Part 12: Update Twelve: Almost A Sewer Level

Since I'm pumping out another one tomorrow, have one a few hours early!



Update Twelve: Almost A Sewer Level

Welcome back! Last time, on Final Fantasy IV, Cecil became a Paladin and Gustav learned Meteor. I'm sure everyone was very surprised. Today, we're going to be going back to Baron, so let's mosey.



Ah, Mysidia. Hopefully, Cecil isn't still entirely reviled here.



Cecil's transformation is actually really incredible. There's no telling the last time someone actually successfully made the transformation and became a Paladin.



When you consider that Cecil used to be a Dark Knight and the darkness was starting to really ebb away at what goodness was left, his transformation into the purest, most awesome holy warrior there is is just fucking stellar.



The armor shop actually sells shit I can use now, so let's check out what it has.



It's true. The Paladin shit here is also very expensive.



The Wizard's Hat is really only an upgrade for Gustav, though. I wasn't able to afford the Light Helmet last time I was here, so Cecil is helmet-less for now. But, I have the cash for it now, so I pick one of those up, too.



The Wizard's Hat also adds +3 to both magic stats, so it's a hella sexy piece of equipment.



No stat-boost here, but it's still a good equip.



All of Cecil's equipment adds +3 to his Spirit stat, so that's a +15 boost to the stat right there. Sweet Jesus.





Remember how this White Mage leaped away from Cecil is terror before?



: Have you become a Paladin? Gracious sakes...

She isn't terrified of Cecil anymore. Also, I found that portrait there from the Mario Wiki; apparently there was a White Mage character in the Mario Hoops game and some of the other sports titles.



Look, lady, I'm still going to hit things with a sword until they die and cough up the XP.



Alright, let's get to the Elder. That's about all for interesting stuff here, folks.



Just these two left outside.



Thank you. You're a dynamite lady.



That's completely understandable. Though, how do they recognize Cecil without his armor? Did he make sure to show them his face? Or are they just taking a guess? I mean, I guess it is extraordinary that a Paladin is here now, but how the hell do they recognize something like that if they haven't seen one ever? Maybe I'm thinking too much about this.







Black Mage, you're alright by me.



Does that mean you think Cecil's hot? Because he might just have a thing for White Mages...



Destiny is a funny thing, isn't it?



It's not like it was that hard. Jesus, man, aside from Scarmiglione, nothing even posed a threat. And even saying Scarmiglione was a threat is pushing it...



Thank you, Suckup.



Passed? What the hell--





Normally, I'd call behavior like this out as wanton assholery, but in this case, I'd say it's more than justified.



Thanks, Masa. Good to know you've got my back.





Cecil understands, too. It's great.



I so badly want to make a joke about Charlie Murphy here, but I'll hold my tongue.



In the hidden mirror room on Mt. Ordeals. Y'know, nothin' that unusual.





A good stabbin' tool? Why, yes, it is.



Are they, like, etched into the blade or something?



Legend Gear?





Oh, no. It's just an actual legend.



But what could it mean?



Probably bright.



: For generations, we Mysidians have been told to pray for the fulfillment of of this legend and to believe in the one with the sacred light. Perhaps you might be the one.

Nah, the main character of an RPG being a Chosen One? What kinda out of the box bullshit thinking is that?



Gustav is angsty with his new-found power and pushes Masa out of his way.



Considering these two are probably the oldest dudes on the planet, them knowing each other isn't surprising.







Y'know, that might be Gustav's big reveal, you little jerk.



Nothin' too terrible, just some shit that needs to be mass extincted.



Or we can use the Gustav answer and claim it doesn't fuckin' matter, because there's ass to kick.



Who else would it be? It's a JRPG, man, so there's only one Anna in the entire world.



I think if you're using meteors to kill someone, you need a stronger word than "slay".



Elder, shut the fuck up! You'll make us miss the meteors!



GodDamn, you are dedicated to making sure Golbez is turned to cat food.







: defeat Golbez.

...And the Elder just drops that whole "It'll kill you, Gustav!" thing.



Cecil, you just going to let that go, too?



Man, you two are assholes.



