A Tale of Two Scripts: Let's play FF3 US & FF6 RPGOne!

Just a heads up: starting this week, we're changing the schedule again. We'll be updating on Fridays now, myself in the morning and Sky Render in the evening; Friday's update might be a little short. That is all. Actually it's short because I did half of what I had planned for this update last week. =\ Convenient week for it, though.

“I am Lone Wolf, the pickpocket! I wanted that treasure!”
Acting on a hunch I go back to the little store room on the edge of Narshe and run into this wacky character. The previously locked chest is now empty, and if we want what was there we’ll have to chase this guy down.


“Persistent, aren’t you!”


“Halt! Don’t move or this one’s dust...!”
“Kupo!!” [The MOOGLE starts squirming.]
“G’heh! Got a wild one, here...! Uwaaa!” [The MOOGLE and LONE WOLF are knocked to opposite edges of the promontory.]


Decision time, guys! Not that the game tells you until you’ve made your decision. You only have time to save one of these two from falling. Save Lone Wolf and you’ll get a Relic that halves MP costs, but save the moogle and you’ll get... a moogle! I’d say the choice is obvious.


“Thankupo!”
“Can you talk?!”


“That old psycho, Ramuh, came to me in a dream and told me to be expectin’ you! And now... I’m... gonna join your party!”
Say hello (again) to our newest party member, Mog. As you might recall, he and his buddies helped Locke protect Terra from the Narshe militia’s K-9 unit way back in the first update. I hope he’s not mad about us taking his mithril equipment back then.

WOLF: Hmmm... if this is how it’s gonna be then... take this!


Mog: I’ll wait in the airship, kupo!
Mog and the party watch Lone Wolf jump to his presumable death and just don’t give a damn. Now that we have Mog and the airship, we can go on a semi-epic trip around the world to power up the two current fuzziest members of the party. If all you care about is story progression and not mechanics, you might as well skip ahead to the fourth post of this update.


First we stop to make sure we have a couple of important encounters from the Southern Continent’s desert and the plains near South Figaro ready to show up on the Veldt. We’ll be meeting them there soon enough.

That bit of paperwork done, we switch our party up a little. Mog and Gau will both benefit from retracing Sabin’s path across the eastern half of the map. Mog, incidentally, joins the party with another mithril pike and shield set and still knowing the Dusk Requiem he learned way back when.

Mog’s Dance command, as you might recall, is what most other games call Geomancy. The first time Mog fights in a new terrain, he will learn the associated dance, just as he learned Dusk Requiem fighting in the caves below Narshe. When you choose to Dance, you lose control of Mog until the end of battle (or until he dies) as each turn he randomly chooses one attack from a list of four associated with the dance. Each of the moves has a different chance of occurring (a 7/16 chance, a 6/16 chance, 2/16, and 1/16 for each attack list) and, if they’re an attack, they deal magic damage and are generally (but not always) unblockable and defense-ignoring.

If you’re not in the home terrain for the dance you choose there’s a 50/50 chance Mog will stumble instead of dancing; if he does dance, he will change the local terrain to the dance’s terrain and continue as normal. (Do note that if he changes the battle terrain with his dance, any effects of the old terrain – that is, learning new dances – will be canceled.)

Dusk Requiem’s four moves are, from most common to least:
Cave In: Rocks fall on one enemy, reducing them to a quarter of their current health and inducing Seizure. Doesn’t affect enemies with Instant Death immunity
Snare: Sucks one target into the earth, killing them and preventing on-death effects. It doesn’t work on enemies immune to Instant Death (or flying enemies like Bugs and Wyverns, I believe), but does work on undead
Elf Fire: Eerie blue flames deal fire damage to one target
Pois. Frog: A brown frog blows bubbles at a single target to deal poison damage

All in all, not the most useful dance. It’s handy for random encounters, but with a 13/16 chance of doing an Instant Death attack it’s rubbish against bosses. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, let’s go about filling up Mog’s dance card and superpowering Gau.


Parking the Blackjack next to South Figaro and taking Setzer and Sabin along with us to keep watch on our two little fuzzballs, it doesn’t take us long to learn the Wind Song. We could also learn this on the Veldt, fighting on board an airship, or in two terrains not available to us at this point in the story. Its attacks include:
Wind Slash: High winds deal damage to all enemies
Sun Bath: Warm sunlight heals all allies
Plasma: Columns of plasma deal lightning damage to one enemy
Cockatrice: A funny-looking chicken thing deals magic damage and Petrifies one enemy. Fails on targets immune to Instant Death

This is probably my most-used dance. Deals decent damage, gives you a good chance at a free heal, and you’re unlikely to get an Instant Death attack so you can use it against bosses without wasting a lot of Mog’s turns.


While taking in the sweet mountain air of Mt. Koltz on our way to Lete River, Mog learns the Earth Blues. With this in our repertoire, we now have access to...
Rock Slide: Rocks fall on one enemy for magic damage
Sonic Boom: A loud noise hurts the enemy for 3/8s of their max health. Once again, does nothing to targets immune to Instant Death
Sun Bath: Warm sunlight heals all allies
Whump: A line of baby boars stampedes over the enemy. Ignores defense and fails on flying targets

Having one of the common attacks be Death-element and a lackluster rare attack, Earth Blues isn’t a standout dance. I use it in the mountains, but leave it alone otherwise.


