Part 15: Update Fifteen: I Hope Rosa's Comfortable

Update Fifteen: I Hope Rosa's Comfortable

Welcome back! Last time, on Final Fantasy IV, Bowser proposed to Cecil and crew that they go retrieve the Earth Crystal for Rosa's life. Cecil, being the man he is, agreed and we went to Troia to retrieve the Crystal. Today, however, instead of going ahead with that, we're going to explore the world a little bit, so let's mosey.





The first place we're going today is just east of Troia.



To this little island. That forest there sure looks conspicuous, doesn't it?





That's because there's a Chocobo Forest hidden on the island.



This White Chocobo doesn't make it special, however. Actually, nothing here makes this forest really special at all, but there's something inside of Chocobo Forests that I've neglected to show off.



There are these spots in every Chocobo Forest, as far as I know.



You get the chance to pick an item to use here, and the Gysahl Greens are the thing to choose.





As this fat chunk of Chocobo will appear when you use these here.



Meet the creatively named Fat Chocobo!



He's not a riding bird, though.



What you can do here with him is store items and withdraw them at a later date. I've never found this particularly useful, as the inventory in this game is pretty damned big. I don't think I've ever entirely filled it up.



Anyways, that covers the interesting thing there. Let's get to the next location.



It's just south of Damcyan Castle.



Let's check in on Mist, shall we? I mean, we burned it all to hell and stuff, but maybe it's okay.



For being horrifically lit on fire, this place doesn't look that bad.



Either they rebuilt this place in record time or our Bomb Ring just didn't leave lasting fire damage.



Remember, Mist was the village of the Summoners, so it makes sense that this guy knows a thing or two about summons.



Before I hit the weapon and armor shops, there's a little hidden area over here.



That spot extending into the trees is where the path begins and it lets out here; it's easy to figure out and...Well, not really worth it.



If anything, it's morbidly funny that there are Bomb Fragments to be found around the village.



Probably, buddy. The last one was just eaten by a sea snake.



...Really? Well, now, ain't that interesting...



I only found three of these things around here, but I may have missed a few of them. I'm not really concerned about it.



Cecil, scale of 1-10; how awkward do you feel?



Let's head inside this house before someone mentions it.



Inside this house, there's a fireplace, which is kind of interesting.



Even more interesting is the hidden passage inside of it!



Three treasure chests lie inside of it, containing some good treasure.



This thing not only resists Thunder damage, but also provides a hefty +10 Intellect boost to whoever is wearing it. Unfortunately, nobody in our party can equip it.



Uh, Clothes aren't that great, but the Gold Hairpin is good enough to balance it out.



The Ruby Ring isn't too bad, either. It resists Pig, as you might remember, and it'll be quite handy very soon.



And there's another hidden passage inside of this hidden passage!



No, we haven't gone to the Void and are about to fight a tree.



Just to another chest with a nice piece of treasure.



The Rod of Change.



Useful for only Gustav, as it adds +5 Intellect and can be used to make something into a Pig. Okay, that second part isn't very useful, as Pig only costs 1 MP to begin with, but +5 Intellect is lovely.



Back outside, let's finally hit those shops.



The armor shop only sells these Bard Clothes, which everyone can equip. However, as I respect everyone in this party, I won't be giving them to anyone.



Over in the weapon shop, there's a whip, but nobody can use it. Curious.

The Dancing Dagger can be equipped by Cecil and used as an item in battle for a decent attack, but it goes off his magic and Cecil is just better at hitting stuff than using magical things.



With that done and over with, let's get on out of here. I'm sure Cecil will thank me for it.



Next, we'll be heading south of Baron.



To a small town next to a mountain.



Agart is kind of an interesting little town.



Not just because it has a really deep well. If you find that the most interesting thing here, well...It may very well be.



Or perhaps you're more interested in the people, as they're descended from dwarves. Hey, isn't Cid from this town...?



Or maybe the well really is interesting! Can't you just feel the excitement coming from Cecil here?



Curious little town, isn't it?



Let's explore around the inn for a minute.



...I don't think that's how magma works. Then again, they're talking about Magma, which is capitalized, so it very well could be different.





Curiouser and curiouser...



I wonder why we would ever give a shit about that!







This lady here is a dancer and for once, I'm going to highly recommend that you watch the video, as the music is the fucking bomb.







Out of the inn, we head into this town, just to the left of the entrance.



Swot is a damned stupid word. I Googled it, out of curiosity, and I found this:

"An insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected or boringly studious."



Telescope, eh?



...On the moon? As long as it's not as stupid as FFVIII's moon...



Let's head upstairs and see if we can use that telescope. Space is cool.



Wouldn't two moons fuck up the tides or something? I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I know one moon is good for them and it seems like if you double that it might be not good.

What I'm saying here is that I hope there's a science goon around to come in and explain this to me.



I, uh, I don't want anyone's theories about anything living on the moon.



I once heard in a shitty movie that if there's blood on the moon, it means someone is going to die.



Let's take a peek through the telescope!



...



This thing blows!



There's a weapon and armor shop in this town, so let's go see what that has to offer us.



But first, we get to hear a story!



Or not. I'm sad now, because I'm sure it was going to be awesome.



There's that little girl there and another building, so let's hit those real quick.



Descended from dwarves, I guess high physical strength is a big benefit of that.



You might expect something great inside of this building, but there's only a Namingway. There's not even an alternate map when you go into the building, but at least it's not a red herring.



To the shops we go!



It sells nothing but Iron shit, so I don't drop a single gil on any of it.



