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

Yeah, pretty much every SRPG except the original FFT does it. It's just another of those happy little flaws of the original FFT that no one ever mentions.

Can't you choose not to save him, though? Or does that not let you recruit him later?

Also, this is pretty awesome.

I totally read this as "Weird Al behavior."

[/QUOTE]

Somehow I have managed to look at this picture multiple times before I finally noticed that it wasn't the real boxart but instead something much cooler with a hydreigon.

Entire argument TL;DR: Dragon Quest can be hard sometimes, and so can Final Fantasy. Also, SMT is hard all the times.

By the way, I'm fairly certain FF1/DQ1 flipped a coin to see whether or not Astos/Green Dragon came to your actual home town and brutally stabbed/ate everyone you've every known and loved to death.

SMT doesn't bother with the coin, and it sends Mara.

So do FFTA and FFTA2, incidentally. That's at least one thing that was corrected from version to version.

IIRC, you get a slight permanent brave boost for choosing to save him, which doesn't really matter unless you are playing a mod that removes the easy brave modification skills. Other than that, he will still join the same.

AHH!!! Seeing you guy's gush over this game warms the cockles of my heart. I can rest easy knowing one of the defining games of my life is receiving a tip of the hat from Sir Brickroad.

Let me share the moment i discovered there was going to be a FF2...

The Time: July 1991.
One year since nintendo power's media blitz convinced me FF1 was the second coming.
I'm thumbing through the latest issue of nintendo power...


Hmm... a fold out poster of future SNES titles...




My terminator vision zoom's in:


"What's this guy with the dragon helmet, is he the fighter class?...Is the bald guy on the bottom holding a knife?"

Also of note -- you never play the game with this party...just a beta lineup.

I stared a lot at that tiny screenshot.

I thought the little green haired thing was the new Thief.

As much as I stared at that screenshot, I had no idea what the guy in the middle and the guy at the bottom were supposed to be doing. They were just a mess of pixels.

Hell, I still have trouble figuring out DK Cecil's action pose!

He always looked to me like he was stroking his chin, pondering his next bad-ass move.

That at least seems better than covering his face with his bare hand, which would be an idiotic pose for a dude in full-plate armor and a shield to do.

(actually all this would apply more to Kain's pose. I really can't figure out DK Cecil.)

That's one of several standard swordfighting guard stances. The problem, of course, is that you can't see any sword in his hands. He's basically blocking incoming attacks with an invisible sword as a result.

I always thought Dark Knight Cecil had a beard due to his prep pose.

You be quiet! We're trying to Final Fantasy here!

It's the whole Iaijitsu deal I'm pretty sure. i.e. Keeping your sword sheathed then drawing it and killing your opponent all in one quick motion.

So I finally get my reliable net connection back after almost 2 months of pain and strife, and I dive headfirst into this hornet's nest? Oy.

RNGs need to work in tandem with some sort of cooldown value. For example, if a boss can use Super Party Killer Move at a rate of 1/16, then it needs to not be able to use that move for at least 16 rounds after using it.

And to be honest, DQ8 is the only DQ I was able to get through because of an early cheap teleportation spell and a very easy way to grind for money (Neos, Whistle for Gold Golems). It is just so distressingly random though, and Zing being able to fail outside of battle is just lazy. However, as cheap as Evac and Zoom are, unless someone gets either very careless or totally ripped apart and TPKed, you can recover from just about anything.

Call me crazy, but DQ's RNG never bothered me that much. Maybe it's just that I never got into DQ until well after I'd played about ten FF's, so it all felt like a nice change of pace.

And I always thought Cecil's prep pose was him holding his sword at his side--one hand's on the scabbard, the other's on the hilt, ready to go.

Man, there's a reason I checked out for a few weeks. Lots of inane, petty bullshit going on.

Chapter the Eighth: Zot


♪♪ Tower of Zot ♪♪

Cecil's journey has taken him through caves and mountains, and now he encounters a third style of dungeon: the techno-tower. The Tower of Zot is Golbez's headquarters, the place where he and Kain concoct all their evil plans during those "Meanwhile..." scenes.

