Thursday, January 5, 2012

TEXT PLAY: Final Fantasy 4 (SNES, 1991): Issue #14: Bab-Il-on Two


What? Calling it Babylon Five wouldn't be correct! At least it's not another Star Trek reference!

So, yeah, from here, we're pretty much on our way through the Tower of Bab-Il for the last time. It's not as long a run as I remembered it being. Maybe it's just the two boss fights in quick succession that made me remember it as being longer than it was.

What sucks worse is that this time, I didn't run into as many of one of my personal favorite monsters in this dungeon as I usually seem to. There are monster eggs that the party can get into battles with, see, and unless they get one-hit-killed, they hatch into some other monster. And if Edge gets his agility stat up high enough while here, he can even use his sneak command to jack harps from the eggs.

But there is one halfway decent weapon to be found along the way here. It's an ax called the Ogre Ax. It's marginally better than the icebrand or the blizzard spear that Cecil and Kain have. The down side is that it's really good against anything classified as an ogre or giant monster in the game, but not anything special against anything else. It's worth using the cloning trick for here because there tend to be a lot of ogres in the tower, though I've had playthroughs where I could have benefited most from this weapon in the fight with the four Mad Ogres that the party has to go through just to get the ax out of the box.

Aside from that and a couple cure three potions right near the beginning, the only thing to really write home about is the chest near the end that has 82000 gold in it, on the far left side of the room. Once you come across that, you know you're right near the end.

In fact, once you step onto the main platform on that level, which is in the center, Edge's folks show up. Turns out Doctor Lugae got to screwing around with them in true mad scientist fashion behind Rubicant's back before Cecil and gang beat his ass when Lugae showed up with Balnab. So, the King and Queen of Eblan have been turned into mutant beasts that go apeshit and try to kill Edge and the party.

Sadly, though, the Royal Parents haven't fully mutated and come to their senses for their last minutes of life. They tell Edge that they're not human any more and aren't in control of their minds or bodies any more as a result, and therefor have to kill themselves before they fall back under the influence of whatever Lugae did to them.

With that out of the way, Rubicant shows up and presents himself as the most civilized of the Four Fiends by apologizing for the shit that Lugae did to the Eblan Royalty. Edge has a Nostalgia Critic moment and learns two new Ninja Magic spells when Rubicant tells him that he can't win as long as human emotions are in play.

Make sure that Cecil and Kain have their ice weapons equipped if you replaced them with the Ogre Ax before and attack when Rubicant is in his “open cape” form. There's supposed to be some sort of trick where casting fire on Rubicant makes him do cure magic on the party, but I've never been able to quite get the hang of it. It's an easy fight anyway, if Kain has his Blizzard spear and land jump attacks when Rubicant has his cape open.

There's a big Crystal Room behind Rubicant, but the floor just inside the entrance is booby trapped, which makes the party fall to the underground, so the party gets one last look at the first seven crystals before they get locked away and used to turn on the tower's link to the moon.

Now, I had thought this next part of the tower was more than three floors long and had a boss fight at some point. Thing is, though, I was wrong, and it's pretty much a straight shot to the game's second, and most heavily modified airship, the Falcon.

Take the Falcon to the Dwarf Castle. King Giott tells the party that Golbez is trying to force his way into the Sealed Cave to get the last crystal, so they should take the key, which is Princess Luca's necklace, and go get the crystal themselves so that there's half a chance that Golbez won't get it instead and destroy the world.

When you're done with that, go down to the castle's basement to the hospital ward. Cid's there, alive and almost well after blowing himself up to seal the entrance to the Underground. He'll get up and fix the Falcon so that it can fly over the lava just like the Enterprise, which was left up on the surface, what with the volcano being closed and all.

Yeah, we know where the next mission to continue the story is, but there's a couple side quests I'd rather go on first, while I've still got all my party members. They'll both be worth it, the second one moreso if I start it now rather than wait until later. I'll explain why next issue, in part one of Side Questing Across The Underground!

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