Game:

Final Fantasy VI (1994)

Duration: 40:09

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5

Return 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

Time to make our trek to Seascape Town via a small cave. The guard at the entrance takes his leave to go inform everyone at the castle that the king has made his escape from Kefka's clutches relatively unscathed. Right after he leaves, his relief comes in, apparently allergic to chocobos. Poor guy.

What's interesting though? This guard is known as Hector and he joins for this run through the cave. He's nothing special stat or skill wise, but he's another target for the enemies to waste attacks on.

Besides random Killer Bees skulking about (which you could have run into outside of Fraust), there's Wallmasters & Cursed Dolls. Both pack a fairly decent punch with their attacks with the former having a skill that can inflict sleep (Sleep Scratch) while the latter has a move that can petrify (Dread Gaze). Cursed Dolls are susceptible to confusion so Serin popping a quick use of his Cosmic Nova can control the fight pretty easily, especially if a Dread Gaze gets aimed at an enemy.

The cave is very small with only five rooms to it, but the first room contains a healing spring to fully refresh everyone, making it a great place to grind if you need it. The second room is the largest and houses all the treasure in this place. Remember that chests with upgraded loot as the game progresses are no more so loot away. You'll find an Elixir, Ether, and Shelter in total.

Once you reach the last room of the cave, Hector leaves to return to his guard duties, but he left a bit too early because there's a Zombie for the others to contend with. It hits rather hard, over 200 damage on a frontliner, but that's all it does damage wise so keeping one person on standby to use a Potion if needed will keep you afloat...at least for awhile. The Zombie also can use Bite to inflict the aptly named zombie status to a target. The afflicted drops to 0 hp and will attack ally or enemy. Karma Jolts will reverse the effects, but it'll be as if they were resurrected via a Recharge so be ready with a Potion to bring the character out of critical.

With 1400 hp and an innate hp regen of roughly 35-40+ health per tick, Cloud & Aurora should pile on the offense with Braver/Blade Beam & Cure respectively. Serin can't really do much so leave him on standby to toss heals or Karma Jolts as it's required.

Once you exit the cave, there's some new enemies skulking about like Hunters from the Resident Evil universe, Moblins, and Lurkers. Moblins can be annoying via inflicting stop with Energy Web and Hunters can hit hard with Mega Volt, but otherwise nothing that you can't handle by throwing all your offensive might out each battle. Really nice gil gains from battles here too with a pack of four Moblins dishing out over 1k gil for a relatively easy kill.

To reach Seascape Town, head east from the cave exit until you hit the ocean. From there, the town is to the south.

Seascape Town is more or less a rest point to stock up on items, search for treasure, and gather intel. The main selling point is not an old Mortal Kombat loonie being a major drunkard, but someone by the name of Master Oyama taking two of his disciples to Mt. Zephyr in the north for some meditation & training. One of them just so happens to be Ronan, but the other? Legendary DBZ mockery idol Raditz. That's going to blow up in his face somehow, right?

As for the shops, there's some interesting stuff in the armory for Aurora. There's a Diffusal Rod, Wizard's Hat, and Vanish Cloak. The hat & cloak provide boosts to her magic stat, but all three items teach her a spell. Diffusal Rod teaches Dispel (strips beneficial status effects from a target) at a x3 rate, Wizard's Hat teaches Teleport (warps you out of a dungeon or battle) at a x5 rate, and Vanish Cloak teaches Vanish (makes the target invisible and able to dodge all physical strikes, but magic will always hit) at a x2 rate.

As for the relic shop, there's the Paladin's Icon & Star Pendant. The former grants 100% hit rate with the Attack command and the ability to take blows for party members in critical status while the latter grants immunity to poison & petrify.

When you're all ready to go, you can exit town and go north to Mt. Zephyr. You can take a small detour to a hut on the way though to find out it's where Ronan lives. He's not in though because, shock and awe, Raditz killed Oyama so he went into the mountain to take revenge.

More next time!

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