Interesting stuff about the mod
Thanks or the update. The character tweaks sound really well thought out, and like they add a lot and are straight-up improvements. Especially Celes sounds really cool, these changes fit her well.
One neat bit was fighting the FF1 fiends as storyline encounters during the esper attack on Vector, but new stuff like that has been pretty rare.
While this sounds cool, it is also clearly fanservice. It wouldn't really fit into the vanilla game, I think. Maybe that's just in my head, but, while there are no definitions of Espers that would exclude the Fiends, I just see them as different entities. Still, I can easily see why you enjoyed fighting them.
With regards to the changed scenarios, I really like the change for Terra. Sounds like it would really fit, and give her part more of a stand in the story, at this point. Also, straight up making her more of an active character. (I think/hope I'm still vague enough, so that a spoiler isn't necessary). From the sound of it, the changes seem all very well thought out. Sounds like a mod, that I should keep in the back of my head for later.
That you got wiped in the Sealed Cave doesn't surprise me too much - it's the first difficulty spike in the game. More about that in a minute!
Thanks for the explanation. For a first-time player, it would probably still be confusing, but with that bit of knowledge, everything is much more managable now.
I think they guy you talk to at this point is the otherwise-nameless Impresario, the guy who more or less runs the Opera House.
There also was some other guy there, aside from the Impressario, but I guess that was only his butler, or someone like that.
8 doesn't have airships at all, so that Cid is a high school principal... more or less.
True, but the garden flies, and Cid is the...headmaster...of the garden, so I always counted him there as being at least connected to a flying vehicle. Even if I'm reaching a bit here.
He's a gambler! It's thematically appropriate! And only really powerful or useful if you know how to exploit programming bugs.
Yeah, he is fine, I appreciate the option to play as someone, whose special ability is chance based. I kind of wish, there was a job like this in FF V. Sounds like it would be a fun addition.
I think the quality of life of having magic at their disposal have made people generally happy with Gestahl's rule. It might seem unrealistic to live in an industrial hellscape of steel and smoke and still be generally well-disposed with your life circumstances, but "fuck you, got mine" is a pretty powerful philosophy, as evidenced by *waves hand in the general direction of the real world*
That's a good read. And, considering that Vector has probably been an industrial hellscape for over 15 years now, people might have forgotten that a bit of green might be nice to look at.
At the very least Vector is a good example of "the parts of the cities you see are only little fragments that are game-relevant, there's tons more out there". You can stand on the roof of Imperial palace and look in the background to see buildings and factories stretching over the horizon.
I haven't been up there, so haven't seen it, but the way you explore this town makes it seem like you only explore a part. In the other towns, it feels like you get to the end of it - here, this feeling isn't really there. I wished the game explored Vector as a living place a bit more, but I guess that is one of those things that didn't find space here, and were fully explored in the next game.
A fun, unstated detail: all of the enemy soldiers and guard hounds and so on in the Factory have crazy high physical defense but are weak to lightning and water attacks. Lightning and water attacks are typically the weaknesses of machines in FF6, living beings are more likely to be weak to fire. It implies that everyone working here is some sort of cyborg, or an out-and-out robot.
That is a really nice detail. Cool, I didn't notice.
Nope! Shiva is weak to fire, absorbs ice, and nulls the other six elements. Ifrit is weak to ice, absorbs fire, and nulls the other six elements. Ramuh is completely useless in this fight no matter what.
For some reason, I think of Shiva as Water, and therefore weak to Thunder. No idea why, I KNOW that Shiva is a creature of ice.
Still, you got the fancy, new ability of summoning espers. I would imagine, that I would have used it in a boss fight, just because summoning is so cool.
Another augmented cyborg-robot kind of thing, yeah. It's that awesome Final Fantasy tradition, the Barrier Change boss! It doesn't look a thing like Hyne, though.
I like that it can "System Error!" and summon an arctic hare instead of blasting you with magic.
That "System Error!" sounds really great. Wished I would have seen that, but he barely got any attack in, before dying.
There isn't a timer. "You've got to go, RIGHT NOW!" but actually you not only have time to save your game at the nearby save point, you can actually put up a tent there and take a nap before you head out.
You are right. Strange, I could have sworn there is one. I guess that means the game was very effective, in making me feel stressed out.
Speaking of FF6/FF7...
