Final Fantasy VI Walkthrough
Written by Djibriel
Contributor
2.37: Phoenix Cave and the Red Dragon
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Enemies: Ouroboros, Face, Zeveak, Chaos Dragon, Seaflower, Galypdes, Necromancer, Clymenus
Lore: 
1000 Needles, Lv. 4 Flare
Party: Optional: Terra, Cyan, Shadow, Edgar, Sabin, Celes, Relm, Strago, Setzer, Mog, Gau, Gogo, Umaro
The Phoenix Cave is indeed hidden where the mountains form a star; just north of Tzen (where you found Sabin earlier), there is a large mountain range with a hole right in the middle. Once above this point, you can use the 'cancel' button to lower two teams of four characters down into the dungeon.
You know, this is the first time that it occured to me this area is probably just a volcano. Square calls it 'Phoenix Cave' and you kinda just stop thinking.
Whom to bring? It's kind of a toss-up. On the one hand, the stronger the characters you bring, the easier a time you'll have in this dungeon. And make no mistake, even though it lacks a proper boss battle at the end, this is pretty much the Zozo/Floating Continent of the WoR; you get used to the royal treatment when, all of a sudden, the battles heat up and you're in danger again. On the other hand, this is the last dungeon before we dive into the final one, so you'll want to train the ones you've been neglecting so far. I tend to take the eight characters with the lowest level, but you might like to bring the stronger ones and level the weaker ones later. Of course, there's always the option of over leveling a set of stronger characters so that they can make up for the deficiencies of the weaker ones once the time comes; character selection here really depends on what kind of strategy you prefer.
You now have two parties to control; use the Select button to switch between the two. Know that there's no shame in sharing the really great equipment between the two groups; the
Master's Scroll is a one-of-a-kind Relic you might like on Setzer and Gau while they're each in different parties; the same goes for items like the 
Red Caps, the Soul of Thamasa, the 
Lightbringer, and the 
Paladin's Shield (although you probably don't have them yet).Most of the enemies here absorb Fire-elemental attacks and are weak to Ice. It's interesting, in this light, that the character best prepared for this scenario is the one who is most personally interested: Celes Chere.
You'll recognize Ouroboros from its palette swap Vampire Thorn. Ouroboros shares the latter's incredible defenses, but it isn't Undead, meaning the
Cure spell will be ineffective against them. This time around though, you have plenty of barrier-piercing attacks you can utilize to straight-up murder these things. Like most enemies in this cave, Ouroboros absorbs Fire-elemental attacks and has a rare Phoenix Down to both Steal and receive for winning. On the offense, it uses 
Bio spells every second turn and !Doom Touch (which sets Zombie) on the fourth. It loops from here, as you'd probably have guessed.Face uses Battle and !Smirk, which sets Stop. When alone, it'll start using
1000 Needles, which deals 1000 damage as always, and it'll have a 33% chance of retorting with 1000 Needles whenever it's damaged. Try to take them out in a single shot; Blizzara and Blizzaga spells work like a charm.Zeveak are annoying, as they may use their Special !Whirling Umbrella on their first turn, which sets Confuse. Every second turn may feature the Ice-/Water-elemental Flash Rain, though this should be absorbed or nullified by a large portion of your characters by now. When alone, it will start to use El Nino on you, which is about twice as powerful. Zeveaks are weak against Ice and vulnerable to Instant Death.
