Day 40

Game - Final Fantasy 6, Day 40
Hours Played/Hours Total - 6-1/2 hrs / 9 hrs
Starting Point - Inside the Returner's Hideout.
Current Goal - Talk to Baron of the Returners. Stop the Empire and save the world!

What Happened - Crazyness. I'm already to Day 40 of gameplay! It's probably at least 10 more days if I consider actual number of days played. Only a handful of days if I only consider the hours played...Not important. On to the happenings!
     My first and foremost goal is to talk with Banon (I kept calling it Baron, but it's Banon...>_<). The conversation with Banon says quite a bit, but to put it simply, he believes that Terra is their only hope. Since she can use magic and talk to Espers! After that, Banon convinces Terra (me...kinda?) into helping out their effort. Next up is a looong talking session about what all is going on. Basically, the Returners are wondering how the Empire came up with the Magitek power that they wield. Apparently, the Empire has been putting people to work on Esper research, and so the group believes there is a connection between Espers and Magitek. Overall, the plan points to the need for Magitek to fight Magitek. They want Terra to talk with the Esper at Narshe and see if something can be figured out.
     Of course, things have been going too well. Just as the plan is being discussed, a Returner soldier comes in and informs us that South Figaro has been taken by the empire. Banon sends Locke to try and halt the Empire's progress there while the rest of the group makes way to Narshe. The only available method is to float down a nearby river/stream to get away. With Banon by my side, the group floats down the river. The only catch is that Banon can't die. If he dies, then it's game over. It is fairly easy to keep him alive however since he has an ability called "Health" that heals a decent amount party-wide in mid-battle. Anyways, the river floating goes pretty easy. However, just as it seems the end is near....BOSS BATTLE TIME! The group is attacked by a large squid (quite similar to one in FF4). He's an awful talky boss too. Every time I cast Fire on him, he had a comment to say (something about Squid Soup I believe) and attacking Terra with his Ink ability, which blinded her. However, I kept after him and easily beat him. Banon's Health ability sure made it way easier as well.
     I didn't defeat the Squid so much as he ran away. Sabin jumped in the water after him and gets separated from the group. Now, the party is split into three different groups, but I'm given an option! This is a very interesting idea and twist here. I can basically choose to either follow Locke in South Figaro, Terra and company as they go to Narshe, or find out where the hell Sabin went. I chose the Locke path first. It seems that Locke has done his mischief, but he's now stuck inside South Figaro with no way out. Somehow, someway, I have to find a way out. This is actually a fairly fun little series of events that go down.
     First and foremost, I can't just waltz out of town. Any attempt to talk with guards in Magitek armor ends in my death (too strong for me to beat). However, it is possible to get around in multiple ways. The first thing I had to do was steal some merchant's clothes to get by this one kid. After that, I had to fight a captain and steal his armor. With that done, I could then have a guy leave his shift giving more access to the majority of town. The next step...took some time to find. Turns out, I needed to beat up another merchant and steal his Cider. I gave the Cider to an old man who revealed a secret passage from his house to the rich man's house. Once in there, I just had to explore a little bit to find the next part. It seems that one of the big time general's for the emperor has recently been deemed a traitor. And in comes the next FF6 character...Celes. She's a Magitek Knight (she has magic) and was being tortured. I freed her and joined up. With her by the side, it was time to escape this town. I had to crawl through some monster infested basement, but I made it out of town. Celes questioned why Locke was helping her, and he only commented on her reminding him of someone...also he wanted to.
     Now that I was out of South Figaro, it was time to make my way North to Narshe. It had to revisit the same cave from earlier on to head north. Nothing too bad went down here. There was a strange sound going on all about the cave, and then I found out just as I was about to leave...BOSS BATTLE TIME! A giant robot named Tunnel Armor jumped out of the wall and attacked. Normally, this would be a fairly challenging battle, but it's basically been made into a "Look at this ability!" battle. Celes has an ability called Runic. It allows her to absorb magic attacks and restore her own MP at the same time. The Tunnel Armor mostly just uses magic, so the strategy for the battle is Locke Attacks, Celes Runic. You do that for around 6 to 8 rounds, and it ends. Nothing too challenging there...and the two of them leave the cave. As that happens, I'm taken back to the scenario choosing bit. I can now either find out what happened to Sabin OR follow behind Terra and co. I figure to go with Terra and co last, so next up is everybody's favorite game of "Where's that Sabin?"
     Apparently Sabin floated downstream to an entirely different location. The first thing to investigate was a nearby house. Outside the house was a travelling merchant and our mysterious ninja friend Shadow. I talked to Shadow who agreed to help, but he made no promise to keep with me forever. I took what help I could of course. I restocked on what little the merchant offered and made my way the only direction I could...South. Eventually, the South came to a small bridge and a Empire war camp. It seems they were planning to invade and take down a nearby castle...Doma Castle. Upon entering the camp, some of the troops took off to begin their first (that I knew of) attempt to take down the castle. I was then shifted over to said castle. The troops weren't getting too far when suddenly...a new character appears!
     This time it is the powerful swordsman known as Cyan. His special ability is the Sword Tech. It works kinda differently...Basically, I select it and a gauge appears. The longer I wait, the more powerful the sword ability he uses. He only had three available, but that was more than enough. He walked outside of the castle, slayed the commander (Sword Tech...woo!), and the troops ran off. I was then thrown back to the two-some of Sabin and Shadow.
     They were trying to infiltrate and make it past the camp. Shadow (being a Ninja and all) comes with the Throw command and is able to toss most weapons, Shurikens, and specialized items for either damage or effects. He's a fairly powerful character and even comes with a dog. His dog randomly protects him and sometimes attacks random enemies for a large amount of damage. Anyways, it isn't a very large camp, but I learned a little bit while there. After sneaking halfway through, I'm introduced to an important person (not a character) named General Leo. He's one of Emperor Gestahl's leading generals. Despite his alignment with the Empire, he showed himself to be an honorable and decent man (unlike a certain evil clown-like figure). I proceeded to sneak my way through the remainder of the camp. Leo talked to Kefka before he left and said that he should remember that those of Doma Castle are people to. Kefka ignored this completely and dumped poison in the river. Shortly after (traded me off to Doma again with Cyan), the people of Doma began to fall ill and die. It seems that Kefka's evil plan was working. Pretty much everyone in Doma died...the soldiers, the King, and Cyan's wife and child. Everybody had fallen to the poisoned water. In both rage and grief, Cyan ran off to fight the Empire at the camp. He was met there by Sabin and Shadow who quickly joined up with him.
     After many battles with the trio fighting, Sabin suggested that they make a break for it. Cyan was greatly opposed to this (anger and all), but Sabin said that they should try something different before they become overrun by soldiers. With that in mind, the group began to run away. However, it seemed that would be easier said than done. It would have been a rough time trying to directly run out of there, but Sabin got an idea. They jumped inside some nearby Magitek Armor and smashed apart the rest of the camp as they ran out. From there, I needed to get back to Narshe. Cyan said the only way was to go through the forest to the South. And South I went...to the Phantom Forest.
     Phantom Forest. Now that kind of name suggests we are going to be dealing with ghosts and haunted things. And guess what? The enemies were mostly "Ghost" monsters and before it was all said and done, I did indeed board a ghost train known as the Phantom Train. The Phantom Train is supposed to ferry those of the dead to the afterlife. Unfortunately, the train took off with the three of them on it. They agreed that they needed to get to the front of the train and stop it. Along the way, I had to deal with a large assortment of ghosts and monsters. Nothing really came about that was incredibly strong though, and I made it through with very little problems. I finally made it to the front of the train and was just about to stop it when...BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The Phantom Train saw that we were trying to stop it and decided it was time to take us down. The battle was situated in a fairly interesting way. The trio was running in front of the train while it chased after them. He really didn't put up much of a fight, but he had several status effects he could cause on the group. For his first attack, he confused the group. Sabin and Cyan came out fine, but Shadow remained confused for the rest of the battle with no way to un-confuse him. I just kept pummeling him with the other two's special abilities, and the train was defeated quite quickly. The train concedes to let us off, but it has something it must do first. The train eventually stops and lets the group off. However, as things start to go right, sadness occurs. The train stopped to allow some of the newly dead souls to board. Among them was Cyan's recently deceased wife and son. Cyan chased after the train for a while, but his wife assured him that things were going to be okay. Cyan watched as the train went off into the distance.../end sad time.
     Upon leaving the Phantom Train, I also left the Phantom Forest behind. I was allowed to move onward from there. The next location I happened upon (the only one available...) was a Baren Falls. Cyan informed me that the Baron Falls would take us south to the Veldt, but if we managed through there, we would find the town of Mobliz east of that. He said there was dangerous creatures there, but with the Empire behind us, we didn't have much of a choice. Shadow parted the group at this time saying he had "fulfilled his purpose." Sabin thanked him and said that he'd like to work with Shadow again. And then Shadow left...and then I jumped into the waterfall! The waterfall was built to be a giant and continuous battle between Sabin and Cyan and a pile of Piranhas. It went pretty easy...until I got attacked by a Pirahna with a name, Rizopas.
     What was supposed to just be a mini-boss of sorts turned into an actual boss for me. You see...I actually died to it like twice before I managed to beat it. I had an easier time with the Phantom Train than I did with this fish. Lucky for me, the third time I managed to kill it before it cheated me even more. It had a move called "El Nino" that was able to do 250ish damage to both party members (whose HP was only 400ish), and it especially did it when I had one guy low enough that it would kill him. That basically sealed my fate in both losses. I lost one guy and couldn't revive him quick enough. I did manage to beat him of course, and the two floated down the Baren Falls.
     They floated ashore nearby the Veldt. Upon doing so, they were approached by a weird wild boy (and the next character!) Gau. He helped them up but then ran off. I walked around the Veldt looking for the town of Mobliz. Along the way, I ran into Gau multiple times who simply demanded food and ran off if we attacked him. In Mobliz, I resupplied, upgraded equipment, and bought some meat. The meat was for Gau of course. After meeting him for the Nth time, I threw the meat out, and then a battle cutscene occurred. It seems that Gau was very happy about our giving him food, and that he wanted to join us and give us his "treasure" for doing such. It was a lengthy talk mostly for comedic effect.
     Anyways, Gau brings a most unusual ability to the table...Rage. Basically, you use his Leap command (available only on the Veldt) to infiltrate monsters. That ends that battle. After travelling around the Veldt some more, he eventually pops back out and rejoins but with new Rages available. The Rage ability itself allows him to go crazy and mimic a monster by doing its attacks and abilities. The Veldt is home to all of the different monsters in game (as you meet them I suspect). It's a fairly cool ability, but once you select his Rage, he is stuck in it for the duration of the battle. You set him and can forget him, but you are also stuck with whatever monster you chose. Mostly just seems like you should find a good monster and stick with that Rage. You can do it for every monster available, but that also means finding every monster on the Veldt since Gau only learns from the current monsters he leaped into and the monsters you find him with. Short version of all this? Learn monster mimicry which is cool but lengthy and risky.
     Now, time to head for Crescent Mountain. Man this part is lasting quite a bit longer than Locke's part. I've played through a majority of FF6 before, and I guess I forgot it was this long. However, as I say this, I began to go through Crescent Mountain, and it turns out that Crescent Mountain has no monsters and only contained Gau's treasure. The treasure he spoke of as being "shiny" was actually some sort of diving equipment. The group took it and dived into the nearby water known as the Serpent Trench...because that seemed like the next best thing to do apparently. The Serpent Trench worked a lot like the river rafting from earlier. The game propelled me forward while subjecting me to random encounters. After a large group of encounters, the group awakened in the port town of Nikeah. I looked around a bit, bought some stuff, refilled on other items that I could, and then I jumped on the nearby ship to South Figaro. From there...I was taken back to the scenario screen. Time for the final piece of this triple scenario puzzle. Curious to see how Terra, Edgar, and Banon held up...
     It seems they got the easiest path of the three scenarios. I simply floated down the rest of the river rapids we were on and fought off a handful of random encounters. None of them were a challenge thanks to Edgar's Autocrossbow and Banon's Health ability. Once to the bottom, I was placed directly in front of Narshe. Woo! Finally to Narshe~ I was unable to go in the front entrance, so I made my way around to the secret cave entrance from the beginning. The cave was full of the beginning enemies so it was a cake walk through here. Along the way, I encountered the moogles from the beginning. Nothing really new besides that...then I found myself back in the beginning house with the man, whose name is Arvis. At this point, the third and final scenario is over as all the groups begin to approach Narshe at this point.
     It seems that the Town of Narshe is neutral in all of this and plans to remain out of the fighting between the Empire and the Returners. The group speaks to the Elder and tries to convince him that they need to join the fight, or else they'll be brought in sooner or later. As this is being talked about, Sabin joins the group and introduces the newest members Cyan and Gau. They talk about the downfall of Doma. And although the Elder still doesn't seem convinced, Locke comes in with Celes and informs everybody that the Empire is on their way. Regardless of what the town wants, they'll have to start fighting ASAP. The Elder informs us that the Esper was recently moved into the hills to try and keep it away from the Empire. So...time for another tactical ground battle stuff! Basically, that part in the beginning with the multiple parties and moogles? Yup, i get to repeat that, but this time I have a large selection of random individuals to pick from! (The characters I gained along the way...). I made up three parties and began the battle! For those curious, my parties were the following three:

