Final Fantasy VI Advance Enemy Additions

In simpler times, white magic was all about loving thy neighbor. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, cast Protect and take it. Holy Dragon (Redux) does not concern itself with ethics, never read Aristotle, is probably not even really related to your holy man of choice anyway. Holy Dragon (Redux) is an elemental weapon, and bad news for us, it's a rocket launcher.

Holy Dragon (Redux) perhaps isn't the most difficult fight in the Dragon's Den, but it's definitely a lot harder than any sparring match we engage in with his peers. The Holy element is the only element we can't really absorb without a lot of fuss. A single character can be safeguarded with the Paladin's Shield, and there's up to two Ragers that can absorb or null the Holy element, this much is true. However, the odds you've got the Shield and two Ragers on your team aren't so large.

Holy Dragon (Redux)'s attacks are nasty. It can use up to three Saintly Beam attacks in every odd turn, swapping to the occasional Holy spell after the general battle timer has exceeded 20 Doom intervals (which is about 13 seconds uninterrupted by slowdown you may have installed with the 'Wait' option in the menu). Every even turn will feature physical attacks; of which !Heavenly Wrath is extremely powerful. If Holy Dragon (Redux) is attacked it has a 66% chance of using Curaga on itself, regaining about 6000 HP. It may also counterattack with Heartless Angel 1/3 of the time.

On a character with average defenses (say, Thunder Shield, Circlet and Genji Armor), Saintly Beam will deal about 1000 damage, and up to three of them will kill those characters unless they're high-leveled. In addition, there's the risk of attacking Holy Dragon (Redux), getting a Heartless Angel counter and then seeing your entire party get slaughtered by Heartless Angel. Oh yeah, and there's the barrier of Curaga. We can cast Reflect on Holy Dragon (Redux) to stop it from healing itself for a while, but this also means we can't cast spells that bounce off Reflect barriers (such as -aga spells and Flare), nor can we choose to Rage Great Malboro or Baalzephon, since they use Bio and Blizzaga, respectively. Nasty, nasty.

Okay, here's what we're going to do. Max out Magic Defense on all characters. This will make all physical attacks hurt like hell, but after throwing up the Maginot Line we shouldn't really have to worry about them. Or, at least not as much as Saintly Beam and Holy spells. Tortoise Shields and Reed Cloaks have very high Magic Defense, as do Force Shields. Stick to your Minerva Bustiers, as they halve damage done by Holy-elemental attacks. If your Magic Defense exceeds 200, it's pretty doable. Make sure to equip Zona Seeker as well; you'll want Shell on all characters throughout the match. Mighty Guard works just as well. Equip Prayer Beads as well, as while we've been preparing for the magical attacks it's the stray physical ones that may hand us defeat. If you have a Paladin's Shield, know that revival takes top priority. If you can combine the Soul of Thamasa and the Paladin's Shield with anybody that knows Arise, you're in business.

Take any Holy Lances off of Edgar and Mog, and take note that the random Holy spell from the Lightbringer may heal Holy Dragon (Redux). As soon as you enter the battle, cast Hastega, summon Golem and Fenrir, use Mighty Guard or summon Zona Seeker and cast Reflect on Holy Dragon (Redux). Ragers can be awesome, but only with either Magic Urn, a great healing asset that absorbs Holy-elemental attacks, or Io, that negates the element but uses Flare Star, which is quite damaging to Holy Elemental Evil II.

Here's the kicker. Never attack Holy Dragon (Redux) when you know he's free to Curaga the damage away afterwards, as likely you'll deal less damage than 6000. The less you attack the less you run the risk of Heartless Angel/Saintly Beam, which spells your demise in most cases, so make your hits count. The biggest ally you have in this battle is the Quick spell. Since the first attack you make in your Quick-induced double turn will never provoke counters, you can entirely avoid Holy Dragon (Redux) casting Curaga and using Heartless Angel. Another great help is the Force Field attack; once Strago or Gogo has managed to nullify the Holy element, Saintly Beam will never kill a character again. Note that (obviously) Curaga still works.

