Part 27: Reina vs. Gilgame

So for the first and only time in the game since the beginning, we have a new character in the party.

Fortunately, Krile carries over all of Galuf's job progress, so she's simply replacing him rather than being a new character to build up. She also has slightly different base stats, losing out on Vigor (+1 to Galuf's +3) and Stamina (0 to Galuf's +4), but beats him in Speed (+4 to Galuf's 0) and Magic (+3 to Galuf's 0). Of course, the stat differences are minor enough compared to the boosts that jobs give that it doesn't actually matter.





Here I'm showing off Krile's Monk and Trainer sprites since I won't be changing back into them.



A geezer like me! How ironic!

Anyway, we can go back to Kelga and tell him another of his friends have died. You know, cheer him up and all that.



Anyway, at this point there's only one thing left to do before tackling X-Death's castle. It's time to fight Gilgame.



I was too lazy to look up a strategy, so I just decided to go with this strategy and wing it. Bartz has Redx2, of course, and Faris has Time Magic, of course. Gilgame's big thing is being weak to ice, so I made Reina a Sorcerer to abuse Ice3 sword, since right now I've only leveled Sorcerer to L3 magic. I give her Sshot as well, even though it turned out Sshot didn't play well with Sword Magic. If I knew that, I'd have given her the Knight's 2handed for extra oomph. Also, Krile's a Bard because Speed Song.



So every step you take, you get exponentially more GP. The next step is 20, then 40, and so on. Of course, every step you take also has a chance of having you fight Gilgame.





I somehow make it near the end of the path before getting into a fight with him.





Remember, Gilgame hits hard. My characters can take one hit from him, but he'll counter any attack hit on him with Turtle, which is two physical attacks in a row.



After much experimenting in the start of the battle, I use an Air Knife, since it's the strongest thing I have (having not picked up the Flame Saber yet) and just attack with Ice3 sword. Sshot doesn't seem to trigger the sword effect, so I'm stuck with basic attack.



To outpace his normal attacks, I use Speed Song to make my characters gradually faster. By casting this, Krile will constantly be singing until she gets hit and knocked out of it, at which point she can just spam Ice3 herself. That said, she never actually casts Black Magic this fight.



Meanwhile, Faris casts Haste2 and then struggles to find anything to do for the rest of the fight. She does do a bit of healing and ends up casting Regen on everybody just so she has something to do.



Bartz is the most important one here thanks to Redx2, which again, is an incredibly broken ability and probably the only reason I was able to exploit this guy with such a half-assed strategy. Gilgame is all physicals, with an earth attack at the end which Float will ignore. So dual-casting Blink, which gives two free evasions, pretty much makes me invincible. Later, I'll add Protect for extra protection, and from there Bartz alternates between healing and reBlinking. That HairOrnament also means he'll have more than plenty of MP to do all that.

I cannot emphasize enough how awesome Redx2 is. It lets you buff your team quickly enough to really trivialize any encounter.



Oh yeah, dodges from the Elf Cape don't take away an image from Blink, so the fight ends up even more hilarious.



Here's the issue, though. Gilgame has a ton of HP, but even with Ice3 sword Reina's only doing around a 1000 a hit.



So I Berserk her and just let things go slowly by.





Very slowly, I manage to chip away at him before he finally goes down.



Thing is, he might reappear again, so you've got to be prepared for more encounters. I switch to a better strategy, but it turns out I didn't need to. I got lucky, really.



Then I teleport out because fuck backtracking.





Next, I go back to get something I missed from the Forest of Moore.





It'll take you to right before the Elder Tree, so I'm able to pick up the Flame Saber I missed. It'd be handy if I were using any sword-focused jobs, which I'll probably be using after I eventually master Ninja.



On the way back, I pick up L5 White Magic for Bartz. Nifty.



I switch Bartz to Summoner for more fun, and Faris to Geomancer since they're handy in X-Death's castle. Reina and Krile go back to their last jobs.



And so here we are, the final dungeon of this act. Inside is X-Death, and we're going to have our climatic final battle.

Of course, we're still missing a lot of magic and what-not, but whatever.





Looks like we're not the first to make it here, though.





Of course you sucked, you're NPCs. You're supposed to be irrelevant.



Anyway, let's go in a bit.



Blind Wolves fight like they themselves are blind, considering how much they miss. Of course, they can also inflict Blind.



5MP Shiva that I can Dualcast? Yes, please!



RflecMages have Reflect on and like to cast spells off themselves.



Then there's TwinLizards and... and...

...A Rage? What the fuck!?





Air Knife + Wind Slash = Death. A Rage can cast Arise to revive a monster, though it's kind of iffy whether it'll actually work.



Then we get here and...nothing.







It's an illusion... of X-Death's.
How do you know?



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Even Galuf... Drogan...Zeza...Galuf...they're all gone now... ...cough...hack... I don't have long myself...



...finally going to take the Big Sleep...



Who the...? ...that you Galuf? Krile and the others...



Galuf... I understand!



I'm going to destroy X-Death's illusion!





And so the last of the four Dawn Warriors has fallen.

-----





Everyone's power...







And so we reveal the true form of X-Death's castle.





Also, a path opens up for us to actually proceed. Which we will, next time.



Oh yeah, and on the way out to save, Krile picks up Lance, a nifty attack that lets her drain HP and MP from an enemy. It will compliment her Black Magic nicely, theoretically anyway.

But yeah, next time, we tackle X-Death's dungeon and meet an old friend.