Final Fantasy VI Bosses

Before you try to hurt Ultros, make sure your Ramuh-wearing character is equipped with an Earrings relic (or two). If you have a Fire Knuckle-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 Scan 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 Scan. 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 Fire Knuckle then he will with his Blitz attacks (unless it's Fire Dance, and only if he's hitting with the Fire Knuckle 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 Mega Volt or Drain

Locke is fairly useless; Ultros has nothing to steal whatsoever. If Locke knows Slow or Bolt 2, have him cast it. Otherwise, just attack. Edgar's Chainsaw inflicts very decent damage, and I've said hopefully enough about Sabin's Fire Knuckle 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 Aspik or Hazer for direct violence (Aspik is godly), or Primordite/Araneid 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 Bolt 2 spell coming from someone who probably hasn't learned Bolt 2 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 Lode Stone, 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 Rake or Magnitude8. 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 Safe on himself. "Hope I'm not making a nuisance of myself! So sorry!" Indeed. Once you've cast five spells on him, he'll go red and the screen will say: "Ultros's form has changed! Beware his tri-elemental attack!" This means that any Fire-elemental spells will be countered by Fire 3, Ice-elemental spells by Ice 3, and Lightning-elemental spells by Bolt 3.

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...I'm nothing more than a stupid 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/ Safe 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 Hawk Eye(s) (you can cast Bserk on Locke if you feel like you can sacrifice controlling him). Terra can wield Flame Sabres 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, !OctopusInk, 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 Earrings-boosted Terra can do in ONE hit - he will complain and call his buddy, Chupon. "Ultros: I lose AGAIN! Well, today I've brought a pal! Mr. Chupon! Come on down!" From here, he'll keep attacking like he used to, only he'll talk about the monstrosity now.

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

Strategy? Psh. Summoning Phantom at the very start takes care of Attack and !OctopusInk, and you can Berserk or Silence Mr. Chupon as soon as he comes down. You're invulnerable. Not that a normal Cure or Cure 2 spell couldn't prevent any kind of danger, but... on the offensive side, Fire 2 and Bio work very well on Ultros (yes, he suddenly traded his Lightning-weakness for a Poison one), and Chupon can suck down some Ice 2 spells. It's just acceleration material though, as this is a very easy battle. Expand Full Strategy

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

Umaro 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), Umaro 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). Umaro may counter Fire-elemental attacks with either !Tackle or Blizzard, and every other kind of damage with !Tackle. Every third time Umaro 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 Umaro sets Safe, Shell, Haste, and Regen on himself. Sadly for Umaro, 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).

Umaro is a very easy opponent. Since he has Berserk vulnerability, you can set it with the Bserk 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). Fire 2 spells work just fine, as does Sabin's Bum Rush, Dragon Horn Jump attacks, you name it. 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 "Mortal Attack: 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 Autocrossbow, and Terra use single-target Fire spells on the Ipooh you looted. After you've taken care of the Ipoohs, switch to the Bio Blaster 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 Bio Blaster 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 Pummel technique, you've won your battle. 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 Mega Volt. Mega Volt 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. Whelk 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 Tincture the shell provides. Since the shell only has 120 MP, he can only use six Mega Volt 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 Tincture and a Potion, and it'll only have cost you over an hour and your dignity. Expand Full Strategy

Wow. There is just so little I can say about White Drgn here. He casts up to three Pearl spells every turn. When hit by a Magic spell, he has a 66% chance of countering with Dispel. And that's it. Heck, you've even seen a palette swap of the thing earlier.

White Drgn casts nothing but spells, and is vulnerable to Mute. That's all there is to it, just cast a Mute spell and you're done. You don't have to bother with Slow, Stop, and all that, just cast Mute and attack the thing with offensive spells. If you're getting low on MP, use Osmose. Try not to swallow anything sharp while playing, as that's the only situation I can imagine where a loss on your part is actually possible. If you brought either Locke or Shadow, equip a Thief Knife and go for White Drgn's steal items, as both are nice.

If you arrived here with a solo-Mog party (with the hopes of raiding chests), the strategy is only slightly different; since you don't want to take any chances, be sure you're equipped with a Wall Ring. If Mog doesn't know the Mute spell, equip Siren so Mog can summon her for the Hope Song attack. Now that White Drgn is at Mog's mercy, just attack until he's dead. Expand Full Strategy

Wrexsoul is obviously the main baddie here. The Ironically-named SoulSavers are the goons. At the start of the battle, Wrexsoul will cast Zinger 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 Bolt 3. When either one or two SoulSaver(s) has the Reflect status, he'll cast Bolt 3 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 SoulSavers 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 !MagicDrain to drain you of your MP (and with a 50 Battle Power, their !MagicDrain is actually quite strong). They'll cast Rflect on themselves as soon as Wrexsoul is around, allowing him to cast Bolt 3 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 X-Zone. The SoulSavers restore themselves over and over again, but when you successfully suck both SoulSavers into the parallel dimension with X-Zone, they can't do that and you'll just win the battle. The downside here is that you won't win the Pod Bracelet from Wrexsoul, as you won't have actually defeated him.

Normally, you'll just want to completely ignore the SoulSavers. Minerva 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 Bolt 3 is cast most often). First, throw up the usual barriers: Haste 2, Earth Wall, Big 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 Exploder (careful: Pep Up removes him from the battle; you don't want that). Shadow can throw Ninja Stars 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 Soft 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 an Ice 3 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 Ninja Stars (Blizzard Swords hurt a lot), and Edgar's Drill are good ones. Barrier-piercing attacks can even be multi-targeted; Sun Flare, GrandTrain, and Gau's Tyranosaur-induced Meteo attacks work splendidly. A Flare spell is better than the Ice 3 spell if you have the choice. The pure magicians in your party should either cast Flare or Ice 3 or simply resort to attacking. If Strago hasn't learned GrandTrain (or Quasar) yet, Step Mine 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 Bum 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