Ultimecia Castle
-My first party is Squall, Zell, and Selphie.
-There’s a monster at the top of the stairs. I saved just before – let’s see it.
-Sphinxaur. Protecting the sealed power.
-I hit it a bunch with straight-up auto-attacks and it ripped its mask off. Now it’s “Sphinxara.”
-Victory! She melts away in a colorful display. Maybe that means the power is unlocked.
-Aha! One power unlocked. Interesting. I choose GF.
-The atmosphere in this place is incredible! Went further upstairs, walked across a chandelier that crashed down, and now I’m in the grand hall.
-A hatch to the basement. Let’s try that.
-Boss number two in the wine cellar.
“ELEMENTAL ATTACKS! Whatever I don’t use, I don’t like.” He uses lightning, so no Quezacotl.
-Hm. He seems to retaliate to physical attacks with this massive damaging Mega Spark. I’ll hold off on that… oof. He retaliates to GFs too with that.
-Both Zell and Rinoa got wiped out, but I got lucky with Squall. He was already junctioned to absorb lightning so he’s fine.
[Non-rhetorical question for y’all: What was this boss’s name? I forgot to check. ]
-Victory! Ifrit obliterates him. I unlock items.
-…foolishly. I unlocked items to use Phoenix Down on Zell and Selphie after that fight, but since I haven’t unlocked [Resurrection] yet I can’t. Back out to heal.
-Back to the wine cellar, but not much there except a draw point I can’t yet access. Next thing I unlock will be resurrection, then Draw.
-Treasure Vault key. Yes!
-There are green circles around where I can swap parties. Looks like there’ll be a mechanic I last saw in… FFVI I think? Where one party holds a switch and that opens up something to the other party. Decided to stick with Squall’s party for the moment though, at least until I find something that requires the unlock.
-Locked gate in a passageway past the courtyard. My first thing I need to unlock. I’ll come back.
-Nope. Moved in with the other party and the gate is still locked.
-Two things of note in the chapel. There’s a purple-black cloud that I can’t seem to interact with, and an organ that I can play but don’t know what to do with.
-Moved then to a clocktower with a rickety bridge. A dead fish fell off the bridge. It looks significant, so I move down the ladder to check it out. Took me into the waterway. Can’t get off this little ledge here, so I go back up.
-Up and up. High clock tower.
-And across the clock face.
-Oh. Damn.
Found Ultimecia’s master room. No way am I ready for her yet, with all the stuff I haven’t unlocked yet.
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Art Gallery
-Neat! An art gallery. Can look at paintings up close. One is fire, another flood. One has a title too tough to read. Judgment. Sleep. (Sleep in particular is kind of adorable, since it looks like a cat taking a nap. Or maybe a gopher.)
-Upstairs, more paintings. Watchman. Messenger. Love.
I’m fully expecting this to turn into something from Relm’s World of Ruin story in FFVI where one of the paintings comes to life.
-Some puzzle here I’m not seeing.
-OH! Now that I’ve seen all the paintings, it’s giving me a list of names for the untitled painting to choose.
Process of elimination maybe?
-Going back over the prior paintings now and writing down the Latin names that exist:
-IGNUS (fire)
-INANDANTIA (flood)
-IUDICIUM (judgment)
-INTERVIGILIUM (sleep)
-VIVIDARIUM (garden)
-VIGIL (watchman)
-VIATOR (messenger)
-VENUS (love)
-XIPHIAS (swordfish)
-XERAMPELINAE (red clothes)
-XYSTUS (tree-lined road)
-INAUDAX (cowardice)
-Hm. Nope. Not process of elimination, since the list of possible painting names is 12 and the gallery only has 12 paintings. Maybe it’s similar to a triptych, composed of three separate paintings (since it boots me out of the select screen after I pick three different titles) and I have to notice which ones.
-WAIT NO I’M ON THE WRONG TRACK!!!!
-It’s clock-related. X? I? V? The Castle having a huge clock tower?
-YES! I didn’t get it yet, but when I went upstairs I saw that the floor in front of the painting has a clock.
8:20. VIII for 8, and IIII for 4. That’s… weird. I thought IV was 4. Anyway. Oh, and the second hand points to VI, 6.
-So how do I represent those three numbers in only three tries?
