Turns out the Dire Straits reference
wasn't wasted, after all, and I'm starting to remember why I like
this game almost as much as I do Final Fantasy 4.
There's
a lot of backstory to be had here, but before we get to that, I
should mention my attempt to find Mog. I'm not sure if I did it
wrong of if we can't get him just yet, but I couldn't find him where
I thought he'd be. Maybe I'm just thinking of something that happens
later in the game again. There's a few places I could look and/or
ask if I really want to know. For now, though, I think I'll just get
on with the game.
Moving
along means heading west by way of Castle Figaro, which can tunnel
beneath the earth once it's submerged into the sand. When the castle
rises again, we'll be in a small patch of desert west of the
mountains. Farther to the west is the town of Kohlingen. This is
where we'll start to get a little backstory on both Locke and Shadow,
since that's who we've got with us. I could have gotten some
development on Edgar and Sabin as well, had I remembered in time.
Taking them into the castle together any time now triggers a cutscene
where they remember how it was when their father died, but I'll try
to get that later so I can give a little more detail about that.
The
first thing I did get this time, though, was a dream sequence where
Shadow has a dream about a pair of guys named Clyde and Baram. These
two are notorious train robbers who work under the name Shadow. I
think there's a series of four or five of these, and so far I've only
done two. In the first one, all we see is Clyde, who will presumably
become Shadow, being approached by the ghost of Baram, who says “I'm
doomed. Please find me here. Help me, Clyde!”. The next one has
the pair talking about how they just jacked a million gold from a
train and got away with it, which means they've earned a cool team
name, which turns out to be the aforementioned Shadow. There's still
a couple more parts to this, and I can't remember exactly how it
goes. I'll try to get this part finished off next time.
It
turns out that Kohlingen is also Locke's home town, and he was going
steady with a girl from there named Rachel. One day, Locke took her
to see something in a cave that was supposedly worth a fortune. As
Locke crossed a bridge, it started to collapse. Rachel shoved him
out of the way just in time, but fell instead. Although she did
live, she got amnesia and forgot who Locke was. Her parents were
understandably pissed about it, so they had him run out of town.
Locke could only stay away for a year, but by the time he came back,
it was too late. The Empire had attacked, and Rachel died only days
after regaining her memory, and saying his name with her last breath.
This
one gets a little creepy, though, because it turns out that Rachel's
actually not quite dead. Turns out, there's a weird guy who's
keeping her in some kind of stasis with Ancient Egyptian magic or
something for Locke. The weird fellow says it might be possible to
bring her back, and Locke will find it if he looks hard enough.
That's foreshadowing, by the way, but it's going to be a good half
the game, at least, before we get back to that. Until then, the best
way to sum up Locke's motivations is that he's a reversed and
somewhat less tragic version of the Marty Robins song ElPaso.
As
we're learning all this, we're also getting a fix on where Terra went
after she transformed and flew off from Narshe. The folks in
Kohlingen say she went south to the town of Jidoor. Also, Shadow
does join us. This time, he wants 3000 gold for food. It's also a
good place to get supplies, if needed. For now, I'm fairly well
stocked.
There's
a lady who says she really wants to go to the opera house south of
Jidoor. I don't think it's important just yet, but I may be wrong.
I know it'll come up later when we get the first airship in the game,
and its associated character.
It's
good to have Celes along for this part of the game, for several
reasons. She can factor into Locke's backstory a little bit, but
more importantly, her Runic movie comes in handy because it'll really
save the party a lot of grief against the new monsters. Quite a lot
of them have magic-based attacks, and I almost got my ass handed to
me by one from a human-type monster. It'll come in handy when we get
it for Gau later, because it can deal a crapload of damage and
confuse any party members it doesn't kill.
Shadow's
dreams continue in Jidoor, and there are clues as to where Terra is.
Since all the other things I've done this time have taken about 45
minutes as is, I'll save them for next time. There's some
interesting things that happen, but to see them, we'll find ourselves
in a City of Crime by the
time it's all said and done.
See
you then, folks, and as always, DFTBA!
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