You know, I wouldn't have taken my time
with getting around to [my new schedule] had I remembered how hard
this tournament really was. But it's the kind of thing that took
multiple sittings to get through, so we might as well get on with it.
When I sat down to do the first
session, I had to cut it short on account of having something in the
oven. My line of thought was “Oh, I'll just pop this in and do a
little Final Fantasy 9 while it's cooking because the card tournament
shoudn't take me more than the half hour or so this needs to cook
for.” Turns out I was wrong, though. The rules of this tournament
say we need to beat two other players before we can take on the
long-reigning champion, who is described to Zidane as a cute girl in
a salor suit. It's been awhile since I've played this part of the
game, so I don't recall her name, but if it turns out she's called
Serena, I'm going to punch someone.
The first guy was... well, let's just
say that he was not hard and go with that, shall we? I'm just
assuming these are other male characters we're playing against right
now, anyway. I'm sure the first one was meant as such, anyway, since
the “deuling name” we get is “Attic Wake Man”. Makes me
think we're dealing with translation issues here. This is the kind
of thing we'd get with the Woolsy translation team that was infamous
for this sort of thing in the early days of the series, and I'm
honestly not sure how long they were on the series.
Anyway, the first guy went three rounds
because the first time, he won fair and square, the second round was
a draw and I won the third. I'd say Attic Man Wake was more or less
the same level I am, which ain't bad, but ain't exactly good, either.
But at least this one left me with roughly the same amount of cards
I had when I started.
The next guy was calling himself
Cardona Bishop. Bishop has a lot of really good cards in his deck.
There technically are better cards to be had, because I've got a few
of them myself, but they were hard to come by. Most of my best cards
are the ones Bishop is making whole hands out of. In fact, between
using a hand made up entirely of the crappiest cards I had and
getting a disadvantageous board, I wound up losing an entire hand to
the guy. I'm hesitant to use my better cards on the guy because I
want to keep them for the final round, but at the same time, I may
need to remember my Rules of
Acquisition, specifically the 62nd, in order to
advance.
Between losing to Bishop a half-dozen
times and the Active Time Events showing Vivi visiting his
grandfather's long-abandoned place and Freya and Amarant working on
their friendship, what I had in the oven actually got done before I
could get through this part of the game, I figured it was time to
stop for the night and pick it up again later.
But before I get to that later, the bit
between Freya and Amarant gives us a glimpse of the “real” first
time Amarant and Zidane met. Turns out Amarant was working security
at the auction house in Treno, and Zidane horked something while he
was on duty and managed to get away with it. As a result of their
confrontation, Amarant got sacked from that job and damn near
arrested for his trouble, which is part of why he wants to figure
Zidane out so bad.
When I sat back down for the second
session of this, I took the advice I gave myself at the end of the
first one and started using my better cards on the second round of
the tournament. I also discovered an error that I'd made the first
time around. At first, I remembered the name of the guy as “Cardinal
Bishop”, but the second time around I realized the first part was
actually more along the lines of “Cardona”. I'm still not
intirely sure that's correct, but I'm sure it's a lot closer than
before.
Regardless of the guy's name, though,
when I got serious about winning this thing, I really only needed two
rounds. The first I lost, but the second I won. I'm sure it was at
least as much luck as it was good choices with the cards I had and
the playing board I got.
Winning the second round advances us to
the third, which can only be played once, regardless of if we win or
lose. There are a few big reveals here. One is that the Sailor Erin
who's been built up as the champion of this tournament is actually
the same Erin Zidane was hitting on in Disk One. Another is that
she's actually not the real champ, but rather Regent Cid is, playing
through Erin as a proxy.
Erin uses all Oglop cards because
that's the form that Cid is stuck in right now. They're lower mid
level cards, easy enough to beat with just about any of the cards I
had, but I think going with some of my best was a good idea all the
same. Another advantage was a decent board that worked in favor of
the cards I'd chosen. I came away the winner of it and got a Rebirth
Ring accessory as a prize. I'm sure there's a better prize for
pulling off a perfect game, but the only time I can remember seeing
something like that happen was the one I mentioned above.
