Final Fantasy VI Walkthrough

Written by Djibriel

Contributor

1.12: Scenario Sabin: The Phantasms

Grasslands North of Camp
6/16	Aepyornis	1
5/16	Nettlehopper	3
5/16	Aepyornis	1
5/16	Chippirabbit	2

Other Grasslands
6/16	Nettlehopper	3
5/16	Stray Cat	3
5/16	Aepyornis	1
	Stray Cat	1
	Nettlehopper	2

Forest
5/16	Nettlehopper	2
5/16	Stray Cat	2
5/16	Chippirabbit	5
5/16	Aepyornis	2
5/16	Stray Cat	1
1/16	Aepyornis	1
1/16	Chippirabbit	2

Desert
5/16	Sand Ray	2
5/16	Alacran	3
5/16	Sand Ray	1
5/16	Alacran	2
1/16	Sand Ray	1
1/16	Alacran	3

Phantom Forest First Two Screens
10/16	Ghost	1
6/16	Ghost	1
6/16	Poplium	2

Phantom Forest Second Two Screens
10/16	Ghost	2
10/16	Poplium	3
5/16	Ghost	3
1/16	Ghost	1

Train Platform
5/16	Angel Whisper	2
5/16	Cloud	1
5/16	Angel Whisper	2
5/16	Cloud	1
5/16	Angel Whisper	4
1/16	Bomb	3

Outside Train Cars
10/16	Bomb	1
6/16	Bomb	3

Inside Early Cars
6/16	Angel Whisper	1
6/16	Cloud	3
5/16	Angel Whisper	1
5/16	Living Dead	3

Escaping the Ghost Ambush
6/16	Angel Whisper	1
6/16	Cloud	3
5/16	Oversoul	2
5/16	Oversoul	1
5/16	Living Dead	2

Final Cars
6/16	Angel Whisper	1
5/16	Bomb	2
5/16	Cloud	2
5/16	Angel Whisper	1
	Living Dead	1
	Cloud	2

Enemies: Sand Ray, Alacran, Stray Cat, Aepyornis, Nettlehopper, Chippirabbit, Ghost, Poplium, Cloud, Angel Whisper, Oversoul, Bomb, Living Dead, Apparition, Siegfried, Phantom Train

Treasures: Relic Earring, Phoenix Down x2, Relic Sniper Eye, Monster-in-a-box (Apparition)

Having broken out like a bad case of acne, your only hope to reach Narshe is to travel through a dark forest east of Doma Castle. Save, darn you! Now that Sabin is no longer alone and scared, there is little direct reason for Shadow to linger. That means that starting from your escape from the Imperial Camp, he may randomly decide to leave you after every battle. It's just a 1/16 chance per battle, though, and is in no way influenced by the order you in which performed the scenarios (or any way you did anything else), despite the many myths and misconceptions about that. I can say that in a short while, there will be a situation in which Shadow will no longer be able to escape, but you'll need to make it there with Shadow at your side, preferably. This can be achieved by either saving beforehand and relying on your luck, killing Shadow until the party reaches said destination, or running from every battle.

You know how to handle the wildlife here. You can travel to Doma Castle, but you'll find it occupied by Imperial troops so you cannot enter. Just travel to the forest to the southeast. Welcome to Phantom Forest, called the Forest of Illusion in the Japanese game. After entering the forest, something quickly seems...off. Eyes from the darkness leering at you. Sounds from places you can't keep your eye on. You being on fire. Shadow's still a possible run-away, so keep him down if that's your strategy.

Ghosts are unfriendly undead and they hate you. Every first turn will be a

Fire spell or nothing, but the second turn can contain Attack, !Time Freeze (which sets Stop) or !Dancing Flame, a very strong single-target Fire-elemental attack that will probably shave off 150 HP. Poplium are waiting to be relieved from this unlife they're doomed to suffer through. They attack physically and if they're feeling particularly grumpy they might even use !Cling to slow you down.

This is, strategy-wise, a very boring and straightforward part of the game. Sabin, Cyan, and Shadow all have single-target attacks that can take out all enemies in one hit. Keep up with Fang,

Shuriken, and Aura Cannon. Use Potions when you are hit with an unlucky !Dancing Flame or when your HP is running low due to other causes.

You will find a Recovery Spring in which you will automatically heal yourself. Always stick to the next exit on the top of the screen; other exits will lead you in circles. Laugh at their attempts to trick you.

