Game - Final Fantasy XII, Day 81
Hours Played/Hours Total - 11 hrs / 49 hrs
Starting Point - Eruyt Village.
Current Goal - Journey through the woods and reach Mt Omisace.
What Happened - The hefty foreword shall be pardoned in place of...Let's get on with this! For those who neglected the last post, I'm about to leave the woods and travel to Mt Omisace. That is...baring any Marks I attempt to do before that. I'll probably attempt a few of my backlogged Marks first. Let's get to it!
Looking over the Marks, I'm still pretty sure I can't handle any of them. Not sure if I mentioned it before, but Marks generally come with ranks, and so far, I've received Marks with ranks as high as 5 and as low as 1. The rank 1 marks are pretty easy, but most of the marks that are 3 or more are generally outside of my level and/or abilities. Seeing my list, I would really LOVE to finish off the Cluckatrice, but I'm pretty sure I can't even deal with it during the rainy season on the Giza Plains. Skipping past that, I took another attempt at just trying to beat the Thunder Elemental that walks around the Giza Plains. My first attempt at this ended badly, but I didn't die! So...a step up. I was really close this time. It started with like 15,000 HP, and I managed to work it down below 4,000. I ran away, healed at a save spot, and went to try again. (Of course, you have to start fresh if you leave an enemy alone.) The last attempt came close enough though that I figured to try again.
Long story short, I beat that stupid bitch! How? Basically, I blasted it like crazy with a Quickening Combo of 6. That brought it down to 4,000 HP. I followed up with ANOTHER Quickening Combo. I only managed a combo of 2, but that was enough to bring it down to 1,000 HP. I conjured up a few Blizzara spells, and this brought it right next to extinction. Unfortunately, it threw up an immunity barrier to all magic at this point. (Because that's insanely fair.) At that point, I had to break down into physical strikes and rely on luck. Honestly, I just barely came out ahead. If the damn thing cast just one more Thundara, I'd have been done for. The reward for all my ridiculous effort? 1500 experience and 3 LP. Not worth the effort, but I finally beat the darn thing.
I'd like to comment though... It's a level 25 enemy, and it took a HUGE struggle with a set of over level 30 characters to beat it. I don't know about you guys, but this just feels like tacky game design. A lower level on an enemy means I should be able to beat it almost every time. You can make it surprise me with something, but it shouldn't be a life or death struggle versus something that's around five levels or more difference in my own level. Other comment for this section would be that Quickenings are ridiculous. Seriously, you can do a huuuuge amount of damage. It does take entire bars of magic, but the results are generally pretty amazing. You do more damage during a Quickening combo than you can from a constant barrage of attacks taking place over a couple minutes. Of course, a poorly timed Quickening is generally a bad idea. If you have no magic, you're basically screwed. Enough of this though! Back to the game...
With that Elemental conquered, I refocused my efforts towards an actual accomplishment. I ran back to the Dalmasca Westersand to fight the Ring Wyrm again. Short answer is a big pile of "Nope". I tried a Quickening combo, and it didn't really even scratch the darn thing. Since that is out, I went Rabanastre to check for new Marks at the Sandsea. I know I already have a pile of Marks to do, but most of those are out of my range (as I've stated several times). Luck for me, there is one new Mark available, and it's of considerably lower rank! I take the Mark and head out to Jahara to learn more. Seriously, if I can't beat this thing, I'm moving right on with the game. Despite my lack of new and good equipment, I'm moving on. There's only so much leveling and looting I can force myself to do. At Jahara, I'm told about the Ixtab monster. It's some sort of evil spirit located in the Henne Mines, and the Garif can't deal with it despite their warrior status. That means I get the job! ON TO THE HENNE MINES!
Of course, now I have to rent a Chocobo just to get there. Kinda annoying to require a Chocobo to reach a location...if you ask me. Lucky for me, I never cashed in on a free Chocobo ride earlier on! I jump on the offer and ride the Chocobo over to the Henne Mines. I head inside and quickly locate the Ixtab because it's basically right next to the entrance. Also this place is pretty small. MARK BATTLE TIME! Unfortunately, there's really not much to say on this thing. It cast Doom on Vaan at one point, but I beat the evil spirit monster before Doom even went off. Soooo...Mark Vanquished. I run back to turn it in and earn a pretty small pile of nothing: 1300 Gil, an Ether, and a random item (which I sold). Yaay, I guess this evens out really. I put little effort into beating it, so I get little reward out of beating it. Oh well! No point hanging around here. Let's move on to Mt. Bur-Omisace!