Just you guys wait until you see this fuckin' path. You're never going to believe the bullshit.







And we're off. It's too bad the twins gotta stay behind, though. I was startin' to like those guys.



Or...Wait a minute...



Ha-ha, hell yeah!



And taking away two of my magical buddies, one for murder and the other for unmurder, would certainly be a major detriment.



Though, like before, you'd think the Elder would be a touch concerned about sending two children on this journey.



Well, nobody better to send them with, I suppose.



Cecil, you best shut up.



I'm not!



You have no idea, Mune.



And considering that Gustav is the most dangerous person on the planet right now, that's pretty good supervision.



Everyone except Mune could kick your ass, Cecil, so counting on them wise.





Mune, no wonder some people don't like you, you friggin' wet blanket.



East! The opposite of west!





And so, we're now free to skedaddle on out of here.



This little building here holds the Devil's Road. And it lives up to its name...





The screen begins to rapidly flash colors here, from green to yellow to dark and over and over again.



Huh? Oh, there's no way I'm going to use up bandwidth on a .gif of that. Everyone here has an imagination; make use of it!



Though, I will say, making .gifs for games off the GBA is a pain in the ass. I always have to unoptimize, resize and all that kinda shit and it just gets old after a while.



Especially when GIMP takes its sweet-ass time with .gifs that have lots of frames in them.



It's seriously like, at least a five minute process for every .gif I make. Some have even been up to a ten minute process.



...Huh? Oh, hey, we've arrived.



Yeah, I don't know why they say it takes a lot of vitality to travel the Devil's Road. It's an instant process. In The After Years, though, it's a fucking teleporter dungeon...



Thank God I wasn't stupid enough to LP that!



And of course it doesn't take us directly to the castle. That'd be too easy.



Things have gone bad in Baron since we've left. What could have happened to Cid...?



Golbez must have captured one of the monks from Fabul and is now using him for nefarious purposes.



We've got to clean things up here.



Especially for this kid here. He thought Dark Knight Cecil was an alright guy, so he's cool in my book.



This is Rosa's house. I didn't show Baron off earlier for two reasons; A) I wanted to make sure Silver Falcon had something to show off and 2) I learned that pressing "S" in VBA (I have my save-state key mapped to the "S" key) will stop the built-in recorder.



...Yeah, about that...



Instead of answering, Cecil and co. just cheese it, leaving the old lady in the dust.



Inside the Inn, we find that things have gone shitty in here, too.



So bad, they don't even have adequate dancers! I will not stand for this outrage!



And the soldiers will be removed, ma'am. I promise.



The other soldier is just as much of an asshole as the other guy; though, them asking Cecil where his drink in kind of reinforces my thoughts that Cecil looks like a woman.



And with that, I now have more than enough motivation to storm the castle. Cid is awesome and a state-of-the-art airship would be great to have.



My wife!



He's probably wondering why there's a lady yelling at him.



Or why his hair is white in the portrait and purple everywhere else.



Aah, Leave's become a douche!



What's worse, he's a douche with power!



And so, the soldiers attack.



These two are Baron Guards and they are fast and hit fucking hard.



Cura spam isn't a bad idea for Mune during this fight.



A critical hit from Cecil should be more than enough to down one of these fools.





Oh, God, it's not! And they counter all physicals with Mini!



Break is the petrification spell of the game and if it hits a target, they are instantly killed, no questions about it.



Unfortunately, it failed, but that Potion does a nice job of patching Masa up.



Cecil takes out the first guard.



While Mune keeps everyone healthy.





Aww, balls.



Mini makes your character tiny and completely fucks over their physical stats; they take damage like a wet tissue and hit about as hard as a light sigh.



Now, Mini will cure someone afflicted with Mini, but I was a bit too hasty with my fingers and accidentally cast it on the Baron Guard.



And then, I have Gustav cast Esuna to cure it. With Osmose just a casting away, it's incredible how little of a shit I give about MP consumption.





I find this only fitting for those assholes.



When the fight is over...



...We still have a pissed off, brainwashed High Monk to deal with.



He shoves Cecil away from him...



