LN1 does it: Stupid challenge playthroughs(Current: FF6 Homemade "Mystery")

Part 1: Karlabos
Part 2: Siren
Part 3: Magissa(and Forza, kinda)
Part 4: Galura
Part 5: Liquid Flame(and Ironclaw in mention)
Part 6: Ifrit
Part 7: Byblos
Part 8: Sandworm & Crayclaw
Part 9: AdamanTiMi(has video)
Part 10: Sol Cannon
Part 11: ArchaeAvis
Part 12: Titan, Chim. Brain, Puroboros, Gilgamesh 1, Gilgamesh 2, & Tyrasaurus
Part 13: HiryuuPlant and HiryuuFlwrs, Gilgamesh 3, & Atmos(R.I.P.: Abductor, didn't even get mentioned because he gets 2-shot)(has video)
Part 14: Crystals, unloseable Exdeath, & Shoat
Part 15: Carbunkle, Gilgamesh 4, & Exdeath(has video)
Part 16: Antlion, Gargoyles, Forced Pyramid Battles, & Merugene
Part 17 which should actually be 18(what is this, FF2US and FF3US?): Minotauros(LL and Butz), Omniscient(LL kinda not really and Butz), & Bahamut(has video)
The Part that is actually 17: Gargoyles 2?, Invisible, Pantera, & Stalker
This one is most definitely Part 19: Leviathan, Gargoyles 4?, Jupiter Moon Pigs, Calofisteri, Apanda, NOT Omega(yeah, not happening anytime soon)
Part 20: Apocalypse, Catastrophe, Halicarnaso, Twin Tania, Ramuh, Gilgamesh 5, Necrofobia(has video)
Finale: Tree Exdeath/Neo Exdeath(has video)

For the first time ever, the first(actually second, but I don't count Wing Raptor here) boss actually gave me trouble. It could either stunlock me to death with Tentacle or hit me with Tailscrew which would force me to use a Potion and hope that he doesn't use Tentacle afterwards. Since I didn't want to rely on luck so much, I decided to grind. I also gathered enough money to get Potions to last me probably well until I can buy Hi-Potions.

I thought I was fine, since I could kill the area enemies in one hit.

I even had a battle where Karlabos opened with a basic physical instead of Tentacle. I felt like I could do it perhaps if I spent plenty of Potions.

I was proven wrong time and time again. Basically, if Tailscrew was used I had to hope the basic physical was used twice in a row afterwards, as Tentacle would kill me and Tailscrew again would reset my work to raise my health.

Despite grinding to L10, my physical still only did 80. Since this is a 9-hit kill on Karlboros, I would require extreme luck to win, or grinding to a point of lunacy. I decided that I only had one other choice.

Well, Double-Handed. With that I could boost my physical damage to make killing Karlboros plausible.

Each hit now did 180, so I could 4-hit kill Karlboros. It still took me some luck since I basically HAD to not heal myself the entire battle, which also meant the first 3 attacks HAD to be basic physicals. The 4th attack was Tailscrew, but by that point I only needed one more hit to win. I was euphoric.

Since the events healed my other characters, I had to spend a battle getting them killed again. Area so far was pretty simple since Double-Handed physicals kill the enemies in one hit.

Being a little bit stronger than before.

Alright, the second one on the list is Siren. Not too bad actually. Living Siren's defense is such that I can 5-shot her, and Guard mostly nullifies undead Siren's attacks(her defense is too good though). Granted, there were a variety of ways it could go wrong, but it wasn't as aggravating as Karlabos. Being able to beat Karlabos was enough to be able to beat Siren honestly.
Now, if Siren cast Haste on herself, I'd be on a disadvantage. If she casts Slow on me too, it's practically doomed for me. Undead Siren's Bear Hug is practically a given, and Poison isn't very nice(but it's physical so Guard can nullify the damage). Sleep is also a pretty bad thing if it precedes the turn where she turns into Undead since those physicals actually quite hurt. If living Siren cast Armor on herself(reduce physical damage by 50%), my chances lowered too. But getting an optimal run took me 0 minutes of grinding and not many retries so I'm satisfied.

First turn is Mute. This is a very optimal result, since it's a free turn.

Spells do a bit over 50 damage, so there's that.

Blah blah, use Guard. Undead Siren's defense is too high for it to be really worth it to attack. Potions only do 50 damage, so that's not much better either. I could use them after her third attack though, as she tends to return back to the living form after that.

I thought I was fine since I only had 2 attacks left, even if Siren was Hasted. However, she also cast Armor on herself so that threw me off.

She does a Bear Hug barely in time to get me before I Guard. The Bear Hug shaves off 100 HP and I absolutely die from Poison.

Fortunately it didn't take me long to get an optimal run again. I would also like to mention that Siren can cure herself, which does lengthen the battle. I generally don't mind it too much though. Cure recovers about 60 HP.

