Day 16

Game - Final Fantasy 2, Day 15
Hours Played/Hours Total - 9-1/2 hrs / 40-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Inside the Mysidian Tower, 2nd floor.
Current Goal - Climb to the top of the Mysidian Tower and obtain the Ultimate Magic Tome.

What Happened - That's one small step for Keeper. That's...just a small step for Keeper. Hoping to push it today and finish the game. Apologies for a REALLY long post right now!
     So, I start off today's journey part way into the Mysidian Tower. The tower is said to hold the ultimate magic tome, and Minwu was sent here to retrieve it...Of course, he hasn't come back yet, so my group is now going in to retrieve the tome and find out what happened with Minwu. With my goal ahead of me...I began heading onward and upwards.
     Definitely one of the more interesting dungeons in the game, Mysidian Tower is elementally themed as you move upward. The first one you run into is FIRE! At the 3rd floor, you are greeted by fire and lava! And just as it goes, whenever you walk through lava, you take damage. This could be a problem if you have no way to heal yourself outside of magic (which you get to constantly conserve...unless you stocked up on Ethers!). Regardless, it doesn't do THAT much damage, but it can get annoying. After a bit of searching and a few floors up, you run into a mage who congratulates you for making it that far...but then challenges you for the right to climb the tower! (I think?) He transforms into a giant Fire Gigas, and BOSS BATTLE! This would be pretty bad, if not for Blizzard magic. I cast Blizzard with everybody, and it was dead by the second Blizzard spell. With him out of the way, I continued up.
     Guess what the next theme was? Lovely, fun-time ice! It's not what you are thinking either! It's not a pile of slip and slide all over the place. They have piles of ice...spikes on the floor or something. I ran around getting all the chests I could see, and kept going up until I ran into...another mage! He had the same speech as the last one and transformed into...SURPRISE! An Ice Gigas. I got in the battle, flung Fire spells at him, and he went down without any form of a fight. The next floor's theme was!...not sure when I first entered. Honestly, the only clue is later on when you find some electrified floor panels that shock you. You eventually come face to face with Mage #3! He changes into a Thunder Gigas and attacks! Although it was an easy battle, he didn't go down as quick as the others because...I don't know what his weakness was. I tried several of them but nothing seemed to do the extra kick of weakness. With that going down, I just stuck to smacking the hell out of him until he fell. Now that is strategy!
     With the 3rd Gigas out of the way, I was hoping that it was the final one...and yay for me! It was! I continued upward, collected some more goodies, and finally made it to the top floor. Up there, I ran into Minwu, who seemed to be doing okay. He said that he was going to attempt to open the door by throwing all of his magic at it He's a White Wizard...nothing destructive about that. You are treated to a small scene of him unleashing a HADOKEN! right at the door. The door (after quite some time) explodes open, and Minwu is flung backwards. With the door opened, I was allowed to continue on. Inside the room was 5 orbs: 4 blue ones and a single yellow one. Picking up the blue orbs first, each one of them gives you a boost to Strength, Spirit, Intelligence, and Agility. Not sure why they choose those 4 over the other stats but whatever. After that, I grabbed the yellow orb which gives you the ultimate magic tome - Ultima. With the ultimate magic in hand, I headed back towards Fynn to figure out the next step.
     Upon arriving at Fynn, it appeared that something else might be wrong...The massive cyclone behind the castle MIGHT have been a hint at that. I went inside the castle and talked to Hilda and Gordon. Both claimed that the cyclone must be the work of the Emperor, but they were clueless how to get up there really. I mentioned the wyverns, and Hilda told me that wyverns are generally called using a pendent and a mirror. Apparently I had a pendent on hand (I forgot about it), and the castle had a fancy mirror that I had stumbled upon earlier. So with those things in mind...I went to the mirror, showed it the pendent, and cue cutscene! The mirror lights up, shows the egg, it hatches into a wyvern, and then...Ricard gets a wyvern. I put the time and effort into getting it, but then the game hands it over to the dragoon. Lame. Anyways, with the wyvern at my disposal, I am able to enter the cyclone..and finally take down the Emperor.