Now here is why we brought Mog along and why I chose him over Lone Wolf. Water Rondo is one of the hardest to get and most often missed dances. It’s a small spoiler to say that opportunities to fight in a watery environment are limited, but if you don’t learn this dance now by traveling along the Lete River or Serpent Trench again you’ll probably miss the chance permanently. If you don’t choose Mog on the promontory your next chance to recruit him is after you’ve lost all chances to learn this Dance (or you’ll have one last chance if you’re playing the GBA version). Its movelist is
El Nino: Rainbow bubbles deal water damage to all enemies
Plasma: Columns of plasma deal lightning damage to one enemy
Specter: Blue lights and a ghost of Mog confuse one enemy. Fails on enemies immune to the status
Wild Bear: A raccoon summons a column of blue light that heals all allies and cures Dark, Zombie, Poison, Petrify, Condemned, Mute, Berserk, Confuse, Seizure, Sleep, Slow, Stop, and Freeze

Overall pretty good. If you’re fighting something you know is weak to water or lightning, you’ll definitely want to use this dance even if one rare is basically useless and the other is probably the least reliable healing in the game. The dance can be a pain to get started, as there’s a grand total of three places in the game that are water terrain – Lete River, Serpent Trench, and a boss battle added into the GBA version – so opportunities to use Water Rondo without risking a stumble are limited.


Speaking of the Lete River, it seems that other dances don’t change the terrain here. I tried this after getting Water Rondo, though, so I don’t know if this would have blocked me off from learning the dance.

Also, I theorize you can do the same powerleveling trick on Lete River now that we could do the first time through (looping the same path over and over with the confirm button on autofire), only now instead of Bannon’s Health command you would have to use Setzer’s Slots and instead of only having Terra, Edgar, and Sabin you can bring most of the people in the game. I’ve never actually tried it, but assuming everyone’s well equipped I doubt the enemies here could deal more damage than Mysidian Rabbit could heal. If that doesn’t work, you can always try the route of using the Chickenlip Rage and Gaia Gears to stay healed up with Quakes.


This is the merchant outside the crazy old man’s house where you wash up after riding the River. (It never before occurred to me to wonder why you always end up here after rafting the Lete River over again instead of at the lake next to Narshe. I suppose only Bannon knows how to actually pilot a raft.) I’m just throwing this screenshot up to point something out: while the store screen does tell you whether a piece of equipment is an upgrade to what a character’s wearing, it’s only comparing one stat (battle power for weapons and defense for armor) and can’t take into account extra effects, elemental affinities, or other affected stats. For the same reason, you should manually equip items instead of using the Optimum option on the equip screen. It hasn’t been a huge deal up until this point, but from now almost every weapon we’ll find will have something special about that’s as important as raw battle power (or more!).


In the Phantom Forest we get our fifth dance. I actually thought this would be our sixth, but it turns out that the little desert outside where the Imperial Camp was is made up entirely of desert edge tiles, and counts as plains. If any of them do count as desert, I couldn’t get a battle to initiate there. While we are in the Phantom Forest again, we won’t be taking the train this time. We just go through the forest until we reach the point where the train was and we’ll pop out at the other edge of the forest. Also, a little quirk of the engine: I got into this fight while stepping onto the first forest tile, but before the game warped me to the Phantom Forest minidungeon, so it seems battles take precedence over location changes. So there’s that, just in case someone’s making an SMBX-type of program for FF6 or otherwise needs to know as many details about the engine as possible.

Anyway, oh yes! New dance! The Forest Suite consists of:
Rage: Leaves blown by the wind deal magic damage to all enemies
Harvester: Beams of light breaking through the leaves cure the party of Dark, Poison, Petrify, Mute, Confuse, Seizure, Sleep, Slow, and Stop
Elf Fire: Eerie blue flames deal fire damage to one target
Wombat: A wombat deals magic damage to one non-flying enemy

Similar to Earth Blues, this is good if you’re fighting in the dance’s native terrain anyway, but otherwise is kind of meh. Unless you’re in a forest or you have an above-average fear of status ailments for some reason, I’d leave it be.

After an uneventful trip through the Phantom Forest, we uneventfully jump over the Baren Falls and wash up on the Veldt. Most of Gau’s Leaps and returns are fairly uneventful too, but some of them were a bit tricky.


Like the time a Dancing Mog didn’t notice his “enemy” was actually Gau returning to the party and drove him off.


Or the time a Zombified Mog decided to attack Gau for giggles. Zombie can be placed on a party member by (at this point in the game) the FossilFang we fought way back at the end of the first post this update. Zombie party members are uncontrollable, use Fight on random targets, and have a 1/16 chance to inflict Blind and Poison (two different dice rolls) on their target. If all your party members are Zombies, you lose since they’re all technically dead. On the other hand, since they are technically dead nothing can be done to them. Protecting one party member from Zombie with a relic and letting the others be turned can be a legitimate tactic in a later dungeon, but here it’s just annoying.

Completely irrelevant to the Rages we’re here to get, I’ll admit, but there’s nothing quite as awesome as seeing a major chocobo stampede flatten your enemies. This is the other Slot result you can expect to get often; it’s got a lower attack power than 7-Flush and doesn’t hit flying enemies, but ignores defense and split damage. Overall I still usually go for three diamonds over three birds.

