The Phantasy Star 4 cast takes on FF6: Beyond Chaos

[DragonKnight Zero]

Plus a few guests since there are 14 playable characters in FF6 but only 11 in PS4.  This was a silly idea I had for a playthrough that I'm choosing to split off into its own topic to avoid clogging up the games topic with randomizer chatter.  Some of the wacky, silly, and just plain weird things that the randomizer can do are fun to write about.  So this will end up as a quest log of sorts.

There's already a Beyond Chaos Let's Play up at the LP archive and it's probably higher quality than anything I'll be posting.  Still, I'll be glad to show off like an obnoxious know-it all answer most questions that anyone feels inclined to ask.  Won't answer everything; want to keep some of the surprises of the randomizer a surprise.

Casting -

Chaz as Locke: Chaz was a street thief before Alys whipped him into shape so it fits.
Wren as Edgar
Demi as Sabin: PS4 characters don't really slot neatly into FF6 roles but casting the androids in the Figaro brothers slot felt suitable.  Wren acting as a systems controller is the closest thing to a king in PS4.  Demi is Sabin because she's younger, just like Sabin is the younger twin.
Rune as Strago
Kyra as Relm: Magi descendants  Espers  This will work.  Rune is kind of catankerous and Kyra headstrong so there's some personality match too.
Gryz as Gau: Not quite like the others.  Personalities don't match up at all; token Motavian/best boy is the reasoning here.  Could have placed him as Mog instead but Mog is fully optional and I'm reserving those for the guest names.
Seth as Shadow: One of the two PCs in PS4 who die.  Shadow can die for good (though I'll be saving him) so it kind of works.  Seth is mysterious.  Shadow is mysterious.

The rest I'm less happy with but they needed to go somewhere.

Rika as Terra: Represent the beings of a not-exactly-human but close enough race.  They're both young of mind even if they're personalities feel completely different.
Alys as Celes: Experienced fighters with serious personalities.  That's about it for their similarities.  Just going to pretend the Locke-Celes romance doesn't exist for this run.
Hahn as Setzer: The non-combatant  Also, hahaha this doesn't fit at all.  Setzer displays far more daring then Hahn ever does.
Raja as Cyan: (snigger) Total misfit casting here; these are the leftovers.  Doma falls to the Empire.  Raja's temple has a spaceship fall on it.  Yeah, grasping at straws here for a sensible explanation.

Randomizer is very customizable.  It's possible to have a nearly vanilla game with only cosmetic differences and the quality of life additions.  I'm looking for chaos, as long as it's playable, so I'm randomizing nearly everything.  Won't go into every option (and this post is already getting long as it is) but here's a sample of some of the bigger changes I went for.

Character commands - Replacing existing commands with new commands is very much part of the spirit of Beyond Chaos.  They can range from really powerful to really useless though most will be somewhere in between.  Sometimes, parts get way easier because of the commands my team has available; sometimes it's much harder.

Items - Consumables are unchanged but equipment is no longer tied to the same characters as vanilla.  Their stats are randomized within a range.  Leather gear is still weak and Behemothsuit will still be strong.  They can also gain additional effects they didn't have in vanilla.  Usually these are bonuses but every once in a rare while, there will be a permanent negative status.  Elemental attributes can sometimes change too.  One of the QoL additions is more detailed item info so you don't have to enter a fight to find out your Oath Veil has auto-confuse.  (yes this has happened)

Treasure - Different items in treasure locations.  This includes event items such as the Gauntlet/Genji Glove choice at the Returner's hideout.  Colloseum rewards are also scrambled; no more Chupon fights for Elixirs you can't win.  Almost any treasure spot can contain monsters now.

Monsters - They're less predictable and their stats are randomized (generally higher).  This does lead to BS moments now and then but I'll suffer through it.

Sprites and music - There's going to be no attempt for sprites to match the character playing them, even if I had the technical know-how.

No planned update schedule.  They'll go up as I type them up.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  The journey begins with the Empire sending a strike team to Narshe.  Gestahl's army of foot soldiers is comprised of monkeys.     He's going to need a lot of bananas to keep them working.  Terra looks like Terra with a different dye job.  Is this even randomized?  And her portrait is Ward.  Um, OK?

  First order of business is going into the Config menu and setting Battle Speed to 5 and Message Speed to 2.  Beyond Chaos assumes the player is going to use ATB set to Wait and Battle Speed 6 and the monster scaling is based around it so anything lower is making life more difficult for yourself.  Which I do anyways.  Also set cursor to Memory because I overall get in commands faster.  It's still cruise through and crush everything with Magitek armor; that much hasn't changed.  They'll always have the 3 beam attacks and Exploder.  Why Exploder?  I don't know and with no revival I'm not about to use it.  Terra units get 4 more machine skills at random and non-Terras get 2.  The grunts have Heal Force which is welcome as it's not guaranteed.

  One of the QoL additions shows itself after the first fight.  Anyone can learn Dances.  Rages and Lores are gained the same way too, simply finish a fight to learn them.  Works even if the enemies run away, though not if you escape or are Sneezed out.  Bltiz and SwdTech moves also get universal learning; as soon as a single unit meets the level requirement, the ability is learned.  Even temp characters can trigger the learning of new Blitz and SwdTechs.

  Other than lots of lightning immunity from the Narshe resistance, nothing to it, especially with Heal Force on deck.  Whelk's head had auto-confuse yet I still took damage because the ATB decided to be mean and pull in the head before one of my attacks launched.  Despite the head being out while I was choosing the command and ATB on wait (insert grumbling about ATB).  Vicks has a Moogle Charm so no seeking out randoms while still armored to fill out the Rage list.

  Magical Esper time and Terra wakes up alone and Slave Crown-less.  I name her Rika and that's the name I'll be using for the rest of the writeup.  She has a new command R-Tek.

R-Tek; Uses a random machine skill.  It's a big list so forget about getting something specific.  Most are damaging so it still works well for gunning down randoms.  The damage dealers seem to favor lightning which can be problematic on monsters that resist it.

  The disappeared Vicks and Wedge leave behind some stuff.  One is a weapon upgrade that Rika can use so I swap out the puny MithrilKnife she starts with.  What i don't have is healing items.  Battles with solo Rika come down to spam R-Tek and hope to not take too much damage.  Grumbling at R-Tek comes quickly as it rolls 3 lightning moves in a row on an enemy that absorbs lightning.  Thankfully the entire enemy group had auto-confuse so she wasn't in danger but it still shows the side of the randomizer that can get annoying.

  Flashback sequence where the soldier survives being Fire Beamed but Kefka still cackles anyways.  Then Chaz to the rescue.  Aiding him...  Wedge is back.  But he's got his FF7 appearance and has been cloned.  Locke's normal theme has been replaced with Guile's.  A bit sad because that means I won't get to hear it much.

  Rescuing Rika is even easier than vanilla since I'm not getting nailed by Blizzard every fight.  The EXP is still so low that even my mighty Lv 2 moogles don't gain a level.  I do get spooked seeing one with a Cursed Shield but it also has a Ribbon so thankfully not going to murder its group.  Also check out Kamog's stuff since I'll get it at the start of WoR.  Other than the Economizer, nothing stands out.  Boss KO's a Lv2 moogle from full to nothing but the fight was nearly over by the time it happened.

  The two cast members reunite and... it appears the beginners hall is blocked.  Because I randomized the final dungeon and how it's done on a technical level, access is blocked.  This has repercussions since the restore pot is cut off.  Since they lack restore points and I still have no healing (save for a single Tonic), Chaz and Rika cannot afford to play around.  To help make it to Figaro castle, Chaz has 3xTime and Dance.  And X-magic but no spells yet.  X-Magic pretty much guarantees I'll be wanting him around for the endgame.

3xTime: Uses three random Time magic spells in a single turn.  The spell list is based off FF5 so it does include a few space-themed attack spells.  This has the potential to be really goofy.  With three casts, the potential to roll something useful is decent.  Less desirable on enemies resistant to instant death as a number of its skill only work on those vulnerable.

Dance's quality is random and is dependent on the skills assigned to it.  The selected moves can be checked in the Skills menu now, an improvement from vanilla.  Top row are the 7/16 and 6/16 moves so I evaluate the usability of a dance based mostly on those two.

Since using a non-native dance changes the background (and prevents learning a new one), I try out 3xTime.  It's fun enough unless it uses Warp in trash randoms I want to beat up.  Desert is the  dance I make a conscious effort to learn though I realize after the fact it wasn't truly necessary since there's a forced fight in desert terrain coming up.

Figaro Castle.  Time for looting and checking out the shops.  I haven't picked up any treasure yet besides Arvis' clock so it doesn't feel like things have really gotten going.  And that one treasure was a Fakemustache.  As Beyond Chaos randomizes command changers too, they won't be the same as vanilla.  This one changes Rage into Spiraler.     Well that's useless.  It's either getting traded in at the colloseum later or going in the trash.

BC survival tip: When there are healing items in the shop, it's usually worth picking up a few.  There's no guarantee that the next shop will have recovery available.  Having that stash of Tonic/Dried Meat/Potion can be really important since you won't have sure access to Cure magic or Locke to steal a bunch of Tonic for you.  Shop inventories are randomized to have items roughly on the same level as what you'll find in vanilla so not really going to run into something super-powerful early.  I pick up 20 Tonics as well as some tools for a future Tools user.

Meet King Wren and learn about the other sibling Demi.  The royal siblings are a turtle (the 4-legged type, not a bipedal variant) and a 3-ton weight.  If that's what they were born as, that would have been a very uncomfortable conversation to have.  kefka comes to visit and issue threats and I'm not sure who his sprite is supposed to be.  Female in a swimsuit with long hair.  My first thought is Miang though Angela is a possibility too.  Have a chance to control Wren so I check out his status.  He has SonicBoom and Spiraler.  Well, this sucks.  He's not killing anything with those (other than suicide from Spiraler).  Looks like he'll be deadweight for bosses though at least he can toss items.  It's already looking like he'll be sitting out for Kefka's tower.  Starting gear is better than the low level crap Rika and Chaz came with: a Diamond shield and a White Dress

Sonic Boom: It's the dance move.  Gravity damage that takes away 10/16 of the target's current HP and sets Seizure.  Always hits unless target has instant death protection.  Can be used to test fr death protection but not wowing the world.

Spiraler: It's a suicide skill so it's terrible.  Cures a bunch of bad status and MT so it has a niche as a desperation move if the fight is nearly over,  the party is hurting, and has multiple people with negative status.  This is pure theory and seems unlikely to come up.  At least Wren has no MP for it to drain so theoretically can be used as a full heal with a teammate able to pick him back up after the battle...  Yeah, this is an awful skill.

I lost to the Magitek armor once.  Chaz was oneshot by Ice before he got to act.  Wren tried out SonicBoom but it failed and a Fire Wall took him out before he got another turn.  Rika wasn't able to finish things by herself and another Fire Wall sealed her fate (88 max HP, not surviving that).  Next try went better.  MT Ice but no one died and Chaz rolled a 1/16 dance to oneshot them.

No surprises in the caves.  Skip all the treasure as it gets better later.  Head for the cabin for the free heal and make my way to South Figaro.  Time for shopping and some looting.  For shopping I prioritize status protection relics (for out-of-battle curing), a stash of recovery items (if Figaro castle turned up dry), and any available equipment upgrades.  On the looting front, outdoor items are left for the WoR except for the Warp Stone at the end of the elevated path.  Indoor items are grabbed.  I score two sets of RunningShoes and some various gear that no one in the current group can use.  I fight a bit outdoors and scrape up the cash for a Fairy Ring and a Magus Hat.  There are Phoenix Down for sale in the item shop but my team is broke.  Plus I don't really need them yet.  Freak deaths I'll deal with by resetting and starting from the last save.  I still have the 20 Tonics I bought at the castle so the team is ready to move on.  Rika and Chaz get the two RunningShoes since they'll be doing most of the fighting.  These ones come with +10 Evade which synergizes nicely with auto-haste to help dodge more attacks.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Mt. Koltz

  The first real dungeon which will catch out the unprepared who aren't ready for a longer trek.  The goal for me in the first half is to make it to the save point without getting to beat up.  I'm willing to reset and retry if I felt I took too much damage but I don't need to this time.  Rika and Chaz carry randoms with R-Tek and Dance.  Wren uses SonicBoom on full health enemies or picks off weakened enemies that Rika or Chaz don't quite finish off.  The native dances are generally useful.  Caves dance frequently does MT wind damage and mountain dance has Fire Dance and Takedown which are competent at the randoms here.

  SD3's Flammie music is the tune here.   And I'm in the area long enough for the full loop, a contrast from its native game.

  Things go well and I only end up using one Tonic.  Pick up some headgear upgrades.  Only Wren can use the Red Cap I found.  As he has 177 defense while the other two are at around 110, he tanks physicals much better.  Just like his home game.

  Vargas?  Ha ha ha, the randomizer decides to kick me where it hurts.  Repeatedly.  His HP has been reduced so that Pummel isn't required anymore but he can still be a roadblock.  The first part isn't a problem.  3xTime silliness and R-Tek tend to wipe out the bears fast.  But unless I get really lucky with 3xTime, Demi has to finish things alone.  She has Fenrir and Gau's Rage command.

Loss #1: I don't bother with Fenrir and try to punch him out.  Vargas' special inflicts slow, he lands some punches, and gets a kill with Gale Cut.  Starting at 158 HP didn't help either.
Loss #2: Put up Fenrir and pick a Rage at random.  I end up picking the one with W Wind and Demi commits suicide with it.  Vargas didn't even land a blow.
Loss #3: Put up Fenrir and attack.  Success.  On the very last step before exiting to the world map, I run into a random.  Two Blaze attacks in quick succession wipe out the party.  FFF...

On the successful trip, take out the bears, try out 3xTime.  Thanks to rolling Quick and some luck with getting attack spells during time freeze, Vargas is defeated without getting a chance to use his scripted Blizzard Fist.

Demi's commands are Fenrir and Rage

Fenrir: This is highly game-breaking.  It's the Esper summon.  In vanilla, it can only be used once per fight.  Now imagine being able to cast this at will.  And for no MP cost.  Basically laugh at physicals for as long as you want.  She's pretty fast too so odds are favorable to get it off before the monsters go.  There are limits of course.  Back attacks, really fast enemies, enemies ganging up on someone, and perfect accuracy attacks.  Silence too.  Still, this skill alone will make life much easier even if the other command being Rage keeps this in check a little.

Rage improvements: It's now possible to see what Rages do on the skill screen.  As well as elemental resists and weakness, status immunities, and any auto-status the selected monster has.  This is really handy and the command would be too troublesome to use without the expanded info.  Worth repeating is that Rages are learned upon successful battle; no need to visit the Veldt.  Rages are no longer locked to Battle and a selected attack; it's entirely possible to have Rages without Battle.  However, all this quality of life stuff is only on the skill screen.  It's not available in battle.  And since Sabin jumps in mid-battle, I don't have a chance to check.  Hence, that loss.

  Might as well mention that level averaging when characters join for the first time is randomized now.  My party average at Vargas was 8.  In vanilla, Sabin has a +2 modifier and would start at 10 but started at 8 here.

I find Rage to be a very time consuming command to employ since it takes studying out of battle to work out which ones to make use of.  But it's also satisfying to use well.

Nothing of interest in the Returner's hideout shop.  The fact that it's double priced also makes it less appealing.  Story stuff.  The leader of the Returners appears to be Sephiroth but it's hard to tell.  In this universe, he doesn't have Jenova induced insanity and stands for freedom.  I avoid most looting until after regaining a full party just in case some of those treasures contain monsters.  When i get my full party back, Banon is at Lv 5.  Crap.  His commands are SonicBoom and GP Rain.  Double crap.  At least he has a back row compatible weapon and over 210 defense so he's not in much danger from tentacle slaps.  Before setting off, I check over the Rage collection.  It's slim pickings; the best I find for MT offense is Fireball.

  Noteable loot from the Returners are some armor upgrades and a Black Belt.  Which no one can use.  The randomizer will designate a set of Relics, about 5 or so, to be character-specific Relics that only one or two people will be able to use.  Not really a big loss with a Black Belt but can be more impactful if a powerful Relic ends up in that pool.

  On the river, Fenrir pretty much shuts down the monsters' offense.  I think I got hit once before reaching Ultros.  Rika keeps spinning R-Tek.  Wen and Banon use SonicBoom on high health enemies and physicals on the weakened ones.  EXP is decent, bringing Banon up to 7 before Ultros and the others going up one.  Since level is such a large factor in the damage formula, yay more damage.

  1 reset at Ultros.  Not a true loss as I could have won.  However, I got mad after random Heal Force killed off Demi who happened to have chosen an undead Rage and threw in the towel on that fight.  Next go around Rika spun a Hyperdrive for 1800 so things finished much faster.

Choose a scenario, kupo.  Check his items, nothing worth remembering.  I do Terra, Locke, Sabin in that order, same as if I was playing vanilla.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Two updates on the same day.  Well I've been occupied with playing rather than logging on to post but since I'm on a posting roll, there you go.

  Only thing of note in Terra scenario is that the restore pot in Beginner's house is still blocked off.  With no access to restoration and only random Heal Force from R-Tek for battle healing unless I want to dig into my Tonic supply, the team really doesn't want to be taking much damage.  Just blazing through without picking up any treasure.  I've brute forced the checkpoint before to lower the step count but don't chance it here.  Removed all Relics before ending the scenario.

  I send Chaz after the Heavyarmor replacement prepared for it to kill him but it would still flag the formation for later Veldt encountering (not that I'm ever going there but completionist habits)  3xTime randomness murders it without it getting an attack in.  That's cool too.  Do the regular plot stuff, making sure to fight both merchant and soldier at least once.  The uniform for merchants in rando-world appears to be sasquatch fursuits.  Well that's certainly recognizable.  The town dance sucks here since it's almost entirely instant death moves and will whiff on those immune.  I buy 5 Phoenix Down and the tools I'm still lacking.  This almost empties my wallet but I won't be to any shops for a while so not worried.

  Alys worked with the Empire and took up dirt-biking as a hobby.  This by itself they were OK with but were not pleased when she placed poorly in a highly publicized race and they arrested her much like how dictatorships will punish their sports teams for poor performance.  She does have a new skill to play with.  Also started at Lv 6 to accompany my Lv 9 Chaz (groan).

BioElNi: A combo skill  It fires off Bio and El Nino back to back.  Nice tool for clearing randoms unless the targets resist water or both elements.  Or it runs into an enemy with auto-reflect.  As it turns out, every enemy in the basement resists poison or has auto-reflect, the first time it happens prompting a reset.  I could have continued on but I'm being conservative with consumables.  The enemies who resist poison still die to El Nino so battles go smoothly with dances taking out the auto-reflect foes.  There is a welcomed weapon upgrade for Alys among the treasure there.  An Enhancer is way preferable to that starting Mithrilknife.

Hit up the cabin for a rest and onto the cave.  I grab the X-Potion chest now.  Magicite which I'll never use or forget to use.  Exp in the cave is pretty good and Alys starts catching up.  BioElNi mows down all the randoms here.

TunnelArmor: It's raw HP is lower to compensate for lack of Runic but that's it.  One of the QoL changes actually makes this harder.  In vanilla, Celes will explain the use of Runic at the start of the fight.  This is done via giving the boss initiative and doing this on its first turn.  The explanation is taken out of randomizer to speed up the pace but the boss still has initiative.  So it will get a free attack no matter what.  It fries Alys with Fire.  Uh-oh.  Chaz uses 3xTime in desperation.  Got some Quick turns out of it.  Combined with another obscure bug, all it got was one physical for 25 before getting buried in space rocks.  Won a Charm Bangle which is a very welcome sight.  With randoms expected to be more difficult overall, I prefer having fewer of them to deal with.

Demi's turn.  Picks up a companion at the house.  I name it Seth.  Seth's skills are Sketch, GP Rain, and Magic with natural magic so he has a few spells.  This is not a very desirable combo.  Sketch is awful, even if slightly better than vanilla now due to higher monster stats.  I've already been close to broke twice so throwing money doesn't appeal.  Would rather spend it on equipment and consumables.  Natural magic tends to be meh this early unless it's Cure because of low MP totals to work with.  Spell list is Reflect, Dispel, Rasp, and Muddle.  The first two I'm unlikely to encounter a situation where I'll be using them and they're expensive.  The last two are unlkely to see use as this early on, most monsters that they would be worthwhile to use on, I still deal with by killing them.  Buy 10 more Tonics and other miscellaneous goods from the merchant.

Also, who the hell is Rom?  That's the name the textfile gives.  The portrait doesn't help me identify her either: some pink-haired anime girl?  First impression is Madoka.

Hide behind Fenrir to minimize damage on the way to the imperial camp and inside the camp itself.  Meet Raja who doesn't start with a shield.  This is ominous.  Commands are Morph, Throw, and Magic.  Also has natural magic starting with W Wind (useless), Ice 2, Sleep, and Stop.  Total glass cannon here.  Put Leader to sleep and ice him up since he'll get a recharge later anyways.  Barrier Ring changed tents, otherwise average treasure haul.  The one accessible pot in Doma coughed up an Air Lancet, a welcome upgrade for Seth who is mostly relying on Fight for combat.  Clyde has taken the place of Leo as the empire's honorable general.

Throw changes: All weapons are throwable now.  If a thrown weapon has a spell attached, the targeting options of the thrown weapon will match the attached spell.  This can make some weapons MT capable, (usually good) or having them only able to target the party (awful).  Any attached spell procs are displayed in the item info where it displays the raw weapon stats.

