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

I really, really hope Brickroad is keeping count.

Oh, and you totally can get 5 of the tails to equip your whole party.

So he's farming for Shiny Pokémon.

So he's insane.

On average, you'd expect 2.5 Shiny Pokémon in the time it takes to get 5 Pink Tails, assuming you didn't do anything to increase the odds. (There are ways to increase the chances; all the way up to 100% if you know how the RNG works.)

Which leads to a thought. Why not break the RNG in order to guarantee the encounter / the drop? Final Fantasy games have a tendency to use truly bad random number generators, after all.

How dare you! You dare say that pressing buttons at predetermined times to get what you want is morally equal to pressing buttons at random times until you get what you want? Good day sir!

...I've wasted my life...

You get all the thrill of random results, both ways, too. Most people can't reliably press buttons down to 1/60 of a second, and when you have to do it twice in the row, it takes a while. (11 hours of resetting the first time, for me (when I was resetting for flawless Pokémon), partly due to the long downtime between attempts; I got it down to about 1 hour eventually. This is still a lot faster than leaving it to chance.)

I, uh, don't remember, but I think the tail freak just gives you the armor. Yes, I did this once.

They also only appear in one small nondescript room.

I've played FF4 half a dozen times and I've never even seen those things myself.

When I played this as a kid, I knew about the special summons, Rydia's dragon whip, and 1-2 other rare drops. I obsessively ground for every. single. one of them.

THANK YOU, younger self, for not knowing these things existed.

The only rare drop I remember getting was the imp call spell, once in dozen or so play throughs...

I didn't do that for Final Fantasy 2 but I did it for Dragon Warrior 3. It was not fun.

FF4 knew MMO game design philosophy years ahead of its time

I seem to remember thinking as a kid that the PinkPuffs were just a bogus rumor; the extra summons were already hard enough to find, no way would Square be that cruel.

Of course, later I found a Game Genie code that basically just gave me a bunch of Pink Tails. But even then, I think I still thought the Puffs were too far-fetched. It didn't help that I didn't know what they looked like.

Me too, and it was so worthless that I took it to just be a silly easter egg, and thus never gave a crap about rare drops ever again in an RPG. Thank you, FF2, for making my first rare drop ever so silly that I never wanted to hunt for others.

I'm pretty sure I got the Imp summon the first time I played FF2, so I didn't even realize that it was crazy rare for several years afterwards.

As for pink tails, let's try to break this down. How many random encounters can you complete in a minute of FF IV, maybe 3 at normal speed? Given a roughly 1-in-4000 chance of finding a pink tail, you're looking at approximately 22 hours of grinding to get a single one. That is, unless the 1/64 drop chance is per enemy, rather than per encounter. If it were, I guess that would cut the time by 4 or so, which would make it just painfully stupid to grind for them, rather than patently insane.

I know I was bored as a kid, but I wasn't 22 hours of grinding bored.

FWIW, it is 1/64 per enemy, and they come in (I think) mostly groups of 4.

You guys are forgetting that there is an additional 5% (like 5/96 or something) chance for enemies to drop items at all (in the SNES version at least). The rare item chance is the chance for one of those "successful" 5% drops to give you the item in the rare slot instead of the other (empty) item slots. I don't know if it is per enemy or battle, but either way the frequency of pink tails is 95% smaller right off the bat.

It also looks like the SNES version has a 1/16 chance for all rare item drops instead of 1/64, so at least that chance is 4 times as large:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/52259...sy-ii/59983709

.

Hey, everybody's gotta get it out of their system. That burnout probably saved you hundreds of hours over the next decade!

This sort of thing reminds me of why I like the Tales of series and Star Ocean 1 and 2 so much. Those games don't try to hide away uber-useful items behind a "drops rarely" flag (okay, except the Valkyrie Garb in SO2, but really, that item's not meaningfully better than a Battle Suit). You outright get most of the best stuff just by playing normally (and using Item Creation in SO1 and 2's case). And much like the days of yore when FF developers weren't seeing how small of fractions they could devise for item drops, the best stuff is generally hidden away in the bonus content where it belongs.

Well, Tales has a problem with cramming so much extra crap in everywhere that it devalues the truly worthwhile stuff.