The Gestahlian Empire is basically a proto-Shinra, where Vector (and surrounding territories) are like Midgard/Junon (and surrounding territories), a natural resource (espers, lifestream) is pillaged in order to increase the relative military might of the organization (Magitek, magic-infused knights, materia, SOLDIER), Kefka and Sephiroth 'snapping' and eventually turning against their masters to become an ever bigger threat to the world, etc. FF6 and FF7 share some DNA in term of the contours of the narrative; a lot of the concepts in FF7 feel like S-E giving it another go. A second draft, possibly because the relative power of the PSX allowed them to flesh out those ideas. Or perhaps the ideas were still fresh and these connections are not intentional.
Is FF6 Cid more like Hojo or is he more like Gast?
I'm very much looking forward to playing FF VII, just so I can make all the connections (many of them again). But yeah, FF VII feels like an extreme case of "we got ideas during one game that didn't fit into it, so we carried them over to the next". Considering that there was a plan of having FF VII play just in Midgar, I can't help but imagine that someone at Square wanted to explore Vector more, except that there just wasn't time for it. And, because it is so easy to change it up a bit and to reimagine it, they decided to just make a whole game out of it.
I actually had to look up Gast. I'll make that call later on, when I'm done with FF VII.
Setzer's introduction is definitely unpleasant, but what's weird is that it doesn't even reflect his character; as soon as the opera house bit is done, Setzer is shown as free-wheeling and fatalistic, and his initial depiction as selfish and sexually-entitled is completely absent (in fact, that he would even want to kidnap Maria seems at odds with what we learn about his love life later on). Coupled with how thinly-justified the opera house is, I've always wondered if the whole sequence dates from an earlier draft, or was a later addition that was hastily shoved in, or something of that sort.
I only remember, that we visit the grave of Setzers love in the WoR, but not the details. I'll wait until then, to say something more about him. At the moment, it doesn't really seem at odds, to me. Setzer is depicted as someone, who doesn't care about any rules, and only interested in himself. Not caring, if a woman he is interested in even wants to be with him, sounds fitting.
But I also read or heard (somewhere, so grain of salt) that different people worked on different scenarios, and that they were later on put together as well as possible. Which might explain, why the Setzer from the opera part doesn't quite fit together with the Setzer from the WoR. And, honestly, it explains the Phantom Train. I mean, that sequence is very good, but it also feels a bit off - like it doesn't quite fit into the world. We never see any train stations, anywhere else in the world, I think.
Anyway, on to my notes!
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Last time, I ended at the point where Terra got control over herself again. She wants to find out how the situation is in Narshe, so we go there.
Setzer seemed to have fun with us (honestly, not surprising for a high-stakes gambler), so he joined us and let us even fly ourselves with his airship. Yay, we finally can get everywhere! Except that we already were nearly everywhere, already.
Oh, right, new team. I decided to take Terra, Gau, Sabin and Cyan with me. Sabin was a bad idea, but I'll get to that in a second. Terra gets Maduin (I planned to give him to her anyway, just for thematic reasons, but he is basically made for her - teaching all three level 2 spells at a decent rate, plus increasing Magic at level ups. perfect for her). Cyan got Bismarck, Sabin Cait Sith (building up his magic - I really like that you can skill him as a magical or physical monk) and Gau Carbuncle, just so someone learns Haste (also, I would have given him a magic-increasing esper, but I didn't have a third one here).
Before doing anything else, we fly to Tzen, the city north of Vector. Another place with a horribly backstory, as the royal family there was slaughtered by the Empire, and the young people were force-drafted into the army. An old man tells us about a super-weapon of the Empire, the guardian (I guess that is that invincible thing at the top of the palace?).
Man, these three towns/cities on the continent really drew the short straw. The game tries hard to show us, how much harder they were hit by the expansion of the Empire, than the other cities, at least for now.
Next, I went back to Moblitz for more letters. The one I found was, again, nicely done, but I couldn't make another one appear. And then, I forgot to revisit, so this was the last one I read.
Finally, there is one more town that I haven't visited yet, Thamasa. Everyone is unfriendly, and it took me some time, before realizing where I was. I realized it, before finding Strago, though. My favourite person is the innkeeper, who charges completely absurd prices. How does this guy stay in business, if he hates strangers? Why does this town even have an inn? They don't want outsiders to be here.
