Game - Final Fantasy 5, Day 35
Hours Played/Hours Total - 8 hrs / 19 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby the Library of Ancients
Current Goal - Pass through the Desert and find out where King Tycoon was going. Find and Protect the Earth Crystal. Save the world from Exdeath!
What Happened - Well, my last post was a bit big. I'm hoping to get a decent number of hours in on this one, but hopefully not so much text either! Onward to the happening!
I started off from the Library of Ancients and began heading west to the nearby desert. The unfortunate part about this desert was that its flowing sands kept anybody (including us) from going directly through it. However, when I attempted to cross, Cid and Mid showed up with a plan to help us cross. They were going to call a Sandworm using a bell. We would defeat said Sandworm and be able to cross into the desert using it. I didn't really get the plan at first, but I went with it. BOSS BATTLE TIME! The Sandworm wasn't really the toughest boss, but he sure as hell was annoying. The first thing you see on the field is 3 holes. The Sandworm pops out of one of them, and you can probably already guess what happens. Basically, at random points in battle, the Sandworm switches placed. Most of the time, this didn't really help it, but I lost at least 4 or 5 attacks because I was attacking a hole and not a worm. It also had the Demi spell (which reduces an target's health by 1/2) along with a special ability called Quicksand. None of these were necessarily devastating, but they sure got annoying. I had to constantly keep up with healing through use of Cure 2. I really wish I had better spells at this point, but I think I have the best at the moment. Anyways, many, many rounds later, I finally defeated the damn annoying Sandworm!
With the Sandworm defeated, it became apparent what they were planning. Apparently, I was to use the dead Sandworm's carcass as a bridge over the sand. That or it might have actually meant to use the Sandworm's tunnels...it looked more like the bridge thing though. Whatever! I could finally travel through the desert. It was an interesting walk through the desert. The big mechanic about the desert was the shifting sands. Step on the wrong spot, and you'd end up going back quite a distance. However, it was also the only way forward. So I pushed my way through the desert...It took some time, but I did make it all the way eventually. I then proceeded southward to the ruins of city called Gorn Town.
Upon entry, the group spotted the king walking about. He decided he wanted to play a game of "Catch the King." It was neither fun nor interesting. I would advise everybody to not play "Catch the King." Anyways, I walked around chasing after him until he trapped himself in a room. The group begins to approach him...then they fell through the floor. Found myself in a mysterious ruins below the town. I walked around and found myself on a strange platform. The platform started flashing, and the group was teleported across the world. They finally ended up somewhere underneath Crescent Island. Just as they arrived, the machine that teleported them started to shred apart! The group ran out of the room and began the climb upward through the mysterious ruins.
Along the way, I got a brief glimpse at what was happening above. Cid and Mid had taken my black chocobo and was returning it to the forest on Crescent Island. As it returned to the group, we were running about what seemed to be an ancient civilizations lab of sorts. There were all forms of books and equipment. Once I got a bit further, I discovered a lovely surprise! In these ruins below, I located the old Fire Ship! Apparently it was some sort of underwater hanger, but even better than that was the thing next to it...an airship! Briefly before entering this area, I had to hit a switch to open a door. This switch also caused an opening to appear on the surface...right underneath Mid and Cid! So just as I was finding the airship, the science twosome also showed up. They were amazed by the discovery. Cid managed to fix the airship, and I was now ready to soar the skies! Cid and Mid stayed behind while I made way to the surface.
Before I did anything else, I made my way to Easterly Town to try and obtain Ramuh, who I last heard was wandering around the nearby forest there. I walked around and eventually came in contact with the old thunder god...BOSS BATTLE TIME! Thankfully, this wasn't too challenging of a battle and was fairly straightforward. All he had was a pile of electric attacks like Bolt 2 and a few specialty ones of his own. After several rounds, he has a talk with Ifrit (who joined me quite a while back) and despite his unwillingness to join...he ended up joining. That's about all I did side quest-wise...although I also visited a few towns and bought more stuff. Nothing super notable there, so onward to the rest of the post!
While flying around, I happened to fly over Gorn Town and an event happened. The area around the town rose up, and it turns out that Gorn was part of a giant flying fortress. It rose high into the sky, but it was too high for the airship. Well...no idea what to do here, so I returned to the underwater hanger. Cid and Mid saw everything and explained that the thing moving the fortress into the sky was the Earth Crystal. It seems that the fortress had stopped floating long ago because the crystal cracked. Everybody realized that if it was flying again, someone must have started it up, and that they wouldn't have long to stop it before the crystal shattered. Thankfully, Cid had a plan. He said the ship could go higher if they coated with with Adamantium. I see what you did there Squaresoft/Square Enix. Luckily, Galuf remembers that there was Adamantium in the meteor came down in. The group questioned how he remembered it, but it is the only lead we got...so off we went to Tycoon Meteor!