That's all the advice I can give you. Holy Dragon (Redux) is a nasty critter, but if you find your flow you should be able to take him down eventually. If you really can't get past the thing, set a 255 Defense Back Row Gau up with anything that nullifies or absorbs Holy-elemental attacks (preferably Io or Baalzephon) and go watch a movie. After the movie, you should've won. Expand Full Strategy

What's cooler than bein' cool? Ice Cold, that's what. Ice Dragon (Redux) is the living, breathing proof of one of the few certainties in this life: the small ones always have to overcompensate. Once upon a time, the Ice Dragon was just a cool brother chilling in the snowfields of Narshe (puns intended). These days, he's pumped himself up to measure up to the expectations of his larger brethren in the most pathetic way possible: By means of his mirror images.

As soon as you enter the battle with Ice Dragon (Redux), he'll create three more of himself, presumably out of ice or something. They stack behind each other on-screen, so you'll only ever see a single one. All four are identical, but the more mirror images you destroy the more aggressive the remaining combatants get. When all four targets are still alive, they will attack with physical attacks, !Freeze (which sets Stop), and a rare Blizzaga spell. Do note that these physicals are rather nasty coming from a level 97 monster and that there will be four monsters attacking you, so this ain't no cakewalk. It'll counter with a physical Attack every time you hit one, meaning that when you use a multi-target attack you'll have to endure four separate counters. When you destroy a mirror image, it will use one final multi-target Ice-elemental attack against its killer (making it a very strong single-target multi-hit attack): either Northern Cross, Absolute Zero or Avalanche.

Once one mirror image has been destroyed, the Ice Dragons will start using (Umaro's) Snowstorm and Freezing Dust. Once a second mirror image is dust, the two Ice Dragons will stop goofing around and start attacking every round (as opposed to randomly doing nothing). In addition, they'll adapt their counter to include a possible !Freeze attack. Once the three mirror images have been destroyed, Ice Dragon (Redux) will start trying to multi-target Freeze you with Northern Cross and straight-up kill you with Absolute Zero and Avalanche attacks. My, oh my.

The prescription here is easy. If you don't absorb or negate Ice-elemental attacks, you're dead in the water. Snow Scarfs, Ice Shields and Minerva Bustiers all work. Flame Shields work too, but not as well. Either way, the only source of damage you should have to worry about is physical. Obviously, with all the magical attacks flying around the Invisible status is no help, so we'll have to go with substitutes. With the mass amounts of pounding Ice Dragon (Redux) will unleash, nothing is too much. Fenrir's Howling Moon will set Image on every character; Shadow and Gogo can self-apply the status with a Shadow Scroll once Howling Moon's effects have expired. Prayer Beads make sure that even before taking Evasion into account, 50% of the incoming physical attacks will be avoided. Should neither Fenrir nor Prayer Beads be good enough, Golem can stop physical attacks, but the Earthen Wall can't last forever, so if you have acces to Mighty Guard, apply it.

So, with our defenses in place, it's time to go on the offense. Even with our carefully planned strategy, it's likely that before the end is reached you will see physical attacks rain upon your head, so Reraise is a good idea to cast in the early stages of the fight. Since every multi-target attack from the party provokes up to four counters, stick to single-target attacks and take out one target at a time. Your main annoyance will likely be the Stop and Freeze statuses. As soon as a single mirror image has been blasted to bits, Freezing Dust will start appearing which is unblockable and ignores any kind of defense you could've possibly set up. You can't prevent it, but you can fight it! Hastega serves more than the obvious cause in this fight, as it means a faster dispelling of Stop of Freeze. Of course, Freeze is more easily removed by any Fire-elemental attacks. Ice and Shields and the Minerva Bustier deal with Fire as easily is Ice, so no problem there.

