Who'd have thought that climbing a tree
with a girl would be this dull?
I mean really. This is so dull it
almost kind of hurts. Admittedly, I'm sure my previously stated
health issues have something to do with this, as does the fact that
I've been through this game almost as many times as I've been through
FF4. But at least 4 is still interesting to some extent because the
battles are actually random, and they can still drop things.
At least we're running into new enemies
this time around. In addition to the mummies and the spectors on the
first floor, there are three new enemies, too: the Live Oak, which is
another plant monster like from the beginning of the game; the
Snipion, a scorpion pallet swap; and the Mad Toad, which is another
kind of self-explanatory thing.
Another thing that makes this a little
bit interesting is that there's a new kind of puzzle starting here.
Like I was saying before, the Dragon Claw is kind of like the Hook
Shot in LoZ:LTTP in that you can use it to hook onto posts and pull
yourself between ledges as well as climb walls like with the other
two claws. Alongside this first Dragon Claw puzzle, there's a few
holes with vines that lead to the previous level when there's no post
to pull over to. After a couple floors of this, we run into a
worm-type monster called the Leech. These are weak against axe
attacks and quake spells. These things can even be one-shotted by
both characters.
Thing is, though, all of this is
actually so simple that it gets tedious after a while, especially if
you've done it as many times as I have. I started dozing off about
halfway through and had to call it a night so I didn't wind up
falling asleep in my chair. The good news is that when I picked up
again, there was a new set of monsters in the top half or so of the
tree.
The not-so-good news is that one of
these monsters, a slime called Ooze, repels magic. I think this is
the first monster in the game to do it. The other, the Skulldier, is
a yellow skeleton monster weak against wind. The floors are really a
maze now.
The top floor really isn't so bad, but
it's full of Skulldiers. At least we don't have to fight them all,
or even all the monsters in the tree to win. There's a boss monster
called Gidrah that takes care of any remaining monsters. And yes, it
does take its name from the
monster movie of the same name, if not quite the same spelling.
This would be the boss that the Chimera we fought for the Areo spell
is based on.
With the kaiju taken care of, the big
tree takes us forward, past the words “Goon Kid!!!” spelled out
in trees, to the Kaidge Temple. The Old Guy's there to remind us
that Captain Mac can tell us about the Prophecy. I could swear he
told us that before.
I also did the first of two
Battlefields between the temple and the city of Windia. It's got
Oozes, Skulldiers, and interestingly enougy, Water Hags in it.
Hadn't intended to do it just yet because I just knew I was going to
konk out at the very end and miss what the reward was, and that's
exactly what happened. I was going to look it up on Vgmaps, but when
I went to look, it was down for maintenance. I'll look again for
next issue.
But that'll be for another time, as
I've been up way too late as is, and I've been taking far too long
with this one. So, until next time, stay safe, have fun, keep
gaming, and DFTBA!
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