Final Fantasy VI Walkthrough

Written by Djibriel

Contributor

2.8: Pursuing the Crimson Robbers: Figaro Castle and the Tentacles

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Pursuing the Crimson…

Figaro Castle Basement
6/16	Humpty	4
5/16	Neck Hunter	2
5/16	Dante	1

Engine Room
6/16	Neck Hunter	2
5/16	Dropper	3
5/16	Cruller	1
5/16	Humpty	2

Enemies: Humpty, Cruller, Dropper, Neck Hunter, Dante, Tentacle 1, Tentacle 2, Tentacle 3, Tentacle 4

Party: Celes Optional: Sabin

Preparation: Keep the Relic

Peace Rings/ Relic

Ribbons from last chapter on.

As soon as you enter, relief will wash over you like a giant sea of...water. It's Figaro Castle. Gerad seems oddly sympathetic towards a swooning local before running off. Seriously, can we even still assume Gerad is not Edgar? But why this farce?

Dropper is probably Edgar's home-built security system or something, there's no other explanation of automatic mechanical beings here. They do nothing but use !Mad Signal every turn, which sets Confuse if you let it. If you use Fight to damage it, it'll counter with Battle. Accordingly, refrain from doing that and kill them with Magic spells (they're weak to Lightning-elemental attacks) and Blitz techniques.

Pushing onward will take you up the stairs, but you can't go out of the castle or to the exterior areas; we're submerged here, remember? The only choice is to walk into the engine room, which was hitherto forbidden territory. You'll come across Figaro soldiers all over; obviously, the lack of food and fresh air has taken its toll.

Simply ascending two stairways will take you into a room with four chests containing, from right to left, a Helmet

Crystal Helm (don't bother equipping it), a Rod

Gravity Rod, which is an Earth-elemental weapon that randomly casts

Graviga (what is it with Rods that new ones always appear when nobody can equip them?), an X-Potion, and an Hi-Ether. If you enter the door to the far left, you'll be able to go up some stairs, enter a door, and grab a Helmet

Royal Crown, which you should equip on Sabin if he is around.

Trace back your steps to the room with the four chests, and enter the middle door. Pass through the corridor and behold: the engine that drives Figaro Castle, its best-kept secret. However, the engine seems to be crawling with... something. It must be the source of Figaro Castle's inability to move around lately. The Crimson Robbers themselves seem rather worried by it.

Before you gently tap the shoulder of Gerad and kindly ask what the hell is going on here, you should know that this is the only room in the game where you can find Dropper enemies. Their Rage is useless and they are entirely uninteresting other than their elusive nature.

Talking to Gerad means the start of a boss battle, so let's prepare. Relic

Hermes Sandals will disable a large part of the boss' strategy, so equip them on both Sabin and Celes if possible. Relic

Reflect Rings and/or Relics that provide immunity to the Poison status will come in handy as well. Summoning Esper

Golem and/or Esper

Fenrir is a great idea, as is Esper

Siren. So, to sum up, a party looking like this will be quite prepared:

Celes
Weapon: Sword

Enhancer
Shield: Shield

Diamond Shield/ Shield

Mythril Shield
Helmet: Helmet

Mystery Veil
Armor: Armor

Diamond Armor
Relics: Relic

Reflect Ring and Relic

Hermes Sandals
Esper: Esper

Golem/

Siren/

Fenrir

Sabin
Weapon: Claw

Burning Fist
Shield: Shield

Diamond Shield/
Helmet: Helmet

Royal Crown
Armor: Armor

Diamond Vest
Relics: Relic

Reflect Ring and Relic

Hermes Sandals
Esper: Esper

Golem/

Siren/

Fenrir

This battle will always have you pincer the enemy. The first two characters in order will be to the right of the monsters, and the others will be to the left. If you have only Celes at this point, Edgar appear to the right with her.

