Day 15

Game - Final Fantasy 2, Day 15
Hours Played/Hours Total - 6 hrs / 31 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby the city of Fynn.
Current Goal - Locate Mysidia. Discover what the Masks do. Figure out what happened to Minwu.

What Happened - Got another decently long session in here. Really hoping to finish this title up soon. Looking forward to some of the earlier Final Fantasy titles like 3 and 4. Anyways...
     Starting from Fynn, I had to find the city of Mysidia. The first and foremost problem with this was that I had no idea where it was. Thankfully, this version of the game comes with an accessible world map. With the world map in hand, I was able to determine places I haven't gone to yet. I immediately set sale for a location southwest of my current spot. Some sea travel and a little land travel later, I found the city of Mysidia. The best part of this town..the magic shop! This store contained almost all of the magic that was possible to buy in the game up to this point, and it even had some new spells including the fabled Holy spell! I bought it up and gave it to two of my three main people. Checked out the local weapon shop and armory for some better equipment. After talking to a few NPCs, I found out that I needed to head to the Cave of Mysidia.
     The cave wasn't too hard to find. I had already happened upon it while looking for the city, and so I began the dungeon crawl. However, this was stopped quickly when I ran into a doppelganger! It would have been a daring and interesting fight, but instead of that, it was a minor inconvenience. If I tried to talk to him, it would just do a set event where the characters walked around a bunch and then back to the beginning spot. Since I couldn't go any further, I went back to Mysidia to see if I missed something. Once back, I talked around to the NPCs some more. I hadn't paid attention the first time, and what I had missed was a goddess statue below the middle of town. I went to the statue and placed the White Mask on it. This started part 1 of what I assumed was a 2 part event. With the mask on the statue, I returned back to the Cave of Mysidia.
     Cave of Mysidia...take 2! I went back to the doppelganger, and now it gave me the option to actually DO something with it. I placed the Black Mask on the doppelganger, and it immediately disappeared. With it out of the way, I was able to continue my downward crawl to the bottom. The reason I was in the Cave of Mysidia was to retrieve a Crystal Rod so that I could gain access to Mysidia Tower. (Whole lot of Mysidia up in here!) Anyways, this was a relatively boring dungeon crawl (not that any have been super exciting). Almost all of the enemies in this dungeon were variations of the common Final Fantasy enemy Flan. Flan are giant blob monsters that are generally impervious, or highly defended, against physical attacks. This forces you to use magic on them. After traversing the cave, I was rewarded with the Crystal Rod! With the rod in hand, I teleported out and began the next step to journey to Mysidian Tower.
     The only tower I knew of was just north of my current location. Figuring that it was bound to be the correct one, jumped back on my ship and sailed northward. Just as I was getting close to the tower...the ship was swallowed up by a massive whirlpool. Oh noes! Not the giant whirlpool side plot! Your group wakes up (minus Leila) inside a weird cave...which turns out to be a giant sea monster! You have to crawl through the monster's insides...constantly running through acids (mostly assuming) and fighting off dastardly monsters. Many of the monsters were electrified fish, which I think would cause some major distress to a giant sea creature. Anyways, it's a small event dungeon, and only housed a couple areas, some nice treasure chests, a boss monster, random people, and a lost dragoon! That's right, inside the Leviathan (name of the monster I assume), you find the final, surviving Dragoon named Ricard. You tell him about what you are trying to do and about the status of his people. With these couple of things in mind, he joins your party and your cause. This would be totally awesome...if he came with dragoon-like abilities. Turns out, they gave you a incredibly weak and meh-ly equipped character that you get to raise from nothing. So...yay!
     Ricard informs you that you should be able to escape the Leviathan fairly easily, but you have to go through a large monster near the mouth to get out! This would be a problem if my main characters weren't greatly powered up. After checking a few more chests, I charged at the giant worm monster and began the battle. As usual, I got everybody buffed up one way or another and began my onslaught! A few rounds later, the worm went down. Right behind the worm, was a somehow-intact and working sailing ship. The group jumped on the ship and sailed right out of the Leviathan. That sure was easy...
     Now that I was out of the Leviathan, I continued towards the tower, used the Crystal Rod, and then began my descent to the top. As I was typing this, I remembered (and am going to remind) why I'm going up this tower. Apparently, this tower houses the Ultimate Magic tome at the top, which the rebellion hopes to use against the empire. However, it seems that the tome will wait a bit longer as I close up game for the night. I saved on the second floor and stopped there for now.

Ending Point - Mysidian Tower, 2nd Floor
Goals Accomplished - Found Mysidia. Obtained the Holy Spell! Found out what the masks do. Placed the White Mask on the goddess statue at Mysidia. Placed the Black Mask on the evil doppelganger in the Cave of Mysidia. Recovered the Crystal Rods at the bottom of the Caves of Mysidia. Escaped from the Leviathan. Found the final dragoon who joined my party. Opened and entered the Mysidian Tower.
Next Goals - Climb to the top of Mysidian Tower and obtain the Ultimate Magic Tome.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 14

Game - Final Fantasy 2, Day 14
Hours Played/Hours Total - 3-1/2 hrs / 25 hrs
Starting Point - City of Altair.
Current Goal - Join Princess Hilda and Prince Gordon in the uprising at Fynn.

What Happened - Really hoping that I'm getting ever so close to the end, but I have a bad feeling that I still lack quite a ways. Yet another post consisting of two days, this time it is more justified than the last since it was only 1 hour on the included extra day...
     I began from the city of Fynn, and I headed northward to a small camp where Hilda and Gordon were said to be. Right to the West of Galtrea, there's a new little spot that looks like a tent. Obviously their campsite, so I stepped in and ascertained my next move. The two of them didn't say too much, but they made a point that the rest of the troops would be a distraction while my team went in and killed the main guy who is currently in control of the castle. With my objective in mind, I charged towards the castle, climbed up, and challenged my opponent!...or at least, I did that after lots of exploring and enemy fighting. Turns out that the enemies were almost too powerful, and I even came close to dying a few times. Might have died one time, but I don't want to admit that directly.
     With the big boss guy dead (random shaman guy, he's dead so who cares!), the rebellion was able to take back over Fynn and reclaim the castle. With the castle in our possession, I'm one step closer to defeating the Empire and ,more importantly, beating this game. After getting it all cleared of soldiers and monsters, everybody moves back into the town of Fynn, and Hilda and Gordon take their place in the throne room. Kinda feel like I should be the one in the throne room considering I'm doing all this work. Whatever, with them back in control, Hilda has requested that I check on Mr. Minwu (white wizard from waaay earlier in the game). She requested that he venture to Mysidia (nation of magic peoples) to try and obtain the Ultimate Magic tome. He had been gone a long time, and people were starting to worry about him. However, before I went off to find out about him, I was told that I needed to find a pair of special masks. The Black Mask was said to be hidden somewhere unknown (already known to me! It was on a damn island.), and the White Mask was said to be hidden below Castle Fynn. I already accidentally obtained the Black Mask, so all I had to do was find the White Mask. Hilda told me the special words to say to open the passageway to the mask, but she didn't know WHERE the passageway was. Yay! Another find the right person quest!
     I wasn't completely without a clue of who to find of course. Hilda told me that the international super thief Paul would probably know where the passage was. I like how this guy always seems to have the answers or solutions to things. Random ass thief in the rebellion is all up on all the secrets, including ones that royalty doesn't apparently know. Anyways, I was almost afraid at that point because I had no clue where Paul was. Thankfully, he has a big house in Fynn (found by accident), and I was able to ask him what to do. After finding out the treasure was a boring mask, he told me to look behind the thrones. I looked behind the thrones for several minutes before checking a random corner where the ACTUAL location was. I spoke the special words, and the corner opened up the secret passage.
     With the passageway opened, I descended into the secret basement dungeon below Castle Fynn. Many monsters made this place their home. Annoying large amount if you ask me...but anyways. I slowly descended further and further. Checking all the rooms to find they were actually monster rooms. Monster rooms are empty rooms with nothing in them, and when you enter them, they throw you in the middle and force you to fight at least ONE battle before leaving. This is really annoying when you want to just explore the place. They are all over the game, but I just now took the time to mention and explain it. It is really not a fun room of any sort. After 5 floors of monsters, empty rooms, and treasure chests with crappy loot, I finally came to the final door. It lead into a room with no boss (thank you) and a single chest holding the White Mask. With the White Mask in hand, I ran to the back and teleported out of the castle.
     With both masks in hand, I talked to Hilda who told me to immediately make way to Mysidia. She figured that the mages there could figure out what the masks could do. With no idea where to find Mysidia, I restocked on all my basic items, bought the few new spells that Fynn had, and saved my game outside the town. I didn't really get as much done as I'd like, but any progress is better than none!

