Part 59: The many deaths of Shinryu

Chapter 55: The many deaths of Shinryu


After beating the game, you get dumped back at Tule. The story regresses to right before you fight Exdeath, so Lix is still voided while Bal isn't.


As the save happened after we fought Exdeath, I get to keep all 4 of his items. I've got a Ragnarok (the 5th strongest weapon in the game) and a 2nd Dragon Lance. Also some Katana I'll never use and a Fuma Shiruken I can already out-damage.

Brady Game's guide for Anthologies suggests something as absurd as getting 8 Dragon Lances. Trust me when I say two will work just fine.


!Smoke with the Masamune! Proof of a loving and just deity.


This is the nearest Save Point to Shinryu's box.


Behold! Final Fantasy's first real Superboss!

BOSS FIGHT: SHINRYU!
METHOD ONE: REGULAR OL' BRAWL


Shinryu always opens with a Tidal Wave. Always.


If you don't have Coral Rings, you will die. Shinryu's Tidal Wave simply comes out too fast and hits too hard. I suppose you could rely on Aegis Shields like Faris did, but that's too random and don't like random.


Burtz strums out a chord on the Apollo Harp, smacking Shinryu in the face for significant damage while Faris scrolls through !Dualcast to find some spells to fling.


This the "regular" method because I'm doing nothing special except using dragon slaying weapons. My strategies are my normal ones for bosses: Get Golem/Hastega/Mighty Guard then smack the enemy with strong hits while reacting to his attacks with copious Curaga/White Wind/Arise


Roulette is a relief compared to his usual spells.


OW dammit Snowstorm! While Tidal Wave may be his most notable spell, Snowstorm can be just as rough if you aren't prepared.


His second Roulette hits Faris. And here I was mocking it.


Krile stabs the dragon down before I could revive Faris. Oh well. This proves, in a way, that gimmicks aren't needed. Shinryu, despite all his might, can be beaten in a straight-up slugfest.


The Dragon Seal behaves much like Omega's badge. In that it does nothing.


Now I have two of the swords.

But it wouldn't be any fun if I quit killing this dragon here, would it?



METHOD TWO: QUICK + !JUMP


This works as you would imagine. Quick stops time for everyone but the caster, meaning Burtz can use !Jump and land without anything happening in between. With two Dragon Lances he's hitting for 19,998 every !Jump so each casting of Quick means Shinryu is taking 39,996 damage wihtout being able to do anything.


Fuck you, dragon!


This is mostly to stop a random Snowstorm from wrecking my shit, but honestly Shinryu is kinda easy at this point.


Burtz gets another Quick off. Shinryu happens to lack 79,992 HP so he can't help but die.


I like this method the most but that's just me.


Method 3 has a complicated set-up, but it's technically the safest method and the easiest to do at minimum levels. I chose Lenna to be the zombie because she has the highest magic but technically anyone can do it.

METHOD 3: REFLECT ZOMBIE


Burtz, Krile, and Faris use !Hide to GTFO and leave Lenna alone. Faris takes to long and gets hit by Tidal Wave but I'm not dumb enough to remove her Coral Ring.


Lenna, being a zombie, can take tons and tons of damage and still stand.


Zombies attack themselves or allies. The other three are hiding so Lenna targets only herself. She has Reflect from a Reflect Ring and her weapons are the Fire Lash and a Fire Rod. The Fire Lash casts Firaga on 1/3 of its hits, so Lenna is bouncing Firagas off of herself.


Shinryu can only deal raw damage (which Lenna ignores), Zombify (which Lenna already is), inflict instant death with Roulette (which Lenna is immune to on virtue of already being dead) and cause aging (which Lenna is immune to as a side effect of being a zombie).


Lenna deals damage in 1,500 pops while Shinryu throws the whole spellbook at her and can never seem to break her.


Of course, since the Fire Lash casts Firaga so infrequently and the damage is low due to Shinryu's still impressive Magic Defense, this fight takes a while. Burtz, Krile, and Faris have some popcorn, I assure you.


But when there's no risk, why worry?

Alright, just one more kill...


Teleport also works as an auto-run. Wonderful to have one on hand at all times when I don't want to bother with fucking Mindflayers. Everyone is a Mime because I need !Mix and !Time on everyone and one person needs !Blue.

METHOD 4: LEVEL 5 DEATH, OR, OH MY GOD WHAT


First, I mix a Dragon Shield for everyone. for a Dragon Fang+Ether, a character gets Fire, Ice, and Lightning immunities. This method takes the longest so I need an anti-Snowstorm measure.


I spend a whole round having everyone cast Quick then mixing two Dragon Powers... for Shinryu. That increases his level by 160. As he's already level 97, that would put it at 257, but level is stored in a two bytes so his level is now FF, or 255.

And guess what that's a multiple of?









Oh, hey, I get a new Blue spell out of it. Granny Lenna's got a new trick!


And that's how you kill a dragon four different ways.