Thursday, March 12, 2020

TEXT PLAY: Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation, 2000, Square-Enix): Issue #054: Finding Ibsen's Castle


So we finally get to move on.

Granted, not as far on as I might've liked, but that's as much on me as anything. I had other stuff I needed and wanted to do before I sat down to do this, and I at least got that done at a reasonable time. I'd hoped the same could be said for this, but there's only so much I can do and I really hate that sometimes. Either way, this is going to be a shorter post than I might have wanted it to be, for a good reason and a bad one. The bad reason is that, as I've said, I didn't really give myself time to do all this right, and that's kinda my fault. The good news here is that I could have gone farther if I'd done this right.

The glitches I was talking about last issue of FF9 are ones I'm pretty sure are on the physical disk here, because I've been playing other PS1 games on the same PS2 without any of the issues I've had the last few times I've tried to do this game, as I'm sure regular readers have noticed. Granted, there were still some noticeable graphical glitches and slow-downs, but no outright hangups or crashes this time. To be honest, I get a sense that somehow, a bit of the game may have been skipped over here somehow. I'm not sure how, if it's even possible, or what, if it is. All I know is once I got past the part where the game crashed on me last time, we were on the Hilda Garde 3, and various crew people were explaining how to control the ship and some features aboard.

One thing that's been carried over from as far back as FF6 is that we can go around the ship and speak to various party members to get their thoughts on things as we go forward. I'm hoping there are shops aboard, too. It's not that I think I'll be running out of things or anything. Between what gets dropped after battles and the autopilot function the ship has now, I doubt I'll have much trouble in that regard.

Since I pretty much went over most of what I did last time, I won't go over it again, as much to spare myself as everyone else the trouble of doing it again this time. Instead, I'll do the new stuff and talk a little bit about where I am in the game right now.

Ibsen's Castle is in a pit sort of thing on the northern edge of the Forgotten Continent. Turns out we were screwing around there before, too, and I just didn't realize it. Like I said, I've played roughly through this part of the game at least once in the past, but that was ages ago now, so it's a little bit understandable that I was thinking the Forgotten Continent was its own thing and not where the volcano was, too.

There's a Qu's Marsh in the area, too. I landed the ship there and saved for now because, as seems to be my habit with all this, I was doing this way later than I should have been, and I probably should have been in bed for at least an hour by the time I got down to business with this. Part of the reason for my choice of landing spots is that I think we can only land where there's grass. I know that's how it works in the other games in the series. Another part is that I want to do some exploring before I get into the actual castle itself, and that'll be easier outside the pit than in.

On a final note before I wrap this up, even though Meltigemini is the last boss I remember fighting in this game, I'm pretty sure I've also played at least part of this next dungeon, too. If I recall correctly, I'm going to have to switch to the weakest equipment I've got if I want to survive in there. I can't recall how true that is, though, because, like I said, it's been for-freaking-ever since I've made it even close to this far in the game. We'll find that out in the next couple issues, though, because it's time for me to quit and get some sleep. Even though I've got a day off coming up the night I'm writing this, I've still been up way too late and should have been in bed awhile ago. With that in mind, until next time, stay safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA.

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