Making my way over to the Phantom Train.  2 resets from Seth running off after fights.  Enter and pick up a ghost companion.  Taking the place of the bedsheet ghosts are an army of shirtless Fabul monks.  Their skills are Morph and Sprialer.  Urk, this is pretty bad.  Morph is a boss slaying tool and monk buddy will not face boss fights.  Spiraler is even worse than before since it will remove him from the fight afterwards.

  There is weirdness you can do when more than one party member has Morph.  In vanilla, this is prevented by not letting Gogo set Morph.  Beyond Chaos removes that restriction so you're free to go nuts and discover what happens.

  Snap up a Ninja Gear just sitting on an invisible treasure tile.  Uneventful going on to the next save point.  Hide behind Fenrir and bash away.  Demi picked up a x4 Special Rage somewhere which is welcome but is still a FF6 physical and therefore not going to be an "I win" button.

  Randomizer throws more curveballs in the second half.  The enemy that replaces Bomb has 3700 HP and Exploder it can use normally.  And they show up 2 or 3 at a time.  My characters have about 250 max HP.  Take a wild guess what happens.  This sent the group scrambling back to the dining car a few times for revival.  Fortunately, they're vulnerable to confusion and Seth isn't using his MP for anything else so (evil laugh).  Got some better gear though Raja still has bupkis and is still made of paper.  Also found a Mithril Pike that no one can use.  Big deal, you say?  It has 25% magic boost which makes it a candidate for best weapon for someone that uses lots of magical skills.

Phantom Train goes down quick.  Fenrir then 4x Special Rage from Demi.  Seth throws money.  Raja Morphs and throws shuriken.

Morph does boost thrown weapons when I tested it.  Despite thrown weapons ignoring defense.  Oh well, more damage is cool.  Take some of Seth's stuff I'd been letting him use before parting ways at the waterfall.  Waterfall fight is easy-peasy.  Hide behind Fenrir and use regular attacks for the small fry.  When the big fish shows up, I probably could freeze it with Raja's Stop but I don't bother and blitz it with offense.

Another difference from vanilla shows itself here.  Gau joins right away instead of having to feed him.  Since there's no guarantee that Dried Meat will be at the shop or that Sabin/Cyan will have an Item command (as it turns out, I don't here) randomizer skips that time-consuming sequence and has Gau join up after naming him.

  Gryz's Motavian background gives him proficiency in matters of metalworking, which transfers here in his ability to use the Tools command.  His command list is the same as vanilla Edgar but he gets Gau's stat bases.  Higher strength, magic, and evasion though the high Attack stat will mostly go unused.

  Usual town stuff, check shops and pick up treasure.  I find Shuriken in the shop so end up selling some trash weapons to fund building my Shuriken stack up to 60.  Grab some gear upgrades for people not in the party since there is no longer a guarantee Nikeah will have anything I want.  Help out the wounded soldier and get a FakeMustache for my effort.  Dammit, waste of 2500 GP.  Rest at the free bed before checking for treasure just in case and yep, there's a monster hiding in a clock.  Despite picking a Rage that uses a skill which the monster absorbs (angry fist shaking), still win without being in danger.

An android, a Dezolian, and a Motavian share a diving helmet.  Not sure how it works yet somehow makes more sense than vanilla since at least androids don't need to breathe.  One enemy does overkill someone with a Blowfish death counter and I choose to go on instead of resetting.  Only thing I buy in Nikeah is a White Cape.  Theoretically, I could have bought an Air Lancet for Rika.  She doesn't really use her Fight command though and the Mitrhil Rod she has is giving a small boost to her R-Tek damage so I skip it.  Plus, my wallet was empty and not worth selling stuff for something I'm unlikely to use.  Monsters hiding in the clock at the inn and they were nasty.  They can counter damage with multiple shots of Blaster and/or Step Mine.  Stop works on them but the monsters were so durable it wears off before my team can kill one.  After 2-3 attempts, decide I'd rather come back for this later.  They also have an instant death Special and it appears to pierce image.  Stay at the inn before hopping on the ship to end the scenario.  There is no scripted MP restore at the snowfield for anyone but Terra.  While this isn't an issue in vanilla, it can become far more relevant in randomizer (and Meeple Fantasy).  Give the people I haven't seen in a while their new armor (except for Alys since she's still KO'ed so it will wait until after the snowfield defense starts), save, and get ready for the next step.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  Forming teams for snowfield, I go with 2 teams of 3 that do all the fighting and one loner that sits out.  Demi with Fenrir and Gryz with Noisebalster are my main damage mitigators so they're separated.  With 30 Tonics, 6 Dried Meat, and 1 Potion, my party doesn't have the tools for sustained battles so the goals are to mitigate damage and kill everything fast.  I do take another look at the Rage collection.  Still nothing stronger than Fireball for MT offense but Demi does have one with Blow Fish and a 2.5x damage Special for ST offense which will be welcome at Kefka.  As a bonus, this Rage comes with status immunity to Kefka's status magic.  Fire weakness is a negative side effect but Kefka doesn't have fire damage so will be OK.  Rika and Alys are better separated because random Forcefield from R-Tek doesn't play nice with Alys' damage.  Rationally, Wren is the best choice to leave out but I'm going by "take the lowest level people and find a way to win" playstyle.  The cold really isn't good for Raja's joints (never mind he's from and ice planet and is used to cold) so he ends up in the spectator seat.  I go with teams of Chaz, Demi, Alys  and Wren, Rika, Gryz.  Oops, put the Dance and Rage character on the same team but don't realize until halfway through and I don't bother to reset to change it.

   The most common enemy dies to El Nino.  They have Aqua Rake but only saw it while confused with Noiseblaster.  The other group has Gryz keeping enemies confused with Noiseblaster while Rika fires R-Tek from the back row and Wren weakens foes with SonciBoom unless he can kill with a physical.  One of the random foes is immune to both of the high probability dances of the home terrain which leaves Chaz chancing a non-native dance (and can survive a Bio + El Nino combo) but otherwise things go smooth with the randoms.  Rider replacement drops a Genji Helmet.  OK, this might be a reason to prowl the Veldt.  Chaz, Demi, and Alys go after Kefka.  Chaz completely trolls him with 3xTime.  Slow and Stop both work and get rolled quickly.  Kefka doesn't resist either of Alys' elements.  Fenrir and Raging from Demi.  With Blow Fish and BioElNi dogpiling on kefka, he runs for it without getting a chance to do anything besides and opening physical.

  Rika communes with the frozen Esper.  It coaxes her into getting into the Halloween spirit and she tries on the costume it offers her, the White Mage Mimwu.  It's a cursed costume though.  Realizing that it came with man parts, Rika freaks out and goes flying off to some isolated tower to try and forget.  Form a team with the lowest level characters and head to the world map to save progress before checking the treasure trove in town.  I'm expecting at least one trapped chest in there.

   Raid the treasure trove first before heading for the security checkpoint for Rage collecting.  Among the treasures are and Atlas Armlet and Earrings which have evade or M. Block penalties.  Boo.  Though if the character was already at single digits for the respective stat, it's less of a sacrifice.  Also picked up a ThiefKnife.  So far, this is the only source of theft and only usable by Raja and Seth.  Could also use some more GP so accomplishing two purposes in one trip.  Seth isn't worth hiring so I form a team of 4 for the trip to the western part of the continent.  It's preferable to use sources of damage other than Fight for Dadaluma to prevent him from throwing blades at the party.  Character analysis time.

  Chaz still has no weapon other than an Imp Halberd.  How good he is tends to vary based on the usefulness of the native dance for the opponents he's fighting.  That 50% stumble chance feels a lot bigger without a backup physical to fall back on.  For bosses, it's all about 3xTime which can be crazy good or decide to be not very useful.

  Raja has Throw so is generally able to contribute on offense.  I don't have access to a Shuriken in shops at the moment so there's mild ammo concerns about using him though 60 will last a decent amount of combat.  His defense does suck though at this point battles still end fast so shouldn't be taking many hits.

  Wren is losing his durability edge as the others are getting better defensive gear while he hasn't gotten anything new since Mt. Koltz.  Most enemies this early in the game are still vulnerable to gravity damage so he's not useless yet.

  Demi will almost always be a viable choice with free Fenrir.  Rage is versatile.  Her weapon selection is rather meh but still better than Chaz.

  Alys just mows down randoms and does good damage to bosses with BioElNi.  Unless elemental resistance gets in the way.  That's what the other party members are for.

  Gryz has Tools so can't go wrong with him.  Only the MT ones at the moment but Noiseblaster is a potent disabler and Flash is nice for finishing off weakened enemies or hurting confused ones without clearing the status.

  And I proceed to ignore analysis and grab the lowest leveled characters.  Wren, Demi, Chaz, and Alys are making the trip.  Well, almost entirely ignore analysis.  Wren is being carried by the team at Dadaluma though he can still contribute to randoms.  If Alys doesn't wipe them in one turn anyways.

  Checking out Figaro castle's shops again, I pick up a Drill and 5 Potions.  This puts my wallet close to empty again.  I don't have the 3000 GP to hire Seth even if I wanted to.  See a scene where a turtle and a 3-ton weight reflect on their past.  Rachel's clock in Kohlingen has over 20000 GP in it which is welcome.  I'm able to pick up 5 more Potions, 5 Phoenix Down, and a Tent for my recovery stock.  Also grab an armor upgrade for Alys.  Alys suicides herself on an enemy with auto-reflect but it happened right by Figaro castle so spend a night there to bring her back to consciousness.  Hike over to the Chocobo forest to the north, stopping by a crazy kook's place.  Ride all the way to Jidoor.

  Demi, your magic defense is atrocious.  Lagging at 58 when the rest of the team has 116. (yes, they all the same M.Def.)  Owzer, did you realize there's a monster living in your pot?  Beat it up without trouble and stay at the inn before paying for a Chocobo ride to Zozo.

  Make my way through talking to people for clock hints.  In this randomized world, the clock combo is different.  Most Zozo randoms end as soon as Alys gets a turn.  I'm slow in realizing this and giving her RunningShoes to better get the drop on everything.  Native dance can still contribute even though it's all ID other than 6/16 Land Slide.  Put up Fenrir if Demi gets a turn before Alys.  There are no nasty surprises like Magnitude 8 death counters and I get hit maybe once on the entire trip to Dadaluma.  Notable treasure includes a Memento Ring so I finally have a source of instant death protection.

  Chaz humiliates the Dee Jay lokalike, land Stop on his very first use of 3xTime.  He doesn't really get much damage in for the rest of the battle but Alys is doing about 900 a shot and Demi is using the Blowfish/2.5x Special Rage and getting in a lot of damage so the group still defeats Dadaluma without him getting a turn.  I guess it's safe to have Wren Fight when the boss is stopped.  Also broke a spare set of Goggles for about 290 from Mega Volt.

  Get the starter set of Espers before checking the two chests at the top.  One of them has monsters, rude.  I win but at cost since one enemy had auto-reflect and Alys suicides herself.  But hey, reforming the party brings her back to life with 1 HP without spending a Phoenix Down.  Alys had a training exercise prepared for Chaz at Vector and he can't refuse.  Joining them will be Demi and Raja.  No way am I bringing Wren who is deadweight in upcoming boss fights where finishing them fast is important.  Gryz is viable but came out second in the tie-break I use to choose between people of equal levels.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  Randomized Espers does two main things.  Changes the spells each one will teach and also changes the levelup bonuses.  Spells have an internal ranking which affects which Espers they can appear on.  Higher ranked spells can only be learned from late game Espers while the lowest ranked spells could show up anywhere.  Ranking appears to take into effect both power and general usefulness.  Ultima is very high rank and you're never going to see it in the WoB while something like WWind is treated as very low rank as many things resist it and it can harm party members.  Level up bonuses follow a similar path with only weaker ones able to show up early while stuff like Mag +2 and HP +50 will only appear in WoR Espers that require beating the tougher bosses.  If they show up at all.

  I check over the spell lists of the starting Espers.  Lot of overlap with Bolt and Demi appearing on more than one of the first four.  Float on Stray looks useful.  WWind makes an early showing but it's not very useful with little ID protection and no Osmose to deal with the 75 MP cost.  Notable is a total lack of Cure magic so the party will still be relying on consumables for recovery.  The level up bonuses are one HP +10% and two MP +10% which are highly scrubby.

  Give Alys a few Tonic so she's not sitting at 1 HP.  Back into Zozo to reset the clock now that I have the clues.  Randomizing the clock isn't just a cosmetic thing; it also gives a move valuable item in the chest where the Chain Saw is in vanilla.  I get another ThiefKnife.  Um, OK.  Do a bit of fighting before staying at Jidoor's inn so that Raja is close to reaching Lv 13 and Chaz/Demi are still far from 15.

  Time to name Setzer's replacement, who will be referred to as Hahn from now on.  The replacement sprite is Celes with a Yuna costume.  She has Saya's hair color by random chance.  Actually, I can picture Hahn being bullied into playing a female role.  Stock up on 10 more Potions before riding out for the opera house.  Set everyone's Espers and equipment before going in so that I'm not doing it during a timed segment.  Alys is none too pleased about taking the place of an opera diva and acting as bait but grudgingly agrees with the logic of the plan.

  There is a code to randomize opera sprites but I didn't use it so it's the same opera.  Even the music is left the same as vanilla (welcome for timing purposes during the interactive part).  I still don't read the score; it's still top option, bottom option, top option when prompted for lines.  Performance continues and Chaz, Demi, and Raja run off to stop a troublemaking octopus with a 4-ton weight.

Demi (as 3-ton weight) "Don't you dare make another short joke."

  This team has some issues with the timed segment.  The native dance is all ST moves though at least will result in a dead enemy nearly every time.  3xTime takes a long time to cast which is undesirable in a timed segment.  Demi's MT damage is unreliable and the best I've got is Aqua Rake.  Raja's Throw is better with single targets than groups.  Scrolls exist but I didn't bother to stock any and all I've found so far is one fire and one water scroll to use.

  Had some hiccups.  The rats all absorb Aqua Rake so that's out.  Resort to taking them out one at a time with shuriken and dances and ST Rages.  Find out the hard way that the weaker rats are the ones to take out first since they can use Ice 2 (fortunately only did 150ish to Demi instead of killing someone).  Still manage to make it on time and switch Kirin to Raja before thwarting the octopus.

  Ultros has the potential to be a pain if he's given the chance to move around the stage.  Imp Song is bad.  I have no Green Cherries but I did give Chaz the White Cape if worst comes to worst since he has the best shot at winning solo.  L3 Muddle is another thing to plan around.  None of my team are at vulnerable levels since Raja leveled from 12 to 13 on the rats.

  But I don't plan on giving him that chance; this team does have the firepower to end this fast.  I don't bother with Fenrir or Kirin, just leap straight to offense.  Raja Morphs and throws shuriken.  Demi leaps straight into the Blow Fish Rage used on Kefka and Dadaluma.  Chaz starts spamming that time magic.  Gets a Quick-turn on the first use and gets some space rocks.  It's an unlucky day for a giant purple octopus with bad teeth.

  Now Alys could have simply physically intimidated Hahn like she does on Motavia.  She's smart enough to realize roughing up the pilot may not be in her best interest and outwits him instead to get his help.

  Check out the nearby shops.  Albrook has Shuriken so I trade away another MithrilKnife to fund a few more.  Also buy a Chain Saw and 4 more Tents.  Got a Poison Claw too.  Gives Demi more battle power for stronger physical Rages but also makes those physicals poison elemental so need to be conscious about its use.  Hike to Tzen, chocobo to Maranda, chocobo to Vector checking out shops on the way.  Got some headgear upgrades.  Tzen has Wall Rings for sale.  The safe way of going about a later battle is to grind money and buy 4 of them.  I choose to live dangerously and don't bother picking up any.  Raja's defense is still paper.  Monsters gang up on him and drop him in the 2nd random I encounter.  But it's the overworld so an inn isn't far away.

  Vector's BGM is a Secret of Mana tune that's rarely encountered in its home game and when it is, it isn't for long unless intentionally delaying.  So that's cool.  Fight one formation of Commando/Garm to gain knowledge of what to expect inside the Magitek Factory.  Commando replacement has a Magnitude 8 death counter.  Only hurts for about 150 instead of wiping the party but still would rather not be hit by it.  Float has been learned so it comes to the rescue.  Another half hour spent on inspecting the Rage list.  All sorts of useful utility Rages: HP drain, MP drain, Phantom, and more.  Once inside the factory, everything on the upper level dies as soon as Alys gets a turn.  Combined with hiding behind Fenrir, the party takes one hit total on the way to the save point.  I take the same path I do in vanilla, grabbing the treasure in the first room, then making my way to Ifrit and Shiva.

  Since I have a team with lots of defense piercing non-elemental damage, I aim for a victory through HP damage.  Kirin goes on Alys since she's not contributing offense.  Put up Fenrir and Kirin.  Chaz spins 3xTime hoping for something good.  He does get in some damage before falling.  Raja Morphs and throws shuriken.  Demi has the option of using a Rage that nullifies fire and ice but none of them have any damage.  i risk going full offense and use the Blow Fish Rage even though it has fire weakness.  Ifrit massively overkills her with a 1300 damage Fire 3 counter, ouch.  Alys just feeds people recovery items after her first turn summoning Kirin.  I win with Demi and Chaz down and use a Tent afterwards.

  Realized after the fact the Raja's Ice 2 would have done more damage than Throw.  Oops.  I had forgotten about Ifrit's ice weakness since there's almost no way to take advantage of it in vanilla and randomizer sometimes removes it.  Also, Morph halving magic damage was relevant in a rare showing.

  Check out Ifrit and Shiva.  Shiva has the goods here: Cure and Life at decent learn rates and +2 Stamina.  Ifrit has +1 Strength which is still better than the levelup bonuses on the starter set.  Go around and grab all the treasure.  Found headgear Raja can actually use so he's a tiny bit less fragile.  The Hyper Wrist is interesting.  Less of a boost than the Atlas Armlet but has +10 M. Block for a more defensive setup.  There's a Poison Rod only Demi can use.  It's a command changer which changes Rage in Spiraler.  So mostly awful though I may make use of it anyways for the mine cart.

  The enemies put up a bit more resistance on the way to Number 024.  One has auto-reflect. Another resists both poison and water and instant death.  So killing it entails getting lucky with a 6/16 dance (or a non-native dance with the 50% stumble chance), using a magical Rage (Blowfish will oneshot it), or Throwing something since it also has high defense to reduce Fight physicals to double digit damage.  Swap Demi to a non-element weapon for the boss fight.

  Boss is mostly a joke.  I feel safe enough with Kirin and Fenrir to have Raja try to steal with the ThiefKnife.  Got a DaVinci Brush out of it.  Throws shuriken afterwards.  Chaz is doing his best Timelord impression and his spell list is finally robust enough to capitalize on his X-Magic command. (which synergizes really well when used on a second Quick turn)  Fenrir from Demi than the same Blowfish Rages she's been using in previous boss fights.  Boss has a tendency to counter damage with Ice Rabbit for 400 or so healing but Throw, Blowfish, and space rocks from time magic all outpace it so it's just delaying the ultimate outcome.  Number 024 did live long enough for a WallChange but that only stops Alys' damage.  Won a Back Guard which is nice to have if fearing random ambushes. (though not really that vital)  Demi is very close to a levelup so I fight until she ticks over.

  Plot stuff.  Kefka shows up.  It's a trap.  Alys grumbles about the uselessness of men before warping the soldiers away.  Have new Espers to play with and wider selection of levelup bonuses.  Mag +1 from Bismarck is the winner of this batch.  Demi gets Kirin for the mine cart escape.  Chaz picks someone with new magic since he can't summon anyways.  Raja would go for Phantom but with Fenrir available, don't really feel compelled to try Vanish strats.  Demi also slaps on that Poison Rod since Rage is undesirable for Number 128.

  Mine cart goes smooth.  Put up Fenrir and smash.  Didn't even use Throw for this part since the enemies were neutralized.  At the boss, Chaz gets a Quick-turn right away.  Uses 3xTime twice more.  Got 2 Meteos and a Meteor out of those 9 casts.  Add a Throw from Raja and Number 128 is toast.

I'm tempted to starting calling Chaz TimeLord if he keeps pulling these sorts of things.  Casting 9 consecutive time magic spells without anyone else getting a chance to act does seem like the sort of thing TimeLord would do.  Tempted to change his name with a save editor.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  I fight a few randoms on the way out for Rage collection (and getting closer to the 33000 GP for Esper purchases).  On the second one, the randomizer reminds me it still has teeth with an enemy Flaring Demi into the pavement for 800 when max HP is on the 500 border.  It dies fast enough that no one else dies and everyone gets healed for the Cranes fight so there's no concern about resource depletion.  Still annoyed that I can't change Demi's Esper without spending a Phoenix Down but end up not bothering.  Hahn shows everyone he's more scholar than engineer trying to take off since some Magitek powered cranes catch up to the group for a boss fight.

  Opening starts with MT Bolt and MT Fire 3 (yeeowch) before any of the team acts.  This sends Hahn into the dirt before he gets to act and hurting the others badly.  Kirin from Raja, Fenrir from Demi, double Cure from Chaz and hope.  No one dies so Chaz is free to do a TimeLord impression.  Not as successful as the Number 128 battle with only one Meteo hitting out of it.  Demi casts another Cure while Raja morphs and tries telling jokes to the cranes.  Being machines, there is no effect.  He also throws a water scroll which does have an effect, killing the crane hit by Meteo and weakening the other enough that a followup attack Rage from Demi finishes it off.

  Fly to the tower with Rika who is doing better.  Magicite glowy which somehow triggers a flashback where Rika was born live rather than created in a stasis tube by an AI.  The party is together again and I can finally look at Hahn's command list.  CyclSno and HastShr are what he brings.

