Part 59: Part Fifty-Nine: Cloud of Darkness

Part Fifty-Nine: Cloud of Darkness

Alright folks, it's the day you've all been waiting for: we're finally off to fight the final boss!


First, though, we, uh, have to go after her.


So, yeah, it's time for another glamourous trip through the beautiful World of Darkness.


For this one, the path you have to follow is the little ray of light pointing off the platform.



There are no side paths or treasures here, it's just a hallway that happens to zig-zag a bit.


The platforms fade in from the fog as you run towards them.


Oh, and there are boring-ass random encounters like this (Queen Scylla, 34,760 HP; MSRP $199.99) and maybe they back attack you and you have to run away instead of fighting, but who cares?


The boss isn't even at the end of the path! It's just another bloody teleporter!






Oh, yeah, and then a bit of a walk.


The final boss is an orb of light that talks to you on the top screen. Doesn't even get a model.

However, she does get a second version of her theme:


Cloud of Darkness: None shall stand before the flood of darkness. With it, we shall bring the void to this world, and your world of light as well...
: We won't let you! Not if we have anything to say about it!


These guys just sort of nod along with Sephy, because they are unique characters with distinct and powerful personalities.

Cloud of Darkness: Hah hah hah... This is the world of darkness...you cannot defeat me with only the power of light!

Ignoring that that's stupid, let me remind you of something: the crystals chose four Warriors of Light to save the world in its time of need. At this point, literally at the end of the game, it turns out that those Warriors of Light need to also draw on the power of darkness to repel a flood of darkness.


Here's the takeaway: if there hadn't been four Warriors of Darkness also floating around here, everybody would have died and the world would have been destroyed. This is not the first time the kids' success has depended on some factor completely outside of them.


Speaking of.



Thank god these kids are absurdly, impossibly lucky.




Oh, and the Warriors of Darkness just kind of commit suicide at the Cloud of Darkness really hard. Consider the kids helped.


This one's included just for Kuja's face and the implicit reminder that a whole bunch of fucked-up shit has happened in front of some teens.


The Cloud of Darkness is pissed that everybody's trying to kill her. Doesn't like that one bit, honestly.

Cloud of Darkness: You may have destroyed the dark crystals...but that is of no consequence...

Isn't destroying the crystals really bad, though? Shouldn't destroying the dark crystals also be really bad, then?

Cloud of Darkness: We will devour your power of light, and use it to return this world to the Void!

No answer? That's also cool, I like it.



And now is the time we fight.

For the fight, here's the third version of the Cloud's theme, the one actually in the battle:



First change from the original: Cloud of Darkness is now accompanied by two tentacles that assist her and attack the kids.



Your physical attackers should always start this battle focussing on the left tentacle (the tentacles have something like 60,000 or 70,000 HP each).



You see, all this tentacle does is blast you with Lightning every single round, and if you don't have high Magic Defense and a Protect Ring on, Lightning tears the kids the fuck apart. Easily the biggest threat at the start of this fight.


Oh, and the left tentacle is also immune to magic, so you can't just let your physical guys get knocked out and have your casters handle it.



It is very important to keep up on healing here, but there's one problem:



Jecht often acts before the Cloud of Darkness herself does (she gets two attacks per round, and each tentacle goes once as well) so I ended up taking damage on either side of his turn, meaning some would always stack up.


Lightning can slaughter you in this fight, especially if the boss does something nasty like focus on your healer with her other attacks.


The right tentacle is a smaller threat, as all it does is throw support spells at the main body. Protect isn't a huge issue right now since physical damage is going to the left tentacle and Protect doesn't do anything about magic.


Haste isn't a big deal either, since it doesn't make a huge difference. Nothing the right side does makes it a priority, and it's best left to just die naturally from spillover damage.


Haste doesn't even affect Lightning, so the right casting it on the left is dumb as hell.


One of the hardest parts of this fight is deciding when to have your healers heal normally and when to bust out Arise. My advice: keep Arise back as long as possible. Try to avoid using it while Lightning is still on the table.


A few rounds in, both Sephy and Kuja are down.


Cloud of Darkness can use Bad Breath, but if you have Ribbons on everyone, this is a free turn. Bad Breath is exactly what you want to see, honestly. Can't get enough Bad Breath.



Things are about as bad as they get here.


This is just to get another target on the field, honestly.


She doesn't last long.






Long enough to set this up, though. At this point, the battle is pretty much decided. I can tank pretty much anything else the boss does, it's just a matter of breaking through her tremendous 120,000 HP. This is a long fight, but it's not hard or interesting.


Oh, for this fight it's advisable to use Leviathan instead of Bahamut, just because the tentacle on the right is weak to all elements, including Leviathan's water.


See?


At some point, I don't know what triggers it, but the boss starts using Particle Beam, which you may remember as an insta-wipe in the Crystal Tower.


It's still very ugly, but nothing that can't be managed if you're careful. If Lightning was still on the table, I would be wiped here, but instead I just have to make sure there's a Curaja in the queue.


Like this.


By the way, you just have to deal with the main body to win the fight, so after the left tentacle is dead, any physical attackers should just go nuts on the Cloud herself.


Especially because things don't tend to go well for them. Cloud of Darkness hits hard on that front row.


After a couple more rounds, though, it's just the kids and the main body.


Elixirs are handy, and there's no reason to hold on to them at this point, so go nuts!


Having people up to eat those heavy physicals is also handy.


At this point, I switched back to Bahamut just for the higher damage.


Cloud of Darkness has a very high Defense stat, see.


In the NES version, Particle Beam was called Flare Wave, and it was literally all she ever used.


Jump is a good attack, and I like it.


Anyway, imagine, like, 30 more fuckin' rounds of this and you get the gist of this fight. It's boring as hell and it sucks, but surprisingly it is not the worst fight this game has to offer! She doesn't even do anything special, you just punch her a bunch and she dies. No multiple forms, no death speech, no unique animation.


Cloud of Darkness: you sucked, fuck off and eat shit in hell.



Because this game is kind of dumb, of course the final boss drops EXP and Gil.



Kuja and Golbez even gain levels from it!