Part 33: Part Thirty-Three: Somebody Dies, I Promise to God

Part Thirty-Three: Somebody Dies, I Promise to God

You know what you're here for, I know what you're here for.

Let's go.


Here's our new buddy. At 10 years old, Alus Restor is is the heir to the throne of Saronia. When his last birthday rolled around, he was likely congratulated on "finally getting to the double digits". Barely old enough to be considered bad at sports, he also probably thinks girls are "icky" and just got into reading chapter books.

His dad, the whackjob king, threw him out on the street to die.


Let's chat with him.


Alus and Jecht get along pretty well.

: I would like to talk to him... But he told me to never return to the castle.

Now you're runnin' with the mystically appointed murder child crew. You're gonna go far, kid.


Once Alus joins the party, some people have different things to say. This man does not.


This is the guy who just hangs out on his own in a distant part of town.


He does have something different to say!


Aw yeah.


Wind Spear: it's what's for dinner. If you talk to nobody else in Saronia, you want to talk to this man. You want Wind Spears and you want them in Dragoons' hands.



Another old man in a weird place with stuff to give us. Why does this platform even exist? Who built this place? Is it the same guy who keeps putting hidden doors in caves? Because fuck that guy.


It's a good day to be a Dragoon.


Now that I've got Alus along and I've picked up some items...


...Let's rock the Dragon Spire!



Oh, if you're wondering, these two doors are purely decorative.


Dragon Spire. Wow, what to say about this place?

I mean, there's so much to go through, I don't even know where to start.





Nah, I'm just fuckin' with ya. This place is a joke. You just run up the stairs to the treasure, same deal as that one tower back in, uh, Sara's place. Altney Castle or whatever. The one with the Wightslayer, you know what I'm talking about.






This place is full of Dragoon equipment. There's enough shit lying around to equip two Dragoons, if you get everything from the old dudes.


Also a Phoenix Down, just because.


Technically, there are also enemies in the Dragon Spire, but they're big jokes. Speaking of big jokes, this is also the only place you're "likely" to see Alus cast spells. Being 10 years old, when it comes to fighting, Alus is exactly as useful as you'd expect. He can cast Aero and Confuse, but I've never seen either.


We're done with the Spire and free to move on with the plot, but there's another conversation to see.



: It's probably because someone who's even shorter than him is doing his best to help his country.

Sephy takes the chance to lay some lighthearted ribs down on his best friend for life, who is basically like a brother to him.


That's the end of the conversation. It only serves to show you that Jecht and Alus get along well, and it reminds you of how light Sephy and Jecht's relationship is, with the kind of jabs that really good friends toss at each other. I like it.

Oh, and Golbez is still a douche. His last line there is pretty dumb.


This is a shot of the job menu. I was going to change Sephy over to Dragoon, but it's not really necessary, so I didn't. Then I edited the shots wrong, so this is the bottom screen instead of the top.


Here's another shot of Kuja's equipment, but only halfway.


I have no idea why the hell I took this. To show you how much Hi-Potions heal?


Now that "Garbage Screen Theater" is over, let's move on. We have to go to the castle to talk to the king.


The three jerkass guards are still here, standing in front of the open gate. Hey, dipshits, if you don't want people getting in, why don't you just lower that on down, save yourselves some trouble?



: Stand aside and let me through!

This goes a little differently from last time. Alus almost sounds imposing here, but I want you to imagine that line read by an actual ten-year-old, doing his best "authoritative" voice.


What did anybody expect to happen here?



Just as I'm about to turn around and go stand in a field or whatever, a fourth soldier comes around.


Our fortunes are reversed!


In we go!

Seriously, though, why would the king exile Alus if he's just gonna let the kid back in the first time he shows up with some buds?


I took this screen mid-fade, and I don't know why. It adds nothing.

To get meta for a moment, I usually take these screens in one big session where I actually feel like playing this game, so I'll end up with five or six updates' worth and they'll sit for weeks before I get to them. Sometimes that leaves me with a screen that I probably took to make a joke, but I can't remember the joke anymore and I just stare at it for a while, baffled.


Ah, yes, the actual game I'm playing. Yes, hm, what are the events?


Oh, it's just naptime. I'm sure that tomorrow the king will explain the whole civil war to us (he's probably just a nutjob).


But first, Alus wants to talk about baseball cards or something. Whatever kids do at sleepovers.

: No, not yet.