The first thing to note about Zot is it glows. The tower has a heartbeat, with pulsing lights lining the floors, walls and even treasure boxes. This location, more than any other so far, shows off the kinds of mapwork the SNES was really capable of. The lights here don't flicker or jerk, but fade smoothly in and out, each style and color of light slightly out of phase with the rest of them. It gives the sensation that the place itself is alive, unlike the largely sterile caves we've banged around in before.

Fire Armor is a decent upgrade over the Silver Armor Cecil's currently wearing, but you might not want to equip it juuuuust yet...


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

The rest of this update will be brought to you in fiery hot Slime-sizzle Red.

Tellah continues to fry most of the monsters, but he really feels the MP crunch here. There are a ton of battles and monsters have large amounts of HP. There are five floors to Zot, and only one Save Point. It's usually best to reserve his MP for fights like this, where the melee characters are ineffective.


Now that it's pretty much outlived its usefulness, here's the Dancing Dagger in action. When used as an item, the weilder launches a knife at his target, dealing pretty respectable damage. Palom can equip it, though that's not particularly useful since he'll be casting Lit spells most of the way through the caves beneath Baron. Cecil's main use of it is to attack from the back row, which would have been ideal in Cave Magnes if not for that magnetic field. It would be an awesome weapon for Tellah, but he can't equip daggers.

You could actually get some use out of this item in low-level games, where keeping Cecil in the back row to maximize Auto-Cover effectiveness is a winning strategy. For our purposes, though, it's really nothing more than a curiosity.


If you kill all the Puppets but leave the Marion alive, it will Call more to fight you. Sometimes in this situation it's better to kill the Called monster first, and sometimes it's better to kill the Caller. We'll see examples of both later on. Marions and Puppets are both so weak that it sort of doesn't matter, though.


There are no stairways in Zot, just these slightly unnerving doors. I always assumed they were elevator tubes.
♪♪ Tower of Zot ♪♪


Much of the interior of Zot is comprised of these twisty, same-y hallways. It's easy to get turned around and, if you're trying to explore the whole place, to forget where you've already been. You don't have to explore all of it, though; many of the side-paths lead to treasure or dead ends.

Stylistically speaking, Zot is similar to how a lot of dungeons were laid out in the original Final Fantasy: if you rush straight to the end, you only need to see about half of the location. Seeking all the treasure nearly doubles your stay. And, of course, there's no way to know which of the twisty passages is the correct one on your first visit.

The Exit spell doesn't work here, but you can leave the tower by walking back to where you first appeared. This puts you back aboard your airship near Toroia, and you're free to fly wherever you need to go. Once you land your airship and take off again, you'll automatically pilot back to Zot.


M-m-m-monsters!


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Here's why you want to hold off on slapping Cecil's new Flame Armor on: it actually gives him a weakness to Fire spells. Such as this FlameDog's spell, called simply "Fire". Whoops!


Fortunately, Tellah steps up to get some glorious revenge. This... ah... might have been overkill.


♪♪ Tower of Zot ♪♪

Slight upgrade over the Slumber Sword. Plus, FlameDog aside, many of the monsters here are ice-based. Giving Yang a Fire Claw while you're in here isn't a bad idea.

If you're using him for recharges between fights, Cecil's MP could actually go faster than Tellah's. Zot is situated in a weird spot in the game where your need for magical healing outpaces your heroes' ability to deliver. Be sure to stock up on Cure2 potions in Mysidia.

Yes, the "select all" feature on the magic screen really makes the pointer flicker around like that.


The third floor of Zot is a series of thin hallways snaking through the center of the tower, sort of like the queue at your bank.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

See what I mean about these ice-weak enemies? Burn, baby, burn!

Actually, this hit is less noteworthy in that it's a fire-elemental attack than for the fact it was a critical hit. I just didn't happen to catch this one mid-flash.


And see what I mean about the uselessness of magical healing? For 18 MP Tellah can barely put a dent in the damage my boys are eating up in here. Not only that, but there seems to be a larger-than-average number of Back Attacks within the Tower. A lot of battles open with Tellah getting pulverized on the front line before you can do much of anything about it.

