Part 21: Update Twenty One: Coulda Sworn There Was An "I" In There...
Update Twenty One: Coulda Sworn There Was An "I" In There...Welcome back! Last time, on Final Fantasy IV, we fucked up the dwarven king's day, lost one of the two Dark Crystals that are left, and said king decided we were qualified enough to go take back the last seven; today, we're going to start the trip to get those back, so let's mosey.
After a restful night's sleep on the battlefield, let's tackle this tower.
In the original SNES version, this was the Tower of Babil. The new spelling of it drives me nuts, since we're now all Biblical.
As far as dungeons go, this place isn't too bad. As you can see, cosmetically, it's similar to what the Tower of Zot looked like and it's about as interesting, to be honest. There's some good-ass treasure scattered around here, though, so I like this place better.
Why, four feet to the left, we find our first treasure box.
Since tons of things are weak to Ice in here, these are pretty good. Granted, Rosa makes the best use of them and she's not really the best attacker, but in case I have her attack, at least she'll be exploiting a weakness.
And directly down from those Ice Arrows are more Ice Arrows, so there's already a decent stock of them around here.
There's something that Mega64 pointed out during his FF4 LP and I just want to take the time to echo it; Rosa could make an excellent fighter. Sure, bows are not the strongest of weapons, nor can she take a beating like Cecil and Bowser can, but Rosa can deal some damned damage if she needs to. A lot of her arrows will hit an elemental weakness and, as we've seen, that can wreck an enemy's shit. Rosa is also very good with bows and has a command to ensure she hits 100% of the time.
I think it'd be very neat if there was a way to outfit her with gear to make her hang with the others in damage. As it stands now, Bowser, Cecil and Leave all have physical options to wreck enemies with (Jump, Power and Cecil's natural strength), and Kim has magic and summons on her side to fuck up enemies. Rosa, on the other hand, doesn't really have those options, outside of something much later in the game and some of her elemental arrows.
What I'm saying here is that Rosa could have been wonderful fighter, but her potential there seems to have been a little wasted. Granted, she's the White Mage and they're generally not known for their battle prowess, but it's something to think about.
That was a lot of words, so let's talk about some enemies.
Well, barely talk. The Goblin Captain is new here.
That's about all you need to know about them, since they only have 199 HP.
I'll be showing off all of Kim's summons during this update, too, except for Dragon (as we saw that in the Golbez fight) and Chocobo. Technically, we've also seen Titan, but we were on the receiving end of the ass-kicking he gives out, so I'll use him again around here. We'll start with Shiva.
Shiva's summon attack is called Diamond Dust and it's Ice elemental.
I'm not going to even begin to touch the mythology behind Shiva, other than I'm pretty sure that ice storms and being a woman didn't have much to do with Shiva. Then again, I could be wrong, but that's what the thread readers are for; I've said it before and I'll say it again; it takes more than the game or the LP'er to really make the LP. It takes the readers, too, and I have some of the best readers around.
Learn me some mythology, dammit!
Summons are pretty powerful right now (stronger than the second tier element spells, but weaker than the third tier spells), but also kind of expensive. Shiva here was 30 MP, which is as much as the third tier elemental spells cost; Titan costs 40 MP, but is as every bit as powerful as you think 40 MP would get you. He's also one of the few reliable Earth elemental attacks we get.
Here's a quick look at her update spell list, too; the second tier elemental spells are new, as is Bio. Those are the big important ones, as they'll wreck shit around here. When she learns Osmose, I'll be pretty satisfied with her spell list.
Over on the right side, you can see a tiny bit of treasure chest.
But first, another battle.
Even though I know they're different, I didn't actually notice that the Evil Doll was a new enemy until I was taking the shots for this update.
Initially, I only took shots of this fight because I used Titan.
I really love those symbol-thingers that appear around Kim when she uses a summon.
Actually, to be more accurate, I just love Kim. The only real bad thing I can think to say about her is her tiny amount of HP; everyone else is breaking quad-digits for health now, but she's not even close. It's basically my same complaint as with Kim from Earthbound; she's a wonderful engine of destruction, but poke her with a pillow and she's out.
