TW: spider and bug images, one each.
Overworld – Nolrich Heights, South Gate
-Starting out in Nolrich Heights. This is a land-locked part of the continent southwest of where I just was.
-I see where I just was! That down there is the valley around the bend from the Ice Cavern. I couldn’t reach the gate I see down there before since it was across the river.
-Found the South Gate, the border between Alexandria and Lindblum. A “shopgirl at Vega” comes by sometimes.
-Oh! Here she is. Bought some potions, antidotes, eye drops, and rested up for 100gil.
-...wtf is happening.
I went into a forest and some magical dancing teeth along with an x and o are fighting me, but quizzing me with weird music.
-First question! Was the Prima Vista built in Artamia Shipyards? No! Zebolt. Correct. The “Ragtime Mouse” gives me 1,000 gil. Nice. That’s the only question – combat ends.
-THIS CARVE SPIDER IS A BUCKET FULL OF NOPE.
-Found a forest tucked away into the mountains, but can’t reach it yet.
-Awesome! When Vivi goes into a trance, he gets to cast two spells in one turn, as if FFVIII’s Double is on him.
-I have to remember to swap armor around to teach characters new stuff.
-I can see airships flying about.
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Observatory Mountain
-There’s a dude named Morrid here. A floating airship model near him.
-Time for some cards.
-Ok, I get how the arrows work, but don’t understand what the number system is, how I determine whether my card “beats” another card.
-Tried another 4-5 games and I still don’t understand this game. Like, what determines whether two cards opposing each other have different numbers and what those numbers are?
-Whatever. I won a couple of games and lost a few and don’t know what’s going on. Hopefully it gives me a more in-depth tutorial soon. If I don’t get one soon, I’ll probably ask for y’all’s help.
-Morrid has lots of money. He wants rare coffee. He’ll give us an airship if we get him some rare coffee. Uh. Deal? Burman, Kirman, and Moccha. Sounds simple enough.
-There’s a weathervane atop this mountain.
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Village of Dali
-lolol Vivi literally just said “gee whiz” when he saw a windmill. XD
-A bunch of kids run through some pigeons.
-I really like the cinematic presentation of these zone title screens.
-Everyone in town seems a bit stunned at the party. Is it that they recognize Garnet? Or maybe that we’re so well armed in such a small town.
-Hm. This is weird. The innkeeper was staring at us, but not at Garnet. At someone else. I thought for a second that Zorn and Thorn might have offered a reward for sighting us, but even with that he’d be staring at Garnet as the object of their reward. Something else is at play here.
-Garnet is shy about everyone having to stay in the same room. She’s probably not used to this kind of tight quarters, and Steiner is furious lol.
-In the inn room, Garnet admits she was planning to leave Alexandria for Lindblum. We have to cross the south gate to get there.
-She does not say why she wants to run just yet. Zidane agrees to help her get to Lindblum. And we have our next destination.
-hahahha – while Zidane and Steiner get into a bit of a pissing contest over who will help the princess, Vivi is just like “fuck this mess” and goes to sleep.
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Night
-Words on a screen. A beautiful voice singing. A dream?
-Zidane gets up. Everyone’s gone. Maybe that was Dagger singing, but I doubt it.
-Zidane tries out a “color fortune” (like a horoscope I guess) for 10 gil. Good omen today! Lost things will be returned and so on. His lucky color is red. There’s a whole color fortune store in Lindblum, by the theater district. Look for the big clock.
-Tried the color fortune again and his lucky color was white the next time. Hm. Let’s swap events.
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Vivi, Confused
-oh no! the kids in the town are jerks, scared by Vivi. Maybe Black Waltz was here and ruined the reputation for black mages in this town.
-OH NOOOOO – Vivi took a step towards the kids because he wants a FRIEND probably and the kids back away.
-At least now I know who the innkeeper was looking at. Scared by magic. Maybe this world is like FFVI and magic isn’t super-common.
-Interesting. There were two scenarios to choose from – Vivi’s or Dagger’s. I chose Vivi’s first, but now that it’s over I can’t do Dagger’s. I guess it was one or the other.
-Nope, never mind. Had to leave the inn room to get Dagger’s back.
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Dagger Tries
-Tries what?
-Garnet is out near a small garden with a scarecrow.
-She’s worried about how many people got hurt on the ship because she tried to flee.
No, Garnet, it’s not your fault! It was your mother who fired at the ship.
-An old lady comes by to kill the bugs on the crops and something about this stuns Garnet. What’s weird is she says, “(Crops?)” as if the word is new to her. Or as if she didn’t expect the pumpkins and vegetables here to eat crops. Not sure.
-It’s an oglop. She’s fascinated at first, and the old woman is surprised since most girls she knows hate bugs.
-AH! This is what “Dagger Tries” mean. She’s trying here to blend into the town. Saying “sorry” instead of “my apologies,” and deciding whether to pretend bugs gross her out.
-Heee!! She throws the oglop up in the air and lets out a fake scream.
The oglop’s face on it descent from being thrown cracks me up.
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Zidane in Dali
-Back in the inn. A moogle is here. Gumo. Zidane gives her the note from Mois.
-lol Gumo: “I don’t like Mois, but I’ll read it anyway.” I really like that the moogles here have fuller personalities than prior games (Mog in FFVI aside). They have a more acerbic side. They have likes and dislikes, and can get angry.
-Both are dudes. Maybe I should assume most moogles are dudes.
-In the letter, Mois complains about how he got trapped in ice by someone with wings (must be Black Waltz #1), and Stiltzkin saw him in ice and didn’t help.