An alternative solution is to focus on healing Cecil and let him soak up all the damage. This conserves a lot of healing material, but be careful with it; some of these fights can blow through 1000 HPs like nothing.


The Change Rod casts Piggy when used as an item. Turning Slimes into Pigs is amusing, but doesn't do anything to carve away their natural physical defenses, so you're still stuck with Fire magic as your main option of dealing with them. (Alternatively, the Dancing Dagger does full damage to them, allowing you to pick them off one at a time.)


♪♪ Tower of Zot ♪♪

Ether1s are more precious than diamonds, but I'll never make it to the Save Point unless I use one here. Still, wasting on on Tellah feels like a sin.


Partway through the fourth floor is a series of three doors. This is where the bulk of the tower's treasure is hiding!


This new weapon for Yang enables him to Poison enemies. Paired with the Charm Claw, this turns him into an ailment-inflicting machine. Better to leave him with a Fire Claw for the duration of Zot, though, so he can punch those IceBeasts and Ice Lizs into submission.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Characters don't get Petrified all at once in FF2. Rather, getting hit with a stoning attack instead inflicts an ailment called "D", which indicates they've only been partially Petrified. The character can still act when they've been D'd, although repeated exposure will eventually Petrify them entirely.

According to Cid, D stands for "Dagnabbit, look what they did to my boots!"


Witches loves spamming Slow and Mute at you, which can drag battles out quite a bit. In fact, pretty much every palette swap of this monster (the green-robed thing in the back) likes to annoy you to high heaven, as we'll see in later dungeons.

I wish games still had monsters with names like "SwordMan" and "EpeeGirl". Truly this was a gentler time.

Pop quiz! The plural of SwordMan is __________.

Answer: SwordMans

♪♪ Tower of Zot ♪♪

The Fire Shield isn't an improvement over the Silver Shield. I equip it anyway, though, because now Cecil is only two pieces away from a matching set... and Paladins have got to look fabulous.


Behind Door #2 is the Earth Wrench, which grants Cid a whopping +11 Attack. There is no such thing as Earth Armor, but that's okay, because Chiefs don't give a shit about looking fabulous.


Door #3 yeilds this slight upgrade for Tellah, the latest and greatest in fashionable magewear. Although, if you ask me, he shouldn't be allowed to wear it because he's not a wizard.


Here's the end of the line, as far as Zot is concerned. You can tell this door leads to a little room, and not to another floor, because it doesn't have elevator balls mounted above it.


Wow, even the Save Point here is snazzy! And very welcome, as it happens, since we're on the cusp of the boss fight!

Hopefully you learned something about gimmick-y boss fights from Baigan and the Dark Elf, because the Magus Sisters can't be beaten without some observation. If you just hammer away at them you're in for a long, grueling fight. If you watch what they do, though, and how they act, the fight is really not that difficult.


Sandy starts off each round by casting Wall on Cindy. This is bad because, as we'll see, Cindy is the major threat in this fight. Shutting out our most damaging attacks doesn't do us a lot of good. Wall reflects spells back even if you're aiming at multiple targets, so don't expect Tellah to do any good that way, either.


Cindy always follows this up by hitting you with her scythe. Fortunately, fatness is no match for KARATE, and Yang escapes with no damage.


Mindy finishes things off by launching the fearsome DELTA ATTACK, which is a tier-2 elemental spell reflected off Cindy's magically-enhanced belly.

Incidentally, Mindy is my favorite Magus Sister. There's just something so adorable about a pink-clad toddler who will not hesitate to shiv a bitch.


DELTA ATTACK may not seem that deadly, especially not for a triad of magical girls who live in a glowy flying tower. Their primary method of dealing damage can only ever hit a single targe, and it never deals more than a couple hundred damage.

Here's why it's dangerous:


The cycle begins again immediately. Sandy gets her turn right after Mindy is done, starting the whole cycle over. This means a steam of *-2 spells is going to be coming at you faster than you could conceivably heal them. Even worse, Wall reflects Wall. This means Sandy is more dangerous than she initially appears; she spends most of her turns Walling your heroes. No magical healing for you, ever!


