Part 24: They call me Gogo I Hit Very Hard, Mimic Me Well and Get a Crystal Shard

Part 24 They call me Gogo I Hit Very Hard, Mimic Me Well and Get a Crystal Shard

Mambo de Chocobo


It's time to wrap up the sidequests.


Unfortunately there isn't a good quick way to reach North Mountain from Mirage, flying southeast is technically quicker but still long.


This forest is between the two places we'll go today.


I've taken to running from most fights because the party is strong enough.


North Mountain is still in the same place as it was before, just surrounded by desert rather than forests.


The dungeon and encounters are identical so let's just get to the main event.





The Fierce Battle (Pixel Remaster)


Fans of the series know the basic attack pattern of Bahamut. In FFV he doesn't just sit and charge Mega Flare, here he does go on the offensive for several turns before launching it.


Krile begins the fight with Quick.


First to lay down the buffs to deal with Bahamut's pre-Mega Flare offensive.


Then Meteor to dish out some pain


The thing about Meteor is that each of the 4 attacks are randomly rolled for damage.


Each rock also hits a random target if its cast against a group. But here every hit sticks to Bahamut.


Not bad all considered. It's just heartbreaking that the Time Mage has such a good magic stat but no spell in !Time cares one lick about it.


As expected from the King of Dragons Bahamut has no weaknesses that we can really exploit, so Seymour is just going to boost damage with Flare Sword.


Syldra does look pretty weak compared to Meteor but she's reliable and consistent.


Krile doesn't have enough MP for a Quick Meteor Meteor salvo so she's just going to settle for a single cast. I mean it's fair right? I should let Bahamut do something, right?




...I think I've made a mistake.


The last in the salvo of meteors.


...Bahamut didn't even get a turn. I wasn't even trying to do this


So Bahamut is ours, but there is still one more summon to collect.


So while on north mountain I decided I wanted to see how diagonal movement between trap tiles worked, and it turns out that stepping between 2 safe tiles doesn't count as stepping on a trapped one. I guess its not too surprising since it counts as one step and that one step doesn't go through a flower, but still nice. I wonder if there's any pathing changes a Pixel Remaster speed run would do to benefit from this info.


When trying to do another diagonal step between flowers I dropped an input and walked straight onto a flower instead, oops.


Huh, no one's poisoned. I guess the poison doesn't activate until I step off.


...Strange, no poison wave effect.


So you can also avoid the effects of a trap if you get into a fight on one. Fascinating.

e: ignore that I forgot I had float up after Bahamut. The diagonal movement is still confirmed safe since that was before I cast Mighty Guard with Bahamut.



We're now southwest of North Mountain, near the Torna Canal.


Lenna is a thief because this dungeon has some good crime available.

The Dawn Warriors


Phoenix Tower is fairly short if you want to rush to the end.

You see the two sections of wall covered in vines? That's the path up. One opens without a fuss, the other forces you into a fight before you can progress. Older versions didn't have the vines indicating you should interact with them, you just had to know the Mirage guy told you to shove your face into walls.

This is the pattern you need to follow:
Left Left Right

Left Left Right

Left Left Right

Left Left Right

Right Left Right

Left Left Right

Center (forced fight mandatory)

There are 3 enemies in the random encounter pool, here are 2 of them.


Parthenope is the lamia recolor she's the important one to steal from.


The Rainbow Dress is what makes the Lamia Tiara obsolete. It provides both the confusion immunity and the increased odds of Sword Dance and is probably the best light armor in the game. The only issue is that only Dancer or Freelancer can equip it unless you set Equip Ribbons as someones open slot.


Every few floors there's a floor with a couple pots.


One has cash.


One is trapped.


I could have done this area before going to Fork Tower but I wanted the wonder wand to demonstrate something. In this version of the game they deactivate the magic commands, but not !Item.


So while I can't cast Return, I can break the Wonder Wand.


In this version this is completely pointless for a reason I'll mention shortly. But in older versions you might want this tech.


Magic Pots don't attack, and can't be hurt. All they want is an Elxir.


In this version they are happy with one.


And they'll leave you alone with one drink.


And since ABP is awarded no matter how the enemy is dealt with we get 100 ABP. In previous versions Magic Pots can hold out for more than just one. Hence why snapping a wonder wand in the GBA or other releases to conserve Elixirs is a good idea. Here it was just a demonstration of the strat.


