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, MagiMaster can make use of Doom, Bio, or Mute. 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 MagiMaster has the Reflect status, he will bounce a level 3 spell off of himself every turn; MagiMaster will never self-apply the status though, and there's no reason for you to cast it.

You may have noticed that every spell MagiMaster uses is reflectable; yes, that they are. However, the thing about MagiMaster is that not only is he the ultimate mage, he's also fiercely loyal to Kefka. Given this, it's only logical that MagiMaster 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 MagiMaster, 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 Life 3 at the very least, keep yourself draped in Wall Rings at all times, as this will essentially make you invincible. Do not attack MagiMaster; as soon as you do this, he will use WallChange and he start countering all your attacks with WallChange, 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 WallChange, not even under the torment of his own attacks. Cast Life 3 on all your characters, and just wait this one out. Eventually, when MagiMaster has killed himself, he'll cast Ultima: everybody dies and is subsequently revived. You're free to go.

Without Life 3, 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 Bserk spell on MagiMaster 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 Scan 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 Palidor; the trick here is to kill MagiMaster 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 Scan; for optimal damage output, you'll want to equip barrier-piercing weapons where possible (Atma Weapon on Terra/Celes/Edgar/Locke, Valiant Knife on Locke, Fixed Dice or Dice on Setzer) to try and circumvent MagiMaster's crazy 250 Defense.

If you don't have Rasp... and you don't have Palidor either... eh... yeah. Last chance, honest. Equip a character (Terra, Celes, Edgar) with a Wall Ring, Genji Glove, Rune Edge/ Ragnarok/Illumina, and the Soul Sabre. The MP-critical weapon in the Right Hand, the MP draining weapon in the Left Hand. Now, cast Bserk on MagiMaster, vanish your party, and then cast Bserk 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?), Bserk a Heal Rod character to make sure MagiMaster doesn't die from the physical blows. Go take in a museum or something. Honestly, this is going to take ages. Expand Full Strategy

Unless both Mog's team and Locke's team have been beaten down severely, there's no good reason to use the four-generic-Moogle party against the Marshal. Between the other two, the choice is up to you. As you cannot get a Game Over in this part of the game - a defeated party is sent back to a certain point with all characters at 1 HP - you can always fight Marshal with Locke until you have stolen a Mithril Knife. If you have trouble with the actual 'killing' part of the Marshal battle (Power-wise, not moral-wise), Mog has extremely dangerous attacks to offer, so you can use him for that.

If you picked Mog's team, the Dusk Requiem will make short work of the fight regardless. If you picked Locke's team or the third and inferior party, you will want to kill one Lobo and then focus your attack on the Marshal. As long as he's not alone, he won't use !Charge, an extremely strong physical attack that can kill weaker units in the Front Row. He will, on the other hand, use the Net attack to stop some of your party members. You can try to stall if Locke is hit if you want to. Expand Full Strategy

Master Pug is very mean. He'll start the battle off with a Battle attack, and after this the madness will begin. Every 15 seconds, Master Pug takes a step forward; after seven steps, he'll use !Cleaver on a random character and retreat halfway back, meaning that he'll have to take just four more steps after that to reach the !Cleaver position again. Every step is accompanied with the ever-frustrating WallChange attack. Master Pug 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
Fire 3	Ice
Ice 3	Fire
Bolt 3	Wind
Bio	Pearl
W Wind	Lightning
Pearl	Poison
Quake	Water
Clean Sweep	Earth

One of the worst parts of this battle, though, is Master Pug's Step Mine 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 Pug, 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 Sour Mouth Lore also works (sets Poison too, by the way). Expand Full Strategy

Curley is the strongest of the three Dream Stooges, and also the most vital one to take down. He has a random shot at casting Pearl Wind every now and again, which heals the other Stooges and himself. Even worse, he will cast Life 2 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 Curley will always immediately make sure this is never the case with Life 2). When he's hit four times by a Magic spell, he'll cast Rflect on himself and start bouncing Fire 2 and Fire 3 spells off himself. When all three Stooges are alive, he'll cast Delta Hit every 30 seconds; Delta Hit 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 Fire 2 spell.

