Final Fantasy Legend II Part #9 - The Incredible Journey

Part 9: The Incredible Journey

We're back! How's she doing?

We're doing what we can to keep the fever down, but she's getting worse by the minute. Did you find it?

Sure did!

But how are we supposed to activate it?

What? I thought you guys would know how to use it!

Captain?

It be beyond my pay grade, yarr.

This is awful! How are we going to save Ki?

I... I think I have an idea, actually. Sara? Can I see the micronizer?

Sure.

Thanks. Let's see, fiddle with this a bit, and...

*clink*

Bingo!

What just happened?

I have a shrink ray now!

What, seriously?

_{Yarr. It work like the devil, it do.}

This just never stops getting better.

Okay, we have to hurry up and get you inside Ki. Remember, we have to get rid of both the invaders and the magi. We don't know where the fragments are, so you'll have to check everywhere.

... Like... everywhere everywhere?

Yyyyes?

Does that include, uh... y'know.

...

The buttal region?

Zero!

I think it's a valid question, personally.

We don't have time for this! You need to get micronized and get into Ki's body. Once the infection's contained, we'll figure out an extraction plan.

Better not involve butts, that's all I'm sayin'. You ready for this, Roy?

I was born ready, duder.

Great! I'll handle it from here.

What is our plan, anyway? Is she going to, like, inject us, or...?

*cram*

Orrrrr just stuff us up her nose.

Guess Sylph's a fan of the direct route.

This is what people sound like on the inside.

Last time, we were in a giant's city! This time, we're inside someone's body! Care to guess where we'll be the next time? The moon? 19th century wild west with dragons? Schenectady, New York? I'm 90% certain you'd only be able to predict one of the many upcoming levels. This is one thing FFL2 does incredibly well. When they say you're visiting different worlds, they mean it. You're never going to mistake one area for another, and they all have unique quirks and features.

Ki's Body is one of the best areas, both for ambiance and story. I mean, you're racing around in Ki's innards trying to keep her own body from killing itself. Like everything in else in SaGa, there's no timer, but the sense of urgency still remains. Also, the enemies here can either be really fun and creative or a miserable slog. This is one of those checkpoints SaGa loves so much. Keeping pace with the dungeon? Great, enjoy. Pass our greetings along to the next world. Getting punted in the skull repeatedly until you can't think thoughts anymore? Ha ha, you failed.

You can backtrack out of the dungeon here if you're outmanned—just head out through what I assume is Ki's nose (since it's right in the middle of her "head"), hose yourselves off, and go wherever you need to. Talk to Ki again when you're ready to get back in there.

Man, you never realize how gross people are until you're walking around in their insides.

I don't know, it's kind of nice. Tranquil, even.

Wow. Just when I thought you couldn't get any creepier...

You gotta admit, Heather. It's kind of neat.

All I know is, this dress is going to be ruined by the time we're done here.

Oh, yes. Your clothes will get bloody. The horror.

I'll have you know I'm very meticulous with my berzerker rages!

Hey, aren't those white blood cells?

Guess so!

Plasmas will attack through this area. As far as I know, they're Ki's native cells just trying to defend themselves. I mean, she's apparently had an entire truck full of goons dumped into her bloodstream, I can't imagine her immune system's real happy right now.

Sara!

What?

Those were Ki's white blood cells! She needs those!

She's got a lot of them. I'm sure she'll be fine.

Hot diggity dog! The coast is clear!

Great, now look what you did. I'll handle this jerk. Everyone else: Get those guys! They're with the viruses!

The heck did we just stumble into?

I guess Ki was coming down with the flu when the invasion started.

Look, normally I'd be opposed to this, but Ki needs us alive to save her. Sooo...

Starve a cold, kick a fever!

That doesn't work as a catchphrase. At all.

Grippe (that's French for flu

) is the first virus type monster we've encountered! Similarly, Plasma is the first cell type. They'll hit you with party-wide poison spells and not a whole lot else. Poison's mostly harmless in random encounters since they tend to end after two or three turns. Unless combat drags on, you won't take too much damage from it.

Plasmas have dissolve, and they're not afraid to use it. Fortunately, cell types are weak against cold, and virus types are weak against heat. It's actually biologically consistent, too; the body runs mild fevers specifically to make the environment hostile to invaders. SaGa: We will teach you basic biology while completely ignoring the fact that Heather's mom is vulpine.

Great. Guess we have to check all her fingers.

Is it Christmas already?!

Ho ho ho. I got you guys some pain

That also does not work as a catchphrase.

You are such a serious downer.

Check it out! Heather hit that guy so hard a book flew out of him!

Huh. I didn't know you could physically beat knowledge out of people.

The more I learn about biology, the less I wish I knew.

The secret's not to learn it in the first place. Bam, problem solved.

A terrorism! It all makes sense now.

You okay attacking the metal guys, Roy?

They're hurting Ki! Heck yeah I'm okay with it!

Great! The others are soft targets. This should be a cinch, all we have to do is—

Is it hot in here, or is it just you?

Nice.

Oh come on!

There are some old faces and some new faces here, but the one thing that's consistent is there's a lot of them. I don't think the encounter rate is any worse than anywhere else, but Ki's Body is a surprisingly long dungeon. You're also getting ganged up on pretty hard every fight, so you need that crowd control. We save Roy's SMG for emergencies and let Zero and Sara do most of the heavy lifting through here. I'm not a big fan of focusing solely on mana, but I am a big fan of living. (Plus Sara gets some hits in with her Saber when she can, so it's not all bad.) Heather is pretty much one-shotting anyone she attacks right now, which is great and all, but it doesn't really help when there's 11 other monsters putting our collective heads through an arterial wall.

Fortunately, Conjurers cough up Cure books in this area with alarming regularity. Due to the nature of SaGa fights and mutants' limited inventory, we leave the Cure book in our inventory and swap out Sara's gear on the map whenever we need it. It's not like we're hurting for mana, and if we need a cure spell that badly to win a combat, we need to get the heck out of here and level up. (We don't and we won't.)

Explains the guards.

Alright, we've got the first magi.

Off to a great start!

Wow. This really is disgusting.

The invaders must've brought outside germs with them. It's making things even worse.

I really, really hope that's the case, or Ki seriously needs to watch what she's eating.

Shouldn't we be worried about bringing germs in, too?

Nah, we're the good guys.

That's not how medical science works, Roy.

Two down!

Wait. Do you guys feel that?

Like, what kind of freaky thing are you talking about now?

Seriously, it felt like someone just walked over my gr—Look out!

Woah. Nice reflexes!

It's better than that. I think I've developed ESP!

We've been quietly cycling through mutant abilities in the background while all this has been going on. Here, Sara picked up Warning, which prevents enemies from getting surprise attacks. It's not an issue now, but it very well might be later, so we'll throw O-Poison into the replacement slot.

Oh wait. I haven't talked about that yet. My bad!

As previously mentioned, a fully powered mutant will have four abilities at any given time. You can't really influence which specific ability you learn; more powerful monsters generally give you a chance to pop more powerful abilities, with the really rare/nasty ones reserved for boss fights. You can't really weight them towards any specific layout. However, you can pick which abilities you want to keep and which ones you don't. When your mutant learns a new ability, the power that gets replaced is always the lowest one in his/her inventory. Since we want to preserve Flame, Ice, and Warning, I shuffle O-Poison to the bottom. Sara's not drinking petrol anymore, so it'll probably be okay.

Also, Zero is not immune to ability creep, either.

*crackle*

Uh?

Ooh, I got an idea. Check this out. Haben Sie meine Rennmaus getroffen?

Thaaaaaat... waaaaaaaaaaas... laaaaaaaaaaame...

He's kinda right, dude.

Are you kidding? That slow motion voice is hilarious.

Zero's picked up Blitz, which lowers the agility for a single group of enemies by an amount that is nowhere near impressive. I mean, I guess it's helpful against bosses to make sure your guys can act first—but at this particular moment, it's worthless. Points for effort, I guess?

*thump thump* *thump thump*

Jeez that's loud!

This isn't going to be the desert thing all over again, is it?

What? Dessert? No thanks, I'm totally full!

OIL FOR THE BLOOD GOD

Holy moly. His arm flew all the way over here.

I know! I was hoping it'd go farther, but the blood's totally introducing drag.

What are we supposed to do with this thing, anyway? Do we pick up and take it with us, or...?

Ack!