That means we have to travel through the Golmore Jungle once again. This time though, I don't have to worry about random magical barriers. For less detail filled preferences, I'll just describe the first half of the trip as such...Malboros and Demons and Hell Hounds I can't handle! OH MY! Minus the running away from Hell Hounds, it's a pretty uneventful trip. I come to a small area though, and there is a save in the middle of it. This is the game spelling out the word B-O-S-S A-H-E-A-D. I save and head into the next area for...HOLY CRAP A GIANT DRAGON COVERED IN GRASS AND FLOWERS! BOSS BATTLE TIME! (Also apologizes for all caps there.)
The actual name of this monster is Elder Wyrm. It's a nature dragon of sorts, and it comes witha pair of treants. I easily defeat the treants though and quickly focus on the big guy here. Things were going well...too well unfortunately. That came to an end though after he did the move Sporefall. Sporefall only causes pretty much ALL of the status effects at once on every character. Screw you Elder Wyrm! During all this status effect crap, I lose a character to Confusion, but I manage to get one out of confusion to cure the others. Then it took me a full minute just to get everybody fully up and cured. Time to refocus the efforts! I kinda wanted to blast the thing with Quickenings, but I feel like that'll just leave me screwed without magic. And now another Sporefall! Thankfully, this time it didn't go off nearly as well. One person was missed by the attack entirely, so they get to heal everybody else. After that, I get my attack pace up and going again. Everything's going great...then another Sporefall. Yay for me though! Because it is even less effective than the previous one. (Only one) I quickly recover from that last Sporefall and then beat the Elder Wyrm into submission! CONGRATULATIONS! Time to move along...
I finally leave the Golmore Jungle and enter the Paramina Rift. This area is all snowy-wasteland look, and it comes with a matching set of snow wolves, skeletons, and other snow-themed monsters. The worst one among these was the yeti, which looked like a lizard guy with white fur. From here, I spent a lot of time exploring the area. I wasn't really sure of where to go, so I ended up going pretty much everywhere in the Paramina Rift. Eventually, I figure out the direction because there's nowhere to go but North. I head up and into a scene. As we are heading towards Mt Bur-Omisace, Balthier mentions out loud how the Empire parades through the streets while refugees are forced to walk in the snow. He looks over at Larsa as he says this. Larsa responds that he's pushing for peace, and that his father will choose peace as well. Balthier asks if he truly will and that no one can truly know another person, not even their own father. This makes Larsa kinda unsure of what to think, but Vaan tells him not to take that the wrong way. SCENE SHIFT!
Now we're back in Archadia, and Vayne is speaking with the Emperor/his father. Vayne is telling him that the Senate hates House Solidor existence. Vayne believes they will do anything to try and stop them. He figures they need to be dealt with and is willing to do what it takes to eliminate this problem. He tells the Emperor that it is necessary for their continual survival. The Emperor questions Vayne and asks why he's so quick to shed blood. Vayne says that the Emperor is the one who made their house so strong and powerful, and he just wants to keep this going. The Emperor then asks Vayne if this is his idea of vengeance, but Vayne likes to think of it as necessity. Then the Emperor asks if Vayne is simply willing to get his hands dirty to keep other's hands clean. Vayne finally ends this back and forth scene by saying that his hands are already stained with blood. He sees little reason to hold back now. Back to our group!
I continue up the mountain a short ways and finally reach the top for a cutscene! It's basically just a sky view of Mt. Bur-Omisace. It's all pretty and nature-y. Thus, we have finally reached our destination after what feels like FOREVER! I climb a little further up the mountain and continue into the temple here. Another cutscene! Basically, it's just another sky view of the area, but now we're all focused on the temple here. Also, I finally learn the name I kept making fun of earlier. It's "Gran Kiltias Anastasis", and as that turns out, it's a single person and not a council. I thought it was a group of people for some reason. He's the lead person of the temple or head priest...Whatever you want to call him. I make my way into the temple and approach the Gran Kiltias Anastasis for a scene.
