A Link to the Past from the Past

Like so many of the games that shaped me as a kid, my next door neighbor had one of the greatest games ever made. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is a game we played, somewhat, often but never actually beat. It was hard as an adult, so imagine a small child trying to do it. Eventually, we (or at least I) just moved on from it to new, easier things. I understand that, but I wish I hadn't waited over twenty years to return to it.

The story is pretty simple, as many games were in 1991. You’re a magically chosen hero boy, made to save the world. You go around the world, finding items, people, and McGuffins in your journey to do so. I don’t know how much is tied between LttP and Legend of Link, so I don’t know how well they're linked. Heh, get it? Since LttP is before LoL in the timeline, I’ll assume none. Regardless, it all works. A young kid can understand it, and an adult can recognize the essential aspects in hindsight. You’re the chosen hero, Link, a mute boy of legendary ancestry. The goal is to free the princess, Zelda, who herself has magical origins, and other young girls of lore. You do this by killing bosses. In the end, you kill a really big bad guy. Not all games need epic storylines. Dark Souls, fighting games, shooters, and MMOs are all pretty lacking in that department, even in these days of massive budget AAA games. You don’t need a 40 hour story if the gameplay is crisp.

And it’s all about the gameplay here. Through two worlds; there are ten dungeons, each having its own intricacies and challenges. They can get a little samey towards the end, but they do try to make everything unique. The combination of traps, enemies, combat, and pathfinding can go a long way. Every enemy has one or two advanced forms. Every trap can be used in a multitude of ways. And all the bosses have their own things that nothing else uses.

The bosses are where LttP really shines. They’re all challenging, nerve racking, and fun. They all require several items you either have had or just obtained in their dungeon. The bow and arrows are used in the dungeon you get them in. The hookshot, fire rod, and bombs follow suit. And they’re used in other dungeons for both regular encounters, bosses, and navigation. Items aren’t just one time uses, and you’re gonna need to swap, often on the fly, between several of them at the same time. Most bosses have unique sprites, attack patterns, and a few even have lore behind them.

I just touched on this, but the items may be the best part of the game. Their use in battle and on the field was a landmark addition at the time. They’re not one time McGuffins, used only once to advance a gap or defeat a boss. Most have uses that some players would never even think of using. The Magic Hammer, for example, can be used to break off the Helmsaur King's mask. I had problems with him in the Dark Palace and really could have used that strategy. And, like the bosses, some have lore around them. The ocarina has a heartbreaking backstory and is used for both fast travel, access to a sealed location, and even carries you like a noble steed to the final battle. Some are even totally optional. I really should have used the Magic Cape and Rod of Byrna more. And I’ll say nothing about how rarely I used the magic medallions. They add the depth that the story can't to the gameplay.

But, ultimately, my favorite part of the game is how community driven it is. I brought this up often towards the end of my writings, but Link is nothing without everyone around him. Zelda and Sahasrahla guided him the whole time. I relied on the Great Fairies to not die for the entire journey, never filling my jars with anything else than small fairies. And so many other characters give you seemingly insignificant items that end up being of utmost importance. The ocarina, the jars, the bug net, the lantern: I used these just as often as my sword, hookshot, or hammer. I love games that make you feel apart of a community. Ys III is my favorite Ys game, by far, because of the smaller cast of characters who grow alongside you and impact the story. Tantalus in FFIX is filled with fun, engaging, and memorable people. If it weren't for the side characters in FFX, we'd all be thinking X was just as bad at XIII. It’s been a long time since I played Ocarina of Time, but I don’t remember it doing this as well as LttP did. It really is masterful, regardless of era.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and call Link to the Past the third best game on the SNES. I’ll go out on a higher limb and say it’s the best Zelda game ever made. Since controller mapping an N64 controller is such a pain, I don’t think I’ll be playing the golden era games anytime soon. Unless I can fix my life and see where it goes from there, of course. I have mixed feelings about my horny teenage Link diary plan, but I’ll say it was a raging success! I have no idea when/if I’ll do it again, but here’s hoping I can.

I have two games I’m mulling over for Tuesday, both of which are from my dark ages period. I could have bought one during the Stram sales, and I kinda wish I had. Regardless, I’m gonna finish the Final Fantasy Music Challenge first. See ya in three days!

Pig boy

"Dear Zelda,

The Tower of Ganon is an eight floor abomination. It’s filled with monsters I've killed before, but there’s something about this place that changed them. Everyone seemed harder. Fighting for their last grasp of existence? But I conquered them all. It’s, of course, filled with traps. And this time it’s traps on traps. Moving floors and laser shooting statues make tor a neigh impossible task. But I conquered them all. There are plenty of invisible platforms, pitfalls, and teleport puzzles. But I conquered them all. It’s a maze of spiraling walls, fire pit tricks, and bone throwing skeletons. But I conquered them all. It contained three bosses I had already felled. But I conquered them all. It took all four fairies I had brought with me, and I reached Anaghny with the last bit of strength I had. But I conquered them all. Anathema stood no chance again the Master Sword. In his last gasp of life, he transformed into a bat and led me straight to Ganon himself.

He was hiding in the Gold Pyramid the whole time! Even if I could have fought him sooner, I couldn’t have won. Ganon is a massive Boar Demon with overwhelming power. He wields a pitchfork, fire magic, teleportation, and control over the darkness itself! If it wasn’t for the upgraded armor I found in the tower, I would have died. At first, all he did was try to stab me. When his fork aline didn't work, he sent firebirds of immense power to burn me. And, finally, he turned the world black. I was able to light the fire pits to see, but hitting him was a different story. Somehow, he nullified the Master Sword’s power! Well, most of it. All it could do was freeze the demon. Had I not met the Fat Fairy, ironically just beneath us now, Ganon would be ruling both worlds. Those Silver Arrows were his weakness! Always trust in the Great Fairies, Zelda. We owe them so much!

With me down to my last ounce of strength, I let an arrow fly. It landed right between the eyes of our enemy, and I defeated the foul beast! His death blew open a hole in the wall to reveal the Triforce. The Triforce grants wishes. The stronger the users will, the more powerful its effects. Ganon took hold of it before, and that's what started this whole mess. But this time, I grasped it in my hands, and it recognized me and granted my wish. As for that wish...

Zelda, I don’t know what’s to come of us, but the world is as it should be. Your father reigns again. Sara has returned to the village. The ocarina boy and his father are a happy family, once more. Everyone who Ganon killed is back: the priest, the lumberjacks, and my uncle. It’s incredible, Zelda.

I’m sorry I missed the celebration, but I had to venture back to the Lost Woods. The Master Sword should only be wielded in times of strife, and it's now peacetime. It’s finally peaceful, Zelda. And we own all of that the many people of Hyrule. My uncle, the witch, Sara, all the people in Kakariko Village, and the blacksmiths. Even the ocarina boy, the bug catcher, and whoever the bomb kid was. To say nothing of the Great Fairies and the seven maidens. Thank you, Zelda. I couldn’t have done this without you. Let’s enjoy the peace and quiet.

- Link"

Moratorium tomorrow.

Seven maidens, one big bad guy.

"Dear Zelda,

I heard the wind whisper to me today. It told me there was more power to be had in the Master Sword hidden somewhere in the Great Pyramid. I’ve noticed a large crack in the front of it ever since I stepped into this land, but I couldn’t get it open. Bombs did nothing, nor did the hammer, magic, or anything else I tried. Then I noticed I hadn't checked my home in the Dark World. Inside was a strange creature. He was quite friendly, though, especially for someone selling bombs! One of his specials today was a giant red super bomb. I carried that over to the crack, and it blew it up with no problem. It was so beautiful! Inside was a new Great Fairy Fountain, but the fairy inside wasn't what I’m used to. She was...uh...a rotund woman. She said she was cursed by Ganon, so sure. She upgraded the Master Sword into a wondrously glowing golden blade. She also gave me Silver Arrows for my bow. I feel as powerful as someone can, and Ganon doesn’t stand a chance.

I climbed up Death Mountain once more and entered Turtle Rock. I had to use the Lightning Magic to enter, but I was prepared. Inside the dungeon are empty pits that I could only cross with the Rod of Somaria. It creates blocks out of thin air that be used as the user needs. I think it’s something you’d be really interested in. There are also a series of tubes about. Once again, there’s nothing I haven’t gone to battle with, but my ability to deal with fireballs is once more tested. The walls that have eyes and shoot lasers at me were the worst. At least, they were. Inside the giant chest was a new shield that reflects lasers. At the bottom of the place was another turtle. This guy has three heads! Sara told me to bring a potion of magic with me, but I ignored him. It was good advice, though. Turtle guy was why I’d need that potion, but I timed my staff uses with precision. One head is weak to fire, and the other is weak to ice. To think, I almost blew off Sara’s advice a few days ago. Nearly had egg on my face, huh? The last head is weak to steel, which I have plenty of in my new Master Sword!

After it died, I saw you again. It had been so long. I barely know you, Zelda, but I feel like we know so much about each other. It’s kinda creepy! But, anyway, you and the other six maidens broke the seal on Ganon’s Castle, so I better get a move on! Lets end this!

- Link"

It’s been a long time since I 100 percented a game, but here I am. I got the best gear, all items, maxed bombs and arrows, and about the beat the final boss. Link to the Past is such a good game. I’m glad I played it and upset I waited this long.

Never should have doubted me.

"Dear Zelda,

I’m back, baby! Who’s the hero? I’m the hero!


Did you know the Master Sword can be tempered to be more powerful? One of the dwarf blacksmiths were trapped, as a frog, in the Dark World. I freed him and brought him home. As thanks, the two of them made the Master Sword stronger. It’s also red, so rad.


Tonight I marched right into the Ice Palace. It’s in Lake Hylia and is filled with ice dudes who melt from the wall. The Fire Staff makes quick work of them, though. There are more mobs I’ve already dealt with before, so who cares? I hate traps, though. Things that shoot fire at me hurt. And I really hate spike balls. There are frozen floors scattered about down here, but the hookshot allows you to zoom across them. The boss was pretty...chill. Hehe. That Fire Staff really makes quick work of him. One of the maidens tonight told me that all of the big guys were Ganon’s loyal servants. I wonder why they keep such items in their hideouts. Disloyal servants, after all? I also found a new armor tonight, so I can finally take off my uncle’s armor. ...

