FelixSH
(He/Him)
In Jidoor, there is a rare sword up for auction, but we don't have nearly enough money. Owzers house is the next goal, and it's still as big as before. The diary tells us how to turn on the light (which, for some reason, makes it possible to go up the stairs), and that he hired an artist that is probably Relm. He just wasn't satisfied with the others.
We find Gestahl - more correctly, his picture, which we look at twice. "The legendary treasure sleeps where the mountains form a star..." Seems like we will find Locke soon.
When looking at a picture of a lady, we are attacked. After winning, we can enter one of the stranger, more interesting dungeons, where looking at pictures get us attacked, and doors appear and disappear. It's a weird space. At the end, we find Owzer and Relm, who is still working on a painting. Owzer looks somewhat monstrous, but I guess that is just a restriction of sprites.
The picture is of a goddess, but it is possessed. Chadarnook, the possessing demon, attacks us, as he wants the girl in the picture for himself. Weird, gross ghost.
The battle background was one of the best in the games, with windows where we see lighting flash regularly.
After defeating the jerk, we learn that Owzer bought a magicite in the auction house, the Lakshmi one, which created a strong desire to paint the picture of Lakshmi. Which brought Chadarnook along.
I assume Lakshmi did possess Owzer, in a way? Because she is pretty self-obsessed?
With Relm on the team, we visit the Fanatics Tower, and get Strago back. It seems clear, that Relm is the only thing that gives hope and light to Stragos life. I would like to say more, but it's, as effective as it is, pretty simple.
Next up is the Phoenix Cave, which I thought demanded three parties. Thankfully, it doesn't. I didn't write anything down, so I guess not much happened in there? I did like the cave, having to make two parties is a really neat idea, and the monsters were weak enough, that both teams were competent.
At the end, we find Locke, who finally found his legendary treasure, the Phoenix magicite. The Phoenix seems to have burned itself up a long time ago, I think during the War of the Magi? The magicite is old, and full of cracks.
Together, we go to the sleeping Rachel. The Phoenix can revive Rachel, but only for a short time. She says goodbye to Locke, and tells him, to leave the past behind. And she asks the Phoenix, to get reivived again.
There is a fun, final bit, where Locke gives us all the treasure that was in the empty treasure chests, in the cave.
We learn about an Esper in Narshe. Well, we already got it, so that hint came too late. But that's fine.
For some reason, I assumed that I would need Locke, to motivate Terra (with him being the one who helped her earlier in the game), but that was wrong. Instead, we just needed to go back to her after some time. We learn, that Katharina is pregnant, and that Duane is a typical, shitty boyfriend. Including the whole "get angry and mean, let the mother do the emotional labor, and then come back and say how sowwy you are". Considering how he was a jerk, when we visited the first time, I don't care much for this guy.
Anyway, the earth shakes, and Humbaba attacks again. Terra still can't fight, and asks us to defend them. Which we do, until the overgrown goblin blows two of us away. At this point, Terra joins the two who are left, and turns into an Esper. We easily kill the jerk.
I do like the scene afterwards a lot, where the kids are first scared, but then realize that it's her mother. And now, she understands. She experiences love, for the first time. And she realizes, that she needs to fight for the people she loves, so she can protect them.
It's a really nice development. Finally, she can decide, just on her own, if she wants to fight or not. No one pressured her (I mean, the monsters and Kefka kind of did, but her friends were ready to let her stay back, and fight for her).
And now, she joins. And with that, we have everyone, except for Gogo.
Well, time to change that, and get the whole crew. But first, we go to Narshe and let Locke open die weapon shop, where we get the Ragnarok magicite. I don't let it get made into a sword, of course - I could never accept, that I had given away an Esper.
A visit to the opera house gives us Zona Seeker, and in the opera, we defeat the Earth dragon (who was very easy, after making everyone levitate).
Afterwards, we get eaten by a gross worm, and equip Molulus charm, because the monsters were weirdly strong. It's a neat dungeon - the gimmick with the bridges and the jerks who throw you off of them was annoying and strange, but the next room, where the floor falls down, periodically, was neat. Reminded me of Super Mario World.