After that, we fly back to Narshe, where the guards lead us to Banon. His plan, combining forces of Narshes troops with the technology of Figaro, sounds pretty good (honestly, assuming Edgars tools aren't pure flavour, there should be a chance there, but I guess Magitek is still too strong). But with Terra in control, he suggests to open the Sealed Gate to the Esper world, and let Terra speak to the Espers. So that the humans can attack from the North, and the Espers from the East.
This plan is known in the town - there are people, who think it is a bad idea to trust Espers enough to fight alongside them. We also hear about a Yeti, that lives in the mines.
In one of the houses, we find treasure chests. And a wolf man (who surprised me - everyone here is a human. But then, I realized that he is just an Esper, who escaped on his own). His name is Lone Wolf, and he took one of the treasures, and runs away. When exiting the house, we see him, before he runs off again, a clear sign of the game to follow him. Which we do, until we get to the part, where he holds Mog hostage.
But Mog does something (bit of a dance, maybe?), and they get split apart. You know the scene, and, of course, we rescue Mog.
It's an easy choice, considering that I know that we get a new party member that way. But we also know, that we could choose some treasure, and a first-time player doesn't KNOW, that Mog will join us. So, it is an actually interesting choice. It also shows a little bit about yourself - will you take the treasure, or will you repay the creature, that once saved you? I like the scene.
Also, I didn't know that this is just a side-quest. You can totally miss Mog, in the WoB. I assume he still appears in the WoR, no matter if you get here now or not (except if you chose the treasure, I guess, because then you shouldn't get Mog, because you are a bad person).
I assume, for japanese players, this was a great surprise. In the US, Moogles were new, right (FF IV didn't have them, after all). So this was just a random, cute thing. But the Moogles seem to have been pretty popular in Japan, considering they were part of the marketing, and the way they play a role in this game. So, it was probably really cool if you found this relatively easy-to-miss sidequest, and get rewarded by, not only a new team member, but finally a playable Moogle. Had I played FF V before, this would likely be exactly what I had wanted.
I mean, it still is. I love Mog, and he was always a mainstay in my party.
Oh, right, the introduction:
A moogle who speaks
the words of men,
and can summon the earth's power
through his dance...
At this point, we find out that it was Ramuh, who taught Mog the human language, and told him to help us. And, because Mog is great, he just does so.
Lone Wolf jumps. To his death? Who knows? Maybe we will see him again, in the WoR. I swapped out Cyan for Mog (should have been Sabin, but, oh well).
First things first, I got Mog a few dances. The main thing was to put the airship at the seaport town, and go the whole way to the trench, so he could get Water Harmony, or however it is called. Would be a shame, to miss out on this great dance. Seriously, it's very useful, when it works.
By the way, I really love how they made the dancer more interesting in this game, by combining him with Geomancer. I like the Dancer in FF V, but he is very simplistic, and basically a gamble. Here, you get to choose between different dances, which than use Geomancy. Except that you aren't bound to the place were you are - if you except a chance for failure, you can choose the terrain, that you want to use. I think this enhances both the Geomancer and the Dancer class.
Also, it's an adorable Moogle. They will only be more adorable in FF IX. Oh, and Mog is five levels higher then the rest of the party. I might be underleveled, though, the Sealed Cave was an obnoxious dungeon.
At the military base before the Sealed Cave, there are no guards. I think someone points out, that something is wrong. Except that I have still no idea what this something is supposed to be. Why is no one here? The Empire didn't try an attack, it doesn't do anything, before the Espers' rampage.
The Sealed Cave is a bit of a difficulty spike. As mentioned, I regretted bringing Sabin along. He finally had learned his fire-based dance, which he couldn't use here, because, despite looking very undead, the creatures here get healed by fire. Which also makes it impossible to use his strongest claw. Oh well, his other abilities were still really strong, so whatever. And Mog just demolished everything, whenever his Water dance worked (which was quite often, the chance doesn't seem too bad). Is the fail chance a callback to FF III, where geomancy always had a chance of failing, except that it now isn't so harsh?
There are some neat ideas, like the weird bridges, that change patterns every few seconds, but in the end, the dungeon felt too long, and a bit too labyrinthine for me. The encounter rate, too, seemed to have been increased, which made it even more annoying. Dunno, after two thirds or so, I just wanted to be done.
So, not surprised that you wiped a few times here, Loki. The mod seems a bit harder than the vanilla game, so it makes sense that this place would be quite challenging. I'm curious to learn how hard the floating continent would be.
Finally, we reach the gate. But we also hear Kefkas laugh (seriously, making him appear with his creepy laugh, before we can even see him, was a great design decision. It's very effective, in making it clear "everything will fall apart, again".