Wall'd single-target spells pick a random target on the opposing team to hit, so if you're going to have Tellah casting in this fight, keep track of who he can safely reflect spells off of. There's a 1/3 chance they'll land on Cindy, right where you want them.


Meanwhile, Yang and Cid should focus their attacks on bringing Cindy down. She has the most HPs, so this could take a while, especially if Cecil is using his turns to heal.

Killing Sandy or Mindy disrupts the DELTA ATTACK cycle, but only momentarily; Cindy will use Remedy to revive her fallen sisters on her next turn. If you're not paying attention to which sister is taking what action, you could fight them all day before realizing this.


Wall is a temporary effect, and it can be taxing to remember who's got it from round to round. You can see what status effects your party has by selecting a Heal potion or the Heal spell. You don't actually have to commit to the action; just picking it off the menu is enough to see this screen. Then you can back out and act accordingly. Using this handy trick lets Tellah know he should launch his next Virus spell Cid-ward.


Depending on how lucky you get with Wall'd spells, you should be able to take Cindy down before the ladies get through too many DELTA ATTACKs. Once that's done, the rest is cake; the remaining sisters are idiots.


Here's Mindy lighting herself on fire.

The only danger in this stage of the fight is that Sandy will start casting Charm. If this hits Yang or Cid you could end up enduring a few actually-dangerous hits before claiming victory. The spell will bounce harmlessly off of any still-Wall'd heroes, though.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Heal is the last spell Cecil learns. I guess Life1 would just be too much to ask.


...and that's that. The Magus Sisters disappear into a puff of smoke, never to be seen again. I guess I've never thought about it very much, but there's a sort of poetic irony to the situation... brave knight, rowdy airship engineer, bare-chested KARATE and cranky old codger, very much the absolute manliest team in FF2... and they have to beat up a bunch of girls.


♪♪ Tower of Zot ♪♪

Tellah likes to celebrate violence against women by taking off all his clothes. We have that much in common, at least.


♪♪ Golbez, Clad in Darkness ♪♪

Cecil and his boys finally reach the pinnacle of the Tower of Zot, where Golbez and Kain await them. Time to make the long-awaited trade.


Once the Crystal of Earth changes hands, though, Golbez is stricken by an immediate and highly-selective form of amnesia, wherein he loses all memory of any maidens he may have kidnapped recently. For some reason the heroes are completely shocked by this betrayal, which in retrospect was as inevitable as it was dastardly.

Before Cecil can advance to the "But you proooooomised!" stage of negotiations, Tellah runs forward and shoves him out of the way.

Meteo has three immediate effects:

1) It pisses Golbez off. Note, though, that it doesn't actually seem to have melted him down to his component parts, the way Tellah might have liked.



2) An errant meteo-ite seems to have clonked Kain upside the head, knocking him to the floor and bringing him to his senses, Flintstones-style.

(Really, I think the scene is implying that Meteo weakened Golbez enough that he wasn't able to sustain whatever magics he was using to keep Kain hypnotized... but I like my explanation better.)

3) The ultimate black magic which consumes the life force of whomever uses it seems to have, in fact, consumed the life force of the dude what used it. Never saw that coming!

Golbez decides to flee the scene by slowly walking through the exit door. Cecil's usual response to this sort of thing is a controversial move known in some circles as "stand there and watch", but right now he's pumped up enough to actually try and do something about it. Step one: shout an action movie cliché!


Step two: get blasted against the wall by evil lightning magic. Fucking ow. Forgot he could do that, didn't you, Cecil?



♪♪ Suspicion ♪♪

This is the second time Golbez has stood over Cecil's battered, broken body. Once again, though, Golbez seems unwilling to perform the coup de gr�ce.

Crystal in hand, Golbez has no use for these filthy plebs. Confident that he has no further use for the Tower of Zot, either, our badass villain extraordinaire takes his leave.


♪♪ Cry in Sorrow ♪♪

Tellah tries to pick himself up, but his strength is utterly spent. He put absolutely everything he had into the casting of that one spell, and Golbez shrugged it off as though it were a calming summer breeze.