     I entered the cyclone. I was immediately treated to a small cutscene of the wyvern flying around and then into the cyclone. Emperor sure is something...has a fancy flying castle inside of a cyclone he can control. There's really not much to say about this dungeon other than branching paths and annoying enemies. The most annoying of which are vampire ladies. And yes, they are literally called vampire girls/ladies. Anyways, I proceeded to the top after multiple detours for treasure chests. You finally come face to face with the Emperor...after fighting 2 squads of Imperial Guards (super easy). After defeating them, he claims to have underestimated you, and that he will gladly take the pleasure of killing you now. Thus begins a boss battle with him defended by 2 Imperial Guards and a Wood Golem. Oh yeah, he's really taking care of business himself. Regardless, he and his lackies went down pretty fast with minimal damage to me. As he was dying, he yelled something about not really dying. Whatever. You are then whisked out of the cyclone-castle place and into the Fynn Castle! There you are treated to Princess Hilda thanking you for defeating the Empire and wining the war. After that, you are treated to a scene of...sprite dancing...and celebration! However, the scene is cut short.
     A guard rushes in and tells everybody that the Dark Knight has claimed the throne at Palamecia and is going to send the Palamecian Army to invade. Hilda asks your group to go to Palamecia and stop him. However...that would be hard considering it is in the mountains and inaccessible to normal means (makes you wonder how they get in and out). So I began by trying to find a means to leave...and after trying and finding nothing, I looked at a guide (I did it quite a bit this time...really tired of this one) and found that I needed to make a visit to Paul the thief. Paul had nothing to say, but he did have an unusual visitor...Cid. Cid was badly wounded and offered to loan me his airship. He crawled over to a bad and parted from the game. Poor, poor Cid. With Cid's airship at my disposal, I can easily enter Palamecia and defeat the Dark Knight, hopefully ending this game. Before doing this, I visited a few locations to restock and check some things. A short time later, I was heading for Palamecia.
     I landed in Palamecia and was immediately treated to a TRAP DOOR! This plummeted me down to the bottom of the castle, so I get to climb back up. Many, many monsters later, I come face to face with the Dark Knight (Yeah, I apologize for the speeding of up, but it is nearly the end of the game.) You find out at this point that the Dark Knight is most definitely the group's lost friend, Leon. He comes forward and starts talking about how the powerful must rule the weak (all that sort of stuff), and as he is just about to go further into the speech, the ground begins to rumble. Loud sounds and rumbling later, a demon-like figure appears on the throne. It's the Emperor himself! He has risen from hell as its leader with all-new super demon powers! He conjures up a ring of demon fire to kill the group, but Ricard leaps forward to hold him off! He tells the group to call the wyvern and go...goodbye Ricard. :[
     I am quickly returned to Castle Fynn where the group retells the details of the re-risen Emperor. It is obvious that our group needs to go back and kill him, but we don't have any way to get there. He raised Palamecia so that you can't get in by airship. However, some NPC-talkery later, I am told that there exists a passageway through hell to get to his newly risen castle. Another present problem is that the group has the Dark Knight/Leon with them. Hilda is unsure about it, but she left it up to the group of what to do with him. Of course, they let him stay. I stocked back up on everything I needed, visited a few locations to check things out, and bought a pile of spells for Leon (HE CAME WITH NOTHING BUT THE CLOTHES ON HIS BACK! /endallcaps). Along the way, the lady and child that were left at Deist told me that they would be leaving to go elsewhere. However, before she left, she handed over the fabled dragoon sword Excalibur! That's a nice treat. After a little leveling up for Leon, I proceeded into the depths of...the Jade Passage! (Actually kind of a cool name).
