Captain Saronia, Civil War (FFIII, Day 33)

You blew it up! You maniacs!

Right... so I had quite an explosive beginning to my adventures in Saronia, what with my busted up airship. Reluctantly I pressed on, despite my dismay at constantly having my airships violently combust on me. It's just rude, you know?

Once I got over my initial grumpiness, I followed my trusty walkthrough to the letter. Rather than head to the castle, I explored the giant gated community I now found myself trapped in. My first recommended stop was southern Saronia where I paid a visit to a chocobo scholar and dropped some crap off with the Fat Chocobo he summons when you speak with him. With my inventory cleared a bit, I set out for the pub to meet up with my next temporary party member, the exiled Prince Alus. He was having a bit of trouble with some local riff raff.

These rude little punks all look the same to me.

Lucky for him, Hemnes of all people, decided he wasn't having it and stepped in. A short battle sent the rabble screaming for mercy and Alus offered his thanks and explained the situation. He then
tagged along with the group, and having him around earned me some bonus loot around town.

At this point, I made my way to visit each of the other four districts. In the Southeastern one, I climbed to the top of the tower in the center and fetched a pile of Dragoon equipment. Clearly, the game was trying to tell me something. Sure enough, upon consulting my walkthrough, I discovered that the upcoming boss was a pushover if you attacked him with dragoons. That made it time to change everyone's job and grind them up to a decent level. It took the better part of my playtime yesterday, but it turned out to be well worth it.

This circumstance is not at all suspicious.

With hours of grinding finished, and the party all at level 30 as suggested, away we went to Castle Saronia to find out exactly why the King was not only instigating civil war but generally being a pretty mean guy. The guards tried to turn us away until a message arrived that the King wanted to let us through. The group was shown to sleeping quarters, and a heartfelt conversation between Hemnes Bookcase and Prince Alus ensued. It was a brief discussion to foreshadow that something was really wrong with the King if he was willing to exile his son, and it touched on the nature of parental love. Then both of them went to sleep only to be awoken by a half-hearted attempt on Alus's life by none other than the king himself.



Cue Psycho music.

Aluminum Foiled!

Lucky for Alus, the king refrained from killing him. This was much to the displeasure of Gigameth, who had been mentioned in my travels through the four corners of Saronia as a creepy guy with a bird shaped shadow. Instead, the King drove his knife into his own chest to break the control the real villain had over him. Of course, Gigameth didn't see this coming because the bad guys never do take any stock in the power of love. They just don't know that there's no greater force in the universe than the vocal stylings of Huey Lewis and The News. You know... the song... Power of Love? Sorry, not sorry. that joke was gold.

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Gigameth's disbelief.



Don't worry about it.
Voldemort made the same mistake.

He didn't spend too long being incredulous, and switched gears to 'kill everyone' pretty quickly. As I mentioned earlier, the walkthrough suggested dragoons, and I'm totally down with following this thing's advice if it will get me back on track. (I'm pretty dissatisfied that I'm still only on FFIII.)


I can respect his time management.

Allow me to introduce you to
eight spears.
 

Allow me to say, I was pretty impressed with the dragoon trick. It worked like a charm and made what is considered one of the most difficult boss battles easy as pie. It seems that by using jump, you can avoid nearly all of his extremely hard hitting attacks. Not to mention the fact that it's an established fact that dragoons are effective against flying creatures. This dude is a giant bird in his real form so that worked out perfectly. Now, given the fact that I had equipped each of my party members with not one but two spears, I managed to take this blowhard down. He was dead in just two and a half rounds because I was doing MASSIVE damage (1500+) with each and every jump. 
With the boss dead, I watched Prince Alus have a touching moment with his father before he finally died and left his kid the kingdom. "Here are the keys, son. Clean up my mess, ok?"

With that unpleasantness complete, it was time to more freely explore the kingdom, with the blessing of the prince to take whatever treasure we wanted to help us on our journey. SHOPPING TIME!



I've never wanted to kill an NPC this badly.

I'd like to note that on my way out of the castle, I ran into an odd little fellow who was seemingly proud of his penchant for property damage. I honestly did a double take. IT WAS THIS GUY! He's the guy who BLEW UP my AIRSHIP and there is NOTHING I can do to him. GRR!

Once my rage had subsided again, I subsequently visited all of the shops that had been closed due to war until now.