Chaos Dragon attacks rarely, but when it does it's probably bad news for you. Most of its turns are spent doing nothing; the only exceptions are its second turn and its seventh turn, after which it spends another five turns waiting before looping. There is a 33% chance of seeing Chaos Dragon use Disaster on its second turn, an attack that you probably haven't seen; it can be multi-targeted and sets Dark, Imp,
Doom, Mute, Muddle, and Float. The AI script for its second turn has it use !Incinerate one-third of the time, a Special that sets Death.Seaflowers are kinda annoying. They often attack in large numbers and have quite a few Hit Points (4200) for an average encounter. They also have a Special, !Tentacle, which sets Poison. Mass Ice- and Lightning-elemental attacks are the way to go;
Banish also gets the job done very nicely.Galypdes is famed for its rare Steal: the
Celestriad, a Relic which cuts MP usage for every Magic spell and Lore technique down to 1. Galypdes has mean physicals (!Flap hurts especially bad), absorbs Fire, and sometimes uses Cyclonic out of the blue. It may counter any form of damage with a 33% chance of using a Shimsham attack (which you can have Celes absorb with her Runic blade, just to be on the safe side).Necromancers, according to Anthology, are unfortunate mortals that have been hit by a !Zombie Stick attack. They're like vampires; a spreading plague over the lands. Necromancers are extremely dangerous, make no mistake about that. Why? They can use !Zombie Stick on their very first turn, which obviously sets Zombie. That's annoying enough, but it doesn't stop there. Every time Necromancer is damaged, even if this damage is fatal, it may counter with a
Gravity or Graviga spell on the character that damaged it. Also, when only a single Necromancer is alive, it will drop its normal, physical-oriented AI script and randomly cast Death, Banish and Flare spells, all of which are bad. Their Flare spells deal around 1000 damage. The way to get at these enemies is the Raise spell: Necromancers are Undead. Since Raise spells don't technically deal damage, you won't have to worry about the counter-attacks, so as long as you make sure no Necromancer is left alone you shouldn't need to witness their wrath. Clymenus are the only opponents in this volcano that don't absorb Fire. They like to use it, though:
Fira, generally. If you use 
Reflect spells, they'll get into all kinds of crazy shenanigans, too. If any of your characters has Reflect status, they'll start casting Cura, Reflect and Haste spells on you; if any of them has the Reflect status, they'll start casting Fire, Fira and Firaga spells on themselves. Very fun. They have incredibly high Magic Defense, so stick to physical attacks, especially Holy-elemental ones. Let's make the first party you'll act with upon entering the dungeon Party #1 and the other party Party #2. Easy enough, right? Let's dive into this volcano! Since most of the 'puzzles' in this dungeon consist of clever switching between the two parties, I've taken care in the section ahead to be extremely clear on the matter of when to switch.
Note the spikes in this cavern: They deal 400 damage every time you land or walk on them. They disregard status ailments, so a Petrified character may still be hurt by them. Also, the spikes will never kill a character outright; if a character has 400 HP or less, it'll set the amount of current HP to 1.
Party #1: There are no enemies on the cliff, but there is the crane of the Falcon waiting for you; you can grab it any time you like to return to the Falcon with all your characters waiting onboard. Walk inside the cave. Find the pressure tile inside and stand on it; it should open a pathway. When you step off the tile it will close again, so you'll have to stay put. Change to the other party.
Party #2: Walk inside and enter the door being held open by Party #1. On the other side, there are spikes to the top-right, a chest to the left and a passage leading to another pressure tile to the bottom-right. If you try to get the chest, you'll fall down through a gap in the floor onto some spikes, which deliver 400 HP of damage to your entire party. If you did this, you can go around to the bottom, up the stairs and stand on the pressure tile to permanently extend a bridge to the chest, which you can now open for a
Wing Edge. Later, you'll be able to do this without taking 400 spike damage. Regardless, you'll want to move your party on top of the pressure tile right above the pressure tile Party #1 is standing on. Once this has been done, switch to the other party.There are two options here. The first requires taking spike damage to the party:
Party #1: Take the party over the spikes. If you're smart, you can minimize the damage to 800 a character (two spike-tiles). Go down, ignoring the spike-guarded chest (it's empty), and go to the right and up. Stand on the pressure tile there, go back, and trace back down the pathway. Go all the way (you'll find an empty chest along the way) and switch.
Party #2: Walk over the spikes (they'll deal a total of 1200 damage to your party) and go down the stairway to the left. If you haven't picked up the
Wing Edge in the chest, do so now. If you have already or if you're done, jump over the newly formed tiles. Switch back to Party #1.This second option is longer but doesn't incur spike damage:
Party #1: Go up until you come across another pressure tile: it shouldn't be far from your starting point. Stand on it to remove the spikes that were in the way of Party #2 earlier. Switch.
Party #2: Walk across the now-disappeared spikes. To your left is a stairway going down; you can use it to enter a lower level, allowing you to claim the
Wing Edge chest on the other end. The other path, a wooden bridge over the lava, is broken off for now, so there's no reason to go down here if you grabbed the Wing Edge earlier. On the upper level, you'll want to walk to the far right, where you come across a stairway leading to another pressure tile. It removes some spikes in the area where Party #1 is standing. Switch.Party #1: Finally, some real action with #1! Walk over where the spikes were previously until you come across a stairway. Past the stairway is another now-spikeless pathway leading to a chest, but the chest is Empty! You never know, any random scoundrel or even might have emptied these chests. But could it have been Locke? Regardless, turn back and descend the stairway. On the lower level, there are two paths; ignore the right one for now, in favor of the left. Here, you will find an empty chest and a pressure tile which causes some rocks to rise out of the lava, creating a pathway for #2. Switch.
Party #2: Go the left and descend a level. Now, jump over the newly raised rocks once to reach the other side and again to reach the new area. On the other side, there's a chest with some spikes in front of it. You can risk your life and limbs to open it, but this chest is as empty as the ones preceding it, so don't. Before you enter the narrow passage, notice the pressure tile near the big rock blocking the path to the right. Stand on it to cause another passageway to open, blocking your current one. Switch.
Once you've gone through one of the two options, you'll be ready to proceed.
Party #1: There's really no other way to go but down, following the path across the lava. You'll come across another chest, but it'll be just as empty as the others. Pressing on, enter the passageway #2 created for you. Go around and ignore the path leading over the spikes. Step onto the pressure tile, which restores the passageway to make room for #2. Switch.
Party #2: #2 can take the opportunity to use the Save Point to the left, but you'll just want to be standing on the pressure tile before switching parties.
Party #1: Move up and to the left, over the lowered spikes. You'll come across a stairway; go down the stairway to the lower level. You'll get a shot at a jumping puzzle now! Jump over the rocks to the left, then below and to the right. From here, the first jumping option takes you to an empty chest, while the other one takes you to a stairway going up again. Do this, and you'll come across a skeleton switch shortly; flip it to allow all the water from the upper level to flow over the lava in the lower one, solidifying it so that you can walk on it. Going down the little stairway will only show you that you won't be able to go on any further with this party, so switch.
Party #2:There's another pressure tile to the far left. Stand on it to clear the path for #1.
Party #1: Don't go all the way down yet: there's a boss battle here, and you'll want the option to choose between your two parties. Go up the little stairway, and you'll see three pressure tiles: one up and two below. You'll want to hit the single one. Switch.
Party #2: As soon as you get off the pressure tile, your path to the other side will be cleared. You can only go one way, which will take you to some solidified lava. You can now get to the unopened chest in the middle, which, in a shocking turn of events, isn't empty but instead contains a
Ribbon. Go up the stairway that you couldn't get to by rock jumping earlier, and you'll find yourself on the upper level once more. Walk under the ceiling (that blocks the view of your characters) until you reach what would have been a dead end, had #2 not created a pathway for you by raising the two rocks via pressure switch. Jump to the other side. Now, occupy either one of the two pressure tiles that are right next to each other. Switch.Party #1: Get off the first pressure tile and occupy the other pressure tile right next to #2. A pathway will permanently clear. On the other side, you'll find a stairway leading to the exit of this dungeon.
Party #1 or #2: Either party can go fight the dragon ahead. I should note that the dragon is seemingly guarding a chest, which contains a
Dragon Horn that you might find interesting.Party #2 or #1: Continue down the only path you can follow. Eventually, you'll find the last person you were missing: Locke Cole. It turns out that he has just reached his life-long ambition too; Locke has finally found the lost relic able to restore life: The Magicite remains of the
Phoenix Esper. The scene switches to the village of Kohlingen.Note that you can return here later if you want to; there will be a red sparkle to the right of the
Phoenix Esper chest. This is merely a warp sparkle that you can use to return to the Falcon. At some point, though, you're going to want to fight the dragon in this dungeon.Red Dragon  Bestiary #337 |
Type |
Level |
HP |
MP |
Gil |
EXP |
None | 67 | 30000 | 1780 | 0 | 0 | |
Strength |
Magic Atk. |
Evasion |
Defense |
Mag. Def. |
Mag. Evade |
|
13 | 10 | 0 | 110 | 150 | 0 | |
Stolen Items |
Dropped Items |
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None | Common:  Murakumo | |||||
Status Immunities | Elemental Immunities | |||||
       | None | |||||
Elemental Absorb | Elemental Weakness | |||||
 |   | |||||
Lores | Command Immunities | |||||
Control | ||||||
Metamorph Package | ||||||
Strategy | ||||||
