Pandemonium
-Backtracked briefly to the room where we found Zidane. It was called “Mind Control.” *shudder* There was a Holy Miter on the mind control chair.
-oh hell no, it’s a malboro
OH HELL NO IT’S FLYING WHO TOLD IT IT COULD FLY – ITS TENTACLES ARE SPLAYED ABOUT AND IT’S AWFUL
-Used Carbuncle for the first time on the off chance it might reflect Bad Breath. Got an achievement. It didn’t use Bad Breath before I killed it, but it did use Virus. I don’t know that I have an ability that can block that.
-Found Movers here too, those end-game enemies from FFV.
-What is this room? There are a bunch of nodes that look like sprinklers and a button. Do I press the button?
I don’t have to. I can run past it.
Oh god. I do press the button. I think I do.
-30 SECOND TIMER FUUUUCK
-I failed. Barely had time to flee one fight.
-Ok, didn’t die. There must be some puzzle to get around this. When I pushed the button a bunch of lights came on. Maybe I’m supposed to avoid the nodes that light up?
-No, that wasn’t it. I avoided the lit up nodes, moved past to the bridge beyond it, and the timer was still ticking. When I moved past the bridge, the timer went away.
-But I went back to push the button again and I don’t have that option. The bridge is a light bridge. Perhaps by pressing it and making it across after 20 seconds, I made the bridge permanent. My best guess anyway.
-Reached another puzzle thing of sorts. I can adjust something’s altitude and heading. Huh?
-Tried pushing random numbers but stopped. I don’t really have a context to solve this puzzle. Or do I?
-The status screen calls this the control room. The thing looks like a bridge. Could that be it? Does this control a bridge I’ll find later?
-YES. Next room over. This is an interesting little puzzle.
-Ate an Abadon and learned Twister. Wind damage to all enemies. Nice.
-I could continue on past this elevator puzzle, but I see a treasure chest a bit higher up. I want to try for that.
-Woohoo!! After some trial and error with the elevator, the absent party members take the controls. Minimizes the need to run back and forth.
-That’s way easier. Got the treasure. 20,007 gil. That’s a strangely specific amount of gil. [Non-rhetorical question for y’all: is that a reference to something?]
-I can’t help but feel like I missed out on something by needing the party’s help. Like, if I had gotten it without their help, that I would’ve gotten some kind of legendary treasure. Oh well.
-Next floor up.
-There are three separate platforms that take me one more level up. Let’s just start with one randomly.
-Loving this maze!
-HELL YES!! I’m trying out this new Amarant weapon, Avenger, and it sometimes lands a Death Blow. Eat it, Malboro!
-High on the list of things I do not love about this maze are the metal nodes in the background that are shaped like mouths. CREEPY. AS. FUCK.
-Found Mozme the moogle. Passed on Moorock’s message. Lolol – just excited to use mail.
-Swapping my party around a bit to maintain the “lowest levels” strategy. I don’t want to be screwed if I run into an Ultimecia situation where I have to use all my party members, so really trying to keep them all strong. Zidane, Dagger, Amarant, Freya.
And frankly, they’re all fun to use.
-Oh shit. Was about to move forward, and Mozme warns me of danger ahead. *deep breath* ok. I saved. Let’s see what awaits.
---
Boss Time
-Garland below a giant bulbous red observatory.
-Garlands starts to give a speech about how life is really death, dog-eat-dog, etc. He believes that any mature civilization recognizes this fact.
I mean, yes? But recognizing it and using it as an excuse to toss any sort of morality aside are two different things.
-This is interesting. Garland says that Terra’s souls will sleep until they forget “such nonsense” – such nonsense being the cost of their continued existence? This makes Garland in some ways… noble?
GOD I feel dirty saying it, but I can see how he sleeps at night. He takes on the guilt for his entire civilization.
-Zidane again rejects Garland’s offer. With his friends by his side, it’s not hard.
-See, this feels a lot like a final dungeon and final boss fight, but then there’s Kuja. Lurking in the background. That’s the only thing that makes me almost certain that this ISN’T a final boss.
