Part 10: Galuf vs. A Werewolf

Galuf's close to gaining another level in Black Magic. I may switch Faris/Bartz back to Blue/White Mages soon since they're close to having enough spell levels to be fine for the next chunk of story.





I don't know what the other translations say, but I'm sure the excuse wasn't as stupid as "crystals are gone." At any rate, now weapons and armor cost a lot more rather than being dirt cheap. Oh well.



I go ahead and buy a Mythril Sword, despite no one currently being able to use one, simply in case I switch Reina to Sorcerer or Faris to Blue Mage.



New armor for everyone! Accessories in shops are rarely worth it, just giving minor stat boosts compared to nullifying Blind and evading attacks.



We've also got more magic! The L2 spell Poison is first available here, which, meh. More importantly, we have access to the L2 elemental spells, and those are pretty damn awesome.



White Mage can pick up Raise and Cure2, two very handy spells. Raise costs a lot of MP, but Phoenix Downs are still pricey right now at 1k GP a pop. Muddle has its uses, though why inflict status effects when there's a hundred different ways to kill a monster outright?



At this point, Time Magic also becomes a regular fixture. Demi halves an enemy's HP, you know, when it works. Stop's much more useful, but even then I won't have any reason to use it often.



Anyway, I'm ready for the Fire Ship, even though I forget to heal. Didn't notice that being arrested and sent to a prison doesn't restore my HP for some reason.





Just as I suspected, the ship's engine is draining the crystal's power.
The engine?
Yes. If it's not stopped now, the crystal will explode. Will you do it?

And miss out on some new jobs? No thanks. Let that baby explode.



Nah, of course we have to do it.

You can enter here... but beware of monsters. Good luck!!

why the fuck did you fill your steam ship with monsters (RPGe translation just says monsters have gotten inside, so kudos to that one for at least half-assing an explanation).





So, the Fire Ship. It can be pretty confusing with lots of branching paths. It's not hard to find your way to the end, but there is a lot of decent treasure to find.



And enemies, of course. Here is a Defeater. An odd name, but downright clever compared to the ones we've seen so far.



AHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, 2-handed Berserker Reina is a fucking beast. Look at that beautiful, beautiful damage.



However, this encounter leads to more enemies popping in. Their names?



Mottletrap. Yes, these are...Mottletraps. They're durable, and their Zap Waves can inflict Stop or Paralysis or whatever. Nothing too dangerous, and of course they're weak to lightning because robots.



Anyway, here's those Cool Dust we were warned about. Their signature move is casting Flash, which blinds everybody. It's a Blue Mage spell, and one of the easier ones to get since it's cast on everyone.

That said, I never had it cast once. Yeah, that's insane. Oh well, no biggie.



A couple battles in, and Galuf hits L3 Black Magic. At this point, I really don't need to level any further in Black Mage, so...



Now Galuf is a Monk packing powerful Black Magic. Now Galuf's slightly more durable with buckets of HP, yet still having most of the potency of a Black Mage. Definitely my assistant shit-wrecker, though Bartz and Faris can actually do decent damage with the Ice Rods.



Here's a Poltrgeist, which is I think our first palatte swap. Someone in the thread pointed out that this guy is actually a head with his face literally ripped off. I like it.



Anyway, there's tons of elevators to go between floors, since things aren't confusing enough.



And conveyor belts, which means figuring out puzzles to access treasures.



And this room is what will get us to some of these treasures.







This one just sends us back a bit.





The second one is what we need to progress. It also has a save point nearby.





The third one is what leads us to this chest.



A nice accessory to buff Steal for Faris, should I ever bring her back to Thief.



Here's Bolt2 for your viewing pleasure. Lightning spells are usually the dullest to watch.





This one leads to a unique room. To the left is a chest behind a conveyor belt, but the solution is simply go right to go around it.



Kick's actually coming in handy for this dungeon, as it helps finish off enemies the mages can't kill (Reina kills everything).



A nice helmet upgrade (though sadly it doesn't boost HP like the FF6 one).



We're close to the end, but we've got one more thing to tackle first.



These levels move these platforms around. Simple enough.



Hey, Faris picked up L2 Time! Might as well leave her in the job for the time being.



