Searching for Friends

First of all, this overworld theme is my least favorite in the franchise.

Secondly, the first thing I did tonight was walk into Miranda, Not Jidoor, and definitely not Albrook, but Miranda. The city looks fine, as though nothing's happened, but the soldiers are gone, and there’s new stuff in the house owned by the woman whose boyfriend was wounded in Moblitz. It’s filled with beautiful, handmaid, silk flowers. She’s also been receiving daily romantic letters from her boyfriend. We’ve been to Moblitz and know her beau is dead, so who’s pretending to be him? She asks us to attach a letter to a return pidgin, and we follow it to Zozo.

Zozo is still the same. It’s got the same mobs, sketchy dudes, and dead bodies. Home sweet home! We find the only honest man in town, who sells us a Rust-b-gone to knock down a door leading to Mt. Zozo. The path we need is straight forward and filled with easy mobs. Watch out for the bear who steals your gold. There is an offshoot that leads to a dragon god, so don’t step on any clear pressure plates. Go far enough in, and we see our old samurai, Cyan, sending a letter. He’s felt sorry for the woman since her boyfriend died and has been pretending to be him to keep her hope alive. He didn’t want her to be like him. After he joins the party, he’ll confess his plan. The woman will say she’s known her boyfriend died but is glad to whoever’s been keeping her active in this trying time. If we return to Cyan’s perch, we can find a book on machinery and, uh... ”certain things” that a lone, adult male may need.

When we got Cyan, he mentioned Gau came by looking to get stronger. That means he’s on the Veldt. Making a party of three, we quickly find him in the same fashion we did before.

While on the Veldt, we find a new cave in the southwest. When we enter, Interceptor gets our attention. Following him through the winding paths and finding a new weapon for Sabin in a trapped chest that gives him over 450 attack power, we see a heavily wounded Shadow. When we go to him, we understand what wounded him.

Two King Behemoths. Both have a fire weakness, as well as a 4000 damage Sabin weakness. Use Runic to protect against Fire 3, and abuse the punching power of Sabin.

We’ll then pick up Shadow and take him to Thamasa. There, we see a flashback to a man fleeing Thamasa while a dog who looks like Interceptor tries to get him to stay. The man tells the dog to protect the girl, but he disobeys and follows after. Hmm...wonder who that is? We wake up and see Shadow is conscious. He says Interceptor will guard him, so we can feel free to leave. Another thing we found in the Cave was a knife called Striker. Rumor has it, there’s a man at the Colosseum looking for that. I’ll talk more about the Colosseum when I can defeat things there, but, for now, if we wager the Striker, we end up fighting Shadow. He goes down like a chump. Outside, we question Shadow about why he’s fighting, to which he responds, it’s all he knows. Celes asks him to join us, for real this time, and with no fanfare, he does.

The last thing I did tonight was head to Doma Castle. The destroyed home of Cyan is still abandoned, so we find a place to rest our heads for the night. When we wake up, Cyan remains asleep. Suddenly, three children named after the Three Stooges enter and say they’re gonna eat Cyan’s soul and jump into his mind. We follow.

This dungeon sucks. It’s filled with mobs that randomly kill us and turn us into Imps. To make matters worse, the Charm Bangle doesn’t seem to work. If it did, then I’d hate to play this without it. The party is split up, and we, randomly, can play with any of the three. I died with Celes the first time, but the poor bastards let me use Sabin the second time. Equip a White Cape to negate Imp and wander around the MC Escher world, picking up our party members. When we get close, the boy guarding our party member will leave but promises to attack with his brothers. We end up fighting the brothers, and this sucks. They spam high level magic, cause debuffs, and have a spell that they use to turn a character to stone. Kill the floating kid, as he can revive the others, and it gets a lot easier. The wannabe Magus Sisters got me the first time, but I got the last laugh.

The next portion is an area that looks like the Phantom Train but has a terrible yellow filter over it. There are eight gazillion battles here, and I hate it. We see a few scenes from when Cyan was here before and solve terrible puzzles. We got another Genji Glove for Shadow. There’s no boss here, but upon reaching the conductor, if we exit right back out, we stumble into a mountain cave. We’re in Magitech for some reason and see Cyan running from Imperial troops. I think this is when he became averse to technology? Enter the second room on the cliff, then turn around to exit. We’re back in Doma Castle and meet Elena and Owain, Cyan’s family. They ask is to save him from the manifestation of his fear, doubt, and hate, Wrexsoul. "Cyan doesn’t deserve this." Around the castle are a few scenes that endure us to the Garamonde family. Our target, though, is in the throne room.

This battle sucks. Wrex hides in one of our party members, and the only way to draw him out is to almost kill them. Turning them to stone works too, but no one on my team is a Saboteur. While we do this, we’re further attacked by two adds that can’t be killed and use high level magic. Alternatively, you cheat the system and cast X-Zone until it removes the adds, and we win. We don’t get the cool item Wrexsoul drops this way, but after two hours and a rage quit, I don’t care.

After the fight, Elaine and Owain say how much they love Cyan and how proud they are of him. Cyan doesn’t believe himself worthy of such praise, seeing as he failed to protect his home and has no honor. His wife says he actually has too much and needs to let the past go. It’s similar to what he said to Lola in Maranda. Before they leave, Cyan pleads for them to stay a little longer. They don't, but they promise to always be by his side as a sword drops to the floor. The party wakes up, for real this time, and equips Cyan’s second beat weapon. We proceed back to the throne room and pick up the new Esper, Alexander. It offers no stat-ups but teaches Cure 3 and Holy. Because it’s gotten in Cyan’s sidequest, I’ll allow him to equip it after Celes learns everything.

And here I called it a night.

I wish I wasn’t as upset. I felt the early tingle of emotion as Cyan said one more farewell to his family, but rage overcame me. Tomorrow we gain more old friends, and I’m thinking three more days left in this playthrough. Unless I want to go Blue Magic hunting again... (I do)

Relm, Terra, Mog, and secret characters tomorrow!