FREYA: “We live not to forget our past, but to learn from it!”
AMARANT: “Blind pursuit of power is meaningless vice.”
DAGGER: “We may be weak, but that’s what makes us work together and help one another.”
YES YES YES!!!! This is similar to so much of what I loved about the Kefka fight. Not just a clash of strength; a clash of moral arcs. Of the lessons that the enemy picked up through his life versus the development and lessons picked up by the characters through the game.
GARLAND: “Then show me! Lecture me again when you are on the verge of death.”
I thought we were about to fight Garland, but not quite. That green dragon of Kuja’s flies down. Is he in the room? Or was this dragon Garland’s?
Silver Dragon.
-Stole Kaiser Knuckles.
-Silver Dragon down! It put out some serious hurt with Twister and Shockwave, but didn’t have too much health.
-Zidane’s now asking Garland what he wants. The people of Terra want to live, but what is GARLAND after? Why isn’t he just another sleeping Terran?
-He was created for this. Created by who? The Terrans? Or someone greater?
-Boss time again. Boss music.
-He uses Wave for AoE damage and Flare for heavy single target, but not as damaging as I had expected it to be.
-His Stop is especially painful. If I die on this fight, I’ll use the Locomotion ability to avert that.
-OHO!! Remedy cures Stop. Didn’t know that until now.
-Got him! Or probably better to say, I got this phase of him. No way he’s down for good.
-OH SHIIIIIIT IT’S THE INVINCIBLE OVERHEAD
Here comes Kuja.
---
Enter Kuja
-Aboard the Invincible.
-Now Kuja controls the souls.
KUJA: “Fate has chosen me to be the new ruler of Terra!”
-He floats down to us. Thanking us for opening the way to Terra while simultaneously disposing of Garland. Well…shit. He’s not wrong. We all but led him straight to the black materia.
-Boss fight now against Kuja, who proclaims to be fighting for Terra – tongue firmly in cheek. Let’s go.
-He mocks us as we fight. “You call that an attack?”
-For possibly the first time all game, I get to use Dagger’s trance, “Eidolon.”
-Got this form.
-OH HELL HE WENT INTO A TRANCE, I FORGOT THAT HE WAS PLANNING THAT
-He may be an evil shithell, but credit where credit is due: his trance form (much like his regular form) looks fantastic.
-He immediately casts Ultima. Wipes us out (in a scripted way).
-Kuja is using the power of the undying Terran souls to fuel his Trance. The Invincible sucked up the souls from Madain Sari, Alexandria, and the Iifa Tree. It..
Oh you fucker. It even sucked up Brahne’s soul.
-Those souls were being used as fuel by Garland in the Invincible. Kuja released the souls and took them for himself.
-I’m really hoping we get a Goblet of Fire moment where the trapped souls rebel and kick his ass, Brahne among them.
-He turns on the weakened Garland. Garland tries telling him his power is meaningless. Kuja hears this, and kicks him off a cliff. RIP Garland. May you and Gestahl play many games of chess together in the afterlife.
-Kuja keeps talking about love. About how he’ll rule with love, how he feels love for his brother, and it’s such a twisted meaning, albeit one that isn’t fully insincere.
-A voice cuts off his villain monologuing. “You could never build an eternal kingdom… Do you think a defect like you could last forever?”
Seems like Garland may not be quite done yet.
-Garland says that Kuja was only built to last until Zidane came to power. EAT IT BUDDY.
-Holy shit. Holy shit holy shit holy shit. Garland has injected the seed of doubt, one that just ate through all of Kuja’s prior confidence. Those may have even been Garland’s last words.
-He’s really taking this mortality thing hard. Laughing. Raging. A full spectrum of a man who now knows, as he points out, that he’s just as much a mortal puppet as the black mage dolls he created.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
-And he plans to take the world with him.
-About to go super Saiyan. Cinematic. He floats up. And dismantles Terra.
Magic rips out of him, obliterating the mushroomy things around.
Turns Terra into an inferno.
---
Next time: escape from Terra.
