Part 20: On this very special episode...

Chapter 19 - On this very special episode...





So you guys voted we do Terra and Cyan's stuff first. Terra's shorter, so I'm starting with her.





Teenagers will be teenagers.



Duane, of course, is scared shitless he's going to be a father at seventeen or so. Especially at the end of the world, I'd assume.



How great of you to show up unannounced in our secret location during a personal crisis. Really, great timing.
Yeah, yeah. Good to see you're alive too.





Hah! I don't blame the kid.
Setzer!
Ah, I remember all the pregnancy scares I had in my youth.
Yeah, nobody's buying any of that, brother.



Bah! This stupid teenage soap opera has bored me to death. Someone tell Kefka to blow me up before I have to tolerate any more of this foolishness.



Lady luck smiles on me again!







Phunbaba's got a few more tricks up his sleeve this time. Avalanche does some good damage.



1000 Needles is still instant death to anyone, though Sabin will crack 1000 HP before long due to Golem/being over-leveled/equipment boosts.



And Bolt 3, which really hurts Sabin and Setzer, my guys with crap magic defense.



That said, I keep the offense going on him with Celes and Setzer on healing duty.



Things get slightly more complicated though once he blows those two away.







Morphed Terra does solid damage with Fire2, exploiting Phunbaba's weakness. It does similar damage to Bum Rush!

Edgar goes on healing duty at this point, with Sabin on the offense and Terra playing utility.



Not too bad overall.





That said, the children understandably lose their minds over watching their mother turn into a pink blob of godlike power.











Heh, if you needed someone to show you what love was, I could've done that easily with a bottle of wine and-
Brother! There are children present!



I have to go burn a clown to death.



And so we leave the children all by themselves to be eaten by the local wildlife.



But we've got Terra back, so it's all good.



And since I can change my party now, I also grab Gau, since he's the easiest character to recruit.



Though he's incredibly underleveled considering I haven't actually used him since Zozo. But now he has Fenrir, which will play much better to his strengths of being crazy-fast.



I got a crap rotation on the Veldt and couldn't find any new rages, so I'll get back to those later.



Next up is Cyan. While we could probably skip to Mt. Zozo, Maranda has story and new stuff to buy.









(Nah, might just be imagining things...)









The game still holds your hand heavily at this point, leading you to Cyan, then having him tell you to get Gau, which would naturally lead you to the cave with Shadow/Relm. Only then does the game tell you to do whatever.



The Falchion and Crystal swords have the same power, a 30-point increase over the Blood/Soul blades, but the Falchion boosts Vigor/Evade and the Crystal Magic/MBlock. Both are the strongest buyable swords. Meanwhile, the strongest buyable spear, the Partisan has no elemental damage like earlier spears, but it boosts HP by 25% rather than 12.5%. I decide to get Edgar back into the Dragooning business now that he has the Dragon Helm and buy him one.



Crystal equipment halves Wind damage and is the top tier of buyable heavy armor.





Anyway, time for Zozo.







All just to skip by it in a couple minutes for the real dungeon.





And what a dungeon it is! The monsters are tough as hell, but the loot's definitely worth it.







Punishers live up to their name, using attacks like Flash Rain and Pointy Stick to deal huge damage. Death is common.



So the strategy is kill now, heal later. Sabin and Edgar are pretty good at that, with Edgar now doing huge damage with jumps and a Power Glove. Not as much as Sabin, but Edgar has a chance to jump twice, so it evens out.



The first of the elemental shields! They still absorb the corresponding elements, and more importantly, they're the first shield upgrades for certain characters since the Mythril Kite. Gau certainly appreciates the new shield.



The Red Cap's available to everyone, with a nice Stamina boost, 10 Evade and MBlock, and boosting HP and MP by a sizable 25% each. The actual defenses aren't that great, though.



More enemies with powerful attacks.



This odd accessory boosts Magic Block by 10, Magic by 5, and Speed by 3. It also ensures Fight always hits and boost Magic damage by 25%. The oddest thing is that only Locke and Shadow can use it. Considering both prefer physical attacks (other than Locke and healing magic), it's a bit of an odd choice.





