White Squares Zanarkand

[Dion Worles]

Alsonote that at this point you can choose to make the upcoming battles a significant amount easier by having Yuna learn Holy at the end of her Sphere Grid section. This actually gives her something to do during her turns if she doesn't have anything to heal, not to mention doing a lot of damage (but this is balanced by an MP cost of 85). However, you might complain that it's a lot of leveling up to do. If you've got Yuna to learn Curaga or possibly Regen by this point it isn't that much more at all, and at the same time you can get other people to learn abilities that will make them more useful as well. Grinding for Holy will also give you the opportunity to make sure that all of your Aeons are in Overdrive. Having them in Overdrive will make the last part of the battle against Yunalesca much easier.

Once you enter the dome, after a short distance you'll go through a tunnel of sorts with a chest on top of it. When you come out the other side you can use a ramp to the right to climb up and get the chest, which contains 10,000 Gil. Further along is a save sphere. There's a Friend Sphere along one of the forks from the part where you see Seymour and his mother from a long time ago, and further along (just before the exit) you can backtrack down a girder to reach a hidden chest containing a Lvl 3 Key Sphere (if your characters are beginning the reach the end of their sphere grid sections you will most likely be running a little low on these, so make sure you pick it up). Along the next corridor you can pick up a Luck Sphere from a chest, then carry on up to the top. Use the Save Sphere, then head down the stairs to the Cloister of Trials.

Once you've done this six pedestals will come out of slots on the wall and the door to the next area will open. In the next room, which is quite big, take the Kilika Sphere from the slot by the screen on the wall (not the Besaid Sphere, since that powers the screen) and place it in the center-left pedestal. This will cause the Kilika Glyph to appear on one of the hexagonal plates around the hole in the main room. Then, you can start solving the arrangements of tiles that match the Yevon symbols for each temple. We'll start with the top-left one, so push that pedestal in.

You need two red corners, two blue L-shapes and two green S-shapes, so locate them on the larger of the two diagrams and touch all of them (without stepping on any others). When it's complete the screen will flash yellow, the arrangement will disappear, and another glyph will appear on the hexagonal panels around the hole in the middle of the room. Return to the first room and push the lower-left pedestal in to trigger another Yevon symbol match-up. This one requires three red corners, two blue L-shapes, one green S-shape and one yellow straight piece (thankfully there's only one of these in this room, in the bottom left corner). Complete this, and another glyph will appear on a hexagonal plate.

Work your way through the other two match-up puzzles but leave the pillar with the sphere slot until the end (they're really easy when you know where each of the arrangements are). This pillar takes the Besaid Sphere that powers the screen in the other room and obviously you can't complete the puzzles without the screen. Once you've placed the Besaid Sphere in the last pedestal and activated all the glyphs, a lift will appear in the hole in the previous room. The screen in this first room will be frozen with seven white squares on it; you'll have to leave this until you return. Save, then go through into the large room to start a boss fight.

It's immune to Power and Armour Break (which really sucks since its physical attack and defense are both quite high) but it does succumb to Mental Break. It is also immune to Slow and Delay (so any attempt to nullify its worryingly high speed will have to come from Haste), as well as Poison and a variety of status effects apart from Silence which does absolutely nothing against it. This battle will take a long time as you will need to keep using items and turns to deal with the situations it presents you, but providing you don't attack it that often and leave the attacking to somebody that can inflict a lot of damage per hit, you should be fine. A Grand Summon of Bahamut followed by a nice Mega Flare should be good for about 20,000 damage at this point, maybe even as high as 35,000 (if Yuna's finished her Sphere Grid section, and don't forget, you've got Holy as a last-ditch attack method).

Once the Spectral Keeper is dead the room will return to normal and the glyphs will combine to make a lift which takes you down to the hall of the Final Summoning. After the cutscene and the battle results, you'll be at the bottom of the lift; use the save sphere down here then go through the door. Unfortunately, the original fayth of the Final Aeon has lost all of its power, and it cannot be used to summon the Aeon. But it seems Lady Yunalesca has a solution; so go through the portal to meet her.

Turns out it's not as simple as the summoner fighting Sin. After the long scene you'll confront Lady Yunalesca over the matter of defeating Sin, and you'll uncover more of the lies surrounding Yevon. After a small motivational speech from Auron and the rest of the party, you'll fight Yunalesca!

