Part 21: Cecil Meets a Crazy Person

Chapter 21 - Cecil Meets a Crazy Person





Rydia's back, and she's changed a lot since she was a little girl. First of all, she's the only character that can equip whips. Whips do full damage from the back row, and they also have a chance to paralyze an enemy, which is always nice. I hear you can go out of your way to make Rydia a half-way decent physical fighter, but I'd rather take advantage of her powerful magic.




Speaking of which, as Rydia said she lost White Magic, which is not a big deal at all considering she had three whole spells in it and Cecil already fills the "useless white magic" role. In exchange, she's gained Virus and the L2 spells, which is always awesome. She also has new summons. Indra is Ramuh, who does lightning damage, and Jinn is Ifrit, who fights with fire. The translators manage to get the ice summon Shiva and the earth summon Titan (which as you may remember wrecked Cecil and Kain's shit at the beginning of the game) right enough that the names consist for the rest of the series. Mist is non-elemental, and is none other than the dragon Cecil and Kain slew at the beginning, and the same one that kicked Golbez's ass.

Now we have access to the rest of the castle, and we actually need to take the rear exit to travel to the Tower of Babil.




Luca's understandably upset that we broke her toys, and it doesn't help that her mom's dead.



There's actually quite a bit of nice loot to gain here.



Bl. Belt gives five-point boosts to Strength and Vitality, Yang's bread and butter.



After dying and reincarnating as his own hand, Golbez decided to split, which should at least help things out a bit.



This game has axes, though they generally aren't useful. Cid can equip them, but after we reach the underground he leaves and never rejoins the party. Kain's always better off using Spears to boost his Jump Power, and usually Cecil has a more useful sword at his disposal. Plus the more powerful axes require two hands, thus costing the character a shield. On the bright side, this baby sells for quite a bit of money.



Another five Strength for Yang. Yeah, Yang's going to be cleaning the next dungeon up.




Little known fact: Dwarves are incapable of using plural pronouns.




I get Rosa a few Darkness arrows just so she has something to do. I could buy more Fire stuff for Kain, but his Silver equipment has similar strength without the weakness to Fire. The Rune armlet's a nice upgrade for the girls to boost their magic, plus the Wizard hat boosts Rosa's Will, which lets her give the Wisdom-boosting Tiara back to Rydia.

Note that there's no way you'd know which equipment boosts which stat without a lot of experimentation or GameFAQs.



This castle has yet another dancer, though I believe he's the last one in the game.

Video: Ddancign



This is where the Developer's Office normally is. It's one of many things cut in this version.



In the basement, you can summon a Big Chocobo in case you're too stingy to sell your crap. Too many games these days have you saving junk on the off-chance you'll actually need it later, so it's hard to get myself to sell off my outdated junk even in a game like this where you'll never use it again.








The plan is to have the dwarves distract the Tower's forces while we sneak in and steal the crystals. Golbez is gone, but the final fiend, Rubicant, is still there, so take a guess who the boss is going to be.



This pot makes the overworld a nice place to grind if you need to. Considering the version I'm playing, it's not necessary.





This'll probably be the only time I link the Underworld music, so check it out. It's pretty nice.

The path is fairly straightforward, taking us west a bit before going north.




Dark Imps inhabit the underworld, and they're not that much stronger than their overworld brethren. I give Rydia the Dancing Dagger since it does some decent damage.

I also begin to realize that the Drain spear, despite its high power, has horrible accuracy, resulting in less hits (and damage) per attack. I mean, I always knew it sucked and all, but I never really knew why until I checked.



BlackLiz's can inflict Gradual Petrify, but other than that same stuff as usual.



Rosa picks up Cure3, which is great since the next dungeon's a bit of a slog.



Oh and there's Tortoises that do nothing important.






There are the dwarves, drawing the attack power of the tower.



So naturally we camp out right in the middle of the combat.





Here we are, the Tower of Babil. This dungeon's pretty long, and the enemies are tough, so be prepared.



On the bright side, there's a lot of nice treasure here as well. These Ice arrows are pretty nice considering how many enemies here are weak to ice attacks.



Enemies from the underworld pop up here.





As do our old pals the FlameDogs. You probably don't want to wear fire armor here. I do because I'm lazy.