I kind of forgot to get the Ship Graveyard Antidotes...

Now this is new. I don't remember Galura being a world map encounter yet. Oh well, not much to do with it. Even if I win I don't get much, and the physicals could hurt, so I just run away to Carwen.

Decided to finally sleep on an Inn, after which I had to proceed and kill my partners again.

Although the shopping did give me a Regal Cutlass and a Bronze Helmet. Along with Siren's dropped Bronze Armor, it's pretty nice.

North Mountain is a very non-particular dungeon. Enemies are one-shot. I run away from this formation because I don't feel like fighting 4 enemies.

Getting to the save point was not difficult at all.

These stats look pretty good.

Magisa's Ice/Fire/Bolt does 48 damage, which is fairly negligible. My physical does 322, just shy of two-shotting her(she has 650 HP). Her Drain spell does and heals 168 HP. Given my HP it would seem a pretty straightforward brute force fight.

But then Forza appears. I kill Magisa but sadly in my conditions this fight is most definitely doomed.

Forza's basic physical does 72 and Tackle does a whopping 144. Welp.

I saw this particular screen plenty of times.

I grinded for an extra level since this would help my damage(not by a tremendous factor, but I felt it should be enough). Of course, I then remembered a problem with two-shotting Magisa: the Drain spell.

And sometimes random variance really didn't want to help with two-shotting her. Speaking of which, there must be something I'm not getting. According to this FAQ and Wolfram Alpha, my damage should not be that low. A Regal Cutlass has 22 Attack, and Butz has 51 Strength, along with the Double Grip skill. In addition, he is Level 14. Not only that, Magisa literally has 0 Defense Assuming minimal variance, my damage should be 333. I dunno what I missed here.

Eventually I figured out that I had to time my turn properly. Basically if I let Magisa attack and I attacked right afterwards, I would get another turn to whack at her and kill her before she drained me.

Just put this screenshot here because: A.)Lenna steals my heart and this cutscene is about her so something had to be here B.)Just whacking Magisa with a Regal Cutlass was pretty rash.
Yes, B was an excuse to put this here.

Worus, my body isn't ready. But I must face it.

Boring grinds. Changed my equipment from Bronze Helmet to Mythril Helmet for a Defense boost. Comes in handy since Garula kinda sucks to fight(or maybe I just suck altogether).

These enemies that cast Slow(the RikaldMages) suck. They also can cast Stop and make you lose to the random encounter so I had to tread carefuly(I got annihilated once).

I killed Garula in 5 hits and he kills me in about 10. Seems pretty fair.

Then I forget he can do his Rush attack AND his regular attack, nevermind that he's already a bit fast enough to sometimes do 2 attacks in what it takes to fill my ATB bar. So I promptly got annihilated the first time. I should also note Guard is really, really useless here since his attacks all do the same damage and you only really use your turn to not take damage. Except even worse because Rush inflicts Sap so you still lose health anyway.

Luckily RNG favored me a bit more the second time and I managed to kill him with little HP left. I promptly used 10 of those Potions(too lazy to Inn and kill my friends).

Look at all these Job Crystals I will never use.

Well, no more Worus Tower.

Ah, Karnak. Actually, wild monsters are catching up now. They can conceivably take more than one hit, come packed, and deal about 1/20 of my health or so. Basically it's like playing as a boss.

Unless I did something wrong it seems you cannot even buy things when at the cheap prices. I mean, a 220G Mythril Sword is a good deal(9 more points of Attack means a significantly higher damage). Alas, our party gets arrested for even trying to buy.

Anything else I could buy is completely unnecessary for my purposes.

See, I thought Liquid Flame would be much worse than it actually is. Turns out all of its strong attacks are counterattacks so that's where we stand. That pathetic Magic Defense though.

Liquid Flame's physicals are a joke and I 5-shot him. Of course, his counterattacks 4-shot me, so I need to heal a bit.

I never even knew hand Liquid Flame had this attack. It's a physical attack that deals paralysis. See, if this was some kinda Karlabos situation again, I'd be pissed. But it deals so little damage it doesn't matter that it can chain it since it tends not to chain it for long.

Fire 2 does deal significant damage, but it's just a counterattack.

Tornado Liquid Flame can cast Fire 2 on itself(herself?) to heal 270 HP, which sucks. However, its counterattack is Magnet which literally doesn't matter due to me inherently being in the Back Row.

It actually gets enough living time that it runs out of MP to cast Fire 2. Mythril Sword misses suck, if you want to know.

So you probably shouldn't bother trying to get Tornado Liquid Flame's drop. By the time you can use Archers you can outright buy elemental Bows and I think you can get bows stronger than the elementals by then.

