Saturday, June 11, 2016

TEXT PLAY Second Run: Final Fantasy 4 (SNES, 1991): Issue #012: Moving Right Along

Just gonna be trucking right along her for the next little while.

Where I left off last time, I was right outside of Agart, so I wandered around on the island for awhile, looking for the Medusa arrows that the Black Lizards drop. Didn't have an awful lot of luck, but it did give me time to think about something I think I noticed the first time I played the game and really haven't really thought about much since then.

There's a few parts of the overworld map, especially, that look like animals. The area over by Damcyan, where I ground for the Imp summon looks kinda like a dog, specifically a Scottish Terrier, I believe, and a rabbit. The island Agart is on kinda looks like a bird of some sort that I'm gonna say is supposed to be a Chocobo. I'm sure there are other places like that, too, and I'll try to comment on them when I get to them, even though it's not terribly important. Just kind of interesting, really. Something to fill the space since everything else is stuff I went over pretty well last time I did this.

As I was going about all that, it occurred to me that I might have been able to give the Imp spell to Rydia before I got her back in the party so I could use it to pester Golbez in the fight scene we get with him in the Dwarf Castle, but decided not to risk losing it. Having it's nothing major, but I put too much work into getting it to just toss it away like that, right?

Kind of an interesting trip with the Calbrena this time around, too. I think it may be possible to beat the thing before it turns into the giant doll the first time, but this is the closest I've ever managed to come. Had it down to one of the blue ones left before it changed, and I beat it that way instead.

And I usually manage to time it so that Kain is in the air for his jump attack when Golbez murders the rest of the party before Rydia comes back in to save the day. Didn't quite manage it this time, but it's really no biggie because my party's levels are at the high end of normal for this point in the game, and kicking Golbez's ass was really no problem.

I also pretty much wasted half my in-game cash getting weapons and armor for Kain. I don't feel too bad about it, though. Given the amount of screwing around I'm doing this time, I'll probably have it all stocked back up again before it's a problem anyway. I'll probably put in a little time trying to find the Bomb summon in the Tower of Bab-Il. With the quirky luck I've been having, it'll either come really easily or take a really long time to happen. If it looks like it'll be the latter, I'll just move on, because I'm sure there's other places in the game I can get it if I really want it.

As far as the Tower goes, at least this part, anyway, there's actually two save points available along the way. I probably should have taken the first one, just based on how busy the day I was I did the second session for this entry, but it worked out for the best that I didn't. Turns out one of the fire themed monsters dropped a Fire Sword for me that I might not have gotten if I'd stopped at the first save point.

Another interesting thing about this part of the game is that there are these random monsters called Alert. These things can summon monsters to the battle. This comes in handy for building up XP and gold around here. If you kill the monster then have Rydia or Rosa whack the Alert, it'll summon another of the same kind of monster. The Alert will summon something no matter who hits it, but the others will kill it a little quickly to use for grinding.

At the end of the tower is the fight with Doctor Lugae and his robot Balnab. Usually, I'm just trying to get through the game so fast that I'm just barely leveled up enough to do what I need to do to get through. As such, my normal MO is to kick Lugae's ass first because the robot will blow up after a couple rounds without him. Just easier that way. In this case, however, I've got my levels high enough that I figured I'd do things a little differently. I wailed away on Balnab until I broke it and Lugae took over on manual controls and finished that half of the fight. Lugae's got a “We Are The Borg” second form that uses status effects on the party but eventually heals them, too, if the fight goes on long enough. All this was easy enough because of where I've got my levels this time around.


After Yang sacrifices himself to stop the Super Canon, the trip out of the tower is ended by Golbez setting the steps into the tower on fire. Cid comes to rescue the party, and at the end of the cutscene, tells us to go to Baron. I will, in a bit, but first, I'm going to run around a bit. There are bomb-type monsters I'm going to try to get the summon for first. I'm not sure how much time I'll put into it, but I'll get to that next time. Until then, stay safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA.

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