Okay so one change up, I completely forgot about North Mountain, so today's episode will end before that point instead of Walse, meaning we get another shot at playing Job Classes.
So I have my quirky team of Knight, Monk, Thief, and Blue Mage. All I can say for now is that despite the game's best efforts to make all the starting classes relevant in the beginning, this isn't exactly the ideal team for this part of the game. Ideally, I would drop Thief and Blue mage for the White and Black Mages due to the nature of the next major area I'm heading towards. Still, there are some things I can do right now with these classes.
I head back into the Wind Shrine in order to pick up the two Blue Magics in here and make the most of the Thief class. Black Goblins possess Goblin Punch which is an average physical attack with a few quirky properties that have some interesting potential much later in the game. One of which is the fact the game does 8x more damage if the attacker and target share the same level. Something I learn painfully when my team reach Level 7, and the Goblins start ganging up on poor Lenna.
Speaking of which, I'm having Lenna steal potions off of all the enemies I encounter and hopefully I'll get a few of the rare drops like Elixirs and Leather Shoes as well. Since I don't have a dedicated healer yet, this is a good way to have some quick healing unless I choose to cheat... This is also important cause sadly, the next two areas don't have much in the way of great items to steal or use of the class dungeon crawler skills. In truth, Walse is where the Thief really shines cause the enemies in the area have invaluable items, and Vigilance will be incredibly useful to avoid a certain trolling enemy the devs threw in.
MoldWynns possess Aero, which most players probably don't know about because they only use it on their sixth to eighth turn. Unfortunately, the Monk becomes a huge liability since they have innate Counter so it takes a while to even see the spell because the damn things keep attacking Faris and she in return beats them into the ground. It takes a few attempts but thankfully, the first time the enemy lasts long enough to use the skill, they use it on my actual Blue Mage! Hurray! With that done, I head back to the Pirate Hideout to fight the Steel Bats, they use Vampire, which turns into a great asset later as it's the most effective healing (for the Blue Mage at least) I have available at the moment without a White Mage.
I can't progress through the canal due to the gate being locked, so I head back to Tule to meet with Zokk, a friend of Lenna and quite possibly the inspiration for Dr. Zot in FFIX. We get some interesting story moments here with a bit of foreshadowing on Butz's past and connection to the Dawn Warriors. Zok gives him the key and we can proceed to the canal.
The canal is pretty short with only two new enemy types and a Jumbo Prawn type enemy as a boss. Fun Fact: The squid/octopus enemies in this area only target the female party members. Devs getting pervy stuff past the radar again. The boss of this area isn't too much of a handful except for one attack that does a lot of damage to a single party member. My party doesn't have too much trouble taking him down, though if you want a quick and easy way to beat this guy, turn everyone into a Black Mage cause he's extremely weak to Bolt/Thunder magic and you can take him down really fast.
We get a heartfelt scene with Syldra helping the party and lose our ship in the process. The party winds up in the Ship Graveyard. This is where a Black and White mage would come in really handy as every enemy in this area is undead and weak to healing and fire magic. Most enemies don't carry anything important though some can still drop elixirs while the golem looking enemies do have Ethers as a rare drop but good luck getting that. There is a flail in the first area, but since I don't have a white mage, it goes into the inventory. Roughly halfway through the dungeon, you'll get a hilarious sequence where the party finally discovers Faris' true gender. The added heal up and save point are just added bonuses. The last stretch has a few easily missed treasures but the most important is the World Map. You can get one later but it's so easy to find it here that it would be a shame to miss it now.
Just as the party feels their out of spooksville, the team is confronted with apparitions of important people in their lives. Butz thinks of his mother, Lenna her father, we get another not-so-subtle hint about Faris's true identity. We also get to meet Krile for the first time but in an odd case of amnesia actually proving to be useful, Galuf doesn't really fall for the apparition and instead snaps the party back to their senses before Siren makes her series debut.
Siren is a bit of a tricky boss, she jumps between two phases, living and undead. Her living form is weak to melee while her undead is weak to magic. She can silence characters and hits surprisingly hard for a future summon that is usually physically frail. Sadly, she's not a summon in this title. The easiest way to deal with her is similar to the crab battle earlier, even make a team of monks or black mages and just nail her when she shifts to the appropriate form. Also, note that she drops a treasure when she dies but what you get depends on which form you end up dealing the fatal blow to. Her living form drops Bronze Armor, while her undead form drops a Bronze Shield. Since both become available in the next town, it's not terribly important which one to go for, but I went for the armor since it usually costs more. The lack of a dedicated healer did cost me here though as Siren wailed on my team pretty bad. Galuf largely stayed alive due to Vampire. Her levels is too low to make use of Goblin Punch and since Blue Mages have low attack power, I had him using Aero and healing instead. Everyone else attacked except for Faris, who used Focus which she learned earlier in the dungeon. I did sadly have to use a Phoenix Down to save Faris after she got nailed twice in a row with her heavy critical attack.
Once finished the party leaves and you need to head south to reach Carwen. The party still needs to reach Walse to save the Water Crystal but they no longer have a boat and conventional ships aren't going to work. So what is a a ditz like Butz suppose to do? The next update will cover North Mountain and end with the team reaching Walse for real this time. Should I switch out the jobs or keep going? Everyone is level 2 with their current jobs which gives me a few, though not seriously great customization options.
Last edited by Wolf Kanno; 06-17-2018 at 06:21 AM.
Reply With Quote