This was a short trip. I flew northward to Tycoon and disembarked nearby the meteor. I quickly ran over to it. There wasn't an entrance into it, but Galuf managed to recall a switch to get inside. Once inside, I quickly located the adamantium, but of course, I wasn't allowed to do this without SOME kind of fight. BOSS BATTLE TIME! I came face to face with the Adamantoise (I think it had a different name, but that's what it was!). Lucky for me, he didn't have a lot of health, but he sure as hell had a lot defense. I had to keep after him with everything I had, and keep in mind, most attacks weren't doing much more than around 100-120 damage. It also wasn't throwing out a lot of damage itself, so this battle was just a pile of time wasting. After its defeat, I left the meteor and returned to Cid and Mid. They grabbed the adamantium and fixed up the ship. Before we left, the two informed us of a big problem involving the flying fortress. It seems that it wasn't completely undefended. According to a book, there was giant, powerful cannons on it that Cid and Mid believed would shoot the airship out of the sky before they could get on it. The group figured they had to try anyways. I jumped on my improved airship and flew upward into the sky.
I flew high up and was met with the flying fortress. It floated there all nice like while I assaulted the four cannons (two on each side). There were two types of cannons I encountered: Missile Launchers and Flamethrowers. Why someone would arm a flying fortress with flamethrowers...I don't know, but that didn't matter. The Flamethrowers were fairly easy, but the Missile Launchers actually gave me some trouble. They only had two attacks, but both of those attacks were really frustrating. The first one, Missile, took around 3/4ths of the targets health. Yay for me. The second one, Punch Missile (or something like that) did a decent amount of damage and then CONFUSED the target. This led to me having to try and cure said confused friend while also worry about the two cannons. The only reason this wouldn't go well is because they tend to confuse either my heavy hitter or my healer. I actually died one time and had to redo all the cannon fights. After that second try, I finally beat them all...just to come face to face with a giant super cannon called Soul Gun. I charged at it for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
It was definitely bigger and harder than the previous cannons. The Soul Gun had a pair of missile launchers on it (not like the ones before), so I set to destroy those first. Lucky me, the missiles they fired caused the status Aging on my two big hitters. I'm not 100% sure what all it does, but it most definitely lowers their physical attack. Fantastic. After destroying the missile launchers, all I had to deal with was a slowly charging cannon. Each shot did a party wide attack of around 200-250 damage to each person, which is around half their average HP. I had to keep with constant Cure 2 spells in between cannon shots. If I even remotely neglected this, I would have died. After a much longer than necessary battle, I finally beat the Soul Gun! The giant whole left when it exploded was just big enough to fit the airship, so the group flew inside. A small note...I actually died to the Soul Gun one time, and I had to re-fight everything else. That means I actually went through the cannons THREE times. Regardless, I was now inside the Ruins of Ronka.
The Ruins of Ronka looked quite a bit like the underwater hanger for the ships, but they contained some fairly ferocious monsters. Along the way, I changed Galuf's class two or three times trying to decide what to make him. He's not really fit for any one class, but he is most definitely not a magic person as far as I'm concerned. It was a fun maze of random stairs and pathways. Along the way, I did obtain a few nice pieces of armor and some new Blue Magic*. Before long, I found myself in front of King Tycoon, who was trying to get past a giant snake monster. The group attacked it for yet another BOSS BATTLE! The boss this time was a giant winged serpent called Archeoavis. Despite what the guide told me, he was actually not that hard. Sure, I had to revive my people several times, but I got in many good hits all during. It was a two part battle with the big snake. The first time he went down...he got right back up again! Although he went down faster and easier that second time. After his defeat, the king started laughing strangely and ran past the group. I followed him swiftly. WARNING! Some fairly big spoilers up ahead!
