Part 7: Update -VII- History Lesson
Hweh? My senses are the-telling me some kind of door has appeared in Nine Wood Hills.
It's a door, Lann. Tama just said that.
It sure looks like a door. But does it even go anywhere?
Hellooo! ...Let's check it out.Wh-wha-- Hey!
Where are we now?
Visitors? What an unusual surprise!Um, who are you? And... where are we?My name is... Huh? It was right there on the tip of my tongue. Use it or lose it, I suppose.Update 7 Highlights - The Girl Who Forgot Her Name
Sigma Harmonics Music: The Remains of Time
Oh hey, it's you. Weird hair accessory girl from the opening.
The Girl Who Forgot Her Name is voiced by Jade Pettyjohn in English and Aya Hirano in Japanese. She's sort of a new character for this game, but she's also a reference to an obscure Square title called Sigma Harmonics (and so is the Tea Room's music). User Nyaa did a video Let's Play of that game here, but unfortunately YouTube's nuking of annotations has largely ruined it. This is more of an Easter Egg than an in-depth crossover though. The ties don't really go much further than an encyclopedia mention. I will talk about it once we've gotten to know TGWFHN a bit better.
Oh, but this is my tearoom. So who are you? Will you join me for tea?Uh, well, you might say that we're sort of passing through. But I'm Lann, and this is...It's Reynn. And my brother and I are from Nine Wood Hills.Lann and Reynn from Nine Wood Hills... Of course! I had a dream about this! I saw the two of you come here. Today's the day.Huh?Right, I think I might know why you've come here. Shall we get started?Uh... Sorry, come again? You know what me and Reynn are doing here, even though we don't have the slightest clue?
I don't want to go touching people's souls. Those things are filthy.
To step into their shoes and fight-- when Mirages threaten them and they need you most-- to sway them towards success. Correct?Uh, I... don't know?Whoa dude! That was a lot of words. Hey Reynn, you follow that?Uh-uh... Nope. I'm officially lost.So, whose soul will you touch?
Chill out with the soul touching. We're getting to that.
TGWFHN serves two important functions. The first is Intervention Quests. These are little skits involving characters we've met along the way that we can get rewards for finishing. They are really enjoyable little breaks from the main story that help to keep the other characters involved.
Function 2 is Champion Medals. We'll let TGWFHN/tutorial explain that, since they obviously will.
Talking to her and choosing to Trade Arma gems will start another scene.
Hey, what are these arma gem things?Hm? You've found some arma gems?We're not exactly sure what they're for, but we did turn up a few.That's good. They have great value here. You can think of those gems as a kind of token.Token?Yes. In order to touch another's soul, or to tamper with time, first, you must offer compensation. Hence the arma gems-- tokens you can pay in recompense.Ohhh! So the more we find, the more stuff we can do here....Right.
You needn't wonder about every little thing.Huh?!She kind of does. It's one of Reynn's only character traits right now. Without that she's just got 'I pretend to be the mature older one'.
The world has some secrets you're simply better off not knowing.Oh-kay...
So here's the use for those Arma gems we've picked up. We can spend them here to open new Intervention Quests or unlock Champion Medals.
In terms of Champion Medals, we only have Warrior of Light at the moment. Trading for that will trigger the tutorial spiel.
What's this stuff about "invoking" Champions?
Dude, what? Really?Really. The catch is, you can only invoke their power for a very limited time. Basically, they pop right in and fwoosh right back out.They're summons. Got it.
Pop, fwoosh. Got it.Mm.All the same, the fact that we can invoke them at all-- it sounds pretty useful.Yeah, it'll make collecting Mirages way easier.All right, but there are restrictions. First, not all Mediums are Champions. They must awaken to their true potential before you can invoke them. Furthermore, some Champions awaken in stages, and each to their own abilities.
