Formy's Playing FFIV!

[Formalhaut]

Because apparently I forgot I was gifted it on Steam.

Anyway, I'm playing FFIV for the first time and will be posting up my thoughts as I play. I've just started and enjoyed a cutscene showing Dark Knight Cecil lay the beat-down on what seems to be the cast of FFI by their costumes, so that's fun.

If you guys have any tips about the game, feel free to interject.

I'll be posting another update once I've completed the beginning section and familiarised myself to combat and the plot.

Also, is that Yuri Lowenthal voicing Cecil?

EDIT: Oh wow, is Liam O'Brien voicing Kain in this?

[Fynn]

Yup. Also, Ross is voiced by Karen Stradsman. So there you go, three Persona dudes in one game.

Also, use augments. They will help you.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Sam Riegel is in this, too!

[Sephex]

Yup. Also, Ross is voiced by Karen Stradsman. So there you go, three Persona dudes in one game.

Also, use augments. They will help you.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Sam Riegel is in this, too!

Actually David Schwimmer played Ross.

[Formalhaut]

First update! I ended up doing a decent chunk, actually, so this'll be a long post.

So first impressions? I'm really enjoying it. We start with a cutscene of Dark!Cecil looking all broody in command of a Red Wings airship. Then suddenly a single flying eye creature attacks us and all my soldiers run scared, like seriously guys? I end up killing it by myself because I know how to press the X button to attack. After that, we arrive in Baron Castle and meet our King, who is so obviously evil I didn't even need to listen to the third NPC telling me "the King's acting really strange lately" to be suspicious. Still, it was a pretty nice scene as we get stripped of command and told to head to the village of Mist to deliver some mcguffin. Seems dodgy.

We meet Kain here as well. Liam O'Brien is voicing him, and while he's doing a good job, it just makes Kain sound much older than Cecil, who sounds like he's in his twenties. Aren't they meant to be of a similar age or something? Eh, it's only a minor thing. I have to say, I do like the 3D aspect of this game. I don't mind it being sprites if that were the only availability, but the sprites really add to the battles and the cutscenes are really well done here as well early on.

I mention this because we get a very good cutscene of Cecil battling his emotions while staring out at the (twin?!) moons. Rosa, who is obviously going to be Cecil's love interest, comes in and what I think is her theme tune kicks in and it is glorious. It's probably my favourite individual scene so far.

Anyway, Cecil is joined by Kain and we head off. I ended up doing some levelling up, snooped around the town of Baron, then went into the cave and fought a boss, the Mist Dragon. The gimmick was to not attack when it was in mist form, which was easy enough. We enter Mist village and what a surprise, the package we're delivering is booby-trapped. Bombs appear and basically torch the village, which is pretty horrifying. They see a young girl who is crying over the death of her mother: turns out, she was a summoner and her summoned monster was the Mist Dragon. Which is sad, but to be fair they didn't know that and it was attacking them. Cecil seems pretty beat up over it, but the young girl goes full-on rage mode and summons Titan to sunder the earth. Kain disappears out of nowhere, and Cecil is left with the girl.

Cecil heads to the desert village of Kaipo to rest the girl, when guards appear to kill her on orders of the King of Baron. Having none of that, I smite them pretty easily. This ends up convincing the girl of our sincerity, and she's called Rydia. She actually packs a huge magical punch. I grind up a bit in Kaipo.

There was this one enemy though - a sand worm - which was clearly way strong. I do end up defeating it though by careful healing and spamming blizzard, and it gives a ton of experience, which is neat. I end up getting to around level 18 with Cecil and level 14 with Rydia, who has a healthy amount of spells.

Actually the main point of the Kaipo plot is Rosa. Talking to an NPC directs us to a house where she is ill from Desert Fever. I think she travelled here to find Cecil? Why she's here is a bit unclear, but either way, we need a Sand Pearl mcguffin to cure her, which can be found in a Antlion Den. So Cecil and Rydia head through some caves - aided by an old sage called Tellah - to get some advice in Damcyan, another castle-town. I like how when Tellah levels up, his strength and stamina actually go down, which is kinda realistic. He's actually wicked strong with his spells though, so he's great to have around.

On the other end of the cave, we exit just in time to see Damcyan be bombed by the Red Wings. Huh!? We enter to find that they've been given command to some guy called Golbez, who with a name like that can't possibly be anything but a villain. Tellah finds his daughter, Anna, dying, which is pretty sad. She was eloping with a bard named Edward, who is actually the Prince of Damcyan. So this is where the 'Spoony Bard' line comes from. I always wondered.

Anyway, Edward gets out of his funk and agrees to help us find a Sand Pearl with a handily placed hovercraft. And that's where I've got to!

I really like how different characters have thoughts that pop up in the menus. That's a nice touch. Everyone seems to have a nice role in the group, and no-one seems like dead weight or useless. And the music is fantastic. I love the boss theme.

[FFNut]

Edward is fairly dead weight unless you up his levels quite high.

[Slothy]

Back in my day FFIV didn't have voices and we were better off for it! How the hell do kids today even learn how to read anymore?!

[Formalhaut]

How the hell do kids today even learn how to read anymore?!

Play Mafia, of course. ;)

[Lyndis Highwind]

Oh boy, IV is my favorite! Who is your favorite character so far?

[Fynn]

Edward is actually pretty useful in this version.

And I like that Rosa isn't really just "a love interest" - they start out the game as a couple, so that's a really rare thing for RPGs to do.

[Pumpkin]

Rosa and Porom are best :flirt:

[Bubba]

I've always thought Cecil was a strange name for a protagonist.

[Mirage]

Almost as strange as Bubba.

[Formalhaut]

My favourite character is probably Cecil and Rydia, to be honest. Cecil because I do like his inner turmoil about doing the right thing, and it doesn't come across as too overwrought and dramatic. He's also a beast in combat!

I like Rydia as well. She has more inner strength than her age suggests, and I sense there's more to come from her. Also, again, she's a beast in magical combat, so she's very useful.

Rosa I've not seen much of seeing how she's in a coma, but she seems like a nice character. Her theme song is the best though.

As for Tellah? He's okay enough. I thought he'd be temporary though. Edward I've just obtained, but he seems like a quiet soul. And Kain still sounds too old with Liam O'Brien, but that's okay because O'Brien.

[Fynn]

O'Brien actually does a much better job with Kaia in Dissidia 012

ajH76Wsb4eU

[Bubba]

Almost as strange as Bubba.

Yes but I am clearly an antagonist.

[Slothy]

How the hell do kids today even learn how to read anymore?!

Play Mafia, of course. ;)

Liar. No one in that game has any idea how to read.

[Fynn]

(Especially Akihiko #shade)

[Formalhaut]

So where were we? Oh yes, getting the sand pearl!

I'll skim over this first bit because it is basically just going through a dungeon. We use the hovercraft (after giving Edward some much needed levels) and enter the cave. We get through it, until we see an antlion nest.

"Oh, don't worry. Antlions are gentle creatures!" says Edward.

The very next thing, the antlion attacks us. Gee. :shrug:

It was a fairly standard 'don't attack with [x] when it is adopting a stance', although they spiced it up by giving it two stances, so that was difficult.

I alternated between Cecil's physicals and Rydia's spells depending on the stance (the eyes changed colour) while Edward did jack all. Well, no he was helpful enough using Life's Anthem to give us Regen. And my God Regen is strong in this game. Usually it is one of the lesser buffs but the rate of recovery is fast, so I had him use that. Annoying thing is that if he gets hit even once, he stops singing, and it has a slowish charge time. Balanced, I suppose.

Anyway, we get the sand pearl. Turns out lots of monsters are attacking lately, which is why the antlion attacked us. Maybe there's something in the air? We head back to Rosa and restore her to health! Huzzah! I found a power bow and some holy arrows which means Rosa's actually a powerhouse in the back row. Somehow, giving her arrows reduces her accuracy, which... makes no sense. She's a white mage, so she'll prove very handy.

Story-wise, with two crystals already captured, Fabul's wind crystal is next. Well we can't be having that! We need to head up Mt. Hobs to reach Fabul. But there's an ice wall in the way. Hmm.

We get to Mt. Hobs and indeed we find an ice wall. Rydia could use fire, but she's understandably traumatised from her village burning down, so she's afraid to use it. A charming scene with Rosa takes place where she convinces her to use her fire magic. She does so, and we scale of Mt. Hobs, only to find a monk of Fabul fending off some monsters. Looks like we have a new character!

It's unusual having five party members. I'm not sure how that'll go down for me; seems rather chaotic. For now though, Yang seems pretty strong. He's got massive health, and strong attacks!

The boss battle here was only a little tougher. The Mom Bomb's gimmick is that it explodes, causing massive damage. I basically had everyone heal up and guard until it exploded. Unfortunately I had to revive Rosa, but other than that we were all good.

We introduce ourselves to Yang of Fabul, and rush on over!

EDIT: Also, I've figured out how to actually take screenshots now, so expect a more visually stimulating experience.

[Pumpkin]

Yang is p. cool, hopefully you'll like him!

[Formalhaut]

Here's another update! Now with added visuals.

So we meet Yang in the mountains (getting some strong Sabin vibes here) and head on over to Fabul Castle.

I went in as Yang and got some nice dialogue that seemed specific to him, but I wondered whether or not it would change if I wasn't the head monk:


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I was disappointed, to say the least.

