No relation to the Bond
Girl.
There's quite a bit that happens here.
More than I had intended, really, but it wasn't as easily avoided as
some might think.
Anyway, picking up from last time, we
do indeed need to go see the play that's being put on by Ruby, the
Tantalus member that accidentally got left behind in Alexandria after
the big escape with Dagger. We can look around a little more as
Vivi, but I did all I really could as him last time, so it's off to
the play.
Turns out, Blank and Marcus just want
Vivi to go in first so she's got a little guilt going on for yelling
at the wrong person when the Black Mage winds up taking it for them.
Unfortunately for them, Ruby calls them on it and is still in a bad
mood after the show.
While that's going on, Dagger's getting
ready for her coronation. Steiner, Beatrix and Dr. Tot are all
there, attending her. Dagger asks the two soldiers if one of them
can go get Zidane for her so they can talk one last time before the
big day, but both say no. Afterwards, Tot and Steiner leave so that
the ladies can get Dagger changed. Steiner, in a moment where he
reminds me of myself, needs Tot to tell him to get going so that can
happen.
Meanwhile, Zidane's still coming to
terms with all this. As I said last time, Dagger turns out to be the
first woman he's ever been in love with for realzies, and he doesn't
know how to deal with the fact that it seems like he won't be able to
be with her after all this. As a result, he's at the pub, drowning
his sorrows.
At the same time, Eiko finds Tot and
has him help her write this schmaltzy love letter intended for Zidane
because she still thinks that she, as a six year old, has a real live
shot at getting with somebody who's damn near 20. But that's not
where things go sideways here. For as good at a lot of things as Tot
is, he doesn't think to suggest filling in the “To” and “From”
fields of this particular message, which means that it's going to
wind up in some really wrong hands once Eiko loses control of it
herself. Naturally, that happens almost instantly, when our buddy
Baku trips over her, knocking the girl over a railing to leave her
hanging on a convenient hook. Baku says he'll get the letter to
Zidane because he can't get Eiko down from where she's stuck.
Things start going out of whack when
Baku runs into Steiner at the ferry dock. The two bicker for a bit,
and Baku drops the letter without noticing before he gets on the
ferry back to town. Beatrix finds it and thinks that Steiner left it
there for her and decides, for whatever reason, to show back up at
midnight like the letter says to. Somehow, Beatrix then loses the
letter, which is then found again by Marcus and Blank, who also think
it's for at least one of them and decide to go see who the mystery
woman is.
When the appointed hour shows up, Eiko
is there, of course, because this whole thing was her idea, but takes
cover when Blank and Marcus show up instead. They also hide when
Beatrix and Steiner happen to show up within moments of one another
and start acting like there's a little real, if tense, romance
between them. Tot just happens by for his own reasons, and everybody
realizes that this whole thing isn't what it seems.
Before all that goes down, Baku and the
rest of the folks still in Tantalus show up at the pub to try to help
Zidane pull himself together. Zidane says he wants to rejoin the
gang, but Baku says he's gonna have to stay out until he gets his
princess. As this is going down, Vivi shows up and talks Zidane into
going to see Dagger one last time before they really do have to part
ways.
On the way to the docks, we see Freya
and Amarant cross paths. One thing I think I knew every time I've
played through here is that maybe Freya and Amarant would make a good
couple as well. They both need a decent sparring partner and would
fill the role for one another quite well, and neither of them has
anyone at the moment. But since they're about to have at one
another, the guards at the dock threaten to bust them for disturbing
the peace if they don't chill. Zidane and Vivi show up just in time
to talk them down. Freya's upset because Zidane didn't go tell her
what they found out about Kuja. I kind of get both sides here,
because Zidane did say he would, but there wasn't much to tell and
he's got other things on his mind anyway.
At the castle, Steiner is literally
tossing Eiko out on her ass when the party gets there. The knight
doesn't want much to do with most of the party, but says he'll
arrange an audience with the princess since Vivi's the one who asked
for it. Everybody's stunned with how Dagger looks in her fancy
dress, to the point where Zidane's speechless for a change. Freya
tries to bust his chops again, but Zidane just takes a seat on the
floor and says that he had this whole speech planned about how he'd
be watching from afar and would always be there for the princess, but
then couldn't give it because he knew it was a lie and couldn't bear
to tell the truth either.
But we're not going to be here for
long, because it's off to Treno for a card game torunament,
essentially. There are other reasons given, but the main one is the
card game. There's a bit where the party plus Dr. Tot take the
Gargant there. Freya is aparently a first time rider, and everybody
else is noting that there's still Mist in the tunnel.
In Treno, everybody spreads out to do
their own things. Freya and Amarant go off to look around seperately
while Eiko demands that Vivi show her around town. These two kids
make a cute, if way-too-young, couple. There's a scene where Eiko
explains what's going on with Zidane and Dagger, for Vivi's benefit
and then goes running off to the forum hosting the card game. Vivi
runs into a guy he knows and they talk for a bit before we're given a
chance to decide if he stays in town or goes to see his
“grandfather's” old house. I usually have him go, but had I had
a chance to save shortly beforehand, I'd go back and see what happens
when he stays.
Meanwhile, Amarant happens by the bird
lady's house and has a confrontation with the four-armed thief guy,
who panics when he realizes who Amarant is. Eiko shows up to bug
Amarant, and the four-armed dude gets the wrong idea when he sees
that.
And while all that's going on, Zidane
needs to get ready for the card tournament. Tot offers to help him
some, and suggests that he also play random folks to help get his
skill up. I need the pratice, too, and probably should get some
before I go to the actual tournament next time.
Thing is, though, I really suck at the
card games in both this game and it's immediate predicessor, and it's
for a lot of the reasons Spoony went into with the Triple Triad card
game in FF8 when he was reviewing the game ten years ago, though I am
a little less harsh about it. I like the idea behind these things,
of course; give the player a somewhat easy way to get bonuses they
might not otherwise go for. At the same time, though, it's a more or
less optional thing that gets more in the way of the game than it
really needs to, as well. I'm kind of torn about what to think of
these things. Tetra Master, the card game in FF9, this game, is a
little easier to learn and play, and they do work it into the story,
which I like a little better than the way they handled the one in
FF8. Of course, now that I think about it a little bit, aside from
this one time we'll be dealing with next issue, I don't think it ever
really factors into the story again, and I'm not sure it would be
worth it for the optional stuff I'd get for my efforts otherwise.
It's also just as wonky as the one in FF8, because there, the card
game just felt wedged into the game to give players another way to
help keep the hero's levels down, since 8 is the one game in the
series that I know of where it's to your advantage to do that. While
the cards are, for the most part, entirely optional otherwise, it
means there's an entire inventory of pointless items to deal with,
and that brings me to another article I've been meaning to write for
years and never seem to get to for some reason.
But anyway, it's time to wrap this up
for now, so here's a love song
by Johnny Mathis to go with all the pairing off and relationship
issues that happened in the course of this issue. Next time we go
play cards. Until then, stay safe,
have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA!
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