Eventually, you'll reach a train. The train was destroyed in the recent war between Doma and the Empire, and Sabin will talk about survivors and taking looks. Cyan will freak, but we're used to that by now. Pay little attention to him and climb aboard. You can revive Shadow now as, trapped on the Phantom Train as he is, he won't run away anymore. You'll want to keep hold of your high-tech reviving utilities, as a Save Point is nearby that you can use as well. The Phantom Train is a luxury, a transportation device unlike any other. Pulled by a locomotive, the Train features a Save Point, two train wagons for the rich, a restaurant wagon, and five normal wagons with the Conductor's working area in the far back.

Angel Whispers are emissaries from a magical world. They use Attack, as is the wont of monsters, and

Gravity, a spell that halves your amount of current HP. It's pretty annoying. This is also the first monster you'll see with inherent Sap status. The undead were supposed to be healed by this status, so this was supposed to be a recovering opponent. Instead, due to a bug, Whispers just waste away in their own misery.

Living Dead are warrior zombies possessed by an evil spirit. Nice. They attack physically and with !Slip Touch, which sets Sap. They're inherently boring and mediocre.

Cloud monsters are not undead. This is a surprising feat for a creature on the Phantom Train, and I don't really know why this is. They cast

Drain to little avail, as you'll be doing one-hit KO's against them, but it's a nice try. Also, !Unseen Strike damages.

Oversouls are undead skeletons born from a coalescence of hatred. Also, they're most rude. Every second turn they take can make them use Dread Gaze, an attack that sets Petrify on a single target. If they're alone they won't ever use Dread Gaze but they can use !Insanitouch, which sets Confused and is potentially even more dangerous than Dread Gaze.

Bombs are mostly found when you're walking outside, and they have nothing to do with the Phantom Train and its destination. If they attack at all, they use Blaze, a strong Fire-elemental attack they can either aim at a single character or at the entire party. Always go for Bombs first, but never allow yourself to hit them with a non-fatal attack as they could use Self-Destruct, which harms you as much as the Bomb in question has for current HP. Luckily, as Self-Destruct is all about self-destruction, the Bomb will be dead.

Even though a great variety of attacks will be sent your way, there's very little you can do about them. Continue to use your powerful single-target attacks, and have Shadow target Bombs and then Whispers before anything else, as their Blaze and/or Demi attacks are the biggest threats you face.

It's feasible that your Sabin has learned Rising Phoenix by now. While you must've levelled him to level 15 for Rising Phoenix to be an option, and while level 15 is over levelled at this point, it's not entirely dramatically high. Bombs absorb Fire/Rising Phoenix, so refrain from using it when facing them. Aura Cannon is more powerful on a single target, but both feed off the weaknesses that seem inherent to all undead enemies: Fire and Holy. You'll learn to use Rising Phoenix, I'm sure. Give Shadow the Relic

Hermes Sandals, as his single-target attacks will be the most important ones. Relic

Mythril Glove/ Relic

Gigas Glove Cyan in the Front Row, Aura Cannon Sabin in the Back Row with a Relic

White Cape and Relic

Barrier Ring.

Once you decide to board the train, there's no going back. The door will close behind you and the train will start moving. Examine the door, and Cyan will explain about the Phantom Train, which brings the deceased to the afterlife. Business must be small, with all those Phoenix Downs. When you're done gasping and shaking in fear, head to the right. You'll walk out of the train car and, if you keep that button down, into a new one. You'll see a ghost here. Talk to him and have him join your party! It's only temporary, but I'll discuss the White Robed a bit.

The ghost joins on a level quite similar to yours, and can use Attack, Possess, and Item. Since he has no weapons, his Attack is horribly weak. Possess is a quirky command that is only seen here; it will remove both the caster and the target from the battle. The caster is gone from the party after the battle ends. This command has a 3 out of 8 chance of succeeding against every target, regardless of one-hit KO protection, Evasion, or Magic Evasion. The ghost comes equipped with no equipment save one Relic: the Relic

Lich Ring. This turns the wearer into an Undead creature, which is exactly the story behind the temporary character. This means you will hurt the poor bastard with Potions and Hi-Potions and kill it instantly with Phoenix Downs. If it has fallen in battle, you cannot revive him (the Phoenix Down will miss). Outside of battle, however, you can heal with restorative items. If a temporary ghost character dies, he will be removed from the party.

Enter the cabin. If you look at the switch, you'll see a cutscene in which Cyan's fear of machinery is once again displayed in a humorous manner. If you examine the book, you'll see some dialogue. If you talk to the Conductor, you can ask some questions. In the top-left corner of the car, there's a hidden Tent just waiting for you to discover.

