Tutorial Screen
-Who the hell is “Kappa”? I mean, aside from the obvious, that he’s a regal green duck monster. Where’s my moogle guide?
-Kappa is here to instruct me on Gau’s mechanics. When in the Veldt, Gau has access to “Leap.” He’ll then leave with one of the monsters, chill with them, and at the end of a future Veldt fight, Gau will appear, having learned their abilities.
-So basically: Gau’s a blue mage! This method of learning blue magic is WAY less of a pain in the ass than it was in FFV. And even better, it ties into his “boy who grew up with monsters” story so well. I love the FFV job system deeply, but this is definitely an advantage of the more linear and pre-set job system.
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The Veldt
I spent a good long time in the Veldt this section, having Gau leap into new monsters and get their abilities, and also trying to understand what those abilities were.
We see this screen a lot.
Some notes from my time here:
-I can’t see what his rage abilities are in the description. Grr. This is a bit understandable though, because each Rage ability has 2-3 things going on with it, so a description might be tough.
-What’s more annoying is that I can’t seem to sort the abilities. There are SO MANY! I wish I could move my favorites to the top, so I didn’t have to hunt for them when I want to use them.
-I don’t know if it’s intentional, but I like what seems like a nod to FFV in Gau’s character. In FFV, the blue mage and beastmaster jobs worked together beautifully. Here, the feral Gau IS the blue mage. Well-played.
-The idea of the feral Gau spending time among monsters learning their ways is awesome. But it gets very surreal when he goes off to spend time with “Satellite,” a hovering probe-droid-style machine. I love the image of Gau communicating with it, spending time with its family, hunting with it, etc. “Beep-blee-ba-boop! Uwaoo!”
-Gau’s job: “Feral Youth.”
-This section of the game was fun, and I attribute that in large part to the wonderful music of the Veldt. Really got me in the mood to kick ass and take names. Given the design of the Veld as the place to build Gau’s rage abilities, it was really crucial for FFVI to provide good music that doesn’t grate, and this worked beautifully.
-The Veldt didn’t grant me xp. This is AWESOME. I get to enjoy building Gau’s rage abilities (and building my gil) without worrying about ruining my experience later due to being overleveled.
-Even after having Gau learn from all the monsters I could find, there are a ton of blank spaces in Gau’s ability list.
This tells me likely that there will be more Veldts down the line. Like, maybe there’s a Veldt in the southern content, or underwater, or the moon, or wherever the later parts of FFVI happen to take us.
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Glossary of Rage Abilities
The following is the best I can glean of the use of the rage abilities I collected. All seem to have a spell they can cast, a basic attack, and sometimes a self-buff:
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Guard: “Critical” hits for moderate single-target physical damage.
Imperial Soldier: “Fire” and occasional regular hits.
Templar: “Fira,” yellow glowy effect. Can’t remember what the yellow glow does.
Cloud: “Thundara” or basic wand attack.
Zaghrem: “Stone,” where Gau chucks stones at one or more enemies. “Stone” also has a chance to confuse/charm enemies. Basic punch attack.
Angel Whisperer: “Gravity,” taking off 50% of current health, or physical attack.
Oversoul: “Will o the Wisp” for heavy fire damage or basic wand.
Oversoul.
Commander: “Break,” which I think does an instakill? Or a physical attack.
Mu: “Snare,” a banish-instakill type spell that doesn’t seem to work on flying monsters, or basic punch.
Wererat: “Poison” or basic punch.
Belmodar: “Megavolt,” a lightning attack, or basic claw attack.
Stray Cat: WOW!!!! MASSIVE SINGLE TARGET DAMAGE. From “Cat Scratch” (lol). That or a basic punch. This is a surprise all-star ability.
Silver Lobo: “Chomp” for moderate physical damage or basic claw.
Megalodeth: “Snowstorm” for group frost damage or basic claw.
Aepyornis: “Featherdust.” Not sure what this does. Sleep maybe? Or basic wand.
Hornet: “Iron Stinger” for moderate physical damage, or basic wand.
Nettlehopper: “Berserk” on party members. It makes them glow pink/red/yellow before going the berserk-red, so it may buff them up as well? Not sure. I kind of doubt it, since pink glow means stop iirc, so I tend to think it’s just a flavor effect. Also a basic punch.
Cartagra: “Poison Barb” for some damage and poison effect or basic punch. Also a yellow glow effect.
Nautiloid: “Ink” to blind the enemy or basic attack, plus a yellow glow.
Magitek Armor: “Magitek Laser” for single-target fire damage, or basic punch. Plus yellow glow.
Satellite: “Sonic Boom” (which, distractingly, looks exactly like Guile’s sonice boom from Street Fighter II) or basic punch. Plus yellow glow.
Spritzer: “Blaze” for group fire damage or basic punch.
Bandit: “Self-destruct”? Really? Is this a glitch, where it should be the Bomb ability? Whatever. It destroys Gau and does moderate damage to the target. It sucks, unless I’m missing something. Like, maybe it does a percentage of health and is great against boss-types? Also basic punch.
Bomb: “Blaze” or basic punch. Any difference between this and Spritzer?
Ghost: “Thundara” or basic wand.
Sand Ray: “Tail” for good physical damage or basic punch.
Alacren: “Numb” (paralyzes the monster I think) or basic wand.
Leaf Bunny: This monster was surprisingly rare. “Incisors” for physical damage or basic punch.
Urok: “Digestive Fluid.” Slow maybe? Or basic punch.
Foper: “Death.” That’s right. “Death.” Wow. Or “Basic punch.
Guard Leader: “Wind Slash” for massive group wind damage or basic weapon attack. What kind of monsters are weak against this? Flying monsters?
Guard Leader.
Vector Hound: “Bite” for physical damage or basic claws. Plus a red glow.
Gorgias: “Snowstorm” or basic punch. Not sure of the difference between this and Megalodeth.
Cirpius: “Hastega.” Group haste. YES PLEASE. Oh, that’s what the red glow is! That and basic wand.
Cirpius.
Unseelie: “Shell” on a single target, which I think raises magic defense. Green glow. Also basic wand.
Living Dead: “Osmose” or basic weapon.
Valeor: “Stone” or basic weapon.
Gold Bear: “Gouge” for good physical damage or basic claw.
My favorites at the moment: Cirpius (hastega), Gorgias (snowstorm), Ghost (thundara), Stray Cat (cat scratch fever), Templar (fira), Angel Whisperer (gravity).
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Next time: Restock in Mobliz, then head south to the Mountain Cave to get Gau’s present.