There is a neat fake-out fight, where we are supposed to hold Kefka, while Terra opens the gate. Which...why do the Returners think, Kefka is here? Do they think he knows our plan? Because, if you know him, opening the gate is exactly what he wants. He knows, that the Waring Triad is in there.
But it doesn't matter - the gate opens very soon, and Espers are just streaming out of it, throwing everyone down. I'm not sure, if Terra even did anything? I wasn't sure, what exactly was happening, at this moment. But we would learn that soon enough.
For whatever reason, the game decides that this annoying dungeon is the one, where we have to manually walk out. Yeah, no, I used a teleport stone to skip it. Not interested, not when I want to find out what is up with the Espers.
We use the airship to reach Vector, but are attacked by the Espers. As we learn later, it wasn't an intentional attack, they just couldn't control their power.
We land on southern tip of the continent, before the airship stops working (I assume? Setzer just repaired it in the meantime, right?) I thankfully found a Chocobo Stable in a random piece of wood (callback to FF II? Maybe I'm just seeing things now).
When we reach Vector, it is in flames, the Espers have wrecked it. We find Returners and Narshe guards, who also don't unterstand what happened. So, the Espers, just on their own, were strong enough to beat the mighty Empire.
The Emperor is expecting us, and some random dude shows us the way. This random dude really reminded me, from the design, of the jerks in FF VIII, you know, the underlings of the jerk who actually owned Cids Garden.
The Emperor tells us, he has lost the will to fight. Cid appears, telling us the same. It seems like the Espers were trying to rescue their captive friends (seemingly young ones, which might have entered the Human world anyway?). But, when finding out that they were all dead, they tore the whole place to pieces. Well, not quite, but their attack seemed to have been brutal.
Gestahl says, that the war is now over, and that we need to find a way to calm the Espers down, as their strength will destroy the world. We are invited to dinner, but first, Cid asks us to talk to the soldiers, as some are still in war-mode. I think I got 32? Something like that, I forgot to write it down. Importantly, we find an imprisoned Kefka. According to people here, Gestahl found out about the poisoning, and threw Kefka into prison for it.
Which seems weird to me. Like, I get it, this was extra evil, but Celes is supposed to have destroyed a town. Is it the one, that was supposed to be beautiful, at some point? And they slaughtered a royal family. I mean, come on, Gestahl doesn't care. I...I'll get to that a bit later, but I'm not done with this.
There is a nice minigame (I guess you could call it that), where Gestahl asks you, what we should toast to, how we should treat Kefka, stuff like that. It is a nice bit of roleplaying, if nothing else. As we later learn, depending on our answers, there are some bonuses. Like, removing troops from South Figaro.
Which, honestly, is already a big tell (aside from the fact that Gestahl doesn't step down. Am I expecting too much here? He totally should, why don't we kill the bastard? Just to be sure). But, uh, he promised that the war is over. Just remove ALL the troops, from everywhere. Does this jerk know what peace means?
Anyway, I guess he needs Terra, as the bridge between Humans and Espers, to calm them down. Together with General Leo, we will take a ship to the place where they gathered.
Therefore, Terra is a mainstay in the party. Locke, for some reason, is too (aside from the fact that he forces himself into the party, to protect Terra, I guess?). He does tell the others, that they should stay here. Something seems funny. At least they realize that Gestahl should, maybe, not be trusted too much. Just an idea.
We never find out, but is Cid in on this? I assume, as he had a change of hearts, and probably talked to the Emperor, thinking that it is partly his work, that the war is "over" now.
Oh, I forgot to visit the armory in the Imperial observation post near the Sealed Cave. Oh, well. I did get a Tintinnabulum, which I already forgot the use of.
We get to Albrooks, where Leo and his ship are waiting. I found the scene amusing, where he introduced Shadow and Celes to us, who we already know. Well, not Shadow, I guess (Terra has never seen him, and Locke likely didn't fight on his side either). But Celes is known, of course. Even if no one acts that way.
So, what was Celes doing in the meantime? She was a traitor (no debating there, she helped her friends escape from Kefka, and fought on their side for some time). Did she spend time in prison, and was just now left out, after Gestahl had his "change of hearts"? I can't really imagine anything else.