There's some treasures to be had as well in Fabul! I know we were meant to see the King, but why bother with royal audiences when you can ransack his bedroom instead?

There's also an inn and a weapon and armour shop, so this is one practical castle. In particular the claws I gave Yang makes him beastly:



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In the tavern area, we encounter yet another one of those weird dancer types, who turns out to be a monk who likes bartop dancing. Go figure.



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Also in the Tower, we come across a really anger-fuelled kid.



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I'm getting Ken vibes from him.


Ken]Stabby stabby Minato. Inna da face.

Then again when he's living in a warrior-society, I suppose all he can hope to achieve is a path of violence. It is society who makes the individual. Deep.

In the West Tower, we also come across Yang's Wife. Who isn't even given a name. How progressive! :roll2



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They also sleep in separate beds, so maybe they have some marriage difficulties. I'm sure Dark Knight Cecil doubles as a guidance counsellor in his spare time.

Talking about beds, we even get to sleep in the King's bed. Yang you rebel.



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Sure Yang, it'll be fine. It isn't like the King's bed maid is in the same room or anything.



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Ooooh er. No wonder she wanted to take up that position.

We also listen to some of the musings from our characters:



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No, Edward. You're... useful.

Finally, we see Livingway, the cute little rabbit! Though he's decided instead to become Recordingway and record all the FMVs for us.


We've fooled around enough, so let's head up to the Throne Room.

And what a mighty moustache the King has!


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We convince the King that we're here to help, just in time to be attacked! Woohoo!

Cecil, Yang and Edward (yay) will fight on the front lines. What about Rosa and Rydia?



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Sexist!

Anyway, we needn't have worried, because we're only being attacked by B-list monsters and soldiers.



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Also, the front-line seems to consist solely of us three. Seriously, this is meant to be a heavily fortified castle!

We keep getting pushed back, even though we're totally kicking them in the face like that boy said we would.

Eventually though, we're pushed back into the Throne Room where, surprise! Kain walks in and uses the power of scripted battles to defeat us. Cheater.

Cue a cutscene:



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Kain moves in for the final blow. But wait, the power of love stuns him into inaction!




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But wait! The Big Bad Golbez appears, wearing the most obviously evil armour I have ever seen.

Even his voice is that kind of evil baritone you only hear in fantasy games.



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I almost expected him to go "mwhahahahaha!" half-way through, but he restrained himself this time. He kidnaps Rosa (not my ranged DPS!), even though I offered up Edward for a fair price. The bastard!

He and Kain leave with the crystal. Rydia uses a rare example of magic in cutscene to heal us and we chat with the King.


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We'll borrow his boat to sail to Baron so Cid can get us an airship, infiltrate Baron and take back the crystals. Before we depart on the boat, Yang's Wife appears and gives us a neat augment!


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Why is she wielding a frying pan? Was she thwacking monsters in the field with it?

Anyway, we join the burly pirates and wait out the voyage. There's some chatter, a monster attack, and discussion about the plan when we arrive, but nothing too important.

Wait, a monster attack?



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Everyone's thrown overboard as the Leviathan attacks us! What'll happen next to our heroes?

I mean, you tell me, I have no idea.

[Bubba]

You left it on a cliffhanger!!

[Squall Leonhart Loire]

Which version is this?

[Formalhaut]

This is the Steam version! Which is based on the DS version, which I'm told is very good. So there's that.

Apparently the DS version has a summon called Whyt which uses the stylus and has mini-games, but that's dropped in this edition because - obviously - there's no touch screen.

Honestly it is a very good edition, I have no complaints.

[Spuuky]

They couldn't change the name of Yang's Wife to a real name because she's too iconic

[Fynn]

How is that sexist if they're the ones who know white magic and can be a huge help to the injured!

[Formalhaut]

I was mostly joking to be honest, but there's something rather typical about the entire situation!

Anyway, there'll be another update tonight, so stay tuned!

[Bubba]

Man, your updates are far more frequent than my Mass Effect ones. I should be ashamed... I would be normally but I have a big one coming myself tomorrow!

Not to distract from your wonderful LP though, young man. I am excite!

[Formalhaut]

Hardly. You'll notice I haven't updated the Uncharted LP in a few months. Which... I should probably get back to. At some point. If only for the sake of completing the thing.

[Fynn]

I was mostly joking to be honest, but there's something rather typical about the entire situation!

Anyway, there'll be another update tonight, so stay tuned!

Just sayin'. There's gonna be a similar moment later on that's much more purely sexist, which is why this sounded ridiculoys to me XD

[Formalhaut]

I know, I know. :p

[Formalhaut]

So, it turns out Cecil is alive! Huzzah, this game hasn't ended a fifth of the way through! Seems like we winded up at the Costa Del Sol.


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We're on some real thin stretch of land though at the south, so the tide must've carried us a long way. There's a town nearby, so we move towards it.

Cue completely unfair moment of the game: I get into combat and get stoned. Cecil says 'no' to drugs, but he can't resist status ailments. Some accursed bitch of an enemy decides to stone Cecil, and because he's the only character present, it is an instant game over. Grrrrrraagh!

Anyway, that was not a good start to the session. We do eventually reach the town of Mysidia. Hey, isn't that the place where Cecil stole the Water crystal? Awkward.

Let's talk to the friendly locals under Travel Rule #2: 'talk to everyone!'

I mean, they can't be that unfriendly, right?


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Noooo, we were tricked! Which... actually makes sense. Good job, game! Thankfully I had plenty of items at hand, so I was alright. I'd never seen the transformation ailments before, with the exception of FFVII. They don't really exist in the later games. The pig is kinda cute.

We explore the village and - as expected - everyone fears us. We even have civilians backing away and literally fleeing in terror as soon as I speak to them. Many of them had barbed words for Cecil.

Thankfully though, their merchants would take coin from whoever!



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At the end of town, we enter the elder house. Turns out he's willing to listen to our story.

We tell him all what happened with the King of Baron, Golbez and the Red Wings, and Cecil's own turmoil about following obviously evil orders. The elder of Mysdia had some advice:



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So what's a repentant Dark Knight to do?



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Just south of Mount Plot Point and east of Mount McGuffin.



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Yay! More squishy wizards!



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This game really has a thing for child mage prodigies. First Rydia, now Palom and Porom. One's a black mage, and one's a white mage, so they're fairly well balanced, even if they're a full fifteen levels behind me at Level 10.

Let's do some grinding!

Next time in FFIV, we scale up Mount Ordeals after crossing the Plains of Grinding and become a paladin.

[Pumpkin]

POROM :omgomg:

[Lyndis Highwind]

This was one of the hardest parts in the game for me. It was tough for me trying to keep two squishy magic users alive.

[Formalhaut]

Well I can't say I was more than a little overleveled for that part of the game. Cecil was level 28 when his Dark Knight career ended, while everyone else was roughly level 23.

Also, I gave everyone the augments I had. Palom was given Item Lore which doubles the effectiveness of items, which made his flame rod attack incredibly powerful. Cecil had Counter on, so he was just auto-attacking like no-one's business. I mainly had Porom on healing duty. Her healing staff move is basically pray only without the MP restoration, so that kept everyone topped up.

Tellah sort of... used Mage Arrows. I don't know. At 90 MP, he's not very fuel efficient.

[Formalhaut]

I've done some levelling, so let's scale Mt. Ordeals!

But first, we pay a visit to a Chocobo Forest and meet with everyone's favourite rabbit.


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So Recordingway has become Campingway! He also pays us for all our tents, which I was more than happy to give, and made a tidy profit.

We leave the Chocobo Forest and ascend up to the entrance of Mt. Ordeals. Lo and behold, yet another magical wall.



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Thankfully, Palom freezes the wall without a sweeping emotional dialogue. Instead we're treated to Porom thwacking Palom for his arrogance.



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The next thing we know, we're being treated to a 'meanwhile, in the villain's lair...' cutscene featuring Golbez, Kain and Scarface. No wait, Scarmiglione.

They talk about evil plans, while eating evil ice cream and stroking evil kittens. Unfortunately, Rosa is in a fairly compromising position.



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We're introduced to the concept of archfiends for the first time. Apparently there's four of the damn things. Well, crap.

Anyway we cut back and continue scaling the mountain until a familar face pops up. Hey, guess who it is?



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Apparently he's here looking for a spell called Meteor, though why he's here and not, I don't know, some Mysidian library I have no idea.

We also tell Tellah about what happened with Leviathan, and how Rydia and Edward are probably lost at sea. Which probably comes as some surprise to Tellah.

Tellah wants the spell Meteor so he can dish some damage to Golbez for taking his Anna away. Apparently Meteor is a powerful spell, because:



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I sense some foreshadowing. But anyway, ever upwards. I may have been slightly overlevelled, but damn Palom can dish out the damage with his flame staff.



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There's a usual array of zombies, spirits, and other undead types. They're really not that difficult. Then again, I am playing on Normal as opposed to hard, so ^^;

We reach the summit, where we hear a strange hissing sound. Our heroes blame Palom, because they do not know what ominous foreshadowing means.

Well, all except Tellah.



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And sure enough:



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What a ssstrange way of ssspeaking.



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Wait, the first of the circle? Doesn't that mean you're the weakest?

And sure enough, the battle consists of just defeating his mooks and himself with all-consuming fire. It was over with fairly quickly. Let's see what our studio audience thought!