Particularly the characters and stories, yes.

Buckle in, gang. The final dungeon of Final Fantasy II is a doozy.



The Lunar Subterrane is an enormous dungeon characterized by countless sidepaths, secret passages, powerful monsters and -- most importantly -- legendary treasure. If we were to face the final boss right now we'd get pasted pretty handily, but by the time we've fought our way through the dungeon we'll be more than adequately equipped.

Hey look, the treasure train gets a-rollin' right on the very first floor!

It's only fitting we end the LP on the same window color we started: good ol' One To Be Blue From A Dragon.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

After some stern negotiations, Rydia is able to persuade these RedGiants to gift us with a Ninja Shirt for Edge. It's an unequivocable defensive upgrade from the Samurai Armor he was already wearing, thank goodness. Perhaps befitting of his status as the squishiest member of the team, the dungeon sees fit to gear him up first.


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

Doubling back through a tunnel in the other direction leads to a teleporter which warps us to the other side of the first floor. Is your head spinning yet? The Lunar Subterrane isn't structured as a series of floors, like most dungeons, but rather as a series of sections, each of which has several floors. Some of these subterrane subsections are larger than entire dungeons we've traversed previously!


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

This RedGiant donates an Ogre Axe. A rare drop! But nothing I particularly want to equip. My worry at this point was that I'd used up all my favor with the Random Number Gods, for reasons that shall become clear towards the end of the update.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Karys can't be damaged with Quake, which is a pain in the balls. Fortunately they don't have very many HPs, so the front line can take care of them. The Warlocks are the real worry anyway...


...because if you leave them alive long enough, they will try to Psych you. This isn't a big deal if they target Kain (as this moronicus is doing); Kain doesn't have any MPs to steal. When it hits Rosa or Rydia, though? That stings. Psych can sap them for over 100 MPs. That's, like, three Quakes! Or five Cure3s! Argh!


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

There are prizes to be had, though! You can swipe Artemis Arrows off of Karys using Sneak, which gives Rosa a passable offensive option, if you wanted to spec her out for attacking for whatever reason. Better yet, this monster-in-a-box yields the Life Staff, a +5 Will boost over the Lunar staff. And yes, it does cast Life1 in combat. That might have been helpful, once upon a time...

♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

I don't know why this little tunnel exists. But it's cute and I like it.

I should point out that, throughout this final dungeon, the soundtrack links aren't exactly accurate. The map music is indeed Red Wings, the same song from the intro cutscene. The difference is the intro (and therefore the mp3 from my collection) starts with a fade-in, so you can't hear the two blaring, crashing notes at the start of the song. Those two hyper-distinctive notes right where the mp3 loops, I mean. The ones that jar you out of your skin. That's how the track fires up in this dungeon, every time you enter it or come back from combat.

I think it was years before I even realized that the final dungeon music played in the intro. That short bit that gets lost in the fade-in sets a totally different mood for the entire track... one that would have been inappropriate right at power-on, but is absolutely incredible for the final dungeon. Like using the remixed Main Theme in the Underworld, I think this brings the soundtrack -- and the adventure -- around in a nice circle. The same song marks Cecil's departure on his grand adventure, as well as the most definitive leg of that adventure. The difference is in how much more striking the latter is; Cecil has at last siezed control of his circumstances, had defined a clear goal to achieve, and has the means and motive to achieve it. Quite a change from the mopey, indecisive DKnight from the game's outset.


This particular sidepath ends at an ominous floating sword and vague promises of eternal gloom.


♪♪ The Dreadful Fight ♪♪

The sub-bosses in the Lunar Subterrane were deemed too dangerous for the bog-standard boss music, so they subbed in the elemental fiend music instead. As sub-bosses go, however, Pale Dim is pretty unremarkable. Rydia and Edge waste no time in piling damage on him.


Like most bosses, it can be Slow'd, although this isn't really a necessity since the boss's most dangerous attacks are its single-target physicals. Which, surprise surprise, is really only a problem for Edge. I Slow'd him out of habit anyway, which led to this exchange. I don't know if he's coded to counter Slow with Slow, or what, but it amused me nonetheless.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Edge dies a lot. But hey, at least Rydia learned a spell she will never, ever cast!