Enemies in the escape from Karnak Castle sequence are pretty simple. They all die to like 2 hits. Sorcerers can cause Confusion and Frog though. I also did get the Karnak Castle Ribbon, so that's a good thing(Ribbon is a good accessory: would recommend the easy 2 Sorcerer fight to be done for it).

I should mention I forgot how this battle works and just attacked the Sergeant directly since I thought I'd trigger the auto-Escape of the Karnaks.

Still, Iron Claw is easy pickings so he doesn't even deserve his body to be seen. Let's pretend he's not even a boss.

So this is where we stand now. To the Ancient Library.

Ugh, I really didn't like this boss. Same equipment(Ribbon is a Dancer/Classless thing so I guess there's that).

Alright, so preemptive attack chance aside, I'm horribly outmatched in "shots to kill". This was naturally going to happen, but I don't remotely have weapon or equipment diversity(not even items except for healing ones), so I have to tackle everything by strength for now.

Both of Ifrit's fire attacks 4-shot me(basically Fire 2 and Flame are the same). So what do I do?

Why use Elixirs, of course. Oh yeah, and there are basically two feasible ways to get multiple Elixirs at this point. Number 1 is from Zus(random encounters near Karnak/Library), or those weirdos in the Ship Graveyard. It doesn't really matter to me and I don't mind the experience(I embrace it actually), so I would prefer the Zu method. They're both rare drops but eh.

One last thing. Ifrit can use High Kick, which is a low-damage attack that inflicts Paralysis. The kicker here is that he gets enough time to do two fire attacks and deplete half of my health instead of a quarter. Which really, really sucks. He also could chain it and it's happened. I'm not anticipitating the other boss here.

Okay admittedly it only took me like 10 tries but it still feels like a Karlabos.

Grinded to Level 33 outside(better experience yield and no L5 Doom). Also managed to stock up 9 Elixirs from the many Zus I killed. The Stealth Robe is in a chest in the Library.

Byblos can potentially destroy your battle attempt with either of two attacks in his arsenal. Or do a not-so-unlikely string that also destroys your attempt. Anyway, that's his physical.

I missed. A lot.

That's Byblos's Wind Slash.

Thread inflicts Slow for the entire duration of the battle. It can help him string attacks to doom your attempt.

Getting Confused is pretty bullcrap. Wastes one turn and can deal lots of damage if Byblos doesn't attack you with his physical.

I 6-shot Byblos. Once again, I must compensate my being outmatched by using Elixirs.

Magic Hammer is literally the most harmless option in his arsenal(MP doesn't matter). Thread when I'm already Slowed is also harmless.

This is an attempt ruiner(or at least makes it tedious). Sonic Wave halves level, which means halving damage output outright.

When Byblos's HP is low enough, he'll counter physicals with a Drain spell, which is fortunately outdamaged by my physical anyway. But if my level was halved, the outdamaging wouldn't be as significant. Yeah, mean.

As I celebrate victory, I should notice one attack didn't get used. Sometimes, when not at low HP, Byblos will counterattack physicals with Armor. If that happens, you might as well retry. Still easier than Karlabos since Elixirs give me more of a fighting chance and Byblos has no paralyze attack or critical HP attack.

Man, I'm really glad. The next two bosses are really easy.

I buy a Coral Sword in Jacole since it's stronger than the Mythril Sword. The sword's elemental properties help too. The MageMash is for no particular reason other than the possibility of wanting to silence something.

Rare screen of somebody actually being able to buy one of these things in World 1. Angel gives immunity to Old. Not bad. Also gives nice stats.

Pretty much my equipment. Crescent has no equipment of interest for Knights. But it does still make me feel that the Fire Bow drop is the worst drop of Liquid Flame. Especially given that you get the Hunter right on Crescent.

But let's not dawdle. The Sandworm takes 500-ish damage from my physicals. Pretty good.

Both Sandworm's Quicksand and his physical do 60. Honestly, the Sap is doing more damage than either of his attacks.

Unless you're stupid enough to attack one of the empty holes. Because then he just counters with Demi which halves your HP. Ugh.

Easy though. Didn't have to use a single item.

I never saw this moment in any of my two(2) playthroughs ever. Just wanted to share since it seems kinda obscure(is in the bed room of Crescent's undergound)("Check the pot", spread the word).
[...]






Okay, don't blink.






[...]

Because Crayclaw gets one-shot by the Coral Sword. Thanks Byblos grinding.

Bam.

Just grinded a little bit(to get levels and Elixirs, of course).
A boring, if rhythmical battle. Guard against the two-in-a-row physicals. AdamanTiMi doesn't deserve good quality.

I also bought a Flame Ring in Istory after realizing I had the money for it. Premature Fire Shield against at least one certain boss.

