Part 24: Part Twenty-Four: Academic Malpractice

Part Twenty-Four: Academic Malpractice


After blacking out in the middle of town, our heroes wake up here, in a very dirty-looking room. The last time I blacked out, I just woke up in my bed, holding a fried chicken bucket.

: Ungh... Where...are we?


It's a mystery to all the kids.

Maybe the title of the background track can help us solve it:




I think that Golbez is the best choice for being a Scholar, because he sounds like a super douche when he's dressed up like the big intelligentsia man.


We are imprisoned for real, though.


So let's chat with this purple man. Where do you even get purple armour like that? Is it painted that colour, or is it a fantasy ore? Please tell me if there's a real metal that could be used to make real armour and it's bright purple.

: This castle is the Elder Tree of the Living Woods. Hein put a curse on it, and carved tunnels and rooms inside its trunk.

If this is inside a tree's trunk, why does it look like it's in the tree's roots? Roots aren't inside the trunk.



For whatever reason, Hein decided to leave gaps in the walls between cells. I don't think a guy who decides to live in a tree is playing with completely the same deck as regular dudes, though.


There's another purple guy here, and a regal-looking guy who seems pretty confused.


I'm not really surprised that he'd take the guy's sword away.


The regal-looking man from before is King Argus, by the way.

King Argus: I am King Argus. I rule over the lands north of the desert.

I've been to the lands north of the desert. There's, what, the Village of the Ancients? Gulgan Gulch? Pretty shitty kingdom, hoss.

King Argus: That is to say, the king of an empty kingdom, now that Hein has cursed my soldiers into doing his bidding...

There wasn't even, like, a town outside your castle. It was just a field. You're not the king of anybody, you're just some dude who lives in a castle.


At this point, the camera helpfully moves to this angle so that we can really get a good look at the back of the king's head.

: Milord...are you all right?
King Argus: I am fine, thank you... But I must ask you to do something for me. You must defeat Hein!

Well, I was going to murder him because I'm a hero or whatever, but hey, let's talk rewards.


...Or just kick me back to the field, that's cool too.


This guy has a green helmet and pauldrons. I'm guessing this is a rank thing.


Next cell!


Uh, alright, cool. Guess I better get right on with killing him.


We all die sometime, man. I guess you could say that I "must die". A little melodramatic, maybe.


Oh. Oh, I get it, you're going to turn into a demon and kill me.




I hope you can understand why I had to do this, guy I just murdered.

Demons have something like 600 HP and a weakness to Light. They'll survive an attack from one of the kids, but generally not two. Golbez can one-shot anything in the dungeon.


From that cell, I can get into the main passage on this floor. Going one way, there's just a dead end. Not even a Potion or anything.


The other way: a man...taking a nap?


Oh, you piece of shit, you better not.


OH FUCK YOU.


Burn in Hell.


Yes, now we have to use Mini on everybody to progress.


Right next to the hole we need to go in this this pot.


This pot is a wellspring, which normally would be nice, because it would restore your MP without affecting your status.

For whatever reason, though, this one also restores your status. There are only two of these in the entire game, here and at the Healing Copse. Why put a status restore here?



So I pop Mini back on everybody and now we're into Hein's Castle proper.


And resized back to normal. What bullshit.


Welcome to Hein's Castle, I guess. This is another dungeon in Final Fantasy III, which is to say, it's not that exciting, really.


We have some new monsters here. There's the Pharoah, a palette-swapped Mummy, and the Lemur, a palette-swapped Pupa. I'm assuming that the Lemur name is connected to "Lemuria" and not to monkeys.


Here's the breakdown of every fight in this dungeon: Golbez uses an item and kills one enemy.


The other three kids focus their efforts on cleaning up whatever's left. Most enemies here can survive an attack or two, sometimes three, depending on how lucky you are with accuracy and hit numbers. I'll be able to kill them more reliably in a couple of levels.


Holy Arrows can be kind of nice in this dungeon, since a lot of things are weak to Light and they're the main way to deal light damage right now.