And once he's back on his feet, Edge enjoys a huge buff to both Attack and Defence! Maybe this will cause him to die slightly less frequently...?

(Nah.)


The girls are starting to run dry on MP, and since progressing through the dungeon means heading all the way back to the entrance anyway, now's a good time to Exit and recharge.


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

A quick stop at the healing pots back in Lunar's Lair, and we can finally start our for-real downward descent.

The first treasure, at the end of this twisty little tunnel, isn't even guarded. That's probably because it isn't any good. The Flame Whip increases Rydia's Attack at the expense of her Wis., which means less effective Quakes. This isn't even a viable option, the way Rosa's Artemis Arrows are; Rydia would have to be on the front line to even break four digits, which still pales in comparison to what Cecil and Edge are capable of.


Kain fares a little better once his gear starts appearing. The Dragoon Shield isn't much of a buff over the Samurai Shield he already had, but hey, +1 is +1. I'll take it.


B3 isn't much of a floor. If you were just looking for the exit, why, it's only a dozen steps away! But of course we want more out of life, don't we? And I don't just mean treasure, although there is treasure. I mean that little loop-y tunnel to Cecil's right. It's pointless, it doesn't go anywhere, and yet it is tradition to walk through it every time you cross this floor.

If you don't, the communists win. (Also the communists win if you take a picture of you doing it, so I didn't.)


The goodies are all in boxes off to the opposite side of the stairwell. What sorts of goodies...?


Goodies which top off Kain's Defence and Magic Defence! This, combined with his outrageous HPs and his cushy back-row position and his ability to Jump away from combat, make Kain the most survivable character in the game. I don't know how many times I've narrowly won a battle with just Kain standing. It's common for Kain to be the only survivor of a full party wipe, still standin' there in his wacky armor at full HP.


Here's the first of the "not really a floor" floors of the Subterrane. B4 is more of a... I don't know... a layer? A stratum? Something else? The point is, B4 actually encompasses several floors itself, connected with slopes and stairways and smaller rooms.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Ah, King-Ryu. One of the more annoying monsters of the Subterrane. They hit hard enough to crush Edge in three or four attacks, which is par for the course in this dungeon, and love spamming this somewhat less-scary lightning spell. (Why our Blitz is multi-target and theirs is single-target, I don't know. But I won't look a gift horse etc.) The real reason they're such pains, though...?


...they counter damn near everything with Entangle. They don't make any attempt to target the character who damaged them, which means they may retaliate against Cecil's sword by taking Rydia out of commission. And as great as Rydia is at shoving bad guys into the hurt locker, she's not fast or efficient enough to carry the fight by herself. End result: sometimes fights against King-Ryus go quickly, and sometimes they drag out because your heavy hitters are stooped over paralyzed.

Also I don't know why they named a Final Fantasy monster after a Street Fighter character.


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

One side of the top layer of B4 scores Rosa another pack of Artemis Arrows.


A small room on the layer below scores an Elixir. (Or, as I like to call them at this point in the game, an "Oh God I Need Cure4 Right Fuggin' Now But Rosa Only Has 14 MPs Left" Potion.)


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Frying a D.Bone with Fire3 scores us yet another rare and useless axe. The rational part of my brain knows I shouldn't succumb to the Gambler's Fallacy, but the emotional part (that is, the part that loves FF2 unconditionally) is crying out in agony right now: Why am I wasting all my luck on shit that doesn't matter!?

See? The emotional bits are so serious they resorted to italics. That's how you know it's genuine agony. It's a bit like getting waterboarded by an RNG.

♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

The bottom level of B4 ends with what looks like a small room...


...but is actually a doorway into hammerspace! Hey, if you have a better explanation for how two rooms are connected despite having nothing but empty space between them, I'd like to hear it.


Anyway there's a Cure3 on either side of the tunnel. Hammerspace is weird, but also lucrative!


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Somewhere in there, Rydia learns yet another black magic spell she will probably never cast.

Edge dies a lot.