Alright. The Sol Cannon is a boss with many, many tools to annoy you. Nothing like a good Demi that inflicts Old too when Angel Rings are incredibly expensive, eh? Good thing I did manage to buy one.

Sol Cannon is weak to Lightning. Coral Sword is a natural pick, but Sol Cannon isn't as lacking in health as Cray Claw, or even AdamanTiMi.

Really though, those unnamed missiles are a Demi which can technically not even kill me. I do not have enough turns before Sol Cannon fires Surge Beam, so I have to use an Elixir. However, I have to do time it well, or one of those missiles will hit me and leave me with low enough health to be surged.

Surge Beam deals half of the target's MAX HP. Not current HP, max HP. This means Surge Beam will kill you if you were halved right before it hits.

It also inflicts Sap but that is irrelevant. I only have to hit him a little more, and he dies. Lonka Ruins are now open, and oh boy I'm not looking forward to that boss.

A bit of grinding(also more Elixirs because you can never have too many). Flame Ring is an Istory buy(50K gil is expensive but eh grinding is rich), Ancient Sword and Gold Armor are in Lonka Ruins chests. A pretty nice buff to our dear Butz, which is much welcome.

Seems like ArchaeAvis loves starting fight with Slip. A pretty simple physical(seems to do the same damage as his basic physical) that inflicts Sap. Not very damaging overall(maybe like 300 with Sap included).

Actually this damage isn't constant, and I'm not talking about variance. Here he takes from 500-700 depending on how much variance likes me.

Wing is basic physical with added Poison side-effect. Ouch, but Antidotes exist for a reason.

Blaze actually seems to deal literally no damage. It'd deal pretty nasty damage without the Flame Ring(and I know because I have accidentally done some attempts with Angel instead of Flame). But with Flame Ring it's just immunity. Weird.

Flame is the reason I equip a Flame Ring and not an Angel Ring. The healing opportunity is just too good to pass up. Saves on Elixirs and nulls a few attacks.

Seems like around the Flame/Tail(basic physical that inflicts Blind) phase, the damage rises up to the 1000 range.

Claw is a nasty basic physical that can Paralyze. And like literally every other paralyzing attack I've encountered, the boss loves to do nasty stuff with the two free turns, and this is one of those bosses that can chain it if it pleases.

Actually I think this Thunder spell is not exactly the Black Magic one. After all, RPGe calls it the Bolt series(Bolt, Bolt2, Bolt3). Seems to be a Gravity-ish attack. 1/4 max HP and whatnot.

Immediately(-ish) after being revived, ArchaeAvis might open with either of two attacks. Fang inflicts Confuse which he loves to chain for some reason.

Or Maelstrom. It forces your HP to be critical. It can theoretically miss but has like a pretty low chance to do so(but it did happen on one attempt so maybe not so much).

He also gains a le funny new attack, Entangle. It just outright inflicts Paralysis. That sucks. He returns with many of his attacks from previous phases, which sucks for including Thunder, but if you're lucky you might get Flame-healed. He can still use Fang and Maelstrom after his first post-revival attack, and both suck.

His defenses also seem to be pretty low. He does have more health than any of his previous phases, but this is still a clean 2-shot.

And so, with some luck and only having to use like two(2) Elixirs on that particular attempt, it's over.

Six bosses? Sound too good to be true? Well, this particular stretch of the game has the bosses spread fairly close to each other(no dungeons yet), so it's no surprise I could do so many.

There's nothing to say about Titan. His attacks do too little damage for me to care since he gets 4-shot.

Chim. Brain is also not very noteworthy. A little bit moreso with the Flame Ring.

Even if Aqua Rake was actually Water elemental, the 2x damage would still amount to a pitiful 400-ish.

I do want Angel Ring for the next one, even if it technically doesn't matter too much.

Each Puroboros dies in one hit.

Each Puroboros casts Life 2 when they die. They have enough MP to cast 2 of them. They also can cast it MT because why not.

Exploder actually deals significant damage.

So I have to use Elixirs.

But at last, the magical "Not enough MP" appears on the last Puroboros.

A pretty unacceptable number. Grinding is preferrable.

At about World 2(any time before Butz is abducted), you want to de-equip the Ancient Sword, Gold Shield, and Gold Armor. You also must have taken an Elven Cape if you want better luck for what's coming next.

Not Abductor though. I could 2-shot him but it doesn't matter and I don't feel like wasting an Elixir.

Galuf is forced to Solo his way through Exdeath's Castle, even if it is a small portion. It's...possible to beat it with a Knight Galuf at low level(although preferrably at least Level 5). Full disclosure, Galuf was trained lightly on World 1 to Level 5. You can train on Castle Exdeath's Jail Bear, but I really wouldn't recommend it even with save states.

Gilgamesh is...beatable. Takes 10 front row attacks though. He's vulnerable to Old but apparently not that much? Idk, his damage doesn't seem to lower.

