Part 10: Part Ten: A Bad Place for Children

Part Ten: A Bad Place for Children


Here's the mountain range that's supposedly a dragon hang-out, and where we're headed because Desch unceremoniously dumped Salina. I mean, we sort of have a world to save, but I think a teenage break-up takes precedence.

Before we get to that, though, stats:



Sephy is still in the job adjustment phase, but he's doing okay. It wasn't enough to knock him down to one hit per hand or anything, and the Mythril Knives give him a solid amount of power.



Jecht's not going to win any prizes for his physical attacks, but his Mind makes his Cure spells decent enough for the time being, and his 12 MP doesn't quite allow me to heal everyone individually after every battle, but it's enough to do some cleanup after a hard one.



Kuja can hit things, and she can take a hit fairly well, too. Low job level is the real killer here, but that'll sort itself out over time.



The jobs haven't quite hit the point where differentiation really becomes apparent, though, as you can see from the fact that Golbez is better than Kuja at everything except raw Attack. Like Jecht, he also has enough MP to do some touch-up work when things get rough, or to sling an elemental spell at a weakness.

Eventually, these numbers will look a lot more impressive and you'll all weep or whatever you do when you see something beautiful. For now, though, I'll just have to make do.


There's one other thing I want to show off before I head up the mountain: Gnomish Bread. We picked some up from Cid's stash.

What Gnomish Bread does is zoom out the map and show you where all the towns and such are. Like this:


This is the map.


And this is the map on Gnomish Bread.

It's not really a winning item, and I'll probably never use it again unless I want to make a point in the LP. It's a holdover from the NES version, where you couldn't view the world map unless you used it. Final Fantasy IV has a similar thing going on, and I don't like it any better in that game than I do here.


But I digress! Dragon's Peak! This is what we're all here for!


There are monsters here, of course. These guys are called Fireflies.


They cast Fire.


Fire, against one character, can be a bit of a threat: it deals around 30 or 40 damage, not enough to one-hit anybody, but enough that I'll bust out a Cure to deal with it. Against the whole party, though, it's not a problem.


Mainly because Jecht's Cure can heal twice as much damage as it does. He's here to heal, so it just makes sense that he's good at it.


I also failed to steal anything here. I can only hit the first-tier item that enemies carry right now (they carry four, total, each with varying success rates), which only has a 19% chance to connect. If I keep Sephy as a Thief for a while longer and get those job levels up, I'll be much more successful.

You're probably picking up on it by now, but job levels work against you more than they work for you.


Still hits hard, though. He'll be reasonably close to the other physical kids as long as I keep him up-to-date on equipment.


He's off of probation!


These birds are called Helldivers. I don't think I've seen them do anything particularly remarkable.



Here's Advance, though. It's damage-and-a-half right now, but it's not enough to kill anything here in one hit. If Kuja and Sephy team up, they can get through an enemy in one round, though, which is nice.


Up the path we go! This place is pretty linear, with a couple of offshoots that lead straight to treasure. If this game had been done like the SNES Final Fantasies, I bet this would be a nice vista view, but as it is, it's just clouds and sky.


First treasure is a Phoenix Down. I think these get rarer as time goes on, but that could also just be a bias thing. They definitely get less important as time goes on and they're replaced with magic, though.

There is an enemy on this mountain that you can steal Phoenix Downs from, but they're a rare encounter and I couldn't get any to spawn. I also don't want to gain too many levels or take too much damage here.


Up we go!


Here's Aero. I give it to Jecht, but it's not ever going to be a vital thing. Definitely one of the better Level 2 spells, though.


There's also this Gold Needle. Status items are nice to have, but I'll probably not be keeping them the entire game.


We're almost at the top now.


As we reach the peak, the game takes over.


Something surprises Sephy.


So that's why it's called Dragon's Peak, huh?


Looks like he's hungry.



The dragon chases Sephy right over a cliff, and he looks around to make sure it's not still after him.


Chases the kid right into its nest, looks like.


I also get my zoom back once I'm in the nest. For some reason, there was no zoom on the mountain proper.




Baby dragons: not very talkative.


What we're really worried about right now, though, is this creepy guy hanging out in the straw.


The creepy man is also a jerk about it. Fuck you, creepy man, let's see you fight a dragon.





Oh, look, it's Desch, Salina's boyfriend or whatever. One-night stand guy.


Look who's back.


Yeah, sounds good to me.



Jecht and Kuja run off at the first sign of danger, but smart guys Sephy and Golbez decide to hang around.



Now everybody's run away.


We're too slow, though, and now we're going to throw down with a dragon. We're heroes, right, and heroes slay dragons, so we got this.


Oh balls, it's Bahamut.


Here's my strategy: book it. Sephy uses Flee, but everyone else just uses regular old Run Away.


We're a little slow again, though, and Golbez gets taken out in one hit. This isn't a fight to be won.



Only Golbez got knocked out, at least, so we're out alright.



I don't know where we ran to, though, because everybody is still in the nest. This seems like a bad place to be.


Oh boy.


Double oh boy. I'm so excited to have you here, Desch.



Yeah, why are you asking her?


Kuja, I don't think this is really a good time to give him shit about that.




So now we have access to Mini, and Desch is hanging around.




I don't think he'll be around very long, though, if he's taken to jumping off of mountains.


Of course, everybody else has to follow him now, or it's into Bahamut's stomach. I guess they were lucky and didn't die. What I'm wondering, though, is how they jumped off a mountain and ended up on the coast, nowhere near a mountain.

Mognet



Today's letter is from Topapa. It's about...nothing really. Chocobos, I guess. They're birds. People ride them.