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

sounds like a name out of the manual of a Konami NES game. I think you'll find a happy home in the Snake's Revenge thread, comrade! Oh, yeah:

King Odin Noble Sire Lord Liege Sovereign Count Governor Baron XIV

Chapter the Twelfth: The Moon

Now it's time to go see a man about a spaceship. To do that we have to head back to Mysidia... and well all remember how to get to Mysidia, right?


♪♪ Welcome to Our Town! ♪♪

That's right! Fly to Baron and take the Serpent Road. Gosh, you kids are so smart. Why, I'll just bet your teachers give you all the gold star stickers.


♪♪ Long Way to Go ♪♪

Unfortunately it, ah, looks like the old senile Elder never got the memo. Dude, really? Still harping on Tellah? That was, like, 370 days ago!


♪♪ Mystic Mysidia ♪♪

Well okay, if this guy isn't going to make with the spaceship, we're just going to have to find some other means of--


♪♪ Prelude ♪♪

What the hell, Johnson!? I was just up in there and you were like "waaah Tellah I never told him how much I etc. etc."

This is actually a pretty interesting little hole in the game's programming. If you step outside the story for a minute you'll recognize that, upon getting Super Drill Falcon, the next plot flag isn't "go back to Mysidia" or even "talk to the Elder". Rather, it's "step on this particular tile near the exit of the Mysidia map". The nuts and bolts of this plot flag are pretty well hidden, considering it's impossible to step into Mysidia from the world map without also stepping on the magic tile. Unfortunately, whichever programmer was in charge of setting all this up must have spaced and forgot about the Serpent Road entrance, and now dorks like me can make merry the guts of the game.

Back in my RPGMakering days I was hyper-sensitive to these little foibles, where a game designer programmed in a stopgap without thinking about the true breadth of the player's range of action. The most common by far were large, open maps with big, empty edges. You could walk along the edges of the map all day long, but it wasn't until you stepped on the one magic tile (usually a pathway or a road or something) that you'd be transported back out to the world map. The second most common was a cutscene triggered by speaking to an NPC, without taking into consideration that the hero can face the NPC from multiple directions. Best case scenario, this would throw the cutscene off-kilter and you'd have an entire conversation with actors standing on the wrong tile and never facing each other. Worst case, someone would try to walk into a wall and crash the game.

You could tell which guys were at least aspiring to be good designers, and which weren't, by gauging their reactions when you pointed this kind of thing out. If the guy was all, "whoops, I didn't notice that, I'll fix it" you had someone who was interested in making a quality product. Unfortunately the response was more along the lines of "you're supposed to talk to that guy from the bottom, stupid!!" And that's when you'd know to delete that moron's game and then go mock him on the forums.

"Brickroad! Nobody cares! Stop stalling and get to the spaceship already!"

Yes, yes. There's one way to get a spaceship in FF2: the power of wishing.

The Big Whale is the pinnacle of air travel in the world of FF2. Which sounds really weird to say considering we literally just now got our hands on an airship with a giant drill mounted to it.

But hey, whatchagondo.

The Big Whale is packed with so many different features that the designers had to give it its own map. As such, it becomes something like Cecil's mobile HQ from here until the end of the game. Either of the grey square vent things on the sides of the craft will take you back outside, presumably via some manner of pneumatic chute.


The control panel on the back wall lets you cruise around at an altitude that almost makes the Sight spell jealous. MODE 7 FUCK YEAH!!


The Big Whale is, surprise surprise, too big to navigate through the drillhole to the Underworld. (Jury's still out on whether or not the Skinny Whale could make the trip.) Those two orange pixels there are the Hoovercraft, right where I left it. What, did you think I picked that spot randomly? I am always a step ahead of you people. Always.


Our sweet new ride also comes equipped with Comfort-o-matic Nightsimulation Energy Pods, as well as an Obese Chocopodian Inventory Management System. (There's a "...but you're still hungry" joke to be had in there somewhere, but it eluded me. Oh well.)


Finally, the so-called Crystal of Flight activates the Big Whale's hyperdrive or whatever, launching us away from the world's gravitational grip and into the blackest reaches of space...!


Ahh... cinematic! MODE 7 FUCK YEAH!!