Gold Shield and Elven Cape recommended for evasion shenanigans being possible. You could Doublehand this fight to do it faster but risk only having Elven Cape to save you. 0.33^5=0.0039, or less than 1% if you want to know(Evade chance with Elven Cape alone).

If random variance loves you you can heal yourself with a Hi Potion back to full health. Saves on Elixirs. Hi Potions at this point came from a few particular drops.

Gilgamesh's physicals can really, really hurt, mind.

I lost many times, so I eventually moved to the Back Row. It only takes about 30 attacks to kill Gilgamesh. You can heal yourself with regular Potions if you do get hit, though.

Whatever way works, Gilgamesh will die. Eventually.

Reequip everything on Butz when he is freed.

Lil' Chariots are one-shot, but they can attack with Mustard Bomb which can HURT(300 is non-negligible since you have no chance to restore yourself fully other than Elixirs for the Big Bridge portion).

Fishmen are similarly one-shot but attack only with basic physicals.

Gilgamesh 2 can be killed fairly fast. But he does hurt a bit. He also is still vulnerable to Old but I dunno how effective that is.

Gilgamesh's spells do hurt more.

Critical seems to simply be some extension of the basic physical.

This phase is less pretty. Takes about 5 hits to kill at this point and deals good damage and has Haste.

Thunder Shock is less dangerous.

Drink a few Elixirs and you'll persevere.

Make sure to buy a Slumber Sword(stronger and Sleep is good) and a Gold Helmet(why not?). Orihalcn is usable but doesn't matter enough. You need power.

Tyrasaurus can counter physicals with '???', an attack that deals damage based on health lost. Not worth it to try it legit.

Dancing Dagger could be nice. Only about 12.5%(1/8) chance of Swords Dance though.

Actually these three bosses are streamlined not because of lack of dungeons but because I got motivated to do them at this pace.

I'm not gonna discuss equips other than that the Bone Mail is found right in Hiryuu Valley. However, grinding is rather choreful here. See, there are two ways to go about it. Either you use Hiryuu Valley's enemies which deal not-so-negligible damage(about 300 per hit) and yield maybe about ~1000 experience(or about 3000-ish experience before you have to inn), or take the ones outside which include Ridicules. Ridicules can Zombie your dead allies, and Zombies get experience. It took me a while to grind, just saying.

Dancing Dagger can do Sword Dance and I need to kill HiryuuPlant as fast as possible so I take the chances.

Pretty much, although the chance of a Sword Dance is 1/8. HiryuuPlant only has 12,000 HP, fortunately. By the way, killing the HiryuuFlowr at about 7 o' clock of the HiryuuPlant is important. That one can paralyze you, which is the only status your equipment doesn't protect against(Poison, Blind, and Old are not troublesome).

In retrospect maybe I should have opted for an Elf Cape instead of the Angel Ring. Higher agility and Bone Mail already protects from Old.

AND all HiryuuFlowrs must die or you haven't won yet. At least you get a guaranteed Elixir drop.

Buy these at Zeza's Castle(well, maybe the Gauntlet doesn't matter. The Epee kinda does though).

For now, use the same equipment. Gilgamesh has a fair chance to miss his physicals.

Basic damage is not too high, but don't fret.

Even if Gilgamesh does hit you, the damage is low because his attack is only 50 compared to your defense of 47. And Sword Dance does A LOT of damage.

Enkidu's heal sucks though.

Missile sucks more, but at least you can still pull through without having to heal(and preferrably. The Bone Mail makes you unable to heal yourself with Elixirs).

Enkidu dies in one Sword Dance, so that's pretty nice.

I use this equipment in the Barrier Tower since I do actually need to kill an enemy in particular. One with a good rare drop.

It's the Wall Knight. Fortunately I get a Wall Ring on the first fight with one.

Alright, Atmos. This equipment optimizes Agility which is something rather necessary for Atmos.
That took me less than 100 tries. I think less than 50, even. Still was rather tense when it did work though.

Guido's Cave might have amusing enemies but I just ran from all of them. There are no bosses and I don't need the levels rn, so nothing about it.

I might not even have needed all that crap, but it's still a fair shopping trip in Mua.

Since Flame Rings exist, I have one, and the next opportunity to get Flame Shields comes earlier than the opportunity to get Aegis Shields, here we are. As a matter of fact, the Aegis Shield makes a certain (optional) fight much more possible.

Butz's equipment is optimized for Magic Defense and to absorb Fire, the only absorbable element in the next boss fight. Galuf is equipped as a Knight due to the forced solo battle with him.

The Crystal's physical attack isn't very strong, and their high level isn't much help either. Meanwhile, I 4-shot them which is actually rather fine though.

