Part 6: Page 6

I fly my dragonplane over to Guido's pad so I can talk to him.

When suddenly, terror rained down from the sky!!

But this was no ordinary ceiling tile! This was the C. Ling Tile!


Thanks for making this the shortest scene ever, dickweed.


I manage to commandeer my dragonplane before I drown and die, so we fly back to Bal to see if anybody has any advice.


Surgate Castle, eh? I'll just have to check this place out.

I'm greeted by a warm reception.

I... have no answer to this question.

Luckily, their boss does!

God, you guys are so fired.


I go in, we have some small talk about how Zeza's out attacking Exdeath, I buy some shit, and head out.


I bring my dragonplane in for a landing on their aircraft carrier and decide to have a chat with this Zeza fellow.


We share introductions and talk strategy, you know the drill. Turns out this guy's another Warrior of Dawn, which is always cool.

I take him up on his offer to rest.

So everyone has a good night's slAUGH


Our sacred grove is being desecrated! I kill all the piddly monsters with my X-Fighters and attack their leader.

Who it turns out is this annoying fuck.

Poetry for the ages.


Protip: In this fight and all subsequent fights with Gilgamesh, you can steal various pieces of Genji armor from him, all of which have the second highest defensive stats in their class (the highest go to the Blood Shield, Thornlet, Bone Mail, and Cursed Ring, which all have annoying as fuck side effects). To my knowledge you can't get this stuff anywhere else.


Protip 2: You'd figure when an enemy's level is halved via Dark Shock, it would be rounded up (so that they couldn't get to level 0), but it turns out it's actually rounded down. Also, in this fight Gilgamesh is level 31.





Gilgamesh nearly knocks me off the ship to my doom because I guess nobody can swim, but I'm rescued by my dragon.

Zeza invites me to his room where I'm hoping he won't rape me.

Huh. Some kind of secret passage. But maybe it's a secret passage to a rape room.

Except it's just a submarine, and it can't be a rape submarine, I mean that's just ridiculous.

Oho! Quite a cunning plan on the part of Zeza! Well, except I'm not sure if the diversion really worked, since there are still a bunch of monsters in the tower. Maybe he just wanted an excuse to use his navy. I mean, no offense to our boys in blue, but no supervillain really cares about ruling/destroying the sea. Unless he's a lame Aquaman villain.


So it turns out Zeza is a master swordsman and an explosives expert, which I guess just makes him the coolest fucking person ever. We all hop through the hole and talk about what we're gonna do.


He gives us a communication device called the "Echo" so we can call him when we want to talk about ancient Chinese wisdom and cardboard boxes, and I head off up the tower.

I have a grocery list of several things I have to do here.

1. Learn some Blue Magic: The Travelers around here cast Time Slip, a neat little spell that causes Sleep and Aging status. I forgot to get Level 4 Quarter back in the Lonka Ruins, so I get it here from the Tricker enemies. In this particular screenshot, I'm going through a really complicated way of getting Level 3 Flare from a Red Dragon: I controlled him, used Dragon Armor on him (Dragon Fang + Phoenix Down, gives Armor, Shell, Regen, and Reflect status), and had him bounce Level 3 Flare off himself until it hit Galuf (who was actually level 31 so I had to Dark Shock him down to 15 beforehand). Was it worth it? Maybe.


2. Get this awesome Gold Hairpin: There are a few treasure chests in the tower. A couple of them contain money. One contains the Drain Sword, a powerful sword that drains HP with each strike, but has a few bizarre quirks: it can't be Double Gripped, and Sword Magic doesn't work with it! On the other hand, it seems to do the same damage from the back row, so it looks like the perfect weapon for Faris. But the best thing here is this Gold Hairpin, a helmet that doesn't grant any defense, but halves the cost of all spells! Yet another shoe-in for Faris, the crazy magicky Light Warrior of the bunch.


3. Get four Wall Rings: The WallKnights around here rarely drop Wall Rings, which automatically grant Reflect status upon the wearer. But keep in mind in this game "rarely drop" means "practically give away." I grab four of them, since you can't get these again until much later.


Having done my shopping, I get up to the top of the tower and get ready to break some antenna ass.


Except this antenna is guarded by a giant, gaping, swirling, ultramassive singularity of an asshole.

Literally!

Atmos, seen here being a stupid asshole. He cast Comet twice every turn, and it does random damage which varies from half of my max HP to like five hundred billion times my max HP. But I know his dirty little secret.

You know how Gilgamesh was level 31?

This guy's level 41.





So the antenna is gone, mission accomplished, right? Don't pawty just yet!


Looks like Zeza is having some trouble in the engine room, and he's not getting out of there. No, man! Get out of there! You're too cool to die!


The Hiryuu stops by the tower so they can hop on and get out of there, but Galuf doesn't want to just leave Zeza in an exploding room, which is totally understandable. But then, there isn't really anything he can do about it.


And he's gone. Well, shit. But what's this about coming to our help again? Is he trying to tell us that he just died in a small room filled with fire and explosions and certain death, and he's going to come back to life and help us again? Holy crap, he's Cid from the last game!! It's totally obvious! No wonder he's so awesome.
EDIT: DUDE I MEANT YANG, WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING, NOW MY CLEVER JOKE IS GONE AND I JUST LOOK LIKE A FUCKING IDIOT ARGH


Butz gets Galuf out of there the hard way, but he still insists on going back to the submarine to wait for Zeza. Um, sure man, okay.


But on the bright side, the tower is gone, and so is the barrier! Seriously, fuck that barrier.


Galuf waits entirely too long for Zeza to come back, but he eventually gives up and hops in the submarine with everyone else.


A plan is hatched, and everything is back to normal.


