Breakthrough (FFII, Days 23-24)

So tired of this even my party is sleeping

Time to wrap this up and mail it to an incinerator. Pandemonium was just going to keep killing me. Even when I made it to the Emperor, I couldn't damage him faster than he could heal. I resigned myself to the fact that I needed to grind a bit longer and so I warped out of the dungeon and accepted my fate. I knew I needed to make any progress, and I couldn't unless I got some more magic levels. The lack of an update yesterday speaks to my frustration and my solemn resolve to finish this.

 Satisfied at having gotten a level or two in each of my party's best spells, I followed my my husband's suggestion and changed everyone's equipment to focus solely on spell casting. Except for Kylo, that is, because his magic stat was still hot garbage. So he got to stand in front while I moved everyone else to the back row. I didn't really make finer adjustments until I got to the final boss, who, in more ways than one, is the emperor from hell.

This time, my equipment going into the final boss was something like this. Finn and Rey both had shields in either hand, had ribbons equipped and were wearing gloves and armor that raise agility. Kylo got the Masamune and a shield and I let him have the Genji Armor to keep him alive for at least a short while. Meanwhile, Poe wore colors from the spring collection, lovingly woven into dragon armor, matched with stunning and functional thief gloves. He accessorized with a delicate ribbon, and held a polished rune axe paired with a shield. He loves animals, can talk to beavers, and wants to be a veterinarian someday because he loves children.

"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb."

So let's move on to the the emperor, who, in true cheesy villain fashion gave us a not at all cliche speech about how he was going to slaughter everyone. I wasn't really listening but it probably went something like: Blah blah blah, mommy never loved me, blah blah blah, I'm better than everyone, blah blah blah, I'm the lord of hell, blah blah blah, you'll never defeat me, blah blah blah, I pull the wings off flies, blah blah blah, here's an enumerated list of why I hate you, blah blah blah, gloating is fun.

The battle at that point became a slow plodding campaign to chip away at his 150,000 hitpoints doing around 1200 damage per round if all my characters were alive, and dealing with him healing about that much with each physical attack he made. Thankfully, the RNG was kind to me, and he only attacked physically every couple of rounds. Which is not to say he wasn't busy killing my mans with magic otherwise.

Again with advice from my husband, I stopped bothering to cast life, and instead went through phoenix downs like they were candy. As it happens, the healing he got from his physical attack was based on the amount of damage he did to my party. So he got far less hp return when he hit my characters who were already low on HP. (PSA: Harry Potter deficiency is a serious problem.)

Rule 2: The Double Tap.

It ended up taking about 30 minutes, during which I was sitting at the bar at my local arcade drinking a Sailor Moon themed milkshake. Because that's how I roll.

There plenty of moments of tense anxiety in which I worried that next phoenix down wouldn't go off in time to revive someone, but anxiety is always at least somewhat alleviated by the consumption of frozen treats. Finally though, the boss's model flickered and slowly broke into pixels before disappearing for good. The death animation felt like it took as long as the battle. The point is, I did it, and now I can finally move on!

Um.. I think he spelled "Wharrrgarbl!!" wrong...

Have some medals... unless you're a Wookie

Job done, evil defeated, it was time to watch the ending unfold, and remember just how much I enjoy the ending theme of this one. It has a very much Star Wars inspired ending where the heroes go get praised by the Princess, and all the characters who managed to make it to the end of the game alive come and congratulate you. It even has a ghostly appearance where Josef seems to be standing proudly next to his daughter who has decided to serve the new royal couple in the palace. 
  

About time...

Woooooo!

That brings us to our next game, Final Fantasy 3. The polls have spoken and I'm going to name my characters after Ikea furniture. Tune in tomorrow to see which names are short enough for me to use within the character limit!