Ending Point - Nearby the city of Fynn.
Goals Accomplished - Take back Castle Fynn from the Empire. Locate and recover the White Mask and Black Mask. Already recovered the Black Mask. Found the secret basement dungeon in Castle Fynn. Recovered the White Mask. Began journey for Mysidia.
Next Goals - Locate Mysidia. Discover what the Masks do. Figure out what happened to Minwu.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 13

Game - Final Fantasy 2, Day 13
Hours Played/Hours Total -  5-1/2 hrs / 21-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Inside the Tropical Cave.
Current Goal - Locate Deist and recruit the Dragoon's help.


What Happened - INSERT CATCHY FIRST LINE HERE!
     I began this day's journey inside the tropical cave. I don't know why I'm here, but I decided to move on with it anyways. I began my descent downward...grabbing all the chests and fighting off the monsters. This was a fun dungeon. Had lots of branching pathways that led to different spots. Along the way, I somehow managed to end up in some sort of tropical village place. There was a group of NPCs with masks on wondering how I got there and more importantly why I WASN'T wearing a mask. I talked around and eventually located a couple of them selling items. Most of what they had was generic use items, but one of them had some new weapons and armor! I didn't buy a lot, but I upgraded a few members with some demonic weapons! A couple of these masked people mentioned something about a Black Mask near the bottom of the cave, and how I should leave it alone. Of course, that made me want it even more!
     After a little backtracking, I began down another path in the cave. After two more extra paths worth of random crap, I finally made it to the bottom chamber for...THE BOSS BATTLE! Wasn't too much of a boss battle though, it was composed of 4 blue monster rhinos. I spent most of the battle using my new lower level spells (Scourge, Berserk, and Blind) so that I could gain some more levels on them and buffing my characters to do more damage. Once I actually started attacking, they were falling left and right. I finished the battle with minimal effort and claimed the Black Mask! Now I can...leave this dungeon because I didn't need to go through it anyways. Unlike other places, it gave me a nice warp out of there.
     Now back on the surface, I jumped on my ship and re-began my search for Deist. They told me it was on an island, so I had figured it was there. That was obviously not the case. Unfortunately for me, I forgot they also made mention of it being near a snowy region. Only snowy region I can see on the map was way up north, and lucky me, there was only one island nearby the snowy region, so I set sail for there. Just like the first Final Fantasy, you get random encounters with fish flopping themselves on your ship as well as random pirates jumping from nowhere! Realistically, I could just be running into other ships, but then how do you explain the fish? Anyways, I made it to the island with no real trouble. On the island was a castle...and upon setting foot on/in it, I discovered that I had finally found Deist.
     Inside Deist, I began my search for the fabled dragoons and their wyverns. However, the only people you find is a mother and her child. They are the last remaining survivors of Deist, along with a single wyvern. This would seem like a great thing, but you can't even talk to it. The women mentions that one of the dragoon pendents would allow you to speak with it, and she remembers that a group of them were in a cave up north. With this new intel, I left Deist and began my travels northward to the cave. It was a very short trip, and then I stepped inside the Deist Cavern.
     Another lovely multi-path fest! Being unsure as usual where to go, I picked a path and went with it. I guess that's realistically the only way to find the right path without checking on a guide. Lucky for me, the very first path I took lead straight to a random helmet on the ground. Turns out that it was a dragoon's helmet and among the remains was a pendent! Yaaay! Decided I'd do so more searching since I hadn't seen everything yet. The first path lead to a mostly dead end with some nifty new items in chests. The monsters in here weren't really that powerful, but many of them were getting increasingly annoying as I had to conserve my magic more and more. It didn't help that I'm pretty stingy with items, so I wouldn't use any of my Ethers or Potions when I probably should have (despite having 99 of normal and Hi Potions). Anyways...I went back to the top and took the final path. Turns out that it lead to the final area of this dungeon with a BOSS BATTLE! Another classic and un-epic boss battle, courtesy of Final Fantasy 2. Spent most of the battle buffing everything to up some spell levels, but I finished with a finale of killing them all with no real trouble. Behind the chimera was some form of green pool. With nothing to do with this, I returned to Deist.
     With the pendent in hand, I approached the wyvern...only to be saddened and disappointed. It, like all the others, had succumb to the poison the empire had spread. It was dying soon, but it had a wyvern egg in...wing. It handed it over to me and told me to place it in the pool at the bottom of Deist Cavern. Yay for backtracking! Of course, I already beat the boss, so it was a really quick trip. The group drops the egg into the green water spring and then takes their leave. With everything settled up here, I visited Deist one last time to find that the wyvern had passed on. With nothing more to do here, I set sail back to Altair.
     Back in Altair, everything was normal...except Princess Hilda. Apparently she had been acting funny recently, and so I decided to investigate. Upon talking to her, she wishes to speak to Firion alone...cue awkward moment. She jumps on her bad and asks Firion to come closer. He's all like O_O...>_< Then she transforms into a giant snake-lady (lamia for FF, yuan-ti for D&D) ready to attack, but the rest of the crew rushes in and BOSS BATTLE! Not too impressive, my overleveled status (I think?) helped in putting down this snake lady for good. Of course, that does ask...where is the REAL Hilda? Turns out that the empire had her captured, and she's being given away as a prize in the Colosseum. Now that is a twist!...also kind of weird. Gordon jumps back in your party to help you. Anyways, after talking to some NPCs for the Colosseum's location, I jumped on my ship and sailed southward! With the world being fairly small and easy to travel around by sea, I made it to the Colosseum quite swiftly. Upon entering, you find that it is quite a small place. I ran upward to the stairs, when..things happen! Gates drop down and close all the exits. The Emperor makes his presence known and opens a large cage to your left, and then the battle begins.  This time, it was the infamous Behemoth. The Behemoth is a fairly staple FF monster in the series. I'm not sure how many of them it is in...but whatever. Not posing too much of a challenge, just another spell fest plus buffing for spell levels. As he went down, the game tells you "Now is your chance to kill the Emperor!," and so the group heads up the stairs when the he basically yells "trap!" A couple soldiers and the Dark Knight pops out and capture you.
     The party wakes up in a jail cell guarded by a single soldier. Walking around the cell...there's no escape that way. However, when I approached the bars, the guard starts moving back and forth as a character comes along the side of the cell and takes down the guard. Turns out that it was Paul, a travelling thief, who has saved you in return for saving him way earlier in the game. With my release, I began my escape! The enemies were stepped up a notch as well compared to those outside. The main problem ones were the wizard/sorcerer types that were constantly casting super spells. Good thing I had restocked on all my items when I was in Altair. On the way up, you finally rescue and reunite with Hilda. The group has Gordon take her back to Altair while you distract the guards (What guards?). With Hilda rescued, you are free to leave the Colosseum.
     With the Colosseum behind me, I decided to make my way back to Altair for my next mission. However, before heading back, I took some time to gain more levels in the nearby desert. Spent around an hour there...man, am I tired of the leveling up process in this game. Feels like you do dozens of battles with very little results. Regardless, after I took what felt like enough time, I made my way back to Altair and decided to stop there for now.

