Final Fantasy IV Part #5 - Cecil Forgets He's Supposed to Save His Girlfriend

Part 5: Cecil Forgets He's Supposed to Save His Girlfriend

Chapter 5 - Cecil Forgets He's Supposed to Save His Girlfriend

Meet our new character, Edward. Edward has quite the reputation for being rather lackluster in battle.

His special commands are Sing and Hide.

Song will randomly inflict Sleep, Silence, or Charm on an enemy. It can also fail at times. Charm's the ideal status to inflict, as it nullifies that monster's attacks on you and lets it hurt itself or other monsters.

Like so.

Edward can also Hide, meaning he just leaves the battle while everyone else fights. All he can do is choose to return. It's not even situationally useful.

Edward also has an ability that was cut from the US and EasyType versions, Salve. This lets Edward split a Potion among the team, healing everyone. Of course it makes sense that they'd cut Salve instead of Hide.

And this is why Edward gets a lot of hate. He attacks with a harp and ends up doing pathetic damage. Thus, people think he sucks.

To be honest, though, he really isn't that useful. He's good with debuffs, but at this point of the game random encounters are laughably easy. Cecil has no problem soloing monster encounters, and the few he can't (i.e. monsters with Darkness resistance or high physical defense) can be taken out by Rydia. There's no reason to use debuffs, so Edward's just dead weight. And yes, he does have insane stat growth at high levels, but that's not relevant to this point in the game.

That said, I think having a character like Edward in the party is interesting from a story perspective. Yeah, he's irrelevant in battle, but he's not supposed to be a fighter. Cecil's a trained soldier and leader, while Rydia, though inexperienced in battle, harnesses powerful magical ability. Edward is a sheltered prince who moonlights as a bard. Of course he has little combat experience, though I'd imagine he have a little considering his excursions to Kaipo and starting at L5 and all. Still, he's not supposed to be a fighter.

If you go back to Damcyan, you can heal up with the recovery pots. There's also a couple of survivors hanging around, though they don't have much to say.

The Hovercraft is our first vehicle. While riding it, we don't encounter random enemies, which is nice.

Its main function is to cross over shallow water, thus allowing us to access our next destination.

This is Mt. Hobs. We'll go there soon enough, though not today.

For today, we're going to the Antlion Cave to get the item that will save Rosa's life.

The Antlion cave is only two large rooms and a couple of smaller areas. The two rooms are very open and house lots of useless treasure.

Turtles are the most fearsome foe, and that's because they take a whole two hits to take down. Rydia's IceRod is effective on them.

Basilisks can inflict Gradual Petrification, I think. They didn't when I fought them, and it's been awhile since I played last, but I'd imagine they do that.

Huh, did it really take me until now to get a back attack? Luckily it only takes one character's turn to change the entire formation.

Hey, did you know Edward automatically Hides when in critical condition?

He also immediately hides after telling him to show up. Have fun healing him!

Nah, just kidding. You can safely ignore him completely.

There are also Imp Cap(tain)s wandering around, properly teaching young Imps how to be failures in combat. They have a bit more HP, but that's it.

Edward gets a nice upgrade to his Dreamer Harp. It makes his damage output slightly less trivial.

I completely forgot that this passage existed. Probably because it's not very useful, only serving as an alternate route to the next room.

Hey, our first appearance by Flans! Or in this case, Creams.

Flans are known for their high physical defense. It's possible to hurt them with physical attacks, but it requires a lot of strength and a few other factors.

It's easier just to destroy them with magic.

The final enemy here is the Weeper. It weeps at how weak it is or something.

One fun property with Edward's attacks is that his harps can inflict status effects just with regular attacks. For instance, his Charm Harp has a chance of inflicting Charm. Likewise, his Dreamer Harp can inflict Sleep.

Rydia picks up the Toad spell in this dungeon.

Toads are pretty much useless in combat, though Edward has an interesting song to use if he's a Toad.

Even Edward can effortlessly beat up Toads!

Speaking of Edward, he levels pretty quickly here, moreso than Rydia. He's also pretty fast, as soon he was getting battle initiative over even Cecil.

At any rate, we're at the end of the dungeon.

Oh!

Worry not. Antlion is tame. I will take the SandRuby.

Let's go Rydia!

Meet the Antlion.

He counters physical attacks.

He doesn't counter Chocobo.

Edward doesn't do anything at all in this battle. I could just let Rydia do all the work, but Antlion's counters are weak enough to justify Cecil attacking. The Antlion's regular attacks are laughably weak, hitting even Edward for a single hit point.

And down the Antlion goes.

It can't be! Why did Antlion attack us?

We see monsters increasing everyday. Tame creatures are getting aggressive day by day. It must be a portent of some kind...

I love that line. It's like Cecil completely forgot the reason they went there in the first place.

The Warp spell makes backtracking trivial. You have to cast it a few times to get out, but it's still preferable to just walking out and fighting monsters along the way.

We can cross the shallows west of Damcyan to reach Kaipo without going through that damn Waterway again.

Alright, it's time to save Rosa.

Video: Cecil and the SandRuby

Mmm... ...

Oh, Cecil!

Rosa...

I heard that you were lost since the earthquake at Mist. But I couldn't believe it.

...Really, Cecil? You think that immediately after your girlfriend wakes up from an intense fever is the perfect time to ask her about some random dude?

I'm starting to think this relationship is rather one-sided.

The King invited him to the Red Wings. The King is not the same as he used to be. It seems he is nothing more than Golbez's puppet to collect all the crystals. The Crystal of Water from Mysidia is already in his hands. But other crystals...

The Crystal of Fire is already gone.

He is Edward, the Prince of Damcyan. And this girl, Rydia of Mist.

You okay?

Yes. Thank you. Damcyan has already been attacked. Then the next target is...Fabul! We must hurry! ...Cough! Cough!

Rosa... You must rest. We'll go to Fabul.

But we must get over Mt. Hobs to go to Fabul. The trail is blocked by thick ice.

Rydia, can you use the spell of Fire?

! N-No, I can't.

Rosa! You must rest!

I am all right. And I am a white wizard. I won't bother you!

...

Okay, Rosa. Let's go together. But it's too late tonight. Rest and sleep for now.

Okay, Cecil...

The most interesting thing about this and another scene we'll see next update is Rosa actually serving as the de-facto leader. She gives us information on the person who attacked Damcyan as well as our next destination. Rosa still could've used some work, but for a little while she's actually a pretty solid character story-wise.

But we'll talk more about that next update. For now, we've got one more scene to cover.

Video: Edward Pretends to be a Badass