Final Fantasy VI Walkthrough

Written by Djibriel

Contributor

2.46: Kefka's Tower: The Goddesses

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One doesn't just waltz into battle against a Goddess. Equip stuff that allows you to absorb Fire-elemental attacks ( Shield

Flame Shields, the Shield

Paladin's Shield, a Relic

Berserker Ring for Umaro), since that'll be really useful. Never equip Shield

Ice Shields, as

Aero will rip them apart. Armor

Minerva Bustier armor and Armor

Red Jackets both nullify Fire-elemental attacks too. If you have nothing left, Shield

Thunder Shields are a good option (attacks such as

Aero and WaveCannon will be absorbed/nullified while Fire-elemental attacks will be halved in damage). Don't forget to heal, though that should be obvious. If you have a few

Quake casters on your team,

Float up.

Demon is the Goddess of Fire and appears to be the most 'evil' of the three. Her Japanese name was 'Kishin', a word that roughly translates into 'divine'. If you accept the fact the three Goddesses stand for three major religions, Demon most likely stands for a feminine incarnation of Satan, fire-themed and evil and all (yeah, I know, there's Holy Fire and Dante had Satan frozen up to his waist in ice, I don't care. The immediate and popular theme of hell is 'fire' and that's what is important now).

Demon Bestiary #355	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	None	67	58000	18900	0	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	15	13	0	180	145	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	None			Common: Radiant Lance
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness

	Lores			Command Immunities
	Aero			Control
	Strategy
	Demon 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. Demon 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, !Tyrfing, Metal Cutter (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, Demon 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 !Tyrfing: The Japanese game calls this Special attack 'Tyrfing', after a cursed sword from gothic folklore. Demon becomes increasingly mean once you damage her beyond 32640 HP, as she will start the heavy artillery with the powerful multi-target attacks: Aero, Southern Cross, Flare Star, and Meteor. At this point, you don't have to worry about any kind of physical attack or the Stop/Blaster combo anymore. Finally, every time Demon is damaged, she may cast a Firaga spell on the attacker. After she has been damaged eight/sixteen/etc. times, her next move will be Wave Cannon. 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 Firaga omni-counter. Second, Demon is vulnerable to the Stop status, so what are we even worrying about? Do note that since Demon 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 Demon right away and make multi-target Shell your next priority by means of Mighty Guard, Wall, or individual Shell-casting. Hastega is grand as usual to keep up with Demon, 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 Demon 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 Demon'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 Baalzephon (Blizzaga, absorbs every element but Fire which the Snow Scarf takes care of), Great Malboro (same story, casts Bio), Ouroboros (absorbs Fire-elemental attacks, casts Quake), or just an offensive Rage such as Stray Cat (care to give Gau a Poison Rod?), Purusa, Tyrannosaur, or whatever. Locke, Sabin, Cyan, Setzer, and Strago shouldn't have any trouble penetrating Demon'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, Demon 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. Demon 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

After you hand Demon her defeat, the statue will glow and disappear entirely. That's one down, two to go... Since the battle between the Goddesses is said to have been an equal one, this means that we should also be able to defeat the other Statues, right? The Lance

Radiant Lance, by the way, is the strongest Lance in the standard game, although it has no random spell casting whatsoever, so it's difficult to say if Lance

Radiant Lance's superior Battle Power and non-elemental nature outweigh the 25% chance of casting a

Holy spell with the Lance

Holy Lance.

With this party, you can just walk through the door and find a nice Save Point to heal up and Save. The room is devoid of monsters. Jump down the hole in the ground to reach one of three button tiles in a monster-less room. You can go out and find yourself back near the opposing conveyer belt, but there's no point in that, as this is where this party needs to be. Switch to Party #1! With Party #1, go down and pass through the door Party #3 made for you. Going around will allow you to pass through the room Party #3 fought Guardian in, and eventually into a room where the broken test tubes once used by Cid surround the statue of another of the three Goddesses, Fiend.

Fiend's Japanese name was 'Majin', a word many Dragonball Z fanboys should recognize. It roughly means 'demon'. Once again, going with the three-religion theory, this goddess originates in Hinduism, where demons are opposing the several true gods at every turn.

Fiend Bestiary #353	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	None	73	63000	4800	0	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	60	9	0	110	160	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	Common: Safety Bit			Common: Mutsunokami
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness

	Lores			Command Immunities
	Force Field			Control
	Strategy
	Fiend is one heck of an ice queen, I tell you. Not just a shell, this one! Luckily, she's also pretty predictable and one-dimensional, which in my opinion makes her quite easy to defeat (certainly easier than Goddess or Demon, even ignoring Stop). Her normal moves include the ever-present Battle, Blizzaga spells, Absolute Zero, and the annoying Northern Cross attack, from which one can be easily recovered by a simple Fire spell. Of course, she gets extra mean when you damage her enough. Once Fiend hits 32640 HP, the message "Fiend's aura is trembling violently!" appears, and, my goodness, so it appears. By doing this, Fiend self-applies the Image, Reflect, and Haste statuses, meaning that you will want to cast Dispel to get rid of all three of them and quickly cast Slow or Slowga to reduce her speed even further. From this point on though, she will ignore her single- and multi-target Ice-elemental options and focus on a few select attacks. Every twenty seconds, Fiend will use the Force Field attack, which is a Lore Strago will only be able to learn in this battle. Force Field takes an element (one not previously selected by Force Field, if using it a second time) and renders it completely ineffective. It doesn't matter how strong the caster is or if the target is weak to said element: Once the element has been picked, this element will do exactly 0 damage for the duration of the battle. Once all eight elements have been rendered useless, Force Field will do nothing. Aside from Force Field, Fiend will use Battle and Targeting. Targeting does absolutely nothing more than 'store' that target in her memory, and the very next turn she will use !Fiendish Rage on that person, period. Should this person suddenly be unavailable, !Fiendish Rage will be used on a random person. Of course, the game would have us believe that the Targeting move somehow makes !Fiendish Rage unblockable, but !Fiendish Rage is unblockable in itself, so the act of using Targeting is really just for show. That's it! Pretty easy, I'd say. Set Slow at the start of the match, throw up the barriers you like, and pummel Fiend with the strongest attacks you have. Strago might be able to get some play out of his Lv. ? Holy attack now that you've a) obviously brought him here and b) made sure to rig it into always hitting. Have Gau engage in a Rage that will have him produce non-elemental damage, since you won't be able to easily stop him once Fiend starts nullifying the elements. The Holy spell is really useful when Fiend is in her 'easy' phase, but beware that you don't waste turns casting zero-damage Holy spells when she's left said phase. Make sure you don't allow Fiend to maintain her Image, Haste, or Reflect statuses: everybody who knows the Holy spell knows Dispel too, and Terra learned it naturally at level 37. Expand Full Strategy

Once the second of Kefka's magical goddess pillars has been broken down, you'll obtain Cyan's strongest standard weapon: The Knife

Mutsunokami. Since Fang will always out-damage any Fight attack and Knife

Mutsunokami doesn't have any fringe benefits other than that broken 20% Evade, you won't find it very useful, so you might want to stick with the Sword

Zantetsuken (insta-slice) or Knife

Kazekiri (Wind Slash) instead.

When you've defeated Fiend in battle, a Save Point will be created for you so that you can heal up and save your game. Walk on to find another one of the three conveniently placed button tiles. Upon doing this, switch to Party #2. With Party #2, the route is exactly like that of the party you just commanded around. Go around to find the door, walk through Guardian's room, and eventually you will reach a room draped in Imperial symbols and banners. Amidst these rests the last of the three Goddesses, the statue of... Goddess.

Before you engage in combat with this Goddess gal, make sure you're properly prepared. Shield

Thunder Shields are a must on every character that isn't protected from Lightning-elemental attacks, but even more important is instant death protection. Relic

Memento Rings and Relic

Safety Bits should be equipped on every possible character. Obviously, Gau and Gogo will be able to self-apply instant death protection with the Rage command, so if you have more characters than instant death protection Relics, spare these two. Equip the Lance

Radiant Lance or a Lance

Partisan if your resident Dragoon is wielding a Lance

Holy Lance.

Goddess was called 'Megami' in the Japanese version. This pretty much translates as - gasp - "Goddess." It's more along the line of Shinto, Roman or Greek deities when compared to the two that proceeded it: not quite as omnipotent but rather 'human' in emotion. I personally feel that Goddess represents the ancient Roman/Greek polytheistic religion(s). She holds a Armor

Minerva Bustier as a Steal. Minerva was the Roman goddess of (among other things) wisdom and war; her Greek name was Athena. She is the most pronounced 'female' of the three Goddesses. She resembles the character of Athena/Minerva pretty closely: Cunning and tricking could be used to describe her battle style (Overture, Entice), and wings, which are not uncommon on pictures of Athena/Minerva, can be found on Goddess as well. Within the context of her two fellow goddesses, she comes across as the most righteous of the three: Demon as the evil Satan, Fiend as the neutral Hindu demon, Goddess is the 'good' Goddess.

