Part 17: Bartz vs. Four Giant Rocks
So yeah, Galuf went back to his home world, so of course he's not in the party. Which is a shame, because he was voted the Lancer job. Guess he can't use it now, though!
Anyway, Faris got Samurai, while Bartz got Chemist and Dancer. I'll save Dancer for later, since I want to grind Chemist up a bit since Mix is awesome as hell.
Anyway, the plot says to meet the Ids, so let's do that.
"The Adamantite left over from the airship renovations is too dangerous... Went to return it back to where it belongs..."
...back to where it belongs...So back to the Tycoon Meteorite we go.
But first, we've got one final scene at Tycoon Castle, now that the king has croaked.
Don't be so sad...it's for the sake of the world.
-----
Sister...do you remember father?
N'garr! Twas more'n 15 years ago...
After all that talk about flying on the dragon... Now you don't want to?
I'm gone.
And...that's it. The only thing you really learn is that the Tycoon Queen was sick, and likely died of illness at some point.
Also, brown to purple hair. As a counterpoint, Final Fantasy.
-----
Anyway, on with the plot.
Bartz! Stay back! It's dangerous!
The Adamantite began emitting an abnormal amount of power! All we wanted to do was to put it back where it belonged... Wait a minute.
In the GBA version, Cid says "Jumping Christmas!" Now think about the implications of introducing Christianity into a Final Fantasy game. I mean, this game can get away with it because it's Final Fantasy V, but hey.
That's right! Mm...what's right?
I mean...um...of course that's right! There's not enough Adamantite left to re-power it to full capacity. But if we could repower the remaining three meteorites...They literally go from "re-power" to "repower" in two sentences. It's nothing anyone should really care about, but it's surprising how many small, meaningless details you notice when combing through a video game script.
-----
Four Valiant Hearts -
Note: This part will repeat for the next two meteorites we visit.
Anyway, there's nothing left to do but plot, so plot away!
Oh yeah, each meteorite will have an annoying boss. Let's start with this set.
The first boss fight is six Byurobolos. What the fuck. Anyway, they're pretty beefy bombs with a rather annoying gimmick.
Before we get to that, let's check out these abilities. Chemists start with Drink, which let them use special items that will boost stats like speed and strength. They're nifty and all, but not really worth the ability slot when there's so much more diverse options available, not to mention they only affect the person using Drink, of course.
Anyway, the strategy is to spam Aqua Rake/Summons while Reina half-asses healing with Critters. The goal is kill them all at once, as difficult as that can be.
They'll counter summons with Cure2, which almost nullifies the summon's damage.
Oh, and when they die, they'll cast Arise on the entire enemy formation. Of course, they don't die until every counter is done, so if you can kill all six of them at once, you can bypass it.
Whoops!
Then I finish off the other two, and they revive the four dead ones before returning.
Ick.
So, the Samurai. They are strong and evasive as hell, which alone is pretty awesome. Their big negative is that most of their abilities suck. That said, their class ability, $toss...
...can be pretty damn awesome. That said, this one attack cost me 3000 GP, so it's really only worth using for those especially annoying boss encounters.
Fortunately, after using Arise once, they run out of MP and can't make the fight last eternally, so they're dead for good.
Yeah, yeah. By the way, you can do the three meteorites in any order you want. I'm just doing them chronologically.
Which means the next one I go to is the Karnak one.
Time for another boss battle, then.
The boss here is none other than Titan, chilling in a giant rock.
I decide to be prepared and drink a Giant Drink, which doubles your max HP for that battle. Not too shabby.
I just have Faris smack him with a Katana while Bartz spams summons. He can be a hard hitter, but back row + Samurai's evasion lets me nullify most of that.
Then I get bored and expediate things.
This is his death attack, and it fucking hurts, thus the Giant Drink. The only way to cast Float right now is to control an enemy back at the mountain where we found the Dragon, but Galuf has Control and he's gone. Oh well, everyone survived at least.
Sslap does damage and may inflict paralysis. Meh.
More importantly, we now have our first L3 summon for no reason. Sweet.
One to go.
What's taking so long... D'arr! Let's take a look-see.
Oh, no! A monster! Again!
Here's the KimaBrain, meant to be a ChimeraBrain, my sworn nemesis after bats. It's got no gimmicks, it just hits hard.
Fortunately, I can hit harder.
It can spam all sorts of multi-target attacks, hitting me for close to 300 each with Aqua Rake. Faris is the only reliable multi-target healer I have right now since I'm using Bartz for damage with summons.
Of course, in terms of single-target healing, Chemists are nice in doubling the effectiveness of restorative items. This Potion would normally heal 500, though this is a bit overkill.
Oh well, it goes down without too much trouble.
Okay, let's go!-----
That's all four meteorites! Look at this map.
The point where the energy from the four meteorites intersects is the warp point. Be careful!
Considering they're likely never coming back to this world again, that's a rather weak goodbye between people who've been working closely together for the better half of the game so far.
Considering we're going to another world, suffice to say this is a point of no return. Make sure you've got all the Blue Magic and items you want before jumping in.
The light's fading... There isn't much power left...
time... Let's go!! Aye!There's a bit of a snafu here where Bartz ends up getting a Faris line, except Bartz actually speaks a line at that point in the other versions warning the girls that there may be no coming back from this. So maybe he's mocking Faris? Meh.
At any rate, the party is willingly leaving their home, possibly forever, just to help out a guy they've known for a month or so. That's friendship for ya.
END ACT ONE