"One to be born from a dragon..." -- Let's Play Final Fantasy II

It is done.

I'd yell at Bongo Bill for getting his Sesame Street Muppets mixed up with his Muppet Show Muppets, but then I remembered that Bert and Ernie did a cameo in Season One.

Although Mog can't be Beaker without a Bunsen (Cid?). He's better as Robin, since he gets paired with Sweetums half the time anyway.

All Muppets are created equal, Sven.

I'm surprised no one noticed Gogo was missing from the lineup. I guess not having a personality helps.

...Zam Wesell? Kill me now.

I wouldn't call Chrono Trigger a Sakaguchi game.

Grinding? Possibly. Jobs? No way, FFT blows the likes of DQ out of the water in that specific department.

Maybe they just played the US version of Final Fantasy Tactics and saw the literally translated reference.

That's fine. Many of the names I already chose were a BIIIIIIIG stretch and could easily overlap with others, and I can't even think of a Dragon Quest character that'd fit Gogo too well.

Meh, maybe a float-o-copier, I guess.

I really don't like tactics games, though.

Yeah, to bring this back to FFIV, I never used the X-Men names for the FFVI cast, but I did use it for FFII. Right up until I sold my copy on eBay, it still had an endgame file with Cyclop, Wolver, Gambit, and whatever I named Rosa and Rydia.

I named the FFVI cast after the FFIV cast.

My DQ9 game has a Rydia. Ironically, she's a pretty bad-ass paladin.

Then Final Fantasy V.

DQ9 is seriously the first Job-System game I've really liked. I finished FFIII DS, but I mostly kept a vanilla party for most of the game. I took a Lv. 99 Thief all the way to the end.

I named the Chrono Trigger crew after the FFVI cats.

It was... unsatisfying.

Mine was awkward, because it resulted in two Cids. I think I wound up using a lot of Rename Cards in that file.

Here's how I think I went:

My pal WIP was hosting the soundtrack for me, but I think his recent move broke all the links. I uploaded it myself, so the ones in this update should work, but the previous ones will be broken until I can go back and fix them. Sorry for sucking so badly! -mgmt.

Chapter the Third: Into the Antlion's Nest


♪♪ Run! ♪♪

When we last left off, Damcyan Castle had been leveled by a Red Wings-flavored carpet bombing. Only one thing to do at a time like this: strip the old man naked!


♪♪ Castle Damcyan ♪♪

I believe the correct term for the current state of things in Damcyan is "proper fucked". The walls have been mostly demolished and all of the castle guards lay dead or dying. If there's any chance of finding Anna and her new beau, we'd better get inside fast.


Actually no, what we'd better do is walk around the outside of the castle to explore this secret room.


Wow, the Red Wings are absolute dicks. The only conclusion here is that someone came in and shot this guy, then left him to die without taking a second look at the royal vault. Baron must have come looking for one thing, and one thing only.


Squeezing through the bars is impossible. To get the treasures you need to open the stone door and then walk through the blackspace around the edge of the map, passing through a false wall as you do so. This is the player's first real introduction to such walls, and it's a good thing! Every castle in the game has an area similar to this, and they only get trickier.

This CrossBow would be an upgrade for Rydia, if I were a normal player equipping her with normal weapons. She's better off with the IceRod, but that doesn't mean the CrossBow will go to waste.


The other two boxes are pieces of armor. Unless you walked back to Kaipo to equip Tellah, the natural thing to do with this Leather Hat is put it on his head. That would also be the stupid thing to do, as we'll quickly see!

The RubyRing goes in the Arms slot, and trades two points of Defence for one point of Mag Def over the IronRing. This trade-off wouldn't be worth it even if monsters at this point in the game had magical attacks, but that doesn't mean the RubyRing is a worthless item. In fact, they're pretty important at one point!


Oh my holy god it is the motherlode.


Well, nothing terribly brilliant was hidden down here. Some arrows and some GP, mostly. Whenever you find arrows like this, by the way, what you're getting is a pack of ten of them.


