Part 12: In Which the Party Fights Ganon's Knockoff Cousins

Entry 10: In Which the Party Fights Ganon's Knockoff Cousins





The next morning, the full extent of Ominas's damage can be seen. Mystery girl aside, Ringabel's living space being destroyed might have been a factor in his sudden interest in tagging along.





It pains me to place this all on you, but I'm sure you'll do great.

Owen is an important member of our cheerleading squad. We believe in you, too, Owen.







Caldisla's mood is grim, but defiant. The king is the most distressed, soft marshmallow that he is. All said and done...



Our goal is clear.



Ringabel is going to take on White Mage. It seems natural for him. Tiz will keep as Freelancer for now.



An example of how job determines proficiency with different armor/weapon types. S-ranked staves are the white mage specialty, while they're terrible with E-ranked swords.

Higher proficiency increases the physical attack power of a weapon. In the hands of someone with E proficiency, the staff only adds 2 attack power. In Ringabel the white mage's hands, it adds 3. Underwhelming here, perhaps, but a big deal for physical attackers.



Unless you have a good knuckles weapon, it's best to go bare-handed as monk. Why?



Each job has a Specialty, listed near the bottom on the previously shown ability menu. Specialties provide a unique passive perk which compliments the job's playstyle. In this case, Knuckle Lore raises knuckles proficiency to S and adds x2 to physical attack when the character is fighting bare-handed.

Many specialties also double as learnable support abilities, allowing the use of, for example, Knuckle Lore on a white mage.

Before leaving town, let's check in on Norende.



Earlier I set my worker on the northeastern blockade.





And here it is after the blockade clearage is completed. A new couple of shops are ready to be upgraded, and a couple more blockades are accessible. The topmost blockade will take 99 hours to unblock. For the moment, effort goes into the armor shop.

At this point I'm already drowning in gifts from the item shop. Got two new item types:





Echo herbs will come in handy now that we have magic-users.




With all prep done, we head to the keep.







Well, we sure found our targets quick.



I'll say it now. Your methods are wrong.

Wrong? WRONG!? I don't rec-c-call asking your opinion on the matter!





I've seen more than enough to know this much: You are undeserving of my trust and my loyalty.





Ominas turns away to rage, probably wishing the computer was invented so he could rant about women on the internet.







The joke is Edea sounds like the princess from Hidden Fortress: rocks scraping together, especially when angry. That's speaking as someone who likes both characters.






The second dungeon, Centro Keep, seems straightforward: Get to the room next door. The trick? Both doors leading directly there are locked. We have to go up two floors, around to left side of fort, then back down.



To progress, closed gates around the keep can be opened via giant conspicuous switches in the walls.



It's a very basic gimmick, and unfortunately par for the course for this game's puzzles. This game takes a lot from NES/older SNES JRPGs, including the negatives of simple but tedious dungeon layouts with little visual variety, with a few exceptions.





Two of the new enemies here.





Cait Siths go down easily. Orcs have a semi-regular pattern of Default, then Brave to attack twice next turn. Since Defaulting increases defense for its turn, a 4x attack at the wrong time will really lack its normal potency.





On the second floor, another lever/door combo and a chest. These go on Agnès so she can keep on punching.



The party doesn't even bother facing the enemy. Or staying on the ground, in Ringabel's case. The game's difficulty curve won't kick in for a while, but boy will it get going when it does.



First priority in this place. Orcs hit hard enough without poisoning and a buff.



On the third floor, the game's first hidden treasure chest. As in earlier Final Fantasy games, sometimes there are invisible holes in walls which lead to goodies. Encouraging players to scrape themselves against every wall was always a good combo with random battles. Luckily, online guides and an adjustable encounter rate are here to help this time around.





The prize is our first knuckles weapon.



Agnès will now one or two-shot enemies.



A complete map of the third floor.





Back down to the left side of second floor, there's a weapon I immediately forget to equip before fighting the black mage.



Complete map of the second floor and an Adventurer save point, indicating that a boss battle is imminent.


Next: A battle on two fronts.

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