-240210-091642.png "Screenshots copyright Square Enix.")
The journey continues. With the completion of Zozo you've obtained four pieces of Magicite (or you should have, if you picked them all up). We talked about Magicite a bit in the previous section of the guide, but it's worth stressing that you should equip a piece of Magicite to each of your four party members. Now's as good a time as any to start earning AP.
Head back to Jidoor, southwest of Zozo. Check out Owzer’s Mansion, in the north of town, and you’ll find a huffy man - and a letter - waiting in the main hall. The letter belongs to another future teammate, default name Setzer. You need to lure him out into the open so you can use his airship to fly to Vector, capital of the Empire. Setzer likes the opera, so that's where you'll need to bait the trap.
Leave Jidoor and head south. Your next destination, the Opera House, is down here.
(If you didn’t pick him up earlier, you can recruit Shadow in Kohlingen for 3,000 gil now. Don’t pick him up. If you try to take Shadow into the Opera House he’ll take off, cheating you of 3,000 gil and leaving an empty spot in your team.)
 |
Opera House
The huffy man, aka the Opera House's Impresario, is waiting inside. Speak to the Impersario and you’ll trigger a lengthy cut scene that will take you through the first act of an operatic performance. Culture and video games in one package? Blasphemy.
Eventually you’ll gain control of Locke. Leave the balcony of the Opera House and visit the room where you saw Celes go in a previous cut scene, on the east side of the Opera House's main foyer. Speak to her to swap characters, read the score on the table, and exit through the north of this room to begin Celes’s part of the opera.
You now have to act out a scene in the opera. Your first step in this is to recite Celes’s lines properly, and to do so in before they come up in the opera. Fail to do so and the opera ends, forcing you to restart the whole shebang. Muck it all up four times and you get a Game Over. The proper lines you must recite are:
- ‘O my hero…’
- ‘I’m the darkness…’
- ‘Must my…’
Eventually you’ll climb to the balcony above your starting point, and another actor will appear. Interact with him and then follow him around the stage, speaking to him whenever he stops and eventually picking up the flowers he drops. Climb the stairs to a higher balcony and walk all the way to the end. Do that and you’ll end the performance successfully.
Afterward you’ll jump back to Locke. Head to the dressing room and look at the letter on the ground - someone wants to ruin the fun - then return to your seat and speak with the Impersario. This will reunite the party (sans Celes, she’s a little busy) as you try and stop a familiar fiend from ruining the opera. You're on a timer, as well, so you'd best get cracking. (Sprint Shoes are a good idea if you're playing the SNES version.)
Opera House - Rafters - Enemies
Run up and to the right of your seats once the timer begins. Speak to the man in the far room and hit the switch he indicates (the far one to the right). Any other switch will just waste time. Then rush back to your seats and head to the door in the northwest.
Through the door you'll find the rafters above the main stage, and they're covered in roaming rats. Touch one and you’ll have to fight a group of Stunners (green rats) and Goetia (gold rats). Kill the Goeta first, as they’ll summon more Stunners if you clear the screen of the greenies. Not difficult, and generally just a waste of your precious time.
Head east, north, west, and north again to reach your target. Speak to him to trigger a cut scene - and a battle.
Ultros
HP: 2,550
Weakness: Fire, Lightning
Round two! The annoying octopus is back, and Ultros has more tricks up his slimy sleeve. He uses the following attacks:
- Normal melee strikes
- Tentacle, which smacks one or more party members for melee damage
- Ink, which can Blind a single party member
- Megavolt, a single-target Lightning spell
- Fire, a single-target Fire spell
- Acid Rain, a Water-elemental attack that Saps your party members
- Drain, which saps HP from one target and gives it to Ultros
- Imp Song, which can turn a party member into an Imp
- Lv.3 Confuse, which inflicts Confusion on any party member whose level is a multiple of 3
Ultros is a bit easier this time around for two reasons:
- First, you probably have more characters who know the spell Fire, and someone may know Thunder as well.
- Second, you have Ultros automatically caught in a pincer attack. Anyone facing Ultros’s backside will do double damage with physical attacks.
-240210-093938.png)
Beating Ultros sends him scurrying away once again. A few cut scenes later you'll be on Setzer's airship, and some fancy work on Celes's part secures the gambler's aid. (The cut scene is a bit longer if you have both Edgar and Sabin in the party.) You're headed off to the Empire!