...And now, we have to duke it out with Leave. Or Monk, as he's called in this fight.



Have Mune spam Cura. Not even fucking around here, make sure one of your two White Magic users are blasting healing magic everywhere.



You remember how Kick absolutely blew for us?



I wish it still sucked here.



However, Leave's magic defense was never that wonderful.



Burn, motherfucker! Burn!





Leave is fucking tough, by the way. He's still going.





Oh, Jesus Christ!





Thankfully, that hit from Cecil was the last one needed for this fight.



...And we killed him. Good job, team.



Speaking of which, how'd you get out of that, Leave?

: I cannot remember anything.



Umm...Giant sea serpent attack?



Are they safe, too? Or are you the only one on land?



...Jesus Christ, this game is ballsy. They murdered a five year old girl!



Thank you, Cecil! I'm not the only one surprised here!



And nothing of value was lost.







Aww, hell yeah. We've got our other physical powerhouse back.



Now, when they say somewhere more private, you'd think, I dunno, maybe out of town or something, right?





No, they just walk twenty feet to the Inn and call that good enough.



And Masa immediately hops in bed.







You left out the badass part of your introduction, Leave. Or maybe you didn't need to mention it, considering you karate-kicked four people at the same time.



I think this message would mean more if you weren't hidden by a text box, Masa.



I'll just ignore you, thanks.



And Masa, with the asshole remark!



Do you not remember the flying Kick, Masa!?



Actually, I wouldn't blame him if he didn't. That Kick might've knocked a few things loose.



And Cecil isn't letting any pity partying go on here, as there are asses to kick.



Gustav agrees with Cecil, as he's itching to Meteor Golbez.



That's Gustav, Leave. We already did introductions.



: you command of those guards. With this key, I believe we'll be able to find Cid.





And the scene fades to black.



We have our way of getting in and we have some powerful allies; let's hope we can accomplish something here.





For leading some guards around and having a key to the castle, they kinda shafted Leave on equipment.



In the upcoming dungeon, the enemies are either weak to Lightning or Ice, so giving Leave one of each claw will ensure he can hit either weakness.



The weapon and armor shop has been locked up to this point.



But, with our shiny new Baron Key...



...Viola! We can get inside.



Weapons on the left, armor on the right.



Thunder Rods add +3 to Intellect, which means more magical murder power, so both Masa and Gustav get one. It can also be used in battle for a free Thunder spell. The Healing Staff casts a weak healing spell when used in battle and gives no stat gains, but Mune still gets one. The claw not listed is just the Thunder Claw.



I really wish this game showed the stat gains on these screens, as it'd make it easier to tell you guys about 'em. Sure, I have a FAQ open that tells me, but it'd just be easier.



Oh, and both the twins can now hit harder, I guess.



Over in the armor shop, there's some new headgear for Leave.



And an expensive-ass new piece of armor; only Leave gets one of these.



A Silver Armlet finishes out his new gear.



The Twist Headband also adds +5 to Strength and the Kenpogi adds +3 to Strength.



Since more strength helps a character get more attacks, it's perfect gear for Leave. Look at the number of attacks he gets!



And down here, there's a little secret.



How many JRPG shopkeepers have one closed chest behind their counter, just taunting you?



Finally! Vindication!



In the form of two grand!



And an attack item that I'll never use!



Since we can't go through the front door, we've gotta sneak around the back.



This may be locked, but we have a handy new key.



Quick, guess where the secret passage is!



If you guessed anywhere else, slap yourself in the genitals.



We've made a tidy, tax-free 3,000 gil in this town.



Alright, let's get down to the dungeon.



It's not quite a sewer level, but it's pretty close. Except the part where, y'know, I enjoy this place.





Now, from here, we could go to the right and make our journey through this dungeon a bit quicker, but there's treasure down below.







Nothing wonderful, except the Ether, but I won't turn down free shit.



And time for our first new enemies down here!





The Splasher has 180 HP and a weakness to Lightning, as you would expect from a fish.



So what happens when we have our bruiser hit him with a weapon tuned to that weakness?



The fish has its shit pushed in.



