DEFEAT! ...and reclaimation (Day 5)

And so it had to happen. I knew it was going to happen. Knock on death's door too many times, and heck, he will answer. Fifteen hours into the game, and I died. My whole party was wiped out.

So now that the Crystals are all returned to their glorious shining nature I decided to take on the optional bosses at the end game. Yes, Final Fantasy One has A LOT of optional bosses. The end game on the game is half the game itself! I kid you not. With the four new dungeons that open up after you defeat the four fiends, a whole new game opens up.

So I started off with the Earthgift Dungeon beating bosses left and right. My simple method of casting TEMPER and HASTE on my Knight and Ninja made chumps of the bosses from left to right. I barely had to heal. So one by one they fell to my sword: Cerebus, Echidna, the two headed Dragon, and Ahriman in the Earthgift Cave. I rushed to the Hellfire Chasm and took out Cagnazzo and Rubiante (I guess I'll see those guys again in Final Fantasy IV). I then got cocky and went down to the Water Shrine. I took out Gilgamesh without difficulty, but he did kill my Black Mage. That's when the idea of death hit me. No bother, I trudged on after collecting his treasure, the Genji glove. I fought Atomos without a problem and continued down the 20 floor dungeon of the Water Shrine. Who do I find at the 15th floor? Dark Bahamut. He warned me of a big threat in the very bottom floor. Perhaps a threat involving a dragon...?

I kept going. I wanted to finish the cave today. And finally after a barrage of weak monsters in the way I reach the boss flame. I click the talk button and who do I fight, SHINRYU! The water dragon resembling Leviathon from Final Fantasies of the future. I remembered him kicking my ass in Final Fantasy V and X (in the Monster Keeper's challenge). Now I had to fight him again. God he is hard. He does FLARE and FLOOD and hits about 500 to my guys. My guys are level 61 for crying out loud! and with less than two minutes passing my mages die. I should have used my Mega-elixer I knew I should have. But I was saving it for the last boss in case he was harder. Then it happened. I witnessed a defeat. But aha... it was not a GAMEOVER because it was in the Water Shrine. I just restart outside the shrine. I pressed reset to get back to where I was and beat him in our second fight. This time I used the Mega-elixer, and I came up on top.

• Game Time: 15 hrs 15 mins
• Total Time: 15 hrs 25 mins (I tacked on 10 minutes for the reset)
  
• Days: 5 of 80