Final Fantasy V World 3

Far to the west is the cave you dropped Boco off in, and he'll be there!  Despite him having a wife you can still use him.  Ride him towards Tycoon and then north of Tycoon and you'll be going for a long while.  You can stop at Tule but there isn't much to do, and eventually you come to a valley where you take control.  You fall down and have to fight the Antlion here.  He's not too difficult and afterwards Faris saves you! 
 

Guido's Dwelling and Mua
Continue along now until you come about a cave and go through and talk to Guido.  You'll learn much more about what's going on, but Exdeath will come and banish you over by the Ancient Library.  Go inside and you'll have some more learning sessions with Guido and the scholars.  Before you leave go to the top floor and talk to the rightmost scholar for the Magic Song.  Time to go to the Quicksand Desert to get that tablet!
 
Well, skip past it and continue west to Mua.  Go to the house in the southwest and this time you can go through and work your way through the forest.  Eventually a "sage" will pop up asking you if you're brave or not.  More or less this is alluding to whether or not you run away from fights often.  You're better off choosing that you're a coward as the Chicken Knife becomes more powerful as you run away and get be very powerful eventually, although sometimes it causes your party to run away (because, well, you're a chicken).  Meanwhile the Brave Blade is pretty good if you never run but it decreases when you do run.  
 
 
Quicksand Pyramid   
Okay this is the first tablet place and you have to fight Gargoyles outside.  They are rather difficult but not quite boss fights.  Inside take the left-most path and you'll hit the quicksand and fall.  Before you get the treasure (it's a monster), make sure you have a Mediator with the Control ability if you need either GuardOff or Condemn (Blue Magic spells).  Also note you'll need to use an Ether on the Cursed One before it can use these spells.  An Ice Shield is the treasure chest reward.  
 
Continue north along the way and you'll come to the quicksand again, but hit the switch so that it stops.  Now go east and up the stairs and search the mummy.  You'll fight a Grandmummy and after you get a Cursed Ring for a treasure.   Okay so return all the way back to the first path that you skipped and take that one.  You'll be trapped by some snakes shortly along the way but kill them and hit all the switches to move on to the next floor. 
 
The first chest is for a Dark Matter and it's against four Cursed Ones.   The left chest is for a Flame Shield against the same enemies, and the right one is against an Archeosaur and you get a White Suit for that.  Go east and wait for the spikes to not be showing and make your way up - otherwise you won't make it and you'll be damaged.
 
In this new room are MachinHead's, powerful enemy robots that you can see as you're walking.  You can't run and they are between a normal fight and a boss fight.  Make your way to the northeast part of this room and search the tomb for a Thornlet.  There are two Elixirs (one on each side of the Thornlet).   The far west has a switch and a monster in a box, revealing a Dragon Fang and a Black Suit.  Fight the last mummy and go up the stairs for a Save Point and floor 5. 
 
First off go to the southwest and up the stairs, and then hit the quicksand without hitting the switch (so that you fall down).  You'll be right by a treasure chest, which yields the Black Robe after a fight.  Below that is the Dark Suit (and a fight).  Now take the northwest path for two more fights and two treasures (two snakes also).  Crystal Armor is the right chest and Dark Matter is the left one.     
 
Go south into the 5th floor and then all the way south in this room to where the quicksand and the switches are.  Hit the first switch and then go in the door to the right.  There are two switches so hit the far one (otherwise you'll get knocked down 2 levels).  Take the 9000 gil and 8000 gil on the right and there are two battles and two Dark Matters on the left. 
 
Go back out and continue all the way through, and then go west and through the wall for a battle (Earth Hammer).   Further up and east are 10,000 gil and a Cabin.  Return back and go up the stairs at the beginning.
 
Now wait and see how this rotates.  You don't want to fall obviously.  Anyway, from left to right, there are a Ribbon, Guard Ring,  and Gold Hairpin.  If you fall down around here at any point you can get the Elixir in the floor below.  Up via the left size for an Elixir and a monster (Dark Matter).  On the other side is another battle with Dark Matter and one treasure with 12,000 gil.  Go up and you'll be able to grab the tablet!
 