Several thousand Gil later, I had myself some shiny new equipment and spells, and a nagging curiosity about what I was going to do about transportation now that Cannon McShootyPants had destroyed my vehicle. This problem was corrected by visiting one of the towers in the castle. It just so happened that some airship scholars had just unearthed a very fast and fancy airship from who-knows-when, and got it ship-shape. And they just gave it to us. For free.

La la la la, lah lah, Lah La Lahhhh!

Free airships are the best airships. Tune in next time for my triumphant return to the skies.

Release the Kraken... again (FFIII, Days 30-32)

I started off day 30 full of hope and promise. The dungeon was tough, but I was pressing on through it. I grabbed the Blizzaga spell from a chest and continued on my way. The enemies in the dungeon weren't pushovers, but I could handle them well enough. When I finally reached the crystal chamber, I was pretty confident I'd be able to take on the boss and win. Well...

Aria used the shard from earlier to start restoring the larger crystal and once she was done with her part, she asked the party to combine their light, which I would assume meant praying and such. In the next moment though, she was shoving Ektorp out of the way and taking a hit from an unknown source. Now, I'm still not sure why she, a girl wearing only a sundress, felt the need to push a fully armored knight out of the way... Regardless, I was certain that her slow motion sideways fall meant "all aboard the feels train!" 


Sloooooowwww Moooooootiiiooonnn!

Pink is the hottest color in minion fashion this season.

Kraken revealed himself and told us who he works for and what he's doing. Hooray for bad buy tropes. He then attacked, leaving no time to tend to Aria. During the first 4-5 rounds of the battle, it was tough, but I felt like I had things under control. Knight Stab, White Mage Heal, Black Mage Light Staff, Monk Punch. But then he had to go and cast a group affecting Blizzaga and half my party went down just like that. Phoenix downs, stat! It worked for a while, but it was the turning point as he continued to chip away at everyone until I was out of Phoenix Downs. It wasn't long before my party was wiped. 
Sooooo.... Another day, another boss that I can't beat on the first try. On my second attempt, I decided to do some minor grinding, and I thought the best way to go about that would be to go in, grab the Blizzaga spell, and then Teleport out and go straight through the second time, fleeing from all battles until I got to the boss. That ended poorly when I found fleeing more difficult than anticipated. My party was wiped out even before they reached the Blizzaga chest, and so I started over. Attempt three had me make it to Blizzaga, and then I teleported out to save. I also took the liberty of flying back to the floating continent to rest at an inn and stock up on a few things.

So red. I think he needs a hgher SPF...

Back through, successfully fleeing through more enemies than before, I reached Kraken again. Aria got herself hit as usual, and took a nap while I went to battle with the Squidward on Steroids. Oh! I almost forgot: Obligatory 'Release the Kraken' comment. Anyway, I got to him and he promptly gave me a sound thumping, thus leading to my third game over within the span of an hour. I opted for more grinding, and returned to the floating continent to do so. After a while, I felt my frustration growing so I went the heck to bed, fully intending to continue in the morning when I'd had some sleep.

It was morning in the technical sense when I loaded the game up again. Two in the morning, but definitely 'morning.'

I'd learned a few things while grinding. First off, I undid my foolish noob maneuver of giving claw weapons to my Monk when he could clearly do more damage empty handed. I also discovered that the Temple where the water shard had laid was home to a pair of healing springs where I could revive and restore my HP/MP. That most certainly helped me with my subsequent training. Satisfied at my progress, I made yet another attempt, half expecting to be decimated once more. This time though, my work paid off, and the boss was dead within just a few rounds. Here's what I did differently in reference to my other attempts. Lack Sidetable no longer had claw weapons, and was focused on Item based healing when not punching. Po'Ang was just repeatedly casting Cure, and Ektorp was hitting it with the blood sword. Hemnes cast Blizzaga, on account of the fact it was my most powerful spell. The tactic worked and Kraken finally ceased to be.



Just give me five more minutes...

Y u die tho. Stahp.

Back to that cut scene with Aria now. Ektorp rushes to her side, asks her not to die, and she offers her thanks to the party for restoring the light of the crystal by making sure they're blessed by the water and receive the new jobs that come with it. Considering I only bothered to keep one of the last set, I was significantly less eager to play around with the new classes. I'm actually pretty happy with my Knight, Black and White Mages, and Monk. I'd rather not try to fix what isn't broken. Aria, by the way, promptly disobeys Ektorp's request and gives up the ghost. It's all very poignant and dramatic, and the vignette is topped off with an anguished cry from the hero.



