Part 8: Thread Title Drop

Part 8 Thread Title Drop

First up Matcha Zed has done us a great service. There IS a source for the Pixel Remaster OST, but unfortunately its embedded in a proprietary player on a page that I know I looked at when searching weeks ago but wrote off because I only scrolled down 2 or 3 pages of like a recipe blog when I needed to scroll down further. All tracks that are present from that site have been added to the updates.

Pixel Remaster OST

Today's update is a long one, as there's a new town to go through and back to back dungeons that I didn't really want to break the flow of.

...Also its February and that means the FFVI Pixel Remaster is coming out soon.

Four Hearts (Pixel Remaster)


Today we begin our trip to Karnak to save the crystal. Like the Tycoon meteorite, the Karnak one missed its target by a wide margin.


The welcoming committee to Karnak's shores are most of the enemies in the field encounter table. As with other games in the series Zu's have unusually high HP for where they are in the game, but aren't particularly harder. Aegir's are the first enemy that can inflict Old status.

Zu's are another source for dropping elixirs. Final Fantasy V might even beat out Final Fantasy VI clock elixirs for how plentiful they are.


The route to Karnak is just following the mountain range north and then heading southeast once an opening presents itself. We have a choice of going to the town, castle, or this ship with paddlewheels.


The ship is off limits, sadly.


As well as the castle, so we'll just have to go to town.

Cursed Lands (Original) (Yes, Karnak uses the same music as the ship graveyard)



The Library of the Ancients is to the south of here. Professor Cid's supposed to be from that area.
Those crackpots from the Library of the Ancients have been saying we should stop using the crystal. They'd gotten so bothersome, the queen built a wall to shut them out! Er... Obviously, that means you can't get to the library anymore.
A monster crawled from that meteorite and made a beeline for the castle's crystal!
The monsters (sic) haven't tried to attack the town yet... Small favors, huh?
A werewolf popped out of the meteorite! I wonder if he really is a bad guy like people are saying...
I saw this weird old guy get taken away by the guards.
Did you hear? They've got Professor Cid locked up in the castle dungeon!

Things in Karnak seem pretty intense, between the scholars down south pissing off the Queen and a werewolf trying to get to the crystal. A fire themed town is not a good place to be a powder keg of a situation.




Weapons and armor from Jachol are known for their outstanding strength!
These old bones sure do love a roaring fire.

Piano Lesson 3


Another step towards learning the piano.

Cursed Lands (Original)


Flash was what I could and should have gotten at North Mountain by sacrificing an ether, I'll be getting it shortly.


I guess I should have walked clockwise around town since this is the Karnak greeter.



That's why we don't only have the best-quality goods in Karnak, but the best prices, too!


Since the barker outside said that equipment is good and cheap, let's check out the weapon shop. I've got enough knives for now and I'm fine with just one sword.


The hammer is new and why I skipped getting an axe in Walse. Strangely enough I can't buy any more than one (the SNES release did allow for buying in bulk for here).




Don't move! There they are!
???
You're in league with the monsters! We saw you all crawl from the meteorite-don't try to deny it!


Things in Karnak are really bad right now.

Deception (original)


Well at least despite as bad as Karnak has gotten, they didn't take away our inventory, I could even take the discount hammer out and start breaking down the walls if I wanted.


Previous versions required you to stand around for a bit of time to trigger plot, here you can just walk down to the door to set it off.


Literally set it off.


Oh, horsefeathers!
!?
My great escape, and it's another cell! That was the last of my explosives too... Nuts!




Oh, you kids think that's funny, do you? Ehh... doesn't matter. The name's Cid.
What? The same Professor Cid who made those terrible machines to amplify the crystals?




Forgive me, that was rude...
No, you don't have to apologize. It's the truth, after all. I'm to blame for everything... One day, many years ago, I found a faded old tome in the Library of the Ancients.




So, I studied the crystals at Tycoon, Walse, and Karnak, and... built machines to enhance them... But I was wrong... Increasing their power output only caused them to shatter... Oh, it's all my fault!
But why are you locked up?




Figured I could at least save the one here in Karnak. But when I tried to switch off the machine, they threw me in here.
Sounds like we're on the same team, you and us...
You're here to protect the crystal?
Yup! We were asked to, by this!


