Part 11: Update Eleven: Blinded By The Light

Update Eleven: Blinded By The Light

Welcome back! Last time, on Final Fantasy IV, Cecil had climbed most of Mt. Ordeals and met up with Gustav, who was seeking the legendary Meteor spell, to better kill Golbez with. Today, we're going to finally find out if Cecil can become a Paladin and if Gustav will learn Meteor, so let's mosey.





There's that noise again. What in tarnation could it be?





I'd believe him, Mune. I see no reason why he'd do something like that.



Eh, whatever. Let's just keep going.



Goddammit, there it is again!



And the first two times didn't tip you off, Gustav?



Gustav, you definitely should have sensed this before! Get back on your game, old man!





Gasp! It's Scarmiglione!



I don't quite remember him ordering you to do that exactly, but hey, you seem like a freelancing evil elemental lord.



Alright, folks, boss fight time.





The Skulnants can be kind of a pain in the ass, but they're not a huge danger in this fight.





Deathbringer isn't effective against them, so it's up to the magic slingers to take them down; they're weak to Fire, as you'd expect.



Now, I intended for Gustav to target everything with Fire, but I messed up and only Scarmiglione will be getting roasted this turn.



Masa will be throwing on Bluff, which should always be his first action in any boss fight.





He has 3,500 HP to tear through, so this is a little lackluster.



As a counter, he has Thunder at his disposal, which can kind of hurt.



Thankfully, Cecil has the raw HP to survive pretty much anything this fight will throw at him.





Masa is ready to lay down the magical smackdown, while Cecil is going to work on slashing Scarmiglione to ribbons.



His sword is completely effective against Scarmiglione, too.



He blasts Masa in retaliation, who takes the lightning strike like a champ.



This is where the Skullnants come into play in this fight.



Every so often, Scarmiglione will order them to attack and they do so, with Drain.



It's, uh...It's super effective.



But, Gustav quickly repairs what little damage was done with Cura.



Considering the average HP level of the party, this isn't too bad for a healing spell.



During the fight, it's best to have Cecil just constantly wail on Scarmiglione and let Masa and Mune use their Twin ability.



Gustav is going to put a small dent into the enemies here with a Fire blast.





Granted, it was divvied up through all of them, but damn, Gustav, you're not that great of a wizard.



I would have preferred to see Comet here, as it is not only stronger, but cooler as well.



But I am not one to argue with results. The Skullnants only have 200 HP, by the way.



So, that does it for his posse.





Oh, and for Scarmiglione, too. Golbez, you should have just sent Bowser after us again.



Let's continue on. Just over there yonder is where we need to be to finish off this mountain.



BY THE MERCIFUL HORNS OF SATAN









Sweet Christ, Scarry. When you fell to Hell, you musta hit every branch on the ugly tree.



You got a pretty bum deal on that, man.





Anyways, as you saw, this is a back attack, which means our rows have been swapped. Scarmiglione here hits pretty damned hard, so having our papery mages out front is not a good idea. Thankfully, you can swap rows with just a touch of a button.





When fighting this battle, that should be your first action. I don't care who gets the first turn, just make sure you swap those rows. If you don't want to take that step, though, you could just swap them after that last fight.



Anyways, remember what I said about this guy hitting hard?



That may not seem like much, but remember how much damage Cecil took from a Thunder blast earlier.



Now, you'd think that Cecil's sword wouldn't be effective against this guy, since he's back from the dead and all zombified, right?



Yeah, I don't know. Zombies, man.



Gustav, Recall has not been pulling its weight lately, so let's try and fix that.



As per usual, Masa is going to be Bluffing himself up.



And Scarmiglione has figured out who is the most dangerous person in this fight.



Gustav, you old son of a bitch.



Yeah, it's best to just keep Gustav on healing duty or flinging Fire over at Scarmiglione. Cura is also an effective tool to use against him.





I really like the Deathbringer. This Scarmiglione has 3,523 HP, so he's not much hardier than his first form.



I'm glad he wasn't hitting Masa here, as he and Mune are prepping up a Twin spell. With a lucky hit, Scarmiglione could kill his ass.



This battle could make for an interesting slugfest if it were just Cecil by himself. With proper Potion use, he could probably take on Scarmiglione by himself. At least, in this fight. Fuck doing that in the first fight with him.



