Gamer Corner Guides

Back to Jidoor

You need to get to the southern continent, and your only lead is that someone in Jidoor might be able to help. It's not much, but head back down south and enter Owzer's House. You'll see the Impresario from the Opera House running around in a panic. Speak to him, and he will leave. When you follow him, you'll find the letter that has him agitated. It's from Setzer, who has an airship (and who you can now name). The Impresario also mentions that Celes looks like the opera singer Maria. With that, a plan starts coming together.

Opera House

The Opera House is located on the peninsula south of Jidoor. Enter and speak to the Impresario, and Locke lays out his plan. After a sequence of cutscenes, you'll control Celes in Maria's dressing room. Review the score and, when you're ready, head out to the stage. You'll have to follow the instructions from the score. If you mess up or take too long, you'll fail and have to start over. Fail four times, and you'll get game over (though restarting and reloading are pretty similar anyway). Here's what Celes has to do:

1. Oh my hero… (first choice)
2. I'm the darkness (second choice)
3. Must I… (first choice)
4. When Draco appears, "dance" with him by speaking to him when he stops. You must do this three times.
5. After Draco disappears, grab the flowers and climb the stairs to the edge of the balcony. Do this in time, and Celes's job is done!

With that done, you'll be in control of Locke. Head back to the balcony, and along the way you'll find a note left by Ultros. Take this news to the Impresario. You'll have five minutes to reach Ultros, and Celes is no longer in the party. She removed her equipment including Relics and Esper, so have your remaining party members divvy up her stuff it will help, then head right and up. If you have any Sprint Shoes, now would be a good time to put them on. Keep in mind that the timer still runs while you're on the menu screen.

The man in the upper right room tells you to press the far right switch, which you should do. (The other switches lead to various amusing events, and are worth checking out even though they waste time. You can always view them then reload.) With the correct switch pressed, head to the room on the other sider of the balcony and enter the door.

The Rafters

The Rafters are crawling with rats. Any time you run into one, you're forced into an encounter with Vermin and Sewer Rats. Usually there will be three, though 1/4 of the time you will fight five rats. You can avoid all of these battles if you have good timing, though you may want to fight at least once at minimum so their Rages become available. The yellow Vermin are tougher than the gray Sewer Rats, but you'll want to defeat the Vermin first. If you take out all the Sewer Rats, they will be replaced with more, wasting precious time. Hit the Vermin hard with targeted attacks, then clean up the Sewer Rats once they're all that's left. Sabin's Fire Dance is particularly effective.

Ultros

You don't need to defeat Ultros within the 5-minute countdown, you simply need to reach him and his 4-ton weight. This will trigger a cutscene that ends with you fighting Ultros on stage. This is a heavily scripted fight that can feature all sorts of shenanigans. The main mechanic is that Ultros can "move" between four locations. Each one is essentially a new Ultros with 2,550 HP. You only need to defeat him in one location, but if he moves you'll have to start anew (or resume the fight against a previous incarnation).

Ultros has a basic attack routine for each location. He can always make a normal attack, but his other abilities depend on where he is:

1. Ink (Dark and damage) or Tentacle
2. Fire
3. L.3 Muddle
4. Mega Volt or Drain

The progression of Ultros's locations seems very random, but there is a pattern. He changes after every second attack, and always makes a comment. The progression starts at location 1 then proceeds as follows: → 3 → 2 → 4 → 2 → 1 → 4 → 2 → 3. The sequence then repeats, though he will remain in location 3 for the first part rather than location 1 (resulting in four attacks before switching locations instead of the usual 2).

Ultros will counter any Blitz or SwdTech with Acid Rain. This doesn't do a lot of damage, but does inflict Seizure. If you have the Fire Knuckle from Zozo, Sabin should stick to normal attacks to exploit Ultros's weakness to Fire. Cyan may also be better off sticking to normal attacks or perhaps Magic. Ultros will use Imp Song if the battle goes on for too long, so keep some Green Cherries handy. This fight uses a pincer formation, so Imp Song will only affect one or two Characters each time Ultros uses it. You can take advantage of the extra damage for attacking a Monster from behind as well.

This will be your first boss fight where you can use Spells learned from Espers. Offensive Spells such as Fire, Bolt, or Ramuh's Bolt Fist are quite effective in this battle. Siren's Slow can turn the tide of battle, though Ultros is immune to all of the other Statuses your Spells can currently inflict. Ultros has nothing to Steal, so Locke in particular should rely on whatever Magic he has available.

Long story short, you want to take out Ultros with extreme prejudice to make sure this battle doesn't go on any longer than it has to. If the battle drags out, it could be problematic for the party.

The Blackjack

With the fight won, Setzer appears right on cue to abduct Celes (well, "Maria"). You'll negotiate with him and eventually win his services with the use of a particular coin you may have seen in a previous cutscene. There is some fun commentary if Edgar and Sabin are both present.

Sadly, while you've gained use of Setzer's airship, the Blackjack, you don't actually control it (yet). It will automatically fly to the southern continent, landing in the vicinity of Albrook. That's your next destination.