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Tellah's genre-savvyness must have rubbed off of Porom.

Sure enough, look who pops up:



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Bleargh!!!!



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I already have.


So anyway, suffice to say he is a little tougher. He has counter moves against physical and magical attacks to be wary of, so I basically made Cecil and Palom my two healers, because they couldn't attack with Scarface responding with status ailments and all kinds of trouble.

This meant Tellah and Porom could have their time to shine, because restorative moves are somehow exempt from his counter mechanics. I just spammed Cura on the guy, who was affected due to him, you know, being undead.

Sure enough, he was defeated. So much for an archfiend!



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Sssayonara.

We approach the stone tablet, presumably to become a paladin.



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Suddenly, we're teleported to a lengthy cutscene.



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We're suddenly thrust into a battle with our other self.


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No, wrong game! Anyway, Cecil has to defeat his dark self by not attacking. Which makes sense. Easiest boss fight ever! He just darknessed himself to death while I just defended.



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In the end, the mysterious voice grants Cecil the power of the paladin, though at the cost of his own. Mysterious. What's all that son business about?



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Oh, and Tellah learnt all his spells.



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Some interesting plot points this episode! Stay tuned for a somewhat shorter episode as we scale back down the mountain and return to Mysidia.

[Pumpkin]

It took me forever to figure out the Dark Cecil battle -_-

[Spuuky]

I remember being very surprised long ago when the game ended at the top of that mountain. I thought it would be much longer, the moment when Dark Cecil returns and destroys you as you descend the mountain was a real twist.

[Formalhaut]

What, you didn't think I'd abandon this would you?

Well, Mass Effect: Andromeda may have put the stoppers on this for too long, but I haven't forgotten it. Let's see what happens down the mountain!

Update to come!

[Pumpkin]

Yay its back!

[Formalhaut]

So what did happen when we scaled back down the mountain? As it turns out, nothing at all. The only drama occured when I realised when Cecil was back down to level 1! All that hard work, wiped away! He hits like he's using wet tissue paper, even against zombies who are weak to light!

There were also some vague and unhelpful hints to be found in Porom's head thoughts:


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What isn't she telling, I wonder?

As it happens, Paladin!Cecil levels up damn fast. He jumped from level 1 to 7 in just one fight, and I spent some time getting him up to speed again. He now has a Cover ability, and he auto-covers wounded allies which is helpful. He also knows some white magic! Though Porom is still undoubtedly the best healer in my team.

We level up some and re-enter Mysidia. Turns out the townspeople were utterly shocked at my success.



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People were practically falling down at my feet.



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After parading round town like a cock of the walk, Cecil and the gang enter the elder's house once more to get our next plot signpost.

Turns out the elder knew of some prophecy:



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The Elder explains that the Mysidians have been told for generations to prepare for the prophecy's arrival and realisation, and that Cecil may at the heart of the mystery, because of course he is.

In another development, the ancient seals preventing the use of Meteor have been broken, allowing Tellah to use it, just in time for his revenge fantasy against Golbez, who is our next target.

Palom and Porom insist on journeying with Cecil and Tellah to defeat Golbez, because they are so invested in his journey, but also because it would deprive us of two mages and wreck the game balance. The Elder signs off on their assignment and we keep our party as it was!

Turns out this Devil's Road we keep being told is now unlocked for our use, so yay! No more seafaring.

All Cecil needs to do is infilitrate Baron, kill Golbez and save the world. Nothing to it, right?

Next episode (which I'm currently playing as we speak) will cover our infiltration attempt. All we need is some spy music and 'lasers' and we're all set.

[Formalhaut]

This episode begins in the item shop. As it happens, Cecil's Dark Knight armour is very in demand in Mysidia, counterintuitively, and sells for quite a bit. I got 3000 Gil just from the chestpiece!

Also took some time to re-organise my inventory and just generally prepare for the infilitration of Baron. You'll also notice a Window colour change: I thought it appropriate as we've kinda reached a major checkpoint in the game I felt.

Anyway, enough preamble. Cecil and the others enter a mystic portal, just casually lying around in an abandoned house, to the Devil's Road.


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Also, the 'Devil's Road' is kinda misnamed, because it's just a straight-up teleport, together with some kinda eerie music as the screen pans across the world map to Baron. It occurs to me that Baron is not well defended.

Security concerns aside, we enter Baron and enter the pub. Teleporting is thirsty work. At the inn, the soldiers are making a right mess of things.



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I'm so going to enjoy kicking his ass.


But look who's beside him, it's Yang! Who apparently thinks we're the enemy, and sics his sexist guardsmen on us. They were easy enough to deal with, even if they loved to spam Pig and Mini on us, which was surprisingly annoying to deal with.

After that, we had to beat up Yang, which was also easy to deal with, as he employed no clever tricks and just wanted to kick us to death. I admire his simplicity.

Cutscenes ensue. Turns out Leviathan really roughed him up. He got amnesia and promptly followed orders issued by the King. What a guy.

He is promptly called out on his lack of sense by Palom.



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What about Rydia and Edward? Edward's whereabouts are unknown, but he gives us an update on Rydia:



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That seems pretty fatal.

Cecil and the others need to enter Baron Castle, but there's no obvious way through. Thankfully, Yang has a Master Key (which renames itself Baron Key upon reciept). Guess we have what we need to infiltrate the castle!

Before doing that though, let's explore the town some more. We visit Rosa's mother who is still just as anxious as before about her disappearance. We also pop by Cid's house and encounter his daughter:



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Hmm, trouble at the castle? That matches up with what the pub barkeep had to say:



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Talking about shop owners, we also pay a visit to rob the weapon and armour merchants of their hard earned money. Poor guys never suspected a thing.



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We also encounter Campingway here, who is now Jammingway, the jamming music rabbit thing. We get to listen to the OST, which is nice.

Anyway, we enter the Ancient Waterway. It's a good thing I picked up a Thunder Rod for Palom, because he's just kicking ass against all kinds of fish and alligators. He's definitely my MVP so far.

I could talk more about the Waterway but it's just a standard dungeon, so let's move on and enter Baron Castle!

We arrive at the moat, of course, and quickly enter the castle proper. Let's check in our party's thoughts:



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I'm pretty genre savvy. I can sense something happening to the King from the very beginning of the game. I've got a theory: let's see if it holds.

But the castle is eerily quiet. It's so quiet, we can even afford to sleep in Cecil's bedchambers without any repercussions.



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Sure Cecil, infiltrate the castle, have a nap. Seems right.

After Cecil's nap, we venture into the castle towards the main hall. Hey, it's Baigan!



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He's soooo going to betray us, right?

Almost immediately, Palom and Porom see through him.



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Turns out all it took was some shade from Palom for Baigan to show his true colours: a weird, twin-snake armed dancing freak.

I'm sure his battle had a gimmick to it, but I just spammed Twincast twice and ended the battle amid a flurry of falling stars:



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After the battle we get some sage life advice from Palom:



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Which is some fantastic grief counselling, right after his friend's death.

On a question though, how well did we get to know Baigan? He popped up for five minutes in the opening, and didn't say much, so I guess we're supposed to assume Cecil and Baigan regularly had drinks at the local, then. Don't worry Cecil, you'll get another drinking buddy.

At the Throne Room, it turns out I was being far too prophetic.

Surprise! The King is actually another great fiend in disguise, Cagnazzo. Never would have thought.



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He even looks more evil. And he transforms into a huge, kinda creepy looking tortoise and is the Archfiend of Water, though his most annoying moves are to spam sleep (I did not have enough alarm clocks for this fight).



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It wasn't difficult, per se, just frustrating. He kept spamming status moves which forced me to keep healing, and he cast Slow at one point which affected everyone, forcing me to haste, as Esuna insurance didn't factor in slow.

In the end though, he fell, and Cid escapes from... somewhere to greet us. We give him a plot update concerning Rosa, and compel him to join us on his airship. We're on our merry way before Cagnazzo appears again to crush us against the walls.

What is it with undead archfiends? Just stay dead, damn it!



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Our heroes do their best to be blundering idiots, as short-sighted heroes are wont to do in these situations:



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Just burn the door down with a fire spell! And don't tell me magic doesn't work outside of combat because a fire spell being used to melt down an obstacle was a plot point earlier.



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Having failed to think of magic, everyone defaults to Plan B, which is the ingenious plan to push the wall back. Photo evidence above indicates this was a stupid plan.

Turns out Palom and Porom do the only sensible thing and twincast Break on themselves, while also breaking the treasured censorship rule of not killing children. This game just kicked up a notch.

Tellah finally thinks to use magic, but to no avail, because of a helpful message pop-up.



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I'll miss those two, not only because they provide some nice comic relief, but they're far more clever than they initially let on and their combat power is incredible.

Now all I have a physical monk, a decent fighter in Cecil who barely knows any white magic and a powerful, if terribly fuel-inefficient mage.

Meanwhile, at the villain's lair, Rosa has lost all circulation in her arms at this point, yet is still managing to put on a brave face:



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Kain and Golbez hatch a plan to convince Cecil to retrieve the Earth Crystal in exchange for Rosa but - surprise surprise - they plan to kill him afterwards. Because they're nefarious villains, of course.

Still curious as to why Golbez is collecting these crystals. Is it just for the power?



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Kain promptly shows up after we get the Starship Enterprise and parlays with us.