Anyways, Titan is a wonderful summon, as he deals a fuckton of damage. There aren't a lot of enemies I can think of that resist Earth damage, either, so Titan is a pretty solid option for damage dealing.
On to treasure!
I actually use some of my Ethers in this dungeon; I'm slowly breaking my trend of never using Ethers or other MP restoring items.
On the way to the second floor, I fight more of these puppet bastards.
Ramuh is lightning elemental, and an old man. I don't know how true to the source that is, but I'll take it; his original name in the SNES version was Indra.
Ramuh is probably my least used summon and I don't know why. It's not like Lightning is a terrible element.
Like all other summons, Ramuh does good damage, too. Maybe I'm just afraid of his beard.
Alright, let's hit the second floor. This tower isn't all that big, really, so you can rush through it if you know the way.
More treasure! This place is full of it.
This goes to Leave.
It adds +5 Strength and Stamina, which are Leave's bread and butter. This doesn't raise his strength any, but that's okay, since he's still the strongest son of a bitch around these parts.
This little room has a wonderful piece of treasure inside of it.
It's also booby-trapped and the enemy inside the chest can be a massive pain in the ass.
Encounters are also out the fucking wazoo in here; I hit two of them on my way to the chest.
You can encounter Black Lizards on the world map down here, but I didn't find any.
Aside from being weak to Ice, they'll counter attacks with Stone Gaze, which inflicts Gradual Petrification; if the fight lasts long enough for you to be completely petrified with these guys around, I hope you had a stroke or something.
They only have 792 HP, so they are easy to take down.
And on this tile, I encounter more new enemies.
Well, kind of. Fiery Hounds aren't new, but the Fiery Knight is.
They're all weak to Ice, so Shiva is recommended to win fights in one action.
The Fiery Knight only has 579 HP, too.
And finally, the chest monster.
The Security Eye by itself isn't threatening, but it does have 1,425 HP.
This is also the only thing it'll do until it is attacked.
It doesn't take any shit from magic or status effects, either, so brute force is the only option for killing it.
After an attack, it'll throw out this "attack".
It'll summon a monster to the fight and it has a few different ones. In addition to this Chimera, I've also seen it throw out a Fiery Hound and Nagas.
The Chimera has 700 HP and I haven't seen it do much else. I'm just glad it's not the Chimera Brain, as fuck those guys.
Like I said, the Security Eye doesn't take shit from magic.
So, just kill it with attacks, but know after you defeat the monster it summons, it'll bring out another one if the attack aimed at it doesn't kill it. Plus, if you hit while a monster is out, it'll counter with a weak Beam attack.
The treasure inside this chest is the Ice Brand. The Fire Arrows came from the Chimera.
Bowser could equip this sword, too, but that's not very Dragoon-like, so Cecil gets it. It's Ice-elemental, so it'll help wreck some shit in this dungeon.
Hmm...Left or right? Treasure lies beyond each door, but one of them is the path through the dungeon.
The left has a treasure I want now, so I'll do that first.
The Cat Claw is a new weapon for Leave.
It adds +5 Strength and Agility. I don't see the Poison effect happen very often, but Sleep seems much more common, so I ditch the Hell Claw. Leave's strength is also up to 51 now; the max is 99.
Back to this door.
Another bitchin' treasure in this room.
And another Security Eye, but I'm okay with that.
It summoned a Stone Golem, which appears as a regular enemy around here, too.
They're weak to Ice, as well as being Giant-type monsters, so Leave and Cecil can wreck their days with no problem.
Though, they do have 2,560 HP to their name, so they won't necessarily one-shot them.
The new Cat Claw in action; I like the color.
And our treasure for this chest.
It's another reason not to give the Ice Brand to Bowser, as this spear is a bit stronger than it. It can also be used as an item to cast Blizzara.
On my way out, I encountered more enemies. I had hit two encounters on the way to that chest, too.
So, I busted out Ifrit.
He's a very scary looking demon man and Fire-elemental.
He also rounds out our new summons and has one of my favorite looks, too.
On the next floor, let's continue on. We're about halfway done with this update and roughly that far through the tire.
