FFIX - Kidnapping the Princess, sorta...

When I left off last time, Vivi was just about to break into the castle grounds and watch the play being put on my Rhek and his band of hooligans. As the play begins we catch a glimpse of three more major characters in the story to come. One is the Queen who is so ugly and snide that she has to be bad. Another is the good knight watching over Princess Garnet and lastly is the beautiful little princess herself. As the play starts, the camera keeps going back to her, she looks very sad. Her knight guardian watches over her diligently but with empathy.

(the ugly Queen Brahne)

The play begins and Rhek and his crew act out several scenes before Rhek and a crew mate finally come off stage, konk a couple of guards on the head and steal their clothes. As the play continues on, Rhek and his companion steal into the castle to kidnap the princess. On the way up, they're almost knocked down by a girl in a classic white mage outfit. Rhek recognizes her as the princess and gives pursuit.

Love that image of her as WHM. As we chase her down the knight guardian also follows after her, seeing her chased by Rhek. Playing as the knight guardian trying to catch Rhek, we're given an opportunity to name him as he will join our party later. I called him Slayn in tribute to a good tank I will probably be playing with in FFXIV, a real life friend of Ichorid, Nazomi, and Yorick's.

Anyway, as Rhek chases her they are finally cornered and she turns and pleads with Rhek to kidnap her. She's trying to escape the Queen's clutches. Of course this is what Rhek is going to do anyway so he agrees. As Slayn chases Rhek now protecting Garnet, we end up back on stage. While this is going on, Vivi is found out as an intruder and as he runs from castle guards he also ends up on stage.

As things are heating up, the pirate gang decides it's time to bail out, mid play. The stage lifts up (it's actually the deck of their airship), and as it begins to leave, the Queen realizes that Garnet is escaping on board and fires upon the ship with chains and Fire Bombs.

The ship breaks away but has taken massive damage, and eventually crashes into a haunted forest throwing Rhek, Garnet, Vivi and Slayn from the ship. Rhek and Slayn (now helping Rhek because he has no choice) go in search of the Princess in the haunted forest. We find her and Vivi being attacked by some weird plant which escapes with Garnet but leaves Vivi. Now with a three man party, I'm off to save the Princess for the first of I'm sure many times...

So far, I'm really liking the game. The flawlessly smooth transitions between cuts makes the game so much more enjoyable. It's much cleaner than FFVIII was. Also, they've introduced a new element in this game called Active Time Events, where as I'm running along, sometimes concurrent events are occurring and I can hit the Select button to view them. Pretty neat.

I've gotten a slow start but hopeful of putting in some serious time this four day weekend. Looking forward to what appears to become a great game.