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Ronka Ruins
- The path to the final crystal is not immediately obvious. In order to trigger the last section of this part of the game you must proceed back to Gohn, the small, abandoned village that led you to the Catapult. With an airship you can do this quite easily. Flying towards it will trigger a cut scene…
- … and a massive, flying fortress will appear in the sky. Yikes. Return to the Catapult near Crescent and, as you attempt to debark, Cid and Mid will rush onto the airship. After a cut scene you’ll be directed back to the Tycoon Meteorite where the game began. Check the front of the Meteorite to open it up, then head inside. The Adamantite you need is set into the rear wall. There’s a boss waiting, so make sure you’re ready to fight.
Adamantoise
This boss is extremely straightforward. It will either hit you, which… hurts… or it will Critical Hit you, which will hit two characters for even more damage. The second, obviously, is worse. It’s not a tough fight, but Adamantoise has a shell that’s extremely tough against physical attacks. Ice magic is ideal for taking this thing down. If it hits too hard for your liking, use Slow to severely cut down on its already poor attack speed.
- Take the Adamantite back to the Catapult. One more cut scene later, the airship will be capable of ascending whenever you try to land. Doing so will take you to the Ronka Ruins, an important dungeon to cap off this first portion of Final Fantasy V. You now need to take on five bosses - well, four of them are kind of semi-bosses - in order to proceed. Fly into the turrets on the sides of the Ruins to begin battle.
Rocket Launchers and Flame Throwers
Whenever you approach these turrets you’ll encounter two of these two enemies, both of which are fairly dangerous opponents. The Rocket Launchers are the worse of the two, as they can cut your health in half and otherwise inflict decent amounts of damage. They may also confuse your characters, which is quite dangerous. Flame Throwers aren’t as bad, but they can still peg your characters for appreciable amounts of fire damage. Either way, you’ll want to use electrical attacks to maximize damage on these things. If you want a really easy fight, set up two or three Ninjas and use Lightning Scrolls. They’ll shred your foes in no time.
Once you’ve eliminated all four turrets a fifth, more dangerous battle will be available by approaching the centre of the Ruins. Save before fighting - this one can be quite dangerous.
Soul Cannon
This battle doesn’t seem dangerous initially, but it gets problematic if you let it drag on for too long. The Soul Cannon is accompanied by a pair of Launchers which will fire missiles at you, cutting one character’s health in half and potentially inflicting the old status. Old greatly reduces a character’s overall capabilities by slowly reducing their stats to one - and even though you can heal the status, their stats remain reduced until the end of the fight. You want to mash the Launchers quickly, before they can inflict old, as it puts you in danger of the real threat, the Soul Cannon itself. Luckily, the Launchers don’t have much more health than the average enemy.
The Soul Cannon itself doesn’t do much during the fight, spending pretty much the entire time charging up to deliver its Wave Cannon attack. Once Wave Cannon goes off it will hit everyone for half damage, like the Launchers, and start to sap their health. It will then begin charging up again, and repeat the cycle until either it or you bite the dust. The Soul Cannon has a lot of health, but, fortunately, is vulnerable to lightning. Smash it with the same attacks you use on the turrets before getting this far, healing whenever Wave Cannon goes off. If you’re having trouble, set the battle speed to its lowest setting - this will ensure that the Soul Cannon takes the maximum amount of time to charge up. You’ll get Dark Matter for besting the Soul Cannon.
Once the Soul Cannon is destroyed there will be a gap in the fortress. You can land here and debark to enter the dungeon.
- 1F. Not much to see. The main thing I’ll point out here is the fact that the monsters in this area, though extremely plentiful, are very easy to beat if you put a Geomancer or two in your party. Their Gaia command will almost always trigger Wind Slash here, and it’s effective against everything except the Enchanted Fans. This makes the Ronka Ruins a good place to grind if you’re weak and need levels.
- 2F. There are invisible paths to the east, connecting the platforms. Head all the way east, then wander southwest along the southern wall. Another hidden path will take you to the exit, as well as a chest containing Golden Armor. (In all honesty, you’ll have an easier time in this area if you just activate the Find Passages Thief ability. There are lots of hidden pathways.)
- 3F. There’s a hidden path down and to your left. It will take you to the west side of the room, where, slightly to the north, you’ll find four pathways. The third-from-the-left leads to an Elixir; the furthest left leads north. To the east are two sets of stairs; the first leads onward, the second leads to a save point. You’ll find a Phoenix Down further east, as well as a southern path leading to yet more stairs. Follow the path up the stairs and beyond to, eventually, find a Golden Shield, back on 3F. Backtrack to the first set of stairs.
- 4F. After a series of forced, twisty passages you’ll wind up at a split with stairs and a door. Grab the Hi-Potion to the northwest, then use the stairs. They eventually lead to a room with five chests. These chests are tricksy, as there’s a hole straight ahead that will drop you down a floor. Approach the chests from the left side of the room to get 5,000 gil, a Shuriken, an Ancient Sword, a Moonring Blade, and a Power Armlet. Return to the split, either by dropping down the hole or walking back the way you came, and use the door to the south.
- 5F. Aside from a hole in the floor along the way, this path is pretty straightforward until you reach a split in the path, just after ascending some stairs. To the south you’ll find a save point; to the north, through a door, is another set of stairs. To your right and to the south is a door and stairs. At the bottom of the stairs is a narrow path leading to a Cottage and an Ether; through the door and to the south is a switch. Hit it to reveal a path to the boss of the Ruins.
Archeoaevis
An odd fight, but not that difficult if you prioritize physical strength over magic. Archeoaevis is a barrier-based enemy, and it will change its elemental weakness every now and then. Hitting its weakness will badly harm the beast; hitting it with other elements will either prove useless, or just heal it, which is worse than useless. Either use Libra to target Archeoaevis’s weaknesses specifically or focus on physical attacks, which, despite being a bit deadened, are still relatively effective. During this section Archeoaevis will use all-hitting elemental attacks, though if you cast Slow these will take forever to charge up, and aren’t a huge threat as long as you can heal.
Do enough damage and Archeoaevis will ‘die’ and be resurrected, after which point all elemental magic is rendered basically useless against it. Focus entirely on physical attacks and you can beat it into submission. The only real danger at this point is its Tusk attack, which will confuse one party member, but it’s not difficult to smack them back into shape. You’ll get a Hero Cocktail for besting Archeoaevis…
… and, after some dire cut scenes, you’ll receive the Samurai, Dragoon, Dancer, and Chemist crystal shards. (This last is one of the best in the game, for reasons.) Galuf will leave your party for a while, and you’ll have to puzzle out a way to follow him.
Part Twelve: