The theme today is divisible by six.
The Ancient Castle: After getting the airship in VI which requires fixing Fiagro Castle, you can return to the castle and learn that the engineers encountered something under ground during that time. Checking it out leads the party to an ancient castle dated all the way back to the War of the Magi and detailing the story of Odin and his forbidden love with the human Queen (Princess in the original) of the castle. The player can acquire quite a few cool pieces of loot including the Odin Esper, and if they solved the puzzle to find the Queen's secret chamber, they can face off with one of the Eight Dragons and upgrade Odin to Raiden. You get one or two extra pieces of dialogue if you bring Terra there as well.
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Trial Mode: A new feature added to the International version of XII, Trial Mode allows the player to test their party against a hundred opponents including Mark Hunts, Bosses, Rare Game, Espers, and most interesting of all, several NPCs. This all culminates in the final round with a challenging encounter against all five of the Archadian Judges who will quickly teach an unexpected party why they are the most feared members of the Archadian Military. The real nice element here is that you can use these trials as second chances to acquire rare steals and drops from certain enemies and anything acquired here can be transferred back to your main file and vice versa, making a perfect run far less of a hassle. It's a great challenge for people who love to tinker and party build with the gambits and license boards.