Part 7: Water Damage
Part 7 Water DamageTenderness in the Air (Pixel Remaster)
Enough about ghosts, let's go to Walse. Unlike Cyrwyn since this place has plot relevancy and its been mentioned by NPCs since Tule I've been referring to it by the preferred name, while I usually internalize it as the PSX Walz.
Walse has probably the most accessible inn, front and center of town. Not pictured but the item shop is in there as well. Aside from Kirwun and a few other rare exceptions, item shops are going to share real estate with the inns.
Long live King Walse! He uses the power of the water crystal to help us all!
The Tower of Walse is to the north. That's where we get all of our water.
The crystal is kept in the Tower of Walse.
But Garula's shy, so don't tease it, okay?The game has a major issue with Garula. Multiple NPCs make it sound like its a single creature. I'll forgive her for being wrong about where a Garula that isn't 6 feet away from her is (its in the plains, not the forests to the north).
Thanks to the crystal, the water here is the cleanest you're likely to find! Monsters don't come around either! Is it true that Tycoon's crystal shattered? Gracious me, what's happening to the world these days?
New town, new shops. We can't use any of these spells yet. I buy out the shop anyway. Haste and Slow will change the rate that the targets ATB fills. Regen restores HP periodically in battle. Mute is a strange one, its basically Silent Lake from Suikoden, a global silence spell. Certain enemy formations (most that you'd actually care to use it) prevent it from working. There's one where it is useful.
Chobobo does damage with a random chance of doing more damage. Sylph and Remora exist to fill up spell slots.
However, if you playing at home want to gamble with the summoner's !Call ability, you don't want to buy the summons, aside from Chocobo maybe.
For the first time since Tule I buy armor (checking the footage I didn't buy a cotton robe earlier). A couple Kenpo Gis for the monks, and an Iron Shield and Armor for when I switch Galuf to Knight. The Gis give a bonus to strength.
I buy a long sword for Galuf later, but really could have skipped it.
Still pretty low level, but the number I'm most concerned with right now is that 7/20 for getting Thief's next ability. I really want it for what's next to come.
This house is in the southwest corner of the map, right next to "Ribbit Ribbit!" Frog. I call attention to this because that pot in the corner is the only hidden item in town.
The prize is garbage but if you're going for 100% completion don't forget this.
That's enough of Walse, let's see if we can deal with the crystal.
Crap, guess we can't just walk into a sovereign nation's secure facility.
Before talking to the King, I need 13 more ABP, yet my irrational aversion to leveling is causing me difficulty. What can I do?
Well first I can show another minor but nice change to the remasters. You can get on your vehicles and animal friends from a tile away.
What I'm really here for is Garula (this is a gif, a real time demonstration of the harrowing fight).
If an enemy flees, the battle ends of course. The thing is that ABP is not granted by the enemy per se, but from the formation. So the fight ends, you're not dead and it awards the point.
I misspoke during the job summaries, !Flee is the GBA name, here its !Scram. I really want the ability to nope out of some upcoming fights so I can get prizes.
Royal Palace (Pixel Remaster)
Welcome to Castle Walse.With the water's protection, Walse is undefeatable!
While Tycoon had a bunch of scholars scurrying around the Wind Shrine, it seemed to lack for books, at least Walse seems to have a better library. There's a switch immediately beneath Seymour's Butz.
It opens a secret passage.
But don't take MY word for it-look for yourself! It's written right here in this book....None of these bookshelves can be interacted with, there is no book. You made that up, you belong in your strange prison.
Anyway, let's get to some goodies, there's 2 caches, the first we're going for is the store room past the barracks I'm in right now.
This room is just below the idiot guard who threatens us with jail. The button below opens a door next to this guard, but all it does is open a door to the moat. The door is more of an exit if you dive off one of the aquaducts outside.
The stairs down is the dungeon as he says. The door south leads to Shiva. The door north leads to hell.
Sure what's the worst you could do?
Unfortunately it seems he may be in jail for his own safety.
Oh hell no.
Well anyway, let's go to hell. In the (US) GBA release this is a non-issue since quicksaving reset the step count for fights. All other releases require high levels, specific abilities, or cowardice.
Surprisingly enough, I'd gotten this far before triggering a fight.
The Jackanapes is quick. It's got a deceptively low 666 HP, but sky high evasion and defenses. If I were somehow lucky enough to land a hit, it would probably counter with the a blue magic spell that turns the whole team berserk. This is why I wanted !Scram.
I was deliberately saying wanted earlier. I don't need it, I can quit anytime I want.