Anyway, soon we get to the end, and find Gogo, the final party member.
A man shrouded in strange clothing.
...Or perhaps a woman?
Perhps not even human at all...
After taht, we go under the ground again, with Figaro castle, and find another cave. We fight a Master Tonberry, which was really annoying (though I don't remember why, anymore. Strago does learn a few blue spells, nice.
We find the ruins of a castle, where we see a flashback of the War of the Magi. Odin, an Esper, was the lord of the castle (I guess Espers were better integrated into the world, at one point). He is very strong, but gets defeated by a strong mage, who turns him into stone.
We find the body, which crumbles away. The magicite stays, though, and it's the only one that increases speed. Nice.
Next, we try the Fanatics tower (Strago finally learned reraise, and we have Molulus charm). Perfect. Even so, the tower seems like a really awful dungeon. Takes forever, no save points, and it looks the very same on every screen. Can't imagine, how awful it would be with enemies.
We try to fight the Magic Master, which is just a straight-up bad fight. I appreciate, that they tried to do Hein again, now that the battle system actually supports his decent design. But it is completely ruined, because the spell that let's you know his weakness makes him change said weakness. So, on average you do no damage (whatever you do at random, you will also heal at random). I guess you need Umaro, other berserked characters, or spells like Ultima and Meteor, which no one has.
Yeah, I gave up, that fight seems to be the definition of anti-fun.
Next up is Doma Castle, where we go to sleep, just to get into Cyans' dreams. The first part looks neat, like a typical dreamscape. We are, at first, on our own with Strago, but soon find Terra and Celes. Strago learned White Wind and Roulette here. Great!
At the end of this room, we fight the three Dream Stooges.
We reach the Phantom Train, or the memory of it, where I looked up how to solve the puzzle with the chests. I didn't realize that I had to go right first, and had no motivation to try all combinations of opened and closed chests. The Narshe Mines(?) follow, where Cyan runs away from imperial soldiers. And then, we get to the dream version of Doma Castle.
Cyans wife and son asks us, to free Cyan, from torturing himself for everything that happened in the World of Balance. He is targeted by Wrexsoul, which we fight. I actually had to look up the gimmick - I feel like, you shoul at least get a reaction, when you attack the possessed person. Would never have tried to actually killed everyone.
Dunno, the boss gimmicks in FF V seemed better. Here, they seem more annoying and strange.
Cyan gets a last chance, to talk to his family. They leave him a sword, the Masamune, which leaves them at Cyans side, all the time. Which gives him a way of finally moving on from the past.
Other side stuff that I did/tried:
Kill Deathgaze (I moved over every pixel with frameskip, he wasn't much of a challenge, with no one suspectible to level 5 death)
Defeat Leviathan (didn't work, he killed me immediately with a double attack)
Get Quezali from the beach, where Celes woke up
Get Seraph from the guy in Tzen
I know, there is still stuff to do, but it's time for me to get done. I get kind of tired of the game. More on this in my final post. So, I decided to try myself on Kefkas tower.
Well, it didn't work out. My teams were:
Terra, Celes, Mog and Strago (A-Team, by far)
Cyan, Shadow, Locke and Relm (C-Team, not able to defend itself at all)
Sabin, Edgar, Gau and Gogo (B-Team, able to kill random encounters, but nearly dead afterwards)
It kind of worked out, as the B- and C-Team just ran away from everything possible. Until B-Team reached the boss, and was absolutely incapable of defeating him. I assumed, Sabin and Edgar together would be strong enough, but they just have not enough MP and not enough strength.
So, two points:
- Feel free to tell me, where there is more stuff to get. I can't promise I get it, just if you have the urge to tell me. So, feel free to spoil me now.
- I obviously need a way to grind, and it should be fast and efficient. I'm not in the mood in trying anything here (honestly, I want to get done, so I don't want to do much more side-stuff). I'm sure you guys know how to grind efficiently, right?
I just want a simple session, where I get three strong parties, without too much time investment. Elsewise, I will be annoyed by the whole final dungeon, and I will be too annoyed to appreciate the final battle, and the epilogue.
