Board 8 > Maria Plays Final Fantasy 6 [Spoilers]

(+) Yeah! (+)

in the kingdom of something or other, some agents of the empire travel to a remote mining town. two of them are actors from the star wars movie. there is also a green haired girl who is wearing a slave hat. this hat lets you know that she is a good guy and only doing bad things against her will.

we spend some time murdering dogs, humans, and a giant snail.

oh, the reason we are here is to look for an esper. hey we found it.

oh, the guy got disintegrated.

oh, the other guy got disintegrated.

green haired girl wakes up, and her name is terra. hey, I know her from the critically acclaimed Save My Final Fantasy Character series. old man removes her slave collar and sets her free. well, he wants her to run away through the mines, which are infested with monsters and bandits. and I guess if she survives she'll be free.

the alternative is stay here and get killed by the angry guards. seems like a fair deal.

I like the music in this game so far.

I've actually played through to the end of the mines before, but nothing past that. also I don't even remember any specific details about what has happened so far. I didn't even remember old man existed, I sort of just vaguely remembered that terra ended up going through the mines on her own.

gonna play some more after dinner.
---

best FF
---

MariaTaylor posted...

I like the music in this game so far.

GOAT!
---

terra spends a little bit of time walking through the mines before she is surrounded and falls into a hole. there are a lot of memories that we see in her unconscious state. basically she helped the empire burn a bunch of stuff and kill people.

a guy named locke is apparently friends with old man, and he decides to jump into a hole to save terra.

then some moogle come out to help us play a battle minigame. I definitely remember this part, but this is really the last thing I remember, so yeah. this is about the extent of my final fantasy 6 knowledge. everything after here will be a "blind" playthrough, minus any information I might have absorbed passively by existing on the internet where people discuss video games.

as soon as we leave the cave I realize we're in the same town we were trying to escape from. I spend a little bit of time in the adventuring school.

I was just thinking, you know, it's kind of dumb that we were trying to escape from this town and now we can just walk around here freely. moments later, as I'm trying to actually enter town, some guards show up and chase locke and terra away. well, fair enough.

now we head south to a place called figaro. and grind EXP by fighting some cabbage along the way. using some information I picked up from the adventuring school, I have Terra target all enemies with Fire. this proves to be incredibly effective and I can kill everything on turn 1 consistently.

we end up in a desert and my "bomb everything with fire" strategy helps avoid being overwhelmed by some scorpions. they are more dangerous than the forest enemies but barely give more EXP. with that in mind it might be better to grind in a safer area.

I found the next town but, rather than entering, decided to save on the world map. yet another epic trick I learned from the adventuring school...
---

Tag
---

Tag.
---

.gaT
---

maria's trick

---

What are you playing it on?
---

tag
---

apparently getting into figaro castle isn't so easy, but the door man knows who locke is and we're allowed inside. I want to explore a bit, but everyone here REALLY wants me to go see the king. the king flips me off and then introduces himself as Edgar.

locke immediately leaves terra with this strange man who tries hitting on her, but she feels nothing. oh well. at least now I'm allowed to explore the castle.

I noticed the castle music stops playing when I talk to the high priestess. she introduces edgar's twin brother, sabin, to me... through a flashback, anyway. after exploring a bit I decide to see if I can leave. I can. I almost get killed by some scorpions, but I get some nice EXP as a reward. when I try to get back inside, the door man stops me. then he lets me back in. is he going to do this every time?

not sure how much grinding is required in this game, but since the most basic enemies in this area pose a serious threat to me... I decide to go and kill a bunch of them to get a little bit stronger.

um, so, apparently, they have the ability to paralyze you with an ability called Numb. needless to say, if you're fighting alone, this is a problem. Terra just stands there getting attacked for like a full minute and then dies. whoops. guess I'm playing through this section again.

okay time to find out what I'm supposed to be doing to advance the story.

this time I do a better job of exploring the castle, find some items, and when I return to the throne room a cutscene triggers. kefka shows up to squat in the sand and complain about his job.

after this, locke returns. he does a bit of explaining about what is going on, although most of this I could already infer by the direction of plot and the flashbacks given. basically this resistance group, the Returners, is secretly plotting against the empire. Figaro, despite having an alliance, is part of this group. also old man is a member. and locke is important somehow too, for reasons. I like to imagine he's just talking himself up to try and impress terra...

kefka doesn't like being told to buzz off, and so he comes back later to try and burn the castle down. edgar, locke, and terra escape on chocobo while the castle sinks into the ground.

some of the magitek armors from before try to chase us. despite how overpowered they seemed at the beginning of the game, they're no match for terra's magic and edgar's tools.

