LogFAQs > #947420965

And off we go! Not sure where to go I look around for Cid and find him under the sea, he sends us on a fetch quest for Adamantite. We have a boss fight against a very fitting Adamantoise, which isn't super easy as I don't have my usual attacking magic classes junctioned on anyone. Oops! We take it down anyway and then it's time for a sequence that's probably as cinematic as you could get on the SNES.

We ride our airship high and try to get past the defences of the Ronkan flying fortress, which involves 4 not-so-easy fights followed by a boss. The atmosphere is great here, compared to IV this game is super heavy on machinery and I love it. Fighting literal rocket launchers is great. This not being my first FF game, I figure machines are weak to lightning, and indeed Thundara and Ramuh are vital in these battles. They aren't easy though, on the third set of battles we very almost lose- three of the team were down and summoner Galuf was confused with very little health left. Thankfully the enemy used Missile which seems to be a percentage based attack, snapping him out of confusion and allowing him one final Ramuh summon to finish. Phew!

The fourth battle is fine but the Soul Cannon is tough. Again Thundara and Ramuh are lifesavers, but I have to use so many items up here my inventory is pretty bare by the end. Unfortunately my Lightning Scrolls were all used up in the last four fights. The two side launchers go down easy enough but then the boss just continually charges and fires his Wave Cannon, dealing 200+ damage and sapping HP of whoever survives. We scrape through (this thing has a lot of hp) and enter the ruins. I look for a save but there isn't one in the immediate vicinity, so I fly through the dungeon ignoring all the cool stuff nearby just desperate to find a save. We eventually find one on floor 4 and I can breathe.

So this dungeon is also pretty good, thankfully we have Find Passage on so it's not a nightmare to navigate. There's some good equipment here and I have the idea to turn Bartz into a thief so I can steal some items and build my inventory back up a bit. The Ronkan Knights prove to be the best victims as they carry Hi-Potions that are easy to steal. The Archeotoads also carry them but steal pretty much never works on them for some reason. I discover that the Ranger's Animal ability is actually really cool, at least for now. More often than not it summons Nightingale to heal the party to full HP at no MP cost, terrific! And aside from that there's delightful squirrels and bees and a Mysidian Rabbit (which does nothing?) to summon.

As I'm scouring the dungeon I find there was another save point much earlier on than the one I found, and I eventually realise that I can take the ship back to the map and save/heal whenever I want. Oops >_> The path ahead is actually pretty cleverly hidden, I only see it off to the side from the Level 4 save room so you can't just sleepwalk your way through this one. Near the end Hydras start to spawn, and we steal a few Ethers from them. We meet King Tycoon, or whatever he is now, and he has us fight the area boss for him. Lovely.

Archaeoaevis can change its weakness at will, and after a bit of experimentation I decide to just whack it with physical attacks. I look through Faris's Blue Mage options to try and find a non-elemental attack and use Missile, which takes off 800 HP in one go, then 18HP. Seems like it really is percentage based, this could be very useful to know. Unfortunately the beast revives itself and we have to blast through it all over again, but its attacks really aren't frequent enough to be a problem. Missile doesn't work the second time round so not sure what the criteria is for that, but we take it down without much trouble.

I head back to the save before continuing in case there's another boss, but we are instead in for a lengthy set of plot-heavy cutscenes. I have to say the ongoing 'Lenna: Father! Faris: Papa!' got on my nerves in what was otherwise a good scene, they seriously repeat it like 6 times. The girls stop the boys from murdering their obviously evil father, and then in a moment reminiscent of that one IV Rydia sequence, Krile divebombs her way in via meteorite to take out the King. Galuf's ? bubble bounces off the screen (audibly lol'd) and we have two heartwarming reunions going on while Bartz stands around watching, presumably wondering why everybody forgot about the crystal that is about to collapse.

It does indeed collapse, and we get a flashy light show and some very cool music to announce the return of Exdeath. His opening line ends in 'Mwa-hahahaha!', I don't think we're gonna be getting a sob story face turn from this guy! He owns his evil like a cartoon supervillain, I guess with a name like Exdeath he didn't have much of a choice about where his life would end up. He taunts Galuf, and shows off his crystal power when Bartz stands up to him before darting back to Galuf's world. King Tycoon sacrifices himself to... I don't know what he accomplishes here actually. The Light of Earth 'reclaims' its essence from him which I guess buys us some time? The place still falls down. Anyway his death was well past due, and we finally get the 4 new classes here- Samurai, Dragoon, Dancer and Chemist. Those will do very nicely indeed.

We escape the ruins and I see an unopened treasure chest as the screen pans up :(. The girls mourn their father and Galuf drops some background info on himself and Exdeath. He and Krile take the meteorite back to their world- I was half expecting Bartz to join him there and then and worried I'd missed out on whatever I have left to do here. The gang talks it over and they all agree to go help him, which means finding Cid. He's not in the underwater base or the library so I'll look for him tomorrow (maybe in Karnak). Big stuff today!

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