At this point I'm sure I don't have to tell you guys how awesome and excited I felt the first time I saw that scene. This wasn't just little dudes walking around a map, or even a scripted battle event with colorful animation. And it certainly wasn't a ream of text scrolling across a static backdrop. This was a new level of storytelling entirely. I can honestly say this three-second flight sequence made a deeper impression on me than, say, any of the quasi-interactive sequences from FF3, or the canned CG cinematics from FF7. Those things were cool, sure, but they were no longer new.

Flying to the moon in FF2, once again, draws a solid line in the sand and brings you to a whole new level of the game. And for me, since it was the first time I'd ever seen an RPG do that, it brought me to a whole new level of gaming period.


♪♪ Another Moon ♪♪

And once again, the music really helps to hammer home the idea that we've made it to a whole new level of the game. Another Moon sounds absolutely nothing like any of the game's music up to this point. It's creepy and alien and forboding, but still manages to maintain the type of strong melody we've come to expect.

The most striking feature on the lunar surface is this gigantic crystal tower, but the ground is so cratered the Big Whale has nowhere to land. The closest we can get is on the smooth plateau to the north, leaving us with quite a hike ahead of us. Of course there is no way a new player could know that the crystal tower is his destination, nor that the way to get there is by landing on a hill several caves away.

I want you to try and consider all these things at once: the flight cinematic, the new world map, the hostile and forboding music, and the complete and utter lack of direction. To that mix, we'll add...


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

..enemies that hit like a goddamn firetruck. Even the lowliest mooks on the moon can take huge bites out of your HP. This isn't the first time we've seen a difficulty spike like this -- remember Zot? -- but the combination of new, powerful monsters and all the other stuff I just mentioned gives the entire moon a very strong sensation of "you're not supposed to be here yet!"

But of course you are supposed to be here, because a wise old man just gave you a spaceship and told you as much. There's a weird disconnect between what you're supposed to do next, and what you feel you can handle.

The remainder of this update comes at you in ominous Alien-Slate Gray.


♪♪ Another Moon ♪♪

The moon isn't a very large map, but it's not like the overworld or the underworld where the player gets some time to become familiar with it before he's granted an airship and told to cut loose. And while you're going to be naturally drawn to one of the two major features on the surface, there's no immediately obvious way to reach either one. Your only recourse is to descend into this incredibly hostile world and start poking at it. Just figuring out which of the lunar caves you're supposed to enter next involves as much fighting and exploration as a middling-sized dungeon.


♪♪ The Lunarians ♪♪

I'm an old hat, though, and I know right where to go, so I'll just get on with it. Thus do our intrepid heroes set foot in the first of two Lunar Paths.

♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Even the tiny mini-dungeons in FF2 have treasures! This monster box contains the amoeba creatures I showed in the last post (re: firetruck) plus an Elixir.


Couple more freebies up towards the exit.


♪♪ Another Moon ♪♪

And then we're shunted back out onto the lunar surface, and it's only a short walk to the next cave. I suppose, if nothing else, you have to admire the ingenuity in shoehorning a good old-fashioned overworld hike this late into the game. And don't worry, Cecil and his friends have no problems breathing otherwise deadly Moon Air.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

The second Lunar Path has no treasure and is essentially just narrow, one-screen-long hallway. But look! It's also got these bloated Red Worms that spam Vampire on you! The more things change...


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

This dumps us right outside the crystal tower thing, where some moon mook EXP earns Rydia her last third-tier spell. This sure would have been nice to have against Odin!


♪♪ Prelude ♪♪

The entryway of the crystal tower is Lunar's Lair, a somewhat regal-looking construction that you know is super important because the Prelude starts playing when you walk in.


You're pretty likely to be battered and broken by the time you step into Lunar's Lair, and so the game helpfully provides magical tiles for all your recovery needs. It was several playthroughs before I realized I could ignore the HP/status recovery tile entirely and just let Rosa Life1/Cure3/Esuna anyone who needed it on the MP tile instead.

Also, it has always bothered me that the recovery tile rooms aren't perfectly symmetrical. The corner of the HP tile room looks like someone just plumb forgot to put a wall there! (This is another means by which I learned to separate the good designers from the bad, back in my RPGMakering days.)



