Yep, gotta do this crap again.
Oh hey, neato. Got what I was looking for on the first try.
It's expensive, but again, I've killed hundreds of Cactuars by now, and those little guys are worth 10k each.
Hmm.
Not much to do with this, really...
Merit Awards are a relic that allows the character to equip any equipment, such as having anyone use Lightbringer instead of the Terra/Edgar/Locke/Celes knightsword-users-by-default. Gau and Gogo explicitly can't equip it, thanks to some game-breaking bugs on the SNES version.
You know when Excalipoor is grafted into a game, Gilgamesh is sure to follow suit looking for it.
I wish I'd read up on the Gilgamesh battle before doing this fight, because hoo boy Gilgamesh is good at blue magic. He opens with a chance to use Aero or Dischord, follows with a shot at 1000 Needles, follows that with either Stone or Aqua Breath, and on his fourth turn has a shot at using Quasar. That's one I don't have yet!
Alas, I pummeled him too quickly. He does the bit from Final Fantasy 5 where he protects, shells, and hastes himself, followed by a Jump attack. At this point all his attacks turn to physical hits of varying power, culminating in throwing Lighbringer, Zantetsuken, or Mutsunokami at the party.
But again, I pummeled him far too quickly for that to happen.
Gilgamesh teaches Quick at x1 and Valor at x5. Quick allows the caster to take two actions, and Valor triples the damage of the targets' next physical hit.
Summoning Gilgamesh drops his three favorite swords onto the battlefield. Gilgamesh will pick one and hit the enemy with it: Excalipoor does 1 damage, Masamune pierces enemy defenses, and Excalibur hits all enemies for holy damage. Sometimes Gilgy will in turn summon Enkidu to blast the enemy with magic instead.
Gilgamesh's level-up bonus is Strength+2. I've had Bismarck since a story event in the World of Balance, but it's nice to have a backup for that kind of bonus.