Part 17: Update Seventeen: Climbing The Tower

Update Seventeen: Climbing The Tower

Welcome back! Last time, on Final Fantasy IV, we went through the biggest pain in the ass dungeon in the game. Today, we're going to come one step closer to rescuing Rosa, so let's mosey.





First things first. The Clerics said that they would let us borrow the Crystal if we managed to retrieve it, so let's see if they're still going to make good on their promise.



I wonder if Cecil mentioned why we want to "borrow" it.



This could end up rather awkward if he didn't mention why.



Plus, there's also that whole thing where they won't get their Crystal back.



Cecil looks around at the Clerics.



And then this happens.



Who could it be?





Huh. Bowser can magically project his voice. Maybe being a Golbez minion has its perks.



Bowser doesn't stick around to chat; he just booms his voice in and then he's gone.



It was Bowser! Didn't you pay attention to Cecil?



Too bad this is never really expanded upon.



Well, Troia used to be a wasteland, so I wonder.



A loan we'll pay back in...Well, it'll be quite a long time.



Our definitions of "borrow" differ slightly.



Paladins are supposed to be good and noble guys, right? Shouldn't Cecil have, y'know, mentioned what they'll be doing with the Crystal, exactly?



This is the area to the right that I didn't explore before. This is why, as there's not really a huge reason to go over there until you can do this, but there is some stuff that would have been useful. You'll see in a minute.



That's all the Clerics for now, so let's go snag us some free goodies.







Each of these staircases has something at the bottom and we'll be going left to right.





Another dungeon that stores treasures. I can't help but feel this is actually a good idea, but...What if there's someone who needs to be tossed into a dungeon?



You can come here before, but if you haven't gotten permission yet, you can't enter, so it's pointless.







There is a lot of Goddamned treasure chests down here, but only one really interesting bit of treasure.



Silver Apples are pretty cool, but another kind of item that I'm always a touch hesitant to use.

Anyways, the other treasures are two Hi-Potions, two Remedies, two Ethers, two Dry Ethers, an Elixir, two Echo Herbs, a Great Bow, twenty Fire Arrows, twenty Ice Arrows and ten Thunder Arrows.



This is why Silver Apples are so cool; +50 max HP for anyone is really nice, especially if their maximum HP is rather low. It's a waste to use something like this on Cecil or Leave, so I'll be saving this for a little while.



Down the middle staircase we go.



This is all I could find down here. Those chests were already opened and I certainly don't remember pilfering their contents. I'm also certain that there is nothing else down here, as I couldn't find anything and the FAQ I consult every now and then didn't mention anything else.





You can't see it here, but Cecil is standing on a switch that opened the left-most passage.



Hitting it again opens this doorway and now, I proceed to the left door.



As you can see, the doorway on the right opens up. The other chest contains another Tent, which I'm cool with.



Two Hi-Potions in this second room and you can see all of the passages are open. All of the chests down here contain two of the same thing.



I think I have around twenty Ethers and I only start using a couple in the next dungeon. I'm slowly starting to break the habit of hoarding MP restoring items.



These could have been useful for the last dungeon, as it coulda helped me save some scratch, but oh, well. At least I can sell these two and make some cash.



Before we head out to meet Bowser, let's check in on Champ again. I'm sure he'll want to know that we're not dead and he helped keep us alive.



This time, Gustav immediately joins the rest at Champ's bedside.





I hate to admit it, Champ, but I do owe you. Just don't tell anyone else I said that.



Cid only understands music if it's made through hammer blows and metal guitars.



"I was a poor sap, singing on a street corner, smelling of dog shit and cat pee..."



Are elves like, a serious problem in FF4 world? Or did we just kill the last one and make them extinct?





Look, even Champ is disgusted that these guys needed his help.





Gustav shoves Cecil out of the way.



Gustav, I understand you're old and willing to commit suicide by now, but that doesn't give you the right to lie to people.



I'm not even going to say anything here. I'll just let the thread poke fun.



Bwahahaha! Champ even thinks you're full of shit.



"Champ, shut up and let the men be useful."







Cecil, don't let Gustav's bad influence rub off on you! Lying is bad!



That's the end of this conversation, but Champ has one more thing to say.





Alright, let's finally get out of Troia. We're done here.



Off to the sky we go!



Bowser is right on time.