Firaga is the ultimate spell to cast, as it's single-target by default. Meltdown is awesome as well once you absorb/nullify Fire-elemental attacks, as it's wicked powerful and will heal any character lucky enough to absorb the element. It's multi-target, but the healing will offset the damage. Thrown Flametongues will deal massive amounts of damage as well. Ragers will like using Devil Fist (inherent Haste and the single-target Will o' the Wisp) or Io (Flare Star, which is very powerful dealing with a level 97 enemy weak to the element), assuming the Rager in question absorbs Ice-elemental attacks. If not, Twinscythe or Leaf Bunny will be defensive choices. Expand Full Strategy

Kaiser Dragon is the ultimate victory of Final Fantasy III (US!) junkies the world over. We knew this thing was lying dormant in the game's code for years. We figured out the highlights of this guy's speech when you could play but Tetris on handheld consoles. We invented this guy's HP loop trick, and all Square-Enix could do was copy it. But we're not smug. Well, not most of us, apparently.

There's basically two phases in this battle. First, you'll have to survive Kaiser's first four lives, during which he'll use attacks according to a particular weakness. By survive, that's all I mean: his HP will replenish with each of these four shifts, so any damage you inflict doesn't count. Second, once he's down to his last life and won't replenish his HP again - this is the part where you attack and stuff - you'll have to stay alive, deal sufficient damage and survive Kaiser Dragon's final Ultima spell.

At the start of the battle, Kaiser Dragon will use Barrier Change to assume an offensive skillset. Here's what he'll use; you can use the attacks listed to determine his weakness at the time:

When weak to Fire-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Firaga, Meteor, Flare, Meltdown and will counter 66% of your attacks with Southern Cross on the entire party.

When weak to Ice-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Blizzaga spells, Absolute Zero, Avalanche and Northern Cross, and will counter 66% of your attacks with Freezing Dust on a random party member.

When weak to Lightning-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Thundaga, Plasma or Gigavolt, and will counter 66% of your attacks with Wave Cannon on the entire party.

When weak to Poison-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will use a combo of Scintillation, Venomist and a Doom attack on its first turn, use a combo of Lullaby, Crypt Dust and Disaster on the second turn and will use Cloudy Heaven on its third turn. It will counter 66% of your attacks with a Bio spell on a random party member.

When weak to Wind-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use physical attacks, Tornado spells, Aero and Cyclonic, and will counter 66% of your attacks with a Wind Slash attack.

When weak to Holy-elemental attacks:

The first time Kaiser Dragon gets a Holy shift, he'll cast Reflect on a single character and follow with the Reflect ??? attack. Its second turn will be used to cast Protect, Shell and (useless due to Slow immunity) Haste. When Kaiser Dragon has done these things earlier, he'll just attack with physical attacks, Holy spells and the Lv. ? Holy attack. Kaiser Dragon will counter 66% of your attacks with a Hyperdrive attack on a random party member.

When weak to Earth-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will attack ferociously with combinations of physical attacks, every third turn using !Last Breath twice, and will counter 66% of your attacks with a Quake spell.

When weak to Water-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Aqua Breath, Tsunami, Flash Rain and El Niño in quick succession, and will counter 66% of your attacks with an Acid Rain attack on a single character.

Some elemental skillsets are more dangerous than others. The Fire-elemental one is nasty because Meteor and Flare are both non-elemental and barrier-piercing; coming from Kaiser Dragon's bloated Magic stat they'll probably kill whatever they hit, so Magic Evasion is your only salvation. Kaiser Dragon's Ice-elemental shift is nasty because Freezing Dust is such a pain; you have no business attacking at this point though, so you shouldn't worry. Quake kills you if you're not floating, doing about 6000 damage to character without elemental affinities for it. Kaiser Dragon's Poison-elemental shift is the worst; if he manages to pull off Cloudy Heaven, your battle is over since, though you need Ribbons equipped, Ribbons will make it so that you can't cure the Zombie status (in this game, immunities work both ways; if you have it despite being immune to it, it's unremovable).

