LogFAQs > #954256958

I head all the way back to the mage village, but the moogle letter isn't there anymore. Bah. Onto the *ifa Tree!

Not what I expected, we wind up going down the tree, not up, and the enemies are all undead themed. The light keeps fading, until we get to the bottom where everything is green and there's a massive waterfall streaming below. Interesting things to note here- Dagger can't hear the Eidolon like Eiko can, and she can't use any of the gemstone Eidolons except Ramuh. Wonder why. Also- and this is ignored by the cast but it felt very important to me- the descending platforms only trigger when Zidane steps on them. He must have some connection to this place.

At the bottom we meet Soulcage, who reveals that they spread the Mist from the roots here all over to other continents, in order to spur humanity to violence. It also claims to have seen the end of its 1000 year lifespan, and that today is not that day. I'm inclined to believe it, there must be something deeper to this thing if it's actually the cause of so much suffering and we just off it in a random boss fight here. Vivi decides we should kill it, even though it means no more new Black Mages.

Soulcage isn't super tough to beat as we have two healers on side, but I cannot steal the Brigandine no matter how hard I try. There's some cool gimmicks here- Level 5 Death thankfully misses me as my team is all Level 24 (that could've been very very annoying!), and hitting the tree with fire magic starts a fire, enabling more attacks until we douse it with Blizzara. I decide not to risk things and just avoid fire magic after that. Later on there's an annoying move called Mustard Bomb, which seems to kill a party member if they act. Unfortunately the timing doesn't work so well for me, and Zidane dies multiple times instead of failing to steal the Brigandine some more. Ah well. Vivi finishes it off and... the Mist dissipates.

Part of me is wondering about the fate of people back on the Mist Continent, and if any airships suddenly fell out of the sky >_> But we really did remove the Mist just like that, and instead of waiting for Kuja we head back to Eiko's village, where Lani kidnaps Eiko. Eiko has a jewel much like Garnet's pendant, interesting to note. Thankfully we don't have to fight the boring rogue again, as Mr Scarlet Hair shoos her away in order to have a fair fight with Zidane.

The 1v1 here is simple, I use Detect first and see there's no interesting things to steal so I can just focus on attacking. He darts around the field but I get some attacks in whenever he's in close range, and heal as appropriate. I wind up using Elixirs for safety as Hi-Potions weren't healing enough, between them and Zidane's Counter triggering a few times we manage to down him and he runs off, absolutely unable to parse Zidane's lack of murderous intent.

Eiko is fine, Vivi gives her advice back to her ("Don't lie to yourself", another good line), and we wind up with Zidane and Dagger in a boat in a cove. This area looks really nice, the framing of the cove around the edge of the screen and the boat/sky/water in the middle, I like it a lot. The two have another nice chat, and Dagger is still doubting herself. As the boat drifts, she is suddenly struck with memories of her childhood (that I think we saw in the opening), and it is revealed that she spent her childhood in this village, witnessing a horrible hurricane (though she doesn't mention the GIANT EYE IN THE SKY) with her birth mother on a boat.

This all makes sense, and there's still the question of why she was taken in particular and why she doesn't have a horn. Part of me wonders if this is just a cheap way of distancing Garnet from Brahne so it's not her 'actual' mother who we will fight, but this is quickly laid to rest by upcoming events as Dagger absolutely still treats her like a mother.

Eiko decides to come with, and Amarant shows up and joins us unexpectedly. Weird time to open up party choice, but OK. I don't think I know of any other character names, so this might be it for the party! No idea where Quina is.

Anyway it's time to head back to the Ancient Tree of Life and confront Kuja. You don't have to tell me this is an end of disc sequence, it speaks for itself. Hilariously the game has me decide which party I want to face Kuja with, then has me pick again a few minutes later, and then it doesn't matter because we don't even fight him! There's not even a boss here! Nice bait and switch, although... we really should have had a proper boss fight here. It's a bit anti-climactic without one.

Kuja is much more open here than he has been so far, though his explanations are still pretty vague and cryptic. Seems like he's not from this world. He taunts poor Vivi, and refers to the black mages as soulless beings made from the 'dregs of souls', his way of describing the Mist. He's really not that interested in us though, he's just here to kill Brahne. Dagger manages to take Leviathan and insists we help her mother, but we have to stand and watch the ensuing events. To Brahne's credit she does manage to summon Bahamut, and Bahamut does wound Kuja. But Kuja pulls some weird magic stuff and summons the Eye from Dagger's memories, taking control of Bahamut himself. He handily mentions that Act 2 of this play will be set in Alexandria, and the final act offworld where he will face his nemesis (maybe the moon if we're doing throwbacks to SNES era!).

And then we get a string of scenes. Brahne is free of whatever control Kuja had her under, and passes in her daughter's arms. Kuja just pisses off somewhere. But maybe the most shocking thing here is that... things just seem to hit a reset button. The war seems to be over, the black mages are gone, there's no mention of Mist, Brahne's destruction isn't even a talking point (in Alexandria at least), Garnet is to be coronated imminently, Steiner and Beatrix are just fine (?! we didn't get to control them and see what happened? boo!), Zidane is depressed, and just like at the start of the game, we're controlling Vivi in Alexandria.

Not gonna lie, this is a weird as hell tonal shift! I assume it's intentional, and of course things are gonna go down again, but wow, this is not what I expected to happen. I wondered if it even might be a dream sequence for a min there. I save in the chapel and leave it here, I'm sure things will make sense soon but I've played for long enough tonight. This game has earned enough trust in me that I have faith the writers know what they're doing. Onto Act 2!

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