Part 12: The Rebellion Finally Does Something
So... this time do we go and talk to Hi-
Nope!
So she gets rescued and immediately launches an attack? Damn. Where the hell was this Hilda the whole game? Was Hilda a lamia the whole time, and this is the first time we've actually seen real Hilda? I'm liking this new, useful Hilda.
Just kidding, this is the only proactive and useful thing she will ever do in this entire game.
And Hilda just took the rebellion and parked their asses here. It's actually up to us to go to the castle, and kill the leader inside. Well, they'd cleared the way, since you can't enter the castle until now. So point one for Hilda and the rebellion. The only point they get.
(Well also the whole saving your life at the beginning of the game I guess.)
So anyway there's no point in going into town unless I really wanna kill some Captains (and this is the last time we have this unlimited supply of Captains to kill) so let's just go to the castle and-
Oh. Thanks game.
Layla's back. Woo.
Flower
Rank 5, HP 540, Attack Power 40, Attacks 4, Accuracy 80%, Defense 40, Evasion 0, Magic Resistance 3-50%
So this castle has random encounters, so it's kind of a dungeon, but not really. You can explore and get all the treasure now, but there's no point. Once we kill the leader, the encounters are gone, and we can grab the treasure unmolested. You'll still run into an encounter or two getting to the leader.
Oh, and here is zombie Layla.
And there was zombie Layla.
Gotus
Rank 6, HP 2,000, MP 80, Attack Power 70, Attacks 6, Accuracy 90%, Defense 60, Evasion 1-65%, Magic Resistance 5-40%
Gotus is, at least, respectable as an opponent. He's better than a behemoth.
He mostly just attacks. His attack power isn't bad, but curse and blind help cut that damage down (it also helps that his magic resistance, while good, isn't sky-high.)
Unfortunately, he can boost up his attack stats.
Gotus did spent most of his fight missing, but when he hit, he hurt. Fortunately, with Curse on him, Vivian does around 360 a hit or so, up to 500. Doesn't take too long.
Got a few nasty hits on me, but nothing too bad.
Now that we've won, encounters are gone in the castle, Phin has been liberated, the rebellions' purpose has been fulfilled, and Hilda has regained her throne. All from fighting an enemy that isn't even a unique enemy. Yeah, there are Gotuses later on the game. Oh FF2....
Oh course we're not done yet. Remember how the king asked Minwu to grab the totally awesome and useful (and not bugged and shitty) spell Ultima? Yeah, we gotta go check up on him. Which just means we're going on a quest to get the Ultima spell.
Hilda drops a ton of key words on us. If you remember, I nabbed a black mask earlier. Yes, this is what we needed it for. It's a little complicated; we need a white mask and a black mask to open a cave to get us a rod to enter the tower. At least we've already done a part of this quest. Where's the white mask, then?
And this is what we actually need from Hilda. Now Gordon will tell you if you talk to Paul, he'll tell you where this secret passage is. But if you already know, you don't need to ask. And also screw Gordon I'm not talking to him.
Before we go do that, let's check the town out. Since Phin is no longer occupied, it's a normal town (the last we ever see in the game) and the shops are fully functional now.
The weapons and the armor are mostly stuff we've already found before. The only thing worth buying is the Quartz Cuirass, but we're gonna get one for free later anyway.
The spells are nice... if we could have gotten them earlier in the game. Except Dispel; it's supposed to remove elemental resistances, but like in FF1, it's bugged and doesn't work. Mini is another insta-KO spell, but one of the few KO spells that are white magic. Fog casts permanent silence, which would have been nice, but soon enough we'll have a better solution. Slow we've already seen; reduces number of enemy hits.
I grab Slow, mostly for shits and giggles. Honestly, while I get decent use out of the thread, I probably made a mistake here. Slow is kind of redundant with Blind, and it's in many ways worse since it's less accurate and gotten later. On the other hand, slow is white magic, which is good for Viv. It's been hard to gain much intelligence since every time she punches something a brain cell leaks out. But nothing reduces soul, and her soul score is quite decent. Also Blind is a flat 40% reduction to evasion, and Slow reduces number of attacks based on how many levels of it hit. If I get super grind heavy with Slow it's a more useful debuff.
And then I realize the enemies I'd really want to use this on resist both. So who cares really? ...oh yay.
We also missed a buncha treasure in the castle, so let's get that.
And also admire the lovely Chekhov's mirror they had installed.
And enjoy this treasure room full of spells that do the exact same thing.
At least Death works on a different element, but Break and Toad have the exact same element. Yes, Toad is a KO spell. No, it's not a KO spell when used on you, but it is when used on the enemy. It's a really good KO spell too; it's the most accurate one in the game. The only reason to have both Toad and Break in the same room is a) if you wanted to have two casters of KO spells (although they're both black magic) or b) to trick people into using the shittier spell.
I'd be remiss to mention that in the remakes of FF2, they added a mini game similar to the one in FF1. In the snow fields, if you press a and b 22 times, you play a memory game. Why do I mention it now? If you play this game with level 16 toad, you can get the masamune and other nice stuff from it. Although if you have level 16 toad, you barely need a masamune.
Most of the treasure chest are trapped, and those monsters don't go away once Phin's been liberated. At least this chest is only trapped with trash monsters; the game devs are mean, but not that mean.
