FFVI – Part 37: Two Princes

Summary: We return to Figaro Castle. Mog puts on his dancing shoes.



Near Figaro

-Flew west near to Figaro. At a random fight in the desert, Mog learns a new dance.

-AHA! It’s “Desert Lullaby.” He learns terrain-specific dances. If Gau is like a blue mage, Mog is like a geomancer.

-Unlike Gau’s rage, Mog can be interrupted if he “stumbles” in a dance.

-Desert Lullaby has a chance to cast Sandstorm (moderate group damage), Wind Slash (great group damage), or Antlion (possible instakill on a single target).

-I keep fighting on grassland to see if Mog will learn a grassland dance. No luck.

-Hm. Let’s try something else.

-SUCCESS! The problem before was that I started each fight in the grassland off with one of Mog’s dances, which converted the terrain to desert or cave. When I stopped dancing early, Mog immediately learned the grassland dance. First fight. “Wind Rhapsody.”

-Wind Rhapsody can cast Wind Slash, Sunbath (huge group heal), or Plasma (big single target damage –thunder, I think).

-Hopped to a nearby forest to learn the forest dance, “Forest Nocturne.” It can cast Forest Healing (summons FFV ranger-style bluebirds to cure us of negative statuses), Will o the Wisp (massive single target fire (?) damage), and Leaf Swirl (group damage).

-I’m excited to find more terrain dances as I go, and super happy that I saved Mog instead of Lone Wolf.

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Figaro Castle

-Sabin’s in my party this time with Edgar.

-Lone Wolf’s cell has a hold where the wall used to be.

Nice touch. The bastard tunneled out.

-Sabin leaves to wander the castle on his own.

-The three of us rest and we pan over to see Sabin in the throne room. Regret? Sadness? Simple nostalgia?

-SABIN: “Nothing can ever really be the same. Not after what happened…”

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Flashback

-We get brief flashes of memory as Sabin remembers the night his father died. Sentence fragments, flashes of scenes.

This is FANTASTIC compared to prior FF flashbacks. Most memories in my experience play out this way rather than as fully-remembered scenes. Fractures and snippets. Well done, FFVI.

-His father left the kingdom to both Sabin and Edgar.

-The rumor is that the Empire poisoned the king! The Empire just sucks more and more the more we learn about them.

-And their mother died giving birth to Sabin and Edgar. Urg.

-Sabin doesn’t want to think about succession, political implications, or anything like that. He wants to mourn his father and get the Empire.

Sabin lashes out.

-Sabin tries to convince Edgar to leave the kingdom with him, to be free. Edgar worries about the kingdom’s fate if its two princes abdicate.

FFVI here is again doing something it’s done so consistently well: empathize. I think Edgar’s choice here is more responsible and correct, but I can understand both Sabin and Edgar. And even better than that? SABIN AND EDGAR can both understand Sabin and Edgar!

Sabin doesn’t hate Edgar and Edgar doesn’t hate Sabin. Plenty of games would turn this into Edgar yelling “BEGONE from my kingdom! Thou hast not the blah blah blah to govern! Thee wouldst abandon thy kingdom!” But it’s not that simple. Both were hit hard, and both react in their own way.

I love this.

-Edgar wants to settle their next step with that fabled coin toss. Heads = Edgar wins, tails = Sabin wins. I’m a bit confused here, but I think that heads means Edgar stays and Sabin goes, while tails means that Edgar would leave and accompany Sabin? Not sure.

-Beautiful shot of the coin toss flying high. As it hits its apex near with the moon in the background, fade back to the present.

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Figaro Castle

-Edgar joins Sabin in the throne room that night.

EDGAR: It’s been ten years. That little shrimp has become a whopping lobster.”
SABIN: “And you’re a king crab!”

LOLOL – have I said enough times that I love this relationship?

-Edgar worries if his dad would be proud.

-After this whole scene, I continue through the castle. No new tools for Edgar, but some minor flavor dialogue of people greeting Sabin.

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Next time: world tour continues.