Next, I went to Misery Mire. It’s where the desert is in our world. To get in, I had to climb Death Mountain again. West of Hera’s Tower is an ancient tablet. Rising the Master Sword above my head imbues it, and me, with new magic. I now have control of lightning! That’s Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, and steel at my disposal! I may need you to reign me in, Zelda.

Inside the mire is more of the same mobs. I once again have problems with the fireball shooting tiles. Why am I so bad? At the bottom of it all was some weird goopy thing. It shoots eyes at you, but my new Master Sword made quick work of them. It also shots lightning at me, but I just tanked it and kept on fighting. Eventually, one eye remains, and it bounces around the room. It may panic, but I didn’t. The last maiden told me Arngrim works for Ganon, the real evil in this world.

Zelda, I love Hyrule. I don’t know if I do as much as you do, but I recognize that I’d be nothing without having the whole community behind me. From my uncle, the dwarfs, the Great Fairy, and so many more. And you. I’m coming to save you!

-Link"

The game is super fun when you’re not struggling at every step. It’s still hard, but I feel like I’m on equal ground. Tomorrow may be a shorter update since there are only two more dungeons, and one is the final dungeon. We’ll see. This is a strange blog, though, so it may be worth the break from tradition.

The Dark World

"Dear Zelda,

Beaten but unfazed from yesterday, I continued on to the next maiden. The hammer I got in the Dark Palace opens up the south part of Hyrule. In our world, a small lake lies here. But in the Dark World, it’s the Swamp Temple.

The entrance is linked to our world, so I needed to drain the water around our temple. Inside the Dark World’s version are a series of locks and dams, blocking or leading me forward. Nothing inside is scary, which is a welcome sight. I got a little wet, but nothing I couldn’t handle. You’re trapped somewhere, so this is hardly a trial on my side. I felled the boss at the end in one shot. Maybe I am the hero? Inside was a hookshot. I used it to take the monster's shield from him, leaving him vulnerable to the Master Sword’s power.

The next location was in the Lost Woods. The dungeon has multiple entrances on the forest floor, all of which I needed to use. This isn’t the most labyrinthine location, but backtracking through the place as many times as needed was a pain. Inside was a Fire Rod. Your hero is a fire mage, now! In the northwest corner of the forest is a dead tree blocking the way to Mothula. Mothrula flies over a battlefield with shifting platforms and moving spike blocks. But I’m fleet of foot, so it’s no big deal. Zelda, the maidens have been telling me about the history of these worlds. They tell me legends of the Triforce and my Hyruleian Knights ancestry. I’m starting to believe it.

The last thing I managed to do tonight was the Village of Outcasts temple. A city filled with thieves hides a terrible secret. Where the Cukoo statue is in the Light World is lies the entrance to the palace. It’s oddly straightforward but filled with its own mess of mobs and traps. I found a new strength item, the Titans Glove, which makes me even stronger than before. Let me know if you need anything moved when this is over. I can handle it! But, um, that’s not all. There was a girl, you see. I thought she was the fourths maiden. I should have listened to you. I’m sorry. She asked me for aid in leaving the dungeon but didn’t seem to want to go. You know me and my weakness towards pretty women, and I fell into her trap. I brought her to a moonlight filled out room, where she revealed her true form. Blind. I thought Blind was in the east, but here he is, all three heads of him. He spits fire at every opportunity. I am not good in situations when I’m blindsided, am I? I once again had to rely on the Great Fairy. Zelda, I’m sorry I wasn't loyal...

I’m not feeling up to snuff anymore. I need to get stronger. I will get stronger. I’ll see you soon.

-Link

PS: A man from our world was lost told me about him and ocarina. I managed to find the boy in the Dark World and his instrument and gave him a proper farewell. The ocarina makes beautiful music. I kinda want to play it for one soon."

Fast travel is great! We may be finishing this in two more days. I was hoping this would be a quick playthrough, but this may be too fast. :D

Dear Zelda

 “Dear Zelda,

I failed you today. I ran from the Sanctuary and straight to the palace. The Master Sword broke the spell blocking us from the top of the castle. The sword knights, the spear throwers, the golden flail knights: I fought them all. I beat them all. I battled my way through the mazes and the darkness. Nothing stood in my way of you.

Nothing except one man.

One man, Agaheim, stood before me. And I saw what he did to you. He sent you away. He sent you away, and I didn’t try to stop him. I couldn’t. Was I scared? And then he mocked me. I followed on to the balcony and tried my hardest to kill him, but the Master Sword couldn’t touch him. What was I fighting for!? All I could do was deflect his own powerful, terrifying, awesome magic back at him. His fireballs, his glowing death ball, his lighting...all barely touched him. He was toying with me the whole time. I’m sorry. But he made a mistake. He let me live. Rather than kill me, he sent me to the Dark World.

Sara spoke to me across realms and reminded me of our goal. This was the Golden Land that has been ruined by Agahim’s wish. He kidnapped you and the seven maidens to reach this place. Sara told me to go to the Dark Palace.

It’s protected by a hedge maze, and I met a monkey on my way there. I paid the monkey some money, because the Dark World is strange, and it opened the path in. Inside was a terrible place. It’s filled with holes, jelly mobs, walls, and immortal turtles. And it’s a massive maze. I got lost physically, but I never lost sight of you. You even spoke to me, which encouraged me in this dark hour. And at the end of the place was the second most terrifying creature I’ve seen. I managed to blow apart its mask with my bombs, but that upset it more. Getting close to this demon was suicide. I only survived because of the Great Fairy.

I’m nothing, Zelda. I have no power. I’m not the hero you want me to be. I’m not the hero this world needs. But I’m still alive. I’ll keep fighting until the Great Fairy gives up on me. I saved one of the maidens, so I can only hope I slowed down Agagin’s plan.

- Link”

I didn’t think I’d make such a turn so fast, but I got my butt kicked in this dungeon tonight. I felt defeated, and I guess I wanted it to show.

Am I a bunny?

"Dear Diary,

I followed up on some of the things the peasants told me about. East of the lake was the cave Sara informed me of. I had to bomb my way in, which was cool, and inside was an Ice Rod. Talk about useless! While I was in the area, I kept traveling west into the desert.

I got attacked by vultures and some really creepy dude who’s obsessed with his sign. Once I got to the temple, I found a rock with ancient words on it. It's a good thing I had that book at had to translate. It told me to wish to enter. That’s what I’ve been trying to do with Zelda. Ehehehe. The three gargoyles blocking the entrance moved around the dais and let me in. Inside are more skeletons, and these nerds throw their bones at me. Is this what it’s like to be a woman? Always having unwanted bones thrown at you? Not only is it filled with skeletons, but it’s also filled with sand. I hate sand. It’s coarse and gets everywhere. Seriously, this place wasn’t fun. Statues kept shooting lasers at me, and bugs kept rising from the sand. What was this place, and why did it exist? Halfway through the place, though, was a super rad thingy. I was already probably the strongest man in the world, but I found a Power Glove inside. It makes me even more stronger, and I can now lift giant rocks scattered throughout the land. Zelda is gonna be so impressed! I keep digging deeper until I find three giant worms.

These guys shoot out through the ground and spray rocks at me when they do. It’s not fair! Three-on-one is lame! Do you know how hard it is to dodge twelve rocks at a time? Very. Fortunately, I found fairy girls who don’t mind being in bug jars to help me. Don’t ask why I have girls in bottles. You’re being creepy! So, okay, it’s three-on-three, I guess. I mean, I won, so it was super fair. After they died, I got another necklace. Cool?

I didn’t want to be seen carrying around these necklaces, but I wanted to see what a villager was talking about when he said something lives at the start of the river. Walking through the shallow portions in the river and avoiding the spitting fish, I came to King Zora. Tor 500 rupees, he sold me some flippers! I think he price gouged me, but I didn’t want to fight. I would have won, but why expend the effort? The flippers now allow me to swim. Micheal Fhilb ain’t got nothing on me! I also found some heart pieces lying around the world. I don’t know why they’re there, but they’re mine now.

Sick of carrying around girly necklaces, I go climbing Death mountain in the north. I meet another old dude lost in the dark caves, and I escort him to his house. He tells me Angrim has kidnapped seven women, for reasons I didn’t pay attention to. All I heard was seven women, and I was in. I wonder if they’re prettier than Zelda? Anyway, he gives me a mirror because I need more dumb stuff. I keep climbing and avoid the falling rocks until I step on a blue square. I’m teleported somewhere else, and I’m suddenly a bunny! Why am I a rabbit? ...I wonder if I could have confused Zelda into cuddling with me... Shocked and appalled, I look at myself in the mirror and am teleported back. I’m on the other side of a cliff with the Tower of Hera nearby.

The tower is pretty chill, actually. The jello mobs are tough, but they’re slow. Push them down the holes all around the place. The thing to pay attention to is the switches laying around. They turn on and off the walls scattered around the floors. At the top of the place is a giant worm. It’s slow and annoying, but not really a worthy opponent. He just kept pushing me down the hole! What a coward! I got my steps in climbing those stairs 9000 times, and, boy, are my thighs burning. I’m looking good, though. Once I managed to get four hits in with uncle's sword, I found the last necklace.

I went back to the forest where I found the fake Master Sword before and wandered into a field filled with animals. They guided me to a sword on a plinth. The rock in front of it told me, in the old words, that this is the real Master Sword! And I pulled it out! That’s right, I’m the hero! H. E. R. O. Deal with it.

As I walked out of the woods, I heard Zelda’s voice again. She told me soldiers have found her in the church! Bro, that’s my girl! I went straight to Sanctuary and found the old guy lying on the ground. He told me he tried to protect Zelda but failed. They took her back to the castle.

Unfortunately, he died in my hands. This man tried to protect my girlfriend and died for it. Brother, I will avenge you. I’m coming, Zelda!

- Link"

Face turn?

