Slight change of plans, due to obtaining a five new jobs after Walse Tower, I've decided to postpone taking down Shiva and will let you guys decide my next set of jobs. Besides, there is a surprising amount of stuff to do just now in Walse.
After doing a bit of shopping in Walse, you may enter the castle and surprisingly explore a bit. There are a few items to be found here, but the two most valuable are in the basement. Unfortunately for the player, the dungeon is crawling with a single enemy called the Jackanapes. It's an Imp looking monster with mid-game stats. In fact, you won't run into this enemy again until Castle Ex-Death nearly halfway through the game, except this version is stronger because it absorbs all elements and is immune to most status effects. They even have a Blue Mage skill but frankly, it's not worth going for it at this point because there are easier ways to obtain it later, and it's not one of the better skills to begin with. Remember when I said Thieves become really handy at a certain point? Well here we are, the Jackanapes usually show up as back attacks so Thief's Vigilance skill comes in handy here and helps you get a fighting chance at least. There is a way to beat them early in the game, but I'll need some levels first, which I don't have. A team of +Lv. 16 Monks with the Berserk status that the enemy Blue mage skill will happily provide can potentially win these fights, but I can't do this yet at my current progress. To add insult to injury, these enemies drop abysmal XP, Gil, and ABP, so they're not even worth fighting in the first place. They only seem to exist for the sole purpose of screwing you out of the full-powered Brave Blade. I'm not running, so I'll save the basement for a little later in Butz's world. Consequently, I forgot this fact during my previous play session and was promptly destroyed.
The other point of interest here is the hidden dungeon behind the waterfall, this leads to Shiva and mainly has most of the enemies from Walse Tower in here. I'm going to choose to come back later cause the levels and some other valuables at Walse Tower will make the Shiva fight much easier when we get there. The last thing to do here before talking to the king is visit the prison. Here' you'll meet a few thieves begging to be let loose. One among them if Lone Wolf the Thief, and if you cut your teeth on FFVI before this entry, you might be fooled into letting him out. Don't. He will honestly just screw you out of a few items, a few of which are pretty decent, and you get nothing for your troubles either. So we'll just let him stew in there a little longer until the end of the game.
After this, talk to the King of Walse. Lenna pleads with him to deactivate the amplifier but the King won't hear any of it cause the prosperity it brings (despite his dungeon crawling with demonic spiders) is too good for him to bow to rumors. The debate would have gone on longer, but a meteor crash lands not far from Walse Tower. Worried, the King and his guard rush to the tower leaving you to follow them. When you arrive, you learn a Wild Garula has gone mad and has rushed into the tower, laying waste to the Kingsguard. Interestingly enough, you can face Garula as random encounters if you bother to walk to the tower. As befit of their in-story description as docile creatures, they will actually never attack you and instead run away if they survive to the fourth round, which is very possible cause they're damage sponges. That aside, your party climbs the tower to save the crystal.
To make things interesting for me, I've mostly kept the same classes but switched around who has what. Butz is now a Monk, Lenna is a Black Mage, Galuf is a Thief and Faris is a Knight. Part of the reason for this is because the tower is a pretty decent leveling spot, so I'll be able to gain a few more skills to play around with. Lenna is the only change-up cause we want to see that Ice Rod in action. As you can see from the images above, the rods make a huge difference.
There are a few enemies to look out for in this dungeon. The Ice Soldiers drop RegalCutlass, but you can steal the superior Mythril Sword from them as well. The Wyvern enemies have Mythril Knives to be stolen and are a guaranteed drop for potions, which is nice cause these guys have that nasty Wind attack the first boss had, so running into two of them can be dangerous. By far, the most dangerous enemy in this dungeon is the wizard ladies. They have nasty time magic spells like Slow and Stop at their disposal and their Drain spell will take 180hp from a character which can be more than half their health depending on their job. They only carry Rods, so don't waste time stealing from them and instead kill them ASAP. Course the rewards for doing so are grand. A group of three of them will give you 3 ABP, the highest amount we've gotten from a steady random encounter so far, even more important is that they will sometimes drop the super useful Fire Rod, which will come in handy for the Shiva battle later. I actually lucked out and managed to get two while traveling the tower. The last enemy you'll run into here is the Elf Toad, this unassuming enemy is the key to making this dungeon into a bit of a joke. See, if you kill all but one of them, the guy will use Frog Song on you, you would be amazed how many enemies in this dungeon are susceptible to this spell.