Before we get more than a screen into Lunar's Lair, we are greeted warmly by this kindly old blob of hair with half of a face.

Look, I didn't want to do this to you guys, but it's just about time for the Big Damn Endgame Exposition Dump and there's not much I can cut out of it. I'll try to bring as much of my trademark scathing wit as possible, but feel free to scroll down to the tl;dr if you get too bored.


Even leaving aside the mild Engrish that was so popular back in 1991, there's a small goof in the dialogue here. Can you spot it?

The way FuSoYa words his introduction, anyone listening would think he is guarding the slumber of an individual entity named "Lunarian". Rosa, who had never heard the term before, would therefore phrase her question as "Who is Lunarian?" rather than "Who are the Lunarians?"


Trying to shoehorn FF2's cosmology into our own has always struck me as kind of clumsy, even back when I was a little brat. Slightly more awkward, in fact, than the party's newfound strategy of "repeat everything the wise old gentleman says in the form of a question". Come on, Cecil! If you weren't able to put that together just from context, maybe looking up at the giant blue sphere in the moon-sky could have clued you in?


Hi, Edge! Welcome to the conversation!

Edge's constant appeals to borderline idiocy have always given me the impression that he is, to put it gingerly, a bit slow on the uptake.


For example, in this scene, I like to imagine that Edge isn't inquiring about this new villain pulling the strings on Golbez, but has rather just noticed his friends are talking to a blue mop guy instead.

But he tries so hard, we just love him anyway. Blitz to the extreme!


So it turns out that Golbez's plan wasn't really Golbez's plan after all, but rather Zemus's plan. Which... kind of doesn't make a difference from our perspective, since the who aspect of it is kind of irrelevant in the face of the planet-wide annihilation aspect of it.


Oh man, this KluYa guy sounds like the Lunarian version of Cid. And considering the sheer massiveness of FuSoYa's beard -- a Lunarian whose job, I needn't remind you, is to stay awake -- I... I can't even imagine the kind of blue-tinted hairzilla monstrosity that must surge forth from KluYa's face. The mind doth boggle.


While KluYa and his magnificent, incomprehensibly awesome otherworldly beard were teaching us Blue Planet monkeys how to construct our various magical and mechanical marvels, he still found time to give the business to one of our pretty monkey-women. Does anyone want to guess what happened next? Anyone? Anyone?

♪♪ The Lunarians ♪♪

Wow! What a twist! This does, of course, mean Cecil is some percentage of not-human. Which, if I were Rosa standing there listening to it, would probably creep me out at least a little bit.


At this point Edge catches up with the plot and points out that the Tower of Bab-il is currently shielded. (Or maybe he just now figured it out?)


But a glowy, candy-colored shield generated by the combined power of all eight crystals of light and darkness are no match for the king of the moonbeards! And thus we meet our final party member. Alas, Nintendo Power's coverage of FF2 stopped somewhere around Rubicant, so there's no sweet artwork of FuSoYa with a hilariously inaccurate pirate hat or fu-manchu or anything like that. But never fear, dear reader, for I tried my best to find a reasonable facsimile!

~~~



FuSoYa - Lunar

It seems unfairly dismissive to just write FuSoYa off as "Tellah II", but, well, if the beard fits...

Command List:

• Fight: Not only is FuSoYa's Fight command pretty objectively worthless, it's even worse than worthless when you compare it to the Fight commands on the lovely ladies sharing the back row with him. Rosa and Rydia both, at the very least, have unique properties attached to their weapons that might possibly be considered useful: Rosa-with-a-bow can Aim and deal extra damage to fliers, while Rydia-with-a-whip can paralyze monsters for no MP cost. FuSoYa's Fight command just sits there taking up pixels.
  
• White: FuSoYa has every spell in the White magic set, which is a little redundant, considering that even at FF2's absolute hardest you never need two full-time healers. And of course, any backup healing you did need could be supplied by Rydia's outlying Call magic.
  
• Black: FuSoYa has the entire Black magic set, too, and this is at least a bit more useful considering that means he has access to a few super-high-tier spells that Rydia's still too low-level to learn. Of course, she can pick up that slack herself using Call magic.

It's not objectively correct to say that FuSoYa is the worst character in the game. Keep in mind, we'd be comparing a mage with every White and Black spell to a guy who uses harps. That being said, FF2 has some peculiar qualities that make these kinds of comparisons null and void. True, Edward had terrible stats and weak attacks. But at the time he was in the party we were fighting Imps and WaterHags. He could one-shot the weaker monsters and help Yang or Cecil two-shot the stronger ones. Even with his strongest magic FuSoYa can't really match that kind of output.

And yes, Tellah stank it up with his paltry 90 MP, meaning you spent most of the time staring at an awesome spell list you didn't dare use. But he was on the team during adventures where no other White or Black users were around; his assets were unique. Not only are FuSoYa's assets completely redundant, he continues Tellah's tradition of not-enough-MP! The old Lunar has only 190 points to spend, which means, you guessed it, you'll spend most of his turns staring at an awesome spell list you don't dare use.

So that's my ruling: FuSoYa is the worst character in the game. Sad but true.

