*** You will lose your Enterprise 2.0. Hence, you will also lose access to sea surface monsters, so make sure that you collect your bestiary, see: 24. Missable Bestiaries (Optional).
There is a powerful boss inside the castle and you are highly likely die in 2 strikes when the boss uses its thunder spell. So, the easiest strategy is to kill the boss as quickly as possible. In order to do so, you'll need 4 Dragoons.
Go back to Ur in the Floating Continent, then start leveling up your 4 of your Dragoon jobs to at least level 22.
You are welcome to try with your current setup to see if you can kill the boss without the 4 Dragoons setup.
When you are ready, fly to Saronia and watch a scene. Now that your ship is destroyed, you are basically stuck in the castle area. There are 4 towns, each at the eadge of the castle:
- Northwestern Saronia
- Northeastern Saronia
- Southestern Saronia
- Southwestern Saronia
Exit the castle, and go to Southwestern Saronia.
Southwestern Saronia
- Go to (1) to collect 11 chests, you can talk to a guy inside to summon Fat Chocobo.
- Go to (2) to a trigger a show, you will fight 3 Gold Knights.
- Go to (3) and talk to an old man for a Dragon Mail.
- Go to (4) and talk to another old man for a Wind Spear.
Chests (11):
- Gysahl Greens (x11)
Southeastern Saronia
There is nothing to do in town except the Dragon Spire, so go straight to the Dragon Spire (1). It a dungeon with monsters inside, so be careful.
Chests (12):
- Dragon Helm (x4)
- Dragon Mail (x3)
- Thunder Spear (x3)
- Phoenix Down (x2)
Northeastern Saronia
If you go with the 4 Dragoon setup. You need to go to the weapon shop on the left and buy 4 more Wind Spear for everyone; you should have 1 Wind Spear and 3 Thunder Spear from treasure chests already.
Castle Saronia
Remember I recommended you to level up 4 Dragoons? well, you haven't do so, you can still leveling up outside the castle. Save you game before entering because once you do, you will have to watch a long cutscene, then fight a boss Garuda. Trust me he is really tough and most effective strategy is to kill him as soon as possible.
Tip: Use Quicksave to save before entering the castle. If you happen to lose the battle, quickly pause and close the game, then relaunch and reload from the Quicksave.
Boss: Garuda
See the strategy below:
- Everyone change their job to Dragoon, equip all dragon equipment, Wind Spear, and Thunder Spears.
- When the battle starts, everyone uses Jump and keep Jumping until he is dead.
- The big problem here is that he can attack twice per turn, his Thunder attack can wipe out your party in one or two shots. If you are lucky enough, you can defeat him in the first try.
If you are lucky enough that the boss doesn't cast Thunder spell in the first round, you have a higher chance of finishing him off in first round. Otherwise, keep trying again and again until you win.
Saronia is at peace once again, all Weapon and Magic shops in Saronia are all open to business again, so feel free to shop whatever you like.
Now that you have defeated Garuda, it's time get some rewards.
- Go to (1), there is a hidden passageway, to collect 12 chests. Go down further to collect another 6 chests.
- Backtrack, get outside to (2) and then (3). Inside, you will another hidden passageway that leads to underground (follow the map). Pick up the 2 Phoenix Down, then backtrack to (7).
- Go inside (7) and talk to any one of the four engineers, they will give you a new airship, Nautilus. It sits outside the castle.
- Exit the castle to board your brand new airship. At this point you've lost the ability to sail the sea, instead, you can now dive under water.
Chests (20):
- Ice Rod
- Rusty Mail (x2)
- Medusa Arrow
- Dragon Hammer
- Main Gauche
- Tome of Fire
- Tome of Ice
- Golem Staff
- Scholar Hat
- Boomerang
- Selene Bow
- Tome of Light
- Viking Helm
- Earthen Bell
- Dragon Helm
- Gaia Vest
- Viking Mail
- Phoenix Down (x2)
You can change back to your proper jobs after defeated the boss.