♪♪ Fight 2 ♪♪

Back in the main stretch is another monster-in-a-box. Despite their boss music pedigree, Behemoths are no longer a credible threat. You smash them, then you get fabulous prizes.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

The Stardust Rod does for Rydia what the Life Staff did for Rosa: a +5 boost to her relevant magic-enhancing stat, and a fun but not-very-useful freebie spell. I believe (but cannae prove) that Stardust is identical to the twins' Comet spell from much early in the game. Unfortunately, even with Rydia's amazing Wis., it's still only good for 500-ish damage. And brother, we ain't on Mt. Ordeals no mo'.


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

I've always thought the next couple stratums (B5 and B6) looked a bit like ribcages. A central path bisects the area, much like a spine, which branches into slightly-curved bones on either side, and punctuated with with organ-like rooms. Kind of an eerie effect, especially considering the various types of skeletal dragon that inhabits the area. I wonder if it was intentional?

Also, dig that pillar and magic sword! But we can't get there from here.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Aha! Now we get to some of the really dangerous monsters. Red D. and Blue D. bite hard, and are both capable of unleashing hellish magical attacks. It's possible a character will dodge the damage from these, as Cecil is doing here, and it's a good thing, too; they're capable of chewing through over 700 HPs.


What's worse, they're too beefy for Quake to be very effective. This looks like a lot of damage -- and it is -- but it's not enough to kill either dragon outright, or even to bring one down within reach of someone's sword. You can get one Bahamut spell for the price of two Quakes, which is a faster and more efficient way to deal damage here. Even if you score 9999s, though, you still have a fight on your hands.

Edge dies a lot.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

But the prize is worth it! Cecil's first piece of Crystal equipment adds a few points to each Defence stat. This sounds like trivia but it's actually important: while Cecil can withstand physical damage all day long, magic can absolutely tear him apart. This is a big deal because you often have to rely on Auto-cover to use Cecil's HP pool as a buffer for weaker members while you get your healing lined up.

There are a few more tricks you can use to increase your front line's life expectancy, too...

♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

The Protect Ring is probably meant for one of the girls, but the +10 boost to Defence is a lot more important for Edge. Its Magic Defence is pretty good too. There's another one of these later, which presents the tough decision of who best benefits from it... but I'm getting ahead of myself.


This side room on B5 has two exits. The door at the bottom leads outwards to one of the "bones" of the main level -- and therefore to treasure. The stairs at the back lead downwards to another room on the level below.


As usual, always explore the dead-end first!


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

The treasure box contains a Behemoth that contains Cecil's Crystal Armor, the strongest piece of defensive equipment a non-insane player could hope to get. In addition to huge Defence boosts, it also protects against a long list of status ailments. (That status immunity would be more useful for Rydia, as we'll see later, but eh, you can't have everything I suppose.)


Meanwhile, a random Blue D. wandering the vicinity helps Rydia to her final useful black magic spell. Just in time, too, because I'm getting sick of trying to guess which *-3 spell works against which monsters. The most powerful fire spell heals the most powerful ice enemy? hahaha ok whatever


Yet another Behemoth the next level down outfits Cecil with his Crystal Gauntlets. They're not quite as powerful as the Protect Ring, but he's the only cat what can use them, so it's a good fit.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

Also wandering the various side-rooms of B5 is FF2's most hilarious enemy. Behold the Tricker. His only action is to repeatedly cast Peep on himself, thereby informing you over and over again that 1) he has 12000 HPs and 2) he is weak to thunder. The trick (!!) is that he counters all thunder magic with powerful spells of his own. Hence the name. Tricker. Get it?

Of course no player, not even dumb 11-year-old snot-nosed Brickroad, would trust any information from a monster called "Tricker". So all his constant Peep spells actually accomplish are to give you up-to-the-moment reports of how many of his 12000 HPs you've chipped away with your totally-not-thunder-based attacks.


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

The next amazing treasure is a White Shirt, which further bolster's Rosa's Will by ten points. (It lowers her Wis. a bit, but that's purely academic, since Rosa obviously doesn't have any black magic.)


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

The next monster box is... huh. That's odd. I guess the Crystal Armor doesn't protect against a long list of ailments. Or, leastwise, not Curse. Oh well. (This is at least a little academic itself, since the most pervasive status ailment in the game is HP Leak, which cannot be protected against.)