The top one is hit only 3 times because it will then cast Fire 3 every turn which heals for a delicious amount of health.

I swapped the Epee for the Flame Tongue(chest in the burnt part of Great Forest of Mua) for a damage increase on the non-Fire Crystals but it ultimately didn't matter.

Like so.

Even if Aqua Rake was actually Water elemental that damage would still not outdo my healing. Water Crystal(middle right) should feel bad.

The Earth Crystal(bottom), should also feel bad.

The Wind Crystal is the most menacing one and it still doesn't outdo Fire 3's healing.

Better not go accidentally healing the Fire Crystal.

Impressive damage, but it doesn't matter. You can't lose here.

It only takes a while to kill Exdeath(like 10 minutes-ish real time). His basic physical's damage is kinda scary but Galuf has minimal Defense so eh it'll probably would cut down to like 600 maybe.

I then remember Butz didn't have the Flame Tongue equipped at the end of that fight. So I give it to Galuf for a light damage increase.

Dat 0 damage Quartr.

Vacuum Wave inflicts Sap but that doesn't matter.

"I am very mad. I drove all the way to CSU..."

That would actually rather hurt.

That...would hurt too.

I still wonder about that. Was Exdeath's Ring of Fire really strong enough to keep Galuf alive even when he was pretty much physically dead?

Well, it's pretty much time.

Nothing to say. Time for Exdeath's Castle.

On a side note, Shoat is now perfectly beatable. The Aegis Shield makes you immune to being Petrified anyway so don't be too concerned about evading Demon's Eye.

Physical and Drain hurt a little, but he dies pretty quickly.

you beat the game using only Celes, Edgar and Setzer which are the only ones in the wor that aren't skippable (you can play normal up to that point).

The chance of defeating Exdeath is about 8/729 assuming no misclicks. Probably a bit lower if his attack pattern doesn't cooperate.

I am actually a bit sad I didn't grind Elixirs from Magic Dragons in Exdeath's Castle. Oh well, I didn't need them for anything and soon I'll just be able to use Zus again.

Carbunkle is...perfectly possible.

He reflects some weak spells off himself or maybe uses a weak physical. He then puts his guard down and allows himself to be hit with less defenses and is barely curing himself.

But then this happens. yeah, that really hurt. No problem though.

There. Now his Doom will actually heal me.

Grinding to 49 because I didn't quite trust myself at 47.

Gilgamesh 4 is optional but if I was theoretically not even able to beat him how could I hope to beat Exdeath?

Hurricane would suck(puts target in critical HP), but otherwise fairly good.

If Frog Song hits then you can just proceed to use a Maiden's Kiss on yourself. He also has a Tiny Song, but just use Luck Mallets.

Sonic Wave REALLY sucks, but it won't lose you the battle. It'll just make it take much longer.

Should things be going wrong, hit yourself with your Flame Tongue to heal yourself.

After many minutes. He finally does the thing.

I win.

Alright, this setup. Healing capabilities are required but Bone Mail prevents Elixir usage(alternatively I guess you could just not use Bone Mail), and you can't have both a Flame Ring and a Wall Ring. You cannot battle Exdeath with no Wall Ring unless you plan to cause more pain to yourself, so the next best thing is self-hitting with Icebrand and having an Ice Shield on.
Exdeath has a 2/3 chance of starting the battle with Condemn. You cannot win if you are Condemned. This happens at the beginning of his attack cycle by the way, and about 3 cycles tends to be what Exdeath takes before switching his attack cycle to the one below 16000 HP. So it's closer to 1/27 chance of not being lost. And he can also chain Vacuum Wave(sets Sap) and Hurricane(critical HP), which also kills you. The chances are actually only 2/9, but it could still happen. 343/729 chance of not being combo'd to death, which is I guess tolerable but can still happen(it happened to me. a lot.). I attempted somewhere near 150 times. I lost many of those to the Condemn at the beginning of the battle.

Antlion is kinda mean since he can regularly use Sonic Wave to reduce your overall damage output because why not?

He's not immune to Old so just Old him with the Ancient Sword. He's also not immune to Sleep but physical attacks remove Sleep and this ain't no Atmos where you are really helped by the time he's left asleep.

Old on monsters only makes them slower and reduces their level. Level is irrelevant for monster physicals(which is why Olding Gilgamesh 1 isn't THAT useful), but level is relevant to accuracy of moves that aren't guaranteed to hit. Like Sonic Wave.

He does crap for damage so the only chance I really had to die was maybe if he landed like 10 Sonic Waves in a row such that I couldn't outdo his damage with self-healing.

This is desirable equipment for the Pyramid.

But first, the Gargoyles. Their health is really low, their damage output is unmattering, they have little Defense, but they still are tricky to kill.