I really appreciate how the characters actually reacted to Terra using magic, since it's not supposed to exist in this world. and they even have a cute little cutscene in the middle of battle. it feels very third wall as well, with the ATB stopping, and the characters interacting with the framing of the screen.

the chocobo ends up being a hindrance since I can't access the menu. I decide to hop off immediately so I can save, then walk the rest of the way across the desert. I'll take a break before heading into this cave.
---

The Popo posted...

What are you playing it on?

GBA version
---

nice. FFVI was my favorite game for a long time when I was a teenager. Probably still my favorite FF and yeah, the music is kick-ass
---

time to enter the cave

there were a few branching paths but ultimately it wasn't any difficulty to get through. I find it kinda amusing how the party isn't particularly balanced at all. Edgar has the highest HP, the highest basic attack damage, and he can use his Tools without needing to rely on MP. Terra can do AoE but she relies on MP for it, and Locke is just a straight up worse fighter than Edgar.

I've tried to steal a couple of times now, and never managed to succeed at it.

kinda disappointed there was no boss at the end of the cave or anything. really wanted to try taking down a boss with the group tactics I'd been developing on the monsters in this cave.

I find the next village and decide to save my game before heading inside, as I've been doing with new overworld locations so far.
---

Yeah, FFVI is not a difficult game and you shouldn't ever need to grind. All the characters are usable, though some are easier to use than others (like Edgar, as you saw)
---

as a character the only one I really like so far is terra. but in terms of effectiveness... yeah I love the auto-crossbow.

the shops in southern figaro carry weapons, armor, and relics of the utmost quality. first thing I do is go around and steal everything that happens to be laying in boxes and jars out in the open. I like to imagine this is what locke contributes to the party. otherwise, why is he even here?

next thing I do is go to the pub. I'll check out the shops later...

um... a little kid just followed me into the pub. I can definitely say I would never have guessed that was about to happen. at the bar we "meet" a guy named shadow. well, they mostly talk up his reputation and agree to stay away from him.

as it turns out, the pub is connected to the inn... which is also connected to the relic shop. this is a very strange design for a town. it's like, one giant building with everything inside of it.

I decide not to buy any relics right now because I have no idea which ones might be good, and they are kinda expensive.

man there is really a LOT going on in this game though. I feel like every single room has at least one NPC who does or says something interesting or mysterious. the world feels very alive as a result. I can definitely see why so many people like this game so much.

I found this guy who was clearly a spy for the empire, and in his hidden basement there was like 2,000 gold.

so one of the guys I ran into earlier was delivering cider to an old man. I follow him and find out that this old man used to work for the rich guy who is a spy for the empire. this old man (not to be confused with 'old man' from earlier) doesn't want to talk to me unless I also bring him cider.

while exploring I find a teleport stone, upgrade all of my weapons and armor, and buy a bunch of potions, because why not?

I find a save point in some guy named Duncan's house, and decide to stop for here. this is probably the longest sitting sessions I've played of the game so far... and all I really did was walk around town and explore. I'll remember to go back and see if I can steal some cider next time, and finish exploring the side of town I haven't looked at yet (if there's anything up there).
---

MariaTaylor posted...

I feel like every single room has at least one NPC who does or says something interesting or mysterious. the world feels very alive as a result. I can definitely see why so many people like this game so much.

This is low-key one of my favorite things about this game. I was able to find a lot of secrets in this game just by talking to every NPC. Not many RPGs nowadays do that!
---

followed the guy back and forth between the old man's house a few times, but I couldn't figure out how to steal the cider. maybe I have to go somewhere else to find/steal/buy some? for now I'm gonna see if I can find mt. kolts and this duncan guy.

found it. pretty fast, actually.

traveled through the caves, fighting martial arts guys, and I found a main gauche for locke to wield.

the gorgias in here are really dangerous, dealing around 40% of Locke's HP for each hit. they could quickly kill Locke or Terra if I'm not careful with healing/damage distribution. I actually noticed for whatever reason Locke tends to get targeted a lot, though. maybe the enemies really, really hate him.

on the way up, you can see a shadowy figure climbing as well. it looks pretty similar to edgar so I'm gonna guess this is his twin brother who was mentioned earlier.

found a save point which means maybe a boss or something coming up soon?

rather than wasting a tent to heal the entire party, I have Terra heal everyone and then use a single sleeping bag to recover her MP from casting Cure a bunch. dungeon crawling strategy!