Larry 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 Mute and Muddle. He's the Ice-elemental of the three. Like Curley, he'll cast Delta Hit when all three Stooges are alive and 30 seconds have passed since the beginning of the battle/the last time Delta Hit appeared. He'll cast Rflect once he's been hit by Magic four times and start reflecting Ice 2 and Ice 3 spells off himself. Larry will normally just attack with Battle; he'll start using Ice 2 and Ice 3 spells when one Stooge is down. He'll counter 33% of the time with Ice 2. The interesting thing about Larry is that he may run away in the middle of a battle. When one of the Stooges is down and Larry 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.

Moe 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 Hit after 30 seconds, will cast Rflect on himself after four Magic spells, and start casting Bolt 2 and Bolt 3 on himself which bounce off; normally he uses support spells (Safe, Shell, Haste, and Cure 2), but he will start to cast offensive spells (Bolt 2 and Bolt 3) when one of the Stooges is down. He may counter any attack with a Bolt 2 spell. Moe is certainly the most boring of the three.

A note about Delta Hit: when the global battle timer reaches 30, the first Stooge to act will attack with Delta Hit. 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 Hit will appear, not three.

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

So long as you know what you're doing, it's really an easy battle; barriers like Big Guard, Haste 2, 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 Nerapa. 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 Condemned on the party. A bit redundant, if not outright illogical.

Sillier yet, the battle with Nerapa (or a Naughty) 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 Condemned on the party, he will finally get around attacking you. He can use Attack, Fire 2, Fire 3, and Fire Ball. Very spooky. Fire 3 actually hurts a bit. Now here's a hoot: If you hit Nerapa with six Attack commands, he'll use Roulette. Next to the fact that Roulette can actually take Nerapa himself down, the mere thought that Nerapa could even survive six Attacks is laughable in itself. You'd need a Heal 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 Rhodox 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 Doom 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 Giga Volt, or Aurabolt, or Gem Dust, or what have you. Nerapa has 2800 HP. That's it. If you played your cards right, you were doing 2800 in one attack back there against AtmaWeapon. Pushover. 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 Commando? 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, WallChange, 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 Magnitude8 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 WallChange. 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 WallChange anyway. After he has performed a WallChange 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 WallChange 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 Stray'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 Edge or Drainer, both are nice additions if nothing else. I'd especially go for the Drainer 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 RightBlade. 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 Shimsham, 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 Ice 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 Ray are both multi-target attacks, and Atomic Ray hurts quite a bundle. Shock Wave 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 Potions or Fenix Downs when necessary, and spend all other turns trying to get that Tempest 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 Bolt 2 spell, I suggest Fire Dance. 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 Dispatch. If you obtain the Tempest, give it to him and simply Attack the body. Gau can Rage Anguiform to be sure to hit the body every Aqua Rake, or Rage Aspik if you're feeling lucky. Giga Volt 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 Shoat 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 Tempest. Expand Full Strategy

This is better. Phunbaba (1) will start the battle with a physical attack, be it either Battle or !Solar Plex. Then, he'll start using Bolt 2 and Bolt 3 spells; finally, he can use Blowfish, which will likely be ill received, as 1000 damage is nothing to laugh at when it's coming for you. Phunbaba (1)'s name, if you're wondering, comes from the old Babylonian heroic poem 'Gilgamesh'. He was a monster there. He got killed, too.

If you have a Celes/Sabin team, have Sabin use his dual Poison Claws for great damage. Don't bother going on the offensive with Celes due to her lower damage output; have her on Runic standby. Both should start the battle by calling up Golem's Earth Wall if they have him equipped. If Sabin is weak, you should break the Runic guard to cure him. Smack Phunbaba (1) with Sabin's fists until he runs off.

If you have a solo Celes party, summon Golem to start, and fill all other turns by casting Bio (or, if lacking Bio, Ice 2) as quickly as you can. Fighting this guy with Celes only is a risk as no matter what you do, Blowfish is very dangerous and Phunbaba (1) can kill you. If you're low at HP, sneak in an X-Potion or Elixir.

