Summary:
Dogfight between the combined Gaian air forces and some dragons allows
the Invincible to break into the magic bubble above the Iifa Tree. Nova
Dragon. The surreal Memoria, with special guest stars from FFI. Voice of
Garland.
Above the Iifa Tree
-About to head inside. Looks like I just fly to the top rather than having to run from the bottom like last time.
-Still not fully clear on the role of it. I get that it distributes Mist, and divides souls, blocking Gaian soul cycling while allowing Terran soul cycling, but the details are fuzzy.
-I wonder if I’ll see the Soulcage here. Let’s find out.
-OH GOD THE MUSIC SO INTENSE
-Cinematic, as a massive swarm of what look to be Amdusiases (what I think of as Knificorns) fly out of the purple orb.
-Or not Amdusiae maybe. Dragons? [later edit: maybe this is just a fleet of those Kuja dragons tahat Terra has stored up?]
-An air force is coming to save the day! Perhaps the Lindblum air force.
-YES! Despite Dagger’s desire to keep Cid out of the loop, he found his way into the loop and thank goodness for that.
-Baku and the Tantalus are on board with Cid, helping out. So THAT’S where they had gone off to. They’re trying to clear us a path.
-What are the dragons? Just general soldiers of Terra bursting through? Did souls of the Terrans get implanted into them? Are they controlled by Kuja? (Probably the latter.)
-FHDJKLSFHDSFDLS BEATRIXXXXXX ABOARD THE RED ROSE
-Just as our ship is about to get mauled, she swoops in on her own airship, supported by the Knights of Pluto.
-We burst through the purple orb in the Invincible, and it’s immediately boss time.
Nova Dragon.
-A tough customer. Heavy magic damage and group attacks and lots of HP. The all-stars of this fight are Steiner’s Shock and Vivi’s Flare.
-The boss arena is awesome, a bright swirly purple orb. Like we’re inside Ozma.
-Victory!
-Afterwards, we warp outside the Invincible.
---
Outside Memoria
-There’s a castle here now. Weirder and weirder. Are we in Terra?
-Zidane hears someone calling his name. Nobody else hears it. Must be Kuja doing some kind of trance sibling telepathy thing.
-NOPE LOL IT’S GARLAND
-Garland calls this place “Memoria,” which – surprise surprise – is a place of memories.
-Zidane’s memories brought this place forth. Here, we’ll witness “the full truth.” This is exciting.
-Not just Zidane’s memories, but everyone’s.
[Major Dark Tower spoilers: V jbaqre vs guvf cynpr jvyy or yvxr gur npghny Qnex Gbjre, jvgu ebbzf sebz Ebynaq'f yvsr.]
Above the Iifa Tree
-About to head inside. Looks like I just fly to the top rather than having to run from the bottom like last time.
-Still not fully clear on the role of it. I get that it distributes Mist, and divides souls, blocking Gaian soul cycling while allowing Terran soul cycling, but the details are fuzzy.
-I wonder if I’ll see the Soulcage here. Let’s find out.
-OH GOD THE MUSIC SO INTENSE
-Cinematic, as a massive swarm of what look to be Amdusiases (what I think of as Knificorns) fly out of the purple orb.
-Or not Amdusiae maybe. Dragons? [later edit: maybe this is just a fleet of those Kuja dragons tahat Terra has stored up?]
-An air force is coming to save the day! Perhaps the Lindblum air force.
-YES! Despite Dagger’s desire to keep Cid out of the loop, he found his way into the loop and thank goodness for that.
-Baku and the Tantalus are on board with Cid, helping out. So THAT’S where they had gone off to. They’re trying to clear us a path.
-What are the dragons? Just general soldiers of Terra bursting through? Did souls of the Terrans get implanted into them? Are they controlled by Kuja? (Probably the latter.)
-FHDJKLSFHDSFDLS BEATRIXXXXXX ABOARD THE RED ROSE
-Just as our ship is about to get mauled, she swoops in on her own airship, supported by the Knights of Pluto.
-We burst through the purple orb in the Invincible, and it’s immediately boss time.
Nova Dragon.
-A tough customer. Heavy magic damage and group attacks and lots of HP. The all-stars of this fight are Steiner’s Shock and Vivi’s Flare.
-The boss arena is awesome, a bright swirly purple orb. Like we’re inside Ozma.
-Victory!
-Afterwards, we warp outside the Invincible.
---
Outside Memoria
-There’s a castle here now. Weirder and weirder. Are we in Terra?
-Zidane hears someone calling his name. Nobody else hears it. Must be Kuja doing some kind of trance sibling telepathy thing.
-NOPE LOL IT’S GARLAND
-Garland calls this place “Memoria,” which – surprise surprise – is a place of memories.
-Zidane’s memories brought this place forth. Here, we’ll witness “the full truth.” This is exciting.
-Not just Zidane’s memories, but everyone’s.
[Major Dark Tower spoilers: V jbaqre vs guvf cynpr jvyy or yvxr gur npghny Qnex Gbjre, jvgu ebbzf sebz Ebynaq'f yvsr.]
