L. Pandora
-This surprises me. We’re picking up where we left off, with the party still in the Pandora moving towards Adel, Seifer, and Rinoa. Each prior end-of-disc segment, we picked up after a time lapse iirc.
-The music changes to that “FIIITHOS” piece.
-We reach Adel et al. Oh shit, is it merging time? I think so.
-The cinematic is like something out of a horror movie as Adel smiles, rips out of her orange shell/barrier, and claws towards Rinoa.
-Boss time! Our party versus Adel with Rinoa strapped to her chest. Scan tells me that she’s being junctioned.
CREEPY.
-Oops. Lol. Shiva killed Rinoa. I wonder if Life will work. My guess is that I may get a bonus thing for killing Adel without killing Rinoa.
-Stole “Samantha Soul” from Adel.
-Yeah, Rinoa died. Game over.
-The new plan is to supercharge Squall with Haste and Darkside on Adel, heal Rinoa.
-Died again.
-Third time. This time, play smart, Coldrun. Got Cerberus up and running first. Took off GF ability from Zell since he’s not gonna use them, no single-target GFs. Shell on all three of us, Regen on Rinoa and all of us, Haste on all three of us. Meltdown on Adel…
YES!! Victory. The key I think was Shell.
-Ok, so now she should Rinoa should be merged with Ultimecia. Ellone steps up. Sends Ult!Rinoa to the past, then brings back Rinoa only.
-Rinoa stands up. She was inside young!Adel with Ultimecia, which is where Ultimecia wanted to be. Time for… time compression.
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Time Compression
-This thing is a trip. Everyone’s falling through the air as blobs of liquid memory float around them.
-Now we’re underwater.
-Now we’re in the sunny sky that turns into a storm of birds.
-Now we’re heading through a wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant.
-hahahahaha we landed, and a save point appeared. THEN A BILLION SAVE POINTS APPEARED XD XD XD
I love when games break the fourth wall like this. My previous favorite moment in the FF series was the array of tricks Yuffie used to steal from us when we first met, like stealing from when we opened the portrait name window.
-We’re now in the Commencement Room, where Ult!Edea sat before taking power in Galbadia. Edea’s there… a lot of Edeas.
-Boss fight? Versus… a bunch of Edeas? This is SO SURREAL!!! Voices are laughing and the boss music is all wrong and
-There are at least two Sorceresses and we’re in Timber all of a sudden and TIME AND SPACE HAVE NO MEANING
-Scan tells me that these aren’t Edeas. They’re just “Sorceresses” from across time.
-Beat them, and now we’re fighting another Sorceress on the beach.
-And by “the beach,” I mean “the Esthar urban cityscape” because wtf is happening
-More sorceresses appear. Our trip takes us to the Balamb Training Center and then to a Trabian winterscape.
Btw, these sorceresses may be attacking us for some reason, but credit where credit is due: they have style.
-These two go down, and another sorceress arrives. She looks different, even MORE awesome.
-More of this new type of sorceress, and we’re somewhere new. Wavy and broken.
-Fire cavern now. A real world tour.
-Winhill. Then Fire Caverns where we got Ifrit.
-AND NOW A CATERPILLAR SNAKE SORCERESS??
Ah crap, she’s counting down. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Ultima.
Survived it, but it hit hard. This last one is a tough fight.
VICTORY!
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Edea’s House?
-We’re now at Edea’s House. Or not. It clearly looks like Edea’s house, but the status say “???.”
-Out back, the sunny day melts into a corpse-strewn battlefield.
-THAT’S SOME CASTLEVANIA BULLSHIT RIGHT THERE!!
A storm-covered castle floats in the air just off Edea’s house, bound to the land by massive chains. This is fucking awesome.
-The music builds anticipation well here.
-I start walking up one of the massive chains towards the castle and see three doors floating in the air.
Jumping to one I see it leads to the overworld. The forested continent I hadn’t been to. Saving.
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Next time: exploring this new world.
