Board 8 > Andy plays Final Fantasy V (Blind playthrough)

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LeonhartFour
11/21/20 9:38:57 PM
#51:


Clash on the Big Bridge is a top 5 FF song

FFV OST is super underrated

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LordoftheMorons
11/21/20 9:41:02 PM
#52:


FFV's opening theme is extremely good too

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andylt
11/21/20 9:59:32 PM
#53:


I actually did steal from Gilgamesh the second time but I just got a Hero Drink iirc! I will take note of that though, thanks. Funnily enough I'd just decided not to bother stealing anymore cos I generally just get things you can buy in shops and sometimes it takes forever to succeed with the stealing and it ends up being a stupid Potion or something.

And yes the music is all around very good, the most impressive thing is how distinctive it manages to be compared to the rest of the franchise, like it clearly has its own style going on. There's one melancholy theme they play a lot with a really cool bassline that didn't need to be there, so good.

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tcaz2
11/21/20 10:13:38 PM
#54:


Yeah Greg doesn't have genji gear this time, its just later ones.

And yeah imo stealing isn't usually worth it outside of certain bosses/rare enemies.
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redrocket
11/21/20 10:53:02 PM
#55:


Once you reach the final dungeon it can be worthwhile to steal from random enemies, not so much before that.

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Grand Kirby
11/22/20 1:32:34 AM
#56:


FFV is the first game in the series I'd consider to have an excellent soundtrack. There are plenty of great songs in the previous games, but V is where things really start to sound like a "score" with so many pieces of amazing music.

As for Stealing, I honestly don't care for it. Stealing things in this game can turn downright nightmarish. A lot of the stuff you can steal isn't in any way worth the effort... except for the random super useful items you'll never think to steal unless you try every time or have a guide. And then the rate of successfully getting that item can be ridiculously low, and there can be two possible stealable items and if you grab the wrong one then you lose the chance to get the other one... I never really bother with Stealing in this because it annoys me too much.

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Okay, I rolled a 14. What's that mean? Hsu
That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan
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andylt
11/22/20 6:43:04 PM
#57:


We go on a wild Moogle chase through some underwater rapids, with many random battles as we swim along and climaxing in a pretty annoying boss fight with what appeared to be a regular ol skeleton on the map but is a full on Tyrannosaur in battle. Huh. This guy's normal attacks are manageable but occasionally he'll whack someone with 4 digit damage for a one hit kill, I go through the Phoenix Down I just picked up and the team isn't super geared out for this, I was training some new jobs and forgot to switch them to their damage dealers >_> but we do take him down eventually.

The Moogle shows us a path through the world map and I guess we have to follow it? I go the wrong way a couple times but we face zero random battles here, I'm guessing if we strayed from the path more or went into the sands things would be harder. I forget where it went and just walk in rows back and forth along the forests until I find Moogle Village. The Moogle thanks us with some items and telepathically communicates with Krile's Moogle to tell her where we are, and she and her weary wind drake pick us up.

Turns out Galuf is the King of Bal (guess Bartz is the only non-royal after all, at least I hope he doesn't become a secret royal too!), and Bartz finds this utterly hilarious. They've really upped the Galuf/Bartz banter since traveling to this world, and I like it a lot. Galuf is weirdly the most plot-relevant character out of our crew by far, he has the personal connection to Exdeath and the rest of us have never set foot in this world before. Wonder if it's like a Basch/Vaan thing where they needed a young guy to be the face of the protagonist, though I like Bartz a lot so don't take that the wrong way.

We talk to Krile and are sent on a fetchquest for some Dragongrass to heal her wind drake. I don't know how this will help us get into Exdeath's castle but maybe they're just being nice to save somebody, I can go for that. We have to go past Quelb, casually referred to as the Werewolf Town (!), to get to Drakenvale. Sounds like a cool ride ahead! Bartz inspires the crew and I loot the castle as best I can before leaving as we're told we cannot return. There's an ancient sword hidden in the moat, and a basement with a locked door and Objet d'Art enemies. Doesn't seem like there's anything I can do there, so we get the chests spread around and head out.

Our destination is north so I naturally head east through a cave first, we can get back to the Big Bridge and Exdeath's continent but there's nothing over there we can get to. Inside the cave is a trail of money followed by a Gil Turtle who seems to heal all magic damage and wipes us out almost instantly. That's an enemy to take note of for later, I suppose.

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Maniac64
11/22/20 8:15:55 PM
#58:


Galuf is the best

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andylt
11/22/20 9:38:43 PM
#59:


He has improved drastically from 'weird kinda pervy old man' when we first met him, his interactions with Bartz are really good.

Quelb is a ghost town until we are beset upon by Kelger, who challenges Bartz to a 1v1. Weirdly this isn't an actual fight (in IV it would at least be a cutscene battle!) but there's still a cool sequence of Bartz calming himself and outplaying his silly wolf trick. Turns out Dorgann is from this world and was one of the dawn warriors along with Galuf, Kelger and a Xezat Surgate, a name they throw out casually like it's not ridiculous. I guess I didn't notice Dorgann's sprite when we saw the four previously, oops. He stayed behind when they sealed Exdeath 30 years ago, seemingly because of guilt for leaving Exdeath in another world but there's probably other reasons we'll discover, likely involving Stella.