Uhh... Yeah!And invoking isn't free. You have to bend all kinds of divine rules to pull it off, which means more compensation.And I guess we can't pay in arma gems?Not the gems. Use those here to awaken Champions. To invoke, you'll have to store up a different kind of tender. Why don't you think of it as a kind of gauge. When you have enough Champion Points you can invoke them.Oh! That's super easy to understand. So, how do we go about storing Champion Points then?Wear down your souls.Huh?!
Ummm... Right! Okay. So basically, all we have to do is keep fighting.Correct..........Oh! I won't... overthink it.Oh, one thing. Many Champions can be found across Grymoire, but you will only be able to call upon three of them at any given time. Think carefully about the situation, and choose the Champions suited to the task at hand.One for damage, one for healing, one for buffs. Got it.
But, why?It takes a lot of connecting the dots to make sure they can reach you. Unfortunately, three is the most that I can handle.
I'm fine with that. What's Reynn's worth?
I... am pretty sure there's no way that can be good, so... we'll pass.
Champion Medals are summons. Cinematic monsters/beings that can be called on for powerful attacks and such. They're called different things in different games, such as Eidolon's (IV re-releases, IX, XIII), Espers (VI, XII), Aeons (X), Guardian Force (VIII), Primals (XIV), Astrals (XV), Avatars (FFXI), or Summons (VII, V, IV original release, III).
I have and always will refer to them as 'Summons', or 'Summoned monsters'. I've never liked the other widespread terms like Eidolon or Espers. It's fine if you need to refer to them in a story sense, but battle wise I'd rather keep things sweet and simple.
Chill out with the tutorial cards already!
As for Intervention Quests, we have access to two right from the start. A Bridge's Woes is kind of spoiler-y (and difficult), so that's going to sit on the back burner for quite some time. The Girl Who Forgot Her Name involves our newly awakened FFI Champion.
I'm thinking about saving these intervention quests for little interludes between updates. This one leads into a follow up quest, so I'll do the two of them together and post them before Chapter 6 as a special mini-update.
Before taking our leave, we need to make sure to actually equip the Champion Medal we just got.
Warrior of Light's summon is called "Oversoul", which is his EX Burst (special move) from Dissidia. We saw him use it against that Giant Goblin.
Oversoul is a single target attack that inflicts neutral physical damage. It also bypasses defence and gives us a defence up buff for all our allies. It costs one gauge star (out of the three we can store up) to use.
All the medals will let you know what their effects are when you go to equip them.
There we go. Might as well pop him in there since we've got three medal slots.
Also, could we get a thread voted name for 'The Girl Who Forgot Her Name'? I am not referring to her by that or TGWFHN for the rest of this playthrough. Let's decide on something less cumbersome. There is a name I could give her, but it spoils things, so let's see what the thread comes up with.
Just before I go on with the story, one last new Mirage decides to come out of hiding in the Pyreglow Forest. He's in a stack, but Babyhemoth's Horn attack can fix that.
Toppling the stack will cause a capture chance.
The only prior appearances of this enemy style I'm remembering are from FFVIII, where there was an enemy called Vysage that had two hands sticking out of the ground (Lefty and Righty).
Either way, I like Right Claw and he's the only other L Mirage we've got right now. I stick him in a stack with Lann and Mandragora for a little.
Now, let's finally get this done so I can get out of this stupid forest (at least until I have to come back for Magic Jar).
Final Fantasy X Music: The Sending/Hymn of the Faith
Update 7 Highlights - Final Chapter Scenes + Boss Battle
The girl just kind of keeps spinning around and twirling her staff while the glowly spirit balls dance around.
And Lann and Reynn stand there like slack-jawed idiots.
(Wait a sec. I know I've seen that before... But where? I can't remember.)Nowhere. You don't remember it from anywhere, Reynn. It's not familiar at all.
Ah! I the-totally forgot about hiding!Yeah, we kinda forgot to shrink down too.What's your name? You know, that staff--.png)
My name is Yuna.
Dammit. Yuna is voiced by Hedy Burress in English, Mayuko Aoki in Japanese.