He pulls up alongside Enterpise, as usual.





Yeah, Cecil, like he's going to bring her along for this.



In the SNES version, the next dungeon isn't even named until after you leave it. I still don't know why the hell the tower is called "Zot" of all things, but hey, I won't question it.



I also don't know why Bowser doesn't bust out the ass-whooping he gave Cecil earlier after getting the Crystal. Hell, Golbez could have been hiding in their ship until now, then blown Enterprise apart after we gave up the Earth Crystal.



Instead of flying somewhere, we just rise into the sky to reach the Tower of Zot.



It's also very futuristic looking, like an old sci-fi film.





Then why did he send you to make the trade, Bowser? He could have come himself!





Now I'm just reminded of the Professor from Futurama; think about it. Gustav is Farnsworth and Golbez is Wernstrom.



Man, I'd play the fuck out of a Futurama RPG.



I bet Zoidberg would be the best character in the game. Nobody would see that shit coming.





You could have just killed us by now! Goddammit, Golbez, you are an idiot.



Or, what, Cecil, you'll get beat up by your former best friend again?



And so, now, we have to hurry.





Well, not really. This isn't timed, but this place does have a pretty good sense of urgency and foreboding about it. Just listen to that music.



There's also a good bit of tower to explore and some damned nice treasure to find, so let's get to treasure finding.



There are also a ton of new enemies, so let's get to talking about some of them now, shall we?



We start off with probably the least exciting of the bunch, so let's get them out of the way.



I didn't actually need to use Study here, but it gave Cid something to do with his turn.



These guys are another step in the Pudding family of enemies and they're weak to fire. Everyone but Gustav here is useless against them (unless they use one of those elemental attack items, but I may have sold all of mine).





And that handles that fight. I didn't encounter very many of those guys in here, so be glad I managed to see those guys.



That's the door to the next floor, but there's one bit of treasure here I do not want to miss.



It's at the end of this hall, but first, there's a fight.



This encounter is fairly common and pretty easy to get through.



The Puppets are weak to fire, so Leave can destroy them even harder.



They also only have 256 HP.



Cecil can't hit their weakness and he's one-shotting them. Puppets are just filler enemies and the Puppeteer can summon more of them.



Puppeteers have--Hell, it is there in the shot, just look at it.



No weaknesses, but that's okay, as Cecil and Leave make short work of these guys.



The Flame Mail is pretty cool.



You might expect it to resist Fire, based off the name, but it resists Ice. Interestingly enough, it actually adds a weakness to Fire. You might think this comes back to bite me in the ass later, but it doesn't really fuck me too hard.



Anyways, we're now clear to head to the first floor.



Or, rather, we would be, but more enemies first.



Centaur Knights have a bit of strength behind their attacks, but they're nothing to be too afraid of.



They have 380 HP to tear through, but they don't have the best defense. I've seen my physical guys one-shot them before.



Unfortunately, they're not also that great for draining MP from.



Alright, next floor.



I mentioned it earlier, but I consult a FAQ every now and then for this game, just to make sure that I'm hitting everything I should and all that and it recommends that you be level 40 when you come in here.

I'm fifteen levels below that!



I mean, I don't mind grinding and I've been known to do a bit of it here and there, but that is fucking excessive.



On Mt. Ordeals, it'd be fairly easy to grind Cecil that high if he's going solo and since Leave re-joins around his level, I could see maybe having those two as super-powered nutbags, but everyone at level 40?



That's the work of a fucking psychopath.



Anyways, kind of new enemies. Guess what is to be done here.



That Yellow Jelly is actually weak to Thunder and you might remember them from the Antlion Cave. Fira works just as well on them.







Right around this square, I hit another fight and something interesting happens to Cecil.



He learns his last magic spell; that's six in total. Cura and Esuna are probably the most useful of the lot, since he can heal some damage and get rid of status effects, but I kind of feel like they dropped the ball with Cecil's magic list.



At least he has enough MP to really utilize it; he currently has more than Gustav.



This is another chest I recommend you hit.



The Fiery Hound can be a bit of an asshole, due to his Flame attack.



Remember, right now, Cecil is weak to Fire.



Flame fucking hurts, but I got lucky as hell here.



Remember how the Fairy Claw has a chance of inflicting Paralysis?