If you leave again, you'll see another ghost. If Shadow left you/if you haven't bothered with him at all, you can have this guy join you too, although this second ghost is always significantly more useless (the first ghost added to a no-ghost party is always the more capable).

Okay, to the left we go! This is where the Locomotive is located, which we need to shut down. In the next train car, you see all sorts of ghosts. Some will attack you, some will want to join you, and some will want to sell you items. You shouldn't really benefit from the items, but if you feel you could use extra from the following, be my guest to search them out. You'll encounter just one Ghost 75% of the time you prod one of the attacking ghosts, but 25% of the time you'll see three. Nothing particular to worry about. When you exit the train car to the left, you can use a ladder to climb up the car you just abandoned and come across an air vent you fall through should you stand on it. How rad! How entirely useless!

Going into the next train car will be a suicidal plan, as it turns out. Just seconds after you entered, a ghost will appear from behind and block your path back. There are no other exits. It's time to fight the bugger! Like all other ghosts that have attacked you when you talked to them, this is either a single Ghost or a triple Ghost formation. Once outside, you will be cornered by a mob of angry undead. And they're not doing the moonwalk either! Time to escape. The roof, however, fits the role of upper surface completely and provides no means of exit. Then, Sabin gets an idea. Who knows what those years of training have been good for? You escape, Shadow and the ghost carefully secured in your back pocket. Or something.

The ghosts pursue! Instead of making this into a pursuit scene, you can simply flick a switch to detach the rear train cars. Do so. Remember, this has no consequences for the otherwise innocent, as the only thing you do is trap dozens of souls in the mortal realms, denying them passage to the afterlife, including, but not limited to, those nice guys who wanted to sell you items and help you on your quest. But hey, you're the good guys, right? Once back inside, you can swap the same switch to clear your path. This is the train car you want to be in to find Oversoul, as they don't appear on earlier or subsequent train cars. The next train houses the Dish of the Damned! The Food of the Forgotten! The Cuisine of the Con...demned! Sitting at the middle table will make a ghost waiter serve you some food. Cyan will spaz out (he does that a lot) but you'll be fully healed, just like a meal in real life. You can repeat this for a less dramatic but more personal scene by switching lead characters the next time(s) you sit down.

You can't exit to the left, so go out and walk around the train car. Don't forget to go back in the other side and open the chest behind the waiters for an Relic

Earring. Swap one of Sabin's Relics with it, as you'll need the boost in Aura Cannon power in a bit.

You can't go around the next train car, so just get in! There are two compartments in this train car. The first one houses a chest, but as soon as you face it from the front (you can't open it from the side), you will hear an ominous voice! Of course, there's really no indication the voice is ominous, so I'm just making that up.

Siegfried Bestiary #48	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	None	7	100	5	1	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	1	10	0	50	150	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	None			Common: Green Cherry
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness
	None			None
	Lores			Command Immunities
	None			Control, Scan
	Strategy
	After the introduction between you and Siegfried is done, it's time to fight. Siegfried has 100 HP and opens with a flurry of eight weak physical attacks. Chances are your Black Belt character or Interceptor kills him before he finishes all eight, but if that's not the case, you can just do whatever (except the Tiger Bushido skill!). Expand Full Strategy

Siegfried is impersonating the legendary swordsman Siegfried and had hoped to scare you off rather than actually having to fight you in any kind of serious battle. In the Japanese version, Siegfried continuously refers to himself as Mr. Me. It gets really annoying really quick. Anyway, the pansy has been beaten. You'll get a Green Cherry for your troubles.

Siegfried runs off with the treasure - Au revoir! Don't worry if you just missed the biggest kick-ass Gamma Sword just there; the chest isn't really a chest with contents anyway. The next room in the compartment appears empty, but this is not the case. See those two empty tiles to the left of the bench? The left one contains a Tent; just face it and press action. The right one contains a Relic

Fairy Ring, but you can't obtain it since you can't face it. Stupid programmers are the scourge of gaming.

On to the next car! Once again, it's a posh car with two compartments. The first one is completely empty. The second one is lined up with four chests; rejoice. From right to left, they contain a Phoenix Down, Relic

Sniper Eye (you can ignore this Relic for now, nothing evades your physicals at this stage of the game, and you're not using them anyway), Phoenix Down, and a Monster-in-a-Box. How frightening.