Enemies in this dungeon can hit fairly hard, and there are a lot of them, so I end up having to heal a lot. It's kind of annoying, especially because I'm pushing into a point where Cure's not as useful as it was but I still can't use Cura except in emergencies. I won't be able to use Cura as many times as I can currently use Cure until level 80, in case you're wondering.


These are the hits I was talking about. They're a problem for the Thief mostly, because it's a front-row class for damage, but a back-row class for defence.


I pick up a level for Sephy around now. If I'd been running him as a Monk, he'd probably be coming into it pretty well at this point.



Two Phoenix Downs are nice to have.



I just took these because we haven't seen Poison in a dog's age. It shows up a few times here.



Here's another place where they've split one room into two for no apparent reason.



Only things in here are a Phoenix Down and the stairs.


The stairs lead to another room that's almost identical. Flying castle built into a giant magic tree, and they went with dirt and roots.


There are three rooms on this floor, and each of them has two treasures inside.


They also all have these pools, which aren't wellsprings.



3,000 gil is alright, and the Bomb Fragment is a good treasure, especially if you didn't dupe a bunch beforehand. You won't have enough to use them liberally, but they make your Scholar better in a pinch.



Another item and three grand. This game seems really liberal with its cash treasures, compared to other Final Fantasy games. I'm not hurting for cash and probably won't ever be.


This is the only one of these rooms that's not just a straight path to the loot.



You probably could have predicted this if you've been paying attention.


Besides the treasure, there's one thing of note on this floor: Dullahan.

Dullahan is a step up from other random encounters and the walkthrough I follow was flipping shit over it.



Dullahan's a punk.



If you're not running the super-Scholar, though, his high HP (1,000) and fairly powerful attacks make Dullahan more trouble than it's worth and you shouldn't fight it. Hell, even if you are running the super-Scholar, Dullahan is more trouble than it's worth and you shouldn't fight it.


This isn't from Dullahan, but some other enemies in the place drop Holy Arrows, which are still alright for Rangers. I don't know why they didn't carry the Dia spell from the first game into more of the series to give White Mages a basic Light/Holy attack spell.


We're done with this floor now.



The fourth floor is where Argus's sword was hidden, I guess.


I give it straight to Kuja. It'll boost her damage output nicely, especially now that she's not getting as many hits.


Oh, look, another Dullahan.




This is part of the reason it's considered such a threat. The Thunder is wasted on Golbez's high Magic Defense, and the physical is a bit ugly but not a day-ruiner. Attack items still kill it quickly, and it's still not worth it. Dullahan is slightly more annoying than other battles, is all.




I think the map for this floor is the exact same as the map for the second floor.


Just as I'm about to leave the area where it appears, Dullahan comes back for round three. The back attack is considered a "real threat" by my walkthrough, dude says to just run away - good advice for the average player, probably.


This is what Thunder looks like against the entire party; we're getting to a point where first-tier spells aren't useful anymore.


He's in the back row this time, which is good.





I decided to see if I'd escape first or just kill Dullahan. This one's all on the RNG.




It's a good thing that Jecht's HP gains have tended towards the high end.


This is also a really hard hit, and I don't know why. Maybe it was Thunder?



Anyway, we got away before I could kill it.

And thus ends the tale of Dullahan.


I'm only about halfway through the dungeon, and I've had to use Cure 15 times. Having Ethers in this game would be really nice. Being able to actually advance my magic as quickly as other things grow would also be nice.


This area is outside the dirty-ass tree trunk, and that's a nice change of pace.


This game can look pretty good when you're not just walking through a cave.


A new enemy shows up out here, too. It's called Lamia, and it looks more gorgon-y than Medusa ever did.


To reiterate, nothing in Hein's Castle doesn't die like a chump to an attack item.


Golbez even picked up a level off it.


And another Zeus's Wrath. If you're obsessive, you can legitimately build up a huge stock of attack items, even the second-tier ones, by now. Stealing is good for it, but you need job levels for it, and the grinding would probably put you at a point where you can just chop everything up real easy anyway.



By the way, if you're reading this and you're thinking "wow, that looks neat, I want to play it", realise that I only show you one out of maybe four or five random encounters, and they're all really boring.


