Summary: A delightful session in the Tomb of the Unknown King. Adventure! Excitement! Deadly minotaur bros! The Coldrun craves these things.
Tomb of the Unknown King
-Reached the tomb, on the east end of the Gotland Peninsula.
-I’m starting out with HP a bit low because I want to use limit breaks. We’ll see if that’s a mistake.
-I was expecting a dank cave. Maybe even a dark cave, like the one for Strago’s World of Ruin quest in FFVI. But no – it’s an open air foresty ruin.
-As we enter, two students come running out, terrified. Both trying to cast “Float.” I assume this means monsters inside will use earth magic.
-Oh – nm, it actually is a tomb. A rocky tomb, not a cave. Maybe even a maze? Found a sword immediately on entering with ID #28. That should be enough… but I gotta keep going. I gotta.
-Yeah, it’s a maze and I’m quickly lost. Kept running and eventually found what looks to be a statue that’ll probably kill me.
-Yup. The statue came to life. It’s called “Sacred.”
-Beat it pretty quickly with a boosted Shiva. It suffers from what I like to think of as Fujnese Capslock Syndrome.
-We didn’t actually kill Sacred. He ran away.
-Son of a… it’s a jelly monster.
Always always ALWAYS hated those things.
-Wish I made a map before.
-OH RIGHT LOL – I have a map.
Just needed to push B2.
-Found the middle of the Tomb. It’s an open air brick thing I can’t access – probably the actual tomb where the king is buried.
-Feeling much more comfortable now that I have the map. Discovered a new area.
-This is feeling Zelda-esque. I found a lever and pulled it which, seems to have sped up the waterwheel nearby. Not sure what that did…
-Ok. I went back to the middle island that was previously surrounded by water and the water is gone. I still can’t access it from here because there’s a large gap, but maybe from another access point.
-Came to yet another corner of the tomb where I was able to release a dam, allowing water to flood beneath the ground.
Maybe something now is accessible in the middle?
-Yeah. Now water is in the middle. I honestly can’t remember whether there was any to start with, or whether I just undid what I did with the water wheel.
-One of the monsters, Armadodo, can fall down if he gets hit enough and put to sleep. When he falls down, his defense is reduced, but even more adorably he rolls on his back.
AWW!
-I’m pretty frustrated right now. Totally comfortable with the layout of this place and navigating from room to room, but I feel like I’ve done everything I can and yet I don’t know what I did. I beat back Sacred, I opened a dam/floodgate, and I turned a waterwheel. But I didn’t get anything for it?
If this were FFIV, I’d use Float outside of combat and try to float over the water to the tomb in the middle. But Float can only be cast in combat and doesn’t persist.
Giving up for now. Maybe this place will come into play later. Like, maybe Odin is in the tomb in the middle and I have to beat him to win him to my side. The last hope I have is that perhaps there’s something new outside the tomb that I can do.
-There’s this one room in particular that grinds my gears.
There’s a table or something inside it, and it seems like I should be able to raise it or read it or do SOMETHING with it, but no!
-wait
-are you kidding me
-I was on my way out of this place, took a wrong turn, and found the entrance to the tomb in the middle.
*bashes head against keyboard*
-Ok. Let’s see what’s inside… AFTER I save.
-It’s an actual tomb like I thought. Sacred is inside, standing atop a coffin.
-Capslock Carl tells me his big brother is with him.
Hahahahahahaha
Wtf am I watching
Two minotaurs are literally “bro”-ing each other. XD XD XD I’m dying. I’m dead. The “big brother” had this epic entrance where he roared and flashed in as a ghost, and he’s just a little dude who’s all “sup.”
MINOTAUR: “yeah bro.”
SACRED: “Y-YO BRO, THESE GUYS CRASHED THE TOMB! P-PLUS, THEY ATTACKED ME!”
MINOTAUR : “oh really… they attacked you? not bad for a human…”
The excessive ellipses and use of capitalization and casual tone makes me feel like I’m watching a text messaging session.
-Boss time, against Sacred and Minotaur. (Wasn’t there a Minotaur with a brother in FFV?)
-LOL RINOA – Just noticed that after her limit break, Angelo Strike, she gave Angelo a treat before he left the screen. Good boy!
-Irvine and Rinoa both died. I’d forgotten to heal them up and they started super low. Will retry. The bosses used things called Mower and Mad Cow Special.
-Diabolos’s GF animation is awesome. Bats converge and form a black orb. He emerges from the black orb, manipulates it, and hurls it at the enemy crushing them. Runes and sigils glow on the crushing orb, and then he dissolves in bats.
Words don’t do it justice. I recommend checking it out on YouTube if you haven’t seen it.
-Back. Take two.
-Scanned Minotaur. His
OH I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE GAME.
Time to float big bro. I knew that intro hint from the fleeing students would come in handy!
-Died again. This time, my strat is to immediately Float the Elder, use Shiva, keep us healed up, and use Shiva for primary damage.
-Watching these two in the cutscene again, I can’t help but be reminded of Harry Dresden vs. the Billy Goats Gruff.
VICTORY!
Got em on the third try. Floated Minotaur early, used Diabolos and two boosted Shivas, healed up with Rinoa, and that was it. And they joined me as GFs – WOOHOO!!!! “Brothers.”
-Wow, there’s more – the tomb opens, and a ghost appears, shocked that we beat the Brothers.
-Heeee! I expected the ghost to act annoyed, all “Why hast thou disturbed my slumber?” Instead, he’s grateful that I let him out of his cramped stone coffin and wonders why the fuck we have to entomb people at all when it’s so uncomfortable as a ghost. XD
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Some Parting Thoughts
-This was so much fun. SO MUCH.
-I love that it was optional. The ID number I needed to talk to Caraway was available immediately. If I wasn’t in the mood, I could’ve grabbed it and left and come back later. Big fan of that sort of thing.
-I love the puzzle. It was tricky navigating the tomb, but especially with the map it was far from impossible.
-I love the convenience of being able to exit the map (at the cost of a SeeD rank) automatically if I so chose or if I had gotten stuck or frustrated.
-I LOVE the humor. The personalities of Sacred and Minotaur and their interaction. I was sitting here cracking up as these bros were kicking my ass. And that final reveal of the ghost.
-I love the challenge. It wasn’t impossible or anything like that, but there was clearly a strategy to help succeed. This wasn’t a face-roll.
-Bless FFVIII.
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Next time: to Caraway in Deling City.