Bartz takes the news incredibly well, and we take a look around Quelb before leaving. Inside the inn there's a guy who gives us a free meal recovering all our health and 8 free potions, we can seemingly repeat this as often as we want. Why on earth would you pay for the inn? One of the villagers mentions Tsuze trying to protect the fire crystal, nice to get a bit of closure on that. I wonder if the wolfman in prison was from here too? There's a wizard in a well who wants a frog, and I have no clue what to do with him. I tried turning the party into toads but that didn't work. Something else to come back to!

Drakenvale isn't too great a 'dungeon' but it looks nice, there's undead dragons everywhere and a golem that hits us once and runs away. Some weirdly weak enemies too, including a poisonous bird and a cat looking thing. There's not much in the way of puzzles here, but on the top floor we encounter the Golem, now named, being attacked by a Bone and Zombie Dragon. On the first attempt the Zombie used Vampire on the Golem at the very end of the battle, one-shotting him and recovering its own health. I was annoyed! We can't use arena wide spells/summons here but white magic is useful for everything, healing the Golem and hurting the dragons. Faris uses Control to stop the monsters from attacking the Golem for a while so we can heal it, too. Second time round we succeed and collect a summon as a reward.

At the top we also have a boss encounter with a foul, leafy demon disguised as Dragongrass. The Dragon Pod itself is no trouble but it constantly spawns annoying Dragon Flowers which love to cause status effects. Thankfully I went into this with a Black and White Mage- Esunas all round to keep the physical attackers active, and Bio it turns out works very well on the Pod. An Aqua Breath or a Bee Swarm here and there to wipe the field of the flowers doesn't hurt, and it takes a while but we're not in much danger and successfully take it down.

We sneak back into the castle via the moat (good thing Exdeath hasn't thought of that) to find a bedridden Krile, being called psychotically psychically by a sage named Ghido. Up on the roof Lenna engages in her favourite hobby: trying to kill herself via dragon grass. This time she does it not by walking over it but by straight up eating it, I like her dedication to helping the Wind Drakes in both worlds but I'm sure there could've been another way to ensure it ate the grass. She collapses and Krile injures herself saving Lenna's life. Bartz accurately calls out how everybody is always going overboard. The party banter has really helped the group feel like a real squad of friends lately, I like that they aren't always the brightest bulbs in the bunch.

We have our first mount in this world so next time I'll be scouring everywhere I can land before meeting Ghido.

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Mr Crispy
11/22/20 9:51:10 PM
#60:


you could always grind on the statues, if you have a lot of softs or Level 5 death.

I don't think there's anything there besides money - it's sort of a gambling game. You get more money with each step, but there's an increasing chance to run into an enemy that's too strong to handle at that point and probably would fight multiple times if you try to go all the way through it. I never really bothered with it.

oh and about the frog you have to use the monster tamer's capture command on one of the frog enemies in the area, then go back to the guy who wants a frog. you get an item.

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MalcolmMasher
11/22/20 9:52:44 PM
#61:


Gacha game Final Fantasy Record Keeper gave Kain a "Increase Attack and Defense, start with Confuse" equippable passive a while back, to reference his brainwashing. I've always wanted an "Increase Mind and Resistance, start with Poison" equivalent for Lenna. Alas, no such luck.

The frog sidequest is Beastmaster-related. He wants you to use a Beastmaster to capture a frog enemy from a random encounter. I think they show up near the village. The reward: an accessory that makes it easier to capture enemies.
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WazzupGenius00
11/22/20 10:41:48 PM
#62:


Fun fact about that Tyrannosaur fight--he's Undead and unlike the majority of bosses does not have the "Heavy" status that makes them immune to instant death and gravity effects, so you can just hit it with a Phoenix Down to kill it

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andylt
11/23/20 8:13:20 AM
#63:


Mr Crispy posted...
you could always grind on the statues, if you have a lot of softs or Level 5 death.

I don't think there's anything there besides money - it's sort of a gambling game. You get more money with each step, but there's an increasing chance to run into an enemy that's too strong to handle at that point and probably would fight multiple times if you try to go all the way through it. I never really bothered with it.
Do you mean the statues in the basement of the castle? I didn't realise there was a gimmick with that! I thought we'd just have to come back later when we can unlock the door. I don't have Lv5 Death sadly, never even seen it used yet. I'm guessing you mean Gold Needles? I didn't know they worked on those statues too but that's cool and weirdly makes sense.

MalcolmMasher posted...
Gacha game Final Fantasy Record Keeper gave Kain a "Increase Attack and Defense, start with Confuse" equippable passive a while back, to reference his brainwashing. I've always wanted an "Increase Mind and Resistance, start with Poison" equivalent for Lenna. Alas, no such luck.
That would be great lol, seriously does she have a latent death wish or something, she must be starting to build up an immunity by now.

Thanks to both of you for the frog tip btw, I don't know why I didn't think of that. I was probably thinking of a small frog not those giant enemy ones.

WazzupGenius00 posted...
Fun fact about that Tyrannosaur fight--he's Undead and unlike the majority of bosses does not have the "Heavy" status that makes them immune to instant death and gravity effects, so you can just hit it with a Phoenix Down to kill it
...I don't know why it didn't occur to me that he would be undead and therefore susceptible to healing attacks. Lol. Phoenix Downs are weirdly expensive in this game so I've been holding onto them when possible, but yeah that would've been much simpler. Oops!