After you acquire the tablet, the island with the airship sinks and turns into Bahamut.  Bahamut flies to North Mountain and will wait for you to battle him there.  Meanwhile, you end up at the top of the pyramid and can leave and find your ship.  When you are back on the world map though, use a Cabin and be prepared for a tough fight.   
 

Regaining the Airship
As you get to the huge tree, you'll see Lenna be dropped off.  However she is possessed by one of Exdeath's minions, Merugene.  She can change her elemental barrier so stay on top of that if you're casting magic, or just use physical attacks.  She's not too tough and you get Lenna after the battle.  
 
As this ends though, Guido and everyone at the Ancient Library are sucked into the void.  As you get the airship back, Exdeath sucks even more towns (Worus, Moogle Forest, Lix, etc) into the nothingness.  
 
Eventually you'll gain control, and you'll want to go to the Sealed Castle of Kuzar.  Talk to everyone inside and you'll get an HP / MP recovery pot available and some new information that might be worth your time.  Place your tablet in the far room in this castle and you'll get a chance to take 3 / 12 weapons.  
 
Which weapons should you take first?  It's all dependent on which classes you like to use and which classes you are currently using.  Remember, you'll get another tablet soon and that'll be 3 more weapons, so you might want to choose the weapons you'll be using in the immediate future.  I chose the Masamune, Holy Lance and Sasuke' Katana (although it is actually called Hardened for some reason).  The main reason I grabbed these three weapons was because I was building up a Dragoon, Samurai and Ninja at the time.

Mirage Town and Crescent
Before you do anything else, go to the Pirate's Base and you'll get the Syldra summon, a powerful Thunder attack.   Leave and go toward Crescent and a few forest ranges to the southwest of Crescent is Mirage Village.  You need to "get in a battle' so to speak and when you do it'll take you to the Cleft of Dimension (and Mirage Town).  
 
Go to the pub to the west and enter via the back.  Search by the bartender to find a Thieve's Knife.   Go downstairs and you'll talk to a guy who challenges you to go around the world on a chocobo.  You can do this with Boco if you want, just fly to where he is and travel all the way along the inner part of the continent (it's like a ring, look at the shape of Crescent and the islands around it for help).  You get a Mirage Vest for doing this.
 
Go south out of the pub basement and into the next building you see.  Continue north and search for full HP / MP, and continue along.  Make sure you have a thief with so you can see the secret passages.  If you go left through the wall you'll see a set of stairs leading to a Black Chocobo and further left is the final piano.  After playing this, you should have mastered it, in which case you should go to Crescent and talk to a bard in the southeast house.  He gives you the Power Song and the Hero Song.  Anyway, all the way to the right is the second Weapon's dealer and a door you can't go in.   Buy what you want and check out the magic / armor shops.  Just go ahead and search the northeast part of the armor shop to make a path open behind the dealer.  As for the magic, you can get the last of the level 6 spells if you go to the west part of the building and enter from the back.  

 

Fly southwest of Carwen and land in the water and sail in the northern area.  You'll run into a Stingray eventually, and make sure you have Control and Learning (or a Blue Mage) and you can get Big Guard, one of the most useful defensive spells (and blue magic spells) in the entire game.   

Solitary Island

It is easy to find, just look at the center of the map with the water spot and then a little south is the Solitary Island with one long bridge being the only access.   There is a Tote Avis around here that drops (or you can steal) the Aviskill, a very very good bow.  Also make sure you have a Thief (or Passages) during this also, as there is one on the second floor (for a 12,000 gil chest). 
 
Continue along and you'll be stuck in a room with two switches.  Hit them both and you'll go back in the tube and get 9000 gil.   Return back and re-hit the left one, and then you'll get an Elixir.  Finally, switch them around one last time and you'll get to a treasure and the exit.  Careful, the treasure is a dangerous wolf (Pantera) and it can use Blaster to work you.  Your reward is the powerful Rising Sun however.  
 
On this next floor you can get a Crystal Helmet in the northeast, and there is a MachinHead in the very north protecting a Guard Ring treasure.  Northwest is an Ether and the exit. 
 
