We'll be going a few places this issue,
too.
But then, that's probably going to be
quite a lot of them, really.
As far as the actual game goes, it
plays out pretty much the same as it does in the SNES version. The
revised dialog makes everything more clear here, from start to finish
about how Cecil and crew are friends at Fabul in spite of what's
coming, that the king fights alongside the men, and even that Rosa
and Rydia will be assisting the medics instead of all three of those
last ones just hanging out in some sort of safe zone until the
fight's over. It makes a little more sense for the king to be hurt
later and for Rosa and Rydia to show up in the Crystal Chamber after
Cecil and Kain have their deul before Golbez shows up the first time.
One thing this cleaned up version does
that the SNES version doesn't so much is that it plays into that
trope about how the main protagonist and/or antagonist tends to pass
on obvious chances to off their counterpart if there's still more of
the story to be told. This is one of those things where you'd think
I'd know all this a little better, for the number of times I've been
through the original North American release of the game, but I'm not
entirely sure of what Golbez tells Kain. I think it's something
about just being sentimental. In this version, Golbez tells him he
shouldn't hesitate to kill in these situations and then doesn't take
the chance to finish Cecil off himself after Kain's done all the
heavy lifting for him, opting to just take Rosa hostage instead.
One other thing a person might think
I'd remember is what Cecil's last gear upgrade was called in the
original. Pretty sure it was all Black, but don't quote me. In this
version, the armor portions of it are called Demon, and the sword the
king gives him is called Death. The king says it came froma dark
knight who visited many years ago, too, which is less clunky than the
original.
Once all that's been taken care of and
the ship back to Barron has been arranged, I went to the Chocobo
Forrest to drop off all the armor and stuff that had built up in my
inventory with the Fat Chocobo because I was running out of room
there. I kind of have to do this in the SNES version, too, but it's
a bigger issue here because we get almost too damned many items in
this version.
Another change worth mentioning here is
that this version does indeed call it the Fat
Chocobo rather than the Big
Chocobo in the SNES version. It's a minor change, of course, and one
that doesn't bother me as much as one might think, since I'm not
exactly a skinny guy. Then again, this game in particular is part of
the reason for that, and I'm still not going to begrudge it the use
of the word fat as much as one might think because I know it was in
the original. And this is where I decided to stop for the night
after the first session. The second was the trip to Baron itself.
Or, at least what
was supposed to be the trip to Baron, anyway. As the ship Cecil and
crew proceeds to its unfortunate fate with Leviatan, they discuss
going to see Cid, the chief designer of Baron's airships, when they
get there. But, as I said, they never get there because the ship
gets sunk by Leviatan. This version makes me wonder if that's not
one of the actual names for the serpentine King of the Seas because
it's spelled that way in both versions I've played. I had always
thought it had something to do with built in limits for the number of
characters in names, but now I'm not so sure.
With
the ship down and the rest of the party scattered to their various
fates, Cecil washes ashore and comes to on the shore near Mysidia.
The scene plays out the same, with Cecil wondering where everybody is
rather than just saying he's alone now.
When he gets to
town, the curses, epithets, and spells the mages use on him seem more
natural for what native and fluent English speakers might say than
they did in the SNES version, and for the most part, I like that.
One of the few changes I'm not so fond of is that the sign in the pub
simply says that Baron can burn in hell rather than for the patrons
to never forget or forgive what Baron had done.
Another change I'm
not so sure about is that the Village Elder is a little more subtle
in his forgiveness of Cecil when the former is sending the latter off
to become the paladin on Mt. Ordeals, telling him that he's no longer
just a mindless killer because of what he's been through since the
start of the game.
Palom and Porum are
still assigned to spy on and assist Cecil as he goes up the mountain
on his quest. Porum, the girl, seems pretty much the same as what I
grew up with, but Palom, her brother, seems more dickish in his
arrogance than just annoying as he was in the SNES edit. I'm neutral
on that. When we meet back up with Tellah on the mountain, the whole
conversation seems more clear as to the adults' motivations, and the
addition of Cecil's line about having wanted to give up his dark ways
for awhile is a nice change.
On the gameplay
side, this is where the challenge level really does pick up compared
to what I'm used to. I'm mixed about that, because I do like that
the game's challenging again after all these years, but at the same
time, it also means that the strategies I've gotten used to using
don't work so well, if at all. Hell, the Cocatris enemies that show
up here actually managed to turn two of my characters to stone before
I could run away, which I don't think has happened since the very
first few times I played the game back in the early 1990s. Also, the
undead monsters on the mountain seem a lot harder, too, actually
killing Tellah once, which has been rare for me for awhile.
The cutscene with
Golbez and Kain that happens at the start of the Ordeals area makes
it a little more clear that Golbez is denying Kain a second shot at
his old friend simply because he blames Kain for the fact that
there's even a need for a second shot in the first place. It's like
I was saying above, though, this is the trope of the bad guy not
taking a clear chance to off the hero when it was given, back in
Fabul, in this case.
To wrap up the
second session here, I made it to the save point at the summit before
going ahead with the boss fight there, simply because time kind of
got away from me. That was in part because I was kind of surprised
by just randomly getting the Imp summon from a party of four Imp Caps
and two Imps. It's a rare thing for that to happen, really, to the
point where I could probably count the number of times I've gotten
any summon without looking for it on one hand, and I've been playing
this game for damn near 30 years now.
Anway, the third
session started with the fight with Milon the Earth Fiend. This
battle is set up the same way in both versions I've got, in that
there are two rounds with Milon. The first one has him as a somewhat
frail monster accompanied by four undead creatures. When he blocks
the party to start the fight, he says he's going to personally take
them to hell for Golbez, but first, he's gonna let his undead
monsters eat us. He's not quite so direct or explicit in the SNES
version, nor is it quite as difficult there.
The second time
around, he'll attack in his true form. I could not have botched my
first shot at that any harder if I'd tried, in part because I'd even
forgotten that Milon attacks from behind, which is something I really
should have remembered. He's also got some sort of status attack he
at least tries to do when he's hit with fire attacks. I'm not
exactly sure what, of any, effect it's supposed to have. I'm
assuming he's trying to turn the party into zombies, based on how
there's something he says about having them join his minions. After
losing the first time, I made the apropriate adjustments for the
second attempt, and it worked out much better. The second shot was
pretty much all using the twins' Twin spells and Cecil's sword
because those actually work on Milon himself, and Tellah as a healer.
When Milon dies, he
says he's going to see us in hell, rather than saying we're going
into the deep ravine with him.
Past that is the
scene in the shrine. The voice that gives Cecil his class change
says it's been waiting with a heavy heart because of what is to come,
and will have to deal with worse afterwards. When Cecil completes
his trial, the voice tells him that some people fight for law while
others fight for justice, and asks his son what he will fight for.
As Cecil
contemplates what it all means, the twins come within an inch of
telling him the truth about why they went with him before Tellah says
they need to get going because the voice gave him all his spells
back, plus Meteo. With that, it's back to Mysidia to talk to the
Elder and get back to Baron, finally. But since I was at a point
where I needed to stop and rest, that's where I ended the third
session, so that's also where I'll start the next issue of this, as
well.
Until then, stay safe, have fun, keep
gaming, and DFTBA. See you soon, folks!
No comments:
Post a Comment