LogFAQs > #946301346

So there's a cutscene with Mustadio and his dad in the records that I haven't seen ingame. Not sure how I missed that. Also I'm guessing the 1 casualty on there is Teta, which is a nice touch.

Nice to know undead enemies still die to Phoenix Downs! Almost makes up for me deciding against giving my White Mage Float before entering the poisonous swamp. That reminds me of one little gripe I have: is there no way to see the layout of the map when selecting your team? I've laid out my crew in bad positions before because of this. Also 'Don't Move' is indeed helpful, thank you for the clarifications on that.

Mustadio leaves the party at Goug for a hot second and gets immediately taken. I like that Ramza cares about him and Mustadio is disappointed to let Ramza down though they've only known each other a few days. The fight here is surprisingly not awful, if you can survive the initial Shiva onslaught the Summoners are pretty harmless once they're low on MP.

Turns out Draclau was in with the Bart company but Mustadio pulled the old Sonic Adventure 2 switcheroo on them with the fake stone. He joins our party properly now (yay!) but loses a bunch of his abilities somehow (boo!). He's still an absurdly good party member with his gun's range+accuracy. Time for a boat ride, which is strangely uneventful given the other boat journeys I recall from the series.

Larg, Goltana, your brothers, everyone... Haven't noticed they're all swept up in the same flow. I'm just going against it. That's all.

Another nice and strange scene with Delita once we get off the boat, poor Ramza isn't getting the answers he wants though. Delita doesn't seem to have much hope for saving Ovelia's life. Draclau kills Rudvich pretty brutally offscreen, and Agrias joins our team (also missing some abilities) after we help her out of a tough spot (Pretty easy battle though, really). I notice at the shop we now have a dictionary and a harp for sale (Bards confirmed!), and Ramza's bio in records now has the line "Fights in search of life." :(

What else can you call it other than 'evil'?

Then comes a fight with Gafgarion at Golgorand Execution Site, which is my hardest fight in the game so far. The party is split in two, Gafgarion is right in your face at the start, the Time Mages are far away and free to cast buffs/debuffs, it's pretty rough. Storywise there's some good stuff here, Ramza argues with Gafgarion (who is a very good devil's advocate) then blames himself for Teta's death, and I'm glad I brought Agrias as she has some decent moments here believing in Ramza despite his identity. Guess I'm gonna bring her and Mustadio to all story fights now in case they have unique dialogue.

No one will mourn your death.

We eventually wear them down after many attempts thanks to some Arm Aim and a lot of Stasis Sword and Haste. Our prize is a scene revealing Delita's allegiance (allegedly...) and the genuinely surprising twist that Ovelia is not Ovelia. I'm so used to secret princess tropes I didn't expect the inversion! (Cool music here too) This is a great twist if true, it really plays into the whole bloodline/commoner v royalty themes they've been laying on. It also makes Ovelia more interesting, and removes the possibility of an 'Inherently Good Monarch saves the day' trope from occurring. Really it just opens a lot of narrative doors. Man, this is... really good so far, in many ways atypical to Final Fantasy.

---

Congrats to azuarc, Guru Champion 2020!