Part 47: Postscript: What was and what could have been

Loose Ends, Infinity

There is one rather important scene that I neglected to include during the ending credits. Timeframe-wise, it takes place just after the montage of the world rebuilding itself and just before the flyover of the dungeons we previously visited.



Having spent her entire life as a tool for other people, Terra finally lets her hair down, symbolizing, more or less, that she's now free to just be herself. Of course, these days, that particular story arc has been done over and over, but at least this game was kind enough to just imply it rather than explain it in detail to the audience.

Postscript: What was and what could have been...



For this final update, I'll be showing off some of the special encounters that I didn't cover in the course of the LP, like this Cactrot here, found in the desert bordering Maranda. Known more familiarly as Cactaur, this iconic living cactus has shown up over and over again in the Final Fantasy series, and it is infamous for spamming the ability 1000 Needles (known as Blowfish in this game) and for being ridiculously hard to hit.

In this game, normal attacks and magic are almost completely ineffectual, due to a combination of high evasion and 255 Magic and Physical defense, the highest possible value for defense. If attacks don't miss entirely, most of them will barely scratch it.



Fortunately, we've got quite a few weapons that go right through defense. While they don't provide experience, each Cactaur gives 10 magic points and 10000 GP upon defeat, so it's fairly easy to train up magic off of them. In the GBA version, you can even get into a fight with a significantly larger and more powerful Cactaur known as the Gigantaur, at which point you'll get Cactaur as an Esper. What's so special about Cactaur?

Not much, unless you count a leveling bonus of 2 SPEED!



The reason why I'm bringing it up is because if you bet an Elixir in the Coliseum, you can get into a fight with one, in order to get a very special item.



The Cactrot/Cactaur only has 3 HP, so any roll of Setzer's dice will be enough to do it in, so long as Setzer doesn't decide to do something silly like casting Scan, which he did.

The Rename Card does exactly what it sounds like, allowing us to change the name of one of our characters. But why would we want to do that, when we can bet it instead?



Yeah...Normally, I'd err on the side of caution and send Locke in, but for some reason I decided to send in Edgar instead.



I'm not too surprised that it worked. The Doom Dragon's only abilities besides Fallen One are all blockable, so if you use the right combination of equipment that brings your character above 128 Magic Evasion, you're practically untouchable.

Marvel Shoes: Gives the wearer Safe, Shell, Regen and Haste. Those are some marvelous shoes, all right. It's like a Frankensteinian creature built out of Relics that I don't wear.



By the way, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, but not every item has a special prize that you can win from betting it. Normal healing items, starting weapons, etc. will simply give you a very short session with the taciturn Mr. Chupon.



It's very hard to defeat Chupon, honestly. He has over 50,000 health and generally starts the battle by Sneezing your character from it. Given that your only prize for winning the battle is an Elixir, I didn't see the point in trying. You'd need a character with a Genji Glove and the Offering doing approximately 7000-8000 damage every single slice, and you'd need Chupon to start the battle by attacking instead of Sneezing, which doesn't happen all that often, and then you'd need the character to actually attack instead of casting a worthless spell.

I don't believe I need to mention this, but with a few rare exceptions, the strategy for Coliseum fights boils down to: Genji Glove, Offering, hope you get lucky.



Oh really? I'll believe it when I see it.





Okay, I'm a believer.

Siegfried has two attacks in his repertoire, both of them painful. The first one you saw there was Shrapnel. The second?



Hyperdrive. You know, the ability that the final boss was using? If Siegfried decides to use it (and there's a very high chance that he will), you're looking at over 7000 unblockable, non-elemental damage, though it can be Runic'd, for all that's worth.

Honestly, if the whole party was here and you had full control of them, Siegfried wouldn't be tough at all, but the fact that you have only one uncontrollable party member to fight him makes him significantly stronger than Kefka. That's why I consider him a super boss. That and the fact that the Illumina, which normally does over 4000 damage, only barely breaks 1000 on him.



Fortunately, Siegfried only has 32,760 HP, so if he decides to only use melee attacks and/or you've got a party member capable of doing over 5000 damage a hit on average, you might have a fighting chance. Once again, Genji Glove, Offering, get lucky. Have fun!



Siegfried only fights you if you bet a Megalixer, and you get a Tintinabar if you win. For how tough he is, you'd think it'd be a better reward.

Speaking of bosses, this video is of a boss hidden in FFVI's code, called the CzarDragon. Presumably intended as the ultimate boss of the 8 Dragons, the dragon was cut for unknown reasons, but was included in the GBA version as a bonus boss known as the Kaiser Dragon. The boss was so complete that it even had a quote at the beginning of its scripted battle...

CzarDragon: Mwa, ha, ha.... Humans and their desires! I'm free at last! I bring you destruction... I bring you terror... I am Czar! Prepare yourselves!

The quote was later changed around a little and used for the Kaiser Dragon.

There's also a HadesGigas palette swap called the Colossus and an earlier, much weaker version of Umaro, but they're not quite as complete. The Colossus only does normal attacks, and Umaro only does a few attacks. What they were planning to do with those is a mystery, but for Umaro, it's theorized that you were going to face him much earlier in the story.



And that's it, folks! Thanks for reading along, and I wish you all a great rest-of-the-summer.

No Next Time.