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andylt
11/23/20 9:14:01 PM
#64:


We get the frog after an annoying back and forth where we're told he's too strong to capture followed by it immediately fleeing multiple times. Item get, I've not been catching stuff often but it'll come in handy if I need to do it again.

Turns out there's not a whole lot I can do on the world map right now but it's nice to get our bearings and peek over the mountains to see what's coming up. We do have access to Surgate Castle, where we pick up some info about Xezat's fleet attack, Float and a bard song and see half a mysterious book mentioned that Bartz finds familiar. I hope I wasn't meant to pick that up back in the Library of the Ancients or something >_>

We go to see the sage and the island immediately sinks (lot of earthquakes in this game!), my first thought was there goes another form of map transport but thankfully that's not the case. We land on Xezat's ship and soon get a cool sorta-cinematic battle sequence across the ships. The music tells me it's time to put Steal back on Bartz. Gilgamesh remains not so tough, but this time he brings his pal Enkidu who is a bit of a pain. First time through Nightingale just refuses to cast after many many attempts, OK after the first few fails I should've just gone into full Cura mode but I was stubborn. Doesn't help that near death Enkidu decides to Vampire one of my crew for 3800 HP!

Second attempt is much smoother, my Ninja Bartz throws a Shuriken at Enkidu which deals 2000 damage (I had no idea it did so much!), and the others concentrate their attacks, including Ranger Galuf who can hit for full damage with his bow, Blue Mage Faris and Lenna with some spells. After Enkidu goes down Gilgamesh is zero problem, though he amusingly isn't at all aware of his companion's defeat. He tries to pull Galuf off the ship with him but fails tremendously. How did this guy become Exdeath's top lieutenant?

Xezat reveals the secret plan one of his workers already told me about earlier, but I wasn't expecting a full on underwater map! We don't get to control it but surely that will be coming up, I guess VII took the submarine overworld idea from this game. The Barrier Tower is a pretty simple dungeon, narrow and tall, but with a cool visual effect outdoors and weird gimmicky enemies, I didn't figure out what Level Tricker's deal was. There are two chests guarded by Red Dragons (pretty tough but can be brute forced when they don't spam Atomic Ray) and two chests filled with cash. I go down at the start to see what happens and Xezat is on the stairs by the generator, it takes until we go up 8 floors or so for him to move down that half flight of stairs. Come on, bud!

The big scaling tower and repetitive climbing makes this place pretty atmospheric, and the boss doesn't disappoint. Atomos has a great design, it looks like a portal to another world and its attacks line up with that cosmic vibe. He's tough! He casts Comet pretty constantly, usually twice in one turn, so Lenna's on Raise duty and we burn through most of our Phoenix Down supply keeping people upright. His gimmick is that unconscious people's bodies shift closer and closer to him, I didn't know what would happen when they got to the other side but I knew it wouldn't be good! The gimmicky percentage based Blue Magics don't seem to work, so Bartz getting his Monk double-hits in does most of the damage.

After our Phoenix Down and Ether stocks go down quite a bit and our entire party is on the left side of the screen I use Libra to see if it's even worth continuing, and he only has 2.4K HP left. I go on full assault mode, and Bartz gets Wormhole'd just before getting the final blow. Thankfully we take him down anyway, I feel like I got very lucky not having to redo this one. Xezat sacrifices himself which isn't a big deal but Galuf's reaction is really good, as is Bartz protecting Galuf from himself. The relationship between these two is the strongest in the game so far, pretty easily.

Galuf takes some time to himself in the sub (nice that they put this in to make it less game-y), and I try and fail to be sad about Xezat and instead enjoy the cool new sub we now own. Wonder where the Wind Drake went. I like the underwater music a lot! Not sure why we can't just go directly to Castle Exdeath now that the barrier's down, but we're told to find the sage. I go to the other two dots on the map first, one leads to a town named Moore where we can buy the next level of spells and get told about the forest spirits and impenetrable forest to its east. There's also a locked door hidden in the corner of town I can't get into.

The other dot leads to a Chocobo Forest with a female chocobo we can't do anything with, so just another thing to take a note of I guess. We finally head down to Ghido's Cave. The puzzles aren't hard here but it gets the point across that Ghido isn't fond of guests, I'm now guessing the island sinking was simply a defence mechanism he installed. There's Metamorph enemies here and some very annoying vampiric Dark Aspics.

At the bottom Bartz cruelly bullies a turtle that turns out to be the sage, and a very amusing conversation follows with an understandably pissed off turtle. He drops some pretty serious lore on us though regarding Exdeath's plan and past. Exdeath was born in the Forest of Moore when a tree used to seal evil spirits turned into a dark creature due to the concentration of evil inside it, and he's now looking for something inside that forest to complete his plan. I think I got that right. Ghido is a great character, I love his utter disdain for Bartz throughout his important exposition drop. Next stop, Forest of Moore.

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Mr Crispy
11/23/20 9:33:41 PM
#65:


note that now you have the submarine, you can get a missable summon Catoblepas.

I think it's in or past one of the underwater caves. at any rate, it's the monster an npc mentions which petrifies people.

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The only certain death in the universe is Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons.
Not changing this line until I beat Seven Heroes (2/24/07) - Fulfilled 2/20/18
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redrocket
11/23/20 9:48:49 PM
#66:


Exdeath is literally a deadite.