Okay, we can get back on task now. I suppose. Oh, but let me just point out something cool about the mapwork here first! (I'm a mapwork junkie. So sue me.) See how the stone is on fire off to Tellah's right? I mean, ignore the fact that holy christ burning stone and just focus on where it is. You could walk over there, if you wanted, is what I'm getting at. The fire doesn't do anything, you can't really examine it or "click" on it, and upon arriving at Castle Damcyan you have way more pressing concerns anyway. But check out a composite of this image and one of the previous ones:


If you were to walk over to the area of the castle where the flames are, for no reason other than you can, your reward is a glimpse of the side of the castle where the secret room is. And just think -- you were about to post about how that room was "bullshit" and how "you couldn't possibly find it unless you already knew it was there". Ye of little faith!

This is a favorite trick to use in map layouts, and not just in RPGs: put something cool just outside of the main viewport so players will miss it if they're being careless. Well, maybe "careless" isn't the word to use in this context, where a worried father is rushing to find his missing and possibly-dead runaway daughter.


Now we can get back on task. The interior of the castle is likewise a crumbled wreck; the only remaining fixtures are half-dead soldiers whining about their stolen crystal, and one un-looted treasure box containing a Tent.

Good thing the Red Wings snatched whatever was in those three inaccessible boxes in the corner of the room; I would have driven myself insane trying to reach them, otherwise.

On the top floor, Tellah makes a horrific discovery: his daughter had indeed been caught smack in the middle of the attack!


♪♪ Fight 2 ♪♪

Just then, a particularly bardly-looking individual emerges from his hiding place. Tellah identifies him as the man Anna ran off with, and decides the most prudent course of action is to beat him up.


Despite being some sixty years younger than Tellah, the bard still tries to flee as the old man approaches him. For reasons unknown Tellah decides to Fight rather than cast spells, which has hilarious results if you've taken his weapon away from him.

Someone make a Dr. Odine joke, please. I don't think I have it in me.


The battle screen says "Bard", but really, it should say "Hopeless Pussy". The more he pleads for Tellah to cease his savage beat-down, the more Tellah punches him, demanding he shut his fool mouth. And when that wears thin...


...he simply resorts to shouting obscenities.

You all already know this, but this is unquestioningly one of the top ten most memorable lines in the entire Final Fantasy series. Discovering the other nine is left as an excercise to my readers.


The bard is so choked up on a combination of his own tears and wrinkled arthritic fists that he can't even must the words to explain himself. His wounded girlfriend is therefore forced to intervene on his behalf. Something tells me this isn't the first time she's stood up for him.

(As an aside: remember when I talked about characters being "dummied out" of the group in the last update? This is the first time the game does that. Cecil and Rydia are still in my party for this fight; they've just had a switch flipped which temporarily causes them to be absent from combat. If this is what triggers the "no criticals" bug, as is sometimes speculated, this is where Cecil would lose his ability to do it. If he gets any crits after this point, well, myth busted! I'll keep you posted.)


Now that someone has finally had the idea to check on Anna's body, she turns out to be not quite as dead as originally anticipated. Everyone gathers 'round to hear her dying words, which turn out to be an explanation that the bard is none other than Prince Edward, sole remaining heir to the fire-blasted desert wasteland of Damcyan.


It eventually comes out that the Red Wings are being led by a man named Golbez, who has taken up the job Cecil was too much of a wuss to complete: collecting the crystals and crushing anyone who opposes him. Cecil is particularly interested in the identity of this Golbez, and does his best to interrupt the heartfelt and bittersweet father/daughter reunion and swerve the discussion in that direction.


♪♪ Cry in Sorrow ♪♪

With her last breath, Anna declares her love for Edward and begs her father's forgiveness.

This scene is a competition to see who loves Anna more. Obviously Tellah does, because he calls out her name twice.

With Edward's pesky ladyfan finally dead, Cecil gets his wish and the conversation turns back towards Golbez. Unfortunately Edward had already exhausted the full extent of his information on the topic.


With Edward exonerated in Anna's death, blame shifts from him to Golbez. Tellah is overcome with rage and vows to hunt down his daughter's murderer. Cecil keeps a cooler head, and tries to stop him, but Tellah knocks him out of the way and insists he doesn't need anyone's help.


...aaaaand that's why you should strip Tellah's gear outside of Damcyan! None of it was his to begin with, anyway.


With that, Cecil is left in the room with the prince's tortured sobbing.

Tired of being left out of the plot, Rydia decides to get in on this action by calling Edward names.


Seriously, this is the first thing she's said since the night Cecil saved her in Kaipo. She had nothing to discuss with the master wizard who traveled with her throughout that cave, nor to the sick woman Cecil has been so desperate to save... but the guy who just watched his lover peppered with arrows? He's overreacting and should get over it.