The Diary of Link

From one of the newest games I'm likely to play to one of the oldest. The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past is a game my neighbor had when we were kids. I played a little of it and had a lot of fun with it, but I never beat it. There’s something about the Dark World that stops me in my tracks. For this series of blog updates, I’m gonna do something wild. There isn’t a tremendous amount of plot and storytelling in the game, as far as I remember, so what if I made my writings a first person diary? There’s more dungeon crawling and exploration in this game, so my norma, boring methods would get even more redundant than usual. With this, I might be able to make it more fun and worth reading. At the very least, it’s different. 

"Dear Diary 

I got woken up in the middle of the night today. Lame, I know. Some girl named Zelda told me she’s trapped in the dungeon of the castle, and it's been taken over by a wizard named Agahnim. Apparently, my uncle heard it too, as he went out. He told me to stay here, but Zelda sounds hot, so I went after her. She told me about a side passage that leads into the castle. I don't how she's telling me this, but love be damned! 

Because I’m such a great ninja, I sneaked past the elite palace guards. Pretty good a trainee landscaper, yeah? Inside the secret passage is uncle Alfon. He scolds me for coming and isn’t looking very well. He quickly changes tone and hands me his sword and shield. He tells me to save Zelda, as if I needed a reminder, and tells me she’s my something. He falls asleep before finishing the sentence. Must have been a sleep spell cast by Anagram, or whatever his name was. If Anadaldo thinks he can stop me like my old uncle, he’s gonna be in a surprise. 

I continue to walk through the castle until...until I kill a man. I killed a man today. It was terrifying....but he dropped money. I like money. I keep on getting on until I find a small chest. Now, usually, I wouldn’t waste my time on a small chest since I'm all about large chests (if ya know what I mean), but I did this time. Inside was a boomerang. I loved playing with this as a kid since it always hurt my hand. That’s, probably, why uncle took it away, but why did he leave it here. ...idiot. The boomerang hurts the super elite soldiers more than my hand, and it gives me time to get their money. I keep fighting hordes of looters downward until I reach the jail cells. After I beat up the guard and his stupid flail, which I did with ease, I free Zelda from her cell. Good golly was she pretty. I’ll be honest, I was a little tongue tied when I saw her. Yeah, I’ll say it, I’m modest like that. I think she’s into the shy kind, so I might keep the act up. I thought things were gonna go forward, but she said she needed to get out of here. It was a little annoying but probably smart. So she’s hot and smart; just how I like my women. She told me there was another exit behind the throne room, so we headed there. 

As I valiantly protected her from those who wanted to do her harm, we eventually got to the throne room. At the back of the wall was a shelf. I, totally, didn’t need her help, but she helped move it anyway. Behind the shelf were the sewers. Why are the sewers behind the throne room? This castle doesn’t have running water, so why is this here? Rich people, man. 

As we walked through the sewers, killing rats and bats, I wonder why the light goes out so fast here. I got a torch earlier and used it to make the sconces shine, but they don’t last long. Regardless, as we got to the end of the place, we come to the Sanctuary and some old guy. I think the Sanctuary is the church, but I'm not into the whole religion thing. I'm too much of a free thinker. I thought Zelda would as gonna thank me a little more, but the old dude killed the mood. Instead, they told me I’m a descendant of some ancient warriors. Uncle reminded me of our patented spin attack after we gave me his sword. Did that move come from these ancient guys? Also, how do they know that? Bleh. They told me to talk to the Kaikariko Village elder and ask about The Master Sword, so off I headed there. More stupid old guys...

In the village, people called the guards on me! I’m the good guy, morons. Most of the people recognized that, but those two people are going to jail when Zelda and I get married. I also raided some bandit hideout. Blind sucks as a leader. I eventually find the elder’s kid, and he tells me he’s hiding out in the east ruins. Much be spry for an old guy. When I go across the entire country, I see a man named Sara. Ha! That’s a girl's name! He tells me about the three magic necklaces because he’s really into girl stuff. The first place is just east of here. 

I can’t believe I’m doing this. Skeletons! How are skeletons in here? Didn’t this use to be the palace of the kings? Skeletons!? Look, the giant chest is cool, I got some bombs, and the bow and arrow are rad, but I almost died fighting undead monsters. Like, what? And at the bottom of it all was a giant knight who that make copies of himself. Sure, he didn’t hit me at all, and the bow and arrow made quick work of him, but all of this for a necklace? Sure, the Pegasus Boots Sara gave me are sweet, so maybe it evens out. He told me about something east of the lake, but whatever. I’m a free grown man, so I walked around for a while. I found a book filled with old words and the Master Sword! It broke pretty fast, so that’s gonna be an awkward conversation with my girlfriend later. But, yo, get a load of this: I found a Giant Fairy! And she was super into me. I think I’ve got two ladies wanting me, man. And do you know why all the ladies love Link? Because...

• Lady Loving, Link.

PS: I don't care about the seven sages or the golden land, but don't tell anyone. Okay? "

I regret naming him Link. It’s gonna ruin all future Zelda playthroughs.

Final Fantasy Music Challenge pt. 3

Day 13:
It’s time for everyone’s favorite part of the day: when I post video game music. Based on today’s theme, you’d think we’d be done, but I’ll never be done!

What game has the best Ending Theme? Over the course of the last 33 years, how an FF game ends has varied wildly. Sometimes it’s just the prelude. Some of the older games get a unique song underneath the credits. In the middle, the games played the Overture/Theme as we saw the closing moments of our journey. In recent times, it’s a wonderful J-Pop ballad! But my pick is from Final Fantasy VI.

Balance is Restored plays while the party makes their daring escape from the crumbling Tower of Kefka. We see the last heroic, comedic, and edge times that all of these characters are known to be together. It does something no other ending has done, and that’s incorporate every character's unique theme song into the greater melody. And, in the end, plays the Overture that got me a little teary-eyed when I played it last month. Playing it back just now reminded me of everyone’s exploits in the escape. If it had any lyrics, FFVI could say it incorporated every other FF endings into it.

I can’t find the actual song in one part, so here’s the whole ending cutscene. Spoilers, obviously.

https://youtu.be/2v6G2_JLghE


Day 14:
Sometimes, you need a diversion in your plan to kill god. Why are you killing god? Because it’s a JRPG. But what do you listen to in Final Fantasy when you don’t want to kill god?

Vamo Alla Flamenco from FFIX. Many games have a unique track for every side quest, but not IX. Whether you're impressing nobles in your play or giving your Chocobo brain damage, you’ll hear this track a lot. But not when you’re playing cards. I prefer this song to all the others because of how much fun the games it plays over are. Chocobo Hot and Cold is my second favorite mini-game in all of Final Fantasy. I dig that slow windup into that mellow paced melody. I don’t know how a Spanish guitar fits in a game with several allusions to Hawai’i, but I’ll allow it.

https://youtu.be/tQYmHsTPtKY


Day 15:
So, I’ll be honest, I don’t think I fully understand today’s Final Fantasy Music Challenge topic. It’s your favorite in game arrangement. An arrangement is a reimagining of a song by another, but there’s also a topic coming up called best remake. I don’t know what the difference is. So, I’m just gonna throw song-ghetti at the wall and hope it sticks by posting a slightly different version of a song from the same game.

Final Fantasy often ties tracks together with similar motives. Aerith’s Theme and Flowers Blooming in the Church, Cosmo Canyon and Red’s Theme, To Zanarkand and Memories of Green are all examples of songs that share some melody between them. Final Fantasy IX’s Rose of May is one of the best tracks ever. Beatrix’s theme also shares a melody with Protecting My Devotion.

The song plays early on in Disk Three when the baddest woman on Gaia becomes temporarily playable. Beatrix and her knight in rusty armor defend their home from a greater evil. The scenes leading up to this moment were triumphant and humorous. They take a sudden serious edge to them now, becoming profound and pivotal to the development of nearly every character and the story. The seriousness is amped up around the time everyone puts their differences aside to stop Alexandria from being destroyed. What plays gets you excited to do battle, defend my favorite hometown, and maybe even kindle a romance.

https://youtu.be/m_LoqQ3QKFc


Day 16:
Day 16 of the Final Fantasy Music Challenge is the best piano arrangement. It’s another reason why I was confused yesterday, but I know exactly what I’m posting today.

Uematsu’s music has been rereleased, rearranged, and transcribed into multiple styles a multitude number of times. Famously, or at least for this topic, each game since IV has had official piano releases, along with sheet music. Out of all of those albums, I think Rydia, of Mist is the best arrangement.

Let me tell you a story. Back in 1996 or so, my next door neighbor had a copy of Final Fantasy IV. I borrowed it a few times because I was enthralled by the whole package: music, story, characters. I didn’t appreciate it all at the time, of course, but looking back, Rydia quickly became my favorite character. Before the word even entered the zeitgeist, she was my first waifu. You first meet her after the tutorial dungeon, and you ruin her life. During the game, she grows unlike any FF character has, or even since. We see a fragile child afraid of fire become a being of pure annihilation, as she’s the first named black mage and summoner in FF history. And her theme represents that. Somber in tone, but it’s also laden with a melody of peace and love. The piano piece for it makes all of those intricacies shine even brighter than the 16-bit MIDI’s we got in 1992.

https://youtu.be/R7FmBjVj1qU


Day 17:
Day 17 of the Final Fantasy Music Challenge involves the innumerable amount of times the various games have been remastered. Pretty much every game has been re-released on several consoles, remade across five decades, and remastered...like, once. Oftentimes, nothing much is changed, graphics are occasionally updated, and music sometimes needs to be redone. So, which song from all of these touched up games is the best?

There are only about seven games that I’d strongly suggest for this topic. The first four games had their music changed from 8-but MIDI blips to full fledged songs, while seven and ten had massive changes. Some have been redone for the MMOs. I prefer my remasters to be similar to the original, as heard at how terrible FFX’s is. It’s hard to pick exactly what song from the first four to choose, but I’m gonna pick my favorite from Final Fantasy III.

