Gamer Corner Guides

With seven floors of nasty enemies, the Temple of Chaos Past is the longest singular dungeon in the game. Sure, it's an eight-floor trek to reach Tiamat starting from the Tower of Mirage, but these floors are all huge, and you'll visit several of them more than once. There is little Treasure to be had here, though the Masamune on the second-to-last floor is far and away the best Weapon in the game. It's worth visiting just to grab it then Warp2 out and save.

The upper floors of the Temple are fairly generic, containing your basic sets of nasty foes. You'll climb to 3F where you will fight the Death Eye and use the Lute (finally!) to begin your descent all the way to B5 where Chaos lies. Once you hit B1, each floor takes on an elemental theme, in the order you originally fought the four Fiends of Chaos, and you will fight a new and improved version of each before moving on to the next floor.

The Earth floor, B1, is filled with enemies that weren't actually in the Terra Cavern because they were too hard at the time, plus large groups of Gnomas, who are still dangerous. There's not much to do here except find the staircase down and fight a nasty version of Lich who likes to open the battle with Flare. You can visit the inner portion of this floor shortly after entering the Temple, but you can't progress from this area, so there's not much point in coming here.

B2, the Fire floor, is the first place you'll find Treasure other than gil, with a Protect Ring, the second Protect Cloak, and the strangely pointless second Sasuke in out-of-the-way areas south of the staircase down. Marilith awaits you there with an augmented attack, no more weakness to Status magic, and a fondness for Fire3 Spells that shouldn't be a problem at this stage of the game. Her physical attacks are still her biggest threat. Aside from the rare groups of Pyroses and Red Dragons, there isn't much to concern you on this floor.

The Water floor is strangely mazelike, featuring a new and improved Kraken in the southeastern hallway. His eight attacks are more dangerous than Marilith's six, but fortunately he has taken a liking to Bolt2, and will often waste his turns casting that instead of doing something nasty. The enemies on this floor are taken directly from the Sunken Shrine, and even in larger numbers none are much of a threat outside the groups of Aquoses.

B4, the Air floor, is the last place you'll find enemy encounters, and they've pulled out all the stops. A variety of nasty encounters awaits you here, most not air-themed in any meaningful way. A trip south then east will take you to the hiding place of the Masamune, which makes the whole trip worth it. Tiamat waits in her enhanced form in the hall between the two northern quadrants of the floor. She hasn't changed much aside from a newfound spellcasting ability. Most of her Spells are just lesser versions of her Special Attacks, but she will start with Poison, which can be dangerous to anyone not using a Ribbon or the Aegis Shield. (I guess she wanted revenge for having a Poison weakness the last time around.)

On the final floor, the only thing left to do is battle Chaos. There are no encounters, so use every healing method you have before the fight. Chaos has no weaknesses, and if he has a flaw it's that his attack is not quite as powerful as Warmech's. But he has a nasty set of Spells, devastating Special Attacks including two even a Ribbon won't protect you from, and nearly impenetrable defenses that include resistances to all eight Elements. And did I mention not only 4,000 HP, but the ability to cast Cure4? It will be a long, tough fight no matter how you play it. Just make sure you've saved enough Spell slots to Haste all of your melee fighters, because you'll need all the physical damage you can bring.