So anyway it's a Crystal Hat. More Defence and Magic Defence, yammer yammer, what really interests me is the compositional difference between the magic crystals we spent 90% of the game chasing around and the material used to craft this equipment. Would make for a kind of awkward moment when Cecil gets home, wouldn't it? "Oh, heya Edward. What this? Yeah, it's my new hat. You like? It's made from the same stuff your parents and girlfriend and entire kingdom were destroyed for. I have a suit and a pair of boots and probably a codpiece in my closet. I'm practically shitting crystals over here, it's nuts!"

♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

The last little room on B5 contains a Cabin and a horrible secret. Dun dun dunnnn!!


The same tradition that dictates one must walk through the pointless passage on B3 dictates one must stand atop this pointless ledge, staring blankly out into the void. What horrors does the vast, inky blackness hold? We'll probably never know unless someone Photoshops it.


B6 begins just like a good dungeon level should: with some goddamn treasure! Specifically, the kind that isn't amazing but is nonetheless worth your time to pick up. You hear that, Cabin!?

I've often wondered why Edge can't Dart arrows. Probably has something to do with him dying a lot.


GOD DAMMIT, CABIN, WHAT DID I JUST SAY.


Before heading towards the bottom of B6, you might want to check out the area beyond this invisible bridge. Fun fact: this is the only secret passage in the game that isn't clearly marked. It is, therefore, the only one I missed on my very first run through the game. I don't think I knew of its existence until I saw it featured in Nintendo Power's Question Qorner, or whatever that segment was called where players asked questions of "game counselors" because GameFAQs didn't exist yet and the help line was $1.95 per minute.

Brief aside: is it just me, or did people write in to Nintendo Power to ask some really stupid questions? I remember one guy who couldn't figure out how to push the statue buttons in Mystic Quest. I have to wonder if some of those questions were made up. I mean, what did this guy do? Just sit there stuck in Mystic Quest for sixty days while he waited for his question to be delivered, read, answered, and printed in the magazine? Did he load the game up periodically and push buttons at random in the hopes something would kick loose? Or did he, like any reasonable player who gets momentarily stuck in a really easy game, figure out how to complete the game before we teeming masses got to read about his momentary brain fart? Perhaps more interestingly: what was the general demeanor of the so-called "game counselors" who had to answer questions like these? "Hahaha, hey George, look here. This asshole is stuck in Mystic Quest." "What was that, Bob? For a second there I thought you said someone was stuck in Mystic Fucking Quest." More likely, though, the banality of helping stuck eight-year-olds just wore them down to nubs of depression and cynicism which, in a hilarious twist, caused them to sometimes get their answers wrong. I remember some other sap who was stuck on the fourth boss of Legacy of the Wizard. I can see why you'd need help! That motherfucker is hard! But the answer to the question most pointedly wasn't "here's where to get the Shield", which was the correct answer. I forget what the dude said. Probably something like "be yourself, try your best, and understand the magic of friendship". Which actually is the solution to dodging the Quick Man lasers, though I don't remember anyone asking about that one. This aside turned out to be not so brief. Oh well!


So where were we? Ah yes, the invisible bridge on B6, which leads to a hidden tunnel on B6, which leads to an entire hidden area of B6...


...which contains a Life Potion and teleporter to yet another area of B6!


See? I weren't lyin'. This skinny-ish stairway area leads back up to B5, which leads to a nearly identical skinny-ish stairway area on B5, which contains a box which contains a Behemoth which contains a Protect Ring. Which contains a dilemma!


The Protect Ring's Magic Defence boost is pretty crucial. Better, even, than Cecil's Crystal Gauntlets. And, let's face up, up there on the front line with Edge, Cecil is the most likely hero to be killed since he has to eat the full brunt of magical attacks without the protection from physicals that Kain and the girls enjoy on the back line. So it seems at first that giving it to Cecil is a logical choice.

However, this means you have a useless pair of Crystal Gloves and nothing left to protect your poor widdle Caller. Rydia is the very definition of a glass cannon. She hasn't even yet topped 2000 HPs! This isn't a huge issue, but there is one attack we'll be facing in the next update that is pretty fucking nasty and, if left with nothing but a Diamond Ring to protect her, can KO Rydia with a single shot.