100 ABP is enough to do get Krile !Time6. And since I don't care about giving Freelancer an innately high default magic stat when I can just equip the magic directly I'm not going to farm for Equip Rods, instead its time to give Krile some time in her good costume.


Cherie is probably the most dangerous enemy here. Parthenope can cast Roulette which will randomly instant kill someone on the field but Cherie...




Can petrify or zombify people.


After I got a couple Rainbow Dresses I switched Lenna back to Summoner so she could get !Summon5.


Eventually I lose track of what floor I'm on and pick the wrong door to proceed.


So I have to pay the penalty.


Picking the wrong door leads to a fight against a buffed up Liquid Flame, Soul Cannon or a Bandersnatch.

Oh no!

anyway.


Krile is in endgame mode as far as I can say as she has !White6 and !Time6.


Buuuut, I still have magic pots to reap and some strength and health to go with magic can't hurt. Nor can enjoying Purzerker here.


I eventually switch to !White6 because I want to use Krile to heal midfights but for this moment I was going for pure magic stat to fuel the Rune Axe.


Faris is now just one step away from absolute power.


The Mystic Knight's above average strength and agility makes the chicken knife dangerous.


Finally we reach one floor with only one path forward.


All the other floors we could avoid a forced fight, but here we can't.


Even with damaged halved the effect is deadly.


I seriously underestimated the deadliness of the party. I mean I didn't doubt that the end game was going to be easy, but I expected to give enemies a chance.


After climbing the steps we're in cut scene mode. But you can't just go into autopilot.


In fact, it's time to mention something that I haven't brought up. One trivial difference in how this version allows you to progress text.


Old versions only progressed dialog with tapping confirm. But notice the text boxes here? You don't see a little "A" button in the lower corner or anything demanding a certain response.




Any button press advances the text boxes. There's been more than one time where I accidentally twitched and jumped a box too soon for me to reliably screencap in post.


I bring this up now because you absolutely don't want to press confirm in a few seconds.






Remember that NPC in Mirage that mentioned dying dragons would go to Phoenix Tower?


Yeah... Hiryu somehow survived smacking into the possessed Lenna.


But he won't be with us much longer.

Sorrows of Parting

That means... in the forest, when he saved me...
It seems he came to this tower so he could use the last of his strength to help you...
Hiryu...


Lenna recalls back to an important day in her life here. Remember if you're playing along with me do not press confirm. If you're playing along on an older version press confirm only when the text boxes are completely loaded.

...What do you mean, Mother's not going to make it?
Dear, the doctor did his best... It seems the only thing that can cure her is a wind drake's tongue...






...Certainly you don't mean to-




Sire, I'll go.


Last warning, after pressing an input here do notpress confirm again until you're damn sure you're ready.


Because if you mash A you're going to make a terrible mistake.


Obviously we know that Lenna didn't hurt Hiryu as he's alive and well and vocal in the present, but if you say yes her dad smacks her away and then we miss out on the prize for scaling the tower.




*sob* Mother...






Phoenix is the most expensive magic in the game. It does token fire damage to the enemy but more importantly it revives one of your fallen allies.


Hiryu... Thank you...


So I could teleport down but I've got a full heal after getting phoenix so may as well get a bit more ABP.


As you can see walking down resets the walls so you have to solve the "puzzle" again to climb up.


Here we get all thr- W-where's my free heal!?


Okay, this almost makes up for it... almost I guess. So older versions would fully heal the party after getting Phoenix, here you don't.

So I guess I should just put this in the documentation here for completion sake.

Cherie
Common steal: Red Slippers (MEH!)
Rare steal: Elven Mantle (Sadly past its prime)
Common drop: (nothing)
Rare drop: Hermes Sandals

Parthenope
Common steal: Rainbow Dress (YES!)
Rare steal: Coral Ring (useful for the simplest of strats for a superboss?)
Common drop: (nothing)
Rare drop: Reflect Ring

Lemure
Common steal: Reflect Ring (better means of getting than Parthenope's drop if you really need it?)
Rare steal: Ribbon (we'll get a fourth one guaranteed shortly)
Common drop: (nothing)
Rare drop: Lamia's Harp (are you kidding me?)