Not much for us to do but turn up at Troia and hope for the best then! And maybe phone up the elder and inform him that Palom and Porom are dead. Whoops.

Tune in next time while we fly around our airship, go to some optional areas, and generally forget that we need to get to the Earth Crystal quick before Rosa's arms drop off.

[Formalhaut]

In this episode I largely excise the two or three days spent farming for a Rainbow Pudding. I do this so you don't have to!

So we begin our optional adventure back in Baron Castle, believe it or not.


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The guards are very apologetic that they allowed an evil Archfiend to usurp the throne. Which does beg the question of who actually runs the Kingdom of Baron.

We explore a bit and uncover some treasures that were previously hidden in the east wing of the Castle, but heading down into the basement, we stumble upon a fascinating discovery:



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Hey! It's the actual King of Baron! I'm guessing Cagnazzo chained him down here, but that still doesn't explain why he needs us to visit this land. I mean, he seems healthy enough. Can't he rule now? So many questions!

We leave Baron and revisit Mysidia to tell the elder that - whoops! - we killed his child apprentices.

He takes the news surprisingly well, all things considered.



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We get some augments from the elder, who promptly decides to continue gazing into the sky and presumably suffer from eye damage from starting into the sun. As opposed to, I don't know, fetching Palom and Porom's statues. I can only imagine what the guards are thinking back in Baron.

Next up, we visit the Town of Troia to meet up with an old and soon-to-be annoying friend, Namingway.



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Uh-oh.

We decide to help Cheatingway along by stalling with the first date while he 'deals with' the second, presumably by dumping her body in the bottom of the well.

This small sidequest is simple enough, and actually reminds me a bit of the kind of humour you'd find in FFVII during the Midgar segment. So anyway, we try to stall the first lady, who turns out to be the bartender. Well, this'll be easy, bartenders love small talk. And it's a bar so they'll have plenty of drinks available.



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Smurfing what?

Cecil is such a White Knight.

Cheatingway thanks us for our efforts, and leaves Cecil to drink his goddamn milk.



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Or he would be able to drink his milk like some primary school kid, if he hadn't found himself in FFIV's version of the Honeybee Inn.



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It even comes with authentic creepy clients!

The only other thing in Troia is this guy who continues to add onto the mystery of Baron Castle:



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Oh and finally, a woman who sunbathes in a full-length dress:



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After enjoying the many pleasures of Troia, Cecil and the others make way for the town of Mythril, which - you guessed it - sells Mythril equipment. Located on the far eastern archipelago of whatever FFIV calls 'the world', Mythril is home to the land of transmogrified people.

Yup, Mythril is full of tiny folk, pigs and frogs, who presumably couldn't afford a healer to just cast Esuna on them.

Anyway in Mythril we pop by the shops and get what we need. We also encounter upon an interesting event.



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Uuuuh?

That was it for Mythril, pretty much, but the town sells some fantastic items so I can finally cure the transmogrification ailments.

Cecil sets sail for Agart next, the central southern island, and we encounter THIS GUY:



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Cheatingway becomes Puddingway, the most annoying of his nine lives.

So he asks us to find a Rainbow Pudding, which sounds nice, but can only be found on flan-type enemies, and they have a 0.4% chance of dropping. Per battle.

Now I'm sure veterans of FFIV were saying "oh Formy just do it later when you get treasure hunter". Which is a good point, except you get treasure hunter after completing all the maps, so that basically makes it an endgame thing, and I'd be damned if I was just going to ignore a major sidequest for over half the game.

So after killing many yellow jellies:



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And I mean many, the gauge maxes out at 999:



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YOU'RE WELCOME.

Tune in next time as we explore the rest of what Agart has to offer and explore the monster-filled environs of Eblan Castle.

[Pumpkin]

Glad you finally got the item!

Also I was so upset when the twins sacrificed themselves :(

[Formalhaut]

Breezed through Troia, so the next update will be tomorrow!

[Formalhaut]

In this episode, we conclude the optional side-tracking that we started last episode, exploring the strange town of Agart before we visit mysterious Eblan Castle early on to raid some juicy goodies from the castle!

But first, we roam around Agart, talking to the locals and getting a feel for the area. I mean, we might as well be a tourist while we're here.

Let's talk to the friendly locals about what Agart has to offer!


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Oh, um, okay, I was just asking where the weaponsmith was, but that's cool I guess.

Let's talk to this local instead.



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We find out that the occasional earthquake is nothing to be afraid of. I mean, the houses look so quakeproof.

In fact people are very open to talking about history.



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Haha, Anne Cesters, Ancestors, I get it. :eyebrow:

Meanwhile, also at the inn, we meet yet another dancer.



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The Underworld?! :erm:

Pretty much the only sane place in Agart is the observatory, and even that has some kooky characters.



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In the observatory, we get to talk to said husband upstairs, who is actually called Sir Corio, where he detects some interesting activity going on.



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Yup, crimson red. That's not unsettling.

Beyond talking to the villagers, we also restock in Agart and complete some of the bestiary in the surrounding area. I snag Cecil a really awesome Stoneblade from one of the monsters!

After doing that, Cecil and the others go off piste and travel to the lonely southwestern island. There's a really freaky looking tower:



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But what we want is further south. A castle is there, utterly abandoned. It's fairly creepy. There aren't even any random encounters. We venture deeper into the castle, and the twin towers possess several goodies, including a Blood Lance, and a few dry ethers!

There's a few monsters hiding inside boxes, though. Exactly how they could fit inside these chests is beyond me, but there you go. We fight some mad ogres, lamias, coeurls and more. Ordinarily, these would be very difficult fights at this stage of the game, but I leveled up some from the pudding hunt so it was okay.

Even with the levels though, probably the best strategy is Stop+Break, which all these enemies were susceptible to. In the end, the castle raid is complete, and I get some great goodies for it.

Next time, we visit Troia Castle and defeat the evil Dark Elf (so fantasy) to rescue the Earth Crystal!

[Formalhaut]

In this episode, we finally go visit Troia Castle and meet with the Epopts to secure the Earth Crystal.

So we enter Troia Castle and my God that music. It is so good:


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So serene and peaceful! And even the Castle looks nicer, with crystal blue water and the addition of statues on the main bridge:



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As Tellah outlines in a thought-bubble, the Earth Crystal allows the land of Troia to flourish. One wonders what all the other crystals did. I mean, the Fire Crystal doesn't have an obvious use, or does it?

Anyway, we move on and talk to everyone we see, like a good RPG player. For the most part, we're given a very warm welcome.



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Troia is run by the Epopts, apparently, who are all women! We learn more about them in a moment.

One thing that I've noticed is Troia is that Cecil must be some kind of jerk, based off of the reactions inside the castle:



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So we learn Cecil is a misogynist. I mean, he keeps hiring women to dance for him in all the various towns (alternate character interpretation).

Talking about low-key misogyny, we get an author's saving throw about the costumes here:



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Because you can't have a strong matriarchal society without putting the guardswomen in skimpy uniforms! They can't even wear those without commenting on fashion.

Swiftly moving on, a guard with more armour explains the political nature of Troia:



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Also in this main hall area, we find out that someone from Damcyan has washed up on Troia's shores. Hmm, could it be Edward? I enter the infirmary and talk to one of the healers, who gives the victim a backhanded prognosis:



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We approach the bed and, sure enough, it's Edward!



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Oh no, just stay in bed Edward. We don't need your help. No really please, just rest up. I'm begging you. Don't join us in combat.

We fill Edward in on some details, like what happened to us after the ship wreck and why Cecil has decided to grow his hair long.



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Edward in kind gives us an update on the Earth Crystal: surprise surprise, it isn't here:



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Well, isn't that peachy.

We might as well visit the Epopts and have them tell us the exact same thing.



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Yes, I imagine most creatures are vulnerable to metal swords.




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Oh, well that's a clever monster.

So Cecil and the others head back into Troia Town and I basically make everyone re-equip. Some people were fine, like Yang, but Cecil basically had to undergo a full costume change and wield a very terrible 'Fireshard' which does measly damage. I imagine he won't be very helpful to me in the next dungeon.

To get to the Lodestone Cavern, we need to take a Purple Chocobo because the airship can't land in forests, for obvious reasons. We take the Chocobo onto an island north of Troia's mainland, and venture into the cavern!



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Cid helpfully tells us this when we were *already* in the cavern.

Anyway, it's a fairly short dungeon. Cecil was pretty useless swinging what looked like a hot dog on a stick around, so Tellah and Yang were indispensible. Especially Yang, as his Flame Claws worked great against the enemies. But Tellah and his flame rod could rack up the damage as well.

I don't normally comment on dungeons much, because there's not really a lot to say, but look, it's a Mindflayer! I actually first saw one in FFXII so it is nice seeing some enemies in their original appearances.



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Eventually we make it to the Dark Elf.

This was what I was expecting:


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Instead, we get:



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NOT okay.

Turns out we get easily trashed in a scripted fight, so our heroes are doomed...



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Apparently, Edward has a sixth sense. He decides to get our of bed, despite whatever vague illness he's suffering from, and help us out with the power of music.



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Apparently the Dark Elf really hates Edward's music, so maybe Edward's just an awful Harpist?

Either way, his music stuns the Dark Elf, meaning he can't weight down our equipment. We're given the opportunity to re-equip and fight the Dark Elf once again. Halfway through the fight he turns into a Dark Dragon, but honestly he's just easy.