The Icebrand 3-shots them. But just hitting them until they die is useless since the other Gargoyle will automatically revive the dead one. And this is not tied to MP so don't even think that's going to work. Besides, they have Fusion to restore the MP of each other.

Gargoyles are not immune to Sleep. An asleep Gargoyle cannot revive its friend.

Although precision is required.. After all, the Slumber Sword only does like mid 1000s and the Icebrand doesn't quite 2-shot them.

MachinHeads are not bosses, but if you can figure a way to get through the Pyramid without battling at least one, be my guest. I just re-used my Coral Sword to hit their weaknesses(in FF5, hitting the weakness of a monster ignores its Defense).

At least one Mummy battle is required to be done. The Flame Tongue kills them fast though.

But I'm not quite home-free. Merugene is the last obstacle left before I can take on the relatively large World 3.

Lucky me I just hit her first form with the Flame Tongue while she was in her Fire-weak form. Merugene off the top of my head has 20,000 or less HP. Yeah, it was pretty easy.

I also got her in her Lightning-weak form with the Coral Sword and it still does a lot of damage.

It really wasn't hard.

Excalibur is obvious. I mean, legendary Knight Sword and all. Assassin Dagger has a chance of instantly killing enemies. Can be useful. Masamune...I thought I could cast Haste with it but turns out you need to be able to equip it. Oh well, I guess I had to pick SOME third weapon. That does mean the other 9 are useless to me though.

Ugh!
Ugh!

You can make Omniscient not take hours to kill by hitting him right when he reflects Stop onto himself, but you do risk a Reset if your timing's off. Still, better than just sitting with the emulator sped-up for lots of minutes.

Actually this one's pretty good. And this one is a rare steal from Land Crawls, so the Thief Knife could be used in theory. I'm not nuts enough to try that in practice though.

For the one in which the low level party faces Omniscient.

I find it funny how Minotauros is inherently unable to use Holy. By the way he heals from Holy damage so Excalibur can't be used. The Defender does good damage though.

Cara is like 91% invincible under these conditions.

But Omniscient just refuses to die. Cara wouldn't do much damage on between-Stops(although I'll admit I didn't try that). If you want to stall out Omniscient's MP, he only has 30,000. It only would take maybe a little less than two hours with the fast-forward feature. Every cycle has a chance of killing you with a reflected Cure though. Which happened to me, so I didn't care to beat Omniscient with Cara.

I figure it's better to face Bahamut while he still can pose some challenge. The Excalibur really does hurt him. I think I used Excaliburiamond Helm;Bone Mail;Wall Ring.

Blaze and his physical don't hurt so much.

Snowstorm works better but still not so much. Poison Breath would suck without Bone Mail.

Mega Flare would REALLY hurt if the Wall Ring didn't exist(although you could cycle the Magic Lamp to get Carbunkle, I guess).

Didn't present too much of a challenge.

Along with the Mirage Vest, all this is of interest from the village.

Gargoyles get healed by the Holy elemental >_>. They die the same way the Pyramid ones do though.

You cannot fight both Invisible and Pantera without reloading your save, which is exactly why I do that. The treasure is just a Rising Sun so I can just leave it anyway.

Isn't Invisible's image just awesome? At least Blaze heals me since I still have that Flame Ring equipped from the Pyramid.

Fortunately he doesn't take long to die.

Pantera is a bit different. Image makes 3 targets instead of protecting from physicals outright. Blaster cannot insta-kill due to Bone Mail but it still paralyzes. If only I had had the foresight to equip the Running Shoes.

Still, he only takes a few hits before dying(I believe he has no more than 20,000 HP).

For the actual boss though the Running Shoes are practically necessary.

Otherwise Mind Blast will beat the hell out of you since it inflicts Paralysis. Incidentally it also inflicts Sap and because why not, Stalker(Stoker?) can use Hurricane too. That string is a definite kill.

By the way, if you're wondering, I chose Cara as the Knight to pseudo-solo the other part of the Tower since she has the highest base Agility.

It's not Istory Falls. Istory Falls has the Rune Edge which is an easier way to get it if you don't want to whack Stingrays with the Thief Knife hoping that you get the rare steal.

Pretty optimal equipment to fight Leviathan.

He has a somewhat strong basic physical and SOME evade, apparently.

Aqua Rake is still weak as shit. This is coming from the Ocean King.

Tidal Wave is the obvious reason to use Coral Rings. It can hit rather hard and free heals are free heals.

Although I do deal decent damage on Leviathan, he does still kill me. Why? Because Leviathan is rather fast and his physicals can deal 1400 on the two actions he can perform before I can. I can't use any Accessory other than Coral Rings either. Running Shoes are too risky.

Not to worry though, I handled it much better on the second try. Wall Ring drop is useless but I appreciate the kindness.

One last note about Gargoyles: the Defender does massive damage and will definitely finish off a Gargoyle after it is hit by the Slumber Blade.