Honestly, I can't believe that this easy game is the one, where I have to actually grind, and I don't like it. Grinding shouldn't be part of this experience. But whatever, I look forward to punch that stupid cloud in the face.
We find Gestahl - more correctly, his picture, which we look at twice. "The legendary treasure sleeps where the mountains form a star..." Seems like we will find Locke soon.
When looking at a picture of a lady, we are attacked. After winning, we can enter one of the stranger, more interesting dungeons, where looking at pictures get us attacked, and doors appear and disappear. It's a weird space. At the end, we find Owzer and Relm, who is still working on a painting. Owzer looks somewhat monstrous, but I guess that is just a restriction of sprites.
The picture is of a goddess, but it is possessed. Chadarnook, the possessing demon, attacks us, as he wants the girl in the picture for himself. Weird, gross ghost.
The battle background was one of the best in the games, with windows where we see lighting flash regularly.
After defeating the jerk, we learn that Owzer bought a magicite in the auction house, the Lakshmi one, which created a strong desire to paint the picture of Lakshmi. Which brought Chadarnook along.
I assume Lakshmi did possess Owzer, in a way? Because she is pretty self-obsessed?
With Relm on the team, we visit the Fanatics Tower, and get Strago back. It seems clear, that Relm is the only thing that gives hope and light to Stragos life. I would like to say more, but it's, as effective as it is, pretty simple.
Next up is the Phoenix Cave, which I thought demanded three parties. Thankfully, it doesn't. I didn't write anything down, so I guess not much happened in there? I did like the cave, having to make two parties is a really neat idea, and the monsters were weak enough, that both teams were competent.
At the end, we find Locke, who finally found his legendary treasure, the Phoenix magicite. The Phoenix seems to have burned itself up a long time ago, I think during the War of the Magi? The magicite is old, and full of cracks.
Together, we go to the sleeping Rachel. The Phoenix can revive Rachel, but only for a short time. She says goodbye to Locke, and tells him, to leave the past behind. And she asks the Phoenix, to get reivived again.
There is a fun, final bit, where Locke gives us all the treasure that was in the empty treasure chests, in the cave.
We learn about an Esper in Narshe. Well, we already got it, so that hint came too late. But that's fine.
For some reason, I assumed that I would need Locke, to motivate Terra (with him being the one who helped her earlier in the game), but that was wrong. Instead, we just needed to go back to her after some time. We learn, that Katharina is pregnant, and that Duane is a typical, shitty boyfriend. Including the whole "get angry and mean, let the mother do the emotional labor, and then come back and say how sowwy you are". Considering how he was a jerk, when we visited the first time, I don't care much for this guy.
Anyway, the earth shakes, and Humbaba attacks again. Terra still can't fight, and asks us to defend them. Which we do, until the overgrown goblin blows two of us away. At this point, Terra joins the two who are left, and turns into an Esper. We easily kill the jerk.
I do like the scene afterwards a lot, where the kids are first scared, but then realize that it's her mother. And now, she understands. She experiences love, for the first time. And she realizes, that she needs to fight for the people she loves, so she can protect them.
It's a really nice development. Finally, she can decide, just on her own, if she wants to fight or not. No one pressured her (I mean, the monsters and Kefka kind of did, but her friends were ready to let her stay back, and fight for her).
And now, she joins. And with that, we have everyone, except for Gogo.
Well, time to change that, and get the whole crew. But first, we go to Narshe and let Locke open die weapon shop, where we get the Ragnarok magicite. I don't let it get made into a sword, of course - I could never accept, that I had given away an Esper.
A visit to the opera house gives us Zona Seeker, and in the opera, we defeat the Earth dragon (who was very easy, after making everyone levitate).
Afterwards, we get eaten by a gross worm, and equip Molulus charm, because the monsters were weirdly strong. It's a neat dungeon - the gimmick with the bridges and the jerks who throw you off of them was annoying and strange, but the next room, where the floor falls down, periodically, was neat. Reminded me of Super Mario World.
Anyway, soon we get to the end, and find Gogo, the final party member.
A man shrouded in strange clothing.
...Or perhaps a woman?
Perhps not even human at all...