Exhausted, demoralized, and wallowing in utter failure, the last thing Tellah sees in this mortal life is his daughter's murderer walking away. You can tell Tellah is really for-real dead, too, because his sprite blinks away and vanishes -- just like Anna's did all those updates ago.


Now that the whole Tellah subplot is frustratingly unresolved behind us, we can turn our attention to Kain. Sure, he was mind-controlled, but he also implies that there was a part of him who wanted Rosa to--


♪♪ Run! ♪♪

Oh yeah! Rosa! I totally forgot about it. Her. Whatever.

Turns out, it's still tied to a wall in the next room underneath that heavy iron ball. Cecil dives forwards and snatches Rosa away just before she gets splattered all over Golbez's nice clean tower.


♪♪ Theme of Love ♪♪

I remember being very impressed they actually included a graphic of Cecil and Rosa embracing.


The embrace actually lasts just a bit longer than is comfortable... which Cid points out, once he's had enough standing there watching the lovebirds slobber all over each other.


Unlike Yang, who came back swinging from his brief bout with villainy, Kain is overwhelmed with shame at his actions. It seems as though part of the reason Golbez was able to control him so easily was that he already had a strong desire to hook up with Rosa.


Meanwhile, the rest of the group just wants to get the hell out of here. Surely no good could come of hanging around inside a glowy flying tower once its master has departed!


Fortunately, mild encouragement from a Paladin is the perfect cure for emo. And just like that, the band's back together again!


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

"Good thing we didn't let Cid talk us into stopping off for tacos!"

I once had a way-too-long conversation with a friend of mine about an alternate version of FF2 which tied this heavy iron ball to the actual in-game timer. If you didn't make it to the top of the Tower of Zot before a certain time on the game clock, she'd get pancaked and you'd have to play the rest of the game without her. I still think it'd be kind of a fun variation.


The implication is that Cecil wouldn't have cut it so damn close if he hadn't taken that detour to Eblan first. Even so, it's hard to argue that was the wrong call, considering the gargantuan boost Kain enjoys from his Drain Spear.

We won't get to see it until next update, but the Drain Spear has a pretty cool side-effect. Can you guess what it is? I bet you can!


Rosa, like any respectable damsel-in-distress, was tied up all naked-like. Our habit of stripping children and old men before kicking them out of the group finally pays off, though, and Rosa can enjoy a full set of optimal gear right away.

She's also managed to somehow gain a few levels! Apparently bondage is a particularly effective learning experience. 205 MPs and new spells!

Unfortunately, as mentioned before, Exit doesn't work here. So we have to walk out.


♪♪ Tower of Zot ♪♪

At least it's a short walk! Cecil isn't even able to clear the room before he's accosted by yet another Fiend of Elements!


Kain, perhaps overcompensating for his recent bout with crippling guilt, gets quite lippy with Valvalis.

Unrelated: I like how everyone refers to it as "the Meteo" or "that Meteo", as though it's less "engine of arcane destruction" and more "dance craze that's sweeping the nation". Come on, people! Do the Meteo!


Valvalis only puts up with six or eight text boxes full of Kain's chest-beating before attacking the party with the same incoming swirl of energy pretty much every other boss has used up to this point.


♪♪ The Dreadful Fight ♪♪

The Magus Sisters were just a warm-up -- Valvalis is the real boss of Zot. And during my first excursion through FF2, she gave me more trouble than any other boss. Way, way more trouble.

Her first line of defense is the hair tornado she spends much of the fight wrapped up in. This acts as a shield, preventing most damage from getting through. And Valvalis has this much right: with Tellah dead, she has nothing to fear from incoming black magic. That's your conundrum: you have to use physical attacks, but you can't.

Kain's Jump attack usually misses, but it does cause Valvalis to come out of her hair shield. This leaves her vulnerable to attack, but it also triggers a counterattack. Which wouldn't be a problem, except...