I steal the items I need, gain a few job levels, and once Lenna reached the first level of Black Mage, I switch her over to Blue Mage to double my chances of getting Frog Song to hit my party. I ended up gaining a few more levels than I meant to because the Elf Toad didn't want to show up for a fight. Also, if you ever low on healing items and not using a white mage or its skill set, you can still just quickly change a character to one to do a little maintenance if need be. I usually make my melee characters do so since their MP is mostly going to waste anyway. The dungeon is kind of kooky, with the player having to climb the overgrown vines in order to reach certain treasures and the next floor. It's pretty snazzy and otherwise the dungeon is pretty straightforward.
On the top floor, we watch the Wild Garula face off against a strange man before charging its way towards us. The Garula can be a tricky battle for a low level team. He'll counter most of your melee attacks with his own and he's surprisingly fast. With that said, if you're packing enough firepower he'll go down super easy, and in fact I killed him before I could show off another more fun strategy for beating him so I had to reset and redo the fight. Since Garula only has a Hi-Potion or regular potion for stealing, I switch Galuf to a White Mage and throw him in the back row with Lenna. Lenna has Black 1 as her sub-job and is equipped with the Ice Rod to boost her Ice magic damage. When the fight opens, I have Butz and Faris guard while I have Galuf cast Mute/Silence on the boss. He has only one spell, but it's designed to bork this strategy if you don't mute him first. I then have Lenna cast Frog Song and voila! Garula Toad, and he's now completely harmless. He can't even damage my mages in this state. He does know the Toad spell which is why you need to silence him but if you're ever doing a low-level run, this is an easy way to get around this guy and the first of many ways where a Blue Mage is going to be the bane for bosses in this game. By the time Silence wears off and he's able to change back, Faris finishes him off with Focus powered sword attack.
With that over, the mysterious soldier reveals he knows who Galuf really is but dies before he can tell it to him. Doesn't that just figure? The Crystal shatters anyway cause of the amplifier and the party collects the shards and the new job classes. Before we can pick up the last one though, the tower begins to shake as the destruction of the crystal is now causing a massive earthquake which will sink the entire landmass and tower into the ocean. Perhaps this is ExDeath's doing and the first sign of his revival but it might also just be for dramatic effect. Their is no way to reach the last crystal and instead an exit opens up. The team escapes but falls into the sea where an injured Syldra appears and rescues the team. Unfortunately, the strain is too much for the old girl and she dies for real now, leaving the team a little shaken. The scene is surprisingly sad actually, but I think it's because I'm a big softie when it comes to animals.
The team appears next to the Walse Meteor and the Hiryuu. If you properly explored earlier, you will no doubt had noticed that the party is landloclked. The Hiryuu can't pass over any of the tall mountains and so we've explored what's available in the world now. If you visit the Walse Meteor, Klutzy Butzy will trigger a teleporter inside of it that transports the team to the Karnak Meteor, which is our next destination in the plot, but first we head back to Walse to go pay a visit to an Ice Goddess living rent free in Walse Castle and in serious need for an eviction notice.
So to give an overview of the team.
Butz: Knight Lv. 3, Monk Lv.2
Lenna: Thief Lv. 3, Black Mage Lv. 1, Blue Mage Lv. 2
Galuf: Blue Mage Lv. 2, Thief Lv. 3, and White Mage Lv.1
Faris: Monk Lv. 3, Knight Lv. 2
The new classes we just unlocked are:
Red Mage
Time Mage
Summoner
Berserker
Mystic Knight
Ideally, I would use a team of two Mystic Knights and Two Black Wizards for Shiva, but what team should I use for the next real portion of the game. I'll do overviews for the classes picked.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Slothy
