Deep Sea Research Center
Side Quests

You will not be able to reach the Deep Sea Research Center until you have access to the Ragnarok ship, which means you’ll need to have completed both the Lunar Base and Ragnarok portions of the story. Use the links below to return to those sections of the walkthrough if you need to:

Once you have access to the Ragnarok, its time to head out to the middle of the sea. The Deep Sea Research Center is not located on the world map but you can find it by flying down to the lower left corner of the map. Use the screenshot and map below to help you find it:

Using the Ragnarok to fly to the Deep Sea Research Center

There are a total of two side quests and one area you can farm for raw materials while you are at this location. Follow the guide below for information on each.

The landing area of the Deep Sea Research Center

Lab

This first level of the Deep Sea Research Center is called the “Lab”. Your team will notice that the location looks like its been abandoned for years and will start to question what the big blue light (the core) is in the center of the room. A voice will say “The blue light leads all to death. Turn back…” which is your clue on how to navigate through this first room.

All you have to do is walk towards the core whenever the bright blue light goes dim or turns off. If you move while the light is flashing you will be thrown into an encounter with a random monster.

Entrance to the lab of the Deep Sea Research Center

You will probably find yourself in a few battles accidentally but this won’t cause any problems with the side quest, it just means your journey towards the center core will be a little bit slower.

Reaching the Core in the lab

Once you get to the core a window will prompt you to choose a response to the statements and questions being asked by the voice. The questions and responses are below:

  • “So you wish to challenge me…”
    The only answer you have available is “It’’s not our will to fight”. Answering this will automatically throw you into a battle against a Ruby Dragon.
  • “Begging me for mercy?”
    Select “Never”. This will kick off the second fight against a Ruby Dragon but this time it will automatically be a “back attack”.
  • “Damned imbeciles. Why do you wish to fight?”
    Select a hidden option underneath the two answers that are shown (as shown in the screenshot below). This will cause a new answer of “(It’s our nature…)” to appear.
Selecting the secret answer during the encounter with the core

Now its time to fight Bahamut, your next Guardian Force!

Guardian Force Battle: Bahamut
I am… Bahamut! Your new Guardian Force

This battle is already fairly straightforward, but if you took steps to complete the preparation noted above in the helpful hints, this battle will be even easier.

Bahamut will attack with Thundaga and Tornado, which won’t do too much damage, and then will hit you with regular physical attacks. It is susceptible to Blind magic though, so if you’re able to Blind it, none of its physical attacks will hit, nearly negating all of the damage it can do.

It is, however, capable of using a move called Mega Flare, which will do quite a lot of damage to your party, but you can likely defeat Bahamut before it gets a chance to use this move.

Other tips that will help speed up the battle include using Meltdown on Bahamut, and casting Aura / Haste on your party members. You can also cast Slow on Bahamut if you need to.

Guardian Force boss battle against Bahamut

Mug List:
Hyper Wrist
Drop List:
Hyper Wrist
Bahamut

You will receive the Bahamut Achievement/Trophy once you defeat Bahamut at the core and it joins your team as a Guardian Force.

Bahamut Trophy

Congratulations! You now have Bahamut as your new Guardian Force! Bahamut has a number of important abilities for you to learn. Most importantly, it comes with Abilityx4 already learned. Have Bahamut focus on learning Mug first, and then focus on the following abilities:

Exit the Lab section of the Deep Sea Research Center and then re-enter this area and a Save Point will appear. Use the Save Point to save your game before you continue.

Entering the Lab which now has a massive hole in it with a Save Point
Entering the first level of the Deep Sea Research Center

Explanation: Fixed Encounters with Tri-Faces

Before we proceed with the remaining side quests in the Deep Sea Research Center, its important that we spend a bit of time explaining why a player may or may not want to proceed to the bottom and obtain their last Guardian Force, and this has to do with Tri-Faces and, more importantly, the item that they drop, Curse Spikes.

Check out the Fixed Encounters with Tri-Faces Section below for more information:

The remainder of this guide is going to explain how to get to the bottom of the Deep Sea Research Center, defeat Ultima Weapon and obtain your last Guardian Force, Eden (and the Eden Card). This is done with the assumption that you are okay with no longer being able to farm Tri-Faces for Curse Spikes.

Its time to begin working our way to the bottom of the Research Center. As noted above, make sure you saved your game, but make sure that you have Zell in your party as you go down these next sections.

Continuing: Deep Sea Research Center - Lv

The game will give you a brief explanation of how the “Current Research Steam Pressure” system works, but its fairly straightforward, so don’t worry if the game’s explanation didn’t make much sense.

The general idea is that you want to reserve as much of the Steam Pressure as you can as you go down each level, and having Zell in your party is going to give you an added extra bit of steam that you will need in order to activate the machine at the end of the path and initiate the fight against Ultima Weapon.

You start off with 20 our of 20 Reserve Steam Pressure and each time you open a door it will cost you some of that steam pressure.

Current Reserve Steam Pressure indicator as you descend each of the levels

Open the first gate and move down to the second level. Examine the terminal on the second level and choose to use 1 Reserve Steam Pressure (RSP). Go down to level 3 and, once again, choose to use 1 RSP. Continue using 1 RSP for each of the levels until you get to the bottom.