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It's like paying for bubble wrap. -transience on Final Fantasy: All the Bravest
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pjbasis
11/23/20 9:48:55 PM
#67:


andylt posted...
We don't get to control it but surely that will be coming up, I guess VII took the submarine overworld idea from this game.

And this game got it from FF3!

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Grand Kirby
11/23/20 10:37:23 PM
#68:


This game homages a lot of stuff from FF3. Kind of like thematic sequel to that game.

And Ghido's dialogue in this game is one of the many reasons the GBA translation is incredible.

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Okay, I rolled a 14. What's that mean? Hsu
That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan
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andylt
11/24/20 12:01:54 PM
#69:


I've been meaning to mention the dialogue, it's way more referential and full of more modern humour than I expected. Not all the jokes land but it's generally very charming and endearing, makes sense that that was in the GBA translation. Seems like I've gotta play 3 as well!

Thanks for the heads up Crispy, I haven't read your black bars yet but if I don't find it myself I'll click on them.


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LordoftheMorons
11/24/20 8:11:48 PM
#70:


FWIW despite 5 being my favorite FF3 is my least favorite (the DS version at least; Ive heard some people say the original is better?)

Not to say that you shouldnt play it, but I wouldnt prioritize it!

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Grand Kirby
11/24/20 8:16:40 PM
#71:


Oh yeah. 3 is pretty awful. 5 is 3 done right.

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Okay, I rolled a 14. What's that mean? Hsu
That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan
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andylt
11/24/20 9:13:17 PM
#72:


Well I'm sticking with this one for now anyway!

We search unsuccessfully for the summon for ages (even after reading the spoiler bars!), then head back where we're supposed to.

The Great Forest of Moore is intentionally difficult to find a path through, and it may just be me but it feels like the random encounter rate is higher than usual. The enemies aren't too bad and they add a couple with each layer into the forest we go, and there's chests scattered around.

Exdeath decides to take the easier route and just burn the whole thing to the ground. The game cannot handle all the flames on screen and things get a bit slow for a while, nice move Exdeath! A Moogle helps us out and we travel the rest of the now burned forest (they missed a trick not altering the battle background, it's still bright green) into the Guardian Tree. On future attempts (spoilers) I manage to get an Aegis Shield from one of the chests before it burns down, but I can't seem to find a way to the chest that has Ash in it before it burns.

Cue a boss fight with the four seals, some very annoying nameless enemies. This battle takes me several attempts. Each crystal is healed by one element, and it takes me a few tries to properly understand this but when they're low on HP they constantly spam a very powerful elemental attack. What eventually works is casting Hastega on the party, Slowga on the enemies until it takes, and individually casting Shell on each party member. We see they have 7777 HP each and keep everybody topped up until one gets low enough to cast its spell, then attack them with everything we have so it can't cast the spell more than once. Shell is a godsend, I haven't used it before in this game but it cuts the damage down so much. Titan is also incredibly useful here, I take out the ground enemy first then keep summoning him. We also learn Aeroga, which is nice.

Finally something goes our heroes' w- oh. Oh no. Exdeath has bamboozled us (or has he? I don't think he planned this we just kinda did his work for him >_>) and we just broke the seals on the four crystals, letting them fall under his control. Guess that explains why they were affiliated with each element. Exdeath zaps us for a very long period of time until Krile flies all the way over here (oh, now the Wind Drake can fly over mountains) and bonks him herself. Our villain immediately gets back up and bounces her all over the room sealed in a flaming circle, and Galuf is willing to break his own crystal to save her.

Galuf goes Super Saiyan or something and charges Exdeath head on, and we're into a cutscene battle against the big man. Galuf immediately goes down to 0 HP but continues fighting for a long time, and Exdeath shows off a bunch of high tier spell animations and gives us all a preview of what a proper fight with him will probably be like later. Galuf claims it's not hatred or anger that gives him the strength to fight on, but doesn't get to answer Exdeath's question before the battle is over.

Exdeath takes the remaining 3 crystals and peaces out, and Galuf... dies. Properly. The party attempts their spells and items to revive him (IV did this a lot too, I wish the modern ones did this kind of stuff still) but he flickers out of existence (which every character in this game does when dying for good, a nice indication this is for real). Krile collapses in grief.

Galuf's flame has flickered out...

I am legitimately very surprised at this turn. Sure IV had a bunch of 'deaths' and one that stuck (the cutscene battle in particular reminded me of Tellah v Golbez), but this game has had just the 4 playables since the beginning, and despite the secondary characters dropping like flies I didn't even consider one of the mains dying midgame. Galuf had grown on me a lot over the course of this world, he will be missed. At least it's a good exit for him, protecting his granddaughter and tossing Exdeath aside. Nonetheless, night has fallen for the Dawn Warriors.

The Guardian Tree allows Galuf to speak to Krile, where he tries to calm her down and passes on his abilities. Ah, that's how the party will stay full. We are to head to Exdeath Castle next, but first I manage to get Catoblepas finally (he took ages to spawn in that forest), and check in at Bal Castle where everybody is sad. We can understand Krile's Moogle now so I head to Moogle village to see if we can hear what they are all saying, but turns out it was just the one. We do seduce a Moogle into giving us an outdated Elven Mantle, at least.

Tomorrow we'll try to avenge Galuf, and once again I have no idea how the game is going to carry on after the upcoming battles. RIP.

