Ozma

Finding Ozma

To reach Ozma, you have to complete most of the chocobo side quest that begins in the Chocobo forest near the beginning of the game --- to speed you along, see this list of Chocographs which will help you find the treasures and evolve your chocobo to a Gold Chocobo. Once you have a Gold Chocobo and can reach the Chocobo Air Garden, you are able to fight Ozma. Defeating Ozma isn't easy, however.

Ozma is the hardest battle in the game. If your characters are less than level 60, you will probably not be able to defeat Ozma. If your characters are above level 60, you're still going to have a pretty rough time of it. But reaching Ozma is easy, at least. Once you're in the Chocobo Air Garden, simple go to the rock on the leftmost ``island'' and search around until a ``?'' appears. Press X here. Mene will warn you twice that he senses something other-worldly and that he doesn't think you should continue. You will be given a chance to select your party, re-equip, and even back out of the fight; however, the menu where you can reselect your party is your last chance to cancel.

Once you proceed from there, you will begin the battle with Ozma. After that, how hard can it be? Ozma only has 50,000HP which is small compared to the Weapons in FF7 and FF8 which had 500,000-1,000,000HP. How bad can it really be? I'll let you find that out for yourself :)

Prerequisites

You should seriously consider meeting these prerequisites before attempting Ozma.

Party members are Level 60 minimum (higher is better!). Avoid having characters whose levels are multiples of 5 or 4, to avoid Lv5 Death and Lv4 Holy.
Party members know most/all of their trance skills.
Party members have Auto-Haste, Auto-Regen, Auto-Potion, Auto-Life, and the HP/MP modifier skills.
Party members have as many protections against status ailments as possible. Protection against Confuse, Poison, Blind, Silence, are recommended.
Party members have as much protection against Shadow elemental as possible. Egoist's Armlet and Demon's Mail are good here. Any item that guards or absorbs shadow attacks is encouraged to avoid Doomsday.
Find all nine friendly creatures (the Land Spirits) on the world map and give them what they are asking for (Ore, Moonstone, etc.). If you do not do this, then you will get the message ``Can't Reach!'' whenever you try to attack Ozma physically with short-range attacks. See this list of Land Spirits for more information. NOTE: You will not be able to reach Ozma until you have gotten the ``You can reach the big round guy!'' message from Yan.

Ozma Characteristics

Ozma's major characteristics are listed below:

Level: 99
HP: 55535
MP: 9999
Location: Chocobo Air Garden
Attacks:
- Death
- Flare
- Holy
- LV5 Death (hits all)
- Flare Star (hits all)
- LV4 Holy (hits all)
- Mini (hits all)
- Berserk
- Curse (causes Slow, Mini, Darkness, Confuse, hits all)
- Meteor (hits all)
- Doomsday (hits everyone on screen, including Ozma)
- Absorb MP
- Curaga (targets itself, counterattack)
Weak to: Wind, Holy (depends on which side up)
Steal: Elixir, Robe of Lords, Dark Matter, Pumice Piece
Won: Dark Matter, Ozma Card
EXP: 65535
Gil: 18312

Note that Ozma has two sides, a light side and a dark side. The side that is on top determines which magics Ozma is vulnerable and which ones Ozma will absorb. When the dark side is on top, Ozma will absorb Holy elemental attacks, but is weak against Shadow elemental attacks. When the light side is on top, Ozma will absorb Shadow elemental attacks, but is weak against Holy. Ozma rotates periodically, so it is hard to plan attacks to take advantage of the vulnerabilities; and with Ozma, you usually only get one chance.

This is particularly noticable when Ozma casts Doomsday. Note that Doomsday hits everyone currently on the screen (it may exempt Freija if she has already jumped), therefore if the right side is up Ozma will take 9999HP damage just like every party member that isn't guarded against Shadow.

Ozma's Attacks

Listed below are Ozma's attacks which can be particularly devastating.

Doomsday - This is the most devastating attack if you have not guarded against shadow. ALL characters currently on the screen will suffer 9999HP damage, unless they absorb or guard against Shadow. Note that this includes Ozma; if Ozma's dark side is up, Ozma will absorb, otherwise Ozma takes 9999HP damage as well. Note that this attack exempts Freija if she has already jumped.
Curse - This is pretty much a Pandora's box on every party member. This attack causes physical damage as well as multiple status ailments such as Slow, Mini, Confuse, Darkness, and Poison on the entire party. This attack is why protection against ailments is essential.
Meteor - This is a non-elemental attack, so you cannot guard against it. It has the potential of causing anywhere from a few hundred HP to 9999HP damage on every party member.
Lv4 Holy/Lv5 Death - All-party attacks, but will only affect members whose levels are multiple of 4 or 5, respectively. Not fun.
Curaga - Ozma is able to cure itself for 6000-8000HP.
The other attacks listed above are typically not as devastating, especially if your party has auto-regen.

NOTE: None of Ozma's magic is reflectable. Also, Ozma is immune to reflect.

Miscellaneous Notes

On 2001.03.26, I finally defeated Ozma as part of my completionist game game for FFIX. That was one fun battle too, given the (lack of) leveling up I did -- after about 40 minutes, I lucked out when Zidane entered Trance, after that it only took 1 Doomsday and 3 Grand Lethals -- too bad the Doomsday knocked out the rest of my party... Oh well, can't have everything when you don't level up...

If you defeat Ozma before finding the Master Synthesist, Hades, Hades will begin the battle with one of the more amusing battle dialogues I've seen: ``Wh-What!? You've defeated Ozma!? I've come too far to retreat. Onward!''

Defeating Ozma, Second Try

On 2002.04.12, I defeated Ozma a second time during a replay. Again, I did not level up my characters more than necessary to learn particular skills. Notable in this game: I did not find all of the land spirits in this game. As a result, I could not reach Ozma; this makes the battle far more interesting. Zidane was susceptible to Lv5 Death, which added a bit of challenge. This attempt did not require much time; I mainly needed to figure out how to use each character, and then wait for a round where Ozma didn't begin with Meteor.

For this battle, I used the following characters and equipment:

Zidane: Chimera Armlet (guard against Holy), Ninja Gear (absorb Shadow)
Steiner: Pumice Piece (absorbs Holy and Shadow)
Freija: Demon's Mail (absorb Shadow), Ribbon (reduce Holy by 50%)
Dagger: Pumice Piece (absorbs Holy and Shadow)

Characters were equipped with auto-haste, auto-potion, auto-regen, antibody, and clear-headed whenever possible. All other abilities were icing on the cake.

In this battle, Ozma began with Doomsday which was an all-party heal. Zidane merrily pilfered items from Ozma until he entered Trance; then I started using Grand Lethal (9999 HP damage). Steiner used Shock (9999 HP damage when he wasn't mini), and Freija used Dragon's Crest (~5000 HP damage). Freija's attack was equally effective when she was mini, which helped. In the end, a meteor and death knocked out all but Zidane and Steiner, but... Grand Lethal was enough to defeat Ozma.

If you defeat Ozma before finding Yan (the friendly land spirit, not the less-friendly deadly enemy), the conversation goes something like this:

Give me a Diamond.
Give Yan a diamond
Thanks a lot!
Reach the round guy...
...Huh!?
You already beat him?