Wednesday, March 11, 2020

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy II (Famicom 1988/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #015: Pendant Season

I only wish this were baseball sometimes.

This is a two-session thing here for a few reasons. One is that this is one of the parts of the game that really wails on the party, so I probably would have done this over a couple sessions even if it hadn't been for the other reason. That other reason is I had things to do the day of the first bit and I needed something to do while I was waiting for some of it to happen. I wound up with just enough time to get the party's stats up just high enough to make survival a decent possibility before I had to get on with the other stuff. If I'd heard my phone ring, I'd have stopped sooner than I did, but since I didn't, I'd also managed to get into the cave and find the pendant. On top of that, I'd made it back out and most of the way back to Deist before I got killed without a memo file from after I got out of the cave. Fortunately, though, I was smart enough to use one just before I went into the cave, so I did a hard save and came back a few days later to have another go at the second part of it all.

The second attempt at getting the pendant didn't go nearly as badly as the first. I'm sure it helped that I'd already saved just outside the cave in the first session. It also helped that I didn't run into anything that could really hand the party its ass, either. The pendant we're after is in a little room on the second level of the cave. To get there, it's a simple matter of following the top wall to the right until there's noplace to go but down. There's a set of stairs that leads to where the pendant is. The pendant itself is by what looks like a helmet, and the game says it's the body of a dragoon who got pasted in the cave. Once that's done, it's a matter of getting back out and to Castle Deist again. In this case, I didn't have any trouble with it. No random battles outside the cave that I can remember. If only it had been that easy the first time I tried this.

Within the castle, the child still wants to be reassured that the last dragon isn't about to keel over from the poison. Unfortunately, that's a no-can-do. The mother says something about there being a Sacred Spring or something in Deist Cave where the dragons lay all their eggs. The dragon in the room behind them has more details on that.

When we ask the dragon about dragoons, he, or rather she, as we'll soon find out, says there's one called Gareth, who happened to be out of Deist, questing for the ultimate spell when the attack happened, so we just might be in luck if we need help from a dragoon. When we ask about wind drakes, the dragon hands over an egg, saying it's the last one in the world, and we have to put it in the Sacred Spring in Deist Cave so it'll hatch, otherwise it'll wither and die.

If I'd stuck to my original plan and started at least an hour earlier than I actually did, I might have tried to take advantage of my decent luck for a change and went for getting that done. Unfortunately, I did what I always tend to instead, so I just went back to the entrance to the cave again, used a cottage, and saved and quit. Between the late hour and the one last battle I had beforehand, I realized that it might be a good idea to wait until another time to go ahead with that, since I have work in the morning, too.

Maybe if I plan for after work better than I usually do, I'll actually have time to get some FF9 in before the next issue this and FF4, too. It's about time I got back to that, too, I think.

Until next time, stay safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA.

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