Final Fantasy VI copyright Square Enix.
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Part Eight: Locke's Scenario

The Battle of Narshe

This section of the game begins with a bit of setup. Your entire team is arrayed in a long line at the bottom of the screen, and, moving one-by-one through them, you can equip each member of your battle party as you see fit. This is a good chance to outfit your buddies with the equipment bought in Sabin’s scenario, assuming they aren’t wearing it already. This is also a good time to swap items between characters to better optimize their capabilities - for example, Locke is probably the best choice for a Genji Glove, as he’s going to be straight-out attacking most of the time. his teammates, by contrast, have better options.

After saving and speaking to Banon, you’ll have to arrange three teams to defend against the forces of Kefka, which will proceed northward to battle you. The idea is the same as the Moogle battle at the beginning of the game, though there are far more soldiers headed your way this time - and you don’t have four people per team. There are two ways to go about this:

  • Create one strong team of four, one team of two, and one team of one. The strong team should have your heaviest hitters - likely Sabin, Edgar, Gau, and either Celes or Terra for healing support - while the team of two provides passable backup in case any troopers slip past the strong team. Leave the single man team out of the battle as much as possible, preferably right in front of Banon in case of emergencies.
  • Create three moderately-strong teams, one with three people and two with two. In this case you’ll be juggling between the teams constantly. Give each team an all-hitter (Edgar, Sabin, and Cyan can all potentially fall into this category at this point in the game), a backup fighter, and a magic user for healing. The team of two can either contain two very strong characters who don’t need extra backup, or… simply stay out of the fight entirely.
Once the battle begins, the forces of the Empire will begin moving up a long, winding field of snow. You need to prevent them from reaching Banon. If a single soldier reaches Banon, the game is over and you’ll have to begin again. The imperial ranks are divided into two categories, the weaker green soldiers and the stronger brown soldiers, and feature several potential battles:

  • Four Corporals. The weakest of the lot. You can kill these guys with a single hit of Edgar’s Bio Blaster.
  • A Fidor and a Corporal. The slightest bit harder since Edgar can’t typically kill the Fidor in one hit.
  • A Hunting Hound and two Corporals. Edgar again!
  • A Heavy Armor and two Corporals. The toughest of the lot, as the Heavy Armor can Reflect magic attacks and is highly resistant to normal physical strikes. You’ll want to use either Sabin or Cyan to take out Heavy Armors, as their special attacks typically ignore defence.
After taking out all of the soldiers - or if you decide to weave through the ice - you’ll find one final guard in front of Kefka. This is a Hell’s Rider, a powerful enemy that could almost serve as a boss on its own. It can poison your characters, and its Silver Lance attack is veeeery painful to anyone, capable of taking out characters who aren’t at full health rather easily. Use your strongest attacks to wipe this jerk out post-haste. Once he’s gone… or if you manage to weave past him without a fight…


Kefka

Finally, a real battle against this slimeball. Kefka relies almost exclusively on magical attacks, and will either batter you with elemental attacks (and the occasional bout of poison) or attempt to confuse one of your characters. Blizzara is by far his most powerful attack, and if you’re unlucky enough to have it cast on a single party member… bye bye. All are painful and will require healing, but if you brought Celes along she can use Runic every turn to render the vast majority of Kefka’s attacks utterly useless. If not, relegate one party member to healing constantly while the remainder smack Kefka around. He’s not that hard, especially if you managed to survive all of those soldiers. You’ll receive a Peace Ring for beating Kefka.

Once Kefka goes down you’ll hit a lengthy cut scene, and, well, Terra will kinda leave your party for a while. Plot developments! Oooo!

Part Ten: Narshe, Kohlingen, and Jidoor