I genuinely don't understand how you can play all of the mainline games and walk away with IV as your least favorite. I guess it comes across as mechanically stale in a modern context, which is ironic given that it was groundbreaking at the time.
I will go into more details when I get to IV, but the short is, that I played VI and Chrono Trigger first. Going back to IV just makes it a harder sell. Playing it after III should give me a completely new perspective. Alone that I will finally have save points within dungeons will feel so good.
But appreciating all the stuff that IV did is pretty hard, if it is VI that introduces you to many of the things. QOL stuff in general, and the way story works specifically, for me. After playing VI, IV just didn't seem special in any way.
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Getting back to FF II, getting back to Mysidia for finding Ultima. There was a pretty uninteresting dungeon, on a small island in the middle of nowhere, which hid the second mask. With both masks, I could enter and search through a cave near Mysidia, to acquire a crystal rod. This dungeon was equally unexciting. They were just dungeon dives, nothing interesting happened in there, and the enemies weren't particularly interesting either.
It got more interesting after that, though. With the crystal rod, I could access the Tower of Mysidia, which contains the Tome of Ultima. But the Mysidians were actually pretty good at keeping people out. Seriously, not only demanding a key to access the place with Ultima, but even having a giant monster swallowing everyone who actually has the key. That seems like one of the more clever security setups that I have seen in a JRPG.
The Leviathan (it's first appearance in the series!) is probably one of my favourite dungeons, just because it is actually thematic and not just walls and floors with different colors. It isn't too hard, and they tried to make it feel like the inside of a creature. There is acid inside, and even rows of teeths, as you near the ending. You also find a bunch of people inside, all people who tried to find the Ultimate Spell. The boss at the end is not much to talk about, it feels like a random boss, because you need a boss. But on the whole, a pretty cool dungeon.
Oh, and we also met the last Dragoon, Ricard. Not a bad fourth character, with a decent sword, he could nearly keep up with the damage of Twain and Kafka.
One of the guys inside the Leviathan even mentions that they had a crystal rod too. So I guess it isn't a specific, magical item, and instead just a random rod, made out of crystal.
Before talking about the Tower, which was a nice dungeon in its own way, I need to mention that I changed Brontes role in the party. It pains me a bit that I finally gave her the role of mage. But her fists just didn't keep up with Kafkas swords and Twains axes. I used the long travels to train her in the use of Berserk (a pure strength buff, and super useful) and Toad, which started to be really useful in the Tower. She also has Osmose, which basically gives her infinite MP, and I also have Blink, though it is only on level 3 and I haven't needed it up to now.
It's the main thing, where I actually grinded. The ways to the island with the mask and back to Mysidia, and than to the tower were long, and I just selected the spells I wanted to train and cancelled five times every round. I think the ways took one hour altogether, instead of then minutes, but I just got the spells too late. I feel like you should have a normal way of acquiring them earlier, so you could have one person focusing on them from the start. That would have given me more than enough time to train them up.
The tower is pretty high and contained a bunch of nice equipment, like new swords and armor that defends against status effects. Which is just in time, as the monsters in this tower are the worst. There are the horrible, first incarnations of Marlboros in there (haven't taken a screenshot, but they look as gross and horrifying as they should). They, the imps (another enemy type that will reappear) and some vampire ladies all had spells to confuse my guys, which is the most dangerous that monsters had done to me in forever. At this point, I was extremely happy about the ribbon, which protects against nonsense like that. I gave it to Twain. Another item protected Bronte, I think the White Robe I found at the start of the dungeon.
The tower consists of different parts, with different elemental giants to defend the end of their part. There was one part with lava and red tiles, defended by a Flame Giant (or something like that), another one in light blue tones defended by an Ice Giant, and the last part with a Thunder Giant. They would have been a challenge, as their defence is pretty beefy and toading them didn't work, but Berserk increased the damage to them from around 200 to around 600.
To be precise, the Giants are actually Mysidians, who wait for visitors, and than transform into Giants. That they still are alive (as Minwu is waiting at the top) implies that they don't actually die, but just transform back and let you go.
At the top, Minwu was waiting for me. He is awesome, so I guess he made his own rod out of a crystal he found, and teleported straight to the Tower. Or asked Cid for a lift. He opened the seal at the last door (one more security measure, I can only repeat, it's impressive). Unfortunately, it demanded a ton of him, and Minwu died from the exhaustion. The game doesn't give you too much time to grieve, and it isn't mentioned by Queen Hilda later, but fittingly sad music started. It's obvious that they didn't know how to do stuff like this justice, but it's also clear that they tried hard.