The group approaches him, but he looks like he's asleep. Everybody kinda just stares, and Vaan eventually asks if he's asleep. He finally speaks up and says something about not sleeping but always dreaming. He says he's seen all of the dreams, including those of Ashe. He saw that she dreams of restoring Dalmasca, and he believes there is no one better to do this than her with the Dawn Stone in hand. Then randomly a guy walks in from behind us and interrupts all of this. Larsa introduces this man as the one we came here to meet. He's a member of one of the ruling Rozarrian houses. The man says he wanted to stop the war as well, but he couldn't do it by himself. Thus, he looked to Larsa for some help. The man introduces himself as Al-Cid Margrace of House Margrace.
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| Al-Cid Margrace |
We're back in Archadia now, and there are Judges moving all about. They're inside the grand Emperor Chamber/whatever you want to call it. The main group of them are gathered around a dead Senator who is next to the Emperor, who is dead on the throne. They're all discussing the event, and Vayne jumps in to say that the Senator poisoned the Emperor. He admitted to doing so right before he killed himself. (Yeaaah, this just bodes on suspiciousness.) With war on the brink of happening, Vayne suggests to them that they take away the Senate's powers and give it to the Emperor so that they can deal with everything. Of course, with the current Emperor dead, this makes Vayne the Emperor, and thus he will get the power. Only one of the Judges seems to directly oppose this. It is Judge Drace from that talk-y Judge bit before. She believes Vayne is up to something, but Vayne points out that only two survivors of House Solidor are left. It's between Vayne and his brother Larsa.
At this point, Judge Drace pulls out her sword and attempts to arrest Vayne. She said a whole bit, but I didn't get it down. She believes he caused the events at hand just to become Emperor, but another Judge steps before her and says that Vayne didn't make himself Emperor, the Law did. By pointing her sword at Vayne, she pointed her sword at the Law and therefore broke the thing she swore to uphold. She swings her sword at the Judge before her, but he blocks it with his hand. He proceeds to lift her up one handed and then toss her across the room like she weighs nothing.
At this point, Vayne instructs Judge Zargabaath to take the Alexander and go retrieve his brother Larsa. Gabranth steps forward and says that he was in charge of Larsa. Vayne mentions that he can't trust Gabranth because he was reporting Vayne's activities to the Emperor. He then lets Gabranth know that he can prove himself by dealing with Drace. She's been tried, convicted, and Gabranth must carry out the sentence right now. He seems reluctant to do it, but he goes over to her. He kneels down, and Drace tells him to do it. She wants him to stay alive so he can protect Larsa. Gabranth takes up his sword and finishes the job...End scene.
We jump back to the main group, and Al-Cid is talking with the group, He says the late Emperor was the only one who would have given her the chance for peace. However, if she tried to reclaim the throne now, Vayne would claim her an impostor. He'd use that to stir things up with the resistance and start the war! Unfortunately for them, it seems that Vayne wants the war, and he's a military genius. The Gran Kiltias finally kicks in again to say that the dreams have shown that her revealing at this point would simply lead to war. Alongside this event, Vayne's name would appear in the books of history. Al-Cid brings it back in to add that Archadia has risen the banners and is coming around for war. He goes on to list off several fleets preparing for this. On top of their airships preparing, Ashe adds in that the nethicite is their coup de grace of it all. She proceeds to ask the Gran Kiltias about the nethicite.
At this point, the old guy finally opens his eyes and says to her about wielding power against power being a hume thing. She is a descendant of the Dynast-King, and he tells her to seek out the other power that Raithwell left behind, the Sword of Kings. It seems that King Raithwell left behind another artifact, but he entrusted the item to the Gran Kiltias of his time. The item was then hidden in the Stilshrine of Miriam across the Paramina Rift. What was so important about the Sword of Kings? The blade can cut through nethicite. After giving this information away, he goes on to state out loud (kinda awkwardly) about why the King would trust a tool capable of destroying his legacy bringer to someone outside of his progeny. Before he bids us farewell, he tells her to take up the sword and to take her dream. Otherwise, it will remain but a dream. So we finally get to leave the temple and head back out into the Paramina Rift!