~~~


The back room of Lunar's Lair is where all the moons' crystals are kept. And while they basically just recap everything FuSoYa just told you, there's something very warm and familiar about making it to the end of a Final Fantasy game and having most of the plot revealed to you by a ring of storytellers. Remind you of anything?


Stepping on the center tile turns the screen black and informs you that it's sealed with an unknown power.

...unknown power? But... but that crystal over there said Zemus did it! Just how unknown is this Zemus guy, anyway!? I'm... I'm scared...

Okay, that's enough exposition.

tl;dr:

The Lunarians were all like "shit our planet's exploding," and then they were like "how about that nice looking Blue Planet over there", and then they were like "there are still monkeys evolving on that planet we'd better just go to sleep and wait for them to stop chewing on rocks or whatever", except this one guy Zemus who was like "I'm not that tired, I'm-a just go down and wreck some shit with a bunch of crystals and a glow-y tower", and then this other guy KluYa was all, "I have a better idea, I'm gonna teach them cats magic and stuff so they evolve faster and we can co-exist with them," and Zemus was all "pussy" and KluYa was all "hey bro can you make sure that asshole Zemus stays asleep while I'm gone" and FuSoYa was all "k", and then Zemus's brain woke up and was like "hey Golbez get the crystals and let's wreck some shit" and Golbez was all "k".

Hopefully that clears everything up for you! I promise the next post has less talky-talky and more kickass manly fight scenes.

Even though he's slow and weak and has nowhere near enough MP to fuel their repeated use, FuSoYa at least comes packing the high-end spells Rosa and Rydia can't cast yet. Playing around with these is every bit as fun as when Tellah first got his *-3 spells, and also exactly as practical.


Of course, this also means he gets Meteo. And I know what you're thinking! "Meteo? Right there in the list? With enough MP to use it? Whenever we want? Game over, man!"

But no, you'd be wrong. Because...

...the casting time on Meteo is so outrageously long that it's impossible to use without purposely waiting for it to go off. There are no random encounters nor any boss fights between now and when FuSoYa leaves the group that it's ever beneficial to cast this spell.

But hey! At least using doesn't kill him!


♪♪ Welcome to Our Town! ♪♪

Somewhat south-ish of Lunar's Lair is the home of the Hummingway family. Which I suppose is kind of a town, in that it uses the town music and has a shop, but it doesn't really have that wholesome "real town" quality the way Tomra and the Land of Monsters do.


Most of the NPCs here just hum a goofy little diddy at you, but this one gives a sliver of backstory about where the pointy-eared Namingways back home came from. (Because in the depths of FF2's plot, I'm sure that's what was nagging at you.)


One of the Hummingways runs a shot, wherein you can buy some pretty amazing commodities! Though they are ungodly expensive, this is the only spot in the game that sells Ether2s and Elixirs, and the only spot period where you can find the elusive Whistle. The Whistle plays another little diddy, and allows you to call the Fat Chocobo from anywhere you happen to be, even the middle of a dungeon.


Seems like we should hook these two up. They could learn wonderful things together!

♪♪ Illusionary World ♪♪

This next part is optional, and should therefore probably go in an Interlude, but the LP is pretty crowded with Interludes as it is. And besides, "the heroes go to the moon and hear an old man yammer for hours" isn't a very exciting update. So. Cave Bahmut. Yeah!