Apparition Bestiary #47	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	Undead	19	1500	10000	0	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	15	8	0	120	180	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	None			Common: Hyper Wrist
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness

	Lores			Command Immunities
	None			Control
	Strategy
	This is Apparition. According to the latest Anthology release, this is the ghost of a murdered person. Oh my. Apparition has normal access to three attacks: Attack, the Blizzard spell, and Leech, which drains HP. If you damage Apparition, he will hate you for it and get a 33% shot at attacking his attacker with !Lightning, which is nothing even remotely like Lightning-elemental. There are a number of ways to kill this thing humiliatingly easy, but the Top 2 of cheap tactics go right against my game ethics. Of course, there's taking advantage of Square's assumption that even though it's supposed to be a rather difficult enemy, it still should be vulnerable to a Phoenix Down, scoring a one-hit KO. Also, you're traveling with a ghost that is capable of delivering a one-hit KO on everything. But I'll guess that not only are you too good for the Phoenix Down move, you also don't want to lose your cool ghost guy just yet. So, when the battle begins, wait for Cyan's third Bushido skill, Tiger. Don't move with Sabin and Shadow or even the ghost; just skip to Cyan and use Tiger. It'll halve his current HP and should do 750 damage. Follow up with an Aura Cannon and a Shuriken and you should be done. Expand Full Strategy

You'll get a Relic

Hyper Wrist for your troubles, which is hardly satisfactory. Then again, it wasn't much trouble.

Before you can reach the next car, your ghost companion(s) will leave you. ...How troublesome (but not really). The next car contains a Save Point. Save. That is its point.

Finally, you made it to the locomotive. The engineer's compartment will make Sabin and Cyan excited before they even set as much as a single step within it. Sounds promising! In the top-left and the bottom-left corners of the room, you can read that you need to shut the first and third pressure valves. All three are now open, so just flip the first and third one, and go outside near the smoke stack. Before you operate, you should expect a major fight coming up. As preparation, move everybody to the Front Row and equip any Relic

Ribbon you might have. Equip the Relic

White Cape on Cyan (switch with Relic

Hyper Wrist).

Phantom Train Bestiary #284	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP
	Undead	14	1900	350	0	0
	Strength	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	10	5	0	30	210	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	None			Common: Tent
	Status Immunities			Elemental Immunities
				None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness

	Lores			Command Immunities
	None			Control
	Strategy
	The Phantom Train will start with the battle with either a physical attack, !Wheel, or Diabolic Whistle. The next four turns will be spent using normal physical attacks and his Special !Wheel; the fifth turn will be Diabolic Whistle, but only if there are at least two characters still alive. After every 15 seconds of battle, Phantom Train will use either Acid Rain (2/3) or Saintly Beam, an attack that deals multi-target Holy-elemental damage to your party. Finally, if Phantom Train has been damaged, he has a one in three chance of using !Wheel. For trivia, Saintly Beam used to be Phantom Train-exclusive until Holy Dragon Redux showed its pasty face for the Advance release. Given it's such a nasty move in that fight, its occurrence here at least shows the Phantom Train was on the right track. The fight against Phantom Train can be real easy and real bad, and it all depends on his Diabolic Whistle attack. This sets one random status ailment on your party out of the following: Darkness, Poison, Imp, Doom, Berserk, Confused, Sap and Slow. Due to a GBA-exclusive bug, you can circumvent all effects from this attack by equipping a Relic which protects against Imp (such as the White Cape). It should've still applied other status ailments in that case, but it doesn't. The ones you need to be concerned about are Imp, Berserk, and Confused. If one of your characters is Imped, you'll want to use Hi-Potions to damage Phantom Train. Hi-Potions inflict 250 worth of HP damage, which is superior to your crummy Imped Attack command. Smack your Confused characters, as there's nothing more fatal than Confused characters, especially when they have access to Rising Phoenix or barrier-piercing attacks. The Phantom Train battle is very much like the Apparition battle in the sense that using a Phoenix Down is the coward's way out, and that the strategy revolves around allowing Cyan to start the battle with his third Bushido skill, Tiger. After this, have Sabin come in with an Aura Cannon and Shadow with Shuriken. A lot of people have dubbed it 'hilarious' to have Sabin use Meteor Strike on the Phantom Train. If you want to see a tiny sprite lift a huge train, be my guest. Expand Full Strategy

After the fight is over, you're in for the most dramatic moment of your life. If you don't actually have a life, that is. Cyan Garamonde, who has lost everything he ever lived for, has to come face to face with his departed wife and son, only moments before the Phantom Train forcefully takes them away. I suppose it's only justifiable Cyan is slightly in shock after this.

You'll be able to leave after a set period of time. After all has been said and done, you find yourself on the Overworld Map.

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Caves of Narshe: Final Fantasy VI
Version 6
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