Part 35: Reina vs. Magic

Faris is about to master her fourth job, with Krile not that far behind. Unfortunately, Reina and especially Bartz will need a lot more time put in to max all of their jobs. I'll probably grind everyone's jobs to max before I tackle the final dungeon so I can have some real fun.



Anyway, first thing's first. Gotta get some weapons.



After you beat X-Death in World 2, his soul appears. Kind of a pesky fight, but not that bad.





Another tablet, another three weapons.





The Sage Staff boosts Holy damage. This will be great once I get Holy.





The Assassin Dagger has a chance of instantly killing a target, much like the DoomScythe or whatever it's called in this version. It's also handy because it's a weapon most classes can use, making it more useful than a lot of the crap here just on virtue of not being a fucking bell.





The Rune Axe guarantees a critical hit if the wielder has MP to use it on. More magic boosts it up, though Reina's lack of magic makes this useless for her. Then again, there's nothing else to really get right now since Reina won't be in Knight until I master Sorcerer.



On the way back, Faris masters Blue Mage by picking up View, a more-detailed version of Scan. It's still one of the dumbest abilities in the game.



4/5 done. Just Time Mage to go, and Faris can spend the rest of the game in Bare.





Anyway, I made a bet that I could run around the world on a Chocobo. X-Death vs. Gill opened up a path that lets us do just that.









Yeah, not much to say for the most part, though there's also another path opened north of Tule.







Once you beat the guy's challenge, he'll mention a waterfall. That's the only hint you get toward the existance of this handy thing, the Magic Lamp. It'll cast summons in a set order, starting with the strongest and going down from there. You can take it back to the waterfall to reset it. It's a useful resource in certain challenges because, hey, free summons.





Anyway, our reward for doing this silliness is a Mirage Vest, a nifty armor that starts the wearer off with Blink each round. Much better than the crappy consumable you got doing this in FF3.



Another thing that's changed is the cave of Jacohl or whatever.



Easy AP, but I'd rather run from trivial low-AP fights to grind up my Chicken Knife into something awesome.







Remember how that hole took you to a random overworld spot before? Now Bal Castle is right on top, and it's also how you get behind that door.

That's two mysteries solved right there.



Now we can go in there as we please.



As for what's on the other end, well,











It's none other than Odin. You have one minute to beat him up. That's right, just one fucking minute.



Of course, I throw everything I can at him.



Of course, there's some nasty attacks to slow you down.



It doesn't help that the fucker absorbs Holy, rendering Krile useless.



Welp.





I like the completely sudden reset there. No fanfare, no game over screen, you just get sent right back to the title. It's jarring in a great way.

I'll save Odin for when I have more fun stuff to hit him with.









We can also ride Bal's Dragon, though there's literally no point in doing so with the airship around. At least the Black Chocobo can access a forest in an area where the airship can't land.



Next up is me spending ten minutes sailing around where Walz Tower sank for a specific enemy.



This guy is rare, and I don't think anything tells you he even exists.



That said, he has one of the best Blue Magic spells in the game.







Guardian is better known as Big Guard, and it inflicts Protect, Shell, and Float on the entire party, in just one casting. Faris is now officially my buff queen, freeing Bartz up to spam Summons. The only buff she can't cast now is Blink.

Let's now get to the meat of this update, the wonderful Fork Tower.







explode?
Let's split up...



The gimmick is that you have to split your party up into two sides. The left side is magic-only, with physical attacks leading to grave consequences. Likewise, the right side is physical-only, with magic leading to brutal counters.

The game doesn't actually tell you which side is which, so it's easy to forget and send the wrong party to a side, causing a reset. The way I remembered it this time was "Might is right."





So I decided to try some gimmicks first. The left side has a White, Black, and Time Mage to represent the three schools, or something.





Each tower has a couple of tower-approriate treasures. For example, the physical tower has a Potion here.



There's also enemies that do nasty things if you don't follow the dungeon's gimmick. These guys aren't so bad otherwise, though.



