shields both halve damage done by Ice-elemental attacks (dont't forget that the Force Shield also grants the wearer inherent Shell, reducing damage done by the Blizzaga spell by another 33%).

What Valigarmanda does is all very basic. The Esper attacks normally with the above three spells, although he hardly ever uses Freezing Dust just like that. Whenever Valigarmanda is hit by a Fire-elemental attack, it has a one-third chance of casting Rasp. Also, whenever Valigarmanda is hit by either SwdTech, Tools, Blitz, Lore, Sketch, or Rage, it has a one-third chance of casting Freezing Dust to freeze the attacker.

The strategy the game wants you to follow is clear. Fire-elemental Magic is the key. You will mainly be casting Fira here. Sabin's Rising Phoenix deals weaker damage to a single target and may incite a Freezing Dust attack, but if Sabin lacks Fira, it will have to serve as a suitable backup. If you brought Gau, the Twinscythe Rage (Shrapnel) works great because it inherently absorbs Blizzaga. A Rage like Devil Fist is also great, providing you can combine it with an Ice Shield or Snow Scarf on the Rager. The Io Rage is even better as it will consistently deal 9920 damage every time Gau uses Flare Star and inherently nullifies Ice-elemental attacks, but it's unlikely you have it at this point.

There's little strategy involved beyond this, as the battle is quite easy. If you somehow didn't bring any equipment with elemental properties, Zona Seeker can help you out there. Cast Haste on the entire party (now with the Hastega spell, brought to you by Quetzalli) can shorten the time a character is Frozen; heck, if that's taking too long as well feel free to just cast a Fire spell on the afflicted and watch him turn back to normal. Celes' Runic can absorb the Blizzaga and Rasp spells; it won't be necessary if you prepared enough, but if you haven't it's a great idea. Expand Full Strategy

Two Ipooh bears initially protect Vargas; you can't harm him until you have killed them. Ipooh attack physically only, with Attack and !Claw. Vargas will casually switch between Attack and Gale Cut in an Attack-Gale Cut-Attack rhythm. Dance to it. After every 50 seconds, he will taunt you cruelly by saying: "Come on! What's the matter?" and use Attack twice, as if to insult you. What a jerk.

Once he hits 10880 HP - that's after 720 damage - he will start getting bored with you and exclaim: "Enough of this! I'll send you all to the great beyond!" Just then, a new character will appear. It's Sabin Rene Figaro, long lost heir to the throne of Figaro and twin brother to Edgar.

It seems that Vargas misunderstood the outcome of a successor issue concerning Duncan, their master in the martial arts and Vargas' father. Vargas turned to patricide, and here Sabin is complimenting Vargas on his fine spirit. Morals these days, let me tell ya... Anyway, Vargas executes "Blizzard Fist!" Blasting all inferior warriors of the field, the battle is up to Sabin alone.

When Sabin has appeared and Vargas hits 10368 HP - that's 512 more damage - Sabin will lament over his master's teachings. You'll have to use a Blitz to win this battle. Once the primary Blitz technique has been used, Vargas will... die or run, it's kind of vague. At any rate, Vargas is never to be heard from again.

Your strategy? When you engage Vargas, try to pick some Ipooh pockets (metaphorically) with Locke, have Edgar use Auto Crossbow, and Terra use single-target Fire spells on the Ipooh you looted. After you've taken care of the Ipoohs, switch to the Bioblaster with Edgar and have Terra on stand-by for a multi-target Cure spell for every Gale Cut that is sent your way. After a successful Steal attempt with Locke, have him attack. The Bioblaster will facilitate the bulk of your damage anyway, so spending a turn moving to the Front Row and then taking more damage there probably isn't justified.

Eventually, Sabin will crash the party. Pay attention, as you are about to do the most complicated thing invented in video game history. That's right, you're about to execute a Blitz technique. Follow on-screen commands closely. Write them down. Remember. After you've completed a Raging Fist technique, you've won your battle. Expand Full Strategy

Short Arm is incapable of doing anything magical, and it will normally just use Battle. It has a 66% chance of countering any damage it takes with Battle too. When it hits 10112 HP, Short Arm may start to use !Razor Gale, which is a tad stronger. Did you know '112' is the Dutch alarm number? Did you care? Long Arm is only slightly more inventive than its shorter twin; it switches between Battle and Shockwave. When it hits 10240 HP, Long Arm takes a break from the Shockwave attacks and uses either Battle or does nothing whatsoever. Bold strategy, Cotton. If Long Arm is the last target to be taken out in this first battle, it'll use up to three Shockwave attacks before going palm-up.