The fact that we got to the castle in what looks like mid-afternoon and this scene follows straight after makes me think it takes place at about half past four.


Thankfully, this blue filter exists to tell me that it really is nighttime.

: I can't help but wonder...what has happened to my father? Why would he expel his own son?

Welcome to Saronia, the part of Final Fantasy III where we really explore the nature of mental illness and the fact that it can turn people into something completely unrecognisable even without affecting them physically.

: Do you think...he doesn't love me anymore?

Also note that Alus's prevailing concern is his relationship with his father, as opposed to the ongoing civil war the king started. Even though he's being cast as a de facto hero, here, Alus is a member of the ruling class, deeply removed from the concerns of the citizenry.

: Sire...

The Warriors of Light are completely separate from both groups; they don't care about anyone's goals except their own. Occasionally they'll work with someone else, but only to get closer to finishing their quest. They're basically mercenaries.



: No parent would ever lose their love for their children! Your father must've had a good reason for doing this. Don't worry, I'm sure the king will explain everything tomorrow.

I like that Jecht pauses before he says that. He's a smart kid, he probably thinks something's hinky here.

: I...I guess you're right.

Alus doesn't buy it either.


Oh, hey, a king.


Creep king. What's up, creep king?


Ah.


Well, it's about damn time. I'm not going to be made a liar.


This, uh, just happens. It's kind of a deus ex machina thing, but I suppose that Square-Enix doesn't want to show a child getting straight-up murdered in this game.


Everyone is running around and suddenly this guy is here? Also the blue filter just disappears when Alus gets out of bed, like someone flipping on an electric light.

The first time I played this part, I was pretty sick and I was pretty tired and zonked out on NeoCitran, and this part of the game already isn't super tight, so it was just sort of things happening in front of me. Something similar happened the first time I played Final Fantasy XIII; I stayed up all night to do it, and at the end, it was just colours and sounds.


Oh, hey, it's Gigameth, which we definitely knew and don't just learn from a text box here.



King Gorn, uh...wow. King Gorn just committed suicide in front of his child. Close enough that he probably got his blood on that kid.


I hope Saronia has some damn good therapists, because wow, that is not going to go away.

On the other hand: congratulations on becoming king, Alus!


Whose bonds?


G.



So, yeah, the king was controlled by Gigameth.



Now it's murder time for the Teenage Murder Squad.

That's right, everybody, it's gonna be a double death update!


Gigameth is a bird!

There is a hint of this coming if you talk to all the people in Saronia - one guy mentions Gigameth having the shadow of Garuda.


This is Garuda, and highlighted is the method of beating Garuda.


Sephy isn't very useful in this fight, but he does generally go first, so he can toss out a Hi-Potion if you need it.


And things can get ugly very fast, because Garuda can hit pretty hard, and goes twice just like most bosses. His physicals aren't the big threat, though.


This is from Golbez. Golbez is damn good at laying down the hurt.


Here's Garuda's big move: Lightning. You can see that Kuja's offscreen Jumping, which means she's missing out.


Nobody else is, though, and so you can see: Lightning is a fucking murder machine. There's pretty much nothing you can do to protect against it, either, except gain levels. This fight can be a real motherfucker.


On the other hand, though, it's not hard. Garuda only has about 8,000 HP. If Kuja went up again, thanks to Golbez's 1,000 damage hit earlier, this fight would be pretty much over. You can end it in one round if you use two Dragoons.

The high damage on Jump, by the way, is caused by the fact that Jump does double damage to Wind-weak enemies and the Wind Spear already doing Wind damage. Garuda has a Wind weakness, as a flying enemy, so this is, like, quadruple damage. Jump fucking wrecks Garuda.

(It's also why a four Dragoon party was a good bet in the NES version, but not here: it's just not necessary, and the job adjustment phase/cost of equipment offset the benefit.)



Or you can die in one round because Garuda decides to drop Lightning on you twice in the first round, and usually gets his turn before Dragoons.


Like I said, this fight isn't hard, but you might lose. It's kind of a perfect example of this game's problems vis-a-vis the battle system. The semi-random turn order and bosses acting twice will sometimes just fuck you over, and there's nothing to do about it.





The second time, I won the fight in four rounds (Jump takes two each time). I also learned that numbers in this game are only semi-random, because I saw the exact same fight play out twice (I fucked up one of the screens, but didn't save state at the end of the fight, so I had to do it again).

Anyway, now we've killed Garuda and everything will be totally fine for everyone, especially Alus!