...this is the boss's bread and butter: a one-two combo of Weak and Ray. She stacks these two abilities together in one action, much like how the Dark Elf did with his magic. Weak, of course, puts a hero within eyeshot of death. And Ray afflicts D which, as we learned earlier, can eventually evolve into full-blown Petrification.


Now, Valvalis's physical attacks are not that deadly. Kain's heavily-armored, and in the back row besides, but even if he weren't, he could easily survive dozens of these attacks.

Cecil and Rosa, who have each eaten a Weak spell by this point, cannot. And therein lies the problem: in the time it takes Kain to Jump once, and break Valvalis's spin, she can easily get off two Weak/Ray combos. As a kid, I fought Valvalis the same way I fought most bosses: I threw attacks at her while trying to use my white mages to heal. I knew I had to Jump at her (the game repeats that "Kain! Jump!!" line every time you touch her in whirlwind form), but the constant stream of Weak drained my concentration and my MP. Even with Cecil and Rosa both spamming Cure magic every round isn't enough to counteract Weak -- and that's before considering people will soon be getting Petrified.

The solution to the fight is to turn Valvalis's strengths against her. Since her physical attack is somewhat flimsy, Cecil can easily tank her with Auto-Cover. He can take care of his own healing, and as long as he's standing, nobody else will need any. So that's that problem taken care of. That frees Rosa up to spend her rounds casting Bersk.


And Bersk is really the key to victory. With Yang and Cid buffed up, not even Valvalis's windy hair shield can keep the damage off. Once you get this far you can sit back and let the fight win itself.


And, well, that's exactly what we do. Go team!


Well, which is it? Do you want us to fight the "last and mightiest" of you? Or do you want us to perish with the tower? You can't have both, sister!


What!? No! I call shenanigans! Shenanigans.


♪♪ Kingdom Baron ♪♪

Now that Exit works again for NO REASON WHATSOEVER EXCEPT TO FORCE US TO FIGHT VALVALIS, the team regroups in Cecil's room in Baron.

Hell yeah! Epic sleepover! Somebody bust out the Ouija board!


♪♪ Suspicion ♪♪

Now that Golbez has all the crystals, everyone suddenly remembers that Golbez doesn't actually have all the crystals. Which is pretty convenient, if you happen to be the guy who just willingly traded away the last thread of Earth's salvation to rescue his girlfriend!


Wait for it... wait for it...


Hah! Yes. Yes. I am quite confident that "How? Dig a hole?" is my favorite line in the game.

Like many aspects of this wonderful, abridged-for-cartridge-space localization, the "dig a hole" line has different connotations depending on how much you want to read into it. Perhaps Cid's just a cynical smart-ass trying to get his licks into a conversation that has otherwise left him behind. Or, perhaps he's got a fucking drill machine the size of a Bob Evans buried somewhere in town, and he's just itching for a reason to take that bitch out for a spin!

Oh, and then something something to the moon something.

Thus does Kain relinquish the clue to the secret. Now if only Cecil had a hint to the mystery, he'd be well on his way to finding the solution to the puzzle of the enigma!


♪♪ Hey, Cid! ♪♪

FF2 sometimes gets a bad rap for all these insane little plot contrivances. But just remember this: if Hey, Cid! is playing, you have to dismiss whatever crazy unbelievable eye-rolling plot zaniness the game throws at you. It's only fair, considering Cid can do ANYTHING. All he has to do is spin around and wave his hands, and everything is automatically, technologically wonderful.


Quit moping, you baby.


♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

I guess at this point in the game you're supposed to get in your airship and fly around aimlessly, stumbling upon new, as-yet-unexplored locations in hopes of figuring out what to do with the Magma Key. Well, if that's the case, FF2 probably shouldn't have given me my airship two goddamn dungeons ago, because I already took care of that.


♪♪ Welcome to Our Town! ♪♪

Bam! Bottomless well. See? I'm a man who is on top of things


Heaving the Magma Key into Agart's bottomless well causes the nearby mountain to explode, revealing a tunnel to the center of the Earth. (And presumably killing thousands.)

(Paladins are Lawful Good.)

Well, giant hole in the world. Only one thing left to do!



Next: "Lali-ho!"