Yunalesca's first form isn't particularly dangerous but she'll counter anything you use against her; Blind will be used against anyone who physically attacks, Silence against anybody who uses magic on her, and Sleep on any overdrives used. This quickly accumulates and you will have to make sure you try and cure all of the status effects you get as the battle becomes very difficult very fast once you get to the second and third forms. Yuna's Holy will probably hit for nearing 9999 damage, and Hastega from Tidus will help speed the whole process up. Yunalesca's main normal attack is to use a weak white energy blast on you; it does about 200-300 damage on whoever it hits but it dispels all positive status effects. She also has a spell called Absorb, which takes about 2,000 of a character's health and adds it to hers.

This is the form you want to make sure everybody gets a turn in with; the battle becomes a little more demanding on heavy-hitters towards the end. When you're ready to progress (don't bother to use spells like Protect or Shell as they'll only get dispelled), make sure Yuna is in the party, knock off her remaining HP and watch as she grows into her second form.

Yunalesca no longer casts an appropriate spell to nullify whatever you use to attack her but rather she'll use her white dust attack as a counter-attack to most things. As a result, positive status effect spells (including Hastega) are now pretty much useless, but Yunalesca isn't that fast and so not too difficult to deal with. Regen on a Zombie character is a lot like Poison except it does less damage but every turn regardless of whether it's that character's or not. It'll do about 150 damage a turn to a zombified character but will work in reverse if you get rid of it with a Holy Water. Cura will do about 1,500 damage to a zombie.

If you had Yuna in the party after defeating Yunalesca's second form, Yuna will be inflicted with Zombie. Cast Haste on Yuna and remove her from the party (bringing her in only to heal and cast a couple rounds of Holy from time to time). Bring Yuna back in when Yunalesca has around 9000 HP and finish her off with Holy. Since Yuna is zombiefied, she will not die when the third form of Yunalesca uses Mega-Death.

Now it has a nice, big, ugly face. To top it off, if no characters are zombies despite this guide's considerable warnings, your campaign to end Yunalesca's 1,000 years of "liberating" and bestowing the Final Aeon upon summoners will end here as Mega-Death will kill everyone. Otherwise, you will escape instant death.

Her final form has 60,000 HP, as mentioned before, but now you will have to contend with the strongest healing magic Yunalesca has to offer (Curaga is capable of doing up to 5,000 damage to a zombie), Hellbiter to re-inflict Zombie, Mind Blast which is particularly used on Aeons which does about 500 damage to everyone (and if used on an Aeon, inflicts Curse), and Yunalesca will recast Mega-Death from time to time so make sure you have at least one zombie in your active party to survive that when it happens. Yunalesca retains her dispelling white dust counter-attack, and as before is immune to pretty much any status effect that isn't positive. Summoning Aeons is a good idea here as you can get a few good moves in dealing damage to her before she kills it off; she'll use Absorb and Osmose a lot on Aeons to try and replenish her health, but Bahamut should be able to deal out damage faster than she can replenish it, at least until he dies (and you can't use Mega Flare either since you're cursed).

If you want to finish the battle quickly, have Yuna (who should still have Haste on her) summon her Aeons (they all should be in Overdrive). It is likely that Valefor will end up being killed by Absorb and Osmose after his overdrive attack. Ifrit and Ixion might survive Yunalesca's combo attack but dismiss them anyway because you won't get a second overdrive from them. Shiva is likely to survive the combo attack and get a second overdrive, so use it against Yunalesca and enjoy your victory. If you don't get a second overdrive from Shiva, bring in Bahamut and use his overdrive to finish Yunalesca off.

An alternative to making sure you have at least one zombie at all times is, before entering the battle, to customize a piece of armor with both Zombieproof and Deathproof. Deathproof uses 60 Farplane Winds-this is the amount the arena master gives you for capturing every creature in the Calm Lands-and Zombieproof uses 30 Candle's of Life, which Rikku can steal from the zombie monks in the Zanarkand Ruins. Yunalesca's attacks do fairly low regular damage, relying on zombie and healing magic to inflict high damage, so if you use this on a character with fairly high HP, you don't need to worry about keeping one of your members as a zombie. When Yunalesca casts Mega-Death, Deathproof keeps this character alive. Simply use a Phoenix Down (or Life, if your character has it) to resurrect the rest of your party, and return to battle.

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