With an extra bit of fiddling around, you can get this Elixir. Meh.



This is the boss room, so let's prepare appropriately.



I decide to switch Reina to Sorcerer, since her skills can be effective here. Plus it'd be nice to have control over her for reasons we'll see in a bit.



Oh, there's the Queen. Just chilling at the engine room of the monster-infested ship. Seems reasonable enough.





Death to all who impede my revival!!

But...you're already alive.







Anyway, then the engine bursts into flames and the flames fight us.





Meet LiquidFlame. He's an interesting boss, alright.





Sorcerers have the ability to cast magic on their swords. Like mages, they get three slots per spell level, though they take their magic from other schools, mainly Black Magic. If you know the spell, you know its Sword magic equivalent.



Casting that element imbues all of that character's attacks with that element. You only cast it once, and every single attack for the rest of the battle will inflict that element, costing no additional MP. It's awesome as hell for boss battles like this one, though it's also awesome for being one of the few reliable ways to inflict certain status effects.



I Haste Reina just to see what fun she can do with a 2-Handed Ice2 Sword.



Of course, she's not going to have all the fun. Galuf puts his Black Magic to very good use here as well.







Once it gets hit with an attack, Liquid Flame will change to one of two other forms. This form is a hand.



Here's Cure2, cleaning up damage from that nasty Blaze attack. Nice with a Summoner's magic power backing it up.





Oh, did I mention this form is immune to ice attacks and magic?



It can also inflict paralysis in this form.



Eventually, I had to just punch the fire hand to get it to change forms.





This form's counter casts Fire2 on a single character, which can be very painful.





The third form is a fire tornado, which it uses to heal itself with Fire2.



Reina still couldn't land a hit on the thing, but Galuf hit it hard with Ice2 again.



This form's counter is simply moving a back character to the front row. It's not a heavy physical attacker anyway, so I can deal.



And FINALLY I land a nice hit from Reina, dealing close to quadruple-digits. Pretty impressive stuff.





One more Ice2, and the guy's dead.



It also has a unique drop, depending on which form it dies as. As you can see, I got the shittiest one. Go me.

SILENCE





Welp, we destroyed the engine and saved the crystal. Go us?



I was possessed by some force...an evil force...Seeking out darkness...
Your Highness!
It wasn't the machine that broke the crystal...



Please save the crystal. The entrance is through that pipe...

So there's more to this than simply all the crystals deciding to randomly shatter at once. Fair enough.



So let's fail at save the crystal.





Well... That's certainly one way to store a crystal.





Then the wolf huffs and puffs and blows up an entrance to the place.

OH! You're safe!!



Back off, Werewolf!!
Knock it off! I'm not your enemy!
What?!



You know me? I can't recall a darn thing! Who the blazes am I anyway...





You there! Stop or you'll smash the crystal to smithereens!!







...Welp. Of course we were foiled by some random schmuck. We're incompetent.



Then jam it up with a sword or something. For fuck's sake, you have that much power and can't fix a lever?





Galuf! You escape while I hold this back!





NOW! When this crystal goes the whole room'll go up in flames! Get outta here and protect the last crystal!!

The werewolf says "this room'll be a hellhouse!" in the RPGe translation, which just sounds badass.







Yeah, great job helping him, guys.









-----

SILENCE



AWESOME ACTION KUNG-FU ENTRANCE



...Or not.





The crystal must have lost its power...

A quick trip back up to the crystal room...



Where's Werewolf?
Probably the flames got him...

Well, that's a shame. Now, about those new jobs just begging for us to pick them up...



This castle is held together by the Fire Crystal!
You mean now that it's gone this whole place's gonna blow?







JUST KIDDING FUCK YOUR JOBS HAVE A TIMED SEQUENCE INSTEAD ASSHOLE



They're nice enough to give you a save point, and in the previous room there's a pot to restore your lovely numbers.

The castle explodes in ten minutes. It's incredibly easy to escape with a ton of time left, but here's the catch.



All those chests that were previously blocked by fire? They're all available now. And since the castle's about to explode, this is your only opportunity to get them!



That said, I'm not going to get all these chests. Half of them are Elixirs guarded by monsters, and I don't really need more Elixirs. I'll just grab the money (which are the only chests not guarded by monsters) and the special loot.