Boundless Ocean plays about 2/5th of the way through the game. You hear it after you leave the Floating Continent, a lively place that seems massive until you realize it’s barely noticeable on the greater world map. When you leave, you descend into a dead, lifeless, flooded world. It’s the exact opposite of what you’ve been seeing. There’s only one place to go, and that’s to meet the Water Maiden, Aria. We might be hearing her later... Boundless Ocean is incredibly sobering, somber, and “eye” opening. There’s something strange going on in this world, and we’re the only ones who can do anything.

https://youtu.be/BprpzeWQSzc


Day 18:
Wanna hear a dirty secret about myself? I’m tired of orchestral arrangements in video games. I know, I know, they’re musically impressive from a musician, composer, and listener perspective, but I’m sick of hearing them time after time, in game after game, regardless of importance. Every song doesn’t need to have the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing it. Ya hear me Final Fantasy XII? Plus, the first orchestrated song in Final Fantasy was the best.

That’s right, let’s talk about the Opera Scene from Final Fantasy VI. Draco and Maria. The Dream Oath. Aria di Mezzo Carattere. Whatever it is, it’s amazeballs! A multiple part, twelve minute scene right out of an opera is impressive, let alone for something on the SNES. It’s about a woman, Maria, who’s pulled in two directions because of war. Her love, Draco, is from the west. But she’s to be married to Prince Raise, a nobleman from the east. The eest conquered the wast, and I guess Maria was the prize. Look, we come in halfway. We’re gonna need to fill some gaps. The opening act has Maria, played by our war hardened Celes, singing about how she misses Draco. Beautiful lyrics, although the GBA version is better, about love, longing, and regret. She dances with a spirit of Draco before throwing flowers off a castle wall, reminiscent of her potential suicide later on in the game. Sometime later, a ball is held where Maria dances with her soon-to-be-husband, the Noble Prince Raise. He seems noble, at least. I’m busy fighting an octopus now, so I'm only kinda paying attention. Then, Draco returns! He and Raise duel for Maria’s hand. In the end, Raise yields to Draco and the three part under oddly peaceful circumstances. Assuming the aforementioned, octopus doesn’t ruin it.

It’s parallel to the soldier turned actress’ life. She, too, is being pulled in two directions. Or several opposition ones, depending on how you look at Celes’ story. Her heart, her past, her magic, her humanity.

https://youtu.be/nEuf9ZSJrdg


Day 19:
Today’s Final Fantasy Music Challenge is specifically designed to highlight someone other than the only FF composer I recognize. What’s the best song not done by Nobuo Uematsu? HASHTAG NotMyMusician

I’m being facetious, as there are plenty of amazing songs in FF’s history not done by Uematsu. He may have done the entire main series from I to X, but the greatness didn’t stop there. The quality may have suffered, but the rare gem is still aplenty. Tactics has some great songs, the best part of Crisis Core is the music, and XIII has no business being as good as it is. However, I’m picking the first song I ever heard, from X-2 by Noriko Matsueda.

Eternity ~ Memory of Lights is the main menu theme from the first direct sequel in FF history. I got the game for Christmas in ‘03, just after I moved to the south side. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t that great. It was fine, not too bad, but X is one of my favorite games I’ve ever played. I don’t really have a story here...

The point is, sad piano songs are just as good as sad guitar songs.

https://youtu.be/A5BzGwUqGzk


Day 20:
More dirty secrets on day 20 of the Final Fantasy Music Challenge. What’s the best song from a game I’ve never played?

I’ve played many a Final Fantasy in my life. It kept me out of trouble, away from my family, and even further away from girls. Alas, there are many I haven’t played: the entire Crystal Chronicles series, two Tactics spin-offs, the MMOs. And, most embarrassingly, Final Fantasy XV.

I try not to listen to, or know, anything about games I haven’t played, but I occasionally hear something just by being in the fan club. I don’t have any stories about this, but I’ve heard Lunafreya’s Theme a few times and enjoyed it. I don’t know her story, but from what little I do know, I seem to have a type...

https://youtu.be/cK4ttZsU2gI


A Link to the Past tomorrow...

Fell Seal: Full Recommendations

Terrible pun...just...just shameful.

Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark is a game that reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics, as it should. The whole game is a love letter to various games the two devs appreciate as much as I do. Fortunately, it all works well and even stands on its own. The classes, story, named characters, and world all function without outside influence. But, of course, let’s talk about things I hate.

This game is hard! I got frustrated and annoyed at so many things. I feel like every enemy character can, and does, heal frequently. Between items, magic, and various defensive moves, I’d often see my stuff be quickly null and voided. How many turns did I waste to be undone by revives, auto-revives, random auto-revive, full potions, etc.?  I felt like I was up against players. I saw so many cheese strats that I absolutely hated. In the post-game dungeon, I ran into a woman who floated and had a skill called cleave equipped, which allowed her to get two actions so long she got a kill. Not only that, but she loved to use Sabotage, a skill that swaps the user and target's positions, on my character, pulling them into lava. I had no effective counter to her other than massive DPS. I also ran into dual wielding gun users who can attack as many times as their allies do and more than enough reusable Critical: Rebirth skills. It makes me hate the game. I don’t, but I specialize in knee jerk reactions. I’m also not fond of the frequency of status effects this game has. So much poison, bleed, and cripples. Bleed and poison did as much damage to me as cold steel did.

I found many of the classes to be quite samey. There are four branches of jobs in the game: warrior, range, offensive magic, and curative magic. The magic users, especially, can feel a bit monotonous. All the black mages do similar damage, even when it’s pinpoint targeted. The same can be said for the white mages. A part of me wishes there was an ultimate job class for the routes. That way, I’d feel like it all went somewhere and would even open for more customization between my classes. I wanted to mix and match, but I always felt like I needed my basic jobs for reliable damage/healing. Advanced classes specialize, which is great, but they also lose needed utility. Sometimes I need AoE healing, and sometimes I need a single target option. I can’t reliably get that from anything other than the level one class.

But that’s all I didn’t like. And, even within that hate are great ideas.

The difficulty, for example, can be adjusted. When you boot up the game, you have several options. You can turn off enemy items, revives, and some reaction skills. You can weigh it in your favor or give your enemies an edge over you. I choose the annoying ones, but, honestly, it’s pretty fair. Why should I alone get to use Phoenix Ashes to revive? I do think having mindless beasts using potions is lame, though. I’d also have undead mobs he harmed by them, too. I like that aspect of healing and have helped a little when it comes to my annoyances.

When it comes to the classes, that just leads to more diversity. Ultimately, I think the game is designed to have 12-18 troops in your party. I turned the injury system off, so I never built that many. Because of the number of troops, you can have your units specialize and bring a general use squad into battle. You can know that your diversity can lead to someone being useful. I’m hoping that made sense... You can see you're enemies before the battle begins and everything about them, and you adjust accordingly. There are so many options, you might as well use them all! Also, I’m curious if all of my mods altered my perspective. I lost sight of default classes to mod classes. And speaking of mods, seriously, there are mods! You can add whatever you want, and it looks fairly easy with a basic understanding of coding. What’s stopping me from modding in that Ultimate Class?

Now for the things the game does great:
I liked most of the characters, Yates aside. Kyrie being a no-nonsense straight line knight in a world where she’s a dying kind is an interesting concept. She isn’t chosen by birth but chosen by her actions. She deserves to be the world saver by what she's done and not by her name. Anadine being a naive trainee isn’t a new idea, but there’s a lot of ways the game takes it, especially in the easy ending. She has her moments of doubt with the Council, just like her mother, but she sees the need for some governance in this corrupt world. I love how her armor has more growth than the characters in Final Fantasy XII. Both endings make me think the devs are planning a sequel, which I hope focuses on character development. That is the one thing that I felt was lacking. Kyrie remained the stoic leader the whole game, with barely any deviation from that. Law abiding citizens are boring. I’d also like to see more from Reiner. We see callbacks to his youth as a thief with his generalized ability to stay out of sight, track people, and live off the land. But we also the occasional ruthless idea pop into his head. He’s an interesting character and could be a driving force for something. A proper conclusion between him and his backstory would have been nice, though. The basics are there; now expand on them. I’m probably asking a lot from a two person dev team, so I hope no one takes this as a criticism. The overarching story is more than enough to blind me to my insignificant critiques.

I love fighting corrupt religions in games. I love it more when that corruption is explained with several impetuses. I like learning about mythologies and any potential explainable causes of it. This game has that. At the start of the game, you have several questions. What really is this great monster, The Maw? Why are the Immortals immortal? Why are they not actually immortal? All of these questions get answered.

There's character customization! Your characters may have one job, but you can dress them up in another. There are even a few you can unlock along the way. And each outfit, and headgear, have several colors to choose from to personalize them even more. Faces, hairstyles, beards, skin color: it's all interchangeable.

The music was fitting, but I wasn’t wowed by anything. I didn’t give anything the proper listen to at the time of writing, but the soundtrack is on Soundcloud, so it’s an easy fix. The graphics were great. Everything that needed to stand out did, and I never got my characters confused with NPCs despite my team not having a uniform color palette. The game was smooth, and you can make it faster in the settings.

With the combination of a great story, fun characters, solid battle system, character customization, gameplay customization, file customization, and the 50 hours I put into it, I can safely say that Fell Seal isn’t just a clone of FFT and Tactics Ogre. It's an unbelievably spectacular game, especially with only two full times dev. It showed up to the SRPG table, stole a chair, and Ricky Bobbied its way into the club, and my heart.

Jaw Broken

I did the second tournament before playing tonight. It rewards gear that’s pretty okay, but I preferred the stuff I already have. I like that the NPCs use cheese strats as a player would, but, man, did it suck! I’ve always thought it would be fun to have FFT be an MMO, but I’ve come to my senses. Duel Wielding Gun users attacking every time their ally does, and that ally double casts bleed isn’t fun. Six attacks in one round! Yowie Wowie!

Before reaching the mountain tops, we have to go through the Gailigh Foothills. It contains the final human members of Sigil. They’re readily dispatched. After the skirmish, we wonder if it’s possible to permanently defeat The Maw. Our current plan is status quo, with the Immortals continuing their reign. We’re fine with that, but what if we killed this terrible beast to make sure it’s dark powers no longer infect anything? Maybe the Kawa Elders know?

We travel hack to Gogombob, and Reiner sets up the meeting. The Elders try to tell us a long story, but Reiner knows time is of the essence and manages to get them to speed it up. They inform us that the Hedge Fragment pieces we’ve already collected are the key. It’s the portal from which The Maw came through 1200 years ago. Using a piece of The Maw as a teleporting agent, we can travel to its home dimension and defeat it once and for all. Kairu already being here means we only need a piece of the monster.

