Thursday, April 2, 2020

TEXT PLAY: Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation, 2000, Square-Enix): Issue #055: Ibsen's Castle, Part One


But first, the Qu's Marsh I was near when I left off last time.

I actually spent a more significant amount of time in the Qu's Marsh than I thought I would. Long enough to catch a half dozen frogs this time. I'm not entirely sure why, but I had an easier go of it this time than I have on previous attempts at the task. Once I got the catch count up to two, Quale showed up and at least tried to give Quina a chunk of ore. We didn't get to keep it since we can only have 99 of anthing in a stack and only one stack of anything, it wound up lost. At five frogs, Quale shows back up and hands over either an ether or an elixer, I don't recall which. It was just a matter of cornering them and pouncing at the right moment, and I'm not sure why I managed it this time when I haven't been able to in the past.

I'm tempted to think all the Qu's Marshes have the same map with different monsters in them because Quale was there in spite of this being far from the main Marsh, and Mogster and Little Bro were there, as well, albeit with nothing new to say. The good news is that I did get Quina to eat a Malboro, so now they have the Bad Breath spell, which inflicts several decent status effects on the enemy party.

Once I was done with the Marsh, I got back on the airship and tried to fly myself back to Ibsen's Castle so I could maybe get a little ways into it before it was time to quit for awhile again. I like that there's an autopilot feature for that because I kind of got lost and it would have taken me awhile to get there otherwise. It's something that would come in handy for FF2, and I honestly can't recall if this is the first one with it or if it was in the previous PS1 era titles.

When we first get to the castle, Zidane notes that it's an interesting looking place that looks almost like it had been build upside down. There's also a cutscene where the party strategizes for a moment about what to do next. Amarant says he's gonna go it alone in hopes of finding the key or whatever it is we're looking for before the playable party because that's just how he rolls. We're given a chance to either let him go or try to get him to stay. I tried to get him to stay because I was considering putting him in the party, but Amarant says he's gonna go anyway because, like I said, that's just how he rolls. So, I'll be sticking with the party I used in the Marsh: Zidane, Dagger, Freya and Quina because they need the levels due to my not having been able to use them in awhile. Not sure if there's any advantage to one answer over the other with Amarant, but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.

Inside the castle itself, it turns out what I was saying before about everything being reversed or backwards was correct. I'm sure the more of this I do, the more familiar it'll seem. I'm sure I've mentioned having done at least part of this dungeon once before, a long, long time ago, but still remembered about how at least the weapons need to be the weakest we've got, which made hanging on to all that old stuff worthwhile for more than just the Synth Shops, which I'll have to find again when I get done with this part of the game. There's even a plaque or a sign towards the far end of the first room that explains the whole thing about how this place works, explaning that everything's backwards and upside down relative to how things work outside the castle.

Just beyond that, there's a save point I took advantage of. I'll be picking up there next time, because, as tends to be my way, it's way too late to be working on all of this, so until next time, stay safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA.

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