Random Missions, Combat, Rumors
-Gadgeteer is better designed than I expected. It hits all allies or enemies, not random individuals. I can hedge my bets.
For example, I can use Red Spring (mass haste) against a boss. The benefit if it hits my party is titanic, but if it hits one enemy is not too bad. And I can prepare for the worst case scenario. Like, in the Red Spring example I can have a dispel ready. I wouldn’t use mass sleep in this case.
-Time for my first major party change. I swap out one of my two bangaa for a human. I’ve been holding out for Ritz joining up, but she hasn’t yet.
The end of a tough random encounter.
-Marche finished two archer A-abilities and unlocked hunter. Got capture!
-Played around with this and found it… challenging. Still figuring out the capture rules.
-Caught my first monster. They have to be really low health even to have a reasonable (25%) chance.
-Omg the antlion is in my monster bank chilling out. I can “play” with it – which seems to mean feeding it potions or something.
idk what I’m doing lol
-Assassin Milly is awesome! She has this Last Breath ability that can one-shot enemies.
-The more assassin abilities I get, the more I love this job. It’s soooo powerful.
Why are people in FF always trying to make pets of malboros?
-Unlocked blue mage! Much like capture, I find it really challenging to pull off learning. I’ll dabble in it but it may end up being a replay job.
-Oh god. Tonberry time. I have a mission to find killers in this city, and guess who those killers are.
-The fight is against a purple tonberry and two green ones. They’re creepy af, silent and deadly.
-Their main attack is (of course) a Knife attack. It does percentile damage. 9/10.
-There’s a mission to take out a mysterious swordsman who challenges all comers. I’m hoping against HOPE this is Gilgamesh… it’s not. He’s Nothclif.
Hilariously, when we fight the swordsman (who looks like just a generic fighter), there’s a law against “Fight.”
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I Fight Dragons
-There’s another series of missions focused on dragons rising up to attack Beguba. I need to get a wyrmstone to calm them.
-FUCKING DAMMIT – I’m in a fight against some tough dragons. I KNOW that “Fight” is against the law in this battle, but I keep frigging doing it out of habit. Keep having to reset.
This literally happens 4-5 times in a row. I’m so mad at myself lol.
-Finally I restrain myself enough to beat the dragons and the Nu Mou who stole the wyrmstone controlling them.
I mean, even on my victory run I used Fight on Marche by accident but only got a yellow card and was so sick of this fight that I just said fuck it. The penalty lost me a Gaia Gear, a good piece of gear that teaches Auto Regen.
IDC I’M DONE WITH THIS FIGHT. Not resetting.
[Later edit: In hindsight, I wish I had just used the Fight antilaw card. I always forget to use cards.]
Great Scott!
-I head to Delia and get the help of friendly dragons there in stopping the dragons marching on Beguba. Hard to tell if this is the end of this mini-arc.
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The Redwings
-Last session, I arrested Gukko, Clan Borzoi’s leader. A rumor says he’s escaped. We’re not done with Gukko yet.
-A foreign ship has been spotted, a ship called “Redwings.” A band of foreign criminals apparently.
-I think I understand now. Gukko escaped to foreign lands and it sounds like he’s getting the Redwings to help restore Clan Borzoi.
-Now the Falgabird squad of the Redwings is out hunting for Clan Nutsy. We have an enemy.
-One of the Falgabird is named Marilith. Aptly, she’s in the volcano. So the Falgabird units may be elemental bosses.
-Defeating her nets me a “spiritstone.” A rumor after tells me that this can be used to penetrate the magical powers of the Redwings boss.
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The Big Find
-Back to the main story. (The remaining side missions all need items I don’t have.)
-A rumor tells me that some treasures might be found in Uladon Bog.
-I arrive, and a party is already here… and apparently, I’m the treasure. I was tricked into coming here.
-There’s still a bounty on my head. But put out by whom? I thought it was the judges that set the bounty.
-After the fight, Marche gets the sense of being watched. Creepy.
-Someone told that gang we’d be heading there. Do we have a mole? Omg what if it’s some low level clan member I dismissed who’s now got a vendetta against me?!
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Desert Patrol
-I’m tasked to protect the touristy Mirage of Gotor, and HOLY SHIT IT’S DONED! No wheelchair.
-He sees Marche, backs away, then flees.
-But not in terror. He’s working with a criminal gang here.
-Wait, was Doned the reverse Mewt? I don’t have a strong enough memory of Doned’s portrait.
-After I take out the group, Marche interrogates one. Who was the boy? The bangaa doesn’t know. The boy just gave them free info to help find Marche for the bounty.
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Quiet Sands
-The tourist attraction “Barking Sands” have gone quiet. I have to investigate why.
-No music in the dunes. Just a howling wind. Maybe!Doned is here to stop me.
