Part 29: Soul of Rebirth Part 4

So... I'm just going to present this whole thing with the full text. I think this deserves it.


The emperor!
But not the emperor you have come to know.
He is somehow different from the creature I fought...
You must permit me to apologize for his indiscretions. Charlie and his companions did indeed defeat me. I died once at their hands.



Really, Soul of Rebirth? That's our plot twist?

A light half?
Yes. My dark plummeted to Hell, where he gained his fell power. Then he became master of Pandaemonium.
Then...this isn't Pandaemonium?
Though they look alike, you now stand in Arubboth, palace of the heavens. The passage you thought was Jade is in fact Raqia, realm of the fallen angels. Angels who have sinned are twisted into beasts and cast out into its depths. I found myself here and became lord of Arubboth. As for you, Minwu, who forfeited your life to lift the seal of Ultima... Scott, who fell defending the remote Kashuan Keep... Josef, crushed by a falling boulder in Borghen's trap. And Ricard, the last dragoon, who sacrificed himself to my dark half... You who lost your lives fighting the empire - it was I who brought you here.
Why?


The good must pat penance for the deeds of the wicked. And I mean to.

That's... almost reasonable? Then again, it's kind of a tall order, with the whole "killed nearly 50% of the world's population" thing.


You've got some nerve!
You mock us!
I expected you'd say as much. Reluctance to forgive has long been a human failing. It is man's nature to sin, yet you answer sin with violence upon violence. Is that not itself a sin?
...

Game, where the fuck are you going with this?

Forgive me and you shall have life eternal. You can live in this paradise for all time.
Forgive you?
Eternal life, huh?
In paradise, no less.
Again, I offer my apologies for the discourtesies committed by my dark half. Now you...you must forgive me.
I'm telling ya, you're going going to make any progress until you forgive me. You might as well get it over with and get on with this game... I can wait a lot longer than you can, believe me...











Guys, I wouldn't trust these apparitions. I mean, I don't know who these people are, but they aren't the gang.



Seriously, who the fuck would have Holy 16?



Whoever these guys are, they suck.



Hey, maybe we can finally see what Ultima can really do.





Oh FF2.



Yeah, let's cut away from that.

I'm gonna be a dragoon!
Don't worry about me!
You are the pride of Kashuan, my brother!
I will never give up. You can do no less!



And they all disappear, one by one. You know, as silly and corny as the whole "your friends pray and give you strength" was in FF4, at least it was set up and there was some logic to it. Here... there's no reason given as to why everyone's spirit (?) is here. How do they even know that these guys needed their help? Hell, how are they 'helping', really? Gah!

: Why do you hesitate? Do you not desire eternal life?



I didn't come this far to dishonor myself now!
My hopes live on in those who remain!
We chose to die. But we died so that others might live.
Foolish men... If you will not have eternal life, I will give you eternal suffering!


The Motherfucking Emperor, Mk. II
Rank 1, HP 25000, MP 540, Attack Power 180, Attacks 9, Accuracy 100%, Defense 220, Evasion 1-80%, Magic Defense 16-70%

So we're fighting the Emperor again. This time he's got even more HP and even more tricks up his sleeve.



For one, he still has Starfall.



But it's a hell of a lot nastier here, especially for Minwu.



And like every other boss in SoR, he gets Flare 16. At least with Shell on it may not one hit kill Minwu, but it did kill Josef here. Eh.



Huh. You know, I think this enemy is the only one who ever casts Holy in the entire game. Not just in SoR, but the main game too.



But it's multi-target, so no big deal.



As for the damage the party could do, while neither Ricard or Scott were ripping the emperor apart, they did decent damage.

Honestly, while it wasn't a quick battle, there really was no major stumbling blocks. Josef died once, but that was it. His spells are powerful, but as long as you're always careful to keep everyone's HP up you'll be okay. If nothing else, everyone except Ricard has decent leveled Cure, so they can supplement Minwu. If you can get to this battle, you can win it.



I beat it faster than I thought I would.



And he still explodes.


Your bloody legacy...of war and violence will not...end here! Ungahhhh!







Then the game goes through the final cutscene, and it's almost exactly the same.



Except now the four ghosts here will pop in and occasionally say something.







Waaaait a second, you guys weren't here originally. I didn't really show the Dawn of Souls version of this sequence, but they're not here in the main game, either. They just stuck them in here and hoped we wouldn't notice.



But Ricard never did teach little Kain the most important lesson: wait until he's dead to go after your best friend's girl.



After Charlie and the gang walk off, the camera pans back to the ghost men.


This is their time, now.
Do you think they're up to it, Minwu?
I believe they are. If anyone can change our legacy of violence, they can.

....you mean Scott's fight against an evil empire who eradicated whole towns, or Ricard and Josef's sacrifices to save the lives of others? That "legacy of violence?" And Minwu was a medic, ho- oh fuck it who cares it's over.



They play the ending monologue, and it's exactly the same.



And some dudes' ghosts, but no one cared about that.



It plays the end credits again, but it's not like we needs to see more credits for this.

For as hideously unbalanced as this optional dungeon is, I kind of like it. I like the idea of a party that consists of all the characters who died, even if the actual plot of Soul of Rebirth is stupid. And I like that the early part is a desperate scrabble to survive, to get more equipment and characters. But around the midway point it falls apart. Unless you came in overpowered, there's no way to continue onward unless you grind for at least an hour or two. That really kills the momentum. For the record, I tried to grind only as much as I felt was necessary. I don't feel like I was overpowered by the end, but still after the Steel Giant I pretty much breezed through the rest. Unbalanced is kind of an understatement.

Regardless, it's done, and with it, the LP is done. Thanks for sticking around for what ended up being waaay more bonus updates than I anticipated. At this point, I think I've really said all there is to say about FF2.