Since Kaiser Dragon's attack pattern depends on its weakness in this phase, you can actually change its attack pattern with the Debilitator Tool. The game checks the elemental weaknesses in a certain order, and the first weakness it finds will be the one which defines Kaiser Dragon's attack type. Look at the elemental-based attack pattern table above; this is the order in which the game checks for elemental weakness. This means that the Fire element is the most dominant one – if Kaiser Dragon's Barrier Change has set a Fire weakness, it can't be changed no matter what weakness the Debilitator sets. On the other hand, Earth is a relatively submissive one, meaning that you have a large chance of changing it. There's hardly ever a guarantee, but the Debilitator might be able to change Kaiser Dragon's code of conduct if you smell Cloudy Heaven approaching, for instance.

Thunder Shields are a blessing. In the elemental shift phase, it'll protect you against all Lightning-elemental attacks and Aqua Breath, and will halve damage done by Fire- and Ice-elemental ones. Afterwards, Lightning Shields will help you against Meltdown spells Kaiser Dragon may cast. Ribbons are also an absolute necessity; without them, Kaiser Dragon's Poison-elemental shift will spell your doom and every Mind Blast attack it's going to regularly use will just murder you. Too bad for set-ups that require both Relic slots (such as successful Dragoons); they have to go in favor of a Ribbon.

Kaiser Dragon's first phase is relatively simple. You'll need to see Kaiser Dragon use Barrier Change five times before you can attack. Any damage you inflict in this first phase won't actually register in its fifth and meaningful life (all your damage will be reset) and it'll only get you nasty counterattacks. So far so good. If a character falls (likely due to Flare, Meteor, Doom or a particularly strong elemental attack on a character not protected from it), revive. Multi-targeted Shell is very important to absorb the multi-target attacks Kaiser Dragon possesses.

Kaiser Dragon's last and true life, after its fifth elemental shift, is simple but brutal. Every 15 ATB intervals, regardless of its normal AI script, it'll have a 2/3 chance of using Heartless Angel, possibly followed by a 1/3 Mind Blast attack. This is where your Ribbons kick in. If you've got Ribbons (or White Capes) equipped, the attack will fail. If you don't, you've lost your battle right there, as you don't have the time to heal.

Kaiser Dragon's normal AI script includes Meltdown spells, Quake spells, Hyperdrive attacks, relatively weak multi-target attacks such as Gale Cut, Flash Rain and Absolute Zero and physical attacks including !Last Breath. If you target Kaiser Dragon with anything, it may use !Last Breath or Revenge Blast as a counter-attack.

If you're wrapped in Thunder Shields, Meltdown should only bother you if the attack also heals Kaiser Dragon (if so: too bad). The nastiness stems from the incredibly fast-paced Kaiser Dragon, Hyperdrive attacks which will kill a target, Revenge Blast attacks which will kill a target and the continuous usage of Heartless Angel, which you need to cure since anytime a Flash Rain or Absolute Zero attack may come around the corner.

You will need Reraise for this fight. It's extremely difficult to track Kaiser Dragon's HP, especially since Libra will provoke counter-attacks. Always value revival over healing and healing over offense, since Kaiser's nastiest attacks are counter-attacks and the one big threat in its random AI script is only single-target. I've found that since you die so often due to Revenge Blast and Hyperdrive, applying things such as Mighty Guard and Hastega are often pointless, as you'll only see it quickly removed in most cases.

Your offense may be a problem, since Kaiser Dragon will only have a single randomly decided weakness when things get serious, and will nullify or absorb the other seven. You can use Libra to check its current weakness; there's a good chance your mages will be able to nail it even when lacking the likes of Flare and Ultima. Kaiser Dragon has above-average Defense and Magic Defense, so barrier-piercing attacks work the best. Particularly damaging combinations are Locke with the Valiant Knife/Master's Scroll and Setzer with Fixed Dice/Master's Scroll, as both will ignore defenses.