I get into a few encounters after this, but mostly the type where I vaporize them all with auto crossbow before they can touch me. edgar gets poisoned along the way but I heal him with an antidote.

the guy we run into, vargas, is not sabin. but he does look like edgar/sabin a bit. and apparently he knows sabin. he knocks us all down with a cool backflip or something. then, a boss fight commences.

vargas has two meat shields in front of him which slightly diminish the 'blast everything with fire/auto crossbow' strategy I've been relying on up until now. it takes a few turns to burn through those two. after that, we start attacking vargas directly. locke manages to steal for the first time and gets... a potion.

bio blaster helps deal strong damage to vargas each turn, until he gets ready to unleash his ultimate technique. then, the real sabin shows up to interfere.

my main part gets literally blasted off of the battle screen. once again, loving this mid battle conversation and third wall breaking stuff. then sabin has to face off against vargas in a 1 v 1 duel. it was... really intense. I tried using the blitz command at first and of course nothing happened. I didn't know why at the time, but if you're reading this you've probably played FF6 so you probably know. so then I spammed attack.

the Doom counter is ticking down while I'm getting hit over and over. eventually the game tells me to use Blitz, but I waste like two more turns trying to figure out how to do it correctly. eventually I'm down to just 2 HP. Vargas attacks me and misses. finally, on my next attempt, I get the Blitz to work properly. with just 2 HP left and about 16 seconds left on the Doom counter, I take him down. what a comeback.

I get the rest of the way through the mountain pass and decide to take a break for now.
---

sabin's blitzes are superfun!
---

I dont think the game really tells you about this, but if you look at Sabins blitzes from the menu, he starts the game with 3 of them. Go through the menu to learn what the inputs are for them.
---

oh yeah the game didn't tell me about that, but I did investigate it on my own earlier. either way good call out. would have been useful to know if I hadn't checked it already for myself.

you know, one thing I'm realizing, is how much both FF7 and FF8 were inspired by this game. it's really cool to look at this from a historical perspective while playing it. even stuff like the musical direction in certain scenes gives me a lot of nostalgia for FF7 and FF8 at certain times.

I don't even think those two games are very alike, but it feels like the few things they have in common are elements which were drawn heavily from FF6, which really paved the way for both. well, this is just the opinion of someone who has only played an hour or two of FF6 so what cares what I think anyway.
---

MariaTaylor posted...

oh yeah the game didn't tell me about that, but I did investigate it on my own earlier. either way good call out. would have been useful to know if I hadn't checked it already for myself.

I think during my original playthrough back when it first came out, I didnt realize I had two more blitzes until I earned the 4th one. When I went to look up the input, I had a What the hell are Aura Bolt and Suplex? moment.
---

I remember a lot of people having trouble with the Vargas fight because they couldn't figure out the timing for Sabin's blitzes. The thing you have to remember is this: select 'blitz', input the command while the arrow is pointing at Sabin, THEN click on Sabin.
---

it's just a short walk to the next mountain path. or, rather, this seems to be the actual Returners hideout. I spent some time practicing my Blitz commands on the wild monsters on the way. the aura cannon actually requires you to roll the directional buttons. it didn't work when I input the directions one at a time.

here we meet Bannon. he seems to think Terra is incredibly dangerous, I think, but also she's the only hope left for the world? after that the party splits up to rest, and I'm solely in control of terra again. I decide to go around and talk to people.

locke tells me why he joined the returners and how he lost someone important to him.

sabin tells terra that she should trust edgar, but edgar says that terra should decide for herself whether she wants to fight for the returners or not. after all, if they force her, they are no better than the empire.

when I talk to bannon, he actually asks if I want to become the ray of hope or not. I'm very tempted to pick "no" just to see if the game actually allows me to refuse or not, but I also don't want to reset the game just to pick yes. hmm... I decide to try it out. all that happens is you go back inside and you have to talk to him again to progress the story. vaguely unsatisfying but not unexpected.

bannon gathers everyone and explains his plan: we'll have terra go and try to talk to the esper, to prevent another war of the magi.

