Imperial Camp
-I really hope we get to see Gestahl soon with Leo. SO CURIOUS. On his way out, Leo urges the soldier to exercise restraint.
-Kefka’s back.
-Dammit. He wants to use Leo’s absence to poison Doma.
-Leo doesn’t trust him. “Nothing dirty, Kefka. They may be our enemies, but they’re still human beings.”
-Kefka doesn’t buy this line of thought. “We needn’t show mercy… which is good, because I never seem to have any of the stuff.” More than a little chilling.
-Kefka prepares to dump the poison. A soldier protests that the Empire’s POWs in the castle would die as well. Kefka’s response? “They were stupid enough to get caught.” Jesus, dude.
-We choose this moment to pop out against the “inhuman” Kefka. WOO HOO!! Boss time.
-AND KEFKA SUCKS LOLOL. His combat sprite is his overworld sprite. He hits us once – no magic or anything, just whaps us with a weapon for low damage – and then Sabin punches him and he runs away. Sabin shouts for him to stop, to wait. “’Wait,’ he says. Do I look like a waiter?” Ok, that’s kind of funny.
-We catch up with him like two seconds later and he’s out of breath from running.
Not the most physically imposing villain ever.
Again: LOL.
-We fight again, and again he runs.
-Btw, Sabin’s “Meteor Strike” blitz looks phenomenal. He grabs the target, jumps into the air with him, flips him, and smashes him into the ground head first.
-Kefka throws a couple of more guards at us. We fight them and win, but then cut over to Kefka by the river…
…..
-What the hell. This is going way beyond the Rocksteady/Bebop/Gilgamesh “comic henchman.” Despite his inability to fight toe-to-toe, despite the colorful garb and strange portrait, this is not the dialogue of a cartoon villain. Kefka’s got a serious sadistic streak.
-He did it. He poisoned the river, giggling all the while. The fact that it’s not a full-throated “Mwa-ha-ha!” and instead a smaller “Uwee-hee-hee!” somehow makes it worse.
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Doma Castle
-Cyan and a sentry see the water turn. The camera pans around the castle as sentries start dropping dead. Some fall on the group where they are, some fall off the walls, some into the poisoned water. And all the while, Kefka’s bloody cheerful music plays on. This is HORRIFYING.
-We now control Cyan, who has to warn the king.
-Too late. The king drank the water, and he’s dying. He thanks Cyan for his service, rolls over, and dies.
-Cyan’s family is in the castle! Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
-He and the sentry look for survivors around the castle, but only find corpses.
-His wife and child, too.
-Cyan is enraged. He charges out to the imperial camp to meet the Empire head-on.
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Imperial Camp
-Sabin and Shadow see Cyan fighting imperial soldiers and join up.
-Cyan’s running wild (as wild as someone whose diction includes “thee” and “thou” can be), looking for the poisoner, but Kefka’s nowhere to be seen. Sabin convinces Cyan that if they stick around, they’ll be dramatically outnumbered.
-Ok, this is awesome. To escape, they all hop into spare Magitek armor.
-LOL SABIN. And it’s hilarious to me how much Cyan sucks at driving, just kind of charging around out of control at first.
-Some fun Magitek battles on the way out of the camp.
-We make it. The way to Narshe from here is through the woods, though Cyan seems concerned. Tree monsters ahoy?
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-Some quick Kefka thoughts: Ok. This is the second mass murder Kefka’s committed. He used Terra to set fire to 50 of his own soldiers, and poisoned the kingdom of Doma, including their imperial prisoners. Probably hundreds of people. He also set fire to Figaro, and I don’t know how many he would’ve “barbecued” had it not dived into the sand.
Plus, that’s just what we’ve seen in this short span of time since starting FFVI. Chances are he didn’t just start mass murder recently. And he’s still kind of amusing as a character? This is some “Devil’s Rejects” bullshit right here.
It also makes me really freaked out to meet Gestahl, if Kefka’s his main adviser. The more I think about it, the more I’m discarding my “Banon is the Final Boss” theory.
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Next time: through the woods towards Narshe.