1. Terra, Sabin, and Cyan
2. Locke and Celes
3. Gau and Edgar

A guide suggested I put all my power members in one team for this, but I didn't want to take a chance later on into this. Anyways...Kefka showed up with a whole pile of Imperial Soldiers and launched his attack. I piloted my #1 group straight at Kefka. I had to battle a few soldiers along the way, but they weren't too much of a challenge. Then...it was face-to-face with Kefka for BOSS BATTLE TIME! (I actually fought Kefka briefly earlier, but I didn't mention it for the following reason. It wasn't a boss battle or anything. Every time I got into battle with him, I would hit him ONCE, and he would immediately run away. It was just a chasing match, unlike this one. This was the real deal.) Kefka was a formidable enemy. He had powerful magic attacks and was downright annoying. He killed Sabin and Cyan at least one time each, and I had to keep reviving them. If not for killing them, I would have been able to beat him much faster. Nonetheless...I defeated him anyways! With his defeat, he yelled at us about "not going to get away with it!" or something along that line. And so...the Esper was once again safe from the Empire.
     The group approached the Esper and hoped that something could be gained from this venture. Unfortunately, some bad things happened. Terra seemed to be drawn to the Esper, and the power built up between them and blew the other members away (like how it killed the soldiers in the beginning). Eventually, Terra and the Esper began to exchange energy between them, and then the strange thing happened. Terra's form changed into that of an energy-being looking thing. She took off, flew around a bit, and then flew off into the distance. Once the group came to, they knew their next goal was to chase after Terra and figure out what the hell just happened. Celes said that she had an "Esper" look to her when she transformed. She had been last seen flying to the West of the current area. The only way to get there was through the use of Figaro Castle and its fancy submarine-like abilities. So, I formed a group of four (Edgar, Locke, Celes, and Sabin) and made my way to Figaro Castle.
     Once there, I took a short rest and was treated to an informative cutscene about Edgar and Sabin's past. Basically, it was just a look into why Edgar was King and Sabin had run off. It was emotional and stuff...Moving right along. The next day, I spoke with the right people, and the castle went underground and drilled (or whatever!) its way to the western area. There, I was to seek out the city of Kohlingen as my first stop. Once there, I talked with some people who talked of the shining creature (Terra). They said it flew to the south towards Jidoor. At the Bar/Inn was everybody's favorite ninja assassin Shadow! However, he wasn't interested in talking with anybody at this moment, so he told us to go away. While there, I also found out a bit about Locke. The love of his life got amnesia and forgot about him, and after Locke left, she had died during an Imperial attack but had muttered his name in her final moments. He felt horrible about this and of course couldn't get over it...Sad stuff. Anyways, that's all there was for Kohlingen. Time to find Jidoor!
     Jidoor was a long walk south of Kohlingen. Lots of fun and random encounters along the way...Nothing was too stressful, and it most definitely loaded up my wallets for the next town. Jidoor is supposed to be a higher class town with a middle class and upper class section. Nothing much to see her, but one person directed me towards Zozo for finding Terra. I bought some new equipment, talked to some of the townsfolk, and set my goal for Zozo.
     Seeing as I've typed up quite a bit here, I've decided to stop the post here and well...post it. Can't wait to find out more in the next episode of...RECURRING FANTASY!

Ending Point - Outside the town of Jidoor.
Current Party -

• Locke - Level 13
• Edgar - Level 14
• Celes - Level 14
• Sabin - Level 16

Goals Accomplished - Disrupted the Empire at South Figaro. Rescued Celes and escaped South Figaro. Completed Locke's Scenario. Made it through the Imperial Camp with Sabin, Cyan, and Shadow. Made it through the Phantom Forest and escaped the Phantom Train. Leaped off of Baron Falls and floated to Veldt. Met and recruited Gau in the Veldt. Went from Crescent Mountain through Serpent Trench to Nikeah. Sailed from Nikeah to get to Narshe. Finished Sabin's scenario. Floated down the remainder of the river with Terra and co. Went to Narshe and got the group all together. Stopped Kefka from taking the Esper. Traveled from Narshe to Kohlingen with the use of Figaro Castle. Traveled from Kohlingen to Jidoor in search of Terra.
Next Goals - Travel to Zozo in search of Terra. Stop the Empire. Save the world!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 39

Game - Final Fantasy 6, Day 39
Hours Played/Hours Total - 2-1/2 hrs / 2-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Beginning of Final Fantasy 6.
Current Goal - Start Final Fantasy 6!