A crystal shard shimmers in Seymour's hands.

What!? But that's a crystal shard... Who are you people!?
This is terrible! Terrible! Professor Cid!




What's happened?
You were right all along... The crystal's cracked!
What!?
I turned off the amplifier, but the crystal's power output has only increased...




Yes? What about it?
Most likely the fire-powered ship is leeching power from the crystal.
Professor, please. We cannot do this alone. You have to help us!




What? But they were seen coming out of the meteorite. They're in cahoots with that werewolf!
If they can't help, I guess I can't either.
...All right, Professor.
You're willing to help me, right? I'll go ahead to the fire-powered ship. It's not exactly a safe place to be... You get ready to meet me there. I'll be waiting!

Royal Palace (Pixel Remaster)


We're now free to go around Karnak Castle... but all the chests are blocked by fire. So all we can do right now is case the joint for later talk to its inhabitants.


You can't get near the crystal-not with all the flames blocking the way!

The crystal is actually just downstairs from the dungeon, but a little fire ball blocks the hallway to it.

There's a crack in the crystal... and flames are shooting out of it!
The crystal chamger is deep beneath the castle.
We figured out how to use the power of the crystal to drive our engines.
The fire-powered ship can sail even when there's no wind!
We tried turning off the machine before the crystal cracked, but...
Rumor has it that the crystals in Tycoon and Walse shattered...
The crystal's cracked and there's a werewolf on the loose... Geez, what's next!?




Captain! Hang in there!
The werewolf that came out of the meteorite is trying to get the crystal!
Karnak has prospered because of the crystal... Is this the end of our Kingdom?
Were we too reliant on the crystal?
The queen is missing!
Professor Cid is waiting at the fire-powered ship... Oh, where could the queen have gone at a time like this?

For those keeping score at home, the following crises are on deck:

• Dispute between the Crown and the scholars, including arresting the lead crystal scholar and walling off the Library of the Ancients
  
• The arrest of Tycoon royalty which will at best cause a sternly worded letter from their ambassador and at worst war.
  
• A werewolf has shown up and is trying to get to the crystal.
  
• The crystal is cracking.
  
• The Queen is AWOL.
  
• There is an impending economic crash since manufacturing costs have now quadrupled since the fire crystal is no longer available for heat treating steel on demand.
  
• All these Incidents happening at once does not preclude that Roland Emmerich is involved and things will get incredibly badly written at an accelerated rate.*
  

It's strange, but the werewolf hasn't tried to attack the town at all...







We scared him off with some of Professor Cid's explosives... But he'll be back, you can count on it.
Worry not. We won't allow any monster to take even one step within the castle walls!

Cursed Lands (Original)


I believe the only change in dialog in Karnak town right now is the Merchant looking guy who told us equipment was cheap. He now says that since the fire crystal amplifier is off things are back to full price.


Despite the increase in price (which was only present to lure you into the plot trigger for the arrest), the equipment is still a worthy upgrade. We can finally upgrade from leather hats and get some more silk robes. I didn't get any Silver Plates here, I consider the Kenpo Gi's strength boost better than the nominal defense boost.


Accessories start showing up in shops now too.


The weapon shop is going to get a lot of business from me. The Mythril Hammer was just bought so I could pawn it right back for a minor profit. I don't buy anything quite yet because the magic shops are open for business now.


The second level of elemental spells and Poison are available in the Black Magic shop. For the moment they're ahead of the curve since most enemies can be dealt with with a first level spell boosted by a rod. But soon I'll be throwing -ra spells around because I need fights finished fast, MP economy be damned.


Cura is the second level of cure. Raise revives a KO'd ally like a phoenix down. You trade a high monetary price of the phoenix down for a high MP price to revive. Confuse causes the target to reverse targeting, so an enemy would attack its allies and buff or heal the party if its got skills like that in its pool. It also breaks enemy combat scripts.


The Time Magic shop is light on spells since Walse front loaded them. Gravity, AKA Demi has a chance to cut the target's HP in half. Stop stops the target's actions for a time.

I buy out all these shops, and 3 more rods... for now.


Finally, almost 15000 letters into the 8th update we have the title drop. Behold the Wild Nakk, friend to mage classes in Fiesta rules.

It is here that I will finally kill my aversion to leveling. As I want some rods, also I need to get closer to level 15 sooner or later so may as well do it here.