Ending Point - City of Altair.
Goals Accomplished - Obtained the Black Mask. Found Deist. Retrieved the pendent. Talked to the Wyvern. Placed the Wyvern Egg in the Life Spring. Found the Colosseum and rescued Princess Hilda. More level up time.
Next Goals - Join Princess Hilda and Prince Gordon in the uprising at Fynn.


Side Note - This actually consisted of a couple days of small play sessions, but I didn't feel like there was enough to be worth posting. So...yeah, apologies about the really long post.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Side Post!

Figured I should do a sort of side post here and there when I feel like it.
Today's side post will be about....favorite Final Fantasy character!

     Over the years, I have played several Final Fantasy games, but I've truly only finished a few of them up until now. As the series has gone on, many of them have left behind large and memorable characters that many, many, MANY fans have come to know and love. The first title gave us the memorable Black Mage! Although he doesn't have any form of character or personality in-game, I like to imagine the Black Mage as the Black Mage from 8-bit Theater. He's evil, all-powerful, and out to kill anything generally just for kicks. Thus, I named all my heroes in FF1 after the characters as such. It helped make them feel more memorable to me than giving them lame regular names or stupid complicated ones. Not dissing those that do...but I felt more connected and characteristic with their not-really-name names!

     As far as I've always been concerned, I rarely like the main person in these titles. Cloud and Squall were kind of lame. Cloud was constantly just kinda bleh and un-decisive. Squall just felt like Mr. DepressedAngst. I'd basically just say that I'm more for the side characters than the lead guy, which brings me to my still favorite Final Fantasy character....Vivi!

     Back when I first played Final Fantasy 9, I remember the fondness of playing as the little guy during the beginning. FF9 had this thing where you constantly jumped around on different characters. Throughout the game, you'd jump onto different main characters and play them for periods of time. Honestly, I always liked going around as different characters and seeing what was happening to them while the other guys were doing their thing. They also had active events that would more or less randomly occur while you are playing. It would give you a small glimpse at what other characters were doing, namely NPCs...ANYWAYS!

     Vivi always felt like the innocent little guy who was just trying his best to be wanted by everybody. Although he was mostly sad, he mainly wanted to fit in, have friends, and learn what he was. I won't go into it a lot more as to avoid spoilers. I'd highly suggest Final Fantasy 9 though! Part of the triple-play PSOne Final Fantasy classics! It's also a more classic aimed Final Fantasy, going more for fantasy than sci-fi stuffs. Vivi was the kick-ass little Black Mage as well! Next to Quina, he was probably the most useful battle character in the game! If you were able to get him even just a portion of his spells, he'd really shine in battle. Not to mention his Trance ability! It allowed him to double cast during his turn! You could cast two flare spells OR a fire and then an ice spell on your opponents! Overall, just really loved Vivi...

     Sure, I could go into more details, but I can honestly say I don't really have any. My love for the character that is Vivi is kinda simple and straightforward. He was just mysterious and sad. Always tried his best for the group, and in the end, he just really appealed to me.

Couple of side notes in this post as well!

Side Note 1 - For those curious about the image, all the characters in FF9 had an image that would show up like that if you wanted at the game's main menu. I even made a custom wallpaper that had all 8 characters pictures in it a loooong time ago! I'll go ahead and put up both versions I made for anybody who would possibly want it. It's nothing special, but I felt it came out at okay.

Daniel's FF9 Super Wallpaper Collection!

Side Note 2 - Not really something important, but I thought I'd add that I now own all but ONE of the Final Fantasy main titles! I just recently bought Final Fantasy X, X-2, and 12 on the cheap. I could have gotten them cheaper, but I prefer real cases for my games AND want them to work. And YES, I know I bought X-2, but it was a pair deal and kind of want X-2. I won't be playing through it for the blog, but I'll probably glimpse over it to talk about and rate the game. The only title I lack now is Final Fantasy 13. However, if by some chance the newest one releases before I get done with 13, I'll end up buying that one as well. Going to hope it's a good one because I haven't heard good things about 13...

Side Note 3 - BECAUSE I CAN! I'm considering some of the extra side titles (like X-2), but it wouldn't feel right to do some of the extras and not all of them. Hopefully by the time I go through them all, I'll have at least 3-5 supporters on here. I'll probably ask and/or have them vote at that point. I'll probably consider at least 2 of the off titles.

Now that I'm all said and done...any of my viewers that possibly exist want to share THEIR favorite Final Fantasy character? :O

Day 12

Game - Final Fantasy 2, Day 12
Hours Played/Hours Total - 4 hrs / 16 hrs
Starting Point - Outside the Town of Fynn.
Current Goal - Level up abilities a lot. Rescue Princess Hilda and Cid aboard the Dreadnought. Destroy the Dreadnought.

