Part 5: Update -V- Come on, baby, light my fire

When we left off in the last update, Reynn and Lann met Ramuh, Shiva, and Ifrit. Then we battled Ramuh and got ourselves a new pal. Said new pal went straight into a stack and bumped out Tama.

Before we hit Chapter 4 (yes, these chapters are still very short), we're going to swing by Plaza 99 in Nine Wood Hills for a short new scene.

Huh? Look at this stone! It's so pretty.

Oh! Those are the-called mirajewels. They're special the-items made by isolating a Mirage's abilities. If either the-one of you equips them, you'll be able to wield whatever the-abilities they hold. The right mirajewels with the right the-stack can make for a powerful combination!

Thank you, Tama. We already know how Mirajewels work. We got hit with a tutorial card the moment we picked one up back at the start of the dungeon we just finished. Geez.

Moving on. That wasn't the scene I meant. If we trot on over to where Serafie hangs out (near the benches and Tama), we'll notice that she's apparently picked up a new hair accessory. Let's chat her up and see what that's about.

Serafie Scene - This was included with the previous Update Video for length reasons


Huh? Guh! How did that get there?!

You didn't even notice?!

Ha ha ha! Oh boy, what a doofus!

Uh, have you checked your head?

Guh! How did that get there?!

I was going to say that Tama is always there, so why is that surprising in the slightest, but then I remembered that I booted Tama from the stack. How the hell did she get there?

Ha ha ha! Oh boy, what a doofus.

Both of you are doofuses!



Uh, thank you... But, what is this for?

The truth is...



Well, from now on, whenever you see some thingamabob parked on my noodle, you just go ahead and help yourselves.

That bottle turns out to be an Ether. So here's a reason to wander by Serafie every now and then. Occasionally she'll have an item sitting on her head that you can nab. Good stuff.



Back to what we were doing before. Now that we've snagged a proper team of Mirages, it's time to head back to Cornelia and scope out this whole "Bahamutian" thing.

Okay then. Let's check in with Princess Sarah.


[Sentry]: It's the Bahamutian Army!






Oh come on. It's just one dude. "Army" is kind of exaggerating it.



Okay, so he is armed with some kind of Power Rangers blaster. Still though, can't be that much of a threat.

















Okay, that might be a bit more of an issue. Those Goblins sure are industrious little bastards.


[Sentry]: They're setting up camp, right outside of town!


Reynn! Lann!

Oh, perfect timing. We were actually just on our way to see you.

*Quick cut to the castle*



So what now?

Seems to me... we're going to have to nip this little problem in the butt.

Hm? What do you propose we do?

We should take the fight to them.

Uh, well said, but as things stand, Cornelia simply does not have the manpower.

If you can just buy us some time, we'll do the rest.

Huh?

Me and Reynn'll sneak up on their boss and take him out!

What?!

Hmmm...

I-is it really that simple?

Well, he may not exactly look it, but Lann's pretty good in a fight. Thing is, he used to get picked on for being such a pip-squeak.

Please! As if you were ever any taller than me.

Well, I might have made up the "pip-squeak" part, but, he definitely did get picked on.



They were creeped out by your sick arm tats? Those are some weird kids.

.....

.....

Still, we were always kind of proud that we looked like this. Because it meant we were just like our mom, right?

...I guess.

Princess Sarah gives absolutely no shits about any of this. Her kingdom is in danger. How about you two save the family memories for later?

So! Let's talk more about Lann getting picked on! Boy, did they make him cry. But, after I whipped him into shape, he never lost a fight again.

Focus, dammit!

H-how wonderful!

Sarah, just tell them to get to the point already. I know you're really kind and you don't want to interrupt, but you kind of have bigger fish to fry right now.

But that's not 'cause he turned into some kind of bully-destroying machine. He just literally never picked a fight he couldn't win. Really, his threat assessment skills were uncanny. He always knew the odds.

Right, like that time he ran headfirst into a fight with a Behemoth. He sure does have a sixth sense for it.

Heh. Call it natural cowardice.

Hey! Watch it.

So Lann... How 'bout it? Do you think we can beat those guys?



Well, there you have it. So, are you willing to trust us?