-A seam open. Fifth crystal time?
-It is him! It’s “Llednar Twem.” That was probably obvious, but Llednar’s portrait didn’t stick.)
-He’s about to chuck a knife at me in this crystal room when someone stops him.
HI CID! Never been happier to see a judge.
-Cid casts some law magic on Llednar. If Llednar uses any power here, the crystal will break.
LLEDNAR: “…And I so wanted to use Omega.” ???????????
-Cid urges me to flee. What kind of power does this kid have?
-Llednar summons a group of allies and a fight is on.
-Llednar and Cid are both supremely confident that Llednar will win.
It doesn’t strike me as overconfidence, but rather as them knowing something about the facts of the fight or Llednar’s nature/role that I don’t.
-Llednar moves in and uses an ability called Abyss. That’s ominous.
-Every time I target Llednar, it seems like I have either a 0% chance of hitting him, or I have a chance to do 0 damage. Something’s weird.
-Marche starts to despair midfight.
-Llednar begins to act… AND CID SWOOPS IN WITH THE RED CARD! GET REKKKKT!
Don’t feel bad, Llednar. I do the same thing, where I know the law but forget.
-Marche pushes on to the crystal room.
-The game makes this seem like the end, but no chance. This feels more like the 1/3 point.
-We move to the next room. The fifth crystal is here. An armored woman steps out of it, the totema.
-AND SHE TRANSFORMS INTO MOTHERFUCKING RITZ THIS IS MINDBLOWING
[Later edit: at this moment, I legit thought that Ritz herself had taken the role of the fifth totema, not just a shapeshifter. It's still awesome, just a different kind of awesome.]
-It makes sense. Ritz is the staunchest human protector of this world we’ve seen.
-She begs him to stop. Doesn’t Marche deep-down want this world too?
-Ritz transforms then into Doned. Walking Doned. “I can do anything I want here!”
So was that not Ritz? Just a shapeshifter?
“I can be a warrior, fighting monsters. Or a sorcerer, casting spells… changing the world! …There’s so much to do in this world. It’s so exciting! Just try doing half the stuff you can do here back home!”
-The entity transforms into Mewt.
They start ripping apart how crappy Marche’s home life is. Really low blows dished out here, highly personal.
-Marche admits all this, but stays steadfast.
And then the entity transforms into Marche himself. The music transforms too.
“You’re even tough enough to take on yourself!” Mirror Match?
They’re trying to tempt Marche into grabbing some kind of power. Or maybe just giving up the ghost on destroying this world.
-The totema reappears, resuming its initial armored woman form. It summons versions of Ritz, Doned, Mewt, and Marche as allies.
All four of them transform into vampires. The totema is Mateus.
-The fight’s really tough, and I handle it about as badly as I can. But I saved the state to try again. I know this probably counts as cheating, but idc. I had zero desire to watch the cutscenes and do the prior fight over again, since I can adjust my strategy and party set-up from this saved state.
-My new strategy focuses on burning the boss with dual-wielding ninja Marche. Some ranged damage like Jump supplements it, with juggler!Montblanc’s Smile to reset Marche’s attack.
Victory! She was a tough fight, and her vampire minions hit hard.
MARCHE: “That should do it! Everything will go back the way it was.”
…Marche. Have you played ANY FINAL FANTASY GAME EVER?? THERE’S LITERALLY ZERO CHANCE THAT WILL HAPPEN, AND EVEN LESS NOW THAT YOU SAID IT OUT LOUD.
-The crystal shatters… and nothing happens.
-A voice comes over. “This world is still wanted…”
A seam opens. Queen Remedi steps out. Even without the world threads, as long as the world is wanted, it exists. So what was the point of the world threads?
-Remedi introduces herself as Mewt’s mom.
-Mewt wants the world to exist.
REMEDI: “Mewt still needs me, and so I – and this world – remain. It is not only Mewt. You, too, are not yet ready to bid this world farewell.”
The way she says this makes me think she really is Mewt’s mom. Or rather not her, but that she’s actually based on his mom. She actually looks like her, etc. And I no longer think she’s evil. Not exactly. I think she’s doing she want to protect him.
She disappears. We’re outside the crystal room, back into the dunes.
-We’ve gotta talk to Mewt directly.
I really hope there was a purpose to the crystals. It feels kind of bad to have gotten faffed around for the majority of the game destroying crystals when they apparently didn’t do anything. I’m fine with the world not ending, but as things stand it feels like the game just kind of lied to me by telling me all that world thread stuff.
-The standard mission complete mission cracks me up. “[Quiet Sands] went well. Now for the next one!” Yay! We’re still stuck in this world and I don’t really know what to do but it WENT WELL.
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Next time: trying to reach Mewt.
