Monday, December 19, 2011

TEXT PLAY: Final Fantasy 4 (SNES, 1991): Issue #08: Beautiful Cave Magnes


Fortunately not to be found amongst the lovely Black Hills caves in my home state. Sadly, nothing as interesting happened this time around, though.

This time around, we'll actually be needing a Chocobo for something. We need a Black Chocobo to get to Cave Magnes in order to fight the Dark Elf and retrieve the Crystal of Earth. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. There are a few things that need to be taken care of first.

Amongst those things is equipping everybody in the party with as much silver equipment as can possibly be afforded at this point. Sadly, that's not as much as I had remembered, but that's because I haven't been abusing the clone trick the way I normally do. It's in the name of expedience, you see.

But to get the silver equipment I'm talking about here, you've gotta go to the town of Silvira, which is inhabited by Small Folks, Toads, Piggies, and the like, who mine silver and make weapons and armor out of it. The good news is that it works great against the Dark Elf we'll be going after in a minute. The bad news is that it costs a ton to get. What's worse is that Cave Magnes gets its name from the strong magnetic field in it. Due to troll science, magnets work on anything and everything metal in there, so if everybody's got something metal equipped, they can't fight or run away from battles, and they all die. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

The other things we need to do before we actually go into the cave are to talk to the ruling council of Toroia, who say they'll let Cecil and gang use the Crystal of Earth for a good cause if they get it back from the Dark Elf. I don't think they mean turning it over to the bad guys, but that's why Cecil doesn't tell them that's the plan.

We've also gotta talk to Edward so he can give us a critical item called the Twin Harp. It's important because without it, Edward can't play a song to bind the Elf's magnetism and let us kick the Elf's ass. Edward wants to join, but he's in too bad a condition after being in the shipwreck, so he gives us the Twin Harp instead so he can play the song from his room in Toroia Castle

After that, it's another fifty-three-mile hike through monster-infested woods to the Chocobo Forest to get the Black Chocobo so you can fly to the entrance of Cave Magnes. And then it's just as long a ways to the bottom of the cave, too.

Once you're down there, though, the fight in the Crystal Room isn't so bad, really, especially once you realize that you're supposed to lose the first round. Just put the metal equipment back on everybody and get it over with. Edward will play his harp, the Dark Elf's magnetic field will go down, and it's pretty much a matter of wailing on him until he changes form. Once that happens, this boss is a real sissy. Just have Tellah cast Weak on him, and the Elf goes down to the next person to hit him.

With that, Cecil and party take the crystal back to Toroia for the council there. If there's anything you need to stock up on, do so before you show off the crystal, though, because once you do, there's not going to be another chance for awhile. But we'll get into that next time, by going Zot Zot Zot.

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