There's a pair of ATEs that happen
alongside the final round of the tournament. One's about Quina
getting loopier than usual because they're hungry and don't have any
gold to pay for food in Treno. I guess the Four-Armed Guy wasn't
going to make good on the “date” he was using to lure Eiko in
with last issue. It's no real surprise, of course, but I'm not sure
how I should feel about it. On the one hand, I feel kind of bad for
the guy, for lack of a better word. It's too bad they're going
hungry like that. At the same time, though, I can't really feel too
bad for somebody who gets that kind of creepy with other people.
Either way, Quina winds up jumping into the river, and the old man
who sees it go down thinks they've ended it all because of gambling
debts. For a moment, I was kind of worried that Quina was actually
dead, but that's not the case, as we'll see later.
The other shows us Eiko going to see
Doctor Tot again. She's enthusiastic as always, but starts getting
all worried when she gets a telepathic message from Mog about
something urgent. They come running along to where Erin, Cid and
Zidane are after the match, saying that they need to get to
Alexandria about five minutes ago because everything's about to go to
shit there.
Thing is, I had intended to save and
quit after the tournament, but we're pretty much dragged into the
following scene. When Eiko tells us about the emergency, Cid says he
can get us there on his new airship that's steam-powered rather than
Mist fueled. Thing's shaky as all hell and slow for an airship, but
faster than walking. Vivi even gets airsick from it.
Meanwhile, Kuja is in the town of
Alexandria, saying a poem about how evil is about to win before he
summons Bahamut on the town and the castle, blasting the hell out of
everything. Beatrix and Steiner get the Knights of Pluto ready to
defend the place, gather information, and the like. There's certain
teams that are better at certain tasks than others. Four tasks and
four teams, and I got half right and half wrong. About average for
me, I guess. From there, Beatrix and Steiner go into the village to
help protect the people. Towards the end of the scene, Steiner tries
to tell Beatrix that he loves her but only gets as far as saying
he'll protect her along with everything else. Gotta say, Beatrix
seems like she doesn't really need much protecting. Must say, I kind
of like her for that.
About that time, Dagger passes out for
a second and comes to hearing some sort of music that she follows to
a secret area. Once she gets there, the castle starts transforming
because it's the Esper Alexander. As the airship with the rest of
the party gets close, the gem that Eiko's wearing starts glowing.
She says that she's being summoned herself and does a swan dive off
the front of the airship, landing on the balcony that Dagger's on.
They do a prayer sort of thing and Alexander fully takes shape.
As the rest of the party lands the
airship and goes in on foot, Kuja makes Bahamut duke it out with
Alexander for a bit and then summons something called Invincible,
which I guess is that eyeball thing he uses on eidolons or espers or
whatever they are to sway them to his command. Just then, some Darth
Vader looking guy takes control of the Invincible, saying that he
shouldn't have had as much faith in either Kuja or Zidane as he did
because not enough souls are leaving Gaia. It's all more than a
little odd, in no small part because Kuja knows this guy and
eventually says his name is Garland.
While that's going on, the rest of the
party gets to the new part of the castle where Dagger and Eiko are.
Zidane tells the others to get out of there while he goes to rescue
the ladies. Amarant's the first to go for his own reasons while Vivi
is the last because he wants to help. Eventually, though, everybody
who needs to go does, and Zidane does get to the ladies in time to
get them out.
There was a point in there where I
could have saved before getting Dagger and Eiko out, but I had
thought the disk would end there and I'd be saving and ending with
that. It didn't, however, and we instead see Minister Aritania
showing Cid how reconstruction is going in Lindblum when they run
into Baku and Blank. After a bit of discussion, Baku sends Blank to
find Zidane in the guest room of the castle. I think I may have
messed up a bit here, because there's a bit of dalouge between the
two where we're given the option of having Zidane either ask how he
got there or where Dagger is. I went for asking where Dagger is but
then turned around and went back into the guest room to use the save
point instead because it was getting late when I was doing this, as
usual. So, when I get back to this, I'll go have a look by the
telescope and see if I can find Dagger there before I go see Regent
Cid to advance the story. Until then, stay safe, have fun, keep
gaming, and DFTBA.
Oh, and if you want to see the whole
cartoon I got the title gag for this issue from, see the link below:
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