The Colossus also treads here, complete with the Magnitude death attack. This guy was actually dummied out of the original game, though his HP seems to have been toned down.



At least he levels Sabin enough to learn Chakra, which is the MP recovery version of Mantra.



Massive 20-point boost to both Evade and MBlock, +30 to Physical and Magic Defense, +5 Speed, and freaking auto-Haste. Wonderful stuff. I give this beauty to Terra.





Chakra's not that exciting.



I alternate between a lot of rages for Gau, eventually settling on OnionKid because Discord can confuse enemies, thus incapacitating them for a bit.



Scarabs use lightning and earth attacks.



Gau/Relm-only helmet with solid magic defense and Evasion/MBlock/Magic/Speed boosts.



Sweet mercy, a save point.



Which is good, because we needed the healing for this guy.





Instead of elemental dragons, the dragons are now color-coded. And also still elemental. This guy's element is Wind, making him weak to Bolt. Unfortunately, nobody in my party can really cast Bolt, and Gau's bolt-attack rages aren't damaging enough.





Purple Dragon is all about damaging attacks. Break is one of the better ones since it only targets one person.





Wind Slash and Gale Cut are much more painful, though. Edgar, of course, benefits from being up in the air.





Purple likes to counter with Wind Claw, which is painful as hell, but at least easy to evade.



And just for laughs, he casts SlowX, which sometimes hits a Figaro brother or two.

So the problem with this fight is keeping my guys alive with a dwindling Phoenix Down supply and only Terra who knows the Life spell. Plus, Gau can't really do damage to the guy.



Enter the Conjurer rage. It has a crappy bolt attack as its less-likely one that doesn't crack 100. Its 2/3 attack, though, is Reraise.

Now notice that Gau has auto-Haste from Sprint Shoes, no needed input to slow him down, and a couple levels with the +2 Speed Fenrir in a hack where the speed stat makes more of a difference. The guy dies easily, but it's not a big deal when he just comes back anyway and starts spamming Reraise on people again.





So Gau spams Reraise, Sabin and Edgar attack, and Terra throws the Life spell like crazy. I even use an Elixir on her to recover her MP since I'm low on Ethers.



It's a long fight, but one I was never in serious danger of losing thanks to Gau being broken as fuck. Never change.



Our reward is the Force Armor, which has the highest Magic Defense of any item in the game at a whopping 75 points. It also has a nice 40-point Defense boost, 10 MBlock, +7 Magic, and halves all Fire, Ice, and Bolt damage. Damn fine armor.



Looking forward to them.



The rest of the dungeon isn't going to compare to that, so let's tell Cyan to knock this stuff off and help us kill things again.









Don't...don't tell me thou heard that.





Besides, this mountain is boring, and I've grown tired of cleaving bears in two.
You can get tired of that?







But these flowers are of an impeccable quality! Whoever did these obviously put a lot of care into them, yet were so adept at it that they managed to create so many of these wonderful creations.
Don't you live in the wilderness with monsters?
Yes, but I converse regularly with the many men and Magitek armor riders who wander the fields looking for a fight, and many of them have quite the highbrow hobby. Perhaps next time you should chat with your opponent rather than stab or burn them first.









So I pretended to be her dead boyfriend because there wasn't enough drama in my life.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
If you think so, then I really must have messed up.









The porno mag was supposedly part of the Japanese version, which is why it shows up here. Not sure if that was actually true, but there you go.





And some choice quotes from our recruitees.











And with that, we're done with Cyan's stuff...for now.

Now that we have more people, let's expand to all side-quests available. I'm throwing in recruiting Locke as an option now that doing the Phoenix Cave is actually feasible, and I've thrown in Fanatics Tower, Ancient Castle, and Cyan's Soul as stuff to do. That leaves Hidon, which I'll throw in once I get Strago and Relm back, and one-off bosses like Doom Gaze and the dragon at the Opera House, which I'll do myself since they're so short. I may open up party votes later, but I'm keeping them as is for now so I catch up certain characters like Edgar and Gau who are a bit behind on levels.

Vote for the next two quests we do.