What Happened - Here we are...Final Fantasy 6. Amazing how I'm already this far in! I'm most definitely looking forward to 6 through 9. I am not looking as forward to the remainder, but I digress. Let's get on to the "What Happened."
     The game starts off and already getting a history lesson! Basically, the world has advanced to the point of having advanced technology. And of course, the one with the best technology is in power. However, the world used to be host to magic, and of course, someone is trying to bring the magic back...for evil reasons! It doesn't directly say it like that, but that's the basic point. It comes to a point, and I'm introduced to a group of three people: Two soldiers (named Biggs and Wedge) and a nameless woman. They talk about her destroying a group of soldiers by herself, but that she wouldn't do anything with her slave crown on. The game switches to the opening credits of the three people, who are currently in bad-ass robot walkers, heading towards a village. They're heading that way after something called an Esper (magical creature monster thing...in bad terms).
     The town they've come to is known as Narshe, and it is a mining town. There's not much I can do except move straight forward. And the intro battles...stupid easy. You have three characters, and they're each in a giant robot armor called Magitek Armor. They have super attacks that kill everything in one hit. The enemy was the local militia, and they were throwing people and dogs at me. I just...Why would you have your dogs charge straight at giant walking robot armor? Giant walking robot armor...with lasers. I have no damn clue what the dogs could possibly do here, but whatever! I kept on pushing forward until I hit the mines. The two soldiers talked about how this must be the mine where the Esper was located. I proceed further inside and come face to face with the first...BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     This boss was incredibly straightforward, and the soldiers even told me what to NOT do. It was a giant slug monster with lightning powers. Basically, if it retracted itself back into the shell, I had to stop attacking it. If I happened to attack it (accidentally -_-), I would be zapped for a decent amount of damage party wide. However, the Magitek Armor had healing abilities as well. So all in all...a pretty easy boss battle. Proceeding further in, I finally located the mysterious Esper. As the group approached it, a strange energy started fluctuating around the three. It destroyed the two soldiers while leaving the mysterious woman in tact. Everything went hazy, and the game made a jump.
     The woman wakes up in a strange house, and a guy comes over and takes off her slave crown. As soon as he does it, I get to name the mysterious woman. Her actual name is Terra, and that's what I went with! Terra was quickly recovering to the surprise of the guy who helped her. However, things were going too well, and so plot stepped in! Some of the local militia figured out Terra was there and were trying to get her. I quickly escaped out the back, and so the game truly begins.
     Here we are...the first cave dungeon of sorts! The goal...try to make it out without being caught I guess. It shouldn't be too hard of a task though. I'm already level 5, and I have both Fire and Cure magic. Woo! I met a handful of enemy monsters along the way, but nothing gave me much trouble. So far, the game doesn't really have any kind of special job or class system, and the battles simply use the ATB (Active Time Battle) system again. Nothing new to report so far. A little further into the cave and...basically got caught. Soldiers rushed in, and Terra fell through the floor. She gets knocked out, and I am treated to a small cutscene. Basically, it features a mysterious yet crazy looking man (I know it's Kefka, but let's wait for the name to come naturally!) who placed the slave crown on Terra. Next up was a scene of Terra burning everything with a Magitek Armor. Following that was a man named Gestahl, who is apparently the emperor of...the Empire I'm assuming, speaking to his troops about a new age coming to the lands with magic coming back!
     The game then jumps back to the house with the man, and we meet the next character...Locke! He's a master thief and obtained of old relics, but he prefers the term "Treasure Hunter." The two talk for a bit about the Empire and joining a resistance called the Returners (Sounds awfully familiar...FF2 anyone?). He told Locke to go and help the woman out and head to a castle southwest of here to meet up with the Returners. Locke went out  and located Terra, but it was almost too late! The soldiers were just about to be upon them, but luckily, some moogles came along and helped the group out! I was then given three teams and an tunnels to cover. Basically, it was a small tactics bit to handle. I had a little trouble, but I quickly came out victorious! Once defeated, Locke ran on through and out of the cave. Terra had awaken at this point, and I was well on my way to the next location.
     My next goal was to reach a castle southwest of my current position. It was a small walk across the world map, and I found myself at...Figaro Castle! A castle in the middle of the desert and home to the knowledgeable yet ladies' man Edgar. He's the king of Figaro and (SUPPOSEDLY) an ally to the Empire. Locke left Terra behind at this point, and I was allowed to explore. Not having much to explore...I went to sleep in-game (I figured that would move it along). That didn't work, so I had to look around even more. Eventually, I stumbled upon a woman who told me a bit of Edgar's past. It seems he has a twin brother named Sabin. When the king was dying, Sabin ran away from it all, and so the throne went to Edgar instead.
     As I made my way to Edgar to talk again, someone from the Empire had shown up. Edgar figures it is Kefka (and it was). The game then jumps over to Kefka travelling through the desert. He's complaining about the Emperor's orders and why Edgar lives in the middle of nowhere. He has the soldiers clean the sand off his shoes and then laughs. (I realize adding this much detail is slightly absurd, but I felt it necessary to get across that Kefka is...crazy.) He enters the castle, and I gain control of Edgar now. Basically, the situation is Kefka's search for Terra. Edgar denies the claim, and Kefka just leaves saying how he hopes Edgar isn't lying to him.
     Edgar walks off to consult his chancellor about their strategy. Locke takes Terra to her room, and they begin to talk more. This game is awfully talky so far (Not that I mind, but it is getting long to type >_<). Turns out Edgar isn't really with the Empire! (Surprise!) He's collaborating with the Returners to try and take down the Empire. Locke is the go-between guy for the group. Everybody goes to sleep and then...Kefka strikes! He sets fire to the castle and demands Edgar hand over Terra. Edgar responds by...running away! He takes a group of chocobos and runs off. However, that's not all that happens. Just as they run off, Figaro Castle pulls together and dives underneath the desert...in a submarine-ish fashion. Despite our running away, we are chased by Magitek Armor for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     During the middle of the battle, the characters start sporadically talking. They reacted as soon as I cast a Fire spell with Terra. The two hadn't realized that she could use Magic and were both seeing magic use for the first time. After their little talk, the battle continues...and ends quite quickly. I guess it was all about the Magic. Also, we get to see Edgar's fighting ability for the first time....Tools! Basically, he has a huge assortment of tool weapon things with special attacks. Auto Crossbow, Noise Blaster, and Bio Blaster are some of the first ones I have. I know you get a Chainsaw later on, so it gets awesome-r from here! While running away from Kefka, Edgar and Locke both pinpoint our next directive is to talk with a leader of the Returners named Baron. To get there, we need to head through a cave to the South that leads to...South Figaro!
     The cave (which didn't seem to have a name) was short and sweet. I plowed through all of the enemies, collected some items, and made it to the other side with no real trouble. On the other side, I went just a small ways from the cave and entered...South Figaro! It was a fairly big town. Lots of places to see and enter. While there, I went ahead and upgraded all of my weapons plus some of my armor. I also got a hold of my first group of Relics. In Final Fantasy 6, there are items called Relics. They are basically specialized accessories that grant your characters special abilities for inside combat (like Two-Handed or Cover), outside of Combat (like Dash), or even just straight up protection (like Poison or Darkness Immunity). They're really useful, and you gain a large selection of them throughout the game. The best thing that happened while in South Figaro was the meeting of a new character...Shadow! He's this game's Ninja Badass. He didn't join the group yet, but the fact that I got to name him meant that I'll get him eventually. (I also know for a fact that he very much joins.) After walking about and talking to NPCs, I left South Figaro to find my next destination.
     Just north of South Figaro was a lone house. I went inside and looked around. Edgar identified many of the items as being well liked and favorites of his brother Sabin. After walking outside the house again, the group met an old man who told them of Sabin's current location. It seems he had made his way to a nearby mountain (Mt. Kolts) to search for his master Duncan. It seems that Duncan had been slain, and there was worries about Duncan's son Vargas. With these details in mind, I made my way further east and then north to Mt. Kolts.
     Once there, I began the perilous climb upward and onward to search for...Sabin I guess. I thought there was talk of the Returners, but the game hasn't mentioned it recently. Whatever! Moving along~ It was your general climbing of a mountain. The enemies were mildly tough, but nothing I couldn't handle. While moving up, I came across a shadowed figure (No, not Shadow.) I went ahead and chased after him. I did learn one thing while climbing up this mountain. The Auto Crossbow (one of the Tools for Edgar) is almost game-breaking cheap at this point in the game. Most enemy groups are either slain or horribly disfigured with one using of it. (It hits all enemies for a pretty damn good amount of damage.) I made my way through the mountain and eventually ran into the man known as Vargas. It seemed he thought we were in league with Sabin, but in the end, he didn't really care. He attacked us for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The interesting part here is that he didn't attack us alone. Apparently he had a pair of bears he trained to fight with him. (That's the only explanation for why he'd have a group of bears with him.) After defeating the bears, I was able to take Vargas on directly. He wasn't too difficult (different from previous fights with him I believe...), and I dealt out all sorts of damage before....Sabin showed up! He faced off against Vargas and immediately asked him why he killed his father! (Duncan) Dun dun duuuuun! Apparently, there was a big drama happening. Vargas killed his father Duncan because his father had chosen Sabin as his successor as opposed to his son...Vargas. Sabin tried to explain that his father had chosen him to be his successor, but Vargas wouldn't listen. So....Sabin laid the smack down on him and defeated Vargas!
     With Vargas defeated (and assuming dead...), the group talked a bit. It was the first time Edgar had seen his brother Sabin since he left long ago. Sabin decided to join the group and help with the Returner's resistance effort. He figured the most he could do was help make the world peaceful. And now..onward through the rest of the mountain! Sabin's ability is called Blitz. By typing in special commands (much like those in a fighting game), Sabin is able to perform special moves that are incredibly effective and powerful. So...he's a great addition to the party. I continued a little further and found myself on the other side of the mountain. I then traveled north and found myself at the Returner's Hideout! Time to get down to some REBELLION business!
     However, seeing as this post is fairly long as is...I'm going to stop and wrap it up right here. Saved my game and quit for now. Not much time for a whole lot of plot, but I'm pretty sure all of the series will be like this. Hell, every opening has to have a large amount of stuff just to get you informed and in the right spot. Not important. Post over!

Ending Point - Inside the Returner's Hideout.
Current Party - *This game has a party of 4, but there are supposed to be TWELVE characters total. It still holds the record of having the highest number of total characters!

• Terra - Level 11
• Locke - Level 11
• Edgar - Level 12
• Sabin - Level 13

Goals Accomplished - Started Final Fantasy 6! Escaped from Narshe and made it to Figaro Castle. Escaped from Kefka at Figaro Castle. Made it through the cave and to South Figaro. Traveled through Mt. Kolts and gained Sabin. Made it to the Returner's Hideout.
Next Goals - Talk to Baron of the Returners. Stop the Empire and save the world!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Side Post!

Side Fantasy - The Good and Bad of Off-Numbered FF Titles

Woo! Another rendition of everybody's favorite...SIDE POST!
For this Side Post, I'll be covering some of the side Final Fantasy games. This is basically any title that isn't a single and direct number in the lineup. Along the way, I'll talk about each one briefly while highlighting my likes and dislikes of each. Before it is said and done, I'll have a "Good" or "Bad" rating for them. I realize that's an incredibly crappy rating system of "yes or no", but I don't plan on playing any of these fully as per my goal. For ease on my part (and keeping this short), I will only be covering three titles of my choosing. Let's begin with one of my favorites...Final Fantasy Tactics.

Final Fantasy Tactics - Nothing Says Fantasy Like Throwing In Some Tactics!

Final Fantasy Tactics was released on the PlayStation in 1998 (technically '97 for Japan). It showed off a unique yet recognizable Final Fantasy experience. Taking a page from Tactics Ogre (and being created by one of the bigger people behind THAT), it gave you a chance to take the battles into your own hands with a higher focus on strategy. To put it simply...it's a Tactical RPG. Think of it like an RTS but turn-based instead of live action. I realize that doesn't sound as cool, but there are many Tactical RPGs out there that have made a name for themselves. Disgaea is one big name in this area, but lucky for me, Final Fantasy Tactics is the least complicated one in the Tactical RPG lineup. The biggest things I'll focus on for me "review" of sorts are the Gameplay and Story. Let's start with Gameplay!

The Gameplay of Final Fantasy Tactic has many layers. The easiest way to describe it is basically how I said it above "turn-based RTS." You place your people on a giant grid, move around said grid, and try to defeat the other people. The game makes use of the Job System from Final Fantasy 5 (almost an exact clone from my current experience). It's not exactly the same, but it is quite similar. You gain levels in jobs and are able to transfer that job's abilities to other jobs by "equipping" them. The difference here is that you gain "Job Points" in Tactics as apposed to ABP (Ability Points). You use the Job Points to purchase skills and gain Job Levels. Once you buy all the skills, the Job is considered "Mastered." You unlock new jobs on a per-character basis by gaining levels in certain jobs. Another nice different is the larger variety of skill selection as well as the ability to equip multiple skills based on what they do.  Each character equips two job commands (the current job and one alternate), a Reaction ability, a Movement ability, and a Support ability. Basically, it's a pretty big upgrade from how FF5 does it. A large variety of spells and powers keep all of the jobs useful throughout the game. Outside of your jobs (20 jobs available to everybody plus specialty jobs available to a some), you can also capture and train monsters. Combine this with a variety of jobs, and you can basically create your Final Fantasy dream team. It contains a large variety of the staple Final Fantasy monsters like Chocobos and Bombs.