Any other team needs little guidance; you've obviously been around the world, collected at least four characters, and have better equipment than neccessary. Bio spells still come in handy. What else is there to say? Setzer can't spin Joker Doom here. The best Dance is Earth Blues, while the home dance, Wind Song is nigh worthless. Vaporite absorbs Bolt 2 and Bolt 3 while dealing acceptable damage, although a Mag Roader P. Rage with a Wall Ring is better. Expand Full Strategy

This isn't all that difficult, so I'll make it kinda quick. You rush out of the house to find Phunbaba (2) approaching. You do battle with him. The first round, he'll throw a Battle or !Solar Plex attack. The next round consists of Bolt 2 or Bolt 3, and the third round is Bolt 2, Blowfish, or Battle. It loops from this point. As soon as it reaches 15360 Hit Points, it'll counter the next attack you throw at him with a double BabaBreath attack. BabaBreath is a Phunbaba (2)-only attack that's exactly the same as Sneeze; it only looks different. Phunbaba (2) targets two random characters and blows them away. They will also be removed from your party and can be found at the Falcon later. Here, the battle ends.

If you somehow managed to completely circumvent this event by doing more than 15360 damage in one turn, he'll use BabaBreath only once and die. This is odd, as the thing going on here plot-wise is that you can't really handle Phunbaba (2). Sure, you pound on him for a while, then he disables two of your characters just like that.

On the offensive, Phunbaba (2) is temporarily resistant to the Sleep status, so that doesn't work. Focus on your strongest attacks; Sabin's Bum Rush, Mog and Edgar's Jump attacks, Setzer's GP Rain attack (his Fixed Dice are stronger if you have them), Cyan's Quadraslam technique, what have you. If you brought Gau to the scene, !Catscratch at decent level (30 and above) is the best bet versus Phunbaba (2) for Gau. If this isn't an option for Gau, Tyranosaur's Meteo is also decent, followed in usefulness by Harpiai's Aero and Trilium's Bio. Vaporite absorbs Bolt 2 and Bolt 3, which is a great defensive choice if you didn't bring Wall Rings or a Runic user. Keep in the back of your head that Vaporite is undead, though. Rhinox isn't, but that really kills Gau's offense in the matter. Woolly absorbs the Lightning-elemental spells and has superior offense in Ice 3, but chances are slim you chose to pick up Gogo before Terra. Your Mages and lesser-trained characters have the Bio spell to use, and if any character has learned Quake then it is pure magic here (don't forget to cast Float, obviously). Note that since this battle fades out rather than actually ends, Strago won't be able to learn any Lores (aka Blowfish) from this battle.

Anyway, despite your perfect set-up and the little amount of damage Phunbaba (2) will be able to do against your party, you still get your face handed to you on an IKEA faux-silver platter according to the storyline. No fair. So, Terra comes to save you! Sensing that her friends are in danger or something cheesy like that, she rushes to the rescue, unleashing the Esper within herself on her way. Round two: Fight!

There you stand, with one or two less characters than what you picked beforehand but with a permanently Morphed Terra as a replacement. Basically, just continue to attack Phunbaba (2) in the same fashion. If Terra knows the Bio spell, have her use it. Since Terra doesn't have a Wall Ring and likely lacks the Minerva as well, it might be a good idea to cast Shell or Rflect on her in this battle, even though she already takes half as much damage from the attacks due to her Morphed state. The Sleep status ailment works now, so have one of your characters cast it if possible and focus on using magical attacks only. Before long, Phunbaba (2) will fall. Interesting tidbit: This is actually the only battle in the entire game in which you can see the fallen Esper Terra sprite. In normal situations, Terra will automatically revert to human form when she is killed, but not so in this battle. Expand Full Strategy

Poltrgeist would have started out with inherent Image too, but since the game designers also gave her Image immunity, this status is never applied. Too bad for her. Poltrgeist is the least inventive Goddess of the bunch, as she shows us no new attacks. But we can forgive her, as she's so especially awesome. So, what will she try to do to us?

Her normal AI script has her use Battle, !Psygrip, Shrapnel (this one is kind of painful when it hits), and the Stop spell. You should immediately remove the Stop status with a Dispel spell if a character is affected, since, as soon a character suffers from the Stop status, Poltrgeist will use a Blaster attack to kill the person off. If the Stopped character isn't immune to instant death attacks, this will hit, so beware. A little note about !Psygrip: The Japanese game calls this Special attack 'Tyrfing', after a cursed sword from gothic folklore.

Poltrgeist becomes increasingly mean once you damage her beyond 32640 HP, as she will start the heavy artillery with the powerful multi-target attacks: Aero, S. Cross, Flare Star, and Meteo. At this point, you don't have to worry about any kind of physical attack or the Stop/Blaster combo anymore. Finally, every time Poltrgeist is damaged, she may cast a Fire 3 spell on the attacker. After she has been damaged eight/sixteen/etc. times, her next move will be WaveCannon.