In the end, the fight versus Kaiser Dragon is a bit of a luck fight. Either way, you'll need to be tightly prepared with Ribbons, Thunder Shields, and all of the correct spells. But beyond that, if Kaiser Dragon decided to use Cloudy Heaven, or if Meteor connects on the entire party, or if you get the wrong counter at the wrong time, you're screwed. So even though specific potential scenarios might be nigh impossible, it's an entirely doable battle on the whole. Expand Full Strategy

Malboro Menace will just try to take you down with status-inducing attacks such as the bloody obvious Bad Breath and the surprising Diabolic Whistle and some physicals. A rare !Tentacle sets Poison, so that's not too bad. Whenever you attack the thing, it has a 1/3 chance it'll counter with a Blaster attack on a random character, so that sucks. Also, whenever you kill the Malboro Menace, two appear; when you kill the last one of those two, four appear. That's a multitude of Malboro. Luckily, Malboro Menace is vulnerable to instant death attacks, which allows is to circumvent both troubles; target with Malboro Menace with either Banish, Shin-Zantetsuken or some such and you should never see more than the initial one. Note that only instant death attacks that stall counterattacks work like that; Malboro Menace will be more than happy to multiply after being successfully struck by a Death spell. Expand Full Strategy

Here's the thing. Neslug's Head will pop in and out of the shell every now and then. It'll start the battle with a Slowga spell and will randomly use physical attacks, set Stop with !Tongue Bath or use Sticky Goo to set Slow. Bo-oring. The shell will use White Wind once every time the Head is out of the shell, counter any attack with the instant-kill !Megaton Smash and will randomly attack with !Megaton Smash as well. Did I mention the shell is invulnerable to attacks and will therefore always heal the full extent of 9999 HP?

The defense isn't difficult. Throw up the Maginot Line to protect yourself from !Tongue Bath and !Megaton Smash and the stray physicals and equip Hermes Sandals to turn yourself immune to Slowga and Sticky Goo. The thing is that you'll need to do more than 9999 damage to the Head, preferably targetable. It can be multi-target, but only if you have Golem up.

Neslug's awesome Magic Defense ensures that things aren't quite as simple as you'd like them to be. Barrier-piercing fire-elemental attacks reign supreme. Flare Star is a good one coming from Gau and/or Gogo, as is the Meltdown spell if you have it handy, though you'll want to make sure you don't suffer from any kickback. Breaking Flame Rods is great and/or Flame Shields are great as well. It may be cheap, but so is total invulnerability/White Wind combinations, so shut up, Neslug. You can target the head only by trying to set yourself as a target for the broken item, then switch back to the monster's side, where you'll find the pointer has gone single-target. Clever!

Valor is another way to make targetable attacks even more powerful. Valor will triple the power of Fuma Shuriken, Attack commands and Edgar's Drill (superior to Chainsaw now that it's so powerful, since Chainsaw will do nothing 25% of the time). Those that are stuck without targetable attacks such as Sabin and Gau just aren't all too suited for the fight, thus making them prime candidates for casting Valor. Expand Full Strategy

Omega Weapon's first life will use monster attacks. These include randomly (enemy) Meteor, Flare Star, Quake, Tornado, Aero, Tsunami, Lv. 3 Confuse, Lv. 4 Flare and Lv. 5 Death. Omega Weapon will stop using level-based spells once he dives below 32000 HP on his first life. Every 20 seconds, Omega Weapon will glow and will use Grand Delta on the subsequent turn. Grand Delta functions like Ultima, only it cannot be absorbed by Runic. Make sure that you have Reraise on all characters for this. Omega Weapon will counter-attack any atack you make use it with either Dischord (2/3 chance) or Freezing Dust (1/3) chance. When killed, Omega Weapon will glow without a message and use Vengeance to dispel all positive statuses, including Reraise.