Inside the tower, there are five orbs, four of which offer stat-ups by ten points. Nice! It's cool that beating the dungeon actually increases your capabilities. And there is, of course, Ultima. Getting that immediately transports you outside the Tower.
I guess most people know the story, that the guy who programmed the spell made it weak on purpose? The argument was, that he thought it was cool, that this ultimate spell was created a long time ago, and that technological (and I guess magical) advances would reach the level of that spell anyway. No idea how true it is, but I like the story, and I always liked the idea. And the fact, that you go through all this trouble for nothing. It just fits into the bleak setting.
Speaking of bleak, I mentioned that destroying the Dreadnought forever ago hit the Empire pretty hard. It didn't do much anymore, and we even freed Castle Fynn. While searching for Ultima, nothing much happened either.
Well, the Emperor seemed to need some time for his next, horrible move. After leaving the tower, we see Altair, and many other cities, completely destroyed. The world map only showed ruins, you can't even enter them. Fynn is still fine, but a giant Cyclone, summoned by the Emperor, is on its way to the town, and already near.
This was the first time, where the game just didn't give me hint about what I was supposed to do. I looked up how to proceed, and found out that I needed to use the pendant (the one I found in the cave behind Deist, the Dragoon city) in front of the mirror in the castle. Using it summons the Wyvern, from the egg that I helped to hatch. Maybe it would have been a good idea to visit Deist, so the last Dragoon can meet his wife and child(?). I'm not sure on the details, but maybe they would have mentioned something about the mirror.
With the Wyvern, I could enter the Cyclone, which has geometry inside. It's, of course, another dungeon. Somewhat confusing, with stairs that lead to dead ends, but not too bad, on the whole. At the top, there are even castle-like floors, which is really impressive for a Cyclone. Up there, we finally meet the Emperor. In a nice piece of story florish, he first sends his guards against us, which are thankfully no challenge. And then, we finally fight that big jerk. He doesn't fight alone, though, but has the help of a few mooks.
And he died in the classical way: By being transformed into a toad. It's as fun as it is anticlimactic. But honestly, that this big bad is just a regular-sized sprite inside the battle makes the whole fight seem way less big than it should be. Which is, of course, because it isn't over just yet, but it feels too simple.
The game certainly acts like you won, though. With the limited ressources of the NES, they couldn't do it justice, but they still tried as hard as they could to show a big, fancy party. Everyone was dancing, and music played. It was a nice cutscene, which would probably had worked well, back in the day.
But it isn't over. After some time, the party stops, as a messenger tells us that Hesse, Brontes lost brother, has declared himself Emperor of Palamecia. It is here, that we learn that the Dark Knight is the fourth youth, who was lost when we fled from the Empire, at the very beginning of the game. Again, the game tries something, but it doesn't really work that well. It is the first time they tried, though, and they will do a way better job with Kain in IV.
In another dramatic scene, we find Cid in Pauls house. He lends us his airship, before dying, due to being deadly hurt through the Cyclone.
At this point, so many people have died. Many before the game even started, many more, when the Dreadnought attacked some of the free cities. And the Cyclone feels like it whiped out two thirds of the civilization of the planet. And the game makes us actually feel that, by giving us companions who died during our journey. It isn't as effective as it was supposed to be, but I can only look at FF I, and see how ambitious II is with it's story. The execution might not be great, but the ideas are.
With the airship, we land on the top of Palamecia castle. We than fall through a bad floor, and make our way up to the top. There is not too much to talk about the dungeon itself, except for the end. We meet Hesse, our lost friend, who doesn't seem like he is manipulated by evil power, and is just drunk by regular one? But it doesn't help him.
Because the Emperor returned from Hell, after he killed Satan, I guess, and took the place over. It is completely insane and great, even if you already know it. Just really bonkers and badass. Ricard, the last Dragoon, sacrifices himself, and we make it outside. The Castle of Palamecia is turned into hell, Pandemonium. And now, we are not trying to stop someone conquering the world in a regular way. We try to stop total destruction.
Surprisingly, this game actually made me feel like he whole world was at danger. It generally doesn't work that well for me, but maybe that multiple cities were attacked two times, helped here. I haven't even seen the Emperor much, but I want to stop him. So that the last, uh, 20 people can repopulate the planet.
And that's were we stand. We have our final party, with Hesse (who seems decently competent with weapons and will get a sword and shield, but has no magic), and we will finally bring this tragedy to an end.
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I'm glad you enjoy my posts.