Cave Bamamut is full of very tough monsters. We're talking, like, final dungeon tough here. However, it's also a pretty swell place for improving the party's power level, as it contains a whole slew of equipment upgrades and a pretty important spell.

Most of the Samurai gear is intended for Edge, but he can't use shields. Cecil can use this instead, but doesn't want to, because it trades two points of Mag. Def. for one point of Def.

(Actually, I think the Samurai gear is intended for Kain, but fuck that guy.)


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

If you wanted to get Rosa in on the damage party, Sneaking Artemis Arrows from these Karys is the way to do it. I suppose this means Rosa is officially the first party member to get her ultimate weapon, for all the fat good that does her. I prefer to keep her with the stat-boosting staff, instead.


♪♪ Illusionary World ♪♪

The Samurai Gloves again offer a boost in Def. for a sacrifice in Mag. Def. For Edge, however, the decision isn't so clear-cut. Because he's a lot squishier than Cecil, both in the armor and HP categories, an extra few points of Def. could do him some good. I mean, he's still super-squishy either way. it's just a matter of what flavor of squishy you want him to be.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Probably the easiest monsters in the cave are these RedGiants. They have gobs and gobs of HP, but aren't actually that dangerous. Their strongest attack is this weak-ass fire spell we were shrugging off way back in the Tower of Bab-il.


Cave Bahamut is also home to D.Bones. Rather than infuriating the player with badly-designed Mario levels, they're content to just sit there and soak up thousands of damage from Cure magic.

His pal the Warlock is a little more dangerous. For one, it can throw some pretty crazy spells at you, including all the *-3s. For another, it infrequently uses Psych, which drains away your precious MP.

As we'll see, MP is already a huge problem in Cave Bahamut. Losing a chunk of your dwindling stores to some upstart asshole in a robe is just a slap in the face.


♪♪ Illusionary World ♪♪

The last two pieces of Samurai gear are both solid upgrades for Edge who, in this fanciful crazy world of ours, was still wearing some of Yang's hand-me-downs.


Now that Edge is pretty well-equipped -- okay, not "well-equipped" but at least "not-so-poorly-equipped" -- it's time to meet the main danger of Cave Bahamut. For you see, the space in front of us here is a spiked square containing...

...(pause for effect)...


♪♪ Fight 2 ♪♪

...a Behemoth. And no, I didn't paste in the wrong ♪♪ link there. Behemoths are so powerful the game actually decides, screw it, we're using the boss music.

Behemoths have thousands of HPs and hit harder than anything we've seen yet. What's worse, their attacks come at you seemingly constantly, far outpacing any healing you could possibly muster. And, oh yeah...


You can't run from them. Ha ha ha! Have fun!

Even with his new gear, Edge is still in danger of getting one-shotted by the Behemoth's powerful jaws. And as you can see, this puts a huge drain on your White magic users. Keeping your dudes alive in this fight is barely a hair better than "impossible".


It gets worse. Behemoths are highly magic-resistant, meaning you have to invest huge piles of MP on your most powerful attacks just to land middling damage against them.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

If you do manage to actually kill one, having spent the total wealth of your resources, the rewards are magnificent.

They don't respawn once they're dead, so you can't keep popping the spiked square to farm them. They're such pains in the neck to kill that you probably wouldn't consider farming them, anyway.


♪♪ Illusionary World ♪♪

Just a few short steps into the next floor we find a spiked square containing Behemoth #2. Hooray!


♪♪ Fight 2 ♪♪

One trick to taking a lot of the pain out of this fight is to cast Blink on Cecil, then have him Cover Edge. This is a cheap and effective way to keep your front line alive without spamming Cure4 over and over.

The second trick, the one that took me years and years to finally figure out, is that the Behemoth is actually incredibly slow. It does, in fact, only get one attack for an entire round of yours! The reason it seems like the blows are constantly raining down is because its AI is set to counter all of your attacks with one of its own.

This means, much like Asura, you can set the pace of the fight by hitting it, watching its reaction, and then judging when you want to hit it again. Attempting to pile damage onto it is a sure way to game yourself over, but slowing down and paying attention means the fight is almost a guaranteed win.