CyclSno: Combo of Cyclonic and Snowball.  This gets a 9/10 for capturing the spirit of the randomizer though a 3 or 4 out of 10 for usefulness.  Because after bringing the target to the brink of death, what more fun to follow with than bringing it even closer.  Snowball isn't completely redundant here as it always hits while Cyclonic is subject to M. Block and its own accuracy.  Completely useless on instant death immune which boss fights generally are which is bad news after factoring in the other skill.

HastShr: Combo of Haste and Shrapnel.  True to randomizer form, it has no qualms about combining skills that one would not usually use on the same target.  This takes more observation to use safely since unless the Shrapnel will kill the target, you end up Hasting an enemy which is undesirable.  Of course if the enemy has Reflect or is immune to Haste (good luck spotting that), it can be safely used then.  The Shrapnel half makes it impractical for Hasting an ally; it would require perfect M. Block to use that way safely.

  Hahn can use Darts which I found earlier so he does have the option of hiding in the back row without hurting his Fight damage.  So he's a little less bad than Wren in a boss battle.  Cyclonic + Snowball can do a lot of work in randoms that don't have ID immunity so he contributes better too.  Both are still deadweight in boss fights.

  Form a party and go purchase the three available Espers.  Beyond Chaos changes the auction house so that the Espers will almost always appear at the first two items.  Welcome since it cuts down on waiting.  Now that I have all the WoB Espers, checking their spell lists, I see no Osmose and no Cure 2.  Well, that makes things more difficult.  No Osmose I can work with but need to be more conscientious with MP use and also carry more Tents.  No Cure 2 looks more ominous and no party member has reliable strong healing to cover for it (Spiraler doesn't count).  I'll be taking an aggressive approach and aim to finish battles fast since these characters won't last through sustain heavy assault.  This could lead to trouble with bosses but there aren't any for a while to worry about.

  Off to Narshe.  I check out the shops even though buying all those Espers has left my party broke.  Again.  This is about the 4th time this game that my wallet is close to empty.  Those Diamond shields and Power Sashes look nice but I don't have the funds for them right now.  The X-Potions for sale in the item shop are also out of reach.

Shop changes again: In addition to randomization of what's for sale, there will also be a selection of normally unbuyable items spread throughout the world.  Most will only appear in the world of ruin though sometimes one or two will show in the world of balance.  They can range from useful (Genji Armor, Czarina Gown) to trashy (Imp equips, Thornlet, Cursed Ring)  The very best stuff like Paladin shields will never appear for sale.

  Chase Lone Wolf through the mines, grabbing a useless FakeMustache from the chest he was after.  In vanilla, saving Mog was required to learn Water Rondo at all.  Since anyone can learn dances in Beyond Chaos, the urgency to save him is not so great.  It becomes much more tempting if Mog has a scrubby skillset and Lone Wolf has a good item to let him fall.

  I save Mog on principle though I gave up a Ribbon to do so.  From a strategy standpoint, taking the Ribbon would have been a better choice but years of RPGs have engrained certain habits in me that I'll seldom deviate from.  Being an optional character, he doesn't get a PS4 name.  Instead, I'm naming the three optional characters after the main trio in Chrono Trigger.  Named him Lucca semi-randomly.  Crono is reserved for Umaro which left either Marle or Lucca and I arbitrarily decide that lLucca fits the sprite better.  She's the Lore user along with MertRag and Magic

MertRag: Combo of Merton and the Rage dance  Right now, this will just murder my party as I'm lacking in fire or wind nullification.  But with a protected team, this command becomes a lot more fun.  Dual element brings down Merton a bit but the defense piercing is potent.  And Rage is non-elemental and unblockable so it will always damage the enemy party.

  With no Osmose and Lore being so MP intensive, Lucca is not a great character right now.  I form a party of Wren, Rika, Gryz, and Hahn.  Mostly because they're the lowest leveled but Hahn and Gryz work well together.  Any enemy that Cyclonic hits will be finished off by AutoCrossbow or Flash.  Or he can NoiseBlaster while Rika fires off R-Tek and Wren SonicBooms unless he can land a deathblow.  I dip into the sealed gate cave and take the group Rage hunting.  Add selling some obsolete gear and they scrape up enough for one Diamond shield.  Defenses are somewhat lacking since this group had to make do with leftovers.  But the hope is to murder groups fast to not take many hits.  Wren is still using the same set of gear from the snowfields; he hasn't found anything better.  I finally bother to look at the Black Belt from way earlier.  Gryz only so it's rather crap.  Gryz has no reason to ever be in the front row thanks to Tools.  An Amulet I picked up somewhere is Hahn only so it stays with him unless I really need to use a different Relic.

  Cave to the sealed gate: Rika is eager to explore a new area but wants friends to share the experience with so won't go alone.  There is one monster that gives me a scare with a Raid counter that does most of someone's 400-ish max HP but I only see it once.  After a while, I notice that I'm only seeing physicals so after dealing with a group of angry fish hiding in the ground, (Rizopas really wanted that rematch, it doesn't go any better for it than before) pull out Phantom and coast.  Rika switch to weapon beatdowns since random ForceFields or Big Guards would break invisibility.  There are no more monsters in boxes to bother my trip.  Treasure ranges from useful (Genji Armor, a weapon upgrade for Wren, a Tintinabar) to OK.  Scored a Blizzard Orb too.  While not the very first item this game that provides elemental defense (that would be a Chocobo Suit drop), fire and ice are more significant elements.  Everyone can use it too.  The elemental defense is the real draw; +5 Magic is more of a bonus.  -10 Evade so it's only seeing use if I really want the fire/ice resistance.

  Evil Angela shows up and gloats about tricking the party.  The music here is one of the Chrono Trigger tracks not used in the finished game which gets a few style points.  Stuff happens, party returns to airship, airship crashes while Rika and Raja ham it up.  My group went from Lv 15 to 17 during the trek through the cave which is still rather low.  Swap out Wren for Raja but keep the team the same.  As it turns out, nobody has Float to deal with Magnitude 8 death counters.  But it's a short segment and the group has Cure magic so I'll tough it out.

  Got lucky and didn't see any Magnitude 8 death counters in 6 fights.  It was going to be 3 but I got greedy and opened treasure chests after talking to 24 soldiers.  Randomizer threw a monster-in-a-box at me.  Not something I want to see while there's a timer.  Beat it no problem but the timer ran out while the game was tallying battle rewards.  I wanted my EXP/GP/item drop so reset and redid things.  Actual fights were no problem as Throw, Chainsaw, and Shrapnel are all one-hit kills to the soldiers and MegaArmor goes down in two hits at most.

  Do the usual banquet stuff, sparring with the soldiers.  Raja and the Emperor trade jokes and stories the whole night while the rest of the attendees cringe in horror.  Collect my rewards: unlocking the Imperial base is the most important because of the large amount of treasure there.  Also won a Safety Bit and Memento Ring so now I have a full set of ID protection for Air Force.  Load up Rika and Chaz with shiny equipment now that there are no other party members to share it with and set out for the chocobo stable by Tzen.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  Take Chocobo to imperial base and raid it.  I'm fully expecting to be jumped by a monster-in-a-box at least once but the game shows mercy and there are no ambushes in the trove there.  Some very nice finds such as a Wall Ring (money saved), another White Cape, a Gold Hairpin (more relevant since no Osmose) and some armor upgrades.  A few duds too: Rune Edge I generally have no use for and Gauntlet is crap as usual.  Although it's slightly less useless since Raja has no shield to give up and it gives him a little extra defense.

  Story progression, zzzzz.  Chaz and Rika act very out of character.  Maybe there were some hallucinagens concealed in the food at the banquet.  Didn't get into any encounters on the way to Thamasa.  Meet Rune and Kyra and loot the hidden treasure.  There's a Thief Glove which is Raja only and changes Morph to ZoneCle.  Well, after I get the party back together later, I can see what it does.  Save outside and remove any rare gear from Seth before staying at the inn.

  Fire!  Chaz and Rika try to persuade Rune to not go in but all that nets is some insults about Chaz' height.  Rune's command list is Jump, Magic, and Item.  He had a lousy 13 Speed which is low enough to be noticeable.

Jump: Jump I feel is a more defensive command than an offensive one.  1.5x damage of a physical attack at the cost of a turn's delay before it lands isn't a lot considering the delay.  What the Jump command has going for it is full damage from the back row, unevadable, and absolute priority when confirmed.  Commanding a character to Jump will place them at the very front of the action queue and they will leap as soon as any current actions are done animating.  Jumping can occur between enemy multi-actions where it's normally impossible to act between them otherwise.  it can also go between X-Magic casts from allies.  Along with the more obvious use of having the character escape MT spells, this command has a lot of potential defensive utility.  It's mostly sad for offense without a Dragon Horn though and even with one, it's still scaling off a FF6 physical.

  Rune cannot equip any spears so he's not going to be making much of an offensive impression with Jumping.  He can use the Drainer which I picked up on the way to sealed gate which does have a niche use for parasitic healing.  His ability to contribute to the team will mostly come from his Magic list and he doesn't start with any so it will be some time before he can shine.  He'll be lucky to learn more than a token spell or two before the next boss.  He does start at Lv 19 which is welcome since Rika and Chaz are still languishing at 17.

  The monsters here have about 1700 HP and are capable of using Virite so hiding behind Vanish isn't going to work.  The home dance is ST only again but I stick with it rather than chance 50% stumbles with anything else.  The monsters are vulnerable to ID so Chaz is still contributing, even if it's not as much as I'd like.  A full HP monster will survive a Land Slide though a followup physical from Rune will finish it.  Chaz and Rika are only taking about 20-30 a hit but there are a lot of hits from a group of 6 so they add up.  I don't use any magic save for a few Gold Hairpin backed Cures out of battle because I want my MP for the boss.  I gain enough EXP for a level on each with Chaz and Rika somewhat close to another levelup.

  Boss time.  Everyone gets poison protection.  Chaz gets the Gold Hairpin.  Rune takes Zoneseek.  Rika has Kirin.  Open with Zoneseek, Kirin, and Chaz rolling out time magic.  If he gets Quick turns, I often use X-Magic on the second Quick turn so that his ATB stays full for an immediate 3xTime followup.  Depending on how much Quick shows up, this can lead to a very long string of turns as long as his MP holds up.  May have been better to go for an MP kill because it takes a while.  R-Tek usually does nothing because FlameEater has a bunch of elemental immunities.  Rune doesn't do much with only Rasp and 13 Speed.  He does chip in some Drainer Jumps after being hit by magic but not much else.  Chaz is pretty much doing all the damage, eventually using enough space rocks to win.  Takes a while though.  I thought about reflect strats but discarded them since they don't synergize with the rain of time magic.

Buy a Power Sash for Rune.  It comes with ice nullification and I wonder if that will ever come up.  Fight a random in the forest.  Got over 2000 EXP for the three party members.  Well, i know where to go if I resort to leveling up for the floating continent.   

  That ice nullification comes into play sooner than I thought.  Ran into a monster that likes countering things with Surge.  Only survivor of that encounter was Rune.  Ran back to the inn to recover, then went of Esper Mountain.

  Nothing of interest until the Ultros fight.  Instant death protection for everyone to stop Lode Stone.  Chaz TimeLord does his thing.  Neither slow or stop work on Ultros but he has picked up a vulnerability to death so gravity magic rips him up.  Rika contributed some since the many lightning Tek skills hit weakness but this was Timelord's show.  Game was generous enough with giving a long string of Quick turns that combined with another bug, Ultros didn't get to do anything.

Kyra joins midfight and adds some damage with Blitz but they really didn't need her; it just sped things up.  She's undergone a physical training regimen and learned martial arts moves, many of which draw upon her innate talent for magic.  Her command window is the same as Sabin's but is backed by Relm level magic power (starts with 48).  Decent now, will be devastating once she picks up Bum Rush.  The sprite is Tifa and she has the Blitz command.  How randomly fitting, seeing she's a spiritual successor to Sabin for the next FF game.

  Grab treasure.  Only one I really cared about is the BehemothSuit.  102 Defense.  Of the four current members, Rika is the only one who can use it.  228 Defense is very beefy for this point in the game.  Zepher Cape is usually unused unless there's someone who can stack a lot of evade and M. Block.  Finding the Espers, it's a somber scene.  Until one of them starts squee'ing over how cute Rika's ears are, another joins in, and then any seriousness descends into chaos.  Look, the randomizer is called Beyone Chaos, not Calm and Serene.

  Back in Thamasa, Alys and Clyde try to establish some sense of order without any success.  The scene is more like a group of eager fans meeting a celebrity at a fan convention.  Pandemonium is the current state when that party pooper Kefka shows up and does bad things.

  Clyde has CycSnow and Blitz for his commands.  I know which one he'll be using more.  Also was nice enough to come with a Fairy Ring so Kefka's big threat (poison tick damage) is neutralized.  More scenes.  At the fight cutscene where an Esper takes on Kefka, I get the rare occurance of Kefka taking damage from the scripted fire spells.  Just 1 damage but since he normally absorbs fire there, this is an unusual sight.  The casting pose looks a lot like Angela too.

  With Rika's squealing fans turned into unwilling magical weaponry and lots of townspeople murdered off-screen, the mood for the following scenes is much more subdued.  Chaz considers himself thankful he didn't lose Alys (again) but there's a grim atmosphere when the airship turns up.  Party reunited.  Level average is 20 which is about the minimum that I feel I can go to floating continent with without really feeling hampered by lack of max HP.  So level grinding won't be necessary though there are loose ends to tie up before more plot progression.

[DragonKnight Zero]

The main loose ends to take care of are raiding Doma and procuring equipment for Alys and Seth to use as they'll see usage regardless of who else I take.  I also hunt an intangir for the hell of it and fill in some gaps in my Rage list.  Team for the last bit of WoB overworld is Kyra, Demi, Gryz, Hahn though Raja takes part in one battle to try out the Thief Glove.

ZonClea: Zoneseek + CleanSweep combo.  As they both hit the same side, this isn't a particularly great ability, especially for something that takes a Relic slot.  Buffing the enemies isn't something I like doing and only enemies immune to Shell will feel the full force of CleanSweep.  I suppose having a team mainly with physical or defense piercing damage can negate the downside but then why use the skill in the first place?  Not likely to be viable for use on my own party either since getting a full party all immune to water is even more uncommon than fire.  Used this once to flag the lore as learned and throwing the Thief Glove in the trash heap for the rest of the game.

  Going through Dama, there was a monster in a clock (another one?)  Got very lucky there using a Rage with a Stop special to freeze it in place and when stop wore off, another Stop special came out to freeze it again without it getting in a turn.  Although I did eat a pair of Fallen One counters, the monster in the clock never got an actual turn before it died.  For all that trouble, nothing whatsoever.  Cheapskate.  The Intangir replacement I found on triangle island was a tame one.  Only about 130 MP and dies at MP =0 so two Rasp casts did it in.

  Splurged on the auction house here.  The Light Robe is a straight upgrade while Ether is generally hard to come by.  Spent the 30,000 GP getting both.  Add the equipment purchases for Alys and Seth as well as supplies for the floating continent and my team is close to broke.  Yet again.

  Still haven't beat the monsters-in-clock at Nikeah.  With my median level of 20 and the monsters opening with L5 Doom, it doesn't feel worth the bother.  They'll still be there in the WoR when I'm ready for them.

  The next segment of the game calls for more thought in team selection.  With two boss fights, a rough dungeon, another tough boss, and then a timed section; being reckless in my team doesn't appeal to me.  Ideally for me, the chosen team will be able to complete everything in one trip.  This entails having enough supplies as well as planning ahead of time whether I be going for an HP kill or an MP kill on AtmaWeapon.

  For a regular HP kill, I'd like at least one member who can do at least 3000 damage a turn and sustain it long enough.  Such an approach also calls for good healing abilities for the nastier attacks and robust status protection and curing to deal with Mind Blast is also advisable.  Access to a source of reflect status is nice for the phase where it counters damage with spells.

  MP killing calls for the Rasp spell on at least three people by the time of the fight.  Reflect or high enough max HP to survive Flare is also highly desirable.  Still need to have the resources to recover from the attacks AtmaWeapon will use in its high HP phase.

  None of my Espers have Cure 2 or Osmose available so my group lacks a reliable way to quickly recover from high MT damage.  Which includes Meteo and also Diffuser/Atomic Ray/WaveCannon nonsense from Air Force.  MP intensive characters are not a great choice either.  No one has strong MT heals in their skillset other than once-per-battle Spiraler or unreliable Dances.  Seth has either bad damage or damage that eats through my money (when I've hit poverty 5 times this game already) and has a Magic command so going for an MP kill seems better.

  There's also the timed escape sequence to plan for.  The Imp spell is a sure bet in vanilla to deal with the Naughties but not always viable in randomizer.  Either because the Imp spell isn't available, the Naughty lost its normal vulnerability, or haxed by auto-reflect so having backup damage is a must, preferably painful and fast animating.  Throw is great.  Bltiz is usually good.  GP Rain is quick and dependable and if there ever is a time to sacrifice money for survival, the timed escape may be it.  Naughty is level 24 so L4 Flare from a decent Magic stat (40 or more) will tear big chunks out of it.  Stone is usually painful enough if the caster is at Lv 24 but the innate accuracy can be a source of frustration.

  And because I get enjoyment from it, character analysis section.

Pika - R-Tek, Magic, Item  R-Tek isn't sweeping battles to the same extent as earlier in the game but it's still mostly serviceable.  I'm less fond of it in long battles because the small random chance of doing something stupid (ForceField nulls lightning, there goes a lot of the skill's damage) magnifies as fights get more drawn out.  Good armor selection, awful weapon selection but she's unlikely to use her physical so not that big a loss.  The random nature of her skillset is a liability in the timed escape.

Chaz - 3xTime, Dance, X-Magic  Being able to randomly roll Quick from 3xTime and having X-Magic synergize so well for giving him lots of turns as long as his MP lasts.  Lots and lots and lots of turns for boss fights or inescapable randoms.  Dance as MP independent offense still matters due to lack of Osmose but is dropping off in potency.  He's a great choice for everything but the escape.  The long time it takes for that string of time magic to animate becomes a liability with a timer to beat.  No weapons but an Imp Halberd though with that skillset, who's going to bother with a physical.  Also did well in armor options.

Raja - Morph, Throw, Magic  Part of my shopping includes stocking over 90 Shuriken.  This should be enough for him to meaningfully contribute offense.  Morph combos nicely with Throw for even more pain for boss battles.  Defense is ugly though.  No shield and next to no armor choices.  Best body armor is a Silk Robe.  Only 119 Def. and 92 M. Def. when fully geared and Relics aren't going to make up the difference.  With 6 forced pincer attacks to get through, he's bait unless the monsters can be shut out with invisibility.  Very much a glass cannon option who is terrible for the IAF, mid-range for the floating continent main segment, but great for the escape.  He's also the only choice for stealing in the IAF sequence.  Doesn't do much good if he's eating dirt though.

Seth - Sketch, GP Rain, Magic  I'm including him in the character analysis even though he's the only choice for a 4th on the FC.  Sketch is terrible over 90% of the time, except for those rare moments it isn't.  GP Rain is terrible in groups even if I do have cash to spare but reliable unevadable, piercing damage when desperate.  Magic is only as good as the available spells and it's so-so for the WoB.    The low resources also make it something to be used sparingly.  He gets a fairly decent equipment selection and can wield the ThiefKnife so he has some kind of utility and it's not a struggle to keep him alive.  Also able to contribute to MP killing AtmaWeapon.

Wren - SonicBoom, Spiraler, Item  Awful skill selection.  Your standard boss will have death immunity so his best damage is whacking with the Murasame.  When Fight with a katana from the front row is your best damage, that's a bad sign.  I don't have the tools to make regular use of Spiraler in randoms (Osmose, Cure, and Life or free revival) and one shot of full healing generally won't be enough for the upcoming bosses.  Only other source of offense is item breaks and giving how broke my party is, that's not happening.  I'm generally willing to take a sub-optimal team and find a way to win but Wren is unviable even for me.

Demi - Fenrir, Rage, Magic  Arguably the best character of the group.  Fenrir is still bonkers at this point for shutting out physicals.  Can still get whacked in the back during IAF forced pincers so less effective there than usual.  There's a Rage for almost every situation though given the limitations of the game, it takes advance study to use well.  She has several that can drain MP making her the only character with MP restoration that doesn't require items.  Does have a few drawbacks in needing front row for most of her offense and needing a lot of investment to work out what Rage to use when.  Also loses the ability to resummon Fenrir after Raging which can matter if a battle stretches out/luck is bad.  Overall highly viable though not quite automatic pick level.

Alys - BioElNino, Magic, Item  Included for completeness.  Definitely staying behind since bringing her would reduce my party to 3 for the timed escape.  She's really not that good for that portion anyways.  Naughties and Nerapa have a high probability of resisting her main damage (let alone Nerapa's auto-reflect) and Fight sucks when in a hurry.  Would be a decent choice for the other stuff.  Her combo skill is still almost always her best damage, even if enemy durability has been rising faster.  Also can use the Drainer which can see use as poverty parasitic healing, novelty that it is.

Rune - Jump, Magic, Item  Damage output is awful unless willing to learn Fire 2 or Ice 2 (I don't have access to Bolt 2 yet) and willing to spend the MP.  Given no Osmose and lack of finances to stash a lot MP restores, not a sustainable option.  At the low 20s, FF6 physicals are still laughable so Jumps won't be doing much in the way of damage.  Jump does have some neat quirks.  The command priority means he can Jump away during Nerapa's opening death sentence spam, which means one less long animation to sit through.  This is an advantage no other character has.  Being able to combine Drainer with Jump improves parasitic healing.  It will be a chore to get him to that one battle where he can uniquely contribute.  Having Magic means he can contribute to the AtmaWeapon MP kill as well.  Apt to struggle on the floating continent itself and his lack of damage will be keenly felt at Air Force and the rest of the IAF.