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LordoftheMorons
11/24/20 9:23:17 PM
#73:


RIP Galuf

Still my favorite playable FF character

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Grand Kirby
11/24/20 9:33:53 PM
#74:


Galuf is a top tier FF character. His last stand is one of my favorite moments in the entire series. Such a badass way to go out.

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Okay, I rolled a 14. What's that mean? Hsu
That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan
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Evillordexdeath
11/24/20 10:09:35 PM
#75:


Yeah Galuf's fight with Exdeath is probably my favorite part of this game. Him fighting on at 0 HP is an interesting early example of video game mechanics being used for storytelling.

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andylt
11/24/20 10:13:16 PM
#76:


The setpiece moments have been great so far. I know V wasn't localised to the west until years later, but I'm beginning to think that one VII spoiler is a bit overrated in general as this series had clearly been doing stuff like that for a while! And at least Galuf had a great exit.

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Grand Kirby
11/24/20 11:15:21 PM
#77:


Oh absolutely. If FFV had been released back then I think Galuf's death would have gotten a lot more attention, and that other death wouldn't have felt as impactful

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Okay, I rolled a 14. What's that mean? Hsu
That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan
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LeonhartFour
11/24/20 11:17:10 PM
#78:


nah the big FFVII spoiler would've still been a big deal

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tcaz2
11/25/20 2:53:17 AM
#79:


Galuf probably most badass death in the whole FF series tbqh
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Maniac64
11/25/20 9:30:14 AM
#80:


Galuf's death shocked me way more than Aeris when I played it.

Like there was no party switching and no reason to think those 4 wouldnt still be your party at the end.

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andylt
11/25/20 7:16:18 PM
#81:


Exdeath's Castle time! We have a few new enemies to deal with, they're not so tough but it takes a while to escape battles now, so I just fight on through most of them. Kelger helps Krile open the path ahead and fades away (oops forgot all about him, I should probably have gone to see him after his pals died) and the environment changes. Now this is a bad guy's castle.

We slowly but surely make our way up the floors, hitting switches and floating over lava along the way (though not at the first opportunity, I didn't think to use Float then sadly so I missed out on a chest). The dungeon is cool, each floor is pretty distinct and the layout isn't too simple but doesn't have the messy can't see where you are vibe of the Forest. Higher up we face a bunch of dragons quite a lot. After a second save point we reach an open room with a lone empty chest in the middle, which triggers the surprise arrival of Gilgamesh. I don't have Steal equipped so immediately reset.

Second time round I avoid the chest and go into the side room, then see if I can go ahead without opening the chest at all. Turns out you can skip the fight altogether but of course we don't want that, so onto rumble #4 as Gilgamesh helpfully reminds us. Despite his assertions Gilgamesh does not pound us silly, the battle isn't super hard. We have a boss team kinda down now- Faris as Blue Mage/Time Mage and starting with Hastega, Krile on Summoner/White Mage duty casting Titan whenever she's not healing, Bartz as a Ninja attacking three times per turn thanks to his new twin blade, and Lenna is Samurai/Red Mage but she seems the least useful tbh so not sure what I'll do with her. Gilgamesh even seems a little disappointed that Galuf didn't make it.

He delivers the iconic line I've heard referenced many times, and morphs into his second form. I gear up for a hard fight, but... poor guy got swindled. Excalibur is Excalipoor, and we basically can't lose this. Exdeath has finally had enough of his mistakes, and banishes him from our dimension, presumably taking him to FFVIII and beyond. Poor guy, pretty harsh exit for him :( Our only reward is the useless weapon (and the steal ofc) but the dialogue was worth it. Looking back I'm sad he didn't have a proper hard battle, but hey at least he got to technically survive and become a series icon.

Next up is Exdeath himself, who throws some cryptic message about returning the world to the way it was before starting the fight. We have the same team (but Bartz has Counter instead of Steal now), and we get into a pretty solid rhythm. He starts by using doom on Krile, who gets off a few Titans before succumbing and being revived. Thankfully Ex wastes a bunch of turns casting Dispel, and his magic attacks don't hit super hard as the party is usually Shell'd and Protect'd up. People die every now and then but we have plenty of time to get back up, and his gimmicky double hit Vacuum Wave and row swapping are easily reversed. It still takes a while to take him down, and it's not like we're ever more than a couple dodgy turns/mistakes away from falling, but we eventually win with the whole party alive and healthy.

Exdeath disappears, the crystals break and we all pass out... and wake up outside Castle Tycoon. Cue an extended 'you beat the game' sequence in the style of IV's ending, and the game doesn't have to pull a 'something's odd here' for me to be very wary of what's going on. I love these kind of fake sequences in games, always feels uneasy. Lenna and Faris/Sarisa get caught up in some royal festivities, and Bartz/Krile go off to try to figure out what happened and why they're suddenly back in Bartz's home. These two haven't had much dialogue with each other before, so it's a nice new combination (though pales in comparison to Bartz/Galuf :( )

Everything still seems too good to be true when we finally reunite with our chocopal Boko and his new wife Koko. We wander around the map and honestly I can barely remember what things used to look like, but we travel through Tule (where we get an interesting tidbit about how mastering jobs will add some of their proficiencies to the Freelancer and Mime classes) and reunite with Faris after an Antlion battle and some comedy antics.

We finally shed some light on what's happening when we enter a new cave mentioned by the Tule residents, which is actually Ghido's cave. Ghido plainly lays out that the two worlds have merged into one, and tells us the history of the void, interdimensional rift, and the great evil Enuo, as well as absolutely roasting Bartz as before and throwing a few references around (I love this guy). Exdeath then reveals himself to be disguised as a splinter in Krile's foot (?!? Can't he just teleport around? Why did he need to go to all that trouble of transforming into a tiny splinter >_>) and confirms his evil plan, as Castle Tycoon and Lenna are taken into the void (!!).

Cue an epic Splinter v Turtle showdown (is this why Ghido referenced TMNT? The levels to this game's translation are wild!) and I really wish this game got a full remake purely to see this scene in 3D. They trash talk each other and Exdeath sends us flying to the Library of the Ancients, which is just what we needed apparently. We then get a very Zelda-style quest given to us by a talking book- we must assemble four tablets from across the newly merged world to unlock the 12 legendary weapons so we can survive the void and defeat Exdeath, and also there's some extra summons and spells if we want.

Ghido sends us to the desert with a parting shot at poor Bartz. The scholars around offer some interesting thoughts: one says that the Void is the birthplace of Light, and one wonders how defeating Exdeath will help fix things when the crystals are all shattered anyway (a very good point...). I take a look at the world map and wonder how stupid I must be to have not realised these maps lay perfectly on top of each other before now. Man it's right there, what a cool thing they did! Our travel options are limited so looks like we are going to the desert, but with only three party members... Will they replace Lenna or will she find her way back to us soon? I don't like having a non-full party for too long! Last thought for now, the new world map theme is great. Onto Act 3!

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Nameless2000
11/25/20 7:35:43 PM
#82:


and now the most depressing overworld theme in existence

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Grand Kirby
11/25/20 9:06:59 PM
#83:


God, that part of the game is amazing. Exdeath reviving himself from a splinter is one of the most ridiculous and awesome plot twists ever. Then you have the Dragon Ball Z turtle fight, and one of my favorite quotes ever:

Ghido: The twelve legendary weapons used to defeat the warlock Enuo a thousand years ago.
Bartz: The twelve legendary weapons?
Ghido: Sometimes I wonder if you say things like that to spite me... Yes, the twelve legendary weapons. They are weapons. They are legendary. There are even twelve of them.

And yeah, I love how the worlds stack on each other. That is such a neat thing. I even saved the maps to compare them:



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Okay, I rolled a 14. What's that mean? Hsu
That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan
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Grand Kirby
11/25/20 9:08:37 PM
#84:




lol have to put the merged world in a separate post to fit.

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LordoftheMorons
11/25/20 9:22:04 PM
#85:


The map is also shaped like a dragon!

(Which actually looks a bit clearer from just W1's map)

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andylt
11/25/20 9:44:12 PM
#86:


Every line from Ghido is gold! Was he like that at all in the original or did they add his snark and being fed up with Bartz in the GBA translation? I love how unashamedly silly this game gets while dealing with world-ending disasters, it's like Gilgamesh's arrival turned the 'ridiculous' dial up several notches for everyone. I love how distinct the personality of this game is.

I did not see the dragon in the map at all (I kind of do now I think), I wonder if that's why the game's logo is a dragon. Weird choice otherwise (for now), I would've gone for a tree representing Exdeath or something. But yeah the worlds stacking like that is so cool, they could've just mashed them together however they wanted but actually taking the time to make it work 1:1 is incredibly impressive.

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MalcolmMasher
11/25/20 10:35:23 PM
#87:


FFV Advance added the snark. The original Sage Gil/Guido is a generic exposition-providing wise man with a turtle sprite.
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Grand Kirby
11/25/20 10:46:45 PM
#88:


Reminded me of another thing, in Dissidia Final Fantasy if you level up Exdeath to 100 you can unlock a voice line where he shouts out "TURTLE!"

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Okay, I rolled a 14. What's that mean? Hsu
That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan
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tcaz2
11/26/20 1:41:26 AM
#89:


Also in FF14 if you and someone else have the Exdeath and Ghido minions out at the same time and idle near each other for a few seconds, they'll start fighting.
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andylt
11/27/20 6:40:44 PM
#90:


I wander around the bits of the map I can, and it's weird seeing Surgate Castle near Karnak for instance, but there's only a couple bits of new dialogue and seemingly not much to do so we head to the desert after a moment of reflection at the regenerating Guardian Tree. The sand has stopped flowing now, making me more annoyed that I went out of my way to reach the pyramid the first time round and having nothing to show for it! The entrance is guarded by a couple of pretty weak gargoyles, and in we go.

I really like this dungeon! Optional puzzles, lots of items, multiple paths, enemies not too hard but giving plenty of AP, sand, spikes, mummies, even enemies moving around on screen! It hits me halfway through that this is straight up a Zelda dungeon with turn-based battles. If this is what the merged world is like I am in, this was a lot of fun. Enemies moving around outside of battle is not something I expected, I hope they continue to do that in the game.

Having three characters isn't as hindering as I expected, perhaps because Lenna was my least useful party member anyway. Faris masters Blue Mage and then Bard so I give Chemist a go (seems great for healing!), and the Requiem song is really good with all the undead around and it costing 0 MP.