High-level magic can speed up the fight, but beware: Behemoth likes to counter spells with Storm, which... well, you can see here. Yeah.

My Behemoth strategy is to let Cecil and Edge take its HPs down, using some combination of Blink and Image to keep them alive. If someone dies, I use Life1 to bring them back and then let Cecil's Auto-Cover handle it. This way I only ever need to spend MP to heal Cecil, which does wonders for my reserves.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Behemoths aren't the only dangerous monster in Cave Bahamut. The Ging-Ryu is another last-dungeon-class monster that likes to throw powerful attacks at you constantly.

Unless you run from every battle in the dungeon, I don't see a way to get through it without using a lot of Ether1s. And, of course, you can't run from the Behemoths, so you're going to be using a lot of Ether1s regardless.


♪♪ Illusionary World ♪♪

Speaking of Behemoths, #3 awaits you on a spiked square just before the end of the dungeon.


And just beyond that is Bahamut himself and his, uh... children?

The little girl seems to sense that Cecil is only half-human. Which, again, Rosa should be getting the willies if she's still standing in earshot.

Like Asura and Leviatan and Odin before him, Bahamut agrees to let Rydia put him in shackles if she can prove her worth in combat. Or, uh, prove Cecil's worth, I guess. Something about capital-L Light?


♪♪ Fight 2 ♪♪

Bahamut's AI is really simple: he counts down from 5, then throws MegaNuke at you, at which point you die. The only way to win is to have Rosa and FuSoYa apply Wall to your party so MegaNuke bounces back, facilitating a kind of scary space dragon suicide.


Even with two Wall-casters working full time, it's impossible to actually get everyone protected before the counter runs down. (Well, maybe not impossible if one of them is Haste'd, but then you have to waste a Wall turn casting Haste instead, which is counter-productive.)


The thing is, MegaNuke is strong. You only need to bounce it off two heroes to achieve 9999 damage, and it only takes a few rounds of bouncing 9s to finally put Bahamut down. Theoretically you could win the fight by waiting for the number 4 in the countdown, quickly having Rosa and FuSoYa Wall themselves, and letting everyone else die. But that's mean.

One thing you want to watch out for: Wall needs to be re-applied periodically. If you apply Wall to someone right when Bahamut says "5", that Wall will run out by the time he uses MegaNuke. (This is how I lost Rosa once during the fight.)

The fight would be a little easier if there were usable items that applied Wall, but come on, that's just crazy talk.

"But Brick! You said FuSoYa sucked! It looked like he was really useful in that fight!"

Maybe it looked that way, but no, not really. If you skip Bahamut now and come back later with Kain, yeah, you only have one Wall-user. But since you only need two Walls up each round, and there's more than enough time for Rosa to apply both, and she has more than enough MP to cast the spell as much as you need it, FuSoYa isn't really providing a useful function here. Also, if you time Kain's Jump correctly he can avoid MegaNuke entirely and sneak a few thousand damage in on the boss besides! It should go without saying that Jump is way more useful against the Behemoths than anything FuSoYa can do, as well.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

As fate would have it, felling Bahamut nets Rydia not one but two useful multi-target attack spells! Oh, happy day!

With Baham in our pocket, and a slightly-less-squishy Ninja on our front line, and a hairy old Lunar coming up the rear, looks like there's nothing left to do but hitch a ride back to the Blue Planet and give Zemus's gargantuan crystal-powered annihilation machine the boot.

Next: "Think it's sweet of you to say that, Hotshot?"

Okay. Did you know the moon is full of creepy faces? It's true!


See that funny-looking rock?


What the... what is that?


Holy crap that thing is creepy!


IT SEES INTO YOUR SOOOUUUL!!!

But wait! It gets worse.


That feeling of dread that is sweeping over your mortal flesh? Do you know what that is?


CREEPY HORRIBLE MOON ROCK CLOWN FACE.

YOU CAN'T UNSEE IT.

OH THE HUMANITY.

Man, I'm not sure why I didn't try using Wall during the Bahamut fight, but last time I played this game (PSX port) I wound up cheesing the whole fight with Jump. It wasn't too hard to figure out the timing required to keep Kain in the air every time Mega Flare came around, but it was pretty damn stressful.