Directly north is a Beastkiller and attempting to go east through the secret passage will lead in a hole (and you falling down).   Instead go north and you'll get to a room with passages on the left and right and two treasures north of you.  Don't walk right up to them because again you'll fall through.  Instead, come at the sides and get behind these treasures to get an Ether and a Dragon Fang.  In the next room you can get a Circlet on the right and a Dark Matter on the left (oh yeah, rest and save before you go in here).  
 
In the north is the second tablet, although "Stoker" is there to stop you.  Actually when you get in battle the name is "Stalker", and he's split up into four, and you can only hit one.  Don't use magic that attacks everyone as that will earn his disdain, and you instead need to keep guessing and attacking the main one.  He can use Mind Blast, something your Blue Mage can learn.  If you guess right and don't let him get your HP too low, the second tablet should be yours soon.   For the record, I went to Kuzar and got the Excalibur, Yoichi Bow and Assassin Dagger (leaving nearly the entire left side of the room to get). 
 

North Mountain
It's time to try Bahamut.  To get there, you need a Black Chocobo to fly you there from Mirage, and land in the forest.  You can go to the southwest for the Phoenix Tower or the northeast for North Mountain, and since that's why we're here we're going to go to North Mountain.
 
The monsters here haven't changed since World 1, so it'll be a breeze getting to the top.   As for Bahamut, well, he's not as ridiculous as his FF4 counterpart.  You will want Wall(use Crbnkl) up so that he can't use Mega Flare on you.  Or rather when he does use Mega Flare it just takes off 9999 on him instead of 2500 on all of your characters.  Bahamut is pretty slow and if you use Haste 2 you can make this battle go even faster.  Or you can try to use Slow or Stop on him, Slow working more often.  He's not too hard if you have your walls up and you use your best attacks.  If you can get Slow off you'll absolutely maul him.  Oh yeah, Bahamut the summon is very very good.

 

 

It's Fork Tower time.  You can get the ultimate White and Black Magic here, but you must split up into a physical attack party and a magician-based party.   The physical party should go to the right and the magicians should go to the left.  Chances are, you probably have two characters built up of each (Butz is my power-based physical attacker while Faris is more of a speed / Thief / Ninja type).  You'll control the magicians first, so make your way up and grab the Ether and Wonder Rod along the way.  On the physical side, you'll get a Hi Potion and a Defender.  

 

You will fight Minotauros on the physical side first, and he can be a bit difficult.  I had a Ninja with X-Fight to take off roughly 4000 per hit and a Dragoon to Jump and heal the Ninja.  This made it pretty easy, but he'll try to use Holy at the end - and fail in doing so.  

 

Now it switches to the other part of the tower and you have to pick up the Flare spell fast or the tower explodes.  You'll fight Omniscient and he can be a difficult battle, casting Flare at the end.  Keep a Wall up with Crbnkl the entire time and you shouldn't have an issue, just be sure to re-new that Wall before he can get a spell off.  Syldra is a good summon to use and Aero 3 is useful as he's weak against Wind.  When he is done, the tower collapses and you can go to the Catapult to free Cid under the water.  Mid will come too and they'll work on the ship, making it able to fly, sail, and be a submarine!  Now you can go to the next tablet under the water!

 

First go south of Karnak and talk to the crazy guy who gives you your game statistics.   

 

Use the submarine to go under the ocean and you'll see a hole in the floor, towards the east.  As you enter the Great Trench, be sure to rest up and equip Holy weapons as most of the monsters are undead around here.   Take your first south for a Water Scroll and continue until you get to a section with a bunch of switches.  Most of them make you fall down to the next floor but the upper-rightmost one will make a noise and open up a path to the north that leads to a Flame Ring.  Eventually you should fall down and go north for a Dragon Fang and east for B6.

 

To the very south is an ether in this room and a little east is a Phoenix Down.  Hopefully you have a Geomancer or something to cast Float so the lava doesn't bother you.  The next room you'll be at is the Dwarve's Headquarters where you can save, rest and buy some things.  Talk to the dwarves and the one digging the tunnel will show you where the Mirage Village is (if you didn't know already).