You have two proverbial trump cards against her. First off, you're draped in equipment that absorbs and/or nullifies her elemental attacks. Make Fire-elemental protection a priority, as you'll see that element the most, especially with the existence of that Fire 3 omni-counter. Second, Poltrgeist is vulnerable to the Stop status, so what are we even worrying about? Do note that since Poltrgeist is inherently Hasted, the status won't stick around as long as you would usually expect, so barriers and Fire-elemental protection certainly aren't excessive luxuries.

Set Stop on Poltrgeist right away and make multi-target Shell your next priority by means of Big Guard, Wall, or individual Shell-casting. Haste 2 is grand as usual to keep up with Poltrgeist, and while buffs such as Regen and physical protection aren't really necessary or all that useful, it wouldn't hurt either. Now, start pounding Poltrgeist with everything you have! Make no mistake; the Poison-elemental weakness is nothing you can really work with, as a neutral level 3 spell is stronger than Bio even when the latter is hitting a weakness. You might even want to set a better elemental weakness with the Debilitator to speed things up.

Your Dragoons will have a hard time penetrating Poltrgeist's Defense and Safe status, so you might want to keep them around for utility shift this time. Shadow can throw Poison Rods for great (barrier-piercing) damage. Gau is great Raging certain monsters, including Woolly (Ice 3, absorbs every element but Fire which the Snow Muffler takes care of), Evil Oscar (same story, casts Bio), Uroburos (absorbs Fire-elemental attacks, casts Quake), or just an offensive Rage such as Stray Cat (care to give Gau a Poison Rod?), Prussian, Tyranosaur, or whatever. Locke, Sabin, Cyan, Setzer, and Strago shouldn't have any trouble penetrating Poltrgeist's defenses. For the pure Magic skillset characters, the Quake spell is the second-best option after Ultima. If you don't have it or Float isn't an option, it's all about Flare.

In the end, Poltrgeist is the easiest of the three Goddesses to defeat, and that's all due to the Stop status vulnerability. If it hadn't been for that, I would've ranked her in the middle. Poltrgeist is all about the multi-target violence, and, if you have the defenses and elemental resistances to keep up with that, you're basically in the clear even if you choose not to apply the Stop status. Expand Full Strategy

There are a few oddities about this thing. First off, it's supposed to be a scary Whelk upgrade, a task at which it fails. Second, notice how the shell is Floating but the head isn't? The tale of a creature whose head was too heavy to carry hasn't been new since Catoblepas, but I've never seen it applied to a snail before. Presenter also made an appearance in the 1996 Square game 'Bahamut Lagoon', which never hit the shores of America. Same name, same sprite, has a tendency to appear when you destroy buildings with Thunder-techs.

Also, the game designers made a little mistake we're going to exploit here; we were never supposed to obtain more than one Dragon Claw from this fight, but we're getting two. Just watch me.

The AI script of the head is simple. If you damage the head two times, it'll retract into its shell, disappearing from the battlefield. It'll remain there for 20 seconds, at which point is comes out again. It'll use Battle, !Petriblast, El Nino, and Mega Volt without causing itself any difficulties, so be ready for any of them at all times. The shell attacks by itself, and is no longer just an auto-counter dummy. Battle, Mega Volt, and Blowfish may appear at all times, of which Blowfish should be watched for especially. When the head has retracted, it'll stop using its normal attacks and switch over to Magnitude8. Whenever the shell is damaged, it has a 33% chance at retorting with Giga Volt.

The strategy we're aiming for is simple. If one of the parts dies, the other one dies as well, but will NOT give us the item. Thus, if we want both sets of Dragon Claw (and we certainly do, as Presenter is the only source for Dragon Claw in the game), we have to kill them both at the same time.

First, our defenses! If you didn't cast Float earlier, do so at the start of the battle. Zoneseek helps against Mega Volt, Giga Volt, and El Nino. Golem and/or Fenrir protect against Battle and !Petriblast. You could have Celes on Runic stand-by for Mega Volt and Giga Volt, but it's not worth it. Now, let's kill this snail.

