Cactuar Island

Available When Disc Three (with Ragnarok)

Difficulty Hard

Rewards Great

Unavailable When N/A

Cactuar Island is a small, desert island on the southeast corner of the Esthar continent. You can distinguish it from all of the other islands in the area due to its landscape and a small, green figure that appears randomly here and there in the desert sands. This small, green figure is known as the Jumbo Cactuar.
The Jumbo Cactuar is an ancient Cactuar that has grown to immense proportions. If you can defeat it, you'll earn the Cactuar GF, but that's no small task. In preparation for this battle, I suggest that you have to Revive and Recover abilities equipped on two different characters. I also suggest that the characters without the Revive ability be able to cast either Life or Full-Life. The Jumbo Cactuar has the ability to eliminate one of your characters with a single attack, so you'll be using Life and Revive a lot. Also, make sure Leviathan is Junctioned to a party member (preferably not the person with the Revive ability), because the Jumbo Cactuar has a weakness to Water magic.

If you don't have the skills listed above, they're easy enough to get. Cactuar Island is full of--what else--Cactars. These creatures are difficult to defeat, because they evade attacks really well and tend to escape from battle in a hurry. Keep in mind, though, that you receive 20 AP for each Cactuar you defeat.

Squall's high hit percentage makes it easy for him to eliminate at least one Cactuar in each battle, so winning just 10 battles can earn you 200 AP. Just make sure you avoid the Jumbo Cactuar until you're ready to do battle.

Jumbo Cactuar HP 6000~600,000 AP 20 EXP - - Weak vs Water

This battle is all about patience and controlled attacks. The Jumbo Cactuar utilizes a nasty, random counterattack called 10,000 Needles. This attack causes more than 10,000 points of damage, which can't be reduced by spells like Protect. The rest of the Jumbo Cactuar's attacks are strong, but are nothing to worry about.

Have one of your characters (preferably the one with the Revive ability) serve as a "medic" for the entire fight. Your "medic" will be very busy reviving the other two characters each time they're hit by the 10,000 Needles counterattack. As long as the "medic" never attacks and you constantly use Recover or Cure spells to keep his/her HP at maximum, you'll never have trouble reviving downed party members.

Of the remaining two attacking characters, focus one on constantly using Water magic or physical attacks. The other should concentrate on repeatedly summoning Leviathan. Because the Jumbo Cactuar has a weakness against Water magic, Leviathan can cause around 9999 points of damage with each summon. This will speed up the battle considerably.

After causing substantial damage to the Jumbo Cactuar, you may see a message stating that the Jumbo Cactuar is hesitating.BE VERY CAREFUL AT THIS POINT! This means that the Boss is thinking about running away. Refrain from attacking the Boss, with Leviathan being the exception. You must quickly finish off Jumbo Cactuar with your strongest attacks; if not, you're forced to fight it all over again once it runs. Leviathan's 9999 points of damage is your best bet.