Very well then. We must act. It is only a matter of time before the Federation completely overruns Cornelia. We will fight... and place our faith in the Mirage Keepers.

(Huh... What a weird thing to remember. I know someone bullied Lann. But why can't I remember who?)



I mean, there's also the fact that you had memories of your mom, other kids being creeped out by you, and your childhood in general. But sure, not remembering the name of an elementary school bully is what stands out as being weird.

Whatever, I was the one pressing for them to shut up reminiscing and deal with the immediate threat. Best not to go complaining.



When we get near the gate at the bottom of the town, we run into the Brigade Captain.


[Brigade Captain]: I am captain of the Cornelian Army 1st Brigade. Princess Sarah has appointed us as vanguard.





[Brigade Captain]: We have been informed of the particulars. We'll time our feint to when the two of you storm the field. You can set out just as soon as you're ready.


Can do, my man. At this point we could quickly head back to Nine Wood using the gate to the right, but I already did any potential prep work. Besides, there's still little reason to go buying items from Chocolatte seeing as how Chocochick has Cure and status effects wear off after battle. Her prices are still kind outrageous for our current income levels anyway.

So let's just head straight for the enemy camp and get this operation started.



Heading out towards Nether Nebula, we can now take that path on the left that was blocked before.





Welcome to The Watchplains. Looks like the Cornelian Knights have already gotten the party started.



Ohhh-kay.

The-WSHHH and BOOOSH!

Aw yeah!

There's another Nine Wood gate here in case you need it (or want to come back here in the future). We can also chat up some of the soldiers nearby for items. If we talk to that one way in the back...


[Knight]: According to the vanguard's reports, many of the enemy forces are capable of inflicting blindness. It impairs your eyesight and causes your weapon attacks to miss more frequently, although thankfully magical attacks remain unaffected. Oh! Why don't you take these eye drops? They'll clear up your vision in no time flat.


He gives us some eye drops. He's a cool guy.



Whoever the Mirages are beholden to must be close!

So yeah, we still can't catch us a Goblin. Well have to deal with Mr. Summon Gun first.

After moving up a small hill and swinging left, there is a small area along the bottom left that will lead to a treasure chest.



Huh? This thing seems awfully familiar.



Yay, more collectables. To those of you at home, we're now keeping our eyes open for the following: Occult Fan Issues, Girl's Diary Entries, Old Journalist Notes, and Arma Gems (the description says something good will happen if we collect enough of those).



Coming up on a clearing a little further ahead, we run into a Knight that could use a tag out. We could just be a dick and leave him, but that's not cool. We'll take it from here, dude.

Beating the Goblins and then talking to the Knight we helped well have him thank us with 3 potions. Our good Samaritan ways are rewarded!



Crossing the bridge and running around this rock formation, we'll find these stairs leading us toward our goal. However, if we keep going right we'll stumble on a treasure chest tucked away out of sight. It contains 2 ethers.

Ethers restore AP in this game by the way. They restore MP (Magic Points) in regular Final Fantasy games, but we don't technically have MP in this one.



Now we go up the stairs. Not sure what Princess Sarah was getting on with when she talked about "lacking the manpower". The Knights seem to be kicking a lot of ass.

Sure, technically they wouldn't really win since the enemy has a summoner that can bring out limitless (as far as we know) reinforcements. That being said, these guys are still doing a hell of a lot better than I expected after hearing Sarah's sort of pessimistic outlook.

None of these guys will give us anything though, so let's keep pushing forward.



In the next area, we come up on a little encampment where the injured soldiers have fallen back to in order to rest. The two knights we can speak to won't turn over any goods. The stairs to the right will lead us further ahead, but there's a gap in that fence to the left that we should check out first.

Also, around this point I decided to stop and have a look at the Mirage Boards to see what I could do. I snagged a few skills for the current roster, including the Stroll ability for Zapt. Sorry Chocochick, but we'll be swapping you out with our little Lightning Mage.



Running down the path, this guy goes flying out from behind the rocks to the right.

The Goblin force quickly turns their attention to Reynn and Lann. We're tossed into a typical battle (for this area) against three Goblins. Shouldn't be a problem.



The Knight gives us 3 potions as thanks, but that's the lesser treasure of this little detour.

