Part 24: Bartz vs. A Turtle

Not too much to say, really. At least Reina's getting closer to mastering Ninja.





So last time, Zeza blew up, so we called dibs on his submarine. Now we have a new method of transportation, which we can use to continue the plot.



The submarine opens up only three new areas of importance, one of which is optional. We'll go to all of them this update, but let's stop by Surgate and get Galuf an updated spear.





And also to see the guards mourn the loss of their king, I guess.



So Gill's cave is where it was when it wasn't underwater.



Same submarine music, but with a semi-short yet slightly-annoying dungeon.



Radiators are more pests than anything, as they don't have the high physical defense of flans. They're just more generic enemies with weird names.



Also, between the HairOrnament and that big stack of MP, Bartz could just spam summons throughout each dungeon and still have enough to spam a boss. Fun times.



The other significant enemy here is Metamorpha.





His gimmick is morphing into one of several monsters, in this case an Elf Toad. He still keeps the same HP, and really he gets off one attack before morphing back.



In his Elf Toad form, he just toads someone.



The guy's pretty beefy, taking three attacks fron Reina to go down, but at least he gives a decent 3ABP.





Ngahhh! Geez, it's heavy!



Simple puzzle room. Put the stone in a chest to unlock a door. It's all trial-and-error unless you're using a FAQ.



Another Metamorpha form.





You need to first go to this room to open a passage...



...so you can go through it to open another door. This dungeon doesn't have the best design in the series.



Metamorpha can also turn into summons like Shiva and Ramuh, though they'll just spam a multi-target spell before morphing back.



Galuf picks up Jump, which is kinda meh considering it only somewhat shines when you have a spear to multiply damage. I guess it's a nice attack option for a fragile character, but again, when would it be worth the ability slot?





Hidden paths and more switches! Hooray!









OH FUCK



ZomBreath will turn any character outright killed by the attack into a zombie, like Faris. Zombies will just auto-attack what-the-fuck ever, friend, foe, who gives a shit. Holy Water will cure it.

To think, if you guys gave Faris Ninja, we'd have a Zombie Ninja Pirate right now. I think that's all the big cliches.



At any rate, got L4 Summoning for Bartz. Now it's time to switch to White Mage, since we're coming up on L5 magic soon.









Now we're at the end of the dungeon. Just gotta find the sage and



what









Hey, this's pretty fun!





A talking turtle is startling enough to sent everyone flying back kung-fu-style.

So of course I alter it a bit.



Much better.



In the GBA version, Bartz exclaims, "Sweet Christmas!" Now let's discuss the ramifications of having Christianity in the Final Fantasy universe.



You mean this turtle's...
...Sage Gill?!



It's been awhile since we had a good Faris line. Apparently the GBA translator liked it so much, he kept it in that version. Faris doesn't even get a line here in the RPGe version.



"You made her speak like a moron again!

Well, I'm all right!

So before we get into the plot dump here, let's talk about Gill. In this and the RPGe versions, he's a rather generic "wise person" who gives the party information while not really having a personality beyond "talking turtle." The GBA version, on the other hand, takes quite a few liberties with Gill (Ghido in that version), making him into much more of a smart-ass. Because of this, Gill ends up having some of the most entertaining dialogue in that version of the game. Thus, I'll only be posting his best lines from that version since otherwise I'd be quoting every fucking line he says, but in general imagine most of his lines in the GBA version having a smart-ass joke involved.



You mean X-Death?
Precisely! What he seeks is in Moore Forest!
Moore Forest?

Great Forest of Mua in the RPGe translation.



500 years ago, evil spirits sealed in that, turned a tree into a monster! That was X-Death... For 500 years he was sealed there...until 30 years ago when he broke out.

So now we know X-Death's origin story. He was literally a tree tainted by evil. This version's kinda vague since they fucked up the sentence above (that's not a typo, that's the game's awkward wording). RPGe suggests an evil spirit turned a tree into a monster, GBA suggests a bunch of evil spirits being shoved into a tree. Both kinda work, in a way.



Drogan and the others did well, using the crystals to seal him up. But he managed to break out.
That was our fault...
No, I'm not saying that. Sealed things break now and then. But this time, we must defeat him!
Where is he?
Moore Forest... he seeks something there...
Moore Forest...



For Zeza!
An' th' end o' X-Death!
Let's go!

Yeah, that's three apostrophes used to shorten words by just one letter in a five-word sentence. What in the fucking god damn hell, Faris.



...
Take this with you.



Elder's Branch... part of the protector of the seal. Only with this can you enter the forest. Now hurry! X-Death is already on his way there now!
Right!

So basically we came here just to get a plot McGuffin. The Moore Forest is in another submarine spot, and we need that branch to enter it. Thus, the only reason we came here was to find out X-Death was a tree.



Also, I hope you have Teleport or else you'll have to backtrack out.



Our next destination is the dot directly to the west. Before we go there, though, let's check out the northwest location first.





Iron Dresses have huge defenses and evasion, while Druids cast nasty spells.







Like Encircle, which removes someone from the battle completely.





We end up in an enclosed area inaccessible by the dragon.



The only landmark of interest is this forest...





...is a chocobo we can't ride, even though it'd be useless even if we could.



Here's the enemies you'll encounter here. Cure Beasts do as you expect, while Bald Money makes no god damn sense.



Faris has the Dancing Dagger equipped, letting her sometimes do Dance, leading to this. She's in the back row since I was just spamming Earth in the last dungeon, thus the lower damage.



But none of this shit is the reason we came here, so I spam Dustbomb until



That's right, with the only god damn clue being some guy half-assedly mentioning this guy in Surgate, we can randomly run into Shoat. At least Golem has a very high chance of happening, and it's kinda simple to realize what's going on there. With Shoat, you have to talk to a specific NPC in a hidden area, know this is the area to go, and just wander around until Shoat decides to pop up like ten battles later. It's trivial to miss him unless you know exactly where he is.





Anyway, he can hit hard and likes to petrify two people in one turn, so always be healing that.





Anyway, our reward is getting a new summon.



Finishing off our L3 summons, Shoat will inflict petrification on all enemies. Handy since Break is single-target, though I doubt I'll use it often.





The final spot takes us here, another area inaccessible by dragon. To the east is Moore Forest, our next destination. Let's go to the town instead.





The last village we find in Galuf's world is this one.



It's pretty god damn remote for a village.



Thus the people here are rather weird.



We get a second HuntingKnife here. Remember, this is the Main Gauche, or the weapon that boosts evade.



There's something else here that's interesting, but we can't get to it right now.



This pub just gives you hints about the next dungeon, including an old man talking about a moogle and people talking about tree spirits.





We also find the penultimate piano. Just one to go!





There's new armor and weapons. The Air Lancet's a step up on everything besides Reina's DoubleLances. I hold off on armor because...



...LEVEL FIVE SPELLS







I assume I don't need to explain the L3 spells other than "they're awesome." Reflect lets certain spells bounce off a character back to the other side, while Berserk has the target do nothing but physical attacks. Old inflicts Old on an enemy, lowering their level and thus their stats as the fight progresses. Meh. Demi2 lowers an enemy's HP to 1/4 its current value, which'd be better if gravity spells worked on more enemies. The true prize for Time Magic is Haste2, casting Haste on the entire party in one go. Nice.



Next time, I'll probably do a bit more grinding to get L5 magic and to make progress on some of the beefier jobs. After that, we'll tackle the first part of the next dungeon, which will be a long one.