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Huzzah! We exit the cave and return to Troia Castle.

Back at the Castle, Edward explains how he did what he did:



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Proving once and for all that he isn't so useless. We also get his augments, meaning we're at the end of the line with him I think.

We head back into the Epopts chambers, but suddenly we're accosted by the evil purple aura of villainy.



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So, that's ominous.



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For rescuing the Earth Crystal however, we're given access to Troia's vaults, so yeah!

That's it for this episode. In the next one, we head to this mysterious tower and see what the hell happens next!

Also, bonus Troia Castle video:



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[Pumpkin]

Goo job Edward!

I like Troia

[Spuuky]

Mindflayers are from FF1 tho (well, they're from D&D which is from- anyway FF1 is their first FF appearance).

[Formalhaut]

In this plot-heavy episode of FFIV, we enter the mysterious Tower of Zot and say farewell to a party member in tragic if predictable fashion.

We board our airship and immediately are visited by Kain.


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Soon enough, we find ourselves at the Tower of Zot. Weirdly, the Tower of Zot appears to reside in the skies; our airships travels vertically and fades to black to get to the tower.

Inside the tower,Kain challenges us to scale the tower towards Rosa, who is naturally on the top floor of the Tower. Unfortunately, Rosa doesn't have long hair for us to climb up, so we're gonna have to do this the traditional way: killing a ton of enemies.



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This place is pretty swish, going through it. It's got a nice steampunky gear vibe. The dungeon's music's only average though.




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The Tower of Zot is surprisingly small. It only has roughly five floors to it, and there's no hidden gimmicks like super-secret passages or invisible treasure. Just a floor, a few branching paths, and some chests. And enemies. The enemies were fine.

One interesting enemy is called the Soldier...ess? I mean that term doesn't even exist. A female soldier is a soldier, and is called as such.



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Also their outfits are dumb. Just saying.

On the penultimate floor of the Tower, some strange women suddenly appear before us.



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They're pretty evil. Also, they're The Magus Sisters! FF experts, do they appear in a previous game, or is this their first appearance? Because I only know them from their rather more insectoid appearance in FFX.

Anyway, so their Delta Attack, unlike in FFX, is far less deadly. All it involves is Sandy casting Reflect on Cindy, while Mindy bounces off that magic. I mean, it all sounds highly convoluted. They'd be better off just attacking.

Their 'killer' strategy is also easily dismantled.



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So what I did here was silence Sandy so she fails to cast silence. Unfortunately for Cindy, Mindy doesn't realise this and casts a cool blizzara on her own ally.

Suffice to say it was all too easy. They were tripping themselves up with their strategy and that gave me plenty of time to just wail on them with my strongest attacks.

Gotta say I'm appreciating how status ailments play a factor more in this game. I've already had to use Slow, Break, and now Silence proves really useful.

Anyway, they're defeated, and we move on to the top floor.

Once we arrive, huge cutscene! We approach Golbez, demanding Rosa. He gives the classic villain response.



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Tellah's had enough and finally decides to enact Super-Mega-Revenge-Plot. Let's see how that pans out.



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Golbez develops a growth spurt between the cutscene and the battle. He positively dwarfs Tellah.

Well, I say 'battle', because unlike other plot battles we can't even do any actions. We just watch Tellah cast -ga tier spells like they were small gusts of wind.

Eventually Tellah decides to go for it and unleah Meteor. It's got a pretty badass animation.



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This goes exactly how you'd expect.



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Despite appearances, Golbez is actually slightly wounded from Meteor, causing his mind control of Kain to break.



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Despite his injuries, Golbez opens a can of whoopass on Cecil but strangely decides to stay his hand for as-of-yet unknown reasons.

Golbez leaves us to grieve Tellah, who is clinging to life. Cue a sad cutscene, undercut by Cid's cartoonishly large mouth and voice.



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And so that's the end of Tellah's revenge plot. As revenge plots goes, it was pretty obvious where it was going. His hate-filled revenge was never going to go well.

At least we didn't have several chapters of teen angst, like the other FF revenge plot I can recall.

Anyway, we wake up Kain, who is full of apologies and doubt about whether his actions were all mind-controlled or not.

We quickly scale the Tower to save Rosa.



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I'd only just realised just how skimpy Rosa's outfit is. She's basically wearing undergarments with a nice flowy cape.

Anyway, the happy couple embrace.



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Creepy.



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Good ol' Cid here with the lampshade hanging.



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Anyway, Kain explains his (also intensely creepy) motivations. "I just wanted you by my side, all tied up."

Now that we have Rosa and Kain back, I take the time to re-equip everyone and dole out some augments. I got three augments from Tellah, and I gave some of those to Yang. Rosa got Dualcast, so she can buff and heal more more efficiently.

Anyway, we no sooner enjoy this moment than the next archfiend appears: Barbariccia.



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The main gimmick with this fight is when barbariccia enters her tornado form. Foreshadowed in the cutscene before the fight, our returning ally Kain is the only person who can break through the form. His Jump attack knocks her out of the potentially deadly form, disabling her from using her strongest attack.

All in all, another easy-ish fight. Honestly the main concern at this point is Rosa's astonishingly low health. Other than that, the fight was easy enough after Yang focused three times.

After the fight is ended, Barbariccia gloats that we won't be able to fight the fourth (and presumably strongest?) archfiend. That, and she decides to do the age-old trick of destroying the Tower. Rosa gets us out of a bind by casting Teleport and we land in Cecil's bedchambers. Case of Freudian Magic, perhaps?

Either way, Kain reveals a shocking surprise: turns out there's four Dark Crystals in the underworld, of all places.

What's this all for? Kain has some news for us as well:


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So, Golbez's plan is to gather the crystals and go to the moon because... there's clearly something bigger at play here.

So our path is set: find a way into the underworld and capture the Dark Crystals before Golbez does. If I know my RPGs, I sense we'll ultimately try hard and fail to do so. No harm in trying though, right!

Tune in next time where we re-visit a place we've been to before, uncover the entrance to the underworld and say hello to yet another old friend.

[Pumpkin]

Excellent update, glad Rosa is back!

Rest in RIP in peace Tellah

[Spuuky]

No earlier version, FFIV is the real Magus Sisters game.

[Formalhaut]

I see Spuuky's turned into my resident 'where did this monster appear' fact checker!

[Spuuky]

I can continue to serve this purpose until you move to a higher-numbered game.

[Formalhaut]

In this episode of FFIV, Cecil and the others descend into the Underworld of the land to seek the Dark Crystals. We encounter an old friend and defeat some enemies! We also say 'lali-ho!' to the Dwarves, which would make a really harsh drinking game if you had to drink to each and every lali-ho.

So we start off in Cecil's bedchamber. The game doesn't really give you many hints as to where to go, and you're expected to ask around to find out that Agart is the place to go. Thankfully, I already visited Agart and found out about their Dwarven ancestry, earthquakes and general weirdness. Yup, definitely the place to go.

Sure enough, we visit Agart's big ol' well.


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As is typical for Agart, weirdness happens.



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You and me both, Cecil, you and me both.

Turns out the magma stone plot coupon we were just given has an effect in Agart, causing a surprisingly dramatic event to take place.



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So uh... yeah apparently the magma stone causes a massive hole in the world. Seems legit.

We fly our Enterprise through the big hole and enter into another world: the Underground. It's pretty hot, just like the weather today.

Because we have the worst luck, we find outselves in the middle of a pitched battle.



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Turns out Golbez couldn't wait to venture down beneath the land. But those tanks? They're new to me!

Anyway, because Cid is the worst pilot ever, he guides us right in the middle of this pitched battle. This goes about as well as you'd expect.



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Well gee, I wonder why that is.

Anyway, we crash-land, thankfully not in the lava. Suffering from the intense heat, we work our way towards the only settlement in the area. I am shocked how Kain can even survive in full armour.



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At least her stripperific outfit keeps her cool, I guess.

Anyway, we enter the castle. Look who it is, guys! DRINK!



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And how. To save on screenshots I didn't screenshot every lali-ho but just play through this section to a lali-ho drinking game, talking to everyone, and tell me you won't get smashed by the time you leave.

We talk to the Dwarven King, who's pleased that we aren't currently ashes in the lava sea.



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We ask for an update on the Dark Crystals. Sadly, Golbez already has two of them, one is right here and the other is in a place literally called the Sealed Cave. The Dwarves love those practical, straight-to-the-point names.



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The King asks for Cid's airship to aid in the defence, so Cid leaves us to plate the Enterprise with mythril to protect against heat. So we're down to four once more.

Meanwhile, we enter the Crystal Chamber upon hearing a strange noise. Turns out somebody is spying on us!

As it happens, the super-secret hiding spot isn't so secure because the spy was already in the Crystal Chamber. Whoops. Doesn't anybody post guards in these rooms anymore?



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Turns out creepy dolls are involved. Which I could guess from Chekov's statement as we entered the foyer before meeting the King:



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Goddamn it, Luca.

Anyway, we fight the dolls. They have this very annoying strategy of merging to form one big doll which actually packs a pretty big punch, but the fight is more of a slog than anything else. Having Protect and Slow up at all times was a huge help. Kain basically stayed out of trouble by jumping all the time.

In the end, the dolls are defeated but not before letting Golbez know where we are. As if on cue, look who turns up, bringing all the sass with him.



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Daaaayuum.