Goddess Bestiary #354	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	Lightning, Holy	68	44000	19000	0	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	13	14	0	85	150	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	Common: Minerva Bustier			Common: Excalibur
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness
	None			None
	Lores			Command Immunities
	Quasar			Control
	Strategy
	Goddess is, in my eyes, the toughest of the trio to defeat. Not only are there no crippling status ailment weaknesses to exploit (not even Slow!) and no elemental weaknesses, Goddess also tends to use your own characters against the party, and that's just plain rude. Her Lightning-elemental nature isn't your biggest concern as you can easily absorb or nullify those attacks; it's her sneaky manipulation attacks you need to watch out for. Her normal AI script features Battle, Thundara, Thundaga, Lullaby, and Entice. Lullaby is the same multi-target Sleep-inducing attack as it was when fighting Still Life, and Entice is still as grotesquely annoying as ever. Since this is the only battle in the game where the danger of Entice isn't limited by quickly eliminating the monsters that use it, it might be wise to kill off the character affected to make sure no really horrible things come shooting out of the affected character (Banish, Soul Spiral, Transfusion, Meteor, and Ultima all come to mind). When damaged below the 32640 HP mark (that's the critical number of Ultima Buster and all three Goddesses; coincidence?), she actually becomes less of a threat. She'll focus more on plain damaging attacks: Flash Rain, more Thundaga spells and the non-elemental barrier-piercing Lore, Quasar, which is for all relevant purposes a slightly weaker version of Grand Delta. But we haven't touched the true power of Goddess yet. When she is hit by a Fight command, she has a 1/3 chance of employing the Overture attack, which I discussed earlier (when facing Coco). It basically causes every Fight and Special attack your characters perform to hit the affected character. This is bad news for the Lockes, Gaus, and Setzers of your party. When damaged in any other way, she might counter with a Thundara spell, which is nowhere near as bad. But here's the kicker: When damaged eight times, Goddess will use her unique Cloudy Heaven attack. It looks all swirly and features those cute little angels that have thus far been seen only when using Raise, Arise, or Reraise. What exactly does Cloudy Heaven do? Basically, two things. First off (and this would be bad enough by itself), it sets Doom on the entire party. This means that once the timer reaches 0, your entire party will die unless you managed to get rid of the timer, either by using Rippler or by dying and reviving preemptively. There's yet another catch, however. When a character hit by Cloudy Heaven dies, it doesn't simply receive the traditional Wound status, but is infected with the Zombie status instead. This means that your deceased characters may attack you as well, and that reviving them back to maximum HP is impossible. Thankfully, Mighty Guard covers the entire team, even when they're split across the screen. Hastega isn't quite as strategic in the area, even though you still may want to speed up your characters, especially since Goddess herself has inherent Haste status. Throw out your most damaging attacks, and know that Goddess (with her high Magic Defense and inherent Shell status) is most susceptible to Ultima, Quake, and Flare (in that order of potency, too). Your Holy Lance Dragoons are useless, as Goddess will absorb their Jump attacks. Switch to the Radiant Lance or a Partisan if you haven't already. Make sure you keep an eye out if Overture is in effect and act accordingly. Quickly throwing out your strongest attacks, covering the party in Thunder Shields and Safety Bits, and just having a little bit of luck are the keys to success against Goddess. Lacking any one of those three elements can really break this battle in Goddess's favor, so be prepared, keep yourself healed, and make sure Entice, Overture, and Cloudy Heaven don't catch you off-guard. Expand Full Strategy

When you prevail, you'll obtain the legendary sword Sword

Excalibur. Its majestic light illuminates the area around you, and you can feel its hunger for justice over the forces of evil. It also stinks. It's Holy-elemental and as you might expect fairly strong, but since your characters have no business actually wielding weapons without kick-ass special properties, the Sword

Excalibur simply loses out to Sword

Lightbringer and Sword

Ragnarok swords, the Dirk

Valiant Knife, Lances of decent forge for Edgar, and even the store-bought Sword

Enhancer.

"Defeat the Statues, and magical power will not disappear...Kefka drained the Statues' power, the source of magic...?"

If this was the third Statue you bested, you'll notice that nothing really interesting has happened. The party will have noticed this too, and one of your characters will think aloud to him or herself how this is possible. It seems Kefka has drained the Statues of their awesome magical properties (which might explain your being able to beat them in the first place). Next to controlling the magical powers that hold together this world, he has actually absorbed these powers into himself.

Facing him is a suicide mission for sure, but hey, you've come too far to make it out alive, and you never had much chance to succeed in the first place. All you can do now is press on and face Kefka Palazzo, the man who became a god. So, great, there's a Save Point now. Use it, as it's the last chance you'll get to Save before the final apocalyptic battle between good and evil. That's the kind of thing you really, really want to have a Save option for.

Walk on to find the third button tile. If all three parties stand on all three button tiles, three warp beams or whatever they are come down to take you to Kefka. Heal up, make the five or six characters you like the best hog all the awesome relics and equipment and equip useful Espers such as Esper

Golem,

Fenrir,

Quetzalli, and Esper

Bahamut. The amount of attacks you'll face is so large it's impossible to give real advice here. There are a couple things that can really help you out, though. First, the final battle features a large array of status ailments, including an unblockable attack that sets Mute (and Dark) on all characters, a Zombie-inducing Special, two Petrify-inducing attacks of which one is unblockable, et cetera. You'll want to protect your characters from these statuses with Relic

Ribbons. Since the multi-target

Silence is possibly the most crippling of all, Relic

White Capes make the best alternative once you're all out of Relic

Ribbons. Also, whereas Esper

Bahamut and especially Esper

Quetzalli can really give a boost to your offenses, Esper

Golem and

Fenrir are extremely awesome to have around. There are Specials up ahead that set Zombie and Death, and the final enemy has some extremely powerful physical attacks. Equip them on the characters you plan to take up there.

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Caves of Narshe: Final Fantasy VI
Version 6
©1997–2024 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)

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