Her rationale might be appropriate, if she herself hadn't responded to this same situation by calling a demon from hell to wake up and break the world in half.


Being scolded by a seven-year-old has no effect on Edward's whining. He insists on staying with her moldering corpse, presumably until he dies of starvation.


So Cecil smacks him upside the head.

In the actual game Cecil only pops him once, but I think my rendition of the scene is far more satisfying.


I'm sure Edward is the last person in the world Cecil would want to enlist for aid, but members of the Damcyan royal family are in short supply these days. Ever the crafty one, though, Cecil plays on Edward's romantic sensibilities, and just lays it all out for him.

Oh, wait, no he doesn't. He describes Rosa as a "just a friend". Opportunity wasted!


Fortunately, Edward finds Cecil's quest a worthy one. Though he could not save Anna, he may be able to spare someone else his grief.

He also offers to let us jack his pimp-ass Hoovercraft. Score!


The team files out of the room, but Edward peeks back in for one last look at poor Anna. Alas, at that point her sprite had already evaporated.

This is an important rule in FF2: unless you see someone's sprite flicker away and vanish, they're not really dead.


♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

I don't know where in the castle Edward was keeping his sweet ride, but it might have been prudent to, oh, I don't now, hide the Crystal of Fire there. I'm just sayin', the Red Wings didn't make off with the Hoovercraft.

The party's first vehicle has a few interesting properties. It can travel over any sort of flat terrain, which means it soars over deserts and grasslands with ease, but can't go through forests. It can, however, pass over the rocky shallows along ocean coastlines, which is handy, because pretty much everything around here is separated from Castle Damcyan by rocky shallows.

"Enough about the Hoovercraft, Brickroad! Didn't you just get a new party member?"

Well, no, not really. But if you insist...

~~~


Edward - Bard

Aw, Edward is a lovable fop. I don't even have it in me to keep picking on him. There's just no sport in it, you know?

Command List:

• Fight: Though it starts out piss-weak and never manages to catch up with Cecil, Edward's attack is nothing to sneeze at once you get him a weapon upgrade. Plus it has a cute animation, makes a pretty tinkling sound, and sometimes inflicts Sleep or Charm on a target. Not that Sleep or Charm are ever particularly useful. Which brings us to...
  
• Sing: ...this pointless command, which attempts to inflict useless status ailments and fails more often than not. Even if it did work, why would you want to charm a monster that Cecil's just going to sword to death in the next round?
  
• Hide: This is like Edward's very own personal Run command. While hidden, Edward may not take any actions, nor may he be targeted by anything. This would be useful to get away from certain powerful attacks, if there were any to get away from in the short time he's on the team.

Really, there's not much you can do with Edward except smile and nod. Yes, he's weak, but so is all your opposition at this point in the game. If only he had better weapons... like, say something good against dragons? I'm just thinkin' out loud here.

~~~

Edward comes equipped with a second RubyRing, which is quickly replaced. Again, there's nothing that's going to be throwing magic at us. Outside of that, this is as good as his equipment gets for the time being.

The rest of this update will be brought to you in glorious Princely-Hat Purple.


Hoovering over the shallows just off the western coast, the team can circumvent the mountain range in the middle of the Damcyan Desert and reach Kaipo without backtracking through the Watery Pass. Which is stupid on my part, considering there's a free HP/MP restore point in Damcyan in the form of a jar of Water of Life.

But you know? I don't trust that crap. If it were really Water of Life, why did Anna have to die? Answer me that!

And why couldn't we just use a Life1 on her? And if Rosa is sick, why can't we just use a Heal? Etc. etc. etc.


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

In the interest of getting myself eternally stuck and ending the LP early, I tried parking the Hoovercraft outside the Watery Pass and walking back to Damcyan. Since the Waterfall is a one-way trip, this should block me from ever completing the game.

Unfortunately my plan was foiled, as Cecil completely refuses to go anywhere near the falls. I guess once was enough for him.



Across the shallows northeast of Damcyan is our next destination: Cave #3!

This is the third time we've seen this tileset, but once again the layout of the map gives it a unique identity. The Antlion's Nest looks as though something had been burrowing here for years, what with the straight tunnels, loose rocks and shallow pits that comprise the dungeon. There's no water or ambience here, just dusty rooms full of stale air.


