Wednesday, September 6, 2017

TEXT PLAY: Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation, 2000, Square-Enix): Issue #036: Not Quite The Tournament

I guess what I meant when I said I'd do the cart tournament next time was the time after this one.

It's been awhile since I've done one of these, but I've had other stuff going on that I at least wanted to, if not needed to, take care of in the meantime. But now that I've got some of it queued up to some degree, I may as well get on with this again.

I did do a little in-game card playing while I was at the other stuff I've been working on. Since this is as much a game of chance as it is one of skill, it's almost always a wash when I try to get it figured out. Not sure if I did myself any harm by having a go at other people in town, but I'm also not sure if I did myself any real favors, either. I guess the cards themselves do level somehow, because the ones I used did have their displayed stats change some as I went along. I'm not sure how all that works, but I guess it's an improvement. I just hope it helps when it comes time to move the plot along.

One thing I did kind of learn this time around is that I suppose I have a decent deck assembled, all things considered. It would be nice if I was better at actually using it, of course, but as I noted above, this seems as much a game of chance as anything, so I'm not sure how much actual skill matters beyond knowing when to walk away.

What was of more interest to me was that I think I actually learned something about one of the other side quests. The previous time the party was in Treno, there was that lady who wanted something called Stellazio Coins, and since I'd activated that side quest on whichever visit it was I had a chance to do that, I wound up giving her the one I had when I went in to play her and her servant at cards. So I got a thousand gold for that. I'm honestly not sure what happens if and when we get all those for her. This is like most side quests in games like this in that I hardly ever bother with them unless I think they could get me something useful, so I've never bothered with this one or the Morrid's Coffee one. Who knows, though. Maybe I'll get something interesting and even useful if I pull these things off.

I also stumbled across what may be the last Active Time Event before the actual tournament. In this one, Eiko is listening to a group of nobles talk about what are essentially first world problems in this game, as they're talking about buying sculptures and statues so big they need to build additions onto their mansions to fit them in and how much it all costs. As Eiko comments on this to her Moogle friend, the four-armed guy from before comes along and tries to kidnap her as a way of getting to Amarant and a bounty on him. I doubt he would have been terribly successful anyway, because it seems like Eiko was getting away just fine on her own, but as luck would have it, Quina happens to show up and start creeping on the four-armed dude by telling him how much Quina wants to eat the good food he's offering Eiko. The four-armed dude gets weirded out and runs the hell away, with Quina in hot pursuit, carrying on about how they want the food. Kinda reminds me of this guy I work with at my day job, who seems to spend a siginficant part of each shift going on about how he wants to “eat good food” with whichever supervisor he's swooning over at the time.


But anyway, I figure I may as well just get on with the tournament next time. I figure I'm as set as I'm ever going to get, so there's really no point in holding off any longer. And while I'm at it, I may as well get some of my other stuff set to auto-post later, too. I've been saying for awhile now that I just need to get on with things, so I suppose I should act like I really mean it. So, until I do make that happen, stay safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA!

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