What Happened - What started off as just some side time leveling up turned into a large session with some actual goals completed!
     During all this leveling up, I found out a horrible truth...It turns out I have ruined one of my characters (the lady, Maria), and now she is waaay behind the other 2 main people in total HP. She has around 300ish while the other two are double (Firion) and TRIPLE (Guy) that. Guess how you get more HP? You have to get hit, and in the process, I'm assuming you have to survive said hit. This can be fairly hard if she dies by the first hit and then goes immediately down. Every time she goes down, I have to waste a turn reviving, healing, and then rebuffing her. This became a constant process during the training process. Thankfully, after about 2 hours of training here (and around 2 hours last post), I managed to have my characters at a fairly satisfactory skill levels.
     Although not 100% what I wanted to be at, I was ready to move on with the game. I've been getting really antsy lately about wanting to get to the next title! Really looking forward to the PS1 titles~ Moving along, I began the trip north of Fynn to locate the Dreadnought. It was a long but uneventful walk. A short time later, I came upon the supply depot where the dreadful Dreadnought was currently stationed. From a previous experience of entering the Dreadnought, I showed the special item Pass to the front guard. He let me pass by without a battle. I could have taken him, but I decided to not waste any MP that I didn't need to. With that done, I began my search of the Dreadnought. Unfortunately, my luck lead me towards taking the long way to beating this.
     The first thing I did was immediately charge upward and onward! After many, many random battles and fair amount of time later, I arrived at the Dreadnought's engine room. However, you aren't allowed to blow up the engine until you rescue Cid and Hilda. Lucky me! I got to backtrack aaaall the way back to the beginning and find the side path leading to the prison cells where the two were being held. It seems that I just barely walked past where they were held...was not happy about that. Regardless, after talking to them, Cid grabs Hilda and goes to wait on his ship while your group blows up the ship. I retraced my steps back to the engine room and tossed the Sunfire into the engine. A few moments later, the engine begins to catch fire, and as it really begins to roar, the Black Knight walks in and yells at you for doing that. Of course, I'd be pretty pissed too if a bunch of rambunctious kids just blew up MY giant super airship! As your group runs to escape, you are treated to a cutscene of the Dreadnought catching fire and beginning to blow up. You are whisked out of the burning Dreadnought by Cid and his airship. He flies you back to Altair and flies off into the distance.
     With the Dreadnought destroyed, you check into Altair to discover...not going to say. I'm going to try and avoid a lot more spoilers, although I'm currently failing at that. Gorden leaves your group and takes control of the Rebellion, and he gives you the task of travelling to Deist. Deist is some sort of island nation for the dragoons (Woo! Dragoons!) and wyverns (Hellz yeah! Dragons baby~). Although it is said that the empire wiped them out, some believe that someone is bound to have survived. Gorden suggests taking a ship from Paloom to try and reach Deist, so I took off with my party and made way for Paloom. Paloom appeared to be its normal self except that it had ONE new citizen. I approached this person, and they claimed that they would take me to Deist for free (Ah the obvious trap...very nice). Maria immediately voices her suspicion about this character, but Firion points out that it is the only way to get to Deist. With the obvious trap to come, you head out of Paloom and jump on the ship. The ship moves crazy slow and southward until...the crew turns out to be pirates! The lady who offered the trip (Leila) is the captain of a pirate group. She claims that she will spare your life but not your valuables, and so the pirates attack you.
     The battle was more than just any pushover...it was the ULTIMATE pushover! They couldn't even hurt my party, so we easily took them down with no trouble. As you finish the battle, Leila gives herself up to your character's decisions. Of course, they decide to recruit her and her pirate crew to help the resistance. Despite having some of their crew killed in front of them, they all jump on the resistance bandwagon and Leila fills in the 4th slot of your party. Huzzah! We now have a ship! With the ship at your control, you are able to go to Deist. Which is what I plan to do...when I play next time. I thought I had made it there, but I landed on a random island with a cave called Tropical Cave. Feeling I accomplished enough for now, I set up camp and saved my game just inside the cave.

Ending Point - Inside the Tropical Cave.

Goals Accomplished - Leveled up! Rescued Princess Hilda and Cid. Destroyed the Dreadnought. Obtained a sea ship!
Next Goals - Locate Deist and recruit the Dragoon's help.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 11

Game - Final Fantasy II, Day 11
Hours Played/Hours Total - 4-1/2 hrs / 12 hrs
Starting Point - Snow Cavern - B4
Current Goal - Finish the Snow Cavern and obtain the Goddess Bell.

What Happened - Been several days since I last played, so I'm hoping to get some real progress done today!
     So I begin right in the middle of a dungeon. I always hate beginning/ending in the middle of a dungeon, regardless of size. Anyways, I start on the forth floor and continue downwards. A few floors and some treasure chests later, I run into a group of...giant beavers. If you think that's a bit much, then the next part gets better! Apparently, you can talk to one of the beavers, and your party member (big guy named Guy) happens to SPEAK beaver... Yeah, I got nothing to add to that ludicrousness. You ask the beaver about the Goddess Bell, and he reveals to Guy that it is hidden nearby through a secret passageway in the room. He also warns of it being guarded by a giant monster. One small winding passage later, you come face to face with an adamantoise.
     I honestly thought this boss would be a pushover (he mostly was), but I did have a small scare near the beginning of the battle. You see...the adamantoise is a turtle-based monster (obviously ._.), and with that in mind, he has an insane physical defense. I didn't even remotely consider that, and my party was almost completely depleted of MP. Figured I could essentially beat him to death, but I soon found out that nobody in the party (except the guest member Josef) could hurt him with their weapons. Josef was bare handed. :| Thankfully, I had just enough MP to cast a handful of spells and kill the beast. With the beast gone, I grabbed the Goddess Bell behind him, which opened a staircase to the first floor, and headed for the entrance. At the entrance, you come face to face with a certain empire soldier named Borghen. He appeared a few times earlier, but I didn't mention him because he seemed unimportant. He attacks the party as you try to leave.
     I was about to be angry at this as well. Just luckily finished off the Adamantoise, and now I had NO MP left to deal with this guy. Thankfully, Josef gave him a good slap across the face and defeated him right on the first turn. The party walks around Borghen and prepares to leave. Borghen gets back up, yells something about taking us with him, and then collapses. A section of the wall opens up and a boulder flies out towards the party. Just as it is about to crush them, Josef holds the boulder back and helps the rest of you escape. Unfortunately, this was done without Josef. Sad time. T_T
     With the sadness in my heart (kinda?), I head back towards Altair to report in. Hilda and company are saddened by Josef's loss, but they all must go on and persevere, lest his sacrifice be in vein. I also took this time to restock items and buy some fancy mythril armor! Feels so nice to finally have better armor, not like it'd really help, but it is better than nothing. With myself refitted and resupplied, I made my journey back to the town of Poft to find Cid. You have to use Cid's airship to get to Kashuan, which is located on a far southern continent. He drops you off directly in front of the abandoned kingdom of Kashuan. I immediately ran inside, and after presenting the Goddess Bell to the door, you are allowed entry to search for something to contain the Sunfire. Just inside of the shrine, you run into Prince Gordan. He's apparently decided to man up and try and help out. He was here looking for the Egil's Torch, which can be used to hold Sunfire. He is afraid and unable to look by himself, so he has joined the party as to assist in the search.
     During my search of Kashuan Keep (what it is actually called), I ran all around with the same predicament as last time becoming imminent. I used too much MP during the first bit and was nearly depleted by the time I made it to the top. Thankfully, most of the enemies weren't anything too tough to deal with. However, I would like to complain that APPARENTLY it was okay to throw a few Adamantoise against me. An enemy that only briefly beforehand was considered boss material, and this time, I didn't really have any MP to spend on it. A large number of physical attacks later, it did go down but not without a decent fight. I proceeded a few more floors upward, and then I found the Egil's Torch!... Of course, it was placed in a chest behind a boss. Can't make it TOO easy now! It was a giant fire-y creature called a Red Soul apparently. I leaped into battle with the Red Soul and was immediately met with a nasty surprise. Turns out that Red Soul absorbs any magic thrown at it and was highly resistant to physical attacks. Yaaaay for me! On top of that, it was able to cast level 8 magic spells, and I'm just lucky that I cast a Shell spell on everybody and was able to resist the still fairly damaging magic. However, regardless of these conditions, it did go down with lots and lots of physical attacks.
     With the Red Soul defeated, I was able to claim the Egil's Torch! With the Egil's Torch in hand, I cast Teleport (best spell to learn EVER) and left Kashuan Keep behind...for the moment. Upon arriving outside, I re-entered and captured the Sunfire with the Egil's Torch. Now onward to blow up the massive Dreadnought! Or I would be, but as soon as you leave the confines of the Kashuan Keep, you are treated with a lovely little cutscene. You see Cid's airship and the Dreadnought flying overhead. You also see the Dreadnought's lower bay open and a claw reaching for the Cid's airship...just imagine the opening of Star Wars: A New Hope. With that said and done, I made my way back to Altair (should just call it home base I guess). Back in Altair, everybody is freaking out over the airship capture...because Princess Hilda was on it. After talking to a few people (most completely worthless), one old man plus Minwu inform you that the airship has a resupply base somewhere north of Fynn. With this in mind, I decided it was time to hit the old cliche and "rescue the princess". I did however run into one really large problem...
     Turns out I'm crazy under leveled or something because all of the new enemies I run into are able to easily take me down without trying. With that in mind, I looked up a guide about what it takes to level up some of your abilities. Seems I have been going about it aaaaall wrong. You are supposed to make battles last as long as you can because certain abilities only go up by chance if the right conditions are met. With this in mind, I have begun what is going to be a large amount of farming battles. Which isn't easy considering the normal enemies around are too easy, and the other, new enemies I found are ridiculously hard. Thankfully, after a bit of travelling around, I remembered something about Fynn. The soldiers there are insanely hard, but they are beatable. It's also close to the nearby rural town of Gatrea (for healing purposes). And thus begins my ongoing farming for money and leveling up. After about an hour and a half of this, I decided to quit there for the night. My next goal (after hefty leveling up) will be to charge into the Dreadnought and rescue the princess!...also possibly Cid.