...and treasure boxes, of course!


I especially like this twisty little passage here. It looks as though something could be nestled in the little crevices against the walls to either side of Edward.

If you're still not sold on how intricate these dungeons actually are, try to count how many unique tiles it took to design this map. I bet you'll be surprised.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

The graphical consistency kind of falls apart in the battle sequences, where you can still see underground rivers off in the background. Whoops.

Anyway, Edward's Fight command manifests as a brilliant string of musical notes, followed immediately by tiny bouncing numbers.


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

This dungeon is somewhat heavy on the minor treasures. There's only one major(ish) one.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Edward comes equipped with the Dreamer Harp, which randomly will put monsters to sleep. Sleeping monsters can't act, but they can't be attacked either; they'll wake up if someone hits them.

This would have been a huge bonus in the old turn-based battle system, but FF2 exists in the brave new world of ATB. By the time Edward steps forward and randomly lulls a bad guy to sleep, Cecil's already been commanded to stuff a sword in its eye socket.

For Sleep to be truly effective, you'd have to orchestrate its use... which means I'd tell Rydia to cast it and then plan the rest of my actions accordingly. Of course I'd never do that either, since Sleep sucks in this game, which just means we've come full circle.

♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

It's a good thing we've been finding all these Cure1s, because Edward has been eating a lot of damage. In fact, this is the first healing item I've had to use in the game!


This isn't the last chest on this floor, but it's the last one accessible from the areas we can reach. A little pocket change is always nice.


Early in the next floor we come across door, a Life potion, and a secret passage.


Inside the room is Edward's Charm Harp, which doubles his damage potential and confuses monsters rather than putting them to sleep. This is marginally more useful, but still nothing you will actually notice while playing.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Hey look! It happened! And it happened between attacks, too, so I can actually sit back and see what this poor SandWorm does to itself!


Holy smokes! Three damage! My goodness, Edward, how could we ever have done this without you?


This secret passage will take you straight to the boss fight... but what would be the fun in that?


Our dear prince is also our first character to come with an auto-ability. You can make him Hide manually by selecting the command, but if he ever gets down to critical HP he'll just up and do it all by himself. At least he's considerate enough to try and save us a Life potion.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Fortunately, Rydia knows yellow blobs are weak to Lit spells, and learns the Toad spell for her efforts. This spell attempts to turn monsters into frogs, which is a waste of a turn. Its more useful function is to transform your party members back from frogs, a feature we will no doubt get considerable use out of later on.

Please note that this is the second time Edward has dipped into critical HP levels. Cecil and Rydia, meanwhile, have only taken eleven damage total between them.

♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

Soon enough the gang comes across some stairs leading back up, which grants us access to that previously inaccessible room on the floor above. Don't worry, we'll be going back for that treasure box soon.


If you know your way around the Antlion's Nest, and hell, even if you don't, it's a pretty straight shot directly to the boss. I haven't tested this, but it might be comparable to the Misty Cave if you measure by number of steps taken. Since there's not really a halfway point, I suppose they just decided to put the save spot slightly off the beaten path, instead.

The treasures in this room were an Ether1, a Tent and another Life potion. Hmm... lots of Lifes. Is the game trying to tell me something...?


See? Told you I'd go back for it. And some more pocket change!

One of these days, there will be something worth buying. We're getting there.


On the left side of this screen you can see where that secret passage opens up. In the bottom-right you can see the stairs down to the boss.


The final floor is a deep, circular pit which narrows off as you get to the center. This is Antlion Ground Zero.


A pair of pincers juts up from the earth, causing Rydia to start. In an uncharacteristic show of bravery, Edward steps forward between them to claim the SandRuby and put this dreary dungeon behind them.

Hah! Antlion isn't tame after all! Bet you didn't see that coming.

Antlion introduces a new dimension to FF2 boss battles: counterattacks. Hitting it with physical attacks causes it to launch spinities at you, dealing what Edward probably considers to be heavy damage. It doesn't really do anything outside of that, though, so in theory you're fine as long as you stay away from the Fight command.


This fight is tailor-made for Rydia's Chocb spell. The most basic strategy is to just have her cast it over and over, making Cecil Parry every round so as not to trigger Counter.


