LogFAQs > #949030207

The Phantom Forest has a cool aesthetic, and a camera angle that isn't completely top down! One of the most surprising things about this game so far is how far the graphics advanced since V. Anyway the forest is a short Lost Woods-esque location, but soon we arrive at the true dungeon, the Phantom Train. This place is cool, I am always a fan of train sequences in video games (and they had quite a run of trains with FF6-7-8 it seems!). This train is the equivalent of a ferry ride across the River Styx, taking souls to their final destination. It's a cool creepy setting, in theory more than practice.

We get a ghost pal in our party who can 'possess' (kill) enemies and then disappear. Cool. There's also a guy named Siegfried who claims to be a great swordsman, but I guess he accidentally picked up Excalipoor because he does single digit damage. He takes some treasure and flees, and I don't see him again. Hopefully I didn't miss another encounter with him on this train. We do have a difficult fight with an Apparition, who casts pretty strong spells in rapid succession. We barely take him down because I'm a fool and forget that undead enemies are vulnerable to Phoenix Downs in literally every game. Guessing that's what I was supposed to do there because there's two Phoenix Downs in nearby chests >_>

The ghosts start getting creepier, multiplying in number and chanting No Escape among other things as they surround us. Now this is more like it! Sabin jumps a few carriages ahead (I guess he was carrying the other two?) and we eventually flee them and have a nice meal. Actually four nice meals, I swap the party around to see the different dialogue. Shadow feeds Interceptor and our ghost pal remains silent but seems to enjoy its food.

At the front we stop the sentient train and have a boss fight on our hands. I use Meteor Strike as recommended and Sabin lifts the train into the air and slams it down for massive damage. Lol. I vaguely recall memes about this now that are making more sense to me. Sabin is living up to the lovable brute archetype pretty nicely! The train isn't actually a problem, and after punching it a bit it lets us off. We then have a pretty haunting scene of Cyan's wife and son boarding the train to the afterlife, giving him a bit of closure but in a pretty horrendous way. Oof. I lost our ghost pal before the boss fight so I don't know what would happen with him if he was still around.

Shadow leaves the party at the nearby waterfall :( but Cyan sticks with Sabin as we leap over the edge. Sabin just has no fear, huh. We wash up in Veldt, with a different overworld theme and tougher monsters. The boy who rescues us, Gau, appears in random battles hungry but feeding him the Green Cherries I have does nothing. The town nearby gives us some Dried Meat, new equipment and we send a letter to Maranda on behalf of an injured soldier. Gau accepts the meat and has a pretty lol sequence bouncing around with Sabin, and bonding with Sir Thou. Kappa shows up to teach me how to give Gau new abilities, but honestly he seems to have a pretty decent amount already. Is this our equivalent of a Blue Mage in this game? Pretty neat way to do it, imo! And more than a few Ayla vibes on this kid.

We find the diving helmet treasure Gau wants to give us after he messes with Sabin a little, and, yes, it's time to jump off another cliff into some water. Is 'Sabin jumping off of cliffs into water' the new 'Lenna poisoning herself to heal Wind Drakes'? We shall see. If this game ever gets remade in live action I hope they keep the utterly bonkers death-defying bouncing around everybody does. Anyway we travel underwater (sharing the helmet I guess), head through a cave, and wind up in a town I forgot to write down the name of. We get supplies, somebody gives us some lore about the aged man in the cabin- we did get some lore back in Veldt, but this time it's bigger. He threw out his baby he saw as a monster after his wife died in childbirth some 13 years ago. Was Gau the kid? Time shall tell!

This time we take a ship, I guess there was no river to jump into that would take us to South Figaro, and so ends this pretty lengthy fun scenario. I wanted to get through both today but this took longer than I thought, so Terra and co will have to wait! We've met like 9 proper party members according to the equip screen in the shops but there's still several empty spaces, this game is packed full of people huh.

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Slowly becoming a Final Fantasy aficionado. Currently playing: FFVI
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