The weapon shop is similarly disappointing, except for a couple of things. Nobody around can equip the Boomerang.



However, they do sell Holy Arrows and 20 gil a shot isn't really that expensive.



Alright, just one more place to go today before we're done.



This fucked-in-the-ass castle.



Quick shot of the map to show you where we are; if you can't find it, we're in the south-western part of the map, on that small island.



This is the castle of the nation of Eblan.



It's also entirely empty, as Baron and Damcyan are.



So, let's loot!



We start by going to the west tower.



Treasure already!



Uh...



Dammit, what the fuck



Son of a bitch!



Fuck this shit, we're going upstairs.



More treasure chests await, but can we reach these ones?



Possibly, but let's steal their booze first.



Heading over here...



Lets us pop down and snag this Bomb Core. Now, you might think this is just an upgraded Bomb Fragment and you'd be...Kind of right, but mostly terribly wrong.

What a Bomb Core does is allow whoever used it to kamikaze the enemy and blow themselves the fuck up to deal damage to an enemy. It'd be pretty good if Cecil or Leave used it, as they're both just walls of health, but it actually sucks, because it's still a kamikaze attack. I'd rather have them both just wail on something to deal that damage, instead of losing them for a bit, having them revived with low HP and possibly being killed again.



Back upstairs, there's this little hidden passage.



It lets us pop over here and snag these chests. Mute Arrows, as the name implies, has a chance of inflicting Mute on a target. Mute makes it so that whoever has been Muted (or Silenced) can't cast any spells, but I think most of the big magic users are immune to Mute, so whatever. At least they're decently strong arrows.



We also find 10,000 gil and you may have possibly heard my excited squeal when I opened this chest. I like money almost as much as I like XP.



With the western side of the castle looted, let's head to the east side and see what we can snag from over there.





More chests that I can't reach!



...Never mind, I found the passage over here. A Coeurl's Whisker is an item that casts Death on an enemy when used. Death rarely ever hits, so this is kind of shitty, but maybe I'll have someone use it when they have nothing better to do.



Since I couldn't figure out a way to get over to that chest, let's just head on up.



From an initial glance at this, you might conclude that it's impossible to hit the switch to the right then walk over to the door.



However, if you spend half a second considering what you can do, you'll figure it out, assuming you're not a waterhead.



As there's a path just under the stairs that's hidden only by perspective.



These let you get the fuck out of a bad situation and they can be nice if you don't have time to let Cecil or Gustav cast Teleport.



Hi-Potions are never too bad, especially if one person needs a quick HP restore.



Jesus, Hermes, you're worse than a woman with all these shoes.



As for how you can reach that chest with the hole in front of it, I'm sure most of you have figured out the gimmick of this castle by now.



You just pop around the side and open it that way.



And gasp as you get into a fight.



Chests that contain monsters are usually pretty badass.



These guys are no exception.



Gustav was killed before I could even hope to heal him.



The Coeurl has a pretty nasty counter.



Blaster can do one of two things to whoever it hits.



The first is to inflict Paralysis on somebody, which locks them down and makes them fairly useless.





By the way, Cid is slow as balls. Being slow is a pretty awful thing in this game, as Agility helps determine the number of attacks you get, in addition to Strength, so Cid doesn't hit as hard as Cecil or Leave do. He also has a secondary ability called "Study" which absolutely fucking blows.

It works like Scan does and reveals the HP and weaknesses of an enemy.



Anyways, Cid triggers Blaster and now we can see its other use.



It just straight up fucking murders whoever it hits. No damage or anything, that person is just put into an early grave.



You can't run from these fights, either.



Before long...



Everyone's shit is pushed in. I'm glad I saved outside the castle.



So, let's just take the middle path and not mess with that tower. We'll come back for that hole.



This chest isn't booby-trapped, either, so let's just waltz up and take it.



Why, I wonder if those other chests I couldn't reach were possibly infested with monsters?



Surely, a mystery for the ages.



This place is just loaded down with treasure.



We can't reach any of it from here, though, so let's go deeper.



The Throne Room is deep enough, methinks.



To the left and right of the throne are hidden passages that lead to these staircases.



They lead down to these treasure rooms.



Alarm Clocks wake up sleeping people. I can't remember the last time someone was inflicted with sleep in this game, but if someone ever is, I've just the thing on hand to cure it.



Let's hope the other side is a tad more fruitful, shall we?





The first two treasures aren't very great, but the last one is a bit better.



The Cottage is basically the Tent 2.0. See, Tents only recover so much HP/MP, so after a while, they'll become kind of useless. Cottages, however, will always recover all HP/MP, so they're always useful.



Alright, let's get back to that hole. I just wanted to cover the rest of the castle before I hopped in here.



This is also where I found out something interesting about the VBA emulator. Originally, I thought that hitting the "S" key would stop the recording and that's what I had my save-state key mapped to. However, it seems that making a save-state of any kind will actually stop the recording wherever I make it.

So, this chest contained a Silver Hourglass, which inflicts Stop on all enemies for a good while.



We come out in an Underground Passage.



Those two chests contained Ethers, which is cool by me.



This chest, however, contains assholery.



Mad Ogres are fucking assholes.



They hit really fucking hard. They also resist magic to the degree where it's hardly worth it to use it one them.



They're also fairly fast, so they're going to crush skulls rather quick-like.



So, fuck it, we're done with exploring the world!



We'll rest here and lick our wounds and take our next break.

Next time, on Final Fantasy IV, maybe we'll see about getting our hands on that Earth Crystal. Stay tuned!