Traveling back to Nervanzer takes us through Mount Nervanzer. We see Raulf able to control demons but no word on The Maw. It is here we have our final battle with him. We’ve fought all these guys before, so there’s nothing new. When Raulf dies, he comes to his senses and realizes he never stood a chance of controlling The Maw, let alone bringing about a new governance. Would an immortal monster be better than a long lived human?

The last step is Nevanzet Wellspring. On the world map, we can see purple corruption destroying the landscape in the distance. In the field proper, we see the world begin warp under dark influences. It looks like HR Geiger’s childhood watercolor phase. Mouths do not belong on walls, nor should they have tails! We’ve seen the mobs here but focus on the Harvester ones. They have a skill that functions like Collect Pelt/Receive Bounty that leaves your character permanently dead for the battle, unable to be revived. It’s annoying that it exists, but a good reminder of what to use in the upcoming fight.

The final location is called Teratoma. It’s utterly warped and filled with the demons we know and love. Oddly enough, The Maw is the least of our concerns, as his basic attacks do less than 100 damage, and his only AoE move does even less. Dreadmaw can inflict several status effects, so prepare accordingly. Status effect accuracy seems to be lower than usual, though. The Snake Demon dudes are the worst things, followed by the sexy demonesses. Barrage boys are more annoying than anything. Do take notice of the Wyrm things. They can do a few things: small range damage, burp up new mobs, and explode. When they explode, they do an attack that hits everyone on the field. They’re also the key to the true ending. Don’t kill them normally. Instead, get them low and use Collect Pelt on them. There is a chance they’ll drop what you need on a conventional kill, but I don’t leave things to chance. Using Collect Pelt nets you an Energy Fragment. With this in hand, after you kill The Maw, the whole party goes to Lodestarhendge. We use the Fragment and are teleported into space.

We’re greeted by the spirit of Primus, remorseful for his actions. He’s come to his senses, now that he’s not infected with dark energy. He is, though, still under the control of The Maw. He apologizes for what he’s about to do and requests we end this long nightmare.

We enter a battle with The Maw and the four dead Immortal Members, Primus, Secunda, Sekstus, and Septimus. The goal is to kill The Maw, but he absorbs HP from the Immortals, making him hard to focus. So beat-up on the ghosts and try to keep your HP up. When they die, they do a teamwide spell that can be messy. I had my white mage, Lucy, as a mod class that allowed her to use Healing Wind. It heals everyone based on proximity to the caster and heals about 200 HP. If you're using un-modded jobs, focus on healing one at a time and being defensive. The Maw isn't likely to kill your whole team unless you screw up. She also an accessory that functions like a Ribbon in Final Fantasy, so we didn't need to fear her going to sleep. A Mass Heal II heals more damage and might have been better, but stock your healer with MP. Give her Mana Font and use your Mana Stone on her. The Maw functions exactly as it did in the previous battle, but he does have a move he uses when all the Council members die called Forsaken One. It’s the only attack you need to worry about.

After the battle, with The Maw finally defeated, we all return home. The next scene is in what remains of the Immortal Council Chambers. Quintus and Tertia are discussing what to do next with the four Arbiters on the team. They acknowledge the coming days, weeks, and months are crucial in reorganizing the government. If word got out that The Immortals are finished, chaos would erupt. Corrupt Arbiters, bandits, and miscellaneous riff-raff would go wild. Kyrie promises to help maintain the peace. Outside the chambers, Katja regrets not killing the two remaining Gods. Kyrie reminds her her "the smallest spark can create a fire now". Katja accepts that as fact, and we all wonder what’s to come! The final scene is Yates walking back to his house. He has something that looks like the Energy Fragment and promises that the Immortals will no longer have a monopoly on eternal life, indicating he’s learned nothing from this journey.

The credits roll, we’re asked to save the game for the clear data flag, and I call it a night.

I tried to see Ending B after this but ended up getting the Fragment off a kill. -_- There are also a few extra things to do. There's a post-game dungeon, The Ancient Path, where we fight some of the most challenging fights in the game and see what happened to the forgotten seventh Immortal. There's another fight in Thespiros, where we fight a mirror of ourselves. I'm not sure what that meant, but I did it. All in all, I had so much fun in the game. Moratorium tomorrow!

Primus sucks!

Our target is in Illuster but, on the way, is the Crossroads. We’ve been here before, but the demons are new. We have a conventional battle with the evil mobs, and Reiner does some scouting to learn demons ate storming out of the city. As we get there, we see the guards being slaughtered by the demons. One asks us for help, which we easily provide. He joins us for this fight but doesn’t do much. He gets some early heals in before we leave him behind with our superior speed and movement. Funnily enough, he came within 24 HP of getting the last hit of the battle. The only thing to take notice of is the bombardment creature on the roof. This one gets a hit in because of his counter: slow ability. It hits for over 200 damage on my mage, so do be wary.

We step inside the Immortal Castle, and we see a group waiting for us. They’re standing opposite of another Immortal, Tertia. She's fighting against Primus, so she is on our side. Alas, the two Immortals who enter aren’t. Our old pal, Septimus, and his girlfriend, Secunda, enter from the back. These two try to convince Tertia to join them, but Sep wants us to die as revenge. Tertia doesn’t, and a fight breaks out.

With two Gods against us, this fight got dicey. Our God kinda sucks, though, only healing for a little and doing no damage. Her healing isn’t even that good! Besides the gods, themselves, focus on the gunner especially. Because our damage is so high right now, killing the Immortals is manageable. Getting there can be hard, but they melt pretty fast with a dual wielding assassin and no distractions. During the scrum, plot points are revealed by the Immortals. Septimus has been aligned with Primus for a while to overthrow the Council. He Marked Alphonse to do the work for Primus, led the bandits to keep other Arbiters busy, and tried to kill us to keep us away. In general, Sep is just a chaotic dick and does what he does for fun. Secunda joined when she saw Primus kill another Immortal, Sekstus.

After this, we make haste for the Immortal Council Chamber that houses the final relic. We see Primus nearly kill Quintus as Q is the only one standing against him, Grim Eye, and Raulf. Tertia ports in to save him and brings him back behind us. Neither of our two gods help is in this fight, which I guess is fair. It’s us against Raulf and friends, as Grim and Primus are behind a magic wall, draining the final relic. It’s a conventional fight but don’t get hit by the barrage! Afterwards, the worst happens. We couldn’t stop Primus from absorbing the dark energy. And then, something odd happens. Raulf, literally, stabs Primus in the back. It does nothing because Raulf isn’t a god. It does upset Primus, who starts a battle with us. Raulf poses a new plan to join us in stopping Primus. Kyrie doesn’t want to, obviously, but she reckons she has no choice.

During this, we have full control of Raulf. He’s similar to Kyrie, as he’s a Marked too. Grim is at the bottom, glowing purple for some reason. Primus summons in two Templars (?), who are only kinda annoying to kill. When you do, they turn into much easier to kill giant snake demons. Primus has this annoying habit of acting like he did when he joined us in Thesiperios, meaning he drowns people a lot. This sounds annoying, but you can use it screw with his AI. He prioritized drowning Anadine, the only character who couldn’t swim on my team. If you revive her, or whoever you choose, he doesn’t do anything else. It gives you time to kill his adds, and kill him the first time. Yes, the first time. Once you’ve depleted his HP once, the second part of the battle commences. He stops drowning people and now tries to forcibly fuse two together. This kills whoever was targeted second. I don’t know if this works, but try to drain his MP or don't use MP costing abilities on him, as he's got the absorb MP reaction. I don’t think he can use that move without magic, but it may just be a second part attack. During the whole fight, Kyrie is trying to get Raulf to tell her his new plan, but he’s cagey the whole time. Once we kill Primus again, Grim Eye says his ancestors will be avenged, or something, and dies, saying he’s leaving the rest to Raulf. The body of Primus is suddenly changed in a black mass of gross, and Raulf pulls out a medallion and claims he should control whatever that mass is. The mass leaves and an upset Raulf teleports away, with the relic and it's surrounding church bells destroyed.

At the bottom of the stairs is a fully recovered Quintus and Tertia. They fill us in on what happened. Firstly, that mass was The Maw that was sealed away centuries ago. It was too strong to kill, so they had to seal it. Even while seated, it’s power still grew. That was what the pilgrimage was for. Every time a Marked drained the relic’s energy, they drained a portion of The Maw. The Maw is what gives the Immortal their vast lifespan. It wasn’t their intent to live forever, but it was an unintended side effect. The same power that gives them life also drives them mad, as we can see in the acts of Primus, and that Kyrie can kinda understand. They usually retire before this happens but not this time. Not only that, but The Maw was summoned by the Kawa. Grim Eye was the direct descendant of the Kawa that summoned The Maw, and how he knows how to summon demons. It was brought into this world to stop the humans from conquering them during a war wiped from the history books.

And that’s the end of the plot dump! We make a plan to speak to the Elders of Gogombob City and make our way there. But first, Gelligh is burning. We see the city ruined as Raulf is still trying to control The Maw. He’s doing a terrible job, as everything is destroyed. He still thinks he’s doing the right thing to end the Council. A regular, boring battle breaks out with the last remnants of Sigil. After the fight, a new path to Neverwort Peak opens, and I call it a night.

I did walk to Gogombob City after the fight, but nothing happened. There are two locations tomorrow, so we’ll finish this then. There’s also the second tournament to do, which I'll try to fit in at some point. Fell Seal has been an amazing game so far, so let’s hope there’s a fitting ending!

The Fourth Temple

As we march towards the Mountain Temple in Gogombog City, we begin to wonder how we’ll get to it. Anadine asks how often Arbiters come out to the remote reaches of Kawa Country. Kyrie says they never do, except for herself. She tries to come this way every now and then and has created a good rapport with them.