unfortunately, the empire has plans of their own.

the meeting is interrupted as we learn that south figaro has been taken over by the empire, and they are on their way in this direction to deal with the returners next.

edgar, sabin, and terra escape down the river. they will head to narshe and continue on with the plan.

meanwhile, locke is going to infiltrate southern figaro and try to cause problems for the empire by attacking and subverting them from within.

so on the raft I have to actually choose which way to go to guide it, although I have no real idea or indication which is the right way to go. also I'm supposed to protect Bannon from being attacked but I wasn't really given a chance to change my equipment or anything after I was told that. would have been nice!

bannon can heal everyone for a lot of health every turn with his Pray command, which is helpful. but he does have low HP, so I still need to be vigilant and make sure I burst down the enemies as quickly as possible.

after a few battles we reach a save point and I'm also given the chance to equip the knight's code onto sabin. this will help protect bannon, as well as my other party members. also, since terra was given the gauntlet, I decide to have her equip it. I sort of imagined she would be relying on magic attacks more, and having a shield would be useful since she has lower HP, but hey. might as well cleave things with a two handed sword when she's not using MP. especially if sabin is gonna be tanking anyway.

since there is a save point here I will use this opportunity to stop for now.
---

MariaTaylor posted...

when I talk to bannon, he actually asks if I want to become the ray of hope or not. I'm very tempted to pick "no" just to see if the game actually allows me to refuse or not, but I also don't want to reset the game just to pick yes. hmm... I decide to try it out. all that happens is you go back inside and you have to talk to him again to progress the story. vaguely unsatisfying but not unexpected.

If you refuse three times (or once and then talk to the Returner in the storage room apparently?) you get an early Genji Glove. And if you refuse three times I believe it skips the planning scene and just has messenger show up immediately.
---

oh, huh. that is really interesting!
---

MariaTaylor posted...

so on the raft I have to actually choose which way to go to guide it, although I have no real idea or indication which is the right way to go.

If you pick the wrong way, it basically just takes you into a bit of a loop, and you end up back at the same spot again, asking you which way to go. So basically, a wrong selection means 1-3 extra random battles.
---

MariaTaylor posted...

it's just a short walk to the next mountain path. or, rather, this seems to be the actual Returners hideout. I spent some time practicing my Blitz commands on the wild monsters on the way. the aura cannon actually requires you to roll the directional buttons. it didn't work when I input the directions one at a time.

All the Blitz commands have short cut inputs you can do which is a lot easier.
---

time to continue!

hey, I got to experience going the wrong way this time. so I guess I just happened to pick correctly on the first river raft sequence. interesting that you could use this method to easily grind while bannon full heals the party infinitely for free. not really motivated to do that.

managed to pull off the suplex for the first time.

the next save point is only a few seconds away... as opposed to last time where I felt like I didn't get a chance to save for like 15 minutes. weird, but I'm not complaining.

uh... hm. okay. maybe I should have grinded. and now I don't know what to do.

so basically a boss, Ultros, appears right after the save point. I have no way to grind before going to face him, at least none that I'm aware of. he oneshots Terra if he attacks her directly. he oneshots Edgar if he attacks him directly. he almost oneshots Sabin. he can multi-attack the party and leave most of them with just a sliver of health remaining. I spent most of the fight spamming phoenix down just trying to keep my party alive. oh, but the worst part? he can oneshot bannon. so yeah after spending X amount of turns trying to fight him and keep my party alive, he oneshots bannon which is an instant game over.

so what do I do now?
---

alright alright, I tried again and things went better this time. I guess the answer was just 'try again.' I really focused on keeping everyone's health completely up at all times. although terra still got KO'd multiple times with oneshot attacks -- I probably could have prevented this by switching her back to a set up with a shield? she was never attacking anyway. it was just a matter of praying that ultros never went after bannon specifically since he would kill him with one hit.

after the battle sabin jumps in the river to try and beat up the octopus dude. this leads to him getting knocked down the river and going the opposite way.

well that's a party split if I've ever seen one.

now the game actually wants me to choose a scenario, rather than playing through these events in a pre-determined order. I suppose I'll save that for next time.
---

party split is magnificent. love ultros too.

do you know about front row/back row?
---

SeabassDebeste posted...

do you know about front row/back row?

Yeah, was gonna bring this up if it was an Im outta options and have no clue how to win situation, but since you won on your own, even better.