 

As you continue along the south spot in the water area will flash a blue light, and this is where you can restore the Magic Lamp (if you have it).   In the next room, continue to the far east and hit a switch that will open a door to a Kaiser Knuckle treasure.  Go to the south now and there will be three switches in this area.  Hit the upper one, and then the right one, and finally the left one.  Now go back up to the first switch in this room and hit it, opening up a new room.  

 

This is where the tablet is and three of Exdeath's goombas will surprise you - them being Triton, Phobos and Neregeid.  Each has an elemental strength and weakness but you should probably just focus on using Holy, Flare and summons like Syldra or Bahamut.  You're going to want to kill them all at the same time relatively, as otherwise they'll revive and use a Delta Attack, stoning one of your characters.  You also get Meteo down here, and afterwards you can exit out and get three more weapons.  I chose the Firebute (Flame Whip), Sage Staff (great for White Magic) and the Wizard Rod (great for Black Magic). 

 

The Sunken Water Tower is southwest of Carwen, near where you fought the Stingray.  Sail to it and a timer will go off - you have seven minutes to get down there.  That's enough time but you should probably have some have the Escape and Dash ability to make sure you're ahead of schedule.  When you get down there you will fight Gogo, who is quite simple actually.  If you try to fight him it's one of the hardest battles in the game and next to impossible but if you don't do anything you'll win and get the Mime class.  Exit out.  

 

Go to the Jacole Cave and make your way to the other side like you did in world 1.  This time though, you appear on the other side of the Bal castle basement!  This is where you fought all those statues for ABP back in World 2.  But now you can head south and unlock that door forever, allowing you to rest in Bal and explore this place whenever you like.  

 

Save and head north and you'll see a green light, and it's Odin.  Before you fight, make sure you have some firepower because you have to end this fight early or else you'll never win.  Use your best spells, Meteo, Flare, X-Fight, all that good stuff, just dont use Holy.  Also note you can use L2 Old on him if you have it, a useful way to make the fight a lot easier.  One minute goes up faster than you think so don't waste your turns.   After Odin goes down you get his Esper.

Okay, so you need the Black Chocobo and you need to go southwest of North Mountain.  Go in and search to the left.  A path will open and this is how you go about the Phoenix Tower, as you either will fight an enemy or will open up the staircase to the next floor.  This is a long tower so you'll be doing a lot of guessing (although this can be ridiculously easy if you abuse the Save State option).   30 floors to be exact.  At the top you'll see a scene with Lenna and a Hiryuu and you'll get a choice (although im pretty sure it doesn't matter).  Afterwards the Phoenix Esper is yours and that should just about do it for Espers (other than Leviathan). 

 

This is the last tablet.  To get here, use the submarine in the northwestern part (look at the light).  You probably don't even need the last three items but you might as well go through this - you'll like your rewards.  To the west are a Turtle Shell and an Ether, and an Air Lancet is in the northeast.  North is the exit.

 

Take the east path for a Giant Drink and go to the southeast part for a Rune Edge (hard to see).   Work your way to the west and hit the switch to stop the waterfall.  Notice you have to do this fast so make sure you have Dash otherwise you'll never get the item (Guard Ring).  Further along take the right path for a Phoenix Down and left to continue and another left for a Wall Ring.  Go right for a Save Point then the exit.    Take the north path when you can for a new room and an Artemis Bow.   Go left for 12000 gil and north for an Enhancer.  Back to the Save Point area and go south and take the south room to continue to the following floor.  

 

Go to the northeast and grab the pinwheel, and then to the west for an Aegis Shield.   Hit the switch when you go south and grab the Giant's Axe.  Dead end now, right?  Wrong, jump down the hole's in the south (by the Giant's Axe) and you'll see the final tablet just north of you.  Grab this and go north and an Exdeath monster comes to stop you.  Fortunately Leviathan wipes him out but now you have to fight Leviathan.  