Kyra - Blitz, Magic, Item  With Relm level magic backing it up, Blitz is always able to provide offense.  Has Mantra thanks to Leo/Clyde which does have some niche applications that I often forget about.  Got the short end of the stick on defense options.  Her best and only shield option is a Heavy shield.  While her other armor options aren't as restricted as Raja's, she's still limited to weaker choices.  Her best armor options leaves her at 132 Def. and 96 M. Def. which is nearly as bad as Raja's.  Viable thanks to her offense but using her and Raja in the same team would be a bad idea.

Hahn - CycSnow, HastShr, Item  Less bad then Wren, which isn't saying much.  CycSnow is more useful in doing work in randoms.  And his strongest weapon is back row compatible so he is less exposed.  Still awful at bosses since a Hasted boss is generally not desirable to have; he's limited to Fight for boss offense.  Also lacking on defense.  Limited to Heavy shield for shield slot though better head and body armor options.  Functionally deadweight with AtmaWeapon and Naughties.  While less of a liability than Wren, he's still unviable for my standards.

Lucca - MertRag, Lore, Magic  Merton + Rage is suicide.  I have one Blizzard Orb and Demi can immune it with some Rages but anyone else dies.  Has a good Lore selection but it sucks down MP like nobody's business to use it.  I have one Gold Hairpin but that's not quite enough to last between save points.  Weapon selection is stinky so backup physical isn't doing much.  Despite having L4 Flare and being a top pick for the timed escape, her heavy MP reliance has me rating her low right on the border of viability and I'll only use her if I'm stuck.

Gryz - Tools, Magic, Item.  Solid and easy to use.  I have all the tools except Air Anchor so he can always contribute.  Has the Magic command so can help out with the AtmaWeapon MP kill and provide utility as needed.  Drill doesn't do quite as much as I would like for the timed escape but is otherwise a dependable damage option.

My available Magic -
White: Cure, Life , Regen, Antdot, Remedy
Black: Fire, Bolt, Poison, Fire 2, Ice 2, Drain, Demi, Quarter, WWind
Grey: Scan, Rasp, Float,Vanish, Dispel, Berserk, Mute, Sleep, Imp, Stop, Reflect, Safe, Shell, Slow 2, haste2

So any magic users have status spells to deal with dangerous foes and the basics for out of battle patchups.  No strong attack magic for bosses though or higher level Cure magic to recover from nastier attacks.

I settled with Kyra, Demi, and Gryz for my Floating Continent team.  No particular reason other than being low-leveled and viable.  Demi is really good though takes a lot of effort to use.  Tools and Blitz all offer solid enough damage options.  Demi is the only character with MP absorption which makes her the ideal between battle medic.  Cue 20 minutes of studying to work out which Rages i want to use for the next part.

  The IAF enemies are a hazardous bunch.  One uses Sand Storm at will and can appear in pairs.  Two Sand Storms lay out Kyra from full HP nearly every time.  The other enemy is an unremarkable physicaller but the threat of Sand Storm prevents hiding behind Phantom and cruising.  That enemy also has Sneeze, which even if it comes up only when using Fight or if confused, ends up a bit relevant.  Demi ends up using a Rage which casts Cure 3 and immunes wind.  Gryz uses Noiseblaster, Chain Saw, or Flash depending on the situation.  Kyra uses magical Blitzes unless she got sent to the deck before getting a turn.  I never actually died but did reset a few times to find my rythym.  As long as Demi doesn't run out of MP, I'm good.  She'll use an MP absorb Rage for a fight as needed but it didn't come up in the successful run.  I was hoping to gain a level for Demi before Ultros 4 but randomness and confused monsters sneezing away their allies (denying me EXO) denied me this.

Boss prep time: Memento Rings for Kyra and Gryz.  Kyra gets the Blizzard Orb since her M. Def is so low, letting her null Atomic Ray is more important.  Kyra gets Zoneseek, Demi gets Phantom, Gryz gets Kirin.  Demi doesn't get ID protection since Rage overwrites that property.

Open Ultros 4 with Kirin, then Phantom and lay into him with Poison Claw strikes, Fire Dance/Aurabolt, and Bio Blaster (due to poison weakness and Ultros' low defenses, it does more than Drill).  When Chupon shows up, Berserk him.  Battle won at this point and it doesn't matter what I use as long as it doesn't break invisibility.

Air Force: A character that immunes/absorbs lightning and fire with ID protection is immune to everything Air Force and its parts can try.  As it so happens, Demi has a Rage that meets all these criteria and it has a 4x damage Special as a bonus.  As soon as Demi gets a turn and uses this Rage, the battle is won.  i could have set down the controller at this point but felt it would be worth the effort to try to have at least Gryz survive too.  Seeing as he has 182 magic defense.  So Zoneseek goes up and Kirin when I can spare a turn.  I was prepared to lose Kyra but Air Force played nice and stuck to Tek Laser mostly.  MissileBay can do nothing to a team with ID protection.  A Shelled Gryz takes double digit damage from Tek Laser and even Kyra is only being hurt for about 100-150 a laser.  Cure from Gryz and regen is able to keep up.  Laser Gun immunes poison so the battle goes longer than it could have but doesn't put me in danger of losing.  I saw one Diffuser but the boss failed to follow up with more nasty stuff and Atomic Ray only scratches the M. Def. tank.  Kyra is still alive at the end of the battle.

Use the save point, pick up Seth and gear him up, and use save point again.  I, uh, forgot to give Seth the ThiefKnife even though it's probably the most overall useful stat stick for him so for most of the FC, no lucky steals.  He's doing alright on defenses so I don't fear for his life the way I do Kyra.

  The monsters are a mixed bunch that keep me awake.  One has random Fire Wall and can show up in groups of 3.  Bad news if 2 focus on one character as they can 2-shot anyone besides Gryz.  Weak to holy so an Aurabolt and almost any followup damage will drop one.  Another randomly counters damage with Sneeze and has a Special strong enough to flatten Kyra from full to nothing and leave anyone else hurting.  Vulnerable to instant death and petrify so a petrify Special or Chain Saw are best for them.  Another foe uses Magnitude 8 but I had Demi cast Float on everyone outside of battle so danger mostly averted.  Another has a Zombie special and absorbs poison so maybe leaving that Poison Claw on Demi was not a good idea.  All these are immune to confuse by the way so Noiseblaster can't cheese them.

  Fenrir mostly turns aside physical threats but the monsters are durable enough that they have an OK chance of living long enough to land a hit.  I wound up with two zombie at one point but was already retreating to the save point so a Tent fixes that up.  Got a Diamond Vest as one of the few treasures.  Nothing special; it's stronger than the Mithril Vest Kyra is wearing.  She'd appreciate it, if she could use it.  The rest of the group has stronger stuff.  Got 2 more Tao Robes from drops, better than any of the storebought stuff.
  Ran into a dangerous enemy that counters with Demi or Quarter and likes casting Flare, Doom, and X-zone.  My team already had ID protection to prevent zombification so the ID spells were a non-issue but Flare overkilling for 2000 was a threat.  Couldn't run from them either.  Of all the crazy things to happen, I wouldn't have planned on Reflect saving my ass.  Sketch did OK on this enemy, launching Flare for about 1200 or so.  Not as much because Square made an incomprehensible decision to multiply monster magic power by 1.5 for damage calculation. 
  EXP was about as good as vanilla.  Everyone reached Lv 23 except Kyra, with Demi reaching Lv 24.  Kyra learned Cure 2 at Lv 22 which is a welcome tool even though I don't think I will be needing its power while MP killing AtmaWeapon.  Demi's MP went down and up like a seesaw but I got through without dipping into the item supply.  Used a Tent before the dash for the bossfight so that everyone is topped off on MP, of course.  Spent time studying Rages to find out what I wanted to use for the escape before starting the Atmaweapon fight and escape segment.

  AtmaWeapon is big, mean, durable, and isn't going to show mercy just because it's a randomizer and the character options could suck.  Kyra gets the Blizzard Orb to null Blaze/Fire 2 because her magic defense is the worst.  She also gets the Wall Ring because of her lowest max HP.  Everyone else has close to 900 or more so should survive a Flare from full health.  Gryz gets the Gold Hairpin and Earrings since he's constantly casting unlike Demi who might need to refresh Fenrir.  Seth has a ThiefKnife because I'm going to go for a steal.  I spread out Carbuncle, Zoneseek, and Krin among the team.
  I don't have anyone capable of slowing Atmaweapon so just have to go without.  Carbuncle, Zoneseek and Fenrir go up on the first round with Kirin when I can spare a turn.  Rasp away while refreshing Fenrir as needed.  Seth attacks a few times until he steals something; it's a Rage Ring here.  Nice find giving fire absorb and lightning null like vanilla and everyone can use it.  I don't bother refreshing reflect status when it wears off.  Flare is dealt with by Mantra and a Cure spell; this is generally enough combined with regen ticks.  Seth dodged a Flare at 51 M. Block, nice.  Blaze/Fire 2 is handled by Mantra with maybe a followup Cure if it was ST.  Physicals are nulled by image status from Fenrir.  Even with my resource conservation ways, it still takes about 50-70% of the party's MP to win.  The boss drops a useless Gauntlet.  Boo, hiss.  Swap Demi's weapon to a non-elemental one before triggering the cutscene.

  Alys comes on to the scene for payback.  Also to collect her fee that the Empire stiffed her on.  Given that she's not that experienced with using swords, her assassination attempt falls short.  Too late, Gestahl realizes evil Angela is less loyal than he thought.  He tries to stop her but is no match for angry bitch energy and takes a very long fall he's not getting up from.  Evil Angela proceeds to have a tantrum to end all tantrums, only Kuja can compare.  More plot stuff I'm not coming up with jokes for and timed escape is up next.

  I looked up Naughty stats ahead of time as I don't want to fight Atmaweapon again because of nonsense.  Weak to fire, bolt, and holy like vanilla, nullifies all other elements.  Vulnerable to imp, mute, petrify, and zombie.  Mute isn't that important but the other three are all useful in ending Naughty fights faster.  There's no way to inflict petrify or zombie on them in vanilla but here Demi has both petrify and zombie Rages that bypass instant death protection.  They also die if dropped to 0 MP though that's not always practical if they roll high magic defense.

  My group of 4 runs for the exit.  First Naughty I have Demi use an MP absorb special since she's nearly empty from Atmaweapon.  A followup Rasp finishes this one.  Any others, I use one specific zombie inducing Rage.  Either it zombifies the Naughty in one shot or it casts Flare for about 1700.  In that case, Aurabolt and Drill finish it off.  Alys is deadweight on offense so she's acting as out-of-battle medic.  Nerapa falls to Aurabolt, Chainsaw, and the same Rage I used to guarantee a win on Air Force.  Made it to the end with about a minute to spare.  Save Seth and run for it.  The airship breaks apart.  Oh no, the villain has won.

Star of World of Ruin coming up next.

[DragonKnight Zero]

World of Ruin start

   We join Alys as she's waking up.  She's been sleeping for a year, she's been told.  More than enough time for an old man to creep on her sleeping form, she uncomfortably realizes.  Momentarily resisting the urge to smack him as he did keep her alive, she sets out for an exercise routine.

  It's far easier to let Cid die.  Just stand still for 2 minutes or so and talk to him.  Alys isn't that coldhearted to let him die.  Also feels she could use the exercise walking back and forth bringing him fish.  Saving him is quite dependent on the RNG.  I stick to only catching fast moving fish since any others have a 2/3 chance of making him sicker on a blind pick.  So if the game decides to be trolly and not spawn fast fish 6 times in a row, yeah it can take a while.  Eventually save him and win a raft for getting off this blasted rock.  Cid's better; he can catch his own fish now.  Now that he's (relatively) healthy, Alys lets him no in no uncertain terms that she will smack him if he tries sharing her measurements with anyone that happens by.  Never mind that it's unlikely anyone will stop by on an isolated rock.

  Gameplay talk for a moment.  Starting the WoR de-equips all characters, including KAMOG and scenario MOG.  So I have all their stuff now.  The only really exciting thing here is an Economizer, which I'll be putting to use soon enough.  As there's nobody to share gear with, Alys grabs the best equipment for herself.  Check out Albrook.  There's new stuff in shops but nothing I need just yet.  In the first random I encounter, use a 1 MP Phantom and cruise, using Alys' combo magic to wipe groups on the way to Tzen.

   In Tzen, one would normally find Sabin here.  I randomized the character locations in the WoR so it can be a different character here.  In this case, it's Alys' apprentice Chaz.  He's undergone some serious strength training in the intervening year and can hold up an entire house with his slender fairy body. (the male Esper fairy sprite, no sexy lady fairy here)  Not forever though so Alys needs to hustle to save the trapped kid.  Another potentially nightmarish timed section though thankfully the last save is closer by so less progress lost on a failed attempt.

  WoR character randomization: Celes, Edgar, Setzer, and Shadow will be in the same places as vanilla to prevent bugs but the others will be scrambled.  All characters will be recruitable (unless you use an out-of-date version of the randomizer where it is possible to have Relm and Mog locked behind each other).  Any events that require a specific character will still require that same character: need Sabin for Bum Rush, Relm to wake up whoever join Kefka's cult, Locke to unlock the doors in Narshe, etc...

  Since Alys is invisible, I don't take the free heal at the inn.  No room for flexibility on Relics, a Charm Bangle for less encounters and a Memento Ring to prevent petrify.  I do reset once voluntarily because of a Presenter in a box.  No time to defeat in normally so reset to come back with Shoat and one-shot it.  Got a Moogle Suit out of it.  The randoms cooperate for the most part, dying in one turn.  Well, there is one that survive and Sneezes me out (losing invisibility) and another that showed up near the end with auto-reflect.  Alys is more durable now and doesn't suicide herself on reflected Bio anymore and that monster died to El Nino anyways so make it out in time.

  Only other new treasure is a Heal Rod.  Neither Chaz or Alys can use it but it might see use when I do have a party member that can since I don't have Osmose to lean on.  Except this Heal Rod procs Crusader which is terrible.  Can't heal allies with this; Crusader might murder them.  Can't use it on enemies; they'll always get healed unless Crusader procs, living or undead.  Can't even Throw it since it will adopt Crusader's targeting and murder my party along with the enemies.  Pretty much utterly useless but it's so in the spirit of a randomizer that I get some laughs anyways.

  I gear up Chaz then travel to the nearby Chocobo forest.  The few randoms get steamrolled by Dance and BioElNino.  With Alys at Lv 22 and Chaz joining at 21, the pair lack the +1000 HP to deal with Phunbaba in Mobliz so I ride all the way to Nikeah.

  I buy a Tempest for Wren's future use but there are no other equipment upgrades for sale.  Find Wren except he's claiming to be Gerad now.  Should be obvious; how many other quadraped, man-sized turtles are there in this world?  But he picked up an Atelier butterfly mask so everyone is fooled other than the no-nonsense Alys.  Sneak on the thieves ship to South Figaro.  Check contents of some crates and barrels I left in the WoB since they'll have better stuff now.  But one of them holds a monster which murders the pair on turn 2 with a Rage that does more than their maximum HP.  Dammit, now I got to sit through cutscenes again.

  Reload from last save, do cutscenes again, avoid checking death-in-a-box and safety save outside South Figaro.  Check remaining treasures but all I find is mid-WoB tier armor and a Magicite item.  Check out the shops and send Gerad on his way.  I fight one random outside for the heck of it before resting at the inn.  It happens to give about 4000 EXP which is good for a level on both.

  Randomizer went to merciless with lots of magical death for the WoR cave to South Figaro where Alys and Chaz must head to next.  One monster has Shrapnel that's strong enough to OHKO if focused.  Can appear in a group of 4 and absorbs water so Alys is severely gimped.  Another has Quasar and GrandTrain and absorbs poison.  Amazingly, its level and magic are low enough that even GrandTrain is survivable at full HP.  With only Cure and unreliable Dance for healing though, a second spell will spell annihilation.  It's durable enough to last a few turns too.  Another threat has a zombie Special and absorbs poison so once again Alys isn't helping to kill it fast.  After a few losses to zombification, I put Memento Rings on both characters.

  For the magic using threats, I eventually hit upon resorting to 3xTime and hoping for something decisive.  Both are vulnerable to ID so X-Zone is grand.  Quarter also could be enough.  Quick is great, six more chances to roll a useful spell and sometimes exploiting a bug that will rob enemies of turns.  Even Warp to get the hell out intact is a welcome result.  The randoms racked up a high fail count before I made it through.  5 deaths from Shrapnel, 3 from GrandTrain or Quasar, 2 from zombification before I wised up.  It got easier when I reached the castle as the encounters shifted towards more things that the pair could handle and less magical death if the RNG hates me.  Used 1 MP Cure between battles when my HP drops low so didn't have problems with resources.  Got a level each before the boss fight; more max HP is definitely welcome.  Treasure is mostly whatever.  A bunch of weapons and some helmets with bad magic defense.  The fire absorb on the Crystal Helm gives it a bit more use though.  Mirage Vest would be interesting but with battles generally running longer now, I'm less inclined to take the defensive hit it would give.

  RunningShoes on both for the Tentacles fight.  Alys gets a Fairy Ring so that poison ticks don't end up as her undoing.  Chaz gets the Economizer and also sacrifices defense for a Chocobo Suit to laugh off Poison and Bio.  Go with Golem for Alys' Esper.  Chaz' doesn't matter since he can't summon.

  The lower left Tentacle randomized away its vanilla death vulnerability so there goes the one really useful thing Wren could have done.  Alys opens with Golem and fires away with BioElNino, switching to physicals after two go down.  Most of the Tentacles resist one of her elements so things take longer.  Game is fairly generous with giving Chaz Quick-turns.  Happens often enough that the Tentacles don't get that many turns.   And when he can set himself up with a full ATB after time freeze for 2 MP, he can keep up for quite a while.  Very, very gamebreaking. Wren is deadweight with only a physical attack to contribute damage and I don't stress too much about keeping him alive.  Fate smiles upon him though and he survives the fight.  Just kept up the parade of time magic until I got enough space rocks to land.  With the Tentacles low HP relative to what Chaz can do, they don't last long.

  Looking back, putting Alys ins slot 3 with RunningShoes/Wall Ring would have been even better.  One, random magic that benefits allies only can hit random targets on the same side of the field as the caster.  With Alys on the opposite side, there would have been no worry about bouncing Haste or Regen off her Wall Ring.  Regen would have been very bad given the limited damage output of this group.  Second, the Wall Ring limits the opposition to physicals and Seize to hurt Alys.  She can swap to whacking with a Drainer for parasitic healing, so would have been the most guaranteed way to victory instead of leaving her open to Bio like I did.

Head over to Kohlingen and find Hahn moping in the inn.  One sense slapping session later, he's back on the active roster.  I load him up with gear from my stash and shudder as it sinks in that I have two forced deadweights for Dullahan.  I'm not looking forward to that one but I'll deal with that when I get there.  For now, the destination is the colliseum hoping for some useful trades.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  At the colliseum, the only trade I do right now is trading in a FakeMustache for a Memento Ring.  I now have a set of ID protection for a full party of 4 if I want it.  Return to Figaro castle for a heal and move on to Daryl's tomb.

  I get an uncomfortable feeling about the boss.  Wren and Gryz are offensively deadweight with only Fight for dealing damage.  At least they're doing well enough on defense and magic defense; someone with Raja's durability I might leave dead (or as a statue though that's not an option here)  Anyways, Alys gets Zoneseek and the Gold Hairpin.  Chaz gets the Economizer.  For the fight itself, Alys opens with Zoneseek and prioritizes utility on her other turns.  Chaz launches into his TimeLord impression.  Wren and Hahn Fight if they're healthy or toss items when I don't feel like it's safe risking a counter.  Would be hilarious for the audience if the counters hurt for more than my characters do though not the case here.  I had a team safe from L? Pearl at the save point but in a randomizer moment, a random put my GP into a range where Alys was vulnerable.  Lucky for me, it only did about 350.  With everyone shelled, the worst Dullahan could do was ST Ice 3 for about 600 on Hahn, who had the lowest magic defense.  Cures from Alys with some help from Chaz now and then were able to keep up.  Scariest moment was N. Cross freezing everyone but Alys.  A simple Fire spell got the group moving again.  As far as dealing damage, Chaz carries; the others occasionally peck at it for 300-400 a shot.

  Airship launched.  The music replacement that I'll be hearing a lot of is the opening from FF5.  The music randomization seems to be leaning heavy on FF5 on this one.  In Beyond Chaos, Gau will already be on the airship, no need to track him down on the Veldt.  Or in the case or randomizer WoR character locations, a random character.  Here, it's Raja who's become available right away.  I could theoretically do Cyan's dream right now, bad idea that it is.  He has not undergone level averaging at all, being in the same state as the end of the WoB.  He can use the Diamond Vest so his defenses are less bad than before but still awful for this stage of the game.  Even more because he's underleveled relative to the group.

  Stop by Maranda to mail off Lola's letter.  It's surprisingly easy to skip but it's required to pick up the Rust-Rid for entering Mt. Zozo.  The game does reveal who is up there; this time it's Rune who is doing an impression of a dead boyfriend.  The group will be sure to tease him mercilessly when they find him but it won't be for a while yet.  Pick up Palidor, who doesn't give access to any new spells.  I have the funds to do so so I buy Raja a Sniper.  This is one of the few weapons that I consider significant for attacking with; it can put up respectable numbers on flying enemies.  Having a backup physical is more relevant because the are no Shuriken for sale in the WoR.