Visage is one that only a mother could love, I suppose, and since there is no mother to speak of, it only makes sense that this creature is trapped in a state of continuous furious torment. It doesn't really do a lot normally, very rarely using either Reverse Polarity or !Sapping Strike. Every fifth turn it'll use either Protect or Haste on one of its Arms. Of course, the trouble begins once you pound it enough and it hits 10240 HP. From this moment on, it'll never rest and use either !Sapping Strike or the Petrify-inducing Dread Gaze attack. In this damaged state, every fifth turn may feature Dread Gaze, Magnitude 8, or Reverse Polarity. If Visage is the last target to be killed, it'll go with a Quake spell.

The first tier of the final battle is beyond any doubt the easiest tier, and, since every succeeding tier will be more difficult to handle than the previous one, it makes sense to use the relative harmlessness of this titan to your advantage. Start the battle off by reducing the damage you're taking. Take out Long Arm easily by employing an instant death attack: either use the Air Anchor on it or cast Break spells until one hits. Now, cast Slow on Short Arm and you're good to go. Make sure that you do not summon Golem or Fenrir right now: Their effects won't carry to the next tier and you'll need them much more up there.

Now that you're just taking !Sapping Strikes and occasional physical hits from the fiend, it's time for your barriers. Cast Hastega, Mighty Guard, Regen, Reraise, you've got all the time in the world and there's nothing stopping you from applying all the positive status ailments you see fit. Know that if you brought Terra to this battlefield, you can have her Morph and let her Morph timer run out while she's Sleeping to make her Morph status permanent. If you're done, it's time to finish this titan off.

You'll want to take out Visage before Short Arm, so focus your attacks on it. Since Visage is weak to Fire-elemental attacks, an single-target Firaga spell leaves a huge dent, as do Thrown Flametongues. There's nothing particularly interesting to say about the do's and don't's of this battle: focus your powers mainly on Visage, as you want to take it out first, and simply inflict damage as efficiently as possible. You've had much more experience with your characters than I have, so go with what has proven itself in your particular situation. Expand Full Strategy

Wrexsoul is obviously the main baddie here. The Ironically-named Soul Savers are the goons. At the start of the battle, Wrexsoul will cast Fury and leave the battlefield to invade one of your characters. He won't re-appear for you to damage him until the character he invaded receives Wound, Petrify, or Zombie status. When he's out he'll just sit there for a while, attack with Battle or casting Thundaga. When either one or two Soul Saver(s) has the Reflect status, he'll cast Thundaga on it, causing the spell to bounce off and hit your party. Like any proper boss, he'll counter Fight with a 33% shot at Battle.

The Soul Savers are the bane of this battle. Essentially immortal, they'll regenerate as soon as you kill them off. Normally they'll just sit there, slinging level 3 spells at you with a hilariously minimal effect. Whenever they hit 16 MP or less, they'll use !Magic Drain to drain you of your MP (and with a 50 Battle Power, their !Magic Drain is actually quite strong). They'll cast Reflect on themselves as soon as Wrexsoul is around, allowing him to cast Thundaga on them to damage you. On all other turns that Wrexsoul is around, they'll spend their time casting Cure spells on Wrexsoul for double-digit healing (in other words, a negligible amount).

Before the rise of normal, honest tactics, the usual method of winning this battle was casting Banish. The Soul Savers restore themselves over and over again, but when you successfully suck both Soul Savers into the parallel dimension with Banish, they can't do that and you'll just win the battle. The downside here is that you won't win the Guard Bracelet from Wrexsoul, as you won't have actually defeated him.

Normally, you'll just want to completely ignore the Soul Savers. Minerva Bustier wearers take no damage from them and anybody with an elemental shield should take very little damage all-round anyway (Thunder Shields are the best, as Thundaga is cast most often). First, throw up the usual barriers: Hastega, Earth Wall, Mighty Guard, Moon Song, Life Guard, what have you. Now, just check each character For Wrexsoul by killing him/her and reviving him/her. Strago can commit easy suicide with Self-Destruct (careful: Transfusion removes him from the battle; you don't want that). Shadow can throw Fuma Shurikens or Shuriken to do unblockable and non-elemental damage, while Setzer's Fixed Dice serve the same purpose. If you don't have these characters, just go ahead with spells and Fight attacks where you can; Flare and Break are great for killing party members (provided they hit). Flare has a superior Hit Rate, but with Break you've not technically killed a party member and can therefore bring him/her back without any HP loss by means of a Gold Needle or Remedy Item or spell. If the targeted character doesn't have too much MBlock, Strago's Stone attack can probably take him/her out in one hit; remember that Stone does 7.5 times as much damage when the target shares the caster's level, which is a likely case.