We then trek across the Godstear Wastes, where we fight a new group from Sigil. They and Katja go at it when they call her a traitor. She says they’ll never understand the reasons she left and to think of all the things Raulf isn’t telling them. It’s a conventional battle where we kill everyone until we slay the guy in charge. In his dying breath, he uses a summoning stone Grim Eye gave him. The creatures he summons are mechanical monstrosities that take up nine squares! They’re oddly useless. Their only action is a two turn bombardment of a locked-in area. They don’t even try to root us as the angler worms did. They have 700 HP, but I’m doing upwards of 400, so it’s not a big deal. Go figure?

Next up is Gogombob City. Outside we see the three elders keeping everyone away. The three don’t let us in until they see Kyrie. They rethink it when they notice Yates. They don’t take kindly to necromancy, and the Eldest Elder considers throwing him into the lava. It’s a solid idea; I'd do it! Eventually, the backstory of the relics come up. They inform us that the relics exist to seal up The Maw, the great evil the Immortals were said to have slain centuries ago. The Eldest Elder’s grandpa told them of this. The Maw was too strong to kill, so it had to be sealed away. If those relics are drained, then the great evil will rise once more. To make things worse, they’ve allowed Grim Eye, because he’s a Kawa, and Raulf through. We then make our way straight to the temple.

Sorta...I find Somnier to make sure he’s okay. He gives us the last Henge Fragment and something else I forgot. He’s also the shopkeeper in the city, and he sells top tier stuff.

Afterwards, I make my way to the Devilsblood Ascent. It’s a mountain with lava around it. As you’d expect, falling into the lava will kill you. I reequipped my old mercenary skills to push mobs around, but I only managed to do it once. Once again, I think I’m ready for the end of the game.

At the Mountain Temple, we come across Grim Eye and Raulf. He says we’re annoying and the worst part of this journey before Grim summons more mobs and blocks the two of them off while we fight them. DO NOT STAND NEXT TO LAVA! I can’t stress this enough. They can, and will, push us into the lava. I got mad, but it’s a good strategy. Otherwise, it’s not too hard of a battle. The battle after, though, can get spicy.

It takes place directly after the first battle and is reminiscent of the infamous Wieglaf battle in Tactics. We’re fighting similar demons we just fought, as well as Grim and Raulf this time. There’s a lot of floating dudes here, including the guys in charge. Before the fight, Raulf takes off his hood and reveals himself to be someone Kyrie knows. His real name is Clyde, the partner of Sylvia: Kyrie’s mentor and Anadine’s mom. During the battle, the characters talk and say that Clyde was once the best Arbiter around. One day, Sylvia became disillusioned with the Council and, as punishment, was sent on a suicide mission. Anadine has very little to say during this, which is odd since this might be her dad? While this is going on, we have to kill stuff. Once again, it’s a simple fight. Watch out for Grim Eye. as he likes to make our characters berserk. I’m thinking that only we can defeat we, so I’m scared of we.

Once we’ve subdued our long time enemies, we’re greeted with the presence of an Immortal. Primus, the man we fought aside in Thesiperious, where he drowned all those people, rebukes Grim and Clyde. Not as villains but as underlings. It turns out Primus is actually evil. He initiated the whole Marked Pilgrimage to gain the power inside the temples. But why? He takes the staff Clyde was using, absorbs the evil power therein, and all three teleport away. The only relic standing in their goal of whatever their goal is is back in Illuster. Kyrie does whatever she’s supposed to do with the relic, and we make for Illuster.

Tomorrow might be the end? I’ve skimmed ahead, so it might not be, but it might be.

Before going to the temple, I turned in the Hedge Fragments. It summons a dude and a bunch of demons. We have to kill the demons and keep the dude alive. His name is Kairu, and he’s from a previous game 6 Eyes Studios made named Black Sigil. I’m not sure what to do with this information, but I’m curious if it’s a good game.

Last Day of Training

We left the city of Gelligh and headed for the Bardvig Aqueducts. As we pass, we see another Marked man named Draxl. His group has returned from the temple, saying the Kawa aren’t letting anyone in. Since the Kawa have defended themselves well, they’ve decided to attack any Marked who passes through, so they’ll win by default. Katja informs us she was hired to kill this guy before, but they were too strong. Kyrie tries to talk him out of it, but evil is as evil does...

It’s a straightforward fight. I think all my grinding has led me to be even with my enemies. After the battle, I go looking for the treasure hidden beneath the waters. Activate the switches, drain the water, and open the chest. Inside are Hover Boots that allow the user to float over everything, including liquid. With these in hand...er...foot, I now have access to every single chest I had to skip before.

Inside are powerful items and a few badges, which unlock interesting classes. I’m over fifty percent of all chests opened, with the rest in places still to come. Opening all of them took all night, so I couldn’t advance more plot. The only other thing of note is that I returned to Port Grendel and overheard a quick conversation about a meeting at a graveyard. If we return to where we killed Mercier and Dolman, we see a group of undead led by a sentient Pumpkin Man. Killing everyone unlocks a new hat, a Pumpkin, and a portrait, ditto.

Tomorrow I’ll head to the final temple!

I’m thinking I’m about two nights away from being done. I’m not sure because I don’t want to spoil anything, but from what I’ve skimmed, I’m almost done. I’ve got no more want to grind, I did plenty of that tonight, so I’m full speed ahead. I wonder what those obelisks are?

To where it all began...

Our first order of business is to walk onto the capsized ship at Strangled Cove. There we see our assailant, Katja, surrounded by people who want her dead more than we do. I know this because Kyrie offers our aid. It’s a conventional fight, but we do need to make sure Katja survives. She likes to use Mirage, which absorbs one hit from anything and has some decent DPS herself, so it's an easy task. I’m pretty sure we won without her taking any damage. After the fight, our Irish accented friend tries to make one more escape. Fortunately, I (in game) manage to get behind her and keep her nearby. Kyrie offers her an ultimatum. We can either escort her to jail or join us as an Arbiter conscript, giving her temporary immunity from the law until we’re done with her. She, with no other recourse, joins up. There’s an optional scene where the whole party is at the campsite. Katja wonders about the usual jovialness of the party and is introduced to the idea of companionship. She decides she’ll sleep better than she has in a long time tonight.

The next two locations are weird. They’re both cities with the same shops. There’s also no cutscenes or optional stuff in either of them. It seems odd to put these places back-to-back...

When arriving at Port Grendel, the map connects us to Gelligh, the city we met Alphonse in on day one. In between that is Drakesmouth Seaway. It’s an encounter where we’re attacked by sea monsters. It’s typical stuff, so no big deal. There is the last optional cutscene here, though. Bzaro confirms that it was Katja who killed the Marked he was looking for so long ago. He plans to turn her in, but Kyrie convinces our bug friend that all the government red tape will take too long to process her, and she should keep traveling with us.

Gelligh is the gateway to the last temple, so we walk the streets where the game began one more time. As we do, we’re suddenly attacked by six assassins, and a battle breaks out. The goal is to survive the ambush, with Kyrie surviving. So, it’s pretty much like a normal battle, really. I went to the right first, to kill the gunner over there. I also killed their tank because he was a bad tank. Regardless, after we’ve killed two of the enemies, a sudden shift in the battle happens. The same corrupt Immortal we saw aiding Dolman and Mercier long ago, Septimus, teleports in. He berates his hirelings and helps join in the killing of us. Or tries too... He’s, oddly, pretty easy. He’s annoying in the fact that he counters everything with the bleed spell. His assassins can hit hard but are very squishy. Septimus is both fragile and weak, so his 700 HP melts pretty fast. Either that or I’m (in game) OP. After the battle, Quintus and Tertia teleport in. They say they sensed Immortal magic being used and needed to see what was happening. Sep tries to frame us, saying we attacked him first, while Kyrie tells the truth. Ultimately, nothing happens as the rest of the Immortals need to deliberate on what happened, which may take a while because of the aforementioned red tape. We try to inform Quintus of what has happened along our journey, but he says Primus has filled him in. The three Immortals return to their chambers, and we keep on to the final temple.

...which I’ll reach tomorrow.

I think I’m coming to the end of the game, and I’m starting to want it. It’s nothing the game has done wrong. If anything it’s me. Too many classes and too much grinding because of too many mods. I’m about at the end of where I want my characters to be, so let’s kill a god. Or whatever the game has in store!

Grind Day/Final Fantasy Music Challenge pt. 2

I wanted new jobs, so I spent three hours grinding and enjoying the battle system. I went back to the Jungle Temple and freed the people I trapped within. They gave me earrings and another Hedge Fragment. I got a third fragment from a Kawa Bandit I killed later on. Gotta find Sonier for the fourth. I’m pretty sure that’s all I did. I was gonna add that to tomorrow’s update and leave tonight empty, but I might as well update the Final Fantasy Music Challenge.

Day Six:
In today’s episode of here’s Final Fantasy music, we talk about the most important song of all: Overworlds.

Final Fantasy VI shares its theme with that of Terra, one of the best characters in the series. She’s a young woman who isn’t an amnesiac but may not even have a past to begin with. It’s incredibly somber and fits the entire mood of the game perfectly. And from a straight musical arrangement, it’s the only possible selection for this. Walking around the world map while this plays gives you plenty of reason to explore the world and maybe find some new things or grind. It’s a win-win. ...and then when they take it away from you in the second half, the game gets worse.

https://youtu.be/cUg8rC9yu6U


Day Seven:
I welcome you to my dungeon on today’s Final Fantasy Music Challenge post.

Every game has the dark and spooky places it takes you to explore. Caves, towers, ruins, forests, sentient trains: all dungeons in the realm of video games. Sometimes they all get one generic song. Oother times, every place gets its own unique theme.

My favorite is the sixth song players in 1988, although I prefer the remastered from Origins/PSP, we're likely to hear: Chaos Shrine. The first evil lair Final Fantasy ever ventured into was also the peak in musical excellence for the theme. You’d expect something actiony to get you pumped for the battle to save Princess Sara, but nope. It’s a super chill with some woodwind instruments playing over a mellow piano piece. Probably some strings too... It’s got just enough creep to give it that first, and last, dungeon feel to it.

https://youtu.be/Pw6mrBRHHVU


Day Eight:
So, I know what I said about the Overworld theme being the most important a few days ago, but I lied. Really, it’s all about the battle theme.

