Doma
-I know I said I’d go to the Veldt to find Gau, but come on! I just got Cyan. Doma was on the way. I’ll repeat: I want to explore, and I love how much this game seems to allow it now.
-Fair number of potions lying around the castle.
-We come to a bedroom. “Rest up for a bit?” …yes… but definitely worried about the Krueger esper attacking.
-All of us wake up the next morning, except for Cyan.
-The music turns goofy, and three kids hop in. Laragorn, Curlax, and Moebius. …Larry, Curly, and Moe. LOL. They call themselves “The Dream Stooges.”
-WTF THEY THEN CLAIM HIS SOUL AND DIVE INTO HIS BRAIN.
WHAT THREE STOOGES EPISODE DID I MISS WHERE THAT HAPPENED? The party is somehow able to dive into Cyan’s brain at the last second as well.
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Cyan’s Brain
-wow. Um
-Wow.
-We’re on a grainy white platform above a trippy abstract waving background. Got into combat and saw it was just Sabin. The others may be separate. The monsters are trippy, the background is trippy, and I see Cyan’s wife and child on another platform. This is gonna hurt, isn’t it?
This is your brain on drugs.
-Oh, sorry. I was wrong. It’s not his wife and child, it’s Celes lying face-down and one of the stooges. We first get Edgar back, and the stooge flees to regroup with his buddies. Then Celes in another room.
-We move to enter a final door, and the Dream Stooges emerge as a group. Boss time.
-Aw, Delta Attack?
Flashbacks to the FFIV Magus Sisters who guarded Barbariccia.
-They’re not too tough since they’re magic doesn’t hit very hard, but they’re sticky. I kill one and he got Reraised. Have to find the right order. They also all some elemental weaknesses, but different ones, so I gotta to single target.
-Victory!
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Dreamscape – Phantom Train
-Oh no. Cyan.
-We go through a door after beating the Stooges, and it’s the Phantom Train. Sepia colored.
Train monsters.
-Our sprite is in color, but we see Cyan’s sprite, sepia-colored, running from a sepia ghost.
-Ooh, a treasure chest/switch puzzle. Some trial and error nets me a second Genji Glove. Some significantly more trial and error got me a Lump of Metal (?) and a Flame Shield.
Puzzles on the train.
-FINALLY
-Another room of puzzles takes me like 45 minutes. The first half I reasoned out, the second I brute-forced. I’m not sure how I was supposed to get this puzzle.
-New blitz: Soul Spiral. Sacrifices self to heal party. No thanks.
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Dreamscape – Narshe Mines
-What are we doing here now? Was Cyan ever in the Narshe Mines fleeing imperial soldiers?
-Magitek suit time.
Enemies are weak to Thunder.
-Celes learned Blizzaga! I’m surprised. How did she learn that without an esper to teach her?
-I’m thoroughly confused by the layout here.
-Ok. I was going in a loop, but when I started to go backwards, I advanced to the next segment. Following Cyan on a bridge…. Until I fell through the bridge.
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Dreamscape – Doma Castle
-Now I’m in the dream version of the room I’m ACTUALLY in in Doma. This is some “Inception” bullshit right here. His sepia wife and son appear, pleading with us to save him. They’re not exactly part of his dream, since they acknowledge that they’re in his mind.
-Cyan is so guilt-ridden over the destruction of Doma and the world, that a monster called Wrexsoul attached to him. The son and wife really plead hard for us to help Cyan. I wonder if they’re ghosts and not just visions.
-Wrexsoul! Boss time.
-AND IT’S SUPER FRUSTRATING. Wrexsoul comes with two “Soul Savers” monsters. At the start of the fight, Wrex disappears and says he’ll possess our soul and disappears. I keep trying to kill the Soul Savers, but they keep respawning. Even when I kill them at the same time, one respawns, then the other.
-10 minutes later, still no closer. I restart the fight from last save, in case I missed something. This guy says he’s fed by Cyan’s hate, anger, etc. Maybe it’s a fight I can’t attack in.
WREXSOUL: “I’ll possess one of your bodies! Perhaps I’ll return to this form once you’ve expired…” Last time, I tried killing Celes, but that didn’t help. Maybe I have to try killing each party member until I find the possessed one?
Edgar down, but nothing happened.
SUCCESS!!!!!!! Killed Sabin, and then Wrex reappeared.
Killed him soon after that. So glad I got that one.
-Cyan now is in color, not sepia. He says he thought he heard his wife’s and son’s voices giving him strength, and now they appear to try to say goodbye again and help him feel absolved before they disappear.
-They twinkle, but a sword appears in their place. “We’ll… always be… at your side…” Ooh, and a magicite shard! We wake, and Cyan is now at his peak, his mind purged of doubt and confusion.
-GO CYAN! He now has Masamune. When we go to the (real life, living color) throne room, the “Alexander” magicite awaits us. It can teach Holy, so I give it to Celes.
-I explore the rest of the castle, but just find a few stray potions. Let’s head out.
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Next time: to Sir Gau. For realsies.