Anyway, that’s the end of the excitement on the Veldt. It consists mostly of wandering around hoping the RNG will be kind and has you fight the enemies whose Rages you want to learn. I did record a video of an attempt to manipulate the RNG to save time, but the key word there is “attempt.” The one method I know of for manipulating Veldt encounters requires you to know the encounter list on the Veldt, know which encounters you’ve fought elsewhere, perform math on the encounter list, wander, save the game and reset multiple times, and ugh. Even if you do it all correctly you aren’t guaranteed to get the encounter you want and if you screw up you’ve potentially wasted more time than if you’d just fought a bunch of battles. It’s a fiddly pain in the ass and I’d personally rather go without one or two good Rages than mess with it. That said, by the time I leave the Veldt I have the following Rages:

Marshal: Uses Windslash, the same as Mog’s Wind Song Dance. Also provided by Covert and Greater Mantis, two enemies we’ll fight much later in the game
Stray Cat: The Catscratch is a Fight command with four times the power. This is vital to a particular trick using two relics we don't have yet that can make Gau stronger than the other thirteen party members combined. I won’t be breaking the game quite that hard, though
Trilium: Casts Bio on one or all enemies
Templar: Cast Fire2 on one or all enemies
Chickenlip: Casts Quake. Vital to my favorite cheese strategy, as I’ve mentioned a number of times
Rhodox: Uses Snare, the same as Mog’s Dusk Requiem
Chimera: Uses Aqua Breath, a water-element attack that targets all enemies. Anguiform would provide the same Rage
Hill Gigas: Uses Magnitude 8. This probably won’t see much use while we have the Chickenlip Rage and Gaia Gears, though. Gigantos and Coelocite, enemies we’ll encounter soon enough, would provide the same Rage
Veil Dancer: Casts Ice2 on one or all enemies
Rhinox: Casts Life3 (brings target ally back to life if they die during that combat)
Cirpius: Casts Haste2 (gives the entire party the Haste status)
Bug: Casts Stop

At this point Gau’s only missing two useful Rages for the first half of the game. One is Aspik, which would give him the powerful lightning attack Giga Volt. The other is an enemy we haven’t encountered yet. These Rages learned, we hop back in the Serpent Trench and head up to Nikeah. From there it’s a simple ferry ride back to South Figaro.



“Use caution.”
Ah, so the ferrymen are used to smuggling people through South Figaro. Why they’re allowed to walk out of town with treasure chests isn’t explained (they’re probably collaborators, the dirtbags) but hey, whatever gets me through the blockade. With this I’m back at the Blackjack. Now to sit back and wait for Sky Render to show off an easier way than retracing Sabin’s steps to do all that that I never knew about.


One last thing before I get to something approximating progress for this update. New players excited about the freedom of their new airship might put down on this quiet little island in the far northeast corner of the map. There it’s quite possible they’ll run into this fellow. He’s invisible, so if you want to see him you’ll have to use a magic attack on him. This isn’t just spells but can be anything that deals magic damage, like Slots or Dances.



Uh-oh. Intangir isn’t just invisible when you find him, he’s asleep, and those statuses depend on each other; get rid of one of them – by hitting him with magic to make him visible, let’s say – and the other is ended as well. When he’s awake he’ll swat away the pests bothering him with the powerful Meteo attack then cast Sleep on himself and disappear back into the ether. Fortunately for us Mog, our defensive powerhouse, just manages to survive the attack. He can drag the others back to the Blackjack and-


NO NOT THE DANCE
Yeah, this goes about how you’d expect =\

But back to the story. As soon as we pick up the golden girl, that is.


“No Imperial soldiers...”
Terra: Let’s get this over with.


We try to loot the place, but all the goodies are behind a locked door. I suppose we’ll never know what’s in there.


Alright, time to separate the men from the zygotes. Also the old hands at RPGs from the new guys. See, this dungeon is filled with undead and spirits and by the time this game came out US gamers had been taught by previous Final Fantasies that zombies hate fire. Then they stumble into this cave and discover fire heals everything (well, except for one enemy, but no one cares about the Zombone). Of course, since almost everything’s undead you can expensively cheese your way through by hitting most of the enemies with Fenix Down or Revivify for instant kills.


When Terra rejoined the party, she came with a whole new special command. Morph temporarily changes her into her Esper form, doubling her damage and magic defense. Morph is fueled by the Magic Points we get after each battle with Terra. You need to store up at least 8 to use the command at all, but with only the minimum Terra’s likely to run out of Morph time and Revert to human between selecting her attack and actually using it. The max number of Magic Points you can collect is 255, and after a certain event later in the game Morph’s duration will be doubled.

By the way, those little Liches we’re fighting there? They love to use Fire2, and have a chance to use Fire3 every fifth turn. Try not to let them last that long.


These guys are both the best and worst of the enemies in this cave, all because of Lifeshaver. On the one hand, they’re likely to hurt you hard while healing themselves at the same time – notice one of them has dropped Gau with a OHKO and another one will do the same to Terra in a moment. On the other hand, these guys have the last good Rage in the first half of the game. That doesn’t change the fact that they killed two of my dudes in the first rooms of the cave, where I’m pretty sure they aren’t even supposed to spawn. Later palette swaps of the Ings will also teach Gau Lifeshaver. Also, if you couldn’t get the Hill Gigas to show up on the Veldt, don’t worry because the Coelocites that teach Magnitude 8 appear in this cave.


