The West Side[]
Before we leave for Figaro at the king's behest, we have some 'sploring to do in the safe (for now) city of Narshe. Those two party members you left behind are their in case a second assault is made on the mining town, but I'll spare you the suspense and say that no such thing happens. I mean, what if you just left Gau and Locke behind? What then?
So anyway, loot, loot, loot. These people tried to lynch Terra, so that's how I justify ransacking their town and stealing their shit. South of the Old Man's house is another house containing all sorts of useful treasure. There are seven chests here, and they contain:
- 5000 gil
- Earring
- Thief's Knife (Allows Locke to steal when he attacks - Extremely useful)
- Reflect Ring (Auto Reflect relic)
- Thief's Bracer (Doubles Locke's stealing rate)
- Hyper Wrist
- Seventh one is locked - we'll come back for that
Clearly, this place was just meant to be pillaged by Locke. With the Thief's Knife and Bracer, he'll be raking in the items: Potions, Ethers, Hi-Potions, rare equipment, etc... Put those two on him, and don't take them off.
Enter the building just to the left of Arvis's house. This is the armour shop, and the only new item being sold is the Mythril Shield, which I advise you purchase at least one of. Exit the Armour shop and walk straight down to find the item shop (stock up if you've used too many items in the previous battle), then turn left and walk until you find the Relic Shop. The two new relics on sale are the Fairy Ring (prevents Poison/Darkness) and Barrier Ring (critical shell) if you want to increase your collection. Enter the weapon shop just below it if you want the only new items offered there: A Chain Flail for Celes (which does away with the Runic ability because it isn't a sword) and a Moonring Blade for Locke (but you don't want to deprive him of the Thief's Knife do you?). Left of the Relic shop, atop the wooden staircase, is the Elder's House, which contains an Elixir-bearing clock. That's it for Narshe for now. What a useless little berg it is.
Walk south from the town to castle Figaro, which has resurfaced in the desert. Enter the main courtyard, and Sabin will depart to wander around the area (if he's with you). Rest at the inn, and we get a scene with Sabin in the throne room, where he reminisces about the passing of his father and the succession crisis that occurs afterwards: Sabin blames the Empire for his fathers death, and expresses his desire to be free of the rules and protocols of castle life. Edgar, not wanting to be king either, decides to settle the matter of accession with a single coin flip. Sabin won, and chose his freedom, leaving Edgar to become king. After some saccharine man-talk, the party wakes up, and Sabin is back.
Now it's time to shop! Enter the room before the throne and then walk inside the right door to find that tool merchant. Put Edgar in front of the party and the merchant will say that he can't take money from the king (Yay!) but Edgar insists that he take his money. Dammit Edgar! Be generous on your own dollar! The man does offer us a royal markdown, however. The two new tools are 'Flash' (inflicts darkness - it's alright) and the marvellous 'Drill', which inflicts high damage on one foe. Perfect for boss battles. You can also visit the item shop at the other end of the hall for some Hi-Potions, Ethers (they're new) and Phoenix Downs. Remember, royal reduction! After you're finished abusing the kingly prerogative of Edgar, head to the first room of the castle that you ever entered, and go down the left stairs. Talk to the man in blue to travel westward, to the land beyond the mountains.
Kohlingen[]
Travel north from the castle's new location to find our first destination in our quest to find Terra, the not at all ridiculously named Kohlingen. Actually Kohlingen translates from the rough German for 'Total Nonsense'. Interesting.
We're here for information regarding Terra, but I'ma have to wander around a bit. The northeast house belongs to a schizophrenic herbalist who's keeping a catatonic young girl in his basement and keeping her alive with witchcraft, I suspect. If you have Locke in your party, he will flashback to a time long since gone, where he hires the old man to keep her body alive and un-ageing with herbs (now how the fuck would he do that?). The girl - Rachel, turns out to be Locke's previous lover, who he feels responsible for. If you brought Celes with you, you can start to see the the first seeds of romance blossom between the two.
Exit the house, then walk around it (you have to walk around the moat/river thing too) and look for a secret back entrance which takes you inside to a Green Beret. You can extend Locke's sad little tale of love and loss by entering the western most house, which begins another flashback. The two (Locke and Rachel) were exploring a nearby mountain for treasure when Rachel got hurt and lost her memory by falling down a chasm (ditz). Locke is blamed for the incident (and it was kinda his fault), and driven from town. A year later, he returns to find Rachel dead, having conveniently regained her memory shortly before she died. Her last word was... Locke. And now Locke is really depressed and can't let her go - so he gets this insane pharmacist to put her in never ending sleep.
Wow. That's really sad. What is it with this game? Take an elixir from the clock, then leave. There are no new items to buy except a Twist Headband in the general store, so once you buy that or pass it up, the last thing to do is hit the tavern. Shadow's here, getting smashed at the bar. If you have room in your party, Shadow will agree to join for a while, but at 3000 gil, he and his dog can get fucked. If you have four party members, he grows cold and tells you to leave him alone. Hmmm, afraid of the number 4, maybe? So that's heights, water, and 4.... I'm keeping my eye on you, ninja. Now it's time to leave. Wha? Oh right! Info on Terra! Well I couldn't stand to talk to anyone, so I'm not sure about that, but if you check out the southwest house, you'll find it burned to the ground, thanks to the craziness of one 'pink glowing monster'.
