It's a part of what I did this time.
Asmall part, sure, but a part all the same. Plus, I didn't find any
reason to swear this time around, which is good.
When I left off last time, I was at the
save point in Ibsen's Castle with just Zidane going after Amarant.
The good news is that our guy is right down the pole in the main
room, so he was just about out of there on his own. The bad news is
that he'd pretty much gotten his ass handed to him anyway, which kind
of sucks for him. It always does, I know from experience.
The conversation these two have is
pretty much what I was saying last time. Amarant wants to know why
Zidane's coming to get him out because Amarant had said he was done
with the party and a potential enemy at that point. Zidane explains
that it's just how he rolls and that Amarant's a part of the team,
which means he's important enough to come back for.
And then I started having to go over a
few things multiple times because I, as a player, have a bad way of
trying to get clever about things, and it often ends in tragedy. At
first, I was going to say I was going to get lucky and manage to get
back out without getting into a battle, and then I got into two in
quick succession and wound up dead after the second one because I had
to be clever about winning the fight.
The second attempt at it, I was
successful at getting out of the castle. At this point, there's a
cutscene where Zidane explains to the gang what just happened as a
recap, just in case we'd forgotten between sessions. We'd gotten
these mirrors from a map mural at the top of the castle, representing
the Elemental Orbs from the very first Final Fantasy game. I think I
might have mentioned that last bit before. Even the layout on the
map is pretty much the same. The clues we got from all this are that
there are four places around the world we've gotta go to unlock the
portal to the other world. We're going to have to do all four at
once, which means splitting the party into four groups of two so we
can do it all at once.
Seeing all this made me remember that I
may have done this once, ages ago, the last time I made it this far
in the game. I remember that it kinda sucked, in part because I'd
had, and still have, playable characters that are kind of
underleveled, from either my intentionally not using them much
leading up to this point, or just not having a chance to. With that
in mind, I figured I'd do a little level grinding to get those levels
up a bit. Thing is, I did that thing where I tried to get clever
again, and it went badly, as it tends to. I'd gone looking for the
first of the places the party's going to, and figured I'd do some
level grinding first. Wound up in a fight with a giant green dragon
and got killed again, without saving after getting the party together
again, so I had to go through most of that first stuff again.
Once that was taken care of one more
time, I did finally get a little bit smart about this. There's a guy
on the airship who tells us where each of the four mirrors translate
to on the world map. The first one's just a smidge to the south of
Ibsen's Castle. I found the place, and a place to grind for a bit,
too. In the process, I also found a friendly Jabberwock who wanted
an Emerald, so I gave him one. All it did was say that the next
friendly monster we'll find is a Feathered Circle before giving us 40
ability points, which was enough to finish off most of the abilities
from items I had on Amarant, who was in the party. We also got a
moonstone for our effort.
In the process of reequipping him, I
remembered that I'd been meaning to go back to Lindblum or some other
place with a Synth Shop so I could get some new equipment with new
abilites to learn. Ultimately, I wound up in Lindblum, where there
were a few items I could get. This time around, I got a Barrette,
which only the female characters can use, a Fairy Earring, and a
Madain Ring, all of which have some good abilities. The one I look
most forward to is the Chemest ability. Only the female characters
get it, but it essentially doubles the power of potions used in
battle when those characters use them, which really comes in handy at
this point in the game.
Once I got my items bought and
equipped, I saved at the Inn in Lindblum and stopped for the night,
because it was still later than it should have been for this kind of
thing, even though it wasn't as late is it had been the last few
times I did a Text Play entry.
It might be another good while before I
get back to this game again, because I'm pretty sure this next part
calls for a rather big time commitment when we do get started with
it, and I'm not entirely sure of when I'll have that much time to set
aside as one block. I've also got some non-gaming stuff I want to
write about, too, and I kind of want to get that up between these
posts. That' going to have to wait awhile, too, though, because for
now, it's time to get this post set up and at least try to get some
sleep before getting on with whatever's going to come next. Until
then, stay safe, have fun, keep
gaming, and DFTBA.
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