Part 68

Chapter 55





Do I know you?
...
If you're just a stray beggar, then you should leave immediately...assuming that you value your life.
My apologies...






(Ah...!)











Hello, Ceodore, Rosa, Cid...and most of all, Kain!
Cecil!
Father!




(Cid? Kain!? What were you doing? No...what was I doing!?)








Ngh...! Errrgh...!



A half-breed. As expected...
What...what do you seek?
But you are a valuable sample, nonetheless. You will be useful.





Welcome to the Final Tale. It's so long that it's split up into two parts. The final dungeon is three to four times as long as the original game's final dungeon. There are probably more bosses in the final dungeon than there are in the main game. At the same time, it's not nearly as tedious as you'd imagine, as you have plenty of opportunities to leave and restock.

Short of making it a multi-party dungeon, the final dungeon does give good reason to mess around with all 22 characters. There's also a ton of character interaction as well, though most of it is disappointing and shallow. The bad news is that we'll be spending the rest of the game on the moon. No going back and visiting everyone in the Blue Planet.

Anyway, let's get the plot over with first.



Cecil!

Rosa doesn't get any better from here, folks.

...
He's finally regained his senses?
Oh, thank goodness...
...
Cecil?
Father! Father!?



What's happened to my father?
The man before you right now is nothing but an empty shell.

How does Kain know this? I mean, he's an expert at being brainwashed and all, but I don't think he's ever had an out-of-body experience.






It's all being caused by the moon. Collect yourself, my friend! Stay calm, and get everyone to someplace safe!



...
We've lost them.
Sorry, but the whisperweed only has so much range to it, y'know.

That's actually a pretty good use for the whisperweed. After Edward used it successfully, I was worried they'd use it so Edward could serenade the Dark Dark Elf.

What could be happening down on the surface right now?
It's the moon's gravitational pull that's driving everything crazy.
The moon's gravitational pull?



I've heard theories that the moon can affect the hearts and minds of animals...and people.

It's been making my battles slightly harder, though I've been finding that more of a positive than anything.



With somethin' that big so close to our planet, who could guess what'll happen down there?
It may not be a matter of just being "close" to our planet before long.
You think it'll keep on going?
You mean to say it will collide with the earth!?



No!
We've got to get the Crystals back and change the moon's path, and we gotta be quick about it.





The Big Whale starts shaking suddenly, which is why the next few screenshots will look like shit.

What is it now!?
The Lunar Whale... Something's pulling on it!
It's trying to gobble up our ship!




The moon has seized our ship!
We're being pulled in!
Luca, prepare for emergency landing!
Roger!





Now what?

Can we start by tying a gag around Rosa? At this point, Rosa's "Cecil!'s" are much more annoying that Ceodore's "Huh?'s"



Father!?
Cecil!?




Father!
Cecil!
It's getting worse, the closer we are to the moon...
Cecil! What are you fighting against!?










It may not seem like it, but now the gameplay begins.



The party change system is much like FF6, where you talk to a person, they say a generic line, and then you're given the option to change your party. I'm not transcribing 22 lines of pointless dialogue, so leave it up to your imaginations to dream up 22 variations of "We've got to save Cecil!" and "I'm unimportant to the plot!"



There's three areas to the Big Whale. The small room is where close friends and family hang out. Rydia's so awesome that she gets to hang out there as well, and Edge's increased badass points let him hang out there as well.



The rest of the old crew hangs out in the main deck. Since Luca was technically in the original, she gets to hang out here as well.




There's a new floor in the Big Whale built specifically to house all the rejects. Ursula, Leonora, and all the shitty characters hang out here. There's also beds and a save point.



When changing your party, you go through a list of names. In the bottom right, you'll see that character's level, HP, and MP.

You'll notice that technically we can bring Cecil.




For all intents and purposes, Cecil isn't a playable character as far as this LP goes. He's intentionally horrible due to the plot circumstances, since he's still in a coma and can only grunt out his dialogue.

Speaking of which, each character says a line before each boss. If you brought Cecil along, his line is always guaranteed to be the best.



I picked this team since they needed to grind a bit and to do a bit of scouting. Don't worry, next update I use the team you guys voted for.




Outside, you can do shopping with Holo-Namingway.




No weapons or armor, but you should have a ton of it by now anyway. A lot of items are no longer buyable, the ones most important being Spider Silk and Antidotes, so make sure you buy 99 of each before leaving. It especially sucks to lose Antidotes at this point because of course this is the part of the game where you'll be poisoned constantly, and you'll be stuck using 5000 gil Remedies to heal it.



This will be important later, as we can use this to go between certain floors in the final dungeon. The designers really show some mercy and try to make the final dungeon not that frustrating. No having to go through the entire dungeon each time you want to restock on items.



Well, this is weird.

Next time, Team Mind-Controlled Boss Fights enter the final dungeon to fight for redemption.