 

Leviathan is one of the most difficult fights if you don't have a Coral Ring because he often times uses Tidal Wave consecutively (without even reaching 2 turns).   Careful of this and you should probably have two people who can cast Cure 3.  Bolt 3, Meteo, Syldra and Holy are some of the best options to use and you should try to take him out fast.  Bolt 3 is probably your best option.  Now you can get the last 3 weapons and move onto the Cleft of Dimension!

 

Go to Castle Tycoon and you'll be there.  The quicksand area is first and you basically have to work your way east to the door.  As you get there you'll see several monsters hovering above you.  They threaten you and you'll have to fight them along the way to Exdeath.

 

Now you are in the ruins area.   Grab the Ether, Elixir, Cabin and Dark Matter in the four chests and go south.  You'll come to three ramps going up, take the right one for an Elixir and the left to continue.  Go right for a Drain Sword and left and you'll be in Mirage Town!

 

Work your way around and leave via Mirage Town's entrance.  You'll be in the forest now, where you should go northeast for a Dragon Fang and then west and north to get around.  Remember, on emulator if you hit 2 and 3 your vision will be much much better :) .    As you head southeast, you'll get a Ribbon, an Enhancer in the far south, and a Lillith Rod in the east.  The tree in the very southeast will have a hole that opens a path up, but Calofisteri shows up.  She puts a Wall up, so if you have a White mage cast Dispel to get rid of it.  Then attack with whatever you have.  

 

Now you're in the waterfall area.  Go all the way to the right and walk into the waterfall and get the Angel Ring.  Return west and enter that place, getting the Coral Ring and saving at the Save Point.  WARNING!

 

 

WARNING!  Omega is outside.  He is an optional boss (alongwith Shinryuu, a treasure monster late late in the game) and he is much harder than anyone else on the game including Exdeath.  Think Ruby and Emerald Weapon in FF7.  You really have to know what you're doing to be able to even put anything up against this guy, so avoid him at all costs when you first see him.   Now if you want to fight him...

 

 

This and Shinryuu are the two hardest fights in the game.  To prepare for the fight, you're going to want three characters to have the Hunter's X-Fight ability along with the Mystic Knight's Magic Sword ability so that Bolt 3 can be cast and used through X-Fight.  You will also want the Ninja's Two-Handed ability so that you can have two weapons per character (both Magic Sword capable).  The other character should be a standard magician of sorts, with Dimension Magic for Haste 2 and White Magic for Cure 3 and Life 2 (maybe Summon or Blue Magic as well).  This will take some time building up the ABP to do this, but in the Cleft you can generally get 25-30 ABP per battle and if you fight Movers (in the fourth level of the Cleft) you'll get 199 ABP.  So the moral of the story is that it doesn't really take that long to get the needed abilities to counter Omega.  

 

As for the fight itself, one other thing you need is luck.  Sometimes he'll counterattack with Rocket Punch on everyone, which can be killer with the Confuse.  Also, Delta Attack turns you to stone.  Ribbons help but you also need those Fire Rings to survive the Atomic Ray.  This is absolutely paramount - when he uses Atomic Ray it heals you full so that's a huge break.  Meanwhile, case Bolt 3 with all of your Mystic Knights, and then cast Haste 2 with your magician.  Your following move will be dependent on what Omega does.  Start using X-Fight will all of your characters and heal if you need to.  If you don't need to heal, use the Blue Magic spell MghtyGrd for added protection.  The key will Omega is that he is so fast that you need to be tremendously efficient, and if you have the active battle option on you need to be very fast when going through the menu.  It can be the difference in death or winning.  Fortunately if you have some powerful weapons like the Chicken Knife and some of the 12 Legendary Weapons, you should be able to win if you get a few X-Fights off.  This won't be a long fight with this method - you're either going to win after 4 or 5 X-Fights or Omega will have your party dead.  After the battle you get 100 ABP and the Omegamedl.  There is no real use for this other than to look at it in your item inventory to see: 'Your wisdom and bravery prevailed over the Ancients.' not the most worthwhile item but it'll remind you of beating one of the toughest monsters FF5 has to offer.  