The items have a theme of being strong but with notable hindrances, the Cursed Ring is great for random battles as they don't tend to last that long and I haven't tried the Thornlet yet. There's like a dozen Dark Matters sprinkled around in chests, not sure what they do in this game but hopefully something good. The puzzles are nice and varied, nothing very hard but it doesn't get stale across the 8 or 9 floors.

At the top we get a tablet and no boss (weird but phew as there was no save in the immediate vicinity). Instead the weird-looking peninsula we used before sinks into the sea, and in its place rises Bahamut who awaits us at North Mountain. Nice of him.

I head over to the town of Moore and the locked door is open now. Following a path we eventually are offered an item, and I go for the Brave Blade. Its item description worries me as I've ran from battles quite a lot, so I decide not to save this and ask here which would be the better one to go for!

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Nameless2000
11/27/20 7:10:35 PM
#91:


Chicken Knife for sure.

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Mr Crispy
11/27/20 7:11:01 PM
#92:


the brave blade starts strong, but gets weaker each time you run until you hit a certain lower limit, while the chicken knife grows stronger each time you run away and doesn't have an upper limit (or it's pretty high) so the chicken knife has the potential to be stronger if you go out of the way to grind it up by running away a lot while the brave blade's probably outclassed by other weapons even if you don't run away.

I think Dark Matter is meant more for the chemist's mix command than using it on its own, but I don't remember trying to mess around with them when I played.

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Grand Kirby
11/27/20 9:08:00 PM
#93:


I pretty much never run away so short term I tend to choose the Brave Blade, but Chicken Knife is superior for a number of reasons, particularly if you go out of your way to grind it up.

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That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan
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tcaz2
11/27/20 9:10:29 PM
#94:


Chicken knife is the best weapon in the game if you grind it up some.

The brave blade is only worthwhile if you haven't been running from battles at all and don't plan on ever doing so again, and even then it isn't as powerful as the chicken knife.
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MalcolmMasher
11/27/20 9:13:43 PM
#95:


Chicken Knife does have an upper limit, but a high one. It's also about twice as good as its displayed attack power suggests, due to getting a version of the dagger damage formula that isn't bugged. The downside is that, when you attack with the Chicken Knife, there's a chance (~25%) it will make you attempt to run away. It's still the better choice overall.

Aside: Daggers (and some other weapons) are supposed to deal damage based on both Strength and Agility, but the bug makes it so that only Strength really matters (Agility either adds on a little damage or it doesn't, and in some cases, gaining Agility makes it go from "does" to "doesn't".) I don't think any of the ports have ever fixed this, presumably because they'd have to rebalance all those weapons if they did.
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LordoftheMorons
11/27/20 9:41:22 PM
#96:


MalcolmMasher posted...
The downside is that, when you attack with the Chicken Knife, there's a chance (~25%) it will make you attempt to run away.
Note that this only activates with normal attacks and not with abilities (e.g. mug)

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andylt
11/28/20 6:38:11 PM
#97:


Thanks for the info, I went with the Chicken Knife. It comes in useful immediately! Back at the Guardian Tree Lenna is returned to us, but she's actually being possessed thanks to Exdeath. The Wind Drake heroically sacrifices itself to save her and we have a boss fight with Melusine, a naked demon lady in the vein of Barbariccia who for some reason is carrying Leather Armour. Unfortunately I wasn't expecting a boss here and none of my party has offensive magic, and Melusine seems to have very high physical defence. Fortunately I am a chicken, and the Chicken Knife does a solid amount of damage so we eventually wear her down with that. She gets weaker at some point near the end, maybe because of one of her form shifts. Krile keeps everybody Shell'd and Silences her for a bit, so we're never in real danger here.

Lenna rejoins the party three levels down from everyone else, unconscious as always, and we head back to our airship which seems to be empty (I guess it just... floated down here by itself? Weird.) Exdeath isn't just gonna leave us be though, because before we can travel anywhere he teleports some locations to the Void, including the Library, Walse, Istory and Lix. Bartz furiously flies around the world a few times before the gang calms him down. There's not much dialogue here but I guess it makes sense, everybody is overwhelmed and depressed. Hey at least we have things to do.

We start back up not too far from the Sealed Castle, and I enter it not expecting much but wind up getting access to 3 of the Ultimate Weapons! I pick Sasuke's Katana, Assassin Dagger and Excalibur. I have my eye on Masamune but after that idk. We cut back once again to Exdeath in the void, who sends 3 people/creatures to kill us. I like that he's not just sat in his final boss room waiting for us to collect the tablets, and is actively working on his plan and trying to stop us as we move around.

Time to travel the world! There's a lot of curiosities but it's not so easy to get to all of them. For example there's a tower in the desert on the northeast, near North Mountain (I think?), but no way to land the airship in that whole area.

Down on Crescent Island (can we still call it that?) there is now a Fork Tower, but we are pushed back when attempting to enter. In Crescent Mid is flailing around saying how Cid is trapped underground, and the locals give us info about a leftward path in a tower being for magic, and rightward being for strength. Gotta remember that. They also talk about a village appearing in the nearby forest, so we head down and discover Phantom Village.