Now I have to find this fancy Shrine place, but I don't really have anything telling me where to go. The World Map shows an icon to the south of the Paramina Rift, so I head south. This took me nowhere though, and I ended up walking all over the snowy wasteland. After a bit, I looked over the area map and spotted only one spot with a path that went somewhere different. Thus, this had to be the direction to go!...hopefully. I head over there, and that took me around, about, and straight to the Stilshrine of Miriam! I enter inside and find myself in a typical temple-like setting. I look all around the initial area, but the game won't let me go anywhere. It keeps making a mention of the Dawn Shard being needed. Since I got nothing to lose, I end up equipping a character with the Dawn Shard, since specialty items like that can be equipped. As soon as I do this, everything decides to work for me!
The first device I try teleports me to an entirely different part of the shrine. Down there, I run into a couple of statues that spring to life! I fight those off pretty quickly though and continue onward. This brings me into an area with a trio of dragons, but they aren't so easily. I ended up running past them the first time and continuing my search in the shrine. After fighting off more statues, I went back to confront the dragons. I had to end up cheating the game system a bit here though. I kept going back and forth from one area to the next to slowly take them out one by one. (It kept their health intact despite my coming and going for some reason.) After beating the dragons, I went back upstairs and located a switch. This opened up a new path out of this area. I followed the path straight to a crystal! I went up to it, but it wasn't a save crystal.
The crystal came to life and started attacking me! Of course, I realized something was up but gave it a shot anyways. The thing came to life as a "Crystal Bug" and started attacking me. To be honest, it wasn't that hard to beat really. It did have a hefty defense though, so I just had to take time to whittle it down. Once I beat it, a real crystal appeared. I made use of it and then moved right along. This brought me into a lower chamber with a couple different monsters. I quickly dealt with them, but then I was faced with a different dilemma. There's a large obstruction keeping me from moving through, but to move it, it said something about needing to face three Guardians to pass. With that read and done, a door is opened. Since it's the only way to go, I head on through. That brings me to a teleport that transports me back to the first area in the Shrine.
From here, I've got two paths I can take. I head down the right one first, and this brings me to a large area with multiple paths. I just choose one and head on kinda randomly. Lucky for me, this brings me to a large statue (but not an animated one). The information with it refers to it as a Guardian and mentions something about facing the blade. On top of that, I can turn the thing. Basically, I have to find all three of these statues and make them face the middle one. The game designers were nice during this though, and they made the statue's position and facing direction available on the map. (Yay for small things!) With that statue turned, it's time to find the other two! I move right through the area and end up fighting off a whole pile of zombie monsters. I eventually find the second statue while wandering about, and I turn it towards the center as well. From here, I'm only lacking one statue to turn around. This path works me around through more enemies, around the large statue in the center, and through a big door to meet BOSS BATTLE TIME!
The monster at hand is less of a monster and more of a giant, metallic three-headed dragon! The first message I receive after the opening video is enough to tell me this isn't your average battle. The message simply states that "Your metallic equipment grows heavy." Yeaaaah, I don't like the sound of that at all. As I move in to attack the dragon, it becomes quickly apparent what that entails. This game sure doesn't like to be fun. Anytime my fun meter rises, it smacks it down with some stupid twist. As soon as I start my actions, it's quite noticeable that everybody's action meter has slowed down. My current party was Basch, Penelo, and Ashe. Penelo and Ashe move at mostly the same pace, but Basch is slowed to a crawl. Basch has a full set of metallic items while the other two have significantly less. (That's my theory anyways.) Lucky for me, the giant metal dragon doesn't seem to have a lot of health. Every hit comes rather slow, but they take out a pretty good notch of the giant meter at the top. After a while, it unleashes a fancy scene special attack, Sword Dance! That doesn't do a whole lot though, and I push on through for its death! With its defeat, the giant metal monstrosity falls backwards into a randomly placed giant pit of lava. CONGRATULATIONS!