Stella!

Then the world starts to shake as the darkness that's shrouded the surface begins to roll back and time starts to flow again. (It had been paused.) Unfortunately for our heroes, that prompts a cave-in and everything goes black, and Ektorp dreams of a weird old guy that should now be sought. When they awaken days later, in a strange village of people who don't even know time was stopped, the world is full of life once more, if not a little hostile towards them. The Enterprise is chained up in the bay, and Goldor a wannabe King Midas, holds the golden key in the golden halls of his golden manor protected by golden monsters. Dude likes gold is what I'm saying. Also he has a crystal, so that's convenient.

Before we could get there though, (because the airship was currently impounded) we had to go through the sewers of the town to get some levigrass shoes. These will prevent the party from falling into an eternal pit of a bog that stands between them and the ridiculously decadent manor.

To the left, To the Left, To the Right, To the Right...

Prior to setting out for the sewers, I had a few interesting experiences in town. The first was an encounter with four old guys claiming to be the warriors of legend. Obviously they were comically terrible at convincing anyone of this, but one got the distinct impression that the town humored them anyway. Second of the strange and silly things in town involved the piano in the tavern. Back in the first town, you could awkwardly attempt to play the piano, so I wondered if it might have improved when I reached another piano. Apparently, if you play it here, all of the occupants of the tavern leap from their seats and dance along to a jaunty tune. As stupid as it was to watch the scene unfold, I must say, it still made me laugh.

Warriors of the Light. Discount version.

Afterwards, I progressed on to the sewers and they were nice and easy to get through. Definitely a welcome change from the cave of tides I'd spent so much time in. I made it to the boss battle where I found the four old guys from earlier and they were being threatened by a quartet of Gigantoads. Once we'd rescued them, they thanked us and promised to give up on their little hero charade. That didn't stop them from helping us get the Levigrass shoes we needed from the crazy old woman that was living down there.

Latest mode of travel now secured, I made my way to Goldor's Manor and went inside. I followed the walkthrough map which allowed me to skip over a lot of empty rooms and go straight for the treasure vault containing a metric crap-ton of golden swords. Then I teleported out, saved, and took the most direct route to Goldor himself. Blizzaga made short work of him too. The greedy so and so decided that if he couldn't have the crystal, then no one would and smashed it just before he shrugged off this mortal coil, leaving the party appalled and wondering what would happen now with one of the crystals broken. Lack Sidetable, ever the pragmatist, suggested we find the key we needed to unlock the airship.

 I'm so Smart. S M R T... I mean S M A R T!

 Good idea and all, but I mean, we don't need to find it. It was right there on the floor the whole time, but ok, Lack. Good Job. Have a star. A gold one. Just because.

Chain Chain Chain...

Finally after all that trouble I had my airship back. I explored a bit, visited a few towns, and did some shopping. Then at the advice of my trusty walk-through guide, I saved just outside the gigantic castle/city area in the northwest corner of the world map. Suffice to say that when my airship was shot down and destroyed, (this is the second time in this game that my transportation has exploded) I didn't feel like playing anymore. My last save remains just outside of Saronia. Tune in tomorrow for when I give in and move on with the story - I'll be sure to grab some photo ops this time of the airship being blown to smithereens, and mourn my airship a little longer. 

A Whole New World (FFIII, Day 29)

Instead of immediately re-attempting the Molten Cave, I started my adventure last night by sailing to Gysahl Village. If I was going to spend time grinding, I was determined to make it somewhat constructive. After that, I sailed back to the dwarf cave island and readied for round two.

I think one of my big problems with the first attempt had to do with how little healing I had left by the time I reached the boss. This time, I decided I'd run it twice. My first run was solely to collect all the treasure. Then, I teleported out, ran back to the inn, rested and bought more potions, and then went right back in.The dungeon is actually pretty small once you know which way to go, especially if you're no longer worried about treasure.

Nya Nya Nya!

I pretty much ran a straight shot through, fleeing from most battles and spending as little time as possible standing in lava. There was the occasional battle that I couldn't flee from, but that's not something you worry too much about when you bring an Ice Staff to a fire dungeon.