The next area was the crystal chamber housing the Earth Crystal. The King was having a strange moment and talking funny. Reina and Faris tried to approach him, but Bartz and Galuf sensed something horribly wrong. Faris calls him father and FINALLY reveals herself to be Reina's long lost sister...Salsa. A horrible name but somewhat touching moment nonetheless. The King attacks the group but doesn't get too far when...A meteor strikes down! Next, a hole busts in the wall and in comes a random little girl. She blasts the King and saves the party. She reveals herself to be Galuf's granddaughter, Krile, and this finally spurs Galuf's memory back into his brain! He remembers everything and begins explaining everything to the group. While this is going on, the King gets up (Krile says she hit him with a weak bolt). Galuf reveals that he is most definitely from another planet. It was there that an evil black mage, Exdeath, was causing havoc. He came to the current planet and attempted to destroy everything there. Galuf and his group of warriors came down and sealed him in the planet using the crystals. They figured that the crystals could hold him, but he managed to push through the seal and influence their destruction. Galuf saw this happening, but he wasn't able to make it in time. As he is explaining all of this, the Earth Crystal shatters...and the worst has come to pass. Exdeath appears before the group. With his newfound freedom, he attacks the group with the nearby crystal shards and leaves to make his way back to his planet (Galuf's planet). The party is caught by all the crystals attacking him, and the King Tycoon gives his life to stop the crystal shards. Sad time.
The group collects up the shards and gains 4 new jobs: Samurai, Lancer, Dancer, and Chemist. Just as they get the shards, the place starts going critical. Everything starts blowing up so the group retreats back to their airship and flies out of there. Next up, Galuf claims that he must hurry back to his world to defeat Exdeath. He and Krila have to use the meteor she came in on to teleport back. He refused to let the group follow him because it was a one way trip. Despite their arguments, Galuf and Krila depart alone for their home planet. The group isn't sure what to do now, but in the end, they decide they want to chase after and help defeat Exdeath with Galuf. They mentioned talking to Cid since he might know a way to get the meteor teleporters working. I went back to the underwater hanger to find...nobody home. They left a note about examining the Tycoon Meteor, so I went there next.
Upon entering Tycoon Meteor, Cid and Mid show off a new discovery! They were coming here to return the Adamantium to the meteor when it had a strange reaction. Apparently the Adamantium was causing a buildup of energy in the meteor. The group starts talking and figure this might be able to power the meteor's warp to get the trio to Galuf's planet. So Cid and Mid use the Black Chocobo and go around jump starting all the meteors. Minus the Tycoon Meteor, I had to fly to three different meteors: Karnak, Walz, and Gorn. Each spot had a slightly different challenge waiting for me, but they were all bosses in the end. Looks like TRIPLE BOSS BATTLE TIME!
The first one (at Karnak) was the monstrous Titan. He wasn't too challenging, but he did have a signature move. After you give him the final killing attack, he strikes out with a huge earthquake attack for around 500 damage per person. Meaning if you aren't careful, you end up dying right as you beat him. As an added bonus, I gained the Titan summon from this battle! Next up was the Walz meteor boss. This one was a real annoyance. The boss battle is made up of 6 bomb-based monsters (the giant fireball monsters). If you killed one by himself, he would simply revive everybody else as he died. You had to kill all 6 at the same time, or they would all be revived. I used a tip from a guide and was able to bypass this with a Ninja Item called Lightning. Three Lightning items later, I defeated this annoyance and moved to the next meteor at Gorn. The Gorn Meteor's boss was a strange looking chimera. Outside of its strange look, it really didn't have much to it. The best attack it had was Aqua Rake. That dealt out some decent damage, but it was not enough to total the party at any one time. Keep in mind, these battles were extra fun because I only had 3 characters (since Galuf left back there).
Once the meteors were all "activated" Cid pinpointed the spot in which their power was all collecting. He figured that is where the warp would most likely appear. The group thanked Cid and Mid and bid them farewell. They knew that as soon as they jumped into the warp that they would never be able to return. I flew to the spot and the three of them jumped inside. They were immediately warped to Galuf's planet. Unfortunately, they were warped onto an island in the middle of nowhere. The game basically forces you to use a Tent on the island to progress the game. As soon as you do that, the group is attacked in the middle of the night. Despite beating the assailants, the group is captured and taken to Exdeath. Exdeath uses the group as bargaining chips to keep Galuf and his soldiers at bay. Galuf takes a chance and flies to Exdeath's castle on Krila's dragon. Once inside Galuf (I took control at this point) charges in and rescues the group. They were being protected by a man known as Gilgamesh. He quickly gave up after a few hits and ran off. After freeing the group, I escaped from the castle and made my way to the nearby bridge. However, the bridge was just a long string of set battles. I slowly and painfully fought my way across until I came face to face with Gilgamesh again. BOSS BATTLE TIME!