Golbez proceeds to do that thing only villains seem to do, which is show up and reveal their evil plan for the evulz.

He needs all the crystals, obviously. But to what end?



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The moon has incredible power, and he wants it. As evil plans goes it seems simple enough. But we're here to stop him! Right guys?



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Oh.

Well turns out the fight was unwinnable, so that's alright. Golbez continues to gloat as he downs the team. But look who's here to save the day?

It's Rydia! Well, actually, it's Adult!Rydia now. For some reason. I'm sure we'll find out. She proceeds to lay the beatdown on Golbez with just a little help from her friends.



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I've got to say, the summon animations seem really cool. I'm impressed. Also this is the first time I have Ramuh as a summon in the FF series, so hello to him!

The fight is over, and Golbez is seemingly finished. Rydia stands with us. It's obviously we've got some catching up to do.



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Tune out next time as we end on this cliffhanger. In the next episode, we finish up our reunion with Rydia, recieve some new instructions from the Dwarven King, and proceed to ignore them in favour of roaming the castle for goodies. You'll be surprised what's lurking in the castle!

Next episode will be tomorrow as I already have all the pictures ready. See you soon!

[Pumpkin]

Yaaay Rydia is back!

[Formalhaut]

In this breather episode, we finish up with Rydia's arrival before exploring the Dwarven Castle for all kinds of surprises and secrets!

Where we left off, we had just finished defeating Golbez. With our backs turned, we listen to Rydia's story.


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She also tells us that she can no longer use White Magic, but her Black Magic and Summoning Arts have really strengthened, which is convenient because Rosa is our resident White Mage.

Rydia also tells us that the Queen of the Feymarch warns of future events to come, prompting her to help Cecil and Kain despite what happened at Mist.

Heartwarming though this is, the team lets their guard down. Golbez was only faking it! He rises up and takes the Dark Crystal from under our noses! Grrr!

Why we didn't, I don't know, check he was dead, or at least tie him up, or surround him with guards, is beyond me. But nevermind, what's done is done.

The Dwarven King tells us that Golbez is heading to the Sealed Cave to get the last remaining Dark Crystal. However, we concoct a crazy plan to infiltrate Golbez's base of operations right here in the Underground: the Tower of Babil.



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It is certainly an ambitious plan, but that's for laters. For now, let's get exploring!

First up, we visit the pub. As you do after a major boss battle. Inside, we encounter a drunken dwarf who also doubles as a dancer.



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Also in the pub, we encounter Namingway.



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Oh my. :erm:

We chat to Mopingway again, who turns irate at us for no reason whatsoever.



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We enter into the easiest fight ever, effortlessly dispatching him. Thanks to our inspirational bitch-slap, Mopingway decides to get himself out of the gutter and improve his life! I'm sure we'll be seeing him again.



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In a certain section of the castle, we enter a really strange place called the Developers' Office. It is a very strange place.

We talk to someone who affirms robbery.



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Turns out these are all people who helped make the game. Each one has a little interaction that can go from amusing, to bizarre and back again.



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Turns out if you reject Riezo, she turns into an incredibly difficult monster which is basically impossible to defeat.



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In the graphics department...



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Talking to everyone and fulfilling a few easy optional objectives gives us the 'Reach' augment, which does something. I don't know, I haven't looked at it yet. But that's cool!

In the basement, we learn that the Dwarves call the Fat Chocobo something rather different.



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It's interesting they revere chocobos so much because from what I can tell there aren't any normal chocobos in the Underworld.

Finally, someone around here tells us a bit about what we might encounter in the Tower of Babil.



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What's an Autarch?


Guess we'll find out in the next episode of FFIV as we infiltrate the Tower of Babil and try and steal all seven Dark Crystals. It's a bold move: will our heroes succeed? (probably not)

[Pumpkin]

Go home Namingway, you're drunk

[Formalhaut]

In this dark episode of FFIV, two more party members die in tragic circumstances. At this point, we might as well start placing bets on who it'll be next.

But that's for the thrilling climax! Before I started taking screenshots and actually, you know, play the game, I did some grinding. Didn't take so long, but now Rydia and Rosa have more health, which is a definite boon. Rydia started with sub-1000 HP, can you believe it? Now she's Level 42 and sports all the -ga spells, and combined with Bluff she can do some serious damage.

Grinding done, let's scale the Tower. As we approach, we start to hear some tank fire.


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They stop firing just long enough for us to enter the main entrance without getting blasted to bits, so that's kind of them.

Inside, things seem... too quiet. Rosa also makes a comment about the design of the Tower. It seems very different from what else we've seen. The monsters though aren't so different, with only a few new ones. There's a Security Eye that summons a Flamehound when attacked - which at this point of the game is the toughest enemy - but with my ice weapons, they're a breeze.

So we go through the tower, picking up chests, fighting monsters, collecting our map bonuses. All exciting, standard dungeon stuff.

On the highest level though...



72409


Rubicante! He gloats about sacking Eblan Castle for a bit with this Doctor Lugae character. He promptly takes off to do... something. Doctor Lugae seems very happy about this.



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Rydia calling it how it is. Rosa quickly tells her to shh, but...



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This is like an episode of Scooby-Doo.

We promptly get ourselves into a boss battle.


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Just like an episode of Scooby-Doo, we've got a wacky doctor and his creation who comically misunderstands commands.

Anyway, this fight's easy. His creation goes down like the partially assembled mess it is. Doctor Lugae then ASSUMES DIRECT CONTROL of his creation and goes at us again.


72416


Again, easy. Rydia just Thundaga's the smurf out of it.

Let's unmask the villain, like meddling kids!


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GAH!

Doctor Lugae turns into whatever that is. The main gimmick in this fight is the use of reversal gas. This basically means that when it is in effect, attacks heal, and healing magic hurts. As long as you plan around this it isn't so bad and can even be useful: Rosa dual-casting Curaja is powerful.

Doctor Lugae falls for the final time, telling us the Crystals are in the even-more-upper levels on the surface. He also cackles about the cannons charging up to defeat the dwarves. Drat!


With Doctor Lugae's key, we rush to the cannon controls.


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We beat up the goblin captains who are manning the cannons (Golbez's regime giving equal opportunities to monsters apparently). Despite the fact that we literally beat them in a fight, we allow them to scamper back up to the controls to activate them.

Yang steps in to save the day, and literally kicks us out the room so we


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72396


Of course, our characters aren't having it.


72397


But alas, it's too late.


72398


And another party member bites the dust.

Naturally, everyone is upset about this. And so am I, Yang was one of my top characters for fighting. So powerful.


72399
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We rush ourselves out of the tower, but as we exit, the strangely familar blue aura of doom surrounds us.


72401


Uh-oh.

We scarper fast, what with the bridge crumbling from behind us.


72402


We make a giant leap to Cid's awaiting airship.


72403


But we're being caught up the Red Wings craft.


72404


In this desperate situation (we've had a few of those this episode), Cid comes up with a solution.


72405
72406


Cid detonates his bomb and seals the entrance to the Underworld. Which seems fatal.

And another party member down. Gosh this game is rough.


We decide to head back to Baron, on Cid's final instructions. Flying back, the dwindling party looks resolute.


72407


Tune in next time when we do... something. The game doesn't really give us much of a clue as to the next plot point. Suppose we'll head to Baron and find out!

[Formalhaut]

In this episode of FFIV, we rest up at Baron Castle and plot a way to enter the Tower of Babil once more, meeting a new party member along the way.

So when we last left off, we suffered a half-party wipe with both Yang and Cid dying to save the Dwarves and ourselves. At the last, Cid told us to head back to Baron.

Unsure of what to expect, we go speak to Cid's engineers.


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This way we'll be able to reach our next destination, which is the Cave of Eblan. It's almost as if the engineers knew where I wanted to go next.

We get the upgrades and use the handy hook to retrieve our hovercraft, which is still right up by Mt. Hobs.



72517


Rydia gets nostalgic about the hovercraft, apparently.



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We fly southwest to Eblan. Remember how we ransacked Eblan Castle earlier in an optional jaunt? Well turns out the survivors are holed up in a cave not far from the Castle. It kinda makes you wonder how Golbez's forces haven't already found where they live, seeing how they occupy the one cave system in the entire continent here.



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Sure enough, here they are, a five minute walk from the cave's entrance.

Cecil and the others restock and talk to the survivors.



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I'm guessing we'll bump into this prince soon enough. He sounds nothing like Edward, that's for sure.



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See, Eblan Castle fell because they didn't go into the Samurai job class and learn Shirahadori and become immune to all physical damage.

Elsewhere in this little cave, there's an equipment shop where we sell a lot of stuff we no longer need, like staves, claws and hammers that are no longer in use. And there's even an inn, though I'm not sure how many visitors they'd get.

Rested up, we enter the next section of the cave and open a ton of treasures in just two maps.

Once we reached the end...



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Harsh burn.

Being the reckless guy he is, Edge enters into combat.



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Not seen is Edge automatically using a fire attack against the Autarch of Flame.

This goes about as well as you'd expect.



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Rubicante proceeds to flash us with his vulgar body and wreck Edge. He then leaves us to scold Edge for his stupidity. Edge still isn't happy.



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Well Rydia isn't having none of that.



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This makes Edge reconsider his stance, and he allows us to join him up the Tower of Babil



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Rosa cures him.



