Final Fantasy VI Walkthrough

Written by Djibriel

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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	NeckHunter	2
5/16	Dante	1

Engine Room
6/16	NeckHunter	2
5/16	Drop	3
5/16	Cruller	1
5/16	Humpty	2

Enemies: Humpty, Cruller, Drop, NeckHunter, Dante, Tentacle 1, Tentacle 2, Tentacle 3, Tentacle 4

Party: Celes Optional: Sabin

Preparation: Keep the s/s 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?

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 (don't bother equipping it), a , which is an Earth-elemental weapon that randomly casts (what is it with Rods that new ones always appear when nobody can equip them?), an , and an . If you enter the door to the far left, you'll be able to go up some stairs, enter a door, and grab a , 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 Drop 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. will disable a large part of the boss' strategy, so equip them on both Sabin and Celes if possible. s and/or Relics that provide immunity to the Poison status will come in handy as well. Summoning and/or is a great idea, as is . So, to sum up, a party looking like this will be quite prepared:

Celes
Weapon:
Shield: /
Helmet:
Armor:
Relics: Relic

Wall Ring and Relic

Running Shoes
Esper: Esper

Golem/

Siren/

Fenrir

Sabin
Weapon:
Shield: Shield

Diamond Shield/Mithril Shld
Helmet: Helmet

Regal Crown
Armor:
Relics: Relic

Wall Ring and Relic

Running Shoes
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 Boss Monster	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 Boss Monster	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 Boss Monster	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 Boss Monster	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 Seize, the attack both !Seize and Entwine are centered around. What does Seize do? Seize seizes a character and renders it completely helpless. During a period of about 30 seconds, the Tentacle that used Seize 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, !Seize 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 Seize 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 Seize cannot act. This lasts for about 30 seconds, at which point the Tentacle will use Discard to remove all the effects of Seize. Slow was removed when the Seize attack was used. This is why Running Shoes are so nice: with inherent Haste, both !Seize 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, !Seize. Employ Edgar's Bio Blaster 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 Doom on the bottom-left Tentacle to dispatch it instantly. Obviously, the newly acquired X-Zone also works, but Doom's Hit Rate is superior and the Doom 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 Mute 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 Ice 2 will kill it very quickly. From this point, the remaining Tentacles are left to your imagination. Don't bother using Antdot when a character is Poisoned; the battle won't take that long, so sticking to Cure 2 spells to keep your HP up will suffice. If Sabin knows Air Blade, 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 Ice 2; once you've used Doom or X-Zone 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 or Sabin's Helmet

Regal 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 , which is basically an MP-based version of the . It also has a 25% chance of casting

Doom 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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