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The Ancient Castle
-Inside. Still deliriously happy with Mog’s new present, the Master Scroll.
-This place makes me nervous. Not because of ghosts or monsters or anything, just that it looks so layered, like the cave preceding it. Lots of hidden eaves. I worry about missing stuff.
-We reach Odin in the throne room. Still stone.
-Oh. Huh. I was expecting to have to fight him in one of those infamous FF-Odin-KILL ME IN FOUR SECONDS OR ELSE-style battles, but we just immediately get his magicite.
-That’s… anti-climactic.
-Another Gold Hairpin and a Blizzard Orb.
-Interesting. Umaro can’t use armor, but it seems like he has these character-specific Relics in the Berserker Ring and the Blizzard Orb that can help work to build different resistances.
-Ow. A new monster, Armored Weapon, nearly whomped me in a single missile launch.
-A side room has a “book encrusted with glittering gems” called “The Queen’s Diary.” She describes falling in love with Odin, and telling him when the fighting ends only.
DAMMIT! Was I supposed to come here first and THEN show this to Odin?
I hope not. I hate being punished for a random choice about the order in which I explore.
-…That’s it? That can’t be it.
-I actually wish I could turn off random encounters. I just want to explore this place, and the fights are getting annoying. Oracle in FFV had a passive ability like that. (Too bad the rest of that job was so awful.)
-THERE MUST BE MORE HERE. If it were just Odin, fine, we’d get his magicite and move on. But the gem-encrusted Queen’s Diary SCREAMS OUT that there’s more to find.
-Alright. One last walkthrough and I’ll leave. I’m going with what I call the “Jesse Method” (my brother). Learned it watching him play FFIV. It was frustrating to watch because it was slow, but it got shit done eventually. Basically, a brute forcing of secrets: click ALL the things. EVERYWHERE.
*10 minutes later*
-A THING HAPPENED
-I DID A THING
-SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY I DID A THING
-Opened a door or something, but my screen randomly stopped and there was a noise. If only these DAMN ENCOUNTERS WOULD LEAVE ME ALONE MAYBE I COULD FIND WHAT THING? (Sorry, a bit frustrated right now.)
-Staircase in the queen’s room.
-It’s a dragon. They put a legendary dragon in here.
-I don’t like this. This was EASILY the most hidden away of all the dragons, and I only found it because the gem-crusted diary told my obsessive side to randomly walk around pushing buttons. I’m fine if they wanted to make the legendary dragons a secret thing, but all the other ones have been in plain sight. A bit out of the way, and optional, sure, but in plain sight.
-Whatever. Let’s try this.
Blue Dragon.
It looks a bit like Shinryu from FFV. Starts with a Tsunami, but it’s got nothing on Leviathan – much weaker tsunami. It dies easily. It’s nothing against the encounter, though; I’m sure I’m here at a much higher level than I should be.
Drops the Zantetsuken sword, for Celes here. Six down, two to go.
-Up ahead, we find the queen turned to stone. Why? Who did it? Who was that ghost that turned Odin to stone and then the queen? Just some random enemy? Was it someone who saw the queen in love with an esper and wanted to lash out at her?
-We click her and get her tear. That’s… actually
-Interesting. Getting her tear turned the Odin magicite into Raiden.
-NOOOO!! Odin taught Meteor, but Raiden just teaches “Quick.” Quick is an awesome spell, but the Gilgamesh magicite already taught me that. Fhdjkalfhadlsfhadkls
-Ah well. I’m spoiled at this point. I have way more than I probably need to beat the game, but it’s like Gau’s redundant rages. It’s the principle of the thing.
-Zantetsuken looks really cool when Celes hits with it in combat. Massive sword.
-And I can’t teleport out. Even once I get to the cave, I can’t teleport out. I have to walk the whole way back. Really, game?
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Figaro Castle
-A guard tells me they discovered an ancient text in the library.
-We finish our trip to the east, and I head to the library.
-………………………….
-………………………….
-No words. I’m angrier with myself than with the game. I made that way harder on myself than I needed to by being impatient.
But I’m still a little angry at the game. You couldn’t have forced me to see that clue some other way? To have found it properly, I would have had to ask to move on from that snag we hit mid-transit, and just hope that if I were to move the castle again we’d hit the same snag. What if it was a one-shot deal?
Granted, I probably should have talked to that RANDOM GUARD on the way into the passage, but would it have been so bad for that random guard to stand in front of the jail cell and only move to let me through once I talked to him?
Anyway. Lesson learned. Not going to waste time on that kind of brute force again. Checking for secrets, yes, but not pure click-everywhere. It’s not fun, it’s not puzzle-solving, and if the game wants me to know something, it’ll give me a clue.
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I know I probably sound negative, and I apologize for that. This was a frustrating session and it didn’t have to be. The clue was there that told me how to get to that spot, making it not necessary to have brute forced it, but whatever. What’s done is done. Got some loot, got a snapshot of an ancient civilization, and also saw a brief glimpse at what was in its time a much larger drama.
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Next time: I still have two dragons to find, but don’t know where to look. I’ve kind of gone everywhere I can to do.
