Preliminary
-I try to access that area with higher level enemies I glimpsed off the Feywood. No luck. Found a “Darkened Tunnel” that surely leads there but it won’t open.
-I check the “D******d Merchant” in Lower Rabanastre. Same message as before, that they don’t sell wares fit for children.
-Wrapped up the airship quests to stop those brothers from harassing the staff. Got a Ring of Renewal.
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Port of Balfonheim
-I head to Reddas’s mansion. The Sun-cryst is the source of nethicite’s power. We can either carve out more nethicite or destroy the source.
-It’s across the sea in a tower. Reddas thinks it’s the Pharos lighthouse.
-Yay! Reddas will join us. Balthier will fly us on the Strahl.
-A racing mini game opens up, that requires me to alternate X and O to run. It sucks.
-We fly over to the lighthouse.
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Ridorana Cataract
-AWWWW! Balthier offers Vaan his ship if something should happen. He may be a sky pirate yet.
BALTHIER: “I am the leading man. I might have to do something heroic.” That better not be foreshadowing, unless it foreshadows Balthier and Fran retiring to a life of peace.
-I fight through the Cataracts around Pharos and to the lighthouse itself. Some nice weapons along the way, including a Holy Lance and a Sweep staff.
-A zombie dragon boss thing meets me here. Hydro. Its main trick is quite annoying: it uses Fear, which destroys my mana pool.
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The Pharos Lighthouse
-An inscription on the wall warns me against the coming tower.
“He without power want it not. He with power, trust it not. He with sight, heed it not. Rend illusion. Cut the true path.” It’s from Dynast-King Raithwall.
-There’s a system of locks to proceed, with items I have to get from the enemies here.
-Unlocked three “Altars of Night” to open up a new room. It’s… outdoorsy? A seaside cliff, and an illusion. I take out a turtle boss, Pandaemonium.
-I dig the twister of water moving upwards in the center of the tower.
-The next area’s puzzle focuses on killing green-flame-bearing Brainpans to open new paths.
-Hm. There’s a chest here, in First Ascent/Wellspring Ravel -2nd Flight, that I can’t reach.
-The next part has red flame enemies, Deidars. I have to be careful about killing them. They remove steps created by the green flame Brainpans.
-Hey, they also create new red steps in one area! I have to take care to not kill the green ones.
-yaaaaaay! I got the Holy spell! AND A RIBBON YUS!
-All the messages carved into this are condescending af, calling the reader “ignorant child.” Like:
“Ignorant child, whose works are ephemera and folly. Never forget, it is not your power which o’er the temporal world holds sway, but Our King’s own Providence.”
This confuses me a bit. It makes it sound written by the servants of god, but I also had assumed the king was the Dynast-King. But the Occuria saw the Dynast-King as their servant, not their god. Perhaps they’re referring to the Occurian king.
CRAPPY THEORY TIME: what if Venat is the ascended and corrupted version of the Dynast-King?
-Maybe the final boss won’t be Vayne or Venat. Maybe the “good” Occuria who demand that Ashe carry out their wrath will be the boss. If she destroys the Sun-cryst, how will they react?
-Second watcher, in another illusion room. It’s a floating sea-monster-type called Slyt.
-The next area is called “Second Ascent, Rule of Diamond Law.” There are altars of Magick, Steel, Wealth, and Knowledge.
-Cool! Each altar locks me out of using something. Magick, attacks, items, or technicks. Technicks are easily my most expendable, so I go with the Altar of Knowledge and ascend.
What? I still access technicks. What knowledge did I lose? A nearby carved message says I’m shunning “compass and sextant,” but I still have the map, so idk.
-The Occuria (assuming they wrote these carved messages) seem to think of themselves as disgruntled and underpaid babysitters for thankless and privileged children.
-Oh God. I just read the map section names. “Station of Suffering,” “Station of Ascension,” “Reach of the Damned…” It all makes me wonder. Are the writers of these carvings the followers of the espers?
-Time for the third watcher: “Ye who crave wealth, return whence you came.” How awesome would it be if I opened this door and Yuffie greeted me, smiling and stealing my gil?
-HI FENRIR! YOU LOOK SO COOL!
A snow tiger rather than wolf.
-An elevator awaits to bring me even higher. Up and up and up.
-Third ascent. Mete of Dynasty. The layout reminds me of FFIV:TAY’s Serpent Road. Lots of teleporty path options. A carved message tells me to follow its instructions on the right order or receive “punishment.”
-I made the wrong choice, and they weren’t kidding about punishment. A swarm of disease-inflicting ghost things.
-The phrase “green-hued flame, which to your earthbound form gave wing” keeps coming up. Compared to red flame. “Hungering, consuming, denying wings to earthbound form.” Green and red. Hm.
-Another message: “Steel turns to whitened ash,/ Wealth, it glimmers gold./ Magic cries for the violet dusk,/ And knowledge, for pink blush of dawn.”
-Glad I noted that. I soon find four sigils of sacrifice, each a different color. I go with pink, since… it didn’t do anything?
-The next segment has another message: “To the undying the final path belongs, Pure brilliance unseen in distances traversed, Untainted by glyph and color.”