Jidoor[]
Before we leave for Jidoor, head for the cabin far to the north of Kohlingen (it's still marked on the map). Inside is an old crackpot anarchist who relishes war, so ignore his ass. Check the lone pot on the side for a Hero's Ring, a relic which boosts physical AND magical power. Definitely for Celes.
Run left of Kohl and then south to eventually find Jidoor (it's a long journey, but with a healer, thief and two premier bodyguards it's an easy one), a small village with even less significance than the last. There's an Ether in a pot in the northern (Owzer's) Mansion, an auction house that will be important later, and some equipment shops that sell a few new items. These are; Kodachi for Shadow, Kiku-Ichimonji for Cyan, Kaiser Knuckles for Sabin, a White Dress for Celes, and a Mythril Vest for anyone if you didn't steal one from Hell's Rider. I talked to a few people, and the only one who said anything about Terra (flying pink blob in the sky) was a blonde woman outside the auction house who said she saw it head north. Off we go then, to the northern mountains! - if you want to make the journey easier, rent a chocobo from the stables in the south part of town and travel there on bird-back.
Zozo[]
Lying comfortably in the mountains north of Jidoor is the infamous Zozo, City of thieves, liars, and the miscellaneous dregs of humankind. On an intriguing note, no person in this rain-bound city is to be trusted: they all lie to you. Second thing of interest is that Zozo is not like the other cities you've previously visited - all the shops here are false fronts filled with monsters, and those same fiends fill the streets, which means that you've got some random encounters to deal with. The Gobbledygook monster is highly vulnerable to Bioblaster, and has a Phoenix Down for a rare steal. Harvester's have Dragon Boots to steal, but retaliate by stealing your gil. The gil can be retrieved, however, by winning the battle. Veil Dancer's have a Thief Knife to steal, and are dangerous enemies by their own (they can cast Blizzara, Fira, and Thundara) so kill them first. Finally, there's the Hill Gigas, which you can steal the Gigas Glove from.
Walk left to find the pub (and also a corpse outside it - lovely) and head inside. Disregard the lying barkeep and climb the stairs twice. Turn right at the split to emerge on the balcony outside. Ascend the stairs and enter the right door (the left one is rusted shut), to get yourself an Ether from the chest. Go all the way back down and exit the pub, then head north until you see the inn. The clock in here and stopped, and winding it to the correct hour will open a door for you. The point is to walk around, speaking to Zozo citizens to find out what the right team is in a painful logic puzzle, but why do that when I have the combination? 6:10:50.
Walk through the secret passage to the other side, and pick up the chainsaw from the chest. This is Edgar's ultimate tool (at this point), a powerful single-target weapon that has a one in four chance of instant death. It won't work on bosses though, which is rather unfortunate. Exit the inn, then walk southwest of where the pub is to find the main building of the city. Walk up the first flight of stairs to the outside, then walk up those steps. The next room has a procession of thieves all walking in the same direction, so follow them outside again, and start climbing these stairs up the side of the building. Ignore the first door you see to your left, but take the next one to get a Brigand's Glove. It changes the Steal command to Mug, which makes the Thief's Bracer useless, since it only works for the steal command. I wouldn't suggest equipping it.
You'll notice how we can't go up any farther from here, as a rude stone block is impeding our advancement. Go down to the door I told you to ignore and walk left to jump from one building to the next. Jump once more to the next high-rise over to continue the search for Ms. Terra. Once you enter, walk up and take the second hallway leading left to find some stairs. Up those, take an Ether from one of the pots above you, then go south, past another lying thief, to get outside again. Jump across the towers until you reach the first one again, enter the room before you and climb the three staircases, then ascend to the top of the tower. Enter the one door on the way to get a Burning Fist for Sabin, then speak with the swarthy Vargas look alike for an exchange. Looks like the maiden of the tower isn't entertaining visitors - her personal bouncer would see that we all die horribly before we're granted an audience with his employer, so we have a boss battle to now deal with. I shouldn't have to say this, but put everyone in the back row.
| Boss Fight: Dadaluma, Iron Fist x2 |
I have no clue who Dadaluma is or why he's blocking our way. All I know is that he looks sorta like Vargas, so I'll just assume that they're related somehow. It also appears that we've encountered Luma in mid-stroke, so this shouldn't be too difficult. In fact, this battle is quite easy so long as you don't perform certain actions to instigate one of Dadaluma's counters. Being hit four times with the Fight command will cause him to throw a Mythril Dagger/Knife at you twice, causing high damage (especially if thrown at the same target). After being hit with magic twice, he throws once Mythril Dagger/Knife at you before using jump, which totally wastes one character. This can be avoided by using Tools, Bushido, Blitzes and Rages, which he doesn't respond to. Celes can just heal, since we don't want Luma to reciprocate with any of his brutal attacks. After about 2000 HP is gone, Dadaluma will heal himself for about 1000HP by using four Hi-Potions followed by a cast of Protect, a minor inconvenience. If Edgar is in your team, you should be hitting him for over 500 each turn with Drill or Chainsaw, so that amount means nothing to us. Last thing of note is that Dadaluma will call for two Iron Fists to join him, but these weak shits are nothing before your might. But I wouldn't even know, since Dadaluma died before that even happened. With all the abilities and techniques you now have, this battle should be cake. This game has some easy, easy bosses... |
I thought Zozoans were supposed to lie about everything.
Though we're so close to our goal, I'll have to end the page here. There just isn't enough room to spare, so I'll see you in part X. Buh-bye for now.