Ending Point - Outside the town of Fynn.

Goals Accomplished - Retrieve the Goddess Bell. Got to Kashuan Keep. Retrieved the Egil's Torch. Obtain Sunfire using the Egil's Torch. Began Training for Dreadnought battle stuffs.
Next Goals - Level up abilities a lot. Rescue Princess Hilda and Cid aboard the Dreadnought. Destroy the Dreadnought.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 10

Game - Final Fantasy 2, Day 10
Hours Played/Hours Total - 3 hrs / 7-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - City of Altair
Current Goal - Destroy the Dreadnought.

What Happened - It always feels like not much happened, but by the time I finish typing this post, it'll end up taking a massive amount of space...so let's go!
     Began inside the City of Altair, Princess Hilda just asked me to go and destroy the terrifying Dreadnought. Keep in mind, the main characters in this game are supposed to be "kids." I dunno how young they are, but let's assume somewhere around 16-18. She is asking a pile of young adults to go and destroy a massive airship of death. Isn't this some massive resistance? Can she not ask someone waaaay more qualified? Apparently not...and of course, there wouldn't be much of a story without it. Moving along, you start your journey to the town of Bafsk to destroy the Dreadnought and free the enslaved townsfolk being forced to build it. This game sure likes to make you journey back and forth across the world...
     One trip across the game world later, I arrived in Bafsk to save the day! First thing you do is...look around town I guess. With a little looking and talking around, you find out that one of the knights is actually a rebel spy. You find a separate knight from the group and give him the code word of Wild Rose. He immediately reveals that there's a pathway in the corner of town that'll take you to the Dreadnought. (Of course, he's been blocking it this entire time.) You journey down into a sewer dungeon, which is always the best way of sneaking into somewhere...through the sewer! Not necessarily the largest dungeon but a dungeon nonetheless. A small journey inwards later you come face to face with...THE DARK KNIGHT! He tells you that you are too late and that the Dreadnought is already complete. He leaves you with a simple warning that your next meeting he will not be so kind. He takes leave, and your group follows behind him to the surface. You are treated to a small cutscene showing the Dreadnought taking off. I guess that means your mission was a big ol' failure.
     After that, you travel back down into the sewers and proceed right. You enter a room with an item referred to as "Pass", which is apparently some item for letting yourself on the Dreadnought. Moving along, as you head back to Altair after the failed mission, you might notice some changes if you step into any of the towns. Poft, Paloom, and a large portion of the other towns appear to have been attacked and bombed by the Dreadnought. Apparently they decided to go on the dark side and claim that any NPC who isn't there now is currently DEAD. That's pretty grim if you ask me. You make it back to Altair to find out that anybody outside of any buildings is now dead. You talk to Hilda and find out that the King (who is currently sick and dying) is getting worse. Minwu, being a white wizard and all, leaves your group to help ease the king's passing. Back to the original trio of people, you are tasked with trying to destroy the Dreadnought. If you did any looking around and talking to people during your trip back, hopefully you talked to Cid. Cid reveals that the Dreadnought is most likely running on Sunfire, a substance that would easily DESTROY the ship if it were allowed to overheat. You inform Hilda of this, and you are tasked with locating and retrieving some Sunfire.
     With some new word learning and a bit of talking to the King, you find out that the Sunfire is locked in a place that requires something called the Goddess Bell to get to. Hilda tells you that the Goddess Bell is hidden somewhere in a northern icy cave and suggests you talk to Josef (guy who requested I helped the people in the mine's waaay back there). More travelling! Upon meeting with Josef, he informs you that he knows how to get to the cave but requires a snowcraft to get to. Thankfully (of course), he has a snowcraft you can use and offers you his assistance in getting to the cave and retrieving the bell. For some reason, he hid the snowcraft in the Semitt Falls, and you get to make a side trip to retrieve it. Not a hard trip but it is out of the way. After a detour to retrieve the snowcraft, you being your journey northward to places with snow!
     Upon touching the snowy land, you immediately jump into the snowcraft (which looks like a boat made for travelling on snow) and head eastward for the snowy cave. Along the way, your group picks fights with snow monkeys and ice crystals (Exaggeration but still true). What seems way too far east later, you locate and descend into the Snow Cavern. I guess it is just standard to have at least ONE ice/snow-based dungeon in RPGs and games in general. You proceed to descend into the icy cave of mystery and begin searching for the Goddess Bell. Of course, as these games go, you aren't really searching for it so much as trying to reach the bottom where it is going to be. It'd be funny if an RPG was like "search this cave for this!" and it turns out that 'this' was like 5 feet inside the entrance. It'd be stupid lazy but hopefully funny at the same time. Although I could have finished the dungeon tonight, I took too long trying to grab all the chests. A few of them require some alternate paths with backtracking, but it seemed to be worth it so far. Although it feels wrong stopping mid-dungeon, I did it anyways. I'll hopefully pick up sometime tomorrow and finish up some more!

Ending Point - Snow Cavern - B4

Goals Accomplished - Traveled a lot. Failed to blow up the Dreadnought. Learned some new words. Obtained the snowcraft. Made it to the Snow Cavern.
Next Goals - Finish the Snow Cavern and obtain the Goddess Bell.

Side Note - I apologize for some poorly written-ness that took place in this post. I'm trying to write what all happens without revealing everything? Kind of hard to do with any form of RPG with a story... I'll try and do better writing in the future, but I'll make no guarantees!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 9

Game - Final Fantasy II, Day 9
Hours Played/Hours Total - 4-1/2 hrs / 5-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Village of Galtrea
Current Goal - Deliver the message to Altair.

