Part 15: Cecil Gets His Groove On

Chapter 15 - Cecil Gets His Groove On





Don't worry, we'll get to airship fun soon enough. First, let's visit the Town of Baron real quick.




The talk of the town is "Cecil sure is awesome" and "We're kinda fucked without a king."



I get some armor for Cid. I don't really bother comparing to see if it's the best armor for him, but it'll be fine for now.



Gotta love the admiration of kids.



We're gonna have a few dancing videos this update, but this one is special.

Video: Baron Dancer featuring Cecil Harvey




I mean, what is there to really say about the NPCs at this point?

Just so you know, this update will be full of sketchy NPC lines, so if you're a fan of Engrish, you may enjoy this one.





Alright, now we're going to finally use The Fucking Airship.

With the airship, we can travel to any area in the world, including several places we haven't been yet. It's actually pretty awesome, having four dudes just exploring the world and checking out all the interesting locales. As a kid, this was my favorite part of the game, and probably the segment I remember most fondly. The world seemed so huge, and I was always finding something new.



That said, our first stop is actually an old one. We're going to revisit Mist.





For a town that was blown up, it sure looks like it's in good shape.



That said, it looks like the Callers were successfully wiped out. Rydia was the last one left, and now she's in the belly of a giant sea serpent.



I wonder if Odin's chilling with the King of Baron right now.



Here's an interesting detail. Summoned monsters live underground, which is where the King wants us to visit. Speaking of which, how does the King know about the summoned monsters anyway?

Yeah, the King of Baron is actually the summoned monster Odin. I don't know how that works.




This is Rydia's house.





There's a Tiara, which our manly party can't use, that gives a hefty Wisdom boost and halves Lit attacks. Change gives a five-point Wisdom boost that Tellah can appreciate, and it has a fun little effect in battle.




The shops have interesting gear. The Bard equipment is as strong as Leather armor, with the added effect of boosting Edward's Singing ability. This would be pretty useful except for the fact that Edward will never be in our party again, which makes this useless.

The Whip is an interesting weapon which I'll cover later, since nobody here can use it. The Dancing Dagger...





...is pretty damn awesome. It's a strong dagger on its own, though weaker than Cecil's swords, but as an item it'll deal big damage, bigger than Cecil's physicals at this point. It's also a magic attack, which may be nice for physically-resiliant enemies.






Cid's Peep command is the same as the spell. It gives you enemy HP and elemental weaknesses. The only reason to ever use the damn thing is to watch the awesome spritework for it.




The Change Rod changes enemies into Pigs. Pigs can't cast magic, though their physical stats remain the same. Basically, it's a shittier version of Toad, which essentially incapacitates affected enemies.




A short detour gives us a new line from the Elder, but that's it. Nothing changes at Fabul or Kaipo, so let's go visit some new places.




This little island town is part of a chain of islands that stretch south from Fabul and north from Mt. Ordeals. There's also a cave that we don't have access to for now.




...What.



This place has some rather unique townsfolk.



Silvera (known in other versions as Mythril, the fantasy term for fucking badass silver) makes silver equipment. It's also completely optional, as you're never required to come here.




There's Silver equipment all over the place.



The Silver Mine isn't a place we can actually visit, unless he means the cave southeast from here that we can't access.



This place also has one of the more unique dances in the game.

Video: Silvera Dancers




There's some pretty great equipment upgrades here. They're pricey, but they're also good upgrades.

That said, this equipment is also one huge dick move by the developers for reasons I'll share later. I don't actually recommend buying anything yet.



Further proof the developers have quite the sense of humor.




Agart is a small podunk town south of Baron and west of Mysidia. I've played this game so damn much I have the world map burned into my memory.



The townspeople here descended from dwarves. If I remember correctly, Cid actually comes from this village, which explains Cid's stature and knack for machinery.



Agart also has little to offer to the story, though we will be required to come here a whopping one time for maybe a minute.




The most interesting thing about this town is the observatory, which has the telescope. Interesting place to have the telescope.





Here's some interesting world-building. I don't know if the game's actually mentioned it before now, but this world have two moons, one of which has monsters crawling all over. Keep this in mind as we continue the game.




That said, I only see one moon, that jerk.




Heh.




Lots of earthquakes, land of dwarves, magma, underground lair of summoned monsters... Talk about laying on the foreshadowing.




As a kid, I'd like to try and trap the three walking NPCs down in this room. It's amazing what kind of little things you'd try to do as a kid.



Another town, another dancer.

Video: Agart Dancer



what the hell are you doing here




The equipment here is interesting, in that they sell the weakest armor/items available. There's no reason to really buy anything here, though I wonder who's gonna make use of those Boomrangs.



Right. Moving on.



West of Agart, we have this place. That thing in the northwest is a giant tower, but we can't go there yet.





This is the castle of Eblan. Normally we wouldn't come here until much later, but there's not much to stop us right now.



The place is deserted, and it's full of treasure.



This room is interesting, as to get to that one chest, you have to take a secret passage around since after you fall into that hole you can't climb back up.




Here's the thing about Eblan. Several chests have monsters that are quite a bit beyond our league right now. This group can be dangerous if you're unprepared.



First off, they hit hard.



BlackCats counter attacks with Bluster, which can paralyze or even instantly kill a character. Fortunately, they miss here. Lamias counter with Charm, which is pretty much Confuse besides whatever differences I'm forgetting.




Stone is a godsend here, as otherwise I'd have to fight through some rather nasty counterattacks to beat them.



Our reward is the Drain Spear, which hilariously none of our characters can use.



Down the hole, we go to the basement.




Mad Ogres are the toughest enemies in the castle. They're fast, they're strong, they's resilient, and they've got very high magic defense.




They wiped the floor with me.




Before I take them on again, I explore the rest of the castle first, including this chest. Skulls can deliver some powerful hits.




That said, they're Skeletons, and Fire3 will wipe them out. The Staleman also hits hard and I believe this one can inflict Sleep with physical hits.




Our reward is the Slumber sword, which has a nice attack boost over Cecil's other weaponry and can also inflict the Sleep status, which is a pretty nice status to inflict.





Seriously, these guys are fucking tough.





I was one or two hits away from death. I was hoping that the Slumber sword would inflict Sleep, but it turns out I killed it instead.



As a plus, all that experience nets Cecil the Exit spell. Definitely much worse spells Cecil could have.



And our reward for that? A fucking Elixer. Meh.



Here's a closer look at that tower, by the way.




Northwest of Baron is the nation of Toroia, which already looks to be an awesome place judging from just the scenery. This is also where the Earth Crystal is.

Next time, we check out the sights and sounds of Toroia.