Though, when playing this section, it doesn't feel that way. There are a ton of fucking encounters around here.
Ah, the White Mousse. You already know these types, right?
The Ice Brand and Lance won't do shit to these guys, so you've gotta bust out Kim's magic.
They don't know what to do when confronted with a nearly naked ice woman. Other than die, since those numbers are way above their 298 HP.
And over here, we have yet another treasure chest.
Heading up and around where we entered, I get into some encounters and Rosa learns a great new spell.
Gustav had this spell, too, but Rosa's a lot better at White Magic, so this is better utilized.
It's still 18 MP, but the numbers it puts up are entirely worth the cost.
Plus, Rosa actually has enough MP to be able to blast it all day long.
Oh, God, I love those numbers. That's a hell of an amount to heal up.
That chest down there has a Phoenix Down in it. It's a tad underwhelming, considering some of the other treasures we've found, but I won't turn it down.
Anyways, that door there leads out to the next floor, but there's also another door that does that. Which one is the right one?
If you look down there, you can see a little path that leads to the Phoenix Down chest. I might have forgotten about that little path.
It's this door that continues on, but there's also a save spot in that door over there. This is the "right one", if you don't want all the treasure in here.
We're not done quite yet, but I won't turn down a chance to heal up. Tents are still good for full-heals, but they won't be useful soon.
This encounter is kind of lame.
See, the Egg here has a variable amount of HP.
And when you hit it, if you don't kill it, it'll hatch into a monster.
The amount of HP the Mystery Egg has depends on what is inside of it; I've seen Chimeras come out of them before and I know there are a few others. Leave here nearly killed this egg in one shot, which I would have been cool with.
So, back to this door for some more treasure. I always seem to fuck that up.
The Killer Bow is for Rosa.
It adds +5 Strength, too, which could be better utilized.
Over here, there's another chest.
This chest is bullshit. With Kim around, who the hell needs attack items?
I wonder why there's a bridge over nothingness in here.
Do I even need to mention that there are more treasure rooms over here? I'm sure all of you expected that.
Another trapped chest, another Security Eye.
This is the opposite of the Flame Mail; Cecil now resists Fire, but also takes extra damage from Ice.
It's not a wonderful bit of equipment, but it adds some more defense.
Huh. It's like one of those assholery filled rooms from Final Fantasy II. No encounters here, though.
Heading north from those rooms leads to this room.
Oh, wow, how surprising. Another Security Eye; I hate those guys.
It goes to Bowser and is the opposite of his shield; resist Fire, weak to Ice. No defensive boost, but that's alright, since there's nothing around here that's really a threat.
This place is kind of boring, isn't it? I never really realized that until now, when I actually have to talk about it. I mean, I didn't have a lot to say about the Tower of Zot, but at least I was kind of high during that update.
Hey, don't judge me for that. I've got a lot of medications and pain still.
Though, at least I was discharged from physical therapy last week; I still can't sleep worth a damn, but y'know, one problem at a time.
I remember when I liked these treasure chests. That seems so long ago.
Oh, look! A door at the end of a long staircase!
That path on the left doesn't lead anywhere. It's just a red herring.
Hi-Potions aren't exactly top-tier treasures, but I'll take 'em. It's less MP I have to use to heal up.
Then again, Cecil's MP doesn't actually do a whole lot, but he still blows at healing.
That's this entire section; straight shot, no treasures. Hell, I don't think I even had a fight.
I fully remember why I didn't want to come here. This place sucks.
At least the lootables are, for the most part, nice as hell.
One last new enemy for the road.
Medusa there, uh...
She does stuff, I'm sure. They're a fairly rare encounter, and have 490 HP. They can drop some nice things, including a shiny new sword for Cecil and Medusa Arrows, which are nice for Rosa.
Other than that, I know jack and shit. I'm sure she's threatening somehow.
Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? Medusa sucks and she dies like a 18th century prostitute.
In this door is another save point.
I don't really need to heal up here, but I may as well.
Especially since we're done with this update.
Next time, on Final Fantasy IV, let's finish off the Tower of Babel! Stay tuned!