This jerk hits hard and often. And this isn't even the worst of it. If I weren't using a thief, Jackanapes almost always triggers as a back attack. That means everyone ends up with their rows reversed and their ATB completely empty.
Being fully aware of the risks and mitigating what little I could, 2 people still died. If I didn't have a thief I'd be lucky to have one survior.
These 3 pots have 2000 gil between them, and the most useless Time Magic spell. But the game tracks item pickups so in the hole it goes along with... that blue mage ability I already said I wasn't going to mention again.
A second fight was a certainty, thankfully a thief corpse is as vigilant as a living one. I didn't make it over to the treasure chest yet so I was basically writing this whole run off at this point.
But somehow was lucky to escape unscathed.
This prize is absolutely worth the misery of this basement.
With the mantle in hand I switch to plan b since the attempt is worth salvaging now.
And begin the endless struggle of optimize putting garbage in the accessory slot. I know others prefer the Unequip option in settings, but I'm fine with fighting with one or two equipment tweaks rather than setting up someones full equip load line by line.
Much better. Now like the ice rod before, the Elven Mantle is more than just those numbers below. It gives a silent evasion boost.
Round 3 with the Jackanapes, Faris barely survives. This sets up plan b perfectly.
Plan b is !Guard while running.
Cover takes a punch that would have been lethal to Faris.
!Guard negates the damage. Now all that remains to do is let Faris's ATB fill completely and just keep holding the L and R buttons and let nature take its course. There is a slight mechanical difference in how !Guard works. In previous versions !Guard remained active until the knight does something else. Here !Guard nullifies when the knight gets a turn. So under no circumstances do I switch focus away from Faris.
My finger slipped and I went diagonal
...Thankfully Plan B worked just as well for that fight.
While I'm not actually going to do anything with Shiva right now, I'm just walking up to show the way to her mini dungeon, just out this door.
Then up the stairs to the aquaduct.
And through the barely visible door behind the waterfall.
Hey, I got your precious treasures. Jerk. Heh,
heh.
Thats right I'm mocking that I didn't even transcribe and attribute the single "heh" that spilled over from your bloated first text box.
King Walse. You look well. I come with a request. Please, stop amplifying the power of the water crystal!
Ho ho ho... You must be joking. I could never do that!
King Walse, if left as is, the crystal will shatter! Hmm... I have heard about the incident with the wind crystal... However... There is no evidence to suggest the same thing will happen to the water crystal.
You. Are. A. King. Your people can go hang if they disagree, literally. You can do that. At the very least you can dial it down, turn it off for a day or two. Ask a priest to bless your water.
Look, we don't have time to be arguing over thi-
Hey King, what does your soothsayer say about meteors or comets? Sure they think its a bad omen, better turn off the crystal until the omen passes.
Especially since said omen is going to hit as close to your water tower without breaking it. That's what I call a sign.
Close Call (Original)
It's an emergency! A meteorite fell near the Tower of Walse! What!? There is no time to lose. Assemble the guard! To the tower at once! Yes, sire!
Move out!
Time to do some prep work before following King Walse, first to revive everyone.
Now to prep for learning an important blue magic.
Next, selling all the garbage that could possibly be considered better than the cape.
Fate In Haze (Pixel Remaster)
Next, we go to the Water Tower in Walse Castle, not to be confused with the Walse Tower.
This is the enemy I want, but it needs some convincing to do what I need.
Some enemies change their attack pattern when they're alone.
To learn Blue Magic having the enemy cast it is not enough, it has to hit. This frog ran out of his MP and didn't hit, so we're going to try again.
This is the second enemy formation in the tower.
The water tower second and third floor are identical.
Finally got the spell I needed.
Here's the fourth and final floor to the tower. The green spark in the middle is Shiva.
There's an exit down here as well so you don't need to go through copy and paste dungeon. I'm not dealing with Shiva yet, just Pond's Chorus is enough.
The third step is a doozy.
Now let's deal with the crystal. 2 enemies in the dungeon have things worth stealing.
Garula, friend of children has gone amok.
Ricard Mages have several annoying spells. Their steal is a regular Rod, they have a chance to drop a better one.
Ice Soldiers and Elf Toads are also here.
Mythril Swords are a an upgrade that will be available soon, but getting some for free is still worth it.
Faris and Seymour now can now have Monk strength on demand. And since there's nothing worth learning right now...
Let's demand it right now.
Are you sure your subjects will approve?
First, let's take a detour. Early on you won't realize that this ivy isn't just for ambiance. Later on you'll have to use it to progress and by then you'd probably forget about this.
Finally an upgrade for
Despite knowing there's ivy below to climb down, Seymour just walks off the ledge.
Anyway, let's get onto the remaining enemies of the tower.
Why should I care about getting them?
Say hello to Soccer's friend Y Burn. Honorable mention to PaddleThru in the back there. Y Burn has the same Breath Wing as Wing Raptor, but since everyone has almost double the HP since then that means it hits almost twice as hard. Whenever you see the strange manta ray with a skull face like a PaddleThru, expect fighting a wall of HP.
Y Burns have another early and welcome upgrade to the simple dagger.
This rounds out the enemies in the tower. So at the very least if you're going to fill out the bestiary make sure you've got the Ricard Mage, Y Burn and PaddleThru.
Something might happen that makes returning difficult.
And here's Ricard's
Here's the second to last real floor to the tower. While the first ivy climb by the king was optional, this one is not. The left ivy leads to treasure, the middle is a dead end, and the right leads to progress.
Second to last treasure, the last is right up the right set of ivy.
Here's the setup for the boss (the rows look strange but its correct since Galuf won't be fighting and Faris and Seymour are using Bare Handed.
Deception (original)
This is the last step before the boss and the last chance to get the treasures and bestiary entries for the tower.
Seymour sees more butz and is as confused as I am how a gigantic elephant tapir mammoth was able to climb the ivy.
They're controlling you, aren't they! Well, I won't let you destroy the crystal!
Narrator: He won't stop him.
The Fierce Battle (Pixel Remaster)
So Garula is the fight where the gloves are completely off. Magissa and Forza were a step up in difficulty, but like Wing Raptor or Siren there was still a visual indication that things are different by summoning a second enemy. Garula does all the work under the hood.
Fire Rods, like Ice Rods boost their respective elements, but that isn't all they do.
They barely fail to kill Garula in a single hit.
But that'd just be a waste of 750 gil.
So let's reload and do some preparations. We're doing Jackanapes 2, Electric PaddleThru.
Everyone is in critical besides Galuf. PaddleThrus special attack inflicts poison so Faris needs to be cured but otherwise preparations are complete.
Back to Garula, I didn't completely lock him down, I only mostly did with turning him into a toad.
I could have silenced him to keep him from toggling toad back off, but he's screwed up enough. I could also have blinded him but there's something I wanted to show off that needed him to have a chance to hit.
Garula starts off semi docile, but after a you reduce his HP from 1200 to 800 he silently goes into his teaching mode. Garula starts countering damage, up to two times. In the first demonstration he knocked Faris for over 50HP, in the back row with one attack. Garula teaches that a good defense might just be a cautious offense.
If I kept someone in Monk I could have let Garula take care of itself with eating counter attacks since you can't counter counters like an Nippon Ichii game.
He also teaches a lesson in new Pixel Remaster mechanics. Notice Galuf's HP between the last 2 pictures. Garula's Rush inflicts a status effect, known as either Sap or Leak. Previously Leak would do about 7 or 8 HP per frame or ATB tic before it wears off for a total of about 50HP lost.
Here it is 1HP per tic. But worse, also look at the picture where Garula Rushed again. Galuf blocked, the attack didn't hit and yet Sap still was applied. In this fight it's a nonissue, in another optional fight later having an enemy that can just stack a pile of statuses despite being blocked or !Guarded is extremely annoying.
And before you ask, no. The game does not play by those rules for you. Contextless spoilers for a later fight: Physical attacks from a mini'd player does 0 damage, and weapon procs NEED damage to apply.
And before you ask the other question, no. Quickleak was fixed since the Matrix release. Even if it wasn't fixed, imagine enduring it for 16 hours rather than 2.
Deception (original)
But enough sour grapes, we beat an animal that went rabid and obviously saved the crystal!
Scratch that, we just put down a rabid animal.
But silver lining and everything, we have new jobs to pick up!
The soldier in red stands up and without saying a word begins to walk away.
Then collapses in the doorway groaning for... Lord Galuf?
...Me? You know who I am? Lord Galuf... I couldn't protect it... For-forgive...me...
Protect... fire crystal... Ngh...The Prelude (Pixel Remaster)
RIP that guy and half the pillars of creation, but jobs!
Are they gonna give us their power too?If they don't give us their power I'm gonna shatter them more until they do, and get even more jobs out of them. So go ahead, resist.
Thanks for taking most of your strength to block the door, strength you could have used to talk more about this Lord business.
