Alright, into the Pharo dungeon I went, for-e-ver. The final dungeon of FFXII consisted of about 100 levels of gameplay. Fortunately many of those levels were just stairs but there were still about a good 20 levels of mob ridden, puzzle solving madness spread over three tiers of dungeon ascension. Each ascension held it's own challenges, a fine final dungeon indeed.
Over the course of SEVERAL hours I finally burned through two more summons and reached the summit to enter the chamber with the Sun-Cryst. It was a little smaller than I'd imagined, about the size of a shield. Once there, it was time for Ashe to decide her course of action. She draws the treaty blade and steps forward. The Sun-Cryst reacts, turns on, or something, in a pretty cool cut.
As she approaches, Rasler appears before the crystal, nodding to her, urging her to continue. She finally confronts him though. She asks if he would have her cut from the Sun-Cryst, to exact revenge on all of the empire for him. He nods. She then tells the ghost that the true Rasler would never be so blood thirsty and she cuts through the apparition with the Treaty Blade. The true nature of the spirit is revealed. It has been the Gods in disguise trying to manipulate her through her love of Rasler. She will not be a tool to be used, she will not cut from the Sun-Cryst.
Gabranth appears from the shadows. He confesses to the murder of Ashe's father and Reks, he wants Ashe to cut from the Sun-Cryst. He is goading her on, though I'm not sure why. They have a lengthy discussion about revenge and how killing people doesn't bring anyone back. Blah, blah, let me kill this guy already. He deserves it. Finally when Gabranth realizes Ashe will not be swayed, he attacks. For being one of the final bosses in the last dungeon he went down quite easily.
When he hit about 1/5 health though, Cid stepped in and tossed Gabranth aside, yelling at him for not fulfilling his promise to Larsa to protect Ashe. The mad scientists continues with some long speech about becoming more than man, becoming a God. He infuses himself with a bunch of power and I engage him with Venat's aid. At about fifty percent health he also summons Famfrit whom I have to defeat first. Not too tough of a battle though, all said and done. He finally fell, and said his final farewells to his son Balthier.
After this fight, Ashe draws the Sword of Kings to destroy the Sun-Cryst. But the stone senses it's own impending doom and begins to react. It draws in Mist and pushes Ashe back. Vaan and Ashe press forward against the tide of power emanating from the crystal, but it's almost too much. They sense something is about to happen, it's time to get the fuck out. Reddas takes the sword from Ashe and makes a final charge at the Sun-Cryst. He makes it through and buries the blade through the center of the crystal. The screen goes white.
We come back to the party at the Strahl taking off from the island tower. Apparently Reddas is dead, the Sun-Cryst is gone and we got out of there. Who knows how.
Back in pirate town we find Al-Cid, the guy from Rozarrio, waiting for us. I'd forgotten that was his name. I wonder if he's supposed to be the real Cid from the series, who aids us. He tells us that the Rozarrian division of the resistance fleet went off course and attacked a city in Archadia to incite a reaction. And they were successful. The Archadian empire is now on a course to engage the resistance fleet. But we tell Al-Cid that Vayne has lost his advantage, the Dawn Shard is powerless now.
However, Al-Cid has some news of his own. In it's last moments, the Sun-Cryst gathered enough power to breathe life into Bahamut, who has now awakened. And Bahamut is under Vayne's control. That can't be good.
In fact Vayne is heading toward Rabanastre to completely wipe out the town. So the final battle is to be us vs Bahamut and Vayne. But you know what comes before that. Summons.
So off I went to get summons, but it wasn't going to be easy. Let's go through an example of just one. Before I could even think of going after my first summon, I had to get several items. To do this I had to get them from hunts. To get them from hunts I had to complete other hunts to open those hunts. After I got the items, I had to track down the people to get the other items. Once that was done, I had to get to the summon usually in some crazy far away place. Once I was there, I had to actually beat the bastard. And as stated earlier, boss battles in this game are HARD. And the higher the summon I go for, the harder it becomes. Some summons are just ridiculously difficult, locking out all magic or all attacks or just casting non-stop death or disable.
So I'd often have to go back and find some new merchant to get some ability or piece of equipment just to survive ten seconds in the battle. And that was typically in some far off different place I'd have to travel to as well. A LOT of walking around.
I got all but three of the summons. The last three look ridiculously hard and I need to do a bit of leveling before I can even attempt them. The good thing though is that once they're all defeated, the Vayne battle will look like a joke. Hopefully I can wrap things up today or tomorrow. Just in time.
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