You attached a severed limb to your body? Is there anything in here that isn't disgusting?

It's not like I did it on purpose!

Or did you?

He didn't.

Or did he?

These guys again. Hey, Roy! Try out the new arm!

I dunno what I'm supposed to do with it. I mean, it's just a fist on a—

*zoom*

...huh.

Now do the Rust Hurricaine!

What are you talking about?

What are you talking about?

The Rocket isn't heavy ordinance; it's short for Rocket Punch! No, I don't know how this works if you give it to a human/mutant character. Stop asking, you're ruining everything.

The Rocket Punch is a strength weapon and grants related stats to Roy accordingly. This makes it a bit awkward to use, as we've focused mostly on defense and agility for Roy—But if you think I'm passing up a friggin' Great Mazinger Rocket Punch because of that, you are out of your mind.

On a completely unrelated note, collecting each section's magi automatically warps you out to the section entrance. In a dungeon that can become difficult solely due to grinding you down, it's a nice reminder that the game doesn't necessarily hate you. It's also helpful because there's a lot of ground to cover in Ki's Body. Not having to make the same trip twice through each limb is an enormous relief, especially in the larger areas like her heart.

Yes, Ki has a big heart. This is not an intentional pun, but I'm going to claim credit for it anyway.

We're doing great, guys! Just a few more places left!

Oh. Oh no.

Relax, it's her upper intestines.

Jeez, no wonder Ki feels like crap. She has an entire flock of horses running around in here.

Silvers and amoebas are specific to Ki's stomach. I don't know why and I'm trying not to think about it. I'm not a big fan of fighting Silvers, so I just cheese it to conserve resources. I mean, we probably could take them without any issues, but without actually playing through this section, you don't get a good sense of just how many goddamn enemies Ashura sent into Ki's guts. We have to be very careful not to expend our crowd control, or this is going to get really ugly.

Anyway, it's just the usual slog up Ki's intestines, and then...

I think that's almost it, you guys! Just one area left to check.

I've always wanted to see someone's brain from the inside.

Seriously. Are you messing with us now?

...

Okay, I'm pretty sure there's not supposed to be an eyeball in your brain.

What's the password?

Wha?

Look, we're under lockdown, and some assholes are running around stealing our magi. I'm gonna need the password, or I'll have to call security.

Hmm. Come to think of it, you guys look familiar...

Wait, wait. We have the password!

Really?

Yup!

Let's hear it!

And it turns out it's universal!

See, now that's a radical catchphrase.

According to Wikipedia, a phagocyte is a superclass of white blood cells, i.e. it covers all cells that eat harmful invaders and dead cells. So naturally, we machine-gun them to death.

They're actually the end boss(es) of this area and are a step or two up from plasmas. They'll all gang up and mug you if they get a chance, so we just have Roy blast them once, and we're done.

That should be everything!

Hey. Did it cool off in here or something?

It was definitely warmer when we came in, yeah.

Omigod, Ki's fever broke! We did it!

How ya feelin', Ki?

Much better, thanks to you guys.

We're really sorry about the magi. We didn't know removing it would take away your powers.

It's alright. I'd rather live 30 or 40 more years as a normal person than die as a healer. Besides, it's not like I'm useless. I'm still leading services in this area!

Speaking of which, where's Sylph and Dr. Captain?

I gave them the week off. It's the least I could do.

Meanwhile, at a nearby restaurant...

quote:

You know, they can return you to normal size.

_{It long be me dream to be a tiny pirate doctor. Ye'll not be takin' that away from me, missy.}

Look, you should hear it from us first. We visited just about every part of your body, and there was a lot of gunfire and rocket punches going on in there.

Every part? Oh no. Including the, uh...

The buttal region? Nah.

Oh thank goodness.

I'm more worried about the cells we gunned down in your brain. There may have been some permanent damage.

Ehn, I'm sure will fine be I'm.

What now?

I'll be fine!

Hmm.

One thing I've always wondered. Like, how is someone born with magi in them?

Honestly? I wasn't.

But Ashura said...

It may have been a slight exagerration on my part.

quote:

And this is the Arm of Isis, our holiest relic.

It's beautiful. Definitely worth the pilgrammage.

goo goo gah

Now, honey, remember what we talked about. No touching!

EXPLODE!

OH GOD WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY