And… done! At least with the base game.
The finale of the Cave of Trials wasn’t too bad, and I discovered on my
final way out after beating Edward’s boss that I was being a goofus and
there actually was a warp platform next to the save point. I still don’t
like the cave, but on that point, my bad.
Went back to Mysidia to swap my party around for the final push. Went
with Yang, Cecil, Edge, Palom, and Porom. I would’ve preferred Rydia to
Palom. Her character is way more interesting to me, and I like her
summoning, but I wanted something different from my SNES experience and
also felt bad splitting up Palom and Porom. Their Twincast seems to kind
of suck, but for lore/roleplay, I like my party having both of them in
it.
Then: the moon!!! Just such a cool idea, that you fight in moon caves
against moon monsters led by an evil moon person. Like “Final Fantasy”
meets “Flash Gordon.”
The Lunar Subterrane was a fantastic final dungeon. It had lots of
hidden passages, similar to the Sylph Cave. It was challenging, with
each kind of mob pack requiring a different strategy. The mini-bosses
scattered throughout the place were fantastic, challenging, and pushed
me to adjust my tactics.
I may have missed some, but the ones I fought were:
-Ogopogo
-Dark Bahamut
-White Dragon
-Lunasaurus(?) – the pair guarding the Ribbon that reflected themselves.
-Plague Bringer(?)
(I forgot to write down the names of these latter two)
Other stuff:
-Zemus/Zeromus was suitably fun, and I liked the look of “Big Bang.” Why
did Zeromus refer to himself as “we”? I thought he was just a rogue
Lunarian. Is his spirit like the spirit of hatred of all Lunarians, or
maybe something bigger than that even?
-From the ending: “EDGE: My heart is filled with goodness all the way!”
-I like the emphasis on the brotherly stuff between Cecil and Golbez
-Kain reminds me of Angel. He likes brooding aloud on rooftops.
-How is Yang king? Not only is the old king still alive, but he’s
standing right next to an enthroned Yang while he still has his crown
and robe on. Maybe the kingship there is like a meritocracy, where
whoever is the most badass monk gets to be king.
-What is the “Crystal” that Golbez and then Cecil use on Zeromus? Is it one of the light/dark crystals? Something else?
-Not sure if I was over-leveled or not, but ended up between 59-61 on all my characters by the time i beat Zeromus.
--
So that was an awesome game, as awesome as I remember! From here on out,
I’m almost fully unspoiled for the FF series. Stuff I do know:
-Kefka is a thing?
-Sephiroth is a thing?
-FFXI and FFXIV are MMOs.
-That weird-ass pompom-wearing teddy bear from FFII apparently comes back a lot
[EDIT: Two more things I remember being expectation-spoiled for:
-Many people apparently think FFVI is the best FF
-Many people apparently dislike FFXIII.]
And that’s really about it. Exciting!
---
Next up: Going to try “Interlude,” the next part in the…
WTF? The Lunar Ruins opened? The doors of the mages, ninja, paladin, and
monk? Do I get actually CHARACTER-SPECIFIC dungeons? I hope so. We’ll
see.