 

Go east past Omega and north into the library.   Read the books in the back for a strategy on Twin Tania (use Odin when he prepares for Giga Flare) and a book on Shinryuu and Omega, the two guys I was telling you are really really tough.   The middle book leads to a battle against Apanda, a monster weak against Fire.  Really though, this guy is like Byblos but is extremely easy, one of the easiest in the Cleft of Dimension.  Continue to use Holy, Meteo and Flare and lean on your X-Fight.   With the middle book open, leave the room and you'll be in a different area.

 

Make sure you have a Thief (or Passages) so that you can see.   This area is simple and soon you'll be at the castle of Tycoon. 

 

Go east and south for some Running Shoes, and then west and south for Thor's Hammer.  Go south into the basement where there are a ton of bosses running around.  The guy in the southwest is Apocalypse and he specializes in Blue Magic.  He uses some of his own and even can learn a few things from you.  He can be difficult but it's all dependent on what he uses.  A Save Point pops up after taking him out.     

 

Catastroph might be worth a try this time.  He is the black monster "protecting" the lady in the northeast part of the basement, and if you try to talk to him through the jail cell he'll bum rush you to the left part and you'll start a fight.  He'll use Earth Shaker which takes off roughly 1000, so you should heal and cast Float.  If you continue to cast Float he'll continue to cast Gravity G or something like that, which makes you not Float.  He will ALWAYS do this so you can win easily.   

 

Next, try to open up the doors and talk to one of those crazy old men.   They are Alte Roite, magician looking guys who morph into winged avis-like creatures.  Red Shoes is the treasure in the north and a Rainbow Suit is the treasure in the southeast.  The girl you saved will give you a kiss and run upstairs.  Go up that way.

 

Work your way to the opposite side (go west) and get the Man Eater.  Return back and you'll be by the throne room.   As you try to exit through the northwest, you'll be stopped by the lady who blew the kiss of death at you.  She'll turn into Halicarnaso, a dangerous boss that will use Frog on all your characters immediately.  You can prepare for this by having your characters in Frog status prior to the battle, but it shouldn't slow you down that much.  Golem and Crbnkl can but useful summons, and Big Guard should have you set.  Use your best weapons, like Flare, Meteo, Holy and which legendary weapons you are using.  She'll go down and you should rest up again and head to the roof.

 

Here you will fight a boss that you learned a tidbit about in the library.  It said that when a certain monster was preparing for Giga Flare that it is vulnerable.  This boss at the roof, the large Twin Tania, is the guy that this applies to.  He sometimes uses Mega Flare as a counterattack to high level magic spells and also uses Tidal Wave to counteract physical attacks.  Keep this in mind so you don't attack too many times in a row and die because of his counterattacks.  After a certain amount of damage (and it'll be a lot) it'll begin to charge for Giga Flare.  You'll be done if it gets this off.   So when this happens, cast Odin and Twin Tania will be sliced in several parts.

 

North and you'll be in the final part of the Cleft of Dimension.  Go right for a Pinwheel and south to see Gilgamesh (assuming you fought him at the end of World 2).  He won't recognize you and it'll take some fighting to get him to do so.  Fortunately you can steal a Genji Shield from him, which you absolutely should do.  

 

In the next room, get the Pinwheel and Elixir and continue on.   In this third section, DO NOT GET THE THIRD TREASURE.  It is a battle against Shinryuu for the Ragnarok sword.  You won't be able to beat Shinryuu until you build up immensely (and have a careful planned strategy).  Don't let the normal battle music fool you - there is no harder battle in the game, including Omega.

 

This is a really fun battle.  Chances are you'll run across him on accident unless you're told otherwise.  He is beatable, but like Omega, you need to know what to do.  I can't imagine it's possible to defeat him without Dragoon Spears (ideally 8 of them, although 4 or 6 might suffice).  You'll have to do some fighting up to make sure three of your members have the Ninja's 2-Handed ability and the Dragoon's Jump ability (each with two Dragoon Spears).  The other character should probably be a Mime, with the Dimension, White, and Blue Magics available.  The bad news in all of this is that it's rare to get teh Dragoon Spears.  You need to fight the Crysdragon (1st / 3rd floors of the Cleft of Dimension) and Steal the Dragoon Spear from him.  However the Crysdragon only has it 1/6 of the time it seems (carrying an Elixir instead).  This can make it frustrating and it's why I suggest only getting 4 or 6 spears.  Put Coral Rings on all of your characters and Ice Shields if you have them.  