Ideally, all characters are of suitable level to avoid Lv. 4 Flare and Lv. 5 Death, else they'll have a hard time surviving them. Lv. 3 Confuse shouldn't be a threat due to Ribbons. Since you used Float beforehand, the only attacks you'll need to worry about are Meteor, Flare Star, Tornado and Tsunami, which shouldn't be able to kill you. Heal up with Curaga whenever any of these moves slam a nasty dent in your HP. If Grand Delta is used, heal up and re-set Reraise ASAP.

The second life will be Omega Weapon in machine mode. It will randomly use any of the following attacks: Atomic Ray, Absolute Zero, Delta Attack, Blaster, Launcher, Wave Cannon, Magnitude 8, Gravity Bomb, Launcher and Metal Cutter. Every 20 seconds, Omega Weapon will glow and will use Mind Blast on the subsequent turn. When killed, Omega Weapon will use Heartless Angel to reduce all characters down to Critical status and move on to its third and final life. When struck by any kind of attack, Omega Weapon will counterattack twice; the first counter is either a physical (1/3) or Missile (2/3), the second is either Missile (2/3) or Blaster (2/3).

Delta Attack and Mind Blast, otherwise supreme nuisances, will have no effect due to your Ribbons. The biggest threats here are instant death attacks and Metal Cutter; should they hit, make sure to heal back up. Keep Reraise in place at all times, even without any attacks you know will kill you a surprise KO is right around the corner. Keep healing and damaging and you should have relatively little trouble with Omega Weapon's second life. When Omega Weapon uses Heartless Angel, I advise using a Megalixir to heal back up, as they require no casting time.

The last life of Omega Weapon is him combining the previous two AI scripts together, using two attacks (one from both lives) every turn. It will now counter twice: the first counter is either !Omega Drive or Freezing Dust, the second counter is either !Omega Drive or Blaster. The level-based Lores will make another appearance, by the way. Every 20 seconds, Omega Weapon will glow and use Forsaken the subsequent turn, which is quite powerful but managable. If not, there's always Reraise.

The trick during all three lives is to avoid Omega Weapon counterattacks, as they are often the most debilitating (Freezing Dust, Dischord, Blaster). Use Quick for this. Within the time freeze that is caused by Quick, no counter-attacks will ever be made. Make your first turn an offensive one; either a mass damage attack such as Gravija, Ultima, Tempest, Master's Scroll Attack or Osmose, whichever you have and need. Never attack Omega Weapon on the second turn; just use a buff or healing spell or use the Defend command.

If the above strategy is well-played, Omega Weapon will be a very easy target. Without Quick though, you'll spend a lot of time taking care of the victims of Omega Weapon's counterattacks, which will slow you down considerably, allowing for more attacks. Expand Full Strategy

Plague is a blue Ahriman that will use Doom on the entire party at the start of the battle. Plague'll use physical attacks, !Gaze and Trine to attack the party. Trine is an attack we haven't seen since Kefka's AI Script; it still sets Darkness and Silence on all party members, and it's still unblockable. When successfully hit by an Attack command, Plague will counter with a Haste spell on the offending character. That may seem nice, but realize that Haste will also speed up your Doom timer. When struck by any Magic spell, Plague will counter with a Roulette spell. Itself being immune to its effects, it'll probably just take out a party member. Good luck actually hitting Plague though, as it has perfect Evasion and Magic Evasion.

There are numerous ways to work around the full-party Doom. Safety Bits, Memento Rings and Lich Rings will all either prevent Doom from working or heal the character when the timer runs out. Having one or two characters with Haste will make them expire before the others, so you can just revive each in turn. You can even let a single character's timer run out when that character has cast a Quick spell and revive.

Equip Ribbons to protect yourself from !Gaze, Trine and general ridicule from your peers. Plague has relatively little HP, but you'll need to strike it. Flood, Meteor, Meltdown and Ultima spells are unblockable, as are most of your secondary skills. Throw Fuma Shuriken, use Phantom Rush, etc. Cyan's Eclipse Bushido, due to the unique way it sets Stop, may actually set the Stop status on Plague so you can henceforth nail it with blockable attacks as well. Eclipse, see, is unblockable in nature and simply has a rough 55% chance of setting the Stop status regardless of the target's Evasion or Magic Evasion. Once Stopped, you can set Slow, Silence or Berserk at your heart's content.