Summons are great for dealing with groups of enemies, especially those with elemental weaknesses.



More attack-boosting equipment for Yang. As if he needs more reasons to kick ass.




There are a lot of rooms with nothing but a chest in them.




These always lead to a battle with Alerts. Alerts are special in that they don't attack on their own.




When attacked, they counter by summoning a certain monster, in this case a Stoneman. If you kill the monster and then hit the Alert again, it'll spawn the monster again. Else, it'll just use a weak Beam attack.




I shit you not. This isn't a critical, either. This is Yang hitting an ice weakness and a bonus against giant enemies that his Charm claw has, in addition to the fifteen strength bonus from his equipment.

Yang's just that good.



The rewards from these chests are pretty nice. The Blizzard spear is a nice upgrade for Kain, moreso because most of the enemies here are weak to ice.



This Alert summons a Chimera.




Hah!



Now Cecil gets to join in on the fun!



The CatClaw has even more Strength to offer Yang, as well as a chance to inflict Sleep. I still stick with my awesome Charm/Ice combo.



A new bow for Rosa to play with. Too bad her attacks are pathetic next to even Rydia's Dancing Dagger.



When you hit an Egg, it'll hatch into another creature.




That is, unless you kill it in one hit.





There's also FlameMen. At this point, these guys are laughable due to how easily the three fighters can cut through them. Even got a couple of Flame Spears from these guys.




Chimeras can use Blaze, which is never fun. Rydia actually manages to evade a lot of these types of attacks.




We've still got awhile to go, but the game's kind enough to give you a mid-dungeon save point. Trust me, you'll be happy to have it.




Nagas are underwhelming compared to what we got earlier. Just as well, as the Ice Shield's not that exciting either.




FlameDog? Really? Like the Fire Shield/Armor, the Ice equipment reduce fire attacks but add weakness to ice. Meh.



More flans, these weak to Ice.



In the middle of this floor is a locked door. How odd.




Another save point. We're near the end!



Finally. We see two characters we haven't met yet talking.

Video: Meeting Proto-Hojo





You'll take care of this place while I'm gone.




Rubicant then teleports away.





Lugae then proceeds to dance all over the place. Lugae's a mix of Kefka's insanity with Hojo's love for fucked-up science experiments, though we'll most be seeing the former for now.

He-he-he! Golbez and Rubicant both are gone! Now I'm the leader here!



Hush!
Who's there?




Ahahaha.

Cecil!
Won't you call for help, doctor?
Don't take me lightly or you'll get burned!



I think you're missing a subject there, Kain. That or he screwed up the tense of his verb.





We then get in a fight with Lugae and his creation, Balnab. The Calbrena music's still playing during this fight, which gives you a hint of how serious this battle is.






Lugae provides a bit of comic relief, you see.

......OUCH! Not me! Them! Over there!



Beat them up!






I will operate him directly now!



Balnab-Z can self-destruct to essentially knock out a character.




It can, but it doesn't because Yang's just that good.



And so the real battle begins.









Lugae jumps into the air to become... a skeleton.




A skeleton with quite a few nasty attacks.




I have no clue what the hell Gas does. He counters with it, yet it never hit.




He'll alternate between the weak Beam, and the powerful Laser attack.



Of course, I fight biological warfare with biological warfare.



No clue the point of this move, as it's a pathetic fire spell. I'd chalk it up to a random Lugae move if other enemies didn't use it as well.



And then, just to show how insane he is, he heals everyone.



He probably has a lot more attacks in his arsenal, but he goes down too quickly to do much else. That's the thing, this version is ridiculously easy once you know what you're doing.

This fight is even crazier in the DS version, as he'll cast Reverse, which means attacks heal and healing spells hurt. Fun gimmicky fight there, though as every other boss fight in that version things could get nasty quickly.



Our reward is the Tower key. I imagine it'll unlock that one room from earlier.



...Rubicant has already moved all the crystals to the upper world! And I shall annihilate the dwarves with my Super Cannon! Ha-hah-hah!



Note: We never see Lugae again.



We must stop the Super Cannon!
We must destroy it!

So the crystals are gone, and the dwarves are about to be blown to bits. We're not done with this tower yet!



Next time, we attempt to save the day. There may or may not be explosions.