Yuna is the heroine of Final Fantasy X and the sequel, Final Fantasy X-2. FFX follows her journey as a summoner that has to sacrifice themselves in order to make a giant destructive space whale called "Sin" go away for a few years. Also, yes, FFX is a story about her. Don't let the clown on the box art convince you otherwise.
The dance she's doing here is a reenactment of a scene from FFX where it's done as a ritual to put the souls of the dead to rest, called "Sending". If they aren't Sent, then they could turn into monsters... or they could just keep roaming the earth like a completely normal alive person (like Auron and Seymour do). The game plays a little fast and loose with this bit of lore.
In FFX-2, she gives up the demure summoner thing. Having found a way to defeat the giant space whale for good without having to sacrifice people to do it, Yuna gets a little...
...rebellious. She's a "Sphere Hunter" in that game and is part of a trio with a new girl called "Paine" and one of the other FFX characters (Riku). It's basically Charlie's Angels. FFX got fucking weird. FFX-2 isn't even the weirdest it gets. Just you wait until later on when we meet another FFX character.
Or don't wait and get a head start on The Dark Id's journey through FFX if you somehow haven't read that yet. It's a treat.
Are you Heralds? Have more of you been sent to plague us? Your kind have brought enough chaos into this world already.
Oooh. Who are you going to bring to the party? Anima? Bahamut? Gonna try for the Yojimbo instant death Hail Mary?
Oh, it's just Valefor, AKA "Baby's First Summon", AAKA "Summoner's Learners Permit". Valefor is the first Aeon (FFX's summon monsters) that Yuna acquires. She actually puts it to tactical use at one point by jumping off of a tower in order to escape, then summoning Valefor while falling in order to catch her and escape.
This is happening now. It's adorable that Yuna thinks I'm intimidated by Valefor.
I don't understand it. Why is she so mad at us?Yeah, Lann! What did you do to her anyway?"What did I do"? Why is it my fault?!Whatever guys, it doesn't really matter. It's just Yuna and Valefor. My stacks aren't even optimised and I'm half asleep from recording this at like, 1am.
Not to mention, two can play the Summon game.
Oh hey! Look what I picked up on the way over here!
Final Fantasy VII Music: One-Winged Angel (Note: This isn't on the WoFF OST as far as I can tell, since it was a DLC summon. So here is the original.)
Sephiroth Champion Summon (Note: I'm linking to someone else's upload for this. My gameplay footage of this cutscene gets ruined by the battle menu getting in the way. Normally it isn't in view.)
Sephiroth is the main antagonist from Final Fantasy VII... kind of. Actual Sephiroth went batshit insane after finding out he was a lab experiment and had ancient space alien cells in him. He got tossed into the Lifestream (life energy of the Planet), but later came back by using the pieces of that ancient alien's body to sort of astral project himself. The party in FFVII mostly fight these animated body part clone dealies while real Sephiroth chills out in the Northern Crater.
Super Nova is the name of his special attack in the second phase of the final boss fight against him (known as Safer-Sephiroth or the "One-Winged Angel", which is also the name of the music playing during the summon). It differs from both the International and Japanese versions of the original attack. In the Japanese version of FFVII, Supernova is just a shot of planets in space followed by a bunch of explosions of light that wipes them out. However, in the International version the attack was extended into a 2 minute long animation of a comet blasting through multiple planets one by one until it hits the sun and causes that to expand towards Earth. It looks cool the first time you see it, then becomes a pain in the ass every time you have to sit through it afterwards. WoFF's Super Nova is basically just the Meteor spell.
His appearance here is as a DLC Champion (or Anti-Champion, as the game sometimes calls it). He was a pre-order bonus when the game first came out, but unlike the other Champion summons, his is done in CG (which is why Lann and Reynn, or the enemy that's targeted, doesn't appear during the cutscene). Later DLC Champions would be done with in-game models.