Gustav preps a Cura as Scarmiglione punches Cecil in the face.



His physical attacks can also inflict Poison, which will deal a bit of damage each turn. It's not usually enough to worry about, but I don't like my characters being afflicted with bad things.



Cecil's skin turns purple and he kneels down, like he's in critical health.



I have just one Antidote, which cures Poison.





Apparently, Scarmiglione didn't appreciate that very much.



Cecil doesn't like being punched. Especially not by an undead monstrosity.



Yes, twins, yes! Burn him!



What in the fuck? Scarmiglione is weak to Fire!



Oh, Jesus Christ, it just pissed him off further.



Gustav drops another Cura and Cecil tosses himself a Potion.



Potions heal a bit of HP and are handy in a pinch.



Cecil gets poisoned again; he's become the lightning rod of Scarmiglione's hate.



Cecil drops a Hi-Potion on himself. They're just a touch more effective than regular Potions.



Esuna cures a buttload of status effects, but it is kind of costly. Scarmiglione also seems remiss to allow Gustav to cast it.



And he's poisoned now, too.



At least Cecil was cured.



Gustav prepares to steal some MP from Scarmiglione as the twins launch round two of Pyro.



It's just a touch more effective than their first try.



I really like that shot of Cecil's sword slash. I don't know why.





It's enough to strike one of the Elemental Lords from the mortal coil.





Scarmiglione falls off the bridge, but grabs hold of the side.





But, it's not enough to save him. Make no mistake, guys, this bad guy is fuckin' dead.



Alright, let's continue on.



As we're at the end of Mt. Ordeals, so get ready for some plot and some





Cecil, you never had a father, so I guess I can see why you don't understand this.



Golden light begins to flood the area...



...And things start to get a little wavy.





Before long, though, the world stops winging around...



...And our party enters an interesting area.







Look, a sword!



It slowly falls toward Cecil.



And he reaches out and takes it with no hesitation.



The golden light returns again...



...And Cecil undergoes a transformation.





That's interesting; Cecil has physically become a Paladin, but has his heart made the transformation?



There is only one way to find out.



He now has to face down Dark Knight Cecil.





Gustav and Masa are a bit surprised at what's happening here.



And thank God for the mistress of the obvious here.



Dark Knight Cecil pushes Paladin Cecil back.



And Gustav steps forward, to offer aid.



The twins are right behind him, ready to back up Cecil.





Cecil is awfully unconcerned about turning his back on the Dark Knight part of himself.



But, Dark Knight Cecil makes no move to attack him; Paladin Cecil pushes him back.



And the fight begins.





Paladin Cecil has some different commands from what he had before; White Magic is exactly what you think it would be. We'll talk about Cover later.



Cecil has a brand new sword, too and we don't get to see the crescent moon slices anymore.



He's got some power behind that swing, too.



All the Dark Knight will do in this fight is blast Cecil with Dark.



It does a bit of damage, but not a ton.





A true Paladin what?



Cecil preps to use his fancy new Cure spell; he only has 10 MP and it costs 3 MP to cast.



Yowch. That stings.



...The true Paladin will sheathe his sword?



That's the gimmick for the fight. Don't go beating on the Dark Knight.



Just Defend throughout the fight, cast Cure or use Potions. We can't defeat him with our sword.



Eventually...



We'll receive this message. At this point, the fight is over.





At this point, Cecil is fighting for Rosa.



...But is that not the optimal thing to be fighting for? How curious.



After those words, the Dark Knight fades away.





Whoever this is, they're putting an awful lot of faith into Cecil. I guess it's not entirely unwarranted, though, considering he did scale Mt. Ordeals and become a Paladin. He succeeded where so many had failed, so maybe, just maybe...



...No wonder Cecil was always wearing that helmet. When we rescue Rosa, check into a mask or something, okay, Cecil?





It's official now; our main character has completed his class change.





I'd say he's doing pretty well, all things considered.



"Masa, don't follow up on the question I asked, you asshole!"



Hmm...Hey, what's Gustav doing over there?



He's got it! By Jove, he's got it!





Everyone turns to figure out what Gustav's got.







Gustav knows nearly every spell in the entire game, so him remembering them all is fucking awesome. Gustav is now, hands down, the baddest motherfucker in the party.