---
Memoria
-WEIRD!! A bright, swirly ball seems to take the place of moogles for save and tent purposes. It sucks us in to save and shoots out light.
-First fight is against an Iron Man. Painful.
Swapping Dagger in and Eiko out, since I want the ability to Scan. Party is Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, Vivi.
-!!!Found Kain’s Lance!! “Spear from the distant past.” Freya’s legendary weapon.
-Encountered a card-playing ghost.
-Some great cards here. The Invincible, Nova Dragon, Hades…
Wait. Hades? That’s a normal enemy I have to fight? HADES? Shit. This place is gonna be tough.
-Next area is a bit like the tower by Ultimecia in FFVIII, complete with pendulum. Stairs of Time.
-Found the Ash demon.
Equipping Devil-Killer on Steiner and Zidane. Ash is like Ahriman where he just puts countdowns on us.
-Walking up the Stairs of Recollection.
-I like that the music here is more ethereal and reflective than intense.
-Found Zidane’s legendary weapon, The Tower.
-Boss time. Is that
IT IS IT’S MARILITH!! She calls herself one of the “Chaos guardians.” Well, she certainly was one of Chaos’s four main guards in FFI.
-Oops, she’s called Maliris in this game.
-This is really interesting. I wonder a few things. First, is the Fire Guard at the Fire Shrine just a reflection of her, which is why that Fire Guard just had two arms while Maliris has many? Second, is she just here because we remember her from the Fire Shrine?
And third, is she ALSO meant to be here because she’s in my memory as a player of FFI? Meta af if so.
-Tough fight. Fire damage and fast attacks with high HP. As she dies, does a Rain of Swords deathrattle that makes me glad we stayed topped off.
-I got an achievement for that fight, “Pulling Out the Fire.” Strange. I assumed this was just a normal mini-boss on the way to the end. Perhaps it depends on party make-up.
-Next up we see… Alexandria Castle. And then get a Wizard of Oz-esque sepia montage flashback of it being destroyed.
THIS IS SO COOL.
The “we” here seems to not include Quina. They don’t see it. Not their memory.
Memoria
-WEIRD!! A bright, swirly ball seems to take the place of moogles for save and tent purposes. It sucks us in to save and shoots out light.
-First fight is against an Iron Man. Painful.
Swapping Dagger in and Eiko out, since I want the ability to Scan. Party is Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, Vivi.
-!!!Found Kain’s Lance!! “Spear from the distant past.” Freya’s legendary weapon.
-Encountered a card-playing ghost.
-Some great cards here. The Invincible, Nova Dragon, Hades…
Wait. Hades? That’s a normal enemy I have to fight? HADES? Shit. This place is gonna be tough.
-Next area is a bit like the tower by Ultimecia in FFVIII, complete with pendulum. Stairs of Time.
-Found the Ash demon.
Equipping Devil-Killer on Steiner and Zidane. Ash is like Ahriman where he just puts countdowns on us.
-Walking up the Stairs of Recollection.
-I like that the music here is more ethereal and reflective than intense.
-Found Zidane’s legendary weapon, The Tower.
-Boss time. Is that
IT IS IT’S MARILITH!! She calls herself one of the “Chaos guardians.” Well, she certainly was one of Chaos’s four main guards in FFI.
-Oops, she’s called Maliris in this game.
-This is really interesting. I wonder a few things. First, is the Fire Guard at the Fire Shrine just a reflection of her, which is why that Fire Guard just had two arms while Maliris has many? Second, is she just here because we remember her from the Fire Shrine?
And third, is she ALSO meant to be here because she’s in my memory as a player of FFI? Meta af if so.
-Tough fight. Fire damage and fast attacks with high HP. As she dies, does a Rain of Swords deathrattle that makes me glad we stayed topped off.
-I got an achievement for that fight, “Pulling Out the Fire.” Strange. I assumed this was just a normal mini-boss on the way to the end. Perhaps it depends on party make-up.
-Next up we see… Alexandria Castle. And then get a Wizard of Oz-esque sepia montage flashback of it being destroyed.
THIS IS SO COOL.
The “we” here seems to not include Quina. They don’t see it. Not their memory.
-More Garland telepathy. “In his bid to defy me, Kuja tried to acquire
Alexander.. An incident 10 years ago started everything…”
-Got Eiko’s ultimate weapon, the Angel Flute. Flavor text says that it enchants anyone who hears its tune, but doesn’t have “ST: Confuse” the way I would’ve expected. It seems strictly worse than her Tiger Racket. Maybe I’m missing something.
-Stranger and stranger. The next room is called “Oblivion,” and objects and statues float through the air.
-Now it’s raining. Burmecia?
-Another ghostly card master. Ok… I really don’t want to play more because I have barely any duplicates of cards, but screw it. I don’t have aims to collect everything, so I just want to see what this guy has even if I lose lone copies of cards now.
-Not too tough. He just used Ribbons.