He played weak at first and pretended to be defeated while he powered himself up. He then started a huuuge comeback. He was going way faster and dealing quite a bit more damage. I came close to death many times, but I finally pulled through and "defeated" Gilgamesh again. He actually ran away, but that's not important right now. Just as the group makes it to the end of the bridge, Exdeath lets loose a giant magical barrier wave from his castle. The wave flies outward and strikes the group, flinging them to a far off place. The group wakes up in a far off place. Galuf identified it as some sort of "wild wilderness", but the group moves forward and onward. I proceeded eastward and eventually ran into a town called Lugor Bordertown. Once there, I started the long process of upgrading all my equipment and restocking on items. This took some time as I had to farm up some more gold. I spent the next hour or so farming up gold and job levels.
After doing that for a while, I decided I was both bored of farming and ready to move on. I used up all the appropriated funds resupplying myself and began heading south. It was a fairly long path to the next destination (which I have no idea what it is). Eventually, I ran into a small forest where I met one of the most famous creatures of the Final Fantasy series...the Moogle! Yes, you heard me! (Because I know you are all super excited about that...) It seems the Moogles in this universe are squeamish, and it attempted to run. And it did...right into a hole. The group felt bad for it and went after it. Enter...the Cave Dungeon! It was a somewhat different form of dungeon because there was no real walking involved. Instead, you jumped in the water and let it carry you throughout, but the catch is you get random battles as you float down. On top of that, you can't open your menu in between battle or until you get back on land. Thankfully this wasn't an issue for me since most of the monsters were pushovers. Eventually, I stumbled upon the Moogle from before, and it's being attacked by a monster! The group rushes in to save the Moogle in...BOSS BATTLE TIME!
The funny thing is...this battle took like 5 seconds. I've been following a guide (despite my preferred style of play) to make sure I get everything I can. I learned that a single Phoenix Down would immediately kill this boss, so I used it..and it did. Boss Battle over. The Moogle was still shy despite our rescue of it. Reina eventually convinced it that the group was okay, and in its excitement, the Moogle ran out of the cave and showed us a strange path through the next world map area. I followed along and eventually came to a forested area. I looked around a bit and eventually stumbled upon the Moogle Village! Upon entering, all of the moogles started running about all scared and crazy like. Being a small village, I happened upon the moogle we saved quite quickly. It thanked us by giving us a small trove of treasure. After taking it all, the moogle jumped started acting strangely...and I was treated to a cutscene. It flew across the world to Krile in a castle where a Moogle started talking with her. Apparently moogles have telepathy...Anyways, she jumped on the dragon and flew over to Moogle Village. After a brief talking, the group jumped on the dragon and made way for the castle.
The castle (known as Val Castle) is actually Galuf's castle...Yup, turns out Galuf is a King! After discussing a bit, the group's main goal is to go after Exdeath, but that is currently problematic since he has a giant barrier around his castle. Anyways, the group gets sidetracked by the dragon. It seems the dragon was actually fairly hurt BEFORE the trip to save everybody. Now the dragon is dying, and the group has to save it. Of course, Reina points out that they need Dragon Grass. After some talking, Galuf and Krile point to the Valley of the Dragons. Of course, there's that funny rumor/legend/whatever about how anybody who goes there never returns. I like how those seem to exist in every game in an area that you HAVE to go through. I think it's to make you feel tougher...Anyways, I healed, resupplied, saved, and then made my way north. Before I could get to the valley, I had to pass through Kelb Village, a village of werewolves.
Once there, I found out quite fast that the village appeared to be deserted. I walked all around, but most of the doors were locked. I say most in that one door happened to not be locked. I walked inside, found nothing, and turned around to go out. As I was leaving, a group of werewolves ran inside and were trying to capture the group. They figured them to be in league with Exdeath. A small scene takes place where the lead werewolf challenges Bartz to a fight. It looked hopeless for Bartz, but he eventually succeeded and defeated the leader. (There wasn't a battle, just a little sprite battle thing.) Afterwards, the leader (known as Kelga) apologizes for suspecting the group and Galuf introduces him as one of the four Dawn Warriors that originally sealed Exdeath. Kelga asked where Bartz learned to fight like that, and Bartz mentioned that he learned from his father Drago. Galuf and Kelga were surprised by this, and they revealed that their surprise was due in part that Drago was one of the four Dawn Warriors! The game goes into a cutscene revealing the group sealing Exdeath. It seems that Drago was opposed to sealing Exdeath in a random and innocent planet. Eventually he gave in, but in the end, he chose to stay there instead of returning to his home world. After the little cutscene, Kelga opens the back gate for the group and I continued onward to the Valley of Dragons...after one small sidetrip.