The Ings’ weakness to Water gives me a good excuse to show off El Nino, though. (I tried using Gau’s Chimera Rage but it didn’t cooperate.) They still left me weak enough to be picked off by Liches on my way back out to heal though, and you know what that means.


Cheese time. I’ll be back next week when I’ve Captured a full set of Gaia Gears.

Part XV - Let's Get Dangerous

So actually it looks like I'll be updating early too. Hurrah! And no PSN release to tempt me this week, just the start of the term eating up a good chunk of my time. Hurrooh. Anyway, last time we were told to go to the Sealed Gate and kindly unleash the Eidolons upon the world mmkay, but we're not going to do that just yet. First, let's talk it up with Narche's locals to see what's new. Today's update is in tasteful Wood Grain, because... just because.

♪♪ The Mines of Narche ♪♪



Tina... I know you can do this..."
Jun "The Sealed Gate is on the east end of the Imperial continent. The Empire set up an outpost there, but you'll just have to get through it incognito somehow." {How the HELL do they even know where the Sealed Gate IS!?}
Narche's Elder "The time for us to battle the Empire has arrived... We can not avoid it any longer..."

Out in the Square
Man "Is it really possible to borrow Eidolons' powers...? And is it even wise to do so...?"
Rogue "I've heard that an abominable snowman lives in the mineshafts... Well, it's a rumor, anyway..."
Man "Well, it looks like war is inevitable now."
Man "Moglies have settled in a cave in the inner part of the mines."
Old Man "I've heard that a legendary thief called King Wolf showed up in this town recently... Are my treasures safe?" {Better believe they are. Safe in my hands! Bwahaha!}
Man "The shopkeepers have new goods for sale in preparation for the war."



It's true, they do have new stuff for sale. Some of it's pretty useful too, though I'll not be buying today. You'll see why soon enough. I wonder if we can open that one locked chest yet...



Oho, what development is this?



That dastardly swine! After him!



You can run, but you can't hide!



Yeah, well, it comes with the trade of being raging kleptomaniacs roving lunatics mass-murdering psychopaths heroes.



So the party makes their way through the mines and up past where the snowfield battle took place and corner King Wolf. And he says this. Um, take whose life?



Oh, some random Moglie. Eh, let 'im sort it out himself.



Shennanigans! Which do we save!? Put in your vote now!

Of course I'm kidding. Allies before accessories!



♪♪ Mog ♪♪

What tipped you off? It was the fact that he just talked, wasn't it?



Ah yes, it's Mog! The most unique member of the cast... so far.

Name: Mog
Age: 11 (in human years)
Class: Moglie Warrior
Height: 122cm (4'0")
Weight: 43kg (95lbs)
Birthday: 5/11
Zodiac Sign: Taurus
Blood Type: Blackfoot Heel (species-specific)
Birthplace: Narche
Favorite Thing: Talking with humans
Least Favorite Thing: Humans that mess with his pom-pom
Hobby: Singing and dancing
Treasured Possession: A charm that Morul gave him



And so... I'm going to... Befriend you, kupo!" {Makes up his mind fast, dunnee?}
*Mog spin-jumps and does a high-five!*
King Wolf "So that's how it's going to be... Fine, then!!"
*King Wolf commits suicide*
*Tina and Mog walk over, no doubt astonished at how stupid King Wolf is*
*They face each other*
"I'll be waiting on the airship, kupo!"
*Mog runs off*

And scene! That was fun, and by "fun" I mean "awesome". Next, let's see what our friendly neighborhood auction house in Jidoor has to offer! Blackjack away!



Oh boy oh boy! Let's bet on some stuff!



♪♪ Spinach Rag ♪♪

I can hardly wait!



The suspense is killing me!



...LAME. You fools can have it. 20,000 Gil for Auto-Regen is way too much.



...LAMER. Again, you can have it. 10,000 Gil for Auto-Float is also way too much.



...AWESOME. GIMME GIMME GIMME!



No it's mine go away.



What no shut up and die.



Go play in traffic kid that bird's mine.



YOU BASTARD!



Man, and I almost had a talking Chocobo too...

You little brat.



And my ego too. So yeah, the auction house mostly has useless crap and awesome crap you can never get 'cause this kid wants it and his dad is apparently a multi-millionaire.



Oh, and there's some deifacted Nethicite or something too. I dunno, I just bought it anyway. It was only 20,000 Gil, a steal by auction house standards. And hey, we have a new summon now!

Golem

Introduced in Final Fantasy V as a summon, Golem has had an on-again-off-again relationship in the FF series. His appearance in FF6 marks a trend that would be carried over into FF7, however: he's a robot now! ...You work out the logistics of a hyper-magical creature being a man-made mecha, I'm just not going to think about it.



Earth Wall causes all non-magic attacks to fail to damage your party for a certain amount of overall damage. It's actually pretty useful later on, though at this point few enemies can do enough physical damage to make it necessary or even that useful.

Spells Taught
Protect x5
Stop x5
Curera x5

Level-Up Bonus: Vitality +2

Golem gets huge props for teaching Protect and Curera fast, and even throws in the generally-not-that-useful Stop as an added bonus. And he has one of the better level-up bonuses, too, meaning he gets equipped a lot.



There's another one for sale too, for a much more reasonable 10,000 Gil. I nabbed it too, just 'cause. And hey, that gives us another new summon! We're on a roll here, huh?