What Happened - Blargh, this is going to be kinda un-fun. To put it simply, I don't really like the level up system. It's a cool concept and has been used in games around now...but still can be un-fun. Onwards to the game talkery!
     The journey began from Galtrea, which is only a small distance from Altair. One small trip later, I'm back in the starting town and talked to Hilda. You show her the ring and plot happens. Seeing that you managed to make it to the town of Fynn and did so with little trouble, she decides you are qualified to join the rebel movement. With your newly acquired rebel status, she makes a request for your group to find mythril for the movement. Apparently the rebels are having trouble fighting the empire since they have better weapons and armor. She sends you eastward with the character Minwu (guy who healed you in the beginning) and his canoe. It seems that Minwu is the Keeper of the Canoe (I'm joking...but still seems silly). Fun thing about Minwu is that he joins your party with multiple levels in skills already! He comes with a large array of white magic in tow, and I believe he has all of it. :D
     With Minwu and his fancy canoe, you can travel eastward to the port city of Paloom (great name -_-). At Paloom, you can take a boat northeastward to Poft (another classic!). The reason for heading to Poft is to locate a man named Cid (a staple character in the Final Fantasy starting with this one actually!). Cid owns an airship which you can charter to fly all over. Unfortunately for me, I forgot which city I had to go to for the mythril. With a little internet looking up cheatery, found out that I needed to head towards Salamand. Of course, this was after about an hour of grinding. For those unfamiliar to the term grinding (probably nobody that reads this), grinding is the slang for wasting time in an RPG by trying to just get in constant battles for experience, money, and items. I was mostly doing it for the money. Constantly feel like I'm really, really poor in this game. Of course, without any real level, it can be hard to know if/when you are ready to go on. After the grinding for money, I finally set air-sail for Salamand.
     Salamand is a northern winter city. There's not too much to have/see there, but if you walk around, you eventually find one unmarked house. Considering there aren't too many unmarked houses in this game so far, I'm figuring any unmarked house is important somehow. I went inside and talked to a man who wouldn't tell or give me anything until I helped out the people being forced to work in a mine. With the new information in mind (and some new equipment), I began the journey to the mine known as Semitt Falls. Semitt Falls is essentially the first dungeon you get to delve into. From previous attempted playthrough, I remembered it as being a fairly tough place. However, with my earlier level grinding, I made it through with very little trouble. Saved the people and defeated the soldier at the bottom guarding the mythril. With the mythril in hand, I immediately set course back towards Altair. Once there, I completely ignored running to Hilda and went to the blacksmith instead. Handed over the mythril to him, and he immediately got to work.
     A brief time later...he told me I could now purchase mythril weapons in his shop. What the fuck is this shit? Seriously, I do all that and have to PAY for the equipment. I think that's just in poor taste if you ask me. Whatever, I guess I just have to get over that. With the quest more or less done, I finally proceeded to talk to Hilda again. She tells me that the next mission for our group is to destroy (or at least hinder) the Dreadnought. Deciding I had put enough time in, I went ahead, saved, and quit for the evening. Not necessarily very eventful, but at least I finally got some progress in!

Ending Point - City of Altair.

Goals Accomplished - Delivered the message to Hilda. Became a rebel member. Gained Minwu and his canoe. Found my way to Paloom and then to Poft. Flew towards Salamand. Rescued the slaves from Semitt Falls. Obtained mythril.
Next Goals - Destroy the Dreadnought.

Side Note - Yeah, I took a bit too long to get back to this. Final Fantasy 2 is not being very fun (again, I blame the level up system). I got several days off though, and I hope to make more progress over the next several days. Hoping I can finish it before the end of the month. Should be pretty simple if I keep at it.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 8

Game - Final Fantasy II, Day 8
Hours Played/Hours Total - 1 hr / 1 hr
Starting Point - Beginning of the Game.
Current Goal - Figure out what to do.

What Happened - So, I took a few days away from the mission, but I finally got started back up today. Not only started back up, but starting on Final Fantasy II. Apologies for long post now.
     As the game opens, you are immediately thrust into battle! Which goes pretty well considering you have a total party kill. This would be disappointing, but it is a set event in the game. You are treated to a small cut scene of sorts showing your characters (minus a missing 4th one) being dragged off by hopefully a group of saviors. A small time later, your characters come to, and you start finding out what is going on. Unlike the first Final Fantasy, you are given a random group of characters that you are allowed to build as you see fit. See the Levels Achieved near the bottom of this post for more information. You can name them whatever or let them have the true name designed into the game/story. I went ahead and let them keep their names. (Firion is the main guy's name.)
     The basic plot so far involves some sort of an "empire" taking over all of the free world as we know it at the moment. There's mentioning of a "Dreadnought" that we can assume is some form of a giant war airship. Your group wakes up in a city occupied by some form of rebels (called Altair). They request to join the rebels, and the leader of the movement (Princess Hilde) declines your request. With that done, your group apparently decides to head back to their hometown that they were chased out of during the beginning bit (when they got killed). So the adventure begins!
     Couple of things I should mention. In addition to the different level up system (again, refer to the Levels Achieved down below), the game runs on some form of a word learning system. Basically, as you talk to specific people, you can learn specific key words which in turn can be used in conversations to trigger events and differing conversaions. What does this mean overall? I have to talk to almost everybody I can to make sure I learn any and all key words so that I can move on in the game. Some words also give you access to different services and such. I really don't know this game very well. I only briefly have played Final Fantasy 2 before on the GBA remake (Dawn of Souls). Overall, it'll be an interesting experience. Back to the game...
     Before leaving the initial town, I went shopping and picked up some potions as well as filling up holes in the characters armor spots (gloves, hats, and shields mostly). With that done, I head out into the wild to find the next location. With just a handful of battles, my characters have already gained levels in their initial weapons (Firion has a sword, other two have a box and axe) as well as their health (Yes, you get to level up their health...have to get hit to get more health in the end =/ ). With that said and done, I begin searching around for another town. A short ways north, I ran into a small village, called Gatrea, with not much to it. Someone mentioned something about the city across the lake (Fynn). One short restock of potions later, I'm back on the road. However, before I got too far, I accidentally ran into too powerful enemies that killed everybody. Ten minutes in and I've already got a Game Over.
     Thankfully I did save before leaving the town so this was only a moderate setback. I also found out the initial town has a magic shop. You can basically buy whatever magic for whoever you want. I gave everybody the Cure spell as well as one black elemental spell each (Fire, Thunder, Blizzard. The classics!). Unfortunately, you get the fun task of leveling up spells as well. At first level, they only cost 1 MP to use and are quite potent, but as they level up, they start costing more and more. Not too far along with those yet, but it'll surely be un-fun until I get more MP (hopefully quick to follow with continued magic use).
     Moving along, I took some more time to level up my abilities. After that, I retried the trip to Fynn, while avoiding the higher leveled monster area, and managed to make it without dying. Upon entering Fynn, you discover it is covered in Empire Soldiers. If you get too close to them, they'll kick you out of the city. Not too hard really, however it is quickly obvious that nobody is left in town, and that you can still get into random monster battles in the streets. If you look around (and listened to some NPCs earlier), you'll eventually make your way to the town pub. Inside the pub, it is crawling with soldiers (they won't mess with you unless you talk to them). You talk to the guy in the back, give him the rebel group code word (Wild Rose), and he tells you about a wounded soldier in the back. Turns out that soldier was a prince by the name of Scott. He tells you plot-related stuffs and gives you his ring. From here, I believe I'm supposed to head back to Altair. After exiting the city, I headed back south towards Altair, but I decided to stop for the day at Galtrea.
   