With the Job System being my favorite part, the icing on all of this is the actual battle system. The beginning of the game is a bit limited on Job Selection. You are hampered by both level and weapon/armor selection. Battles consist of your 4 people (plus occasional guests) versus a whole squad of enemies. Generally, this goes pretty easy, and you decimate their squad. However, one of the bigger flaws in the game is the overall difficulty curve. From the very beginning, you are already at a large disadvantage. I generally spend 3 or 4 hours at the very beginning getting into random battles to gain some extra levels. Even then, the random battles available near the beginning can be pretty tough if you aren't careful. (Chocobos are horribly overpowered.) However, after some good leveling, the game becomes much easier. You can always hire new people to join your army (or catch monsters), so your supply of people is endless. However, new people have to start from the beginning. I'd say the only true bummer is that you will probably end up making 4 really awesome people while the rest are lackluster at best. Even the Guests generally lose any real flash compared to your all-star team. This happens because you always choose 4 people to send into battle. Therefore, I always send the same 4. Overall, I'd say the gameplay is a "love it or hate it" thing. If you don't love it, you probably won't enjoy the game. Next up is my weak point on the game...the story.

Maybe it's just me, but the story is overly plot-y. Not necessarily bad, but it certainly feels confusing as hell at times. Before you get anywhere, you're already learning at least a dozen different names. Important people are already dying and getting kidnapped. The game is composed of 5 chapters, and each chapter has a small time jump between them. The general idea of the story is "despite being the good guy, everybody thinks you are the bad guy." I won't say anything else as to not ruin the rest of it. I still like the story overall, but I'm not sure if I ever fully grasped it. Although to be fair...I played it when I was a lot younger. I was mostly playing it for the character building. I loved make characters with great job combos. Anyways, the story seems to take a step away from your general Final Fantasy stuff. It's not a bad thing, but it is definitely not for people who want a simple and straightforward story.

Overall, I'd say Final Fantasy Tactics rises out of the side-Fantasy titles as a Good game. The story might be all over the place at times, but I'd say the game play and replay value easily overshadow any shortcomings. Next up is Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

Final Fantasy - Mystic Quest  - Get Ready for a Mystical Quest...with Fantasy!


Final Fantasy Mystic Quest came out on the Super Nintendo as an alternative Final Fantasy title. The main goal of the game was to be a simple and easy for entry-level RPG players. It featured a fairly simple battle system and fairly straightforward story. Despite the simplicity, Mystic Quest actually shows off in that it is still a really fun and great game. The battle system is overly simple, but it's also really fun at the same time. The game goes for more of an adventure-ish style than full-on RPG style. Each weapon has its own alternative use outside of being a weapon. Sword can poke switch holes, axes cut down trees, claws can climb and grapple hook, and explosives...blow stuff up. It was a pretty interesting mechanic that each weapon had a secondary use. There was magic and items as well, but everything was pretty straightforward. Only a couple item types existed, and the magic was found instead of gained through levels. To state it how it is...simple but fun. That's basically the entirety of this paragraph in one sentence. Onward to the story!

The story was nothing really new for Final Fantasy. A hero must save the world by rescuing crystals from monsters. Along the way, you meet and make friends with multiple different people. The game only has a party of two, and each partner starts off as being AI controlled, but you can switch them to your control. In this case, the story isn't anything new, but it isn't bad either. Nothing special, it is still worth playing through.

Overall, I'd say that Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is Good. It's easy to pick up and play, fairly short, and still a great title by itself. I realize the review for this one isn't nearly as long as the first one, but why drag it out?
Let's continue to the next and final review for this post over the title Dissidia Final Fantasy.

Dissidia Final Fantasy - Fast & Furious Final Fantasy Fighting...Yeah!


For my last review, I'll be talking about a more recent entry in the Final Fantasy family. Well, not SUPER recent, but I haven't ever played the second Dissida. MOVING ALONG. Dissidia is a PlayStation Portable entry in the Final Fantasy side series. It's a highly unusual side step away from the Final Fantasy norm, but it's also a fairly well done and fun step. Basically, it's a fighting game stylized in an RPG way. The only real comparison is a random PlayStation 1 fighting game called Ehrgeiz. It featured Final Fantasy 7 characters for some reason. Let's begin with a quick glimpse of game play.

The game play is a combination of 3D fighting with RPG stats, items, and equipment. The fighting is done in an open range arena with platforms. Some arenas are stylized like a room while others are simple and fairly plain. Fighting takes place either on the ground or in the air. You have two meters and two basic attack types. Both revolve around the two basic aspects....HP and Bravery. HP attacks damage HP of course, and Bravery attacks work a little different. Each BRV attack drains the enemies attack power and gives it to you. So if you fight with BRV attacks, you can easily take down the enemies attack while boosting your own. It's a fun twist. Anyways, there's also an EX guage that slowly builds in multiple fashions. Once full, you can transform into EX Mode and basically just kick ass. The point is to knock out the opponent by depleting their HP. I made it sound somewhat boring, but it's actually quite fun.

There's 12 characters (10 at first plus 2 unlockables), and each character is from one of the original ten Final Fantasy titles. They picked 2 from each game...the main hero and the main villain. Each character has their own set of attacks and abilities. Everybody tends to specialize in one form of fighting over another. Once you introduce the items and equipment, things can start getting complicated. Add on top of all of this that they kept the RPG factor of levels means you got yourself a strange yet appealing fighter. Overall, it's a clever title that requires some use of both strategy and fighting game prowess. Fights go all over the place and are both epic and awesome looking. Another cool thing about Dissidia is the ability to create fights between random protagonists and antagonists of the series. Have Sephiroth fight Golbez. Make Zidane fight Terra. Many fun and interesting combinations are possible. The only problem I'd have with any fighting is that levels really, really matter. If I remember correctly, even a few levels above you can easily give the enemy a huge advantage over you. Many times, I found myself being incapable of defeating the enemy based on level alone. Also, I might have just plain sucked...the CPU in fighting games are always hard. That's about what I have to say on the game play itself, and now I move on to the story.

This would probably be the weaker side of this game, or it is at least as far as I am concerned. The story involves the god of dischord, Chaos, and the goddess of harmony, Cosmos. They've been in eternal battle against one another through the use of their selected champions (the main protagonists and antagonists from the first 10 Final Fantasy titles). However, as the story is beginning, their current "cycle" has tipped in Chaos's favor, and the good guys are losing. The cycle thing suggest that they fight until one side loses and then restarts. The first thing you get to do...collect crystals. WHAT A SURPRISE!

As you can tell, I'm really super excited about the game's story /end sarcasm. I don't horribly love it, but the game does have one cool bit. The game features a large amount of interaction between all the different heroes and villains throughout. It's fairly cool to see them all interact with one another. Another delightful (but not really story-related) surprise is the appearance of all sorts of characters in-game. As you proceed through the game, you are introduced to multiple and random characters at the story and help screens. Black Mage, Yuffie, Vivi, and many many more are featured throughout in small tidbits.

As for the story overall....I didn't really love it. It was okay, but I didn't want to play as half the characters. And it is REQUIRED to play as all of them in order to beat it. I know that isn't really a complaint about the story..soooo. Basically, it's not a bad story, but it wasn't for me. I enjoyed the character interactions more than the overall story.

So basically, I'd still say this is another great spinoff for the Final Fantasy series. Their first (real) entrance into the fighting game world. I wouldn't recommend it for fighting game fans, but I would suggest Final Fantasy fans give it a shot...if just for the versus potential! I'll give it a "Good" just to put it simple.


And that's all I have for this post...so to quickly review it.
Final Fantasy Tactics is a really fun game, but I would advise against it if you don't want the strategy or story.
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is incredibly fun and simple. However, it might be too old and simple for some people. Just...download and emulate it real quick.
Dissidia Final Fantasy is a great spinoff Final Fantasy fighting game...for PSP. I'd recommend it if you want something fun and interesting for your PSP, but I wouldn't suggest going out of your way to obtain a PSP to play it.

And to think, this is only a few of the many side titles in the entire Final Fantasy Side Series!
I figure I'll do another one of these "Side Fantasy" posts after I get a few more games done.
That...and I don't think I've played many of the other ones. >_<

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Final Fantasy 5 - Final Thoughts

That's right! It's that time again...time for some final thought-age!

Final Fantasy 5 - Final Thoughts
Now, as usual, we'll begin with the game stats.

Final Fantasy 5 Game Stats
Hours Played - 38-1/2 hours
Final Party and Their Stats

• Bartz Level 42 - Bare with Sword Magic and $toss. (Learned 34 Abilities)
• Reina Level 41 - Bare with Summon and White Magic. (Learned 38 Abilities)
• Krile Level 43 - Bare with Time and Black Magic. (Learned 42 Abilities)
• Faris Level 42 - Bare with Sword Catch and $toss. (Learned 35 Abilities) 

Honestly, I didn't find it to be that impressive of a team, but I managed to beat the game. So...go me! 

Now...time for the review and my final judgement on Final Fantasy 5!

I'll be going over the usual two main points...game play and story. Starting with the game play, it's your basic 2D Final Fantasy RPG. It uses the Active Time Battle style of battling. The system for characters is a reconfigured version of the Job System from Final Fantasy 3. However, I find in this case that I greatly prefer how 5 did it as opposed to 3. FF3's selection of jobs ended with half of the jobs being nearly useless before the game was over. FF5 on the other hand only had a few useless jobs, but almost every job had at least one really good ability to gain. That and the Abilities allow for more customization in turn allowing for more powerful and unique character combos. Outside of the revamped Job System, there really wasn't anything different about 5. I also greatly approved of only having to buy magic once. FF3 forced you to buy separate "orbs" or whatever that was equipped on a per-character basis. It wasn't too bad until you hit later on where spells were 20,000 gil apiece. Anyways, I really enjoyed the game play and the job system in this one, but it isn't totally perfect either...

