Part 80: Episode LXXI: Rock My Dragon

Music: Underground Activities



So Yuna has somehow managed to bumble into a marriage with an undead Seymour Guado of some variety. I'm sure she has a clever angle she's working. But in the, if you ask me opinion highly unlikely, scenario in which Yuna is way in over her head. I suppose it's time to mount a rescue operation. Everyone on the Fahrenheit bridge once more has a bit to gab about.

Rikku and Auron have the most to speak on the matter...



“Didn't we... take care of him in Macalania?"
”You know...” *sticks tongue out and rolls eyes in back of head*
"He is dead. As dead as Jyscal was. His attachment to this world kept him from the next."
"Whoa, scary!”
”...Wait that's a THING in Spira?”
"Yuna must be trying to send him."
"Wonder if that will work."
"Perhaps he won't expect it."
”Hey... can we go back to this zombie thing...? Hello?”
"Bevelle... It's been ten years."

Soooooooo... Seymour is, in fact, a zombie. Apparently people in Spira if killed and left unsent can, if important enough to the plot they have a strong enough will, just sort of go “nah” to the whole dying thing. How can you distinguish the undead from a normal living person? Well... We'll just have to wait to find out the details.



“You or Rikku should study your magic, just in case."

Lulu may as well just go “hint HINT!” Learning any magic isn't happening at this point as I am not going back to grind so three people who aren't all that hot at magic abilities can brush up their skills. But preparing our Sphere Grid for some upcoming unpleasantness is a solid idea.





Particularly, that Special Sphere we recently acquired can come in handy. At this point in the game I like to burn that on Tidus to have him go ahead and learn Rikku's Use skill. You'll see why in a bit.



"It's called a wedding dress."
"What!?"

Are tailors in Spira unbelievably speedy at their trade or did Seymour already have Yuna's measurements for that dress? I mean... it's been like two hours since the last time anyone has seen Yuna. For that matter, how did Yuna get kidnapped from Bikanel Island and get hauled all the way back to Bevelle back on the mainland in that time? Spoilers: Yevon does NOT have any airships. This is the only one in existence in operational shape we'll see this game.

I feel like there's a lot of jumps happening in this part of the game that don't really hold up to even the lightest of scrutiny.



Tidus begins to wander out of the airship's bridge, but is greeted with a whole mess of motion blur and the ship shaking in turn. Were the other game cutscenes Square put out around this time so heavy on the motion blur effect? I mean... there's just The Bouncer prior to this. I'd check but... that would mean playing The Bouncer and eh... I think I'm good.

_{Yes, I own a copy of The Bouncer.}





"You're awfully calm about it!"
"I am calm about most things."
”Yeah it's always frikkin' casual Fridays with you.”





Rikku erupts seemingly from the ground to deliver a line in a faux-southern accent.



Pictured: A father's shame at realizing his daughter has become the quirky comic relief.



“If you crash the ship, we can't go rescue Yunie!”
”Who the hell said anything about crashing the ship? Brother. Where is your sister getting' these ideas?”
“E tuh'd lyna! Cdub sygehk dra creb cryga! E ys kuehk du cred so byhdc ev ed tuac dryd ykyeh! Ku!”
“...”



*fist pump* “Yeah! Let's go!”
“Thanks.”
“Rikku, you've made some very good friends, I think. Good luck.”
”You have my full support. For reasonable discount prices.”



Despite the fact we did a full tour of the entire interior of the Fahrenheit last update, fiends have invaded the ship... somehow. Look, they didn't want you to get locked into a failure state if you needed to grind out a few Sphere Grid levels prior to this next boss. Just roll with it.





The encounter rate on board is extremely low. We're talking I went through the entire ship again and got a single random battle the entire time low. It's the same stable of creatures that were attacking Home. Just no Guado handlers this time around. I think that entire race might be on a Kill On Sight list with the Al Bhed until further notice.







If you're wondering about the other supposedly combat ready NPCs, they're all busying themselves defending random hallways and making up excuses as to why they cannot participate with the playable party. Airship corridors are too cramp my ass, Dona. I've already seen the battle version of the ship's interiors. You could fit something the size of Anima in here no problem.

You're just being a slacker.



Our ultimate destination is the back of the airship at the observation deck. I suppose that conspicuously placed save point might have been a bit of a tip-off that some shit would inevitably go down before our ride on the skies concluded. The Al Bhed camping out up here will throw four Al Bhed potions our way if we chat them up. Not that we need any more. I have a stock of 99 AL BHED POTIONS. Hmm... HMM! It's like the game might want me to use those around now. I wonder what that's all about.