The most useful thing Edward can do in this fight is Hide. No fooling. His damage output is too meager to be worth eating a Counter, and Antlion isn't susceptible to any status ailments. He could be on Item duty, I suppose, but in all honesty he's the only party member who will ever be in need of healing. Better to just send him off and win the fight without him.

Cecil, on the other hand, can deal enough damage to make the resulting Counter worth putting up with. He and Rydia also have more than enough HP to outlast Antlion in a straight damage-slinging match.


Edward still gets turns while hidden, but all his commands are greyed out except Show, which returns him to the battle. If you don't want him to come back, just tell him to Parry and he'll stay gone.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Before Antlion can put even half a dent in our schoolage Caller, it crumbles into purple nothingness like all the bosses before it.


♪♪ Cry in Sorrow ♪♪

After putting the Antlion in its place and sifting through its castings for a SandRuby, Edward laments that it should never have attacked them in the first place. Cecil points out (for the second time) that monsters have been growing more aggressive these days, possibly as the result of some nonspecific evil goings-on.

This is something of a holdover from the days of less sophisticated RPGs, which often used "monsters are growing in numbers!" as a generic motivation for why you need to destroy Bad Guy X. It does seem a little out of place in FF2, where the heroes already have believable motivations as it is. (You're in the Antlion's Nest to begin with to save Rosa, and beyond that you're on a quest to protect the remaining crystals from Golbez.)

The mechanic by which monsters are increasing or becoming aggressive is never explored. I assume it has something to do with bad guys manhandling crystals, but that's an unnecessary explanation. On the other hand, if it had been known beforehand that the Antlion was feral Edward might never have set foot in the cave to begin with.


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

I just use the secret passage to get back topside. If you don't feel like going through the trouble, you can just have Rydia cast Warp a few times to get you out. This ends up not saving you a lot of time, though, due to the way Warp functions. It returns you to exit of the last map you were on, and we've switched maps a lot in this cave, which is a lot of trips into the menu and a lot of Warp animations to watch. Rydia might not even have the MP to hack it, if she needed a lot of Chocbs to fell the Antlion.


♪♪ Welcome to Our Town! ♪♪

A short Hoovercraft ride later and we're back in Kaipo, SandRuby in hand. The game actually makes you jump through the hoop of selecting the SandRuby off the menu. You know, just in case you wanted to try using an Elixir or something instead. I would talk about how dumb and unnecessary this is, except it's used once (and only once!) as a pretty neat example of blending mechanics with storytelling, which justifies the practice everywhere else in the game.


♪♪ Theme of Love ♪♪

As is usually the case when heroes use magic jewels secreted by monstrous insects, the room glows bright yellow and any sick maidens in the vicinity become well again.

Well, I guess this answers our previous question; Rosa heard about the earthquake at Mist and then left Baron to search for Cecil. For that timeline to work, Cecil and Rydia must have been laying unconscious in that clearing for days and days.

Cecil tries to skip past this pesky "reunion" and get right back to the question of Golbez.


To hear Rosa tell it, Golbez is the puppetmaster behind the king's desire to obtain the crystals. It's no wonder Cecil was dismissed so quickly after expressing even the first hint of discontent with how the Red Wings were being used.


She then lists off the crystals and their respective locations for the benefit of the player. Exposition ftw!


I never understood how she knew the Red Wings were taking their targets in a specific order, though. It would have been pretty clever on Golbez's part to leak information about hitting Fabul next, then immediately implementing an air strike on Toroia.

There's actually an excellent reason he doesn't do that... but there's no way Rosa could know at this point what it is.

Despite being cured of her fever, Rosa still does her level best to hack up a lung during this scene, which Cecil takes as cause for concern.


The strike order might just be wishful thinking on the heroes' part; Fabul is within walking distance, whereas Toroia isn't. Still, they need some way to melt the wall of ice at the base of Mt. Hobs in order to make the journey. For some reason, Rosa's first thought is to have Rydia melt the ice with fire magic, rather than commission Cid to mount a cannon on the hood of the Hoovercraft.

At this point she begins horking again. Cecil's just about had enough at this point, and tells her to rest while he takes the frail little girl-child and Rydia off into the mountains.


Rosa insists on tagging along though, sweetening the deal by pointing out her skill in white magic, promising to walk ten steps behind and be very very quiet.

If Cecil had his druthers, Rosa would spend the entire adventure at home in bed. This becomes a recurring theme throughout the game.