Giving the ring to Cecil affords better overall protection, including the extra insurance of Auto-cover when you potentially need it. But giving it to Rydia enables her to maybe survive an attack that is otherwise instant death for her.

Decisions, decisions. (I gave it to Rydia, for now at least.)

Whew! Finally a save point, and a chance to rest. Good thing, too. The girls were sorely in need of a recharge.


Just to give a sense of how crazy this dungeon is, take a gander at this before-and-after of my Time and GP. We've spent nearly an hour in here -- longer than any other dungeon so far, and we're only about halfway through -- and scored over a million GPs. Could buy a lot of Ninja Stars with that kind of scratch...


If a save point inside a secret area strikes you as a big deal, that's because it is. Hey look! It's that magic sword from B5 we saw, but couldn't reach! I wonder what's guarding this little number...?


♪♪ The Dreadful Fight ♪♪

Answer: Bahamut on fucking steroids.

Wyvern doesn't give you a countdown. He plays neither nice nor fair. He spams MegaNuke and regular-Nuke, over and over again, until you explode. There is no sense trying to Wall up, or outrace him with Cure spells, or even to try and Slow him. There is one way to win...


...kill him before he kills you. Ultimate space-dragon cage match showdown!


If Wyvern decides to use MegaNuke twice, forget it -- you're done. Your only hope for a consistent victory is to pray his Nuke spells avoid Rydia long enough for her to get off a second Bahamut spell, which should be enough to end the festivities.

A somewhat less consistent way to win would be to somehow get Kain in the air before the first MegaNuke goes off, and then keep him there as often as possible. I've seen the fight won that way, but I don't recommend making that your battle plan.

No, this fight is a race, pure and simple. The first of several, as we shall see.


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

Our prize, the Crystal Sword, provides Cecil with a whopping forty-two points of Attack over the already-impressive Excalibur. wow!

Perhaps even better, the Excalibur can be Dart'd for a virtually guaranteed 9999 damage. This gives Edge two shots of WMD to drop against the last boss, and also implies that, even with the rarest ore on the planet, the legendary dwarven blacksmith is incapable of forging a blade more powerful than a common KARATE spoon.


♪♪ Fight 1 ♪♪

The Crystal Sword in action, against a foe with no particular weakness to its element. Foes which are weak to its element -- such as the many forms of undead dragon that haunt the area -- take their 9999s and are glad to receive them.


Speaking of bouncing 9999s, Rydia's Wis. is so high now that Bahamut is scoring max damage against some of the hardest monsters we've ever faced. My memory is fuzzy but during my formative years, back before I knew what the various stats did, I used to give Rydia the Flame Whip instead of the Stardust Rod because, heck, that's just what made sense. If you go that route, Bahamut only connects for about 6000-and-change.

Man, was I dumb. I should have wrote to Nintendo Power and asked about it.

♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

We're not even close to done yet, guys. If your drink's empty or you need a sandwich, now might be a good time to hit the fridge. Don't worry, we'll wait. Still lots of Lunar Subterrane to go, and we wouldn't want you to miss any!


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

The last room on B6 contains a box which contains some Karys which contain the Heroine Shirt. This bolsters Rydia's Defence by an obscene amount, but lowers her Magic Defence, and more importantly lowers her Wis. Come to think of it, the reason stupid 11-year-old Brickroad's Bahamut spells were connecting for a piddly 6000 damage was probably because Rydia was wearing this instead of the Sorcerer Shirt. God damn but that kid was stupid. Someone go back in time and smack him.

I think the idea might have been to give players a last-minute option to build Rydia as a front-line character. Except no, that doesn't make any sense, because her Attack and HPs are too horrible, and because that would necessitate Edge's move to the back, where he has far fewer options. Maybe if the Flame Whip were an amazing weapon, and Edge also had an endgame boomerang option...? Hard to say, but you might have been able to swing it.

(Rydia does have a more powerful whip option available, an ultra-rare drop off of one of the tough-ass dragons running around, but I've never seen it before. And there's no way it's better than a Stardust-boosted Bahamut. So don't even. Just don't even.)


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

And lo, did our intrepid heroes reach the very bottommost regions of the Lunar Subterrane, B7, wherein yet more powerful equipment was to be found.