Anyway, back into the tree cave to grab this Elixir.


Also this bow, which is a huge upgrade for Rangers and would actually make them fairly competitive as far as Attack numbers go. For now, anyway. I probably could have run Kuja as a Ranger without too much trouble, but she's going to be changing classes before too long anyway.


Next floor!



Shit look at those spooky torches. Look at 'em.


And then behold, the awesome skeleton.


Wait, this is Hein? Shit, man, I was gonna murder you, but you're a frickin' sweet skeleton man. You're alright in my books.

: A tapestry on which I shall paint an all-encompassing nocturne! With this fortress, Argus's soldiers, and the power of darkness... I will rule the world!

That's completely cool by me, hoss. Just tell Argus to make me an airship and I will be out of your hair.



Or, uh, yeah, we can fight if that's what you want. Okay.




Here's Hein's NES battle sprite. Cool pirate skeleton man, that's just a pretty neat thing for a dude to be.



So here's Hein's main thing: he changes his weakness every round. In the first round, he has no weakness.


He can also lay down a pretty solid hit.


You can nick a Hi-Potion off him if you want.


Stealing is a good move for a Thief here, since Hein takes no guff from physical attacks.





So you bring a Scholar, and he changes his weakness, so you use Study and it tells you stuff about Hein. Of course, there's about even odds that your Scholar goes before Hein and you end up basically guessing what his weakness is anyway.


Like what happens here!


My strategy is simpler: kill Hein regardless of weakness.


Hein has 4,500 HP. This is not hitting a weakness.


This is hitting a weakness. Hein has 4,500 HP.

You can see that he left Jecht critical, but I was in no danger of ever losing this battle. If Golbez had gone down, it would just have been one round of everyone else dumping elemental items to win.


RIP Hein, you were a sweet skeleton.



I still don't need gil, and that's a piddling amount of EXP.



I wrecked that battle too fast to even get job levels. Dungeon status: a piece of poo.


Hein fades away.


Quick, shake your monitor a bunch!


There, you've contextualised this. I looked away from the game for a second and missed the "earthquake", to be honest. And besides, the castle was floating, how would an earthquake even do anything?


Aw, it's the top screen.

: The walls...they speak!


Now we're chatting with a tree.

Elder Tree: But you freed me from his bonds. Thank you again, Warriors of the Light.

You really want to reward me, I like free equipment.

Elder Tree: I will now free the people held captive within me, and return them where they belong. Then I will go back to the Living Woods once again.

So the tree can move independently? I kinda figured Hein was doing that with magic.


Uh, you're welcome, soldiers who came outta nowhere.

Elder Tree: Now it is time to return...


Fade to black, then fade back in and we're in the Living Woods.

Elder Tree: I am back where I belong... Thank you for your help, young ones.

Not pictured: this scene is pretty slow.

Elder Tree: Here, take this. Use it when the power of darkness stands in your way.



The fairy thanks us and gives us the Fang of Wind. We still don't know what these are for.

Elder Tree: I will now sleep until the wounds that Hein inflicted on me heal themselves... For a thousand years I shall sleep, and none shall be able to enter these woods until I awaken. Young ones, it is no coincidence that this floating continent was born a thousand years ago, when the darkness engulfed the world...and that you have been chosen to become the Warriors of the Light a thousand years later.

Shut up shut up shut up.

This is kind of important to the plot, but this scene is slow as molasses in February and the dungeon before it was boring and by this time I just wanted to not be listening to a tree dump exposition on me.

Elder Tree: Young ones, you must leave this floating continent...and go to the world of darkness--the surface world.

We also already kind of knew that, because there's nowhere else to go.

: The surface world...?

Most of us already knew that.

Elder Tree: You must make haste! If you do not go now, it will be a thousand years until you may go again!

What? Why?


No, wait, I actually had a question about that last one! Hey!


Fuckin' assholes.

_{Enjoy this shot of both screens, since it was at the end of a bunch using both screens and I didn't want to do a whole bunch of separate crop jobs!}

Mognet



Today's letter is from Cid, who's rubbing his happy marriage in our faces and making bad puns!