If we take the path to the right, where the Knight was thrown out from, we'll find a hidden chest.







Sweet. So whenever you open a Blank Space on a Mirage's Board, you can use these seeds to slot in whatever ability you want. Going to hang on to this one for the time being. Once the Rename Prism becomes available, I may be willing to let the thread have a go at putting together stacks. I'll want to have this on hand in case I end up with no Cure ability.

During the backtrack to the stairs, we get a new group of enemies. Up until now the encounters had all been Mandragoras or chained Goblins.



But this time a new Mirage joins the party. The Goblin Guard stack and the regular Goblin are chained, so we can't imprism them. However, the little black fox thing isn't chained. It is adorable and it will be ours.



Mmm, hamburgers. Oh, right. So Black Nakk just needs a little smack to get it into capture mode. It has a good balance of stats, but its agility is its breakout stat. I won't add it into a stack for now, even though I really want to. Chocochick is still pulling weight and I remember using Black Nakk a lot in my own playthrough on Vita. That's another reason why I may let the thread have a go at making stacks. I don't want to just fall back into using all the same stuff I did in my original playthrough.

Black Nakk is new to this game, but it's based on the wolf enemies in Final Fantasy V. Cur Nakks appear during the escape from Karnak Castle, and Wild Nakks are found in the nearby forest. I don't know of any other appearances of Nakks by that name, but the enemy type itself is pretty standard RPG fare.

Anyway, heading up the stairs that we're supposed to go up, we'll eventually reach this camp. Our travelling partner then seems to take interest with the hut.



It's a potion. Good find, Zapt.

The nearby Knight shouts something about not being ready for battle, despite the three Goblin corpses scattered a few feet behind him.



A little further ahead, we track down the Brigade Captain. He seems to have bit off more than he could chew. Let's help him out.



This battle is against a mix of regular Goblins and Red Goblins.



Red Captains have shields while Red Caps just have their fists. They're just palette swaps of the Goblin Guards and Goblins, except with better stats.



The Red Captain does have a new ability though. Triumphant Shout will raise the attack power of the group, but it's still not enough to really worry about. They were only hitting for roughly 20-40 damage, and I have done no grinding or dicking around at all so far.



Princess Sarah was here?

Fucking, why?! What the hell is she doing wandering around an active battlefield?

What? No way. That can't be right.


[Brigade Captain]: I'd like to think so, but knowing her, it's possible. Still, we must focus on the task at hand. Don't worry about me. You two should press on. Up ahead, you will find the Bahamutian soldier in charge. He leads the goblins.


Cool. Let's do this.

Why was nobody paying attention to her whereabouts anyway? You could have spared at least a single Knight to keep an eye on her back at the castle. Just in case. Dammit, this is how you wind up with her getting kidnapped, like in FFI.



Let's just press on, like Brigade Captain said. Going up the stairs, there's another little encampment where the soldiers and Goblins are going at it. It's closed in though, so we can't help out or talk to them. Looks like they've got a handle on it anyway. On the other side of the fort there's a treasure chest to grab. It's right behind that hut you see in the background and contains 3 eye drops.



When we get to the next area, there will be a slightly hidden path off to the left behind a fence. There's a treasure chest down here that has 2 phoenix downs in it. Always welcome.



As I'm running back out of the hidden tunnel, I run into this dude just randomly chilling out. Looks like there were a few more summoner soldiers around than just that commander. Instead of the usual Goblins, this guy summons something special.



Give it to me. I will pry it from your cold dead hands if I have to.



The baby Behemoth is currently chained and cannot be imprismed, but we can change that. The summoner is right here in front of us, so all we have to do is slaughter him and we get to have our very own Behemoth (once it grows up anyway)!

The soldier isn't much of a threat. Lann and Reynn should be able to put him down in two attacks. Once he's dealt with, the chain on the baby Behemoth will break and it'll be capturable.

Hitting with physical attacks is all it takes.



That being said, this guy will not go quietly.

He breaks out twice.



Third time's the charm.

Like Black Nakk, Babyhemoth is made for this game. We've already seen what it turns into, but I'll save the Behemoth lore dump for when we actually acquire one of them.