     The Jade Passage is said to lead into the very depths of hell itself! I traveled along battling stronger and stronger monsters as I went. Many of them were boss monsters and dragons that I hadn't previously seen before! It was a treacherous journey going to hell...although it wasn't too bad at this point. Before leaving Jade Passage, there is a awesome secret shop to visit! Under the water fall, I found a tome salesman with some really rare and powerful spells like Haste and Flare! I bought it up and filled up some of the final spots for my part. Too bad I got them so late in the game that they don't matter...anyways. A short distance later, I finally enter into hell's castle known as Pandaemonium! (Which I think is actually a really cool name!)
     Pandaemonium...the final dungeon of Final Fantasy 2. It's full of evil demon hellspawns and incredibly hard monsters. Most of them can be taken down pretty easily if you are prepared with the right spells and such, but I had a pretty big problem with a few ones. To single out my biggest problem, it was a monster known as a Death Rider. They didn't have much health, but they were able to do 1000s of damage per hit on characters, and they absorbed at least half of the damage they did back into them! A group of four took down my party with no problem. Thankfully, I saved right after entering Pandaemonium, but I was not up for another set of these guys. I looked up on a guide that their weakness was fire, so I became more aptly armed to their attack. I apologize for my guide looking up, but I'm ready to move on from this game! Many, many floors of winding passages, annoying yet hard enemies, but also kick-ass super equipment are present throughout this dungeon. You just have to love how they always give the best stuff when you are mere moments from finishing it. Referred to the guide (again), to help locate some of the best stuff, but most of it didn't come free. For the best armor stuff, I had to fight special mini-bosses. They weren't super hard, but many of them put up quite a fight. You climb and climb...with constant battles every 5 steps sometimes. Finally, I reached the final floor of Pandaemonium (Floor 10 if you were curious).
     It was finally time...for the final battle to end all battles! The evil superdemon hell king Dark Emperor was ready to crush the party and rule over everything. However, I was armed, dangerous, and ready to slay him! Unfortunately for me, I was a little TOO ready. I beat the Dark Emperor in 3 rounds...THREE ROUNDS! Apparently, if you happen to get this weapon known as the Blood Sword, you can take him down without trying. Each attack of the Blood Sword can do as much as 2500 damage to him WITHOUT adding any bonuses from Berserk, Haste, and so on. Now keep in mind, the Dark Emperor only has 10,000 HP. I would like to add that this was the most disappointing final boss battle ever. I could have redone it and made it harder without the Blood Sword, but I've honestly had my fill of this game. So, I went with it! The Emperor cries out as he is finally slain and disappears into nothingness. The Emperor (for the 2nd time) is dead, and the land can finally return to peace.
     The game comes to a nice little finale. Your group is greatly thanked by the multiple people you meet throughout the game. Hilda and Gordon are very grateful to finally have peace and plan to start rebuilding everything immediately. After getting a word in from just about everybody, your group finally takes their leave...and you are treated to a cut scene with some nicely worded bits followed by the ending credits.
Final Fantasy 2...is finally over! WOOOOOOO!

Ending Point - End of the Game! I beat it!
Goals Accomplished - Defeated the elemental gigas. Found Minwu. Obtained the Ultimate Magic Tome (Ultima). Entered the Cyclone and defeated the Emperor. Almost celebrated. Entered Palamecia and confronted the Dark Knight. Made it through the Jade Passage to Pandaemonium. Made it to the top of Pandaemonium. Defeated the Dark Emperor and beat the game!
Next Goals - Start Final Fantasy III on the DS!

Final Game Stats
40-1/2 hours of Gameplay
Levels Achieved...no idea. No real level system!
Overall Satisfaction...Insanely low. I have no plans of playing the Soul of Rebirth side-game dungeon thing you unlock when you beat it.

Final Side Note! - I will write up a review sometime soon. I will do my best to be friendly with the game review/final thoughts. My annoyance with the game came mainly from the large urge to want to finish it faster and get to later games.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~