Friday, November 11, 2016

TEXT PLAY: Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation, 2000, Square-Enix): Issue #006: This... Is The City...


There are many things that will happen here in the near future, but for now, we're just going to explore with Zidane. This is fine, of course, as there's quite a lot to see and do before we get on with the actual plot. I spent an hour just looking around in all three districts of the city.

That's probably the best place to start. The actual city portion of Lindblum is divided into three districts: the Business District, where the majority, if not all, of the services are located, including the Inn; the Theater District, where Tantalus has its headquarters, among other things; and the Industrial District, where that pub Zidane likes is. All three districts and the castle proper are connected by a system of flying vehicles called air cabs.

Quite a lot of what I was doing this outing took place in the Business District. There are many shops there, most notably the Synthesis Shop, run by a father and son team, where the father's name is Torres, and I can never remember the son's name. The first of a couple Active Time Events happens when Zidane steps out of the Inn. Steiner's running around the middle section of the Business District, lost without a map. After asking a female red mage for directions and striking out, our knight in rusty armor talks to a lady at a cart who is selling gyshal pickles, a local delicacy. Turns out they're the sort of thing that tend to taste better the worse they smell. Steiner buys one and sucks it down in one bite, only to get knocked on his ass by how strong the flavor is. Sounds like my kind of thing.

When Zidane gets there, Steiner is gone, but the NPCs are there. I think we might have to pay the pickle lady if we talk to her, but I didn't get that done this time. I did, however, visit the armory, the items shop, and the Synth Shop to stock up on a few things. The armory did have a few things for everybody, including Freya and another character we don't have yet. I'll get to Quina when we get to where he/she actually lives. The Synth Shop lets us combine items to form usually upgraded things. I did have the weapons needed to make a new dagger or sword for Zidane called the Butterfly Sword. It'll be awhile before I equip it, though, since he still has a few things to learn from the mythril knife I've got on him now.

There's also a church there said to be founded by Cid the First, who also founded the nation of Lindblum as a whole, as well. This church gets a good deal more use than the one in Legend of Mana's Domina. The folks in Lindblum's church explain the history of all this to us.

When Zidane goes to get on the Air Cab the first time, there's a mandatory Active Time Event where Vivi goes to the item shop and finds something called a Kupo Nut that the nice lady at the counter gives him on the house before foolishly telling him that the Festival of the Hunt thing that Freya was mentioning before had “animals”, and that was all Vivi needed to hear. The little Black Mage goes running off, apparently thinking he's going to get in on the festival so he can play with the animals, not realizing that they're more of the monsters from the random battles.

The next place I usually go is the Theater District, where Tantalus has its headquarters. The big deal going on here right now is that a popular actor named Lowell has to deal with his fan club. There's some other guy that's meant to be kind of a body double for the dude who comes out to distract the squeeing fangirls who block the route he needs to escape. Then the man himself comes out in a lazy moogle suit that he can barely see out of. The fangirls don't realize who it is, but Zidane knows, being a bit of an actor himself. Lowell runs off before Zidane can out him. There's an artist who's friends with Lowell and lets him hide in his studio. If you follow Lowell there, Zidane can hork his moogle suit for that little girl in Alexandria whose grandmother was making fancy cloths for.

When Zidane visits the troupe's headquarters, he notes that nobody's been there in awhile, which makes sense, as all the other members of Tantalus are still trying to get back from Evil Forest in Alexandria right now, as seen in an Active Time Event. Some kids named Bunce and Lani show up, claiming they're members of the gang now because they've found treasure. This triggers another mandatory Active Time Event showing that Dagger's getting a little bored, as she's cooped up in the castle per Cid's orders.

Lastly is the Industrial District. About the only things going on here are the pub I mentioned earlier, where there's really not much happening at the moment, and another Active Time Event featuring Steiner. This time, our silly knight is lost in the Industrial District near the docks. An older fellow tells him he's not a very good soldier if he's this prone to getting lost and then explains where they are and that the big airship in the largest berth there is the Hilda Garde 2, that Regent Cid is working on to replace the prototype that Hilda jacked when she turned him into the bug.

Once I was done in the Industrial District, I went back to save at the Inn in the Business District because I think I've got enough to cover for now. I think I've got everything in more or less the right order here, but I'm not entirely sure. The last half hour or so I was playing, I was enjoying the game too much to pay the sort of attention I should have been. I know there was an ATE that showed Baku saying that maybe they should leave their friend Blank petrified with the rest of Evil Forest because they were better off with the forest being out of commission. Thing is, Baku comes across as saying it because he's got something against Blank. I bring it up here at the end, because that's about the point I got too much into the game for doing this right.


Anyway, from here, we'll go on to more stuff in the castle and the Festival of the Hunt, where Freya joins the party for real. See you soon folks, and until then, stay safe, keep gaming, have fun, and DFTBA!

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