??? is better known as Revenge in other games in the series. It deals damage based on how much damage the caster has taken. Which this Nakk chose to throw out before anyone had a chance to act so it did 0 damage. If it wasn't for the fire weakness and the fire rod boost Red Mage wouldn't be able to wipe the whole field, resulting in a risk of 5 angry dogs ??? your faces off.


???!


During the grind I switch Galuf to summoner briefly. Even though Galuf is de facto worst mage he's able to do about 20% more damage than de facto best mage Lenna in weighted training clothes.


Eventually I switch him back to knight. I had a plan for the next boss but it didn't pan out (I was unable to get to 2-handed before getting too close to level 15 and didn't want to stare at elephants for an hour.)

The Fire Powered Ship (Original)




Just as I suspected- The ship's engine is what's draining the crystal's power.
The engine?
Yes...If the engine isn't stopped- and quickly- the fire crystal will shatter. Will you go and turn it off?




The ship's been overrun with monsters!




He throws us straight in, but we can go back and talk to him and the crew.

Shut off that engine! It's all up to you!
You have to stop the engine!
If you don't do something quickly, the crystal is done for...
There are monsters inside the ship...
There are elevators inside the fire-powered ship. You operate 'em with the red switches.

The last one might be a useful hint, but I've managed to intuit it without ever talking to this guy before. Still, this is a completely different looking non skull based switch so it doesn't hurt to warn the player they need to look for something that LOOKS like a switch for once.


This is the last step before we get into monster town.


Apparently Karnak decided to obscure the level of technology involved and only put the machinery and steel below the waterline.


The fire ship is the first really involved dungeon. The side paths and treasures are no longer in plain sight and take one or two screens to get to, just far enough for doubt to set in on if you're heading towards goodies or progress.


Not far from the entrance we get introduced to the Crew Dusts that scholar mentioned.

Despite knowing in my bones that these jerks are immune to fire (and lightning), my heart still wants them to be weak to fire because they were Cool Dusts in PSX.

Also because I wanted to be lazy and not switch my rods from killing dogs.


True to form, they start casting flash when alone. I had to make this one cast it twice since Lenna didn't have Learning equipped, only Faris and Galuf right now.


On the way down the first detour towards treasure we meet the second gimmick enemy of the ship.


Unfortunately I miscounted and killed them all at once. These jerks also do something when alone.


Here's the freight elevator the soldier mentioned.


And here's what happens when you defeat a Defeater when they're the last enemy on the field, the strange tumor wyrm summons robot puppets?


If there's one thing I've learned is that robots don't like electricity.




Really don't like electricity.


Self-Destruct has its uses. Fewer in this version than in others but still has one glorious use.


Poltergeists exist for 3 reasons, first to screw up your ability to wipe the enemy party with blizzard spells since they absorb it. Unless you're rolling with a Blue Mage with aero they're immune to anything else in your magic arsenal right now.


Second to inflict confuse with their special attack.


This kills the Faris. Third, unseen since I'm not rolling with a thief right now, is that they're a very early source of Hi-Potions. Right now a Hi-Potion would be a full heal to everyone and a godsend if you fiesta and end up with a thief without another member able to heal magically.


This is a chakram that the thief can use from the back row.


I just realized I failed to mention the penguin doors.


Also another thing screaming at you to use thief apparently.


USE THIEF or some other melee focused non knight class.

The Green Beret is an upgrade to the plumed hat both defensively and with a slight strength boost.


The right door returns you to the conveyor room, the left leads to the final rooms of the ship's engine room.


Basically every switch in this room need to be flipped to reach the end, this one doesn't, but doing so gives access to the final treasure.


Defeater's script to spawn the robots requires them to be lucid. Putting them to sleep lets them die without a fuss.


This switch doesn't need to be flipped either if you plan to go to the end.


It returns you to the save point if you want to make sure you bank that Elixir you get up ahead.


Sleep and Confuse lock them out of their death counter.


Its at this point I realized I'm not getting to 2 hand an Blizzara Sword so just accept I'm going to just obliterate the boss.

Here would be the moment where I would warn you to get all your affairs in order, fill the bestiary and treasure list, but the ship isn't going away.




What's she doing here!?