With the boss's defeat, the door behind it opens up, and I head into the next room. The final statue is in here, and I turn in towards the center. Then I get a message about the colossus changing. I turn around and head back into the previous area to view the change. As it turns out, the bit blocking my path was actually the Colossus's colossal sword. However, with all the statues facing it, it lifted up the sword so I could go by! Of course, now I have to work my way back down to that lower area below the Colossus. While I'm heading down there, I run into a random yet rare and ridiculous supermonster! I ended up spending like fifteen minutes just trying to beat the damn thing! The name eludes me at the moment, but it was a floating head thing that could cast "necromancy" and summon up a pile of zombies. They weren't pushover zombies either though. They came with a surprisingly decent amount of health, and that's not even including the original monster! I spent quite some time and effort fighting the thing. I ended up losing my entire initial party here and had to switch over to the other group. I managed to beat it in the end, but that was quite a bit of work for a "rare" monster. I revived everybody and moved right along.
Under the sword and through the door, there's a giant flying-fish ice-lady! BOSS BATTLE TIME! This was an interesting if not short battle. The first thing the giant ice lady did was summon up a pile of ice elementals, but thankfully, they weren't even remotely as hard as real elementals. Despite that, there were like five of them summoned, and they just kept casting Blizzard on me. It wasn't doing a lot mind you, but their numbers made it problematic. I kept trying to attack the she devil, but I couldn't get enough time in. The battle from before kinda drained my MP. I didn't go back to refill it either, and that was a poor judgement on my side. Then the stupid boss cast Reflect on herself. This ended up pushing me into the only option I felt would work...Quickenings! I blasted her with a ten combo Quickening! The combo breaker, Ark Blast, came in to finish up the whole package. I basically hit the "win" button with all that! Although Quickenings are limited to a single target, the "combo breaker" (as I call it) hits everybody within range! Ark Blast destroyed all of the ice elementals, and the overall combo left her with just a tiny portion of HP left! Woo!
Super success for sure! The ol' girl wasn't going down without a fight though, and she wasn't very happy with being almost dead. She unleashed a massive special attack called Chain Magick! That ended up killing both Penelo and Ashe. I didn't want to swap out teams at this point though, so I had to quickly revive everybody. Once I got everybody back up, I charged at her and attacked like crazy. I had to hurry quickly before she wiped out my party again. With the final blow struck, CONGRATULATIONS! The giant ice-fish lady was all like YAARGH BLARGH and then transformed into a giant crystal like Belias did. Basically, we obtained another Esper, Mateus the Corrupt! Time to move ahead and retrieve the Sword of Kings. I open the door and enter into a mysterious, glow-y chamber. I walk towards the light and SCENE!
Ashe approaches a giant spinning mechanism with the Dawn Shard in hand. It starts glowing, and then everything around begins to power down. That's what I thought at first, but then it seems that all the energy simply focused onto the sword in the middle. It floats out from its resting place and towards Ashe. She grabs it, the power goes off, and the sword falls over. Vaan approaches her and says she should try the sword out on the Dawn Shard. Might as well see if it will destroy nethicite like it is supposed to. She's all "WHA?", but Balthier chimes in and agrees with Vaan. We can't use the nethicite, and the sword does need to be tested. She puts the stone down and pulls back with the sword. As she does that, the stone begins to glow. Fran comments that the stone fears the sword. As she's readying herself, Mr. Rassler (the prince again) shows up, and then...she brings down the sword. The Dawn Shard loses its glow and is dead now. Looks like we have ourselves a nethicite destroyer! With that said and done, the group turns to leave. Ashe stops Vaan and asks him if he saw it that time. Vaan says that he didn't see anything, not even his brother. So...huzzah? Time to leave!
I will give Final Fantasy XII something. Normally, you get a fancy in-game story item, and it's just a key item in your bag. However, in FFXII, you get a story item, and the item ends up being equip-able. This includes items like the Goddess Magicite, the Manufactured Nethicite, the Dawn Shard, and now the Sword of Kings. Now that the Shrine is conquered, I go ahead and take my leave. As I head outside, the group spots some airships flying overheard. CUTSCENE! The group is looking up in the sky, and there is a huuuge airship flying above them. The sheer size of it seems ridiculous even compared to all of the ones flying about it. The large airship is carrying a fleet of little airships aboard it. The fleet of airships are flying over us and to the south. The group looks to the north, and Mt Bur-Omisace has smoke rising from it. Well, looks like we took too long. The cutscene ends, and I have to head back to Bur-Omisace.
I could have used a Teleport stone at a nearby crystal, but I figured I could use the loot-ercise. Walk, walk, walk. Walk, walk, walk. And now I'm back! I enter Bur-Omisace, and things are pretty darn grim. It's raining, and there are people scattered about. The place is all messed up and looks pretty bad. Bodies all about, and people trying to help those who are wounded. It's your typical "village just got attacked" look. From the ground area, I head for the temple. Things look pretty bad here as well. Everybody keeps telling me not to go inside because the Judge seems to still be here. The Gran Kiltias is trying to reason with the crazy guy. It's pretty obvious that things aren't going well nor are they going to improve. Despite everybody's warnings, I head inside. Surprise! The place is all messed up, and the Judge (Bergan) has killed the Gran Kiltias.
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| Judge Bergan |
As the battle starts, it immediately becomes the definition of annoying. My initial goal is to try and take out the unnamed judges. Unfortunately, they all tend to focus on a single person and rape their face off. That forced me to keep a dedicated healer on the singled-out target. They took out Balthier at one point (Current team - Vaan, Balthier, and Fran), so I had to waste time reviving him. I had to deal with the unnamed Judges for quite a bit. Thankfully, they weren't able to do a lot of damage, but Bergan on the other hand was just pissing me off for sure. I eventually manage to focus enough attacks to eliminate the unnamed Judges. With them out of the way, I re-focused my efforts on Bergan.
The first thing that Bergan brings to the table is being Shell'd and Protect'd. This means it's half-damage all around without anything else considered. I'm having to slowly take the guy down, but I start to get a bit of a pattern going. He can really only focus on one person at a time, but he tends to really beat on his current target. He tended to combo out of nowhere and nearly kill people. At one point, he went into a sort of battle frenzy and started doing 600 damage PER HIT! With that kind of power, I'm having to keep after healing everybody, or he'll just three hit them to death. At one point, he decimated Balthier with a five hit combo. Overall, it was a pretty slow uphill battle. He was all protected, so I just had to slowly chisel his health away while keeping my team healthy. Despite the setbacks, I managed to take the bastard down!
With his defeat, he started going all BLARGH and then strange energies flowed out of him. That Judge be dead! Of course, the Gran Kiltias is also dead...Then Penelo wonders where Larsa went. Al-Cid hobbles in at that point and informs us that Larsa was taken by Judge Gabranth. Larsa went with him willingly to avoid any trouble, but it is quite apparent that Judge Bergan had some different ideas in mind. Al-Cid attempted to intervene, but Bergan went crazy at that point and started attacking. Al-Cid bids with Ashe to return with him to Rozarria. Ashe says no to him because she still has a job to do. With her reply said, Al-Cid informs her that the Empire is setting up for a massive preemptive strike. He feels that she needs to try and hold everybody off, but Ashe claims she isn't finished yet. She plans to go and destroy the Dusk Shard with the Sword of Kings. Al-Cid sighs and asks if she even knows where it is.
Balthier steps forward then to answer that question. He believes it is most likely at Draklor Laboratories in Archades (an Imperial city). That's where the Empire's weapon research begins and ends. He looks over at Ashe then and simply asks when they will leave. And thus our plan is set. Al-Cid tells the group that he will go back to Rozarria now, but he imparts a final message from Larsa before leaving. "The differences between our two lands will fade before the shared dreams of men." With that said, he finally takes his leave of us. And...then we leave the temple as well. The group starts talking about how they plan to get to Archades. It's immediately told that they can't go by sea or air because of all the Imperial forces. This leaving traveling on the ground, and thus we have to hoof it. We have to head to the North and through Nalbina. From there, we will have to cross through a forest known as Salikawood. Overall, it's going to be a lot of walking. That means I'll get in a lot of training and hopefully some looting too. At this point, I'm pretty far behind on pretty much everybody's equipment, and I've got no gil to change that otherwise.
After this whole Bur-Omisace business, my first action was to teleport back to Rabanastre and then work from there. I check the Mark board at the Sandsea tavern, and as it turns out, I've got a whole group of new Marks to add to my slowly growing pile. I'm sooooo excited. (/end sarcasm) On a whim, I went to the Giza Plains to check the conditions. It's not raining anymore! Time to deal with that damn Cluckatrice! I go over to its hunting area, clear it out, come back, and Mark battle time! I could go into details here, but I'm so far above the thing that there's not much to say. As before, it's the Cluckatrice and three baby Chickatrices. The Chickatrices can't even hurt me at this point, and they're quickly disposed of. After them, I attacked the Clucktrice next and slaughtered the stupid bird. MARK VANQUISHED! I've only had the darn Mark since....nearly the beginning of the game!
I head to the village in Giza Plains and turn in the Mark for my reward. As usual, it's really not much to go on, but this reward is also pretty old. I also managed to hand off that random ring I got from the Croakadile some time ago. The lady explains that the ghost guy we met was her husband. He went to search for the ring when she lost it some time ago, and well...he died. Enough of this though, it's time to get on with the marks. Next destination is Jahara on the Ozmone Plains. I find the bird-man in charge of the Mark and learn about the Mindflayer! It's some evil creature that these people are at war with, but they're too weak to handle this one so they are outsourcing it. LET THE HUNT BEGIN!
For this Mark, I get to return to that fun location, the Henne Mines. It's a bit further in than the last mark, but this place is pretty small anyways. I locate the Mind Flayer and commence to battling! My earliest impression was that I was in for a cake walk of a boss. Despite being a magic-using demon, it didn't seem overly powerful or anything. It's -ra spells didn't seem too powerful, and things were going pretty well in my direction. THEN THE TIDES TURNED. Early on in this overly long battle, it let me know that it had a special ability to Stop people. I hadn't dealt with this status much yet, so I had no idea how long it lasted. Eventually, all three of my current members were stopped, and I had to swap out two of them to continue on. Then those people got stopped...I ended up having to keep swapping out members to keep a balance of people moving and people stopped. It heals over time, but still takes some time to do.
I managed to get past all the Stop business and was really close to beating the monster. Then the game decided that the ultimate strategy for every Mark (after the initial group of them) is to enable them with an ability to fully recover their health no matter what. They usually use it when they have less than 10% of their health when they do this. (I'd like to add that this "ability" pisses me off. I'm incredibly tired of having to fight an enemy forever just for them to fully recover on a whim.) After it recovered, it decided to make things even more fun by Superbuffing itself. By Superbuffing, I mean it gave itself nearly all of the in-game buffs that are available. I know it had at least Protect, Shell, Haste, Bravery, and Faith. (The last two are buffs for physical and magical strikes...I think.) With itself fully healed, it turned this somewhat challenging battle into an uphill climb of ridiculousness. With its new buffs, it's magical attacks were almost triple the damage they were before.
Before this Mark battle was said and done, I ended up doing like four rounds of Quickenings in my attempts to stop it. The Bravery and Faith statuses eventually wore off, but it still had me in a bad spot. Half of the battle was just trying to revive and heal party members. It kept using an ability called "Invert" that swapped around their HP and MP. This gave them an immediate boost in MP, but it also meant I had next to no HP. This ability went off more times than I'd care to admit...Also I didn't keep track because it happened way too often. After nearly twenty minutes of annoying, I managed to finally put the Mindflayer down with a final set of quickenings. MARK VANQUISHED!
Well, I've had enough of this placed. I left Henne Mines and went back to Jahara for my meager reward. He also asked that I go and speak to another Garif, so I walk over to the random Garif. He tells me of a place further in Henne Mines where a powerful creature lurks. He'd ask that I do it, but he says I should come back after I have more "powerful creatures" at my command. Basicaly, I'll need to continue on and get more Espers. Well, I've had enough of Jahara, so I teleport to Mt. Bur-Omisace for other marks. (I can buy Teleport stones now, so I'm not overly worried about running out.) I check in with two people there for a pair of marks to tackle. The marks I gained were a demon thing called Feral Retriever and a white chocobo called the Trickster. I doubt I can handle both of them, but I'm figuring to take down at least one of them. The Trickster is fairly out of my rank, so I set out into the Paramina Rift to find the Feral Retriever.
