LogFAQs > #954224560

Glad I'm not the only one who had issues with scratched discs. And I didn't know FF7 did that!

The Outer Continent is home to Cactuar (woo!), which are usually buried in the ground this time round, and cast 1000 Needles on defeat. I manage to get 1K for Quina, along with a couple other Blue Magics here. The first location we find is a marsh that is almost identical to the one on Mist Continent, right down to Quale and the tutorial moogles. Weird!

We find the dwarven village of Conde Petie (Lali h- I mean, Rally ho!), and I guess this is just... Scotland if it were a desert. The dwarves are nice (I wonder if the dialogue is difficult for Americans to read lol), but the major feature here is a local black mage! Vivi understandably doesn't want to let them out of his sight, so we follow the mage through a short Phantom Forest-y place and wind up at Black Mage Village (coolest font choice so far).

Everything here is great. We finally get a bunch of Black Mage info, though it's less lore based and more just... life and death stuff. It's all pretty heavy, and we learn that some Black Mages seem to be suddenly 'born' into sentience, and they 'stop' about a year after being manufactured. Each mage is developing their own personality- some have drawn art, some are looking after a chocobo egg, and they have varying levels of knowledge about life. Black Mage #288 is the most aware of his own state, and shares with Vivi what he knows. I don't think poor Vivi was quite ready to hear everything quite so plainly, but the scene between the two at night is really good. The cemetery is a great setting. Vivi longs to find a place of belonging, but #288 tells him that life is in the journey, and he should go with his friends.

At the same time, Zidane gets uncharacteristically vulnerable and tells Dagger about his own childhood, under the guise of a story. He doesn't know where he was born, only that there was a blue light there, but realised his adopted home (where he was beaten >_>) was where he belonged. I don't know where that was or how he left, but this was a great scene for Zidane. I like that even when he finally opens up he still keeps himself shielded a little by distance.

Also a little note: I have too many moogle letters so can't pick up the one here! Don't know if I missed some moogles somewhere. Anyway just putting this here as a reminder to go back to the village later.

After the great nighttime scenes, we head back to dwarftown where Zidane and Dagger must marry in order to gain access to the Sanctuary. Zidane reverts back a little to his annoyingly flirty self here but I'll take it as him overcorrecting for opening up the night before. More importantly, Vivi and Quina get married. I laugh out loud irl at Quina's 'I... so happy', that completely caught me off guard. Funniest line in the game so far. Good for Quina!

On the mountain trail we discover a stubborn wise-beyond-her-years young girl who had a close relationship with her grandfather. Following in the footsteps of Porom, Krile and Relm, I see. Eiko doesn't make much of an impression at first, though we quickly learn that she is a summoner (nice touch having the gang discuss her magic in battle!). We travel the mountain, see a second (!) massive tree, this one going by the name Iifa, and we have a boss fight that isn't worth mentioning. We get to use Float for the first time, I guess!

Having two healer+summoners in the team is pretty unusual. And with Quina's exit (lol at how inelegantly the devs throw Quina out of the party whenever they need to make room for someone else) Zidane is the only physical attacker here, so I can't Steal very much. We pick up some stones on this route and put them into a shrine, but I can't have gotten all of them as nothing happens (I got R+B+G).

On the other side we reach Eiko's home, a destroyed Village of the Summoners that is full of moogles. There are two very different tones at play here. I'm not sure how I feel at first, but the Eiko kitchen shenanigans are pretty fun in the end. Not sure if I pick the right choices but the meal turns out pretty well and Quina is very fun (also major lol at Quina making a great grand entrance twice within the span of 5 minutes). Are there people who don't like Quina? S/he is great!

On the other side of things, there is a serious tone as Vivi and Dagger contemplate life, and even Eiko's stuff has a darker undertone as we learn that the summoners all died here and she's been alone for a long time. Makes her annoying pestering of Zidane more sympathetic. I like that Vivi hasn't just shaken off the massive revelations from the mage village, and the poor guy doesn't exactly 'get over' his fears about life and death here. For the second time today Zidane impresses me greatly, providing some comfort to Vivi while still being real with him. My fav line here is "You'd think with all the problems in the world, there'd be more answers." It's a great scene (I'm saying that a lot today!) that somehow ends in Zidane and Vivi pissing together under the stars.

We need Eiko to help unseal an Eidolon that was sealed by an Eidolon blah blah so we can get into the Iifa tree. She sticks with us for now, team balance be damned. That's all for today. I have to say, going into this playthrough I did not expect the narrative and character arcs to so prominently feature philosophising over the nature of life and death, and the anxieties that come with that. Whew!

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Slowly becoming a Final Fantasy aficionado.
Currently playing: Final Fantasy IX!