This time Gutsco/Salamander didn't kill my party before they utterly destroyed him and took his stuff. The battle went so much better this time around! Honestly, in some cases, you don't even even need to level up to take the stress out of a boss fight. Sometimes all you need is a little  more luck with the random number generator.


Bless this mess

Shortly after I beat my own odds and failed at being a terrible player, we had another conversational crystal on our hands. The Fire Crystal gave us the obligatory inspiring speech and then reminded us that the fate of the entire world was in our hands. You know. No pressure or anything, right? Once the thing was done talking, I had several shiny new classes to choose from, so I wasted no time in trying things out. My first instinct was to change Lack Sidetable to a Knight, Hemnes Bookcase to a Scholar, and Po'Ang Chair to a Ranger. Ektorp Sofa stayed a Warrior for the time being. I ended up not being too happy with this arrangement.  By the time I was on my way back to the dwarves, I'd changed my mind a few times. Ektorp went from Warrior to Ranger before I decided to just make him a Red Mage. Po'Ang was switched to a Geomancer then back to White Mage, and ultimately I just started training her up as a Thief. 

Alas! I die! URR *dramatic pause* RRRRK!

Despite being bogged down in indecision, I headed back to the dwarves to return their stolen goods. They gave my party what turned out to be a pretty awesome reward. Once they opened their vault, I got quite a few new weapons and some sweet armor. This prompted some more indecision regarding class choices, but I'd had enough switching for the moment. I stocked up, rested, and got moving. I really didn't have much of an idea where I was headed but then a man at the exit of the Dwarves' cave decided to just die and progress the story. For once, I didn't even have to consult my walk-through.

 I did as the man requested and went to Tokkul to offer my assistance so the corrupted soldiers there wouldn't raze the village to the ground. Upon arrival though, my party was captured and promptly blacked out. Once I regained my senses, the four warriors of the light were in a strange looking  prison cell. As a side note, Lack Sidetable is an incredible detective. Look at his vast powers of observation. 

His superhero name will be... Captain Obvious!

It becomes apparent that we're inside the Final Fantasy equivalent of the Great Deku Tree. We're trapped because some guy named Hein decided to betray King Argus, and corrupted his soldiers and the magic tree with darkness. He even named the thing after himself as he's started calling it Castle Hein. I mean... wow. Dude has issues. Anyway, as with basically everything, it falls to the Warriors of the Light to fix things, so off I went sneaking out of the cell and navigating the tree dungeon.

"I have great style and an aggressive skin care regimen."

It was not fun. With everyone having new jobs, I struggled quite a bit. After a few battles that went horribly, I gave in and switched some jobs up again. I settled on having Ektorp as the Knight, and Lack and Po'Ang as Red Mages so they could still use the Fire and Ice Staffs that have been my saving grace up to this point. I would have changed Hemnes too, but I was under the impression that I needed the Scholar to defeat the boss. That turned out to be somewhat incorrect. With new classes, I reached Hein. I think I can safely say that Kefka inherited his flamboyant fashion sense - I'd bet they would have been BFFs.

The battle was rough at first, but I shrugged and started throwing damage dealing items at him. Once I did that, the battle was over in just a few rounds. With Hein defeated, and his corrupt influence ceased, everything about the situation quickly improved. First off the tree did something totally and completely shocking by starting to talk to the party. Imagine that! Inanimate objects talking in this game?! That never happens! Lack, in his infinite wisdom, was quick to point out this absurdity.

Don't Worry! Captain Obvious is on top of things!

I... Am... Groot...

At the end of it, the tree went back to the magic forest, and took a thousand year nap. At least it had the decency to drop off all the imprisoned townsfolk and royal guardsmen before it did so. I watched a short scene in the woods where the tree once again thanked the party and gave them another fang item, and I honestly can't remember which it was. I wanna say it was the Fang of Wind, but don't quote me on that. 

Young ones? Why not Yuengling? 

My next stop was Castle Argus where the King similarly thanked the party and gave us a a very important quest advancing item. It just so happens that this is the very thing we need for Cid to build us another airship. Which we'll definitely need so we can go to the surface world beyond the floating continent and dispel the darkness that covers it. Aha. So just as I suspected, the current world map was only a fraction of what I'm dealing with. Oddly enough, I wrote the storyline for a TableTop FFRPG game that my husband once ran. I must have been channeling this game somehow.

