Return of the Dark Sorcerer (Rerun) #22 - In Search of Aurora
9Return 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
Did some off screen grinding to bring up my chosen trio for the journey to the east. Cloud & Tifa were a given because they'll be required for the next major story arc while Serin does some solid and reliable AoE damage with Psycho Blade to help deal with encounters.
After getting shuttled to the east via Durandal Castle, the first destination is Stardust Village. When you exit the castle, just go northeast through the desert and you'll find the village next to a big forest.
Stardust Village is a completely optional town to explore for the usual goodies hidden everywhere. Nothing real noteworthy in the shop, but Oboro's chilling out in the inn and can be recruited to your team for 3k gil which I pay instantly.
In the southwest part of town is a kid that wants to play rock-paper-scissors. Choose correctly and you win 100 gil. Do so FIVE times in a row and you'll get the RPS Badge. Hello Xenogears reference!
In the northwest part of town is a vacant house, one that just so happens to be related to Cloud. Bringing him inside triggers a cutscene showing how his closest friend got killed. Yes, his closest friend is Aerith and she did indeed get taken down by clown man Kefka. She put up a hell of a fight though.
Speaking of Aerith, there's a man by the name of Jasper in the northeastern house. His specialty? Preserving corpses. His current corpse like figure is none other than Aerith, done at the request of Cloud. Clearly he's got a plan, but good luck seeing that one play out right now.
Finally, there's a hidden path behind Jasper's house. There's a dog guarding the only other exit out and he's not gonna budge from his spot just yet. We'll be back here soon though.
When you're done exploring the area, head back to the overworld. The Hermit's Hideaway is to the southeast of town, but all that's there is a few scattered items and an old guy who says to come back later.
Back on the overworld, stick to the ocean to the east as you go north. You'll run into two destinations of note with the first being the Colosseum. Normally only seen in the late game, you can bet items for prizes, but not worthless ones. Otherwise, Majin Buu shows up to take the item and kick your ass.
Neko's also here and has a shop loadout similar to what he had at the start of Ronan's scenario. That includes the interesting First Strike relic and it does what you expect a relic with the name First Strike does which is to instantly fill the wearer's ATB gauge at the start of battle.
Not much farther north from the Colosseum is Sunfall City. I save outside because my first destination is a house to the northwest of the armor shop. Inside is a woman on the floor and a lovely little Metroid that's invaded the woman's home and needs to be taught a lesson.
The Metroid only seems to do single target strikes, but it's done some serious training in its native universe because the physical strike basically one shot my frontliners WITH buffs up. It can also drain hp and transfer it back to itself via Feed or Drain.
The problem? Metroids absolutely hate being struck by ice. Tifa just so happens to be packing two weapons attuned to that element. As such, she's full on attacking every turn she gets. The Metroid's got a pretty beefy 10k hp pool to chew through.
Cloud likewise is in the front row. He just spams his level 4 limit Omnislash over and over. The others are in the back row and get Safe cast on them.
This fight went way better than I was expecting simply because Tifa put in some serious damage work. Double weapon procs on her first turn, then the Metroid using Drain to just barely not take out Tifa. She was queued up to attack and launched her desperation move Atomic Drop for a massive 3k damage.
Once the Metroid goes down (not before Oboro swiped a valuable Tincture from it though), the woman hands over a Mermaid Rod. Another elemental rod affair, this one being attuned to water with a water based proc as well.
As for the shops in town, the relic shop finally has buyable Oracle Rings & Power Gloves which is where most of my gil goes to. Other than that, nothing jaw dropping except for a beach area to the east of the chocobo hut with a hidden giant sum of gil in the rock in the middle of the area.
When you're done, Rogue City is due west of town, but you'll have to detour north to get around the mountains and reach it.
More next time
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