Before going, I did a small side quest from the guide. A little old man in the well in Kelb Village wanted a toad. I had to go out, fight monsters until I found a toad, and capture said toad. Then it became worse...because he wanted the toad AND 10,000 gil. I then had to spend time farming up a pile of gold and re-acquire a toad to give. In the end, all I got was a fancy accessory item that made catching monsters easier. Oh well, it was almost worth it for the extra money and training I got. Anyways...ONWARD! To the Valley of Dragons!
The Valley of Dragons was a valley, but most of this portion took place on the mountain nearby. Not important! The Valley of the Dragons wasn't horribly challenging, but there was a small thing that made it easier. At the village, a group of the werewolves taught me the song Requiem. The guide heavily suggested having a bard for using Requiem on any undead enemies that came along. It was a really great move...doing 3 to 5 times more than anybody else could to them. Moving right along, I eventually ran into a strange rock creature that randomly attacked the group and ran. Before too long, I found that same creature (called Golem) being attacked by a zombie dragon and skelesaur. It yelled for help, so I killed off the two monsters. After that, the Golem thanked the group and joined up as a new summon! Woo! After that little debacle, it was just a small distance to get the Dragon Grass. However, it wasn't as simple as it seemed (as usual). The Dragon Grass turned out to be a mutated grass monster and so begins another BOSS BATTLE TIME!
Actually, it was another fairly easy battle. The giant Dragon Grass monster didn't directly attack. All it did the entire time was summon up Dragon Bulbs (aka small Dragon Grass monsters). However, every time it summoned up a group, I simply used a group attack or a summon. Before I knew it, the plant was dead. I grabbed the dragon grass and teleported off the mountain. I rushed back to the castle and gave the dragon grass to the dragon. A cutscene went down showing the dragon distrusting the dragon grass. It seems that the mutant dragon grass had killed countless dragons on the planet, but Reina took a chance and showed the dragon that the grass was okay (by eating it). Let's just say quite a bit happened during this, but I feel I've gone past the point of "too long" again. Moving right along.
With access to the dragon, the group could now explore a bit further. Our next goal was to speak to a Sage named Gill. He had found out something about Exdeath. Galuf informed us that he lived in a cave on an island northeast of the Valley of Dragons. They boarded the dragon and I flew off to the island. As soon as they got to Gill's cave, the unthinkable happened! The island began to sink, and they had to rush back to the dragon. Just as they got back on the dragon, the island sank beneath the ocean. Apparently Exdeath was one step ahead of us. Unsure of what to do, I started flying around. I happened upon the one location currently available and went inside. It was another castle, Surgate Castle. Surgate Castle was home to King Zeza, the 4th Dawn Warrior, who was currently gone. He had taken his fleet and was preparing an attack against Exdeath. Before I left the castle, I explored a little bit and located some new goodies and a new spell, Float.
With the castle fully looted, I made my way back Val Castle and decided it was time to wrap up. Yet again, I've made a post waaaay too big. I apologize, but there's plenty to read in here! Going to probably have a repeat of this in a couple of days...Anyways, good progress getting done. It already appears like I'll easily finish this one before the year is up!
*SIDE NOTE* I've been doing my best to get all the Blue Magic I can. For those who don't know, Blue Magic is the skill of casting special enemy abilities like Goblin Punch or White Wind. It's gone by many different names throughout the games (Lore in FF6 or Enemy Skill in FF7). I'd say the spells are split down the middle with half being awesomely useful and the other half being completely useless. The biggest ordeal of getting the Blue Magic is learning it. You have to have the enemy with the skill attack the character that's the Blue Mage/has the Learning ability so that they can learn it. They don't have to survive it, but they do have to be hit by it. This is incredibly annoying. Without a guide, you are basically doing hit or miss on a majority, and some abilities will NEVER be cast on the character in question unless you force them to do it via a Control ability or something like it. Anyways...just thought I'd mention it here.
Ending Point - Nearby Val Castle.
Current Party -
- Bartz - Level 27 - Lancer Lvl 1 with Earth ability.
- Reina - Level 27 - Summoner Lvl 3 with White Magic.
- Galuf - Level 28 - Samurai Lvl 2 with Two-Handed ability.
- Faris - Level 27 - Ninja Lvl 4 with Learning ability.
Next Goals - Locate Zeza's Fleet and join up with him. Defeat Exdeath and save the world!
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
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