Venturing out into the evil forest, I got to do some regular adventuring for the first time, wandering the forest and engaging in random battles. This was fun. I can already see that Rhek, even though he's a thief, will be doing some nice damage throughout the game with some nice crits. Right now though my big damage dealer is Slayn. Just before going out, Slayn pulled Vivi aside and they chatted about something. Only thing I head was Magic Sword. Oh..? When battle ensued, I had the option to pick Mag Swd on Slayn. Basically what this is, is a combo attack! =D So as long as Vivi is in the party with Slayn, Slayn can have Vivi cast w/e magic he has, on Slayn's blade just before it strikes the enemy for huge damage. Awesome. And Vivi still gets to take his own turn doing very nice magic damage himself. Love it. And while they are combo killing everything, Rhek is free to steal all the potions and eye drops a guy could ever desire.
Working our way through the forest we eventually came upon a Moogle save guy and a fountain next to him which restored HP/MP. I saved and continued, coming quickly to a boss mob. However, by this time my guys had only been in a couple of fights and were only level 2. The boss mob whipped the shit out of me. Reset. This time I abused the free HP/MP point and got my guys to level 5 before even setting foot outside. This time the boss mob put up a good fight but with 20 stolen potions and my combo's going off, he went down without incident. And those four levels of grind? Actually fun.
During the boss fight though, Rhek's friend Blank, who'd been sent by Baku to help, joined in the battle to help save Garnet. After the boss went down, we healed Garnet and started running as the entire forest seemed to want our blood now. As we ran though, the forest started to petrify... And in our escape, Blank was captured and turned to stone. The rest of the party barely got out, and Rhek was very upset about losing his friend, vowing to return eventually with some way to cure Blank.
Now stuck in a valley, our only option was to leave through an Ice Cavern. This was pretty cool as I got to see another new game mechanic, interactive environments. Several times, Rhek pulled Vivi out of the party to blow fire on areas in the cavern, to either reveal new doors or create new paths. Very cool. We worked our way through the cavern outside and started to climb the mountain, but almost at the peak my party was lulled to sleep. Only Rhek seemed able to resist. He continued upward and found the source, a Black Mage Waltz sent by the Queen to retrieve the Princess.
Being solo, I thought it might be a tough fight. When the black mage summoned a huge monster to fight beside him I started to doubt I was going to live. But I had been fighting quite a bit on the way up and my "Trance" bar was full (by game design?). Trance is like limit break but it doesn't have the near death penalty of FFVIII. It also doesn't fill if your own party attacks you or if you attack something. It's only be taking damage from mobs that it fills, and slowly, much slower than FFVII. With the trance bar full, I was given a new command option, Dyne. I hit that and I had two abilities, one of which was called Flame Wave and attacked all enemies. Well... I'm in a blizzard, so I'm gonna guess that fire is a good thing. I hit that and watched a tidal wave of fire wash over and annihilate the mage in one shot for 500 damage (my normal attacks are like 100 on single target). The trance bar counted down and I was able to get one more in before it hit zero. Enough to kill the monster the mage had summoned. Nice! I went back, gathered the party and left the mountain. Two more Black Mage Waltz's watched us leave.
Upon reaching the next valley, we saw our first town below. We couldn't just go in calling Garnet the Princess. So we needed a new identity. Welcome Cysra, white mage extraordinaire. It's worth noting that while Cysra is a good white mage already, she also has the Summon ability. I can see five summons already in her list, the usual suspects and staples: Titan, Ifrit, Shiva, etc. However while she has like 46 MP right now, they cost almost 200 MP to cast. Alright, little summoner in training!
We head on down to the town and quickly notice things aren't quite right here. Eventually Vivi is kidnapped by some men and Rhek and Cysra (Princess Garnet) have to find him. It's not long before we discover an underground factory and Vivi locked in a box to be shipped out. Exploring further, we see a big machine refining Mist (the thing monsters come from and what fuels airships and machines) into concentrated eggs. The eggs are then processed and turned into dolls. The dolls look exactly like Vivi, if not a little bigger. This upsets Vivi greatly, as he begins to question whether he himself is just a doll. Poor guy.
In the meantime, Slayn is busy still trying to rescue the Princess and get her back to the Queen in Alexandria. He finds out that a cargo ship is headed there from town. The rest of the party in the factory below finds out that these containers are being shipped to Alexandria. The Queen is amassing an army of Black Mage dolls for some evil purpose. Cysra is worried about what her mother is up to. The party meets back up with Slayn and just then the second Black Mage Waltz attacks us. He's a little tougher than his first version, because he counters any magic with his own -aga spells which hurt quite a bit. Two of my guys died before I caught onto that, but I was able to recover. I went to town with the Magic Sword and Rhek's daggers while the two mages healed, by magic or potion. After he goes down we hop on the doll controlled airship, which Slayn tells us is bound for Lindblum (where Cysra wants to go). Rhek knows he's lying but just plays along.
Once the ship is in the air, Rhek takes control and turns the ship around toward Lindblum. The third Black Mage Waltz attacks.
Here something weird happens. The Waltz tries to kill Vivi, but the dolls on the ship surround him, to protect Vivi. The Waltz then casts tons of lightning in a very cool cut scene, killing them off one after the other.
This really makes Vivi mad and once all the dolls are dead, my party gets a crack at the Waltz. We enter the battle and Vivi is in Trance state. His trance state allows me to cast Double Black Magic. So I started popping him for double 250s of fire. He went down fast, but didn't give up.
Instead, the Waltz retreated to his own little flyer and chased us, battling Vivi spell for spell, from airship to airship as we raced for the Lindblum airship gate. As we approached, the gate began to close, and in movie fashion we just made it through while the Waltz crashed into the closed doors behind us. Good stuff, great cuts.
We finally arrive in Lindblum and Cysra reveals who she is to get an audience with the Regent Cid, who was her father's best friend while he was alive. She tells Cid (who's a frog because he cheated on his wife and she cast a spell on him before leaving with his airship) what her mother is up to. Cid tells her he's known all along and that he's actually the one that sent Rhek's crew to kidnap her, to get her away from her crazy mother who seems to be planning an assault on Lindblum. Cysra also mentions to Cid that shortly after her dad died a new guy appeared in the castle whispering in her mother's ear, the true villain perhaps...?
Anyway, in the mean time, Rhek goes to see some old buddies and meets up with what appears to be our fifth character who looks like a Red Mage. So I named her Nazomi of course. Alright, the gang is all coming together again! Now to just find an Ichorid and Yorick.
Loving the game so far, even the after battle screen where you get xp is more reminiscent of early FFs than the later ones. The type of the city names when you enter them all remind me so much of Tactics as well. Getting a lot of nostalgic goodness here and really enjoying it. When I started this game, I really didn't remember ANY of the plot, or really anything beyond the character Vivi. But as I reached the town making dolls, things started to surface in my memory. And as I reached the huge castle city of Lindblum and docked, it was like deja vu. I definitely remember this place, but it might have been the last place I visited before I put the game down. We'll see how long I remember things for.
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