Part 25: Dark Eternal
We've now got access to the rest of the castle. It's certainly not going to be easy.
Battle 1 
In fact, this ends up being the first of several battle gauntlets we have to go through. Play time is over, you beat the side-bosses, now it's time to throw a bunch of random encounters at you and see how you fare.
First is two Henches, then they add Grimalkins...
...and finally Sorcerers.
At the end is good ol' Ozzie himself.
Slash!! Flea!
Oz...
Ozzie's kind of a coward.
Really nice armor upgrade for the women.
Confusing Melody 
Next up is, uh...
So yeah, this is Ozzie's next plan.
The place is creepy as hell, but even now the game still likes to mix in weird and goofy scenarios to remind you just what kind of game it is.
New armor for the men. Same defense as the Ruby Vest but it trades fire resistance for a flat +5 Magic Defense.
Once you get near him, Ozzie starts speeding up the conveyors and blades.
If you get hit, you lose some HP, but otherwise it's more an annoyance than anything.
What the...?! Impossible...!
Our reward for making Ozzie run away again is another weapon upgrade for Robo. Its best feature is its name. It's the kind of name you scream as you try to poke out the enemy's eye...WITH DOOM.
The next area is a neat little 2D section. Rolies will continuously roll down this area, and the trick is to interact with them so that you trigger a fight with as few enemies on the screen as possible.
That or you can just stand still and let them roll past you.
The Juggler was mentioned in that bloody note right outside the castle. It starts off with very high physical defense, but one magic attack has it swap its defenses to resist magic, only for a physical hit to swap it right back...assuming it survives that long, of course.
Frog picks up a really nice Tech here, which recovers HP for the entire party.
Next is, uh...
You gotta be kidding me.
Once you beat the skeletons, there are four save points, one at each edge of the screen. One is just a regular save point, while another will teleport you back to the room with Ozzie.
The other two are encounters with a nameless foe. They have high physical defense but only 10HP and oddly seem to have no attacks whatsoever. They fly around like crazy, though.
Heal recovers a simple MAG*6 + RND HP to the entire party. Not a lot, but healing the entire party helps it a ton.
Then Crono picks up his fifth Tech, and what a good one it is!
It's a hefty 8MP, but it deals 5.6 * (LVL + MAG) lightning damage to all enemies. It's only slightly stronger than regular Lightning, though, so it's still better to use the single-target one against lone foes.
What the...?! Impossible...!Once again, we reach Ozzie, and once again, Ozzie runs away.
This next area has the Outlaw, a standard enemy immune to Lightning and Fire.
And if you hit it while a Juggler is alive, it'll counter with a Dual Tech of its own.
Roly Bombers are utterly fragile as far as magic attacks go, but when they die they have a nasty final attack.
Battle 1 
The next room is another battle gauntlet. Groupies have solid HP and absorb Shadow damage, but otherwise get destroyed by other magic attacks.
Otherwise, we blow through a couple more of these encounters.
Urghhhhhh...
You'd think Ozzie would be tired from all this running away.
+2 Speed, fantastic stuff.
And here's yet another battle gauntlet.
You can evade most of these battles by simply going to the left or right.
But not all, sadly.
Confusing Melody 
Finally, we corner Ozzie.
Harharhar... I'm sure Sir Magus has already called for reinforcements...! Wait until Lavos arrives!!
Boss Battle 1 
With that, Ozzie seals himself in a block of ice, and we start our next "boss" battle.
Ozzie has perfect defenses and a whopping 1000HP, plus counters all hits.
The trick is to not bother with Ozzie at all, but instead hit a switch.
This resumes the battle, and this time there's a second switch to hit. Doing so...
...triggers this. Only two left!
Switch three opens the hole behind Crono. Only one left, and hitting that one, well...
See for yourself.
https://mp4.mega64.net/ct/17/224.mp4
Goodbye, Ozzie.
We've unlocked two more save points. One saves, of course, and the other leads to our final destination.
This is it. The moment this game's been building up to ever since we learned in Medina that Magus created Lavos.
SILENCE 
The walk down is eerie, with bats chasing you as you go. It amps up the tension, something big is about to go down here.
It's finally time to face Magus.
I...it's that stupid frog!
I rather enjoy this form. And I oweth it all to you!
LISTEN TO THIS Battle with Magus 
I bet you're just dying to use it!
Okay...give me your best shot...
Great background, fantastic music...the game nails the climax of the build-up. And we haven't even gotten to the actual battle yet!
Magus has a regular physical attack as well as a weak target-all attack that saps HP. Nothing too threatening there.
Magus has two phases. In the first phase, he'll throw one of four magic attacks at the party. The Lightning/Fire/Ice ones hit the entire party, while the Shadow one hits a single target. These generally do around a hundred damage or so.
Magus has regular Magic Defense, but an attack by the Masamune reduces it to 0. The effect goes away after a hit, assumingly.
Any other attack will prompt Magus to cast another spell.
The trick for this section is to hit Magus with the element he just used. Thus Lucca's the best character for this fight since her Fire spells can do serious damage. Robo's alright since he can hit Shadow weakness, but not as hard as Lucca's Fire.
If you do roll Shadow, just hit Magus again to swap to a different element. Just make sure you keep healed, these attacks add up.
As I said, there's two phases to this fight. Once you chip through enough of Magus's staggering 6666HP, he ditches the elemental gimmick and simply decides to prep a devastating spell.
His defenses also drop to normal levels, so this is the time to heal up and go all-out with your strongest attacks. For if you wait too long...
...you get utterly wrecked by Dark Matter, which does ridiculous damage for this stage of the game. Magus is pulling no punches anymore.
That said, with the right levels or by smartly using that Barrier item, you can handle the attack and then lay into Magus enough to finally stop him.
SILENCE 
What's happening! Could it be...Lavos?!
What do you mean?! Didn't you CREATE him?!
He lives in the inner earth, absorbing the land's power and growing ever stronger! So, he wasn't born in this period...Our intel was inaccurate, so...what have we really accomplished here?
Lavos's Theme 
You! If you hadn't shown up...!
Whoa..!!https://mp4.mega64.net/ct/17/286.mp4
...welp. Our party and Magus have been thrown into the reaches of time, and Lavos still exists. Looks like we've still got quite a bit to go in our journey!
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And since I have nowhere better to put it, there's a slightly different ending if you lose to Magus.
https://mp4.mega64.net/ct/17/247.mp4