-Maybe it’s not about the letters they start with, but rather that there are three numbers. 4, 6, and 8. So maybe I just go with the fourth title in the list, then the 6th, then the 8th. Or some version.
-4 > 6 > 8 doesn’t work.
-8 > 4 > 6 doesn’t work.
-6 > 8 > 4 doesn’t work.
-4 > 8 > 6 doesn’t work.
-8 > 6 > 4 doesn’t work.
-Maybe…
-aaaargh. I don’t want to give up on this. I feel like I’ve made progress, but I don’t know where else to go.
-Come on, Coldrun. Chill. You got this. It’s definitely clock-related, it’s definitely related to 4, 6, and 8.
-FDJKLSFHLDS WAIT
-Ok. I think I may have it. The spark behind this idea is that it’s WAY too coincidental for the words to all start with I, V, and X, the numerals on the clock. If I ONLY look at those letters, then each word corresponds to a number:
-IGNUS (fire) = I = 1
-INANDANTIA (flood) = II = 2
-IUDICIUM (judgment) = III = 3
-INTERVIGILIUM (sleep) = IIII = 4
-VIVIDARIUM (garden) = …VIVII? Doesn’t make sense. Come back to it. = 8?
-VIGIL (watchman) = VII = 7
-VIATOR (messenger) = VI = 6
-VENUS (love) = V = 5
-XIPHIAS (swordfish) = XII = 12
-XERAMPELINAE (red clothes) = XI = 11
-XYSTUS (tree-lined road) = X = 10
-INAUDAX (cowardice) = IX = 9
The only number missing is 8, so maybe 8 = “Vividarium” and I’m only supposed to count the first V.
Order of a largest time unit to smallest: 8 > 4 > 6 = Vividarium > Intervigilium > Viator. No.
Ascending from smallest number to largest: 4 > 6 > 8 = No. DAMMIT COME ON.
I don’t get it. Fuck. Brute force the other options.
4 > 8 > 6: no
6 > 4 > 8: no
6 > 8 > 4: no
8 > 6 > 4: no
8 > 4 > 6: no
Seriously. What the fuck.
??YES!!!!!!!!!!!! Tried it again to double check in case I screwed it up, and I was RIGHT! It was “Vividarium (VIII) et Intervigilium (IIII) et Viator (VI).” 8 > 4 > 6. “In the Garden Sleeps a Messenger.”
-Black smoke begins to emerge as the “messenger” (the cloud in the painting) erupts from the painting into the real world.
”Trauma.”
-It’s a robot thing that I’ve seen in the Triple Triad cards. Spits out some mini-bots.
-Wore it down with my GF and defeated it. Unlocked Resurrection.
-I was leaving to head outside and save when I saw a string in the prior room. I pulled it. Oops lol. Some monsters roar in the distance and I have one minute timer. (Just couldn’t resist, could you, game?)
-Heh. Didn’t even see what that timer was for, because I made it to the castle exit with 20 seconds to spare. Saved.
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Going to sign off for this session, but I have to add a few final notes on why I’m enjoying this dungeon so frigging much (and I’m like 60-70% sure it’s the final dungeon):
1)The atmosphere. It’s spooky and fun with wonderful music. A real sense of place.
2)The puzzles. The art one is tough, but even just exploring the castle and finding where I should go, where I have to go, how the place is tied together, and the order in which to unlock my abilities is great. Better yet? I can focus on enjoying the puzzles and atmosphere. Because of…
3) …”Enc-None.” I started out here without equipping Enc-None (the no random encounters ability) to see what monsters I’d find. All monsters from prior areas. Everything on a spectrum from Grats to Malboros to Behemoths. Then I tried taking off encounters, and it just allowed me to focus so much more on the thing I really enjoyed in the atmosphere and puzzles and exploration.
No regrets at all. If this were FFIV or really any prior FF, I would’ve regretted doing that. Each level I gained would be crucial preparation for bosses. If I avoided dungeon encounters, I’d probably have to grind elsewhere. FF8 scales though!! Sure, leveling up my AP gives me better abilities, but I’m pretty happy with my GF abilities as is. I can get away with not grinding up in a way that I hadn’t been able to in most prior FFs.
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Next time: more Ultimecia Castle.
