Final Fantasy 6 - Final Thoughts

Another month, another Final Fantasy completed. I'm keeping up a pretty good rate at the moment, but I doubt I'll be able to keep it up with the...ANYWAYS! Onward to the final thinking!

Final Fantasy 6 - Final Thoughts
Let's drum up some game stats...

Final Fantasy 6 - Game Stats
Hours Played - 48 Hours.
Final Party Levels - *Since I have an easy way to see all their stats, I'm posting all of them!

• Terra - Level 45
• Locke - Level 47
• Cyan - Level 41
• Shadow - Level 45
• Edgar - Level 43
• Sabin - Level 42
• Celes - Level 46
• Strago - Level 46
• Relm - Level 46
• Setzer - Level 46
• Mog - Level 45
• Gau - Level 45
• Gogo - Level 35
• Umaro - Level 36

Now that...is a lot of characters. As far as the story goes, you don't even HAVE to get Mog, Gogo, or Umaro. They're just nice little bonuses. Although I didn't make much use of the last two...

Anyways, that's a surprisingly low level group if you ask me. Next up, the judgement zone! Usually, I'd just do two parts of gameplay and story, but I think I should start doing at LEAST 3 points with the 3rd point being characters. Why? Because I have a feeling that the series (especially for ones I haven't played) will start making me like characters over the story and such. Anyways...ON TO THE REVIEW!

     I'll start things by going over the basic bit of story. The game opens with the basic idea of "giant evil empire group is trying to take over everybody else." That works for a bit, but it's also REALLY close to the idea of what Final Fantasy 2 had for a story. Of course, it starts to evolve past that and grows into something more. It also jumped on the idea of magic and technology. It's the first of several to have a co-existing world of magic and technology (airships don't count...they're magic or something). It definitely gets more interesting after the world ends. At that point, you start dealing with trying to recollect everybody and get them aimed at saving the world. Many of them are kinda hard to find OR are reluctant to rejoin (namely Terra). It's kind of hard to go on story alone without getting it mixed in with the characters (which I'm doing next). Overall, it's a good story, but the game seems to want to focus more on characters. I am glad that they went away from crystals though. Magic Gods and a crazed clown man with a ridiculous look and attitude. It's good stuff. Again, I enjoyed the story, but this game is more about the characters when it comes down to it. So...let's start with them next!

     First and foremost, FF4 really started the trend of making it more about the characters, but FF6 definitely steps it up a notch. Not everybody gets a lot of spotlight, but they all get a little something before it's all said and done. Minus some of the lesser involved characters, each person has their own story and background. You get to hear about most of them. All of them are fairly typical character builds, but they all do really touch down on a certain level. However, sometimes I just like a simple and straightforward fun character like Gau. He doesn't really care about any of the things going on. He's just hanging out with his friends as far as he cares. If I had to pick favorite characters from 6...I'd probably say the following in no particular order: Gau, Shadow, Setzer, and Edgar. Gau is definitely up there. I just wish I'd taken the time to get more of his Rages, but damn that would have extended my time. Of course, he also has very little to his story from what I can tell. If you can explore it, I missed/messed it up somehow. Regardless, it's a lovable bunch of characters and kinda hard to really hate any of them. It's also the largest group of characters in all the Final Fantasy titles at 14! Great characters and almost worth playing for them alone! Next up, the gameplay!

     Now, as for game play, it's really not super different from previous titles. They use the ATB system with waiting and bars and such. The level system is pretty straight forward. The real kickers in this game are the magicite and special abilities. 

     Magicite is used throughout the game to learn magic. You don't get it until around 10-12 hours in, but once you do, it's basically awesome from there. Everybody can learn all the spells with the right amount of time and patience. The only problem I'd have with it is how long it can take to learn some. I understand why something like Meteor or Ultima needs to be learned at a 1x rate, but why the hell should Drain be that slow? 3/4ths of my characters didn't have Drain because it took too long to learn. It's not really a necessary spell, but it also shouldn't be a 1x rate spell. Outside of that and a few others, it was all alright. Kind of a bummer if you miss any magicite though...Because then you miss out on entire spells! None of them ever really become "unattainable", but it sucks to not have them all. Also the whole Odin to Raiden thing kinda just irks me. I want both! Not one or the other. I've said enough about Magic though. It's a good system overall, but now we need to talk about the special abilities. 

     Every character has a Special Ability. From Sabin's Blitz ability to Shadow's Throw and even Gau's Rages, all of the special abilities are unique and useful...almost. The special abilities would probably be my only real complaint about FF6. First off, the overall usefulness of some versus others. Edgar's Tools and Sabin's Blitzs easily make everybody else's ability suck. They are the most powerful with the least amount of cost. On the other end of the spectrum are the not quite as useful abilities. Now, saying they "aren't useful" is somewhat of a lie. Everybody's ability has a use at some point, but what I meant to say is that some of them lose that use as time goes by OR that they feel pointless to do. Terra's initial ability is magic, but that changes to Morph after the plot twist. Celes's Runic is a fantastic ability, but it can also screw you over if you aren't careful. Runic absorbs your magic if you don't time it right. Mog's Dance ability seemed to fail more often than succeed, and even when succeeding, it really didn't turn any battle tides for me. Three of the fourteen are some sort of Blue Mage thing. Strago's Lores, Relm's Sketch, and Gau's Rages are all just slightly differing forms of Blue Magic. They each act differently, but they do the same thing at the end of the day...monster powers. I think the biggest problem with abilities is they are unlimited. Nothing keeps you from just doing them constantly. Why attack normally with Sabin when his Blitzs are better? Why use magic when Tools are superior? (minus super spells) I have a feeling that the "unlimited" aspect of special abilities are the core reason that the next title instigated the Limit Break thing. (I'll explain in the first post of FF7...if you don't already know). Anyways, special abilities...cool but overpowered.

     To sum up game play, it's fun and can be challenging. Somtimes TOO challenging, but I'm not going to get into it. Lots of new little things to keep it fresh, but it's still the same old gameplay. Now let's just wrap this up in a final paragraph of sorts.

     Final Fantasy 6 is a great Final Fantasy. Is it the best? I don't know yet. Is it my favorite? No. Would I suggest you play it? Highly! The game plays really well, the graphics are good for their age, the story isn't too shabby, lots of great characters to learn about, and just a good experience all around. I'd definitely place a "play" sticker on a box that represented Final Fantasy 6. I know that I have more or less said that they are all worth playing so far, but they honestly are! (If you enjoy RPGs...if you don't, why are you reading this?) So...next up is the famous Final Fantasy 7. For the longest time, it was adored as "TEH BEST FINAL FANTASIES EVAAAR!" I'll admit it is a good game, but I wouldn't say "the best" really. However, maybe I'll change my mind in the NEXT EPISODE OF RECURRING FANTASY! TUNE IN TO FIND OUT!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 45

Game - Final Fantasy 6, Day 45
Hours Played/Hours Total - 6-1/2 hrs / 48 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby Figaro Castle.
Current Goal - Locate and explore the Ancient Castle. Defeat Kefka. Save the World!

What Happened - Here we are again...We're coming down to the finish line of yet another Final Fantasy title! How will it go? Will it end well? I'll stop asking, and we'll start just finding out!
     However, before I run to the end, I have one more side quest to complete. The Ancient Castle. Basically, it's a castle located under the ground, and it's ancient and stuff. I took my all-star team (Terra, Edgar, Sabin, and Cyan...the best ones honestly) and proceeded down. Well, to proceed down, you have to go to Figaro Castle and have them dive underground. Halfway through the trip back to where South Figaro is, they hit a bump. I went through a hole in the prison to investigate. After crawling through a small cave with a few treasures and trinkets, I come out into the strangely placed Ancient Castle. Upon entering, I'm treated to a small scene depicting what occurred here. Basically, there was a great battle in this place during the War of the Magi. One of the figures in the castle was the esper Odin. He fought valiantly against the enemy, but he was turned into stone by a powerful sorcerer. Time to explore!
     There wasn't a whole lot to explore, but I did get some nice stuff out of it. An item called Offering which gives you X Attack. It allows you to attack random enemies (it targets all) four times! AND if you combine this effect with Genji Glove (equip 2 weapons) you can do EIGHT ATTACKS!!! Awesome stuff there. Further in the castle, I ran into the petrified Odin. Upon examination, he crumbled into dust and revealed his magicite. I grabbed it up and explored the rest of the castle. Couple more items along the way, but I also found out something interesting. It seems that the Queen of this castle had fallen in love with Odin. I went down deeper into the castle and found that the Queen had been petrified as well. However, a single tear drop fell from her and transformed Odin into Raiden. Personally, I didn't really like this...the changing of the magicite. Because you LOSE Odin in favor of Raiden. This means it is impossible to have both (that I know of), and you lose access to the powerful Meteor spell that Odin teaches. I already have Ultima, but this still feels like a bit of a jip. Anyways, I didn't have anything else to do here, so I left the Ancient Castle and made my way back to the surface.
     Although I was finished with all the real side quests, I did have one last thing to get rid of. I made my way over to the Opera House where one of the dragons was supposed to be mucking around. The guy there was freaking out about the dragon being on stage, so I made my way in and around to him. A lovely fight on the opera stage begins BOSS BATTLE TIME! The current dragon was the Dirt Dragon, but he looked exactly like the T-Rex monster model. The only threat he possessed was his Quake spell, but I quickly got around that by casting Float on everybody. With Quake out of the way, the Dirt Dragon was easily defeated and disposed of. 2 More to go!
     With everything basically out of the way, I was ready to head to Kefka's Tower. However, I planned to take some time for extra leveling up and learning all the spells I could. I spent around 2-3 hours getting everybody into the mid-40s while also learning the majority of the magic I could. This was a long process since I only found one spot satisfactory to completing this. It was a desert area with a giant worm called Hoover and the crazy cactus Cactrot. For those in the unknow, Cactrot is actually an early form of the Cactuar that appears in basically the rest of the Final Fantasy series. He's even a summon in FF8! Anyways, I farmed and farmed and farmed until I couldn't stand it anymore. Once I reached my goal of sorts, I jumped on the airship and made my way to Kefka's Tower...for the FINAL SHOWDOWN!!!
     For Kefka's Tower, I had to split the entirety of the group up into 3 parties. I made one party the uber party while making the rest evenly balanced (but not as good). Basically, it was like the Cave of the Pheonix but worse since it was 3 groups instead of 2. Really hope I get to reform my super party before I fight the final boss. As for my groups, they went something like this...

1. Terra, Edgar, Sabin, Cyan
2. Setzer, Shadow, Relm, and Strago
3. Celes, Locke, Mog, and Gau

They aren't too bad, but it's obvious that group #1 is the one I'm wanting to use for the finale. Anyways, I pushed through to the first choke point with group one, and then I had to swap off. The enemies here are fairly tough, but none of them are impossible to handle. The final place has lots of nice items scattered about as well for (mostly) easy picking! Moving right along, the second group went on through with little trouble. My preparation of magic really helped since they all can use Cure 3! And of course, as the final area goes, there will be a large portion of final bosses here. Group two got the pleasure of fighting the very first one! BOSS BATTLE TIME #1! 

     It seems they got lazy at this point. The first of many bosses was a revised Atma Weapon simply called Atma. He had something to say (much like he did before) about being alive for so long and whatnot. He did have some nice spells, but he went down like all the rest.~ Group Two has proven themselves worthy of moving on. He dropped a save point on his death, I saved, and I moved right along. Just a few rooms later (across multiple random areas), I was able to hit a switch and let the first group continue. I forgot to mention earlier some details about Kefka's Tower. You see...it formed near the middle of the world, and it's constructed of junk pulling towards it from all over the world. The dungeon itself is made of junkyard looking bits and random pieces from previous dungeons. It's pretty strange...Anyways, Group One got to move right along.

     Unfortunately, they didn't get very far. I ran into a pair of monsters called Doom Dragons, and fuck me they were hard. I guess I just went too easy on them, and on top of that, they were throwing out top level super spells that were ridiculous! They ended up killing my face off despite Group One being my best group. Luckily, I had save not too long ago, so I was able to pick right back up and catch up almost immediately. On my second walk through the area, I didn't run into the stupid dragons (thankfully), but then I hit another impasse. I had to switch back to Group Two and work around to release them again. Yeah, Group Three isn't currently needed, but they will be soon! With Group Two, I had to backtrack a little ways to take another path. This path took me by another Dragon. I charged at him and let him have it! BOSS BATTLE TIME #2! 

     This was the Golden Dragon. I'd like to say that it looked more like a yellow dinosaur than a "Golden Dragon", but whatever! I could have fought him directly, and he'd have been hard-ish. However, I'm ready to finish this game! I used the Vanish-Doom combo, and he went down fast.~ 1 Dragon left! They eventually came to a dead end at what looked like the Imperial Palace. I jumped on the switch I had access to, and then it was time for Group Three to shine! Group Three is probably the weakest group by comparison because I didn't realize how much magic they were missing. Ah well. I worked my way around and through. I ran into some trouble with a group of enemies at one point though. A group of robots were just using the most annoying spells. One of them kept using Lvl 5 Doom, and that kept killing off Celes. Then I wasted a turn trying to revive her while they kept using more stuff on the rest of the group like Lvl 4 Flare. I came closer than I'd have liked to dying again. Luckily, I kept my cool and persevered! 

     I came up on another save and saved the game once again. Just a short distance away, I encountered another BOSS BATTLE TIME #3! It was some giant robot thing. It was one of those lovely multi-limbed enemies where every limb gets an attack. Of course, that was easy to take care of. I threw all of my best group attack magic at him. His limbs almost immediately flew off, and then I finished it up with a good old smack to the face (with magic)! He went down before he could have known what had happened. I moved right along, and on the way, I opened up the path to Group One. However, I went ahead and caught up with Group Three and ran into the final dragon....BOSS BATTLE TIME #4! The final dragon was a Skull Dragon. He looked ominous, and the guide stated that he would be an unfriendly and mean son of a bitch! Unfortunately for the guide, I used Vanish-X-Zone to beat the dragon in a few turns. Take THAT guide! With the final dragon defeated, the game claimed that the Dragon Seal was lifted, and I was rewarded the Crusader Magicite. This esper is so powerful that it hurts the enemies AND the party. Personally, I don't really look forward to using it at all, but I would at least like to see what it does. Anyways, I moved a bit further, found myself in the palace, and hit the switch. Back to Group One! 

     What came next was a series of movements with all the groups to get them to different spots with different switches. Eventually, I worked around and had another boss to fight! Group Two took on BOSS BATTLE TIME #5! This time, it was a giant robot called Guardian. I threw all sorts of Bolt 3 and Ultima at it. It went down fast and easy. After that, my next hurdle was a trio of bosses that were the three magic gods. First up, Group Two got to fight Poltergeist for BOSS BATTLE #6! He was pretty weird looking for sure! However, like the last couple of bosses, I simply harassed him with all the Ultima I could manage. He had quite a bit of health, but in the end, he died like the rest.~ Now, I switched over to Group Three! They charged forward and had to fight Doom Gaze! BOSS BATTLE TIME #7! Yeah, I might be getting lazy on the boss battle descriptions, but I'm being 100% honest when I say they weren't that hard...They especially weren't hard because of constant Ultima casting. He was over before you know it.~ Next up, Group One taking on the Goddess for BOSS BATTLE TIME #8! The Goddess was actually easier than the other two. It didn't help her that I had Terra double-casting Ultima all over her face. Yeah, I beat her down so easy-like. With the Goddess down, all that was left...was the big guy himself! 

     I was allowed to save in several spots before the final bout. The group all approaches Kefka at once who has now absorbed all of the power of the Magic God statues into himself. It doesn't say it in-game, but basically, he's the God of Magic now. He plans to use his vast power to destroy anything and everything. He basically goes on to do his crazy bad guy bit. To summarize it, he questions why everyone rebuilds despite his destroying it and plans to destroy everything again and again until it is no more. Of course, the group isn't going to stand for this, and thus begins the BOSS BATTLE TIME #9! FINAL BOSS TIME! 

     Now, this was a fairly impressive final boss if I do say so myself. It's constructed somewhat weirdly, but basically, if you have a total party kill, the party switches to the next available party! You are allowed to organize it all beforehand into whatever groups you want. After that, it was finally time for this super battle. You go through multiple stages with your party and fight several different bosses in a giant tower of bosses. They look pretty messed up being all melded together as one giant tree of magic and tools and monsters and junk. The first stage was one big demon that was just the torso up. I had to defeat him and his arms to go up. My opening party was Terra, Locke, Cyan, and Shadow. Seeing as it was, I just piled on all the Ultima I could while supporting with a Cure 3 whenever it was needed. After his defeat, I continued upward and fought the next stage which consisted of 4 different things. Each one represented something different, but I didn't pay attention to what each individual one was. I just blasted them all with Ultima! Of course, at this point, I was starting to run a tad low on MP, so I had to start up with the Elixers I had been saving up. I had more than enough, and I easily plowed through this group. Next up was stage three featuring a man and a woman. Things were starting to get a bit rougher, and I still was running a bit low on Magic. I lost a person here and there, but I managed to get them back up and in the fight. Seems like characters won't change unless you lose the entire party. After I finished the two of them off, it was time for the final stage...

     The game music changed perfectly, and the video tilted slowly upward as Kefka was revealed. He appeared as a massive purple angel of sorts. He started blasting away at me, and things got pretty close for a bit. However, I wasn't about to give up at this point! I started Throwing items at him with Shadow while I used up what little magic I had left with the rest of the crew. He had some pretty powerful attacks though. And just as it came close...I BEAT HIM! I realize that's fairly anti-climatic to put it like that. But honestly, he wasn't as hard as I thought he was going to be. With Kefka destroyed though...the story began to end. Remember what I said about Kefka being the God of Magic? Kinda important you see...with him destroyed, all magic was starting to fade. His tower began to crumble and all figments of magic were disappearing. Even the magicites began to crumble and disappear! The group began to flee the place as the credits began to roll. Not the actual credits yet, just fake in-gameish credits going over all the characters and their full names. Each one was accompanied by a scene and such. It seems you get a slightly varying version of this if you didn't go and pick up certain characters throughout. From what I read, you can actually attempt this with JUST four people! Celes, Edgar, Sabin, and Setzer. Not that I'd ever do it, but it is an option. Of course, you might be wondering what happened to Mrs. Half-Human, Half-Esper. I'm going to super-spoil it and say she lives on, but she loses her Esper half of course. From then on, it is closing credits and last minute scenes. You see stuff and things happen. Yay! 

     The cooler thing that happens is the special CG cutscene that you get to see on the PS1 Anthology version! It's like a 2-3 minute animated scene showing bits from the game...but in CG form! It's pretty cool and such. You also unlock extras for viewing game stats and secrets. Overall, I had a great time with it all. Sure I kinda forced the ending bit, but I was ready to finish! I've done that on basically every one since the beginning. And guess what's next? Final Fantasy 7! Expect my Final Thoughts up in a bit, and hopefully will get to start FF7 on Thursday! 

     

Ending Point - End of the Game!
Current Party - *Final Party Stats will be posted in the Final Thoughts.

Goals Accomplished - Find and explore the Ancient Castle. Defeated the Dirt Dragon in the Opera House. Extra grinding and farming for levels and magic before the final area! Made it through Kefka's Tower with the full ensemble of 12 people! Defeated Kefka! Save the World!
Next Goals - Start Final Fantasy 7!!!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 44

Game - Final Fantasy 6, Day 44
Hours Played/Hours Total - 9 hrs / 41-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby Narshe in the World of Ruin.
Current Goal - Find the remaining party members. Defeat Kefka. Save the world!

What Happened - Getting closer and closer to the finish on this one. The only things left to do is collect up the remaining party members. That...and any extra stuff that I'll most likely be doing. None of the super hard extra bosses though, not a fan of those. Anyways...on to the post!
     Beginning from...nearby Narshe, I made a quick stop at Duncan's House to talk with him. Yeah, it claimed he was dead way back there in the beginning, but it turns out he wasn't. He and Sabin practice all over the place for a bit, and in the end, he teaches Sabin his final blitz attack...Bum Rush! It's supposed to be stupid powerful (and it is...tried it out obviously). After that, I made my way back to Narshe and entered the city. The city seemed to be deserted, and the only person I came across was Lone Wolf the Pickpocket. All he had to say was there being nothing left in the town except a Moogle and a chest that NOBODY but a treasure hunter could pick. I looked into the mines to locate the Moogle who turned out to be Mog (of course). He rejoined the team and mentioned something about recruiting a yeti friend.
     I looked around Narshe and eventually headed north through the mines. I came back to the mountain top where the initial esper was still frozen. Upon approach, it initiated BOSS BATTLE TIME! I threw all the Fire I could at it, and the battle was over before I knew it. The esper (known as Tritoch) was surprised that humans had freed it. Feeling the strangeness about, it had the impression that the War from a thousand years ago was still happening. It gave itself to us in hopes that we would prove worthy. It also unlocked a little path behind him...I proceeded downward and found myself inside some caves. After looking about for a bit, I came upon a strange bone statue. In the eye of the bone statue was a piece of magicite. I grabbed it up of course and was met with loud noises. Turns out that we had disturbed some creature's prized treasure, and it wasn't too happy about it. BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The creature in question was a Yeti (the yeti friend of Mog's too). He wasn't too tough a boss, and after a few rounds of heavy pounding (thank you Bum Rush), I put the yeti in its place. After the fight, I approached the yeti and talked with him. Mog made it straight and clear that HE (Mog) was the boss, and that the yeti was going to join us to fight. The yeti agreed completely, and so I gained a new member, Umaro. Umaro made his way to the airship, and I followed him shortly after. I was fairly close to being ready at this point, but I still lacked several missing magicites as well as the last missing character...Locke. With my trusty guide at hand (there's actually quite a bit extra to do...), I set out to collect what I could. Well...as much as I can before I get tired of it and just finish it regardless!
     I could fully describe how I got every single new magicite, but I figured it'd be easier and faster to just quickly list them. Keep in mind, most of these magicites (and used to be espers) were basically exclusive to this game. I mean that most of these summon names/things weren't ever really used outside of this one. Sure, many summons like Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, and more were used consecutively throughout the series, but there's a large group of them that never really got anywhere and/or used again. Moving right along.~ Currently, I had collected a few more including the following...Tritoch, Terrato, and Palidor. The first two were in Narshe while the last one was on the deserted island where Celes began. Next up on the list was some Cave of the Phoenix which would get me Locke back (I think...) and give me possession of the Phoenix magicite. Let's go go go!
     Despite my hurry to finish it, I ended up spending over an hour going through the characters and gaining some extra levels and magic. I really needed the time to get everybody the new and higher up spells like the Elemental 3s or Pearl. I haven't even obtained the Espers with spells like Flare or Ultima! And as a nice little bonus, the extra battles earned me quite a bit of extra spending money. Of course, after getting it, I found out that there's not really anything worth buying for the majority of my characters. They either have better equipment, or I couldn't find better equipment. Very nice...Anyways, I spent enough time getting some extra levels and money. Now...onward to Cave of the Phoenix! (Take two!)
     The Cave of the Phoenix was located in the middle of a giant star-shaped mountain. Once I landed inside, I had to form up two parties to use in the dungeon....Interesting. It was your classic "two paths, one goal" situation. Basically, as I proceeded through the dungeon, each group had to help escort the other group to the next area through traps. One group would hit a switch, and the other group could pass over some spikes that were lowered. Along the way, I met up with a random dragon of sorts for a quick and easy BOSS BATTLE TIME! I say quick and easy because...I used the Vanish-Doom combo. Apparently, 90% of the enemies in the game (even some BOSSES) can be killed by simply casting Vanish on them and then using a instant kill spell like X-Zone or Doom. I've been cheating it up on several enemies with this method. Anyways, the dragon went dooown! I don't think I've mentioned them much at this point, but apparently there was a set of eight dragons released into the world after it ended and such. I've defeated a small handful of them so far, and there's supposed to be a reward for killing all 8! However, I have said enough for now. The cavern continued about the same until I reached the end where the group met up with an old friend ...Locke! He had came to this cave in search of some mysterious treasure said to have the ability to resurrect the dead. Come to find out, the mysterious treasure was actually a piece of magicite from the Phoenix.
     Taking the group along, Locke made his way straight to Kohlingen, and stuff happens. Basically, the Phoenix magicite did the trick, and it shortly brought his love, Rachel, back to life. Unfortunately, the Phoenix magicite was cracked, and its effects were going to only be temporary. She took this time to tell Locke that she did indeed think of him and still loved him, but of course, she told him that it wasn't his fault and to move on with his life. After imparting her final words, she gave up her body to reform the Phoenix magicite. Sad times...but now we can move on!
     With Locke back on the team, I needed to make a quick trip back to Narshe. In Narshe, all of the doors are locked, but with Locke in my party, I could enter them and see what lies inside! Turns out, you get two interesting yet awesome items out of it. There are only two people (it seems) living in Narshe currently. The first one was the old weapons smith who had a mysterious rock in hand. He said that he could either let us have the mysterious rock, or he could melt it down and make it into a powerful sword! Of course, I chose the rock and obtained the Ragnarok magicite! The only other person in town was a dying man who gave me the Cursed Shield. He said that if we could remove the Curse, it would be incredibly useful! In gaming terms, I have to use it in 255 battles. After that, it turns into the Paladin Shield, and that is the best shield in the game. So...yaaaay. With Narshe looted, I left and made my way to the next goal.
     Next on the list...some sort of revenge thing for Strago. Upon entering his village (Thamasa) with both him and Relm in the party, a special cutscene occurred. They met with someone named Gungho who appeared to be hurt. He said that his attacker was a monster named Hidon! Strago had some sort of blood vengeance against the beast, so we made our way slightly north to a newly appeared cave called...Ebot's Rock Cave. Once inside, it seemed like it would be pretty straightforward, but it wasn't! A chest was talking to me, and it was hungry. It demanded that I feed it coral. I'm not trying to be funny or anything here. That is very much what happened. I had to feed the chest pieces of coral so that it would move out of the way. On top of this, the dungeon was made of random teleporters that would throw me all around the place while grabbing random chests of coral. I finally had enough coral at one point, but I couldn't make it back to the spot with the chest. Slowly but surely, I finally came back around and fed the stupid chest some coral. It moved out of the way, and it was time for a little BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     This time, I was served up a heaping helping of Hidon and his Hedonites. They weren't too tough, but they kept attacking with Bio magic, which in turn poisoned everybody. I just kept throwing the super-est of spells at the main guy, and they went down fairly fast. Faster than I'd thought they would really...Anyways, after Hidon's defeat, Strago ran back to Thamasa to inform his friend Gungho about his victory. He bragged for quite some time about the win. Eventually, it was revealed through Relm that Gungho had faked his injury to convince Strago to deal with Hidon. All in all, it worked out...so yeah! Next up on the list...more leveling up and magic! I've spent quite a bit of time trying to get everybody at some decent levels and to expand their spell list. Of course, I'm still lacking a few magicite, so I can't perfect it quite yet.
     Next up on the list was a certain Mr. Doom Gaze. I figured I had enough spells and levels to take him down! I flew around in my airship to look for him. If I didn't mention it before, you randomly encounter Doom Gaze as you fly around in the airship. I've already ran into him a couple of times, and any damage done previously sticks with him. So...mostly hoping it'll be an easy battle, and then I meet him! BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND...3 or 4! Doom Gaze came in all ready to kick my butt, but I had a little surprise for him! I morphed Terra to her Esper form, and then I followed up with Pearl (Holy). Her magical ability plus the morphed status made them do 9999! It only took a couple of those plus some help from the others to take Doom Gaze down...for good! As he was dying, he spat up the Bahamut magicite! Woo! I was glad it went down fairly easy, and I'm even MORE glad he didn't get away. Took me like 20+ minutes to encounter him, and I didn't want to have to chase him down again. With Bahamut in hand, it was time for the Tower of Fanatics!
     This was a most interesting tower. It was regular battles, more or less, but it disables all abilities except for Magic and Items. So first and foremost, you want a team of characters with great magical prowess and a large spell list. I brought my all star team with me, so at least one part of that was covered. It's just one big, long, slow climb upward. Since magic is the only thing going on, you don't get experience here. You only receive magic points for learning spells. I was able to learn quite a few abilities as I climbed! Anyways~ Along the way, you fight off set enemies whose names are all along the lines of "Level # Magic." Each enemy has a set group of abilities based on what their level is (low level guys only have the level 1 spells while others have higher and so on). The low level guys weren't any problem of course. However, it got very much worse as I went up. It was starting to get bad once I hit level 90 magic enemies. They were able to cast Meteor. I'll be honest...I was almost to the top when a group of them killed me. Restart, Take Two!
     This time though, I went prepared! I floated everybody to avoid Quake. I equipped two of my people with Reflect to eliminate some spells. The other two had good shields to block magic and reduce the damage if nothing else. The second trip was faster and far more effective. I made it all the way to the top with very little trouble (although I lucked out in a few battles). The top of the tower contained a treasure chest with the Gem Box relic in it. As I tried to leave, it seems that the fanatics weren't happy about me taking the relic. It was Kefka's treasure, and they demanded I return it! I wasn't allowed to return it of course, and then the obvious happened...A ghost flew around and charged at me for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The boss was called Mage Master, and boy was I in for a fun fight. It was never necessarily that hard, but the boss had this annoying "Wall Change" ability. Basically, every single time he was hit, whether by my spell or his own reflected spell, he'd immediately use Wall Change to switch his weakness. This led to constant Wall Change use with his weakness bouncing all over the place. It didn't hinder me most of the time, but a few times it actually helped him by healing him. Lucky for me (and my guide friend), I was somewhat ready for this. I had to stick with Terra casting Ultima to keep up any damage going down. It was more than enough to keep him moving towards death. On top of having to KILL him, he had another nasty little surprise waiting for those who fought him. His final attack was a casting of Ultima. This attack would easily kill all of your party members leading to a Game Over. However, with this in mind, I was told to have Life 3 prepared for everybody. Life 3, rather than immediately reviving, acts like a status to bring the character back if they die. Rather than having to be cast on them AFTER they die. It was nice...and it gave me the win! TAKE THAT KEFKA! I took his treasure, descended the tower, and set out for the final side quest...the Ancient Castle!
     However, I've decided to save that detailing for another post! I've made this one plenty long enough, but let me just say...the next post will be the final post for Final Fantasy 6! BE READY FOR IT!

Ending Point - Nearby Figaro Castle.
Current Party -

• Terra - Level 42
• Edgar - Level 39
• Sabin - Level 38
• Cyan - Level 38

Goals Accomplished - Obtained Sabin's final Blitz, Bum Rush! Reunited with Mog. Recruited the yeti, Umaro. Obtained several different magicite along the way. Extra farming for levels, magic, and money! Found Locke in the Cave of the Phoenix and had him rejoin the party. Helped Strago defeat Hidon. More farming for levels, magic, and money! Defeated Doom Gaze and obtained Bahamut magicite. Climbed the Tower of Fanatics and acquired the Gem Box.
Next Goals - Locate and explore the Ancient Castle. Defeat Kefka. Save the World!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Side Post!

For today, we have a bit of an unusual side post. It's got very little to do with Final Fantasy (GASP!?!).
Let's just sum it up with the title...

Recurring Fantasy Side Post Presents
The After Fantasy


I realize now that it probably explained nothing. I'm just going to briefly discuss a few different game series ideas of what I'll be playing after I beat all the Final Fantasy titles. I know this is a tad early considering that I probably will be finishing up the series around the end of the year. It's best to prepare early...although I think any other series outside of the Final Fantasy ones won't last nearly as long...Let's move right along.

Oh! And if you are reading this, feel free to comment and help me choose from the ones I'll be listing.

First off...the list! My current ideas for future playing of throughs includes:

• Final Fantasy Side Titles (i.e.Tactics or X-2)
• Pokemon 
• The Legend of Zelda
• Mega Man (Original)
• Mega Man X 
• Mega Man Legends
• Mega Man Battle Network
• Basically any game with the Mega Man title.
• Grandia

The first thing you'll notice is...lots of Mega Man titles. They're great games, there are a LOT of them, and they are fun, fun, fun! Any Mega Man series has several titles in them, so I'd easily be busy with a single one for quite a while. Mega Man Original and X both have collections with most of the titles on them. Legends is a great series, and easily one of my favorites. Battle Network was a great series on the GBA, and I didn't actually play all of them. I'd probably switch up the format to doing one game per post along with the general amount of time and effort I put into beating them.

The Final Fantasy side titles would be the most likely choice since I'm already on the series as is. I also really love Tactics, so I wouldn't mind playing them again. Not a lot more to say with this one...Yeah, I'm not going in order at all. xO

The Pokemon series is a classic group of fun farming RPG-ness. I'd be only playing the main lineup, and I'd also be doing the remakes. As for how far I'd go...just become Pokemon Champion and then stop there. I might play a few in emulators to avoid cost AND allow for screenshots! That just oozes slightly more fun! Would easily keep me busy for quite a few hundred hours. Possibly more than the Final Fantasy titles. O_o

The Legend of Zelda. I don't feel like I really need to add anything to detail this sweetness. The only comments I'd make are the following: 1. I wouldn't be playing all of them. 2. I'd get recommendations for which ones to play over which ones to not. 3. Skyward Sword is out.
You might be curious why I had #3 in there. I'm sorry. I don't care what anybody says. Skyward Sword is NOT a good game. It is possibly the worst 3D Zelda since...ever. Throw on top of it that I've yet to actually beat it currently DESPITE being told of an awesome final boss plus super cool ending. Skyward Sword would already be out before I started. So...minus that, Legend of Zelda would be great to play through all of it. I haven't actually beaten every title either. I've covered most of the 3D ones plus a few 2D ones. Would be cool to beat the original 2. So...yeah!

Now for the final series I listed...Grandia. It's a short grouping with only 3 main titles and one off-title (Grandia Xtreme). It isn't super well known, but the Grandia series is a wonderful series of RPGs. They have a great and unique battle system that easily sets them apart from most RPGs. The stories are great, the characters are memorable, and they are just plain...fun to play. One of the best reasons of course is that...I'd only be playing the main 3, so that means I'd get through the entire series in no time! Sounds like a good thing to me.~

I'm really looking forward to getting into another series once I beat the Final Fantasies. So...
Please comment on this and gimme some opinions of choices! :O

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 43

Game - Final Fantasy 6, Day 43
Hours Played/Hours Total - 13 hrs / 32-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby the village of Thamasa.
Current Goal - Chase after the Emperor and Kefka on the Floating Continent. Defeat them both. Save the World!

What Happened - Previously...on Final Fantasy 6. *Insert cheesy cut footage of what happened last time* I'd go into explanation...but the post is right below this one. Quite a bit happened in not much time. Basically, the Emperor lied (SHOCKER), and now we have to go after him and Kefka. On to the post!
     We've got ourselves a big battle coming up, but I doubt it'll be remotely the last one. Either way, I spent some time gaining levels and money. That's my biggest problem right this moment honestly...the lack of money. I have 12 people to fully equip, level up, and have prepared for battle. It's just too much. So...farming time! I spent around 3 hours getting money, magic experience, and rages for Gau. I managed to buy up more equipment for the huge family of characters, but I still didn't quite have enough. Despite this, I was ready to move on, and so I made my way to the Floating Continent! I made my way there, but I was only allowed three people to go. I quickly picked Terra, Edgar, and Sabin and moved right along. The next part was me flying towards the continent on the airship with constant random battles with the IAF! (Imperial Air Force...yeah...) They were fairly straightforward with no real problems. It was the same two battles going back and forth between them. After a while, the airship was boarded by everybody's favorite...Ultros. BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     As the battle opens, Ultros claims that this is most definitely the LAST time. He promises. Anyways, I get after him, and he quickly keels over, but he's not alone. He brought a friend this time...some monster thing called Chupon. It looks like a weird ghost dragon thing. Anyways, I keep after Ultros, and he goes down pretty easily. Chupon isn't too much more, but he has a little surprise up his sleeve for me. Just as we defeat him, he "Sneezes" the entire party off the airship. They go flying off, and I get thrown into another BOSS BATTLE TIME! This battle on the other hand was quite far from easy. It was quite challenging. I was facing off against some sort of airplane thing. It kept pounding away at me with powerful attacks, and I had to keep up with healing and such. It was a tough battle, but I did eventually rise through it...quite victorious (and injured). After the battle was finished, I found myself on the Floating Continent. Time to find the Emperor and stop him!
     The first thing I noticed on the continent was an old friend and favorite ninja...Shadow was here! He also appeared very alive. I didn't mention it before, but Interceptor appeared earlier on and was injured and therefore cast some doubt on Shadow's current status. So...good to see he's alive! With Shadow on the team, I was back to a fearsome foursome of fighters! I pushed my way through all this. Fairly hard monsters got in my way, but none of them were super difficult. The best part of this area was the HUGE amount of magic points I'd get from enemies (anywhere from 4 to 5 points per battle!) This large amount of points allowed me to fully learn-ify Shadow a large portion of the current magic available. After making it through this strange floating place, I came face to face with...Atma Weapon! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     His first comment was that he was made of pure energy and as old as the cosmos themselves. Therefore...he should be a pretty big boss battle. It was. I had to keep after him with everything I had, and even then, I was having to have at least two of my four characters constantly heal as well. He had the whole assortment of super powered magic and all. Flare, Meteor, and Quarter (group-Demi) were just the tip of his power. I fought hard and well, and I managed to beat him! Moving right along....as soon as the battle was over, Shadow left the group feeling like he didn't deserve to work with us since he had helped the Empire. I then approached the Emperor and Kefka, but it seemed too late. The two approached the statues and were absorbing their power. And her comes quite a bit...
     A lot happened during this little part, but I don't want to reveal it all. To put it simply, Celes shows up and attacks Kefka. He gets angry and demands power from the God Statues. Kefka kills the Emperor and throws the Magic God Statues out of alignment. Shadow comes back to save the group, and we are able to run away. Unfortunately, the misalignment of the statues throws the world into chaos. The statues were keeping their balance with one another while in alignment, and without that alignment, their power wrecked havoc and rearranged the entire world. Eventually, I am taken to a lone island were Cid and Celes are currently surviving. Celes has been asleep for a year, and Cid has been taken care of her. Unfortunately, Cid is dying, and I tried what I could to keep him alive...It didn't go well. Cid leaves Celes a note telling her about the raft and to try and get off the island. The next thing I know...I'm back to one of the continents. I head to the nearby town to find out it is Albrook. Talking with everybody there leads me to believe one of the party members came through and made their way north to Tzen. Also, that the world has gone to shit, but that one was pretty obvious. I stocked up on supplies and such, and I began the trip north.
     It was a quick trip though, and I was soon inside Tzen. However, it seems my timing was impeccable. As soon as I walked into town, trouble was afoot! I ran over, and it seems a house was trying to fall apart. Sabin was there trying to keep the house from falling, but I (Celes) had to run inside to save a kid stuck inside. I had to dash through the house and get the kid. Of course, I did some friendly looting as well. Six minutes seems like a long and therefore easy amount of time to get in and out, but they had to throw in random enemies to make it suspenseful of course. Things ran a bit close, but I managed to get out with most of the loot and the kid! Woo! With Sabin recruited, it was time to set my sights on the next location...the near-destroyed village of Mobliz. It was a long trip north, but I made it mostly unscathed. Upon entering, some very interesting events went down...
     The first thing that happened was a kid and pair of dogs getting all shout-y at me. Investigating this further revealed another previously lost member, Terra. It seems she happened upon Mobliz during the whole "End of the World" bit. Their was a large grouping of kids there that had survived at the cost of their parents. She was taking care of all of them and keeping them safe. On a further note, she felt that she couldn't just leave them and had lost her will and power to fight. This was proven even further when the unfortunate happened. BOSS BATTLE TIME! As I went to leave, Phunbaba (some demon that got let out during the chaos) had come back to attack the town. Terra went to try and stop him, but she failed. This is a story failure though, so I didn't lose right then. It looked hopeless, but of course, Sabin and Celes stepped in. I smacked him around a bit, and then he ran off. Not much of a boss battle, but it'll have to do. This just hammered in her unwillingness to join. She said she would consider it later, but she wasn't ready to fight right now.
     With Terra out, it was time to move to a different place. I made my way around and Northwest to Nikeah. Once there, I walked around a bit and stocked up on new items. The Pub there contained a group of bandits that had escaped from Figaro Castle, which was currently underground for some reason. They were all about to set sail from Nikeah to locate Figaro Castle. However, the stranger thing here was their leader Gerad. Gerad looked like Edgar with a color swap (and it was), but he kept acting like we were mistaken. Regardless, we jumped on the boat with Gerad and the bandits and followed after him. The boat took us to South Figaro, and from there, we made our way into a cave and down into the depths of the planet. Once there, we ran right into Figaro Castle. Exploring the depths of the castle revealed the problem to be a monster stuck in the engine. Gerad (who now admitted to being Edgar) asked for help in defeating the monster...BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Strangely enough, the engine was cluttered with Tentacles. Yeah...that's right. Tentacles. Not too hard of a boss thankfully, I beat it with minimal effort and essentially "fixed" the engine. The bandits ran off with a majority of the castle's treasure, but Edgar wasn't too concerned with it. The next up was to use the castle to jump to a nearby portion of land. Once there, I made my way to the next city, which turned out to be Kohinglen. Just like everywhere else, there were survivors, but the town itself seemed fairly dead in ways (dead plants, buildings were messed up, etc). A bit of looking around revealed yet another old character to recruit. Setzer was hanging out in the town's pub, but just like Terra, he had no willingness to join. Thankfully, unlike Terra, the group talked him out of it and convinced him to take up arms against Kefka! His spirit renewed, he set our next goal for a nearby tomb for someone named Daryl. He mentioned something about getting a new airship, and I didn't need to hear anymore!
     Before heading to the tomb, I took a bit of time for gold farming. I wasn't interested in magic or experience really. I was just in need of extra gold for new equipment. To make it worse, most of the enemies weren't just GIVING away the gold. Sure, they were fairly easy, but they weren't giving out much gold per battle. Just means I had to do it for longer. I eventually grew tired of that, and I went ahead and moved right along to Daryl's Tomb. Time to get me that airship! It wasn't a very complicated dungeon or anything. It mostly involved going back and forth and hitting switches. None of the enemies were anything to really worry about. I eventually worked myself to the end where I came into into contact with Daryl's grave. However, I wasn't simply going to GET a new airship without a fight! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The boss this time was a Dullahan. I realize that makes no sense just saying the name alone, but in actual terms, it was some sort of undead demon thing with a horse chariot. Had it not been for some Guide advice, this would have been a ridiculous battle. The biggest issue was the spell the boss had. He had Pearl (this game's equivalent to Holy), and that easily promised bad news to anybody who got hit by it. Heck, even with Celes's Runic ability holding that back, I still lost a few people to his other non-magic abilities. He was pretty tough, but in the end, I overcame the challenge and beat his face in! I'd like to add though...Edgar's Tools ability is basically the best ability in the game. Hands down. The Chainsaw alone is the only Tool you ever truly need. Anyways, once the boss was finished, I was able to go down deeper into the tomb. Turns out there's a fairly good backstory to all this.