Thanks, but we don't really have time to read such an extensive collection of fantasy novels.

 

I took the Wheel of Time and hurried back to Canaan to give it to Cid.  He proceeded to fix up the ship and then lay some revelations on us about the world below the floating continent. The four main characters were actually from there, and were apparently the only survivors of an airship crash other than Cid. Cool. He in turn hurried off to make the Enterprise fly because let's be honest, that was something that desperately needed to happen.

Make it so.

Finally, it was time to sail off into the great blue yonder and descend to the surface world. It was a bit anticlimactic when I broke through the cloud of darkness, mainly because there's basically nothing there. Towards the east of the map, there were a few specks of islands so I headed towards those and stopped at the southern set first.

There was a temple with a protected crystal shard and a cave with a sealed door here, and since I couldn't do a thing in either, I tried the northern island. The only thing there was a wrecked ship. As soon as I boarded the ship though, I had to smile. Even though I am still quite unfamiliar with 3's story, I recognized Aria's theme immediately. You see, I'm an unapologetic fangirl when it comes to Final Fantasy music. I've known the song longer than I've known which game it came from. It's a good song, is all I'm saying.

This little Light of Mine...

Now poor Aria was in a bit of distress when we found her, and a worried old man was trying to take care of her. Luckily we were able to patch her up with a well timed Antidote, at which point she joined the party so we could all go retrieve the shard of the water crystal together. Having accomplished that fairly easily and without a single battle being fought, I proceeded to the cave that was north of the temple and  Aria once again helped out by taking us to the sealed door to the dungeon and praying until it opened. At this point I'm about to wander inside to see just how badly everything inside wants me dead. 

Lack Sidetable is impressed.

Following Directions (FFIII, Day 28)

I really don't think I'd be as far along as I am without sticking pretty close the walkthrough I've been following. It's pretty likely that without it, I'd be writing right now about how lost in the ocean I am right now, and that I have no idea what I need to do next.


Not Pictured: My Horrible sense of Direction

Thankfully that's not the case. I finished up with the southern points of interest as the walkthrough suggested. Mostly that involved buying some things and talking to people. Then my next stop was Argus Castle in the Northwestern quadrant of my map. The place was totally deserted, but there was plenty of loot to be had in secret doors and locked rooms. I switched Ektorp to a thief and had him pick the locks to get to the loot. Then I set off for Gulgan Gulch as suggested and chatted with some blind guys. I also got a free Toad spell from them to make the next dungeon possible. Desch got a rather ominous earful as well. I grabbed all the loot in the gulch and made my way to the Tower of Owen. 
The place was a Steampunk dream (or nightmare, depending on your point of view) and the only way to progress further than the bottom was to Toad my party. This shape shifting stuff is neat, but it's getting a little silly. It's not even that much of a hassle, I just don't like having to waste MP on it.
 The tower itself was easy to navigate up to the point where there was a wall in my way. Thankfully my trusty walkthrough told me about the secret switch and saved me probably 20 minutes of trying to figure it out on my own. It didn't take long to reach the top where the lovely Medusa was messing with the workings of the tower. No idea what she was doing, but we killed her ded before she could finish whatever it was.


"I'm Not Dead Yet!"

Desch now had his memory jogged and knew he was the guardian of the tower. So he dove into a fiery pit to try and fix whatever Medusa broke. His actions somehow stopped the whirlpool that was blocking my path into the rest of the ocean. So there was a moment of solemnity and a few statements that alluded to the ambiguity of his sacrifice. Where I'm concerned, when someone dives into a flaming hole, it usually spells DED, but as he might somehow still be alive, I'm not going to start a death count just yet.

My next destination was the Dwarven settlement in the new section of sea to which I now had access.  I discovered they were having issues with a thief called Gutsco. He made of with a horn of ice, whatever that is, and fled to the subterranean lake. Now because dwarves can't swim, they asked us to go after the guy.

After a short dungeon crawl, we found the boss, kicked the stuffing out of him, and retrieved the missing horn. Then he disappeared. Which normally isn't an oddity in a Final Fantasy game, but this time, a character actually commented on it, so I knew something was up. When I got back to the Dwarven settlement, I noticed an extra shadow following me around. It would have been nice if the game had rewarded me for noticing this, and correctly assuming that Gutsco was up to no good instead of just making me helplessly watch as he 'duped' everyone. Of course the dwarves asked me to put the horn back in its rightful place. Of course they lowered the magical barrier protecting the other Ice Horn. Of course it was Gutsco and this time he made off with BOTH horns.