His appearance here is also a mashup of styles. His costume and general design is based on his original FFVII depiction (above), but that black angel wing he had came much later during the extended universe "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII". His Safer-Sephiroth Boss form had a red/purple wing in place of his right arm, but the black wing coming out of the back of his human form isn't a thing in the original game). He also doesn't have all those buckles in his original appearance. Unfortunately for everyone, Tetsuya Nomura went batshit insane himself at some point around the turn of the century and started slapping belts, buckles, and zippers on to every damn character he was involved with. Apparently people on the team told him to tone that shit down, but Nomura became a troll and started doing the opposite of whatever anyone told him.
Anyway, moving on before I get into an extended rant about how the Compilation is largely a huge garbage fire (I'll get other opportunities to do that later), and also how Tetsuya Nomura's character designs quickly became increasingly ridiculous.
In the first stage of this battle, Valefor and Yuna will be separated and acting independently. They aren't much of a threat at this stage. Yuna only hits for about 40 damage. Just pick a target and focus on them.
After taking a little bit of damage, Yuna and Valefor will stack. Yuna will then start casting stuff like Protect and Shell (Physical Damage Reduction, and Magic Damage Reduction respectively).
You don't have to, but it might be a good idea to make sure you have some kind of Topple abilities. If you can knock the Yuna/Valefor stack down, then you can slowly work on taking out one of them and prevent them from stacking again.
In stacked form, Yuna and Valefor have a -50 Weakness to Ice and a -25 Weakness to Dark. They resist Wind and Light.
Whenever you see Yuna cast "Focus", get ready to defend. Focus means she's trying to boost the damage of--
Energy Ray, which hits pretty hard when boosted. Granted, the numbers you are seeing in that screenshot are when not defending. If you defend then the damage should be around 220 instead.
I've still got another Champion shot left. Let's try out another DLC Champ.
Final Fantasy XII Music: The Fates
Balthier Champion Summon
Balthier is a DLC Champion that was patched in some time after the game originally launched. He's actually the only character representative of FFXII in this game, which means World of Final Fantasy originally had no FFXII representation when it first launched.
Balthier is a character from FFXII that works as a sky pirate. The airship you see in his summon animation is called the Strahl. He also has a partner that's a sexy rabbit lady. Balthier is actually an alias he took up. His real name is a tossed salad of letters that vaguely look like something that could be pronounced.
The attack he is seen using here is his Level 2 'Quickening' (which is what FFXII calls special moves). The animation is very similar to the game, but in FFXII he doesn't summon his airship overhead.
I can't tell you much beyond that. I'm in the tiny camp of people that doesn't like FFXII, so I only know the basic details about him. I can tell you that he is a far better liked character than the other supposed protagonists of FFXII, Vann and Penelo.
Outside of that, there's nothing else to this fight. Focus boosted Energy Ray is the only thing even remotely threatening. If you wander into this fight with no healing capabilities at all, then you'll probably have a bad time, but otherwise it's a pushover.
We get a Valefor Memento if we want one of our own someday (we need the proper transfigure-able Mirage first). Also 4400 EXP. Nice.
Tell me. Who are you?Huh? "Lusse Farna," you said? But that's our...mother.Hey, you're right! That was her name! Uh, listen, you wouldn't happen to know this "Lusse Farna"?Let me show you something.
Oh dear god, no... the Steven Universe fans were here!Huh?
What? Then, it's her?Right. I knew I recognised it. The ornament on Yuna's staff.Whose cat was stepping on the italics shortcut during this line?
Roughly one hundred years ago, a Champion from another world saved Grymoire. Her name was Lusse Farna.Huh? Mom did that? But, a hundred years...It doesn't make sense. Mom's a Champion? And this is some kind of monument to her?So, you keep saying that Lady Lusse was your mother. Again, may I ask who you are?Well, uh...*The scene fades out as Reynn and Lann explain. Thankfully we don't have to sit through that.*
No memory? That is strange.Do you think you might be able to tell us a little more about Lady Lusse? We'd appreciate anything at all.I'm sorry, I only know the common legends. The ones Grymoire's people have grown up with.Fine. We'll take anything.Final Fantasy X Music: A Fleeting Dream
Sometime around a century ago, the world of Grymoire was nearly destroyed by a being that has come to be known as the Demon Dyad. Lusse Farna prevented this by creating the Ultima Gate-- a bridge to salvation from which she summoned three Heralds, straight from the realm of the gods. Thus, she became Grymoire's Champion.That definitely sounds like something out of mythology.
