This time, I traveled to the emperor's fortress in the eye of a cyclone (SUPER cool effect and cutscene) and killed the emperor. It seemed a bit too easy. Went back to Fynn, celebrated, and it turned out Dark Knight Leon ascended to the throne. I flew in my nifty new airship to kill him, had fun storming the castle, and then the emperor returned to take back the throne. In demon-ghost form.
I kind of expected that.
What I didn't expect is that he'd bring all the powers of hell with him! Earlier in the game, they said that the emperor was summoning monsters from the underworld, but I just assumed that was a metaphorical thing, not an actual place. Does this mean there's a heaven? Who judges souls to see whether they go to the underworld? Are the monsters we fight human souls?
Was the pudding I complained about yesterday actually somebody's daughter or son once?
Probably not. This sounds like the definition of "overthinking," but I can't help wondering about crap like this - if the underworld has an economy, if the monsters are just like animals, what monster parenting techniques are like.
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ANYWAY.
The literal hell/underworld twist really knocked me back. Especially since I didn't just scale Castle Pandemonium - I had to go through the Jade Passage to get to the castle's true version located in hell. No Charon to help me cross, but that's okay.
Jade Passage was tough, with some pretty cool looking monsters. My personal favorite on the creepy scale was the Eyemoeba:
(from the FF official site)
EDIT: turns out this was actually from Palamecia Castle, but still cool!
But I made it! To the extraordinarily beautiful Castle Pandaemonium. I was expecting fire and skulls, and was delighted to see pink decoration and crystals instead. Except for the fact that the monsters in there KICKED MY ASS SIX WAYS FROM SUNDAY. The Mythril Golem was rough to take down, and the Death Riders stomped me hard. So exited out to grind spells and HP a bit for the first time this game.
Next time: Preparation. Spell raising, grinding, and a world tour to see if there are any spells and crap I missed from various towns that'll help me going into what I imagine (based on the difficulty) to be one of the final dungeons in the game.