Remember that thing I said about almost never seeing me use Jiant form? Here's one of the times I'll use it. We're still lacking any kind of L Mirages, and M Mirages are kind of scarce, so I pop Babyhemoth into a stack with Lann and Chocochick for the time being.



Moving halfway up the stairs, we can see a big battle going on in the field down below. Looks like the Cornelian Knights are still managing just fine.



The rest of the trip is largely uneventful. We can help out another injured Knight. This one sounds like a Lady Knight. She gives us an ether. Just across the bridge is a group of Knights surrounding two Goblins. Good work, guys.



Just up the stairs from there, we finally hit a Save Point. You know what that means. Save here and get ready.



Before going too far North, stick to the fence along the bottom of the screen and you'll come to another chest with 3 potions.



Moving about halfway into the clearing will trigger a scene. Looks like Princess Sarah is roaming around here after all.

Huh?

The princess? Dude, she is here!



Ignoring the fact that she should not be taking a stroll through an active battlefield, why is she decked out in full regalia? Is she trying to make herself a target? This is how you get kidnapped you idiot!



Speaking of...

Ah!

Your Highness! Behind you!

Huh?

Look out!








[Brigade Captain]: Are you all right, Highness?


Uh, yes, thank you.



It seems Lann has developed a new curse-word substitute.

We can go around. If we're fast enough, we--

No! There's no time!

Princess!

And apparently to a lesser extent, Brigade Captain!





Hm?













And with that display, the giant Goblin falls backwards into the gorge it crawled out from.

World of Final Fantasy Music: The Champions Melody


Dude, that move was awesome!

I... I don't know what just happened.

I think I do. That light would explain it. Good captain, from this day on, you shall be called the Warrior of Light.

Me? Are you sure?

Yes. The legends of Cornelia tell of others like you. Nameless heroes with great power in their hearts: Warriors of Light.





Warrior of Light is voiced by Grant George in English, Toshihiko Seki in Japanese.

Here is our first encounter with a Final Fantasy protagonist, namely the first Final Fantasy protagonist... sort of.

Warrior of Light, as a character in his own right, first showed up in Dissidia: Final Fantasy. Dissidia was a fighting/arena battle game for the PSP that pulled in heroes and villains from all the Final Fantasy games. It had a big story focus as well, which means that characters from some of the Final Fantasy titles needed a bit of actual, well... character.

See, some Final Fantasy games, especially the earlier titles, didn't really have set protagonists. They were kind of like Dungeons and Dragons, where you put together a team of whatever classes you wanted. They were pretty much blank slates.



So for Final Fantasy I's representation in Dissidia, they based the character off of some artwork of the Knight Class that artist Yoshitaka Amano had done. Yoshitaka Amano has been part of pretty much every major Final Fantasy title. He is responsible for a lot of character/monster designs as well as the title logo of the various games.

Since then, Warrior of Light seems to have become the de facto hero of the original game.

You are a Medium. One with the potential to become this realm's Champion.

Wait, a Medium? ...A Champion?

Champions arise at critical points in time, where they awaken unexpectedly to their miraculous power. Candidates who hide this light within them-- this strength-- we call them Mediums. The Warriors of Light, of course, are unique to Cornelian legend, but... Mediums for other Champions can still be found throughout Grymoire to this day.

Incredible. So I'm really one of them?

Yes. There is no mistake.



...Do you have that power? Do you have the ability to awaken Mediums as Champions?

Hmm...

I wish we knew. Like I said, we don't remember all that much about who we are. Wait, hold on.



Oh, hey man. What's up? Kind of forgot about you.



And I straight up thought you were dead.



We're doing this now.

This guy must be their boss.

Lann, it looks like the soldier's human. Don't get carried away.

Reynn, I'm shocked. I don't pick on people weaker than me.

Ha ha! I just had to make sure. Let's go, Lann!

Pff, screw that. I'm going to schmup him up.

Yeah!

This thing is the-massive!

Seriously! What do they feed him anyway?!

Uh... Maybe we can stew over that some other time, whaddaya thing?



The Giant Goblin is fairly beefy but relatively slow, so we're going to get that commander out of the way first.