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With only Cura, even though she has Curaja at this point so that tells us how much Rosa values Edge's safety. Rydia is sceptical of this Edge as well.



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Spoken by a child who rapidly aged up to be an adult!



72532



Tune in next time as we scale the Tower of Babil once more!

[Pumpkin]

Rosa's just conserving her MP!

The hovercraft looks teeny next to Rosa x)

[Formalhaut]

In this episode, we scale the Tower of Babil once more to snatch the seven crystals from under Golbez's nose. Yes, I know it seems like we've been at the part of the story for awhile. Don't worry though, we won't be scaling the tower for a third time.

I think.

Anyway, so where we left off, Edge had just gotten trounced by Rubicante, the archfiend of fire and the last one standing. Rubicante vanishes, and we're left babysitting a character who is like, a good fifteen levels or so behind us. I'm sure he'll be fine!

:shobon:

To compensate, I give him the 'Reach' augment which allows him to deal front-row damage from a back-row position, which'll help him as he's a fragile speedster type. He still does pretty pants damage, but I'm sure he'll (eventually) become a damage-dealer.

Edge, Cecil and the others go back to the Tower, where Edge sneaks us back in through the power of spinning round and round super fast.


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Just put it down to mad ninja skills, I guess. We traipse around getting map bonuses and generally laying down the hurt on enemies. I notice Edge has a stealing ability but honestly it has a fairly low chance of success with most enemies (16% or so) so I ignore it.

Eventually we reach an area that holds... huh?



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Uh-oh. This isn't going to go well, is it.




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It even comes complete with totally-not-threatening ellipses... yes...



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Yep, they're monsters.



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Edge talks to them to try and make them see sense. Meanwhile we just keep attacking them because there's not much else to do, really.

On and on this goes for a few minutes actually until eventually...



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72683


The King and Queen of Eblan die, leaving Edge to his grief. Doesn't it make you want to cry?



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As if taking his cue, Rubicante appears to tell us how emotional we are. After Edge's parents died. How dare us!




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He also tells us how exactly they became monsters. Turns out our good ol' friend Dr. Lugae did it. Which does sound like something he'd do.




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Tapping into his inner anger, Edge finds something within himself to go super-saiyan and unlock his latent powers.



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It's a classic 'the bad guy cannot comprehend emotion' but it's effective nonetheless. Let's show Rubicante the power of emotion!

Rubicante throws down the gaunlet like he's reciting a passage from Dante's Inferno.



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He even fully heals us beforehand, like a gentleman. A fiery, evil gentleman.



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So we go into combat with the final archfiend. He's actually laughably easy. The main thing to do is steal from him whenever he opens his mantle. This causes us to steal his manhood and emasculate him into cancelling his ultimate attack. The real reason is probably different, but I like that interpretation.

Edge is on steal duty, and everyone else just attacks. I'm done before stealing his second testicle.



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Ah, we beat him not only with the power of our emotions, but also with the cliche power of friendship!

He disappears, just in time for the calvary arrive and do nothing. Edge's people want him to help rebuild Eblan, but after giving Edge the crib note version of Golbez's plan, he wants to join us.

So away we go into the Crystal Chamber, but we're defeated by a smurfing trapdoor. What are we, novice explorers?



72692


We die from massive fall damage and the game ends.

Haha, just kidding! We're completely unharmed. Our plan thwarted by the trapdoor of all things (what happened to Edge's people who were behind us?) we have to escape the Tower through a side-exit. We get the consolation prize out of it however: a brand new airship!



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It just rises out the earth like it was nothing, so we quickly fly back to the Dwarven King to tell him the bad news.

He seems remarkably non-plussed by our failure. Instead, he tells us about what's happening over at the Sealed Cave.



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He's still at it. By this point he might as well dig himself a new entrance.

The King wants us to go check on the Sealed Cave. To do so, he gives us his daughter's necklace, which is the key to the seal. Clever.

To get there though, we'll need mythril plating on our airship, the Falcon. We head to the infirmary, and look who's here...



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Yup, it's Cid. who apparently survived exploding himself and a hole in the earth's crust. Remember that? It certainly didn't look survivable.

Well everyone's glad to see him but Edge, who wastes no time being honest and arrogant, just like Cid.



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Despite being bedridden, Cid wastes no time single-handedly putting mythril on our airship through the power of montage.



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He then plonks himself back in his bed and goes to sleep. Seems fair enough.

With Cid alive, maybe Yang is alive too...



72700


Before the Sealed Cave, there's a whole host of optional areas now that we can fly over lava! So tune in next time while we visit some of the places the underground has to offer.

[Pumpkin]

Yeah how Cid survived is...

I have no idea

[Formalhaut]

In this optional side-tracking episode of FFIV, we explore some of the different, hidden regions of the underworld and enter through a treacherous cave to encounter yet another companion who should be dead but totally isn't.

So we start our side-tracking adventure by heading due south and west of the Dwarven Castle to arrive at a small town called Tomra. It's pretty quaint, all things considered, with friendly dwarves. Lali-ho!


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WHAT.

We... um... 'hi-ho' to the locals and raid some of their items they've left lying around, because this is an RPG.

Don't worry though, it isn't stealing, they're asking for it.

No, really!



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The dwarven idea of 'souvenir' is different, to say the least. Instead of postcards, I get bomb fragments. Maybe they're trying to tell me something?

Not all of our companions are impressed by Tomra's hospitality.



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In spite of Edge, Tomra has some awesome items and equipment that I purchase and equip.

Moving on east to the southeast corner, we encounter a rather isolated building.



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Inside, it is indeed a forge, though one that isn't currently active. Upstairs, we find the forgemaster:



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He seems to be in a bit of a slump, apparently. We leave him to it, though I'm sure we'll be visiting him again.

From the southeast corner, we travel to the northwest landmass to find the Slyph Cave. This cave was mentioned by someone in Tomra.



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True enough, we don't actually see any sylphs at the entrance to the cave, only annoying enemies. Also, the floor is dangerous: I have to use float to negate the damage.

It's also really... marshy.



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But the cave is bright and full of treasures. There's plenty of areas in this cave that have like, three or four chests in them.



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There's also a mysterious sigil that can be found in one of the later areas, that leads to a treasure room full of chests (with monsters in, but also sweet loot).

The main purpose of this area though can be found in a random wooden house located at the very end of the cave.



72710


Hey, it's Yang! He isn't dead, just in a coma. What luck! The Sylphs have been keeping him alive, but aren't really sure what do with him. And neither do we, as it happens. Like the forgemaster, I think this'll be something we'll have to return to later.

We leave the cave and head to a tiny island surrounded by lava. Guess where this particular cave leads?



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One wonders how Rydia actually made it through this cave, seeing how she doesn't know the Float spell, and it's surrounded by an entire ocean of lava.

Either way, we make it through the cave well enough and on the other side we enter the Feymarch.



72713


It's pretty normal-looking, to be honest. All this power, and they're using wood? How did they make it past the lava? The Feymarch is giving us more questions.

Rydia's happy to be back though, as are the generic eidolon NPCs.



72714


We also bump into Mopingway. Thankfully he's turned a corner and is no longer wanting to kill us in a bar fight. Progress!

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Instead, he's met someone else and is very happy. So happy in fact, he wants us to tell us who we have in our hearts.

Because I'm a sap, you can probably guess who I put down.



72716


Moving on swiftly, we restock and purchase some new armour and weapons, and head into the Feymarch's Library.

At the bottom of the library, is a small dank room that supposedly doubles as the throne room. Doesn't look very regal.

We seek Asura's aid, but the code must be obeyed...



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Asura's main trait is hard-hitting attacks coupled with a love of white magic. This is easily rectified though with a casting of reflect. Now Asura heals us!

All in all this is a very easy fight. Cecil draws all her attacks and defends while everyone else just wails on her. She's down pretty quick.

Next up though is the big King, who we finally get to fight. The King is none other than Leviathan, the thing that wrecked our ship a long time ago.



72719


Leviathan is more dangerous. It has a deluge attack that nearly wipes out Edge, but Rosa's on hand to quickly curaja everyone back up to speed. After a dose of shell, it's just up to Rydia to spam Ramuh and target Leviathan's lightning weakness to defeat it. It only has time to cast fairly weak blizzaras.



72720

And with that, we've gained the power of Asura and Leviathan! This'll surely be useful in the fights to come.

This entire Feymarch bit reminds me of Wutai slightly. Optional area, female party member-focused, and you have to defeat your father. Only with less materia-stealing. Everyone's happy!

Tune in next time as well tackle the unseal the Sealed Cave!

[Pumpkin]

The Namingway stuff in this version is pretty neat

[Darth Ganon]

They don't build Cids like they use to.

[Formalhaut]

In this episode, we venture into the Sealed Cave and secure the final Dark Crystal! We screwed up once so we can't screw up again, surely!

So we start all the more powerful from our adventures in the Sylph Cave and Feymarch. We journey to the Sealed Cave that - true to its name - is sealed on all sides by rock.



72762


We use Luca's Necklace to open the seal and away we go! The dungeon's main gimmick is the use of ropes to climb down into the deeper regions of the cave.

Strangely, even though I'm using Kain on the field, only Cecil has the power to climb down ropes.



72763


Kain complains it is too quiet.



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Don't know about you Kain, but the cave seems busy enough.



72765


Though it's true that Golbez and his forces are nowhere to be seen.