Prepare to face Doom and status ailments with protective Relics and you can't really lose this battle. Expand Full Strategy

What draconic misdeeds Red Dragon (Redux) performed to deserve being confined even within the walls of the Dragon's Den is a mystery, especially since the rampaging Earth Dragon Redux and the vicousvicious little Ice Dragon (Redux) were both free to wander up and down its derelict halls. At any rate, its fiery temper, moral degeneration and the ability to set things aflame with its mere gaze - all common stereotypes associated with redheads - will provide you with a formidable foe.

The thing about Red Dragon (Redux) is that it can't be killed. By giving up its lifeforce it effectively becomes immune to all damage done by you, including elemental attacks it is weak against such as Blizzaga. Attacks that normally dealt a fixed amount of damage such as Traveler or 1000 Needles will result in 0 damage. Ultima, physical attacks of any kind, magical attacks of any kind; Red Dragon (Redux) possesses the same invincibility as the WoB Guardian did, and after 12 years of trying, we have yet to find a way to damage the thing. It can't be done.

However, Red Dragon (Redux) is using it's its very lifeforce to gain this expert defense, so this isn't a fight of trading blows, it's an attempt to stay alive among the attacks of Red Dragon (Redux). Of course, the Joker's Death attack produced by the Slot command can kill this thing, but it'll be a cold day in Ethiopia when I'll tell you lot to start counting on Joker's Death.

Yeah, anyway. Red Dragon's arsenal is pretty much what you'd expect. The first turn he'll use three attacks, all of which can be either a normal physical attack, the instant-kill attack !Red Fang or a strong magical attack, either Firaga, Flare or Meltdown. The second turn features eight physical attacks. The third turn both Blaze and Flare Star. Loop from there. He'll keep this up, without counterattacks of any kind until he dies. When he dies he'll cast two final spells; an Ultima spell and a Flare spell. Red Dragon (Redux) will deal after 100 Doom timer units, which is either just before or after the third time Red Dragon (Redux) uses his eight-hit physical barrage. The Ultima spell will deal around 5000 damage to all characters, so you'll likely perish on the scene.

We'll need to focus on staying alive through the fight and somehow circumventing dying due to his final Ultima. The Maginot Line (Golem/Fenrir/Prayer Beads/possible Mighty Guard combo) is more than competent in dealing with the physical attacks and !Red Fang. Any magical attack is easily absorbed by a Fire Shield or negated with an Ice Shield or Red Jacket. Raging any Rage that absorbs Fire-elemental attacks works since damage output isn't an issue: creatures such as Lich, Bomb and Grenade will heal Red Dragon (Redux) but will have the Rager absorbing anything but Flare, which is too rare to use Reflect Rings for.

The best way to deal with the final Ultima depends on the characters present. If one or more characters know Reraise, it's clearly the safest route to victory. You can try to Jump to safety, but you'll have to make sure you know when Red Dragon (Redux) uses Ultima, something which you can't predict as accurately as you might like. Runic can just be applied after you're sure Red Dragon (Redux) just finished its first turn for the third time; if you have no characters casting spells, Runic will absorb Ultima and only a single character will die from the Flare spell. Expand Full Strategy

On the offense, Skull Dragon is everything you'd expect. It will try to set a multitude of statuses, the most dangerous of which is Zombie. It has a few direct-damage moves, which include spooky necromancer moves such as Bio, Will o' the Wisp and a powerful physical. For some reason it has a particular hatred for Terra, who will be targeted by a Disaster attack every fourth turn. Ain't that cute. The nastiest move is probably Lv. 5 Death, if your levels are wrong. Safety Bits and Memento Rings help out there.

It's on the defense that the dragon gets nasty. You can't kill this thing in the traditional sense of the word. Unlike Red Dragon Redux however, it lacks the common sense to auto-terminate. The only two ways to kill Skull Dragon are Joker's Death and... draining its MP. That's right, using Rasp 'til it rolls over. Did you take a look at the fact that this dragon has 14000 MP?

This is a very simple fight, but since Squenix felt particularly sadistic that day and decided to make us repeat the same thing for half an hour after figuring it out in the first place. It's like making a movie from a Saturday Night Live sketch. We got the point in the first five minutes, why oh why did Will Ferrell sign up for this?

Anyway, it's pretty important that you don't die in the eternity it takes to kill Skull Dragon (Redux), so Ribbon up. If you lack four Ribbons, Amulets are the best replacements. Earrings are great to boost the Rasp spell. That's about it. Use Hastega to use more Rasp spells. Use the Maginot Line to make sure you're not prevented from using Rasp spells. Try not to nod off when using Rasp spells. When you feel like you're getting pretty sick of all the Rasp spells, it is probably time to use about 50 more Rasp spells. Games are fun! Expand Full Strategy

When we met the Storm Dragon in Mt. Zozo, it was already the nastiest of the eight. There are Redux dragons more threatening than Storm Dragon (Redux), but this one got some tricks up its proverbial sleeves, make no mistake. Storm Dragon (Redux) is one slick bastard; not so insecure it needs to be all big and stuff, and everything on that body is sharper than its evolutionary pattern should have required it to be. The provocative pterosaur will randomly use physical attacks, the powerful !Icarus Wing, the well-known Wind Slash and Leaf Swirl, the non-elemental and unblockable attack. Any damage done to him may be countered by up to two physical attacks, so you'll likely see more physical attacks coming from him than magical attacks.

Once Storm Dragon (Redux) hits 25600 HP he'll 'cloak himself in wind!' and set Image and Haste on himself. This move is so uncharacteristically idiotic for Storm Dragon (Redux)' generally intelligent repertoire I see no way but blaming it on the game designers. Haste won't work because Storm Dragon is immune to Slow; a common goof they should've known about by now. However, the attempt at setting the Image status is even more embarrassing, since the creature is specifically immune to Image itself. That's hard to miss. In addition, Image wouldn't really have done anything for Storm Dragon (Redux), seeing as how its Evasion was already perfect to begin with.

Past this point, his AI script darkens, including two attacks every turn and more powerful attacks. There's a higher frequency of !Icarus Wing, it will start to feature Aero and the Tornado spell (which will always miss on Storm Dragon (Redux), obviously). Leaf Swirl will stop appearing, so for those of you who brought a 255 Defense Gau or Mog to this fight that also nullifies or absorbs Wind-elemental attacks, you're in the clear at this point.

Thunder Shields across the board! They're really the only thing that successfully deals with Wind-elemental attacks (apart from the Paladin Shield), so I hope you have enough of 'em. Throw up the Maginot Line as well; this is vital. Remember the Maginot Line? Fenrir, Golem, Prayer Beads, Protect. Hastega is great in order to keep up with Storm Dragon (Redux)' speed, which even without his Haste status is quite impressive. Then, go on the offense.

Storm Dragon (Redux)' main trump card is its perfect Evasion and Magic Evasion rating of 80, meaning that even relatively accurate spells such as Thundaga will miss more often than not. Luckily mostly just Thundaga casters that will experience trouble, as Dragon Horn Jumpers, Master's Scroll Attackers and those using Bushido, Blitz or Throw will have little problem delivering unblockable attacks. Gau's attacks will require a Sniper Eye to make his physical hit, but you may not want to spend a Relic slot for it, focusing on his magical attack instead. Luridan's Rock Slide and Io's Flare Star are unblockable attacks while the Io Rage will even nullify Wind-elemental attacks if Gau's equipment won't let him. The Io Rage is a great choice for Gogo as well. Expand Full Strategy