Let's get our prizes:
Time Mage
Red Mage
Summoner
Shard out of reach despite the platform its on looking like it has steps or at least a gentle incline.
Mystic Knight
Berserker
The sheer rage of touching the Berserker crystal is enough to cause the tower to shake.
The tower- it's sinking!Run! (Original)
Somehow, despite King Walse doubting that anything could ever happen to the water crystal decided to pay the contractor for the "in case of cataclysmic failure" emergency exit.
This could have gone better.
Thankfully no one got stuck in the undertow of a whole peninsula collapsing into the sea, though that still means everyone just got shocked with cold water and need to swim a few hundred yards to shore.
Or Syldra can save us. Galuf and Seymour go into Syldra's mouth.
Syldra! You're alive!
Lenna begins to lose consciousness and drift away.
Faris, definitely not caring about Lenna as a blood relation and purely doing it because a Captain doesn't leave a crewmate behind pulls her back in.
Sorrows of Parting (Pixel Remaster, yes the link is named wrong)
Everyone's back out and safe. Now we just need to figure out how to get to the fire crystal. Maybe there's an undersea cave we can have Syldra swim us through...
Right after everyone catches their breath.
Damn, the smear effect they did to make syldra's neck beneath the water looks awful.
Syldra... You used the last of your strength to save us...
Sadly Syldra can't follow that order, Captain.
Syldra...No more escaping death, Syldra finally succumbs to the wounds from flinging the ship from Karl Boss's whirlpool. So using her to find some submerged cave system is off the table.
Gotta think of some other means. Maybe the earthquake that sunk the tower was strong enough to dislodge some rocks blocking a mountain path or cave mouth like the pirate cave back at the start.
Let's go back to Walse to
Tenderness in the Air (Pixel Remaster)
The crystal is gone now, and with it, the water's power... From now on, we have to defend ourselves. I hear they found a soldier from Karnak near the meteorite. But Karnak is way over on the western continent... If ships aren't sailing how in the world did he get here?And if ships WHERE sailing, how in the world would he get here?
I can barely believe it... The crystal is gone Now that the crystal's gone, the water has started getting dirtier...
That Karnakian soldier crawled out of a hole in the meteorite to the north. He keeps ranting about stepping into something or other... A "warp," was it? I can't believe it... The Water Crystal, shattered... *continued empty threats about the basement and jail because its not like anything important or strange has happened lately.* The king was mauled by Garula... His Majesty is resting in his quarters.
Princess Lenna... Now that you've found your wind drake, perhaps you should return to Tycoon. Everyone must be worried sick about you.A hint to return to Tycoon in case you beelined to Walse like you were supposed to.
Just screenshotting because I want to rub salt in this idiot's wounds.
King Walse! You mustn't strain yourself... Their fire crystal is being amplified with a machine similar to ours. It seems that a meteorite has fallen outside of Karnak as well... There is no time to lose...
So there is some means of warp between the meteor that fell near Tule and the one that just fell in Walse.
But Karnak is so far away, there's still one more thing to do here.
The Fierce Battle (Pixel Remaster)
She's not sealed any more or less than she was before the crystal broke, she's perfectly happy to chill in her tower until poked.
Shiva is defended by 3 Ice Commanders, they're just Ice Soldiers but moreso.
Shiva has 2 different patterns. Right now I had everyone in the back row. In this form she alternates between single target Blizzara and multitarget Blizzara.
Honestly it hurts just as bad either way. If I had people in both rows she'd alternate between targeting everyone in the front row and everyone in the back.
Haste and Slow tweak the targets ATB. Slow isn't quite as broken as it was in FFIV, as some enemies are immune.
I guess I was just being overcautious, I didn't actually really utilize the flame rod either by snapping or casting boosted fire (its only contribution was to deliver this fatal bonk from Seymour Butz).
Also another Frost Rod.
Well there's no more stalling, let's find out what we have to do to warp or whatever.
Despite crashing down in an open field this (and all other) meteorites are surrounded by trees.
No button prompts, just walk right onto the swirling green tile.
Behold, the amazing power to warp people a whole 6 feet away!
Maybe a little more than 6 feet once it warms up.
Did he just... warp? We won't know until we try!
This... this place feels so familiar... And the oldier in that tower knew me... Who am I?
We're treated to a pan across the map as we travel by magic meteor juice. We saw this forest surrounded by mountains earlier, but was unable to see the northwest corner of it. The southeast corner is a little emptier now.
Despite everyone warping one by one before, everyone arrives at the same time.
Next time, welcome to Karnak, Flameo hotmen.