Cyril Clan Hall
-I get a cutscene in Cyril before setting out.
-Marche is enjoying himself in this world. “I could never do stuff like [missions] where I come from.”
This is a fantasy for him. A FINAL fantasy.
MONTBLANC: “You’ve got to be one of the nicest people I know. Were you like this in the other world too, kupo?” AWWWWW
Ah – he means that he thinks Marche is overplaying how comfortable he is here to not emotionally burden Montblanc.
-Montblanc’s appeal for honesty works. Marche admits that meeting Ritz made him yearn for home a bit. Her lack of interest took the wind out of his sails.
MONTBLANC: “Marche is Marche and Ritz is Ritz. All you can do is what seems right to you, kupo!” This is one wise moogle.
OMG THAT HUG It’s early, but this is already one of my favorite friendships in FF. It's not in the hall of fame yet; too one-directional so far. It’s mostly about supporting Marche. I don’t know a lot about this version of Montblanc. But it's a great start.
---
Doin’ Time
-OH SHIT I FORGOT TO CHECK THE LAWS DURING A FIGHT AND GOT MONTBLANC SENT TO PRISON FOR USING LIGHTNING!
In the future, I may reset if I simply brain fart my way into breaking the law, but at least this time I want to see what the prison process entails.
-Not sure what “Empty Handed!” means. If Montblanc’s punishment is to never wield weapons again, then I’m definitely resetting.
-I visit the prison. He has to sit out two fights.
-I blow a bunch of money testing out the options. I paid 2000g to release him, then tried the pardon option. That cost another 2000g.
-Montblanc is suspended for one battle.
-A rumor (sorta) explains the difference between releasing the prisoner and pardoning him. I go with pardoning. He serves his time and gets his record erased.
-Did a fight, came back, and he’s free to go. The red card is expunged from his record.
---
Mission: Desert Peril
-Monsters in the desert have been wilder than usual recently.
-I thought these enemies were dogs, but they’re panthers. Going to try using my beastmaster on them.
The most obedient kitty ever.
-THIS IS SO COOL! It’s like FFV. I can use the beast as if it were my own, control its actions, etc. I wonder if the FFV epic combo of blue mage + beastmaster will hold here too.
-Marche is especially sad about this. We’re basically putting down rabid animals.
-This kind of spontaneous animal wilding isn’t that uncommon apparently. Montblanc believes in the “crystal theory” explaining it, and since this is an FF game, I assume it’s right.
-The crystal theory is that the palace made magical crystals so strong that they affect animals.
MONTBLANC: “How could you make anything in a wrinkle in space?” This seems to come from nowhere, but Montblanc says it like it explains why it’s so tough to make a crystal. I don’t get it.
---
Assorted Missions
-One mission (“White Flowers”) had me retrieve flowers on the grave of a kid’s mom to cheer up his sister. Bugs swarmed Montblanc, took him down, so I got to try out Life for the first time.
It worked! And thankfully, I don’t think there’s a chance it’d miss.
-Freed the Giza Plains! Not sure what I freed them from exactly but YAY!
-There’s a dispatch mission that specifically requires a fencer for a tournament. Go Milly!
-Omg. There’s a mission where a creeper in Cyril is controlling ahrimans to spy on women in the city.
Ugh.
---
General Combat/Party Notes
I’m confused about one of my party members, the bangaa Higgins. I’m about to change jobs from Bishop to try out Warrior, but it’s giving me the message that the change is “irreversible.” WTF?
-AHA! I found the menu showing job requirements. Higgins needs two white monk abilities mastered before bishop opens. I guess because he joined my party as a bishop, he didn’t need to meet that requirement, but if I leave bishop and want to return, I’d need to acquire the prerequisites first.
-I finally said no to a unit that wanted to join the mission. “The unit left crying.” REALLY GAME? Frigging guilt-tripping Tactics series. They did this last time when I dismissed animals from my party. I’m gently turning down a job application, not sending them off to starve in the woods.
-YAY a moogle gunner joins the party! I love the sprite animation. Something about his look makes him look like a Dick Tracy villain henchman, someone who’d be content with a tommy gun in hand.
I can’t use him immediately. He has no guns and the one in the store is too expensive. This is something I don’t like in FFTA. They should come with some starter gear, however crappy.
-Hee! One of the enemies is an adamantoise with a sword in its back.
-I didn’t use Rush back in FFT. Here, it does good damage and a reliable knockback. Great against enemies with Counter since it knocks them away before they retaliate.
It also sets up future attacks. For example, I Rushed an enemy so that it lined up with its ally. My fencer then hit them both with Piercethrough in a line.
-The red mage sprite is adorable.
-The laws have really grown on me. They force me to experiment. For example, my viera fencer currently, but one law set forbade rapiers. I didn’t want to go with archer since she already mastered those abilities, so I went with white mage.
But because she already had a full set of archery skills, I could still use them. So I had her walk up to enemies and use “Aim: Leg” to immobilize them. It’s amazing. She walks up and just BOPS them in the kneecaps with her cane.
-Enemy archers are surprisingly un-scary. They tend to use “Take Aim” which does guaranteed but minimal damage.
[Non-rhetorical question: what’s the deal with random encounter scaling in FFTA? I thought it was scaling to my highest party member like in FFT, but I’m in a fight with Leo the white mage at level 9 while the enemies are a mix of levels, around 5-6.]
-I like that enemies low on health don’t run away and make me chase them down. They stay in the fight.
-I’m really surprised by how fast the game throws good gear at me in the shops. Usually I can get some gil in an area, load up on all the gear, and move on. With the sheer quantity of gear there’s no way I can keep up without lots of grinding.
So I’m adapting. I’m not being completionist, not focusing on getting abilities. Just focusing on doing missions, constantly working on new abilities for each of my active party members, and testing new things.
Going forward, I’ll try shifting my focus to the expert jobs. For example, my viera party member, Milly, is mostly an archer and fencer. But Sniper now opened up to her, so if I get the chance to build a new archer ability or a new sniper ability, I’ll prioritize the sniper.
My theory is that expert jobs will probably be better than early jobs. Not 100%, but largely. We’ll see!
---
Next time: perhaps learning more about the crystals.