"Huh, now there's a rare sight."
"Whoa, that's huge!"
"What is that?!"
"The guardian wyrm, Evrae. The great sacred beast -- protector of Bevelle!"
"The red carpet has teeth."
"Wait, that means we're close to Bevelle!"
”Wait... why does Yevon have a dragon?!”
“Yeah! Seconding that! What the heck?! Nobody thought the church having a pet dragon fiend was weird?”
“Well... it is a sacred beast and... I...”
*sigh* “I've got nothing...”

The PA system crackles on...



"Rikku, you read me? We're gonna fight that thing! Get on deck and show him what you got! Go!"
"The ferryman asks a high price."
”Yeah... So do you Al Bhed folks have any more... I dunno... GUNS around we could borrow. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm getting pretty good with this sword and all but... Uhh...”
*looks out window at dragon flying by again* “...I'm just kinda seeing a problem here is all...”



Alright. So we're going to climb onto the outer hull of this plane and fight a dragon now. That is what our plan is, huh? We're going with that? Sure... Fine... Let's go fight the dragon. I'm not calling it a wyrm. I've seen and fought wyrms before. No five story penis anywhere in sight. Clearly not a wyrm.



"Evrae is truly mighty. Be well prepared."



Rin decided to sprint past the party during that last cutscene to open up shop one final time before we head out to the ill-conceived boss battle. How nice of him to... start charge us standard prices in a life or death situation...



“If we lose, you'll die too, buddy!"
"I have faith in your victory."
"Gee, thanks."

At least someone finally called out a merchant for being an opportunist scumbag. Still, Rin isn't nearly as bad as that O'aka shithog. Hopefully that guy got ganked after the Guado went into a blood rage about Seymour's assassination and they saw he was following us a round.








Music: Enemy Attack







Anyway, let's all climb on top of an aerial vehicle in motion so two swordsmen, a cat with a spear, a 15 year old girl with a dagger, and a guy with a soccer ball can take on a dragon in mid-flight. Sounds reasonable.





It's not entirely a lost cause. Captain Cid hasn't forgotten the missile launchers the Fahrenheit comes equipped with just yet. They'll instead be completely forgotten after this battle.



Right so... Hmm... Lulu how good are you at aiming magical spells? And what's the distance on 'em? This might be important information. Kimahri... Well, you still have that Self-Destruct Overdrive, right? What if we... hmm... What if we constructed some kinda slingshot and launched Kimahri at the... No? That's out? Huh... Alright.



“Y'all have to tell me when to move!”





"Roger! I'll give the commands!"
"Not alone, you won't!"
”What is this some dumb kid pissin' match? Our lives are at stake. I don't give a damn who does it! Just anyone tell me. Gawsh.”





Welcome to the gimmick of the Evrae boss battle. During this fight Tidus or Rikku can command Cid to move the airship towards or away from the dickless wyrm. But ONLY Rikku and Tidus because...*trails off*



People seem to have trouble with this battle but... yeah I thought this was a complete cake walk. Like to the point I forgot this was even a boss fight until replaying for the LP here.



Our first order of business should be to immediately do just that and have Cid pull back the airship away from the attacking dragon. Ignore how the Fahrenheit was a VTOL that could outrun a nuclear explosion in that FMV earlier. You can see Cid's portrait has been added to the turn line-up. It'll take that long from the time Tidus or Rikku yells at him to pull back to him receiving the message, processing the information, and informing Brother of our party's intent and pitch the ship slightly to the left.



While we wait for that, we can take a few rounds to wail on Evrae with our physical heavy hitters. Evrae comes packing a hearty 32,000 HP and is resistant to all magical attacks. But it is also not particularly smart or bothering to adhere to gravity's laws. So while the airship is close to the dragon, it will just lazily float alongside the speeding vessel, well within striking range of men with pointy sticks.



Given the elemental resistances, you'd think we would want to stay close to Evrae to pound it with attacks up close. But the trouble is the thing hits like a truck the first half of the battle. We're talking a single swipe doing 1,000 to 1,500 HP and a critical outright one-shotting the squishier members of our clan.





Given some time before Cid shifts the airship, our first order of business should be to Power Break the Evrae to downsize its physical strikes to a more reasonable 600ish HP a swipe. That will definitely make life easier later on. But for now...



Got to go! Yes, there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't just fly right over immediately to follow us. Or why you are flying sideways to begin with. Video games!



Now that we're at a distance, our offensive capabilities are a bit neutered. Wakka can, amazingly, kick a blitzball 500 yards, tag the dragon in the face, and have it bounce back right into his hands while riding an airplane in mid-flight. Yet he somehow has mediocre accuracy as a blitzball player. Go figure.

It goes without saying but Kimahri is useless while we're at a distance. But so is Auron as he is 100% physical attacks and well that's just not happening here. Rikku as well since her scrawny ass cannot throw any of her Use items worth a damn (beyond healing ones of course.) Lulu will have to back-up Wakka for a bit. Even if Evrae only takes 50% damage to elemental attacks, half a Fira or Blizzara is better than no damage output at all.



