I'm back at it. Strange that one of the chests is blocked off by a falling rock. Perhaps if I had waited to go after it until after I defeated Indra/Shiva, the path wouldn't get blocked. Oh well, too late now!
The monsters on Mt.Ordeals aren't that tough, you can mostly hold down A to win. Furio with the Mute Knife and Fire Claws OHKOs most things.
Cut-off on the save point text sometimes.
Liliths have Ether1s for stealing! Sure beats spending 10K on them at the store. Their Gravity counter only does a little bit of damage.
I also triggered Furio's Limit Break, but it just seemed to be a regular physical attack?
Anyway, at the summit we see Indra and Shiva plotting...well, it sounds like we have a couple of weeks at least, so let's go back and report.
Now we have Palom and Porom! Those are some funky portraits. I pick up a Flame Rod for Palom, a Cure staff for Porom and Gaea stuff for them both. A Frozen Ring sounds like a good idea here too.
Back to the summit. Indra's dialogue makes him sound prett casual about the whole "exterminate all humans" thing. I wonder whether the higher authority he mentions is Bahamut or a new character.
So, the battle begins against Indra and Shiva. I tried this boss battle twice, because the first time I gave the Twins the Mute Knife and elemental rings, only for them to leave the party immediately, so I reloaded and didn't give them anything good.
This is a strange fight. Casting magic on Indra causes him to use Reflect on Shiva, so doing that a few times lets you put up Reflect on your whole party. His Armor counter to physicals often ends up bouncing off of Shiva too. Pretty soon you can have 3-4 party members with Reflect up, so the bosses's spells don't do any damage. Anyway, I focused on Indra first, except for Furio who attacked Shiva with Fire Claws. He went down pretty quick to Palom's Bios, and Shiva didn't do too much afterwards - Palom bounced 1000-damage Fire2s off of himself to get around her Reflect, and that put an end to her pretty quickly. It looks like she gets a super move ready after a certain amount of time, but she didn't get any farther than changing her sprite.
Haha, I like Furio puffing his chest about being smart enough to go back and get the twins, like he wasn't perfectly willing to do the exact opposite!
Hmm, that silhouette definitely looks like Bahamut...I'm sure our trip to Eblan will be short and uneventful.
Oh no, a monster is attacking the ship! But hold on, I need to loot everything and haggle for Cure2s first. I appreciate Furio's faster movement here, it's a nice change from his usual ambling.
The tentacle boss was interesting. It seemed to be weak to Thunder, so after a bit of experimenting I had Furio attack with the Mute Knife/Thunder Claws while the ninja threw thunder darts or healed. The boss changed forms several times, but apart from a nasty one that used Hex and Venom it was pretty tame; both party members had Goggles so we didn't have to pause to cure Blindness at least. Managed to kill it in its Drain phase for a reward of 1999 gil and... a Scourge whip? Sounds like we might recruit Rydia at some point.
Oh, I guess we will! I like this scene with Edge, it shows how he's matured over the years. The story's shaping up pretty well now, I'm interested to see what happens next Off to Baron, then. Or rather off to the places around Baron, since that's surely where the plot will advance. I poked my head in the Highwind pass, got a Game Over from a Basilisk Stoning both party members when I tried to get it alone, then stole some Lit-Bolts from a Weeper.
A Chocobo with three monsters? Hm, the only way to capture this one is to use a magic item. Let's see where we can go...aha, down in the south there's a cave. A Feather Ring? ...It gives +15 Agility!? Wow, it was worth coming here.
So, there's enemies from Zot here as random encounters. They all die in one hit (heck, the Puppets die on their own!), but they're worth oodles of Gil and EXP. You can also steal Silence Staffs from the Marions, who do nothing but fail to cast Call.
That's enough wandering, let's head back to Baron and recruit a Dragoon. Though having done that, I feel like I'm trading down. The Dragoon joins at Level 15, has much lower HP than the Ninja did, and can't equip the elemental rings. Hopefully Baron sells some good stuff for him.
Talking to the yellow dragoon with Lando in your party points you to a secret room. Very clever! Lots of good stuff there including a Drain Spear, The -10 penalty to all stats is very punishing when none of his stats break 20, but maybe it'll come in handy at higher levels.
I sold some Silence staves I stole up for 60,000 Gil. That should last a while...
The secret passages in the equipment shop are gone, but the chests remain. Now they silently taunt you from across the counter. What's up with the Steel Sword? It's much weaker than the Wind Lance and only gives +3 to Will. Regardless, now with the Wind Spear he's up to a healthy 61 Attack.
Love the old lady's reaction to going into her house. Furio clearly has no respect for other people's privacy. It's cool to see how Baron has changed with Cid's old house, the inn, and just how people around town are acting.
Most important of all - I'm glad to see the inns, bushes and ponds of Baron have been restocked with treasure for kleptomaniac protagonists to pilfer.
The guards just let you into the castle? I wasn't expecting that.
Huh, Cid's subordinates are still alive? They must be getting on in years if they're the same guys.
The graveyard area is very touching; the silence is a perfect choice here.
Hah, the guard who wants to move to Damcyan changing the music is a nice touch. It looks like Grimoire LD covered everything else there is to see in the castle, so it's time to meet Ceodore.
So they know each other already...that makes sense. Wow, Ceo is really stonewalling here, not even letting Furio deliver the letter. We're not going to slink away meekly from that...well we will to save, but after that we'll go and try again.
I'll take a break, but will get back to this soon.
Show Posts
