Final Fantasy VI All Enemies and Bosses

"If you walk without rhythm, you won't attract the worm". If only it were that simple! Abyss Worm is the nastiest creature of the Cloister of Trials, as its defenses are so omni-present. It has quite a lot of Defense and will either absorb or negate any magical damage unless it's Holy- or non-elemental. Few characters will be able to apply their full force versus this thing. It's primarily a trading between damage and healing, as there's little you can do about this thing's attacks. Expand Full Strategy

The parts to this battle: Air Force, Laser Gun (the part to the right of Air Force), and Missile Bay (the dark red part below Air Force). In the SNES game, the Missile Bay was light grey like the Laser Gun. Why they decided to change *that* of all things will forever be a mystery.

Missile Bay fires off Missile attacks. Nothing ground-shaking there. If it gets weak and reaches 1536 HP - that's after taking 1464 HP damage - it might get a shot at using Launcher. Laser Gun uses Magitek Laser and Atomic Rays. If it hits 1536 HP – after taking 1764 HP damage - it loses the Atomic Rays option, but gains Diffractive Laser, which is slightly weaker than Atomic Rays.

Air Force itself will just use Magitek Laser and Diffractive Laser. When Laser Gun dies, a Bit will be released. Bit is an opponent that takes no turns; the only thing it does is float about on constant Runic stand-by, absorbing all your Magic spells. At this point, Air Force will try to self-apply Haste status (and fail, as he's immune to Slow) and start counting down; at this point, the Bit will leave the battlefield and Air Force will use Wave Cannon, a very strong multi-target Lightning-elemental attack. By this point, you should be fully healed though, so you won't die from it if all is well. After Wave Cannon, Air Force will launch another Bit and start counting again.

The first thing on your mind is taking out Missile Bay. If you have Locke in the party, try to Steal for as long as he's around; Missile Bay has a rare Debilitator you probably don't have yet. Zona Seeker is a brilliant summon here, as the Shell status can really help you out in this battle, and once Missile Bay is gone, you can safely summon Kirin to override all Sap effects with the positive Regen blessings.

Heal regularly, keep your defenses up, and you'll defeat Air Force in no time at all. If you're really having trouble, you can break Thunder Rods. Something to remember if you're playing the game blindfolded. Or just blind.

An alternate strategy if you picked three characters that all heavily rely on Magic (Locke, Relm, Celes, for example) is the following. Since you want to prevent Bit from showing up above all else, don't kill Laser Gun. Instead, you can stop his attacks for long periods of time if you combine the Slow and Stop status ailments on it. Kill off Missile Bay, use your speed-reducing grey magic on Laser Gun and focus all spells on Air Force. No Bit, no Wave Cannon, no fuss. Expand Full Strategy

There are a few oddities about this thing. First off, it's supposed to be a scary Ymir 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. Angler Whelk 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 Claws 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 Megavolt 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, Megavolt, and 1000 Needles may appear at all times, of which 1000 Needles should be watched for especially. When the head has retracted, it'll stop using its normal attacks and switch over to Magnitude 8. Whenever the shell is damaged, it has a 33% chance at retorting with Gigavolt.

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 Claws (and we certainly do, as Angler Whelk is the only source for Dragon Claws 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. Zona Seeker helps against Megavolt, Gigavolt, and El Nino. Golem and/or Fenrir protect against Battle and !Petriblast. You could have Celes on Runic stand-by for Megavolt and Gigavolt, 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 Banish and using Catoblepas'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 Banish/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 Banish/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 Banish, it takes precedence. If the head is missed, I suggest you reload the game. Expand Full Strategy

This is Apparition. According to the latest Anthology release, this is the ghost of a murdered person. Oh my.

Apparition has normal access to three attacks: Attack, the Blizzard spell, and Leech, which drains HP. If you damage Apparition, he will hate you for it and get a 33% shot at attacking his attacker with !Lightning, which is nothing even remotely like Lightning-elemental.

There are a number of ways to kill this thing humiliatingly easy, but the Top 2 of cheap tactics go right against my game ethics. Of course, there's taking advantage of Square's assumption that even though it's supposed to be a rather difficult enemy, it still should be vulnerable to a Phoenix Down, scoring a one-hit KO. Also, you're traveling with a ghost that is capable of delivering a one-hit KO on everything. But I'll guess that not only are you too good for the Phoenix Down move, you also don't want to lose your cool ghost guy just yet.

So, when the battle begins, wait for Cyan's third Bushido skill, Tiger. Don't move with Sabin and Shadow or even the ghost; just skip to Cyan and use Tiger. It'll halve his current HP and should do 750 damage. Follow up with an Aura Cannon and a Shuriken and you should be done. Expand Full Strategy