Let's show off dancer wearing a Rainbow Dress. Despite their large size Rukhs only have 9000 HP. And I gave Seymour Dual Wield so... yeah he's dead.


Krile is now ready to go into Freelancer and stay there. She now has the Strength and Stamina of a Berserker, and the Agility of a Thief. She doesn't have a bonus magic stat but that doesn't matter when she wouldn't be using it unless she's got a magic ability equipped and then that gives it to her anyway.

For the record on everyone else:

Seymour has the Strength of a Mystic Knight, the agility of a Ninja and I guess the magic stat of a Bard. Seymour will likely just serve for buffing and utility.

Lenna doesn't have much because of the dedication towards getting !Dualcast. So she doesn't have much in the way of elevated stats. She has almost half the HP of Krile, but she doesn't need too many HP to raze the enemy to dirt with multiple syldras.

Faris is basically the same as Seymour, but has mastered Ranger as well giving all the pieces to the rapid fire dual wield spell blade puzzle. Unless an enemy gets a lucky suckerpunch off, Faris is more than enough to end any fight.


If this were the GBA or matrix releases a scholar would come up and tell us that something happened, leading to 3 of the 4 extra jobs.


There's one more thing to do before we kick Exdeath in the treeth. We're southwest of Kirwen.

Beyond the Deep Blue Sea (Pixel Remaster)


If we dive where we could fight Stingray we find Walse Tower.


Remember early on when Seymour was able to wade through haunted ghost water for hours on end without complaint? The game sure doesn't.


*blurble*




In the ballpark of exactly 7 minutes give or take a nothing.


7 minutes to dive down 10 floors is more than enough.


There are encounters here, the silhouettes are enemies we've seen before so no need to worry about fleshing out the bestiary. However if you're lacking some Blue Magic most enemies here have something.


It doesn't take long to reach the bottom if you run from what encounters you come across.


I have ideas so I'm setting up a backup save.




That's my crystal give it back it doesn't even fit.

Moogle's Theme




Gogo is overselling their fame as only people from Corwyn know about them.




Mimic extroaordinare! The basis- no, the very soul of mimicry is the ability to aptly imitate anything, no matter the situation.




When you attack, I, too will attack in like. When you cast a spell, I, too will cast that spell. Could you imitate me, you'd certainly win.


Gogo likes to hear themselves talk.


So it took 30 seconds to hear their spiel. And did you notice what wasn't mentioned?


!Mix, in this case potion (or hi-potion) and dragon fang gives the target 20 more levels. So faris is now level 58.


78


98


That's... I mean we can only go up to 99 right? May as well stop, right?


Gogo doesn't mimic !Spellblade either.


So performance enhancing drugs (or performance enhancing performances) can surpass the level cap. Old versions capped at 255 and I don't know if that's still true. I guess I need to see later.


Gogo has 47,714 HP to their name. As King of Mimes you need to make sure when you take a shot you don't miss.


So I definitely over leveled as Gogo is going to die in 6 hits.


It's better this way. If I let Gogo live they might end up in Ankh-Morpork and sentenced to life in the snake pit holding a sign "LEARN THE WORDS".


But that wasn't how it was supposed to be.


Reloading the quicksave we do things the way Gogo wants to.


You have to wait a minute after their monolog to win.


If you tried fighting Gogo without a decisive alpha strike they would counter attacks with a hard physical, and counter magic with strong spells as well.


If you were to knock them down to 30,000 HP Gogo takes the gloves off and turns into a straight fight where those hard counters become normal attacks.


So now we get to listen to Gogo explaining what we did.


As you can see the countdown timer is still going.




I think that's oxygen deprivation Seymour is feeling.




Thanks Gogo, but I'm not going to mime anything.


Oh that I can do, it's just stopping at the legs that will be the hard part.




Still no ABP though for some reason (e: It was suggested that since everyone is in Freelancer that ABP awarding is disabled), I remember Gogo giving like 50 ABP which is good for topping off a few jobs if I didn't just give up on learning things.




I'll turn Mime on next time.


So Gogo took almost half our time talking our ears off. There was a chest I walked by that was closed despite opening it long ago.


It's now filled with air.


FYI going back to the sub also resets the counter in the event you need to search for Blue Magic.

Next time, there's nothing else left for us but to take on the final dungeon.