Don't click if you'd prefer to find out for yourself: IIRC, that staff is reusable. When I went through the mini-dungeons, I gave it to one of my physical fighters so I didn't have to job change him and had him use it every turn. In fact, I want to say I had two such staves, so I was able to keep a Fighter and a Monk? I believe the second one was well-hidden.
Thanks! And don't worry, I don't mind being spoilered about stuff.
But does that not matter since you can multi-target the spells?
While multi-targeting feels not as weak as in the second game, it is still considerably weaker than single-targeting. So, depending on the enemies, it might still be a problem.
Nepto also gives you the Fang of Water, which goes into your key item list.
In the Famicom-version, they still haven't figured out that key items might be better put into a seperate place. I will get to that in my post.
It's kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it's nice that battles don't take forever with the smaller monster groups, but on the other enemies are sometimes given ludicrous boosts in power to compensate for you only fighting all of two (rarely three) monsters at a time.
I forgot that monsters can attack multiple times. Which I now vaguely remember as really frustrating, especially with bosses. Yeah, I guess it makes sense that this would be more annoying.
---------------------------------------------
After finally getting the ship, it is made clear that the places to go are more restricted than they appear. Your ship can bring you to two new parts of the land, the rest of the ocean is restricted by a maelstrom in a narrow passage.
I find it really interesting, how this game keeps opening up, but only in small increments. First, you soon get an airship, but you are still restricted to a very small place. When that place opens, it feels like new freedom, but you actually can only access one town and one dungeon (which then leads to more adventure). After that, you get the ship, but are still restricted. Like FF I, this game feels more open than it actually is. I'm not sure if this will change, like it did in I, but for now, it always looks like a lot of new space to explore, but the game is still very linear. But, and this is important, it definitely doesn't feel like it.
Part of that is the Easter-Egg-Hunt aspect. I just can't stop talking about how great it is, that especially the towns and castles have all this hidden treasure, and than hidden hallways within hidden hallways. When I played through the game for the first time, I didn't look for this stuff nearly as much.
Like, the first thing I did with my new ship was to move East. Soon, you get to a new landmass with a castle on it. It's Castle Argus, where the king is supposed to know something about airships. But no one is here. Weird. But it has a ton of hidden treasure, plus two locked doors. More on them later. For now, I just looted all the regular stuff, and got probably 7000 Gil out of it. Pretty great, that's a ton of cash.
To the north, there is a tower, very near to the maelstrom that is blocking our way to the rest of the world (I guess, and I know even than, only sort of). I didn't go inside, but went further West. Soon, I reached a cave. To the South of the cave, there was a lake with a giant, moving shadow. Leviathan? We will see later, I'm sure, for now, there was no way to access it.
But we could access the cave, and are greeted by ten sages, who tell us vague stuff about the Darkness, and how it will conquer the world. Something like that. These sages are a specific race, called the Gulgans. The are born blind, but can see into the future. I feel like there is something interesting to say there, but I can't really think of anything specific. It's a neat idea, if nothing else.
In his own room, there is the eleventh sage, who gives us the Toad spell. Similar to the Mini-spell, it is mainly used to grant us access to certain dungeons, by turning us into helpless Toads.
I really like this, that the team used these spells from the second game to create small...puzzles? I mean, that's probably the wrong word, because you know that you need to use them for access. But it's just nice that the game actually makes it clear "You become tiny, or a frog, and can do specific things that way, stuff you couldn't do before.". It adds another bit of flavour to this weird, fantastical world, and makes it a bit more vibrant. I mean, just the idea that you have to turn yourself into frogs, to solve a problem, is so nice and childlike.
I probably repeat myself, but I really love this world, and how it is a playground for fun ideas. It really feels like the creators wanted to replicate an adventure that a child would play out with it's friends, where they have to do the weirdest stuff. It's a lovely world.
Desch, our companion who lost his memory, also learns that his destiny awats him at the Tower of Owen, the one near the maelstrom. So, this is obviously our next goal. But before I went there, I made a short trip to look at where we can go to, elsewise. There is one more town in the south, with a desert in the East.
It's the town of Tokkul, and it has been attacked by Argonian soldiers. Which is weird, the castle was empty. But maybe I'm getting things mixed up here. The town contains nothing, except for scared villagers and destroyed houses. There is also a kid that runs from us, and his mother, who explains that her husband was made into a slave. We need to save him. But that has to come later (deserts are bad news, in general). First, we will visit the Tower of Owen.
The first thing you see, is a place populated by frogs. Even in frog form, you don't understand them, which was very disappointing. But this, and the words of the Gulgan, clue you in, that you need to become frogs, to actually enter the Tower. Elsewise, there is no visible way to progress here. At one specific place, you can enter, when you have transformed.
The tower itself looks really cool, probably the prettiest dungeon so far. The walls are all made up of chains and technical stuff. It's really neat, and a big progress, compared to FF II. A strange voice talks to us from time to time (or, more specifically, Desch). It taunts us.
The tower itself is one of the harder dungeons in the series. It is long, and the monsters are strong. Kirk, my knight, has two weapons, but the lack of a shield made him take around 100 damage from one hit. Which is a lot, considering he has only 300. Thankfully, he never died. But the game shows, again, that it has teeth. A shield would probably help, but I don't want to weaken him too much.
The tower has something like 11 floors, and takes pretty long. I really learned how valuable and potent potions are. By now, I can easily buy a lot of them. Which is good, because my White Mage has not enough charges for something that long. He has more than in FF I, but I still wished for more.
At the top, we find Medusa, who was the one who spoke to us. She wants to kill us, and is the first to actually speak of Xande, her master. A battle starts, which seems to be a pure game of luck? She only used one move, break, which I think is an instant death spell? That would explain, why it never did anything. So she went down pretty easily.
With her out of the way, we have access to the flame at the top, and Desch finally gets his memory back. He is actually one of the Ancients, and the guardian of the tower. Something doesn't work, which seems to have created the maelstrom. To repair it, he has to jump into the flame and die in the process. Sorry, I'm not sure if it was me or the translation, but I wasn't too clear why he had to jump into the flame. Maybe gorha can clear that up a bit.
So, like in II, a guest character sacrifices himself. Unlike II, we take a lot of time. We just stand there, with sad music, and wait for 30 seconds, or something like that, with nothing moving. The game really wants us to feel, that this is a sad moment. It worked for me.
We than get teleported outside, and see the maelstrom gone. We can finally visit (sort of) the rest of the world! I guess the correct thing to do, would be to finally go to Tokkul, the destroyed village, and help them. But eh, I want to know what other stuff is out there. Which is a good thing, as the game will actually tell us later, when it is time to help Tokkul.
I didn't look everywhere, though. Finally out on the big ocean, I went West, and soon found a new cave. Inside, there were dwarfs! They were nice to me, but were distraught, because one of their horns was stolen. The thief fled through the lake in their cave.
Another situation, that demands the use of Toad. We follow, and make it through an easy dungeon. It does look pretty cool, though! Instead of walls, we see that there is just nothing that will stop us from falling to our doom, if we aren't careful. Except that we play a JRPG, and can't fall down there, but the thought counts.
While the cave was easy on the whole (and nicely short), there were two enemies that I loved, though I also hated one of them:
The pudding, or whatever his actual name is, looks just perfect. He is so grumpy, I want to cuddle him. Look at his...arms(?), I thing he is complaining. Adorable, and easily killed.
The bomb, now, looks great. But he is also a jerk, and can just explode now, whenever he feels like it. Which is a problem, because the explosion does over 300 damage, which is enough to kill all, except for Sisko, the Monk (and even he has to be fully healed). Sisko actually died, and I had to waste a Pheonix Down on him. Which is bad, because I only have a handful of them at this moment, with no way of getting more, except for finding one in a random chest.
But we soon make our way to the thief. His name is Gutsco, and he challenges us (of course). He wasn't particularly challenging, but his design was interesting, I thought:
The poor snake is his only piece of clothing. I dunno, he just looked so goofy. It looks like he is strangling the poor animal.