As I leave Mt. Bur-Omisace, I run into a random clan member who is also trying to hunt the Trickster. He joins with the group briefly, but he's more of a tagalong than a guest member. I don't spot the chocobo though and just continue through without any incident. The Feral Retriever is located on the path to the Stilshrine of Miriam. I easily locate the beast and commence a battling! This is the part where I'd describe that battle, but it was actually stupid amounts of easy. So...it's not worth describing. I just attacked it with regular physical strikes and finished it off with a Quickening to prevent any of that renew crap. With its defeat, I head back to Bur-Omisace to turn it in and change locale. While heading back through the Paramina Rift, I end up running into the Trickster!
The first and most obvious thing is that it is a HUGE chocobo. On top of that, it seems to ghost about the place. (Constantly disappears and teleports all about) I ran towards it to give it a shot, but I quickly learn it's out of my league. It did 1200 damage with a single strike! I'll have to come back for this big bird, so I made a hasty retreat and went back into Bur-Omisace. I turn in the Feral Retriever for my reward and then teleport to Eruyt Village to deal with the VORPAL BUNNY! (Oh yeah, it sounds sooo menacing.) I find the Viera who made the Mark and learn all about it. There's a bunch of story stuff with it, but I honestly do not care. LET THE HUNT BEGIN! I head into the Golmore Jungle to search for this special rabbit. I end up walking all over the place in my search for the thing though. I fought quite a few monster and made some decent loot while I went about. So...I at least got that much from this hunt.
As I start to run out of places to search, I figure to try the only unexplored area of Golmore Jungle. WHAT DO YOU KNOW? The first thing I find is the Vorpal Bunny wandering around. MARK BATTLE TIME! First and foremost, this monster is based off the generally friendly bunny species throughout the game. They're easy to kill and won't attack unless attacked. In that vein of thought, I figured this thing wouldn't be too bad. So in all honesty, I can admit it wasn't a very hard battle, but the bunny wasn't going to let itself die that easily. After I attack it, it started running all over the place, so I have to constantly chase after it. While trying to chase it, it leads me into battles with everything else in the area. Before it's all said and done, I ended up clearing the area of all other enemies. They weren't beyond my level though, so it was just minor setbacks.
The biggest problem was keeping up with it. It managed to escape me one time, and when I found it again, it was back at full health. So...I have to find it and beat it before it gets away, or I'll get to restart the whole process. The little rabbit was just fast enough to stay out of my reach. I had to keep cutting it off to get any attack in. I ended up switching my party to Balthier and Fran for use of their ranged weapons. I attempted a Quickening Combo, but I dropped the ball on the timing and ended up wasting it. Since the chasing method was working, I just stuck with it. This made the overall battle take quite some time, but it was pretty much all time and no challenge. Balthier and Fran having ranged weapons definitely helped because they were able to hit more often than I could as Vaan with a sword. After chasing it for no telling how long, I finally finished the rabbit off....MARK VANQUISHED! Time to turn in and reel in the goods.
Back in Eruyt Village, I go and talk with the Viera again. I hand over the Vorpal Bunny's tail and story stuff! There's a whole thing about needing the tail for a friend who wants to become a master medicine bunny or something like that. It's not that important to me though, and I really didn't care. I took the reward and went to leave the village. However, before I left, I took to the save crystal because I'm cutting the post off here. In the next post, I'm planning to off a few more marks and then continue on with the story. So...stay tuned!
On a final note, I'm going to apologize for the huuuge gap in posts. This one has been about 90% ready since...like late last week. I've been busy with other stuff though, so I haven't gotten in nearly the playtime that I should to finish the game up sooner rather than later. I'm probably going to double down before the month is up and just finish it. I'll end up skipping some of the side stuff, but I'm more than ready to just be done with the game. It's not been as enjoyable (IMO) as pretty much all of the Final Fantasy titles before it. I've said enough for now though...THANKS FOR READING! Recurring Fantasy...out.
Ending Point - Eruyt Village.
Current Party -
- Vaan - Level 32
- Balthier - Level 32
- Fran - Level 32
Next Goals - Defeat more Marks. Head to Archades and prevent the war.
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
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