This one's guarded by Sorcerers. Nothing special.



It's no Berserker damage, but it's still good enough for me.



This chest contains a Ribbon! A Ribbon does what you expect, blocking all status effects, but what you don't expect is that only one class can actually equip them, one we don't have yet.



We could literally go out the front door and leave right now, but there's still good stuff to be had.







Karnaks are the dogs and go down easily. Gigas is the large guy with a ton of HP and some magic attacks.



It'll counter attacks by casting Aero on everyone. Fortunately, this does pathetic damage.





I pick up L2 Summoning for Bartz and Magiwall for Reina, the latter casting Shell at Critical health. Boring.



Our reward for this branch is a second Elf Cloak, which is fucking awesome.



All the way on the other side of the castle is this chest.





Gigas can also cast Aero 2 on a person, which hurts. Unfortunately, I couldn't get him to hit Faris with it so she could learn it.



Our reward is a HuntingKnife, which you may know better as the Main Gauche. This boosts the wielder's evasion, which is pretty awesome combined with an Elf Cloak.



This is the last chest worth getting.



Pfft, it's only my Summoner.



This chest gives us the spell Esna...Not Esuna? You clearly have room for five characters...whatever. It's a L4 spell, and the only one we'll have for awhile. Haven't ran into any Remedies yet, so this isn't a bad spell to get right now.



Before we leave, we have just one more encounter to go.



Sergeant: Come on!



The Sergeant works like those battles in FF4 where the boss commands the soldiers to attack. The Karnaks are pushovers.



You're no sergeant! Show us your true form!
Dwa, haa, haa! I...am... ...the bounty hunter...







STOP DOING THAT



Right, so we have a mini-boss in Iron Claw. My first plan of action?



Hasting him. Yes, I cast Haste on the enemy.



Also, here's Fire2 kicking butt. It looks mediocre, but this guy's got beefy defenses.





Here is why I hasted him. He has an ability called Iron Claw. When it hits, it knocks a character down to single-digit HP and paralyzes them. So why the hell would I want him to use it more?

Why, because it's Blue Magic, of course! Imagine Faris doing that to enemies. Yeah.



Here's Speed in action. Time Mage can actually be flashy at times, just not here.



HIT FARIS ALREADY.



NO, FARIS.



Then I accidentally kill him after he hits everyone but Faris fifty times each. Oh well, not like I'd ever use it anyway.



Screw the Elixirs, I don't care if I have over 3 minutes left. I'm done.



You know what, I'm glad the damn thing blew up. I'm not a huge fan of this part of the game, honestly.



And so our noble party stands in the sidelines, admiring the results of their incompetence and inability to accomplish any of their goals.







But who gives a shit about the dead? We've got more jobs now!



Trainer
Geomancer
Ninja

Only three more, but still. More jobs! This whole thing was worth it after all!



Even Bartz agrees that was worth all that bullshit and failure.



And how convenient, the wall is down!

Next time, everyone copes with the loss of their kingdom and the crystal and blah blah blah who cares MORE JOBS. Speaking of which...



Ninjas are fast, can throw items, and can get the first attack in encounters, but all everyone really cares about is their ability to wield two weapons. That's because dual-wielding is awesome as hell, including this game with all its awesome weapons. It's the Ninja's ultimate skill to let other classes do it, but it's not a painless grind since Ninja's such a fast and powerful job.

Vigor +15, Speed +14, Stamina +3, Magic -10



The closest thing resembling a Trainer is Relm from FF6. Trainers can capture monsters and then release them to do various attacks, giving a much wider range than even Blue Mage, though they can only hold one monster at a time. Still, they have some unique ways of interacting with monsters, plus they get Control, which is fun to play with and handy for getting Blue Magic.

Vigor +13, Speed +1, Stamina +8, Magic -3



Geomancers aren't affected by terrain effects like lava and traps, all of which are a pain in...one dungeon, maybe? Their main highlight is Gaia, which can cast a variety of random spells depending on the terrain, all for free! It's nothing exciting or spectacular, but it's also one of the quickest jobs to master, and Gaia's pretty nice for an extra ability when you have nothing else to do.

Vigor +4, Speed +2, Stamina +4, Magic +24