Also trapped, but with a team of far scarier Sorcerer's and Sergeants.
Now Aura is an... interesting spell. I thought it was bugged and didn't work, but according to this site while the eighth level is bugged, the spell does work. It boosts your attack against specific enemy types. Honestly, I never use this spell and I never notice it's effects when I have. I sold it. I'll run into it again later in the game, though; maybe I'll play around with it? If nothing else, I doubt I'd have to put it on my special restriction list.
There's two secret passages on the second floor here, but they just have the werebane and the giant gloves, both of which are kind of not great this point.
Since we've looted all we can here, let's continue on with the plot train.
And here's the secret passage. You can tell because it's the only piece of wall with a keyword/item prompt. Throw our relevant word at it, and move on through the secret door.
Right before the entrance to the dungeon, they sneak a little hidden path here.
Told you we were getting one for free. It gives 22 defense; pretty good! Also, free, so you can't argue with that price.
We also get the gold armor, which is both heavier and has worse defense. Just to rub it in on how bad heavy armor is in this game. (The other is a gold shield, which is okay.)
Anyway, dungeon!
The first two floors have nothing but really shitty treasure. None of it's trapped, at least!
Brain
Rank 5, HP 240, MP 100, Attack Power 40, Attacks 4, Accuracy 75%, Defense 35, Evasion 1-60%, Magic Resistance 3-50%
Brains are basically grown up Changers. Same love of the Swap spell, although theirs hits more often. At least they leave you with a decent 100 MP, but I've still gotta spend a ton healing back up, so it's a major drain. I actually end up using an elixir because of these jerks. A faux pas I will never live down. Thankfully they only show up on the first two floors.
Other than the brains, there's nothing else to say about the-
By this point, I was getting paranoid. I mean, I remember this dungeon not being hard at all, but if I fucked up at any point the game was certainly not going to be this generous the next time around. FF2 only seems to have two modes; bending over a bar stool presenting like a mandril, or bending me over that bar stool. Usually it's pretty clear when it's entering the second mode, but the game surprises me yet.
...yeah, I'm just going to deflate your gleeful, voyeuristic schadenfreude right now; I don't die. Sorry.
Mantis
Rank 5, HP 750, Attack Power 60, Attacks 5, Accuracy 75%, Defense 50, Evasion 1-60%, Magic Resistance 4-40%
By the third floor, we finally get a tough enemy. Basically these guys hit you hard. They have an ice weakness, but I've only got level 4 ice. I would two of those to kill one. It's not that much faster than punching them to death.
Other than the mantises, though, none of the random encounters are even remotely scary, and the mantises only show up on the third floor anyway. Honestly, maybe the tropical cave does fit after this dungeon. It's longer and more complicated, at least.
Man, this bar stool's getting a workout today.
First piece of decent treasure! It's got the same evasion bonus as the diamond shield, but protects against ice rather than lightning.
But the flame armor protects against fire. That's confusing as hell. Also it's heavy. Boo.
Oh the blood sword.... you funny little thing. It's trapped with a kinda trash encounter, but it's a great weapon. You know how drain attacks add 1/16 of your max HP per hit landed to the damage? The blood sword has the same property. Now the blood sword has some steep penalties; it has the worst base attack of any weapon, worst accuracy, no evasion bonus, will heal the undead, and it completely kills your int/soul. But give it to a dedicated sword user, and it wrecks any high HP enemy. Oh, and any HP drained (but not the base attack) is given to the attacker. The blood sword is well known for how absurdly powerful it can be. The blood sword isn't the cheapest way to get through the game, but it's up there.
The fang casts confuse 16. Honestly, it might be useful? I never use the damn things, and I'm pretty sure I sold this one, but there are some enemies later that drop it so if I really wanna use one I could.
Really, one of the few things to note about this dungeon is how most of the floors change color.
GChimera
Rank 5, HP 750, MP 140, Attack Power 60, Attacks 5, Accuracy 80%, Defense 50, Evasion 1-60%, Magic Resistance 4-40%
Hey, a new, actually interesting enemy. Hows about that? The, uh... well it's the orichalcum dagger so I'm calling it that. Anyway, it has better attack power than the main gauche, but it doesn't have the evasion bonus, so fuck it. As for the ...Ghimera? Great Chimera? As for the red chimera, it's pretty much like the previous chimera with one major difference. It has a petrifying attack. Much to my surprise, it never used it. It is a rarer attack, but still. Actually, this encounter also can be from one to four. You know, one of the enemies guarding the blood sword can petrify as well, and it didn't, despite me fucking around in that fight. I'm presenting so many opportunities for the game to fuck me over, and it's not. It's a dangerous game we play, me and FF2.
Now it's time to play the guessing game, EXTREME edition! It's outta control!
Fortunately, this is one time I do remember the correct door.
And that's it. There's no boss; the red chimera/s are as close as it gets to a boss. There's a warp out at the end, and we're done. That was astonishingly painless.
Next time, we found what the hell to actually do with these masks.
Power +5 (wait, seriously?), Agility +4 (seriously!?), Vitality +4, Intelligence +1, Soul +3, Unarmed +1, Magic Power +1, Magic Defense +1, Cure +1, Blink +1