To be honest, for most of the time I
was actually watching Red Dwarf on my local PBS station, I could have
sworn the second line of the song was “a snow kind of atmosphere,”
but it turns out I was wrong.
As for the game, this will actually be
the third or fourth time, at least, that I've played this part of it,
which is how I knew I'd want Maria to have all three major elemental
spells avaliable right now, and to have them at at least level two,
if possible. I'll get to why as we carry on here, but for now, I'll
leave it at that.
The trip to the Ice Cave, where the
Goddess Bell is being kept, is longer than it needs to be, and not
just because of the need to get the Snowcraft first. I had to start
at the town of Salamand, since that's where the nearest in the area
is, and head all the way to the west coast of the land mass. From
there, it's a quick hop to the north, around the mountains, and then
all the way to the east edge of the same land mass to find the cave.
What sucks is that the cave is just as far east of town as we were
west of it when we entered the snow field. The snowcraft was a
clever idea for getting across the snow field, but I'm not sure how
necessary it was. At least we've got a nifty vehicle out of it.
The whole area is full of snow and ice
themed monsters, for the most part, and a lot of the rest are undead
monsters. Having Maria's fire spell at level two comes in handy for
that, and if done right, it'll get almost to level three, if not
there completely. There are also some bomb-type monsters along the
way, with the new one, called the Grenade, being weak against
lightning magic. There's a good number of good treasure chests along
the way, too. I got about two thirds of them this time, and my plan
for now is to go back between issues to get the rest. It's not
really for completion's sake as much as it is an excuse to stat farm,
which is kind of an important thing in this game.
Since I'll be doing that and probably
be fighting undead monsters as a result, I kind of regret using the
Garlic combat item Josef came with along the way, but that's really
no big deal, because I know there's an enemy around Kas'ion that
drops more, if I'm lucky enough to get it.
The funny thing about this is the boss
guarding the Goddess Bell. This is an ice cave, right, and that means
one might be expecting a boss that's strong against ice, maybe?
Right? And maybe even weak to fire? In this case, that's kind of
how the boss here gets inexperienced players. The Adamantoise is
another turtle-themed boss with defense through the roof and attack
that can pretty much one-shot most of the party unless you've been
really lucky with the HP boosts or have been going nuts grinding for
it. On top of that, it's also weak to ice, like the Tortoise, I
think it was, before, which seems kind of counterintuitive for an ice
cave, but there we go. But this is why it's good to make a point of
raising ice spells, for Maria and anyone else who has it, as high as
is practical for this point in the game. I'm sure there are people
who have it higher than I do, but I've only got it to 2 because
between the health issues I'm working on and my tendency to get bored
easily with this makes it unwise to put too much time into this.
Once the Adamatoise goes down, the
party can claim the bell, which opens a shortcut to the top level.
That comes in handy because there's another boss on the way out.
It's that Borghen guy that was with the Dark Knight in Bafsk when the
Dreadnaught got launched a couple issues ago. Borghen's a real
pussy, especially compared to the Adamantoise, and goes down easily.
Even though we did a decent job of slapping him around, he gets back
up and calls a giant Indiana
Jones boulder to crush the party. Josef does the noble thing and
saves the others at the cost of his own life. I think I mentioned
before that this was essentially the story that Dagger has to tell in
order to get her Ramuh summon in Final Fantasy 9. I'm pretty sure I
went over all that in more detail in that Text Play when I did that
part of the game a while back now.
With his dieing breath, Josef tells us
th head for Kas'ion with the bell so we can get the Sunfire and take
out the Dreadnaught because the world's counting on us. Salamand's
on the way there, so we may as well stop there to rest up and give
Josef's daughter Molly the news. She never says in so many words
that she knows her dad's toast, but she does say he's not coming
back. There's the neighbor lady or whoever there to take care of the
kid.
I also did some stuff at the shops.
Sold off five of the Antidotes I had because I needed the gold and
the inventory space. I also bought a pair of maces for Maria because
the Longbow I had on here wasn't up to snuff any more and I'm not
sure when we'll get another bow for her. Of course, it means I'm
going to have to do some grinding to get Maria's Staff combat skills
up to a decent level, but that's part of what makes it worth it to go
back after what's left in the Ice Cave later.
And that's pretty much where I left off
for the night because it was getting late and all that fun stuff.
I'm going to try to move on with a little Secret of Mana next, simply
because I need a little break from Final Fantasy stuff, and I'm sure
you folks might appreciate one too. So until then, stay safe, have
fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA.
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