  Next destination is Narshe since I have Chaz on hand to unlock doors.  Alys swaps out for Raja since the segment is so short.  Also, free recovery is never far off so I'm not too worried about casualties in randoms.  Two enemies prove a threat.  One has very high evade and throws blades given a chance.  Low enough HP that one throw from Raja takes it out.  Another gets trigger-happy with Scar Beam, Blizzard, and Tek Laser and resists instant death so Wren and Hahn aren't doing much on it.  Really humiliating being chipped to death by these opponents as they come in groups of 3 and about 3300 HP so can survive a full round of attacks from my group.

  Got an Aegis shield and a Marvel Shoes for this short detour.  Aegis shield is very nice for M. Block stacking so the ideal user has other sources of M. Block boosting gear.  Marvel Shoes are generally nice to have around.

  I want Fenrir so Mobliz is next.  Chaz and Alys reached Lv 25 and have over 1000 max HP.  Wren and Hahn can reach that with a Red Cap/Green Beret.  So they're the team I take.  Kyra is playing caretaker to the kids there.  She's not inclined to join the group and leave them at the mercy of Phunbaba.  It's green, it's grotesque, it can beat Quina and Cecelia Adelhyde at an eating contest.  Phunbaba's attack script is something I bothered to learn.  The most relevant bit is that Blow Fish may make an appearance every 3rd turn.  Used the same tactics and setup as Dullahan.  Chaz still carries.  There's less HP to burn through, there's no damage counters, and Hahn has the Aegis shield and 62 M. Block so things go smoother.  Fenrir won and I find its spells are also taught by other Espers.  Check my gear to make sure I have stuff for Kyra before heading back in for the next portion.

Phunbaba rematch, haha that one gave me some trouble.  Bababreath blowing away random characters can complicate things.  A log of highlights, or lowlights as the case may be.

Failure #1: Wren intentionally uses Spiraler at the first part for science.  The idea being that Bababreath favors blowing away dead characters so that I'd guarantee him being blown away.  Find out that doesn't apply to characters removed from the battlefield by Spiraler or Pep Up suicide.  Start the last part with a dead Wren, Hahn, and Kyra.  I just reset there rather than try to fight it out.
Failure #2: Phunbaba blows away Chaz and Alys again.  Kyra isn't up to acting as support all by herself and if she gets smacked by Blow Fish, it's over.  The group is eventually overwhelmed.  Phunbaba randomly countering damage with Bolt 2 is not nice.
Failure #3: Left with the deadweight again with much the same outcome as before.  Also, I was an idiot and didn't give Wren or Hahn a Rage Ring.  And the Marvel Shoes as well.  Would have been able to safely attack at least.  Regen and safe would have given Hahn a chance though it would have taken ages with such low damage.

  Next attempt, the game shows mercy and blows away both deadweight characters.  With Chaz and Alys both able to share the burden of keeping the team alive, Kyra gets turns to attack with.  And it turns out that Aurabolt does about 2500.  Forgot to check for sleep vulnerability but with Zoneseek from Alys taking the edge off Bolt 2 counters and Chaz getting lots of actions, won without trouble.

  Kyra back on the team means I can grab whoever ended up suckered into Kefka's cult.  The group finds Demi there.  This is glorious because having Demi gives access to Bum Rush.  Kyra succeeds in triggering Demi's emotional programming and brings her over to Duncan.  Imagine Sabin with 20 more magic power because that's the sort of power Kyra wields now.  She's still quite the glass cannon; 143 Defense and 132 Magic Defense is the best she can do with her armor options so while she can dish out pain, isn't going to be taking hits well.

I now have enough party members that I have no reason to keep using Wren for durability and could just leave him on the airship forever.  I'm crazy though so haven't permanently benched him yet.  Team of Kyra, Raja, Wren, and Hahn goes around to take care of some loose ends before I go looking for more characters or Espers.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  Remembering I have an extra Gauntlet, I stop by the colloseum to bet it.  It trades for a Rage Ring, a far more useable Relic.  I also tackle those monsters-in-boxes that kicked my ass earlier in the game.  Turns out the pair in the Nkeah clock go down to a single Bum Rush.  I have a full team with ID resistance too so I deliberately trigger a counter to get Step Mine for my Lore list.  Turns out boring Fight doesn't trigger Blaster/Step Mine counters.  Could have won much earlier then, oh well.  The one in South Figaro goes down in two Bum Rushes before it gets its second turn which would have murdered the party.  Counters Throw with Throw, ouch.  I finish scouting out the shops.  Randomizer is random and the highest tier of buyable headgear I could hope to find isn't for sale.  Oath Veils and Circlets are both not available in stores and Mystery Veils are only usable by 4 characters.  Looks like some characters are getting boned for helmet choices.  Ninja Stars run 920 apiece and I really don't have that much to spare so I don't get very many.

  Shuffling stuff around in case of surprise Doom Gaze encounters is a bit annoying but preferable to getting caught off guard.  I'll cover my thought process in more detail when I go to hunt it down but right now, I feel unprepared to finish it off.  I have no source of wind resistance and Aero can hurt, especially since my two magic users have low magic defense.

  Triangle island and the Zone Eater is the destination.  Most likely, I would go here even if the current group wasn't so ill-suited for boss battles.  Another character, 9 treasures, and no boss make it a lucrative option.  The enemies are cooperative about being ID vulnerable so my fractional damage can work.  For everything else, Bum Rush.  I had some concern since my Magic users both have fragile durability but the area is short enough to not risk losing lots of progress.  Among the haul is a Magus Rod, a Cure Ring that also gives 10 M. Block, and a Dragon Horn.  Which is character-specific to either Gogo or Umaro, too bad.  Rika had gotten curious enough to explore the realm of Worm Gut and the party finds her here.  She's the first one to rejoin that can use the Magus Rod.  Combined with a 20 M. Block Mystery Veil, a Tao Robe, and the Cure Ring also from this trip, this gives her a solid stack of 77 M. Block.  She takes Wren's place in the party and I decide this is a good group to go pay Owzer a visit.  Bought 5 more Tents before dropping by.

  I really want high damage for Chadarnook and fortunately, this team has it between Bum Rush and Throw.  Someone really doesn't want visitors since the lady painting hold two monsters with over 50000 HP and very strong Fire 2, Blaze, and Poison magics.  They're living so no one-shotting them with Life.  Only got past because Kyra has a Crystal Helm that absorbs fire and a Moogle Suit to null Poison.  The monsters also use Mute which is fine since I'm killing them with Bum Rush.  Kyra immunes everything but a berserk Special which only shows up as a counter to Magic (including reflected magic, as I find out in a failed battle).  Many, many Bum Rushes later, she solos and the monsters drop nothing whatsoever.  No EXP, cash, or spell learning points.  What a rip.  I stay a night at the inn to get everyone back up before continuing.

  I don't encounter many randoms but the monsters guarding the floating treasure chests give a lot of trouble.  The main threat can break out Lifeshaver and Absolute 0 on turn 2 and sometimes doublecasts.  There are 4 of them to deal with each time and they have 6000 HP.  Kicked my butt a bunch of times when trying to get through.  Unless I got lucky with Cyclonic and/or Blaster, once they start casting, my party is decimated.  Winning attempt involved summoning Stray since they are thankfully vulnerable to confusion to tie them up.  It buys enough time for Hahn or Rika to bring them to their knees.
  Other monster has Imp and a silence special to counter damage with.  Either hitting Rika or Hahn puts the team in danger of annihilation.  Immune to death and by extension, fractional damage.  One Bum Rush takes it out, unless of course, Kyra gets imped.  The treasure wasn't even that great but since my team does have the tools to win the fights, shaky as it is, was too stubborn to pass it up.  Everyone gains 2-3 levels, the extra max HP being welcome for the boss.  Raja picks up Pearl at Lv 23.  Nifty as I don't have an Esper to teach it, but probably not seeing much use given access to Throw and a middling 22 Magic.

   The talented artist Owzer hired is Gryz.  Didn't expect that from the Motavian who main MO is smash with axe.  Got to flush a demon out of a painting before he'll rejoin the traveling band.

  So Chadarnook.  He's a prick in randomizer, even more so if he counters with Bolt 3.  There's also the phase shifting gimmick which is triggered by taking a number of attacks or a set amount of battle time.  Even if you're careful, the ATB can still screw you by triggering a phase shift right before your attack goes off (even with Wait).  And then Phantasm and there's HP leak to worry about.  Lullaby and Charm can also inhibit the party's ability to fight.

  Did I mention that I still only have Cure from Espers.  Kyra has Cure 2 but she's also vital on offense so I really don't want to take her away from that.  Preparations include giving Kyra the Wall Ring and Blizzard Orb.  Safe from Bolt counters and absorbs Flash Rain when it starts showing up.  Only physicals can reach her but regen from Kirin will help with that or Hahn or Rika can dispense items if it comes to that.  Raja gets a Rage Ring to null lightning.  This way, the high damage people can attack safely.  Carbuncle, Zoneseek, and Kirin get spread out among the three Magic users.  Chadarnook absorbs lightning so R-Tek won't be useful and Hahn is pretty much deadweight for offense.  Rika and Hahn have 77 and 62 M. Block to help dodge Lullaby/Charm but the attackers have very low M. Block so they are wide open.

  Rough plan involves casting Zoneseek and Kirin before the demon form comes out.  Cast Carbuncle and start piling on as much damage as I can while protected by reflect.  The idea is to give as little chance as possible for the boss to ruin me with Lullaby/Charm/Phantasm.  Also because my healing sucks and I risk getting worn down by Flash Rain if the fight drags out.  I spin R-Tek once while the boss is still at full HP but don't get anything that useful.  Rika and Hahn stick to utility duty once reflect has worn off.  Bum Rush does 6000-7000 and Throw is hitting for 2500 or so when morphed so it doesn't take too long to win.  I only had one spare Flame Saber to toss or it would have been quicker.  Morphed thrown Flame Saber did over 6000 which is quite nice for Lv 25.

Got Starlet and with it, access to more spells.  Most significant of these new spells is Cure 3.  Finally, something to deal with high damage bosses.  Also has Quake which has a lot of potential for spam with the Economizer.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  At this time, I decide I want the Aero Lore from Doomgaze.  Form a team of Kyra, Raja, Rika, and Demi for the task.  Kyra for Bum Rush, Raja for Throw, Rika's mostly on utility but might get Hyperdrive or TekMissile from R-Tek, Demi because of elemental immunity from Rage.  I want high damage for Doomgaze.  Not so much because of a fear of death if it drags out, but the faster I can pound it, the fewer times I have to chase its runaway ass down to defeat it.  Golem, Kirin, and Zoneseek get spread out among non-Demi units.  ID protection on anyone at Lv 25 or who can spare a relic slot.  Got Demi a Fire Knuckle and some Ninja Stars to throw before takeoff.

  Get in the airship, tilt a bit and hold A until I run into Doomgaze.  Worst case, this can take 10-15 minutes.  Now picture this multiplied 5 or 6 times (or more depending on damage output).  Yeah, I want this one down fast.  When the fight happens, summons go up on the first round while Demi launches into a Rage which nulls wind, absorbs ice, and casts Cure 3.  No ID immunity but I'm willing to risk it.  Zonesek is essential for surviving Aero.  Golem is vital to not get wrecked by physicals.  Afterwards everyone attacks (Raja Morphing first).  I rely on Golem and random Cure3 to keep HP up.  Worst case if Aero flattens everyone, Demi immunes it and I have her run or wait for Doomgaze to escape.  Everyone has enough max HP and magic defense to survive Aero in this case.  After Doomgze flees, head for a recovery point.  Since my team is already set up, I chase it down two more times before deciding I don't want to spend any more morph energy or Ninja Stars.  Doomgaze rolled a lightning weakness so Rika broke a few Goggles for 1800 damage Mega Volts.

  Doomgaze is where the stat randomization starts to toy with being BS.  In this case, it gives it 255 Hit so image and evade are worthless.  Aero does about 900 with shell up, take a wild guess what happens to my max HP of 1200-ish if I didn't cast Zoneseek.

  Time to find Rune up on Mt. Zozo and embarrass him.  Kyra and Hahn refuse to spend another minute around Raja's humor; one dungeon (two for Kyra) was enough.  Replacing them are Wren and Demi.  Being android, that sort of thing doesn't inhibit them.  I fight one random for the heck of it.  Wren gets confused by a confusion Special and heals the enemy party with Spiraler.

Times Spiraler has been useful to me: Now at negative two and not likely to improve

  Grab some Rust-Rid and head up Mt. Zozo.  The treasure is all good.  Flame and Thunder shields for that valuable elemental protection.  Fixed Dice: Hahn only but this alone raises Hahn from deadweight to viable in a boss fight.  Swordbreaker: This is for sale in Maranda but getting one for free is better.  Nice for evade stacking.  Rika likes the Magus Rod and Raja doesn't have the means to stack evade but Gryz may get some use from it once I return to the airship.  Also ice-elemental because randomizer.  Another Memento Ring which is convenient for multi-party dungeons.
   Bashed my way through randoms without much hassle.  Once someone learned Cure3 from Startlet, 1 MP Cure3 becomes the go-to for out of battle recovery.  i didn't realize how lucky I got until after I saved at the save point.  There's one baddie lurking around with Chupon's sprite and really bad breath that manifests itself as (magitek) Bio Blast.  Every turn.  One is enough to oneshot everyone but Wren and he's not up to winning by himself.
   Challenge the dragon. Beyond Chaos randomizes which of the 8 dragons is fought at each location and you won't know until you start the battle.  Skull Dragon shows up here.  Could be trouble.  None of my characters know Imp and I don't have Green Cherries because I was too cheap to buy some.  Stubbornly, I look for a way to win with what I've got and I do see a way.  Studying the Rage list, Demi does have one that immunes all the status tricks.  It casts Flare for about 1900 or uses a zombie Special (wasted turn).  Raja gets a Rage Ring but I don't bother with fire protection for Rika or Wren because they're more likely to get wrecked by status than HP damage.

  So yeah, a dragon.  This takes a number of failed attempts before winning.

Rika gets one-shotted by a high variance Elf Fire.  Reset.
Put up boffs and have Demi Rage.  Oops, it's undead and regen hurts.  She eventually bleeds to death.  Annihilation soon follows since no one else has imp or confuse immunity.
OK, don't use Kirin.  Dragon eventually kills everyone but Demi, who immunes everything but physicals.  It refuses to Elf Fire her and wears her down with physicals.  Death.
Rika rolls Heal Force with R-Tek.  It kills Demi.  Reset.

Battle setup stuff: Rika has a Memento Ring and Cure Ring.  Relies on 77 M. Block to dodge Specter and Disiaster long enough to win.  Skull Dragon has randomized its weakness to lightning and poison so I'm willing to risk spinning R-Tek hoping for high powered lightning skills, Bio Blast or Hyperdrive.  Runs utility if needed, especially after Raja and/or Wren fall.  The damage output of R-Tek I decide is worth risking killing Demi.  Demi's damage output isn't that great so any damage the other characters do is useful.
Raja has Rage Ring and Atlas Armlet.  0 M. Block, his job is to throw stuff and do as much damage as he can until done in by death sentence from Condemned or Disaster.
Wren is deadweight and only serves to be a body since Condemned, Specter, or Disaster hitting him instead of someone useful is good.  Also being alive makes R-Tek a little safer by giving another possible target for Heal Force.  He chips in a few attacks of about 400 when he can afford to but is survival isn't important.

  Winning this fight awards another Genji Helmet, very welcome since my storebought headgear options are limited.

  Feeling stubborn, I look up the stats of the monster with Bio Blast spam in the textfile.  Several resets later, I land Berserk on it before it can exhale its bad breath on me.  After victory, I have its Rage.  An 8x damage Special is a very nice prize as my next strongest is only about 4x or 4.5x damage.  Has a few useful fringe status immunities though not ID protected.  Go to find Rune at the top of the mountain and tease him mercilessly about the silk flowers.  His badass cred is so not boosted by this.
   Open up the locked chest despite lack of material benefit.  Because Cyan (or rather his replacement) is in the party, he gets extra dialogue.

Cyan: No, it's mine.

This I believe has always been in the vanilla game but unlikely to encounter by chance.  Seeing it would require either doing all of Mt. Zozo with a 3-person party or coming back after Cyan joins,  Neither make a whole lot of sense to do.

Warp out, rest up, and I decide it's time to rid the skies of Doomgaze.  Form the blitzing group of Kyra, Raja, Rkia, and Hahn, set them up with my selection of summons, and take to the skies.  Defensive summons up and pummel the Doomgaze with Bum Rush, morphed Throws, and Fixed Dice.  It got dealt reraise status but since that resets the ATB for the dead target and mine is still moving (unless I'm carelessly pausing it), the effective outcome is a free round of attacks for my team.  They have enough damage to finish the kill without it getting a turn to do something annoying.  Like running.  Even forgot to use the Thunder shield though it turns out none of the characters I chose could use it.

  Bahamut teaches Fire 3 and Ultima.  No I won't be grinding out Ultima for all my magic users before continuing.  That would be boring.  Plus, I still don't have Osmose and enemies can have enough offense and/or durability that even 1 MP Ultima is not an automatic "I win" button.  And that's before taking counters into account.  Bahamut is also the first Speed +2 Esper of this run.  This bonus has always been in the code but was never given to any Esper on SNES.  And while some players scoff as the thought of boosting Speed with Esper bonuses, when it's really low like Rune's 14, I'm not going to turn up my nose at a +2 Speed bonus like some GameFAQs snob.

  Enough rambling, Seth is next on the recruitment list.  Raja is still below the party level average, or rather median, so he's still coming.  Same with Demi.  Meanwhile, Alys is using this excursion as a training exercise for Chaz and drags him along.  That Flare-happy monster from the Floating Continent is also lurking here.  I now know it's undead and waste it with a single Life cast.  This would have been useful to know back then (groan).  Other enemies fall quickly enough to skill spam to not create issue and 1 MP Cure3 takes care of after fight patchup.  Easy peasy.  Did see a Fire Skeam launched at my party once but the monster using it was a low HP one so it wasn't around long enough to throw a second.  Got some useful treasure.  Another Rage Ring is nice.  The Ice shield is a real winner.  Kyra can use it so she can finally have a not trashy shield.  What I don't find is a Striker.  I'll have more to say about this later.

  For the boss, I play dirty and massively cheese it by imping it and hiding behind Demi's Fenrir command.  The biggest danger from SrBehemoth is that the Meteo attacks it may use at low HP are likely to be a one hit kill to my max HP.  I'm giving no chance for that to happen.  Raja has a Thiefknife and attacks every chance he gets but I don't succeed at theft before it dies and the second monster comes out.
  This second monster can be scary in randominzer due to the unknown factor.  Imagine taking 20 minutes or so on the Srbehemoth due to an underpowered party that struggles with damage and/or defense.  Now imagine losing at the second monster because it pulls out something nasty that cripples the party (Megazerk) or outright annihilates it and having to redo the first fight.  Not an issue with this group and repeatable image but don't count on having access to something that broken.
  I quickly find the second form likes to counter damage with Lifeshaver.  Uh oh.  I dig into my collection of status spells hoping one will work.  Try Imp first.  It hits, problem solved.  Raja snags a Nutkin suit off a Thiefknife proc which is very nice.  Demi uses that Rage with the 8x damage Special.  I'm kind of disappointed that an 8x damage Special hitting weakness is only doing 5200 at Lv 26.  FF6 physicals why...

[DragonKnight Zero]

  Now that the group has saved a non-DarkForce possessed Seth from becoming monster chow, it's time to actually recruit him.  Still need a Striker though, which wasn't in the chest it's found in vanilla.  I comb through the betting list in the textfile to look for a suitable betting chain for a Striker.  Worst case, Ctrl+F the monster list for a drop/steal.
  That other extreme proved unnecessary.  Buyable Imp Armor -> Breakblade -> Striker  Cursed Ring also works as a starter but that costs more.  I'd been holding on to GP in case of something like this but the 34000 for an Imp Armor is still a big dent in the group's finances.  Raja has earned a rest after being in since I picked him up.  Demi also steps out.  Taking their place are Gryz and Rune.  Shopping for equipment upgrades for them drains the funds I'd built up.  With Beads and Swordbreaker, I stack Gryz up to 82 Evade which is a nice perk.  Said Beads also come with a Dual Wield effect.  I stick to a shield in the off hand because Gryz isn't attacking much thanks to the Tools command.  Only later do I become aware of the rammifications of the Relic choice.
  Gryz does most of the work at the coliseum.  It takes a number of reloads to win the fights in the chain.  Smack down a gear-less Seth and I win another Strato for it too, bleh.  Do some other trades while I'm here.  Opt to trade in an extra Chocobo Suit for a Moogle Suit which ends up messy.  It's that punk from the Veldt cave.  The one that likes to counter with Lifeshaver.  Winning was a luck-based roundabout strategy.

I send Gryz for the task due to 182 M. Def.  Beads and Marvel Shoes for Relics.  With auto-shell from Marvel Shoes, Lifeshaver does up to about 500.  The following needs to take place to win.

- Hold L and R to keep Gryz from attacking if his HP drops to where he'd be in danger of death from Lifeshaver.  The monster is inescapable but running prevents Gryz from acting.  Wait until regen from Marvel Shoes builds him back up to a safe level.
- Wait for the monster to exhaust its MP.
- Hope Gryz does not cast Berserk on himself too early.  Randomizer made SwordBreaker ice elemental and the monster nulls ice so it's hopeless if berserk.
- Hope Gryz uses Debilitator and creates an ice weakness.  After this, Berserk is fine.  Front row physicals do about 750-800 when berserked on an ice weakness.  82 Evade turns away most of the physicals and auto-regen handles the few that sneak through.

Yeah, that was a lot of hoops to jump through.