Edward eventually gets Cecil to cave, possibly by pointing out that neither he nor Rydia can heal worth a crap.

~~~


Rosa - Wh.Wiz

I love Rosa, and I hate her. Wait, did I already say that about Rydia? Well, after so much LPing I guess it's inevitable I'd start re-using material. Rosa's unique asset isn't her white magic; pretty much everyone in this game can do that at soem point. Rather, it's her primary weaponry: she's most proficient in using bows and arrows. Problem is, FF2 is overwhelmingly deficient in providing bows or arrows worth using.

Command List:

• Fight: There are three good reasons to avoid using Rosa's Fight command. First, it consumes arrows, and let's face it, needless consumption of resources goes against everything we hold dear as RPG players. Second, while Rosa's attack isn't as weak as the rest of the spellcasting characters, it's still just a tickle compared to Cecil and the other heavyweights. And third...
  
• Aim: ...Aim does the exact same thing, but better. Well, not that much better. Aim doesn't deal any extra damage or guarantee any critical hits that wouldn't have otherwise happened, but it does ensure that Rosa's shot won't miss. I mean, it's not much. But it's something, right?
  
• White: Well, now, this is what you came to see, isn't it? If you level her high enough Rosa will eventually gain access to the entire white magic set, from Cure1 to Cure4 and beyond. She's got the MP to back it all up, too, which keeps the team fit and healthy in-between Tents.

Do you see the dilemma here? Rosa doesn't have what it takes to pull her weight 80% of the time... and yet you can't win the game without her. You need Cure3. You need Wall. You need Heal, Life2 and Slow. Healers just aren't any fun to play unless they have an offensive option, and Rosa's sole offensive option might as well not exist for all the good it does her.

Suddenly, from the shadows...!


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

How this WaterHag managed to get around the time-honored "no monsters within city limits" rule, I have no idea. I don't fault him for wanting to pick on Edward, though.


Just when Edward is contemplating finding somewhere to Hide until the sun comes up, the ghost of his dead girlfriend appears to give him a pep talk.


Even in death, Anna continues to swoop in to Edward's rescue.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

That is a ridiculous amount of EXP to gain from a single WaterHag. I think it's meant to symbolize Edward finding his own inner courage, or some hokey crap.

In normal play, Edward isn't strong enough to destroy the WaterHag in one attack, which is all he has time for before Anna shows up. I've often wondered what would happen if you were to level him up high enough to get a OHKO, but my suspicion is "not a whole hell of a lot". The WaterHag doesn't even die properly; it takes a few hits, says "ARGH!" and then dies. I'm betting this is a duplicate of the regular WaterHag monster with thousands and thousands of HPs, with a death trigger as part of its AI routine.


♪♪ Melody of Lute ♪♪

After imparting otherworldly courage in their mortal loved ones, it is the fate of all ghosts to fade away, their role in the plot complete. Edward, of course, responds to this eventuality by bawling like a baby.


As she floats out over the oasis, Anna advices Edward to protect the crystals. It's possible she learned about Golbez's scheme through the same manner of plot osmosis that Rosa did.

...and with that, she's gone for good.

Um. Protect the crystals. Dude, we just went over this.

And so ends the vignette of Edward and Anna, on a note of astute ignorance. Nicely done, Edward. Nicely done.


♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

First thing on the agenda the following morning is to get our new party member in order. Rosa is one of the two characters who will have a full spell list at the end of the game, so it's important to keep her menu nice and organized. She'll never cast Hold or Sight, so those go at the bottom. She'll probably never cast Peep, either, but it's at least potentially useful, so we'll leave it where it is.

Slow is one of the few offensive white magic spells worth its weight in MP. Many boss monsters who are immune to other status effects are affected by Slow, and on the list of things that make your life easier, "bosses get fewer turns" is at or near the top. Even better, it's a multi-target spell. That means if the boss has several parts to it, you can hit them all at once. Late in the game, Slow is invaluable in regular combat as well. It's a pretty good way for Rosa to spend her first turn of each battle through the last four or five dungeons.

Not much happening on the equipment side of things, although now that we have someone with the Aim command we can put our CrossBow and White Arrows to good use.

("White" is the 16-bit era word for "Holy".)


