Gamer Corner Guides

If Doma Castle was not liberated in the World of Balance, you can grab the Treasures within it now. The main reason to come here, though, is to enter Cyan's Soul. To do this, put Cyan in the party and go to sleep in the East Sleeping Quarters. Cyan won't wake up, and you'll follow the three Dream Stooges into his Soul.

This next dungeon will need to be completed with only three Characters, since you need to bring Cyan but he is indisposed. One interesting choice to bring is Terra, since there is a MagiTek sequence and she has extra MagiTek Abilities that no other Character can access. However, this section is very brief and this is not at all necessary. It is possible to learn three Lores (Condemned, Roulette, and L? Pearl) from Critics within, but all of these can be learned elsewhere so don't feel obligated to bring Strago, either. Keep in mind that you can only go through each section of this dungeon once, so if you want to collect every Rage you'll need to make sure you fight everything.

Cyan's Soul Dreamscape

You'll start off in the Dreamscape with only one of your Characters in the party (whoever, other than Cyan, was closest to the bottom). There is a save point nearby. Be careful as you'll need to fight solo until you retrieve your other party members.

The Encounters during this sequence change frequently. The most common enemy in this area is the aforementioned Critic, which can teach Strago Roulette, L? Pearl, and Condemned if he's in the party. Critics can use one of these on any given turn. They also use Lullaby to inflict Psyche and Slip Seed to inflict Seizure. They have no weaknesses but only 1,200 HP.

Critics appear alongside two types of enemies. The first, a Barb-e, will open the battle with Imp. They cast Drain and can use the Love Token Abilities that essentially forces the targets to take basic attacks in their stead. They can respond to attacks with the Mute-inducing Slap. The other Critic partners are Pan Doras. These animated boxes are inexplicably undead, and thus vulnerable to Fire and Pearl. They use Evil Toot to cause random and potentially dangerous Statuses, and can damage the whole party with Absolute 0. If you attack them, they may respond with a Psyche attack, and once damaged their Revenge Lore will become increasingly dangerous. Fortunately they have only 1,522 HP so you should be able to defeat them from full, possibly one at a time.

Allosauruses look dangerous, but don't actually cause any damage directly. They can only inflict Poison, either with Virite or PoisonClaw. They are not undead, but have weaknesses to Fire and Pearl and themselves start off the fight Poisoned. They are usually accompanied by a trio of Parasites. These tiny creatures can inflict Stop with Mind Stop on every third round, but their most dangerous attack is Giga Volt, which they use to counter Fight. It's not particularly powerful by Giga Volt standards, but Parasites are highly vulnerable to Magic and Fire in particular, so there's no reason to trigger it.

The Dreamscape is a maze of interconnected doors. You'll see three doors northwest of your starting position on the middle platform. There are a total of eight platforms. Your party members are on the northern and eastern platorms, and the southwestern platform leads to the boss fight with the three Dream Stooges once you've collected your other two party members.

You can immediately find your first party member by taking the left door. This leads to the north platforrm where your Character is waiting. The door here leads to the northwest platform. Take the door at the top of the stairs to the northeast platform, then the door on the right to the east platform and your final Character. The door here leads to the large southwest platform.

With the party full, you can take the door standing in the middle of the western area to find the path to the bosses and the way out. If you want to save first, take the other door back to the central platform. The middle door in the trio there leads back to where you were so you can move on.

Moe, Larry, and Curley

When you enter the door on the boss platform, the three Dream Stooges will attack. If you don't have all three party members, you'll be repelled from the door instead. Each of the three is aligned with, and will absorb, one of the primary Elements. Moe absorbs Thunder, Larry absorbs Ice (and Wind), and Curley absorbs Fire. Larry and Curley are vulnerable to one another's Elements, and Curley is additionally vulnerable to Water. Larry has the least HP at 10,000, Curley the most at 15,000, and Moe splits the difference with 12,500.

The most important thing to know about this fight is that Curley will restore either of his brothers to full HP with Life 2 if they die. Therefore, he should be your first target. While all three brothers survive, he'll use support Spells like Slow, Mute, Stop, and Pearl Wind (a Lore Strago can potentially learn, but which you'd rather not see used here). He'll use Fire 2 to counter attacks. Every 30 seconds or so, if all three brothers are alive, they'll use Delta Hit to Petrify one party member. This won't miss, and can only be blocked by protection from the Petrify Status.

Larry performs basic attacks while all three stooges are alive, but switches to Ice 2 and Ice 3 if any of his brothers are defeated. He can counter any attack with Ice 2. Moe will cast defensive spells including Safe, Haste, Shell, and Cure 2 on his allies while they both live. If either dies, he'll start using Bolt 2 and Bolt 3. Similar to his brothers, he counters some attacks with Bolt 2.

The stooges have a number of interesting combat scripts to be aware of. Every time Moe or Curley is targeted with Magic (including buffs from their allies), a counter is incremented. When that counter reaches four, the next stooge to take an action will cast Rflect on himself and proceed to bounce tier-2 and tier-3 Spells of their Element onto the party. This precludes any other activity, including Larry's ability to cast Life 2, but due to the randomness involved it's risky to try to take advantage of this fact. After four more spells, another brother can cast Rflect as well.

Targeting Larry with Magic doesn't trigger this effect, but if exactly one of his brothers is dead, it will increment a different counter. When that counter reaches 4, Larry will run away temporarily, returning after a short time at full HP. If you defeat the remaining brother while he's gone, you'll win the battle. You are now free to enter the doorway, which leads to the Phantom Train.

The Phantom Train

It seems you've moved into Cyan's nighmares. This version of the Phantom Train is different than the one you explored in reality. There are no Encounters outside or in the front two cars, but you'll meet a variety of Monsters in the other cars, including three new ones.

Rain Men appear in pairs and don't get dangerous until they're the last Monster remaining. Up until that point, they'll use basic attacks, Flash Rain, and the Psyche-inflicting Umbrawler special. Once solo, though, they can use Bolt 3 for quadruple the damage of Flash Rain. They are vulnerable to multiple elements including Ice, Water, and Pearl. You'd think the umbrella would help with the Water, at least. A Samurai may accompany Rain Men. Wound protection is very helpful against Samurai, because their Fatal special is just that. They can use it on every other round. They are human and weak against both physical and magic attacks, and particularly Poison.

The other new Monster is the Suriander, which usually appears with a Samurai and a Barb-e, and more rarely with a Pan Dora and two Parasites. These odd looking creatures can Yawn to cause Psyche, but watch out for their Sneeze counterattack. Their only weakness is Pearl, and with 2,912 HP they can be hard to take down in a single blow.

There's nowhere to go but towards the front of the Phantom Train. The Fifth Car is empty, consisting of nothing but rows of seats. You could skip the Fourth Car, but don't. You'll see a chest with a hole in front of it. If you flip the nearby switch twice, the boxes will move so you can access the Genji Glove inside. An open chest further up the car will block your path as you try to collect the Treasure behind it, but if you collect the Lump of Metal from the chest in the upper left, you can use that to keep the moving chest in place. You'll find a Flame Shld beyond it. Finally the switch near the six open chests will close three of them—the top right, bottom left, and bottom middle chests. Take the book's advice and memorize this pattern.

The Third Car is filled with haphazardly arranged seats and boxes. There are three switches on the north wall. Hit the rightmost switch to clear a path to the left. Don't miss the X-Potion in the partially obscured chest in this area. The chest in the middle of the area contains an Ice Shld. The left switch will move the boxes, allowing you to flip the right switch back to its initial position. This exposes the middle switch, which opens a path at the bottom of the car. Unfortunately this path was blocked by the boxes moved by the left switch. You'll have to hit the right switch again, then the left switch, before you can proceed. This brings you to six open chests in the same configuration as the previous car and a dead end. Close the same three chests (upper right, lower left, lower middle) and hit the switch to open the path forward.

Once you leave the Third Car, there are no further Encounters on the Phantom Train. There is a save point in the Second Car. Inside the Locomotive, you can play with the switches if you want, but they don't matter. When you leave, you'll find yourself riding MagiTek armor in a mine.