As for any downsides to 5's game play...My only real complaints are pretty small. The amount of ABP (Ability Points) you need to level your jobs goes up with level, but many jobs hit a point where gaining the extra (and usually) final level gives you a really crappy ability. A good example of this is the Time Mage. The final job level of Time Mage gives you the "Equip Rod" ability. I see no use for this ability whatsoever, and it's also the very last skill you learn...for 500 ABP. Most battles (right up until the very, very end) only hand out around 5 to 10 ABP. Sure, the bosses give more, but that's beside the point. The only other things I'd say are missing are the ability to more easily find Enemy Skills for Blue Magic (Used a guide and maybe got half of them...) and the inability to skip a person's turn. I don't think they really did this until the 3D Final Fantasy games (like 7), and many of the older ones only got this in the remakes. It's really only mildly annoying at worst. That's all I got for game play complaints, and I'd definitely say it was great fun outside of these small things. Now....time for story!

Here I am on Final Fantasy 5, and let me tell you...the crystal thing is getting pretty old. Apparently the first...pretty much all of the initial Final Fantasy games involved elemental crystals and their being taken/destroyed/etc. Each one did it differently, but in the end, they all had crystals. I guess that was just Squaresoft's thing back in the day (That's right...before the Enix!). Minus the crystals thing, it was another good story. A fun fact, apparently this was one of the first fan translations to make it really big. People even complained about the more official translation seeing as they made Faris sound overly pirate-y and such. I didn't mind it so much, but it was kinda weird how she'd go back and forth from it sometimes. Not a big deal really...just probably could have been done better. The story was pretty cool and had some interesting stuff behind it. The twist of Faris being a girl and not a boy. Faris and Reina being siblings (dun dun duuuuuuun!). I won't say anything else as to not ruin any of it...Although I probably already did in a previous post. We also got to deal with the idea of two worlds and the Void again (refer to FF3 story). Although they changed the idea of light and dark world to just two separate worlds that USED to be one. The biggest part of all this...I enjoyed the characters. Despite the seriousness, there was quite a bit of little jokes throughout the game. Overall, I enjoyed the story and the characters.

So if I had to say a flaw in this game...I'd probably point the crystals thing again and Exdeath himself. The Crystals-based story was done quite a bit here, and they never really ventured from it. Some of them put them in the background a bit, but I'm pretty sure they all had crystals at one point or another (minus FF2...but I didn't like that one). My only complaint with Exdeath is mostly his back story more than anything else. He was an evil spirit sealed in a tree, but then he escaped and became an evil wizard. Yet...his overall look is that of a large man in what looks like super evil-y armor. He's not a bad villain persay, but I don't like/loathe him as much as others. Overall...he's kinda meh in comparison. He does get down to business though. Just straight up destroys everything he can...

So now for a small recap...
Love the job system and game play, but it isn't perfect.
The story is good, but it feels done before (previous ones).
I'd say it's pretty good, but I can see why it isn't top ranked among anybody.
I'd say give it a shot if you like Final Fantasy Tactics and its Job System. This version feels like the "beta" of it.

That's it for Final Fantasy 5. I'd recommend, but I wouldn't say go out of your way.
Up next...Final Fantasy 6! The final 2D fantasy in the lineup...and seems to be considered as the best one!
Stay tuned.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 38

Game - Final Fantasy 5, Day 38
Hours Played/Hours Total - 4 hrs / 38-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby the Mirage Village.
Current Goal - Enter the N-Zone and defeat Exdeath. Save the World.

What Happened - Oooh yeaaah~ Time for me to beat another Final Fantasy! I'm right at the finish line on this one. All I lack is the final dungeon, pile of final dungeon bosses, and the big guy himself...Exdeath! So let's get going!
     Before immediately running to the N-Zone, I spent some time leveling up my characters and their jobs. I was still lacking on some of their setups. The biggest thing was getting their job I'd be sticking with fully leveled and ready to go. I spent around an hour gaining some money and levels before getting bored of it. I flew around, gathered supplies, and set sail for the N-Zone. My airship was sucked into the dark area where Tycoon Castle used to be. The ship landed on a sandy beach, and I proceeded forward into...THE N-ZONE! Dun dun duuuuuun! (I promise to not do that again...soon.)
     I made my way through fighting a handful of enemies and was met with a huge group of major monsters. They said they had been stuck in the N-Zone for a thousand years, and that they would stop me from getting anywhere. I found that highly unlikely and proceeded forward through a maze of random location sets. There were many enemies along the way, but none of them were necessarily very tough. I eventually ran into...strangely enough, Mirage Village. It seemed to be frozen in time there, so I made my way around and out of the town. Where I next stepped into a large forest reminiscent of Moore Forest. Just as I was about to exit the forest, I was approached by BOSS BATTLE TIME! My first in many boss battles was with the WoodSprite. Her only strategy seemed to be Reflect on herself coupled with Drain attacks on anyone who physically attacked her. The guide suggested that I Reflect the party and just bounce spells off myself. However, I got fairly far into the battle and was doing well despite the Drain attacks healing her. She was also using my Reflect status against me (by using it to get by her Reflect and heal herself... Fantastic ). Anyways, some quick attacks, a Bahamut Summon, and a few spells sent her flying...to death!
     I exited the forest and found myself in an underground cave with waterfalls. I found a few items and then a save point. I used a cottage to heal, saved up, and proceeded forward. Ahead of me was a purely optional boss named Omega, and I decided to attempt it for BOSS BATTLE TIME! That's what I would say, but I tried to beat it 2-3 times and never even put a damn dent in him. Considering he is insanely hard and optional...I went around. (I'M SORRY! That asshole was stupid hard. According to the guide, he's the SECOND hardest boss in the game. SECOND...I can't imagine Mr. One.) Walking around Omega...I found the next doorway and was then located inside of a library. There were books all around, and I opened up the one on the table for BOSS BATTLE TIME! (Yeah, there are going to be a lot of these...)
     For Boss #...2 (Not counting Omega Failure), I was up against what looked like an old friend. His name was Apprehendr, and his appearance was exactly that of the book demon boss from early on in the Library of Ancients. Of course, I burned him to death with little trouble. I looked at the other books to find...mostly flavor information. One mentioned Omega and someone called Dragon Lord and how not even the fabled 12 Legendary Weapons were unable to beat them...and that the world should go around them. Basically, they are stupid hard. The other book mentioned GigaFlare...Onward! Going through the same door I came in with, I found myself in what appeared to be some sort of sky fortress thing. The only thing fun / unique / whatever about this place was the invisible bridges between bits of sky fortress. Easily conquered. The sky bridge (as I should actually call it) lead to a giant sky CASTLE. I entered inside and found a few nice trinkets. It seems that I couldn't proceed upward yet, so I went down to the basement. There was a grouping of cells there with people (or what looked like people) inside them. The guide pointed to the lower left enemy first since he would drop the save point here. BOSS BATTLE TIME! For this round, I got to fight something along the lines of a Blue Mage Boss named Azulmagia (I see what you did there Square...). He used lots of enemy abilities and was...really nothing much outside of that. He did take one person out (with the use of instant death Roulette), but that was all really. I sent him packing...to the grave!
     I saved my game and made way to defeating the remaining prisoners in here. After Azulmagia, I fought off two groups of three mages. Each mage would fight pathetically, transform into a flying snake, and fight slightly better. They weren't that much of a challenge. After that, I tried to enter the last cell and was attacked for BOSS BATTLE TIME! This round was against a giant floating eyeball named Catastroph. Despite his evil look and name, he was basically a wuss. His only attack was Earth Shaker, and that's completely useless if I keep my party Floated. So...auto-win. The lady in the last cell thanked us for freeing her and ran off. She's obviously one of the upcoming bosses. I don't see how she COULDN'T be. I made my way further up and into the castle. In the throne room, I met with the lady again...for BOSS BATTLE TIME! The name of the lady was Halycanos, and she didn't look like much of a lady once she transformed into the monstrosity. The first action of the battle was turning the group into a pile of frogs. I cured everybody with Maiden's Kiss and moved on with the battle. It wasn't much of a battle though, and I blasted through with little effort.
     I quickly ran back for a heal and save, and then I ran back forward to make it past this castle. On top, I was greeted by a lovely monster named Twin Tania for...BOSS BATTLE TIME! Twin Tania looked like a cross between a bull and a dragon with a 2 pairs of legs and 1 pair of arms. Can you see it? You could probably just google it if you were even that interested. Anyways, nothing too tough here. A little preparation made this battle go very easily. After his defeat, a stairway appeared. I climbed it and was warped to the area where the Void was said to be located. Once inside, the music changed and got all cool and epic sounding. I am mostly certainly getting closer and closer to the end! Next up in BOSS BATTLE TIME is a special guest who we have met many, many times before...It's Gilgamesh! *Applause Sign* He returns for yet another story battle. It starts like a normal battle, but then he starts rambling on about ghosts, Bartz, all sorts of weird mumbo jumbo, and then he runs off. So you don't really have to do anything here...
     Moving along, I continued onward through this final section of the game. I avoided another side boss along the way known as Shinryu. He's considered the hardest boss in the game (according to the guide), and even that guy didn't beat him. He managed to defeat Omega where I didn't, so I figured it best to walk around. A couple warps later, I found myself in the final, final area. All that was left was one more boss and then...onward to Exdeath. BOSS BATTLE TIME! The boss this time was a Necrophobe. He wasn't going to go down easy. He was protected by a barrier created by 4 pods. I had to destroy the pods first, and that was a fun chore in and of itself. After the pods were destroyed, it was time to take down Necrophobe. Just as the battle was going...as normal, all of a sudden, Gilgamesh re-appeared! He had come to save the day. There were quite a few words exchanged before the battle was done. Gilgamesh told Krile that her grandfather (Galuf) was a great man. He told Faris to find a man and act like a woman. He told Reina to treat people as nice as she did animals. As for Bartz, he simply wished he could have fought Bartz 1 on 1. After all that said and done, he sacrificed himself to kill Necrophobe. With Necrophobe gone, a save point appeared, and it was finally time to go and defeat Exdeath!
     As per Final Fantasy rules, before I could fight Exdeath, I had to sit through an elaborate talking bit. Upon our arrival, Exdeath had just mastered his control over the Void. He was all powerful and blah blah blah. It's your typical rant and such. He changed back into his original form (the giant evil tree) and began attacking the rest of the world with the Void. He even threw the main group into the Void. Unfortunately for him, the group was saved by the Dawn Warriors! They used their powers to hold back the Void while the group went to defeat Exdeath! Even the King of Tycoon showed up to help. FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! Thanks to all of my preparation, this battle was swift and ass kicking! I laid down the smacking and just kept after him. Before the battle, I had changed everybody's job to Bare and equipped them to the max with Ribbons, the best weapons, their best abilities, and more. I was ready! And incredibly ready was the right word, and it seemed that Exdeath was gone...But of course he wasn't! Exdeath merged with the Void to become...NEO EXDEATH! His new goal was to destroy everything and then himself. Time for ACTUAL FINAL BOSS BATTLE 2.0 REMIX EDITION! Neo Exdeath didn't go down quite as easily. I made use of the $toss skill to throw all of my money at him. It didn't kill him, but it most certainly took him down a notch. From there, I just needed to beat the last bit of him while keeping everybody alive. (I read somewhere that the ending changes if anybody is dead at the end....) It was a rough battle for sure. I lost people several times throughout, but I always managed to revive them. And in the end...I came out victorious! I was then treated to a very, very long ending cutscene that was very long yet appropriate. And thankfully, it explained a few things as well.
     First and foremost, the crystals were originally born from the Void. The crystals formed and then created the world. From there, everything sprouted from the crystals' powers. Thanks to my and the group's efforts, the world was able to revive and reform. Their crystal shards went out and became the world's new crystals. The world....was saved. After that, each character took off to do what they needed. I won't reveal anything more, but it was a great ending. My favorite part of it all was the ending credits. During the credits, it gave me all of the stats for each character like their Level, HP, MP, total Experience, all their abilities, and the total number of abilities they had. Overall, I really enjoyed my Final Fantasy 5 experience.
Stay tuned for my FF5 Final Thoughts! I'll be posting them quite soon, and then it is onward to Final Fantasy 6!!!

