Legend of Mana (PSX) - Lv1 Challenge Final Boss & Ending

Time to kill love.
Legend of Mana is a very, very easy game, so how about we spice it up with some restrictions?
Lv1, no forging, no magic, no STs, solo, Final Destination.
Mana Goddess
She's at least Lv42 in Normal mode, as far as I could push the lands in the game. I figured it would take a ludicrous long time to beat her on NO FUTURE at Lv99 and no forging, and any mistake would've been instant death. There's no ceiling for how much one can forge equipment, so I think this seems challenging enough.
She is nimble, and can do a variety of attacks. For physical moves, she can use a slashing attack that releases a small whirlwind of slashes, a piercing attack with a rapier, or a two handed push attack. All of those are close ranged.
For specials, she can do a swirling leaf attack around herself, scatter energy spheres that will let her home in on you to unleash a devastating combo attack, and cast a massive energy explosion that covers quite a large area in front of her.
Once the moon in the center of the screen is fully darkened by the eclipse, she'll do another special attack: a energy laser that covers the entire screen. She'll do the same when the moon once again is fully brightened.
Strategy
For a Lv1 challenge, nearly everything she does can one hit kill you, even if you are well equipped - you only have 50 HP to work with, after all. I went the extra mile and didn't forge my equipment, so everything I have equipped is found from drops and with base stats.
I picked the 2H Sword because it has decent range and speed, plus you can get the Muramasa which is the strongest weapon you can get from drops on Normal. The armor configuration is the best from drops and will allow you to survive ONE hit from her stab or slashing attacks, but not the palm push one. Counterattack is less damaging than Counterstrike, but it comes out faster and more consistently interrupts all of her normal attacks (sometimes it doesn't work very well and will instead just block, though). Evade is there to try and evade the eclipse special, though you gotta be a little lucky so you don't end up teleporting to the path of the laser. Going alone is preferable or else it'll be hard to predict her movements.
The basic tactic is to pay attention to her movement, wait for her to get close but not too close (or she'll push you and disrupt your movement, most likely throwing an attack and killing you), then bait Counterattacks so you can stun her for long enough to throw a few hits in; rinse and repeat. Try to align yourself to the same level as her, so your attacks don't whiff (she's a tiny and nimble target and it's surprisingly easy to miss and get counter killed). Don't attack her directly, she gets some invincibility frames on her attacks that will allow her to interrupt you. You cannot infinitely loop her with plunge loops like most enemies in the game, which is what makes this fight difficult with restrictions - but with Counterattack and practice, you can corner her on one side of the screen and continuously hit her for a lot of damage. The 2 handed palm push is her most infuriating attack - it's very fast, comes out of nowhere and can one hit kill, unlike the stab or the slash.
She's completely invincible while preparing and during the animation of her special attacks. You can tell what each of them are by the animations. The big ball of energy explosion can be baited by quickly going behind her as she's charging it, then moving away. Everything else, just stay away as far as you can. Don't let her get too close to the center of the screen or her specials will be much harder to avoid, specially the scattering energy spheres.
Ideally, we want to finish this fight before the big eclipse laser. If you fail to do so, stay at the bottom of the screen and use Evade as the laser is swiping the ground towards you, hopefully you'll survive.
A great technique to master is to cancel heavy (Square) attacks by quickly pressing an empty ST button.
Legend of Mana
1999, Squaresoft
All rights reserved to their respective creators.