Part 16: Tourist 2 - Lindblum

Oh boy, you guys are gonna love my final party.


Unfortunately, FF9 does not deal in apostrophes or 'okinas. Furthermore, the font does not differentiate between "I" and "l." On the other hand, it has this almost-Reggae track that plays in this bar, which makes it almost forgivable for its cultural insensitivity.

For those of you who are familiar with my... ahem, connoisseurship regarding composers, let me remind you that Uematsu is pretty much the only video game composer in the industry today that would even try doing a (note, entirely successful) Reggae-ish track just for one screen, just because it's fucking funny.

Anyway, if FF9 did have apostrophes or consonantal glottal stops, and if it let you have a longer name slot limit, I would've gone with 'Iolekeli, which is basically a bastardized hybrid name of the direct translation "rat" and one of the Hawaiian phonetic variants for /tʃəl/ -chel. So Ratchel in Hawaiian.

FUN RAT FACTS It is noted in some very obscure Hawaiian legends that 'Iole has an ongoing feud with Pakalolo, which addresses how rats will uproot marijuana shoots for no apparent reason, but, inexplicably, only the very young ones; they do not seem to do this to grown plants.


"still hanging out in LPs with marijuana jokes I see"


"He became an exotic male dancer for furries, I have since severed"


"--i mean, uh, no, no, haven't heard of him since"

"So... what brings you to Lindblum?"

Sounds fun.

And now we rejoin Holly and Cid discussing strategy. If strategists were flailing idiots.

"And by vibrant I mean is she still using those battery-powered exercise belts"
"Don't you mean--"


"We haven't spoken much lately. Also, a suspicious man has been prowling around the castle."

GANONDORF?


moving right along from racism to sexism, that's because you're a woman




So you have Tantalus kidnap the princess. In front of everyone, on a rickety theater ship that couldn't possibly have outrun a military fighter airship once they caught on in five minutes. Fucking genius.


"I don't know how they're related to Makakao, but if Mother is planning to use them for war..."


famous last words


"I'm helping you because I am your Uncle Cid, not because I am the regent of Lindblum."

And now he goes to show us his Ultimate Airship Battle Fleet.



"Yes, I can just see Mother quivering like blancmange at this show of military might"

"So does this lack of an airship army have anything to do with the attempt on your life six months ago?"





Cid IX is the best Cid and all of you blasphemers who think Cid Highwind or Cid Bunansa or any of those other not-Cids is better are bitches


He says something about how this is a special model of airship that runs on steam power instead of Mist energy, which is why Kilika was confused earlier in the game when he saw the giant machines in Dali that weren't running on Mist, which most of these not-quite-steampunk machines typically run on, but rather simply using it to make Minority Mages.


We now return you to the most chill track ever.

It is amazing and hilarious even out of context. And if you disagree, you must sew this curious hexagram onto your lapels right now


"the first thing i like to do in the morning is scratch my ass"


"FUCK knock first you little shit"

We offer to give him a tour of Lindblum, but...



"Or perhaps a cute boy, if that so suits you."


There is a Moogle in the next room.

Also, note the name Atla. Moogle Atla/Atra is your Moogle partner's name in the Japanese Chocobo's Dungeon games (though his name is simply Mog in the US).


Ruby is still making classy life decisions.


"What did you get for me on your trip, daddy?"
"I got you this"
"What is it"
"It's a thing"
"Yes but what sort of thing"
"Uhh"


Everything about Lindblum is just so nice. I love that wooden roofing.

and the huge


It would appear that person by the name of Lani has also stayed at this inn. She is a character who will be making an appearance later in the game. I'll hold off on the language lesson until then.


Lindblum also has quite a few fun ATEs.








The one that got away.


"I think you need a new line. A little shine wouldn't hurt, either."


"They're called Gyshal Pickles.
The worse they smell, the better they taste."






Priceless





We leave through the main gate and check out the world map.



ePSXe shits itself trying to render the Mist effect. Still, now you see that we're high above a whole lot of Mist, and it's in great abundance, so of course engines would be designed to run on it.


You can find this area near Lindblum.


There is not a lot to do here at Pinnacle Rocks at the moment.


You can get an Elixir and a well-hidden Phoenix Down, though.

We return to Lindblum


and catch another ATE.



no comment


"Wow, there's gonna be a festival!"












"It sounds like fun! Thank you!"


i hope he gets gored


The Festival of the Hunt is on everyone's mind.


Yes I'm completely certain Ivan is going to win



And now

we meet the GOD-KING.

Seriously. This NPC is the best NPC in the history of all games ever. Better than the citizenry of Tazmily. Better than the asshole mayor in Chrono Trigger. Better than that snide motherfucker your DM made up for your campaigns. Better than those nerds in that one sidequest in Fable 3. Maika'i is not a sufficient adjective.

And now, for some Synthesis.



These two guys are apparently a reference to Wayne and Torres from Parasite Eve. It was a cool enough game, but those two characters were just too unmemorable to recognize in FF9.




SYNTHESIS. Basically, it's a mechanic that allows you to make new weapons, armor, and accessories out of other pieces of equipment for "free," the cost being the price of component equipment.

You might notice that Kilika is at 88 HP. This is from when I went onto the world map and encountered some asshole motherfuckers who used Sleep and Thundara and hit like a fucking truck. Running around at low levels in this game is really quite intimidating.


We made a bunch of equipment for ourselves and for when our party members rejoin us. The Butterfly Sword and The Ogre are two examples of Kilika's alternate weapon type, dual-bladed swords.

While a useless weapon type in D&D, it's still fun as hell to have around, and it possibly looks cool, which should be your first priority in character generating. A min-maxed Fighter with a +10 Keen Vorpal Greatsword is of course very effective, but an overly-theatrical Sorcerer using a dual-bladed sword at a -10 no-proficiency penalty because he thinks that a dude aimlessly swinging around such a sword while he chucks fireballs around must look totally awesome, and took the Dragon Familiar feat so he could blow ganja smoke at his fire-breathing buddy/lighter is pretty entertaining.

Anyway, we won't be equipping this yet, because attacking with dual-bladed swords takes another couple seconds of animation to attack with, and we will very soon be in a situation that requires us to conserve as many frames as possible. But we'll get there later.