And Cecil did rapeth the face off of a D.Fossil with his awesome new sword, and the people did rejoice, for it was good. And the Lord was all, "Word, Cecil." Amen.


B7 is pretty straightforward: just a single path that loops around to the final part of the final dungeon -- the finalest dungeon, if you will -- stopping only briefly for three tiny chambers.


The first is a save point, important for two reasons. First, believe it or not, this is far enough away from the save point next to the Crystal Sword that we can use the recharge. And second, because the game is about to drop some more sub-bosses into our laps.


♪♪ The Dreadful Fight ♪♪

First up is Plague, who guards Kain's ultimate weapon. Plague doesn't attack you. Ever. Rather, it opens the fight with Count, sticking a ten "second" counter above everyone's head, and then sits there waiting for you to die.


As far as I can tell Count is unblockable, undodgable, and uncurable. And since the whole party will die simultaneously, you can't even revive someone who dies from it. That's right: this battle, like Wyvern before it, is a straight-up race. Pile on the damage or die trying.

And there's a reason I put "second" in scare quotes up there. The game doesn't really keep track of seconds, but rather nebulous time-units. And they go fast.


Okay, so Plague doesn't attack you, but it does cast Fast on you for some reason. This doesn't accelerate the Count process at all. I don't know why it happens. Maybe to taunt you? Give you a fighting chance? Because lord knows the person we really need Fast'd for our damage-pile operation is friggin' Rosa.


This is the first attack I managed to get in on Plague, and the timer is already halfway gone. Doesn't bode well...

Second and third attacks. Sheesh, Kain will be dead before he even gets into the air!


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Oh thank goodness.

No, Plague doesn't have much HP at all. You can gain a pretty significant edge if you fiddle with the battle speed, like I did for the Odin fight, but since three attacks will bring the boss down it isn't strictly necessary. It does raise the question of what happens if the timer clicks over to zero while Kain is in the air... can he land, then revive someone before dying himself? Will Plague just use Count again? Not sure, and don't care. One more gimmick fight in the can.

The White Spear give Kain a nice big Attack boost, so he's "only" about 100 points behind Cecil. I'd mention that you have to weigh this against the Defence boost provided by the Gungnir, but since Kain works best on the back line anyway, no, you really don't.


♪♪ The Dreadful Fight ♪♪

The D. Lunars who live next door are... well... kind of a joke. I mean, yeah, they spam Virus at you, but...


...after the constant Nuke-age of Wyvern, and the stressful tick-tocking of Plague, come on guys. A little Virus isn't going to hurt anyone.


I do think it's cute that they will try to heal themselves after a while, but since it's only for about one-fifth of what Cecil can whack them for with his sword, it doesn't exactly change the course of the battle.


♪♪ Red Wings ♪♪

Destroying the D. Lunars clears the way to these two Ribbon-filled treasure boxes. Ribbons don't block status ailments the way they do in future FF games. Instead, they grant more Magic Defence than pretty much anything else you could put in your head slot. (Well, outside of insanely rare drops, anyway.)

These are clearly meant to be for Rosa and Rydia, but in my opinion the few extra points of Magic Defence isn't worth losing the spellcasting bonuses granted by their Tiaras. Heck, Rosa's been wearing her Tiara since Zot, and Porom wore it before that. Before that it was stashed away behind a fireplace in Mist. Not a bad run for a piece of equipment in a twenty-year-old RPG.

Cecil can put the extra Magic Defence to good use, though. Makes up for the points he's not getting from the Protect Ring he's not wearing. Edge, on the other hand, needs every point of regular Defence he can get his grubby mitts on. So it looks like one of our Ribbons is going un-worn!


Phew! After all that dungeon-delving, loot-stacking, boss-racing and number-crunching, the Lunar Subterrane is at long last behind us. Beyond this next doorway lay...


♪♪ Within the Giant ♪♪

...the Lunar Core. (And more treasure, of course!)

The monsters here all use boss music, which is a worthy shorthand for "Yes, this is really it." Behemoths, Red D.s and Blue D.s are found in abundance, as well as a few other assorted nasties we'll meet later. And here's the thing about Behemoths...


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

The sometimes drop Power Shirts. Criminey! Three rare drops in one dungeon run!? At least this one isn't another gorram axe.