Phoenix Cave is the next major destination on my itinerary.  Moogle Cave has Gogo who I always recruit last and still don't have Mog so Umaro cave recruit is blocked off.  By process of elimination, Mog must be in Phoenix Cave.  Before going, there's a quick sidetrip to make.  Pick up GrandTrain from a particular enemy lurking in South Figaro cave now that I have the max HP to survive it.

  I also round up Demi, Alys, Gryz, and Hahn to take out a stage hogging dragon at the opera house.  It's the ice dragon.  Demi MVP with a Rage that absorbs ice and casts Stray.  With Ice Dragon randomly using MoogleRush on itself when confused, it ended up doing more damage to itself than my team did.  Oh, it has auto-reflect too so Hahn can use Haste+Shrapnel on it.  Won an Illumina which will probably be a stat stick on someone (right now Alys) for 50 M. Block.  Yeah, the Evade boost doesn't mean as much to me with inflated Hit on monsters.

Team selection for Phoenix Cave: Rika and Hahn are the highest leveled characters at 27 so they chill on the airship.  Of all the Lv 26 characters, Seth will join them.  Partly because of my method of resolving tiebreaks and partly because I won't have to procure gear for him.  After a lot of thought, I go with the following teams.

Team A is Kyra, Chaz, Rune, and Gryz.  This team is the one that will face the dragon so they get the best boss fighters of Kyra and Chaz.  Gryz has good defenses so odds are good he'll be alive to provide support for the dragon.  Or any bosses-in-boxes.  Rune is mainly here to keep the other team from being too weak.  He's mostly getting carried but Jump and Drainer give him a degree of self-sufficiency.  Also building up more of a spell list so can chip in some Magic if needed.
  This team also has the most trapped chests to open so it makes sense to make it the stronger one.

Team B is Raja, Demi, Alys, and Wren.  With the right Rages, the idea is that Demi can carry if it comes to that.  Raja at least has offense and Alys is competent at it and has good physical defense.  Wren is still mostly terrible and is here because I'm feeling masochistic.  Didn't want to leave them with only the second stringers because they do have one guaranteed monster-in-box to fight.

  Phoenix Cave has me on edge until reaching the first save point.  Partly because of normal factors such as the chance of wiping to a mean random and lack of Osmose.  Partly because of self-inflicted factors since someone leveling without a stat boost Esper, I will reset.  The game is merciful here, giving me encounters without scary magical death and very little in the way of ST overkill damage from the enemies.  The monsters-in-boxes are also random encounter tier rather than a boss from the final dungeon.

  Dragon here is the White Dragon.  Easy stuff as long as someone with Silence survives the opening Pearl assault.  Cast Silence, done.  It doesn't drop anything which I guess is fair for the difficulty it posed.  Best treasure found is another Nutkin Suit.  Goes to Kyra and she finally has defenses better than glass.

  Make my way to the end of the cave without much fuss or interesting fights.  Lv 28-29 for everyone by the end.  Lucca joins the party after plot scenes.  Also receive the Phoenix magicite and the items for finishing the cave.  They're randomized so not the same as vanilla.  Notable loot includes a Magus Rod and a Paladin shield.  The Magus Rod ends up with Lucca, where the +7 Magic will see lots of use as I fling Merton around.  The Paladin shield got nerfed.  Only absorbs 3 elements: thunder, water, and holy and gives auto-berserk.  Also, only 3 out of the 12 can use it.  Terrible on Demi since I lose Fenrir and having the AI pick Rages is inviting disaster.  Also bad on Kyra whose power comes from the Blitz command and not bopping foes with regular attacks.  last possible user is Seth whose weapon selection doesn't synergize with berserk status.  Maybe when I can acquire a Peace Ring or Ribbon, I'll consider the usage but don't have any now.  Phoenix only teaches Life 2 so not much new for Magic users to draw on.

  Lucca is required to recruit the character from the yeti cave so she's in.  Joining her are Rika, Hahn, and Seth since they're now the lowest leveled.  Lucca has seen no action outside of one random in the WoB and Seth has had little Esper time since the floating continent so the Magic lists are a little sparse.  Eh, I'll find a way to win.  Also now have the gear to protect everyone from Merton.  Seth and Lucca get the Thunder and Flame shields.  Rika and Hahn get Rage Rings.  (insert evil laughter)  I buy what equipment upgrades I can find from the shops for Seth and Lucca before flying over to Narshe.  Low on cash for the 7th time this game.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Been a while since I updated, seem to be running out of steam for typing up these writeups.  But there are still items of interest (to me) I want to write about.

Before proceeding with quest stuff, a side topic.  Gryz's Drill damage felt really low throughout Phoenix Cave, something that didn't register that quick because he was usually using Fash, Noiseblaster, or picking off single targets with Air Anchor.  Oh yeah, forgot to mention I had an Air Anchor.  It was from a drop way back when it was just Chaz and Alys in the south Figaro cave.  Air Anchor is really handy for checking for ID vulnerability since it ignores evade.
  Back to Drill.  With some outside help, worked out that the dual-wield on the Beads was the culprit.  The 25% damage reduction with one weapon applies to all physical abilities, something that slipped by despite being aware of that similar effect the Offering has.  Mildly annoying to me since Beads are valuable for building an evade tank.  So within the spirit of BC though.

  Lucca and party make the climb to the snowfields.  Merton+Rage pulls its weight, the monsters encountered don't survive long facing 3000 MT defense ignoring damage.  Only one or two (out of about 8 or so) resist it which is decent for a dual-element skill.  Yes, Merton is fire and wind element, for those not already aware.  It takes me a number of attempts to make it to the snowfield save point anyways.  Not because of monsters but because I got greedy with Sketch and kept triggering the Sketch glitch.  I'm usually willing to try it in the first or second encounter since there's little progress lost if the worst happens and I reset and the game sure loved to have the very first Sketch attempt miss and enter glitchville.  Did find out what my secret item was which is something that normally requires Kefka's Tower to learn.  There inventory rewrite that Sketch glitch produces gave me around 2000 of them.  It turns out this secret item is not very impressive.  A body armor with so-so defenses and -50 evade and M. Block is not much use to me.

Secret items: In Beyond Chaos, if the final dungeon is randomized, the game will replace the Dirk with a secret item on generation.  The item is picked at random out of a pool and can range from very useful to jokey trash and anywhere in between.  Plenty of pop-culture and gaming references to be found in the secret item pool.

  Upon reaching the save point, I try my luck with the dragon.  First try goes badly.  Red Dragon likes to Flare people for 3000 and I got stuck in a rez loop.  Eventually lost the race when it busted out S. Cross which flattened Rika.  Tweaked my strategy some and came back with everyone fire-protected.  Dragon still has its vanilla vulnerabilites to confusion and poison so Sour Mouth and Seth's Muddle keep it confused while hoping to make headway with magical damage as confused dragon sometimes casts fire magic on itself.  Or it can use Flare.  At one point, Rika rolls ForceField with R-Tek and nulls lighting which results in some, "spirited' swearing.  Victory nets a Thiefknife, which I have enough of already and is meh by itself but can trade for a Tack Star when I get around to the colloseum again.

  Tritoch is generally a joke fight with 4 Wall Rings.  I'm still being cheap and only have one so will need to put in effort to keep the team alive.  I say generally a joke fight because there's still the matter of dealing damage to it.  Tritoch immunes every element other than fire (and sometimes even that in randomizer) and has extreme physical defense so it's possible to get sloppy and bring a party without any defense ignoring skills or non-elemental magic to do damage with.  This group does not have that problem.  Lucca gets my single Wall Ring and the Economizer because 1 MP GrandTrain is the best consistent damage in the party.  Hahn has Fixed Dice and if I have a free turn with Rika/Seth, I can berserk him.  Seth has GP Rain.  Rika doesn't have anything reliable and is the main utility unit.

  Yes, berserk does boost Fixed Dice damage even though it's defense ignoring already.  FF6 is weird.

  Big Guard, Carbuncle, and Kirin go up on the first set of turns.  Tritoch kept the vanilla fire weakness.  Due to my magic learning paths, the only person in this group with fire Magic is Rika's Fire spell which still hits for 1200.  Seth and Rika focus on keeping reflect status up on themselves because Rasp is annoying on casters without Osmose.  Shell and regen keep up Hahn though they'll toss him a Cure spell as needed.  The Tritoch magicite expands the available spells in this game.  Muddle and Haste are taught at fast rates and Meteor is available at x1 learn rate.  Though Meteor is rather meh in the player's hands.  Back to the save point for a Tent since two boss battles have used up a lot of MP.

  Storm through the yeti cave.  The enemies put up about as much resistance as vanilla, which is to say not much.  Granted, in vanilla one isn't flinging 0 MP cost Merton so the monsters generally don't live long enough for much.  Treasure haul is quite good for 3 items.  A Minerva, which goes to Lucca as the elemental resistances and +25% MP synergize well with her skillset.  Another Gold Hairpin for my Osmose-less game and a Fire Knuckle, which is less impressive but still potent Throw ammo when there's a fire weakness to hit.  Team is more than a match for the yeti.  In a humorous change, it's name is the default name the randomizer generated for the character who is placed there.  Lucca bosses the character to join the party, who I rename Crono.  He's got Arvis' sprite, seems he underwent quite the strength training regimen after the world went to ruin.

Hi there naming screen, been awhile since I last saw ya.

While Umaro renamed Crono acts the same as vanilla Umaro in combat, there are some differences that make him a bit better.  Beyond Chaos grants full access to his Equip menu and he also has a larger selection of equipment to choose from.  He can also equip Espers for the level up bonuses.  Being able to put on a shield and a helmet gives him a good shot at hitting 255 Defense, which may end up being a unique niche for him depending on the equipment availability for the other characters.

Umaro still isn't a fantastic character but the gap between him and the others is smaller than before.

Also have Terrato.  WWind and Haste2 are already accessible so the only new spell is Ice3.  I'm not particularly wowed given Ultima is already accessible (even though no one has learned it yet) and I'm anticipating lots of high magic defense enemies in the late game.

Warp out,recover the party, and go to the airship.  The only change I make at this time is for Lucca to step out and Wren to take her place.  It's time to recruit the last character; the more sharp-eyed reader will have figured out where I go.

  I always recruit Gogo last in randomizer.  It's the only character who doesn't equip Espers (for balance, ostensibly) so I want to get more mileage out of level averaging.  After recruiting everyone else is my preferred time to go after Gogo.  I peek at Gogo's location ahead of time to achieve this purpose.  Moogle cave at last.

  I wiped once on the trip.  One monster in particular unleashes powerful magic on turn 2: high powered Fire Beams and Bolt Beams that do close to 1000 on Rika's 137 magic defense and fly past all that fancy M. Block she and Hahn have.  They can show up in a pack of six and are immune to instant death.  Didn't give them enough respect to try to wipe them out with MT violence (which the group is bad at anyways) and they decimated my party.  Lesson learned: on the next attempt either nuke that group quickly or run for it.

  So all that trouble to leave the treasures in the cave alone in the WoB and what do I get for my patience?  A Stunner, a Falchion, and a Red Cap.  Nothing I'm likely to use all that much, even the Red Cap's +25% max HP doesn't draw me in given the damage that can come flying my way in randomizer.  The Moogle Charm spot is a letdown too; a Sky Render.  Slightly better stat stick since it does have +20 evade but still overall scrubby like most weapons that aren't Fixed Dice, Valiantknife, or Sniper.

  I have the mime now, who I name Marle to complete the Chrono Trigger cameo squad.  She has Maria's sprite.  To my disappointment, it's Maria from FF2 and not the opera diva so no getting to see someone kicking tail in a ballgown.  As stated before, the mime is the only character not able to equip Espers for levelup boosts, for balance reasons.  The only real mechanical difference is that Morph is allowed on the mimic, which has a curious exploit if two Morph users are in the party.  The way the command options are given is actually the same as vanilla.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  The whole gang is assembled.  Next stop will be the underground castle to retrieve the Odin magicite.  Party consists of Crono, Marle, Raja, and Rune.  It's hazing time for Crono and Marle.  Raja is sent so that those on the airship can give their ears a rest.  Rune goes since rescuing the newbies form trouble would recover some of the badass cred he lost.  Or so he hopes. 
  Go shopping for armor for the newbies.  Marle's defenses are shaky once I've outfitted her with the best I could buy though nowhere near as fragile as Raja.  Crono is better off in that area though not at 255 on buyable gear alone.  I stop by the Colliseum and bet away an extra Hardened dagger for a 2nd BehemothSuit.  This goes to Crono, bringing him to 255 Defense.

  The very first chest I open has a Dirt Dragon stuffed in it.  No one in my party has Float so I ended up wiping to Quake.  Only does around 1300 damage though it's enough to annihilate my unprepared team.  This is almost vanilla, far less than I'm used to seeing from Beyond Chaos dragons.

  A sane player would skip this and come back with a party that has access to Float magic.  I am not sane and look for a way to win with the current party.  I have 2 Cherub Downs and Marle has access to Rages so surely she has one that lets her negate Quake.  I find one to my liking and a plan is formed.  Raja and Rune get the Cherub Downs.  Marle uses an earth absorbing Rage on her first turn.  Crono can sometimes survive Quake at full HP depending on variance.  If the boss Quakes before Marle gets a turn, I reset.  Marle Rages, Crono smash, Raja mainly throws stuff abd Rune does whatever after getting up Fenrir and shell + regen on Crono.  Rune's main role is to heal Crono after Slide/Magnitude 8.  Won without further hassle and won a Snow Muffler.  This is great.  Even Raja can wear it and with it, he's no longer made of paper.

  Then 5 steps later, the group gets crushed in a random with a pair of enemies with 2200 damage Meteors.  My team's max HP is about 1300 or so.  Do the math.  Beyond Chaos can be mean like that.  For added insult, these enemies have about 17000 HP, can't run from them, and instant death immune.

  Load the save, beat the Earth Dragon again who drops an Ice shield.  It turns out the Snow Muffler is the rare drop so not likely to see it on the trip that lasts to the save point.  I also find another formation that sends the party to the grave.  It has one enemy that throws blades doing damage that starts at 8000 and goes up from there.  That could be managed with Vanish but it also comes with two cohorts that can open with Disaster which will nail anyone who went invisible to dodge Throw.  They also have Meteor, which while doing only about 1400-1500, also leave anyone who survived bait for Throw.
  This group also is unrunnable and will always ambush the party.

  I haven't mentioned guaranteed ambushes have I?  Enemies in Beyond Chaos can rarely and randomly have an ambush trait which will enable them to always ambush the party even with a Back Guard.  Annoying on low-level WoB fodder, deadly on dangerous opposition like the foes just described.

  Neither formation is the rare one either.  So a 10/16 chance of running into a formation which will bury the party.  Had this been consciously placed, this would be sadistically unfair.  As the randomizer placed it... well, it's an example of how vicious it's capable of being.  It's still unfair, just that there's no easy target to place blame on since I didn't use settings that enabled this to be possible.

  In desperation, I flip through the textfile to look for a status weakness to exploit.  The monster with 2400 damage Meteor has only two negative statuses that work on it.  Poison and zombie and fortunately someone in the party is capable of inflicting it.  I set Rage on Marle and find one with a zombie Special.  The one I picked also comes with auto-haste and auto-regen as a bonus.  If I encounter that particular pair, Marle uses that Rage and prays to zombify them both before they decide to murder me with Meteor.  Still at the mercy of the RNG but some chance is better than no chance.  Since Raja and Rune won't contribute enough damage to matter, one of them casts Vanish on Marle.  It protects her from the freeze Special these monsters use and if they get off a Meteor, it means a wipe anyways so might as well use it to stop the other attack that could prevent a chance at beating the group.

  About 10-15 resets later, I do get a lucky run that makes it to the save point.  I actually ran into the other death formation but got extremely lucky with invisible Marle making three zombies without facing any magical attacks.  She was the sole survivor, everyone else ate Throw death.  The other two formations both include a monster with 40,000 HP and auto-berserk but they were vulnerable to instant death so Air Anchor handled them.

  Marle MVP.  A Throw with Raja helped take out one lower HP enemy.  Rune barely contributes anything meaningful outside of Vanish utility.  Very high EXP yield from the battles encountered while raiding the treasure.  Everyone went up at least two levels with Crono gaining 3 and Marle gaining 4.

  Moving on to the ancient castle itself, Raja narrates the tale of its fall.  Rune wanted to do it to sound smart but Raja has the higher priority character ID so he gets to be the knowledgeable historian.  Crono and Marle listen with rapt attention which causes Rune to be even grumpier.  Raja even tells it accurately so Rune doesn't get a chance to point out any errors to boost his ego.

  The enemies in this area are less murderous than the ones leading to the save point.  i still get a wipe here anyways.  Pack of 4 enemies with a confuse Special lands one on Marle after I'd confirmed a Noiseblaster.  She confuses the entire party and I don't see another command window for the rest of the battle.  The enemies peck away with magic while my party kills each other.  When I run into that formation a second time, I get to confuse them for some sweet payback.

New and useful treasures in this region include a Circlet (goes to Marle), a Dragon Claw (upgrade for Demi), a Cursed Ring, and two Coin Toss relics.  The Cursed Ring has a niche use of teaching X-Zone since none of my current Espers teach it.  Coin Toss changes 3xTime into Rage.  As one user can already set Rage without faffing around with command changers and 3xTime is a powerful command in its own right, this is a mostly useless Relic.

I say mostly useless because of a Rage I had just recently fought so hard for.  That one enemy with the OHKO Meteor that I had to hope to zombify awarded a very nice Rage.  Near complete status immunity, nulls fire as a perk, and its moves are Meteor and an unblockable freeze Special.  Read that again: unblockable freeze Special.  Which no enemy in the game has immunity to and lasts longer than stop status.  Utterly gamebreaking move only partially reined in by that 50/50 coinflip.  This cheeses most bosses which I would forget to do on the next boss I face with a Rager.

  Grab Odin but even though I'm going to visit the basement, I don't plan on trading in for Raiden just yet.  While one can generally expect to find every spell between all the Espers, sometimes spells show up exclusively on Odin.  Checking the textfile again, it's the only one with Bolt 3, Warp, and X-Zone.  While X-Zone is obtainable off that Cursed Ring found in these parts, Bolt 3 and Warp are not learnable elsewhere so I'll hang on to Odin for a while to give more people a chance to learn them.

  Also open up the basement and the dragon within.  In vanilla, the intended sequence is to read the queen's diary then talk to the scholars in the Figaro castle library.  One of them gives the relevant hint to open up the basement.  Of course, I've replayed the game plenty and already know its secrets so I skip that step.  Set up the party for a dragon fight giving Marle Tools, Fenrir, and X-Magic.  Raja gets a ThiefKnife and Kirin; Rune takes on Zoneseek.
  It's the Blue Dragon in its vanilla location.  Other than bigger numbers from it (not helped by under 140 magic defense on Raja, Rune, and Marle), it's the same fight too.  Put up barriers and Rune and Marle are primarily on healing duty while Raja and Crono do damage.  Try for a few steal procs off the ThiefKnife but no goods.  With a lightning weakness, I get all excited about chucking a spare Thunder Rod for disgusting amounts of damage.  Except I can't because the attached spell is Remedy and that only targets allies.  Grrr.  Morphed Ninja Star throws are doing 6000 so fight goes by fast enough.  Got a vanilla Scimitar drop.  -20 M. Block, ew that's not vanilla.  Not planning on using this much other than one specific instance that I may or may not get to take advantage of.

Guess what I didn't do with Marle that would have trivialized the dragon fight?

Back to the save point but I'm not done yet.  There's an enemy out there that uses nothing but Sneeze when its turn comes up.  No danger of dying but I want to win against the formation to register the Rages.  Check the monster listing to see if there's any real chance.  If it's truly impossible than so be it (and a more impatient player would not have looked back) but only if the monster data confirms it has no statuses to exploit.  65535 HP and vulnerable to petrify; this is winnable.  I have several Rages with a petrify Special that can oneshot it.  This requires Marle gets an action in, uses the petrify Special instead of the other attack, and hits the correct enemy in the group of 3.  After a lot of tires (and lots of resets to prevent overleveling), all of the above happens.  The remaining enemies pose no real threat having only physical damage and I get my win on that formation.

  Got to run back through the zone of death and its 10/16 chance of a murder formation.  Less ground to cover and I already have all the treasure so it takes fewer attempts to run screaming back to the castle.  I did encounter the Meteor pair again but Marle zombified them successfully.  This trip has been very good for my character levels.  All started at 28, they finished at 34 except for Rune at 33. This is high enough to learn Stunner had SwdTech been present (not that I miss it considering how scrubby of a command it is).   I'm not often this high leveled by this point in the progression.  Probably wouldn't have made it without the Rage command.  Crono laughs at physicals with 255 defense.  Raja has Throw offense to contribute and Sniper physicals get good numbers on flying monsters.  Rune, did very little besides being a summon carrier and some Drainer jumps in an imitation of self-sufficiency.  So he didn't succeed at increasing his badass cred.

  Before switching teams, I run off to the collisem to trade a Gold Hairpin for a Ribbon.  Crono is well suited toward the collisem fights with 255 defense and doesn't waste turns with useless magic.  I then fly over to Thamasa and form a party with Rune and Kyra.  Rune's old adventuring buddy hurt himself bad on a mutual foe.  Rune, with his Esper senses that can sense the strength of a person's life force, is skeptical.  Kyra kicks him in the shins to get him to play along.  (As the Blitz user, she can kick rather hard)  Ebot's Rock is now open though I'm not going there yet.  It's just that Rune won't be in the active party for a while so decided to knock off the prerequisite now.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Cyan's dream is my next destination to secure the Alexander magicite.  Since there's no leaving until it's complete and has no access to shops for resupply, this calls for greater preparation to avoid being stuck.  I also take more care with team selection because of the permastuck potential.  Since i have fun doing these sorts of writeups, character analysis - round 2.  To cut down on walls of text, sticking to mentioning things that have changed since the WoB.  One factor in common is that no one has learned Ultima even though I do have access to it.