Well, Leave's Fire Claw isn't doing him any favors here, but...







While confused, all the Fiery Hound will do is cast Flame on itself, which is kind of an asshole move.



He also has 1,221 HP to tear through, so him recovering nearly 1/4th of that a round can be a little disconcerting.



But, Gustav his this shit covered.



He, uh... He covered the fuck out of it.



Anyway, this fight nets you the Flame Sword, which is awesome.



Not only does it provide a hefty attack boost for Cecil, but it's also Fire elemental, so any enemy that's weak to Fire is doubly fucked.



Let's move onto the next floor.



It was right around here that I ran into some Puppets, so I decided to do a bit of comparison.



Leave, using his Fire Claw to hit a weakness.



A sexy new flaming strike for Cecil and...



He breaks quad-digit damage for the first time.





Granted, had I thrown his Sword of Legend back on when fighting Dark Elf, I might have been able to do that before now, but let's not mention that.



The third floor is a straight shot, no treasure.



I'm a little dubious about that FAQ I've been using, since the writer thinks I should be level fucking 40 to come through here.









Oh, God, where did Cecil go!?





Heading up that staircase leads to more treasure, but there's also a save point nearby. I'll save first, then go get those treasures, as I'm fully expectant of this place ready to kill me at a moment's notice.





Through that door is the save point. We're almost done with this place, by the way. It's not very big.



It won't be until next time that we complete it, but I thought you'd be interested to know.



Speaking of Cottages, I'm going to actually use one right now.



That thing looks cozy as hell, doesn't it?



Anyways, on the way out, I find an encounter that makes me glad I saved my game.



The Black Knights and Soldieress hit pretty damned hard, the Sorceress has access to some good magic, and I've been back attacked.



The Sorceress begins by Slowing Leave, which is not cool. Thankfully, he's fast to begin with, so even Slowed, he's still faster than Cid.



I'm not sure which enemy did this, but that's a good bit, since Leave's in the back row and all.



This might look like it's affecting Gustav.



But, no, it was Cid.



Anyways, Leave gets to go rather quickly, so he moves everyone to the front row.



Black Knights are weak to Fire, too. They hit pretty hard, but are easy to take down.



And Cecil just did 600 more damage than this guy's maximum. I love exploiting elemental weaknesses.



The Soldieress has 425 HP, with no weaknesses, but they're pretty easy to take down.

The Sorceress here is also about to get her ass stomped, too, since she has 350 HP and doesn't take hits very well.



Oh, Leave, you beautiful bald bastard.



Anyways, back on track, let's go get some treasure and end this update.





The doors here are left to right, too. We'll be starting on the left and going to the right, as we did back in Troia.



There's another bit of treasure here I can't recommend missing.



Another new weapon for Leave!



The Hell Claw adds +3 Strength, in addition to having a chance to poison the enemy.

Some people argue it's better to keep Leave with an elemental claw, just so he can exploit elemental weaknesses. I can definitely agree with that, but with both Fairy and Hell Claws, Leave can confuse and enemy and poison them at the same time, so he can lock down an enemy and then let the poison finish them off.

But, that's my take on it. I can see both sides to it, so I'm not going to try and tell you which one is better.



Heading straight down from there is a Fire Shield; it's like the Flame Mail, with the same resistances and weakness.



It's basically identical to the Mythril Shield, and I don't think the effect stacks, so Cecil keeps his old shield for now. I'm sure someone will correct me on proper shield usage soon enough, so Cecil might not keep it for long.



Into the middle door we go.



It's not a very exciting room, but it does carry a weapon upgrade for Cid.



It adds an impressive +5 Strength and can be used during battle.



Using it in battle casts Quake, which is one of the few Black Magic spells that Gustav does not know.



It won't kill anything in one shot, but it'll certainly wear down whatever you're fighting.



From that fight, I win a Rune Armlet, which goes to Gustav.



In addition to preventing Silence, it also adds +3 Spirit and Intellect; a small boost, but effective, nonetheless.



And finally, the last door.



Which holds another short corridor and another upgrade for Gustav.



It also adds +5 Spirit, so Gustav's White Magic is further enhanced. He has at least +8 Spirit going on right now.



And I hit the save point again and we finish off another update.

Next time, on Final Fantasy IV, we'll finally rescue Rosa. Stay tuned!