LogFAQs > #954648031

We traverse through the puzzles of Pandemonium, first up is an annoying room where we have to predict light patterns and avoid them to avoid enemy battles (hey, Malboro!). My controller starts to not respond properly here, which makes things really annoying. I have to reset and everything is OK again. Next up is an elevator room, which looks impossible but thankfully the other half of the party decides to stay back and help me out so we don't have to run back and forth. I get the treasures from there and the next warping room, and then it's time to confront Garland.

Garland turns out to actually be an interesting guy. He himself was created by Terra to oversee this grand plan, and he has an interesting view of life: "To live is to give life meaning, yet one must take others' lives to survive...". Zidane challenges him and each party member gets a nice line to themselves here, I'm tempted to go back through an old save with the others to see what their lines are. Steiner's is my fav: "I may not know who I really am, but that is my question alone to answer!".

We have a fight with the Silver Dragon, which is OK except for the annoying Twister. Things work out alright and I get my Steals off, then we have a fight with Garland himself. I thought he might have a true form or something, but nah. Vivi lands a Slow, and Zidane gets his steals. Garland is very fond of casting Stop, and he always targets Dagger. Thankfully Remedy cures Stop and I have a bunch of them in stock.

After Garland falls to his knees, Kuja makes his entrance, and we finally get to fight him (I can't believe it took this long!). I keep failing to steal his third item, but I use Detect and see it's one I already own so no big deal. Kuja is a fan of Thundaga and Demi, but honestly he's not that bad. He eventually goes into Trance mode (cool when enemies get limit breaks!) and haxes us with Ultima to end the fight.

Turns out Kuja sucked up the souls in the Invincible (including Dagger's mother) to gain his new power, and he... puts an end to the grand Terra plan, just like that. Huh. I was expecting more reveals to come regarding the Terrans and Garland, but Kuja insists on returning to the stage as the main villain! He tosses Garland off the cliff and burns Terra to the ground, presumably taking the Terran souls with him.

Garland gets his last laugh though, taunting Kuja by revealing his own mortality. Kuja reacts even worse than Zidane did here, I guess he'd been in denial. He breaks (if there was anything left to break) without any friends by his side, and we flee from Terra. Along the way we rescue the genomes, and Zidane takes a moment to thank Dagger (loved this). Also lol at Dagger's 'they're just eyes!'. Also Quina was maybe up to something that we didn't see.

So that is the end of Terra. I did not see this coming, I thought for sure Garland was gonna be the big final boss. I guess we probably won't learn any more about the origins of Terra (don't tell me if we do!), which is a little disappointing, but I suppose it served its plot/character purpose. Kuja has just gone full Kefka, which means he's intimidating but a bit less interesting as a character. I guess he's just a very very dark mirror of what Zidane could've been. I enjoyed Garland a lot (and that Pandemonium music was sick!), there was something especially sinister about the way he almost seemed willing to hear everybody out, but still remained dedicated to the cause he was created for. I am very curious how things would've gone if he survived here, being a puppet himself and all.

The Black Mages take in the Genomes in some more nice scenes (how has Bobby Corwen not had an SMFFFC run?!), and it's a shame the game is into its last act as I'd really like to see more of these folks interacting and discovering life in their own way. Though the mages are to die soon still I guess :(

Mist has taken over the world, and there's some creepy glowing ball over the Iifa Tree. The characters act like this is the final confrontation, so I won't head into the ball in case I can't come back. Dagger BSes some reason that we have to do this ourselves which I really don't buy. Anyway, am I at the endgame here now? I enjoyed this segment for the characters, though it wasn't as mindblowing and didn't open up lots of narrative doors the way yesterday's did.

Even a fly lives for a day!

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