But wait, There's more! (FFII, Day 21)

 I got in a good several hours yesterday. The Leviathan dungeon was shorter than I remember it, but maybe the last time I played it, I was just going crazy from the constant ding ding of taking damage while sloshing around in sea-monster stomach acid. Don't even get me started on the doors. They were gross little sphincters. At least they still clicked when you passed through them, so I guess I should be thankful the sound chip doesn't include a squelch.

Batman... Ricard... whatever... was blocking the way forward and joined us when we told him about the dragoons. Turns out I didn't need to save up those spears after all. He had a nice one already. We continued on to find an entire village of people in this monster's belly, one of which claimed he'd been there 10 years. How he remained without being digested, I'll never know except to say that creature has some majorly malfunctioning innards. See a doctor, dude.

At this point, the only thing standing between my party and a boat was a giant parasitic worm. It didn't seem to like level 8 fire - because it made it quite dead, and probably gave Leviathan some wicked heartburn. Lo and behold, by the magic of the fantasy trope, the party escaped through the mouth of the whale - which is preferable to the other direction, to be sure.

 



Im-a chargin' mah lazor.

Next, I continued on to the Tower of Mysidia, which is where I was headed when the ship was swallowed. I made haste through the dungeon, fleeing from almost every battle, so it didn't take long at all. There are 4 bosses in all, strategically placed within the 9 floors I had to get through. Then at the top there were the treasures chests containing really nice equipment and really nasty Monster-In-A-Box encounters. White Dragon is a big meanie, and let's just say I'm glad I saved before I opened that one. At the top, I finally reunited with my favorite moonlight knight cosplayer, Minwu.

 

Shoop Da Woop!

Spoiler aler... Nah, you know what? If you're actively avoiding spoilers on a 27 year old game, you should have stopped reading this blog a while ago. You knew what this was going to be. :-P (*defiantly blows raspberry*)

So Minwu used all of his power to break the seal on the door leading to the Ultima tome. This game has already killed our heroes parents, a ton of civilians, a prince, a resistance miner, more civilians, all the dragoons, all the wyverns, the king, and even more civilians.



"Remember me as I was... when I won...
the sailor moon... cosplay contest..." *dies*

This game has a death count that is ahead of its time. You've got to remember that this came out a good 8 years before the first Game of Thrones book. That said, it should come as no surprise that shortly after breaking the Ultima seal, Minwu got ded. Joking aside, this really upset me when I first played FFII. I always liked Minwu, so I was pretty happy that he was included in the Soul of Rebirth bonus content that was added for the Dawn of Souls remake. If you don't know, that's an extra dungeon that has you kill the emperor again as all your dead party members.

Now that I was done with that unpleasantness, I decided to take Ricard to Deist to talk to the kid that was there. Here's an interesting fact: Ricard the dragoon's last name is Highwind. He speaks to the boy in deist and promises the kid he'll come back to raise him to be a fine dragoon. The boy's name is Kain. A dragoon named Kain Highwind happens to play a major role in another Final Fantasy game... Release the Theorists!

I got that dragoon a wyvern. Dragoons love wyverns!

After that little detour, the party headed back to Castle Fynn to talk to the Princess, only to find out that there's a cyclone coming and it's deliberately destroying all of the things. Of course that's because it's controlled by the Emperor. Having already destroyed a bunch of towns, it was now on it's way to Fynn.
But how to get inside? Easy. Deus ex Wyvern! That wyvern egg from before has hatched, and it came to hang out with Ricard, possibly for no other reason than the fact that he's the last dragoon.

I do have to question the wisdom of four adventurers flying into a twister on the back of a newborn wyvern though, even if it does have a giant fortress inside and 'AHH! It's going to kill everyone'.



This is the greatest and best Wizard of Oz quote... Tribute.
 

You too can kill the emperor of a hostile expansionist country.

Well stupid idea or not, the wyvern plan worked perfectly. The cyclone dungeon was a bit difficult to navigate, so I had to use a map. For the sake of speed, I decided to skip some nice loot. It feels weird to me, just leaving treasure chests unopened. Still, I know I've got less than 80 days to play. The battle with the emperor takes place in three waves of enemies, each more demanding than the last. It was challenging, but went smoothly. The Emperor himself died in just a few rounds. Honestly I had more trouble with the adds than with him. Anyway, I won and then the fanfare played.  
With evil vanquished, the party returned triumphantly to Fynn to inform the princess of their victory.


Blurry image is blurry. :(

Then there was a protracted scene of awkwardly animated 'dancing.' It was set to an annoyingly happy little waltz that would probably sound good if arranged for something other than the sound chip from a Gameboy Advance cartridge. Hilda and Gordon, Finn and Rey, and two sets of identical triplets took to the floor to strut their stuff. Poe, Leila, and Ricard wisely chose to not take part.   

Such danced. Many choreography. Wow.

But wait... there's more. That's not the end of the game. 

 



Red carpet hides the bloodstains of mortally wounded messengers really well.

Wow! What a twist that absolutely no one saw coming, especially not since the foreshadowing of the party's encounter with him in Bafsk! So wait... I must have been mistaken about Ricard, then. Kylo is Batman. It all makes perfect sense now.

Blah. Guess I have to go sneak into Palemecia castle. Of course Paul is the guy I need to talk to about Infiltration. Hmm. If only I could sneak in from above. If only I had a wyvern to do that. Except apparently that doesn't work. Good thing Cid is hanging out in Paul's place. ...and now he's dead. Free airship though. That'll work.

Tune in tomorrow for what will probably be the thrilling conclusion of FFII.

To get a head start, for FFIII, I've posted a poll below. Go ahead and cast your vote on what I should name my Final Fantasy III party members after. CLICK HERE TO VOTE