     Daryl (a lady) was Setzer's mate/lover/special person. They both had their own airships, and they raced each other and whatnot. One time, Daryl didn't come back, and Setzer later found out that the airship had crashed and killed her. He recovered the airship, called The Falcon, and placed it there beneath the tomb. Said he couldn't bear to see it, but now he realized it was there only hope. We flew out of the tomb, and I now have an airship! Woooo! Onward to...somewhere new. The game already had a plan for this of course. As soon as the airship was up and going, a bird flew by it, and Celes directed that we needed to go after it. The bird led us to Maranda, and more specifically, to a girl from before the world had "ended." It was one who was sending letters to her boyfriend in a distant town. Unfortunately, that town was gone, and he was dead. However, she seemed to still be receiving letters from someone. The helped the girl send a letter and made chase after the bird. It led to Zozo.
     Once there, there didn't appear to be anywhere new to visit, but a quick look about revealed one person mentioning a "Mt. Zozo." He sold me some Rust-Rid to get through a door to Mt Zozo, and then I went from there. (Yeah, I'm using a guide. This part of the game can be a bit confusing, and I just hate the idea of missing a pile of items for no reason.) Mt. Zozo was an easy dungeon of sorts. It was fairly short, and it ended with me finding Cyan. Turns out that he felt bad for the girl since her boyfriend was dead. He was doing his best to keep her happy, but in the end, he felt bad about the lie. He revealed the truth to her and told her to live her life fully and to get over the sadness. She did...and now...what do we do? Cyan mentioned that he came across "Sir Gau", and that Gau was heading to the Veldt to train up. Finally! Someone who is actually PREPARING for the end scenario! I flew on over to the Veldt and started looking for Gau. It didn't take long for him to sprout out of the wild and re-join the group. He was always an easy one to get back into the party. A nearby cave in the Veldt presented itself, and so I explored the depths inside.
     The first thing I came upon in the cave was Interceptor! That means Shadow HAS to be here. How could he not be here? I made my way through the short cave and located a wounded Shadow, but I wasn't about to get him without some sort of fight! BOSS BATTLE TIME! I was thrown against a Sr Behemoth! (Assuming the Sr stands for Senior or Sir). Nothing to be too scared about really, despite the Behemoth title. I kept after him, and he went down fairly fast. It seems that wasn't all the battle had planned for me though! As soon as I beat him, another one popped up to fight. This could have been a problem...if I weren't already prepared for this. I cast Life on him, and he went down. Too easy.~ After that, the group picked up Shadow and took him to Thamasa to rest while he recovered. My next stop (guide) was to revisit Doma Castle. TO DOMA CASTLE!
     Doma Castle was actually a side quest bit more than anything. Basically, I had to go through it for a new magicite (Alexander), Cyan's final SwrdTech abilities, and most likely Cyan's best weapon. It was an interesting side quest though. Basically, I slept in the castle, and Cyan gets trapped inside his soul or something like that. We had to run around in a crazy dream-like world with enemies and strange coloring. The worst thing happened right here too, and it ALMOST lead to a bad thing. I made a save in a bad spot where the group was separated, and I only had Gau. I kept dying like 30 seconds away from the Save Point because he couldn't beat the enemies. It's not that he wasn't powerful enough, but they had the most annoying abilities and attacks that basically fucked over having only ONE character. I died at least seven times if not more while trying to move on. I finally managed to get past a few enemies and pick up my second and then third character. (Cyan was unavailable during all this) Before I was able to leave that first area though, I had to deal with BOSS BATTLE TIME! I had to fight a trio of magical kids known as the Dream Stooges (also named Larry, Culey, and Moe...a-haaa...) They weren't too terribly tough, but I had to kill three of them. The biggest problem was killing a specific one who could revive his friends. No point going into a lot of detail. I beath them. Woooo!
     It took some time working through this dream segment-like bit. I had to go through the dream place, a train, and finally some mine area before re-appearing in dream Doma Castle. Once there, the group met Cyan's departed wife and son. They informed me of Cyan's problem. Easiest way to put it...he's depressed and sad because of the death of his family and his kingdom. Sad stuff, but luckily, I'm here to help him! I worked my way to the throne room and came face to face with the source of his problem. It was some evil demon-spirit thing called Wrexsoul. BOSS BATTLE TIME! That's what it TECHNICALLY was, and it could have been a very rough battle ahead...Lucky for me though, I stuck with the guide's way as to help get through it easier. I cast X-Zone, and Wrexsoul was dead. I'm sorry! I'm really ready to get through this! I am also really ready for the final battle, but I know I'm not even REMOTELY prepared for it (character or level or anything-wise). Anyways, with Wrexsoul's defeat, Cyan was freed from his nightmares. He acquired his most powerful weapon (I THINK) and all his sword tech abilities. I also got a new Magicite...Alexander! Alexander is one of the cooler/stranger summons in the series. Alexander is some giant castle thing that is generally a holy-based summon. It's cool looking but again kinda weird. Anyways...next stop, Jidoor!
     Now, Jidoor didn't have anything super new available, but what they did have...was an auction house! It was finally available for me to join in and bid. There's a couple of Magicite available, but I only saw one come through. I also had to greatly overpay for random Relics as to eliminate them from the auction. Great way to piss away a huge amount of money that seems to take forever to earn. Anyways...while in town, I visited the house of some well-known rich man named Owzer. He was an avid collector of paintings (as the rich people do). However, it seemed some strange things were going down in his damn house. Looking around at the paintings revealed some strange things...like a door coming out of nowhere. As I searched further inside the house, I had to deal with a pile of annoying random encounters. They weren't necessarily hard, but I sure got tired of them fast. I also didn't have the best team I really could. That made it worse. I finally made it to the end, and it turns out that Relm was here painting for Owzer.
     Unfortunately, the painting she made was possessed or something, and it decided it didn't like the idea of us destroying it. So on top of all this, I had the most ANNOYING boss ever. Yeah...BOSS BATTLE TIME! The boss (named Chadarnook) I had to fight was a two-faced jerk and annoying as hell. Basically, as I was fighting the boss, it kept switching back and forth between an angel form and a devil form. The only thing I had to kill was the Devil form, but it was constantly and randomly swapping all the time. On top of this, the Angel kept charming people. This would make them attack my people. Then she caused their health to constantly drain. AND THEN, despite being Haste-d, everybody seemed to take forever to go. It wasn't that difficult, but it certainly took forever. It was the longest boss battle I've done so far. After its defeat, the painting seemed to be just fine. It turns out that the evil revolved around a piece of Magicite. Owzer let me have it, and I got myself the Starlet magicite. And now...time to revisit Terra in Mobliz to find out how things are going there.
     It seems that quite a bit changed since the last visit to Mobliz. There was a young couple there, and it seems that the girl was pregnant. The father was unsure of what to do at first, but he eventually came around. Unfortunately, we got a returning visit from someone else as well...Phunbaba! BOSS BATTLE TIME! The first round was just smacking Phunbaba around a bit. He eventually flung two of my people out, and the battle ended...Just to restart 30 seconds later when Terra tagged in! For the duration of Round Two, Terra was permanently in her Morph form (Esper). If I haven't described it before, basically, it changes Terra to Esper form, and she gets a large power boost. She's able to do around double damage in both magic and physical attacks. With this super boost, I was able to plow through Phunbaba and turn him into PhunDEAD! (Yeah, that was bad...) Terra realized the need to defeat Kefka, and she rejoined the crew.
     Next up, I made a quick trip to a tower known as the Tower of Fanatics. It seems that Strago was there as part of the Kefka Cult. However, Relm knocked him to his senses pretty quickly. Cue the heartfelt reunion!...And onward to the rest of the game. I did a bit of flying around and came to the Colosseum. Once there, I had to bet a specific weapon to re-gain Shadow as a party member. Seems a bit much if you ask me. I had to have a SPECIFIC weapon in tow to recruit Shadow back to the team. That and I had to beat him in the Colosseum just to gain him. Oh well...he's still the coolest character in the game. Next up...more side trips! I needed to located Duncan's House to get Sabin his final Blitz ability, Bum Rush.
     While looking for it, I happened upon a strange worm monster called the Zone Eater. It engulfed the party in a story-manner, and I found myself inside of it. I looked around and found some nice treasure. Further investigation revealed it to be the home of one of the two secret characters in the game...Gogo. For those who might recall, Gogo was a character in FF5. His only part in the game was being a Mime who gave you the job Mime. In FF6, he's a mime as well. He's able to copy the last action done by your party AND can equip anybody's special ability as his own. Basically, you could have a double of any one of the better characters (Edgar, Sabin, or Cyan). The group told him about their current plight, and he joined up to help. Woo! That plus all the awesome treasure inside made this a great side trip. Onward to Duncan's House!
     As I was trying to find Duncan's House (should have been easy but it wasn't), I ran into...DOOM GAZE! BOSS BATTLE TIME! (kinda) Doom Gaze is a special super enemy who flies around and encounters you while you're in the air. If you fly long enough, you'll eventually run into him. He sticks around, beats the hell out of you, and then runs off. This seems really suck-ish, but any damage done to him in battle stays on him. This means that after a couple of encounters I should be able to beat him. The prize for beating him...Bahamut Magicite! I can't wait to get it!!! After dealing with Doom Gaze Round 1, I finally found Duncan's House. However, I've made this post long enough, so I'm going to end it here before I just keep going on. Yeah, I really made this post too long. I should have stopped halfway and began a new post. Oh well....that's it for now! Looks like I'll be hitting the end fairly soon. Let's hope it is soon so I can get a head start on 7!

