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

We walked around the town and talked to a bunch of people. Apparently, we are in some kind of stasis, neither dead nor alive, and our mission is to solve the mystery. I got confused, though, by some of the Japanese in the town, so that’s about as specific I can get at the moment. I have a feeling that I missed a hint from someone telling us what to do next. This, of course, means that I have no idea where I’m supposed to go.

We wandered into a transporter that zaps us into an alternate version of Pandemonium, but I don’t think we’re supposed to start fighting in there yet. Some of the monsters put the big hurt on us. We cleared one level just for fun, but it wasn’t easy. We have now headed back to town to talk with the townsfolk again, this time I’m hoping we get a better understanding of what exactly we’re supposed to do.

Status: Lost

Whew! We made it out of Jade, but not by much. We had one healing potion left and no magic potions. Everyone was running low on hit points and and magic points. If there were a seventh level, I don’t think we could have made it.

One thing that helped was bumping into Richard, who has over 2200HP and packs a solid punch compared to the other three party members. With his help we were able to efficiently clear the last few battles in Jade and transport out.

We are now standing on a wooden dock, in a small town somewhere. We’ll explore this town this evening.

Status: Gratefully Alive

I must have been in a negative mood the other day. I fired up Soul of Rebirth again with a more determined attitude, and the results were much better. By saving after every victorious battle, I was able to make it out of the first level. On the second level we bumped into Joseph, who also died in the main game. The three members shared their stories, formed a group, and continued on their way. Joseph only has 400HP, but we’ll take any help we can get.

The fighting continues to be difficult, but we are getting stronger quickly. On the second and third levels, we were wiping out less frequently. By the fourth level, the issue has become more one of expended potions than of dying in battle. In most of the fights we win, we take a beating that requires healing, which in turn requires magic. We are now down to our last 3 magic potions, and I have no idea how much fighting is left to go.

And that’s where we are at the moment. We’re hacking our way through the fourth level, conserving our magic as much as possible, and hoping that the end is near.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose, but Worried about Dying from Thirst