TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy II (Famicom 1988/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #007: Snowcrafting

Here's another issue of this right quick.

I'm going to pick up with something I had intended to mention last time. We're coming up on a part of the game that would later be directly referenced in Final Fantasy 9. I think I may have mentioned this in that Text Play as well, from when Dagger was getting her Ramuh summon. This was maybe a third of the way through the game, I think. It's been awhile since I've done that, too. It was the part where she had to tell the story of the guy who saved his friends from being killed by a giant boulder. We're on our way to that part. I'm going to save actually doing it for next time because I'm already up later than I really should be, considering what I've got going on later. Before I get on with this, though, I should also point out that they used the Goddess Bell again in FF9 as well, just in case I forget again before next time.

But anyway, getting on with the actual story kinda proves what I was saying last time about everything being the 53 steps to success sort of thing. As I said at the end of last issue, Josef is in Salamand, and when the party drops by, he says he owes them one for getting him and his daughter out of the mine, so he'll let them use his snowcraft to get to the ice cave where the Goddess Bell is, and even go with them to retrieve the item in question. Of course, Josef doesn't just have the snowcraft with him like Mindu did with the Canoe earlier. It wouldn't be 53 steps to success otherwise, after all. This means that instead of just going to the ice cave directly from Salamand, we're going to have to make a return trip to the Mithril Mine to get the snowcraft out of the secret chamber where Josef hid it for safe keeping. The good thing is that at least the secret chamber isn't too tough to get to. There's a big blue rock marking where the entrance is in the right hand wall, and that's right in the first chamber we come to from the entrance.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course. I was getting close to having enough money to buy the life spell for Firion, so I just went back to Salamand afterwards to take care of that. Along the way, I also got Firion's Shield spell to level 2, and Maria's MP went up as well. It would have been nice if I could have had that kind of luck with HP as well, but not this time. Maybe next time, though. The Ice Cave was more of a challenge than the Mithril Mine was, if memory seves, so there's a good chance we'll get some decent stats boosts along the way. Until then, stay safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA. I'll see you soon, when we deal with the fact that it's cold outside!