Tidus is useless offensively right now. But it's good to keep him out to get a buff train rolling alongside Wakka and Lulu. Haste should be the obvious candidate for Wakka/Lulu/Tidus. But Cheer can be rolled out a few times to keep everyone healthy and give Wakka's ball kicking an edge.



Evrae might not be able to figure out the tactic of flying closer to its prey just yet. But that doesn't mean it is defenseless.







As long as it is out of range of the party, it will spam Photon Rays all over the Fahrenheit's deck. Will strike random members of the party about a dozen times for around 100 HP each hit. It's really not too big of a deal. We're looking at 600-800 HP down for the entire party. It's fine.





That might be obnoxious to heal up. But remember how I gave Tidus the Use ability? And remember how I said we had 99 Al Bhed Potions in storage? Well guess what! This is where that becomes a great big handy thing to have set up. We could swap Rikku in to do the deed and... I even have Kimahri able to use err... Use since I'm sending him down Rikku's path. But we can barely break a sweat from Tidus' cheer-leading routine for a quick full party 1,000 HP heal and carry on like Photon Rays never happened.

Spoilers: Al Bhed Potions trivialize this entire battle. It's like there was a reason they'd thrown them non-stop at us for the entirety of Bikanel Island/Home/The Airship.



You may have noticed Cid's ugly mug is still on the turn order display even though he hasn't been given any orders. That's because while we're pulled away from the Yevon attack dog, he'll now use his next three turns to unload the Fahrenheit's missile reserves on Evrae's face.



Sadly, Cid dumped all his tactical nuclear warhead reserves on Home earlier. So the missile salvo from the Fahrenheit only does around 200 HP per missile for about a dozen missiles. Still, that's a healthy 2,400ish damage for a free turn. I'll take it.



Cid only has enough missile reserves for three guided missile strikes. But that's plenty of time to hang out at range plinking away with Wakka's balls and Lulu's fire. Wait... that came out wrong...



Once Evrae drops to 1/3rd HP (usually right around Cid's third missile salvo funny enough) it will decide it has had enough of our bullshit and auto-cast Haste on itself. There is nothing we can really do about that. If Tidus casts Slow on Evrae it will just auto-cast Haste once again to negate that.





Once Haste is cast, Evrae can performing Swooping Scythe to hit the entire party for around 300-500 HP and close the distance with the airship. So much for our nonsensical tactical advantage in this silly fight.





In the second phase of the battle, the wyrm stops goofing around and begins dishing out nasty status effects. Stone Gaze will petrify any party member it hits. Even if they happen to have a resistance to Petrification, it still afflicts 'em with Slow. So it's a real bummer either way. A petrified party member is essentially out of the battle until the status is cleared up. And if Evrae decides to be a real dick, it can strike a petrified party member to shatter them. Which both instantly kills said member of the party and completely removes them (and the slot they filled) from the battle.



Definitely don't want to go down at this late stage in the fight. But not to worry. Al Bhed Potions clear petrification right up and top off everyone else's HP as well.



When getting fairly low on HP, Evrae will burn a turn just doing a motion blurred roar and inhaling its breath. This is its tell that is about to do Poison Breath its next turn. It's very important to get everyone back to full HP prior to this happening.





Poison Breath, as the name might suggest, will Poison the entire party as well as hit them all for 1500-2000 HP of damage. Considering how nobody has more than 3,000 HP max at this point and Poison is no frikkin' joke in this Final Fantasy game, Poison Breath can be quite an issue. Well, if it weren't for one thing...



Al Bhed Potions also heal poisoning and top off 1,000 HP of the potential 2,000 that could be lost. So did people that found this battle hard just... never look at the Al Bhed Potions the game literally throws dozens at a time at you? They literally give you ten of 'em right out the gate back in the very beginning of Sanubia Desert with a message nearly saying “Yo status effects are fucked dawg! Use these in case of danger!”



That's about all there is to be said about Evrae. Once we're in close range, Lulu ought to be swapped out in favor of the Auron doing some heavy lifting strikes for a good 2,000 each turn (and Auron Hasted by Tidus of course.)





It's just a matter of having Wakka, Tidus, and Auron beat the shit out of the thing and healing with Al Bhed Potions all the way down for the rest of our clowning of the guardian of Bevelle. Who even needs Yuna for White Magic anymore? She's been replaced by science!





And that's a wrap for the Wyrm of Bevelle. The red carpet had baby teeth.



[Hey! I see Bevelle!]

Tune in next time for the most ridiculous wedding crashing in any RPG I've seen. It's great! And really dumb!






Video: Episode 71 Highlight Reel





Evrae Concept Art – No dong! No wyrm! Drakengard is an authority on this matter.