Rika; R-Tek isn't as dominating as before with enemy durability rising and more resistance to ID going around.  TekMissile and Hyperdrive are enough that it still outperforms the Magic command though.  She's now rocking a Magus Rod and other M. Block armor for a total of 67 before Relics.  Less defense than before (because the BehemothSuit switched characters) but 205/138 is still OK, especially with some dodges here and there.  Also has the unique trait of having an expanded Magitek list so I'm inclined to take Terra into the dream unless she's awful or her Magitek list is unimpressive.

Chaz hasn't changed gear ever since I picked him up at the collapsing house.  Had I focused on teaching him Ultima, he'd be especially bonkers with the Economizer but I forgot.  Granted Ultima isn't as potent in the upcoming boss fights which feature multiple opponents.  3xTime has a chance of backfiring at the Dream Stooges since they can bust out reflect status.  I'm planning on killing Wrexsoul through HP damage and 3xTime could X-Zone away the Soulsavers prematurely (in addition to backfiring when they become reflective) so less awesome here than he would be in most situations.

Raja won't be participating but I'll note his evolution anyways.  Throw is looking even better given his higher level and how strongly level factors into the physical damage formula.  I'm no longer on the brink of poverty so I can afford a more regular supply of Ninja Stars.  The Sniper gives him a respectable physical for flying enemies or regular low-level fodder not worth the Shuriken (which aren't buyable).  Diamond Vest boosted his defenses some from the WoB though he's still made of paper.

Seth, no he's not a good choice for this mission.  Sketch is terrible.  GP Rain will suck as the bosses have multiple targets to split the damage.  Most Magic will not contribute much offense to Wrexsoul.  Utility spells are useful but it's a function that any character with a Magic command could fill and most have better skillsets to bring to the table.  ThiefKnife stealing is unlikely to be profitable either given how most enemies in the area in vanilla FF6 carry nothing to steal.  No standout defense stats either.

Wren got a better stat stick to hit things with.  And better defense gear.  His skill selection is still terrible.  Sonic Boom rams into more prevalent ID resistance.  Spiraler is even more terrible at WrexSoul given how it's likely the player will be killing and reviving their characters multiple time.

Demi: Cyan's dream doesn't play to her strengths.  Rage will often not hit the target you want to hit plus losing control at Wrexsoul is a bad idea.  Fenrir can get in the way of luring out Wrexsoul and is of limited use on the Dream Stooges who mostly use magic.  She's gained some very nice Rages for wrecking bosses and single enemies (cough, unblockable frozen Special) that will be potent but later.

Alys: Still got the same armor from the beginning of the WoR.  Enemy durability means she's not sweeping to the extent she did in the WoB.  I did toss my one Illumina on her and it procs RiotBlade so she's got good damage potential if willing to spend the MP.  Which might be worth it to pile damage on Wrexsoul when it's out.

Rune: His Magic list is more robust now after Phoenix Cave and the ancient castle.  Also got a few Speed +2 levelup bonuses so he's a bit less of a slug than before.  (the jump from 14 to 18 is a bit more significant than on an average speed character)  124 Magic defense with his WoR gear is rather bad though being able to equip all the elemental shields will help.  Jump is another terrible command for Wrexsoul as it can go into hiding at any time.

Kyra is finally doing well defensively with Ice shield and Nutkin Suit.  Picked up Bum Rush and Air Blade during the WoR which is tremendous for killing things.  Lack of targetability on Bum Rush holds it back for the upcoming fights but it does so much damage it only needs to hit the correct target a few times.  Absorbs ice and fire with her equipment loadout so won't need to spend many turns healing her at the boss fights.

Hahn has Fixed Dice which help make up for his skills falling off in usefulness.  Since I let him carry the Aegis shield, he's up to 62 M. Block before Relics.  Good magic defense, no access to elemental shields so the high M. Block is really welcomed for dealing with elemental magic.  No Offering presently but it would be a liability at the upcoming boss fights.

Lucca is quite the powerhouse now that I have enough options to nullify Merton.  Rage being non-elemental and unblockable is the cherry on top of 3000 piercing damage for 0 MP cost.  Lore provides utility and Grandtrain for those that resist Merton.  Even better, she's rocking a Magus Rod and a Minerva for great M. Block (61) and elemental defense.  Not as awesome with focused ST offense and very MP intensive if Merton is absorbed.

Gryz is still solid defensively though Tools is sliding backwards on the damage curve.  Still has utility with Noiseblaster and Air Anchor along with targetable piercing Drill and Debilitator has its moments (such as paired up with Lucca to overwrite fire/wind resistance)  Best Evade of the group at 62 since he gets a SwordBreaker.  I would have liked to add Beads to his Relics to make a dodging machine but the rogue dual-wield effect weakens Drill's damage so pass on those.  RunningShoes makes a decent replacement with auto-haste and a rogue +10 evade enhancing his evade game.

Marle has already demonstrated her power in the last dungeon.  181/133 defenses is almost vanilla Gogo but her options are potent enough to offset this drawback.

Crono smash.  With 255 defense and 218 magic defense, direct damage is not the way to take him down.  Kind of status bait though and he's still Umaro so his damage is OK at best though being lv 34 helps.  The lack of control makes him a liability at Wrexsoul (and a few other fights), just like vanilla Umaro as well.

My default character selection routine rolled up a party of Rika, Kyra, and Hahn to which I said good enough.  They'll be the ones to go to Doma with Raja.  I make sure I have enough Tents and Phoenix Downs and then head on over.

  Staying the night at Doma triggers the appearances of the Dream Stooges.  Raja is thrilled to meet fellow comedians and leaps at the opportunity to hang with fellow commiseurs of humor.  He's too starstruck to realize they are demonic imposters so it falls upon the other party members to drag him back because they'll never get restful sleep with those four yakking away all night.

  Also, they're stuck in dream world until some asses get thoroughly kicked.  Get to work team.

  I had arranged the party so I start with Kyra.  Should I get attacked, Bum Rush will remove things fast.  Hopefully.  Since I use the Charm Bangle in dungeon treks, I actually fight zero encounters retrieving my party members and using the save point.  Still hang around a bit for Rage fishing.

  One formation proves too much for this team.  That group of six from the Narshe mines lurks here too.  Immune to ID and absorb wind which removes Air Blade as an option for taking them out fast.  Their high powered Bolt Beams and Fire Beams also pierce all that fancy M. Block that Rika and Hahn have.

  For the boss fight, I load up Kyra with Marvel Shoes and Ribbon, Rika with Cure Ring and Memento Ring, and Hahn with Zephyr Cape and Safety Bit.  Espers are Zoneseek and Carbuncle.  This stops Delta Hit, Kyra immunes any statuses the dream stooges can try, the other two will frequently dodge status spells, and I have Remedy and items to deal with any that sneak through.  Larry's instant death weakness gets ruthlessly exploited.  Cyclonic + Snowball will leave him on the brink of death.  Due to elemental randomization, none of the dream stooges resist wind so an Air Blade will pick him off.  This prompts Curly to spend turns reviving him but another Cyclonic puts him at death's door again.  So Larry spends the whole battle either down or on the brink of collapse.
  Simple fight.  Get shell and regen on everyone.  Used Mantra or Cure for recovery when needed.  Stuck to R-Tek and Blitz to conserve MP as I still lack Osmose and these stooges weren't enough of a threat to need the assurance of controlled targeting.  Hahn has Fixed Dice for when he's not bullying Larry.

  Train segment: not so easy.  I run into one of the murder formations from the ancient castle trip.  8000 damage Throw, support with Disaster and Meteor, always ambushed, can't run.  They're here too?  This time, I'm down a character and I don't have Rage to oneshot them so it's a game over if this group ever appears.  Savestates could be a deathtrap due to how the game generates encounters so I'm not able to use them to cheat through the section either.

  There's another dangerous formation here.  Contains enemies that have enough HP to take a Bum Rush, shrug, and throw powerful Giga Volts.  At least they're escapable.  So making it to the next save point turns into a luck-based mission where I have to rely on the RNG not to splatter the party.  Cue groaning.

  Sure, the encounter RNG eventually cooperates but it took quite a few tries.  Snagged some interesting treasure along the way.  That Cat Hood is a welcome find.  Kyra is borrowing it for now but I plan to swap it over to someone with less elemental resistance after I escape from dream world.  Gem Box changes Magic to Dance.  Could have some use in theory but Dance's day in the sun has passed so unlikely to give up both the Magic command and a Relic slot for it.

  Just made sure to encounter all 3 monster types in the Magitek segment before moving on.  Got a level with everyone here, taking them up to 31.

  Last part has the same formation possibilities as the train segment.  But there's less ground to cover so less luck needed to survive to the boss.  Used a Tent to recover MP than ran for it.  I think I only died once to inescapable murder formation before making it to Wrexsoul.  Main preparation is giving Rika the Economizer since she's learned Life2.

  Wrexsoul is fairly standard and the approach is the same as vanilla.  Lack of Osmose puts more of a time pressure than otherwise.  1 MP Life2 takes away a lot of the potential resource strain though.  Fixed Dice was the main tool for suiciding people to lure out Wrexsoul.  I go with checking Kyra first, then Hahn, and Rika last.  Have Rika revive people with 1 MP Life2.  When the boss comes out of hiding; Hahn attacks with Fixed Dice, Kyra Bum Rushes hoping to hit Wrexsoul, and Rika is on standby for healing and utility duty as none of her Magic will make much of a dent in Wrexsoul's 220ish magic defense and R-Tek is unlikely to be productive.  Repeat until victorious.  Not terribly hard despite the stat increase, just annoying as Zinger shows up a few times before it's over.

  Clearing the dream segment awards all SwdTechs, which is meaningless as SwdTech is absent.  It also silently added an Ogre Nix to inventory, which is almost equally meaningless (potential Throw ammo).  There's also the Alexander magicite to grab from the throne room which is the real winner.  Finally, a Magic+2 Esper.  It also provides the first (and likely last) source of Doom and Osmose.  With 10 people with access to Magic, it possible to crease an army of boring Ultima spam machines now.  I'm not going to go out of the way to grind for it though.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  All that's left to do quest-wise before Kefka's tower is Fanatics Tower and Ebot's Rock.  Oh, and getting Raiden but I'm putting that off for last.  Before getting to any of that, I'm taking people around the world to seek out new monsters for the Rage list.  And a lucky item drop if the game is feeling generous.  Chaz, Lucca, Gryz, and Alys are up to bat first.  Alys, Chaz, and Gryz have seen no action since Phoenix Cave so they're due to be rotated in.  I rotate in Seth and Demi as well on this world tour.  Mostly relying on crippling enemies with status over spamming damage since I'm hunting durable monsters.  One group of 4 can bust out Cyclonic, which is scary but hiding behind Fenrir generally keeps the team safe.  Another monster brought everyone to near death with Aero but landing Mute neutralized its threat.

  I did end up clearing Ebot's Rock even though I have no need to do so since I have GrandTrain already.  It's more for the EXP than anything else.  I want the levels.  Not because I need them to survive fanatics tower but because I don't have Life 3 and will be Rasping MagiMaster down.  higher levels means more damage from each Rasp casting and fewer Rasp and WallChange animations to sit through.

Rune takes his place in the party as he's required to fight Hidon.  Party is Rune, Chaz, Gryz, and Seth.  Plan is to stab with ThiefKnife until I get something and then one-shot Hidon with Life.  While Seth makes poor attempts at theft.  I cast Slow on Hidon, Fenrir and Carbuncle on my team as well as any other buffs I can sneak in, and NoiseBlaster the Hidonites, tagging two of them.  Gryz got hit by a berserk special before I got buffs up but Dispel brings him back under control.  Was hoping for something interesting but all I got was a pointless Noiseblaster.  Oh well, time to kill... Life missed?!  Looks like Hidon wasn't undead so I have to take down its HP with more conventional means.

  One of the confused Hidonites used it zombie Special on three of its buddies, which was comical to witness.  Rune has Fire 3 and Hidon is weak to fire so he finally goes to show off the might of his magic.  But Hidon rolled high magic defense and it only does around 2000.  I'm not sure what words convey my disappointment at seeing an -aga spell hitting weakness barely doing 2000 at my levels (30-31 other than Rune at 34) .  Chaz eventually kills off the last Hidonite during his parade of time magic.  Felt ominous knowing a GrandTrain was coming when the plan had been to avoid it.  But i guess slow on it was impactful enough for the team to get another 1-2 turns each and they did enough to finish Hidon off.

  Of course I paused the ATB whenever I could when my allies were attacking.  It's so instinctive by now it takes conscious effort not to do so.

  At the celebration party, Kyra and Gungho get Rune smashing drunk because otherwise he'd be a dour stick in the mud.  This loosens him up to the point where he gets animated and embellishes his tale.  And they catch it all on tape to embarrass him later.  Nope Rune, you still haven't increased your badass cred.

  Fanatics Tower is next.  And I feel like typing out my thought process on picking a party for it so here it is.

- If a character has a Moogle Charm to equip, they're going.  Even if they don't have a Magic command.  Beyond Chaos weakens the Moogle Charm so encounters still happen with it but the frequency is noticeably lower with it.  Fanatics Tower is long and obnoxious so dealing with fewer fights is welcome.  Also, even characters who don't normally draw a Magic command will be able to cast in the tower since the game changes Fight to Magic there.

- Other characters without Magic are automatically out.  Except Umaro and Gogo, I may take one or even both but they're much lower priority.

- I will favor taking characters that don't have natural magic.  The fights give large numbers of spell points   It happens often enough that any casters who make the ascent will have learned every spell they have access to by the time they make it back to the world map.

I haven't mentioned anything about it up to now but the randomizer gives more spell points on average than in vanilla.  Learning magic goes by so much faster, especially when Esper spells are randomized since the learn rates are often higher than vanilla.

- The next criteria I look at is not how developed someone's spell list is or if they have specific key spells already, but elemental protection.  Specifically fire or wind null or absorb.  That way, the party doesn't get flattened by a rogue Merton spell.  The less defense I need to sacrifice on someone to attain this protection, the more likely I am to choose that character.  If the randomizer gets really stingy with elemental protection, I may give up on reaching the top and/or dive into the final dungeon and hope something turns up there.

- Only after sorting characters in or out based on access to elemental protection do I look at other factors; spell lists and stats.  Generally, everyone has learned key utility spells already unless they haven't shown up at all: any Cure spell, Life, Float, Osmose, Mute, and at least one useful attack magic.  Other useful spells are the instant death series, Quake, Life3, and of course Ultima.  Rasp only matters if lacking Life3.
  For stats, Magic power is of course important.  Even more so if the plan is to MP kill Magimster.  Physical defense still matters as whatever dragon is lurking up there is still able to use physicals as well as whatever monster replaces Magic Urn.  M. Block is still relevant; I don't have the Relic slots to give everyone ID protection so M. Block is the next defense against Demi, Quarter, WWind, and especially X-Zone.  Magic defense is of lower importance since only Drain and whatever magic the random dragon up there has matters to Wall Ring characters.

- If I lack enough qualified casters, at this point, I'll look towards Umaro and Gogo.  Umaro is more likely to be picked in practice because Rage Ring absorbs fire.  Gogo may be more useful overall as long as it has the needed elemental protection thanks to Mimic.  Due to the immense learning potential of the tower, I prefer not to use them.  Doing so means losing out on magic training for a character that can benefit from it.

  So after sorting out people without the Magic command and those with natural magic, I have 7 characters to choose from.  2 of them, Lucca and Demi, already have the desired elemental resistance.  The other 5 can achieve it by swapping out their existing shield with an elemental shield.  Chaz and Gryz fill out the slots as they were dealt Diamand shields vs the others' Crystal shields.  I finally go an buy 3 more Wall Rings to bring the total to 4.

  No one has actually learned Ultima yet.  Demi's the closest at 85%  Good enough.  Everyone is at Lv 31-32 which is about my minimum for the sake of my sanity.  I use savestates in the tower so I don't have climb the tower, beat the dragon, MP kill the Magimaster, and descend the tower in one sitting.  Everyone has a Wall Ring, of course.  For the other Relic slot, Demi gets the Economizer, Lucca a White Cape for M. Block stacking, Chaz a Charm Bangle, and Gryz a Memento Ring.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  Dealing with the randoms in Fanatics tower doesn't change too much from vanilla.  Even with the higher stats, they're not any more dangerous than vanilla.  Annoying perhaps, but not more dangerous.  Except L90 Magic, that one's a threat.  Like vanilla, oneshotting monsters is the preferred way of dealing with them, if nothing else to reduce the number of counters to sit through.  L10 Magic is rude enough to be living; Lv20 and 30 lost their vanilla ID vulnerability so it takes longer to deal with them.  Lv20 Magic also is floating so I'm stuck taking it out the slow way.  Once Demi learned Ultima, there were lots of 1 MP Ultimas thrown around.  Silence status is still very useful for L40 and 60.  Lv50 Magic remained undead and therefore bait for Life.  Lv70 and 80 retain their vanilla ID vulnerability but their higher HP does mean that the Stamina check is more likely to save them.

  There's some changes from vanilla here.  The enemies' levels match their names.  If one could somehow get the Lore command up here, L5 Doom will hit everything barring ID immunity.  This also turns Lv90 Magic into RNG hell.  If it uses Meteor, you die.  Backed by high level and boosted magic power, expect somewhere between 2500 to over 4000 defense and evasion ignoring damage, depending on how much magic power it rolled.  My team's average HP is right around 1700.  Sucks to be whoever tries to maintain console conditions (or is playing the randomized game on a console with no savestate capacity) if they get plastered by Meteor after beating the Magimaster on the way down.  Over an hour of progress gone.

  Even with a plan, it wouldn't be Beyond Chaos if it didn't try to pull the rug out from under me now and then.  Like running into Poltergeist in the vanilla Safety Bit room.  That was a reset as I didn't have the firepower to deal with a BC boosted Poltergeist.  Still, enough tries gets me to the dragon in the tower.  Use a savestate both before and after.  It's an Earth Dragon.  I have Float and Fenrir/Golem and both Chaz and Demi have Ultima learned by now so it's barely a speed bump.  Got another Ice shield, no rare Snow Muffler to be had.

  The savestate after the dragon saves me grief if I get Meteor'ed by L90 Magic on the climb to the top.  Which only happens once, maybe twice before I make it through.  The last floor is crawling with them and every encounter with them is a roll of the RNG.  The plan is to pile on stop and slow which buys enough time to kill them before they unfreeze.  As they have auto-reflect and usually come with other enemies, it's a coinflip whether a reflected Stop hits.  Sometimes I get the first turn and win the Stop coinflip.  Sometimes they go first and hopefully use Merton or Flare instead of splattering the party.  Itemcast stop or confuse (or the Stray esper) is far more reliable for warding off a wipe from these monsters.

  At the top, Kefka's treasure is a Tortoise shield.  Mostly meh since Imp setups are something I don't really use all that much.  It's the only shield that Raja can use so that would let him have decent magic defense though he's still physical bait.

  Not worth the climb.  Oh, and there's a MagiMaster to beat up before I can leave.  Everyone keeps their Wall Rings on and piles on as much Magic boosting as I can get away with.  Life3 isn't available so the team will need to take the long way to win.

  Here's how the MagiMaster fight plays out.  Everyone casts Rasp.  Over and over and over with Osmose thrown in as desired.  Occasionally, I throw out a Scan to see how close I am to the fight being over.  Lucca does about 220 a Rasp with her 60ish Magic and Earrings.  The rest do about 150-160 a Rasp.  That's several hundred Rasp animations.  And hundreds more WallChange animations which go off every, single, 'effing time I cast anything on it or it reflects something onto itself.  This fight take ages to MP kill.  It can still kill itself through the WallChanges if one is phenomenally unlucky.

  No way I could do this in one sitting.  I could only stand short sessions of 15 minutes at a time, using savestates between sessions, before I found something else to do.  This fight description which takes five minutes to read and not that much longer to type up took place over two days real time.  Actual game time for this one fight was over two hours but it's so mind-numbing dull that no way am I getting it done fast.  (kicks randomizer)

  Looking back, berserk and Phantom would have been faster.  It wouldn't help by burning its MP but not sitting through hundreds of WallChanges probably would have taken less real time even though it takes more player turns to finish this way.

  So why bother with the tower?  Because it's there, the treasure is generally high-tier, and another reason which is concealed in the readme file, thus I won't reveal it either.  Oh, and by the time I've climbed down and used a system save, Chaz and Demi have nearly complete magic lists and Lucca and Gryz have only a few more to go.  Most of the treasure was weapons that are not Fixed Dice, Illumina, Sniper, or ValiantKnife and are therefore inconsequential.  Tiger Fangs does have a use though, giving Demi a non-elemental weapon for physical Rages.  Another Safety Bit and Minerva are also cool finds.

  Time to grab Raiden.  Team is the lowest leveled folks again so Kyra, Gryz, Demi, and Wren.  Demi and Gryz carry with Rage and Air Anchor like before.  Wren is carried by the other party members.  Raiden is the first source of Life3 in this game, a spell I really could have used a while ago.  Oh well.  On the trip in and out, ran into several of the high EXP formations.  Demi made zombies.  Gryz Air Anchors beefy ID vulnerable foes, Bum Rush handles pretty much anything else.  Hit Lv 34 with this group by the time they emerged.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Preparing for Kefka's tower:

  First order of business is making sure I have enough of the key consumables.  10-15 each of Tents, Revivifies,  Green Cherries, and Remedies for swift status healing the magic doesn't always catch.  20-25 Phoenix Downs just in case.  If X-Potions, Ether, and X-Ether are buyable, go for about 5; these are insurance against freak auto-Runic.  Which is overall very rare but nasty when it does appear.  I also want 4 White Capes to distribute for the final battle.  Trine and its unevadable MT Silence really gets in the way of winning the final battle efficiently or even at all.  I am not happy to realize that they're not for sale anywhere in the WoR and I don't have any usable Colosseum chains to obtain more either.