Zone Seeker

What's this? A wholely original summon!? Well, something like that. At the very least the name doesn't refer to anything, but Zone Seeker does kinda look like some sort of alien insect thing. Maybe it's a larval Parallax?



Magic Shield puts everyone in Shell status. Since Shell can't target all allies, this is actually pretty handy late-game. Nothing uses magic early on, however, so that's not the case yet.

Spells Taught
Rasper x20
Asper x15
Shell x5

Level-Up Bonus: Magic +2

Now that is more like it. Asper (or Osmose, as it's usually translated) has a bug in FF6 that swaps its drain values with Rasper's, meaning it sucks up all of an enemy's MP most of the time and is basically the best thing ever. Oh, and Shell rocks too. The stat bonus given by Zone Seeker at level up basically seals the deal: everyone loves Zone Seeker.



♪♪ Under Martial Law ♪♪

Not too long ago, somebody broke into the Imperial Majick Research Institute. I took the opportunity to grab this during the confusion. Whadda ya say? For 3,000 Gil, this shining stone is all yours, okay?"
> Yes/No

Some random peep in Tsen wants to sell us another magic rock for 3,000 Gil. Hey, I think that's a third summon for this update! Wow, we really ARE on a roll!



I'll give you some free of charge: soy sauce goes well with chicken! Oh yeah, another new summon. Let's check it out!

Seraphim

This angelic minion isn't so much burning as awesome-useful. Well, for some definitions of the word "useful", anyway. Angels are a common feature of FF games (though to varying degrees of the definition, as their number of wings seem to go from as few as 1 to as many as 16), so this summon's pretty generic even by Eastern standards.



Angel Feather is nothing much. It's basically just an expensive Curera. Hoo-ray.

Spells Taught
Cure x20
Curera x8
Raise x5
Regene x10
Esuna x4

Level-Up Bonus: None

It's what Seraphim teaches that rules the school. As the prime healing teacher to this point, Seraphim utterly curb-stomps poor Kirin and Unicorn in sheer usefulness. Just don't keep Seraphim equipped when you're gonna level up, 'cause you get nothin' then.

♪♪ Veldt ♪♪

Wow, that was a lot of awesome. And now we can indulge in a spot of magic leveling on the Veldt, conveniently experience-free! (But not Gil-free, thank goodness; we just spent 33,000 Gil on magic rocks! I had to sell shit to get those!)



More Magirock? Oh, but it's just a fragment; damn. Still, that sounds... useful, I guess. Let's give that a try next time we're in battle, huh?



HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AAAAAAH!



AH FUCKTITTING DICKWAFFLES!



♪♪ Rest in Peace ~ Game Over ♪♪

And that, my friends, is why you do NOT use Magirock Fragments without saving first. I'm sure we'll find out what that death-dealing super-summon was at some point, but for now IT'S A SECRET TO EVERYBODY. And load state! Let's try that island with the death beast and see what it's called in this version.



Yikes. Lucas already showed you what happens when you wake a sleeping lion (hint: nothing good), so how do you beat it without getting beat?



Step 1: get someone in your party muddled.



Step 2: have the confused party member try to use a Smoke Bomb before the spell hits.



Step 3: Profit! Note that on some versions you'll need to cast a spell on the Sleeping Lion first, 'cause Vanish actually works in those versions.

Yeah, I went ahead and got Mog his new dances too.



Clever players leave the chest in the Beginner's House alone to get Mog's indoor dance early!



I took the water loop too, and visited the Returners. They have new things to say too!

Returner in Bed "My wounds are starting to heal."
Returner in Supply Room "Welcome back."
Returner in Bannan's Room "Is Sir Bannan in good health?"

Including the shopkeeps, there seem to be 5 total Returners. Worst. Resistance. EVER. Whatever, into the river!



Glad I got that out of the way. Time to take the LOOOOOONG way home...



That was one crazy adventure. Let's kick back and ride home in style... to a city that's under martial law. Huh. This could be a problem.



♪♪ Unknown ♪♪

Well that's nice of him.



...Not so nice is getting stuffed in a freaking CHEST to do so. This guy must be a titan if he can lift a chest with 4 people in it!



Will do! So yeah, where were we going? Oh right, the Imperial Base!



♪♪ Ghastra's Empire ♪♪

Now THAT is a long-winded title!



"The Empire is nowhere to be seen..."
Tina "Let's just go and get this over with."

Right you are, Tina! And that we will... next time.

I actually did manage to get into a desert battle in the former Imperial base once...it used the same enemies as the Figaro desert, if you're wondering.

Because you want to honor the Atari 2600?

Gau would reflect upon this moment for many moons, thinking of how he, too, could harness this power so reliably.

Huh, how the hell did that work?

Can you just use the vanish-death trick on him (in the versions it works on)?

It works because Confuse doesn't cancel the last command you inputted; it just reverses the targeting (so if the target was the player party, it hits the enemy party and vice versa). Which means it flags the Sleeping Lion as though it ran away. So no experience or Gil (which is fine since they don't give any), but you do get AP.

And yes, you can lay down a Death on them in FF3US or an unmodified FF6 SNES/PS1 for an instant win. It won't work on the RPGOne patch I've got installed or in FF6A, though.

I agree. I’ve been teasing this long enough.


Here’s that sword for Cyan I failed to steal from Number 128. Cyan might get to use it if I use him again before the Tempest is outclassed, but its most famous use is in the gamebreaking Gau strategy I hinted at last time. We now have two of the four components needed for that, by the way. It will be a while before we get the others.


