Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls/Soul of Chaos

Soul of Chaos is the combined name for the brand-new dungeons included in the Dawn of Souls version of Final Fantasy I. Four new dungeons have been added, featuring a multitude of new challenges and new rewards. As players progress through the main story, access to these dungeons can be earned by defeating the Fiends of Chaos and restoring the powers of the four elemental crystals one by one. All four of these new dungeons are entirely optional for the player to undertake.

Unlike normal dungeons, there is a bit of randomness to the Souls of Chaos. There are set maps, however which maps you go through and in which order is determined randomly. For instance, in the Earthgift Shrine, there are two cave floors, a forest, and a desert. The first time through you might go through the maps in the order of cave, forest, desert, cave, then the next time you go through the order might be desert, cave, cave, forest. In addition to the order changing the number, location, and contents of treasure chests is random. The chests also refill every time, so you can continually find new items and equipment - much of which is not found in the world outside of the dungeons.

While the dungeons unlock as soon as a Fiend is defeated, it is recommended that you wait a while until you are powerful enough to fight the bosses. The common enemies are very easy, the bosses are a whole different matter - many of them are more powerful than Chaos or Warmech.

It is also important that you know how to fight bosses. Simple brute force won't work like it does with many of the original bosses. As soon as the fight begins work on getting Saber and Haste put on your fighters and Blink on all characters. This means that you'll need to have the Defender (found in the Waterfall Cave) and Giant's Gloves (found in the Sunken Shrine). You should also have the Healing Staff (Citadel of Trials). In addition to buffing you fighters, you should get any applicable Nul barriers up in the first round or two. After that have your magic users heal, cast Invisira and Protera, and otherwise support the fighters. Most bosses have incredibly high magic defense, and even those that don't have thousands upon thousands of HP, so even spells that do several hundred damage will be nearly worthless. Concentrate instead on making your attackers capable of doing over 1000 damage per round.

You can only fight one boss per floor, so you will have to beat the Earthgift Shrine four times and the others twice. After each boss fight you will be able to return to the surface, or if you are at the midway point, continue on to the lower floors. Should you be defeated at any point (by a boss or common enemy), you will not get a Game Over, but will be returned to the surface with only 1 HP per character. Death or victory are the only two ways of getting out of a dungeon - you cannot backtrack and the Warp and Exit spells will be disabled.