Wreck of the Prima Vista
-Aboard the ship.
Cinna says nobody’s ever made it out of this forest alive.
-Zidane made it. No sign of Garnet.
-New thing. An “Active Time Event.” I pick an event called “The Forest Keeper,” and swap to where Vivi and Garnet are in a hole. Something hovers above them.
I’m really hoping that the ATE isn’t actually timed. Enough of that in FFVIII, thank you very much.
-Mosco is the moogle here. Trying to keep track of the names for the Mognet quests.
-Saved here and came back later. [Non-rhetorical question for y’all: what does “Continue” do? Just bring me back to the most recently loaded game?]
-I hope I get a tutorial at some point for what the abilities are. I’m curious what the things marked by a gem attached to weapons are, and how they work, and why some are greyed out but others aren’t.
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Evil Forest
-hee! It’s literally called “Evil Forest.”
-First random encounter. Against a Fang, which seems to be a basic black wolf. Stole a potion and a high potion, but have to be careful with stealing too much. Took a lot of damage.
-Scanning through my items and noticed something interesting. A lot of items function differently in combat from out of combat. Like, potions seem less effective in combat, encouraging out-of-combat preparation. A Phoenix Down cures KO, but a Pinion cures KO out of combat only.
-Some items seem to have various elemental affinities. Noticed it with Steiner’s bronze, and it appears to not be a fluke. Even the description for a basic Silk Shirt says that it reduces Thunder damage by 50%, but “burns easily.” The latter could be flavor text, but it probably means instead that it makes the character weak to fire.
-I know this is an “Evil Forest.” It says so, right in the name! But the music is more benevolently mysterious.
-Found Vivi. He’s freaked out, says Garnet is in trouble.
-It’s a big plant monster! Is that a Grat, carrying over from FFVIII? Steiner is here too.
-Fight against the plant monster, but it’s regular combat music, not boss music. It seems to hold Garnet inside it.
-A pinky/purple light shines over Zidane. I thought at first the monster was stunning him because it looked like the monster yelled “Trance!,” until Zidane said it was boosting his power somehow.
-Trance = limit break-esque? Zidane used something special thing called Free Energy, but I forgot to note what that type of attack was called.
-The monster keeps absorbing from the princess, like the fight against Adel when she was holding Rinoa.
-The monster, “Prison Cage,” escaped.
-YOU TOOK VIVI, YOU MONSTER
-but not for long. Vivi lit that plant up.
-Steiner and Zidane whack away, and unlike the last fight I’m using Potions occasionally since it drains health from Vivi.
-We kill the monster, but with its dying breath it spews some poison on us.
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Wreck of the Prima Vista
-Blank wakes us up.
-EEEEWWWW. The poison breath was the monster planting “seeds” in us, that kill us upon sprouting. Blank thankfully hands Vivi a drink to stop that.
-Steiner stumbles around in a daze, calling for Garnet, but Benero and Zenero (or something like that) stop him and make him heal up and rest.
-Zidane wants to go search for the Princess. Baku thinks it’s too dangerous, saying the place is full of “Monsters out of the Mist.” I wonder if that’s just a saying, or if the Mist is actually a type of monster-land or hell in this game. [Later edit: I now am pretty sure that he’s just saying this is a misty forest, and there are monsters in it, and not much more than that.]
-Ok, trying out Active Time Event. It swapped me over to “Time To Escape,” where I’m playing as Steiner trying to get out. Can I keep swapping back and forth? Didn’t mean to leave Zidane just yet. I thought “Time to Escape” would show me a countdown of how long Zidane had to complete his mission or whatever.
-Steiner found Baku’s Garnet doll. His reaction’s to be expected.
He sits down and waits.
-Then it swaps back to Zidane.
-AH. I think I get it now. These ATEs are just things where I can swap between different scenarios happening simultaneously. THAT’S AWESOME! This will give so much flexibility to the game’s storytelling.
-The other two scenarios I can do are “Girl Who Was Left Behind” and “My Little Baby.” The first probably will take me to Garnet. Dunno about the second.
-Zidane wakes Vivi up and they talk. Like pretty much everything Vivi-centric, it’s adorable.
-He compliments Vivi on being a strong little guy. Vivi gets quiet. Does he not like being called little?
-Oh. No. Vivi feels guilty that he was late in stepping in, and didn’t use his black magic until he himself was caught. Don’t feel bad, kid! You made the right call. Would’ve been a bad move to set the cage on fire with Garnet inside.
-He promises to save Garnet and leaves the room.
-Flashback? Already? Zidane flashes back to meeting the princess in the castle.
-It appears that he wasn’t just trying to be smooth when he mentioned feeling strange to her.
-End of flashback. Zidane makes up his mind, tells Blank he plans to rescue Garnet. Even if Baku disagrees. (And I don’t fault Baku for disagreeing, btw. This place seems dangerous and his people are injured.)
-Before I talk to Baku, swapping to another thing. “Girl Who Was Left Behind.”
-WHOA. I was 100% wrong. It’s not Garnet this is about, but Ruby.
I really thought Ruby was a one-off joke character, but loks like we’ll get more of her. She’s back… in Alexandria? Wondering where everybody went.
-We just get a quick shot of her before flashing back to Zidane. Let’s try the other one, “My Little Baby.”
-it’s Cinna outside the wreck, looking for his Garnet doll. OH NO, CINNA
-There’s something a bit disturbing – not about him sleeping with a stuffed doll, as there’s nothing wrong with that on its own, but about him sleeping with a stuffed doll of an actual living person. I doubt Garnet would be that comfortable knowing it.
-Back to Zidane. Talked to Baku, and he relents. Grudgingly gives us the okay to find her.
-It hit me just now: we still don’t know why Tantalus wanted to kidnap Baku. I get the sense they’re not doing it for themselves for ransom money, but on someone else’s behalf.
-lol - I misunderstood Baku’s grudging acceptance. He wants to fight Zidane. I guess if Zidane wins, he’ll let us go.
-Zidane wins a pretty easy fight, and Baku’s not even mad. Seems sort of happy just to have gotten the chance fight, and genuinely likes Zidane.
-Zidane goes to find Steiner, and TROLLS THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF HIM LIKE A PRO
LOLOLOL
-Steiner agrees to work with this “conniving scoundrel” to find Garnet and I’m so excited.
-Steiner wants Vivi too, calling him “Master Vivi.”
-Vivi is shy about coming, uncertain of his own power.
-Steiner helps wonderfully here, heaping praise and respect on Vivi. And it’s not a ruse – he really feels that way, regardless of Vivi’s age, and it makes me love and appreciate Steiner.
-Zidane leaves, but Steiner holds back Vivi for some reason. An experiment. Something about a magic sword?
-AHA! I figured out the gem things from fiddling about in the status menu. I can equip various abilities from my weapons and armor, and each one I equip takes up a certain amount of those “Magic Stones.”
-oh lord. One of Zidane’s abilities is the most Zidane ability ever to Zidane.
-And like two minutes later, as I’m leaving, I encounter Blank. He ribs Zidane about his ladies-man qualities, gives us some of that anti-seed potion (I assume for when we find Garnet), and then gives us a quick run-down of abilities.
-Tried talking to Cinna outside, a merchant, to give him his doll back, but no luck. It’s not an option.
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Next time: off to save Garnet from the arboreal clutches of the Grat!