W-what?





Gustav now knows the strongest spell ever. Holy shit.



Well, now he is. Before I'd say he was merely an alright sage.



"That you need to stop hitting me, because I know Fira."



They walk away and confer with each other for a minute. I wonder if they'll finally tell Cecil about them spying on him.



Looks like that's what they decided. Also, it looks like their hair has gotten tangled together.





This takes some stones. Sure, Cecil is no longer a Dark Knight, but I'd imagine he's come to rely on these children for their magical talents by now. With them having to tell him that they weren't being straight up could damage their relationship.



But Gustav is not giving a fuck about this; he has become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.





Hell, Cecil is so hard up to go get his murder on, Masa and Mune can wait.





Gustav doesn't give a shit about that, though. He's walkin' on outta here already.



Masa runs off after Gustav.



And Mune stays behind, but only to ask Cecil is he's coming.



Mune is kind of a suck up.



They both begin to walk out.



But Cecil pauses for a minute and turns back for one last glance.



He quickly turns and leaves.



Alright, back on the outside, let's take a look at Cecil. He's a lowly level 1, but he'll gain levels so fast, that doesn't really matter.



He's also nearly naked, but I can fix that.



Mysida sold this equipment for Paladin Cecil; I bought some before I left.



It's some good equipment, too, and quite costly. It's about 20,000 gil for the full set.



I couldn't afford the helmet when I was there (I was 1,000 gil short), but this stuff is more than enough.





Gustav has a shitload of magic now; Curaga is the third level cure spell, with Curaja being the fourth level. Other than that, the rest of the spells are self-explanatory.



And if something has an elemental weakness, God help them. Now, Gustav still only has 90 MP to play with and the third level elemental spells cost 30 MP a piece, but they're well worth the cost.



Unfortunately, Meteor cost 99 MP, so we won't be seeing that for quite a while. What a shame.



Let's get the hell off of this mountain.



We're not done just yet, I just wanted to make sure I saved.



And here we go, first fight with Paladin Cecil.



These four will do quite nicely.



Cecil's new sword is Holy-element, so he is going to fuck up everything on this mountain.



Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm targeting Masa with Thundaga.



And why I blasted him into smithereens with it.



You see, experience in this game, is divided up amongst all members of the party.



And Cecil, even at level 1, is more than powerful enough to completely crush any encounter he comes across on Mt. Ordeals.



So, I'm having Gustav wipe everyone else out so that Cecil will soak up the juicy, juicy XP.





And conveniently, he has just enough MP to entirely kill off the three of them and leave Cecil alive.



Firaga is my favorite looking of the third level spells; I'll throw up some gifs of them when I'm not blasting my own party members into oblivion with them.



Cecil finishes off the last enemy and viola!



Shit load of XP for Cecil!



Look at this screen shot for as long as you think it'd take you to read eight of them.



Because Cecil gained eight levels from that single fight.



Cecil will be traveling down the mountain on his own. Don't worry, I'm not going to overlevel him into bejesus strong territory; it's really easy to get him into the 30s, if you want, but he'll only be around level 20 when I'm done.



There's one encounter in particular I want to find around here, as it is lucrative as hell, XP wise.



I'll never get tired of Cecil crushing these guys.



Three levels from that fight; it's slowing down already, but that's okay.



Aside from the fights, it's entirely uneventful on the way down Mt. Ordeals.





I almost feel bad for that Skeleton.



Almost. Also, in a moment of convenience before I left Mt. Ordeals, I found the exact encounter I wanted.



Look at all those guys. Look at them!



Cecil one hit kills all of them.







Him learning Cura is just icing on the cake. His Spirit stat isn't too great, but it's decent enough for him to do some healing in a pinch.



This is good enough for me. Were I not LP'ing this, Cecil would be around level 35 right now and be set for the rest of the game.



Alright, let's get back to Mysidia.



But I can't imagine that the Elder would be happy if Cecil showed up dragging two corpses, so let's make sure these guys are alive.



And I don't feel like walking all the way back there, so we're grabbing a chicken.



But not without a MP refill.



And off we go!



And now we're done!



Alright, folks, we're done here for today. Next time, on Final Fantasy IV, let's see what the Elder has to say about Cecil's successful transformation into a Paladin. Stay tuned!