Ending Point - Nearby Narshe in the World of Ruin.
Current Party -

• Terra - Level 33
• Cyan - Level 33
• Strago - Level 33
• Sabin - Level 33

Goals Accomplished - Gained levels and money. Made it to the Floating Continent. Escaped the Floating Continent as it was falling apart. Made it off the Deserted Island. Reunited with Sven at Tzen. Located Terra, but she didn't join. Located Edgar who was disguised as a bandit named Gerad. Helped Edgar reclaim Figaro Castle that was located underground. Recruited Edgar (obviously). Found Setzer in Kohlingen and got him to rejoin. Obtained a new airship at Daryl's Tomb. Climbed Mt Zozo and reunited with Cyan. Found Gau on the Veldt and got him back. Rescued Shadow in the Cave in the Veldt. Helped Cyan overcome his depression (basically). Located Relm and defeated an evil painting. Defeated Phunbaba and got Terra back on the team. Snapped Strago to his senses and got him back. Beat Shadow in the Colosseum and added him to the team. Found Zone Eater, entered inside, and recruited Gogo, the mime. Found Duncan's House but haven't don anything yet.
Next Goals - Find the remaining party members. Defeat Kefka. Save the world!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 42

Game - Final Fantasy 6, Day 42
Hours Played/Hours Total - 4-1/2 hrs / 19-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby the Imperial Base.
Current Goal - Sneak through the Imperial Base and make it to the Sealed Gate. Defeat the Empire. Save the World!

What Happened - No fancy foreword needed. Let's go!
     I started off by the Imperial Base and entered inside...ready for a fight! However, there was no fight to be found, and the base was deserted. Oh well, time to get right along. I walked through the base and entered the Cave to the Sealed Gate. I have accidentally referred to it as "Sealed Cave", but it is most definitely "Sealed Gate". I figured it to be another easy dungeon for the taking, but I was most definitely wrong. The first battle I got into almost turned into a nice "Game Over" screen. It didn't help that my first attack (Bio from Terra) was ABSORBED by the enemies. They confused the next party member (Sabin) who proceeded to use his Blitz command on the party. It just got progressively worse, and so I ran for it. Figuring that was just a fluke, I kept going into the cave. However, the next battle (being the same one) proved that I was ill prepared and had stupidly chosen. Sabin was equipped with a Fire-based weapon that basically all the enemies in here absorbed, and my only alternate weapon was a Poison-based one...They absorb that one too. Setzer was proving to be somewhat useless, and I kept rolling bad on his Slots ability. Thankfully, I was able to manage with Terra and Cyan for a bit, but I had a hard time regardless. On top of all this, these three were new to having magic, so I didn't quite have any spells with them yet. Once I got through a couple of battles, I was finally in a better position with both magic and status. It wasn't a fun entrance for sure...
     The cave proved to be a challenge, but I still managed to make it through. I got some nifty items along the way, so that helped curve my attitude back up. (I wasn't happy with my earliest battle results here.) I made it through the cave and located the Sealed Gate. As Terra went to open it, Kefka appeared with troops. It seems they had stood back and used the group (namely Terra) to open the gate for them. I was then thrown into...STORY BATTLE! It looked like a boss battle with Kefka, but nothing happened. As soon as I got off my first attack, the game jumped over to Terra. She had opened the gate, and some Espers were spilling through. We go back to the battle with Kefka, and before anything can happen, the Espers start rampaging through and attacking everything. Kefka is amazed at the sheer power and ability of them. He runs off, and the group is left passed out there. As they awaken, the gate seals closed and is blocked by rocks on top of that. Well...guess I should leave now.
     I left the cave, went through the base, and ran into Locke who simply asked "What happened?" The group explains of course and find out that the Espers are heading for the Imperial Capital, Vector. With that in mind, we jump on the airship and head that way...or at least we sure as hell tried. As soon as the airship takes off, it gets overwhelmed by Espers. In their anger, they're attacking and destroying all sorts of things. The airship goes down for the count and crash lands on the southern continent (the one where all the Empire is...lucky us). I reformed my party and made my way to Vector.
     Upon entering Vector, it was already apparent that the Espers had their way with the city. Buildings were destroyed and on fire. I ran to the castle and was greeted by one of the Emperor's soldiers who said that we were already expected. I followed him inside and to the Emperor. Gestahl said that he was going to surrender and stop the entire war. After some thinking (and the recent attack), he realized the war was pointless, and that we needed to talk with the Espers before they destroyed everything. He invited us to a feast in celebration of the war ending. However, before the dinner started, we were asked to talk to some of his soldiers about the whole ordeal. I was presented with a four minute timer...and GO!
     I ran all about the Imperial Castle trying to talk with everybody. I did fairly well, but I missed a few people along the way. Nevertheless, I know I will be rewarded in time. (I'll talk about it in a bit) The dinner/feast/whatever was basically a test of your memory and people skills. According to the guide, if you chose the best responses, you'd get better rewards before it's all said and done. The correct responses were generally the most neutral and not emotionally filled. After the dinner was done, the Emperor requested that we go with him somewhere. He brought along General Leo, and we were to meet him in Albrook. After that, the group got together and were already questioning his motives. It was quite suspicious that he wanted to suddenly drop the entire war. A large portion of the group stayed there, and I was left with only Terra and Locke in my team. As I was leaving the castle, I was approached by one of the Emperor's guards who told me that I was to be rewarded for my efforts (talking to soldiers and my dinner manners basically). The Emperor rewarded me by pulling troops out of Doma and South Figaro. He also allowed me access to the far base's treasure (the one near the Sealed Cave). Finally, I was presented with a small gift from the man himself. I missed out on one item in the end, but I did fairly well despite that. I left the Imperial Castle and the capital Vector and began exploring.
     I made way to the Imperial Base first to loot it of its goods. I got away quite handsomely there, but seeing as I only have two people, I decided I might as well move on. I made way for Albrook and met up with the General Leo. They still had to prepare the ship, so we weren't shipping out until tomorrow (AKA Sleep at the Inn for a scene!). Before that, we were introduced to a few other people accompanying us...Turns out, we would be working with Shadow again! (Yaaaay!) Also, Celes finally reappeared, and of course there was tensoin between her and Locke (Uuuuugh). After the stay at the Inn, I reported back to General Leo, and we set sail for the Crescent Island. During the trip, I was presented with a small cutscene. Basically, Terra is all curious about "love" and such. Also, Locke got seasick. That's the jist of what all happened. We disembarked at the Crescent Island, and I was given Shadow to control (along with my previous group Terra and Locke). Celes was left to work with General Leo. Onward to the village of Thamasa!
     Rumors of this village was that its inhabitants had the use of magic. Venturing around, many people were trying to "hide" their use of magic in plain sight! They kept using it then being like "uh oh!" when they saw me. After walking about a bit, one man suggested I ask an older man in town about the "Esper" thing. When I went over, I met TWO new party members! Yeah, that is right...a double whammy! The first one was the blue mage (basically) named Strago. He had a granddaughter named Relm, and her power wasn't as directly revealed. We'll find out later though. Anyways, Strago denies any knowledge of Espers and of the town's magical abilities. After that, I made my way to the Inn and slept the day off. However, our sleep was interrupted by Strago. It seems a nearby house caught on fire, and Relm was inside! The entire group rushed out and over. Shadow stayed behind, but his dog rushed right off. Earlier, the dog, Interceptor, had been very friendly with Relm (to Shadow's surprise). Strago tried putting the fire out with magic. Even with the help of the town, they couldn't manage to get it out. So we all rushed inside.
     The house was all fire by the time we were inside. The fire was being caused by Balloons (Bomb-type monsters). I slowly fought my way through the house until we finally came upon the cause of it all...Flame Eater. BOSS BATTLE TIME! Before anything else, I'd like to say...Wouldn't a monster called "Flame Eater" be something that would EAT fire rather than create it? It sounds like it would simply want to eat the fire all around it. I guess that isn't important, but I thought I'd say it. A fairly formidable boss it was. It was able to summon Balloons and cast up to Fire 2 (guide says up to Fire 3, but I didn't see that). I did lose a person here or there because of Fire 2, but overall, it was a pretty straightforward battle. Strago came with the Aqua Rake water magic ability. That along with some Cure magic and supporting attacks easily put this Flame Eatting bastard in the ground!
     After defeating the boss, it seems that Interceptor had made it there before us. He was trying to protect and get Relm out of there. Unfortunately, the fire was spreading too rapidly and the group passed out...Lucky for them, Shadow came through and saved everyone. The next day, Strago came forward and revealed the town was capable of magic, and that there was a reason for it all. It seems that Strago's people were all descendants of a group known as the Mage Knights. Back when Espers were around, the Mage Knights made use of magicite to wield powerful magics. However, when the War of the Magi ended and the Espers were gone, the Mage Knights were hated and hunted down. Some of them managed to escape it all and set up the village of Thamasa. The people living there weren't nearly as skilled in magic, but they all had a small amount of magical prowess. With the story told, Strago decided to help us out in thanks for saving Relm. He would help us locate the Espers. He figured they would be located in the mountains to the west, and even said that they were born from there. So...time to head out!
     As we were leaving the village, Shadow parted with the group. He claimed something about looking for the Espers in his own way. He also mentioned that he only helped because he wanted to get his dog back. Something is most definitely up with him, but I'm not going to worry about it now. Onward...to the Esper Mountains! It was a short walk along the world map to the mountains. Once there, I quickly climbed up and made my way in. Along the way, it seemed we had a little follower (Relm). We continued a short ways in, and I learned a bit of in-history about the Espers. We came upon a trio of golden statues, and Strago explained about them. The magic and power behind the Espers was a sort of "curse" by these three gods of magic. When the gods fight, they transformed people into Espers to use as weapons. However, they eventually came to their senses and sealed themselves away. They gave the Espers their freedom and asked the Espers to watch over them as they slept. The statues on the mountain weren't the gods themselves but representations of them made by the Espers. As the I started to leave the statues, someone else came along...everybody's favorite recurring boss Ultros! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     It wasn't too hard of a battle really. I just kept after him with all the Fire magic I could, and he went down...or so it seemed. Halfway through the battle, Relm walks in and the conversation starts. Relm wants to draw Ultros, but he wasn't being cooperative. Eventually, she starts crying, and the group yells at Ultros for making her cry. Ultros consents, Relm uses her ability "Sketch" to draw an Ultros that attacks and beats the real Ultros. He runs off, and we are free to proceed up the mountain plus one member. It isn't a lot farther, and I run into the Espers. Things look a bit grim as they start to surround us, but they end up talking it out. The Espers felt bad for destroying Vector and killing innocents. The group asks the Espers to accompany them to talk it out with the Empire. The game jumps, and I find myself back in Thamasa. The Espers begin talking with Leo, and everything seems to be going fine.
     Of course, it can't possibly keep going okay. Kefka jumps out along with a group of Magitek Armor. He starts killing Espers left and right and claiming their magicite. It seems the Emperor's actual plan was to lure the Esper's out and kill them for magicite. Leo rushes over to defeat Kefka in a short battle. (I got to control him for it.) It appears that Kefka is defeated, but he simply disappears. He reappears later and kills Leo. After that, the Sealed Gate opens up and more Espers rush through it. However, Kefka simply kills them left and right. After slaying a large group, he claims a lot of magicite and returns back to the Emperor. The group wakes up, and the rest of the crew flies over to them and reveals the plan the Emperor had. Of course, we already knew this. The group gets back together and begins to make their way to him, but it seems things have taken a downward turn...
     The next scene depicts a the Emperor and Kefka going through the now opened Sealed Gate. Moments later, an entire portion of the land pulls out of the ground and floats into the sky. They located the ACTUAL three statues of the magic gods. They plan to take this power and use it for their own it seems. On an even more unfortunate note, it seems that the gods sealed themselves in a certain alignment to keep their power in check as statues. It seems that if one of them is moved, the entire world would fall into chaos and despair. So...that means it is time for us to stand up! I gather the group and prepare to charge towards the continent!...in another post. I've gone quite far enough for now, and I'll end it here...in a TO BE CONTINUED! sort of way.