Whenever Wrexsoul appears, act fast and furious! His Magic Defense is a stunning 220, which makes sure that if a magical attack isn't barrier-piercing, it'd have to be a Blizzaga spell coming from Morphed Terra to do a lot of damage. Breaking Ice Rods and/or Ice Shields counts as a barrier-piercing attack, so that's an option if your team lacks offensive power. Ideally, you'll want to stick to targetable attacks: Setzer's Fixed Dice, Shadow's Fuma Shurikens (Icebrand Swords hurt a lot), and Edgar's Drill are good ones. Barrier-piercing attacks can even be multi-targeted; Mega Flare, Grand Delta, and Gau's Tyrannosaur-induced Meteor attacks work splendidly. A Flare spell is better than the Blizzaga spell if you have the choice. The pure magicians in your party should either cast Flare or Blizzaga or simply resort to attacking. If Strago hasn't learned Grand Delta (or Quasar) yet, Traveler is his best option (dual Ice Rods are also an option here, if you don't mind unusual equipment set-ups). Celes's Runic really doesn't help that much, as the level 3 spells aren't a real threat, so just keep on attacking and healing with her. Sabin's only hope at leaving a mark is Phantom Rush, with which you can only hope to hit Wrexsoul itself. With Umaro, just rage.

In the end, the Wrexsoul battle isn't really dangerous; it's just very annoying, especially if you have your characters geared towards Magic Block and are doing quite well in this respect. Your own characters can be surprisingly hard to take down when necessary. Expand Full Strategy

So, you've had three major battles against relatively easily defeated monsters with a weakness to Fire. Yeti is no different: a relatively easily defeated monster with a weakness to Fire.

Yeti employs all kinds of freaky attacks to try to damage you. Normally, he'll use Battle, !Tackle, and Blizzard. He uses physical attacks only when one of your characters is remains, but I see no reason for that to occur. Every 40 seconds (when 2 or more characters are alive), Yeti will either use Snowball (an unblockable ID attack that halves the target's current HP and sets Seizure), Surge, or Lode Stone (ID attack that takes off 75% of the targets current HP). Yeti may counter Fire-elemental attacks with either !Tackle or Blizzard, and every other kind of damage with !Tackle. Every third time Yeti is hit by a Magic spell, he'll use a Jump attack.

The interesting part of this fight is the Green Cherry Item. When you use it on him or he uses it himself (automatically when he reaches 10240 HP), he will glow red. This means that Yeti sets Safe, Shell, Haste, and Regen on himself. Sadly for Yeti, he has Seizure immunity, so you never get to see Regen in action. The appearance of the Green Cherry means Dispel time for you! Dispel will remove all of his power-ups (so will Strago's Rippler Lore, by the way).

Yeti is a very easy opponent. Since he has Berserk vulnerability, you can set it with the Berserk spell, summon Phantom, and effectively win the match right there. If this is not one of the options in your playbook, combining Sleep with Slow should really cripple him too. If status ailments are too cheap for you, Umaro is simply weak enough to defeat with damaging (so long as you heal when appropriate). Fira spells work just fine, as does Sabin's Phantom Rush, Dragon Horn Jump attacks, you name it. Expand Full Strategy

This battle is quite simple. Biggs and Wedge will alert each other about the grave importance of avoiding attacking the shell at all costs. When they're done, you can move in for your very first boss battle.

The shell and the head are two separate entities. The shell will do nothing as long as you don't attack it, but every time you deal damage, it will counter with Megavolt. Megavolt won't be strong enough to actually kill a character at full HP, but it will be strong enough to do so in two hits.

The head will just attack physically and on occasion slow you down with !Slime. After every 10 seconds, it'll 'retreat in its shell', disappearing from the battlefield. He'll keep this up for 10 seconds, and he'll pop out again.

Your strategy? The main thing to avoid is selecting an attack on the head just when it retreats. It's because of this it's best to just go with one attack for each character in one period of 10 seconds. When you can move, make your generic Imperial soldiers attack with a Beam-class attack and the mysterious girl use Magitek Missile. Wait until the head has retreated and appeared again. Repeat. Ymir should be dead by now if you fought all the battles against the Narshe guards; if not, just go for another round.

Note: If you are beyond the shame of any man, you can go for the Ether the shell provides. Since the shell only has 120 MP, he can only use six Megavolt attacks. After this, it is helpless. If you whittle down its 50000 HP and make sure you kill both the shell and the head with one attack (use a calculator!), you'll get both the Ether and a Hi-Potion, and it'll only have cost you over an hour and your dignity. Expand Full Strategy