Three rooms in the dungeon gets serious. The walkways over the lava are constantly changing state, and there’s only a handful of safe places to stand during the change. It’s easy to get dropped into the lava and sent back to the start.


Like so. The treasure on the right is an X-Potion, which is handy but not unique. In the left chest is Coin Toss, a Relic for Setzer that changes Slots to GP Rain. This command lets Setzer throw money at the enemy for damage, specifically 30 GP per level, doubled then divided by the number of enemies to determine how much damage each monster takes; for example, if Setzer’s level 20 and fighting three enemies, he’ll spend 600 GP to deal 400 damage to each. Interesting, potentially useful if you really hate Slots, but ultimately not something I use.

Now, why did I really want to have Gaia Gears for the entire party? Well, first there’s the scorpion pokeymans with Earthquake.


Or not. A monster that has a 1/3 chance to cast Magnitude 8 upon death should be scary, but the fact that they can’t actually cast it kind of takes all the terror out of it. No, Gaia Gear’s real use here is in doing this:


The Ings’ most frightening attack is Earth element; combined with Gaia Gear’s Earth absorption, Lifeshaver’s effect is reversed and the Ing kindly heals you at the expense of its own HP, often to the point of destroying itself. Sweet, sweet revenge.


And of course here’s the more general use for Gaia Gears which I’ve been hyping up this entire time. You can’t see it because for some reason I have the ATB gauges turned on, but Gau’s Quake is healing all my characters for more than their max HP.


And here’s H-Bomb, my personal favorite of the Slots attacks. It deals heavy non-elemental magic to all enemies. It doesn’t ignore defenses or split damage and it marks the point where getting the attacks starts to become hard enough I can’t do them on purpose, but dang the Blackjack swooping down on a bombing run is a neat animation.

Hitting that switch makes the little bridge here appear so we can pick up this new Genji Glove. This is the second in the game, and one of three you can get without depending on the kindness of the random number gods – the easiest of the RNG methods is as a rare steal from a powerful monster in the next dungeon, which is only available for a limited time.


We hit the switch behind Terra’s head there (there’s a lot of switches in this dungeon) and this ruffian drops in on us from above. Finally having enough Magic Points to do so facing one of the trickier enemies in the dungeon, I use Terra’s Morph command. While it doesn’t actually empty her ATB gauge like it might seem, since she is performing a command it does make the game move on the next person in the action queue. I can give Terra a new command quickly, but she’ll have to wait her turn in line again.


Gau takes his turn....


Locke takes his....


And Terra runs out of Morph time just in time to take a Bolt Edge to the face. And yes, these are the same Bolt Edges you can buy for Shadow to Throw. And yes, I do take a lot of damage from it, ~300 to the entire party.


My guess is that this refers to Genji Glove (we had to pass under a large stone ramp/stairway to get it), but I’m not at all confident about that. I’m sure Sky Render will be able to point to something that makes a lot more sense. (The switch to the left of the Ninja Switch opens a door to a little room with a Tent and a save point.)


This next area is a Switch Hell. Most important thing here is to go down at this junction...


And step on this switch, opening up the door to the right, where we find an ether, two shards of Magicite, and the rumored ancient weapon...


The Atma Weapon’s special property is that not only does it ignore defense, its power depends on its wielder’s HP – the more HP you have, the longer it is and the more power it has. Right now none of the four people who can wield it are pushing even a thousand HP, so it’s not so powerful... or it wouldn’t be if the game wasn’t full of holes.

Remember me saying there’s a glitch where Capture prevents certain special properties from activating on weapons? The Atma Weapon’s variable power and size is one of those properties, meaning that for the purposes of using Capture it’s simply a short knife that give Locke a 255 Battle Power. It also loses its Ignores Defense when Capturing, but it’s still our most powerful option for that move right now.


Somewhere in muddling through all the many different switches in here, Terra hits level 22 and learns Fire2, her sixth spell. Only 77 levels and ten spells to go until I’ve got her full magic list!


Alright, I’ll be honest here. This entire room confuses me. Since I’m playing without save states to mess around with, after getting the Atma Weapon I just found the first combination of switches that led out of this insane place and booked it for the exit. I’m sure I didn’t miss anything good down here anyway.


“This is the sealed gate...”
Locke: Beyond is the Esper World...”
Setzer: Why’d you bring me to such an awful place!?
Terra [begins approaching the gate]: ... ...


“Terra! ...the gate...quickly!”


KEFKA: U’hee, hee, heeee!!!! The Emperor was right! Let Terra fall into your hands, and you’d open the gate for us...!
“... ...!”
KEFKA: How does it feel to know you’ve been working for us?! Now I fear you’ve outlived your usefulness... ...
“You’d better think again, Kefka!”
KEFKA: Oh dear... ... you wanna fight me?! This is just dreadful!
“Keep Kefka busy until Terra slips through the gate!!”
[A long, grueling battle ensues. Ok, Kefka took one hit.]
“Look! The, the door’s opening!”


KEFKA: It opened!!
“Terra!!!”
KEFKA: I, I, I, I feel so anxious.
“Something’s coming!!!
[Everyone drops prone.]


HOLY MOLEY

KEFKA: Frightful energy!!


KEFKA: Uwaaa!


“Terra!!!”
Terra: ... ... ...
“Hey! The gate!!!”



Terra: Look, let’s return to the airship.


