Stage 11 - Croakadile¶

A simple fight against quite a weak enemy. Moving right along!

Stage 12 - Melt (optional), Jelly x8¶

Melt is an optional foe that you can spawn on this stage, by first killing at least five of the Jellies, then standing in front of the switchboard, facing the wall. Melt actually has a few decent items to steal, mainly the Shielded Armor (uncommon) and Shell Shield (rare). These grant the Protect and Shell buffs at all times when equipped, which is nice as you won’t need to manually cast them.

Stage 13 - Tiamat¶

Tiamat is much the same as the main game and shouldn’t worry your party too much.

Stage 14 - Panther x5¶

The Panthers from Golmore Jungle appear in this stage but offer nothing different to the regular game. Make sure your party can cope with their attacks which can be quite strong and stack when faced with a large group like this stage.

Stage 15 - Elder Wyrm, Treant x2¶

This stage will have you facing the Elder Wyrm, a boss that has a devastating special move, Sporefall, that can inflict a variety of ailments on multiple characters if you’re not careful. The easiest way to minimize this is by casting Decoy on a single character and having them turn the Elder Wyrm away from the others. It only has one item to steal, a Shell Shield, which is uncommon.

Stage 16 - Mateus, Ice Azer x5 (optional)¶

You will be facing off against Mateus, the second storyline Esper, in this stage. If you have a mage, you will want to be careful here, as Mateus will keep Reflect on himself the entire time, even if you happen to dispel it. He uses Blizzaja as his special move, which can inflict Sap, plus the Ice Azers know Curaga and can cast Sleep on your characters. You only need to defeat Mateus to end the stage and you can steal either an Ice Shield (common) or Icebrand (rare) from him.

Stage 17 - Mindflayer x3¶

Stage 17 is probably the first big roadblock of Trial Mode and it isn’t because the Mindflayers are tough opponents. It’s the fact that they can use Time Requiem and inflict Stop on multiple characters that is the problem. If all of your characters are stopped, then it results in a game over, so you see the problem here. There are only two ways to prevent Stop from being put on your characters: either with a Ribbon (which is out of your reach) or a Power Armlet. The Power Armlet doesn’t become available for purchase in the main story until you reach the Phon Coast, but you can actually steal Power Armlets from the Mindflayers (uncommon steal).

To further complicate this fight, there is a magick field that saps your MP throughout the entire battle, so you will want to rely on items. Note that Chronos Tears can cure Stop, but Time Requiem is an area-of-effect, so you’ll need to be careful. In addition to that, Hero’s March grants a variety of buffs, Invert switches your HP and MP with each other, Dark Shock can inflict either Blind or Sap, Soul Etude can fully recover the Mindflayer and Mystery Waltz can raise its level, making the Mindflayer more offensively and defensively sound.

Stage 18 - Ring Wyrm¶

The Ring Wyrm is nothing after the fight at Stage 17. There is nothing special about this fight so quickly get the items and move on.

Stage 19 - Earth Tyrant¶

Another simple fight against this beast. If you’ve completed the other stages, you should have no trouble here.

Stage 20 - Vulture x6¶

Another nice and easy stage to finish up this section of Trial Mode.