Saturday, December 21, 2019

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy II (Famicom 1988/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #011: Remembering To Save


You'd think that'd be an easier thing to do than it actually is sometimes.

This is actually a second attempt at getting where I actually got this time. The first time I tried to go from Kas'ion to the Imperial Outpost north of Finn, I had just about got there and then got my ass handed to me by a party of Adamantoise and Ogre Mages. That would have been bad enough had I not been being a dumbass who forgets to save regularly, or at least make use of the game's Memo function that comes with the Origins version of the game. I wound up losing a bunch of decent stat boosts and items that I'd managed to pick up along the way.

The good news is that after letting it sit for a few days over a week, I'd gotten my head together and taken my own advice. I did manage to get a few potions at Bafsk and won a few more in battles. At Altair, I also picked up a Cottage at the item shop.

As for the actual story, when we leave Kas'ion with Gordon and the Sunfire, we see Cid's Airship and the Dreadnaught come by, and then, in what I'm assuming is a cutscene added for the Origins remake, we see the Dreadnaught grapple the Airship and stow it in a cargo bay. I should know better than to do that, of course, because I know game designers were doing some pretty damned cool things with the Famicom and NES back in 1988. The Japanese version of Super Mario 3 came out that same year, if memory serves.

The point of going to Altair is to have the folks in town tell us that Princess Hilda was on board Cid's Airship, which is why the Dreadnaught was after it in the first place. That means that now, in addition to using the Sunfire to blow up the Dreadnaught, we're going to have to pull a Super Mario move and rescue the princess while we're at it.

I think part of what saved me this time around is something I wish I'd done on the previous attempt, in that I took advantage of the fact that there are no random battles when the party is travelling by canoe, which is something we can do until we get just north of Castle Finn. The rest of the trip has to be on foot, but at least this way, the party can get some decent stat boosts. I might not have been as well off at the end of this try as I would have been had I not botched the last one, but I'll take what I can get.

Once I got to the Imperial Outpost, I used the Cottage I bought and saved the game so I can start off next time with full health and MP. I only had the one because of the price of these things. It's like I was saying last time, in that these things seem way more expensive in this game than they do in other games in the series. I don't know for sure if it's because 5000 gold for a cottage is really all that much more than it is in other games or if it's because this game is just a lot stingier with gold than the others I've played. I'll probably do some FF9 next, in hopes of getting a chance to look into that.

On a related note, I think I'm going to at least suspend my Secret of Mana Text Play for awhile. I've been at it for a little more than two years and I'm not nearly as far along with it as I'd like to be. I'll probably get into this more in a FF Tonight that I'll try to get to after I'm done with my other stuff today, but for now, I'll just say that while I do like the Mana series, I'm not quite as fond of it as I am of other RPG series I've played over the years.

For now, though, it's time to say goodnight and get a little sleep before the rest of the stuff I've got coming up. Until next time, stay safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA.

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