Mission: Hot Awakening
-One mission takes me to the new volcano zone.
-That warp zone appears here. It ports Marche to a castle similar to Famfrit’s. There’s a fire crystal in the middle, and what look to be butterflies scattered about.
MARCHE: “I have to destroy [the crystal.] That’s my only way home!”
I’m surprised by how cavalier Marche is about destroying these crystals without knowing exactly how they’ll impact this world. Seems to go against his normally tender and empathetic nature.
Still, he’s a kid. He might not be thinking through this. I wonder how Montblanc would react to his plan.
-He walks up to the crystal. No totema appears.
Lol as soon as he says that, a fiery thing appears behind him. And all around the place.
-This is interesting. I have to bring in three other party members, but there’s no clear enemy. Just these fire crystals and the butterflies.
-When I “defeat” one of the flames that popped up, it shatters. Seems to be a mini-crystal.
-Oh shit these are “Ultima Crystals!!” So Ultima has some role to play. It’s still early, but my initial theory, based on the Roger Ebert’s Law of Conservation of Characters, is that Queen Remedi (heh, just noticed her name is like “remedy,” Queen Healcure) is Ultima or possessed by Ultima.
How? Why? Idk.
-NOOOOO! The Ultima Crystals can cast Charm. I don’t have immunity items.
-Not sure what the butterflies do. Maybe if I stand in them, I’m immune to the charm? …Lol nope.
-Whoops. I forgot to take any healing ability into the fight. I might be fubbernucked.
-I think I have a strategy. The crystals can’t move and have a limited range for their Logos spell that charms and weakens. I move as a group on one, staying out of range of the others, and face it to decrease the chances of Logos landing.
-Gunner Montblanc is great here. His massive range can safely hit the crystals, and low damage cleanses charm on allies without hurting too much.
-If a boss pops out of the big crystal in the middle when the little crystals are done with, I’m in trouble.
VICTORY! What an awesome fight that was.
MARCHE: “The totema’s presence… it’s gone.” So maybe the Ultima Crystals were the totema?
-So which totema is this? What race is it aligned with?
Marche thinks that since it’s magic, it’s the Nu Mou totema. Reasonable guess.
The crystal shatters. We warp out… WAIT NO WE DON’T – Mewt appears before Marche.
-Last time, Mewt told his dad that he had dreams about being bullied at school in the “other world.” He dismissed them and I didn’t know whether he was lying or whether he really forgot the St. Ivalice world.
Apparently, he wasn’t lying. He’s angry here at Marche for making him remember St. Ivalice. Breaking the crystals somehow weakens this world’s hold on Mewt.
MEWT: “Mama’s not dead! Mama’s alive! She was just here!”
THIS FEELS SO BAD. We’re making Mewt remember his mother’s death on top of school bullies. I wonder whether that’ll draw him closer to Queen Remedi here or make it feel hollow.
Potential theory: the book that Mewt opened somehow combined with Mewt’s desire for agency and family and power to create this world. This may be Mewt’s wish world.
-Marche teleports out back to the volcano.
He comes to the same conclusion I did. “This world must be a reflection of Mewt’s desires!”
If this is true, does it mean that he shouldn’t destroy the dream world because he’s shattering a crucial coping mechanism, or he should because it’s still Marche’s life and it’s not fair to get caught in Mewt’s coping mechanisms, or he should because Mewt needs to face things?
-I place a new area: the Koringwood.
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Mission: Resistance
-I’m full up on cards so I stop by Cadoan to trade.
-Mr. Berbier has a “gossip” option. One of his friends is starting a resistance against laws and wants me to help. He puts it up as a mission in a pub.
-This might be my first real negotiation. A dude pops up on the map and I encounter him. I get the
chance to either demand an antilaw from him or trade my Phoenix Down. I trade.
-It counts as a victory! Fighting isn’t always the answer.
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Mission: S.O.S.