Turtle Power

Once more it was up to me to track him down and get the treasures back. I tromped back to my ship, and sailed to the other side of the island to enter the Molten Cave. This dungeon was a slightly bigger pain than the previous due to the fact that you have to SWIM THROUGH LAVA. Apparently warriors of the light aren't bothered much by full body contact with magma, other than to have their hit points slowly tick down. Not to mention the fact that the most common enemy in this dungeon is an Adamantoise.

Lucky for me, I had an Ice Staff on hand to do some major damage. With considerable effort, I made it through to the boss, Gutsco. He immediately transforms into Salamander and attacks. The battle was going really well for a while, but things took a swift downhill turn the moment I ran out of Phoenix Downs. needless to say, it ended badly. The worst part is that the last place it's possible to save is outside the dungeon. Looks like I have my work cut out for me this evening as I go for take two on the Molten Cave. 

That went well...

Mini-challenge! (FFIII, Day 27)

After stocking up on healing items, particularly gold needles, I took another stab at the Dragons Peak dungeon. It was far less terrifying that I remembered from the night before when I'd quit to go to bed. With a clear head, I swiftly cleared it, coming face to face with the place's namesake. A dragon. The thing somehow grabbed my whole party and dropped us off in its nest. That's where we met Desch who advised us to make a hasty retreat. So when Bahamut returned, I followed the in game advice and ran. I found it particularly funny that when he was telling us to flee Desch phrased it as "Run Away! Run Away!" as if to reference a certain famous Monty Python scene.
 

Look at the bones!

Having fled successfully, I found myself wandering around an entirely new area, cut off from Canaan. I stumbled upon a Healing Copse and got a spare Mini spell from the Gnome that was hanging around. I cast Mini on my party so I could enter the Gnome village and proceeded to spend 20 minutes walking around the woods so I could find the exact spot where Tozus was located. Let me also mention that I did not enjoy having to fight battles while still in Mini form.

Finally I discovered the nearly invisible requisite pixel, and I wandered around Tozus until I found the doctor, who was sick. I gave him an antidote to counteract the fact that he was apparently walking around eating random things in the woods. Once I got him back on his feet, he opened up a secret door and I went on my way to the next area. Again, Mini fights are the worst.

After that little adventure, I wasted absolutely no time in returning to normal size. My next destination was a cave where a bunch of Vikings were holed up, lamenting the loss of their ships to the maw of a great sea dragon. I met with their leader who promised me a ship if I got rid of the thing, so off I went to the Nepto Temple to figure out the problem.

Turns out the idol in the temple was missing an eye, and there was a passage in the stone dragon's mouth. Couldn't be normal sized to explore it though. Another Mini dungeon... It was at this point though, that I realized Mini affects weapon damage but not magic. To make this discovery even better, I had a fire rod handy. From that point on, all enemies were laid to burnination.
 

You no take candle!

After a short jaunt through the tunnels, I came upon a talking rat and the statue's eye. He wasn't going to give it up without a fight, but hey, that's why I brought my fire stick. I'm still not sure why he's called a giant rat. I mean, if my party is Mini then I'm inclined to believe he's a just normal sized rat, and not a gigantic one. It doesn't really matter, I guess. He ded, and I took his precious shiny thing.
 

Go away, you're cutting into my beauty sleep.

The eye of the dragon was restored, the statue started being all talky about how we just saved its soul, and gave us a present called the Fang of Water. Then it passed out for a nice long nap while the party headed back to talk to the Viking leader.



True to his word, the head Viking gave us the ship we'd been promised. Maybe not the best business move since it was their last one, but hey, I'll never turn down a free ship. Especially when it's called the Enterprise. Captain's log: Take a good hard look 'cause I'm standing on a boat!

 

Beam me up?

Now free to explore the ocean, I took the advice of an FAQ to go check out a few points of interest around the map before advancing the main quest. One of which was a town razed and pillaged by soldiers, and the other was the so called village of the Ancients. My last act before logging off for the night was to accept a random kid's challenge to ride a chocobo around the rim of the continent. That was fun, and I discovered that the continent I'm on is actually in the sky, so that's neat. What's not as neat is that it probably means the world map is a lot bigger than it seems at the moment. I have a feeling I've got quite a long way to go to finish this game.