Final Fantasy tends to keep what you hear while killing flans, goblins, and lesser gods fairly consistent. There’s a lot Uematsu does to keep things fresh, though, while still keeping to the motif. But, when it comes down to it, I’d rather hear the Final Fantasy V song than any other.

This was actually really hard for me to pick. A part of me wants FFIX, but I’m going to stick with V because that bass line is just so crunchy. I remember moving my cursor to the beat of it many times in the past.

https://youtu.be/COdhV1Sevew


Day Ten:
We’re a third of the way through the Final Fantasy Music Challenge, so let’s celebrate by beating a boss!

But to which song? Easy answer. I’m looking for a Challenge...from Final Fantasy X.

Challenge was the only song that popped into my head when I read what the theme was. It gets you pumped to fight a boss, represents all aspects of a potential battle, and has a nice catchy headbanging part. The build-up may be slightly too long, but when the beat drops, it’s kicked into high gear. Sometimes it takes a while to set-up for a boss fight. That’s fine. There’s a somewhat morose part in the middle that represents that maybe things aren’t going your way. If you’re fighting Seymour or Yunalesca, oftentimes, that happens. But the build up starts again, and you’re back on top in time.

Also, the remaster of this song is the worst song in Final Fantasy history.

https://youtu.be/ySgAB9cIyOU


Day Eleven:
Two days ago was the battle theme. Yesterday was the boss theme. That can only mean that today is the most iconic theme in all of Final Fantasy: Victory Fanfare. The joyous tones you hear after a well fought battle have started the same since ‘88. The five seconds of DO-do-do-do-do-do-dododo have rung countless times throughout millions of gamers’ speakers and even popped up in pop culture from time to time. But what’s the best?

After the first five seconds, the songs tend to stay the same from game to game. At least, until Final Fantasy VII. There was nothing wrong with the first six games, but there’s something about the arpeggios (?) that are played after the initial fanfare that are permanently stuck in my head as the default sounds that I’ve won. I asked a girl out on a date once and, when I was comfortably away from earshot, began to whistle those notes to myself. There’s probably a reason it didn’t work out (several, actually).

https://youtu.be/udp5MajuKKk


Day Twelve:
There are really only two possible answers to today’s Final Fantasy Music Challenge.

I-V are great songs, don’t get me wrong, but they just can’t compare.
VIII is a terrible game, and The Extreme is only okay because it borrows from Battle on the Big Bridge.
Necron didn’t need to be in IX.
X is a confusing mess I’ll get to later.
XII sucks.
I don’t know the rest...

So, which is a better final boss theme: One Winged Angel or Dancing Mad?

It’s One Winged Angel, and here’s why. Firstly, it was the first (of the two) that I heard. You’ll always remember your first, right? Secondly, Dancing Mad needs time to warm up. OWA needs no warm up. Jenova is the warm up! Thirdly, DM is tied to the stage of the final battle. It’s a four part epic that changes based on where you’re at in the fight. Sometimes, you may not hear large portions of the song. It may be better outside of the game, but Sephiroth has the best theme in a vacuum, which is where I’m basing this decision off of.

The clown must die so that the confused son may live.

https://youtu.be/qDD-iYkHBhc

The Desert Temple is on an island.

Why? Dunno!

Anyway, to reach the temple, we must first cross the bridge to it. As we should have expected, it’s guarded by more Sigil members. There is a hooded Kawa who tells everyone he’s going back into the temple to inform a man named Raife that we’re here. Kyrie offers them freedom if they let us by, but no dice. Bzaro tries to talk to the Bzil members, but, again, the anti-Immortal sentiment is too strong. There’s not much to say about this fight, but watch out for the guy who starts in the water.

Once inside the temple, we see the Kawa, Grim Eye, Katja, and the man who’s probably Raife. Raife is using a similar staff to what Alphonse used on the first relic. We, the player, see them ask why the Bzil flooded the temple paths. As we approach, he says they should hurry but in a way that makes me think he thinks he’s better than us. As they leave, Grim Eye summons various demon mobs to keep us company. Katja then gets annoyed at this. She didn’t join Sigil to side with demons, so she smokebombs her way out. The other two pay no mind and leave.

This fight is surprisingly easy. As they’re demons, they’re weak to holy damage, which Kyrie has plenty of. The sexy demon ladies are fragile, and I got lucky as no one spawned with annoying reactions. I made Anadine a Demon Knight, giving her access to cleave. Cleave gives her two turns in a row if she kills something. She made great use of this ability here! After the fight, the party discusses the potentials of everything: Raife and Grim Eye, especially. They wonder if there’s something stronger than Grim Eye behind all of this as someone had to teach him how to summon demons. Kyrie does her thing, and Yates studies the relic after.

There’s an optional scene on the bridge. This is where Yates informs Kyrie that he noticed a similarity between the sexy demon ladies and the creature Anadine turned into at Yates’ house. The world map makes a path to a place called Port Grendel, just off the coast of the starting city. We, though, have to go the long way. Kyrie calls it a short cut, but I don't buy it.

The first battle is in a poisoned swamp, [!!!]. The water infects you with poison, so don’t stand in it. The only thing to worry about is the Cadaver and their annoying Critical: Rebirth skill. We’ve seen everything here. After the temple fight, Anadine, who finds the Kawa adorable, wondered if the merchant we saved earlier, Somier, is still north of Yates’ house. I’m curious myself, so I go check it out. He’s not there, but he has left us a note. The note says he’s moving to a place I don’t know, but he's taking a trip through the desert first. There are only so many desert places out here, so I go check them out. North of Thesisoris, we find him beset on all sides by various insects. Bzaro is mandatory for this battle, but it’s fine. I have him function as the healer as me (in game) wreaks everyone’s shop. It’s a mostly normal fight, but we do have to keep Somnisr alive. He stays out of combat, and I try to draw the rampaging bugs to my characters. It’s a pretty easy ordeal. Once again, we save him, and he asks us to stop by his shop in Gogombob city.

Which I’ll make for tomorrow! Or, probably, sometime after. I have no idea where that is yet.

There’s a lot of jobs in this game, and all my mods add even more. And I want to play all of them! The fact they show a silhouette of a potential class when you’ve unlocked a portion of it makes me want to get it. It’s like a drug. I love it! I spent some overtime tonight trying to unlock a few more. That’s what I did with the rest of my time tonight, and will probably do a lot more going forward.

Long Cave is Long

Firstly, I got Reiner’s special class. I got the Tarnished Locket from the Cadaver, crafted it into the Polished Locket, and a new scene in Centania opened up. We’re in the guildhall, and we overhear two people discussing a story. Long ago, a man went off to war and left his beloved behind. She waited years and years for him to come home but never did. One day she received a letter saying he had died, but she never moved on. Many years later, while clutching the locket that resembled the same one her beloved wore, she went out into the woods and disappeared. People say she heard the voice of her soldier from the locket. Rumor has it, she wanders the woods nearby.

We head to the nearby Alpine Woods, and, wouldn’t you know it, we come across a ghost. She’s surrounded herself with more undead and wolves, and a fight breaks out. It’s pretty dang tough with lots of poison, hastes, AOE damage, and random re-arises! Fortunately, after a real brawl, I managed to win. She dropped her locket, and another item that means nothing to us right now, and the party camps out.

That night, Yates tries to talk to Reiner. He asks about the legend of the Firestone and if Reiner knows it. Reiner says he thinks about it every night. It’s, essentially, Teora’s version of the Phoenix, where the user dies and is brought back to life. Inside of the recovered locket was a shard of the Firestone. That shard and her love kept the ghost woman in this world. Yates didn’t believe in souls before this night, but now he does and considers rethinking his life. He also gives Reiner the locket and says he may be able to talk to Alicia with it. Reiner hears a sound, the screen flashes blue, and we’re returned to the world map with access to the Spymaster class. I'm not gonna lie; it's really anti-climactic.

There’s a new location on the map, Lodeshedge. It involves the stone we got from the dead girl, but nothing happens here yet. We still need three more stones.

Continuing with the plot, we travel back to {Town}. Inside, we’re met by Katja, who we last met when she tried to kill Anadine and Yates. She, and her assortment of back-up, ambush us. The goal is to kill Katja, which is pretty easy to do since she doesn’t have much HP. She duel wields, so she can DPS the HP out of you!

Afterwards, she smokebombs away, and we met with the village elder. He’s a Bzai, one of the same bug men Bzaro is. He says Sigil has conscripted many of the locals, who are upset that the Immortals won’t let their race defend themselves suitably. They had a run-in with Dolman not too long ago, and they’re, rightfully, upset. When asked about the temple, the Elder says Sigil has flooded the path to it. The floods are also a risk to ruin the crops. Kyrie and the Elder think up a plan to blow up a part of the cave, draining the water within.

The first step in this is a traditional fight with various mobs. The second fight is a very fun boss battle. At the bottom of the cave, we run into two angler worm thingys who have a unique attack. On their turn, they root a character to the ground in a line in front of them. They come from the walls and can only attack in straight lines, so it’s kinda telegraphed. I don’t know what happens if we don’t move, but their next attack is to charge out. They also bring out more mobs when they do this. When one dies, a third massive version of them shows up. The new guy takes up four slots and has 1000 HP! It’s a long flight, but not impossibly hard. It’s still tactical, engaging, and, most importantly, fun! Seriously, great fight, Six Eyes!

We plant the massive piles of explosives and try to book it out if there. We walk back through the previous location, but this time, we have a time limit. We have twelve rounds to get to the exit. I put the best movers on my team and haste/Fleet of Foot them. I ended up getting there in four rounds, so I wonder if I could have killed everyone to win? I still got over 200 AP, so cool! On the world map, we see a small mushroom cloud pop over the boss fight location. A new area rises from the bay, and that's where the temple is...

...which I’ll do tomorrow!

All the job classes, fun mechanics, plots, subplots, and characters make this game incredibly fun. I know it’s by default, but this would have been my game of 2020. Assuming it keeps up the quality. ;)

I should have expected this.

I had just begun my trek through the desert landscape of North Teora. The first battleground, Caravan Trail, is filled with new, interesting monsters. Most notably, a roach with a fun move. We’re warned about these buggers, with Kyrie telling us to hide behind the rocks and ruins. If we don’t, we can trigger their special attack where they charge ALLLLLL the way across the path, doing massive damage. Otherwise, they’re quite manageable in one-on-one combat. The knock off flans are what you need to worry about here.