Ending Point - End of the Game! Woooo!
Current Party -

• Bartz Level 42 - Bare with Sword Magic and $toss (LEARNED 34 ABILITIES)
• Reina Level 41 - Bare with Summon and White Magic (LEARNED 38 ABILITIES)
• Krile Level 43 - Bare with Time and Black magic (LEARNED 42  ABILITIES)
• Faris Level 42 - Bare with Sword Catch and $toss (LEARNED 35  ABILITIES)

Goals Accomplished - Beat a lot of bosses. I could name them all, but I'd rather save the time and effort. Defeated Exdeath as well as the reborn Neo Exdeath! Saved the world bitches~ I BEAT FINAL FANTASY 5!
Next Goals - Start Final Fantasy 6!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 37

Game - Final Fantasy 5, Day 37
Hours Played/Hours Total - 9 hrs / 34-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby the Library of Ancients.
Current Goal - Obtain the 12 Legendary Weapons. Stop Exdeath from controlling The Void. Save the world.

What Happened - Every day I play...I get that much closer! I've only got 10 days left in this month to keep up with my goal, and I plan to keep with it! ONWARD! THROUGH FINAL FANTASY 5!
     Starting from the Library of Ancients, I had to start finding some hidden lithographs so that I could unlock the sealed chamber where the 12 Legendary Weapons were. The Sealed Book had given hints towards where the four lithographs were hidden. With the details in mind, I made my way to the first one located in a pyramid in the nearby desert. Along the way, the group passed by the Elder Tree and stopped for a moment to remember those lost to Exdeath's villainy. With the merging of the two worlds, the one world contains every aspect of the separate worlds like all the different locations. Moving right along, we came into the desert. This is the same desert from earlier on with the sandworm and shifting sands. However, the sands weren't moving at all. With the loss of both Earth Crystals, the earth was starting to die. The group continued onward to the pyramid. The first thing I got to do there was...BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The boss here was a pair of gargoyles guarding the pyramid's entrance. According to the guide, this would be a rather ridiculous battle if done wrong. Basically, if you kill one without killing the other, they will revive the other one. If you aren't careful, you will get yourself stuck into a cycle of each one reviving the other. With that in mind, I took a costly approach (costly with gil) by simply applying the $toss move. Yet again, this move has come in handy. With a little attacking and a finishing $toss, the two gargoyles went down both fast and easily. I then made my way inside the pyramid. This pyramid was definitely designed with an Egyptian theme in mind. I realize that they're basically number one in pyramids, but I feel like this place was a bit overdone in that. I fought mummies, snakes, and snake people. There were sand traps, spike traps, snake traps, and sarcophagi. It was basically the Egyptian experience. Despite that, it was a fairly challenging dungeon. Many of the enemies were decently strong and were able to throw trouble my way. It didn't help the fact that I was down an entire party member (Reina). I also probably was making it worse with my not super-balanced party going into this. It was currently a Berserker, Blue Mage, and Samurai.
     After a small ways in, I was encountering enough resistance that I had to swap Krile over from Blue Mage to Black Mage with White Magic. This helped out since Black Magic does have better offensive abilities than Blue. I actually died once at one point due to some bad luck and timing on my part. (An enemy used Level 3 Flare on my party...and they were all at levels with multiples of 3. -_-) After making my way through multiple trapped chests and some almost overpowered enemies, I finally obtained the lithograph! The first of four...Moving right along, the group is transported to the top of the pyramid where we get to witness several events happening. A portion of a continent sinks and transforms into the giant super dragon god we all know and love...Bahamut! (Seriously, it was the size of a continent) A ship steers its way towards the Library of Ancients. And just shortly after leaving the pyramid, I encountered Dragon carrying Reina to the group. They were overjoyed, but their celebration was too soon. It seems that some monster from the N-Zone had possessed her and was planning to kill the group. As that was going down, Exdeath appeared and destroyed the Library of Ancients with his Void powers. Then took off while Reina started destroying the group. Lucky for me, Dragon flew in and separated the person possessing her, so it was time for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     It wasn't necessarily the hardest boss, but I found out quickly that most of my attacks were useless. One character in their entirety (Faris) could literally do nothing to it, so I had to keep Faris on healing duty. Bartz (Berserker) could do damage if he managed to hit. Krile could do pretty good damage as a Black Mage, but the boss kept switching her magical weakness. After several frustrating rounds, I put the boss in the ground. Reina was okay, and the group continued onward. From there, my next goal was...I'm not sure. I ran to the nearby castle (Surgate Castle) and checked in with some of the scholars that got out of the Library of Ancients in time. One was able to read the book and point me to the next Lithograph temple...somewhere on an Island. With that new info, I made my way to the ship (it was the airship) that had landed nearby. Just as the group got on, Exdeath used his Void Powers to suck up and destroy multiple towns across the planet. It seems like I'll have to hurry up and get the weapons or the world is doomed. Of course, we know that by "hurry up" the game generally means "take your time and do what you want." My first stop with the airship back in my hands was the Sealed Castle containing the 12 Legendary Weapons. It seems that the first lithograph granted me access to three of the twelve. I took the Rune Axe, Masamune, and Magus Rod. Once taken, I left the castle for now and made my way to...Mirage Village!
     According to the guide, it's a fairly good place to run by before continuing on. I don't really love using a guide, but I hate missing big and powerful items because I forgot to take three seconds to go a different way. Anyways, off to Mirage Village! I flew over to the location and went inside. It has an unusual way of entering the town. It tricks you into thinking it is a random encounter. Once inside, you find out some interesting things about this village. It seems that Mirage Village is a mysterious "time-travelling" village that was lost to the N-Zone long ago. The people there talk about and recall seeing and being around the events that occurred long ago such as Enuo's uprising and defeat or the planet splitting in two. (Enuo was the villain who tried to control the Void long ago.) Aside from that, the village is home to some of the greatest items, equipment, and magic that you can buy in-game. After buying what I could, I began the search of the 8th and final piano. You see...The entirety of the game I've been finding and playing these pianos. It's part of some big side quest that I have no idea about. However, if you manage to find and play all of the pianos, it is supposed to reward you somehow at some point. I'm still unsure of what or where, but I will find it! I didn't mention it until now because it was mostly unimportant. Anyways, I left Mirage Village and made my way for the next shrine.
     It was supposed to be located on an island protected by the wind or something like that. After flying around a bit, I located what seemed to be the right place and went inside. The Island Shrine was waaaay easier than the Pyramid. The enemies weren't nearly as hard (although there was the annoying druid...), and the puzzles were basically nonexistent. It really helped having a pile of super holy weapons on my side. That is for sure. I pushed my way through until I found the second lithograph, but of course, I couldn't take it without a fight! A minion of Exdeath appeared, called the group little girls, and attacked me for BOSS BATTLE TIME! His name was Stoker, and his strategy was multiple images of himself with only one real him. I was already warned to not attack him with a group attack, and the only thing left was a game of Whack-A-Mole featuring Stoker! Lucky for me, outside of the annoyance, he wasn't all that tough at all. His best attack was Hurricane, but all that did was reduce an enemy's health down to single digits. I kept the party healed up and smacked all of the images until he was slain. Woo!
     With the Second Lithograph in hand, I unlocked the Fork Tower. The lithograph said that the tower housed the ultimate White and Black magics (Holy and Flare respectively). Before going that way, I made a trip back to the Sealed Castle to obtain three more Legendary Weapons! This time, I grabbed the Excalibur, the Holy Lance, and the Sage Staff. The other weapons start being more and more specific like a bell (Geomancer only), a harp (Bard only), a bow (Hunter), and a couple more like them. I still look forward to getting them, but they won't be as useful as the others I have at the moment. Anyways, with my new weapons equipped and ready, I made way to the Fork Tower for some kick-ass new magic!
     Turns out Fork Tower was straightforward, fairly easy, and completely required. You can't actually get through the rest of the game without doing this part. Anyways, for the tower, I had to split the party in two teams of two. If you tried to take the two super spells at separately, they would explode and destroy the tower. So...time for the ol' team split! I sent two groups upward and each tackled a different boss. I say it like that because there weren't many random encounters, and the splitting of the team was more of who was to deal with which boss. The guide suggested the physical warriors take on the Holy boss ,and the magical folk take on the Flare boss. So let's fast forward to BOSS BATTLE TIME! To claim Holy, I was forced to fight the Minitaurus. He was able to deal out some fierce damage to my two fighters, but I easily conquered him with a Fighter and Samurai combo (Bartz and Faris). I was able to easily beat him with no trouble. Now...as for the other two, basically the same thing happened. To consider Flare as my own, I had to defeat the boss Omniscient. It was a powerful wizard-type boss. It was easily taken down with a carefully summoned Carbuncle (casts Reflect on the party) by Reina plus strong Black Magic attacks from Krile. I did get beaten up, but I never was truly challenged. With the two bosses down, I now had a hold of the best magics available for Black and White Mages. Woo!
     After claiming the spells, the Fork Tower disappeared and revealed itself to be located on top of the underwater laboratory from earlier on (where we found the airship). I went inside to find Cid and Mid still hard at work. They recently discovered another book with more technology! They quickly adapted the airship to give it submarine capabilities. Now I was able to dive underwater! With the airship now capable of all forms of travel, all I have left to do is obtain the last two lithographs and procure extra supplies/summons with some side quests. First up on the list was Walz Tower. Earlier on in the game, Walz Tower sank below the ocean. However, with the submarine at hand, I was able to dive down and go inside it. I was limited to 7 minutes down there, but that was more than enough to claim a missing crystal shard for...Boss Battle Time? I say it like that because it wasn't so much a Boss Battle as it was a staring contest. I encountered a mysterious man named GoGo. He had the special ability to Mime any and everything we threw at him. You beat him by simply doing nothing. After a whole lot of nothing, he congratulated us and gave me the final crystal shard with the final job...Mime! After Mime, I sought after several more side quests for greater power, equipment, and abilities.
     Next up was a small request by a man in Mirage Village. He would give me a special gift if I ran around the world on a Chocobo! One trip around the world later, and I'm rewarded with a Mirage Vest. Of course, during the trip around, I also collected a Magic Lamp on a waterfall. After the Mirage Vest, I took the airship to the Pirate Cove (the one from the VERY beginning) and was given a new summon...Hydra! There was a little moment where the spirit of Hydra came back and offered the group its help. It was a nice touch. After Hydra, I only had a few items left on my list of "Side Quests." All three items left on the list involve summons. I started by going after Odin in Jachol Cave. I visited this cave earlier on and basically got nothing out of it. With the world back together, the cave had a new location it lead to. After going through the cave, I found myself in the bottom section of Val Castle. The door down there was locked when I tried from the other side, but the cave lead right into it. Inside was Odin, and it was time for me to claim him! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     If you remember Odin from...basically any of the previous titles with summons, you generally can only get Odin by defeating him in battle extremely quickly. If you fail to do it quickly, he will make quick work of you. As for FF5, he gave me ONE minute to prove myself. The battle started, and I threw everything I had at him. Super attacks from Legendary weapons and several rounds of Flare was able to shut Odin up and add him to the Summon squad. After Odin, I began looking for the next in line...Phoenix! The summon was located in..Phoenix Tower. I required a Black Chocobo to get to the tower. The only one left in the world was in Mirage Village. After the small trip to retrieve that, I made way to the tower in the desert. It was a quick walk to it, and then I had to climb 30 floors. It sounds like a daunting task, but there really weren't any dangerous enemies inside. Nothing much for items either, but there was a special battle located on a handful of the floors. The battle was with a monster called a Magic Pot. All it does is sit there and ask for Elixers. Most of them were satisfied with 1 Elixer and then ran off. The benefit of all this? 100 Ability Points per Magic Pot. There was around 5 of them during the climb up, so it was a very good thing. I gained many, many job levels out of that, so it was a huuge plus. Eventually, I reached the top and was lead into a cutscene. Reina's dragon was located on the top of the tower. It flew off the tower to sacrifice itself...It sounds really harsh and sad, but Krile informed us (she can talk to magical animals and such) that it was doing it to help us. The dragon sacrificed itself and turned into a Phoenix! And thus...I earned the Phoenix summon. Next up would be Bahamut, but I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet, so I'll continue with the rest of the lithographs and then come back to Bahamut. You'll get yours soon enough Dragon God!
     The next location was hidden underneath a waterfall. I had to use the submarine to access it, but it was quickly found and gained entrance to...Easterly Falls! Inside here was the "last" lithograph according to the characters. This is number three for me though...Whatever! I traveled through the perilous waterfall cave (not very perilous). The enemies weren't much of a challenge here, but I was looking forward to more Legendary Weapons. I made it through, grabbed up the lithograph, and was greeted by Leviathan. It killed off one of Exdeath's minions who attempted to stop me. It offered to join me if I could beat it...BOSS BATTLE TIME! Thanks to the usual guide tip, I easily beat and obtained Leviathan. I won't go into details, but I'll just say that Water-based attacks are completely useless against a party with Coral Rings equipped. (Coral Rings absorb water-based magic/attacks.) Yet another summon to add to my squad of summons! I've almost got all of them now. I'll grab Bahamut later, but now it is time for the final lithograph! It's also the 3rd one, but the order isn't important apparently.
     Before going to the next location, I returned to the Sealed Castle for another trio of Legendary Weapons. I picked out the Apollo Harp, Assassin's Dagger, and the Ninja Blade. With those in hand, it was time to find the next and final lithograph. The final (and third one technically in-game) is located somewhere under the ocean in a great sea hole. They call it the Great Sea Trench, but the area I entered into looked more like a giant hole. Anyways, I went inside and began the search for Lithograph #3! This was by far one of the weirder places. There was lava everywhere, and all of the enemies looked like mangled, inside-out monster things. Lucky for me, one of the best abilities to put to use here was the Bard with the Requiem song. It would damage the entire enemy group for 3000ish damage each! With the enemies not being much trouble, I  could mostly focus on moving right along. Halfway in, I found a dwarf village with...5 dwarves in it. The first one I talked to even exclaimed about there being only 5. You'd think they would be worried, but they seem all right with this fact. I kept moving forward through lava, pressed some switches, and finally located the last lithograph. It seems I wouldn't get it without a BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The boss this time was a trio of hideous...demon baby monster things. They weren't super tough, but they had two annoying things about them. The first was that you have to kill all three at the same time. The second was that killing one would only knock him out momentarily. He would then come back and the group would use a move called Delta Attack on one random party member...turning them into stone. After several frustrating rounds, I was able to put this trio of monsters down. I then claimed the final lithograph! It also granted me the Time spell Meteo! Woo! With the final lithograph in hand, I made way to the Sealed Castle to take the final three Legendary weapons. The remaining weapons were the Yoichi's Bow, Fire Bute (it's a whip), and the Earth Bell. With the weapons at my disposal, it was almost time to head to the N-Zone. Before that, I had one last location to visit. It was time to confront Bahamut on the North Mountain.
     I made a few pit stops and then used the Black Chocobo to get there. It was another location where I couldn't fly my airship in. Anyways, the mountain proceeded as it had the first time I climbed it (for the Dragon Grass). It was a slow and pointless climb to one of the game's hardest battles...BOSS BATTLE TIME! According to my guide friend, I had only a brief period of time before Bahamut would cast Mega Flare and wipe out my party. With that in mind, my goal was to deal out damage quickly and heavily. I jumped in, buffed up my party, and beat him in around 4-5 rounds. I..kinda expected a harder battle. Regardless, I added Bahamut as the Squad Leader in Summon Squad! Woo! All that's left now is petty leveling, item buying, and then...final area commences!
     Seeing as I have quite a bit typed up here for this post, I'm going to end the post here and begin a new post for the final area. That one will probably be overly short minus the dozen-ish boss battles that will take place. So...ONWARD! TO THE FINAL FANTASY 5 FINAL POST!