The Glowing (FFIII, Day 26)

Progress feels good. With some minimal grinding, I made it through the sealed cave. Halfway through, the princess, who happens to be named Sara (that's familiar) decided to join us so she could personally be the one to banish the guy responsible for the kingdom's ghostly woes. Say it with me this time: It's never that easy.

The Djinn had apparently been drinking the Kool-Aid of darkness (Is that anything like Ecto-Cooler? *Shrug*) and that made him too powerful. At least it was easily rectified with an old fashioned beat down. I'll be honest that the battle wasn't going great until I remembered that I'd picked up an Antarctic Wind.

With all but one of my party members down, using item to evoke blizzard was the best choice I could have made. It instantly deprived him of 450 HP (he only has 600), so the battle was immediately over. As I've mentioned before, I'm not one to use items willy-nilly, so it was a big step for me to use the only one of something I had in favor of truncating the battle. After defeating the Djinn, Princess Sara used the Mythril Ring to finish him off. Immediately my party went semi-transparent, and phased out of existence only to reappear before the crystal. That thing basically left the princess to find her own way out. Rude. 



Come get some of the glowing

The crystal gave a monologue about how we were the chosen ones and that the four warriors of the light need to save the world, defeat the darkness, etc... Same story different day. Moving on. It was about that time that everything got glowy. There was seriously a 60 second cut scene of a spinning glowing crystal. 

It was absurdly shiny

Once the crystal was finished with it's little dance, I was informed in a slightly different way that my party members were the chosen ones. Exposition Fairy is working overtime. Then, out of nowhere, a Moogle decided to appear and give me some career advice.



Thanks for the offer, but I have a stable income and a 401k

With my newfound job freedom, I switched everyone around to my liking and bought them new equipment. My current job setup is as follows: Ektorp Sofa is a Warrior, Hemnes Bookcase is a Black Mage, Po'Ang Chair is a White Mage, and Lack Sidetable is a Red Mage.

I was rather upset at this point when I realized that due to the rude teleporting crystal, the airship was now on the other side of a lake. I sullenly continued my given quest and made my way back to the castle where princess Sara purified the mythril ring she'd used on the Djinn and got everyone back to normal. His majesty was pleased, and shortly thereafter we ended up with a foldable canoe. That's convenient. Suffice to say I went right back for my airship.

We then made a quick visit back to Kazus and Po'Ang's dad Takka dragged her home despite her protests. Then we went to talk to Cid who was pleased at the whole situation and decided we'd get more use out of his airship than he would. We could keep it if we just dropped him off in Canaan. Proving once again that Cid usually equals free airship. Nice. Only trouble is that there's a giant boulder blocking the way back to Canaan. Heaven forbid the airship just fly over it. Apparently it's too tall for that.. Wow, that's a big rock. In his infinite wisdom, Cid goes to see Takka and request a mythril battering ram for the airship. Spoiler warning, it ends poorly.

So we get the thing fitted, and climb aboard to discover Po'Ang has run away from home again, and will be joining us after all. Then we hit the rock at ramming speed. It must have worked, because the rock was gone. Unfortunately, so was the airship. Poor airship.

It was a relatively uneventful and short walk to Canaan and there we heard rumors of a gnome village and a dragon mountain. Got to get in on that dragon slaying action, am I right? Before we left town though, I retrieved an elixir from a chest that was 'hidden' on an island in the middle of the river. Mrs. Cid was sick, and we fixed her right up. In return, Cid showed us the secret entrance to his airship hangar and I helped myself to heaps of loot.

The dragon mountain is full of death. Or more accurately, a good place to get stoned, and not the fun kind of stoned. The kind where you turn to stone and die. I decided it was time for a break. You can read how that goes tomorrow.

First Impressions (FFIII DS, Day 25)

WiFi enabled. Like the original, right?

This will be my first play through of III, and as the title indicates, I opted for the DS version. It's a nice change to a bigger screen for me because I'm playing it on my 3DS. I'm certain that this version looks nothing like the original with updated graphics and such, but I do appreciate the look and feel of it so far. I also found it a little surprising how you start out with only one playable character. Further research revealed that this was something changed in the remake, and that in the original, the characters all fell into the pit at the start together, and were essentially blank slates. I don't mind the change, because it's nice to have a little more character depth than that. Of course I may have felt differently if I'd ever actually played the original, but as it is, I like this just fine.

