tw: brief mention of spiders, hidden in rot13.
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The Power of Kings
-12 more tombs lie around the land with royal arms. Must be lots of tombs outside of Lucis then. I may be misunderstanding the geography though, or maybe the Lucian kings hid tombs elsewhere for some reason.
-Cor joins me in this next section.
-eeee! Fighting through magitek armor! It’s fun to knock their legs out and watch them tumble.
-Nearby, there’s a statue of the “Founder King.” Who looks BADASS AS FUUUUCK!
Like from Knights of the Round.
[Later edit: Now that I think about it, we have like 13 kings in 13 tombs. For all I know, we actually DO get to summon them all if we get every royal arm as this game’s version of Knights of the Round.]
-The next tomb is in the Keycatrich Trench.
-It’s here where Cor leaves to Imperial watch. He gives me a skeleton key to explore the tombs.
-I don’t entirely trust Cor. 90% chance he’s just a legend who escaped from the sacked city because he’s a badass, 10% chance he collaborated in some way with the Empire this last time.
-Looks like this place was a shelter or bunker. Generator, old bottles, a tunnel system.
Not for the claustrophobic.
-Prompto is freaking right tf out down here. Fear of the dark maybe?
-THIS PIANO MUSIC IS SO GOOOD!
-Lots of locked doors. I smell backtracking in my future.
-The lights flick off suddenly and startle me. Goblin attack.
Congrats to FFXV for making goblins feel scary as hell. Like monsters from “The Descent.”
-Something’s definitely screwing with us. Banging on doors, etc.
TW: spiders
-Perrcl fcvqrel zvav-obff, Nenpuar. Pbby ybbxvat, rfcrpvnyyl jura fur fjvatf npebff gur ebbz jvgu yvtugavat nggnpxf, ohg fur tbrf qbja dhvpx.
uggcf://v.vzthe.pbz/oZSOtsj.wct
-GOD I love this dungeon! The atmosphere and feel is up there with some of the best (non-final) dungeons in FF history. Despite just being intro difficulty and fairly short, it feels a bit like survival horror.
-Auto “wait” here takes some of the dungeon’s spook/surprise power away. Enemies don’t have a chance to jump out at me. As soon as they become hostile, the screen freezes.
-Found it! Tomb of the Conqueror.
-I get an axe from the tomb. As before, it flies into the air and fuses with Noctis. Axe of the Conqueror.
-It’s a slow weapon with RIDICULOUS attack power. Not really sure when to use them royal arms still – losing health for attacking feels like a big penalty.
“A king performed great feats of arms, expanded his realm, and made his people prosper. This was his halberd.” An expansionist king.
-A little side path that was unusable before is now open. It leads to a metal vault door. To keep us out or keep something in? Guessing the latter.
-BOOooooo it’s locked. I’ll have to try again later.
[Later edit: Idk why, but I love when games hide tough enemies in starting areas. My favorite incarnation of this was FFIV’s Odin summon. In the starting castle, but only fought at end game.]
-Cor calls me outside with a new mission to take out an Imperial base on the road to Duscae.
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Declaration of War
-holy shit, I walked two feet out of the tomb and a level 34 coeurl ate me alive.
Take 2: Used almost all my consumables. Nearly killed it.
Take 3-4: HFDJKLSFHLSD GRRRRR. This fight is incredibly unforgiving. It’s so fast! If I phase strike in and it sits on its haunches, I have a millisecond to get out before it one-shots me. The area effect attack seems un-phaseable.
It’s right outside the newbie dungeon, and I have a quest currently to get coeurl whiskers to upgrade my weapon. Even at level 15, I have to assume I’m supposed to beat it.
-Okay, I give up. You win, coeurl. I warp back to my car.
-Back in the hunter camp, Monica directs me to the blockade.
-A pamphlet here describes this camp as a refugee camp during the war, when the Empire invaded Keycatrich. Daemons made things worse. No doubt we’ll visit Keycatrich at some point.
-Noctis and Cor will infiltrate the blockade while Monica and the will divert imperial attention.
-It’s smooth as butter. Most imperial troops go down in a hit from my 2-hander, though there’s some interesting strategy in getting up to the catwalks with phase strikes before snipers hit me.
-Whew, no trouble from the other side it seems. They leave a pile of bodies in their wake when we open the barricade’s door from the inside.
-A whiny imperial named Loqi flies overhead in a dreadnought.
I’ve known him for like two seconds and he already annoys the crap out of me.
-He lands and hops out in a magitek armor suit. Boss time.
-I have one really close call. Focused on the adds and one of his missiles takes down most of my health.
-Once the adds were down, switched to the main Soulsborne strat for big enemies: stay close, say at their legs, stay behind, and whack away.
-Seeing Noctis fight there gave Cor comfort. He’ll let us be and keep watching the “Niffs.”
-I no longer mistrust him. If he wanted to kill Noctis, that operation would’ve been the perfect time.
-The road trip continues. End of chapter 2.
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Chapter 3: The Open World
-Seems like our main quest is set for the near future. Travel the world, get royal arms, reclaim the Crystal.
Probably something with Lunafreya too. I really hope we get an FFIX-style perspective swap that lets us play a chapter (or more?) as Lunafreya with that dark-haired woman and the puppers.
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Meanwhile, in Garlem… ahem, the Imperial Capital
-(Emperor?) Iedolas sits on the throne, surrounded by troops and attendants.
-He now knows that Noctis is alive and Lunafreya has the ring (of the Lucii?). She fled with it.
“Find and kill her. The ring is the final piece.” Iedolas Aldercapt.
No real initial predictions about what it’s the final piece of.
-One dude who looks and sounds SUUUUPER evil – like Gargamel levels – speaks. Verstael.
“The Six wield power beyond our imagination. The Oracle holds the key for the king.” King… like, King Noctis? I assume so, since the Empire is presumably run by an emperor.
-The Cosmogony magazine I read at Galdin Quay tells me that these Six are the gods – Shiva, Ifrit, etc. Her role as Oracle must be tied to the Six.
-The other dude gives me immediate Kylo Ren vibes, though aside from the hair it’s hard for me to pinpoint why. He’s Lord Ravus Nox Fleuret, commander of the Imperial military.
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Back With Our Party
Coming up, Duscae. Wetlands. A chocobo forest. A whole world out there. West is the Cleigne region with the town of Lestallum (where Iris went).
-They also mention that the Meteor of the Six powers Lestallum with its heat. WANT TO SEE.
-The group pulls into the Coernix Station outpost.
-Iris calls on the phone to say everything’s a-ok over there. Good.
-Hee! Prompto is so excited to see chocobos.
Calling this session here with one more note:
The tone is strange to me. The group isn’t taking the sort of evasive, “stay off the grid” action I’d have expected knowing the Empire is after them. Feels more like a sight-seeing vacation. Gladiolus treats things a bit more seriously, but doesn’t really fight when Noctis opts for a chocobo detour.
I’m afraid we’ll be in for a “Prancing Pony” moment, when it fully hit Team Frodo just how much they need to stay off the roads.
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Next time: exploring this second zone (Duscae, if I heard correctly).