Ending Point - Nearby Mirage Village.
Current Party -

• Bartz Level 40 - Samurai Level 4 with Two-handed ability.
• Reina Level 39 - Black Mage Level 6 with White Magic ability.
• Krile Level 40 - Time Mage Level 6 with Black Magic ability.
• Faris Level 40 - Knight Level 2 with Two Sword ability. 

Goals Accomplished - Located the Pyramid and retrieved the first lithograph. Regained Reina as a party member. Discovered the mysterious Mirage Village and stocked up. Obtained the first three Legendary Weapons. Located the Island Shrine and retrieved the second lithograph. Obtained the White Magic spell Holy and Black Magic spell Flare. Obtained three more Legendary Weapons. Upgraded my airship to enable submarine mode. Completed several side quests for some new items including the Hydra Summon, a Magic Lamp, and a Mirage Vest. More side quests and obtained Odin and Phoenix summons! Located Easterly Falls and retrieved the third lithograph. Obtained three more Legendary Weapons. Fought and obtained the Leviathan summon. Found the Great Sea Trench and obtained the fourth and final lithograph. Obtained the Time Magic spell Meteo. Obtained the final three Legendary Weapons. Defeated and obtained the Bahamut summon!
Next Goals - Enter the N-Zone and defeat Exdeath. Save the World.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 36

Game - Final Fantasy 5, Day 36
Hours Played/Hours Total - 6-1/2 hrs / 25-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby Val Castle.
Current Goal - Locate Zeza's Fleet and join up with him. Defeat Exdeath and save the world!