Ending Point - Nearby the village of Thamasa.
Current Party -

• Celes - Level 23
• Relm - Level 22
• Mog - Level 24
• Gau - Level 23

Goals Accomplished - Made it through the Cave to the Sealed Gate. Opened the Gate but accomplished nothing. Talked with the Emperor and ended the war. Traveled to Thamasa in search of the Espers. Met up with Strago and Relm and added them to our cause. Met the Espers, but then they got killed and stuff. Reunited with the rest of the crew. Prepared for the Floating Continent.
Next Goals - Chase after the Emperor and Kefka on the Floating Continent. Defeat them both. Save the World!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 41

Game - Final Fantasy 6, Day 41
Hours Played/Hours Total - 6 hrs / 15 hrs
Starting Point - Outside the town of Jidoor.
Current Goal - Travel to Zozo in search of Terra. Stop the Empire. Save the world!

What Happened - Another Day...another post. Such is the life of my blog! Let's get on with it.
     I began to make my way North to Zozo. And once there, I was treated to a very...nice town. It was quite the opposite. It was a very crappy town of degenerate-ness. Heck, despite being in a town, there was still random encounters. Looking about the town revealed that there wasn't a whole lot there. Outside of treasure chests, all of the shops and the inn were either empty or had nothing for sale. I did locate one awesome piece of equipment...the Chainsaw! Another one of Edgar's Awesome Tools!(I used a guide to help me get it...I hate missing stuff!) After that, I looked around town some more and began climbing one of the towers. The only way to fully climb the tower was to jump from building to building. After reaching the top, I talked with a guy who claimed he didn't want to fight....but then it was BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Dadaluma (the boss and some sort of karate man) wasn't too much trouble. I'm unsure of his attacks or abilities because the battle went fairly fast. I just kept after him with Edgar's Chainsaw and Sabin's Blitz attacks. After a couple rounds, he summoned up some allies, but it seemed like it was for nothing. I got in another Chainsaw attack and he went down...as well as his allies. Aaaaah yeaaah! With his defeat, I could finally enter the top of the tower. Up there was Terra unconscious in a bed (still in her glowing form). As I went to examine her, a mysterious old man appeared. Turns out he was the Esper Ramuh! He said that Terra was going to be okay once she accepted her form. The group asked if she was an Esper, but he simply replied she is something very different. He began to explain things for me. It was mostly a large look into Espers in general.
     Basically, humans and Espers used to live together in harmony, but humans ruined it (as always) by trying to steal magic from the Espers (War of the Magi). The Espers created their own world and left this one, but the humans located them and began stealing the Espers to extract their magic. The Espers created a door to seal their realm, but it was almost too late. Many Espers had been caught and were having their magic drained by the Empire. Ramuh and some his comrades had managed to escape, but many Espers were still in the Empire's Magitek Factory. He asked that we go and rescue them. Another thing he mentioned was that the Empire draining magic from the Espers wasn't the true way to gain their magical abilities. He said the true way to obtain magic was through the use of Magicite. Magicite is the essence created from a dying Esper. As he said that, he presented the group with three pieces of Magicite, and then he turned himself into Magicite. He asked that we go and rescue his comrades and left us to it.
     Magicite can be thought of something akin to the Guardian Force system in Final Fantasy 8. If you haven't played Final Fantasy 8, it's fairly straightforward anyways. Basically, you equip the Magicite and gain spells, some abilities, and are able to summon the Magicite's Esper. Each Magicite comes with a specific grouping of spells with different multipliers. You gain Magic Points from battles and eventually learn the spells (fast or slow based on the multiplier). With enough time and patience, one could easily give everybody the full assortment of spells. SO....moving right along.
     The next goal was the Magitek Factory. There wasn't any direct way to get there, so Celes suggested we head back to Jidoor and find someone there to help. I was allowed to re-select my party and then left Zozo. From there, I just made my way back down south towards Jidoor. Not a long trip thankfully and now to find out what I have to do! Back in Jidoor, I took advantage of my newfound wealth and stocked up again as well as buying items I previously couldn't afford (more armor and weapons mostly). After that, I looked about town until I came to a random house. It was a house of a man named Owzer, but there also was one known as Impresario. He was the director for the Opera there, and he received a letter from a mischievous man (and our next character!) who plans to kidnap the lead singer Maria. The character is a world renowned gambler and the owner of the ONLY airship in the world. His name...Setzer. (I guess like the water?) Therefore...I needed to recruit him. Impresario thought Celes looked a LOT like the missing lead singer as well...HINT HINT. It seems I'll get to do an opera. I believe this is one of the more (if not most) memorable scene from Final Fantasy 6...The Opera!
     I made my way south from Jidoor towards the Opera House. Because of course...the show must go on! If it doesn't, I can't get an airship somehow. There's a whole lot of talking between the group and Impresario. It's obvious where it is all going. Basically, Celes is going to take over Maria's part so that Maria doesn't get kidnapped. Instead, Celes will be kidnapped and help the group go after Setzer. So, the Opera gets started, and eventually Celes comes in. I get to do her part by "remembering" her lines. I used a guide because I wanted it to go well. I'm not directly following the guide at this time. I'm just making sure I don't miss any super awesome items...STOP JUDGING ME! Anyways, the Opera goes all fine and dandy. However...there be trouble afoot! It seems that the squid man (named Ultros) from waaay back during the river rafting has survived somehow. He followed the group here and plans to make some trouble of it all. As the opera is going, he attempts to kill Celes with a giant weight. Unfortunately for him, the weight is too heavy and can't move it for FIVE MINUTES.
     With Locke and the other two (Edgar and Gau), I race all around to get to Ultros. With only moments to spare, I reached Ultros, but the group (including Ultros) falls down onto the stage. This interrupts the opera, and the director believes it is ruined. However, the crowd seems to be excited about it as Ultros and the group finally compete for...BOSS BATTLE TIME! Ultros was a fairly formidable foe. He had decent attack strength, a few annoying abilities, and what seemed like decent overall health. As usual, I just kept after him and healed as I could. I didn't have Celes, so I was out on my current best healer. My other characters were finally learning their spells though, so I had a little variety available. His most consistant abilities were an ability called Level 3 Muddle (only effected Gau) and Imp spell (only worked on 2 of the 3). I had plenty of healing and such so none of that went too badly. It was a massive talk-y battle for Ultros, he constantly said stuff the entire time. As I finally got him whittled down, he bid us adieu and ran off. So...I got nothing for beating him.
     As Ultros ran out, suddenly...Setzer dropped in! He grabbed Celes (disguised as Maria) and ran off. Celes helped the group get to Setzer's ship, and they asked Setzer to help them. He wasn't eager to immediately help and asked that Celes marry him in exchange for the use of his ship. Celes agreed to it, but she made it a gamble (which appealed to this large-time gambler). She tossed a coin with heads being he helps regardless and tails being she agrees to the deal. Celes cheated with a double-sided coin, but Setzer agreed to do it anyways. He found the double-sided coin trick very amusing. With his ship, Setzer flew us across the ocean and landed nearby the town of Albrook. He waited on board his airship, and I made my move from there.
     Albrook was a small town with the Empire's presence. I made my way around the town stocking up on a few things. Unfortunately, I was short on money more than anything. Therefore...time for a farming session! I spent around an hour and a half exploring and getting money. I found a nearby town of Miranda (where the Empire presence was also really high). It didn't really have anything new there compared to Albrook. After my farming up gold, experience, and magic points (experience for magic...if I didn't already talk about it), I figured it was time to move on. I made my way north to Vector. Vector is a sort of Empire ran town and home of the Magitek Factory. With a little help from a Returner's sympathizer, I was able to sneak into the factory. The factory was an interesting place. Plenty of items to find, and lots of branching pathways necessary to get to said items. Exploring the factory went fairly slow because of all the battles. Nothing was too tough, but it seemed I wasn't getting a lot of damage in on anybody. After making my way through, I finally happen upon something important!
     I came upon Kefka who was talking about draining Espers of their magic and something about bringing Statues back (foreshadowing much?) As he said this, he threw a few espers down a conveyor belt. He claimed that he had drained their energy and were useless. I chased after them to discover it was Ifrit and Shiva! (Somewhat) BOSS BATTLE TIME! Yeah, that's right. I had to fight Ifrit as a form of story boss battle. He wasn't able to do a lot, and I finished him off quickly. Shiva stepped in and realized that we had Ramuh's essence with us...and thus ended the battle. The two Esper's passed on, and I gained the Shiva and Ifrit summon. It also means I've got more magic to learn! Woo! I saved the game and moved right along. Continuing on into the factory lead to the Magitek Research Facility! And inside there, I finally came to a real BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The boss was some strange man-looking monster called Number 24. Currently looking over a guide to ensure I get the best items, and it seemed that this boss would be a challenge. Then...it was not. I just kept after it with Edgar's Chainsaw while casting Cure on the party ever so often. He went down with little trouble on my part. Once defeated, I moved further inside the facility and found...more trapped Espers! I freed them and next up was a lot of talking and story. First off, a scientist runs in and starts asking what we are doing. And guess who it is? Cid! Thus he makes his appearance in the game. As the Espers are freed, they are all very weak so they end up giving their powers to me through Magicite. Seeing this, Cid realizes that they've been doing it all wrong. However, we don't get long ,and Kefka comes in. He asks Celes to hand over the Magicite and confuses the group into thinking that Celes is going to turn on them! Locke questions it, but Celes ends up saving the day. Kefka sends in Magitek Armor to attack the group, but Celes rescues everybody by warping the armor, Kefka, and herself away. Then...the facility starts to come down. Cid runs off to an elevator and tells the group to follow him. During the ride down, he starts realizing what he's done. He explains that he raised Celes like his own daughter, and he unfortunately let them make her a magitek knight and turn her into what she is now. Kefka seemed to have made it back, so Cid pushed us onto a mine cart and helped us escape.
     The mine cart bit was just like before with the underwater and rafting parts. I was flung forward while dealing with random encounters. There wasn't anything too hard along the way, but then I was thrown into BOSS BATTLE TIME! For this time, I was fighting a monster named Number 128. Apparently they find it clever and interesting to make these fake scientifically made monster names such as "Number 24 and Number 128." Regardless, this boss wasn't one to scoff at. He had "limbs" which allowed him multiple attacks. The limbs didn't have anything special, but they were able to deal out decent damage (around 100ish on people with only around 600 HP each). I focused on the limbs briefly and managed to destroy them, but they regenerated a few rounds later. That made the tactic fairly un-effective, so I instead remained focus on the body. I managed to beat him without losing anybody (keep in mind I was down to 3 people with Celes gone). The mine cart flew outside, and the group abandoned it. Running onward I ran into Setzer who took us on the airship and began to fly away. However, Kefka wasn't about to let us get away that easily. He SOMEHOW attacked the group while they were in the airship...with a crane.
     BOSS BATTLE TIME! I label many of these as boss battles, but a lot of them really don't feel like them, considering difficulty. I was forced into a pincer battle with a crane on each side of the party. Pardon if I neglected to mention it before, but FF6 offers multiple types of battle situations rather than the normal,  initiative, and ambush. They also have a pincer maneuver where either your party surrounds an enemy with two people on each side of them OR your party is surrounded by enemies on both sides. The latter is what happened during. Anyways, the fourth member of the party, where Celes was, was replaced with Setzer, so I finally got a look at his ability. He has the "Slots" command that allows him to take a chance on a slot for a generally interesting attack! In general though (from quite a bit of use from it), you don't fail very often. Out of the multiple uses during battle, none of them failed, but I did get some interesting results. Triple bars did a random summon! Triple jewels did a special attack. Triple chocobos caused chocobos to run through and strike people. With the slots command and Edgar's tools, I was able to shoot through the enemy and move on.
     Setzer set sail for Zozo where the party was going to regroup and figure out their next move. In Zozo, we met back up with Terra...who had an interesting reaction to one of the Magicite. The Magicite helped her to remember her origin and cue backstory! To summarize it all, Terra's mom wondered into the Esper's world on accident and met her father (Maduin). The two had a child together and were happy, but then Emperor Gestahl and his troops found the Esper world and were invading it. The Esper's sealed off the gate to their world, but in the process, Maduin and Terra's mom ended up on the other side, and Gestahl took Terra away from them. And thus...she grew up on this side. She was part human and part Esper! With the new realization of this, she rejoined the group. The Magicite that reacted to her was her father's essences (Maduin). The next goal for the group...head back to Narshe. I have an airship now though! I can go ANYWHERE!...more or less.
     With the airship in hand, I'm able to carry around the entire crew of...7 people now I think? (Shadow isn't with us yet, and we have lost Celes for the moment). The exploration really only took me to the Veldt. I went there to acquire more Rages for Gau. I'd also hopefully gain a little money and experience as well. I spent some time doing this before I decided to quit and head on. I got many new rages, and yet I won't use half of them! I flew around the world a bit as well. I didn't find a whole lot of new stuff, but I managed to find another Magicite (cost me 3000 gil...a steal!). Feeling like time to move on, I made my way to Narshe.
     Upon entering, I was immediately sent to talk with Banon and the Narshe Elder. It seems that Narshe was finally ready to side with the Returners and fight the Empire. They started discussing their battle plan. It seems they wish to use Narshe's money with Figaro's technology to attack the Imperial Capital. The only problem is the lack of troops. Banon figures they only have one way to do it...with the help of the Espers. Basically, he figures that if the Esper's launch an attack from their direction (the East) while the Returners come from the North...Success is guaranteed! They also figure it's their only possible chance of winning. The biggest factor in all of this...Terra. They think Terra (being a bit of both) would be able to help the two groups unite for the cause. That means my next goal is to locate the gate and enter inside. It seems the Empire has the gate located for us, but they have a base in front of it. That means I'll have to break through another base to complete my goal. So...onward!
     Well...not yet! There is a side quest afoot! In Narshe, there is a house with a bunch of chests in it, but I looted them all earlier on. It seems there is another thief here now, and his name is Lone Wolf the Pickpocket! He is a recurring thief person that exists in many of the titles. Anyways, he exclaimed about being caught and ran off. I chased after him...all the way through the mines and up the mountain. I finally had him cornered, but he had a hostage...a poor Moogle! We were at a standoff until the Moogle shook him off. I then had to choose between saving the Moogle or taking the item from him. I chose the Moogle of course. Turns out it was a new party member! A Moogle...named Mog. He said that Ramuh had spoken to him, and now he was joining us. Woo! With Mog by my side, I was ready to find the Gate to the Esper World. I knew exactly where to go.
     I landed right outside the Imperial Base...and quit there for the night. This post is long enough as is, and I need to go ahead and wrap it up. Can't wait to see what happens...NEXT TIME! ON RECURRING FANTASY! ~Wooosh~

Ending Point - Nearby the Imperial Base.
Current Party -

• Terra - Level 19
• Setzer - Level 18
• Cyan - Level 18
• Sabin - Level 18

Goals Accomplished - Located Terra in Zozo. Gained magicite and therefore magic for everybody! Performed the Opera and met/tricked Setzer. Gained Setzer as a party member! Also his airship! Flew to the southern continent and snuck into the Magitek Factory. Infiltrated the Magitek Factory and gained mulitiple magicite/summons. Escaped the Magitek Research Facility. Reunited with Terra and returned to Narshe. Saved Mog the Moogle and gained him as a party member! Generic training and stuffs!
Next Goals - Sneak through the Imperial Base and make it to the Sealed Cave. Defeat the Empire. Save the World!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~