The Mines

Your Fight Command is replaced with MagiTek for this short section, and you'll be faced with a whole new set of enemies. Io looks intimidating but falls quickly to Bolt Beam or Thunder Spells. It will use Crush several times before either WaveCannon or Diffuser. PlutoArmors use Tek Laser and physical attacks on offense, upgrading to Launcher and Shrapnel when they are alone. They appear in pairs or with a Sky Cap, who offer a similar threat. They stick to Tek Laser and the useless-while-in-MagiTek-armor R.Polarity normally, but can use Missile when alone. If you have to defeat one or the other first, you'll want to defeat the PlutoArmor before the Sky Cap. Thunder Spells are safer than Bolt Beam against PlutoArmors and Sky Caps because they can hit (and kill) multiple targets at once.

You can wander around this area in circles forever. The key to leaving is to turn around and go back the way you came. Specifically, the southern entrance to the second Inside Mines area you enter will lead you forward to a bridge where you see an image of Cyan. The bridge collapses when you cross it, and you find yourself back in Doma Castle, but still within Cyan's dream. His wife and son will ask you to help him and create a save point in the East Sleeping Quarters.

Doma Castle and Wrexsoul

The entire castle is now populated with the same Encounters you saw on the Phantom Train. If you enter Cyan's Bedroom you'll see an optional cutscene involving him and his wife. Head to the King's Room when you're ready. You'll find Cyan there near the throne. Approach to begin the battle with Wrexsoul. This battle will require you to defeat your own party members repeatedly, so gear up accordingly (which is to say, don't go heavy on MBlock% unless you have unblockable attacks ready to use).

Wrexsoul is a heavily scripted boss battle that can be frustrating if you play it straight. The boss is accompanied by two SoulSavers, both of which will immediately be resurrected if defeated. Wrexsoul will start the battle with Zinger, which removes it from the battle and "possesses" one of your party members. There's no indication as to which one is possessed, and the only way to release Wrexsoul is to kill the possessed Character, so you'll have to defeat each party member one by one until you find him.

It is well known that as long as Wrexsoul is off the battlefield, a lucky shot with X-Zone that hits both SoulSavers at once will end the battle. This is not an intended solution so much as a limitation of the battle system (X-Zone only works because it kills both SoulSavers simultaneously rather than sequentially like most Spells), but there is a practical cost to winning the fight this way: you won't get the Pod Bracelet Wrexsoul drops. Fortunately, winning the battle the "right" way isn't so much difficult as it is annoying.

While Wrexsoul is hidden, the SoulSavers will use Ice 3, Bolt 3, and Fire 3 to attack the party. They have low Mag.Pwr so these attacks are fortunately not that powerful. If they're low on MP, they'll drain some from your party with MagicDrain, and if you bother to attack them, they may respond with a powerful physical attack. There isn't much you can do but ignore them. When Wrexsoul returns to the battlefield, the SoulSavers will cast Rflect on themselves, allowing Wrexsoul to bounce Spells off of them and onto you.

When you defeat the possessed Character and Wrexsoul re-appears, you'll have a minimum of three turns to attack before it uses Zinger again. It will usually cast Bolt 3 on Reflected SoulSavers for around double the damage a SoulSaver would deal in the intervening rounds. If no Reflected target is available yet, Wrexsoul will simply attack. It will also sometimes counter Fight with attacks.

Wrexsoul has only 23,066 HP and a weakness to Ice. It absorbs both Fire and Pearl, so avoid them both. Its Mag.Def is very high, so even Ice 2 might not be very effective. Ice 3 will work, especially when used by a focused spellcaster, but physical attacks and Mag.Def-ignoring Spells like Flare or GrandTrain might be better choices for some characters.

During the cutscene that follows the battle, you'll get a glimpse of magicite on the throne. You'll wake up in the East Sleeping Quarters, so head back to the King's Room to obtain the Alexandr Esper, which teaches Pearl. Defeating Wrexsoul also unlocks all of Cyan's SwdTechs, regardless of his current level.