The final quest you have to complete is going through the Black Omen to defeat Zeal and confront Lavos. You can ram the epoch into Lavos or just use the bucket at the end of time naturally, but you'll only activate the New Game + if you beat the Black Omen the regular way. You can visit it in 2300 A.D. to see an eerie message from Zeal, and you can also fight through the fortress three times if you go in 1000 A.D., 600 A.D., and 12,000 B.C. in that order. You'll encounter all of the bosses the first time through, but only Zeal on the second and third. Unless you want to max out your experience in that order, you might as well finish it off in 12,000 B.C when you feel ready to continue the story.
The Black Omen dungeon behaves as one in all 3 timelines, with the exception of end completion. Collecting treasure only occurs once, so treasures cannot be recollected in earlier timelines. Bosses and one-time only enemies only appear once, so having Ayla at all times to charm rare items is essential. Otherwise, missing that moment to charm becomes permanent.
A few people on the northern continent and elsewhere will also comment on the Black Omen as they're chatting about the weather, until you get rid of it that is. Hopefully you'll have completed all the other sidequests and challenged Spekkio for the last set of items you'll get until you hit level 99/**, so take your party to the Black Omen by flying the Epoch into it.
Arrival[edit | edit source]
After you destroy the lasers on the outside, Zeal will inform you how long the planet has left to live. Head inside for the first boss fight with Mega Mutant.
Continue on, but be careful with the goons since they absorb magic, and in general just use your best multi-enemy techs, you should have learned about all of them by now. Be aware that there are a lot of useful [items which can be charmed from the enemies here, such as Speed Tabs from the Panels, Gold Studs from the Flyclops, etc. Note that each of the Panels can only be fought once, even you go through the Black Omen in the order 1000 A.D., 600 A.D., and finally 12,000 B.C. All of the treasure chests can only be opened once. Eventually you'll come to an elevator where you may have a few random fights while you're riding it.
Pick up a couple chests in the next room (MegaElixir, 30,000 G), and head into the next room for a few more fights and a chest containing a Magic Seal. Be careful of the Ruminators, since they can kill you in one hit if they get the chance. The next area will have 6 chests (Vigil Hat, Elixir, MegaElixir, Nova Armor, Haste Helm, MegaElixir) and a save point and two Nus, the left one of which will sell you items, the right one will offer you a chance to escape the Black Omen if you ask him to "wake [you] up." Use a shelter if you like, then head into the next room to face a Tubster. These guys counter-attack aggressively and are immune to shadow magic, but they're not too tough. Pick up a Zodiac Cape near the Ruminators running through the hall, and head through another room with a MegaElixir and a bunch of monsters looking for a fight.
Grab a Power Seal in the next room, and fight a Tubster with a couple Flyclops and a few more monsters, grabbing a Speed Tab in a chest in the bottom right corner at the end. There will also be another Speed Tab in the next room, and then a transport. You'll fight a few sets of Aliens with some nasty instant death counters; you can pick up an Elixir in the south-west corner of this room, pick up a Speed Tab and a MegaElixir at the end of the room. You'll come to a save point, heal up and prepare to fight Giga Mutant.
Remember to use a shelter at the previous save point after beating Giga Mutant! Head through another transport and up another elevator, preparing for fights along the way. Fight through another room of generic enemies, and you'll come to a room with four Panels you'll have to fight to reveal a save point. A Speed Tab will also be waiting in the chest nearby. Save and heal again, because you're about to face the next version of the "mutant" monster, the Terra Mutant.
Pick up a MegaElixir and the White Rock (to enable a triple tech, Poyozo Dance, with the three girls). By now you should have all five triple tech rocks.
You can save and use a shelter again if you really want, but it probably won't be necessary. Go forward through another room and prepare to face a particularly nasty Lavos Spawn.
Head into the next room for another set of panels, keep in mind that you can charm these enemies for tabs. A save point will appear, so heal up and save because you're about to deal with Zeal. This is also a good time to use those tabs if you haven't already, they each raise a particular stat by one. Keep in mind that speed never goes up as you gain levels and it maxes out at 16. Lucca and Magus will max out magic on their own eventually, and everyone but Lucca and Marle will max out power, although power does not affect the damage caused by using "Attack".
The final room[edit | edit source]
The fight with Zeal will go through three main phases. Having someone who can heal the whole party is important since you'll be having your whole party's HP drained to one by Zeal's attacks in the first phase, and it just makes sense for a long boss fight like this, so Frog or Robo would be helpful. As far as attackers go, Crono is an obvious choice for both magical and physical attacks, and Magus makes the fight interesting by adding some extra dialogue to the fight with Zeal. His theme will play during the battle with her third form.
After defeat she will then try to toss you into the Mammon Machine, thereby initiating her second form.
Finally, you will have to fight Zeal again, however in a much different form.
Zeal![]() | ||||
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HP 20,000 (Face), 28,000 (for each hand) |
Weaknesses None |
Strengths None |
Absorbs None | |
Charmables 1xPrism Helm (Right Hand), 1xPrism Dress (Left Hand), 1xMegaElixir (Head) |
Drops 1xMegaElixir |
XP 0 |
TP 0 |
Gold 0 |
Attacks
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Description/Strategy
Queen Zeal will summon you atop the Black Omen, she'll curse you and then transform into this three piece avatar. This time the queen will have transformed into a monster composed of three separate parts: a face and two hands. If you have Magus along for the ride he'll comment and it will play his theme music for the battle. Note that by targeting the hands at all you will pay for it, even if you try and charm them. The left hand will use life shaver on you if you attack it and the right hand will use MP buster, so you're best off just attacking the face with single target physical attacks like Confuse, Triple Kick, or Uzzi Punch. It will pull some nasty techniques that do in the vicinity of 300 damage (Hexagon Mist / Starburst being the most damaging water attack), as well as the Hallation attack which sends everyone's HP to 1. The charmables from this boss are extremely generous, so Ayla is vital. Note that in the DS version, the rewards from charming the hands are switched (the Right Hand gives a Prism Dress, and the Left Hand gives a Prism Helm). Other than messing with getting charms, its an easy fight. Just focus on the head and heal up when needed. Pay attention of how much HP damage you inflicted. After 10,000 HP is gone, the head will cast Hallation, so prepare for multi-heal tech or a multi-heal item item such as Lapis. Be cautious with executing a multi-heal tech too late because head will use MP Buster and stop the process. Additionally, you do not want to take too long to heal as even the smallest of multi-hit attacks will defeat the whole party. After the 2 devastating attacks, proceed like before as there are no changes in behavior. Destroying the head will bring the whole Zeal trio down. |
Eventually you'll wear Zeal down, and she'll decide to have Lavos destroy you directly. The Black Omen will sink into the sea and crumble through a time gate that sends you directly to Lavos at 1999 AD (as proven if you are defeated by Lavos during this battle OR if you defeated Lavos previously).