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Altissia, City on the Sea
-Leviathan is a goddess in this world. She protects Altissia, in the province of Accordo.
-There are statues of Leviathan all around as a winged woman. It may be a different take on Leviathan, but one townsperson refers to this as one of her forms, so still expecting a sea snake form.
-The city is a maze, but it’s really pleasant! I hop a gondola to reach Weskham’s bar.
I love Weskham’s character design!
-Even the language here is straight-up Italian. “Mercato sull’acqua,” for example.
-A woman approaches us here named Camelia Claustra. She’s an official of Accordo. The Empire has been pressuring her to turn over Luna to them, but she’s open to negotiating with me.
I’m mildly trustful of her intentions at this juncture, if wary of her actions. Rumors around town paint her as someone just trying to survive the Empire. A bit of a Lando Calrissian, perhaps.
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The Summit
-I head to Camelia’s estate, and negotiate. I’ll help evacuate her citizens and she’ll help Luna go forward with the rite awakening the Hydraean.
-This is one of those things where there’s SO MANY possible dialogue options, and I’m really curious where some of them lead. I mostly go the positive and understanding route, and make a “positive impression” on her.
Probably one of the generally good outcomes, though I’m sure there are better ones.
-She has a little afterward conversation with Weskham. I like them both.
[Later edit: I got nervous here that I didn’t explore enough of the city and would be locked out. My friend confirmed that reloading a save before this estate encounter might be worthwhile, and so I did. Further explorations after this reload include the arena, Bismarck, and Adamantoise.
After reloading, made most of the same dialogue choices except that I was truthful about the Oracle’s goal of waking Leviathan. This one change “won the first secretary’s unreserved trust.”]
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The Day of the Rite…
-The empire’s going to try immobilizing Leviathan. I’ll have to try keeping her free as best I can.
-Also a little convo between Luna and Camelia. Not sure of the meaning of it, beyond that Luna is asked to do some “necessary evil” if worse comes to worse with the ritual trident.
-At the end, she summons some (Imperial?) guards to “escort” her.
I suppose for now, both she and the Empire want this rite. Her to complete it, the Empire to stop it.
-The public gathers. Noct is alone in the crowd, with the other three on evacuation detail.
-Luna begins to speak. A bleak speech, about the coming darkness (which I still haven’t really seen, except for the more general despair brought by the sack of Lucis).
-But she still has hope, and that’s her goal in communing with the Hydraean.
She’s composed and articulate, a really strong speaker.
-The speech ends, and the Imperial fleet arrives.
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Side Stuff
-One side quest has me view an exhibit of Luna’s wedding dress. The wedding’s off for now, but we’ll get there. FFIX-style on the horizon.
Citizens see the wedding as a symbol of the peace.
-The Lakshmi painting quest is a bounty for, of course, Chadarnook.
FFVI style.
-Holy shit lol – Weskham sells a 300k meal that boosts xp by 50%. I’m certain that in whatever end-game farming strats are out there, this meal is key.
-New batch of hunts here, all night-time.
-Some solid fishing here. The Coral Allural Sea Bass that litter the waters are tough to catch.
But I don’t have a ton of motivation beyond the fun and challenge (which is considerable), since I don’t currently have any quests and my skill is maxed.
-Gentiana is at the inn. I can now summon Umbra at rest points, but I don’t understand the benefits.
-Oh shit! One of the inns here has a 3x experience multiplier.
-There’s an arena, and near the gondola, there are horns that can boost stats of a “supported monster.” This must be an arena where I pit my monster against someone else’s?
-Yup, Arena Galviano. The game is Totomostro.
Tried it for a few rounds and that’s enough for me for now. It seems like it could be fun with more time and research, and getting a sense of match-ups (e.g. Iron Giants seem great against smaller creatures).
Story-wise, it leaves a weird taste in my mouth. How much Noctis would enjoy betting on animals killing each other? My guess is not very much.
It would feel different if it were just, like, a Flan against an Iron Giant, but a lot of the early fights seemed to just be giraffes against scorpions.
[Later edit: This isn’t really a complaint, at least no more than complaining that this party’s animal lovers would kill so many random garulas. It’s just a gameplay mechanic that may not fully jive with the characters, which is fine.]
-Rumors of the sorta-god Bismarck, a powerful creature with who can bless fishers.
-AHA!!! I thought it’d be out of reach since the quest marker is in open water, but I have the royal ship!
-This is pretty sweet. It’s basically a deep-sea fishing vessel that I can manually steer.
*a bunch of time later*
-WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME GAME? To find Bismarck, I’m supposed to find a flock of birds. Found them a few times, but no Bismarck.
*a bunch more time later*
-Finally! That was worth it. One flock finally triggered an encounter with Bismarck, where he leapt out of the water. In real life it would’ve terrified me, but in the game’s context it was quite beautiful.
(Even knowing Bismarck was a whale, not a shark or something, any large creatures – ESPECIALLY large sea creatures - have always scared the life out of me. It’s been an ongoing problem throughout this series lol.)
-He left behind a flock of fish in his wake. Lots of the sea bass that I’d been catching before, but one especially tough one to reel in, a Styrian Blue Tuna. Took me about 15 minutes and a lot of patience.
-I head back to Cape Caem. I want to turn in the haunted painting quest in case there’s a follow-up also in Altissia.
-Cindy rings me up when I arrive, telling me there’s an issue with earthquakes. Titan hard-mode coming?
-Gave a cactuar statuette I picked up in Altissia to Talcott, and he’s over the moon. I had that reaction when I opened a Vesuvan Doppelganger from a Magic card pack as a kid. But there’s no immediate reward. I have to imagine that if I find all the statuettes, he’ll open his locker.
-LOL WTFFFF, LONGWYTHE MOUNTAIN IS AN ADAMANTOISE! THIS IS INCREDIBLE
And utterly terrifying btw. See also my prior fear of giant creatures. It’s a delicious fear that I embrace, and one of the reasons I’m enjoying FFXV so much. It captures the bowel-loosening, vertigo-inducing awe of giant creatures better than any prior FF.
-I honestly didn’t think this fight was possible at the moment. I’m currently level 75, and the Adamantoise is a 99 boss. Maybe even a superboss? Idk how that classification works. I attacked it once, just kind of as a joke. I assumed I’d die horribly when it looked at me funny.
It turned out not to hit me that hard. Not one-shottingly hard, anyway. I was able to just get to one of its legs and smack smack smack.
-It was a long fight. Like, a looooooooooong fight. Hours? I didn’t time it, and I took frequent breaks where I’d pause and do work, pause and eat lunch, etc.
I’m CERTAIN that my strategy was not anywhere close to ideal. I used Ultima Blade primarily on Noctis because that was my best weapon, even though it seems weak to 2hers. For techs, kept up Ignis’ Enhancement and used Gladolus’ Impulse.
Near the end of the fight I got a bit braver and tried fighting near Adamantoise’s head. Warping up to its eyes seemed to do more damage. It was riskier because if I messed up the timing it was a long drop to the ground, but I learned to mitigate that by saving a technique use for when I fell, since it seemed to give some invincibility frames.
FINISHING IT OFF FELT SO FRIGGING GOOD!
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Next time: the trial of Leviathan.