Ending Point - Village of Galtrea.
Levels Achieved - I'll post it with this day, but I won't post it again til the next game. Pardon the long explanation that is going to follow.
     Final Fantasy 2 doesn't work on a character level system. Instead of the character having a level, they gain levels in specific categories. Apparently everything in the game is a category! You can level up weapon abilities, spells (individually not a group), shields, health, mana, and even your stat abilities (strength, stamina, etc). Meaning that this game will not be fun to figure out when I can/should move on.
Going to be a lot of leveling of abilities.

Goals Accomplished - Started Final Fantasy II. Figured out what to do. Bought items and new equipment. Gained some weapon and magic levels. Made it to Fynn. Got a message and ring from Prince Scott. Began travelling back to Altair.
Next Goals - Deliver the message to Altair.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Final Fantasy - Final Thought

My Final Thought on Final Fantasy 1


Here we are, my first goal in a line of many goals has been completed!
Final Fantasy is the first and foremost of a great series over all.
For those who don't know (small history lesson ahead), the reason Final Fantasy is named such is because of the circumstances at that time. Final Fantasy was released by Squaresoft (currently Square Enix) as a last ditch effort at survival. Had the original Final Fantasy failed, we wouldn't have the Final Fantasy series. Hell, the video game RPGs of today could have been completely different! Sure there was always games like Dragon Quest, but I think things would still be pretty different. So overall, the title Final Fantasy is very straight up what it meant. It was a Final strike at the chance of survival. Fantasy part...cause it's fantasy genre of course?

Final Fantasy 1 had a lot of great things about it. It was about as simple as you can get for an RPG. You had 4 characters made up from 6 classes of your choice. You level up by fighting monsters. Magic is either black or white. Of course, this explanation is kinda pointless so...moving on!

The first Final Fantasy is probably the least straightforward of the entire series. From the beginning, it can be confusing to know where to go. Thankfully, if you happen to stumble upon it, you can slowly and surely find your way around. Someone...somewhere will know where you need to go. Unfortunately, it might be a random kid in a village on the other side of the damn planet. The game wants you to be a massive detective and ever vigilant. Even if you know what you need to do, you'll probably spend a lot of time wandering around trying to find where you need to do whatever you need to do. I can't imagine having the patience to perform this on the original NES version of the game. The PSP remake got annoying at times, and you can run while indoors on that! Original was slooooow and very tough. Remake on the other hand feels like it was made quite a bit easier.  So I'd like to give Kudos to anyone out there that made the time and effort as a kid or adult to finish this game to completion.

Overall, it's a great classic and worth a shot for anyone who wants to give the time. I spent around 27 hours on the game, and I already knew part of what to do while looking up some of the rest. It might be a hard/boring play for anyone who doesn't like the classic RPG style. Still a great game though and the beginning of a saga!

That's it for now. Going to take a break for a couple days and start up Final Fantasy 2 before the week is over!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 7

Game - Final Fantasy, Day 7
Hours Played/Hours Total - 5 hrs / 26-1/2  hrs
Starting Point - Inside the Mirage Tower.
Current Goal - Climb the Mirage Tower and make it to the Flying Fortress which houses the Fiend of Wind.

What Happened - A lot. Went from final fiend to the final boss, Chaos. Beat the game!
     So, I began my final journey from the bottom of the Mirage Tower. I figured this place for a decently challenging dungeon before reaching the Flying Fortress, but it turns out my figuring was way off. It was only like 3-4 floors of nothing big. Made it to the top, and I used the Warp Cube to warp from the tower to the Flying Fortress. Once on the Flying Fortress, I began my exploration for the evil Fiend of Wind. Considering how easy the tower just went, I was already set on the fortress not proving much a challenge. Honestly, it was not too hard. You find a couple chests with some cool items you probably have as well as a piece of adamantite. I did get lost on this one floor of everything is the same, but I got a bit of help from a guide (because I'm determined to finish this TODAY!). Then I approach the final fiend of Wind...known as Tiamat!
     Short story short, Tiamat (like previous Fiends) was a big pushover. Although a multi-headed, kick ass dragon of power should be awesome and tough, it was quite a pushover. I beat it without taking much damage at all. In all honesty, this could simply be my characters being overleveled or something, but I guess it doesn't really matter. With Tiamat defeated, you relight the final crystal, the Wind Crystal. With this done, one might wonder what is next. If you had looked outside this window in the Flying Fortress, you would see that all the energies of the four crystals had been collecting at the Chaos Shrine. Thus, something is going down at the Chaos Shrine, and it is high time that I make my return. I jumped in the warp behind the crystal and returned back down to the planet.
     The time has finally come. Not much more to do but head to the final dungeon. First thing I did was take the adamantite to this dwarf from waaaaay back near the beginning of the game. He takes it and creates the Excalibur for you. Pretty cool actually, getting yourself the legendary Excalibur. After that and a small trip to resupply, I embark to the final showdown at the Chaos Shrine. Upon entering, I immediately ran for the Dark Crystal located in the center. Using the power of your crystals, you light it up and are able to use it to go back in time 2000 years...Don't really understand that, but who cares! I jumped on and back in time we goooo. *Cue Back to the Future theme*
     You arrive in the Chaos Shrine (obviously), but the cool thing here is that it's what the Chaos Shrine USED to be. It's all new, clean, and totally not shitty condition. You might start thinking "but the Chaos Shrine only has 1 floor!" and apparently, only the dilapidated version of the shrine had one floor. In the past, it is packed full of multiple upper and basement floors. You can go up and down all wimbly-nimbly. At first, the path felt really confusing, and I thought I got back around to the beginning somehow. After a little thought and a small guide peak, I found out that I just needed to keep going in the direction away from wherever I came in at. After a small crawl downward, you approach a pair of stars and get into a set battle with...Lich! Didn't see that one coming. Along the way, you come across a handful of chests. Some have fantastic items that are being made available to you...last hour of the game. Some of them have some pretty awesome items in them, like Megaelixer (which fully heals HP & MP of the party). Grabbed all the stuff I could as I proceeded down.
     As you go, each floor starts to have a theme based on the Fiends you previously fought. First floor was the earth-based enemies, then fire-based enemies and so on. You also get to re-fight all the Fiends during this last phase of the game. Although they are all powered up, none of them are really any challenge (yet again). Also if you aren't careful, you might accidentally fight the new and improved copies a couple of times. They're attached to a specific tile on each floor that you have to pass to move on. If you accidentally back up after a battle (which I did >_<), then you get to battle them AGAIN. They're not worth much XP or much gil so this is just a disappointment to yourself. Finally after passing Tiamat, I figure that the final boss can't be too far away. The final floor is made up of a chamber of pillars plus a center room. In the center room, you spot the ever-popular and supposedly dead Garland. He then reveals to you the secret of the game!
     Turns out, when Garland died, he made a deal with the Fiends of Elements. They used their powers to send Garland back in time so that he could order the Fiends of the past to attack the future and rescue him or something like that. Basically, he's created a giant time loop where he can't die. However, with the power of the fiends in hand, it transformed him into something bigger and more dangerous. He has become...CHAOS! And after his speech, cue yourself the final battle!
     As far as the game went up to this point, I expected another pushover. I set myself up for defeat apparently. Chaos (unlike previous bosses) was no pushover whatsoever. He's got a ton of HP, can cast all the -aga tier spells, can heal himself with Curaja (9999 HP...fuck that), and his physical attacks are pretty brutal. If he casts haste on himself, he does enough to kill your weaker members in one hit. So starting off, I boosted all my party members with Protect, Invis, and the Null spells for protection. I then started casting Haste and Temper on my Knight and Ninja to boost their attacks. Those two start just relentlessly attacking while the Black Mage tosses Flare spells at him. Red Wizard is reserved for healing and other. This would be an effective strategy if he didn't do so much damage and can heal MASSIVE amounts with Curaja. Ending to this current segment? He beat me with ease. I attempted a second time with the same results. With this unfortunate turn of events, I went back upstairs to gain some levels. Running around and fishing for random battles at this point felt like a sad, sad setback. Thankfully, the enemies give out crazy amounts of experience, and I leveled up in no time. 5 levels later, I re-attempted the glorious final boss battle with Chaos. Although it was a tough battle, with the extra levels and learning that Temper can stack, I shot through Chaos and took him dooown.
     So, that is it. Final Fantasy 1 is complete. You are treated with a small cut scene and some lines to fill in for the story and after story. Basically explains that with the death of Chaos/Garland, the time loop is broken and everything is returned to normal. With the crystals restored and such, the world is finally able to resume in peace. However, the shitty part of all this...with the loop broken, all the time that took place in it is altered. As far as it is concerned, nobody knows or cares about your characters' exploits. Everything they did to save the world is merely myth and legend, but with you being heroes and all, I guess it is worth it for the safety and peace of the world. Personally, I still think it kinda sucks. =/