That she was. But sadly, even though she managed to save the world from the Demon Dyad...Huh?The Heralds... All three of them chose to remain here in Grymoire. And one of them is now Brandelis, king of Bahamut.Well that certainly backfired.
Huh? But Bahamut... That's the federation that attacked Cornelia!Yes. After they finished "saving" the world, Brandelis and the others harnessed a legion of new Mirages, and slowly took control of Grymoire's lands, building a powerful federation."Legion of new Mirages"... Lann, you don't think there's any connection to the ones we lost... do you?What? That's not possible. We're talking about a hundred years ago.But where have we been? Nine Wood Hills, which Enna Kros told us was a world without time. Right, Tama?Right the-you are. Compared to other the-worlds, the concept of time there is, let's say... more than a little bit the-unusual. So, if you want to know just the-how long you were there, there's really the-no way to measure!Dude, what?
Unfortunately, we don't know for sure. Some say summoning the Heralds was an act that cost her her life. While others say she lives as a prisoner in the Heralds' castle, her freedom lost forever.Prisoner?What?! Well, then where can we find this castle?!I wish I could help, but I don't know where to find it. Not just me. No one. Not even the soldiers in their army. They say Brandelis keeps its whereabouts a secret.Which is the correct thing to do. Stupid villains make their home base incredibly obvious.
Hey, take it easy! Come on, it's a legend. Are you really gonna get all worked up over something carved on a rock? They share the same name. That doesn't automatically have to mean they're the same person.Well... yeah, maybe not. But you can't try and tell me this is just a coincidence.Would you listen?Got to side with Lann on this, Reynn. How many women are wandering around with the name "Lusse Farna"? We're not talking about your mom sharing the name of the legendary summoner "Tiffany".
(All this stuff we're "remembering," like Mom's name? What if it turns out none of it is true? But I guess there's no point in telling Lann that.)What is it already?Oh, just forget it.If it's Bahamut that you're after, you should start in one of the Federation's member states, and do your asking around there. Saronia lies further north. I believe they just joined the Federation.What?Dude, what? But I thought Saronia was the place we're going to!Then Princess Sarah must not have known...I mean, she's kind of had other matters to attend to recently. Like the invasion attempt, or her drunkenly wandering onto the battlefield and nearly getting squished.
Ugh... Oh well. We've already made it this far.Yeah. We wouldn't be very good emissaries if we turned back now. And we did promise to ask about the League of S.I'm real sorry I raised my voice at you. I know you were trying to help us out, so thanks.
Dick move, Lann.No, I should be sorry for attacking you. It was wrong to accuse you of being something you're clearly not. Dick move, Yuna.
And, we're done here. Yuna doesn't have anything else of importance to say, so let's wander off to the left to keep pushing through this forest.
The second we leave the area, another cutscene triggers. Please tell me we're not going to watch her dance again.
"Again, it shall be Ragnarok--a battle... initiated by new Champions, and yet... to whose salvation?"[???]: You're beyond salvation.
Ah!
*Knight Lady swoops in out of nowhere and obliterates Yuna with her claw/talon hand*
Huh... well that happened. R.I.P, Yuna. Take solace in the fact that you won't be around when I have to talk about FFX-2.5 and -Will-. It's better this way, trust me.
Excuse me? When did Yuna learn how to Force Ghost herself?
We never got a name for Knight Lady last time. She's just called Plumed Knight.
Well, no matter. A chase is more to my liking. I tire of simply waiting.
At this point we're told that new items have appeared in the Chocolatte Mart, and we also get a chance to save. In the next update, we'll continue on our journey to Saronia and finally (I'm like 99.9% sure) get our hands on the Rename Prism. Start thinking up your Mirage pet names now.