You people are sick in the head. I love it.

In any case, I have begun, and true to the poll results, my characters will all be named after Ikea furniture. For the most part, I tried to stick with furniture I either currently own or owned at one time. We actually shop there quite a bit, and at the risk of this sounding like an ad, I do like their stuff, and own quite a few things that came from there. That said, Ikea, if you want to sponsor this blog, I'm not going to complain. Now, I find it a little unfortunate that altering the characters names means I'll have a harder time remembering what their names are supposed to be, but it's all in fun, so I'm not even mad. When you consider the fact that in the original they didn't even have names, I can live with it.

So here is the big reveal. The first character who is officially named Luneth, is now dubbed Ektorp Sofa. I don't have much of an explanation for that choice other than he looked like an Ektorp. Arc, the intelligent and shy bookish type, was the second character I encountered. I decided that it would be somewhat appropriate to name him Hemnes Bookcase. Third, I found the blacksmith's daughter, Refia. I named her after my favorite piece of furniture, which is a very comfortable and unique chair with interchangeable cushions and a stylish ottoman to match. Which makes her name Poäng Chair despite the fact that there is no way to type an umlaut in the game. I got creative with punctuation and made her name Po'Ang. Plus it was the one on my list that sounded the most girly. The fourth and last PC was renamed from Ingus to Lack Sidetable. Like him, the Lack is sturdy, functional, and all business.

Final Fantasy 3 - Living Room Edition.

 

On to my first day of achievements for this one.

That's not... normal...

As I mentioned above, I began with just one character, who promptly began the game by falling into a hole opened up by an earthquake. The title screen made certain that I knew the earthquake was only the beginning. I quickly discovered the rather unforgiving nature of the gameplay. I managed to just make it to the wellspring, and was pleased to discover that my HP could be restored there. It had been a nerve-wracking few minutes until that safety net appeared. I proceeded farther into the cave, and found myself in an underground temple of sorts, and face to face with a Land Turtle. Hoo boy - he hit hard, but thankfully, I had a shield and a slightly better dagger at that point, so I went a few rounds and took it down. Then things got weird, and a crystal started talking to Ektorp, who was understandably a bit shocked at the whole prospect of a sentient rock.

Then, after a brief conversation in which the crystal informed Ektorp that he was a chosen one and he had to go gather the others, he was quickly teleported back to the world map. It's entirely possible he thought there were some toxic fumes in that hole, because he again expressed his incredulity at the whole situation. And yet, when he returned to his village, the elders were completely fine with it. Of course there's a talking crystal. Of course he's the chosen one. After all he was brought to the village as a baby under mysterious circumstances. Because Final Fantasy prefers all of their heroes to be orphans.

That mushroom tasted funny.

At this point, Ektorp was told to strike out and find the other chosen ones, so of course he brings his best friend, Hemnes along with him after learning that he wants to be brave like him. He had run off, and was joined by Ektorp in the next village over. The place has been struck by a Djinn's curse that turned everyone into ghosts - also known as killing them - but apparently this doesn't have to be permanent. So of course, heroes being heroes, Ektorp and Hemnes wants to help if they can. In the inn, Cid gets his first appearance quite early in the game - except he's ethereal at the moment so I'm not entirely sure 'appearance' is the right word to use here.

Cid asks the party to go borrow his airship to find the solution, and they go dig up his airship and encounter Po'Ang for the first time, who insists on joining them. Besides, it wouldn't be hard because the answer to the problem presumably rests with the king. He owns a mythril ring that will lift the curse. It's never that easy though, is it? Upon arriving at the castle, we learn that they're affected by the curse too, and the mythril ring is held by the princess who has very inconveniently gone missing - and assumed captured by the Djinn that cursed them all.

The castle is also where Lack, a royal guardsman, who had been away when the curse struck, decided to aid the party in the quest. Thus, the four heroes were assembled and made their way to the sealed cave to rescue the princess, kill the Djinn, and lift the curse. Unfortunately for me, the difficulty decided to ramp up quite a bit in the cave. It went a little like this. I went into the cave. I walked around for a few steps. I got into a random battle. I ded.

Mummy doesn't love me.

Oh boy. Time for my favorite thing: grinding until I stop dying instantly. We'll see if I'm successful at that this afternoon.