The Gigas Gator has 292 HP to its name and hits really Goddamn hard and attacks twice per turn; it can split these attacks up, too, meaning it can either hit two separate characters for good damage or a single character for a lot of damage.



However, they have a crippling weakness to Ice.



As far as I'm concerned, Masa is one of the coolest things since sliced bread.



And I believe this lends some credence to that thought.



We also won a Leather Cap from that fight.



An utterly pointless detail, yes, but it dropped from the Gator, so it's kind of implied our party skinned it and made a funny hat out of it.







For the most part, the Old Waterway is pretty linear.





You might remember the Vile Shell from the Waterway where we met Gustav. They haven't improved.



That was a physical attack from Gustav, by the way. Elemental weaknesses, when exploited, go a damn far way.



Anyways, the Death Shell has a whopping 380 HP and the same weakness to Lightning.





Oh, Masa, how I love your ability to kill things.



Anyways, if you have access to Thundara and Blizzara, this dungeon is a breeze. It's even easier if Leave has a Thunder and Ice Claw equipped, since he can get in on the exploitation fun; Cecil and Mune are just kind of there for most of these fights.





This dungeon isn't very long, either.



This room can be kind of tricky, as there's lots of hidden paths in here.



For instance, this one, right off the bat.





Now, you can just leave this floor from here, but there are some goodies scattered about, so let's snag those.







And you can see where I'm going to go from here, as it's...Well, it's blatantly obvious.



I wonder how the monsters fit into the hidden passages.



Especially these fuckin' guys. Look at the size of them!



They only have 257 HP to their names and a weakness to Ice.





As Leave is more than happy to make apparent. I fuckin' love that guy.





This is the last bit of treasure over here, so let's skedaddle.



And get into another fight.



The Flood Worm is new and more annoying than dangerous.



This is their fucking attack. It hits everyone in the party.



For piss-poor damage, sure, but, y'know, it's a full party attack.



Though, guess which element they're weak against?



Who gives a shit, because Gustav is draining MP from an alligator.



And then, the twins blew it up.



Back on track--



Never mind. There's more new shit to kill.



The Electrofish! It's not weak to anything we have right now and it can...I don't know what it does, actually.



So I let Gustav handle it with extreme prejudice!



I am disappointed in that amount of damage to that Gigas Gator, Gustav.



Seriously, I saw it do nearly 8,000 damage to a Gigas Gator when I blasted one when it was solo.



Ah, whatever. Let's check out that chest.



In an earlier update, I think I referred to this item as "Hermes' Sandals". I should go back and fix that.



But first, there's more secret passage foolery to be had!



We can head left...



And come out over here!

"But, Leavemywife!" You say, wondering why I didn't do this earlier, "Surely, this shortcut would have been faster!"

"Indeed, it would been," I reply, looking at you as a cigarette dangles from my lips.

"Then why not use it?"

"For the XP, my child. For the XP."



...I don't know what the fuck that was. I also don't know if I should apologize or not.





We're almost done here. Like I said, this place isn't very long.





But, encounters are kind of frequent.



Oh, hey, we just fought these guys.



Yep, they still hit hard. And they still have 280 HP and are the same as the ones we fought back at the pub.



They're also great to Osmose some MP from.



They do counter magic used against them with Pig, though, but that's not too bad of a detriment.





Even though it's short, this place has a bunch of treasure chests.



And if you can't figure out where the secret passage is here, hit yourself in the kneecap with a ball-peen hammer.





Last floor!



And a door that should be gone through!



As it holds a save room, which is good. There's two boss fights coming up, so it never hurts to be rested.



But first, another hidden passage.



The Ancient Sword is five points weaker than the Sword of Legend and a lot less accurate; however, it has a chance to inflict Curse with each hit, which halves the afflicted's attack and defense.



Cecil keeps his Sword of Legend, though, as I don't think I've ever seen Curse actually hit.





And we're done here! If you're wondering why Gustav is missing some HP, I actually forgot to save after I used that Tent, ran outside, got into a fight, then went back to save.

Anyways, next time, on Final Fantasy IV, let's storm Baron Castle. Stay tuned!