We are here. Level 10, the top floor of this alternate Pandemonium. Yet another emperor sits on a throne in front of us, ready for what is certainly the last battle in Final Fantasy II.

We are as ready as we’re going to get. We’ve had good success on the run up the previous nine floors. Our party is fully charged and fully rested, with 8 all healing/all magic restoration potions and over 70 magic potions in our bags. We can last a looooong time if this battle gets drawn out. We picked up more weapons and armor on the last couple of floors up, and our skills are better as well. We’re now all over 2,000 hit points. We’ll be using the following spells for damage: Drain-11, Ultima-10, Flay-5, Flay-4.

Time to start the final dance!

Last night I finished one more training run into this alternate Pandemonium. We cleared all the four areas on the fourth level, which helped us gather up some awesome weapons, useful armor, and a pile of cash. We probably could have continued on to make the final assault from there, but it might have been cutting it close, and it doesn’t take long to get out of the place once you know the shortcuts. We jogged back to town for one final night’s rest.

We also picked up two “Flay” spell books, which appears to be a great offensive spell. Gordon and Joseph are using those spells on every occasion. This should give us four solid offensive spells for the final battle.

This is it. The final push for victory in Final Fantasy II. We are stacked with potions, armed to the teeth, and well trained in our solid offensive spells. Onward, into the breach!

Status: Ready

I spent a couple of hours last night battling enemies in Pandemonium. Our party is getting stronger, but needs more strength before we can make a final push to the top. I’d like to have the spells we can potentially use in a final battle all up to level 10, and right now they range from five to seven.

We really miss the “Aspiru” spells that we knew in the regular portion of Final Fantasy II. We go through magic potions at a frightful rate now. We used over half of our 99 magic potions in reaching level four in Pandemonium. Part of this is because we’re casting a lot of magic spells in combat to build up skill in the spells, but still, it was incredibly handy to be able to regenerate magic points on the fly. All we can do now is drink.

I’m hoping to make one more training run through Pandemonium, then make a final assault on the Emperor. With luck, I hope to finish Final Fantasy II this week.

Status: Getting Stronger

I’ve wandered around every nook and cranny of the little town, and spoken to everyone I can speak with. There doesn’t seem to be a way to simply walk out of town and explore. The only exits seem to be the three warp zones scattered about the town. One leads to Jade, which I have completely explored. One leads to the Ultima Weapon dragon-thingie, which I have completely explored. The last one leads to a replica of Pandemonium, which seems to be the only place left for me to go. There really doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery left what to do: Go kill stuff in Pandemonium.

There is one problem, however: the monsters in Pandemonium are tough. I made it to the second level yesterday before wiping out twice on pairs of Gold Golems, which hit for 1,000-1,500 points each. They kill us in one shot, and we can only do about 400 damage on them per turn, given our weak spell and weapon attacks.

At this point I’m going to churn around the lower levels of Pandemonium and try to build up my skills before making a serious assault for the top.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose.

Instead of talking with the townsfolk, I decided to take a closer look around town last night. I quickly stumbled onto another transporter. This one took us to a small castle with only a couple or rooms. In the larger room, there were several daises that gave us power ups. Feeling relaxed, we climbed the last dais and touched the golden orb that lay there.

Whoops. Big mistake.

A mega-dragon called Ultima Weapon attacked us. We were in no condition to take this beast on. Our regular weapons did nothing against it. Only two party members could do any sort of significant damage to it: Richard through a drain spell that hit for about 250 points, and Gordon with a fire spell that hit for about 100 points. The dragon, however, could kill anyone in our party with one shot.

The battle would turn out to be the toughest battle I’ve had yet in Final Fantasy, tougher even than Omega in Final Fantasy I. It went on for at least 40 minutes. We burned through the few good potions we had with us in the first 20 minutes. Outside of Richard, our three main characters each died at least 20 times. I am not exaggerating here. At one point, we only had one character alive, with only 130 hit points. Heck, halfway through the fight my battery light even turned red, so I thought we were going to lose all our progress at any moment. The only thing we had working for us was that three of our characters knew the resurrection spell, which allowed us to bring our dead back to life in pairs and groups of three. Finally, however, the dragon fell to a Drain spell from Richard!

For our efforts, we received the Ultima tome, which doesn’t seem like a good deal to me, but perhaps can come in handy in future boss battles.

We’re now healing up and heading back to town to see if there is some more information we can get to point us in the right direction.

Status: Lost

Photo Credit: MQuimayousie