True story: I somehow got Ashura and Bahamut my first time through without Wall. I ... am pretty sure I was WAY over leveled.

Can't Behemoths be paralyzed? I remember using Mindflayer in the DS version to make them punching bags; theoretically, FuSoYa tossing out a Hold spell might be useful on them.

I'm amazed you didn't mention the other oddity of the moon: all of the spellcasting icons in battle change in appearance when a spell is cast. It's not just magic any more, it's Lunar Magic!

Something is niggling in my brain, about Meteo being far too slow to be practically useful and doing tons of damage, and about Behemoth not attacking very quickly if you don't attack it.

It's probably still going to be suboptimal, but it's the sort of thing that I'm wondering if it's deliberate.

I forgot: Does FuSoYa continue Tellah's tradition of not gaining max MP with levels?

It's a truck stop on the Lunar Interstate. Nintendo of America made them remove the trucks because they contained the Hummingways' late night videos.

Nah! Before Rosa settled down with Cecil she dated dudes from every color of the rainbow. She's a Mysidian native and started up Baron's white magic school. She knows what's behind quite a few pointy hats and beards. When she demanded to go questing with Cecil, it's because she's seen even more of the world than he has.

Kain doesn't rejoin the party! After the good guys blow up the Tower of Bab-il with Golbez still inside, Kain jumps to the moon, absorbs Zemus's soul, grows a Tower of Bab-il-sized beard and becomes the last boss. The damage Kain does by landing on you with his Zemubeard makes the Behemoth look like an imp.

But seriously, spoiler alert? You've been great about it so far.

It does seem sort of like an effective strategy could be to cover FuSoYa, have Rosa haste him (does haste increase casting speed?) and have him just Meteo Behemoth to death.

Granted, you'd have to exit out and sleep in the ship after you kill each one, so I'm not sure if it's any better unless you are really under leveled.

E: HAHAHHA, just kidding, Behemoth has 23,000 HP, which would be one more Meteor than FSY can pull off. And that's assuming Meteor always does 9999 damage, which I'm unsure of against it's magic defense.

On the other hand, apparently Edge's Pin can paralyze it?!

Terrifying! Except it's on the wrong planet!

I was pretty surprised when I read Hummingways are supposed to look like rabbit people.

FF4GBA was the point when I realized Behemoths mostly just counterattack. I forget what I had everyone do, but I had swapped Yang into the party and he used Focus a lot to make every attack count. Rosa and Porom may have been covering everyone in Blink to further negate damage. Oh how I loved the swapable parties in that version...

He also made outrageous claims about there being a "Final Fantasy 7" and that's just ridiculous. If we're lucky "Final Fantasy 3" will exist.

I never knew about that spiked-square trigger for the Great Whale cutscene! Turns out there's always something new to learn!

Really? I wish I'd known that. Any idea if they retain this weakness in The After Years? (I'm playing that now.)

Yep. 190 MP, once and forever. (You can waste Soma Drops on him in other versions of the game, but why would you?)

I don't think the original translation is hard to understand, but it sure can be awkward at times.

Lunarians are like seahorses.

I'm the only one in my circle of friends who has played this game*, and yet this segment was so surprisingly hard that "I'm Red Abyss Worm and screw** yoooooooou!" is one of our inside jokes.

*The GBA version, granted.
**Toned down for delicate LP reading ears eyes.


Also, I'm with McClain on the whole beating summons without Wall thing. In fact, I don't think I ever cast it. I was pretty sure I was under-leveled though, so maybe the GBA version changes the mechanics of those fights?

What do you mean? Do you mean the little Black/White icons before the name of the spell, or something else?

The icons for Black magic are subtly different on the Moon. Compare:

The outermost pixel of the magic icon is transparent, so it will look different depending on what the battle backdrop is.

See also.

Yeah... I was willing to believe you before the comparison shot but it seems pretty clear the difference is a byproduct of the Unpleasant Gray background.

Now that we've heard all three overworld themes, try listening to them one after another:

Main theme
Land of Dwarves
Another Moon

They're all the same, even though they sound completely different! That Nobuo Uematsu is such a spoony talented bard.