To be honest, I can't really interpret her behaviour here. I mean, there is clearly something about the whole "traitor" thing, and how Locke didn't trust her, even if for just one second. But I'm not sure - is she angry? Or scared? The game treats it later on, like it's just some weird stuff between young lovers (her and Locke), who have some silly, little thing stand between them. But it isn't a small thing. She fought on their side for a long time, and just because Kefka, their clear enemy, says something, they lose trust in her? There is clearly broken trust here, that shouldn't be repaired, just because.
During the night on the ship, we have a few nice scenes. First. Terra talks to Leo. He mentions, that her feelings have returned. From when? The time where she wore the slave crown? Did Leo KNOW? I mean, it's probably fair to assume he didn't, but I guess the slave crown is a well-known tool of the Empire, that he should recognize?
He also defends the Empire - "not everyone is like Kefka". But Gestahl is an awful person too. Seriously, Kefka is bad, but the Empire on the whole stinks horrible.
But yeah, he knew, because Leo feels ashamed about what happened to Terra. Ok, I'll write my thoughts about Leo later.
Still, he shows clear decency, when he tells her that "of course you can love", when she asks him. She will know some day, he tells her, before he walks off.
Shadow appears, having listened in involuntarily. But, as is clear, he can't help her. He is too broken. He tells her about people, who have killed off their own emotions, which makes Terra run away. I guess she knows, that he talked about himself.
And then, we see Locke being seasick, which I enjoyed. Not because it's Locke, honest, I just liked how it brightened the mood.
Next day, we reach Crescent island, where, according to legend, there is still a bit of magic left. One wonders, why the Empire didn't invade here first, then. Sounds like a good goal.
Anyway, we split up - Terra, Locke and Shadow are supposed to report back, when they find something out about the Espers. And soon we are back in Thamasa, where the people are, for no real reason, nicer now. There are two funny scenes, where people cast magic, until they see us, where they run away.
When speaking to the old man with the unique sprite, we get introduced to Strago.
An elderly gentleman
who has spent his whol life
pursuing the secrets of monsters...
He denies (badly) that he knows anything about Espers. At this moment, Relm appears, and gets introduced.
In her pictures, she captures everything:
forests, water, light...
the very essence
of the things she paints...
She basically tells us, that magic is a thing here, and Strago sends her to her room. But not, before Interceptor shows, that he likes (read: knows) her. We look around the village more, until we decide to go to the inn. Talking to Strago made the innkeeper become nice, and now he only wants one Gil. Not a good business man, this one.
We are awoken in the night, as a building is on fire. Fire staves were stored there (magic items, which are sold here, you guys are really bad at this "we are not magicians, really" thing). Strago and the villagers decide, to use magic against the fire, even though we are here to watch, as Relm is in the building. But the flames are too strong, so we decide to follow Strago inside.
I liked this setpiece - the waving effect was cool, and the flames looked well done. Also, not really mandatory battles. The boss, the Flame Eater, was easily killed, as it lost tons of HP to Blizzara (also, Terra got a bunch of magic-increasing level ups). Thankfully, Stragos Lore can't be reflected, as the fight ended with the Flame Eater casting reflect on itself.
To take a short detour, the boss battles here are kind of lacking. V had such a great bunch of bosses, most of them with an interesting gimmick and tons of ways to deal with them. And most of them challenging. Here, most bosses have some kind of thing, like a boost when they are nearing death, but most of them die so fast. I guess our party is just really overpowered, for most of the game.
Behind it, we find Relm, who Interceptor tries to help. But the heat is too much, and everyone loses consciousness. We are saved by Shadow, who gets us out with Smoke Bombs(?).
Next morning, we finally learn the secret of the village. These are descendents from the Magi, from a thousand years ago. After the War of the Magi, non-magicians were scared of the magi (for good reason, I guess, they started a war, after all. But maybe that's unfair, we don't know enough). I guess thousand years is enough time, that magic finds new ways of appearing, like it does with Relm and Strago.
Because we helped save Relm, Strago wants to help us with the Espers. He thinks, they might be in the cave to the West, as it is supposed to be a sacred place for them. Outside, Shadow decides to leave (well worth the money, this guy).
Inside the cave, we soon see Relm running away from us, but staying near. We find the holy place, where three statues are standing. Strago thinks, they symbolize the Waring Triad, the three gods that created magic and the Espers. Not humans, though. According to legend, they grew tired of fighting and turned themselves into stone. Also, they abused mortals for their battles. But I guess this is about an ancient battle, not the War of the Magi. Anyway, they turned themselves into statues.
As we leave, Ultros lands on us, who is looking for respect from Siegfried. Get better friends, dude. After some time, Relm appears and manipulates Ultros in letting her draw a picture of him. Which is her special ability - she copies Ultros, and the copy uses his tentacle attack, defeating him. It's a fun scene, as the scenes with Ultros happen to be.
After some time, we find the Espers, who surround us, ready to attack. But one Esper calls out, he looks similar to Terras father. He realized, that Terra is different, and wants to talk. Here, we learn that the Espers planned to free their people, but lost control. It wasn't planned, to attack everything in such a brutal way. As they want to make peace, we bring them to Thamasa, to meet Leo.
Leo thanks Locke (not Terra! What the hell, dude, she is the only reason the Espers didn't fight, and you know it! Locke just was here, but Terra was the main person, that was necessary for the plan to work) for finding the Espers. Everything seems to be good, finally, and we make some dumb joke about Celes and Locke not wanting to talk, because of teenage nonsense, being in love, whatever.
And then, we hear the laugh. Kefka is here, with three Magitek Armors. We learn, that the Emperor is still evil, and he had a plan of turning all the Espers to magicite, all along. He lets the Magitek Armor loose on the town.
With only Leo still standing, we get control of him, and attack Kefka. His equipment seems great, and his special might be boring, but it's really strong. It's fun, just destroying Kefka. It honestly seems, like Leo is the strongest of the three generals. We easily kill Kefka.
Honestly, Leo should have gotten an introductory screen, so that his death would be even more shocking. One would expect to finally get him into the party, but nope.
Leo fought an illusion that Kefka created. When Kefka attacks for real, Leo dies.
At this point, Espers are pouring out of the Sealed Gate, trying to help the young ones in danger. But Kefka is too strong, and just kills them, collecting tons of magicite.
So, why is Kefka so strong? I mean, he clearly isn't weak, but just being able to kill a bunch of angry Espers, without any trouble? Shouldn't there be brutal monsters like Doomgaze among them?
I would assume, that he got stronger since the Magitek Research Facility, because he learned about magicite. But there wasn't any magicite left for him, right? And before that, he was too weak. I mean, if he is strong enough now, why couldn't he kill the Espers, when they attacked Vector? Did he just train his own power? It doesn't really make sense to me.
Anyway, he leaves for the Sealed Gate, to find the statues of the Waring Triad.
We stand in front of Leos grave. Terra seems to have really liked him, she wanted him to teach her much more.
So, let's finally talk about Leo (and Celes, in that process). He appears as a sympathetic character, with a conscience. But is he really? There are three other towns on the continent in the South, aside from Vector, all three horribly destroyed. Considering there are three generals, he probably attacked one. Is killing people no problem for him? He doesn't want them to die, but still.
We always contrast everyone with Kefka, which makes everyone look good. But Leo fought for Gestahl, who is, plainly, a monster. He knew about Terra, and did nothing. He wouldn't have poisoned Cyans home, but he would have still defeated them, and let foreign soldiers dictate the lives of the people in the castle.
The game makes Leo out to be a good guy, but he isn't. He isn't a random soldier, who fights in a war he doesn't understand. He might not know the details about the captive Espers, but he know what he is doing to the cities the Empire captures. He hails the Emperor in the flashback, together with Kefka and Celes.
Similar to Cid, the game shows Leo in a sympathetic light. But we know that he helped this god-awful Empire grow in power. He probably could have overthrown Gestahl. But he didn't. And Gestahl has been a monster for a long time, we know that.
And with that, I guess it is fair that we lost trust in Celes, when she was accused of being a spy. Yes, it was dumb, but she, too, seemed to have been a horrible person, who has killed countless people for years. She has so much blood on her hands, that there should be some mistrust.
Some themes of this game are about redemption and healing. We see Celes, as she turns her back to the Empire, trying to do some good, to make up for the awful things she did. She has an arc. Leo doesn't. The game tells us that he is ok, and we see him basically being at oughts with the Empire. We see him as someone, who values life. How can someone like that be a general in this army?
When contrasted with Kefka, everyone looks good. Being better than him isn't a great thing, it's the bare minimum.
Back to the story, Interceptor appears, making everyone think Shadow died. Also, the others appear, with Edgar making it possible to escape from Vector.
We see a short scene of Kefka and Gestahl, before the Sealed Gate, where they enter to acquire the power of the Waring Triad.
Switching back, we see how the earth splits, and a continent rises into the sky. Up there, Kefka and Gestahl are before the three statues. They talk about how it is important that they face each other, as only that keeps their powers in check.
And with that, we get control back. We could do stuff on the ground, like getting more rages or dances, but we are supposed to go to the Floating Continent.
I'm not sure if this is just me, knowing the game, but I think, if you played all the Final Fantasy games before, it's pretty clear that this isn't the end. Somehow, there is still too much moving. FFs get slower, near the end. Everything calms down, as the end draws near. Except for the final dungeon, where the antagonist waits for his plan to come to pass, or get enough energy, or whatever.
But here, everything is still moving, and we are rushing to kill these jerks.
As I said, maybe that's me. But it doesn't really feel like the end of an FF. Even if the Floating Continent is the hardest dungeon yet.
My party was Terra, Celes and Mog. Plus Shadow, of course.
First, we need to fight the Imperial Air Force, which isn't hard - both Terra and Celes know Thundara, which kills everything. And slowly, a pink thing flies around, looking goofy. After a few fights, it draws near, and throws Ultros at us. Similar to the fight against Gilgamesh and Enkidou, Ultros brought a friend, Typhon.
It's not a hard battle, as Ultros starts alone and is weak to Fira. He dies soon, after Typhon appears. Who is also weak against something, and soon snorts us away, so that we fall off the ship. While falling, we have to fight a very goofy looking airship, called Air Force. Seriously, this evil Empire decided to draw a goofy cartoon face on their strongest plane.
It's not a hard fight. Nothing can stand against Terra and Celes, when they throw magic around. Even without transforming, Terra destroys everything. Which is really fitting, I think.
The continent looks similar to the true form of the castle in the second world of FF V. Reminded me of the Hell levels of Doom. It's also a really annoying dungeon. High encounter rate, strong monsters (not strong enough, though) and dead ends that really aren't and switches that change to place. I walked around way more than I wanted, because I didn't realize, that the last dead-end would open up, if I stepped in. Was really happy, when I saw Ultima Weapon.
The monster looks great, and I love it's intro. It also uses really powerful magic. But here, I decided to transform Terra for the first time, and just tore it to pieces. I think it cast three spells? As I said, the bosses here are really easy.
But Gestahl has the power of the Triad, and knocks everyone to the floor. He does like Celes, though - he offers her and Kefka an important place in his new realm, where they are supposed to create magical superbabies, or whatever. If I didn't hate Gestahl already, this would be the perfect moment. Such a gross monster.
Kefka offers forgiveness, if Celes kills her friends. But she doesn't, attacking Kefka instead.
It seemed to me, that the wound finally sent Kefka over the edge, even more than he was before. He positions himself in the middle of the Triad, which he wants to use to destroy the world. And here, Gestahl draws the line - he wants to rule, not destroy.
Maybe it was the wound, maybe it was that the Emperor just said "no", but Kefka doesn't care anymore. He has, what he always wanted (when he mentions the Waring Triad the first time, he seems to want it for himself). Gestahl fights against Kefka, and I'm not sure if this is his own magic, or if he draws power from the Triad. It's probably not his own though - if Kefka doesn't know Ultima, Gestahl probably doesn't either. I don't think, he knows any magic on his own.
The spells fail, as the Triad just absorbs the magic. And soon, Kefka throws thunderbolts at Gestahl, until one hits him. And with that, the horrible dictator is dead, and his body gets unceremoniously thrown off the continent. Kefka moves the statues around, and their powers go wild.
Shadow appears again, telling us to run, while he tries to give us some time. This time, there is a timer, but it's generous enough. We are attacked by the same weird, joker-like monster again and again, and it's harder than I would expect. Finally, we reach the mini-boss, who was actually really hard, because he had reflect on himself, while I hadn't thought the spell to anyone. Which made the fight really hard - I nearly died.
Fun fact: When playing for the first time, I knew that I should wait for Shadow. But the timer really stressed me out, and I just couldn't wait for the last second. Why? No idea. But I didn't wait for Shadow, and he died here.
When finally on the airship, we watch, as Kefka tears the world apart. The airship gets destroyed, too, and we get knocked out, falling to the ground. We switch to space, where we see giant explosions on the planet, and how a continent is breaking in half.
This is really impressive. This change of view alone really shows, how devastating the power of this magic really is.
On that day
the world was forever changed...