Mt. Hobs is across the northernmost patch of shallows, beyond the Antlion's Nest. That snake-looking thing amidst the rocks is actually a zoomed-way-out mountain path. I remember being distinctly impressed with it, as it was the first overworld dungeon graphic I'd ever seen that wasn't a cave mouth or a hole in the ground.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Rosa's Aim command in action. She won't be winning any awards, but her damage output is still better than Edward's.


♪♪ Mt. Ordeals ♪♪

Arriving at the base of Mt. Hobs, the team discovers the path is indeed blocked by a thick wall of ice. Rosa's immediate thought is to have Rydia cast Fire1 to bring it down... but of course Rydia doesn't know Fire1.

"Can't I just call up a chocobo to peck it down, instead?"


♪♪ Rydia ♪♪

Finally the truth comes out: the reason Rydia can't use Fire1 is because it conjures unpleasant memories of, uh, a week or so ago when Cecil burned her house down. Essentially, PTSD works as a sort of selective version of Mute.

Speaking of which, Cecil pretty much has nothing to say but "...." this entire scene.


Rosa intervenes by pointing out that if Rydia can't sack up and overcome her fear of fire, the lives of countless Fabulians will be on her conscience.


Not wishing to be traumatized further, Rydia decides to step forward and give it a shot.

The game plays a triumphant fanfare here, as though learning Fire1 were a big deal. Which, uh, I guess it is, from a character development standpoint. It's just, well, it's not that useful of a spell.

Fun fact! Back in the day we used a Game Genie to powerlevel every character to 99. Rydia stops gaining White Magic sometime during the Watery Pass, and never gains Call Magic except as part of the plot... but her entire Black Magic set comes to her naturally. This means, if you were a masochist, you could actually get Rydia to learn Fire2 before this scene, making it totally nonsensical.

"Brickroad! If you powerleveled everyone to 99 anyway, why didn't you test that Edward vs. WaterHag thing you were talking about?"

Because shut up, that's why.


♪♪ Mt. Ordeals ♪♪

Edward and Rosa give Rydia her much-deserved mad props. No foolin', that kid is pretty much a bad ass.

Next: "ACHOOOO!"

Okay. Did you know there are two characters named Prince Edward? It's true!

Across its many versions, FF2 has been surprisingly consistent in keeping the names of the player characters on the up-and-up. With the first re-translation in Final Fantasy Chronicles on PSX, romhackers everywhere were miffed to learn that Square had not backed down from their spellings of "Kain", "Rydia" or "Tellah".

Now, most of these supposed name changes were purely cosmetic. There were arguments that "Cain" was the more appropriate spelling, given the Biblical connotations of [spoiler redacted], or that "Lydia" was... I dunno, a Beetlejuice reference, or something.

But one character did have his name changed wholly and completely: everyone's favorite spoony Bard. His name was originally "Gilbert"... which doesn't fit within FF2's six-character limit. Rather than neuter the name somehow and call him "Gilbet" or "Gibert", his name was simply changed to "Edward", which fits the bill as a somewhat regal real-world name.

The name wasn't pulled out of thin air, though. You'd never know this by merely playing the game, but many of the heroes in fact have last names. Kain's is the most commonly known: Highwind. (Sound familiar?) Jump to the mid-game and we have Edge, prince of the Eblan Ninjas. As it turns out, "Edge" is really more of a nickname; it's a one-syllable bastardization of his full name, which is Edward Geraldine.

I have no way of confirming this, but I like to think it went down like this: the translators had this character named Gilbert, whose name wouldn't fit in the input window. They had this other character named Edge, who they knew from the extended material is actually "Edward Geraldine". They also knew there was no way in hell any of that extended material would actually make it to American shores, so they just plucked Edge's given name and used that instead, knowing American audiences would be none the wiser. Cannibalizing their own game -- the perfect crime.

As a result, every English version of this game has had two characters named Prince Edward. And why not? It's a fabulous name. It practically sparkles.

As for the romhackers, how did they manage to fit the name "Gilbert" into the game? They smashed the i and l characters together on the name input screen. A pretty ingenious solution, really, although it looks terrible alongside the rest of the game's monospaced text.

Aaa! You have Rosa at the top and Rydia in the middle of your party line-up. It's like looking into a funhouse mirror of every FFII run I've ever done.

Once I changed Frog to Glenn and Magus to Janus. Because, META.

Rydia has to stand in the middle, man! Otherwise it doesn't make a satisfying arrow shape when she calls monsters from a five-person party!