If Bannon was getting killed in one hit, you probably have him in your front row. So do you know how to change the order of your party? If not, I believe on the menu screen, you just press to the left. From there, you can reorder your party. Additionally, if you double click a party member, it moves them between the front and back row. Characters in the back row take half the damage, but also dish out half the damage. Some weapons/attacks ignore the back row setup and still deal full damage, such as magic attacks.

If you already knew all that... then, uhh... carry on. <_<
---

Ultros announces his single-target Tentacle attacks before using them, so if you've played the game enough to know that e.g. "Y...you frighten me!" means "Banon's about to get whupped", then you can use Defend to reduce his damage. Still a painful trick to pull on a new player, mind.

Also, yeah, back row and a shield would help.
---

I knew about back row but I didn't think to use it in this case. would have indeed been very effective, especially since Bannon is only there to use Prayer and cutting his damage in half is not a downside at all. definitely need to keep stuff like that in mind for the future so I don't get steamrolled by easy bosses like this.

I did notice that Ultros was announcing his single target attacks but I never felt like I had enough time to react. it was just like, he said it, and then he was already attacking.

any advice on which route I should do first? does it matter? was thinking Locke
---

i believe in time, it's terra < locke < sabin. would recommend terra first, personally, and then either of the other two, which are very substantive!
---

Sabin's is the longest so I like to do it last. Also, when you're on Sabin's route, be aware you can use suplex on a certain boss. It doesn't help or anything, but it's a meme because of how unlikely it looks.
---

It really makes no difference which route you take, since you end up playing them all. As was already mentioned, Sabins is the longest, and by a wide margin. Personally, Id say his route is also my favorite.
---

One thing of importance when it comes to rows.... An interesting quirk of is game is that virtually every attack actually ignores the back row penalty unless its the basic fight command using a melee weapon. Special attacks, like Sabins Blitzes or Edgars Tools, that look like they should be melee range actually ignore row anyways. So putting anyone in the front row ever should be the exception, not the rule.

---

As for scenario selection, there is an argument for doing Lockes scenario last. It contains arguably the most difficult boss fight of the scenarios, and you can purchase/obtain equipment upgrades in the other scenarios that could make that fight a little easier. That said, this doesnt really make logical sense from an in game perspective, so if that kind of immersion breaking bothers you feel free to ignore this.

---

I always go Locke > Terra > Sabin
---

probably no updates today as I'm focusing on monster hunter world iceborne expansion. I do actually want to play some more though, and that feeling of wanting to play more will likely lead to a longer session/more progress next time I do get around to playing more FF6. should be tomorrow, I don't have anything else going on.

also have decided on the BK approved order of Locke -> Terra -> Sabin
---

locke's route started. I decided to kick back and play the game rather than play the game while taking notes, which means two things: more progress, but less thorough details in my write up.

things start off with a pretty neat little stealth sections. stealth in non-stealth games is one of those things that can be pretty terrible if the designer isn't really careful to make it not suck. I thought this was interesting enough and not too grating. coming from shantae and the pirate's curse, which has a stealth section that returns you to the very beginning of the level if you get caught at any point, this feels a lot more forgiving.

I loved the aspect of stealing people's outfits and swapping between them. they really nailed the feel of locke being a traditional "rogue" and he feels more definitive when he's operating on his own rather than just being the less efficient attacker in a party of attackers. he uses stealth, pickpocketing, stealing, disguise skills, and even a bit of deceit to get where and what he wants. I was finally able to steal that cider that I'd been wanting to steal since like an hour ago (ingame time).

the only disappointment in this section is that I didn't get to participate in any side missions or objectives to harass the empire soldiers. they basically just had locke do this stuff offscreen and started me immediately at the point where he was ready to escape. if your only complaint is that you wanted more of something, I suppose that means it was pretty good.

on the way I learned some valuable information, the army is already on the way to narshe, though I sort of already knew this. the guy I knew was the traitor was confirmed as the traitor. at the end I go ahead and rescue celes, a former general of the empire who has turned against them. her motivations come along with an interesting new tidbit of information. there's another town whose name escapes me now (dola?) where kefka is planning to poison the entire village in order to take them out. celes disagrees with their methods, so they lock her up and plan to execute her.

locke shows his characterization of wanting to help people again here, offering to help celes when there isn't much in it for him. yet another thing that is kinda helping to set him apart now that he's on his own. I feel like everyone was mostly nice to terra, although some of them had less pure motives (edgar being a womanizer, bannon wanting to use her to fight against the empire). locke showing again that he's willing to put in extra work and extra risk in order to save someone, who is no immediate benefit to him, shows that he probably would have helped terra even if she wasn't so special.

