Return of the Dark Sorcerer Rerun #20 - Protecting the Esper
7Return of the Dark Sorcerer is a hack for Final Fantasy 6 by Gi Nattak. New characters, new portraits, rebalanced spells/moves, a new overworld map, new events, and multiple difficulty levels are just some of the features of this hack.
The latest version can always be found in one of the following two locations:
https://www.ff6hacking.com/patches/rotds/FFVI_ROTDS.zip
http://ngplus.net/index.php?/files/file/8-final-fantasy-vi-return-of-the-dark-sorcerer/
As usual, you'll need to find a proper ROM on your own to patch with.
Version being played: 2.0.5
Everyone's gathered to protect the esper so let's get cracking shall we?
With Oboro's help secured for the upcoming battle, one more person offers his services as well. It's none other than our friendly neighborhood prinny hater Mog and he'll be most welcomed here simply because I can run two full parties and pick a person to essentially sit out this upcoming battle.
Also I do all my equipping once the battle has begun. Primarily due to Mog being in my primary party, but also because Lost Odyssey's normal battle theme plays for the entirety here except for the boss.
The regular enemies for the most part are all Dark Elites from the Cursed Forest. With my primary team of Aurora, Serin, Ronan, and Mog, the fights get cleared out rather quickly and Aurora can heal up the team between battles. Mp for Aurora isn't an issue since I'm packing plenty of Ethers.
Part of the reason I employed Mog in my primary team is so he can learn his ice themed dance, Arctic Slide. All the moves on it are very good here. Snowball helps knock down some of the bulky hp totals on the enemies here while Avalanche & Absolute Zero are solid AoE damage moves. Mog can easily break 500+ damage with them at his current level if he equips an Oracle Ring.
On the new enemy front, there's Netherhounds, S. Knights, and Nightraids. Netherhounds aren't too bad besides some poison shenanigans, Nightraids like to use Shadowmeld to make themselves invisible (but since all my AoE attacks are magic aligned...heh) while also having some decent single target magic attacks, and S. Knights have a permanent reflect up so you'll need to use attacks that won't bounce off of it.
Once all the pawns have died, my secondary team of Cloud, Tifa, Oboro, and Arc step up to the plate. They get to deal with a Captain and his pet Tuturis. While the Captain has some strong single target moves, the Tuturis is the real threat with its Magnitude Eight doing close to 400 damage to the entire team. Its single target strikes are no jokes either.
The Tuturis does have one weakness...being able to slow it. Doing that gives you a huge advantage, making it much easier to heal with Potions to keep up with Magnitude Eight's damage.
Probably a good idea to drop that Captain first. Got a hunch he'd summon more of his pets if his current one gets killed. After that, the soldier's partner should be fairly simple enough to drop so long as you slow it and make sure your team is hasted. Everyone with shell helps too to curb Magnitude Eight's damage.
Once those two are dealt with, heal up and go check out Neko's wares in the northwest. Besides some assorted consumables, there's couple new weapons in the Morning Star & Ocean Spear. The former is a ranged weapon while the latter is a water elemental weapon. When you're done here, go give Kefka a visit so his clowny behind can be kicked back to where he belongs.
Kefka's not really much different in his approach compared to the minor scuffle Ronan & Oboro had in the imperial camp area. His physical have a bit of a kick to them, but he's more adept with magical combat. Scorch/Freeze/Storm can all do 500-600 damage if it strikes someone without shell up, but honestly? That's about the worst he can pull out. He has some ailment moves like Toxic Bomb & Sleep or potentially halving a character's level via Black Shock, but he's certainly not like the Captain and his beast buddy protecting him.
I suppose Kefka's own buddies are supposed to be threatening, but they're not. The dual Clockwerks focus on ripping off your character's buffs, but don't really do much otherwise.
After some time has passed, Kefka will swap out the Clockwerks for a singular Skuldier. It doesn't do a damned thing worth mentioning.
Strategy here is to just ignore the small fry and aim all of your strong attacks at Kefka. Arc can provided some insurance from the tier 2 spells via Runic, but it's hardly a requirement unless you're going into this fight at a lower level than me.
Before offing the clown face, make sure to steal his Elixir. He'll drop a Psycho Blade which is a really nice new Aether for Serin. Hits all enemies, does good damage, and can inflict blind and/or berserk.
More next time!
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