This place was first mentioned a while ago, a town trapped between the dimensions when the worlds split 1000 years ago, stuck in time. It's a cool concept and a weird place, every shop has two shopkeepers and there's hidden paths everywhere. There's bits of lore about Enuo and a mysterious door we can't open. Someone tells us to travel the world on a yellow chocobo, so I guess I have to find Boko somewhere and get him out of the little area he was stuck in, or maybe it opened up now with the towns disappearing. We play the piano and the text makes me think there's only one more left to play, I hope it's still coming up and I haven't missed it! We spend the 150k or so gil we've been building up lately on new weapons/armour and fancy spells in the back room, including Arise and Dispel (finally!).

We also recruit a purple chocobo, though for what purpose I don't know yet. Actually as I type this I'm wondering if there was some forest back in the desert near North Mountain, I'll have to make a note to check that. Aside from this we check in with pretty much every area we can, most of them have a couple NPCs with new dialogue. We pick up a Wind Drake at Bal Castle so now we have 3 modes of transport at once, and somebody mentions a submarine to get to Walse so that's probably coming back too. Jachol Cave is open so I assume there's something in there now, I'll head there soon.

There's talk of waterfalls but I don't see a path into Istory Falls, and the Fork Tower is closed so I figure the tablets must be acquired in a set order. Makes sense for a game with a leveling system. Our last stop is the centre of the map, and I am very disappointed that the Big Bridge no longer has its own map and therefore the wonderful theme song is gone :( But we do find the Island Shrine in the middle of the bridge so that's our next area, I guess. Strangely Exdeath's Castle is nowhere to be found, has he taken it to the void I wonder?

Lots to do!

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MalcolmMasher
11/28/20 7:14:13 PM
#98:


Mirage Village should have been the last piano. None can be permanently missed, but it sounds like you may need to search the towns again.
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andylt
11/28/20 9:40:48 PM
#99:


I figured I was more likely to have missed one of the earlier towns before I knew to look for pianos whenever I got to a new place. The missed one was indeed in Tule, it's blocked off until you get the dancers to dance for you. Bartz is now a piano master, and gets... satisfaction from it! Nothing else! Next up is taking Boko on a world tour. The path is opened up so it's just a loop and a half of the map for it to count, and we are rewarded with a Mirage Vest.

The desert does in fact have a forest nearby, so I fly the purple chocobo over and slowly make my way around. The enemies here are pretty tough. We reach the Phoenix Tower but there doesn't seem to be anything to do here just now, there's just the one starter room. I look briefly around for some secret door or something but the enemies here are an ordeal just to get through, so I figure I'm underleveled anyway and will come back later. While I'm here I decide to give Bahamut a go, too.

If he wiped me at the start I would've just left it and come back later, but we get into an ok rhythm before one of his attacks just overpowers the team entirely. I knuckle down and plan things properly, and soon we get things going as usual- Faris casting Hastega, Krile casting Shell, the other two going to town attacking and healing when necessary. It goes pretty well, we even manage to Raise Bartz back without much issue (I have the Cursed Ring on him, which I've really grown to love. Most battles end long before he faints!). But at some point Bahamut starts casting Mega Flare, which wipes everybody except Faris, then he immediately casts it again and we wipe.

Not to be deterred, I try again with minor alterations. After the initial buffing, Faris spends every turn casting Slow until it sticks (except when using her Chemist superpowers to heal). It eventually does stick- bosses usually seem to be immune to most status effects but not Slow, interesting to note- and we get to slam a bunch of damage on him. He does however manage to start his Mega Flare casting again. Faris survives it with double digit HP, and after healing+attempting to revive Krile only to get Flare'd again, I decide to risk things. After each Mega Flare I have Faris heal 1000HP via Hi-Potion, and her Protect Ring gets her another crucial bit of healing. As she is Shell'd and Haste'd, and Bahamut is Slowed down, this allows her to use the Chicken Knife for a couple of quick deadly attacks between each Flare. She takes down Bahamut's remaining 10K HP single-handedly, and we have a new summon! Note this was incredibly close, when we were only one hit away from victory the Chicken Knife decided to try and escape, fortunately I had time for another single hit anyway. Phew!

Before going ahead with the plot I decide to try Jachol Cave again in this new world. We go through it without much problem (Skull Eaters are fun to fight now!) and climb up into... Bal Castle basement! Love this connection, and it's great that they added this whole unique environment just for one single room. I head back and save in Bal Castle, then we work our way across the crumbling floor and sentient art statues to find another summon, Odin. His fight has a hard time limit of 60 seconds, so this is an entirely different kind of ordeal to Bahamut. I like that instead of making it some deadly explosive reason for a battle timer, Odin just... can't be bothered to deal with us. Lol.

First time through I don't expect the timer to keep counting down during attack animations so I foolishly have Krile try out her new Bahamut summon, wasting precious seconds! Odin Zantetsuken's us but 3 of us stay up, and he calls an end to the battle and fades away... right as the timer goes down to 0:00 and it's counted as a fail so we're rudely hardbooted back to the GBA startup screen. Ouch! Thankfully the second time is much smoother, I stick to physical attacks and Firagas, and don't bother reviving or healing when Zantet hits. Odin get! Cool battle.

Looks like there's four summon spaces left (Haven't tested Sylph and Ramora yet but picked them up back at some shop), and we know one is Leviathan. Can't think of any other staples that are missing though, so the rest might be new! Anyway, that seems to clear up the side stuff I can do for now so I'll get the second tablet tomorrow.

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LordoftheMorons
11/28/20 9:51:23 PM
#100:


See, I told you there was a reason for that dead end in Jachol Cave...!

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