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Zozo - Enemies
You’ll find Zozo, your final destination on the search for Terra, 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. Stock up on items in Jidoor, and consider taking a Chocobo to Zozo.
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 tricky 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. Inside you'll find Veil Dancers, which have strong second-tier spells and should be defeated in a hurry.
Befitting Zozo's general climate, there are a few good things to Steal while you explore:
- Hill Gigases carry Gigas Gloves
- Harvesters have Silver Spectacles, and, somewhat rarely, Dragoon Boots
- Veil Dancers rarely have Thief's Knives, which allows Locke to Mug rather than Steal
Enter the first building you come across, the one labelled Pub. At the top of the Pub and on the eastern balconies you’ll find one door that’s locked and another that’s open. Inside the open door is an Ether. You'll come back to the locked door much later in the game.
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 Zozo lies, so you need to keep track of everything they say and enter the times they don't mention. (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.
Head back to ground level. You can find a Potion in the building with the Armory (shield) sign, but that aside there’s nothing besides time clues in the west of Zozo. Head back south, towards the entrance, and look for the huge building with the Relic sign. Inside is the path leading to exterior stairs that take you up the buildings of Zozo. Along the way is a hook you can use to get quickly back to ground level, if you’re so inclined.
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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.
Walk south and back out to the balconies. Use them to hop back to the eastern building, where you'll now have access to the upper walkways. Continue climbing, inside and outside, until you see someone… different... near the top of the building. Check a nearby door below the man for a Burning Fist for Sabin, then talk to the man. Like everyone in Zozo, he's a bit of a liar.
Dadaluma
HP:
- 3,270 (Dadaluma)
- 333 (Iron Fist)
Weakness: Poison
The master of Zozo, Dadaluma specializes in physical combat. He uses the following attacks:
- Normal physical strikes
- Hurls knives at party members (counters if hit with Fight four times or magic twice)
- Sweepkick, which inflicts Sap on one character
- Jump, a strong attack against a single target (counter to magic)
- Steal (a counter to Locke Stealing)
- Summons two Iron Fists
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.
As long as you don't focus too hard on the same attacks - namely the Fight command - Dadaluma will avoid his counters, which hit harder than his usual repertoire of abilities. Tools, Bushido, and Throw are all great alternatives that should hit harder than melee combat or magic anyway. Focus on the big guy and this fight won't last long.
If you Steal from Dadaluma you may get either a Jeweled Ring or a Thief's Bracer. You’ll receive either a Twist Headband or a Thief's Knife for defeating Dadaluma.
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Beating Dadaluma opens 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 party you brought along to Zozo. They’ll be a little more powerful than the team you left in Narshe. You’re going to be away 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, the 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 - teach your team members how to use magic. Aside from a few equippable items, Magicite is the only way for most of your party members to learn magic.
When Magicite is equipped it accrues Ability Points (AP) whenever you successfully complete a battle, and if you gain enough AP the spells inherent to a particular Magicite shard are 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, as there are a lot of spells to learn - and there's basically no downside to learning them.
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. (They're usually not worth the MP.)
- 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 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.
You can learn more about Magicite in this guide to acquiring all of the Magicite Shards in Final Fantasy VI. There's no more to be had for a little while, though, so you'd might as well head back to Jidoor.