The Wonder Wand can cast Black/White/Time spell in the game, though again, it follows a set pattern that will reset once you reach the end of it. Again, useful in challenges, even if it can be a pain to set up.



Anyway, we reach the top of this tower, so the game switches us to the physical side.





I decide to roll as Berserker Reina to have her solo the place.





There's an underflow glitch where a Berserker equipped with the Thornlet will go into negative magic, due to a Berserker's low magic and the Thornlet giving a penalty. The problem is that Reina has a magic bonus to nullify that advantage, so I can't exploit it. Oh well.



Also, these guys counter her EarthShaker and kill her.



So I try this combo instead.





Mute cancels ALL magic for the entire fight, making many battles here into complete jokes.



That said, these guys counter physicals with Encircle, which doesn't count as magic and can remove someone from a fight. If everyone is hit this way, game over.



Here's more enemies. DeemMaster?



Berserker Reina is hitting for 3000, which is around what she was doing with DoubleLances.



Unfortunately, her defense is shit and my brilliant gimmick plan was sunk.



Next, I go for another gimmick. Faris Flees from everything until the boss, where she'll cast Mute, and then Reina attacks with reckless abandon.



Money Mages. Alright, then.



Meanwhile...I have no clue what I was aiming for here.



Yeah, that didn't work.

Eventually, I just decide to tackle the bosses the normal way, with a Berserked Knight Reina and a Dragoon Krile in the physical path, and Dualcasting Summoner Bartz and Time Mage Faris wrecking the magic. My recording didn't catch that run, though, so I asked the thread for a more entertaining run to use for this update. I think the following will do a good job both using the thread's ideas and leading to some entertaining fights (at least for you guys, they were dull as shit for me).



First, here's the Samurai's ultimate ability, Fdraw. It has a chance to kill enemies.



I want to solo as Reina and Faris, but I didn't realize that the Fork Tower automatically restores everyone to full health upon entering it. Also, Bewitchin.









Bleh.



Eventually, I just run from everything.



So yeah, this run will have Sorcerer Reina in the magic area, and Bare Faris in the physical one.



Finally, I get the Physical Tower treasure. The Defender's a Knight sword with a good chance of blocking an attack, maybe 1/3?



Faris has the Defender, a shield, an Elf Cloak, and the Samurai's inherit evasion. The gimmick here is that Faris is insanely evasive and will mock the boss of this place.







Anyway, your characters will yell at each other and stuff.



Time for the first of two bosses!





Minitaurus attacks. That's it.





Fun Fact: Earth counts as a physical attack. I decide to do nothing but spam Earth for the fight.









Out of eight minutes of fight, Faris only got hit like five times. Out of, I don't know, a hundred or so attacks. I'll let you guys do the math on how likely it is to hit her.



My plan to spam Earth sucked, because Sonic Boom doesn't trigger and Wind Slash only does a thousand damage. Should've just attacked with Defender after showing off Earth.



Which I finally do.







And thus is the laughable end of Minitaurus.



Our reward is the White Magic Holy. Now we have all White Magic!







Omniscient casts a ton of spells. He knows a lot of them.



The first thing he does is Slow Reina. Fucker.



The Sorcerer can cast certain status effects on their weapons, and those status effects will always hit if the enemy is vulnerable and the attack lands.







He usually counters physical attacks with Return, which resets the battle. Of course, now he can't. While Mute wears off in a few rounds, Reina constantly attacking will always reapply it.



The problem is that Reina's only doing 600 or so damage, and Omniscient regains a good portion of that every turn with Regen. So this fight is won since Omniscient literally can't do anything to me, but it takes ten minutes to actually whittle his HP down.



Normally, he'll cast more powerful magic when low on HP. You know, when not Muted every turn.



Normally, his final Flare will hit. Instead, he goes out just as chumpy as Minitaurus. How appropriate.



And now I've got Flare. It's a good day overall.





And now the Fork Tower's gone. Next time, we meet an old friend and unlock more stuff, but more importantly, we pick up the final job in the game.