Final Fantasy VI Walkthrough
Written by Djibriel
Contributor
2.17: Narshe Snowfields
Enemies: Test Rider, Wizard, Lukhavi, Psychos, Magna Roader (Yellow), Magna Roader (Brown), Garm, Valigarmanda, Ice Dragon
Party: Edgar, Celes, Setzer Optional: Sabin
Molulu's Charm now, skip ahead. Don't worry; both dungeons you'll be visiting now will be visited later for another good reason. For a quick list of what you'll obtain from raiding the Fanatics Tower and Kefka's Tower:Fanatics Tower: a
Force Armor, an easy battle with the Holy Dragon from which you'll win a 
Holy Lance upon victory, a 
Genji Shield, a Safety Bit, and the 
Air Anchor, which is Edgar's eighth Tool.Kefka's Tower: a
Red Cap, a Nutkin Suit, a Gauntlet, a Hypno Crown, the 
Fixed Dice, a Minerva Bustier, a 
Pinwheel, an , a Force Shield, an easy battle with the Gold Dragon from which you'll win a Crystal Orb upon your victory, a Force Armor, and a Ribbon.With Mog in your party, get back into Narshe and go find the snowfields. This is your first chance to learn Mog's last Dance (save it for me... eheheh), the Snowman Rondo. It's a rather crummy Dance considering you can't get it until this late in the game, but Surge looks sweet and works especially well against the Psychos monsters you find here.
In the snowfields, you'll find the Ice Dragon.
Ice Dragon  Bestiary #340 |
Type |
Level |
HP |
MP |
Gil |
EXP |
None | 74 | 24400 | 9000 | 0 | 0 | |
Strength |
Magic Atk. |
Evasion |
Defense |
Mag. Def. |
Mag. Evade |
|
13 | 10 | 0 | 110 | 150 | 0 | |
Stolen Items |
Dropped Items |
|||||
None | Common: Force Shield | |||||
Status Immunities | Elemental Immunities | |||||
    | None | |||||
Elemental Absorb | Elemental Weakness | |||||
 |  | |||||
Lores | Command Immunities | |||||
None | Control | |||||
Metamorph Package | ||||||
Strategy | ||||||
Go ahead and gawk at those status vulnerabilities if you like. However, I can't say that the Ice Dragon is the weakest of the eight brethren; as you'll see in the future, Gold Dragon is about as silly, while Holy Dragon is even more pathetic. The Ice Dragon can be fairly easily screwed over though. Sadly for Ice Dragon, his element is easily absorbed, his amount of HP rather low, and his status vulnerabilities are downright horrible, but I'll try and treat Ice Dragon with the same amount of dignity I firmly believe everybody deserves. Except for Nelapa, obviously. What does Ice Dragon do? He can use all three spells normally. If you damage him, he might counter with Battle. If he dies, he might use one final Avalanche attack before rolling over, but that's about it. Honestly, Ice Dragon might very well be the least interesting boss in the game. How to stop him? There are tons of ways! It doesn't really matter who you bring here. All you need is the  Berserk spell and the Esper that teaches it,  Phantom. Set Berserk on Ice Dragon, summon Phantom, and sit back. Use  Poison or Bio to set Poison on the freezing fiend, and even Haste if you like: it will only speed up the Poisoning, as you'll be immune to everything he does. If you brought Mog, make sure you don't execute a Dance; the only one that doesn't have an inherent chance to remove your Clear status is the Twilight Requiem, which is pretty much useless anyways (there's only a 3/16 chance you'll damage him once you get it working). Gau's (or Gogo's) Io-induced Flare Star attack will do 9999 damage every time it appears regardless of what level the caster is at, while Leaf Bunny or the Magna Roader (Purple) make Gau and Gogo absorb the Ice-elemental attacks without any equipment. If you brought Edgar, you can tease the Ice Dragon by trying to make Poison his weakness (if you get it, Poison will take off about 3200 damage a hit at the peak of its glory).If you have the equipment and the status ailments to throw around, Ice Dragon is a joke. If you don't, his Absolute Zero and Avalanche attacks will hurt real bad. The Mute status effect will prevent it from being able to use Northern Cross and Absolute Zero. If, for some reason, you don't opt for Berserk/Phantom, try setting Slow, Poison, and Mute (a neat way of doing this is casting Reflect on the guy and have Strago/Gogo execute  Reflect ???, but that's just novelty). Equip the easily obtained Ice Shields, Flame Shields, Snow Scarfs, and/or Minerva Bustier bustier and you won't feel a thing from Ice Dragon's attacks. Golem should be more than sufficient for Ice Dragon's physical attacks, but you can humiliate him further by summoning Fenrir in addition. Expand Full Strategy | ||||||
Crystal SwordOnce you've defeated the Ice Dragon, you'll receive a
Force Shield.Pushing on, you'll come across a Save Point where you can use a Tent if necessary. In the next screen, you'll walk across a bridge that takes you to the location of the mysterious Esper from the beginning of the game, the same frozen entity that prompted Terra to morph into her Esper form earlier and (possibly) overlooked as Lone Wolf took Mog hostage. As you approach it this time around, it becomes evidence that the Esper is sick of waiting. An eerie glow surrounds it, and the Esper Valigarmanda attacks you.
Valigarmanda  Bestiary #320 |
Type |
Level |
HP |
MP |
Gil |
EXP |
None | 62 | 30000 | 50000 | 0 | 0 | |
Strength |
Magic Atk. |
Evasion |
Defense |
Mag. Def. |
Mag. Evade |
|
19 | 4 | 0 | 254 | 70 | 0 | |
Stolen Items |
Dropped Items |
|||||
None | None | |||||
Status Immunities | Elemental Immunities | |||||
      |      | |||||
Elemental Absorb | Elemental Weakness | |||||
| | |||||
Lores | Command Immunities | |||||
None | None | |||||
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 | ||||||
As soon as you defeat Valigarmanda, he starts talking! Blast, he could've done that earlier and saved us a lot of trouble. "You know Terra, you're a half-Esper, and the Empire is evil and has abused you. Go side with the Returners. Here's my Magicite, it teaches level 3 spells so you can fry anything on your path. Good luck! Oh, and don't stick Skittles up your nose." More or less, that is.
A note on
Valigarmanda: He teaches level 3 spells, which is sweet; sadly, he does so at a x1 rate which is tantalizingly slow. In this case, Valigarmanda's summon attack, Tri-Dazer, will actually be your strongest magical attack for characters such as Celes and Terra for a while. Tri-Dazer, though, is an odd attack; it's tri-elemental; Fire-, Ice- and Lightning-elemental and about as powerful as a level 3 spell. How does this work? If a creature absorbs one of the elements, it absorbs the entire attack. If a creature nullifies one of the elements, it nullifies the entire attack. If a creature is weak against one of the elements, it is weak against the entire attack. So, you'll want to use Tri-Dazer against enemies that are weak to Fire, Ice, or Lightning, but don't absorb or nullify any of them.Now, there's an opening in the cliff. You can hop into it. RPG wisdom tells us that the 'No' option to bail out isn't going to get us treasure. Or danger.
Caves of Narshe: Final Fantasy VI
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.