Mission: Frosty Mage
-A bad wizard is up to something in the mountains, making ice for no clear reason. I have a feeling this’ll be a misunderstanding, that he’s making ice to cool people’s drinks or something.
-Not sure what “mission-specific equipment” means.
-We get to Lutia Pass. Lol the ice mage’s name is Gelato.
-This battle is a step up in challenge. I have to avoid clumping up for her magic.
-I beat her and her allies, but the fight’s still going on? …Ah, I have to knock out her ice-making devices.
-The judge blew her whistle and shifted some corpses between squares. Not sure why. No corpse timer that I can see.
-I can save mid-fight! What a cool feature in a game with long fights.
-Victory. Got a Laglace Sword and Burglar Sword, 4k gil, and 40AP. Not bad. 40AP seems the default.
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Upgrade!
-This 40 AP let me master some abilities. If I’m right [Later edit: I was], I can now use those mastered abilities without the weapons.
-A new member joins the clan. Olivar, the thief. Seems like I get new generics every so-many levels.
-The first month was Kingmoon. This second month is Madmoon.
-Going to upgrade my party members’ weapons. Converting Olivar to archer and Milly to fencer.
-I have the three basic black magic spells for Montblanc. Can’t find weapons with new spells, so trying out Animist.
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Mission: Fire! Fire!
-There’s a fire in the streets of Cyril to put out. Bombs flying about. Let’s stop this before Cyril goes full Mysidia.
-No protect allowed, poison recommended. Good for my new fencer.
Some sweet bomb portrait art.
-Another new clan member joined: Sharu, a bangaa warrior.
-New rumor back in town about Mission Items. When I completed “Fire! Fire!” I got a sprinkler, one such item. Some missions require them. They also grant buffs sometimes.
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Party Planner
I can have six active party members at a given time. I’m not repeating the sins of FFT:WOTL where I leveled like 15 party members up simultaneously. Here’s where I’m at currently:
Marche: Human. Soldier for now. (All these job plans are “for now.”)
Neuman: Human. Thief.
Matias: Bangaa. White monk and warrior.
Montblanc: Moogle. Black mage and animist.
Milly: Viera. Fencer and archer.
Leo: Nu Mou. White mage.
I expect to change this roster as time goes on and I get new core party members.
-This means that the new guy, Sharu, and my archer Olivar go to the bench.
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Mission: Dueling Sub
-This is the one I saw before that stopped me because it says “required: soldier.” My only soldier was Marche. I made Olivar a soldier and it works.
-This is a “dispatch mission.” Similar to the errands of FFT, I don’t do it myself. I send a party member to do it for me.
-I’m totally fine with dispatch missions existing. It gives me a reason to have party members outside my main group.
-Success! Now I have a Buster Sword. And in another huge improvement over FFT, I don’t have to return to the city where I got the mission. It ends and I get my reward, wherever I am on the map.
-The Buster Sword is similar Marche’s current sword in attack power, but teaches Mindbreak, which reduces enemy magic power.
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Mission: Wanted
-We’re tasked to capture a clairvoyant counterfeiter named Diaghilev Godeye in Giza Plains.
Hee! The enemies are kind of cartoonish and goofy thus far.
-This is my first mission that’s not just to kill everyone. I have to defeat Godeye specifically.
-Her AI is pretty good. She stays in the back row, keeping her crew between me and her.
-After I win, another bangaa joins. Higgins, a bishop. Swapping him into my party in place of Neuman.
-Not sure what the “bishop” job entails yet. His main action set is called “Prayer,” leading me to think it’s a support job, but his only spell right now is Aero, a direct damage spell.
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Mission: Prof in Trouble
-Professor Auggie left for Lutia Pass three days ago. We have to go find him.
-It confuses me at first why I can only bring in five party members instead of the normal six. It seems that unlike FFT, guest party members (Auggie in this case) counts towards the cap.
-Sure enough, the professor is beset by puddings and zombies.
-OH GOD I MADE A MISTAKE! I clumped up to protect the professor and the two puddings starts blizzarding my whole party.
A party about to get chilly.
-My White Monk has Exorcise. It insta-kills undead if it lands.
-These are FFIV-style puddings. I need magic to beat them and I don’t have any in my current party.
-I try abandoning the mission, but screw that. Abandoning means I can’t retry the failed mission, which I strongly dislike. So I reset.
-The super-plain zombie names crack me up. Lyle, Guinness, and Colin. It makes sense since zombies were once people, but still.
Makes me think they’ll eat our brains, clock out, and unwind at the pub.
-Second time’s the charm. And it looks like I didn’t even need to reset, since on the second run Professor Auggie took out a pudding with magic before I could get to it.
-Lol at the new animist “Sheep Count” ability that puts targets to sleep. That’ll supplement his berserk ability, “Catnip.”
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Mission: Thesis Hunt
-Lutia Pass is not safe for academics! A geologist was searching for his master’s thesis. It was taken by bandits in Lutia Pass. What does a geological thesis go for on the black market?
-Even though I’ve been to Lutia Pass a few times now, the layout changes each visit, each mission.
-Marche asks Montblanc my question about stealing the thesis.
MONTBLANC: “Kupopo? Maybe they’re nerdy bandits?”
OK LOOK I LIKE YOU MARCHE BUT THERE NEEDS TO BE A PROTAG SWITCH NOW, OR YOU NEED TO JOIN THE NERDY BANDITS. THE CHOICE IS YOURS.
-Up at the top of the cliffside, a bandit and a Nu Mou argue. She wanted a different thesis.
Coleman is the guy who hired us. Dalilei is his master. She wanted “Coleman’s thesis,” and the bandits saw Coleman carrying some other guy’s thesis and misinterpreted the request as “the thesis Coleman is holding” rather than “the thesis Coleman wrote.” I think? Maybe?
-Anyway, no nerdy bandits. Alas. The bandit spots me and summons his crew.
-I see now what the judge does with bodies! When they crowd the active part of the battlefield he moves them away from the combatants.
-This battle music is so dang chipper!
-Thus far, the Nu Mou - Homer - is the least-threatening boss-type I’ve seen. He walks up and bops my party for one point of damage with his staff.
-Victory! MARCHE: “I think I’m getting the hang of these engagement thingys!” Agreed.
-It hits me now that Marche is literally a child soldier. I mean, the game very explicitly focused on how he and his friends are kids, and now he’s a mercenary in an alien world. I know I’m not supposed to think so hard about that given the storybook logic in play, but it’s in the back of my mind still.
-Montblanc is impressed by how Marche has done so far. He thinks Marche is ready for “the clan wars.” A competition for turf with other clans. The more turf we get, the cheaper the price for mission info.
-I get a new symbol to plop down on the map: the Nubswood.
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A Few Quick Wrap-Up Thoughts
I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this game so far. The tone is bright and fun. The missions have some silly humor to them. The job system is intuitive. Learning abilities from weapons paces the game well and was one of my favorite systems in FFIX.
One more thing: combat seems simplified. I imagine this was a huge disappointment for people whose favorite game is FFT, but personally I love it. I love that spells are instant. I love that when I fuck up after and accidentally move out of cast range from my target, I can just undo it. I love that there’s no minimum range for archery.
I’m curious to see whether the mission-heavy gameplay style keeps up. Similar structure to FFVII: Crisis Core thus far.
No overarching storyline to speak of yet, but it’s early. Four sessions in, a big fan.
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Next time: clan wars!