The Commander isn't really that threatening, but I don't like him hanging around while I fight the Giant Goblin. Apparently he has Cure, which we definitely don't want him pulling off on the Giant Goblin, but he didn't pull that on me.

He only has 1300 HP, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem to burn through.

Babyhemoth's Horn attack is a good one for accomplishing this. It deals out about 300 damage a hit. Once the Bahamutian Commander is taken care of, our entire attention can be focused on the big guy.



Giant Goblin can be a bit more of a problem. Super Gobsmacker is a hard hitting attack with a high wobble chance. Wobble isn't something that we've really run into yet.







Strong hits, or special abilities, can reduce the balance of any stack (yours or the enemy's). There will be a yellow bar over the stack after a hit if it causes a balance loss. This bar will turn red after that, and taking another hit quickly after (or just a strong one) will break the stack. When a stack falls apart, it causes the members of that stack to get stunned and unable to act for a while.

If it looks like your stack is about to fall apart, you can prevent the stun by Unstacking yourself from the menu (only on Lann's/Reynn's turn though). You can also use items like Wobblestopper to restore the balance.

If you've been paying attention during stack setup, you may have seen a heading called "Stability". Strong, Medium, and Weak will let you know how easily a stack you're making can be toppled. I don't pay much mind to it myself. If I have a stack in mind then I put it together, regardless of stack strength. That's your call though.



The good news is that when one of their turns comes around, you can select Stack--



And pop back together.

Other than that, there isn't much to the battle. You should have a good supply of potions from the trip up here. Just keep an eye on your HP and swing at him with whatever you have. Even if he manages to topple you, you should be able to out-speed him on the turn order and pull it back together before he can capitalise on it.



Beating those two will send the other Goblins packing.

Whew, see? Total piece of cake.



What? No... The soldiers are human beings vying to become Architects and join the Federation elite. What... happened to him?

How are you guys even sure of that? Have you ever seen one of them walking around without a helmet/armour on?



Never mind. We're apparently going to check in with our antagonists now.






[Woman in the Cage]: Some. How many is a difficult thing to gauge from in here. But...


Time for us has resumed its march. Segwarides.



You may begin. I trust you have worked out each detail?

Ohhh, I can assure you, every word.

Then away with you.


[Woman in the Cage]: And you? You aren't going to waver?




Yes. Let us usher in a new age of history.

Ominous. Oh well, back to what we were doing. There's one small thing to grab before we leave The Watchplains.







The tutorial is not it.

Now would be a good time to stock up on items.

Good call. We've racked up a ton of gil, now that you mention it.

You have to wonder why a bunch of Mirages are carrying so much cash.

Let's just the-say that Enna Kros--

Never mind, I figured it was her.

This is a hint to go back to North Promenade, but we're not doing that right now. There's an area beyond where the exit gate is. Let's go explore it.



Crossing the clearing and heading down the stairs will lead us a bridge connected to this fort. Looks like there's a little friend waiting for us.



You'll need to cast Cure or use a Potion on it in order to get a capture chance.



Capturing, or even beating, this guy will grant a Black Chocochick memento. This will let you transfig a Chocochick into a Black Chocochick once you reach the proper spot on the Mirage Board. It's easier if you just catch this one.

The Treasure Chest sitting behind the Black Chocochick will spit out 10 ethers. Nice.



Two last things to do here. Heading back to where the boss battle happened, I trigger a battle with this group. With the summoners gone, we can finally catch a Goblin. Unfortunately, these two are in stacks. We'll need to break that first.

Babyhemoth's Horn attack causes wobble, so I eliminate one Goblin stack as well as the Black Nakk, then go about hitting the remaining Goblin stack with Horn and healing it with a potion. This keeps it alive long enough for Horn to break the stack and creates a Prismtunity for the Goblin.



There we are. I'll go looking for the other Goblin variations later. This update has already gone on long enough.

To the left of the staircase that Lann and Reynn ran down during the cutscene, there's a chest hidden behind a tree, next to a guard tower. It contains 2 wobblestoppers, which will come in handy if you ever find yourself about to fall.


We'll call it quits there for today. Before we kick off Chapter 5 in the next update, we'll find out what the game is nudging us towards North Promenade for.

Video: Update 5 Highlights