FFIX – Part 17: Culinary Arts

Summary: Departure from Lindblum. Quina! Qu's Marsh. Blue magic.


Lindblum Castle

-First checking out the Serpent’s Gate.

-It led to a harbor. A waterside habor, for sea ships. It’s beneath the mist, and is apparently hazardous to be here.

We’ll come back later. Maybe it’s even tied to that intro where we saw Garnet on a ship alone.

-There’s a moogle at the Dragon Gate, Moonte. He got a letter from Stiltzkin. Stiltzkin went north to Burmecia via the Mist and Gizamaluke (our next destination). It’s rainy there. Interesting that we’re on Stiltzkin’s trail.

-We can get to Gizamaluke’s Grotto by following roots that pop out of the ground. Maybe the Mist will be maze-like, or like the Lost Woods from a Zelda game.

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Overworld

-Eunorus Plains to the west.

-Explored the peninsula west of the Dragon Gate. Not much here. Some islands I look forward to exploring later when I get sea or air capabilities.

-Huh. Just found a control on the map that shows all points of interest, not just where I’ve been so far. Includes Burmecia.

-The beach on the western water is the Tuhanda Shores.

-The Lachenta Wetlands are in the middle of this section of the continent. There’s a structure or forest in here that I can enter.

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Qu’s Marsh

-huh! Unexpected. I remember the item back in the weapon shop, the Fork, that is used by members of the Qu for martial arts. I assumed they’d have a mountain training area or something, but the swamp makes me think they may be lizard people or frog people or something. This is FFIX after all.

-The music here is the same music from the Moogle tutorial.

-As I walk down this plank through the marsh, the water around me has pockets of air bubbles. The Qu (whoever they are) lying in wait I assume.

-HOLY CRAP IT’S LITERALLY THE MOOGLES FROM THE TUTORIAL!

I just assumed they were… I dunno, hypothetical, not that they were real moogles somewhere I could find in the world.

-Waded through tall grass and reeds to find a house.

-Backtracked a bit and found a woman who looks like the head chef in Alexandria. She’s looking hungrily at the frogs hopping through the swamp.

-Caught a frog! Gave to it to her. SHE’S Qu.

-oh my god she’s my new party member

LOOK AT THAT ART! Quina.

An ambidextrous 70-90 year old from the Qu tribe. THIS GAME IS SO BIZARRE AND I LOVE IT.

-Gave her the frog and she loves it.

-Who is this asshole? Quale comes from the direction of the house to berate Quina and I immediately dislike him.

Still, I may be misreading this. It’s hard to pick up tone on first sighting this new race. I don’t have context.

-We head to the house. Quale is her master. He urges her to branch out, to think of more than just the frogs around here or Alexandria.

-So eating frogs is a Qu thing. Eating frogs from far and wide is the key to Qu growth.

-Quina is enticed by the possibility of eating new and tasty things. Yay! She joins us.

-Outside the hut:

VIVI: “Um… that man looks exactly like my grandpa.”

??????? I just had assumed Vivi’s grandpa was another black mage. This at least helps explain why he has such good memories around his grandpa’s cooking.

-Ok, wtf is going on. Vivi asks Quale about Quan (Vivi’s grandfather), and Quale calls Quan a bigot.

-Quale keeps insisting he doesn’t know Quan, in a way that makes me think he knows Quan very personally and negatively. Grandpa Quan is in the Qu tribe.

The plot just thickened and I have no idea what it means.

-I equipped Quina. She now has two abilities that I hadn’t accessed yet: Millionaire (more gil after battle) and High Tide (faster Trance gauge).

-Went back inside to talk to Quale again. He referred to Quina as “S/he.” VERY interesting. S/he and him for pronouns. I’ll go with that. There’s definitely something about this. I seem to remember some amphibious species having fluid sex, so perhaps this is related.

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Frog-Catcher

-Moved to the screen where we first found Quina catching frogs and s/he asks for more time to do that.

-Mini-game! Got two frogs, an adult male and an adult female, and Quale popped out.

QUALE: “You come far along way of gourmand.”

-dear lord this frog catching music is amazing

-This golden frog has been elusive, but caught it.

-Ok, caught all the frogs.

-NOOO!! I chose to be done but nothing happened after the golden frog was caught. I thought Quale would give me an item or something. [Later edit: Not quite nothing. I got an achievement.]

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Qu’s Marsh

-Combat time in the swamp. Let’s see what Quina can do.

-BLUE MAGE BLUE MAGE QUINA IS MY BLUE MAGE!!! His “eat” ability learns a targets magic when they are low on health.

-Picked up two pieces of blue magic already: Aqua Breath and Frog Drop.

-Frog Drop’s ability description is fascinating. Its damage depends on the number of frogs I’ve caught. I’ll have to keep an eye out for more swamps to beef this ability’s damage up.

Let the froggies hit the floor!

-Zidane learned a super cool ability called “What’s That?!” (from a synthesized weapon) where he summons a shiny light [later edit: or perhaps distracts them with a butterfly, given that the weapon granting it is the Butterfly] in the distance and makes the monster turn around. It lets the party get a back attack in. :)

-There’s an outcropping just off to the side of the frog pond that I can climb up on as if to get a better view, but nothing to get a better view of.

Perhaps I’ll be back here later.

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Overworld

-Heading east towards the Chocobo Forest.

-?!?!?!?!? YESSSSSS - I learned Mighty Guard from one of the cockatrice-type monsters. That’s consistently one of the best blue magic spells in past games and I always seem to miss it.

-The Nomarania Beach lies to the southeast.

-Learned yet another piece of blue magic from a Vice: “Vanish.” It makes “a party member disappear.” Not sure what that means.

-Found a new monster type, something I remember only seeing once before in the series, back in Crisis Core.

“Hedgehog Pie.”

-Can I take a minute to adore that the Fork weapon is a literal fork? When I saw it in the weapon shop as used for martial arts by the Qu, I expected it to be one of those long trident things. But nope! It’s a fork. XD

-The Hedgehog Pie did a massive single-target damaging ability that killed Vivi called Pumpkin Head. My beautiful Quina avenged his death by eating the Hedgehog Pie and learning Pumpkin Head himself. Pumpkin Head does damage equal to the difference between the character’s max HP and current HP, so it’s a nice ability to use when low on health. Like a damaging White Wind.

-Tried eating a Ladybug, but it “taste bad.” That must be the message when there’s no blue magic to learn.

-I misunderstood potions. Their description said that they’re less effective in the field. I thought that meant that they were less effective in combat, but it’s the reverse. They’re intended to be used in combat.

-Crossed the bridge to the east, into the King Ed Plains.

-The beach to the south is the Metalark Shores.

-Fought a tough monster called an Ironite, a dragon. Got a new blue magic called Angel’s Snack that uses Remedy on all party members. Awesome.

-Enough for now, but to recap: my party consists of a monkey-tailed thief, an adorable little black mage who may or may not be a doll, a rat dragon knight, and… well, I just spent two minutes trying to figure out how to best describe what Quina is and best I can come up with, s/he is an amphibious frog-eating blue mage/chef-in-training.

<3 LOOK AT HIM!!! S/he's so happy!!

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Next time: the Chocobo Forest.