Fortunately the Espers knocked a hole in the dungeon that leads from the room right before the Gate to the first room. Thanks, Espers!


“The Espers flew off together... Then, the Empire’s citizens ran off, as though they were terrified.”
“Which way did the Espers go?”
“Toward the capital.”
“Vector...”

“There! What’s that?”


Terra: I can feel it... ... It’s coming closer and closer...
Locke: What do you mean you can feel it?
Terra: It was... ...glowing!
Locke: What’s that? It can’t be... ...! An Esper??? It’s coming!!! Watch out, Terra!!


Setzer: What was that!?
Locke: Setzer, get down!



Locke: Where are they going?
Terra: They were mad... ...
Locke: They seemed... ...angry.
Terra: No... ...Stop...! Please, don’t go!!
Setzer: Forget that... ...what’s with this vibration?! Is it from the Espers?
Edgar [from offscreen]: Um... ...Setzer !!!! I’ve lost control!!!



After a short, panicked flight across the country, we crash land near Maranda. I think we’ll need a week to catch our breath after that.

Part XVI - Another Day, Another Cave

I just don't even know what Squenix is doing lately, so we'll ignore the usual PSN rant and skip straight to the action! I think Lucas set me up here for a short update; since I don't cover much in the way of battle mechanics, this'll be a short trip.



♪♪ Eidolons' World ♪♪

Sealed Gate Cave
Enemies: Pooka, Lich, Rogue Annoyer, Dragon Zombie, Antares

Ho-hum, plotless crawl...



♪♪ Battle ♪♪

Yeah, I'm tossing Phoenix Downs around at enemies. Who's gonna stop me?



I also used Raise for a bit to mix things up, but that actually gets pretty expensive since everything's undead down here and I have to use Ethers to heal MP.

♪♪ Victory ♪♪



Ah yes, I'll have to show what that's REALLY referring to, won't I?



But first, a nap. Ahh, sweet MP...



Yes, there's items hidden on the ground just past that ninja! Mostly it's just Gil and throwing items for Shadow. Which is mean since he's not even in the party.

(The rest of the update will be in LeafGreen, because I found Fading Leaves and that's a good enough excuse for me.)



Yeah yeah all the series long-timers know that "Atma" is really Ultima. Moving on.



The secret to this puzzle is to not step on any of the switches. Seriously, that's it.



Ominous.

Lock "The Eidolon World lies beyond here......"
Edgar "From this point on, Tina must handle the rest..."
Tina "......"
*Tina and crew step forward, Tina walking up to the door*
*AWESOME LAUGH!*



♪♪ Metamorphosis ♪♪

OH SNAP KEFKA!



*Kefka laughs silently*
Kefka "G'hyahahaha...... It all happened as Emperor Ghastra preditcted it would! 'Let them have Tina, and they'll surely lead us right to the sealed gate'..."
"......!"
*Kefka spins about and wags his finger at the party*
Kefka "And lo and behold, you danced your way right into our little trap! Hehehehe......"
*Kefka straightens up*
Kefka "Now that your task is done, it is MY task to dispose of you once and for all!!"
*The party hops forward!*
"Not a chance, Kefka!"
*Kefka laughs silently again*
Kefka "Oho, you may think you can win against me, but you are sadly mistaken!"
Until Tina opens the door, keep Kefka occupied!
*Party hops back into position*

This'll be cake.



And one hit later... No seriously, that's it. You hit him once and the battle's over. They probably mis-scripted the fight, because I'm pretty sure you're supposed to beat on him for a while.



Tina's doing a sort of technicolor lightshow that ends with...



Hot naked Tina! Woo! So did it work?

It sure did!



"Tina!!"
*The party steps back a bit*
Kefka "W,w,w,w,what's going to, to, to...?"
"Something's coming out!!!"



Hey, no fair! Summons are attacking me!



Kefka forgot why he hit the deck, methinks.



Oh now he remembers!



And he gets blown off the bridge! Serves 'im right.



Is our magical girl okay?

Tina "........."



...She's had worse.



Someone closed it again! That wasn't very nice. Now we have to open it again.



Or... not. How vaguely skull-esque.



*Tina stands up*
Tina "in any case, let's return to the airship."
*Mog stands up, everyone nods*



♪♪ Eidolons' World ♪♪

No going back THERE ever again...



That wasn't there before...



Oh, convenient! To the Setzermobile!

♪♪ Ghastra's Empire ♪♪

"The Eidolons gathered together, and flew off......"
"Then, they took off to frighten the people of the Empire."
"Which way were the Eidolons going?"
"In the direction of the Imperial capital..."
"Towards Vector..."

Yeah, all of the dialogue is unattributed. Thanks, Square.



Why are we doing this, again? Let the Eidolons rip the city a new one while you sit back and drink a Potion Lite, I say. Solves the problem nicely.



Is it a bird? Is it a plane?



♪♪ Metamorphosis ♪♪

No, it's a recycled battle screen!

Tina "I can feel something...... It's coming this way, rapidly......"
Lock "Feel what?"
*Screen flash!*
Tina "That flash!"
Lock "What is that!?"
Lock "No, it can't be...... The Eidolons......!?"
Lock "It's coming this way!!! Tina, get down quick!!"
*Bahamut off the port bow!*



Dude, Setzer. Did you not just see the dragon-god-king assault your airship? Also, why are you not manning the helm you idiot!?

