Part 12

Chapter 12




Gonna start things off by picking up a couple of Ores I missed, bringing my total to 8.



Then I'm going to invest in a Dancing Dagger.




Can't believe I never bothered getting one of these before.



Look at that attack boost!



Alright, let's mosey on to the Sylph Cave.



I forgot to take screenshots of the dungeon layout, but if you've played FF4, nothing's changed. It's still the same dungeon, with tons of secret passages and paths. I had to go through this dungeon three times to get everything.



A regular attack with the Dancing Dagger. Pretty damn strong, stronger than Luca's attacks. Warrior's Clothes are pretty awesome.



Brina has a ton of dances available. Off the top of my head, she can cast Cure, Cura, Curaga (which is a full heal at this point), Esuna, Protect, Raise, Shell, Heal (essentially between Cure and Cura), Blink, and Haste. Those last two are particularly nice.




Oh hot damn!

That's right, by using the Dancing Dagger as an item, Calca can easily one-shot every single enemy in this dungeon.



Toadgres are weak. Though Black Magic is weak now, by the next moon phase Rydia starts killing them with a mere Blizzard spell.

Speaking of which, Rydia was actually my most useless person here. Luca using Big Throw can one-shot half the enemies and two-shot most, while Brina constantly kept the party in good shape by Dancing random cure spells. It didn't help that I had a Black Magic handicap here, but there's no real point using Black Magic when you can kill everything in two rounds with physical/item attacks.




That's not to say she was completely useless. Skeleton enemies can hit hard, and Fira destroys them.



Don't know what's going on with the text here, but we've got Bombs and Gray Bombs, in case you wanted to grind for the Bomb summon. Obviously, I'm not going to do that.




I love Curaga Dance.



Hey, a situation where Rydia is the most valuable party member!



Ugh. Souls are annoying, if weak, but Revenants hit hard and have a good bit of HP. Nothing Dancing Dagger can't handle, of course.



That's #9 of 12 in this chapter.



Black Magic is up, Attack is down. Since neither of my attackers are actually using Attack, this is actually helpful.




We've got some good stuff here! Both boost Intellect and Spirit, but Healing Rod actually gives us reliable healing, and a decent bit to boot due to Rydia's oddly high Spirit stat.





The Sylphs got petrified, too. They also still carry an odd obsession with Yang.




Exiting here teleports us back. We still have a ton of treasure to get though, including the best one.




Not a bad amount.



YES YES YES



These babies give Brina a 20-point boost in Speed. This is huge.



This is the first turn. Brina went from slower than Rydia and Luca to reaching her turn by the time Rydia's 1/3 ready. This turns Brina from an effective healer to an awesome one, especially if you can get some Blinks and Hastes in.



Gargoyles, too.



Nothing too special in this room, though a new helmet for Luca's nice.



Well, we're almost done. There's just one more thing I want to get.




As I asked and had confirmed earlier, Dancing Dagger's item attack is a magic attack, non-elemental in this case. Thus the Tiny Mages resisting it so well.



As long as it's not Rydia.



That's a regular attack, for the record.

Definitely going to experiment with this later, but having Brina spam DD for similar damage with her speed would make the Sealed Cave a joke. Or maybe Rydia could do insane damage with her magic stats, more than even her spells.

At least, that's my hope. At any rate, I'm definitely getting a second one before I tackle Sealed Cave.



You can also grind here for the Cockatrice summon. Once again, why bother?



Finally cleared the cave out.



Before we tackle the Sealed Cave, time to prepare at Tomra.




Waning boosts Attack and lowers Special Attacks. Because of this, I actually move Luca to the front.



A few item purchases later, and we're almost ready for the Sealed Cave, which we'll tackle next time.