What Happened - Hooo boy! As you've realized by the last couple of posts, I've been referring to a guide to help me get some of the extra bits. And from what I've seen, I'm maybe at the halfway point of the game. With that in mind, I'm looking at around 20 hours to get through the rest of it. Best get started!
     Starting from Val Castle, I made my way eastward and located Zeza's fleet. There were quite a few ships out there, but I was able to land on the biggest ship with my dragon. Upon landing, I was greeted by King Zeza (he prefers just Zeza like Galuf). The two chatted briefly and then the group rested. However, we were awaken mid-sleep by a battle up above. Exdeath's forces had come to attack the ships. After dealing with a handful of enemies, I came face to face with...Gilgamesh again. BOSS BATTLE TIME! It seems that Gilgamesh is going to be the recurring boss for the game. So far, he's never been much of a challenge and seems like more of a joke fight.  This battle didn't prove very different until he summoned a little help. Just as he was about to go down, he brought in a friend who was turning the sides for the battle. It was starting to go slowly and downhill, but I finished the battle in one stroke with the Samurai's $toss skill. It throws a huge pile of your money at the enemy for massive damage. I don't know how much I lost, but I figure the price was right to end the battle.
     Gilgamesh attempted to grab the group and bring them into the ocean with himself, but he failed at that and drifted away. The group recovered from this and took the next action. Zeza had already made a full plan. First, they dug a hole under the ocean directly to one of the Barrier Towers. Once said tunnel was done, they were going to use it to infiltrate and destroy the tower. This would lower the barrier and allow a direct approach to Exdeath's castle. Zeza showed the group the submarine and left the fleet behind. Once underneath the tower, Zeza blew a hole inside and gave us instructions. He was heading to the basement to destroy the power room while we would head to the top and destroy the antenna.
     One tower climb later (trying to cut down), I found myself at the top. Just as the group was about to destroy the antenna, BOSS BATTLE TIME! This was actually a really difficult and highly unusual boss battle. The boss was a giant monstrosity with a huge mouth. According to the guide, his name is Atomos. I recognize the name from a different Final Fantasy (he's a summon in 9). Anyways, the entire battle consisted of Atomos casting Comet on select people and then dragging them forward. His strategy was to kill people and pull them towards himself. Once they reached him, those people were "sucked into another dimension" as the game put it. However, he could only pull downed party members into the warp (or whatever). In all reality, the best strategy would be to let him take one out and unleash my attacks on him as he focused on that person. I believe he wouldn't kill another one until he had sucked in that person. Instead, I kept reviving people here and there so he kept killing off someone. Sometimes he'd kill off two people, and then I had to waste all my turns reviving. Before it was all said and done, I actually lost Bartz and Galuf to him. I barely managed to kill him as he was about to get Faris too. With Atomos defeated, the antenna was finally starting to go. However...tragedy strikes (as always).
     As the group starts trying to escape the tower, Zeza reports in that the engine room is beginning to blow. And then the game takes off into a cutscene. Basically, Zeza is stuck down there, and he knew this was going to happen. Galuf wants to go after him, but Zeza pleads the group to leave him behind so they can face Exdeath. He promises to meet them back by the submarine (An obvious lie of course). A short time later, the group is waiting at the submarine when Galuf finally gives in. Faris suggests that we use the sub to reach Gill's cave, and I'm off to the next location.
     The inside of Gill's Cave was just a big damn puzzle. I cheated with guide help and used it to get myself to Gill a bit faster. Nothing super special inside the cave outside of the puzzle and random monsters. The group finally encounters Gill and discovers that he...is a turtle. Gill reveals some of Exdeath's back story to the group as well as what his next plan is. It seems that Exdeath was created when an evil spirit in a tree turned a tree into a monster. The monster was Exdeath. He had been kept sealed for 500 years until the incident 30 years ago. The Dawn Warriors managed to seal him using the crystals of the other planet, but then he broke loose. After that, Gill instructs the group to go to Moore Forest. Exdeath is currently looking for something there, and the group needs to go and protect it. The forest is alive, and it is impossible to directly enter it. Gill handed over something called the Elder Branch. He said it would allow us to enter the forest. Well now...off to Moore Forest!
     Moore Forest was located in land in an area that I couldn't fly into. I had to find a spot under the ocean with the submarine and go up into the Moore area. Before heading to Moore Forest, I checked out the nearby village of...Moore Village. They had some new and really good equipment and spells, but I didn't have enough money for it all. I had to spend the next hour or so farming up some money so that I could buy everything out. I gained some extra levels also, so it didn't feel like a huge waste of time. After that, I used the Elder Branch to open and finally enter the forest. About halfway into the forest, it started catching fire. It seems that Exdeath was incredibly determined to find what he wanted. The group managed to escape the fire when a Moogle came up and helped them. After the fire passed, I continued further into the forest until we came face to face with the Master Tree. The Elder Branch opened the way, and I stepped inside. The next thing I knew, I was in ...BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     I had to fight off a group of four giant crystals. It doesn't sound like much of a battle, but it was fairly tough. It killed me on my first attempt. Anyways, each crystal had its own type so I couldn't use any group spells or summons against them. On top of that, once a crystal reached critical health, it started casting super damaging spells. My first attempt went okay until they started the super spells. The second time, I used the ultimate strategy! I used the Samurai's $toss ability twice, and that killed off all the crystals. Sure, I put a bit more effort into it than that, but that was the basic idea of what happened. After defeating the crystals, it seemed like that was a huge mistake. Exdeath walks in and thanks the group for breaking the seal so that he could claim the power of the crystals. With the crystals in hand, he started slaughtering the party. Just as it looked grim, Krile came in and blasted Exdeath. However, she soon was captured as well. Galuf used all his strength to save Krile and then charged at Exdeath for STORY BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Galuf was actually killed in the first attack, but as per story battle, he kept going. He attacked and attacked Exdeath until he was defeated. Exdeath fled the scene with the crystals. The group runs up to Galuf, but it was too late. He was already horribly injured, and it seemed his time had come. They all did their best to try and save him, but it was over. Galuf passed on. The group mourned for his death, and Krile received his powers and abilities. (Thank god, I was NOT looking forward to retraining an entire character.) With Exdeath in possession of those crystals, the group had to hurry and get him. I made my way to Exdeath's Castle and prepared for a final battle. The last thing I did before going to Exdeath's Castle was locate another summon monster. This time, it was some weird looking thing named Shoat. It looked like some sort of one-eyed cat goat monster. I defeated it with little trouble and had a new summon in hand. Off to Exdeath's Castle!
     Finally back to his castle. If you remember, I was shortly here when the group first arrived on this planet. This time though...we are here to face Exdeath himself! The group infiltrates the castle. They don't make it too far inside when they hit a dead end. Krile looks over it and knows it isn't a dead end. As she's looking at the wall, something speaks to her. The game changes places, and I see a glimpse of the Dawn Warrior Kelga. He realizes that he is the last surviving Dawn Warrior, and that he is going to pass soon. Using the last of his power, he breaks the illusion over the castle. With the illusion gone, I'm able to continue onward. There wasn't any necessarily hard puzzles along the way, but the enemies easily made up for this. Many of them weren't really hard on their own, but they had stupidly powerful combos that easily doubled or tripled their difficulty. Even further on, I started running into dragons. They were all a pain in the ass. Along the way, I ran into another summon monster...Carbuncle! He wanted me to prove my worth in BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Lucky for me, I already had a hot tip for beating Carbuncle. Apparently, my newly acquired summon, Shoat, is perfect for this. All Shoat can do is petrify an opponent turning them to stone, but it seems to work on Carbuncle for some reason. The first attempted Shoat missed, but the second one hit right on and defeated Carbuncle. Woo! Got another summon! Just shortly after the encounter with Carbuncle, I was met with an old friend...Gilgamesh. He attacked the group for the FOURTH time! Another BOSS BATTLE! This was one was just like the rest however. He didn't put up much of a challenge, and it seemed to be more of a "story battle" than anything. He talked to the group and asked about the "old man." Krile and party answered that Exdeath had killed him. Funny enough, Gilgamesh seemed to show a sadness towards this. After fighting for a while, he morphed into a larger and more powerful looking form. Since we last saw him, he had obtained the mythical Excalibur! Despite its mythical super ability, it wasn't doing anything to the group. Eventually, Exdeath stepped in and killed Gilgamesh. Victory...I guess? Found out shortly after the battle that what Gilgamesh actually had was the "Excalipur," which is a famous knockoff version of Excalibur.
     Shortly after Gilgamesh's battle, the group came face to face with the bad guy himself...time for BOSS BATTLE! Exdeath put up quite a fight here. Even with summoning Golem (for physical defense) and Carbuncle (for Reflect status), I still had quite a fight on my hands. I put a lot of Blue Magic to use during this battle, and after several rounds of mostly healing, the group defeated Exdeath...maybe. After the battle, there was a sudden flash and the group passed out. They awakened to find themselves back nearby Castle Tycoon. I went inside and Faris and Reina were welcomed back as Princesses of the kingdom. A party started and the two Princesses (Faris/Salsa and Reina) were sitting at their thrones. Bartz and Krile had a bad feeling that something was off and left to find out what all had happened. Along the way, I re-encountered my old friend Boko. He was doing quite well, and he even had a wife chocobo named Koko! Boko agreed to help the two, and I began my travels back on the original planet.
     I didn't make it too far when all of a sudden a hole opened up in the ground! Everybody was okay...but then a monster attacked Bartz and Krile! I quickly put him down, but the two were stuck in the hole. I had to wait around for a bit. Eventually, a small rope appeared near the top of the cave. It lowered down and helped the group get back up. Turns out that Faris was the one at the top. She was mad at the two for abandoning her at the party. She joined the group, and I quickly made my way further on. Eventually, I found a small cave that turned out to be Gill's Cave! Gill talked to the group and told them about what was happening. Apparently, the two planets had merged back together! A long time ago, the two planets were actually one planet. The planet was split into two planets back then to seal off The Void. Back when the planet was one, a powerful evil known as Enuo had the power to control the Void. The fight with Enuo raged for quite some time, but it was finally defeated with the use of 12 legendary weapons. Unfortunately, they were unable to get rid of the Void that Enuo had brought about. The worlds split the crystals all in two, and that separated the world into two planets. The space between the two worlds, called the N-Zone, was where they sealed away The Void.
     Exdeath had known all this and brought the planets back together as one in order to obtain power over The Void. Just as Gill was finished talking, Exdeath made his appearance. He had hidden himself on Krila as a splinter. His plan was to take control of the power of the Void. Just as he started saying that, the N-Zone appears over Tycoon Castle and swallows it up. The group tries to fight Exdeath, but they all fail. Eventually, Gill steps up and fights on almost even ground with Exdeath. Before the battle concludes, the group is sent flying off by Exdeath. They awaken near the Library of Ancients with Gill. The group informs him that it is the Library of Ancients, and they head there next. The scholars at the library had hooked up with those from Surgate Castle. They each had half of an ancient book. The book, known as the Sealed Book, contained the information necessary to defeat Exdeath. The book told of the location where the 12 Legendary Weapons were sealed. However, to get to those weapons, I would have to hunt down 4 Lithographs located all over the world. Each lithograph was protected by guardians. Gill told the group that they needed to hurry and find the weapons before Exdeath gained full control of the Void.
     Seeing as I have accomplished quite a bit, I've decided to end it here for now. I saved up my game, and I'm ready for another post hopefully before Sunday evening.

Ending Point - Nearby the Library of Ancients.
Current Party -

• Bartz Level 35 - Berserker Lvl 1 with Two Handed ability.
• Reina - Currently Missing in Action.
• Krile Level 35 - Blue Mage Lvl 3 with White Magic.
• Faris Level 35 - Samurai Lvl 3 with Two Swords ability.

Goals Accomplished -Located Zeza's Fleet and joined up with him. Helped fight off an enemy attack on Zeza's ship. Climbed up and destroyed the Barrier Tower. Used the Submarine to enter Gill's Cave. Located and Entered Moore Forest. Helped Exdeath by breaking the seal (great job) and letting him gain the crystals. Defeated and obtained the Shoat summon. Defeated and obtained the Carbuncle summon. Explored Exdeath's Castle and defeated Exdeath. Explored the new merged world and found Gill. Learned from the Sealed Book about the 12 Legendary Weapons.
Next Goals - Obtain the 12 Legendary Weapons. Stop Exdeath from controlling The Void. Save the world.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~