Queen Karnak nee the Arch Duchess of Pottsylvania has strong feelings about our do-goodery.





The Fierce Battle (Pixel Remaster)


Liquid Flame is a massive dick. I can't overstate how much of a hassle it can be. This humanoid form has a chance to use blaze as a normal attack. Blaze is the fire equivalent of Breath Wing. And when it takes damage it does Blaze again.

Liquid Flame is quick and could act before you do so if you aren't prepared for it you could just see half your life burn away. And there's a room full of encounters between the save point and this, so you might not even be fully healed when joining battle causing an even worse hole to dig out of.

Not pictured because I don't want to deal with this is that after casting the counter Blaze Liquid Flame changes forms to a tornado (spams Fira on itself to heal until knocked out of it or it runs out of MP), or a hand (immune to ice, the jackass).


We're going to learn today. Veterans of older games know this well. I already demonstrated this with Garula, but I didn't show everything since I didn't have the everything lined up.


This will not be enough, but this is a teaching opportunity.


Liquid Flame (all forms share the HP pool) has 3000HP. This is the normal experience someone playing a fiesta with Red Mage being their only caster right now.


For reference, the order of operations for rod breaking is as follows:

Character chooses to break the rod.
Rod is removed from inventory.
Appropriate -aga level spell is cast on the enemy party.
Game tells you rod is broken.

This means that breaking an equipped rod removes the elemental boost before the spell is executed.


I've reset, because I want to unmake this jerk. Now in previous releases the inventory disables selecting non-consumables in the inventory. If you wanted to break a rod you had to equip it, then break that rod.


Pixel Remaster allows you to break a rod directly from the inventory. Elemental Weakness + Elemental Boost + Elemental spell you shouldn't see until about halfway through the game =


There is one minor caveat to that, you have to be able to equip the rod to use it, otherwise it's still grayed out. But why would you want your monk to break a rod anyway?


I could probably have one shotted Liquid Flame with a Summoner breaking an equipped rod, but this is Red Mage's time to shine. I said in the Water Crystal Job Summary that Red Mage is viable yet costly. Here's why.


Burn to the ground.


Burn t-


BURN!


WHOOOOOO

Silence


Oh yeah the engine's on fire.


Was on fire. I guess since that was what was drawing power from the crystal it blowing up means its safe, right?


Add a possible Regicide and succession crisis to the superposition of Incidents.


Okay, maybe not. I guess we're not to Roland Emmerich levels of obnoxious overwrought attempts at tension.

Queen Karnak!
I...I was being controlled by something- a creature of pure evil... It desires to envelop everything in darkness...
Your Highness...
The crystals... It's not just the machines that are destroying them... Something evil is using their power to resurrect itself... Please... save the fire crystal. Its in the room just through that pipe...

The Prelude (Pixel Remaster)






Galuf!?
We won't let you touch the crystal, werewolf!
Stand down. I am not your enemy!
I'm not so sure of that!




You know me? Ughhh... Can't remember a thing... Who in blazes am I?


We're dangerously close to learning what Galuf's deal is, so here's a distraction.

Close Call (Original)




The purple aura that enveloped Queen Karnak shows up around this soldier. But even before that we saw it... somewhere before.



It's no good. The switch is busted!


The ducts on the edge of the room start reattaching to the crystal dais. The crystal is getting plugged back into the power grid.




Save the earth crystal!




Get out of here, and protect the last crystal with your lives!
Werewolf!
We have to help him!




The pit that didn't drop into a firey abyss traps opens beneath the party, so even if they wanted to do something incredibly brave yet completely suicidal they're prevented from it.


Galuf... You're our only hope...




On the plus side, he didn't live long enough to steal my job crystals.


Immediately below the fire crystal room is this room with a healing pot... and a scripted sequence that prevents me from using it.




Faris, its getting redder, I'd say they're getting hotter.






Where's the werewolf?
He probably got trapped in the fire... couldn't get out...
We have to hurry! This castle was held together by the power of the fire crystal!
Hold up- so now that the crystal's gone, the castle's gonna blow!?

I may have implied or skirted around it, but it's reaching the point where its obvious: Final Fantasy V is a Saturday morning cartoon of a game. Sure, this castle made of stone and mortar is held together by fire, and the lack of fire will somehow now make it EXPLODE.


