Once again, I'm referencing a Web
celebrity in the title.
Unfortunately, Tandem the Spoony takes
his name from probably the most useless character I've ever
encountered in a video game. Edward's battle menu has a command that
lets him run away from a battle and still get experience from it.
And he does it automatically if his HP gets too low, which is easily
done. On top of that, his normal attack sucks, and his special
ability, a musical attack, has a bad way of proving unsuccessful. At
least he moves the plot along. Too bad that plot advancement
includes Tellah running off on his own to avenge his daughter's
death.
On the subject of battles, I should
point out that the Damcyan area of this game's world map is where I
usually go to try scrounging up the Imp summon. I got to thinking
about it in the course of the last couple days and decided to change
what I said in my original intro blurb for this Text Play, at least a
little bit. I don't think I'll specifically go out of my way to get
the Imp spell this time around. I'll take steps to increase my odds
when I get the chance, but I don't think I'll actually go out of my
way to do that unless I come up with some extra time to play when I
get to the point in the game when I normally do that.
But anyway, back to the actual game.
Edward's one big contribution is giving the party its first vehicle:
a hovercraft. This proves useful now in getting around between
Damcyan, the Antlion's Nest, Kaipo, and Mt. Hobbes. It'll also prove
useful later on in the game, but I'll explain that when the time
comes.
For now, our first stop is the
Antlion's Nest. It's a simple in-and-out mission to get the Sand
Ruby to cure Rosa. It's not a particularly hard boss fight. The
recommended strategy that came in the Super NES Atlas that Nintendo
Power made in the early 1990s, just after the system in general, and
this game specifically, came out says to use Rydia's Chocobo summon
as the primary attack and have Cecil and Edward act as healers. That
works, but I've found that it works just as well and is quicker to
just balls it and have the guys attack while Rydia does her summon
because the Antlion's Counter attack really isn't the threat it was
made out to be. There should be plenty of opportunities to heal up
as needed without there being any danger of somebody aside from the
monster being killed.
So, once the ruby is retrieved, it's
off to Kaipo to cure Rosa. She'll join the party, of course, as a
white wizard. But first, the party spends one more night resting in
Kaipo, in this case, to give Edward a chance to fight a Water Hag and
come to terms with his grief over losing Anna. It doesn't really man
him up any, but he won't be around much longer anyway, and once he's
gone, he'll never be in the party again. Interestingly enough, next
time we encounter the character, he'll wind up doing something more
useful than he ever did when he was in the party.
But now that Rosa's in the party, it's
time to tweak her equipment a bit. She's got a pretty good setup to
begin with, really. One that rivals Cecil's and Kain's when the game
started, but there are a few things that can help a bit. I'd say
it's time for a trip to Scheels
to outfit the party, but that just proves the old adage about how
treasures out and about will almost always have better equipment than
the shops that sell such equipment.
So anyway, on the way to Mt. Hobbes,
it's a good idea to stop in the basement of Damcyan castle and take
the treasures there. It's better stuff for Rosa, and it's free.
And this is where we stop until next
time, folks. We'll pick up with the passing of Mt. Hobbes and the
first time we'll have all five slots in the party filled. See you
then, folks.
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