Dropping down to the next level of the Deep Sea Research Center

When you get to the bottom level Zell will offer to “take care of this machine” for you. Choose to allow him to by selecting the (“Well… Zell’s pretty good with machinery”) option. Zell will then begin fidgeting with and eventually just outright beating the crap out of the machinery.

Choosing to have Zell look at the machine because he’s pretty good with machinery

He will manage to open the last door for you and save you some RSP (as you’re going to need at least 10 at the bottom if you wish to engage Ultima Weapon).

Opening the door to the excacation site: Ocean Deposit

Deep Sea Deposit

Walk towards the Save Point and you will immediately be thrown into a battle against a Tri-Face, even if you have Diablos Enc-None equipped. This is the very first fixed encounter of the Deep Sea Research Center.

There are quite a few more coming, but this is where you would farm Curse Spikes if you wish to, and this is highly recommended even if you aren’t planning on trying to perfect all of your characters and their stats.

Use the Save Point to swap Zell out of your party if you need to.

Check out the Fixed Encounters with Tri-Faces (Curse Spikes) section below for some useful tips on how to procure Curse Spikes more efficiently (if you are planning to pick some up):

Traveling through the first level of the Deep Sea Deposit

For those players that are not planning on playing a perfect game or maxing out character stats, and want to see Ultima Weapon and get their new Guardian Force, continue on…

Traveling down the stairs in the Deep Sea Deposit area

The remaining levels of the Deep Sea Deposit also have fixed encounters that you will have to deal with. The second level has Grendels and Imps, the third level has Behemoths, the third level has Ruby Dragons and the last level has Iron Giants. Here are some tips for the upcoming battles:

Grendels and Imps
No advice or strategy is required for these enemies. They are very easy to defeat.

Behemoths
The Behemoths deal quite a bit of damage with some of their attacks, but they are completely susceptible to status effects such as Blind, Silence and Bio. Consider using these to make the fights very easy.

Behemoth using Might Guard in battle

Ruby Dragons
These are probably the hardest battles, but the strategy is the same as what you’ve faced before. Just be extra cautious because they have a move called “Breath” that deals a ton of damage to all of your party members.

You can use Shell to greatly reduce the damage that this deals. Also use Meltdown to reduce Ruby Dragon’s high armor so that your attacks hit for much harder. Finally, you probably don’t need this reminder, but make sure that you don’t have fire-based magic equipped to Elem-Atk-J.

Iron Giants
Battles against these enemies are a true fight of attrition just due to how much HP they have. Start off by using Meltdown on both of them and casting Blind on both of them. This will have the affect of reducing their armor and increasing the amount of damage that they take, while Blind will entirely prevent them from doing any damage to you at all (since all of their attacks are physical).

They will sometimes cast a magic spell called Mighty Guard. You can use Dispel to get rid of this if its reducing your character’s damage too much.

Battle against one of the Ruby Dragons on the way down to Ultima Weapon

Ultima Weapon

At the bottom of the Deep Sea Deposit is a mechanical device with a red screen perched above the water. You will need to have 10 or more RSP to activate the device. As soon as you do, you will be thrown into battle against Ultima Weapon. To prepare for this fight, consider adding the Revive Ability to one of your character.

Using the Steam Pressure at the bottom level to summon Ultima Weapon
Optional Boss Battle: Ultima Weapon
Close-up of Ultima Weapon at the start of the boss battle

The first and most important thing to remember to do is to use the Draw command and grab your new Guardian Force, Eden.

Ultima Weapon’s most powerful attack is called Light Pillar. This attack will deal 9,999 damage to whomever it hits and there is no way to reduce or mitigate this damage. So in other words, Light Pillar is an instant kill that cannot be prevented. It can also cast a move called Gravija which deals damage equal to 75% of a character’s HP (just like Demi, it cannot kill a character).

Set yourself up so that you can revive your party members easily. Use the Revive command, as mentioned above, or Full-Life magic, to bring your KO’d characters back into the battle.

Here are some tips to help bring Ultima Weapon down:

  • Use Aura magic on your party members so that they can use Limit Breaks without having low health. Specifically, Squall’s Renzokuken attack is extremely powerful.
  • Cast Meltdown on Ultima Weapon to reduce its defenses to zero, subsequently increasing the damage of each of your attacks.

Be liberal in your use of Megalixirs, Elixirs, Mega Phoenix, and any other items that you have available. You can also cast Cerberus to give each of your players Haste (although once they get KO’d by Light Pillar you will have to recast it), and use Protect and Shell˝ (or Auto-Protect and Auto-Shell) to increase your character’s defenses if you need it).

Boss battle against Ultima Weapon at the bottom of the Deep Sea Research Center

Draw List:
Regen
Dispel
Ultima
Eden
Mug List:
Three Stars
Drop List:
100x Ultima Stone
Eden

You will receive the Eden Achievement/Trophy once you have successfully drawn Eden from Ultima Weapon and then defeated Ultima Weapon.

Eden Trophy

Congratulations! You’ve defeated Ultima Weapon! Your prize for the successful victory? Having to climb all the way back up out of the Deep Sea Research Center. Enjoy the trip back up… I guess.

Drawing Eden Guardian Force from Ultima Weapon

This concludes the side quests that you can complete in this subsection of the game. If you completed this side quest as soon as it became available, after you obtained access to the Ragnarok, use the link below to return to that section of the strategy guide: