Let's Play Final Fantasy V Advance! [SSLP]

[Nate]

Part Six: We don't need no water

Last time, the Warriors of Light climbed the Tower of Walse in an effort to save the water crystal from a fate similar to the wind crystal, after King Walse's soldiers were unable to stop the rampaging Garula. A mysterious golden knight tried to protect the crystal, but was also defeated by Garula, and revealed just before dying that he knew Galuf's true identity, but died before he could divulge that information. The water crystal shattered, and the Warriors of Light grew stronger. Now, they head to Karnak in hopes that they can protect the fire crystal there.



We join our heroes as they approach the Walse Meteorite.



If you had come to the Walse Meteorite earlier, this door wouldn't be here.



Inside the meteorite, you'll come to this panel, and stepping on it causes Bartz to fly into the air while the rest of the party jumps back.



Did he make it? Did he...warp?

We won't know until we try!

Lenna and Faris hop onto the panel and warp as well, but Galuf sticks behind and thinks for a moment.

This...this all looks really familiar... And the soldier in that tower knew me... Who am I?

Whoooooo are you, who who, who who

Say, wasn't Galuf in a room that looked like this one in the intro? Does that mean Galuf was on a meteorite? But what would that mean?

Galuf hops on, and the world map scrolls to where we're teleporting to.



Hey, it's that odd clearing from when we were flying around on the dragon. Wasn't there a rock in the bottom left before though? There doesn't seem to be now...but why would that be?



We end up in Karnak. Well, the continent of Karnak at least.



New enemies! The Grass Tortoise always drops Turtle Shells when you beat it, which will come in handy later. Aegirs can inflict Old on your party. Old is a status that's unique to FFV, it's kind of like poison except it lowers your stats instead of your HP (except for your level). This means a character that's inflicted with Old will become weaker the longer the battle lasts. It wears off when the fight is over. Old is kind of annoying in that it's difficult to tell if some characters are inflicted with it by sight alone, unlike other stats, since the only difference is the character's hair will turn white/gray. The only way to get rid of it in battle is to use Esuna, but kind of like how removing Poison doesn't refill your HP, removing Old will not restore the stats you lost before it was cured in that battle.

Anyway, these enemies are weak enough that even if you get hit with Old it won't be much of a problem.



Zus are another enemy and they have more HP than other enemies, but they're still nothing too bad.



Ah, now this is an interesting enemy, as it can teach you a new blue magic spell. Wild Nakks can teach ???, which deals damage equal to the amount of HP you've lost.

So, you may ask, why use this when Vampire also deals damage equal to the amount of HP you've lost, and heals you on top of that? Well, there's two reasons. One, it's that Vampire heals you up. ??? does not, meaning if you've lost 500 HP, you can deal 500 HP every turn with ???, whereas with Vampire you could only deal it once and then Vampire's attack power would be horribly weak if you weren't attacked again. Second, as ??? does not have curative properties, it's effective against undead enemies, whereas Vampire would heal an undead enemy.

The annoying part is that unlike other spells, ??? will not show up at the top of the screen when it's used. It will look like a regular attack...well, not exactly like a regular attack, there's a slight graphical difference, but there's a good way to tell when it's been used.



Lenna attacks with her rod, and the attack deals 10 HP of damage.



This is a Wild Nakk using ???. As you can see, it dealt 0 damage to Faris, as I hadn't dealt any HP damage to that particular enemy. This will not count if it hits your Blue Mage/Learning character, since a blue magic spell must succeed in its effect to be learned. This is why a Blue Mage with Silver Specs on can't learn Flash, as they would be immune to being blinded. Likewise, since 0 HP means it didn't "hit" it won't count.



Galuf finally gets hit by an attack that does 10 HP of damage. Since that's a ridiculously low amount of damage, that means it must be ??? and Galuf has now learned it.



You probably won't use this spell much, but it can be powerful in the right situations.



We've reached Karnak! There's a couple of places to go, but at the moment you can only get inside the town, so go there.



The music will tell you that something sinister is going on here (the track is named Cursed Lands).



They were so bothersome, the queen built a wall to shut them out! Er...obviously, now you can't get to the library anymore.

This is why there's a wall to the west of Karnak, and why you can't just skip this place.



The magic shop is locked, so no new magic for now. Let's hit up the weapon and armor shops.





Wow, it's all so cheap!

Okay, so here's how this goes down. When you go to the weapon/armor shop and try to buy something, you'll see "Stop right there!" and you'll be kicked out of the shop. However, you actually did succeed in buying the thing you wanted. So whatever you think you want the most, choose that, since you only get one chance and you only get one of the item. I chose a Flame Rod, but the Mythril Hammer is probably the "best" to choose since it's the most expensive after this happens (these low prices are only before this event).

Anyway, back to the story at hand.



Obviously, the party has no clue what's going on.



So unfortunately, because of a misunderstanding, the guards come in and haul the party off to prison.



There's not a whole lot to do in the cell, though you'll notice the unique character sprite in the cell next door. Just run around a bit, it'll be a while before the next scene triggers, and it can't trigger if you're next to the wall, because...



The old man walks over to the wall between your cells...





And blows it up. But he's a bit disappointed because his great escape is now foiled.



So what does the party do? They laugh at him. Bartz, don't you remember how bad it felt when they laughed at you for being afraid of heights? And now you're laughing at an old man failing to escape prison? Man, the Warriors of Light are jerks.

Oh, you kids think that's funny, do you?

They quickly shake their heads after being called out on it.

Eh...doesn't matter. The name's Cid.

Final Fantasy V Cid isn't one of the more memorable ones in the series. IV has arguably the best Cid, VII's Cid is pretty cool except for the whole verbal abuse of Shera thing, VIII's Cid was Robin Williams, IX's Cid wasn't human for most of the game but had a sweet 'stache...yeah, V's Cid isn't all that great. But he's not terrible. He's certainly better than VI's banana raincoat Cid.

What? The same Professor Cid who made those terrible machines to amplify the crystals? Forgive me, that was rude...

No, you don't have to apologize. It's the truth, after all. I'm to blame for everything... It's been years... One day, I found an ancient tome in the Library of the Ancients. It said that thousands of years ago, the crystals held much more power than they do now. So, I studied the crystals at Tycoon, Walse, and Karnak, and built machines to enhance them... But I was wrong...increasing their power output only caused them to shatter... Oh, it's all my fault!

But why are you locked up?

I was too late to save the crystals in Tycoon and Walse... Figured I could at least save the one here in Karnak. But when I tried to switch off the machine, they threw me in here.

So, you're in the same boat as us...

You're here to protect the crystal?

Yup! They asked us to!



Bartz holds out the crystal shards to show Cid.

What!? A crystal shard... Who are you people!?



The conversation is interrupted by the chancellor.

What's happened?

You were right all along... The crystal's cracked!

What!?

I turned off the amplifier, but the crystal's power output has only increased...

The fire-powered ship...

Yes? What about it?

Most likely the fire-powered ship is what's leeching power from the crystal.

Professor, please. We cannot do this alone. Please help us!

I need these kids' help as well.

I dunno but it kinda bugs me how a lot of the characters refer to the Warriors of Light as kids. Cid may be older than Galuf, but Galuf's hardly a kid. He has a granddaughter after all.

What? They were seen coming out of the meteorite. They're in cahoots with that werewolf!

If they can't help, I guess I can't either.

...All right, Professor.

You're willing to help me, right?

Well it sure beats rotting in a dungeon cell. Oh, and I guess we were kinda charged with protecting the crystals.

I'll go ahead to the fire-powered ship. It's not exactly a safe place to be...you get ready and meet me there. I'll be waiting!

What he means is there's monsters there.

We have free reign of the castle now.



Well, okay, "free reign" is a bit of an exaggeration. Lots of places are blocked off by fires, after all, this place is under the blessing of the fire crystal.



Treasure chests are also blocked off by fires. How inconvenient. You just know there's good loot inside them.



Due to the fires, there's really nowhere to go except outside the castle.



When you do, the werewolf decides to pay a visit.



There's some explosions, and the werewolf runs off.



Before heading onto the fire-powered ship, stop back by Karnak town to prepare like Cid told you. You'll find the magic shop is now open.







The second level elemental spells are here for Red/Black Mages, more good stuff for your White/Red Mages, and your first set of time magic is available. Gravity deals damage equal to 25% of the target's current HP, heavy type enemies are immune to it. Mute is an interesting spell. Mute inflicts the Silence status on every target in battle...including your own party, guaranteed. This may sound somewhat useful, but the spell cannot be cast in boss battles, limiting its usefulness.



The power of the crystal is why prices were so cheap when we first visited Karnak, but now weapons and armor are quite a bit more expensive. No more 250 gil Mythril Hammers!



So yeah. Buy what you need. I get one of each elemental rod, to boost the appropriate spells for bosses.





The armor shop now has Mythril armor pieces, though Bartz has been sporting a Mythril Helmet for a while and he can't make any use of shields right now. Silk Robes are available for casters and Silver Plates for light armor jobs here too.



Mythril Gloves provide decent enough defense, so I put one on. Magic defense takes a slight hit but eh, one point. There is an enemy that uses Flash in the next dungeon and can blind you though, so you may not want to swap the Silver Specs out.



This guy tells us about how crew dust want to show us their naked bodies, the perverts. What this tells us though is that as long as you don't leave a crew dust enemy by itself, it won't use Flash. We already learned Flash on North Mountain (or at least I did) so I don't need to see it again.



The third piano! Play it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiG1Shq6SUs

Hey, not bad. Our piano skills are really picking up.



After buying all the stuff you need, head on down to the fire-powered ship. It's right below the castle.



Cid berates us when we arrive.

Just as I suspected--the ship's engine is what's draining the crystal's power.

The engine?

Bartz isn't too familiar with technology. Most of the party isn't I'd wager, as they were wondering how Faris' ship was sailing without wind, and if they knew about ships with engines they would've just assumed she had one of those.

Yes... If the engine isn't stopped--and quickly--the fire crystal will shatter. Will you go?

We have a bad record of protecting crystals, but hey why not. The party agrees and Cid takes them to the door, warning them that there's monsters, which we already knew.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmHeP9Sve48



We're in the fire-powered ship! The music here is pretty great.



The door closest to your starting position has a Mythril Glove in it. Whoops, guess I didn't need to buy one in Karnak.



These are crew dust. They're weak to ice, so Shiva is great for avoiding Flash. Remember, unlike black magic spells, summons do not split their power across multiple targets.



Lenna also has the Ice Rod equipped to boost her ice magic.



These are Defeaters. They're kind of an interesting enemy in that they can summon other enemies. How it works is if you battle in such a way that one Defeater is left on the battlefield, when that Defeater is killed, Motor Traps will appear. If you beat all Defeaters at the same time, or if it's with other enemies and you beat the Defeater before the other enemies, Motor Traps will not appear.



These are Motor Traps.



They are weak to lightning, but you might not want to cast lightning elemental spells on them.



Because when they are hit by a lightning spell, they will use Self-Destruct. Self-Destruct is a blue magic spell, so you can learn it, and may want to if you want a full blue magic spell list. Self-Destruct deals your current HP in damage to the target, so if you have 5000 HP, you'll do 5000 damage with Self-Destruct. It will also instantly KO you. Well, it is Self-Destruct after all. This makes Self-Destruct pretty much completely useless. There's much better ways to deal much more damage that don't involve another character needing to take a turn to resurrect someone.

Well, after all that, you should head to the far left of the first room.



I just really like how this looks, I'm not able to show it in motion, but the room you were just in scrolls underneath you while you're on this metal grating. It's neat. Anyway, this path takes you to an Elixir at the end of it.



The first room you were in has a Cottage in the upper right.



These stairs will also take you to another Elixir.



And this door will continue your journey to save the fire crystal.



Hit the switch on the elevator to take you to another floor. You know, like how elevators work in real life.



A Phoenix Down! Also the guide I'm using says if you didn't pick up the World Map in the Ship Graveyard, it'll be here. I'll take his word for it, since I've never come here without the map.



Boy that chest sure looks nice, too bad there's a conveyor belt preventing you from getting it from here.



This is another enemy in the ship, it's undead. Also as someone pointed out on another forum, if you look at that Poltergeist, it doesn't have two heads. The face has been ripped off, leaving the bare skull on the left and the ripped-off face on the right. Yeah. Messed up.



This is the way you want to go, walking through this pipe. Tube. Vent. Whatever.



There's a lot of ways to go here, and unfortunately there's a point of no return that screws you out of some treasure. So here's the best way to go.



Take this pipe first.



It'll drop you into a CRAZY maze of conveyors! There's no way to control your path, so don't worry about it. It'll drop you into a pit.



Hey, that treasure chest we couldn't get before!



Hey, the Thief's Gloves! Sweet! I've mentioned these before. Only two jobs can equip the Thief's Gloves, Thief and Freelancer. Thief's Gloves doubles your chances of stealing an item with !Steal and !Mug. This means that while you can put !Steal and !Mug on other jobs, the Thief is always going to be better than them at stealing.



It also boosts agility by a point and defense by a bit, though magic defense takes a nasty hit. Still, I want it on at least for now, since there's some sweet gear to steal coming up.



This is the pipe to take next.



When you land, go to the right and down this path. There's a chest with a Green Beret in it!



Green Berets are nice, they boost strength and agility as well as providing better defense than a Plumed Hat.



Finally, this is the last path you want to take. If you go down this pipe before the other two, you'll miss out on the Thief's Gloves and Green Beret (for a while at least).



Go up the stairs first. You'll get a neat new weapon for doing so.



The Moonring Blade is a back-row compatible weapon, like the Flail is, meaning anyone who has it does full damage from the back row. It's time to equip my Thief with a weapon (though I'm keeping Barehanded on her for the strength boost) and stick her in the back row.



The door with the conveyor in front of it doesn't lead anywhere interesting, so take the door on the left.



There's a "maze" of platforms and switches in here, but it's pretty simple.



There's an Elixir at the top of this room too.



Finally we reach the engine room, and Queen Karnak, the queen of Karnak. If you'd gone in the throne room of Karnak Castle earlier the chancellor would've said the queen was gone. Here's where she was.

What's going on?



Uh-oh, the screen turned red, and she's surrounded by that weird energy that surrounded King Tycoon.

Infidels... You shall pay for interfering with my revival!

Queen Karnak what are you even talking about.



No time to worry now, she's burning us alive!



Boss time! Liquid Flame is weak to ice. Well...sometimes it is. It starts out in its humanoid form and will sometimes use Blaze.



Blaze hits your entire party and deals 25% of your max HP.



So Liquid Flame's gimmick is it will change forms as you damage it, and this is its second form. It can cast Fira on itself to heal itself, and Magnet, which does nothing except pull your back row party members to the front row.



Bartz with a Blizzara Spellblade and Two-Handed wrecks this boss.



The hand form is probably the most annoying, as it is immune to ice, meaning if you have a Mystic Knight with a Blizzara blade, they won't be able to deal damage.



But just keep pounding on it and it'll go down, since its other two forms are ice weak and you can deal tons of damage in those forms.



You will get a Flame Scroll after the battle, which is useless at the moment.



The fire-powered ship's engine explodes, hopefully saving the fire crystal.

I...I was being controlled by something...an evil spirit... It desires to envelop everything in darkness...

Your Highness...

The crystals...it's not just the machines that are destroying them... Something evil is using their power to resurrect itself... Please, save the fire crystal. It's in the room just through that pipe...

Well, this is certainly some disturbing news. Let's hope it's not too late for the fire crystal.





As you walk into the fire crystal room, a werewolf appears, the same one from Karnak Castle. The one you're supposedly in cahoots with.

[impng[/img] If they can't help, I guess I can't either.

[img]httppng[/img]

These are crew dust. They're weak to ice, so Shiva is great for avoiding Flash. Remember, unlike black magic spells, summons do not split their power across multiple targets.

[img]httpg]http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/kaemmerite/FFVLP/FFV6/capture_166_20012013_022100.png[/img]

The werewolf also seems to know Galuf.

We won't //i22let you touch the crystal, werewolf!

Stand down, I am not your enemy!

I'm not so sure about that!

Bartz you are so dumb sometimes.

Galuf, say something! What's happened...is something wrong?

You know me? Ughhh... Can't remember a thing... Who in blazes am I, anyway...



While the party talks, a Karnak soldier sneaks in and flips a switch in the back.

You there--what have you done!? Sending that much power through the crystal will smash it to smithereens!



Oh, well that explains why he did that.

And this makes three... One more and the seal is broken. Mwah-hahaha!

Bartz tries to flip the switch back, but unfortunately it's broken and won't move, meaning the fire crystal is doomed.





And at that moment, the pieces of machinery surrounding the fire crystal close.





The room starts to burn and crumble as the werewolf holds back the last bit of machinery.

Get out of here, and protect the last crystal with your lives!

Werewolf!

We have to help him!



The party is unfortunately unable to help, as the floor gives way beneath their feet.



And with that, the werewolf is crushed by the machinery. Once again, Galuf was unable to learn anything about himself, and another friend has died.

The party wakes up on the floor below.



The fire crystal must've lost its power...



The situation doesn't look much better upstairs.

Where's the werewolf?

He probably got trapped in the fire...couldn't get out...

We have to hurry! The castle was held together by the power of the fire crystal!

Hold up--so now that the crystal's gone, the castle's gonna blow!?

Exactly! We've no time to lose!

I'm not exactly sure when Lenna got this information, but she's absolutely correct. The party rushes back downstairs, and you get this message.



Yep, you've got ten minutes to make it out of Karnak Castle, or it's game over. Fortunately you start out right in front of a save point, so you don't have to do the fire-powered ship all over again.



If you turn around and head back downstairs, you'll find a healing pot that will restore you to full strength. Just in case you're in bad shape from the Liquid Flame battle.



Oh yeah, going into the menu doesn't stop the timer. You'll see it counting down next to the Play time counter instead of your actual play time like you normally have there. The only way to catch your breath is to get into a battle and open the magic/item menus (if you're in Wait mode).



The fires in Karnak Castle are gone, meaning you can grab all those chests that eluded you on your first visit. But...well...



...most of them are trapped and force you into battles when you open them. Now, if you know where to go and have the right abilities and jobs set, you have plenty of time to open all the chests. However, I'll make note of the most important chests. Oh yeah, and you want to get to the end with a lot of time to spare if you want to learn a new blue magic spell.



Anyway this is one of the encounters you'll get in trapped chests. This isn't too hard, just time consuming. The Sorcerer has really good items to steal, so you'll want a Thief along with Thief's Gloves on.



This is the common steal from Sorcerers, the Mage Masher, which is a decently powerful dagger that sometimes inflicts Silence on the enemy.



You get an Elixir for your trouble from this chest. There's a lot of Elixir chests here, which you may or may not want. I always end up with a ton of unused Elixirs by the end of the game because I'm the kind of person that goes "I should save these for when I REALLY need them" and then I end up at the final boss with like 40 Elixirs because I always thought I shouldn't use them.



This chest is trapped, and you definitely want this Ribbon. Don't skip this chest! There's a limited number of Ribbons in this game. While none of your current jobs (well, Freelancer) can equip it, it's still a must-have.



This chest is trapped, and contains something we can't use right now.



Oh yeah, there's also random encounters while you run through Karnak Castle, not just the chest enemies. Most of these battles end by a single Shiva casting with an Ice Rod on.

When you get to the main hall, go up the stairs that were blocked off by fire before, starting with the ones on the left.



This chest isn't trapped, but the other one in this room is (and it has an Elixir).



This is the rare steal from a Sorceror, the Gaia Gear. It absorbs earth elemental attacks, and it has great defense power, so it's worth it to try and get at least one from these fights (this is another reason to go after the Elixir chests). I probably wouldn't reset my game if I went through the whole castle and didn't get one, but it's a sweet bonus if you do manage to grab any.



Take these stairs in the upper left of this room. You'll go outside the castle, then run along the outside and to another staircase, which you'll go down a few floors to get to.



This chest is trapped with a Gigas, who I oddly do not have a screenshot of. Weird. Gigas have a good amount of HP and can cast Aera, which a Blue Mage/learning character could learn here, but as you're on a short timer it's better learned elsewhere, although it can be nice if you happen to get it. Anyway, it contains a second (or first if you decided to skip Walse Castle basement) Elven Mantle for you. Since these are good, you definitely want this!

When you get back to the main hall, take the stairs on the right now.



This chest is trapped and has an Elixir. Like the other room on the left, the other chest is trap-free and contains 2000 Gil.

Take the stairs in the upper left, and you'll go through a series of areas like the one on the right, ending in this chest.



Which is also protected by a Gigas, and contains a great weapon. The Main Gauche is a dagger that has a 25% chance of blocking any physical attack, in addition to your normal evasion stat. It's pretty high in attack power too, so you want this as well!

You can now finally go south in the main hall, and grab the treasures on either side.



This chest is trapped, and contains the Esuna spell, a level 4 White spell that will remove all negative status effects on an ally. If you don't get it here, it's going to be a while before you have a chance to buy it in a shop. Since you get it for free here, no reason not to grab it.



The chest on the right contains a Lightning Scroll, similar to the Flame Scroll from before. And it's also trapped. Now get out of the castle, but make sure you have some time on the clock, and it might be a good idea to make everybody Blue Mages or equip Learning.



Oh look "Wrote state 1" in the corner. Eh. Yeah, I risked this battle with only Galuf having Learning because I was able to savestate if it didn't go well for me. If you're playing this game on the cart, you obviously can't do this, which is why it's better to just make everybody Blue Mages if they don't have Learning. This battle looks fairly normal, like the other random encounters in Karnak Castle.



But when you take out all the Cur Nakks, a small exchange takes place.

He's no ordinary soldier!

Show us your true form!

You wish to know my true identity? I am the famed bounty hunter...Iron Claw! MORPH!



Iron Claw drops his disguise, and now the mini-boss battle begins. Iron Claw can use the blue magic spell Death Claw.



This is why you want Blue Mages/Learning characters.



Faris has been hit by Death Claw, which puts your HP in the single digits (not necessarily 1, although it was here) and paralyzes you.



Iron Claw has decent defense, but magic works fine, and he's only got 900 HP. Shouldn't be too much trouble, unless you didn't have enough time on the clock when you got here.



After escaping Karnak Castle, it explodes, and takes a bit of the wall beside it out.



Five crystal shards drop from the sky due to the explosion, but the party only manages to snag three of them, unlocking three new jobs: Ninja, Beastmaster, and Geomancer, which I'll cover in the next update.

Next time: Final Fantasy V teaches us that reading books can kill you.

[uc pseudonym]

I think this is one of the best segments of the game. The fire ship is a good dungeon that actually throws a few challenges at you and the 10 minute countdown is fun because of all the optional stuff you can get in that time. I also like the destruction of this crystal better. Previously it was always "oops, too late" but here it's destroyed by a resourceful (if absent) opponent.

[Nate]

Job Update: Fire Crystal jobs

Three new jobs from the Fire Crystal shards. One is amazing, the other two are okay.

Ninja

This is the standout job here and a personal favorite of pretty much everybody. Ninjas rock because they have an innate ability to hold a weapon in each hand, called Dual-Wield. As you can imagine, this is awesome when used with strong weapons like swords, and why you'll almost certainly want your physical fighters to master this job.

That's not the only trick Ninjas have though. They also have !Image, which will cause physical attacks to miss completely for a couple of turns, First Strike, an innate ability that will increase the odds of your party getting the jump on enemies, and of course !Throw. !Throw allows you to, well, throw weapons and special throwing items like shurikens and scrolls. Throwing items do a ton of damage. Scrolls on the other hand...they are sort of useful for hitting elemental weaknesses, but since Ninjas have two weapons they'll probably do more damage just regular attacking (or throwing shurikens), plus the Ninja gets a 10 point penalty to their Magic stat, and scroll damage is based off magic. If a Ninja is supplemented with a mage ability to boost their magic, scrolls are pretty good, but don't feel like you have to go out of your way.

Beastmaster

This job is more useful in what support it gives to other classes than what it can do on its own. Beastmasters use whips, so that whip you got from Magissa on North Mountain can finally be put to use.

Beastmasters gain !Calm the first level, which is a chance to inflict any enemy except Magic Beast types with Stop (this is a bug by the way, it's supposed to only work on Magic Beasts) The second level is what the Beastmaster is best used for, !Control. !Control lets you take control of the enemy. The enemy will lose its attacks, and when the turn of the Beastmaster who controlled it comes around, you are given the monster's list of attacks and are able to command it. This is indispensable for learning blue magic spells, since some of them, like White Wind and Mighty Guard, will never be cast on you by the enemy. This means you must control the enemy and have them cast it on you. Control is lost when the enemy is hit by a physical attack though, so be aware of that if you're carrying a Berserker or something.

The final level of Beastmaster grants !Catch. !Catch is an odd ability that lets you capture a monster that has less than 1/8 of its max HP, if it's catchable (some monsters aren't). When a Beastmaster captures a monster, !Catch turns into !Release in battle. !Release lets the monster go, and causes it to perform a single action before it leaves. The effect varies depending on the monster. For example, Mini Dragons will cast Holy on an enemy, while White Flame will cast White Wind on the party. Naturally, not every enemy has a useful ability, though some can be quite powerful if you can get them. The problem is, it's a one-shot attack, and then you have to go catch something else. Useful in the right circumstances, but hardly consistent.

The Beastmaster gets two pieces of equipment to supplement its abilities too. The Hypno Crown increases the success rate of !Control, and the Kornago Gourd changes the requirement to catch an enemy with !Catch to 1/2 of max HP instead of 1/8.

Geomancer

Finally we have what is a bit of a dud. Geomancers are gimmicky, and a fairly weak class. They are the class that uses bells as weapons, though they can also use knives. Bells, as I mentioned before, are kind of like axes in that their damage can fluctuate wildly. Their damage is also based on the magic stat and agility, instead of strength, can be used with full power from the back row, and cannot be used if the wielder is under the effects of Silence. They'll almost certainly hit harder than a knife from the back row, and maybe sometimes from the front row. Still, nobody should be in this class for very long anyway.

The Geomancer's battle ability is !Gaia. !Gaia's effects vary depending on the battle terrain and on the user's level, and cost no MP to use. The way it works is every battle terrain has four possible effects. When you use !Gaia, the game generates a random number between 0 and that character's current level. If the number is 0-11, you get ability one, 1-21 gets you ability two, 21-51 ability three, and above 51 ability four. This means if you're doing a low level challenge, you'll only ever get ability 1, and you can never get ability four until you're over level 51.

Again, !Gaia's effects vary depending on which ability you roll. They can do various types of elemental damage and inflict various status effects. !Gaia also is based on the user's magic stat, meaning that mage jobs can use !Gaia to inflict pretty good damage without using any MP, if you get a decent ability. The problem is you might end up getting Earthquake on a group of flying enemies, or a fire-based ability on an enemy that absorbs fire.

The Geomancer's other two abilities are innate and support only. Find Pits will cause your character to stop moving in front of a hidden pit on the floor and reveal the pit to you. You can still walk into the pit afterwards though, so beware of that. Light Step allows you to walk on harmful floor tiles like lava and spikes without taking damage. And that's literally it for Geomancer abilities. It ties with one other future job as being one of the fastest to master, with full mastery coming after a mere 175 ABP.

You'll want at least one person to master Geomancer for Light Step, and again !Gaia is a decent (if unpredictable) support ability for mages, but you probably won't be using this job a whole lot, it just doesn't measure up.

[Kaori]

I remember Light Step being useful as a support ability, but yeah, Geomancer is not a job you want to leave someone in. And ninjas are awesome. Come to think of it, that's true in pretty much every FF game I've played that has ninjas. Sometimes westerners latch onto a certain idea from Japanese culture and focus on it much more than the Japanese themselves, but I think the Japanese love the idea of ninjas every bit as much as westerners do.

Also along the lines of things I actually remember from when I played this game (six or eight years ago?), out of the four locations of the four crystals, I distinctly remembered Karnak and that it had the fire crystal but didn't remember the even the names of the other places. That Cursed Lands music is pretty cool, too; it's one of the most memorable pieces in the game for me.

[Nate]

Hey guys! Sorry this part took so long. Been feeling kinda blah, and I screwed up taking the caps so it took a lot more work than usual to sort them out. Also Photobucket is run by complete effing morons who are stupid and deserve to be fired for making such a completely un-userfriendly update and removing a lot of their useful features. Finally the latest update to Opera is making it act kinda wonky (it sometimes hangs when loading pages, images won't load) so I probably won't be able to tell if you guys can see the images. Tell me if you can see them or not! Well, with all that out of the way...

Part Seven: READ AT A LIRBARY

When we last left the Warriors of Light, they were arrested by the Karnak guards for coming out of the meteorite and suspected of being monsters. However, they met the genius Cid, the man responsible for creating the crystal amplifiers, who helped free them to save the fire crystal. After making it through the fire-powered ship, they encountered Queen Karnak, who said something about a seal. A werewolf who knew Galuf showed up and tried to protect the crystal, but failed, and the warriors raced against time to escape Castle Karnak before it exploded. The crystal was gone, however, giving them three new jobs, and one crystal left before the world is doomed, and the seal that Queen Karnak mentioned is broken...



We start outside Karnak Castle's remains. You may notice that the wall preventing passage to the west was partially destroyed in the explosion. Now we can get to the Library of Ancients! But let's check and see how the town is doing.



If you visit the second floor of the inn, Queen Karnak is recovering there, and still suffering a bit from the trauma of being possessed.



Another thing the fire crystal's destruction did was remove the random flames sitting around the town of Karnak, allowing you to reach the top of the wall around the city.



You can find a Flame Rod in this barrel by coming up here.



This guy tells us about an enemy we'll run into before long. It's pretty strong, but nowhere near as bad as Jackanapes was.

Head back to the fire-powered ship now, so you can advance the story.



Cid is beating himself up over what happened, and he runs off after you speak to him here. He'll go to the second floor of the pub, and you can talk to him there, but he'll just continue to mope around, so you can't do much with him now.



At the weapon and armor shop, there's a new merchant in the middle of the place.



We still can't use Mythril Spears, and none of the other weapons are all that special. Kunai are nice if you have a Ninja and you didn't get any Mage Mashers from Karnak Castle though.



I change Reina back to a White Mage so she can catch on on her !White levels, with Summoning handy as a damage-dealer.



She also gets that sweet Gaia Gear I was lucky to get.



Galuf gets the Main Gauche. It's weaker than other weapons he could have right now, and he won't get a boost from an elemental rod, but the 25% chance to block any physical attack stacks with his 33% chance to avoid any physical attack from his Elven Mantle, which is super awesome.



Faris gets to be a Beastmaster for a while. At this point there's a few Blue Magic spells that can only be obtained via !Control, so I want someone to learn that as soon as possible.



Certain whips can cause paralysis on enemies. This is what it looks like when the enemy is hit by it.



On your way to the Library of Ancients, you'll come across this large desert. You may want to avoid walking in the desert (there's a grassland path around it) because this is where the Dhorme Chimera shows up. It's fairly powerful compared to your team at this point in the game (though not ridiculously so). I however am very eager to fight at least one.



Bartz is a Black Mage now. No, it's not necessary for the chimera, I just want Bartz to get !Black level 1. There's a reason for this that will become apparent later.



Here it is, the Dhorme Chimera! The little bubbles around Bartz are one of its attacks, Aqua Breath, which hits the entire party.



Ouch. Boy does it ever. Yeah, this is why Dhorme Chimera is tough, you don't have a lot of HP at this point and Aqua Breath hits kind of hard. However, Aqua Breath is also a blue magic spell, so you probably want to learn it! I know I do. It's a decently strong attack against the entire enemy party, and on top of that, it deals 8x damage to Desert type enemies. Yeah, it's not a Water elemental attack, believe it or not, and things that are weak to Aqua Breath due to being Desert type enemies are also not necessarily weak to Water elemental attacks.



Yeah, Faris didn't fare too well. But hey, another blue magic spell! I think this fight is also worth 3 ABP if I remember correctly.



This is ultimately your goal, in the middle of this forest. When you enter, you'll see a bunch of Scholars running around.



Guess we're going to have to clear this place of monsters.



We also learn Cid has a grandson named Mid, and he's missing at the moment.



How odd, only half a book? I wonder where the other half could be?



Something tells me we're gonna meet this Byblos soon enough.



On the roof, you meet these two guys. One tells you about how Ifrit burned possessed books for them. The other says that he wants to burn just the possessed books, but doesn't know how to tell which ones are possessed or not. The one on the far left is a traveler's diary that says he gave an odd staff to the king of Tycoon (obviously the Healing Staff). The one in the middle is from a Blue Mage who mentions the names of a couple of blue magic spells. The one on the left...is possessed and will throw you into a battle.



The encounters here are a bit different than in the rest of the game. Here, each encounter has multiple enemies, but you only see one at a time. Supposedly if you do enough damage to an enemy, it will end the encounter immediately regardless of how many enemies are waiting in reserve. I never had that happen though. This is Page 32 and he's entirely uninteresting.



Page 64 here has a blue magic spell you can learn, Level 5 Death. Level 5 Death immediately kills any enemy with a level divisible by 5. Even ones normally immune to death. What this means though is that it is very dangerous to come into the Library of Ancients with your entire party being level 10, 15, or 20, as Level 5 Death is an immediate game over. In
order for your Blue Mage/Learning character to obtain it, they must be a level divisible by 5 since if the magic doesn't actually connect, you can't learn it. At this point I think my party was all level 18, meaning I couldn't learn it and Page 64 was harmless.

The fight on the rooftop only contains these two enemies. But now it's time to go into the library's depths and see if we can find Mid, and take care of the monsters.



The first room is slightly puzzle-ish, with shelves that move to open the path depending on where you're standing. If you're stuck behind a shelf, just step on every tile you can, and you'll make it through.



The next room is "dark" and also has an Ether to grab.



This is Page 128. It can use Slow I think, and you can steal Ethers from it if you really want them.



As you go on, you'll run into this bookshelf which won't let you pass no matter what you do.



You'll have to leave and go through the door further to the left, which will take you to a book all by itself in the middle of a room.



Only those who can withstand my flames will be granted the privilege of summoning me!

Boss fight!



Ifrit has been the standard fire-element summon for the Final Fantasy series for a while, and if there's summoning, it usually shows up. Even if you didn't know that, the scholar on the roof told you about how Ifrit would burn books for them. In a long-standing FF tradition, because elements have always been weird in the series, Ifrit is weak to ice.



This means Bartz wants to get Blizzara on his sword right away.



Because Lenna has summon magic, she hits Ifrit with Shiva, which does decent damage, though of course it could've been nicer if she was able to equip that Frost Rod.



Galuf's Blizzara spell fares a bit better despite the Red Mage's pitiful Magic bonus.



But yeah. Mystic Knight + Two Handed. In FFV, much like in a lot of FF games, physical attacks are usually going to deal more damage than magic. The only FF games I can think of where magic can equal or exceed physicals is 4 and 6, and the reason for that is because you have less options for dealing physical damage than you do in other games. While magic shouldn't be ignored for a lot of reasons, the gap between magic and physicals is only going to get worse once we get a certain job in the near future.

Anyway Ifrit isn't that bad of a fight.



You have proven your worth. I shall grant you the use of my powers.

With this, the summon spell Ifrit is available to Summoners or those with !Summon level 2 equipped. It deals fire-elemental damage to all enemies on the screen. But more importantly (for the story anyway) is that you can now get past that rude bookshelf that wouldn't let you pass.



This time when you walk up to it, the screen will flash red after it blocks you and it'll apologize to Ifrit for blocking your path. Onward!



Right after getting past the bookshelf, you can walk down through the hole on the left over here.



A free Ninja Suit!



Despite what you may think, the Ninja Suit is not a Ninja-exclusive piece of gear. It can even be worn by heavy armor classes! It's light, makes you faster, and has good defense.



This is the final new enemy in the dungeon, Page 256.



Page 256 uses Moon Flute, which you may have seen if you went into Walze Castle basement and fought Jackanapes. Moon Flute inflicts Berserk on the entire party, increasing their physical damage but making them uncontrollable and only able to attack. Berserk is generally considered a positive status effect in Final Fantasy. This means Esuna will not remove Berserk, you have to use Dispel. Most equipment that prevents negative status effects also will not protect against Berserk, due to it being considered positive. The only exception I can think of is 4 where Cecil's Crystal Helmet protected against Berserk. Still, even if the game considers it positive, most players consider it negative usually due to the uncontrollable nature of Berserk. If you have a character who's going to do nothing but attack anyway, Berserk is a great boost, but you definitely don't want it on an entire party, and there's certain fights in the future where Berserk (and Berserkers) are extremely detrimental.



Berserked characters have their skin turn red, to show anger I guess. Page 256 is not particularly difficult, so being Berserk isn't so bad in this random battle. Moon Flute is also a blue magic spell, which you can learn if it hits you. It's an interesting spell in that enemies who use it (like Page 256 and Jackanapes) cast it on you, which should indicate that the effect of Moon Flute is "Berserk all enemies," but instead Moon Flute when used by you the player has the effect of casting Berserk on the party. Weird, huh?



In the last room, you have to interact with the bookshelf to open the path. If you leave this room and come back, the book reappears and you have to fight it again.



When you reach the end of the library, Bartz sees something odd. It turns out to be a person at the bookshelf! Galuf warns everyone he has a bad feeling about this place, and he's right on the money, because at that moment books jump down from the shelves and come at the party.



It's Byblos, the sealed monster that was mentioned earlier! He's using Magic Hammer here, a blue magic spell that damages the enemy's MP. If you have a Blue Mage or Learning character handy, you can get it here, but there's better places to learn it so don't feel like you have to go out of your way.

Byblos can be extremely difficult for single class/character challenges, and the Four Job Fiesta because it can damage your MP, inflict your party with Slow, can cast Protect to decrease physical damage, can decrease your level (for the fight, not permanently) and starts using Drain when it gets low on health. If you can't reliably inflict fire damage, Byblos is a hell of a challenge.



I'm not doing a challenge run though.



Oh yeah he can also use Wind Slash which is a full party attack that hurts.



But Bartz's Fira sword hurts him worse. Byblos has a chance to cast Protect as a counter to any physical attack, which again decreases physical damage by 50% or more. He can also cast Toad to counter magic attacks.



But as I said, this isn't a challenge run, so as long as you blast him with Fira, Ifrit, or Flame Scrolls, he will go down fairly easily.

So, this is the end...but only for me. Very soon, the master's seal will be blown wide open!!!

If Ifrit lands the killing blow, his speech will mention Ifrit by name, but is otherwise the same. But wait, something about a seal? Didn't Queen Karnak say something about that when she was possessed?

Well, with Byblos out of the picture, now we can talk to Mid.



Don't tell me you were engrossed in that book the whole time!?

What whole time? Now that you mention it, I did hear some rustling behind me... Oh, was that you?

Mid's character portrait looks really smug. And the party is kind of upset that Mid didn't notice anything.

You've gotta be kidding.

A strange bird, this one...

Whatever...guess it's time to go back, huh? You guys coming too? I know a shortcut.



Back in the main part of the library, the scholar on the stepladder here gets a rude surprise when a passage opens in front of him and jumps out of the way. Mid shows up, along with the rest of the party. The scholars are glad to see him safe, but Mid doesn't even realize he was in danger. Besides...



Check it out... I bet with this method, we could repower the fire-powered ship! I've gotta tell Grandpa Cid about it right away!

Cid?

Oh, you know of him? He's my grandfather. Grandpa is so awesome! When he's researching, he's unstoppable--he never gives up until he's found the solution!

Maybe that's how he was in the past, but now...

What're you talking about?

I'm just saying... He sure is acting like he's given up now...

What!? He would never do that!

With that, Mid grabs the book off the table and runs off.

Time to go back to Karnak!



Cid is still moping upstairs in the pub.

Mid isn't here?

Well he's not exactly as good at fighting monsters as you are.

Come on, man. Pull yourself together!

Leave me alone... Don't waste your time on a worthless old lump like me.

At this point, Mid runs into the room and...



It's hard to tell with sprites but Mid is actually slapping his grandfather around. Sprites are great, and I love them, and they're very expressive, but there's certain things they don't do well...and one of them is showing that a character is hitting another character, and not just doing a little dance in front of them.

Ouch! Mid, stop that! What are you doing?

What am I doing? What are YOU doing, you silly old fool!? You never give up! Never!

Mid...

You always told me not to be afraid of failing... That if you messed up, you just had to start over and try again... What happened to that!?

Mid... Just try again... Mid! You're absolutely right!

Of course I am!

It's not over. The earth crystal is still out there!

Yeah, but where?

That, I don't know. But we've got to find it and protect it! And to do that...

We'll need the fire-powered ship! I'm right, aren't I?

Yes... We'll need to get the fire-powered ship moving again. But without the crystal...

Way ahead of you, Grandpa. Just look at this!

Ohh, where'd you dig this up? Hmm... Ahh, I see, like that... Nice work, Mid, this could do it! All right, let's get to work!

Cid and Mid leave the room. Follow them to the fire-powered ship!



You'll have to excuse Mid, he's all fired up! We'll take care of the ship, you kids just sit tight.

The party heads into the cabin of the ship, and Galuf suddenly stops walking.



Yes...you do look even stranger than usual.

Galuf, are you all right?

My head... It was like I could almost remember...

The screen starts warping, showing that Galuf is trying to remember, and there's a flashback of Mid calling out for his grandpa.



After that, we get a scene of Galuf on the balcony of a castle.

Grandpa!

Krile!

There's another flashback of Mid smacking Cid and calling him a silly old fool...



Silly old fool!



Galuf! What happened!?

Did you remember something!?

I'm...I'm not from this world!

This comes as a shock to the party, although to the player there were enough hints to this being the case...especially the intro where Galuf was seen inside a meteorite. But yep, Galuf is an alien!

I warped here through a meteorite from another world. Because... The evil we'd sealed thirty years ago was beginning to reawaken... So I came to stop it...

Evil is reawakening?

That's right... Big, bad evil, too--the dark warlock, Exdeath!

We finally have a name for the main villain! As an interesting note, while Exdeath is a perfectly valid localization for his Japanese name, it can also be interpreted as "Exodus" due to the Japanese s/th thing (Aerith is like this too, which is why her name was originally translated as Aeris, since Aerith in Japanese still ends with a -su sound). They translated his name as Exodus for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and for XII, but kept it as Exdeath for this version and for Dissidia.



The scene shifts to Galuf and three other characters in a cavern.







The scene zooms out to show a forest, with four stones in the corners. Yep, this is that place I was showing you a while back. Remember how a stone disappeared when a crystal shattered? That was Exdeath's seal breaking.

To seal him, I came here once before, thirty years ago...

So... If all four crystals are destroyed, then Exdeath's seal will be broken as well?

Right... Ugh...my head...

So not only will the four crystals breaking cause the world to fall into decay and ruin, but they'll also release a super powerful evil being. This is pretty bad.

Still...still can't remember clearly...urg... We can't...allow Exdeath t'...be reborn...gkk...



And Galuf collapses, still not having fully regained his memory. But he remembered some important stuff. He's fine though, and the party rests for a bit.

This update was supposed to be a bit longer, but screenshot-wise I'm only halfway done, it's been a long time since the last update, and now that I'm working again (hopefully for the forseeable future) I think I'll end this update here. Besides, Galuf revealing the truth behind what's going on seems like a natural stopping place.

So next time, killer squirrels! (Seriously.)

[uc pseudonym]

Man, I forgot how hard this thread is on my connection when most of the pictures aren't cached.

I always had mixed feelings about the library. It had a couple good bosses but the enemies popping up one at a time was annoying.

[Nate]

Okay, it's been a long time, and I think I should say something as to the status of this. I guess I can blame this on the "LP Curse."

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed I was starting to lose vision in my right eye. I went and had it checked and it turned out I had a detached retina, which is fairly common in very nearsighted people (which I am). I had to have surgery, they put a buckle around my eye, and did what they could to re-flatten the retina against the back of the eye.

According to the doctor, it'll probably take a minimum of about three months before I fully regain sight in my right eye. My right eye is blurry and occasionally sore, and very red. I am wearing an eyepatch a lot, because it's uncomfortable to try and look through both eyes for any period of time. Staring at a computer monitor for long periods of time with both eyes sucks, and it's even worse with only one eye.

What this means is, unfortunately, I am not really up to the task of continuing this LP until my eye gets better. So this LP is on hiatus until I return to relatively normal levels of sight and don't feel like it's a chore to look at a screen.

Sorry guys. I want to get back to this as soon as possible, but I want to get my vision back even more.

[Kaori]

Yeah, your vision is definitely more important than an LP. Hope you have a smooth recovery.

[Nate]

Hey guys, I'm bumping this! No, my eye still isn't fully back, and won't be for a bit, so this isn't an update for my LP (which is still on hiatus). I'm just posting to ask if anyone else is planning to take place in this year's Four Job Fiesta!

For those who don't know, the Four Job Fiesta is a unique challenge run of FFV, created by RevenantKioku as a charity fundraiser for Child's Play. The site is here: http://www.letsplaying.com/FF5FF/

The basic rules of the Four Job Fiesta is that each crystal, you get one and only one job from the crystal, and can only use those jobs for the game. So for example, you're doing a FJF run and you get to the wind crystal, and roll Blue Mage (lucky!). Your entire party must be Blue Mages at that point. Then you get to the second crystal and you get Berserker (super unlucky!). At that point, you must have at least one Blue Mage and one Berserker in the party. You can have three Blue Mages and one Berserker, three Berserkers and one Blue Mage, or two of each. Then when you get to the Fire Crystal, you get Beastmaster, you must have at least one Berserker, one Blue Mage, and one Beastmaster, with the fourth member being whatever you want. And then once you get to the Earth Crystal, you get Bard, and then must have one of each job in the party at all times.

You don't have to lock a character into a job. You can make Bartz a Berserker after the Water Crystal, and then turn him back into a Blue Mage later if you want (as long as you make at least one other person a Berserker if he was the only one). It's a really neat way to play the game, and can be very challenging or ludicrously easy depending on your luck!

There's also additional ways to challenge, such as Random. Random means just that, once you get to the Fire Crystal, you might be given another Wind Crystal job. So you could even end up with a party of Thief, Monk, Knight, and Black Mage if you were horribly unlucky (seriously that's a really bad combination!). There's also "Team 750," which will give you only magic-themed jobs (except Mystic Knight), "Team no 750," which will give you only physical jobs (including Mystic Knight), and Natural. Natural means your character can only use jobs with their associated element...in other words, only Bartz can use wind crystal jobs, only Galuf can use earth crystal jobs, and so on. This is rough because all your other characters must be Freelancer until you get to the crystal, and they can't break rods either.

And finally there's Berseker Risk, which adds a Berserker to the pool for every ten dollars raised before the Fiesta starts, meaning if you take this option you have a higher chance of getting a Berserker than anyone else...and if enough money is raised, you'll definitely get one, and could be at risk for getting two!

Another option is if you get a job you really don't want to use (say you didn't pick Berserker Risk but ended up with one anyway), you can pay Gilgabot some money to have him pick another job for you. I'm not sure what payment methods are accepted, I'm sure PayPal is, but I'm sure more information will be available when the Festival gets into full swing...again, all money goes to Child's Play.

You have to use Twitter to get in on the official Fiesta, though nothing is stopping you from going to random.org and using an RNG to roll your jobs if you'd rather do an unofficial Fiesta run. And here are a couple of infographics!

http://i.imgur.com/XuTq5Qt.png

http://i.imgur.com/D58TAR7.png

It'd be neat to hear stories from people on here who participate!

[Nate]

I have new glasses! And hopefully soon, I'll have a contact lens in my right eye so I'll be able to fully see again! Well, things will still be slightly squished, but more visible.

So this will pick back up soon! Er...assuming anyone still cares about it.

[Kaori]

...assuming anyone still cares about it.

Yes.

[MomentOfInertia]

I'm still here.

[Nate]

Part Seven (Part Two): I'M NOT DEAD YET!

That's right! I didn't forget about this! And despite rumors to the contrary, I'm very much alive! I still have the eyepatch but at this point I'm used to it, so might as well get back to this. Besides, the biggest obstacle keeping me from doing this has been overcome!

No, not my job. That's still around, and still exhausting. In fact because of my job I have very little motivation to do anything but sit around on my days off. It's very stressful and I hate it and I feel like it's slowly killing me inside. But enough about that. See, I talked about it on one of Peanut's D&D sessions, but never said it here proper, so here's the deal.

I'm using Photobucket to host my images. I thought about using imgur (and might in the future if Photobucket starts having bandwidth issues), but decided I already have a Photobucket account. There's also lpix, but I feel weird about using that one. Anyway a while back, Photobucket "spruced up" their site because they wanted it to look new and cool and all that. I still hate the new interface but it's tolerable I suppose. But the big problem was that on the old interface, you could arrange the pictures in your PB by filename.

On the new interface, you could give your pictures titles, which is different from a filename; it retains the filename the picture has when you upload it, but you can give it a title in addition to its filename. Now, for WHATEVER reason, the geniuses who made the new interface allowed you to arrange your files by newest/oldest, or by title, but not by filename. For a while, this was fine, because you could still use the old interface (which let you organize by filename), but there came a time where they wouldn't let you use the old interface.

That was a big factor in what killed my motivation to continue on. Without being able to arrange things by their filename, the pictures were in a more or less random order and since the full filename didn't display on the new interface either, I had to do a lot of clicking on an image to see what number it was and ended up putting an image in only to realize later "I didn't put in the image before it, crap, where is it?" It made the whole thing tedious and that's why part seven got cut short before I finished with all the screenshots I took, because I was like "Eff this, I'll get back to it later, I'm tired of digging through all these pictures at random right now."

Then the crap with my eye happened, and yeah. HOWEVER. I decided to get back to it today and went back to Photobucket and lo and behold! I can arrange images by filename again! They must have implemented that at some point in the past year. So my previous problem is no more, and it is easier to do the LP!

Work is still a huge factor in my ability to make updates though. Updates will probably be fairly infrequent, and probably shorter than they were before due to work. If my job situation changes then updates will increase but I'll probably still keep the updates to a shorter length. Probably only one dungeon/story event per update. I'm also going to quit typing out entire conversations and stick to just the interesting/important ones (I did a bit of that last update).

Now with all that said, on with the update!

OUR STORY SO FAR...

Bartz was hanging out in the woods with his Chocobo when a meteor crashed! He saved Lenna, the Princess of Tycoon, and met Galuf, an amnesiac who only knew they must save the crystals. After meeting Faris, a pirate (who turned out to be a woman), they failed to save three crystals. Good job, guys! However it was not a total loss as each crystal gave them new jobs to fight evil with.

More recently though, after Karnak Castle exploded, Galuf regained parts of his memory, remembering he's not from Bartz's world and came here via the meteorite to stop Exdeath, an evil warlock from his world. The Dawn Warriors sealed Exdeath through the crystals, and if they all shatter Exdeath will be freed! Naturally, this means the Light Warriors absolutely cannot fail to protect this crystal, or it would be devastating for two reasons: Bartz's world would fall into ruin, and Exdeath would released.



After Galuf's exposition, Cid and Mid are having a snooze on the deck. Talking to Mid does nothing, so talk to Cid instead.

*yawn* ...Ahh, slept like a top!

"Sleep like a top" is an actual phrase, I checked via Google. Even older than "sleep like a log" apparently. Weird to me, but the localizers didn't drop the ball on this one.

*yawn* ...Ahh, slept like a top! Heheh, I sound like the old man!

Oh Mid.

It's finished! We are so awesome!

Presenting, a boat that will sail without any wind!

With that, Cid and Mid return to the Library of Ancients to see if they can find any more clues, and we get a snazzy new ship to sail around on!



And of course, new places we can go means...new enemies!



Sahagin are pretty weak and like most things on the ocean, weak to lightning. Looking at this image after so long I'm not sure what I was going for party-wise. I guess Faris is a Beastmaster to get !Control.



I have a picture of the map. Have I shown the map before? Maybe I haven't. Anyway you can get to it by pressing the R button. It's not a great map, nothing is labeled but it has some helpful things. Towns/dungeons are marked on the map with flashing white dots. Obviously this image isn't flashing but you can mostly see them. The crosshairs are your current position. Near the upper right, that icon represents where we left our flying dragon when we ditched it via the meteorite.



Anyway we stop where the crosshairs were on the map and disembark.



Doublizards have a lot of HP but aren't too strong. They can use Reverse Polarity which swaps the rows your characters are on. Bombs can sometimes use Self-Destruct.



Doublizards will turn around after a while in combat. It doesn't seem to actually serve any purpose.



There's a cave on the way to our next destination. We'll come back to it.



Bio Soldiers are nasty. When they're with other enemies they'll just use normal attacks, but when one is on its own...



it'll cast Bio on the party. Bio hits pretty hard and can inflict Poison. You can steal War Hammers from Bio Soldiers, they're better than what you have now, if you're using a Berserker for some odd reason.



Past the cave and down a bit there's another town, Jachol.



We'll get to Crescent soon, it's an island shaped, well, like a crescent. :V



This'll come in handy in the near future. Jachol also has one of these babies.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW3jOPztwnY

Gettin' better!



New towns means new shops. Now we can buy more Green Berets and Ninja Suits! The Sage's Surplice is nice new armor for our mages and prevents Silence, but very few enemies cast Silence.



Despite what the description says, there's no "Giant" enemy type in the game and thus the Ogre Killer isn't particularly effective against anything, just a regular axe (meaning it sucks). Coral Swords and Tridents are both lightning elemental, and we don't have a job that can equip Tridents yet. Coral Swords are still good though. I get at least one. Mage Masher is a dagger that can inflict Silence on an enemy sometimes. They're worse than the Main Gauche, though they do raise the magic stat by a whole point.



We already have an Ashura but you can get more here. There's no reason to though! The Silver Bow is also unusable right now (but will be by the end of this update) and not worth the money. Bows, as the description says, can be used with full power from the back row. The down side is they're two-handed weapons (with one exception) and most bows have awful accuracy.



Ninja Suits are just as good as Mythril Armor. Better, even, since they raise speed too.



With my leftover cash I buy as many Phoenix Downs as I can. There's a reason for this, which will become apparent right now!



This is Jachol Cave, which we passed on the way to Jachol. It's a very short cave.



Down a little ways you have to push this switch to keep going.



FIGHT! Nutkins are weak and not really worth speaking about, they're the most common encounter down here. However, the rarer encounter is...well...



This guy. He is super dangerous and I'm not even joking. He is a killer squirrel. So what's this guy's deal?

Well, it has 1 HP. However, it also has insanely high evade rates as well as enormous defense. This means it's hard to hit it with anything and even when you do, it's gonna deal no damage. Even worse, if you hit it with a magic attack and it doesn't get killed, it'll summon four more Skull Eaters, which is pretty much certain death. Why?

Well, about a third of the time, the Skull Eater will run away on its own. If this happens, you get 5 free ABP. This is a decent way to grind out job levels at this point in the game. However, it also has a nasty attack called Incisor. Incisor ignores defense AND inflicts Poison AND Confuse. What this means is instant death for anyone in the party right now (Incisor deals roughly 1500-2000 HP of damage, halved in the back row) and even if you use a Knight's Guard ability, you'll still get confused/poisoned.

Obviously, you can't take on this thing with normal strategies. So what to do? Well, attacks that ignore defense work great. We don't have most of those right now. Super strong weapons/spells work too, but we don't have those either. The best strategy is to use a fairly ignored job for most of the game: Geomancer.

In Jachol Cave, at this level, the Geomancer's !Gaia command will pretty much give us one s of two attacks. One is Stalactite, which will get through Skull Eater's defenses and definitely kill it. The other is Ignus Fatuus, which will deal no damage to Skull Eater, BUT, will confuse it. When confused, if it uses its normal attack it'll just un-confuse itself and you can try again. However if it uses Incisor on itself (which you may remember, ignores defense), it's gone.



As I said, I can't remember what I was doing with team composition since this was over a year ago. I make Faris a Ninja because...I don't know? Maybe I learned !Control and so was done with Beastmaster. My guess anyway.



The road with the skull switches! The advice in Jachol said to wait and the truth will be revealed.



So stand still for a few seconds and all the switches but one will disappear (not necessarily the one in this screenshot). When it does, get to it quick, if you don't get to it and press it fast enough the other switches will reappear and you'll have to do it again.



The chest is empty but examining it reveals a switch to lead on.



I think Lenna here is at full health or close to it so even the back row can't save her from Incisor's wrath.



The other two chests are a Tent and the Blitz Whip...unless you released Lone Wolf, in which case the Blitz Whip chest is empty. the Blitz Whip isn't a bad weapon, pretty strong, full power from the back row, and randomly casts Thunder when you attack.





Lenna becomes a Geomancer and Bartz becomes a Ninja for a while. Might as well start on the path to Dual Wield eh?



In the back of Jachol Cave you can climb up the wall which takes you to...



Huh well that's pretty worthless. I guess I can use a tent? Maybe save in case I'm wiped out on the way back. Still pretty worthless.

Nothing to do in the Jachol area anymore, so off to other places!



The crosshairs are at the top left of the map in this picture, that's where we're stopping next.



This area, specifically. Across that first bridge is a new town, Istory.



Pretty impressive, huh? Still, every time I see those millions of gallons of water, I kinda feel this...urge...

Bathroom jokes!



Hints!



This is what the armor shop here sells. Expensive, but worth it! What do they do? A guy in the shop will tell you.

Flame Rings absorb fire and protect against frost, but are weak against water attacks. Coral Rings absorb water and protect against flame, but are weak against lightning attacks. Angel Rings protect against aging and zombification. While I'm at it, I'll tell you about the ultimate accessory, the Ribbon! It prevents most status ailments!

He lies. The Ribbon isn't an accessory in this game, it's a helmet. Anyway these are expensive and you don't really need them right now, although in certain challenge runs, getting Flame Rings here is pretty much required. But since we're not doing a challenge run, we shall ignore them (for now).

The Angel Ring may not seem useful but it has pretty high defense and Magic Block stats. It's outclassed by later gear but for now it's pretty solid.



Stay sharp, or he'll zap you with a bolt of lightnin'!

I know what we're doing after this!



Next order of business, talk to this sheep from behind. It'll get mad and kick you over the fence, where you can talk to that bard. Tell him you're the travelers trying to protect the crystals, and he'll teach you your first Song, Romeo's Ballad.

The last order of business is to walk around the flower bed in town. Walk around the flowers in a circle (well, square) pattern and a frog will pop out and...



Toad is black magic and turns the enemy into a toad. This makes it unable to cast any magic or use any skills, and makes it weaker. If cast on the party, they'll become a toad and every command except Fight and Black Magic (but only the Toad spell will be available to be cast) will be unusable. It can be cured with a Maiden's Kiss.

We're done in Istory. Head on out of town and to the forest to the east. Run around for a while and you'll eventually run into...



Ramuh! The lightning summon. Also Galuf is a Time Mage and Lenna is a Summoner now.

So funny thing about Ramuh, he doesn't have the Heavy flag, meaning he's vulnerable to all sorts of things.



Galuf here is casting Gravity, a time magic spell that deals damage equal to 50% of the target's current HP. Stuff like Death Claw also works, as do instant death abilities (which we don't have right now). Gravity works well but...



...since it's based off the monster's current HP, and not max, it gets less effective the more damage it takes. This is still good damage for the moment though, besides, it means he only has a little over 500 HP after this.

When his HP reaches 0 (or is killed by a death spell) this will happen.



What are you doing here?

Lord Ramuh! I see you have become even more powerful. If you would lend that strength to us...

Ifrit! No need to say more. You and I have never been enemies!

Now, if that could only have happened at the beginning of the fight...ah well, not like the fight was hard.



Ramuh drops this item after the battle. Go into the items menu and use it and you'll hear a noise, and your Summoners will now be able to summon Ramuh, which deals lightning damage to all enemies. Awesome, now we have summons for all three major elements.



Looks like my hunch about learning !Control was right, so now it's time to get at least one new Blue Magic spell.



!Control, appropriately enough, lets you control enemies.



A controlled enemy turns around, much like a confused enemy does. Also much like a confused enemy, a physical hit to it will knock it out of controlled status. So don't have your own characters attack an enemy you've controlled. Just defeats the purpose. Using an enemy's own physical attack against it will also de-control it.



The character who's controlling an enemy effectively loses all turns while controlling the monster. When their ATB bar fills up, the enemy's menu will come up instead of theirs. It's worth noting that not every ability an enemy has will show up in their control menu. Level Checkers (enemy from near the end of the game) can cast Level 3 Flare, but their control menu is only Fight, Level 2 Old, Level 4 Graviga, and Level 5 Death.

Anyway Transfusion here fully restores the target's HP and MP, but kills the caster. In theory it's useful, in practice there's usually much better ways to heal the party that don't involve sacrificing a party member.



When you're in the east forest looking for Ramuh, be wary of these guys, they're pretty strong. They're also the best source of experience/money at this point in the game, but they're tough customers. Every turn, Mini Dragons have a chance to use Frostbite. Frostbite is an ice elemental attack that hits the entire party, and can deal around 120 points of damage. This might not seem like a lot, but Mini Dragons always show up in groups of five, so you might get hit with five in a row. They also have a good amount of HP and pretty decent defense.



Ninja scrolls work great though, but only if you set Black/White/Time/Blue/Summon as your secondary. Otherwise the Ninja's default magic power is -10, and that's no good.



There's also these guys around Istory. Stone Golems have high defense and inherent Protect. You can kill them instantly with a Gold Needle though, like other stone enemies. They're also weak to lightning. Black Flames absorb a bunch of elemental attacks and are evasive, but they don't absorb the three major elements (ice, fire, lightning) so summons will take care of them.



They have a Blue magic spell! Dark Spark halves the level of the target it's cast on. This is bad when it's cast on you, but great for enemies. The only problem is its lousy hit rate, but halving an enemy's level significantly reduces its battle power, as well as creating all sorts of shenanigans for Blue magic users. For example, Ramuh was level 21. If we'd hit him with Dark Spark, he would have become level 10 (halving rounds down). Being level 10 would make him vulnerable to Level 5 Death for an instant kill.

Oh yeah speaking of Level 5 Death...



I went and grabbed that too. Level 5 Death kills anything with a level that's a multiple of 5. Period. Even if it's immune to death.



So you'd better have at least one party member whose level isn't a multiple of 5, otherwise it's game over. Also on the GBA version, if a character is hit by it and has Learning/is a Blue Mage, but isn't revived, you won't learn it at the end of the battle. So Lenna had to raise at least one person here.



Controlling Page 256 allows you to learn a second Blue magic from him (he previously taught Moon Flute, which as you can see isn't in his command list). Off-Guard halves an enemy's Defense and Magic Defense stats. Totally awesome, if you can get it to hit.



Huh, a building out in the middle of the ocean, completely surrounded by mountains. How do we get to this one? Oh well, later maybe.



In the lower right corner of the map is an island shaped like a crescent moon, and this is of course Crescent, our actual destination to advance the story. Enter the town, but when you do...







The ship sinks in a whirlpool! We're stranded!



Don't tell me, your ship was sucked into a whirlpool, too? A-hua-hua! Totally unlucky!

Yeah up yours buddy. >:T



Another good harvest this year! It's all thanks to the fertile soil on this island!

Another woman says you can sometimes hear strange noises from underground. Hmm...maybe this place has something to do with the earth crystal.



Wouldn't chocobo racing be totally extreme? ...No, I guess not.

Oh Square-Enix.



In the lower right corner of Crescent is a bard. Talking to him gets you the spell Mighty March, which casts Regen on the party. Not great, but certainly not terrible. Also in the bard's house,



Piano! Oooh, so close to perfection.



Elemental bows, you might have one from Liquid Flame, but the other two are new. The Silver Harp sucks though and I'll get into that later. Don't waste your money on it is what I'm saying, even though we will shortly be getting a class that can use it (SPOILERS).

The armor shop only has one new piece of gear, the Plumed Hat, which is nice for any jobs you have that wear light armor that can't wear the Green Beret.



What's really weird, though, is that the artifacts found there are the same as ones found on this island!

Yes...that is weird...too bad we have no ship anymore with which to investigate this.

Well that's all there is in Crescent, let's leave and...wander around the island we're stranded on.



Harvesters are interesting only because of their rare drop: the Death Sickle. I want at least one so I spend a good while fighting these things in hopes they'll drop one. It can take a while.



But my persistence pays off. Why do I want one so bad? Well, the Death Sickle is an axe (well, sickle really, but it's classified as an axe) that has a chance to instantly kill the target. This is our first real instant death attack on things that aren't a level divisible by 5, and it works on more things than you might expect.



So Bartz is gonna be a Berserker for a bit.

Anyway there's a small forest down on the south of Crescent, and when you walk in the middle...





Bartz offers to catch it, which isn't too hard, just run after it and mash A and eventually you'll nab it despite its speed. Bartz remarks it's a black chocobo, and Lenna says this means they aren't extinct. This hasn't really been mentioned before but I guess it's common knowledge of this world so I won't complain. Bartz also knows black chocobos can fly, so...

Giddyup!



The black chocobo rises into the air, the music starts playing, and...uh oh...comes crashing back down to the ground again.



He didn't giddy. Did you break him or something?

Not funny, old man. Sounds like he's got something stuck down his gullet...

Faris goes behind the black chocobo and gives it a couple of good whacks, and it spits up...



Two of 'em.

They must've been blown here by the explosion in Karnak...

...And 'cause he swallowed them, he couldn't fly!

Bartz and friends grab the shards, which gives us two new jobs: Bard and Ranger.

Ew, they're still sticky.

But maybe this time he'll be able to fly!

The characters hop on the black chocobo, which dances a little jig and rises into the air.



Success! It can fly now! And has a freaking sweet flying song! Now we can leave Crescent, and have two shiny new jobs, which I'll cover in the next update.

[uc pseudonym]

Nice to have this back.

The map is fine until the game starts referencing the minor towns by name. I definitely remember times wandering from sparkle to sparkle because I wasn't sure which one a given location was.

And I remember those Mini-dragons. When I played the game I wanted to explore the jobs a little but hadn't because none of the enemies seemed to be worth it. The Mini-dragons are a fun way to do that, if you're willing to spend your MP on them.

[Nate]

Yeah the dragons are probably the biggest challenge right now and can wipe out a lot of teams if you're not prepared. And speaking of exploring jobs...

Job Overview: Part Four

Last time we got Ranger and Bard, bringing the total number of fire crystal jobs to five. I'm honestly not sure why the fire jobs are split like this. They aren't so powerful that the game is trying to prevent you from getting super strong early (Ninja would be the obvious choice if this was the case), and you can pretty much sail directly to Crescent right after Karnak and get them right away anyway. Plus it's not like they played an integral role in anything, it's just "Hey a Chocobo. It can't fly. Now it can." Eh, not complaining, it's just weird.

Bard - Bard is a great job that unfortunately struggles to find a place on most teams. There's a couple of reasons for this. One, its HP and strength are terrible. Bards are very frail. Its low strength sort of doesn't matter though because the Bard's signature weapon (it can use daggers like almost every other class), the harp, completely sucks. There's a reason I said skip the Silver Harp. Harps are two-handed, so no shields with them, making the Bard's terrible defense even more of a liability. In addition, every harp (except one) works by doing percentage based damage, kind of like the Time Mage spell Gravity. The Silver Harp deals a whopping 1/16 current HP damage to the enemy. Who's gonna use that when you can rock Mystic Knight or Knight and kill most enemies in one hit? And to make matters worse, harps are ineffective against enemies with the Heavy flag, in other words, most bosses. Harps are the worst. Never use them (except the one I'll get to in a far off update).

The Bard's deal is it sings songs. Most buff the party, some affect the enemy. Romeo's Ballad (which we got in Istory) inflicts Stop on the entire enemy party. This is actually great! It even works on some bosses and is an invaluable part of one strategy against a few of them. Alluring Air confuses the whole enemy party, also nice. Mighty March buffs the party with Regen, which is okay! The majority of Bard songs though raise the party's stats. Strength, speed, magic, and levels. This means Bards can make your party stronger. However, and now we come to reason two Bard struggles, the party-buffing songs make the Bard uncontrollable. Once the Bard starts singing one of these songs, it basically becomes like the Berserker, the character menu will not pop up, and the Bard will do nothing but sing. The only way to knock a Bard out of singing is if they're struck by a physical attack, which will return them to your control. However if you're facing a boss that uses mostly magic and your party gets unlucky and the Bard is the only one left standing...no way to resurrect them or deal damage, you're toast.

Now that said, again, Bard is really good! The buffs are strong, it's just when you can make everyone dual-wielding Spellblade Freelancers, Bard doesn't add a whole lot to the mix.

Bards also have Hide, which causes them to move slightly to the left, meaning they won't get hit by attacks. Usually not that useful, since you can't do anything while hiding.

Ranger - The Ranger's specialty is bows, and they're a great all-around job. As I said before, most bows are fairly inaccurate, which is why Ranger gets the !Aim command which guarantees your attack will hit (though you can't use it if blinded). Rangers also get !Animals early on which is actually more useful than you might think in the early game. Nightingale is a full party heal (based on magic power) that also cures Blind and Poison, and costs no MP. Sweet! Unfortunately most of the other animals are a wash; the Mysidian Rabbit does nothing, the squirrel is weak (and doesn't affect floating/flying enemies), bee swarm is alright but not super, and the tree squirrel paralyzes all enemies which is nice when it works. Usually these are the only animals you see, the animals you can call are based on level. To get Unicorn (full HP and MP restore to the party), your character needs to be level 60! Since most people beat the game in the 30s, this is just ridiculous, and if you're that high level you're either not going to need the high-level animals or have much better attack options.

But the Ranger's true power, the reason it is so cherished, is its level 4 ability: !Rapid Fire. Rapid Fire causes the character to attack four times in one turn! The attacks are at half power, BUT, they also ignore defense AND are guaranteed hits. However if you have a weapon that causes an additional effect (Blitz Whip's Thunder, for example) then it won't proc if you use Rapid Fire. Still, as you can imagine, Dual Wield and Rapid Fire gives you eight attacks in one turn and is as broken as you would think it is. See why Bard struggles to fit into the endgame?

[Kaori]

Glad to see you're updating again.

Not really many comments I can make this update, but it's interesting to read about job classes and strategy from someone who knows far more about them than I do. I don't think I ever (in my one playthrough) properly exploited things like dual wield + rapid fire.

[Nate]

Not really many comments I can make this update, but it's interesting to read about job classes and strategy from someone who knows far more about them than I do.

And the thing is I barely know anything about them. :B In fact looking at some earlier updates I've said things that either aren't entirely true or could be better expanded on, it actually bothers me a bit but nothing I can do about it except make corrections as I can.

Part Eight: Spread my wings and fly away

Previously the Light Warriors took a three hour tour on their shiny new fire ship, enslaved an old man, fought killer squirrels, had their sweet boat sink into the sea, caught a bird, and got two new jobs. Not bad, all things considered.

Anyway, GUESS WHAT I CAN DO NOW?



I promise I won't use them TOO much though, only when I feel it's really cool/necessary. This is pretty great too because there's a lot of things coming up in the future that really need to be shown in motion rather than having a still image and trying to write about what happened.

Anyway as was explained, the black chocobo can fly, and unlike the wind drake it can fly easily over mountains.



Well okay, it can't fly over these white-capped mountains, but since nothing is blocked off by those it's not really an issue. What IS an issue is that the black chocobo will only land in forests. Grasslands, deserts, it refuses to land. So this means you can't land next to say, Jachol. You'd have to find a forest and then walk the rest of the way.



Anyway we're off to the Library of Ancients. Might as well explain to Cid and Mid that we lost the ship they literally just gave us.



Cid... We found Crescent Island, but the fire-powered ship sank!

Oh, so?

Whatever. We'll just build another one!

More importantly, we've learned the whereabouts of King Tycoon!

King Tycoon, if you remember, shot off into the sky after the wind crystal broke at the beginning of the game. I guess the party must have told Cid they were looking for him at some point, I honestly don't remember. The quest to find Tycoon isn't really brought up a lot.

What!?

He was seen in Karnak. From there, he moved on to the Desert of Shifting Sands...

Shifting Sands, you say?

It's the desert to the west of here, where the sand flows like water...

...Thus the name. It's impossible for people to enter. They say that past the desert is the Town of Ruin, but no one can actually get there to see.

Then how did Tyc-

If no one can enter the desert, how did the king manage to do it?

Er, yeah. What he said.

Good question.

Witnesses claimed to see him floating in midair.

Floating...!?

Father...

Come on, it's not like we're getting any closer to that desert by sitting around here.

Doesn't matter how close we get TO it if we don't know how to get IN!

Maybe we'll see it and be inspired. Don't tell me you're afraid of some sand, old man...

Please! When I was your age, we crossed burning sand every day and liked it! Come on, Bartz!

KIDS THESE DAYS! *shakes fist* Wait, Galuf you still have amnesia how do you know what you did when you were her age?

From the Library of Ancients, head off to the west through a small path through the mountains. You actually could have gone to the desert at any time, but you wouldn't have been able to do anything there (since nobody can get through it after all).



This is the Desert of Shifting Sands. Those lined patches of sand move like conveyor belts. If you step on any of them, they'll push you towards the bottom center, and then back up to the patch you're on now. You'll need to do this to get the next scene.



Wait!

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings, and the orchestra hasn't even started tuning up yet!

We'll build a bridge!

It's a little risky, but you guys are all about danger, right?

Well I mean...I guess but it seems silly to purposely go looking for it...

How it works is, we use this bell to call the sandworm...


...then you guys trash it...

...and there's your bridge!

This sounds like a gross plan. No choice I guess though.

Not the most sophisticated of methods...

You aren't that sophisticated of a guy! I think it suits you fine!

I'll have you know Galuf is a master spellslinger and not some thick-headed warrior.

Cid then asks you if you're ready to fight the sandworm and you can say yes or no. If you didn't properly outfit your characters or want to do some last minute job changes, you can say no and do that real quick. When you say yes...

Oh yeah, if you use any magic on the sandworm, you'll be sorry. Good luck!

Like the NPC and the Ribbon, Mid lies here. You can use magic just fine on the sandworm. Absolutely nothing will happen if you use magic on it. But there IS something you need to be aware of.



On the battlefield are three holes. The sandworm will appear in one, and jump around (slowly) in them. Now here's the thing, if you attack a hole the sandworm isn't in, it might counter with a Gravity spell on the party. This however does NOT apply to multi-target magic attacks (like summons). A weapon that procs an additional effect (such as the Death Sickle or Mage Masher) can incur TWO Gravity counters if the additional effect procs.

So since you can't control where a Berserker attacks, it's a bad idea to bring them into this fight. You may notice I brought one anyway. That's because with the strategy I used, Bartz never got off a single attack.

Remember Aqua Breath, which the Dhorme Chimera used? Well, it's not water elemental, but it DOES deal 8x damage to Desert type enemies. The sandworm (and every enemy here) is a Desert type enemy.

It's important to note that a Desert type enemy is not necessarily weak to water elemental damage either (the Sandworm is not weak to water for example). But anyway, one cast of Aqua Breath...



The sandworm has only 3000 HP so yeah one hit kill. As I said, Bartz being a Berserker didn't matter at all.

Game, set, and match!

Bartz asks Cid and Mid to take care of the Black Chocobo. You're not actually walking on the sandworm's corpse like the game implies, just the dug up sand the sandworm created when it burrowed up. You can walk on this down further into the desert, towards shifting sands that will take you towards the exit.

You'll probably go down and that's the easiest path but I'm going to head west, even though it's a longer trek and there's no real reason to go that way.



Sandboils aren't interesting, Desert Killers are undead and sometimes will flee battle on their own. Bartz has the Death Sickle right now so if the instant death spell hit the Desert Killer, it healed them to full HP. So maybe don't use that here.

Everything here is weak to water by the way, so if you have a Ninja and some Water Scrolls you can deal some good damage.



Lenna is good on Summoner for a while so she's going Red Mage while the going's good. !Summon will also boost her Red Mage casting.



Sand Bear is cool. You can steal a Javelin from them which is a pretty good spear at this point in the game. Of course, none of our current jobs can equip spears, so...

Sand Bears are also a cool enemy to catch if you have a Beastmaster as their attack deals around 2000 damage to a single target.



I come across this pyramid on my journey. The door is shut and there's no way in. It's kind of neat but can't do anything with it. You'll also see the edges of it if you go the short way.

The path after the desert is linear, and eventually you'll come to a town. This is Gohn, Town of Ruin.





Though it is called a town and has the town map icon, there's no shops here and nobody living here, obviously, it's a ruin.



When you walk forward to explore the town, a figure appears in the lower left, and Lenna gets a look of confusion. Or well, a question mark appears, same thing really. Now you have to explore the town to find Tycoon in order to advance the plot.



He appears at this position in the lower right.



This spot has another sighting in the upper right.



You can see him off to the left here.



And going down this staircase from the top causes another appearance.

To be honest you really only need to see one of the first three sightings to trigger this last sighting and advance the story. But the characters don't know that. Follow Tycoon into the house.



...P...Papa...

After Faris blurts this out, she and Lenna look at each other, and then...



The party falls down the hole and ends up in some ruins.



Faris and Lenna get up and look at each other.

Faris!

...

I knew it! You really ARE my sister!

This was pretty firmly established when you talk to people in Tycoon Castle and watch the scene there, but since some players might not have gone there (and Faris denied it when she was) this scene sorta makes sense whether it was seen or not.

I'm sorry... I wasn't certain at first, and then I didn't think I should tell you...

Lenna and Faris embrace. Awww. :3



While Lenna and Faris are bonding, Galuf (who you may notice fell in a different area than the rest of the party) has awakened and is searching for a way to rejoin the others. Bartz also wakes up at this point as well.

Uhhh... Where are we?

This place is strange...

Say...what happened to the old man?

Huh? He's not here?

We must have gotten separated when we fell...

He'll be okay. He's a tough old cuss! I'm sure we'll run into him again later. Let's get going.





Yikes! Uh...sorry!

One of my favorite scenes. :B

There's only one path to take in the ruins and there's no encounters at all. Eventually the party ends up in a large room. When they step on the platform in it...





The party is whisked away, and the view shifts to the world map, where the camera slowly moves down to Crescent Island. The party lands on a platform identical to the one they were just on, and the screen starts shaking and there's a rumbling. Bartz yells to look out, and as they run off the platform...



Electricity strikes down from above, destroying the platform, and the party is barely able to keep ahead of the destruction, dashing out of the room.









Bartz should be thrilled! We went above and beyond the call of duty!

I guess he's referring to them bringing the black chocobo back to its home, though now the're stranded on Crescent Island, so...

Back to the ruins.



I suppose that was a warp device.

After not being used for so long, activating it must've caused an overload...

Once again, there's no encounters in these ruins and the path is pretty much linear.



You can go south from here though. You can also press that switch now, but there's no point if you're heading south. And you should go south.



In the center area in the south, there's some beds and you can rest up for free healing, which you might need after the desert and Gohn environs.



Over to the right, you can find this switch.

Urrghhh! Gah, it won't budge.

Bartz will notice a note carved into the wall which says "Check the planters in the center room."



Interacting with this spot gets another note. "...the notepad in the room on the right..."



Arg! That little-

Calm down, Bartz...

In the words of the great Abraham Lincoln, "CALM DOWN, JUST CALM DOWN."

Aye...before you get your pantaloons in a twist, take a look. 'Tis another note.

"Check the urn."



Checking the leftmost urn causes a frog to hop out.



It knocks this book off the bookshelf, then runs off. Did the frog write the notes? Did the guy who writes the notes have some sort of psychic ability to see the future and know the frog would be there? Is it a robot frog that is programmed purely to run out and knock a book off the shelf if anyone ever sees it? The world may never know, but who cares, let's read the book.

"Go down 6 and right 4, then pull what's there!"

What's there is the switch. Interacting with it again asks if you want to pull it this time. Do so, and the wall disappears, letting you loot the contents of the chests. Two Shurikens (throwing fodder for the Ninja) and the Mini spell for the White Mage. Mini casts, well, Mini on an enemy, or it can be cast on a Mini-ized party member to restore them to normal. Someone inflicted with Mini can still cast magic, but their physical attack power is pathetically low, and their evasion is doubled. It can have its uses.

Here's a little hint for you: if you say "no" to pushing the switch leading to those chests, you'll get the option to pull it immediately after, and can skip all the running around. But the running around is fun!

Anyway back to the other switch I told you to skip. Press it and the view shifts to the chocobo forest where Cid and Mid are, and...



A hole opens underneath them, causing them to fall down and confuse the black chocobo. After pressing the switch, the door in the room you're in opens.

If you'd pressed the switch and then gone south, when you came back the door would be sealed and you'd have to press the switch again. A total waste of time! I saved you like two nanoseconds of your time by telling you not to push it earlier. Aren't you glad?

Continue through the linear path.



What an unlikely occurrence!

...But what's that ship over there?

Bartz heads over to a ship further to the left.

Propellers on a boat? What's up with that?



Suddenly Cid and Mid come crashing down!

What the... Bartz? Lenna, Faris, Galuf...what're you guys doing here?

I think that's our line! Where'd you guys come from?

We rode the black chocobo back to Crescent Island. Then, all of a sudden a hole opened up beneath us, and we fell...

Wait, so we're underneath Crescent Island? That explains the fire-powered ship being here...

This place must've been built by the Ancients.

The Ancients are barely mentioned at all in this game. Who they were is of little importance and the game doesn't really go into detail about who they were or anything.

In the background of this conversation, Cid has been running around and gone below decks. Bartz and Mid notice he's gone and go to look for him. Just go down the staircase above Bartz.



Hey, Cid-

Don't bother me, boyo!

Cid runs around the machinery.

...tighten this...and adjust this...righty tighty, lefty loosey... Voila! That should do it!



The ship rises into the air! On the deck, Mid runs around exclaiming how incredible it is.



Isn't it obvious? It's an airship! Amazing...I've only ever seen these in old texts! I can't believe I'm getting to use one in the flesh! ...Er, well, you know what I mean!

The ship starts shaking after this.

Oof, what was that!?

Something's dragging us down!

Creeping crawdads! Some monster's got a death grip on the hull!

BOSS TIME!



Cray Claw almost doesn't deserve to be called a boss. It's only immune to Toad and Mini, and weak to lightning. It has some decent defense so regular physical attacks might not do much, but lightning elemental weapons/Thundara Blade from a Mystic Knight, or Ramuh, regular Thundara spells, Lightning Scrolls...all these work great, and with only 2000 HP it won't take long to fall.



So yeah one Lightning Scroll does over half its HP in damage.

You get a Frost Bow for winning, which is...well an ice elemental bow.



With cheese biscuits AND mashed potatoes!

Bartz this is not a very good one-liner.

Cid will land the airship back underground.



We can use parts from the fire-powered ship to make the airship good as new.

Cid...

If you're just going to thank me, I don't need to hear it.

We'll stay here and search for some clues about the earth crystal!

The skies are yours, kids. Now get out there!

Cid and Mid step off the ship, and Bartz talks to each party member as he heads up to the wheel.

The evil warlock, Exdeath...

We must prevent him from returning...

All that's left is the earth crystal!

No point in dawdling... Let's go!



And the airship returns to the skies, under your control!

Next time: There's no place like home...

[Kaori]

I guess it is just an FF thing to switch transportation early and often until players finally gain an airship, but it seems particularly prevalent in this game, with the regular chocobo, black chocobo, regular ship, and so on.

[quote=Cid]You aren't that sophisticated of a guy! I think it suits you fine![/quote]
I can't remember whether you pointed this out somewhere earlier in the thread or someone else pointed it out to me, but it really is true that the characters make fun of each other a lot, and Galuf especially usually seems to be the butt of the jokes. Can't say I really appreciate this.

Looking forward to some of the events in the game that are coming up soon.

[uc pseudonym]

Never liked this part of the game. There's too much running around without any real challenges, and the transportation transitions come too quickly to feel meaningful.

[Nate]

I guess it is just an FF thing to switch transportation early and often until players finally gain an airship, but it seems particularly prevalent in this game, with the regular chocobo, black chocobo, regular ship, and so on.

This one gives you the most in the shortest amount of time but FF III and IV are still the worst as far as transportation goes. Three was the worst as it had the canoe, Cid's airship, the Enterprise, the Nautilus, and the Invincible, and the entire game was pretty much just trading your ships for the next one. You get the Enterprise so you can get the Nautilus, and then you use the Nautilus so you can get the Invincible. It's pretty lame. Four had the hovercraft, the Enterprise, the Falcon, and the Lunar Whale, though it wasn't quite as bad about "Use this airship to get the next one." You can still use all three airships at the end of the game, so even though III had more airships the fact that Cid's is back on the Floating Continent means you can't have all four together at once (just the three from down below).

At least this game just has the one airship, and the black chocobo does have a purpose even after you get the airship (though that'll come much later).

I can't remember whether you pointed this out somewhere earlier in the thread or someone else pointed it out to me, but it really is true that the characters make fun of each other a lot, and Galuf especially usually seems to be the butt of the jokes. Can't say I really appreciate this.

I think Bartz is the butt of the most jokes actually. In the original translation Bartz didn't have much of a personality, even less than the other characters, so they made him kind of dopey in the Advance version and he winds up saying a lot of dumb things and getting made fun of a lot. Galuf occasionally gets poked fun at but less than Bartz does for sure. I can only remember one time Lenna is portrayed as completely ignorant but I'll forgive her for it as she's a princess and probably isn't up to date on how the common folk are. Faris isn't really poked fun at at all, though the horrible accent she was given in the original meant she got laughed at mostly by the player than the other characters.

Seriously Faris responding to the fact that she's a woman with "T'arrr! Me private shame!" Will never not be funny.

Never liked this part of the game. There's too much running around without any real challenges, and the transportation transitions come too quickly to feel meaningful.

Yeah I understand why they had to do it but the fact that you lose the fire-powered ship about two minutes after you get it and then lose the black chocobo about two minutes after that is pretty silly. If you don't take any detours, of course. Even then it's like maybe 30 minutes after you get the fire-powered ship and about ten minutes after you get the black chocobo.

[Ante Bellum]

I think Bartz is the butt of the most jokes actually.

The Butz of the jokes?

[Nate]

The Butz of the jokes?

I would be pedantic and say that isn't how his name is pronounced, but then that would ruin a joke in this update. :V

Part Nine: Home, Sweet Home

Last time the Warriors of Light seemed to have found King Tycoon, only to fall into some ruins and find an airship. Now they have the power of flight!

This is the airship music, it is kind of cool. It's a bit faster version of the music from the opening movie, the one that plays after the "SQUARE ENIX PRESENTS"

The airship moves pretty quickly, and can only land on open plains. Mountains, forests and deserts prohibit you from landing.

Now what I'm about to do can be done when you have the black chocobo, but I saved it to do now. Because I wanted to.



We're heading here. It's a little northwest of the Wind Shrine from the beginning of the game.



As I said, the forest around it means you can do this when you have the black chocobo, but if you already have the airship, the designers were nice enough to give you a square to land the airship on. This small out of the way town is called Lix, and it's Bartz's hometown.

Yes, he is Butz, from Lix. Good ol' Lix Butz. Okay, enough lowbrow humor.



Bartz is a bit of a celebrity in his hometown. THE MUSIC! Oh yes, the music! Probably FFV's second most iconic track outside of one we'll hear later. You may remember from ages ago during one of the first updates, this song played during Bartz's flashback. The title of the song is Home, Sweet Home and it's gotten a bit of love from composers. The version linked in the title is done by famous Japanese composer Hyadain (who you may know from his Super Mario World and FFIV Four Fiends remixes). There's also this version from the Dear Friends album, which is sung in English and Sami (a northern Scandanavian language).

Now to move on from the gushing over the music.



If you missed getting Esuna during the escape from Karnak Castle, you can buy it here for 3000 bucks. Since I looted all of the chests in Karnak though, this magic shop is completely useless to me! Still, only shop in the world that carries the spell.

Who are the magic shop people selling spells to besides us? Who knows!



The innkeeper lets us rest for free, due to Bartz being famous and all.



Faris wakes up during the night and finds Bartz gone.



The scene shifts outside, where Bartz is standing in front of a gravestone.



Oh, Faris...

Here Lies Stella

Meet my mom.

Eh?

You know, I was born here in this village. Mom passed on when I was still young... After that, I traveled with Dad for a long time. But three years ago, he got real sick...



Bartz moves up and rubs the gravestone.

That should do it...

Here Lies Stella and Dorgann, Devoted Husband

He always wanted to be buried here with Mom.

Bartz lowers his head.

Dad was so strong...

A father, huh... wonder what that's like.

Faris?



Let's head back. Lenna'll worry if she wakes and finds us gone.

End scene.

The rest of the townsfolk all are pretty happy to see Bartz back.

Hey, it's Bartz! Haven't seen you in forever and a day. Finally back in your hometown... Make sure to take it easy!

Bartz! You've finally returned! I... I've been waiting for you... Say... When you're finished with your travels, would you come see me again? There's something I want to tell you...

Bartz is apparently popular with the ladies.

Talking to the scholar in town nets you another flashback scene.

Hey Bartz! It's me! Look, we've got to hang out later. It'll be like old times.

The scene shifts to one of the houses in Lix, where young Bartz speaks from offscreen.

Ready or not, here I come!

Bartz comes running in from the left, and goes behind the house, reappearing on the roof.



Bartz sits on the roof motionless for a while, the light brightening and dimming to indicate that he was up there at least a day, when suddenly...





After this, the flashback ends.

Heheh, ever since then you've been afraid of heights, huh? When I was a kid, everyone teased me for being dumb, but now I'm gonna be a scholar, 'coz I'm S-M-R-T smart!

Bartz's fear of heights is explained, and of course, Simpsons reference.

Some bard moved into your old place.

Bartz should probably visit the house he grew up in.



The bard is there and being the gentleman he is, lets us reminisce. The point of interest is this music box at the back of the house.



Interacting with it causes the last of the flashbacks available here.

Music Box



Is he asleep?

...You're leaving again so soon?

...No. I'm not going anywhere.

The spasms aren't as frequent anymore... I can get by on my own now. Still, it would be nice if you stayed...not to take care of me, but just so we could be together, as a family...

I know. But get some sleep. Youre still sick, and you need the rest.

I will, dear. Just let me finish this up first.



Stella walks off, and Dorgann goes over to Bartz's bed.

You're leaving again, aren't you?

So you were awake.

Daddy, are you going to get more bad guys?

That's what I do.

I wanna come!

You need to stay here and take care of your mother. Don't tell her you saw me leave, all right? It'll be our little secret.

Okay, Daddy.

Now, it's time for good little boys to go to sleep. Stella! Worry about that tomorrow and come get some rest.





STELLA!!!

The flashback ends. Some people claim that Dorgann's yell here is another Simpsons reference (since we know there's already a few) to the episode "A Streetcar Named Marge." Ned Flanders plays Stanley in a musical based on A Streetcar Named Desire, and there is a scene where Flanders yells out "STELLA!", Stella being Blanche's sister and Stanley's wife. This is too much of a stretch to claim this as a Simpsons reference, honestly, it's not like there's no precedence for people yelling out someone's name as they're dying, especially in fiction.

Anyway after watching the flashback, talking to the bard will net you the Alluring Air song for the Bard class. Alluring Air is a one-time attempt to confuse all enemies.

Going to the item shop, the clerk says that Bartz's dad helped him through some tight spots and everything's on sale.



Half off everything! This is pretty fantastic honestly, especially the 750 gil Ethers, which are normally 1500 everywhere else. If you need items in the future, Lix is the place to get them for sure.



The weapon shop sells ninja stuff. The kunai sucks but you can buy the elemental scrolls for throwing here, as well as shurikens which are decent throwing ammo.



Green Berets and Ninja Suits are on sale at the armor shop, which is great for classes that wear Clothes type equipment.

Next order of business.



Going to Gohn and seeing King Tycoon there opened up another scene at Tycoon Castle. So let's go watch it! When you enter Tycoon Castle, the chancellor assures you they'll take care of things and asks if you want to spend the night. Say yes. Because if you say no, coming here was entirely pointless.



Lenna, you awake?

Yes... Is something wrong?

Not wrong, just...strange. I was just a wee lass when I fell overboard... Between that and the shock, I forgot a lot of my life here.

Faris--Sarisa...

I may have mentioned it earlier, or I may not have, but Faris Scherwiz's actual name is Sarisa Scherwil Tycoon. Or, if you're playing the PS1 version, Salsa.

Mmm...salsa.

But for some reason, being back here--just being in this room is making those memories return...



Sarisa repeats this again.

All right, that's enough for today.

This woman's name is Jenica. As a named character I probably should have found an image for her and not used the generic NPC one, but I'm feeling lazy and this update has taken longer than it should have (Photobucket has been acting up for me lately).

Phew... I'm pooped!

Your mother has asked you to put Princess Lenna to bed. Take care of that while I mark your test, please.

Okay!

And come straight back here! No dawdling!

Okay... Aw, man...



Papa, Papuuu!

Flyin' up high is s'posed t'be the bestest thing ever, Papa says. An' when you look down on them, all the people're s'posed to look like they cast Float on themselves!



Sarisa stops a minute, realizing something's not quite right.

Wait... Um, not Float, but Toad? Teleport? Uhh... Mini? Yeah, that's it, they look like they were Minied!

The scene shifts back to Jenica for a moment, who remarks Sarisa is late.



Because Sarisa loves her sister so much. :3

Sarisa...

Yeah?

Perhaps we should keep this a secret from the chancellor for now. He would only make a big fuss if he knew, and he certainly wouldn't let you leave the palace again...

Aye... And we have to get out there and find Papa...

That's it for our character development. Back to saving the world! The game doesn't really tell you where to go at this point, but what you have to do is head back to Gohn. If you don't remember where Gohn is exactly, it's south of the large desert.



About here on your map. When you approach Gohn, the music stops and the screen starts shaking.

What's going on?

Look! The town...

The ground beneath the town begins to explode, and...



A huge craft rises from the sand. Huh, that's probably not good.



The town is gone, as is the ship. What are they gonna do now? Tune in next time to find out!

Note: Gravestone picture is an edited image from photographer David Ball, http://www.davidball.net in keeping with his requirements for use

[Kaori]

I think Bartz is the butt of the most jokes actually. In the original translation Bartz didn't have much of a personality, even less than the other characters, so they made him kind of dopey in the Advance version and he winds up saying a lot of dumb things and getting made fun of a lot.

Eh, maybe it's a translation difference (I own the PS version but have only played the fan translation on SNES emulator). Or it could just be that the last couple of digs at Galuf in your LP were sticking out in my mind.

There's also this version from the Dear Friends album, which is sung in English and Sami (a northern Scandanavian language).

The instrumentation is really nice, though I think it would be better off without lyrics. Still enjoyable to listen to, however.

A huge craft rises from the sand.

Because a JRPG would not be complete without a floating dungeon . . . or at least something really high up in the air. (Actually, I can think of a couple of really excellent JRPGs that don't have one, but the whole floating dungeon thing is just a really common trope.)

[Nate]

*blows dust off thread and brushes off some cobwebs*

So uh, the Four Job Fiesta is starting up again in a month or so, and I remembered that this LP exists. I have some screenshots for another update but I'm not really sure if there's still any interest in this thread or not. But I figure making a post might give some people a watched thread notice, and it'll bump it up and also show up in New Posts, so there's that too. If there's enough interest for me to keep going I'll start back up again and try to keep up with it more. If it seems like nobody really cares anymore, I guess I can let this thread die quietly.

It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

IF YOU WANT TO LET NATE'S LP DIE, TURN TO PAGE 24

IF YOU WANT TO TELL HIM TO QUIT BEING A LAZY BUM, TURN TO PAGE 31

IF YOU WANT TO ENTER THE PIE EATING CONTEST, TURN TO PAGE 58

[Ante Bellum]

If you're up to continuing a nearly year-old LP, then get back to the vidya, bum.

[mechana2015]

Page 31 then page 58.

[Peanut]

Seeing as how I rebooted my own LP just to get this thread back up and running, Page 31...but I'm going to peak at Page 58 first because pie.

[uc pseudonym]

All three options, holding my fingers in a progressively higher number of pages until I've seen every ending in the book.

By which I mean that it's up to you. If you want to continue, by all means do; I'll be here. But I wouldn't insist on it if you're just continuing out of obligation.

[Nate]

Because YOU asked for it! Well, some of you asked for it, anyway. Some of you were sort of ambivalent about it. And some of you didn't even post at all! So I guess some of you didn't ask for it, but neither did you ask for NOT it! So in that case, the show will go on!

So, let's move on to...

PART TEN: THE SOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUL TRAIN CANNON

When we last left our heroes, so long ago, they had found King Tycoon! But then they fell down in a hole, where Faris and Lenna didn't know if they could be saved. Also they confirmed that they're long lost sisters. Then they found an airship under Crescent Island and after fighting a pointless boss, gained control, after which a giant fortress ship rose out of the ground.

So they probably kinda want to check out that crazy flying fortress, more than likely. I mean what else is there to do?



Don't bother going to where the ship rose out. It's long gone. And left behind some desert. But you don't fight desert enemies there. CRAZY!

Once again the game doesn't tell you what to do or where to go. Some people like that, others don't. But, the rule of thumb in FFV is (at least in this part of the game), "If you don't know what to do, go see Cid and/or Mid." So that's exactly what we're off to do. They're still at the ruins/dock in Crescent Island, just land on the gray square in the water next to the island.



Save your breath...

...'coz we saw the ruins through the telescope!

They're underground and this was basically on the other side of the planet so I'm not really sure how this is possible. Anyway Mid brings out a book and opens it up.



The ancient Ronkans amplified the earth crystal to make their town float. But once they realized amplifying the crystal could make it shatter, they stopped the machine.

Shake a leg, miscreants! Somebody's turned the machine back on!

It couldn't--you don't think that Father...

Never! He would never do such a thing!

How're we supposed to get that high?

Insert weed joke here.



...Adamantite! If we reinforce the ship with it, it'll fly higher! But we'll need to find some more...

Adamantite shows up occasionally in fantasy RPGs even outside Final Fantasy. In the series itself up to this point, it had been in the original game where you could take it to the dwarven smith to forge Excalibur. It served a similar purpose in FFIV, where you would trade the Rat Tail to the Tail Collector for the Adamantite, and the dwarven smith would combine it with the Mythgraven Blade to create Excalibur (though it wouldn't be done until you went to the moon). It was in FFIII as well, but just as a roadblock, which isn't really interesting.

Adamantite has nothing to do with Excalibur in FFV and it basically just serves as an item you need to get to upgrade the airship.

That's simple enough! That meteorite I came here in... I remember seeing some adamantite reserves inside!

Are you sure?

You calling me a liar?

Of course not... It's just that your memory's still kinda spotty, right?

Pish-posh! The adamantite part is clear as day!

Faris says that they might as well check it out, and Cid and Mid say they'll stay behind and get things prepared. So, off to the meteorite!



If you forgot where it was, it's just below Tycoon Castle. Ah, where our journey began...so many memories.



Galuf fiddles a bit with the side of the meteorite.



And a door opens up!



Galuf now has Blue Magic. For those of you playing along at home, give yourself some Blue Magic too. You'll see why!



Much like the other meteorites we've been in, this one also has a warp panel in it. Unlike the other meteorites we've been in, stepping on it does absolutely nothing. So nothing to do but continue on to the back.



Weird colored parts of the surroundings are almost always a sure sign in video games that it can be interacted with, and this is no exception.

There it is! How about that! Pretty sharp memory, huh?

How would an amnesiac like you know!?

Ah-hahahahaha! ...Wait, are you mocking me?

The adamantite is ours! But once you start to leave, the screen turns blue. The screen turning blue is never a good sign.



Yep, sure enough, there's a boss fight afoot!



Four purple...spheres? They're sphere-like enough, I guess. Anyway they converge on the party and then a boss battle starts.



This is Adamantoise, a recurring enemy in Final Fantasy. It first appeared in Final Fantasy II, sometimes it's a boss and sometimes it's not. It's usually weak to Blizzard spells, which makes it funny that its debut was in the Snow Cave.

So there's a little trick to Adamantoise in this version, and why I put Blue Magic on Galuf.



See, Adamantoise, unlike most other bosses, doesn't have a Heavy flag.



Adamantoise is also level 20. Twenty is divisible by five.



One casting of Level 5 Death immediately kills Adamantoise. Easiest boss fight in the game!

If you want to fight him normally, he's a bit tougher. He has strong physical attacks that might one-shot your weaker characters, so the back row helps, as do things that increase evasion/block like shields, the Main Gauche, and the Elven Mantle. !Guard from the Knight works too, as it negates all physical attacks, and if you combine it with Counter all the better, but it has high defense so normal attacks won't do a whole lot. Magical attacks are the way to go, and as is usual with Adamantoise, he's weak to ice in this version. He has inherent Shell status, so while pure magical attacks still won't be particularly strong, Blizzara Spellblades will tear him apart.

Since I mentioned he's not Heavy, Death Claw and Gravity will also work, but in this game Shell also reduces the hit rate of magical attacks that can be blocked by 50%. Blockable magic attacks are stuff that aren't your basic damage dealing/healing spells. So Fire/a/aga for example aren't blockable, nor is Cure. Stuff like Life can be blocked (if using it on an undead enemy) and things like Toad or Poison also can be blocked.

This is what the Magic Evade stat is for by the way, it won't prevent you from taking a Fire to the face but it'll help you dodge status attacks and other similar spells.

ANYWAY. No reason to hang around the meteorite anymore so back to Cid and Mid, who take the Adamantite and say they'll fix up the ship.



Bartz and company decide to take Mid's advice and head into the ruins nearby (which have beds, you may remember).



There's a scene which I didn't bother to gif of Cid/Mid running around so fast it looks like there's multiple copies of them, with the Karnak Castle escape music playing, that gradually speeds up to show they're working fast.

The scene then shifts to the ruins where the party is napping, and Bartz wakes up.



I dreamt that the airship was already finished...

At that moment, Cid and Mid enter the room.

Rise and shine! It's done!!!

Yikes, you work fast!

After you lift off, press the A button to fly higher!

And remember not to ask Mid what that means, seeing as how he's just a kid.

Yeah I know I keep reusing that Link's Awakening joke but if they're gonna keep doing this I'm gonna keep making it.

So with this, we can go to the floating ruins?

Technically, yes, but... Well, take a gander at this.

Cid opens a book.

The floating city is equipped with a heavy defense system... If you don't disable it, you won't be able to enter.

According to this book, the cannons are really powerful...

But we must go!

No question about it!

I don't even see the worry. What's a couple of overblown pop-guns against the likes of us!?

Yeah I mean it's not like we were gonna go "Oh no, a defense system? Well let's just call the whole thing off then."

Cid, Mid, thanks for all your help. Now, let's get to the crystal before it's too late!



Bartz, you...you already used that line way back earlier in the game and it doesn't even make sense here...



So when you take off, when you press the A button, you get two arrows, one above and one below your ship. The top one is blinking right now, hence why you can't see it...but basically you highlight which direction you want to go, and then press A again. So to land, you have to press A, then select down, and press it again. This makes landing slightly more inconvenient.

By the way, I don't think I mentioned it before, and it may not have been possible until now, but at this point if you land in the Crescent Island docks, you can walk over to the Fire Powered Ship and enter the lower decks. This is useful if you missed a treasure chest or two when you went through it before, or wanted to get the Self-Destruct Blue Magic if you missed it from the Motor Traps.



Galuf equips Learning. You should have at least one Blue Mage/Learning character during this next part. I mean, if you want to fill out your Blue Magic list. If you don't, then no worries.



Lenna is equipping a Thunder Rod here because the enemies in the next section are weak to lightning, and so the boost will be nice.



When you finally decide to go up, it switches to an overhead view of the ship and a different looking world map. It's not immediately obvious where to go at this point, but just keep pushing up and you'll go up to the floating ruins.



Your targets are the four cannons on the "wings" of the ruins, two on each side. When you move into the square in front of one, you'll enter a battle against one of two types of enemies.

Important to note: at any time during this sequence, if you move down and off the bottom of the screen, you'll be taken back to the world map on the airship again. Once you beat a cannon, it's gone for good, so if you're seriously hurting after a couple of battles, you can leave and go to an inn and heal up and come back later.



One of the enemies you'll face up here is the Flame Thrower. I'll leave you to guess what kind of attack it uses.



Flame Thrower uses an attack called...Flame Thrower. This is a Blue Magic spell! So make sure you get hit by it. Flame Thrower is a single target fire elemental spell that is equal in power to Fira, but only costs 5 MP instead of 10. It's pretty nice and more straight offense is always nice for a Blue Mage.



I made Galuf a Mystic Knight because reasons I guess. I took a screenshot of it so I guess I must have deemed it important when I did this. Can't imagine why, but here it is! Actually I'm guessing I probably reached the max of the Time Magic abilities I needed for the moment.



Rocket Launcher is the other enemy type you can run into up here. The enemy types you fight are random, they're not preset...which I will tell a little story now, is a HUGE headache. See, when I did this part, I kept using save states because I knew that the enemies were randomly determined. And well, no matter what save states I loaded up, or even if I reset the game and started over, I always had the same problem...four sets of Flame Throwers, I didn't run into the Rocket Launchers at all.

This was of course extremely frustrating and it took about 15 minutes of playing around, getting in random battles and trying to manipulate the RNG to give me at least one Rocket Launcher battle. It really isn't THAT hard to get into a Rocket Launcher fight, honest! They're not super rare or anything, I just had weird bad luck, in fact on most of my FJF runs I usually end up running into two groups of each...just the LP curse rearing its ugly head again I guess.



Rocket Launchers use the Missile attack, which is yet another Blue Magic spell. Missile cuts the target's HP by 75%, nice, but it doesn't work on Heavy targets so its uses are pretty limited. Rocket Launchers also use a nasty attack called Rocket Punch. Rocket Punch deals 50% of your current HP in damage, and also Confuses the target. This can turn bad really quick. Fortunately Berserker is helpful here since they're inherently immune to confuse.



After beating the four cannons on the outside your party gloats, but...



An even BIGGER gun pops up in the center of the ruins!

Cripes, look at the size of it!

Moving in front of the cannon in the center will start a boss battle. Get ready!



This is the Soul Cannon. The Soul Cannon is an infamous boss battle in FFV in a similar way to Byblos in the Library of Ancients. In other words, I'm going to completely stomp him with no issues, but on certain challenge runs, this boss is an immovable wall and nearly impossible for certain class setups.

I didn't bother taking any screenshots because the battle was stupidly simple. Faris, as a Ninja, threw Lightning Scrolls while Lenna summoned Thunder Rod Boosted Ramuh, and Galuf used the Thundara Spellblade. The fight was over before Soul Cannon could use its signature attack.

Fun fact: it's impossible to actually beat the Soul Cannon by reducing its HP to 0. The reason why is that once the Soul Cannon's HP goes below 10,000, a script is triggered that engulfs it in explosions and causes it to disappear. Since the maximum damage you can deal in this game is 9999 (and you can't deal that much damage at this point in the game anyway at normal levels), you can't actually bring it to 0. This is because if you could bring it to 0, you'd see the normal "turns purple and venetian blinds out of existence" animation that enemies have when they die. The programmers obviously wanted the cool explosion destruction, so this was their solution. Neat, huh?

So: why is Soul Cannon such a pain for certain setups? Well, you may notice the "DIFFUSION BEAM CANNON: ONLINE" message in my screenshot. This is part of a countdown to its signature attack. You have six rounds of it announcing different things, then on round seven, it fires its Wave Cannon. After that, Soul Cannon will use Wave Cannon again every three turns I believe, you don't get another six rounds in between I know that much.

Wave Cannon does two things: one, it deals your max HP divided by two in damage. This means if you're under half health, you're dead. It also sets the Sap status on you. Sap is a status that is similar to Poison in that it sucks away your HP, but the difference is, Poison takes away large chunks of your health at regular intervals, whereas Sap causes your HP to constantly and very quickly count down. So if you're CLOSE to half health and get hit by Wave Cannon, Sap will probably kill you.

This by itself wouldn't be so bad because of the time taken to fire the Wave Cannon, but remember the two Launchers also there. The Launchers fire missiles at you which do two things. One, they deal 50% of your current HP in damage, not unlike Rocket Punch. But the difference is, the missle also sets the Old status on you.

The Old status, which I don't think I've mentioned before, sucks. Bad. Old will cause all of your stats (except HP/MP) to steadily decrease over time, until they decrease to a value of 1. What this means is, if you get hit by it, eventually you will be unable to deal damage to enemies because your strength/magic stats will be too low. And here's the kicker: while Old can be cured by Esuna, the stat changes you suffer while under Old are NOT restored by Esuna.

So basically, the Launchers dealing half your current HP in damage sets you up for being KO'd by Wave Cannon, and their Old status can cause you to eventually be unable to damage the boss. Combined with the Sap status from Wave Cannon, and the fact that Old affects your speed too, means that for some job combinations, this is an extremely painful battle. This is also why some challenge runs need to buy Angel Rings, because they make you immune to Old.

Well, enough words about Soul Cannon. It's destroyed now, and we claim our spoils!



Dark Matter! It's a guaranteed drop from this fight. Dark Matter is VERY useful for an upcoming class, and it's fairly rare, so this is nice.

After Soul Cannon is destroyed, a hole will appear in the center of the flying ruins. The characters will say that that's probably the way in, and they're right. Flying into the hole will bring you into the next dungeon...which will be saved for the next update.

NEXT TIME: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MQJF5E2Sgk

[MomentOfInertia]

It lives!