Lock "Setzer, get down!"
*Lock pounces on Setzer as Kirin flies by*
*Bismarck, Carbuncle and Phantom fly by too*
*The screen turns red and starts to shake*
*Lock and Setzer get up, and look around cautiously*
Setzer "The... Eidolons???"
Lock "Which way were they going?"
*Tina walks over to the others
Tina "They were headed towards..."
*The others face Tina*
Tina "......What were they......?"
*Tina closes her eyes*
Tina "No...... Don't do it...... Don't go, please!!"
Setzer "Furthermore, why are we shaking so......!? Did the Eidolons cause this......?"
Edgar "Setzer!!!!"
*Everyone looks back at Edgar*
"Uwaaaah! The rudder's gone out of control!!!"

Crap. Hold onto your drawers and don't piss in 'em!



♪♪ The Unforgiven ♪♪

So the airship starts to fly erratically and crash-lands eventually.



Very eventually.



Tina's still had worse.



And we'll end this update on that bit of Setzer being emo. Come back next time as we see just how awesomely destroyed the Empire was by the Eidolons!

Well now I'm curious as to what's the least used battle screen. This is certainly in the running, but I suppose it would be the bridge before the Sealed Gate.

If you want to get technical, the least-used one would be the last battle scene, since it's only used once. The airship one actually gets quite a bit of use overall, compared to some. The least-used besides that are the Mine Cart one (only during that sequence and only for about a half-dozen battles at that), the Sealed Gate bridge (all of 3 story scenes, only 2 of which have the party in it), the stage at the Opera Theater (we've seen 50% of its appearances already), and the falls (only once during the battle gauntlet in Matias' scenario). There's also another battle scene used for exactly one fight, just after the next time we see the airship battle scene get its time in the sun again.

I didn't even think of the last battle scene. The one I thought of that sees exactly one battle is the screen where you suplex the Ghost Train, but I think that is additionally used for story scenes.

It's not...at least not any I can remember.

Huh, I'd have thought the train platform scenes played out over the same backdrop as the fight, but you're right. The battle scene has a second track running in the background and (going by my screenshots) a different pattern of trees from the platform scenes. It's also different from the background when you're on the outer parts of the train. They put some serious effort into differentiating the different areas.

Actual update to follow in a moment, just need to shake the bugs out.

With the Blackjack grounded, we walk to Vector. Things seems a little different somehow, though.


Maybe it’s all the burning the town is doing.


Returners and Narshe Guards wander Vector, bewildered that they showed up for a fight and found a barbecue instead. The Imperials are gone, but merchants and the old lady that heals you are still hanging around despite their houses being on fire.


In front of the Imperial palace, we find Banon and Arvis('s feet).
BANON: What ARE you talking about...?! ... ...!! Talking with...Espers...?
ARVIS: It was like this when we got here.
I’ve always had trouble deciding whether Arvis meant that as “It’s not our fault!” or “Aww, we missed it.”


If we’d come here earlier we would have run into the massive, unkillable Guardian preventing an assault on the Palace, but now it’s just one guard with an invitation. By the way, make sure you have Sprint Shoes on before triggering this scene.


“Cid!!”
CID: The Espers came to save their friends. When they learned the others had perished, they went berserk, and trashed the town... Never will I forget their shrieks of rage...
[The Emperor’s TROOPERs step forward.]
SENTRY: We’re hanging up our weapons and armor for good.
GESTAHL: The power of those Espers... I had no idea... They’ll shred the world...! We must get them to understand that we are no longer at war.
CID [starts pacing behind the nearest TROOPER]: No human’s going to make them sit down and listen...
GESTAHL [leaves his throne and approaches one of the rear doors]: But for now my friends... Let us feast and rejoice!
CID: There’re some people here who’d prefer to keep fighting. Please, before we dine, talk to as many soldiers as you can! Make them understand!
TROOPER: Please talk to as many soldiers as you can. You have 4 minutes until dinner.


Uh-oh, a timer. When a video game whips that out, you know it means business. These troopers don’t count for the task before us and block us if we try to go in the doors behind them, eating up precious seconds. Wear Sprint Shoes so you can cover more ground in your limited time and only talk to generic soldiers, troopers, and Magitek armor – you’ll have time for actual exploration later.

4 people
Well, that covers the honor guard right outside the throne room. Fortunately for us, the Imperial Castle is arranged roughly in a circle – the plan is to sweep up the right wing of the Castle, cross the roof, go down the left stairwell, then talk to the last few fellows in front of the entrance.



7 people
I’m not really sure what this place is. There’s a bed and a lot of books, and a bathroom with plush carpeting... Gestahl’s bedroom, I guess? It’s right over the jail, so I dunno. Maybe Gestahl just likes having his toilet right over the prison. It’s symbolic or something. It’s also the major attraction in the right wing for us.


10 people
This covers most of the roof. These two Magitek soldiers are guarding one important little room, though.


This soldier is the first on our circuit through the Palace to attack us instead of meekly admitting the righteousness of our cause. Of course, he attacks us as a trio of Commandos instead of anything threatening, so I didn’t even think to screenshot the battle. Just use your nastiest multitarget attacks to finish them off as quickly as possible.


Look familiar? This room was recently used to activate the Cranes that attacked the Blackjack after our raid on the Magitek Research Facility, but was first seen way back in Terra’s flashback when Kefka placed the Slave Crown on her head.