The two different phases of this battle are so different that they may as well be considered separate boss fights. This first fight involves attacking Garuda from below as Clive, while she makes large, sweeping attacks and swipes in Clive’s direction.

Phase 1
The only challenge of this fight is getting used to Garuda’s attack combinations. She’s quite large and takes up a huge portion of the screen and the battle stage, which makes her easy to hit, but makes dodging her attacks very important because of how large the area is that she can hit.

A Tutorial Message will pop up the first time you get Garuda’s “Will Gauge” down to 50%, suggesting that you can use Deadly Embrace to stagger a toppled enemy. Follow the game’s guidance, and this will drag Garuda to the ground, increasing the duration of the stun. This is called a Deadly Takedown.

Staying close to Garuda will limit the attacks that she can use against Clive. The sweeping kick has a lengthy wind-up animation, giving ample time to dodge out of its way, but you may have to get used to the timing of her other slams.

Once she gets below 50%, she will use “Aerial Blast,” which will cause small patches of white light to appear around her that ignite and cause damage if Clive is too close. Just one more thing to dodge as you press forward with the attack.

A cutscene with some cinematic strikes will trigger once you get Garuda down to 10% health, and then it’s on to phase 2. Check out the video below for a demonstration on how to complete this fight.

Phase 2
There is a Medal of Valor that can be earned from this fight, and it only involves Phase 2 of the battle. It does not matter if you took damage during Phase 1, and it’s also fairly easy to get, but a little bit cheesy and/or exploitative.

This fight is simplified because you only have access to two different attacks and a dodge. You can use to Lunge towards Garuda and then use the button to Melee Attack when you get close enough, but getting close to Garuda opens Ifrit up to close-range attacks and increases the likelihood of taking damage from her when she counterattacks.

Instead, you can complete this entire fight by standing far back and constantly pressing the button to launch a Fireball. This Fireball will automatically explode and block any ranged magical attacks that Garuda fires in Ifrit’s direction, so it acts both defensively and offensively as needed.

Garuda can cast “Tornado” and “Aerial Blast” as well—just dodge to the right or away when you see these attacks coming by using the button. You’ll only have to get Garuda down to 30% HP before a cinematic event takes over for the remainder of the fight.

Following this strategy will get you the Medal of Valor - Garuda, and this is an easy curiosity to obtain even for new players who should not be trying to fight bosses without getting hit. Check out the video below if you’d like to see how it’s done.

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Spoils

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