Tentacle 1 Bestiary #311	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	None	33	5000	600	0	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	13	8	0	102	153	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	None			None
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness
				None
	Lores			Command Immunities
	None			Control

Tentacle 2 Bestiary #310	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	None	31	7000	800	0	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	13	8	0	102	153	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	None			None
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness

	Lores			Command Immunities
	None			Control

Tentacle 3 Bestiary #313	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	None	34	4000	500	0	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	13	8	0	102	153	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	None			None
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness
				None
	Lores			Command Immunities
	None			Control

Tentacle 4 Bestiary #312	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	None	32	6000	700	0	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	13	8	0	102	153	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	None			None
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness

	Lores			Command Immunities
	None			Control
	Strategy
	What's the point of this battle? There are four Tentacles. It gets rather confusing because each Tentacle has its own set of status immunities and elemental properties. But there is one thing that all Tentacles have in common; the attacks they perform, of which the most noticeable is the Grab, the attack both !Stun and Entwine are centered around. What does Grab do? Grab seizes a character and renders it completely helpless. During a period of about 30 seconds, the Tentacle that used Grab holds the character and gradually drains his or her HP. It's a weird little formula. It's non-elemental and barrier-piercing and has a 5/8 chance of dealing about 60 HP of damage at each interval (which means that damage is taken less regularly if the Tentacle is slowed and more often if Hasted). Tentacles just use their normal attacks: Battle, !Stun to set Slow, Entwine as a multi-target means of setting Slow, Poison and Bio. If they're damaged, they have a 33% chance of countering with Battle. However, whenever a character is Slowed, a Tentacle will always use the Grab attack and will grab the character from which it drains HP. The Tentacle that has grasped a character doesn't perform attacks, and the character that is under a Grab cannot act. This lasts for about 30 seconds, at which point the Tentacle will use Release to remove all the effects of Grab. Slow was removed when the Grab attack was used. This is why Hermes Sandals are so nice: with inherent Haste, both !Stun and Entwine will never work and thus Celes and Sabin will never be Seized during the battle. Start the battle off by summoning one or both of your physical protection Espers, Fenrir and/or Golem; both protect against Battle and, more importantly, !Stun. Employ Edgar's Bioblaster to Poison up to three of the Tentacles. If one of your characters has Siren equipped, send her out to stop the Poison and Bio spells used by two of the Tentacles. Now that the multi-target offenses and defenses have been cast, it's time to kill off one Tentacle at a time. Cast Death on the bottom-left Tentacle to dispatch it instantly. Obviously, the newly acquired Banish also works, but Death's Hit Rate is superior and the Death spell is more MP-efficient. If you summoned Siren, the most dangerous Tentacle right now is the top-left Tentacle, as that's the only Tentacle capable of casting Poison and Bio. Cast Stop if you have it, and focus Edgar's Drill and Sabin and Celes's level 2 spells on it until it dies. If you didn't summon Siren, you should cast the Silence spell on both the bottom-right and top-right Tentacles to achieve the same effect. If this isn't an option, it's best to kill the most fragile Tentacle first: the bottom-right Tentacle. Drill and Blizzara will kill it very quickly. From this point, the remaining Tentacles are left to your imagination. Don't bother using Poisona when a character is Poisoned; the battle won't take that long, so sticking to Cura spells to keep your HP up will suffice. If Sabin knows Razor Gale, use it exclusively. Have Edgar focus on his Drill attacks, and keep Celes around to whip out a level 2 spell that won't be absorbed whenever possible (the lower left Tentacle is the only one that absorbs Blizzara; once you've used Death or Banish to dispatch it, this spell is your best elemental option). The fight against the Tentacles can be a pain, but only if you don't prepare properly. You'll pull through. Expand Full Strategy

When the battle is over, Edgar will explain his situation. If Sabin is around, he'll say "Don't treat us like strangers anymore!". The Crimson Robbers will flee the scene with their treasure, assuming that Gerad must have been eaten by the Tentacles. Edgar decides to let them go (the Japanese version's dialogue makes it clear that their 'booty' was useless rubbish anyway) and shows he wants to stop Kefka like the others.

As soon as you can move, equip Edgar with two nice Relics. His headgear will probably be the Helmet

Crystal Helm you picked up earlier; you can swap it with a Helmet

Green Beret or Sabin's Helmet

Royal Crown if you want.

In the treasure chamber, you'll see eight emptied chests. Looks like the Crimson Robbers had quite a lot of items taken from them by the Figaro law enforcement. On the armor in the middle, you can find a Sword

Soul Sabre, which is basically an MP-based version of the Sword

Blood Sword. It also has a 25% chance of casting

Death with every hit. There's no real reason to equip it, so let's get out.

When you emerge from the engine room, the old man who handles subterranean travel will say "Nonsense! It's been fixed! Next stop, the surface!" I always thought this was a weird line until I realized it's probably supposed to be a reply to Sabin's line said back by the engine.

Thus, Figaro Castle rises amidst the golden sand of Figaro Desert. But we've already seen there's nothing more to do here, so you might as well go ahead and take Figaro Castle to a shiny new continent: time to travel to Kohlingen once more.

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