-Up and up we go… to another boss. Hashmal. A man’s body with a cat’s head.
-I HAATE “Disease.” I have so few Serums and no spell to cure it, AND it persists through death. [Later edit: I only now remember that my Remedy Lore can cure it with Remedy, which I have many more of.]
Hashmal IS an esper! Bringer of Order, created to manipulate the world’s laws.
VAAN: Nothing
BALTHIER: Raise, Cura
FRAN: Confuse, Faith, Bravery, Curaja, Swiftness. Winner!
BASCH: Bonecrusher
ASHE: Makara (hand-bomb), Steal
PENELO: Channeling
-Ashe walks ahead, and the rest of the party discussed Ashe’s choice.
PENELO: “There’s nothing that can bring them back. Still, sometimes , when I close my eyes, I can see them so clearly.”
-Reddas comments how those memories of the past, of fallen loved ones, can seem so real, but their reality can bind you to them.
-I love the party’s fundamental respect for Ashe. They want her to destroy the Sun-Cryst rather than carving her own nethicite, but I get the sense that they’ll respect her choice.
-Coming close to the end here.
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The Sun-cryst
“To Heaven’s last height you now ascend. Chosen, know now the reason of your Choosing.”
-This must be the Sun-cryst.
Time to choose, Ashe.
ASHE: *starts a dramatic speech*
VAAN: “You’re going to use the sword to destroy the Sun-cryst, aren’t you Ashe?”
ASHE: *sign* “Don’t interrupt me, Vaan.” Lololol
-She lofts her sword and fire swirls about the tower. A massive explosion. What’s happening?
-The ghost of Lord Rasler appears to beckon her on. Unless he’s not real, an illusion.
-Gabranth shows up. He urges Ashe to take revenge… he wants a chance to fight us. I wonder: if Ashe chooses to not fight, choses the path of peace, what will he do?
-Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit. He announces himself as the true murderer of Ashe’s father.
This might be enough to push Ashe towards vengeance. If she’s gonna take revenge, this is the time. He takes it away from an abstract choice and makes it personal.
-Reddas interrupts. He tells a story of a man ordered to destroy Nabudis with the Midlight Shard…
Wait, Reddas was a Judge too? Was EVERYONE in this game a judge? Are we gonna hear about the epic defiance of Judge Migelo?
-don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it. I no longer believe that’s Lord Rasler’s ghost.
“Rasler. My prince. Our time was too short, but I know this. You were not the kind to take base revenge!” Damn straight! She slashes through the “ghost,” more symbolic than anything else.
-The “ghost” speaks. Its voice belongs to the Occuria who gave Ashe the sword.
“I am no false saint for you to use!” I love her so much.
-She’s chosen. She will destroy the Sun-cryst.
-Boss time. Gabranth. He rages at his brother for a betrayer, for breaking faith back when they were fighting the Empire together. Old wounds.
Y’know, this dialogue between Gabranth and Basch is cheesy as hell, and yet I can’t help but admire how sincerely its written.
-We defeat him and Cid steps in. That asshole. He dismisses Gabranth from the Emperor’s service.
-The enrages Gabranth. He must feel that he sold his soul for THIS?? He swings at Cid in rage, but Venat stops him.
-Before Ashe can take out the Sun-cryst, Cid and Venat approach it. (I’m here in my chair screaming STOP TALKING, JUST FUCKING SWING AT IT AND END THIS, but no.) It’s stuffed with Mist. They release it.
-The energy swirls around Cid. This is what all his experiments with nethicite led to. He wants to ascend.
-Boss fight: Doctor Cid and his holy gatling gun lolol.
-Midway through the fight, he summons “Famfrit,’ an esper-looking thing with a massive hammer and armor.
-An actual esper! We get it after we defeat the pair. Famfrit, the Darkening Cloud.
CID: “I have enjoyed these six years.”
VENAT: “The pleasure was all mine.” Nice little goodbye between a rebellious god and an evil scientist. And oddly enough, it seems sincere. I had expected Venat to be like, “FOOL! You are more grist for the mill. The strong survive and you fell. Mwahaha!”
(p.s. I want a sitcom about the two of them renting an apartment together in the big city)
-I feel like I’m missing something. I get the sense that the game is trying to show Cid as making a last second sacrifice of some kind while Reddas bids him farewell. Maybe holding the Mist in while we can run? I don’t get it.
-Fran is on the ground. The Mist is hurting her badly.
-OH NO FUCKING WAY , DO NOT KILL OFF FRAN.
-Ashe struggles to push towards the Sun-cryst with her sword, but she can’t.
REDDAS TAKES THE TREATY BLADE, LEAPS AT THE SUN CRYSTA AND BISECTS IT!
-It explodes. He eats the full blast.
-Somehow, we escaped. RIP Reddas.
I’m of two minds on this. On one hand, it was a badass move (though perhaps better suited to Ashe in this story). On the other hand, I can’t help but notice that the black guy is the one who had to make the heroic sacrifice. Ok.
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Next time: Plotting next stops in the Port of Balfonheim.