  Next, I turn two extra Drainers into BehemothSuits at the Colosseum.  Really ought to have done this long ago; there is no sane reason to be holding on to 4 Drainers.

  Going to try to put down my thought process for selecting teams for Kefka's Tower in this post.  First is deciding who stays behind.  Sometimes, the randomizer makes everyone useful and it's an agonizing decision on who to leave behind.  Sometimes, it produces lots of scrubby characters and it becomes a matter of working out which characters are the worst of the bunch to leave behind and who's the lesser of bad choices to bring to the tower.  It's theoretically possible the randomizer will generate characters such that the choice of who to leave on the airship will be clearcut but that doesn't really happen for me.

  It's important to take the most useful characters.  Anyone who has gone the distance in Beyond Chaos and challenged the final fight will know why.

  This game seemed to lean more towards having more scrubby and so-so characters and fewer must-haves.  Here's the batch I was choosing from to leave on the airship.

Raja: it's because of the horrific defense.  139 is very fragile for the final dungeon.  Too bad; he's got competent offense in Throw and Morph has good synergy with it.  But a character who is taking a dirt nap has an offensive contribution of zero.  Shadow Edges could help in theory and Tortoise shield and the option of Morph help deal with magic damage but well... not much help if the enemies act first and paste him before he moves.  And they usually will act first since he's not all that fast.  Plus, keeping him contributing in a boss fight presents issues.  I've found that trying to keep a fragile character upright tends to divert a lot of turns from the other characters which I find wasteful.

Seth: Sketch and GP Rain make a sad combo.  Sketch is awful.  GP Rain is just meh at this point even though I'm not broke anymore and can reasonably fund it.  He does get Magic but so do many others and Seth's defensive stats are unremarkable.  Only character besides Raja who can steal so I'm probably not going to ditch both of them but given how unlikely I am to obtain something valuable off ThiefKnife stabs, isn't going to be a huge factor in his favor.

Wren: SonicBoom has been getting less useful throughout as ID resistance becomes more common.  Spiraler has been useful negative two times this game and with battles on the longer side in Kefka's tower, it's becomes even less likely that a clutch Spiraler will make the difference between victory or defeat.  He's got a Sky Render so better evade but whatever.

Rune: He's been unimpressive all game though not useless.  Speed so low it manages to stand out despite FF6 ATB.  Dragon Horn is Marle only so he gets the short end of the stick on getting strong offense out of Jump and only the command's defensive traits keep it as an option.  Also didn't find anything more than an Excalibur for him to jump with so no chance of getting Jump-boosted Flare or Holy procs.  Has Magic and I've gotten use out of him as a Summon carrier but many other characters can perform that function at well.  Also forgettable defensive stats.  And his spell list isn't developed enough to make him a "must have" character.

Crono: Yes, he has 255 Defense when no one else has it.  He's still functions as Umaro so his damage is still OK-ish at best and the berserker state is an active liability at Goddess and Inferno and arguably one at the other Tower bosses.  So I still considered leaving him behind.  In his favor, besides 255 defense: Wren, Seth, and Rune manage to have worse damage output than him.

Team selection: For me it ends up very involved with a lot of things I try to consider.  And I'll attempt to jot my thought process here.  The end goal is creating 3 functional teams that can handle whichever boss fights they find.  Which, because I randomized the final dungeon layout, won't necessarily be in the same places as vanilla.  Ideally, I'd like to finish the tower in one trip without resorting to warping out and changing teams to get past a particularly stubborn boss.

In rough order of factors to consider.

- Who stays behind: Wren and Raja.  Wren was an easy choice but Raja has more to offer.  Decided that his low defense was a bigger liability than any of the other options.

- Splitting up incompatible commands: In this game, the only command sets I'm considering truly incompatible are Tools and the berserker.  So Crono will not end up on the same team as Gryz or Marle.  Rage and Tools are also incompatible by my personal standards but Demi has lots of other productive things to do outside of Rage so less concerned about her getting in the way of a Tools user.

- Certain commands I want split up.  This can also include skillsets which are functionally identical, if they come up.  In this game, they are Rage, X-Magic,Tools, and Lore  Rage because I have an unblockable freeze Special to draw on to cheese lone opposition.  X-Magic because of its power  Tools because of Noiseblaster and Air Anchor.  Lore is mostly about Big Guard.

I want a roughly even distribution of Magic casters.  At least two people per team should have access to summons (as I have enough Magic casters to go around, not always the case) and preferably at least two per team with access to Item.  For emergency utility and also because item breaks ignore defenses and evasion for those moments I feel it's worth it.

I would like to have at least one Fanatics Tower veteran per team since they have the most robust Magic lists.

Marle with at least one teammate with a strong Magic list is desirable since her Magic list is dependent on her allies'.

Lastly, I'd like Lucca on a team that lets her safely fire away with Merton.

After much hand-wringing, I settle on this final selection.

Team 1 is Chaz, Rika, Gryz, and Crono  I put Crono on the group that fights the fewest bosses in vanilla Kefka Tower just because.  He conflicts with Gryz's Nioiseblaster but I didn't come up with a more pleasing arrangement.  Also wanted him away from the Demi and Marle as two likely berserkers per team is awkward and Chaz will use Rage the least.  One really strong character and three decent to mediocre characters.

Team 2 is Rune, Kyra, Marle, Lucca  Having both possible Blitz and Lore user on the same team does come off a bit weird but Marle has plenty of other commands to set so not as much of a feeling of duplication.  This team has the most raw power as this is the group that fights Atma in vanilla.  Which isn't guaranteed in raondomized final dungeon but still guides where I start each team rather than endlessly deliberating.  Rune gets carried though he does provide support and utility.

Team 3 is Demi, Alys, Seth, and Hahn.  Demi is the star though both Alys and Hahn have respectable enough offense options.  Alys and Seth also bring the versatility of magic.  This group has the highest targetable ST damage for fighting Inferno.

[DragonKnight Zero]

I take team 3 exploring and they find a dragon within 5 rooms.  Yes, randomized final dungeon can do that.  The room layout is different, to say the least, and also expanded.  It turns out to be a Storm Dragon.  Storm Dragon can be a major bitch in randomzier.  Unevadable, non-elemental MT magic damage in Rage turns this into a magic durability check.  It can become insurmountable at lower levels.  Since my group is high leveled and have developed Magic lists, it's a much more reasonable fight.  Still want to get Shell up on everyone through Zoneseek since an opening Wind Slash was doing around 1100-1300 on the lower magic defense members without it.

  Plus, this dragon has no defense to being frozen.  So it's a lot less painful than it could have been.  The Gem Box I win is just as much use as the first one (as in not very useful)

  Warp out and safety save before diving back in.

  Finding a save point is my first goal as it's a tense, one nasty random can wipe out lots of progress, until then.  Murder formation from ancient castle and Cyan's dream makes more appearances here.  Gulp.  Throw maniac is vulnerable to sleep, slow, and stop and the monster with Disaster also has enough status holes so with a full party I'm able to slap some status and try to recover.  Or die.  Happened once or twice.  After some tense exploration, team 2 finds Inferno.  From the other end.  Damn, I was hoping to save before fighting any bosses.  Set Marle up with Fenrir, X Magic, and Throw.  Make sure everyone has petrify immunity and get to work. 

  Get Zoneseek, Krirn, and Fenrir online as soon as I'm able while keeping everyone alive.  Slow whatever parts I can and make use of Stop if that works.  Most of this teams offense is of the MT variety which isn't a good idea here.  Dead parts will lead to Meteor spam which is likely to be fatal.  So Merton+Rage is out.  Along with GrandTrain and Bum Rush.  Kyra is on utility duty along with Lucca, though Lucca can chip in some 1200 damage Step Mine for offense when free.  Drainer Jumps mean I rarely have to keep an eye on Rune once buffs are up.  Most of the damage is done with Marle's Throw.  Inferno rolled a fire weakness to tossed some extra Fire Knuckles for gratuitous amounts of pain.  Shrapnel is annoying but everyone but Rune is doing well on magic defense so manageable.  Rune is hopefully mid-Jump when they show.  Boss doesn't drop anything on defeat.

  With a party on the save point, making progress is less stressful and wiping isn't as terrible since I'm saving after every fight or two.  Team 1 finds the last dragon.  It's a Gold Dragon.  Rage Ring Crono can solo this, worst come to worst.  Didn't need to resort to that though.  Get Shell and regen on everyone which keeps damage in the recoverable range.  Chaz unloads a parade of time magic.  R-Tek mostly sucks here so Rika is primary healer/utility unit.  Unless Gryz lands a lightning weakness with Debilitator.  Poison it for added insult.  I could cheese its AI with Reflect but don't bother to.  The Regal Crown it drops is rather meh at this point.
  More important, being the last of the 8 dragons, Crusader is unlocked. It was dealt quite the list with 4 of its spells exclusive to it.  Bolt 2 was learnable via Thunder shield but this is the first appearance on an Esper.  Forgettable at this point.  Also is the sole teacher of Pearl (was missing it before), Flare (useful), and Quick; the last piece to turn Chaz into a bonkers gamebreaker.  Logic would dictate giving this to Chaz at once to train up Quick but I don't really need to rush it for reasons I will get to shortly.

[DragonKnight Zero]

  Team 3 finds an Atma.  Going to diverge from the battle accounts and go into an editorial mode here.

  I do have some gripes about how Beyond Chaos handles monster stat randomization and Atma is the first beneficiary that's likely to be encountered.  The monster stat randomization does try to present a challenge with its endgame bosses.  Since HP can't go beyond the 65535 cap and Beyond Chaos doesn't use HP looping scripts, it resorts to stat bloat for Atma, the 3 statues, and the final battle.  (starting Reraise will often be present too to maximize the amount of HP to chew through)  What that means is Atma has enough magic power that the target either negates the incoming attack through some means (elemental resistance, M. Block, Reflect if applicable, etc...), or it's eating dirt.  If it decides to use Meteor in its lower HP phase, you lose.  Unless you've ground up to 6000 max HP or so and even then that might not be enough.  Speed is significantly buffed and Hit Rate will usually be 255 so Evade and Image status are now worthless.  Physicals hurt too but are generally survivable with a Lv 30-35 party unless their defense is badly lacking.  Oh yes, Ultima still exists but it's predictable so less of a factor than a surprise Meteor and if your damage is high enough, won't come up.

  So is there anything to gain from fighting this monstrosity that's capable of wiping the party if it feels like it?  Besides satisfaction and the save point, it now gives 100 spell points.  Enough to learn a x1 rate spell in one shot.  Having an extra Quick caster without needing to consciously grind for it is nice.

  Wall Rings on everyone to turn away a lot of its magic, of which Flare can appear.  Fire immunity or absorption would not be redundant since Flare Star or S. Cross will fly past reflect.  Float status negates Quake in the lower HP phase.  Since Meteor is basically death, my preferred approach is to minimize the chance of it appearing.  Killing it fast once the lower HP phase hits is desirable, maybe intentionally triggering Ulitma and piling on damage while it's charging.  Ultima can be survived by Runic (which I don't have), Reraise status, or Palidor can grant a one-time repreive (hopefully buying enough time to finish Atma off).

  It's a formidable foe but has no answer to being frozen so it's less dangerous than it could have been.  Demi Rages and lands freeze on the first action.  Cast Slow on it as soon as I can (so freeze lasts longer) and pound it.  Hahn and Alys use physicals (and a RoyalShock proc from Alys' Illumina would be a welcome sight), Seth resorts to GP Rain since his Magic selection didn't have anything better.

  Atma does turn up with Reraise but due to the animation time, it gives my team a free round of attacks.  Plus Demi re-froze it on her next action so it doesn't get to do anything in it's remaining time.  Demi had Crusader so now has Quick.  Which I will probably forget about the next time this team enters battle, being so used to not having access to it.

[DragonKnight Zero]

I guess I have some words about dealing with late-game randoms.  If a monster turns out to be undead, oneshot with Life.  If it's vulnerable to instant death, that becomes my go-to; X-Znoe sees a lot of use.  Otherwise, I will prefer to cripple them with status over spamming damage.  Monsters with high enough HP to survive 3-4 Ultimas tend to be common.  Permanent disablers like silence, imp, and berserk (and combined with Vanish when I remember to really neutralize threats) I will favor over stuff that wears of like confuse or stop.  Slow combined with sleep or stop can also take an enemy out of action for a long time.

Other than death formation with its 8000 damage Throw nonsense and its Disaster capable escort, only one other enemy managed to score a wipe.  Smacked a monster, it counters with Meteor.  Which my team manages to survive but barely.  Before I can heal, Crono smacks it again, triggers another Meteor, and I'm looking at a dead party.  Next time I encounter that monster, Berserk to the rescue.

With two save points available, I can explore without risking losing lots of progress.  Until I reach the three switch room before where Guardian would be in vanilla.  Panic again since I'm now cut off from a save point until I beat Guardian, Doom, or Goddess.  (I didn't realize there's a way for the team in the center to access earlier areas at the time)  Anyways, manage to avoid wiping until team 2 finds a Guardian.

Oh Guardian and your 1500 damage Tek Laser.  Thing is, it always had high Magic power in vanilla so while it appears to be stat bloat, it's probably just normal Beyond Chaos stat randomization.  Which is dangerous enough.  Like vanilla, it is a damage race to kill it before it reaches a phase where it busts out MT murder.  Generally not a problem by the time I've reached it.  Even less of a problem once Marle lands that unblockable freeze Special.  Can't use Merton with Lucca but GrandTrain from Lucca, Bum Rush from Kyra, and whatever Rune contributes kill it before freeze wears off.

Drops a Force Armor.  With only 10 M. Block, it's a letdown and the people who can use it have stronger defense options so it's going to go mostly unused.

With that team on a save point, they'll stay there for a bit while the other two groups explore forwards.  Next boss fight is team 3 finding Doom.  Demi gets the spare Blizzard Orb as a precaution and Seth takes a defense hit to don a spare Flame shield.  The other two will be leaning on their M. Block to keep them in the game until Demi lands a freeze Special.
    Stat bloated Doom starts off with either N. Cross or high powered Ice 3/Absolute 0.  And the attack spells have enough power that they're likely to be fatal unless nulld/absorbed, dodged, or having lots of M. Def.  It also has really strong physicals though those are generally survivable at high HP.  They're usually strong enough that R. Polarity is a threat.  It started off with N. Cross missing Demi.  She Rages and lands freeze on the first turn.  Offense choices are the same that this group pulled out on Atma: physicals from Hahn and Alys and GP Rain from Seth as he has no noteworthy magic (along with some ThiefKnife stabbing hoping to get lucky).  Also Doom has bloated magic defense so offensive magic that doesn't pierce defense won't leave much of a mark.  I already have Forcefield so I have no reason to hold back.  Even with Slow set though, Doom lives long enough to unfreeze and sneak some physicals in.  Very well, even with their power they're unlikely to kill off everyone before getting refrozen.  When it hits Seth, who's lagging defensively at 190 and in the front row, it does a fearsome .... 150 damage.  What?  With over 160 Attack according to the monster stats?
     Hahaha, Doom had so much physical power that the damage overflow glitch kicked in and rolled over the damage to something really small.  It was already in phase 2 at this point to all it does is physicals, ForceField, and R. Polarity.  Joke fight confirmed.  Demi refreezes it, beat it down, and win another Genji shield.  It rolled low on defense so the few people who can use it will take a defense hit if they equip it.  Does have good magic defense and 20 M. Block in its favor.  Makes an interesting alternative for Lucca to stack even higher amounts of magic defense and M. Block.

  The other two teams take the opportunity to make farther progress.  Encounter the room which would be before Poltergeist in the vanilla game.  In vanilla, climbing the conveyor allows skipping Poltergeist.  Not happening here.  Instead, this leads to a room with no encounters and a secret item that was decided upon generating the game.  I'm expecting a Wing Pack thanks to Sketch glitch enabled preview but I get a Page Jacket instead.  Surprise.

  Oh yeah, Rename Card is not present having been replaced by a second random secret item.  Guess the game assigned this one instead to the room.  The Page Jacket is disappointing armor with only 55 defense usable by everyone.  (good magic defense though)  The biggest thing against it is that it makes the wearer undead like the Relic Ring.  With how likely people are to die from being dropped to zero HP, the undead nature is too much of a liability.  Humorously, the wearer also starts with death sentence so they get a full HP refill if it expires in battle.  Only once though since undead reversal doesn't properly clear death sentence.  The extensive status immunities aren't enough to offset the undead liability either for me.

  Next boss challenged is Poltergeist.  Team 1 is up to bat.  I actually lose once even with Rage of game-breaking.  Stat-bloated Poltergeist is an offensive monster.  The Fire 3 counter will probably kill a target without fire immunity.  Meteo is around 5000 HP of doom unless evaded.  Aero and WaveCannon hurt but survival prospects against those are better.  Most times, I win by exploiting it's AI.  But I have a Rage with an unblockable freeze Special so what could go wrong?
  Well Chaz landed a freeze early but it wore off before I took it down (boss' innate auto-haste helps it).  Poltergeist got a turn and blasted the team with WaveCannon and flattened Rika and Grzyz (Gryz has 180-ish magic defense but was weakened by a Fire 3 counter and blasted before I could heal him).  With no one under my control, prayed Chaz would refreeze it.  Coinflip kept landing 1600 damage Meteor instead and Chaz got two turns before another WaveCannon flattened him.  Crono still kicking thanks to Rage Ring but with his so-so damage, didn't finish the fight before a 5000 damage Meteo sent him into dirt.
  Next try went better.  Gryz throws on a Thunder shield so he won't die to sudden WaveCannons which I neglected doing the previous attempt.  Chaz is more cooperative on the winning attempt and the only turn Poltergeist gets is an opening Flare Star.  I win a Sky Render, which I have no real use for at this point.  I really wanted Chaz surviving since I gave him Crusader and the 100 spell points nets him Quick.  He now has the full combo of X-Magic, Quick, and Ultima (along with Osmose and Life3 for utility).  Fear.  For all of two rooms until the party reaches the final 3 switch room that starts the final boss fight.

  One more of the warring triad to go and it's team 2 up against Goddess.  Magic bloated Goddess is mean and could very well become a wall to parties with low damage output.  Bolt 2 is probably death (at least at the levels and magic defenses I generally have when reaching her).  Bolt 3 is overkill.  And Quasar is a massive MT 'eff you wipe.
  Of course there's still Lullaby to potentially cause many lost turns and Charm to muck things up even more.  And Overcast to turn anyone who dies from the other stuff to become zombies.
   ID protection for Overcast as well as thunder resistance or Wall Rings are pretty much essential to not get vaporized by the magic damage.  Unless the character has insane (say 240-ish) magic defense or perfect M. Block.  Marle gets by without an ID blocker as she's going to be using a Rage with ID immunity.  Ice or water resist is also nice to have, especially for Wall Ring characters lest they fall to Flash Rain.  With all my extra Rage Rings, sufficient lightning protection doesn't become an issue in this game.  More M. Block is good to stuff Charm and Lullaby.
   Generally, the most reliable way to win through HP damage is to blast through the low HP phase and letting Goddess get as few turns as possible since Quasar will lead to ruination.  This team has a much easier method of winning though: unblockable freeze Special from Rage.  Once Goddess becomes an ice statue, pile on more Bum Rush, GrandTrain/Ultima, and Jumps from Rune and the party wins without issue.  Dropped an Excalibur like in vanilla.  Also rather meh, just like vanilla.  More Battle Power for Rune jumps but the holy element is more likely to be resisted in Beyond Chaos.

  Yay, Jump was relevant since only Fight triggers Love Token.  And it hits Goddess' lower defense stat, doing about 1500-2000 when it hits in the back.  No, Rune is still not the badass damage dealer he wishes he is.  Lucca learns Quick from this fight which means Marle will have it too.

Because of final dungeon randomization, it's not a guarantee that the team that fights Poltergeist has one last save point before the final battle.  Here, team 2 is the one that finds the save point that's normally after Poltergeist in normal vanilla progression.

And with that, only the final battle remains.  Which I'm not inclined to do anytime soon given the stat bloat present there and how quickly things can go wrong.  With my characters in the Lv 32-35 range, even the first form can be scary. (and I have died to it in randomizer)  Though when I do get around to it, I'll have a battle report up.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Reserved for final battle writeup if I ever get the motivation to take on stat bloated final boss.  Stat bloat Kefka is terrifying even with the insane stuff I have access to and one unlucky move from him can send the fight into a downward spiral swiftly.

[DragonKnight Zero]

So more recent versions of Beyond Chaos have an optional setting that I've been avoiding as it's likely to dissolve the game into one-dimensional skill spam.  But I have been curious about it since it was introduced.  And occasionally, one gets that mood where one wants to smash things with overwhelming power...

  This is where audience participation comes in.  I don't need it necessarily but might as well have some fun.  So send me your name suggestions for massively overpowered characters along with  thoughts of why you consider them overpowered.  6 character limit applies due to game limitations.  RPG characters favored but I'm willing to be open to suggestions from other games and media too.  You can suggest a character they replace or leave to chance; either is fine.

Suggestions without accompanying reasons will be ignored.  What matters to me is the case for a nom's overpoweredness.   Preferably in a way that communicates to someone unfamiliar with the character.  Timeframe for noms is flexible; I'll start the run when I have enough name ideas to get the thing running.