Anyway, he soon falls. But when we make our way back, a white line is following us. It looks pretty weird, and like a bug, but it moves exactly like a guest character.
When we are back at the dwarf village, we go to the place where the second horn is, to place the stolen one back. But TWIST! Gutsco isn't dead, the white line was his shadow, who followed us. He takes form again, steals both horns (Horns of Ice), and makes his way to the temple in the north, where the Fire Crystal is. The horns will make him immune to the heat.
We follow, of course.
The Fire Crystal cave is a relatively straight-forward dungeon, with a few dead ends that have treasure chests, just sitting there. We walk through lava, which doesn't hurt us, surprisingly. Let's say the Wind Crystal protected us.
Not much was happening, so we find ourselves soon in the chamber of the Fire Crystal, where Gutsco is waiting for us. He seems to have absorbed the power of the Crystal, and has transformed himself into a dragon.
That one was probably the hardest boss fight, up to now. He only used one attack, a strong fire-breath that hurt everyone for over 100 damage, which was too much, even for Cura. The only one not in danger was Kirk, because he wore fire-resistant equipment. But Sisko the Monk and Janewe the Black Mage died. Still, after four or five rounds, the dragon was dead, and we finally got our second set of jobs!
Before I get to that, I just want to end the story part. I went back to the dwarves, giving them back their horns. As a thank you, they opened their treasure chamber, with a ton of chests.
When I wanted to leave (or maybe when I entered?), a man appeared, asking for help. He was from Tokkul (the destroyed village that I have ignored, for now) and dies, after telling us of the horrible fate of the village. So, this is were we go next. After we explored the rest of the world, of course.
Anyway, I took a look at the new jobs. They are Knight, Thief, Archer and Scholar. Obviously, Kirk got promoted from Fighter to Knight. I guess that one is a straight upgrade. But I didn't know what to do with the other three jobs. I soon got a new bow and new arrows, but I like my Monk, and my Black Mage seems to be an integral part of the team. Thief is a class that I never cared much about, and considering that this is an early FF, I can't imagine that there is too much interesting stuff to steal. I'd prefer to keep a high damage output.
I did, however, change Picard from White Mage to Scholar. Which is a fitting job, considering his name. I do like the sprite, it looks like an Austrian musician from the 19th century, or something (I hope I don't get the time wrong here, music history isn't my strength). Considering that my White Mage doesn't have too many spell charges anyway, Cura being not enough to effectively heal my party and me healing by using potions most of the time, that job change seems to make sense. Scholars heal more with potions, so that should work out fine. And, as I found out, they hit pretty hard with their books, even from the back row.
We'll see how it goes. I can always change Picard back to a White Mage, but I hope that I can wait it out, until I get to the next crystal and get a clear upgrade for a healing mage.
One thing that finally created a problem here was the small inventory. There just isn't enough, and when I got the treasure from the dwarves, I had to throw stuff away, or rather sell it, two times to get everything. When changing your job, the character needs to unequip everything, which wasn't possible. I actually sold usables like Antidots, because I could easily buy that stuff back now. Thankfully, there aren't so many key items, like there were in FF II. But the Fang of Water still takes up a bit of space.
I think this game introduces the Fat Chocobo? I have a Gysahl Green, I should probably try if it will summon him. But I think in the West, there is the town of Gysahl, where I will probably find more of those, so I should probably go there first.
One of the dwarfs also thanked me, by giving me a magic key. In the west, there is supposed to be a key maker, so I should look there later. But for now, I used it up to open one of the locked doors in Castle Argus. Nothing too great in there, but that's ok. I got a full set of Scholar equipment already from the dwarves, I just sold the second one. And the key is one of the Zelda-type. It broke after one use.
Well, that's all for now. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the world, and of this fun adventure. It really feels a lot like a predecessor to V. They have a very similar tone, V just worked it out more. I'm looking forward to replaying that, and comparing the two games.