I play through the rest of the warehouse level, collecting gear for celes along the way, and refining my battle strategies with this party. we take a lot of damage but I mostly heal after every few fights and it's okay. the only thing I couldn't figure out was the Runic ability of Celes -- I'm still not yet sure what this does. finally I get back to the world map and, considering this section to be complete, I save the game and quit for now.

really good stuff, I'm enjoying this a lot right now and it's also making me like locke more where before I didn't care about him as much. interesting to see what the deal is with celes, if she has anything more to offer, and curious to see where the plot goes from here. especially if the game keeps throwing weird curveballs at me with different types of gameplay in each new section as it's been doing so far.
---

MariaTaylor posted...

there's another town whose name escapes me now (dola?)

Doma

MariaTaylor posted...

the only thing I couldn't figure out was the Runic ability of Celes -- I'm still not yet sure what this does.

Dont worry about that. If you ever have an ability that isnt super self explanatory (like Sabins blitzes), that usually means the game will give you an explanation somewhere down the road.
---

As I recall the way runic works is it blocks any magic that anyone attempts to cast while Runic is active, friend or foe.
---

Great game, but I wouldn't call it one of the best of all time. I like what I've played of FFVII more than FFVI.
---

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Great game, but I wouldn't call it one of the best of all time. I like what I've played of FFVII more than FFVI.

Why dont you go back and finish VII?

---

Got stuck on one boss in Disc 2 and then never felt like finishing the game.
---

FF6 time

locke and celes head north from southern figaro and I discover a few interesting things.

apparently there's some cottage out in the middle of the woods. I wasn't sure if this was always here and maybe I missed it earlier. I notice there's a path behind the cottage so I decide to go back and check the world map again before I proceed.

mt. kolts is blocked off, so I know I'm not supposed to go that way now.

of course when I come back, ready to explore into the woods, I find something else out. exiting the cottage map by taking the path behind the cottage, into the woods, just returns you to the world map. well I guess this isn't where I'm supposed to go either!

with only one route remaining, I go west, and back into the cave that terra, edgar, and locke used to travel from the desert to southern figaro. the enemies here simultaneously feel more threatening and less threatening than before due to the change in party members and levels of the party.

at the end of the cave is a pretty serious boss with no save point. granted, I was given the opportunity to heal before the boss, but yeah. if I had died, I would have gone all the way back to the beginning of the cave!

anyway, I battle this metal truck with a giant drill that can also cast magic. and this is of course the tutorial for celes' runic ability! I had a little bit of trouble with the timing, I couldn't tell when he was going to cast magic or use basic attacks. at first I was just spamming runic every turn, but then locke's HP started to get low.

of course right when I stop using Runic and I cast Cure, the enemy immediately killed Locke with Poison which is apparently a one hit kill. celes was not kidding about needing to stop this magic.

I used a phoenix down on locke, getting him back up. the enemy immediately attacked him with low HP. he blocked it. clutch!

after that I started to get a feel for the enemy pattern. it's something like magic -> attack -> drill - > attack -> magic,etc. if I'm not mistaken it seems to loop through these four actions? hard to tell because I killed the boss almost immediately after I started to feel like I understood the pattern.

either way, nice little section, and I guess I'm done with Locke's route already!

okay these routes are shorter than I was expecting based on the conversation in here earlier and I guess my expectations of other games with "routes."
---

MariaTaylor posted...

okay these routes are shorter than I was expecting based on the conversation in here earlier and I guess my expectations of other games with "routes."

Id say that Edgar/Terra/Bannon is even shorter than the Locke/Celes route, but the Sabin route it probably at least twice as long as the other two routes combined. Possibly three times as long.

Something you might not have noticed since the game doesnt exactly draw attention to it during the tutorial, but when Celes successfully does runic and absorbs a magic spell, she also gains the MP equal to the cost of that spell. Also, as was mentioned earlier, she absorbs whatever the next magical spell is, friend of foe. So be careful with your timing. Otherwise, you might cast cure or life and shell absorb it (while also gaining the MP, of course).
---

ha, that's funny. will probably still happen to me at least once even after being warned.
---