After taht, we go under the ground again, with Figaro castle, and find another cave. We fight a Master Tonberry, which was really annoying (though I don't remember why, anymore. Strago does learn a few blue spells, nice.
We find the ruins of a castle, where we see a flashback of the War of the Magi. Odin, an Esper, was the lord of the castle (I guess Espers were better integrated into the world, at one point). He is very strong, but gets defeated by a strong mage, who turns him into stone.
We find the body, which crumbles away. The magicite stays, though, and it's the only one that increases speed. Nice.
Next, we try the Fanatics tower (Strago finally learned reraise, and we have Molulus charm). Perfect. Even so, the tower seems like a really awful dungeon. Takes forever, no save points, and it looks the very same on every screen. Can't imagine, how awful it would be with enemies.
We try to fight the Magic Master, which is just a straight-up bad fight. I appreciate, that they tried to do Hein again, now that the battle system actually supports his decent design. But it is completely ruined, because the spell that let's you know his weakness makes him change said weakness. So, on average you do no damage (whatever you do at random, you will also heal at random). I guess you need Umaro, other berserked characters, or spells like Ultima and Meteor, which no one has.
Yeah, I gave up, that fight seems to be the definition of anti-fun.
Next up is Doma Castle, where we go to sleep, just to get into Cyans' dreams. The first part looks neat, like a typical dreamscape. We are, at first, on our own with Strago, but soon find Terra and Celes. Strago learned White Wind and Roulette here. Great!
At the end of this room, we fight the three Dream Stooges.
We reach the Phantom Train, or the memory of it, where I looked up how to solve the puzzle with the chests. I didn't realize that I had to go right first, and had no motivation to try all combinations of opened and closed chests. The Narshe Mines(?) follow, where Cyan runs away from imperial soldiers. And then, we get to the dream version of Doma Castle.
Cyans wife and son asks us, to free Cyan, from torturing himself for everything that happened in the World of Balance. He is targeted by Wrexsoul, which we fight. I actually had to look up the gimmick - I feel like, you shoul at least get a reaction, when you attack the possessed person. Would never have tried to actually killed everyone.
Dunno, the boss gimmicks in FF V seemed better. Here, they seem more annoying and strange.
Cyan gets a last chance, to talk to his family. They leave him a sword, the Masamune, which leaves them at Cyans side, all the time. Which gives him a way of finally moving on from the past.
Other side stuff that I did/tried:
Kill Deathgaze (I moved over every pixel with frameskip, he wasn't much of a challenge, with no one suspectible to level 5 death)
Defeat Leviathan (didn't work, he killed me immediately with a double attack)
Get Quezali from the beach, where Celes woke up
Get Seraph from the guy in Tzen
I know, there is still stuff to do, but it's time for me to get done. I get kind of tired of the game. More on this in my final post. So, I decided to try myself on Kefkas tower.
Well, it didn't work out. My teams were:
Terra, Celes, Mog and Strago (A-Team, by far)
Cyan, Shadow, Locke and Relm (C-Team, not able to defend itself at all)
Sabin, Edgar, Gau and Gogo (B-Team, able to kill random encounters, but nearly dead afterwards)
It kind of worked out, as the B- and C-Team just ran away from everything possible. Until B-Team reached the boss, and was absolutely incapable of defeating him. I assumed, Sabin and Edgar together would be strong enough, but they just have not enough MP and not enough strength.
So, two points:
- Feel free to tell me, where there is more stuff to get. I can't promise I get it, just if you have the urge to tell me. So, feel free to spoil me now.
- I obviously need a way to grind, and it should be fast and efficient. I'm not in the mood in trying anything here (honestly, I want to get done, so I don't want to do much more side-stuff). I'm sure you guys know how to grind efficiently, right?
I just want a simple session, where I get three strong parties, without too much time investment. Elsewise, I will be annoyed by the whole final dungeon, and I will be too annoyed to appreciate the final battle, and the epilogue.
Honestly, I can't believe that this easy game is the one, where I have to actually grind, and I don't like it. Grinding shouldn't be part of this experience. But whatever, I look forward to punch that stupid cloud in the face.