These are one of the worst enemies in the game on one of the worst dungeons in the game for one of the most average rewards in the game(Meteo is nice but it doesn't remotely cut it for such a dungeon). They are the reason I can't use the Running Shoes while travelling. I had to resort to an Elf Cape instead.

The Magic Lamp exists and Odin is only the third summon so a fresh Magic Lamp only has to be used three times. I do not feel like getting the astronomically low chance of sleeping two pigs on low HP, killing the third, and then subsequently kill the two sleeping pigs. It's just not happening and I do not feel like doing it for a battle that will reward me with a Meteo I can't even use. Only a Delta Attack can hit you with that equipment anyway.

I should mention that I started Great Sea Trench with 99 Hi-Potions and exited with *20*.

Maybe I should have bothered Odin, but oh well. Anyway, Kaiser Knuckles aren't too consequential and they don't even accelerate the battle.

Calofisteri counters attacks with Drain, but Bone Mail makes that useless too.

Bio is the only thing that could remotely damage you. The poison attack is healed but the Sap status does still take away HP.

She also likes to reflect Haste onto herself but who cares?

And status healing I guess. Oh well, she doesn't put up much of a fight.

Apanda takes more effort but is still easy.

He can cast Armor on himself and also Sonic Wave to reduce your damage output but this only stalls the battle. Seriously, he's not nearly as hard as Byblos.

On a side note, I'm not fighting Omega. That 95%(nine-ty five percent!) evade rate is nasty, only like two weapons can pierce his defense of 190, he's hella fast, and hits like a truck. He also could counter with Mustard Bomb which I really, really don't want to take to the face. If I could beat him, I'd be so nastily overlevelled or impossibly lucky. That damn ancient machine of destruction.

(<-that's a ???? attack)
Apocalypse

is horrendous.

Ok, luck aside, Apocalypse is only maybe a middle tier boss. Luck is what leads him to be in the lower part of the high tier though.

Apocalypse has only about 30,000 HP. Decent, but not the end of the world on its own.

Bone Mail causes Roulette to outright HEAL me. However, Big Guard incredibly extends the fight since it includes Armor, which only happens to half physical damage.

Like so.

Aero 2 is not very menacing, but Mind Blast is. Running Shoes help with the Paralysis problem.

Because of ???? and Condemn, it took me only 20 tries. If save states weren't a thing to quickly restart, I would have gone nuts. Guarding a save point behind a boss is mean.

Aegis Shield is kinda necessary.

The common Demon's Eye attack is why the Aegis Shield is used. Taking it off for heals is risky.

The common Earth Shaker is not negligible. He's only somewhat of a middle-difficulty boss in the end, though.

Halicarnaso requires Wall Rings.

He starts with Kurururu!, an unreflectable spell that hits for certain, even bypassing the Aegis Shield. But I can use items so no fretting.

Halicarnaso takes nice damage and can hardly deal it in return.

Holy is rather dangerous. It can almost certainly one-shot Butz with Bone Mail. Since it's as simple as reflecting it, I don't remove the Bone Mail.

Halicarnaso is simple enough, but that Holy did catch me by surprise the first attempt.

Twin Tania can counter physicals with Tidal Wave, so Coral Rings it is.

Kinda boring physical damage.

This is one of the most beautiful screenshots. For those who don't understand, it's not easy to hit the damage cap in FF5. The mechanics simply don't agree at times. But Twin Tania's Holy weaknesses and Excalibur's sheer power...it's just breathtaking.

Coral Ring takes care of both attacks.

But I do not foresee Mind Blast. Sadly I can't afford to use Running Shoes, so I have but one option.

Mind Slash+Wind Slashes is followed by Giga Flare, so I need to heal as soon as Paralysis is healed.

With HP full, I can barely survive every Giga Flare. The battle goes slower since I need to heal after Giga Flare too and can do maybe one attack on Twin Tania per cycle.

But the cookie crumbles.

It's surprising to see Ramuh here. Bleh, should have seen if I could deal with that bugger on World 1. Oh well, he's one-shot now.

Iron Giants are frustrating to fight, but they give good experience. Grinded to 53 because of many reasons.

Let's try to get Gilgamesh's steal now that we can.

His damage output kinda hurts, and he's a bit fast.

Perhaps owing to the Knight's sheer Strength, a Theif Knife whack still does 1600 damage. Genji Shield is an interesting steal. Might not even end up using it, but I considered it as possible equipment to beat Omega if that ever happens.

Whack yourself to heal, and whack Gilgamesh some until he regains his senses.

Necrofobia is kind of ass, and to even have enough health to not be utterly obliterated in the fight, I needed to grind to 55.
Again, if save states weren't a thing to allow me to quickly restart the fight, I'd be going nuts.