-Moving on. We see a bridge down below, a woman boarding a boat in the storm, hidden by a cloak.
-A little girl comes out and I now know whose memory this is. This is Dagger. Dagger is the little girl, and her mom is with her.
This isn’t Burmecia. It’s Madain Sari.
-The weirdest part didn’t hit me until after the memory faded. Why was Zidane able to see it? Was he there?
WAS HE THE ONE WHO CAUSED THE DESTRUCTION OF MADAIN SARI??
GARLAND: “I feared Gaia’s eidolons more than anything… However, I decided to deal with them before they became a major problem.”
New best guess: Garland used Zidane to destroy Madain Sari, and something about being forced to commit such a horrific act broke Zidane away from Garland’s control.
-Next room. Stairs leading up to the Invincible eye.
-A voice that seems separate from Garland is speaking to Zidane. Kuja, if I were putting money on it. Confirms that it was his memory, but doesn’t go into details.
“Once you accept everything, the answer will appear before you.”
“A tremendous force was summoned to Gaia during the age of war… however, the Gaians were not ready to harness so great a power…”
Is this referring to the greedy and hubristic act that we saw written about by Madain Sari? Possibly.
“They were terrified and broke the jewel into four pieces… and they prayed never to see it again.”
-Found Rune Claws, Amarant’s ultimate weapon.
-Got Eiko’s ultimate weapon, the Angel Flute. Flavor text says that it enchants anyone who hears its tune, but doesn’t have “ST: Confuse” the way I would’ve expected. It seems strictly worse than her Tiger Racket. Maybe I’m missing something.
-Stranger and stranger. The next room is called “Oblivion,” and objects and statues float through the air.
-Now it’s raining. Burmecia?
-Another ghostly card master. Ok… I really don’t want to play more because I have barely any duplicates of cards, but screw it. I don’t have aims to collect everything, so I just want to see what this guy has even if I lose lone copies of cards now.
-Not too tough. He just used Ribbons.
-Moving on. We see a bridge down below, a woman boarding a boat in the storm, hidden by a cloak.
-A little girl comes out and I now know whose memory this is. This is Dagger. Dagger is the little girl, and her mom is with her.
This isn’t Burmecia. It’s Madain Sari.
-The weirdest part didn’t hit me until after the memory faded. Why was Zidane able to see it? Was he there?
WAS HE THE ONE WHO CAUSED THE DESTRUCTION OF MADAIN SARI??
GARLAND: “I feared Gaia’s eidolons more than anything… However, I decided to deal with them before they became a major problem.”
New best guess: Garland used Zidane to destroy Madain Sari, and something about being forced to commit such a horrific act broke Zidane away from Garland’s control.
-Next room. Stairs leading up to the Invincible eye.
-A voice that seems separate from Garland is speaking to Zidane. Kuja, if I were putting money on it. Confirms that it was his memory, but doesn’t go into details.
“Once you accept everything, the answer will appear before you.”
“A tremendous force was summoned to Gaia during the age of war… however, the Gaians were not ready to harness so great a power…”
Is this referring to the greedy and hubristic act that we saw written about by Madain Sari? Possibly.
“They were terrified and broke the jewel into four pieces… and they prayed never to see it again.”
-Found Rune Claws, Amarant’s ultimate weapon.
-Boss time as we approach the Eye atop the stairs.
-THERE’S Tiamat!! Multi-headed and all. The Wind Guard must’ve just been a reflection.
-Some majorly hard hits from her, but managed to heal through it. Steiner’s Shock is so great. Zidane stole a Grand Helm and a Blood Sword.
-We walk into the eye.
-Next area is a burning ruin.
-Another card master, “Strong Phantom.” A warrior card master. Got Madeen, Two Moons (the heavenly bodies), Alexandria (the city), Leviathan – even Elixir! I didn’t think there’d be an Elixir card.
This game is so much more fun when I feel like I have nothing to lose.
-WHAT WAS THAT?!?! There was a card he played just before I lost that looked like a Samurai. Was that Genji Helm maybe?
[20 minutes later]
Hey! Stop judging me! I can SMELL your judgment. I have a major love-hate relationship with this game. Skewing hard to the love side.
-Got Ultima Weapon.
FINALLY! Got that armor card that was haunting me.
-Next area is a sunny town with a bell ringing. Not sure where it is. Madain Sari in its prime?
-Whoa. Now THIS is an awesome screen, one that plays with gravity and dimensions. “World Fusion.” Terra and Gaia merging.
-Garland confirms that this is the world merge we saw in Oeilvert. The fusion destroyed Terra’s native civilizations.
“Thus, I created the Iifa Tree to regulate the flow of souls back to Terra.” Garland had major power. And my hunch at this point, with him still speaking and the fiends being “Guardians of Chaos,” is that he’s at the end of this road as Chaos, like in FFI.
But why’s he telling us all this? He can’t believe that Zidane will still come to his side.
-Save point.
---
Next time: continuing through Memoria.