Our next location is the city of Oldebzar. As we enter, we see the naked civilians being killed by a group of bandits led by Mercier. But how? Once again, we do battle with him. The goal is to kill Mercier, although he doesn’t die in the end. This battle has its hangups, but focusing on the target isn’t too hard. Keep a healer with your two heavy hitters and have your secondary squad run interference to keep the mage at bay, and it should be fine. Afterwards, Mercier explodes a smoke bomb and runs away. We see a glimpse of Reiner giving chase while Kyrie fills Anadine in on the impromptu plan of stalking Mercier back to his lair to find out who’s in charge and how he got away from the Arbiter we left him with, Dolman. Time passes as Kyrie is arguing with a man trying to fleece those who’ve just been robbed. We learn that Anadine’s mom, Sylvia, was the mentor of Kyrie. The next scene involves Reiner returning with the location of Mercier's whereabouts. This gives us an option. We can continue to the temple to fulfill our mission or head to the Resting Stones, where Mercier is. I, obviously, choose to kill the bandit.

Heading south, we stumble upon Mercier and Dolman having a conversation where they’re clearly in cahoots. We know many Arbiters are corrupt, but what’s really odd is Septimus, an Immortal, is leading the charge. Septimus is the one I said was evil in blog one, so I'm not too surprised to see him. He’s talking about killing people and making sure his plan goes well. When we show up, he teleports away and tells his subordinates to kill us or else he’ll kill them. We see Bzaro has been taken captive and, in the commotion of us showing up, breaks free and joins us.

This has the typical problems I always have with this game: too much healing and status effects. What’s most annoying is Dolman has the Critical: Rebirth skill. Every time I have him near death, he automatically casts re-arise on him. We have to kill him four times! This isn’t a terribly hard fight, but it might be the most annoying. It taught me to use items, so I’ve given up on my hoarding.

With two of our enemies dead, we wonder what to do next. Should we inform Quintus or continue the pilgrimage? We were told to prioritize the pilgrimage, and thus we do. We don’t want Bzaro returning alone, knowing we’re targets of something higher than us, so he joins up. Bzaro is a customizable monster type character. He learns new classes by killing monsters and...emulating?...them.

I’m on a roll, so I keep playing. I advance further to the temple and do a craggy battlefield at Irizk’tara Gorge. It’s filled with giants, wannabe flans, and a special undead mob. The Cadaver is holding a letter that you get if you kill it with Collect Pelt. Sadly, Drew Carmello killed it with a counter, so whoops. Had I felled it correctly, I would have taken a step towards unlocking Reiner’s special class, the Spymaster. I’ll try again tomorrow.

I didn’t want to venture to the temple tonight, so I tried my hand at the arena. I rage quit round one again. But I came back! They may be masters of dodging, but I’m stubborn! I got my vengeance when I won! Round one was the hardest, and it got easier from there. Round three was one of the easiest fights in the game. For my rewards, I got new outfits. I change into the clothes because they're cool. I don’t like the hat, though.

I shall finish this leg of the pilgrimage tomorrow!

There was an optional scene at Oldebzar where we’re thanked for saving the town. We’re asked to take a new outfit from the outfitter, and our three main characters play dress up, ending with new armor for Reiner. I don't know how far into the game we are, but already, we see so much of the world is tainted. How much of it will we cleanse? At some point tonight, there was a second optional scene that further explains Yates and Reiner. Reiner took Alica to see Yates to see if he could heal him. He could not. Rather than accept the inevitability of death, Yates turned Alicia into a zombie. This, rightfully so, enraged Reiner, and he never forgave the mad doctor. I'm glad I don't use him...

This is rough, man.

The game uses a lot of status effects and healing. I can’t believe enemies even use revives!

We leave the city of Thespeiros and travel to Ekhidna Falls. We briefly see two figures walk off screen as several monsters appear. Some of the monsters are kinda cuts. The giant sloths blowing a horn deserve better than what I’m about to do to them. The creepy standing snake, though, is getting what’s coming to it. And don't even get me started on The Harvester. The Harvester is a metallic abomination and was just asking me to kill it. Our characters even point out its sketchyness, believing it to be the ringleader, so that’s two reasons to focus on it. This battle was pretty easy, so I felt like I had overcome my feelings of inadequacy. After the fight, Anadine begins feeling unwell. She says the powers in the temple are affecting her new evil side. Everyone tells her it’s okay to return to town, and she does.  

Inside the Jungle Temple proper are a mass of people. They claim they’re working for Sigil, and their leader has been selected as a Marked. Kyrie wonders why an anti-Immortal would, and could, be selected as a council member. The Sigil members were told to kill everyone who came through the door. They, however, disobey orders and promise to only knock us out. We return the favor.

I hated this. This fight has a lot of healing, cripples, status effects, cleanses, HP, and attack. If the devs wanted this game to feel like a war, they succeeded. FFT has its moments of difficulty but, once you know what you’re doing, is pretty easy, even without cheese classes. After two tries, and focusing on the healers, I managed to succeed. Maybe because I was missing Anadine and my back-up mage was bad, but here’s the new hardest fight. When the dust settles, both sides agree to the ceasefire. Reiner wonders if they should just arrest them, while Kyrie tells the Sigil group what’s going to happen to them. They’re sentenced to stay in the temple, where they can’t leave because they have no Marked. I forgot why, but it sounds like a dick move. Kyrie absorbs what’s left of the magic in the relic, says she feels more powerful and dark, and Yates studies what remains.

We return to Thespeiros and meet back up with Anadine. She’s still feeling unwell, even from this distance away. As she rejoins, we’re graced by another well-known person, the Immortal, Primus! He’s meeting up to confirm the story he heard from Quintus and Bzaro, as well as give his thoughts on stuff. Before he does, Riener yells that the city is under attack. We go to defend, and Primus joins us. With the aid of a god, this fight is simple. There’s some discussion about how Immortals cannot interfere with "mundane" acts, but he does anyway. His only action is to teleport enemies into the water, drowning them. It’s pretty brutal! After we win, Primus says the Immortals don’t track teleportation, so no one will know. He then informs us he knows what’s wrong with Anadine and cures her of her Demon Knight issues. The staff we picked up with Alphonse has been studied and used to relieve her of her ailment.  Her evil side still remains, so she keeps being a Demon Knight, but the adverse effects are gone. We thank Primus, he tells us to keep the encounter a secret, and he leaves. In an optional scene, Kyrie wonders about the morals of a god drowning people when they’re not supposed to, skirting their own laws. Reiner seems fine with it.

To end the night, I went around and opened a few chests. Some I still can’t get to because I can’t fly. The tournament at the arena in Centralia is also opened. I tried but got beat pretty fast. Sneak attacks didn’t do much, and this Auto Crossbow kinda sucks.

We’ll head to the Desert Temple tomorrow!

I don’t like status effects. I’m just not a good assassin, I guess. I don’t like using them, and I, obviously, hate being struck by them. In Tactics, I feel like I never see them, other than poison. I say I hate this, but I’m secretly enjoying it, even it’s greatly extending the playthrough of the game and blog.

The mods work! I don’t think I need them.

Other jobs are OP!

Last time, I was killed in a clear ambush at the Azure Fields. After a few warm-ups to grind for the Monk class, I get back to the story. I return to my failure, only slightly stronger than before, but strong enough. I killed the Kawa bandit bug fella, got a cool electrical sword I probably won’t use, AND was able to kill its back-up. It was hard, but Kyrie being able to shoot dark beams from her hand helped.

Back on the world map, I see that there were three chests hidden in the stupid high flowers. ...Oh boy! Because I’m actually very greedy, I go back in. It’s the new hardest fight! Gunners are OP! Exclamation points! Long range status effects are rough. And they have two dedicated healers and a third or fourth who can do it, too. Add in the tanky tanks and the root counters, and, man, things were not fun. Inside were pretty decent items, sorta. You can buy the items in the next city, so they were not worth the effort. I won in attempt one, but it took forever. There’s an optional scene, still in Azure Fields, where Anadine and Yates converse like friends. She holds the mad doctor in high regard, not knowing his true intentions. Reiner advises her to avoid him, which kinda annoys her.

With the fighting done, we continue to Banyan Span. It’s a strange battlefield, just one long tree root/branch. It's unique but tight and hard to traverse. When we show up at the field, a man named Mercier tries to shake us down. When Kyrie does her Arbiter arrest speech, the bandit leader then offers us passage. He doesn’t want to deal with the fluff around us. Alas, Kyrie doesn’t take him up on his offer, and a fight breaks out. The goal is to defeat the leader, who’s been moved to the back of the field. What you need to worry about most is the gunner at the back. Ultimately, Lucy heals a lot, and Kyrie shoots lasers, and I manage to win. I think I know who my MVPs are. We don’t have to kill him, but we do need to lower his HP to near death. After the fight, we try to escort Mercier to jail. The nearest guildhouse doesn’t have prison cells, though. We prepare to return and upset the journey until a new Arbiter Captain shows up. Dolman and his crew take him off us after a professional conversation. I wonder if he’s a corrupt one, and we just gave him our new mid-boss?

At the city of Thespeiros, we split up to find information on the area. The bandits we fought were a squad from a larger group that laid siege to the town earlier. They were beaten back by a group called Sigil. Sigil is an anti-Immortal group who wants to return life to how it was before the Immortals came to power. There’s also an optional scene where Kyrie and Reiner discuss Reiner’s history before he became an Arbiter Captain. He was a street urchin who fell in love with a woman named Alicia. Something happened to her that encouraged Riener to change his life around. From a lowly thief to a noble Arbiter without a group to command. This scene occurs because the two are from here.

Next up is the second temple to make Kyrie (storyline) stronger and to help Anadine, but we’ll do that...

...tomorrow!

Who is Sigil? How peaceful are they in their ambitions of freedom? My country was just attacked from within, so I'm kinda wary of terrorism. I wonder how long until we see Mercier again? Man, there’s a lot of things going on in the game! Well done, assuming they’re all resolved! Hopefully, I’ll figure out how to get more than two battles in at some point.