Final Fantasy VI copyright Square Enix.
Images used for educational purposes only.
Part Ten: Narshe, Kohlingen, Jidoor

Zozo

- You’ll find Zozo to the northeast of Jidoor. Despite its appearance as a town Zozo is quite dangerous, so you won’t want to head in with an unhealthy party.

- Zozo is unfriendly, and no matter where you go you’re within danger of random encounters. While you’re outside you’ll face a few tricksy beasts: Hill Gigases are the most powerful, and have high-damaging attacks and lots of HP, while Gobbledygooks can use Vanish on themselves to protect against physical attacks. Magic is good here.

- Enter the first building you come across, the one labelled Pub. Inside you’ll face a few new enemies, most notable among them Veil Dancers. These ladies can use painful second-tier magic, and will inflict a lot of damage if given a chance. At the top of the Pub and on the balconies you’ll find one door that’s locked and another that’s open; inside the open door is an Ether.


- Return to ground level and head north. The next building, labelled Inn, contains a clock. If you inspect the clock you’ll be asked to set the time. This corresponds to a mini quest in Zozo wherein you can speak to the inhabitants and narrow down the current time. Everyone in town lies, so you need to discount everything they say to discern the true time. (Or you can cheat and simply enter the true time: 6:10:50). Completing the quest will open a path to a chest containing a Chainsaw, one of Edgar’s best Tools.

- Back to ground level. You can find a Potion in the building with the armoury sign, but that aside there’s nothing besides time clues in the west of Zozo. Head back south and look for the huge building with the relic sign. Inside is the path leading to the exterior stairs on the building. Along the way is a hook you can use to get quickly back to ground level, if you’re so inclined.

- Climb as far as you can on these stairs. You’ll come to a door. Inside is a Brigand’s Glove. Grab it, then backtrack a few flights and look for an open window on your left. You can use it to hop from building to building, to the west. Head inside once you’re across, then look at the pots north and to the west to find an Ether and a Hi-Potion.

- Wander south and back out to the balconies. Use them to hop back to the eastern building. Continue climbing until you see someone… different.. on a balcony above. Check a nearby door below the man for a Burning Fist, then talk to him. Battle time!


Dadaluma

So long as you have a few special abilities at your disposal, this is an easy fight. Dadaluma will smack you around with normal and harder-hitting attacks, and if you linger long enough he’ll call in some mundane help. Halfway through the battle he’ll also partially heal himself, as well as use Shell and Protect on himself. Nevertheless, he’s just not that powerful, even compared to the other enemies you’ve fought in Zozo. Pull out your hardiest attacks and smash him apart while healing yourself as needed. You’ll receive a Twist Headband for defeating Dadaluma.

- Beating Dadaluma will open the way to the top of the building. Check the final room’s right and left sides for an X-Potion and Hermes Sandals, then check out the bed in the north. Once the intervening cut scene is done you’ll have four sweet new items to pick up, known as magicite: Ramuh, Kirin, Siren, and Cait Sith. Head south after collecting these gems and speak to the team members who have arrived to trigger another cut scene.

- You now have a choice to make: a new team. Locke and Celes are bound for a huge new area, and they need two more team members to go with them. (Unless you’re feeling gutsy and send them alone, anyway.) Any combination of your team members will do just fine, though you may want to go with the guys you brought along to Zozo. They’ll be a little more powerful than the team you left in Narshe. You’re going to be parted from the rest of your team for a while, so choose wisely.

- (Also, if Shadow was in your party, he’ll leave at this point. Guess he earned his fee.)

- Your next destination is Jidoor, a town you passed before reaching Zozo. That said, there’s one rather important lesson newcomers will want to learn first.


Magicite

Once you’ve completed your preparations, there’s one more thing to do: equip the magicite you just found. Accessible via the Abilities menu, magicite - also known as Espers - will teach your team members how to use magic. When magicite is equipped it will accrue AP whenever you successfully complete a battle, and if you gain enough AP the spells inherent to a particular magicite shard will be permanently passed on to its bearer. As Terra and Celes have no doubt demonstrated, spells are quite handy. You’ll want to have all members of your party equipped with magicite at all times.


Magicite also serves two other purposes:
  • First, less important, you can use equipped magicite as Summons via the Magic menu in battle. Different Espers perform different attacks. These summons are cost-heavy and can only be used once per battle, so employ them wisely. (I honestly don’t think most magicite attacks to be worth the MP cost, personally, but they’re good in a pinch.)
  • Second, very important to long-term development, equipped magicite may bestow stat boosts to your characters upon level-up. By carefully monitoring the development of your characters you can potentially make them a lot stronger than if they’d never so much as touched a piece of magicite, particularly in areas where they may normally be rather weak (for example, you can make Locke an excellent magic user where he starts off rather tepid). This requires a lot of micro-managing and can seem rather fiddly at times, but advanced players will probably love the customization these bonuses afford their characters.