We've got to escape... and fast!


Seymour, please stop for a second and just heal up

Hurry! Hurry!! (Original) (This plays continuously through the castle escape)


Namek will explode


In 3 updates!


No, this ends here and now. Welcome to the Karnak 500. Right out of the gate we're presented with a major difference in this release. Time stops in menus.


I switch Seymour and Lenna to Black Mages so that -ra spells have better stopping power and more MP to keep casting. We need all we can get to get all the treasure in the castle.


And we're off!


I've made 2 dungeon maps for this, the first is like I did with Walse and Tycoon.


The second is the basic routing. If you're following along this will get you all the treasures.

Since we're on a time limit make sure that you fight the following enemies before leaving the castle:
Gigas
Sorcerer
Curr Nakk
Sergeant (kill one in a random battle, make sure he's dead before you beat all the Curr Nakks in the battle)
Death Claw ("Boss" of the zone, but technically can be beaten before this form spawns)

Collect all 15 treasures
2000 gil (3 chests)
Elixir (6 chests)
Shuriken
Ribbon
Elven Mantle
Main Gauche
Esuna
Lightning Scroll


The savepoint is not necessarily a trap, but you probably would want to skip it.


About a third of the chests in the race are cash, and they're free for the taking.


The remaining chests are monster infested.


Sorcerers cast confuse if they're alone, so they're honestly top priority.


Especially if they hit someone that could do real damage with an unluckly boosted -ra spell.


If you're going after all the chests, don't forget this one. My first Pixel Remaster run caused a small panic when I got to the end and saw I was missing a chest. The prize inside is one of the worst so it's one I've always skipped.


Gigas is a sack of HP and frequently counters damage with a party wide Aero spell. It's nothing threatening if you're keeping topped off. Honestly the bigger threat is the loss in time. They can also cast Aerora, but none of the ones I fought did so. I'll get this blue magic from another enemy soon.


Cur Nakk's when alone will flee.


The other reason I forgot about that other chest (a shuriken by the way) is that its next door to a Ribbon so it seems even more insignificant. Unless we go freelancer we can't equip it yet, but it provides a pile of stat boosts and many status immunities.


In addition to solo Curr Nakk fights, the only other random encounter formation in the castle is a pack of Nakks and a Sergeant.


The Sergeant will escape if I killed all the Nakks but I didn't feel like wasting the time or MP to deal with them.


After 2 minutes I decide I want the extra dash from Thief, and may as well make use of all th- wait.


That's better. Honestly I probably should have just given someone else the Mantle but still.


I didn't include the maps of the ramparts and all the small mostly identical rooms leading to the Elfen Mantle and Main Gauche (/oops spoiler) But these treasures are off on their own and require you to deliberately seek them out, but they're worth it.


That's 2


And this is the path to the Main Gauche. We're only 3 treasures away from sacking the whole place and yet more than half our time remains.


Along the way we're starting to hit Level 15, which is critical for the next dungeon.


The Main Gauche is basically the Elven Mantle in a weapon slot, and they stack so you can make someone incredibly hard to hit if you want. It's also an upgrade damagewise to the mythril knives.


Sadly the OST does not demonstrate this, but over time the music tempo speeds up, it helps the sense of urgency.


This is a throwing scroll, like the shuriken we can't use this yet.


This however can be used by White Mages, great for curing statuses, including Old.


I'm no longer afraid of random encounters, its time to learn.


As we step out of the castle gates we get one more fight with the Sergeant, this one is for keeps.


Once you kill all his curs
















As he yeets himself into the sky, may as well note that if you don't care about this next phase you could just focus down the Sergeant and mop up the dogs later to skip it.


Note: there is absolutely no mention anywhere about this famed bounty hunter, or any bounty hunters.


The reason we want to deal with his true form is this... come on HIT!


There we go. Remember Karl Boss and his 2 attacks that paralyzed and set HP to single digits?


Death Claw does both at once, its a very potent blue magic.


Either way you deal with the fight it shouldn't be too tough.


2 minutes to spare



The Prelude (Pixel Remaster)




Will you lend us your power as well?


Beastmaster
Geomancer
Ninja

With this we're kicked back to the world map, where we'll pick up next time.

*Update was written with the dredge that was 2012 in mind, I didn't realize there was a new movie.