With that in mind...first goal has been reached! Congrats to me kinda. Now only...12 more titles to go. -_-
Up next, Final Fantasy 2 for the PSP.

Ending Point - BEAT IT! End of the Game!
Levels Achieved - 19 levels earned. Final level 63.

Goals Accomplished - Climbed Mirage Tower. Made it into the Flying Fortress. Found and defeated Tiamat, the Fiend of Wind. Traveled back in time at Chaos Shrine. Battled my way through the past version of the Chaos Shrine
Next Goals - Start Final Fantasy II.

Side Note - I will be making an extra post with my overall look at this title.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 6

Game - Final Fantasy , Day 6
Hours Played/Hours Total - 3 hrs / 21-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Inside the Sunken Shrine
Current Goal - Explore the Sunken Shrine and defeat the Fiend of Water. Locate the final location of the last Fiend after that.
What Happened - Should be a short post. I'm going to try and make these smaller considering each post has gotten progressively bigger since the initial one.
     Started off right inside the Sunken Shrine. The whole place is well...sunken and underwater, but thanks to the fancy Oxyale stuff, your group can travel around unhindered by the lack of any supply of oxygen. Anyways, my only complaint would be that enemies are water-based (obviously...), but some of them are kinda stupidly named. All they did was add Sea or Water in front of their normal name. I realize this isn't something unheard of or new to the RPG world, but I'd really appreciate some more name diversity. Apparently one portion of the shrine involves a pile of empty rooms with nothing. I'm assuming this is a strategy to piss me off while I'm just trying to beat this thing. It wasn't the most difficult dungeon, but I often felt like I was unsure where I was. However, I eventually made my way down to the bottom floor and ran into the Fiend of Water (on accident really).
     The Fiend of Water, also known as the Kraken, admired our ability to make it down there and survive, but he claimed that he would easily conquer us in his domain. So we engage yet another Fiend into a massive boss battle! Boy was I ready to take him! I got everybody all powered up and protected. This goes faster since the Knight and Ninja can cast spells like Protect, Temper, and Haste. As soon as I got ready, I finally ordered the attack on Kraken. (Keep in mind, my mages and Ninja were the main ones working on buffing, and my Knight was constantly attacking the Kraken regardless.) Right as the Black Wizard was about to cast an awesome spell of Thundaga...the Knight gave him the final killing blow. This is just so much disappointment. All the Fiends have felt so powerless and without any challenge. With Kraken down, your characters celebrate their victory and relight the 3rd crystal, the Water Crystal. After that, I immediately jumped on the exit magic circle.
     Woo! Feels great to be out of the water. Now I just have to...what do I do? I may not have mentioned it before, but I happened upon a town in the east with people, but all these people speak a language which you can't understand. All sorts of rumors have told me that someone was on the brink of translating it. One man told me his brother required something called the Rosetta Stone to translate an ancient language. Knowing where his brother was, I traveled to him so that he can tell me he's a great scientist. I go back to Onrac and talk to the NPCs one more time and finally come upon one clue. A clue that I not only missed but did not like. A lady suggested that all sorts of valuable treasure is located in the Sunken Shrine...one of these was a tablet with ancient languages on it. What does this mean? I get to travel back to the Sunken Shrine and locate the handful of chests I missed and find the Rosetta Stone.
     Back down into the deep water to locate the Rosetta Stone. With a little help from a guide, I was able to quickly get in there and locate the location of the chest with the Stone. I don't like the guide-use either, but I didn't feel like running around for hours trying to find it. Turns out the dungeon has mermaids living at the top of it...interesting but pointless. I located the Rosetta Stone and made use of the "Teleport" spell I recently got for my Red Mage. Zoomed back into town and ran straight for Dr. Unne. He grabbed the tablet from me and immediately learns the language (wha?). After learning it himself, he offers to teach you, and your group miraculously picks it up in just a matter of moments (...how?). With my newfound grasp of Lufenian, I rushed off to the city of  Lufenia. (These game designers were straight forward with their names, eh?)
     Now that I can understand them, I was able to talk around to everybody. Most of them just describe the past and the current situation with a flying fortress that houses the Fiend of Wind. I was also informed of the Mirage Tower and of a group of 5 warriors that had left recently and not returned. I had been by to this tower a couple of times, but it would never let me in. This problem was solved by one of the villagers who gave me the all-powerful...chime. Before leaving, I found a magic shop in Lufenia that was selling the all-powerful (actual all-powerful this time) black spell...FLARE! With the chime in hand and a new spell in my list, I set sail for Mirage Tower. It's not too far away, just in the middle of a desert, and more importantly, I already knew where! I made it into the Mirage Tower and decided to call it a day.

Ending Point - Inside the Mirage Tower.
Levels Achieved - 6 levels earned. Currently level 44.

Goals Accomplished - Explored the Shrine. Defeated the Fiend of Water, Kraken. Relight the Water Crystal. Revisited the Sunken Shrine. Obtained the Rosetta Stone. Learned Lufenian from Dr. Unne. Visited Lufenia and got a chime. Learned the Flare spell!!! Began climbing the Mirage Tower.
Next Goals - Climb the Mirage Tower and make it to the Flying Fortress which houses the Fiend of Wind.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~