Instead the main thing in this cave is a crap-ton of trap doors. They would be very difficult: their Ninth Dimension attacks instantly KOs a character, but it can be reflected, and because Cecil has 'Draw Attacks' on, he's always targeted. Rosa, come on down. Rosa can just reflect Cecil and the trap door can defeat itself!

The other enemies aren't particularly difficult, with the exception of the Chimera Brain whose 'Blaze' attack basically halves Edge's health.

Not everyone is impressed with the trap doors.



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Sure enough, we get down to the bottom of the cave and enter the Crystal Chamber. No trap floors here, thank goodness. We get the Dark Crystal!

As we leave though...



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Demon Wall! The walls do have eyes.


The Demon Wall doesn't have any attacks, though if it managed to move towards us, I'm guessing I was screwed. Thankfully, my experience in the Feymarch proved useful, and I killed it with plenty of time to spare.


Trap doors, trap walls, I'm surprised there wasn't any trap floors.

So we just have to make it out of the cave. But something is amiss.



72751


Kain is having a private freakout. And that's not all, his animations haven't been right ever since I gave him an axe and not a spear.



72752


Watch him plant that axe into the... air?

As we reach the entrance, the Golbezy Purple Fog of Doom appears.



72753


So Kain is being mind-controlled. He tries to resist...

Success!



72754


Well that's a relief.



72755


Kain shoves Cecil, which apparently is enough to wrest the Dark Crystal from us. Ugh. Golbez taunts us through a disembodied voice.



72756


Well drat. At least Kain's happy.



72757


Kain scarpers off, and leaves us to tell King Giott the bad news over at the Dwarven Castle. He must hate seeing us return.



72758


The Lunar what?



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Turns out we might be able to call The Lunar Whale in Mysidia. The Elder's been praying there since we left. He'll hold the answer to all our questions...

Tune in next time as we ignore the pressing issues concerning the Lunar Whale and do some optional sidequests!

[Pumpkin]

That Yellow Dragon is super derpy looking

[Formalhaut]

In this episode, we wrap up some last sidequests before we head to Mysidia and witness the reality of the Mysidian Prophecy.

First up, a trip to some cave to give some creepy man a rat's tail, which we found just lying around in a barrel in Tomra.


72782


He's super happy to recieve a rat's tail, so he gives us an Adamantite as (fair?) compensation. Hey... who needs an Adamantite?



72783


Yes, you remember Kokkol of Kokkol's Forge, don't you? In the underworld? He was bedridden in a bit of a funk, but now we've given him a new metal to work with.

He quickly sets down the forge and gets to work. Unusually for an RPG, he isn't ready right away, so we have to come back. We'll return to Mr. Kokkol later to recieve our reward.

Back up to the surface then to head back to the Baron Castle. It's time to complete another sidequest that's been waiting in the wings for a long time.

A loooong time ago, we headed down here to meet the King of Baron. He told us to journey to the Feymarch first before meeting him. Well, we've done just that, so we head back to speak to him.



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I did think it mighty strange that the King of Baron would still be alive after having his Castle taken over, so that clears up that particular mystery.

The King's turned into an eidolon, and he seeks to test our strength so we can summon him. By the Code, apparently. I'm getting Mass Effect 2 callbacks.



http://i.imgur.com/fCo8R1F.gif


The battle actually ends up much like that GIF, to be honest.



72787


So the King of Baron is actually Odin, in what might be his first appearance? FF Fact-checkers?

He's weak to Lightning so Rydia and Edge do some great damage to him through Ramuh and shurikens/Blitz respectively. He's dead by the time you can say 'Zantetsuken!'

So we gain Odin's power! The soul of the former King live on.



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Our final stop in our sidequest journey involves Yang, who is still sleeping down in the Sylph Cave.

We decide to go speak to his wife and tell her the good-ish news.



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:erm:

Thus we get a glance into Yang's marital life.

So we take the frying pan and head back into the Sylph Cave to thwack Yang over the head with a frying pan just like in the good old days.



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This isn't standard medical practice.



72794


Shockingly, it works.



72795


Yang wants to join us, and hey guess what we even have a space in our party for it, but the Sylphs are having none of it, saying he still needs to rest. Well drat.

This makes Edge's job security go through the roof.



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Instead, the Sylphs allow themselves to be summoned in lieu of Yang going, so we get something out of it all along, yay!

Well, that along with saving Yang. That's its own reward! :shifty:

Before heading topside we quickly head over to Kokkol's Forge to recieve our reward: turns out this guy's been working on Excalibur! Awesome! This immediately goes on Cecil.

Topside, we return the frying pan to Yang's wife, because we were always taught when we were little to return what we borrowed.



72797


We get a surprisingly aggressive 'knife' as thanks.

We also go augment hunting. Back in Troia Town, there's a pub with some sort of gentleman's area (gag) which requires you to purchase a Member's Writ. Upstanding citizens we are, we purchase it and head on through the doors.

Inside, we subject poor, sweet Rosa to utter filth.



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At the end of it all, we end up getting the Gil Farmer augment out of it, so it was worth something... right?



---


Sidequests complete, let's head over to Mysidia to get back to the main story.

Upon arrival, the Elder greets us and takes everyone to the Tower of Prayer.



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The Elder and six(!) mages pray for the Lunar Whale to return. The Mysidian prophecy is repeated once again:

Birthed from womb of Dragon's maw
And borne unto the stars
By light and darkness cast aloft
Are dreamtide oaths resworn
Moon is swathed in ever-light
Ne'er again to know eclipse
Earth, with hallow'd bounty reconciled

Yet fleeting is the reverie
When moon from shadow has egressed
Guided forth anew by light made manifest

Two bound by ties of blood
By Time and Fate when wrest apart
Unto lunar light and Gaian breast

They keep praying until...



72800


The Lunar Whale appears! Streaked in a fairly menacing black and red but this is a good-guy ship, honest.



72801
72802


So apparently some voice spoke to the Elder and told him to tell us to go to the Moon and meet this... someone. On the entirety of the moon. I hope the Lunar Whale knows where to find him!

Tune in next time as head to the Moooooooooon!

[Spuuky]

So the King of Baron is actually Odin, in what might be his first appearance? FF Fact-checkers?Sorry, Odin is in FF3 (the first game with Summoner as a job in general).

[Formalhaut]

Sorry it's been delayed this episode!

This time, we journey to the Moon and somehow not suffocate from lack of an atmosphere. If that wasn't shocking enough, we end up getting a new party member! Huh!?

So we start off by inspecting our swanky new spaceship, the Lunar Whale. it's a fantastic piece of engineering, boasting teleportation crystals, sleeping pods, and even our very own Mecha Chocobo.


72964


No more going to Chocobo Forests, now we can look at the bestiary, listen to music, and watch the cutscenes from the comfort of our own ship.

No time to waste gawping however. We've got a job to do!

In the time it takes to boil a kettle, we make it to the Moon.

It looks, well, like a Moon.



72945


It even comes complete with a face. It's kinda rude to stare, though. Disembarking from the ship, we discover to my amazement that we don't immediately die from oxygen deprivation, exposure or radiation. Instead, the only threats to us are these monsters.

So our main goal is this crystal tower in the center of the map. No it isn't FFIII, it's just a smaller crystal tower.

To reach it, we have to traverse a cave system. It's full of glittery stones, but otherwise fairly linear and, well, typical. We get through it fairly quick.

At the end of the cave system though, we arrive to a familar sounding melody and location.

It's certainly familar to Cecil.



72946


In the middle of this blue palace, we meet an old man. His name is Mr. Exposition.



72947


Oh, hello Maechen.



72948
72949
72950


Yes, that's great, Maechen.



72951
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72954


Please, carry on.



72955
72956


Well, crap.

Next, Maechen talks about Cecil's father. Plot twist!



72957
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72958


Cecil correctly deduces that the voice on Mount Ordeals was the disembodied voice of his father.

What a day, huh?



72960


He's the main character of an RPG. Something like this was bound to happen.

Mae- I mean Fusoya, joins our party to stop this new threat. For now though, we haven't quite yet finished exploring everything on the Moon.

Over to the east, there's a place called Lair of the Father. No, not Cecil's father. The father of the eidolons, Bahamut.

To reach him, we have to get through this long cave. The enemies are mostly tame, except for one. BLOODY MAGES. Their spells can two-shot Cecil, and obviously they often come in threes. Even with Shell, they deal major damage and were a right pain.

We get through it though, to meet Bahamut's child servants. Where's Child Services?



72961


Bahamut begins by saying even though we have Leviathan, it doesn't prove anything. Bahamut's a bit of a jerk.




72962


Naturally, he turns into his dragon form.

He literally does nothing. He just flies there, counting down to Megaflare. At least chuck in a claw swipe or something!

All it means is Rosa can shell and haste everyone. Rydia can summon Leviathan (ha!) and everyone else can just... spam attack. He doesn't even manage to get a megaflare off. Laaaaame.

Not that we have Bahamut, we can actually look at Megaflare in action.



72963


Ooh, planets. Very celestial. Fusoya is suitably impressed. And now we're equipped to take on... whatever the Giant of Babil is.

Tune in next time as we finish up the last odds and ends on the moon as we head back to Earth with a crash.

[Pumpkin]

Planets are indeed very celestial

[Spuuky]

Very disappointed in the capitalization of FuSoYa's name in this version.

He's the coolest, with the best mop death sprite and the best concept art in the series.

72974