LogFAQs > #947394356

Next stop on our world tour is Jachol, not much to do here aside from hear some lore but they tell us some useful info for the nearby caves, which are packed to the brim with squirrels of two kinds. Nutkins are incredibly easy to kill, and Skull Eaters are super powerful. I didn't realise they were undead and now feel silly for not using healing spells on them, but I got some AP anyway as they tend to flee sometimes. We get what we can there and I pick up Aqua Breath in the desert (thanks for the tip Lordofthemorons!) and the only place left to go seems to be Crescent Island, where we've been pointed several times. There's an island in the middle of the ocean with a structure on it but no way to land there.

Heading into Crescent our ship immediately sinks thanks to some quake (there was word somewhere of an underground monster here I think). Thankfully we soon get our 4th mode of world map transport in the name of a Black Chocobo (the lighting/shadows in this forest are weird but cool), along with two new jobs- Bard and Ranger. Yay! Not really a surprising set of jobs considering the local town was selling harps and bows and we learned our first song there (and up to level 4 on the piano now!). The chocobo can only land in forests but flies over mountains so our range is opened up a bit, also no more random battles. Lol that a chocobo is objectively a better mode of transport than the massive fancy Wind Drake. First things first I head back to our old pal Boko and then to Walse to see if any new dialogue has opened up, sadly there's nothing.

What we do get access to is Bartz's hometown of Lix, a very cool little surprise. There's three good scenes here fleshing out Bartz, his parents and his childhood (including one with Faris). Leaving this as an optional area you're not directed to in any way, and not having crucial plot but just some neat characterisation laying out who Bartz is and how he grew up, I really like how they go about this. I like that Bartz isn't some super cool important guy who is destined to be a hero, he's just living life the best he can after losing his family. Of course his parents probably have some plot relevance but for now I like that he's a pretty normal guy. Seems like a nice place too, with a free inn stay, very friendly locals who all remember him and a discount in the item shop (though they don't sell the overpriced Phoenix Downs here, I see what you're doing game!).

Excursion over we report the bad ship news to Cid/Mid who dgaf, and work our way through the Desert of Shifting Sands. The sandworm isn't too much trouble but it is a little hard to see which direction the sands take you in sometimes. We get through to Gohn, the Town of Ruin. There's nothing here except what appears to be King Tycoon, who leads us into falling down a pit (he didn't need to give us the runaround, we would have walked over that way anyway!). Faris confesses her identity to Lenna and they have a moment and we're all perfectly fine to leave poor Galuf to die alone.

The music tells us this is a very strange area, there's mechanical stuff everywhere but no enemies (very striking, I know there's no meteorite down here but that's still interesting). We inadvertently warp to under Crescent and the system collapses behind us due to its age. Following a paper trail we get the spell Mini (I bet I will never use this), rest up and discover the Fire-powered ship next to another ship with propellers above the black void below. OK did our ship sink here naturally because it is perfectly placed along the bridges as if somebody moved it to be so. They know how to draw crashed ships so I'm guessing this is intentional. Cid and Mid luckily fall down and Cid gets the gears turning to result in, yes, an airship rising out of the sea. The obligatory battle is over almost as soon as it starts thanks to a couple of Thundaras and a Ramuh summon, and we have our world map transport #5!

The gang acts like we're heading to the final battle against the big bad here, I wonder if anybody was fooled by this back in the day. The airship turns the world into 3D and is much faster than our other transports, but honestly it's a bit harder to see where we're going than back in 2D. We fly back to the old town ruins to see some massive structure rise out of the ground and disappear somewhere. Before following it I head back into the desert to try and find the building in the middle I missed earlier, and we do get there but it's locked. Oh well! That's all for now.

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