-KITTYYYYYYY ON THE FIREPLACE – I pet it like 20 times to hear it meow.
-Leaving the inn.
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Cat’s Eye
-oh my god there’s an ATE called Cat’s Eye. Please please please tell me I play as the cat.
-I DO I DO
-The cat jumps off the fireplace and heads to the innkeeper. He’s torn. Some kind of problems with his brother and money.
How will giving into his brother make him money? Maybe his brother wants to kidnap black mages and if he gives Vivi to his brother he’ll get paid.
-Oh, nope. He plans to tell his brother about Vivi, but something about doing this will NOT count as “giving into his brother.”
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Zidane in Dali
-YES! There’s a little tutorial about Tetra Master in Dali’s weapon shop. What’s especially interesting about this tutorial is that it’s incomplete. It implies that the first number on the card is attack power and the third and fourth are defense, but is unsure what the second number is. Iirc, the second is a P or M usually. Uncertainty about the game is built into the lore here.
-Playing some more Tetra Master, this time with Shopkeeper Eve. I’m winning a bit.
-The music isn’t as rhythmic and hypnotic as the Triple Triad music, but that’s a super high bar. Still nice.
-Not all the cards of the same name have the same stats. I have four Lizard Man cards for example, and all of them have arrows in different spots. Three have 0P00 for stats and one has 0X00.
*10 minutes later*
-Ok. Best guess at this point is that when two cards go head to head with the same stat line, a random number generator gives them numbers. Maybe?
-Zidane finds a wheel “big enough for an airship engine” on the ground, wondering why that’d be on a farm. I guess these people work for Morrid sometimes, helping him with airships.
-Zidane meets Vivi, sees he’s troubled by something. Asks if it’s girl troubles.
When Vivi says no, Zidane says: “What? Don’t tell me you don’t like girls!”
Hey, Zidane? Fuck off.
Actually, no. I’m going to just ignore this line or read it in the nicest possible way, assuming we’re not meant to read Zidane as a homophobic jackwagon.
-Vivi says he doesn’t think about that sort of stuff. Makes sense. He’s nine years old. Zidane… well, he does think about that stuff lol.
-AWWW!! Offers to help Vivi out with any girl troubles he may encounter, which Vivi appreciates.
I like Zidane A LOT when he’s in big brother mode, much more than ladies’ man mode.
Too bad he doesn’t inquire further into what was ACTUALLY bothering Vivi, instead going off on his ladies’ man thing.
VIVI: “I kept hearing a sound like ‘kweh.’” Zidane tells him it’s a chocobo sound and leaves, but VIVI DOESN’T KNOW WHAT A CHOCOBO IS
LITTLE GUY HOW COULD YOU NEVER HAVE MET A CHOCOBO BEFORE YOU’D LOVE ONE SO MUCH
-AND THEN SOMEONE COMES AND GRABS VIVI AND RUNS OFF WTF – that must be the innkeeper’s doing. I swear, if you hurt Vivi, I’ll burn your fucking inn to the ground.
-Zidane continues looking for the group. A kid, “Snot-Nosed Gudo,” wonders aloud “I wonder if it can run and stuff.” Chocobo?
-Another kid, Pasty Yacha: “We don’t have to work the farm because of them.” Yeah, must be chocobos.
-More ATEs.
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Cat’s Eye 2
-The innkeepers says “he sent someone to pick it up right away.” Vivi? Him? Likely a translation issue, but the “it” pronoun is a bit weird.
-Wait. No, it’s definitely weird, especially if Snot-Nosed Gudo wasn’t talking about chocobos. This, the girls thing – is the game introducing some kind of gender issue around Vivi?
-He’s going to pretend to be asleep to dodge us until we leave.
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Dagger Tries Harder
-Lol. Garnet – erm, Dagger – wants to speak with Shopkeeper Eve to learn about how to speak.
-She listens in on a conversation between Pasty Yacha and the shopkeeper that we don’t hear.
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Zidane in Dali
-The door inside one of these buildings to access the chocobo area Vivi was looking at is locked and needs the Mayor’s Key.
-Found Aries on the ground in this house. It’s a key item, and a strange one.
Zodiac related. Unsure whether this is pure flavor text or whether the zodiac will be worth paying attention to. I’ll assume the latter. If Aries came east, maybe Virgo is west of her? Dunno.
-There’s a puzzle upstairs here. Treasure surrounded by a churning windmill, and can’t access the treasure while the windmill churns. Gotta stop it.
-Met Mayor Kapu but he kicks us out of his room immediately.
-Zidane asks a different shopkeeper, Dutiful Daughter Slai, what the weird markings (look almost like crop circles) outside of town are. She doesn’t say. A secret…
-At the pumpkin patch where the old woman talked with Dagger. I want to reach a treasure chest, but the old woman won’t move out of the way. Shoo! (I’ll come back later.)
-Zidane meets Dagger at the shop. Her face is red. What did she overhear??
-Oh, nm. It’s more that she’s trying out the new way of speaking. Zidane compliments her on this and on her acting in the play. I like these two together.
-About done here. Can’t find Steiner though – I’m sure he’s helping out Dutiful Daughter Slai since Zidane was the second man to ask if she needed help, but didn’t see him.
-Whew! This was a long session. Saving back at the inn.
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Next time: more in Dali. Hopefully rescuing Vivi and WREAKING VENGEANCE ON THE INNKEEPER THE LIKES OF WHICH HE NEVER DREAMED POSSIBLE. HE WILL KNOW PAIN.