Well, okay, almost everything.


But hey, we have a submarine! And it doubles as a boat, except that there are no random encounters! Which makes sense, because I mean how the hell would monsters open the hatch and crawl in and fight me? Or would I see some monsters and everybody would climb out and stand on the submarine to fight? Maybe the monsters have a submarine too, and we get into an awesome submarine fight with torpedoes and stuff!

I cruise my submarine over to Guido's place, hoping Exdeath doesn't bring the island back up just to piss me off.

And I encounter a turtle!!

Good job! I used to have a turtle...!


I encounter it once again, and what's the first thing Butz does? He hits it. Way to go, sadist. And crazy animal lover Lenna just kind of stands there and watches, because turtles aren't animals, well okay they are but they aren't cute so who cares.


A talking turtle?!


A talking turtle that's also a sage?!?! :2monocle:


A talking turtle sage that kept an evil tree sealed for 500 years?!?!??!?!? :ultramon:


Yeah, so something's in this forest, and I have to go check it out. I will, but first.


I find this cave that leads up to an island where there's a forest where I encounter this hideous beast Shoat. He tries to turn Lenna to stone but she has a Ribbon on so it's all good. I beat his ass and now I can summon him!


I go through this tunnel in my submarine and surface near a remote village. I'm checking it out.

And holy shit level 3 spells!!!!!! (well they're level 5 but I meant Fire3 and stuff)

FUCK YES!!!!!!! This actually gives me a reason to use magic now. Before it was just shitfag weak.

I decide to further explore the little hamlet's piano!!!!!!!!!!!

FUCK YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See that? Almost mastered! One more lesson and Butz is gonna be able to play the piano so well it will transcend the realm of time and space and then maybe a meteor will hit something and it'll be like BOOM! What I'm saying is he's gonna be really good at the piano.

I have one last chat with a few of the villagers...

uhhhh

And I'm off to the forest!

Sure it's accepting us, that's why all the forest creatures are out for our blood.

I beat the shit out of everybody until there's some kind of tremor or something and everybody trips.

Yeah, you think Kefka or Sephiroth or whoever was bad? Exdeath started a forest fire. I mean, that's just damn evil.

I'm kind of trapped in this fire and oh my god I'm going to die but wait!!

This strange white cat bear thing hops out of a hole in the ground and urges me to follow.


Everybody mellows out in the healing spring while the fire rages on upstairs. Eventually it burns out and the party reluctantly clears the pool.


I don't know, man. Things still look flammable to me. The fact that I pick up a Flame Shield and a Flame Tongue out here isn't really helping either.

But then I reach this thing.

So it seems I've been summoned by the Great Deku Tree. Fortunately there are no irritating munchkins to block my path, but it's blocked regardless by some bushes, I guess.

But suddenly my stick starts shining!

Some serious terraforming takes place, and I get ready to kill Ghoma so I can get the Kokiri Emerald and blow this joint.

Okay, so I go in this tree, right?

And I'm immediately confronted with some glowing blue things.


And I'm immediately confronted by said glowing blue things.


The Seal Guardians use shitty physical attacks until they're reduced below a certain amount of HP, at which point they start using powerful attacks of their respective elements. Of course, because they're vulnerable to instant death of all kinds, I never technically reduce their HP at all!

Speaking of

OH SON OF A


Well, shit.

Meanwhile, back at Bal Castle...

Cara's suspicions are confirmed by a Mognet informant, and she hops on the Hiryuu to go rescue the party. Technically she can't get to where I am using a Hiryuu because it's surrounded by mountains, but also technically she shouldn't even have the Hiryuu. Oh, fuck it, nevermind.


Exdeath's torture regimen is interrupted by some ill-defined magic spell used by Cara.

Except that bosses aren't vulnerable to status effects, silly!

Exdeath throws her around in a ring of fire for a while, but Galuf isn't hearing it.


Galuf has clearly lost it. You don't fuck with a man's granddaughter!


Exdeath is normally a fairly difficult fight, but it can be shortened by oh come on man I'm fighting the main antagonist, you honestly think I'm going to win? He rather easily reduces Galuf to 0 HP, but he doesn't die!


After being beaten a few more times, Galuf finally manages to drive Exdeath off with the power of love and friendship, I guess.


That 0 HP comes back to get him, and he's pretty much done for.


Now, these guys might be pretty stupid, but you have to at least give them credit for this. The use of a Phoenix Down on a dead person is something that's yet to be done in any Final Fantasy after this one. But these guys went there.

It didn't work, but still.

Yeah, he's gone. Well, shit.


Cara doesn't really take the loss well. Seeing as he was her grandfather and all.

I let her sulk for a while until GAH

Sure, man, whatever.


Great! Wow, Galuf doing that soul melding thing really helped Cara blaze through the five stages of grief, huh? And she got all of his abilities


So Galuf is gone, but Cara here, and she has every single experience point and job point he ever gained. So really I guess you could say that Galuf has lost 2 Strength and 4 Vitality, but gained 4 Agility and 3 Magic Power, and he's got a new look going. An adolescent girl look. So... hey again, Galuf.


For some reason, I've been down under Bal Castle, killing Statues. You might notice that everyone has mastered Monk, Thief, and Summoner. This is because the Traveler class inherits the highest stats of all the classes it's mastered, and the highest Strength, Agility, Vitality, and Magic Power belong to the Monk, Thief, Monk, and Summoner respectively. HP is derived from Vitality and MP from Magic Power, so the Monk and Summoner have those down too. I decided to try to break down some walls and give Faris some muscle and everyone else some magic, though they haven't become completely interchangeable yet.

And why the hell is Lenna a Berserker. I'm making her a Chemist. Retarded.