Since both targets are susceptible to Instant Death attacks and Petrify, the two best strategies are using X-Zone and using Shoat's Demon Eye. However, we don't want to take any chances, do we? First, if you have the Vanish spell, cast it on the shell to ensure that X-Zone/Demon Eye will hit it. Remember, this is not a bug exploit; the shell is susceptible to instant death attacks, and setting Clear just makes sure the intended move hits, exactly what it was always supposed to do. Sadly, we can't apply Sleep or Stop to make sure X-Zone/Demon Eye works on the head, because both attacks check for the target's Stamina (in which case those steps are ignored). So, we'll just have to take our chances here. Since Demon Eye is more accurate than X-Zone, it takes precedence. If the head is missed, I suggest you reload the game. Expand Full Strategy

The Red Dragon is red and lives in a volcano. It may shock you to discover he's a Fire dragon! You'll be laughing by now, I assume; not only have you already spotted his weakness to the Confuse status, but the Fire element is the one most easily protected against. The Red Jacket, Ice Shield, Minerva, and Blizzard Orb all nullify it, the Flame Shield and Rage Ring absorb it, and, if those resources aren't enough, the Force Shield, Thunder Shield, Cat Hood, Snow Muffler, and Force Armor all halve damage done by the element. Even though the Red Dragon tries to counter this by employing Flare spells and the L. 4 Flare attack, he's still fairly easy.

Every 40 seconds, Red Dragon will use a particularly powerful attack; either S. Cross, Flare Star, or L. 4 Flare. Flare Star still deals Fire-elemental damage based on your level, S. Cross is just a strong multi-target Fire-elemental attack and L. 4 Flare deals non-elemental, barrier-piercing damage to every character whose level is divisible by 4.

Normally, Red Dragon switches between Fire 2 (66%) and Fire Ball (33%). When he reaches 10240 HP (after having absorbed 19760 HP damage), he'll switch to Fire 3 (66%) or a Flare spell (33%). All these spells (with the exception of Fire Ball) can be Reflected, but that may not be the wisest action to take; any character under the influence of Reflect will be targeted every second turn by !Eraser (from top character to bottom character), just like the living SrBehemoth 1 and his !Evil Claw attack. !Eraser removes the Reflect status, though not when the status is inherent (through Wall Rings or Rage). Like most bosses, the Red Dragon has a 33% Battle counter to every damaging attack he takes.

What to do? He has a fairly low amount of MP, and all his dangerous attacks need MP to function. In his less dangerous phase, throw up your barriers (summon Fenrir and/or Golem, Kirin's Life Guard is useful as always, Haste 2, Big Guard, you name it). When you're done, start casting Rasp! You can check if he's out of MP with Scan if you can't keep track yourself. You should have him crippled before his first 40-second attack comes around. Now that Red Dragon is nothing but a big lizard of fire, attack him with all the standard repertoire. It doesn't really matter, as he's pretty much done by now, but the most effective attacks tend to be Ice-elemental ones: the Ice 3 spell, thrown Blizzard swords (or Water Skeans), the usual Bum Rush and Dragon Horn Jump attacks, whatever works. Note that Tri-Dazer is absorbed, though. You can toy around with Confuse if you want, but it's not necessary. Expand Full Strategy

Rider is a durable fellow who has an extremely strong physical attack in !SilverPike, which he also uses to counter a successful Steal attempt. Every fourth attack, he has a 1/3 chance of using Virite, a multi-target Poison-elemental attack with low accuracy that also sets the Poison status.

Gau can take him out in a single hit with Rhodox's Snare and the Break spell from Dark Wind and/or Commander. If you have nothing along those lines, Areneid's !Numb and Primordite's !Numblade will stop him in his actions. If you lack Gau (shame on you), Cyan's Slash works great if used first, and any combination of your strongest attacks should suffice. He can also counter any Attack with R.Polarity on that character. Expand Full Strategy

As soon as Rizopas comes, you're in trouble. This little guy has access to the El Niño spell, which will deal up to 250 damage to both characters. Your best bet is to go all-out offensive. While Rizopas has very decent magical defense, Aurabolt still out-damages Pummel (and Fire Dance, but that should be obvious). For Bushido, Slash doesn't work, so just go with Dispatch. If you're really unlucky, Rizopas kills you, and there's nothing you can do about that short of over-leveling. The odds aren't that high, though. Expand Full Strategy