-I’m allowed five party members here… but strangely can only add three. Do I have two guests?
-YAAAY!! Ritz and Shara are here.
-I love Shara’s condescending portrait.
Like she can’t believe we’d even try to talk to her. The archetypal viera.
-We take out the various zombies around here. Ritz is happy we came to help her.
I wonder how glad she’d be if she knew Marche was trying to wreck her world. My guess: she’d turn hostile. Fast.
-They leave. I’m surprised that Montblanc is still my only core party member beyond Marche.
I have literally no idea how far into the game I am. None. Maybe this is a short game and I’m like a quarter or halfway through, with two crystals down. Or maybe I’m barely out of the introduction and have just been screwing around so much with missions that it feels like I’m farther than I am.
I expect it’s much closer to the latter than the former.
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Mission: Magic Wood
-I’m tasked to stop trespassers from cutting down trees in the new wood.
Lolol RANDOM MOOGLE: “I could get used to this tree-cutting business. So much easier than cutting things that fight back!”
-I was wrong about Ultima being some big bad. She’s just a summon.
AND BY “JUST” A SUMMON I MEAN SHE SITS UP THERE IN SPACE WAITING TO OBLITERATE MY ENEMIES!
She destroys enemy MP.
-I’m fighting my first summoner. She does the summoner thing of heavy aoe damage.
Classic summoner unicorn horn.
Ramuh, moments before smashing me with lightning.
-One mechanic I like more in FFT than FFTA is that FFT told me when a ranged ability wouldn’t hit. Like, if I tried lining up a shot and a party member was in the way, it’d say “0% chance.” In FFTA, it still says like “90% chance of success” even if there’s really a 0% chance of success because a tree or friend blocks the shot.
-Tough fight, but victory! The sinister moogle/viera gang goes down.
-As the judge takes the trespassers away, Marche wonders if this “magic forest” has anything to do with the crystals. I didn’t think so, but now that you mention it…
[Non-rhetorical question: is there a way to tell which missions I take are “story” missions? Like, do the missions that will require Marche have a special icon when I pick them up?]
-New area to place. This time, it’s a familiar one from FFXII: the Salikawood.
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Random Missions, Combat, Rumors
-My sage magic costs a lot but hits really hard. [Later edit: it turns out that it’s not so much the sage magic as the fact that my Nu Mou with a magic ring and Turbo MP passive ability is casting it.]
-I adore the experience and leveling mechanics. Back in FFT, certain characters would skyrocket past others in levels. That was especially punishing because the enemies scaled to my highest party member. I felt disincentivized from using party members with lower-percentile attacks because they’d lag behind.
Not so here! The ones who jump ahead naturally slow down relative to the lower level ones, because they gain less exp from doing stuff compared to the lower level party members.
-The game’s set AP-per-fight also disincentivizes the FFII phenomenon that reappeared in FFT, where you’d power-level your characters by doing base-level abilities over and over and not granting your enemies the mercy of death.
-I was having trouble with my dispatch missions from non-core party members. I adjusted things though, started using whatever my highest-level clan member was and gearing them up before sending them out.
It seems to help.
-Oh yeah, another mechanic I love! The new clan members you recruit don’t start at level one. They come in a variety of jobs, at a growing level at least somewhat close to my core party’s average level.
-A neat dragoon ability is Wyrmtamer, that can “convince a dragon to leave the battlefield.”
-I tried using Wyrmtamer on a dragon at the volcano, but it had a 0% chance of landing.
This fire-breathing dude sure looks like he should be susceptible to Wyrmtamer.
[Non-rhetorical question: why? There were no counters like Reflex on the dragon. Are wyrms and dragons different classifications or am I misunderstanding what Wyrmtamer does?]
-I maxed out my antilaw cards. Had to trade some in. I like how a card cap incentivizes me to use the antilaws (rather than hoard them) and engage with the new mechanic.
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Next time: more stuff!