 

Starting off, Shinryuu will cast Tidal Wave (hence the Coral Ring).  Cast Haste2 and start Jumping with your characters.  Shinryuu will probably kill the Mime but that's okay, he/she got Haste 2 off.  Now be sure to Jump as soon as these characters get down, because Shinryuu will probably get a few of them before they can Jump a second time.  It's really all dependent on which moves he chooses to do, but with two Dragoon Spears each Jump should be about 19,998 (half that later after Shinryuu casts Big Guard).  Point is, you really only need 5 or 6 Jumps total depending on when Shinryuu gets his defensive spells up.  Taking him out nets you the DrgnCrest - 'Your bravery praised for victory'.  That just sits in your inventory, but you do acquire the Ragnarok Sword (30 ATP better than the Excalibur).  

 

Continuing past the Shinryuu treasure, go west at the fork for a Pinwheel and east to the next room.   Left is a boss battle that opens up a Save Point.  This battle is against Necrofobia and 4 Barriers.  Your first mission is to take these Barriers out as fast as possible - so have lots of Summoners (or Summon ability) so that Leviathan and Bahamut can be cast to do heavy damage to all the Barriers.  

 

 

The Barriers will cast Flare on themselves (they have a Wall) so don't bother with Crbnkl, they'll get you anyway.  Instead, do some damage control and make sure you are rested for the first 3 turns or so until the Barriers are gone.  Then the battle gets significantly easier and he focuses more on physical attacks, so use Golem if you'd like.  When he gets near death, Gilgamesh will come in (unless you didn't fight Gilgamesh in Exdeath's Tower, or unless you kill Necrofobia too fast).  When Gilgamesh is there, you have a short period to steal from him - do so to get the last piece of Genji Equipment in the game, the Genji Armor.  Gilgamesh will address each character and then blow himself up to destroy Necrofobia, and the Save Point is yours.  Further north is Exdeath, so make sure you're ready to end the game before you go.

 

 

First of all, while Exdeath doesn't compare to Omega and Shinryuu, he is far and away the hardest normal battle in the game.  Exdeath is extremely dangerous and the battle takes a long time, forcing you to stay on top of things for a prolonged period.  The first battle is against just Exdeath, and then it's a battle against Neo-Exdeath.  As for class projections, I tend to go with three Mimes and a Bare.  The Bare has X-Fight and 2-Handed, with the Ragnarok and Excalibur.  The three Mime's each have White / Summon magic, while two of them have Dimension Magic and one of them has Blue Magic.  

 

 

Use your best spells on him, whether that be Holy, Flare, Meteo, or Bahamut.  X-Fight is also very useful for your physical attackers of course.  This first battle isn't really that hard but you should take the time to use Big Guard, Haste2, and keep your party in an overall good condition.  When the battle changes to Neo-Exdeath, your status carries over (and now there will be four targets to go after).  You will want to basically just use Bahamut on this new form to take off 3000-3500 on all four parts.  Continue this process but watch out as Neo-Exdeath gets downright vile towards the end so make sure to put him away when you have the chance.  Again, Big Guard and Haste 2 are necessities, and with a little luck you'll down Exdeath.

 

The ending is dependent on the last battle.  If you have all your characters alive, there will be a letter to Cid and Mid from one of your characters, stating what has been going on lately.  At the end there will be a meeting at the great tree of Mua but Galuf will be revived.

 

If you had one or more characters dead, you won't hear their story in the letter obviously.  The left over character (or one of the left over characters) will write the letter, and instead it'll be the dead characters who get revived at the tree of Mua.  Each character will then go their own way, with Cara on a Hiryuu and the other three riding Chocobos.  Watch the credits and you can see the scores of your characters in terms of total abilities and other rankings.