TEXT PLAY: Final Fantasy 6 (SNES; Square 1994): Issue #017: Dance Magic Dance

Yes, it's a reference to one of David Bowies's songs in the movie Labyrinth. Kinda hard to believe I've only seen that movie once.

And on top of that, I was only nine or ten years old at the time. But it's a good fit for what I'm doing this issue. Learning a few spells for the characters, some dances for Mog after getting him in Narshe, and a few more Rages for Gau in the process.

I'm honestly not sure if it's possible to get Mog before we do the MagiTek Research Facility, and nothing I've found gave a clear answer. I usually do it after, so I guess it's best to just go with what I know. There's a wolf guy called Lone Wolf the Pickpocket trying to break into that one chest in Narshe's treasure house that was locked. He did pull it off, because the chest can be opened now, but it's empty, and when we catch him later, he'll have the contents. We've gotta chase him through the mines until we catch up with him where the people of the town hid the Esper. Lone Wolf has Mog held hostage, and tells the party not to approach. After a while, though, Mog has a freakout and gets himself free. We'll have to choose between saving Mog or saving Lone Wolf. Mog becomes a party member, and I always figure it's better to get him now. Lone Wolf has a relic called the Gold Hairpin that will be more valuable later than it is now, and we'll have other shots at it. Mog goes to the airship, so we've gotta go there to get him in the active party for this next part.

Once we get that set up, it's time for a bit of a world tour. We'll have to start by going through the Serpent Trench again to get the the Water Rondo dance. There are fights in the cave, too, but we've got the Dusk Requiem from when we had Mog in a party of Moogles when Locke was rescuing Terra at the beginning of the game. Since we're starting off on the Veld anyway, if we get in any fights on the way into the cave, we can get the Wind Song, too.

Unfortunately, the trip through Serpent Trench again means we'll have to retrace quite a few steps that we've already been through. It's not entirely bad, though. It'll give us a chance to pick up a couple more dances. We'll be going through the Phantom Forest again, where we'll pick up the Forest Suite and up Mt. Koltz, where we'll get the Earth Blues. Each of these dances have a few unique attacks and some that are common amongst several. This will get us up to five songs of eight, and since we'll eventually get back to the airship, which is still on the Veld, we may as well go to Zozo and pick up the Love Sonata as well.

The trick to getting all these dances is to have Mog fight one battle in each type of terrain there is in the game, which includes a snow field and the airship, eventually, if memory serves.

I did manage to pick up a few of the new monster Rages for Gau as well. A good many of them have spells we won't get for a good while yet. There's still a few I have yet to get, but there's some rotation of the monsters, so I'll be going back every now and again to try picking up a few I've missed. I probably won't mention doing it again unless I get one of the good ones.

But as for now, I'm pretty much good to go for the plot, which means heading back to the Empire to find the base at the east end of the southern continent. That'll be where we pick up next time. See you then, folks!