The Red Dragon is red and lives in a volcano. It may shock you to discover he's a Fire dragon! You'll be laughing by now, I assume; not only have you already spotted his weakness to the Confuse status, but the Fire element is the one most easily protected against. The  Red Jacket, Ice Shield, Minerva Bustier, and Blizzard Orb all nullify it, the Flame Shield and Berserker Ring absorb it, and, if those resources aren't enough, the Force Shield, Thunder Shield, Cat-Ear Hood, Snow Scarf, and Force Armor all halve damage done by the element. Even though the Red Dragon tries to counter this by employing Flare spells and the Lv. 4 Flare attack, he's still fairly easy.Every 40 seconds, Red Dragon will use a particularly powerful attack; either S. Cross, Flare Star, or Lv. 4 Flare. Flare Star still deals Fire-elemental damage based on your level, S. Cross is just a strong multi-target Fire-elemental attack and Lv. 4 Flare deals non-elemental, barrier-piercing damage to every character whose level is divisible by 4.Normally, Red Dragon switches between Fira (66%) and Fire Ball (33%). When he reaches 10240 HP (after having absorbed 19760 HP damage), he'll switch to Firaga (66%) or a Flare spell (33%). All these spells (with the exception of Fire Ball) can be Reflected, but that may not be the wisest action to take; any character under the influence of Reflect will be targeted every second turn by !Eraser (from top character to bottom character), just like the living and his !Devil Claw attack. !Eraser removes the Reflect status, though not when the status is inherent (through Reflect Rings or Rage). Like most bosses, the Red Dragon has a 33% Battle counter to every damaging attack he takes.What to do? He has a fairly low amount of MP, and all his dangerous attacks need MP to function. In his less dangerous phase, throw up your barriers (summon Fenrir and/or Golem, Kirin's Life Guard is useful as always, Hastega, Mighty Guard, you name it). When you're done, start casting Rasp! You can check if he's out of MP with Libra if you can't keep track yourself. You should have him crippled before his first 40-second attack comes around. Now that Red Dragon is nothing but a big lizard of fire, attack him with all the standard repertoire. It doesn't really matter, as he's pretty much done by now, but the most effective attacks tend to be Ice-elemental ones: the Blizzaga spell, thrown Icebrand swords (or  Water Scrolls), the usual Phantom Rush and Dragon Horn Jump attacks, whatever works. Note that Tri-Disaster is absorbed, though. You can toy around with Confuse if you want, but it's not necessary. Expand Full Strategy | ||||||
In the end, it's an easy battle. The
Murakumo you get is little to celebrate, as you should be neck-deep in the buggers if you've ever had the wish to.Locke re-enters the party after having finally completed his life-long task. With him, Locke brings the remains of the
Phoenix Esper and the treasures of the Phoenix Cave he collected along the way: An X-Potion, a Phoenix Down, an X-Ether, an Elixir, a Flame Shield, and Locke's primary source of pride, the 
Valiant Knife. Note that there were but four empty chests in the Phoenix Cave; the Phoenix Down might have been a rare drop from a monster, but we're still left with an extra item. Bleh, who cares?First off, if you haven't yet gotten Gogo, this is where the Steal command re-enters your game. Beyond that, in terms of Locke's defense, there are few things to say. Locke has the more or less standard equipment options, which he shares with the likes of Setzer, Cyan, and Shadow. The
Genji Armor is his strongest option, which is nicely complemented by the Thunder Shield for elemental resistances. If equipped with the Valiant Knife, the Red Cap is especially nice on Locke, as it indirectly boosts his average damage output with that weapon.On the offensive side, there are three weapons worth noting for Locke:
The
Sniper. Remember the Hawkeye from the late WoB? The Sniper is exactly that, only with updated Battle Power to make a stand in the WoR. It has no stat boosts, but it does hit for 1.5 as much damage 50% and three times as much damage against Floating targets.The
Wing Edge is Locke's strongest normal weapon. Back Row compatible, a +7 bonus to both Vigor and Speed (which both matter little), a +1 bonus to Stamina, a +2 bonus to Magic Power and the Assassin's Dagger's X-type Instant Death ability: This weapon is a powerhouse. There are two in the game, so you could Genji Glove it up if you want. This is nice if you're going out to Steal anyway, but in the WoR Locke can finally dish out damage like other character, and that's because of the...Valiant Knife. The first noticeable feature of this awesome weapon is the fact that it is barrier-piercing. With it, every normal strike is stronger than a Raging Fist or Fang attack. The second feature is even more important: every time Locke attacks, (max HP - current HP) damage is added to the base damage inflicted. In other words, that's what Revenge Blast does; the more hurt Locke is, the more damage he'll do. It's prone to sometimes leaving Locke a bit beat up - let's walk around while we're all busted up so we can do three times as much damage as usual - but the strategy does work. The disadvantage over the other two weapons mentioned is that it isn't Back Row compatible and doesn't give any stat boosts.So, we're complete! Time to take on Kefka? Close, but not so fast. There are two more things to do here, and we're going to get a few very broken items/abilities out of it. And you like that, dontcha?
Caves of Narshe: Final Fantasy VI
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.